"You'd be rather dead."

"I'd be an exceedingly disappointed ghost."

"Fair enough."

"What sorts of gloom-and-doom prophecies were common before? Nowadays it's mostly dragons. Or Mehrunes Dagon. Or the Dragon Break. Or the Thalmor, there's all sorts of wild rumors about what their goals are."

Shrug.

"Mutterings about the Ayleids, or the accession of this or that Daedra."

"Not much different, then."

Except for the one that her father wants to use to blot out the sun. But she's not thinking about that right now.

"People tend to think in similar patterns, even across gulfs of distance and time. It's not terribly surprising."

"Seems like the Nords fairly consistently distrust the elves, too."

"Their history together began in blood. And as they say, if a thing is not broken, there is no need to repair it."

Shrug. "Seems awfully inefficient to me."

"The presence of an external enemy can be a great boon to intra-group cohesion."

"They aren't succeeding at being very cohesive currently, even with more external enemies than they know what to do with."

Shrug. "It doesn't always work."

"Yeah. Problem with the Thalmor is that they can get people on their side. Who knows, maybe a less personable enemy like the dragons will do something. Doubt it, but maybe."

"Many things are possible. Fewer are likely."

"'Likely' seems to have been flipped on its head, lately."

"Oh?"

"Just - the dragons. People you wouldn't expect siding with the Thalmor. Some personal stuff, too."

"What sort of people?"

"Some people on my father's side of the family, and a few old friends. The Thalmor have been terrible for Hammerfell, I can't see any reason to side entirely with them unless you're a complete coward or planning on backstabbing them later. Which I doubt those people were, none of them're the type."

"Personal bribes unrelated to the larger success of their people, perhaps?"

"...Yeah, I could see some of them being sell-outs, maybe. Not likely, though."

"The same 'likely' that has been flipped on its head?"

"My point exactly."

Small snort of amusement.