Return

The next time Seryn and Isobel went off to do their dailies, I got an in-person visit from Azura. She doesn't do that unless she's got something important to say, and thinks I might need a bit of persuasion.

"It's getting about time to send you back," she informed me. "Although it's forward, of course. A lot of people you don't remember will be needing you again."

She wanted to know if I thought Seryn was ready for that. How would she react if she didn't ever see me again?

"I imagine a lot would depend on whether she knows my absence is permanent, or if she believes that I've just gone off on another task for you," I replied. "She does seem capable of filling in the time while she waits for me to return."

"The problem I have," Azura said, "is that sending you back here was as much an interference in time as Clavicus Vile's, or Mephala's. I have to be sure that things settle back to what would have happened without that intervention. Seryn has enough of an independent streak that she'd have left the Ashland tribes and gone off on her own adventures, given an opportunity. I've made sure to steer her to where those adventures should happen, and help her meet the right friends."

"What about all the other people i've ... er ... worked with?" I asked.

"Although you may not want to hear it, you didn't make that much change to their lives. Veya is the only one that has had a significant detour, and she's Nocturnal's problem, not mine.

"Chodala, for example, was always going to think he was the Nerevarine. Even without getting his hands on Seht's staff as an excuse. And he'd end up just as dead when he failed. Seryn leaving the tribes would be just as much a consequence of that."

Azura paused a moment, apparently calculating something, or searching her memory. "Just about everyone you've met is likely to be one of your ancestors," she informed me.

"You had two parents, and four grandparents, and eight great-grandparents, and so on. I've brought you back at least thirty generations, so if nobody turned up more than once in your family tree, you'd be descended from more people than currently exist. Of course, you're not a descendent of Luciana, but some of your armour mught be. Metal does get recycled."

That brought up the subject of physical changes. I asked about the Crystal Tower, in particular.

"Well, you know that gets destroyed in Dagon's invasion at the end of the third era. That event cleared up the last ripples of the interference there. Back in your proper time, you won't even find any record of it having been sealed for a time, or the crystal heart going missing. The fact that Artaeum keeps disappearing means that events there don't affect Tamriel, and that's probably why Nocturnal steered that part to Iachesis and the other Psijics. When you get your future memory back, some of what you know about Ulliceta gra-Kogg will fall into place, too."

I was starting to understand that my return was imminent. I asked Azura if I was going to have any 'false memories' of this time. When I got back to my future (present?). would I remember what had actually happened to me, or what was supposed to happen at this time?

"Well, you wouldn't remember what happened when you weren't here, would you? This time was one without you in it, until I brought you back."

"So i'll remember it all, but nobody will believe me?"

"Nobody's memory of events is the same, anyway," she replied. "Everyone picks up the details they care about, and ignores others. So it really won't matter. You'll remember a past that's consistent with theirs, if Nocturnal and I have done our job properly."

"You mentioned Ulliceta; do I meet her in future?" I asked.

"Briefly, and you probably won't recall it at the time. The Psijics and Apostles won't be crossing your path, and nobody else lives that long. Except Daedra, of course. Different planes, different timescales, as well as the variations of mortality we talked about before."

"I've just about reconciled my strange mix of memories from daedric planes and Nirn. I just about have enough of a coherent story from now to feel comfortable. Is that why I need to move on, before this becomes the new normal?"

"Partly, and that goes both ways. You need to avoid feeling too much at home here, and you need to be ... not exactly forgotten, but you do need to fade away. And I did promise the people I borrowed you from in future that they'd get you back."

"What about my memories? You warned me when I came back that I couldn't remember what hadn't happened yet, at least the parts in Mundus, so I was prepared to wait for those gaps to get filled back in. But when I move the other way, do I forget the past I'm in now? "

"No but it will quickly feel a long way away. There won't be much to remind you of it. Familiar places will be familiar because of both times, and you won't ever be sure which it is. Nocturnal and I will be keeping your exploits out of the history books, so you won't be reading tales of yourself. Some of what you do read might seem wrong, but since you didn't write it, that will just be the author's viewpoint differing from yours. A lot of the 4th era history books get thing wrong, anyway."

"So we're off to Moonshadow next, I take it?"

"Maybe. Because we don't want to tangle our time-lines either, it may involve a trip through Evergloam as well. Possibly the Coloured Rooms, if Meridia provides a short-cut, or bypass, or whatever."

"As long as we don't need to use the Deadlands, or Molag Bal's realm, I don't care. Neither of those appealed when I had to visit."

"Nocturnal told me about sending you to the Deadlands to rescue Cyndil, but when did you visit Molag Bal?"

"I don't remember enough to explain," I confessed. "All I recall is that it was another rescue, except that the victim was dead, and we were getting her soul back. And I wasn't alone; I had a Nord woman with me. For some reason, she was wearing next to nothing, and doing all the fighting. I'm not sure it even made sense to me at the time."

Where we went was nowhere I'd ever been before. "Plane of Jode," Iachesis informed me. He was there with Nocturnal, and Meridia had brought along Darien.

The others were all seated in a large tub of steaming water, fed from some hot spring nearby, I assumed. A stream of water was gushing from a lion's head carved into the side of the tub, and since it wasn't overflowing, presumably there was a drain at the bottom somewhere. Azura and I stripped off and joined them.

This was neutral territory, in nobody's Realm, ideal for a discussion of who was handling what part of the cleanup of the mess Vile and Mephala had created. Meridia pointed out that Molag Bal's attempted Planemeld had made thing a lot simpler, as history would record that as the primary event of this time, and other 'details' would be more easily overlooked. She proposed that her part should be mainly in focusing attention on that, as a distraction.

"Good idea," agrred Nocturnal. "And the general disruption will help account for any loss of records relating to the Crystal Tower, and the other events on Summerset."

"Another thing we have going for us, is that Mephala brought the Sload into it. They have a long history of contention with the Altmer on Summerset, so this incident will just merge into the rest. Since a lot happened on Artaeum, the Psijics will keep that part secret, as always," added Azura.

Darien wondered what effect the Three Alliance War would have. He suspected the three sides would each have a different account of this period, anyway, and could that be manipulated to our benefit?

Iachesis had first-hand experience of having his recollections of events altered by the Sload, and suggested that it might not have been just his own memory being tinkered with.

"Are you suggesting we should do that ourselves?" asked Azura, "Or just plant the seeds of doubt that any account might be tainted?"

"Am I going to have to be careful what I tell people, when I get back to my own time?" I asked. "Or will it just sound like I'm telling a folk-tale?"

"If you embellish it with enough bawdy anecdotes, especially ones where you take a prominant role, that will get it firmly in the fiction category," I was advised by Darien.

"Let's make sure he has plenty of source material," proposed Azura.

I may have had my memory of the subsequent events filtered before I was returned.

I awoke in a large bed in one of my Skyrim homes, with Gilda on side of me, and Greta on the other. I could now remember them, but not why I'd ever agreed to go anywhere else. Was I insane?