HESTRA

    There are many names in this world that inspire deep emotion, such was the greatness of their bearers.  The heart of every man should swell with reverance at the uttering of Alessia, and it is hard not to spit at dust if devils such as Dagon or Bal enter a conversation.  It is fitting that the names of emperors would leave us Cyrodiils so prideful, for their great deeds, the noble prowess by which they have unified Tamriel, and for a select few, their undeniably divine glory; Alessia, Reman, Talos, the love of them and their deeds (if you permit an old man to jest) is enough for East and West to muster up an occasional feeling of kinship or two.

    There's a particular one among them whose name fills the air with a very interesting sensation.  A perverse questioning, a heart sinking queasiness, a silent desire to give the daedroth clawing at the corner no thought.

    Hestra.

    You felt it, didn't you?  That halting of your breath, a brief tensing of your fingers.  The optimistic among you may hope that I am to speak of the side of her that is beloved: the Uniting Empress of Colovia and Nibenay, who with glory and grace pulled half of Tamriel into the fold of Empire.  I will not deny this side of her.  But I will also speak openly of her other side, the one that quiets quickly the praises of her name, the one censored by the ever watchful eyes of an empire terrified of truth, the one most all of us know of in hushed tones, even if we don't know the details.

    But I do know the details, you see.  And in my gracious nature and whole hearted pursuit of the monkey's very truth, I shall share some of it with you, a few of my favorite tales of our other ruby Empress, so that the next time you murmur in hushed tones about the actions of long dead empresses, you may murmur something of worth.  Just don't let the council catch you, friend.  Lest you walk the path of ZED.





The Birth of Hestra

    It was in the early half of the first era, nearly 800 years after revolution, that she came to be. She was not Hestra at the time-  Heosterr was her name, the girl the daughter of some irrelevant deep river tribe, descended from Nedes and Nords who had settled near northern edges of the unconquered jungles, where the canopied rivers weaved in overgrown stony valleys and canyons covered in vines.  Little can be said of her youth.  Whether she was as any other river girl, or the sort to catch a fish from the water, solely to see it gasp at air it can't breathe, I do not know.  But it can be said that a certain fire had always burned in her, from the beginning.

    An empire lay to the west of her people, a foreign thing that loomed like a monster over the peoples of the deep jungle rivers, despite common ancestries.  Ruled by merchant princes and zealots to the teachings of the prophet most simian, it was a creature warped from the land our lady Al-Esh had given us.  It was despoiled, befouled, ran astray from the slave-mother, fit to fester in secret orgies and corruption, stagnated and declined from the days when it presided over nearly all domains of men.  Their temple, devoted to their single god (a strange concept, to see all as facets of a singular thing, is it not) was in one half tyrannical absolutists, and in the other half liars and hedonists, who condemned all indulgences only to partake 10 fold behind the closed doors of their palaces.

    Like many who lived like them, her tribe was not above raiding the occasional cargo of merchants that thought to travel through the rivers they frequented, and like many who lived like them, they were punished harshly for it.  For her tribe had captured cargo meant for the highest of their deceiver-saints: The Emperor.  The empire is law, and the law is sacred, and in those days it truly was the case.  The warriors of the village were executed in cleansing, skin flayed from their backs and their ribs opened from behind, prayers of damnation etched into their vertebrate and onto their hearts.  The children were taken, to be civilized and saved with Simian faith, but in reality to become alike to pets and things to be shown off by holy men.

    It was by happenstance, or perhaps the same cruel destiny that left her village shattered, that she found herself gifted directly to the emperor by her captors.  Maybe it was her icy blue eyes, a rare trait to find paired with the olive tones of nibenfolk skin, or maybe it was the already visible promise of a fertile curve on a fit and agile frame.  The Dibellan shamaness of her village had taught her philosophies of that goddess and the art of Dibellan dance, likely to groom one to take her place, a hope that would never come to fruition.  So it was she became a dancing servant, in all but name a slave to the emperor, an indulgent man with a body like a bloated candle, waxy and oily and fat in a way that piled up unevenly at his neck.  For years she served him, the girl's young adulthood spent pleasing him with the sensual and agile tribal motions, flowing yet sharp.  She was his favorite, the emperor always watching with a hungry smile and a hearty laugh, in between wheezing breaths and sips of rice wine.  Covered in smothering yet revealing silks she was paraded at his side, always quiet, never protesting, icy eyes ever alluring and serene.  But beneath the ice something burned, a cruel rage fanned by every day at his side.

    For four years she served him.  Maybe five.  Of that your author can't be certain.  But by the end she was no longer just a girl, and the promise of frame had been yielded.  The Alessian emperor had grown a certain trust for his favored pet.  In her quiet service he mistakenly saw acceptance, loyalty, maybe even some sort of satisfaction.  He never saw the way his dancing girl's frustrations were made manifest; a mouse with a back burnt by hot wax, a bird tossed into a box with wings plucked.

    He had taken her to the Temple of the One.  He had business there, a ritual, a ceremony of sorts, and he adored having his pet at his side regardless of circumstance.  He stood before the dragonfire, arms wide as he bellowed in his deep wheezing voice to a congregation of pilgrims and peers, the light of the burning stone brazier flickering against his features and drenching him in sweat like he was ready to melt.  The dancing girl stepped closer to his side.

    It would have been very sudden, I imagine, what happened next.  Slender fingers gripped his oily black hair with a determined strength, and before anyone could comprehend the interruption his nose was buried in the ever burning flame's coals.  It wouldn't have been hard for her.  His body was soft and sedentary, mass with little strength, unable to pull back from the girl's grip.  Reverent silence was broken by violence, and the wails and cries of believers joined agonized warbling screams of the emperor, screams that yielded quickly to nothing as burning vacuum choked him into a sleep he would never wake up from.  All this noise and she never wavered, never pulled back.  While she did not care if the fire burned her, she was certainly surprised to find it didn't.  Instead it lapped at her arms and fingers like a happy dog, even while the silks turned to dusty ash, the flame leaving only black tattoos upon her arms.  Those icy yet blazing eyes remained locked on the flames through it all, gazing deep with a finally visible fury, a hatred of years brought to fruition to the tune of fatty sizzles and pops and the melting face of the candlewax emperor.  The fire traveled along her clothes and slowly enveloped her as the shocked and distraught crowd watched, the girl never once pulling back, intent on holding him down until it was just a singed skull in her grasp.

    This was her betrayal of an emperor that was never hers in the first place, colored red.

    Like a Ruby.

    Or a Revolution.

    Soon enough it was done, and when it was, she pulled his amulet from his scorched neck and found that royalty fit her like a glove.