The White and Gold of a Harbour Cold

The White and Gold of a Harbour Cold
By Avarian the Poetaster

Many places I have been
And many I have seen
Places beyond mortal ken
And places quite obscene.

There are worlds so vast and different
From Tamriel's bright shores
Skies that never Magnus rent
And lands that were never yours.

In these bloody fiefdoms
Of Daedra, gods, and more
I have heard the lutes and drums
Of endless, lusty war.

For here I found the bitter brink
Of all those souls that roam
But never did I quite think
It'd look so much like home.

There she stands so brilliantly
Against the gore-stained sun
A White-Gold Tower, with dignity
But not the only one.

For she was cracked and bleeding
Her glory marred and spent
In the mournful, wretched proceeding
Of those whose wills had bent.

The mad, the dead, the sour
Had clustered round her ring
And wept and keened against the hour
That they might see their king.

I looked, and there, a fire on high
Blackened, dread, and foul
A lord of rape fell from the sky
Amongst the souls to prowl.

She struggled and she shook
A knightess till the last
But the Prince had come, and on that rook
Released a hellish blast.

And that, dear reader, is how it's told
In every song and call
The White and Gold of a Harbour Cold
Did fall to Molag Bal.

My submission for the weekly theme, Grand Structures. I've been on a serious Daedric kick lately (which probably stems from Vigilant, a flatly beautiful and astoundingly well-made quest mod for Skyrim), with Coldharbour's twisted, desiccated expression of Nirn capturing my interest in particular, so I decided to write about this. It seems very fitting for Molag Bal to create and then repeatedly breach and destroy one of the longest-standing symbols of Tamriel's ability to resist and repulse Daedric invasions, even if it's just a copy. The symbolism is there, and if Molag Bal can appreciate anything, it's the idea of what you're doing, not just the physical results.

Also, I thought of the rhyming title while humming to myself. That helped too.