Lord Harkon stood in the centre of his macabre court, surrounded by the mangled blood and flesh of his prey and the eyes of the hunters.
What a pity they were half blood, he thought.
What a pity they had to hunt on the borrowed blood of the Lord of Domination.
But this mortal human in front of him, with his own daughter beside him, who was he?
He carried himself like a predator, and with his large and unnerving eyes and the beginnings of a cruel smile on his sculpted, too perfect face, and his head bent to the left and his humongous stature, Harkon sometimes saw flashes of something, something which, upon release would intimidate any mortal, send them to cower beneath whatever structure they could find, and do whatever mortals do best.
He was no puny mortal however. He was Harkon, the Prince in the North. Yet this…strange specimen unnerved him. This predator-like mortal in front of him held the power to make him cautious, for the first time in more than four thousand years.
What a man! He was a predator, not a mere hunter! He was truly one of a kind, with the capacity to assimilate into himself the gift of the King of Domination.
Thus he spoke:
"Today, you have brought to me, a father, the greatest gift he can receive! The safe return of his daughter," He glanced at Serana, who slightly, yet very minutely, grimaced. He had noticed it, and he was sure some of the keener eyed hunters too, had seen her. She would be punished appropriately for this transgression, but later, "and the gift of the Elder Scroll. Thusly, you shall be rewarded. The greatest reward I have to offer is my blood. Take it! And walk, forever a lion among men!"
The mortal man in front of him stretched the corners of his pale lips into something which was as much a smile as a Senche-Tiger was a tabby cat. Displaying perfect white rows of sharp teeth, he spoke haltingly yet surely, with barely masked nonchalance, as if he was not the one standing in a court full of the strongest blood in all of Tamriel, and instead was a conqueror arriving to take stock of his prisoners.
"Oh? That is…all, you have…to offer?"
Harkon narrowed his eyes. Normally, he would simply have the hunters drain him dry. He would surely last weeks, what with the massive body he possessed. Yet he felt as if that was not a viable option.
Harkon hesitated for a moment. What was he doing? He was not a weak mortal this one in front of him was so used to order around, nor virgin looking for the first experience.
Harkon promptly regained his footing.
"Perhaps you desire a show of my power? Then be witness!"
Power flew unbidden through his body as his clothes were ripped and his wings extended. As he rose in the air and his head protruded and eyes darkened and he grew larger than the man in front of him.
As he took the true form of a pureblood he noticed the rows of eyes fixed on him, full of awe.
It never gets old, was all he could think.
"Bask in the radiance, for you face the gift of a god!"
All eyes were fixed on him, except for one.
The man, in front of him.
"You call this power?"
The hall erupted with laughter. Laughter filled with incredulousness, amazement even. Who in Oblivion did he think he was?
The man began to strip. He kicked off his dark, plated boots, unbuttoned his black robes, and his grey trousers, slid of his underwear and dropped to the ground his huge sword and dark gauntlet.
Serana took a few steps to her left, moving away from the man.
Surely, Harkon imagined, his daughter could now see how demented her companion was.
He had a body which looked as if it had been carved from stone, and despite the obvious incredulity of the situation, the man's insult of him, and his domain and his blood, Harkon admitted, deep within his mind, that the man before him had a body like no other, with perfect musculature, proportion and the lack of a single strand of body hair.
But, fun time was over. Harkon looked straight at the hunter closest to the man, who nodded once, prepared to…
What was that?
What was this strange feeling Harkon felt in front of him?
What was…
The man grew significantly, and from a previous estimate of more than seven feet, he grew to well over eleven feet, with the air around him cracking and blistering and chipping away while the ground moaned and wailed.
Suddenly there was a bright red flash, and the disturbance increased in size, as the Hunter who had leapt at him just before the anomaly took place was held in place by enormous waves of flaming air and the splashing stone floor.
He screamed and screamed and screamed till there was nothing but the sharp, abhorrent smell of the blood of the gods turning to ashes.
What a waste! What potency that blood carried! To see it wiped out like that was an icy blow to Harkon's chest. He felt like an artist who had seen one of best works go up in literal flames. And the nonchalance of this...this abomination irked him to no end.
He didn't even care about what he had done.
By this time, the flash had subsided enough for his eyes to make out what they were seeing.
And they saw the humongous man, wreathed from head to toe in flames.
As the man took a step on the stone floor that rippled like a clear brook and came up to overshadow his true form, Harkon found a single drop of godly blood flow, and at the same time, burn away from his nostrils.
What was this man?
When he spoke now, Harkon felt as if his head was held in a vice. He spoke with the scariest possible combination of two of the scariest voices in the world. One his gravelly, dark and sadistic natural voice, and another deep, heavy voice that flowed free like blood down a frenzied vampire's throat.
The man-who-was-surely-no-longer-a-man spoke, and a series of dark-red lines dribbled down Harkon's transformed ears, burning away on his cheeks.
"Rejoice, Bitch, for you, face a God."
For the first time in four thousand years, Lord Harkon found in his head pure and unadulterated, unrestrained fear.
I LIED.