The Warp of Time
"Speak, and I will listen."
Milkfingers
Vivec City
The Palace was silent as the three shared weary, mistrusting glances, each unsure of where to go now. The air was thick with something unspoken floating between Tyr and Vivec, and Merry was thoroughly and incredibly tired of it.
“Your Godliness,” began the the Little Outlander, kneeling before Vivec, “Before we go - we have one last question for you.”
"Merry..." Tyr warned lowly, and Vivec shifted hir gaze.
The Warrior-Poet, weary and far more tired than ze had been in a very long time, sighed. “Ask.”
Tyr deflated as Merry bounced onto her feet, “So, I've been reading your books! In one of the first ones - can't rightly remember which! - you talked about milk-fingers. That's...?"
"What you think it is, yes," Vivec replied, lips twitching. Merry cheered quietly, her brazenness encouraged.
"I thought so! Tyr - Tyr, I told you, didn't I?" She shoved up against the Incarnate playfully. Tyr pinched his nose - whether due to her actions or because she proved herself right in their midnight arguments, she had no clue. She looked back to the god, beaming. "So, why? I mean, it's a perfectly fine descriptor, sure, but - it's gross, isn't it? Milkfingers." She shuddered dramatically, and Tyr blew harshly through his nose, hiding the bottom of his face in his hands.
"Merry," he said again, turning his head to her fully and he was smiling, though he shielded it from Vivec. "Why can't you ask Jobasha these things...?" It was a little less suffocating in the incense-laden palace, and Merry paid him no mind, looking up expectantly at the now-pondering deity.
"Why?" Vivec hummed, tilting hir head, dual-colored eyes sliding between the red-faced Nerevarine and curious Nordling. "...To spite you, specifically," ze settled, nodding exactly once, very sagely.
Merry fell to her knees, pressing her hands over her heart. "The cruelty! I thought you were supposed to be a fair god! Comfort's given, justice taken, all that..." she sat back on her knees, waving her bronze hand in a circular motion. "You, Lord Vivec - YOU are a Milkfinger."
Tyr's smile fell a little then, but Vivec spoke before he could start lecturing the girl. "Your words wound me," ze stated, raising hir brow. "How shall I ever overcome this grevious wound."
"Ya could turn back into an Egg," Merry whispered conspiratorially, leaning towards hir a bit. "I feel like that's got healin' properties."
"Reverting to a fetus has healing properties?" Tyr mumbled. At some point, he had stopped kneeling, instead sitting with one of his legs pulled up to rest his arm on.
Merry looked at him like he was stupid. "Maybe! Remember who we're talking with! Love is under hir will only - wait! Wait, I thought of another question!"
Tyr hummed. "I think you've been reading too much..."
Vivec crossed hir legs, floating upwards. Ze rested hir elbow on hir knee, and hir head on hir hand. “Your question?"
“What if, when we find Sunder... we just hit Dagoth Ur with it?
Vivec blinked, owlish. “...What?”
“People can’t hold the Profane Tools, right? So, what if - what if they’re used as a weapon? What if I stab him with Keening?”
“...You know what. Why don’t you try it?”
Now Merry blinked, her expression one of utter delight, their jaw slightly ajar. “What?”
“Try it. When you go to Dagoth Ur, hit him over the head with Sunder and stab him with Keening."
Merry began to rock on her feet as she considered the possibility, the thought apparently enough to send her in a frenzied whirlwind out the doors of the palace itself. All of Vivec City could hear the Nordling's promise: "I'm gonna make him ring like a BELL!"