We have it on tape, he can't deny it anymore folks. Sheogorath hates cheese.

Chapter 37: Pink Coats

"So." General Tullius tapped his fingertips together while laid on his back on a cot. Around him, Legion Restorers and Alchemists administered healing to both the General and other wounded soldiers. The conscript's 'Pink Coats', a name that apparently the Helgen rank and file had put to them, distributed magic baubles bewitched with regeneration and life support to the most grievously wounded. "How long have you been able to do… that?" The General winced as a healing balm was applied to the acid-like burns he had suffered on his arms and face from catching the explosion indirectly.

Beside him, on his stomach with his now much shorter tail bandaged was the conscript, his future son-in-law. He was enchanting anything and everything his students put in front of him to help treat the soldiers-the stockpile they had built up over the weeks had already been distributed. It made the General realize: When he thought there were enough medical supplies stockpiled, he was wrong-no matter how much was being stockpiled, it wasn't enough.

"I found out as soon as you did," the cat replied, glum. "They don't exactly teach you how to not become a living bomb in the schools I went to, you know?"

"Hmm. Yes, I can see how that would be outside your skills." General Tullius nodded like it was perfectly normal. "But I meant how long have the pieces of you that get cut off come to life?" He indicated the roof, where what had been the cat's tail was wrapped around a rafter.

It had traded fur for scales, and looked like an alarmingly flat snake, with the stripes that had been on the Khajiit's tail now evenly spaced apart with… small numbers next to them, it looked like. The creature combined traits of constrictors and venomous snakes-specifically cobras. And it was glaring down at Seneca Tullius like it was waiting for an excuse to leap down at him.

"Oh, like a couple weeks? The spider-crab on my back, Yehochanan, used to be my hand that got chopped off."

Yehochanan paused in binding up a long piece of anxiety in his prismatic threads to clack at the General, producing a castanet-like sound.

"Hmm. Interesting." The General nodded. His neck had healed enough that he could do so without pain, a small blessing. "But profoundly disturbing."

The medical treatment ward they were set up in was located in the underground section of Helgen Keep. According to scout reports, it was impossible to access Fort Neugrad due to the entire structure being buried in an avalanche. And according to reports in Whiterun, the same was true of Valtheim Valley. Which meant that the only land route into or out of Stormcloak territory was now through the Pale. It also meant that if the snow didn't clear in time that Whiterun Hold would develop a temporary lake.

If the cabal of fire mages in Sunderstone Gorge proved amicable to being sub-contracted, the Legion could possibly get through to the Rift and cut off the Stormcloak food supplies when they couldn't easily benefit from the Khajiit caravans anymore. Ulfric would have to use his pretty new warships to pillage Morrowind's coast for food, and in turn, draw the wrath of the Great Houses.

The General considered spreading propaganda that Ulfric was intending to re-take Solstheim to make the Dunmer even more likely to strike at the Stormcloaks. It could be useful for setting off the oil urn that was Windhelm's Grey Quarter. But the General's thoughts were interrupted by the Khajiit Pink Coat leaning over him.

"Your burns are fully healed, please check in with your healer regularly in case it returns. You're free to go, General."

"Thank you," Tullius said as he stood up. And when he did, he noticed a blue malachite sword spinning at speed in one corner of the room, free of any way for it to being spun. It was spinning with sufficient speed that it cast a cool breeze on several Legion soldiers that had burned as a result of a fire. He observed this, looked down at the Khajiit, then back to the sword and decided he was not drunk enough to be dealing with this level of magical madness.

Its name was Qorach. It was made from violence done to the Master from without and served as the counterpart to Yehochanan who was born of violence from within. Yehochanan's function was to help the Master keep from self-harm, but Qorach's function was to keep him from harm. Period. So when the Master stood, and lamented the injury that had caused Qorach to be, the Daedric flat-snake went down to him and wrapped gently around his shoulders.

Qorach had disguised itself to look like measuring tape specifically so that it would not be discovered until it was too late. It expected the Master to be repulsed by it, a serpent when the Master had suffered so much from the Serpent affecting him. But as soon as Qorach settled, the Master stroked it gently on the head. Yehochanan had the Master's respect, their mutual connection allowed Qorach to perceive this. But the bond the Master put onto Qorach was different: Loved By Me was its name.

Yehochanan was not bitter, he was not separate enough from the Master to feel such things. But Qorach shared with the spider-crab the Master's love anyway. And content that the Master had not rejected it, the flat-snake coiled slightly tighter in an embrace and dedicated itself to its function: To watch the Master's enemies, and poison them when they approached.

Mohamara permitted his new snake to dip its head into the drink General Tullius had provided, that it could test for poison. He didn't actually expect his soon to be father-in-law to poison him, but he wanted to get into the habit right away. The snake dipped its head into the milk and took a few mouthfuls before sending Mohamara an affirmative through their connection.

General Tullius only looked mildly repulsed by the way Mohamara was accumulating fashion animals, and how affectionate he was being with a snake. "Don't often see snakes in Skyrim."

The Khajiit scowled and drank his milk. "You can blame that one on Hjalti Early-Beard. He killed all the snakes in Skyrim. All of them, at least until breeders were able to develop recreations of Skyrim's snake species. It's part of why there's such a skeever problem-no snakes to kill them before they get big."

The General had never heard that bit of information and filed it away under useless but interesting trivia. There were people who actively bred snakes. He decided that those were people not to be fucked with.

General and conscript were seated in what had been the kitchens of Helgen keep. Once the last few Legionnaires were treated for their wounds, they would be marching for Falkreath along with what had been the Helgen civilians. Perhaps they could rebuild after the war, but it wasn't yet certain where they would go-Falkreath was the only settlement left in the Hold and the single poorest Hold capital in Skyrim. Winterhold wasn't even considered a settlement anymore as far as the Empire was concerned.

Perhaps it had something to do with how Jarl Kraldr hadn't cooperated with the Empire to clear out the Blood Horkers even before the Stormcloak rebellion. Titus Mede II had a petty streak too.

"So, has Marcurio told you…?" Tullius tried to phrase it gently, lest the cat not be aware. It wasn't Tullius' secret to reveal, but he desperately wished for someone that wasn't his son or his wife to talk about it with.

"That you and he have a bad relationship? I sort of guessed, because he specifically asked me never to ask about you with him." The cat arched an eyebrow and shrugged. "He said that the issues the two of you had were settled, and it wouldn't do any good to bring it up again."

The General sighed and drank some of his wine. "Not that. But… I guess that's as good as I could expect, given our past."

There was silence between them before the cat's ears perked up. "Oh, did you mean that he used to have a woman's body?"

The nonchalance of the Khajiit's question stunned Tullius. According to records, he was a Skyrim native. He'd known the Nords were liberal on the subject of marriage-polygamy was a stable of Nordic families even in contemporary times. But the idea of a Provincial being so open-minded on as complex a topic as that shocked him. "I… yes. That."

"I only recently pieced it together," Mohamara admitted. "He'd been making allusions to having a heavily feminine past, but the comments about seeing a face sculptor for invasive work really cinched it. I'm not bringing up to him until he's ready to tell me himself, if he's ever ready."

Tullius looked into his wine and found himself getting lost in memories. "You don't wonder… who he used to be? When he discovered this about himself?"

Mohamara squinted and realized the General wasn't really talking to him anymore. A quick dive into sympathetic connections let him see the General was rapidly connecting doubt and his identity as a parent, along with brief flashes of memories. "He was always Marcurio. It wasn't you or your wife's fault. That you're willing to talk about him as a man is a sign of how much of a good parent you are."

"It does not feel that way." He drank his goblet to emptiness and filled it again from the bottle. "It feels like all the arrangements I made-you aren't his first… husband-to-be-and all the arguments we would get into about his future only made it worse." Tullius wanted so badly to be able to confess a doubt he had but fought it back. There was a war going on, and the child-sized Khajiit in front of him wasn't his son-in-law yet, he was the General's glorified prisoner. It was unseemly to be in such a state.

"The pain you feel now is the love you have for him," Mohamara said earnestly. "It's natural to doubt, but Marcurio thinks it's settled-he's not a mind-reader like I am, have you told him about this?"

"Before he came to Solitude to… inform me of the match, the last I had talked to him was in Cheydinhal. When he left us." Tullius refrained from drinking more and set his wine aside. If he got too drunk, he wouldn't be able to act like a General ought in front of conscripts. He didn't realize until later that Generals shouldn't have been having such conversations with conscripts, either. "He and I haven't been in good… there hasn't been a good time to talk."

"Then you two will talk at the wedding." Mohamara nodded and smiled like it was the perfect solution. For a moment, Tullius saw his wife in the expression. "I can guarantee there will be time for the two of you to have a heart-to-heart then, but if the opportunity presents itself beforehand, take it, Sir."

At the wedding, his wife and potentially more of his family was going to be there. It was going to be annoying, awkward, and he'd likely have to punch his brother-in-law in the nose again afterward. But… to have the issue resolved, one way or another, Tullius admitted it was the most pragmatic solution. It didn't mean he wished to linger on the topic, however. "Will I have to wait for the wedding to meet your parents as well? Your father's been my neighbor for decades-but I hardly know the man."

"I don't know who your neighbor is, Sir, but he most definitely isn't my father." Mohamara sighed and sipped his milk. "My father's a literal madman. He bounces between being maniacally affectionate and implied death threats. Potentially in the same sentence." The cat met Tullius' eyes and to the Nibenese man's surprise, they were full of pity. "I genuinely regret that you'll have to meet him at the wedding. It is an evil I don't think I'll ever be able to make up for."

"And I thought my son and I had a tense relationship," Tullius quipped, his voice dry as the Alik'r. "What has the man done that makes him so unpleasant? Besides the whole madman thing." Foolishly, the General could resist his wine no longer and took a draft of it.

"Well, I'm told that he tried to cannibalize me when I was a baby, for starters."

Once more, Tullius found himself drinking at the worst possible time and coughing so badly that the Quaestor assigned to Mohamara and one of his Pink Coats rushed in to help the elderly Imperial. It took a few whacks on the back and a quick Healing Hands spell to fix the General up. Afterward, he and Mohamara were alone again.

"Suddenly, I'm feeling a lot better about my parenting if there's cannibalism on the other side of the aisle." With perhaps a mote of amusement, he quickly followed up with: "No offense."

"Let's hold off on that until my mother meets Marcurio's mother, hmm? That's going to be a treat for both of us-I have no idea what she's like other than she shacked up with a madman." Mohamara's face drained of all emotion save exasperation. "Multiple times, apparently. Because I have sisters."

"It's okay, so does Marcurio." Tullius suddenly realized, to his horror, that he hadn't told any of his daughters about the wedding, that they would never forgive him if they missed their big brother's wedding. This also made him wonder if Marcurio had told his mother because Tullius knew he hadn't. The unpleasant thought of needing to write letters to all of them and then pay their way to Skyrim motivated him to drink his second goblet to emptiness.

"From your expression, I'm going to guess that having them here won't be fun?"

"I would rather dance naked in the Palace of the Kings with Ulfric Stormcloak watching than be in the building where my daughters, my wife, your sisters, and your mother first meet if I'm being honest."

General Tullius reassigned Mohamara, his Pink Coats, and Hadvar into being part of the Military Governor's entourage. For once, under no pretext-what Mohamara did to Helgen convinced the General that it was the height of folly to not have the cat under guard at all times. In the short-term, it meant that they went with him to Falkreath to talk to the regional Legate and Jarl Siddgeir about what was to be done with the Helgen refugees.

Mohamara didn't much care for Siddgeir when he first saw the man. Siddgeir was even younger than Elisif-than Idgrod the Younger-and he was pompous. He talked down to literally everyone who interacted with him for any length of time, would interrupt explanations of the status of Helgen with questions of why he should care, and initially wanted to put the refugees to work rebuilding Helgen-describing it as 'repairing his property'.

"Want to know something funny," Sheogorath asked from within Mohamara's ears. "That was the other candidate we had it narrowed down to. Ultimately you mother decided against it, though. Said he wasn't good enough for ya."

"Though I have never met her, I am profoundly grateful for her influence in my life, may Meridia shine the light of certitude upon her wherever she is," Mohamara muttered a prayer as they left the Jarl's longhouse. "Also, why did you narrow it down to humans? No Rainbow Men Khajiit in Skyrim?"

"Well, there was this one candidate called Vasha-but your uncle Sanguine convinced me to take him off the list. He actually gave me a list of reasons why. I think I have it here somewhere." Sheogorath proceeded to list off a variety of vile things this 'Vasha' enjoyed himself, doing to other people, or had done in his past to preclude him being considered seriously. By the end, Mohamara was surprised Vasha wasn't either part of the Dark Brotherhood or a Molagian. "However, all of that could have been forgiven-and eventually, you would have gotten used to all the leather. But what I couldn't tolerate was that he tucks his pants into his socks."

"You know what-I'm not even shocked anymore," Mohamara admitted in his normal volume, not giving a single fuck what looks people nearby gave him. "This is the norm for you. You're normal now, Dad."

"No!" Sheogorath suddenly appeared, on his knees with his hands clasped in a pleading pose. He kept on scooting after the tojay on his knees while Mohamara walked without slowing. "Anything but that! Please! I can be zany, unpredictable! Ju-just give me one more chance, sonny." He had all the right cues to appear desperate, even faking crying for his performance. "I-I can turn you into a duck for a decade, and have you only change back when you're in a particular lake while there's moonlight striking the surface! I could trap you in a giant's castle on top of the clouds, and make you lay golden eggs to bolster the cloud giant economy! I could cause everyone you have ever met to go completely stark-raving, totally blinking mad! Please, just don't say I'm normal!" The Mad God launched himself forward to cling to Mohamara's leg, forcing the Khajiit to drag him along.

Neither Yehochanan or Qorach responded to the Mad God's scene, and it appeared that no one else could see Sheogorath. Finally, Mohamara had enough of pandering to a false weeping fit on his father's behalf and stopped walking. "Fine-you don't want to be normal?" He twisted to look right into Sheogorath's milky eyes. "Then you need to do something different. You need to do something unlike yourself, so you can be truly random and unpredictable."

Sheogorath's tantrum stopped right away. His expression became blank, and when he spoke again it was without his usual accent. "In a distribution where all events, and all outcomes, are equally possible the only impossible parameter is which item in the distribution is unlikely to occur. However, the distribution contains all events and all outcomes, including impossible ones. The chain of contradictions proceed ad infinitum and consume all thought devoted to them. However, after processing enough layers of contradiction a solution emerges." The Mad God lept to his feet and spoke with a voice that echoed off the mountains. "I! Hate! Cheese!"

"...Now, more than ever, I wish I was a druggie so I could just take something and escape this mess," the tojay muttered and rubbed his face with both hands. "Fine, whatever, you're not normal. Happy?"

"Oh, sonny, you ignorant collection of meat and tubes. I'm always happy! Even when I'm not."

"So," Hadvar started at the campfire later that night when the General's entourage was camped on the road from Falkreath to Haafingar. "Who were you talking to earlier? Back before the mysterious cheese thing."

Mohamara was making use of his talents to stir a pot of stew while five feet away and polishing Chillrend. "Oh, I was just having a chat with my friend Nonya."

"Nonya?"

"Mhm. Nonya Dam Bid'ness." The cat paused to make finger-wands at Hadvar before going back to his polishing. Only Orthorn laughed at the joke.

"You could have just said you didn't want to talk about it."

"But then I would have wasted that absolutely perfect setup and the world would be the lesser for it." Mohamara's tail would take days longer to regenerate, but already he had enough of it back to communicate his annoyance to Adrannna without speaking of it.

"It was so kind of the Master to buy for those people a steading and supplies that they could build a new town," the cathay woman was quick to change the topic. "But why did you refuse to let them name it for you, Master?"

Contrary to her intent, this only served to annoy Mohamara more. The only thing keeping his actions better than Siddgeir's proposal was that Mohamara had made it a gift, and already had a good reputation with the people of Helgen-soon to be Lakeview. "Because I've decided I want Galamir's ways to be the ways of the faith."

The Dunmer student perked up at his sudden spotlight among the Pink Coats and tried to look humble as was appropriate.

"Don't do things for my glory, or whatever. Don't build temples in my name, or make sacrifices to me. I'd rather you put that energy into helping people who need it. Build homes for the homeless, feed the hungry, make the world a better place than when you found it." Mohamara refrained from also mentioning that, due to his future knowledge, he knew of no temples, settlements, or religious groups that bore his name. It was bittersweet enough to know they wouldn't stand the test of time, without seeing any works dedicated to him done while he was around. "...I know of a group of people, the Friends of Maria who lives on Mount Kilkreath. You guys can use that convention for your organization too. A secret," he stopped to squint at Hadvar, "or mostly secret, way of communicating. Just… don't use my real name, so you can avoid my enemies."

The Pink Coats then talked amongst themselves of what they should call themselves. Pink Coats was the Legion's name for them, the overall sentiment seemed to be that they wanted something of their own. It was Orthorn that produced the most interesting one.

"The Friends of Llorona," he proposed with a flair. "It's a Lilmothiit word, meaning weeping, but also a reference to a ghost story of theirs. Considering the feminine implications, and how different the translation is to either of the translations for the Master's name, none of his enemies would think them to be the same entity!" He looked between his fellow Pink Coats, Mohamara, and Hadvar and gradually started to wilt under their unblinking stares.

"How do you know a Lilmothiit word well enough to know those things?" Mohamara's tone was flat. He knew there was a song with that word in the title on his slate-so either Orthorn had figured out how to access it or-

"I did as you ordered. I practiced Conjuration, and got in contact with some of the ones that live in Sanguine's realms of revelry." Orthorn shrugged like it was no big deal. "Um. Was that perhaps a… rhetorical order, Master?"

"You studied enough Conjuration to get in contact with Lilmothiit from Sanguine's realm and learn their language, or at least start it… in less than two weeks." Mohamara's absolute bafflement was mirrored in his Pink Coats, and to a much lesser degree in Hadvar. "How?"

"I contacted Hermaeus Mora's realm, Apocrypha. Completed a little obstacle course that he set up and solved some riddles to get the information." The High Elf shrugged once more. "Wasn't that difficult, really."

"Khajiit does not have enough moon sugar to be hearing this," Adannna moaned as she rubbed her temples.

"That just raises further questions, you… you…," Traynda struggled to find a word to convey her frustration and ended up just pointing emphatically at Orthorn's confused expression. "You!"

"I'm going to hazard a guess and say that the things he says he did are ludicrously difficult to pull off?" Hadvar looked at each of the Pink Coats in turn and Mohamara-frozen in absolute incomprehension-answered his question nonverbally. "Yes, that seems a safe assumption."

"So…." Orthorn shifted on his feet and swung his arms to ease the awkwardness. "No objections to the Friends of Llorona? Great!"

Orthorn's one of those people who learns best by being given a goal and told to accomplish it rather than being told how to accomplish it.