Your Truth Cannot Stand
A Skyrim Fanfiction
Chapter 7: All I Should Have Been
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Descent into Darkness
Chapter 2: Strange, Meet Stranger
Chapter 3: Enchanted
Chapter 4: A Dragon, a Daedra and a Justiciar Walk Into a House…
Chapter 5: Oh No, She’s Relatable
Chapter 6: I Need to Speak to the Thalmor’s Manager
Chapter 7: All I Should Have Been (you are here)
Chapter 8: Paralysis Analysis
Chapter 9: It’s the End of the World as We Know it
Chapter 10: Gods and Pawns
Chapter 11: I Was Like You, Once
Chapter 12: Solace from the Sky
Chapter 13: Awakening
Chapter 14: Second Chances
Chapter 1: Descent into Darkness
Chapter 2: Strange, Meet Stranger
Chapter 3: Enchanted
Chapter 4: A Dragon, a Daedra and a Justiciar Walk Into a House…
Chapter 5: Oh No, She’s Relatable
Chapter 6: I Need to Speak to the Thalmor’s Manager
Chapter 7: All I Should Have Been (you are here)
Chapter 8: Paralysis Analysis
Chapter 9: It’s the End of the World as We Know it
Chapter 10: Gods and Pawns
Chapter 11: I Was Like You, Once
Chapter 12: Solace from the Sky
Chapter 13: Awakening
Chapter 14: Second Chances
The moment the handle of the front door rattled, Kierska launched herself to her feet, interrupting herself in mid-sentence and snapping a swift arm backward to catch her falling chair.
“Don’t come in!” she yelped. “Not unless you know how to escape from Molag Bal!”
The handle rattled a second time, inquisitive hands testing their strength against the locked door, then the sound of a spell being charged hissed somewhere behind the metal barrier. The door flickered with magic, and Ondolemar’s heart leapt as it finally swung open.
Then the new arrival stepped through, torch in hand, and the Justiciar’s eyes went wide.
He’d expected the orange robe and yellow hood – the sacred garb of Skyrim’s priests. A noble profession, and one he sometimes envied.
What he hadn’t expected was their owner’s dark grey skin, and the blood-red eyes of the Altmers’ cursed, corrupted cousins. A Dunmer?
Ondolemar’s gaze snapped over to Kierska, wondering what her studies of history had made her feel about the race that had so often attacked and enslaved her own.
If the Dark Elves’ brutal treatment of the Khajiit had left any lingering resentment, it didn’t show. Her eyes shone, her tail lifted, and her face was lit by a smile. “Erandur!” she greeted the priest, jogging toward him with light, bouncing steps and taking his hand in both of her own. “It’s good to see you!”
“It’s always good to see you as well, my daughter,” he replied, and his slow, warm Morrowind drawl was matched by his smile. “Now, Lydia tells me this house is under the power of Molag Bal.”
She gave a quick, earnest nod, like a child answering a question from a beloved parent. “Yes, there’s an altar at the end of a tunnel in the basement. Ondolemar and I and a priest of Boethiah tried to deactivate it, but none of us had any luck.”
“It isn’t a matter of luck, my daughter,” he admonished her. “It’s a matter of being connected to a power that’s greater than yourself. Now, show me where this altar is.”
“All right.” She turned with a quick, sharp spin, then trotted off toward the basement.
As Erandur moved away from the door, Lydia followed him, and Ondolemar trailed behind. He wasn’t anxious to be near the foul energy of that altar again, but his sense of curiosity would never forgive him if he missed seeing how the priest banished the Daedric abomination.
They moved quickly through the darkened rooms and tunnels, and Ondolemar idly wondered if Kierska ever moved at less than a jog when she wasn’t deliberately matching pace with someone. His own long legs kept up easily, but Erandur soon began to pant; he probably hadn’t stopped to rest after making the trip to Markarth.
Within less than a minute, they were standing before the altar again. The house began to tremble, and Kierska and Lydia took up defensive positions, shields raised against the debris that was starting to lash through the air.
“Fool,” the Daedra’s voice rumbled. “This is MY stronghold. Your pitiful Aedra have no power here.”
Magic flared in Ondolemar’s hands, and his ward joined the women’s shields in deflecting Molag Bal’s attack. In the corner of his vision, Erandur set the torch aside, then squared his shoulders as he faced the altar.
“I call upon you, Lady Mara,” he intoned, not even bothering to answer the Daedra’s taunt. “This altar channels the power of a Daedric prince, who would capture and enslave your children to do his evil bidding. Grant me the power to send it to the depths of Oblivion, and to break his hold upon this house, that none may fall into his trap again!”
White light blazed in Erandur’s hands, and Ondolemar craned his neck to watch him more closely, even as he kept his ward between the Dunmer and the ongoing barrage.
Then the room went red.
Misty billows of crimson power rushed toward the altar, laced with bolts of blinding white. Erandur’s hands shone even brighter, the colors of snow rimmed with blood hissing in his upturned palms, and Ondolemar almost fell to his knees.
He could feel her. The power of Mara filled the room, warm with the affection of the goddess of compassion, and ablaze with the righteous wrath of the goddess of love when the people she loved were in danger.
It was the light of burning, cleansing fire, purging a source of evil from Nirn. It was everything he wanted to be as a Thalmor Justiciar.
He could have stayed in that light forever. Perhaps when he died, he would have the joy of doing so.
But for now, it ended as swiftly as it began. One last, ferocious blaze of power, and Molag Bal’s unnatural darkness was driven from the room, pursued by Mara’s brilliance as both of them rushed through the walls and vanished.
Erandur slumped, and Kierska quickly grabbed his elbow with her free hand, steadying him. Ondolemar’s ward collapsed, and he glanced around the suddenly still room, searching for any trace of the light that had graced it.
There was nothing but the shaft of sunlight streaming through a gap in the ceiling, orange with the glow of late evening, and the absence left him bereft.
“Is he gone?” Kierska’s voice broke the silence, and her bright eyes darted around the room, catching the fading light and amplifying it. “It feels like Molag Bal is gone.”
“He isn’t gone from Nirn entirely,” Erandur replied, “but his hold on this house is broken. Lady Mara saw to that.”
“WOOHOOO!” The childlike whoop made Ondolemar jump, and his bemusement was quickly drowned in envy as Kierska threw her arms around the priest, being careful not to jab him on her armor’s spikes. “Thanks, Erandur!” Her head tilted to the ceiling. “And thank you, Lady Mara!”
That should have been me. A rock settled in the pit of Ondolemar’s stomach, and self-recrimination pounded through him as he watched the Dragonborn stare at Erandur with gratitude, relief and delight. I should have thought to call on the Divines for help.
I should’ve been the one to bring divine fire down and purge the altar from this world. It should have been me she looked at that way.
But it wasn’t. I didn’t. Instead of relying on the Divines I serve, I relied on Thalmor and Altmer superiority, and…
And he couldn’t bring his mind to complete the sentence. But the knowledge was there nonetheless.
He’d relied on the superiority of Mer, and it had let him down.
~*~
“So,” Carnaril’s dreaded voice summed up, “your job was to root out Talos worshipers and remind the Nords of our superiority, and instead you embarrassed the Thalmor, even in your own eyes.”
“The embarrassment was exclusively my own,” Ondolemar tried to assure him. “I accept full responsibility for my failure that day, and I do not intend to repeat that mistake.”
“Hmph. I wish I could agree with the former statement, and I certainly do not believe the latter. But what concerns me even more is that you and the Dragonborn seem to be getting overly close and familiar, and it appears to be having a stronger effect on your loyalties than it is on hers.”
“If that is the case,” Ondolemar countered, “then why did she send me a message warning me to leave Markarth when it was given to the Stormcloaks during the High Hrothgar peace conference?
“It seems that, even when she’s preparing to chase a dragon into the Nord afterlife, she can still find more time to be loyal to my well-being than our own First Emissary, given that Elenwen failed to provide similar warning.”
A failure that had dropped a rock in his gut when he’d learned of the Emissary’s presence at the conference. He’d assumed that the Thalmor simply hadn’t known about the shift in power until it was too late, but to hear that Elenwen had witnessed the exchange and not bothered to tell him about it…
Did she simply not care if I was killed? The question had repeatedly clawed its way through his head, making his breath catch in his throat and drawing questioning glances from the people in the Blue Palace. Or did she WANT me to die?
“It is true that she corrected an… oversight on the part of our administrative staff,” Carnaril conceded, and Ondolemar wondered if it really had been a mere oversight. “But while your life may have been saved by her actions, I cannot say the same for Ancano, or for several Justiciars who had the misfortune of crossing her path.”
“From what I read of the Ancano incident, it sounds like he had gone rogue, and was as much a threat to the Thalmor as he was to the people in his vicinity. As for the other Justiciars… if what I’ve heard of their behavior prior to my correction is true, then they, too, were out of line, and the targets of their misplaced hostility had a right to self-defense.”
“Is that why you endeavored to make the Dragonborn even more powerful, despite the potential harm to our cause?”
Damn. Panic tightened in Ondolemar’s chest, and he tried to keep his racing thoughts from showing on his face. He knows about that. I wonder which of the guards who was hired to protect me betrayed me.
“And,” Carnaril continued, “is your apparent sympathy for our Justiciars’ targets the reason why there were reports of you visiting the shrine of Talos?”
“The first report you should have read on that subject came from me,” Ondolemar retorted, his voice ringing with exasperated rage and fear. You said you read my reports, you damn idiot!
No wonder some prisoners get so testy and sarcastic. For all my trainers’ insistence that asking the same questions repeatedly gets results, from here, it sounds unfathomably stupid.
“I want you to reiterate it,” Carnaril instructed smoothly, and Ondolemar gritted his teeth.
“Fine. I don’t know what you expect to learn that wasn’t already in my repor-UAAAAAAAAH!”
“Just answer the questions. Start with the part where you gave the Dragonborn a spell,” Carnaril instructed, twirling the freshly bloodied mace in his hand, and Ondolemar clenched his teeth tighter, quivering as his arm screamed in the grip of overwhelming pain.
“FINE,” he grated, trying not to snarl and mostly failing.
I’m already talking. You don’t HAVE to beat it out of me, he wanted to point out, but he knew that would only invite the same beating he was trying to avoid.
Instead, he focused on getting the words out before his silence could bring him more pain. “This was prior to the Stormcloak takeover of Markarth. Before the incident at Elenwen’s party, in fact. I had just stepped outside to get some fresh air, when she… heh… dropped in.”
“Don’t come in!” she yelped. “Not unless you know how to escape from Molag Bal!”
The handle rattled a second time, inquisitive hands testing their strength against the locked door, then the sound of a spell being charged hissed somewhere behind the metal barrier. The door flickered with magic, and Ondolemar’s heart leapt as it finally swung open.
Then the new arrival stepped through, torch in hand, and the Justiciar’s eyes went wide.
He’d expected the orange robe and yellow hood – the sacred garb of Skyrim’s priests. A noble profession, and one he sometimes envied.
What he hadn’t expected was their owner’s dark grey skin, and the blood-red eyes of the Altmers’ cursed, corrupted cousins. A Dunmer?
Ondolemar’s gaze snapped over to Kierska, wondering what her studies of history had made her feel about the race that had so often attacked and enslaved her own.
If the Dark Elves’ brutal treatment of the Khajiit had left any lingering resentment, it didn’t show. Her eyes shone, her tail lifted, and her face was lit by a smile. “Erandur!” she greeted the priest, jogging toward him with light, bouncing steps and taking his hand in both of her own. “It’s good to see you!”
“It’s always good to see you as well, my daughter,” he replied, and his slow, warm Morrowind drawl was matched by his smile. “Now, Lydia tells me this house is under the power of Molag Bal.”
She gave a quick, earnest nod, like a child answering a question from a beloved parent. “Yes, there’s an altar at the end of a tunnel in the basement. Ondolemar and I and a priest of Boethiah tried to deactivate it, but none of us had any luck.”
“It isn’t a matter of luck, my daughter,” he admonished her. “It’s a matter of being connected to a power that’s greater than yourself. Now, show me where this altar is.”
“All right.” She turned with a quick, sharp spin, then trotted off toward the basement.
As Erandur moved away from the door, Lydia followed him, and Ondolemar trailed behind. He wasn’t anxious to be near the foul energy of that altar again, but his sense of curiosity would never forgive him if he missed seeing how the priest banished the Daedric abomination.
They moved quickly through the darkened rooms and tunnels, and Ondolemar idly wondered if Kierska ever moved at less than a jog when she wasn’t deliberately matching pace with someone. His own long legs kept up easily, but Erandur soon began to pant; he probably hadn’t stopped to rest after making the trip to Markarth.
Within less than a minute, they were standing before the altar again. The house began to tremble, and Kierska and Lydia took up defensive positions, shields raised against the debris that was starting to lash through the air.
“Fool,” the Daedra’s voice rumbled. “This is MY stronghold. Your pitiful Aedra have no power here.”
Magic flared in Ondolemar’s hands, and his ward joined the women’s shields in deflecting Molag Bal’s attack. In the corner of his vision, Erandur set the torch aside, then squared his shoulders as he faced the altar.
“I call upon you, Lady Mara,” he intoned, not even bothering to answer the Daedra’s taunt. “This altar channels the power of a Daedric prince, who would capture and enslave your children to do his evil bidding. Grant me the power to send it to the depths of Oblivion, and to break his hold upon this house, that none may fall into his trap again!”
White light blazed in Erandur’s hands, and Ondolemar craned his neck to watch him more closely, even as he kept his ward between the Dunmer and the ongoing barrage.
Then the room went red.
Misty billows of crimson power rushed toward the altar, laced with bolts of blinding white. Erandur’s hands shone even brighter, the colors of snow rimmed with blood hissing in his upturned palms, and Ondolemar almost fell to his knees.
He could feel her. The power of Mara filled the room, warm with the affection of the goddess of compassion, and ablaze with the righteous wrath of the goddess of love when the people she loved were in danger.
It was the light of burning, cleansing fire, purging a source of evil from Nirn. It was everything he wanted to be as a Thalmor Justiciar.
He could have stayed in that light forever. Perhaps when he died, he would have the joy of doing so.
But for now, it ended as swiftly as it began. One last, ferocious blaze of power, and Molag Bal’s unnatural darkness was driven from the room, pursued by Mara’s brilliance as both of them rushed through the walls and vanished.
Erandur slumped, and Kierska quickly grabbed his elbow with her free hand, steadying him. Ondolemar’s ward collapsed, and he glanced around the suddenly still room, searching for any trace of the light that had graced it.
There was nothing but the shaft of sunlight streaming through a gap in the ceiling, orange with the glow of late evening, and the absence left him bereft.
“Is he gone?” Kierska’s voice broke the silence, and her bright eyes darted around the room, catching the fading light and amplifying it. “It feels like Molag Bal is gone.”
“He isn’t gone from Nirn entirely,” Erandur replied, “but his hold on this house is broken. Lady Mara saw to that.”
“WOOHOOO!” The childlike whoop made Ondolemar jump, and his bemusement was quickly drowned in envy as Kierska threw her arms around the priest, being careful not to jab him on her armor’s spikes. “Thanks, Erandur!” Her head tilted to the ceiling. “And thank you, Lady Mara!”
That should have been me. A rock settled in the pit of Ondolemar’s stomach, and self-recrimination pounded through him as he watched the Dragonborn stare at Erandur with gratitude, relief and delight. I should have thought to call on the Divines for help.
I should’ve been the one to bring divine fire down and purge the altar from this world. It should have been me she looked at that way.
But it wasn’t. I didn’t. Instead of relying on the Divines I serve, I relied on Thalmor and Altmer superiority, and…
And he couldn’t bring his mind to complete the sentence. But the knowledge was there nonetheless.
He’d relied on the superiority of Mer, and it had let him down.
~*~
“So,” Carnaril’s dreaded voice summed up, “your job was to root out Talos worshipers and remind the Nords of our superiority, and instead you embarrassed the Thalmor, even in your own eyes.”
“The embarrassment was exclusively my own,” Ondolemar tried to assure him. “I accept full responsibility for my failure that day, and I do not intend to repeat that mistake.”
“Hmph. I wish I could agree with the former statement, and I certainly do not believe the latter. But what concerns me even more is that you and the Dragonborn seem to be getting overly close and familiar, and it appears to be having a stronger effect on your loyalties than it is on hers.”
“If that is the case,” Ondolemar countered, “then why did she send me a message warning me to leave Markarth when it was given to the Stormcloaks during the High Hrothgar peace conference?
“It seems that, even when she’s preparing to chase a dragon into the Nord afterlife, she can still find more time to be loyal to my well-being than our own First Emissary, given that Elenwen failed to provide similar warning.”
A failure that had dropped a rock in his gut when he’d learned of the Emissary’s presence at the conference. He’d assumed that the Thalmor simply hadn’t known about the shift in power until it was too late, but to hear that Elenwen had witnessed the exchange and not bothered to tell him about it…
Did she simply not care if I was killed? The question had repeatedly clawed its way through his head, making his breath catch in his throat and drawing questioning glances from the people in the Blue Palace. Or did she WANT me to die?
“It is true that she corrected an… oversight on the part of our administrative staff,” Carnaril conceded, and Ondolemar wondered if it really had been a mere oversight. “But while your life may have been saved by her actions, I cannot say the same for Ancano, or for several Justiciars who had the misfortune of crossing her path.”
“From what I read of the Ancano incident, it sounds like he had gone rogue, and was as much a threat to the Thalmor as he was to the people in his vicinity. As for the other Justiciars… if what I’ve heard of their behavior prior to my correction is true, then they, too, were out of line, and the targets of their misplaced hostility had a right to self-defense.”
“Is that why you endeavored to make the Dragonborn even more powerful, despite the potential harm to our cause?”
Damn. Panic tightened in Ondolemar’s chest, and he tried to keep his racing thoughts from showing on his face. He knows about that. I wonder which of the guards who was hired to protect me betrayed me.
“And,” Carnaril continued, “is your apparent sympathy for our Justiciars’ targets the reason why there were reports of you visiting the shrine of Talos?”
“The first report you should have read on that subject came from me,” Ondolemar retorted, his voice ringing with exasperated rage and fear. You said you read my reports, you damn idiot!
No wonder some prisoners get so testy and sarcastic. For all my trainers’ insistence that asking the same questions repeatedly gets results, from here, it sounds unfathomably stupid.
“I want you to reiterate it,” Carnaril instructed smoothly, and Ondolemar gritted his teeth.
“Fine. I don’t know what you expect to learn that wasn’t already in my repor-UAAAAAAAAH!”
“Just answer the questions. Start with the part where you gave the Dragonborn a spell,” Carnaril instructed, twirling the freshly bloodied mace in his hand, and Ondolemar clenched his teeth tighter, quivering as his arm screamed in the grip of overwhelming pain.
“FINE,” he grated, trying not to snarl and mostly failing.
I’m already talking. You don’t HAVE to beat it out of me, he wanted to point out, but he knew that would only invite the same beating he was trying to avoid.
Instead, he focused on getting the words out before his silence could bring him more pain. “This was prior to the Stormcloak takeover of Markarth. Before the incident at Elenwen’s party, in fact. I had just stepped outside to get some fresh air, when she… heh… dropped in.”
Author's note:
That moment when you just wanted to impress the Dragonborn, but you end up having to get your cocky religious zealot ass saved by a Dunmer who's better at religion than you.
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