The sea around the southern tip of the Crossing Isle turns from turquoise to emerald with the heat of summer’s onset, the waters warm and sluggish. The spring tide lingers, high water flooding the spaces between the mangroves, and the ground turns to muddy slush. The green scent of algae lingers in the humid air, ringed with sea salt and the stench of rot. Gnats float in clouds along the water; little fishes rise to the surface to grab them, and are in turn snatched up by egrets drifting, ghostlike, between the trees’ thick roots. Still, the one thing that masks it all - that seeps out of every inch of this place, this fertile, perilously-balanced biome, this Lagoon - is the heavy musk of stallion, rising from the earth like morning fog. This was no picturesque tropical getaway, no easy-breezy abode for light-hearted weaklings. Life may be abundant, but it survived a constant struggle, a wet, mud-sloshed, pest-ridden existence that wore it down to the bones and hid the remnants under layers of peat moss. In a word…

“Disgusting.” The pale creature stands, wraithlike, in fetlock-deep shallows, ice-blue eyes ringed with kohl and glowing in the darkness beneath the canopy. The corners of his lips turn up, pulling into a lopsided cheshire grin. A chuckle rumbles in his throat, low and deep, and as he splashes up onto muddy soil, his neck bows with pleasure, the susurration of his words velvet-soft on his tongue.

“I love it.”

And he did, having lingered here for a season or two already, sliding like an eel under the nose of the others who called this place home. It wasn’t hard, considering how empty it was, though he’d been tempted, once or twice, to follow the occasional scrap of a mare’s perfume. The stillness unsettled him at first; he’d grown up surrounded by horses, even as he prowled, invisible and unremarkable, amidst their ranks, and to find a place that so completely looked like the seedy coastal areas he’d skulked around in Elsweyr but felt so alien threw him for a loop. Before long, though, he took to it like a fish to water. It was a game, then, a test to see how long he could go before someone found him, one he passed with flying colors.

After two seasons, he decided, it was time for something new.

The black-flecked stallion walks languidly through the undergrowth, keen eyes searching the foliage. He takes no care to conceal himself, striding beneath the gaps in the trees so that the late-afternoon sun can flash upon his creamy white coat and catch him. His black ears tip forward, curved tips meeting in an inky-stained halo atop his poll, and his head snakes low to the ground, nares flaring to catch any promising aromas. He seeks the sharp-edged leaves of the spider plants he’s spotted many times before; they taste bitter, and the blades sting his mouth with little cuts as he chews, but something in them changes him, turns the colors of the world impossibly vivid and makes his heart pound like a frightened rabbit in his chest. His blood sings in his veins; euphoria washes over him, leaving him breathless, and sends him rocketing into the heavens. In those minutes, Khajiit - desert-walker, king of thieves, nameless, without title, unseen, unheard, unknown - feels like a god.

He chases that feeling now, both in the plant he pursues and the company he tempts. Come hell or high water, he will have what he wants, and have it before the day is out. He always does.