Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing! Trigger warning for discussion of genocide, fantastic racism, childhood neglect and trauma. I haven't decided who the Dragonborn is yet – if you guys have any ideas, feel free to comment! (Or not – I'll figure it out in a couple chapters).

…

Cyrodiiliac Brandy

Once Irkand was gone, Balgruuf took the Companion's niece up to the Great Porch, snagging a bottle of Cyrodiiliac brandy on the way. Between Alduin and the revelations of the day, he needed a stiff drink and imagined that the lady would too.

Aurelia Callaina – or Lia, as she preferred – was striking – but then, most of the Jarl's bloodline from Falkreath were with their turquoise eyes and dark hair. From cheekbones down to jawline, she was pure Kreathling with the high bones, square jaw and generous mouth; in the shape of her almond-shaped eyes and aquiline nose, he saw Irkand and a hint of Arius Aurelius, who he'd met once as a lad before travelling to High Hrothgar. The olive-bronze tone to her skin was peculiar to the old Colovian Estates, which ranged from Falkreath down to Bruma and west to Hammerfell. Her figure, the buxom breasts and soft waist and wide hips, would look better in the long tunics and overdresses of Skyrim than the richly draped traditional garments of Cyrodiil.

"Poor Uncle Irkand," she sighed, husky alto clipped at the consonants like an Imperial noble but burring the 'R' like a Kreathling or Bruma Nord. The accent suited the contradiction of highborn and menial that she presented. "I thought he knew."

Balgruuf grunted sourly and poured himself a generous measure of the brandy. When he offered the bottle to Lia, she shook her head and he put the bottle of precious liquor on the table. "I am not pleased by this," he growled. "I burned those letters from your grandfather and buried the ashes."

"Wise," Lia said with a humourless quirk of her lips. "My grandfather played his games at the worst possible time and both the Blades and the Empire paid for it."

The Jarl of Whiterun looked over the golden-green plains with its bright swathes of late summer flowers he was sworn to protect with his life and imagined them blackened with the grassfires the Stormcloaks or Legion would surely light to starve his people out. He imagined stakes of heads and rows of crosses in the wholesale slaughter by petty victors for the sake of a god. He imagined Alduin perched on the Throat of the World where Kyne breathed down the Nords into Nirn, setting the land ablaze because he wanted a cooked dinner.

"In the Great War, Skyrim lost half its able-bodied warriors and a full third of its civilians from the famine which followed so many going to fight for Talos and then the purges," he observed softly. "I hear it was worse in Cyrodiil."

"Two thirds of the Legion dead, a full half of the civilian populace during the war, and another quarter dead or fled during the purges," Lia confirmed grimly. "I don't know what it's like south of the Jeralls, but Bruma is… a little slice of Oblivion. Neighbour rats out neighbour for a handful of gold from the Thalmor, the Thieves' Guild is the closest thing to law and order, and Count Iannus is too busy kissing goldskin arse to rebuild the town."

Balgruuf drank his shot of brandy to conceal the noise of shock he'd have made otherwise. It explained much of why the Legion was trying to hold onto Skyrim. He cleared his throat – the brandy wasn't as good as he once could have afforded – and revised his assessment of Lia. The woman was tougher than she looked to have survived such a vicious environment.

If Ulfric had half a plan to rebuild Skyrim after a civil war and the withdrawal of the Legion, I would follow him wholeheartedly, Balgruuf thought as the silence stretched into an eternity. But he has none… and Alduin has returned.

"I thought Blades were supposed to forswear all titles on joining the order," he said, changing the subject.

"After the Oblivion Crisis, my great-great-grandmother was made Champion of Cyrodiil and the Aurelii's command of the Akaviri fortress we found in Pale Pass confirmed," she replied. "I don't know what happened in between the death of Julius Martin – the Northstar's son – at the hands of the Thalmor and my grandfather ordering an escalation of the shadow war against the Dominion until it broke out into true war."

Lia smiled humourlessly once more when she read the question in Balgruuf's eyes. "Julius Martin and Arius Aurelius were both mages adept in Restoration and Alteration. I'm told with the right combination of spells and a moderate lifestyle, a non-Breton mage can live for two hundred years or so, and Bretons up to three hundred."

"And your ancestress is the Madgoddess?"

"Yeah and She tends to, ah, intervene when possible." Lia's lips were now pursed and the resemblance to Sigdrifa in that moment was uncanny. "I… called on Her for help once. It left me a nervous wreck, literally, because calling on the fury of the Madgoddess means forfeiting your own mental health for a time."

"Makes sense," Balgruuf agreed. "Berserker fury?"

"Something like that. Strength of three men, inability to feel pain and a mist over your eyes the colour of the blood you'll paint the walls with." Lia's voice was grim. "The other options were suicide and being handed over to the Thalmor."

Balgruuf would have taken the option Lia had too. He'd done his best to keep the goldskins out of Whiterun and his citizens worshipping Talos discreetly but idiots like Heimskr only invited a purge and didn't give a damn about what it would do to everyone else.

"Farengar knows a fair bit about dragons," the Jarl said, yet again changing the subject to the most pertinent topic. "How much do you know?"

The woman sighed, looking up at the faint outline of High Hrothgar. "I know the general outline of what the Dragonborn has to do in order to be recognised by the Greybeards, the location of the Wall of Alduin, which is the pictorial representation of the Dragon War and the fated battle against the World-Eater, and the meaning – roughly – of what the wall means."

More than Balgruuf expected but less than he hoped. "I have enough gold to bring copies of every book about dragons to Whiterun. I want you and Farengar to go over them and find out everything you can. Gods of hearth and testing willing, we will know who the Dragonborn is soon, and give them the knowledge they need."

"And put them in your debt," Lia noted dryly.

"A Dragonborn Thane might keep the Legion and Stormcloaks out of my city," Balgruuf admitted shamelessly.

"Or be a hell of a bargaining chip if you choose a side," she pointed out.

"As the Jarl, I have to use whatever weapon I get a hold of to protect my Hold." He felt that Lia deserved to know that.

"Am I weapon, bargaining chip or temporary employee?" she countered, folding her arms.

"I have yet to decide," he confessed. "It will depend on what you show yourself to be."

"I can work with that," she said pragmatically. "I just ask that if you do decide to sell me out to the Thalmor, give me a couple days' head start."

"That is the one thing I won't do," he said, a little nettled at her assumption. "The Empire, maybe, but not the goldskins."

"I'm sorry. It's just… yeah. In Bruma, you learn the depths of which people will go to survive."

There was a confession in that statement, one Balgruuf chose not to examine too closely.

He also had other thoughts. Titus Mede II was old and his only surviving son a bastard, though one with good connections. Even if particular claims concerning his bloodline that Arius Aurelius had made weren't true, the lineage of the Champion of Cyrodiil was a powerful symbol of a more glorious past in the Imperial Province.

Irkand's careless announcement had thrown a rather large boulder into Tamrielic politics and the frustration was that the Companion would never understand the repercussions.

But oh how his niece and the Jarl of Whiterun did.

He poured himself another shot of brandy. Decisions needed to be made and soon.

…

The snifter had been created by a master glassmaker in Wayrest, its crystalline facets glimmering with a subtle edge of Imperial scarlet. Within the snifter was Cyrodiiliac brandy of the finest kind, reserved only for the Emperor and his close relatives – unless there was a point to be made. Unfortunately for the court, there was none to be made today or perhaps even this week. Titus Mede II, Emperor of Tamriel, had too much to contemplate as he sat in the study of Count Iannus in Bruma.

For the master of a town that had teetered on the edge of poverty since the withdrawal of the Blades and then crashed over into bloody ruin during the Thalmor's purge, the study was far too sumptuous with its panels of exotic wood from Valenwood, rich Khajiit-style carpets and the golden eagle displayed prominently on the fireplace's mantelpiece, a gift from Iannus' Dominion overlords. Titus almost wished the fur-clad barbarians in Skyrim would run over Castle Bruma and crush it into stone dust as a punishment for the Count of Bruma's utter capitulation.

Damn you, Arius, why did you force me to take the steps I did? Raging at a man dead for twenty-five years, his skull displayed prominently on the desk of the Thalmor Ambassador back in the Imperial City, was cathartic albeit profitless. But in the days since the dire promise of a Talos worshipper hung from the cross in Castle Bruma's courtyard, a Stormcloak fanatic who'd snuck past Helgen to rile up the Nords of the town, the Emperor had found himself pondering the actions of over two decades ago.

Whether the truth of Aurelii claims to Septim ancestry were true or not, Titus Mede couldn't allow the lineage of the Hero of Kvatch to take power in the Great War. If Arius had been reasonable, that granddaughter of his wedded to Gaius when she came of age, the Aurelii throwing the support of the Blades behind the dynasty that won the Ruby Throne in the Stormcrown Interregnum-

The delicate snifter shattered under Titus' grip, crystal shards and brandy scattering everywhere, blood from where the broken pieces cut into his age-frail flesh falling onto The Talos Mistake which was displayed almost as prominently as the golden eagle by Iannus.

Appropriate, really. High Rock was brilliant yet fragile, prone to shatter with the least amount of outside force. The traitor Redguards had the audacity to secede from the Empire which wearied the Dominion down for them – and then to soundly defeat the goldskins, making Hammerfell an example he didn't need. Morrowind was mostly independent, only a few sad districts paying more than lip service to the Empire. Valenwood, Black Marsh, Elseweyr and Alinor lost centuries ago. And now Skyrim, the birthplace of Tiber fucking Septim, the greatest source of muscle for labour and the Legion in the Empire, was rebelling under a barbarian who practiced the crudest, most ancient form of magic possible – one that had been banned by the Medes because it was impossible to control.

Titus sighed and helped himself to one of Iannus' silk handkerchiefs to bind his hand. If not for the first Emperor, he wouldn't have a throne to sit on, but the man who would be called a god one day hadn't done enough purging of the Nords' inherent barbarism. The runemasters, the seeresses, the cunning folk had been purged and absorbed into the Imperial religious and magical systems… but the Nords still continued to revere the Tongues in the form of the silent, pacifistic monks on top of the tallest mountain in Tamriel. Tiber Septim should have obliterated them from memory and turned the Nords into tall Colovians.

Civilisation worked wonders for the Orcs, he mused. The green-skinned mer wisely remained loyal, their smithcraft and strength serving the Imperials as it should, and benefited from it. If only the Nords had so much intelligence…

It was too late for Titus Mede to mend things. But he could set plans in motion that would see the Nords brought to heel and if need be, broken for the good of the Empire.

The Emperor swept aside the bloodied mess on Iannus' desk and snapped the fingers of his unwounded hand for a servant. Time to write some particular letters and give Skyrim a taste of what the Imperial Province had endured.