A Translation of an Inflammatory Speech from Early Fourth Era Archon

This speech was first made in the Velothi quarter of Archon in 4E 13, by Nathrasa Tei, Sap-Speaker for southern Archon, when she backed open rebellion against the An-Xileel following pledges of support from other Sap-Speakers around outer Argonia.

Fellow Archoners! Fellow Atrons! Fellow Saxhleel!

The outlanders say we are free once again. The inner marshes say that we have reclaimed our old kingdom, despite not having seen any invasions for centuries. Even our Khajiti friends in Elsweyr have declared independence, citing the example of the supposedly glorious free Argonia that now exists in the lands that used to be called Black Marsh, among other disgusting Imperial names.

But we know that the fight is not yet over. It is to the An-Xileel. The Imperial threat is all but gone, and the Cyrodiils are too busy fighting each other to care about our beloved homeland or people. And so the power-holders in Helstrom now think they can impose their will on the rest of us. The last few years have taught us that this is not the glorious state of affairs that Helstrom promised us. The next few years will teach us that we do not need false Helstrom promises in order to survive.

“But we are free! How could you turn on our liberators?”, I hear you cry. Well, my reply is, look around you. An-Xileel agents are trying to destroy what it means to be Atron. They have insisted, officially at least, that we all speak Karanakh, just like they do in inner Helstrom, barring a thousand years of Atron culture from us in one abhorrent gesture and trying to replace it with an uncultured tongue without any proper sentences. They have stopped our kyxinur fungus from leaving Murkmire, forcing us to mate just after coming of age and thus dooming scores of our people to remain at the side of those they grow to hate. They are trying to eradicate the trades which we have lived through for generations, merely on the basis of not being hunting or gathering, even though they are far from agricultural.

And, I know some of you might think of this story as a myth, but I can assure you that it is very true, the An-Xileel are trying to use whatever dark magic they have in Murkwood to turn the great plain of the Atron deltas into yet more swamp-jungle, an extension of their backward home country. They take our language. They take our customs. They take our livelihoods. And now they’re taking the land we call home. They want to make us just like inner Argonians! Even the Septims eventually realised that we were best accepted as we were!

And all this in the name of the Hist, no less! Let me make this clear: the An-Xileel view of our sacred Hist is little more than a cult. Yes, we owe our existence to the Hist, and we must, of course, revere every single Hist tree in Argonia. But that does not make us slaves to them. We in outer Argonia have learned from Kothringi, Khajiit, and Lilmothiit alike, and so have acted in ways that the uncivilised swamp-dwellers that make up the An-Xileel would consider barbaric, for centuries. Yet we have not faced punishment from the Hist. And so the fundamentalists in Helstrom, shall I say, do not know what they are talking about when they say we must turn back whole eras of progress in the name of our revered trees.

So, people of Archon, people of Soulrest, people of Thorn, people of Jer Vanyal, people of every enlightened town and village this side of Blackwood, I implore you, make your voices heard! Declare your homes to be free land – actual free land, free of reactionary marsh-fiends as well as of Cyrodiils, and bar any culture-converting scum from entering! We won once already, against the Imperials, when we turned their gold to worthless iron. Let us score one last victory, turn Murkwood iron into copper, and get the independence we truly deserve!

The resulting rebellion left Argonia in political chaos for over a decade and severely weakened its initial response to the Umbriel Crisis, despite said events occurring over ten years after the rebellions stopped. Although the An-Xileel claimed official victory, in reality, subsequent An-Xileel leaders all but stopped the culture-conversions they were attempting to do in outer Argonia in order to make sure the rebellion did not repeat itself.

Eno Sarethi

Narsis 4E 52