A Conclave of Princes Options

[Colonel Mustard]

A Conclave of Princes

Part 1-The Call

Azura

Tick

Of all of the many secret places of Moonshadow, the meeting chamber that Azura stood in was the best hidden and least-known, so obscure and unknown it was not even myth.

Tock

Hidden from all prying eyes by spell and ward and ancient ritual, the room was built like an amphitheatre, a great tiered circle of white stone surrounding a single raised dais. Behind the dais was the clock, a ring of brass, silver and pearl, gleaming in the silvery light that illuminated the room. An engraved pendulum swung left and right with the passing of every second, delicate hands clicking as they moved, the cunning of its long-dead artificer and the spells he had laid upon it ensuring that it would keep time with perfect precision until Akatosh himself finally passed.

Tick

The chamber was empty but for one person, a woman clad in shining silver-white hooded robes, the garment woven from moonlight by blind seamstresses. Her face was three faces in one; that of a youthful maiden, of a kindly, smiling mother and of a wrinkled, wizened crone, all three of those at once and yet at the same time none. Her name was Azura, the Lady of Dawn and Dusk, and right now she was waiting and listening to the clock.

Tock

The timepiece itself had been a gift to her, made for her long ago by a Dwemer admirer, a clockmaker and timekeeper with skill beyond repair. She had honoured the generous donation by hanging it within this hall and, when he died, by taking his soul to her realm of Moonshadow that he might continue his craft forever more.

Ti-

The pendulum froze mid-swing, caught in the precise halfway point between one second and another. Azura took a moment to glance at it, and nodded. Her sacred time had come, the precise moment when day turned to a night of a crescent moon, a span of time so short that it could stretch to eternity. With a nod, the doors lined around the hall groaned open, and now that they had been invited to Moonshadow and into Azura’s secret eternity, the cats entered.

Untold numbers of them came, an uncountable army of the animals prowling through the doors. Fat, pampered lazy housecats trotted alongside scarred and battered strays who had lived every day of their lives on the vicious gauntlet of the streets, old cats wheezed their way in whilst kittens rolled and played around their paws. Short-haired breeds from Hammerfell came alongside the thick-haired cats of Skyrim and shared space with the elegant stock bred by the Altmer of the Summerset Isles, while the large desert wildcats of Elsweyr loomed over the animals around them. All of them had come by the secret routes known only to cats and the mistress they served, arriving in the time that was there only for them

Somehow, despite the millions of animals that entered the room, there was no struggle for space. The amphitheatre seemed to grow with its audience, expanding with its crowd as the cats went to their seats and waited. One or two greeted each other by tentative sniffing, and a few old friends that could meet only on this day; on one of the rings, a Hammerfell tom met the Valenwood tabby that he had bumped into in the last meeting, and was introduced to the litter of kitten he had fathered for the first time. There was no yowling, hissing or snarling between them, and even little in the way of normal, conversational mewling, the gathered assembly silent out of respect for their lady and mistress.

One by one, the cats began to form a line, and Azura took a knee as the first one approached. He was an Summerset breed, tall, lithe and proud, his white fur groomed with meticulous care, the tufts of hair on his ears twitching as he sauntered forward, as if speaking to a goddess were something he did every day. Azura bowed her head as he stopped next to her, and as she bowed it, the feline told of her of all the secret things he had seen. Once she had listened to his account, she nodded, and the cat trotted away, back home, and the next one took his place. She had the nervous enthusiasm of a newcomer, and her report was stammered out. As with the first, the Mother of the Rose listened to all she had to say, and when she was done, she dismissed it, briefly stroking her spy behind her ears before she went.

So it went on. Each cat gave their report, and each one was given equal time by Azura, and the lowliest of street cats was listened to with the same care and attention given to the sacred cats of the island nation of Laalket, bedecked as they were in their finery and jewels. Everything the Daedric Prince heard, she remembered and digested, and was added to her great libraries of knowledge, the books and shelves filling up as she listened.

Yet one cat, a feline who said she lived in a temple of the Nine as a mouser, told her something that gave her pause. After a moment, Azura instructed her to stay until her council with the other cats was finished, but all of the other information she heard was received with an uneasy frown. Even though the place she inhabited was timeless, the Lady of Dusk began to feel it drag, and she was glad when the final stragglers gave their news.

As the final cat made her way out, herding her kittens with her, Azura returned her attention to the feline that had given the news to her earlier. She asked the mouser to expand on what it was she had said, to give as much detail as she could remember. Azura quizzed her on where she had heard it, how the overheard conversation had gone, asked her to repeat it word for word to the best of her memory.

Finally, once she was satisfied that she had heard everything from it that she possibly could. She permitted it to leave. She watched it scurry out of one of the doors, back to the warmth of its basket by the hearth. For a few moments, Azura lingered in the chamber, debating her options. There only really one to take, she knew, but though it was necessary it did not make it one she wished to do so.

A gesture of a hand and a doorway appeared before her, gnarled oak in a white frame. She turned the knob, stepped through it, and disappeared. There was work to do on this night.

-ck

Behind her, the pendulum of the clock swung into motion once more.




So what's this? A 3-part story, each part divided into 18 chapters, each chapter following a Daedric Prince and one other mystery entity. Each part is a short one, between 900 and 1500 words (so I can hopefully update at a reasonable pace) and if you think of it as something like a shorter version of the Canterbury tales set in the planes of Oblivion you've got something akin to the right idea.

Do enjoy, do leave any comments or critique that you think are useful and do have a lovely day, my dear readers.

This post has been edited by Colonel Mustard: Mar 10 2013, 10:28 PM

[Colonel Mustard]

Elizabeth: Hehe, thanks very much!

Subrosa: I think one of the books on Daedra mentioned Azura and Nocturnal being sisters, and I always thought there was a lot of overlap between their domains.

The source of Azura's worries will be revealed in good time, but while I do love to do radical things with established canon and generally go a bit nuts with proceeding, it's not Belethor stopping working for Sigurd at the General Goods Store. Even I know when things go too far .

And I like your idea of posting rate. A Conclave of Princes should, provided all goes to plan, update every Monday and Thursday. Except for tonight, because I'm feeling impatient. It's been Monday for five minutes, so it's fine.

Destri: You are my new favourite person ever and I want to print that post out and frame it on the wall. I love the ideas and advice you've given me and, as you might have seen, have taken them all into consideration and added them in, and as far as I can tell it's greatly improved proceedings. Thank you!

I'm glad you liked the bits that were done well; I'm not surprised that Azura and Nocturnal's conversation reminded you of the Sandman series, really, as Season of Mists was what gave me the inspiration to write this. The bit for flying through Oblivion itself was...tricky, considering I was trying to write a sequence set in a completely alien realm which is unbound by the laws of physics that was being viewed by a completey alien being who is unbound by the laws of physics, who is was in a completely alien form that was unbound by the laws of physics. At points, working out how to describe it made my brain hurt. I was pleased with how the description of Nocturnal's realm turned out, though I owe a little thanks to Milton with his description of hell for that, especially the 'visible darkness' line.

Though Nocturnal didn't really hold a grudge about the Tribunal; it was more of a 'I told you so, but did you listen?' angle that I was going for.

Acadian: Thanks very much!

It's interesting to write a character who is as free of the normal limitations as a Daedric Prince is, and is in many ways both much easier to write and much more difficult to write.

Yeah, I think you and Subrosa have a good idea for this; had that naturally for my other stories anyway so I guess it works well for this one. Just need to maintain the speed at which I write, now.

mALX: Don't worry about it.

You owe Destri some thanks for the 'tick tock' thing, seeing as it was sort of his idea, and I'm pleased you liked the rest; I was definitely channelling a little Poe in there so I'm surprised it shone through.

Nocturnal was fun; I always saw her as somewhat of a prankster figure, so her teasing her sister (albeit with a bit of a harsher edge to it at points) came naturally to me whilst writing. Glad you liked it.

McB: You enjoyed it? Really? I'm amazed

You probably enjoyed the opening chapter in any case because I'd already gone back and made changes to it. Pleased you liked Nocturnal and her realm; decided to just go full throttle with the whole 'shadow' theme and I'm pretty chuffed with the result.

And yeah, a vhapter is a Daedric form of measurement. They use it to measure things that I can't actually describe without giving you at least three new senses and by removing you from linear time, so I'm afraid I'm a bit stuck with explaining them to you.

Rihanae: Thank you very much!

Like I was saying to Destri, that description of Oblivion was tricky, as I was trying to describe something that is completely incomprehensible to us squishy humans; I figured having that passage with the sensory stuff might be good to give a sense of geography and how Azura was searching whilst still showing how utterly alien it is in terms of its physics and nature. Pleased it worked, and that you liked it!



Hircine

Stepping from the Evergloam and into raw Oblivion once more, Azura called up her mirror and set out to search. She cast forth a sliver of her being, scouting forwards, scanning for what she needed to find, and soon enough, she came upon it. She closed her eyes, willed herself forwards, and opened them to see herself standing before a forest.

She summoned up a field of warm air to ward away the biting chill, and surveyed the thick wall of pines arrayed in front of her, tips pointing to the sky like the spears of soldiers. She waited, watched as they rustled and parted, and three figures came forward to greet her.

"We bid you greeting," the first one said between lupine jaws, bowing even lower than its hunched, coiled form made it. "Lord Hircine sends his welcome to you, Lady Azura, and his apologies that he cannot yet receive you in person."

"I'm here on important business," Azura said. "And I'm afraid I do not have much time."

"Our lord and master is also occupied," the second one answered, voice a rumble as deep a mountain's roots, its muscled, humanoid form covered in a thick shag of fur. "He shall receive you as soon as his current task is complete."

"Your master's hospitality is rather lacking, then," Azura said.

"Again, his apologies," the third one growled through a pushed up snout, flicking its golden-furred ears as it spoke. "If you wish, you may wait in his cabin where he shall then meet you."

"No need," Azura said. She bowed her head to the werewolf, the werebear and the werelion in turn. "I shall find him myself."

She rose into the air before they could protest, taking flight over the realm of the Hunting Ground. She passed over forests which reverberated to the howls of wolves and the yells of mortals, across a great, hot plain where immense lizards made their home, over a ravaged wasteland where the beasts were made monstrous by radiation and the people hunted game with strange weapons made from tubes or that cast beams of focussed light. She paused at that one for a moment, watching in curiosity, before continuing on her way, to where she sensed Hircine was.

She found him at a pond, and her form shrunk as she dropped within it, entering the waters which remained still at her passing. She grew smaller as she went downwards, and found the Lord of Hunts leaning on his spear atop a grain of sand. The stag helm he wore bobbed with a nodded greeting to Azura as she landed, and he returned his attention to the spectacle before him.

Two creatures of slime and amorphous form were thrashing against one another, exuding enzymes and toxins as they wrestled blindly in the water. At this size, the single-celled life forms were not much bigger than the molecules surrounding them, the water was sludgy and thick, and their movements slow. One of them, the larger of the two, was winning, creeping forward over the translucent skin of its opponent to try and engulf it, stretching out thinner and thinner as it went.

The smaller punched out with a groping pseudopod, and whether through blind luck or some kind of mindless design, stuck at the nucleus of its enemy. The bundle of genetic material was jolted and pulled apart, and the larger ectoplasmic beast grew still. As its struggles ceased, the victor wrapped itself around its vanquished opponent and began the slow task of digesting.

"So watching amoeba fight was more important than talking to me, then?" Azura asked.

"Would you rather it had been a werewolf hunt I was observing?" Hircine replied. "I am father to every hunter, large and small, and it is vital that every kind of hunt is observed."

"If you insist," Azura said. She watched an immense, curved cliff face of pitted silver-grey sailed past them, and realised after a moment she was watching the underside of a fish's head. "I noticed your new hunting ground on my way here, the one with the radiation. Where did you get that?"

"Oh, that one? Oblivion brushed borders with its reality a few years ago, and I saw some rather interesting apex predators within it," Hircine said. "So I decided to add them, and some of its environs, to my collection."

He glanced at her as a flick from the fish's tail sent a thick and billowing sleet of water molecules buffeting around them like transparent snowflakes. A few grains of sand, immense boulders at a microscopic scale, sailed and rolled around them.

"But I take it that this isn't a social visit," Hircine said. "What are you here for?"

"I'm calling a meeting," Azura said. "One of all the Princes; something has come up, and I wish for us to discuss it."

"Some piece of bad news has come to you from one of your cats, then?" Hircine asked.

"How did you know about them?"

"I'm the Lord of Hunters, Azura, and cats love to hunt," Hircine said. "They may be your servants, but they owe me some measure of allegiance. They've always amused me, cats."

"How is that?" Azura asked.

"The way mortals keep them as pets, adore them, coddle them and spoil them, and then when they let their beloved companions loose, they go out and massacre every rodent and bird they can find," Hircine said. "Most of their owners would be appalled at the things dear little Tiddles gets up to. But I'm getting the point; where are you holding this meeting?"

"Moonshadow."

"I would rather be here, but if this is as important as you say it is then I will be there when you call."

Azura frowned.

"You aren't going to ask me what the issue is?" she asked.

Hircine shrugged.

"If you were going to tell me beforehand, you would have told me, and the fact that you have neglected to do so says to me that you do not want it known just yet," he said. "One of the virtues of a hunter is patience, so I shall be patient and wait until you will it to be known."

"I'm glad to hear," Azura said. "My thanks for your time, Hircine."

The Father of Manbeasts simply nodded.

"Not a problem," he said. "Whatever it is, I hope it can be resolved soon, and easily; I have my hunts to attend to."

"That remains to be seen," Azura replied. "Farewell."

She called up a mirror and stepped through it into the currents of raw Oblivion.