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The ship left Senchal, crossing the mouth of Topal Bay before stopping at Soulrest in the Black Marsh to take on more passengers and supplies before continuing on to Lilmoth. Ra'Jirra and Dar'Amon had a small private cabin for the trip, but it was too confining to stay in long. Instead they walked the deck with the other passengers. The crew were a mix of khajiit and argonians, but they didn't interact with the passengers much. After Soulrest, the majority of the passengers were argonian. Though she spoke Jel passably, Ra'Jirra preferred to listen to the argonians, who never suspected she could understand their language. For his part, Dar'Amon never spoke at all when out on the deck, but submitted to the occasional interest of juvenile argonians who found him irresistible.

The ship stopped overnight in Lilmoth, but was underway again early the next morning heading for their destination of Archon, the capital of the Marsh. By the time the ship had sailed up the deep river into the capital, both Ra'Jirra and Dar'Amon had gotten used to the humidity and atmosphere of the Marsh, but it's regular daily rains had put a damper on their enthusiasm to visit the strange land.

"Well, at least it's sunny for a change," Dar'Amon said as the early afternoon sun shone through their portal.

"There is that," Ra'Jirra said, lazily stroking the cat while they waited for the signal to disembark.

Finally it came and Ra'Jirra awaited her turn to climb down the ladder to the waiting longboats that would take them ashore. Dar'Amon clung to her shoulder like a furry parrot and she did her best to resist making a joke. A laughing cat would seem awfully strange. They weren't the only khajiits on-board to depart at Archon, but there were far more scaled passengers. As the longboat was rowed ashore, she saw the larger baggage being offloaded onto a much bigger boat at the stern of the ship where she presumed the CATv3 was.

Upon stepping off the boat onto the dock, they were greeted by a dark brown argonian who called himself Geeus Pedorees.

"Welcome to Argonia. You are Arri I presume?"

"I am she," Ra'Jirra replied.

"Very good. Follow me. Your cat?"

Ra'Jirra glanced at her shoulder where Dar'Amon sat. "He is his own cat, but we travel together."

"I see. We have accommodations for you prepared. I expect you will desire to refresh yourself after the journey."

"That would be nice, Geeus. And my equipment?"

"We will leave in the morning with a small troupe for your destination and will bring your equipment along. That which you seek remains there as of last we heard. In the meantime, might I interest you in a tour of Archon after you are settled?"

"A tour eh? Yes, that would be nice."

"Have you been to Argonia before?"

"Never."

"Then perhaps you will find it edifying. But come, we will take a gondola through the canals to your hotel. It is faster than walking."

"Oh joy. More boats," she said under her breath.

They climbed into the small craft. "But where is the gondolier?" she asked, noticing no one else around.

"I will serve that role," Geeus said plainly and removed his clothing before diving into the water beside the craft.

Ra'Jirra eyed Dar'Amon who glanced back at her and turned his head as if to say, "Whatever."

The argonian resurfaced with a rope around his neck and began swimming up the canal. Ra'Jirra noticed other similar craft with the same means of propulsion when she looked closer and they rode deeper into the city.

The city itself was like none she'd seen before. To call it verdant would be an understatement. Large trees with snakelike limbs were everywhere, vines crawling up their sides, and she soon realized that the trees housed the populace. In some places elaborate tree-houses adorned the huge branches, while in others she saw that the trees themselves provided the shelter, having apparently been guided into shapes fit for habitation over years of cultivation.

Stone buildings were, in fact, the exception here. But when the gondola stopped, it was beside one of these more traditional buildings. Geeus slid up out of the water onto the path that ran beside the canal, mooring the boat in an empty spot with the rope he'd worn around his neck. He took Ra'Jirra's hand to help her out of the gondola while Dar'Amon jumped onto the path on his own. Ra'Jirra handed Geeus his clothes back, which he quickly donned.

"You have not seen an argonian naked before, have you?"

"I must confess I have not."

"You are discreet. That is good. We know that our physiology is not yours. But you have come to the capital of Argonia. Here you will need to accept us as we are. I apologize if I have offended, but here we are home and live as we are made to live."

Ra'Jirra shook her head. "It's not a problem. Sorry if I was staring a bit."

"I fear you may find us more different than you expect. But we are the same up here," he said, indicating his head. "Though we are born of the Hist, we are more like you than the physical body might suggest. Please, just treat us as equals and we will do the same. But enough of that. Come, you will find your accommodations pleasantly familiar I believe."

The three entered the open-air lobby of the hotel where Geeus spoke with another argonian behind a desk before escorting Ra'Jirra and her pet to their room.

"I hope you find it comfortable. I will return at dusk and show you the city."

"Excellent," Ra'Jirra said, and she meant it. Inside, the room was indeed very familiar. It could well have been a room in any Elsweyr hotel. It even had a sandbox in the corner.

She closed the door and watched Geeus pass back down the hallway through the window. She closed the blinds then.

After a cursory look around the room, she began to pour a bath.

"Did you see, Dar?"

"Ra'Jirra, you must remember that I used to be a biologist before this happened and I became valuable to the HMSS. He is not the first argonian I've seen... all over."

"Oh? What's the deal?" Ra'Jirra asked as she slid into the bath.

Dar'Amon jumped onto the edge of the bath at her feet.

"Well, it is best if you understand argonians a little better. Though I wouldn't call it 'embarrassment', they do prefer not to make their differences known to other races. They'll tell you anything you want to know, but they prefer to blend in with the other races as best they can, so they're differences aren't widely know."

"I gather they keep their sexual organs internal," Ra'Jirra suggested.

Dar'Amon began pacing up and down the edge of the bath.

"Oh, it's more than that. By our terminology, they're both male and female, depending on their desire at the time."

"Both?!"

"Oh yes. We often refer to them as reptiles, but they have more in common with fish than reptiles - though even there they diverge astonishingly. They're like nothing else on Tamriel - nothing else on Nirn probably. No one knows much about the Hist - the argonians would never allow it - but whatever the mechanism, their physiology is unique among every species we know of, and if the religion of the argonians is to be believed, those sentient trees are the cause. Yet, psychologically, they're amazingly similar to us. They laugh, they lust, they love, they grieve. That level of similarity when the physical form is so different is amazingly unlikely."

Ra'Jirra began washing herself while the cat watched, apparently amused.

"Wait, so if they're both male and female..."

"Ah! But that's the thing! From their point of view they are male and female. However, it's not based on what we would consider their sexual organs. It's based on the Hist glands. Only the 'females' have them. The 'males' can give birth as readily as the females, but only the females can nurse the young with Hist sap away from their mysterious Hist trees directly. And apparently, without the sap the young will never develop intelligence."

"That's... just weird. But, can they nurse? I've seen argonian women before. They don't even have..."

"They can and do. But those only appear when needed. Otherwise they're hidden behind scales. The scales slough away when nursing."

"But their mouths - how can they possibly nurse? Their mouths can't suck!"

The cat's eyes brightened. "Oh, you give them too little credit, Raj. Their tongues are the most flexible and adaptable in all of Tamriel. It's amazing what control they have over them. Ours are like prehensile tails in comparison. But the argonian tongue is incredibly adaptable. Oh, they certainly can nurse from the youngest age!"

"Huh. The things I never knew."

"There's something else you don't know I should probably tell you."

"Oh? What's that?" Ra'Jirra said as she began to wash her more private areas.

"Though I have the form of an Alfiq, I have the mind of a Cathay."

"So?" she said, her head turned away from the cat.

"A male Cathay."

Suddenly she understood. She spun around and dropped back under the water while at the same time throwing the soap at where the cat had been, but he ducked and ran out of the bathroom laughing.