Nostalgia, the Liar: Early Life of Thelin Dividicus [NSFW]

My earliest memories are of sunlight. Blinding, scorching sunlight gave way to silhouettes of pin-straight ears and a downward-pointing nose, blonde hair and big, blue-green eyes. These were features that I shared. All she ever was to me was a surreal smear in time, but I still see her sometimes--in my dreams, but never in my reflection. Not anymore.

To this day, I don't know what became of my mother. I hardly remember asking about her. Had she dropped me in her travels, or had I been left among the rubble of some bloody disaster? I like to pretend I consider both, but I know what really happened is something along the lines of the latter. After all, everything comes back to blood, doesn't it? It's a taste I can't get out of my mouth, a sensation I can't wipe from my hands--but none of this blood is my own.

"Thelin."

"It's Theo," I said. My tutor laughed. I gave him the toughest look a seven-year-old could muster.

"Theo?" he asked, eyes smiling. "You're a Wood Elf, son."

I didn't really know what to say to that. I knew it was true, of course, but no one had ever told me that. My tutor looked down at me, giggling his accusatory giggle. My olive face turned red.

"That's a Breton name," he added. I didn't know that. My tutor rapped his quill on his tablet.

"Why do you care so much? It's my name," I spat. I felt a pang of guilt for raising my voice, but I wasn't a Breton! I was... a Wood Elf, just like my tutor had said. That was the first time I ever had to think about my race. Elf. I walked, talked, and dressed like my tutor, so why did it matter if I had pointed ears or slanted eyes?

From then on, I was conscious of race--not just mine, but everyone's. Imperial, Imperial, Imperial, Breton, Redguard. I saw a High Elf at the waterfront, once. My Imperial father told me that having a tutor was a privilege, so I never complained about mine. I never told him what my tutor said to me in the first moment of my first lesson.

That same tutor, Demetrius Achilles, taught me until I was twelve. He became a good friend of my father's, but I never let go of my grudge against him. Sometime in the spring of 2E271, he left for High Rock to be with his family. Funny how he was half Breton. From then on, my father taught me personally--he worked a lot (he was the Captain of the Imperial Watch, in fact), but we were close. My father was my only friend until a year or so after Demetrius' departure.

When I was thirteen, my hair rolled down my back. I'd grown it out to cover my ears, which were taller and straighter than a typical Bosmer's ears (and to this day, the only thing tall or straight about me). I had a favorite bench in the Elven Gardens District. Nearly every day, I'd take a few books out there and relax as I waited for my father to get home. My favorite bench curved around a hole in the road. A droopy tree grew there, casting a blue-gray shadow on the stone. I loved that tree.

One day in Autumn, while I watched the leaves twirl about the pages of my book of riddles, I heard a screech and a thump. I tossed my book onto the bench and darted toward the source of the sound. Someone had fallen out of the tree! She laid face-down on the stone, groaning wearily. I tapped on her shoulder, blue-gray like the tree's shadow, and asked if she was okay. My greenish gaze was matched with a blazing red one. For a moment, we stared at each other like antelope pondering a threat. I'd never even met a Dunmer before.

"Your nose is bleeding," I said. The girl, who looked about my age (granted, I was short), pushed me and ran off. I pursued her, scooping up my books. She was much faster than me.

"Wait!" I cried. She flew toward the Market District. I noted the distance between myself and the gate, but before I knew it, I had slammed into my father's chest. He looked down at me, brow furrowed with worry. His armor glinted and glimmered in the late afternoon sunlight.

"Are you chasing girls already, Theo?" he laughed, clutching my shoulder. I had no worldly clue what he meant by that, so I let it go.

"She," I paused, chest heaving, and pointed past my father toward the gate. "She's got a broken nose, I think!"

"Does she? Well, I suspect she's finding her parents so they can get that checked out. Come, come. Do you want to make dinner with me?" He held up a bag, presumably full of groceries he'd just bought in the Market District.

I don't remember what we ate that night or when I went to bed, but I remember that morning. I've always been an early bird--old from the start, I tell you--but it was still dark when I rose. I opened the window and saw the sky: black, with the slightest semblance of blue in the east. I watched it turn orange, then blue again.

"Theo," my father said softly, poking his head in the door. "I'm--oh, you're awake. What's got you up, little legionnaire?"

"I asked you to stop calling me that, Father." He simply shook his head, humor in his eyes.

"I'm going to work. Do tell me if there's something troubling you, alright? I don't want you sitting up all hours of the night, books or not."

"Of course," I said. "There's nothing troubling me. I was just watching the sunrise."

When I was sure my father had left, I scrambled downstairs and checked the front window. He hadn't stopped to talk to anyone, so I calculated that he was well on his way to work--that meant I could slip out and explore the other districts. I was forbidden to leave the Elven Gardens District alone. By "alone," my father had really meant "without an adult," but I suppose they're one and the same when you have no friends. I wanted to look for the Dunmer girl. To me, that was a good enough reason to break a rule.

Firstly, I checked the Market District. It was a neighboring district, and that was where I'd seen her run to, so it seemed like my best bet. I snooped and stalked to make sure no one my father knew saw me. Despite being a Bosmer, however, I've always been a terrible sneak. I stayed off the road, surveying the outer edges of the Market District. Amidst stumbling over rocks or getting my hair caught in plants, I saw her. She had a blaring white bandage over her nose. Her long, dark hair was pulled up out of her face, as opposed to the night before when it flowed down her back. It reminded me of my own: luxurious, but unkempt. Potential hair, not kinetic hair. I watched her tear the petals off a flower.

"Hey," I finally said. She whipped around. I felt her eyes burning into mine, twitchy and pensive.

"What's your fucking problem?"

I was taken completely aback by her reply, so I remained silent for a moment.

"Why are you following me?" she asked. "Why don't you leave me alone, and... cut your hair."

"I-it's not any longer than yours!" I sputtered.

"Yeah, well, leave me alone." She turned back around and looked at her flower.

"What's your name? Is your nose okay?"

The girl looked back at me, squinting. She had a very defined brow. I didn't know what to do, and I figured I had upset her somehow, so I ran back home.

When I made it home, gasping for breath, I stayed inside for the rest of the day. I became so anxious about disobeying my father that I ate nearly everything in the cupboard. In an Imperial household, questioning authority was not something one did! I didn't know if I could bare not telling him what I'd done, but I didn't want to tell him what I'd done, so I took a nap in the midst of my internal conflict. Such was the worst of my childhood stress.

My father jiggled the front doorknob. I shot out from my covers and pawed for a book (they were easy to come by in my room), pretending like I'd been awake. Napping felt like such a crime at the moment. Oh, the guilt! I slapped the book down and huffed a sigh, bounding downstairs to the foyer. I had to tell my father.

"Father!"

"Theo!" he exclaimed, matching my tone.

"Father, I have to tell you something. I did something I wasn't supposed to do today. I'm so sorry, Father."

"What did you do, then? I'd rather you come and tell me than hide it, that's for sure." My father cocked his brow and laughed softly. He didn't seem mad at all.

"I left the district. I wanted to make sure that girl was okay."

"That girl again, hm? It's alright, Theo. Thank you for telling me. Perhaps I should take you to go see her, then, if you care so much. Did you see her?" My father stepped inside and shut the door, resting his hand firmly on my shoulder. To this day, there is no gesture more comforting to me than a hand on the shoulder. I suppose I have my father to thank for that.

"Really?" I asked, excited. "You'll take me? Oh, yeah--I saw her in the Market District! She had a bandage over her nose."

"Did you speak with her?"

"I... tried," I said, unsure if what we'd done had constituted as a conversation. Despite my hesitation, my father ceased his prying, coaxing me into the kitchen with a couple of pats.

"Let's get something to eat," he said, opening the cupboard, "then perhaps we--Theo, did you eat all of this today?"

"Maybe so, Father."

"Maybe so, Theo? No matter, then. We can pick something up on the way." My father laughed that soft, good-humored laugh that he always laughed and shut the cupboard.

It turned out eating all the food in the house wasn't a bad idea, for my father let me scour the Market District while he picked up more groceries. Instead of skulking, I strutted, and the first place I checked was the grassy edge where I'd seen the girl last. Miraculously, she was still there, lying on her back. I cleared my throat.

"Hey! You should talk to me. A-and don't swear this time."

"Shit, shit, shit, shit," the girl said matter-of-factly, peeking open an eye.

"Come ooon," I whined, "won't you sit up? I just want to know who you are. I've never seen you before."

"Then you ain't been around here much."

"Yes I have! I've lived here all my life. My father just makes me stay in the Elven Gardens for the most part."

"Feh. That's a bore." She began un-sticking and re-sticking her nose bandage.

"No it's not. It's perfectly fine, actually. Anyway, I'm Theo. What's your name?"

"Nadina Vyntas," she said. "You're the Watch Captain's Bosmer son, aren't you?"

I nodded. I'd just made my first friend.

Nadina and I were polar opposites. She was vulgar and mean; she called me an eagle for my nose and an owl for my eyes, but our bond only grew stronger the more we bickered. Through my teenage years, I spent nearly every day with her. Though we had fun together, adventuring left hardly any time for reading, so I spent my nights by book and candlelight. Sometimes I would fall asleep under trees with Nadina, the sunlight warm on my face. Sometimes, in the dead of blackness, she'd knock and I'd let her into my window; she'd crow into my ear about the other boys in the city and how I was far more boring. I'd just shrug and try to block her out so I could read.

One day when I was fifteen or sixteen, I exclaimed something vulgar by mistake in front of my father. He frowned the deepest frown and asked me where I'd gotten such language from. I shrunk considerably.

"Nadina," I foolishly said, though it was the truth. My father didn't like Nadina so much after that. He didn't explicitly tear me away from her, but he'd make up excuses to go places and do things so I couldn't see her. Eventually, though, he let up and I steadily spent time with her again.

Sometime in the winter, Nadina tapped vigorously on my window, frosty breath highlighting her slightly crooked nose. We spent all night together, but I didn't read like normal. We talked like we did in the daytime.

"I have a boyfriend," she told me, peeling an orange I'd left for myself on the nightstand. I often got hungry in the middle of the night, but I didn't want to leave my room and wake Father.

"You stole my orange, heifer!"

Nadina glared at me and stuffed her mouth with orange slices. "He's very handsome. Would you like to meet him? We can hang out together."

"Alright," I said, "but won't he get jealous if he finds out you're spending time with another boy?"

"I don't much care. I don't like you like that, anyway."

Nadina and I agreed to meet her boyfriend in the back of the Market District at noon. I had no feelings on the matter. She and I spoke a while longer, then I ushered her to the window so I could sleep. It must have been three in the morning by the time she left.

At noon the next day, I waited patiently in the grass behind a row of shops. I figured the boy and Nadina were out kissing and cutting up somewhere, as was the way of young couples I'd seen. At about twelve-thirty, a shadow blackened the reddish color behind my eyelids (I'd dozed off). I opened my eyes to find a Dark Elf boy looking down at me. He was adorned with delicate stubble and short hair, thrice-pierced ears, and a sleeveless tunic that showed off his fast metabolism. Something stirred in me, and let me tell you, it wasn't my lunch.

"Are you Theo?" he asked. I noted his long eyelashes.

"Yes."

"Ah. Nadina's pa asked her to help with stocking, so I figured I would tell you. She'll be late. I'm Sefur."

I scoffed. "Well, I figured that. It must be almost one o'clock by now."

To my surprise, Sefur shrunk a little and apologized.

"Oh, n-no!" I stammered. "I wasn't serious. Aren't you used to Nadina picking at you like that?"

"No. She's quite nice to me."

Sefur and I spoke for quite a while. Nadina never showed up, as her father kept her inside after she finished working. It was dark by the time I left. We talked about books and food and the sun, and he told me all about Morrowind and how he wanted to be a healer.

Nadina and Sefur started spending a lot of time together, so I had more time to read during the day, and therefore more sleep. She'd still sneak into my window sometimes and tell me about what they did when her parents weren't home. I was certainly fascinated; all I knew about sex was what I'd learned from her and what I'd read in books, but I didn't listen out of pure curiosity. I was seventeen--the thought of a handsome Dunmer boy sweaty and pants-less made me a little sweaty. The pants-less part came after Nadina left, though. I had a big, fat, oozing crush on my best friend's boyfriend.