Part XIII: An Old Flame Extinguished

By Eno Dralam, Leader of the People’s Army

The Purges are almost over and as I walk through the ruins of what was once a thriving community beneath the Holy City, there are tears in my eyes as step over the bodies of all the people who had to die. I do not know their names or who they were, but I know they were my people and they deserved better than to die in a place where even the sun does not tread. Everyone deserves better than that, but life isn’t about what we deserve; it’s about the reality. They were sick and it wouldn’t have been long before they broke into the Holy City above and spread their affliction to the rest of the good people of the Holy City, but it’s still not their fault. They were just the victims and their deaths are meaningless. If the Temple had acted against the Sixth House and actually eradicated them as they should have, these people would be alive, but they aren’t. They’re just—gone. Because bureaucratic priests and officers care more about how they look to outsiders than they do about their own people. They should be the ones down here. They should be the ones looking at these corpses and dropping tears on them. But they’re not, because they don’t care. It’s not their problem. It’s the problem of people like me and of those who follow me.

I must confess though, today is a painful day for me for more than just the deeds that have been done in my name. Today, one of the men recovered something from one of the dead that belonged to me. Something I hoped I’d never see again, but he handed it to me after he finished pillaging the dead and I couldn’t believe my eyes. My old St. Nerevar pendant. I would’ve denied it had it not had my name engraved in the back, but my eyes did not deceive me, no matter how much I wished they had.

My mother had given me this pendant when I was seventeen years old and told her I had plans to join the Buoyant Armigers. She cried in my arms that day and she tried to talk me out of it, but my mother never could change my mind, ALMSIVI rest her soul. My father died when I was a boy because he had these delusions of grandeur that he’d make a career out of being an adventurer and my mother saw my decision as becoming just like my father.

For weeks, she couldn’t look at me and on the off chance she caught a glance, she would burst into tears because, as she put it, her only child was going to die.

It was when she finally made her peace with my decision that she gave me that pendant and she told me that though she knew I was becoming an adult, she still couldn’t bare the thought of losing me. But she did. She lost me the day I left our home in Maar Gan, because I got caught up in my duties as a Buoyant Armiger and the sense of fraternity I felt with my brothers and sisters.

I never went back and saw her and one day, a messenger sent me word of her funeral being held in a week’s time.

I cried that day as much as she cried when I told her of my plans. I couldn’t believe she was gone. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to. But I had to accept it. The last talk I ever had with my mother was her giving me that pendant and telling me she knew I’d be okay, because St. Nerevar would always watch over me. I still that think back to that day more than I care to admit; it’s one of my few regrets that that was our last conversation. I always told myself I’d go back, but I never did, and then she was just gone.

She looked beautiful when I went to her funeral, more beautiful than any woman in all the world and her friends told me how she’d always talk about her son, the Buoyant Armiger. About how I was all she ever talked about. And I thought for a long time about how even though I wrote to her frequently, I never took time away from the Ghostfence and from my duties to see her. And now I’d never have the chance again. It was difficult to accept that and I spoke to the Grand Marshal and requested time for a sabbatical, which she allowed understanding my grief.

I didn’t go back to Maar Gan after that. Too many people I knew. Too many memories. Too many reminders that I never came back, so I went somewhere I knew I could get lost: Balmora.

I never liked Balmora and I still don’t. You’ll find no place in all of Vvardenfell or even Morrowind with more bureaucracy, corruption, and lies, but it was where I needed to be. I needed to get lost and everyone knows there’s no place better to forget who you are than a place where nobody’s real.

It was good for me for a while. I drank. I played cards. I even did a few jobs here and there that I’m not proud of, but that’s not what’s important. What’s important is that I met a woman there that changed my life. She was nothing special by any means. She was a street urchin who made her living conning tourists and fools out of their money, but there was something about her that I liked. Maybe it was the fact that underneath that con artist exterior, she actually cared about people. She was always careful with who she’d target, making sure she didn’t con somebody who had spent their life savings coming out here; she went for the Hlaalu bigwigs, the Imperial Governors, the people who dropped more money on a bottle of aged flin than most people make in a lifetime. She had a sense of honor about how she did things and I couldn’t help it, it made her more than just a street urchin conning people—it made her the woman who caught my eyes. Her name was Nevena Dals and I fell in love with her.

It wasn’t overnight, but she and I, we came to knew each other at the tables in Eight Plates. I was the only person who could beat her at Seven Dukes or Scribstack and though she didn’t show it, you could tell it used to grate at her. It used to eat at her something fierce and one night, after I was a bottle of sujamma deep and she was stone cold sober, she jumped me outside Eight Plates and told me if she ever saw me on her tables again, she’d kill me. She was lying, but she did storm out next time she saw me sit down at the tables in Eight Plates.

She eventually caught me in the streets and asked why I wouldn’t let her have Eight Plates when she knew I had the tables at Council Club and South Wall and that’s when I told her I knew she only played here (she had been kicked out of Council Club and South Wall for bringing cards in up her sleeves). I remember that face she made. That angry little pout where her whole face scrunched up right before she tried to punch me. Didn’t work out for her, but I think she saw an easy mark when I looked at her while I was still holding that fist of hers.

One thing led to another that night and before we knew it, we were waking up the next morning at my little apartment on the west end of town. She didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to say. We just—didn’t say. But it didn’t change that she found her way into my apartment most nights and most of those nights, we shared a bed—amongst other activities—and we got to know each other.

I learned how her favorite flowers are the Pink Willows of Vvardenfell and how her favorite type of music was actually Argonian Street Whistling and how when she was a little girl, she always dreamed about going to Mournhold and seeing the City of Magic and Lights. The more I learned about her, the more I fell in love with her. She was everything to me, really. She completed me in ways I didn’t know I needed to be completed. She was everything and that’s why I gave her my St. Nerevar pendant. I wanted her to have it so that nothing bad would ever happen to her, because I—I couldn’t really bear the thought of something happening to her.

I remember writing Grand Marshal Omayn and requesting permission to withdraw from the Buoyant Armigers, because I couldn’t just leave her. I couldn’t leave this woman who was so—perfect—for me, but things don’t always work out the way you hope. They always work out, but not always the way you hope. I remember coming back to my apartment one night after a job and all her things were gone. There was no letter. No real goodbye. She was just gone.

I spent weeks searching all over Balmora for her or any signs of where she could’ve gone, but nobody knew. Nevena had disappeared from the City of Masks like a ghost and though I chased and chased, I couldn’t find her. Wherever she had gone, she left no trail and though it killed me, I eventually had to let her go. I couldn’t keep chasing her—not forever. But I wish I had kept chasing, because maybe then, she wouldn’t be dead, but I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s just another mistake—another regret.

I just hope wherever Nevena is, she knows I’ll make things right for her.

I let her down all those years ago when I stopped chasing her and now she lies here, her body mutated by the Corprus and cut down by one of my men, and she’s dead because I gave up on her all those years ago. If I hadn’t have given up on tracking her down, she’d still be here. She’d be alive.

I only hope wherever you are, Nevena, you know I will make this right; I can’t change my past and I should’ve never given up on you, but I will avenge you. There is no force, man or god, on this world or any other who will stop me or my army from avenging your death and the death of every good person who died here because of their hatred of all that is we stand for. They pay a thousand fold for every good person who died here, Nevena. I swear it.

You will be avenged, Nevena. I swear it.

-Eno Dralam, Leader of the People’s Army