#you can tell my concept of dibella is inspired by persephone

[illumiera]

today, I'm possessed with the Sudden Urge to ramble about my Miraak's Dibella worship.

I think the Moth would have been an important deity to the Atmorans—Queen of Heaven, goddess of beauty, art, music, pleasure, romantic love, and in my headcanon, language, prophecy to some extent, rebirth, and all that is lovely in creation. to them, and to many modern worshippers in Tamriel, she is the one who painted the sunsets, the one who made the afterlives beautiful, restful places, and the one who brings the land to life in spring.

imagine you're a young boy named Mimir, and wherever you go, you're surrounded by song. you were born in spring, when the land begins to thaw—Dibella's time, when the leanness of winter begins to ease. imagine you face death one day, falling into a frozen river, and you vaguely remember being saved by someone so lovely, it could only have been Dibella herself, or so you think. you wake up warm and dry at the outskirts of your village, and you live another day.

imagine you're a young man without a name. well, the cult stripped 'Mimir' away from you and address you only as yuvonhadrozaal sen (golden-braided one) or dovaar (dragonkind-servant or dragonkind-slave), and it'll be a few years yet before you're given a mask and named Miraak. you wear a veil that covers your face, and to show anybody that face would be to sentence the two of you to death.

so what do you do? not far from Bromjunaar, there's a hidden grove where Dibella's worshippers go to play and sing and pray and dance. you steal a lute, sneak out of the temple, and for a few hours by moonlight, you get to hear the sound of your own voice singing of things that aren't the might of the dragons. your fingers are quick to remember the songs your mother once taught you on her own lute. when dawn is close, you bury your stolen lute and sneak back, knowing that for a few brief hours, you were free.

when you're named Miraak, there's no time for singing. you belong to the dragons now, whole and entire, and can worship no other—but you're a rebel at heart, so you continue to braid your hair and have the belt of your robes fashioned into the shape of a moth.

a woman with the wings of a dragon saves you from death and visits you in your dreams. she looks a lot like the statue you've carved of Dibella, the one you keep in the breast pocket of your robes at all times, but the woman you call Kundruniik, light-bringer, is an ardent follower of Mara, the Wolf-Mother. nonetheless, in your dreams, the two of you sit beneath the heavens hung with a thousand stars, in a meadow that looks to be in eternal spring, and you wonder if your goddess had a hand in any of it.

four thousand years later, it's another spring. you die, because Hermaeus Mora wouldn't have allowed your story to end any other way—but the Last Dragonborn, Kundruniik, your light-bringer, Elentari, has different plans. it's spring, and you return to life just as Dibella is returning Nirn to life. the heavens you get to stand beneath are the realest thing you've seen in four ages of the world.

in short, I think Dibella means a lot to Miraak. more than Kyne, even. no wonder I call him Mothraak...