TRIGGER WARNING: SA AND SUCH
Dear traveler,
The sky had wept that day. Not violently — but in a quiet weeping, only in so much that it made to drown the world beneath it without causing it to scream. My father was never one to be afraid of problems, as the ones which he reasoned he could resolve, he made to resolve, and from those which he reasoned he could not, he turned and faced away. That was until that day: on the day the sky wept — when it hung low and dragged in quickly as Autumn had come but the heat had not yet gone. There was fear in his eyes— a fear which had not wavered since it came to him some time before, since the night he covered his face with his hands, and the brave face that showed when he pulled his hands away was not his own. In the time that followed, he watched as those around him fell apart, as the wells ran dry and the world for which he had once given everything began to rot and slough away. He reasoned for this problem he had no resolve, and so as they screamed and turned to droplets of ink to run with the sky’s tears, he turned to face away. It was not until that day — that day when the sky wept and its tears turned to blood, where the red pools reflected consequence and the part which he had been forced to play, where the ripples made to lick at his own feet and where he could not turn to face away, where he reasoned for this problem he had no resolve, though still, he was afraid.
Or at least in so much that I have been told. “See the child,“ my Gwenan would say, “on the day of the Concordat a miracle was born unto the city, where her mother named her after her own, and that child was the same to carry her off.” My father had been a legionnaire: his division called up some weeks before my coming and sent to Aetherius at Red Ring.
Gwenan brought me forth and laid me to my mother’s breast before she too was taken up. “Call her Scarlet,” said she, “her grandmother’s name,” and it was so. Gwenan took me in. A Redguard of 75, then, fled from Hammerfell three years prior as the war had come to her shores. She loved me the way my mother may have. In the shadow of imperial rot we had a bounty of cheese each evening. I loved that cheese the same 100 times, and she called to me through the cracks in my door “Mlou,” her people’s word for that cheese.
As the septim grew weary so too did its subjects, and responsibility was shifted to and fro like ships in swells and back again. “The Thalmor,” said the Nord. “The beasts,” said the Imperial. “The other,” said those with hate in their hearts. And so, I was 14 when Gwenan was dragged into the streets of the Imperial City and stripped, raped and beaten to death, strung up like a hog and left before the mob as an example: “this is all their fault.” Who they were changed with the killer who told the story, but I cried all the tears I had to cry that day, and I have not since.
Further on. I sold my hands. I sold my body. I sold my heart. At 16 I enlisted as an auxiliary, pushed into support archery and served my stent of 2 years. When I was demobilized I found work with the Curia keeping records of provincial finances. Our facilities are few and far between, but I had found my smile for the first time since it had left me four years before. I thought of my dad. It was my plan, then, to someday apply to the College and become a practitioner of the arcane. I know now that I will never have the opportunity.
That is because some weeks ago my services were requested by our offices in province of Skyrim. An imperial indictment had been filed against the northern sector of the East Empire Company. An investigation had been opened, and I was to evaluate substantial accusations which claimed the Company’s branch in Solitude had been willingly violating the embargo placed against the “Stormcloak” occupied holds in the east of the province. Rumors of ethnic cleansing at the hands of the rebels made this a matter of personal interest.
The journey was no more than two days, but upon my arrival at the border checkpoint between Cyrodiil and Skyrim I was taken into the custody of the Legion. No charges were filed, at least as far as I have been made aware, but my files on the company were confiscated along with my belongings, and I watched as they were burned by the guards. It is clear that the Company has been here, and they got here before I did.
I do not know where I am, but I am to be transported to Helgan tomorrow morning at day’s break, where I have every reason to believe that Aetherius awaits. I write this letter with my prayers to the Divines that someday it will be discovered, and Tamriel will come to know the truth: If allowed to fester the way it has been, mercantilism will lead the extinction of life on Nirn.
My name is Scarlet Mluo.
I am 26 years old.
Tomorrow, I will be murdered by the East Empire Company.
- In prayer, Scarlet Mlou
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