Authors note: The Morrowind UESP wiki has much to say about names in the Elder Scrolls universe. Anyone curious about my choice of "Cruseth" as a name for a bi-gendered being is encouraged to go take a look at dunmer name prefixes and suffixes used in Arena. I also see dunmer as having a stronger sense than most of the fact that 'life and death' are both an important part of the cycle. Possibly more on that in future chapters.
Also, as per other of my Morrowind based stories, I am presuming that "dispose of the body" is actually a spell and pretty much any man or mer on Morrowind knows it.
Standard disclaimer: I do not own Morrowind, or any of the other wondrous creations of Bethesda Softworks, however I certainly lay claim to misspellings, mistakes, tweaks, spells and characters of my own creation. Reviews and plot bunnies are always appreciated; any used plot bunnies will be credited.
~~Language and Math~~
Well, Midnabi spell-sent to Cruseth Let me just send this corpse to the waiting door.
She got back a sense of confusion, then a perception of the flesh of the former nord as a fairly high-quality protein source. Her stomach turned at the idea. Even beyond the gruesomeness of eating a person, she would have to be pretty far gone into starvation to eat this particular one.
No, She sent strongly, it's not right to eat someone that is she tried to make her thoughts inclusive of *sentience* and self awareness.
While Cruseth was considering this, she knelt forward near the body. Yes, she'd opposed him in life, but death was a part of anyone's journey that should be approached with respect. "Ancestors of this fallen one, show him the path he needs." Holding out her palms, she carefully disposed of the body into a flash of ash and dust.
She felt a strong flash of *surprise/confusion* and then a sense of measurements and increased amounts. For a moment she was half-expecting more, like she'd heard the beginning of a sentence and not the end of it. Then she realized that was exactly what had happened; her communication spell had ended.
Not for the first time, she realized that if either she or Cruseth could enchant something to allow a more permanent communication enspellment, it would really be nice. Which really meant that they should go talk to Telura sooner rather than later.
How would the elder sorceress react to a sload? Despite Midnabi's earlier dismay at the idea of eating the nord, she knew that sload soap was a valuable alchemical substance. On the other hand, Cruseth was significantly larger now. Was he too old to be used as ... an ingredient?
She took a deep breath, and cast her spell again.
First she tried to send her understanding of Telura. The dunmer sorceress' impatience, skill with alchemy and magicka, and then the relationship of instructor. That she was someone who Midnabi could learn from, but that there would be a price.
Cruseth replied with a sense of trading things, and values being similar, and growth happening, but with *Midnabi /gentleness /ally* staying the smaller, and *Telura /danger /acceptable risk* staying larger, and trying to grow faster than Midnabi was growing as they exchanged. In the equation Cruseth portrayed, the danger increased as the disparity increased. As a side branch of the equation, Cruseth displayed a value of Midnabi trading Cruseth/components to benefit herself in terms of *risk/safety*. Another side equation was a calculation of how far would any of the other sload grubs have gotten, and were any of them likely to have survived. A sense of *Midnabi /gentleness /ally* plus Cruseth being viewed as potentially equivalent to Midnabi/ gentleness /ally* plus *alternate /unknown sload /youngling*
All this came in a burst of values and equations that Midnabi struggled to understand enough to retain it after her spell ended. She was left with an aching head and a confused overlapping of emotionless equations where somehow she'd been expecting fear or sadness.
Cruseth settled down next to her.
She rubbed her hands against her forehead. "You are not just equal, just to be to be traded .. or betrayed for someone else." She muttered.
Cruseth carefully extended hands to her, one palm up and one down. A clear invitation to spell making.
"Yes," she nodded. "We need a better communication spell; or at least a longer one."
She held herself still, opening her magicka for Cruseth's exploration. She could feel ripples in their joint pool of magicka, more strongly than before. She suspected that it wouldn't be that easy to follow Cruseth's spellmaking so she didn't try. She just concentrated on holding out as much magicka, as carefully stable as she could.
She sat calmly, and judged from the ebb and flow of the energies that Cruseth was researching more than one spell. Considering how depleted she'd been the last time they worked together, he was probably taking advantage of the current relative bounty.
Eventually he withdrew his energies from hers, and she waited.
Magicka enveloped her, gently, forming a link between the two of them.
Cruseth asked. "What is your *designation*?"
Well, most of that question had made sense. "Midnabi of the Family Balvel of the Great House Hlaalu."
Cruseth considered that for long enough that Midnabi felt the spell fade away. Eventually he recast it and asked, "what is the *equation* between you and *Telura /teacher*?"
"I am one of her apprentices in the magickal arts. She is teaching me about spell-weaving and enchanting and alchemy." What else could she tell him about that? "I do work for her, such as bringing her components and information. Eventually if I show enough skill she will formally induct me into the mage's guide."
"What is this *Group of Magickal Skill*?"
She felt the slight pressure of a potential headache, and suspected that even with the spell, she was missing some of what he was trying to communicate. She tried to make her answer very clear.
"The Mages' Guide teaches responsible and appropriate use of magical arts and sells them to non-mages. It restricts advanced enchanting to mages with both the skills and the honor to use those skills in good ways." Cruseth's spell was still in force, so she continued, "this is as opposed to the necromancers of the Order of the Black Wyrm who use dark arts to pervert the natural cycle of life and death and distort the paths of those-who-approach-the-open-door."
The spell cut off again, so she stopped. This time Cruseth rubbed his face, and it was definitely more of a face than it had been before, with his hands.
She cast her own communication spell. "I'm hungry. We both need a rest. Let's look for food." Part of what she didn't say was that it was not a good idea to show up to visit Telura without having something to give her.
Cruseth agreed, and then said "*sound*?"
"Yes." She told him.
"Yess." He said. Then slowly added. "Cruuseth. Midnabi Ballvell. Nord. Mer. Monnneeyyy. Skooomaa. Aks. Dagerr."
Well, even if she couldn't learn his way of thinking and speaking, he had a pretty good start on hers. She led him to a ferntree trunk heavy with fungi. "Hypha facia. Bungler's Bane. Variegated Polypore."
Variegated Polypore immediately became Cruseth's second favorite word, right after skooma.
~~Unexpected Mentor~~
Over the rest of the day Midnabi and Cruseth slowly made their way roughly north. It was a more cautious route than she normally would have taken. She didn't go back home. She didn't intend to stop by any of the people she knew in Hla Oad.
It was dusk when they approached the Lazy Swamp, and that made it all the easier to see the pale blue glow that meant a draggle-tail vine with either pods or flowers. Midnabi hastily headed down into the muck, pointing ahead. "Draggle-tail vine." She winced at the chill of the water. While wearing the vest of the former nord kept her torso warmer, there was nothing to be done about keeping her feet warm while wading in muck. She intended to point out and name the ampoule pods, and if she was lucky she could also show him a coda flower or two.
Then came motion. Up out of the center of the shallow mucky lakelet was a lump that had looked like a large boulder until it moved. Up out of the water trailing nibble-weed came a claw almost as large as her forearm. Midnabi hastily backpedaled, reaching for the dagger she'd appropriated keeping it between her and the claw.
As the boulder rose higher, a second large claw rose up, followed by two much smaller ones and finally a pair of blue eyes.
"Mud crab." Muttered Midnabi. A really big one, and she was backing away uphill. Not the way she would have preferred to fight it.
From behind her came a crackling sound and a chill bolt of energy blasted mostly into the upper part of the rounded hump of shell rising out of the water. Shards of ice formed along the trailing water and weeds, shattering as the great claws reached forward.
Midnabi kept moving back, keeping her dagger out in front of her, looking for weak spots, trying to remember everything she'd heard or been told about mud crabs. The few times in Hla Oad that she'd had anything to do with them, she'd mostly been a bystander, and not any sort of participant. Well except for the sometimes eating the crab meat afterwards, which was quite good.
The creature moved closer, extending the second claw. She struck out and slightly downward, aiming at the point where the claw opened, but the hard chitin shell was unmarked.
"She stands in danger." The voice came from behind her.
Midnabi half turned, keeping prt of her attention for the crab. She saw a tall argonian striding toward the lakelet, holding a spear at the ready. The argonian had small paired horns just behind each temple, and her skin was mottled in shades of green, brown and tan.
Still keeping part of her attention on the mudcrab, Midnabi greeted her. "Okur!"
The argonian charged forward, spearing high. The head of her spear caught in a crevice in the still frost covered upper part of the shell. There was a cracking sound and then the spear head disappeared into the shell. The mudcrab gave a wailing cry. Okur leaned in, using her weight to tilt the mudcrab slightly up. This gave Midnabi opportunity and she drove her dagger into one of the thing's eyes.
There was a longer hissing squeal and both sets of the mudcrab's claws waved wildly.
Between spear and dagger, Midnabi made short work made short work of the mudcrab.
When it lay quiescent half out of the swamp, Okur commented. "This one stands ready."
For a moment the dunmer relaxed, but then Midnabi realized something. Since that first blast of cold, she had heard nothing from the sload.
"Cruseth!?" She struggled to jog rapidly up the mucky incline.
Laying splayed on the ground, face-up was the sload. He was covered in frost, especially his hands.
"CRUSETH!" Midnabi scrambled over to him and knelt down. He felt cold, well he usually felt cold. But this was colder. She couldn't just heat him up. She didn't know any healing spells. "I don't have any marshmerrow or wickwheat. What do I do?"
Okur knelt beside her. "Perhapss one has heard the warningss of the guide of mages about the dangerss when small skill attempts to control large powerss."
"Yes and I've also heard the rhetoric of the Telvanni who say that if your efforts wound you, then there was nothing to be valued in the first place. He was trying to help me."
She turned to the argonian. "Can you help him?"
When Okur didn't respond right away, she added quietly. "Please?"
"Tales tell that no dunmer has compassion for an outlander, and this one is surely described so." Despite her words, Okur reached inside her vest for a small vial. "Other tales claim that no Sload has compassion for any, even of its own race."
Carefully she set the vial to the little sload's lips, allowing a few spoonsfull into its mouth. Then she daubed the rest onto the blisters that were forming on Cruseth's hands and wrists.
As Midnabi watched, the frost receded, and the blisters seemed to shrink. Cruseth didn't wake up, but he looked much better.
"Thank you."
Okur put the vial away. "It is a poor custom to judge by seeing only race, and this one is wise in her youth to part from it." Her tone was approving. She got to her feet, and looked back toward the body of the mud crab.
"Darkness comes, and a good fire will keep many predatorss at bay. Come, you shall help me and I shall teach you."
Taking a look at the fungi that Midnabi and Cruseth had gathered, Okur sighed and patted Midnabi's head. "Thiss one surely is unused to being on her own. You have ssought much that an alchemisst will value, yet you have no meal."
First she showed Midnabi about fire-building, and then used a jagged iron blade to hack the crab apart. Much of the meat she set on leaf pads from the swamp to slowly dry out near the fire. She splintered all the claws, taking the choices meats from there, and started a stew with it, cooking it in the topmost rounded remains of the mud crab carapace, adding chunks of slough fern root.
"The roots?" Midnabi asked. "But Telura said they weren't good for anything."
Okur gave a wry laugh. "And this one sayss that feeding our bellies is a great good."
As the darkness became complete, Midnabi sat near Cruseth, usually keeping a hand to his shoulder. Or what she thought of as his shoulder anyway.
Okur's stew was really starting to smell quite appetizing when finally the sload stirred.
"Midnaabi Ballvell."
"Cruseth." Midnabi's tone was one of relief, and she immediately cast her communication spell. "Okur helped fight the mud crab, and she helped to heal you, and there will be some really good stew shortly."
His reply was a little jumbled. "Cruseth *diminished value* *unsuccessful planning*"
She wasn't entirely sure if the diminished value was about the wounds that remained, or if it was that the spell problem (was that the unsuccessful planning?) or if it meant that he felt bad about himself. Sweet Daedra, he'd saved her life, and she suspected that he knew enough about spellweaving to know the risk he'd taken. She thought of him, seeing him in her mind's eye, casting a spell to save her that would badly harm him. She gently patted his shoulder, hoping that she'd recalled rightly that was an unwounded area.
"Your value is just fine." She murmured.
He looked toward her, but said nothing, and didn't try to spellcast. She recalled that he'd originally described her as *gently regarding* him. Did that mean that he could sort of tell what she was feeling toward him?
Okur was dishing out portions of stew into several sections of attack claw. "Another sspell? This one hears your words easily, but only faintly the repliess of your companion."
Cruseth pointed to himself. "Crruseth."
Okur nodded, and pointed to herself. "Okur."
Cruseth was silent for a moment, and then said carefully, "Okoorr." He slightly rolled the final sound.
The argonian nodded, obviously pleased. "This hatchling has skilled ears."
Midnabi had been looking back and forth between them. "You hear him?"
"This one recallss the subtle duet of the sharp-beaked nightwings and their prey in the deepest marshes." Okur regarded the sload thoughtfully. "Cruseth singss in many soft and complex voices when he answerss the dunmer's magic."