Peryite Decides to Not Participate in Creation

One day during the chaos of the Early Aurbis a new Spirit emerged from a Bloodspot several Non-Days after the emerging of the other et’Ada. He was a special one, or at least considered himself that. As soon as he came into existence he was always asking the other Spirits questions, much to their chagrin. When he realized he that they were getting annoyed by his constant talking, he left to the far edges of the Aurbis and didn’t return for many Non-Days. But when he did, he was changed. No longer did he ask questions; now it seemed that he was the one providing the answers.

At first everyone called him Doom-Drum, because wherever he went his voice reverberated throughout the universe. He himself, however, always preferred the name Lorkhan.

One day Lorkhan traveled far down below into the deepest of the Secret Places, and it was there he found Peryite. The Little Dragon had been exiled to his home for so long his scales had become dull and sickly looking and he spoke now with a gruff tone. However, he was still unusually handsome despite this new appearance, albeit in a craggy sort of way.

“Greetings, Little Dragon.” Lorkhan said when he landed finally on the floor of the huge hole.

Peryite coughed in dark humor. “Nobody calls me that anymore. I prefer the term Taskmaster now.”

“Taskmaster?”

The former Little Dragon nodded his head towards the hundreds of Lesser Spirits that were currently working on the hole, making it bigger and installing thousands of Devious Devices. “I am the Warden of the Weak now. Keeper of those that others deem unfit. And I organize them too. You should see my Wall of Names—”

“That’s all pretty nice,” Lorkhan said, growing a bit uninterested in what Peryite was talking about. “But I have something I would like to talk to you about.”

The Taskmaster raised an eyebrow. “Oh really now? What was it that Alduin used to say? Hock Hack Hock or something like that. Well, speak already blood-cousin.”

“You see Taskmaster,” Lorkhan began, “I think the Aurbis is dull.”

“The universe… is dull?”

“Yes, Peryite. And I want to make it better. I got together with some of the other Spirits a couple of Non-Days ago and we had a meeting where I told them my idea.”

Peryite raised himself from the floor of his pit and uttered in a dangerous tone, “Why wasn’t I invited?”

Lorkhan gulped, a sound he soon discovered echoed quite easily throughout the deep hole. “Well, there was a lot of the Spirits that weren’t invited Taskmaster—”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Peryite sighed as he settled back down and coughed a bunch of Dust-That-Wasn’t-Dust into Lorkhan’s face, who began coughing too. “Well, you certainly have a way with words. You must read the Tome of New Words often. Alas, I find that I cannot grow angry at you because of your grammar. Continue, bloodspot-cousin.”

Lorkhan hesitated, but nodded. “Well…as I was saying bloodspot-brother, but the Aurbis has grown boring. Haven’t you seen it?”

“I’ve been stuck in this pit for many Non-Days, Doom-Drum. I haven’t seen anything since from my time before. All that reaches my ears now is brought to me by my workers.”

“Oh yes… but haven’t you felt it? The weight in the fabric of the universe as it strains from all the new bursting bloodspots? How it threatens to break? But I have a solution, dear blood-brother. We can make our lives stable.”

Peryite yawned and hacked. “How?”

Lorkhan walked closer to the Taskmaster, and spread his multiple-not-there-limbs wide. “If we all work together we can give the Aurbis a better chance at surviving, stop it from breaking. But only if we work together. All of us.”

The former Little Dragon craned his head forward until his face was directly in front of Lorkhan’s. “You want all the Spirits… to work together?”

“Well, yes.”

The Taskmaster reared back and laughed at the open-ceiling of his pit, his voice echoing until he was caught with a fit of coughing so bad he hacked a portion of his hole away. “That was funny Doom-Drum,” he chuckled. “Get us all to work together. That would never happen.”

“It could—”

“No it can’t!” Peryite suddenly snapped. “You know how much order that would take? An improbable amount of order blood-brother! We are all to chaotic for such things to be caught in something like helping each other.”

Lorkhan spread his arms wide as if in a mocking manner, annoying the Taskmaster. “But it has already happened.”

“It has?” Peryite breathed, wearing an expression of fake false concern. “Cough me intrigued. Who actually agreed to this?”

The Doom-Drum moved sideways out of the way as a quartet of Lesser Spirits ran past him holding several quasi-stones to repair the hole in the wall, and scratched off the creeping space fungi growing on his arms.

“Stendarr—”

“Is he still leading others into trouble? Oh, that was so annoying…”

“Julianos—”

“Grr, know it all.”

“Mara—”

“I actually liked her.”

“Dibella—”

“Eh, a bit pushy. Wait, your still reciting names?”

“Trinimac—”

“I don’t think he should really count. Anyone can ask him to do something, and he’ll do it to.”

“And of course your shedding-brothers and Magnus—”

At the mention of those words the Taskmaster went so rigid the non-air broke in several pieces, and the Lesser Spirits groaned as they went to straighten up the pieces underneath Peryite, who stared at Lorkhan with a horrendous (that’s such a big word) green light in his eyes.

“I am sorry Lorkhan, but I must ask you to leave my Secret Place and never return here. Please do not make me repeat this.”

For once in a very short time the Doom Drum was confused. He frowned as he stared at the former Little Dragon. “But I didn’t finish. And you haven’t given me an answer yet.”

“I don’t care Lorkhan,” Peryite said as he got up from the ground to allow his Lesser Spirits to insert new non-air slots. “But what you have said has already convinced me. I will not help you make the universe more…exciting.”

“But Taskmaster, shouldn’t you have gotten over your resentment towards your shedder-siblings by now? To Magnus? To your father-shedder-brother? I must apologize for saying this bloodspot-cousin but this seems petty–”

With a great rush of unfurling wings Peryite rose from the floor of his Secret Place and roared into the face of the Doom-Drum, who stood as silent and still as ever, even though he looked just a tad bit nervous now.

“YOU DARE CALL ME PETTY?!” the Taskmaster yelled so loud that Mephala pulled back the hair-thread she had been using to spy on the conversation between the two bloodspot-cousins and ran off to one of her Secret Places to hide. “I LIVE IN…THIS, BECAUSE OF THEM. I SAT AT THE HIGHEST POINT OF THE AURBIS AND NOW LOOK AT HOW LOW I’VE BEEN FELLED.”

Peryite huffed and puffed, coughing as the anger subsided and he turned to stare back at Lorkhan, who looked slightly bewildered at the yelling dragon. “I apologize for my outburst, Doom-Drum. But I can never work with them again. Partly out of my own anger and partly out of my own shame.”

“Shame?”

“I shirked my duties and helped my elder shedder-brother Alduin lie to Magnus. If I hadn’t done that, he would not be cursed and neither would I. Magnus would not have been so deeply changed, less so to trust. I could not face them again. But there is another reason, one that I only never noticed before you came here.”

“And what is that?”

“I enjoy being what I am now,” the Taskmaster mused. “At first, when I began playing with Sheogorath and the others, I tried to minimize the damage they created. I hoped that my actions would cause Aka to take me back, but he still slept. So I began to pay more attention at our games…and I soon found them favorable. It became fun, us competing at who could break the most stuff. I don’t think I could exit without that anymore.”

Lorkhan shuffled from where he stood, careful at not bumping the Lesser Spirits that maneuvered around him. “And…are you sure you wish not to participate?”

Peryite nodded, and smiled as he looked up at the towering walls that surrounded him. “You say that the universe has grown dull,” he said softly. “If that’s true, then I’ll just make my part of it the more excitable. Farewell, Doom-Drum. I hope things work out for you.” And with that, the Taskmaster lowed himself completely to the ground and closed his eyes.

“Farewell, Peryite.” And so Lorkhan let the Little Dragon sleep, and left the Spirit’s Secret Place and never troubled him about his plans again.