A Nocturnal Emission

" I strove to understand her labyrinthine philosophy, the source of her mysterious pain. Everything about her was dark and shrouded, even the way she spoke and the acts she required of me. It took years for me to understand the simple fact that I could never understand Nocturnal. Her mystery was as essential to her as savagery was to Boethiah or treachery was to Molag Bal. To understand Nocturnal is to negate her, to pull back the curtains cloaking her realm of darkness. As much as I loved her, I recognized the futility of unraveling her enigmas."

- From the Invocation of Azura

"Wrapping her night cloak around her, she smiled at their song. It spoke of her mystery, of veiled beauty, of eternal shadows and a divine future when the sun burns no more."

- From Purloined Shadows

"Whosoever wears it shall be lost in the shadows. His true nature shall be unknown to all who meet him. His identity shall be struck from all records and histories. Memory will hide in the shadows, refusing to record the name of the owner to any who meet him. He shall be known by the cowl and only by the cowl."

- Curse upon the Gray Cowl

Ah Nocturnal. My favorite Prince, who is) totally better than the rest, even Peryite ^{^}I'll ^{^}fight ^{^}you ^{^}IFW.

Let me ruminate upon the Night Mistress, who is the Unknowable, the Mistress of Shadows and of Mystery, Empress of Murk, Daughter of Twilight and Saint of Suspicion, the Unfathomable Keeper of the Gray Cowl, the Skeleton Key, the Bow of Shadows, whose realm may be Shade Perilous, or Evergloam, or perhaps unknown to us yet, who's visage is invoked on the 3rd of Hearthfire, whose sister is the Dusk and Dawn.

Let us begin.

On her Sphere and Name

First, Her name. Or more accurately said [in my opinion], the title we accord for Her. I do not believe that we know Nocturnal's true name - not her Protonymic, that's deeper into true name territory than I mean. Rather, we don't even have a proper way of referring to Her. Instead we have: Nocturnal. Literally a word for living in the dark.

And that's apt. Her Sphere is, in some sources, said to be Night and Darkness. But I disagree. Nocturnal's true sphere is Mystery, that which shrouds the infinite, unknowable possibilities.

See my vision of Nocturnal that is the Black Night, when stars illuminate nothing, and we left to wonder what lays in the dark.

The Closed Door, where we can only wonder what lies behind, what the knob turned may unveil.

The Silent Forest, where sound and sight alike are shrouded in the unknown.

The Abandoned Temple, where every visitor's thought is "What's that in the mirror, or the corner of my eye? What's that footstep following, but never passing by?" ^{^}^^QuotedFromDoctorWho

I think silence is an aspect of Nocturnal that is often neglected. The Silent Night would not be a bad title for her. And, just like darkness, I think this is only related to her in the same way a character's chosen costume is related to them. It is recognizable in reference to the character, but stripped from it they remain who they are.

Nocturnal's Tone is Mystery. That is who She is, that is what She is. Darkness, silence, these are affectations, interpretations of her acts, will, and influence as felt upon the Mundus. True Darkness, True Silence, these are visions of emptiness, but there is no true Silence and no true Darkness in Mundus, because there is always something there. This is the whole point of Mundus, it's what sets it apart from the primal fathers Anu and Padomay. They are both representations of nonexistence: one was eternal everchanging light, the other infinite immovable darkness. Black and White. Everything and Nothing. Change and Stasis and where they met was produced the center point: Gray. True Reality. Possibility.

Our Night and our Quiet are not the same as the Truly Dark and Truly Silent realms of Anu and Padomay. Instead, they are just the absence of knowledge of what is actually present. When somebody tells you it's silent, you don't think "wow there is no sound at all, not even a heartbeat or a breath released or the distant footsteps of ants below us", which is what true silence is: total absence.

Instead, you think "yeah it's pretty quiet. Obviously there's tons of actual sounds though, like atoms crashing into eachother, but I mostly can't hear it. I wonder why it's so quiet though..." only not really because nobody actually thinks like that. ^{^}^okayIdo

That's Nocturnal, not the dark, not the quiet, but rather the emotion and concept it raises to you, the questions, the mystery, the curiosity of the Possible.

So her Titles are more metaphorical than literal. She isn't all about darkness and silence and stuff as we commonly think. Even her association with thieves is more because of romantic associations thieves have: masks, shrouded in the shadows, furtive movements in the night, the fear of the striking that you cannot know till after they have taken something from you, these are the associations that draw Nocturnal to deal with thieves, and more importantly to employ them in a task that, it seems to us, has no purpose.

On the title "Ur-Dra", Her Relation to Other Divinities, and the Night

I said in the previous section that she is the Curiosity of the Possible. This, I believe, can explain her title as Ur-Dra, and the way that works with Akatosh-as-First-Father-of-Time and Namiira-as-Ancient-Darkness-Precluding-All-Else.

As I said earlier, the Aurbis, the Grey Maybe, this is Possibility. I've seen people refer to Magicka as pure change, but I must hasten to disagree. Magicka is pure Possibility, which I differentiate from Change thusly: In total change, as Padomay, all things exist in the constant state of flux, there is never a moment where something remains. There is no constancy. This is contrasted with Stasis, where there is total naught. Things never change, there is no movement or existence. Neither of these two things is truly real because there is no meaning to existence in either. Possibility is different from Change because Possibility is the prologue of Potentiality, from which follows Certainty. Magicka as we use it isn't about changing things, but about creating new Possiblities or altering existing Certainties into their other forms of Potentiality. This is Magick, and this is what Aetherius is: pure possibility. And Aetherius is the original realm, it is the Grey Maybe.

With this set in mind, lets turn to the problem at hand. How is Nocturnal the Ur-Dra, First Spirit, if Akatosh is the Father of Time who's birth allowed the dawn and coagulation of other spirits? And what of Namiira, who's sphere is the ancient darkness?

Well I stand by my point that Nocturnal does not represent darkness, but mystery. So as Ur-Dra Nocturnal does not, as other scholars have theorized, embody the original void that precludes reality. Rather, She is the Mystery that is represented: before all else there was Aetherius anon Possibility, and the first thought when you approach Possibility is: what comes?

This is why Nocturnal is the Ur-Dra - Her Tone, her Ideal, was the first sound in the symphony of heavenly birth, even if her sense of individuality came later. For it was the formation of Time-as-Aka anon Bormahutiid that following allowed the creation of spirits to persist as fully formed individuals. Aka is therefore, the first truly realized individual spirit [alongside his same-twin Lorkhan and their triplet-side Magnus who represent Time, Space, and Magick ^(which is Matter)], but Nocturnal remains the prime tone, the first color that followed the gray, the first thought in the mind of every fledgeling maybe, and her relation to the ancient darkness is merely that she used that darkness to shroud the answer to the first question of: what comes?.

And Namiira afterwards remains as the memory of the ancient darkness that precluded all else, which the other spirits could only view with disgust. Death and it's environs are repulsive to we the living, in a similar fashion do the eternal spirits view the nonexistence that predates them, which Namiira of the Scuttling Void represents after-the-fact. Hers is, in a way, not a tone or an idea, but instead the absence of one, and the death-like repulsion that inspires in the original spirits. In the symphony of the divine, I imagine Namiira as the hollow silence that reminds everyone of the impending doom that is the return to the ancient void.

And with this in mind, with this relation to the ancient darkness and how it was used metaphorically to represent Her true sphere, I turn to Her more current title as Daedric Prince of the Night. I think the connection of Nocturnal to the Night is much stronger than her connection to Darkness and Silence. The Night is, after all, the curtain that covers the Sun. Following dusk, night falls and Magicka wanes, it ceases to bathe the Mundus till the coming of the dawn. In this way it mirrors the beginning of Reality, when the Ancient Darkness shrouded Primal Possibility. And we must not let our way of counting time fool us: we count the hours as if the morning begins the cycle. But the Sun and Stars did not exist till long after the creation of the Mundus. All was Night, the sky was pure Oblivion till Magnus wrought his escape. Night, Mystery, comes before Possibility. In this way it mirrors the original creation and speaks to Nocturnal's status as Ur-Dra.

Which draws me to her relation with Azura, who is called in the Invocation of Azura as Nocturnal's sister. And the Nightingales refer to Nocturnal as the Daughter of Twilight.

Azura's sphere is dusk and dawn, the magic in-between realms of twilight and is known as the Queen of Dawn and Dusk as well Queen of the Night Sky, with a strong relation to moons and stars. I believe that Azura's Tone can best be described as Potentiality. She is heavily associated with prophecy, which is all about seeing potentials and applying that knowledge to the Mundus, which is the centerpoint of all certainties. This is how I see Azura tieing into Nocturnal, as well as other deities of the sky. The reference of Nocturnal as daughter of twilight I think is just because of Nocturnal's percieved relation to the night and how the night follow the dusk. But I think this cycle is interesting: The sun shines in the morning, and this is penumbra of Aetherius shining down upon us, and is represented by Magnus. This is Possibility. Dusk follows, which is potential and is associated with Azura. Following that comes the Night, Mystery, and Nocturnal, then Azura returns and Magnus continues the cycle. Magnus, Azura, Nocturnal, Azura... Possiblity, Potentiality, Mystery, Potentiality. It makes sense as a cycle, with the double recurrence of potentiality being due to the status of Mundus, upon which this is projected, as the center of the Aurbis and the one place where Certainties roam.

On the Skellington Key

One thing I find perplexing is the Skeleton Key. It unlocks things, opens doors, reveals untapped potential, etc... It's a key. A key is all about providing the means to uncover mystery. A door is far more appropriate for Nocturnal than a key, which is directly opposed to her sphere.

To put it plainly, I find it very mysterious.

Which means it now makes perfect sense and I'm okay with it!