The Hunt
- Location
- United Kingdom
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The Hunt
Long ago, before Cyrodiil was anything but a trackless jungle, even before the chicken had lost her last scale, there was a Khajiit named S'raska Swift-hearted, so called for his ever-changing moods. S'raska was a bad cat, and disrespected the Gods and caused trouble, running from one disaster to the next without stop all across Elsweyr. Along the way he angered each of the Gods in turn, except one.
Khenarthi, the Gatherer of Souls and Waters, the Great Hawk of the Wind, loved him, for he traveled far and wide, seeing many waters and many skies in his quest to avoid the consequences of his actions. And so when the other Gods said they should punish him, she said, "It causes no lasting harm, and he is amusing. Are my littermates really so angered by one little cat?"
But one day, he came to a sacred stream belonging to Khenarthi. It was the rule that one could only use it to travel and water crops, and that bathing in it could only be done one night a year under the full moon. The Khajiit who lived in the area were pious, and Khenarthi had provided a well anyways, a spring of water pure and clean with which they could bathe without disturbing the stream, one of several sacred streams that exist into this day.
But S'raska laughed at the 'jokes' of the Khajiit who refused to take a refreshing bath in the stream, and not only jumped in himself but pushed several of them in, laughing and joking and saying, "S'raska the Swift-Bather thinks you need it." And indeed, he was only in the bath for a minute when the waters turned scalding, but only for him.
Khenarthi was infuriated, for she had kept the waters clear for a reason, and within this small stream great things were meant to be created: fish that could fly in the open air even better than fish could back then, and who could swim along the currents of the skies to send messages. But S'raska's presence had corrupted that, and forever more they would instead be catfish.
In a fury, Khenarthi appeared before him, screeching in the language of hawks.
"S'raska does not understand you," he declared. "S'raska speaks as cats do, and not as bird-brains do."
And so she spoke in his mind, with a voice that had all the power of the winds behind it. 'You who have wandered and defiled must wander and create. If you do not plant a hundred seeds in a hundred different towns, you shall die within a hundred days."
He gaped, and realized at once that he could not lie or run his way out of this, as Khenarthi gave him a magical bag that could not be discarded filled with the seeds of fruit trees.
In the bag were seeds for melons, marula, and indeed the dark, juicy plums that are today known as Raskas. Desperately he ran about, throwing seeds at random in each town he went into, but they did not sprout. He went to a Shaman for help, and the Shaman gave him a sacred tool… that is to say, she gave him a tool to help dig up the ground so as to better plant the seeds, and a pot which could hold water so that he could water them. And she told him many sacred pieces of lore, such as to not plant a tree too far or too close to a source of water, and that despite what S'raska thought, a tree could not easily grow in a cave.
In other words, she taught S'raska common sense, and he was transformed.
He now planted with greater confidence, though he still got in trouble and his adventures fill an entire volume. On the 100th day, he planted his final seed, and went up to a small hill, having brought fruit trees to flat Elsewyr. And he said, "I have done what you have asked. Can I have more seeds?"
For there was a sort of magic in planting and harvesting, and a magic too in getting to journey with a purpose. Everywhere he went, cats who knew he was soon to die--for Khenarthi was quite loud when angry--gave him drinks and encouragement as one would a dead cat walking. He was for once in his life welcome, for it is said that even his mother could not attend his birth.
She was surprised, and confused, but decided she might as well. She gave two-hundred seeds and said, "Plant them when you will."
But he said, "No. If S'raska has not planted two hundred seeds in three hundred days, then Khenarthi should kill this cat." She was baffled, and he explained. "It is best to have a reason, something to drive one on. Or this one will get lazy."
And so, he planted two-hundred seeds in three-hundred days, and three hundred seeds in four-hundred days, and he continued planting across Elsweyr until he was grey in the fur, and by that time regarded as so greatly wise that each and every one of his previous misadventures and crimes was now regarded as almost sacred. Khenarthi, though, had a problem. At the rate he was planting, by the time he died all of Elsweyr would be a jungle of fruit trees, and this would not suit many cats, for all that any sensible cat loved the fruits that had begun to sprout from the trees.
So she went to him, and she said, "S'raska, my most devoted, you should spread out, take these new seeds to where the Wood Elves lie, and these stranger seeds through the jungle, and further north and east and west and south, so that all the world may know better fruits, and so that Elsweyr might remain Elsweyr."
And he nodded, but said, "S'raska will be far from you. Might S'raska take clippings from the Great Tree on Khenarthi's Roost to plant?"
And that, Khajiit say, was the origin of not only all of the edible fruits of the world, but also, it is said by some, those trees dedicated to Khenarthi such as the Eldergleam, and was thus the grandmother of the Gildergreen.
******
Do'azda is quite sure that this is not the story told in this Temple, but it seems to her entirely reasonable. Khajiit travel when they cannot stay home, and travel far. Still, she looks around the Temple to see how they worship Khenarthi up north.
The steps of the Temple are stone, with deep grooves worn by the feet of hundreds, thousands of pilgrims. The stone is so smooth it all but shines in the early evening sun, leading to the doors, blue paint bleached by the sun and peeling slightly.
It's quiet inside the temple, which brings Do'azda up short. Temples of Khenarthi - such as she has temples, for the Great Hawk of the Wind has ever been more worshipped in groves and shrines than in temples - tended to be alive, with springs and woodland pools, birds singing, small animals taking shelter…
Here, the room is bare of natural life, all sawn planks and thin, well worn rugs. A man lies in a cot, groaning faintly, blood beginning to stain a bandage around his stomach, whilst a woman is fetal in another, a bucket beside her.
It seems to Do'azda odd that a Temple to Khenarthi would be a place of Healing, but with no shamans, perhaps priests had been compelled to take their place? The temple was not a poor sickhouse; clean, well lit and well ventilated, not too hot or too cold.
A nord priestess prays quietly in the centre of the room, where a shrine to Khenarthi is positioned below the patterned stained glass of a skylight central to the temple, stylised akin to an owl.
"What purpose do you have in the Temple of Kynareth, child?" The voice is gruff, and Do'azda jumps. The man who spoke, a nord man in pale robes spattered with the dull brown of dry blood, raises his hands, palms up to reassure her he has no weapon. "Easy, child. I mean no harm."
"A traveler should always visit a Temple of Khenarthi wherever possible," Do'azda says. "But Do'azda also wished to ask about the Tree of Khenarthi outside." She thought of the grandeur of that tree. "It seems dead, yet there is still power in it. It resonates with the might of the Gatherer of Waters, though not the Heavens themselves."
"Ah, you are a Khajiit mystic?" he asked.
"Shaman," Do'azda says.
"You may wish to talk to Danica, the Priestess. She is very wise in the ways of Kynareth, and she wishes to talk with pious travelers." He spoke slowly and carefully. "I am merely her apprentice, and a healer."
"Do'azda does not have much time, but she can talk to Danica." She is just peeking in, and in a few minutes at most she needs to head back down to the gate if she wants to leave in time for sunset. She doesn't want to get in trouble.
"Acolyte Jenssen, Isgrid seems to be waking up?" The Priestess says, her voice tinged with exhaustion as she rises to her feet. "I would see to her, but without Ahlam, I've worked my magicka to the bone…"
The man nods once. "I can give her a potion, and we'll see if she can keep it down?"
As he leaves, Danica turns to Do'azda. "A shaman? When did the Khajiit of Whiterun get a shaman?"
"Do'azda arrived only recently, and she came to see the Temple to Khenarthi and-" Do'azda pauses awkwardly. "The tree? She looks…"
Danica sighs. "The Gildergreen, yes. Each year, it dies in the winter and is revived in the Spring when the most pious heroes seek the Eldergleam to renew it. But with the war, there are no pious heroes not busy with bloodshed, and so the only sapling of the Eldergleam, the oldest living thing in Tamriel…"
"Excepting the Great Tree of Khenarthi's roost, of course?" Do'azda says before she can stop herself. Danica blinks, and her face shutters.
"I'm sure I wouldn't know what that is. The Eldergleam is recognised as the very oldest thing across the Empire, but perhaps in Elsweyr, they know better?" Danica replies, a touch of frost to her voice.
"Perhaps, or perhaps not. Do'azda apologises for any offence. It is growing late, she should perhaps get out of Whiterun, she has business outside the walls…"
"Will you be safe to leave the city? I can have Jenssen walk you out? I know awful things happen to your people after dark…" Danica says, concern on her face, their argument immediately forgotten. Do'azda can recognise this; Danica the woman may be angry Do'azda disrespected the Eldergleam, but Danica the priestess fears for Do'azda's safety. Do'azda must do the same, sometimes; separate herself as a person from herself as a shaman.
"Do'azda would… appreciate this, yes." She replies at last.
The hunters have gathered on Sha'ki's doorstep by the time Do'azda arrives, with the sun sinking below the horizon at her back.
Nahrazad the Alfiq sits primly on the step, her tail flicking a little. A red bandana is tied neatly around her neck but no weapons or armour. Sinir and Ra'zaym argue quietly - Sinir is encased in iron armour; bands of iron strapped to furs, a crossbow on his back and an iron sword on his belt, whilst Ra'zaym hasn't changed out of his dark leathers, but he's strapped a dagger on each hip and a bow to his back.
"Ra'zaym does not understand why-"
"Does Ra'zaym have no conscience? Does he care so little for other cats?"
"Ra'zaym is here is he not? Perhaps Sinir should be kinder to him, no?"
Bari is rubbing the bridge of her nose with her fingers, frustration visibly emanating off her. Leather straps crossing her chest, and a dull iron pauldron is strapped above her left shoulder, Bari looks almost the spit of the mental image one would hold of a Khajiit Hunter.
Sha'ki stands to one side, fidgeting slightly as she watches the hunters argue. Seeing Do'azda approach, her eyes light up.
"Shaman! Did you tell these hunters to come to my house? They said they were here to hunt the skeevers?"
Do'azda nods. "I thought it would be best to have some help?"
"Ah, the shaman returns. Did she find what she was looking for in Whiterun?" Bari interrupts. "Bari has brought her apprentices to deal with these skeevers, we were just waiting for the shaman before we went, in case there is anything she can do to make this easier?"
Everyone looks to Do'azda expectantly, and she looks down, abashed by the attention.
"Do'azda can give confidence in victory, if any need it, and she can send Rajhin ahead to watch the skeevers, but beyond that, she has only her dagger and claws."
Nahrazad steps daintily down onto the road, preparing to begin. "Nahrazad has no need for confidence from the shaman, she has enough of her own. Perhaps Sinir would care for some, in addition to the metal he straps to his body?"
Bari sighs as Sinir bristles. "Bari thanks you for the offer, shaman, but unless Sha'ki would like, she doubts any of her apprentices will admit to needing confidence. Do'azda ought to cast the spell, all the same."
Sha'ki's eyes go wide. "Sha'ki is invited to come along? She thought it was perhaps too dangerous?"
"Nahrazad is sure Sha'ki would rather see the skeevers slain, no? She will have such fine hunters to protect her, and the shaman too,"
"Do'azda agrees. Sha'ki will be safe enough. She would offer Ka'hasa the opportunity too, but the children should not be alone."
Sha'ki nods, a little eagerly. She heartens to see them all, and Do'azda can guess what she's thinking. She can't have thought that her worries would see such a team gather to solve them. They all move closer and she raises her hand, praying in her mind:
S'rendarr gladden our hearts for the hunt to come. Let us not falter in arm nor mind. Keep us from Sheggorath's grasp.
Do'azda gasps as the spell takes hold. In her mind's eye, tiny motes of light affix to the bodies of her companions, and their backs straighten, the tension leaves their shoulders and an easy confidence fills the air.
"Nahrazad is eager to begin the hunt," Nahrazad says grandly to Sha'ki as she climbs onto the Cathay-Raht's shoulder and curls up incongruously. "She is a skilled hunter, does Sha'ki know this? She must know this. Nahrazad brings pelts without a mark on them! No other can hunt like Nahrazad! Is Sha'ki not impressed by Nahrazad's many skills?"
Sha'ki grunts noncommittally, her attention wholly captured by the danger of the task she has agreed to, but Nahrazad pays no mind, bragging quite happily until they reach the streambed, and the skeevers.
By this point, Do'azda has almost recovered from the casting of the spell, but she doubts still that she will be of much magical aid.
Rajhin wheels lazily overhead, and Do'azda's eyes flash as she borrows his sight.
Two skeevers are tugging on something white that flexes a little as they yank it to and fro between them, as though it were cloth or leather. A handful of others are idle on the escarpment on the approach to their nest - three of them are asleep, curled up together almost in a ball, whilst another sluggishly scavenges, having only just awoken. As Do'azda watches, another slips out of a nest right by the city walls.
"Do'azda can see 7 skeevers, but they are still waking. One awake by the escarpment, three more asleep near it, and 3 awake further in." Do'azda says, her voice distant and far away.
"Undoubtedly more are asleep in the burrow," Ra'zaym notes sourly, "And will awaken soon enough, be sure of it."
"Nahrazad shall kill the skeever by the entrance, so her clumsier comrades can sneak up on the sleeping skeevers. Nahrazad is an expert on hunting smaller creatures like skeevers." Nahrazad says, her green eyes sparkling. "Perhaps Sinir and Ra'zaym should watch her, to see if they can learn?"
For all her braggadocio, Nahrazad is exceptionally good at stalking, disappearing into the darkness, visible to Do'azda only through Rajhin's eyes.
A flicker of motion as the alfiq leaps, a flash of tooth and claw, a curious crackle that fades to a low hum, and then the faint smell of ozone. Rajhin sees Nahrazad detach herself from the neck of the - now quite dead - skeever, and disappear back down the streambed.
One sleeping skeever raises its head a little, but whilst Do'azda has been distracted, Ra'zaym and Sinir have made their way closer. An arrow tears into one skeever as a crossbow bolt hits another. The last of the skeevers near the escarpment lets out a screech of alarm before anyone can stop it.
The two skeevers atop the hill drop the scrap they were fighting over as three more skeevers boil out of their nest and rush towards the noise.
Bari snarls in irritation, drawing a moonstone dagger in her right hand as she positions herself in front of Sha'ki, who yelps in fear.
A skeever leaps from the darkness, and Bari's hand darts out. Blood spatters across the streambed and the skeever scurries into the darkness.
Rajhin dives towards the wounded skeever, and Do'azda withdraws from his mind, mindful of the dangers of vertigo in a fight such as this.
Without Rajhin's view, Do'azda finds herself squinting into the darkness as she slinks forwards, clutching her axe in her hands.
In the dim half-light of dusk, she sees flashes of her comrades - Nahrazad stalks through the undergrowth, her claws crackling a brilliant white, Sinir a one-cat stampede of iron as he hacks around himself, surrounded by a mass of skeevers, so tightly packed that Do'azda cannot see where one ends and the next begins, Ra'zaym darts across her path, daggers red, his mouth twisted into an angry snarl - but she can't be sure how they fare.
Turning to see how Sha'ki is handling things, Do'azda almost trips over a skeever as it launches itself out of the burrow. Only the fact that the skeever itself did not seem to expect her presence allows her to avoid injury, and she hits it with her axe before she thinks about it, almost pinning the skeever to the ground with the force of the blow. Hot stinking blood covers the haft of her axe, and it almost slips from her grasp.
The sound of fighting has almost ceased, and Do'azda adjusts her grip, staring into the darkness. A moment passes, and then another.
"Shaman? Is the shaman well? Bari will be in such trouble if she has allowed the shaman to come to harm…" Bari's voice comes out of the darkness, a little pained.
"Do'azda is well, yes! She has found the skeevers' burrow?"
"Have a care, shaman. There'll be more inside." Bari warns, "Hold tight until I get there. Nahrazad can watch Sha'ki. Sinir, Ra'zaym, with me."
The hunters quickly settle in around the burrow, talking in hushed, hurried tones of whether to set a fire atop the burrow, or poison, or water… They seem confident they will be able to eradicate whatever is left, and Do'azda is no hunter; she is a shaman. Where she cannot help with the matter of hunting and burrows and the like, she can at least find what brought the skeevers so close to town; it is unusual for skeevers to be so near the walls of a city; had she not dealt with this, eventually a skeever would've gotten into the city itself and the whiterun guard would've wiped out the nest. Ka'hasa's children may have gotten sick, and Sha'ki's dog could've been eaten, but at least the Nords wouldn't have to see a skeever in their back alleys.
Do'azda leaves the hunters to their work, making her way back towards Sha'ki and Nahrazad. Skeever bodies are strewn wherever she looks, and she counts a dozen before she sees something white - the skeevers had fought over it, before the assault distracted them.
At first, Do'azda thinks it is leather, but as she draws closer, she sees it is a rind - the tough skin and outer fat of a pig's belly. How does such a thing get here? Frowning, she hurries back to the stream. A pig's trotter rots on one bank, chewed to a wretched ruin. The grass around the stream is discoloured in places, and smells foul, of yellow and black biles. The contents of organs, now eaten? Perhaps a pig drowned in the stream?
There's more the higher up the stream she goes - the snout stuck in the mud here, the tail trapped between these rocks, constantly wafting in the stream's flow, another trotter there… But the true mass is found right up by the wall, where a mat of bone and sinew has compacted itself against the grate in the wall that the stream flows out of. Did a pig fall into the stream within Whiterun? Get washed down into the bowels of the city, flung against the grate and slowly drowned, all whilst skeevers worried at its still living body? Do'azda shudders. She hopes it died swiftly, at least.
Still, cleared out though the skeevers may be, enough carcass remains to surely attract more in time.
But it's getting very dark now, and no skeevers will move in overnight. Perhaps she ought to call it a night? Return to Ka'hasa's for dinner and to give her the good news, and then return in the morning to clear the carcass away?
[ ] Better to finish off tonight. Do'azda will clear away the remains and have them burnt tonight, that their ash might be taken up by the Goddess Noctra, vagabond ward of Azurah.
[ ] It grows late, and it grows dark. Do'azda will do a more thorough job in the morning, she is sure, and she will commit the ash to Khenarthi, that the animal might recall the freedom they lost.
TL AN: Vet did the fight scene for this one, and did it very well. I was really busy, and wrote just the myth at the start and some of the dialogue.
VM AN: I liked the myth here. Exploring Khajiiti religion is quite a bit of fun, honestly? Though at some point I suppose I'm going to have to work out what "Riddle'thar" is, exactly.
Long ago, before Cyrodiil was anything but a trackless jungle, even before the chicken had lost her last scale, there was a Khajiit named S'raska Swift-hearted, so called for his ever-changing moods. S'raska was a bad cat, and disrespected the Gods and caused trouble, running from one disaster to the next without stop all across Elsweyr. Along the way he angered each of the Gods in turn, except one.
Khenarthi, the Gatherer of Souls and Waters, the Great Hawk of the Wind, loved him, for he traveled far and wide, seeing many waters and many skies in his quest to avoid the consequences of his actions. And so when the other Gods said they should punish him, she said, "It causes no lasting harm, and he is amusing. Are my littermates really so angered by one little cat?"
But one day, he came to a sacred stream belonging to Khenarthi. It was the rule that one could only use it to travel and water crops, and that bathing in it could only be done one night a year under the full moon. The Khajiit who lived in the area were pious, and Khenarthi had provided a well anyways, a spring of water pure and clean with which they could bathe without disturbing the stream, one of several sacred streams that exist into this day.
But S'raska laughed at the 'jokes' of the Khajiit who refused to take a refreshing bath in the stream, and not only jumped in himself but pushed several of them in, laughing and joking and saying, "S'raska the Swift-Bather thinks you need it." And indeed, he was only in the bath for a minute when the waters turned scalding, but only for him.
Khenarthi was infuriated, for she had kept the waters clear for a reason, and within this small stream great things were meant to be created: fish that could fly in the open air even better than fish could back then, and who could swim along the currents of the skies to send messages. But S'raska's presence had corrupted that, and forever more they would instead be catfish.
In a fury, Khenarthi appeared before him, screeching in the language of hawks.
"S'raska does not understand you," he declared. "S'raska speaks as cats do, and not as bird-brains do."
And so she spoke in his mind, with a voice that had all the power of the winds behind it. 'You who have wandered and defiled must wander and create. If you do not plant a hundred seeds in a hundred different towns, you shall die within a hundred days."
He gaped, and realized at once that he could not lie or run his way out of this, as Khenarthi gave him a magical bag that could not be discarded filled with the seeds of fruit trees.
In the bag were seeds for melons, marula, and indeed the dark, juicy plums that are today known as Raskas. Desperately he ran about, throwing seeds at random in each town he went into, but they did not sprout. He went to a Shaman for help, and the Shaman gave him a sacred tool… that is to say, she gave him a tool to help dig up the ground so as to better plant the seeds, and a pot which could hold water so that he could water them. And she told him many sacred pieces of lore, such as to not plant a tree too far or too close to a source of water, and that despite what S'raska thought, a tree could not easily grow in a cave.
In other words, she taught S'raska common sense, and he was transformed.
He now planted with greater confidence, though he still got in trouble and his adventures fill an entire volume. On the 100th day, he planted his final seed, and went up to a small hill, having brought fruit trees to flat Elsewyr. And he said, "I have done what you have asked. Can I have more seeds?"
For there was a sort of magic in planting and harvesting, and a magic too in getting to journey with a purpose. Everywhere he went, cats who knew he was soon to die--for Khenarthi was quite loud when angry--gave him drinks and encouragement as one would a dead cat walking. He was for once in his life welcome, for it is said that even his mother could not attend his birth.
She was surprised, and confused, but decided she might as well. She gave two-hundred seeds and said, "Plant them when you will."
But he said, "No. If S'raska has not planted two hundred seeds in three hundred days, then Khenarthi should kill this cat." She was baffled, and he explained. "It is best to have a reason, something to drive one on. Or this one will get lazy."
And so, he planted two-hundred seeds in three-hundred days, and three hundred seeds in four-hundred days, and he continued planting across Elsweyr until he was grey in the fur, and by that time regarded as so greatly wise that each and every one of his previous misadventures and crimes was now regarded as almost sacred. Khenarthi, though, had a problem. At the rate he was planting, by the time he died all of Elsweyr would be a jungle of fruit trees, and this would not suit many cats, for all that any sensible cat loved the fruits that had begun to sprout from the trees.
So she went to him, and she said, "S'raska, my most devoted, you should spread out, take these new seeds to where the Wood Elves lie, and these stranger seeds through the jungle, and further north and east and west and south, so that all the world may know better fruits, and so that Elsweyr might remain Elsweyr."
And he nodded, but said, "S'raska will be far from you. Might S'raska take clippings from the Great Tree on Khenarthi's Roost to plant?"
And that, Khajiit say, was the origin of not only all of the edible fruits of the world, but also, it is said by some, those trees dedicated to Khenarthi such as the Eldergleam, and was thus the grandmother of the Gildergreen.
******
Do'azda is quite sure that this is not the story told in this Temple, but it seems to her entirely reasonable. Khajiit travel when they cannot stay home, and travel far. Still, she looks around the Temple to see how they worship Khenarthi up north.
The steps of the Temple are stone, with deep grooves worn by the feet of hundreds, thousands of pilgrims. The stone is so smooth it all but shines in the early evening sun, leading to the doors, blue paint bleached by the sun and peeling slightly.
It's quiet inside the temple, which brings Do'azda up short. Temples of Khenarthi - such as she has temples, for the Great Hawk of the Wind has ever been more worshipped in groves and shrines than in temples - tended to be alive, with springs and woodland pools, birds singing, small animals taking shelter…
Here, the room is bare of natural life, all sawn planks and thin, well worn rugs. A man lies in a cot, groaning faintly, blood beginning to stain a bandage around his stomach, whilst a woman is fetal in another, a bucket beside her.
It seems to Do'azda odd that a Temple to Khenarthi would be a place of Healing, but with no shamans, perhaps priests had been compelled to take their place? The temple was not a poor sickhouse; clean, well lit and well ventilated, not too hot or too cold.
A nord priestess prays quietly in the centre of the room, where a shrine to Khenarthi is positioned below the patterned stained glass of a skylight central to the temple, stylised akin to an owl.
"What purpose do you have in the Temple of Kynareth, child?" The voice is gruff, and Do'azda jumps. The man who spoke, a nord man in pale robes spattered with the dull brown of dry blood, raises his hands, palms up to reassure her he has no weapon. "Easy, child. I mean no harm."
"A traveler should always visit a Temple of Khenarthi wherever possible," Do'azda says. "But Do'azda also wished to ask about the Tree of Khenarthi outside." She thought of the grandeur of that tree. "It seems dead, yet there is still power in it. It resonates with the might of the Gatherer of Waters, though not the Heavens themselves."
"Ah, you are a Khajiit mystic?" he asked.
"Shaman," Do'azda says.
"You may wish to talk to Danica, the Priestess. She is very wise in the ways of Kynareth, and she wishes to talk with pious travelers." He spoke slowly and carefully. "I am merely her apprentice, and a healer."
"Do'azda does not have much time, but she can talk to Danica." She is just peeking in, and in a few minutes at most she needs to head back down to the gate if she wants to leave in time for sunset. She doesn't want to get in trouble.
"Acolyte Jenssen, Isgrid seems to be waking up?" The Priestess says, her voice tinged with exhaustion as she rises to her feet. "I would see to her, but without Ahlam, I've worked my magicka to the bone…"
The man nods once. "I can give her a potion, and we'll see if she can keep it down?"
As he leaves, Danica turns to Do'azda. "A shaman? When did the Khajiit of Whiterun get a shaman?"
"Do'azda arrived only recently, and she came to see the Temple to Khenarthi and-" Do'azda pauses awkwardly. "The tree? She looks…"
Danica sighs. "The Gildergreen, yes. Each year, it dies in the winter and is revived in the Spring when the most pious heroes seek the Eldergleam to renew it. But with the war, there are no pious heroes not busy with bloodshed, and so the only sapling of the Eldergleam, the oldest living thing in Tamriel…"
"Excepting the Great Tree of Khenarthi's roost, of course?" Do'azda says before she can stop herself. Danica blinks, and her face shutters.
"I'm sure I wouldn't know what that is. The Eldergleam is recognised as the very oldest thing across the Empire, but perhaps in Elsweyr, they know better?" Danica replies, a touch of frost to her voice.
"Perhaps, or perhaps not. Do'azda apologises for any offence. It is growing late, she should perhaps get out of Whiterun, she has business outside the walls…"
"Will you be safe to leave the city? I can have Jenssen walk you out? I know awful things happen to your people after dark…" Danica says, concern on her face, their argument immediately forgotten. Do'azda can recognise this; Danica the woman may be angry Do'azda disrespected the Eldergleam, but Danica the priestess fears for Do'azda's safety. Do'azda must do the same, sometimes; separate herself as a person from herself as a shaman.
"Do'azda would… appreciate this, yes." She replies at last.
The hunters have gathered on Sha'ki's doorstep by the time Do'azda arrives, with the sun sinking below the horizon at her back.
Nahrazad the Alfiq sits primly on the step, her tail flicking a little. A red bandana is tied neatly around her neck but no weapons or armour. Sinir and Ra'zaym argue quietly - Sinir is encased in iron armour; bands of iron strapped to furs, a crossbow on his back and an iron sword on his belt, whilst Ra'zaym hasn't changed out of his dark leathers, but he's strapped a dagger on each hip and a bow to his back.
"Ra'zaym does not understand why-"
"Does Ra'zaym have no conscience? Does he care so little for other cats?"
"Ra'zaym is here is he not? Perhaps Sinir should be kinder to him, no?"
Bari is rubbing the bridge of her nose with her fingers, frustration visibly emanating off her. Leather straps crossing her chest, and a dull iron pauldron is strapped above her left shoulder, Bari looks almost the spit of the mental image one would hold of a Khajiit Hunter.
Sha'ki stands to one side, fidgeting slightly as she watches the hunters argue. Seeing Do'azda approach, her eyes light up.
"Shaman! Did you tell these hunters to come to my house? They said they were here to hunt the skeevers?"
Do'azda nods. "I thought it would be best to have some help?"
"Ah, the shaman returns. Did she find what she was looking for in Whiterun?" Bari interrupts. "Bari has brought her apprentices to deal with these skeevers, we were just waiting for the shaman before we went, in case there is anything she can do to make this easier?"
Everyone looks to Do'azda expectantly, and she looks down, abashed by the attention.
"Do'azda can give confidence in victory, if any need it, and she can send Rajhin ahead to watch the skeevers, but beyond that, she has only her dagger and claws."
Nahrazad steps daintily down onto the road, preparing to begin. "Nahrazad has no need for confidence from the shaman, she has enough of her own. Perhaps Sinir would care for some, in addition to the metal he straps to his body?"
Bari sighs as Sinir bristles. "Bari thanks you for the offer, shaman, but unless Sha'ki would like, she doubts any of her apprentices will admit to needing confidence. Do'azda ought to cast the spell, all the same."
Sha'ki's eyes go wide. "Sha'ki is invited to come along? She thought it was perhaps too dangerous?"
"Nahrazad is sure Sha'ki would rather see the skeevers slain, no? She will have such fine hunters to protect her, and the shaman too,"
"Do'azda agrees. Sha'ki will be safe enough. She would offer Ka'hasa the opportunity too, but the children should not be alone."
Sha'ki nods, a little eagerly. She heartens to see them all, and Do'azda can guess what she's thinking. She can't have thought that her worries would see such a team gather to solve them. They all move closer and she raises her hand, praying in her mind:
S'rendarr gladden our hearts for the hunt to come. Let us not falter in arm nor mind. Keep us from Sheggorath's grasp.
Do'azda gasps as the spell takes hold. In her mind's eye, tiny motes of light affix to the bodies of her companions, and their backs straighten, the tension leaves their shoulders and an easy confidence fills the air.
"Nahrazad is eager to begin the hunt," Nahrazad says grandly to Sha'ki as she climbs onto the Cathay-Raht's shoulder and curls up incongruously. "She is a skilled hunter, does Sha'ki know this? She must know this. Nahrazad brings pelts without a mark on them! No other can hunt like Nahrazad! Is Sha'ki not impressed by Nahrazad's many skills?"
Sha'ki grunts noncommittally, her attention wholly captured by the danger of the task she has agreed to, but Nahrazad pays no mind, bragging quite happily until they reach the streambed, and the skeevers.
By this point, Do'azda has almost recovered from the casting of the spell, but she doubts still that she will be of much magical aid.
Rajhin wheels lazily overhead, and Do'azda's eyes flash as she borrows his sight.
Two skeevers are tugging on something white that flexes a little as they yank it to and fro between them, as though it were cloth or leather. A handful of others are idle on the escarpment on the approach to their nest - three of them are asleep, curled up together almost in a ball, whilst another sluggishly scavenges, having only just awoken. As Do'azda watches, another slips out of a nest right by the city walls.
"Do'azda can see 7 skeevers, but they are still waking. One awake by the escarpment, three more asleep near it, and 3 awake further in." Do'azda says, her voice distant and far away.
"Undoubtedly more are asleep in the burrow," Ra'zaym notes sourly, "And will awaken soon enough, be sure of it."
"Nahrazad shall kill the skeever by the entrance, so her clumsier comrades can sneak up on the sleeping skeevers. Nahrazad is an expert on hunting smaller creatures like skeevers." Nahrazad says, her green eyes sparkling. "Perhaps Sinir and Ra'zaym should watch her, to see if they can learn?"
For all her braggadocio, Nahrazad is exceptionally good at stalking, disappearing into the darkness, visible to Do'azda only through Rajhin's eyes.
A flicker of motion as the alfiq leaps, a flash of tooth and claw, a curious crackle that fades to a low hum, and then the faint smell of ozone. Rajhin sees Nahrazad detach herself from the neck of the - now quite dead - skeever, and disappear back down the streambed.
One sleeping skeever raises its head a little, but whilst Do'azda has been distracted, Ra'zaym and Sinir have made their way closer. An arrow tears into one skeever as a crossbow bolt hits another. The last of the skeevers near the escarpment lets out a screech of alarm before anyone can stop it.
The two skeevers atop the hill drop the scrap they were fighting over as three more skeevers boil out of their nest and rush towards the noise.
Bari snarls in irritation, drawing a moonstone dagger in her right hand as she positions herself in front of Sha'ki, who yelps in fear.
A skeever leaps from the darkness, and Bari's hand darts out. Blood spatters across the streambed and the skeever scurries into the darkness.
Rajhin dives towards the wounded skeever, and Do'azda withdraws from his mind, mindful of the dangers of vertigo in a fight such as this.
Without Rajhin's view, Do'azda finds herself squinting into the darkness as she slinks forwards, clutching her axe in her hands.
In the dim half-light of dusk, she sees flashes of her comrades - Nahrazad stalks through the undergrowth, her claws crackling a brilliant white, Sinir a one-cat stampede of iron as he hacks around himself, surrounded by a mass of skeevers, so tightly packed that Do'azda cannot see where one ends and the next begins, Ra'zaym darts across her path, daggers red, his mouth twisted into an angry snarl - but she can't be sure how they fare.
Turning to see how Sha'ki is handling things, Do'azda almost trips over a skeever as it launches itself out of the burrow. Only the fact that the skeever itself did not seem to expect her presence allows her to avoid injury, and she hits it with her axe before she thinks about it, almost pinning the skeever to the ground with the force of the blow. Hot stinking blood covers the haft of her axe, and it almost slips from her grasp.
The sound of fighting has almost ceased, and Do'azda adjusts her grip, staring into the darkness. A moment passes, and then another.
"Shaman? Is the shaman well? Bari will be in such trouble if she has allowed the shaman to come to harm…" Bari's voice comes out of the darkness, a little pained.
"Do'azda is well, yes! She has found the skeevers' burrow?"
"Have a care, shaman. There'll be more inside." Bari warns, "Hold tight until I get there. Nahrazad can watch Sha'ki. Sinir, Ra'zaym, with me."
The hunters quickly settle in around the burrow, talking in hushed, hurried tones of whether to set a fire atop the burrow, or poison, or water… They seem confident they will be able to eradicate whatever is left, and Do'azda is no hunter; she is a shaman. Where she cannot help with the matter of hunting and burrows and the like, she can at least find what brought the skeevers so close to town; it is unusual for skeevers to be so near the walls of a city; had she not dealt with this, eventually a skeever would've gotten into the city itself and the whiterun guard would've wiped out the nest. Ka'hasa's children may have gotten sick, and Sha'ki's dog could've been eaten, but at least the Nords wouldn't have to see a skeever in their back alleys.
Do'azda leaves the hunters to their work, making her way back towards Sha'ki and Nahrazad. Skeever bodies are strewn wherever she looks, and she counts a dozen before she sees something white - the skeevers had fought over it, before the assault distracted them.
At first, Do'azda thinks it is leather, but as she draws closer, she sees it is a rind - the tough skin and outer fat of a pig's belly. How does such a thing get here? Frowning, she hurries back to the stream. A pig's trotter rots on one bank, chewed to a wretched ruin. The grass around the stream is discoloured in places, and smells foul, of yellow and black biles. The contents of organs, now eaten? Perhaps a pig drowned in the stream?
There's more the higher up the stream she goes - the snout stuck in the mud here, the tail trapped between these rocks, constantly wafting in the stream's flow, another trotter there… But the true mass is found right up by the wall, where a mat of bone and sinew has compacted itself against the grate in the wall that the stream flows out of. Did a pig fall into the stream within Whiterun? Get washed down into the bowels of the city, flung against the grate and slowly drowned, all whilst skeevers worried at its still living body? Do'azda shudders. She hopes it died swiftly, at least.
Still, cleared out though the skeevers may be, enough carcass remains to surely attract more in time.
But it's getting very dark now, and no skeevers will move in overnight. Perhaps she ought to call it a night? Return to Ka'hasa's for dinner and to give her the good news, and then return in the morning to clear the carcass away?
[ ] Better to finish off tonight. Do'azda will clear away the remains and have them burnt tonight, that their ash might be taken up by the Goddess Noctra, vagabond ward of Azurah.
[ ] It grows late, and it grows dark. Do'azda will do a more thorough job in the morning, she is sure, and she will commit the ash to Khenarthi, that the animal might recall the freedom they lost.
TL AN: Vet did the fight scene for this one, and did it very well. I was really busy, and wrote just the myth at the start and some of the dialogue.
VM AN: I liked the myth here. Exploring Khajiiti religion is quite a bit of fun, honestly? Though at some point I suppose I'm going to have to work out what "Riddle'thar" is, exactly.
Last edited:
