Ch.82

[Sundas, 4th Frost Fall, 4E: 221]

I woke up alone, disappointed to be the last to wake up again. Waking up first meant I could enjoy the snuggles before the others got up. I rolled to my feet and stretched before climbing out of the Haven Box. Penny wasn’t in bed either. Yikes. I must’ve really slept in. I remember Penny is a heavy sleeper.

The first thing that I realized was wrong was the dwarven metal worked into nearly every piece of furniture and the bedroom door. I left and found the homey wooden picture frames were likewise the mystical brassy metal. “Rarity? Did you do something to the house?” I asked worriedly before I entered the living room and froze.

Instead of Rarity or any other members of the household, I saw a tall bearded elf gaping at me in shock with a mug of hot coffee almost at his lips. Then he shouted something in a language I didn’t understand. What I did understand was the threat when he threw the hot liquid at me and raised his hands with Destruction magic in his palms and a sneer only ruined by the flush of his cheeks.

I ducked under the flying metal mug, ignored the scalding hot coffee when it splashed on me, then I let him hit me with his fire magic and I felt much better as I devoured the magicka of his spells. “Do you treat all the ladies like this?” I huffed and looked around. None of this was Rarity’s. “Excuse me, what is going on? This is Rarity’s house.”

The tall bearded mer was now wary instead of hostile, but he didn’t respond. He muttered to himself in that odd language as he stroked that epic black braided and banded beard. Dude, that beard belongs on a dwarf from Lord of the Ring-oh no! He is a Dwarf! This world’s elf version of them at least! Like Yagrum Bagarn!

“Excuse me! Do you speak Cyrodilic?! I need to know: what is happening?! When I went to sleep, this was my fiance’s house!” I demanded and felt horror. Where are they?! Where are my sister, my fiances, my children that I just fucking got back?!

“Not well. Third language.” The mer answered haltingly as he summoned his thrown mug with telekinesis and bowed slightly. “Apologies. My home. Also yours?” He asked and I sighed with a nod. “Hm…” He stroked his beard and gestured for me to sit at the table, that if it didn’t have dwarven metal worked into fancy carvings on it, it would be a shoe-in for Rarity’s dining table.

“Look. Obviously something really spooky is going on. You dwarves-.” He scrunched his aquiline nose at that word and I held up my hands defensively. “Sorry! Dwarves are awesome, even if your people aren’t short, stout and drink enough ale to kill five humans on the regular.”

“Dwarf is a rude word. Used to demean the height challenged.” Dude, is this seriously your third language? You’re picking it back up fast. “Regardless, you describe an inconsistency of reality.” Okay, are you shitting me? “In your reality, this is your home. In my reality, this is my home. That you have not changed if I am the later permutation of reality means you are a Constant.” Oof, dude, now you’re losing me and I haven’t even gotten around to trying to explain!

“Uh...so this is a Dragon Break?” I asked in uncertainty and he shrugged with a nod.

“Perhaps. Or perhaps you are simply from an alternate dimension with similar third dimensions.” Okay, please stop that. “Either way, you are an intriguing woman. Not just because you’re practically naked.” He smirked and I huffed with my arms crossed over my naughty nightie covered basketball boobs.

“Look, can you tell me if you know these people by name? Twilight Sparkle, Rarity Belle, Shade, Zaeza, Neethsi Nagnaresh-.” He gasped and nodded.

“Yes, she is our matron goddess!” The mer declared eagerly.

Bwuh~?!

📜

“Oh my fucking god, who the fuck brought the Dwemer back?!” Runner could not believe what she was seeing right now. Dwemer, alive and all over the planet! The bridge of her flagship was buzzing with everyone trying to make sense of all this.

“Where did the Time Anomaly come from?” One of the Night Sentinels called out to the others for an answer.

“Morrowind’s volcano!” Another replied as he managed to get a lock on the location.

“Is there anyone that has survived the event?” Runner questioned as she worried for her family and her people. They were on the planet when it happened and she couldn’t imagine living without them!

“Wait, I see Lady Meen-Rei in Lilmoth!” Thank god! Some good news to work with.

“Get a shuttle ready, I want strike teams at the ready in case the Dwemer might attack us first. No one fires a shot until I say so! Continue on the search!” Runner was going to get her family back, one way or another.

📜

“Who fucked with time?” Eris seethed as she twitched and snarled, making her brother/sisters back away from her. Eris rarely got pissed off, so seeing her so vexed that she was on par with Slayer was...not fun. “I’m finding them.”

“Sis, that’s not a goo-.” Hermais whined before Eris turned on her with such a look of rage it was like she was about to set the world on fire. Dongo quickly opened a portal for Eris to walk through. “Dongo! Her powers are going to be limited! She’s at risk if she goes to a time break!”

“You saw how she was. I fear more for whoever broke time than her getting harmed. It's also why we’re going too. Even if we’re weaker in an altered time or space area, you are not.” Hermais whimpered as Dongo picked her up like a princess and walked through the portal.

📜

I wandered through the streets of Lilmoth in my adventuring armor, dazed at the similarities and differences. All places where iron was usually used was replaced with Dwarven Metal or Ardentine as it has become known in this odd reality. This was because Ardentine was easily synthesized through Dwemer alchemy instead of having to be entirely dug up from the Earthbones like other metals. No fucking wonder the Dwemer used it for everything!

“What in Oblivion happened?” I questioned myself while watching faces both completely new and upsettingly familiar pass me in the street. Dar-Jah for example. I saw him, but he didn’t recognize me at all. He was with an argonian gal and she was hanging off him as if she was his girlfriend! That can’t be right! Pinkie is his marefriend! What happened to everyone~?!

Even going to the University didn’t do anything to alleviate my fears. Harmony was still standing, glinting brightly, but there were no ponies! It was like someone just erased them from existence! There were diamond dogs in sun hats, griffins in the sky, even bird-people called hippogriffs, but the ponies were gone!

“Harmony. Please, please tell me you remember me?” I pleaded up at the Crystal Tower’s branches. I was answered by a blinding light and found myself standing on the grassy hill with another Harmony shading me from the bright sun. “Harmony?”

“Mother.” I shuddered in a mixture of relief and despair as the reindeer antlered argonian personification of Harmony appeared and hugged me tightly. “Of course I remember you. I am a Tower, a Constant in Time, so long as I stand.”

“What happened? Where is everyone?” I asked my surrogate daughter as she rocked me back and forth while lowering us to sit on a blanket on the grass.

“Time ceased to be linear for a brief moment. Akatosh’s providence was shattered, rearranged and then remodeled into a new shape. Every little piece is still here, but so many more pieces have been added that they all got misplaced.” Harmony looked in a direction and I looked too.

The endless plain of grass turned to sea, then the sea flew beneath us at speed until another land appeared on the horizon. “Where is that?”

“Equestria. The ponies have returned to their ancestral home, even if other species from there have remained in Tamriel.” Harmony then patted my stomach. “As for these ones? They and your sister have been cast into Oblivion, since they are not of this realm and are not Constants like you are. However, don’t worry. Your allies from beyond are unaffected due to your other allies from beyond.”

“What other allies?”

📜

“How are your fishy sticks?!” Sheogorath eagerly questioned his esteemed guests, who were mostly eating happily at his overly long dining table.

“It’d be more enjoyable if-.”

“Clean cup! Move down!” Sheogorath declared and everyone quickly stood to go down a seat to the left as the goblets magically refilled anyway and their meals followed.

“If you’d stop doing that!” Brennie snarled angrily at having her free will overridden by the whims of this jackass, even if only temporarily. Why the ever-loving fuck were they in his realm?! If this was Mundus or anywhere else, she’d be ripping out his spine and beating him to death with it!

“Aw, but then it wouldn’t be a very good reference, would it? Besides, I need you to be here where you won’t end up erased or lost in the planes. The Shivering Isles are much safer, if not saner, than being jumbled up with some ancient horror because someone decided to stab Akatosh in the kidneys and perform some dialysis.” Sheo said as he drank his tea with his ear.

“I should’ve taken the deal.” Brennie sighed as she gave up trying to resist.

“Oh, come now, this is much better than becoming a True Divine of our hodgepodge little stage play, wouldn’t you say? You’d have become the Divine of Fierce Glory! You would have rivaled Talos and Dibella in matters of War, Beauty and Fertility. Doesn’t that sound dreadful?!” Sheogorath asked with aghast, as if the very idea was the absolute worst possible thing~!

“No, I don’t mean that Sheo, but look at Neethsi. She didn’t want to become a Divine and yet it happened. What are my chances?” Brennie huffed and Sheogorath chuckled darkly.

“Ah, you misunderstand. She isn’t a Divine. Oh, not at all. She’s too important to be one of those ineffectual never-there's.” Sheo smirked with an amused gleam to his eye.

“Sheo, you already know me; my family and I break shit. All of it. We would’ve stuck out like sore thumbs in this world’s pantheon because we do things differently.” Brennie stated as she drank from her cup of coffee. She wasn’t much of a tea person.

“Yes, yes. DOOM, destruction, the Ruin of all through War, Blood and the End.” Sheo suddenly became disturbingly serious. “Which is why you are here. You would have replaced Alduin, by your own desire or not. You are a guest here. Be sure you don’t set your roots too deep unless you want to weather the very Earthbones under the feet of all the mortals.”

“Besides, this is much better, right kids?” Sanguine asked Meen-Rei’s children from where he was showing them coin and card tricks. “You can be a Living Goddess all you feel like, but don’t become a Divine unless you want the Godhead to finally die and take everything here with it.”

“Besides, if you do that, I don’t think Fama Palu would be very happy with you.” Daniel, the most precious of the four green-furred fox-angels meekly said and Brennie felt her frustration thaw a bit. Damn it, she always did love children. At least they helped temper her constant fury.

“Sweetie, your fama and I are always at odds with one another, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get along and move on. Speaking of sisters, where is Runner heading towards?” If Brennie knew her sister, she must be working her way around this mess and making the best of a worse situation.

“Clean cup! Move down~!”

Sonuva-!

📜

“What have you found, girl?” A robotic voice questioned encouragingly of the massive ram-like beast. The pink crystals in her back shined angrily as she sniffed the air. “Do you have the heretic’s scent?”

The Time Beast roared as it warped time around it to rush after the scent. The raggedly garbed figure rushed after her as it scanned the jungle of mushrooms around them that their hunt for the Heart of Lorkhan led them to.

It wasn’t in the volcano. Whoever broke time took it away and shut down the Red Tower. Now their quarry was on the move. If only the giant mushroom forest that overtook Vvardenfell after the Dragon Break wasn’t so thickly grown. Time and again they’d had to go around or through whole sections of the giant continuous fungus that was heavily inhabited by fauna and dunmer.

Thankfully Bleatress could also make travel quicker by warping time around her to a point where giant fuck-off mushrooms weren’t in the way, but only for brief moments without risking their existence in the current timeline. However, FL4K was one of the greatest hunters and trackers in Eris’s employ from the Displacement Bureau, they would not fail regardless of the obstacles.

📜

“This is...wrong.” Runner waved her hand through someone that just phased through her, as if she didn’t exist. The same went for her soldiers and all their technology. It was as if everything around them was a hologram, a simulation. A Dream. “What’s going on here?”

“It must be that Time Anomaly. It did more than just change events, meaning we can’t exist where we don’t belong.” One of her guards said as things kept moving on. “That said, I have reports saying that the Heart of Lorkhan is no longer within the volcano.”

“Who could’ve...no, it couldn’t be.” Runner muttered to herself as she paced around. “Someone knew how to use the heart, but he disappeared with the rest of the Dwemer when he first struck it, but if it really is him, how did he pull it off?”

“Who?” The Guard questioned her Queen.

“No! It was his tools! Someone has his tools to do the deed, but that would mean there was another Dwemer that survived the event.” Runner pace quickened as she tried to figure out what to do. “Kagrenac was who I thought was the culprit, but that would be too obvious. He was the one who created the tools, though it would seem someone has them in their possession.”

“You have to admit, the Dwemer have made things look more scenic with their inventions. Nobody is giving each other a hard time, no racism or supremacy. They’re all just living out their lives.” Another of her Guard spoke up as the people moved about their business.

“Yeah, you’re right.” Runner admitted before an idea struck her. “Wait a minute, time…that’s it! There’s a way around this!” She screamed in excitement and ran circles around her strike teams, who were left baffled by this.

“Um, care to elaborate, your highness?” The Guard asked in confusion, wondering why she was happy all of a sudden.

“Time! It’s all about time itself! We can anchor ourselves to this Timeline in order to interact with it!” Runner explained, which made sense now and they have the means to do so. “That’s right, the God Key is the answer! All I need to do is re-calibrate it, have it siphon the energy of this Timeline, distribute it to all of us and bam! We’re back in business!”

“That’s good and all, but that can’t be the only thing you have in mind.” The female Chaser asked, knowing that there was more to this crazy plan of hers.

“You’re right about that, it’s only half of the solution. That’s why as soon as we manifest within this Reality, we’re going to ask the Dwemer for their help. Come on, let’s go home and get everything ready.” It was risky, but it had to be done. However, this worst case scenario has opened up an opportunity for them to delve in. It might upset Eris, but it must be done.

📜

This was distinctly uncomfortable. “Another offering, our goddess.” Neethsi’s Dwemer high priestess kowtowed and provided yet another aquamarine statuette of her that was disturbingly accurate in how it portrayed her body, in all forms. It had her female form, male form, her new anthro dragon serpent beast form and her full massive giant serpent form in dramatic poses.

To be fair, it was awesome, she was going to keep it, but this was the tenth offering just today! That aside, Neethsi was still in shock. She remembered a reality similar, yet entirely unlike this one. One where she was still the Goddess of the Sea and Sky, but she shied away from her providence and did not give her worshipers any attention due to how uncomfortable it was.

In that reality, she’d also found Love. Something that this new reality painfully lacked. It was this drastic, horrible fact that had caused her to go through the motions of the day in melancholy. This was not something she could deny, for when she checked her magic storage satchel for the dynamo cores containing the animuses of the two atronach argonians she was going to marry, she found them.

This actually worsened her melancholy, because now, her lovers were out there in the world and she had no clue where to even begin searching along with the crippling despair of loss. “My Lady.” Neethsi looked up at her high priestess, a beautiful fair-skinned and dark haired elf who personified her race’s features. “I can tell this all exhausts you. Perhaps you would like to go for a dive?”

“Yes, that does sound lovely.” Neethsi sighed before she stood, the pommel of her trident clanking on the stone floor of her temple before she headed directly for the end of her elevated platform, where it would be a simple jump to reach the waters below. She could fly to reach the water if she wanted, this design was mostly for her followers who wanted to go diving off.

Before she could jump, she gasped at the sight of a blood-red argonian who breached the water and looked up at her hopefully. Neethsi dove off the edge and tackled the woman, mashing lips with her as they sank through the clean water of the Inner Sea.

She was so happy that she didn’t realize when she became her truest form and was wrapped protectively around her beloved future wife or that said beloved had become her larger crocodilian form to hug her noodly body better.

Neethsi didn’t care how or why at the moment. Just that her dear Meen-Rei was here was enough to drive away most of the despair in her heart. She could ask about the others later.

Next Chapter: Ch.83 Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 16 Minutes