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late-nite-scholar · 3 months ago

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Aug 16 (Day 5)-Crown/Gentle

Being Emperor isn’t easy. In fact, in some ways, it kind of sucks. Part of a Martin Lives AU. Prompts by @tes-summer-fest

Nord HoK x Martin Septim

Warnings- pregnancy

Wordcount- ~1300

***

It was much later than he’d hoped when Martin climbed the stairs up to the Emperor’s Suite, grumbling a little at how many damned stairs were in this tower. It was too late to read Gemille her bedtime story; she’d have been put to bed a good two hours ago now. There were few things he hated more than the way this damned crown took him away from little things like reading to his daughter and tucking her in.

Once inside the doors of the royal suite and having shut out the rest of the world, he dropped the tall, square-shouldered walk of the Emperor. Ironically, this grand and overly-sumptuous apartment was one of the few places he could just be Martin for a little while. He closed his eyes, letting out a long sigh.

Gentle arms encircled him, a kiss planted on his cheek as a soft voice asked, “How did it go, love?”

“Longer than it should have. But we’ve got the dispute sorted out. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to come see the new Blades taking their oaths. I really wanted to be there.”

“I know. Baurus and I handled things, don’t worry. I’m still technically a Blade myself, among all the other titles. I’m a good substitute for the Emperor when needed.”

He turned, reaching up to take her face in his hands. “Aethelfrid! Don’t say that about yourself! You are, among your other titles, Empress of Tamriel. You’re not a substitute, you’re just as important as I am. Considering how we got here, I’d say you’re more important than I am!”

She grinned. “Yeah, but you’re the Septim. Either way, it went very well. Gemille tried to stay up and wait for you, but she had a long day. She barely made it half an hour past bedtime. Come see what she got today.”

They crept over to the door leading into the nursery. Their daughter lay curled up around something wooden, her orange hair a riot around her. As she shifted, Martin got a look at what she held.

“Is that a wooden sword?” he whispered in disbelief.

“It is!”

“She’s three!”

“That’s probably when I got my first training sword,” Aethelfrid shrugged. “She won’t do proper lessons just yet, but she can have it and maybe we can do a few small techniques like proper grip. She’s very excited to show you.”

His face softened into a smile again, “She’s so much like you.”

“She’s more like you than you think.”

***

Once they’d come away from the nursery door, Aethelfrid took Martin’s hand and led him to another door, behind which the large bath waited. It was all prepared, enchantments keeping the water warm and inviting. As Aethelfrid pushed the robe off of his shoulders, he took off his crown, frowning at it.

“I hate this thing,” he muttered.

“I know, love. But we don’t need it right now.”

He put it down on a small table, feeling the weight of it fall away. For a little while, it could. It was these few, precious moments that got him through the day, that made the weight of the crown bearable. He sighed again.

“I didn’t even ask you how you’re feeling. I’m sorry, my heart.” He rubbed his face with the heel of his hand.

She was still undoing and pulling off his clothes, and he reached out to the hem of her long tunic, beneath which her stomach had begun to get round again. She giggled.

“I’m doing just fine. Feeling good. This feels as though it’ll be another strong, Septim child.” She pulled the tunic over her head. “It’s good it’s starting to show. Some of the nobles have been very pissy that we didn’t just have babies back to back to back. I think they just want to keep me busy and out of Council meetings.”

As they settled into the tub together, Aethelfrid’s strong, deft fingers began to message water and soap through Martin’s hair. He leaned back, savoring the feeling.

“Can I tell you something, my dear?” he asked.

“Of course.” She planted a kiss on his forehead.

“I… I wish we could disappear somewhere. Live quiet lives, just you and me and the children. Maybe somewhere near the mountains.” He’d fallen in love with the mountains during their time at Cloud Ruler Temple. “But there’s still so much to be done, even with all the progress we’ve made.”

Her fingers stopped scrubbing for the briefest second. “I wish we could, too. My family is from Morthal, and it's not too far from there that you could find a little spot in the mountains. Or east closer to Dawnstar. It’s about as far away from everything as you can get.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“Let’s retire there. Once the rebuilding’s done and we get everything back on its feet, let’s retire to Skyrim.”

“Deal.”

Martin helped Aethelfrid unbraid and wash her hair next. He ran a gentle comb through the flame-orange waves, wondering if their second child would also inherit this color. They made many grand plans as he worked; discussing the house they’d build and where.

“I’d love a garden,” Martin admitted. “I had one at the chantry in Kvatch. I miss it.” Kvatch was being rebuilt, but even if a new garden was planted, he wouldn’t have the chance to do more than maybe see it.

“I need a training yard. We also need a library.”

“Of course. And enough room for our family. You said you wanted a big one.”

“I do. It’s a Nord thing. We always have big families.”

Well, I will build the house myself to your exact measurements.”

***

Once they’d bathed, they settled down for a late-night supper. More pressing realities took over the conversation; an envoy from Mournhold arriving in two days’ time, a gala planned for the day after that. The trading guild had a petition about a contract to Hammerfell, and builders in the city wanted to meet about their progress. There was also a feast day coming up quickly, and they’d have to find the ceremonial robes to wear to the temple that day.

It seemed never-ending, but Aethelfrid was as firm in her commitment as he, and it was less daunting with both of them facing it together. After all, they’d faced down the forces of The Dead Lands and its ruler together. Once you’ve done something like that, the mundane jobs of contracts and noble posturing seemed much less intimidating.

After dinner, they retired to their bed with a book each. Snuggling up, they did a little reading, before returning their attention to the other.

“I’m sorry for being so grouchy,” Martin kissed his wife’s cheek softly.

“You have a lot on your plate, love. We both do. It’s not easy. It’s a lot of pressure.”

“I really wish we could retire to the mountains.”

“We will. We’ll get things back on track and retire to Bruma. Or Morthal, or wherever you want. Falkreath is very pretty and has less snow.”

“They’re not going to let us just leave like that.”

“When the time comes, we’ll leave before they realize. You have no idea the hidden places and trails and things I found running around doing Hero of Kvatch stuff. I mean it.”

“I would never doubt you on that. And, I hope we can take you up on it.”

“We will. I promise you that.”

***

It took Martin a long time to fall asleep that night. It seemed so impossible! That he could truly leave behind this crown and the weight it carried. But Aethelfrid had done the impossible before. Many times, in fact. He had no doubt she could do so again. One day, he told himself, once we’ve got things back in order.

When he finally fell asleep, he dreamed of a little farm with a garden and a gaggle of flame-haired children.

#tesfest24 #tesfest #tes 4 #tes oblivion #prompt #day 5 #crown #martin septim x hok #nord hok #oc: aethelfrid bright-spear #oblivion au #emperor martin septim #martin lives #being emperor sucks

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vexwerewolf · 1 year ago

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I always figured the Imperials were the good guys.

Nnnnnngh… no. Imperials are the better of two bad options, and it's really muddied because Bethesda lost its good writers years before Skyrim came out. I can feel a hyperfixation coming on, so a quick TL;DR: the Empire is an Empire so it's still bad, the Stormcloaks are just racist saboteurs led by a Manchurian agent and Tiber Septim is a gigantic piece of shit who ruined everything.

Okay, so the Empire functionally lost its equivalent of the Mandate of Heaven when Martin Septim died heirless at the end of Oblivion. His sacrifice forged a new compact to end the Daedric incursions, but by that point Imperial infrastructure throughout Tamriel had been so badly damaged that it could no longer maintain order. By the time the Mede dynasty got its feet under it, several provinces had either risen in revolt against the Empire or and were busy violently settling bitter generational rivalries with each other.

Most notably, this included the Thalmor, who are openly and proudly an Altmer supremacist movement. Their primary goal is to end the dominion of Men on Tamriel and institute a second Merethic Era dominated by them. This is the most obvious reason for why they want to ban Talos worship - the idea that a Man could become Divine is grossly incompatible with their worldview. (I must note that there's also a much-discussed fan theory stating that they intend to unmake creation in its current form and destroying Talos worship is part of that, but it's partially based on sources whose canonicity is in doubt, so I'm not going to discuss it further at this time.) The Thalmor are pretty much explicitly Elf Nazis, right down to invading foreign countries and rounding up their religious minorities.

It should be considered, however, that Tiber Septim was an UNBELIEVABLY MASSIVE PIECE OF SHIT. There's credible evidence that during his mortal life he assassinated the Cyrodillian monarch to whom he had sworn fealty and then seized his throne. He had a dalliance with Berenziah that ended up getting her pregnant, then forcibly abducted her and had the child aborted without her consent. After gaining Numidium from a treaty with the Tribunal of Morrowind, he discovered that they hadn't given them its power source (Lorkhan's Heart - understandable, since it was the source of their false divinity), and so he created a new one, the Mantella, by tearing the souls out of Ysmir and Zurin Arctus, two of his most loyal companions. He used Numidium to brutally conquer the rest of Tamriel and then turned it on all the noble families in Cyrodil who hadn't supported him. His empire - as all empires are - was built entirely on murder, pillage and rape. And - as all emperors do - he rewrote his own history because nobody dared openly oppose it. If the Aedra truly did award him a seat amongst them after this (and the fact that his bloody armor counts as "the blood of a divine" in Oblivion suggests that they did), it's questionable whether any of them are worthy of worship.

Nonetheless, worship of Talos was of extreme cultural importance to the Nords, because he was considered by history to have been a Nord, and indeed born in Atmora, the mythic first homeland of the Nords (although, again, it's likely he was just fucking lying - heterodox historical accounts suggest he was born in High Rock and never saw Atmora in his life). The White-Gold Concordat was formulated specifically to provoke division between the remaining provinces of the Empire - the Thalmor correctly predicted that the Nords would never tolerate being stripped of their right to worship Talos, and would rise in revolt against an Empire that mandated it.

The specific cause of the Stormcloak Rebellion is also… dubious. During the war with the Thalmor, the Imperial Legion had all but pulled out of Skyrim. This allowed an uprising by the Reachmen, an ethnic minority within southwestern Skyrim who, notably, had been brutally disenfranchised and stripped of their land by… Tiber Septim! Thanks, Talos, you continue to be a gigantic piece of shit! Anyway, they seized control of Markarth and held it for two years, during which by most accounts they ruled it as an independent kingdom that was making overtures towards being recognised by the Empire. After the signing of the White-Gold Concordat, Ulfric Stormcloak raised an army to retake it, and was promised by the Jarl of the Reach (and, allegedly, the Empire itself) that worship of Talos would be freely allowed in Markarth. Ulfric Stormcloak then proceeded to lay siege to the city and butcher it, ethnically cleansing the city of every last Reachman down to the women and children, slaughtering any Nord who had collaborated with them and allegedly even killing those citizens of Markarth who hadn't answered his call to arms.

Inevitably, the Thalmor found out about the Talos worship anyway and the Jarl was forced to sell out Ulfric and his men. This is generally considered to be the betrayal that sparked the civil war, but at this point we must examine who Ulfric is.

Ulfric was trained in the Thu'um from an early age by the Greybeards, but abandoned his tutelage to fight in the Great War. We know little of his performance other than that he was captured by the Thalmor, tortured extensively, and falsely made to believe that the information he had given under torture was instrumental in the fall of the Imperial City. His father, the Jarl of Windhelm, died while he was in prison, and he was forced to deliver a eulogy via a letter that he had smuggled out of the prison. He claims he escaped from captivity, while Thalmor records claim that they let him go intentionally; neither source is particularly reliable.

From a sociopolitical standpoint, Ulfric is a staunch Nordic traditionalist who openly states that he doesn't believe Skyrim has had a "true" High King for centuries, considering recent monarchs to simply be puppets installed by the Empire. He also seems to be deeply racist: in contrast to his father, he banned Argonians from entering Windhelm proper, confining them to the Assemblage on the docks, and he's allowed racist sentiments towards the Dunmer residents of the Grey Quarter to worsen. Even citizens of Windhelm who support the rebellion comment that isn't doing very much governing, since the civil war eats up most of his attention.

One point I will give to Ulfric is that establishing Skyrim as an independent kingdom that can actively resist the Thalmor isn't actually as far-fetched as it seems. After the White-Gold Concordat ceded half of Hammerfell to the Thalmor, Hammefell said "how about fuck you," broke from the Empire entirely, and smacked the Thalmor down so hard they had to sign the Second Treaty of Stros M'Kai and retreat from Hammerfell entirely. This rendered the nation a haven for those opposed to the Thalmor, and they're in such a strong position that the Alik'r can actively hunt Thalmor collaborators like Saadia in other nations. Hammerfell is in a better position than Skyrim, and it did it without any Imperial aid.

(A hilarious fact about the Hammerfell situation is that the Thalmor tried the exact same thing there - inciting a civil war between the Crowns and the Forebears, two factions that have hated one another for generations. Unfortunately, they fucked it up so badly that it actually managed to end the rivalry and unite both of them against the Thalmor.)

But this is where Bethesda's inability to actually capitalize on the good parts of their writing really gets to me.

The Empire in Skyrim… sucks. Like, from your perspective as a player, the first experience you have of the Empire is "okay, so you were at the border alongside this guy and we're executing him today so I guess you get to die too." The only decent Imperial you meet is Hadvar, who makes a lukewarm plea for your life but doesn't press the issue.

All of the Imperial Jarls except for Balgruuf and Idgrod Ravencrone are dogshit. Elisif is a naive, incompetent teenager. Siddgeir is an arrogant, incompetent ponce. Igmund is a spineless Thalmor toady reigning over stolen land, having broken a promise he made to Ulfric and thus being partially responsible for the civil war. The replacement Jarls you get if you side with the Empire and conquer territories the Stormcloaks hold at the start of the game fall into two categories: "who?" and "oh fuck not you." If I say the names Brina Merilis or Kraldar, I bet you won't even remember who I'm talking about. Brunwulf Free-Winter, the replacement for Ulfric Stormcloak, has ONE personality feature and it's "I'm slightly less racist than Ulfric." But when you capture Riften for the Empire, the new Jarl is MAVEN FUCKING BLACK-BRIAR, THE SECOND-WORST PERSON IN SKYRIM.

But the Stormcloaks suck worse. Laila-Law Giver is a puppet for the Black-Briar crime family. Skald the Elder is a grumpy, hidebound old man. Korir might as well not be ruling anything at all. If you side with them, you have to sell out Balgruuf when the matter of Whiterun comes up - a man who has never been anything but helpful, supportive, trusting and forthright with you. Oh, and let's not forget that if you take the Reach for the Stormcloaks, the new Jarl is THONGVOR SILVER-BLOOD, LITERAL SLAVEOWNER AND WORST PERSON IN SKYRIM.

(There is an absolutely cursed timeline wherein during the "territory trade" at the peace talks you can hold during the main quest if you haven't finished the civil war quest yet where Maven gets the Rift and Thongor gets the Reach, meaning you have just installed the two most powerful crime families in the country into positions of executive power.)

This isn't just a case of "of course both sides aren't perfect and have issues." This is just "both sides fucking suck." A better game would allow you to make some headway in resolving the massive issues that face Skyrim, but I've already written like nine billion words here so maybe I should go into that at a different time.

#skyrim #the elder scrolls #writing #bethesda

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