Lena’s misadventure in parallel worlds made her weary of any further portals. It also made her realise how much she missed her own Cyrodiil, and in particular Lucien. She had not been to Mundus since she regained a youthful form at the Mazken Wellspring, but she could not delay it forever, and why would she, it was a good thing after all… wasn’t it? She could not understand what made her tarry in the first place. She went to the portal in the Fringe and stepped through it.

…

“Which year is it?” She wondered, approaching the city gates of Bravil. The guard did not recognise her, but it wasn’t surprising as she didn’t recognise him either. The stable hand was reading the paper, she asked if she could have a copy, he gave her one… It was year 4E98, almost a hundred years since her last visit… well, may be not quite… she could not recall, exactly. But it was longer than a human life…

“I wonder how many people I know are still alive,” she mused. “Well, the elves are of course still around… and the Orcs, Khajiit and Argonians… Some Bretons probably too, since people say we are half-mer… The Nords are human but quite long lived, some are said to live five hundred years… Who’s left? Redguards and Imperials… But with all the mixing that’s been going on for thousands of years, how many of them have no elven blood, in fact? People are more likely to die of disease or in battle than simply of old age, it seems…”

She changed her mind and did not go to Bravil. It’s been too long, and she did not feel like bumping into old friends and having to explain what she was doing for the past hundred years. She went to Cheydinhal instead, a town that didn’t ask questions.

…

“Good to see you!” Borba greeted her when Lena pushed the door of her shop. “It’s been a while!”

“Hello, Borba,” Lena smiled. “Remember me, do you?”

“We Orcs have long lives and good memory,” Borba gave her a toothy grin as only an Orc could. “You cured your vampirism… and cleared the side effect of that cure… Good on you!”

“You’ve heard of the side effect…”

“Oh yes,” Borba nodded. “I could have told you that it would happen… but then you might not have gone through with it, and may be that would be wrong… You were so young when you turned, of course… But look at me – chatting away like a schoolgirl! Was there anything you wanted, other than a chat?”

“I… well… I think I just wanted a chat,” Lena smiled. “Is the abandoned house still abandoned?”

“It is, nothing’s changed,” Borba nodded. “He’s been waiting for you all this time… Why don’t you visit the fort,” she said softly.

Lena smiled and blushed slightly, bought some provisions and went to the abandoned house rather than to the fort. What was holding her back? She could not tell…

The abandoned house was indeed exactly as she remembered it. It was dusty and full of cobwebs, there were some crates and barrels by the door and some clutter in the basement, it seemed that Borba might still have been using it for deliveries from time to time. The Black Door was still there too, humming softly with its eternal enchantment. Lena put her hand to it and felt a response – the door still remembered her, still welcomed her back… but Lena did not enter. She went upstairs, had a bite to eat and fell asleep on the old cot like so many years ago.

…

She had a strange, slightly disturbing dream. She was a vampire again, she was famished and craving blood. She left the house and crept along the city wall keeping to the shadows. She had to have blood… there were always beggars sleeping along the wall. She found one… all was quiet and she knelt over him and fed.

…

Lena woke up, slightly shaken. Surely, that must have just been a flashback, just a memory awakened by the house she was in… Nothing to worry about. She turned over and thought to go back to sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come to her any more.

It was the middle of the night. Lena got up and went out, slipping through the old trapdoor into the passage under the city wall. Perhaps she should visit the fort after all… If she was lucky, Lucien would not be there, or else he’d be asleep and would not realise she ever came by. Why she still thought it important, she could not explain.

She approached the fort. Shadowmere was grazing nearby, so Lucien was likely at home. Should she turn back? No, she came too far… she had to make sure that Lucien in her world was still the same as before. She pulled up the trapdoor and descended the rope ladder.

She found him on the bed, sleeping. Her heart gave a jolt – the room still looked the same. The same smells hung in the air, the same sounds came from further in the fort. She came closer and knelt over him. His head was turned to the side, his neck exposed, a vein throbbing, and the scent of fresh, warm blood hit Lena’s nostrils. She was famished… She bit his neck and fed.

…

Lena sat up in bed with a jolt. She was still in the abandoned house. She did fall asleep again after that first dream… and now she’d had that nightmare. But it was all just a dream… just her mind playing tricks on her. The last time she slept in that bed, she was a vampire… Surely, it was just that – only flashbacks.

She got up and stretched. It was dawning, a new day was about to begin. She ate what was left over from the night before, drank some water and went out. She would go to Lucien’s fort. It was time.

…

Lucien wasn’t at home. Shadowmere was no where to be seen and his quarters were empty. The grate was cold and there was no food in the larder, it appeared he’d been away for some time. “That is entirely possible,” Lena thought, since as a Speaker, Lucien traveled all over Cyrodiil, and sometimes even further afield. “Nothing to worry about.” She told herself firmly. The room was the same as before, the same scents hung in the air, the same sounds came from further in the fort… The nightmare hugged Lena again and she shuddered, jerking her head towards the bed. No, Lucien was not there.

“I shall go crazy like this,” she told herself. “I am staying until he returns. I’ve got to make sure.”

She went to town and bought provisions, then returned to the fort, made the fire, cooked up some food. She brew potions, prepared some poisons too. Read the paper. Ate dinner. And still Lucien hadn’t returned. It was getting late and Lena was tired and sleepy. She went to bed.

…

Lucien returned to his fort in the early hours of the morning. It had been a long and arduous trip. He had a contract to fulfil and another to discuss, and it turned out that the discussion was a trap to kill him… It didn’t work out like that, but he didn’t come away unscathed either. He hoped there was at least something left in the fort as he hadn’t refilled it before leaving.

He lifted the trapdoor and smelled dinner – someone had been there while he was away. “Ocheeva looking out for me again,” he thought and smiled to himself. Ocheeva was such a faithful friend. He descended the rope ladder… It wasn’t Ocheeva. A young blond woman was sleeping in his bed.

He had to look twice, but there could be no doubt – it was Lena, her youth restored to her. “So this is what she looked like before she turned,” Lucien thought, peering into her face. He’d only known her as a vampire, and later, after she took the cure, he’d seen what it did to her body and understood what it did to her spirit too. And now her form was restored. “She looks in her twenties,” he thought. “But how old is she? About hundred and twenty, counting in our years… Still younger than me, but those twenty five years hardly matter now… I wonder whether she’ll stay this time…”

He tried to keep quiet and not wake her up but he had to bandage his wounds that started bleeding again. Lena heard him and woke up.

“You are bleeding!” Was the first thing she said to him after all this time. “Bath – now!” She filled the bath, then hit the water with a frost spell. “Get in.” She came close and helped him out of his robe where it got stuck to the skin, removed the bandages, piling them up in a bloody heap. He watched her in fascination. She looked different but she was unchanged. She stopped for a moment, wrapped her arms around his neck, breathed in his scent, bitter and sweet at once… The same scent as always… She squeezed him in an embrace and said softly into his ear, “It’s good to see you again, Speaker!” He thought it sounded is if she had lost him in between, as if he had been dead… It would take another hundred years before she’d tell him that it was exactly as he thought.

…

They spent the day talking as neither of them could sleep. There was so much to tell… and yet they didn’t speak of what mattered most – Lena’s return. It seemed she wasn’t ready yet. She left the following day going back to the Shivering Isles, still thinking that her Speaker could never be anything other than her friend. Those two nights in Bravil were so far in the past, as if in another life, and Lena started to believe that perhaps it never happened, that she dreamed it, imagined it, hallucinated it… And she got used to thinking that.

Back in the Shivering Isles life was pleasant and time was passing quickly, and perhaps it was passing quicker than in Mundus, who was to say. Sanguine visited often, and every time there would be a party, with wine and felldew to excess. It was during one such party that Lena stumbled against a statue that turned to be a portal to Gransys where a dragon literally stole her heart, where she met Scorpio and gave him a piece of her soul, only to lose him again in the end. She spent so many years there… and yet just a day had passed in the Shivering Isles when Haskill touched the metronome upon her return. But what year was it in Mundus? It was whatever she willed it, as long as it was later than last time… She lost track of years, but Lucien thought it was a very long time. Regardless, he was still waiting.

Next time she came to his fort, he wasn’t there. She restocked his cupboards, spent the night in his bed and left before he returned.

Finally, Prince Sheogorath appeared in his Realm around 4E160. Lena relinquished her title and vacated her quarters in the palace, she was glad to resume her life. She stepped through the portal to Mundus and went to Bravil… but her house had been repossessed. She’d been away for too long, and even her membership with the Mages Guild had been revoked.

“You will rejoin the Arcane University in no time, we still know who you are!” Kud-Ei was trying to console her. “But the Mages Guild answers to the Elder Council, and they put bureaucracy before people… You missed the Census too many times, so they marked you as ‘non-living’ – not deceased since they never found your body, but also not a current resident of the Empire any more… You should go to the Imperial City and get yourself reinstated.”

She went to the Imperial City, but having to deal with all those forms in triplicate was just too much to bear. Perhaps she should leave… not through a portal this time, but just on a ship… There were lands beyond the horizon, stories and people arriving from there every few years. Yes, this is what she would do. She went to Cheydinhal one more time, waited for Lucien, but only entered when he was aleady asleep. She hugged him and left again. In Anvil she found the largest ship, it looked rugged and sturdy and was bound for the Northern Realms. She sold most of her possessions to raise funds for the fair, she was leaving and would not come back.

The ship traversed the Great Ocean and crossed the Great Maelstrom. The journey itself took many months, or may be even years, the time itself shrunk and dilated as they went. But they survived and docked in Novigrad around the year 4E190 in terms of the calendar of Tamriel. Then, in 4E195 Lena learned that she had a brother. Another bond was forged there, only to be left behind. When the war engulfed the Northern Realms, Geralt insisted that Lena should return home.

She ageed in the end. Home was where her heart was.

The trip back did not take thirty years, and she was back in Tamriel around the year 4E200, now resigned to fill in all the required forms, in triplicate or quantuplicate, she no longer cared. Her citizen status was restored and she was allowed to buy back her house in Bravil and her shack on the Waterfront if she so desired… The Mages Guild received her with open arms, there were formalities to fulfil, but also there she was soon welcomed to the Arcane University, the same as before.

And yet she still hadn’t returned to the Dark Brotherhood. She went to Lucien’s fort, waited for him to return and go to sleep. She entered quietly, spent some time near him, kissed him and left without waking him up. She was nearly ready… but not quite.

Something called her to Skyrim. She went there and discovered that she was Dragonborn. The Blades were back in her life, and they were the last people she ever wanted to deal with again. It brought so many memories of the kind that she’d rather forget! But Geralt appeared in Skyrim, having made the same journey as she, and with his arrival her ties to Skyrim were forged.

She was just finding her feet and raising funds to buy back her homes when she met Hauk, and they became close friends. Soon after that Lucien came to visit her during the night. The Brotherhood wanted her back. He was her Speaker, asking for her return. He offered her a promotion but she refused, she would start at the bottom again and work her way through the ranks, she only ever wanted to be an Assassin… He did not press. She was back with the Brotherhood and back in his life, and everything else would follow.

Lena was back in Tamriel. For how long? Who was to say. But her life was now filled with people, and she was determined to live it.