Meanwhile...
The Hall of Kings. Old blocks of stone that men put power into. That's what it was, that's all any place of reverence was. Just stone and hubris. Caius would make sure not to say that to Brunwulf's face though. As humble a man as he was and as kind as he looked, there was still a hardness there. Their footsteps echoed through the hallways to the main hall and the planning chambers beyond. The little room held a guest of utmost importance if Caius had heard right. If he had, he'd have to make doubly sure he didn't say anything out of line. If there was one man in the Empire that he did not want displeased with him, it was this man. By the time he and Brunwulf had gotten to the door, the two of them were breathing a little harder than usual. He couldn't tell if his heart was in his throat because of the walk here or because of the man on the other side of the door. The two of them looked at each other while they struggled to regain their breath in all the walking. Caius knew what Brunwulf was thinking and without saying anything, he agreed, why must men age?
Caius took hold of the door's ring and twisted it, taking a moment to collect himself and push through into the room. He took a seat on the opposite side of the table from the man there and Brunwulf sat beside him. The man was completely bald and what hair he did have collected along his cheeks and his jaw, growing into a well-kept close beard. His face was deeply lined and he had kind eyes, the pale blue of which shocked men, Caius not withstanding, and he looked to be in his 40s. Caius didn't trust those kind eyes. Brunwulf was still as lost as a Khajiit at sea when it came to matters of politics, but Caius could shoulder his weight in this meeting. He didn't expect Brunwulf to know exactly what was happening, but the man needed to learn how to act in the face of power if he was to wield it himself when the Legion finally withdrew and took their military-governor with them. The man had a scribe with him, sitting with a parchment before him, as well as a quill and ink bottle. Someone was expecting to take this conversation, and other observations, back to the Capital.
"Welcome to Skyrim," Caius took a moment to study the man, "Arch-Prefect Marcus. I trust all is well in the most secretive and aloof Office of the Imperial Praetorian Prefect."
Marcus said nothing for a bit but the sound of the quill as it went filled what was almost silence. Marcus frowned, "I understand on this expedition of Tactus and the Head Attendant of the Penitus Oculatus, their young ambassador was killed. This does not bode well, I do hope that the gift and the treaty is safe with someone."
"It is. I deeply regret his loss, and I did see much promise in the man, should he have returned." No doubt there would have been promise aplenty in his ascendance to high office. The snakepit of politics, after all, is one that must be fed regularly.
"I'm sure." But Marcus said it in a way that would have been equally appropriate if he had said I doubt its sincerity. "Tactus's father's death was one we held similarly, but we do have a way with marching on, so to speak."
"Doubtless. What was this meeting about, anyways? There are many important things I must attend to." How many times could he use that lie and get away with it?
"It is about the current state of the Empire, Caius." His kind eyes showed their edge as he narrowed them ever slightly, "And what the future holds. I request that Brunwulf leave us. These are things that pertain much more to Cyrodiil than Skyrim, my lord."
Brunwulf looked to Caius with a skeptical look and Caius set his jaw and nodded. Brunwulf returned his gaze of ice to Marcus for a few moments before standing and leaving, shutting the door behind him harder than needed. Marcus had a little smile, the gesture not being lost on him, nor the scribbling scribe. Caius swallowed a bit nervously, wondering what Praetorian Prefect Fettus would make of what he'd be reading on that piece of parchment. To think a Military-Governor charged with the protection and keeping of peace in post-rebellion Skyrim would be wary of parchment. Almost preposterous, but these were odd times. "What does the future hold, Arch-Prefect Marcus. I assume it is one that I must play a part in, seeing as you've come all the way here."
"Indeed. Sharp as ever, I see. The Mede dynasty is without sons and Tactus is not married. The people support him because they think he is holding a bloodthirsty Dominion at bay alone. You and I both know that this goes far beyond Tactus, and even his father." The scribe was busy furiously scribbling away, but his face betrayed no hurry or panic, Marcus continued, "I will make the reason for my visit clear, Caius. Your office of Military-Governor of Skyrim is but a temporary one. After eight years, I think you and I both know that it is time to turn ourselves away from the North and back to the beloved Heartlands. Your family enjoys an estate at the foot of the Jeralls in Nibenay. Your family is an important one, not to mention an old one. You'd be the first of them to serve on the Elder Council under Tactus."
"No doubt Tactus wouldn't be the only one I'd be bowing to." Caius said, his face the very picture of contempt.
"We all bow to someone. You've taken Skyrim under your wing, Caius, Brunwulf too. You have friends here and many of them enjoy the shield your wing provides. But a storm is coming, Caius." Marcus leaned forward, one hand over the other, "One little wing might break and crumble when it finally comes. But a wing over your head, and a seat on the Elder Council, no less. That's a perch where you could hold your wing over these friends and more. Allectus or no, Felix or Tactus, or bloody Tiber himself, we have a way of marching on through storms and over any obstacle." He frowned and his eyes got that much harder, "Any. Obstacle… Caius. Praetorian Prefect Fettus would like an answer, preferably written, and promptly sent."
"He might not like mine." Caius said. He had his loyalties, and he was loyal to the Emperor, doubly loyal to the subjects and citizens and endlessly more loyal to his family. The political snakepit was one that needed feeding, but he'd be damned if it was his family that was its next meal. Or him.
Marcus's face returned to its usual kind, but hard, mask as he leaned back. He folded his hands together, "You might not like what comes of that. No telling what might happen then. I would very much like it if you were to change your position on these matters. I think you would too."
* * *
Valfioren was not a spy, he was not a soldier, he was a peacemaker. That's what he thought of himself as, being the First Emissary of the Thalmor in Cyrodiil. Whenever he saw Tactus, he saw hope there would be peace. Tactus, though, was ever more the false hope as Valfioren went on. The more time spent away, the more he knew that Tactus was caught between two wars. One with the Dominion, looming ever closer, and one in his own court, fought by his own people against one another. Seeing Teralfar might have been what made him realize this. It was a never-ending battle of wits and greed. It was not so cut-and-dry as Dominion vs. Empire. It never really was. Valfioren sat in his office in the Thalmor Embassy nestled in the Talos Plaza of the Imperial City, finally away from Skyrim and finally away from Teralfar. He had already seen too much to go back to the blissful ignorance of brokering peace with Tactus. It would never last. He needed to do something though, something to make sure he could hold the power to avoid any war his fellow mer may be planning.
The problem with that was he didn't know how to go about doing any of that. Not in the slightest. He slapped his open hand down on his desk and stood up from his chair. His hair that was usually neat was now disheveled, he found he didn't have the same desire to present himself as an impeccable figure in the Dominion's service. His eyes screamed sleeplessness by the bags under them and how red they were. He wondered why he had taken the position as First Emissary in Cyrodiil, knowing what he knew now. He clenched his jaw and backhanded the closed ink bottle and quill off of his desk. He saw nothing but traitors around him at first, but he knew a man alone in a sea of traitors was the only traitor there. What only mattered was the many, and the many, he knew wanted war. Teralfar's words echoed in his head, welcome as a dagger in the ear, those words from that oath he took, '
For those of the Dominion, I will do anything.'
He knew another war was not what those of the Dominion needed. What they needed was a lasting peace, to consolidate themselves in what they already had won, to revel in their victories they had already won. Not to seek more and tear Tamriel apart in the process. Lives lost, and for what? So the Dominion could stand alone in its power? No, he wouldn't let this happen. Never. He donned his robes and put up his hood, not wanting the rain to play havoc on him any more than stress had already. He opened his door and walked past his secretary, walked past the front desk and then past the front doors themselves and out into the great plaza itself and the rain coming down over it. He needed to tell Tactus of the traitors in his court, tell him that he was being used, tugged back and forth for the gain of…of…of who? That stopped him in his tracks. He didn't have the pieces yet, he only knew there was a puzzle to be solved somewhere. He swallowed nervously, then punched the wall angrily. It was as if he had just figured out he was lost at sea after drifting along for eight years and playing like he wasn't. He'd get to the bottom of this, and he knew where it all started. "Teralfar." He snarled, and he stalked off.
* * *
"Well, this does not benefit us in the slightest." Winced Tactus. That was the Emperor's third time reading the small letter that had arrived by carrier raven that morning. It was dated to a week ago. Cato himself hadd read it three times as well, not believing it on the first read, starting to set in on the second and now offering itself in all its dreadful glory in the third. Allectus was dead, him and many others, a volunteer among them. But Allectus? In his experience, he'd heard the man was thirsty for a seat in high office. If he handled the expedition well, he may even have gotten just that. He would have done his father proud. But now, all he was doing was feeding the dirt in an unmarked grave in Skyrim.
The small assembly was silent. Intendant Cato sat, his hand propping up his chin and his eyes somewhere distant, presumably thinking about how deep a pool of shit they were in now that a valuable man had gone to the dirt. Now that he thought about it, a lot of valuable things, men and other things besides, had gone to the dirt. When Felix Mede called for a new office to be created and put Fettus as Praetorian Prefect at the head of it, Head Attendant Vittori had nearly had a heart attack. Fettus's reputation was that of a shrewd politician who'd served ten years on the Elder Council, two as a diplomat to High Rock and the driving force of their now six year lack of feuding. By all accounts, he was a very intimidating and commanding man who had applied for the position of Head Attendant of the Penitus Oculatus last year but had thankfully been turned down.
No doubt the Penitus Oculatus would have become far more efficient, but perhaps at the further cost of even more distrust of the people. Fettus had lead a Legion during the Great War and his methods of keeping order in the ranks and furthermore, his methods of pacifying the enemy and treatment of captured prisoners was something to behold, and not in a glamorous or heroic way. "I believe they still have the treaty and the trade agreement. The volunteers are also still all accounted for, except for the one casualty, the last I heard."
"Of course, of course," The Emperor nodded, "That much is good. I do hope they make it."
"By Quaestor Maricus's last letter- the one there- we do know they've reached Winterhold and will be arriving at Dawnstar in a week. After that, there is no way to be sure." He meant to stop there, but it seemed the Emperor didn't know what that meant, "It will be harder to send them letters once they depart. There are no ways to maintain contact with the expedition out on the open waters. From my understanding, that is where the Snow Elf enclave is believed to be."
"Ah, I see. Well," The Emperor wrung his hands and looked out the window nervously, "It will be in the hands of the Nine, then."
* * *
And now, we return...
"Hold your words close," Sevari said, slapping the spyglass shut and handing it over to Greylock, "There's a commodore in the making here."
Greylock laughed good-naturedly, "We'll see yet." When Zaveed came forward and introduced himself, offering his hand and asking of the horrors of the depths, shortly before Gelina stepped forward, "A great many things. Ne'er seen too many Khajiit sailors, even in my days on a Brigandine down in the South seas, mainly brown-water lads. But a fellow blue-water sailor, facing the real perils, I reckon there'll be time yet to prove yer worth."
When Gelina asked for her part in the labor, Greylock smiled, nodding his head, "You and yer lot only need listen to my orders. Truth be told," and he turned back to Zaveed, "You'll see what other dangers roil and spit and growl up here in the Ghost Sea. That's one of 'em, Lass!" He left it at that as he puffed on his cigar, winking to Gelina and company, walking away again with an easy smile despite the not too promising clouds on the horizon. His crew seemed not to fear the danger ahead, not with a captain like Greylock, Sevari guessed, and found he couldn't blame them. "Sing, lads! Sing while we're alive, it'll be harder to after!"
And a scrappy Nord lad with a voice like a good, smooth brew led them into the shanty, a bawdy and crude something about 'Morrowind Whores' that Sevari didn't wholly dislike. He wondered if he could hear Paints' voice singing along, even if he didn't know the words. Sevari had heard the same song with Morrowind switched with Leyawiin in Wayrest. Suffian had scooped up a girl too easily and roped Sevari into spending a night with the girl's sister the night he'd heard it. Good night, that one. He saw Gelina out of the corner of his eye, "So, you've stayed all this time. Think you've earned a bit of my respect for being willing to follow us. Trust comes later, though." He smiled.
* * *
The wind came on like the breaths of an angry God, the waves like the pounding of battering rams against the city gates, the rain like arrows. All was hell before them, the sky sought to pierce them, the sea to smother them and the wind to rend the flesh from their bones. Sevari, shirtless and gritting his teeth with the rest of the men, wild-eyed and heart pounding, helped to haul a line that had come undone, frantically trying to help the man at the rudder turn them to meet the waves head on. As the yelps, cries, utterances, prayers and screams all mended with the hammering thunder overhead, he could still hear the grating and gravelly laughter of Greylock at the very bow of the ship, "He's testin' us, lads! Man yer feckin' lines, boys!" And his booming voice powered through the thunder as he thrust a finger to another line that snapped free and the man on the ground, holding bleeding stumps for fingers, simply staring wide-eyed at his mangled hand.
Sevari had never felt so much at the mercy of something, not even locked up in Daggerfall. He gave a throaty growl, "Heave!" and he did, muscles straining at the pull of the rope and grunting with the work. The ship must have turned. He felt it in his entire body as the ship rose and bucked as the wave broke around it but otherwise left them all alive. The roiling waters and tall waves never let more than a glance of the other ships as an assurance to their comrades' survival. "We're still alive." Sevari muttered, breathlessly, almost a question begging reassurance. His forearms burned, his back was sore, his arms were like jelly.
"Fer feckin' now!" One of the sailors laughed from behind him, right into his ear to be heard. Sevari wondered if Greylock's crew were even men.
* * *
It was almost impossible. How could there be such clear opposites in nature? The wind was gone, the waves were calm- or calmer- and the rain turned to fog, but the three longships had formed a line to keep account of themselves and each other in the impenetrable grey of it all. Sevari sat against the bulkhead under the shelter brought up before they entered the storm, merely cloth stretched over wooden arcs. He'd donned his padded cloth vest but dared not put his shirt back on, should they come upon another storm. He didn't think it too unlikely, given the things he'd seen and fought the past few days. The quiet hubbub of voices and nodding came from the crew as one of their own was busy telling a crude joke while they rowed. Sailors and mercenary crews held much the same standards in humor, Sevari found. "She ain't me wife, he says!" and laughter exploded out of them before a cigar pelted the man in his bald head, a couple tiny embers drifting down to the deck as he rubbed at the black mark it left on his pate.
Greylock stepped up, "Shake yer bones, be ready to go to yer weapons and pray to the Lords," He said, "There's ships spotted, barely o'er yonder."
He pointed a lithe, bony finger off to the starboard side, where a ship lay motionless in the water, save for the rocking the waves gave it. There were two, one a war galley, space for eighty men at the oars, bigger than their longships even. The other was a Brigantine, hull reinforced by moonstone in strategic areas and the banners along the hull were ragged as the sails above it, both ships held together by grappling hooks. "Looks Dominion made. Dirty fuckin' knife-ears got what was comin' to 'em, I say." Greylock cleared his throat, "No offense, Gelberon."
"None taken, Cap'n." A skinny Altmer called from his place at the rudder. The men went through with their necessary precautions, checking over weapons they'd taken to whetstones before they'd gotten this close. Some of them clasped hands, slapped each other's backs or on their shoulders. There was no way to know what lay on a ship adrift at sea, but if it was in the Sea of Ghosts, Sevari followed the men. The ships looked empty enough but you couldn't tell if it truly was if you didn't look belowdeck. Besides, there could be useful supplies aboard. Sevari checked over each of his knives, three in total, including the bone-handled one he kept on his belt.
"Fuckin' mist hangin' about the deck." One of the sailors said.
"Mm," another agreed, "Don't like it, not a bit, no."
At that, Vylewen stood and held out her hands towards the ship, taking a deep breath but showing no more concentration in what she was doing than if she were blinking. With that, the mist began to part from the deck of the ship and the two sailors looked at each other, wowed at what they'd witnessed. Once they'd gotten close enough, the smell of old blood overcame the salt in the air. Even so, the crew secured their longship to the Brigantine with grappling hooks of their own, climbing up onto the deck, knives between their teeth and cutlasses and axes on their belts. Sevari put his boots on the deck and looked around, the smell of blood only stronger and made more threatening by the streaks of it around the deck. Fingers, a hand, an arm, a lower jaw. It was barbarity not even Sevari had seen in his experiences of plundering and pillaging.
Vylewen finally climbed aboard, smoothing her skirts, "Perhaps I should have dressed more appropriately." She said sheepishly.
"You don't need footwork to fling spells. Didn't need it last time, anyway." He said, and he looked around at the gore, "I'm hoping you don't have to."
"As am I." She murmured, flicking a bit of flesh off of her sleeve.
While the crew secured the topdeck, Sevari, Vylewen and the others made their way below. It was dark belowdeck and once again the volunteers were to rely on Sevari and Zaveed. He remembered how well it turned out last time, but hopefully there would be no tricks here. There was nothing but the crew quarters here, and the volunteers only managed to find some septims, spare clothes and lots of crates and barrels that looked like they were meant for merchandise. That and more dead men and mer, Breton pirates and Altmer sailors. It wasn't so much the bodies that bothered Sevari, the Gods above and below knew he'd seen and made his fair share. It was their mouths and their veins, the whites of their eyes were the opposite. All black, as if their blood had turned to pitch. "Puts you in mind of what we saw in the cave, hm?"
Sevari felt the lad's forehead and his hands, still warm. This slaughter was recent, then. He cut along the lad's wrist and sure enough, the blood oozed out like tar, just like the things in the cave. "Paints, Juin, let's accompany our lady back outside. We'll check the captain's quarters while we're there."
They made the ascent topside and Sevari breathed all the more easier once outside, not feeling the blackness push in on him. They came to the captain's quarters, it was probably locked and there was no key. "Do you know how to detect life?" He asked Vylewen. She nodded and her eyes began to glow faintly, the air around them beginning to shimmer.
She turned with her mouth open to say something but she froze, looking at Juin. It was a few moments before she continued on, almost as if it hadn't happened, "I sense nothing," she said, eyes flicking Juin's way one last time, "It's safe, maybe."
No patience to stand around while someone worked the lock and lacking the tools to do so himself, he settled for a hard kick near the door's ring. He had to rear back a second time and only then did the door give, opening up to a room lit by a single lamp to write by. There was a chest in the corner, a wardrobe and two nightstands next to the grand bed. Upon the bed, there was an Altmer, the captain, by his blue uniform coat, gold epaulettes and trim. There was a pool of black dried blood around him where his coat's left sleeve had been rolled up and a long cut down his forearm stood out from his light-gold skin in stark black, a dagger held in his right hand.
Sevari took a step forward, and as if he had only been sleeping, the Altmer captain sprung up and took off at a dead sprint, bowling Sevari over, pushing past Juin and Paints and tackling Vylewen. She yelped as she landed on her back, restrained by the crazed mer. The Captain gibbered out something in a language none of the men could understand. Greylock even looked to Gelberon to see if he understoof and the elf only shook his head. Vylewen looked shaken by it, almost terrified and after the Altmer was finished speaking, he sat back on his arse and looked at the cut down his arm, confused, before falling over, stone dead. Vylewen stayed like that until Sevari stood over her. Vylewen looked half-way between cowering and setting Sevari ablaze before he offered his hand. She took it reluctantly and Sevari helped her up. "You understand Altmeris?"
"That was not Altmeris," she said, her voice still a reedy whisper, "it was my language. He kept saying, over and over, White Prince."
Sevari and the rest of them on the deck were quiet then, not sure what to say. "Oy, Cap'n," came one of the crew, "What'cha make o' this?" Expecting a skin like on the roads, Sevari saw the man and some of his comrades rolling over small kegs of what could only be spiced wine.
"Vylewen, Juin," Sevari said, loosening his collar, "Why don't we help ourselves while we can, eh?" Sevari said it without much mirth, though.
Vylewen looked at the spiced wine, then at Juin, then back at the wine, "Sure." Not much mirth out of her, either.
===
Belowdeck: On your deck, there can be found several small purses containing gold minted both in the Empire and the Dominion as well as some with an ancient feel to them, runes on them.
-Two crates containing ancient weapons, Vylewen may recognize them as Falmer in make, but very, very old and beyond her time.
-A skin, expertly taken off of its last owner as if by a veteran hunter. Its gold coloring tells you it comes off of an elf.
-A weapon rack with nothing but steel cutlasses and axes of Elven make.
-Tobacco and several pipes.
>A door labeled in Altmeris, if anyone can read it, it reads "Quartermaster's quarters"
-The dead body of what can be assumed to be the Quartermaster, taken his own life, an Elven dagger in his right hand.
-A half-empty bottle of spiced wine.
-A purse of 30 gold coins
-A book that reads in Cyrodiilic, "Forgotten Peoples of Tamriel, volume II: The Falmer" with another beside it that reads in Cyrodiilic, "Forgotten Peoples of Tamriel, volume I: The Ayleids, or Heartland High Elves"
-A cargo manifest in Altmeris, reads "10xStone samples
5xWeapons
13xPottery, clay
10xScrolls, mostly legible
10 6xKeg, spiced wine
6xTobacco
15xDried strips of meat, large"
Topside: Inside the Captain's Quarters can be found four purses, each with 30 gold coins
-A glass scimitar crossed with a moonstone scimitar, upon closer inspection, they are both replicas
-A letter addressed to Teralfar on the desk in lamplight. Upon further inspection of the desk, inside are several more letters to Teralfar, detailing work on a great project, starting with the Snow Elves. No mention of Thalmor agents in the expedition. All can be translated by Gelberon the Altmer crewmember. In addition to this, a journal that details this ship's, Trinimac's Glory's, voyage to the farthest reaches of the Ghost Sea to the North.
-Several bottles of very high-class wine from High Rock.
-A book in Cyrodiilic that reads, "On the Falmer and Ysgramor"
