Whitney Writes…

Shura smiled at Mazar, their hands linked as they walked along. It had been sometime since they had taken time for themselves, away from their children. He was telling her of the latest tale of Gorbak’s haunting in the kitchen. The ghost had helped make the tomato soup the other night that everyone had loved so much. Shura couldn’t help but let her laugh out; she had always hated the sound of her laugh and tried to stifle it, but Mazar loved it.

“What are you going to do while he is away and you don’t have that ghost to help you lot in the kitchen?” she chuckled.

Mazar shrugged. “This one thinks he has not thought of that, that Gorbak thinks the ghost will remain in the palace while he goes to Orsinium.” The Khajiit smiled wickedly, “This one wishes it could see the look on Murdan’s face when the spirit turns up in the middle of the night in their camp.”

“MAZAR!!” Shura exclaimed, swatting her husband’s arm playfully.

They fell into a companionable silence, the kind that only comes when a couple has been in love for more than a decade. They always loved to share their days with one another, but most often, no words needed to be said between the two. And those moments were Shura’s favorite and always said more to her than any loud profession of love.

At the crest of the hill, they paused their hike, and sat down upon a warm, smooth boulder. They sat quietly, both enjoying the view overlooking the palace.

Shura blinked rapidly. Either she was hallucinating, or the palace was changing color. The beautifully creamy white of the limestone was beginning to take on a greenish hue. “Mazar…” she murmured, “…are you seeing this?”

“This one does not think the palace was always green,” Mazar agreed. “Or… was it?”

“No,” Shura said with confidence, “it definitely was not.” She turned to look behind them. Her heart stilled in her chest and her breath froze in throat. “Mazar,” she said again, terror creeping into her voice, “where has the sun gone?”

When Mazar turned to regard what had struck such fear into his beloved, his whiskers twitched. The sun had been completely eclipsed by Masser, the larger of Nirn’s twin moons.

Raised voices came from the throne room as the front doors of the palace closed with a thud behind Shura and Mazar. They glanced at one another, they did not have to wonder what the commotion was about. Mazar took his wife’s hand and the two hurried into the throne room to see what was being discussed about the doom that had befallen them all.

The queen stood upon her dais, her arms outstretched and her dark cheeks flushed. She was desperately motioning for silence from her subjects. “Everyone, everyone,” she was saying, her voice barely ringing over them all, “please,” she pleaded, “be calm!”

Shura felt for the young queen. She had not had to face much threat in her few years upon the throne. Despite the on-going war between the Bretons and the Orcs, she had inherited a relatively peaceful kingdom from her father’s nine year rule. This would be her first true test.

There was a sharp clanging upon of metal upon stone that split the air in an ear-piercing shriek and everyone gathered in the throne room covered their ears and bent over in pain. The queen included. Queen Fadiya turned a scathing look at Ulfric, who stood on the lower step of her dais with his battle axe in hand. She forced a smile. “Thank you,” she said through gritted teeth.

The crowd gathered had fallen silent, so Fadiya turned her attentions to them all. “I hear all of your fears and worries,” she started, projecting her voice bigger than she had a moment ago. “I vow you all and your children are safe,” she continued, “the sun has not vanished. It is simply an eclipse. Scholars in the Imperial City have been studying it for ages.”

“But when will it end?!” Zaeri the Khajiiti blacksmith interrupted irritably. “How are my little ones to go outside and play in this? What if a vampire or werewolf were to carry them off?”

“The eclipse does not mean that fearsome creatures will roam the palace,” Fadiya said, the exhaustion creeping into her voice. “It just means we will have little light for a while. Those at the oil press will have to work harder.” She studied the crowd, picking out Aryon, her own husband, Ralof, Nakra, and Dull-Scales. “We will all be relying on you four to see us all through these harrowing times.”

The sound of everyone arguing in the throne room was deafening to Mazar’s ears. It made him miss the warm sands of Elsewyr. The quiet of the nomadic lifestyle he had lived with his first wife and little daughter. He missed the warmth of their yurt, nestled in the sand dunes, with a brazier burning brightly. The scent of Ahara’s cooking roasting over their fire, the way Alassi would always declare she hated it but would clean every bite out of her bowl. It all still felt so real to Mazar, he could nearly smell it.

When he opened his eyes, his second wife, Shura, was looking at him expectantly. “This one is sorry,” Mazar said softly, rubbing at his temples, “he was distracted and did not hear what his beloved said.”

Shura’s face softened. “I said I want to gather the children and keep them in our rooms,” she repeated, keeping any hint of annoyance with Mazar from her tone. “I do not want them hanging around the other children and hearing the wild tales that are bound to be sweeping through the palace.” She cast a glance over her shoulder towards Zaeri, who was still getting those around her riled up about her conspiracy theories.

Mazar nodded. “Yes, of course,” he said, “this one will gather the ones downstairs, you get the ones on our floor upstairs.” Shura nodded gratefully and the pair split up, heading in opposite directions. At the back, he found his eldest daughter, Alassi. “Gather up your cubs,” he said to her in a hushed voice, “it is getting volatile in here.”

“What has happened, Father?” Alassi asked, craning to see around her father into the chamber.

Mazar caught the shoulders of his daughter. “It is just an eclipse,” he said, “but others are getting worked up.” He looked back towards Zaeri. “Fetch Zurana and keep your cubs away from others.” He saw the hesitation, the brief moment of fear in usually fearless daughter’s eyes. “You can bring them to Shura and I’s rooms,” he added. “She would love to see the little ones.” Alassi smiled gratefully, kissing her father’s cheek before she hurried away.

Mazar sighed heavily, and set off to round up his other eleven children.

The throne room had finally emptied out of the queen’s nervous and fearful subjects. She was uncertain what they had all wanted her to do. An eclipse was just a natural phenomenon, or so the scholars in the Imperial City had insisted. She was inclined to believe them, as she felt were most of her people. It was the Khajiits she would have to worry about. They had their extreme superstitions surrounding the twin moons, after all. If the Thalmor had been able to convince them they had returned the moons to them following an eclipse in order to get the Khajiit to swear fealty to them… well, anything was possible.

All Fadiya wanted to do was go to her chambers and go to bed, but she knew she should check on her friends and their families, make certain they all had what they needed. Most families were choosing to hunker down and ride out the anomaly in their apartments, and Fadiya found she could not blame them. Her own children were tucked away with Ralof in their apartments at the top of the tallest tower. At least, until he had to take the midnight oil press slot. She hated how much she was making them work to keep the lamps going, but otherwise the palace would descend into madness and chaos. She already had a difficult enough time of keeping everyone happy…

Her knock reverberated down the stone hall as she stood outside the apartments of Melora. Only a few moments went by before Fadiya heard the metallic grinding of the lock and it’s gears disengaging within the ancient timbered door. The door opened a crack, and the curious, youthful face of Sevame Andoren looked up at her. The girl’s skin was soft, pale-blue, her hair a shining white-gold, her ice-blue eyes gave the Dunmeri/Nordic girl an ethereal look.

Fadiya smiled at her friend’s second-eldest. “Hello, Sevame,” Fadiya said, “is your mother in? I wanted to check in before I went to bed.”

The girl nodded solemnly and said: “We are preparing a sacrifice to Azura to guide us through the night, Mum and Daddy are busy.”

“Oh,” Fadiya felt taken aback, she had not realized her friend had started practicing her husband’s religion. “Well… is there anything you know that your family needs?”

“Just the sun to come back,” Sevame said simply, shrugging. The girl looked back over her shoulder and Fadiya could hear the faint voice of her friend calling to her daughter to return. “I have to go,” the girl said before awkwardly closing the door in her queen’s face.

Fadiya couldn’t help but chuckle to herself as she moved on back towards the staircase. She shook her head in bafflement, Sevame had always been a bit of an odd girl, inheriting her father’s aloofment instead of her mother’s charm.

Two floors up was her next stop, both Shura and Ugrash’s apartments were on the same floor. She knocked at Ugrash’s door first. A small, Argonian boy with peachy-colored scales and the beginnings of dark brown horns came to the door. Fadiya found herself hesitating, she was not certain which of her friend’s children this was. She always got Ugrash’s two middle boys, Ghelos and Dramukkath mixed up.

“Don’t you know it’s rude to linger?” the boy quipped after a moment when it became clear to him the visitor was not going to say anything, furrowing his ridged brow at Fadiya. She raised her own in return.

“Is your mother here, little one?” Fadiya asked lightly, attempting to ignore the boy’s insolence.

“Do you think I would have answered the door if she was?” the boy shot back.

“Your father, then?” Fadiya’s voice rose an octave as she forced herself to keep a, what she hoped, was a pleasant tone.

“Who are you being so rude to?” came a hissing voice. Fadiya recognized the voice of Black-Scale, Ugrash’s husband. The boy just shrugged carelessly and walked away from the open door. Black-Scale peered around the door at Fadiya, still grumbling at his son, his scales blanched as he saw Fadiya standing there. “THAT’S THE QUEEN YOU, LITTLE SKEEVER!” Black-Scale shouted after his son. “I am so sorry, my queen,” he continued, turning back to Fadiya, dipping his head. “Did you need something, did Dramukkath offend you too much?”

Ah, yes… Dramukkath. Fadiya knew she should have guessed, given the boy’s attitude. Ugrash was always in tatters over what to do with the boy. He was inherently rude, with a vicious cruel streak.

“I was just wanting to check on Melora, Ugrash, and Shura on my way upstairs,” she said, forcing herself to smile. “And don’t worry about Dramukkath, I know he’s a handful.” Given the scowl Black-Scale was now giving her, Fadiya realized that had been the wrong thing to say. “I just wanted to see if you all needed anything,” she said loudly, as if she could speak over her previous comment.

“We are fine, thank you,” Black-Scale said shortly. “My wife just went down to the kitchens to fetch some snacks for the children. I’ll tell her you stopped by.” And he shut the door in her face.

She cleared her throat uncomfortably, smoothing down her skirt. What was with everyone tonight?? Was everyone falling into the Khajiits’ stupid superstitions around the eclipse? Never in her life had she had a door closed in her face, let alone two within such a short span of time. You would think they would have all been grateful to have their queen checking in on them in such a time of crisis! There were more than a dozen other families she was not bothering to check in with. Just these three. And so far, two of the three had been incredibly rude about it.

Fadiya crossed the hall to the other door and gave it a good, hard rap, splitting one of her knuckles. She was mid-cursing and about to suck the blood away when the door whipped open. Thank the gods, Fadiya thought, it was not one of her friend’s children, but actually her friend.

“Why are you knocking on my door like that?” Shura demanded. “I thought you were a vampire come to steal my babies away!” Fadiya began to chuckle, then saw the actual fear on her friend’s face.

“Sorry, Shura,” Fadiya said, “it’s been a long night, I was just trying to check on everyone before I went up myself.”

Her friend’s face softened. “And here I am biting your head off,” Shura said. “I’m sorry, Fad. Come in, come in.” Shura swept the door further open.

“I actually won’t stay,” Fadiya said, shaking her head, “if you could just give my something for the blood on my hand, I’ll be on my way if you all are all settled in?”

“Of course!” Shura disappeared, returning with a small scrap of linen. “We’re all set, Mazar’s just getting the kids all riled up with some scary stories.” She let out a laugh and blew a bit of her silver hair out of her face.

“He… he doesn’t buy into the Khajiiti superstitions… does he?” Fadiya asked in a low voice.

Shura put her hands on her hips. Oh no, Fadiya thought.

“Well, you know, he is a Khajiit, Fadiya,” Shura said with a snap. “It’s engrained in their culture, I thought you of all people would appreciate that!” Shura shook her head in disappointment. Fadiya knew her friend was referencing to the fact that she had grown up with a Khajiiti step-father, as well as five little half-Khajiiti half-siblings. “Mazar is smarter than that, though.” The two women stood in an awkward – for Fadiya, at least – silence for a few minutes. “Well, I’ll let you get upstairs, then,” Shura said finally, at least waiting for Fadiya to turn away before closing the door.