#also it's the shezzarine in him but i simply cannot help but imagine that

[barfok]

I confess I just noticed the goose typo right before I hit send but I left it in because it made me laugh (obviously its meant to be house not goose lmao). Thanks for answering! Yeah that actually makes a lot of sense that Almalexia would try to get rid of as much of her mortal past as possible, very tragically on brand. What did nerevar think of amun-shae? Did he ever give his mother in law the credit she was owed? Also, I'm assuming it's ysmir who sheltered her during her exile? Why'd he do it? Did she have some idea of who he was and what he'd become?

Ps If u ever want to write the mordrin fuckin hanin essay I'd gladly read that too

:) thanks for keeping the goose typo, it delighted me

nerevar and amun-shae-- during her life amun-shae was seen by many as a traitor, as someone who'd sold out her city to the nords in exchange for power and comfort. this impression was particularly strong in those who had fought in the initial invasion... such as nerevar, who i hc as having lead a futile resistance during the brutal conquest of ebonheart. so even though he could acknowledge amun-shae's skills as a leader, nerevar still viewed her as a coward and a collaborator, and treated her with thinly veiled contempt. it was a point of contention between him and almalexia, because sometimes he looked at almalexia with that same suspicion. almalexia too spent much of her life existing under nordic occupation and had also endured accusations of collaboration

as for ysmir and amun-shae! the two of them had a long history actually, dating back to the invasion-- even though amun-shae surrendered, she was more or less at the whims of the invading Tongues, so when the surrender was made ysmir inserted himself into negotiations as amun-shae's guarantor of safety, basically saying that if anyone hurt her, he'd take retribution on her behalf. ysmir had grown very disillusioned with the nords over the course of the war and was looking for an excuse to break with them, so guaranteeing amun-shae's safety meant he would get to wage war with any and all of them if anything happened to her. fortunately for amun-shae it turns out that nobody in their right mind is going to fuck with ysmir so she was very safe under that deal.

they kinda grew close after that, because ysmir genuinely pitied her and was seeking allies amongst the chimer. amun-shae kept the old-guard boethiah worship that was traditional to her line, with an ideological basis in lorkhan reverence, and this gave her a lot of common ground from which to explore ysmir's own fanatic worship of shor. though ysmir lived on vvardenfell they kept up a regular correspondence throughout the occupation, and when things in mournhold became too dangerous to remain tenable, he was an obvious person to go to for help.

i don't think amun-shae had any idea of what ysmir really was. sure his immortality was weird but lots of thu'um users shouted themselves off of the mortal coil in those days. he was just an unusually kind, sensitive, insightful warlord who liked to pick her thoughts about the nature of lorkhan and reality