I realized in the writing of this that going into full detail of a properly enraged Meridia wasn't going to be appropriate for this fic's rating. So I had to tone it down severely.
Also, Meridia is 100% the type of person who would boss herself around.
---
Chapter 18: Marital Problems
>Service Request Ping.
>>To: WarOfMaceandDance.serv.
>>From: SkyrimRegionalBeacon.obj.
>>>Champion-candidate located. Champion-candidate status: severe damage, severe deviance from records. Damage exceeds the ability to repair. All hostiles within one mile have been eliminated, Champion-candidate is secure. Please advise.
…
>Service Request Reply.
>>To: SkyrimRegionalBeacon.obj.
>>From: MeridNunda.etada.
>>>Sublimate primary functions in compliance with Audience protocol pending remote reactivation. Prepare for
ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL.
The beacon had scant seconds to process the severity of the situation before its central intelligence was disabled to make more room for a fraction of Meridia's awareness.
HER arrival on Mundus would have been a doom on par with what Dagon had planned. It was why SHE did not envy Sheogorath's unique ability to flit between realms where so many Princes did. So these beacons were created to act as specially modified sigil stones, permitting her and her minions to use the power inside to form temporary bodies. But in this case, there was no need.
The beacon was but a stepping stone to her final goal. Once the fragment of HER passed through the beacon, it wove its way into the mortal that clung to it. That had been an unintentional but welcome side effect of the changes SHE made to HER followers, unconsciously clinging to the nearest object or person. In this situation, it permitted Meridia to easily possess the mortal's form and assess the damage.
As she woke the mortal's body up, her mere presence snapped bones back into place, fused the damaged spine together, and filled the depleted blood vessels with her radiant energy. Through the beacon, she could communicate with HER and procure more data on what needed repairing.
She let go of the beacon and floated by divine will to examine Skyrim and her Vessel. With the beacon's supply of energy so low, the connection was weak at best. Even if she depleted the mortal's own energy, it wouldn't enrich the beacon enough to improve the connection--so she didn't bother. Records slowly flowed into her mind from HER, and the fragment of Meridia began to grow angry.
The Vessel was not a perfect match, if she stayed too long it would explode. And SHE did not want that to happen. But the regional beacon was activated again, so she could access certain functions to ensure the Vessel was repaired while she did HER will.
She pulled the beacon with the Vessel down to the ice below. Its pitiful raiment provided adequate protection from frostbite at least. Then, using the beacon and the Vessel's own energy, she called down a servant. It appeared curled up in a ball of Daedric fire and stood as the summoning concluded.
The Meridian Daedric
Knight was colored white and gold, like the Room from which it came. Appearing to be a humanoid figure with the stature of a Giant but with a body made of metal, with a masculine face that strongly resembled an Akaviri helmet. Two sheathed swords, each the size of a greatsword for a mortal, clung to a bulbous protrusion from its back.
"This Vessel is damaged," her voice overlayed with the Vessel's as she spoke through it. "You are to effect repairs, then escort the Vessel and the beacon to Mount Kilkreath. Anything that threatens the Vessel is to be destroyed. While you effect repairs, you are to designate a chain of automatic summonings for your lieutenants should you fall in battle. Am I understood?"
"YES, MY LORD." The Knight's response was loud, synthetic, and echoed back at them from nearby icebergs while the Daedra itself aggressively rammed its knee into the ice while kneeling.
"Good. You are to tell the Vessel only what it needs to know per the Prophet Two-Eight-Eight protocol. If it becomes necessary to commune with me, I will be on the yellow line." All at once the unnatural grace and authority that had radiated from the Vessel faded, and it fell backward without divine will holding it up.
The Knight stood once the Vessel was released. With thunderous footsteps that cracked the ice, it strode forward and picked up the Khajiit Vessel.
"YOU ARE MUCH CUTER THAN PREVIOUS VESSELS."
Once the Vessel and beacon were snatched up, the Daedric Knight lept from the ice and began to head south.
--
Kodlak had grown used to waiting since the rot kept him from joining his shield-siblings in battle. It was not what he had wanted for his last year of life, but in the waiting, he found empathy for those whom he had not previously considered as suffering. Those who remained behind while their family went to battle or to war, these he understood far better. And it gave him insight into what Telma, the ancient Jorrvaskr housekeeper who had basically raised the twins, must feel when the Companions went off to battle.
There was nothing Kodlak hated more than the frustration, the feeling of uselessness, and general melancholy.
He also discovered what elderly people would not for many thousands of years: Attempting to interact with a magitech that was too new for them to understand produced the same spectrum of emotion.
Mohamara's slate had started up with some peculiar music, and when the Harbinger fished it out of the Khajiit's backpack saw that apparently, Yagraz was attempting to contact them through the magic item. However, he couldn't figure out how to make it happen. He tilted and shook the device but to no avail.
Fortunately, his bestial nature let him know of the Khajiit's return when the wind shifted. Unfortunately, it was accompanied by a faint smell of blood. Kodlak anticipated finding the cat fending off a slaughterfish, or perhaps returning with food. Instead, when he left the impromptu campsite to follow the smell of cat and blood he found something… else.
A massive metal man kneeling with the Khajiit in the crook of its arm, the latter of which was being shot from several small orbs of golden-white light that rotated around him quickly. The cat was holding a faceted orb that shone from within with golden light.
"Shor's bones…." Kodlak exclaimed as he hid behind some rocks. However, the effort was wasted as the metal man's helmeted head whipped around to glare at the Harbinger's exact position. "Why do I keep thinking they can't hear me when I do that?"
"WEREWOLF IDENTIFIED. BEGONE, BEAST."
To Kodlak's ears, the metal man's voice burned like the words themselves were fire. Later on, he would describe it as the same feeling that came from being near Yagraz while she Shouted fire onto her foes.
The Harbinger stood out from behind the rocks and took as non-threatening a stance as possible when he was in heavy armor and carried a warhammer as a walking stick. "I am that one's traveling Companion, so I will
not be gone until you explain what you are doing."
"RISK OF INFECTION EXCEEDS ACCEPTABLE LEVELS. BEGONE, BEAST."
It enveloped Mohamara in a bubble of white-gold energy and stood. The two greatswords on its back swung of their own accord and fell into the metal man's hands. Kodlak had never seen their make before--the weapons possessed an otherworldly beauty and were so hot that the air around them wavered like in the desert.
Kodlak sighed and switched into his battle stance. "I am getting too old for this." His grumbling done, the Harbinger of the Companions charged into battle.
...Or he would have if his back had not produced a definitive
crack and forced the Companion to stop his charge, place one hand on his back, and hobble around bent in half from the pain.
The metal man watched this and shifted its stance while the Nord hobbled in agonizing pain. Awkwardly it scratched at its helmet and shifted on its feet.
"ARE YOU OKAY?"
"I think I threw my back out. Just… just give me a bit and we can do battle."
"I KINDA THINK THAT IF WE DO, YOU'LL JUST THROW YOUR BACK OUT AGAIN."
"No… no, I think I know what I did wrong," Kodlak muttered a quick prayer to Shor for strength and tried to stand up to his full height. It went about as well as could be expected.
"...I'M JUST GOING TO MANUALLY EDIT MY LISTED INFECTION RISK. WE'RE GOOD NOW. I CAN HELP WITH YOUR BACK, IF YOU'D LIKE."
"That would be much appreciated, thank you."
--
The Blue Palace had been a place of relative peace in the days prior. A new court wizard had been appointed, the Jarl had recently accepted an injured Great War veteran into her council, and there were decidedly fewer catastrophic events plaguing the city.
Until one day, when a blinding light rained down on the Palace. It was accompanied by a keening scream that drove everyone in the building to cover their ears in an attempt to escape. Windows and bottles shattered from the force of it. A localized earthquake rattled the entire end of the Solitude archway. The final straw that drove everyone from the Jarl herself to the housekeepers screaming in pain was that their eyes burst from within by gouts of fire.
"SHE-O-GO-RATH!"
Within the Blue Palace, within the mind of a madman, the Mad God watched in relative disinterest as his dear friend Pelly was running around, experiencing much the same as what those on the outside did. The Mad God's chamberlain cleared his throat and leaned in to whisper into Sheogorath's ear, quite calm despite blood pouring from his ears and mouth, with his eyeballs on fire.
"Lady Meridia to see you, Lord Sheogorath."
"Oh, perhaps she's come to join me on my vacation! How wonderfully intrusive of her!" The demented Daedra clapped his hands jovially, his disinterest long forgotten. "Send her in immediately."
Haskill ceased to exist, and then suddenly existed again, soaring through the air as if launched from a catapult and on fire. There stood a Colovian Imperial woman, her features seemingly carved from stone. She was bald, but light bent around her head and above her eyes to mimic hair. She wore a dress of billowing silk that changed colors whenever Sheogorath looked away, and from her back light bent around two transparent feathered wings.
"Meri-pants! How good to see y--" The Mad God's greeting was stopped short when the woman, Meridia, closed the distance between the two of them in less than a second and punched him square in the nose with such force that the Mad God broke the throne he had sat on.
"Oh, Sheogorath." Meridia's voiced was cheerful, bright, and just a
little unhinged as she cracked the knuckles on her punching fist. "How good that you are unable to speak."
The Mad God gurgled wetly as his skull reformed from the pancake that Meridia had made of it.
"If you
could speak, you might say something that would motivate me to
truly lose my temper. Why in such a case I might just tear your Spheres out and shove them back into you through random orifices. Wouldn't
that be a sight!" Meridia clapped her hands, and the background screaming from Pelly stopped as he was made whole and unaware that anything had been wrong. It would be a minute or two before those on the outside were granted such mercy.
"Oh, if it weren't for the amount of work assuming your Realm would entail, I probably could have done it back there." Meridia considered this while she cleared the table of food, laid down a tablecloth, and returned the feast. "But then Molag and Dagon would have likely made moves on me to assert their alleged superiority and that's too much of a hassle. Ugh, and the post-mortem divorce proceedings."
"And here I thought," the Mad God cackled as he sat back up, "you would be upset with me over how negligently I've treated our son and his welfare."
"Oh, I am." Meridia turned her back to the Mad God and began to create a throne of her own opposite his. "But priorities have to be set, my Lord husband! We must place things in order of importance, and be objective rulers of our respective domains. But since you brought it up…"
Without warning, Meridia turned and punched Sheogorath again. This time the force of her blow split the earth behind Sheogorath's throne. When she went around the table to sit in hers, Sheogorath was sitting pretty in his fully reformed seat and waved merrily.
"Tell me, are you intending to break
every agreement we make regarding our children?"
Sheogorath waved her off and filled a cup from a pitcher of spiders for his drink. "Oh Meri-pants, don't be all dramatic. Or do! I'm not your boss, I can't make those decisions for you." After his tall glass of spiders was drunk, he offered the pitcher to Meridia.
She took it and poured herself a glass of the impossible.
"I just couldn't stand lookin' down at our boy bein' so miserable when I could do something about it!"
"Yet you asked me to do exactly that after I had to clean up
your mess. Which required I break
my own rules to grant him an Audience to keep him from shutting down." Meridia drank her glass of the impossible through a straw and glowered at Sheogorath.
"I… yeah, that was my mistake. Don't know how many times you want me to apologize for that, though. Is it one of those imaginary numbers? I just
adore those." Sheogorath clapped his hands, and a wheel of cheese appeared before him.
Meridia watched as Sheogorath began to violently cut the cheese many times in succession, and took a piece when it was offered to her. "We both agreed--no contact until he found a Sphere of his own, or died a mortal. I didn't like his misery any more than you did, and yet here we are."
"But I didn't seriously think he'd go
this long without one!" The Mad God looked up from his gorging on cheese. "Boy's been in Skyrim for months now and he still hasn't found one yet! I'm at my wit's end here. Rather enjoyable, actually."
"Hmm. Perhaps he's content to live and die as a mortal? Like his sister was?" While the Mad God feasted like a pig, Meridia ate her meal daintily. "How is she, by the way?"
"Oh I have her painting frost onto plants and windows--she loves it!"
"Yes, she was always so fond of impermanence in art." The Lady of Infinite Energies regarded the Mad God with a neutral expression. "You know that I want you to put him back."
"And you know I'm not going to be doing that no matter how hard you punch me." Sheogorath snapped his fingers with excitement. "Or maybe you just haven't punched me in the right way! Quick, try again!"
"Then we are at an impasse." Meridia pointedly refused to punch the Mad God again, which made Sheogorath pout and made her smile.
"Not quite! I know something that might just win you over to my side of this!" Sheo snapped his fingers and two portraits appeared before Meridia. "Take a look, what do you think?"
She regarded the mortals depicted in the portraits. To a Daedra, so much more information was present than just their appearance--personality, names, history, and biological information were all present. "They're mortals. What am I supposed to draw from this?"
Sheogorath bounced in his seat and slowly began to shift into his Khajiit aspect: Sheggorath. "I overheard our boy talking about being lonely, and how those matchmakers in your temple couldn't find him someone."
"Because
I told them that none of the candidates they put forth were worthy of
our son."
"See this is why
I usually handle the kids, Meri-pants." Sheggorath 'poo-pooed' Meridia's disdainful expression. "So much more entertaining to have mortals try to rise to the occasion."
"Then you shouldn't have
tried to eat him."
"In my defense… his arms were delicious."
Meridia promptly crossed the gap again and punched Sheggorath right in his stupid furry face.
"Oof, having so much more bone in my face makes this one feel such odd things when punched." Once his skull was back in full misalignment, the Skooma Cat spoke again. "This one went through a great many candidates and found these two. But our boy says he wants this one to consult you before deciding."
"As he should." Meridia paused as she examined the two options presented to her. Sheggorath's madness made for…
creative options. "I'm honestly surprised you limited yourself to people currently in Skyrim."
Sheggorath processed what Meridia said, and promptly slapped his forehead at the missed opportunity.
"Neither of them are… deserving of what you propose." Meridia sighed and held up one of the portraits back to the Skooma Cat. "But this one is closer to being worthy."
Sheggorath took the portrait and squealed with delight. "Now we can begin fighting over the dowry and wedding, oh this is going to be so much
fun!"
"Well we're
obviously going to have the wedding at my sister's temple, she would be so insulted if we took it elsewhere."
"That's exactly
why we should do it somewhere else! Your sister is too passive, she hasn't had reason to get angry in thousands of years."
"I'm not getting into a fight with Mara just because
you want to be contrary--" Meridia's follow up line was cut off by a fistful of melted cheese splattering her in the face. "I'm going to be nice and give you to the count of one to start running."
--
Imagine Mohamara's surprise at waking up. Alive. Or at having his missing digits back when he was still not over the fact that he was alive. He was wrapped up in his quilt with the beacon clutched to his chest like the Khajiit used to hold teddy bears as a child.
He was also riding in the arm of a Daedric Knight, while Kodlak sat in the other. Quickly Mohamara ran through the checklist of ways to see if he was in a dream, or perhaps in some weird layer of Oblivion and had to accept that he was awake.
"So, how did the people know you were not part of Dagon's forces?" Kodlak spoke to the Knight, either not aware of Mohamara being awake or too interested in the story to care.
"THEY DID NOT, AT FIRST. BUT AFTER MY SUMMONER AND I BEGAN TO BUTCHER THE DREMORA, THEY DECIDED IT WAS A CASE OF 'THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY IS MY FRIEND'."
Mohamara had to cover his ears from the sheer
volume of the Knight's voice. It rattled his bones from the hearing of it, and he quickly wove an illusion around his ears to force the voice to appear quieter to him.
"I miss that summoner. He did not survive the battle, and went on to find a place in the Violet Room--Where Lie the Martyrs. It is rather like your Sovrngard, from what I've heard."
"Then he is among the best company he could ask for." Kodlak looked over at Mohamara and smiled. "As are we, the whelp wakes from well-deserved sleep."
"I would thank you not to use derogatory terms when referring to the Vessel, please."
Kodlak waved off the Knight and chuckled faintly at the misunderstanding. "Oh, no. Whelps are what we call new initiates in the Companions."
"I am quite aware. It became such because Harbinger Gurlin convinced the then Circle that it would be a funny joke. The name comes from a place of mockery, even if it does not serve one now. So kindly refrain."
Kodlak reeled back in surprise. "We... have next to nothing about Harbinger Gurlin, since the man was illiterate and kept no journals. That's… good to know, I suppose."
Shaken from his stupor, Mohamara arranged his hands in a T after getting them free of the quilt. "Hold up. Timeout. What the shit is happening? Why am I alive?"
"That is a heavy question you ask, lad. Why are any of us alive, when so many good people have died for sometimes no reason at all?"
"No! Well, yes, that. But more, I was in the process of being eaten alive by whales--so
why am I alive?"
The Daedric Knight lifted the arm supporting Kodlak to poke at Mohamara's chest, where the beacon lay.
"The beacon neutralizes all hostiles within one mile of your location as part of the reactivation protocol. As you are a Vessel, our Lady took possession of you and kept you alive enough for me to effect repairs."
"Wait… Vessel? Me?" Mohamara began to process the information. Meridia, his god, had taken him as a Vessel. Joy the likes of which he hadn't felt in years began to bubble up before it was crushed by horror. "Oh no, my body was in such terrible shape. I was missing fingers and part of my tail--I'm pretty sure my back was broken from the ice. I had to be the worst Vessel she's ever had." He pulled at his ears in frustration as he went over more inadequacies for being a Vessel.
"I cannot speak about that. But my orders are to escort you and the beacon to Mount Kilkreath. More than that, I am not allowed to speak about."
"Lad, if Meridia did not find you worthy as a… Vessel, would she have bothered saving you? Or having you healed?" Kodlak reached over and patted Mohamara between the ears. "Do not be so eager to tear down your own value, or you will find others eager to do it for you."
Mohamara groaned to himself as he imagined the visceral
disdain Meridia had to have of him after spending any length of time in his body. Previous Vessels were always the holiest of her priests or mighty Champions. Add the fact that he was a spawn of Sheogorath and he was convinced her time within him had to be awful.
"Can I go… like, a month without something monumental and terrible happening? Just one month? Please?" Mohamara buried himself in the quilt, hiding away from the world at large.
"I want to say that you're overreacting, but according to you--you just escaped being eaten alive by whales. This level of madness around you is concerning--what guardian sign are you under, boy?"
"I was born under the Serpent."
And though he could not see it, Kodlak's face lit up with realization. "Ah. That explains everything."
"I like snakes. They enjoy cuddling."
---
Is it still considered a Demiprince when two Daedric Princes are involved? Food for thought.
But if you're looking for what a more perfect union of Meridia and Sheogorath looks like, just take a look at the
Queen of Chaos.
