Chapter Text
_______
Monsters live inside our souls
Waiting to come alive– turning our hearts cold
My blood is black
It seeps through the cracks, if I could take it back
If I could
Fighting love that runs through our veins
Is an empty space, a lonely game,
I hear you cry every night
In my dreams
– valkyrie II: lacuna
(varien, ft. cassandra kay)
_______
The island called to her.
As Signe first caught sight of the ashy shores of Solstheim, a peculiar feeling crept into her heart. Almost one of familiarity, which was absurd, because she knew she’d never set foot on the island before.
The blonde young Nord gazed up at the towering stone walls of the Bulwark, knowing the Dunmer settlement of Raven Rock lay just beyond it. She could see craggy snow hills like those of Skyrim rising the distance, but the nearest ones were barren with leafless, broken trees standing like silent guardians over the valley. The tang of ash hung on the air, like the faintest taste of steel and blood from a distant, half-formed memory.
Signe shifted uncomfortably on the deck of the Northern Maiden, and said nothing as she disembarked with only a few other travelers. Captain Gjalund had said almost no one came to Solstheim anymore. It was a dying, unsettled land, throttled by ash from the Red Mountain, and haunted by something distant he would not name.
Well. Maybe she would get some answers about who wanted her dead, at least.
Signe’s boots sank deep into the ashy soil as she headed into the city. A deep red banner bearing the insignia of House Redoran fluttered listlessly in the breeze from one of the stone buildings on the left side of the road.
As the Dragonborn, Signe was more than used to being eyed with skepticism and distaste, but the skittish glances and curt nods of passing citizens– mostly Dunmer– made her uneasy. It was as if most of them were afraid to even look at her. Gjalund had mentioned the dislike of outsiders in the small settlement, but Signe couldn’t help but feel that there was more to it than just generations of isolation and distrust.
The marketplace was small, mostly roofless wooden stalls with wares arrayed on simple wooden shelves. A middle-aged Dunmer woman– an alchemist– garbed in a hooded blue tunic smiled in Signe’s direction. It was by far the warmest greeting she’d had since she’d gotten off the boat, so she took it as a good sign, hedged her bets, and walked over to the open stall.
“An outlander, are you?” the woman observed, tilting her head curiously. Signe nodded, and the alchemist smiled faintly. “My name is Milore. And you are..?”
“Signe,” the blonde Nord replied, offering a polite nod. She’d been prepared for a much frostier interaction, but it seemed the vendor was genuinely trying to be friendly. Maybe she could use that in order to get some of the answers she needed. So she gave her very best disarming smile– thank Nocturnal for all her practice as a thief– and glanced over the shelves of wares. “Do you sell mountain flowers, by any chance?”
Milore shook her head. “I’m afraid not, dear. It’s awful difficult to get up into the mountains these days, what with all the ash and heavy snowfalls,” she explained ruefully, but there was a faint glimmer of something like anxiety in her dark eyes. Leaning in closer to Signe, she lowered her voice to a whisper. “And there’s worse tales, of dragons in the mountains and the All-Maker Stones– if you believe them,” and she cast a vague glance toward the west, where the road to the settlement trailed off onto the shoreline. “Councilor Morvayn has forbidden us from going even near the Stones, but every day more and more of them go anyway. My friends, and even my husband, Garyn– we aren’t allowed to see them, if they go out past the Bulwark.” Milore swallowed, worry filling her eyes.
Hm. Well, that was something. Signe frowned, remembering the words scrawled in black ink on the note she’d found on one of the cultists’ corpses. Kill the Deceiver, the false Dragonborn. Milore’s account wasn’t necessarily connected to the attempt on her life, but it was about the only lead she had so far, so it looked like she’d have to follow it through.
”Well, if you’d like, I can check into what’s going on,” Signe offered nonchalantly, noticing the expression of obvious relief on the alchemist’s face. “I can’t promise answers, but I’ll do my best. Now, where can I find these.. All-Maker Stones you mentioned?”
“The nearest one is called the Earth Stone,” Milore explained, pointing toward a tall, strange spire of stone rising just beyond the northwestern edge of the Bulwark. “Trust me, you can’t miss it– almost all the villagers are there day and night, hammering at the stone, bringing wood and lighting fires.” The Dunmer woman shuddered, worry and grief in her red eyes. “Please see if you can find my husband, will you?” she added anxiously, and Signe nodded.
There was a bitter chill in the air, coming down from the northern ice fields, maybe. The young Nord shivered, pulling the hood of her dark gray cloak up over her head, but it seemed to do nothing, as if the cold was seeping slowly into her very bones.
”I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she promised, and headed off down the dusty road.
________
The Earth Stone, it seemed, was some kind of ancient shrine. A thick pillar of carven stone, its cracks full of ash and moss from years of wear; it completely dominated the shoreline like a blade stabbed into the ground. It was unearthly still, as if it was submerged deep within the earth.
(Waiting to waken, to rise.)
And sure enough, it was just like Milore described– people were thronging around the stone with hammers and chisels, erecting what appeared to be some sort of wall around it. Young and old, Dunmer and Breton; everyone was working at a feverish pace, yet there didn’t seem to be any immediate reason to explain the haste.
Signe frowned. Dragons in the mountains and the All-Maker Stones, Milore had said. The structure she saw before her didn’t look to be of ancient Nord make, or at least, not like the many ruins she’d explored on the mainland. It wasn’t adding up.
It was then that she noticed one tall Dunmer man standing alone, his arms crossed over his elaborate gold-trimmed robes as he surveyed the strange scene with something not unlike fascination. He was literally the only one not working on the apparent building project in front of them, so Signe walked over to him. Before she could even open her mouth, though, the man abruptly interrupted the silence.
“Fascinating, isn’t it?”
Signe blinked, uncertain how to respond. “What.. are they even doing?” she asked, bewildered.
“Building something, obviously,” the stranger shot back in a sardonic tone. Other people might’ve been offended, but Signe smirked in spite of herself; his demeanor reminded her of her friend Vex in the Thieves’ Guild, back in Riften. “I don’t know what it is, but I’m here to find out– and I always get answers,” the Dunmer man declared, as if it was a plain and obvious fact. And then, with a nod at Signe, he introduced himself. “My pardon. Neloth, Wizard of the Great House Telvanni.”
“A pleasure to know you, Neloth,” Signe replied, a bit surprised. She knew about the Houses of Morrowind, of course, but she hadn’t expected to run into a Telvanni wizard here on such a small island, away from any major cities. Things got stranger by the hour. “Maybe you can answer a question for me,” she said, a bit hesitantly, as she looked between the robed man– Neloth– and the people scurrying to and fro around the Earth Stone. “Do you.. know someone called Miraak?”
For a few seconds, Signe could swear the air around her grew suddenly, unnaturally warm. Neloth gave her an odd look– not skeptical, but as if the question she’d asked was profoundly difficult to answer. “I.. hm. The name is definitely familiar, but I can’t quite place it,” the wizard hummed, reaching up to stroke a hand briefly through his narrow, well-trimmed beard. And then, “– Wait! It has something to do with these Stones, I believe. There are six of them in total, scattered all across the island. The Skaal in the north revere them as sacred, but there’s talk that the same thing is happening up there now– people losing their heads, working day and night at the Stones.”
Signe felt increasingly unsettled by the information, swallowing uncomfortably and hoping her anxiety didn’t show. The more she observed, and learned, the more confusing it all was. The people of Raven Rock– and apparently others too– were obviously under some kind of spell that was causing them to act so unnaturally. Kind of like being a thrall, if you will. Signe had run into plenty of vampires, necromancers, and such that used magic to take away the autonomy of others. But.. never in her life had she seen so many people under such an influence.
”Have you tried to stop what’s going on?” Signe asked, trying to mask her growing alarm.
Neloth shot her a perturbed glare. “Of course not. If I did that, it would interfere with things, and I won’t be able to see how it all turns out.” He pointed toward the stone pillar, which seemed to be wreathed in the faintest green haze. An enchantment of some kind, most likely. “Touch that, and you go into a daze for awhile,” the wizard remarked. “Some of them snap out of it after a few hours, some don’t. It’s fascinating. One has to admire the magical prowess.”
In a way, Signe could kind of see his point. Anyone or anything that could trap entire villages of people into this strange, mind-altering state had to be immensely powerful in the arts of dark magic.
She swallowed, and took a hesitant step forward, past one of the Dunmer workers. He didn’t even look at her, red eyes glazed and laser-focused on his task. Signe shivered faintly and stepped cautiously into the small pool of water surrounding the Earth Stone. Slowly, hesitantly, she reached forward and brushed her fingers against it.
Everything instantly went black. A deep, rich masculine voice Signe didn’t recognize filled her ears, speaking softly, husky and almost melodic.
Here in my shrine, that you have forgotten.
She slowly became.. aware, at least in a sense, of her own body; she was upright and walking, her hands moving of their own accord toward a jar of oil set near the pillar. Someone had piled wood there, and flowers; an offering maybe, to some unseen entity. She was pouring out the liquid– so golden, so fragrant; it drenched the wood in running streams, and she stared at it as if she’d never seen the true spiraling colors of oil before.
By night, we reclaim, what by day was stolen.
Then she was kneeling, hands outstretched, fire seeping from her fingers and her mouth. Exhaling in the tongue of the dragons, watching as the offering of wood blazed violently into flame. She could feel the heat pressing against her skin from all sides; it caressed her almost like a hand– roaming, seeking, learning. Yet she didn’t feel frightened, she felt.. aroused.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
She could feel him, but he was hidden from her vision. Behind her, maybe, but she couldn’t turn. His eyes burned into her as if he wanted to slowly melt the flesh from her bones, to flay her open and look at what lay inside. She gasped, shuddering, caught off-guard by the wave of arousal.
Far from yourself, I grow ever near to you.
Signe felt the tremendous urge to move, to run, to do something before the stranger’s searing eyes caught her like a deer in a hunter’s snare. So she jolted, stumbling as if drunk, everything turning black again for a few seconds. The sight of Neloth, the Earth Stone, and the ashen shore slowly came slowly back into focus, only she wasn’t kneeling, there was no bonfire, no offering, and no voice whispering strange, sensual words in her ear.
“By Azura!” Neloth exclaimed, staring at her in obvious amazement. “That’s the first time I’ve seen anyone able to break out of this state on their own.” He quickly strode over to her, looking her up and down, probably scanning for any signs of lingering effects of the trance-like experience. “What happened? What did you see?”
Signe shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. She was used to bizarre effects of spells and rituals, but this was.. different. Somehow. It had shaken her to the core; she felt bitterly cold all over, like she’d suddenly been dumped into the Sea of Ghosts.
”I..” She started to answer, but it was as if her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth. She couldn’t think clearly, couldn’t speak. She coughed again and swallowed, feeling a sudden pressing urge not to accurately describe what she’d just experienced. “It just turned.. black, my whole vision,” Signe lied, grateful for her three years as a thief back in Riften; it’d given her plenty of experience in smooth deception. “I couldn’t see or hear anything, and then it all just.. came back into focus, in a rush.”
Neloth frowned intensely at her, arching an eyebrow. His expression was something like scornful amusement. “I suppose that was supposed to be convincing?” he smirked. Signe’s blue eyes widened and a light flush of embarrassment colored her cheeks. Was she really that out of practice hiding her tells? “You went into the same trance as the others here,” Neloth filled in before she could say a word. “Spouting some nonsense about a shrine. I suppose you obviously don’t want to elaborate, but I could try filling in some more details, at least with my theory in mind.”
Signe’s ears pricked up. “You have a theory? I thought no one understood what was happening,” she said, confused but not about to pass up a potential lead.
”A theory isn’t concrete, you know.” Neloth rolled his eyes. “But yes, I do have some ideas about the connection between this.. Miraak you came here asking for, and what’s happening at these Stones. You could come with me to my house, Tel Mithryn, and we could delve deeper into the subject there.”
”Hm. Sure this isn’t an invitation to spend the night?” Signe asked, lips quirking in playful sarcasm.
Neloth looked as if the very thought repulsed him. Signe couldn’t help but grin. “Quite sure.”
Well. It wasn’t much, but it was far better than any of the leads she’d chased down so far that day. She only hoped that the eccentric Telvanni wizard would actually be able to give her some answers on who this Miraak was, and whether or not he was the voice that had spoken to her in her dream.