6 - The ceremony

"Haha, look at you acting all grown up and gentlemanly, calling us 'ladies'" Selene Chuckled. They kept teasing him and playing with his delicate face as they escorted him to the interior of the manor.

"Hey, what are you doing escorting me this way. I can walk on my own without you practically carrying me," Zin called out puzzled.

"Oh really? Are you sure you can? Or can he really Elaine?" Selene smirked. "Let's find out", they both grinned, echoing each other. "Sorry, but you can't go in right now."

Two hours later Zin was carried back to his room caked in baked mud. He was forcefully made to bath ("hey I can do that myself" "oh yeah you're now such a big boy"). Made to put on a formal quicksilver plate armor ("whoa, is everything alright? Why are you dressing me in this?"), with a black cloak. And then put on a blindfold ('looks like there is a surprise party sort of thing going on, but we don't normally celebrate such things as birthdays, what with my parents being 'convinced' by me that I'm mature beyond age and immune to these kids' events').

Zin thought it was another birthday party sort of thing, so he harrumphed and put on his Chinese cultivator sort of indifferent face, complete with those completely indifferent eyes. But he was increasingly surprised when the flights of stairs they were descending kept on increasing - much more than those needed to reach the ground floor.

Had he not had complete trust in these two he would have started struggling really hard by now. 'Hmm, looks like we're in the basement built after the family acquired the manor, though I do wonder why.' Because this basement was built as a secret place, even made solely by magic to forego the need of construction workers, to avoid leakage of its existence.

Zin grew solemn. Well, anyone would, considering the change in the ambient mood. Where there were the cheerful hoots of birds in spring and other lively sounds of the elite residential area of the capital audible on the ground, here there was only a solemn quite. A quite in which the metal boots of his two knight bodyguards were making very noticeable clanks of impact with the hard stone floor. The rustle of his bodyguards' cloaks high-lighted to him the prominence and the significance of this event, as he had seen them wear these armors and cloaks only once before: when his father was being knighted as a thane of Haafingar. Zin knew his family used to be real money in some long past, because the make of these armors and the material used were really superior, the battle armors being actually made of quicksilver ingots, a resource only available through spending champion points in ESO, with the crests being made from platinum ounces, another champion points crafting resource; and carrying the signature of heavy magical enchanting, complete with a blue cloak for Elaine and a red one for Selene; both cloaks having the family crest embedded on them in gold in contrast to the usual plain blue and red cloaks with orichalcum plate armors worn by them.

So quite that he could easily differentiate the sounds of almost everything in the large hall he knew he was in: The crackling of the magic flame, the breaths of the many present attendees of this ceremony (?), maybe the reason he was carried here.

Zin was puzzled as to the reason of such a special yet secretive occasion. Although he could feel it was a special occasion by sensing their magic signatures, which were in a certain solemn formation, yet before he could give it any more thought he found himself placed on his feet in the front of the magical signature he recognized as his father. Then he felt his blindfold being ripped off, and as he blinked taking in the visual details, especially the abnormally bright magical signature which he had felt at the foot of his father.

It was a big circle drawn on the floor, with the seagull crest in it. Most importantly, the eyeball in the seagull's eye wasn't exactly an eyeball, rather it was a slit. A blood red gem-stone that had been emitting the insanely large magic signature, making the whole crest very peculiar. A seagull with a strange eye.

A dragon's eye.

'Shit. More family secrets', Zin chuckled nervously inwards. 'I wonder there's more melancholic tales behind this. Seriously, father has been only trying cry-stories whenever we're close, starting from the one he told me at my birth.'

"Kneel", Selene whispered, breaking him out of his deep thought. Zin relented, kneeling on one knee.

He took a deep breath, looking up at his father. The years had not been particularly cruel to him, though his struggles did show in the deep of his eyes. Struggles, and the shrewdness of a businessman, as was reflected by him gaining a reputation as an excellent investor, and partner of the east-empire company. His appearance was that of a handsome young man in his mid-twenties despite his actual age in his mid-thirties, not surprising for a wizard-master level mage. He was wearing a full black voidstone armor that Zin learnt to be quite popular in the empire nobility beneath his bright wizard-master cloak, his black hair encircled in a platinum circlet holding two small emeralds and a big sapphire. Two steps behind him, to his left stood his wife, Zin's mother Shay Larus, wearing a glass breastplate under her wizard robes, her beautiful auburn hair enclosed in a slender circlet with a single sapphire hanging over her forehead.

Behind the two stood the two original two mages who followed his father to Skyrim from Jehanna. The now official-level mages Iris and Cynthia, both clad in matching glass-malachite armors underneath their mage cloaks, their respective blue and green eyes shimmering, looking at him encouragingly, their grey hair enclosed in beautiful platinum gem less circlets. Behind them all stood the three knights his father had brought from Jehanna, all in quicksilver armor with black cloaks behind them - his most loyal companions and sworn knights of house Larus through life and death. He nodded in turn to all of them, lastly to the knights, Nico, Rico and Pico, chuckling inwardly to the absurdity of naming knights like cats.

'Yep', Zin thought, 'only the guard from Jehanna. None of the new employees were ever deemed trustworthy enough to enter here, let alone attend this occasion.'

"Ahem", his father's voice made him come out of his considerations, and he noticing the faux pas he committed by exchanging nods at such an event, almost blushed, hurriedly putting on his Chinese cultivator face again.

His father started saying "Zinkahjul Larus, Son of Lars Larus 25th direct descendent of house Larus, will you uphold the laws and traditions set and passed down by the founders and ancestors of this house?"

"I will."

"And will you go through blood and fire, walk through ice and hail, cross life and death to fulfill your allegiance to the true emperors, The Septims?"

"I will."

'The hell is happening (Zin still swore by hell over the years), isn't the coming of age oath-taking?'

"And will you maintain your oaths, on pain of death and eternal damnation to Sithis shall you betray and break your oath?"

"I do."

His father put his hand on his sheathed sword, "Then rise, Zinkahjul Larus, heir to house Larus. Thee entered a free man, and exiteth a knight honor and duty-bound to the Septim dynasty." A sheesh voice sounded as he drew his sword, and patted his both shoulders with the flat of the sword. "So spake I, Lars Larus, through the power vested in me through inheritance, by order of emperor Uriel Septim I."

Lars drew a large platinum circlet out of the box handed to him by his wife Shay, embedded in which was a single sapphire. Contrary to Zin's mother's, this circlet was wider and the sapphire embedded in it was much larger. With another hand, Lars drew a ceremonial dagger from its sheath, this also handed to him by his wife from the same box, and made a cut on the little finger of Zin's index finger. A drop of blood dropped on the circlet, causing it to glow, after which he set it upon Zin's head. Zin felt the enchantment at work as the circlet shrank to fit his head, and the acceptance of the circlet from his blood.

"Now that you're the heir, let's complete the final ritual," Lars solemnly announced. Holding Zin's hand, he guided him to the head of the swan in the crest drawn on the floor. There just above the eye, he again punctured Zin's hand, this time the ring finger of his right hand. Counting, he dropped seven drops of blood onto the blood red stone, which glowed, as it absorbed the blood, shining brighter.

"This diamond holds the blood of 24 now 25 of the straight line descendants of house Larus, from father to son, and serves as a soul anchor, for whenever those of the line of house Larus die, a small wisp of their soul comes to reside here, guided by the remnant of their magika in the stone." Lars explained. "Let's go, son, I expect you have a lot of questions to ask."

Zin nodded, following behind his father and mother, flanked by his mage teachers and having his knight bodyguards in tow. The three knights brought up the rear, with the magical fires dying out with a flash as they left.

As they left, no one noticed the very faint golden glow that had started appearing on the dragon slit eye stone of the seagull on the floor.