Whispers from the Cenotaph.

A tomb stands open. A limestone sarcophagus with the likeness of the body that should have been interred within lies cracked and split. No bones, no flesh, no body. Why I come here is beyond my ken. At times I lie within my grandfathers cenotaph. I hide within it. This place is a monument to the first lie.

I was taken to the bottom of my depths here. Shown my mistakes, shown their effects. My first lesson was here, my first failure and my first punishment. My father told me what this place meant to all Altmer. I asked why it meant so much. And I was met with paralysis in response. He slid the lid off the tomb, closed the lid with me inside and left me to contemplate my mistake. I screamed and cried and raged at the lid. But I was not much more than a child. And finally when I was still, I understood.

The lid was opened and closed a few hundred times more when I was young. So many times had it been slid that parts of it had worn away, and finally cracked. I learned how to move the lid with leverage. Then it was warded when my deceit was discovered. I tried and tried many times after, only to get a shock when I did. Then I learned to move it with magic. And I was never put back into the tomb. Silence provides clarity.

My contempt and desire to rule came from my mother and her lessons. She taught me the principles of charity and cruelty. She taught me temporal power. And played games with my mind. She spoke and I listened, I learned. The only witnesses were the tombs. The heart wants for much. And a mothers affection is something I had to fight to gain. I learned through her abscence and abundance flux that she controlled the desire. A hug was worth so much, a 'I love you son' was always beyond my grasp. In their scarcity value was created.

Walls of history, ceilings of secrets. My life was tied to my utillity. And it lingers still, strength came from those who depend on you. Then I was whisked away, sent to the dark northern shores. The stars were so plentiful there. So beautiful. I was a child, an elf child fostered by some kindly nord folk. In the lands of the brutal winters I was happy. Gratitude turned to poison.

A cultures teachings and more importantly the nature of its people achieve defenition in conflict. They find them selves or find them selves lacking. And this lesson was all that I truly understood. I found my self wrapped into conflict more and more throughout my life. And by the forge of others I had been pounded and tempered into who I am today.

And though I teach and have abandoned adventure and excitement I find that conflict always comes to me. To what purpose does it serve that I was left to be forged by the world? It is contrast. And from that contrast all things became clear. I could see the possibilites in a limited fashion with only one view. And so I grew. And there was pain in that growth.

The sword or spell does not define its user. Such things only find worth in how they are used. In the growth they create for the wielder. And often these tools make the ones who rely on it, much less than they are. These people who become their tools fail to understand what victory is. To make your enemies see through your eyes, to echo your truth and in turn see it be reflected in life is the ultimate and only victory that can achieve peace.

Reflections of this sort are something few of my kind have. They have forgotten the monomyth. To focus on the extrospection. Lost in the trappings of power, wealth, and vanity, never have they seen the path. Failing to engage in introspection, it is like witnessing turmoil through an echo that never ceases to end. There is no listening, they are deaf to this.

When we cease to listen, when we grow still, that is when we die.

Life is a series of acts and counter acts. Sequences in which someone is always looking to set someone else off balance. Rarely do they see the effects of doing such things beyond their own immediate gratification. There is a tipping point for all beings. And in recognizing that you can exploit it. But to understand where that exploitation will lead is to see how it effects the culture of the exploited. Charity without thought can be one of these tipping points. To strip away the personal struggle of others and instead give them what they have not earned is by essence weakening them.

This charity can be pushed and spread and through this action we can see an entire culture weakened by the decadence that such things bring. A single act of an open hand serves the darker purpose against a culture, a people, a nation, a village. By engaging this charity time and again they become dependant on you. And by doing so forge your self in the fires of their conflicts. No two sets of circumstances are the same. Yet a act of undue cruelty can cause a similar effect.


What I learned from this was that all life must struggle, and that in asking for help one gives away their independence. This had made me solitary. Sovereign. Taking strength that is not our own is to admit weakness and forsake growth.

And so I was released. Let loose onto the world and with me a passion for knowledge. To build my own strength, to find my own power. And to test it. I tested my self and others, and for years I thought I knew what it meant. Many victories earned not from a position of strength, but a position of perception. I saw the weaknesses of others, and turned those against them. Where they lacked strength most I found something to target. Is that power of my own or simply something borrowed. Do my efforts in specific manners mean nothing because it is not of my own devices?

To believe an ideal is to be willing to betray it. To find its contrast. There is no great revelation. No final truth.

Then there was war. And war was my greatest effort. Think carefully on this choice. If you choose to fight. If you choose war, it is a path few turn from after the first steps are taken. It carries with it a terrible price. And in the end you may find you have nothing left to sacrifice.

We all wage war with the past, and it leaves its scars. There in lies the fact that there is no great truth. No great revelation. Only the choices we make

I learned the power of perception and how it structures the world. Facts do not denote power. But the belief of others gave breath to shadows. The louder one speaks, the more one says dissolves any illusion surrounding them. It steals from the principle of scarcity. And hinders the perception they seek to create. What the people believe will be far more constructive to influence rather than trying to force them into the caged reality that facts and experimentation create.

There is power in absence and power in presence.

And then I learned about defeat, I was away for far to long. And this was the single most deafening moment in my life. Charity and cruelty were simple lessons in comparison. Fury was all that I could feel for a brief moment. And then nothing. It was like I was split from the world. Love is a strange thing. You left me here. Alone. I will never forgive you.

If only so I never forget you.

As I sit here with my tomes, and the empty tomb of my dead wife my constructs move to and fro endlessly. They are the only things I hear anymore. Stomping, clacking, chittering. This is it I think. My last years on nirn will be never seen. Never heard. I've spent so much time trying to find just a fragment of her soul. I've collected more books on the subject than any thalmor would appreciate. I just sit here staring at her cenotaph some days. I talk but so much like her when she was here do I seldom get a response. Though there are times where I hear her. Memories tied to smells and sounds and sights. My child. By the golden eye I cannot even look at her. To have failed her so completely and utterly. This is my punishment. An endless search. Should I succeed. Atonement.