Broken
He remembered the battle.
He heard screaming, suffering, death. They would cry out to their husbands, their wives, their children. And he could do nothing. Why? Why was it that he was so weak? So infuriatingly weak? And he sat here in dungeons once used for waste, for fodder. And whose fault was it? Whose fault truly was it?
He wasn't sure.
As the fires raged around him, he cried out for the people that went with him – the Nords who sacrificed themselves for… for… what? What were they saving?
Fire erupted from everywhere. The Thalmor out run the Legions and platoons, striking their backs as they ran away like cowards. The Imperials were cowards! The Emperor already made his grand exit, abandoning the people to the Thalmor's tortures! They did nothing! He could do nothing!
And it was his fault…
He grunted as he felt his chains, spitting dried blood. He tried to shout yet his mouth was gagged like an animal. He could hear voices down the hall, conspirators. They were deciding what to do with him. He had already given up – their numerous tortures on him had worked! He laughed, spitting out more blood – feeling a loose tooth.
He didn't know how long he had been bound by the elves… weeks? Months? The Imperials still haven't gotten off of their asses though. All of his people… all of the people… dead….
There was one elf that always came in to talk with him. He didn't know her name but he decided to call her Krent… or "broken" in the tongue he learned among the Greybeards. She always told him that what had happened to him… to all of them... was his fault. Was the Empire's fault. She said that since they ran, they were not honorable. Not honorable... a funny word - honor. He had none of that left. Not when he told them everything.
He found, eventually, Krent's words to be true. He didn't want to believe it at first – believe that the Emperor had run away like a coward during the first wave, and yet it sounded true. The Empire had abandoned him.
Abandoned Skyrim.
She also spoke to the other Altmer, in an old language – not the elvish he knew. He would have recognize it. Instead, it sounded ancient – like they were trying to resurrect the past… And that's why he named the elf Krent. She was a broken … like him.
He hated the elves. Despised them. It was they who caused him pain – who caused his people, pain – day in day out. And he would fight for their freedom. That's why he decided to join the war; he had wanted to save Tamriel from these monsters. And yet… how could he do that when those that he tried to save, ran?
Krent came in that morning… or was it in the afternoon? She gave him a patient stare – one of an understanding mother. He wasn't as forgiving of the Altmer though. He was surprised when Krent took off his gag, smiling down towards him. He looked at the woman with confused eyes – puzzled over the strange amount of trust the Thalmor gave him. Krent sighed.
"We do not want to hurt you, Ulfric," she said sadly. She dropped the gag to the floor and turned away from him, touching the stone walls of his new prison. "I was taught a long time ago in Alinor that a patient and firm hand will allow you to get the results you need." She sighed, turning around. "Tell me… why are we so evil to you?"
Ulfric chuckled lightly, shaking his head. "Y-you do not even know?" he started, surprised at the crack of his voice. He laughed. "You are evil because you impose your beliefs on others, you take people's homes, and you murder us because we are…" He shifted forward as much as he could in his bounds. "… beneath you."
Krent nodded once, looking towards the window high above him. "And yet… how is that different from the Empire?" she asked. Ulfric gave Krent a confused eye, shifting himself back.
"What are you…?"
"The Empire imposes their own beliefs onto the people, they take over provinces they were never meant to take over, and ignore the people because they are beneath them," she said. Krent smiled kindly though not out of spite. "I feel as if you are different though."
Ulfric lowered his eyes, shocked. What the elf said was true. Completely true. He found that the Empire committed much similar crimes to him as the Thalmor did. He remembered the screams – of the soldiers that never came.
This wasn't a war against one evil. It was a war between two.
Krent frowned when she saw Ulfric's depressed face. "I will ask you again… why are we so evil to you," she asked, "when you fight for an Empire that is similarly evil?"
He had no answer for that and Krent knew so. When the silence eclipsed the hour, she bowed politely. "I will allow you to think upon this." Then she left and there he was, pondering an answer he already knew. He was fighting for the past just as much as the Thalmor were fighting for their past. The Empire of old was dead, the Septims were gone. Was this Empire right? Was it even the Empire?
The Empire he learned about among the Greybeards had been created by Talos – an honorable and glorious man. What Titus Mede had was Talos's Empire – and look at where it was. Dead. Defeated.
Broken.
He was at such a loss for words that the next day he didn't feel his beatings from the torturer. He didn't feel the sting of electricity in his veins.
He often thought, "Why?"
"Your father is dead, Ulfric. He's been dead for weeks now," Krent said one day. The young Jarl looked up, his words stuck in his mouth. He didn't know what to say. He only felt anger. The High Elf looked him over with sympathy. "You know… I killed my own father a long time ago," she said. Ulfric narrowed his eyes.
"Why?" he asked. Krent looked up, smiling.
"He betrayed the Dominion and if I didn't they were going to kill my entire family," she said. Ulfric, for a brief second, felt a wave of pity for the only person he's seen since his incarceration. It soon disappeared.
"You should have kept your honor then," he said.
Krent laughed slightly, shaking her head. "That's all that you Nords care about, isn't it? Honor…" She sighed. "I should have hated the Thalmor after that but do you know what I did?" She pointed to her dark jacket, smiling. "I rose to power myself."
Ulfric narrowed his eyes. "And how is that going to restore your honor?" he asked.
Krent waved her finger once. "If I simply sat around doing nothing after my father's death when he gave me so much power… how could I resist the temptation? I could lead the Thalmor someday if I truly believed in myself. I could change them from the inside."
Ulfric was starting to see her point. His father was dead. And now he had the power to do something. And yet… what could he do?
He could change them from the inside.
Krent left after that and he was left alone. Alone… maybe, but not really…
Far away.
The next day, he found a way to escape. He had slept for so long that he didn't notice that his bindings were off of his hands and that a passage beside him had opened. He looked carefully down the hall, the shouts of the people above reverberating down the hall.
He looked behind him, seeing no one had seen his escape, and made a run for it down the ancient sewers that an Emperor had once, long ago, tried to find freedom.
The Imperial City was silent – the City underneath Thalmor rule. Te city that he had betrayed. There was no going back now. The Empire would never trust him again, not after he let them take the city.
When he returned to Skyrim, he was at a loss. Windhelm mourned for the loss of his father, he decided to take upon vengeance upon those he despised. He liberated the Reach from those barbaric Forsworn - maybe to show Krent the error of her ways. And do a job the Empire never did. He could have free worship of Talos… spitting upon the Thalmor for telling him what to do. He rose to power, like what Krent had done.
And yet… and yet he didn't feel too happy about that. He felt no happiness, not when the Emperor reclaimed his throne again, not when he signed a slave master's treaty, not when Emperor Mede destroyed the Empire that Talos had built upon this land.
They were cowards. All of them. And the Empire had been broken...
...by the Empire.
The Thalmor interrogator, named Krent by Ulfric, sighed as she met with his higher officer. The man looked a lot like her except for the broken nose and round features he had. They were sailing now back to Alinor, the Imperial City lost. But not for long.
"My daughter, did you do it in time?" her father asked. Krent looked up from her paperwork before sighing.
"He's broken, father. He despises the Empire as much as we do. I saw it within his eyes." Her father frowned; Krent knew that she could never please him.
"We will have to push him some more. The Markarth Incident will not be enough..." he said. Krent sighed, lying back in her seat. What else could she do? The Bear of Eastmarch was dead – killed when he refused to betray Skyrim. She had hope for Ulfric though. He had the power to weaken the Empire, what else would he need?
Her father edged closer to her desk, picking up a report. "The High King needs to die. Ulfric respects him far too much."
"Istlod?"
She nodded once, shuffling her papers as the ship creaked. She would do her part to separate Skyrim as best as she could and hope that she would get that promotion once she returned home.
Her father smiled.
"Do not fail me, Elenwen."