#ondolemar

While waiting in the Temple of Dibella for Talisse to be disciplined for theft, Ondolemar grows increasingly irritated. When she finally emerges from the inner sanctum humiliated, Ondolemar is caught off guard.

“What did the priestesses want?” he asked instead, keeping his voice carefully leveled. Talisse gave him a look that suggested the question itself was offensive. “I don’t see how any of this is your business,” she said, the words pricking. “Can you stop mixing yourself up in mine and just leave me be?” “Leave you be?” Ondolemar repeated at last, slower now, as if the phrase itself required examination before he could accept its existence. “You were assaulted in broad daylight in the middle of a city street. By guards. In full view of witnesses.” Talisse let out a laugh at that. It was fractured, entirely devoid of humor, like a reflex she no longer had control over. She didn’t even look at him when she answered. “What do you care?” she said flatly. The question stalled him, and for a moment, Ondolemar simply stood there, expression tightening as though he could physically force an answer into shape. His mouth opened slightly—and then closed again. What did he care? The silence that followed felt too long to be comfortable, stretching thin enough that even the wind moving through Markarth’s stone terraces seemed louder. When he finally spoke, it was controlled to the point of sounding rehearsed. “The Thalmor maintain order for all loyal subjects of the Aldmeri Dominion,” he said. The phrasing came out as clean as polished metal. He stopped. Because even as he said it, it rang hollow in a way he couldn’t quite justify on principle alone. Talisse turned her head enough to look at him over her shoulder just enough for him to catch the expression—flat, exhausted, and edged with something dangerously close to contempt. “That is the biggest load of bullshit I have ever heard in my life,” she said flatly.

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