JULIANNE TRAVEN (Oblivion: Arch-Mage) Julianne excelled at the Arcane University; as a research student, and being the daughter of the Arch-Mage, she became deeply involved in the Necromancy Crisis, and was ultimately the one who killed Mannimarco. For this she earned her place on the Council of Mages, and later followed in her father’s footsteps. She also provided research assistance in the Oblivion Crisis; and was privately somewhat involved with the Thieves’ Guild. She is, for the most part, effervescent, optimistic, and rather on the eccentric side.
CORINNE TRAVEN (Oblivion: Champion of Cyrodiil) Julianne’s younger sister is a member of the Fighters’ Guild and the Imperial Watch who was selected to become a Blade, and who thus devoted her life to the Emperor. Unwavering and determined, she was among the finest of them, and it is she who was entrusted with the Amulet of Kings, and who found and assisted Martin. She is married to Caroline, one of her fellow Blades.
MARIANNE (Oblivion: Grey Fox) Marianne grew up in the Thieves’ Guild in Kvatch, and at length sought her fortune in the Imperial City, where she was called upon to assist in the heist of the age. Her intention has only ever been to help the underprivileged, and she later decided to devote herself to the Imperial Cult. She is married to Marcel (my OC) who works at the chapel in Skingrad. She is Julianne’s cousin, though she was unaware of this until later on, when the two met in the City.
LUNETTE (Morrowind: Nerevarine) Accidentally implicated in a plot to kill the Emperor, Lunette was sentenced to hard labour on Solstheim; and later sent away to Balmora to become the Empire’s Nerevarine. Her early life taught her not to trust anyone, made her play a sort of role; her time in Morrowind mellowed her a little, and while she continued her game of manipulation in House Hlaalu, she also got involved with the admirable work of the Bal Molagmer and the Twin Lamps. At length she found the strength to step down from her role-playing and face her real sentiments, - principal among which was her love for Ilmeni Dren.
JULIENNE (Skyrim: Dragonborn) Julienne grew up in Bruma, but decided to become a mercenary, and go over to Skyrim. It was there that she discovered she was Dragonborn, and despite her distinct lack of self-confidence and constant complaining, she defeated Alduin and earned eternal fame (which didn’t help her social anxiety much). She is married to Marcurio, with whom she travels as a mercenary duo, and with whom she bonded over a shared love of destruction magic (read: blowing stuff up).
TALVYNEA MORVEN (Skyrim: Imperial Legate) Talvynea grew up in Raven Rock, but moved to Skyrim to join the Legion; she served admirably during the Civil War, and was the one who personally killed Ulfric Stormcloak. She later returned to Solstheim, with Julienne this time, to assist in the Miraak affair. While she is an excellent and devoted soldier, her true profession is that of a blacksmith, and she hopes to take over from Glover Mallory one day.
AURÉLIE (ESO: Vestige) and J’ANKOR (travelling-companion). Aurelie is a scholar from the Mages’ Guild who can be a little careless and a little too trusting, which is how she had this whole affair thrust upon her. J’ankor is an Alfiq who can read things by sleeping on them, like Azincourt from the Paris des Merveilles series. His name is also pronounced a bit like Azincourt -- you know what, never mind.
(minor ocs under the cut)
JEANNE RENAULT (Daggerfall: Agent) In-game escapades and backstory to be confirmed. If you recognise the name, it is because she is the future Captain Renault of the Blades, who died saving Uriel Septim from the Mythic Dawn.
HANNIBAL and MYRIAM TRAVEN. Hannibal Traven is not, of course, my OC; he is, however, the father of Julianne and Corinne, so I felt it was useful to include him. Myriam is his wife, a battlemage in the Anvil City Guard until the two moved to the City. In my headcanon Hannibal does not die, and stays on as Arch-Mage for several years more before being succeeded by his daughter.
AUGUSTINE TRAVEN. Hannibal Traven’s late brother, and part of the reason for Hannibal’s distrust of Necromancy: Augustine was corrupted by the dark arts, and ultimately lost to them, when the Anvil guard raided a den of necromancers in which he happened to be practising. He is also the father (by different mothers) of Marianne and Lunette.
GAIUS PRENTUS. Remember that guard who is sent to patrol the island with the Strange Door? He’s my OC now, and the one who ends up chosen as Sheogorath’s champion. I haven’t got much further than that, but his personality is quintessentially Imperial Guard and I thought it would be amusing.
TARA-LEI. Julianne’s best friend, and fellow-student at the Arcane University. Tara is mostly an alchemist, though a good all-rounder, and has charged herself with preventing Julianne from procrastinating too badly.
CAECILIA IUCUNDUS. A student of the University of Gwylim - later the Chancellor - who has a fondness for travelling, and most especially writing about her travels. She took on Jenette as a guide in the Jeralls, and ended up falling in love with her.
JENETTE. A Nord wanderer who lives in Bruma, participated in the retrieval of the Draconian Madstone, and has a shadowy past which might involve the Skaal.
MATHILDE. A Breton illusion-mage who attended the College of Winterhold for a while, but eventually got bored and decided to test out her knowledge in the real world, namely by joining the Dark Brotherhood and getting her targets killed by frenzying them, because that’s her idea of fun apparently
DEREK THE DREMORA. Honestly I do not know what he is doing here. He is a joke character who got out of hand
FABRICE. AU Dragonborn who chiefly features in my fic An Empire Fallen. Half-Nord, half-Breton who favours shortswords and stealth and a little bit of magic; or preferably not having to fight at all. Extremely naive, and with a tendency to sponteneity.
COURIER. The unnamed protagonist of The Formation of a Courier is a former Winterhold student now in the surprisingly magical business of postal delivery.
POSTMASTER. The Guildmaster of the Couriers' Guild is a strange sort of fellow with stranger facial hair who likes nothing in his life more than a good letter.
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The highlight of my juvenile career was a dinner at Castle Anvil, where I’d agreed that my party-trick would be to turn the roast pig invisible: in the moment I decided it wasn’t grand enough, and instead directed my spell at Count Umbranox, who promptly disappeared. (This, funnily enough, would turn out to be his party-trick as well.)
There was smoke on the night air, thin wisps from tentative hearths, but it wasn’t the scorching of dragon-breath on humble thatch; and nor was it the stifling oppression of Dragonsreach, a smouldering tinder-box waiting to go up, missives all half-read as they crumpled and crumbled into ashes. A minute longer and I might have asserted my authority as Dragonborn, I might simply fus ro dah it all away! – but I knew I was not so strong as all that, that I had a Voice but not a voice, and if I wasn’t careful, I’d be the plaything of Jarls and chessboards. I hadn’t quite had the confidence to storm out, but I’d needed a breath of the air, and now here I was wanting to up and leave Skyrim and not quite making it out of the Cloud District. I plonked myself on a ledge over the moat, legs dangling down, and looked pointedly at the northern horizon.
Marcurio had just sat beside me, and was shuffling closer by the second, all the better to forget everything that had just happened, when a shadow fell over the both of us and Lydia appeared.
We’d been introduced earlier, and now her face was just as unreadable. She shifted her scabbard, very carefully, and planted herself at my side with her hands in her lap. I didn’t want to be reminded of earlier, but none of it was her fault, after all, and what was I supposed to say? – Marcurio put his arm around my waist and glared at her more sharply than the sword. She didn’t notice.
‘The Jarl has instructed me to accompany you, my Thane,’ she said, almost as an afterthought.
‘What, everywhere?’ retorted Marcurio.
Lydia shrugged. ‘I am to protect Thane Julienne with my life.’
Now if you’ve been following up until now, you’ll know I had got into the sort of life where scrapes were the order of the day. In fact, Marcurio and I had just been discussing yesterday, not entirely seriously, if we should get ourselves one of those big Nordic warriors who gladly throw themselves at bears and things, all the better for us to concentrate on casting spells and not having our faces turned into something’s dinner. But this was Whiterun, one of the safest cities in Skyrim, at least when it isn’t being attacked by dragons. The steps are swept twice a day, the citizens aren’t given to random bouts of violence and the smoke from the Skyforge has only a little bit of a smell to it. We had proven it over the last few days, – if you’re within the city walls, you probably don’t have much to worry about.
I wanted to express all this to Lydia, but when I looked at her she was still sitting there impassively and I perfectly lost my tongue. At last I protested: ‘I’m not even Thane yet.’
‘But you’re going to be Thane, my Thane,’ said Lydia without blinking.
‘And you’re the Dragonborn, of course,’ said Marcurio, raising an eyebrow, ‘which means you’re not allowed to die or do anything without some kind of permission-slip from every Jarl in Skyrim.’ His hand moved a little lower and his glare became more pointed. ‘Tell me, Lydia, does the word housecarl mean spy in your language or what?’
Now Lydia looked over at us rather than into the distance. I shuffled, awkward, and clasped Marcurio’s hand in place before he did me a public indecency. ‘What do you mean, spy?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘we’ve been causing all manner of trouble for all manner of people these past few weeks, and getting ourselves embroiled in webs with big fat spiders in the middle, and now the moment we get back from Windhelm, Jarl Balgruuf throws a title at the Dragonborn and gives her a travelling-companion, – who she doesn’t need, by the way,’ he added, puffing his chest out. ‘You have to understand why we’re suspicious.’
Lydia blinked at me. I shrugged in turn, since Marcurio’s we had indeed spoken for the both of us, but I didn’t like to say it, meeting her mournful dark eyes. She considered the question, nodded and said: ‘A housecarl reports to her Thane, not to the Jarl.’
But the Thane reports to the Jarl, I thought, remembering what had been said in Windhelm, all the fights that were springing up over which Jarl was going to claim me first, which palace was going to have me like one of their horker trophies, glassy-eyed over the throne. I laced my fingers with Marcurio’s and, mustering the courage, asked of Lydia:
‘Is this… is this what you wanted to be? When you were small, I mean?’
‘Who doesn’t want to grow up to serve a great heroine, my Thane?’ she returned.
‘Julienne wanted to grow up to be a butterfly,’ said Marcurio.
I elbowed him. ‘I mean, dying for… for a great heroine, or anyone, really?’
Lydia turned away again. The corners of her mouth twitched, but I couldn’t tell if she was smiling or what. I didn’t know what I had misunderstood, if indeed I had misunderstood anything. I barely knew the woman and now she was planning on dying for me. There must be more to it than that! – Either that or I wasn’t Nordic enough for any of this. Perhaps we’d gone soft, in Bruma. I blushed and moved as much as I could away from her, and closer to Marcurio, who had been watching the aurora form and begin to dance in the north-east, and wanted me for himself, in the brightening of the night. But I couldn’t relax, the day was still heavy on my shoulders.
‘I am sworn to carry your burdens,’ she said, evasive.
‘What, all of them?’ said Marcurio: ‘you’re not ready for what Julienne’s got going on, you may as well just give up now.’
His eyes could have burnt a hole in her armour, if eyes did that sort of thing. Lydia just looked into the middle distance, not even at the aurora, probably just somewhere over the mountains where she wouldn’t have to deal with any of this. Marcurio cleared his throat and said:
‘Don’t you have anywhere to be tonight?’
‘At my Thane’s side,’ said Lydia at once: ‘there is every possibility we shall be attacked by a dragon, or that there may be assassination-attempts now that her name is known, or, –’
‘There’s only one bed.’
‘There’s only one bed.’
Lydia looked at me. She looked at Marcurio. She looked at his hand entwined with mine and me wrapped in an embrace and the star-spangled aurora rippling over the sky like running water, to put out the day’s inferno. Then she stood up.
‘Now you understand, –’ said Marcurio.
‘I can keep watch outside the bedroom door.’
‘No!’
‘My Thane?’
‘I’m not your Thane!’ I cried, for there was my voice at last, startlingly loud in the night and rebounding all over the Cloud District: ‘I don’t want to be Thane, I don’t want to be Dragonborn, I don’t want to be spied on, and, – and, – and if I’d wanted the Jarl to appoint me an official draught-excluder, I would at least have asked for it first!’
Lydia was definitely smiling now, but still at the corners of her mouth, like she hadn’t been given the order to do it properly, all over her face. She straightened her scabbard and with her hand on the hilt, a knight in shining armour, she said:
‘Then I’ll leave you be, my Thane. But if you ever want advice, –’
‘No.’
‘If you ever need advice,’ said Lydia, ‘about embracing a destiny you didn’t ask for, – you know where to find me.’
And even as I listened, bewildered, she turned on her heel and, dark in the aurora, walked not back to Dragonsreach, but downwards, and disappeared like smoke into the murmuring streets.
It’s probably no surprise, that the Blades never tell us anything. Neither the Elder Council nor the Courier report on their movements; it’s anyone’s guess who most of them are; and my own sister comes to tea alarmingly often with blood on her cuffs telling me she had another uneventful day at work. I can’t say it doesn’t unnerve me. I’ve only killed one person in my life, – bloodlessly, mind you, – and I’m still rattled. How many people Corinne has killed, –
It never puts her off her roasted vegetables, I can tell you that much. So that particular day, when she sat poking at her carrots with the sort of deliberacy one usually sees in the condemned, the melancholic and the students who haven’t revised for their imminent exams, I caught myself looking for the blood spatters she had missed; and finding none, at last had to ask:
‘Bad day at the office?’
Corinne, who would not put her elbows on the table if the Empire depended on it, put her elbows on the table.
‘You know I’m not allowed to discuss it.’
Now this I mostly respect. We all have our secrets. Corinne, for example, does not know about my involvement in the Elder Scrolls Library theft, which she spent half her professional life trying to solve. But even during that time, she had never looked quite so distressed as now.
I looked at her. She looked at me.
‘What’s the Arcane University’s take on prophetic dreams?’
‘Take?’ said I: ‘you know we have a thousand takes on everything under the sun. Just this morning we were arguing about whether the jam went first, or the cream, or if the jam should actually be on the outside, or whether a potion made of jam and cream and scones is a more efficient way of consuming the damn things without having to hold this debate every time, –’
‘Julianne.’
‘Oh!’ said I: ‘well, usually you can explain prophetic dreams by normal means like the subconscious or whatever wine you drank at dinner last night. But officially we say they do sometimes happen, and that the Emperor has them more often than most, –’
Corinne’s hands froze.
‘This is about the Emperor,’ said I, ‘I presume.’
‘Nothing I do is not about the Emperor,’ said Corinne, tersely: ‘that’s kind of the point of being a Blade.’
‘That’s not true,’ said I, ‘you have your wife; and me, Mum, Dad, –’
I had never seen her look so professional at the dinner-table. I started to worry I was about to be arrested for curiosity. But unsatisfied curiosity is the nemesis of the Mages’ Guild; and I am the most tactless damn sister in the world. I said at last, wryly:
‘So how many of us are going to die horribly, if the Emperor’s dreams come true?’
She did not reply: but nor did she look at me quite as though I was about to perish imminently in some kind of world-ending inferno: which is not a look I have ever actually seen, but I am sure I would know it if I were to see it.
‘Or has the Emperor merely seen his own death,’ said I, considering, ‘and you do not know if your duty is to save him from his fate, or leave him to it?’
It is not possible to drop a fork discreetly. If it does not sound like fully-armoured dremora marching to the conquest of the Imperial army, likewise clanking like a dinner-service, then it was not dropped at all. Corinne did not bend to pick it up. She hardly even blinked.
‘What do I do?’ she cried: ‘what do you do if a man tells you he is going to die, and you are going to be there, and your fate is inextricably bound with his death? That Oblivion will open its gates, but it's fine, because you will be there to close them again? That a man I've spent my own life trying to preserve is just going to go marching towards his death like, – like, –’
She stopped, and I could not fill the abyss. Mine was not an intimate acquaintance with Uriel Septim VII, but from what I knew of him, he had probably told Corinne all this over his elevenses scone, and then complained that the cream was on top. The most alarming thing I have seen over elevenses was Mannimarco's face appearing on a slice of toast. I may be arch-mage, but this was quite out of the realm of plagiarism or someone's potion setting fire to the curtains.
I wanted to say: Has he tried less cheese before bedtime; but I am not so tactless as all that.
‘This is all classified information,’ said Corinne at last, breathless, while I was thinking about being tactful, ‘by the way.’
‘Of course,’ said I: ‘don’t want to panic the populace, and all that. Have his dreams ever come true before?’
‘Without fail. They’re usually more mundane than the end of the world, but, – you know how fate is.’
‘Everything’s written in the stars, or the stones, or the head of the Emperor,’ said I: ‘well, come! even the people with the Elder Scrolls did not predict the theft of one! If everything was decided by the gods before we were all born, –’
I crossed to the counter, pulled out a bottle:
‘Then they would never have predicted such an abomination as a scone-potion. Jam, – cream, – bread, – it’s all in here. Restores fatigue, allegedly. You look like you need it. A glass to saving the Emperor from his own head?’
Despite everything, Corinne managed the corner of a smile.
‘Damn it all,’ she said, ‘we always do it, we always save the Emperor. We’re the damn Blades!’
Whereupon she took the bottle; poured some out; sipped it, – sputtered at the abomination of it, – and so sputtered, that even as she forgot the fate, even as I laughed the whole thing off, unsteady, – so it spattered, scarlet, on her cuff like blood.
oh i should say if anyone wants to follow my pathfinder blog @linette-the-pathfinder you are welcome to... if you don't know about pathfinder or even if you do there is no obligation
also not all of my ocs have a double letter in their names i swear... it's just julianne, corinne, marianne, julienne, lunette, polly, sally, hannah, linette... maybe i have a problem actually
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tagged by @elavoria for a wip extract... this is just after caius returns to the city, and another blades agent learns she is now in charge
I had never spoken to him, but he knew the rumours, the stories: he knew me better than I knew him, and I did not like it.
‘Well, Caius must have seen something in me,’ I returned: and refrained for Tyermaillin was a head above me, from adding: which he did not see in you, ‘and Hlaalu business after all, does not keep me very busy, –’
‘I suppose Sera Curio keeps you busy for no more than fifteen minutes at a time,’ said Tyermaillin with a sniff. ‘Caius knelt to nobody but the Emperor. You would do well to remember that.’
tagging @sylvienerevarine @redyn-nerevarine and anyone else who would like to participate :)
tagged by @redyn-nerevarine for a wip extract... here's lunette at that dinner, catching sight of a certain someone for the first time
‘Who is that?’ I asked Nileno, when I managed to rejoin her.
‘Ilmeni Dren!’ said Nileno with a smile: ‘the Duke’s daughter. She’s a handful, that’s what she is. I’m sure the Duke loves her very much, but the latest scuffle… She wants to be a schoolteacher. She is not quite the pride of the House.’
Ilmeni’s dress was as low-cut as mine, in a charming faded yellow: first-hand, no doubt, and immaculately tailored. She held herself well enough, that I thought Nileno’s comment tremendously unjust: her face, though not that of her father, was stern beneath all the grey freckles; and her eyes promenaded all about the room as his did, but surreptitiously, and avoiding every pair they happened to meet. She had not seen me, yet; I watched her, these eyes which did not seek, – like so many others, – to charm, to captivate, to manipulate: only to watch, and perhaps a little, to judge. She did not look like a schoolteacher.
‘I can introduce you, if you like,’ Nileno went on: ‘if you are particularly interested in the literacy-rates in Ald’ruhn…'
tagging @elavoria @sylvienerevarine @druidx and anyone who fancies it... turns out it actually is wednesday who knew
tagged by @elavoria for a wip extract... my real wip at the moment is a translation of a nearly insufferable book from the 19th century, out of choice for some reason, but here's a bit from lunette's story since i was reading it earlier...
in which the raven rock mine hits stalhrim and superstition
‘What if there’s a curse?’ said Graetian.
‘A curse?... Don’t be silly.’
The superstitions of the island, and also of the remote Cyrodiilic villages which had furnished the mine with workers, weighed heavy on us a moment: Graetian back in some Colovy vineyard waiting on the gods to bless or curse his yield; and Falco and I back in the unsteady rationalism of the City. That Graetian stood living before us, – though pale, – was testament to an ineffective curse if ever there was one; yet the real curse which might come upon us from some real mouth, if we were to let it be known, –
‘We knew this was all sacred land,’ said I at last: ‘is it only now that we’ve hit poor taste? They did protest, after all.’
tagging @sylvienerevarine @redyn-nerevarine and anyone else who fancies it!
9. Do any of your Skyrim ocs believe in snow/sky whales?
julienne does not particularly believe in sky whales but she loves pretending she does to rib marcurio. theorising that they're invisible; that they all decided the sea was nicer; that they saw marcurio coming and fled; that they're always there out of the corner of your eye; that all that white stuff on the ground isn't yesterday's snow, it's sky whale spermaceti
14. Who is their mentor? Who do they go to most for lessons?
this is maybe best answered with a wip extract...
‘I was unaware,’ said she tersely, ‘that you knew Paarthurnax well enough, to speak fondly of him.’
‘He is high in the snow and the peaks,’ said I, ‘I have not been up much: but I have sat with him: and he has had me meditate upon Words, –’
‘He has been your mentor,’ said Delphine, ‘you mean.’
I caught myself, and her untoward note of jealousy, before I nodded.
(to be honest it's probably arcadia given julienne is primarily an alchemist/botanist. but the tension and jealousy with delphine is more fun to think about)
19. How are they with money? Do they hoard, or do they spend until their pockets are empty and they have to find work again? Have they saved for any houses?
julienne likes to think she is good with money... rewards herself for not buying anything expensive at the market by buying herself a whole heap of cheap things at the market
but in all honesty i don't think she ever has a massive amount of money. bits here and there, enough to live on. the hc is that she is given a house at some point, although i haven't decided which jarl heaps it on her
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How do they feel about consorting with daedra? Do they collect their artifacts? Are there some they would never interact with vs. some they would consider calling upon?
julienne is resolutely against consorting with daedra, as a function of willpower more than anything else: she is not easily tempted or swayed and does not like doing another's bidding, daedric or otherwise. any that require horrific acts or sacrifices are entirely out of the question; others she passes by out of a sense of duty to herself. even hermaeus mora fails to tempt her, even if she does sometimes regret the books she left unopened in apocrypha: it was her utter revulsion at the thought of her soul being in service to him, that led her to a rather wishful belief in the all-maker and an eternal life in nature as opposed to oblivion's wettest bookshop
I wanted to make a more in-depth and lore-building set of questions for people's Skyrim-specific OCs! This can be used as an ask game, or if you just want to answer them all without waiting for people to ask, have at it!
(Thanks to my good fandom buddies for all the suggestions!)
Which areas of Skyrim do they find most beautiful and most dangerous?
Which cities do they prefer to stay in and why? Which cities to they avoid at all costs?
What are their religious affiliations, and how does their worship (or lack thereof) affect their day-to-day life?
Do they believe the College of Winterhold caused the Great Collapse? If no, what is their theory?
Would they be able to live off the land if they were lost in the wilds of Skyrim? How skilled are they at foraging and hunting?
What is their opinion on Skyrim's "bandit problem"?
Do they regret journeying to Skyrim? Or, if they were born in Skyrim, do they wish they could leave?
What is their favorite kind of food that can only be found in Skyrim?
Do they believe in snow/sky whales?
Are they a part of any factions, guilds, or organizations?
If they are a magic user, what is their favorite school of magic? Do they have a natural talent for magic, or does it require diligence and study?
What are their prejudices? What groups have they come to think of as 'other'? Mages? Nords? Elves? Lollygaggers?
Do they believe the old nordic tales about the Dragonborn? If they are Dragonborn how has their experience differed?
Who is their mentor? Who do they go to most for lessons?
How do they feel about consorting with daedra? Do they collect their artifacts? Are there some they would never interact with vs. some they would consider calling upon?
What are their opinions on the civil war? Do they support a side or leave them to their own devices?
Do they have family? Who doe they consider to be family?
What is their stance on taking a life? Do they kill without a second thought, in the name of a god or daedra, or do they adhere to pacifism?
How are they with money? Do they hoard, or do they spend until their pockets are empty and they have to find work again? Have they saved for any houses?
tagged by @wispstalk for a wip extract... this is what i was last working on
I noticed in saying it, that my letter had not been the only one: that there was a stack of papers on the desk and spreading up the walls, pinned to strings in some order I could not, in the half-light, make sense of. Mjoll jumped up and unpegged a couple; Lydia from the window, said without preamble:
'We need your help dismantling the Thieves’ Guild.’
mjoll just like:
except that she's right, pull on one of the thieves guild strings and half of riften will fall in the canal at this point
tagged by @elavoria for a wip extract... was writing a bit earlier about a soldier on the skyrim border who thinks he's hilarious
The border at Riften, he said, was under constant patrol; they checked passports there, probably faces and cargo and patriotism as well; he would do well, here on this untraversed border, to do the same, lest he let through some rebel or spy or undocumented ghost, – though our identities must, like the ghost, be transparent. He guffawed for half a minute or so at his joke (there must be a dearth of jokes, when stationed at these out-of-the-way forts) before straightening and asking for our passports.
We’d found them, while he’d been talking: two damp and perfectly forgotten bits of paper, at the bottom of our packs, which proved as much to us as anyone else that we were still the same people we had been back in Bruma. At the very least, they proved that we were citizens; and that, – our improvised customs officer raised his eyebrows, in a shower of frozen lashes, – Marcurio at least was of prominent City stock.
‘You won’t run into too much trouble, I don’t think,’ the man said: ‘Curio, indeed! just don’t go polishing too many spears, will you, –’
tagging @sylvienerevarine @redyn-nerevarine
@druidx as per usual... if anyone else wants to be tagged in these do let me know
I had become fixated upon the romance of it, – a night, with him, beneath this bright rebounding sky, – that all became dreamlike and, unhindered, I went as if flying: until with the most unseemly shriek I’d ever heard him make, I was awakened to the ice between my toes. The moment, lost, became a spectacle of hilarity for he had not thought, – despite the ice, – that the stream should be so utterly cold: and now hopped all about our little campsite looking for where, preoccupied by warmer thoughts, he’d abandoned his socks.
‘Bloody hell,’ he said, ‘it’s worse than the Abecean.’
I had thought it likely preferable: since this little stream was clear; ran with fine silt; and had no weeds or shells to inconvenience one’s poor venturing foot, – only this ice, which crushed in one’s toes, was not unpleasant. I turned to him: asked:
‘Oh! you went in the ice-bath, didn’t you, in Bruma? – after the sauna?’
‘The sauna!’ he returned: trying to return, in pulling clothes onto his poor frozen extremities, to that glorious memory of warmth: ‘I don’t think I did. Was I supposed, –’
‘O don’t tell me you missed it out!’ I cried: ‘o you coward!...’
He looked at me with such nonchalance, that I must take a handful of the stream, all cracking and crumbling with the ice; and throw it at him; and delight at once, in the nocturnal rainbow of arcing aurorae which glimmered across it, and in the yell with which he, – even as the ice shattered hardly two feet from his poor suffering feet, – broke the cut-glass quiet of the plains. He dove for a prime spot by the fire; the water sputtering still from him, set the hearth sparking; I ran over and showered him again with river-water, such that he shrieked and struggled and at last burst out laughing, – embraced me, that he might share in this warmth I apparently possessed in indefatigable spades.
‘Don’t you have cold baths in the City, anyway?’ I persisted when I had got my breath back; and when the life had begun to return to his fingers, tightly in mine.
‘O cold,’ said he, ‘but not like this, – “breeze on a hot day” cold, – not, – not, – “I hope you don’t want children” cold, –’
I was sure then, that my laugh might have been heard in Whiterun: that my delight, resounding into the mountains, when I assured myself as much as him, that it were not so bad as all that; and that our pleasure, hearth-warmth returning the romance, went at once into the infinite glimmering river, and rose, and rose, and blushed with the aurora! –
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tagged by @elavoria for a wip extract... inspired by being lately on a coal-mine tour and them putting the lights out for a moment. lunette living that county durham life
There were at intervals, tiny pricks of light, as stars struggling in encroaching cloud: Falco beamed twice their brightness, in explaining that these were some new magical installation, and that they had months’ worth of power in them; they had been a fine down payment, but would burn far longer and cheaper than any system of fuel-lamps. The things in question hardly made a dent in the ebony-gloom: I was not the first to look down at my own lamp and wonder newly if I was fortunate to have it after all. Garnas, endearingly naïve, said:
‘They are a fine start, sir: when is the next shipment?’
Falco's only response was that the spark went from his eyes: and there he more resembled his useless magical devices.
tagging @sylvienerevarine @druidx @rosette-dragonborn and anyone else who wants to participate!
tagged by @elavoria for a wip extract... figuring out marianne's role in the oblivion mq. she's in the city, scouting out baurus
I did not have to ask far. A spy, to those accustomed to feigning innocence, is the most conspicuous man in the world: and a man who had before been seen in the Emperor’s entourage, had lately been perceived in every district of the City, and twice as many establishments. He had to be sure, been really grieving his beloved Emperor; but he had rather feigned doing nothing; he had feigned complete desolation: and he may lately be found in the Plaza, where he’d tripled Draninus’s wealth for questions apparently worth nothing. Draninus, who had proceeded to drink almost as much as a Blade with nothing to fight for, turned me, with a vague smile for his benefactor, to the Tiber Septim: wherein I found a man whose drink did not tremble but whose shoes beneath the table beat out a regular hard-leather rhythm.
tagging, if they fancy it, @rosette-dragonborn, @sylvienerevarine and @druidx
