Peryite Is Shamed Before All

Peryite was dozing on the perch of his father-shedder-brother’s nose (as he always was, for on this spot he could see the whole of the universe) when he heard the sound of many feet marching through the Aurbis. He opened one eyelid and gazed out into the universe and saw a very big crowd in the distance.

“What is this?” he wondered out loud. “Nobody asked me about forming any big ole crowd a’ gatherings.” Suddenly he heard a scuffle behind him and turned around to see the face of his older brother Auri-El, who was running his left hand through the air while checking his reflection in one of the Adjacent Places.

“I think they are coming to see you little brother,” he said as he frowned and looked down to look in his brothers eyes (for Auri-El was way taller than Peryite). “Whatever could it be for?”

The Little Dragon gave a bit of a shrug with his wings and glided downwards from his perch to await the arrival of the incoming crowd. Auri-El came down as well, as did Alkosh (who had been playing with Z’en and Y’ffre, who tagged along) and Alduin (who brought Magnus; for those too were almost inseparable during the Early Days).

Soon the crowd reached the feet of Aka, where the others were waiting, and Peryite was able to see cunning Hircine, devious Boethiah, and too his shock, a very angry looking Jyggalag, who whipped out his finger and pointed at the Little Dragon.

“Peryite is a liar!” he declared in front of all, and all the et’Ada gasped. “He has not been performing his duties exactly as his father-brother Aka decreed.”

Peryite’s eyes went wide and he turned to look at Alduin (because he knew about the lie that was being spoke of), who began to shift in his place.

“Preposterous!” Auri-El said with dignity.

Magnus smiled. “Ooh, you used the new word I came up with just this morning.”

“Shush, Magnus. Anyway, Peryite would never lie!”

Suddenly another face appeared out of the crowd of Spirits and Peryite recognized the Mephala, who stood cradling a slightly fine thread within her hand. No, not a thread. A hair.

“Hey, didn’t I tell you not to have those hairs–” the Little Dragon began, but Mephala quickly began to speak over him so the others couldn’t hear what he was saying.

“Listen to this!” said Mephala with a sneer, and brought up the hair-thread so the other Spirits could see it. “I have proof of what Jyggalag says.”

The hair-thread was actually just recently repaired rather clumsily by Hircine and Vaermina, and so it fell apart rather quickly when Mephala pulled on it to make it talk. The words came out slurred, but were still intelligible enough to understand:

“You… ate the Tome didn’t you, Alduin?”

“I didn’t mean to!”

“How could you?!”

“Blame the hunger our father gave to me. Me and Magnus had just finished leaping around as usual when we both stopped, and he pulled out the tome to write in a new word. And then Z’en came and asked him to teach him a new word, and I suddenly grew horribly hungry and next thing I knew the tome was sliding down my gullet.”

“I can’t believe you did that! Now how will we all learn new things to say? I need to tell Magnus immediately so he’ll know what happened to his tome.”

“Please don’t! He is my greatest friend and I don’t want him to get mad at me. Just tell him the tome got destroyed some different way.”

“Ugh, fine eldest brother. I’ll lie for you because I love to lie.” (Once again, this last part was not actually said by Peryite, but by Mephala, because she really hates the Little Dragon).

The Aurbis went very quiet as the words venerated around the Beginning Place and its Secret Places. Soon all were staring at Peryite and Alduin for what felt like an eternity, until Magnus spoke up in a rather small voice.

“I… I thought…” said the Knowledge Spirit, who fumbled in one of his Not-There-But-There pockets and pulled out the New Tome of New Words. “You said that my Old Tome of New Words had been destroyed, Peryite.”

The Little Dragon suddenly realized that his small lie was having big consequences. He did not want to make things more worse than they already were so he decided to tell the truth.

“I…” he began, but he could not continue. Alduin (who was the reason why Peryite lied in the first place) decided to step in and help out his shed-brother.

“I was the one who originally ate the Old Tome of New Words,” he said quietly. “And I asked Peryite to lie for me because I did not want to make you upset Magnus.”

Magnus went stiff as he heard the words, and his expression grew angry. “So you lied to me? If you had just told me the truth I wouldn’t have minded! But you didn’t! You DIDN’T!” And then Magnus smashed his way through some of the Adjacent Places and hid in his Secret Place for many centuries with his assistants.

“Magnus!” Alduin roared so loudly that some of the Bloodspots exploded and many Secret Places ringed with his voice, but the Spirit did not come back for his feelings had been hurt.

Suddenly there was a great rumbling noise, and the great feet of Aka shifted as the Big Dragon opened his left eye and gazed down on the crowd of Spirits below him.

“Who has been yelling?” the Big Dragon yawned as he moved his limbs for the first time in many years. “Tell me what has happened.”

And it was Y’ffre and Z’en, who were Aka’s most wisest friends, that told him of what happened and the lie that Peryite and Alduin told to Magnus and how Mephala had heard it and revealed it. And this made Aka angry, and he turned to his two shedding-sons.

“For eating the Old Tome of New Words, Alduin,” Aka roared. “And convincing your youngest brother to lie in your stead, I increase your hunger tenfold! At the end of each cycle it will be you that swallows it, and at the beginning of each new one you will burp it back up. And so it shall be, until be is no longer is.”

Alduin cried out in horror, “But father, that is too much for me to bear!”. But Aka with a great rush of his wings made Alduin topple through many of the Secret Places until he crashed into a Nothing-There and laid nursing his wounds in fury.

And then Aka turned his eyes on Peryite, who cringed. “Even though you were not the one who came up with the lie, your fault is even greater than Alduin’s! For you are my Guardian of Order, and that lie is a sprig of Chaos. Because of that, you are no longer to perch in the highest place in the Aurbis anymore, and are cast down to the lowest hollows of the Secret Places. I take way your sphere of order and limit it, and name you the lowest Warden of the lowest et’Ada. And so it shall be, until be is no longer is.”

And Peryite fell through the fabric of Place-Not-Quite-There by the decree of Aka’s words and impacted one of the biggest Secret Places so hard he created a gigantic hole where he landed.

And then Aka turned to face Jyggalag and the other spirits who were still present, and said: “Jyggalag, I now displace Peryite with you. I make you the shadow within his shadow of my shadow, and give you his old duties. And so it shall be, until be is no longer is.”

And with that Aka went back to sleep, for all of that roaring and replacing what he done had made him more tired then when he had been shedding pieces of himself away.

But as Jyggalag went to go do his newfound duties he found himself under swarm by the other et’Ada that he had led there to accost Peryite. For it was Mephala’s secret plan all along to get rid of both Spirits of Order to make the Aurbis an unlawful place, and she and the others whispered in his ear these things. And when Jyggalag discovered he had essentially betrayed his oldest friend his mind corroded and went backwards until his mind itself broke and created a massive hole. And through this hole flowed a new element into the Aurbis: Madness.

This new Madness that was once Jyggalag named himself Sheogorath and hailed the other et’Ada that created him as his father-mothers and joined them in helping make the Aurbis as chaotic as could be. The other Spirits wanted help to stop their brother-sisters from doing such horrible things, but Aka could not be woken back up (at least, not then).

But the words that Aka had said also placed a curse on Sheogorath and every once in awhile the Big Dragon’s words would cause the Madness Spirit to turn back into Jyggalag, who go and repair all the damage his Split-Self-Not-Him had caused, which would make the other Spirits angry. But after a while this anger would give way to glee, as they found new ways to mess things up.

And after a considerable time had passed, they allowed Peryite to join them.