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Two exhausted people stood amidst the fresh carnage of battle. The remains of the siege engine towered above them both.
Martin fought off flashbacks of the destruction of his home. Kaia fought waves of sickness as the adrenaline of her mad dash through Oblivion faded and she finally accepted she’d got the sigil stone.
Martin spoke with no emotion, only urgency. He reminded her of their purpose. Told her he would be ready with the ritual as soon as they were back at Cloud Ruler.
Kaia looked at the corpses that surrounded them. Enemies and strangers and friends mingled their blood in the dirt at their feet. Baurus and Jauffre were gone. Lost. Dead.
Those who had survived the battle had retreated back to Bruma in search of warmth and comfort and the safety that city walls could offer.
Martin was already walking away. Heading for Cloud Ruler. What else could she do but follow? There was nothing for her in the remnants of battle. Time to process was not a luxury they were allowed anymore.
She jogged to catch up, falling in step alongside her friend. They were silent. There was nothing to say. Nothing that could be said in the time they had.
Their own needs were not important.
It was only this goal. The next step that would take them towards saving the world.
Let their grief pile up. Let their wounds go unhealed. Let them build up enough trauma to ruin their entire lives. It did not matter. They did not matter.
They had to do this.
There was no other choice.
And so they walked through the night, clambering towards Cloud Ruler as dawn began to take the world. It would have been beautiful if there had been room for beauty.
They entered the hall. No one was in there. No one to join them, to help them, to support them.
Just two people and the echoing heritage of those walls.
Kaia placed Baurus’ sword and the folded monk robes that had been Jauffre’s on a side table. Her own personal shrine to the dead. She did not know that they would not be moved from where she placed them for decades. That they would be tended and honoured on just that table.
She did not care.
There was an alien sound behind her and the hall was filled with red light.
Martin had deployed the sigil stone.
She closed her eyes, took a shaky breath, and placed a hand on Baurus’ sword.
She could do this. She would do this. She had to.
For everything that had been lost. That was left to be saved.
She turned around.
Martin met her eyes.
A horrible truth hit her. There was not time for it.
How could she tell him? Now at the end of all things.
He told her he was ready when she was.
She wasn’t ready. No one ever could be.
She stood alone with him in that hall. In that dawn. In that truth. The truth that she could have fallen in love with him if she’d had the chance. If the end of the world hadn’t got in the way.
There was no chance to tell him. Because emotions weren’t allowed in what they had to do now. They didn’t have the time for them.
But she learnt in that hall, in that moment, in that dawn what it felt like to see a whole life you would never get to live standing right before you.
She learnt what it was to be destroyed in every aspect of yourself.
The way she grazed her lips over his before she stepped towards the portal.
The way his eyes had been the last thing she chose to see before the fire of the gate to Paradise had consumed her. His gaze locked with hers, watching her go with the sickness of a man on the brink of sacrificing everything.
The way his were the arms that caught her as she staggered out of fire, spattered in Cameron’s blood and clutching the amulet she had once taken from his father’s still-warm corpse. The way he murmured the softest, tenderest, most loving words she’d ever heard in her cursed, damned existence in her ear when she did, even as what remained of the Blades knelt around her and cried out their exaltations.
The way she had held his hand tight all the way to the Imperial Palace. The hours it took. The seemingly endless walking. She didn’t let go even when they were threatened by bears and lions and bandits. She had learned enough to handle such threats single-handed, and to cling onto the person she held so dear. He was warm and strong and close and she absorbed every second with a hunger she had never known.
It was the way she had fought with no thought at all but to protect him on the way from the palace to the temple.
The way the heat in the air didn’t scorch her lungs anywhere near as much as the breath she had taken when he looked her in the eyes and told her he needed her help. That he needed her, and only her.
That this was it. The end of everything. And despite the battle raging all around them, it felt like it was just the two of them. Like the daedra she sliced a path through were nothing more than a concept. An idea. A personification of the fight for understanding they had both been trapped in since they were born.
And still she clutched his hand like a lifeline.
Yes, she learnt that day what it was to be destroyed.
It was the way she had ended it all standing alone.
Where else was she supposed to go?
When it had all been taken away. When the wounds were so fresh that she couldn’t even feel them yet.
When everyone had finished asking her questions and then walked away.
Walked away.
Leaving her there.
Alone.
On the steps of the temple.
In the shadow of stone. Of the remains of the avatar of Akatosh. Of Martin. Of what had become of all she had left.
Almost.
There was one thing she did not know for certain had been taken from her.
The need to check became all consuming.
Her feet took her there on instinct. She walked streets she had only ever seen as beautiful patchworks of life. Now they ran with blood. Stank of fear. The air was heavy with unfathomable horror and grief.
The Arcane University looked untouched by the battle that had raged across the city.
Later, when she was deemed stable enough to hear of such things, she would learn how far from the truth that was. How the battle had raged here as much as anywhere. How those inside had learned what their skills looked like when really put to use. How the daedra had learned the wrath of Cyrodiil’s greatest magic scholars.
But not now. Not when the taste of blood was still rancid on her tongue and the grime of death was still rough against her wounds.
She didn’t so much find Raminus as he was found for her. She had hardly been aware of his name being dragged from her throat, but it seemed it was the only word she was capable of until she knew he was alive. Until she knew she had not lost him too.
She stood on the terrace, eyes desperately scanning around all of the doors arrayed below her, still calling his name as she looked at all the familiar faces she could not yet put names to. She was frantic, half-insane with desperation.
“Kaia!”
She followed the voice, spinning around to find him standing behind her. He looked exactly as he always did. No blood covered him, no burn marks on his clothes, no half-healed wounds. He looked like Raminus.
Right down to the worried expression on his face.
Perhaps that was why he’d been the only person in the world she had thought to find. Because he was the only one who ever seemed to give a shit about her.
Even Martin had never looked at her with worry. Only relief and need.
Martin…
And as she stood there, looking into the face of the one person she had left who she actually cared about, everything hit her. And the champion broke down.
She hit the stones before anyone had realised she was falling. All air gone from her lungs. Breathing became the hardest thing she had done all day.
It wasn’t agony. The word didn’t come close to what was happening.
Bu his hands were on her shoulders. Holding her tight. Keeping her grounded.
His scent was familiar – incense and earth and the slight-scorch of magic – but there was something else in there too. The sweat and heaviness of battle and fear. The combination was grounding for her. The understanding that he knew how close the world had come to devastation and yet here he was, sturdy and unchanged.
It gave her enough presence to clasp him back. To cling to this one person who seemed to give a damn about her as a person rather than a hero.
Raminus didn’t understand what had happened. Generally, in the world, yes. But also to Kaia. She’d clearly been through horrors, but it was not yet his place to say what those horrors had been, or why he was the person she had come to. The person in who’s arms she had broken down.
Maybe he did understand that bit. Many members of the guild had no family outside of their guildmates, it was no surprise if she was the same. And he couldn’t deny the affection that had been growing between them.
Whatever the answers to his questions were, he did not resent his friend as he helped her to the guild living quarters, peeled back broken armour, gently wiped the grime and blood from her skin, and helped her into soft clothes. He didn’t think twice about caring for her in what was clearly her hour of need. He soothed her hair as she lay in the same bed she always chose and finally closed her eyes for sleep.
She stayed at the university after that. She’d had enough of the world she’d fought to save. At least for a while.
She stayed there and settled, becoming a part of the furniture. She was no one special here, just another guildmember who spent their days in study. She learnt much, focussed on magic types she’d never focussed on before: restoration, alteration, illusion. Ways to create and shift, to be gentle and creative with the world. No more destruction. No more death. Not yet.
When she wasn’t studying she was with him. Sitting in the lobby and watching the comings and goings, talking to him of what she’d learned.
The more books she read and the more spells she learned the more the shadows lifted from her. The more she talked the more light returned to her face.
Somewhere along the way he realised.
Sure, everyone was traumatised. They all jumped at strange sounds. They all woke up and thought for a terrible moment that they’d dreamt this peace, that the world was still in crisis. They all knew fear.
But not like this.
Not the way she couldn’t sit too close to the fire. Like the heat reminded her of something else. Somewhere else.
The way she walked the streets in a pattern, following paths she’d taken through a battle she wasn’t fighting anymore. Dodging gates that were gone, leading a man who was gone too. Or rather not gone. There. Right there where he couldn’t be avoided.
She walked with her eyes down. In someone as vibrant and as strong and alive as she was – or had been, before all of this – it seemed completely wrong. Until he realised that everyone else was looking up. That everyone had a new habit of looking to the massive stone dragon who watched over the city as a protector.
While their actual protector couldn’t bear to look at it. At him.
At the friend she had lost.
It was obvious really. Who else could she be?
He sent her to Vahtacen. She’d been hiding herself in the city that he now knew had been the site of her greatest tragedy, and it simply wouldn’t do. If she was going to spend her days studying then that was her right, but she deserved a chance to put those studies to work. A taste of magic used for good and curiosity. Vahtacen could be that. A visit to a ruin that was safe, that didn’t have the weight of the world resting on her success.
A chance to head back into the world while still wearing her new guild persona. To see some of the lives she had saved.
She came back with a smile on her face, tripping over herself to tell him what she’d done. To talk about the puzzles, the translations, the discoveries. How beautiful she was when she was full of life like this. How blessed he was to be the witness to her smile. To be its target.
“And the world is so beautiful these day, Raminus,” she was still talking. They’d left the university; he’d taken her out to The King and Queen for a celebratory drink after her great success. “I hadn’t been out in so long, but the world is beautiful without the gates. So many times I would see something and just stop walking and stare.”
“Wait a minute… You walked?”
She tilted her head slightly, not sure why that was what he’d picked up on.
“Of course.”
“You travelled all that way on foot?!” He could hardly comprehend it. Not just the distance, but the speed with which she had covered it. He knew how dangerous travel could be, and to think of her facing bandits and bears and spriggans on foot… It pained him.
“It’s alright. I always travel that way.”
“If you need a horse, my friend, I’m certain arrangements could be made for you to be provided with one.”
She shook her head.
“I never take a horse. I couldn’t bear to take another living being into the dangers that I face.”
It was in that moment and no other that Raminus fell in love with her. At that simple statement which meant so much, spoke so truly to her character. He fell hard and completely.
It was also in that moment that his heart broke. What did she mean? Did her statement extend only to innocent beasts, or was it also companions? To life as a whole?
“So you walk your paths alone?” It was the best question he could muster in the face of all the ones he would much rather have asked.
She shrugged. How casually she spoke of truths which left his mouth dry.
“Not always by choice. The world finds ways to make it so.”
Gods... Raminus could hardly finish the thought that followed that.
He reached his hand across the table to take hers. To hold it gently, softly, with care.
“I should like it if we could walk some paths together. You need not be alone anymore.”
She blinked at him, mouth half-open and unsure of what to say. At length she turned it to a smile.
“I would like to travel the trails with you one day, Raminus.”
Yes, he loved her. It was no great surprise, it simply made sense.
“Even though I am just a stuffy scholar who will likely fall on every root?”
“Especially because of that.”
They had been beautiful words and earnestly meant. But ultimately they could not be acted upon. They returned to the university, slightly giddy from their drinks and their conversation, and Raminus found a note. Something important. A reminder of the darkness they still faced.
He didn’t want to send her. But someone must go.
She offered before he could ask. She was gone by morning.
The hole she left was larger than he had expected it to be.
And with that, the days of gentleness and healing were over. When she returned she was no longer his charge to direct, she was called by Traven and that was not a thing to be ignored or delayed. He had purpose for her.
She had new purpose for herself, as well. Life had placed another unlikely twist in her path. A castle. A siege she had broken without even noticing. A rundown, broken, empty space with little inside but bare furniture, ghosts, and listless people who had long been without security or comfort.
She was almost running everywhere. When Traven did not need her she was off to Battlehorn, seeing what she could do to rebuild. She told him of it in the rare moments that she allowed herself to stop with him. It sounded incredible, but she spoke of it with little joy. There was some pride, but little else. It was simply another task.
There was seemingly no end to the claims the world would put on her time.
Raminus, on the other hand, found himself without point or direction anymore. His duties were the same as they had ever been but now they seemed not enough. His life was less full than it had been.
Why had he only started to love her right as she was taken away? Only started to look for her in everything when she went from a constant presence to a fleeting visitor. When she was more often a flash of colour going out of the door than she was a solid, tangible friend.
He caught her one day, materialising from the portal to the council chambers and already marching off.
“Leaving again so soon?”
She never seemed to linger anymore. To sit with him and watch the world go by. Did she miss it as much as him?
“Traven says the council needs to consider the information I brought back, so I reckon I have some time. I need to check in with Battlehorn.”
“Do you enjoy being lord of a castle now?”
“Not really,” there was no emotion in her face, only exhaustion and a tightness that spoke of someone holding onto too much. She was only half facing him, still turned somewhat towards the door.
“Then, and forgive my forwardness, why must you go? You have a bed here, food and resources are plentiful. Why not stay while Traven and the council considers?”
She was shaking her head before he even finished.
“I cannot, Raminus. I have recently managed to finance upgrades to the barracks and dining areas, and I must make sure they have been installed correctly, and see what is most needed next.”
The castle had not been hers long, but she had taken its acquisition seriously. She was deeply committed to what she must do, and that was admirable. She wanted to help and to do something to be proud of. It was further fuel to the love in his heart.
But he could see the dark circles beneath her eyes The vitality he had worked so hard to gently coax back into her was draining fast. Slipping away like water through his fingers. As was she, he feared.
“But…” he felt helpless in his desires to look after her, “must you go so immediately? I’m sure your people will be alright another day or two.”
“You don’t understand, Raminus. I am their lord. I must be with them.”
“But it drains you, my dear. Perhaps this is not meant for you. Perhaps you should give up the castle.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because they rely on me!” She snapped at him and it felt like an injured animal lashing out. Raminus did not flinch. He could never be scared of her.
“What?”
“I can’t just say ‘no thank you’ and walk away because I’m their lord now, and they’re real people who deserve to be cared for rather than abandoned. So they rely on me. Because apparently I’m so fucking reliable.” She spat it with bitterness and venom. Her own reliability finally exposed as the curse it often felt.
He stopped. First because he wasn’t prepared for such venom from her, and then because it hit him. He’d told her that. He’d told her she was the only one he trusted with certain matters, the only one he relied on.
He’d planned on helping her. He’d sent her to Skingrad to talk to someone she already knew, to Vahtacen to taste the excitement of magic. And then he’d… forgotten. He’d sent her stalking necromancers across the inhospitable mountainside.
Then he’d lost her. Poached by the Arch Mage for his own purposes. Traven had taken over giving her missions, and from what he heard they were a step beyond what she’d been doing for him. Difficult, yes, but also horrible.
He had watched her come and go. Had seen her come back from wherever the arch-mage had sent her, covered in grime and blood and horrors, and then he’d watched her leave again mere hours later. Cleaned, mended, and off to do more. It seemed there was always more for her to do. More fighting, more killing, more stalking. More more more.
All she wanted was to help. Was it her fault she was so good at it?
Traven didn’t understand. Surely he didn’t. Otherwise he would have made different choices, softer choices. That was what Raminus had to tell himself, because otherwise he was left without the ability to reconcile the man he had so respected with his actions. To excuse the selfishness with which his leader had used Kaia’s abilities. The callousness with which he killed himself in front of her.
Had she not seen enough death?
His final sacrifice was almost rendered inconsequential in Raminus’ eyes when he saw the new ghosts that danced in Kaia’s.
She came back victorious because that was what she did. He understood now. Finally understood. She went out on missions to save everyone else from darkness, and in doing so she would leave a part of herself behind in it.
That was why she never spoke of a family or friends. Why Raminus had been the only person she could think to go to after the world was saved and hers was destroyed.
It was why she never rode a horse.
There was always a price for her victory.
And now he was left with the broken pieces of a woman he was in love with and the awful task of teaching her how to be the arch mage.
A broken leader for a broken guild.
She took to her leadership like she did everything: without hesitation or mistake and without any hope of joy for herself.
She upheld Traven’s necromancy stance.
Her official stance was that necromancers had proven in recent weeks exactly why their practice had been banned, and that perhaps one day the respectful researching of necromancy could be picked up within controlled parameters but that the guild needed to heal first. And even then she made no guarantees. This had been a dark time for the guild and she had no intention of filling the coming days with anything but light.
It was not that she did not believe what she said, but in private she confessed to Raminus another reason.
“It would seem highly inappropriate to revoke the cause Traven gave his life for, especially when I am only in this position because of that sacrifice.”
“Others would not be so sensitive.”
“Others are not in my position. These are my choices to make now.”
“And you know you have my support in its entirety.”
Her eyes flashed like they did when she was remembering one of those things he knew he wasn’t supposed to ask about. Like his words had awoken a memory.
“Please, my friend. I need your judgement not your obedience.” She smiled a secret smile but he could see the way she swallowed greater feelings. He left her for a moment, letting her sit in private memory. Letting the past seep in that she might have a moment to relive the words of whomever she had lost.
She was a wonderful arch mage. Kind, considered, level-headed intelligent. She was young, too, and completely new to this life. She was an outsider, raised in a different world with no thought to becoming their leader until it had already happened without her consent.
It was impossible for minds like Raminus’ not to see the parallels between Kaia and the emperor she had nearly brought to the throne. How alike they must have been.
Raminus should have been happy. This was exactly what he had wanted. Kaia was back living at the university, splitting herself into longer stretches there and breaks away at her other responsibility of Battlehorn, now fixed up and glorious once more. He was her closest advisor, and possibly her only friend. They spent much time together, both in business and in companionship.
But he couldn’t quite ignore the feeling that this was a life that had been forced on her. The thought that perhaps she wasn’t happy. Didn’t want this.
He felt powerless. Only she was ever able to make him feel that, and she did it often and unknowingly. He wanted to help her, to save her, but this was his guild and in many ways his family. It needed a leader and that leader was Kaia. He did not know how to save both.
“It feels as though I am running away again, Raminus.” She stared out of the window of her quarters. Raminus instantly forgot the list of matters he was supposed to bring to her attention.
“I do not follow, my dear.”
“I don’t blame you. It is a specific pattern I have only recently recognised in myself. I took on Battlehorn before I was even done saving the guild, and I came to the guild before I was done driving back Oblivion. I’ve done it all my life. Pre-empting my next step so that I never truly need to stop. I fling myself into new commitments and people to save rather than process my grief.”
“Who are you grieving?”
It was, perhaps, a foolish question, but really there were too many answers for him to even begin narrowing down what else he was supposed to say. Her response still caught him off guard.
“Not who. I am far too experienced in loss these days for that. I am sure one day I will be forced to sit down and remember all the people who should still be by my side. No this is... something more. Something intangible. Some part of me I have stashed deep inside and daren’t come face to face with.”
The person before him looked empty. Burned out.
He could not have stopped himself from hugging her if he had tried. From wrapping her in his scent and his softness.
“Who am I, Raminus? I think I have lost her.”
She felt so small in his arms and looked so lost as she tilted her head up to stare at him. To wait for a reply that was far too complicated to give.
Luckily for Kaia, she had asked the one person who had an answer.
He kissed her forehead gently, ran a thumb over her cheek, and then pulled his head back to look her in the eyes once more.
“You refuse to take a horse. That is who you are.”
Her brows furrowed. “What?”
“You place life higher than anyone else I have ever met. You protect innocence and beauty. Never before has this world seen someone so in love with it. You are soft and gentle and tender and loving. You think you are a warrior because you do not remember what it is like not to fight, but you fight because you see so much to protect. You are not a warrior, my darling. You are not a hero or a champion. You are the very soul of this world.”
Still she stared at him, but now in something like wonder.
“That is how you see me?”
“It is. And I hope, in time, we can work on making you feel safe enough to see it for yourself.”
We.
A promise of a future. Of permanence in something. Of growing and changing without needing to leave.
Perhaps that was the moment she fell in love with him. Perhaps it was long before that. But right then, listening to him say truths about her soul that she had been trying so hard to keep safe, to stop from breaking, she knew that he saw her in a way no one had before. Not even Martin. He had never been given the chance. If only they’d had time, then perhaps Martin could have seen this in her too.
But that was where Raminus stood out. He was still here. He had time to get to know her because he hadn’t been taken away. Had refused to let her pull away.
He was right here, and he had taken the time – time he had been granted by a world she had saved –to look into her soul and find it beautiful.
Raminus was determined to fix things, to make them better. Easier. As they should be. But he was faced with one constant problem. Kaia was split in two, torn between the two things she ruled and had grown to love.
What was she supposed to do with a whole castle? She was just one person. It had its residents, yes, but even then Battlehorn still felt empty. And now that the necromancer was gone the grotto beneath sat empty and wasted.
But she wouldn’t leave it. This was her castle, they were her people. She cared for them, she helped them, it was what she was built to do. But she cared for her mages, too. She helped them with her kind and graceful leadership. She brought healing and stability to the guild with Raminus at her side. He guided her with grace and wisdom, with hands that wished they could take all of the weight she carried. He couldn’t do that, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do everything else. He could tend her and help her and soothe her.
His studies became his second priority. She was his first, almost his only.
He refused to let her be split in two, to spread herself so thinly between these two responsibilities which she truly adored.
So he made a suggestion.
“What do you mean move the guild? This is the arcane university, there is nowhere better suited.” Kaia seemed genuinely perplexed by his idea, but he wasn’t finished.
“Of course, and I do not suggest we do away with the university entirely. But you cannot deny things are feeling a bit… crowded here. For goodness’ sake, we sleep in shifts in the dormitories! I propose we move our base, relocate the hub of the guild, at least partially, to somewhere with more space and fresh opportunity.”
“I still think you’re mad, but I’ll indulge you. Where do you have in mind.”
“Battlehorn.”
She froze. Her incredulity was gone in a breath. She suddenly saw how impossibly possible it might be. How perfect and safe.
She saw what it might be to have a home. One home. Where she could spend the majority of her time.
“The older members of the guild would never agree…” looking for reasons this wouldn’t work was an instinct.
“They can stay here. Battlehorn can be for those ready to question tradition. A new home for a new generation of the guild. Somewhere you don’t need to be in the shadow of how previous arch-mages have done things.”
She trembled slightly, sitting in the possibility of it. Positivity wasn’t always easy for her. Or hope.
He stopped that thought there and corrected it. Because he realised he was wrong. She must be filled with hope.
But not hope as he knew it. Not hope as a glistening, beautiful beacon of what could be. Hope as potential and aspiration.
Her kind of hope must surely be something different. Something grittier, stronger. Covered in callouses from the knocks it had taken, scars from the wars it had been through. Kaia’s hope was a promise spat through gritted teeth and bloody mouth. Something you clung onto out of desperation and fight.
How else could she have made it through all she had? Why else?
So no, he was wrong, she wasn’t a stranger to hope. If anything, she was probably one of the few people alive who knew what it truly meant.
But goodness? Softness and gentleness? Joy?
No. It was clear that these were not things she knew well. So he would teach her.
If she would let him.
She’d been quiet while he was having these thoughts, stuck in some of her own. In the end she could only think of one thing to say.
“Let’s try.”
There was pushback, of course. Even those members of the university who were ready to break tradition hadn’t felt ready for that.
But Raminus and Kaia explained the plan together. Gently, slowly, with sense and intelligence. They answered questions and let it sit.
The questions eventually became ideas. Suggestions. Additions.
And Battlehorn went from castle to university.
It was a long process. Battlehorn needed a lot of changes to make it suitable, but it was nothing impossible. In fact the more they did the more they realised how possible it really was.
It wasn’t a completely smooth path, but it was one which made sense. After a time people could hardly believe it had taken this long for the idea to come up.
The grotto was a perfect training centre, atmospheric and echoing history and so ready to be filled with magic of a good kind. The trophy hall was lined with bookcases; chairs, sofas, and desks placed among the statues. The courtyard was planted up with herbs and flowers and vegetables. The wine cellar found a new dual purpose. Talan could still make his wines, but now he worked alongside some of the greatest potioneers in the empire and he discovered a new passion. The dining hall was bustling with people, and extra help was needed in the kitchens. And, now that the trophy hall was full of trophies, it seemed there was little use for a taxidermist, but Melisi enjoyed precise work with her hands and nowhere is that more essential than in making staffs. She took a little convincing, but at length she let the guild into her workspace and slowly they began to work together, to see what else they could breathe new purpose into.
Kaia’s quarters she kept for herself. Her own retreat, somewhere to go and not need to have any responsibilities. She never even considered not letting Raminus in. She didn’t even have Rona assign him a bed anywhere else in the castle. He was hers as she was his. She wasn’t letting him go.
The castle settled into something new. The guild did the same. The future looked promising and bright.
Somewhere in the process, Kaia found that part of herself she had been so afraid of coming face-to-face with.
It wasn’t her pain or her anger or any of the countless ugly and violent things she was afraid to set loose. Those had all seen light in battles and dungeons and Oblivion.
It was her softness.
Something so delicate and loving that she dared not let it out while the world was trying to kill it. She had hidden it inside, keeping it safe until the day when at last she had to admit the worst was over. When she felt safe that it would not be crushed.
At Battlehorn it grew to surpass any of those other things. Her worlds were combined now, her halves growing back together, her hard internal armour being replaced with moss and dirt and flowers. She began to see life with a grace that had never been possible before. Her practicality could be used in collaboration with her softness.
She did not need another crisis to solve. Another people to save.
She had all of these people here. Her guildmates and her Battlehorn residents and Cyrodiil more widely.
She had saved them, now she could nurture them.
Nurture herself.
Raminus bought her a horse.