So this might be a bit wild and crazy, but I have a new Skyrim theory thanks to the thieves guild centric fic I’m working on:
Gallus (our dear old guildmaster) was in Markarth studying Falmer lore right up until he died - as far as we know, anyway. His journals and all other information on that subject definitely indicate that he spent quite a while working on THAT little pet project.
But that opens up a question, considering what else was happening at the time (roughly 25 years before Skyrim) - especially in Markarth.
Aka the Great War... and the Markarth Incident.
Hghlights from that section of the timeline:
4E 174: The Reach and Markarth fell to the Reachmen during the Forsworn Uprising and became an independent kingdom.
4E 175: The White-Gold Concordat was drawn up and the Great War came to an end. (Also, all the Elder Scrolls housed in the libraries of the White-Gold Tower vanished and were scattered across Tamriel by unknown means.)
4E 176: Ulfric Stormcloak and his militia retook the Reach and Markarth and the Stormcloaks were founded. Notably, this is also the year Gallus died.
If Gallus really was in Markarth right before his untimely death, this means he could have been there when these things were happening. And the Elder Scrolls thing might seem like a random thing to bring up but it’s not like a master thief has never broken into the Tower to steal a Scroll before...
(This is definitely the most tinfoil-hat part but yes I am saying the Grey Fox could have had a hand in making sure the Scrolls didn’t end up in the wrong hands.)
Back to the Skyrim faction, though -
There are two more key bits of information that play into this. One being that Maven Black-Briar is quite openly allied with the Thalmor, which is a pretty direct line of contact between them and the Thieves Guild. We don’t know when that alliance was forged, but it’s certainly plausible that she would have made this connection shortly after the war’s end, when they became a major influence.
Which brings us to that last thing - the Skeleton Key.
Mercer stole this shortly before he murdered Gallus. This article that critiques the whole questline brings up some good points about Mercer. Let me highlight this point he made:
Mercer supposedly stole the key because he was greedy and wanted wealth, but instead of robbing the guild blind and running off somewhere when it was still a major power he stuck around leading it until it was floundering. Why?
Maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with the Thalmor.
Now, I don’t think Maven or the Thalmor know about the key itself - but it seems unlikely that they wouldn’t know about Mercer’s rather unique talents. And the Thalmor have proven themselves rather difficult to hide from. Even an indirect tie to them through his benefactor might be enough to scare Mercer into staying put and doing everything Maven wants him to.
I also just wanted to say this bc I keep forgetting to link back to it even though I comment on Dragon Age related posts a lot: I post most of my Dragon Age and Elder Scrolls related stuff on my sideblog, @silvanils! :D
“Follyshipping” aka my name for Martin x Felix x Iri comes up in tags a lot because it’s my oblivion OT3 but I realize I don’t talk about my other TES ships as much.
WELL. FOR MY SKYRIM KIDS:
Eira was my first developed Skyrim character and I ship her with the archer from the Thieves Guild, Niruin. (She saw him and was like “that one. I like that one.” His darn passing phrase of “if you need anything, just grab me” doesn’t help.) He has little enough info that I’ve essentially crafted extra backstory for him to flesh him out but I really think they’re cute together. SNEAKY ELF ARCHERS.
I also shipped her with Benor once, the warrior guy from Morthal. Due to a series of weird co-incidences he wound up challenging her to a brawl IMMEDIATELY after she’d slain a dragon with his help... and then he subsequently proposed to her on the spot. Oh man.
Aril is Eira’s twin brother and I was going to ship him with Aela the Huntress but Farkas swooped in and stole his heart instead. I still think they have some kind of poly thing going, but over time Aril and Farkas become closer.
Syrus, the eldest of the Skyrim siblings, is... well. Of all the people in Skyrim he COULD have chosen to develop feelings for, he chose Katria from “Lost to the Ages” - that’s right, the ghost lady you spend the quest helping, who you were just a LITTLE bit too late to rescue. (There’s always the possibility that he’s in time to save her, or finds a way to cheat death, but... I also kind of like the tragic nature of Syrus only being able to help her find peace.)
I had hoped to ship Syrus with Serana eventually but if so it... isn’t going to help the fact that his siblings call him a necROMANCER. (He’s also with the Dark Brotherhood. SO. There’s that, too. He deals with death a lot.)
The swamp air was filled with the constant buzzing of insects, and nearby a crocodile hissed. It was getting harder and harder for Whispers to concentrate on his thoughts. It seemed every year he added to his age, it grew more and more difficult. When he was younger, although jumbled, he could still make out a significant number of words the voices were saying. But now, it was like a loud and consistent white noise. He didn't know whether to contribute it to his age or the events surrounding him these days.
War was everywhere. Every other step he took, he had to be careful not to step on the corpse of a soldier, or remains of someone far longer dead. He thought escaping to the swamps would help, but it didn't. The voices almost even sounded louder here.
Indeed, the voices were louder wherever there was death. The more piled bodies, the more frantic the voices.
He just wanted peace. He wanted to be able to think clearly for once. Something he'd never been able to do, even as a hatchling.
He wanted to die.
I should've died. I should've just died. It's not fair.
As a hatchling, he had expressed his frustration and fear to the then shaman of the tribe. The voices were so loud. Always screaming; sad, angry, helpless, hopeless screams of despair from everywhere and nowhere.
The shaman was a wise woman, and she told him that he had been given a gift. One that the Hist had bestowed upon him for a reason. One that would help him, and perhaps others.
He had listened to her then. He looked up to her. Everyone did. It was expected that she knew the truth. That the Hist spoke through her to her people. To dispute her teachings would be disrespectful and shameful. He drank up her words as she had wiped the tears from his cheek with her withered hands.
What a crock of shit.
He had survived this long with a head full of tangled briars and vines tied into knots. But he was reaching his wit's end. If this was a "gift", the Hist could take it back.
He was so angry when he met Lyris. She told him how he had died, how he was sacrificed, but was now doomed to be a slave to Molag Bal unless he escaped.
He didn't want to escape.
He hadn't realized at first, but when he woke up in Coldharbour, the voices were gone. It was as if they had never been there at all. Despite how terrible Coldharbour was, it seemed preferable to his living existence on Nirn.
But he found himself following her and dooming himself back to the land of the living.
It really wasn't fair. He was 84 years old. He didn't have a whole lot of years to go anyway. And it saved him the trouble of ending his own life.
So why did I go back?
He knew the answer, though it hurt to admit it or even acknowledge it. Argonians are supposed to go back to the Hist when they died. They return to that from which they came from.
But more than that.
When he awoke in Coldharbour, she wasn't by his side.
My love.
He would go living a hundred more lives on Nirn if it meant being with her again in the end. In Coldharbour, he would never see her again. Never hear her voice. Never be able to touch and kiss her again.
Red-Head is incredibly paranoid. While he's being hunted by Him he practically assumes every bandit they face is a merc sent after him. The first time he meets the Miraak cultists, he thinks it's some big trap that was set up by Him. During his story he gets increasingly paranoid to the point where he sleeps with a weapon under his pillow and keeps a close eye on his companions. He starts only eating and drinking things he's made himself and questions people's motives a lot more.
He only starts to calm down after He's dead but it takes a large amount of work (with help from Derkeethus and his friends) to get to calm down and stop stressing so much. He starts drinking less, too.
Red sat on a small hay bale by the bed. The change in his posture caused his burns to flare up again, but he tried his best to ignore it. His best just happened to be a little less than optimal.
It may not have been a great idea to keep him down here.
Even if Red had cared to, it's not as if he had many options either way. There were three beds upstairs; one that he and Derkeethus shared, one for Valdimar, and one that they kept empty for guests. He could've used that bed for RIP, but he knew Valdimar wouldn't have gone for it. Being attacked tends to sour one's feelings toward sharing a space with one's attacker.
Red stared at the sleeping argonian, examining his features. If he hadn't known RIP from before, he'd have thought he was a corpse a summoner had raised.
Once glossy, dark brown scales were now cracked and flakey. Several had started to peel backwards, revealing his soft skin beneath (though now it was as dry and cracked as his scales were). They made Red itchy just looking at them.
Scars of varying shapes and sizes adorned this man's hide. The most notable was the one around his neck. Red vaguely recalled the story RIP had told him. A crazed beggar coming at him in the dark, rusty knife swung violently. Somehow managed to slice his neck open cleanly in his psychosis.
Red knew this was a lie. RIP's talent lay in his ability to find out information through eavesdropping, not lying.
Still, he had never pressed RIP on it. Whatever had actually happened was probably something he didn't wish to discuss. Red understood. He was mostly just impressed RIP had managed to survive having his neck split open in the first place. RIP's story was that one of the chapel priests happened to wander by and heal him, but this too could have been a lie.
Red's eyes left the scar on his neck to the second most prominent; the one above and around his left eye. It looked like a crescent moon.
He had never seen this one before, and after a few seconds realized why. The scar was hardly a scar at all. The flesh around it was more brightly colored, more puckered. This was new.
RIP groaned in his sleep and rolled over, now revealing the right side of his face. The bandage he wore was considerably more weathered than the last time Red had seen it. It had small tears in the cloth, and a few small blood splotches from their recent battle together.
Red stood up slowly. The burning pain had subsided, finally. The potion he had taken had done wonders.
He hobbled around the other side of the bed to examine RIP's back. RIP was not a small guy, and the blanket could barely cover up his front, let alone his back. It was almost completely visible.
Scars adorned his back like twisted designs. They reminded Red of the roots of the Hist trees he had seen in books when he was a child. The danced along his spine and led to what had once been RIP's tail.
Now, it was hardly more than a fleshy stump. The end was a mass of jagged meat that had been cauterized to prevent RIP from bleeding out. Another story Red didn't know the truth about.
The injured party once again changed his position while he slept, releasing a soft snort as well as what was probably a fart.
Red wondered why the strain of moving didn't cause RIP's wounds to wake him up screaming in pain, but then he thought about it more.
This tough son of a bitch has been through a lot. It'd probably be more surprising if he did wake up.
The creaky sounds of the wooden steps caused Red to turn his head. His burns flared up again at the sudden movement.
Derkeethus reached the bottom of the step ladder slowly, but without bumping his foot. A proud moment for him.
"You should be in bed, resting." Red rubbed the back of his neck, attempting to soothe his skin.
"Valdimar told me what happened. And now you're keeping this guy in our basement? Who is he?"
Red picked up the dirty clothes they had had to cut off of RIP when they brought him down. Even if they hadn't been soaked in blood, they would've still smelled obscene. It was fairly obvious RIP hadn't bathed in awhile.
"He's an old acquaintance. No one you need to be bothered about. Go back upstairs, I'll come to bed shortly."
Derkeethus lowered himself on the hay bale Red had previously been resting on. The bandages on his foot were sopping.
"You fool, do you want your foot to get worse? I told you several times: DO NOT saunter around the house with such a serious infection. And I wish you'd use your cane if you MUST get up. Now look, I have to soak your foot in--"
Derkeethus burst out laughing. His right hand came up to his chest and he held it there, as if trying to keep his heart from coming loose. RIP snored.
"Mind telling me what's so damn funny?" Red couldn't feel his burns anymore. All he felt was anger at being left out of this "joke".
"Red, you should see yourself. You're frantic! I've never seen you so frenzied before! Has this 'acquaintance' knocked some of your sense loose?"
Red stood straight and still, his hands subconsciously clenching into tight fists. He could feel his face getting hot.
"I don't see how this is a laughing matter, Derkeethus." His voice was full of venom. "Unless you relish the thought of having to have your foot cut off due to gangrene."
A shorter, quieter laugh. "Red, listen to yourself. You NEVER fuss over anyone like this. Even when I got the bite, you were completely level-headed. Now, you tend to dying strangers and look like you're about to jump out of your scales. What's going on with you?"
Red bit his lip and wrung his hands. He couldn't help but shiver as the thoughts pervaded his mind.
"You want to know who this guy really is, Derkeethus? He was one of my crew. From Cyrodiil."
The smile faded from Derkeethus' face.
"He was sent by Him. To kill me. Probably as an insult to RIP as much as an insult to me. He's too cowardly to come after me Himself, so He sends one of my most trusted to assassinate me."
Derkeethus shifted uncomfortably on the hay bale. He suddenly regretted coming down here.
"He didn't even want RIP to kill me. He knew he would be no match for me."
"You think He sent him after you so you'd kill him?"
Red turned to look at the sleeping argonian. His eyes were drawn to the scar around his eye again.
"I think that's not a bad guess. He knew that RIP was one of my most loyal. Probably felt threatened keeping him around. How hard would it be to come up with an excuse to send him on a suicide mission?"
Derkeethus shifted his own focus on RIP. When Red and Valdimar had brought him in the house, he had wondered why they even bothered. Just another brigand Red was going to kill. Now, he felt intense pity.
"You're not actually going to kill him, are you?"
Red turned his head quickly in Derkeethus' direction. His eyes visibly narrowed and his nostrils flared.
"Was that a question or a request?"
Derkeethus' expression turned to one of surprise. "I...I didn't mean anything by it, Red. I just mean...well look at him! He looks so..."
"You expect me to spare him just because he looks like a dragon shit him out?"
Red turned his back on him and rubbed his temples. This was accomplishing nothing other than manifesting a headache.
He turned back. Derkeethus was staring at the floor.
"I'm...sorry. I just don't know what to make of all of this. Too much has happened. He wasn't this ruthless before. He's getting bolder. Closer."
Derkeethus got up with some difficulty and tottered over to Red. He gently squeezed his shoulder.
"I understand. Just do what you think is right."
He kissed Red's cheek gently and approached the stairs leading back to the main floor.
An angry sigh. "Don't even think about it."
Red offered himself as balance and Derkeethus leaned back, letting his legs go limp. Red scooped them up slowly, cautiously, and carried him up the steps.
