skyrimkinkmeme | Meme Announcements!

Meme Announcements!

ANNOUNCEMENTS: UPDATED 12/16/2017

Happy Holidays, fellow Kinkmemers! I have returned and have no reasonable excuse for my absence except LIFE. I will be working on updating the archives. If anyone sees anything amiss, please let me know.

I am also hoping to find another Mod and an Archivist.

The more dedicated people we have in this Meme the less chance of it dying. I admit that being the sole keeper of the Meme is not great for the fandom. If something were to happen to me, for good, this place would go the way of the Fallout Kink Meme. Let's not let that happen! If anyone would be interested in Modding/Archiving, please drop me a line. Thanks! <3

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After, in the bitter dark of prison, he thinks about the bodies plummeting from the walls, the blood trickling down the sloped stone streets. The gates of Markarth, burst by the same ancient siege weapon that broke the doors of fortresses in the First Era. He remembers Arngeir speaking of Jurgen Windcaller, of the defeat that was the price of arrogance. He has not thought of Arngeir in a long time. During the war the peace of High Hrothgar shone so brightly in his memory that it was painful to look at. He locked it away, like some powerful relic entombed lest it bring about destruction. He suspects Arngeir would have many choice words for him if they could speak now.

And yet he is not sorry. He has been very angry for a very long time, but now, suddenly, that fury is channeled toward something outside himself. What are his broken vows, before the broken faith of an Empire that sells its subjects to buy its safety? That spits upon the sacrifice of untold thousands and profanes the sacred name of its founding god? He believed that he was fighting for a just cause. Now he sees that he was fighting for a petty Colovian warlord to keep his throne, and Ulfric vows that he is finished bleeding for an Empire that will not return the favor.

He has seven years to brood on the ways he has been wronged. The Ulfric Stormcloak who emerges to claim his father's throne is older and paler, with a new, reluctant caution and the faintest of premature lines etched into his face. But he has a hard hot smolder behind his eyes and a voice that men will follow. Within the great stone walls upon which a hundred armies have broken like water Windhelm's Temple of Talos opens, and the ramparts spanning the river bristle with a swelling militia of guards wearing Eastmarch blue.

(Far away, in the cutthroat political circles of Alinor where there are no more Blades to observe, an interrogator receives a promotion for a job well done.)

----------

By the time he is thirty Ulfric has been a student and a soldier and a criminal. After he returns to Windhelm he buries his father - over and over, in a hundred different ways - by becoming a jarl.

It has a long memory, his city: in the Valunstrad he can feel the press and whisper of ancient kings at his back, the weight of ancient eyes. Sometimes the grey snow whirls and flurries into ghostly shapes. Every year, on the thirteenth of Sun's Dawn, all five hundred names of Ysgramor's Companions are still recited before the Feast of the Dead.

Ulfric is acutely conscious of whose throne it is that he sits upon, and grimly determined to prove worthy of the honor. He speaks, and holds court, and learns to wield cunning like a sword. He recalls that his father never spoke of the citizens as a common rabble. He acquires a reputation among Skyrim's jarls. He makes a magnificent politician, and surrounded as he is by the ghosts of his entire culture maybe it is not surprising that he never loses sight of his own. Bitterly contemptuous of Imperial promises, he pours Windhelm's treasury into what amounts to a private army. He bides his time. At the temple of Talos he prays for strength: to defy the Concordat, to atone for his failures, to fight for his people.

(Five minutes' walk would find some of his people huddled in their grimy cornerclub and cursing his apathy, and a visit to the docks would see more of his people engaged in backbreaking labor for half-wages. But Ulfric never sees the irony.)

Some eighteen years pass, and then High King Istlod dies.

----------

Nine jarls gathered, and the other eight are content to discuss Torygg's ascension to High King as if it is of any political consequence whatsoever. As if the Moot truly has the power to name Skyrim's king, when the Jarl of Solitude and its Imperial interests has filled that position for centuries. Ulfric is not interested in foregone conclusions, nor in scraps of ceremonial power from the Empire's table.

Torygg is painfully young, dressed in a prince's finery, fresh and bright as Solitude itself. But Ulfric mistrusts this jewel of a city, with Imperial gold lining its pockets the way nightshade lines its streets. He is a child of ice and snow and old stone halls; he much prefers Windhelm. And he doubts the resolve of this boy to rule as Skyrim needs him to. He means to test it.

"The Moot is charged with determining Skyrim's future," he says. "Surely the succession is only a small part of that."

Idgrod looks at him shrewdly. "And what did you have in mind?"

"We all know what he has in mind," mutters Igmund.

Ulfric chooses his words carefully. "Upon his ascension, every High King of Skyrim renews the alliance and pledges loyalty to the Empire," he says. "In this case, that means swearing to uphold the White-Gold Concordat."

"If you've something to say, man, out with it," says Balgruuf.

Ulfric folds his arms. "It may be time to reconsider old alliances."

Laila Law-Giver frowns. "Skyrim has always been a loyal friend to the Empire."

"A friend, or a slave? Friends stand as equals. Did Titus Mede ask your permission before signing away our country to the Dominion? Did he ask any of you?" He turns to Torygg. "Did he ask your father?"

"Here, here!" says Skald.

Igmund shakes his head. "What you're suggesting is treason."

"Treason? My allegiance is to Skyrim and her High King, not to the Empire."

"Enough games, Ulfric. You know the High King swears fealty to the Emperor," snaps Balgruuf.

Ulfric locks eyes with Torygg. "Does he?"

The table dissolves into bickering. "The Empire loathes the Concordat as much as we do. But it is wise to move cautiously when dealing with serpents," says Idgrod.

"For how long? The people are impatient."

"You are impatient!" Igmund growls. "Do you not remember how this ended last time? We have sacrificed too much for the current peace to throw it away."

A flare of rage skips along his veins. "Oh, I remember. And what would you know of patience, Igmund son of Hrolfdir? You seemed less certain of our beloved Emperor's timely aid when it was your throne at stake. And you sit upon it now because better men gave their blood and freedom to win it for you - you and Titus Mede are alike in that, oathbreaker. Do not dare to talk to me of sacrifice."

It's more than enough to provoke a duel; Ulfric half-hopes the man will offer to defend his honor with his blade, but Igmund only grinds his teeth.

"Enough," barks Balgruuf, with a quelling look at both of them. Ulfric ignores him.

"Tell me true," he presses Torygg, aggressive now. "What do you think?" Torygg looks at his advisor. "Not your nursemaid - you."

"Leave the boy be."

"He's man enough to be a king!" Ulfric thunders. "Or are we still undecided?"

"Istlod ruled well for more than twenty-five years--"

"Yes, and his father before him, and his father before that," says Ulfric. "But now I want to hear from his son."

Torygg swallows. "We still rely on the Empire for trade," he says, tentative.

Ulfric is not surprised, unless it is at how utterly furious he still has the capacity to feel. High King! I could rule better, he thinks, in disgust. And then: I could rule better.

----------

When he was a boy, his mother sang to him: songs of courage, songs of heroes, songs of men with the voices of dragons. He loved to hear them. He dreamed of being one of them.

Skyrim still needs heroes, and instead it has him.

He is not Ysgramor, though he sits on Ysgramor's throne; he is not Wulfharth or Jorunn or Harald, and he is certainly not Talos. He is not even his father, who was beloved of everyone in Windhelm, who commanded affection where Ulfric inspires hate and hero-worship in equally unreliable measure. But he does possess the Thu'um: the ancient weapon of the Nords, the relic of a time when kings ruled by might and not by the whim of a distant and self-interested Empire. The symbol of a Skyrim that was strong, and may be strong again.

He goes to Solitude with years of molten rage hammered into a cold and deadly purpose. Torygg smiles at him. "Jarl Ulfric--"

"Torygg." His voice is glacial. "I do not call you king, because no true High King of Skyrim would be so fearful and blind to his people's suffering. Let all those present witness. In the eyes of gods and men I call you traitor, and challenge you to trial by combat."

Torygg blanches. For a moment he looks dizzy, dumbfounded, and Ulfric wonders if he will refuse. It would serve his purposes just as well if he did, but after a moment the young king stands, a little shakily. "So be it."

"No--"

Torygg folds his fingers around the small hand gripping his sleeve, pushes it gently back toward his queen.

"The High King claims his right to choose the weapons," says Torygg's steward, a little breathlessly. Ulfric nods.

The court wizard shifts. "This is madness--"

"Swords," says Torygg. "And shields."

They have to bring Torygg's things from the armory. Ulfric feels a grim vindication in that - that this so-called defender of Skyrim does not even keep his war-gear close at hand. But he waits silently while Torygg puts on his mail and the members of his court huddle and whisper at the edges of the throne room. When it is done they face each other, there in the center of the palace. Torygg draws his sword.

Ulfric looks at the young man in his ceremonial armor - polished by servants, but never by blood. He does not really look at Torygg's face. If he did, he might see an uncanny resemblance to his long-dead comrades: casualties of the hatreds and the war-wounds of their elders, doomed brave boys who faced down the Dominion's ranks with shaky hands and steady eyes. But he does not. He thinks about symbols, about betrayal, about redemption.

His thu'um is stronger than it has ever been, bursting its banks with all his brutal, intimate knowledge of force, and what it means.

GUTTED. Poor Ulfric. Poor Torygg. Poor Elisif. Poor EVERYONE. *Cries forever*

Thanks! The thing I find brilliant about the Civil War is that, regardless of which faction I side with, there's always two or three moments that leave me feeling dirty (and not in a good way!). When I'm a Stormcloak, talking to Torygg's court is one of them.

How would you like my heart delivered, now that you've torn it out? This is fantastic. The part about "his people," the parallel between poor Torygg and the soldiers in the Great War, all the repetition in that last part. Thank you for a perfect fill.

Thank YOU for your lovely comments, and for a great prompt. This is simply my 4000-odd word way of agreeing with you - the saddest thing about Ulfric is the man he might've been. I'm incredibly glad you enjoyed it.

GAH! I'm still gonna side with the Empire, but GAH! So agonizing!

That's the best compliment I can imagine, thank you. The absolute last thing I wanted - and the thing I was most worried about getting - was a story that felt like it was pushing the reader to AGREE with Ulfric and his choices. It's the motivations behind those choices that I find fascinating, and the fact that at least one person read this and came away feeling for the guy, while still believing he's in the wrong, gives me delightful warm fuzzies.

The Kmeme is amazing. You are all amazing. You think you've read all there is to read and then you stumble upon something like this... This... How do I even begin to define this? Let me just say that you really brought me to tears, and not in the figure of speech kind of way: I have eyeliner streaks on my cheeks.

Skyrim still needs heroes, and instead it has him.

Oh, shit.
I always loved Ulfric, from my first playthrough to my most recent one, and I was never able to explain why. He's so... wrong, and yet I could never get my Dragonborn to hate him, in play or in stories.
Empire or Stormcloak (and I have to admit that I usually go for the latter) unless you play without listening to what the character say, you just know that there's more than what you can actually hear or see, behind the-man-who-killed-the-king.
Thank you for writing all that down.
I'm writing my Ulfric for another fill, and another version of him is in the works for yet another story, and both of them will owe everything to the fantastic way you have with words.
Thank you again, oh wonderful anon!

(PS: captcha says "drink milk"... ok, guys, who the hell is taking the piss at me from behind the screen?! I'M NO MILK DRINKERRRRRR!)

And just when I think no one's reading this any longer...thank you so, so much for this wonderful comment! I can't really take credit for that line; it's just a twist on Ulfric's dialogue from the game ("We're fighting because Skyrim needs heroes, and there's no one else but us"). The great thing about the character is how much of this story is implied if you read between the lines. Bethesda did a great job with him.

Obviously I like Ulfric too, despite my better judgement. I would love to read the stories you're working on. This one is cleaned up a bit over at ao3.

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