rowancrowned | fade rift ✧ inbox

[ he likes the thrumming behind her words, the potential. ]

Yes, [ he says, agreeing. ] But less 'are' and greater 'were'. Wretched things, a particular foulness given form. No children, for that would be the power of creation and they were too incapable of original thought to do as much. Violent, pestilence made flesh enough to be slain by the exceptional.

I have faced one in war. I did not come away whole.

[ contemplative: ] So what is in this taint that it makes their dragons alike in endurance to our dragons?

They are all children of Akatosh, specially attuned to the flow of time, him being the dragon god of time. The concept of time. I-- I am not wholly myself. To be Dragonborn is to have the soul of a dragon, I learn from their souls taken into myself to understand. Their death sticks when someone like me kills them but otherwise? The soul stays with the bones. Another dov comes. Says their name. They rise.

This I have seen with the World-Eater, Alduin Firstborn. I watched Thranduil. I've felt their breath, their teeth, their claws. I have the scars from them too but--

A violent shout is to take in violence. [Arngeir's near-anger with her. Almost disappointment until it was clear Paarthurnax had agreed.

She is laying the pieces out as bare bones beneath the sun, excited to say, to say that hear is a secret rich as hearts blood, as marrow, forbidden knowledge Herma-Mora would blind for.]

[ he has withdrawn from beleth, whom he loves as a child of his heart, not his flesh, and for much less than laying claim to the soul of a dragon within her own. he must take a side-step past that, to grasp what she is saying, and then to understand.

music. she means music. the absolute command of a thing by speaking its true nature in the way that elves are able to alter the world around them by calling to it as eru once had, when it was nothing and then something, and then the whole of creation. ]

To speak nothing of violence...

You could command the whole of the world with that tongue.

[Inside her, in her green-knotted bones where she is treesap young in the way they aren't here there is the knowledge to unmake her shape. To slough off this skin, to become another form the way they were in the chaos times.

How much easier to speak with one who understands the shape of her words. To hold out a truth in the cold light for what it is and hear someone understand.]

Once there was war. To the dovah, power is truth so when they ruled men their power over them was absolute. Not to be disputed. It's my will too that I have to fight same as a starved hound, beating it down before it tears at me.

They did it with shouts. With a voice. And then other voices taught the way of it to Men to banish him through time and I cannot trust the Wardens when I know. When I am.

No, [ thranduil says, drawing the threads together as she speaks. ] No, you cannot.

[ he needs a moment. not to pull at what he knows of arda and come to a conclusion based on that, which is like breathing. no. this is thedas, where he is a new arrival, an interloper. ]

They are not kin to you, I think. They have-- something links them to the Darkspawn, something foul and sweet like rot, it makes them unclean. What have they taken in from their dragons? I hear nothing any foulness that in your music, but they are a secretive bunch and may well want you for their own purposes. I know those here have sworn an oath of sorts to aid us, but they are Wardens first.

Your voice- do the words command here as they did there?

There are elves in Skyrim who are corrupted. Falmer. Twisted, blind, living in darkness with poisonous creatures; I spoke to a Warden before of them and that she spoke of them and the Darkspawn in the same breath is...something to think of.

[If Inessa can still be spoken to then maybe she can reach out more, somehow. Her only talent at speaking with others has been to get shopkeepers and traders to give her good prices in bargains so she's not got any honeyed words to help her here. But she can't ignore the overlaps.

It's impossible not to. And she might need to write things down to pass to Thranduil on the promise he burns it after, if it falls into their hands then her blade would have to come out.]

Not their souls, but there are things other than souls that it could be. I'm friendly enough with one of them, if I find more I'll let you know, I need to know what they're doing, what they are. This is-- this is wrong. This is a sickness.

[A sigh shudders out of her, borders on the edge of a laugh.]

More than half my Voice is locked away from me. I know the words but nothing comes. I've tested some in secret but never against a foe, against a being. They look at us differently, are they ready for this? For a gag? To cut out my tongue?

We have the yrch, [ he says, and nothing more, because he will not explain them for this conversation, though she offered the falmer. yes, to think of orcs in the same breath as darkspawn is easy indeed; he has thought of it when fighting them. ]

I would appreciate the knowledge. It is wrong.

[ wrong enough to resonate with both of them. ]

If I were king, and I had this occur... [ the elves, he would not harm, that is his nature, but playing host and playing host would look very different, depending on how they all behaved. ]

That we were not all executed is an indication that they value our usefulness somewhat. But I will prepare for a way to keep us all safe, if such a thing seems to be on the horizon.

[That word strikes home, but orsc are orsimer are the mer no one claims a kinship with so she too leaves it for now, the children of Malacath.]

I am the Dragonborn but little respect was afforded me until I had run their errands, I've sat at the truce table when the world was close to breaking and all they wanted was to divide it up and blame one another for it. I've seen these things. Survived them. If you have need you can reach me.

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