"I'd love to - and no, I got barely any of the story." Laugh. "Just - that you were the one of me who was a god, and also a therapist."

Heh. "Well..."

And she tells her story - in full, stretching back to before she was even Glint.

Being trapped, in a small, limited place. Being - not a slave, but chained all the same.

Boiling over. Rebelling. Ending up actually in chains, and finding freedom in madness.

Finding Sheogorath in her dreams, Lord of Madness - finding freedom in her body, too.

She worshiped Sheogorath for a long while, slotted nicely into the role of priest of Madness, patron of the arts and of story, carer for the sick...

And then the world began to end, and another god destroyed their world's only hope - so she decided to rally the Daedric Princes to unite against the threat.

Sheogorath refused, and Glint - didn't take that for an answer.

She met several of their alts while petitioning him, and they helped her overcome the challenges he set before her - promising if she completed them she'd have the help of Sheogorath -

Which apparently meant she'd become Sheogorath, freeing him of the curse binding him to the role of the Mad God.

She's been trying to do her best by her people ever since - rearranging the Shivering Isles, releasing prisoners, healing those who wish it, drawing in a new flock...

Ani's gaze goes soft over the course of Sheogorath's tale.

"You've done well for yourself."

"I like to think I have! But - "

She pauses, humming.

"I could go mad, and stay that way, and - have everything I wanted."

"...And I couldn't."

"Yeah."

Hug?

Hug!

"I - my story's - big. And hard to tell."

She gives divinely good hugs.

And then Sheogorath steps back, keeping hold of Ani's hands.

"You don't have to. Madness is my domain - and with it all the corners of the mind, for all minds are mad in some way. We can step into yourself, together."

Small smile, with barely any tears in her eyes.

"That - sounds nice."

Sheogorath smiles, keeps a hold of one of her hands, squeezing reassuringly tightly, and leads her over the edge -

And into somewhere else.

Ani's mind is -

Ani's mind is a ruin. The Jedi Temple - where she grew with Elesse - as it was when it fell. Sand, blowing in from a howling storm outside, soaking up the blood. The Archives where she spent so much of her time exposed, the ancient records mostly smashed. Light, airy, suffusing most of it - there's joy, here - and dark shadows clinging to the walls.

There's doors, off this first room. Ani - somehow knows where they lead.

Outside, into the sandstorm.

Inside, into the Archives and the training rooms.

Down, into the clinging darkness.

Up, to a spire from which she can watch over her family.

Before her, to Occlus. Probably the only stable part of the structure, actually.

(There's more, too. Somewhere in here are all the broken bonds to the clones she failed. Somewhere in here are the bodies of all the friends she had through the years. Somewhere in here are her visions. Somewhere in here is meditating properly, like she hasn't in decades, embracing the Force.)

Ani closes her eyes, overwhelmed.

"...This is more metaphorical than I expected my mind to be," she says, weakly.

"My method - spools madness into metaphor. Makes it easier to grasp what you're working with."

She squeezes Ani's hand, and -

Pulls her out into the sandstorm.

It won't touch them. Not while Sheogorath is here.

It's loud, though, harsh and grating, bright, even if her vision is clouded -

But she knows where she's going.

This is - familiar.

Something she'd forgotten.

She leads, as if in a trance - like she used to walk, so long ago, before Elesse -

And the storm parts, to show -

A little girl.

She's scowling at Ani - at her older self - arms crossed over her chest.

Shadows flick around her - people she passed by, never interacting with. Dangers who couldn't see her - allies who kept forgetting she existed -

A little girl, who raised herself, who walked as a demon among the worst people in the galaxy, who avenged the downtrodden and got her people out -

Anakin Skywalker stood alone, once, a vicious monster in the desert.

"Why did I have to become you?" she demands, cheeks puffing out in anger.

...Oh.

She'd -

Forgotten, being a child. As if she dreamed her entire life before Elesse.

She remembers now.

Ani had a mother, technically, once. One who loved her - one who let her go, who never would have put bounds on her fire. One Ani didn't give a chance to actually parent her.

She has no idea what happened to Shmi Skywalker, after they parted.

"I don't know," she says, exhausted.

The girl sighs.

"You did good," she says, grudgingly. "Killing that piece of shit. Keeping our kids safe, too - that was a good trick. Should'a been tricking him always, though. That's what I would'a done. Lied and plotted and planned and helped him kill himself in the end."

"I should have."

"I forgot how to be you, though."

"'Cause you wanted to be a Jedi. And Jedi aren't demons."

"It was lonely, being a demon."

"I couldn't stand - walking on my own anymore."

"...It's silly, isn't it, but - no one hugged us."

She considers her older self.

"It's worked out," she says. "We've got someone who hugs us, now, and you remembered a bit of being a demon, I think. Enough to make it out alive."

"Now you gotta figure out, though, how to be something other than a demon or a Jedi or a slave." Pause. "And Occlus would make a good demon, too."

She smiles, hugging her younger self.

"I think - I'm managing, actually."

Hug!

"Good."

And she dissolves into sand.

She sighs, turning to Sheogorath.

"Is all of it going to be difficult conversations with my younger selves?"

Amused: "Maybe, maybe not. Some people get to fist fight representations of their arrogance, or turn their nightmares into bunnies."

A bit dryly: "I'd rather not fist fight Vader today, if it's - all the same to you."