#bryling

Y’know, sitting down and working out all the loyalties of the characters in Skyrim for possible fic reveals a lot of things I haven’t seen online discussions of.

Such as that Thane Bryling of Solitude seems to be one of Ulfric’s sympathetic spies committing treason by relaying info back to the Stormcloaks. My evidence?

One, in the cut quest when Jarl Elisif is assassinated, she is replaced by Thane Erikur for the Imperials and by Thane Bryling if the Stormcloaks take over Solitude.

Two, Bryling’s employee, Sorli the Builder, replaces Jarl Idgrod Ravencrone as Jarl of Morthal if the Stormcloaks take over (really, a random mining forewoman ends up being jarl? Maybe because Bryling vouches for her...).

Three, in addition to being a thane resident of Solitude’s court, she is also the secret lover of the Steward of Solitude, Falk Firebeard, and that gives her access to a lot of info regular thanes wouldn’t get access to. Bryling is also afraid that Erikur (her Imperial counterpart) should find out about them and force Falk to resign as steward, which would cut Bryling off from that useful flow of information.

Four, in her own words: “Many condemn the Stormcloaks, but I refuse. There is honor in fighting for what you believe.” and “This godsforsaken war is dividing our people and destroying our land.” So she already believes the Stormcloaks to be in the right (or at least, honorable, after Ulfric killed her jarl and high king), the same Stormcloaks to started the war, but also wants the war to end because she believes that it is bad. Translated, that means that she wants the Stormcloaks to win ASAP and unite Skyrim under Ulfric’s rule. So she has the motivation to turn traitor against her jarl.

Yeah, while not completely conclusive, she seems to be one of the best candidates of being one of Ulfric’s informants unconnected to the Thalmor (there seems to be a few who had access to privileged information until Tullius showed up with his own commanders).

So, i follow him to make sure he is going to his room, I heard another door open and go check on the vampire. Nope, door shut.

Tell me why Falk Is leaving???

And of course curiosity got the better of me and so i followed him. At first I thought he was gonna get a midnight snack. NO.

He was leaving the Palace.

So I kept following.

I squealed like a little bitch when I saw him go to Brylings house. Sybille was right oh my god.

It gets better!!!! There's dialogue between them!!!! WAAAAA!!!

Like, I wouldn’t have noticed, or even thought to ask, except my Khajiit steals almost exclusively the following items: Cheese wheels, alcohol, and goblets/plates/vases/bowls/candlesticks (because I have a mod that lets me melt them down.) 

When I was in Bryling’s house, there were just two bottles of wine I found.

I thought there were a lot more, but every time I picked them up, they were empty. If I had to guess, there were like, 20 empty wine bottles in her house.

Like, if this were a bioware game, I wouldn’t ask that, because Bioware doesn’t create scenes that, at a glance let you see what’s going on (ex: in Skyrim, at one of the bandit camps, there’s a structure with tables of meat and hanging rabbits and pheasants over a fire. In the barrels next to it there are salt piles.. It’s obviously a smoke house.) 

But skyrim does.