a/n: I have been working on this fic for two years, not exactly knowing whether and how to start publishing it. So I decided I'd use @tes-summer-fest (the first one I've participated in) to force myself to start! No presh! Before this, I've posted snippets that are unlikely to make the final edit, so this is it... welcome to the first TWO official chapters of Palimpsest!
If people enjoy it, I will have a spicie little treat ready for the last day :)
Palimpsest takes place in both the Second and Fourth Eras. Skyrim in the streets, ESO in the sheets ;)
Chapters 1 and 2 are Gen, G-rated. This will change as the story continues. 4.2k words total.
On AO3:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
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The moment I enter the Arcanaeum, Urag slams shut the book he was reading. “I need to speak with you,” he says.
“Good morning to you too, Urag.”
“If it were a good morning, I’d have all my books accounted for,” he says gruffly, shaking his head as he reviews a book registry, “and I certainly wouldn’t have extra titles floating around that I can’t find in any of the catalogs.”
“You mean, some books are missing, and new ones have appeared in their places?”
“No,” he says, not looking up from the pile of lists in front of him, “that would be more straightforward. Some books are missing, and others have appeared in, uh, other places. I think I’m seeing a pattern, finally. Maybe.”
This does not feel like a matter for the Arch-Mage, but… actually, I am not certain what the Arch-Mage’s duties should be. At any rate, I’m intrigued. “Is this what you needed to speak with me about?”
“Obviously,” Urag says with a sigh. “The thing is, all of the titles in question seem to concern…” He finally meets my eyes, looking uncertain. “Have you ever been to Artaeum?”
“Artaeum? The Psijic Order’s pocket-dimension-island? No; how would I have gotten there? Why would I go there?”
Urag looks at me with some exasperation. “The Greybeards called your name from High Hrothgar. You’ve been to Apocrypha and the Shivering Isles. You’ve been to Sovngarde, and you’re not even a Nord… or dead. And the Psijic Order showed up to anoint you Arch-Mage of this place despite your having arrived here that same week. Excuse me for imagining you might have gone to the pocket-dimension-island.”
“All right, sorry, I understand,” I say, resisting the urge to defend my worthiness as a mage. “The books missing are about Artaeum?”
He looks at me again, like he doesn’t know whether to tell me the truth, but then sighs. “All of the missing and newly-discovered books mention the Psijic Order. Since the whole business with the Eye of Magnus… I don’t know how to say this, but I’ve begun to wonder whether the Order… er, curates the library according to their own agenda.”
“What interest would they have in our library?”
“I think they’re mostly interested in the Order’s image… I think there are things about the Order they want to keep hidden. Most of the library stays unchanged unless one of the librarians or scriveners move things. But the section about the Psijic Order seems to have a mind of its own, and now we’re discovering other titles that mention the Order going missing, or… appearing. Or reappearing, maybe.”
“Hm. I certainly don’t like that they’d change our library like that, but they are charged with watching all of Tamriel and beyond, apparently. I imagine such a weighty responsibility means some knowledge must remain forbidden. I suppose that's their prerogative?”
Urag meets my eyes again, this time with fire, looking almost threatening. “You are Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold,” he says curtly. “Your prerogative is to ensure no one interferes unduly with the study of magic. Even them. Your duty is to us.”
Yes, and to the Blades, and the Dark Brotherhood, and the Greybeards, and the Thieves Guild. And Meridia, and the Dawnguard. Plus I’m Thane of every hold in Skyrim. But, I simply nod, and say, “I agree. What do you need me to do?”
He sighs. “J’zargo found a few of the books that seem to have appeared. He said he was ‘led’ to them, but he wouldn’t tell me how. He’s somewhere around here; go find him, see what he knows.”
“Ugh, isn’t there a way to help the College that involves fighting undead in an ancient Nord barrow, or killing a dragon by myself? Something less distasteful than trying to get a straight answer out of that cat?”
Urag looks at me for a moment, then looks back down at his pile of lists. “Don’t think so,” is all he says.
I resign myself to dealing with J’zargo, and head for the Arcane Societies section of the library. Before I get there, though, I notice something in a secluded corner of the Ancient Peoples section seems to be… glowing? Getting closer, I see that it’s a book; it looks like a ray of sunlight is shining directly onto it, and only it. But as I walk toward it, the glow fades—maybe I imagined it?
“Hm, must have been nothing,” I say to myself.
But as I walk away, the book starts to glow again. This time I take the book from the shelf—The Psijic Elves of Sunhold. I flip through a few pages. It mentions the Psijic Order a few times, but it’s largely about a small subculture of non-Aedra-worshipping Altmer who did not leave Summerset with the Order.
“You saw the glowing books too, hm?” I turn to see J’zargo has appeared. At least I don’t have to keep searching for him. “Of course you did,” he says, rolling his eyes.
“You saw the… uh, glowing books? Why you?”
J’zargo regards me for several moments, trying to muster politeness, no doubt. “J’zargo has found some heretofore unknown books that mention the Psijic Order. Truthfully, J’zargo has been curious about the Order, recently.” He looks at me, with a similar trepidation as Urag had shown.
I ignore whatever he’s implying. “This book was glowing,” I say, and hand it to him, hoping we can get this problem solved as quickly as possible.
J’zargo takes the book and looks at it, but almost immediately looks back to me. “J’zargo regrets questioning the Arch-Mage’s authority…” His tone makes it clear that he loves questioning the Arch-Mage’s authority. “But this situation is a bit tidy, no? A Psijic monk shows up, tells us the Eye of Magnus has power beyond our understanding, and then takes it—and makes you Arch-Mage.”
I try not to show my delight that he’s seemingly incapable of saying my title without contempt seeping into his tone. We need to be talking about the books, but I can’t resist: “Hm, jealous, are you, J’zargo?”
“Yes,” J’zargo says, with an unfriendly smile. “But this is not relevant to the question of why we should trust someone just because he can project himself through time and planes. Arch-Mage.”
“I…” That’s actually a good point. “I’m not surprised that you haven’t heard of the Psijic Order, J’zargo, but they are ancient Altmeri mages of incredible power. They have advised powerful people—such as the Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold—throughout history.”
“Yes, J’zargo heard Tolfdir and Aren informing you of that a week or two ago,” he says, unimpressed.
I am beginning to lose my patience. “Do you have a point, J’zargo?”
He scoffs. “Just like an Elf, to trust power and authority implicitly. J’zargo’s point is: does the new Arch-Mage know how, exactly, the Psijic Order has protected the College from the supposed danger that only the time-traveling Elf-monks know about?“
“The Eye of Magnus was more powerful than…” I trail off. “Stop pestering me, cat, I don’t answer to you.”
J’zargo sighs wearily. “You may call J’zargo a cat; after all, J’zargo is a cat. And J’zargo is a gracious cat—for example, J’zargo will graciously assume that you are not being racist directly to his handsome face, and are simply ignorant of the… substantial… difference between calling Khajiit a cat, and addressing Khajiit as cat. But, J’zargo will not make such a gracious assumption in the future, no matter what Elf-title someone has appeared out of nowhere to confer on you.” He waves his fingers to accentuate his claws. “Yes?”
Ugh. “Yet you could address me as mer.”
“Who says that?” J’zargo says, laughing.
“Well, you’d be allowed to address me as Elf.”
“Just so,” he laughs harder, and claps me on the back as if I’ve just made a joke. “You must tell J’zargo the next time someone calls you Elf while spitting on you and kicking you out of their city and into the cold wilderness—because you are Altmer. Arch-Mage.”
I roll my eyes, but I say, “I understand.” He’s an ass, but I don’t want to be racist, I suppose. “So the other books you found—”
Before I can finish my sentence, someone I want to talk to even less than J’zargo appears. “What do you want?” I ask.
Quaranir’s projection holds up one hand. “I mean no interference—“
“That is what you said last time,” J’zargo says, cradling a small mote of flame in his hand.
“It seems you are beginning to question the Psijic Order, Arch-Mage,” Quaranir says.
I adopt a very Altmeri tone of voice. “I trust the Order implicitly, of course. I am only trying to learn about—“
“You misunderstand.” He puts both hands in front of him, as if to show he means no harm. “The Order does not know I am contacting you, this time. I must be brief.”
J’zargo and I look at each other.
Quaranir speaks quietly. “I could not impede the seizure of the Eye of Magnus, but I could try to ensure you investigated and asked questions after the fact.” He gestures to the book in J’zargo’s hand. “It may be too late for the College of Winterhold, but much larger things are at stake.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “Too late for the College? Was I supposed to find—”
“It will take both of you,” Quaranir says, looking at J’zargo.
“Both of us? Him too?” I point at J’zargo.
“There is still time to protect the study of magic in Tamriel,” Quaranir says, as his projection begins to fade.
“The books will tell us how?” J’zargo asks, gesturing to the book in his hand.
“By any means necessary,” Quaranir says, and his projection is gone.
J’zargo and I look at each other in stunned silence for a few moments.
“It seems we should read these books, perhaps,” J’zargo says.
For the second time this morning, I sigh and resign myself to dealing with J'zargo. We both sit down at a nearby study table, and I crack open The Psijic Elves of Sunhold.
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The Psijic Elves of Sunhold
by Eymei Gwylanwe, 2E 58[the last number of the date is illegible]
The way Tamriel learns Altmeri history is roughly thus: before the Merethic Era, Aldmeri elites began to solidify their worship among their favored ancestors, and they compelled the rest of Aldmeri society to adopt their new paradigm of worship. This caused many Aldmer to flee Summerset for mainland Tamriel, eventually to become Chimer, Ayleids, and Bosmer. Those who remained in Summerset became the Altmer, and Altmer who opposed the shift toward Aedra worship became the Psijic Order, removing themselves from Summerset’s society to Artaeum, in order to preserve the Old Ways as best they could.
Here is what you were not taught: a few clans of the Old Ways remained on Summerset, refusing to yield their homes and hearths. These Elves—the first Altmeri hearth Elves—believed it was pointless to lock away magic that was meant to enable communal connection and healing, and considered it vital to maintain ties to their ancestral lands, the wisteria plants they tended to honor the Ehlnofey, and the sacred oyster farms where they cultivated their Varla pearls. As followers of the Old Ways, those Elves still called themselves (lower-case-P) psijics—this term simply means “enlightened.” To this day, many hearth Elves still call ourselves psijics and psijic mages, as we have since before the Psijic Order existed.
As the elite of Summerset society began to take more exclusive control of worship and arcane culture, laborers and farmers rapidly found themselves not only assigned to a lower class, but considered nebarra in their own land unless they adopted the gods of the upper crust. As a result, many of the newly-designated lower classes fled for mainland Tamriel around the same time the Psijic Order left Summerset. Those psijics who remained feared that the Psijic Order’s solution—relinquishing their rightful ancestral homes to a rapidly-stratifying Altmeri society—would leave the newly-formed lower classes to be preyed upon. They saw the potential for the values of the Old Ways to be erased completely from Altmeri life, and worried that worship of the ancestor-gods of the elites would quickly become entwined with justice and culture. History has proven that their fears were not only justified, but prescient.
The new Altmeri society characterized psijic Elf culture as simplistic and backward. The term ‘hearth Elf’ itself was originally a derogatory term—a way of calling us primitive, because we still performed all of our rituals at the hearth, instead of just the ones which had not been replaced with Aedric customs. ‘Proper’ remove from the hearth became a marker of sophistication, which coincides neatly with markers of the lower classes—denizens of the hearth; the servants, cooks, and nannies of the world. But such an association was not exactly an insult to the first hearth Elves: through the memories of their ancestors, they still remembered that not long ago we had been a society where this type of labor was respected. In fact, they considered it an apt name—the hearth, after all, is a symbol of mortal connection to the Ehlnofey, and an enduring part of all cultures. It is a reminder of the relationship of people to time; barely changed from our primitive origins—a center of life no matter how nomadic the peoples; a site of ancient rituals no matter how sophisticated the society.
The hearth was an apt metaphor for our magic, as well—“nature magic brought indoors,” in the words of an archmage who believed herself to be snidely insulting it. But this is exactly what hearth magic was and remains: ancestral earth magic, adapted to a cosmopolitan Altmeri way of life. Unsurprisingly, after the psijic schism, our magic was almost immediately derided as witchcraft, and has been deemed such for centuries. Many hearth mages embraced this epithet as well—though intended as an insult, it was an acknowledgment of our uncommon power; then as now the word witch belies a fear of those who can call upon the most ancient, wild, and potent arcane forces in Nirn. To this day, many of us still call ourselves ‘hearth witches’, ‘witches of the Old Ways’, and (the term I prefer for myself): ‘psijic witches.’
With the formation of the Mages Guild—founded on the psijic ideal that magic should be accessible to anyone who wishes to wield it responsibly—the Psijic Order left Nirn entirely. This made it clear to the Summerset Elves that the Order considered the Guild threat: in order to avoid whatever danger they believed the Mages Guild represented, the Order was willing to leave behind the very Earthbones on which their immense power depends, and willing to commit permanently to relying on more precarious (and infinitely more wasteful) methods of obtaining Ehlnofeic magic. Hearth Elves as a group had been vocal proponents of the Guild, believing it to be a much-needed equalizer that honored the Old Ways—but by this time, most of Summerset held the Old Ways synonymous with the Psijic Order. Hearth mages, who still practiced the true psijic magic of the Old Ways as they had since before history began, were suddenly considered a radical separatist cult—one which was advocating a revolutionary force, in the Mages Guild, at a time when the Guild was too young and embattled to advocate for hearth magic.
So, for almost all of the Second Era, our magic has been practiced quietly, taught quietly, spoken of quietly. What remains of Altmeri hearth culture in the public consciousness is largely mysticism and herbal magic—while Altmeri Praxes severely restricted our ability to practice these openly, there was some cultural tolerance afforded to what was undeniably an ancestral tradition. In fact, despite Praxes, it is still commonplace to consult a hearth witch to have your fortunes read, your hangover cured, or for mystic guidance about romance, sex, and marriage. But since the rise of the Divine Prosecution, even fortune-tellers and herbalists are actively watched with suspicion, so today our magic is largely practiced in secret—and under tacit threat of violence. It is the culmination of centuries of effort to relegate hearth culture to dark magic and quaint folk superstition: our Old Ways are an uncomfortable reminder that a vastly more equal society is in the blood-memory of every Altmer alive today, from kinsfolk to common folk.
We of the hearth remember. The psijic schism was not just a disagreement about mystic and religious philosophy—in addition to those, the Old Ways also represented a more egalitarian society in which those who work the fields and the seas had the same place in society as scholars and mages. I come from a privileged family, and my father is a mage of the hearth who can trace his family’s tradition back for generations. Father tells stories from when our family worked in vineyards, moving with the seasons to harvest and process grapes—and my family’s tradition goes back even further than those stories.
Altmeri readers may be shocked that I’d say so: for non-Altmeri readers, to admit that my family were ever common laborers is to weaken the argument that superiority to others is genetically inherent to Altmeri society’s upper crust—a notion that is, unsurprisingly, dearly sacred to Altmeri society’s upper crust. That I, a relatively upper-class Altmer, practice hearth magic means that at some point my family were disposable folk, and now we are not.
Though our beliefs have had the same core principles since time began, hearth Elves are ever more an inconvenience to the pillars on which Altmer have chosen to construct our modern identity: to hold the sway that they do, Altmeri social classes must be seen as eternal and unchanging. Hearth culture is older than modern Altmeri social classes; older even than the modern notion of class itself. Very inconvenient, if one is invested in preserving one’s class status.
I write this from occupied Sunhold, the traditional ancestral home of psijic Elves of the Old Ways—some hearth Elf families can trace their ancestry here to before the Psijic Order left Summerset. According to our tradition, Sunhold is a sacred place where the Earthbones meet, and in such places is psijic magic the strongest. This is why the first hearth Elves refused to leave with the Psijic Order, and why Sunhold’s healers are renowned throughout Tamriel. It is also why the city’s central ruins are adorned with ancient wisteria—hearth Elves have historically cultivated these trees (which are the ancestors of most of the wisteria in Summerset) to honor and protect this place. Some of the wisteria in Sunhold are as old as the ruined ancient seawalls upon which the Wisteria District homes and streets are constructed. In fact, many of the oldest trees grew in our communal courtyards—psijic Elves’ traditional homes are built encircling a small central plot of land, which is tended to, but left intentionally undeveloped to enable communion with the Elhnofey. Several such courtyards remained untouched for the entirety of Sunhold’s recorded history.
I note also that as Summerset’s major trading port and naval hub, Sunhold has historically been a diverse and working-class city compared to the rest of Summerset—prior to Queen Ayrenn’s decree and the Maormer occupation, it was home to more immigrants than the rest of the island combined. Considering the demographics of its population—nebarra foreign and Altmeri alike—it is perhaps not shocking that the Divine Prosecution immediately abandoned Sunhold when Maormer ships appeared on the horizon a few years ago, nor that the Aldmeri Dominion left a city of civilians, the home of its own navy, to defend itself. Some of the heaviest destruction in Sunhold has been in the former enclaves of the psijic Elves. Many hearth families have lost loved ones as the resistance drags on, and most of us have lost our ancestral hearths and communal yards in the destruction. Already-embattled hearth Elf culture may be destroyed for good, scattered across Summerset and mainland Tamriel after millennia of barely hanging on. Whether these circumstances were intentional or simply unfortunate, it must be said that they are unavoidably positive for Altmeri hegemony in Summerset and all of Tamriel, and for the complete erasure of the Old Ways from Altmeri culture.
The Psijic Order believe they exist to serve "lesser men," yet we are all lesser men in the grander sense—in the sense that we are all mortals, all of us deriving from the Ehlnofey, who rejected immortality and omnipotence so that we could exist at all. We are all lesser than gods, and that is the beauty of our existence—we are allowed to discover, to become, to learn, to grow, to change, and what is holier than change?
Yet, we Altmer live longer by far than the other races of Tamriel. We will always have the advantage of steering history, simply because we live longer. We are not gods, or god-like, or even more godly—we are mortals, the same as the others. But we have the honor of being the keepers of the story of this world, by no other blessing than the randomness of our birth. We have made our gods everyone else’s gods, and we have made it so Tamriel aspires to our languages and our culture and our view of magic. At very least is our duty to care for what we have built, and to ensure that the world we live in belongs to everyone equally.
This is not the world we Altmer are building. I write this because I want history to know that there were Altmer who heeded the lessons of the bones of the earth, who believed that we are here for one another. I want future generations to know that there were always Altmer who rejected the toxic lie of Altmeri supremacy over the other races—many of us, and certainly not only hearth Elves.
This text is meant to be informative, but it also represents the selfish desires of a mortal who wishes her people not to be forgotten or remembered falsely as Daedra worshippers or cultists. I cannot apologize for such desires; I am a mortal. Although I understand that countless injustices of this sort exist in history, I still cannot stomach the thought of psijic Elves being lumped in with the Psijic Order that abandoned the bones of the earth, or the Altmeri society that eroded us to nothing over the centuries, while making ever more brazen attempts to do the same with the other races of Tamriel. To be sure, we are Altmer; we still benefit from—and thus, bear some responsibility for—the actions of the Altmer as a race. We must commit ourselves to counterbalancing oegnithr (bad change) including and especially that which is perpetrated by our kin. But I fear this is truly the end of my people, and if it is, I want Tamriel to know who we were—and who we were not.
I want future people to know that we psijics understood the onus of power; the duty to care for the earth and one another, placed upon us by our ability to wield the unmitigated might of the Ehlnofey. Remember us, not only for our sake, but so that no one may ever forget: no matter how powerful, hegemonies are not truths, they are illusions preserved by violence. They always topple under their own weight eventually; absolute power corrupts absolutely. But no matter how silenced or ineffectual, for every hegemony that rises, there are always people who oppose it. There always will be—let no one ever, for a moment, believe otherwise, no matter how bleak the outlook.
Let the psijic Elves of Sunhold be a reminder: no matter how many subcultures, how many neighborhoods, how many people are erased, there are others who live and believe in the life you know in your bones to be right, even within seemingly-monolithic cultures. Keep your Oghma, and you cannot really be erased—a book may be burned, a person may be killed, but spiritually, keeping your Oghma inscribes your existence into the long memory of the Earthbones. As such, recording a mortal existence is close to life-energy itself in terms of power, and such power lives on in the magicka produced by the bones of the earth. Therefore, to keep your Oghma is to remember that you matter—to understand the onus of your life mattering—and to know that your power can never be destroyed. We of the hearth and the Old Ways keep our Oghma so that people may know: those who know the Ehlnofey and live by the laws of love have always been here, and we always will be; we are in the bones of the earth, and they are in us.
I love how you can still bullshit your way into become arch-mage without ever really using magic?? You can absolutely wreck Ancano to death with a battleaxe so that you can resume your 5th day of classes, but Quaranir just hands you the Staff of Magnus like “see you later Arch-mage :)” and suddenly you’re a high school dropout who can’t read that just became the principle of a legitimate University.
