Remembering the Wilderness: Lyenwen’s Diary

Part 1 and Part 2 of Lyenwen’s writings.

My Dearest Ibthld,

I remember when our time together was still new and fresh, and you asked me many questions about my life above the surface. You had lived your entire life in Blackreach, only leaving sporadically, usually in a covered litter, carried by spiders, slaves or chaurus.

I do not know what problem you Dwemer had with nature. You seemed so uncomfortable with the idea of sleeping under the open sky, as if you had some kind of collective agoraphobia that kept you below the ground. Your unwillingness to go above struck me as oddly irrational in a mer who prided himself on logic and reason.

I remember the night I decided I had to seek shelter with the Dwemer. I had been on the run from a Nord hunting party that had seen me when I had been stalking a sabre cat alone. My family had already been killed several weeks before. I was seventeen years old, very young for an elf, to be alone in the wild.

I heard a Nord, in broken Altmeri, threatening me with whatever crude tortures he could twist my language into, and in my youth and terror, I panicked and made way for Blackreach. I knew in my heart that if I went underground I would never again see the light of day, but I also knew that if those Nords caught me, I would regret every remaining second of my life before they finally let me die.

I sneaked through the country side, alternatively sneaking and sprinting through the rugged, rocky valley between Snow-Throat and Blackreach.

I thought of killing the Nords, I was an expert marksmer, but even a foolhardy adolescent has limits to her recklessness. I would not be taken prisoner by them, even if it meant surrendering to another enemy.

During my trek into your arms and my prison, I grieved every beautiful moment I spent under the bright blue sky and clouds. As I crossed each stream, I bid it farewell. I wiped tears from my eyes as I ate my last fresh-caught rabbit, kissing its pelt as I left it as an offering to Kynareth and Y’ffre. As the Alftand lift loomed in my vision, I would stand on a rocky ledge, and take in the beautiful scenery, the mountains stretching far to the north, south and east, with the long valley towards Whiterun reaching westward. I whispered my adieu to the tips of the pines peeking through the fog.

On the final night, I bade goodbye to the stars in the Aurbis, and to Secunda and Masser, thanking them for guiding me through my most dangerous of night hunts and raids. I grieved for nature, more than I grieved my family. My family gave me life, but it was the wild that not only kept me alive, but reminded me of the importance of living.

I would rather be an immortal spirit, free to wander the Aurbis without limitations, of course. But since I must be bound to this mortal plane, I am glad that I learned some measure of freedom and joy within its constraints.

You… and your people, you were consumed with becoming immortal, I gathered that much. Such that you never really appreciated, in fact, you outright denied, the beauty of the world around you. You stayed underground, in the dark, doing your research and experiments, forwarding your ambition.

…and where did it get you? Where are you now? You were so strange that day you disappeared, literally vanishing into thin air before my eyes, in an eerie blue-green glow and a cry of anguish and rage.

The last word you said, was NO.