Mad Sanity

"He PROPOSED?"

Tar-Meena jumped out of her chair, scaly hands shaking with joy. "He PROPOSED!"

"Yes."

Tar-Meena let out a gleeful cry, running to hug her friend. "Amelie Rose! I can't believe it, you're getting married!"

"I—yes, I—"

"Oh, Amelie, this is wonderful! You MUST let me help you arrange things," Tar-Meena said quickly, releasing Amelie from her grasp and rooting around the table for a roll of paper and a quill. "Getting married, to him, at last! Who would have guessed after that mess with the Gray Fox and Ontus and oh Amelie, it's about time you settled down!"

Amelie sank down into a chair. "Tar-Meena, I really was hoping to talk to you about this."

"And talk we shall!" Tar-Meena said, whipping out her inkwell and scratching on the paper. "Have you set a date?"

"Tar-Meena, it has only just happened, it was at the Chancellor's ball," Amelie said. "I have hardly had time to think about it, and I—"

"Amelie, there's so much to be done!"

"Tar-Meena, please listen to me," Amelie pleaded.

"We shall have to find you a venue, and a dressmaker at once," Tar-Meena went on, undaunted. She scribbled madly on the roll of paper, nearly upsetting the table she was writing on with her little bounces of joy. "Amelie, what do you—Amelie?"

She was gone.


"HE proposed?"

"Yes."

"I believe congratulations are in order, then," Haskill's voice said. The shrine trembled a little as Sheogorath retook control.

"Ye're gettin' MARRIED? T' THAT fool?"

"Who would you rather I marry?" Amelie asked stoically.

"Someone ye love!"

"That was not the question."

"That was DEFINITELY the question!"

"Who ever said I do not love Hieronymus?"

"The fact that ye're lettin' me argue this with ye!"

"You know, this statue looks very little like you," Amelie noted.

"Don't you go an' change the subject!"

"It should not matter to you whether or not I love the man, my getting married should not matter to you at all!" Amelie snapped. "I don't understand what has you so upset, you can hardly wait to be rid of me!"

"Yes, but until then I want ye to m'self!" The statue's jovial pose was horrendously mismatched with Sheogorath's wrathful tone. "How're ye gonna focus on me with a man in yer life?"

"I managed to do it while looking out for an empire," Amelie reasoned. "Believe me, forgetting about you is a blessing that I shall not receive."

"May I ask when the wedding will take place?" Haskill cut in again. "We shall have to have a festival here to commemorate it in your absence."

"That is not necessary. We haven't set a date—"

"Never mind that!" Sheogorath snapped. "This is worse'n the Greymarch!"

"And how, exactly, is my getting married worse than the systematic destruction of your entire empire?" Amelie asked dryly.

"Because YOU I can control!"

Amelie sighed. "Really. Why are we having this conversation?"

Sheogorath yelled incoherently.

"Come now, you acting like a child is not going to stop me getting married," Amelie said. "I rather expected more from you."

"My lady, by now you must know to lower your expectations," Haskill put in.

"Quiet, you!" Sheogorath huffed angrily.

"Rude."

"What d'ye see in him?" Sheogorath demanded.

Amelie shrugged. "I like him."

"That's it?"

"He keeps me sane!" Amelie said. "He's sweet and kind and loves me dearly, why should I not marry someone like him?"

"Because ye've got me!"

"What precisely are you trying to achieve here?" Amelie asked. "Are you trying to stop me?"

"What're YOU trying to accomplish?" Sheogorath retorted. "Ye didn't HAVE t' tell me! But ye did!"

"You did not have to listen."

"Not like I have much else to do. Which we could fix, IF ye put in some work rather than runnin' off with some beachside patrolman!" Sheogorath snapped.

Stung, Amelie turned on her heel and began to leave the shrine. She had not gone more than ten paces when a barrage of flaming cabbages rained from the sky.

"Ye can't get rid o' me!" Sheogorath reminded her.

"And until the day I finally do, you will keep trying to kill me, is that it?" Amelie demanded, turning back to face the shrine. She could almost hear the demonic grin spreading across Sheogorath's face.

"Now that ye mention it, that sounds like fun."

Amelie's eyes narrowed. "Then it shall be your loss."

She turned to leave again.

Sheogorath shouted after her, not about to let her leave. "So what now, is this a game?"

"YOU are the powerful one, you tell me," Amelie barked at him. "Or are you too busy fish-sticking?"

"Let me know when ye do set a date, will ye?" Sheogorath asked, his tone changing. "I want to know when t' send yer lucky man some nightshade tea."

"You have to be one of the least sophisticated, most INSUFFERABLE—"

"Can I walk ye down the aisle?" he asked, his tone still calm. "Really."

Amelie paused. It was always a gamble, deciding where on the sliding scale of serious to sarcastic Sheogorath was. "Absolutely not."

"Why not?"

"Because you are not family, you are not a friend, an acquaintance, or anyone else I would be pleased to be caught dead in the vicinity of," Amelie said concisely.

"I'm all the family ye need!" Sheogorath protested.

"You are still in the 'gliding' stage of development, you could not walk me down the aisle even if I wanted you to."

"That—you—get back 'ere, rosy!"

Amelie had left the shrine.