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The Tenth Hold	By : Singalmo Category: +A through F > Elder Scrolls - Skyrim Views: 23706 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own The Elder Scrolls : Skyrim, or anything related to it. This fiction is purely for entertainment and I do not profit from it in any way.

Chapter List
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Another minor interruption in the narritive, this time for the account of Lady Elenwen, who served as Ambassador for the Aldmeri Dominion in Skyrim at the time of the civil war. Her story is fully intertwined with that of Seved Kron. This first portion of her account reflects backward briefly, and is essential to understanding the events that led up to the Dovah’s Moot.

My first encounter with Seved Kron was at Helgen. The whole of my purpose for being there was to carry out the wishes of my superiors back in the Summerset Isles. Chiefly, sparing the life of Ulfric Stormcloak, or somehow using his death as a means of spurring hostilities into a full boil. I remember the large, red-haired Nord in the cart with Ulfric. I remember him because I could feel his gaze briefly drilling into the back of my head, and it caused me to turn and look, for that fleeting moment, to the cart. I know that General Tullius saw the shiver that ran down my spine.

I was entirely surprised by the dragon showing up, the same as everyone who was there. In the aftermath of Helgen, everyone who was anyone’s enemy in that incident was eager to blame each other for the return of the dragons. Remembering the scholarly works which explained away the entity known as Alduin as being entirely the same as Akatosh, I began to do some research of my own. I remembered well what I had seen that day, and between the descriptions I saw, and the vast differences between the black-scaled dragon and the descriptions of Akatosh, I had come to my own conclusion that what I had witnessed entirely debunked these scholarly works. Not to discredit the scholars entirely, mind you. They simply refused to look closely, and frankly there was not enough evidence.

At the time, however, that was irrelevant. I would be able to report to my superiors that Ulfric had escaped and was safely entrenched in Windhelm. I had requested additional forces to station at Northwatch Keep, considering the number of prisoners that was moving through that place, and the speed with which many moved through there. I thought it best to secure the operation. My requests were frequently denied, saying that eighteen was more than enough, and that to add more would only draw attention to the otherwise abandoned keep.

Such responses were not the only ones that had forced me to not trust the men under my effective command. I had repeatedly overheard conversations from my own staff that had given me pause. That I was leader in name only. I was a security risk to be here. I was only here to get me out of the way. I exercised what authority I could in the only way I knew how. The same treachery that was being employed against me.

Naturally, we had spies all over Skyrim, and Olfrid Battle-Born was only too happily loose-lipped about anything and everything that was happening in the city of Whiterun. It came as no surprise that dragon attacks continued. What did surprise us was his report that a large, red-haired Nord had done some favors for the Jarl and had been named a Thane as reward for his services in helping to defend the city. When pressed for further details, I could easily confirm that the man described could only have been the one I had seen at Helgen. A natural choice to send out against a dragon, though he honestly had no more experience than any of the soldiers of Whiterun. The fact that this prisoner was now an esteemed member of society was a bit odd.

So of course I had him watched to the best of my ability. When I learned that his name was Seved Kron, I began to dig into any records I could get to track him down. I learned that he had been born in Riften, while his parents were visiting friends. They returned to Windhelm not long after. I learned who his father was and how well he’d served in the war against my people. I learned of his mother, a talented seamstress and a good woman. I found record of their movement into Morrowind. I found the records of her death. I found the occasional arrest of the young Seved. I found his work history and that he had finally been a sailor that went between Cyrodiil and the Summerset Isles. The last entry on his record is what sent up the largest red flag, though I wasn’t sure who it was warning against until later. There was record of a murder in Seved’s home in Anvil. A double murder. A girl who had been long missing from the Isles and a Thalmor agent sent to “liberate” her from her “captivity.” The circumstances were suspicious, and the other sailors who had lived in that house were taken in for interrogation. I could find no records of those interrogations, or what had happened to them. Seved was the final loose end of an investigation gone horribly wrong. They had tracked part of his journey and figured he would head to a border. The agents in Cyrodiil presumed it would be to Hammerfell and had agents ready for him there. However, they guessed incorrectly. It was pure chance that he was caught at the border of Skyrim. They would have figured it out sooner or later if the execution had gone off without a hitch.

As it was, I was able to report that I’d found him and was watching him closely. Reporting what information I had gave my superiors pause. He was caught with Ulfric, which meant he could be used as a pawn, on either side of the board, and when he was no longer useful, he could be killed. Simple and clean, and he wouldn’t even know he was being used, the same as Ulfric. I offered them one warning, that I sensed if they did not take action now, they would lose control quickly. I was reassured of my foolishness in assuming that I knew better than they did, so I followed my orders and waited.

Then he fell out of our observation. The last sighting was in Solitude, in the alchemist’s shop, and our agent who spotted him said he was working like a man possessed. He was secretive, and while he would answer questions, he was still rather vague. Our agent managed to pocket a vial of what he was making, but we later learned that it was incomplete. Even when we were able to obtain the completed formula, much later mind you, we still could not figure out its precise recipe. Upon leaving Solitude, we lost track of him entirely.

Then, we failed to get the usual “all’s well” from Northwatch Keep. That was two days after we lost track of Seved. However, being in the same region, we knew that a massive snowstorm had blown up along the coast. It was giving us some trouble in our relatively sheltered position as well. So we blamed the lack of communication on the weather. They would send word as soon as they could get a runner through the cold without risking snow bears. Yet the runner never came. No word came at all from the keep. I sent a standard three-man patrol out to the keep to check on things, make sure they hadn’t gotten utterly buried in snow.

Two hours after I sent the patrol, I got word that Seved had been spotted again in Solitude, with a dark-haired woman. He then began asking careful questions and we allowed him to go about his business. Sixteen sets of fine Elven armor and weapons were sold in Solitude, and two sets of robes. A wagon driver was paid handsomely. Large numbers of supplies were purchased. Two days later, the orders complete, they were loaded into a wagon, with the aid of three men whom we knew were Legion soldiers, that were not in uniform. These men, with civilian armor and weapons, mounted up with Seved, and the wagon, and left Solitude. The guards we spoke to said the group was headed south, toward the Reach. We alerted our agents, but no report of sightings came in from even Dragon Bridge, or any of the south-leading roads. Bribes were probably exchanged, or simple lies were told. We could not be sure which at the time.

What mattered was that Seved had dropped out of our observation again. My patrol did not return. A second patrol, escorting a female prisoner from Cyrodiil, also failed to report in. No bodies were found, only the last remnants of a struggle near the statue of Meridia, what hadn’t been obliterated by a snow flurry. The trail was cold and we had nothing to follow. I sent one more direct patrol out to Northwatch Keep. When they failed to return, I had no choice. I reported all this information to my superiors and told them that as near as I could tell, the keep had fallen and I would not risk losing more of our forces to whatever had taken up residence. For all we knew, it could have been frost trolls.

It was, in truth, far worse than we could have anticipated. With little to go on at the time, however, all we could do was wait. My superiors acted against my advice and continued to send the occasional scouting party out to the keep to see what was out there. Each time, the party was lost. No one returned. My superiors were growing impatient. They wanted answers that I could not give them.

The only thing I could give them was the rumors and hearsay that were slowly spreading over Skyrim. Someone was paying back the Thalmor for rather vile atrocities. Someone had taken Northwatch Keep and was keeping it out of Thalmor hands. We started seeing people filter out to Haafingar and disappear not long after leaving Dragon Bridge or Solitude. Poor farmers, mercenaries, soldiers, criminals.

Seved finally came back into viewing right under our noses. Ancano reported from the college that Seved had returned for the start of the semester, along with his housecarl, Lydia. He seemed a little different, certainly invigorated, and an eager student as ever. I bade Ancano watch him as closely as he could. This proved difficult as when there were small breaks, Seved and Lydia would go off into the wilderness and delve into the caves and ruins.

Somewhere in that semester, two things happened which made me send my first, “I told you so” to my superiors. Grelod the Kind was found dead in the orphanage in Riften, a single arrow in her back. Seved Kron missed two days of classes at the college and returned on foot, without his horse, severely annoyed and disturbed. He would not speak to anyone about where he’d been. I found one agent who had spotted him on the road leaving Morthal, on foot. That same agent told me of the movements of Astrid, whom we knew was the leader of the Dark Brotherhood sect in Skyrim, that we had elected to leave alone. The only annoyance from that came when that same agent was found dead in his room with a note on him. It had a black hand print and beneath it were the words, “Silence is golden.”
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The Tenth Hold