Journal: Reporting for Duty?

The following is an entry from the journal of Legate Rikke, the Chief Lieutenant of the Imperial Legion.

I had seen so many amazing things in Skyrim already when I came across this map. Still, it was the coolest thing ever.

28th of Evening Star, 4E201

I still won't cooperate. As long as I stay here, everything will be fine. I'm sure General Tullius can defeat Ulfric without my help. He doesn't even need Winterhold! As long as the Legion holds Riften, we can attack Windhelm from the south. It's regrettable that Tulius doesn't see it like this, but Talos be praised that he continues to believe my reports about the blizzards preventing us from attacking on Winterhold. No matter what, I need to prevent an attack on the place of my childhood. The people of Winterhold have suffered enough.

It's hard to keep this up though. The Dragonborn, who has been enlightened enough to join the Legion, came by again today. He has been ordered by Tullius to report in with me over a month ago, but I keep pretending I don't know what he's talking about. He's persistent though and tried almost everything to get my attention. He has politely asked me, bumped into me, prepared me a nice meal, Shouted at me with all kinds of Shouts (including one that turned me into a block of ice, which was quite chilling) and I'm pretty sure he tried poisoning me by placing a vial of damage health in my inventory. Today, he even outright attacked me. The fight gave me a couple of bruises and some soldiers unfortunately died, but since he had won I had to do the whole "let's pretend this didn't happen". Which is fine by me, because I don't need Tullius hearing about this.

When the Dragonborn left again, I couldn't help thinking about the truce negotiations at High Hrothgar. If only they had agreed to trade Markarth for Winterhold... I keep kicking myself for not seeing this back then. With Winterhold peacefully transferred to the Imperial Legion, I wouldn't be in this mess. I would be fighting in the Rift. Or even better, Ulfric would be defeated and Skyrim at peace.

If only I could turn back time. Or somehow start this whole thing over. Imagine that, the ability to begin completely fresh like nothing has ever happened. If only that could be true.

I used to like Rikke. At least until she refused me to give me my next quest. The bitch!