The Jonemeri Bosmer

After Shagrath's spider-children, I present a new text for the theme of the week. Sorry for my bad English. Enjoy the Moons!

###The Jonemeri Bosmer###

3E 429

By Titecles Narius, Extramundialogist of the Imperial University.

Every citizen of Tatterdemalion know the Jonemeri Bosmer, but their history stays nebulous, even totally unknown for most Tamrielics. As a consequence, it is necessary for the collective knowledge of the Moons that we write a book telling their true origins, according to themselves and our own knowledge about them. For this record, I rest on the narrator of Dengoroth town, Aedril, who I know the reliability, at least for a Wood Elf, and the Imperial University archives.

As their name indicates it, the Jonemeri Bosmer were firstly Wood Elves. They were living in Valenwood, more precisely in the villages nearby the Xylo River, in the Reaper’s March, next to the border with Elsweyr.

In 3E 395, during the Imperial Simulacrum, the Five Year War began. Were the Bosmer or the Khajiits who triggered the war? It’s hard to say, especially since these two peoples are known for being blasted liars. Anyway, the Khajiits attacked Valenwood from east and the battles came one after another in favor of the cat-folk. A brief truce occurred, but it was broken by the Khajiits when they crossed the Xylo River, destroying and burning on their path. Valenwood was weak, disunited, and the Tharnatos’s Empire was leaving the chaos making its work. Only the clans were conserving their honor and their strong attachment to the trees. Facing the Khajiits’ ravaging advance, a few refugee families in a rage invoked the Wild Hunt in Vindisi. The ancestral power of the Bosmer stopped the Khajiiti advance, just before tear each other apart. Once the two armies defeated, some people hoped the war could be over. But we have to never underestimate the Elves’ wrath when they are humiliated.

Having heard the Vindisi events, other Bosmeri refugees, more to the north, in Reaper’s March, decided avenge themselves their dead and the destruction of so many Earth Bones. Before the Kings Camoran of Falinesti and Arenthia negotiated the peace with Elsweyr, these vengeful clans which had lost everything except their life and honor invoked in their turn the Wild Hunt. The horde of monsters moved forward between the trees, crossed the Xylo River and killed all the Khajiits on its way. But it does not stop here. The Wild Hunt passed the old borders of Valenwood, left the shelter formed by the forest and entered in the Ne Quin-al Desert. Its objective was the Zenkrin’ahr oasis, between Dune and Orcrest. The clans had chosen this place for two reasons. First, because everyone knew it was a haven for bandits who harried the wood caravans of Valenwood – these attacks being the cause of the war according to the Bosmer. Then, Zenkrin’ahr was a recruitment pool for the Khajiitt armies, where many cat-folk invaders had come from and where war trophies had been brought. The oasis was gathering all what the clans hated.

On Sun’s Dawn 21st 3E 399, all this hate unfolded on Zenkrin’ahr. The Khajiits were feasting to celebrate their victory over Valenwood, consuming amount of moon sugar. They were not expecting what followed. The Wild Hunt slaughtered all the warriors and all the population. It devoured the males and the females, the elders and the children.

After this, the monsters of the Wild Hunt are supposed to tear each other apart, until it only remains one or almost. According to the legend, this is how the ritual normally works. But it was not the case in Zenkrin’ahr. Devouring the Khajiits in full feast, the forest-demons developed a moon sugar addiction. After the carnage, they gobbled the rests of the cat-folk’s meal and all their moon sugar stocks. If this ingredient maddens in high amounts on ordinary organisms, the moon sugar had an opposite effect on the Wild Hunt. The monsters became aware of what they turned into and were ashamed. The former Wood Elves implored the help of the Moons about which they were from now on tied. They prayed Jone and Jode to turn them into Bosmer again. The Tides of Fate heard their prays and they came to meet. Herma-Mora said:

“You know the price of Wild Hunt. Rejecting Order for Chaos makes you look like Sithis. The hunger of Hircine will never leave you. The Moons are your last tie to the Order, because the Doom is what it remains at the end, even in Sithis’s madness.”

“But, o Guardian of Knowledge and Memory, said a chieftain whose the appearance mixed a bear’s one and a bull’s one, if the Moons are our last tie to the Order, could we cheat thanks them?”

“Yes, you could, affirmed Herma-Mora. Your shape would take Bosmer’s one, altered by the phases of Jone and Jode, but your mind would stay beasts’ one, modified by the phases of Jone and Jode. You would become dependent on the essence of the Moons, alone able to calm your hunger, and you would pursue in the Elsewhere of Mundus your fight for your land.”

The Wild Hunt monsters approved this plan and so cheated. The Woodland Man called his alter ego the God of the Forest who took pity on his chaotic children and thus sang to them the Canticles of the Old People. Y’ffre’s sacred and magical song triggered a reaction from the ingested moon sugar and turned the Wild Hunt monsters into Wood Elves again. Their appearance was not as static as their previous one, but every expert in the Valenwood natives could identify them with Bosmer. However, they hungered for moon sugar; this too pure atmosphere was not suitable for them anymore. They had to go elsewhere.

Herma-Mora then called his brother Hircine. The Huntsman appeared and sounded the horn. Dozens of wild slarjei came from the desert to answer his call. The former monsters domesticated them with theirs songs, then rode them. Finally, Hircine guided the clans to the Elsewhere of Mundus; they took the Night Way.

These Bosmer reached Secunda, which they name Jone. They immerse themselves in its atmosphere, saturated with moon sugar, and consumed this in great quantity, bounded to the Little Moon and made it their home. That is why these former monsters are nowadays named Jonemer, the Jone-folk, or Jonemeri Bosmer, or even Bosmer anon Jone.

To the south of Tatterdemalion, they established the Colonial Archontias of the Bosmer of Jone, which are called Elven Archontias by the Imperials. Today, each Archontia is led by a chieftain of the Zenkrin’ahr Wild Hunt, become the Archons. The chieftain with the more blood ties with Eplear Camoran took the title of King-Archon. This makes him the honorary leader of the Archontal Council of Bosmer of Jone and give him an important religious function.

Each Archontia has his specific features. Many are from the distinctions between the clans when they still lived next to the Xylo River or from the monster-minds of the first Jonemer. For instance, each Archontia has his favorite lunar phase, as the Thundiral Archontia which prefers new Masser and waxing crescent Secunda. However, every Jonemeri Bosmer share common points. In particular, they have, as you noted, a very strong common history, a common religion, a common pride to be from Valenwood and especially a common fight.

The Zenkrin’ahr slaughter was not enough to calm down their thirst for vengeance. On Secunda, the Jonemeri Bosmer continue the Five Year War with the Khajiits of Lleswer, although the war is over for twenty years in Tamriel. The two peoples want to get revenge: for pillages and slaughters – of Elves or trees – in Reaper’s March on a side; for Torval and Zenkrin’ahr massacres on the other side. Jonemer and Khajiits also quarrel the sugar deserts (a thing absolutely ridiculous since the Moons are theoretically infinite and these are whole deserts!). The Khajiits consider themselves as the only custodians of the sugar by virtue of their nature, but the Bosmer hunger for sugar, as a legacy of the Zenkrin’ahr Wild Hunt. There is of course behind this an economical warfare for the treatment and selling moon sugar sectors, very lucrative activities. After all, that is obvious: we talk about Bosmer and Khajiits!

In any case, the Five Year War tirelessly pursue between the Elven Archontias and Lleswer, in a relatively latent way, but all the same nefarious for the political stability of Secunda. The commercial roads between Tatterdemalion and the Electoral District of Glassland cross the battlefield. The trading caravans fall victim to sly attacks by Jonemer, who wander the desert mounted on their slarjei, the bow in hand, or by Khajiits, who camouflage themselves in the sugar until you are within their claws’ reach. The Jonemeri Bosmer have none scruple to attack Imperial settlers, pretending the abandonment of Valenwood by the Empire during the Five Year War – they should remember Jagar Tharn’s mother was a Wood Elf! – give them the right to act against its interests. The Khajiits prefer lie about their attacks, blaming the Jonemer, when they are not too drugged up for this.

Today, the Jonemer second generation is adult. They present the same features of their parents: monster-minds, physical and psychological changes caused by the lunar phases, addiction to moon sugar, war with the Khajiits for lands on an exrramundic plane, etc. The forecast of Herma-Mora was finally true. Most Tamrielics legitimately see through Herma-Mora the Daedric Prince Hermaeus Mora. The Bosmer of Nirn and of Jone say Herma-Mora is not him. Liars! Even you, you say Hircine is Herma-Mora’s brother! Will you say Hircine is not a Daedric Prince either? Anyway, the Woodland Man gave to the Wild Hunt monsters a cruel fate, even if they were demons and cheaters.

There would still be lots of things to say about the Jonemeri Bosmer, but I think now you know enough about them to make your own opinion. Meanwhile, I give you mine. I believe someone must resolve the conflict between the Bosmer of Jone and the Khajiits of Lleswer, with the strength if it is necessary. Empire Actual or the Kings of Valenwood and Elsweyr must quickly act, before all that ends in new tragedies, like the refugee clans of the Xylo River’s one or the Zenkrin’ahr oasis’s one. Many lifes and the prosperity of the lunar colonies depend on this.