Apologues of At-Hatoor

>#Apologues of At-Hatoor >##Mehra Llevar Sadras, Keeper of the Hall of Wisdom, High Fane, Vivec City

Praise be to Almalexia, Mother Morrowind, whose beauty restores the weak and whose mercy nurtures the dissident! Praise be to Sotha Sil, Clockwork King of the Sea, whose contraptions are built with mystery and repair us through humility and ingenuity! Praise be to Vivec, Lord of the Middle-Air, whose words soften our hearts and steels our armies! Praise be to ALMSIVI, who have been and shall ever be!

As a mere priest, I know not the glories of Lord Vivec gifted to the Archcanon through speech when he goes to the Palace for consul. But I do know his glories as gifted to me in his writings, which lie within the grand library I have sworn to maintain through oaths and binds beyond flesh and magic. In these writings, Lord Vivec teaches us parables and virtues that he himself had to learn in his youth before his ascension, granted to him by benevolent spirits who perceived his holy star from the heavens themselves, and wished for our Lord to surpass them in both wisdom and power. Of these many spirits, three appeal to and help guide the servants of the Guardian of Vvardenfell, their former student, so they may walk the noble path and dedicate themselves fully to the Three; they have bound themselves to Him, for His love for both us and them is eternal.

Amongst the Buoyant Armigers and the Ordinators, the Mortal Arms of the Middle Air, it is Fa-Nuit-Hen the Multiplier of Motions Known, who gifts them with a combative fluidity unmatched in any other but Lord Vivec himself. And amongst the Morag Tong it is Mephala, Black-Handed Anticipation, who sharpens their wits and their blades to aid them in the culling of strife and the arts of subterfuge. But amongst us, we priest and priestesses of the Temple? We are aided by At-Hatoor, the Spirit of Meaning, whose friendship with our Lord knows no end and whose bestowed teachings formed a part of the cornerstone on which Dunmeri culture is built upon.

From the far distant east At-Hatoor came, like a shadow upon the wind, to Vvardenfell during the days the ash was young, House Dwemer was old, and the northern barbarians were growing discontent with snow. His traits were bestial, chiropteran as he was, but he came garbed in garments unknowable to simple intellects and glided upon the wind to where Lord Vivec meditated underneath a parasol trying to understand himself, and witnessed the anger in his heart when the Triune made to squash a scarab that crawled along his knee and bothered his train of thought.

“Lay thy hand still, muse,” the Spirit of Meaning spoke, and Lord Vivec turned to face him, his annoyance a fury seeded in the soil of his soul. “Why smite down a creature who lives are unknown to you, when you can gaze upon it and discover the value of what it does?”

To this the Middle-Air laughed and dismissed the fanged spirit, and took up his spear. “Begone wayward divine, once mortal and erratic, and whose many names obscure his true self and form. For I am Vivec, general of these lands, and I have no time to glimpse at insects when turmoil threatens my culture’s destruction.”

“If thou truly believe this, then I persist thee to ponder upon the scarab, or none shall follow you now.”

With these words did our Lord frown, thinking of what the spirit said, and lifted the scarab lift one finger to his face and stared into it intently. With his first glance, he turned back to At-Hatoor and said:

“Ha, this creature is useless and its existence means nothing!”

At-Hatoor said nothing to this, and Lord Vivec turned back to the scarab and stared again. After his second glance, he turned back once more and said more somberly:

“Within this creature, perhaps there is more than is first noticed, as its life gifts to me the value of eternity.”

At-Hatoor said nothing to this either, and Lord Vivec turned back to the scarab and stared again once more. After his third glance, he turned back one last time and said triumphantly:

“Beautiful is the gift to see significance in something so devoid of individualism, and learn the secrets of the courtship between Sun and Ash.”

“Now there is a proverb,” At-Hatoor said, and the bat-god bowed to the Guardian of Vvardenfell. “And to thee, I bequeath my essence forevermore.”

“Like the Scarab, I shall shed and renew with the turning of the Sun, and gain many shapes all higher than the last,” Vivec spoke. “For within me burns the inner fire that all dead things seek, in order to be reborn past the final night.”

Within this tome, I write the truth and glories of the two lessons given to our Lord by At-Hatoor, that strengthened his resolve and allowed him to better serve our Hortator, who walks no paths and bears no mask, and comes to Resdayn impaled armed with the weapons heathens’ name ‘duty’ and ‘sacrifice’. Embrace these teachings, and you shall count yourself among the true lovers of Morrowind who kneel at the feet of the Triune-Most-Holy.