Some more oneshots that aren't good enough to be posted seperately. Oblivion-related this time.
This here's a short bit of artistic license involving everyone's favorite Princes… okay, maybe not everyone's.
I don't own anything. Really.
Metronome - 1. Haskill.
"He's becoming incredibly powerful."
Two Daedric Princes strode over the waters of Oblivion, their feet never touching down but they moved quickly nonetheless.
"Perhaps too powerful." Azura said with a hint of suggestion in her voice. Beside her, Molag Bal, never slowing, turned to look at her.
"More than Malacath? Boethia? Dagon?" he asked. When Azura nodded, Bal snorted. "Then remind me again why we're heading to his plane with all haste."
"To asses the situation. We may need to take some sort of action against him."
"Like killing him, you mean?"
Azura didn't reply -- that was a yes.
ooo
The two Princes ran across the waters as fast as their legs could take them, more often than not aided by magical means. When they'd reached Jyggalag's plane of Oblivion, his Knights of Order had been waiting. Even they were immensely powerful, and after only minutes both Azura and Bal had been driven from the plane. Azura leaned on Bal, who in turn was trying, unsuccessfully, to straighten his tail.
"That could've gone better." Bal said once they'd found a neutral plane. They sat on the warm ground, resting while their wounds healed. His tail still hadn't lost its little kink.
"I fully expected that to happen." Azura assured him. Bal didn't seem at all assured.
"Yet you took me along? Look at my tail!"
"Boethia offered to come, Bal." Azura reminded the flustered Prince. "However, you felt the need to accompany me instead."
Molag Bal said nothing, but his kinked tail flicked in agitation.
ooo
Azura looked at the little Breton that Bal held up, the collar of his shirt held between the Prince's thumb and forefinger. The Breton's arms were held straight out in front of him, his thumbs touching, and his legs kept curling up under him, bending at the knees. On his face was a look of total concentration.
"What's he doing?" Azura asked.
"I'm not sure." Bal admitted. "Watch." He set the Breton on the palm of his other hand, and the mortal began to run along the lines of his hand. "He does it every time I pick him up." Bal picked the Breton up again, and he went back to bending his knees. "What do we need him for?"
"What is the opposite of Order?"
"Chaos."
"Precisely. Your little mortal is insane -- that would be chaos of the mind, wouldn't you agree?"
"I guess so."
"It is." Azura asserted. She held her hand out, and Bal deposited the Breton into her hand. He took up running along the grooves of her palm. "What is his name?"
"Haskill."
ooo
The Knights of Order greeted Azura and Molag Bal in much the same way as they had during their previous visit, but they barely got within an arm's length before a strange change overcame them. Some grew thinner and taller, their limbs resizing and their skin gaining a golden hue. Some grew shorter and darker, their bodies thickening with muscle and their skin turning gray. They stopped their attack and stood around Azura's feet as she held up the crazy Breton.
In mere moments, Jyggalag appeared, his visage unchanged. Bal and Azura exchanged a glance -- the Knights had been changed by the presence of Haskill's insanity, but it would apparently take a bit more for the actual Prince.
"What is that?" the Prince of Order demanded, his voice thundering. Bal had an idea then -- he took Haskill from Azura and held the Breton up for Jyggalag to see.
"Another mortal for your realm." Bal told him. Jyggalag looked from the mortal to the Princes, disbelieving.
"An apology." Azura put in. "For coming uninvited into your realm." She touched the back of Haskill's head, extracting a small ball of writhing blackness. Haskill went limp, and Azura extended her hand to Jyggalag. "An apology." she repeated.
Jyggalag was too preoccupied with the suddenly demonic smile on Molag Bal's face to see the thing on Azura's hand, and that was exactly what she was planning on. Jyggalag grasped her hand. After a second he went rigid.
Then he screamed.
Bal backed out of the enraged, distressed Prince's way, and Azura put her hands over her ears. The scream woke Haskill, and he calmly covered his own ears. Jyggalag tried to swing his massive sword at them, but it had shrunk and narrowed, had turned in on itself until it resembled a stick of polished wood with a ball of silver where the sword's hilt had been. His armor fell off in chunks, and he began to grow rapidly smaller. By the time the echoes of his screams had died away, a mortal-looking man stood where Jyggalag once had.
Sheogorath blinked up at them and waved his cane merrily in greeting. "Hello, Bal, Azura! Stop by for a visit? Now's not a good time! Look at this!" He spread his arms wide to encompass his realm -- the tall, diamond-like towers, the perfectly sloped, emerald-green hills, and the clear, crystalline water. "Everything is in complete Order! This demands disarray!" As he spoke, the towers began to melt. They formed twisted, gnarled roots and tall, colorful trees. The waters grew mucky and monsters reared up from them. The land seemed to split itself right down the middle. "Much better! Oh, is that Haskill you've got there, Bal? Put him down here! I can't very well order him around if he's hanging around up there with you all day!" Bal set the Breton down. "Ain't that better, Haskill?
"Very much so, Sire." Haskill replied in a bland, sane voice. Sheogorath's ensuing laughter crackled with insanity.
ooo
"That was entirely too easy." Azura said as she and Bal made their way back across Oblivion's waters.
"It was." Bal agreed.
"It will probably come back to haunt us in an era or two."
"Or three."
"Yes, probably three."