#didn't know how to put bachle in english. have only ever seen them in freiburg. idk why i thought they needed to be in leyawiin

[bretongirlwrites]

News reaches Leyawiin much as anything else does: hobbling along the battered old road; repulsed at the first when the lounging Count and all his surrounders do not listen; and fading at last with the dark sullied rainwater, falls into perilous bachlein, and goes back into the swamp-lights. These to the Imperial City are the backwaters, border-lands which do not matter; and it takes so damn long to ride even to Bravil, that were something to happen to Bravil, – and things do on the alarming regular, – then those in Leyawiin may perceiving flickering over the horizon, sit tight and half-happy, in the knowledge that a marsh is as good as a barricade; and that even whatever is interested in Bravil, – should not find anything worth taking from Leyawiin. 

That is how the Count sees it: when unmoving as his city, he does whatever he damn well wants, because news in the returning sense will meet a similar fate, and Leyawiin will still be an island in the marsh. He does not listen to messengers, or more outwardly inclined nobles, and most especially not to falsely-titled upstarts telling him to muster a blighted army or face destruction by thrice-damned fire-born bastards from the city-roasting hell-spit pits of Oblivion. Something about Bruma. Bruma is hundreds of miles away. Maybe thousands. It doesn’t matter. Except to the upstart gnashing her tusks at him and tiresomely un-arrested despite the sword.

It’s Mazoga. Sir Mazoga. And she has a bone to pick again. Leyawiin doesn’t get an imaginative expletive like Oblivion. Just this fucking hell-hole’s gonna be slurped into the ground and bloody disappear. Colourful as the marshes.

‘It has not been slurped into the marsh,’ says Count Caro, ‘for thousands of years. I hardly think, –’

‘No, you’re right, you don’t,’ says Mazoga, who has in his place done so much thinking, that her hand itches to do. ‘Bruma doesn’t lie. Does a whole bunch of other bloody things, but if they say there’s daedra, there’s daedra. We need a damn army.’

‘I have things more important to be worried about,’ says the Count, ‘than ludicrous things that will probably not happen. I might just as probably, prepare for the High Chancellor to put on a tutu and dance a jig on the roof of, –’

The Count like anyone else, actually has no idea what the High Chancellor does in his free time; and though he calls Leyawiin an island, fears the man’s judgement; so falls silent. A silence which, naturally, is filled by Mazoga’s outpourings. 

‘Look, stuck-arse,’ she says, – the Count flinching, cannot quite bring himself to do anything, lest that sword come out, – ‘if you don’t do anything, I will.’

‘Oh! will you now.’

‘I did something,’ says she with feeling, ‘when my friend was killed; I did something, when I found their fucking camp. Got that little stranger to do something, too. Remember that? Remember that? I can get stuff done, I can persuade people, –’

‘You are entirely failing,’ yawns the Count, ‘to persuade me.’

Because he is on an island, because he’s always been on an island. Because he can do what he damn well wants, and what he wants, is a hot bath and a racy novel and about one hundred percent fewer orcs in his throne-room. – On reflexion, the burly one guarding his crockery-collection can stay. – Because he has heard the news from Bruma. Bruma was weeks ago. The news got here by the usual route; damn near sank on the way, judging by the messenger; he’s always said, – because he doesn’t want to move, because he can’t believe it lest he be obliged, – that even a creature from the bowels of Oblivion would turn up bedraggled and covered in pond-weed at the gates, and collapse like a Five Claws drunkard into a bachlein. Wouldn’t even need stabbing. Mazoga’s sword is remarkably close, –

Mazoga’s finger in his face. Would prod him, slap him, gods know what, if touching his Lordship, – and he sometimes, gods damn it, wished it extended to Alessia, – weren’t as punishable as pissing in the damn crockery-cabinet. – Which has its own law for a reason, apparently. – Mazoga says something more, it’s mostly expletive, – 

‘All right,’ says she at last: ‘all right.’

Takes a step backwards. Marius breathes more easily. 

‘If you won’t do it,’ says she, ‘then I will.’

Though she is trembling, though her face is darkening, she does not reach for her sword. Rather she looks about the room, this wondrous stagnant room, and shouting, rouses all the guards. 

‘I’ll do it. I’ll raise an army. I’ll go into the fires of Oblivion, I’ll come back scorched and battered and gods know what, but I’ll do it. If the daedra attack Leyawiin, they’ll fucking regret it. You can stick your arse to your gods-damned throne all you want. Pretend it’s some bloody island, –’

Now that he sees her more clearly, he notices for the first time, the horse rampant on her armour. Is it new? She clutches it naturally, when she puts a hand to her breast. The guards pay more attention than they ever have. 

‘It’s my city as well, – Count.’ The Count knows what insult she meant to put in the word, but does not react. ‘I’m not doing this because I’m some dumb-arse hero. I’m doing it because, – because it’s worth defending. This mess. This hell-hole. It’s my city.’

She’s run out of words, – at last. Lowers her hand from the horse. Stumbles a bit on the carpet, looks half reverently at the banners that quiver in her wake; then scornful, back at the Count on his ancient unshifting throne. 

‘For what it’s worth,’ she adds, quietly. 

‘If you are going to make all this racket,’ says the Count quite voiceless, ‘then you can do it outside.’

‘I bloody well will,’ says Mazoga, – thinks of Leyawiin damp and ugly and filled, and filled, with people it doesn’t deserve, – ‘I bloody well will. And when the daedra are defeated, –’

It might not come. But it might. It might. It damn well might. Mazoga, as bidden, goes outside. Marches out, Leyawiin-green cloak fluttering; and even in the gloom, her armour shining, – her armour shining.