skyrimkinkmeme: (dragon)
skyrimkinkmeme ([personal profile] skyrimkinkmeme) wrote2011-10-29 12:36 pm

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ANNOUNCEMENTS: UPDATED 12/16/2017

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Little Stolen Things (Tullius)

(Anonymous) 2013-07-05 03:25 am (UTC)(link)
I may add to this later, but for now I think the only tags are char: tullius and angst, I think.


Mattias Tiberius Tullius was born in the Market District of the Imperial City, the second son of a baker, neither rich nor poor - but very smart. As a young man he joined the Legion to see the world, and because he was sick of brushing flour dust off of his arms. And he did travel. But he never went to war; instead, he came home to it.

Many Imperial citizens wept with horror to learn that the Dominion had taken the capital. But for Tullius, it was different. It was his home the Dominion sacked, his gleaming fountains and plazas discolored by smoke, little alleys that were the play-haunts of his childhood reduced to rubble. And it was his city that he helped lay siege to, in the end. Long before the signing of the Concordat, from the moment he gave the order to bombard the walls that sheltered him as a boy, Tullius knew that regardless of its outcome, this battle could never be called a victory.

He wants to scream, when the Nords of Skyrim speak of the treaty and call it cowardice. Yes, the legions were brimming with Nords, and they fought as bravely and died as futilely as all the other soldiers. But it was not their towns being burned, their fields being salted, their children lying dead in the streets because some Thalmor officer gave no more thought to cutting down a human child in his path than he would a stray dog. If it were, Tullius does not think they would have been so eager to go on fighting.

Or maybe they would. He doesn't pretend to understand them; there's a lot of talk about how the provinces would descend into barbarism without the Empire, but Tullius never gave much thought to it until he came to Skyrim, where a man can apparently murder his king so long as he follows the proper ritual. Regardless, they are not the true enemy. Ulfric Stormcloak's little rebellion is nothing but a distraction, and it infuriates him that he must spend lives and resources on it while the Dominion crouches in the shadows, waiting. Mocking. Once, while he is poring over reports, he gets an invitation to one of the Emissary Elenwen’s lavish little receptions. His reply is curt. The Empire sent me here to win a war, not attend parties. (Tacked on for civility's sake: Deepest regrets.) He's glad of such an ironclad excuse. He hates that sort of function anyway, but every time he sees that woman he can feel her silently laughing at him.

Tullius hates being laughed at. He hates turning prisoners over to the Dominion anytime they claim jurisdiction, on some trumped-up but unprovable accusation of Talos worship. He hates pretending not to hate them. And most of all he hates the memory of firing catapults on his home in order to save it, like driving a knife into one’s arm to lance a wound: of scorched stone and crumbling towers; of the green earth around Lake Rumare violated beyond recognition, churned into a muddy waste by wheels and marching feet; of hungry civilians cowering in their houses before the flaming missiles of their own invading army. One day, he thinks. For now his job is to put a stop to this Nord nonsense with Ulfric Stormcloak’s head on a spike, and to be as civil with the Thalmor as he can stand - and Tullius excels at doing his job. But one day, there is going to be a reckoning.

He’s looking forward to it.

Re: Little Stolen Things (Tullius)

(Anonymous) 2013-07-05 08:05 am (UTC)(link)
Ah, such great background to Tullius!

"the green earth around Lake Rumare violated beyond recognition, churned into a muddy waste by wheels and marching feet"

As someone who played Oblivion, thank you, so painful and such great detail, amazing.

Re: Little Stolen Things (Tullius)

(Anonymous) 2013-07-05 11:28 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you! I'm glad the backstory rings true; it always feels risky to make up things that might jar with other people's perceptions, and Tullius is such a blank slate in the game. Personally I always pictured him as the sort who came from a long line of career soldiers - until I tried to write him, and he insisted on being a stolidly middle-class nobody who rose up the ranks through sheer bulldogged determination. Thanks again for a lovely comment.

Confession: I've only played Morrowind and Skyrim, so I'm glad that line rings true, too.

Re: Little Stolen Things (Tullius)

(Anonymous) 2013-07-05 10:41 am (UTC)(link)
Oh Tullius. All the hugs from my inner Imperial.

And I agree with the above poster that this is just painful if you've played Oblivion.

If you do decide to add to this, I would be delighted. It's a story worth telling, I think.

Re: Little Stolen Things (Tullius)

(Anonymous) 2013-07-05 11:32 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you so much!

Re: Little Stolen Things (Tullius)

(Anonymous) 2013-07-05 06:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh gods, Tullius. Poor Tullius. Big hugs for him, and for you, A!A for this gem of a fic. It is indeed telling how the Nords are so indignant about the Concordat and Imperials for giving in to it, but it wasn't their country being ravaged by the Dominion.

Really well written, you really captured Tullius's despair at being forced to invade his own country.

Re: Little Stolen Things (Tullius)

(Anonymous) 2013-07-07 01:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks! My last fill was deep in Ulfric's POV, so I figured it was Tullius' turn. I'm not sure he's the hugging type, but I'll gladly accept hugs on his behalf - poor man deserves them. :)

I sympathize deeply with the Nords and the Empire both, which is part of what I love about the Civil War storyline. Part of the problem is cultural, I think (Voice of the Emperor/faith in diplomacy vs. "true Nords never back down"), and part of the problem is one of the big reasons empires always fall: when push comes to shove, the needs of the heartland always outweigh the needs of the provinces. I can't really blame the provinces for being upset about that, but as you say, I can't really blame the Empire for wanting to stop their homeland being ravaged, either.

OP Re: Little Stolen Things (Tullius)

(Anonymous) 2013-07-05 11:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, wow. Oh, Tullius. This is such a believable backstory for him, and reading it hurts so good.

In spite of the angst I also got kind of a kick out of that incredibly insincere "deepest regrets" and "apparently a man can murder his king as long as he follows the proper ritual," just because both of those are so recognizably TULLIUS. Awesome, in-character fill, anon.

Re: OP Re: Little Stolen Things (Tullius)

(Anonymous) 2013-07-07 01:33 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm thrilled you like it, OP - thanks for the lovely comment and the lovely prompt! And I love Tullius' sour sense of humor, so I'm glad to heart that a bit of it made its way into the story.

Part 2a (Vilkas)

(Anonymous) 2013-11-23 12:25 am (UTC)(link)
This part is 13 characters over the limit. 13 CHARACTERS. Aaargh.


One afternoon – when the dust of the training yard sticks to the sweat on his skin, when one of the dummies hangs disemboweled from its post, when the call of the blood gnaws at his guts as though he is the one with his straw innards fluttering in wisps about the underforge – Ria asks him about the war. He’s not sure why. Perhaps she respects his opinions on politics as well as swordsmanship. Perhaps it’s because she’s a newcomer and an Imperial, and an overwhelming aura of Nord clings to Jorrvaskr like the scents of smoke and mead. It makes Vilkas huff in frustration. The war is stupid, and he has scant patience for stupidity, especially when his skin itches as though he will never sleep again.

“There are always good reasons to fight,” Vilkas says. “I just wish this war had them. Who cares who worships what dead god? Give me something to make me draw my sword.”

Ria looks at him curiously. “What about the Thalmor?”

“Are you even old enough to remember the Great War?”

“No, but—”

“Then keep quiet about it,” Vilkas snaps. “Companions win glory through arms, not politics.”

He’s barely old enough to remember the war himself. Not in detail, anyway – he remembers certain parts clearly enough. He remembers being pressed up against his brother as the citizens of Whiterun lined the streets to farewell their warriors, uniforms flashing in the sun, one of Jergen’s big hands laid on each of their shoulders. The cheers of pride and bloodlust. The way Jergen’s hand tightened unconsciously when the legionnaires marched past, so that Vilkas looked up and saw the man swallow hard. He remembers the sudden absence of certain favorite foods, as the trade from Cyrodiil dried up. He remembers the death-like stillness that fell in town after the courier arrived with news that the ImperialCity had fallen. And he remembers dashing up onto the walls to watch Jergen stride out the gates with his muscled warrior’s walk, the one he constantly puffed out his chest and tried to mimic: weighted down with his heavy armor, and yet not hampered by it; musclebound, earthbound, as though Skyrim’s stones themselves had stood for some inexorable purpose. He was visible for a long time, striding across the plains, till he rounded the meadery walls and passed out of sight. Vilkas doesn’t remember him looking back.

Little Stolen Things Part 2b (Vilkas)

(Anonymous) 2013-11-23 12:29 am (UTC)(link)
Our father, Farkas called him. Still calls him. Vilkas isn't sure if he really believes it, or if he is simply content to use the nearest name. He envies his brother that. Even at five he understood what it meant to be a foundling. To be unwanted.

He understood abandonment, too, especially after the man who was not their father came home in a casket. He remembers being irrationally angry that they would not let him look inside. He remembers the flames of the Skyforge clawing towards the sky. Farkas cried; it's one of the few times Vilkas can recall wanting to hit his brother. He remembers a solemn Kodlak laying a hand on his scrawny shoulder. What do I care? he had snarled, before yet another person could express condolences. He wasn't my father anyway.

The other members of the Circle whisper about the wolf blood, the way some take to it more than others. The way it makes a man’s temper burn hotter. But Vilkas knows – with a grim certainty that he fears to put into words, lest he confirm it absolutely – that they are wrong. It is not the wolf inside that makes his human passions more feral. It is the human passions – despair, desire, simmering hatred – that make the wolf so dangerous. And none is more woven into the roots of his human soul than the hate like black and raging love he feels for Jergen. He hates him for promising to look after them, always. He hates him for lying, for leaving, for loving war more than he loved the children that were not his children. Maybe, just maybe, Vilkas thinks, once, he went to war because he wanted his children to be safe - and then he hates himself for thinking it, and Jergen for making him wonder. He hates him for pretending to be something he was not, so well that Vilkas could almost believe him. He hates him for making Farkas cry.

(But far more - caged and pacing like the wolf, unacknowledged, always there - he hates the Thalmor bastards who took him from them.)

Re: Little Stolen Things Part 2b (Vilkas)

(Anonymous) 2013-11-23 10:52 am (UTC)(link)
OMG, loving Vilkas's characterisation here! Even as a boy, being all stoic and manly and yet with all those emotions seething away within. Excellent work and such a good job showing all the scars the war's left behind, even on those who didn't fight in it.

Re: Little Stolen Things Part 2b (Vilkas)

(Anonymous) 2013-11-24 06:02 pm (UTC)(link)
I bow to your creativity. This was both awesome and rings true. Thank you for writing it.

Re: Little Stolen Things Part 2b (Vilkas)

(Anonymous) 2013-12-27 11:14 pm (UTC)(link)
I love this! Great job, A!A!