The farm sat just off the road, squat and stubborn against the cold. A fence leaned inward like it had long since given up. On the road before it stood a cart angled sharply to one side, one wheel shattered outright, its spokes split and scattered. And standing beside it…

 

Sloan stopped in place.

 

The figure was dressed in motley -- actual motley, red and white and stitched in patterns that had no business existing outside a jester’s fever dream. Bells dangled from the edges, chiming softly every time the wind caught them. A painted face stared skyward in theatrical despair.

 

“Oh, Mother,” the figure wailed to the heavens, arms flung wide. “Your poor Cicero is betrayed by wheels! By wood! By the cruel indifference of roads that refuse to remain flat!”

 

Sloan exchanged a glance with Lexzal. “You’ll know if you find him.”

 

The Argonian let out the snort that passed for his laugh and responded in a remarkable approximation of Kira’s voice, “He…stands out.”

 

The farmer’s door burst open and a large Nord burst out, pitchfork in hand. “I told you, I’m not fixing it! Get away from my property!

 

The jester spun with alarming speed, grin snapping into place like a mask pulled tight.

 

“Ah! Angry Farmer returns!” Cicero clapped his hands together. “Has the rage cooled? Has the kindness bloomed? Has the Farmer reconsidered helping poor, stranded Cicero and his precious cargo?”

 

“I said no!” the farmer barked. “You’ve been screaming all day! You’re scaring my goats!”

 

Cicero gasped, hand to chest. “The goats? Oh no! Sweet goats! Cicero would never wish distress upon goats!”

 

Sloan and Lexzal stepped into view; the man in motley noticed instantly. His grin widened--not startled, but alert. His eyes flicked from Sloan to Lexzal and back again, measuring, before the bells resumed their cheerful ringing.

 

“Ohhh,” he breathed. “Company!”

 

The farmer followed his gaze. “You know these two?”

 

“Know?” the man clasped his hands beneath his chin. “No know, no! But Cicero likes them already. Very serious. Very quiet.”

 

Lexzal inclined his head. “You are Cicero.”

 

Cicero bowed deeply, nearly toppling forward. “Guilty! Devotedly!”

 

“You were expected."

 

“Oh dear! That sounds ominous.”

 

Sloan shook her head. “You’re late."

 

“Late!” Cicero echoed, scandalized. “Cicero prefers delayed by circumstance.” He leaned forward and whispered as if imparting a great secret, "The roads here are vicious wheel-eating monsters!" A giggle, then he sang:

 

"Oh I have been through forests of creatures, scary and strong,

through deserts I could fight them all day long,

but there is one creature I cannot overthrooooooowwwww,

the terrible monster called the Skyrim pothole!"

 

 

The farmer slammed the butt of the pitchfork into the dirt. “Are you here to take him away?”

 

Lexzal stepped past Sloan without answering and crouched beside the ruined wheel. He examined the splintered spokes, the bent iron, the scarring on the rim. His expression tightened--not much, but enough that Sloan noticed.

 

“It is beyond true repair but I should be able to get it to hold together long enough to reach a place where we can purchase a new one.” He looked at the farmer. “Do you have tools?”

 

The farmer paused, then grunted and nodded toward the barn. “Tools are in there. Welcome to them if it gets him out of here.”

 

Lexzal nodded. “Obliged.”

 

The farmer gave Cicero one last glare and stomped back to his house while Lexzal went to the barn. Cicero stood in place and nodded enthusiastically.

 

“Goodbye, angry farmer! It is better that you are not here. Anger is terrible for wheels. And Mother dislikes tantrums.”

 

Sloan’s attention sharpened. “Mother?”

 

Cicero waved a hand airily. “Oh, she’s very particular.”

 

Lexzal returned moments later with an array of tools, then knelt by the broken wheel and began laying out them out in ordered rows. Cicero crouched beside him immediately, too close, peering with exaggerated fascination.

 

“Ohhh, clever lizard! Cicero likes clever lizards. They make things behave.”

 

“Stand back,” Lexzal said.

 

Cicero stood. Then sat. Then stood again, humming loudly. Bells chimed out of rhythm as he began to narrate every motion:

 

“Ladies and gentlemen! Witness now--the moment! The turning of the age! The wheel that refused! Behold!" Cicero swept an arm toward the broken spokes. "The aftermath of rage! The scars of temper upon innocent wood! See how it lies--shattered! Betrayed! Abandoned by geometry itself!”

 

Lexzal ignored him, fingers moving through the debris with careful intent. He lifted one splintered spoke, turned it once, and set it aside.

 

“Aha!” Cicero gasped. “Rejected! Unworthy! Cast aside like a liar in court!”

 

Another piece followed. Then another. Lexzal sorted with methodical calm, arranging fragments by length and integrity, his motions precise, economical.

 

“And now!” Cicero whispered loudly, crouching as if the moment demanded reverence. “Now the clever lizard thinks.”

 

Lexzal withdrew a narrow iron brace from the pile. The bells rang as Cicero staggered backward in mock astonishment.

 

“IRON!” he shouted. “The secret weapon! The unyielding spine! Ohhh, the audacity!”

 

Lexzal tested the rim, pressing, measuring. He adjusted the brace by a fraction, then fitted it along the weakest arc.

 

“See?” Cicero told the empty road, nodding vigorously. “He does not rush! Rushing leads to regret! Regret leads to yelling! Yelling leads to broken wheels!”

 

Lexzal threaded cord through the remaining spokes, looping and tightening with deliberate tension, redistributing the strain so the wheel would turn rather than collapse inward.

 

“And behold!” Cicero cried. “The weaving! The binding! A marriage of wood and will!”

 

Lexzal pulled the cord taut, tied it off, tested the give with the heel of his hand. The wheel shifted--but held.

 

Cicero pressed both hands to his chest. “It lives!”

 

Lexzal adjusted the axle, shaving down a warped edge with a short blade, movements so controlled they barely seemed to exist.

 

“Such gentleness!” Cicero sighed. “Such restraint! He does not fight the wheel--he negotiates!”

 

Lexzal re‑seated the wheel, tightened the final fastenings, then rocked the cart forward an inch. It rolled; Cicero screamed.

 

“IT TURNS!” he shrieked, throwing his arms wide. “THE CIRCLE ACCEPTS ITS DESTINY!”

 

Lexzal stood, brushing dust from his hands. “Inelegant but sufficient. This will hold. For a time.”

 

Cicero dropped to one knee before the wheel, bowing deeply. “Thank you,” he told it in a low solemn tone. “You have chosen cooperation.” He sprang back up, spinning toward Sloan with manic delight. “Did you see? DID YOU SEE? History! Craft! ART!”

 

Sloan stared at the wheel, then at Lexzal. “How long?”

 

The Argonian shrugged. “Long enough.”

 

Cicero nodded gravely. “Yes. Long enough is the best kind of enough.” The bells chimed as he threw an arm around the air, addressing his invisible audience once more. “And thus, through patience and intellect and the refusal to panic, the journey continues!”

 

He leapt onto the cart bench, bowed extravagantly, and whispered to no one in particular, “She likes that part.”

 

“Sit,” Sloan commanded as she climbed onto the bench beside him and took the reins.

 

He sat. Then immediately stood again.

 

Lexzal tightened the final knot and rose, wiping his hands clean. “South,” he said.

 

“Ohhh yes,” Cicero sang. “Toward trees and whispers and Mother’s favorite silences!”

 

Sloan frowned. “You keep saying that.”

 

Cicero beamed at her. “Cicero pays attention.”

 

“To what?”

 

Cicero tapped his temple. “Patterns. Preferences. Very subtle things.”

 

The cart creaked into motion. Lexzal walked alongside for a time, staff tapping softly against the road. Sloan kept the reins steady, eyes forward.

 

“You were entrusted with something,” Lexzal said after a time.

 

Cicero laughed. “Ohhh yes. Very precious. Very quiet. Doesn’t like sunlight.”

 

Lexzal’s pace slowed. His posture stiffened, just slightly. Sloan noticed, though she wasn’t entirely sure what she was seeing -- Argonian expressions were not her strength.

 

“The container.” Lexzal’s tone held what felt like a careful neutrality. “Does it contain the Night Mother?”

 

Cicero’s face lit up with radiant delight. “Oh yes!” he exclaimed, clapping his hands. “Cicero is her Watcher! He takes very good care of her.”

 

Lexzal stopped walking. Sloan noted and reined in the cart, then looked from one to the other.

 

“What is that?”

 

Lexzal inhaled, then exhaled very slowly. “A sacred object. And a dangerous one.”

 

Cicero leaned forward with a new gleam in his eye. One less frivolous; one filled with danger. “She is not an object,” he scolded. “She is the truth and the dark.” A pause. “Or the truth in the dark. Hmm, which is more poetic?” Then his laugh was back as he danced and sang a terribly dirty ditty about things done in the dark.

 

Lexzal let out a soft, sharp sound under his breath and muttered, “Tsalk’thir.”

 

Sloan did not know much Jel, but she recognized a curse when she heard it. She felt a chill she couldn’t quite name. “I don’t know what any of this means.”

 

Lexzal resumed walking, though his grip on the staff had tightened. “It means,” he said, after a moment, “that this assignment carries consequences far beyond what was disclosed.”

 

Cicero leaned back on the bench, humming cheerfully. “She’ll be so happy in her new home, I just know it!”

 

Sloan looked at the box secured behind the bench--plain wood, iron-bound, utterly silent. Nothing about it looked dangerous…and yet the road ahead felt heavier now. Longer.

 

Cicero laughed, bells ringing brightly in the dusk, and bent to murmur to the unseen presence beside him. “Almost there." He said it like a promise.

 

Sloan didn’t know who--or what--that promise was for. But as they continued south, a sense of foreboding settled into her bones, quiet and insistent, like the certainty of a storm still beyond the horizon.

 

The wheel turned. The bells rang. And whatever they carried waited.

 

 

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