Note: Here we go again, starting another story. It's not like I don't have a million other stories I'm supposed to be finishing... anyway, let me know what you think in the review section. It will only take a few seconds of your time. :)

A Warden in Skyrim

-xxxAxxx-

Awakening

Alistair staggered to his feet, breathing hard. They had been fighting for hours through the city, and now the archdemon was on its last legs, but so were they. He could feel his body starting to give out on him, muscles straining to keep himself upright. He had lost his sword and looked around frantically, trying to find it, but his gaze stopped on the one person in the world he loved most of all.

She was down on one knee only a few feet away, her dual swords held tightly in her hands. She was covered from head to toe in splatters of black blood, her fiery red hair dulled by the black filth, and he did not doubt that he looked the same way.

He could feel the dark liquid sticking in his own hair and on his face, intermingling with sweat and dirt.

Around them, the crackling of fire and the ringing sounds of battle could be heard, cries of pain and anger sometimes piercing through the battle noise, punctuated by explosions here and there.

When she started to get up, he noted the look in her eyes as she stared at the archdemon and made his decision right then.

"Hold on," he said, quickly looking over to the fallen dragon to check if it was getting back to its senses yet. "I know that you told Riordan that you would deal the final blow, but let me do it. This is my duty." He willed her to accept it, but deep down knew that she would not do so easily.

She was a strong-willed woman, and stubborn to a fault.

"This is my duty as much as it is yours. We're both Grey Wardens here," she said, her eyes narrowing at him with barely concealed anger. The way she looked at him made his heart ache.

He had been a fool to break it off with her. Heck, he had been a fool to accept her suggestion for him to be king, the one thing that he had repeatedly told himself for years that he would never become. Yet here he was now, King of Ferelden, covered in darkspawn blood, and battling a dragon archdemon at the top of Fort Drakon with the woman whose heart he had broken.

"True enough, but I got one up on you. I'm not just a Grey Warden, I'm the king. And I want. . . to be a good king," he paused to gather his thoughts, "And this right here is the best king I could be, my first and last act being to stop the blight before it even really starts. No one could blame me for that, could they?"

"No, they probably couldn't," she conceded, her hard eyes suddenly softening, "But that's not the only reason, is it?"

He sighed. "You're right," he said somberly, taking a few steps forward to better stare into her emerald green eyes. "I know how I feel about you, now more than ever. I won't let you die, not when I can do something about it."

Her serious expression broke, surprising him, her emerald orbs suddenly engulfed in liquid. "You fool," she said so softly he almost did not hear it, "I won't let you die either." She smiled weakly.

They stared at each other for a few seconds.

"You say that as if I'm giving you a choice," he finally said with a weak smile. She was turned towards him and unable to see the archdemon beginning to stir again, but she saw his expression and heard the rumblings of movement behind her and turned around in time to see the dragon starting to get back up.

Alistair spotted a sword embedded into a dead darkspawn between them and the dragon and he did not stop to think about it any longer. He sprang forward, running and pushing her aside hard enough that she fell with a startled cry.

"I'm sorry!" he yelled as he rushed forward. His weary hands found the hilt of the sword and he wrenched it out of the dead body as he passed, bringing it up to use one last time.

"Alistair!" she cried behind him, her tone a mixture of shock and anguish, realizing what he was about to do.

The dragon saw him coming and reared its head a little, growling. Waiting.

Alistair realized only after he had picked up the sword that he had no idea what he was actually going to do to kill the dragon, and for a brief second panicked, before shaking it off and trusting in his instincts and his reflexes to do what needed to be done. He had come this far and was not going to die here without finishing the job.

The archdemon roared once he was close enough and then lunged at him with open jaws, exposing its numerous and bloodied sharp teeth.

"Aggghhh!" Alistair yelled back in defiance as he dropped to his knees and slid across the hard stone, pointing the sword upwards and thrusting with all his strength. His blade pierced the dragon deeply, gouging out a huge cut across half the length of its long neck as its head zoomed over him, the jaws closing on the empty space where he had been only a second earlier.

The dragon snapped its head back, roaring in pain as blood spewed forth from the long gash.

He rolled to the left as the dragon came crashing down with a heavy, ground-shaking thud. It was still alive, but only just barely. Getting to his feet, he rushed over to its head, and the eye on this side of the dragon watched him with what he hoped was fear.

Alistair glanced one last time over to the crying red-haired woman who was on her knees on the ground, her blades resting on the stone next to her, and he smiled. "Now that was badass," he called out tiredly.

She nodded quickly and smiled back, her mouth opening as if to say something but unable to speak as she was wracked by sobs. Though he imagined she was saying something along the lines of: "You heroic fool of a warden." Or it could have been "I love you." Yes, that sounded nicer.

Turning his attention back to the dragon, he raised the sword with both hands, pointing the tip of the blade down. He hesitated for only a moment before he plunged the blade into the thick of the dragon's head, letting out a triumphant roar of his own as the blade bit deep.

The reaction was immediate. Bright energy started to pour out from the killing blow in the form of a brightlight. The dragon stopped moving, stopped breathing, as the light got brighter and the waves of energy got bigger. A beam of energy shot up into the sky from the wound. A strong wind started to blow against Alistair, and he could feel the sword vibrating in his hands.

The light was washing over him, and he thought maybe even flowing into him, though he could have simply been imagining it. Simultaneously feeling frightened and awed, he felt a sudden warmth surge over him quickly followed by a raging, burning pain that emanated from his chest and radiated out to every cell of his body.

He tried to yell but he was not sure if he did because the howling of the wind and the rushing sound of the escaping energy overwhelmed his ears as the pain and the light consumed him.

Then the pain stopped and everything went dark.

-xxxAxxx-

When Alistair came to his senses, he was drifting in a darkness so black that it seemed even the very concept of light was unknown to it. He could feel his body and yet when he tried to move, nothing happened. It was a very strange sensation. He wondered if maybe he was in a dream. Or in the fade. He attempted to will himself to wake up, and when nothing happened, he tried again. Still nothing.

He gulped, or at least thought he did. Maybe he really was in the fade.

'Maker's breath,' he thought, 'What in the world is happening to me?'

Suddenly, the darkness began to lighten, or maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him. He was not sure anymore of anything, lost as he was in this strange abyss. He was starting to get very, very concerned.

And then he was falling.

'Ahhhh!' he tried to say, but no sound reached his ears.

There seemed to be no end for him as the feeling of falling intensified and he hurtled towards the nothingness below him.

Then it was bright. Too bright. Blindingly bright, and he tried to close his eyes but they did not respond and he was forced to endure it. Strangely though, there was no pain involved at all. Normally his eyes should have protested painfully from the sudden light, but they remained as silent as he was.

He was no longer falling at least.

Alistair looked around, a vast white nothingness stretched out in every direction, a stark contrast from the suffocating darkness he had been in. He much preferred this, yes. He most definitely liked the idea of an endless white nothingness more than an endless dark nothingness.

Then he spotted something in the distance. A black speck at first, but he realized it was slowly getting larger. Within seconds, or what felt like seconds, the thing was right in front of him.

It was a mask. A plain black mask shaped like a cat face, with little triangular ears along the top edge.

He tried to reach out to it, but like earlier his body did not respond. At least he could look around, and he decided to try and look down at his body then, to see what was going on. But when he did, he saw only more nothingness, and he panicked.

'Oh dear, this is not good. Not good at all. My body's missing,' he thought with growing alarm, 'I have no body. . . do I even have a head? What if I'm just a brain? or maybe just eyeballs? Maker's breath that would be terrible. . .'

Before he could keep going on with that train of thought, the mask began to grow larger, and larger, until it eerily warped and bent around him, engulfing him, and then there was darkness again.

'Great. Just when I was getting used to the idea of an eternal white nothingness.'

Then his eyes slowly started to open on their own. Slowly, at first, then quickly blinking, and then finally opening fully. His vision was blurred, but things came into focus quickly enough.

He was in the back of what appeared to be a wagon. There was a soldier seated ahead, and Alistair could make out another wagon ahead of them.

There were other men in the wagon with him that he became aware of. Two of them in his field of vision.

Oddly, he still could not feel his body, and when he tried to move there was no response. He tried to move his eyes but they also resisted control.

'Well, at least I can see. . .' he started to think, but then his head moved of its own accord, looking around. 'What is going on?!'

The wagon was moving through what looked to be a forest, tall trees lining the road they were traveling on. Everything was covered in a white mist. His vision was incredible, and he realized he could make out small details on the barks of the passing trees even through the mist.

Then he started to hear, slowly at first, but it gradually got louder.

He could hear the creaking of the wooden wagon, the crunching of the dirt beneath the rumbling wheels, the breathing of the men next to him, the sound of one of the horses ahead snorting. He could hear everything all at once, and it was overwhelming at first, but then it dialed down on its own. He could still hear all those things, but they felt more like a buzzing background noise now than the cacophony of sound that had been ringing in his ears.

He looked down, or his eyes looked down, since he was not actually controlling himself, and he was utterly confounded when he saw paws where his hands should have been. He had dark fur. And paws. And rather sharp claws. The paws were bound tightly together by a thick rope, and his eyes, still moving of their own accord, glanced at the bound hands of the other passengers.

"Hey you!" called one of them.

Alistair's eyes looked to the muscular man with shoulder-length blonde hair, one braid of hair off the left side of his head, and a dark stubble contrasting his pale skin. He was wearing some chainmail underneath his clothes, the metal links extending halfway down his large biceps.

"You're finally awake," the man continued to speak, "You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked straight into that Imperial ambush. Same as us. And that thief over there," he gestured with his head over to the guy straight across from Alistair.

Again his eyes moved on their own to look straight ahead of him. The supposed thief was much thinner than the first man, his dark hair swept back over his head into a mullet. He gave a bitter look to the guy who was talking. He only had a simple tan-colored tunic, or maybe it was white but due to dirt and other things over time it had slowly stained.

"Damn you Stormcloaks," the thief muttered, "Skyrim was fine until you came along. Empire was nice and lazy. If they hadn't been looking for you, I could've stolen that horse and been halfway to Hammerfell by now." The man looked to Alistair, who was beginning to wonder how any of these guys could be talking so normally to him when he clearly had FUR. AND PAWS. "You there. You and me, we shouldn't be here. It's these Stormcloaks the Imperials want, not us."

Skyrim? Hammerfell? Stormcloaks? None of those words made any sense to him. Though the mention of imperials made him think that maybe he was somewhere in Orlais. That was the only Empire he could think of. He felt frustrated at his inability to talk.

"We're all brothers and sisters in binds now, thief," the first man spat back.

"Shut up back there!" the guard warned loudly in a haughty voice that did not sound the least bit Orlesian to Alistair.

Then again, he had met only a handful of Orlesians in his life, so he was not entirely certain what they were supposed to sound like.

Alistair finally noticed there was a fourth passenger in the wagon, off to his right. Like them, the man's hands were bound, but he was apparently special because he was also gagged with a ball of white cloth stuffed into his mouth and a torn strip of similar cloth wrapped around his head to keep it in place. He was the most heavily clothed of the lot, his fur-trimmed coat looking nice and warm over the quality armor he wore. He also had shoulder-length blonde hair similar to the other man, his hair was swept back and two braided strands going from the front of his hair and tucking themselves behind his exposed ears.

The thief looked to this fourth passenger when he spoke again. "What's wrong with him, huh?" the thief asked.

"Watch your tongue!" the first man said strongly, "You're speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King."

The goatee this Ulfric fellow sported gave him a somewhat regal look, Alistair had to admit. 'High King, huh?'

"Ulfric? The Jarl of Windhelm?" the thief said slowly, his expression going from curiosity to growing horror. "You're the leader of the rebellion! If they've captured you. . . oh gods! Where are they taking us?" He sounded very afraid, and Alistair was not liking any of this.

The first man looked down and away, his voice suddenly very solemn. "I don't know where we're going, but Sovngarde awaits."

Alistair definitely did not like anything about this. The fact that he could not move and his body seemed to be moving of its own accord. The fact that his body wasn't even his body but some furry, pawed thing. The fact that he was bound in what looked to be some kind of prisoner cart with the leader of some supposed rebellion.

'Where in Thedas am I?' he thought, then he remembered that the first man had talked about crossing over some border and then the thief mentioned Skyrim. Maybe that was the name of this land. He tried to think if he had ever seen a land called Skyrim before in any maps of Thedas, or if he had ever even heard of it before, but came up with nothing.

"No, this can't be happening! This. . . this isn't happening!" the thief started to panic, hunching over and covering his face with his hands. Alistair felt like he would have done something similar had he been able to actually move his body.

The wagon started to lower into an angle as the road descended down a slope.

"Hey," the first man said, voice still subdued. "What village are you from, horse thief?"

"Why do you care?"

"A Nord's last thoughts. . . should be of home."

'What the heck is a Nord?' thought Alistair.

The thief's face fell, and he replied in a more subdued tone as well. "Rorikstead. I'm. . . I'm from Rorikstead."

There was commotion up ahead and his gaze turned towards the source.

They were approaching a walled settlement of some kind, with a roofed wooden battlements on the old stone walls that went over the gate. The gate itself was causing all the noise as it creaked and rumbled open, pushed along by soldiers garbed in similar fashion to the one driving their wagon.

A lone soldier on the battlements called out to the two-wagon convoy. "General Tullius, sir! The headsman is waiting!"

Alistair wished he could go back to that nothingness he had been in before, whatever that had been seemed way better than what he was imagining was going to happen in the next few moments.

The thief started to panic again, invoking strange names of deities that Alistair had never heard of before.

They passed through the settlement, with Alistair noting there were a contingent of elves on horses that talked to the person that was General Tullius when they arrived. Thalmor, the big blonde stranger had called them, another foreign term to him.

Alistair was starting to get the very strong feeling that he was no longer in Thedas.

The walled settlement had numerous low wooden houses with thatched roofs, and more than a few residents were out watching the convoy move through the street. The talkative man relayed some story about a girl he had met in this settlement, which he called Helgen.

When they finally came to a stop in a little open area between two three-story stone towers, a rather harsh female voice yelled at the convoy.

"Get the prisoners out of the carts! Move it!"

"Why are we stopping?" the thief asked fearfully.

"Why do you think?" responded the other man. "End of the line."

If Alistair could gulp, he would have.

Nobody in their wagon moved as it came to a stop, and it was the talkative man who urged them to not keep the gods waiting. As they got off the wagon, the thief started blabbering, pleading with the others to tell them that he had nothing to do with the Stormcloaks and that he was not supposed to be there with them.

"Step toward the block when we call your name, one at a time!" announced the stern voice of the woman who Alistair supposed was some sort of officer in charge.

The talkative man sighed. "Empire loves their damned lists," he muttered as he stepped down from the wagon last.

"Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm," called one of the soldiers rather smugly, and the man in the fur-trimmed coat stepped forward and moved off to wherever this block was that Alistair could not see.

"It has been an honor, Jarl Ulfric," the talkative man said softly.

"Ralof of Riverwood," the soldier announced next, and the talkative man stepped forward.

'So that was his name,' thought Alistair as he watched him follow to where Ulfric had gone.

"Lokir of Rorikstead."

The thief took a hesitant step forward. "No! I'm not a rebel! You can't do this!" he exclaimed, and then made a break for it, running past the soldiers and down the road. He ran fairly quickly, but not quick enough as the woman officer yelled for him to stop and then called for the archers. Lokir the thief was soon face down on the stone road, two arrows stuck into his back.

"Anyone else feel like running?" the woman challenged the remaining prisoners.

Alistair would not have even thought about it had he been able to actually move on his own, rather than his body moving itself for him.

"You there," the soldier with the ledger looked straight at him with this odd gaze. "Step forward."

'Finally. Somebody realizes something's wrong with me having paws and dark fur,' Alistair thought as his body stepped forward.

Alistair saw the woman officer studying him from a few feet behind the soldier calling out names, and he felt very nervous.

"Who. . . are you?" the soldier asked, not even bothering to look at his ledger, "Are you with the trading caravans? You khajit are always getting into trouble."

"This one is called J'Zakir," responded a voice that sounded like it came from him, and Alistair was once again at a loss as to what was going on.

One thing did give him relief though: it was not his body that had fur and paws, but whoever this J'Zakir creature was. But then he began to wonder why he was seeing through this being's eyes, and where was his own body? He tried to recall what he had been doing before all this, but everything seemed so hazy and difficult to think about.

"Captain, what shall we do? He's not on the list," the soldier glanced sidelong at the woman officer.

She gave him a hard look and said in a voice that matched her demeanor, "Forget the list. He goes to the block."

The soldier did not look surprised, though his voice betrayed him when he sounded hesitant. "By your orders." He turned to face Alistair, or J'Zakir rather, and frowned. "I'm sorry. We'll make sure your remains are returned to Elsweyr. Now follow the captain, prisoner."

The woman officer, who turned out to be the captain, walked to where the prisoners had gathered.

Alistair noted that most of the prisoners were wearing the same clothes and armor, and he assumed that this was the typical rebel outfit in this land.

J'Zakir did not respond, simply walking towards the block, which Alistair finally realized meant a chopping block. As in for heads. It had a little box on one side too, where your head was supposed to go once it had been severed from the body. Probably made it easier to clean the place and dispose of the heads. He shuddered at the thought.

There was a little speech from General Tullius to Ulfric about the rebellion, then a bestial roar echoed from seemingly far away, though the general told everyone to ignore it. Several flocks of birds flew overhead at that point, chirping madly before the one of the prisoners scoffed at a last rites ritual being performed by some religious figure and went straight to the block on his own. The first head landed straight into the basket with a sickening thump, blood spraying everywhere and spilling all over the block. At least the executioner's axe was sharp enough to cleanly cut the head off in one stroke. A quick death, largely painless.

When the captain looked to J'Zakir next, Alistair felt dread as the person whom he was currently residing in stepped forward. He had no idea what was going to happen once the axe came down with him still inside this J'Zakir's mind, or body, or whatever part of him he was in. And he was not really inclined to find out, not that he had any choice in the matter since he could do nothing but watch.

There was another monstrous roar in the distance that the captain this time told everyone to ignore. To Alistair, it sounded like whatever it was, it was getting closer, and through J'Zakir's heightened hearing he could hear the faint thumping of something in the distance. Something told him that he did not want to find out what it was.

Alistair had to hand it to the guy who he was sharing vision with. He was taking this all incredibly well. He seemed to have no strong reactions one way or another, unlike Lokir who had panicked and refused to die at the block and Ralof who was talkative but subdued, accepting his death as inevitable. For a brief moment he pictured this J'Zakir breaking the robes that bound him and tearing at the soldiers with his sharp claws, but that seemed very unlikely.

Soon, J'Zakir's head was resting sideways on the stone block, the ominous-looking executioner filling up a good chunk of his vision. That axe looked even bigger up close, the sharp edge bloody, and he stared at it fearfully. Even to this point, J'Zakir was silent. The executioner hefted the axe and raised it up high.

The roar echoed across Helgen again, unmistakably louder now. The thumping had increased too, sounding like massive wings heaving something through the air. Alistair knew what it was before it appeared in J'Zakir's vision with a loud slam, the beast landing on the tower behind the executioner. It was a massive black dragon.

The executioner lost his footing when the dragon landed, the earth shaking, but the axe still managed to come down anyway and Alistair was once again engulfed in darkness.

-xxxAxxx-

Alistair was falling. . . upwards?

That was the sensation he felt as he was pulled once again through the dark expanse on his way up. He soon reached the point where the darkness around him was gradually lightening up, and he looked around. Then he realized that he had a body this time, his body! At least, what he hoped was his body. He needed to check his reflection to be sure, but it seemed to feel like his body. And he was wearing his armor, which upon closer inspection, was covered in what appeared to be darkspawn blood. The armor was cracked in certain areas, with numerous dents and lines cut into the metal.

What happened to my armor? he thought, confused as to why he looked like he had been through a major battle. He still could not remember much of what had happened recently, the last thing he remembered was the Landsmeet where he had accepted the offered kingship of Ferelden, his by right of blood.

His body was twisted around by some unknown force, and Alistair squinted immediately from the bright light that he was facing. It was an orb of light that had a pulsating glow to it, and he wondered what was going on this time. He figured he must still be in the fade and his mind was being messed with by some damnable demon. Most likely a sloth demon, since they dealt with dream-like situations like this, though it was entirely possible that the other types of demons could be doing this as well.

There was a heavy laugh that seemed to be coming from all around him, but the glowing of the orb matched the sounds that he heard, which meant that it was actually coming from the orb.

"I AM NO DEMON, MORTAL," a thundering voice spoke humorously, and Alistair could feel his very soul rattling with every word. It was not exactly a pleasant feeling.

"W-What's going on here?" he ventured to ask, "Where am I? Is this. . . the fade? Forgive me if I don't believe you outright. . . I mean, a demon playing a trick on me would definitely say it wasn't a demon."

"I FOUND YOUR SOUL ADRIFT," the voice said, "I TOOK YOU BEFORE YOU WERE LOST."

That made no sense to Alistair, and he said as much. Whatever it was, it started to laugh again. At least it sounded like laughter.

"YOU HAVE MANY QUESTIONS, BUT THERE IS ONLY ONE I SHALL ANSWER."

Apparently he would get none of the plethora of questions flitting around his mind answered. Alistair sighed in mild annoyance, "And that is?" Things never seemed to work out smoothly.

"I AM AKATOSH. AND YOU. . . YOU ARE DOVAHKIIN," the voice said with finality.

"Wait, wha-ahhhhh!" he started to say but then he was falling again. Falling down, away from the orb of light, and yelling. Then the orb exploded in a massive fiery ball, the flames of which were rapidly chasing after him as the blast expanded through the dark space. The flames were almost on him and he could feel their heat, and in that moment he knew he was going to die.

"AHHH!"

His eyes fluttered open.

He was vaguely aware that he was sprawled on the ground, his right cheek resting against cold and rough stone. With his blurry vision, he could scarcely see, and he blinked in an effort to clear up his eyesight. When his vision finally sharpened, he was greeted by the big severed head of a dark-furred cat, it's lifeless yellow eyes staring straight at him.

"Ah!" he cried, his body involuntarily jerking away from it.

The sudden movement made all his aches and pains on his body known to him, and he had a lot of them. His heart was thumping loudly in his chest and his head felt dizzy as he lay on his back, looking up at the cloudy sky. He noticed the pillars of smoke rising up to the gray clouds and did a double-take as he looked at the pillars of smoke again. There were many of them.

He raised his head, which took a lot more effort than it should have, and looked around. The burned and broken remains of Helgen surrounded him, and he noted several bodies scattered around, most of them burnt to a sickeningly dark crisp.

"Maker's breath," he whispered, letting his head rest back onto the stony ground and closing his eyes. "Please tell me I'm still dreaming and or in the fade," he said to himself.

He reached a hand up and pinched his cheek, and when that did nothing he raised his hand and then forcibly smacked himself in the face. His face stung and there was a lot of pain from the initial hit, and he grimaced because of it. Still nothing. This was no dream.

"Well, I guess it's just not my day," he said resignedly as he sat up, grunting with the effort. He glanced back over to the head of the big cat, noting that it's long ears were pierced with numerous golden hoops. "At least I'm not dead. . ." he trailed off as he slowly began to remember what had happened to him before all of this.

There was the battle at Denerim. The seemingly countless darkspawn horde. Fighting in the streets to get to "Fort Drakon," he whispered, eyes going wide. Then it hit him, like an anvil thrown at his head, and he visibly reeled from it as he snapped his head to the side a little with some pain and a hiss.

He had died! He had plunged his blade into that tainted archdemon and slain it, and then he had died in a brilliant flash of light. And yet here he was, alive, breathing, and very much not dead.

"I'm not dead?" he asked aloud, "I'm not dead! Great. And now I'm talking to myself. Not sure that's a good thing," he muttered the last part, brow furrowing.

He stayed sitting in the middle of the square where he had accompanied J'Zakir up to his death, and he realized that this was the first time he had seen what the cat actually looked like. He glanced over to the cat's head and frowned, sorry that the creature had died and he had not been able to do anything about it. By the Maker, he had not been able to do anything about what had happened to the rest of Helgen.

"Hello?" he called out to the burning ruins of the settlement, hoping that maybe there was still someone alive. "Is anyone there? Hellooo?"

Only the crackles of the numerous fires reached his ears.

He recalled the dragon that had appeared before J'Zakir was executed, and he glanced to the broken tower where it had first landed before the ax had fallen onto J'Zakir.

"Just my luck," he said sardonically, "I kill one archdemon in heroic fashion, end one blight as my first and last act as King of Ferelden, and die in a massive explosion of light. . . only to appear in some unknown time and strange land where another even more menacing-looking archdemon decides to show itself. How could things get any worse?"

Boy was he in for a rude awakening.