tesbloodline

[tesbloodline]

As Masser Circles Nirn, 1/?

Title: As Masser Circles Nirn (So I Step into Your Orbit) Chapter Title: The Stranger Word Count: 1,197 Summary: Do you know the way to Helgen? the stranger asks, as if he had not spoken. Dread, Marcurio is coming to understand, is a slow, chilling smog coiling inside one’s lungs, permeating one’s entire being, weighty enough to be felt in one’s bones. I must go to Helgen. (Or: Marcurio meets a lost, white-haired Dunmer.)

~~~

Marcurio’s life is a relatively peaceful one. So maybe money is a bit tight sometimes (all the time). So maybe he doesn’t get to do as much as he would like with his life (there aren’t many options for mages in Skyrim, especially foreign mages). So maybe he’s not quite willing to trek across Skyrim’s wilds all on his own (not again, not yet). But. Keerava has pity and gives him a discount on his room as long as he rents it every night (his room, he’s been renting it for two years straight). But. He can find enough interesting materials within sight of Riften’s walls to fill his days (always within sight of the walls—even turning his back to them can be enough to spark a panic). But. He doesn’t need to leave Riften to be happy (if he tells himself the lie one million times, maybe he will finally believe it).

Sometimes, when he’s gathering materials, he even finds something useful enough to sell at the market—those are the good days (the nights he falls asleep quick and easy, no need to try in vain to ignore an aching arm or empty stomach). Today happens to be one of those days, having sold the pelts of the three wolves that attacked him while he was searching for blue mountain flowers, and Marcurio returns to the Bee and Barb with a new pot of his usual topical numbing agent tucked into his bag. In fact, the day is so good he can afford a small meal on top of the cream, since the moment he walked into the apothecary Elgrim had declared him in a pitiful state and sold him the cream at a discount (a discount that conveniently matches the cost of a bowl of stew and a loaf of bread at the Barb).

(Sometimes Marcurio thinks back to a time when the citizens of Riften conspiring to watch over him would have bothered him—a time when he still had pride—but these days he’s too tired and hungry and sore to be anything but grateful.)

His arm aches as he sits in the Barb eating his first evening meal in a fortnight, a biting chill creeping out from the bone (bringing with it such stinging pain he compares it to the thought of a beehive under his skin); he is eager to retire to his room and treat it but not so eager he fails to notice the unfamiliar Dunmer woman in the corner, wearing unusual clothes and a lost expression.

(It’s startlingly familiar, like looking into his own past, and he can’t not talk to her, can’t leave her to flounder alone.) (He will come to regret this choice, briefly, but soon consider it the best choice he ever made.)

He finishes his meal and returns his bowl to Keerava, but does not return to his table. Instead he makes his way over to the woman in the corner, who looks up at his approach, and asks if she is well.

Do you know the way to Helgen? the stranger asks, as if he had not spoken. Dread, Marcurio is coming to understand, is a slow, chilling smog coiling inside one’s lungs, permeating one’s entire being, weighty enough to be felt in one’s bones. I must go to Helgen.

I do, he says, and the stranger’s eyes light up.

Be my guide? she asks. I can pay you for your trouble.

And Marcurio does not want to leave Riften. He doesn’t, he tells himself sternly. And he will lose his discount in the Barb. And he will have to buy an obnoxious amount of numbing cream to ensure he won’t run out before his return. And he will have to leave this safe haven and put himself at the non-existent mercy of Skyrim’s temperamental wilds and inhabitants. But. Today is good, but money continues to get tighter, and the mercy of Riften’s inhabitants can only stretch so far. But. He has lived in a state of anxious avoidance for two years, the city walls as stifling as they are reassuring. But. The wilderness is in his blood, and he yearns to travel it again.

As the silence stretches on, the woman’s eyes dim. Her expression falls. I can make my own way, she says, a peace offering laid at his feet, but please, tell me the route.

Space shatters and time ceases to exist. For a moment that stretches into eternity, Marcurio cannot think—only feel, a visceral submersion in a moment he never wants to live again, and his subjective reality narrows until the only remaining truth is cold and hurt and fear, blood in the leaves, a lone figure stumbling into Riften when a pair had set out from Solitude, a body that was never buried and a truth that must never be forgotten: the wilds do not care for you.

A moment or an eternity later, with no way of knowing which was true, Marcurio comes back to himself. The quiet chatter that is an ever-present ambiance in the Barb fades back into his awareness, the deathly chill drains from his limbs (and steals every drop of energy he had left), and all he knows is this woman will walk Skyrim’s wilds on her own. All he can think is, I can’t let her go alone.

How much can you pay? he hears himself ask, but his body is so numb he cannot feel his mouth move. His hands are trembling, ever so slightly, and he tucks them into his pockets.

The woman smiles, bright and happy and open, and her ears tilt up and forward in delight. Five hundred, she says, and passes him a heavy pouch of septims with no hesitation whatsoever. Can you be ready to leave by morning?

He agrees, still in a daze, and the woman grins, pats him on the shoulder, and darts out of the Barb. He doesn’t know how long he stands in the center of the room, staring after her, before Balimund pats his shoulder to get his attention.

I have a job, he tells the blacksmith, still startlingly numb.

You sure you’re up for it, lad? Balimund asks. You don’t much like leaving the city.

He stares ahead without seeing, looking through Balimund more than at him. She’ll go alone if I don’t go with her. He doesn’t even know her name, but the idea of watching her walk out the gates alone steals all breath from his lungs.

Just like that, Balimund’s cautions cut off. He knows now he’ll never convince Marcurio not to take the job. Instead he sighs. Get yourself to bed, lad; you’ve got a busy day tomorrow.

Marcurio stumbles up the stairs to his room, but it’s not until he’s treating his aching arm that sensation deigns return to his right side. And tomorrow he will leave Riften, the city he has called home for the last two years, and tomorrow he will throw himself back on the non-existent mercy of Skyrim’s wilds, but for tonight, his stomach is full and his arm does not hurt and sleep comes swift and easy.

#tes #the elder scrolls #skyrim #bloodline!verse #fanfiction #prose #as masser circles nirn #oc-merimyn #marcurio #companion to meri's journal #oops i don't know how to write non-traumatized characters #and SOMEONE doesn't have any coping mechanism yet #headcanon time! #everything i touch turns to angst #crossposted on ao3

[tesbloodline]

Incorrect Quotes #111

Meri: It's moments like this I'll never forget.

Marcurio: With a good therapist, hopefully I will.

#tes #the elder scrolls #skyrim #bloodline!verse #incorrect quotes #oc-meri #marcurio

[tesbloodline]

Incorrect Quotes #110

Martin: What's being married like?

Lucien: Basically just your spouse perpetually standing in front of the cabinet or drawer you need to open.

#the elder scrolls #oblivion #incorrect quotes #lucien lachance #modern au #martin septim #mobile formatting shenanigans again

[tesbloodline]

Incorrect Quotes #109

[3:25 AM, Martin and Lucien's dorm]

Martin: If you think about it, our names are just random sounds we were raised to respond to.

Lucien: Martin it is toO LATE FOR THIS NONSENSE--

#The elder scrolls #tes #Oblivion #bloodline!verse #modern AU #incorrect quotes #Martin Septim #Lucien Lachance #roommates shenanigans! #posting on mobile so if the formatting is wonky that's why

[tesbloodline]

Incorrect Quotes #108

Lucien: Why are there little handprints on the wall?

Tamrela: (whispering to Meri) Why are there little handprints all over the wall?

Meri: (whispering) Because I have small hands.

Tamrela: Because she has small hands.

#the elder scrolls #tes #skyrim #oblivion #bloodline!verse #Lucien Lachance #oc-tamrela #oc-meri #incorrect quotes #modern au

[tesbloodline]

Incorrect Quotes #107

Meri: If you have any objections, feel free to put them in the suggestion box.

Marcurio: That's the trash can.

Meri: Exactly!

#the elder scrolls #tes #skyrim #bloodline!verse #incorrect quotes #oc-meri #marcurio

[tesbloodline]

The Abyssal Caverns

So if y’all remember, I’ve mentioned that once Meri fully comes into her own as a Daedric Prince, she carves out a plane of Oblivion to be her center of power, and this plane is called the Abyssal Caverns. So let’s talk about it, shall we?

The Abyssal Caverns are, as the name implies, a network of underground tunnels and caverns. But they’re not just a boring, damp cave system. No, while Meri isn’t opposed to roughing it while she runs all over Nirn, she likes to provide for those around her, and by the point she creates the Caverns she knows enough about mortals to provide a comfortable home. The walls and floors are polished smooth and covered with rugs and tapestries, and there are burning hearths warming the air all throughout the caverns. There are big chambers and small, public spaces and private, and there is space for every mortal who devoted themselves to her.

The Caverns have a relatively small population, as Meri was never very popular even among Daedra worshipers. She represents Change, after all, and Change can be good or bad. Most of her followers, and thus the residents of the Caverns, are children in bad situations who needed someone, anyone, to save them. For Meri, children are sacred and must never be harmed, and she’ll go to any lengths to protect a threatened child.

The upper levels, while within the earth, are above sea level. Windows and balconies carved into cliff faces allow residents to view the chaotic, stormy water that surrounds them. Windows on the lower levels are submerged, providing underwater views through startlingly clear water, displaying all sorts of bizarre plants and animals.

Residents of the Caverns encounter the Lady of Change herself at the randomest of times, but on a day-to-day basis they deal with her second, Marcurio, the first resident of the Caverns. He’s the one who makes sure everyone is accounted for, arranges residential space and supplies for each new resident, and helps everyone adjust to the Caverns and get along with the other residents. It may sound more involved than most other ‘afterlives’, but most residents of the Caverns are children. Some survived to adulthood and kept their devotion to Meri as they grew, but 99% of the residents are under sixteen years old. More than half are under twelve.

The Abyssal Caverns are, above all, a home for lost, hurting, unloved children that no-one else could be bothered to reach for. They come to the Caverns, to the Lady who presides over them, and she gives them shelter and love and safety and comfort and happiness.

#the elder scrolls #tes #skyrim #planes of oblivion #bloodline!verse #the abyssal caverns #oc-meri #marcurio #concept

[tesbloodline]

Incorrect Quotes #106

Tamrela: Be the reason you're haunted. Go someplace forbidden. Read something in an ancient language. Sleep with a daedra.

Martin: Please do none of those things.

#the elder scrolls #tes #bloodline!verse #oc-tamrela #martin septim #incorrect quotes #this would have been meri and marcurio but meri wouldn't have made the last point and it wasn't as funny without a third beat

[tesbloodline]

Real Talk

Hi, guys. I don’t usually talk about myself on here (I think I’ve only done it once or twice), but if there’s anyone who still follows this blog, I feel like I owe you an explanation. Or, at the very least, that explaining would be the kind thing to do.

I haven’t posted in a while, about five months if I’m reading the dates right. I’m starting to get back into the swing of things, but I didn’t want to just leave that gap unexplained. It’s there because I hit a very difficult patch in my life, and I just couldn’t keep up.

See, I have, among other things, really bad anxiety. I mean, really bad. “I’ve been in counseling for three years to be able to hold a conversation with someone I don’t know or leave for class less than thirty minutes early without having an anxiety attack” bad. And there was a point, at the end of last school year, where I was spending so much energy on panic and stress and worry that I didn’t even have the energy to be a human being.

I was spending hours at a time sitting and doing nothing: scrolling through pages on the internet without processing anything I was reading, sleeping and sleeping and sleeping (or laying in bed staring at my ceiling pretending I could sleep, if my insomnia was acting up), trying to finish enough homework I wouldn’t fail my classes, or just staring into space while I was either lost so deep in storyworld I forgot the real world existed or blanking out completely (which I’m starting to suspect is actually dissociating). I was pretty much constantly exhausted, from the moment I woke up to the moment I fell into bed.

I kept posting because I loved it. I loved this blog, and I loved these characters, and I was determined I wasn’t going to abandon them like I’ve abandoned so many projects. But I was coasting, really. I was writing slower than I was posting, and my buffer got shorter and shorter. Sometimes I’d have the energy to start up my game, and I’d have so much fun and get so worked up I had the artificial energy I needed to make a new batch of posts, enough to tide me over until I started up the game again.

When my game broke, and all of my saves were erased, this little cycle broke too. I tried to fix it, but my first attempt didn’t work. Then I realized all of my mods needed to be updated (and since Meri’s modlist is something like 300 mods, it takes a while). It was one thing after another, and I just didn’t have the energy to keep up with it. I tried, in September, to keep the blog running with just drabbles. If I remember right, that was the point I ran out of posts in my queue and had no game material to make more. Eventually classes picked up, and I didn’t even have the energy for that anymore. That was when I finally broke my promise and abandoned Bloodline.

I’ve been doing a lot better, recently. I’m finally taking anti-anxiety meds, and I feel worlds better. I’m not completely functional yet (I still need to sort out my alternating hyperfocus/complete inability to focus on anything at all, courtesy of ADHD), but I’m getting there. I have the energy to exist again, now that it’s not all diverted to crisis management, and I’m starting to take back the things I love. All of my little hobbies, like drawing and writing and calligraphy and crafting, and thanks to accidentally opening the Tumblr app on my phone and seeing notifications for this blog, Bloodline as well. 

So what I’m trying to say is, I’m back. All I can hope is that there’s still someone waiting for me.

#OOC #personal

[tesbloodline]

Day 24: Flesh and Bone

Meri's hands shake and her knees give out. Sparky catches her as she falls and eases her to the ground. Her bones itch.

"Meri?" His voice is thick with concern.

Meri cannot answer him. Her voice and throat will not cooperate, and her mind is still locked in a foggy haze. Her thoughts are still in the Elder Scroll, caught up in what she has seen, in the endless eye-blink moment of omniscient, omnipotent everything. That moment of absolute glory. Now she is once again only Meri, small and frail and insignificant - now she is naught but flesh and bone.

#the elder scrolls #skyrim #bloodline!verse #oc-meri #september shorts #prose #prompts #fanfiction #fanfic #fic #drabble

[tesbloodline]

Day 23: Autumn

Meri wanders out of Riften with the same casual air that Marcurio will quickly come to realize defines ninety percent of her nature. There is no pause in her step. She traipses through the gates, ignoring all four people who try to speak with her, dragging Marcurio behind her with an arm hooked through his elbow.

As they pass the walls, Meri freezes mid-step, staring up at the sky and the trees in silence. Here, outside the city, Meri studies her surroundings and thinks of Dementia with no purple. She closes her eyes, breathes in the chill, and thinks, "home".

#the elder scrolls #skyrim #bloodline!verse #oc-meri #september shorts #prose #prompts #fanfiction #fanfic #fic #drabble #oops it's late

[tesbloodline]

Day 22: Glorious

Meri is many things. She is madness, she is change, she is energy. She is life, laughter, chaos and bloodshed, tears, smiles, sunshine, rain, a knife in the dark, a wild beast in the woods. She is daedric, she is mortal, she is loved by Princes and Divines alike. She is protector of her ducklings, motivation for her minions, "something precious" in her best friend's words.

Tonight, she is a hunter, blades in hand, poised to be the end of the World-Eater. Tonight she is a whisper of wind, the chill of winter, spectre of death. Tonight, she is glory.

#the elder scrolls #skyrim #bloodline!verse #oc-meri #september shorts #prompts #prose #fanfiction #fanfic #fic #drabble

[tesbloodline]

Day 21: Affection

Meri hums to herself, sitting stone-still except for her tapping feet. She doesn't like to sit still, but she's been doing it more and more since Sparky showed her how to bleed her energy into a small, repetitive motion. At first it was a challenge, but now it's becoming a habit.

She does a lot of things she doesn't like for her minions' sakes. Sit still, be quiet, speak politely, put the knife down, sit around at night, wait, wait, wait. But she does it, because they need her to. And she does it, because she loves them to eternity.

#the elder scrolls #skyrim #bloodline!verse #oc-meri #september shorts #prompts #prose #fanfiction #fanfic #fic #drabble

[tesbloodline]

Day 20: Identity Crisis

“Hey, Sparky?”

“Yes?”

"... who am I?"

"What?"

"Who am I, Sparky?"

"Where is this coming from, Meri?"

"...'mscared."

"What?"

"I said I'm scared! I don't feel like Meri, and I don't feel like Merimyn, and I don't know who I am, just who I'm not, and I don't know what to do! And when I don't know what to do I ask you, because you usually have the answers, and I need help! Tell me who I am?"

"Meri... I'm sorry. I can't tell you who you are, no-one can. But I can help you find out for yourself."

#the elder scrolls #skyrim #bloodline!verse #oc-meri #marcurio #september shorts #prompts #fanfiction #fanfic #fic #prose #drabble #dialogue ficm

[tesbloodline]

Day 19: Soft

If there’s one thing Meri isn’t, it’s soft. She’s all sharp edges and hidden corners and knifepoints - sometimes literally. She’s abrasive even when she tries to be nice, alarming in attempts to soothe, an irritant as she tries her hand at friendliness. She has never learned these mortal arts, and she’s no good at them when she cares to try.

None of this is news to Meri. Her minions know and accept it, and try to work around it. Around her. Her ducklings overlook her faults for protection. But Sparky...

Sparky sits with her like her jagged edges are cotton.

#the elder scrolls #skyrim #bloodline!verse #oc-meri #september shorts #prompts #fanfiction #fanfic #fic #prose #drabble

[tesbloodline]

Day 18: Death, War, Pestilence and Famine

To some people, Meri is acceptable. Sure, she’s a menace, but she’s around often enough that she’s their menace. It’s generally her minions who hold this view.

To most people, Meri is unwanted. It sounds harsh, but she brings a storm of chaos to their peaceful lives, and they want her to go away. And maybe it stung a little the first few times she was run out of town - she’s still not allowed in Morthal without Sparky - but she can’t be bothered to care anymore.

To the last few, Meri is a one-girl apocalypse, a walking Armageddon, mortal skin of Alduin.

#the elder scrolls #skyrim #bloodline!verse #oc-meri #september shorts #prompts #fanfiction #fanfic #fic #prose #drabble

[tesbloodline]

Day 17: Chosen One(s)

Meri doesn't usually mind being the focus of a prophecy. It's not really anything new to her - Mama sort of had a prophecy, Granny Fo had a prophecy, and Gran Risa and Granny Tri were picked out by people, so they were sort of chosen, too. But every now and then, when she remembers that this stupid, flimsy collection of words is what binds her to Nirn, it grates.

Those are the days she takes a break from adventuring. The days she spends teaching her ducklings the tricks of the trade. The days she sits quietly with Sparky and pretends.

#the elder scrolls #skyrim #bloodline!verse #september shorts #prompts #prose #fanfiction #fanfic #fic #drabble