Merry Eyesore the Elk:
Straightening my tie. My friends are finally here. Let me take a breath.
/cough
Are you ready?
/cough
Can you hear me? In the back?
Can you hear us? In the back?
Ysgramor was a Dragon.
YS GRA MOR
/ahem
Let's tear this forest down.
Lady Nerevar:
Naturally. Altmora froze over when the mirror-aspect of the time god left for the sunny shores of the starry heart, ever verdant thanks to the interplay of quantum foam. You say this as if it is a revolution.
Hasphat Antabolis:
An interesting theory. But as usual, the credulous minds gravitate to the most outlandish theories.
If Ysgramor was indeed a "dragon", most likely he was a Dragon Priest - in the Late Merethic Era, it would be unlikely for a leader of Ysgramor's reported stature to be unconnected to the Dragon Cult. But connecting the Nord hero Ysgramor with the now-reviled Dragon Cult is of course anathema to those who favor chauvinism over historical truth.
Other possibilities are that Ysgramor was not an individual but an amalgamation of several people - his reported exploits encompass an unreasonable amount of time for a single individual. At the time, anyone of high stature or great prowess in battle would have been considered a "dragon" (the highest compliment imaginable). This does not mean that Ysgramor was in fact an actual dragon, but I have no doubt that the literal-minded among us will not hesitate to jump to the most obvious conclusions. True scholars will of course be more circumspect.
Feykromiin:
(Thud)
(Thudthud. Thud.)
(thudKTHUNCHKTHUDTHUNCH.)
KROKELPAAR! HIN ZULZOOR HON! HON, STADNAU ZEYMAH!
AHRK HUZRAH - HIN FIIK MEYZ!
(thud. slithersuckslide. thudTHUD.)
Se praan alok... wah vahrukt wahl ... Joor rattles rasping husks of shucked history. But golden glimmer dreams, yuvon hahnu, the hoard of thought, he has none. Destitution-decay, poverty-pruned, lokqo daanik feim... mortal, forever. Oh, where are those who remember?! Of the burdened gloaming depths, the star browed waves? Of mossy crag in frostbite swallowed, diivon diin ahrk krosis kruhziik? WHO CAN NOW TELL? WHO REMEMBERS, REMEMBERS THE SWORD-SCALED SCIONS IN FLIGHT?
... ... come. I taste your sighs on the winds, zeymah. UNSLAAD VARUKHT SE DOVAH! MEYZ! Whisper-whip-wield Voice in this tympanimeet. Let mortal mind meet metal memory.
Joorre. Your wraith bone recall fades, shifts, twists... but our Voices spear living memory. Mine brethren come.
Lady Nerevar:
“If Ysgramor was indeed a "dragon", most likely he was a Dragon Priest - in the Late Merethic Era, it would be unlikely for a leader of Ysgramor's reported stature to be unconnected to the Dragon Cult.”— Hasphat Antabolis
This theory seems to be supported by archaeological evidence, namely Ysgramor's shield and tombs contemporary to the period.
“At the time, anyone of high stature or great prowess in battle would have been considered a "dragon" (the highest compliment imaginable). This does not mean that Ysgramor was in fact an actual dragon, but I have no doubt that the literal-minded among us will not hesitate to jump to the most obvious conclusions. True scholars will of course be more circumspect.”— Hasphat Antabolis
Mayhaps you care to present textual evidence? The Nordic visions of a Draconic Talos are an obvious modern equivalent, and so far as I can tell clearly refer not to title or metaphor but to the Nords seeing an actual, honest to Gods Dragon when looking upon Tiber Septim. The occasional eye-witness account of the Graybeards as dragons have in recent weeks also proven to be true. I know of no others to be called dragons in so serious a manner. I think we can all agree on the existence of a Dragon Cult in old Atmora, and therefore the existence of Dragons. We know also that Ysgramor was a great chief among his peoples, and is regarded as a culture bringer by both scholars and theologians. Sounds like a Dragon - or even the Dragon, see Akatosh in the Imperial heartland - rather than merely a priest.
Feykromiin:
Nahl, sahlo joorrebrod. Is my hide hoary hirsute? I am the root-rune, the rhizome-recall, uifeygol ahrk rotruhkt se qeth, FEYKROMIIN! Through horizon and horizon I wrench to the wheezing summons of Eye-Wounded Elk, the great Thoroughly-Odd, Fehkey Sadon se Moro, for fey and fey and feykromvahl, to strike down in stencil-stone and root-rune the bubbling deeps of this Sky Rim's past. Tinvaak se dovah voth joorre, for your growth and groan. So bring your spirit liqueur. My kin - if they wilt heed my call - will guzzle it like the blood and brine of old.
But you jibber and jabber, and my words rise slow. It has been long since I held tinvaak with mortals. Of egg and seed and coccoon you speak, of scaly shell and frothing Blood springs. But where does it rise? Whence wells Blood? And from whence did we exodust the seas?
Vintaasvok the Myriad-Wing:
A diffuse effulgence - a keening shrieked roar - coils and coils of snares and snares - a shimmering bulk in the sky - brilliant scales slick with goniochromism - copper-tang on the tongue - a hundred wings shattering! sound!! and light!!!
UNCLE. flicker flicker blink shut blink FLASH. You bore the poor mortals. What, come to tell of their history, and spoken in riddles and question-leads? KRUZIIK MEY UNSLAAD. And leading them to what they clearly already know! flare snap shimmer. Why ease the blow? They have already accepted that they are but grubs, squirming in arrested metamorphosis forever. Let them know the fullness of Truth.
MORTALS. You gathered to know of the ancient overthrow of the dovah, of its why and how and wherefore? It is quite simple. Ysgramor Fahliil-Naake fled the panting frost maw of the north from necessity, for the lives of the fresh and half-incubated. Too deep, too quick, too harsh had the claw-gashes pierced; what once was the Well fountained into Deluge, and the crag-lands crusted in ice, too fierce and perilous for any not yet of the Dov. Their blood remembers this flight, and the ichor that caused it, to this day, in this land to which they fled. They found the fahliilod, and blood and battle ruled their lives; Ysgramor's maw dripped blue-black for aeons. But when they had at last stamped their names anew on the land in Voice and fist, and turned to wahlaan, to rebuilding - then they found their sorrow anew.
flash flutter flicker zap!
They were frozen. They could not grow. Of the mortals, the pale-skinned Nords, as you would call them, none remembered that they could grow, that they could change - at least not that they could tell. Their bones knew, though, yearned for the metamorphosis they could no longer make, and chafed at the glory and power of the dovah above them. Even the eight dovhahdrim that had come across the seas lost themselves; they fell into sorrow, madness, and tyranny under the sorrow-yoke of their eternal cusp. And in this land of sorrow and separation where the dov could not grow, is it any surprise that they were eventually overthrown? That it was Alduin and his cadre against whom the kendoval muz fought is only incidental; any dovah would have done the same, to such ungrateful subjects, to mortals who could not even remember whence sprang their resentments.
So. You overthrew your overlords; you threw off long millenia of aspiration and instead forced the tragedy of your eternal mortality down the throats of dovah in their own Voice. And you were successful; the dov dwindled, and even Alduin himself choked on your bitter cup.
Feykromiin:
Delightful, as always, briinahqo, my scintillating little sister. (A sound like stones scraping in a grating dusty grind; the vast maw gapes, filled with dull fangs, fuzzy with fungi; the dragon chuckles, in dry, bone-humming humor.) And pharisaic as ever. Zu'u rotnok, ko sahlosiiv pro? How else, in this time, to bring out the scattered, soul-swallowed droplets from their hearts? Only they can sieve the sludge of their souls for the shards of vintaasos in the rough.
Kahkulaaslozh! The Fundatrix, the Original-Awakened, is just one more of the dov? Krosis pogaas! Did he not stay in those emerald-iced mountains, in terror and desperation nigh unto madness, long after vezhofahliil, the Elf-Black-Maw and his flesh-winged-wood-winged host had fled? Delving and delving and delving for the buried Spring, futile and frost-mad! Krosis motaad! The Sharmat and his Endeavor may both be buried in my yuvonhahnu, but neither has passed.
Munaxlunmaar:
[A dragon in the sky, thundering to the ground: enormous, looming, its hide like dull rubies webbed in hoar frost: massive-mawed, its bared teeth like etched ivory scythes, row upon row in shear-pointed choir. Its flailing crimson tongue whips out these words.]
You're both [censored] boring as [censored], so shut up 'cause NOW I AM TALKING. And I'm going to KEEP talking until that delectable little Elk gets back and then I'll pause for lunch, sos se fehkey sadon, FEL JOT TOOR! Because NEITHER of you understands the BLOOD, because neither of YOU were there for the CONQUERING. I was there; I flew in the Red Legion, in the World-Eater's phalanx; I dove by his side, cackling flames and fury onto the squirming mountain grubs, melting the thousand Fractal Palaces down around their pointed ears into a satisfying frost-molten morass. I may have begun as a pale wyrm nestling by the Father's pounding heart, but I GREW STRONG in the taazokan! It was I who led the furies in the Polyp Purification, I who devoured the treacherous tonal talkers and strained their peace-poison through my fangs, MY breath that scourged the land where the fahliilod mustered their ice-manes, scourged it so completely that it suppurates even unto this consecutive Hour. I saw the growing arrogance and madness of our attendant worms; I rasped the words that roused the World-Eater; I sent him to Sovngarde to suck the sap from mortal souls!
TIID MORO MAAR! A GLORIOUS TIME! A time of BLOOD! Skulls snapping twixt teeth, oozing ichor and marrow, blood gushing like molten metal, rushing down the gullet, hot, man and mer, naako fahlillod jul, sosahqon denek ahrk staadnau felnax nazh ghar lakr ghrass harrrgghgghgh...
[The dragon trails off into unintelligible rumbles, its enormous maw snapping and frothing with acidic foam.]
Vintaasvok the Myriad-Wing:
Munaxlunmaar. snap snick flutter flick Finally slithered back into the skin you could never fully shed? And with your characteristic blunt subtlety and disgusting maw-manners. Go back to your epicene. Hear me, joorre, and know that this slavering creature before you is the Degeneracy of the dov, not the Glory. He would and will smash his words through your feeble hahdrimme just for the imprinted afterimage of his violence and the self-affirmation that implies. Mark his wrath, but heed him not.
As for you, Uncle... mey kruziik! There is now no hope for these mortals; why do you insist upon your relentless prodding and pruning? The umbilical wound-well is long since scabbed, Alduin's tarnished wings have been stricken, and joorre are now fit only for the glorification of their betters. Who now would follow the sea-steps of the Stormcrown?
Feykromiin:
What is 'now', briinahqo? Strange words from a dovah. Tiid fey qeth! Ahrk vaat zu'u wahlan. You forget the krent vintaasos, as well, krent Aka sil se siiv joor; what of the dovahkiin? Some fragments yet remain, and they cannot but find each other; deztiid se denek. And for those few, perhaps, the ghost tides still wait to bear them hence to the emerald-iced shores.
But, joorre, you murmur amongst yourselves of other things; we bore you, perhaps? You do not wish the background of the thing before the thing itself? Kah unslaad se frul! Ysmaalithax will come or he will not; look to the Elk, if more direct summons you wish. And do not let the nahrot se briinahqo, the quick temper of the Thousand-Winged, deafen you to Munaxlunmaar; his is a sad, untold story, prodah krosis sindugahvon. The dovhahdrim at which you wonder and worry were but cusped when they fled, but he was interrupted at the UI-Ahraand itself, and sustained only at great cost; soskiinlun, the last heartwyrm of Alduin. That he grew to fulfill that role, to transcend that role, cannot be a surprise.
And yet more: the dovhahdrim? If tiidensosis they worked, it was only by their vintaasos virtue. Muz, sire Alduin? Again, kah unslaad se joorre! I answer you thus, in lieu of the Indissoluble, in the World-Eater’s six-syllabled soliloquy of old:
AKA KUL SE AKA!
Munaxlunmaar:
Don't don't DON'T TELL MY STORY! It's MY story, and I'LL TELL IT IF I'M GOING TO! FO NAX YOL! [A noxious, acidic blue-white spew like icy sludge sprays out from the dragon's slavering maw over the convocation, ruining not a few baby-butt(ered) complexions and exquisite specimens of scamp-skinned haute couture.] And I'm NOT going to tell it! So both you and miss Eternally-Effervesces-From-Her-Hindquarters need to just [censored] clap your traps before the mortals start Getting Ideas. Or I'll get to learn what fizzy feels like from the inside.
Anyway. Wuld se mey! I was talking about the interesting things, wasn't I, little grubs? Before my briinah and her uncle interrupted me. OH, yes, I was telling you how very much better it was in the taazokan, away from the UI-Ahraand and its liztiidaan that bit back, on my scales here, and whose itch I never quite... uraghagh. No. But here it was much, much better, once we'd sated ourselves finally on the properly ravaged and subjugated elf-holds, and especially once you grubs took it into your hypognathus little skulls to rebel.
Yes, it was a good war. I remember me well the long sultry nights, the skies hazed in dry-scarlet-black and the vintaasqo shimmering muted red through the clouds, sanguine with mortal blood above furrows of pulverized flesh; lying back on the battlefield, suffused with shout-shredded gore, wingtip to brotherly wingtip with my Ald and his Paar. And the frost-harrowed days, scourging blizzard-breath down from the roiling clouds, cold fit to crack the bones of the rebels in their very skins. The disgrace of Briinhul the Brawny; the Feast of Rannveig; the Marsh-wallow Grind; the Swallow of Gjukar, when Men called down the cloud-singers to their aid, and World-Eater met Whale.
And then the bittersweet betrayals; the whisper-gift of Paarthurnax's siren queen, and his turn in turn of weakest-willed dov. Claw to claw, then, and Voice to Voice, and both dov and dovhahdrim tasted the Breath of newly muscle-lunged men. Harsh and bitter the war, with the Hyoid howling through the throats of the wasabi-tongued joorre - but sweet, too, in its own way, for we had our vicious victories over the [censored]. Sweet, indeed, for how many can say that they have Known the Wind-Witch seventeen times spread-Eagled, screaming at the crest of her own crag?
Vintaasvok the Myriad-Wing:
Vorevak! Bein raan, dukaan sunvaar! The sinuous, iridescentthroat thrusts toward the sky, thrumming in outraged, multitonal shriek. Your blunt breath taints everything it touches, fo lun toor; even the yuvonhahnu you would pervert with your pathetic reflexive corruption. But not here, not now, not while my unazaal qoriik breathes inviolate and pure to trumpet the Truth's pure tones into the minds of these mortals! Her words throb through the air, palpable, shimmering; rainbow effervescence painted in Voice upon the winds. He speaks only of himself, joorre, only of his victories, his battles, but his is but half of the tale! He will not speak of his failures, of the years of chivvy and chastisement he suffered as wyrmling when the World-Eater was yet wise, of the Spine-Spiraled Dusk when Freuja the Fierce forced him with Tongue alone into writhings proscribed to him for their pure palatability, of the wing-scores who perished in the lightning cages of the silver seeded storms at the briney hands of the sot smoliin kro. And certainly he will not speak of the end, of the voracious birth-maw of his Alduin's inversed daan or the Eagle's skirling revenge - of the talons that wrenched away three-quarters of the scaley chrysalis-callus congealed over the wretched, frozen void at his core and banished him, wingless and wretched forever in his own abyssal tide.
Now I have done with this grindvaak, joorre, for I will not remain to hear more of his boasting, more of his disgusting atrocities and violations. You know of him, now, what should be known, of his part in Alduin's corruption, tyranny, and overthrow and the muzgrah that implies.
So farewell, joorre, Uncle, and curse-crazed, 'umble cloaked progenitor... and beware, always, the Munaxlunmaar's blunt-subtle corrosion.
The dragon's thousand, infinitely refracted wings flex and flare along its spine, sending glitter-moted dust spiraling devils whirling through the crowd, and the enormous radiant bulk swirls, graceful as a leaf, into the dark skies, spinning and finning away, away into the Dark.
Munaxlunmaar:
Oh, [censored] no, you sparkly little [censored]. You can't just spit defiance in the face of the [censored] Hevnopaar himself and not expect to get pounded into the [censored] firmament. Sorry, mortals, but I'm going to have to cut this one short: I've got a scaley [censored] that needs my personal attention. You understand the feeling, I'm sure. After all... did I not teach you well, too, in the War? MUZ AHRK DOV AHRK FAHLIIL NAAL ZU'U DUKAAN!
[Rawboned red wings stretch their hoarfrost webs from horizon to horizon; massive, horny nostrils flex, catching multicolored musk from the wind; the depths of the sundered, riven chest heave, and with a blast of bitter winter wind the dragon roars into the skies.]
WINGLESS, AM I? WE'LL SEE WHO'S MISSING A FEW WINGS WHEN I'M THROUGH WITH YOU, UNAHZAALVIING VAHDIN!
[Stars blink back into spectation as the obscuring bulk dwindles overhead. Then: a sudden flare; serpentine aurora writhings; a tiny shrieked NIIIIIID; a roll of thunder like a cracking glacier.]
Yeah, that's right, lift that slinky little tail. This ain't a surprise; you've been waiting for this for Eternity and you know it, you [censored]ty [censored]. HUBBA HUBBA HOOOOO.
!...!!! ... !!
[A tiny spot in the inky sky ripples strangely with silent, impossible impact. It leaks violet violence. And, somewhere in the Void, the twenty-two Hues of Bruise are born.]
Feykromiin:
. . . . . . . . . well. I must say; you did ask for it, briinahqo. Not that you could have done anything else; prodah kruziik kiin.
Bruniik roh brii, joorre. These things do happen; do not be too surprised. Indeed, it is only to be expected when dovah gather. The ancient saying: “There are only three ways for tinvaak to end, amongst the dov: feast, fury, or fire.” Yol nah ahrk dusil, as we told it. And more; my Kin have never been of convivial ilk, save in the crudest sense.
Perhaps you are right, Dawnfallow, though your sympathy and understanding ring oddly on your corona-stained tongue, even in your sheath of muz slen, mortal incarnation. Perhaps the very weakness of their voices becomes their strength, in aggregation. But would you leave them to it? You? The UI-Ahraand may be lost to them, at least in the current-skin, but does that mean we should leave them to their decurrent dissolution?
And you, joorre: a few more words, before I too take my leave. The Hevnopaar Kulaan has told you much of his days with the Sharmat se Muz, hinted much at the Trail of Terrors that was the Keizaal Kein, the War in the long winters beyond Ysgramor's demise. But he – and the Myriad-Wing, too – may have... exaggerated upon some points. His Words warp even if he wills it not; it is in his birth-tainted blood; soskiin kruziik, UI-AHRAAND UNSLAAD KRENT. But in bein vorevak, in corruption and perversion, he is indisputable. The fruit of his unions are forever undeniable, forever untameable - and never more so than the Coursing Issue, the Eagle's antlered egg.
(Pound-thud-squelch, squiggedy frum frump go the dragon's mossy stirring steps.)
Kogaan koor tinvaak, Fehkey Sadon. The best I have held in... but that is futile, of course. Farewell to you: joorre, Dawnfallow, Great Thoroughly-Odd, to you in your cud-chomping silence. Feyrot ahrk vintaas okazze yoriik naal hin mahfaeraak. Let lens-etched wisdom guide your path.
(And whump-flut-whoosh huff the lichen-licked wings; strickly rackly rasp the dewclaws over rocky rubble. So does the dragon go, gloam-gallumphing, into the rearing wake-forest's black bark stacks.)
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