Advice of an Ancient King
Most of the Altmer were asleep; but Gyrmallion was still awake. He'd drifted in and out of a doze for several hours; but sleep was...no longer his friend, and hadn't been for years. He didn't like sleeping long enough to dream. So when the golden-eyed Dunmer entered the cellar, he turned and sat up instantly.
"What is it?" Part of him wanted to be hostile. The rest...knew he couldn't afford it.
"I wanted to talk...well, not just me." Nevano said.
"Not just you?" Gyrmallion frowned in confusion.
Nevano closed his eyes, mentally stepping back and letting Nerevar come forward. It felt...like shrugging off a coat. He could hear and see still but Nerevar held the controls. His voice changed, becoming a bit deeper, his accent changing. Even the way he stood and his eyes changed.
"Not just him." Nerevar said.
Gyrmallion's eyes widened, and he half-rose, before stopping and looking around. The others...were still asleep. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, calming himself down. He wasn't going to wake them. Once he had control of his shock, he turned back to the strange Dunmer. "Who are you?"
"I was king of Resdayn, Hortator of the Chimeri people. Long ago." Nerevar said. "Such titles matter little, ages later."
"Chimeri..." Gyrmallion breathed, his mind working fast. The Summerset Isles were, even at their best, not overly concerned with the rest of the world...but even they'd noticed when the reincarnation of an ancient Elven king had shown up in Morrowind. Certainly what had happened there had changed fates across the world. "You're Nerevar. And he-the Nerevarine."
"As Azura promised and the Velothi people prophesied." Nerevar inclined his head ever so slightly.
"Prophecies..." He smiled bitterly. "I wish there'd been a prophecy about the rise of the Dominion. Maybe then we'd have known how to stop them before...before hell broke out and they rose to power."
"Prophecy is merely born when an event is over without an end." Nerevar said. "This event is not over, has not reached its end...nor has it yet seen its hero. Without the hero, there will be no event."
"Makes sense." Gyrmallion leaned against the altar behind him, glancing up again at the shrine of Talos. It was odd, he mused, how little the shrine bothered him. "What did you want to speak of?"
"Your role in the event."
He went still. "And what...would that role be?"
"When I am not...in control, I guess you could say, I can still hear and see what Nevano hears and sees, if I choose so." Nerevar said. "I was aware when you were speaking earlier. It piqued my interest."
"Oh." Gyrmallion sighed. "I...guess you should know what I did. I was hoping..." He looked to the side for a moment. "The Blades," he said at last. "I led the offensive against the Blades, in the early days of the war...and before it broke out. I'm...good with tactics; information-gathering and the like. It was...we were a good match."
"It was almost...fun, at first. They were good, I and my men were good; cat-and-mouse for the first few months. I knew it was serious, that my superiors wanted them out of the way, but I...in truth, I respected a number of them. I wasn't in any hurry to...end it." He stopped, looking down. "Then I got word of...there was a small town in Elsweyr, called Glasryn; Khajiit, and Altmer. Many of my men had family there." He took a deep breath. "I had family there. My wife...and two young sons. They said it was the Blades."
His face contorted with grief. "No one survived. I found...their bodies. My sons… twins… they weren't even ten years old. My wife...I hadn't known until then she'd been with child." It was a moment before he could continue. "I won't say I went mad. But I took it all, that pain, that grief, that rage, and I...channeled it. The Blades fell to us in the next two months. And I helped hunt down the survivors. It was almost...all I had at the time. I wanted them gone. I wanted every trace of them wiped from the earth." He stopped for a moment, his hands clenching and relaxing. "Then we tracked the last of them to Skyrim. The last two. They hid themselves... perfectly. We knew there were there, somewhere. But we couldn't tell where."
Nerevar listened quietly, ignoring Nevano's comments in the background, his face perfectly neutral.
"Then the dragons came back. That was..." He shook his head. "We knew they could be killed. News came shortly after the destruction of Helgen that another dragon had been killed outside of Whiterun. News of the 'Dragonborn' was flying across Skyrim. I...wasn't paying attention." He shrugged, reaching up to touch the side of his face, where a faint scar ran from just under the corner of his left eye back toward his ear. "Maybe I should have been."
"I saw her right away in the Embassy." He snorted with laughter. "Can't believe I didn't...recognize her before now. She stood out: nervous and determined all at the same time, looking around with far more interest than anyone else...Elenwen didn't notice. I could have pointed it out, but...I actually thought she was just a thief. And Elenwen and I did not particularly get along: I was only at the Embassy because she was trying to find the last of the Blades as well. I thought it would serve her right if this nimble little creature managed to loot the place bare. So I didn't say anything when she slipped off with Malborn. At least...not until one of the guards came gasping in to say that she was tearing the place apart and heading for the second building. That's when I realized she wasn't just a thief, and I went after her with the rest."
Gyrmallion sighed, his eyes growing distant. "I would have...approached it differently. By the time I got there, those heavy-handed idiots of Elenwen's had dragged Malborn in as a hostage. I don't know if any of them had noticed the arrows in the bodies of their fellows, or realized they were dealing with a Bosmer. Obviously, their attempt to make her surrender ended the way I could have told them it would: a single shot for each of them, right in the eye. And when I came in, she dealt with me the same way. I'm more than lucky: a fraction of an inch over, and I'd have been just as dead as the rest. She still cut my face-and the arrow actually pinned me to the wall by my helmet. Before I could do anything else, she'd jumped down a trapdoor that led to a troll cave beneath the Embassy and was gone."
Nerevar picked up a toy that someone, most likely Connlach, had left in the cellar. He gave it a moment to see if the story was finished
Gyrmallion pressed his lips together. "We'd...discovered where one of the last Blades was: an archivist, Esbern. Elenwen thought he might know something about the dragons. I...just wanted him to know this was justice for my family. So I was in the team that went to Riften to retrieve him." He rolled his eyes. "Of course she was there, too. That time, though, I let Elenwen's men distract her, and went past her to catch up with the old man. I had my sword at his throat...and I told him it was for my family, for Glasryn. He was terrified-but puzzled. He actually said, 'Where?'"
He took a deep breath. "I couldn't-believe what I'd heard, what I was seeing. I shook him, shouted. Named the town, named the day it fell. He told me he didn't know what I was talking about. Then I heard a yell like-like nothing I'd ever heard before, turned, and took a two-handed stroke to the ribs. She'd finished with the others and come back for him, saw me standing there with my blade out, and...reacted. Understandably. She didn't stop to finish me. Of course, as wide as she'd gashed me open, she probably didn't think she'd have to. She grabbed him and ran off, leaving me lying there." He rubbed his face. "Fortunately for me, I'd come with a few of my men-and I'd seen what that woman could do at the Embassy. I'd given them strict orders not to engage if they saw her-and in fact, to get out of the way, and avoid being seen. It saved their lives: they were probably the only ones who got out of the Ratways that day. They found me and got me to safety. But I'd been so severely injured that I couldn't stay in Skyrim; they took me back home, to Summerset. While I was recovering...I started digging into their archives. Looking for orders." He swallowed.
"I found them. The Blades hadn't destroyed my hometown. The Aldmeri Dominion had."
Though Nerevar stayed respectfully quiet, Nevano could feel a bit of his emotions. Plenty of understanding, exasperation and...empathy. If there was anyone out there who could empathize with betrayal, it would be Nerevar. However, there was a firmness there. Nerevar was absorbing everything that was being said but it wasn't going to change what he had to say. If anything, it was confirming what he was going to say. What that was exactly, Nevano didn't know. However...he knew Nerevar well enough he could guess and, if the way Moon-and-Star was warming on finger, he was fairly confident he was right.
'Tighten your belt, Thalmor.' he thought to himself within the recesses of his own mind. 'Nerevar just might crack your mind in half with some hard truth.' It was the old general's maddening specialty.
"I knew then," Gyrmallion said after a few more moments of silence, "that we'd...more than made a mistake, at the start. I'd made the biggest mistake of my life, or of anyone's. We shouldn't have joined the Dominion in the first place; we should have fled the Isles; joined up with the Empire. The result might have been the same, but it wouldn't have been because... I found other orders; more suspicious deaths. My house, my family; whittled down over the years. I hadn't known of some of them. I knew my father had died 'from his wounds', less than a year after we'd joined the Dominion. I'd suspected the truth, but hadn't...known for sure. I knew Glaielindil had fallen in battle; I hadn't known his armor had been deliberately tampered with beforehand. Cousins, aunts, uncles...one after another, one death at a time, over the years. We'd joined them to protect the family, but we weren't...what they wanted. Fanatics. Willing to do anything for the Dominion, for the cause. So we were... rooted out."
"You looked and saw the depth of betrayal." Nerevar said.
"Yes. And the sea itself is not so...deep, or cruel."
"The Aldmeri Dominion..." Nerevar said. "They formed far after my death. What I know of them is that all three had the same goal; to establish elven rule. Elves as the superior race, over man and beast races. Is that correct? Or should I say...is that correct to what is presented on paper."
"It's certainly what they talked about most," Gyrmallion said dryly. "To the point I became adept at falling asleep with my eyes open during their speeches."
"It is the case in most campaigns. Far better to bolster your men's resolve with shouts of pride and grandeur than it is to convince them to betray a once ally." Nerevar mused. "Now...as much as I appreciate you telling me your story, I have to drop this on you: no one will care. As Nevano has discovered, rather painfully I might add, no one cares for either the villain or the hero's story. Your actions have already painted a story and that is what they focus on. The rest...well, the butcher does not ask the cow how his day is going while slaughtering it. Nor does the cow care if they butcher is at all comfortable doing his job. You began your campaign seeking to protect your family. You accepted the cost in blood...other's blood. Problem is, it will never be an equal weight. As you discovered, that blood was not enough. Not nearly."
Nerevar ran a finger over Moon-and-Star, the ring warming again.
"You have seen truth now. The truth...nearly killed you." Nerevar said. "Truth does that, sometimes. It is not merciful. It cares little for you. It only cares that it is right. You have said that there are others who think like you. Those who hate the Thalmor as much as you." Nerevar spread his hands. "Yet...they are still in those ranks. As were you. Being behind enemy lines might seem heroic and doing good...but in the eyes of the rest of the world, it makes no difference. You might even be seen as a coward. For all your claims otherwise...blood is still being shed. I do believe you wish to make a difference, for there is still pride in what you are, despite everything. That is to be admired and venerated. You should never lose that pride. To the point where I believe you should feel it is worth fighting for."
Nerevar set the toy on a table and turned to fix Gyrmallion with the golden-eyed stare of a king. Moon-and-Star flashed as if in full sunlight. "You have been presented with many paths. Your actions from here on out will determine how the world sees you for the rest of time. Your faction is splintering yet no one has yet risen up to take control of the ones who are through paying for their safety in blood. You were saved from vampires by the Dragon Mother. You have been given this chance in the most extraordinary way. You have been given the chance to redeem your race.
"Call it cowardly that I remained in their ranks; call it practical. It's the same thing." Gyrmallion met the gold-eyed stare. "There's only one way to leave the Thalmor. They make sure of that. Those who defect are hunted down. Those who try to retire meet with 'accidents' not long after. And I...was a coward."
He looked over at the shrine again. "But...you're right. I'm out now. This is a chance. And one I would have never imagined." He stood and reached out, lightly brushing his fingers across the base of the Talos shrine. "The paths ahead are murky. I barely know which way to turn. But...I know this. The Dominion must be stopped. And whatever I can offer to that end...I will give."
"If the paths are murky, you must forge new ones." Nerevar said. "Someone must stop them...who will be the first to step up, gather his people and lead them? Defecting and retiring are half measures. There can be no half measures in this."
Nerevar looked at the Talos shrine. "Once, the citizens of Summerset Isles told a group of their own they could not worship their gods. They must conform or be destroyed. They stood and left. Much, much later in history, that same group, now changed and called Dunmer, stood up and ousted the Thalmor from their lands. One thing the Velothi did when they arrived to their new home was throw their weapons down. Will you, too, throw your weapon down once you have completed your goal? The world will watch you. What you do will ring through hundreds of generations. Remember that all those who sought to overpower with blood without satisfaction were thrown down and destroyed. My own brothers learned this the hard way. So did your own general when he was strung up on White-Gold."
"I grow weary. This is not my body and sharing takes much of my energy." Nerevar said. "Undoubtedly Nevano will have something to say. I doubt it will be polite but I believe you should hear it without reproach. Hear it, know it. For it is what you should strive to change."
"I will listen." Gyrmallion sank back, his expression thoughtful. "Thank you. You've given me much to think on."
Nevano's body swayed as Nerevar stepped back, allowing him to step back in. It was always strange when he came back in. He didn't..feel the same. Like wearing someone else's clothes. It was...disquieting but he was at least used to Nerevar
The Altmer, gazing into the distance, did not truly appear to notice.
"Ugh..." Nevano staggered again. Nerevar had borrowed energy for his long speech. "I hope you actually heard him. That's the most he's ever said."
"I did. And I listened." Gyrmallion glanced at Nevano, but did not move to assist him, likely guessing that it wouldn't be a welcome move. "I don't know yet what to do...but it's something I am definitely going to be thinking on in the next few days."
"Good." He said, though not all that kindly. "Nerevar seems to think you can be some kind of hero. Ravenlight thinks that anyone can change. Personally...I think you're scum. You lost your family and for that I'm sorry. But it gave you no right to take away mine. I won't ever forget what happened to Chorrol. I will never forget what happened there. You want to be separate from that slaughter? You better do something amazing." Nevano headed back to the trap door. "You...are more than lucky Ravenlight has a better heart than I do."
"I wasn't at Chorrol. But I'll keep that in mind."
"As Nerevar said...no one cares about details." Nevano shrugged as he reached the ladder. "You were part of the beast. Doesn't matter if you were at the ass or the head. At this point, even the ticks on it are suspect." He climbed up. "To be different, you got to be different."