Fandom The Princess and the Pariah; an Elder Scrolls Story

[ChiMakwa]

To my ever knowledgeable teacher, N. Telvanni.

When this letter finds you, I will have set off and most likely have arrived in the Wrothgar Mountains, where I will begin my research in a subject of recent curiosity piqued by documents I found in the Druadach mountains. I found in the Druadach an ancient Falmer ruin with some documents still in tact that detailed some of the events of their oncoming genocide by the Atmorans and other trivial matters that didn’t peak my interest. What piqued my interest the most out of their documents was their use of a certain word that is commonly used today to refer to the Orcs of Orsinium and those Strongholds. The Falmer, and after some study of further now dead races like the Dwemer and Ayleids also made use of that word in that odd fashion.

Now it is common knowledge today that Orsimer, the Stronghold and Orsinium Orcs are a separate people from the other green skinned races of Tamriel, they are mer like you or me, so says scholars of the Imperial City and many reputable sources found across Tamriel, I would not disagree with them, however I would look at this old records and wonder of the use of the word Orsimer in their tongue. Pariah Folk, Orsimer was an old word used to describe a whole group of visually similar peoples, Ogres, Goblins, Gremlins and indeed Orcs. It was only in the second era that I believe Orsimer started to change toward referring only to the Orcs.

It is at this point that you must be wondering why I am speaking at all about these long past days and why they would be of any curiosity to the likes of me master Neloth. It is for one simple reason. The Falmer had more than just words about the Orsimer of their day, they had diagrams and research on their often allies against the Atmoran onslaught of Skyrim. These diagrams and research, sparse as it is, leads me to theorizing something that may be derogatory if untrue, but massively interesting if proven true. The Orsimer of the time, Orcs, Ogres, Goblins and Gremlins undoubtedly shared a common ancestor to the Falmer and I believe, to the people at the time. It was not such a broad classing of beastfolk as scholars today would look at it. I hypothesize that there was a change to what was the Orcs of the time, during the 1st era that changed their very being from just one of the many Pariah Folk, to the Orsimer we know today. My next letter to you will be when I make any headway in disproving this theory concisely or finding answers leading to proving this theory.

Your ever curious charge, R. Thendo.

A letter addressed to house Telvanni from a former ward.

---

Since a few years ago, when the Empire recalled it’s legions from the small city and capital of the Orcs, Orsinium, the current king of Orsinium has been moving to try and protect itself from its enemies. The bolstering of it’s personal forces was the first part of that plan, former orcish legionnaires, veterans of conflict down south against the elves were encouraged to come to Orsinium, offered stable work and a home with that promise that those around them would be like them. It was a fair plan that had some success, what the King didn’t understand however was the reason so many of the orcs of the legion don’t live with other orcs.

Remaul the Whitescar was a perfect example to pull from in this case of that distrust the City Orcs have of Orsinium. That once barely an adult who came to Orsinium half starved and desperate for any work thanks to that orcish culture of theirs. That Orc was scorned and banished and marked with the Hand of Malacath to forever tell those around him that this Remaul was a criminal of the Strongholds. Remaul saw the worst the orcs had to offer, and if Orsinium was a traditional stronghold, then he would have been executed for showing his face to it.

City Orcs, the term for Orcs who leave their stronghold to live in cities, leave their strongholds, maybe not for the same extreme reason of Remaul, but they do leave due to the Orcish tendency toward dogma. So the King, who’s name is Jacaruto gro-Nazuel did not see the influx of Orcish veterans he had hoped for and in turn looked to the surrounding Strongholds and like the City Orcs, barely got a return for the opposite reason of the City Orcs. They would have traditions upheld, if King Jacaruto would not do that, then they would not join the Orcish cause.

Jacaruto gro-Nazuel, was a fair enough king, but he did not have the charisma or tact of the orc people’s great leaders. So many of his attempts to see the new Orsinium prosper were often challenged and failed or barely succeeded, but even so, he was fair enough to see the continued existence after the Empire stopped openly protecting it. The one thing that saw that Orsinium would survive was the one sure thing good Jacaruto did, he reached out to the old enemy and sometimes friend of the orcs, the King of Wayrest and offered that man friendship and support in exchange for the same. It was a tactful move of little drawbacks to see, as it was something that only their greatest leaders did in the past, for every time Wayrest was their enemy, it was only a few times that saw that enemy, the times of greatest orcish accomplishment, as a friend and ally. It was a mirror move to the likes of Kurog and Gortwog, their greatest leaders… if the Orcish culture would only acknowledge them as such.

 

[AtlannianSpy]

Lisette Du Cortagne was not a punctual person. As the seventh of seven children it could be argued that the very first thing Lisette had ever done was turn up late and all her life after that she had never quite caught up the schedule everyone else seemed to be operating on. This had oftentimes been a point of contention between LIsette and her parents, her siblings, her tutors, various servants and courtiers, basically everyone in her life in sumnation. Nevertheless, Lisette had never shaken the habit. There was something refreshing about arriving fashionably late, of deliberately stepping out of sync with the invisible beat that everyone else was tapping along to and forcing every set of eyes to turn towards her, even if only for a moment. Still even Lisette had to admit it was possible to be too late in certain situations; there was fashionably late and there was missing the party altogether.

For example: when fleeing to an allied city to seek asylum after your family are murdered by a usurper, its generally best to arrive before the usurper's army lays siege to the city in question.

Lisette tugged gently on the reins of her stolen horse and it came to a halt immediately, not because it was particularly receptive to her commands, the blasted thing kept trying to turn around and go home when LIsette's attention wandered, but because it was tired. They had been riding all night and most of yesterday before that after all.

"And I'm still late,"Lisette muttered, grimacing as she pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling the coarse, slimy texture of dust mixed with sweat under her fingertips. "How the hell do punctual people do it?"

In hindsight there had been signs. The road had been churned up by recent, heavy traffic from footprints, horse shoes and wagons but there had basically been no other travellers on the road the whole way. That should have been suspicious but Lisette hadn't been of a mind to pick up on details, she'd been fleeing for her life. Yesterday afternoon she's woken up after very enjoyable evening of refreshments, recreation and certain illicit substances to find a pair of goons in tatty leathers trying to get her like a fish and the day had only gotten worse from there on out. The whole city been in a state of abject terror and soldiers in Deuxrenne colours had been marching around ordering people back into their homes like they owned the place. Lisette had had to use the last of her walking around money to bribe the news out of a terrified baker: the wedding between Amelie Du Cortagne and the Prince of Balfiera, Marcel Deuxrenne had turned bloody. The Deuxrenne's were in control of the city of Wayrest and the Du Cortagnes had all been slaughtered.

All except for Lisette of course, because she had been late to the wedding.

Things got a little bit hazy in Lisette's memory after that, without the kind of intoxicants that usually incited that kind of state in her. Lisette vaguely recalled sneaking into a stable and 'borrowing' the recalcitrant steed under her legs right now and charging past a hastily assembled and scantily manned checkpoint. At first Lisette had been planning to make for the territory of one of Father's vassals: Comte or Velour perhaps, that old creep Morfayne might have done in a pinch even if he seemed incapable of keeping his eyes above her neckline, but she had seen men wearing Comte and Velour colours marching right alongside Deuxrenne soldiers. Some vassals had probably stayed loyal, Father trusted a few of them quite highly, but his inner circle had all been attending Amelie's wedding, nobody but Lisette would ever have dared to miss it.

The orcs hadn't been invited though. Lisette remembered only because Father had made her wait, standing in his office, while he dictated a letter to the king of Balfiera about the whole thing 'Something, something he knew tensions between Balfiera and Orsimer had been rising due to allegations of orcish bandits targeting key trade lines; yada yada yet to verify any of those incidents; blah blah hope we can put aside these issues to celebrate the union of two loving souls whatever whatever-" All of Father's official letters tended to go on for a bit like that so Lisette had to stand there for some thirty minutes before he finally got around to chewing her out for whatever it was she had done that week. Evidently Father's Deuxrenne counterpoint had not found the letter persuasive because no Orcish contingent ever arrived in Wayrest in the days leading up to the wedding. With that in mind, retreating to Orsinum had seemed like a relatively safe bet. Father had made a lot of overtures towards them and the Orcs had been surprisingly receptive, probably because all the other major players in Highrock, like the Deuxrenne, hated them. Father had been trying to broker a peace of some kind between the two, but judging from the fact that Father was dead and the Deuxrennes had an army camped outside they had never actually had any intention of going along with that.

As if to punctuate that point a fierce glow lit up the Deuxrenne camp and a bright, orange orb of molten rock erupted skywards and then arced across the rising, dawn sun to plummet into Orsinum's sturdy, stone walls. Lisette was just able to make out the distant little figures of defenders scramble away to avoid the lava before the impact zone was obscured by smoke. When the smoke cleared the walls were still standing but the lava orb had melted a big, circular chunk of them away, leaving it looking rather like the nice cheeses they made up in Northpoint. Lisette grimaced, the walls were not going to take a lot more punishment like that and the Isle of Balfiera was supposed to have a pretty good mage academy that the Deuxrenne recruited heavily from, On top of that the defender's manning the city walls were sparse and vastly outnumbered by the army arrayed out before the city. Lisette had slept through or skipped all of her lectures on siege warfare but even she could tell things didn't look good for the Orcs.

So where did that leave Lisette? On a shit covered road without a horse as some of her rougher friends liked to say, although she did have a horse at the moment, it was just a turn of phrase. Turning back was a no go, the Deuxrenne's would be sending patrols and messengers along the road to keep their supply lines clear, even Lisette knew that much. Orsimer wasn't far from the Skyrim border though and the Du Cortagne's supposedly had some distant relations in that province. Lisette let her gaze drift over to the East where she was confronted by tooth like, ice-tipped visage of the Dru-something mountains. Well that was out, even if she was prepared to cross the mountain range, with food and rope and warm clothes she probably still die, without any of that stuff and not even any food in her belly she'd die very quickly. Right then that was out. She could try and link up with some of her shadier friends of friends, a few of them were smugglers and could probably get her out of the province...only none of those folks had any tendency to work for free and Lisette had nothing valuable on her, she'd been gambling a lot the night before the wedding and Lady luck had not been on her side. Lisette had her signet ring of course, because Father actually really would have murdered her if she went around without at least that much but it was enchanted so that only Cortagnes could wear it and highly recognizable besides. It wasn't the kind of thing smugglers would be able to fence down the line so they wouldn't take it in payment.

Could Lisette slip in with the lower classes and just hide for the rest of her life? Probably the Deuxrennes wouldn't have expected her to run to Orsimer and she could hide her ring and dye her hair with some pretty common alchemical ingredients, Lisette had actually done that a bunch of times to sneak out of the palace. Every now and then she'd entertained the fantasy of leaving her life and name behind and blending in with the common citizenry for good instead of just for a night of debauchery. She'd wander until she found some nameless, rural village where nobody even knew the King had a seventh daughter let alone what she looked like and she'd fall in love with some humble, but muscular farmer's son or maybe a pretty baker's daughter or something and do peaceful, simple work for the rest of her life. Of course those fantasies never actually dwelled overly long on the actual farming or baking, which Lisette understood in a vague sense to be backbreaking and extremely tedious. In real life Lisette knew she'd get tired of that game pretty quickly.

LIsette bit her lip and scanned the city of Orsinum and its besieging enemies one more time, looking for some obvious solution she had missed. If it wasn't so deadly serious it would have been pretty interesting to watch. A real siege didn't really look anything like what Lisette had imagined, she always vaguely imagined a lot more trebuchets and a sort of ring of soldiers around the city that...Lisette paused in mid thought. There really should be a ring all the way around the city, otherwise the people being beseiged could just run away, only the Deuxrenne couldn't do that here because Orsimer sat right up against the mountains.Just like Lisette was certain to die if she tried to cross over into Skyrim, the Deuxrenne forces would lose a lot of people and material trying to move their people and supplies through terrain like that. The Deuxrenne couldn't safely move through the mountains, but there were supposed to be Orcs actually living up there weren't there? Even if the city fell a decent number of the residents might actually be able to escape up into them and...Well the rest of the plan could come later, this was already a lot to handle.

Lisette would have to leave the road, circle around the Deuxrenne encampment at a pretty wide distance to avid detection and then hike into the mountains, hoping that she ran into some friendly orcs before she froze to death, starved to death or slipped and broke her neck. The odds didn't seem great but, well, Lisette did like to gamble.

 

[ChiMakwa]

One would have hoped that with forewarning that you could do anything at all to prevent a situation. Maybe the hint that elves were moving through High Rock was a hint, maybe traditional enemies moving forces close to borders could trip some red flags, one could only hope that the many hints of a bad situation could have let you prevent it from happening. King Jacaruto despite being only a fair king, had a more than average information network, his ties with the strongholds were weak, but there was a tie nonetheless and so the information coming in was almost constant. If only King Jacaruto had the strength to call upon a response to this situation.

Looking upon the besieging force now assailing Orsinium, a force that Orsinium knew was coming for weeks, it could only summon utter disappointment in the heart of a certain orc looking upon it from the outside. With all his political finagling of the surround strongholds and attempts at diplomacy with the kingdoms around them, and his conscripting of all fighting age orcs within the walls, all king Jacaruto could muster up was the equivalent of an Imperial Legion… at least in terms of numbers.

Orcs aren’t known for their mages, oh they did have mages, no doubt about it, but they are primitive compared to their Breton rivals now attacking them. Orcs have only ever had one thing going for them, no other race in the world was better at metal work than them… but even that metal work at its height with Nova Orsinium wasn’t enough to save it. Those four hundred years ago, when the orcs were at their height, with their greatest among them, they had built a city and a kingdom to rival the greatest of High Rock, a city of such iron works to make the Orsimer seem like Dwemmer come again. That city fell and it’s kingdom shattered. King Jacaruto is supposed to be a descendant of Gortwog, but he clearly doesn’t have the charisma or personal strength to match that ancient ancestor of his.

“Enough with your sightseeing Whitescar, tell me what’s going on.” A particularly gruff sounding Orc said as he smacked the helmeted head of another who seemed to be using a portable telescope. It was an interesting device, as telescopes would usually be mounted on towers or ships as they were too large to haul around like this orc did. Glass work wasn’t fine enough to make small ones like Whitescar had.

Collapsing the portable telescope, the Orc called Whitescar turned to answer the gruff orc, “I wasn’t sightseeing, I was estimating Baul. I saw several flags flying in the besieging force. Balfiera I know, the others… They were houses in Wayrest. If Kazadun is to be believed then I don’t think Wayrest itself is here, just some of their noble houses. I think a… what’s the word I’m looking for? Coup d'etat? Yeah, I believe a coup d’etat happened and those involved are here with Balfiera.”

“Coo day ta? What are you talking about? What about their force? I don’t care about which humans are attacking us.” Was the only thing the other orc, named Baul could respond with.

“Never mind, our equivalent is kinslaying.” Whitescar sighed out, “Doesn’t look like they brought any sieging equipment, looks like Kazadun was right about that as well. I think an effort to strike fast into Wayrest and at us, they wanted speed and so they brought not heavy siege towers and trebuchets, but mages.”

“Mages? What can they do against our walls?” Baul was baffled at the report before gesturing his hand for Whitescar to give over his telescope for himself to take a look, at which Whitescar did with no complaint.

“They’re the king of battlemage… I believe the Synod in the Imperial city was pushing for these kinds to be more common. Siege Mages is the word for them, they’re slow to cast anything, but their spells hit much harder than normal mages. Of course they aren’t here alone, but that’s what’s hitting our walls and will bring them down quickly.”

Baul took a moment to look at the siege force himself and didn’t respond to Whitescar right away, only giving out an astonished question after a moment of study, “Mages are capable of doing that?”

“There is also a company of regular battlemages and they themselves are all protected by… more than our legion of warriors.” Whitescar added onto Baul astonishment. “I estimate… 3 days at most before Orsinium will fall.”

This orc, more knowledgeable than most, called the Whitescar by all those he served, was of a group of orcs that are frowned upon. He is Scorned, an orc who is marked with the hand of Malacath to denounce him as a criminal of the worst crimes of their people. Kin slaying or cowardice. His name is Remaul and unlike others of the scorned, he alone is called the Whitescar for one reason alone. Where other Scorned are marked somewhere on their body like their chest or back, or anywhere really that you could hide, Remaul the Whitescar is called so because there is no hiding his mark which is plastered across his face.

Remaul was accepted, barely, by Orsinium for one simple reason. He was strong. King Jacaruto at the time was still trying to get the Strongholds to accept him as their king, and even so when faced with someone who normally would have been executed under the Malacath code, accepted him. This was because the soon to be named Remaul the Whitescar, had in him talent that the king could see. At first it was just having a strong arm beside him, but now, as is clear to orcs like Baul, there was more.

“You damned scorned, you're underestimating us!” Baul growled out as he turned grabbed Remaul by his armour and pulled the especially large orc down to his eye level.

Remaul was not just large for an orc, he was in fact massive for one. Most Orcs were, despite how books would describe them, actually shorter on average than man, just slightly, the whole hulking orc image everyone across Tamriel has of them came not from their actual size, but often the ferocity of their people on the battlefield. They were and are large in spirit and so those who survive and remember attacks remember them as bigger than they were. However, Remaul the Whitescar was as big as people could imagine, in fact he might be bigger than one would imagine. So Baul really had to pull the Whitescar far down to reach his eye level, really it could seem kinda pathetic that Baul had to do that, and that Remaul let it happen, but Remaul didn’t flinch at the growling, he only stared down Baul as he answered, “Maybe I am, but I don’t think Orcish bravado wins us this fight anyways. We have a legion on paper, but that legion is made up of barely trained citizens, with spears and shields.”

An orc may have more will to fight than other races, but in Remaul’s opinion, that doesn’t mean squat to a superior force of greater number, so after stating his opinion he smacked away Baul’s hand and took his telescope back to study the sieging force again. “3 days is my estimation of how long Orsinium has with King Jacaruto’s plan… with this force Balfiera brought… I bet they want 2 days, but I bet we can give Orsinium a week if we hit them right.”

For a moment, Baul was fuming in anger at the Whitescar at his words, but he caught himself as he continued, “What do you mean, if we hit them right?”

There it is, the Orcish bravado showing. No question about why they would hit the enemy at all with this small force they had, no… it’s about how they will hit them that matters. A man, or mer would question the very idea of taking these shy a hundred soldiers they had and attacking the enemy, but no, Baul didn’t question the logic of the plan in that way. There’s no question if they attack, just how. “Bretons are cowards where it matters.”

Not all bretons are cowards Remaul knows, he knows of at least one tribe that are as fierce as goblin hoards and orcish strongholds… but these aren’t savage Forsworn, this is civilized Balfiera and Wayrest nobility. “They brought a force, meant for speed here. It’s meant to hit us hard and knock us out of their game of politics, as if we ever had a place in it. So they brought their pride and joy.”

As if to emphasize his words, another spell long in casting was released and shot at Orsinium. A molting ball of magical fire so hot as to stick and melt into the walls of Orsinium. “Attached to that pride, is a force that has been trained to know one thing and one thing alone. They don’t matter. Use you head Baul, I know you got something in there, what’s this information tell you?”

Baul took a moment to digest Remaul’s words before a grin grew on his face and he started to chuckle and then out right laugh. “Cowards you say? Where it matters… aye I think I understand. All we got to do is spook them then? I guess you got more than just what to do, how do you want to do this?”

 

[AtlannianSpy]

The point of Lisette's boot sunk into a hollow in the ground and she pitched forwards face first into the mud. It was only her desire to remain undiscovered that kept Lisette from screaming in frustration, that and the equally strong desire not to receive a mouhtful of mud. Instead Lisette let out a low, close mouthed groan and pushed herself up into a sitting position.

"Urgh, this fucking sucks," Lisette muttered, wiping the mud away from her face with her fingers. It turned out there was a reason that people went around building roads everywhere! Walking around in the dark without them was the worst! Lisette had already lost count of how many times she'd tripped and fallen, her hands were scraped and bleeding and she was lucky not to have broken her ankle or something. Judging from the way the right one twinged whenever Lisette put weight on it was at least sprained but she couldn't really do anything about that without setting up some kind of camp, which she didn't have any of the necessary equipment for.

Truthfully what Lisette really wanted was something to take the edge off her pain, stress and fear. Moon sugar would be best, Lisette normally avoided skooma because the high could be a little too harsh for her tastes. Lisette liked her drugs to enhance reality rather than detach her completely from it. Then again right about now detachment sounded pretty appealing. Sadly there wasn't any moonsugar or skooma on offer. Te best Lisette had been able to manage was a sprig of Elves ear she'd stumbled over and been chewing on the leaves of for the last hour. Elves ear was more properly used as part of a mana restorative, but chewed like this in its natural form the herb had a (very) mild stimulant effect.

Gingerly, Lisette got back to her feet, she wasn't quite sure where she was but judging by the sounds she could hear she was actually closer to the Deuxrenne camp than when she had started: her intended circular loop had probably ended up flatter and more ovaloid than Lisette had intended. As tempting as it was to rest right now, this was probably the worst place possible to do it, she needed to push on deeper into orcish controlled territory where she at least had even odds of being found by someone who didn't want to murder or kidnap her.