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Marie was cranky and tired and caked in dried blood, which was becoming wet again as it had begun to rain. The Mournhold Ordinators circled her, each with a wary posture that betrayed the fear their helmets masked. It had been but a week since she had killed Dagoth Ur and destroyed the heart. No sooner had she returned to the Redoran compound in Ald Ruhn afterwards, than she was attacked by 3 men in black armor. When she learned they were Dark Brotherhood, she tracked them to Morrowind’s capitol.
Now the rain was washing off the blood those assassins had left painted upon her armor, and Almalexia’s personal guard had her surrounded. The moment she set foot in Mournhold the people began whispering in awe. Her defeat of the madman in the volcano had already become popular news, and much to her chagrin, everyone knew who she was.
“We would prefer you come with us quietly Neverarine,” one of the Ordinators said nervously, from behind his helmet, those creepy replicas of the face Marie had worn in another life centuries ago.
“How strange to be given orders by my own face,” she replied. “I’ve no quarrels with you. I came only to find and kill the Dark Brotherhood. Leave me to my business and I will be gone from your city by morning.”
“Would that I could my lady,” the leader answered, “but I am afraid your presence has been commanded by Almalexia herself. She deigns to meet the pretender who claims her late husband’s legacy.”
“I claim nothing,” Marie spat. “All of this was Azura’s doing. I had no say in it, and now that I’ve killed the madman and shattered the heart as she asked, I want no more part in it. You can tell your false Goddess she has nothing to fear from me and I just want to be left alone.”
“I’m afraid I must insist,” the Ordinator replied.
Marie weighed her options. She was still decades away from realizing the godly power she now held after shattering Lorkhan's heart. So far as she knew at this point, she was still quite mortal and thus presumably very killable. She was cold, wet, filthy and exhausted. She hadn’t slept in days. And most importantly, she was outnumbered 30 to 1.
“Very well,” she sighed. “I don’t suppose I may find someplace to clean up first?”
“Our noble Goddess cares little for the state you are in,” the Ordinator said. “She simply wishes to meet you.”
“Then lead the way,” she replied.
The ordinators lead her to the huge, ridiculously extravagant temple in Mournhold’s Northern square. They lead her past the throngs of worshippers and pilgrims praying to Almalexia or shouting for Marie herself. They lead her inside, and unlocked a giant ornate door that the lowly pilgrims were never allowed through. There she found herself before a strange golden-skinned woman, the last unaltered visage of what the Dunmer once looked like in eons past when they were called Chimer.
“Approach me,” the false Goddess said, in a strange echoing voice. Marie did so, and stood face to face, eye to eye with her. Almalexia studied the sad tired Breton face before her. They looked at one another with distrust and wariness, skepticism and curiousity.
“You do not look as I expected,” Almalexia said.
“From everything I’ve been told,” Marie replied, “I expect you expected a man.”
“So you do not remember being Nerevar?” Almalexia asked.
“Not fluidly no,” Marie replied. “I get… fleeting images, blurry memories. Like looking at pictures in a book, or remembering a tale someone else told you. Azura dropped a dead man’s life in my head and set me to a task. I still do not believe I was ever Nerevar. I believe I am a convenient tool for a Goddess who couldn’t be assed to do her own dirty work.”
“And yet,” Almalexia said, staring into Marie’s eyes with strained reluctant confusion, “though it pains me to say so, your eyes ARE his eyes. So full of pain and wariness and utter defeated exhaustion, so full of hurt and yet hope, so full of fire and determination and kindness, and… so much older than the face they sit upon.”
“I do not know what to tell you,” Marie said, looking back into Almalexia’s eyes, trying to see or feel anything familiar, wondering why a woman who was allegedly once her wife in a past life felt like any other stranger before her. “I know neither what you want me to say or what you expect me to do. You are a stranger to me. We have no business that I know of. And I have cowards that need killing. So if there is nothing else, I will take my leave.”
Marie turned to walk out, and Almalexia reached out to stop her, not even knowing why. As she cried out “wait!” and grabbed Marie’s arm, a ripple of visible, palpable electricity washed over them both, lighting up the room. The Ordinators moved as if to protect their Goddess, but she waved them off.
The women stood there, frozen for a moment. The electricity faded, and Marie rubbed her temples, confused. After a moment, she turned slowly back to Almalexia, tears now streaming down her cheeks. She reached up with a trembling hand, to touch Almalexia’s cheek. The Ordinators again readied their swords but again, Almalexia waved them off. She too was now crying as she did likewise.
“L-Lexi?” said Marie with trembling lips.
“Var?” Almalexia replied.
For a moment, they just stood there, fingertips upon each others’ faces, tears running down their cheeks. The Ordinators in the room were confused, knowing only that something had very definitely changed. Then they gasped in shock as their golden Goddess and the tired dirty Breton girl suddenly began kissing feverishly and tearing each others clothes off. The Ordinator Captain quietly lead his men from the room and locked it behind them. He was far from a stupid man, and he was wise enough to know when it was best to just quietly excuse himself. His Goddess being about to have some very heated sex was most definitely one of those times.
Some hours later, the two women lay on the floor together, naked, cuddling, wrapped in bearskins.They were caressing each other lazily, planting little kisses here and there, sweaty and spent, and glowing. Marie felt content and peaceful for the first time since she left Valenwood as a child. She was, admittedly, still more than a little weirded out with the newfound clarity of her past life memories, but they were indeed clear now. She fully remembered being Indoril Nerevar, and her heart now fully remembered being quite madly in love with the woman in her arms. In the very pit of her soul, she knew she was with her beloved wife again after so many millennia.
“That was…” Almalexia began, “beyond words. It felt like yesterday. It felt like YOU. The face has most definitely changed, but I have no lingering doubts it really is you.”
“It’s strange isn’t it?” Marie answered. “Until you touched me you were a stranger and my past life was like a book I’d barely read. I won’t pretend to understand what happened but the moment you touched me everything came into focus. Vivid and clear. I remember everything as if I were still living it. And yet I still feel like me. I can finally clearly remember being him, but I am still me.”
“And yet it did not feel like I was bedding anyone else,” Almalexia replied. “It was… clearly a completely different experience, but it didn’t feel like I was a with a stranger. You aren’t him, but you felt so completely familiar.”
“It hurts my head trying to understand it,” Marie said. “It is enough to know it felt right.”
“That was actually my first time with a woman,” Almalexia said. “Even if it felt like we had done it a hundred times before.”
“It was my first time period,” Marie said sadly. “Well, as long as you only count sex I have had by choice of my own volition.”
Almalexia looked upon her new and old flame with great sadness, realizing what she meant, and pulled her close. Her heart broke to realize this girl, barely past a child, with the soul of her long dead husband, had endured so much in so short a life. They held each other, both crying silently, in deep passionate love and inhumanely existential confusion, knowing only that being in each others’ arms felt right. It made no sense, but it was true. A woman who was several thousand years old and a girl not yet even 20, a pair married for millennia who had only just met. They were a confusing contradiction, an impossible pairing, but in each others’ arms that night everything felt perfect and true and meant to be.
The next morning, the ordinators brought Marie brand new, clean and sturdy armor, and, as ordered by Almalexia, left with Marie to help her track down the Dark Brotherhood. Almalexia sat sadly in her throne, alone in her chambers. A rough and deep voice behind her spoke, as a half gold and half grey man materialized in the room.
“You look sad my love,” Vivec said.
“She is not a pretender,” she said angrily.
“What?” he asked.
“You told me she was just a dupe,” Almalexia said, “a pawn in Azura’s game. You told me she was not, could not actually be him.”
“She can’t be,” he replied. “I spoke to her more than once. She showed no signs of remembering me at all. I was a stranger to her.”
“So was I,” she said, “until we touched. And my touch woke her. She remembers now. She is my husband. There is no doubt.”
“She destroyed the heart,” Vivec said. “It is why I have come here today. I did not believe she could, but indeed she has. Our already waning power will fade away within a year.”
“I know,” she replied. “I felt it. So did Sotha. But then he had wanted to free of it for decades anyway. He was relieved when I killed him.”
“You stink of sex,” Vivec sneered at her. “Did you actually bed her?”
“Are you still so jealous of him… of her?” she asked. “After all this time? Are you still so cowed by her superiority over you? Was it not enough you murdered him? You coerced me to steal the power of the heart and let you murder the man I love, now you’re jealous that I bedded yet another person that was not you?”
Vivec sneered at her.
“You always were a lovesick whore,” he said, “choosing the wrong person when you belonged only with me.”
“You over-entitled bastard,” she spat. “Always so bitter that I was never yours. Why are you still here?”
“Because we need to decide what to do to save our power,” he said.
“You do whatever you must,” she replied. “I already HAVE a plan in motion. Sadly it will mean killing her as soon as I can get her to Sotha’s empty city. She cannot be allowed to prevent me from retaining my godhood. My people need me too much.”
“Wait,” Vivec asked incredulously, “you bedded her knowing she was a threat to your plans and that you would have to murder her? Why?”
Almalexia was crying now as she willed Vivec to vanish back to Vvardenfell. She picked up the wet stained clothing Marie had been wearing beneath her armor, smelling her scent off of it, and sighing to herself, remembering how perfect and happy and safe she felt in Marie’s arms.
“It was the right thing…” she said, as she retreated to her private chambers again to plan.