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 and characters of my own creation.

Tallis bounced out into the overcast and breezy morning, leaning over the raised wooden walkway to peer down at the shaded area below. This was the area where Arrille had swept the dust he'd banished from her clothing; and this was the area she'd attempted to enhance, urging any spores that might have survived the journey from Cyrodill towards growth.

Of course with most fungi, regardless of the viability of the spores, it would take a good hard rain to trigger any growth of note, even with all the magical help she could provide. She sighed and continued on her way. A shutter on a nearby building rattled in a sudden wind. She glanced up. The sky was filled with clouds, and the air felt cool and heavy. Maybe that meant it would rain. Wouldn't it be nice if she could thank Arrille by growing some of the fungi from the Arcane University here?

On her way out of Seeeyda Neen, she was snubbed by Teleri Helvi. A few minutes later she heard the sarcastically unmistakable sniff of Eldafire, whose white-gold hair was twisted up into its usual elaborate bun. The occasional Legionnaire nodded formally to her, but didn't say much. As she kept walking, she started feeling uncomfortable. A sort of itchy feeling at the back of her neck. Almost as if someone was staring at her.

She got to the bridge, and halfway across, she paused, turning to pretend to look at the river that rippled merrily as it wound out to the shore. She looked toward where the early morning sun cast shadows past one of the shacks.

A shiver slowly ran up her spine. It was just shadows; she couldn't actually see anything, but she would have bet anything that the dunmer she and Falx had spoken to was there. Somewhere.

"Foryn Gilnith" She murmured. Then for no reason she blushed, and hurried across the river. She had things to do. Ingredients to gather for Arrille.

This morning instead of wandering in the marsh, she found herself following a pathway that led west away from the town. Once she was far enough away to be out of sight of anyone in the town, she slowed down, and took some deep breaths.

Despite her eagerness to explore more of Morrowind's interesting plant life, she kept imagining the wounds that the ant-creature – no – nix hound – had inflicted on the legionnaires. She had some small spells that might be more effective than her campfire spell, and she was having kind of mixed reactions about the potential opportunity to use them. A land of predators, Gold Heart had said. She needed to be a predator too. Sort of.

A tickling sensation at her right ribs distracted her for a moment. She put a hand to her side; it was one of the instars. She could feel the little critter inside moving. Maybe it would be ready to come out soon. She felt a shiver up her spine. She didn't really know anything about how these little guys would behave. But as Gaspar would say, ignorance is just a perfect opportunity for learning. Of course then Boressean would add that it was also a perfect opportunity to get killed.

She'd been out of sorts, but before she went any further the new spells she had developed with Albecius Colollius needed to be practiced. She probably ought to have asked him or perhaps Arrille to watch over her as she field-tested them. Come to think of it, it didn't seem like the Battlemage had expected her to practice them. Well perhaps Battlemages were so confident they didn't bother. Gaspar and Borissean would both insist. And so would she.

She stepped off of the path to take a seat on a rock that sat near a slough fern. She didn't see any pods, but that was okay. She would probably find some later. Concentrating, she wove subtle magick between herself and the two little instars at her waist. It didn't take very long, and after the energies settled she sat, still. Her eyes were closed. She could feel the sun on her back. She could feel the warmth of the instars, and some tiny shifting movements from each of them.

Well that was different and probably good. She'd not been able to feel the one on her right before. She waited, but other than that, she didn't feel any different. The spell was supposed to connect the three of them in a very subtle way; so that each would be able to perceive the others as kin or pack, and to be able to read each other's body language. Well, instars didn't have much in the way of body language, so probably it made sense that she didn't feel a whole lot of difference.

She stood up and continued on the path, keeping an eye out for the low movements that would alert her to any rats, or the rounded shapes that would be a mudcrab. After all, the instars were close to hatching, and they would prefer to eat meat.

It was only after she found herself disappointed at the lack of prey that she realized that her connection to the babies-to-be had certainly changed her attitude toward combat with the local fauna. Was she braver? Or was it just a sort of taking-care-of-little-ones sort of reaction? She wasn't sure.

Of course speaking of taking care of them, there was another spell she might want to try to practice. As she slowly meandered down the path, keeping an eye out for fungus that might be growing on the side of the fern trees, she picked up a fist sized rock. Tossing it up with her left hand, and then she wove magika with her right. Abruptly its fall slowed, and it landed softly, even gently on the mossy ground.

She giggled with delight, and picking up the stone, she tossed it upwards and cast the slowfall spell again. Slowly the rock settled onto the ground. Continuing along the pathway, she kept practicing. Probably because it was a path, any fungus had been picked clear, and often when the stone landed it tended to roll downward. Eventually despite her having slowed it, the rock she'd been using was lost in a swampy area.

For a brief moment she considered trying to find it, but it was only a rock, after all. Besides she really didn't want to deal with any more of the limpet-leeches. Okay that was probably not their name, but they stuck like leeches and looked sort of like shell-less limpets.

She meandered down the paths, using the spear as a sort of walking stick, and keeping an eye out for any other likely rocks to try the new spell on. The she heard what sounded like someone yelling. High up above her.

Her first thought was that maybe Arrille was wrong and someone could ride a cliff racer. But the spread-eagled blue-robed figure was falling, not flying. Reflexively she cast her slowfall spell, only after the fact considering that he was a lot farther away than the rock had been. Well not for long.

His fall changed abruptly from a smallish hurtling mass of robes to a much larger mass of cloth as all the expensive looking clothing he was wearing seemed to puff out around him as he slowed. He landed on his back, with a kind of "ooff" noise, and then a fur hat of some kind landed on his face. Then a book landed on his belly. This resulted in another "ooff" and then he rolled slowly over to one side and threw up.

As she ran up to him, Tallis could see that he was tall, pale and blonde. Not the golden-hued tone of an Altmer, but a more olive complexion. Was he a wood elf, maybe? With the hat off, his disheveled curly hair made an odd contrast to the finery of his robes. She couldn't see any wounds, but she also couldn't figure out where he fell from.

Once he'd recovered from being sick, he turned to her, pointing an accusing finger. "You!" He exclaimed.

Tallis hesitated. "Me?"

He looked around anxiously, and then finally his gaze dropped down to the ground. Then he flushed a deep red that showed Tallis that he had very pale freckles. "You," He continued in a much more subdued voice. "You saved my life." He didn't sound very happy about it.

"You were falling." Tallis commented carefully.

She hadn't thought it was possible for him to get any redder, but he did. It almost made Tallis think of a very bad sunburn. Attempting to distract him, she asked. "Were you attacked?"

He shook his head. "Um. No." Clumsily he gathered up his hat and the book and got to his feet. Tallis offered him her hand, but he pretended not to see it. "I … there was an unfortunate miscalculation in my … magickal jump."

Tallis eyes widened. "Where did you jump down from?" There didn't seem to be any trees tall enough or near enough to be likely. And of course there were hills or maybe mountains in the distance, but that seemed a long ways.

He murmured something, but she didn't catch it.

"What?" She asked.

In a slightly clearer tone, he quietly said. "Hla Oad."

Tallis frowned, trying to figure out if the name was familiar, or if it should be. "Is that the name of a town?" She asked.

He looked more closely at her. "Of course it's a town." He sounded a bit defensive. "Or at least it's a village. It's south of Balmorra." He shook his head, and then opened up his book. "I have to check my equations again."

Tallis considered. There had been a map on the wall in the room where Socucius Ergalla had interviewed her. Seyda Neen had been the largest marking, but there had been others. Balmorra, yes, that had been along a river. Odai. She did recall some symbols that she had taken to indicate towns. Most were named, but there had been one, south along the Odai that had not been. Judging from the map symbol it was a very very small town. However it was quite a ways away. If he had started there, and come this far in one jump not only had it been an amazing jump, but he had a really good sense of direction.

He flipped through a few pages. Tallis could see that it was full of cramped handwriting and tiny equations. He ran his finger down the middle of a page, muttering. The script was Aldmeri, so she could read it. She could follow the part of the spell that was meant to initiate and power the jump, and the values were higher than any version she'd ever seen or heard of. It was pretty impressive … but looking further, she couldn't find any corresponding values for slowing or safety in the landing. "Oh dear." She spoke softly.

Beside her, the Bosmer's jaw clenched and he went a bit pale.

"Um, I should introduce myself," Tallis murmured.

He looked up defensively from the page to glare at her. The effect was pretty much ruined by the remains of his blush.

"My name is Tallis. I just got here a couple of days ago from Cyrodill."

He looked at her more closely for the first time, and his expression calmed into slight sneer of disdain similar to what she was used to seeing on Eldafire's face. She felt sad. People in Morrowind really weren't very friendly.

"Are you … Okay?" He asked rather pointedly.

He was staring at the bulge in her shirt where the instars were snugged against her waist.

"Oh." Well, yes, her clothing was pretty horrible, but she could explain about the bulges. "They're instars of Nix Hounds," She said proudly. "They should hatch any day now, and I'm going to have them as, um pets."

He blinked. "You … What?"

"Well real dogs don't do very well here, I'm told. Probably the climate or something. But I found these, well from a trader who was selling them as Kwama eggs, but they are still alive, and so I made a spell to make us understand each other a little – I wasn't sure if it worked right away, but now I know they are going to hatch soon, and I know they will want meat, so it worked at least a little."

"You want to have nix hounds for pets?" He seemed to have completely forgotten about being disdainful.

Tallis nodded. "I suppose I'd better see about getting them collars or something after they hatch so it's clear that they aren't wild ones."

He shook his head, and then extended a hand. "Tallis, you are crazy. That's a totally crazy idea." He looked a little friendlier now.

She took his hand and shook it warmly. "Most of my ideas kind of seem weird to my teachers. Oh well, it's still fun. That's what magic is for, right? To explore and to do things that other people think are crazy."

He shook his head. "I can't decide if you are really smart or really weird."

Tallis lowered her voice, and in her best impression of Boressean's bass rumble said. "There are those who would say the two are not mutually exclusive."

They both started laughing.

Finally he said. "Well, anyway my name is T'rheel." He looked sadly at the page in his spell book. "Someday I'm going to be a world famous mage." The way he said it made her think that it was something he told himself a lot, and maybe something that he didn't quite believe.

"I could teach you the spell to slow the fall, and then you could combine it with the jumping spell." She said it without really thinking about it, and then hoped he wouldn't take offense.

He looked hopeful for a moment, and then his gaze dropped back to the page of equations. "I don't think I could cast a spell that complex." He admitted.

"Who says it has to be only one spell?"

"Well," he looked surprised, and then he slowly nodded. "The first part of the spell is the upward arc." He pointed to the equations. "If I didn't apply the slowfall till here," He moved his finger. "Yes, yes that would work very well."

Partway into their discussion, a misty rain started. T'rheel barely noticed it, other than suggesting they take shelter under a fern-tree. Which seemed odd, since the more mushroom-shaped trees looked like they would provide more effective shelter from the weather.

T'rheel shook his head. "Naw, you get spores dropping all over everything. It's not as bad as the dust in the ashlands, but sometimes it's kind of sticky and it's hard to clean off."

They had been talking for quite some time when the rumbling of Tallis' stomach reminded her that she hadn't had much to eat yet. For that matter, she hadn't really gathered much of anything, either for her critters or for Arrille.

Her new friend smiled. "I'm a little hungry too. We should be pretty close to Seyda Neen, right?"

"Yes." she said, and then she thought of something else. The rain – maybe it was enough to start the spores growing. "I tried to grow some spores by the back of the tradehouse; I think they should have sprouted by now. Come with me and I'll show you."

"You can direct plant growth?" He sounded impressed.

"I really like helping things," She said, and gently patted the bulges under her shirt. "and making unusual friends."

He held out his hand. "You are a pretty unusual friend, I'll definitely say that."

They walked back along the road, picking fungi on the way. They were interrupted only once by an aggressive mud crab. Between her fire dart spell and T'rheel's spark spell the poor thing didn't have a chance.

It was only when they got close to Seyda Neen that Tallis saw the results of her spell.

The area under the elevated entrance to the tradehouse was indeed covered in fungus. Green stain cups were growing all over the support beams. There were a few larger specimens growing; red with white dots. She knew those were fly amanitas. They were both very useful. Arrille would be so pleased.

And then she saw the largest one; so tall she'd mistaken it at first for the silhouette of a person. Right in front of the tradehouse door. Stinkhorn.

Her breath caught and when she spoke, it was only a whisper. "Oh no."