#added a slightly altered version of a previous art for this fic because i'm lazy

[unrepentant-heliocentrism]

IT'S WIP WEDNESDAY!!

tagged by @unironicallytes, it was wonderful to have the chance to read more of your work!!! seriously awesome stuff keep it up ❤️❤️❤️❤️ tagging anyone that sees this!

I'm happy to finally be able to post this oldie that I desperately have to finish. it's somewhat lacking in context, but i hope y'all don't mind! More below the cut.

He found their consciousness shoved into the farthest recesses of their mind, beside a vast expanse of dunes painted gold by dawn and ornate ceramic cups filled with saffron tea, curled in the crook of another’s arm on an eave overlooking a dingy little marketplace. It was less a dream and more a contained paracosm of sorts, or a memory astonishingly vast in detail, visceral, and perhaps born of some clandestine homesickness. A steaming bowl of stew rested in their lap. The one next to them waggled his fingers animatedly in conversation, pointing at people milling about the stalls below them. His dialect—Ta’agra, he presumed—was alien to Miraak, one that he did not know intimately in the same way that he did his own mother tongue.

Laat Dovahkiin must have found what their counterpart said amusing, because a startled chuckle fell from their lips, teeth bared in mirth and shining like the gilded bevel of a sabre. “Liter!” they replied in mock astonishment as they drew back, one prim hand over their heart in an exaggerated show of square-toed elegance.“Jer dejoh pur jaji.”

They were younger than they had been with their nose planted in the ground by Miraak’s feet. Their face was free of wear, save for the creases around the corners of their eyes that crinkled when they smiled, and freckles where the sun had kissed their skin. Their hair, carefully-brushed curls spilling over their shoulders, was adorned with multicolored beads that clacked together as they moved their head. An embarrassment, then, that combat with his followers had knocked them so far out of place.

The man snatched the bowl and spoon from their grasp to take a bite. Around the food in his mouth, he said, “Khajiit says what he wishes. It is no lie. Dar’moesi is endowed in many ways —”

“This is true,” Laat Dovahkiin agreed. They took the bowl back and smacked him upside the chin lightly, a reminder to swallow his food before he spoke.

“Blessed by Azurah herself, of course! Anyway, it is unfortunate, but his performance is not one of them. So sad. What? Stop looking like that. Scandalized, are you? Shall this one speak crassly? Shesko. Dar’moesi has a short —”

“Brother! Look, look, down there! See him? Hush, or he might hear.”

Sure enough, as he manouvered around the roof’s loose shingles to follow the point of their talon, he spied a large man (pahmar, he recalled distantly, large and muscular) lingering agitated before a jewelry stall. Just barely, he could hear the muffled sound of his voice—you want how much for this necklace? Does this one appear to be a bursting coinpurse? What? Leave? Dorr gaj, filth!—rising higher and higher until finally, the man threw his arms into the air and stalked away, his stubbed tail flicking in irritation. The shopkeeper, a tawny-furred cat half his size, hung her shoulders in frustration and pulled the small box that the man had been eyeing off the counter and into a compartment below.

The one beside the Last snickered again. “Heh. Who do you think that necklace is for? Could it be my darling Motaba? No, no, she is far too loutish for him! He’d walk away with scratches like those from a senche if he attempted anything with her. Oh ho ho, then it must be for Dra’unjarri. Jotesi admits, those two would make a stunning couple, would they not? Both crotchety, cranky, and prone to biting. The matchmakers do say that some types are simply born for each other. Even if she was born somewhat earlier.”

“For this one? Gods, he had better not.”

“What? He wouldn’t dare. It is not as if you’re the one that would be doing the clawing—your betrothed is far more fearsome.”

“Loutish, then unintimidating? Perhaps khajiit will show you loutish if you continue to flap your gums in such a way.”

“Relax, my sister. Watch this.”