C.O.T.W Chapter 51: Divine Interruption

  • Hasir and Tigress went inside High Hrothgar and went their seperate ways, Tigress to the east wing and Hasir to the west wing, he

    spotted Inigo sitting on the bench smiling at him,

    "Er, hi." He waved and gave a warm smile that the khajiit returned with great zeal

     

    The khajiit lent close to him,

    "So my friend how did it go? the training, I mean?" He asked in a state of wonder

     

    Hasir shook his head and said that he will fill Inigo in later, for now though he had to get some sleep. Inigo solenmly agreed and

    followed him in their room. Inigo and Hasir undressed out of their armor and got into their respective beds. When Hasir's eyes closed

    and his head hit the pillow his head exploded in a world full of color. In the middle of a field he saw a long brown tablle, sitting at it

    were two familar faces. They smiled and waved as he drew nearer, they invited him to join them which he gladly did.

     

    Unseen by Hasir, a cloaked and hooded figure sat down on his right side. The Argonain's head turned to his left and asked who the

    newcomer was. Not hearing a respond he asked again, still no response. Becoming fed up with this, he grasped the black hood with

    a trempling clawed hand and ripped it off of the being's head. Hasir's eyes went wide in shock as he saw a furred head with eyes as

    red as a bloodmoon. Instead of blue fur that Inigo had, he had black fur with white stripes cut immermittently into it.

     

    Hiis eyes roamed around the scene, over each of the guests and stopped on Hasir. He smirked coldly, magic still swirling about his

    hands. He tore his eyes away from the Argonian and turned toward the altmer and nord and cast the spell. Bluish-purple flames shot

    from his finger tips and engulfed thee two doomed souls. They screamed like they were being burned alive, which was indeed the

    case. The cloaked figure laughed unmercifully as the soul-trap-like flames licked their bodies. As the flames burnt the flesh off off

    their bodies their souls emerged from their bodies and floated toward the khajiit's horizontally outstrenched hands. With his business

    concluded the figure lowered his hands and his cold eyes flicked between his victims and the Argonian's horrified face.

     

    Tears welled up in Hasir's eyes,

    "Why in Oblivion would you do this?" He asked, disheartened

     

    The figure did not speak. Instead, he turned to Hasir, smirked coldly and he drew himself up to his full height, grabbed Hasir by the

    tail and held him up in the air like a reptilian piñata. He screamed as white hot wave of pain traveled to his brain, He was whipped of

    the  bench and hoisted into the air so fast he had to fight passing out.

     

    He had to force his mind to stay present in the scene while it tried so hard to give up and drift off into unconsciousness.

    "My poor niave Argonian," The figure said, shaking his head, "I will see this world burn because my realm was stolen from me by

    another."

     

    Hasir looked sideways at him,

    "Stolen? By who?" He asked through gritted teeth

     

    The cloaked figure sighed hard and dropped the Argonian, sending him plummeting toward the ground, landing with a thud followed

    by a groan of pain as he sat on his tail,

    "Nothing I will tell the likes of you!" He bellowed at him through gritted fangs. 

    Hasir got up to his feet and appraoched the black furred, red eyed figure with a perplexed expression on his face,

    "Who do you think you are anyway buddy? Huh?" He asked

     

    The figure turned to him and smiled maliciously at him,

    "You may call me the doomstrider...in the last few seconds that remain to you." He said

     

    He spread his hands as if in a group prayer,

    "Where ever I walk, destruction and death follows me, like a puppy follows the lead dog pack member." He said staring into the

    Argonian with those red soulless eyes.

     

    Hasir stared at him, scratching his head, all this time what he has been told about Molag Bal being the big bad guy was a lie, or did

    Hircine use him as a cover up because he wanted to hide the truth from him. He did not, however, think that the wolflord would do

    that to him. He was very confused. He did not realize the doomstrider walk over to him and he definitely did not know he could read

    thoughts. Hasir smiled at him awkwardly and asked him what he was doing. He did not answer but despite Hasir's best efforts to

    make him leave, he didn't.

     

    The shadowy figure told him that Molag Bal answers to him, not the other way around. The figure got up and advance on him,

    brandishing the same spell he had used on his previous two 'victims.' Hasir asked him why he killed the nord and altmer, the figure

    said that they were actually spirits that died before he killed them with his soul fire. He advanced on the Argonian, hands raised as

    he cast the spell. Just as the khajiit fired the spell as he stared into the Argonian frightened eyes, a tan hooded cat thrust herself

    between the two, pleading with Hasir not to hurt he son. The spell hit her and her flesh melted away.

     

    The entire scene shimmered and faded out with Hasir sceaming,

    "You fucking monster, how dare you."

     

    Hasir opened his eyes, tiny beads of sweat on his brow, he raised himself a little and nearly jumped out of his scale. Instead of the

    woman grasping his arm it was Inigo. He looked down at him with a concerned look on his feline face,

    "My friend, what happened?" You were thrashing about in your sleep." He asked, his eyes reflecting how much he cared for his

    Argonian friend.

     

    Hasir swung his legs around,

    "Inigo...I was...you...Hircine, that was bizarre." He stammered, wiping the sweat off of his brow

     

    Inigo told his friend to slow down and explain what happened. Hasir told him everything, from the figure cloaked in black

    necromancer robes to his friends being there but not there at the same time, their second deaths and the tan cloaked robed figure

    at the tail end before he woke up.

     

    Inigo creased his forehead trying to figure this out,

    "I have no idea who the first cloaked figure is but the second might be my birth mother Atala." He said, beginning to pace the room

     Hasir stared stupidly at the khajiit and rapidly shoook his head,

    "I dunno who that is." He said with a slight shurg

     

    Inigo rummaged in his bag that stood by his bed and rummaged in it for a few seconds. Affter he found what he was looking for he

    tossed a leather bound book over to the Argonian. The book sailed through the air and Hasir caught it before it landed on the floor

    by his bed. Hasir cracked the book open, read it front to back in a matter of minutes and tossed it back to Inigo. He caught it and

    deposited it back into his bag. Inigo shrugged and asked his scaly friend what he thought of the book, his birth mother and adoptive

    parents.

     

    Hasir smiled at him while he got up and proceeded to put his furred armor on, looked over his shoulder he told Inigo the the book

    was really imformative. He was, however, bummed that it had not given a picture of his birth mother. Inigo smirked mournfully at

    him and said after Atlal gave him and Fergus to their adoptive parents, she was never seen nor heard of again. Hasir, having no

    trouble with his black fur armor, strode over to Inigo and patted the khajiit on the should and then embrace him in a hug as he saw

    Inigo's eyes fill with tears as he thought about his birth mother. 

     

    Hasir smiled and wiped the tear away with a clawed finger,

    "Inigo, I know you are hurting but we have my second trial to complete. We can, er, talk more on this later ok?" He asked, beaming

    at the khajiit. Inigo nodded mournfully and they left the room, traverse the serpentine hallway and entered another large room

    where Tigress and Hasir meditated for his 'emotional balance' trial. He looked around and saw the familiar flames burning in their

    sconces set high in the stone walls, the familar flowery-patterned round cushions set on the midlle step of the four platform-like

    steps descending to a statue with high walls on either side of it were two arrowslit windows; One to each wall. 

     

    Hasir sat down on the cushion staring up at the statue with awe. Folded his clawed hands together so that they formed a huge fist

    and began to pray,

    "Godess of all things natural, I had a disturbing dream, in the dream there was a figure robed all in black." He paused, creasing his

    forhead, "Where di he come from? Who is this mysterious robed figure? What does he have to do with the Aedra and Daedra?"



    Just then, thin ribbons of yellow light shone through the stone arrowslit windows. Hasir stared at the statue which seemed to come

    to life in the intense amber light. Hasir sat stock still as he heard the statue's voice in his head. Except, statues can't really talk.

    Below the windows, wind eminated from the cracks and encircled the Argonian and settled deep in the cracks in Hasir's mind.

     

    The wind came with Kynareth's voice,

    "So, you are wondering about the doomstrider?" The voice asked

     

    Hasir was dumbstruck. He did not know what to say as he did not know that she knew of the shadow being he had seen in his

    dream. Kynareth said that she did not know who, what or where that being even came from. Hasir hung his head in defeat as the

    voice fell silent for a time. 

     

    Hasir furrowed his eyebrow cocked his head to the left,

    "Erm, are you in any way related to Hircine?" He asked, "I heard that you may be his sister." He said, eyebrows raised

     

    The voice blasted back at full volume,

    "Yes, my brother is Hircine and his and my realm are like one side of a yin yang." She paused and came back, "His realm is the

    masculine yin half and my realm is the feminine yang half." Again, she paused, "My realm, if you can call it that, starts the action by

    supplying the grass that numerous animals graze on, the sky that the birds and cliffracers dwell in and my brother, Hircine's realm

    finishes the action by setting his beasts onto my realm the hunt my creations." She paused again as a tear came Hasir's eye. She

    told him that such is the circle of life and to think about it as not a predator and prey relationship but, rather, a symbiotic relationsip

    in that each party survives off the other.

     

    Inigo lentagainst a stone pillar that jutted out of the wall near the doorway watching his friend with keen interest. He stood up and

    walked over to where Hasir sat and sat down next to him and told him that they should be getting on with the trial. The Argonian

    agreed, said his goodbyes to the nature goddess and walked with the khajiit out of the room, down the steps and into the main

    room. 

     

    They walked down to the single bazier and heard a loud yawn behind them. They whipped around with hands over their hearts,

    "Tigress, erm, what are you doing here?" He asked, a tad sheepishly

     

    Tigress stared at him while trying to stiffle a yawn and failing miserably

    "Hasir, hi." She said, showing her pearly whites. "you should have been ready this morning because that was when our training WAS

    about to begin." She said, giving him a sidelong glance

     

    Hasir's face went as red as a tomato and his tail became tucked so tightly between his legs that he had to fit the pain and dove

    behind the brazier,

    "Sorry about that, before we get on with the lesson I have a question about the doomstrrider." Hasir said peaking out for the brazier

    he had cowered behind

     

    Tigress looked at him angrily with her hands on her hips,

    "Oh really, what might that be?" She said, shooting him a scathing look

    He told her about the dream he had had last night and pleaded wiith her to find a way to either explain the doomstrider to him in a

    way that made sense or direct him to someoone who does know if she did not. She sat him down on the floor a few feet from the

    bazier and sat next to him. She asked him if he knew the story of the augur of Dunlain, he shook his head making his hair sway as

    he did so. She provide some background information about him before explaining how he got into the state he was now and, more

    importantly, who he was and how he would help Hasir's predicament.

     

    She crossed her in full lotus position, her eyes misted over and she took a few deep breaths to steady herself,

    "My master, Quinchal, was friends with the leader of Dunlain, which is an island a bit to the north of my native land of Akavir." She

    said with an air of importance. Her eyes flicked open and over to Hasir to make sure he was paying attention. The Argonian was

    literally wrapped around the Ka'po'tun's every word. The Ka'po'tun, quite content with her 'student', continued with her tale.

     

    She returned to her story as if she was not slowed down at all by the minor interruption,

    "The men of the isle of Dunlain take great pride to become what are called 'Augurs.' She said importantly

     

    Hasir looked at her with a perplexed look etched on his reptilian face,

    "Excuse me but what is an Augur?" He asked, blinking heavily

    Tigeress blanked his ignorance and took a deep breath,

    "An Augur is a seer of a sort. He can see into the future." She said, smiling in the at the Argonian

     

    Hasir sat stock still as he took all of this in. The Ka'po'tun told him the story of one such Augur who was a bright child that the leader

    of Dulain picked himself for the Augurship. Hasir asked her what an Augurship was. She said it was like an apprenticeshiip for a

    woodworker; the Augurship was the same idea but was instead for mages specifically out of Dunlain, those that made in through the

    dangerous trials that lay in their way before they can obtain it. But one such Augur, Digstrad, made it through unscathed. 

     

    She sighed mournfully, opened her amber eyes and turned to Hasir,

    "Well...that was until he attempted to enter the College of Winterhold to further his love of the dark arts."

     

    Hasir looked at her suspiciously he asked,

    "Did he do something at the college?"

     

    The Ka'po'tun nodded, tears blossoming in her eyes

    "Well, let's just say he got too wrapped up in his spells and his body became 'one with the college' and got sent down to the midden

    in order to prevent him from doing any damage."

    Hasir opened his mouth and wanted to asked how someone becomes one with the College of Winterhold when Tigress turned her

    lamplike eyes on him and shaking her head, he noticed this and shut his mouth. She got up, beckoned to Hasir to follow her, Inigo

    got up from his seat on the stone floor and started to follow them but again, Tigress shook her orange furred head at him and

    pointed to one of the benches on the second floor, tail and ears drooping, the khajiit sat on the benches with his head in his hands.

     

    Tigress strode outside with the Argonian following close behind her. It was a particularly chilling afternoon Tigress walked down the

    steps with Hasir in hot pursuit; moved through the narrow passageway, Hasir had to walk carefully as one wrong move or loud noise

    could cause an avalanche. Hasir manuvered through the narrow passageway and walked down the seven thousand steps toward the

    city of Falkreath behind the Ka'po'tun. They both walked over the humpback bridge and Hasir looked at the snowflakes, goggling at

    it, mouth agape. He felt like that one month old hatchling again that had first fixed his tiny blue eyes on the water at the harbor

    of Vivec City. 

     

    Lost in his memory, he did not see where he was going, he walked right into Tigress. Irritated, she turned and growled a warning at

    him; the Argonian's face reddened. The Ka'po'tun ignored this blatantly disrespectful action and continued toward a predetermined

    location known only to her. Hasir followed her a ways north of their location and stood on a hill overlooking a dense forest west of

    the walled city of Whiterun. 

     

    Hasir's eyes positively popped when he saw this. The forest looked like it was ripped straight out of a new life festival story his

    parents read to him as a hatchling. She left him at the edge of the woods thick with pine trees and she proceeded alone to an area

    deep into the woods. This must be my trial he thought, head hung low and hands thrust into his trouser pockets. He pulled out

    the silver wolf headed ring and looked up at the sky, night was setting in, Hastily, he put the ring onto his finger.

     

    Tears welled in his reptilian eyes; he had always hated to enter large and unfamiliar settings by himself, He shivered slightly and

    told himself to calm his nerves and enter the forest. He slowly walked through the forest and had to avoid tripping on all of the rocks

    that poked through the snow as if they were impervious to it. Hasir not only had to dodge these but also had to dodge the ingrown

    roots that were buried in the snowy earth. He caught his foot in one of the underlying roots and started to roll head over heels down

    what he percieved to be a small hill.

    Momentum carried him forward, he had unsheathed his claws and dug them into the waist deep snow to try and slow his

    calamitous descent to no avail. He screamed in terror as his body rolled so fast that his started to look like a reptilian snowball. He

    hurtled down the hill and smashed face first into an aspen that had seemingly jumped into his path. The force of the impact

    shattered the already frostbitten bark and the snowball. 

     

    The force had also knocked Hasir unconscious; He slid down the trunk of the tree and landed with a thud onto the snowy forest floor.

    In his unconscious stupor the ring slid off of his right ring finger. It landed with a muffled thought in the snow beside him. His body

    suddenly twisted and contorted in seemingly impossible ways. Twilight stood up lifted his muzzle to the chilly air and sniffed, he

    snorted out of his nose as he worked to clear it and differentiate between the conflicted scents he had recieved. He sniffed again with

    his newly scent evacuated nose. 

     

    He caught a familar scent; the smell of leather. He then rotated his ears like a wolfish satellite dish and picked up a sound that was

    all too familiar to him even though his wolf had not encountered the sound or the person making it. Twilight's tail wagged back and

    forth in excitement and tore through the forest weaving effortlessly over the exposed rocks and half covered roots. Another sound

    made Hasir stop and listen; a pack of wolves a long way off howled in unison. Twilight pawed at his ears to try to force his mind on

    the current task. He can hunt later; he took duty in precedence over food, at least at the present time. He howled to the sky which

    the wolves heard and took as mournful as he darted forward again.

     

    Twilight ran through the woods; past trees and he jumped over fallen branches. He ran down the hill and into a wide clearing boxed

    in on three sides by many pine trees. He saw Tigress sitting amongst the trees on the north side of the three-pronged box. He

    became overjoyed, tongue lolling from his mouth, as he saw her. She turned and shrieked as she saw a seemingly lovesick wolf

    running vert fast toward her. He knocked her onto her backside and pressed down hard on her chest with his strong fore paws.

    Tigress tried to scream but found that she couldn't because she felt like her chest was being crushed in a one hundred and forty

    point vice. She struggled against the wolf's weight and tried to throw the beast off. After two unsuccessful attempts, she finally

    managed to pry throw the beast off of her. The wolf flew through the air and landed spread-eagled in the snow. Twilight shook off

    the snow from his fur and advanced on the Ka'po'tun, startled she pressed herself firmly against a pine tree.

     

    She slammed her eyes shut, fearing the wolf would fling itself at her leaving her half eaten or worse. To her surpise, he did not. Her

    eyes snapped open, apparently the wolf did not do anything. He just stood there staring at her, panting and wagging his tail. Her

    mouth hung open, she put a fist into her mouth to stop her from screaming happily. Her people had worshipped this 'yin yang wolf'

    because he was to help return the once peaceful dragons to her homeland. She knew he was the dragonborn but did not know if he

    knew this or not.

     

    The wolf let out a big yawn as he stretched his front and back legs in a way that made his muscle sinew to stand out against his

    black and white fur. He layed down in the snow and curled up. Within minutes, the wolf was asleep and Tigress had collapsed as well.

    Her dreams did not come easily, in fact her dreams truned foul almost immediately. She was floated high above Tamriel and a

    singular colossal black soul gem slowly drifted towards her. She hoped that she could see inside the soul gem, but she could not.

     

    Out of nowhere, hundreds of grand soul gems floated past the Ka'po'tun. She thought that the black soul gem was chasing the other

    soul gems which was in fact the case. When the black soul gem was a few inches from one of the souls gems, a fissure appeared

    along its obsidian surface. Tigress' face screwed up in disgust as a viscous black liquid leaked out from the soul gem; it had

    mercilessly cold red eyes. The figure soared noiselessly through the air and, when it made contact with each of the soul gems, they

    were turnned the color of night. After they were blackened, the soul gems burst one at a time. Tigress screamed as hundreds of

    creatures as huge as mountains Flew towards her.

    Tigress awoke the next morning to amber light that filtered through the trees and spread along the snow like it had been filtered

    throough a stained glass window. They illuminated the spot where Hasir lay curled up in the same position the wolf had done the

    night be. The two creatures yawned and stretched and sat up. He got up, strode over to where Tigress sat staring at nothing in

    particular and sat down next to her. She turned to face him; he could see a look of terror etched into those lamplike eyes of hers.

     

    Hasir looked worriedly at her, cocking his head to the side,

    "Er, why are you looking at me like that?" He asked, not sure if he wanted the answer

     

    She told him about the dream she had had the night before and of how he was something called the dragonborn. He tought about

    this and shrugged. He had no idead who the dragonborn was and kept turned and looking behind him to see if she was talking about

    someone else who might be sitting it the clearing. There was no one else in here just him and Tigress, something in the back of his

    mind told him to expect someone else when there is no one is stupid and that she MUST be talking about him. 

     

    Hasir's tail thrashed around in circles, anxiously

    "So what does the dragonborn do?" He asked

    She eyed him with stunned silence, mouth agape. She had no idea the prophecied hero of Tamriel could be so stupid,

    "The dragonborn, er, sort of absorbs the soul when the dragon is killed." she said, with an air of being able to do this herself

     

    Hasir shook his head chuckling to himself,

    "You must be mistaken, I can't be the d-dragonborn, I'm only a simple Argonian from Blackmarsh." He said, nervously 

     

    She laughed enthusiatically at him thrusting her arm around him,

    "Hasir, you must be the one my grandfather saw defeating the being of shadow." She said, feeling angry, "If not, than who? tell me

    this, is there another yinyang wolf out there I can get get to save my people?" She asked, scanning the smpwy field, "Well," She said

    shrugging, "I don't see any other black and white furred wolves, so, you will have to do." She said, punching Hasir on the shoulder,

    he feined a painful groan as he fell and rolled on the snowy field.

     

    She turned to him, glaring at him,

    "Stop being such a hatchling, grow some thicker scales." 

     

    Hasir got up, formed the clump of snow he had in his hand into a snowball and threw it at Tigress' back, which was turned away

    from him. Tigress saw this, whipped around and abruptly shook her head at him, along with shooting him a disapproving glare. He

    stared at her, a newly formed snowball in his hand. She raised a clawed finger, advising the Argonian to not throw it at her again.

    Tigress' forceful and harsh words fell on deaf ears as the Argonian's lips turned upwards in an evil smirke= as the snowball soared

    through the air and struck Tigress in the face making her fall over getting snow all over her white tunic and black pants.

    Tigress gave a great bellow and threw herself at Hasir, whose eyes widened as the Ka'po'tun slammed into him, knocking the air out

    of him. They rolled in the snow giggling and pelting each other with snowballs. Tigress finally got Hasir on his back, looking longingly

    down at him. Hasir himself looked particularly nonplused and sniggered at her asking her if she was alright. She said she was fine,

    lent over and kissed him. Hasir tried to pull out of her embrace but to his displeasure, he could not. He tried using his heightened

    strength to pull her off of him, his misjudged his strength and threw her five feet in the opposite direction.

     

    Tigress got up, dusted herself off and looked bewildered. She approached him, eyes flashing angrily and yelled at him that if he did

    not want to be romantically involved that he had better say so. The Argonian just looked at her like a dog who just got told by his

    owner that he was a bad dog. Tigress felt really saddened that the Argonian did not remotely resemble the prophecied hero now.

     

    Hasir drew himself up to his fullest height and yelled at her,

    "Are you thick? I told you, I already have a mate and you know what? She loves me, so please stop pestering me about it for

    howling out loud." He said, teeth gritted and fists clenched in anger

     

    The Ka'po'tun cleared her throat and a grin spread across her face despite how she really felt,

    "Hasir, we have to move forward with the next phase of your traiining."

     

    She walked over to a spot in the snow that lay in front of the trees that lay to the north and drew two half apostrophe symbols in the

    snow and went over to the wooded area and had to dig in the snow, with her black claws, to find a stray stick. She retraced her

    steps back to the two joined apostrophe symbols. Once she had got there, she poked holes in the northern bulge on the upturned

    apostrophe and in the southern bulge of the downturned apostrophe symbol. 

    Tigress cleared her throat again and gestured to the symbol on the ground, Hasir looked up half expecting her to still look very angry

    at him. To his surprise she was not mad, but smiled at him amicably,

    "Hasir, as you can see, this," She said pointing to the symbol before her, "is called, as I'm sure you are aware, is called a yinyang.'

     

    She looked rather thoughtful and shook her head, 

    "I am not going to whack you over the head you with a symbol you already know." She said, with an air of addressing an intellect

     

    She sighed and grasped Hasir with her large paw-like hand, Hasir screwed his face up in discomfort as she bore down on him,

    "Hasir, erm, this is your trial." She said, loudly as if he did not hear her

     

    Hasir thought she had meant the symbol that she was standing in front of. She shook her head again all while staring at him. He

    spun his hand around in a tight circle at the wrist and stared at her as if to say come on Tigress, I'm waiting. She pointed to the

    trees and looked at him,

    "Your next trial...is to listen to the trees and correlate that with your own emotional yinyang."

     

    Hasir stared at her, a confused expression on his face,

    "Why would I want to do that?" he asked her scathingly, tail slamming down in frustration

     

    She looked furious with him,

    "Because if you don't you will not be a full-fledged shadowscale." She shouted back at him amongst the rather strong winds that

    had begun to blow, effectively blowing away the yinyang in front of her.

     

    Hasir stared at her with keen interest,

    "I will need more detail than that for Hircine's sake." He said a bit flustered

     

    Tigress turned to the trees again and spoke in a loud clear voice,

    "You see the trees all around us?" Hasir nodded, "well, they cleanse the air of the carbon dioxide and turn it into oxygen." Hasir's

    cocked his side considering this. 

     

    Sheee clapped her hands together and bowed,

    "I shall be up at the monastery, so please come there when you have concluded your trial." With that, she left him alone amongst

    the trees.

    Hasir got up and paced around the small field of snow thinking on what Tigress had said: listen to the trees. How in the hunting

    grounds was he supposed to pull that off? Become one with these trees as he had done back in Lilmoth when he was born? That was

    years ago though and, Hasir hated tyo admit this, he was not sure he remembered how to do it. Frustrated, he plopped down in the

    snow, performed a full lotus and thought hard. He closed his eyes and his mind's eye saw a field of green, totally devoid of snow and

    several inches in front of him, amongst the trees was a ghostly stag with shimmering antlers.

     

    He yelled at the stag,

    "Hircine, I can not talk now, I have a trial to perform."

     

    He opened his eyes to check and see if the stag was real or just in his mind, he saw no glowing blue stag staring at him. Content, he

    clamped his eyes shut again and the stag stared at him with its crystalline eyes. Again he yelled at the stag for interrupting his trial.

    The stag did not move it just stared at him--or more importantly-through him with its brilliant crystalline blue eyes. Hasir's eyes

    snapped open yet again to check if the coast was clear; he saw no stag. He closed them again and this time the field he was

    standing in filled with a blue green light. This light blurred Hasir's vision, this made it extremely hard to what was going on. 

     

    He could feel the trees staring at him. Staring? Was that the right word? he did not think so. They, were however, staring at him. He

    felt a sensation come over him almost like an extreme case of light-headedness, he looked down to see his legs and feet sinking in

    the ground to become roots of a tree of some kind. Hasir screamed as his chest became round and wooden like a trees tunk and his

    arms were the next to transmogrify, transforming into long brown branches with clumps of green leaves blossoming forth from the

    spot where his finger would have been.

     

    Hasir had a panicked expression on his face and feared he would die in this tree-like form but that is the farthest the transformation

    went. He thought a bit and then it all became clean, this was the trial the Ka'po'tun spoke of. Listen to the trees, correlate their

    behavior to your own soul, It all made perfect sense. Hasir watched as the other trees clean the air around them of carbon dioxide

    and exuded oxygen. The trees 'pointed' at Hasir, meaning that he was to try next. He took a deep breath and tried not to look

    constipated, actually he had no way of knowing what facial expression he had made, only that he looked right and left and saw tiny

    brown wisps of carbon dioxide enter his leafed limbs through a process known and combine with the sunlight and water particles

    through photosynthesis and saw clear gases exit the leaves and enter the air that the carbon dioxide exited mere seconds before

     

    The stag appeared once again and stamped its hooves so hard that the tree broke apart and the Argonian emerged. He opened his

    eyes to see if this was a dream or not. He stared straight at the ghostly blue stag who stood amongst the trees. Hasir stood there

    goggling at the stag. It waved a blue hoof in front of its face and where once there was a stag, a woman with shoulder-length brown

    hair and eye the coloor of moss stood.

    Hasr had to squint to see her properly because the dress she was wearing was the same shade of white as the snow covered tress

    around her,

    "Erm, excuse me, but, who are you?" He asked her, brow furrowed

     

    The earthy haired lady giggled and said he should already know who she is because he prayed to herr statue in High Hrothgar to see

    if she knew the figure in his dream. Hasir just shook his head and gawped at her. She tutted in disappointment at him and eyed him

    disapprovingly. The Argonian smiled and nodded saying she knew him when he clearly didn't. In the akward silence, Kynareth walked

    over and stroked the bark of the trees, running her fingers through the grooves cut into the trees. Kynareth saw the Argonian's

    aghast exxpression and flashed her eye at him.

     

    Kynareth withdrew her fingers from the bark, looking particularly sheepish at his disgusted look,

    "Have you figured it out yet?" She asked, pokiing him in his chest

     

    Hasir's mind finally clicked and connected the images of the lady before him and the statue up at High Hrothgar,

    "Oh Yeah! You're Kynareth right?" He asked, head cocked to the side

     

    She beamed back at him for finally recognizing her. He found a log that lay a few feet away and plopped his reptilian tail upon it.

    Kynareth strode over to him and and said down, having to partition her dress so that it draped evenly over the log. She turned to

    Hasir, smiling and asked him how it felt to be one of her leafy creations, albeit it for the purposes of completing his trial. 

     

    She opened her mouth, sighed and forced herself to talk on a subject that she knew Hasir would be rather uneasy with,

    "So, er, did you knew I helped you in my trial?" She asked him

     

    Argonian shot daggers at her,

    "No and Tigress said I had to do my trials on my own!" He said vehemently

     

    Kynareth hid her eyes in her hands,

    "I was afraid you would say that, I thought you would blow up on me or something." She said, teary eyed

    Hasir spead his hands wide as if he was praying to the trees at large,

    "So why did you apeear to me as a stag, I thought that was Hircine's form, not yours." He said, positively goggling at her

     

    "Hircine and I share the form of a stag. Hircine has five aspects." To emphasize this, she held up five fingers. "I have only two

    despite being his sister and having dominion over all of nature.  She gestured to herself, "My two aspects are a stag, which you have

    already seen, and a pine thrush, which you haven't seen yet." 

     

    Hasir stared at her and nodded conspiratorialy,

    "Oh, I see, you have two forms, Riiiight." He said, giving Kynareth a sly smile, "Now tell me the one about the khajiit and the

    dragon."

     

    Kynareth shook his head abruptly,

    "I-I'm afraid I don't know that one." She said, with an air of ignorance

     

    Hasir roared with laughter,

    "I was joking, you tree hugging bitch." He spat back at her

     

    Kynareth was livid. She had no one use that tone of voice with her, not even one of her own followers. She got up so abruptly that

    she nearly knocked the log over, and in the process, nearly sent Hasir spiraling over onto the ground. Hasir got up after her and

    slammed his tail on the log, this hurt but he ignored it. He advanced on Kynareth and bored his reptilian eyes into hers,

    "Let's see you other form, that is, if you can ACTUALLY assume that other form," He said, smirking evily at her

    She gulped, raised her arms defensively and turned into her pine thrush form and back again,

    "There, are you satisfied?" She asked scathingly, putting her hands on her hips

     

    Hasir nodded and thanked Kynareth for helping him, even though he did not mean it. He looked in the direction of the hilltop

    monestery. Hasir sighed and moved over to Tigress who was busy meditation on the log he had just vacated Hasir had to shake her

    hard on the shoulder in order to rouse her. She opened her eyes looking at Hasir out of the corner of her eyes,

    "Yes Hasir, what is it? Time to return to High Hrothgar already?" She asked him, apparently reading his mind

     

    Hasir's mouth fell open. He jumping for joy pounding the air triumphantly,

    "You...called me by my name," He said, astonished, "What took you so long?" He asked

     

    She said that it came to her while she was meditating that he would prefer to be called by his actual name instead of scaled one.

    Hasir hugged her, a pleased smile upon his scaled face and he sobbed tears of joy iinto Tigress' tunic. Tigress wrenched him off of

    her and told the extremely grateful Argonian to get a hold of himself. He apologized and said that she had never called him by his

    name before. Tigress scowled at him and said firmly that she had already described that. 

     

    Hasir slapped himself and tried to force his mind to focus on getting back to High Hrothgar, 

    "Get a hold of yoursself, sstupid, You don't have to go berserk just because sshe knowss your name!" He hissed to himself, beating

    himself up.

     

    Tigress strode over to Hasir and grabbed him by the bone strike and lifted him in the air

    "Hasir, now is not the time to beat yourself up over your warring emotions." She said, scolding him while Hasir struggled to get free

    Hasir managed to speak through jolts of pain shooting through his brain,

    "I was not beating myself up, you crazy tiger. Ouch! Watch the horns you stupid cat!" He yelled, forcing Tigress to drop him. Hasir

    glared at her from the ground. As an afterthought he stomped over to the place where he accidentally dropped the ring of hirchine;

    he slid in onto his finger and when he was satissfied he would not fall off, he continued walking. A clear 'Ahem' sounded behind him,

    he did not dare turn around as he know Tigress was glaring at him with her usuall 'get a more on before I rip out you scales' look.

     

    "Get up to the monastery you stupid lizard, We have much to do." She snarled at him, ushering him away in that direction. She

    followed close behind

     

    Hasir strode off to the seven thousand steps, positively steaming, closely followed by the Ka'po'tun. At the humpback bridge near the

    entrance to the steps. Tigress spun Hasir around so fast that he had to fight to urge to throw up. Hasir hissed angrily at her to leave

    him alone but she pleaded with him to share his feelings and told her she loved him. Angrily, he punched Tigress so hard in the face

    that she flewthrough the air like an orange guided missile to land into the stream just outside of town.  

     

    Angrily, Tigress got up, soaking wet, her tunic and trousers waterlogged, and her fur thick with water. Her body wanted to get that

    stubborn and emotionally unbalanced Argonian back for blowing up and attacking her, but a small voice in the back of her mind

    reminded her to remember her training taught to her by her grandfather, the same person who taught Hasir the first part of his

    shadowscale training. She had the words ringing in her ears ever since she left his tutelage. Never, under any circumstances, let

    your yin or yang overpower each other, always strive to keep your soul equally balanced. 

     

    She had to take a few deep breaths to settle herself. Now properly emotional and mentally settled, she strode back to Ivaarstead,

    over to the bridge and up the many steps with Hasir, still fuming, followed close behind. She entered High Hrothgar without so much

    as a backward glance.