image [https://i.imgur.com/pMZm76y.png]

In addition to my budding romance with the Lunar Priestess Aiera and the news of the Empire’s imminent invasion, there was one other encounter of great significance that morning. That afternoon I visited the sun chamber which was housed above the throne room. It was small, open to the air on the sides and housed the reflectory, an egg-like contraption of rotating mirrors and wheels of my brother's fabrication. I had sought to speak with His Perfection, to perhaps begin planting the seeds for peaceful outreach to the southern Mane

As I waded sun-blinded over the palace rooftop which was caked with hardened bird waste, I squinted for any sign of His Perfection. I knew he often took is private time here to reflect on his own wisdoms and seek transcendental perfection through astral resonance — that is the capture and reduplication of astral bodies across his own reproduced self in mirror form (theoretically aligning attributes across all bodies, heavenly or otherwise, presented by the mirrors through the principle of contagious magic). No sign of anyone, and the birdsong was nearly deafening this close to the aviary.

I called out to no response, and stepped around one of the outer skyward mirrors and into the shade. The reflectory seat was empty, and I walked about the huge machine until, just as I was about to give up my search, I saw my brother kneeling over one of the lower cogs, tightening it with a spanner. He hadn't seemed to have heard me over the bird racket so I tapped his shoulder.

He screamed, taking a blind swing at my face with the steel spanner. It was a near miss, passing close enough that I could smell the oily residue; I avoided losing my front teeth only by stumbling backwards.

"What in Oblivion is the matter with you?" I cried.

He held the spanner like a sword between us for a heartbeat, animal terror filling his eyes for a slowly drawn breath before he lowered it. "I'm sorry — you scared the crap out of me."

"Well that makes two of us," as I steadied myself I noticed there were dark bags under his eyes, "did something happen? You look like you haven't slept a wink."

"Did you not hear the screaming last night"

"Sorry about that" I said, invisibly patting my own back.

"What?"

"Wait, what are you talking about?"

"My screaming. An intruder attacked me in my apartments last night."

He looked rather indignant to have to explain himself, which I felt was a bit rich coming from someone who had just nearly assaulted me. But being nothing if not magnanimous, I asked what had happened.

His eyes dulled as if his mind was pulled somewhere else. "In the heart of the night I woke to footsteps outside my bedroom. Quiet. So quiet in fact, that I first thought it to be a squirrel in my rafters until I remembered there are no squirrels in Elsweyr. But sure enough it was searching like an animal, sniffing, and climbing over furniture. My body was reluctant to leave the paralyzing fog of sleep, such that I had to convince myself it was not a dream. That is until the door crept open under a slow and steady hand."

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"No."

"Yes. I was terrified, not sure what to do. 'I found you' it said, over and over — it spoke to itself endlessly —"

"It? What was it?"

"Like the skeleton of a man barely holding together, pale skin stretched over a lipless mouth. But it wasn't human, but like one. A vampire perhaps, maybe the same one that pursued you across the wastes."

"Akatosh protect us, what did you do?"

"I screamed for the guards as loud as I could, I think it even shocked the creature. Before it could get any closer to me I called a whip of flame around my hand, brandishing it at the thing."

"And it worked?"

"More or less. It hissed at me, called me a liar and a thief before it ran off."

"But the guards caught it right?"

"That's the worst part, it ran out onto the balcony and skittered down the wall like a damn spider. It must have come up that way as well."

"So it's out there, the same thing that followed me across the wastes. It must have thought you were me"

"Possibly. What did you do to piss it off so much?"

"Be too delicious perhaps. But I've honestly no idea, it just appeared as I crossed over the West Weald."

"Well we should be fine in the future at least. I warned the guards and they'll be combing through the city all week — standard vampire procedure of course, checking attics and unoccupied basements, that sort of thing. but last night was its best opportunity to get us since the guards were out to protect the party downtown. If it comes again it will meet some new protective wards I’m having the mages raise, and will get a few dozen silver tipped arrows for its trouble. Still, we shouldn’t be going out after dark until it’s dead."

I agreed and offered to help him in his work on the reflectionary. He tossed me the spanner he'd just nearly orthodontically annihilated me with.

We settled into working together, cranking and clicking, spot checking the angles of vision with frequent references to a pair of long iron-tonged protractors.

"There's something else," he said, "I met someone last night. That Bosmer girl, Benwen."

"Who?"

"Oh don't be coy with me. She came to speak with you first.”

“Oh no… her?"

"Did you — that is to say, are the two of you somehow…"

I stared at him, struggling to think of how I could possibly explain the situation.

"Damnit Berry, did you shake her tree? Chew the raw fat together? Give her a ride on your big bird or whatever other euphemism you prefer?"

"No."

“Good, because I’m in love with her.”

“You are?”

“Yes, me. In love. Why not?”

“Well I'm just surprised is all. I mean you barely know the girl and now you’re in love with her? Aren’t you a a little old for that?"

My deviator brother shrugged, smiling in a careless way I’d never seen before. “After you all left, we ended up talking half the night. For she walks in beauty, so fair her flesh like powdered horn, she showered me with…. What rhymes with horn?”

"Scorn?"

"She makes me feel forlorn — to be apart from… her. Anyway I must find her again, but when I asked after her this morning it seemed that none of them knew anyone by that name."

"A proper mystery." I sighed, eager to change the subject. He was frankly embarrassing himself with this juvenile crush. Moreover it was obviously Benezia. "But we really don't have time for this brother — vampires haunting us, the fate of Elsweyr in the balance and all that."

We went on to fix the reflectory, chatting and even laughing at times. But I would still occasionally see my deviator brother’s eyes searching, captured in an idle distraction as though he was waiting for someone else to appear.