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"It's just really hard to believe."
Sometimes your best resource is the ball of anger boiling deep inside you
"Oh, sure, but in real life your amnesia probably has a more mundane explanation, like, you got into a fight with some mage that didn't like you or something."
winter_held
"Mm." He reaches into one of the pouches attached to his waist and draws the staff Sanguine gave him. It's nearly as tall as he is, green along its length and ending in a rose at the tip, carved from wood. "So, Onmund, this is the staff Sanguine gave me that I mentioned, do you want to see the Dremora?"
The Dremora is a tall horned pointy-eared humanoid with dark skin and red markings on his (its?) face. His legs are encased up to the thighs in long metal greaves, his arms are covered up to the biceps by spiky metal gauntlets, his shoulder and upper chest are covered by an elaborate metal set of pauldrons, but his torso is mostly exposed, covered only by a thin strip of metal that goes from the center of his crotch up to his chest, opening into a cleavage window. There are two bands of thin metal wire encircling his waist and connecting the different pieces of the "armour" to each other and to a... cock ring? Cock sleeve? A metal cyllinder surrounding the man's shaft, leaving the head of his penis exposed. Attached to his back is a two-handed broadsword.
Dremora
He doesn't talk, though, and doesn't attack or... do much of anything else. He just stands there, not doing anything.
winter_held
"Getting information out of it is like pulling teeth. I've determined it prefers being called 'it' and that at this power level they do not prefer to be thought of as being individuals. I meant to see if I could find a book on Dremora culture and psychology but I forgot to do so earlier." And then he dismisses it, making it vanish.
"...huh," says Myrvana. "Okay, cool, definitely write an autobiography later, people will eat this up. ...but pace it better, two Daedric Princes at once is still a bit much."
steeped_in_magic
"Okay but now I'm curious, what exactly happened? Weren't you just out to deliver something for Sergius?"
winter_held
"Funny you should mention that, I still haven't managed to make the delivery. I stopped at The Frozen Hearth before setting off and there was this girl called Sam Guevenne there..."
winter_held
When they step outside Acumen again the snow's gotten worse, and despite the temperature barriers the wind and snow are still physically present and they all hurry to Elements for the afternoon's lecture on potentialising conjured construct bodies. Which is a class taught by Phinis Gestor but Ruby's long since gotten over his instinctive flinch reaction to the man.
By the evening, the snow is blowing hard enough to be called a proper snow storm, and even the passive weather wards of the College aren't enough to fully shelter them from the cold. The Apprentices decide to just grab some food from Acumen and eat back in their own rooms in Attainment.
winter_held
Ruby follows Onmund into his room, as he used to do a few times before his trip, and sits cross-legged on Onmund's bed.
"So, tell me about the Civil War."
winter_held
"They're this fort that's right between Whiterun Hold and Eastmarch, like at the very border, on the main road, and Whiterun and Windhelm have both withdrawn most of their troops enough that the fort was taken by bandits who are now charging extortionate amounts from people wanting to cross. And I'm livid at all involved but at least the people who are having a civil war might have a good enough reason for it.
"So I want to know what it could be."
winter_held
"That's okay, I just—I trust you to not be willfully biased as I expect most other people to be."
better_in_song
Oh. That's flattering and he melts a little bit.
He takes a seat next to Ruby and begins.
"You've already read up on the Thalmor, right?"