This deserves a new post simply to thank mALX from the bottom of my heart...THANK YOU!!!...
As you will see, it is
entirely deserved...
Reet, try again...
...
Thank you all for reading my little snippet btw...I appreciate it...
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Back to business in the present...
Previously on KOTNNK...Some things...This is actually set after the conversation in the study with Robert McWylde and Seri Ormandin in New Kvatch (Cause that's all in it's own bubble of time) and before the Akatosh/Kynareth confrontation when she changes Aeirawen...Keep up...It's all Divine dahling...
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And before anyone takes umbrage at anything in here, I remind you that I follow the ancient rules of "Show things now, change it later..." Therefore what appears to come to pass here is not necessarily what will happen...*Points and nods*...
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It is a longie...I appreciate that...But I couldn't split it...Sorry...Probably best all in one go anyways...
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1.11 – Galasafon - (pt.7)3E 438 Julianos' home.Julianos sat in a high-backed chair. It was soft and comfortable, blue coloured with a red diamond patterning to the fabric. It sat near to a roaring fire, which - despite having been lit for countless years - needed no tending, nor fuelling. Though it produced no smoke, the fire sat beneath a chimney - the imitation of a chimney at least - the outside of which was seemingly all oaken panelling, as was the remainder of the walls and door. Bookcases, chests of drawers, a spacious sofa and a table with papers, a bowl of fruit and a vase with flowers on it completed the living room feel of Julianos' study.
On the imitation chimney breast was what appeared to be a painting. It showed a nice picturesque scene of a waterfall and some countryside. However, the scene was moving, the water fell and made ripples in the pool below. As Julianos was distracted, he failed to notice a cow walk up to the pond. Swish its tail and then drink in the pool.
To one side of the chair was a low table, on which was a cup of steaming tea. A perfect cup of tea. It smelled, tasted and felt exactly like tea
should. Julianos distractedly picked up the cup, drank deeply then replaced the cup, as full as it had been.
On the other side of the chair was a small chest of drawers. On top sat a wooden box with a pane of glass on the front side. The box was worked, with rounded edges and shaped motifs in the wood around the glass pane.
Julianos - seemingly a small man in a brown suit, with dark hair that verged on curly, and piercing, intense grey eyes beneath dark eyebrows that hinted at bushy. An average sized nose and a slightly downturned mouth completed the face.
He was reading a book. A book he'd never read before. Which, given that he had all the knowledge and books there had ever been on Nirn, contained here, in his home, made it a rare pleasure in itself.
During the Dawn War, the energies and violence unleashed on both sides was so great that cracks had been rent in the multiverse. The They/Them had closed most of them
out there. But some of the small fissures had been missed, and Julianos' home being as vast as it was, contained a few of them. Some things would appear, he would be told
where, and the small Divine would go and look with
genuine excitement. Sometimes it was nothing more than a fruit, sometimes more. Julianos had once had to entice a cow to follow to him to the Paradise room. A thought which still amused him when it passed through his vast and ancient memory.
The book he was reading had appeared in the room just across from this one, a couple of - what passed for - days ago.
"My travels with an Adventuresome Nord - A Journal, by Darnand Penoit." It declared itself to be. And Julianos was genuinely amused by it. He laughed regularly.
As he did now.
"Hah! Nord, must you fling projectiles?!!...Hah!!...Priceless."
Julianos took another drink of his tea.
A chime sounded and the glass panel on the wooden box lit up blue. A scrawl appeared on the glass and Julianos sighed, closed the book, placed it down next to the teacup and massaged his eyelids.
Turning to read what was on the screen, a concerned frown darkened his face. "Very well, on my way." He said.
He stood up, pulled his waistcoat down and flattened his jacket.
He turned towards the door, took a step, then stopped. He took the step backwards and reached down. He took another drink of tea, and
then he left the room.
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The corridor outside was huge. It retreated into deep distance in both directions, and it would take several steps to reach the doors on the opposite side from where Julianos currently stood. The Aedra knew there were also many branches to the corridor, branches that were sometimes not seen until you were standing next to them. The blue carpeted floor had yet more red diamond patterning to it, but these were arranged so that they also made
larger diamonds, running down the corridor in both directions.
Vast and ancient. Julianos' home was alive in a way. Certainly the sounds that could sometimes be almost heard made it seem like it was. He stood and listened. On the very edge of hearing were conversations, snatches of choral work, birdsong and more.
A chime rang and a sound like a cross between a rumble, running a sword over stone and singing, all heard while under water issued forth into the corridor.
Julianos sighed. "
Yes, Arrai...I shall stop dawdling
presently."
The strongest Aedra closed his eyes, put his hand to the wall and started walking left. The half-heard sounds seeming like a song that was caught briefly, loved and then forgotten. Julianos opened his eyes and looked at the panelling on the wall. He looked at and followed the lines of graining. These weren't
genuine trees that had been felled for the panels - the Divine
knew that - but his house kept adding these things and he was always astounded at the beauty it produced.
Another chime, another speech rumble.
Julianos closed his eyes and shook his head.
Sighing deeply, he picked up his pace and walked down the middle of the corridor.
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There had been a rush to create life, no matter how big or small, back in the days before the Dawn War. Many beautiful and wonderful species had been made, only to fall to the grotesque and evil. Wonders strode the lands. But since Lorkhan's removal, no-one had really dared, and life had evolved rather than been moulded.
One of these wonders, Kynareth and Lorkhan's Yskraich, had recently re-appeared in the world. "Kynareth's Mistake" their epithet. One of the most successful species ever.
Made uncountable years before the War, they had survived until Akatosh grew weary and forced Kynareth to help him create the Dragons.
It wasn't until these too became a problem that they turned to Julianos for help.
In an age before the Dawn War, Julianos had watched everyone's work be for naught as one or other's creations fell. So he decided that if he were to create something, they would be invincible and ageless. Adaptable and intelligent. Strong and determined. Unbeatable. He would only need
one if he made it right.
He watched.
He planned.
He travelled to the furthest reaches of his home and found the ingredients.
A ten foot tall white skeletal frame with dark blue/grey armour on torso, hands and feet. Its head, an oversized dark skull with a ridge on top. Three - what would later be called - Super-Welkynd stones suggested eyes and a mouth in an immobile face, and one smaller one in the front of the ridge atop its head.
Myrrl his name was.
Julianos turned him loose on Nirn and was overjoyed to watch him tear a swathe through the worst of the abominations. And soon, Myrrl was known to
all creatures.
Julianos was proud of his son. The Androform had exceeded all that Julianos had hoped for when he'd created the
only one he'd need.
So Julianos had watched Myrrl proudly for a while.
And then went and made two more.
Arrai and Neerlah.
Despite putting the same ingredients together in the same way, the two sisters were different. For a start, they were sisters.
Julianos had been stunned that when the spark had been added to Arrai, the white living marble-esque element that had built the frame had taken on a faint rose colour, and upon sitting up it was obvious that a female spirit had rooted in
this Androform.
Julianos was nevertheless overjoyed to have a daughter. So it was with a degree of uncertainty that Neerlah was woken. A different hue, but again, another daughter.
Not that they were any less than Myrrl. They took on and defeated everything, including the worst, and tore them to shreds.
When the Dawn War started, the Androforms had appeared before the two Divines. Julianos and Akatosh had explained all of what occurred between the Gods to them.
The Androforms had listened patiently. They had looked to each other in silent communication. Myrrl turned back and simply said -
"Well Father, shall we have at them?"
And so the Dawn War was won.
The Androforms able to stop Gods? Another father could not be as proud. And then
one made The
Creators pause?
All of them brilliant.
All of them the same.
All of them as different to each other in actuality as the same in appearance.
All of them as mad as a box of cats.
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Julianos walked into an immense, domed cathedral-like room. An almost painful blue glow came from the centre of it. He walked along the white marble floor towards it, the ghosts of conversations and whale-song seemed to accompany him through the room.
He reached a glass topped table near to a railing that stopped anyone falling down into the depths of the room. Anyone being him and, once an age, Akatosh.
The point he stood at was halfway from either the giant room's floor or beginning of dome. He looked out into the void. A giant multi-faceted shining brilliant-blue crystal recessed into each of the four white sides produced a giant, lazily turning star field.
Innumerable shining stars went past slowly. Some singly, some dancing about each other in pairs, some in clusters of different sized stars, bound together in an ancient and powerful relationship. All of them had a small scrawl of ever changing numbers and text next to them.
Julianos had spent much time watching this map, every time with awe, watching as stars died, only to be replaced in other areas by new ones. He'd seen stars displaced by a chance encounter in one section weave through countless dangers and distractions, and arrive at another part of the map, be caught by another star and start the ancient dance, more stars to be created.
With a command he could have lines describing the relationship between all the stars. He could ask to have the eventual fate of them predicted. He could have all the lesser stars mapped onto this one, until it was one giant almost perfect sphere of blue stars. He could have them watch only
one star.
A large collection of multi-coloured giants dominated one part of the map in a super-cluster. He could see - even without the relationship lines - that they were on a collision course with another cluster.
Outside and around the mostly blue stars were giants. With complex orbits they stayed above and away from the star-field, only occasionally did they fall into the morass, for unfathomable reasons.
And above even
them stood the super-giants. Intensely burning with colours that matched those of the multi-coloured cluster in the Nirn-Sphere.
This was the map of Nirn's
life.
---------------------------------
Julianos felt a presence at his shoulder and looked backwards and up.
"Arrai."
"Father." The Androform replied in her strange grating speech.
"You well?"
"Always, thank you."
"You had something to show me?"
"Yes, there was an incursion. Like the previous spike. But this time there was something else."
"Wait. An
incursion?" Julianos worriedly looked up at Arrai.
"Yes."
"The Allfire?" The Divine turned his head slowly and looked at the star-field.
"Imperfect."
Julianos closed his eyes and sighed. He opened his eyes and looked down at the floor. "Show me." He said.
"Which?"
"What?"
"Show you which?"
Julianos turned around and looked at Arrai with his eyebrows raised.
"Very well.
"It's impossible at this point to verify which individual portion is deficient. I would need both Neerlah
and Myrrl to sift through the signal. Though it seems that the keyhole - at least - is
this one."
The star-field zoomed in on one star.
"
This was the source of the incursion."
Julianos looked down at the glass topped table and frowned at the scrawl that appeared there.
"He's one of the Knights." He said, "One of Kynareth's." He added distractedly. "Do we have-"
"Mazken hai warrant sii..." Blared out across the room.
"Mazken?..Dibella's...We haven't seen them for an age." Julianos turned to say to Arrai.
"Yes, I know. But there is something else." Arrai manipulated the Nirn-sphere until it showed moving pictures. They showed a long haired Mazken - a Dark Seducer - cleaving her way through a group of bandits.
Julianos winced and turned his head to one side slightly as if to turn away, but keeping an eye on the proceedings, eyebrows steepled with the wince.
Behind the Mazken, on a rocky outcrop, the Knight stood up and brushed himself off.
"Look here." Arrai said and pointed to the table.
Julianos frowned at the numbers, "Dear...Us..."
"No, I don't think
dear is the right word.
"This is the reading that I took at the time."
"Show me-"
The star-field was back with only two stars. One bright green star and a solid line connecting it to a purple giant star.
Julianos seethed. "
HIM?!" Julianos swore. Then he said, "I thought he'd been removed not that long ago?"
"Yes, he had. Seemingly. I never noticed his return. He would have had to have
Divine help to return to his...State."
"Show me the rest of them."
"Which?"
"Arrai..."
The star-field changed again until all it showed was the outer orbiting giants and the super-luminous super-giants beyond them.
Julianos picked out the various Divines. His luminous blue one, Akatosh's deep red, The newly restored Septim's a lighter red, as befits one of Akatosh's former champions. The three orbited nearby each other. Mara's Copper star circled Nirn alone. Kynareth's green and Zenithar's brown orbiting each other. Arkay, Dibella and Stendarr's trio orbited together.
As they ever did, Julianos thought.
"Show me the tie-lines?" The Aedra asked The Androform.
A solid line passed from Julianos to Akatosh and a more faint line to Septim, whereas Akatosh to Septim was as solid as to him. That was good enough for Julianos.
Septim had a strong line to the Commander on Nirn.
"This is going to get complicated."
Julianos sighed and concentrated, then followed lines, strong and faint, up, down, sideways.
Finally, he saw what he was looking for and frowned deeply.
"Arrai, do you know where Neerlah is?"
"Yes."
A pause.
"Then where?"
"Masser."
Julianos closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Of
course she is." He shook his head, "Can you contact her for me? I need you both to link."
There was a brief moment and then "Father."
"Neerlah." Julianos smiled. "How are you?"
"Well.
"How can I help father?"
"Firstly, can you tell me why you're on Masser?"
"It is quiet?"
Which was an answer Julianos found it difficult to find fault with, to which he replied, "Just be careful would you?"
"Always."
"I need you both to link. We need to find out the most likely endpoint for this. Do you agree?"
There was a pause as Arrai stood staring slightly upwards, then she said, "Done."
Julianos stood entranced as the star-field rapidly changed with each possible future evaluated and discarded. Every half second, the star-field snapped back to the original configuration. But even at speed, Julianos could see that the likely end to every future was the same.
Abruptly, the changing stopped and the Nirn-Sphere turned with markedly less stars on it. And in some places, a different coloured stars dominated. Blood red stars. Daedra.
The Daedric Prince division was gone. No stars turned in that orbit.
It was the Divine sphere that made Julianos' jaw drop. A look of surprise turned quickly to a determined frown and finally to seething, boiling rage.
Julianos turned on his heel and left the room.
-------------------------------------------
The door opened and Julianos walked through with Akatosh in tow.
"...And then
he said...Hah!...Nord
must you fling projectiles at me?!..Ha-haaa!!" Said Julianos as he walked forward towards the table.
Akatosh just grinned.
"Arrai!" he said to the Androform.
Arrai spoke her unintelligible language, but the words appeared - superimposed - on the Nirn-Sphere.
"Lord Akatosh, it is good to see you again." And she bowed her head slightly.
"And you." Akatosh replied.
"Neerlah is on
Masser apparently." Julianos said with eyebrows raised. "As you do."
Akatosh's face made it obvious he was impressed.
"Arrai, would you run through the sequence for Akatosh?"
The stars changed, moving and displaying to an increasingly angry Akatosh , the future most likely.
Of the original Divines' stars, all that remained were Kynareth, Arkay and Stendarr. But joining them were three of the Daedric Princes' stars.
"Why would they do this
now? And
how fercryingoutloud? " he asked.
The stars resolved into the separate dominating forces which ended with the sphere disappearing as a patch of sky was focussed on. Two circles appeared around two areas with names on.
"Lorkhan and Kyralee? They're
back?" asked Akatosh.
"No. But they're influence
is. And what they represent."
"Which is?"
"The others thought they were right, Lorkhan told them they
were right, and
we stood in their way. Us and Kyralee. We told them they couldn't have it. Lorkhan's murder of his sister and then Lorkhan's removal because of it must have created a burning hatred for everyone and everything. They loathed Lorkhan for the murder, but hated
us because without Lorkhan, they weren't strong enough." Julianos shrugged. "Arkay wanted power? Kynareth wanted power?" Julianos turned away. "Whatever it is, we need to stop it."
"Father." The word appearing on the screen as well as spoken.
"Yes Neerlah."
"
This star is the balance. And
this point in time is the tipping point." She said changing the Sphere remotely through Arrai. "All that needs done is removal of this star at this time and all changes again. But he
has to be removed for it to change."
"And how the hells do we do
that?" Akatosh asked. "The They/Them would stop...Them...Neerlah, why don't The They/Them stop all of it?"
There was a pause and Neerlah replied, "The house says The They/Them are looking the other way at the moment."
"The
house?"
"Yes."
"
Which house?"
"This one." Julianos said with a smile.
Akatosh sighed and shook his head. "What now?"
"We wait and see...And watch our backs." Julianos looked up at Akatosh, "Warn Septim. And
make him wait will you? He wasn't known for his patience."
"Father."
"Yes Arrai."
"The Knight portal? He will not survive long enough without help."
"What do you suggest?"
A name appeared on the Sphere.
Myrrl.
Julianos grinned. "Of course."
"Where's he?" asked Akatosh looking about.
"Aldmeris." Replied Arrai.
"HAH! Of
course he is." Said Julianos. "Can you contact him for me?"
There was a pause. "He is a little occupied at the moment, but he will be here as soon as he can." Said Neerlah.
"
There?"
"Oh...Yes...I told Arrai...I have found something up here."
The Nirn-Sphere disappeared and was replaced by a moving picture of a city within a crater. Giant towers, spires, walls and the like were visible for miles. Figures and lines depicting angles to smaller craters through the line of broken and toppled towers showed that the city was extremely old. But Neerlah followed that with. "There is power.
Much power."
Akatosh raised his eyebrows, grinned and looked at Julianos. He nodded his head sideways towards the picture.
"Oh
yes." Was the smiling reply.
"Arrai." Akatosh nodded.
"Lord Akatosh." Arrai bowed.
Julianos put his hand on Arrai's arm and said "Thank you. Love you. See you later."
Arrai nodded. "I love you too father."
The Divines left.
"Take care Neerlah. Love to Myrrl."
"Will do. Arrai." With that, Neerlah broke the connection.
Arrai changed the picture back to the present Nirn-Sphere and watched.
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)
...Thank you...
) – West of Fort Freedom.
Just couldn't find the words....
...(Robert knows what is coming and is worried mALX will hate Robert... 
The detail and creativity here made me go make my own tea and read it again just to savor. 
By a sword.