Warning! Proceed with caution, for this chapter contains the following:
‘Who is that?’
A father, a son and a daughter stood with their heads tilted back, watching thin clouds drift past the tip of an upraised blade. This blade was made of stone. Its wielder, equally stony, against the sky stood petrified. The sword arm was thrust high, a shield clasped against an armoured chest. Though its posture was noble, the statue’s eeriness could not be disputed; for all its years battling the blizzards of Bruma, it wore an incomplete face. Old eyes had eroded into hollows. High cheeks were weather-beaten and the tip of a long nose had chipped.
‘I’m not quite sure who that is,’ mumbled Felanyl. ‘Poor fellow, he looks like he’s been standing there a terribly long time.’
‘He doesn’t look as nearly as grand as I think they meant him to,’ said Ethdal, unimpressed, turning to wander away.
‘His armour is foreign,’ noted Ruunen. The statue was equipped with a metal jacket, layered spaulders, rerebraces and vambraces. Two flaps hung between the faulds. All of the pieces were patterned with pretty designs, swirling threads of stone.
Felanyl hummed thoughtfully. He noticed an Imperial guardsman walking past and beckoned to him.
‘Good morning!’ said Felanyl as the guard strode toward them, one hand comfortably on the pommel of his sword. ‘May I ask about this statue?’
‘And tell us why his armour is foreign,’ added Ruunen.
‘Oh, that,’ said the guard, glancing shortly at the statue, ‘that’s the Champion of Cyrodiil, that is. He was one of them Blades, see. Defenders of the emperor in the old days, before them Dominioners chopped all their heads off. Uniform akin to legionaries’ but with silly flowers and the like.’
‘The—’ Felanyl’s head shot back to the statue, eyes wide. ‘The Champion of Cyrodiil?’
Mistaking the repetition for confusion, the guard elaborated. ‘Aye, he were what saved Bruma and Kvatch from daedric siege two hundred years ago. Surely you know the old nonsense song, the one with wheels and eggs and all:
‘The Wheel did write upon the night
Dawning death and mythic rite.
The Emperor thereby did fall
To heed his Fate, the shrillest call.
‘Arose a Champion peasant-born
As sand rushed down until the dawn.
He bowed to Fate and ran his way:
The race against the rising day.
‘Look into the gaps between,
Behold the egg cracking.
Yolk is spilling from the seam;
Towers cough, Nirn racking.
‘The night was dark as siege was laid
And penance with blood was paid.
The Hero sealed the portal torn
And found God-blooded Dragonborn.
‘And there’s more after that, but it goes on for a while,’ admitted the guard.
‘You have a lovely singing voice,’ noted Felanyl politely.
The guard blushed like a rose, as though the realisation abruptly dawned on him that he had been singing in the street to a couple of strangers. ‘Oh, er, thank you. Thank you kindly. Yes, er, now, er, what was the Champion’s name again…? Something something… ffff. Fffsomething something. Ef…?’
‘Phrixus Efrem,’ Felanyl told him. ‘We’re from a village in the Gold Coast, just south of Kvatch. They never stop telling the tale, though I’ve never actually seen any sort of statue of him before.’
‘Gold Coast, you said?’ The guard looked impressed. ‘Quite a while away.’
‘Took us half a bloody year to get here, sir,’ grumbled Ruunen. ‘More than, actually. Seven months. We started at the end of Evening Star.’
‘Can’t be here for business,’ said the guard, revolving his sword hilt as he scrutinised the elves.
Nervousness leaked into Felanyl’s smile. ‘No, sir, we—we intend to make for Skyrim.’
‘Hmf.’
The guard suddenly stepped closer. Felanyl started back edgily. Ruunen filled the gap between them, a harsh spark in his red eyes. But the guard shook his head.
‘I want to ask, you ain’t travelling for Talos, are you?’ he asked with a tinge of urgency. ‘This ain’t immigration for freer worship?’
Felanyl began to stammer.
Ruunen answered instead. ‘We are dark elves, sir, and we have kept some of our culture,’ he growled. Then he cleared his throat, pretending the growl in his tone was completely inadvertent, and slunk backwards. This was, in actual fact, a city guard. Ruunen needed to seem unthreatening, not defensive.
‘We don’t worship your gods,’ he added in a more casual tone, scratching his ear awkwardly.
‘Ah, a’course,’ said the guard. ‘Daedra worship, eh? Keep that quiet in Skyrim, dark elves.’
Flashing them a peculiar knowing look, the guard tapped his nose and set off past them. Bewildered and befuddled the Farvulis stared after him, wondering what on Nirn had galvanised that odd investigation. Was it some sort of test? Whatever the case, it sent Ruunen’s hair prickling. Perhaps the guards were expecting Talos-worshippers to run from Cyrodiil, and questioned every suspicious-looking immigrant. Perhaps a bounty now hung over their heads.
‘You ought not to have lied,’ muttered Felanyl when he had recovered his voice. ‘We had perfectly good truth to answer with, to be sure.’
‘Which you were too frightened to remember at the time,’ snapped Ruunen, pointing a finger accusingly. ‘Honestly, Papa, you’re about as brave as a rabbit. Besides, why would he be more likely to believe us if we claimed our village was poor as piss and we couldn’t afford to live there anymore? They don’t put that rubbish in the newspapers.’
‘It happens all the time, Ruunen,’ retorted his father, offended. ‘They don’t put it in because they know it’s always happening. Tell the truth next time and appeal to my old conscience.’
‘But Skyrim! Of all places, Papa, Skyrim! As if anyone would believe we didn’t have the money to live in Naskavinch but we have the money to travel to Skyrim.’
‘Mercidar.* Don’t go on about that anymore. I’ll never get a rest.’
Felanyl stormed away to find Ethdal, leaving Ruunen alone with Phrixus Efrem. The young elf made a gesture of frustration and turned around to storm in the opposite direction – but then he stopped.
He did not know where to go. Bruma was vast, completely unexplored to him, and many of the Nordic locals frowned at his passing. His slow venture north introduced him gently to the weather’s chill, but the chill of the white Nords was an abrupt experience. Their gazes were icy, watching him as though they expected him to commit murder. He wondered with some uneasiness whether they felt bitterly toward elves, dark elves or perhaps all outsiders in general.
Most alienating by far was the coldness they showed to their own kind. Mere handshakes and firm words were their greetings. They stood apart in conversation. Brothers did not link arms – not when they were sober, at any rate. It did not help that their language was thick and unattractive, and spoken in a barbarous manner. If any rare softness lay beneath their shells of impassivity, it did not surface while Ruunen was looking.
There in the middle of the street, with a heavy heart that itched for a smile, Ruunen raised his head to the old tower of stone looking over the city from empty eye sockets. The statue’s face was long, its features sharp and angular, decidedly Imperial. Its hair was unbound, spilling about its waist like snakes. It looked lonely in some distant, disconnected way. The tightness of the lips, perhaps, or the fact that Phrixus perched alone upon his pedestal, hardened by the expectation of an entire country.
Ruunen had heard the stories. Arose a Champion peasant-born. The Champion of Cyrodiil had been a plebeian. A simple commoner rose to the heights of heroism. Duty turned him out of home and respect forbade him friendship.
How often did you yearn for something familiar? wondered Ruunen. Now Phrixus Efrem’s essence was made to watch a cold, ungrateful city where even his name was forgotten.
‘Was all that worth it in the end?’ asked Ruunen aloud.
There was no reply. The statue continued to stare over the streets, sword held high, ignoring him. He thought he saw a mite of dolour deepen its furrowed brows.
Ruunen tried not to feel sorry for the old hero.
On the morning of the next day, the seventeenth of Sun’s Height, the Farvulis were loading their waggon outside Bruma’s gates. Polyxena flattened back her ears irritably, for the withering weather and lofty altitude were not at all to her liking. Long ago, in Evening Star, Ahenobarbus had spent many hours sifting through the steeds at the stables of Kvatch City until he found a mare pleasantly inexpensive. She was a sweet-faced dun with bright eyes and humble manners, and though not in the best health, Ahenobarbus thought her price was very odd. Too odd. Still, he was not a man to turn down an opportunity, no matter how suspicious.
Within their first hour of owning her, the lucky Farvulis were bitten, bucked, shoved and aggrieved in the way only a horse can aggrieve. Her sweetness was a lie; an eerily intelligent sham. The light in her eyes turned out to be an irrepressible wrath so vicious it glowed from her very soul. But she and the elves had put up with each other for seven months – a few more should hardly make a difference.
Polyxena watched on with narrowed eyes as Felanyl and Ruunen bustled to and fro, luggage in their arms, dragging their belongings to the waggon from a scattered pile near the gate. There was not much to load – the heaviest items they now owned were sacks and boxes filled with the basest provisions – but Felanyl complained anyway, claiming the weight put strain on his poor old back. Ruunen snorted imperviously and loaded the boxes himself.
‘Papa, there are legionaries in the world crippled before their time,’ he grumbled, tossing a vegetable-filled crate on board.
‘I know that, my boy,’ replied Felanyl calmly. ‘I happen to be the father of one of them. And you weren’t the only young man in this family to serve the Empire. Not the only one… damaged by it.’
‘You never tell us about your time in the Legion, Papa,’ whined Ethdal, leaning out of the waggon.
‘Sweetheart—’ Felanyl heaved a sack of pots next to her— ‘the Great War is not a tale fit for retelling. None who took part in it—’
‘—nor those who didn’t take part in it,’ put in Ruunen.
‘—want to hear mention of it again, ever,’ finished Felanyl.
Ethdal pouted. ‘Never?’
With a soft smile, Felanyl tickled his daughter under the chin. She hunched her neck like a turtle, giggling. ‘Never,’ Felanyl confirmed.
‘Well, you still haven’t shown me your battle scar,’ said Ethdal loudly as Felanyl turned to pick up the last of the baggage, a thick canvas sheet. ‘You know, the big one.’
‘I don’t think you’ll get to see that one, sweetheart.’
‘Why not? You let Ruu see it. And I’ve seen plenty of bare chests.’
‘Well…’ Felanyl twisted his mouth awkwardly. Ruunen was blooming with suppressed laughter. ‘Well, erm, I mean—Well, it’s a bit lower than the chest, sweetheart.’
‘You mean it’s in your crotch?’ shouted Ethdal, amazed. ‘How on Nirn did they get you in the crotch? That means I came from mangled loins, didn’t I?’
Unable to contain himself any longer, Ruunen exploded into a fit of guffaws as Felanyl took his turn to redden.
‘Now who taught you those words?’ wondered Felanyl, looking at his son deliberately.
‘Albus, of course,’ replied Ethdal. ‘Ruu wouldn’t because he never talks to me.’
She stuck her tongue out at the young man, who ignored her, grinning instead at Felanyl with childish triumph written all over his face. Felanyl said nothing. He simply climbed onto the waggon and picked up the reins. Only when he started clucking at the mare did Ruunen realise what he was doing, and by then a wild ‘yee!’ had shot into the air as the waggon suddenly bolted, leaving Ruunen yelling in vain behind them.
‘Papa! Papa, you troglodyte! Papa, for Gods’ sakes!’
When Ruunen began to give chase, wearing his red-eyed scowl, Felanyl slowed the waggon and pulled his son aboard. He was rewarded with silence and disdain, but it hardly affected him; Felanyl had grown accustomed to such treatment over the years. Ruunen carried on with his sulk for almost an hour before he accepted that it was useless. His father simply behaved as cheerfully as normal, chatting away as if everything was fine. Eventually, Ruunen had to accept that everything was fine, and he was just being juvenile.
Though the weather was slightly wretched, the sun a white eye enshrouded in gloomy clouds, Felanyl did a good job of lightening the mood. He sung of familiar Cyrodilic topics – lush fields, emerald forests and noble heroes – dissolving the joyless reality as imagination expanded. Laughter echoed through the mountainous Pale Pass, nearly surreal, like the twitter of birds on the bleakest day.
But the truth was that there were no more lush fields and emerald forests, and imagination’s comfort was short-lived. Around them, the smell of the air was cold and earthy, lacking the sweetness of grass or blossom. The Jerall Mountains jutted like jagged teeth from the green mouth of Cyrodiil. Shadowy evergreens stippled the slopes in a carpet of spines, ascending with the waggon into cloud-cloaked heights. Over eras, the tracks of travellers hammered the cobbles into flatness like a blacksmith disciplines his metal, but the Farvulis were alone on the old road now. Ahead, far ahead, white peaks towered.
The elves knew that they would soon experience their coldest autumn yet, swallowed in snow. They had never seen snow before. Ethdal’s excitement gushed forth as a million questions, unquenchable and inexhaustible.
‘Is it wet?’
‘Yes, Dilly-Dally – it’s ice.’
‘How heavy is it? When it comes from the sky, does it come down like hail?’
‘No, it’s very thin. Like little ice feathers.’
‘How cold is it?’
‘As cold as ice, sweetheart.’
‘Is it fast? Does it fall fast?’
‘They told me it floats down very gently.’
The first day in the pass slipped away uneventfully. It seemed to take them nowhere, for still the heights were distant, the green land still on the southern horizon.
The following days were much the same, crawling off the calendar at a sluggish pace to match the drumroll of monotony. Rattling, rattling, rattling through the mountains, nothing changed, nothing happened. The trio occupied their minds with games. Mountain lions were a common terror in the Jeralls, so Ethdal and Ruunen spent hours thinking up the most heroic and gruesome ways of slaughtering the beasts.
‘And I would stand on the waggon and make this huge roaring sound, so loud that the lion would just run, just like that.’
‘That’s stupid. Lions aren’t afraid of little girls. I would get my sword. Then, as it fiercely charged, with slather dribbling from its bare yellow teeth, I would duck down and stab it right in the belly so that all of its guts would spill out like worms.’ He wiggled his fingers on Ethdal’s abdomen, making her wriggle and giggle.
‘You are absolutely revolting, Ruu!’
Felanyl preferred less violent games, the boring and unimaginative ones, like counting birds and spotting shapes in the clouds. But, as they were not the most innovative of serfs, all ingenious or otherwise impressive ideas had been exhausted long ago. Fending off boredom became a chore in itself. It was soon laborious to play even the best games more than once.
There were small villages specking the eminences, but on many nights the Farvulis found themselves miles from civilisation, utterly isolated in the quiet cold. They lit fires with pinewood and brush (when the wind ceased its blowing) and fed on old bread, cold vegetables and tough, salty jerked meat – a meal hard to chew and harder yet to swallow. Ruunen usually ignored the pleas of his stomach but something in the crisp air made its growling all the louder. So he ate, with little relish but little choice.
When the Farvulis slept, Felanyl and Ruunen often took turns to keep their vigil against predators and highwaymen. Night was long. Sleep was difficult. Feet were freezing. They lay on top of lumpy sacks under the canvas and woke with pain in their bones, joints stiff and algid.
Soon the mountains began to close over them on all sides like grey giants, looming darkly as they blotted out the sky. The elves could no longer see the comforting green rug upon the view behind them and the snowy hair of the giants did not look so far away anymore. At night, frost crept beneath the dark elves’ skin and slid its fingers over the road, triggering unstoppable shivers. Ethdal was no longer excited. She came to loathe every call of nature and every frozen night in the wilderness. Felanyl’s dread became her miserable questions.
‘Why do we need to go to Skyrim?’
‘When can we see the Inventiuses again?’
‘When are we going back home?’
He was quick to change the subject, pointing out some suddenly interesting rock formation or passing a vague answer to appease her. Ruunen was no help at all – he spent most of his time sewing flowers on Ethdal’s gowns or swinging his gladius strenuously at the unfortunate air, oblivious to everyone but himself.
One night, however, the Farvulis shared a spell of mutual stupefaction. Ruunen noticed something small and strange drift towards the ground. He froze in fear, though his eyeballs continued to swivel madly for signs of danger. More somethings began to fall. From the sky, he realised. White, feather-like flakes.
‘Papa,’ whispered Ethdal, ‘what’s happening?’
‘I think it’s snowing, sweetheart,’ said Felanyl. He held out a hand and caught one of the dainty flakes on his fingers. It melted like a shard of liquidised glass.
The snow fell lightly from midnight until sometime before dawn. No one could sleep. They sat upon the waggon, enchanted, watching the unearthly crystals flutter toward the ground. Ethdal’s glee evaporated into calm awe as she gazed at the phenomenon that was so natural yet so alien to her Colovia-born eyes.
‘This is unbelievably eerie,’ murmured Ruunen. ‘I thought it would be… Well, it… it’s so quiet.’
Nobody responded. The quiet was sacred. And all night, adhering to some unspoken rite of quiescence, the family drank the peace without another word between them. It was the most acquiescent they had been together since they left Naskavinch.
When Magnus, the brilliant blue-white sun, rose above the ragged horizon and splashed the sky with the rousing hues of dawn, every trace of nightly snow vanished under the light. Thereafter, however, darkness brought more snow. Most sunsets heralded another downpour of soft flakes, sometimes for a short duration, sometimes continuing even into sunlit hours. The month of Last Seed had finally embraced the surroundings and graced it with a white autumn.
Weeks passed and the route started to tip downwards, descending into the bowels of a new land. The Farvulis knew they had at last crossed the Cyrodiil-Skyrim border when thick, stark forts appeared beside the road. Often a village barely living cowered in their fear-shaped shadows. The only evidence of life in these settlements were the scant farmers and soldiers, though their faces were so pale and austere that they may well have been ghosts, wandering the frozen earth they tilled a hundred years ago.
The way was still long, the wind still cold, but Ruunen knew they were near. Near to what, he could not say. Not to a home, and not to acceptance of this sombre world, for there was a fear tainting his awareness. But his heart was waiting, nervous inside him like a songbird tasting the storm of tomorrow.
Ruunen swirled a finger in the remains of his cabbage soup, hunger quelled and innards warmed. Voices bubbled in the brimming room; over there they were raucous in joy, there sunken in secrets and here, right next to his ear, were roars of drunken outrage. On the other end of the hearth, two carousers were crooning and cajoling the flush-faced serving girl. With firelight playing warmly on the walls, the dark elf could almost feel comfortable.
But these voices were Nordic, every word like gibberish to his ears. There was no meaning to their thick laughter. His smile could not fit their smiles. His very presence disturbed the peace.
‘Vam vor kol-ansle i Skyrim?*’ muttered one man sourly.
‘Vor knjak,’ mumbled another. ‘Va son vetar ike malar um jore.’
Ruunen could tell in some paranoid space of his brain that they were talking about him.
It was the sixteenth of Last Seed. The Farvulis were lucky to have reached a roadside inn, Pyrrhus’ Rest, before night spread its cloak over the Jeralls. Helgen, the nearest town to Pale Pass, was hardly two hours’ plod away at this point, but the elves had shed all anticipation weeks ago. Merely that they found shelter and hot food was worthy of celebration. Ethdal was asleep in the travellers’ room. With full bellies, the men swayed on their stools and stared into the flames.
‘I like what Skyrim is doing to your appetite, Ruu,’ whispered Felanyl affectionately.
‘It’s cold,’ grunted Ruunen in embarrassment.
He was cosy and satiated – for what more could he ask? Still, the damnable unfamiliarity contracted his brows. It had been more than a decade since he was forced to share quarters with strangers, and then at least they had shared a common language. That was in the Legion, when he spent long, wakeful nights between a man who spoke sighing words to some faraway wife as he slumbered, and another whose nose bled every time he was stressed; when under daylight he trained with such vigorous youth, though no training could prepare him for true terror. He learned much about battle and death as purity became blood-splattered in his young mind.
Ruunen had returned to Naskavinch at twenty-six, and six years in the Legion could torture any boy into a man. The madness of sympathy threw him to the chapel, enfolding him in blood’s embrace once more. This time, though, he was not a murderer. He would never murder again.
His mentor, Master Healer Asclepius, was a man with hands that fidgeted too much for suture and ligation, so Ruunen became his own mentor. Elia was appointed his ‘right hand’ – a cruel taunt for the left-armed surgeon, but necessary. It was a shame the young human hated him so fervently. Ambra, in contrast, made a friend out of everyone with her prudish obedience. The chapel was where Ruunen learned about people, surrounded by their dramatic lives, surrounded by how curtly their lives are cut short.
He thought of the Inventiuses, all six sons running rampant with wild Ethdal in their midst, the two shy, sweet daughters labouring like the slaves of slaves. Iovita, once like an older sister to him, was now in her forties and scolded him as if he was barely out of adolescence. And young Drusus used to shadow him so reverently; but he was now a man in the Legion, experiencing for himself what it meant to show courage in this harsh world. From dwindling kinships, Ruunen learned that all friends reach a point of inconsequentiality.
Cyrodiil taught him all he knew. Calmly, in a thought that was almost a dream, he felt that he would never see it again.
Just as Ruunen’s eyelids were beginning to droop, the door to the travellers’ room gave a startling whine. A short and cheery-faced Imperial couple strode out arm-in-arm, joining everyone around the fire.
‘Getting frosty now, isn’t it?’ said the husband. He pulled off his mittens and rubbed his hands together.
He and his wife were rather comical, taking the time to smile at each person nearby with heartfelt jocundity. In spite of his ill and weary mood, Ruunen could not help but smile back. They were definitely Nibenese commoners, possibly farmers – there was none of the forced politeness seen in the well-off sort. He saw plenty of those as the waggon waddled past the Imperial City Isle.
‘Indeed it is extraordinarily frosty,’ answered Felanyl, gushing at the opportunity to speak with Imperials again. The melodic buzz of Nibenese Cyrodilic was like music beside the vulgar tongue of Skyrim. ‘My children and I had never seen snow before. Praised be Kynareth, what a sight for travel-worn eyes!’
The Imperials gleamed with delight, all of their attention quickly fixed on the dark elves.
‘Your accent tells me Colovian, yes?’ said the man excitedly. ‘My good sir, we get puffs of snow as low as Cheydinhal in midwinter. Even in the Imperial City, I believe.’
‘Truly!’ gasped Felanyl.
‘But that matters little,’ cut in the man’s wife. ‘It has been so long since we met someone on the road from Cyrodiil! And soldiers get so tedious, you know. We live in Helgen, you see, but we’re going south to meet with our dear daughter in Cheydinhal. We left Helgen this morning. What brings you north?’
‘Ah.’ Felanyl’s face fell. ‘Our village was struck by famine. We decided it was probably best for… a change of scenery, to be sure.’
‘You decided,’ muttered Ruunen under his breath.
The Imperials looked at Felanyl empathetically. ‘You should have stayed in Cyrodiil, my friend,’ said the man. ‘There will be famine here soon enough as well, what with all these Stormcloak rebels pillaging and plundering Imperial land.’
Ruunen jolted as though he had been electrocuted. The word ‘rebels’ rung through his ears like a long, hollow knell.
Suddenly, the innkeeper moved to the fire and spoke the common language, his voice thickening Cyrodilic into a harsh-vowelled drawl. ‘Have you heard they’ve captured that damned Ulfric and are ready to execute him in Helgen?’
‘What?’ gasped Felanyl. ‘Execute? In Helgen?’
His eyes flicked toward Ruunen, filmed with guilt. That was the panicked glance of a secret-keeper. Dread was fast corroding Ruunen’s drowsiness, filling him with cold fear.
‘Ya,’ said the innkeeper solemnly. ‘It’s about Gods-damned time those barbarians were brought to justice.’
‘Bryla, bryla, but I heard they take him and others to the Imperial City for… uh… test in court,’ said one gruff-voiced patron.
The innkeeper spouted a humourless laugh. ‘A trial, you mean? Who in Oblivion would want to wait so long? His crimes have been committed and everyone knows them. A trial would be a waste of time.’
‘This is messy. It looks like injustice,’ mumbled an elderly patron distastefully. ‘Why are the Imperials content to spoil their image of order and honour?’
‘They spoiled that image long ago,’ growled Ruunen.
Felanyl turned to him in horror and flapped his lips like a fish. ‘But—but—no, no, wait—why—Ruunen!’ he croaked. ‘Hush—Not here—’
‘You can panic all you want, Papa, but that is what they did!’ barked the young elf. ‘They have made a mess of themselves.’
The innkeeper glared. ‘Where is your loyalty? Talk like that and you’ll sound like a Stormcloak sympathiser, elf,’ he hissed. ‘Keep your bloody tongue behind your teeth or you’ll lose it.’
In attempt to loosen any tight fists, the Imperial man leaned forward and hung his hands over his knees. It was a casual gesture, but Ruunen could tell he was forming a barricade between him and the innkeeper.
‘The, ah, the general had an interesting discussion about the execution with that Thalmor first emissary woman whose name I have forgotten,’ the Imperial mentioned.
The statement worked like magick, forcing an obstinate silence to fall upon the inn. The Nords straightened slowly, bristling like hounds. They stuck out their jaws with grimaces pulling at their lips, as if they were too afraid to commit vocal treason but not afraid enough to mask their hatred. Ruunen was not as proud as they, and felt himself cringing.
‘It was more of an argument, really,’ said the Imperial’s wife, blind to their discomfort. ‘This White-Gold Concordat doesn’t seem to please either party.’
‘Where did you hear about an argument?’ demanded the innkeeper stiffly.
‘We overhead it ourselves,’ replied the Imperial. ‘Like my wife said, we were in Helgen this morning. I won’t lie, there were no smiles. The ambassadress was furious – well-concealed, of course. You know the type. Anyway, she wanted Ulfric to have a public trial and execution in the Imperial capital, but General Iacopo Tullius was adamant against it. Maybe he received a letter or whatnot. He said the emperor doesn’t want to stir up another rebellion in Cyrodiil by putting down a famous rebel leader. You remember the City Riot, yes? The Imperial City Riot?’
‘Yes,’ whispered Felanyl, his weak voice too small to be heard among the rumbles of Nordic concession.
‘You all know. So! there you have it. Contrary to popular opinion, we Imperials do care about the rest of the world. The newspapers claim only propaganda against Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak when they mention him at all, but many of us are still… at odds, shall we say, with the emperor. It will take just a spark to kindle the next wildfire.’
The elderly patron ran a hand along his face. ‘Stendarr’s Mercy. In that case, maybe it ain’t so bad to have the Stormcloaks ended in Helgen.’
‘No, no, no, ek talar lie, that will only lead to more anger. Deny the people their right to see justice served and they will see the hidden justice as cruelty.’
‘Display it in front of a people already at their edge and it will look like cruelty anyway!’
From there, the conversation did not grow much lighter. Ruunen managed to shoot a few more clipping remarks before his opinions were devoured by the rising fury of the Nords. They eventually swapped Cyrodilic for their mother tongue, and their shouting became crasser in its unintelligibility. They were so confused about where their loyalty lay, condemning another for noticing weakness in the grand Empire even as inklings of sedition dripped from their own lips. Raging, reviling, their cauldron of mixed feelings spat such faulty reasoning, such flawed understanding. A mixture like this was poison to a nation.
When Ruunen could stand it no longer, he got to his feet and made his father do the same.
‘Pardon us,’ he said, using the best manners taught to him, but he need not have bothered. His manners went unheard.
Outside, in thick darkness, star and moonlight were suffocating in the damp clutches of the clouds. A single lantern swung over the porch, squeaking two strangled notes as the wind batted it from side to side.
Ruunen dragged Felanyl down the four steps and into the carpet of snow. It was ankle-deep, seeping through the leather of his boots – the snowfall had grown heavier in the past few days. Fuming with fury and stung by the cold, the younger elf paced while trying to settle his roiling mind. Felanyl stood back, eyes on his timid shuffling feet.
Finally, Ruunen stopped.
‘Well, Papa?’ he snapped. ‘How long have you known?’
‘I didn’t,’ replied his father meekly. ‘If I had known, I—I would never have brought us here—’
‘Liar!’ screamed Ruunen. ‘Liar, liar, liar!’ The sudden loudness of his voice spooked a branch of roosting birds and whipped a flinch up Felanyl’s spine. ‘I know what it looks like when you lie, Papa! How could you do this to your children? You want to lead us into another paucity of food, but this time without money? When were you planning to tell me that Skyrim is currently afflicted with rebellion?’
‘A rebellion that is about to have its head chopped off!’ protested Felanyl.
‘You think it will end at this Uffric figurehead? No, Papa! This is bad! Even poverty is better than another war on our doorstep! Wherever we go, there will be Stormclouds and Imperials fighting over power. Papa, this is what we were trying to get away from!’
‘I—I—I know, but I just—I don’t know what—I only found it out in—in—in that village we were in two weeks ago, and by then it was too late!’
‘We could have gone back to Bruma, Papa!’ Ruunen flung his hand around emphatically. ‘Why this fixation on Skyrim? Why! Now what the bloody, bloody, bloody Oblivion are we going to do? I am not going to sleep with a sword until Skyrim shoves out the Legion! I thought I was done with that!’
‘I have never been duh—duh—done with that! I always have a—a knife under my head at night!’ Felanyl was now wavering where he stood, his mind aroll with vertiginous pain. ‘Don’t—don’t pretend your suffering is worse than mine. You—you—you fought rebels! I fought the bloody Ald—Aldm—meri Dominion! Mages! Delusions! Destruction! Fuh—fire! Burning villages, b—burning cities! And the aftermath, worse yet! You whinged and—and complained, and I raised two children while staving off the nigh—nightmares of the Great War! You lost an arm. I lost my w—w—wife!’
‘I lost my mother!’ shrieked Ruunen.
‘I lost my parents and—and b—brothers!’ cried Felanyl.
‘Your fake parents and brothers!’
Felanyl recoiled and gasped breathlessly. ‘I’ve never had—had—had real p—pah—parents, you bastard!’
‘Dah!’ Ruunen’s anger topped and erupted. He kicked the snow ferociously, put his fist on his hip, burning holes in the ground with a hot and fiery glare. He panted, and panted, and panted.
‘Fine, we tie,’ he huffed at last.
‘Fine, all right,’ agreed Felanyl instantly. There was another pause. His face wilted as he started to sob. ‘I’m so frightfully sorry—’
‘I forgive you,’ said Ruunen. Then he noticed his father’s expression and slapped himself on the forehead. ‘Oh, no, don’t start blubbering!’
‘I didn’t—’ sob! ‘—didn’t mean all of this—’
‘I’m sure you didn’t, Papa, but don’t cry.’
‘I really was a fool—’
‘You were, but we can fix this! Just—just catch your breath!’
‘Ahenobarbus was right, Ruunen!’ moaned Felanyl. Ruunen stiffened. ‘I—I chose Skyrim because of the City Riot! It—it—it achieved nothing, nothing at all! Thousands of people killed themselves for some kind of—kind of… change, see, but… Your mother—Darseru, she—’
Felanyl blinked fiercely and dropped his head into his hands. He could not bear to see the look that had frozen on his son’s face. Despair mutilated his voice into a freakish, uncontrollable ululation. ‘The emperor did nothing, he had to do nothing and the Empire will never be free from the Dominion now! We were destroyed the moment that treaty was signed! You know that! He should never have signed it! He should never have given up on his people! If more of us leave, start our own silent little rebellion, they—the emperor will have no choice but to give us more freedom. Won’t he? Oh, oh please—’
Ruunen lifted a finger. His face was icy and heartless.
‘That bloody riot did achieve something, see,’ he hissed, eyes blazing. ‘It made the Dominion pressure us even more, that’s what it bloody did. The riot quickened our destruction. Mama helped to killed us all by trying to save us all. Now the Dominion will dig their claws into Skyrim, too, and what will we do then?’
A coarse, black chuckle escaped his throat; the bubbling of hysteria.
‘We cannot outwit the Dominion. We cannot simply change their minds. Even if Emperor Titus were to lose the allegiance of every last man, woman and child in the Empire, do you think the Dominion would agree to rethink their terms? Are you blind? They have led stupid peasants like us into a trap! They are weakening the Empire on purpose. On purpose! They want the world in pieces – they want us to war with each other until they can just swoop in and feed off our cold carrion lying stupidly on the battleground, and we will have no bloody idea what just happened.’
Felanyl’s sobbing was irrepressible now. He could barely breathe. Ruunen knew he was winning this argument.
‘I won’t be satisfied until we’re back within the borders of Cyrodiil, Papa,’ he spat scathingly. ‘I never agreed to leave. And I never agreed to vengeance.’
* Mercidar (MER-se-dar) - A contraction of the phrase 'Mercy of Stendarr', a mild oath used as an interjection. Similar to real life 'zounds' or ''swounds' (contractions of 'God's wounds'), 'gosh', 'oh my God', 'by God', &c.
* The Nordic Language - My immense, heartfelt gratitude for the Nordic language (and many other languages in Tamriel) goes to Hrafnir II of the Imperial Library. Please do not attempt to translate any of this Nordic into English because I'm pretty sure I'm butchering it big time. But still, check out his stuff and be in awe.
Comments
FTD, we can't help being awesome. It just comes to us naturally.
I didn't know that about the signs in Pakistan; signs can be hard enough to follow when you can read sometimes. ... more