Outlanders (Morrowind Crossover) Options

[WellTemperedClavier]

Episode 1: Outlanders

Chapter 1

Daria decided that she hated Sera Ondryn's smile. Most of the Dunmer she'd seen preferred to scowl, and if a typical Dunmer smile was anything like Ondryn's, that was probably for the best. He kept it on as he introduced himself in a soft and tremulous voice, the solicitous expression made all the creepier by the fixed gaze in his red eyes. Standing at the head of his adobe classroom, its deep and dusty shadows somehow made darker by the flickering light of a half-dozen tallow candles, Ondryn smiled even wider. The students, seated at long wooden benches, writing slates on their laps, remained stone-faced.

"Outlander," he said. "It's kind of a scary word, isn't it? Hearing it makes you feel like you don't belong."

No one had called Daria an outlander to her face, but she'd heard the word plenty of times already. Not, she reminded herself, that she particularly cared what anyone here thought. The boors in her old hometown had been one kind of stupid, and the ones here were a different kind. But stupid never changed.

Daria grimaced. The thick lenses of her spectacles seemed to warp her shadowy surroundings, blurring and stretching the faces of her peers, all outlanders like her except for one Dunmer girl at her side. Daria took the glasses off for a moment and blinked a few times to re-orient her vision.

"But I'm here to help you feel like you belong. Great House Hlaalu is a friend to the Empire, and we believe there's a place for everyone, even outlanders! Outlander just means you're from somewhere outside Morrowind. It doesn't mean that we don't like you."

Daria checked herself. She was the daughter of an Imperial legal advocate and a Nord merchant. Reasonably well-connected. However xenophobic the Dunmer might be, the Empire still ruled them. What the hell.

She put her glasses back on and raised her hand. Ondryn's eyes caught the motion.

"Yes, uh... Doria?"

"Daria," she corrected. "If being an outlander doesn't mean you're a bad person, why is it always used as an insult?"

Ondryn gulped. "Well, uh... look, just let me get through this part, and we can have some discussions later. Anyway, everyone here is welcome..."

Daria narrowed her eyes. She'd hoped to offend him, at least, but Ondryn seemed too squishy to get angry at anyone. This would be a boring session.

The Dunmer girl leaned in.

"Don't expect him to answer any questions. He's got the speech memorized. Just enjoy the nice man's soothing voice."

"How am I supposed to follow him if he's so disingenuous?" Daria wondered again why this Dunmer was with the other foreigners.

"I can fill you in later. I've done this three times."

*********

The weather worsened as Daria stepped out of the Drenlyn Academy compound. Sheets of rain fell from the thick and curdled gray sky, smashing into the adobe roofs and turning the Odai River into a churning soup. Porters packed the streets, bent under the weight of crates and bulging sacks.

Suffused through the rain was the thick and sour smell of the local cuisine. It all came from kwama. Kwama bugs and kwama eggs: smashed into paste, drained and served as soup, roasted in their shells, or served with bitter hackle-lo leaf. But always sour, like bad cheese left out for too long in the sun. The smell seeped into every mud-brick apartment and paving stone in Balmora, and she was pretty sure the rest of Morrowind smelled the same way.

She'd never wanted a loaf of bread so badly in her life.

A gaunt Dunmer farmer walked past, his gray hands clasping the reins of his two-legged pack lizard. Daria was pretty sure the creature was called a guar. Or maybe a kagouti? Its beady lizard eyes studied her for a moment, Daria's pink skin and round face perhaps a novel sight for such a creature.

The Dunmer girl from the orientation stood next to the lantern, her crimson eyes observing Daria. Her gray skin marked her as one of the natives, but her clothes, a shabby red coat and black trousers, were pure Imperial. She wore her black hair in a bob cut, the ends on the ragged side. Her first name, Janieta, shortened to Jane, was also Cyrodiilic.

"What's your story?" Daria asked. "You're not an outlander, so why were you in the orientation?"

"Don't let the looks fool you," Jane said. "I'm as outlandish as you are."

"But you're a Dunmer."

"Yes, I'm Dunmer and an outlander." Her angular face hardened for a moment, but then relaxed. "Just being Dunmer isn't enough for Morrowind. You have to be born here, too. I spent my first five years in the Imperial City."

"Five years away from Morrowind and you're an outcast?"

"Oh, well, those were five critical years. I mean, if you don't get potty trained in the traditional Dunmer way, you'll never fit in."

"Just so long as you are potty trained."

Jane smirked. "Come on, I know a place where they occasionally serve some outlander drinks for people like us. If nothing else, we can dry out for a bit."

Daria tightened her green woolen robe and followed Jane west along the river. Her mother had told her to try and make friends. Jane hadn't done anything to annoy her yet, so that was a start.

"What's that you're wearing over your eyes?" Jane asked, her smoky voice pushed to the limit to be heard over the crowd.

"They're called glasses. I'm basically blind without them."

And basically blind with them considering the rain. She raised a hand to keep the ungainly device in place. It didn't take much for the things to slip off the bridge of her nose. Her family had money, but not to the point where they could casually buy a replacement pair, especially not out here.

"Huh, I've never seen anything like that. Is it a Dwemer artifact? I've heard you can buy those if you're Imperial."

"No, it was made in Anvil by a specialist. If you want to judge me for them, go ahead. I'm used to it."

"Nah, they're a good look. Not often I see something genuinely new in Balmora."

*********

True to Jane's word, the Lucky Lockup was dry.

Daria and Jane sat at a table next to a support post and beneath a reassuringly familiar metal lantern. Faded tapestries covered the rough adobe walls to ward off the northern chill. The smoky air buzzed with murmurs in a dozen different languages. A free Argonian woman sat on a rug in a shadowed corner, her emerald-scaled hands gently beating a pair of hand drums with a tempo as steady and smooth as a spring rain back home.

The publican sold Cyrodiilic brandy, but not at a price either of them could afford. Jane instead ordered a bottle of a local drink called shein, along with a loaf of bread and a bowl of sour-smelling scrib jelly.

"The food isn't bad, but it does take some time to get used to it," Jane said as she dipped her bread into the mashed insect guts.

Her stomach churning, Daria sipped the shein from her earthenware mug. The drink wasn't bad, actually: bitter with a faintly sweet aftertaste. Outside the building, the castle-sized silt strider standing at port let out its long and mournful wail, redolent of the ash-swept land it called home. The whole cornerclub seemed to shake at the noise. At least Daria didn't flinch that time. She must be getting used to things.

"I don't get it, Jane. You've been at the academy for years. Why do you keep retaking the orientation?"

"It's a good way to network. No self-respecting Hlaalu noble will hire an outlander like me to paint them, but there are plenty of upstart outlander merchants with kids at Drenlyn who'd just love to get their images captured by a native artist."

"A native?" Daria raised her eyebrows.

"As far as they know. I paint them in the usual Imperial style so they don't get all uncomfortable. Make the angles a little sharper. That way, it seems suitably native and Morrowind-y. Then they hang it up in their homes and no one's the wiser."

Daria nodded. Life in Morrowind was a lot more complicated than she'd been led to expect.

"My family sent me here to be trained as a savant," Daria said. "In the hopes that someday I can use my knowledge to help rich families avoid taxes and skirt the law."

Jane's lips turned up in a hard smile. "Then you'll have plenty of opportunities here in Balmora."

"From what you say, I'll have to stick with outlander families like mine."

"Oh, not at all."

Daria frowned. "Didn't you just say that Hlaalu nobles wouldn't hire outlanders?"

"They won't hire misfit Dunmer like me. They think I'm a traitor for not being born in Morrowind. You, on the other hand, are Imperial—"

"I'm only half," Daria corrected. "My father's a Nord."

"Trust me, it's all the same to them. The point is, the Hlaalu hate the Empire but love to ingratiate themselves with the Empire's rich. Or failing that, the Empire's moderately prosperous."

"So, in Morrowind, corruption and favoritism are rampant, the nobles stack the deck against everyone else, and life is all around miserable?"

"Yup!"

"Nice to know some things are the same the world over."

Jane took a bite of bread. No longer able to deny her own hunger, Daria tore off a piece. Bracing herself, she stared at the bowl of scrib jelly, gray and glistening in the lantern light. She took her bread, scooped up a big chunk of the stuff, and jammed it into her mouth before she could chicken out.

A roiling shock ran from the tip of her tongue to the pit of her stomach the moment she tasted the jelly, thick and viscous and oh-so-sour. She forced her teeth to close on the bread, the familiar texture fighting a losing battle with the slick alien condiment. Something crunched, maybe a tail segment or a leg. She didn't want to know.

Somehow, she choked it down. She swallowed and then grabbed her cup, raising it to her mouth for a deep gulp. The harsh taste of fermented comberry obliterated the jelly's noxious flavor.

Jane gave a little cheer and clapped. "You did it! Trust me, it gets easier."

"How do you people eat this stuff?" Daria wondered. She drank some more shein.

"We people?" Janieta raised an eyebrow. "Far from me to defend Morrowind, but when bugs are all you have, you get creative with what you consider edible. This stuff will fill you up."

"I guess it was pretty hearty," Daria said, feeling a little abashed. She didn't like the Imperials who looked down on the Mer, Beastfolk, and other races of Men. She was half-Nord herself. Dunmer society was awful—she knew they still enslaved Khajiit and Argonians in the remote parts of Morrowind—but it wasn't like the Empire forced them to stop.

It was just that nothing about Morrowind felt like home.

"The Lucky Lockup's not a bad place, as Balmora goes," Jane said, her eyes settling on a party of nervous gold-skinned Altmer, their narrow shoulders draped by mantles of still-fluttering dragonfly wings.

"I haven't seen many other places here, so I couldn't say."

"The Lockup gets lot of visitors. Caravaners from the South Gate, pilgrims spilling out from the strider port, Bitter Coast fishermen coming up the Odai. I sit here and I get ideas, and then I paint them. Or sketch them, at least."

Studying the transient population, Daria could see what Jane meant. The place felt like everywhere.

And also nowhere.

*********

The rain stopped by the time they left the cornerclub. Dark clouds fled at the rays of the setting sun, red as blood in the west. The air was clean, at least, no longer heavy with that doused campfire smell that usually hung over Balmora.

"I should probably get home," Daria said. "It was nice meeting you."

"Sure."

"Do you live around here?"

"My brother and I rent an apartment in Labor Town, not far from the Odai."

"Okay. I'm in the Commercial District. My mother—"

Daria paused as a familiar, high-pitched voice made itself heard over the chatter of the late afternoon traffic.

"... pastel yellow is so in right now! Everyone in Cyrodiil is wearing it."

The sight of Quinn's red hair, so bright and bold in the drab streets, confirmed it.

"Everything all right?" Jane asked.

"See that redhead over there?"

"The overdressed one?"

"Yeah. That's my sister," Daria said. "Overdressing is what she does."

Quinn walked with a quartet of Dunmer girls her age, all of them garbed in robes stitched with elaborate abstract patterns. They listened intently as Quinn neared the door of the cornerclub next to the Lucky Lockup.

"You said she's your sister?" Jane's voice tightened.

"Yes—"

"Daria, just trust me on this."

Jane bolted toward Quinn. The younger Morgendorffer didn't notice until Jane jammed her booted feet into a muddy puddle right next to her. Daria distinctly saw her new friend kick the filthy water right onto Quinn's gown before running off toward the riverbank crowd. The resulting screech could probably be heard throughout the entire province.

Quinn looked down at her ruined yellow dress and then at her friends. And then her eyes locked on Daria.

"You! This is your doing, isn't it!"

Daria blinked, too confused to react.

"Come, Lady Morgendorffer," said one of the Dunmer girls. "We can get you cleaned up inside—"

"No! I can't be seen like this! I have to go! You can blame my... my cousin over there!"

Quinn stormed off with her face buried in her hands, her wailing audible at some distance, until the silt strider repeated its lonely call. The Dunmer girls who'd been walking with her simply shrugged and walked away.

"What the hell was that?" Daria uttered, still trying to parse what had happened. She hurried toward the river market. Her supposed friend was still there, tightly gripping the fabric of her thin red coat.

"What was that all about?" Daria demanded. "Normally, I'm thrilled when someone takes Quinn down a peg, but what did she do to you?"

Jane exhaled. "Nothing. I was doing that for her, not to her."

Daria hesitated. She sensed this was serious. "Okay, I'm listening. But I don't know if I can forgive you for temporarily rousing my long-dormant big sister instinct."

"Your sister was about to step into the Council Club. That's not a place for outlanders."

"So what? It's too special for some dirty Imperial to visit?" Maybe Jane wasn't as open-minded as she'd seemed.

"No, you aren't listening! That's where the Cammona Tong meet. They. Do. Not. Like. Outlanders. People disappear there, Daria. And whoever those friends of Quinn's were? They knew that. You need to tell her not to spend time with them."

Daria shivered in spite of her thick robe. Only now did she realize how far from Cyrodiil she really was.

"Thank you. Is Quinn in danger?"

"Maybe. Now that I think about it, the Cammona Tong would've probably just thrown her out. Even they wouldn't be crazy enough to kill some Imperial teenager who wandered in. But you do not want to cross the people in the Council Club. Being an Imperial—or acting like one—won't always be enough to save your hide out here."

Jane had been smart about it, Daria realized. Quinn would have never listened to a warning from a total stranger, not when she was trying to impress her friends. Thus, best to make it look like an accident or a prank.

"I'd better get home and talk to her. Will I see you at school tomorrow?" Daria asked.

"That's the plan. Take care."

Daria hurried up the street, wondering how she was going to fix the damage.

*********

Daria returned home to find her mother, Helen, seated at the office, still poring over a stack of documents. Mom had spared no effort in ensuring that her base of operations befitted a legal advocate trained in the time-honored Imperial ways. Tomes and scrolls filled the polished rosewood bookshelves, and not so much as a speck of dust dared touch the flagstone floor. Candles burned in the small marble shrine to Julianos embedded onto the far wall, the god's symbol of a triangle over an open scroll recreated in a mosaic above a basin filled with scented water.

Mom did not look up from her work. Her scribe, a young Breton woman named Marianne, smiled and nodded at Daria's entry.

"I need to talk to my mother," Daria said quietly.

"How important is this, Daria?" Mom replied, still not looking up. "I'm up to my ears in cases from the local merchants! Honestly, I don't know why they think Imperial law will protect them from bad local investments!"

"Potentially very important."

That time, Mom paid attention. She knew the tone of voice.

"Marianne, you can head home for the day. It's almost night, anyway," Mom said.

Once Marianne left, Daria explained the situation. Her mother's face turned white as soon as she mentioned the Cammona Tong.

"Quinn!" Mom shouted. "Get down here this instant!"

Even Quinn's footsteps sounded sulky as she descended the staircase. "What's wrong?"

"Were you at the Council Club today?" Mom demanded.

Quinn's expression changed to one of calculating innocence. "Of course not, mother! I was studying—"

"I'm serious!"

She pouted. "Okay, fine! I was! But I made a really nice friend named Synda, and she wanted to show me around!"

"I don't want you spending time with this Synda!"

"Why not?"

"Listen to me, Quinn. There are some very bad people in Balmora, and they run the Council Club. It's a dangerous place for people like us."

"What? The only danger I was in was from that weird girl who was with Daria! She completely ruined my dress!"

"Jane did you a favor," Daria said.

Mom reached out and grasped Quinn's shoulders. "I need you to understand something: we are very, very far away from the emperor's light right now. Balmora is mostly a safe place, but there are dangers for people like us. I forbid you from going to strange cornerclubs."

"But mom! This is all some prank that Daria—"

"Daria, that goes for you as well."

Daria blinked. "What did I do?"

"Nothing, but restricting you both is impartial, and it's common sense. Girls your age have no business being in sketchy taverns. Maybe when you're married and established professionals, but not now!"

Quinn drew back, eyes already filling with her on-call tears. "I hope you know you've ruined my social life!"

She spun around on her heels and stormed up the stairs. Mom leaned back in her chair and rubbed her temples.

"Where's Dad?" Daria asked. "He should know about this too."

"Late night for him; they're having a networking session in High Town." She sighed. "I did not think living here would be so difficult."

"Wait, hold on. Why can't I go to cornerclubs?" Daria asked. "It's not like Jane's going to lure me into some seedy den and rob me. Well, she won't rob me at any rate."

"Like I said, it's not a good look. And as foreigners, we are under scrutiny. I don't want the Dunmer to think Imperial girls are a bunch of cavorting hedonists. If you absolutely must go somewhere, I'll allow you and Quinn to visit Eight Plates, so long as you have an adult chaperone."

Daria crossed her arms. "I see. And I suppose you'd be giving me the same talk if I were your son?"

"I don't make the rules, Daria. I just try and live by them."

"Yes, because following rules is the best way to get them changed."

"I'm not in the mood right now. What's important is that you keep an eye on your sister."

Sighing, Daria nodded. "I will."

Musical Closer - Everlong, by Foo Fighters



This post has been edited by WellTemperedClavier: Nov 27 2024, 01:45 AM

[WellTemperedClavier]

Episode 6: The Artist's I

Moonmoth Legion Fort didn't belong.

It proclaimed this fact in the artificiality of its construction. No adobe or insect shells, just massive blocks of stone piled one on top of the other. This being the Empire, one could be sure someone in charge—probably multiple someones—possessed reams of paperwork documenting every stone, tracing each from its origin within a particular pit within a particular quarry, its shaping beneath the chisels and calloused hands of foreign masons, its long journey by guar- or ox-pulled wagon, its time spent in storage, the name of the foreman who oversaw its placement within a particular wall or tower, and how well it held up to the rain and wind and ash over the intervening years. The fort implied a world set in clear and explicit rules, displayed for all to see so long as all were willing to take the time.

Moonmoth Legion Fort didn't belong. But that was okay. Jane didn't belong either.

Standing between the squat entry towers, strange in their angular rigidity, Jane looked back over her shoulder. No sign of Balmora, its towers and plazas behind the barren hills. Moonmoth wasn't that far from the city physically, but it was a whole world away in every other sense. Atop the towers fluttered the Empire's banner, and on that its sigil: a sinuous red dragon in flight but bound and restricted within the straight lines of a larger red lozenge.

"What's your business here, citizen?" The guard inquired, the sun glinting off the rearing horses emblazoned on his cuirass. He had the mindless look of someone bored half to death but too professional to show it.

"Hi, I'm Jane Llayn. Sir Larrius Varro hired me to paint a portrait, so here I am."

"Ah, I remember seeing your name on the schedule." He took a wooden slat and a charcoal pen from his belt, using the latter to mark the former. "In you go. Sir Varro should be in the keep."

"Thanks." Jane walked beneath the jagged teeth of the portcullis set within the arched gate.

The legion was the Empire's heavy hand. Jane found legionnaires to be less objectionable than the Hlaalu guards in the city, who tended to be idiot youngsters wielding weapons and far too eager to use them. Legionnaires were about the same age, but with the stupidity trained out of them. Most of the time.

Plus, if worse came to worst, it'd be the legion that protected outlanders like her. They'd protect her the same way they protected an entire continent and all of its teeming kingdoms, tribes, cults, and guilds: by sword-point and on their terms, no questions asked. But it was better than nothing.

She found Varro at his desk within the keep. He looked how she'd imagined a life-time Imperial soldier would look: his uniform perfectly arranged, his frame lean and tough, not an ounce of excess flab daring to distort his rugged features. They exchanged pleasantries, his responses polite and economic. She confirmed his expectations: a head-and-shoulders portrait at three-quarters view. Legion commissions usually went full-length and full-face, which meant Varro probably intended this portrait for personal use.

He sat for her in the top floor of the keep, in an unadorned stone room where sunlight shone through the narrow window slits. Jane set up her easel and canvas as she studied her client. Most of her clients were outlanders like her. That meant they wanted to be painted in Imperial style. Trick was, that meant different things to different people.

Varro was an Imperial from the Colovian west, trained in the harsh ways of war and discipline. A client like him would be offended if she elided a wart or a scar. The Colovian Imperials took pride in presenting themselves as the eye saw them. Daria had probably fit in there better than she'd been willing to admit. And Quinn already looked perfect without embellishment.

When painting Varro, Jane was no longer Jane. She imagined herself as nothing more than a disembodied pair of eyes and hands, reproducing exactly what she saw in the physical realm. Varro existed in three dimensions, so she incorporated the vanishing point and the interplay of light and shadow to show the furrows of his brow, the gauntness of his cheeks, and the straight line of his mouth. She counted each detail, just like the Empire counted stones for its forts.

She finished as the light waned, adding her signature in the lower right-hand corner. Jane returned, her body providing connecting tissue for the eyes and hands that the Empire, through Varro, had hired. She showed him the work, and he nodded. Something that might have been a smile crossed his lips.

"Good work," he said. "Tell me: you're Dunmer but you bear an Imperial given name. Are you from Morrowind?"

"Actually, I was born in the Imperial City. Wasn't there for long, though."

"Ah, so the natives still see you as a foreigner. Is life good for you in Balmora?"

Jane thought a bit before answering. Why did people like Varro think anyone felt safe answering such questions honestly? "It's home. With all the good and bad it brings."

"Do the native Dunmer ever hire you?"

"Usually it's humans or other Mer. Got an Argonian client once."

"Why don't you move to Pelagiad? Everyone there was born outside of this bleak land the way you were, so you'd have no shortage of clients."

She knew the place. A little Imperial charter town nestled in the green hills of the Ascadian Isles, a few days to the south. A safe and cheery place where nothing much happened, where the bright streets and tidy farm plots gave no place for the imagination to hide.

Best to deflect.

"Pelagiad's a little rich for my taste. Maybe when I get more money," she said.

"Nonsense! Marry some jolly old sergeant who's turned in his commission. You can live off his pension while you get more clients. And when he's dead and gone, well, you're a Mer, so you'll be in the prime of your life. Marry for love the second time, when you can afford to."

Varro's advice sounded more like misguided paternalism than a come-on. But she didn't want to play along any further. "Maybe someday. I get a lot of business in Balmora, actually."

"True. Most of the business is in the big cities. Be careful. It's not always a friendly place for citizens like us."

She faked a chuckle. "Don't worry. I was born far away, but I'm still Dunmer. I blend in."

Which was a lie. But one that would satisfy him.

*********

She spent the night curled up in a cot placed in a small but surprisingly cozy basement cell. The next morning, she ran into Maiko, the Redguard soldier she'd met at the Talori party. He procured some breakfast for her: thick saltrice porridge and thin wine.

"Varro's all right," Maiko said. "Sometimes he gets a little nosy."

"I didn't know you legion types were allowed to speak your mind like that," Jane said, raising an eyebrow.

"You can say what you want here. You just have to be smart about when and where you do it."

"Hmm. He seemed worried about Balmora. Is there anything I should know?" Jane asked.

"That's 'cause worrying about Balmora is literally Varro's job."

"Are you worried about it?"

Maiko shook his head. "Nah, not really. It's got problems, but I've seen worse. I used to be stationed in Taurus Hall, out in the Reach. That place was way more tense."

With that done, she walked back home to Balmora, the pleasing weight of a full coin purse added to her pack.

Jane got back in the early afternoon and rested for the remainder of the day. She thought about visiting Daria, but the long trek had tired her, and she had more work tomorrow. Work she wouldn't get paid for but still needed to do.

She arose early the next day and reached the temple as the sun rose behind Red Mountain's smoky veil. Walking through the door returned her to darkness, the anteroom's rounded corners and uneven surfaces much like the adobe homes that the Dunmer had lived in for centuries. Dunmer homes were extensions of the land, mixed from mud and water and ash. It would not take much for that land to reclaim them. Morrowind was not a forgiving place.

Feldrelo Sadri, the priestess and master of the Balmora temple, bowed her head before a tapestry woven with sacred words. She turned slowly at Jane's arrival. Feldrelo was a Dunmer woman whose skin was light almost to the point of translucence. Her gaunt and careworn face seemed pulled back by her tightly wound bun of black hair, and her eyes bulged slightly as if from trying to see in her dark home. Her blue robes and gilded vestments conveyed authority but not luxury.

"I am here to offer my services," Jane said as she lowered her gaze, adopting the formality the temple expected. Insincere formality—she knew it, and the temple certainly knew it as well—but they appreciated the effort.

"Of course, child," Feldrelo said, her voice dry like old bones. "Please, come to my office. Your concerns are mine."

Jane hesitated. She could lie and say she had other work later that day and needed to get started. But while Imperials loved to finish tasks and move on, Dunmer preferred to dawdle. Not to say that Jane disliked dawdling, but she'd rather do it at a cornerclub or in her room.

So she followed Feldrelo, who'd already started her slow and shuffling walk to an adjoining room. A pot of tea steamed on her desk. The starchy smell confirmed it as brewed from a spiky trama root. A polite interrogation followed. It started with praise of Jane's intermittent temple attendance, and also stressed her more frequent absences. Then came questions about her family. Jane tried to find a way of admitting she had no idea about them (other than Trent) while still sounding like a good Dunmer daughter. Then some talk about the saint-scrolls she'd made for the temple in the past and how those indicated a piety that she really ought to express by being more involved in matters of faith.

"The Tribunal Temple is your home, Jane. Though you were not born in Morrowind, our blood does flow through your veins," Feldrelo said, pouring herself another cup of now-cold trama root tea.

"And I feel that, Muthsera Sadri. Absolutely." And thanks for reminding me about not being born here, she thought. "That's why I'm here. To show my respect. Just give me the word, and I'll start—"

Feldrelo clucked and shook her head. "You still behave like an Imperial. I fear Balmora is probably the worst place for someone like you. Great House Hlaalu cavorts with the Empire, adopting its thoughtless ways. Perhaps you should go instead to Ald'ruhn, or even Vivec City. Yes, Vivec City would be a good place, I think. I can sign a petition so that you'd be able to live somewhere other than the Foreign Canton."

"I am honored. But..." Jane trailed off, trying to think of an excuse. Imperials usually understood when you weren't interested. Because, in the end, they were too self-absorbed to pester you more than necessary. Dunmer didn't get that. They never stopped. "Balmora is my family's home. And even though we don't have the old house anymore, my brother and I still have to take care of things until Dad gets back."

In the unlikely event that he did.

"Let your brother stay. He has given himself to the ways of the outlander."

"He has," Jane sighed, trying to sound sad. "But he's still kin. And I'm a little worried what might happen if I'm not looking out for him. He's picked up some bad habits."

Some of which she partook in and enjoyed.

"You are truly a Dunmer," Feldrelo said. "Our people are a family gathered around a flickering hearth, a lone warmth in the endless ashen night. You understand that. How sad a sign of these times that an outlander like you would know what so many natives ignore."

Finally, Feldrelo led Jane to a hallway deeper in the temple. Jane had no idea how much time had passed in the woman's office. Thoughts of day and night had vanished, replaced only by the fire of flickering braziers and the shadows that danced about them. It might be evening, for all she knew. No, no way they'd been there that long. Probably just late morning.

Her workspace was a bench placed before a blank adobe wall. A big pot of black paint, sanctified with ground beetle shells and dust from Necrom's holy corpses, waited for her brush.

"I will leave you here to work."

Work, in this case, meant a painting of St. Delyn the Wise done in the traditional Dunmer style. She didn't do it for piety's sake. Like so much else, it was for show. Because if she did need Dunmer patrons one day, it'd look good for her to have done some temple work. Because if worse came to worst and the legion bugged out, she needed to show she could be part of the community.

And maybe because, for all its faults and xenophobia, the Tribunal Temple had fed her and Trent in the lean years after they lost the house. Before J'dash took them in. Hunger deepened gratitude.

Imperials saw the world for what it was in form. But the Dunmer world consisted of saints and gods and spirits.

When painting St. Delyn, Jane was no longer Jane. She instead became the Dunmer people, driven by faith across ash and salt. What St. Delyn looked like didn't matter. What mattered was what he represented: law, wisdom, and benevolence. Her strokes were thick and bold, following the patterns of long-dead masters. Abstract on their own, they took shape only in aggregate. Robed St. Delyn soon stood tall with an open book at his feet, uncompromisingly two-dimensional. Imperial art privileged the viewer and the naked eye. Dunmer art privileged history and ritual.

She could do this blind. And she was sure some Dunmer artists had. Temples were never very well lit, and her vision already strained from the effort. But who needed eyes for this art? Muscle memory—perhaps ancestral memory—guided her hands. This image of St. Delyn was like all others, and it would take supreme arrogance for any artist to make a saint—whom all believers served—their own.

Jane returned, standing in the present day, in the Third Era and 424th Year of the Imperial Calendar. The wall now proclaimed St. Delyn's glory. No signature this time. She'd have to trust that Sadri would acknowledge her work and, if asked, mention it to others.

Exhausted and quite certain it was late in the night, Jane went in search of Muthsera Sadri to report that she'd finished.

*********

Jane tried not to slack too often. Laziness was a bad habit, one she enjoyed but could not often afford. She'd earned it this time, though. Varro had paid a tidy sum, and the temple work was a nice addition to her portfolio. At least the temple had paid for her materials.

Thus, she spent the next day idling in the Lucky Lockup with Daria, the Empire and the Tribunal Temple both feeling reassuringly distant and absurd. Later on, they returned to Jane's apartment. Stretched out on the balcony, the sun bright and warm, Daria took out the book she'd brought while Jane sketched on a piece of paper.

She drew without thinking, translating the harsh angles of Moonmoth Legion Fort and the equally strict curves of the temple into new shapes, spiraling around a slender figure curled up in a fetal position, bound by what was around her but still apart from it. Unique, vibrant, and her own.

When painting her own work, Jane was only Jane.

Musical Closer - Cemetry Gates, by The Smiths

The End

This post has been edited by WellTemperedClavier: Nov 27 2024, 02:41 AM