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

I didn't wake up so much as I realized, through a dense mental fog, that I still lived. My memory of the bridging was a vague dreamlike nightmare that dissolved upon inspection like a wet dream unto daylight, and left me to roll with a groan off my back. I was not alone.

I stood at the bottom of a vast canyon of dark rock shrouded in the silver sands of Secunda. I opened my mouth to breath, but air neither came or left, but merely existed within me and sustained my body. A sky without stars, yet the sun wavered above us, shimmering as if through distant waves (despite some conspiracy theories this is due to the sea of aether which exists in the void).

All around me were the bodies of nobles, warriors, ceremonialists, and many great rolling war drums which that last group had brought with them. They lay still as death, stealing my heartbeat for a moment until I knelt down beside one ceremonialist, his crimson banner laying over his whiskered face like a veil; and gripped his wrist for a pulse. Relief flooded me even as the poor oaf lunged forward at my touch, gasping for air that did not exist and gaping about in confusion. Whatever he had expected, it wasn't this.

I left him there, the strangled sounds of his voice reverberating strangely on the air as if they hung, repeating on each fiber of air like a wind chime. Walking also had an uncomfortable novelty there, as a small step could lift you off the ground entirely, and a skip would send your body floating up so that your toes dragged across the dead sands, the decaying remains of Lorkhan himself if some astropaths are to be believed. Credence is lent to this theory in my mind because the moon smelled of algae, not unlike a fetid pool or fish tank.

And so I drifted past many more bodies, shaking them until they suddenly confused back to life. Some began to rise and help their fellows, and others drifted downhill with me, drawn like water to the lowest point, to where the Manes stood across from one another with sabers in hand.

My Deviator stood behind his champion, and so I came behind my own rotund warrior who turned to me, lifting the lizard demon-mask to expose eyes wide with terror before speaking, his voice elongated to my hearing by the space: "You're sure, right-uhh?"

"You were made for this Holiness, we both were."

He nodded, slapping his face-plate closed, letting out an unworldly ringing sound.

The Manes eyeing one another without moving a hair, until a crowd had gathered into a ring around us, their murmur echoing like heavy rain.

I swallowed, realizing it was my role to speak to the crowd. I strode into the bare sandy plain between the duelist with a hand raised for attention.

"A challenge was given and accepted, and now we meet on the blessed surface of Secunda herself. Let the Lunar Lattice show her favor by blood rite, and settle once and for all the Maneship of Elsweyr. If there is no disagreement," and I looked at each Mane, and when neither spoke I continued, "let judgment commence."

I ran, taking a place beyond the press of observers as the Manes sprang into action.

It was a swift thing. His Holiness strafed about for advantage, waddled in truth, while His Perfection began swinging his Saber wildly at him, whipping the ground so that sand particles flew into the atmosphere, drifting in suspension towards his opponent. The fat warrior tried to evade this storm, but was too slow.

The muscular Mane charged without warning — plunging his blade into an exposed stretch of his rival's gut.

Gasps hissed across the sands, then quickly overridden by cries of shock as His Holiness merely stumbled backwards from a lethal blow, unmarked and layed down several blows onto His Perfection’s head with his own saber before any defense could be raised.

His Perfection withdrew, miraculously without injury. The crowd’s screaming was deafening.

They engaged again and I saw Vizier Rokash appear amongst the crowd, seemingly having braved a crossing during the ceremony. Strike, slash, swing, the two battled on as I watched, too terrified to speak. Suddenly His Perfection had gotten behind his foe. He gripped his rival by the forehead, pulling back cruelly before running his blade over the exposed neck — I involuntarily closed my eyes against a horrible ripping sound.

"By Azura that hurt," cried His Holiness as he fingered the slash of pink skin at his throat, ripped fur running down his breastplate, but the skin beneath was unharmed.

His Perfection was screaming. "Cheating! Dirty cheating! Fate Binder, that evil twin of yours has bewitched my sword and perhaps your mind. Rokash!" Both Rokashes perked up at their name, "Come here."

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The Vizier limped into the arena as His Perfection tapped the blade against his own thigh with increasing pressure. He’d realized it would do him no harm no matter how hard he struck. "Hold out your hand, Rokash."

"Of course, O world righter if it‐‐‐" he screamed as his Mane tapped his forearm and immediately sent a mist or blood droplets bursting into the air.

"Forgive me Vizier, I assumed it was—"

After some wailing, the Vizier applied pressure to the cut, biting his lip "Nothing but some blood, great one. Let Rokash see."

He held the blade with this good hand, muttering an incantation of true sight. When finished he offered it back with a trembling hand, blood floating off into the void from his elbow.

"It is clean, besides Rokash's blood. The only blessing on it is a common one, against self harm, so the blade will not cut your own flesh should it be turned back. I’m told it was agreed upon, for some reason, that the blades would carry this enchantment."

His Perfection seized the blade and turned back to his rival, who in all of this remained motionless.

The stranger braced himself and leveled his saber before his deviator charged. Every savage blow sent them flying from one another, their bodies being lighter on that plane, so that their huge frames crashed, blades flashing, again and again. Each time they would land on their feet unharmed and blades clean besides scratches and long cracks forming in their lamellar.

When both were panting against the airless void, His Holiness raised his faceplate, revealing his soft, almost childlike face. The crowd jostled forward to hear, while careful not to get too close.

"Can you not forgive me, Bird Catcher."

The deviator froze mid step, blade aloft. A cloud of sand floated off his still feet as he rasped through a metal faceplate: "What did you say?"

"W-where has my Bird Catcher has gone. When will he come home again?"

The Deviator stood transfixed, so the Stranger went on. "Where is my bird catcher who would climb so high as to capture Masser's ruby glow? Who dared the branches others would never know? Where did he go, so far that my voice could never again find him? Bird Catcher, when I see you ‐‐‐"

The Deviator growled beneath his demon-bird faceplate. "Who told… who are you?"

"I see the face of his father, but most importantly I see you. And in you, me. The best of me, who can only be found in your eyes—"

The deviator's saber fell, drifting slowly downward into a splash of sand.

The stranger continued. "How could I ever lose you then Bird Catcher? I'd have lost my beloved and myself without you're bright eyes—"

"Stop it," screamed the Deviator. And he set to pacing, hands balled into fists. After a moment stopping and removing his helmet before throwing it into the sand as well, revealing long dark tracks beneath his eyes. "I didn't know that… I didn’t know that it was you. It was me. I didn’t listen. What have I done?''

All of us in attendance stood in shocked silence, even I who had weaved this very moment, as both Manes stepped forward and embraced, clasping arms tightly around shoulders in the way brothers should.

Still together, they exchanged some private words.

Vizier Rokash leaned to some of his cronies, "Two Manes… think what we could accomplish. The empire doesn't stand a chance —"

"The empire will accept it," I called out, loud enough for most to hear. "Make no mistake, Elsweyr will be weaker for this — even unified, to have two Manes is a curse. But the curse is that we have to live with each other — and endure our fates so the Gods may judge us accordingly!"

This was all a bit of flair on my part of course. I can't recall if I ever told you this, but I learned from palm readers that any fortune must have a bit of a curse to it to be believable by any but the most gullible.

The Manes turned to us then, clasped hands raised high.

What came next is indescribable, but I shall endeavor. There are moments (and this I have told you of before) where our pretensions of self mastery recede entirely, and we all move as one as if it was meant to be — and if you asked us “why”, we would be unable to explain. That was such a moment, when both sides of the crowd flew forward as if drawn by marionette strings, and crashed together in a wave of cheer and song.

I was among them, and Do'Qanar crashed into me, slapping my back so fiercely my teeth chattered.

The crowd pressed and swirled around me. Some laughing, some crying, many just laughing and congratulating one another. Some smart thinking ceremonialist flipped his war drum and began banging from the inside, producing a rapid percussion like an oversized tamborine.

Hands and paws came at me from all directions to shake the hand of The Stranger, Berry Longfellow. One young beauty even licked my face, flattering though it was, I kept pressing on with eyes for only one person.

And then I met eyes with hers, my Aiera. She took me in her arms, and I took her in mine.

"My love," I swore, "I'll never be farther than your own nose again."

"Aiera had already decided as much."

And damn my soul if I didn't kiss her then, not some noble peck on the cheek either, but a deep watery one accompanied with a squeeze beneath the tail to let her know that daddy had come home. That's what a girl really wants from any returning champion worth his salt.

More war drums were rolled over to be played, hammering out a joyous tune, and we joined the bouncing crowd that followed behind the two Manes who led us together in song — something in Ta'agra — as we marched towards the pure white light of the portal

This time there was no fugue state, we stepped out of the lake wet and dripping, but still singing. We did not stop, but marched, both armies joining us in a single massive procession around the sandy shore and directly up to the barricades of the imperial camp.

It is said that a few imperial officers tried to rally their troops to form a line against us, but their men quit them, losing any interest in drawing blood out of pure bafflement at the frolicking horde of cat-folk who sang and banged drums in a parade beyond even the grandest imperial triumph. The crowd dispersed somewhat once we were past the palisades, but it's said the Mane's continued straight to Lucca’s tent, where they confronted him still in his small clothes and he demanded his forces withdrawal to an appropriate camp, but not before signing a written concession of their legitimacy, their dual mandate.