I'm legitimately curious how many of you will be able to immediately know 'where' our catboy is.
---
Chapter 47: Khajiit.
'Llorona shared great wisdom with the Three Wise Rainbow Women: Adannna, who was shaped like Llorona, Brenelin, who danced with fire, and Traynda, who would let no question go unasked.
To Adannna, the wisdom of context was granted. Light is not always better than darkness, action is not always superior to inaction. One must look at how the small picture and big picture relate to each other--for they are connected intrinsically.
To Brenelin, the wisdom of empathy was given. "How would you like it if someone came into your home and chastised you for the way you eat," she asked. Do not take every opportunity to turn a scene into a sermon, do not levy criticism against that which causes no harm.
To Traynda, the wisdom of fear was granted. Beauty could become ugliness, and what was may not always be. Cherish what is here, for it might be gone tomorrow. The World will steal all it can from you, but keep on living to spite it.'
Galamir looked up from reading the latest contribution to the Book and eyed his fellow Friends who had written it. "... Why didn't you just call yourselves the Three Wise Lesbians," he asked.
"The name was taken by a trio of seers in Black Marsh three hundred years ago," Brenelin answered. "I think they were also a band?"
"This one will not steal a title well deserved," Adannna chimed in, with her arms crossed. "Is hard to find good band names in this day and age."
Galamir shrugged, closed the Book, and returned it to its pedestal. "Alright, so let's get back to Deco practice. I really want to figure out this 'elevator' thing that the Master told us about."
--
Sleeping tree sugar smelled like M'aiq, Mohamara noted when the egg-shaped candies of pressed sugar were offered to him. Cherries, grapes, and oranges almost in the exact same ratios. The realization pissed him off. It pissed him off so much that he put off trying the candies until sundown the following day out of spite.
But he couldn't put it off forever, and with the last gasp of the sun's light, Mohamara swallowed an egg of sleeping tree sugar whole. Even though he hadn't let it dissolve in his mouth, the taste of grapes, oranges, cherries, and raw
sweetness was so strong he almost threw up from the intensity.
But he didn't. He suffered through nausea worse than any he'd experienced in his life, so bad that he couldn't hold his eyes open from the strain not to vomit up his entire stomach. When he opened them again, he was not in Volskygge anymore.
Mohamara found himself in an endless desert of white sand dunes, with no clouds in the sky, and the sun shining above. Though he had never been in this place before, he felt as though he had--familiar sights such as an orange slice taller than the highest mountain, a cluster of grapes equally as massive, and four distant mountains seemingly made of solid metal all gave him palpable deja-vu.
He took a step, stumbled as the sand beneath him shifted, and rolled down a dune. Once he was at the base, covered in sand, he discovered that it wasn't actually sand. In the effort of spitting out that which had gotten in his mouth, he discovered it to be granulated sugar. "A desert of sugar… I want to call it a dessert desert, but feel like I've already used that line." Mohamara found himself distracted by an enormous crash in the distance. With scrabbling hands, he climbed back to the top of the dune and saw a sugar-dust cloud rising from the vicinity of the giant fruit.
When it cleared, there were two cherries, bound to each other by the stem, resting in the sugar and towering over it. Mohamara looked through the sympathetic bonds to find out what this place was trying to tell him. They simplified his view, to basic colors. The orange and grapes became their base colors and grouped together form a disk made of one half of each: Sheogorath.
Cherry red became a starburst pattern, one he knew by memory: Meridia. But neither force could influence the world except by their presence. The associations with them were stymied, blocked, blunted, banished--they could not enter here.
Safe, the bonds said.
From them, from pain, from loneliness. A blank canvas.
"But that's a lie," he told the bonds. The sun grew dim, and the everpresent warmth that had existed before was replaced with cold. "I'm alone here." The sympathetic bonds moved on their own and pulled Mohamara's mind into the sand. Like sonar, a wave of awareness dug through the sand and revealed many humanoid figures beneath the sand. Khajiit, sleeping with ease, their breath unimpeded by the sugar that buried them. "Why do they sleep?"
He touched one with his bonds, and his mind was filled with fire and pain-- an alfiq, trapped, no way out. Why couldn't anyone hear that he was stuck inside? The roof collapsed, and the pain and burning were over. Another, an ohmes, he touched. And from her, he felt pain splitting her apart. Surrounded by loved ones, a midwife who had helped her sister and mother. She was so tired and it hurt so much, that she felt she couldn't go on. Cold crept into her limbs, and she faded away--too weak to fight anymore.
"They're all dead." More and more deaths he saw as the bonds linked him to the sleeping Khajiit. It took him only a moment to remember his obligations and assumed a praying stance. "You are Dead, and the Dead should be Mourned. I Mourn you like you are Mine, for someone must." Over and over again he said the Mourner's Chant for the sleeping Khajiit buried in the sugar sands. After so many hundreds of times, he realized he'd changed the words from seeing through the eyes of so many. "You are Dead, and the Dead should be Mourned. Khajiit Mourns, for you are His, and He must."
When did he start crying? He couldn't recall. Mohamara's crying had to have gone on a long time, for when he glanced to where they had fallen, a lake had formed in the dunes. The cold that had come with the sun's light fading reversed, and light returned. Around the edges of the lake, the sand was dissolved and the Khajiit buried within were laid bare to the sun and tears. They seemed to stir as if waking up while Mohamara watched. But he couldn't tell for sure, as the vision rapidly came to its end.
He woke up, and found himself in his sleeping chest, with the kittens on his physical chest. The lid was open, and Jo'leen, Orthorn, and Hadvar were carefully trying to lift Jode up out of Mohamara's embrace--presumably for her feeding. They froze when they saw that the tojay was awake, and watching them.
"Khajiit isn't going to stop you from doing your job," he grumbled and moved his arm so that they could extract Jode. Once done, he sat up and handed Jone over to Jo'leen, then hopped out of the chest. "This one feels sick, will take breakfast alone so as not to throw up on anyone."
He didn't quite grasp what he was saying, or the odd looks on the faces of the tall-legs as he got ready for his morning bath.
"At least I didn't have to let him bite me this time," Orthorn said, relieved, and took off all nine rings of regeneration he'd put on in anticipation.
--
"Khajiit is not suddenly a freakshow for the Orc to gawk at," Mohamara grumbled to Yagraz during a looking glass session later on that day. He sprinkled the pork that was his evening meal with sleeping tree sugar and set the slate up to stand on its own.
"Malacath's gigantic glutes, you even have a Khajiit
accent now," Yagraz told him while she too enjoyed a meal. Lucia waved to Mohamara while she served soup to go with her barbecue chicken. "What happened to your eye?"
Mohamara tapped the large, colorful cloth wrapped around his head and covering his right eye. "Khajiit got violent while high on sugar. Damaged his eye, needed to be removed. Became this thing once out." He held up a golden chain, where a red orb hung. There was gold wrapped around the former eye, resembling feathers sweeping off to one side. "Khajiit guesses he has his artifact now?"
"Oooh, what's it do?"
"Ashpit if Mohamara knows, he doesn't even know why he suddenly cannot use proper grammar."
"Well, slick is going to be mighty pissed off that you lost another piece of yourself. I think he has this thing with amputations and such." Yagraz paused to take a spoonful of soup. "Mm, Lucy this is divine."
"Thanks, Mama," the Imperial girl said with a shy grin.
"Momamama!" Jode made her presence known by leaping up onto Mohamara's table. She rubbed her head into his hand, which of course prompted Mohamara to shower her with kisses and pettings before she tried for his pork.
"Oh my gosh, is that my cousin?" Lucia's face suddenly occupied the whole of Yagraz's side of the call. "She's so
cute!"
"Say hello to cousin Lucy, and you can have some pork," Mohamara told his naughty daughter as he guided her away from his meal.
"Woosee!" The kitten headbutted the slate, then looked to her father to keep his promise. A bite-sized morsel of pig meat was extracted from the tojay's meal and held out for the kitten to chew upon. Her teeth still weren't developed enough to eat the meat, but she could taste and enjoy Brenelin's superb cooking.
"Khajiit wonders if he'd be less angry if he gave him his eye as a gift." Mohmamara paused in the middle of eating some pork of his own to scowl. "Khajiit also dislikes excessive pronoun use with this bizarre manner of speaking."
"Makes you sound like an actual Khajiit, you know," Yagraz commented. She poured herself a tall glass of mead and chilled it with one word from the Frost Breath Shout.
"Khajiit has always been Khajiit, is not a different Khajiit now since vivid hallucinations." His spiteful pout was met with Yagraz giving him a 'really?' expression. "Alright, this one admits crying a lake of tears for dead Khajiit, and saying Mourner's Chant for them make him feel slightly different."
"What's Meridia think about all this?"
As if he'd been a popped balloon, Mohamara deflated. The only effort he put into anything for a minute afterward was to keep Jode from stealing more pork since she'd chewed the flavor out of what he'd given her. "Merria has not responded to Khajiit's prayers. Even use of beacon does not get a response. He fears she is even more upset with him."
Meanwhile, in Moonshadow, a meeting between mother and daughter took place. Meridia took the shape of a Colovian woman in a prismatic dress, while Azura took the shape of a matronly Dunmer woman. The Mother of the Rose stood away from the silver table where creatia food was laid out by her servants to feed the Daedras of Day and Twilight. She parted the curtains that looked out onto her realm--impossibly beautiful, even by Daedric standards.
The faux-'older' woman sniffed disdainfully at some displeasing part of the horizon and adjusted it by her will alone. "First you marry Jyggalag's punishment, then keep to the marriage after he became a mortal-turned-god, and now you hide a grandchild actually worth my investment from me for so long. Were I not ill, I would show you how displeased I am with you, daughter."
Meridia nodded and sipped her tea. "I would deserve it for how I have acted in the past. My… lack of parenting has ostracized my daughters from me and maimed my son. I've shamed you, and my sisters."
"Hmph." Azura let the drapes go and carefully walked to the table. It was unlike Meridia to admit fault--indeed, up until recently, it was outside the realm of possibility. She suspected Sheogorath's involvement, for he held dominion over the impossible. "Good that you admit it. You can begin to correct your mistakes, and bring your brood to heel." Azura sat, and sipped her tea as Meridia had.
The Daedra of Twilight looked on her daughter and saw something beautiful inside that she had not seen before in a Daedra of her line. Regret. It was one of the most beautiful things mortals had ever begotten, and it was something she herself could never experience. It inspired in her the need to reach out and comfort her daughter despite how terribly she had failed.
"Do any of them hate you?"
"No," Meridia sighed. "And I don't know why."
"Then there is still time to show them the love you should have from the beginning." She held Meridia's hand, as she had not done since Merid-Nunda admitted that Lorkhan had tricked her, as Azura said he would. "Your son is… a mess. There is no other way to describe the wreck you've made out of him. And he doesn't even know you as his mother." The aged Dunmer woman tilted her head back, considering. "Perhaps he ought not to know."
Meridia recoiled as if struck with a whip. But Azura held her hand tight. "He is starved for love, for a family. Nocturnal, Clavicus Vile, and… Malacath have all told me how bizarre it is for the boy to just accept them into his heart once he found out they are family."
"... Daughter mine, let me share with you something that your sister taught me, and tried to teach your son." Azura released Meridia's hand and clasped her own. "Even lies can be beautiful."
Back in Volskygge, Mohamara had finished the evening meal and was bathing with the rest of the settlement in the mountain stream. The excavation to have a portion of the stream attached to aqueducts for the settlement's use hadn't been completed yet so they used the stream for bathing Nord civilians struggled with the concept of communal baths, but Imperials, Forsworn, and the Pink Coats all had prolonged experience so there was no shortage of people to help with the awkwardness.
At least until the tojay's amulet lit up with blinding light. "Mohamara Ahramani, hear my word and obey," the voice of Meridia declared with resounding authority.
Of course, Mohamara was not listening, but desperately trying to get out of the bathing area while the 'normal' people panicked over talking jewelry. So he darted rapidly to the second throne room to take the Daedric call. "Um, Khajiit is sorry, Lady--"
"You are not to call me that anymore. I am not your 'Lady', I am not your liege lord, your superior, none of those things."
A pit of despair began to grow in Mohamara's chest. Though he couldn't see it, a nearby vase of flowers began to rapidly wither and die.
"Since Sheogorath has been such a sub-par parental figure for you, and you are rapidly growing in power of your own--I will step up to fill the void." Meridia's tone did not shift from her imperious normal means of speaking, but the light from within the amulet became less harsh the more she talked. "You will call me 'Mother', and I will act as a parent should. You and your descendants will be counted among my family, from this day until the end of days."
The despair in Mohamara began to dissipate, replaced with something worse: Hope. But he felt compelled to protest such an honor. "This one… this honor is too high for him, he is just-just… Mohamara, and not important enough to be related to
you. You're making a mistake, believe Khajiit--"
Suddenly, the amulet shone harshly once more. And when Meridia spoke again, it was with a terrible shout that rattled the very mountain.
"Who made all things? Who made the meek, the mighty, the humble, and the proud? Did not I?! Now obey!"
Like it was a burning coal, Mohamara released the morpholith and covered his ears from the volume of Meridia's reprisal.
After her rage subsided, the amulet's glow became gentle again. "It is not for you to say who is worthy of being my family. That is my decision. And I have decided to include you. If you still wish not--I will respect your wish, but not when it is rooted in whether or not you deserve this gift."
It was a long time before Mohamara was brave enough to accept that 1) he wasn't dreaming, 2) Meridia wasn't the sort to bait her followers into traps, and 3) he desperately wanted what was being offered. "Okay… Mother." It felt
bizarre to use that word, Mohamara found. Until Sheogorath had gotten involved in his life, the concept of parents had been an academic idea--he'd certainly never lasted long enough with any foster family to reach that point.
"As you are now my son, I free you from the constraints of my worship. Love me in whatever way you wish, complete my temple if it pleases you to do so. Take the love I have for you, and make from it armor that nothing in the world can pierce. And teach your children to do the same with your love for them. Goodbye, child mine." The amulet's warm light faded away into its usual ethereal glow, and Mohamara was alone.
Meridia was his adoptive mom, the tojay thought to himself. He thought it repeatedly, to the point where he didn't notice his students ascend the stairs to investigate the shouting, see him nude, then trip over each other to go back. On auto-pilot, he snatched them from the air as they tumbled and set them on their feet at the base of the stairs, and pulled the curtains to the throne room through Mysticism.
He was still in shock, processing the idea of having a maternal figure to put a face to, to have a name for. How would Sheogorath react? Would Meridia want to be a part of Jode and Jone's lives? Would Molag Bal suddenly start attacking his valley for being Meridia's kin?
His thoughts were interrupted by his slate lighting up and playing a
song… an incoming call? But it wasn't from someone he knew. When he picked up the slate, the identification was a picture of a green dragon--with four legs, and the name: NASTYBOI. When he answered, Mohamara had a feeling of whom was calling, and decided to risk offending a Prince potentially. "Uncle Peryite?"
The voice on the other line laughed like a hissing snake. "It is has been a long time since I heard my name spoken without contempt. Nephew, I've heard from Vile, Vivec, and Nocturnal that you are willing to help the family with our problems?"
"Of course, Uncle."
"Then I would ask you help me deal with a… follower of mine who's lost his way."
--
"So, uh. Which one of us is going to tell him?"
The five disciples of Mohamara and the Caller stood shoulder to shoulder in a circle around the artifact: The Eye of Mohamara. In the next room was Marcurio, attempting to teach Jode how to say his name. And they had been tasked with presenting the Eye to Marcurio and relaying his reaction to the Master once he returned from the Reach.
"One, two, three, not it," Orthorn declared while the others debated intellectually. This was met with five people calling him a cheater and decrying that he had acted in such a childish manner. "You're just mad that none of you thought of it first."
The truth of his words was evident in their disgusted expressions. "Let's rehearse what we need to tell him," Galamir said, as he held the Eye by its chain. "Hello, Lord Marcurio, your betrothed got incredibly violent after we gave him an experimental substance and clawed out his eye--here it is."
"That," Traynda, replied as if struck by inspiration, "might just be… the way to get us all killed!" The Redguard woman's tone suddenly became accusatory and enraged. "The Master
warned us about his temper, and you want to just tell him bluntly what happened?!"
"Do we need to tell him where it came from at all?" Adannna said with a hand on her chin. "We could tell him it is a gift from the Master--nothing more."
"Except he would ask the Master where it came from," the Caller commented. "And then when he found out
we knew but didn't tell him, what do you think his reaction would be?"
As one, they turned to look at the distant Imperial, who wove a cat's cradle of lightning to amuse baby Jone. With a few more lightning 'threads', and some clever fingers, he morphed it into a face that began to 'talk' to the babe.
"I heard he once turned some Dunmer woman into a bar of soap for kidnapping the Master," said Galamir.
"I heard he feeds people to his pet dragon for speaking to his enemies," said Brenelin.
"I heard he has the power to summon a hail of arrows from nowhere," said Traynda.
Marcurio bent over and produced a small Dwemer metal box which he placed before Jode. After he fiddled with it, it was revealed to be a music box. The alfiq kitten didn't care about it at first, but her mind changed when Marcurio picked her up and started to dance with her to the
music.
"He could murder every one of us without a problem," the Caller said with horror.
Faintly they could hear the kitten calling the Master's soon-to-be husband 'Mario', and even though it was cute as all get out, the idea of someone so powerful, so
dangerous having such a nickname disturbed the comparatively normal people.
Not Orthorn, however. He was off the hook for Marcurio's wrath--and mostly stayed around to see how his friends worked out the problem.
"What does the item even do?" Galamir asked, and shook it by the chain. "Maybe it has some protective power that we can make use of."
"Well, when I used it made me feel like I could do anything," Orthorn commented. "And made this pop out of my chest." He produced a shining red spherical crystal from his robes, inside of which was an indistinct metallic animal--the crystal was too foggy to see clearly. "Near as I can tell, it's a morpholith like the Master's amulet. But it doesn't charge nearly as fast."
"What's this about morpholiths?"
All six of the friends immediately jumped, screamed, spasmed, froze, prayed for deliverance, and nearly fainted, depending on which friend was watched, at the sudden arrival of Marcurio and the kittens to the conversation.
Immediately, the Imperial spied the crystal Orthorn had in his hand, and then the Eye. "Oh, magical artifacts. Mohamara's latest work?"
"Well… this is, yes," Galamir said in explanation. "Apparently one of the effects is it creates… these?" He pointed to the red crystal. "Though they're not as efficient as the Master's."
"Not surprising, Mohamara's draws from the beacon which draws from Meridia. My guess would be that these draw from Mohamara, and he's not nearly as powerful as Meridia." The thief-mage leaned in to look at the crystal, then the Eye. "Hmm, I can't tell what planar alignment that morpholith has.
This definitely seems artifact-tier work, though."
"The Master wished you to have it," Adannna said at last. "It is called the Eye of Mohamara."
Galamir passed the Eye over to Marcurio who was visibly confused. Jone, sensing something shiny that made jingling sounds, immediately started crying so that it would be presented to him. Marcurio had no choice but to comply. "Wait a minute," he said after Jone calmed down. "Is this his
actual eye?"
But the friends had wisely chosen to run away the moment Marcurio had taken his eyes off them.
"Mario!" Jode, naturally, cut through the Imperial's budding rage with her adorable mispronunciation of his name. She sniffed at the Eye as Jone gummed it, then got it stuck on his fang. "Momamama!"
"Mario is going to beat Momamama's ass," he told the kittens while he got the artifact unstuck from Jone. "Metaphorically. Verbally. All kinds of -lly's except literally."
---
If you're curious, the Three Wise Lesbians were Tamriel's first true pop group, though their music never gained much popularity outside Black Marsh and Morrowind. The concept behind them comes from
this tumblr art.
