Remember kids, if you give your children weapons, to mind the pointy end.
Chapter 6: Matchmaker, Matchmaker
For reasons that strongly resembled High Elves that had already stolen one pair of robes, Mohamara did not want to join Senna and Eltrys in celebrating their victory at the Silver-Blood Inn. Instead, he slowly made his way down to the caravan behind the group of guards dispatched to inform Ri'saad about the Jarl's decree.
It felt like he was walking to the Headmaster's office to be screamed at or something, a proximal tension in the air that only got worse as he drew closer.
When the guards arrived at the caravan and began speaking to Ri'saad, Mohamara stayed back near the road sign. More than one of the cathay in the caravan were looking at him with twitching tails and flat ears-clearly angry. Even Ri'saad's tail was swishing back and forth ever so slightly.
But the news that the caravan could now do business in Markarth city proper, perhaps even buy property, got more than one of those upset body language cues to lift. Excited talk of the new profits that could be made reached across the distance to reach Mohamara-and it would have done much to relieve the tension if Ri'saad's body language had not remained unchanged.
Soon enough, the guards turned and left and only the Khajiit remained. Ri'saad's eyes locked onto Mohamara, who hesitantly approached when it became clear Ri'saad wasn't moving. In short order, the tojay was standing in front of the cathay and struggled to meet his gaze.
"You ran off, knowing what you were doing could get you killed." Ri'saad had no anger in his voice or face. Only his swishing tail indicated any danger in the situation. "If not by the river, if not by the Nords, if not by the Forsworn-who had already tried to kill you, then by the Thalmor you escaped."
Mohamara nodded to each one because he knew he would only start trying to explain what couldn't be explained if he spoke.
"And in so doing, you have dismantled the Silver-Blood empire and won us access to Markarth that twenty years of honorable behavior could not. Well done." Ri'saad reached down and patted Mohamara on the head. When he saw how stunned the tojay was, the elder seemed amused. "Khajiit value cleverness and cunning, not obedience. I would be angry with you had you gotten injured again, or done something to sour our relations with the city. But your clever game won us mighty profit both now, and in the future."
At that precise moment, Mohamara's bad leg decided it was the time to give out on him. Mohamara gave a brief gasp as he started to list out from under Ri'saad's hand. "Oh! Gravity works." Then he hit the ground, not hard but enough to ruin the moment.
Someone in the caravan found this worthy of snickering. Ri'saad merely sighed, and helped the tojay up. "This one thinks your leg is perhaps not healing properly-is understandable, Dibellans not known as great healers. Perhaps in Whiterun, the Kynareth temple can fix it."
"Well, maybe it'd be better if I had something better than this weak sauce regeneration effect." Mohamara tweaked the gold ring still on his finger to provide weak regeneration for his leg and tail. "Feels like they just shoved a fox's soul into it or something."
Ri'saad arched his droopy brow as he allowed Mohamara to lean on him until the tojay's leg was recovered. "You think you can do better, ja'khajiit?"
Mohamara puffed out his chest, to limited effect since he was so drastically small. "I got my Enchanting Plus Certification just last year. I'm legally authorized to handle souls up to the greater size category-so I know I can do better. Heck, give me a petty soul and I could still do better than this." He examined the band and stuck his tongue out. "Looks like something they had an intern do."
"This one will see about getting a soul gem for you, then. But come, you have missed the evening meal so will have to settle for cold food."
"Ick."
They stayed in front of Markarth only a day longer. During the packing up, Mohamara was asked frequently to use his small size to get into the packed up wagons, heavy with goods purchased from Markarth, and ensure that they were arranged so as not to break anything.
To pass the time on the boring long march north and around the mountains Mohamara still did not know the name of-no one he asked seemed to know either-he listened to music and looked through years of pictures on his slate.
With the earpieces blocking all sound from the outside world, he found himself startled by sudden shaking more than once. Most often it was to tell one of the curious cathay that he couldn't answer questions about the future because he hadn't studied that period of history.
Most couldn't grasp how ancient the Fourth Era was to Mohamara, or how much had happened in the sixteen thousand years between it and his future that he couldn't know all the details.
"You often sit for long periods of time just staring at that thing, holding it while you layabout," Ma'randru-jo commented once while he walked behind the wagon on top of which Mohamara sat and watched the horizon. Since he wasn't walking as much anymore, he could wear his jeans and enjoy having proper trousers for a short time without risking his bandaged leg bleeding on them. "Are you meditating, perhaps?"
"I'm listening to music." Mohamara looked down at the braided cathay and gestured to the ebony clips resting on his ears. "These play music directly into my ears from the slate. If I didn't have them on, it could play for all of you and in the future, that's considered rude."
"Well in the sensible past, having music to pass the time would be much appreciated." The cathay man seemed annoyed that Mohamara had not volunteered the information sooner. "If you don't mind?"
The tojay held the slate close to his chest and looked away while his face gradually reddened. "Um. My taste in music might be… something not everyone in the caravan would like."
"Are they tawdry? Songs of lustful conquests by future men and women we will have to imagine?"
One of the cathay women, whom Mohamara knew to be sleeping with Ma'randru-jo for a week thenabouts, bapped the braided man in the back of the head. Which was good because Mohamara didn't want to have to throw a shoe at the man.
"No." Mohamara held his ears flat but pointed away from his skull. It was a bit of body language he'd picked up from the cathay to mean 'stop talking about this'. "I don't have sex songs on my slate. At least… I don't think any of them are about sex."
But others of the caravaneers who were walking with the wagons had come by to ask about music. Some asked if he had local songs, others wanted songs he suspected were from Elsweyr. But the more he was pestered, the more Ma'randru-jo seemed to smirk at him.
"Alright fine. They're love songs, happy? I keep a lot of sappy romance music on this thing because I'm sad, lonely, and pathetic. Is that the sort of thing you want to hear?" The tojay lamented that his tail was too short for any of them to see how it was lashing about in annoyance.
"...This one would like to hear love songs."
"Khajiit doesn't mind romance!"
"Anything to distract this one from the boring walk, please!"
And of course, they wouldn't behave like normal people. They were Khajiit, normal was anathema to them. Defeated, the tojay unclipped the earpieces and slid them back into the slate. "What sort of love song does the crowd want, then?"
The most common thing he heard was 'songs about distant love', which he sadly admitted made sense. Most of the caravaneers had families back Elsweyr that they were feeding with this work. So he flipped through the lists for such songs.
He led with a song about love that endured longer than the concept of time itself, from a moving portrait he'd seen as a child and kept the song in mind when he'd gotten a slate. From there, he started to work up a retinue with appropriate music and let it play automatically. Time pollution from fourteen different Eras sang out onto the mountainous valleys of the Reach.
"Ja'khajiit, if company is what you require, there are many among the caravan who would court you." After the music had stopped, Ri'saad had slowed his walking to travel apace with Mohamara's wagon.
The tojay didn't even get flustered about it, which surprised even him. "No, there aren't. And even if they were, it's not my people's way to do flings."
Ri'saad and a great many of the cathay bachelors walking or driving carriages gave Mohamara confused looks. "Ja'khajiit, the Khajiit people most certainly do do 'flings'."
"But Meridians don't." Mohamara flicked his ears backward and against his skull, agitated that the caravan's communal nature had wormed into this area of his life. "Every Meridian community has a matchmaker, who watches the children as they grow up and pairs them with someone who would be a good match. If there isn't a matchmaker available, it's up to the parents to find a marriage for their children." A small degree of venom edged into Mohamara's voice as he talked. "My parents won't be born for thousands of years, and I don't know how long I'm going to be here. Sheo… Skooma Cat could decide to end his vacation at any time."
"And if he leaves without you?" Ri'saad's body language and tone made no indication of the venom Mohamara was directing toward him. For one so old, perhaps he had seen this play out before.
"Then I deal with that when it happens if it happens. And don't give the Skooma Cat ideas on how to be crueler than he has already-if you don't mind." The tojay laid back on top of the wagon, where Ri'saad could no longer see him.
There was a short period of no talking by Ri'saad or any of the walkers, before the cathay woman driving the wagon turned around to Mohamara. "You have no… 'match' waiting for you back in the future?" She seemed confused for a second by the words as she asked. "Forward in the future?"
"My matchmaker told me that past the age of fifteen the odds of a good match went down to around two percent." Mohamara put the hood of his jacket up to create some form of barrier between him and the cathay who asked. "So if I wanted to risk being matched with a spousal abuser, or something else awful like that I could keep on or I could just settle on being single the rest of my life. Guess which one I picked?"
"Fifteen is so young to be married, though. You barely know who you are as a person by then." Ri'saad took the cue to interject into the conversation again.
"Guess that's just something we fuck up as time goes on, eh?"
"Aw, sonnie. If you wanted me to pick someone for you… ya just had to ask."
Mohamara's blood froze in his veins as he noticed a white-haired white-eyed Nord walk past the cart. When the tojay moved to get a better look, the Nord was gone.
"Now you said you don't want any spousal abuse? Feh, I'm going to go out on a limb and say you don't want any of the other fun nuances either." Sheogorath was seated alongside the cathay woman driving the wagon, writing something down on a roll of paper with a sausage-shaped pen. It could have potentially have been just a normal sausage. "I should really talk to your uncle Sanguine about this-he's so much better at this sort of thing than I am. Wait!" The Mad God turned and grinned down at the tojay. "How would you feel about being matched with your uncle Sanguine, eh?"
Mohamara started to scoot away from the demented Daedra as his fur began to stand on end. Sheogorath's smile wilted when he got no reaction from the Khajiit.
"Ah, you're right. You're too much of a stick in the mud for him, anyway. But don't worry, I still love ya to pieces. Thankfully Haskill knows how to put mortals back together or we'd have had some problems when you were a baby." He pointed the sausage-it was a normal sausage-at the Khajiit, and wagged it. "And no matter what Haskill says, I most definitely did not try to eat your legs when you were two days old."
Mohamara started to creep down the side of the wagon but found Sheogorath waiting for him on the road when he started to walk, using a flower to write on an orange this time.
"I also see you haven't used that present I got ya, but that's alright. It waited a few thousand years for you, a little while longer won't do it no harm." The Mad God took a moment to ruffle the tojay's hair through his jacket hood. "But! Go to Solitude. Become a bard. That's an order."
Sheogorath's words felt like an iron chain wrapping around Mohamara's neck.
"What do you want with me?" Mohamara whisper-hissed to the Mad God who once more could not be seen by anyone but him. "I get that you're all about driving mortals mad, but this isn't driving me insane it's just giving me heart problems."
Sheogorath actually looked hurt by Mohamara's words. "Oh. You haven't… put it together yet. I'd hoped you could see the connection given that whole Mysticism thing you got going."
"You know perfectly well that actually seeing the bonds is something that only masters can do. Since you've been stalking me since I was a baby, you should know better."
The hurt expression became a glare, and suddenly Mohamara remembered he was talking to a Daedric Prince who could turn him into cheese. Or a woman's beard. Or into seven notes of music if he cared to.
"I'll let that slide since you're very obviously in need of company, lad. But do watch your tone. Or have your tone watch you, I really don't care. Since you're not bright enough to see the connection, I'll spell it out for you, mortal." Sheogorath's pen became a knife, which he used to slash at Mohamara's face just below the eye, then handed the know bloody implement over to the Khajiit.
In his hand, the knife became a manilla envelope which opened on its own. There was a lot of incredibly complex technical information that Mohamara suspected were actually instructions for an outdated music player. But at the bottom was a box circled three times in red.
'Paternity Test: Positive.'
"The results are in, and would you look at that? I'm the father!" Sheogorath scooped up the shellshocked tojay and hugged him so hard Mohamara couldn't breathe.
"Ja'khajiit, how are you levitating?"
Ri'saad didn't like that Sheogorath had ordered Mohamara to go north to Solitude, Mohamara could tell by the way his tail went immediately to thrashing about with no warm-up period. He took the news about the 'paternity test' about as well as Mohamara had-that is to say with defeated resignation. But the orders of 'Skooma Cat' were not to be ignored, so the elder cathay sent riders well ahead of the caravan to relay a message to someone called 'Ma'dran'.
It was explained later that Ma'dran was one of Ri'saad's lieutenants, who ran a route from Windhelm to Solitude and back. Normally the two caravans wouldn't meet due to scheduling, but Ri'saad hoped to catch Ma'dran's caravan approaching Dragon Bridge. If possible, he would just send Mohamara ahead with a rider and hope for the best.
Word that the tojay was leaving spread so everyone who had questions or requests to make of Mohamara or his slate pestered him in the days following.
The riders returned with bad news-Ma'dran had already departed Solitude and was passing Whiterun. Thus a decision had to be made that Ri'saad didn't like one bit: Mohamara would stay with the caravan until they reached the road north, where Mohamara would be sent with a rider to Solitude.
"That seems perfectly fine to me," Mohamara offered when the elder Khajiit emphasized how much he disliked it. "As long as it doesn't put the rider at risk going there. I can live on my own for a while."
"No, ja'khajiit. There are Thalmor in Solitude." Ri'saad's droopy face almost seemed animated by the topic. "They will try to snatch you again. Then the problem becomes what if a Nord decides to knife you while in the city? This one has lost riders and messengers to fools like them, even in the most hospitable of cities." Ri'saad talked with the guards of the caravan to see if any of them could be away from the group long enough to help Mohamara.
Said tojay was sick of all the taking he was doing from the caravan, and no give so ducked out of Ri'saad's tent and went around back. Once he was sure none of the people inside would be able to hear, he took some steps away and assumed the general prayer position. One bent knee on which clasped hands would rest with his forehead on top.
"Lord Sheogorath…. Dad. I could use a little help to best follow your orders. So. Um. Help?"
Sheogorath's response was swift, direct, and his usual brand of unusual. Mohamara keeled over in writing pain suddenly and found the cause to be a three-pointed Daedric spear almost twice Mohamara's height in its length. The centermost and largest point had impaled the tojay through the foot he had been kneeling on. Affixed to the spear was a large piece of paper which read: 'It summons atronachs, and reflects spells. Should help you out plenty. -Marianne'
And while the presence of the Daedric weapon did seem to mollify Ri'saad's misgivings about sending Mohamara off on his own, the injury to the tojay had absolutely incensed the elder Khajiit more than had been seen properly. Mohamara had to promise not to solicit help from the 'Skooma Cat' again.
Fortunately, Mohamara's original introduction to the caravan had brought to light the need for healing potions so he only had to spend a day and a half bedridden again. It would still need a healer to look at and fix the broken bones in his foot, but at least he could use the spear as a walking stick. It was oddly fortunate that the spear had impaled the foot on his bad leg anyway.
The caravan stopped for a day outside the town of Karthwasten to sell and buy from the locals before starting eastward to Whiterun Hold. All too soon it came time for Mohamara to ride north with a cathay, possibly to not see the caravan again in a long time. Or at all, if the vacation ended. There were no tearful goodbyes, mostly it was the cathay nagging him to look after himself and to stop getting so badly injured all the time.
And then he was off. He had to ride in front of the cathay rider escorting him because behind would land him sitting on the poor man's tail. The offer to shove Mohamara into one of the saddlebags was always there if he got uncomfortable.
It only slightly worried the tojay that he could legitimately fit into the saddlebags. Secondary school had taught him there were a large number of containers he could fit in. Most of them required the fire department to get him back out, though.
At least it got a few bullies expelled.
The dragon bridge was just as he remembered it being, though made of stone and not metal. After airships became the premier mode of transport, the bridge had fallen into disrepair until it fell apart in an earthquake. The rebuilt bridge was then made from metal to serve as a tourist attraction and local landmark.
But what made him want to stop and take a break was a mountain he remembered: Kilkreath. His cathay escort had been hesitant about stopping so close to Solitude, but Mohamara pulled the 'adorable eyes' trick and got the man to relent.
It was so… strange that the temple of Meridia was so small. The only thing that told it apart from other Nord ruins was the Lady's winged statue atop the roof. The entrance to the temple was barred from the inside, so he couldn't enter in-that left climbing up to see the statue himself.
It wasn't the same statue he'd grown up with. Meridia's statue was second only in size to Azura's in all of Skyrim. But it still had the smaller clasped hand figures that would hold the beacon that would connect all the faithful in Skyrim to the Lady.
At least it would if the beacon was present.
After a cursory look for perhaps a container in which the beacon had been stored, Mohamara had to accept that it wasn't there. So all the times he'd been praying to Meridia since arriving had been in vain-without the beacon, she could not hear him due to Martin Septim's barrier. It acted as a sort of sigil stone in that way.
He tried to follow the sympathetic bond from the statue to its beacon but found that the magic pulled sharply east and south. Eastmarch, he realized after putting the tug of the bonds to his escort's map. The beacon was somewhere in Eastmarch. It would have to be retrieved as soon as he was done following Sheogorath's orders-lest the Mad God visit an unpleasant fate on him.
Meridia would understand, she had an eternity to wait.
Didn't she?
So begins the Bard's College questline.