#AH NUTS WAIT SERA HAS GREEN EYES

[fisherrprince]

quickly before i have to go make dinner. miku miku butch beam

[therunawayscamp]

Mr Eddis faces the Green.

I have no idea what Bosmer call their Khan or chieftains or whatever

The chieftain of a Bosmer tribe is called a Spinner which I of course knew all along and was fully aware of and it was one of these Spinners

The chieftain of a Bosmer tribe is called a Treethane, but it was one of their priests, known as a Spinner, who dealt with our intrepid band of sailors. Spinners have the real power and influence over a tribe, a bit like the Hands of Almalexia and the Buoyant Armigers compared to the House Masters back in the good old days probably, and they provide the guidance, wisdom, and ritual sacrifices used to keep the tribe in order. On this Spinner's order, Eddis, Braskan and their selection of seamen were marched out of their pod on the morning of the third day.

The town itself was flanked on all sides by standing stones and the grass had been worn away by generations of feet, creating pathways of smooth dirt between every building. Some of them, the newer and cleaner ones, were of the Imperial fashion, although the stone was held together with carefully cultivated, living vines rather than dead wood, and the tendrils of those vines dripped glowing bulbous growths over the eaves in place of lanterns. The sailors, however, were led to another pod, much grander than the one which had held them overnight. It was a rich purple and blooming with petals at the top, decorated with strings of bone and with teeth around the entrance so that it felt as if they were walking into the jaws of a beast.

The impression continued inside. Soft, red, and pulpy, like the inside of a mouth, and the Spinner sat like a wizened old nut, a rotten tooth, at the back. The only normal thing about the scene was the chair the Spinner was sat on, which was a large, pillowy fungus, and as I write that it occurs to me that a lot of people would not find this normal at all but trust me, anybody who knows a Telvanni will understand. The Spinner opened

their mouth, and after making a hollow sort of noise for a few seconds, like a priest channelling the Ancestors, said,

'Why are you here?'

A question a lot of our crew were probably asking themselves by this point, but Eddis, as the official leader whether he liked it or not, replied,

'Looking for fruit and fresh water, sera. Sweet, sweet fruit to stop the teeth.'

The Spinner, still making the reedy noise, studied Eddis. Eddis never seems fazed by intense scrutiny. He looks so out of place and nervous all the time anyway that it makes no difference to him, he keeps on giggling and shivering whatever you do.

'You are not of the Pact, Dunmer, and so I am prepared to give you a chance to atone for violating its laws,' said the Spinner. 'You will face the Judgement of Y'ffre. Pray to your heathen Ancestors that Y'ffre shows you mercy.'

Lined up and fidgeting, or in Eddis's case vibrating with a suppressed hum of laughter, the sailors watched the Spinner produce a stone goblet. Inside was a thick syrup, black as blood, and the Spinner pushed it forwards.

'You, with the wooden teeth, will drink. If you live, we will escort all of you to the shoreline unharmed, and you will never set foot upon the Green again. If you die, we will kill the rest of you where you stand.' They paused and showed a black-toothed grin. ‘If you refuse and try to run, we will enjoy the hunt.’

Before the crew could discuss it Eddis, without any hesitation, took the goblet and drank.

I can only rely on Braskan for a description of what happened next. Unfortunately Braskan's descriptions of things tend to ramble on and get exaggerated out of all proportion, unlike my own completely reliable narrative, but I shall do my best with limited resources. Apparently the first thing that happened was Eddis's eyes going a uniform red, so that you couldn't tell the outer bit from the darker bit in the middle and I don't doubt that at this juncture Oran will leave a note for me informing me of their proper names in a very condescending tone so I will pause here.

Then Eddis began to shake – more than usual I mean – until Braskan and one of the other sailors moved forward to catch him in case he fell. They were held back by the Bosmer who had carried them into the pod and forced to watch as the shaking intensified, jerking Eddis's limbs about like one of Mistress Florencia's puppets, in spasms that became more and more violent. Sweat drenched his skin. He was hot, so hot that Braskan could feel it in the air even without being allowed to touch him. The inside of the pod was thick with heat.

And then it stopped. Stopped dead. He went from thrashing around on the spot to frozen in place, which was almost as unnerving. Slowly, though, the redness receded from his eyes and the sweat dried on his skin, steaming slightly, leaving brown trails in its wake, and Eddis began to breathe. The Spinner observed all of this without intervening, not moving so much as a wrinkle on their face, and when it all seemed to be over they said without emotion,

'You have passed the Judgement. You will leave. But first you will tell me what you saw, and how you survived.'

'These roots run deeper, muthsera. They grow beneath the skin. Ha, you can feel it moving in you. Strip it to the bone, ha ha, flesh from the inside out, sweet and delicious like a rich red fruit, like the pomegranates when the Word began, and they gorge themselves without realising they're eating themselves alive, ah ha, ah ha, ah ha. Shallow seeds grow in the topsoil with no idea what's waiting underneath. These roots run deeper! Ha, ha ha ha ha ha...'

I'm paraphrasing because like I said, this story was mostly told to me by Braskan, who can't remember what he did five seconds ago, but the general gist as you can see is that Eddis truly excelled himself in his weirdness. Maybe the gibberish meant something to the Bosmer, but I'm inclined to believe that they just wanted to get rid of him at this point and that's why they dumped the sailors in the forest, pointed them at the beach, and melted away into the greenery.

The junior seamen were already shuffling towards the boat, eager to be off Valenwood and back on a trusty, solid deck, but Braskan dug his fists into his pockets and sloped his shoulders.

'I's alive, which is all well an' good, but we ain't got no fruit. Ain't no point in survivin' mad Bosmer if we jus' goes back empty-handed and gets thrown overboard by R'khan fer wastin' time.'

Eddis was dancing on the spot, and at this he grinned and giggled and failed to be of any use whatsoever. It wasn't until Braskan grabbed his shoulders and threatened to shake his head off his neck if he didn't stop laughing that he reached for something tucked beneath shirt.

'I know everything about the rotting disease. I know what stops it. I know where it's found. I know what’s good.'

He opened his hand. There on his palms, in neat little clusters, were the seeds he had dug out of the pod wall they had been trapped in overnight.

They brought them back to the brig, and they were served at every mess until we picked up more fruit in Hammerfell. The early signs of scurvy, which had been surfacing in a few sailors, ebbed away. As Eddis promised, the seeds were enough to stave off the illness.

And the reason Eddis did all this, the reason he was prepared to wager his own life against the Green so readily, was the dream. When he sleeps, to this day, Eddis closes his eyes and sees his family's cornerclub again, in the middle of a siege. The Argonians have gone but the screams and sobs continue. The doors hang off the cupboards and the insides are pitch-black, menacing with their emptiness, just like his mouth. Gaping, hollow, and black. He hasn't tasted fresh food for months. He can't talk or swallow or move his tongue at all for fear it will touch the stuff, the black, oozing, jelly which used to be his gums. He laughs instead. As he laughs, it dislodges the last tooth wedged into the rotten pulp. The tooth tumbles over his lips and washes across the floor in a dribbling, pathetic puddle of blood and flesh, joining the others somewhere on the flagstones.

Thanks to the knowledge of Mr Eddis, we have never had a bout of scurvy since he joined the crew.