4E 200 the next afternoon on the fields outside of Pompa Concorda
"Oh man, looka that," Wystan said through his pipe, pointing downhill to a cluster of people beginning to chant and shout in Breton and Nordic.
"Whas that," Azuyia asked through the potent mixture of herbs Wystan had brought for the trip. He was pointing at a group of revelers from all over with two distinct smaller groups at the center standing a few paces away from each other.
"Friendly international relations," Denthryd asked. The two lines standing a little ways apart at the center of the scrum wore uniform colors, and the lines, as they stood up and looked closely, were all Breton on one side, all Nord on the other.
"Hoo man, this is gonna get fun," Wystan exhaled, coughing and wiping his eyes.
"What is?" Azuyia asked.
"Comes with the territory. Those," he pointed again, "they're sports fans."
"Hm?" Denthryd wondered.
"Sports. Legion sports. I can't quite make out the insignia, but that's definitely game day cloth down there. Heh, maybe someone organized an amateur match somewhere around here. Didn't see it listed on the leaf."
Another thing Snowwheresville, Eastmarch did not have a clue about, Denthryd thought to himself.
"And what are these sports that," Azuyia motioned at the ballyhoo, "folks are so, uh, eager about?"
Shoving matches were starting and the rhythmic chanting in Breton and Nordic, some archaic verse it sounded to her, had become general shouting and cheering.
"Heh, you're gonna love this one, Boichie, another human curiosity for your college study."
Azuyia hurrumphed mildly at this.
"The Legion has in its many international and local traditions a series of field games each year. Each distinct unit, like the Fifth Watch, chooses teams. The game, heh, it starts with intrasquad cooloffs the given unit's commanders allow the soldiers on major deployments and occupations any time, anywhere. Gotta get them to something other than drinking, fighting, and wh..."
"Yeahyeah," Azuyia interrupted, "and this game, then?"
"Like I say, you're gonna die," he grinned through his crescent eyes, "they drive stakes in the ground on a level field, mark off an area that apparently is uniform for any match in any part of the empire, and each team stands on opposite ends of the field. Whewww I'd love to see how they do it on a stretcha Reach quarry fields. If it's intrasquad, then I suppose a unit like the Watch just has their way of deciding who runs in what direction. On the official matches, it's one unit's team against the other, like the Watch raiders against the XIV Southern."
"Against? Is this a form of combat training?"
"Funny you should put it that way," Wystan continued. "No, not officially. Not that any commoner sports fan would admit. It's all for fun, eh?" He laughed. "So they have this ball like kids play with, only bigger and heavier, made out of leather and stuffed with cotton, hay, what have you. It's basically an air bladder. The presiding official, in intrasquads the unit commander, places the ball in the middle of the field, and then leaves to call go. Then, whoa man, it begins."
"And this is what our Imperial taxes pay for," Denthryd asked.
"Naw man, they'd have it with or without a tax year. The clubs that support the army teams can be found in any town anywhere, just depends where you are which colors you'll see on the tavern wall. And be careful about even mentioning ball if you are in one. Sport is a religion to some folk drinking in those places," Wystan's eyes widened, then back.
"Right. Then, let me guess. Each of these," he nodded towards the shoving and punching going on down below them to the yells and hurrahs of the crowd, "groups must try to own the ball?"
"Haha, own. That's a good word for it. They run like a battle charge straight at each other, lower their shoulders, and see who is still standing as someone tries to get the ball."
"Do they," Azuyia asked, "wear any form of armor on their heads or shoulders for this?"
"Nuuuupe," Wystan answered, "just duty tunics if it's within the unit, regimental colors if at an Imperial sanctioned playing field. And yes, collarbones get broken all the time in the opening minute."
"Sounds delightful," she said.
"Oh, that's just the rush, the first play. Then they have a series of maneuvers designed to get the ball down the field to the opposing team's ground and out across the boundary marked by the stakes. It's kinda reminiscent of an infantry formation, although not much related to it since they're unarmed and just throwing a ball back and forth. But maaaan does it get rough. I went to one of the big Cyrodiilic matches one season with my dad when he took me on his deal in Imperial City. One of the perks if you buy or sell to some highroller, heh. You would not believe the scene. They have this circular building made out of marble five stories high, whew! Once you get through the gates and follow the crowd up to the benches, there musta been fifty thousand people watching."
"Fifty ... thousand," Denthyrd asked incredulously.
"Yes. Tens of thousands. And not a sober face among them. Skooma and pipes are strictly prohibited, heh, although peeps sneak back under the seating area to light up all the time," he grinned, "but you should SEE the rows of vendors at THAT place. Hundreds and hundreds of barrels, iron stoves capable of roasting dozens of chickens at once, spitted game everywhere. You eat freakn well at an Imperial ball game."
"Subject to Imperial added taxes, I presume," Denthryd muttered.
"Oh cut it, man, you're harshing my buzz. Relax! We're here!"
Denthryd grumbled and swigged from a mead bottle.
Skooma, in case you don't know or haven't guessed, is a strong distillation of the illegal substance moon sugar. It pops up in every town and city in Skyrim, and can occasionally be found in the grey market goods section of an apothecary or general store. Like the stamina decotions novices learn to make in their studies of alchemy, skooma reinvigorates exhausted bodies for a short period of time. It makes the wet log you've been swinging at an opponent feel like a cinquain blade once again, and perhaps live to tell about it. Skooma also taxes the metabolism like the other strong spirits fighters and adventurers of all castes stow in their packs. Take too much refined moon sugar too fast, and you may as well have downed a bottle of Colovian on top of those last four pints.
The substance has other properties, though, which make it more dangerous than the various aqua vitae to be found throughout Tamriel. While mead on the trail can be sentimental, easing the blisters with all those memories of hearth smoke and tales of the one that got away, skooma does just the opposite. Take a sip of the liquid from that refined powder, and you forget everything, and by some accounts it's just too much fun. Weeks of boredom on a freezing granite overlook wrapped in a wet horsehide tarp on top of your Legion cloak and armor, the same tools you've been stationed with for weeks as sole conversation, more often than not a completely empty belly— it's not hard to imagine why a tiny vial of a substance that kills hunger, jacks your energy up five notches, and makes staring at the same stretch of pines and frozen hills bloody interesting might make it into the marching kits of everyone from Legion rankers to noble guildmasters, personally overseeing the dicey passage of an expensive shipment.
The Legion had, as it always has, taken a laisser-faire attitude towards skooma in the ranks during off-duty, even more so on forced marches and bad campaigns, as it did other amusements just so long as civility with the local population was maintained, laws obeyed, and services (yes) paid for. The latter earned it the nickname trail powder before the war. Since the institution of the Penitus Oculatus by the powers in Imperial City which would stretch, by now, into a countrywide network of information gathering, orders had come down from the top that any possession or use of skooma by any enlisted soldier at any time would be subject to a general inquisition. You might suppose that the occasional stash found by a detachment on petty patrol duty sent to clean up a bandit camp just might not make it onto the report when back in town, but nobody was talking about it.
What's more, the garden variety trail powder that actioners favored was not the only one available for purchase. If you knew who to talk to, there were dens, some in unsavory urban districts, some literally out in the middle of nowhere. Nobody just walked into a skooma den. Remember, these little bottles were worth many times their weight in gold, so, like the coastal smuggling hot spots, people kept their distance if the vibe of such activity started making itself felt in the area. Those dens and dealers could sell you a bottle of the stuff that, whew ... how you'd swing a sword after that one, you tell me. Mainly, the smaller city centers and rural communities wanted to keep it away from their livelihoods, that fine balance of work ethic, weather patterns, animal husbandry, trade routes which kept a town alive for another generation or watched it dry up and blow away. Nobody openly dealt skooma outside of the capital cities and the smugglers' grottos. A strong hallucinogen, it tended to take over the lives of those who used it too often, and so one less hand in the fields who also needed at least as much food and water at the end of the day did not go over well with the postwar country villages.
Then there are the hold capitals. Urban centers with dense populations, travelers and recent transplants from all over Tamriel, the jarls had their hands full keeping any kind of order without Thalmor-style martial law. People had been too recently exposed to atrocity for the hereditary monarchs to risk a regional rebellion over another tax on thistle brandy distilled in the Falkreath lowlands, or some pious ordinance about the proper cut of tunics and dresses. Besides, one jarl's hold rises up like that, the neighboring holds take notice. No, apothecary enforcement was not high on the priority lists of the major population centers, and that is where one would find all of it.
"Anyhoo, the game I saw, wow. It was two teams from the Guards VI Main out of the capitol and the Anvil Coast Dragoons, also known to fans as the Phalanx and the Galeriders. At one of those games, man, they have a bank of fanfare trumpets on each side that blasts the countdown to the game, oh, and then silence is called and you have to listen to some solemn declaration about Titus Mede's importance by a blahdeeblah, ump!"
Azuyia had elbowed him. "Shhhh! Not so loud! Remember where we are," she said.
"As if anyone can hear, or cares, Zuyia," Wystan quipped back.
"Still! That group," she pointed at the coming brawl, "is about as invested in those solemn declarations as you're gonna get, would be my guess. Just saying."
Wystan gave her a bored look, then continued. "Right. So then, as in any muddy scrum anywhere in the empire, they run at each other on the most perfectly uniform stretch of steppe grass you'll ever see. I still can't figure out how, even in Imperial City, one manages a perfect rectangle of thumb-high steppe grass. Hmm. So they proceed with their game plays, throwing the ball to each other, running with it, kicking it up in the air. Whichever side has crossed the limit of the other side the most times wins."
"I don't get it," the Bosmer shrugged. "Sounds bloody boring. And how long do these fascinating displays last?"
"Oh ... that's because you haven't seen the action. Six hours, counting the official player rest breaks, during which time there's dancers and singing. It's basically ritualized unarmed combat with a whooole lotta little rules. For example, a closed fist to the upper cheekbone with no knuckle touching the eye is allowed, however any blow intentionally aimed at the nose or mouth in the course of a play is called out."
"This is ridiculous," Denthryd said. "How in Talos' name do they determine that, much less see it from a crowd of fifty thousand?"
"They have guards on the field whose sole purpose is to run in the middle of it all and watch. Course," he grinned, "smart money is the informal intrasquads are a lot ... less ... officiated."
"Like breaking up children, sounds like," Azuyia said.
"Heh, right. Those guards dowear light field leathers, and it's a good way to lose a player if they see you throw a punch at an official."
"Run up and down a segment of grass ... with an oversized kid's toy ... and beat hell out of each other for their and other's amusement. Humans. Sounds more like something the orcs would enjoy."
"You got it, sis. You gotta be among the toughest in the Legion, and definitely the biggest brawlers in your unit, to get to play ball for the Emperor. See, those ones have faced off against Thalmor detachments, and worse. It's more than just child's play. It's ... yes ritual, an honorific. Each team sends its best fighters to the yearly rounds and the crowd knows that these are the champion defenders of their borders, or at least that's what they advertise in Imperial City. What you're seeing down there," motioning to the fighting down the hill from where they were standing, slowly being broken up by a few armored festival guards, "that's another dimension of the Imperial sporting organization."
"How so," Denthryd asked.
"Wellll ... he leaned in to the other Nord, "not everyone that isn't a Stormcloak absolutely loves the Imperials and all things Cyrodiil. Notice the ones in red down there are all Nord, the ones in black are all Breton."
"But ... they're fans, not soldiers. I don't see any of the markings on them."
"Don't be so sure, still those are most likely just common folk down there wearing their team's colors. It's what their team represents that's got them all fired up. See, Imperials control the majority of Legion units from the top. Oh, you'll get a Nord or a Breton rise to legate, likewise Redguard and some Mer-folk, and I'm sure if you read Brief History of the Empire," he laughed, "you'd find a non-Imperial general here or there. It's a safe bet, though, that it's much easier for an Imperial to rise to legate of a Cyrodiilic unit and damn near impossible for anyone else to get above that. And that," he said towards the calming scene, "shows you folks' pent up frustration about the lack of Breton and Nord leadership promotion past centurion in units from their own localities. There's a broad swathe of people in Skyrim that fall between Imperialist hardliners and Stormcloaks. Folks just want fair representation and real pay, two items not always apparent in solemn decrees," he slowed his speech to careful pronunciation at the last two words, but it was too loud for Azuyia to have heard him. "So common fans look to the legionnaire players to represent them on the playing field, the only place where those men and women can throw a punch at another country's unit legally."
"I don't get it, though, Wystan," Denthryd replied in a regular voice, "if Nord and Breton soldiers serve in the same units sometimes, why would these two teams whose fans we see here cheer if they knew it was Nord against Nord, Breton against Breton in some of those plays."
"That's just it, my friend. That's empire."
"We're all on the same team," Azuyia said with a facetious lilt.
"High Rock and Skyrim will always be there, though, as countries and people have always lived in their towns and villages where they've been going, oh, a couple centuries to talk about last year's regional match in the tavern, take themselves away from a drought harvest or a dried supply line, warm their hands from swinging a hammer or a pitchfork. Those games are as much tribal warfare as they are Imperial ceremony. Like I say, don't forget that if you want to stay at a Littlestead, Anywhere inn with a seventy-year old Cyrodiilic championship goblet on a stand behind the bar, or if you want to walk back out of there alive."
"Beautiful," Denthryd said flatly.
"C'mon, guys! Let's have another round and go walk around," Wystan said, pulling out his herb satchel.
"Wyssssss," Azuyia tsked.
The bruiser lines had loosened and were walking away, still glaring at each other and shouting epithets. A massive Breton, staring down a guard with lowered helmet visor half a pace in front of him, let a fist-sized piece of gneiss fall from his hand to the ground while keeping up the staring contest a few more seconds, turned, and walked away with his buddies. A Nord woman in red called out, "Dropped yer rock!"
Thence the Pompa guards again stood with both arms out, keeping the fans of the Hroldan Watch team, also known as the White Rapids, from laying into fans of the Wayrest Third Lowlanders team, the Jetty Wolves, with the sundry shivs and blackjacks easily carried in festival pockets.