Protecting Home - Prologue

  •      “Ata*, we don’t want you to leave.”

         The Altmer smiled unhappily, bending down to his knees to stare at his twins at eye-level. His bright eyes shimmered with sadness and an unspoken agony, but his lips curved into a soft smirk. He placed his hands on either of the boys' shoulders, squeezing tightly. “I know. I won’t be gone long. A month is all I require.” His lips curved into a reassuring grin, and he flickered his eyes upward. The silent she-elf watched above them, face impassive but amber gaze cold and withering. When her husband looked up at her meaningfully, her jaw tightened and she hardened her face, turning away.

         Mithllon’s smile wavered. He turned back to his sons, cupping the backs of their necks with affection. “When I return, I hope to find the house unscathed and unscorched.”

         The two Altmer failed to hide their mischievous smirks, glancing at each other to share a pleasantly destructive memory between themselves. In Summerset Isles, the two Altmer were renowned for their destructive capabilities; several crumbled, smoldering statues of Auri-El bared witness to that. The bills Mithllon had to pay...

         Their father’s eyebrows climbed. Sensing danger, the twins hastily bobbed their heads.

         “Yes, Ata,” Coredalf mumbled, Ganllon soon to join the answer with a reluctant huff. Mithllon regarded them with doubt, lips tightening into a thin line. Noticing his expression, the twins cried out in protest:

         “We won’t burn anything down! We swear! ‘No experiments whilst you’re gone’.”

         Mithllon’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, but he knew he would receive a no better promise. He straightened and shooed them away with a flick of his hand. The twins, tumbling over each other, squeezed out the door, repeating their promise several times as Mithllon watched their retreating backs.

         They lied.


         He hated Skyrim.

         There was too much snow -- the biting cold, enough wind to skin a mammoth, and the sheets of ice that blanketed the land. The cold gust tore at his lungs, chill clawing at his throat. Ice pelted his face, gnashing at exposed skin, and transforming his fingers to lifeless blue digits that screamed painfully as they were rubbed raw against the cowhide bridle. He shivered, his eyelids nearly sealed shut with frost. He smashed into the saddle with each broken gallop of Drastíll, breathing nearly as heavily as his horse. The blizzard roared around them, beating angrily at the trees and bushes. A sound not unlike thunder boomed from behind them.

         Mithllon knew it was not.

         They ran. And with all the chill of Skyrim, sweat still beaded from Mithllon’s brow, the sound much like thunder -- yet could never be far from -- resounding from behind.


         “You aren’t coming back.”

         Mithllon paused, hand outstretched to gather up his bags, but not fulfilling the task. He turned to eye the ember-eyed Altmer at the far end of the room, his own face growing impassive.

         “Of course I will,” he whispered softly.

         A pitiful counter. Every High Elf knew he was not skilled in arguing with his wife.

         Lorana’s face grew stoney, her voice nearly hostile. “Against the Thalmor?” She uttered the name as if it were vinegar forced down her throat. But there was power in that word, and even the stubborn she-elf dared not tag an offensive label to such an organization. She sneered angrily at him, tone falling bitter. “Don’t be a fool.”

         Mithllon stared at the floorboards, face taut with tense emotions. His eyes danced everywhere but where his wife stood, scavenging through his mind to drovel some reasonable answer. He felt  his forehead burn as Lorana watched him, his tongue going dry. Where was his usual wit? His normal cleverness always dissipated when Lorana stepped foot in a room. For a moment, he wished more to be in the Thalmor’s presence than hers.

         “I will return.” Even to his own ears, the sentence sounded hollow.

         In front of him, Lorana snorted in disdain, her shoes tapping against the floor. He felt a powerful, thump against his chest, and he groped with whatever his wife unceremoniously shoved into him. His fingers found the rough corners of his final packing bag, filled to the brim with dried Altmeri fruit.

         “You’re mad,” Lorana hissed. For a moment, Mithllon thought he heard her voice crack over the rapping of her shoes as the door creaked open.

         He didn’t spin around to face her. He didn’t stop her from leaving. He regarded the pack in silence, lips thinning into a line.

         He resumed his packing.

         “I will return home,” he repeated to himself.

         He lied.


         The open sea was a home away from home for Altmer. The churning of the waves, the cry of seagulls nesting, and the taste of salt on his tongue did wonders to ease the nerves. His hands ached to nestle themselves in the rough ropes of a fisherman’s net, filled to the brim with glistening salmon that stubbornly flopped towards the water, swollen gills gasping for air. But he was a mere passenger on the boat, and although he was required to scrub the deck and haul the sails, the sailors did not offer him the privilege of fishing.

         The deck was silent at night, the ship pitching and lolling above the winds and tides, each board groaning against each other. Mithllon draped himself against the stairs, fondling the wooden pipe in his hands, smoke billowing from his lips.

         He never smoked. The Elders spoke of pipe users suffocating from their own blackened lungs; the written cases alone usually frightened the citizens of Summerset Isles from using such items.

         But right now, Mithllon didn’t care.

         He disregarded the wisdom of An Ati*, instead relishing the scent of smoldering ginko* leaves an Orcish sailor sold him at the port, the drug entering his system, touching his tense nerves with a mother’s caress. He was still lucid--barely--as he gazed at the canopy of stars above, pondering.

         How was the little king, he wondered. That Nordic youth, with wide blue eyes filled with innocent mirth, was constantly on the Altmer’s mind. He had led Ulfric home when he found him in Skyrim, face hot and swollen from crying, his leg wedged beneath a tree’s gnarled root. A jarl’s son was his title, and he had been kidnapped by a group of bandits prepared to call for a ransom before abandoning them in haste of escape. Their meeting had been rough and unsteady, but Mithllon had formed a firm bond with the child on their journey. Ulfric resembled his twins too much to be ignored.

         And then he had left him. Like a frightened rabbit, fleeing from the Thalmor, he had run into the night. 

         Mithllon grimaced. He took a long draw from his pipe, longing for strong mead. Eventually, he left the deck and found some. It was a long night, with his bottle of ale, and a buzzing mind that refused to relinquish its thoughts.

         He didn’t remember getting drunk. He just remembered feeling better.


         “But Daddy, we have to find him!”

         Young Ulfric was in tears, snot, and bubbly spit. His face was red, eyes swollen, and lips trembling as dribble spilled out of one end. By Talos, he was a messy crier. The guards’ faces twisted into disgust, and they looked anywhere but the child. Haren was tempted to mime the men, but his son practically clung to him. The liquid was soaking into his tunic, and already his skin felt wet and sticky. He turned to his wife.

         Help.

         Ania rolled her eyes upward, perhaps pondering how long nails would hold her husband to the stone ceiling. Then she moved, prying Ulfric from his father, whipping excess mucus from his face as she cradled him. Haren’s hands hovered over the dark spot on his shirt, wondering if he should try to swipe it off, then rightly deciding against it.

         “Ulfric,” he began. “Altmer cannot be your friends. This ‘Mithllon’ tricks people.”

         They all do.

         Ulfric pulled away from his mother and, summoning up a grand Nordic stubbornness, glared at his father.

         “They’re not all like that.”

         Haren frowned, eyebrows arching dramatically. “Oh?”

         The child bobbed his head with self-renowned wisdom. “Mithllon told me that.”

         “Of course he did.”

         His face turned a brighter red, and his face twisted, threatening to burst into tears once more. “He did!”

         Haren threw his hands out in alarm, fearing another bout of the toddler’s tantrums. Ania huffed quietly, eying the ceiling once more.

         “Ulfric,” the Nordic lady cooed. “Not to worry. We’re certain you speak of exactly what the elf told you.” She paused and glanced at Haren.

         “Are we going to look for him?” Ulfric sniffed.

         Haren poised his mouth to answer, but Ania silenced him with a glare.

         “Yes. We’ll search for him,” she responded in a sweet voice. “We’ll find him, and you can see him again.”

    She lied.


         The air burned.           

         The land sweltered.

         And yet the earth was still.           

         Fire, scarlet wraiths of death and agony dancing in the air, licked mercilessly at the remains of the skeletal house, its embers' ferocity lessened long ago but its hunger remaining un-sated. Plumes of smoke slithered from beneath the boards to bathe the sky in a dark, murky sludge, concealing the sun to force the land to bask in darkness. The flames crackled as they gnashed at the remains of a once elegant estate, its shimmering glass shattered and its smooth floor charred to a blackened pile of soot. The boards that had managed to remain upright groaned eerily, like a wan dog's last death cry. In the midst of the rubble lay a crumpled form, clothes and skin burned to a pitiful blackened coating, too charred to identify. The only remarkable feature was the pointed ears that prodded out of the body's head, and slivers of brown hair cascading around the ear, the only lucky survivors of the fire. The land was noiseless, the birds frightened from their perches to flee from the smoke-ridden air and animals too wary to go within a mile from the burning carcass of a home.

         An elf wailed beside it, looking quite pitiful, crumpled in a tight ball. A mess of hair splayed over his face, smelling of soiled mead and pipe smoke. A white horse stood guard above him, ears flickering and hooves pacing restlessly, head swaying this way and that. It nickered and neighed, nudging at his master and breathing heavily. The elves--old, young, withered, or strong--watched silently, watching the “wretch” scream his throat raw. They did not mourn for him. They did not pity him. They stared impassively, waiting for the inevitable to come to the mer.

         And it did.

         The Thalmor--composed in their glossy armor and embroidered hoods--strolled elegantly through the crowd, the lesser elves complacently moving to make way for the wizards, some bowing their heads in submission. They watched as the group calmly passed the smoldering skeletal remains of the house, and towards the withered form. The horse was trouble, tossing his mane in a frothing rage, rearing his head and throwing out his hooves. A sudden mauve spark solved the problem, the horse spasming, jolting, screaming, before falling to the ground with a sickening thump.

         The air smelled like scorched flesh. Several Altmer wrinkled their noses and cursed the horse for tarnishing the air.

         The Thalmor seized the slumped figure at his arms, hauling him upward. The leader stood a distance away, as if he feared catching a sickly disease from the mer. He studied him, said a few words, and then the Thalmor left with him.

         The next day, there was a paper posted on the doors of the Altmeri homes. It announced  that the rebel leader, Mithllon Adal, was scheduled for a public execution by the morn.

         It spoke the truth.

    ...

         And now for a little lore. If you don’t want to read about my odd obsession of how Bethesda created the vast world of Nirn, you can ignore the entirety of this. But I do want to say that a great deal of researching was done to form this story, and so if you want a “behind the scenes” look of how I wrote this, you can continue on.

         1) Ata - “father” in Aleidoon. Aleidoon is the language of the Ayleids, the ancient elves before the storyline of the Elder Scrolls games begin.

         2) An Ati - “the Elders” (very rough translation) in Aleidoon. “An” is “the”, and “ati” is “elders”. However, the wiki was a little confusing for using “the” article, and I was unsure whether to capitalize it, and put it either in front or behind “Ati”.

         3) I researched a little bit on the art of pipe smoking in the medieval times. They didn’t offer an answer to any specific plant they used for “fuel” for the pipe, so I decided to search for a floral in the Elder Scrolls lore that wasn’t poisonous, and pleasant in taste/smell. I discovered the “ginko leaf”, which can be found all over Cyrodiil and along the banks of lakes and oceans in Hammerfell. It has a sweet taste to it, and really I found perfect to use, since I could logically assume that Mithllon bought it from a merchant in Hammerfell, which was where he made sail in order to reach Summerset Isles.

         As always, thank you for my readers, dedicated or otherwise, for reading my story. Reviews are vastly appreciated. One, in fact, caused me to re-think my plot and improve it. Many thanks to that one person. 

Comments

7 Comments
  • The Long-Chapper
    The Long-Chapper   ·  July 11, 2015
    Like I said, discovered your stuff with Mithllon's little tale with a young Ulfric. That was lovely. I look forward to more, though with a bit of trepidation, I really liked Mithllon.
  • Sildriel
    Sildriel   ·  July 11, 2015
    @Sotek
    Alright, I believe I did it correctly for chapters one and two, though I left the prologue posted for today. (Is that alright?)
    And yes, I would absolutely love to get my TOC on my main page. Thank you very much. 
  • Sotek
    Sotek   ·  July 11, 2015
    Give each one a 24 hour interval. Then we'll see about getting your TOC on your main page if you want.
  • Sildriel
    Sildriel   ·  July 11, 2015
    @ Sotek
    Ah, I never knew that. Aye, I know how to do that. I'll do that now.
  • Sotek
    Sotek   ·  July 11, 2015
    Hi Sildriel
    You can't post more than 1 blog in every 24 hours. There's no need to panic or worry we'll easily sort it ok. What I want you to do is adjust the posting time on your other blog posts. Do you know how to do that?
  • Sildriel
    Sildriel   ·  July 11, 2015
    @Sotek 
    Funnily enough, I am writing more. I was having what I affectionately call "a writer's crisis", where I doubted my style and my ability, wondering if it was mediocre or not, or simply the content that I wrote wasn't very interesting. For thi...  more
  • Sotek
    Sotek   ·  July 11, 2015
    You've a nice writing style. It's a shame you don't write any more.