Blackfeather Woods | alone |

Fellglow Keep. She knew this place.

The bioluminescence was a sight for sore eyes as Maegi rushed into the cave, collapsing in the ethereal light. She continued to sob, feeling as if the daedra were still on her tail.

No. . . Not the daedra. Them. All of them.

The daedra were nothing; they inhabited the bodies of all who had hurt her, all whom she had hurt. They were meaningless. They caused harm. She knew this now, and yet. . .

Peryite, ñuha āeksio—

Stop.

Maegi paused, puzzled. Peryite's voice rang in her ears, but Peryite had never told her to stop. Was her god displeased that her faith had been so shaken? Her ears flattened in reproach; she hadn't meant. . .she hadn't—

Call them. Call the Night Mother, the Dread Father.

Oh Mephala, mighty weaver of my destiny—

Just like Kove taught you, and she saw the white-furred man in her mind's eye nodding his praise. Something rose from the air, forming out of nothing; they were coming, they were coming, she—

No, Maegi choked out, rising, stepping backward. Her eyes were wide, fixed on what she saw. No, no, please; this can't be—

The daedra are theirs, not yours. You were never meant for their ways.

She burst into tears again, naught but a child, shaking in the cold. Cold. Because she hadn't been warmed as a pup. She'd always been so cold. . .

Mommy, Maegi whimpered, snot running down her muzzle, seeping salty between her lips.

I hate you, replied Mephala, taken Potema's pale form. Sithis, for his part, merely stared, his patchwork pelt and mismatched eyes all too familiar.

Cicero, she pleaded, but they both turned away, turning separate directions. Mephala and Sithis turned and left her, and the part of her heart she'd always reserved for them collapsed upon itself. She felt empty, yearning, unmoored.

She was alone.

Not alone.

ALONE! she shrieked, spinning on her heel to face no one, NO ONE! EVERYONE LEAVES! Her voice echoed within the cavern, bouncing haphazardly off the walls, reverberating in the very core of her. She shrieked for no one to hear,

Because everyone had left, and she was alone. And so lonely.

She was a suckling infant again, writhing in her own filth, squalling for a teat. A teat on the other side of the cave, attached to an opiate-addled woman who found peace in Mephala. Mephala. And Sithis. The gods and icons of those who had scorned her.

Maegi had been a fool to believe in a world that had never wanted her.

There was still something here, perhaps Peryite's presence, but even that had changed. Everything had changed. Her entire sense of self had been stripped away; she lay in the light of Fellglow Keep, moaning, curled into herself. Her face pressed into the dirt like the grub, the filth she was.

Pestilence. Crooked waste. Useless. Fodder. She ought to die beneath the earth where she belonged. With no one to keep her company, no one to remain. This was where it ended; this was where—

Get up, commanded Peryite.

And against her better judgment, against the throes of grief— she did.