"And I love to make you smile." He's been watching Jim's reactions hopefully all day, and that constant little smile certainly hasn't escaped notice. "Maybe we can even go sledding the next time..."
Despite the barely-contained chaos around them, the inner circle wall eventually looms ahead. Just as well, since by now the walk feels as long as the one they took earlier. In deference to Terentius as well as their sore feet, the group takes a breather now and then to admire the festivities. And Ushug turns around to crack a joke or two about the two lovesick boys needing to keep a hold of themselves until later. As they approach the gate, the walls dividing the city districts become more visible above the surrounding streets, each as tall and impassable as the outer wall. Even the gate ahead is reached by a bridge over a lotus-strewn moat.
So it might seem odd that on the other side isn't an obviously military keep, but a garden. A huge garden threaded with neat paths and lined with young trees (a few older ones that seem blackened and dead) and flowers bordering well-tended lawns. Ahead, however, rises the white tower that Jim would have seen from his first glimpse of the city. It's huge, but impossibly tall; surely magic must hold it up. The paths around it are absolutely lined with guards in much fancier armor than the ones chasing a drunken Khajiit around the garden.
"That's the White-Gold Tower," Felix murmurs. "Home to the Imperial Palace, and the very heart of Tamriel. When I was small my father told me it held up the sky, and I'm not sure he was joking." Every time he sees it, he feels the weight ot its presence, like the lynchpin of the world. The Imperial world, at least.
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Despite the barely-contained chaos around them, the inner circle wall eventually looms ahead. Just as well, since by now the walk feels as long as the one they took earlier. In deference to Terentius as well as their sore feet, the group takes a breather now and then to admire the festivities. And Ushug turns around to crack a joke or two about the two lovesick boys needing to keep a hold of themselves until later. As they approach the gate, the walls dividing the city districts become more visible above the surrounding streets, each as tall and impassable as the outer wall. Even the gate ahead is reached by a bridge over a lotus-strewn moat.
So it might seem odd that on the other side isn't an obviously military keep, but a garden. A huge garden threaded with neat paths and lined with young trees (a few older ones that seem blackened and dead) and flowers bordering well-tended lawns. Ahead, however, rises the white tower that Jim would have seen from his first glimpse of the city. It's huge, but impossibly tall; surely magic must hold it up. The paths around it are absolutely lined with guards in much fancier armor than the ones chasing a drunken Khajiit around the garden.
"That's the White-Gold Tower," Felix murmurs. "Home to the Imperial Palace, and the very heart of Tamriel. When I was small my father told me it held up the sky, and I'm not sure he was joking." Every time he sees it, he feels the weight ot its presence, like the lynchpin of the world. The Imperial world, at least.