ZU'U UNSLAAD ZU'U NIS OBLAAN

Back to our irregularly scheduled programming, with more headcanons about Skyrim.

Nordic is still the primary language spoken throughout Skyrim, but has been slowly becoming less universal as Cyrodiilic, the lingua franca of the Empire, spreads. Nordic language is descended from the Atmoran language (also called Nedic, which developed from Ehlnofex in the Merethic Era along a separate path from the development of Aldmeris by the elves). One of the most notable linguistic differences between Nordic and other Ehlnofex-derived languages is the influence of Dovahzul on its words and pronunciations due to the long subjugation of the Nords by the Dovah.

In the current day, most people living outside of cities speak Nordic as their primary language, even non-Nords born in Skyrim. For many Nords, Nordic is their only language. However, immigrants to Skyrim such as Dunmer refugees and Khajiit caravaners primarily speak the dialects of their homelands and often teach their native language to their children. Among Mer, attitudes vary around how important it is to speak the language of one’s ancestors; the Dunmer tend to feel strongly that their Skyrim-born children should know how to speak Dunmeris, and they incorporate Dunmeri words and phrases into their speech. Meanwhile, Altmer immigrants often choose not to teach their children any Altmeri at all (this is a result of both the political climate of Skyrim and the distaste that Altmer emigrants tend to have for the current rulers of the Summerset Isles). Merchants and innkeepers in all but the most rural settlements typically speak both Nordic and (at least some) Cyrodiilic.

yknow, the Night of Tears, where the native Snow Elves razed the Atmoran settlement Saarthal. and it’s called the Night of Tears because the Snow Elves killed Atmorans, not because the Atmorans proceeded to go on a genocide afterwards.

Magic wasn’t just a skill, but ingrained in every aspect of their culture. Even some surviving Falmer recipes call for magic in the preparation, but the spells used are lost to time. You can use a regular oven when baking redberry delights, but you won’t quite be able to get the brittle exterior and the soft, sticky sweet center of the treat.

There were no prisons. Petty crimes were repaid with community service and, for serial offenders, a temporary exile to a monastery. Assault was punished with an extended exile from the city; the most serious crimes of murder and/or disfiguring another were punished with either total ostracism, or with execution. The choice was often left to the survivor, or the remaining family.

Daedra worship was punished with immediate exile, with no trial or even a chance for the perpetrator to explain. Some recent converts would preemptively leave if only to avoid casting shame on their friends or family.

The only thing worse than Daedra worship was Lorkhan worship. Ironically, the cult of the Corrupter outlasted the Falmer Pantheon.

The Snow Elves also called the sacking of Saarthal the Night of Tears. Even if any of the Elven forces survived that night, they could never return home.

While he’s the the only one most think of, the Snow Prince was not the only Prince of the Snow Elves. On that note, the Falmeri word for “Prince”, Aranis, was gender neutral.

Falmer children were not named until at least their fifth birthday.

He's weaving in the darkness, warm and soft and shapeless as the blanket growing in his hands, of Chibree's hut. He is not so adept at it as his companion. His hands fumble in the faint firelight. They tangle the corded silk. Chibree's hands, slim and magnificent, dance like white spiders across the weaving-frame—and dart out, now and then, to flick Gelebor's foolish fingers.

Gelebor gives him a reproachful look. An old habit. "Ouch."

Chibree's face, pale and sightless as the moon, wrinkles into a smile.

This, he says with his fingers, guiding Gelebor's hand to the next cord in the weave, over that.

Gelebor makes a face.

The folk of the Vale winter underground, in the warm deep: snug creches, crystal lakes, tunnel walls worn smooth. Gelebor had thought, trekking down into the dark to his people's sunless camp, that he had lived long enough in a lonely cave to navigate a crowded one. He had thought he and his eyes could be of use. But to Chibree and the others who have lived, for all their lives, in a darkness vaster than the camp's—the frowning hunters, the giggling children, the wives who whisk up their bowls when he blunders by—he's a lumbering creature who, without a cookfire nearby, cannot walk ten steps without treading on someone's toes or tumbling into the chaurus-pit. (He shudders, remembering the curious legs.) The clan's elders tolerate him with amusement. The children, when they hear him pass, have taken to tugging him around by the hand. Usually into doorframes. He can't see well enough, by the pinprick lights of ventilation shafts, to know when to stoop—

I think, says Chibree, tapping the words upon Gelebor's wrist, you are doing this on purpose.

Gelebor blinks down at his hands. Then he raises his eyebrows.

"Let's not sleep under this one," he says, touching a gaping hole in the weave.

Chibree laughs—a dear, dry click in the back of his throat. We will give it to Virrut.

It's so mundane an exchange, so comfortable, that Gelebor furrows his brow. There's a living hand resting on his wrist, he thinks. It is warm. He is not dreaming it. When he covers it, dazed, with his own hand—a blunt old bludgeon, clumsy in the dark—it does not disappear.

Thank you, he says, tracing the nonsensical words in Chibree's palm. At times when his throat closes and something in his chest opens, bruised and soft and overripe, they are the only knock-talk he remembers. Thank—

Chibree, with a gentle smile, catches his hands.

It is said that initially Snow Elves welcomed them, and even traded with Atmorans. Until relationships got really tense, culminating with the Night of Tears. Perhaps tensions were high because dragons were expanding their territory and demanding that everyone worshipped them.

We know Atmorans were having a civil war back in their homeland. A religious civil war. Yes, again. Precisely because of dragons. People were tired of been forced into servitud, and wanted to keep worshipping their other gods in peace (Moth, fox, hawk, whale, dragon etc. Latter in time they molded the gods with their animals representation), instead of just dragons. Like a prelude to the dragon wars. But somehow these cultists won and Atmora froze (not just cold, but it is said that also frozen in time).

In my opinion Snow Elves, did not want any of that Dragon Cult bullshit and fought against it. Yet with dragons and the Thu'um on the atmoran side, their magic wasn't enough to defeat them.