#oc:julianne

[bretongirlwrites]

i have thought surprisingly little about how i see the academic structure of the arcane university... i suppose because magic is practically a science in this setting and i don't care for science much. but i've pretty much established that tara-lei's lore-friendly doctorate is funded by a grant from some prestigious magical research group, and is on the origins and effects of willpower. and julianne's is funded by a certain cellar-dwelling potionist with nothing better to do, and is on whatever the hell you're supposed to do with a nirnroot. will it be a ringing success? idk but i'm rooting for her

[nostalgic-breton-girl]

i wrote a new story featuring a boat-race between the arcane university and the university of gwylim. (yes it’s kind of oxford vs cambridge that’s how i perceive them)

here are the headcanons i have established for the piece:

gwylim and the arcane university have a rivalry which at the best of times is friendly, but has been known to get a bit on the frosty side

for several centuries now, the two universities have competed in an annual boat-race around lake rumare. some of these races have been in ordinary rowing-boats. some have been in magically or otherwise enhanced boats. a few have been in boats crafted by the students themselves, as much part of the competition as the race itself

the arcane university goes in for robes. gwylim goes in for gowns. each finds the other’s choice of dress laughable

the arcane university very much focuses on magic as a subject of study. where it ventures into other domains, such as ayleid history, the focus is still towards magical artefacts. gwylim covers other subjects for the most part, ones we might call the humanities today, and which might have come under philosophy or the arts in centuries past. this is also a topic of contention

the two boats which i have imagined for this race are: a boat which uses alteration magic to ‘skip’ across the water, like a skimmed stone; and a vessel based heavily on dwemer steam technology. the arcane/gwylim rivalry is quite often between the arcane and the grounded and this is a prime example. the end of the third era, as is hinted at in bloodmoon, sees some attempts at creating assorted crafts using dwemer ideas. none of them work very well

the imperials invented punts and routinely go punting around lake rumare

strawberries and cream are the cyrodiilic picnic par excellence

[bretongirlwrites]

@sheirukitriesfandom tagged me a few days ago for a wip extract... have this bit about a plate of morrowind sandwiches

We found, over the course of the evening, that crab and hackle-lo went well together, for two things which are never acquaintanced in the wild, and so Julianne baptised it unnaturally good; that the bite to bittergreen, like cress, perfectly set off an egg sandwich, though kwama eggs to the uninitiated have a bit of the cave-damp still in them; that comberry jam in copious quantities almost made up for sliced hound meat; and that scuttle is best thrown out to the birds. (Julianne went out the next morning with this express intention; and found herself complained at by pretentious birds used to better scraps.) My companion’s only complaint was that they did bread better in Cyrodiil, and especially over westwards; but I was used enough to what was left of it by the time it reached Solstheim, that I could not offer a point in its disfavour. I realised too late, to my dismay, that the Councillor had perhaps unwittingly bribed me with sandwiches [...]

tagging @rosette-dragonborn @elavoria and anyone else who wants to take part!

[bretongirlwrites]

tagged by @elavoria and @sheirukitriesfandom both for a wip extract... will tag in return @druidx @rosette-dragonborn and @sylvienerevarine, if they want to share :)

in which julianne does crime and meets marianne... basically a copy of necromancer's moon is stolen from the arcane university and both the university and the thieves' guild find themselves on the same trail

‘Stop right there, criminal scum!’ cried a voice at my back: and before I could begin a spell, my hands were in someone else’s and quite out of action. The grip was so tight, that I feared I’d never leave it: until my captor laughed and let me go and turning me around so that I was flat against the house wall, said:  ‘Aha! I’ve always wanted to say that. Got you! What are you up to?’ I’d thought to be in the clutches of some scowling criminal; by the strength and deftness of her hands, the clasp of a dastardly rogue; found myself rather, facing a woman, – barely a woman, – ten years my younger, thin as a lathe and face bright even in the night. She was not the Thieves’ Guild I’d imagined. If indeed she was Thieves’ Guild, – I tried to breathe, dared to scratch my head, wondered quite if I knew what I was up to myself. If I was up to anything, it was my neck at this point.

[bretongirlwrites]

julianne getting her arcane university doctorate or whatever the arcane university calls them. because i think the arcane university needs more gowns

[bretongirlwrites]

Julianne, who entirely overdid herself in defeating Mannimarco, was brought back for her convalescence to the chapel in Bruma. Her magicka having been entirely spent, she is forbidden from doing magic for a bit, so as not to overexert herself again.

--------

‘Ah! it’s marvellous to see you up and about, Miss Traven,’ said Cirroc interrupting my nothing, ‘but for all our sakes, don’t overdo it, will you?’

I had already tramped over to the opposite wall, and back, and repeated the action; I had already, for want of other things to do, stretched my arms and combed my hair; and all this having tired me beyond what I thought was possible, I’d taken to leaning against the wall and staring at it as if there were a window there. Father had brought me a small stack of books; but they were some, dry, on theology, and all the rest on magic; and magic was my damnable prohibition, – for a few days, Father had beseeched me, while your font of magicka heals, – you don’t want to overdo it.

‘I don’t think,’ said I desperately, ‘that I can underdo things. I am going insane in here. O how do you live like this!’

‘By appreciation of simplicity,’ said Cirroc shrugging, ‘and devotion to the Nine who provide us our every need, – but I know you are not the clerical sort. I shall see tomorrow if Novaroma has anything lighter to read, or the library, –’

‘I think I’m beyond even Waughin Jarth’s help now,’ said I; but good-humouredly; and cast a last glance out of my non-window before collapsing onto the bed: ‘oh! you’re a mage, Cirroc, it’s like cutting off your damn arm. I am going insane!’ said I, again, –

‘Only another three weeks,’ said Cirroc chuckling sympathetically.

He must have thought that Father had informed me of this, – that though Father had seen my sinking disappointment, he’d not melted in the face of it and understated, – he must not, in short, have suspected that Father had told me: you must not do any magic for a few days. A few days! and I’d battered at the bars of my invisible dungeon and protested and he’d put an arm around my shoulder and said that everything would be all right, –

‘Three weeks!’ I cried.

‘Then,’ said he, ‘ – no doubt you’ll be back at the University by then, – you will have a strict regimen to get your magic back without straining yourself, –’

‘Three weeks!’

‘Think of it as a muscle, Miss Traven,’ said he, ‘have you ever sprained your foot, perhaps? It needs rest, and a slow return to normal, –’

I am sure that sparks might have flown from all my hair and fingers, – had the thing not been banned, – were the font on which I drew, so out of reach, that even had I wanted to, I’d have made a half-glowing cinder at best, and watched it die on the same bed I’d barely survived in. 

‘Three weeks!’ I murmured: and buried my face in the pillow.

He thought at first that I’d burst into tears: moved closer: but when I raised my head, I was as surprised as he was, to be laughing. Laughing, – because it was silly, – because it was trivial, – because I’d lived weeks, months in despair, three days in hell! – and now that all was said and done, I complained that I was deprived of a pleasure, for but three weeks, – a small repercussion, for killing a man, and bringing light all upon the world again!

Father had said, honestly though not without some paternal pride, that: you’ll be one of the greatest mages of the era, when they write the history-books. Here sat the greatest mage of the era, staring at a wall, with not the least bit of magic in her fingertips! o what a sorry pathetic unmoving sight I may be, now all was said and done, – 

‘Three weeks,’ said I leaning back: ‘a most inconvenient prescription. Thank you, doctor.’

‘It will fly by,’ returned Cirroc. 

‘Like a new alterationist and his novice levitation-spell,’ said I: ‘well! Cirroc, – I won’t turn my nose up to a bit of Waughin Jarth, –’

‘I’ll have a look tomorrow,’ he promised and made to leave.

‘It had better be the complete works,’ said I, ‘that will occupy me for a day or two,’ and when he closed the door, I closed my eyes still laughing, – and you will none of you believe it, but I was happy enough for three weeks, – happy that it was over, and I was alive, – alive enough, that my mind, unfettered, raced to complain!...

[bretongirlwrites]

The Blades prepare for their assault on the Mythic Dawn shrine.

The courtyard had become so tumultuous, that I could hardly find Corinne; until at last I saw her beside her horse, and so intent upon whomever should give the next order, that she did not see me, until I clapped her on the back and told her that, – in all this mess of footmen and clanking armour and forgotten things steadily sent for, – she needn’t worry yet about movement, since nobody else was ready yet.

‘They are,’ said she, ‘and only delaying it; for though we so want it, this ending, it is something which seems to await the right moment. And there never quite being a right moment, –’

A sort of patting one’s thighs and saying I shall go now and beginning another conversation lest one really must leave, – I thought of putting the kettle on again; but now could not escape from all the gathering agents. 

‘Will this really be the end!’ said I: ‘I wonder… You are right: it never feels like an end, does it. Not like the stories…’

One of the Blades brushed past me, apologised without looking, had got halfway to his horse before returning and repeating at once the toe-stepping and the apology. I was perfectly in the way; but reluctant to turn away and leave my sister to her quest.

'Things just happen,’ said I, ‘and then more things happen, – I do not mean to discourage you, Corinne dearest. Go forth and finish the damn thing, won’t you.’

‘I shall try my utmost,’ Corinne replied, quite as if she were swearing an oath to her emperor; and grasping her most affectionately by the middle, I managed to force her to informality, and a smiling promise that: ‘If I don’t manage to kill the one responsible, then I am sure that you will half kill me, and that is motivation more than anything.’

‘Let it be final,’ I insisted.

We concluded our farewells more wordlessly and with more staunch emotion, such that once we were done with it, there were hardly words left; and when she left with the others, out towards the fire-dark depths of that shrine to chaos and destruction, I knew that only something remarkable would stay her sword; and hoped though I hardly could, that if there must be an ending, let it for once be happy, –

[bretongirlwrites]

‘He’s changed,’ said Marianne a little critical: ‘hasn’t he? – our Martin.’

A man who had not caught my attention, in Kvatch: a man of quiet average kindness, to Marianne: who introduced into this most persistent of lime-lights, had learnt confidence and imperiousness as a means of survival. Who before a nobody, had had to invent a somebody: and must take lessons from those who, flustered in uncertain territories, clung to a status quo. That Martin took after his father, after all, surprised nobody, – 

‘I do not like to think,’ I mused at last, ‘that I have helped.’

It was unkind, to speak so ambiguously outside of his earshot; but that was a thing among all others which he must get used to; and Marianne pointing out the glint of Blades-armour a short way off, led me further onto the ramparts, – some reminder of our purpose, perhaps, in that vista of the City. 

‘I had thought the Blades were as much arses as the guard,’ Marianne admitted: ‘but Baurus is a decent man. I did not think he’d accept the help of the Thieves’ Guild, but, – oh! they are all just like us, aren’t they. Led astray by circumstance.’

‘Aren’t we all,’ said I.

It was not difficult to perceive my fatigue. I was astounded that Marianne, – who while I was holed up with my books, had scouted the City and foiled assassins, – was still bright-eyed: but that was how it had always been, hadn’t it? that instinct, that ever-wakeful eye, – 

‘I admire the Blades,’ said I, ‘I think: but I did not realise until I got here, how much I do not understand them. Oh! if ever anything should happen to the Temple, then they shall all queue up to sacrifice themselves for Martin; and he having fallen under their spell, shall be the first to martyr himself; and I out of fear and cowardice, – I shall be the last standing! – I suppose that is why I am in the Thieves’ Guild.’

‘It’s not cowardice,’ Marianne laughed: ‘it’s common sense. Conflicts with duty, a little bit. Sometimes you have to think outside the box, –’

‘If I do not stretch my legs soon,’ said I, ‘then I shall be driven insane; or else join their queue. If they are not the same thing, –’

‘Is it too late for Martin,’ said Marianne putting a hand on my shoulder: ‘I wonder?’

It was usually at sunset, that Martin would put in his appearance on the battlements, and behold trembling that land which was to be his. – On my inauguration as Arch-Mage, I had looked out over the gathered Guild-mages, and become quite faint: I could not possibly understand the plight of the Emperor, though I’d tried to give him confidence. – Tonight, though the spectacle of the sky was as wonderful as ever, he did not emerge.

Did not emerge: and so I’d avoid his conversation, that voice which became more and more his father’s. Learning to be Emperor, from Blades who’d known but one. A man who’d been normal, who’d been nobody; who given power, said he did not want it; but who given purpose, must not shirk this most imminent of duties. A sentiment I almost knew! – 

‘Let’s walk down to Bruma,’ said I: happy to have a friend up here, took Marianne’s arm: and without looking back, left her question unanswered within those darkening Temple walls.

[bretongirlwrites]

‘The supposition is perfectly reasonable,’ said I: ‘there is no reason it should not work; save that, –’

‘Save that the Nirnroot,’ said Tara, ‘has evaded knowledge for a thousand years. That it glows whilst alive, means nothing, –’

‘That is the sort of attitude,’ said I, – quite undeterred, put the leaf in my mortar, – ‘that has ignored things for a thousand years.’ 

I detached the roots from it; shook it a bit; crushed it a bit; and wondered at last if there was anything which might be done to stop the damnable ringing, which Sinderion after all had warned me about. – ‘I shan’t be deterred by that,’ I had told him. – ‘Could you speak up?’ he had replied: ‘I cannot hear you over the tinnitus.’ – Leastways it would not stop: and to my left, a poor scholar gave up on his own work, and departed. I mashed the thing a little more; and invited Tara to prepare the milk-thistle.

‘There are much easier ways,’ said Tara, whose skirt-hems were still damp with lake-water, ‘to make a potion of light.’

‘Oh!’ said I: ‘I do not believe the Arcane University has ever done something easily, which might be done more interestingly.’ 

‘No,’ said Tara, – mashed the thistle with good-humoured resignation: ‘no, we haven’t.’

The materials prepared, I got a flask of water on the boil; set up our calcinator; and began to hum, a vain reattempt to drown out the ringing. – Absently nibbled a bit of milk thistle: was most startled when the whole room lit up. – All was in place: we had only to boil the thing, and then test it.

‘Anyway,’ said Tara at length: ‘if you and Sinderion keep pulling up nirnroots, we shall have none left by the end of the era.’

‘That is a long way off,’ said I, ‘we are hardly four hundred years into it. Oh! there’ll be droves of them somewhere we can’t get to them. – Is that nirnroot charred enough yet? It is still ringing.’

‘Only very faintly,’ said she: ‘it must be your ears;’ but she passed it over regardless; along with the thistle-pulp. I became most delighted by it even before we had finished: for the ingredients were perfectly prepared; and Sinderion and I being pioneers in nirnroot experimentation, we must take the utmost care over it. 

‘Well!’ said I: ‘you do the honour of the thistle; and then I shall, –’

The milk-thistle is so-named, because its pulp is white: and when put into a potion, it so resembles milk, that one is fooled until one tastes it, and gets all the sentiment of having consumed a liquified hedgerow. The water became cloudy, but had no bits in it: we had done well so far. 

‘The honour of the nirnroot,’ said Tara, ‘is all yours:’ and quite to my consternation, she took two steps back. 

‘You will want to watch this,’ said I: ‘whatever happens, it will be novel.’

‘That is one way,’ said Tara, ‘of describing all of your experiments.’

I dismissed the barb; drew myself up; and already imagining the quill in my hand, to write up my tribulations and victories, I collected up the nirnroot from the calcinator, and poured it into our funnel. At once the water became not dirtied, but a wonderful glowing sort of dark green, – began to fizz, – I took out the funnel, and waited in triumphant anticipation.

The mixture settled for a moment; but quite as if to spite me, when I had just leaned over, redoubled its fizzing, and without warning shot up from the flask, and in a bright pillar almost to the ceiling. Tara, who would later suggest the addition of buckets to the Lustratorium, rushed forwards by instinct, and caught enough of it on her robes, that she could see them a little in the dark for ever afterwards. There had not been very much water in the flask; yet infinities of it poured out, and faintly ringing all the while; and when it had done, I was left to look in dismay over a table quite drenched, and an afternoon of ingredients spent in disaster.

‘If you say: I told you so, –’ said I at last, – 

‘Well,’ said Tara, ‘I did say that I did not believe it would work. If you had meant to create a potion of levitation, perhaps, – but light, –’

‘Did you see that!’ I cried: ‘we illuminated the whole room!’

‘And so might we have done,’ said Tara wringing out her robes, ‘with a potted nirnroot on the corner of the desk.’

I opened my mouth to disagree; but could say only something about utilitarianism and novelty; and becoming glad that if there was one thing that might be done easily and without exciting novelty, it was cleaning, – went laughing for the towels.

------

thanks to @druidx for the prompt ‘a magical experiment gone awry’ for julianne!

[bretongirlwrites]

julianne traven meets the grey fox. -- or, the grey fox meets a comfortably well-off university student trying to join the thieves’ guild for some reason

---------------------

‘It is truly an honour,’ said I: ‘I have, I believe, seen your likeness on every wall of the City.’

    I am sure he beamed, beneath the mask, – it went to his eyes, – and that settled me: I no longer feared rough chastisement, so much as gentle mockery. 

    ‘And I,’ said he, ‘have heard your name so variously, that one might believe the whole of Cyrodiil were named Julianne Traven. – Coffee?'

He offered a cup though I was distracted, – for hearing him, I had begun to wonder if I knew the man. Something in his demeanour, – or perhaps in his voice, – whatever it was, I had already forgotten, by the time the conversation was done. – Leastways he poured the coffee with all the grace as in a City café; and said as a point of pride, that it was stolen from Castle Bruma. 'Theirs is a mediocre taste in coffee,' said he: 'but I have stolen their sugar, too, so it ought to be tolerable.'

I was quite out of place: and receiving this drink, settled only for saying, piecemeal, that I was at once honoured and perplexed by his invitation: and wondering if perhaps, in integrating myself into a Guild in which I did not belong, I had drawn a not wholly inconsequential attention to myself.

    ‘Those among the genteel who thieve,’ said he, ‘most often do not do so in a way I should approve. You do not seem to be among them: but I fear nevertheless that you may see our business as trivial, – for you after all, may return home in the evening,’ a sort of melancholy to it: ‘and take on some honester identity. I meant in examining you, to ascertain your mettle. There are lengths to which you must be willing to go, in this line of work. I fear you may refuse a task, – where others of the Guild cannot afford to, no matter the implications.’

    In truth I had not seen it so starkly, and could not help but express as much. He only smiled, – gentle mockery, not chastisement, – and said:

    ‘It is admirable work, which you have already undertaken, and mean to undertake. But it is difficult, and must be difficult. I shall come to the crux of it. I have arranged, on the thirteenth of Frostfall,’ – a small pride though he had a thousand times been so daring, – ‘a mass heist, throughout the City. You know, I hope, – though you may not feel it, – of the scrutiny which, misdirected, keeps our Waterfront imprisoned. And it must be misdirected. The City will be burgled all at once.’ 

    ‘You sound more thrilled,’ said I half relieved by it, ‘than vindictive.’

    ‘I mean no ill in all of it,’ said he: ‘but it must be on a grand scale. – Your task is this. I believe that your father the Arch-Mage is in possession of Hrormir’s Ice-staff, a most valuable and extraordinary artefact. On that very night, you will steal it from him, and surrender it to the Guild.’

    ‘Ah!’ I cried, for I knew the staff well, – had seen it in my father’s very bedroom: ‘sir, you are quite the master of the personalised quest, – or perhaps the agonising decision, – oh! steal from my father!’

    He nodded hands spread, as if he had already won some victory. I might have been outraged; save that the coffee had lent me a sort of energy and confidence: so that rather than be hostile, I was hesitantly open to discuss it. I leant forwards even as he settled back in his chair, and supposed that some sort of punishment would await refusal.

    ‘If by punishment you mean banishment from the Guild, with no hope of return,’ said he, ‘then you are right. – And before you ask: no information about this Heist must leave your lips; not even to your father; or the punishment shall be worse; for there is a great deal of minute information about your dealings with the Thieves’ Guild, which might easily be got to the Council of Mages.’

    ‘You have put me in a predicament, sir,’ said I, and became distracted by my coffee. 

    It was not Father’s initiation-staff: that I would have refused at the first no matter the consequences, for a mage’s first staff is such a wealth of sentimentality, that its loss is the second-greatest beyond one’s magicka. The Ice-staff was more powerful than his initiation-staff, and certainly might sell for more; but meant less; yet as to whether I’d take it, in return for my continued place in the Guild of Thieves, – 

    Was it a betrayal of my father? was it more than I was willing to do? Oh! the Grey Fox had spoken so well, that I saw the whole thing spread before me: that I might afford to preserve some small sentiment of my father’s, – and a staff when he already had one, – rather than bitterly need the money it might fetch. To steal it, would be to show myself willing to help the Guild and the City poor, whatever it took. And I’d been told that, and never imagined, – 

    The Grey Fox however, perceiving that he had agitated me quite beyond the effects of the coffee, most unexpectedly softened a little: and bending towards me that our eyes met at my level, said:

    ‘For what it is worth, Miss Traven: I have made difficult decisions. I have betrayed close friends, for the good of the people. I have sacrificed treasures, that my people might live a little better. It is a damnably difficult thing I have given you. If you must refuse, you may walk away from the Guild as if you never were in it. I have seen your attachment to your father, –’

    Leant back: and though he spoke volumes of gravity, there was yet a spark in his eyes, which returned me to the thrill of the chase; to the reverence which I had felt, in meeting him, quite beyond any of the Cyrodiil nobility; to the Thieves’ Guild, which I had, – naively?, – come to be so fond of. And when I thought on the matter, and drank more of my coffee, I found myself trusting him explicitly: therefore at last, at last: 

    ‘I shall do it,’ said I, quite overcome, ‘if it be worth the effort.’

    ‘Capital,’ he cried: and with an easy familiarity which I wished I might place, took my hand quite tightly, and shook it.

-------------

thanks to @spacetime-storytime for the prompt ‘meeting a favourite npc for the first time’!

[bretongirlwrites]

‘Oh!’ said I: ‘when the Grandmaster said we were to ride into the City in state, –’

Martin suffering from the long ride, sat like some dishevelled burden in his saddle; looked over his new dominion as if he had been given the charge of some wild beast; and glanced over at me hoping my hair might be more windswept than his, – 

‘I suppose he meant,’ I went on wryly, ‘that we were to arrive at the City in a state.’

Hoped with it, to evoke some sort of smile. He did not: rather billowed out his cloak and wondered how he ought to do it, – if he ought to cast money out to the crowd, – ‘That is no use,’ said he at last: ‘I put all of my spare change in the collection at Bruma.’

‘I can lend you a half-septim,’ said I putting my hand in my pocket, ‘and… and… and a sherbet lemon.’

He still did not laugh; only considered the western horizon; and nostalgic, said:

‘There is a stained-glass in Kvatch, which I often dwelt upon. It has a humble lord riding into a city, who finding a shivering beggar in the gutter, cuts off a great piece of his cape for him. I suppose the whole cape might have been better, –’

‘If an Emperor were to cut his cape in half for a beggar,’ said I, ‘then it would be talked about for generations, I’m sure. If you did it with no expectation of a stained-glass, then, –’

‘I do hope,’ said Corinne appearing beside me, ‘that you don’t actually intend to cut His Highness the late Emperor Uriel’s cloak in half.’

‘It will be worth twice as much,’ said I laughing: ‘come, Corinne, what do you think Martin ought to do, on entering the City? – Is there Blades protocol for it?’

‘The Emperor,’ said she: ‘must be at once stately, dignified and humble. He must acknowledge his people without stooping, –’

‘Is throwing a sherbet lemon at a peasant,’ I interrupted, ‘out of the question?’

‘Julianne, you’re a bad influence,’ said Corinne at once, though not in bad humour: and tried to remove me to talk to Martin herself. I let her ride alongside; but not overtake me: and when she again emphasised humility, I must put in:

‘All of this is pointless, at any rate. Humility must be spontaneous, and not planned before we have even reached Weye. Martin already has humility in spades. I’m sure he’ll manage that bit. It’s the acknowledging his people part we’re trying to figure out, –’

‘A doff of the cap,’ said she, ‘or a ruffle of the cape; a nod in all directions; it need not be a grand gesture; they will be satisfied, –’

‘Will they,’ said he, ‘will they? Will they know me?’

The voice still which I remembered from Kvatch, – 

But the Emperor Uriel’s cloak; a hand to his hair; straightening on the horse; a crease upon his brow which I knew, but obliquely, – I had been about to pocket my half-septim: but turning it heads-up, studied it a moment, and said that I had no doubts: that they’d know their Emperor.

‘You’ll arrive in state, and they’ll know that,’ said I, ‘at any rate, –’

‘I must be stately,’ said Martin: but when I offered the coins, took them.

[bretongirlwrites]

‘Oh!’ said Martin when he was sure of his audience: ‘you know I did not lead the Chapel, in Kvatch; nor even make any bids for Guild-steward; I wonder: do you know that the thought never crossed my mind? – I had too soft a voice even to lead prayers. A sorry sort of progeny! I do not know how to lead!’

He had made several such complaints, though none so directly; and with every one of them, had looked quite pointedly at me or at Jauffre, as if we, oh! as if we might know anything of leading a whole nation and empire! In truth I found the whole notion so insufferable, that at every moment, I was on the point of telling Martin so; but for the fact that he surely knew it himself; and if he had not yet erupted with it, then it was, – as all of this damnable business, – as is anything where Akatosh is concerned, – only a matter of time.

He had never made a complaint so directly pertinent, nor so directly to me; which put me quite on the spot.

‘I shall listen,’ said I: ‘but I can hardly advise you.’

At which he became startled; and said:

‘You are so renowned as Arch-Mage: very much a credible and respected leader. Even here you have a sort of infectious confidence which I know is helping morale, –’

‘It is not helping yours,’ said I drily.

‘I do not know,’ said he, ‘if anything can.’

Tiredly, – of course he was tired, – so were we all. I had not known at first how I was still standing. Some of it was those strange exalted memories from Kvatch, – the knowledge of the threat; and the knowledge of our own skill; the sheer willpower of it; wanting to survive, even with flames behind us… But now, precarious on an armchair with the future Emperor likewise sagging in another, – 

‘I will not accept a barrage of compliments,’ said I, ‘at any rate. Renowned does not matter; Arch-Mage does not matter; I only hope that at the end of all this, I do not finish as some mere footnote in the Black Horse Courier, after being squished by a daedra.’

I had spoken so wryly, and with such a firm hint of a smile, that Martin could not help but laugh. A small success. I sat up straight on my chair-arm, and staring a moment at the tattered sleeves on my robes, which I nevertheless wore, I said:

‘I have convinced you, that I am good-humoured and confident, still: just as I before convinced Cyrodiil that I am worthy of responsibility. That is half of the secret. The other half of it, is fooling myself…’

With my own shuffle, he had begun to straighten; and now I was startled, when his face in firelit profile, became something quite different from before. My words upon him, persuaded him into a noble stance; and oh! that profile, which I half thought I knew, – 

A numismatic profile. – Yes! – Yes, I knew it. The heads-side of a coin, an old septim glimmering!

[bretongirlwrites]

julianne’s defeat of mannimarco - the prompt ‘terribly wounded and far from anywhere’, from @druidx

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I did not expect the blow to fell him. I had gone into it with all the fury of a mage defeated, – the glow in my staff gone, I’d reversed the thing, and swung it blindly, – but I put so much force into it, and he had so little remaining, that it was more than his revenant body might bear. He did not even let out a cry, – had lived already longer than he ought, – only fell: and even in this bloody candlelight, I saw his robes crumple as if he had become dust inside them. 

I am sure I remember standing over him, – swaying, victorious, – 

But if the blow had been the catastrophic spending of his energies, it was hardly less mine: and though I yet imagined this defeat as glorious, my mind soared beyond the limits of my body. Spent of magic, I’d put all I had into a dragon-skin, and then this last ludicrous attempt. It was done: and I, too, fell.

My heart pounded, as if to replace vast flights of blood, – 

Oh! I had never been so alive, so clinging to it, as on that brink: my heart so loud in my ears, that all of myself echoed with myself, and I became a thousand of myself, in imagining. I had previously determined that if I died for the Guild of Mages, – and the good of Cyrodiil, after all, – then it would be honourable; but there was no honour in this, not in dying, miles from anywhere, from anyone. I could think almost of nothing save returning, and my heart became the footsteps of some miraculous rescuer, – 

Spent of plans, spent of ruses, spent nearly of sense: and half dreaming, thought I stood, thought the footsteps were my own. Fled the cave, and saw again the vast sweep of Cyrodiil below: commanded it. There reaching me was Father on horseback; his smile my relief; relief which must not come, for I dreamt. Footsteps which were only my heart; my own contorted smile, which braved the efforts of the pain. And there I was again, in darkness. 

A cut on my finger, which I had procured in falling; the blood rising to the rhythm of my heart; I quite enchanted by this sign of life, out of myself. I may yet live; there may yet be footsteps and horse-canter; I must wait, and cling to what I could!

If I died for the Guild, I’d be allowed some posthumous honour; but I’d have been foolish; I must not. I’d defeated the man, this thing, I most hated in the world, and I deserved that world without him. If only to tell the story of it: that I had defeated the greatest necromancer of the age, through brute force! I had only hit him, and he had fallen. It would make someone laugh, – 

Firelight warmth, Father’s laughter, – an eruption of pain, – then, blissful senseless nothing.

[bretongirlwrites]

A bustling little woman, my mage, and so brimming that one hardly believed that she was in such a line of work as hers; she sat me down, and chattered all the while, and took my wrist saying: ‘Oh! you must only bear with me for a second. – There will be a bit of a tingle. Simple little spell, it is. – But I have to ask that you don’t watch, – trade secrets, and all that, –’

‘Shame,’ said I, ‘for I am most curious about it.’

‘Bit of a mage, are you?’

‘Just a little bit,’ said I smiling.

With gentle fingers she traced a shaped upon my wrist; and narrated all her actions, that rather than silence being her means of concentration. There was indeed a sort of vibration in it, which made all my hairs stand on end; and she had scarcely begun, when I discerned that it was some manner of illusion-magic. A sort I hardly recognised however, as if it were on the very edge of my knowledge, – the Guild had been right, in saying that they had a magic of their own, a sort of cant, – I so desperately wanted to inspect it; but before I could break my composure, it was done, and she invited me to have a look.

‘Here,’ said she, still holding my wrist, – and now that I saw her quick careful movements, I knew that despite everything she was very much the thief. I had done well, to trust her without looking. – ‘It is invisible now: but there is someone in every Guild-hall who can reveal it. They will just perform a simple spell, like so, –’

This magic was not hidden; and it was another sort of illusion-spell, which works at detecting magic, but with much more specificity. – Such that there emerged a shimmering mark upon my skin, which I knew was not quite real. 

‘Very impressive,’ said I, ‘most impressive,’ and I must press her for more; but she would not say; only commented that I had quite the scholarly imagination; and that, – 

‘Oh!’ said she: ‘I know who you are. – A little bit of a mage! You’re Julianne Traven.’

‘I am more famous than I thought,’ said I not wanting to entertain the subject.

But she surprised me, when beaming, and taking my hand once more in both of hers, she said:

‘Is it true, madame, that in duelling Mannimarco, your magic failed at the end; and you must sneak up behind him; and hit him with a stick?’

It was such a heterodox question, that I remained quite silent; and my face must give her whatever answer it could, – which is to say, that I was so astounded by the truth expressed, that there was nothing I could hide. Thereupon she did not pester me with more questions, – to my relief; only pressed her fingers to the most ingenious shadowmark which she had crafted; beamed, and laughed, and said: ‘Julianne Traven, one of us! oh! welcome to the Thieves’ Guild!’

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because @druidx asked me about an isolated line in the last fic... my headcanon is that the thieves’ guild uses a distinguishing mark to prevent infiltration and to find their own

[bretongirlwrites]

Off the back of your tags from the OC poll, does Corinne ever feel bitter/ jaded/ jilted etc that Julianne steals the limelight?

Also, apologies if I've missed it, but what is the age order of the Traven children?

Also also now, poor girl, I feel I need to request more fics featuring her 😅

corinne (born 3E 394) is two years younger than julianne... as a child, she was at once less magically talented and less showily eccentric than her older sister, so it really felt as if julianne was the special one. corinne wasn't resentful as such; but she abandoned the mages' guild for the fighters' guild as soon as she could, to feel useful, to feel talented

now however i don't think julianne gives the impression of stealing corinne's limelight outside of my own biases. corinne is no longer anything close to bitter. julianne may be arch-mage: but corinne, too, is exactly where she wants to be. she'd much sooner follow than lead; and as a blade, her role is more than important

but oh i feel bad for abandoning corinne myself a bit... i guess the main quest doesn't interest me as much as the questlines julianne is involved with. i wrote a little about her a long while ago... conflicting loyalties and troubling devotion and an abiding love for one of her fellow blades. there's a lot to be said about her. maybe with some pressing i will manage to say it...

[bretongirlwrites]

snippet sunday

tagged by @sheirukitriesfandom​... i’m still working on julianne’s theft of the ice-staff

tagging anyone with a wip who wants to share :)