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Apotheosis II	By : OneMoreAltmer Category: +A through F > Elder Scrolls - Oblivion Views: 3007 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I didn't create and do not own Elder Scrolls: Oblivion or its characters (except for Tavi, within game format). I make no moneys.

Chapter List
- 10
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Eleven � Cross the Sky

I wandered aimlessly for some days, as I had after the
battle for the Imperial
City.� I was adrift:�
I was, as Lucien would have said, a weapon without a hand to control
it.� No mortal agent remained to guide
me; the Nine were lost to me; Sithis and the Night Mother, useless to me; the
Daedric Lords already my enemies or too awful to contemplate.
All that remained for me was to finally take my grievances
to her who had made me, and see what she would have me do.
I could already hear her chuckling with joy as I fell to my
knees before her statue.� �Tintaviel!� It�s
about time.� I told you, all roads lead
to me.�
�Don�t call me that.�
�Tsk!� Look at the
wreck you�ve turned into.�
I dug my nails into my palms.� �I am what you made me.�
�Don�t blame it all on me.�
My Methusiele was a sweet,
beautiful poison.� My Tintaviel was a
wonder of fire and light.� This mournful little thing is your handiwork.�� She paused, and even in silence I could feel
her smile.� �Still, you must have done
well.� Every power that�s ever rented you
is clamoring to buy.� Do you have a
preference as to which offer I should accept?�
�Does it matter?�
�I am your Mother.� Of
course it matters.�� Another pause as she
regarded my skepticism.� �I see.� I am a Daedric Lord, so I have no love in me,
even for my own creations.� Is that
it?� The Nine and the Lords may be in
different courts, but we are all deities.�
We are all whole.� That is what sets us apart from the lesser
spirits.�
What was the difference between aedra and daedra?� Which piece was missing from us?
�Now, daughter,� she said, �tell me
what you want.�
What a sick game this was.�
�You can�t give me the thing I want.�
The ground itself seemed to shake with the peals of her
laughter.� �Can�t I?� I am one of the great powers!� There is no realm to which my threads do not
extend.� Not only can I, little Tintaviel, but I have already begun.� It�s so easy to get a
rise out of Meridia � she�s never forgiven us for the Ayleids, poor thing.� The rest may be tricky, but we have opened
negotiations.��
��We?�
�He is a clever boy, you know, with friends in both
courts.� He is shaping up into an excellent
diplomat.� It suits the nature of his main
task, as I knew it would.� My
collaborations with the Dragon always come out so splendidly.� First things first, now.� Give me that dagger the Little Mother gave
you.�
My head was spinning.�
�Little Mother?�
�Tsk.� Night
Mother.� She�s little to me, you know.�
I set the Blade of Woe at her feet, and in my mind�s eye I
could almost see Mephala take it up and brandish it, switching it in turn to
each of her four dark hands.� �I sever
the threads that bind you to Sithis, the Night Mother, and the Dark
Brotherhood.� I do not remove the bonds
of our kinship, daughter, and I hope that one day you will be glad for
that.� But I sever any other fealty you
owe me beyond that first job you left unfinished.� You�ll see, that
will work out in your favor anyway.� You
are free enough to seek the patronage of the Nine.� But remember:�
they already have thousands of sheep.�
They�re buying my beautiful
weapon.� Before the end, you will have to
show them how deep you�re willing to cut.�
I could feel something shifting within me, but I rose more
dazed than enlightened.� Mephala knew
more than any seer, and was less prone to speak down to mortal comprehension.
�The map�s still in your bag!� she
called after me.� �Be Mother�s good
pilgrim!�
What in the world � what map?� I stopped to rifle through my things and
found it again, the map the prophet had given me, showing wayshrines of the
Nine.� Showing the path
to their blessing.
I still did not understand what they could do, even if they
embraced me.� I had never heard of the
sort of thing that would have to be possible.�
But it was Mephala�s � it was my Mother�s bidding.� And a longing was awakening in me to be Tavi
again, even though Tavi was loneliness and grief.� She was my better self regardless.
None of the wayshrines were very near me, but I knew that
there were at least two on the Red Ring Road around the outside of the Imperial City, so I headed in that direction.
It was Julianos I reached first, the god of wisdom and the
keeper of law.� I supposed that since I
was something of a lawbreaker, it was right that I apologize to him first of
all.� Actually my arrival there seemed to
summon to mind everything I had done for Lucien, and I stood in horror for a
moment, struck all at once by the enormity of my task.
I imagined I could hear Mephala laughing again in the back
of my head.� Yes, yes.� All that ridiculous guilt
I have no use for � they adore that.�
Give it to them.� Make it your
offering.
When I knelt by the simple stones, I could not think of what
to say:� but all the same, I felt a
trickle of energy, a recognition of my presence.� It was much more subtle than what came from
the shrine of a Daedric Lord, but then again, I imagined that I was much more
attuned to daedric energies and thus more capable of feeling them.
I continued around the Red Road to a shrine for Dibella, the
goddess of beauty whose chapel had been defaced in Anvil.� Another light touch, a
little sparkle.
I was nearing the shrine for Zenithar, the workers� god,
when I encountered a knight and his squire.�
The knight could not be bothered with me � I was not wearing any of my
various insignia of importance, and so fell beneath his notice � but the squire
told me that this was Sir Roderic, a war hero, making the pilgrimage to prove
his worth to champion the Nine and avenge the insult against Anvil�s
chapel.�
He seemed very confident, even smug � one of those who had
�failed� at humility, I supposed.� I
wished them luck.
After Zenithar�s little glimmer of
interest I moved on to Stendarr, the merciful one.� The one I had scoffed at while performing my
one bogus murder in Chorrol.�
Appropriately enough, he appeared to forgive me.� That actually began to cheer me a little,
though it did not quite remove the burden.
I was becoming accustomed to sleeping outside, since I had
stopped bothering to look for inns along the way.� All the time away from the cities did seem to
be making me feel cleaner, less oppressed by all the violence of the previous
months.
Kynareth, the goddess of nature, came next, and then Arkay,
who among the Nine was the lord of the dead and the enemy of necromancy.� I expected awkwardness because of the former
but felt, hoped, that we bonded somewhat because of the latter.
Akatosh. �Auri-El.� It was hard to kneel before him at the little
shrine east of Skingrad.� I was still not
sure I forgave him, even if he was beautiful and the creator and protector of
the world.
But he was the first one who spoke to me, faintly.� The voice did not physically ring out of the
stone as it did for the Daedric Lords:�
it was more subtle, a whisper in the back of the mind.� I
accept you back into my service:� now you
may complete the task your mother and I first set for you.� But there will be another of my shrines to
visit before your circuit is complete.�
I told myself I didn�t know what that meant, and rode on.
Talos felt the most distant.�
Perhaps he had not quite forgiven me for abandoning the Blades.� Well, so be it:� I�d had cause enough.� But I whispered apologies to Jauffre and
Baurus.
Last was Mara, the goddess of love.� From her I felt a more obvious touch, a wave
of her satisfaction with me.� You come with the reason that pleases me
best.� Your reward waits at the Temple of the One.
But I had not the time to recover from that mortifying
statement before I felt my awareness wrenched from my body and whirled up into
the air.� Before me
stood the ghost of a man taller than I was, and completely obscured by armor.
�I awake!� he cried.�
�Does Umaril stir?� Does the demon
walk again?�
Pelinal.� I remembered with sudden, sickening detail
the image of his mace swinging toward me.�
Pelinal.
When I did not answer, he paused.� �You?� But you are � �
I snapped so as not to recoil.� �I am what?�
Altmeri?�
A murderer?�
Whatever irony you think you see, believe that I have already seen it.�
�Methusiele.�
I curdled inside at the name I was doing pilgrimage to erase.� �I am here in penance to Auri-El.� Do with that as you will, Whitestrake.�
�No, no.� �Was this
rippling how a ghost expressed discomfort?�
�I cannot judge those who do penance, and certainly I cannot judge you. �Not after Alessia fasted for weeks to win me
back the gods� favor after I killed you.�
I did not know any deal had been struck between Akatosh and Mephala for
our aid.� You were just another Ayleid to
me when I found you.�� He bowed his head
a little.� �I acknowledge the debt.�
Too many strange, awful things said to me in a row.� �There is no such thing as a debt to me.�
He ignored this.�
�Umaril is the servant of Meridia,� he said.� �She stands in a unique place between the
aedric and daedric realms, and holds some sway over both powers.� She has given this blessing to Umaril, and he
is renewed by her.� That is why he has
been able to return.� You must find the relics we had from the
Eight � �
�The Eight?�
He waved a hand impatiently.�
�Talos had not yet ascended.� Find
the relics we were given to fight him in our era, and they will give you a
chance of defeating him in yours.� I
cannot say where they all are:� it has
been too long, and they have been moved too many times.�� He paused.�
�The Helm may still be in Vanua.�
Begin there.�

Vanua � that was an Ayleid name.� I
thought I�d heard of it.� Not too far
from the Imperial
City.
Not too far from the Temple
of the One, where I�d been charged to go first.�
What had I allowed Mephala to do to me?
�Fight him with all your might!� he called as I began to
sink back to earth.� �He is an enemy to
men and the gods!�
I was back in my body with two tasks before me, one fairly
comfortable and one twisting my insides miserably.� Which to do first?
Tintaviel! Mara�s
voice chimed in my head.� There is no stain left on you.� You are high in Auri-El�s favor:� it shines out of you like moonlight.
A merciless choice of words on her part.� That settled it, then.
I walked toward
the Imperial City.�
For the first day I brought Shadowmere alongside me.� On the second day, I tried to free her,
deciding it was odd to keep her in my service if I was now supposed to be clean
and holy.� She followed me, and I gave up
trying to send her away.
I started shaking at Weye, and had to stop and stare out
over the water for a while before I could proceed.� I could feel that waiting energy already, the one I had always been convinced was my
own grief.� Even knowing all that I did
about shrines, about what the Amulet had been and the Temple therefore must have become.� I had always been a bit stupid when it came
to him.
I walked down the road into Talos Plaza
to its intersection with the ring road, my eyes cast down to my feet.� Then, for the first time in what seemed like
forever, I turned onto the ring, to the right.�
Toward the Temple District.
It felt as if the energy of the whole town shifted.� Lightened, and urged me forward like the flow
of a river.� The whisper came in my head,
and I was amazed.� When I wasn�t fighting
against it, it was so obvious that the voice was not mine.
Thank the gods, it
said.
Hmph.� The
gods thank themselves, then? I thought.
I do.� It is hard to lose the habit.
I made the approach to the Temple with eyes downcast.� Jeelius saw me coming � there, not quite
everyone I had ever known was dead, after all � and approached with warm
welcomes�then quickly saw my mood and fell silent.� He bowed his head and gestured my way back
into the sacred space.
They had not rebuilt the dome:� the shrine remained out in the open air.� I looked at the pretty mosaic they had done
on the floor, the flowers that had been brought in offering.� I looked everywhere else I could think of,
except upward.� I was shaking again.
Here his voice was clearer, louder, although still not quite
the physical sound that came from the shrines of the Daedric Lords.
You stayed away so
long.� I called, and you would not come.
I fought the sting in my eyes, clenched my fists.� �I was angry.�� Let them hear me talking to empty air.� Let it be said that the Arch-Mage had gone
mad.� I didn�t care anymore.� �I was hurt.�
To save the world, you abandoned me.�
What else could I have
done?� You were part of the world.
The trembling came into my voice as I spoke, and I rubbed at
my eyes and forehead in a vain effort to calm myself.� �Have you seen which part of the world I am?� Do you know what stands in your Temple?� All the times I thought you � everything I � �� I went silent, no
longer able to summon either the words or the ability to speak without sobbing.
His voice was sad, but quite clear.� It
doesn�t matter.� You are here now.� You never changed my mind, Tavi.
I fell at the feet of the Dragon and started to cry.� I thought I might never stop crying.� I felt the warmth of his blessing enfold me,
so much more intense and immediate than the others, and I wept the harder to
feel his love and not his touch.� I laid
my head against a marble pillar, pretending it to be his shoulder.
�Damn you, Martin.�
You promised you would think of something.�
The power wrapped around me so thick then, like an attempt
at an embrace.� I have.
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Apotheosis II