[Skyrim Crossover] As if Skyrim wasn't already hectic enough, with its inhabitants fighting both the Aldmeri Dominion and the Empire. Now there's dragons, too, and Emmet finds himself unwittingly roped into the whole mess. What else could go wrong?
Lucy smiled to herself; it didn't take him long to try to fill the silence. "Sure. What is it?"
"Why do you fight? I mean not like you personally- well, maybe that too- but mostly I mean everyone in the rebellion?"
She remembered this question, and felt somewhat bad for neglecting to answer it before. She twirled a lock of hair around a finger as she thought. Emmet waited patiently for her answer.
"It goes back to the Oblivion Crisis, really. It was the Hero of Kvatch and Emperor Martin Septim who brought it to an end, but the Aldmeri Dominion claimed they accomplished that single-handedly. Maybe they did in Alinor. I'd heard the previous Altmer government gave the Thalmor the power to do whatever was needed to protect Alinor from the daedra. Bad decision, in hindsight. No one back then fully understood the threat they would one day pose.
"The Thalmor continued to grab for power, assassinating the Emperor's replacement. They persecuted the Altmer elite and purged the entire island of anyone not of elven descent. They found sympathizers in Valenwood and overthrew Imperial control there just like they did in Alinor, then told the Khajiit they used something called Dawn Magicks to restore the moons after the Void Nights, earning their loyalty. They've been slowly growing in power ever since, 'silencing' anyone who opposed them, waiting until they had an army powerful enough to challenge the Empire- which they finally did about thirty years ago, maybe a little more."
"By 'silencing', do you mean..."
"They told people that dissidents were simply exiled, but the reality is that they were all killed," Lucy explained. "These people are ruthless. They beheaded every single Blades agent in their territories and brought every single head to the Imperial Palace when they declared war. They committed countless atrocities during their conquest, the worst of it being the Sacking of the Imperial City. Emperor Titus Mede the Second managed to completely wipe out all Thalmor forces in Cyrodiil after that, but he knew it was only a matter of time before they returned and completely destroyed the Empire, so he agreed to the terms of the treaty- which was basically everything that the Thalmor demanded at the start of the war. Cession of a large part of Hammerfell, disbanding of the Blades, and outlawing the worship of Temu. And ever since they gained power here, they've been persecuting anyone that doesn't fit their limited view of 'acceptable'. Master Builders, like me, because we are the children of Temu. Half-bloods. People who love someone other than the opposite sex or their own species."
"Like Ken and Lenny?" Lucy gave him a startled glance at that. She hadn't realized he'd noticed.
"Yeah," she said after a moment. "Like them. The Thalmor start by weeding out 'undesirables' like us, then they'll come up with more arbitrary definitions of 'undesirable' to wipe out others, and weaken humanity until there's no fight left in us. And I shudder to think what sort of hell they'll wind up putting the Khajiit or Argonians through. In short... we're fighting for our lives. They've given us no choice in the matter, by hunting us down and slaughtering us like cattle."
Emmet was silent as he processed that. "And there's so few of you left now..."
"In Skyrim, at least," Lucy sighed. "We have no idea what the situation is like in other provinces. Hopefully better than ours. We had some people from the other provinces join us here at the start of it all, but since the Thalmor closed the borders, we haven't received so much as news, let alone reinforcements. We sent some scouts out... maybe a year ago now, to see if they couldn't get past the borders and bring us some help. We haven't heard from them since, and can only assume the Thalmor killed them. And we have no allies left, either. No one wants to risk the wrath of the Thalmor to help us, even if they agree with us."
"But the people of Windhelm?"
"Agreed to keep their silence about our presence, and that's about it. We haven't received any aid from them otherwise."
"Oh..."
"Yeah," Lucy sighed. "We're stubborn and we'll fight to the last of us, but... it's only a matter of time before the Thalmor stomp us out completely."
She'd barely gotten the words out before grabbing Emmet and using him- or rather, his armor- as a shield. He startled as something pinged off his right pauldron. Lucy had her bow out in a blink, returning fire.
"Hey!" he yelped, turning to see one of the inn's patrons with an arrow sticking out of his shoulder, screaming in pain as he clutched at it. Lucy stalked over to where he'd fallen, snarling. "Lucy, don't kill him-"
"I'm not going to," she huffed, reaching over to yank the arrow out of the man's shoulder. He screamed again. She drew her dagger, pressing it under his chin. "He's going to serve as a warning and go back and tell his buddies to back off. Right?" He nodded vigorously, eyes wide. "Good." She glowered as he scrambled back to his feet and hurried away.
"What- Why did he follow us?"
Lucy put her dagger away, but remained on alert. "That's why you don't talk about things like the Elder Scrolls in public. It tends to attract all sorts of attention- usually the wrong sort."
"I thought you said you didn't know anything about them?"
"I know enough to know that I don't want to know more than that. Come on, we should pick up the pace, no telling how close his 'buddies' are."
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General Callaghan sat at the map table, staring down at the angry black marks slashed all over it- every place his scouts had checked for the rebels and came up empty-handed. How in the world had they just... disappeared like that? He'd thought, many times, of asking Sirius if he might have overheard any plans the rebels had of moving, but he was proving impossible to get to these days. He had sent several messages to the Embassy, requesting to meet with him just for a few minutes, if he had the time to spare. Not a single one was answered.
Something about that didn't sit right with him. The Thalmor were being unusually quiet lately. He thought back to their trip home, after retrieving the Ambassador. He'd seemed unusually wary around his own kin, only ever relaxing when the General was within earshot (and even then, only slightly). Sirius had insisted he was fine, and the Thalmor healers declared him physically sound... so what had the rebels done to him during his brief stay with them?
And why wouldn't he answer his messages? He was usually very prompt about responding.
Unless...
He wasn't getting them.
Barbara had expressed growing concern about Ondolemar since Sirius' rescue, and honestly, she wasn't the only one. The Head Justiciar seemed to be overstepping his bounds- a display of dominance, perhaps? Or a challenge for it. He certainly seemed to be calling the shots more and more, lately. Or had their Council made that decision and they were just... stringing Sirius along?
Either way, he had to get into the Embassy to see him, and soon.
