[I]Late Afternoon, 23rd of Last Seed, 4E08[/I]

It was over. It was finally over.

Looking out over the harbour and the ships upon the waves, Rhea had lost track of the time since arriving in Anvil, and the crushing weight of responsibility had gone down with each desperate gulp of cheap wine. Anger,  fear, and indignation clashed with guilt, sorrow, and regret as she tried, oftentimes failing, to come to terms with what she’d endured, and what she’d done. In her attempts to save those she felt responsible for, she paid a heavy toll and wondered exactly how many other lives had been the currency. 

The room she was residing in was the very same one the Valerius family used to rent for yearly trips to the Gold Coast since she was a young girl. It was nearly two decades of some of the most pure and wonderful memories she had in her life, even though they were partially tainted by the realization years later that her mother and father financed a lot of their capital in illegitimate ways, and try as she might, she never was able to free herself from their shadow and become a better person.

Skingrad was proof of that.

A mirror on the wall showed a much more gaunt and pale face than she was used to seeing looking back, helped no small in part to the sickness she brought to herself from a bottle. Drink to remember. Drink to forget. Smash a bottle in anger because of Daro’Vasora, cry herself to sleep, cry in happiness and relief at the others when they found moments of happiness. Her gut was empty, even the thought of water was sickening at this moment even if her mouth tasted of bile. Her head throbbed, and her coordination seemed to suffer, but she felt much more in control of herself.

Rhea walked out to the balcony to sit on one of the two chairs that sat facing the harbour, and she felt invigorated by the sound of crashing waves, the cry of gulls, the scent of the bay. It brought her back to a simpler time when her entire world wasn’t turned upside down, where her choices didn’t have such heavy consequences. As angry as she was a Daro’Vasora, she knew that the other woman wasn’t entirely wrong to feel the way she did. It was Rhea who ultimately activated the device that the Khajiit warned her against, and she’d have reason enough to be furious about the subsequent explosion that killed the entire camp. And while no one could have predicted that would have led to the return of the Dwemer, or that they’d be so callously murderous, Daro’Vasora lost someone very close to her, so Rhea was a prime target.

Her instincts knew that Rhea had a hand in the events at Skingrad. It was infuriating and terrifying all at once; the blade that did the deed was long gone, but its weight still carried with her. She could see the writing on the wall, and soon starvation and disease would have found everyone, including those she’d spent weeks trying to keep motivated and alive. It was the right thing to do, wasn’t it? Her parents acted selfishly when the needs of the people were dire, but she wasn’t them. She had to do right to prove her name wasn’t cursed.

The only thing was that none of it felt right. Every decision she’d made seemed to make things worse in the end, and people had to pay for it with their blood. There wouldn’t have been a refugee crisis or a war if she’d just accepted her fate in that cave, but she couldn’t let the others die, and she didn’t want to go, either. There just was no way of knowing what would have happened; she hoped for an escape route or a defensive device to keep the Falmer contained; it was, after all, an internment camp and the Dwemer had ways of keeping their Snow Elf captives secure. It was a risk, and she knew there’d be consequences.

Consequences that would see that the Divines knew that her hand had personally led to the deaths of thousands of people.  Surely they had to know that she did not intend for that to happen, nor was she responsible for what people did with their freedom? She just wanted to save the people who entrusted their lives to her, and now they were safe, with various levels of gratitude.  She could rest, atone for what she’d done, but what was left to be done? She didn’t trust her hands anymore, or her will. As her group disappeared into Anvil’s streets, she felt her duty was completed. They were safe, and everything she did was to ensure that. 

The world was still in a worse place because of Rhea’s actions, however. She knew that, and hoped that Stendarr would take mercy upon her.