Fakhriya realized she was quite tired when she returned to her room at the Winking Skeever. She had been up since the wee hours reading through the Thalmor dossier on Ulfric Stormcloak and then went out for an early morning walk to clear her head. It was well past midmorning by the time she returned.
"Where have you been?" Jenassa asked as Fakhriya came into the room. "I was starting to get a little worried about you."
"I'm sorry," Fakhriya said. "I couldn't sleep, so I got up and then I decided to go for a walk. I didn't expect that I would be gone so long. Did you read through that?"
Jenassa looked down at the folder in front of her and absent mindedly turned over the page she had been reading when Fakhriya walked in.
"Yeah, I looked over most of it," Jenassa said. "I never thought I'd see the day when I'd feel sorry for Ulfric Stormcloak, but what happened to him shouldn't happen to anybody. Still, you'd think an experience like that would have made Ulfric more empathetic to the suffering of people. Instead it made him a prick."
Fakhriya took a seat at the table where Jenassa was sitting and helped herself to some cheese and fruit.
"I've been trying to make sense of that file all morning," Fakhriya said. "Do you remember the Markarth Incident?"
"Sort of," Jenassa said. Elven lifespans were significantly longer than human lifespans. By a human estimation Jenassa appeared to be about 30 years old. In actuality, she was well over a century old. "I vaguely remember it because reclaiming the Reach was Ulfric's first command, so it was a big deal to people in Windhelm, but otherwise, it was more fighting in a small, distant hold at a time when there was still a lot of fighting in a lot of other places."
"You actually fought in the Great War, didn't you?" Fakhriya asked.
"I did," Jenassa said as she opened an ale. "In fact, I fought under Ulfric's father's banner. Windhelm had never been particularly welcoming of my kind, but we Dunmer had already been in Eastmarch for a long time when the Great War started. Windhelm was the only home I had ever known. I marched proudly under the Banner of the Bear not only for the defense of the Empire and the honor of Skyrim, but for the glory of Eastmarch."
"Of course," Jenassa continued, "while Dunmer blood was good enough to spill on the ground in the Bear's honor, Dunmer boots weren't good enough to march with the true sons and daughters of Skyrim. We Dark Elves were organized into our own battalion and led by a Nord Centurion. But once the swords start swinging, those kinds of distinctions go away. Anyone wearing a uniform that looks like yours is your friend."
Jenassa swallowed some ale and stared at the wall with a faraway look in her eyes.
"For all I know," she said as a hint of smile warmed her face, "I stood ankle deep in the mud and blood with my back to that little bastard's."
The smile left her face as she continued.
"But ask Ulfric how many Dunmer fought with him and I'm sure he doesn't remember a single one of us."
"So, no, I don't really remember what happened in Markarth," Jenassa said, "but I do remember that there had been some issue with Talos worship. Ulfric and his men were arrested. In fact, Ulfric missed his father's funeral because he was locked up. I remember that. And I remember when Ulfric came home to Windhelm after he was released from prison. He might not even have been as old as you are now when he came back, but he had been little more than a boy when he left to fight in Cyrodiil. Ulfric returned a war hero and a Jarl. And he came home full of rage. I don't think that kid even knew where his father's crypt was before he reopened the Temple of Talos and insisted he would raise an army to free Skyrim from the Empire."
"By the Eights, really?" Fakhriya asked.
"Oh, yeah," Jenassa asserted. She chuckled as she continued, "Of course in those days Ulfric would have had an easier time recreating Sovngarde on Nirn than he did trying to raise an army big enough to take on the Windhelm City Guard, much less the Empire. I mean, sure, people would stand in the cold for hours for the chance to hear to him rant and rave on the Valunstrad about the weaknesses of the Empire and the threats to Nord traditions, but it's one thing to get people to talk about war in the comfort of Candlehearth Hall and something else to get them to arm themselves and march. People didn't like the way the Great War ended, but that didn't mean they were ready to follow Ulfric into another one."
Jenassa's eyes narrowed. She swallowed some more ale before continuing.
"So Ulfric waited. He's waited almost half his life, but he finally has what he has always needed: An army of kids. Young people, like you. None of you are old enough to remember the pain of the Great War, but all of you grew up in the shadow of your parents' resentments over it."
"And now Ulfric stands before you," Jenassa said as she got to her feet and extended her arms outwards in a gesture that could have been taken as an invitation to an embrace or as a plea, "and he says to you 'I can free Skyrim from the shame of a dying empire and all you must do is make me High King.'" Jenassa let her arms fall to her sides.
"Some of you manage to resist his charms and some of you submit all too readily to them," Jenassa said as she took her seat, "but none of you little Nord brats can ignore Ulfric's call."
"Uh, Jenassa," Fakhriya said as she held up one hand with the palm towards her face. With the other hand she pointed at her skin, "I'm not a Nord."
"I know what I said," Jenassa replied as she smirked. "You'll do."
"OK, so, here's what I don't understand," Fakhriya said. "Was Ulfric working for the Thalmor in the Reach?"
"I don't know," Jenassa said. She started to rummage idly through the papers. "I find it hard to believe that he would work for them after what he had been through, but maybe the term 'direct contact' isn't meant to be taken as literally as it seems. Maybe it means they intervened directly to get him the command in the Reach. Maybe Ulfric was aware that he had supporters who were acting on his behalf even if he didn't necessarily know that those people were working for the Thalmor. Or maybe Ulfric did know the Thalmor were helping him, but he thought he could manipulate them. After all, the Thalmor did let Ulfric believe that he had been clever enough to escape from them."
"None of this makes any sense," Fakhriya complained. "The Thalmor tortured Ulfric for no reason and then let him go and then they helped him in his military career and now they are helping him fight the Empire? If Ulfric wins the war, he's going to fight against the Thalmor, isn't he? Why would the Thalmor be supporting him?"
"Well, the Thalmor aren't supporting the Stormcloaks because they want Ulfric to win the war," Jenassa pointed out. "They're helping him to keep the war going. Left to his own devices, Ulfric couldn't possibly have the men or the material to stand long against the Empire. Eastmarch may be a relatively wealthy hold, but Skyrim is not a wealthy province. The war in Skyrim, however, diverts resources the Empire could be using to rebuild in Cyrodiil or to stockpile for another war against the Aldmeri Dominion. Every septim the Empire spends on the rebellion in Skyrim is one more septim lost in the struggle against the Thalmor."
"OK, I can see why the Thalmor would find a war in Skyrim useful," Fakhriya said as she considered Jenassa's assessment. "But still, the Thalmor have been tampering in Ulfric's life for, like, ever. Are you saying that they – I don't know – tricked Ulfric into starting the civil war?"
"No, I don't think the Thalmor tricked Ulfric into starting the war," Jenassa said. "I think they took a chance that he would start a war. Think about it. When Ulfric was captured, why was he considered valuable to the Thalmor?"
"Because he was the son of a Jarl," Fakhriya answered.
"But so what?" Jenassa retorted. "Ulfric was the son of some no-name Jarl in some backwater hold. You grew up in Cyrodiil. What do Imperials think of Nords?"
"Imperials think Nords are barely literate barbarians," Fakhriya said flatly.
"Exactly. So Ulfric being a barely literate barbarian's son doesn't mean much," Jenassa said. "What did the Thalmor do when they captured Ulfric? Did they ransom him back to his father? Did they try to use his capture as leverage against the High King? It would have been a joke if the Thalmor tried to use Ulfric's capture as leverage against the Emperor. No one in Cyrodiil would have cared if some barbarian's son was rotting in a Thalmor prison while the Altmer were laying siege to the Imperial City."
"Ulfric wasn't valuable because of who he was then," Jenassa concluded. "He was valuable because of who he would become. Skyrim has long been a fiercely loyal province to the Empire. What better way to break up that loyalty than to encourage insurrection over Talos worship? And who better to lead that insurrection than an enraged Jarl who feels compelled to prove his bravery and prowess because he is ashamed that he once broke under torture?"
"That seems like a pretty big chance," Fakhriya said incredulously. "It's been twenty five years since the Great War ended. A lot has happened in that time. There was no way the Thalmor could have known that Ulfric would do any of what he's doing now."
"No, of course not," Jenassa said, "but the Thalmor have certainly intervened as often as they could to offer Ulfric a path that suited their needs. We elves live longer than you humans do. Sometimes we feel pretty comfortable in considering a longer view."
"I don't know, maybe," Fakhriya said although she didn't sound entirely convinced.
Jenassa collected the scattered pages of Ulfric's file and put them back in the folder.
"What are you going with all this stuff?" she asked Fakhriya.
"I thought I would give most of it to Delphine. Some of it I'll need to prove to her that the Thalmor didn't raise Alduin and the rest of it might be of interest to her," Fakhriya said.
"Are you going to give her Ulfric's dossier, too?"
"No. I don't know what to do with that one," Fakhriya said. "We need to go to Riverwood anyway so I thought I would leave it in Whiterun until I figure out what to do with it. I feel like I should give the information to someone, but I don't know who."
"You could hand deliver it to your boyfriend, Ulfric, and he can regale you with tales of old times," Jenassa joked.
"I thought I might give it to Jarl Elisif. It seems to me she could use this information. Solitude has a relationship with the Thalmor. Someone among the Imperials should know that the Thalmor are playing both sides," Fakhriya said. "And Ulfric is not my boyfriend. He's your boyfriend."
"We're in Solitude now. Why not give the dossier to Jarl Elisif today?" Jenassa asked. "And you don't have to lie. I know you are in love with Ulfric Stormcloak."
"By the Eights, Jenassa, I am not in love with Ulfric Stormcloak. You are. You wanted to know if he was married," Fakhriya retorted with an annoyed tone. She was not enjoying the teasing as much as Jenassa seemed to be. "And if the Thalmor are even half as sneaky as you seem to think they are, I can't very well march into the Blue Palace and just hand a stolen Thalmor file to Jarl Elisif in front of everyone."
"That's true. The Thalmor probably have spies crawling all over Solitude," Jenassa agreed. "And Ulfric would never marry me because he knows I don't love him as much as you do. He needs his sweet, sun kissed, desert lover to heal his wounded heart."
Fakhriya smiled broadly in spite of herself.
"Sweet, sun kissed, desert lover?" Fakhriya repeated as she laughed. "You are such a dork, Jenassa."
"And that is the first time you have laughed in a couple of days," Jenassa replied with a satisfied grin of her own.