Aem's Dream

A foreword from the editor:

The text that lays before you was first addressed to the College of Winterhold by Commander Caius of the Whiterun City guard, in an effort to consult with the faculty on an issue concerning the seemingly impossible escape of a prisoner, whose only trace was a note, entitled "Aem's Dream and The Birth Anew". While the search for the criminal in question has long since been abandoned, the letter they seemed to have left behind is believed to be of significance to scholars and bards alike, and is as such assembled before you in its original and unedited form.

Aem's Dream also The Birth Anew

There was a City. A City of vacant streets. Its outline alone was visible, engulfed as the City was in a thick and seemingly impenetrable fog. Light did not stray far from its beacons, for they stood divided from one another; scattered throughout the streets, and hidden within the windowless spires. A soundless lightning alone stirred the composition. »A comforting yet treatorous valley; hiding all but the very apex of the storm«, remarked Aem, gazing down from atop the Tower of Ae. »But I fear no storm, and my spires shall know no fear either. A spireless moor I would dream of, vacant and unwilling, barren and unwanting, fearless and empty. A moor I dream, a moor for Aem.« A moor it was. An endless moor of one. With ageless trees bending to a timeless wind. »A moor I see, a moor for Aem«. Yet in The Moor of Ae, the fog still rolled. Still it engulfed all in front and all behind. »Open and barren, eternal yet almost invisible, it was hidden from Aem.« Aem now at last knew of the fog. Aem the wanderer, Aem of the Now. Aem who fell in Love within the moor, as he knew for the first time what before he merely suspected; the outline of his always-new Moor of Ae.

Aem first knew Love for Aem. From that moment of First Falling, he knew that he was made lasting, for he knew of not to last. Aem dreamt of the fog now. Of the mistery, and of the secret mother of his dream. »Wander I do, yet the fog does not consume me." Aem in the fog, Aem the Lasting. "Do I dare stand again unmoving? I shall dare to search the fog of Ae. I shall do so from within this Moor of Ae«. And for the first time, the fog of Ae alone was seen. No longer was it a defining barrier, but a mother to Aem and the moor. Mother, Stranger, daughter; Ae all. So Aem knew what the fog was, and his wandering would be no more. The Moor of Ae was no more. The Wheel was no more. The Tower was no more. Now there was only Ae. Ae all Aem. Aem Anew.