image [https://i.imgur.com/r7k3wDM.png]

I did survive Benezia’s tongue lashing however, and saw her out after promising (and intending to keep my word, of course) to establish a plan with the priestess to assassinate Mane. The following day I was roused from my evening reading by a tabby squire who beat on my door with the force of a crashing hawk. He was still breathless when I opened it.

"Master Fate Weaver, a runner — the Bosmer delegation is in the city!"

"Let’s go."

The kitten brought me to join my brother down on the parade ground with a gathering of other diplomatic types, a few senior nobles, merchant guild heads, and assorted functionaries. There was a hum of excitement as we chattered amongst ourselves while waiting to see any sign of our guests down the boulevard.

A sandstorm was coming. Drags of wind unfurled sheer sand plumes before us, slightly obscuring the world beyond the parade ground. The storms were common that time or year, never brought rain, and were easily waited out with any shelter near at hand — yet the sight of it unsettled me that day; the hairs on my neck stood on end at some obscure shift in the air as if anticipating a lightning strike from the cloudless sky.

Finally they arrived. An honor guard of three dozen rangers riding astride flightless birds. Pure white plumage pressed down by wind and bobbing their heads not unlike a common yard chicken. We gave a great cheer as they approached and brought between them six wagons drawn by giant sloths.

As Berry and I stepped forward to greet them, Rokash also appeared from the crowd. He nearly stepped on my feet in his rush to get ahead of us, but after some shuffling (each of us refusing to stand a step behind the others) we edged him between us in an uneasy truce, forming a line ahead of the khajiit assembly. I swallowed back my nervousness as the wind whipped the hem of my magisterial robe.

The escort banked hard to cut across right before us, bone tipped spears held aloft in salute as long necked birds loomed with pin prick black eyes and pointed beaks above saddles that squeaked against the riders' leather leggings. The guards were cut from a foreign cloth — sunkissed figures of a wild and more vital era. The wagons ground to a halt and I realized they were not painted white but were in fact crafted from the bones or some massive creature, the likes or which I am fortunate to have never crossed while it lived — halved femur bones twice the length of a man formed its base and some sort of pale organic mesh quivered between its rib-like arches to block, shaking in the wind like a spider's web.

Once the drivers had brought their beasts to a halt, the web mesh fell from the wagon nearest us fell like a curtain and out leapt a pair of Bosmer nobles and what appeared to be their pet gorilla dressed only in a ruffled collar and velvet cape. Whatever their faults, I've found that the lords of the empire's southern nations are far more sprightly on the whole than our northern nobles. The trio landed with the grace of acrobats and this display aroused further cheers and whistles from the Khajiit audience, as those of us in the front bowed.

My brother and Rokash spoke over each other in their eagerness to welcome them, and I'm not sure if either were intelligible in the end. Regardless, the little mer reached a gem-ring laden hand up to me, squeezing my fingers in a bone grinding grip that brought tears to my eyes as he eagerly wagged it about by way of greeting.

He spoke about two octaves louder than our distance demanded, and without making eye contact with anyone. "Prince Findulain Camoran, a pleasure, a pleasure. And this is my wife, Lady Elindel," as he moved on to his next handshake victim I gasped with relief for only a second before taking the plump little hand Lady Elindel offered to us each to kiss in, turn before the prince continued, "and of course, representing the Imga tribes of my lands, the inestimable Baron Hoot-Hoot."

To my shock, the ape straightened at his own name and spoke with a barrel chested voice so deep it slurred. "Ooo-Ooo—it is my honor, gentlemen."

I shook the Imga's great paw, tough as black leather but gentle as a reclining chair's embrace.

"Well," I said, hoping to move us past the formalities, "I do hope the road was not too wearying for you, I know all too well how harsh the sands can be."

"Nothing to it," declared the prince.

"An odyssey of heat and boredom," cried Lady Elindel.

"Ooo-Ooo," said the Baron.

I clapped my hands. "Regardless, you’re here now and shall receive a hero's welcome for your trouble. Percy here," and I wagged a finger to summon the malcontent from the crowd, "shall show you to your immaculate quarters in the western tower. Rest up and hydrate tonight, for tomorrow His Perfection has ordered a grand banquet to celebrate your arrival, and align all of our aspects towards a prosperous new year ahead. Sleep deeply, and release all worldly concerns as you'll find only blessed things in this, the Palace of Perfected Fortunes."

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Her majesty gave me a little clap of applause before they thanked us and went off with promises to speak more on the morrow. I watched them vanish under the bronze teeth of the gatehouse, following which Rokash, my brother, and I formally introduced myself to some more Bosmer courtiers and kinsmen who were still unpacking the bone wagons; to each we assigned a squire or palace servant to see to their accommodations.

After the crowd had dispersed I found myself alone but for a few Bosmer honor guards unloading the prince's luggage. I had given them guidance on where to take it, but lingered on as they were pleasant company and eager to share their tale of crossing the desert. However when it felt appropriate to do so I left them to their work. Without conscious decision turned and walked away from the palace.

The wind was beginning to whip up spirals of dust in anticipation of the coming storm, but I could think of little but the coiled energy burning within my thighs. I walked around the palace parade grounds, following the ankle height stone borders that checkered off various inspection squares in an attempt to wear myself down as the copper glow from nearby windows winked out of existence as shutters were clattered shut against what was to come. I supposed those parade ground squares would soon be filled with fresh recruits. The backroom scramble for alliances was nearly finished and it was now my role to either bind or spoil a final partner in the war — no mere chieftain or petty border lord, but a prince of an entire great nation.

My mind raced. I did not understand at first what fueled this feverishness within me as the reception had gone off without a hitch. Perhaps that was the disturbance, that it had all gone so effortlessly, the tidal draw of fate. But unbidden in my mind, all the figures I had recently come to know crowded themselves before me — my former captors Benezia and Caius, the agents of an ailing empire, so jealous of their senior role amongst the subject nations and also insecure and politically besieged by a looming succession crisis. They were reactive, desperate even, for a quick solution that would require little or no reassignment of their legions currently quelling unrest in the heartland.

And on either side of them were the dueling courts of the twin manes. To one side was Chevalier Rokash, and most of the bishops and lords of the jungle realm of Pelletine in the service of the lethargic Mane or Senechal. In opposition was my own court, or so I considered it, led by Vizier Rokash, my brother, and Do'Qanar leading the allied desert chieftains and bishops of desolate Anequina in the service of the tireless Mane of Dune.

An invisible borderland lay between them, shrinking each day as loyalties were pledged, but no declaration of war had yet been declared as the Manes understood each other at a predatory level, as one man looks upon another while adrift at sea with a lone bottle of fresh water between them — for there was only one spiritual kingdom in need of one Mane. The deeper reality of their situation they could not know — and those among their servants who perhaps guessed the truth must surely have been too wise to dare speak it, for in politics honesty is a liability.

But I knew the truth, as did my deviator brother who was ultimately responsible for the entire situation. And now, because of my confession to Benezia, the Empire knew too. The Empire, inscrutable as its bureaucratic mind can be, must only have wanted there to be no second faction; so far as I could tell they had no preference between the candidates but I doubted that stance would remain long.

The wind began howling over rooftops, causing a clatter as a pitcher on a rooftop patio was knocked over, and I was pelted with sand hard as raindrops on my chest and exposed temples. I merely held a sleeve over my nose and pressed onward in an aimless ring about the palace. Somewhere far above me my room sat silent and dark and empty.

I realized a play stage had been set in my mind, and in every position stood a perfectly cast actor for their role — my own Mane as the vital hero of fate, his tragic enemy twin who did not even understand the inevitability of his doom, Benezia the shadow broker spreading her tentacles within the court, my brother the guilt plagued magi seeking peace at any cost, and the many spear carriers and champions besides who were necessary to moving any good play along. I realized it was cast in the manner of a tragedy with a single inevitable conclusion. Yet in this theater of my mind full of figures cast under a stagelight there was something missing.

I could not help but laugh, for I did not see where I was to stand on the stage.

I was not my brother, my deviator. Not the great motivator of the chaos and architect of its inevitable new order. Where did the failure twin belong in all this? A life spent fleeing from all accountability, made as I was as a byproduct of his sin, left me to be everything he was but drained of ambition and fortuitous fate.

I was a rudder being tilted between Benezia and my brother, on whether the Bosmer prince joined the play or not. Either to maintain the balance of power or tip the scale early and force the empire's hand toward supporting the obvious victor. I realized that I was torn between two paths to a single destination.

The air stilled as looked up between four pale towers and the rounded birdcage suspended between; the red and white faced moons dancing beyond. Powder drifted over my feet in the dying tailwinds. It had been a mild sandstorm by any definition. I’m told that deeper in the great wastes if there are storms that can tear the meat off the bones of unwary travelers caught on the flats. In those depths no mammal lives, only hard scaled serpents and an entire ecology of beetles that grow so large that even Senche fear them.

I dusted off my shoulder before walking home to the now silent gate. The storm was past, but there was more to come. It was time for me to take the necessary steps to chart my own course.