i think ive made up my mind and this is how the whole skyrim thing goes down. fair warning this is a VERY long post.
anyways it really starts around 4e 170, about 30 years before the main events of skyrim with the great war. im not looking up any pages so dates might be a bit off but here we go. character ref page here.
vespasia aquino, her older brother felix, and her younger sister ludovica enlisted with the legion. ludovica trained as a battlemage, while both felix and vespasia were already decent with a greatsword. they were pretty young (late teens - early 20s) at that point. after the white gold concordat was signed, felix was discharged after losing an eye and returned to the aquino shipyard where he rejoined the family business. vespasia continued to serve, climbing the ranks to tribune.
meanwhile, as the reachmen were taking over markarth and the reach, siov joined the fight as a young woman. she enjoyed her time in markarth, where she settled for a few brief years with her parents. during the markarth incident, she ran into vespasia and her men, who broke siov and her entire extended family out of jail (an entire gaggle of cousins, aunts, and uncles) and bought them time to escape. vespasia was badly wounded in the struggle, and after the incident, stayed in markarth to recover. siov, meanwhile, managed to sneak back into the city, trying to smuggle out other reachfolk. while she wasn’t caught, she discovered that she was too late to save anyone else. vespasia hid her and helped smuggle her out of the city again as she was leaving to return home to the gold coast. siov went with her, where on the journey they fell in love. the aquino family loved vess’s new wife, and she fit in well, especially with vespasia’s younger sister faustina. faustina and siov taught each other their alchemy trades, and set up a shop for the next ten years.
during those ten years, vespasia’s younger brother gaius brought home his husband, a redguard named iskandar, whom he had met during their time as a sailor. skand and siov soon became like siblings, and about as mischievous as children. ludovica also returned home, pregnant, and while she wouldn’t say who the father was, she named liviana after her mother’s mother.
although they were at peace, both vess and skand missed travelling. vess, skand, and their spouses began travelling, first going to to meet skand’s family in hammerfell, then throughout high rock. they eventually sailed into solitude around 4E 190, where they spent the last decade or so travelling. vespasia used her connections in the legion to pass through checkpoints, and siov brought them all to visit her clan in the reach.
meanwhile in falkreath, dengeir was ousted as jarl and replaced with siddgeir. in the ensuing shuffle, a healer and priestess of kynareth sent her children kynevi, vistun, and runa away in the middle of the night. yssra feared that her husband, a hold guard, had discovered the conspiracy to replace dengeir with the imperial-loyal siddgeir. she sent her children to whiterun, though they were all nearly caught by the jarl’s thugs. kynevi bought vistun and runa time to run, and was taken to helgen, where she was imprisoned for nearly two years.
around this time, (4E 199) one of the skaal of solstheim, a mage by the name of ithunn, landed in windhelm after escaping solstheim. she was seeking answers and knowledge about what was happening to her kin on solstheim re: miraak’s return, spending most of her time in the college of winterhold, where she met quamarat al-ansabei as apprentices. both qamarat and ithunn became adjuncts, specializing in conjuration and alteration respectively. with the newest round of apprentices, which included an altmer by the name of ranmaari voscril, the entire winterhold questline goes down, though drastically altered to make it better. will elaborate on that later but essentially the entire thing becomes a group project. mirabelle becomes archmage. savos still dies.
in 4E 201, the imperials round up ulfric and a contingent of rebels and bring them to helgen. on the cart is liviana, vess’s niece, who came looking for her aunt and accidentally got caught crossing the border. at helgen, they also brand kynevi as a stormcloak as an excuse to execute her. alduin attacks, kynevi and liviana escape, and head towards whiterun where kynevi finds vistun working for anoriath as a hunter, using what he earns to support runa and lucia, who he’s sort of taken in as a younger sister. runa spends most of her time in the temple of kynareth under danica and jensen’s eye, mostly keeping the temple clean and running errands, and learning some basic restoration magic. kynevi for her part tells balgruuf about the attack on helgen, and asks to join the city guard, which balgruuf grants. she reunites with her siblings and takes in lucia, paying for a room at the drunken huntsman while she sleeps in the barracks.
balgruuf and farengar, still in search of someone to retrieve the dragonstone, enlist the help of skand, siov, gaius, and vespasia, (actual trained, seasoned fighters instead of, yknow, some kid) who bring back the dragonstone. kynevi is one of the city guards who follow irileth out to the western watchtower, along with the aquino family. the dragon gets taken down, and kynevi is summoned to high hrothgar as dragonborn, and promptly has to sit down somewhere, being very sensibly overwhelmed as a 20 year old who has been through some shit in the past three years or so.
at this point the traveling aquino family share the older sibling instinct, and immediately take kynevi under their wing. gaius and iskandar stays behind in whiterun to look after vistun, runa, and lucia, while vess, siov, and lydia travel to high hrothgar with kynevi, while vess and siov becoming something along the lines of mentors and aunts. liviana meets up with vess on the road, and continues on with them. lydia, who is a little out of her depth when it comes to real live dragons etc., does her best to act as exposition guide when it comes to dragon myths to the older folk. training montage ensues with vess coaching kynevi in weaponry, and siov and liviana showing her defensive magic.
in the meantime, ithunn has left the college of winterhold to return to solstheim. she finds frea who updates her on the situation, which has only gotten worse. ithunn set out to tel mithryn, doing her absolute best to badger neloth to help (it works. she’s that intimidating.)
from here, miraak sends his cultists to the mainland, where kynevi et al. have set out to get the horn from ustengrav. ithunn, directly behind them, intercepts them and utterly wrecks shop. she learns about something called the “dragonborn” and sets out to search for them. she meets the gang in morthal, where she badgers kynevi into helping after the horn is returned. all five of them travel to riverwood, where delphine fails to pass the vibe (persuasion) check. they take the horn to high hrothgar then set out to solstheim.
during the dragonborn questline, kynevi really comes into her role of dragonborn and thoroughly wipes the floor with miraak. ithunn insists on joining her in the final battle after hermaus mora kills the skaal shaman, and even though they fight together, ithunn gets the final blow.
the gang, sans ithunn, return to the mainland and proceed to go back to high hrothgar for a debrief with the greybeards. arngeir advises kynevi to at least hear delphine out, and she does. siov undertakes the diplomatic immunity in kynevi’s place and makes it back to solitude, where the gang travels back to riverwood. siov and skand split up with vess, lydia, and ithunn. siov, skand, and liviana grab esbern, while lydia and vess get the family they left behind in whiterun, which now includes yssra, who’s reunited with her family by now. they reunite back at riverwood where they head out to skyhaven temple. liviana joins the blades officially, though she grates against delphine’s leadership and often has to act as an advocate for kynevi’s side. lydia stays behind with kynevi’s family.
kynevi, on the other hand, finally meets with paarthurnax with skand and gaius going with her. the three of them travel back to sky haven, where liviana and kynevi head out to search for the elder scroll, starting with the college, where they meet up with qamarat, who decides to come with them. they find the scroll and bring it back to the throat, where the three of them (along with some atronachs courtesy of qamarat) fight with alduin.
with the peace talks, iskandar goes to windhelm as the one part of the gang least likely to gank ulfric on sight, and vespasia pulls rank in solitude with tullius. after the peace treaty is signed, kynevi and the gang head out to whiterun to capture odahviing. kynevi heads to skuldafn with vespasia. siov, skand, and gaius stay in whiterun, qamarat heads back to the college with the elder scroll for safekeeping, and liviana goes back to skyhaven temple to be belligerent as possible to delphine for asking her to kill paarthurnax. she starts winning delphine and esbern over, along with the other blades recruits.
in sovngarde, kynevi does this as well as the expected. vess short circuits a little. they come back a little off, and this might happen because i think it’s cool and this is MY skyrim plotline.
anyways the gang calms down once kynevi and vess make it back down the throat of the world. they head back to skyhaven temple and kynevi bullies delphine into forgetting about paarthurnax.
once the blades are more or less rebuilt, siov and vess go back to adventuring, where they run into durak, who tells them about dawnguard. they join the dawnguard, which is another post for another time, and this is already long enough jesus christ how did you make it this far.