//------------------------------// // Chapter 5: Proselytizing is Magic // Story: Praise Talos! // by Word Worthy //------------------------------// Spike peered around from his position near the front of the crowd. An interesting exchange was beginning to stir up between the shouting foreigner on his wooden platform with the weird hammer-shaped shrine, and the surrounding Ponyvillians. “O’ sons and daughters of Equestria, hear me! I stand here now, eager to share with you all the enlightenment of holy Talos!” Heimskr the robed Nordic priest, long a menace on Whiterun’s, the Dragonborn’s. and Jarl Balgruuf’s collective ears, was speaking almost at the top of his lungs. The crowd of curious or annoyed listeners was increasing in size with each passing second. Spike’s green eyes were widened at the foreigner’s antics. “Oh man, just imagine how Twilight will react when she hears about this!” he said. “Nine Divines...hmm. What is that, some new kind of religion?” One curious citizen asked. Strangely, she remained unfazed by the Nordic priest’s coarse usage of their language, and in so strange a manner as Heimskr’s. “Aye my child! The faith of the Gods, the word of Akatosh! The strength of Mighty Talos!” Heimskr shouted back. “Hey you, human missionary maniac! Do you happen to get to Canterlot very often? ” Another, higher-class pony inquired in a posh, pompous voice as he grinned and raised a brow up at Heimskr. “Ha, what am I saying? Of course you don’t! You’re too much of an uncouth savage. Any self respecting pony has no time for such idle nonsense as this ‘holy’ rant of yours.” The wealthy market-goer then trotted away with their nose in the air. Not paying careful attention, he slipped and fell into some mud after tripping over a random bag of petty soul gems some careless Akaviri Ka’Po’Tun tiger merchant had left laying around. “Behold, what happens to those who dare to mock Mighty Talos or his servants!” Heimskr declared wildly, pointing a finger. Some of the crowd laughed at the aristocratic unicorn as he skulked away, scowling and slathered with damp earth. “Ass man? Ass? What in Celestia’s name does your posterior have to do with anything happening in Equestria?” A third pony asked. “Nay, my friend! It is my hired assistants I speak of in reference!” Heimskr replied, motioning to the side near his sleeping tent. A donkey standing over some boxes reading a scroll peered up and nodded, waving a hoof at everyone. “Behold, the power of my ass men!” Three other donkeys appeared alongside the first. At Heimskr’s cue, they formed up and used their strength to lift up the entire stage, contents, Heimskr and all, a few feet into the air. The crowd marvelled at their strength, and the donkeys set everything back down and returned to their work of setting up Heimskr’s camp for him, right here in the bustling middle of town. “They have graciously offered their time in my service for gold. With more help, together we can all share with this land, the word of the Divines and mighty, powerful Tacos....erm Talos!” “Well what about these Thalmor then? What wrath or beef would they have with us, a kingdom thousands of miles away?” One pony, a stallion by the name of Noteworthy, demanded. He was unsettled by the Nord’s apparent urgency. While he knew very little about distant Tamriel, Noteworthy had seen maps and heard stories of the land and its peoples from the Akaviri and Yokudan traders who sometimes frequented Ponyville market, and whom apparently left their junk goods laying around. Two books lay off to the side on one crate Heimskr was using as an impromptu table. They were his copies of Complete History of Equestria: A Beginner’s Guide, and Pocket Guide to the Empire: Third Edition. He held both of them up for all to see. “Right now, the Thalmor plot and destroy things in Tamriel! The milk drinking empire there does nothing to stop them. Soon, they will spread their unholy Aldmeri Dominion across the whole of the continent, conquering everything.” At his nod, one of Heimskr’s assistants held up a map the Nord had bought illustrating the extreme western coast of Tamriel and Summerset Isles, the extreme east of Equestria, and all landmasses in between. Several movement arrows, all the colour red, pointed ominously towards Equestria’s shores from the direction of Summerset. The Islands themselves had a crude, cartoonish sneering face of a High Elf wizard drawn over them. The illustration resembled the work of a child’s. Heimskr pointed towards Equestria.. “What will stop them from expanding here as well? Aye, they may already be AMONG YOU!” The priest pulled a pitcher of steaming coffee from off screen and chugged it down when he paused. Many in the crowd gasped, reeling back or cupping their hooves under their muzzles. Others scoffed and prodded at the ground, unimpressed or annoyed. One mare scoff the loudest. It was a unicorn named Lyra Heartstrings. “What nonsense. Clearly this idiot is a sign that Equestria’s being trolled. C’mon ladies, back to our kitchens!” Spike personally found the entire thing ridiculous, just by looking at the map drawings alone. “Beware of the black robes in the night! Beware of pointed ears, pressure plates, and mages! Beware of mudcrabs! Beware of the Daedra! Trust in me Ponyville, trust in Heimskr, for these threats are real!” Heimskr continued to rant, which eventually gave way to a rather loud sermon on the many wonders of Tamriel and the Nine Divines, and how Equestria could benefit from both. “...Lady Kynareth, who tends to the natural world and its bounty! Lady Dibella, patroness of beauty and youth! Zenithar the Just, lord of commerce and industry. Stendaar the merciful, and Mara, lady of love! Julianos, a purveyor of magic! Arkay, guardian of the deceased! Great and mighty Talos, the master of war and righteous governance! And at last, the ruler among them, Akatosh, mighty lord of time itself!” “Woah, woah! We already have our own divine beings and gods. Like Celestia for instance, she exerts domination over the very Sun itself!” Thunderlane stated, interjecting. “Let’s not forget Luna raising and lowering the Moon with her own magic!” Noteworthy added. “What relevance does Talos and the other foreign gods have for Equestria? Why would any of us worship them?” Assuming the role as an anointed messenger of Talos, and by greater extent all the Divines, Heimskr had possessed ample time at his disposal to prepare for such a question as the two stallions proposed. For the first time since he began his dialogue with the Ponyville citizens, he managed to ditch his loud voice, and quieted down to a more conversational tone, although it did nothing to diminish his ever annoying presence that made powerful heroes want to master destruction spell-him straight into Oblivion. “A good question, fair denizen of Equestria!” Heimskr smirked as he peered down at his book about the history of Equestria. “You see, while I have not met your heroic Princesses as of yet, I have reason to suspect that they are indeed Divines themselves, perhaps even kin and relatives to great Akatosh!” Heimskr half expected for the sky to turn into a demonic vortex and several train engines or exploding chickens to begin falling from it to crush him for what could very well be blasphemy to the Aedra. Instead, the sky remained normal. In fact, it actually seemed to turn prettier, what with the serene clouds framing it and the Sun rising across it. Murmuring in the crowd intensified. Both Noteworthy and Thunderlane were slightly dumbfounded. They and some others had suspected that the foreigner priest would be intent upon labelling their alicorn Princesses as demons or false pretenders. Instead, the priest had done the exact opposite. Heimskr took the murmurs and calm sky as a sign he was safe to continue. “Indeed, many deities exist outside of our great Pantheon. If you read Varieties of Faith, you will be quite astounded in the diversity of deities and spirits honoured in Tamriel alone. Just beware of the accursed Daedra!” By now the crowd had turned from curiosity, amusement, and annoyance, to fascination. Heimskr pressed on and described in brief a bit more about the Divines as a whole, the relationship between Oblivion, Aetherius, and the other realms, as well as some of the history of Tamriel. Spike was about to take his leave and go tell Twilight of his strange findings, when he heard an interesting word continue to pop up from time to time out of the Nord priest’s torrents of speech. It was the word dragon. The Nord was in the middle of telling the über-epic history of Talos when he was Tiber Septim, and how he came to ascend and become the Ninth Divine after defeating the first Aldmeri Dominion and forging the Septim Empire, when Spike finally spoke to him. “Whoa, so this Talos guy had a dragon fight for him when he was uniting Tamriel? Can I take you to see a friend of mine?” Spike added onto his question once he considered the implications what he previously said. “There are dragons where you’re from, too? What are they like, tell me about em’, won’t you? Huh? Please?” The little dragon could barely contain his curiosity at the strange human’s colourful description of his home continent. Heimskr gazed down at him, prepared to answer more questions, when his eyes grew wide and he tensed up, gritting his teeth. The purple and green scales. The green eyes. Spiky tail and head. Heimskr finally registered what Spike must have been, there were only two possibilities. The young dragon stared at him awkwardly. “What?” He asked, baffled. That was when Spike belched up a tiny flame. A byproduct of his breakfast just over an hour ago. For Spike, the burp was something completely forgettable, barely even worthy of mention beyond perhaps a simple obnoxious joke. For Heimskr of Skyrim however, it was just as easily the sign of an impending cataclysm. His history book of Equestria mentioned next to nothing about fire-breathing Argonians, but it did mention one other creature. He drew in a massive breath to cry out. “DRAGON!”