#basically daeris + her dad = nonexistent but turns into something positive and healthy once they get reintroduced

[nxtherold]

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@yivohn​ said:    What does Daeris think of her father? How about her mother, Nocturnal?

OH MAN this is about to get complicated so bear with me. I’ll start with her dad because her feelings for him are easier to unpack that for Nocturnal.

Trigger warning for mentions of childhood neglect.

Also this got long af so it’s going under a cut.

E V A N D E R

          So, even though he’s not part of her life, Daeris still knows of her dad. She still keeps tabs on him. It’s hard not to do so; he’s General Evander Urzara, a hero of the Imperial Legion and someone who is very much part of the metaphorical “glue” that holds Cyrodiil together. Word gets around, not to mention they live in the same city. But in most verses, he is unaware of her still being alive. If he knew, he would do everything he could to bring her home.

          Daeris admires him. She thinks he’s a genuine hero. But because she sees him this way, compounded with her abysmal self-perception, she doesn’t think she’s worthy to be his daughter. She believes if she were to reunite with him, he would never accept her and at best would be disgusted with her. In verses where she does reunite with him, she’s proven wrong, but she tries to hide her history with the Dark Brotherhood because she thinks him not knowing is the only reason he’s welcomed her back. But the thing is, he does know. 

          It’s explained better here, but basically Molag Bal found out what Nocturnal did and didn’t like how much personal influence she could now have over the Cyrodiilic Empire, so he had one of his largest cults repetitively attack the family in an attempt to either destroy the family as a whole or drive Nocturnal away; the latter of which was successful when it became clear to Nocturnal that Daeris was their true target. Daeris’s aunt, Viatrix, was the one who suggested that “Umbra” (Nocturnal’s alias) hide Daeris with the Dark Brotherhood because her husband Letreius had familial ties within the organization and she knew the Matron of the local sanctuary, Sitha Abelas. 

          Viatrix had always known where Daeris was, and though she planned on telling Evander, Nocturnal made her true identity known to her and compelled her secrecy. But after Daeris reunites with Evander, Viatrix is no longer beholden to the oath she made to Nocturnal, so she tells him what happened and pleads forgiveness. It did at first cause a rift between Daeris and Evander as he processes what he’s learned about his daughter, “wife”, and family as a whole, but it’s nothing that Daeris doesn’t write off in her mind as part of the expected adjustment period of going from strangers to family, and she remains unaware of her father’s revelation.

          Learning the truth also didn’t stop Evander from wanting Daeris to be part of his life again. Even if all of it was true, he reasoned that 1. she was indoctrinated from birth and never had a conscious choice regarding the path her life took and 2. once she did have the capacity to make that choice, she gave up being a tool for the Dark Brotherhood and is now trying to better the world. He’s decided that it’s best to not even hint at his awareness to her past because her past is something that should truly be left behind, and him acknowledging it when she seems intent on moving away from that part of her history might only serve to cause her shame. Not that he wouldn’t ever be willing to have that conversation, but it needs to be on her terms and when she feels like she’s ready to talk about it. (And once she does eventually come clean to him, it’s far more impactful for her to learn that he’s known all this time and has not once treated her differently because of it. It invalidates the fear she’s had all of her life and brings her catharsis.)

N O C T U R N A L

          Now, onto her feelings for Nocturnal, which can best be describes as a bag of cats. It’s hard to even put it into words because there are so many different aspects of their relationship. Daeris doesn’t truly know how to feel about her mother, and I’m not sure that Nocturnal even knows how she should feel for Daeris. The only thing I can say with 100% confidence is that Daeris loves her mother and Nocturnal loves her in return. But love for daedra, especially a Daedric Prince who has existed for countless millennia and has no reason to regularly indulge in an emotion that is so incredibly mortal, is beyond complicated. For a being that is wholly permanent in space and time, encountering a new emotion would be so incredibly jarring. 

          Just think about it; these deities have long grown used to emotions like joy, desire, wrath, envy and the like, but these are emotions that are provoked by things encountered in every day life. Daedra have no reason to love. They don’t have families. They rarely take any form of spouse, and when they do, it is always temporary and rarely born from any loving attachment. They do not know love, and if they feel love, they cannot easily understand it. Most think such a thing beneath them as most Daedra prize self-serving goals above anything that needs to take another being into consideration, let alone put that being before themselves.

          But it’s not impossible for Daedra to feel it. They just can’t comprehend what they’re feeling, I believe. Take Clavicus Vile and Barbas as a platonic example, or Vaermina and her lover in ESO as a romantic one. Daeris doesn’t have this issue because she is a Demi-Prince who has spent her life among mortals, but Nocturnal struggles with it. 

          The closest comparison I can draw is Nocturnal’s relationship with her nightingales. She has a motherly love towards her nightingales, obviously, but there’s something off about it because she is a Daedra and she doesn’t care to get genuinely attached to them. As much as she does care for her nightingales, they are finite beings, and they are not irreplaceable to her (though the ones the stay loyal to her until their deaths are taken good care of in Evergloam after their passing). A betrayal earns anger, but she cares not for the betrayer beyond that. They are nothing to her if their purpose is not aligned with hers.

          Daeris has found a similar dynamic with Nocturnal, but one that runs deeper due to their biological connection, a genuine attachment, and Nocturnal’s higher expectations for her. Nocturnal loves her daughter, but she doesn’t know how to best treat her as a daughter, if that makes any sense. She created her because she wanted a stronger, more loyal agent, but Daeris is more than that to her. Daeris grew up among mortal and has mortal expectations for her mother, but Nocturnal cannot fit that role because she is not one. And it’s a bit frustrating to Nocturnal, that her daughter finds fault in her as a mother because she doesn’t conform to ideals of motherhood that exist among what Nocturnal believes to be inferior beings, and she can’t understand what she’s done to create this dissonance. 

          In Nocturnal’s mind, Daeris should care more about her growth in terms of power and her status among Nocturnal’s ranks because that’s what a daedra would care more about. Her need for maternal affection and nurturing were not things that Nocturnal had anticipated, nor could she realize that she had robbed Daeris of these things through her partial absence in her childhood because a child cannot articulate what is missing from their life; it’s only something noticed in hindsight. She doesn’t realize how she’s created resentment in Daeris until Daeris is old enough to understand why she resents her mother and tell her this. And even then, Nocturnal still doesn’t quite get it, because again, “mortals are weak and their emotions are stupid” and it’s hard for her to grasp the idea that Daeris needed Nocturnal to put her before her own goals; an idea of selflessness that is completely foreign to the higher ranks of the Daedra. Not that she isn’t trying to understand, but there’s a lot of shit that needs to be fixed between them because for so long she believed her daughter (and herself) to be a more perfect, problem-less being than she was.

          Daeris is fairly tolerant to Nocturnal’s behavior nowadays, but I think that’s because once she got past her rage and grew closer to her mother, she began to understand how Nocturnal genuinely struggled to comprehend what life was like for her. She refuses to excuse it and wants to make things better between them, but just like Nocturnal, she doesn’t know how to make things better. There’s no quick fix to teaching a daedra how they’re supposed to behave towards others in an unselfish manner, or even how to be towards their children. It’s even harder to convince her that mortal interests are worthwhile beyond how they can service daedra. In that regard, she’s frankly just grateful that Nocturnal doesn’t interfere with her interests or try to micromanage her life. Still, she believes that they’ll reach some semblance of a normal relationship one day, though it will undoubtedly take years of work on both of their parts. At least Nocturnal is willing to try.

          In most verses their relationship is still incredibly strong in spite of its many faults and is complicated at worst. But in ESO, it becomes permanently fractured. Nocturnal believed that Daeris would put her plans and the opportunity to gain power for both of them before her cares within the mortal realm. She saw no problem with acting against her friends, her lover, and everything Daeris cared about because she believed Daeris had simply been misguided and was a nudge away from returning to her “right” path. She knew that Veya corrupting Dawnbreaker would lead to Darien sacrificing himself to cleanse it, and she believed that doing away with Daeris’s strongest attachment would give her no more reason to fight against her in defense of Tamriel.

          She was wrong. While Daeris was conflicted before, she was now set firmly against her mother. She refuses to forgive her for what occurred, and their relationship is likely fracture beyond any hope of repair. Nocturnal has tried. She wants Daeris at her side again, but she cannot admit she was wrong. Even if she did, would it really help? She realizes that she may never earn her forgiveness, but still she watches over her in the shadows, even though Daeris actively works to undermine her now by hunting down those who spread her influence or take part in her schemes. 

          The sad irony is I believe this forced separation on Daeris’s part helps Nocturnal understand even more why she was wrong to leave her with the Dark Brotherhood as a child, and not from the standpoint of she would have likely remained loyal had she not grown attached to the mortal world, but because she’s started to understand how Daeris needed her and how her being mostly absent deeply affected her. In trying to understand why her daughter turned on her, she discovers what truly went wrong, and it was her fault. She created a daughter that was half-mortal, but she didn’t view her as such. She was unable to recognize how Daeris had grown so attached to mortals because she had for so long ignored the fact that part of Daeris was one of them. And she regrets that. 

          If she had a chance to do things differently, she wouldn’t change the circumstances of Daeris’s creation. She wouldn’t change the part of her that was mortal. She would keep her firmly at her side from birth, and she wouldn’t ever use her. Though she created her with the intent that she would be her agent, she regrets ever seeing her as anything other than her daughter, and losing Daeris has caused guilt and shame beyond her failed conquest of the Crystal Tower. Only now that she’s lost her has Nocturnal realized how much she truly loved her daughter.