Blackwater Islands trickster

and so it began. the listener gathered the most sacred of her ceremonial bones with the care of a mother lifting her children, reverent as she spread them before alduin.

from the nightweaver, the power to master our minds, the prophet whispered, turning the spine so that one end pointed to alduin, and the other to herself. from the stormborn, the courage to know our hearts. to the rib bone, she did the same.

she sat before the bones and closed her eyes. alduin. think of your curse. bring it to the front of your mind. think of nothing else.

already her veins coursed with eldritch berries. the infinite darkness yawned before her, beckoning. red eyes gleamed from the black. with the faint song of the spirits in her ears, the listener reached out.

she had been created for this. this, the peril, the power, the thrill of peering into the void with nothing but the wind at her back. and if she fell into the dark,

she, who was made of light,

then those endless corridors would know her fire forever.


...


when at last her long journey brought her back to the shores of her own vessel, the listener woke from her trance with a gasp and a trembling weakness in her limbs, still seated before the bones. she fell, and rose with distant, misty eyes. the coyote was dead.

alduin, she seemed to see him for the first time. her eyes abruptly turned sharp, haunted. you are the cursed one, and your suffering will end as you take your final breath. you are the sentinel. the watcher of the last gate.

the beast which plagues you; he goes by many names, but none of them are his true name. he is known to me only as the king of demons. the trickster whose final trick will end the world.