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They were calling it the Oblivion Crisis. Its conclusion and subsequent fallout had been a disorientating blur. The Blades had been disbanded. The new emperor - one not of the Septim bloodline - had a new order to look after him. The Penitus Oculatus. Spectres, they called them. There was a certain irony there. Everything had been destroyed to such an extent all that was left to protect the people, the empire, were ghosts. Baurus found his days simultaneously empty and full, he was still in the midst of grappling with it all. Purposeless. A warrior without a cause. Especially without a Dragonborn, bloodline extinguished. He tried to help where he could. Occupying himself for the moment with sifting through rubble piled on the scorched earth, fighting off looters and monsters alike, delaying thinking about where the course of his life would turn next. He was told he was young. He was told he had his whole life ahead of him. He wasn’t sure he felt either of these things were true. He had dedicated his life to the Blades but that chapter of his life had ended. He felt as if a deep-rooted weariness had set into his bones, the state of things had got to him. Baurus thought about the rest of the Blades often. Ferrum, Jena, Antiochus. What would they do with themselves now? Jauffre, the old spymaster, stayed out of retirement, he was holed up at the crumbling and haunted Cloud Ruler temple to preserve the order. To prepare future generations of the Blades for the Dragonborn’s return. Should one actually return. Baurus had been offered a place there. A purpose. He was unsure whether he should take it.
He did not know where Avery was. The Champion of Cyrodiil had closed the remaining Oblivion gates, then disappeared off the face of Nirn. Gone for months. There were vague allusions to it having been another portal of sorts that had whisked her away but the rumours and mutterings were never clear. This did not worry Baurus innately - Avery could take care of herself - but he feared the lack of communication forewarned of something darker. If she wasn’t dead already. She hadn’t been in the right headspace since Martin sacrificed himself. There was guilt. Both herself and Baurus had been two peas in a pod - younger members of the Blades, adept at swordplay. Prisoner and guard (of sorts) turned friends. They had both been present throughout the entire course of the crisis but she alone had watched two Emperors die in front of her, powerless to stop them both times. He wouldn’t put it past her to ignore her own limits, to do something reckless and stupid. She had spoken little about her life before but he had an inkling those same self-destructive tendencies were why she had been in the Imperial City’s prison to begin with.
One unremarkable day, the fragile routine Baurus had established for himself shattered. He received a letter in the post. It was small but certainly not unassuming. Clearly expensive paper, perfumed with an implacable scent, adorned with a generic wax seal. It took him a moment to decipher the chicken-scratch. An address was scrawled in the corner, increasingly compact as it neared the border of the page.
‘Good news. Hard to explain. Meet me here. - Avery.’
Several thoughts raced through his head all at once. It could not be a fake letter, surely not. There would be easier ways to kill him - there were surely stragglers of the cult of the Mythic Dawn who despised him for fouling their plans. Baurus was baffled Avery had even been able to find his address. Surely this was some sort of magic, a sort of divination she could have possibly cast on her own. He’d considered it a moment, lent over heavily, then outstretched an arm towards his beaten leather pack. She hadn’t offered a time or date, so best not to keep the lady waiting.
~~~
Despite the vibrant blue sky, fluffy white clouds and sun beating down overhead, Bravil firmly remained a city painted with swathes of greens, browns and beiges. Two-story houses perched on muddy islands whilst wooden bridges spanned the off-shoots of the gurgling Niben River. Avery’s house, if it could be called that, was little more than a shack nestled in the back corner of the city. The damp air had caused the meagre wooden fence around the perimeter to swell and rot. He suspected the house itself was destined to a similar fate. A mushroom or two around the sodden earth threatened as much. It seemed long abandoned and only recently re-inhabited. He sighed to himself. The structure was sound, at least for now.
He knocked, politely, then waited. Baurus found despite his certainty he would recieve answers, his chest buzzed with anxiety. His right hand twitched over the pommel of his sword. It was only when he registered the birds had stopped chirping did he hear the tread of footsteps.
Avery opened the door promptly, in one swift and abrupt movement. The feeling worsened. It was a foolish thing, anyone who hadn’t known her during the crisis would have laughed, but she was wearing no armour, carrying no hint of a weapon. It wasn’t right. The embroidered tunic (a pale blue) and riding trousers (onyx black) she wore were far finer than her standard, more practical attire. But there was a logical explanation for this, coupled with the letter: she had come into money. She looked healthy enough, as fit and healthy as during the crisis. Purple hair in its constant state of disarray - a half-loose ponytail. He watched her usual scowl lighten into a relieved smile upon seeing him. Despite this, Baurus found his tongue tied, his greeting had evaporated. He was beset with an overwhelming sense of dread; that she had been replaced by an identical doppelganger.
Later, he would ask himself if this was the moment he should have known she wasn’t alright.
“Baurus,” The Champion of Cyrodiil took a step through the doorway towards him, before thinking better of it, and skipping back to usher him inside. “It’s good to see you.”
The Blade felt a little more at ease hearing her speak. She seemed more real, circumventing the ‘how have you been since the daedric invasion of the realm and months of no contact’ question that hung in the air in as few words as humanly possible. ‘Sword sharp, words blunt’ had been their running gag.
“Nice to see you in the flesh. You… you’ve been gone for a while.” He finally offered, clapping her on the shoulder as he passed. His host responded with a noncommittal grunt; expression somewhere between a smirk and a frown.
The interior of the house was dim and dark due to its location. Sparse beams of sunlight choked their way through the grime-smothered glass. This dingy atmosphere had been somewhat rectified with a smattering of various candles and lanterns - regardless of make or type. She had wrangled a small table into the centre of the room, Baurus noted silently to himself the two chairs either side of it a matching set. The table had a modest spread of food, cheese, sausages, grapes. Whilst her guest was preoccupied, Avery inched between him and the smorgasbord over to her own seat, denoted by two long parcels wrapped in canvas leant against the wall. As a final flourish she leant across the table, to the bottle of Surilie Brothers wine. Whilst not the finest vintage, it entertained modest renown. She tapped the scroll strategically placed beneath it and the magical array flared to life, coating the dark glass in flecks of frost. She poured the wine into two tankards, chilled.
“So.” Baurus raised his wine, trying to hide a modicum of surprise at his friend’s sudden flair for showmanship.
“So, let’s start with you.” Avery mirrored the action before taking a swig, immediately wrinkling her nose. “Ugh. Not a fan. Would you like a beer?”
“Happy with whatever. Not sure you’re supposed to chill it… that much.” You weren’t supposed to chill it at all. It was only then did Baurus realise this affluence was a result of nervousness. Her gaze was evasive.
“Right, right.” She growled to herself. It was as if she’d snapped back to her usual self, stomping over with two bottles in hand, plonking them onto the table with a little more force than necessary. She pulled the cork with her teeth, not bothering to chill the bottle. “Let’s try that again.”
“I appreciate the etiquette but I’d really rather hear what you’ve been up to. I mean how’d you come into all this money?”
“Not money.” Avery scrubbed at the side of her face, tankard hitting the table enough to make the cutlery jingle in protest. “Okay.” She exhaled a long sigh, then stood up, and briskly returned with not one but multiple sheets of parchment. “It’s important you don’t interrupt, I can’t lose my train of thought.”
“This is certainly going to be a tale.” He wrapped his hands tightly around his cup.
“The short of it is: I defended a prince’s island from invaders.” Her smile was unnervingly thin. The sense of apprehension grew.
“Right. And you got rewarded.” Baurus spoke slowly, scanning her expression for more.
“The long of it starts with an island appearing in the middle of the Niben Bay.”
~~~
By the end of it Avery’s voice was a hoarse croak. The sky outside had darkened into a bruised purple with snatches of ember orange. Baurus shivered at the thought of addressing it all, where to start? The Blade hadn’t entirely kept his promise to stay silent - how could he with what she had just said? His gut had been entirely correct, something was wrong - just not the true extent of it! She had been annoyed, but understanding. Every tangent had been explained through gritted teeth.
“You realise how this sounds…” Baurus tried, as neutrally as he could.
“I’m not insane.”
Baurus splayed his palms as a form of mediation. “I’m going to relay what you’ve just said back to me. You tell me how it sounds. Let’s start at the beginning. You travelled to another realm - the realm of madness. Everyone who came out of that portal had their brains addled, but you’re fine. You fended off a daedric invasion from a Daedric Prince who has not been seen since… What, before the First Era?”
The quiet settled like a weight. For a brief second static seemed to bristle in the air. She narrowed her eyes. “Continue.”
“You have been granted the title and powers of the Madgod. Which allowed you to defeat said Daedric Prince in single combat.”
“Yes.”
“And Sheogorath isn’t coming back for his seat?” He tried to sound less incredulous than he was.
“... No.” She spoke so slowly, Baurus was uncertain whether she was slowing down for his sake or genuinely trying to process it herself. “I exist with the title now. I am-” She offered an indeterminate gesture with her hands.
“Doesn’t it strike you as a little ironic?”
This caught her off guard. “Ironic?” She echoed dumbly.
“This isn’t the first time you played a hero - defending a realm from a daedric invasion. And I know- the end of the crisis was hard on you, harder than on any of us. You and Martin were close.”
“What. Are. You. Saying?” She snarled, her teeth bared.
“Sheogorath made it up. Orchestrated the events of whatever happened in that portal. Tailored it to you.”
“What? No. That’s- the realm was almost destroyed, it is in shambles. People died. What- To what end?”
“Would you put it past Him to do it just for fun? To drive the knife in. You couldn’t defeat Mehrunes Dagon. That’s how it had to be-”
“It didn’t.” She interjected sharply. “The prophecy was cruel. Martin could have lived a happy heirless life.”
Baurus pivoted, having sensed he had gained no ground. “What I’m saying is you couldn’t defeat a Daedric Prince. But there, after doing everything he asked, in a realm where the rules of reality and minds are warped, suddenly you could.”
“Don’t be a fool.” A fire burned in her eyes. Her voice tightened, brimming with anger. “Baurus, it happened. I brought proof.” Avery turned to the larger, wider and heavier of the two packages. It hit the table with such force the cups jumped, flinging their contents everywhere. She barely paid any mind to the sleeves of her sodden finery, scowling as she unwrapped it. “The Sword of Jyggalag.”
The greatsword was monstrous - more than double the size of the table. Upon appraisal perfectly uniform, perfectly balanced, perfectly sharp and efficient; forged from a metal Baurus had never seen. Daedric for certain. It radiated with a sickening power that made his fingers tingle, yet his hands gravitated towards it anyway. The surface was mesmerising, shining like a mirror; yet he didn’t see himself, the blurred shapes on its surface began to come into focus. instead he-
Avery violently waved a hand in front of the blade to shield his view, her voice dropped to a warning growl. “Don’t look into it for too long. You see things.” She paused, threw a bolt of cloth back over and exchanged the weapon for another. Baurus was sure to keep a distance this time, he was glad when he realised what it was.
“My symbol of office.”
The smaller of the two bundles turned out to be a gnarled wooden staff, branching at the top like a tree adorned with…
“So that’s the human eyeball you gouged out on the staff?”
“I told the guards it was… ornamental.” Baurus is horrified to see her mouth twisted into a hideously large smile, then upon blinking realised he was mistaken, her teeth were bared in a grimace as she stretched across the table to adjust its gaze away from him. “It is now. I asked the woman for her eye. She responded with ‘you shall never make it out of here alive’. I didn’t have much of a choice. I thought I was being quite pragmatic.” After a beat, Avery finally pinned the growing expression on her friend’s face. Disgust. “I admit I had to do a lot of things I’m… not proud of. Things I would have never seen myself doing. Dishonest. Corrupt.” She spoke slowly, contemplative. Fingers interlaced. “But… I saved a lot of lives. And will use this power to do so in the future. That is my vow.”
Baurus dropped all false pretences, unable to restrain his mounting emotions. The idea that it could have been true - becoming a Daedric Prince - was absurd. His nerves felt frazzled, overcome with a jittery mounting fear that made him feel like a cornered animal. His voice was almost a bark. “Avery, you know this isn’t right. Whatever this is- you have to come to your senses and get rid of it.”
“Get rid of it?” She scoffed. “You know exactly why I have to keep this. You know why - don’t pretend you don’t. I can finally protect everyone. There will never be another Oblivion Crisis ever again!”
“You can’t promise that. You don’t even have your divine powers. And if you do ascend to the status of Daedric Prince- who’s to say you’re not going to be the next one causing it?!” The silence that followed was deafening. Baurus knew she could not come up with a solid retort to that. She knew it to be true, somewhere.
Despite being taken aback. She recovered, breaking into a snarl. “I won’t.”
“You just won’t.” His voice had an edge to it now; his eyes cold. She had to understand. “As if you have a choice in the matter, Avery. You’ve accepted a curse - you said it yourself! A curse even a Daedric Prince succumbed to. How do you expect to overcome it? There’ll be nothing left of you!”
“I don’t care!” She roared. “If that’s the cost, fine! I’m a dead woman walking.”
“Listen to yourself! You don’t want this! After what happened to Martin he wouldn’t have wanted this for you.”
The second spanned for an age. In an intake of breath, her resolve shattered.
“How do you expect me to get rid of it?! As you said! It was tailored to me! I wasn’t the only one- many have tried to mantle a god and failed-”
“Avery-”
“So what? I'm just a pawn again?! Another piece knocked around by fate and Daedric Princes?! Well now I’m a pawn who’s made it to the end of the board! I deserve this! This is all that’s left for me! This or nothing!” Having finished the tirade, all the fight left her. She visibly slumped, eyes downcast to the table. Her posture was rigid apart from the occasional tremor.
Baurus drew his chair back loudly and walked over to her side of the table, tentatively placing a hand on her shoulder. Having little to no response, he heavily telegraphed and drew her into a hug. She silently reciprocated.
“What do I do?” When she finally spoke, her voice was a small, wet rasp. “Tell me. Tell me how to fix this.”
“I- I don’t know. But you’re not alone.”