as daedra
The Daedra
he Daedra are not of this world, and are jealous of our walks here, even as they laugh at our inanities.
²The Daedra are teachers and testers, but never masters. Only a fool does what a Daedra desires without consideration.
³The bones of the earth are dead and can only whisper their secrets. The Daedra scream theirs, and can change the course of the world with their hands, while the Aedra must plead for mortal interference. ⁴That is their power, but beware your own arrogance if you choose to claim it as your own for a time.
⁵Mephala is the artist, the weaver of dance and death. ⁶Her sex is the act of creation but the destruction of will; her murder the bringer of fear, but the possibility of night. ⁷There is birth in every death, death in every birth, and breathtaking beauty in both. ⁸Would you see only ashes and death here, in our home? Or the splendor of the morning’s kiss on the mushroom’s cap, the twisting colors of an active foyada? ⁹Lava ravages the land; lava washes the land clean. The new growth is a brighter green, but will attract more locusts to prey on the land. ¹⁰Which would you see? Mephala reminds us that there is duality in all, and to hold contentment where we can. ¹¹Dance lightly on the ground else it will shift, but breathe in deep and fast, else you will never know the joy that comes with our petty existence.
¹²Boethiah is the warrior, fierce, proud, and cunning. ¹³He reminds us to keep discipline and never stop fighting, even in seeming defeat. ¹⁴If you cannot cross the foyada, go around it, go along it, wait a day and build one’s own bridge, but never to let it remain your obstacle. ¹⁵To surrender fully is the coward’s way out, but only the false warrior mistakes laying down one’s arms as surrender. ¹⁶In the face of a wicked enemy, there are no codes of honor beyond what a mer can do, and what a mer can’t. ¹⁷But always honor the enemy for the strength they gift you, like the seared heart of a bull guar. We are greater than we know when pushed to the brink by violence. ¹⁸The deaths of many raise up the one to lead. Boethiah knows this, and chases the soles of our feet with his cinders.
¹⁹Azura is the mystery, the space between waking and sleeping. ²⁰She governs transitions, from day to night, from the wet season to the dry, from babe to full-grown. ²¹All change needs guidance, and her smile is the proud tusks of the kagouti, as she jostles and guides her enemy to their own undoing, or her mates to their painful awakening. ²²A flute never stays on one quaver, but sways back and forth like a woman in dance. When you are blind, you can hear this best, and that is why she would take your eyes. ²³Azura’s realm is grace and the balance that goes with it.
²⁴Malacath is the warning, the fallen. ²⁵What is a mer with no tribe, no ancestors? Exile is not in the deed but in the heart. ²⁶Cleave to your ancestors, but don’t forget our heritage, the path of the wayward and the doubter. Ideals are only pillars waiting to be cast down. ²⁷The rigid who do not look beneath the surface of their thoughts are eaten by the darkness that lies below, and he is our proof of this lesson. ²⁸To see this malcontent hunter, you must keep your eyes open, but your heart stern.
²⁹Mehrunes Dagon is the sculptor of the earth. ³⁰When the winds blow and waves crash, when the Mountain erupts, he is behind these things. We are of the earth and weak, and flee before him. ³¹But remember this: as bones are re-broken to be set anew, as leeches clean a wound of blood and infectant by their greed, so are we able to make an art of it and swallow our past mistakes. ³²The lava burns away the chaff to make way for new grazing. He is a sister to Mephala in this way, the brushstroke to her genius.
³³Molag Bal is the wanton fertility, the twister of authority, love, and childbearing. ³⁴As a maggot devours the offal of our kills, in his proper place he will eat of our discards. But as a maggot loose in the meat, he will foul our careful labors. ³⁵His is the true power behind the Missing God’s decrees, and though the wise will feel sorrow for the sufferers of his deceit, they will also recognize the untruths this pain has given seed to. ³⁶Molag Bal’s lesson is instead in the whisper of the ashkhan’s wife before he would charge into his exploits; ³⁷though she may be of weaker arm than her warrior husband, her discretion and sympathies guide her tribe as much as the control and vigors of her partner, and those who corrupt either are ceded to Molag’s mercy.
³⁸Sheogorath is the slower blight, eater of order, punching holes of chaos into the prideful veneers of mer. ³⁹Like a rabid nix-hound, he will blunder and bite at mer on the way. Eat of his flesh and you share of this madness, so set him loose well away from the tribes. ⁴⁰Should he come sniffing around, coolly show him your manners as befitting an honored guest, but do not let him in.