On the Dwemer, by an angry Snow Elf

I am not known here for my amazing apocrypha, but when I do write it I write as Lyenwen, an uncorrupted Snow Elf saved by a Dwemer Conjurer in the months before Numidium was activated and the Dwemer vanished. An Atheist Anuad, her revelations on Soul Gems, and a brief story about her "capture", are other works I have done in her voice, with different levels of feedback from the community. Today I present another entry from her diary.

Dearest Ibthld,

My world has collapsed. Strange to say that, it was not much of a world. It was fragile thing to begin with. I was born on the run in the aftermath of the death of the Snow Prince. We scrabbled around the dark tundra, the land we nurtured turning on us under the new love of the Nordic Masters.

Elves have always felt as if all of Creation was a cruel trick of Lorkhan. We Snow Elves sought atonement in the harsh terrain of Skyrim, you Deep Elves sought transcendence with your technology and Brass Overlords.

You taught me the cruel secret of the Falmer degradation. In reading and forcing my dull hunter’s mind to understand the esoteric truth of Dwemer logic, in learning Dwemer secrets I unlocked the secrets to Elven nature.

All Mer were born into a Collective. Before Kynareth breathed words into our throats so we could speak our intentions, we shared our minds and were one with each other and with our ancestor-Gods. We shared not only our thoughts, but a collective AE, will and understanding of the world and the Aurbis.

As Time became linear and rational, Mer began to lose the Collective. It caused great distress, strife and dissent among the Aldmeri ancestors. Your people left first, cultivating your collective mind through magickal, alchemical and meditative means. Who would become the Altmer used strict conformity and a certain asceticism to prevent further loss of ‘collectivity’. They imposed an external sameness hoping it would echo internally.

The Chimer abandoned the idea of this Collective under the guidance of Boethiah. Individuals were instead taught to bond with one another through shared values, bonds of love, family, filial piety and devotion to their spiritual leadersip.

And we Snow Elves, before our degradation, could channel our will and love into the Snow Prince, our chamption. When our bond with him was broken by a grief-stricken child, we reeled with shock and our gift went latent.

You Dwemer used your fungus to transform my people into a useful slave caste. You also unwittingly awakened and enhanced the Falmer Collective mind. Since the Dawn times, there was a truly unified collective mind of Mer was re-established in Tamriel. Not only were they reawakened as a whole, they were able to resist the Call of Walk-Brass, despite their bond and servitude to the Dwemer.

Yes my love, I now understand Numidium, what it meant to your people. Into the Brass God you channeled all your petty resentments.

Were you jealous of the Velothi and their Walking Ways? Did they intimidate you when they arrived in Dwemereth with their love and loyalty?

You refused the world, but did not realise it was more than a simple negation. It was the destructive perversion of an angry child, a mythopoeic force so powerful yet so twisted that while channelling and reinforcing creation, it simultaneously undoes it. Utter chaos.

Yes, I have grown much in my life underground. I am not the barbarian raider that fell into you, a lifetime ago.

Even Mehrunes Dagon or Molag Bal would not be so pointlessly destructive. You said you did not need the world, you rejected its architects and planners as out-dated, irrelevant, inconstant or cruel. But it was you and your people who are the cruel ones, the petty ones, the fickle ones. You disguise your smallness with scholarly integrity, scientific progress, social evolution, an escape from a cruel and obtuse puzzle box.

But you were all hypocrites.

Where was the compassion? True understanding, not only of the world itself, but those who live and breathe and feel in the world? A desire to help others?

Godhood, the ability to shape the world, can only be achieved through being part of the world you are in, loving it, nurturing it, truly understanding not only its mechanics, but the beating heart that fuels it. Everything and everyone within it. Even the elements you find frustrating, threatening, confusing, out-dated or dangerous.

You needed the world more than it ever needed you, and you rejected it. You rejected the Aedra and the Daedra, and they are still here and you are not. You were full of youthful passion and a desire for knowledge, but you lacked leadership, direction, kindness and understanding.

Sometimes, the only way to appreciate kindness is to feel its utter lack, so you can mature and learn to understand it’s importance.

In a dream, words came to be, mysterious words like a prophecy form far away, echoing Chimeri in my dreams, the birth of God from the netchiman’s wife is the abortion of kindness from love.

This seems important but I cannot fully understand why.

I am tired, Ibthld, so tired of the fear. I must rest, I will write more later.

Love, Lyenwen

Edit: inserted another link