Cearbhail:

Ok, everyone. We have a new chapter finally. and I introduce Prashin. If you forget who he is, just look back to chapter United War, chapter 28. And also...it gets pretty dark up ahead. Not going to lie, I even scare myself with some of the background stories I come up with. Then again, this one was based on a nightmare I had like...six...seven years ago? Hell, I was teenager then. Anyway, enjoy.

[Ja'Daan]

Mission log,

The last week has been something. It's been more settling into our new home than anything else. And we've seemed to pick up a new housemate; Zetta. I preferred that he didn't stay with us, but Ma'Trinjje insisted that she wouldn't just leave him alone on the streets. Zetta doesn't seem like a bad fellow, though. He cleared up all the confusion he created when he offered me drugs. I guess he's not too bad. And he knows all about the Crushers. That's a bonus. Speaking of which, my duties so far have been nothing more than just escorting Zap around town. I'll play along for now. Do'Risan has set up an appointment to see the Councilor of the town today. So, he won't be around. Ma'Trinjje is hanging out with J'Rinma and Zetta today. I think they're getting some pasta. Huh, well I guess we have nothing to do until I learn something. Or maybe they're planning on actually finding something by being normal citizens. A good cover story is important and things do happen while waiting around.

Anyway, Zap has some important meeting today with some other cell leaders. They're meeting at a skooma den, go figure. I wonder just how many moon-spiced Khajiits I'll see today. I wonder if I can resist the urge to kill them. Well, I should get ready to go.

Ja'Daan…

…

I closed our mission log and tossed it in my astral bag. No one would ever find it unless they knew about dimensional bags and how you must will a specific item into your hand. These were handed out to the servants of the Mane and created in a lab by some Firedrake mages. Firedrakes were the Khajiit version of mages. They dressed in over the top red robes and covered their whole bodies in cloth. They worked in a vow of silence their whole lives while weaving magic in the capital city for the Mane. They never left their temple. Well, that's how it used to be. They're more liberal about their traditions today, even scaling down their robes to simple Altmer-inspired kimono rabi dresses.

I shoved our astral bag into my dresser as I stood up from my bed. I looked around my room. I had a decent room. Sure there were pockets of mold growing on the upper walls and water stains on the ceiling. We were currently doing everything we could to fight the infamous black death growing on our walls, but it just kept coming back. Much like a bad itch.

I walked out of the room and into the living room/kitchen/dining room. It was all one room. And it looked disgusting. The carpet was horribly stained from substances ranging from urine to vomit to…well I'm sure you can fill in the blanks. Don't forget, we're still in a drug infested part of town. We're in one of the biggest project houses in the Crusher collective, where most of his officers lived. And as such, this giant collective of apartments was abused and almost falling apart. We kept all the windows open so that all the air ventilated the sickening smell of our apartment.

Sitting in our living commons was J'Ariana. She was talking to Zetta, joking to him about her time at our academy for training agents of the Mane. We were called the Leos. We were the top cats in our class, the top scouts with the most advanced martial arts training. I forgot that some days. Waking up in my bed with Zetta snoring on the bed opposite of me made me feel like a normal Khajiit. Not like some top secret agent of our country's strongest Khajiit. The Mane was in charge of the Leos. And we would do as ordered even if it led to our deaths. You know…even if he is twelve years old.

J'Ariana looked comfortable talking to Zetta, who nodded at everything she said. He even laughed at appropriate times. I still didn't trust him, but I heard from both Ja'Pran and J'Ariana that he tried to save them. That and he was once a Crusher but was turned into an outcast. That was good for us. He hated the Crushers and wanted them destroyed. And once we told him who we were, he jumped at the opportunity to help us. I guess he liked helping us more than he liked Ja'Pran's tonfa blades aimed at his throat.

I joined J'Ariana on the couch, sitting right next to her. She looked over at me and smiled. "Morning, J'Erian." She looked over at Zetta, saying, "I was just telling Zetta about how one time you saved me from some villagers that wanted to kill me because of my white fur."

I nodded to Zetta. "It's true. Her white fur makes her a bit of a target to other Khajiits. Even in our academy, she was picked on horrendously and pranked nearly every single day." I looked over at her. "How many attempts on your life and social status did you have every day?"

She shrugged. Her eyes disappeared for a second in some lost memory. "I don't even remember anymore." Tears started welling up in her eyes. "My own parents didn't want me. And my 'friends' only liked me because I got good grades. Whenever I wasn't around, they'd say some of the nastiest things about me." She looked up at me, her eyes focusing on me. "And yet…you were the only one that was there for me. You understood…you protected me."

I found myself nodding. "I was from the southern tribes, and I'm Cathay. I was picked on because of my size. Two outcasts had to stick together to survive our social tribunal." I shook my head. "But it drove us to become top of our class. Well, that and Ja'Pran." I looked over to her room, where both J'Ariana and Ja'Pran slept during the night. "You know, I always wondered about her. She graduated the same year we did, and yet she's been on more missions. And even though she's so beautiful and graceful, she's so…mentally disturbed."

J'Ariana nodded. She threw her face into her hands, screaming, "And last week! She tried to throw me to some Nord to make me lose my virginity!"

Ja'Pran walked out of her room, her arms crossed and a scowl on her face. She was the only normal looking Khajiit out of us three. She dressed in the normal Khajiit fashions and even had a normal family clan stripes on her fur. But the way she glared at us, you'd think we were complaining about the weather being rainy. She looked over at us, scowling. "Is it pity hour already?" She walked up to us, glaring at J'Ariana. "Get over it, vaanti." Vaanti was a slang word for albino. It also meant 'plague', or 'destruction'. White furs were a bad omen and were often killed because famines usually followed, or a bandit raid. They haven't happened in a long time but the hatred was still there.

Ja'Pran walked over to the lone chair close to Zetta and sat down, still glaring daggers into J'Ariana's eyes. When she sat down, she looked from her over to me. "You two had it easy in the academy. You had each other. And don't think I didn't notice. The way you two clung to each other, it was clear to see that you two were happy as could be." She pounded her chest angrily. "Did you even notice me? At all?"

I tried to remember back to our days at the academy. I remembered her during our martial arts training classes. And she always got straight A's. But other than that, I didn't recall ever seeing her or talking to her. "I don't recall anything."

J'Ariana nodded. "I do. You shoved my head in a toilet once."

Ja'Pran scowled at J'Ariana for a second. "That wasn't me; that was M'Oriana." She looked between us, nodding. "You two had each other for all your suffering. You two had someone to hold when you were being hunted. I had no one. And I was always being hunted. By boys, by other girls, and even by our teachers. Everyone knew my face, everyone knew my name…and not one of them wanted to know me just to be my friend. I was the best in our class; I was hated by the other intelligent students as a rival…and yet it wasn't in a friendly way. I was the most beautiful of our class; I was hated by all the girls because of it. And the men all wanted to mount me…and several did. Some of the mountings were even consensual." She looked at the two of us. "How many times I wanted to have what you two had. I would see the two of you in the courtyard. J'Ariana would be crying and curled up in J'Erian's arms, who would support her and make her feel better. Meanwhile, I'm being shoved in a bathroom stall with three guys who wanted to mount me as a prize. Not just because they liked me, but because they wanted to have gloating rights. And once they were done, the other girls would scold me, call me a shansha, and create nasty rumors of how I like to spend my time with the guys." She shook her head. "Don't tell me you had it hard. At least you had each other."

Zetta looked between us for a few seconds before raising his hands. "Um…what's a shansha?"

Ja'Pran arched her eyebrows, nodding to J'Ariana. "Well, do you feel like explaining that to him?"

She looked uncertain or unwilling to answer so I opened my mouth. "Shansha is a whore. And not just that, but one who likes having sex, but is also into all the violent role-playing, often assiosiated with blood and whips. A dominatrix, I guess." I looked at Zetta. "It's one of the worst insults you can give a Khajiit. It's even worse than being called a 'vaanti'." When Zetta started scrunching up his face to ask, I answered. "It means omen. It's the worst kind of omen that often affects everyone around it. A cow gets sick and dies while spewing white foam. A day later, Khajiits from that village are coughing up blood and losing their fur. An entire village dies a week later. It created a new word: vaanti. It was the name of the cow that killed an entire village. Ever since, it's been used for something that leads to people dying. And we use it for our albinos because they supposedly lead us to the same type of death and destruction."

Dro'Indra walked out of the shower, running a towel in his mane. He looked over the three of us before smiling. "Your stories remind me of my days in the academy." He sat down, joining us. "Why…back in my day, about 40 years ago, I went through a similar thing at that place. Just like J'Ariana, I never knew my parents. They were killed by Argonians during some random raid that led to our civil war. My father fought in the counter-raid with the legendary Sengar J'mvar as one of his advisors. My father was killed in the first bout. My mother was killed in a raid that followed a month later. I was two or so when that happened. I was given away to my always drunk uncle and my passive abused aunt. I didn't adjust well and got in several fights later on as I started growing up. With my entire village more or less healing from the raid from the Argonians, they didn't want to deal with a 10 year-old with a temper. Especially one that was being raised by the village drunk. So, I was forced to raise myself. I learned to hunt for myself, and care for myself, while caring for my abusive uncle. No one else wanted me. I wasn't cute, I wasn't charming, and I wasn't kind. I was angry. I was always angry. And when I couldn't stand being with my abusive father figure anymore, I left. This was before the civil war, mind you." He looked at all of us.

He looked at Ja'Pran. "So, I found myself wandering the streets of S'rendarr, named after our god of mercy. The Argonians invaded a second time, this time killing a lot of the people in the town. I was in the middle of downtown when the spears fell from the skies, arrows falling like rain. Many of my neighbors screamed in horror as they were impaled. I watched as the roads quickly filled with warm sticky blood." He looked between us. He tapped the hole in his left ear. "An arrow flew through my ear but that was the worst thing that happened to me. I managed to escape and hide in a dumpster when the Argonians charged into the town, slaying everyone else that survived. An Argonian ran up to the garbage I was hiding in, looking for anyone hiding. I pushed myself as far down into the garbage as I could. I closed my eyes and held my breath while the Argonian opened the dumpster and started moving bags of garbage around. I heard him groan in annoyance and heard metal clanging as he started stabbing his spear into the dump. The spear grazed my leg and I almost cried out in pain. I bit my hand to keep myself silent. He finally gave up and left."

Zetta looked frozen in his spot. "Wow." He whispered.

Dro'Indra nodded. "Yes, wow." He arched his eyebrows and shrugged. "I sat in silence in that dumpster, soaking in my own blood from my wound on my leg, which was quickly becoming infected from the punctured garbage bags sitting on top of me. I sat in there for probably 12 or so hours before night fell. Argonians don't see so well in the dark, not as well as Khajiits. So, I clambered out of the trash and looked around. The town was dead silent. I limped my way back home, defeated. I just hoped my uncle wouldn't punish me for returning after pledging to leave." Dro'Indra's mouth twitched into a wicked smile. "I found him in the living room. Well, most of him. The head was missing." He looked at us. "But it wasn't the Argonians. I found my aunt in the bathroom. She was lying in the bathtub, her wrists slit, my uncle's head wrapped up in her arms. She killed my uncle and then killed herself. It was because I ran away… And suddenly, I was a ten year-old boy homeless, no family…no hope." He sat there silently. He finally clapped his arms and stood up. "Ok, I have to go meet with the Councilor now."

The four of us just stood there, our eyes frozen on him. Was all of that real? Hell, I don't even know what to say. I looked from Ariana to Pran. They looked frozen in their spots as they were lost in Dro'Indra's world. No one knew much about Dro'Indra, other than that he was one of the best Leos the Mane has. Maybe other members of his older squads knew about his past. But we didn't know anything about him until just now. And man…did he share something deep. And he talked about it like it was a normal conversation topic. I looked up at him. I wondered what else happened to him. "Is there more to the story?"

He nodded. "I'm 57, boy. That was only until I was 10. The next seven years were also exciting but in their own way. Homeless, wandering the badlands. And when I was fifteen, I ended up in Torval where the previous Mane convinced me to join the Leo Academy. Right after I got out of the Academy at 18, I was thrown into the civil war with the Argonians almost immediately. I watched as many Khajiits died in the war. I also did my fair share of killing them. I met J'mvar and his sons. I fought alongside him. He told me about my father and everything he did for our country, and how he died. The civil war lasted almost ten years, mind you. So, I was almost 30 before we settled the war. The next few years were peaceful until Daedric gates started opening up around us when the Oblivion Crisis began. And now, even still…I'm fighting when I should be settling down. I should be having kids of my own." He glanced at us, smiling. "And yet…I couldn't be prouder of who I'm spending my time with. You are like my children now." He rubbed his hands through Ariana's and Pran's mane, nodding. He looked at all three of us before stepped back to grab his cloak. "Just remember…suffering may give us a bad past and bad memories, but it's the suffering that pushes us to become stronger, better, more resilient. You all passed as top of your classes because you were pushed by everyone in your way. Don't let your past weigh you down, use it a sword to push you forward." He nodded goodbye to us as he grabbed his cane and started acting like an old man. "Good day, children." He moaned to us as he started limping out the door, leaning heavily on his cane.

I looked at Ariana and Pran. They still looked lost for words. So, I said something instead. "Ok, so…I have to escort to our secret meeting." I held my finger to my lips and made a loud shushing noise. "So…don't tell nobody." I said in Zap's accent. That's what he said to me every time we did something. I nodded to Ariana and then to Pran. "I'm glad we had this time together. We're finally bonding like a real team…a real family." I looked at both of them. Pran only glared at me for a second before cracking into something close to a smile. Ariana still looked lost in her own world. I don't think she expected Dro'Indra's past to be quite so dark and filled with war. I stood up and looked at them one last time. They really were my new family. This was our first real time sitting down like this and talking. Hopefully we'd become closer, and I knew that was inevitable. Ja'Pran was the only one that didn't like being around us. And when I looked at J'Ariana…I felt like we were closer than just friends. And I think Ja'Pran noticed it too. I just think that J'Ariana hasn't noticed it yet.

So, I grabbed my own cloak and nodded my farewells to them. "Enjoy your outing today." I said to them as I walked out the door. I quickly traveled down the staircase, finding Zap waiting for me. When he nodded to me to follow him, he started walking down the street, and I followed behind him.

"Yo." He said to me. "How's your new house treating ya?"

I shrugged. "It's nice. It's better than living in the streets."

He nodded. "That's good, that's good." He turned to look at me. "I noticed Zetta is living with you."

I nodded. "Yeah. My cousin J'Ariana seems to have a thing for him." And it was true. She did have a thing for him. And it was irritating to me. And I think Zap noticed it.

Zap continued walking down the street. "Zetta used to be in the Crushers, you know? He used to be an assassin. He used to kill people for the Ya'Tirrje, before he refused to kill a kid for her. I was tasked to kill him, seeing as he was in my cell. But I made him an outcast instead, since I respected his decision to not kill a little boy." He stopped, grabbed my shoulder, and looked me in the eye. "I'm glad you feel safe around him, but he's a dirty rat. If you don't ditch him soon, he'll likely kill you."

I found myself smiling. Zetta? An assassin? That seemed unlikely. From what J'Ariana told me, she had to save him when he couldn't even dodge a knife. While he did tell us that he used to be in the Crushers, he never told us what he did, other than that he did odd jobs for Zap. And then Zap turned on him and ruined his reputation. And now, I'm learning that Zap respected him. Which one was telling the truth, I wonder? It's hard to tell, really.

"Big brother!" I heard crying from the street. It was a high-pitched call that was screaming out in joy but it didn't have anything to do with me so I continued to ignore it as the name was called out again, and again. "Big brother!" The voice called out, closer this time and more annoyed.

Zap turned away from me and looked down the street. He tapped on my shoulder, pulling me around. "Hey…that little Khajiit is calling for you."

"What?" I asked. "I don't have any siblings." I turned around in time to see a blue-furred mess charge into my stomach. I got a close enough look at the tribal markings right before the Khajiit child charged into me that I knew who it was. And he took me off my feet and slammed me into the pavement.

"Big brother!" He said to me, pinning me to the ground. "Why didn't you answer me when I called for you?" Prashin…the Mane. Manes were exotic Khajiits born only once the previous Mane dies. And Prashin was the newest Mane, only twelve years old and very authoritative. They weren't known to the normal populace or by the other races very well. But those of us who report to the Mane know exactly who he is. And they are born with blue fur.

"Prashin?" I asked. I didn't dare call him the Mane in public. "What are you doing here? In Rimmen?"

Zap looked down at me, laughing to himself. "Yo…you actually know this cub? I thought you didn't have no siblings?"

I shook my head. "He's…he's not my sibling. He was at the farm with us. He's more like a cousin, kinda like J'Ariana and Ja'Pran." I nodded to Prashin so he understood. "He used to work in the rice field, you know…before the orange-robbed monsters came by and killed everyone. I thought Prashin died with the rest of them."

Prashin nodded, catching onto our cover story. He looked up at Zap and smiled. "Oh yes…I survived by jumping in the lake. And then I followed the trail to here. I just knew I'd find my big brother if I was patient." He said, rubbing his face in my chest.

I looked at Zap and said, "Mind if I take him upstairs and show him to my apartment before we leave?"

Zap nodded. "Be quick, though. We need to get going."

I nodded and pushed Prashin off my chest. I grabbed him by the arm and quickly pulled him up to the tenth story of the building, where we lived. Once I cleared the doorway, I quickly pushed him inside and snapped the door behind me. "Prashin!" I nearly screamed to him. I still refused to use his title, even when no one was around us. It was too dangerous to any Readers nearby. "What are you doing here in Rimmen?"

Both J'Ariana and Ja'Pran snapped up at attention and then quickly formed up Prashin in something close to a protective triangle. Prashin looked from me to the apartment. "Wow…I've never seen filth before!" He looked excited. "Wow…is that mold? Is that really mold?" He reached out to touch it.

I pulled his arm away. "Prashin! Don't touch. You'll get sick."

He pouted as he pulled his arm back, crossing his arms. "Fine…I won't kill myself." He looked around and then back at me. "I got bored. Having to wear that ridiculous beard all day made up of everyone's mane…it's disgusting…and creepy." He said to me. "And I never get to see the world. So, I ran away from home and came here." He hugged me. "To hang out with my big brother."

My tail flicked, and both J'Ariana and Ja'Pran looked over to me with wide terrified eyes. Yes…this was really happening and we're as good as screwed if anyone knew that he was here.

Cearbhail:

so, what do you guys think? I think the official story telling of our newest members was finally introduced. We got to see that they all knew each other before they became an official squad. And just so you know, it was Do'Risan that requested these three. It was because of their pasts that he chose them. He knew that all three of them were linked in some shape or form, since he observed their training and noticed the signs of their group unity later on. well, anyway, more to come soon. And next chapter...the Aedra return. As a POV no doubt.