Chapter Text
Two months.
Two months since there had been any mention or true sighting of Vivec, two months since their junior councilman was last seen, two months of Vivec running rampant through the Resdayn countryside yet not leaving a single trace as to where he could be.
Two months.
Almalexia sharpened her sword by campfire, staring deep into the flames as if they might show her where Vivec had gone. It was as good a lead as any, he’d just vanished, clean off the face of Nirn. The last person to see him at all had been Sotha Sil, chasing him out of his study when Vivec disturbed his work, and now two months had passed and yet no-one else had seen head nor tail of him.
It wasn’t right, there was just something not right about all of this.
Almalexia raised her sword, watching the sharpened edge gleaming in the firelight. Oh, Nerevar and Voryn might be content to sit in the castle and receive reports about the continual failed search party for Vivec, but she was not. How could she sit and wait like a good little Queen when her friend was missing, and almost certainly in trouble. There was no other explanation for it, Vivec would not just disappear like that, he’d talk to everyone and everything in his path, and send them frequent updates as to the ridiculous things he was getting up to, or tall tales of what he wanted them to think he was getting up to. He would not just disappear, and he certainly wouldn’t maintain his silence once he’d heard that Nerevar had set up so many search parties to come looking for him.
Vivec was in danger, and she was going to find him. If she had to rip apart every tree, stone and Nord between here and Oblivion to do so, then so be it.
“Queen Almalexia,” one of the guards called out, bowing to her. She beckoned for him to stand upright and speak. “A message, from King Nerevar. The courier will leave in the morning, his highness requests an update from yourself to be sent with the courier.”
Almalexia fought to not roll her eyes at that. If she’d found something, Nerevar would be the first to know. If she found something, a lead, a hair, hell, even Vivec, she’d send for Nerevar and his army without hesitation, determined to end this search as soon as possible, to get Vivec home and out of her head. Nerevar’s requests for updates were a thinly veiled sign that he was worried for her, but more than anything, it was a thinly veiled disguise for his growing anxiety that Vivec had met his end. But Vivec wasn’t weak, she knew that. Nerevar knew that. While there was still a chance, she’d keep searching, Nerevar’s anxieties be damned. She opened the letter.
By the Three, did Nerevar like to waffle when he was this worried. Two pages of updates that could be succinctly summarised as: No Vivec in Eastern Resdayn. Sotha Sil is searching Vvardenfell. Dwemer haven’t seen him. The letter finished with Nerevar’s heartfelt wishes that she would return soon, of how dull and dreary the castle was without the three of them, and Almalexia skimmed it over. She wanted battle and search updates, not romantic letters sent from one heart to another. There was a time and place, and during the search for Vivec was neither.
“Grab me my quill and parchment,” Almalexia declared. “I shall write the letter now.”
It was going to be short, to the point, a laughable contrast to her husband’s worried waffle. No news yet, will keep searching. In the morning the courier would return to him, and she would return to her search. Vivec couldn’t be that much further, soon enough they’ll have searched every inch of Resdayn, and then… what, did they start searching Skyrim? Black Marsh? Open a portal to Oblivion and search there too? Wherever her search took her, she would go, with complaint of course, but go none-the-less. Vivec needed her. And she wasn’t about to rest until he was found, dead or alive, sane or insane, intact or in pieces. He was coming home.
No matter how long it took.