I write sad things. This is a more fleshed out Hero. Still... the chapter didn't came out how I wanted it to be. I'm unsatisfied.

OKAY, WTF FF! I specifically update a chapter from another story and you instead put it into this story!

Dreaming

His house was burnt to ashes. He didn't know if they survived or not. So he searched. Willingly going to cities to cities, closing gates, walking the plains of Destruction in hopes of finding them as one of the trapped souls, even when he knew it would leave a mark on his soul, destroying his mind slowly. If they were refugees in one of cities that means his actions would keep them safe from hell.

And yet each city did not hold what he searched. He started losing a bit of that hope, or was it a piece of his soul, broken and left in that forsaken place each time he walked the Deadlands.

He spread himself thin across Cyrodiil, closing gates. He thought, maybe they were hiding in the small villages in Nibenay. Or Colovia.

He rode himself to death. It was a good thing he had inhuman horse, else it would've been dead before his mouth went dry with thirst.

His search was not without merits. He learned many things, he earned many allies, it also put him in political limelight. Counts held favors for him, the people would be willing to help him if he ask.

But his family… no news, no words. Are they dead?

Martin consoled. They were hiding. And in the crisis, what news, messages, would all be a jumbled mess. Couriers would die, be taken into gates maybe. Messenger hawks could be shot down by bandits. Many things happen in the Crisis.

Martin was right. Many things happen in the Crisis. He saw how cruel people can be when put on the edge. He was one of them. He is one of them. On the occasion.

Time was running. He couldn't go around Cyrodiil, or be missing for weeks anymore, even though it merits the Blades at knowing where did the Mythic Dawn last strike.

Martin needed his champion. So he stayed. They're dead anyway. Most likely dead. But the end is coming. He would grieve later.

And the end did come. Beautiful, god it was terrifying and so many dead. Imperial soldiers littered the streets. Houses was ruined, buildings smashed by Dagon's axe. Bittersweet victory. Yet failure stamped him so hard.

I couldn't even protect one man.

He went to the bottom of the barrel, until Ocato pulled him out before he could drown himself and set him to do job. That was fine, he will do them. Of course, his mind wasn't dull, it was still sharp as a blade, even if it was jagged from the marks. It has just grown morbid and grim. Like those bloody time during his youth. He was horribly cheerful about it, a bit of denial there. Or maybe there was something wrong with him.

Then he heard the prophet. Now there's a nuttier guy than him, except he was such a snarker. Okay saner than him, cause he had no retort when the prophet smiled and mocked his heroic title. Honest man, but there was something disturbingly spooky about him. The words he used, they ring bells inside his head, like as if he had read about them before.

He turned away. The prophet gave him a headache.

"Perhaps the gods will hold the answer."

He didn't know. His friend became one and left him here to ro— Wait, don't blame the gods. They're dead and dreaming.

How long has he prayed at the temple? How long had it been since he kneeled before Mara? It was always Arkay's temples. Because he goes there to search if they're dead. Even there, he couldn't find them.

He didn't mind the God of Life and Death. But he couldn't stand the rest of them for some reason. Maybe it was the priests. Maybe they reminded him a certain someone who left him with the fate of the Empire. Maybe he just felt angry. And he felt tired being angry. What was he angry at? At the injustice, unfairness of it all? He learned that in his youth! So why couldn't he let it go?

Maybe he was curious, or tired, just tired of it all. So he listened. Maybe the gods will hold the answer. So he listened and went on another quest. Going missing again peeved Ocato to no end. He didn't know what that elf was thinking, but he wasn't going to be suck into whatever plan that would put him in some high position in the Council. He hated politics. He had enough of that when negotiating with the Counts.

If the Emperor was alive, he would no doubt have to be suck in whatever plan Ocato has for him. But the Emperor wasn't, and he was a free man.

He carried curses on him. He did not expect that. The gods punishing him all of a sudden, and then mercy, forgiveness. But they were always silent. He barely paused when he reached the temple of Akatosh. That wasn't exactly him anyway.

When was the last time he cried? Did he grieve?

I didn't, didn't I? Not even when he died.

He hasn't changed, he thought. He was still that man a decade ago. Murder and blood. Revelation. He laughed. He giggled. He hasn't changed. Why the bloody hell was he an alchemist for all those years? Why did he run, hide and got married. Can't run from himself.

Maybe that was why he was angry. Or mad. He didn't know. He killed. That's all he knew. Meddlesome Daedra, why can't they leave him alone? Why can't they leave them be?

Vengeance. He laughed at Umaril. A past in the present. The past should stick in the past, he thought as he stuck Arkay's sword up into that ugly golden helmet.

Stay dead.

Except he fell… and died. Nine figures surrounding him, blurry or was it his family and ancestors were surrounding him? One looked very familiar. And when he felt the breath of Kyne when she kissed him, he was willing to be taken to the warmth of her bosom. The same one that flies the souls to the hereafter shall take the breath that had breathed life into Men. That was Kyne's breath, she who gives and takes back what was hers.

Only he felt the pierce of hawk's claws gouging into his chest and saw its sharp beak feasting onto his heart. Pain, he felt, and life breathed back under her kiss and feathers.

The past should stick in the past… he woke up and finally cried as he laughed.

He stood before the prophet one last time.

"You're not a man, are you?" he said accusingly at the white-haired old man. His hair was the same now, starry white. Almost. He still had few black locks. Perhaps because of the stress. Or he didn't take care himself well. His wife would kill him if she saw him in this state.

"And if I'm not." The prophet smiled. "Well, did you get your answer?"

He thought about it. "I got something else instead." He smiled in return.

"That's good to know. Else it would be unfair, wouldn't it?"

He never saw the prophet ever again. Even how much he searched. The man vanished. He's not a man, he reminded. He was something else. He didn't know what. A spirit maybe. An ada. A far more far-fetched idea though. Besides, what needs you have from a prophet now that the Event is over? There was no need for a prophet anymore. Perhaps that's why he vanished.

Yet there was certain irony to have those thoughts questioned aloud, by the King of Worms himself, and directed at him.

"Such parallels." Mannimarco chuckled. "But you are no Whitestrake, you are merely remnant, his ghost that should have laid to rest."

He wondered about that too, before he succumbed to the songs of mad dragons and etched a diamond scar onto Cyrodiil. There was no Event, therefore no Hero, yet here he was, lingering like a ghost with an unfinished business.

I wander, I conquer, but I do not reign. I walk on… to my death, or perhaps I was running away from it.

Old habit dies hard. He still got drunk, in front of the statue. Always got haul to jail right after. Can't have a lousy drunk stank the miracle of the age, eh.

And then he heard of the doorway on Niben Bay. When he should be playing politics as Ocato orders him around, he went there instead.

Another Daedric threat, he thought as he mused in front of the glowing purple portal. He smiled and stepped in.

This form is but an avatar, for your comfort. Our true form cannot be comprehended; surely you should've known that when Akatosh appeared in all his glory as a dragon, The Dragon. But even then you still trembled when you heard the dragon's voice roared and spoke of you and Cyrodiil's future. You staggered when Dagon first appeared, while all fell at Destruction's presence

And here you are, staring at the mirror, and they thought you were watching those gold eyes of a fox… or was it cat's? But you weren't staring at your reflection, you were staring at You and you wondered… so that's how You look like. Then the mirror cracked and bled, your reflection screamed, unable to stare at You any longer, so it took your eyes, as it was the only way it could see. A mirror has no eyes, my champion, so it was happily blind until you watched the mirror watching You watching you watching…

Time did not make sense here. It felt like eternity of dreaming another life. Maybe this is just another dream…

Yet I hear it. Soft, distant yet so sweet. It sounded beautiful yet so familiar. I knew within that purple light hides such fascinations. Such dreams and wishes born out of the blood and flesh of the gods.

Images swirled and moved in my head, they danced and blurred, changing as it goes. They didn't make sense. They stopped making sense. Once I could discern what was mine from others. Now it did not matter.

Yet I still remember. I still remember. I had to. I need to. I felt like I was barely clinging as the storm swept, broke through and moved everything inside my head.

I should've left. I need to leave. But where to go, when the flat plains goes forever.

I want to go back.

I stumbled as the wind rushed and howled against me, almost taking my feet beneath me. The icy ground beneath thawing into an ocean, a raging ocean.

I will not drown.

Smiling I was, I spun as I go while rain pelted me. My laugh deafened by the booming thunder. The storm danced with me, a partner to this mad tango, a reluctant partner as I had to drag it, tear it from the Isles, from its swallowing whole on the small islands. The Tree of Madness roots, the bridging chain that tethered the floating islands from drifting apart, were damaged. Being pulled in all direction for too long has strained them.

Like my mind.

From raging purplish clouds, jarred rocky floating plateau poked out, revealing the clustering islands huddling, The Isles, waiting out the storm as the tide went down… as I went down into the unending depth of the Void with the storm in my arms.

And then I woke up and felt the softness of a carpet against my cheek. Opening my eyes, I gazed at its blood red dye and rolled around only to stare at its darkish blue side. Groaning as I pulled myself up, I stood dazedly at what appears to be my throne room. Empty of life and breathing.

Dreams… I grunted in disgust and just laid myself back on the floor. A distant thunder boomed, rumbling the palace, vibrating the floor beneath me.

I just lay there, feeling my body ache, my eyes staring at the heart of Madness.

I don't want to remember.

Because it hurts. Because my heart is bleeding. Old mortal wounds reopening.

"Old friend. What has happened to you?"

"Leave me!"

Just leave me.

"You're just a figment of my imagination," said the man, or god, purposely turning his gaze away as if to avoid comprehending his presence in his sight.

"I am not." He felt a warm clasp on his shoulder and quickly jerked away from it, swiveling his head the other way to avoid looking at the hand.

Like a child, refusing to meet his gaze in anger at his parent, or the cold medicine he was in for, or perhaps outgrowing, in vain, of an imaginary friend. Sheogorath just kept looking at the ground, refusing to look across the table.

"You are," he whispered. "Martin Septim died. The Earthbones are dead, dreaming. And their ghosts can only manifest on their home plane, Nirn. And this is NOT NIRN!" he roared, furious. "This is the Madhouse, the Asylum, home of the Daedric Prince of Madness, Sheogorath!" He slammed table in front of him with his tightened fists, jiggling the china and utensils.

"I am Sheogorath," he repeated quietly, eyes still on the ground, though he had shifted to face him but his pupils remained adamant in avoiding the subject he was addressing. "And you," he swatted his arm around the empty air surrounding him. "Are just a guest, nonexistent one at least. Created by Me." He gave a brief slap at his chest at that statement. "I, Madgod."

I am. I am. I am the Madgod. I am Sheogorath. I am… I am… who am I?

"I am mad," he laughed all of a sudden. "I am Mad. doG daM ma I." He repeated nonsensically and sung then slammed at the table in front of him, frustrated. A toddler throwing a tantrum. His right hand rubbed his face and brushed through his hair as he rocked back and forth on his seat. His head turning left and right, searching something on the ground. His name perhaps. "No, no I am NOT the Madgod," he stammered.

What am I searching?

"I am…" he faltered, growing confused, eyes shifting around. "I am…" a grin crept up his face. "I am just as made up by the Lord of Shivering Isles."

"You are my Champion, at least were. I can show you who you were," the familiar voice said calmly.

"This is all a dream," he added, completely ignoring the voice. "A dream within dream within dream. Wheels within wheels, plans within plans. Daedric Prince within… Prince…" he lurched too much to the left but quickly corrected himself right. "I am Jyggalag!" He stood up all a sudden, pointing up to the sky as if an idea had struck him. "Prince of Biscuits and Bananas!" he declared then frowned explicitly.

"N-no, no, no, NO!" he yelled and kicked the table's foot in front of him, jiggling the plates and silver utensils again. "I…" The god brushed through his face. "Who am I? Who am I?" He rocked back and forth, thinking hard, brows knitted together.

"I can show you."

"Show me," he called out to the voice then finally looked up. "Show me!" he yelled at the golden-silver trail of elder moths and the colors of all kind and type of butterflies spiraling all around him. He was in the eye of storms of soft wings.

A palace revealed himself. A crystal palace made of… well, white arches, delicate curves and lines. The curved roof were crystal, except for the lines running across it. The walls were as well straight, lined with arches and thinner lines that intersect one another to make rectangular panes… windows. A wall of windows.

There was something… caging about those lines. As if he was in a bird cage. A pretty one for the glass reflected and refracted light into rainbows that spilled pattern across the room. The floor were mirrors, reflecting pale silhouettes, as if he standing a calm lake, one that was very deep at least.

But it was a bird cage. A birdcage in the end.

Why was he in a birdcage? He frowned in his standing then noticed the table and the mess he made on its white silk cover.

But he cared not and just walked away from the empty tea break, following the butterflies and moths into slipstream in reality, uncaring the fact he left the tea made by Azura, from her own very roses in her garden of Moonshadow.

He stumbled onto a… a – he frowned at surrounding around him – a shrine? He looked vaguely at the dragon statue roaring upward in triumph.

"This does not ring any bell," he whispered to himself.

"No, it doesn't. Perhaps it is more my defining moment, than yours."

"Show me something else." He quickly looked down to the ground, the buildings, to everything but the statue and the voice.

A tug pulled, and he willingly followed. It felt like he walked only a step forward. And there he was, in front of a gate, gazing at another statue, well remnants of it.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"Bruma."

He looked around curiously, but his gaze though stared at the round base of where a statue belonged.

"This is yours though a thunderstorm had recently passed and destroyed a statue of you," the voice pointed at the cracked, black-sooted base round base.

Chip remains of stone was the only evidence. But… they were flowers there. Offerings. Fresh. Soul gems, cabbage, lettuce, yarn. The standard offering of his… but he did not expect Niben rites among those. Worshipped… like an ancestor. He could see the many wax of candles and incent, the offering of olive branch and a fine sword. Bowl of fruits.

No… no, no. He frowned. You don't give sword to ancestors… you give sword to heroes. Dead ones at least.

"They miss you, you know," the voice told him as he stared at the peculiar offerings.

"Why… are they worshipping the Madgod as a hero?" he perplexed and stepped forward, looking at the strange offerings, observing it like a curious child.

"Because you were their savior. And it's not worshipping. It's revering. The old custom of Nedes."

He tilted his head in frowning.

"Then they are worshipping a savior, not me." He turned and walked away. "It doesn't say anything about me."

"Perhaps this would remind you."

His guide took him where there was no sunlight, a crypt… a tomb. He heard a distant bell of a monastery. The smell of incent candles. The arias, the choirs, the silent prayers, hymns to the gods, dead gods and the dead.

He was one in a house of the Nines… a temple of sort.

And he could feel it, their cold presences there. Lingering ghost like he and his guide. There he noticed a tomb, and like the remnant of statue, candles were lit and decorated all around it as well the same olive branch.

But no Niben rites, a Colovian one at least.

"Whose sarcophagus is this?" He frowned.

"The Crusader, you."

He made a face, a thoughtful one… trying to recall before he stepped forward, up to his tomb then rested his hands on the lid of his resting place. He shoved it easefully, but only to the point where he could see enough from a mere crack.

Empty.

"There's nothing in there. This is no one's tomb." He turned away from it.

"It is a merely a memory, and honor they wished to do for you. As well a trick. There are many enemies," his guide called back when he walked away. "Your enemies… the Nines as well. They searched for remnants of a powerful ada, wishing to experiment like they will on the Khajiit and their moons."

"But you knew. You saw," his guide went on, turning sly. "And you hid them. You didn't tell, but your comrades may not know, but they served well. They tell many that they buried the relics with you. For you, alone, will be the only worthy one to wear it."

"A trick," he whispered aloud at the cold crypt. "The Crusader must have made many enemies."

"Ancient and new, the Star-Made Knight is not a light title. And… an upsetting power. It was best for it to put at rest. But it would be such a waste, like a doll tossed away once it has done its purpose."

He frowned at such statement.

"It has more use than that, much better use. And they willingly left such power be. Not putting it to rest," his guide went on.

"But it says nothing of the man who wears it, but more who he had become when he took up the mantle," he retorted to his guide.

"No," his guide answered back gently. "You were already walking such path made only for you. You were destined for it, it's part of who you were. None though dared called you out for what you incarnate when you stood beside the Last Dragon Emperor to the very end, as Pelinal had for Paravant."

You were marked by Sithis the moment you emerged from your mother's womb.

"They were clues," he whispered.

"The old worm said something similar, didn't he? And the prophet as well?"

"Yes," he replied back to the voice, his eyes though searched between cracks of the cobblestone. As if they held the real answers.

"Shezarrine. Mark of Sithis. Embodiment of Whitestrake. Like the Serpent."

"I am his ghost then and nothing more!" he shouted. "It says nothing who I was. They are mere titles," he scoffed. "Meaningless now. They overwrite and erase everything who the man were."

"Perhaps… but it fits you very much," his guide said sadly. "I'll show you one last thing."

And then he was walking an old beaten path. Not a road made of stones. But just a path of dirt, cleared of major stones and greeneries. He felt the rustled of leaves when a breeze went past. He heard the gurgling streams and sigh of the forest.

And it felt like… home.

He gazed up, feeling the spilled sunlight between the foliage of the canopies. They were something familiar about those trees around him.

"I know this place," he whispered.

The path, it felt like coming home. And for once, he felt a stir of uneasiness in the pits of his existence. He felt sick.

"No, no, no," he said aloud and turning around. "Not this way."

A firm grip held his shoulder from turning all the way. "You must. It's just a few more steps."

"I…" he shook under the grip. "I don't like it."

"It's just a few more," the voice coaxed. "It's alright."

Yet why does it feel like his heart was hurting? It felt like a sword had struck though his chest, and a hawk was feasting on his beating heart right now. Why does it feel like he was bleeding? He rocked back and forth, arms crossed across his chest as his neck crooked down when he tucked his chin as if he was cold.

In the end he turned around, and walked a few step, hesitating ones.

"No, no, no!" he burst and turned around quickly.

"A few more," his guide stopped him. "Just a few more."

And it went on. Few more step, he would burst and turned around. But he took more steps forward than what he took to step back. He couldn't understand why he took them. Slowly, a clearing emerge out of the forest. A skeleton of a burnt house stood in the middle of it. Its garden overrun by weeds and grass. Black posts of wooden oaks, the remains of what was left of a home sat hauntingly.

And it hurt to look at it. It hurt that he was crying silently. And he didn't know why, why he felt hot tears running down his face. But it hurt. It hurt.

"Don't make me look, please," he pleaded at his guide.

"You need to."

"I…" but he walked on and stopped before eight gravestones. More like small boulders placed there, and all irregular. Three small ones, almost the same size, then one bigger than the other. Old and worn by the weather by time, the corners overtaken by moss, lichens and weeds but the words scripted on them had no faded one bit. Names… names.

He knew those names. He knew those names. The last one especially that was almost as tall to his knees, and stood beside another almost equal in size.

Theodore Egil. Beloved father and husband.

And then he remembered the fires of the Oblivion Crisis, and the screams, his screaming among the roaring crackled of heat. And the bodies of his dead, dead families lying on the floor of his home. He remembered being pulled back violently by a voice, a priest as the house collapsing around him. His world crashing down on him all so sudden. Not even when the Oblivion gates that sacked Kvatch or the Deadlands had made him felt this way.

"I…" he looked at the grave, at the last one. "I'm Theodore Egil," he whispered.

Hot tears ran down heavily on his face, and then he broke down, crying on the ground.

The sound of a broken man loud in the silent forest.

"Why? Why did you show me this?" he whispered and looked for once at his guide, tears running down.

Brown chestnut hair, angular face, tanned skin of Imperial, and grey eyes. Grey eyes of his own.

"You needed to remember," his own face looked at him, saddened.

"You are just a mockery!" he snarled back. "Made by Sheogorath! To torment me!" he shouted at himself. "You took everything away from me! Everything! You had stopped me from returning to Nirn! You had let my country, this Empire to die!" he screamed and stood up, glaring hatefully at the Madgod. "I didn't want to remember!"

"You and I both know that what you said is just a lie," his own face replied, coldly. "You chose this path, consequence be damned."

"But I didn't know it would lead to this!" he shouted back then snapped shut, a sudden thought struck him. "There is a reason you did this," he whispered. "You showed me this."

"Why, why did I show you this?" he questioned himself.

"I don't know!" he snapped back. "Some twisted mad logic," he answered viciously and turned his back on the gravestones.

"You know me, you know me," his own voice replied. "Think, why did I show you this?"

Why?

Cause the Madgod was sadistic.

"There is a reason Shivering Isles is called the Asylum," he continued. "There is a reason they called me a mad god, the Madgod. Not the mad mortals' god, even though I am." He sniggered and laughed all of a sudden. Dark, cold laugh that sounded tired. "Because how I came to be. Mad god. A god who doesn't know what he express, what sphere that he encompassed. Even the other doesn't know, so they called it mad. What they do not understand, they called it MAD, like Jygglag's cold logic."

"When the Princes called a upon the force of CHANGE and made the curse, each one had a different idea what change and chaos meant, what madness meant. Even Order himself had a different idea. And here I am."

Sheogorath.

As mysterious as Nocturnal.

As kind as Azura.

Shine as bright as Meridia.

As passionate as Sanguine.

As sinister as Molag Bal.

As cunning as Boethiah.

Scheming as Mephala.

Disgusting as Namira.

A nightmare as Vaermina.

Knowledgeable as Hermaeus Mora.

Destructive as Mehrunes Dagon.

Ostracized like Malacath.

Insidious as Clavicus Vile.

Restless like Hircine.

Full of ailment for the mind as Peryite with his diseases.

And… as compulsive as Jyggalag with his Order.

But he was NONE of them and ALL of them. It says nothing yet everything about Sheogorath. Just like the many titles of the Champion says nothing yet everything of the man he was. Princes making a Prince, when they had sworn not to ever create. So they did what they could, CHANGE. While the Earthbones CREATE. But how funny it blends.

His true tale of his beginning was… mind-boggling. Princes, working together? They were each other's opposites, their sphere were each other's opposites! They could not even stand each other! And yet they combined their powers. Not to destroy, oh they knew. They knew, Jyggalag would come back. He was a Prince. What mortal called, daedra. Inevitably, they will come back again and again. The constants in the Void.

Called upon the force of change, was what the Princes had done, as the Eight had done with Perrif when it came to the Whitestrake, an avatar of Dragon and Serpent in his madness. Champion of the Dragon and Men, as Trinimac and Shor were. The ghost of One made and imbued by the power of Divines. An amalgamation.

If Jyggalag was the unstoppable force, Sheogorath was the immovable object. For He to encompass the powers that were each other's opposites, wouldn't it called out what everything the Princes were... and weren't, stasis? What they needed against unstoppable Order? Something opposite of their constant-changing nature, yet they refused to ultimately change when Lorkhan whispered of the grand birth of Nirn in the Aurbis. Change and Permanency.

He was made for the eternal mad dance with Order, as Order own's sphere worked to enforce a constant pattern in the unpredictability of Madness. And Order, just another extremity of Madness' many expressions. Greymarch. The insanity of the Aurbis, Duality. In some way He was... as Pelinal was to the Divines, a champion, a being to serve their ends. It was disturbing thought for a god. Because wasn't he like that, wasn't that his sole purpose to exist in the beginning? To serve the Princes' ends in staving off the Greymarch, again and again, and again and again and AGAIN!

Hands scratched through the white strands of his hair in frustration as the Madgod rocked back and forth.

Now that won't do. That won't do. He chuckled in his recall, the tight grips slipping down the sides of his head.

We're slaves and masters to our nature.

Eight and One.

Sixteen and One.

Borne by Sithis and all the forces of change therein. Sithis-shaped hole. He laughed and scoffed. That was why… why He chose him. The Nines left him be, once he had finished his journey.

But it would be such a waste, like a doll tossed away once it has done its purpose. He was... in some way, a reflection of Him. A fascination. He had walked His path without realizing, unknowingly stepped into what he thought was Madgod's trick. But it was never a trick, he was just a fool.

"Walk like them until they walk like you," he whispered.

I became Him, He became I. Sheogorath laughed louder and cried, feeling the mortal pain in his chest and the ironic truth that he knew all along, that he had willingly risked his immortal mind and forgotten under all the mortal pains of his many Champions across time.

Because in the end... in the end, even all the ironies and contradictions, the paradox of his existence, what mattered is that...

"What is more mad than a god who dreamt he was mortal?" he said this aloud at the empty air, at no one. Who thought like a mortal in some vicious phase of His Madness!

It fits you very much.

Who am I?

Maybe I'm just made up just as you… Sheogorath.

I'm just a mess left behind. Like you.

But… he smiled softly, the old gentleman smile… there was an unfinished business.

Whose idea it was to bring all the Princes together to curse?

The rope hung. Wet and waiting. A drop of water slipped down it and splashed down onto the ground. He felt the rough strands brushing beneath his chin. The storm, heavily raining over his shoulder. Kyne's anger… or her grieving, maybe it was Mara's. His Imperial steel armor lay discarded at the corner, as with his sword.

There wasn't much use wearing them anymore. The reasons he wore them were all gone.

"You shouldn't."

He turned around, gazing hollowly at a cloaked being standing beneath the remnant post of the house.

"Why shouldn't I?" he asked.

The cloak turned his gaze, blind white eyes and starry white locks all over his face. A cane tucked underneath his arm.

His silent spoke everything.

"The war took everything, there's nothing left to live for," he answered back.

The cloak just tilted his head, blind eyes still gazing… as if he was deaf. But he raised his hand in offering.

And the man gazed at the hand then at the circular rope. The gentleman with the cane. A stormy day. And his death standing in front from him, waiting. Bound to bring the Mad Cat in.

"Come, soldier, I'll give you the strength to continue."

You may interpret what he meant by you shouldn't. You shouldn't stand and wait, or step away? Or you shouldn't kill yourself? I'll give you the strength to continue to live on, or I'll give you the strength for your last step on this earth.

Or maybe it's a snippet of how my MC story began. War could mean the war again Dagon's force. Not the Great War.

Y'know there's a console cheat to make that statue of Bruma alive. I bet Sheogorath made it came alive for the Thalmor to deal with when they came attacking.

And I don't want to waste sentence describing the fact my hero did the major factions quests. But he didn't became Arch-Mage, or whatever title in the end. Those passed onto someone else. He was there to help the other people who took the title.

He's… as TV trope would describe, the Dragon for everyone.

One day I'll write those stories, an AU of some sort. Something.

And there's annoying Dragon Break happening when Martin became Dragon God. So to him, the Dragon God of Time, even we did faction quests, one or two, or all or none, the Champion is all one being to him. When the Champion became Sheogorath… he started to become aware of this mentality and started to confuse himself with others, eventually forgot himself and just only remembered he was The Champion, and that was all he was.

That's why he couldn't remember. The Mes that was not me in the Journal.

I probably had eluded to this in Mind of Madness. The I am me, they are me crap. Then there is the idea... the MC story is just made up, crazy phase the Mad god made up to break the curse.

I do want to point out the irony of the Champion business. Because fucking lores man.

Eh, this chapter is the weakest I've wrote. Especially near the end.