The Chronicles of Jsashe: Kyne's Murderous Rage Ignites at Dawn's Convention (Revision)

Part 2: (Interlude: Discourse on Femininity and Matriarchy in Society)

Part 3: (Your Current Location: War of The Gods continued, Creation of Oblivion and Shattering of Iqa-Touf)

Part 5: (Coming Soon: The Dawn of Man, Redefining Hircine)

Part 6: (TBA: The Men/Mer Schism Begins, Mankind Becomes Divided)

Part 7: (TBA: Interlude: Folk Origin of the Reachmen)

Part 8: (TBA: Flashback, Creation of The Universe: More to Follow)

Author's Note: If you find there to be major problems with this text's writing structure or the facts provided in the annotations below, be sure to give a critique in the comments section. I'm still somewhat new to community (relatively speaking) and would like to improve my work, plus days of research went into making this.

>Cindiras Journal Entry #569: Subject – Skyrim Exploratory Party 3: Date – 4E 198 2nd of Evening Star:

>Approximately four months ago I sent three groups of fledgling archaeologists to the Northern province of Skyrim to investigate rumors of Mythic Dawn artifacts - though admittedly I expected barely anything of value to derive from it. Group three, lead by that hack Gibrmorti, discovered an artifact from the legendary Witch-Queen of Whiterun’s reign. Seeing as how the Empire's records regarding Reachmen culture & history are rather sparse, I feel that this tome could potentially prompt funded expeditions to the Western Reach (considering recent budget cuts to both the Imperial Archaeological Society and the Imperial Office of Reachmen Affairs, this is just wishful thinking on my part).

>However, in spite of this, their expedition is a partial failure since out of the twelve men who left in group three only three of them are returning alive. According to the reports I received from the barbarian legionnaires I sent to retrieve them, six men had survived the Nightblades and their black bears, but three more were killed by those trolls who dwell beneath Bruma. Furthermore, Gibrmorti is among those who survived and the report goes on to state that he’s been frequently rambling incoherently in his sleep, experiencing night terrors.

>Lastly, as I had requested, the subsidized Reachmen tribe packaged the tome itself alongside their report – under the guidance of Porciulus from the College of Whispers I will personally be examining the text and attempting a passage translation, for I fear that some esoteric Illusion or Telemantic effect might be emanating from it. Though he's immensely incompetent, I have never known Gibrmorti to be the type of man who sleeps restlessly.

...Damat-Damat-Damat goes that faint reverberating sound of drumming, thronging the air and howling in Iqa-Touf's eardrums as assurance of His return, His ebony blood like a voice howling for retribution [1]; Convention has ended, but war takes a new face. Traitorous Jhunal the Thrice-Read stood bemused as mother Kyne fell to her knees in trauma, barely able to hold herself together from the sight of her soulmate's evisceration and the suffering of her faithful kindred; her soul drank deeply the Mead of Grief, for her beloved was put down like an infirm pheasant [2]. So distraught was she that a portion of her conscious fractured, thus nightmares now drift between the dream along aurbic winds. The forces of unmanifest, lined with many a treacherous child of Kyne coated in [the] black viscera of Sheor, rippled [like aetheric thunder] with presumptive celebrations and toasts; no better than goblin-kin were they, so inclined to indulge in those detrimental impulses which plague our mortal minds. At this, she lastly apprehended the folly of Thrice-Headed Trishlivmc's code of ransom; a life that commits such atrocities amid the field of war don't deserve the tender embrace of mercy or redemption. Blood Price, Lex Talionis, Retribution, Justice, Vengeance, Wrath, Indignation - they are all notes of the same reflexive tonal melody.

Rapture turns to whispers among the demons as all eyes fall upon Kyne's rising form, seething and bubbling like Wyrd Brew from a kettil, her eyes' lined with fire and her flesh searing into a chiral mimicry of Sheor's three unfaithful wives (a Demoness be she/they). With turbulent face she opened her mouth and began to sing, with every ounce of ichor in her heart, a song of intense desolation and unwavering devotion [3]; four words began the tone, four words etched in [the] skin of the subjugated pariahs, four words she shall repeat before giving the Kiss of Resolution [4] [5] - I. SHALL. NOT. YIELD. This is the sincere affirmation of Kyne's glory - her unbreakable will - for [it is] with this volition she drives us to fight for a better life, much as [the] emperors Durcorach and Faolan and Perrif before us [6]; for Will is the Law set forth by our Empyreal-Matriarchs at Static Change and the Structure of Nature's Law is Love.

The whole of Maendush trembled as Sheor's ebony blood rose like waves of language, scattering the lesser lives of devil-soldiers all about like rats in a fire, yet their traitorous lords stood iron-willed and lashed vehement repudiations out against The Storm's hope-filled patronage towards the Gray Womb of Change and this Fetus of Possibilities [7]; all in this world is as the unborn soul a mother carries, trapped between life and un-life, change and static, never knowing when An Neamhní will terminate our Right to Life [8]. Vain were their efforts, as vain as the spider who tried to hold back the revolted fist of a man; the most profane of Magnar's [Magnus's] muffling globes could not dispel and bend the sound as glass does light [9], nor could even the loudest and most masculine of Iqa-Touf's [Akatosh's] shouts pierce the shrieking whirlwind of her Storm Voice [10]; the Dragon's tones were smothered out into subgradients, for Her's is the primordial Su'um that rung [the] aurbus bell at the emergence of light.

The violently undulating blood of the fox shucked the magmatic crust from the oceans and engulfed [nearly] all those who dared to oppose existence, dragging and inundating them to the endless ocean within the sea; there in the abyssal wastes of Oblivion lay Kyne's taint, waiting in dread anticipation for the Beinn Pràiseach Coisiche to awake [text illegible]...he whose ore veins are rich in terror and nulls [11]. The Endless Wyrm of Seasons eluded the choking waters of meat-death - as did The Salmon of Knowledge Untold - nigh making off to wage war once more, howbeit Kyne saw fit for her dawn love to experience the full extent of loving destruction [12]. She enveloped the turbulent Storm Hawk, ascending as a tempest and plunging her meteoric Warhammer straight through his spanning skull [13]. With a deathless wail Iqa-Touf's [Akatosh's] mind and soul fractured, each droplet of his pouring creatia chrysalizing into the dragons and time-burning jills that inhabit the Aurbis; the unprecedented fracturing gave avowal that aforelong his children will be unto emperors and be obliged Nirn's consummation - we regard his oath by its epitaph, Ülgun-Bren - may he be struck by foxes begotten by wyrms [14].

Now the twilight of war began to lift [text illegible] ...a stone's throw away the pair of Magnar [Magnus] and Jhunal lay crawling across the wuthering bank like wounded otters, hysterically begging their Brother-Once-Sister Hyrma-Mara to give unto them sanctuary; forlorn Jhunal pledged to requite the endearment she exhibited towards him many a kalpa ago (lovelorn is she still), while Clever-Scout Magnar whined of his readiness to be reduced to a mere thrall. Kyne strode up to them with precise rhythm, dragging [her] osteoid Warhammer Irthbon behind her [15], each electrifying step of her trembling stout form upon the jagged shore [like] a crack of thunder; terror-fraught be her footfall, the mark of rains to come, that which the twenty-two bestial Thunder Shield Women of Ysgramor imitated [16]. But Mhairna the Noon Wolf-Mage-Mother of Preservation leapt forth and stood tall against the raging storm with her voidsteel shield at the ready, head held high and bellowing like a cave bear, "Enough of this belligerence and discordance! Over nine hundred thousand dozen souls have passed since this morn's skirmish began, over one-third of Our/My children lay unwaking - soon even the mountains & hills won't be sizable cairns for the fallen." At her side stood willowy Daebelle the Dawn Moth-Thief-Maiden of Death and Transitions, leaning against her carp's tongue sword with a wry disarming smile, still recovering from [those] lacerations and [the] despoilment inflicted by their Hunt Crazed Elk [17].

Yet even with this dissension Kyne the Sunset Hawk-Warrior-Matriarch of Creation still felt Irresolute in the course her tempest-fists were blowing, hence [her] gaze turned south to Her/Their fourth sister, Y'ffre the Midnight-Crone, She who spoke only through The Green; Y'ffre's floral missive rode in on the winds of Kyne's overwrought breathing: first came the clanslayer Yarrow, heralding the arrival of his prickly chieftain Thistle whose stem was entangled with the mad drake Amaranthus, then came a wailing menagerie of widowed Evergreen Cypress who in turn gave way to a bumbling Toadflax and Owls Clover, but their flight was fatedly cut short by the swift entrance of Bilberry the Judge upon the stem-back of Lobelia the Bear, and with his judicial authority came Coltsfoot the Executioner last of all - though his flight was slowed by a bundle of Clove squires [18].

The widowed trinity grasped this message as clear as rain, and so spoke Kyne to the treacherous lads with a voice that could shatter spines, "The souls of your mothers is as one mind - [as always] they keep me temperate and prudent. For being the first of Our/My litter, I shall not inflict the punishment [of death], but [instead] bless your loathsome transgressions with a dewdrop of bitter mercy." Striking from crooked angles, She/They each raked Her/Their talons across the lads' faces, proclaiming in unison, "I sign your rancid skin with a mothers' embrace, a thrice-curse of enmity and scorn, infertile be thine Neonymics - Magnar and Xahxes [19]. I drive you from Dawn's Beauty, making of you restless wanderers of the Womb [that is] Aurbus, and none can end your misery but We/I - pray we [do] that in a When Yet-to-Be you will have learned your lesson and rejoin the love of existence." [20] Thereafter, the awful butchery began anew, for the headstrong Kyne dug her beak-fangs into Magnar and plucked out his eye - that for which came the Night of Tears - then with [a] solitary thrust of her sinewy arms he was hurled beyond Maendush to the sea of Star-Devils. Therewith came the trim hag hands of Mhairna, nimbly rending and shearing Jhunal's owl feathers with muddled precision, whilst Daebelle's carp's tongue sword severed his lips so there'd be no room in his mind for slander (as there was for Orkey). Eventually, Irthbon did tire of such evenhanded discipline and struck [out] on her [own] volition at his rump, sending the lad sailing across the sea 'till he was gobbled up by a gargantuan salmon.

With that, I implore you to heed the warnings of elder-most Nords, for though they are set in their ways they tell this universal truth - underestimating a woman scorned is a fast way to the grave for sure.

[1] Considering the previous page (not shown), the "His" referred to in this passage is most likely Lorkhan - or rather in this case Sheor – whose Altmeris name fittingly translates into Cyrodillic as “Doom Drum” and is known by some groups as the "Madness of AKA." This is further supported by "His" blood being referred to as ebony, which many believe to be the crystallized blood of Lorkhan.

[2] Taking several of the most prominent accounts of the Dawn Era into account, as well as the book “Xahxes’s Gift: A Reachman Creation Myth,”, this page within the tome is clearly focused on Convention — The end of the Dawn Era - the mythohistorical event in which the Aurbis as we know it began to cool and solidify and linear time formed.

[3] This section in particular highly resembles the creation myth recounted in Xahxes’s Gift.

[4] The phrase "Kiss of Resolution" is most likely in reference to Kyne's Nordic epitaph "Kiss at the End," which represents her role (one of many) in the Nordic Pantheon as a psychopomp, escorting the souls of the dead to Sovngarde.

[5] My analysis of the text thus far leads me to believe that this passage's triple repetition of the phrase "four words" is more than some fancy finagling of words; as seen in the last page Gibrmorti had sent me, the numbers three and four are clearly prevalent throughout this tome. Some other examples from this page include the triple repetition of the onomatopoeia "Damat," the epitaphs "Thrice-Read" and "Thrice-Headed," the phrase "thrice-curse," and these “three unfaithful wives of Sheor” (whose identities are a mystery to me thus far, as I have not seen them mentioned until this point).

[6] Considering the term Durcorach is prefaced by the word emperors, it is likely in reference to the infamous Durcorach the Black-Drake, Based on that, Faolan could likely be referring to Red Eagle, the legendary Reachmen chieftain who, according to Imperial records and romances, led the defense against the conquesting Empress Hestra. Lastly, Perrif is a fairly common name throughout Tamriel, but in this context, it is most likely referring to Empress Alessia.

[7] The word Maendush is likely derived from the word Mundus. As for this “Gray Womb of Change,” it could possibly be referring to the Aurbis, which some call the Gray Center, which if true, would, therefore, mean that this “Fetus of Possibilities” is likely referring to Nirn.

[8] This section of the text appears to continue the earlier discussed gynocentric view of the universe. Furthermore, looking over the Imperial Office of Reachmen Affairs documents’ on Reachian language, it would appear that the name “An Neamhní” roughly translates into Cyrodillic as “The Void,” therefore it could possibly be a reference to the realms beyond the Aurbis or even the deity Sithis who is an anthropomorphization of the concept Chaos. If it is the latter of the two, then it could be possible that the mother of this "womb" would be Danu (Anu)?

[9] Firstly, this "Magnar" figure is likely derived from the deity "Magnus." Now, as for what is depicted in this section of the text, a "muffling globe" which "dispels and bends sound" sounds vaguely similar to the dark art of Negate Magic which I have heard is very similar to the illusionatory effect Silence.

[10] “Storm Voice” is another name for “Thu'um”, an ancient form of magic pioneered by the ancient Atmorans and Nords (and supposedly Dragons) that utilizes a person's voice to create various effects. According to ancient Nordic legends, the Thu'um was one of Kyne's gifts to man and some of the most advanced variations or "Shouts" can drastically alter the world around their caster in ways that defy the laws of nature.

[11] Looking over the Imperial Office of Reachmen Affairs documents’ on Reachian language once more, it would appear that the name “Beinn Pràiseach Coisiche” roughly translates into Cyrodillic as "Walking Brass Mountain."

[12] “The Endless Wyrm of Seasons” is clearly in reference to the earlier mentioned Iqa-Touf (Akatosh, dragon god of time). As for the “Salmon of Knowledge Untold,” this could possibly be in reference to Hyrma-Mara (Hermaeous Mora), who many Reachmen tribes associate with salmon and is mentioned in proceeding paragraph as having escaped Kyne's initial wrath.

[13] I find the fact that Kyne in this narrative attacks Iqa-Touf's (Akatosh’s) head to be particularly interesting. Throughout Tamriel, numerous cultures have beliefs regarding where specifically in the body one’s soul is located, and studies have shown that a sizable portion of Reachmen believe it to reside within the head – one of the motivations behind their culture’s practice of headhunting.

[14] Analysis of this section leads to believe that “consummation” could possess more than one meaning in this context. Firstly, it could be referring to the act of “consuming,” meaning that the dragons are “obliged to Nirn’s [destruction].” In that case, this "Ülgun-Bren" could possibly be derived from the Nordic figure "Alduin," whose role in their pantheon is to periodically destroy the world at the end of each kalpa. The second thing of note is that this section proclaims these dragons will be “unto emperors,” which could either be referring to The Empire or those absurd Nordic legends which claim Dragons ruled over nearly all of Tamriel during the Merethic Era.

[15] Looking through the records of the Imperial Office of Reachmen Affairs I came across but a single mention of "Irthbon," though it is of some folkloric giant mole. Besides that, I feel that the word sounds very similar to "Earth Bones," the mythical group of et'Ada who are said to be the structural bones of Nirn itself. Furthermore, the Warhammer is described as being Osteoid ("bonelike").

[16] There is nary a mention of these "Thunder Shield Women" in any documents on Nordic culture currently at my disposal, except for the book The Five Hundred Mighty Companions or Thereabouts of Ysgramor the Returned which does specifically cite there having been twenty-two of them among Ysgramor's Atmoran invading force.

[17] After scouring through countless weapon and blade indexes I have only managed to find a scarce few mentions of this "carp's tongue sword" - it appears to be a type of bronze sword that was very popular with the early Nedic people of High Rock, similar in structure to the broadswords used by Imperial soldiers back in the Third Era and those used today by the Imperial Watch or "Legion Zero."

[18] Ignoring the (rather annoying) Nordic tendency to anthropomorphize inanimate objects in their legends, this "floral missive" is clearly an example of the art of Floriography, a covert means of communication through the use or arrangement of flowers. By utilizing Vol. I-III of Jo'jeonhad Rauwolf's "Flowers of Tamriel: The Esoteric Language Unveiled", I have managed to roughly decrypt in a linear fashion the symbolism behind each of the flowers listed. In this scenario the first four flowers (Yarrow, Thistle Amaranthus, and Evergreen Cypress) most likely symbolize War, Nobility, Heartless, and Mourning. The combination of Nobility and Heartless would seem to represent Lorkhan, while Mourning would be of his death in War. The following pair (Toadflax and Owls Clover) would seem to represent Magnus and Jhunal respectively. The last four listed (Bilberry, Lobelia, Coltsfoot, and Cloves) most likely symbolize Treachery, Malevolence, Retribution or "Justice shall be done," and Restraint. This would seem to communicate that the sender desires to be Vengeful towards someone over Treachery, though they don't wish to exceptionally vicious.

[19] Much like transformation of Trinimac into Malacath and the earlier depiction of Hehrsich into Hircine, this section of the text seems to depict Jhunal (Julianos) transforming into Xarxes - an Altmeri deity who has a small center of worship in High Rock and the Reach due to the Direnni influence upon their culture.

[20] A "When Yet-to-Be" is a rather fanciful way of saying "a future undetermined and unknowable time."