Memoirs of a Madwoman, a novel... by Rebecca Watters Options

[Lady Syl]

Prologue
Undisclosed Location in
the Shivering Isles, the
Realm of Sheogorath
3E 433

Looking at my reflection in the mirror before me, clad in the robe of an Order Priest, I never thought that this was where I would end up. I have betrayed my Lord Sheogorath. I am now an enemy of the man I once worshipped as the Madgod. He had been everything to me, just as He is everything to all of His loyal subjects, Manic and Demented alike. But now He is a man I despise. Sheogorath went too far when He allowed that outsider to come into the Realm and usurp the throne of Mania. Now I want Him to pay for what He did to Thadon, and to me, and to all that I loved. He took from me every person, everything that ever brought me joy and love, replacing it instead with fear, pain, and sorrow. He couldn’t stand the fact that my heart might love another more than it loved Him, so He took from me anyone He saw as a threat to my devotion to Him. How I didn’t see it before is almost shameful. But then, He keeps the truth hidden from us beneath the heavy and binding layers of madness which He claims is a blessing. That is the truth of the Shivering Isles. All of us that live here have been “blessed” with madness.

But no longer am I bound by those chains. The blessing of Order has freed me from slavery to that prattling fool, and my mind is no longer bogged down with insanity. I have come to a place of clarity for the first time in my life. I can now see how my life might have been, if not for Sheogorath and His Realm of Madness. Had I been given the chance to steer my own course, I might have led a normal life of no consequence. I might even have been happy. Instead, I am filled with anguish, and I feel as if my heart has been torn into a million tiny pieces while it still beat in my chest. Death will come swiftly; I no longer fear it, and I will welcome it with open arms. Only in death can I hope to find peace for what I have done. But even then, I may find nothing more than punishment—who is to say?

Thadon believed that when we die, we would all go to a place of perfect bliss and live together for all of eternity, never to feel pain again. But then, Thadon lived much of his life in his own false sense of bliss, a world created in his own mind with the help of his precious drugs. What a fool he was. And yet, what a beautiful soul he had. Even with all of his faults, I loved him. I still do, I guess. Our people can’t understand how a relationship ever developed between us; if you look at it from the outside, it’s easy to be shocked and confused by such an unlikely pair as Thadon and I. But one has to look much deeper, and return to the very beginning to understand. There is more to the story than what has been told, and only my heart still holds the truth of our love. Our love, conflicted by our madness as it was, was beautiful and pure. No one can understand that without knowing how it all began, and there is only one other person alive now who knows how the story goes. I began recording my story before the truth of my insane state became clear to me, and I gave it to a trusted confidant because I believe she will keep my story safely hidden away until the time is right for it to be revealed. Perhaps it never will be. One can only hope.

There is more to my life than what is here and now. I’ve lived 37 years, all within this Realm, and for an elf, I’m still very young. But in 37 years, I’ve had enough misery to last me an entire elven lifetime, and I’m ready to move on—whether to punishment or eternal bliss—or, more frighteningly, to nothingness. Whatever awaits me, I will face it with courage. I have no choice. The time has come, and I must answer the call, even at the cost of life itself, if necessary. And I take with me the only remaining link to Thadon that I have. The rest I leave behind me, and I pray that my story will not be lost. There is so much to it that has yet to be told, and all of it is part of who I am and who I was before. The events in my life have shaped me, like formless clay is molded into a twisted and beautiful masterpiece by the hands of a Demented artist. Everything that has happened to me has brought me to where I stand now, and it was all beyond my control. But the things I have witnessed, and the suffering that I have endured will not go down in history. Those who survive will view me only as a traitor, and I will be reviled.

But perhaps the time will come when my story can be told, and maybe then I will not be so misunderstood by all who have heard the echo of my name, trembled at the sound of my voice, and looked upon my cold and hardened face. So many have feared me. So many have ridiculed and betrayed me. And so many have seen me only as an enemy without a heart. But that is not all that true; I am not so cold and heartless as I have appeared. Like with each person, man or mer, there is more to me than what is seen on the outside. There are layers of emotion, thought, and experience that compose the depths of who and what I am. There is a side to me that was broken, and hidden away for many years. To those who truly knew me, I was a loyal friend, a doting mother, and a passionate lover. However, most people do not see the world for what it is. They see everything around them with a narrow view, and do not look beyond what is plain to see. Though I am a woman with a broken soul and a beating heart, to most I am only the Lady of Darkness, or the Mistress of Death. To them I am simply Syl, Duchess of Dementia….

Syl in Order robes

This post has been edited by Lady Syl: Sep 2 2011, 03:58 AM

[Lady Syl]

SubRosa and mALX: Indeed, chocolate is the gateway drug in Thadon's case. After all, an addictive personality always starts small, before it leads to such harmful addictions as greenmote and felldew. And thank you. I am glad you have come to see the innocence that once lied within these two infamous characters!

Acadian:I don't recall that fable, but I'll have to see if I can find it. Any way you can point me in the right direction? And thank you, of course. Yes, these scenes are very possibly my favorites, simply because it reminds us how truly amazing and adorable children are in their innocence. Even I sometimes forget this, like when I walk into the kitchen to find eggs smashed on the floor...lol

All: I have added links to screenshots found on the UESP wiki, throughout the prologue and chapters. Some of them are within the episodes (past and current), and you can find them when the text in the middle of the story is bold. This is mostly for the readers who haven't been to the Shivering Isles, but also for any of you who care to check them out!


Chapter 3.1--Cold, Harsh Reality

My friendship with Thadon was the first real one I had ever had. We were of the same age, and we got along swimmingly back in those days, long before the madness of the Isles had consumed us. To this day, I still don’t know what it was that drew us to each other. Perhaps we were just lonely. But there seemed to be something special between us right from the start, and we began spending every afternoon together, running errands for the Duke of Mania and playing in Bliss.

There was a fountain in Bliss, near the gate that opened to the countryside of Mania. It was a beautiful statue made of gleaming white marble, depicting Lord Sheogorath seated atop a pillar in all His splendor, with three beautiful mermaids gracing the column below Him. Fresh, sparkling water flowed up from beneath the Madgod and spilled into the fountain below, signifying the life-giving waters that He pours out for all of His people to drink. That fountain enchanted me as a little girl, and Thadon would take me to visit there often.

The first time Thadon took me to that fountain, he brought a couple of drakes with him and gave one of them to me, saying, “Here, make a wish. They always come true when you wish at the fountain of Sheogorath’s Graces.”

“What?” I asked, completely puzzled as he stuffed the coin into my hand.

He looked at me incredulously, and then he burst out laughing. “By Sheogorath, have you never made a wish at a fountain before?”

I always felt uncomfortable and self-conscious being the brunt of his jokes, and I hated when anyone laughed at me. Holding my arm and looking down uncomfortably, I shrugged my shoulders, and answered meekly, “No one has ever told me to before….”

“Well then, let me show you,” he said, walking up to the fountain and gazing at the statue for a moment. “All right, first you close your eyes and wish for something that you truly want. But you can’t say it out loud, or it won’t come true. Then, you toss your coin into the fountain, as you make your wish, and if your heart is pure, your wish will be granted.”

“And what are you going to wish for,” I remarked sarcastically, “chocolate?”

Thadon cleared his throat uncomfortably and looked down at the ground, “Well…I can’t now that you’ve guessed it…. I don’t know what I’ll wish for. Perhaps you should go first.”

I rolled my eyes and chuckled a little, stepping forward and looking down into the water. This all seemed a silly Manic ritual to me, but I would try it, just for fun. After all, what could it hurt?

Taking a moment to clear my head, I closed my eyes and thought about what I would wish for, if I could have only one wish in the world. When I had decided, I took a deep breath, dropped the coin into the water and made a wish.

“There,” I said, stepping back and turning to Thadon. “That was easy.”

He smiled, and said, “See? And now, you just have to wait and see if your wish comes true. Now it’s my turn!”

I waited and watched as he repeated the ritual of making a wish, and after it was finished, he turned to me and smiled. “Do you want to know what I wished for?”

“I thought that if you told me it would not come true?”

“So I did,” he replied. “But I’ll tell you anyway, and hopefully it will still come true.”

“It’s your wish, not mine,” I said, shrugging carelessly.

“I wished for a kiss from a beautiful elven maiden.”

It took me but only a minute to realize that he meant me, and then I felt my face turn scarlet and I looked away with embarrassment. “I…have never kissed anyone before.”

“Neither have I,” he responded, looking at me hopefully. “My cousin, Baenlin, who is a year older than me, has kissed a girl before. He told me about it last week, and he said it was okay. I was…hoping to try it, but…only with the girl that I like.”

“Well,” I said slowly, still trying to form a sentence in my mind, “perhaps if you…ask the girl…she might say yes. I mean, it…it’s worth a try.”

He stepped closer to me then and reached for my hand. I felt a fluttering in my stomach unlike I had ever felt before, and when he looked into my eyes I thought I was going to faint. Holding my hand in his, he asked, “Syl, will you be my first kiss?”

In that moment, it was as if time was suddenly standing still, and my heart raced. I was afraid, and yet I wanted to kiss him. I had never thought of kissing a boy until then, but I wanted to kiss him. And so, without saying a word, I leaned in and closed my eyes as we pressed our lips together in a brief but meaningful first kiss.

When we looked at each other after it was done, there was a moment of awe written on both of our faces. But very quickly we realized what we had done, and the awe was replaced by surprise and embarrassment, and then we both mumbled some hasty words and ran from each other. We were only children, after all, and it was too awkward for us then.

******

Getting over the awkwardness of our first kiss, Thadon and I continued to play together the very next day. We quickly forgot about it, and he took me to the Halcyon Conservatory, which was the Duke of Mania’s garden, where we were able to play without the fear of being caught by my father, or anyone Demented, for that matter.

The Halcyon Conservatory was beautiful and exotic; with butterflies fluttering about, and roses growing on vines that wound around the columns supporting the open roof, it seemed like a place filled with enchantment. Thadon and I could run around playing hide-and-seek among the trees and plant life, while the Golden Saints patrolled, paying us little attention. I’m sure they didn’t care for a Demented Wood Elf playing with their master’s servant, but they never said anything, and Thadon and I played and laughed freely, at ease in our surroundings.

The Duke of Mania, Lord Antonius, was a tall Imperial with olive-toned skin and thick black hair that was streaked with white, reminding me of ground pepper. He spent much of his time in the Halcyon Conservatory, reading and painting and watching us play. I knew that Lord Antonius and my father hated each other, so I was at first afraid that he would disapprove of my friendship with Thadon. But the Duke was most gracious and kind to me then, and he always welcomed me with a warm voice and a friendly smile.

Occasionally, Thadon’s cousin, Baenlin, would play with us; but he remained more aloof, jealous, no doubt, of his cousin’s new playmate. On one occasion, Baenlin even tripped me, supposedly by accident, but I’ve always believed it was on purpose. He laughed when I fell, splitting my lip on a rock, but Thadon rushed to my side to help me, and he grew very angry at Baenlin and yelled at him furiously.

Baenlin stopped laughing and glared at Thadon, saying, “What good is it to defend your Demented girlfriend, Thadon? Who cares what happens to any of the Demented? Anyway, it was only an accident. I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

Thadon didn’t believe him, and the two of them argued a little before Baenlin stormed off, and then Thadon turned back to me. “Don’t mind him, he’s only jealous. Here, let me help you get cleaned up. Lord Antonius has a healer who can fix that up, and no one will ever know the difference.”

After that incident, we stopped going to the Halcyon Conservatory, and continued playing together in the streets of Bliss, where we sometimes met with strange looks, but never any unpleasantness. We would have gone on forever this way, had we been able to. But, like all good things, it had to come to an end.

We were returning to the palace grounds after running a few tiny errands that took us about an hour, and we were holding hands, as always. Upon entering from Bliss, however, I saw Muurine walking toward us, calling my name, and I pulled away very quickly. But it was too late—she had already seen us.

Stopping in front of us, Muurine took one look at Thadon and glared at me furiously. “I have been looking all over for you! Your father knows what you have been up to with this…Manic boy. He is not pleased. You will follow me at once!”

I began to plead with her, but she grabbed me by the arm before I could even finish, and began dragging me behind her without another word. Thadon watched with a worried look on his face, and that’s the last I saw of him that day.

Just inside the House of Dementia’s main hall, Muurine turned and slapped me across the face, saying, “Fickle changeling! How dare you do this to me! Your father is about to have my head because of this. How dare you make friends with the enemy?”

“But Thadon was nice to me,” I argued.

She merely scoffed. “Nice? You thought he was ‘nice’? How can you be such a foolish girl? Don’t you listen to anything your elders say? The Manics are not to be trusted! Do you hear me, Syl? They are only nice if they want something from you. The moment you give them what they want, they’ll turn around and stab you in the back! You are a very stupid, foolish girl! You’d better hope that your father doesn’t blame this mischief on me, or I’ll kill you myself, do you hear? I’ll not be punished for your riff-raff.”

She grabbed my wrist again and pulled me to follow her to my father’s throne, where he sat with his steward and his mistress on either side. All of them knew I had been playing with a Manic child, and no one seemed very pleased—least of all, my father. He had never looked at me the way he did then, and I felt very fearful of him for the first time in my life. My punishment, he decided, would be fairly light, by Demented standards, but it certainly wasn’t pleasant. I knew this punishment all too well, and I feared my father’s strong arm. But he would not be the one to beat me this time.

As her punishment for not watching me more closely, Muurine was given the task of being the one to deliver the beating. She didn’t want to do this to me, as I was only a child, and she loved me very dearly. But she knew that she had no choice, so she took the cane that was brought to her without hesitation.

With coldness in her dark brown eyes, she looked at me, and quietly said, “This is your own fault, Syl. You knew better, and yet you disobeyed one of your father’s most fundamental rules. I hope you learn from this, child—for your own sake, I hope you learn. Kneel!”

I tremblingly obeyed, closing my eyes to prepare myself for the first strike. It was always worst when it began, but after the first few strikes, it would start to numb a little, and then it was mostly tolerable. Muurine had never been the one to beat me before, so I wasn’t sure of what to expect. But the first strike of the cane on my back alone proved that she was much stronger than she appeared, and my shrieks from the pain echoed through the main hall for the next five minutes straight.

When my father was satisfied, he told her to stop, and then she helped me to my quarters where she used a spell to heal me right away. I curled up in my bed with my knees to my chin and wept quietly, while she sat nearby, looking worn out from her exertion and perhaps a little remorseful.

“I’m sorry, Syl,” she said in a soft and motherly voice. The warmth had returned to her eyes again, and she looked sincere. “You know I had no other choice. I hope you have learned you lesson. You are a daughter of Dementia. This is where you belong. You have no business speaking to a Manic. They are not our friends. You will understand this one day, when you’re a little older. But you are not to see that boy again—is that clear?”

I nodded slowly, but continued to look away. Muurine sighed and said, “Good. Then I assume you have learned your lesson. I shall leave you alone now, and give you time to rest. Don’t forget, there is a party tonight, to celebrate your father’s birthday. He will be having four traitors tortured for the entertainment, and you mustn’t miss it. You need to get over your girlish qualms about such things, as they are a part of life, and they are quite enjoyable. Your father has demanded that you sit through the entire show this time—after your disobedience with that Manic child, I would advise that you obey.”

With that she left me alone, and I began crying again. As a child, I hated seeing other people being tortured, even if they were my father’s enemies. I did not understand the necessity for it, but he had grown tired of my terrors, as people in his court were beginning to talk. It was my mother’s fault, he said, because she wouldn’t let me be exposed to such things when I was younger. But now that she was gone, he was insisting that I watch these torture sessions once a week, and it was horrible for me as a naïve and ignorant child. I would get over it, in time, and plenty of my enemies have discovered this the hard way.

It was important for me, as a young girl, to make my Ada proud; so, I was trying my best to see things more his way, and I sat through the entire show that night, hardly moving. I was rewarded for my wondrous efforts, and the courtiers stopped talking about the Duke’s unusual daughter that very night. From that point on, none of them doubted my Dementedness again.

This post has been edited by Lady Syl: Apr 13 2011, 07:18 PM