The Warp of Time
"Speak, and I will listen."
What Remains
Davon's Watch
It was not an easy thing to be confronted with the full measure of one’s inadequacy.Lythras stood, unfeeling, made small by the towering walls of the guildhall. Her fists were tightly clenched in the long fabric of her robes, white-knuckled and trembling, but she made no effort to move from her spot in front of the cot that barely supported her height. What was the point? There was nothing left. All there was in this gods-damned realm was destruction. It was here: the end of Tamriel, awash in blood and power. Lorkhan made no sign of appearing from the liminal; no hero emerged from the tides of crimson that stormed down cobbled streets. Tamriel was ending, and there was nothing Lythras could do beyond bear witness to dominion’s cruelty. When she was a child, she had prayed to the ancestors that she may know strife so that she may be better for it; how naive she had been. Her heart had ceased its beating. There was no glory in this. There was no honor. There was only suffering, endless, hopeless, increasing with every moment – how dare life continue on? How dare the heart of Creation still cling to its life? Why must they all suffer for Nirn’s insistence to be?
Varyn would hate to hear you say all this.
Varyn. Her chest throbbed painfully, and the image of the mer’s face cut like a dagger through the thick air of unreality that had gathered around Lythras, and she blinked, as if waking for the first time.
She did not remember how she came to be in Devon’s Watch, if she were to be truthful with herself. It was as if there was a blurred space where the past month of her life had been; what time did she have to sit and think on what happened when the City had fallen into chaos? What time was there for anything, but to run?
What is left, she wondered, now that she has been granted reprieve?
It was not uncommon for those who have undergone some sort of trauma to find themselves … ‘stuck’, until their minds caught up to their survival instincts. Was that this, then? That strange feeling of emerging from a deep sleep as she stood, wide awake, knowing where she was and how she got there but not quite comprehending?
She jolted at the sudden sound of something rumbling, the image of a flash of the purplest purple she had ever witnessed coming unbidden to her mind - gone just as soon as it had arrived, fading back into general blurriness as she found the source of the noise: her own stomach.
Ah. It would seem ‘proper nutrition’ had been off the table during her exodus. Breathing very slowly, she relaxed each of her fingers; they ached in protest, stuck as one may expect of an automata. She smoothed down the wrinkled fabric of her robes. Each movement took as much effort as a complex ritual; Lythras found if she did not think about and consciously choose every movement, she would simply not move.
Perhaps it would be easier, in time. As it stood … her stomach growled lowly again, grasping around a painful sort of emptiness from within her core.
The settlement of Devon’s Watch was … well, humble would be the gentlest term, she thought, pulling a tattered teal-blue cloak over her shoulders and stepping into Magnus’s warmth. The day was a beautiful, sunny one, though the wind had a certain biting chill to it that had Lythras wondering with a quiet sort of dread if she had been in Morrowind for longer than she had initially estimated.
No time to dwell. Pushing the thoughts to the very back of her mind, Lythras crossed the circular path, heading towards the more southern district of the settlement. She held the vague memory of a market that way; one of the younger mages had shown it to her on a sort of grand tour. She would have to thank them, when she found the will to do so.