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The Embassy had been quiet, so far as that went. Quiet enough to start rebuilding themselves, to reconsider their place in Skyrim in light of all that had happened.
And then the artist arrived. A portrait painter, she said, and Elenwen had been glad for the artistry in this brutal land, cautious that she’d drawn the eye of her superiors. The Thalmor ever watched closely over their own, lest any trace of corruption draw the Altmer even further from their ancestors.
Perhaps the artist was a spy. But Elenwen had nothing to hide. The failures here had already made reports, been sent via dreamsleeve and slower methods, by letters and whispers.
And it was good to be reminded of home. Especially when such required little effort on her part. A conversation over wine, a guard assigned while the artist pored over plants for pigment, and those quiet hours while Elenwen sat for the painting herself. Her status, at least, put her first.
She’d been suspicious of the invitation for another piece, but only in the normal way of politics. Condemnations and rewards were both often granted in private.
There had been a flash of light. Then nothing for a time. And then finally the sounds of wind amid whispering grass.
Elenwen did not open her eyes. She could hear the soft padding of footsteps around her, a creak of scraping branches, and little else. When she moved her tongue she tasted wood and earth, and there was no noise when she tapped her teeth against it.
A silence spell, then. Narrowly focused, and enchanted into some engraved piece. An old fashion, that.
As she analyzed that, and considered the full status of her situation, she realized that she could barely feel her feet. As if they’d been left numb by some other detail of magic.
She opened her eyes.
“Tired of pretending?” The mer who spoke had a delicate accent with the tones of Shimmerene, or at least as it had been some centuries before. “No, don’t try to speak. There’s no use in it. I know your kind all too well.”
Once again the sound of footsteps, and the artist stepped into Elenwen’s view. She’d always seemed unassuming before, short for an Altmer and with hints of paint trapped around her fingernails. A scar shone white across her exposed shoulder. No doubt the name she’d given them earlier had been a lie.
Elenwen grew still.
“You’ve learned sense now? Too late.” The artist shifted around the table, the slab.
Elenwen moved, just a little. A twitch of the smallest finger on one hand.
Another wave of her hand and whatever held Elenwen moved, lifting her up so she could see her own body, and the dull stone of the room around her.
Or what had been dull stone, for every inch of it was consumed with flowers, their blooms orange and gold, their leaves the darkest shades of green. A few crimson petals were scattered among them like blood.
And her feet were petals over cracked bone, grayed branches winding between desiccated skin. As if the very flowers around her had consumed them even down to the marrow.
“Such grand words. They do not grant you a cause.” Each word stung in Elenwen’s throat, as if she thrust them out through a bed of thorns. Perhaps so. She couldn’t quite feel her lips. Something sharp grew its way up through her throat, draining away the spells she tried to whisper.
The other Altmer, the artist, stepped closer. Her hand plucked a flower from beneath Elenwen’s chin. “Perhaps not. You did that well enough, with your dreams of a world turned back. A cycle hastened. We were fools not to see it, to drown ourselves in the mere startlement of violence. In the quick flash of blood and brutality. My tastes are more refined now.”
She tore the petals from the flower and let them drop down as crimson flecks over Elenwen’s breast.
“They’ll find me,” Elenwen said.
“Too late, First Emissary. Have you heard the tales the Nords tell about the Reachmen? Their briarhearts, grown into something new. The blood of the Aedra fused with them into something beautiful and all too sharp. You should be grateful for such a touch.”
“You dare speak to me of our ancestors? You who shame all your lineage. Every age of them has led to the flaws you bear.” Elenwen lifted her gaze to find those flaws, the lines of chin and cheek and brow, the color of golden eyes. To this last fragment of those blood-hungry artists called the Beautiful.
Beautiful, perhaps. But all the beauty of Nirn paled beside what they could have been. What the Aedra had been, before Lorkhan’s betrayal. Or the spirits that had left them with naught save the light of the stars.
“If it mattered you’d have awakened me earlier. Before you’d made a tableau of me, a landscape of fire and greenery. Unless you think you can convince me. You think there’s something I know you can use.” Elenwen raised an eyebrow.
There was no answer. The other Altmer simply strode around the stone slab, pruning the flowers upon it, pulling vines into place. Elenwen caught sight of what had been her ribs. Thorns grew from the branches her bones had become, with the buds of flowers sprouting amid the curves.
“Perhaps I just needed something to paint.”
Elenwen remained silent amid the flowers.