The Skeletal Emissary

Meleagant. The mortal remains of a necromancer, the tongue of a Daedric Prince to be, the voice of a Dragon Priest... and something of a hairdresser. Independent OC | 4E Skyrim | Lich The Rift | Mod is 21+ | NSFW?!?

[notyourlark]

She’s anxious, for a moment. Oghma’s little game might anger him, and spoil this. But, once the little hunter is quite certain that there is no meat left on these bones, he flutters back to his mistress’ gloved hand. “I’ve had my share of teachers. Always stingy with their wisdom. I trust my own powers of observation better. I propose merely that we sit and talk. Perhaps there is aught by way of knowledge I might impart unto you as well, my Lord.”

[skelemissary]

“Teachers like me?” Meleagant chuckles. “True, it may be that you might aid me. The world is not the one I left, not quite. I find myself in the dark, and in need of a light.” He’s disappointed when the bird leaves him in favour of its owner, but it can’t be helped. He rubs the back of one bone hand with the other, producing an audible rattling sound. “Is it true the dragons died? And now they rise?”

[priestess-of-kynareth]

She stands back and watches, both startled and, admittedly, frankly delighted.  He doesn’t startle her this time when his facade drops, and though it it a bit strange to see a skeleton standing and walking about, his fascination with the bees is endearing.  And it’s overriding everything else.

“Do you like bees?”  She asks, and then manages a little laugh.  “I guess that makes sense.  It’s not as though you can get stung.  They’re cute, aren’t they?  Small and fuzzy.”  She steps closer, hesitantly.  She’s not about to get right near their hive, however.  “Do you think they’re scared of you?”

[skelemissary]

“Of me? Why should they be frightened of me? They’re bees.” He is, by now, well and truly in the tree. He extends a fleshless finger to one of the buzzing drones, and it lights there, heedless. “Beautiful things, delicate wings, so sweet...”

[priestess-of-kynareth]

“Hear what?”  She asks, but he’s off before she can have her answer.  She remains sitting for only a moment as she tries to sort through what exactly is happening, but it doesn’t take her long to spring up and trot after him.

“What are you looking for?”  She asks, and then comes to a halt at the edge of a small patch of wildflowers.  They’re just the sort she’d been picking earlier, and bees and the occasional butterfly drift from flower to flower.  Suddenly, she realizes;  “Were you looking for the bees?”

[skelemissary]

“I don’t want them to get away,” he murmurs. His search brings him, after much meandering, to the foot of a tree. He looks up, and in his excitement, his glamour drops away at once. “Here! Oh, here they are! Honey-sweet, oh, I could keep them all!”

[priestess-of-kynareth]

Alright.  His name is Meleagant, and he’s a skeleton.  Well.  Not a skeleton, really.  He’s more than that, but she can’t think of the word.  “I’m Diana,”  She manages.  Slowly, her heartbeat returns to normal as the shock passes.  She’s able to analyze the situation, and the fear ebbs away.  He’s being kind, whatever he is.  They’re in a warm spot.  There’s a bird singing nearby, and she swears she can hear the faint sound of buzzing.  It’s peaceful.

“..What are you doing out here?”  And, though it feels bizarre to ask,  “…Are you alright?”

[skelemissary]

He nods, then stops. “Do you hear...” His bones rattle as he turns his head to look around. “Do you hear...” Without another word he sets off in search of the sound, though which sound is anyone’s guess. A faint humming vibrates behind the lich’s teeth, as if to harmonize with that buzz, buzz, buzz. “Not wasps, this time,” he murmurs. “Not wasps, not wasps, not wasps... Be kind.”

[notyourlark]

“One studies cadavers and baser beasts,” she replies, “when all the knowledge they have left to offer is in their brute physical aspects. I should think there is more wisdom in that skull than what bones alone could tell. You speak well, Lord Bones. Surely there are many things you might impart.”

As she speaks, Oghma hops over to a bony shoulder, pecking inquisitively at the strange being’s vacuous nose. 

[skelemissary]

When the bird’s beak dips into the empty space where there ought to have been a nose, Meleagant has to stifle a shriek. Bird kisses. He wants to ask at once if that’s in fact the miracle that has just been imparted to him, but he has appearances to maintain. Luckily, having no muscles to betray him, his bony face remains unreadable. “‘Bones alone,’” he echoes. “Yes. More than bones alone. Much more. I never was a teacher. You’re best off studying creatures. I filled my skull that way, though yours remains yet full of grey.”

[priestess-of-kynareth]

She’s reluctant to sit, but doesn’t want to risk hurting his feelings a second time.  She’s embarrassed, too, for spooking quite so easily, and hurries to take a seat where indicated.  Her breath still comes in shuddering gulps, and she presses a hand against her chest as if the pressure might help her pounding heart.  Somewhere near her, she can hear Pell croaking.  It almost sounds like laughter.

“I didn’t mean to scream in your face,”  She whispers again, and is startled into silence when she finally braves a look up.  The skeleton is gone, but the man standing before her looks… Well, skeletal.  Perhaps that shouldn’t come as a surprise, all things considered.  Regardless, the transformation is amazing, and for the moment she’s mesmerized. “…Who are you?”

[skelemissary]

“Ah.” The glamoured brows knit. “Who? Once, I knew. I did. I do.” When he scratches his head, it still sounds like bones rasping through those magnificent gold tresses. “Ah. Who...” He taps his lips as if he might pat his name out from between them. “Ah. Naaaaah. Meleagant. And you?”

[notyourlark]

His laugh sends shivers through her like arrows of ice. It’s too much like the hollow rattle her birds make just before a kill. Still, she keeps her composure, watching his movements intently. 

“Curiosity mostly,” she admits, as the kite leans into the affectionate touch. “And academic interest, if you do not mind my saying so. You understand, I can imagine, how fascinating your nature must be to mortals like myself.”

[skelemissary]

Meleagant’s jaw eases shut. “Am I a curiosity?” Another bark of laughter leaves him. “Better that, than a monstrosity. Do you wish, then, to study me?” He cocks his head, continuing to pet the bird, which seems hardly to mind. Some part of his mind not determined to fill himself up with bees gives serious consideration to crafting a bird of his own.

[priestess-of-kynareth]

She screams. Diana would never call herself brave, but death is one thing she has experience with.  She’s watched people die and helped prepare their bodies for funeral pyres.  She’s visited catacombs.  She’s not afraid of bodies, but skeletons aren’t supposed to move, and when this one does, it’s nothing short of startling.  And then, when it begins to speak, terrifying.

She tries to calm herself, tries to remind herself that it’s frightening only because it’s strange.  It isn’t hurting her, and it doesn’t want her to be afraid.

And she just screamed at him.  How horrid.

“I’m sorry,”  She hiccups back a sob, brought on mostly by surprise and, yes, a nagging fear.  Skeletons don’t move.  Skeletons don’t speak.  She’s seen the sorts of skeletons that move, the ones in the deepest crypts who wander aimlessly, dragging axes and bows. 

But he isn’t doing that.  He sits calmly.  He fixes his robe.  “I’m so sorry,” She repeats herself, and wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand.  “I shouldn’t have screamed at you.  It was rude.  I didn’t–”  She hiccups.  ‘I’ve never seen–”

[skelemissary]

“Shh,” Meleagant whistles through his teeth. “You screamed for quite some time, poor sweet. Set down your things, and have a seat.” His fingers click against the stone beside him where he sits. “Oh.” Abruptly, he rises, and steps away from the stone, as if for fear she might not share a perch with him. He itches inside the orbit of one empty eye, before the bare bones shimmer, and vanish underneath a glamour. It’s a desperately thin face, with full lips and deep-set eyes just the same colour as Pell’s. The lips move, slowly, turning up at the corners, as the lich remembers to blink. Blink. Blink.

[themadgodspeaks]

“What I must? I’m not here on business, me dear, bony friend. Just thought I’d say hello, since ye sounded so lonely. Or confused. Both, perhaps. Perhaps ye need t’take up necromancy, lad! Make friends ‘o yer own!

[skelemissary]

“I am well versed in necromancy. I am all bones, as you can see. What friends I make through sorcery are not my friends. Just parts of me.” Meleagant hangs his head. “My lord, I ask you let me be.”

[notyourlark]

“Very well.”

And she is there, stowing the hand mirror back into the folds of her cloak. The bird seems suddenly more birdlike now, it’s body language relaxed and natural. It does not flee from its new perch.

“It appears you’ve made a fine impression,” she muses, studying him as she draws nearer. “But then, Oghma always takes a keen interest in new acquaintances. I would advise you mind the talons– he sometimes digs in a bit without realizing it, but of course you don’t exactly need to worry over that, do you? Might I know your name, my Lord Bones, if you claim one?”

[skelemissary]

“Lord Bones!” Meleagant’s jaw drops open and a peal of laughter comes out. It continues to hang there, unmoving, as he continues. “That is name enough, good lady; I hope that you agree. I wonder, clever bird, I wonder, what brings you to me?” He cannot squint at the bird, but the pinpricks of light in his otherwise dark sockets train on it. Oghma. How appropriate. Ogh. Ma. Good. He strokes a white hand through whiter feathers.

[priestess-of-kynareth]

The jackdaw doesn’t have time to answer.  A voice rings out, calling for the bird in question: “Pell!”  Diana cries again, not desperately, but with an increasing sense of urgency. His loud croak draws her near, satchel heavy with herbs, and she gasps and stumbles backwards at the sight of the skeleton.  “Oh, no,”  She breathes, one hand against her chest.  “Poor thing.  Pell,”  She extends one hand, fearless, to encourage the jackdaw to step up. “Come here.  Don’t fly off.  Let me take care of this.”  It was unusual for Diana to find corpses out in the wild, but Skyrim was a dangerous place, and she doubted it’d be the last time.  The least she could do was perform a small ceremony. “I’m sorry this happened to you,”  She murmured to the skeleton, touched her fingertips lightly against its skull.  “I’m going to take care of you.  Don’t worry.”

[skelemissary]

Meleagant starts at the touch of her finger against his browbone. “Ah! Mustn’t touch! It echoes, so in here.” He knocks on his skull, himself, as though to prove the point. “Please, have no fear of me, priestess. I am no threat to you, unless you come to still these bones of mine.” He pulls his robes closed again, now that Pell is no longer flitting around inside his ribcage. After all, it wouldn’t do to walk around bare bones and be taken for those angry skeletons that haunted the crypts and cairns of Skyrim. He cocks his head a little, to see if the woman will flee.

[themadgodspeaks]

“Aw.” Sheogorath pouts, giving his best puppy-eyes to him. “Are ye sure? I’ll be good, this time. Best behavior. I promise.”

[skelemissary]

“Ha!” Meleagant snaps his teeth. “Do not dissemble here, mad one. Say what you must, and then be done.”

[notyourlark]

The creature comes when beckoned, flitting to the necromancer’s bony hand. It’s eyes seem to focus on the nonexistent face before it. The head quirks, feathers ruffle, and a moment later a voice like sweet song seems to resonate from several places at once.

“You’ve a comely visage, sir. I should rather like to see it with mine own eyes, if you find yourself disposed to friendly conversation.”

[skelemissary]

“Comely? Me?” Meleagant clacks his teeth together. He looks out at no one, and points to the bird on his hand. “This bird is very kind to me. Come out, then, wizard. Let me see.”

[priestess-of-kynareth]

He perches, little claws grasping tightly around a rib.  He eyes the skeleton, head cocking back and forth.  At last, he utters a phrase:

“I feel power.”

[skelemissary]

“I have power,” Meleagant concedes. He runs a finger over his ribs, listening to the little impacts of bone on bone. “What brings a bird here, at this hour?”

[skelemissary]

priestess-of-kynareth answered your post: I wish that I had softer friends, but ...

“Dead,” The jackdaw utters unhelpfully as he pecks at the skeleton’s ribcage. “Dead.”

More birds! Meleagant is always grinning, but a cant of his head makes the expression somehow warmer. “This is an excellent day for flying things. Come here, small one. Rest your wings.”

[skelemissary]

notyourlark answered your post: I wish that I had softer friends, but ...

There’s no immediate response, only the soft beating of wings, and the red glow of avian eyes. A little white raptor flits up, investigating the lich. There’s no attempt to mask the magic at work; this is a dead thing. It’s master cannot be far away.

Bird! Dead bird. A touch of necromancy could pull the thing out of the sky, but why, when its master surely wants to be discovered to let their construct approach so brazenly. “Come perch here, bird!” cries the lich, holding out a fleshless hand. “I’d have a word!” And then he does work magic, not to break the thing apart, but rather to appeal to their natural-unnatural affinity. Reanimated bone calls reanimated bone, beckoning.

[skelemissary]

themadgodspeaks answered your post: I wish that I had softer friends, but ...

“Why would ye take soft flesh or rigid bone, lad, when ye could have neither and a friend regardless?”

Mistake. Oh, mistake. Meleagant, skeleton that he is, can’t blanch. But if his bones bleached a little bit whiter, it would be no surprise. “I know you. I remember, too, how I was left, when we were through. In pieces. I would dwell alone, in sadness, than consort with you, Prince Madness.”