"I shall keep it in my mind," Lunise said.

When Meesei undressed herself, Lunise watched on as comfortably as anyone who had been as close to Meesei. "I admit, my occupations left not as much time for leisure in the places I have travelled. I could show you some places, however. I could introduce you to what a High Elven standard enjoys." Her lips lingered on the last syllable, showing a small smile. "I assisted a mission to High Rock and found many beautiful sights there. I could show you the parts of Anequina that you only find when living there for long enough. The festivities and the like. Not to mention, there are many more places to enjoy on the Summerset Isles than simply Alinor."

Lunise reached across Meesei's the top of Meesei's thighs and pulled her legs over her lap. With her other hand, she slid her arm around Meesei's back and pulled her close. "Getting bored with our time together shan't be a worry for the foreseeable future." Her eyes went down and up. "Unless you insist on not allowing me to undress you."

Meesei grinned. "Hmm, I will have to remember that. I sometimes forget how easily clothing, or lack thereof, can...excite many non-lycans. In fact..." Her voice trailed off as she grabbed a hold of some of the straps on Lunise's uniform. She had seen Lunise remove it herself the previous day by the ocean, so Meesei knew how to remove it right away. Although, it took Meesei much longer to undress Lunise than it had herself, mostly because she had a tendency to interrupt herself by pulling Lunise into a kiss, or other intimate embrace.

By the time Meesei had finished moving the articles of Lunise's clothing off of the bed, intentionally gently, they had moved to the middle of the bed. They were pressed closed together, and Meesei ran her hand down her side, eventually running it over the thigh that held Lunise's prominent scar. Even with as many other thoughts as were going through Meesei's mind at the moment, she could not help but to pay attention to the curious, inquisitive part of her mind. "You know, one does not gain a scar like that without a story to go with it. Is it one that you would mind telling?" Meesei asked.

Multitasking was not an easy prospect when removing a Thalmor uniform. Lunise did her best to help Meesei with the different cords and knots during their amorous escalation. Lunise even untied her braids to let her blonde hair flow free and naturally. Without other words, she assumed they were settling in for the evening.

Meesei's question caused Lunise's heavy breathing to halt and her entire body to still itself. She looked Meesei in the eyes and then pulled away enough to peer down at the lines that made up her scar. She swallowed so she could speak clearly.

"It is distracting, isn't it?" Lunise said sadly. She sighed and slumped against the bed, closing her eyes on a pillow. Her ears poked up from between her scattered hair. "Do you truly wish to know, Meesei?" She asked, muffled and blunt. "It is not a pleasant memory, much less one that puts me in the mood to make love."

Her hidden face made it hard to tell whether she was merely annoyed by the memory or if there was something deeper. The scar told of a vicious wound either way.

Meesei laid herself across Lunise's back, bringing her hands up to rub her shoulders as she brought her snout up close to Lunise's ear. "Do you not remember what I said about scars being attractive?" Meesei whispered. "If it is not a story you wish to tell, then you need not tell it. I know well that heroic war stories are not the only ones that leave scars." She reassured Lunise.

Meesei rolled over onto her side beside Lunise, posing as if to put her body on display. "I would not mind sharing some of my stories, though. As I alluded to before, I am no stranger to injury. I hardly even remember them all. Argonians have naturally enhanced regenerative capabilities compared to other races, and lycans also, of course, have greatly improved regeneration. Healers are also quite adept at restoring their bodies to their natural state. I am a combination of all three, so my scars do not tend to be permanent." She began as she pointed to her stomach. "I believe this is where Clavicus Vile's Orcish zealot ran a spear through me. The Orc, I believe, had killed Hircine's previous Champion and taken the Ring of Hircine as a trophy. Hircine himself issued a challenge to many of his promising pack alphas to kill the Orc and claim the title of Champion. My pack was one of several that accepted. There was not even really a war at that time; I do not even recall if I knew the Orc was a servant of Vile beforehand. He was just a lycan hunter, and my prey. I was not as powerful then, and it took my entire pack to kill him. That was the day we found out about the suppression gas, which was the precursor to the soul-tearing gas. He collapsed the tunnel in his cave leading to him, so we used our lycan forms to clear away the rubble. Then, he sprung the gas on us and forced us all out of our lycan forms. So we ended up naked and unarmed, in the middle of an open chamber, surrounded by him and his bodyguards armed with silver weapons. If that is not a test of worth, nothing is."

Lunise did not respond except to slowly breathe against the pillow. Meesei's story apparently went unheard. That was, until Meesei stopped. Lunise's head rolled to one side just enough for her to peek through her hair at Meesei with one blue eye. "And how did you all survive that, pray tell?" half of her mouth asked.

Meesei chuckled. "Durability, tenacity, and some strong healing spells." She answered. "Or do you mean the fight itself? I think the same answer applies, honestly. At the start of the fight, I could still give a magical edge to my pack, as could Ahnasha and Janius. We used that to protect ourselves as we closed in. Up close, we could still overpower them, weapons or no weapons. As you can...very plainly tell looking at me, lycanthropy provides certain advantages in terms of strength. I remember Lorag being particularly fearsome. Never underestimate that man up close. His skill and experience is even more impressive than his physical prowess. Even most Elves do not serve in active combat for as long as he has in his life. That is a career that is usually short-lived, whether by choice, injury, or death. He has been second-in-line to be Champion for as long as I have held the title, until now."

Meesei huffed briefly. "Of course, all of that did not stop that Orc zealot from running me through and breaking Lorag's arm. He was a respectable foe, to be sure. Skilled enough to kill Hircine's former Champion, He likely would be commanding Vile's zealot's today, had he not been killed. To tell the truth, many of the details of the fight blur together in my mind. By the time the Orc was killed, I had lost quite a bit of blood. I would not have succeeded without my pack, which is why a Champion's pack is as important as the Champion herself. The kill was our achievement, and I would not attempt to claim credit on my own."

Lunise was still laying on her stomach, possibly to hide her scar. Meesei had the feeling that, despite the assurances that Meesei had given her, she was ashamed of it. Meesei elected to counter that by staring at her in a way that made it quite obvious she was admiring Lunise's body.

While Lunise narrowed her eye at Meesei by way of recognising her gaze, she wrapped an arm around the pillow and blinked her eye down.

"You lycans...you see victory in combat as proud achievements, don't you?" She asked in a sad voice, almost rhetorically. Her leg slid to curl a fraction. "Is the true same when the kill is itself a lycanthrope?"

"Well, the core belief in following HIrcine is to become the greatest of predators." Meesei responded before her tone became notably more serious. "But, I will admit that I much prefer my prey to be a strong, but simple creature. The war has made thinking, feeling prey much more...common. Sometimes lycans as well. The man who nearly killed me most recently, their General, is a werewolf."

Meesei moved herself closer to Lunise and started to slowly massage her back. "I can see this topic is getting close to you, though. As I said, you need not re-visit any of your pain."

Being that Meesei was giving attention to Lunise's back and shoulders, she remained laying on her front, but she turned her head such that she could speak properly.

"I would not call it pain, precisely," Lunise said. She breathed deep and relaxed under Meesei's fingers. "It was a harrowing experience, make no mistake. I was simply trying to be sensitive to your impression of it." Lunise ran her thumb over her fingertips on one hand. Her voice lowered into regret. "A werewolf claw inflicted that wound. The same werewolf died by my hand. It was not even a feral werewolf; merely one living near a town close to Leyawiin. It was my first encounter with one of you transformed."

Lunise paused to gauge Meesei's thoughts on the matter.

"Well, the definition of feral can be muddy at times. Those who live on their own, I would rarely consider to be safe, unless they have been in a pack before." Meesei responded, her voice remaining just as soft and supportive as it had been. "Even besides that, lycans and non-lycans have met one another with violence for as long as we have existed. Fearing a physically superior beast with no guarantee of mental control is natural, so some take it to the extreme of wanting to eradicate us entirely. And it is not as if every lycan is a paragon of morality, even without the influence of their beast. With as many lycans as we have in our clans, there are some troublemakers. Like any civilization, really."

Although Lunise could not see from her angle, Meesei started to grin as she brought her massage lower down her back, until it was not on her back at all. "You need not worry. I am not going to judge you for past violence against lycans. My kind are as varied as any other, perhaps moreso. Some are upstanding citizens, and some deserve no less than death. Just like some Altmer might become bandits, and some might be stunningly gorgeous champions of their people."

Lunise was not uplifted by Meesei's attempt to lighten the situation. "There are many people I have judged in my lifetime, Meesei. That werewolf was not one I believed deserved death. Punishment, certainly, but not death. It was an unfortunate outcome."

She stared at the sheets. "He took us by surprise. We left his cabin, my guards and myself, after confronting him about lycanthropy. He denied everything. Perhaps it was because we threatened to turn him in to the Leyawiin guard, perhaps it was because I tried to intimidate him, he burst out of the building while we had our backs turned and bit the neck from one of my entourage." She blinked twice. "He charged me. I conjured a bound spear into my hands and drove it through his heart, letting the other end dig into the ground. The creature's long arms caught my leg and raked through my uniform. I was bedridden for several days, carefully curing myself." Her tone was disconnected. "A pity. When his wife and children emerged and witnessed the aftermath, they did not know anything about the clans, in spite of their own lycanthropy."

Lunise's voice took a small turn for the strict. "It was not that man's place to assault us. All the same, I failed to properly estimate a werewolf's capabilities. I could have paralysed him, or drained his strength, or any manner of less fatal measures. I reacted by reflex. Divines damned rash Imperials..."

Meesei was quite obviously sympathetic, and she did her best to show it. Lunise seemed to be reluctant to look at Meesei, so she decided to make it impossible for Lunise to ignore the comfort she wanted to give her. Meesei laid herself close beside Lunise and gently turned her head so that Meesei could press her own forehead against hers. "Even a strong paralysis spell can be resisted by a willful enough individual, and werewolves have quite a lot of strength to drain. Neither of those could have been guaranteed to protect you when a werewolf was immediately upon you. A single swipe of a werewolf's claws, when well placed, can easily cause a fatal amount of bleeding. You reacted the way you did for a reason, and you cannot be faulted for it. I will not lie to you and try to say that it was the best approach to threaten them beforehand, but it sounds like you did not know as much about lycans at that time. Fear of exposure is a constant and very dangerous threat for us, so...his reaction also does not surprise me. I have no doubt you know that now. It sounds like a terrible situation all-around, and you have my sympathy for having to go through it."

Meesei let out a sigh. "I wish...we could spread the word of our clans to lycans more effectively. Together, we are the largest organization for lycans in Tamriel, perhaps the largest in history. We provide the safest life for our people, but for those who our scouts do not find, we may as well not exist. We are a well-kept secret by necessity. I have to wonder how lycan hunters would feel if they knew how much worse they were making Tamriel's 'lycan problem.' If we could operate openly, there would not be feral lycans killing travelers and farmers in the wilderness. There would not be desperate lycans willing to commit murder to protect their secret. With Imperial and Dominion protection, Vile's forces could not hope to assault our clans. Their forces are meager next to the might of those nations. But fear makes that reality just a dream." She said, showing obvious passion on the subject.

In contrast to Meesei's wistful account, Lunise harumphed and eyed her with a frown. "You say that as if it is impossible," she murmured to her. Lunise brought an arm around Meesei. "I think you should read more about Orcs, champion. They were barely considered human a few scant centuries ago. I do not consider myself fond of them, but if they can forge their place in society, so can lycans."

Lunise rolled to her side, revealing her front, scar and all, once more. Her arms drew Meesei up against her and one hand hooked Meesei's leg up around her hip. "So can you." She kissed Meesei.

Meesei gave a light chuckle. "Hmm, I think you might be even more optimistic than me. I will not go into the many, core differences between the situations of lycanthropes and Orcs, but...I do appreciate hope. If we can attain even a fraction of what we are hoping for, it might be enough."

After another quick kiss, Meesei rolled herself over on top of Lunise with an ear-to-ear grin. She had both of her hands on Lunise's shoulders as she leaned down for a much longer kiss. Pulling her head back up, she flicked her tail to the side, calling attention to it. "I do have to wonder what that would be like, lycans living alongside non-infected mortals. You would have the pleasure of seeing many more beautiful, bare-scaled Argonians, I would say."

Lunise pulled an amused look. Meesei's persistence had turned her sore mood around. "You put on an act outside of this room," Lunise said, running her hands up Meesei's sides. "But there is no denying how young you really are. Nudity, on its own, bores after enough years." Lunise propped herself up and laid kisses down Meesei's front. "Or perhaps you have simply been starved for this kind of attention for too long," Lunise said to Meesei's navel. "Let us see what it takes to sate you, lycan queen." Her wandering hands continued.

With their plans set, the pack did not have any reason to remain in Bravil. Perhaps mercifully to Fendros, they also did not have time for his training with Sabine before they left the city, and they would need to call a meeting with Meesei's council as soon as they got back to Blackreach. Although, Meesei had also made a point to mention to Fendros that she would join in on their next practice session after the meeting. Naturally, the pack parted ways with Marod and Lunise, but the ring that Meesei had left with Lunise meant that she expected to see her again quite soon.

The pack had to walk for about twenty minutes before Meesei found a spot that she judged to be far enough from the city to be able to safely create her portal. Meesei's pack was aware that she had learned to create portals on her own, without a propylon chamber, though it was quite a recent advancement for her, so it was the first time they had all used one of her portals to bring them any significant distance. Meesei quickly found that she required Sabine's help to keep the portal open long enough to bring the entire pack through, particularly with Leaps present, but they were able to get through to Blackreach quickly.

In order to avoid surprising any of the residents of the Silent City, Meesei had taken them to a place a short distance from the city that was out of sight. Meesei herself went straight to assembling the leadership for a meeting, while the rest of the pack dealt with their belongings, as well as Leaps and the children.

---

It took longer for the council to assemble in the meeting chamber than it did for Meesei to take the pack to Blackreach from Bravil. Meesei had Areldril's rather extensive report that he had written, though there of course had not been time to make copies of it, so she would just use it as a reference for herself so she could brief her council on the situation.

The council assembled with varying levels of dubiousness. They were all used to Meesei's pack departing and arriving in short order these days, but the urgency of the meeting seemed unusual. They were aware that Meesei's latest mission was to collaborate with the Empire and Dominion to catch a fugitive. The mood in the meeting set everyone to remain quiet.

"Well, now that we are all here, I bid you welcome home, champion," Vera said. "I will admit openly that I'm not sure what to make of a meeting on such short notice for your mission. I would suspect something to have gone wrong, yet...you didn't give that off when you asked me to come to the meeting room." She gestured a hand. "Would you please fill us in?"

"Have those Dominion curs finally found an excuse to toss us away?" Oswall asked, brash as ever.

Meesei shook her head lightly at Oswall. “The Dominion is a nation, and the residence of a third of our clans, Oswall. Those ‘currs’ are just as much our people as anyone in the Empire. The Thalmor, however…they may be a concern for lycans and Dominion citizens alike in the far future. But the focus of this meeting is on Vile. I will explain.”

Meesei took a moment to lay out a few of Areldril’s notes in front of her. “As you know, we coordinated with the Thalmor to locate one of the Thalmor’s leadership who had gone rogue, Areldril. We believed him to be allied with Vile, but that was not the case. He fled the Dominion carrying information that proves some disturbing revelations. Dating all the way back to the Metheric era, perhaps even before, there were Towers created in Tamriel. Physical structures in the world that hold an almost unimaginable level of power over the fabric of Mundus. Without a strong scholarly background, you may not be aware of them, but they are quite real. These towers include the Adamantine Tower in High Rock, Red Mountain, the White-Gold Tower, the Numidium, Crystal-Like-Law, Orichalc Tower, Green-Sap, and Snow Throat. Through the millennia, all but one or two of these Towers have been deactivated or destroyed. Should the Towers fall, the barriers protecting Mundus from Oblivion will dissolve, and Mundus itself will cease to exist as we know it. That is Vile’s ultimate goal.”

One by one, each pair of eyes in the council lit up with recognition of at least one of the towers Meesei mentioned. The blunt fall of Meesei's connection between them left them more confused than outwardly concerned. All but Darahil, of course, though his stoicism was equally likely to be from knowledge of what Meesei was referring to as it was to simply hiding his thoughts.

Darahil was the only person to respond with anything more than an ajar, speechless mouth. "I think it best that we know the connection of this ultimate goal to our war, champion," he said. "If what you say is true, and the situation as dire, there is no room for assumptions. Tell us everything, if you please."

"Our war was merely one step in his plan." Meesei explained. "As we suspected before, Vile intended to harvest us for the power our souls provide. Due to the presence of our beast spirit, our souls are more powerful than most. Vile's followers intentionally spread lycanthropy to over the years so that there would be more lycans in Tamriel. Then, he provoked us to war, encouraged us to collect close together in large clans to fight back against his followers. Finally, they were going to use the soul tearing gas to harvest us all at once, and our souls with us. They would have completed the soul-tearing gas much sooner, had we not halted their production of suppression has early on. Had we not been able to fight back more effectively than he anticipated, he would have had the power of many thousands of lycan souls to help him finish the next part of his plan. We do not know the specifics of how he intends to destroy the towers, but he has moved on to other means of achieving his goals. As we have been well aware over the past year or so, Vile's efforts to fight us have dwindled. Their attacks have slowed, because only those who are disobeying his orders are attacking us."

Meesei paused and let out a quick breath. She was not entirely sure how some members of the council would take what she was about to say. "Essentially, Vile no longer wants to fight us. The war is over, as he sees it. We have proved to be more trouble than we are worth. He is now targeting Talos worshipers. Talos, while not a 'Tower' himself, has come to serve a similar function to the towers I just described. He strengthens Convention, so Vile's zealots have began targeting them, just as the Thalmor target them. The Thalmor, you see, also wish to bring an end to Mundus. That is, of course, knowledge that is reserved only for their highest leadership. They believe that it will help them return to divinity, though fortunately, they do not trust Vile. According to Areldril, they believe that Vile intends to use the destruction of the Towers to his own advantage. Perhaps absorb Mundus into his realm. It is uncertain, but the Thalmor do not wish to end the world on Vile's terms, so they are less of an immediate threat than he is."