Author's Note: Howdy and welcome everyone to my first story! This is big first for me as well as a major leap of faith, so I ask everyone to please be constructive in your reviews, as I wish to deliver as great of an experience as possible to you the reader.
Also, I want to give a VERY special thanks to my awesome beta, loraine95, who inspired me to finally take the first step on what I hope to be an amazing journey. Please read her story, Amalgamation. It's an amazing Me/DA crossover and a definite must-read!
Disclaimer: I do not own TES: Skyrim or Dragon Age: Inquisition. They are the property of Bethesda and EA respectively. Original content, however, is mine.
So, without further ado, let the story begin!
Chapter 1: Prophecy's End
The air around her seemed still around her as she made her way across the great whalebone bridge. Its frigidness was also strangely absent, as if the very air had left in anticipation of what was to come. The Dragonborn paid it no mind as she and her three companions from Shor's hall, the original tongues who had fought Alduin in ancient times, rushed out onto the field, right at the edge of the fog-like soul snare that covered Sovengarde.
As the heroes formed a line at the fog's edge, she tightened the grip on her sword, readying herself for the battle to come. Ironic, she thought, Alduin saved my life at Helgen and now here I am about to kill him. She didn't feel regret at all about what she was doing, however. Alduin was a remorseless monster, a threat to not just Skyrim, but all of Tamriel. And as the Dragonborn, it was her duty to oppose and strike down the power-hungry fiend. Destiny, she mused, had a very interesting sense of humor.
The voice of Gormlaith, one of the Tongues, brought the Dragonborn out of her reflective thoughts and back to the battle at hand. "Clear Skies! Combine our shouts!" At once, the Dragonborn shouted, with the full force of her Thu'um, into the fog "Lok! Vah! Koor!" Her companions followed suite and the fog was virtually eradicated by the power of the four Clear Skies shouts. Or so they thought. From somewhere beyond their sight, the terrible, deep voice of Alduin rang out in defiance with the words "Ven! Mul! Riik!" Instantly, the fog returned, engulfing the verdant hills of Sovengarde.
The Dragonborn glared deep into the fog, confident that the firstborn of Akotash could sense her gaze. You claim to be a God, yet hide behind a petty wall of mist and fog, she thought, almost willing her insult into the black dragon's twisted mind. You WILL die this day, World-Eater. One way or another.
"Again," Gormlaith shouted to the group. As before, the heroes' shouts's rang out into the field, dispelling the ensnaring fog. For a moment, it seemed it had worked for good this time. But Alduin's voice rang out and, with the same shout as before, restored the fog to the field.
Infuriated, the Dragonborn shouted into the fog, "Enough of this game, Alduin! Come out from your fog and fight us like a true dovah! Or are you finally ready to admit you're a coward?"
Her challenge was met with dark laughter from the field.
"Such a petty challenge from such a petty mortal. If you are truly so unafraid of me, then come into my snare, Dovahkiin. I will gladly give you the dinok you so eagerly desire."
At that, the Dragonborn bristled. A snarl formed on her face and, for a moment, was actually half tempted to storm into the fog right then and there to face her nemesis, reason be damned. Only her better judgment, and maybe Feldir's strong arm, prevented her from literally marching to her certain death.
"Calm yourself, Dragonborn. He fears your strength and seeks to do with words what he has failed to achieve in battle."
Even though he was but a spirit, the Dragonborn could feel a deep sense of wisdom and strength in Feldir's words as well as his eyes, which had a sobering effect strong enough to convince her to remain where she was. Though far from calm, the red mist that briefly clouded her vision slowly faded away. The Dragonborn allowed her face to relax some, nodding toward Feldir in agreement. He was right, the only way to bring Alduin to battle would be to force him from his shroud. Only then could he be slain.
As if to reinforce her thoughts, Feldir looked to the others and said, "We can shatter his power if we Shout together!"
Once more, the four heroes unleashed the Clear Skies shout upon the fog. As before, the fog was pushed back to the point of eradication. But Alduin's defiance remained firm as his voice rang out once more, "Ven! Mul! Riik!" This time, the Dragonborn caught something in Alduin's Voice, something so noticeable it caused her ignore something Hakon said: a strain. The World-Eater's strength was actually failing, which meant he wouldn't be able to maintain the fog for much longer. It did actually make sense, though. Alduin had not had sufficient time to recover from his battle with the Dragonborn atop the Throat of the World, and was not at his full strength. A predatory grin formed on the Dragonborn's face in anticipation of what was to come. You won't be able to hide behind that shroud much longer, worm. And then, you will have nowhere to run.
She regained her sense of awareness in time to hear Gormlaith echo her thoughts. "Stand fast! His strength is failing! Once more, and his might will be broken!"
"She's right," the Dragonborn called out to the group. "You could hear it in his Voice. He's barely able to maintain the fog! We cannot falter now!"
The others nodded in agreement, confirming that they too had heard the weakness in Alduin's Voice. Then, turning their attention to the task at hand, the four heroes shouted with all their might, "Lok! Vah! Koor!" This time, the fog was completely eradicated, laying bare the open fields and hills of Sovengarde. The Dragonborn barely had time to observe the fogless scenery when she heard the furious roar of the World-Eater above, his massive, black-scaled form easily recognized against the multi-colored sky of Sovengarde.
"Dragonrend! Bring him down," the Dragonborn cried out to the Tounges as Alduin made a pass overhead. As one, they shouted at the World-Eater, "Joor! Zah! Frul!" The combined power of all four shouts slammed into Alduin like an avalanche, nearly causing his immediate "landing," to turn into a crash. As he began to pick himself up, the heroes charged at the black dragon while encircling him at the same time. Hakon and the Dragonborn attacked Alduin from the front, while Feldir and Gormlaith attacked him from the left and right flanks respectively.
But the World-Eater would not be bested easily. As Hakon and the Dragonborn rushed directly at him, he shouted, "Yol! Toor! Shul!" A powerful stream of fire raced toward the two warriors as they jumped out of the way, having heard the beginning of the Fire Breath shout coming, both warriors feeling the residual heat in the air from the attack. Feldir and Gormlaith, on the other hand, had closed in successfully and began to slash at Alduin's flanks with their swords. Noticing this, the World-Eater turned his attention from incinerating his frontal foes to swiping at his two flanking opponents with his wings and his mace-like tail. Seeing this opening, Hakon resumed his charge while the Dragonborn hung back.
While Hakon closed in with his battle-axe to strike at Alduin's neck, the Dragonborn had decided on a new strategy, one that had served her well in past battles with dragons. Sheathing her sword, she gathered a sphere of dark purple energy in her left hand and focused her magika on the weapon she desired, a weapon found only in Oblivion. In a quick flash of purple light, her bound bow materialized in her left hand and a quiver full of bound arrows on her back. While normally she would summon a pair of Storm Atronachs to strike at dragons from afar, Daedra could not set foot in Atherius, bound or not, due to the divine pact made at the creation of the universe. Bound weapons, however, did not fall under this category and the bound bow had served the Dragonborn well in her travels.
Nocking an arrow she had drawn from her quiver, the Dragonborn began to unleash arrow after arrow into Alduin's body, each one of the powerful arrows flying true into either the World-Eater's lower neck or back. While she no novice in terms of sword combat, Vilkus calling her a veritable sword master confirmed that, she recognized the strategic opportunity the battle provided: while the Tongues engaged Alduin in melee, she could snipe him from afar with her bound bow without fear of distraction.
As she drew her bow back once more, she saw Alduin lash out violently against all three of the Tongues simultaneously, sending them flying away like ragdolls. While Feldir and Gormlaith were thrown back into the open field, Hakon slammed into a nearby rock edifice, knocking his axe from his hands. Seeing his prey vulnerable, Alduin lumbered toward the dazed hero, eager to devour his ethereal essence to rejuvenate his power. Seeing this unfold, the Dragonborn began to sprint toward the World-Eater to save her comrade-in-arms, dissipating her bow and drawing her sword as she crossed the field.
As the closed in on Alduin, she shouted "Fus! Ro! Dah!" The raw power of Unrelenting Force slammed into Alduin's right flank, stunning the black dragon long enough for her to slash the corner of his jaw bone with her sword, further disorienting him. It bought her enough time to grab Alduin's horns and pull herself onto the dragon's back, and position herself to deliver the final, fatal blow through Alduin's skull. At long last, Skyrim and all of Tamriel will be free from your evil, she thought, girding herself with righteous determination as she prepared to raise her sword in preparation to deliver the final blow.
However, the Dragonborn had underestimated Alduin's ability to recover from the rapid succession of stunning attacks he had received. With a powerful thrust of his wings, Alduin began to once more take to the skies of Sovengarde. Caught off guard, the Dragonborn lost her balance and stumbled backwards, nearly falling off the World-Eater's back. Fortunately, she was able to grab the frame of Alduin's left wing and tightened her grip with all her strength as the black dragon began to soar across the skies.
"You'll not be rid of me that easily, Alduin! You're end is at hand," she cried out over the rushing wind in her face as she dug her sword into Alduin's back to stabilize herself.
"Dur mey! Does your pahlok know no bounds? I will break you with the very winds of the heavens!"
And with that, Alduin pulled a sharp turn straight into the air, determined to use the sheer force of gravity to shake the Dragonborn from his back. But despite his wings being pulled back, the Dragonborn held firm, shutting her eyes and burrowing her face as much as possible into her shoulder to stave off the rush of the wind. Then the World-Eater, dove down while barrel rolling at an alarming speed. The Dragonborn could feel her grip slipping on both the wing and her sword. This ends now, she decided. And with that, she pulled her sword out from Alduin's back and stabbed it into the wing tissue right where it connected to Alduin's body and began to cut down and back, severing most of the wing from the dragon's body. Alduin roared in pain as he tried to pull up, a futile attempt to delay the inevitable crash back to ground although he was able to level himself out before hitting the earth face-first. The Dragonborn flew off of Alduin's back and did what could mount to a cross between a summersault and a barrel role, each hit on the ground worse than the last.
Her head felt like it had been split open by an axe. Her vision was disoriented and her ears rang without end. Every part of her body screamed in pain as she tried to move. She confirmed this when she tried to mover her arm to push herself up. A pang of fear shot through her; her unexpected summersault may have broken several, if not all, of the bones in her body. No, not now! As if to confirm her fears, her vision began to clear and she could see Alduin starting to pull himself up from the dirt, albeit he seemed to be struggling as well, and begin searching for his prey.
Summoning all her will, she pushed the excruciating pain from her mind and summoned a familiar sensation in her left hand. Her left hand now held a brilliant golden glow that, with a quick clenching and opening of her hand, encompasses her entire body. The soothing, healing energies from the Fast Healing spell, while not healing her entirely, healed enough of her wounds to allow her to finally pick herself up.
Immediately upon standing up, the Dragonborn realized she was only a few yards away from the edge of the cliff, the deep abyss of Atherius lying below. She briefly thanked the Divines that she hadn't fallen off the ledge. As her near-death realization subsided, she felt the familiar weight in her right hand and saw that her sword was still firmly in her grip. As a passing thought, she reached behind the small of her back and was relieved to find her other sword, Dawnbreaker, still in its tightly fastened leather sheath.
By this time, Alduin had finally spotted the Dragonborn, his dark, red eyes filled with rage and vengeance. As he attempted to lumber toward the Dragonborn, she noticed the World-Eater was leaning heavily on his right wing, semi-dragging his now crippled left wing arm across the ground. Steeling herself, she began to advance on the crippled beast as well, bracing herself to face her nemesis in single combat one last time.
"Zu'u fen ni mah. Zu'u nis kos viik. Nid joor, nahlaas uv dilon, vis kriist us zey."
"And yet three ancient spirits and a mortal are able to lay low the self-proclaimed thur of all the dov, a title that rightfully belongs to Akotash," the Dragonborn retorted as the two combatants circled one another, each one still grimacing from his or her respective wounds.
"You dare speak the name of my bomah to slander me? For this insult, dovahkiin, you will suffer a fate far worse than death. I will not devour your soul, I will tear it from your very flesh and rip it apart, piece by piece."
The Dragonborn was beyond having enough. "So what are you waiting for? If you want it, come claim it!"
And with that, Alduin shouted "Fo! Krah! Diin!" The powerful blast of frost came right at the Dragonborn. With no room to dodge, she could only brace herself as the miniature blizzard slammed into her, biting into her flesh even through her armor. Fighting to shrug off the cold gnawing at her body, she lunged at Alduin and delivered a powerful horizontal slash across the left side of the dragon's face. As Alduin threw his head to the side, roaring in pain as he reeled from the strike, the Dragonborn darted around to Alduin's wounded wing, determined to hack it off completely and leave the World-Eater at her mercy. But it seemed Alduin still had plenty of fight left in him as his mace-like tail swung right at the Dragonbon's blind side and, using the momentum from the strike he received not a second earlier, smashed it into her body.
The Dragonborn, for the second time during the battle, found herself tumbling along the ground again and found herself once again by the cliff edge, only now she was mere inches away from it. As she pick herself up, she saw Alduin had managed to close the distance between the two of them, crippled as he was, and was now only a few feet from her, blocking off any flanking attempts she could make. She was trapped
Desperate, and seeing no other way, the Dragonborn inhaled deeply, steeling herself for what she was about to unleash. With a cry of dark fury, she uttered the words "Rii! Vaaz! Zol!" Soul Tear. The shout's raw power slammed into Alduin with a force unmatched, causing the black dragon to convulse in pain as his very soul was assaulted by Soul Tear's power.
As she watched Alduin thrash about in pain, the Dragonborn took a risk and ran directly underneath him, knowing she could be crushed under the dragon's bodyweight or even thrown off the ledge due to a flailing limb. Seeing his head falling toward her, she thrust her sword upward with a cry of righteous anger right toward the dragon's jaw. The blade thrust was true and impaled Alduin's skull on her blade.
Suddenly, Alduin's body began to glow and fracture. Fearing what may come, the Dragonborn tried to pull her sword out of Alduin's still convulsing head, but found that her hands would not respond, as though they were fused to the sword handle itself. Powerless, she could only watch helplessly as Alduin's body, in a brilliant flash of energy, exploded directly in front of her.
Time seemed to slow as she flew through the air, flying far from the cliff and deep into the abyss that awaited her below. She struggled to maintain conciseness as she fell, seeing black slowly appear all over her vision. So this is how it ends, she mused to herself; to travel so far, to experience so much, and now to die where all valiant souls find their final rest. Her resistance eroded the further into the abyss below Shor's hall she fell. As the darkness grew and her strength waned, her mind flashed back to everything that had led to this moment; Helgen, the battle at the watchtower outside Whiterun, the Companions, High Hrothgar, the College, the Legion, even Paarthurnax and Odahviing. Even memories before Helgen flashed before her eyes; her parents and their unlikely love, Daggerfall's beautiful scenery, a sunset over the vast Iliac Bay. It's been a good life, nothing to regret, she happily mused. And with that final thought, she gave in and allowed the darkness to finally claim her.
Dragon tongue translations
Lok! Vah! Koor!=Clear Skies shout
Dinok=death
Dur=Curse
Mey=fool
Pahlok=arrogance
Zu'u fen ni mah. Zu'u nis kos viik. Nid joor, nahlaas uv dilon, vis kriist us zey= I will not fall. I cannot be defeated. No mortal, alive or dead, can stand before me
Fo! Krah! Diin!=Frost Breath shout
And there you have it! Please, Please, Please leave your thoughts, comments, suggestions, and constructive criticism in your reviews! Feel free to PM me if you want to personally talk to me about ideas for upcoming chapters, I want to involve my readers as much as possible in developing this work.
Also, this and the next chapter are going to be all Elder Scrolls, but chapter 3 will introduce the DA universe. Hang in there, y'all!
Thank you again so much for taking the time to read this and join me on this amazing journey! I
