Chapter Text
Iriel was dragged. Off the boards, out of the gurgling belly of the ship, and into an explosion of light and strangeness. The assault on his senses forced him to withdraw from the borders of his body, sent him reeling into the depths of his mind, tripping on tangled remnants of dreams. His limbs were distant countries now, and news of foreign events came slow and sporadic in languages he didn’t understand.
The guard didn't know about Iriel's inner geopolitical drama. The guard only knew that the prisoner he'd been instructed to escort to the Census Office was making his life difficult. The young Altmer kept stopping and staring blankly, or closing his eyes and making small noises in his throat. Shouting didn't even seem to register, and eventually, the guard had seized the elf by his bony wrist and hauled him bodily on to the docks.
Ire let it happen. He was in no state to do anything else. Everything was very far away. He was moving. Pressure around... his arm? The pale yellow thing extending in front of him was alien and unknowable. Nothing was real. He was floating, drifting in a--
"Aaahh!!"
His bare toes snagged between the planks of the jetty, and he lurched forwards. His conscious mind had abandoned all responsibility, but some long-dormant reflex forced his other leg out before he fell. He gasped lungfuls of swampy air, each a rich, new tapestry of fecundity and rot. It almost made him vomit, but, coupled with the pain, served to reconnect him to his physicality a little.
Oh gods. Come on, Ire. Get it together. Walk. That’s literally all you have to do.
He was wrong. Finally reaching the end of the wooden boards, his feet skidded into mud. He stared at them, blindsided by the familiarity of the sensation, cutting through the fog of doubt that he'd ever had feet before in his life. Then he detected a low, burbling sound. It seemed… expectant? He dragged his head up and tried to focus.
Fuck. Someone’s there. Someone’s talking to me. Someone's… oh gods… someone's asking me a question. I did walking, but I don't know if I can do talking, too.
“…bluhrrecorrsonshoffrawhere.”
Iriel gazed at the man despairingly, hoping for pity.
“WHERE. DID. YOU. ARRIVE. FROM.” The dock official had a wooden clipboard and an exasperated expression. Ire took in both, with a sinking feeling of resigned dread. He closed his eyes, in a last attempt at escape. Opened them with a snap, when the Imperial rapped sharply on the clipboard.
“Aaaaiiihhhh.” Ire tried to remember the order your vocal chords were supposed to go in. Wasn't there a mnemonic for it? Or was that only with singing?
Come on, you used to do this all the time. Don’t over-think it, you'll only get mixed up. Just let your brain flow out of your mouth. Metaphorically.
“Whhhere did I come from?” he managed. The official nodded, wearily encouraging. Ire tried to live up to his expectations. “I… I was on a boat.”
The Imperial sighed, and Ire felt a pang of failure. “From. WHERE?” the man repeated.
Iriel’s eyes jittered from surface to surface. “I was in the hold! I didn’t see anything! I don’t know anything about boats! I mean, the sail's clearly square-rigged, but a brig should have at least two masts, I really have no idea what you'd call it, I didn't get a chance to examine, I... I was in the hold. I don't know anything. Why aren’t you asking the captain, or, or the–” He saw the man’s expression and trailed off.
“I’m not here to register the damn boat," the Imperial said, flicking the words carefully towards him, one by one. "I’m here to register YOU. Now. Where do you come from? Where did you get ON the boat?”
Ire’s brow creased. “Which one?”
“Which what?”
“Question.”
“I’M asking the questions here, uh…”
At this point the official hesitated. He felt slightly awkward addressing someone a head taller than he was as “boy”, but the elf before him had such an air of confused, slightly petulant vulnerability that he felt compelled to do so.
“I mean,” Iriel tried again, “that the place I sailed from isn’t the place I come from. Which one do you want?”
“As long as I have something to write on this form, I don’t care.”
“Oh. Well… my name is Iriel of Lillandril. Which is far too many Is and Ls in one name, and really, you’d think my parents would’ve known better. We Altmer use loconymics, as I’m sure you know, so–”
“That’ll do. How d'you spell Lillian… what you said?”
Iriel leaned forward, trying to read the clipboard. “Are you putting it down as birthplace, or port of origin? Because the prison ship sailed from the Imperial City. Perhaps you should put that.”
"You trying to tell me how to do my job?”
Ire recoiled from the man’s aggressive tone. “No! Not at all! I only wanted to ensure you had all the necessary information. I’m sorry! I should probably shut up now, but it's as if my brain has two modes of operation, not able to talk at all, or not able to stop talking! I was telling myself just now, Ire, I said to myself, let your brain flow out of your mouth - which sounds quite disgusting actually, and unpleasantly similar to some ancient Yokudan embalming practices I read about once - but what I should also remember is that running my mouth straight from my brain without engaging any kind of mediating system is exactly how I ended up getting exiled from the Summerset Isles in the first place, so I should… probably…” he registered the official’s face “...will definitely shut up.”
“I’m putting High Elf, open bracket, male, close bracket, hyphen, The Imperial City.” The official scribbled, resisting the temptation to add additional descriptive adjectives. He squinted at Iriel’s elegantly boned, if grubby, pale-gold Altmer face, amber eyes and soft brown hair. “You are male, aren’t you? Hard to tell with you elves.”
Ire racked his addled brain for the sort of lacerating response he would have given to that, in better days, but failed miserably.
Mute, he wrapped his arms around his chest, as the official commanded: “Report to Socucius Ergalla, in the Census Office.” When movement was not immediately forthcoming, the man pointed, jabbing the air with his pencil. “That way. NOW.”
Ire squeaked, and shifted as best he could, stumbling towards the door and struggling with the handle until it finally obeyed him. Overcome by a sudden, powerful sense of his own wretchedness and ridiculousness, it was all he could do not to burst into tears.