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A heavy breath left Nerevarin's chest as the door to the Heart Chamber closed behind his back.
The rumble rattled his head; deafening, blinding, and tearing his brain to shreds, almost making him want to jump into the damn lava and end his suffering. To die as the creatures of the corpus died, writhing in agony and squealing like rats; to disappear as disappeared Akulakhan, crumbling like a figurine of dried but unburnt clay, shattered into pieces.
The threat to the world is over, he knew with an emptiness in his thoughts and a heaviness in his chest. The prophecy had been fulfilled, the storms of Blight had ceased; all praised him - Nerevar-Born-Again, the Nerevarine...
And yet, he himself detested the little “in” in the name. Hated, as if it were a bone in his throat.
Disgusting and repulsive, like all the glory, all the bowing and courtesy.
Nerevar wished he could have looked into Sharmat's blank eyes at the Red Mountain and said that he himself was an Imperial spy, an adventurer, or even goddamn Sheogorath himself, out for a stroll in the mortal world. He wanted to say it with honor, with pride - but he couldn't lie. He is Nerevar, an old soul in the body of a wanderer without family or friends.
Nerevar that he remembered Resdayn and the First Council; the war with the Nords, the Dwemers.
And the saddest thing of all: Nerevar had not forgotten the poison on his shoulders and under his ribs. The sad, soft smile of Almalexia, the burning eyes of Vivec - those who had once sworn to him, if not in adoration, not in selfless love - at least in loyalty. As simple as a polished drake.
But apparently, he hadn't earned it.
Hadn't earned it with sweat and blood, hadn't served the cursed earth enough to avoid being stabbed during the most sacred of rituals. It made him laugh - and realize that for the first time he genuinely didn't care about the future of his people. The ones that had readily swallowed the story of House Dagoth's treachery; that had followed the Tribunal like bewitched guars. He didn't care about the old, the young, or the little ones; let them burn in the flames as he did. He didn't care about anything and anybody - except... except for one, perhaps.
One mer who was betrayed by Nerevar himself.
And his name was Voryn. Voryn Dagoth.
To him Indoril Nerevar could not lie - not now, not ever. To him he answered with the bitter, bitter truth, lowering his eyes to the dusty floor. He had gone to the Red Mountain for Voryn, for him to fulfill the cursed prophecy - if not to save Voryn’s life, at least to free his soul and body from the nightmare that had haunted him since the First Era.
It had taken time. Made him run up and down all of Vvanderfell, forced to look into the eyes of a trembling, sweating bullets Vivec, clenching his palm on his cursed Muatra, as if the spear could save him from the cold and contempt of the dead - but it all worked out. The heart fell into the lava along with Akulakhan.
And Dagoth Ur should have fallen too, but Nerevar is weak.
Weak, and now Voryn was here, lying on the wide bed in Indoril's manor, weary as a child after a fever. The sheets had long since crumpled beneath his lean torso, no matter how hard the Nerevar tried to adjust them; the pillow was half-soaked with sweat and ash, though Nerevar managed to wipe most of it away with a slightly damp, cool cloth. Sometimes the fabric of the sheets tore under the strain of Voryn's claws; sometimes there were groans, unintelligible but so, so full of pain.
Voryn wasn't getting much worse, but he was far from waking from the nightmare, either, no matter how much Nerevar tried.
And there was only one way out. Only one, as far as Nerevar knew.
“Don't get your hopes up,” Divayth Fyr snorted, handing over the vial a few days ago, “the Blight of your friend can be a... sticky thing, you know.”
The old bastard had looked up with a chuckle then - yet Nerevar didn't really care if dunmer had guessed who the cure was meant for. Nerevar didn't care, and even more - he had the dagger to the other man's throat since the beginning of this goddamn dialog.
The only movemet were when he slit it down to the first drop of blood - and clutched the black soul gem in the fingers of his free hand.
Divayth Fyr was a swit, no doubt. But he wasn't an idiot, and Nerevar always was very, very good at convincing people.
The medicine in the murky vial, smelling of scathecraw and trama root, had once saved Nerevar himself. Those were wonderful days, when he had a different name, a different past, and a bunch of errands from bastards from all sorts of backgrounds in their rotten society. Kill this one, pull that one out of the mud, kill a dozen rats - but not those two in particular, n'wah, or we'll break your spine....
It's not important right now, though. Just like the crimes they'd once committed didn't matter; the damned prophecies of gods and daedra didn't matter.
Nothing mattered - except the man frowning helplessly on his bed. Shivering like a bitterleaf in the wind; pale and thin.
The man Nerevar refused to let go.
And it was pathethic, really. Nerevar wasn’t even sure how much of the same Voryn had left in that lean body after so many centuries beneath the humming whisper of the Heart... How much of him was in there? Of Voryn, who had loved tart brandy, heather-scented scarlet candles, warmly padded velvet robes, and a host of other things Nerevar could not recall now, not after so many years.
Would he drool from the corner of his mouth for the rest of his days? Would he hate Nerevar, clawing with scarlet claws to the very bones, howling like a beast - Nerevar didn't know, really.
He simply stayed near for as long as he could. Clutched the other man's skinny, gray palm in his fingers; tenderly kissed the sharp knuckles, thinking that it was a foul (and honestly - idiotic) idea to sneakily stab the Sleeper himself with a dagger with paralysis poison on, and then drag him back here, to the manor on Bal Isra. Grunting, wounded; and assuring all the servants, cursed by Azura herself, that the man in his arms, wrapped in a cloak, was just a dear friend who had fallen ill on the road. That there was nothing to worry about, that they could rest and celebrate the end of Blight as long as they liked, and that he could handle his friend on his own.
It sounded even dumber than it looked. Nerevar had known that Azura knew better; had known it was better to kill Dagoth Ur once and for all.
To end this disgusting cycle of playing gods, maybe by killing his beloved wife and the traitor Vivec in the process, as well as gouging out the eyes of that bastard Sotha Sil, who didn't even have the guts to look him in the eyes in his final moments...
It would be best. Would be right.
But, Nerevar is an idiot. He rarely did things the right way.
And, strangely enough, Nerevar couldn't even give himself even one reason, one idea, why everything should work out. Voryn had been under the power of the Heart much longer than Nerevar or any of the wandering Sleepers, who awoke and were mostly back to their normal selfs. It was a true miracle that Voryn hadn't just let out his last breath when Sunder and Keening had decided the fate of the Heart of Lorkhan, and not only that - had survived the removal of the mask from his face; the departure from the cursed Citadel as such.
And yet, what was this tossing about after medicine was fed to him in a kiss, so he woudn’t choke - a mere nightmare? Agony?
Nerevar dared not even speculate. So he did what he could, giving him extracts and potions, trying to feed him in his calmer moments.
And oh, stars, Nerevar looked so pathetic. How was he better than Almalexia, Sotha, and Vivec, who maintained the illusion of a powerful state, a powerful nation? In a similar vein, as he feeds his hopes, fuels his dreams - vain and foolish, simple-minded even.
His sand castles are the same as Ayem's, Sotha Sil's and Vivec's: they will crumble sooner or later.
And with time, Voryn fell silent more and more often, replacing his painful moans with muffled sobs, sparse but hoarse. At such moments, Indoril Nerevar listened to his surroundings: the whisper of the wind and the hum of his servants working outside the window; the crackle of the fireplace, and... he was ready to surrender. To accept his gods-damned fate, to interrupt Dagoth's suffering with the dagger hanging from his belt - that would be better, wouldn't it? It would... bring him peace. Would-
But suddenly, he felt something squeeze his fingers, which had been holding Dagoth's palm all this time. Almost timidly, almost imperceptibly, but Nerevar felt almost an electric shock, and he raised his face in disbelief to find that someone was looking at him. From the bed. His eyes were scarlet, tinged with curse, but oh, oh so familiar.
“Nerevar,” Voryn, his beloved Voryn whispered hoarsely, awakening, "you’re such an idiot.”
His smile was weak as life itself - but Nerevar didn't really care. He shuddered with the emotions overwhelming him, feeling the tigle in corners of his eyes - and kissed Voryn on the palm of his hand, hoping for the first time in a long, long time that everything would be all right.
They had both suffered enough, after all.
They both deserved peace.