A long oneshot that I came up with and wrote in a few hours. Let me know if you like it!
Please enjoy...
Unworthy Dovahkiin
A young boy was chosen once. Sent to us to walk the path of Jurgen Windcaller and follow our way of the voice. I who speak for the Greybeards devoted my life to teaching our ways. The boy was an excellent pupil, learning quickly and absorbing his teachings with an eager sense of wonder.
But, since the boy came to us, I had always had a certain fear. You see, the boy had a strong Thu'um, but he also had a heart of fire that burned so bright I could see it glow in his eyes. Eyes that were lit with drive and passion. I had hoped that passion could to be controlled and that the boy could grow into a man guided by the way of the voice.
However, this boy was sent to us in a time of strife and war, and soon my fears came to fruition. Although his voice was strong, when the boy saw the suffering of his people, his heart of fire proved to be stronger. His passionate glowing eyes grew alight with rage and pain.
He left High Hrothgar and the way of the voice behind. The boy who had come to us seeking peace and balance, became a king of war. Ulfric Stormcloak they call him.
After many years spent upon our mountain, one day we heard a voice. A voice so clear and so strong that it shook the earth. At once we called to this voice, summoning him as "Dovahkiin."
To our surprise, the one who we called arrived the very next day. Not quite a boy, but a young man with strong arms and bright eyes. After a short test, the man proved to be the legendary Dovahkiin.
My heart swelled as I saw firsthand that the legends were true. The man's voice was nearly as strong as ours, although he was untrained.
So I taught the young man, as I had taught Ulfric before him. Test after test, the Dovahkiin proved himself worthy. Retrieving the horn of Jurgen Windcaller, withstanding the combined voices of the Greybeards. I began to hope that he would fill the rift that Ulfric had left behind.
Although he did not yet follow the way of the voice, the young man seemed more than eager to learn all he could, and so I taught him all I knew. The rise and fall of our founder, the teachings of the voice, and why mortals were gifted so long ago with this power.
Soon, the young man's voice proved powerful enough to see our master Paarthurnax. After witnessing our master's might he became even more inspired, learning every word of power he could, determined to master them all. That day, the happiness in my heart grew further still, for it became clear that the Dovahkiin would soon master the way of the voice.
The Dovahkiin left shortly after saving Tamriel from the so called "Dragon crisis." Although I advised him against it, he told me that it was something he must do. That this world had too much beauty and potential to just let it be consumed by Alduin. His ways did not yet coincide with the way of the voice, but still I could see that the young man was growing up.
So I let him go to experience his destiny as the great hero, Dovahkiin, sure that he would return to us and to the way of the voice.
For years after, I heard many tales of his exploits. Thane of every hold in Skyrim. Slayer of dragons who terrorized the innocent. Leader of nearly every guild. Warden of Solstheim. Protector of the human race against the vampire menace. The young boy had become a man.
Soon though, something went wrong. The Dovahkiin's periodic visits to High Hrothgar slowly dwindled. Anytime he would visit me, he no longer eagerly awaited stories of the past or teachings about the way of the voice. Instead, he demanded words of power. Endless words of power to find, quickly master, and then find more.
Then I saw something that gave me dread. A dread of something I had seen before.
I saw a light in the Dovahkiin's eyes. A light similar to the one Ulfric had. A light that emanated from a heart burning with desire and passion.
Perhaps the light had always been there. Perhaps I had been so blinded by my hope and my joy that I refused to see it. Nevertheless, the light was there and it was growing.
In an attempt to quench the burning fire from consuming the Dovahkiin, as it had consumed my old pupil, I assumed the role of the guardian and refused to teach him words of power. I pleaded with him to accept the way of the voice and return from the path he was traveling.
Perhaps I already knew it was too late, for I held no surprise when the Dragonborn reacted the way he did. Claiming that I was a foolish old man who had resigned to waste his life sitting on the top of a great hill, he left in a huff declaring that he would master the words of power himself.
After that, the stories of the mighty courageous Dovahkiin began to change in tone.
Collector of daedric artifacts. Thief of powerful weapons and treasures. Assassin who used his deadly Thu'um to slay those lesser than him.
Tale after tale, my heart wept for the loss of yet another beloved pupil and friend.
Soon, everyone who had learned to love the great hero Dovahkiin, began to fear him.
Darker rumors began to swirl about my former protege. About how he performed forbidden spells and experiments that defied the laws of humanity and nature. Tales of whole towns slain overnight. The murder of the emperor of Tamriel.
Some time later, the Dovahkiin returned to High Hrothgar dressed only in scraps of armor and rags. I met him at the door and prepared to send him away, but something unexpected happened. My former pupil wept. He cried out to me that he had been wrong and that he wished to accept the way of the voice in his life. He begged that things return to the way they were before.
Although I had grown cold after he had left, my heart melted at his words and I accepted him with open arms. I too had wanted him to return.
Just before I headed to my chambers that night, I thought I saw a glint in the Dovahkiin's eye. A spark of the former fire I had seen. I merely shrugged and returned to bed. It was only the next day that I discovered my great foolishness.
In the early hours of the morning, the other Greybeards and I awoke to the sound of a horrible cry. A cry that shook the temple and the mountain itself. We dashed to the courtyard to see what had made the noise, and that was when we discovered it.
The smoking, dead bones of my master. Paarthurnax.
As painful as my master's cries were before his death, it was nothing compared the the wails of sorrow and rage made by our voices. We wept and cried out horrible cries that seemed to shake the very earth. Betrayed Betrayed! Betrayed by my former student. My former friend. My former brother the Dovahkiin.
Shortly after, a group of men traveled to our temple. Men of the Empire, men of the Stormcloaks, common Skyrim people all united by a single purpose, to end the Dovahkiin's life of betrayal, greed, and death.
Despite my philosophy of peace and indifference, my former pupil had lit a fire in my heart so bright that my eyes seemed to glow. A fire kept lit by pain and anger.
I agreed to go with the men to find and end the Dragonborn.
It took two boats to carry all the men that wanted to hunt the Dragonborn. So many people my former protege had hurt. I felt nothing but shame.
The man was not hard to find once we arrived on Raven Rock. After all, he left quite a trail. The leader of the town, Lleril Morvayn informed us that the Dragonborn had once been a hero who had acquired a home in town, but had since begun to cause trouble and eventually became an enemy of the settlement.
His most recent crime had been the murder of Neloth of house Telvanni and he was thought to be staying in his home, Tel Mythrin.
After a journey through the ash fields of Solstheim, our large group reached the fungal fortress of Tel Mithryn. The mushrooms looked as if they had been infected with some sort of disease. They were beginning to wither and blacken, and were covered in pulsating red blobs.
Upon the groups approach to the tower, and much to my shock, many of the pulsating blobs burst open, and a barrage of deadly spiders began to descend upon the crowd.
Mostly confused, only a few archers fired arrows at the beasts before they reached the group. Some spiders exploding in flames, setting people alight, while other latched onto some men's faces, scrabbling to chew at the fresh food.
All of a sudden, the doors of the mushroom towers burst open and all manner of horrible things began crawling out. Beings that looked as if they were made of ash and fire that lurched sickly like zombies crawled out of the very earth. Glowing green men and women with pulsating spiders attached to their bodies jumped obediently into the fray with no regard for their own lives. Summoned daedra and ghostly assassins slid through the ranks of men, ruthlessly killing with haunting, echoing voices.
The stories were true. Only the most wicked of men could employ such sick and twisted magics.
This leads to where my monologue originates. Surrounded by deadly creatures and experiments, with only a handful of allies left.
Before this moment I've only had to use my basic skills. Healing allies, the occasional firebolt to keep an enemy at bay. But now, as the last of my allies are about to be slain, I have no choice but to use my forbidden power. I glance up at the sky "Kyne forgive me."
My hands clasp together and I close my eyes. For a moment, the screaming and the violence fades out as I focus my Thu'um.
A moment of pure silence.
And then all at once.
"Fus Dah Wuld Krein Yol!" Words of great power fly from my lips. My enemies are blasted away in a spoken whirlwind of fire and power. They fly helplessly through the air and are blasted away.
I have not used this power for combat in all my life and my heart aches that I must use it now.
"Pah Uld Dah!" The creatures fly away from me in all directions, breaking upon their impacts. Once again, everything is quiet.
Suddenly the door of the main tower opens again, but instead of spiders, or creations, or demons, a lone man walks out.
The man is covered in armor and robes, but I know it is my old pupil. He dons robes and armor so covered in enchantments that the magical glow is visible and unique and terrifying daggers are strapped across his chest. Multiple swords and staves cross his back, ready to be pulled out and used. His belt is covered with multiple powerful tools such as the white phial, the famed skeleton key, and the black star.
His hooded dragon priest mask is pale and has two horns jutting from each cheek. Although it's meant to completely cover his face, his eyes Literally glow so bright now that they are visible from behind the mask. Probably a result from his beastly transformations.
"Well well this is a surprise! I was expecting another bandit raid from some reavers or maybe those damnable Redoran guards. But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine my old master would come all this way to pay a visit. Honestly I'm surprised that you dared to come off that little hill old man. Have you come to try and 'change my wicked ways'?" He snickers.
My expression remains emotionless "We have come to end your rampage of death Dovahkiin."
His eyes seem to glow even brighter and he takes off his mask "Really? I must say I'm both stunned and flattered Master Arngeir." His face is pale and bony from days spent inside researching. His eyes, once blue as the sky and filled with excitement and hope are now filled with raw ambition and avarice. His pupils are large and slitted like a snakes, and glow with an unnatural vampiric redness.
"Why do you have this insatiable craving for power Dovahkiin? What is it you want?"
The Dragonborn chuckles "I've tried to find that very same answer myself. In truth…" His eyes widen with the same excitement he had when learning a new shout. He grins wickedly with gleaming, pointed teeth "I want everything!"
My eyes widen in true despair. I realize he is so far gone that nothing can bring him back to the young man he once was.
"I want all the power there is to have in this world! All the spells! All the weapons! Everything! I will become a god of this plane! The most powerful being in existence!" His eyes dart back and forth imagining his sick fantasy, he licks his lips involuntarily and I can see that his tongue is forked like a snakes "I will have everything!"
The remainder of the original group is terrified, but I merely sigh and open my robe. "When I was a young man, I swore that I would never use this." Inside my robes lays something that has not been used for thousands upon thousands of years. Kept pristine by enchantments and kept sacred by generations of greybeards, I pull out the hilt and blade of Jurgen Windcaller.
Dovahkiin's eyes narrow and he licks his lips again, staring intently at the sword.
My thundering voice cuts his focus "This sword is a holy heirloom by my predecessor Jurgen windcaller." I unstrap the several locks on the hilt of the sword "You have betrayed the way of the voice Dovahkiin, and by this holy sword you shall die!" I unsheath the ancient sword and it emits a satisfying metallic "Shing" that echoes for a moment. The blade is jagged in ancient nordic design, but unlike most swords, it is curved and thin as a razor. Legend states that the more powerful the voice of the wielder, the more effective the blade. For me, there is no stronger blade.
The Dovahkiin laughs a wicked cackle "Well well old man, I am impressed! I will take that sword from your corpse!" His arrogance is almost visible as he tosses the pale helmet aside "You once told me that a battle between dragons is actually a deadly verbal debate. Shall we have a debate you and I?"
I nod and slip into an ancient akaviri swordsman position. It has been a long time since I've trained in this art, but I mastered it long ago.
With an inhuman cry the Dragonborn leaps through the air, shooting towards me. I gather my voice as he soars in my direction "Fus Ro Dah!" My Voro is so powerful that the air itself ripples at the Thu'um rips towards him.
Just before the shout reaches him, the Dovahkiin bursts into pieces. I look closer in my confusion and realize that the Dragonborn has transformed into a swarm of bats. I raise my sword in a defensive pose, but the cloud of bats shoots past me. Then I hear the screams.
The remainder of the group I came with is being devoured piece by piece by the swarm. When they are all dead, the cloud groups closely together and reforms as the Dovahkiin again. He grins and wipes a few droplets of blood away from his lips "Mmm, tasty. It's been a few days since my last meal."
I grimace in disgust and lunge towards my old apprentice. My strikes are faster than most men, but he easily dodges them all. He somersaults away from me and extends his arm. Red spiders grow out of each palm and he hurls them at me, first two then six then ten. Soon enough, a small legion of multi colored spiders are scuttling towards me.
The attack is daunting, but straightforward enough. I gather my voice again "Kaan Drem Ov!" I expect the animals to calm and disperse with my Kyne's peace shout, but when they remain charging like a tiny glowing army battalion I realize that these are creatures created by dark experiments and do not keep the properties of normal animals.
Now the spiders are almost upon me and I realize what will happen if I touch them, looking around at the singed men.
I know it will strain my voice, but I must escape the dozens of tiny crawling demons "Ven Brud Bo!"
Quick as a gust of wind, I shoot into the air and am kept hovering by tiny gusts of wind under each foot. I grin "I taught you much Dragonborn, but I did not teach you everything."
The Dovahkiin claps mockingly "Bravo! A quick escape, however I have grown more powerful than you Ever could have made me!" He gathers his own Thu'um "Ven Gaar Nos!"
In seconds, a raging cyclone is formed and blows me out of the sky. I fly for a few meters until I smack into the side of the mushroom tower and plummet to the earth.
The world is sideways and fuzzy as my head lays solidly against the ground. I loose all sense of time and purpose.
Suddenly time rushes back into place and so do I. I spring off the ground and twirl my blade in a figure eight motion. The spiders are approaching quickly, time to use less conventional means. Just before the creatures reach me, I erect a tall barrier of electric energy. Most of the spiders are caught in the wall before they know to turn and are incinerated.
"These things aren't very smart." I note to myself.
Quickly, on either side of the shock wall, I place two ice runes. Just as I anticipate, the rest of the spiders run smack into the runes and are shattered.
"You didn't think I'd be finished off that easily did you?" I croon to the Dovahkiin "What's the matter? Can't kill one old man?" In truth, my body is beginning to feel the strain of overusing my voice and I take deep breaths.
The Dragonborn makes an ugly scowl "Pheh! You think you have power old man? Just watch!" He lurches over and falls to his knees as if he has been punched. The Dovahkiin gasps for air and suddenly coughs up blood. His bones begin to shift and crack with the beginnings of a transformation. He grows hair all over his body and his skin begins to be covered in blood red lines until he is completely covered. Suddenly, his skin rips open and his transformed beast form roars to the sky.
The transformation is difficult to look at. It's a hunched beast covered in patches of hair and scales. A pair of batlike wings sprout from the creatures back. The creature's tail is long and scales like a lizards, but covered in spikes. His jaw is elongated like a crocodile's or a wolf's and is filled with razor sharp teeth. Two yellow wolfish eyes glare at me from the sides of the creature's head, and one large blood red eye stares from the center of its horned forehead. It is hard to keep myself from being sick.
It speaks in a ghastly new voice that sounds like a bear's growl and claws being scratched against stone.
"How do you like it?" The new form grins savagely "It took years to perfect. I had to go through hundreds of test subjects to get it right."
My eyes widen. Mental images of people strapped down and torn apart, infused with dark magics. This abomination is the product of twisted curiosity and atrocities performed over and over again. I simply grip my sword, and once again slip into my fighting form.
The Dovahkiin seems unhappy at the lack of a response and gives a sickening grimace. His retractable claws drip with poison and he lunges at me with a flap of his wings.
The speed is incredible and I can barely dodge. The thing's speed and ferocity is incredible as it swings left and right and spins in a deadly twirling combination with its spiked limbs and wings.
I shout "Wuld Nah Kest!" To get some distance from the beast. It simply roars and charges towards me again. I grin. He might think that this is the ultimate transformation, but in this form, the Dovahkiin can't shout.
Before the thing can reach me, I ready my Thu'um "Yol Gol Iz!"
The beast falters in confusion as my elemental blast hits him before he can get out of the way. Shards of ice pierce and freeze his body just before a swirling torrent of fire engulfs his form. Before the searing flames can unfreeze the ice, his entire body is consumed by crushing rocks, leaving him in a steaming rock pile on the ground.
Not about to let the opportunity pass, I grip my sword with both hands and charge towards the steaming rubble. Just as the Dovahkiin emerges, I will pierce his hide with the blade and end his life.
As I near the pile of stone, it starts to shift a little. I raise the blade of Jurgen Windcaller, prepared to strike, but before I can even blink, a clawed hand shoots out of the rubble and slashes across my stomach.
There is a moment of dull nothingness, almost like before the battle. A moment before the pain comes where I'm frozen with the sword raised, and then the pain hits me. It comes in a massive wave, making me stagger back and almost bringing me to the ground. My free hand darts to my stomach as massive amounts of blood begin to pour from the wound. My free hand still grips the sword weakly.
From the rubble, my protege emerges, turned back into his original form. He dusts the ash off of his clothes and smiles. "I told you old man." He says as he pries the sword from my now weak fingers "That I would take that sword."
I fall to my knees. I can actually feel my consciousness fading along with my strength. There is so much blood. I've failed. It's hopeless… Unless.
I gather what strength I have left and prepare my Thu'um.
The Dragonborn laughs "There's no shout you have that can beat me old man. No tricks up your sleeve." He laughs maniacally and raises the sword to the sky. "There's no power in the World that can defeat me!"
I focus my Thu'um with more Fus that I ever have before "Haas Lu Gaan Zahrahmiik Dinok Strin!"
The Dragonborn's eyes widen "No! What are you doing!?"
The shout blasts from my lips and envelops the man. His snake eyes widen and a glowing light shoots from his chest and into mine. The light burns, but now I don't feel much pain.
When the light stops, the Dragonborn and I are blown away from eachother. I lay flat on my back, unable to rise.
The mighty Dovahkiin however scrambles off the ground and rushes over towards my laying frame. He trips a few times on the way over and when he gets to me, his once deathly eyes are filled with fear "What did you do!? What was that shout!?"
My lips move, but my voice is so weak now, as if that last shout has taken it away. I'm hardly audible.
The man screams at me "Speak up you! What did you do to my body!?"
He leans in closer and I speak "It's my own shout. The vitality drain death shout. All of your skill, all of your magic, all of your unnatural ability has been given to me. You won't even be able to shout."
The Dovahkiin's eyes grow so large I half expect them to pop out of his head. His jagged mouth hangs open in his unbelieving stupor. I give a weak chuckle and a stream of blood leaks from the side of my mouth "The only downside is that once someone uses the shout, they die." I smile at my old protege "But you've already taken care of that."
The Dovahkiin howls in rage and anguish "You feeble old man! Give me back my power! You can't do this to me! I'm the mighty Dragonbo-"
I can no longer hear the rest of his monologue. I just see the fading image of his angry outraged pale face fading in and out. Once, a short while ago I was convinced that he would become the greatest master of the way of the voice. A Jurgen Windcaller reborn. It's too late to be sad about that now I suppose. At least in the end, I fixed my greatest mistake.
I glance at my furious apprentice one last time, still shouting muted obscenities at me in my last moments, and for a brief second, just before darkness envelops my psyche, he appears as he was when I first saw him. Bright eyed and smiling, full of hope and eagerness. I smile and lean my head back as my spirit fades away.
So I came up with this when I was thinking about an certain episode of naruto.
I'll give you one good guess as to which one lol.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed that sad/fitting ending. Be sure to let me know whether or not you did in the comments, and thanks for reading till the end!
P.S: Did YOU notice any similarities between your Dragonborn and this one?
Just remember! What would Arngeir think