Hasir saw the manic look in her white eyes, almost as if the entire realm of Oblivion was alive inside of her eyes and scrambled
backwards as the blade of her elven sword cut the bed in two; the Argonian shielded his face as the broken bits of wood showered
over him.
He got up, seized a tray that sat on the bedside table and ducked behind it,
"Mom, think about what you are doing. Would the ancestors, if they could see you, like what they see? would Kynareth?" He asked,
a bit frightened as she bombarded the wooden plate with her sword.
Kassame's face was livid with rage as he advanced toward him; sword raised as he tossed aside the now useless makeshift shield,
"I don't give a fuck if the ancestors are watching me or not," She gave a curt laugh, "by oblivion, I think even they would side with
me if they were alive." She smirked, inching in on the Argonian.
Inigo and Itansehk ran to help prevent a war between mother and son; Inigo ran to Hasir and Itansehk to Kassamae, both waving
their hands and yeling for them to cease their actions. Inigo dug his heels into the dirt floor as he tried his hardest to hold the
furious Argonian back,
Inigo locked eyes with the Argonian; pleading for him to give up his attempt but this only served to make his eyes flash with hotter
flames,
"My friend what are you doing? Can't you see that that frantic creature is your mother!?" He asked, shocked, "Whatever she did
cannot possibly warrant the attitude you're currently showing toward her."
The Argonian's eyes went wide while his blood boiled. He bellowed with rage as he attempted to throw the khajiit off of him,
"My attitude could not possibly warrant-Inigo, you foolish feline, let go. that moron wants to kill me because I chose to follow a
different path then her precious 'ancestors', let me go so I can rip her apart, limb from limb."
Inigo shook his head and said that the Argonian would not be talking like this if he had a clearer head. Hasir suceeded in throwing
Inigo aside, said a few magic words, took a deep breath and expelled a gout of flame towards his mother. Seeing, or rather, feeling
the heat of the flame, she defly side-stepped the attack, instead setting Itansehk, who unfortunately stepped in front of her, ablaze
The Argonian screamed horribly as he was slowly but surely being cooked alive like a giant, scaly, venison chop. Hasir could not stop
himself, as in his rage, the force of which the flame emanated from his mouth increased dramatically and burned akin to a thousand
fire balls being cast at the same time. Itansehk's screams ceased as his body, now burnt beyond recognition, crumpled to the floor,
turning to ash. Hasir broke out of his rage as he heard Kassamae's cries as she wept before the pile of ashes situated on the dirt
floor.
Hasir, forgetting his rage, ran to his mother's side, whose tail was whipping back and forth like a snake that was wanting to strike
anything with its reach. He fell to the floor next to her,
"Mom, I... I... I''m sorry, I wasn't thinking, my emotions got the better of me, can you ever forgive me?" Hie covered his head with
his hands and began to sob uncontrobbaly, both for cursing himself and mourning his father's untimely demise, "I guess he won't
be getting a new body since he isn't near a hist tree." He said, looking at his mother shamefully.
His mother looked at him and nodded glumly, hugging her son,
"No, he wion't even if we put the ash in hist sap in Blackmarsh, it will not work." Hasir bowed his head and started to weep again.
"Now, don't cry, it was not your fault, you were not in control of your facilites. You were too annoyed at me for something I did not
think, at that time, was such a big deal. I did not listen to your side of the story before blowing up on you and for that," She lowered
her head to the ground, I erect the spine of apology," She said releasing him. She looked at him smiled and wiped a tear from his
eye, "Now I know different. You can choose whichever path call to you."
Hasir went to accept the hug but turrned away at the last moment, shaking his head for a couple minutes,
"No, it was entirely my fault," Hasir said, jumping to his feet, pacing around the tent, "If I didn't lose my temper, dad would still be
alive."
Hasir became so fed up with the loss of his temper that he ran out of the tent in tears. Kassamae groaned and ran after him pleading
with Hasir that he shouldn't be so hard on himself. She found him, minutes later, sitting on a log in front of the fire, accompanied by
the khajiit she had seen him with as they entered the tiny village.
Kassamae approached the two slowly as she didn't want to incite another fight between her and her son,
"Er, Hasir, you do know that Itansehk's death was not your fault right?" She asked as she sat down next to him
Hasir did not look at her but instead at Inigo who was doing his best to reassure the distraught Argonian. Kassame inches closer the
Hasir and put a loving hand on his shoulder,
"Hasir, there is something you must know, emotions are powerful things, they can change the world if released in a positive way.
Just... er, listen, what you did... you should've managed your anger better, erm... we both should have."
His mother looked into the fire and saw someone watching her eagerly,
"Nice to meet you, my name is Inigo, I don't think I got your name," He said, frowned as he looked at Kassamae's scaly neck
Kassamae jumped with fright, almost falling of the log. She looked away from the fire and straight at the smiling khajiit whose hand
was outstretched. The Argonian female starred at the khajiit as though she had been sturck dumb. Inigo reached over with his other
hand resting on the log, grabbed the stunned Argonian's hand and placed it in his own and moved his hand up and down causing a
ripple that carried through his hand and the Argonian's hand,
"Nice to meet you, I'm sure Hasir has told you about me," He said hopefully
Kassamae shook his head and told Inigo that he did not have to be so formal, that he could just call him Hasir, not 'her son.' and she
said he hadn't. She shook her head and said she was not told anything about him because that he had tried to kill her because of his
difference in destiny and she tried to do the same.
The female Argonian looked side-long at the khajiit,
"How did you meet Hasir?" She asked, shaking off the death of her husband, at least for the moment
Inigo looked at her told he was accused of killing him, or trying to. Kassamae''s eyes fell downard, as her hands fidgeting in her lap
as if her mind was playing with the idea of throttling him; she had to forcibly push this away. She turned back to Inigo and smiled,
although she did not feel as happy as her expression suggested. Inigo smiled back and continued on, saying he felt he was
wrongfully imprisoned in the Riften jail; he wanted to tell her that he was innocent but he knew she would not unterstand. He said
that afer he and his scaly friend talked the matter over in his tiny jail cell, he later found out that the guards must have gotten him
mistaken with someone else matching his discription.
Inigo smiled broadly at Kassamae who, just now, realized his pumpkin-like eyes that seemed as equally warm as his smile,
"My past was a sad one, this is true but that doesn't mean my present can't carve a path of its own." He said with a slight chuckle,
"Sorry," He said with a grimace as Kassamae shot him a reproachful look, "the truth is, I owe much to Hasir because if it weren't for
him acquitting me of my doleful past, er, so to speak. He and I have been the best of friends ever since." He said as he patted Hasir
on the shoulder.
Kassamae's brow furrowed,
"But, what about the guards, didn't they acquit you?"
He barked a laughed at this, shaking his head,
"The guards? Those sacks of kawama dung? They cannot do anything right," He had to steady himself to prevent himself falling off
the log, "No, I decided to let my past die and be done with it." He said grinning at the female Argonian
His brow furrowed and asked Kassamae about the events that happened a few minutes ago. Kassamae asked Inigo if he saw the
horrible act her son had comitted; he shook his head. Kassamae bowed her scaly head and said that was for the best because if he
did see this, she said, the image of her husband screaming would forever be burned into his brain as if branded there as it was in
hers.
Inigo gasped as if struck by a stray arrow;
"That's horrible." He glanced over to Hasir to see if he had any input on this but Hasir just sat staring blankly into the dancing
flames. "Er, my friend," He said as he nudged Hasir, nothing changed; still Hasir had that blank stare.
When Hasir did speak, he voice sounded cracked as if he was using it after dusting it off,
"Inigo I don't want to talk about it, It was my fault he died." He said
Inigo was apalled by what he'd just heard; he couldn't believe his ears. He placed a caring paw-like hand on his friend's shoulder,
trying to reassure Hasir by saying he didn't mean to kill his own father, but he shrugged this off, adamant in his position. Inigo could
feel the cold of the night setting in. He got up, glanced back at Hasir, sighed and walked back to the yurt where he saw Kassamae
and her kids sitting at a long wooden table situated on the side opposite of the bed she had destroyed in a fit of rage.
Inigo saw the wreckage of the bed, got up and laid out five bedrolls that he had in his bag of such an unforeseen circumstance as
this. Moment later, Hasir stumbled into the tent, muttered something about going to sleep early and curled up onto the first bedroll
he saw. Inigo and the rest of the Argonian at their meal of the leftover Cyrodillic fish from the day before, saddened by the absence
of his friend and Kassamae's husband; in fact his death was weighing heavily on everyone present.
After eating their fill, Inigo and the Argonians settled into their bedrolls and fell asleep. Everyone had a good night's sleep; everyone
except for Hasir.
As soon as Hasir's scaly eyelids closed, he became hurled into a world quite unfamiliar to him. Hasir opened his eyes and saw he
was in the same yurt that he fell asleep in, had it not been for the burnt Argonian shambling its way toward him. He felt a png of
horribly familiarity when he realizeed that this grotesque reptile was the Argonian he had burnt in a fit of rage. Hasir peered over to
the long table and saw Inigo and the other Argonians eating their fish; sensing his presence, they turned and started to needle him,
crueling jeering at him about how he purposefully killed Itansehk.
Hasir moved ever nearer the table but instead of it getting closer, the room seemed to lengthen tenfold; making the table seem
further away. The jeering voices increased in volume as they continued to mock the Argonian.
Hasir gritted his teeth and battled hard to get to the table despite the thundering voices trying to push him back like the winds of a
blight storm. Nevertheless, the Argonian continued forcing his way toward the faroff table. The Argonian gasped as the nearer he got
to the table, the more his friends' faces began to shift into forms he did not recognize. The khajiit shifted into a black khajiit with
eyes fiery as Oblivion while his mother's face and those of Hasir's brother and sister were replaced by the faces of the golden tsaesci,
Tigress and Mere-Glim.
They were all criticizing him for killing his father; all the while, the burnt Argonian was advancing on him,
"Hasir, what a disgrace, betraying your famly. Shame, you would've made a fine dragonkinght." Quinchaal said condescendingly
Hasir wanted to protest, wanted to say that he is a fine dragonking, a shining example even. Hasir heard Tigress curse him in Akaviri
and the thing sitting in Inigo's place make fun of him, saying that no one would ever want an ugly Argonian like him for a son.
Mere-Glim looked scornfully at the now very small Argonian, slinging a slew of Jel curse words in his direction along with imerialized
words like 'pond-scum' and 'mud for brains.' Hasir was about to retort when the burning, blackened Argonian caught up to him.
The people at the table all laughed mercilessly as the blackened Argonian reached out a molten finger and touched the area of
Hasir's chest where his heart would be, all while the onlookers watched, every including an Argonian with Rakel's head who was
jeering at him as well.
Hasir's screams rang throughout the yurt as he felt his scales crackle and burn as they began to flake off. His frantic eyes darted this
way and that, pleading for anyone to help as he began to suffocate. To his dismay, no one did; the khajiit and Argonians continued
to jeer as Hasir suffocated to death.
Hasir screamed as he flailed in his sleep. He had thought one of the onlookers had scattered his ash-ridden body to the four winds.
But this was untrue, however as his eyes snapped open. His arms moved over his body to find that his body had not blackened and
he had not suffocated. He was also aware of someone shaking him. He glanced over and saw Inigo shaking him.
Inigo looked at him as if his friend was having some sleep seizure,
"My friend, why were you thrashing about like a fish on dry land?"
A mutines of hearing Hasir recount his nightmare in horrifying detail, he broke down in tears while his feline friend patted him on the
shoulder. His mother stopped eating her breakfast at this sound of distress; waliking over and sitting next to Hasir. Inigo looked at
her, smiled and sat down on an empty bedroll, watching them.
Kassamae asked what all the tears where about. Hasir leaned into her and sighed deeply as she put her arm around him,
"I know, I know, we all miss your father, me most of all, but you must not let this eat you up else you will become overwhelmed by
extreme sadness." Hasir nodded, wiped a tear from his eye and told his mother for Hircine knows how many times about how his
thoughtless had caused Itansehk's death and his immediate expulsion from the life giving power of the Hist to prevent reincarnation.
Kassamae groaned and slid her hand down her face,
"For the love of... not this again." She uttered a silent prayer to Kynareth and sighed, "Hasir. how many times do I have to keep
telling you that Itansehk's death wasn't your fault, it was just an accident." She made a shooing motion with her hands as she tried
to put the gloomy topic of conversation from her mind, "I understand you had something you wish to tell me?" She said, eyeing
Hasir with a quizzical expression.
Hasir looked a her with a blank expression on his face; his current train of thought reached the end of its track and had to quickly
find a new one,
"What?" he asked, whipping around to face her, "Oh, right, I did." He said somewhat stupidly.
He got up and beckoned his mother over to the wooden table. He pulled out two chairs; he sat in one while his mother took the
other. Kassamae eyed him with silent fascination and rested her scaled hands on her knees as he told her his inquiry,
"Mom, I would like to know more about what you have against the Telvanni and tell me about the orange Khajiit a..." He glanced
over at Inigo a certain blue feline had requested to know more about him."
Kassamae leant closer to Hasir; she did not know how he knew this, he smiled warmly as he told her that he had a dream of sorts
the night before. He told her about how he was unconscious aboard a docked ship outside the city of Windhelm and that a high elf
had entered his mind to find out more about the strange dream.
Kassamae scoffed at this; she had read stories of high elves ave special abilites such as mind entrance magic and a keen grasp of
magic, if not keener than most races on Tamriel,
"Hasir, I have, er, read about the altmer having 'unique' abilites like the one you described but I never knew anyone who had it done
to them, were there any side effects? Tail rot? Transluscent scales perhaps?" She eyed him scathingly, "You can never trust those
Altmer, always concerned about themselves and their 'higher' views of self importance. They always place themselves above all
others, it makes me sick that one of them touched my son's mind, much less entered it." She gasped, "Hopefully they left your mind
intact.
Hasir crossed his arms and chuckled at her,
"No, mom, Ceralyne is a friend, and no, she did not mess with my head." He chuckled again, I guarantee you that my thoughts are
all in one peice. She just wanted to find out why you were enslaved." He looked at her, putting a claw on his leg, "I would like to
know that as well, so care to tell me?"
Kassamae averted her son's eyes and instead loooked at the dirt floor, hands twisting inside one another like two dragons fighting
amongst themselves and sighed,
"Hasir, I... I just don't want you to think the Telvanni are the enemies here," She shook her head slolwy still averting his gaze, "there
not, society is the bigger evil at work here, I firmly beleive that they were dealt a horrible hand, that's all."
Hasir shot his mother a dirty look,
"Mom, the Telvanni are vile scum who care nothing for our race and that Inigo's race, dealt a horrible hand? you need to get your
head examined if you think of them as your friends."
Kassamae scoffed at this. Hasir looked at her at said that was her problem right there. He said she trusts people too much, to the
point that even when everyone else thinks of them as bad eggs, she blanks their opinions and trusts them even if that means her
emotions get bruised in the process; which is often the case.
Kassamae stood up and walked out of the yurt, sitting down on a log by the unlit fire. She took a deep breath, the cool morning air
seemed to blow all the negative feelings she was feeling for Hasir right out of her as she knew that harboring those feelings was
harmful both for her physical and mental wellbeing. Hasir cleaned up the last remnants of her meal, walking them over to the waste
bin, which was nothing more than an old dust covered sack, in the corner of the yurt and deposited the fish skeleton into it.
Remembering something, he went over to the table, extracted the remains of the omelette he had, pulled and plate near him and
began to eat the omelette. Once he had scraped the omelette remains in the trash bag, he replaced the now empty plate on the
table and went outside to see what his mother was up to.
He found her sitting alone on a log situated near the pile of sticks that made up the fire that burned brightly the night before. He sat
down next to her; his tail coiling about her waist. She turned to him and hugged him,
"Hasir, I, er, I came out here to think about what you said and, er..." She looked at him a bit sheepishly, rubbing the scales on her
neck, "Well.. you were right, I do tend to find the best in everyone, including my enemies."
He was shocked by her sudden honesty and grabbed her hand in his; tears welling up in his eyes,
"Your honesty is like sun on my scales, for that I am truly grateful," He said as he wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. His face
suddenly became stony again, "Well now that that's out of the way, are you ready to tell me how you were imprisoned and how you
escaped, if you'd escaped at all?"
Kassamae's brow furrowed and began to explain how she had first came to be enslaved by and then escaped from, the Telvanni,
"Hasir, I am not sure what you saw in your fever dream while you were stuck between the realms of the living and the dead but, in
my youth I came to Sadrith Mora because I've heard that the city contained special mushrooms that I required for the potion I had
to brew before Kynareth, and my tribe, would accept me as resident shaman."
She sighed and continued,
"I did not get to pick the muhrooms however, because when I bent down with my knife to cut a stalk off one of the giant mushroom
trees, a dunmer along with two other dark-skinned elves grabbed me and hauled me away to the Sadrith Mora slave market." She
scoffed, crossing her arms, "They thought I was a slave that escaped from Arvel plantation, by the hist, I would do to them them
what they do to us."
Hasir looked at her skeptically,
"Us? I-I don't understand."
Kassame shook her head and said her late husband was right; that Hasir's egg did indeed spend too much time in the shade, either
that or he was just licking the lowest branch of the hist tree. She chucked, sensing white hot waves of rage rising from her son's
scales,
"Hasir, I am of course talking about those races that dunmer think are inferior to them. The, er, 'swamp scum' and 'cats,' well, as the
dark elves call them are brought over to Vvardenfell after the Imperials invaded their homelands, Elsweyr and Blackmarsh and
brought them back, giving them to whichever lands had need of them. No lands, except for Vvardenfell, would take the slaves
because theses, er, other continet must've thought slavery immoral." She said, grimacing slightly due parlty to the recollection
gruesome memory. She looked at Hasir with a renewed vigor, almost as if she'd wiped that memory from her brain, "that... is how
we and the khajiit came ito be in the current predicament."
Hasir cringed at this rather disheartening thought; as he mulled this over in his mind, he heard the swishing of Inigo's tail as he
approached the log on which he sat. The Argonian turned, smiled, and waved at Inigo, beckoning him to join them. The blue khajiit
did so and inquired on what they were talking about. Hasir said that he and his mother were discussing his dream he had had the
night previously, in Windhelm.
Inigo looked at his reptilian friend warily,
"As you very well know, my friend, I was not in your dream."
He blanked Inigo and turned to his mother; brow furrowed,
"Mom, who was that Khajiit next to you when you were imprisoned by those selfish wizards?"
Kassamae told him that the khajiit was named Fergus. At hearing this name, Inigo perked up,
"Fergus, he's alive? Do you know where he is now?" He asked, hoping that he was still alive
Kassamae shook her head for a few minutes, further confirming Inigo's deepest fears,
"I am sorry to tell you this Inigo, but... Fergus died." She said as she hugged the distraught khajiit
Inigo howled with rage and sobbed into Kassamae's tan ancestral robes. The blind Argonian urged Inigo to get a hold of himself. She
urged him to think of Fergus in his happier days and not dwell on this newly formed emptiness in his heart. Hasir came over carrying
firewood that he placed on the fire, set them ablaze with a well aimed flame spell and sat on the log with the flames crackling in
front of him,
"Mom, was there anyone else at Sadrith Mora? Any fellow Argonians that can back your, er, distrust of the Telvanni?"
Kassamae sighed, placing a hand gently on his shoulder,
"There was one Argonian, her name was Sun-In-Shadows, she was a fellow slave but she was taken into the Telvanni council house
and I never saw her again." Hasir asked stupidly if she'd died. The female Argonian shook her head, saying that she had not died.
Hasir inquired what happpened to her. His mother patted her son on the shoulder, saying that they will talk on this subject more
later.
Over the next few hours, Hasir asked Kassamae more about the female Argonian slave. She turned to him; her scaled face stretched
into something that resembled a grin and told Hasir that Nelothi, the same wizard that had cast her out of the tower, had selected
Sun-In-Shadows, a fellow slave that the wizard had thought was a better fit for House Telvanni than her.
Hasir's face screwed up in confusion at this.
"Erm.. right," He said frowning. That cannot be the real reason why Sun-In-Shadows was exchanged for you; if that was, in fact, the
case."
