To every Miraak lover out there and those who will become one! I had this idea because Miraak appeared and stole a dragon soul. Of course I was angry, but then I started thinking…

I'm not done with the quest line yet, so I apologize for lore mistakes. I know how it will end, but not exactly.

I have no idea when the Civil War started. In this story, it's 197.

Miraak, Skyrim and nearly everything else belongs to Bethesda. Oh, and the chant is from watch?v=r4FtAP1bw3c. Creepy video.

Enjoy.

I still remember the first time he came to me. I was seven, and the other children in Riverwood had spit at me and laughed and chased me away, because my mother died during my birth and my father was a soldier who left after one night with her and I lived with my grandmother in the woods. So I ran in the forest, to a small pond. I washed the spit from my face and then I started to cry. I cried a lot when I was young.

"Do not cry, little girl", a voice behind me said. I turned around.

A man stood there. He wore strange clothes in dark brown-green and a golden mask. Today I can say it looks like hanging tentacles. Back then it was just strange. Not a tiny part of his skin was exposed and he seemed to shine a little bit.

I wiped the tears off my face and tried to stop the coming ones. It was hard, but somehow I didn't want him to see me weak.

"Do not cry", he said again, softer this time.

"Why?" I had a lot of reasons to cry.

"Because one day we shall fight and I do not want to kill a woman I remember as a weeping girl."

"I don't want to fight."

"No? Then you will fall to your knees and wait for the death blow when your time has come?"

This man…he talked about fighting and killing like the farmers talked about the seed. "Who are you?", I asked.

He said one word that changed me forever. For a long, long time it was the light in my life, joy and safety and love, things I never had before.

"Miraak."

"Miraak", I repeated, tasting the word. "Mir-aak. Mi-raak. Mira-ak." I liked its sound.

"And who are you?"

I told him my name and I think he smiled under his golden mask. "That sounds beautiful", he said. After a moment, he added, "You do not cry anymore."

He was right. The sound of his name had stopped the tears.

"Why are you alone in the forest?"

I felt sad again. "The others treat me bad."

"Why?"

"I don't have parents. They say my mother was a whore and I am a bastard and it was my fault she died."

"They are liars. I knew a lot of liars. Most of them are dead now…"

"Are you dead?" An adventurer had once told a story about a ghost and it sounded like Miraak was one too. He wasn't blue, and I couldn't see through him, but he glowed a little bit. And he somehow sounded old. Like he was born a thousand thousand years ago.

"Maybe. A little bit."

"How can you be 'a little bit' dead?"

"This is a long story, little girl, and a sad one."

"Do you know other stories?"

"A lot."

"Tell me!" I sat down next to the pond and he did the same and he told me stories until the light left the sky.

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It was dark when I came home that evening. My grandmother was furious. "Where have you been?", she screamed.

"In the forest."

"Alone."

"No. I met a man. His name is Mir-a-ak"-I loved this word-"and he taught me a poem." It was not really a poem, but it kind of sounded like one if I spoke it in the right rhythm. And Miraak had just whispered it once.

Here in my temple

Here in my shrine

That you have forgotten

Here do you toil

That you might remember

Here you reclaim

What faithless minds have stolen

Far from yourself

I grow ever nearer to you

Your eyes once were blinded

Now through me do you see

Your hands once were idle

Now through them do I speak

And when the world shall listen

And when the World shall see

And when the world remembers

That world will cease to be.

I did not know what it means. Today I do, and I can understand why my grandmother gave me the worst beating in my short life.

Later I was lying in the bed. Every part of my body ached. The pain didn't let me sleep. Before this day, I would have sobbed in the small pillow, but I bit back the tears. Because of one word…

As if my thoughts had summoned him, he suddenly sat next to me on the heap of hay I called "bed". His soft glow lighted the tiny chamber, just a little bit.

"Hello, little girl."

"Miraak!" I screamed in delight and would have jumped to my feet, had my limbs not hurt that much.

"Shh. She cannot hear me, but your voice is as loud as ever. Be careful."

"I don't care about her. I hate her!"

He seemed amused. "What does a little girl like you know of hate?"

"Why are you here?"

"I was…worried."

"Nobody is worried about me."

For a moment he hesitated. Then he said: "I am."

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Miraak was at my side for the next years. He visited me regularly. When I was young, this would be once or twice in a week, but soon he came every day. Sometimes he stayed only for a few minutes, but we often spent hours and hours together.

He taught me and I learned. I learned how to run faster and how to cast spells, how to hunt and to fight. He taught me how to shoot with a bow and how to make my own arrows. He could not show me himself because he could touch nothing, but his voice was all I needed.

Some lessons, about secrets, the people from Riverwood taught me. I learned that others could not see him. I learned that talking to him in public caused the others calling me "mad bastard" instead of "filthy bastard". I learned that nobody knew his name, and that telling people – even grown-ups – about him would lead to a beating.

When I was about twenty, a proper woman, he left for some time. After a year he came back, but he seemed distracted and sad. He said that "the End" was coming.

All the years, he kept talking about us fighting. One day, he always said, he would kill me and he would regret it, but it was necessary for him. I did not doubt it. This was Miraak, and his words were always true.

On my twenty-third birthday, I woke up in the dawn. I silently stood up, dressed, took my knapsack and walked out in the morning light. Miraak was already waiting for me. "Happy Birthday, little girl", he greeted me in his usual manner, although I no longer was a girl.

"Hello, Miraak." I stood next to him and we watched the rising sun over the trees.

After a while, he asked: "Where are you going?"

"I'll go to Windhelm. I want to fight for Ulfric Stormcloak."

"Why?" He did not try to talk me out of it. But he played the same game as in our training: He forced me to think, to question my decisions.

"Because", I said, preparing for presenting the arguments I had thought about yesterday evening, "he fights for the freedom. Ulfric Stormcloak wants Skyrim and her people, to which I belong, to be free. And he is strong. Rumours say that he killed Torygg with his voice-what?"

Miraak had started to laugh. "Oh, it is nothing. You would not understand. Please go on, little girl."

With a last suspicious look – was he laughing at me? -, I continued: "And I want to practice what you have taught me in the last sixteen years. Hacking at bushes with sticks is alright for a farmer, but I never wanted to stay in Riverwood. What do I have here?"

Nothing. My grandmother was old and weak, but she was a good healer and the people would look after her because they needed her skills. And all the men and women in the town would hardly miss me. Maybe they would even be a little bit proud of me, like of Ralof and Hadvar…

"Are you sure, little girl?"

I was surprised. Miraak never tried to convince me not to do something, no matter how stupid it was. "Yes."

"Your life would be easier if you would stay."

"My life was never easy."

He nodded. "Then it is settled. Do you wish company on your way to Windhelm?"

"Always, Miraak. Don't leave me."