Torin sat frozen on the wooden stool, his spine rigid, his hand still hovering near his axe. Every instinct screamed at him to move—to run, to fight, to do something—but he'd faced enough danger in his life to know when action was useless. Sheogorath wasn't something you could fight.
Wasn't something you could run from. He was a force of nature, a concept given form, and the only way to survive an encounter with him was to stay calm and hope he got bored.
The Prince of Madness seemed unmindful of Torin's stiffened state. He stood beside him as if they were old friends, as if prisons and madness and broken men were perfectly normal topics for casual conversation.
"Ah," Sheogorath said, his voice light, almost cheerful. "I was wondering when you'd notice me. You were so deep in thought, so focused on that poor creature in the cell."
He tilted his head, those yellow slit-pupiled eyes gleaming. "Why, I even deliberated wacking your head with my cane instead of the floor, maybe even give your brain an affectionate lick. Just to get your attention. But that seemed... too rude."
He tapped the floor again with his cane—tap, tap—and the sound echoed through the prison like thunder rolling down a mountain. The walls seemed to shake. The bars vibrated. Even the air itself seemed to tremble.
"Quite the sight, isn't it?" Sheogorath gestured at Hrogar with his cane, at the muttering, laughing, crying wreck of a man curled in the corner of the cell. "A mind so wrecked it can barely function. Torn apart by memories, by the unbearable weight of its past, and not being able to reconcile it with the present..."
He sighed, contentedly. "Isn't it beautiful?"
Torin found his voice again. It came out rough, strained, but steady.
"What's so beautiful about it?" He asked through gritted teeth, his eyes still fixed on the Prince's face.
Sheogorath chuckled—a warm, genuine sound that somehow made Torin's skin crawl.
"Madness comes in all forms, my dear mortal. Did you know that?" He tapped his cane again, but softly this time, almost absently. "There's the madness of grief, the madness of rage, the madness of love—yes, love can drive you quite mad, I assure you. I've seen it happen. Delicious."
He paused, his yellow eyes drifting back to Hrogar.
"But this one." He gestured with his cane. "This one happens to be the most beautiful kind. The most helpful kind."
Torin's face darkened as he looked at Hrogar—at the trembling shoulders, the tear-streaked face, the eyes that stared at nothing and saw everything. The woodcutter had stopped muttering now, but his lips were still moving, forming words that no one could hear.
"How is this helpful?" Torin demanded. "I only see a nightmare. A broken man, not even fit to face the consequences of his misdeeds."
Sheogorath's grin widened.
"That's because you don't know where to look." He stepped forward—not around the cell door, but through the iron bars, his body passing through them like smoke through a grate.
Torin blinked, but the Prince was already inside, standing over Hrogar, looking down at him with an expression that might have been pity or might have been hunger.
The woodcutter didn't react. Didn't look up. Didn't even seem to notice that someone else was in the cell with him.
Sheogorath crouched, bringing his face close to Hrogar's, studying him the way a child might study an insect pinned to a board.
"I'll make it easy for you," the Prince said, not looking at Torin. "Since you've been so... entertaining. And since I do so enjoy watching you stumble around in the dark, trying to find answers that are right in front of your face."
He raised his hand.
A transparent sphere appeared in his palm—glowing, shimmering, about the size of an apple. It floated there, weightless, casting pale light across the cell.
"Let's say this is you." Sheogorath's voice had shifted, becoming something closer to a lecturer's—patient, instructive, as if he were explaining a difficult concept to a slow student. "The real you. The core of your being. The thing that makes you you."
Blue, whispy smoke filled half the sphere, swirling lazily, forming patterns that almost looked like faces.
"This is everything you are," Sheogorath continued, his voice taking on that lecturing tone again "Everything you've done. Everything you've experienced. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the whole thing."
He tilted the sphere, watching the blue smoke move. It swirled and twisted, forming shapes that almost looked like faces, like memories, like moments frozen in time.
"For some reason—and I do so love how mortals come up with their reasons—you decided you didn't like some of it." He shook his head, clucking his tongue. "You looked at the person you'd become and said, 'No, this won't do. This isn't who I want to be.' And like a fool—like a complete and utter fool—you took the parts you didn't like and locked them away."
The smoke in the sphere began to change. The blue darkened, turned red—a deep, angry crimson that pulsed like a heartbeat. A small portion of it, still blue, still hopeful, separated from the rest. A transparent grey sphere materialized around it, sealing it away, trapping it.
"Suddenly, poof." Sheogorath spread his fingers, miming an explosion. "You're a completely different man. A new man. A good man, even. You've buried the monster so deep that even you can't find it anymore."
He looked at Torin, his yellow eyes sharp.
"But the old you is still there. Not erased. Just... suppressed. Waiting. Dreaming. Probably craving cheese."
Torin frowned, his patience fraying.
"Where are you going with this?" he asked, his voice tight.
Sheogorath scoffed, gesturing at Hrogar's crumpled form with a dismissive wave.
"Patience, mortal. Or I shall turn this man into cheese and make you eat him." He grinned, revealing teeth that were just slightly too sharp. "I'm quite serious. I've done it before. The cheese was awful, by the way. Aged in suffering."
Torin's eyes twitched, but he knew better than to keep talking. He pressed his lips together and waited.
Sheogorath cleared his throat, his expression shifting back to something almost professional.
"Now. Where was I? Something about Pelagius? Potema?" He frowned, tapping his chin with a finger. "No, no, that was a long time ago. Different madness. Different cheese."
His eyes fell back to the sphere in his hand.
"Oh, right. Anyway." He waved a hand at the floating smoke. "Suddenly, you're a completely new man. But the old you is still there. Locked away, but present..."
The smaller blue sphere at the center of the red smoke began to thrum, vibrating against its grey prison. The blue smoke inside it tried to break free, pressing against the barriers, searching for cracks.
"But the magic is strong. It holds."
Sheogorath's grin faded.
"But then..." He raised a finger, as if making an important point. "It happens. Something that elicits different reactions from the old and new you. Two completely opposite reactions, by the way. One of them is horrified. The other is..."
A wisp of purple smoke suddenly appeared in the sphere. It spread across the red, twisting through it like a serpent, and wrapped itself around the grey prison containing the blue.
"Delighted."
Suddenly, the blue smoke broke free.
It burst through the grey prison like a flood through a dam, surging outward, expanding, occupying half the sphere at once. The blue was bright at first—hopeful, almost—but it didn't stay that way for long.
It mixed with the red, swirled through it, and where they touched, new colors emerged.
The purple wisp of smoke infiltrated both sides even further, spreading like mold on old bread, like cracks in a dam that had already failed. It twisted through the blue, coiled around the red, and then—
It began to flash.
New colors. Yellow, bright and manic. Green, sickly and sour. Black, dark and hungry. They appeared and disappeared with every blink, every pulse, every frantic beat of the sphere's rhythm.
The red clouds that had been so dominant began to change too. They flashed orange, then brown, then a grey that might have been despair or might have been acceptance. The blue clouds—the ones that had represented the new man, the good man, the father who'd tried so hard to be worthy—flickered through shades Torin didn't have names for. Indigo. Violet. A pale, watery color that reminded him of tears.
The old you.
Flash.
The new you.
Flash.
The delight.
Flash.
The guilt.
Flash.
The fear, the anger, the hate, the love.
Flash. Flash. Flash.
All of it became a jumbled mess. A kaleidoscope of chaos, spinning faster and faster, colors bleeding into each other until you couldn't tell where one ended and the next began. There was no pattern. No reason. No order.
Just madness.
And suddenly, you don't even know who you are. Don't know what to feel. Don't know what's real and what's memory and what's just the desperate wish that none of it had ever happened.
The sphere in Sheogorath's hand exploded.
Not loudly—there was no bang, no flash of light, no dramatic burst of smoke. It just... came apart. Fragments of color drifted through the air like autumn leaves, fading as they fell, dissolving into nothing before they touched the ground.
Sheogorath lowered his hand, his yellow eyes fixed on Hrogar's crumpled form.
"That," he said, "destroys a man. Or drives him mad." He gestured at the woodcutter with his cane, at the muttering, crying, laughing wreck in the corner of the cell. "Compared to all of that pain and chaos... don't you think this is absolute bliss?"
He turned to look at Torin, and much to the Mad God's satisfaction, Torin seemed to be deep in thought. His brow was furrowed, his eyes distant, his mind turning over the implications of everything he'd just witnessed.
"Well, then." Sheogorath straightened his suit, brushed a speck of dust from his sleeve, and adjusted his grip on his cane. "I just remembered an appointment with a talking pink cephalopod. Very important. Very pressing matters of state." He grinned, those too-sharp teeth glinting in the dim light. "The cephalopod is quite insistent. You know how they are."
He raised his cane, tapped it once on the floor—tap—and the sound echoed through the prison like a door closing.
"Ta-ta."
And with that, the Mad God vanished.
Not slowly. Not dramatically. He was simply there one moment, and gone the next, leaving behind nothing but the faint scent of cheese and the echo of his cane on the stone.
Almost like his job was done.
Torin sat alone in the corridor, his heart pounding, his mind racing. Hrogar muttered in his cell, lost in whatever nightmares were playing out behind his eyes. The torches flickered.
...
I'm motivated by praise and interaction, so be sure to leave a like, power stone, or whatever kind of shendig this site uses, and more importantly do share you thoughts on the chapter in the comment section!
Want more chapters? Then consider subscribing to my pat rēon. You can read ahead for as little as $1 and it helps me a lot!
-> (pat rēon..com / wicked132)
You can also always come and say hi on my discord server
-> (disc ord..gg / sEtqmRs5y7)- or hit me up at - Wicked132#5511 - and I'll add you myself)