AN: 1

Lord only knows what I was doing when I started this, and where it shall end. I can only hope it will be fun, yeah?

OOOO

Spitting out a mouthful of blood before sucking down one of my last healing potions made me wonder not for the first time if one of the divines hated me. Perhaps it was a daedra, they were much more vindictive. Azura knows I have never done anything that Boethiah has ever approved of. Daedra or Divines, it didn't matter. They didn't change the fact that I was here, in Apocrypha, the land of Hermas Mora, fighting the first Dragonborn. I had to laugh, even if it tasted bitter. This was so out of the ordinary that it could be an embellished song sang by a bard. A good tale but not one to be believed.

Miraak was slowly starting to reappear again, quickly ending my short break in our duel to the death. Groaning I stepped away from the wall I was leaning on. "This is the third time you have fallen by my hand Miraak," Before our battle started, he said it was past time for talking, that this was fate, I wished that wasn't true. "I have no wish for one of us to kill the other." I laughed again, the sound quickly degraded into a wet cough. "It's madness...a dragon fighting a dragon….me and you…"

Miraak's head tilted. His own wounds were bleeding heavily. I could see his chest rise and fall in a shallow pattern, jaggedly enough that I could tell each breath was pain. "This is the only way Dragonborn. The only way I can be free." He raised his sword up to face me once more. "I will not let you take this from me."

Huffing, I raised my hands up both now ready a spell. "So be it Brother."

The small jolt that went through Miraak did not go unnoticed by me as we clashed. "It's too late for that!" Miraak made a vicious strike at me, the tentacles grazing my leg. "There could be only one Dragonborn! It is fate! I am no brother of your's!"

The lightning bolt he sent at me came fast after his words.

My own bolts of fire and lightning sent at near the same time.

With rivaled skill, we attacked, dodged and shouted. Our wounds slowing down our reaction times, yet the speed of our battle made it near impossible to cast a healing spell. We fought with reckless abandon. There were no longer any dragons that Miraak could kill to regain some health, Just as there was no hiding spot for me to guzzle down a much needed potion.

Apocrypha rang with the sounds of their shouts. The ground quaking under their power. Our battle was fierce and our blood flowed freely. Out engagement only ended once Miraak got a lucky shot in. The tentacles on his sword were not to be underestimated.

Hissing, I rolled away, shouting "Marked for Death" at Miraak. "Kill! Leech! Suffer!"

The shout hit Miraak head on, dropping him to his knees. The sickly pink veins sucking the fight out of his body.

Taking out my dagger, I went to Miraak, my steps slow and painful. "There can only be one." I hissed out, the overall pain from my wounds making it hard to talk normally.

Miraak laughed, his voice still unbelievably arrogant. "Yes, only one." Shifting so he was sitting in a position that left all his weak points open. "So strike me down. It is the fate for the true Dragonborn to live, the other to die."

I have killed before, you needed to if you were to live in Skyrim. There should have been no reason not to strike Miraak down. No reason for hesitation. And yet when my arm was raised above my head, my dagger lined up with his throat, I found myself unwilling to kill him. Something deep in my bones gave me pause. "Miraak…"

Miraak was impaled by a tentacle spike before I could say more. I watched in silent horror as Hermaeus Mora drifted down from the clouds, the spike that Miraak was stuck on rose up halfway to meet the daedric prince. "A craftsman has no use for a tool that is old and broken, just as I have no more use for you Miraak." The spike moved so it continued to push a hole further into Miraak's torso. "I have a new Dragonborn, you are no more use to me."

Miraak's arm twitched up to his mask before he answered. "May you repay her as you have me." His hand grasped the mask before ripping it off. His pale blue eyes bore into mine, "Or better yet…"

The shout that Miraak used was one I have never heard of before, its words old enough that I could not grasp its meaning. The moment it hit me, my body was no longer stable. I felt like I was being crushed, compressed and squished until I could no longer breath. I was faintly aware of Mermas Mora's voice shouting "No", or of the last shout that sent me into a realm far from the reaches of the Daedra. Before my world was gone for good, the laughter of Miraak followed me.

"No Dragonborn is a pawn, it is not our fate!"

OOOO

I did not fall into sleep as the thu'um tossed me into a sea of colors and textures. I watched as worlds passed me by and the sounds of a thousand souls rippled and whispered stories of lands I have never heard of. I felt myself being pulled in a thousand directions yet I only reacted to the pull of magic I felt. The magic was strong in me, it was no surprise I was drawn to it. Reaching out to grab it, to pull myself into the stability that magic offered. There was little to do other than let the magic take me wherever it wanted, thus I was swept away.