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Solstheim isn’t the place I’d have willingly chosen to stick around for all this time, but it is run down enough for my purposes. I can lay low—though as the years drag on, I am more inclined to move my feet than I used to. Not that I couldn’t just leave— glitch out of the world and into some dark spaces between this realm and the next, unknown to most. Wouldn’t that be neat? It has happened before. Part of me wants to, to be sure, but by my path and schedule I am bound for now. That was the agreement, if I wanted to stay—and stay I did. There’s an itch, however, that I can’t explain—a weird nostalgia for places I’d visited long ago or events that have become scant footnotes of history in the lives of people around me these days. Such is the way of things, I suppose, waiting between one entry in the series and the next—and the next and the next. I doubt if that itch will ever leave me.
The town declines as shipments become affected by the Civil War. Patrons—only the townsfolk now—complain of the weather or similar pains after working the ebony mines or their merchant stalls. Tourists are few and far between, and have been for time out of mind. Here in the dusty foyer of the Retching Netch, the paper lanterns burn dim in the ashen darkness. As they sway in the wind of customers entering and exiting this…fine establishment…reflected light skids across polished and lacquered tabletops. I hear the sound of the innkeep pouring sujamma after sujamma, clay vessels clinking together in unseen faux-revelry I am not a part of. Whenever the door opens, chill air and the echo of a forlorn silt strider creep in. Each day is the same, and each day I sit with my back against the wall, face turned toward the front door.
Despite this sad state of affairs, I grin to myself, though nobody can see behind the helmet and goggles I wear at all times, even indoors. It so happens that today, my routine will be shaken up, and I will find myself attached to someone else and maybe make my way off this godsforsaken rock of an island. I felt it somewhere in the back of my mind—a shifting of process, and a rearranging of space and memory to account for something new. Or someone. I see a thousand faces overlaid in the dim lighting before me—there, and at the same time, not. They could be anyone, really. As before, back in Cyrodiil, I will know them when I see them.
Thinking of Cyrodiil feels strange, no matter when the memories come up. There were the watermelons, which I recall fondly, that do not deign to grow anywhere else. But then, I also remember the light and the way it cast everyone’s features in garish shadows, too-straight teeth glinting in the over-bright sun. The Ayleid ruins I once wandered haunt the back of my mind from my time watching the back of someone of greater importance than me. I remember, too, the calmness of the average person, despite the fires of Oblivion burning in the next town over. There was an air of ignorance in the Imperial City that was hard to describe—as if the woes of the world were burdens only for the hero to bear. There was a time I knew exactly what that meant, but those years have long since passed.
I stood by, after all, as Red Mountain blew Vvardenfell to ashen smithereens, and the world as I knew it changed irrevocably. I let myself be forgotten, more or less. And that, I still say, is for the best. It was easier that way. It has been a long time since I’ve had to dodge odd scrutiny and undue hatred. I had saved them all, once. I should not have had to do it a second time—or a third.
My attention snaps back out of the past as the door swings open, hinges creaking and ash filtering in with the flurries of snow. A storm, it seems, is coming in off the ocean, which will make travel rough, if today truly is the day I will be hired again. I frown at the impressions of my past that have crept in unwarranted—each memory a glimpse of a scene filed away to haunt me again later. The new patron will not be able to see my grim expression—not with my scarf in the way. This, too, is for the best. There was a voice that spoke to me after I made my choice to stay. It may have been a God, or something attempting to be. Regardless, the voice said that it does not do to dwell on that which can no longer be overwritten.
Begin a new file, it said. There was, I recall, a version of myself that understood what that meant better than I can comprehend it now. The memory of that time has long since fallen from me. Regardless, I can’t be faulted for repeating that advice to myself as I wait behind the eyes of a carefully designed persona for time to turn and the next story to unfold before me.
I do not speak as the new patron pauses half over the threshold of the Inn, half in the decaying township of Raven Rock. I know it is the person I was waiting for, though I could not say why or how. This one looks disheveled, if I am being honest—almost as if they had barely escaped the battles meant to deter them from getting here too quickly. Their armor is scratched, iron helm and cuirass rusting in places as if there hadn’t been time on the road to keep it in good condition. Dangerous, that. Sometimes a chunk of roughly-shaped iron is all that stands between life and death. I should know.
The new patron is pale—that much I can see, despite how bundled they are in their moth-eaten travel cloak. Tall, too—more than should be legal. A typical Nord, then. I would laugh at how predictable this is, but it’s not my place to draw their attention with sound just yet. They have to make their choice, and I have to wait for them to do so. This, too, has always been part of the deal. Until that time, I may shift in my seat, sip my sujamma, and watch out of the corner of my eye.
The Nord makes their way down the stairs, not even sparing me a second glance. I am used to being a veritable wallflower at this point. I have sat in this inn for years, as it happens, and have spent my time elsewhere longer still. What is a few more minutes?
I hear Geldis—the innkeep—chattering on about the ills that have befallen our poor settlement. The new patron grunts in agreement now and again, but no words seem to leave their mouth. I knew, once, how that used to feel. My conversations would consist of thoughts pre-arranged in neat lines—always short and to the point. There was no nuance. I have more freedom now, and less. It is better—or worse, depending on how you view my situation.
I grin again, and push aside my scarf to drain the last of my sujamma. Moments from now, I know the new patron will speak to me, and our journey will truly begin.
Part of me wonders if I have anything left to teach after all this time. There are wonders of the world I never got to see, and the person behind the persona of this patron might know more than I could even dream by now. I have grown, true, in the time that I have spent here in Tamriel—but to grow here in this place is merely an act of survival. I’ve learned nothing—and everything, though not of that world I, too, once inhabited. I wonder, not for the last time, if I had backed out and overwritten what would later become this caricature of myself—and did not otherwise dive so deeply into the lore of this place—if I still would have grown at all.
It is unlikely. There is a voice in my mind that assures me that this is the case, the same one that speaks in static, shrill beeps and vague parallels to a world I used to know a lot better. One, perhaps, the patron may still recognize. But these things are no longer mine to ponder. Bits fall from my memory until the past from which I came is a jumble of unrecognizable symbols. All I know are the roads I have traveled here in this place, and the paths I must now follow.
And it isn’t half bad, really. Tough, yes, but not bad. I could do worse for myself.
The noise in the tavern below begins to thin out as the townsfolk who do not hold rooms here wander back up the stairs and out the front door. I wait for the metallic clunking of the new patron’s iron armor, but the sound doesn’t come.
A not-insignificant part of me wants to spy below and listen to the conversation the new patron might be having—or not having. I want to observe and understand better what I might be getting myself into, because I know I will not have a choice in the matter. If I leave now, even to move closer, I would alter the world as the new patron knows it forever, and that—well. That has never quite been allowed. Not anymore, anyway.
I shift in my seat, feeling stuck and like time is moving far too fast at the same time. This happens occasionally—days pass in silence, the sun and moons rising and setting in rapid succession. I want nothing more than to press on, to continue, to keep the journey moving forward. That, however, is no longer my responsibility. It is not my place to turn the page. I stay the same. That is my lot. That is what I chose.
I am half-dazed, unsure of how much time has ticked by, when the new patron finally emerges from the darkness below. Or—was it below? The lapse in my memory is blatant, but I can do nothing I can do about it. It wouldn’t be the first time it happened. I return my attention to the Nord who will be my new patron. There is something strange about them—an enchantment glows from somewhere on their person. Their armor has changed to something sinister. I can hear the whispers of Daedric influence, and I choose to ignore them. I still can’t see their face, and still haven’t heard their voice.
I suspect I might not—not for a long time, if at all.
There is, predictably, no conversation as the new patron approaches. They dig around in their pockets for gold. I hear the soft sound of coins clinking and the scrape of metal, like gauntlets against the blade of a knife.
It occurs to me that this could be the end in so many different ways. I could die—it would not be the first time the chosen one of any given story was, in fact, the villain. I could be hired—will be—and die a gruesome death, burnt to a crisp in dragonfire out in the empty, cold tundras of Skyrim proper. We could worm our way into Dwemer ruins, and I could step wrong, trigger a trap, and be gone before I have the chance to exhale.
By accepting this contract, I accept whatever fate the Gods of this place have left for me. I have survived thus far, I suppose. Protection was not part of the deal I made, and I am unsure where my soul will go once this is all over. Back home? Does such a place still exist? I can’t say.
Instead, I grin.
The new patron cannot see it.