Work Text:
There are mornings, during the long months of winter, when a thick fog descends from the mountains in streams of milky air, while cold and humidity become a cloak that Falkreath doesn’t want to shake off, not until Second Seed. On those colorless dawns, an unforgiving rockjoint and a guilty conscience bite hard at his bones and soul, making sleep elusive. As he shifts restlessly in the old bed made of sturdy pinewood, the unclear mass of his dreams slowly takes the shape of memories stained with blood.
It is not a precise event or an elaborate thought that triggers his recollections. It always starts in the same way. A smaller, insignificant detail -a particular smell, a feeling or a sound- surfaces when his consciousness melts away, dragging him back to a place where he doesn’t want to be.
He is sweating heavily.
The dark fabric of his robes has been absorbing the heat of the day since sunup. His arms and legs are motionless and heavy like the rock he is sitting on. Just for a little longer, he hears himself thinking. To what end, he doesn’t know. Exhausted, he looks about. Meadows as far as the eye can see, a beaten track behind him, the remains of a solitary Aleyid ruin, perched on a hill on the left. It’s the height of summer and yet there aren’t flowers blooming among the blades of grass. No sprigs of lavender or bushes of bergamots, but severed limbs, bloated corpses unnaturally bent, bloodied armors and torn banners. This isn’t the lush countryside of Cyrodiil. It is a carpet of bodies where Mehrunes Dagon himself would gladly walk on.
The white outline of the Imperial City seems unreachable, a blurred spot concealed behind the thick, grey smoke that rises from the battlefield. The pungent smell waters his eyes and burns his lungs.
Down the gentle slope where he sits watching, in the very middle of this open-air carnage, there is an old man curved under the orange sky. Between the patches of trodden grass, where blood, rain and clods have blended together, the ground has become a slippery mire, dark and vile. The hem of his ankle-length robes is muck-up beyond saving. There is no way he will be able to wash the death-stinking mud out of it, though he doesn’t seem bothered by the idea. He keeps wandering around the field with purpose, stopping every now and then, muttering to the wind prayers he cannot hear.
A priest of Arkay.
Like the motion of the sun in the sky –unnoticeable, if you try to keep track of it, and yet sudden, as soon as you lift your head absent-mindedly- the man is getting closer and closer, until he is right in front of him. He doesn’t seem surprised nor worried to be face-to-face with the enemy.
The priest, hook-nosed and dark-haired like many Imperials, doesn’t ask him what he is doing here, alone. He doesn’t comment about his state, this numb stupor he has fallen into. He doesn’t even mention the suspicious absence of other Dominion soldiers. He must certainly know that the Aldmeri Army has moved forward, firmly determined to conquer the Capital.
This makes him what he clearly appears to be. A deserter.
He should be worried and ashamed of his actions but he doesn’t feel anything like it. He can’t even seem to move away from the boulder he is resting on, as if roots have grown out of his feet, anchoring him to the solid ground, doomed to watch in morbid fascination the scene displayed in front of his eyes.
Should he come back to Alinor, to the family that has seen him sail off to war with pride in their eyes? Should he remain here, in the same land he has contributed to bring destruction upon? What is he supposed to do with a life that has suddenly lost the only meaning it has ever had? Torn at the seams, what is he going to make of the pieces he is left with?
The priest sizes him up with a silent, hard stare. Not a single word is shared between them and yet he is sure the other man has come to a sort of conclusion. With a curt movement of his head, he gestures him to follow.
As if pushed by an invisible force, he finds himself on the battlefield, standing on his own feet once again. The priest is at his side, sliding a dirty thumb on the beads of his amulet. He watches the Imperial for a while, following the way his bony hand lowers on foreheads and clouded eyes. He observes him kneeling and listening with attention to the last words of dying soldiers, the few who are still able to speak. He treats them like skittish horses. With a reassuring tone he tells them that the end of their suffering is near, that a painless afterlife awaits. They stare at him with fearful, feverish eyes until their breathing evens into nothingness and the gushing of their wounds stops.
The priest doesn’t expect him to pray for the men he has slain or to dig them a grave. This is not the reason behind his wordless request to be followed. He is showing him something, but he is not sure what this something is.
They say the presence of Arkay is stronger in such places. He knows for sure that Death, here, is the only victor. He has felt it in the pulsing light in his hands before unleashing the arcane power on these unaware soldiers. He has seen it in the whiteness of their rolled eyes as convulsions shook them, in their charred bones as the fire of destruction magic burned them alive.
A brutal end. Senseless and unjust.
Runil opens his eyes to a room bathed in the red, flickering glow of the languishing fire. The soft, even rumbling of Kust’s breathing reminds him of what an innocent’s rest should be like. Of what his used to be. Now fully awake, he realizes there is little he can do since the sun hasn’t completely risen above the indented line of the Velothi Mountains, far in the East. The town is still shrouded in silence and the morning rituals will be officiated only in a few hours.
Sleep and work. As it seems, he has momentarily been robbed of them both. It’s not wise to go out with such a weather, but laying still in a bed that is slowly getting as cold as a tomb it’s not a satisfying alternative either. “You should take more care of you” Kust always admonishes him. “You aren’t getting any younger”.
Runil knows it well.
He caresses then the idea of idleness, the temptation of letting his thoughts wander without restraints, just for the sake of it. Easy to accomplish, it’s true. The difficult part is to lead them somewhere safe, along paths that don’t lead to regrets of the past. But the dream –even if it would be more correct to call it a memory- is still fresh in his mind.
The dead beckon him once again.
As he steps outside the simple comfort of his home, the sight of the cemetery greets him. Solemn and ancient. The headstones seem to emerge like solitary rocks from the lake of mist that hovers over the barren plot of land.
Some of them are hundreds of years old –almost invisible behind the thick tangle of nightshades and weed, where the hand of his assistant has yet to arrive- others have just been driven into the ground, the soil dark around the base where the ditch has been dug, the carvings neat and visible, a lighter shade of grey than the rest.
Warriors, farmers, children, men and women. Some of them foreigners, others born and bred in the hold.
Here they sleep, in the merciful embrace of Arkay. Their end has come in different ways for they have led different lives, both in manner and time. But such diversities no longer matter, now that they are in a place where wordly afflictions are only a distant echo.
Passing by the rows of graves, like a commander inspecting the front line before a decisive battle, the presence of Death becomes almost tangible. But this time it’s a different feeling. It’s as though an old friend is walking alongside him, offering his condolences and understanding.
Accepting the nature of Life is not a matter of days. It took him decades to really understand what he was supposed to see on that day of Mid Year of many years before, in a field near Cheydinhal with a nameless servant of Arkay. Death isn't merely the violent hiss of the blade or the anguished lament of the wounded. It’s also the loving farewell of family, the serene sleep that relieves you of earthly sorrows. It’s the calming voice of a priest, his soothing compassion during the most vulnerable hours in the life of a man.
It is part of the Cycle. Nothing more, nothing less.
Lost in his thoughts, he feels the first tepid rays of the day seeping through the pines. Morning, at last, has come. He recognizes the familiar bustle of industriousness in the slamming of front doors, in the barking of dogs as they are fed the scraps of the previous evening, in the rough voice of Kust calling him to come and break the fast.
As he turns to walk slowly towards the house, leaving the cemetery and its graves, the words of the Second Command resound in his head.
Honor the earth, its creatures, and the spirits, living and dead. Guard and tend the bounties of the mortal world, and do not profane the spirits of the dead.
A calm, wrinkled smile appears on his face.