image [https://i.imgur.com/7ZQbE80.png]

Several days passed in a bureaucratic blur as I settled into my new routine as the court advisor known as Fate Weaver. Percy debriefed me each morning on the palace scuttlebutt over my honey tea (which now masked my bitter allergy medicine); following which, I stooped over my desk for a letter writing campaign to make my formal introductions to key power brokers of Elsweyr until either my palm cramped or my mind revolted against the drudgery, at which point I would content myself with a gilded platter of candied fruit left on the balcony table as I ruminated over a report from the scribes on the portentous patterns the droppings of the caged birds had fallen in the night prior.

Afternoons were for attending various council meetings, not least of which being my seat on the Small Council, that being the closest thing to any ‘power behind the throne’ under the vigorous leadership of His Perfection. It was led by Vizier Ro’kash with my brother and I in attendance, along with the tiger-man Do'Qanar representing allied tribes, a pair of dour-faced bishops representing the settled peoples of the various oasis, and a rotating seat for clan mothers who provided the voice of tradition.

I said little during my first few council meetings as they fussed over this or that new dress proscription, prayer revision, or the reception order of various chieftains and mayors at the next court session. The first time I really raised a stink was as we debated the institution of a city-wide morning sun salutations, with a planned rollout at the national level upon our victory over the “eastern pretender”.

I reclined back from the circular stone table. “I understand the theoretical providential underpinnings of the practice, but I am wondering if this is really… expeditious.”

Ro’kash snorted; Do'Qanar shrugged; my brother — the other Berry that is — leaned forward with a grimace. “Large changes require large buy-in. The mass consensus we obtain will self reinforce a better and brighter view of the world which only then can manifest.”

“Still, it just seems wrong to make people partake. It’s a consensus without consent.”

“Someone has to do the making,” grunted Ro’kash. “We all have a fate whether we wish to or not, it can either be randomly assigned or we can optimize it.”

“We think we can optimize it.” I corrected. “There could be unknown consequences.”

“Just so,” Ro’kash growled. “But it’s worth the attempt, for the Khajiit people’s sake.”

Seeing the bishops and clan mother nodding in agreement, I reluctantly assented and we went on to record the specific postures and gestures which would be required.

Most evenings I took respite from the company of others, enjoying dinner on my balcony overlooking the city so I could watch the orange desert sun set over the craggy western cliffs of Dune. Afterwards I would either read the stars alone with a bottle of wine, or call my brother over so that we could throw open the curtains and compete to read the night’s signs. This was a great game to us as we would pass a bottle of brandy back and forth while debating such details as we academics delight in: was the Serpent constellation in ascendancy? What were the implications of the Hircine’s Guide being in retrograde?

I felt oddly unmotivated to finish reading Eophicles’ treatise in this period. It was the exhaustion, and perhaps also a complacency borne of a confidence I had largely resolved the situation and merely had to aid my brother in the cleanup by seeing the deviator northern Mane to his position of rightful solitary rulership over Elsweyr by means of an overwhelming network of alliances which could force his rivals abdication. Regardless of my self-justifications, the book remained secured in my satchel, tucked beneath my bed.

One evening I finally stole away for my private business once the murderous southern sun had become a sullen crescent over the far cliff. I’d told Percy to take the night off and that I was to browse for clothing and dine out as time allowed. And while it was true that the wardrobe Percy had acquired for me largely lacked for panache — having altogether too many black robes, undershirts, and pants as though I was some hackneyed necromancer's apprentice — the urgency of my task superseded any such superficialities; I was to reestablish my connection with my Blade handler.

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I hadn’t told a soul, certainly not my brother, nor had I sent a runner ahead to prepare her since we had briefly spoken after court. Surely my movements were being watched, Ro’kash had told me as much; and so I set out into the city that evening with a tip of my hood to the gate guards and fresh bug musk still smeared under my armpits as my bodyguard, a hulking lioness-like quadruped by the name of Shebah, trudging along beside me, a giddy soul ready to reclaim his role as as the leading man of Benezia's life. I had left her a pauper but would return a victorious prince, a linchpin in the noble efforts to secure peace in the fair nation of Elsweyr!

As Shebah and I passed through the more upmarket periphery of the bazaar, those districts where traffic was mostly caravaneers and guildsmen, a staleness wafted through the idle air, a stench like old feet that emanated off of old trash mummified by many desert days. I wondered at my excitement to again see Benezia: my seductress, my jailor, my confidant. In her absence I had quite literally become someone new, the Fate Weaver, someone I could not have become while in her keeping, and so to miss her presence was to in some small way to yearn for who I had once been in her presence — one permutation of her presences anyway. Had she missed me as I had missed her? Perhaps that was an impossibility. But I hoped that in her way, she somehow had.

Once in the slums, we had to duck down an alley as by torchlight a somber parade of Khajiit marched a wireframe of the Mane’s head down the boulevard. A low guttural chant towards his greatness that passerbys necessarily partook in, swelling in numbers as they came hand-in-hand towards us. We passed ancient moon shrine pagodas, which were now dark and unkept.

We emerged at our destination, and I stepped over a convulsing caracal-man in the dry gutter before the cantina's front door; his tall tufted ears alternated twitching in the fits of sugar ecstasy as he rolled about the crevasse. Inside, a film of spilled sugar and sour beer coated the floor, sucking at my boots as I approached the owner, a cheetah-woman whose boney neck and shoulders put her a full head taller than me.

Over her bartop and a blaring horn solo, she directed me “Up-up”. I looked about in confusion for a moment, a few scarred patrons eying me over the fat bulbs of their waterpipes, and for the first time was terribly grateful for Shebah a few steps behind me. Finally the cheetah-woman pointed out the door before curving her finger up so that I finally took her meaning.

Outside again, dark clouds cluttered in a trailing orange afterglow of sunlight. Cursing Sorvild's miserliness, I ordered Shebah to stay put before scaling the glorified skooma den by means of rough clay hand grooves protruding from the adobe walls, no doubt aids for patrons too obliterated by their own habits to reach the guest hovels above. I could feel Shebah’s slitted eyes on my back. No doubt she thought I was off to visit a ‘scratch house’, and although it stung my pride to know my character so besmirched, I did not correct the impression as it covered my true covert mission from even my own bodyguard.

The ceiling was hard adobe with a scattering of straw, paper, and withered fruit cores dried into curled little insect-like husks, crowded with a dozen half heartedly constructed rental huts. The nearest one had a candlelight from within. I knocked, waiting as the floor vibrated under my feet with the hornplay and yowling cat calls between patrons below.

The plank wood door creaked open and it was Sorvild that filled the space.

"Berry!"

I put a finger to my lips to remind him of the discretion my position necessitated before slapping hands and embracing him in the northern fashion.

He laughed. "I'm sorry, but it's so good to see you. I thought you were as good as dead when you vanished, but it seems you were good to go."

I told him in brief about my journey over the mountains and my near death in the wastes, to which he tutted along saying 'goodness, goodness''.

"And so," I continued, "I ended up in Dune and realized my long lost brother was here — an advisor to the Mane no less!"

"Fortune of fortunes," he muttered. "And no less fortunate for us that you could vouch for our reputation with the big guy. If you know anyone else in the court you could tilt toward our favor as we start negotiations, nothing untoward of course..."

“Consider me your man on the inside."

The old bear laughed, and nearly buckled my knees under a shoulder slap before he dragged me inside for a toast.

I had to beg off until he released me, reminding him that I had urgent business with Benezia before I was expected back at the palace. He wasn't difficult to turn down in that moment however as the interior of his room depressed me terribly — sagging bunk bed against a bare wall, a pockmarked adobe floor, and solitary table with a half played checkerboard.

"Next time," I assured him before obtaining Benezia's whereabouts, a few hovels over. I thanked him and left, crawling over his hovel and down into an adjoining rat pit of similar dwellings. Before me her door, little more than a garden gate, already lay open to me. I swallowed, anticipation tingling my stomach.