End

Part III

The remaining Altmer, those that had by logic sustained themselves despite their ancestors no longer being and those that had been due to alterations to their ancestors that had never truly been Altmer, gathered together before Almalexia. The goddess in tone like them, showed them what they needed to do, through action and word but without walking herself.

The dust of Lorkhan’s cloven body lifted around her, and Almalexia’s golden skin became darker, to match the color of a lesser metal. Seventeen steps away hovered Vivec, who stared not at the half-machine half-world that dominated the vision of all others there on the moontop, but instead off into the void of Oblivion at bodies that moved, finally changing position after time laid upon time laid upon time endlessly, moving closer.

The Altmer bowed their heads and said one last prayer; this prayer was not to any aedra, or daedric entity, but to their own race. Then they danced, keeping the rhythm of their hearts. When they were certain that their hearts beat as one, resonating their hope, their want, their need, they changed the direction of their dance and began to sing.

Far above or far below depending on perspective, Akulakhan and Anumidium were engaged still in combat. As water swirled around their ankles along with the flame, their fists smote each other, brass on brass. Scripture rang against Scripture, and became scripture. Words floated around them and became solid but could not affect them. These robotic gods were unto themselves, forces beyond the understanding of those that remained to witness them. Even their own eyes could not penetrate their opposites vibration.

Almalexia turned to her brother-sister, and kissed his feet, her hands, and his eyes. In return, Vivec kissed her lips, and silently let her go on her way. Fashioning a blade from star stuff, Almalexia took the Altmer song and shaved off the edges. Lunar Dust covered the Altmer, and their skin was no longer golden. As they danced they melded, disappearing to those that had no vision through their mind’s eye.

As Almalexia changed away from Chimer and walked backwards on that past Velothi path, despite looking still forwards, she disappeared as well. Vivec turned and walked away into the middle of the moon, there to converse with the newly present Worm, now burrowing in the dark side of the moon.

Nirn, as it could still be called that, was quickly becoming too hostile for the Nerevarine. A single Akulakhan left the surface of the clockplanet, the rest of its selves breaking against the tumult of it’s war with Walking Brass and Magnus mathematics struggling to stay Seht.

Anumidium followed, and the two demigods smote each other in the empty in-sanity of NotOpen Oblivion. Each smiting was a colossal wave of light and heat, fury matching with fury. There was pride involved, and love, and hate.

I cannot let you cease to be, Moon-and-Star

I cannot let Anumidium be free, friend-and-poet

It will not cease itself to be, but it may hold you tight and end you

I am a Master, and it cannot nullify my Splendor

Would you take that risk? Come and leave brass to brass

Akulakhan stepped away to Vivec’s side, and stood there with the Worm and its broken simile smile. Anumidium made to follow, but was itself stopped by Anunumidium, made from the Lunar Lattice and skinned by Altmer bone shapes.

“Vulture shall change now to match the current mode of existence,” Vivec said, “and we must all change our wings to take flight along the cultural current of this new moon medium.”

Altmer praises the music of the Sun and the realm behind it’s brilliant gate. Dwemer denounces the glare with hate.

“Akulakhan will wait then on the skin of the cloven,” Nerevarine said, “and I will be eaten by the worm this one last time.”

Dwemer delves into the reasons for sense and nonsense. Altmer proclaims the need for condense speaking tense.

“I NO KNOW THAT I AM,” said the Worm, “BUT I YES MUST BE SO THAT JILL AND NO BE.”

Altmer projects the wonderful architecture of its own race. Dwemer derides crystalline lines into fracturing space.

“You cannot kill the heart of this world,” Vivec told the Worm, “for one was made to satisfy the other.”

Dwemer walks and talks at the same time, pushing aside that which is cognizanced. Altmer does not insist, but allows itself to be consequenced.

Anumidium stopped on the moontop, wounded Nir high above Walking Brass. It fought Akulakhan a last time, and when the rupturing was done and no new Akulakhan came, it stood still covered in the Lunar dust that turned its skin a different shade of the same tone. Crisscross patterns coated its metal carapace, matching the patterns that Lunar Wind wrote in the skin of Lorkhan. At the ready, Anumidium waited for the next to challenge its insistently mighty NO