The eastern heart of the world is washed in red, a currency traded in anger, passion and blood. There are times when it is all he sees, for the fires of the Star-Wound are omnipresent in the lands beyond the Ghostgate, and he has not moved from his place within the Heart Chamber for a very, very long time.

Dagoth Ur's state of mind and existence is alien to most, though he would describe himself as perfect without irony. He is the dark secret of a proud nation, a shadow lurking between the lines of old histories and scripture, a taboo in a land where triunes are holy and a fourth transforms the sacred into the profane. He dreams in his chamber, his mask gleaming golden in the light of the fire, exalted before the presence of Akulakhan. Once in a while, he stretches and breathes – broadcasting his madness upon the winds. It is a wordless cry of protest that roars from the heart of Vvardenfell, dispersing his presence beyond the chamber and seeping in through the cracks of Dunmeri minds, his voice beckoning and whispering like the lightest of ash-tainted breezes in his search for those who would be worthy of his House.

It fails to disturb him when his name becomes synonymous with evil, for what is one more injustice in the face of his febrile visions and history? To trace the trajectory of his fall was to understand that those who had been central to the events that had occurred at the Red Mountain so long ago are now all monsters in their own way. There was a king who might or might not have been splintered into a thousand animunculatory fragments along with the rest of his people; driven by a desperate tonal architect to form a golden skin for their denial. There was a half-forgotten shield-thane who has been blasted apart and into his armour, living on only in the accusatory whispers of his last coherent memories. There were three thieves who had sought power for Love, ambition and purpose; and last of all, there was a spirit, reincarnated endlessly through the ages, free to walk wherever and however it would, but always, always falling into the patterns of that old, unfinished story.

The years have brought change to everything, but he still dreams of Nerevar, and the cherished days of Resdayn.

...

There are few histories more sacred than the Velothi Exodus that brought his people to their home, but Dagoth Ur has gone beyond blasphemy, and so he exalts the era of Resdayn above all else. 'Resdayn' was a word that once rolled off the tongues of the Chimeri people with ease. It was omnipresent in both breath and ink, yet there had been none who had used that name as they had, a single word to describe a thousand dreams.

The House of Dagoth had been second only to the ascendant House Indoril in those days and Voryn Dagoth had ruled as Dagoth Ur ruled them now, the unquestioned leader attended only by his kin. His was a House of Velothi mystics; a tribe of witch-warriors who had mixed their love of ritual and worship with the arts of war, never as reckless or as inspired as the Telvanni, but no less delighted with the mysteries of the arcane and the power that such mysteries provided.

Voryn Dagoth is a mer who respects greatness and so he is proud to serve the Hortator, to be the last among his people to close that circle of friendship. Traditionally speaking, as the leader of House Dagoth, Voryn's position is not far behind that of the Hortator's, but the struggles against the Nords and the Dwemer have accorded Nerevar with a certain status, something more akin to the Khans of the tribal era than a General of the Houses. To rule and draw breath in Resdayn is to maintain a constant guard against the vicious politics of the Great Houses and the ferocious raids of the Nords, and although his lack of vulnerability to the foresters of Mephala assures him that he is competent, he, like the rest of Nerevar's friends and Councilors, cannot fault the Hortator for possessing a certain strength of mind and character that is beyond his reach.

There are those who see little but the ring flashing upon the Hortator's finger, but Voryn's respect had been won years before that, when a rough soldier of House Indoril had argued fiercely before an assembly of the Houses for the right to lead an army against the chieftains of the Hoary Men and succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. His friendship had come swiftly on the heels of that victory, when both warrior and mystic had discovered a shared passion for the intricacies of Dwemer animunculi. It is half the reason why he continues to offer his unconditional support for the peace treaty with the Dwemer. The treaty has brought them closer in recent years. Nerevar is glad to have his faith to armour him against the complaints of two nations, to pass his time without judgment. It is during these shared moments of dusk that Voryn finds himself yearning for a certain something, something beyond good wine, conversation and companionship. Perhaps it is selfish, but Voryn is glad to be able to provide that sense of understanding, even if the rumours of the experiments conducted by the Dwemer technicians continue to worry him. There is Alandro Sul, of course, who would follow Nerevar to his death if he had asked it of him, but he offers as little praise as he does criticism, being aware of his nature as a simple soldier.

Voryn has never met the Dwemeri King, and so his curiosity surges with each mention that Nerevar makes of the mer. The formalities between them had faded long ago, and so he asks his questions. Why is Nerevar so adamant about maintaining this treaty with the Dwemer, even with the full weight of criticism from three of his most trusted counselors on his shoulders? What is it about King Dumac that had inspired him to propose this peace to begin with, even with the complete lack of trust between their nations? Surely the friendship of a foreign king could not be worth this much, to risk the happiness of his people.

The fading light of day had cast shadows upon Nerevar's face, but his smile is unmistakable and it creates a vivid image of confidence; of a figure speaking without doubt beneath a blood-red sky.

"Did you know this, Voryn? Our people followed Veloth across the world to the East because we learned that there was no future in perpetuating old archetypes. But the Dwemer had understood this long before Boethiah came to us, and so they had no need of revolution. They knew that the gods, or the Aedra as we continue to call them, were dead from the very beginning. There is a sense of despair in their culture that stems from this realization, but Dumac spoke to me and he told me that he had come to understand that their essence still remains in the laws of the world. He spoke to me of a force that they had come to know as MHARA, an attraction that draws people together, to give them a power that they could not acquire alone. I knew then that I could love him, that there were things that we shared beyond the troubles of rulers since the world itself would permit it even as culture forbade it."

The silence that follows his speech is palpable even though he knows that Nerevar expects a reply from him. It is an uncanny thing, something wholly unsuited to someone so beloved of the Three Good Daedra and so naïve in the gloom of the future. And yet, despite the ill-advised nature of this ambition, it is from this very moment that he begins to think of him, not as Indoril Nerevar Mora the Hortator, but Nerevar the Reconciliator.

...

Those were the days of Resdayn and he would have sacrificed a great many things for them not to have ended the way that they did, even if it meant blasphemy of the highest order to pursue that sort of stasis. But peace is an ephemeral thing in the Arena of the Mundus, and the future eventually had its way with them. When Sunder struck the Heart of Lorkhan and Keening sliced its sound into a suitable shape, the world, along with the tone of the Doom Drum's beat, shattered into a series of myriad, impossible fragments.

Misbegotten ambitions marked the subtitles to all of their sorrows. He died at Red Mountain, he knows that much. But he seems to have retained his consciousness. Death is only an illusion, as painless as a breathless sleep. It would have been a welcome relief, but his thoughts are a tangled mess, frequently unspooling along a single thread, towards a single compelling reason.

"Nerevar."

There is but a single point of orientation in this storm of shadows, and he turns to his Hortator for guidance as he always has. (A lie, but he tells it anyway).

"Where…? When…?"

His questions trail off into muffled breaths. His surroundings are no better than his mind, as indistinct as the world through a lens of clouded quartz, but he feels a warm and rough hand press itself against his forehead, tilting him backwards as a voice whispers into his ear.

"Wake up."

He falls but he never lands, and so he opens his eyes to find only madness.

...

The roads in the waking world twist and turn into impossible distances, so the only way to walk is to retrace familiar patterns found in Memory. Voryn is a dead god dreaming and has little need of logic, but he finds comfort in familiarity. It does not surprise him when the paths lead him to the gates of the Mourning Hold. If the Red Mountain had been the focal point of change for Nerevar and his companions, then Mournhold was the nexus of their history, the place where they had all joined together under the banner of Moon-and-Star.

The walls of the Mourning Hold are as strong and solid as ever, but the streets are smaller and dustier than they have ever been. The only road permitted is marked by sets of gleaming footprints on the cobbles. The message is clear: Walk as we did or do not walk at all. It is the first sign of the immutable that he has encountered since the song of the Doom Drum and Voryn can't quite shake the sense that he is intruding on something private.

The scene that he approaches only confirms it. A soldier sits under an awning with a grimy daggerlad curled up next to him. The lad's newly shaved head is resting on the soldier's shoulder, and together they watch as fragments of ash rain from the vivid crimson sky.

The soldier shifts, tightening his grip on the boy, and the daggerlad turns to look at him. There is a moment of tension, an inhaled breath, and a solemn eternity which shatters as their lips meet. Their hands interwine and their bodies press against each other in a frenzy of desire, but someone cries out and their kiss is broken, and both withdraw with blood on their lips.

"This already happened," the daggerlad spits, scrambling away from his lover and exiting the scene.

Voryn's heart goes out to the soldier, his breath catching in his throat as he tries to suppress a wordless rage. Blood and betrayal persist even in this place, but Nerevar does nothing more than glance at his hands, at the blood staining his fingers where he had touched his mouth, smiling wryly almost as if to admit that he had deserved that. Voryn wants to scream at him, at them and at everyone, but the weight of Nerevar's gaze turns upon him, and he finds that he is unable to give voice to his frustration.

"What now, old friend?" Nerevar asks.

"Whatever you wish," He chokes out.

"He promised me that this place would remain. He owes me that much at least, to protect it even when the years run red. Mournhold will always remain even through the seas of tears and blood, even as the world shifts beyond recognition. I bound him to oath for that, for love and rue and memory. What about you, Voryn, my first among [...], what will you bring me? What do you have that will hold true even as all else lies forgotten? What does your Hortator demand of you?"

There is but one answer for this. Loyalty. Loyalty, he thinks. I gave you that much at least, or I tried to, or I will.

...

Away, away, and beyond the beyond. Voryn leaps sideways through the shards of time, unable to bear the pressure of the moment. The fragments fail to wound him because all things are permitted here in the light of the Blue Star, even when one's actions or presence are devoid of context. He dashes through the void without pause, the rotting materials of time scattering like snow before his onslaught, towards a moment without demand or comparison.

He finds himself at a watering-hole when his feet can carry him no further, a place where caravans station themselves to resupply and tend to their needs. Nerevar Mora is here, clad in old sandals, patched armour and a threadbare cloak. The caravans have halted for the night, and Nerevar is the only one who is still awake; a lonely watchmer sitting by a meagre fire. He clutches the cloak tightly about him in a futile attempt to keep the chill of the rain from reaching him, and although his sword remains in his hand, his eyes are distant and his face is sad.

It pains him to acknowledge it, but this Nerevar wears his heart upon his face, and Voryn can understand his grief even if Nerevar himself doesn't know why his heart is breaking. It is almost too much for him, the emotions manifesting in a constriction of his chest, and it drives him to emerge from the darkness, attired in his red velvet robe and golden ornaments. He shapes the air with his hand and a basket of fine wickwheat bread and comberry brandy appears.

"This is yours, and this, and this..." He whispers, piling treasure after treasure at the feet of the lonely watchmer. He gestures once more, and banners unfurl from the trees to reveal lines of calligraphy paying tribute to his heroism.

"All of this is yours, you've earned it. And if you desire anything more, I will grant it."

Indoril Nerevar the Hortator looks at him, a storm behind his eyes. He reaches out and clasps Voryn's hand in his own, and his hand is strangely gentle.

"And you...?"

"I..." He pauses, his mouth as dry as ash. "I too, am yours."

Nerevar sighs and his grip tightens. "You appear before me at a time when I am without friends or family, and I am grateful for your efforts. But you are still the first among my betrayers, the Ur-traitor to my existence. You used the Tools, Voryn, and Memory will hold this information against the both of us until the end of our days."

"I am sorry," he whispers, his voice thick with unshed tears. "I won't make the same mistake."

"Again,"

Nerevar's reply is a knife to his throat, but Voryn does not resist.

...

A mystic and a mechanic tilts the world on its axis and buries his hands within, the magnusian formulas numbers sifting through the cracks of his fingers like grains of fine saltrice flour.

Voryn can sense his actions like a tireless clicking deep beneath his soul. He wonders if the others can feel the same sensation, if they've all lived for so long and in so many possibilities that the lines between world and person have been blurred beyond all division.

...

The Sharmat sits in the Heart Chamber with the Tools, listening to the steady pulse of the Doom Drum. Systoles and diastoles wash over him, creating a rhythm in which his thoughts might march in lockstep formation. It reminds him of his own banalities, the unbreakable shape of his existence, his picture-perfect competence and it makes him angry. The Heart sees him for what he is, a reflection that is almost stroboscopic in its insight; sharp, repetitive and wholly devoid of inspiration.

He is so weary of Nerevar and his endless confessions, this UnTime that spirals on without end. It drives him again and again to the other side of the pattern where he wants it all for himself, where the power comes at a cost beneath his concern (and he has done this before, he knows). He seizes the Sunder, buoyed by the waves of his choking rage, his knuckles turning pale with the force of his grip, and slams the head of the hammer into the bleeding Heart of Lorkhan until his head spins with the impact of his blows. The rich sounds of the Heart pass into him, unbearably poisonous without the influence of Keening's sharpness and he swells with the power like the pregnant demon of potential, stretched to the point where he finally, finally ruptures into a supernova.

The force of the explosion splits him apart into a thousand pieces, spinning endlessly within a void. It casts him beyond, towards a state of origin where he finally escapes the coils of the Dragon. And he is new again, a primal wail that has grown to encompass the world beyond sight and sound, older than music and brighter than a star. The world is within him and so it is him, the ultimate reference point of the pattern that flows through the subgradience of being. Revelation demands celebration, and so he leaps for joy at the beauty of his new Self, gambolling through the paths of the world like a newborn Nix-Hound pup.

The purity of his happiness is short-lived.

The Sharmat is a creature of action at his core and he knows that the world will warp into a shape beyond his pleasure if he does nothing. He can see a thousand years and miles in each direction, through the tangled coils of a maddened Dragon. The future collapses always into disaster, where the Brass God walks the earth, singing denials without pause. The Sharmat is a complete being that needs only the solipsistic and so he is beyond denial, but he thinks that he sees a many-headed serpent or a man following in its wake, a dangerous thing that tells only stories that hold truth.

He would grasp that image by the throat to choke the life out of it, but no, it is not yet time for that, and he is not ready. His concerns are more immediate and so he turns his attentions elsewhere. For the first time in his long, scattered life, he understands the nature of purpose, and he knows what he must do. He will erase the n'wah, expand the borders of Resdayn and reward the pure and the worthy for their service to better shape his pleasure. This will not come to pass without conflict, and so he clutches and claws at his body, groaning as he rips chunks of flesh away from it. He is a budding branch filled with his children, sequences of neoplasmic simulacra running wild through the four corners of the world. He bids them to assemble without breath, for the mind speaks without sound to the body and so the Sharmat and his army find themselves lined up at the center, at the battlefield where all fate is determined.

His enemies are false Triune, the heretical ALMSIVI and their champion the Hortator. Blade and bonemold meet flesh, and the magic thrown from both sides clashes and spins whole galaxies of stars. The Blue Shift still guards the heavens, but Dawn-and-Dusk appears to bear witness and shepherd the transition as the Black-Hands Mephala at hir most nihilistic dances in the skies as everything is consumed into an orgy of blood and death.

The power of the Sharmat is great, but the ALMSIVI are cunning and so he finds himself trapped within a hemisphere of souls. The cries of the Velothi spirits bind him as no other nets would have been able to, and he finds that he is suddenly impotent, unstable to strike at his boundaries even in frustration. The last image that greets him is the grim face of the Hortator and the edge of a burning blade.

Oh, he thinks. This event is not without its place.

...

Notes: Rewrote a bunch of stuff.

...