Al-Esh, Mother of Cyrod

Al-Esh

anon Alessia

anon Ales

anon Aleshut

anon Alexia

anon Perrif

anon Paravant

anon Paravania

First Empress of Cyrodiil, the spirit of its soil and it's rivers, thrice avatar of Mara, Kynareth, and Dibella, Mother of Belharza, Mother of Reman, Mother of Akatosh, Mother of Cyrod, Wife of the winged bull Morihaus Son-of-Kyne, companion of Pelin-El.

The Slave Empress.

Born a slavegirl in the breeding pits of Sard in the end of the second century of the first era, Perrif in all ways was unassuming and meek in nature. None could have imagined she would be the vessel of divine revolution- certainly not the lord of that damnable place, Nilichi, the King of Flowers. Nilichi, like all his elven kin within the reaches of their hegemony of Cyrodiil, was Ayleidoon; Most were a foul people, hedonistic and lecherous folk who inhabited the comfortale climes of Cyrodiil's rivers, powerful magelords and sorcerors each. Their days were filled with decadence, sex, violence, and sexual violence as means to pass their time, committing vast orgies in the names of foul gods assisted by the use of exotic narcotics and arts of torture, of which they had no equals- their lords were known to maintain fancifully described 'gut gardens: Collections of slaves brutalized and warped through flesh magic like they were clay and their lord the sculptor; or simply torn apart, their entrails hung about in fanciful arrangements of ritual and art. In both cases these slaves were kept alive, their wails a beautiful chorus to their inhuman masters.

And of these slaves they had many- before the ayleidoon had been exiled from Summerset for their association with the illicit spectra of Merid-Nunda and other perceived non-ancestors, Cyrodiil was abound with the many diverse tribes of the nedic peoples, from the cliffs of the gold coast to the impenetrable jungles of the deep Niben. But when the exiles arrived they were no match; though it did not happen suddenly, the ayleids expanded out from the archipelagos at the continents center where they had made landing and swept across the rivers and hills, enslaving all they came across. And so it was that in those days the tribal men of the south had been rendered naught but tools and toys to elves, used as easels for art-torture, menial labor, and bred by the thousands for mass sacrifice to daedric lords for powerful soul-bargains unseen with any other culture to this day. The lords often used these soul-bargains to make themselves almost as though gods; Gordhauur the Shaper, who's flesh would always come back, Agnoreith the Seer, who could see all possibilities in the pattern, Umaril the Unfeathered, himself born of bed-marriage between elf and Merid-Nunda- these are only a few examples.

The exacts of her revolution are unknown to historians. What is known is that at a young age she led a slave rebellion at Sard that proved successful, and forced the exile of Nilichi from his city and to the great ayleid city upon the central islands. It is stated that she received visions at these times; knowledge and prophecies divulged to her by Kynareth, Mara, Dibella, and Shezarr. After her victory over the city of her imprisonment she fled north with her small army to nordic lands amongst the rough northern hills, where nordic outposts feuded against ayleids and the two held boundaries against one another, respected only by their shared belief that they were not capable of overthrowing the other. It was there, when camped upon what would be known as the Sancre Tor, that her two great divine gifts were given to her: The Son of Kyne, the great winged bull Morihaus, a demigod in his own right to the nords come to assist her in her pursuit; and Pelinal, Star Made Knight, garbed in plate outside his era and filled with a fury and bloodlust and hate for elven kind unmatched by any of Tamriel.

In Morihaus the nords saw divine assistance. In Pelinal they saw Shor, though Pelin was quick to silence those who made this comparison, and quick to silence permanently with a smothering swarm of moths those who insisted. With these aspects of metaphysical and theological leverage Perrif was able to recruit the mercenaries of the eastern nords to her aid, promising them the wealth of elves and land if they assisted- an offer they normally would have turned down, but the issuant of this offer was clearly sacred.

Her forces of slaves in rebellion bolstered by the arrival of skilled northern generals and warriors, and accompanied by two demigods, she returned to southern lands, beginning her campaigns against the masters that would last years, one by one shattering chains and adding those freed to her ranks. Those few ayleid city states of more ethically sound nature, though still hedonists, who disavowed their slavery were quick to join her war; many others joined as well, simply because they could sense the direction of the wind as their neighbors crumbled. Though Pelinal seethed at the notion, and would often scream and rage against Perrif as she would not let him slaughter them, she stood strong, the lady of mercy holding her ground and accepting these surrenders. And so further her forces bolstered, the mages of ayleid turncoats accompanying them in battle.

As she led the war of freedom her companion Pelin-El was oft fighting wars of his own; though he was aligned to her, and she was the only soul capable of dissuading his furies, he was a wildcard. Every night he would leave their camp to fight on his own accord; every morning he'd return, his mail caked in viscera. Not once did he sleep. Whether he was single-handedly sieging holds, his weapons a maelstrom of steel and his hand emitting a cleansing, burning light, the grizzly paladin not leaving a single ayleidoon alive (be they man, woman, or child;), or challenging the greater lords to single combat, he was always off fighting something, killing something, devouring something. It was in this way that he put an end to many of the great sorceror kings, like Gordhauur, whose face he smashed against his own altars and whose soul he bound behind mothwing cages of words.

It was at the close of her war that they approached the great bridge to the archipelago, marching along the miles long road over the inland sea to the great citadel city of the ayleidoon, to face down Umaril and his council and declare the hegemony broken. Against the wishes of lady Perrif the knight went on ahead, meeting Umaril in single combat and slaying him- but not before being slew himself by Umaril's advisors, binding him through ritual and cutting him into 8 pieces. Despite this great loss, the following siege was successful; Obtaining surrender from the surviving Ayleidoon (and making targets of those city states who still refused to stand down) she became empress over the rivers and hills, recrafting the hegemony to her own purposes.

The great stone of power of the ayleidoon, the blood red ruby and container of souls Chim El-Adabal, said by the ayleids to have been formed from a drop of Lorkhan's blood (and thus holy to the Shezarr guided cause of Perrif), was crafted into an amulet by Perrif and made into a divine signifier of rule. She invented a new pantheon, combining the deities of her nordic compatriots with that known to the slaves from their ayleid masters, and putting a deity of her own design, a bleed-blend of Auri-el and Alduin at its helm; Akatosh. And so from the coma-dream swirling of the Aetherius from the root shared by those gods Akatosh came into being and always had been in being, retrochrysalized into the world; in other terms, retro-actively always there. Forming covenant with her child the dragon, she made her empire divine, and protected it from the intrusions of the void, of whom the last hegemony were patrons.

For 40 years she ruled over the empire she had created, at the side of her husband Morihaus; She was a merciful, kind, and understanding ruler, and one whom all men in the rivers held a reverence to- she was the mother of their new world, the mother of man. Both her and her husband held many consort and lovers, as was encouraged in those days by a more tribal Dibella, the Mother of Cyrodiil holding nearly a hundred companions; her nordic generals, many servants of her palace, those loyal elves that struck her fancy, rivermen who turned her head, and even an occasional beastfolk from the sands and swamps to the south. She bore many of their children; By the time she was old, dozens had been born from her womb by her belly magic, the prolific nature of Dibella and Mara together rich within her. But her closest children were those she had with her bull- her Minotaur, especially the first of their kind, Belharza the Man-Bull. Though it is often censored by modern religious authority in tamriel, it is fairly common knowledge amongst the river cults that as he matured, he too was her lover.

In the year 266 old age finally came upon her; upon her deathbed hundreds of thousands came to see her, her many adopted children as mother of Cyrod all coming to pay their respects, to cease their feuds and infightings and merchant squabbles to be at the side of the woman who was mother to all of them- an important role amongst a people whose older generations at that time had all been bred in pits, their parentage unknown. In that regard they all saw her as mother, grandmother, great-grandmother- her passing was a deep sadness on their hearts. At the moment of her passing it was said she was with Morihaus, Pelinal, and Akatosh, all three by the side of their bed- despite Pelinal being quite deceased at the time, but stranger things had happened with the star made knight. She passed quietly and happily, ever victorious against a world that had sought to grind her to dust. Though the bliss of her empire would not last long directly; by the end of her grand-daughter Ami-El's rule, the rivers would be controlled by more extremist cults, men more in touch with Pelinal than with her mercy who led pogroms against the remaining elves in her name. So much for respect for their mother.

Regardless, in her passing, Perrif, now truly Al-Esh, old nibenese for high highest (which would be mutated by later tongues into 'Alessia') was more than mortal; the woman sitting in the chairs of Mara, Kyne, and Dibella at once, Merciful Mother, Warrior Queen, and Seducing Lover. The mother of Akatosh had in her own right become a god; not in the same way that Akatosh was a god or even Talos later would be, but in the same way that Reman would be a god; So strong was her story and their reverence and the changing blow she had stricken that she lived on in permanence. This immortal spirit of unbridled love and compassion for all beings, man, elf, and beast, this mother of revolutions and waver of ruby red banners, this divine countenance of the soil and rivers themselves of Cyrodiil, was truly the High Highest. This is Al-Esh as now: Immortal, kind, compassionate, and filled with a love and affection for all beings within the world and a lust for the destruction of tyrannies and their crumbling.

It was this Al-Esh that nearly two thousand years later would be mother to Reman; Al-Esh the land of Cyrod herself, who appeared to the northern king Hrol with visions and with robes discarded, and made love to him upon Sancre Tor. The hill became pregnant; 9 months later from its face appeared Reman as a babe, El-Adabal clutched in his fingers. He would grow up to re-unite a then shattered Cyrodiil, and nearly conquer all of Tamriel under the old ruby banner of his mother long before him; a feat that would go unrivaled for more than a thousand years after his passing, when Tiber Septim tried his hands at re-uniting Tamriel; succeeding and then some.

In modern times Al-Esh does what many beings like her do: They roam, wandering the ultra-nirnian and socializing, feuding, and engaging in the sparring of metaphor with peers in permanence. While her husband musters forces for Landfall (where they all know they shall surely perish) she walks amongst the cosmos, accompanied by the scent of incense and the fluttering of moths. And so she travels stars and spaces between stars, throughout the wheel and its other images- and thus here she is, in radiant beauty. This is the glorious Al-Esh that stands before you; bask in her love and warmth.