#three banners war

[andrevalias-tes]

"Unfortunately, my favor with the great rulers of Tamriel ends the moment they find themselves within the same room. Our friendship, our shared deeds, the stories of the evils we faced and the people we saved, none of it matters when the Ruby Throne is the prize occupying their heart."

– Vestige Axeel-Raj, explaining why his efforts to end the Three Banners War proved  fruitless.

[defectivegembrain]

also like...the war is the least interesting aspect of eso. it's just like you lot sure did just team up with people who happen to live in adjacent countries regardless of violent history, and then act like you have any reason to hate the rest of tamriel more than them. congrats?

[whosyourvladi]

excuse me but nobody mentioned to me that these existed and I want all three

[daggerfall]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

A Pact spy's observations on the Dominion's secret weapon: a five foot two bosmer necromancer.

[thatoneshadyshop]

4th of Frostfall, 2E 582

Divines preserve one, if one did not know better, one would suspect the captain of trying to kill one.

Bad enough that one was ignored by one’s own gaol keeper and the less foul of the insipid Dunmer stains on existence when one told nobody to leave the ship. Now the captain orders everyone ashore? Madness! To allow Fayrl, of all the miserable mer, to set foot among one’s kin....

No, no, one will not panic. It will be fine. Fayrl so far is keeping himself to himself. Qau-Dar is a Khajiit, a trusted ally from an allied people. One’s Bosmer tormentor is too, and so far as anyone need know, nothing more than a mere acquaintance. As for the other Dunmer and the Argonians, so long as they keep to the docks and stay where one can see them, it should be fine. There is no need to panic. No! No need at all! No, tis perfectly normal for such outlanders to set foot in these blessed shores! Nothing strange at all about an Altmer simply passing through his ancestral homeland, nothing strange about that Mer simply being a traveller with no real status on the home land ....

Divines, the repairs cannot be quick enough. The last thing one needs is for some Mer or other to recognise one from Grandmother’s stories, or for word to reach the manse somehow of one’s arrival. Kalaron still serves actively, he could be assigned to the port or take interest in the ruined ship that limped into refuge .... dear Phynaster, if the crew were right and the storm was magical in nature, then the Sapiarchs or the Divine Prosecution would want to know, and one could not hide from .... great Xarxes, never mind that, what if one of the idiots in one’s charge did something stupid? One would have to claim Caste then, and the manor would know about that soon enough, and then ...

No, no no no no. One will remain calm. It is all under control. Just a few days, in port, laying low. Without issue. No drama. Just a few days, then the ship will be repaired, and one can return to open waters and .... and good Auri-El above, just what is that noise? Oh great Divines, please don’t be .... of all the .... NO DONT CHASE HER YOU IDIOT FOOL OF A DUNMER YOU’LL ONLY....

[whosyourvladi]

Year of ESO (27/365)

Cyrodiil

[thatoneshadyshop]

14th of Hearthfire, 2E 582

One has missed being on the open ocean.

The salt spray on the air. The brush of wind across one’s face. The rise and fall of the waves underneath. If one could just remove a hundred years or so, one could well be back upon the deck of the reaving vessels under Sohrab’s command. To say naught of watching Gwemba scurrying around the deck, watching with interest at the sailors going about their business, scurrying up the rigging to see as far as she can.

Well. A hundred years or so, a gabble of suspicious Dunmer, a terrified Khajiit, and a walking Bosmer shaped irritant.

Tis hardly one’s fault is the sailors are too busy to pay him the attention he thinks he is due. To sail is to fight the ocean itself, to pit one’s will against the barely contained fury of creation! Tis little wonder that the men and women crewing his vessel have little enough interest to pay to the whims of a bedazzling Bosmer, no matter how towering his fury.

Tis a good thing he took himself up onto the rigging to sulk. One’s sufferance to him is being stretched unto its’ last nerve. Even without the added pressure of Fayrl continuing to blame one for Qau-Dar’s terrors. 

At least the other Dunmer has managed to keep himself to himself. Tis hardly as if one has anything to tell him, in any case. Finding a solution to this issue of soullessness will not be a quick thing; for all one’s learning, the trails of thought one wanders seem to inevitably end in logical failures. Perhaps when one has returned to Whiterun, and is better surrounded by one’s resources and references .... 

Not that one expects to be returned there as soon as one had hoped. One did not sail the Abecan Sea and Eltheric Ocean without being able to read the signs around one. Had the cloud patterns not made it obvious, the shift of the wind but earlier today, bringing with it a colder air, would have made it apparent. The captain knows it as well - how could she not, being an Altmer as she is? Our people are a seafaring people who have long since mastered the waves; one has no doubt of her competence, at least not from what one has seen of her at the helm. Tis better to travel further out west to open ocean than it is to risk sailing through the storm likely gathering before us; let it crash against the shore whilst we pass behind it in peace.

[thatoneshadyshop]

6th of Frostfall, 2E 582

It simply cannot be. It cannot have happened the way it did. It would be far too much of a coincidence, too far beyond the reals of possibility. Every logical avenue would have it be some cruel jape or misunderstanding or deluded nightmare. 

One can believe that Tel would go and get himself pickpocketed. He is but a Dunmer, after all, and a prime example of one at that. One could well believe he would be stupid enough to give chase - a Dunmer, an outsider, giving chase to an Altmer upon the Isles! - and could well believe that the irksome Sload dropping one is bonded to would choose to follow, his enjoyments so often taken in the misfortune of others. One can understand how the spectacle would attract others, why Qau-Dar and Fayrl would follow, swept along by events. 

Yet for the chase to end with one’s sister - no, sisters! - being present, even being responsible .... It simply cannot have been!

Alas. Twas so. To some benefit, one supposes, less the Dunmer, for all one’s protestations about their association with one, have been hauled away by the guard. Calina could claim status where one could not, the family connection enough of a shield to convince the guard the matter was too much trouble for their pay.

Of all the Daedric cursed luck, why Calina? Tis better her than Kalaron, one supposes, or worse, mother or father, yet even so ... Why could the universe not simply have allowed one to pass without discovery, to go without any of them? Especially now, when one is being trailed by an entourage of Khajiit and Dunmer, and ... and oh Y’ffre’s great balls, one’s husband. One’s indefinable flame atronach in Bosmer form, here, on the Isles, with one’s family ....Oh dear Mara have mercy!

If they’d all just stayed on the ship like one told them to, or simply stayed on the quayside ... But no, one is only an Altmer, what did one know about the Isles, why should they have listened to one about what was best here? No, they knew best, of course, and now we all find ourselves all but being dragged across the Isles back to one’s family home, all because the idiot fool couldn’t keep his precious brushes safe!

And Asteril! Who would have thought one’s sister would be a pickpocket, of all things! Mother must be mortified! One is surprised Father has not forced her to stay with his parents by now, or at least tried to! Impudent child. One is not old. Oh, one will get the blame for it all, no doubt:, the bad example that spurred her on, the older brother who failed to be on hand to curb her energy, the reason her trouble making was not dealt with sooner .... If what half Calina told one was true, tis hardly the first time one’s youngest sister has from home to some port or other, playing at being a Worker - a Worker! - and playing her games. 

And Calina ... Oh, Calina. Of all who it could have been, why did it have to be Calina? Kalaron would have retreated into cold formality and ordered one to leave, Father would have feigned at not knowing one, neither Mother nor Grandmother nor any of the others would set foot on the dockside .... Yet Calina, good, fair, dear Calina .... How could one refuse, when she had spared one’s group the guard, when her first thought was to embrace one, when even her scolding and shouted words carried tones of excitement? For all the anger about one leaving, for all she decried not knowing one was even nearby, for all we fought when one refused to leave the dock at all, for all her bluster and ire and pleading and demands, tis she alone who has extended her hand to one, tis she alone who has written one and asked of one’s life. How could one refuse her insistence that one return to Lillandril and Sea Keep for a time, when it was her that was asking? After all this time, after all that has passed, after all one has done and been and is, she remains one’s sister, the last true link one has to that past, and for good or ill, she knows she can pull on that thread twixt us.