The sky is the greatest kind of illusion

Organizing a proper wedding is no small affair even on Earth. In Tamriel, without the benefit of instant communications, instant transport and year-round amenities, it requires a good deal more planning. Particularly when it comes to guests who live any distance away. Roads and seaways alike are dangerous. Bandits prowl the land routes. Inclement weather closes mountain passes and keeps ships in their berths. Everything, above all, takes time.

With spring in full flight, snows melting and roads well and truly open, the excuses for delays in invitation replies and guest arrivals are both running out. Mostly this hasn’t been an issue. The arcane side of their guest list have their own ways of sending word, and the military side have first call on the Imperial courier network. Everyone who matters is accounted for. Except, that is, for one…

In the library of the Bruma house, Stratos leans on a desk covered in papers and rubs his eyes. Another day, another absence of word. Marcella did warn him that her mother would be nigh-impossible to contact. She was almost too resigned to the fact to be grumpy about it. But Stratos had thought his connections would get him where his cousin had been unable to reach. The trouble, he sees now, is that he really can’t be sure where that is.

One guest. Perhaps it’s not a disaster if she can’t be there. But this is his mother’s sister, and they have so few near relatives left, since the War….

And he’s getting worried.

Stratos rises then, and tidies away his writing implements. He heads downstairs to his room and changes into better gear for travelling- not too warm, he doubts he’s going to end up in Skyrim – and then he goes to knock on Felix’s – well, his and Jim’s – door. Nereus is out visiting with Terentius, so there’s nothing else to distract the youngest two, nothing else that ought to be occupying them. And if they’re still resting on the Enterprise - well, he’ll just have to go there and fetch one of them.

Stratos has never seen Jim's ship, aside from a few pictures Felix brought back for her. Her brother has been here many times, she knows. There's real curiosity in her eyes when the PINpoint drops them in his quarters and she has the chance to look about them. She doesn't know much of ships, and mere images didn't give her much sense of what to expect. There's none of the noise or the smell she expected subconsciously.

"This is... rather nice," she says, stepping back. It's more spacious than a captain's room on any ship she's been aboard. Warm without the scent of a fire. Sleek and neatly put-together as Jim likes to be himself. And there's a sense of... something all around them, like a muted enchantment. She can see why Felix spends so much time here.

Well, the most important one came with her, of course.

Once they’ve picked up Felix, Stratos leads the way back through their door. It’s left to his little brother to unseal the wards and stay back to set them back in place before following. The tribune-turned teenager conjures a light – that he can do, still – and shows Jim up the sloping tunnel beyond. The stone walls look like a mix of natural erosion and worn masonry, lit by intermittent torches mounted along the way.

It looks like a straightforward path, bending this way and that but leading steadily upward. Stratos, however, is well aware of the illusions laid to give that impression and he keeps Jim close. He’s frowning deeply as they climb, trying to ready himself for what’s to come. Trying to convince himself that all will go well when he presents himself to his subordinates.

It feels like a much longer climb than usual, though his legs can’t be that much shorter.

“Are you hungry?” he asks Jim over his shoulder abruptly. That’s one thing he can be sure of remedying anyway.