Rastislav
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Arc 9 Chapter II: The Golden Age (Part 2)
🕑 Added 2025-07-25 13:22:16 +0000 UTCAn: This chap is a bit of an introduction for Elena, while the next one will be mostly about Martin. Only one more after that and we are multiversing all over this bitch.
This chap takes place in year 14 5e
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(General POV)
Princess Elena Septim-Dagoth fidgeted atop her plush seat, fingers tapping about impatiently as she tried, and failed, to keep concentrated on the words coming out of the her teacher and guardian's mouth.
"...And with the Battle of the Red Ring, the Mede Empire defeated the Dominion troops occupying the Imperial City, heavily damaging the legions of Alinor and signaling the end of the Great War and the start of the decades long truce between the two powers."
Elena's fidgeting did not go unnoticed and the snow elf paused her lesson.
"Are you even listening to me, young lady?" Nightshade asked sternly.
The girl stilled, feeling the slight annoyance in the air "Yeeees?"
"Are you asking me or telling me?" The Falmer's lips twitched ever so slightly upwards.
"Yes!" Elena said more firmly.
"Mhm" Nightshade hummed "So that means you can tell me everything about the Great War from start to finish?"
Elena pouted at her teacher.
"Child" The Falmer spoke after a few moments of silence "I understand your mother will be returning from her expedition tomorrow but that doesn't mean you can ignore your lessons."
"But history is so boooring!" The seven year old exclaimed, the air around her lightly twisting under the weight of her voice "Why does it matter what the dumb high elves did if we won in the end?"
The snow elf muttered something under her breath the girl failed to catch and slowly stood up "History helps us understand why people make decisions and the consequences of those decisions."
'Yeah, like I need that to see through them.' Internally grumbled the child.
"But" She went on "I can see you are too energetic to care about any of that right now, so-"
"We can do some magic!" The 'Nord-Dunmer' hybrid said excitedly.
The snow elf smirked "I am afraid not."
"But whyyy?" Elena most assuredly did not whine, totally.
"Because your father said so" Nightshade patted her head "And for good reason."
"Dad's rules are dumb." She huffed.
Nightshade's gentle expression twitched for the tiniest moment, her patient gaze turning dark just long enough for the observant to notice before it settled back into its natural state.
So intense was the sudden feeling in the air, the young Princess felt a shiver going down her spine.
"What I meant to say" Elena quickly corrected "Is I don't get why we can't learn more advanced magic until we are older."
"Because, child" Nightshade spoke patiently as she rose her hand and formed a ball of fire atop her palm "Magic is not something to be trifled with."
The elements in her hand shifted as she went on "It is versatile, it is powerful, and it is capable of trivializing many problems you will face in life." She closed her fist, dissipating the Magicka "But most of all, magic is a weapon, and a dangerous one."
The Falmer began walking and the girl quickly followed "If you do not have the maturity, and the discipline to use magic responsibly, then you are not meant to be using it in the first place."
"But I can be mature!" She immediately countered, even if she could feel the truth that was just spoken.
"Can you now?" Nightshade rose an eyebrow.
"Yeah!" She placed her hands on her hips and stared up at the snow elf "I can totally be patient, and calm, and whatever else dad told you I needed to be!"
Nightshade exhaled just quickly enough that the motion could have been mistaken for a laugh, if one squinted "You certainly have his wit at least." She said "But it is not your words that I care for, but your actions. And the constant complaints of the guards of you using your voice to intimidate them does not paint a picture of maturity, now does it?"
She chuckled lightly "Nor does all the burned furniture now that I think about it."
"Not my fault the world is made of parchment" The Princess crossed her arms and grumbled.
"Child" Nightshade gently patted her back "You and your brother have been born with a great power, but that power does not excuse you abusing it to get what you want."
"But mom and dad do it all the time!" Elena kept grumbling "Mom even went on her trip because she got annoyed at some dumb sea elf years ago."
Nightshade sighed fondly "Your mother and father have both the experience and authority to use their power wisely."
A group of nobles and their guards passed them by but the pointed stare of the snow elf kept any potential social climbers from foolishly approaching.
Waiting until they were distant, Nightshade went on "You are a but a child now. Yours is to learn, to have fun, and to frolic about. Not to rend mountains with your voice or break reality with your mind. There will be time for that yet."
Elena wanted to keep going but she wasn't dumb, she knew she'd just make things worse for herself if she pressed so she wisely gave up "Fine, aunty Nightshade. I will be patient."
The snow elf's eyes brightened "Being cute won't make the time pass faster, just so you know."
The Princess very maturely pouted.
They made their way through the halls of the White Gold Tower, passing by numerous dignitaries and soldiers, all of whom stopped and offered light bows of greeting before returning to their work.
It always fascinated Elena how genuine many of them felt to her senses, all of it went completely against the warnings her mother and father, and even her instincts kept reminding her of.
Yet another mystery for the great Elena to solve!
Soon enough, they reached a large chamber in the middle of the tower. It was a completely open section of the colossal structure save for the stairwell, and held a large collection of sand covered squares serving as training grounds within.
Dozens of armored men and elves could be seen sparring against each other, the very pinnacle of all the soldiers of Tamriel making the room feel more like an artist's poetic rendition of what a fight should look like instead of the usually gritty stories Elena heard when asking about it.
Or maybe they were doing it as an elaborate joke just to annoy her.
She narrowed her eyes, and immediately found her answer.
On the other end of the training grounds stood her dumb idiot brother, arms crossed and a wide grin on his face as he watched the soldiers beat the living soul out of each other while Uncle Davos and Varador chatted with each other next to him.
No longer caring about not annoying her guardian, Elena grinned and before the Falmer could grab her, zoomed across the room, moving far quicker than a child her age ever should be able to move as the air itself split before her.
She stopped just in front of Martin, who was already laughing at the startled face of the Falmer teen next to him.
"You need to stop doing that, kid" Uncle Davos grumbled at her.
"But it is too funny!" She countered perfectly.
Varador, ever the broody one, just rolled his eyes.
Suddenly, Elena felt a cold wind at her back, and an instant later she found herself being lifted up by the scruff of her dress, the stern look of Nightshade waiting for her as she sheepishly looked up.
"You could do patience you said?" Nightshade asked.
"Ummmm" Elena trailed off completely innocently.
Martin just laughed while patting Varador on the arm "You will catch her one day, Varry."
"That's not what I am called." Varador huffed.
Which of course just served to amuse the Prince further.
In the meantime, the training grounds were overtaken by a curious hush, as every single soldier could now be seen staring at their little group.
That is until, one Skirnir Stormcloak decided enough was enough and bellowed "What are you lot gawking at?!" Both Elena's and Martin's eyes widened as they felt the familiar twisting of the air "Get back to it!"
Ignoring the newly reignited wall of noise, Martin elbowed Davos "Is he like us?"
"Stormcloak?" Davos asked "Well, he definitely isn't a Dragonblood like you if that is what you mean, but he is a Tongue." He shrugged "Not nearly as powerful as Boss or your mother of course, but pretty strong."
"Huh" The ten year old that looked much closer to a thirteen year old blinked "Isn't that against the Greybeards' rules?"
"Nerd!" Elena called out, ignoring her guardian's stare.
Pretending not to react to her words, Martin mouthed the words 'cope and seethe' at her.
Her eye twitched but ever the traitor, Nightshade cast a silencing spell on her before she could tell him exactly where to shove his cope at.
"Those rules are more of a polite fiction than an actual law" Davos pointed out lazily, eyes filled with mirth as he watched the pouting Princess "Your mother's word is worth a lot more to the people of Skyrim than a bunch of old men who refused to fight the dragons fifteen years back. And if she says someone can use the voice, then no one is going to say otherwise."
"Yeah..." Martin muttered, brows furrowed.
Feeling encouraged, Varador interjected "Let the old men rot on their mountain. If they don't want to help those they have authority over, then they should never have had the authority to begin with."
"Isn't that a bit harsh?" Martin asked, just a touch innocently.
Varador ignored his mother's look of warning "Before our great rulers arrived, Skyrim in its entirety was plagued by beasts, and bandits, and worse. Just because a cult of Kyne decided to preach peace did not mean peace was magically established under them."
The snow elf teen huffed "Pacifism is weakness unless you are ready and willing to protect it."
"Never thought about it like that" Martin's face scrunched up "Shouldn't everyone want peace though? Why does everyone I hear about in history seem so willing to kill each other?"
Davos placed a hand on his son's shoulder before he could go on and took over "Peace is nice and all, kid. But there are always ass-" Nightshade cleared her throat "Bad people who don't like it, so its best to be prepared."
"But why wouldn't they like it?" The Prince asked.
Just then, the silence spell on Elena finally ended "Because they are jealous of what others have, dumbass!"
"Don't insult your brother" Nightshade cut her off with a sharp whisper only the two of them could hear "Just because he does not share your gift does not make him any less smart than you."
At the same time, Martin's face scrunched up with a mix of disappointment and sadness "I guess you are right..."
Feeling his naive disappointment, Elena immediately began feeling bad herself and decided to be a good sister and distract him "Didn't dad say he would watch your training today?" She asked.
The gloomy air around Martin retreated halfway "Yeah, but some mage friends of his came by and he wanted to host them." He shrugged "He said sorry, so it's ok."
She once again found herself staring at him like he was an idiot.
Davos barked out a laugh "You are too precious, kid."
Martin grinned, but then began flailing about as the Dunmer scuffed his hair.
"We should go see what they are doing!" Elena declared.
Martin immediately stopped what he was doing and stared at her "Elena, no."
"Elena, yes!" She cheered, and like a gust of wind, she disappeared from her guardian's grip.
The quartet she left behind all blankly stared at each other before Martin, ever so slowly looked up the stairwell she had just zoomed up. He grinned, suddenly feeling all kinds of excited and began running after her "Get her!"
Davos looked at his family with clear amusement in his eyes and chuckled "Well, we might as well see what Irenni and the Masters are up to." And began following after the Prince, his son moving just a moment after.
Nightshade sighed and shook her head, her lips once more twitching upwards.
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The two automatons guarding the doorway to the Emperor's study did not stop the young Princess as she strolled past them, the larger specimen not even bothering to look at her while his slender counterpart made it a point to glare at her.
The sheer hatred and murderous loathing Elena could feel from the creature always made her shiver in fear, but no matter how much she complained her father still kept it around.
The moment she stepped inside, the feeling blessedly disappeared, only to be replaced with a wave of smells, both of viscera and of alchemical concoctions.
Within the room she saw a group of people, a tiny white Argonian, a bulky and aged Nord man, the familiar bearded face of her great-grandfather, a statuesque Altmer woman, and a much younger Dunmer female.
And leading them all was her father.
She went to speak "Hey dad-"
"Shhh" He raised a finger without turning to face her "Irenni, the chest muscles if you please." He said and the young Dunmer quickly handed him a glass tray filled to the brim with...
Oh, that was human flesh.
Elena suddenly felt a bit sick.
Her great-grandfather gave her dad a pointed look but he went completely ignored.
The young Princess considered leaving but found she was far too curious to do so.
With morbid interest, she watched as her father and his colleagues proceeded to assemble a full human over a large skeleton, one tiny string of muscle by one tiny string of muscle, the entire process being done in a way so patient and methodical one might be forgiven for thinking it was performed by automatons and not people.
Just as they began covering the body in pale skin, the air next to her father twisted, and a dark skinned Dunmer? covered in purple tatoos materialized next to him.
"Jackal" Her father greeted without turning "What news do you bring?"
The Dunmer? offered a deep bow "Black Marsh has finally cracked, my lord. A four-way civil war has just broken out between a group of mercantile aristocrats in the west, an autocratic group preaching unity in the east, the Hist cult in the center, and a confederation of isolationist tribes to the south."
Her father hummed "Interesting. Prognosis?"
Instead of the Dunmer, the tiny Argonian answered, his voice coming out in a unbelievably cute squeak as the air around him was charged with a downright unnatural clarity "Fear not student mine! Militarize the mercantilist marshmen and victory will be yours!"
To her utter astonishment, her father bowed his head to the Argonian and gave the agent a sideways glance "You heard Master Shalazar."
"By your will." The agent bowed, and disappeared.
As the magi returned to their work, Elena's mind began to race.
She felt absolutely nothing from her father as he commanded the deaths of thousands, just like so many other times she found herself 'coincidentally' listening in on him as he worked.
There was no hiding the truth of things from her even when he spoke in roundabout ways.
She would always understand exactly what he meant when he gave his orders, and yet no matter how many times she found herself terrified of what he did and said she also understood he did it for them, and for the dream of peace she sometimes heard him muttering about.
She knew he knew she could hear him, and she also knew he let her listen in on purpose.
They needed no words to understand each other, as they both could feel the truth of things in their very bones, she could feel he considered it both a blessing and a curse for her, while he could definitely feel her own resolve to master the power no matter what.
Neither ever spoke of the fact, but both could feel the void around Mundus hungering for her and her brother, waiting for any misstep that would inevitably begin tempting the child against the parent.
Her near-instinctual hatred for meddling gods churned in her blood every single day without break... like the flickering embers of a baleful grey flame.
She never understood why that particular comparison always came to mind, and no one ever felt like enlightening her.
All of this only served to increase her annoyance at not being shoveled with magical lessons but the fact she could feel everyone's genuine intentions made going against it downright stupid.
She was distracted from any further thoughts as she heard someone cursing from the direction of the surgical table, her eyes twitching as she noticed an illusion being layered over the 'patient'
Her father's annoyed voice fully drew her back into reality "Phineas, I swear to all the gods, if you don't put on some pants right fucking now I will make your first full human experience in decades be of the female variety."
"Can't let me have even this, Dagoth?!" The unfamiliar voice of the 'man' that had just been operated on cut him off.
It quickly changed as a sword materialized in her father's hand.
"Alright, fine!" The scowling man spat out and in an instant, he was covered in a dark set of robes.
"See, that wasn't all that hard, now was it?" Reyvin smiled widely at the arch-lich, said undead too happy to have finally finished his project to stay mad "Tolfdir, Faralda run us some quick tests if you could. Savos, there is an annoying little troublemaker that wants to say hello."
"Certainly." The aged Nord smiled and got to work, his Altmer compatriot already casting her spells.
Without bothering to address the others, Elena's father turned away from them and lightly strolled up to her alongside Savos "So, sated your curiosity?" He asked idly.
She pouted at him.
A different conversation took place in their minds however, as a series of thoughts and impressions passed rapidly between them, the rant, the lesson, and a bit of praise all contained in a single moment.
Now smiling, Reyvin patted his daugher's head and walked up to the door, while Savos Aren quickly snuck her a treat with a conspiratorial wink.
A moment later, the group of four that had been blocked by the two automatons were let in, and the Emperor of Tamriel pretended like he didn't just let his daughter watch a full homunculus operation as a lesson in patience.
Jokes on him, she learned a lot!
Real magic would soon be hers!
Unbeknownst to the Princess, Reyvin's eyes twinkled with proud amusement.
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An v2: And just to clarify the specifics for the nitpickers here:
Elena and Martin are getting magic lessons, they just aren't being taught the advanced arcane script stuff at the moment. Giving excitable kids fireballs is not a particularly bright idea in any setting.
And yes despite Elena being a powerful natural empath/psionic she is still very much a kid. The consequences of which shall be expanded on next time.
Comments
Rastislav
It shall be most glorious
DG30
thanks for the update, just got done re-reading the entire story and I cant wait to see where they go now!
Rastislav
Martin is indeed named after our glorious dragon boi Elena's name is the more human version of the name of Reyvin's mother
carebear90
Martin is named after his however-many-times-grandfather, the last Septim Emperor who hooked up with the Hero of Kvatch before he sacrificed himself, right? Who is Elena named after? I don't recall any Elenas in Elder Scrolls lore.
