Part XV: The Burdens of Family

By Dagoth Nevena, Acolyte of the Sixth House

Things are moving faster now that Milos is starting to recover, but even still, he’s not at his full and our journey to Kogoruhn goes slow, but at least there is progress. He tells me that it doesn’t matter how fast or slow we get there, as long as we get there, but he doesn’t hear Lord Dagoth as I do. He doesn’t hear Lord Dagoth’s impatience as we inch along day-by-day because Milos is still too weak to go much further and if he did, he would tell me to leave him behind, but I can’t do that. I can’t abandon Milos, not in the state he’s in; the first bandit or caravan he crossed would make short work of him and I can’t leave him to die, even if he is slowing me down. Family doesn’t leave each other behind and he is my family.

He senses my own discomfort at our pace though and he pushes himself as hard as he can. I don’t think it’s helping much, because while we may get another a mile or two closer, his wound isn’t given time to rest like it was back in the cave, but I can’t deny him this. I wish he’d slow down. Actually, I wish he was just better, but even my prayers are not enough for Lord Dagoth to allow him that. Whatever his indiscretion, he has fallen from the grace of our lord and I fear that when we reach Kogoruhn and make the passage into the Red Mountain, he will not be welcomed as I will be. I worry for him, even though he tells me not to. He says it is a waste of my time to worry about him, but I can’t help it. I love him. He’s done so much for me and asked for so little in return and I can’t bear the thought of losing him.

I lost my parents when I was young and that’s how I ended up on the streets of Balmora. I never intended to start playing the tables and cheating people out of their money, but when you’re a kid with no home and no money, you have to do what you have to do and I did it. I took more money off those tables over the years than some of those Hlaalu had ever seen and you know, that worked for a while, but it didn’t work for replacing my family. I knew how to get by, but couldn’t go to my mother the first time I fell in love or run to my father when a couple of Nords who lost all their money chased me down and beat me bloody. I just—was alone. I had nobody and now I have somebody and I don’t want to lose him. I can’t lose him. It’s so tough going back to being alone.

I sometimes even think about that Buoyant Armiger I used to be with—kind of. Eno had so many amazing things about him, like the way he’d go off to the Plateau to pick me fresh Willows sometimes or how he’d give me that cocky, half-smile when I told him I wasn’t in the mood. He was just—right—in so many ways, but those things, they couldn’t change the ways he wasn’t right. Like he saw the way that Gilyn would look at me at Eight Plates when he’d get time away from the Egg Mine and he couldn’t stand it. He hated Gilyn for how he’d look at me, not that Gilyn ever had much of a chance, but Eno always felt—threatened. Like he was afraid somebody like Gilyn would steal me away from him and I remember seeing Gilyn one day; he was terrified of me and judging by the look of him, rightfully so. Eno had beaten him within an inch of his life for the way he kept looking at me and that was the scariest thing that ever happened to me. More than losing my parents. More than the Nords. More than the time I thought I was pregnant. It was how Gilyn looked—how he was barely recognizable from all the swelling and how he only had a few teeth left.

I didn’t want to leave Eno, but I couldn’t—handle—that. I couldn’t be with him, even for all those amazing qualities like the way he’d write those poems about me or how he’d run his fingers through my hair as he told me how he’d never let anything happen to me. He meant it even then and I don’t think he ever meant to do the things he did to Gilyn, but I couldn’t—I couldn’t stay with a man with that kind of temper. My father had that kind of temper and even when I was young, I watched him go on benders drunk off sujamma and how the guards would hold him in one of their towers until he sobered up.

I had to leave Eno behind, because I couldn’t be with someone that dangerous. I couldn’t—support—the things he had done to Gilyn and would do again if I didn’t just disappear, but I can’t leave Milos behind, even if it’s what Lord Dagoth calls on me to do. I won’t. I just hope Lord Dagoth will forgive me for my sins, but I can’t leave behind my friend. Family doesn’t leave behind family and we are all family in Lord Dagoth’s house.

­-Dagoth Nevena, Acolyte of the Sixth House