The Knight of Ald Skar Chapter I

• Posted by Paws August 4, 2016 - Filed in TSC: Classics - 1,630 views

  For The Wing, whose actions spoke louder than words.

  

  The sun sets in the west, fiery, red and angry. A cliched sentence to be sure, but reflective of my mood as I write these words. I sit here looking east to my ruined country as the darkness of night casts a spreading shadow across the blackened earth. From this vantage point I reckon I am catching my last glimpse of home, the final time I will ever look upon my beloved Vvardenfell.

   

  The year is 4E 201. My name is Seryn Varo and this journal is my last offering of words to the Holy Three.

   

  I was born in Ald'ruhn under the shadow of Red Mountain to a minor noble clan of House Redoran. I had a good childhood and amongst the warriors of my house I learned the ways of war and the codes of honour all Redoran should live by. I grew up on the tales of Vivec's heroism and daring deeds, of the valour of his knights, the Bouyant Armigers. That was my fondest hope in those far off days, to join their ranks as a warrior-poet and sing praise to the Tribunal as I brought the fight to their foes, to protect my people from the blight and its foul abominations as I patrolled the Ghost Fence.

   

  Rarely do the dreams of youth become the reality of the grown.

   

  This was way back in the late three hundreds, mind. Ancient history now. Those days are gone, the people are gone and my home is now but a memory of a place never to be reclaimed. Yet they still hold a trace amount of relevance, for that which I learned in that era dictated the mer I became in this.

   

  I was expected to be devout for a Redoran's life is one of duty to the Temple, his family and his clan. Life was hard, the environment unforgiving and the strict disciplines of my training moulded me like a smith moulds chitin and bone to form armour as hard as western steel. As I grew from adolescence to young adult the days of gaiety and mirth I had known as a child became fewer and farther between. Had I been born into House Indoril I may have become an excellent Armiger. Ah, the fun I could have had then! That, however, was not to be my fate. Instead of a knight of Vivec I became a humble guard in Vivec City.

   

  I became a simple Ordinator, not Morrowind's finest orator.

   

  That was a proud and joyless day. I said my farewells to family formerly and stiffly as an ashstorm raged outside, before taking a silt strider to Vivec. Oh, to hear one of those beasts call out again! That would almost make me smile. Smiles and silt striders may still exist somewhere but I doubt I will experience either again.

   

  Alas, it is now too dark to continue writing and I must eat and rest. I will finish the remaining mouthfuls of mazte I have left and eat my last portion of crab and scuttle.

   

  Tomorrow is a new day. I can hardly wait to see what fresh hell it brings.