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mostdream6977 · 9 days ago

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PERFORMATIVE HOURS

((i lied theres no nerevoryn YET. all foundational. im getting there. other surprise ships in there for the future. for me.

fic and chapter titles are songs! fic name - chapter name

AO3 LINK BLAST))

0.1

RULES OF THE SHOW

“‘I do not wish to ask too much of you, so you may decline this and I would not consider it a slight’ … Is he not allowed to have parties or something? He sounds like he’s afraid you’ll beat him.”

The mer holding the letter furrows his brow and brings it closer, making sure he reads it correctly while walking alongside his partner, bumping into a stray pedestrian every now and again and sheepishly apologizing. The day is the 26th of Frostfall, and the two are headed through colorfully crowded streets on their way to a birthday party. His partner had brought along a few guards, in this moment tasking them with walking in front and breaking up the crowd to move easier, but his nature made it so he was running into people and taking up space regardless. The partner in question doesn’t seem to love this, today she’s taken to shooting him a nasty look whenever he “acts out” as she describes. She’s been on edge all week during the commute to Kogoruhn - he’s not sure he can blame her. A lot of the things she tells him about the other Great Houses sound like mumbo-jumbo to him, but he knows his basics enough and has the lived experience to know that the Sixth House has gotten very intimidating, very quickly - relatively speaking.

His partner had been worried about staying in the good graces of their (to put it lightly) flippant Lord, who despite having only been in power for about a decade had made quite a significant reputation. He worries. Especially during these social diplomacy-type events. From what he could gather, this Lord was the type to greet you with a kiss on one cheek and send you off with a slap on the other, and was absolutely the type to send an invitation to his birthday party filled with snide humility, in hopes that it wouldn’t be caught and attendees would assume true humility despite the presence of gilded everything.

He rests easy knowing his partner can handle herself in a fight just fine; she’s better with a sword than he is, and that’s saying something. She isn’t even socially awkward by any means, she’s just so… paranoid. Everyone is out to get everyone in her mind - she counts herself among everyone, and keeps her sword hand(s) ready at all times. She would scan a room like she was prey, or looking for it. He admittedly found it impressive, but in these circumstances, a celebration for this House among these attendees? It isn’t viable.

“Are you planning on talking to him like that?” She snapped, softly, with him rolling his eyes in response.

“What’s your plan if I do, eh?” He lets off a mischievous grin and allows his sarcasm to ooze. “Ya gonna beat me?”

“Yes. What’s your obsession with beating today?”

“It’s a great word.”

This got a slight chuff out of her, which gave him a little bit of satisfaction, though she hadn't stopped the focused anxiety-walk she was doing or met his eyes. He took the following silence as an opportunity, and thought about things for around forty seven seconds. First fourteen seconds - His partner, who herself had only been in power for a couple years longer than the Lord in question, had recently directed aid towards Vvardenfell after Nord attacks had laid waste to their food supplies. The next five seconds - From what she had told him, the Lord had been incredibly grateful, and genuine in expressing this. The final twenty eight seconds - She also mentioned they had talked extensively about the stress, which had been mentioned heavily in the invitation. His conclusion - She was on the Lord’s good side, had recently been only getting the kiss and was waiting for the slap. Getting ready for this event had been metaphorically making her lose hair. After basking in this presence near non-stop for around a week on their journey, he had figured some old-fashioned, good natured heckling of outside parties would cheer her up as usual, but she’s still mostly acting sour.

“So… What’s different about this? I get he’s, like, an asshole,” He hesitates in his tone. “But it’s just one House, yeah? You’ve done this elsewhere, I’ve seen how uh… they can be to you. You handle yourself. ”

“And who is ‘they’?” she said, slowing her pace finally and looking at him with a slight smile forming.

“Uhh… Nobles, I guess?”

“That’s the point, Nerevar. These aren’t just Dagoth nobles, it’s the Dwemer too. I told you that I found out they'd be here weeks ago.”

“I- OHH. You DID say that, heh… sorry.” He’s sheepish again, well aware that he should listen more closely. She finally gives a good laugh and continues following her guards. It’s been almost a year now with Nerevar under her wing, and while he’s grown immensely from the drunk, smelly merchant caravan guard she found throwing large rocks at his fellow guards as a game the day they met, he tends to be a bit dense at times. Still, despite this exterior personality, she knew he held the ghartoki in both hands. He had a certain goal, his want had no borders and knew no limits; you could feel his fire from great distances. She was drawn to his light like a moth, the same as him to her. She knew his distraction did not come from a lack of enjoyment of her company, and she knew he wasn’t stupid by any means, just a bit vapid.

“I wish you'd listen more, but you’re still learning quickly, so don’t apologize to me.” she said.

“Yeah, sure, uh, could you give me the rundown on the whole Dagoth Dwemer thing again?” There’s a touch of embarrassment and annoyance in his voice. “I don’t remember what’s going on there.”

“Well, there’s so much there, I’ll keep it short. You know the Dwarf-Orc?”

“Dummo?”

“...Dumac.”

“Dumac. Right. Doo-Mack.” “..Yeah. That one. The King of the Dwemer is a busy man ruling a busy people. Because of this, he’s not the only one at his level of power among the Dwemer. Their Chief Tonal Architect, Kagrenac, shares an immense part of that power. He’s the one we’re worried about tonight, he’s got a chokehold on House Dagoth,” As she said this, Nerevar noticed a dulled glint in the corner of his vision and stopped to examine. It was a stray bottle laying on the ground, covered by some street waste. It looked to be a potion, and an expensive one too. He allowed the guards and Almalexia to go ahead a bit, then snatched the bottle. It wasn’t labelled with an effect, just “BITTERGREEN, WOLFSBANE, DIAMOND” and was filled with cloudy liquid. Nerevar placed it in his bag and caught up with the group. Almalexia saw him approach and shot him a nasty look for acting out before launching back into her spiel with a quick ‘where was I… ’.

“Oh! Yes. Dagoth. Kagrenac and the Dwemer have a chokehold on them. It’s brought good and bad things, the good is that these guys turned this place around fast- they were always farmers or orphans when I was a girl. Never could have imagined that Kogoruhn would ever become this big.”

“And the bad?”

“Well, the Dwemer doing what they do best. Voryn was talking to me about how their slave trade of House members still hasn’t fully stopped, he’s done everything in his power yet people in House Sotha have gone missing recently. He believes it’s in retaliation for the release of Dagoth captives, but can’t really prove anything. It’s a lot of stuff like that. According to Voryn, Kagrenac won’t budge and won’t tell him, he’ll change the subject pretty frequently.” Almalexia looked at Nerevar and saw his confusion. “What isn’t clicking?”

“It all makes sense, but aren’t they married?”

“Yes.”

“Voryn is the same age as us, yeah? Is he hot? I’m sure he could find someone not as ancient and enslave-y. Why doesn’t he just leave him?” Nerevar questioned. Almalexia thought about her response for a couple seconds.

“Kagrenac has a king’s power, and power is sweet... Voryn likes sugar, to put it gently.” With this, Nerevar understood, and the two continued on their way towards the palace.

“If you could sit tight for us, Lady Almalexia, Lord Dagoth would want to greet you in person.” The woman standing in front of them is very clearly Dwemer; her long, curly cyan hair is lined delicately with gold, beads and bands and threads of the sort were braided into her bangs, and her beard was trimmed neatly. The small tiara gracing her head, alongside of her neck piece and the tuning fork at her side told them she was another Architect, likely one who Kagrenac set up to greet the guests staying in the palace like Nerevar and Almalexia. Nerevar, as promised, had seen very many Dwemer and started to understand how Almalexia was feeling. This kind of event was rare, their peoples despised each other. Seeing them bumping elbows with Chimer showed that Voryn had been hard at work regarding the combination of the two cultures in his House.

“Jzarkaz! Are you greeting who I think you are?” A voice playfully rang out from a hallway on the upper level of the foyer. Speak of the devil. A fairly tall mer emerged, laying eyes on his two new guests (or really, just Alamlexia) and breaking out a wide smile. Jzarkaz had this look on her face as if she was preparing to be overstimulated.

“Ah, Voryn, I was just about to fetch you. I-” She was interrupted by Voryn skittering down the steps and quickly up to Almalexia, greeting her with a mutual kiss on either cheek. Nerevar noticed she had become a bit less tense- maybe she felt safe for now, maybe leaning more into certainty as he watched Voryn emit energy that Almalexia absorbed fully from and into their greeting conversation. Jzarkaz, looking annoyed, cleared her throat and Voryn snapped a little more to attention.

“Ah, it’s SO good to see you again, love! I’m glad your trip here went smoothly. I see you’ve eh…” Voryn paused for a second and glanced at Nerevar for just a slight bit too long before looking back at Almalexia and renewing his smile. “You’ve hired a mercenary! He can make himself comfortable downstairs with the rest, there’s baths in the barra-”

“He’s actually my plus one.” She jumped in, to Voryn’s embarrassment. Nerevar had been standing around observing for so long that he almost didn’t notice the comment. He wanted to be snotty and make a similar comment, but looking Voryn up and down, he couldn’t really think of anything. But then again, perhaps that’s speaking too soon.

“I’m Indoril Nerevar Mora. I’m her boyfriend, we’ve been together for a few months now.” he began. “Not that you would know that, I AM dressed accordingly.” He told no lie, his hair is still slicked up into the tall mohawk he insisted on wearing to travel or battle, alongside his heavy chitin armor that he’d had for an eternity. He told Almalexia they made him look cooler, that if she were going to make him into a warrior-king that he might as well look the part (She always told him he didn’t need to smell the part either and had him change). However, he hadn’t expected to be greeted by Voryn, draped in all that black and red finery and sopping wet in a wealthy context, dripping with gold and jewels. Almalexia seems fine wearing her similar fashion, but Nerevar chose to overthink Voryn’s comment and take offense.

“Maybe I’d be more accordingly dressed if I looked like a conso-”

“WE ARE VERY TIRED FROM THE JOURNEY!” Almalexia was shocked and shut him down before the word could fully leave his mouth. “YES, yes. If we could go to our quarters and eh…” She shot one hell of a look at Nerevar, who chose to take some more offense.

“What, you’re not going to hel-”

“Rest up. Before the gala tonight.” Her voice was a bit shaky, butting in over Nerevar again to avoid Voryn’s own offense, though he wasn’t stupid by any means and had already put two and two together at this point. Voryn made a silent decision to maintain his looks and not engage with Nerevar, having many other more important things to worry about than being called a whore. Play it dumb and just move on, he tells himself.

“Right.” Much of the excitement has left his voice. “Well, I’m certain Jzarkaz here can show you where you’ll be staying. I’m afraid I have other matters to deal with before the festivities.” Voryn turns and walks back up the stairs as Jzarkaz (who had been trying her hardest to not let out a laugh at Nerevar’s comment) led the two down a different hall. Voryn stopped about halfway up and met Nerevar’s eyes as he passed below. His face, at this moment, could not be read.

“Make yourself at home.” And with that, Voryn disappeared back into the upstairs of the palace. Almalexia didn’t speak a word, and neither did Nerevar. They allowed themselves to be silently led down the hall and into their chambers; a small guest room with a large window over the bed. Their guards had already moved their things in while Nerevar was making an ass of himself, and as the two walked in and the door shut behind them, Almalexia kicked a piece of her luggage hard, before getting in Nerevar’s face.

“IMMEDIATE. NO HESITATION. FIRST THING OUT OF YOUR DAMN MOUTH. WHAT IN OBLIVION IS WRONG WITH YOU?” Her voice was guaranteed to be booming, ringing through the halls, but she didn’t seem to care. This kind of behavior could EASILY get them in deep shit, or otherwise poisoned. Pissing off the Sixth House at this point in their timeline is a grave mistake, and Nerevar doesn’t really seem to take her seriously when she says that.

“Oh, so WHAT? You’re just going to let him fucking insult me? Why the fuck am I the one getting this fucking reaction?” Nerevar snapped right back.

“He wasn’t insulting you, s’wit! He thought you were a mercenary-”

“AND told you to tell me where the baths were.”

“-For two fucking seconds. I didn’t even leave you to hang, I CORRECTED him! That comment was COMPLETELY unnecessary!” Exasperated, she walks away from Nerevar and sits down on the bed.

“And this IS completely necessary?” He followed her over. “Getting on me and screaming about it? ‘Two fucking seconds’ my ass. Why don’t you stop being such an uptight bitch for ‘two fucking seconds’ and see things from MY view?”

“Don’t you DARE speak to me like that, Nerevar. I don’t care about your ‘view’ on this gods-damned non-issue that you DECIDED to make an issue. You need to learn some fucking people skills, and at least SOME manners if you want to get anywhere near where you want to be.”

“It’s all about what I need to learn, all the fucking time. Why don’t YOU take some time to fucking learn to cool the fuck down?”

“Because you don’t fucking listen enough to know that, shocker, I’m actually acting justified! Nerevar, we DO. NOT. WANT. To PISS OFF the DWEMER. Is that gonna make it through your thick skull?”

“THE ONE DWEMER IN THE ROOM WAS LAUGHING! She thought it was hilarious, you’re fucking insane! Maybe I should go talk with HER instead!” Almalexia’s face dropped with this comment, and she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Maybe you should.”

“Fine.” he ran his hand through his hair, messing up part of his mohawk and turning to leave the room.

“...Fine. I’ll… I’ll see you later.”

“Whatever.” He shuts the door behind him with a thud, and Almalexia is left in their room alone.

#prev tags #thank u ahh im exckted to give this idea more body than whats in the fic #also i see that lesbian flag icon. get hyped for chapter three xoxoxo

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mostdream6977 · 10 days ago