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Fanfic: "Reynasa's Story" Part 1 of ???? The Elder Scrolls (PG)
OC POV, mix of canon and OC characters. Post-Morrowind, spoilers for Morrowind and Oblivion.

Feedback, as always, most welcome, whether you know the fandom or not.

"Reynasa's Story"

It's never easy being the child of famous parents, though I imagine I had it easier than many.



My father, my comfortable, shrewd, loving father, was Crassius Curio, the only Imperial, and almost the only human, who had ever wangled his way onto a seat in a Dunmer Great House council. He was also noted for his plays, although I was not officially informed of their exact nature for many years. I found that out for myself much earlier. The snickers and nudges that invariably came up in relation to my father's literary efforts gave me an excellent idea of their content.

My mother was a number of things to me. She was loving (when she remembered to be), she was very busy, and she was rarely home. I was so used to her absences that it rarely occurred to miss her much when she was away. Mama and I lived at Rethan Manor, her home. At least, I did most of the time, and she lived there when not away on business. She traveled everywhere. She was our House's liaison with the Imperials on Solstheim, I know that, and it was rumored that she had strange ties with the wild Nords there as well. She went to the Morrowind mainland on business for the Temple and the State, although her eyes were always strange when she came back from there. Papa said she had "the Red Mountain look" and frowned, shaking his head. And she was everywhere on Vvardenfell, our home province: doing work for our Great House Hlaalu, of which she was the Grandmaster and official head on Vvardenfell; doing work with the Temple, traveling from city to city to speak with the priests there and visiting shrines. She was a great one for going on pilgrimage, always saving scraps of things to donate. She also worked with the various Guilds, mostly for the Mages but also for the Fighters, and, it was rumored, the Thieves. I remember that she and Papa had a terrible shouting match once, and it did have to do with the Thieves Guild and House Hlaalu both, but I never found out what exactly, only that Papa slammed the door to their room and sat in the antechamber, sulking, for most of the night.

That was when Mama and I were visiting Papa's home in Vivec. They were a deeply loving couple, but did not live together. I think Mama was too independent to want to give up her house in the country, and Papa would not leave the city. They were not at all a conventional couple, but then, since he was Imperial and she was an outlander by birth, they were allowed to live more by their own rules than most Morrowind Dunmer. Also, their rank offered privilege. She was Grandmaster and he Councilor of Great House Hlaalu. More importantly, as everyone in Morrowind knew, my mother, Elyssa Halaya, was the Nerevarine. She was believed to be the reincarnation of the great Nerevar Indoril himself, and it was true that she had faced down the Devil Dagoth Ur on Red Mountain and defeated him, something even Almsivi, our three great Living Gods, had been unable to do, though they had tried for centuries.

I imagine this made her prideful. How could it not? But, though busy, she was always glad to see me, and I her. I ran to her and she swept me up in her arms and held me close, whenever she came home from her travels. I know that we went on outings to nearby swamps and along the river to pick mushrooms and flowers together to sell to the alchemists in Balmora, though I was too young for us to go far. I still have the very first coda flower that I picked with her, although it faded many years ago.The land was so wild around our home that I was not allowed to wander off without an ever-watchful adult to keep away marauding rats and crabs, and the even more terrifying cliff racers. The wild cliff racers even flew over our house now and then. I remember playing some game with stones in the courtyard, when Mama shouted a warning and pushed me down. Pulling out her great bow, a terrifying spiky thing, she ran up the stairs to the tower roof. Hlodala, who acted as my governess although she was far more than that, grabbed me, covering my head with her arms. Mama, having reached the roof, shot an arrow and hit the cliff racer's underside, killing it. I still remember the horrible shriek it made as it tumbled to the ground, spilling blood and entrails. I also remember Mama's wild laughter, which scared me almost as much. Mama made me a present of some of the feathers, and we dined off roasted cliff racer for a week. Papa, when he found out, said that both his "dumplings", the big and little one both, were very brave. He also hugged me tightly and asked me if I were sure I wouldn't like to stay with him in the city. But I loved our house and land too much to want to leave it.

Perhaps that was not surprising. I was named for Raynasa Rethan, though my name had the spelling changed slightly to "Reynasa" with an "e". As everyone in House Hlaalu knew, Raynasa Rethan had been treacherously killed in the House Wars some centuries back, though no one could quite agree whether it had been by House Redoran or House Telvanni or some strange alliance of both. My mother had avenged that ancient bloodfeud, at the instigation of my father. They often worked that way, Papa coming up with some plan to advance our House and Mama carrying it out. They were an excellent team, another reason that few interfered with them. They worked together so well that somehow their business relationship had become one of pleasure, and I was the result.

Family legend said that the ghost of Raynasa Rethan came weeping to my mother, saying she wanted to go home. She was pregnant with me at the time, so many believed that I was Raynasa reborn to her old home. My mother's manor had been built on the ashes of Raynasa Rethan's ancient house, and was still called "Rethan Manor", although "Halaya Manor" would have been more appropriate. I loved our house, and can well understand why Raynasa would have wanted to come back to it. However, I have no memories of ever having been Raynasa Rethan. When I told Mama that once, she shrugged and said that since she had absolutely no memories of having been Nerevar Indoril, that seemed reasonable to her. Regardless, I, not Mama, was the one known as "The Lady of Rethan Manor". Mama had enough titles already.

All these memories of my mother are fragmentary impressions, although we Dunmer are noted for our long and accurate memories. She was so rarely in my life after I was two or three, which is when she started her wanderings again. And when I was five, everything changed.

I talk about "Mama" all the time, but she was not the presiding force of Rethan Manor. Hlodala Savel was. She was a brilliant woman, and I loved her dearly and was a little afraid of her. Hlodala may well have been the only person on Vvardenfell, other than my father, to stand up to my mother and call her on her actions. I think Hlodala would have had her own manor and retainers if she had not felt the necessity to look after me in my mother's many absences. She was married to Lliryn Fendyn, and they were a devoted couple. Lliryn loved me as deeply as if I had been his own daughter, and I always went to him for comfort. He also taught me how to pick a lock or two, which is always a useful skill.

Avron Gols, my mother's cousin (their fathers were brothers, he said), lived in the watch tower. He said that he enjoyed hearing my mother running around on his roof at all hours of the day and night, as it was oddly reassuring. He had a good supply of ordinary and extraordinary weapons, mostly blades, though it was small compared to my mother's eclectic arsenal. Avron once told me that he knew that Mama had nicked an ebony shortsword from the tower when it was first built, but he didn't mind. Technically speaking, he said, it was her property after all. Cousin Avron was a remarkably sweet-natured sort. Some fighting men are. His grandmother lived in Seyda Neen, and he visited her often. He was a widower, having lost his wife and only son far too early, and I think he liked having the company of the others at Rethan Manor. He came over for dinner every night, and often sat over a bottle of greef with Fjorgeir, the Nord guard Mama had hired to help protect the house. This never seemed to impair Avron's fighting abilities, though Fjorgeir was sometimes the worse for wear.

My great-grandfather, my mother's grandfather, lived in a room above the agent's house. Uvren Turs was a quiet man, but one of authority, and few challenged him. He was something of a jack-of-all trades, though especially known for his skills in hand-to-hand fighting. I think that he, too, could have had his own estate, but he wanted to be close to his kinfolk. There was never any official proof that he or Cousin Avron were related to us by blood, but both said that they believed it. Grandfather said that Mama was the spirit and image of his late wife, and that was enough for him. I asked him once how he knew, and he said:

"That was your doing, really. Don't you remember?"

I shook my head. How could I have done that?

"Before you were born--JUST before--your mother had a vision. It came with being the Nerevarine...she had these things all the time. Terrified herself when she thought Helseth...never mind. But you came to her, said you had been Raynasa Rethan, and it was thanks to your mother that you could come home at last. To Rethan Manor. So you owed her a debt. And you told her to ask me about the caravan."

"What caravan?" I couldn't remember having said any of this, and was annoyed at my past self.

Grandfather sighed, not at himself, but at memories, and sat down heavily in his chair. "My daughter and son-in-law went to guard a caravan and never came back," he said. "Alyssara hadn't said that they were expecting a child. Perhaps she didn't know herself at the time, or maybe didn't want to say. But I believe...I choose to believe...that your mother, who was the only survivor of a lost caravan herself, was the daughter of my only daughter. Because I must."

I asked him how he could be so sure of something like that. Secretly, I didn't like the thought of owing so many aspects of my life to my mother's overactive dreamlife. I wanted reality to be reality, something I could cling to. I was terrified of the thought that the people I loved could vanish because they weren't really my kinfolk.

Grandfather leaned forward in his chair and took me gently by the shoulders, looking at me very seriously. He said, "Never forget, Reynasa. We Dunmer are a people of faith. We left our homeland to come here, because we had faith in OUR gods.Our faith is our inner rock. It has shaped us, molded us into the Dunmer.When all others choose to mock our beliefs, we hold fast to them. It is what we are; we can do no other."

He took me in his arms. "And I have faith that you are my true great-granddaughter. It can never be proven. But, whether by blood or by adoption or by both, I believe that Elyssa Halaya is my granddaughter and that you, Reynasa, are my beloved great-granddaughter. I choose to believe this. And because I believe this, I make it the truth.

"Your Imperial blood may be skeptical, but your Dunmer blood knows this. We are family, by blood and by loyalty. Never doubt that."

He gave me a little squeeze, and released me. "Never forget it."

I didn't really share his faith, deep down, but what he said reassured me.

So I lived for my first five years, running from house to house in our manor compound, secure of a sure welcome. I learned how to gather plants and how to barter for the best prices for them. I learned how to read and write, both our Dunmeri alphabet and the Imperial script. I learned how to pick a lock, how to tumble, and how to spar with a wooden stick. I learned how to kill a scrib and avoid its paralyzing sting, and how to shoot a bow. I learned how to climb or levitate up our giant mushroom tree and perch carefully on top--Mama liked to do that as well. I learned how to cook and sew and use a hammer, and how to heal myself when I got hurt. Dunmeri children are encouraged to grow up fast in some ways. Our land was never an easy one to survive in, and the sooner we learned the better, our elders thought.

The little coastal village of Hla Oad was very near our house, although it was thought too rough a place for me to go by myself. We also went to the big city of Balmora, a bit further inland, either by footpath or by raft. We had a little dock at the foot of the hill our house was built on. The riverbed was much too shallow for real boats, except for a few flat-bottomed craft that went up the river to Balmora. My mother would even swim there sometimes, but the current was far too strong for me to navigate safely. We also liked to fish from the dock. It was one of the few times I saw my mother being still and contemplative. Of course, it was hard for me to keep still enough to catch anything, and I was usually shooed away before I scared the fish. Since we mostly seemed to catch slaughterfish, I wonder how frightened they really were. Slaughterfish are notoriously afraid of nothing.

We were downriver from Balmora, so the water was not the best for drinking. Fortunately, we had a good well. Sometimes one or two of the adults took the raft and poled all the way upriver to the source, to obtain the purest water. (The Odai is not a very long river.) However, this was time-consuming, and there was not much room on the raft for many barrels. During the frequent rains, everyone ran as quickly as they could to get containers and put them on the roof to catch the fresh water. We usually had enough good drinking water that we could sell some of it to Hla Oad, as theirs was brackish and almost undrinkable. We also traded with Arenim Manor further up the coast for a good price. Almse Arenim was a friend of my mother's, and we sometimes went there on visits.

Mama was of very high rank in the Temple--how high, I did not realize for some years--although she was an outlander. We all went to pray at the temple in Balmora, donating small gifts of money for blessings and potions, and communing with the ancestors. I know it seems strange to outlanders, our Dunmeri custom of cremating the bodies of the dead and leaving their bones in the temple ashpits for all to see, but there is something oddly reassuring in having them so near. I was never frightened of the bones, although when I told some Imperial children about the ashpits once, it gave them nightmares. I think that only Grandfather and Mama were truly pious believers, but it was considered important to at least give the impression of piety, so we all spent time there. It was also a good place to buy and sell ingredients, and the prices for the temple potions were the cheapest in all Balmora.The priests were all very serious, but also always very kind to me. I think I was something of a mascot to them, the daughter of one who was both the Nerevarine and the head of the Temple. This is probably why we always got such good bargains there.

I also loved to spend time at the Balmora Mages Guild with my mother's Khajiit friend, the alchemist Ajira. She was warm and gentle, and I loved to curl up in her lap and listen to her soft purring voice. She also encouraged me to gather plants and bring them to her. Ajira was very exacting about her ingredients, and I learned to watch for her sudden tail twitch and bristling fur at the tip if what I brought was not up to her standards. Sharn gra-Muzgob, the orc mage, was also a friend of mine. She was gruff and abrupt in her speech, but her hands and eyes were gentle. She had been my mother's midwife when I was born, and always took a great interest in how I was doing. She was very curious about my possible connection to Raynasa Rethan. Sharn sometimes asked if I had any memories of having been Raynasa, but never when Mama was about. I made stories up for fun, but Sharn could almost always tell when I was being more inventive than truthful. Almost.

I've found that just when you're most convinced that things will never change, change they do, and abruptly.