#scares the shit out of his own tong colleagues

[sigma-el]

Vorhim Kegran, Morag Tong agent

[nightingaletrash]

📖 for an OC of your choice? :0

Tysm :D I’ll do this for Venaya ^^ under the cut cuz oops it got kinda long o.o

[The journal looks old, but well looked after. The binding is made from guar-leather, and a heavy lock emblazoned with the shape of a bird cradling an orb keeps it firmly shut from prying eyes. The pages are generally pristine, some a little yellowed with age, but otherwise intact. The writing is neatly uniform, written by a practised, educated hand.]

28th Sun’s Height 216

Mother and Father spend the morning arguing, as has become their usual, so I spent the day with Uncle Melar rather than attending my lessons with Mother. She’ll be so busy being furious with Father, I imagine she won’t even remember. And if she does remember, Melar will surely speak on my behalf.

Things have definitely been much more tense as of late. Staying in the house is becoming unbearable. Father accuses Mother of being more interested in Redoran politics than her own family, Mother accuses him of apathy that weakens our House. It’s hard not to take sides. 

I hardly see Mother unless I visit her at her office, and even then she refuses to speak of anything but House affairs. Sometimes it feels like I’m less of a child to her and more of an investment for our future. The son who will set House Redoran on it’s ear, or at least that’s what she envisions for me. And I worry about Father’s habits lately. He disappears into the town for hours at a time and comes home with the strangest smells on his person. And it’s not matze. I’m worried he’s turning to skooma due to the stress of constantly fighting against Mother.

Perhaps I should have said something to Uncle Melar. I’ve always been able to speak to him about a great many things, and he is one of the few who I can speak to openly without fear of judgement or reprimand.But Mother and Father are both very proud. I doubt they’d be happy if I asked Melar to insert himself into our family’s affairs, and it might end up doing more harm than good.

I’ll speak with Father tomorrow. Perhaps being able to talk to me will ease his burden and make skooma a less tempting option.

5th Last Seed 2E 216

It finally happened. The fight to end all fights. Father is leaving tomorrow morning and is already packing his things... And so am I. My Father may not be ideal, but at least he has not divorced himself so entirely from his family that House Redoran is all he has left. I’m still concerned about his forming habits - I can see he is trying since we talked - but I won’t stay in Suran. Not whilst she is here.

After Father announced his intentions, Mother swiftly turned to me - for the first time in months - and demanded to know if I also intended to sully our family name. It was oddly satisfying to inform her that she was the one who destroyed the name Serethi, and even more so to see the look on her face. I’d not seen her so thunderstruck since I copied that argonian phrase as a child. Only this time was not met with a swift reprimand. Instead it was met by silence followed by the slamming of the door as she returned to her office.

May she find it as empty as the Void.

We depart for Sadrith Mora in the morning. Perhaps under the guidance of Ayem we will be able to lay the foundations of our new beginning.

[The later entries are markedly different from the earlier, the handwriting a little less uniform with increasing mentions of the author’s struggles with her father’s growing skooma habit. The pages are occasionally blotted with tear stains, and the next entry is undated and written in a shaky, almost indecipherable hand with smears of what appear to be blood.]

The Cammona Tong finally ran out of patience for Father. They jumped just along the coast and shoved me into the back of their caravan. To teach him a lesson, they said. I’ve never been so scared in my life. 

The smell of sulfur is almost overwhelming, even though it’s been nearly two weeks. My skin won’t stop bleeding. I can barely see what I’m writing. Even the smallest amount of sunlight makes my eyes hurt more than I can say.

Father is distraught. Every moment he’s at my side, he’s either in tears or on the verge of them, unable to process what the Tong did to me for his mistakes. He’s sworn off the damned skooma, at least. Promised he’ll work hard to repay his debts to the Tong and to every damned dealer he owes money. It won’t heal me, no amount of magic has, but it’ll make up for what I’ve been through on his behalf. Or at least I hope it will. I didn’t much like what I saw in the mirror already. This isn’t an improvement.

[The next entry is barely anymore readable than the last, but is free of blood smears at the very least.]

3rd Midyear 2E 218

It’s been over a month since I left Sadrith Mora. Since I found that damned s’wit and his fucking pipe. He promised me there would be no more skooma after what the Tong did to me. Well, it’s good to know that I’m as valuable as guar shit to him. Saves me a lot of time trying to justify his habits anymore.

I just can’t believe I wrote to Mother of all people. I can imagine she was practically cackling to herself in glee when she got my letter. She’ll be full of ‘I told you so’s’ and will be all too happy to remind me that duty to House Redoran is above all else. 

Well, we’ll see how long that lasts. I just need a place to stay a while and make some coin before leaving for the mainland. I’ve had enough of Vvardenfell. It��s brought me nothing but misery. The further I am from here, the happier I’ll be.

15th Midyear 2E 218

I’ve had a change of plans, and I couldn’t be happier for it. During my journey to Suran, I met the most fascinating nord, a young woman calling herself Astrid. She was struggling to dispatch a few cliff striders that had attacked her camp and I stepped in to help. What magic I learned from the Telvanni has evidently been worth the effort.Astrid was very grateful to me and offered me a place in her camp for the night. It’s preferable to curling up beneath a rock and praying to the Three that nothing gnaws my legs off in the night, so I accepted. 

We sat at the fireside, talking as we ate fresh kwama eggs, and something about her made me want to tell her everything. Perhaps it was magic, now with what I know about her, or maybe it was just being so tired of having no one to turn to since leaving Suran, but I told her anyway. About my struggles with being the son my parents had dreamed of, with their constant arguing and the way their marriage fell apart, my father’s struggles with skooma, and how he carried on with the stuff even after the Cammona Tong’s warnings.

It felt very much like talking to Uncle Melar because rather than interject her own opinions like so many people do, she simply sat and listened and only spoke when I was finished. She asked me my name, and when I told her it was Venaryn, she laughed and said ‘no silly, I mean the name you want to be called.’ So I told her I wanted to be called Venaya. She then asked if I truly wanted to returned to Suran and my mother. I told her no, that I didn’t want anything to do with the place, and she made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

Astrid is a cultist, a member of a cell of Nocturnal worshippers, and she offered to bring me to them. I asked, jokingly but also a little seriously, if she intended to sacrifice me. But she held my hand and, with the utmost sincerity, told me that she wished to repay me for stepping in to save her life by stepping in to save mine.

We’re headed for the coast, and from there we depart for Skyrim. I can’t say for certain if this cult is a wise choice, but wisdom hasn’t exactly done me many favours. At the very least, it couldn’t be any worse than returning to my mother.

[The following entry has returned to being readable - not crisply uniform and formal, but readable and relaxed. The pages as clean, save for a few pressings of wild flowers between the pages and a few (relatively poor) sketches have begun to appear between entries as well.]

28th Sun’s Height 2E 218

It’s hard to believe that just two years ago I was listening to my parents arguing over every little thing. The Twilight Sepulcher is practically a paradise in comparison. Here I study and pray in quiet contemplation, sometimes carrying out tasks for the Night Mistress. My transition continues, and whilst there have been bumps in the road, I am never without the support of my brothers and sisters. Astrid celebrates every milestone I reach with more exuberance than anyone else. Sometimes I think she’s happier than I am with my progress. 

Even now I can’t imagine what my life would be if I’d gone through with that stupid idea to return to Suran. I can only imagine my mother wondering why she never heard from me again. Undoubtedly she was bragging to her colleagues about the return of her wonderful son, only to be humiliated by my non-appearance. I honestly wish I could say it was planned, but part of me hopes it was part of Nocturnal’s plan for me. Some small measured vengeance for the woman who tore that family apart.

As for my father, I don’t know if he’s even alive. Every time I’m tempted to find out, Astrid and the others remind me of what he did to me, and I remind myself that that part of my life is over and the temptation passes. I have a life here. A family. I’m happy, for the first time. Venaryn Serethi is a chapter long since closed. I am Venaya Sero, 

and I won’t let the past take that from me.