Visit to Dominion Valenwood (Patreon)

It's framed as the journal of an Imperial scholar documenting Valenwood under the Aldmeri Dominion. I must have given up on it because I couldn't find a plot, but several of the ideas in it are things I have explored (or will be exploring) in later documents. 

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1 Sun’s Dusk, 399

I got a new assignment today, after a year of nothing. There’s not much work these days for a scholar of the Imperial Geographical Society. We’re still rebuilding after the war, collecting and copying old manuscripts, drafting new maps of the porous, shifting borders between the increasingly independent lands we still call “provinces.” Lots to do for cartographers, typesetters, and bureaucrats… not so much for traveling writers. But not anymore. I don’t know how they managed this, but somehow, through some treaty or concession, the Society got permission to travel into and document Dominion lands on the mainland: Valenwood, Anequina, Paletine, as well as the numerous enclaves, colonies, and embassies dotted along the coasts. 

I am to venture into Valenwood. Where no Imperial boot has stepped (legally, at least) in nearly two hundred years. Tamriel is an arena these days, more so than usual. Prejudices, old and new, abide. The peace with the Dominion and the succession of Hammerfell made people stupider, meaner. Old truths are no longer true, though the falsehoods remain as popular as ever. We’re still passing around the old Encyclopedias praising Ocato as some sign of the Altmer finally being assimilated, for Gods’ sake! This trip will be my chance to make some small difference in the world. Show them that humanity exists on the other side, too… or that, instead, the enemy is something worse than we could have ever imagined. 

I’m hardly the most qualified, but I am the closest. Anvil is only a few days by boat from the border, and I’ve got no family to keep me here. I’ve already booked passage on the Western Wake, a small trader’s craft bound for Velin Harbor. We set sail in three days time. 

---

Notes from interviews conducted in Patricius’, a tavern near my home. The clientele is typically locals of middling means, artists and bookkeepers and the like. 

Falandil, an importer of common household goods. He's taller than your average bosmer, and his big bushy beard is braided with trinkets. Other than that he wears Colovian dress. 

"I was a new recruit in the Navy when Valenwood joined the Dominion. We were moored at the garrison in Hegathe, so I didn't hear about it until a week after it happened. My first thought was of my mother and father. I had left home trying to get away from them, but now it felt like they were suddenly too far gone.

"I managed to get leave somehow and headed here. By the time I arrived the borders were sealed."

Even to Bosmer?

"Especially to Bosmer. It'd been bad in the wood for years, and a lot of people had left fed up with the government. They weren't about to let us all back in because we suddenly felt homesick. We'd just cause descent and ferment an opposition. Plus there was the whole thing about willingly living with men. The Thalmor didn't want human sympathisers, or, worse, those of us who married humans. I hear those that did make it through were returned in pieces as an example.

“That's a big thing with them, this quest for purity and heritage. I know you Cyrodil honor your ancestors and respect the past, but even the least devoted elf does it more than you. The past is a tether to reality for us, a reminder of who we are and what this place is.

“It is the only thing keeping us still living. When Oblivion swarms into Tamriel? That's our traditions failing somewhere along the way. You might have heard of the Wild Hunt that shows itself every couple of years? That's history being forgotten. When we forget our ancestry we forget we're elves so we turn into beasts.

“I may be a heretic and an Imperial in other ways, but you can bet that bottom drake I married myself a nice bosmer girl and told my children what I just told you.

"Anyway. After a while I just stopped trying to get back in, you know? The news stopped coming, the temporary blockades became stone garrisons, and people just gave up. Resigned themselves to it being a foreign land now, rather than just the other side of the river. "

How do you feel about that? Having your birth place suddenly be a different nation that you can't get into?

"It was like a big cut at first. It was the first time I actually missed it. All the things I didn't care about, and some that I used to hate, became treasured overnight.

"I tried defending the Dominions action for a while, explaining to people how this Pan-Aldmeri state made sense even while it made no sense to me. I had tried to convince myself by convincing others, I guess.

"At this point it's just normal. I think about petitioning the Thalmor for a visitors visa, but I always change my mind. There's nothing left for me there, just old memories, places that've probably changed beyond recognition. I have a life here now. And from what I hear things have only gotten worse in the wood."

Moira Flame-eye is an aging woman of indeterminate race, a look common along this border. She calls herself an Imperial first and a Colovian second.

"I was a Penitus Oculatus informant pretending to be a fisherman back when the Dominion started the Great War. I'd sail out from the Strid, head out into neutral waters, angle back to Valenwood shores, pick up and drop off orders, and then sail back. It was nothing but luck that saved me from the beheading that met the rest of my comrades. 

"A couple times I ferried refugees. If the reports from our embedded agents hadn't already made me hate the dominion, these  pitiful souls would have. The worst was a woman who must've been 23, 25 at the most. She would have been the very idea of a Bosmer beauty if she wasn't malnourished and covered in mud. And massively pregnant. An elf being pregnant at that age is rare, but not unheard of, I guess. But when she told me that she was carrying triplets, and that this was her third set?  I nearly fainted. That shouldn't be possible. She would almost certainly die in labor, if she didn't first die on my boat.

"I learned later that she was a minor Camoran daughter, chosen for her good bloodline. Apparently with all the half bloods they were killing off, they needed nice purebred babies to upkeep the population."

"I put all that in my report, but without details about how this breeding program actually worked, all my superiors could do is be repulsed."

Doesn't that sound like a bad plan? No matter what kind of magic they were using, there's no way they could kill off half the population and still have a nation.

"Sure does, doesn't it? Nearly everyone in Valenwood had human ancestors at one point or another. I hear that they eliminated only those that had the closest ties. I also hear that they somehow got everyone to have more babies through some kind of ancestral Y'ffre connection. Or something like that, I'll never understand all their nature harmony story singing junk. I know for certain that most the armies that marched against us in the Great War were composed of unfavorables, so they couldn't have killed them all. No wonder the Dominion didn't seem to care about their losses."

Do you know what happened to the girl? 

"No idea. I left her and the dozen or so others on the docks. Gave them some of my own supplies out of pity, but that's the furthest I was willing to go. I was already putting my neck on the line. Any one of them could have been a spy or a terrorist, maybe even unknowingly. I heard about a case down 'round Rimmen where a group of refugees infected a whole village with some kind of magical flux. Had the Legion not acted fast and burned the whole place down there might not have been a Cyrodiil left for us to save."

Rustem, a young Redguard, is a historian whom I've gotten to know quite well. Though he hasn't earned his credentials yet, he hopes to one day write for the Imperial Geographic Society as I do. Despite living through the siege and occupation if Taneth, he has chosen to specialize in the history of Elven nations.

He tells me to make sure to remind people that the Altmer and Bosmer weren't always our enemies. "Most of our culture comes from them, which most people either don't know or chose to ignore. The alphabet they're using to read the book in, the binding that's holding it together, are both Aldmeri inventions. The concrete that holds together the bricks in your house and the pipes that bring water to you are theirs too, as is half the food you eat, half the words you speak, and most the gods you worship. 

"I know they're seen as the enemy now, but they aren't all bad and they haven't always been against us. The average Bosmer or Altmer only wants to provide for their family and make a decent living. The average Bosmer or Altmer has more in common with you and me than they do with their government. People always say that the destruction of all humanity is at the root of all merish philosophy, but how could that be the case? They occupied my city for eight years, yet here I stand, perfectly alive."

I appreciate Rustem's passion and his desire to have everyone get along, but I can't help but feel like he is forgetting that all those cultural roots he is talking about were imposed on us by conquest and slavery and the complete elimination of our indigenous cultures, not by some benevolent natural exchange of ideas between civilizations. I appreciate that the pen and paper and letters that I'm using to produce this account are all passed down from some ancient Aldmeri inventor, but who is to say that, had the Nedes been left alone to flourish, we would not have developed an even better system? I'm not even sure if his point about the common man holds water. I met plenty of common mer while I was recuperating in the field hospital, those combatants that Moira claimed were pulled from their most expandable, most rebellious ranks. There were very few things that I shared with those soldiers, even when we were all in our most vulnerable moments.

I'm hoping that my tour of Valenwood changes this outlook. I want to believe that behind the policies and the truly deplorable set of ideals lie normal, ordinary people of the sort I have interviewed here. The alternative is simply too grim to imagine.

---

4 Sun’s Dusk

I am now at sea. I have brought the four official exemplars of my travel papers, as well as four additional copies notarized by the local Imperial representative. I’ve brought two spare journals and various pocket guides and maps, though I doubt they will be of much use, being over a hundred years old. The Society has also given me something truly wondrous: a magical letter sender. They had some fancy name for it that I’ve already managed to forget. It looks like a wooden scrollcase, lacquered bright red and inscribed with black symbols. It is attuned to the Anvil Mages Guild, and any paper placed inside will be copied to a matching scrollcase in their guildhall. With it, we won’t have to worry about the currier losing my notes, or the local authorities confiscating them. Besides that, my supplies are ordinary. 

So far the voyage has been uneventful. There is one other passenger besides the crew, an older Altmer who I saw briefly while boarding but haven’t caught a glimpse of since. 

---

Velin had been a resort town in the time of the Septims, catering to the wealthy and moderately well-off alike. As we approached it from the north this past was visible. The seaside villas, spas, and sanitariums preceded the city proper by several miles. Velin's harbor was crescent shaped and picturesque, docks of white stone and bleached wood jutting out into the shallow lagoon, surrounded on three sides by limestone cliffs. The trees never lost their leaves this far south, and the red roofs peeking out between the foliage completed the picture of seaside bliss. There was a fountain just off the docks, and beyond it a little sculpture garden. It is easy to imagine what this place must have been like in its heyday, with couples and families strolling along treelined avenues, paper and lace umbrellas shading them from the summer sun as they chatted about their latest excursion.

But those days were past. There were no tourists here. Velin had served as an auxiliary port during the early Great War (or so our intelligence claims - the Dominion never talks tactics), and as one of the main deportation centers for foreign citizens when Valenwood originally joined the Dominion. Now, it was one of the two ports through which visitors were let into the province (the other, Haven in the province’s south-eastern corner, would be the last stop on my journey). The fountain in the city’s center, with a lovely statue of Kynareth pouring water out an amphorae, served as a watering hole for three short, shaggy horses and an orange tabby. Crates, barrels, and sacks were stacked along the streets and on the lawns, waiting to be carried off to some warehouse or onboard a departing ship. 

The captain offered to lead me to the office of the local dignitary who would inspect my papers and approve my further travel. I accepted, though I did not get the feeling that I had a choice. 

The embassy was a converted neoclassical manor, familiar to me from my time in Cyrodiil. The entryway had been plastered over and painted white, the rooms natural illumination enhanced with crystal spheres giving off cool light. Outside of six pieces of twisted metal (which, in retrospect, we're probably priceless Ayleid sculptures) and their accompanying pedestals, the room was bare. The courtyard beyond had likewise been striped, though the shallow pool in its center remained clean and clear. Long benches, built peculiarly close to the ground, had been arranged along the room's perimeter. Outside of a bird's song somewhere in the distance, and the muffled noises of the town outside, I had been left alone.

I waited about half an hour. A servant passed along the mezzanine, carrying an armful of papers. He emerged a short while later from a different corner and told me that the ambassador was ready. Finally. 

I must admit now that I had no idea what to expect. I'd seen paintings of Thalmor dignitaries, and owned the Black Horse Courier's entire Dominion print collection. The Thalmor are always towering in those, with big shoulderpads and even bigger headpieces. I've always thought that they looked like they'd tip over at the slightest misstep. I suppose in my head this emissary was either going to be that, or was going to be the exact opposite of that.

The ambassador sat on the floor of a dias, elevated high above so that we could look each other in the eye. Her head was bare except for a small hat, and her hair was gathered in a knot. Everything from the ears up was shaved, giving her an enormous forehead. Her face and hands were covered in dozens of golden dots that caught the light and bounced it back with even the smallest movement.

The conversation was nothing unusual, and not worth recounting here. She wrote while we spoke, her arm at an awkward looking angle,  one wrist dancing the brush along the scroll and the other moving the paper down into her lap.

---

I've been given rooms in a nearby hotel. There are a few other guests,  but most the rooms have been given over to storage space. There is a library here, which I will look through today and tomorrow, I plan to take a day trip to some a day led ruins nearby.

All I'm pleasantly surprised.  The meal of fish and seaweed (which, because it comes from the water rather than the land, seems to be a loophole  most are glad to exploit) was hearty and the sheets are clean and soft. I’m heading down to the library now, I hope that what Cyrodiilic texts they have will serve as a good base research. 

---

Every child with a halfway decent education knows that King Eplear of Valenwood declared the beginning of the first era and inadvertently invented the system of dating years that we know today. It has always been something of a mystery to me why this one king of this one land among many was granted such importance. His Valenwood was a small corner in a land of a hundred nations, a corner that wasn’t conquering or enslaving or educating its neighbors like the Altmer or Ayleid or Nords were. Maybe it was just luck that led us to say “yes, this will do” to his whole new scheme? 

The texts I’ve copied below don’t really answer these questions. But they are more than I’ve ever seen written about this enigmatic king, and I think the very beginning of time would be a great place to start my guide. 

--- 

It has been a month since I landed in the Green. Since leaving my designated paths I have encountered dozens of odd, misshapen individuals, most only slightly strange but some completely delirious. Every village I come across treats theirs with a special fear and reverence.

These are the people who willingly abandoned the laws of nature, forsook their pact with Y'ffre, and were allowed to shift their bodies to repel the Daedric threat over two hundred years ago. Those that did not die then likely never will. 

Here are a few that I remember:

An old man whose ears droop like a dog's. His fingers end at the first knuckle and are tipped by dark bony nubs instead of nails.

A woman with two faces - one a Bosmer, the other twisted as if clutches of mushrooms grew upon it.  They share the mouth, nose, and one eye. Her mouth is cut up to the nose, and through the gap I could see her sharpened teeth. Her ears appear to have been bitten off, and her legs bow outwards. She walks like a praying mantis. She was suckling a child from one of her long breasts.

A child's body and a goat's head, standing four foot tall with two more feet of curling antlers.

A gazelle with six legs and the face of a crone.

A man who appeared unchanged until he lifted his tunic to expose the translucent skin of his stomach, pregnant with a dozen sleeping snakes.

The torso of a fat man, balanced on the slender legs of a deer. His head is likewise a deer's, its antlers snapped off and coins tied to them. His manhood is enormous and covered in ritual scars.

A man whose skin hung from him like melted candlewax. His eyes were the compound spheres of an enormous dragonfly.

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