Control
The female Dragonborn returned to awareness with her head throbbing and her body aching. She noticed she was laying on her back as 'her' room came into focus. Raising her hands, the woman saw the familiar glint of two bands of metal around each of her wrists. These manacles had some sort of stamina and magicka draining enchantments and she could not figure out any way to take them off. The woman had tried pulling them off, breaking them, lubricating her wrists with her own blood and even grease or fat from one of her meals to try and slip out of them. Every attempt had been unsuccessful and most often left her arms in pain.
When the Dragonborn first came to be here, she learned quickly that she could not Shout, or even speak at all. Another enchantment was likely the cause but she could not sense it on her metal bonds. Her wrists would bleed from her attempts at escaping the manacles but they were always healed the next time she found herself in this room. The warrior had lost count of how many times that had happened.
The woman slowly raised herself from the bed. She grimaced in pain when her movements caused a sharp pain in her skull. She closed her eyes and breathed a few times, collecting herself before throwing her legs over the side of the bed. The Dragonborn paused as she noticed her clothes, robes the color of dull gold, were torn and covered in dried blood. It looked like she had been in a fight, one that she did not remember. Magic had been used to heal the any wounds the warrior had sustained, as she could not feel any pain.
The Dragonborn stood on shaky feet and scanned her prison. The bed was in one corner of the room with a nightstand nearby. A table and chair were on the other side. A small bookshelf was full of old tomes, most already read in her boredom. There was two doors in this place, one beside the foot of the bed, which led to a bathing area, and the other high on the ceiling. It was a trapdoor and the only way to reach it would be to use a ladder, lift or whatever mechanism the Dragonborn's captors used to get her down here or come down themselves. Piling every piece of furniture up in this room was not enough to get to it. She had tried that once.
Food was usually left on the table and looking there, the Dragonborn found a platter full of it. A change of clothes and a towel were left outside the bathing chamber. The Dragonborn never saw the cultists who placed these things in the room or cleaned it for the next time she returned. She knew barely anything of this place and she hated that. It was terrifying to not be aware of what one's own body was doing most of the day. Especially if Miraak was the one who was controlling it during that time.
Absorbing Miraak's soul in Apocrypha had been the biggest mistake the Dragonborn could have made. She tried not to blame herself though, as she hadn't known what would happen. Even so, the woman couldn't help but feel she was entirely responsible for her current predicament.
The Dragonborn hadn't noticed anything strange a few months after she had defeated Miraak. None of the Dragon souls she had taken ever did anything to her. The warrior knew they were inside her but could not interact with them in any way. How could she have known the First Dragonborn's soul would be so different?
Six months after Miraak's defeat, things began to change. The Dragonborn began to suffer from severe headaches. She would lose awareness at times and end up in places she had no memory of going to. During these instances, the woman would slowly lose consciousness and could almost feel some kind of presence before her eyes closed and she woke up somewhere else.
The healer the woman got herself examined by told her that she must have just fallen asleep from exhaustion and sleepwalked. The stress of being the Dragonborn must be getting to her, he said, as he could find nothing else wrong. Believing him she took a few weeks off to rest and it worked. Another three months passed with just one or two minor recurrences of, what she had assumed to be, the sleepwalking.
The warrior understood now that it had been Miraak taking over and making sure his new plan would work. The Dragon Priest had been using her body to contact his cultists, through letters or other means, to prepare a suitable prison for her in Solstheim.
One day the warrior traveled to Windhelm to meet with the Jarl but collapsed before she could make it into the city. The next thing she knew, she was in a stone room, enchanted bonds around her wrists and lacking her ability to Shout. It was then she heard Miraak's voice for the first time since that day in Apocrypha. Dragonborn… You are mine.
The Dragonborn's prison was somewhere in Miraak's temple, that much the warrior knew but not much else. Whether she was underground or above, there was no way to tell. There was no window in the room. Braziers high around the room kept it lit well enough for the woman to see.
The female warrior tried to break free after she first came here but failed at every attempt. Yelling was useless as her voice did not work. It was only when she had exhausted herself and collapsed on the bed the first day that Miraak finally explained to her what had happened. It had been startling to hear the man's voice inside her own head. And her horror at her situation only grew when Miraak spoke.
The Dragon Priest explained that the woman's body was no longer just her own, that his soul had always been stronger and now he was the dominant one in their body. He would use her as an instrument to take Solstheim. Miraak would not allow himself to be denied the right he deserved and, even though his physical form had perished, he would use another to take what belonged to him.
The Dragonborn had never been given the opportunity to be free in her own body outside this room ever since she arrived. Miraak was careful. Two special cultists, heavily under Miraak's control, were the only ones that knew what happened to their lord during this time. They were the ones that would let him out and take off the enchanted bonds when he compelled them to. The First Dragonborn controlled these two cultists like he had the people of Solstheim when they were building his temple.
The only time the Dragonborn found herself to be free was when Miraak allowed her to sleep in her prison. It seemed like the older Dragonborn could not keep her body under his control indefinitely or get rid of her soul, as he would have done that already. The woman found herself free about eight to ten hours every time she woke up in her room. She wasn't sure how long Miraak had use of her body beforehand, whether it was just one day or a week.
One of the things the female warrior hated most about this place was the isolation. Not one person, other than Miraak, had been allowed to speak to her since her imprisonment. The Dragonborn hadn't even seen another living person, while in charge of her own body, since being brought to this room. Miraak's memories of people while controlling her body were not enough. The warrior wanted to see, to talk to someone! She wanted out of this place!
Most of the time Miraak did talk to her, it was not a conversation. A few taunts or jabs about her strength and allies here, a monologue of what he hoped to accomplish there. He rarely answered her questions and was amused by her violent outbursts that she had to project mentally for him to understand. Nothing she mentally threatened worried him as he had all the power while she could do nothing.
Though Miraak seemed to be able to mentally contact the Dragonborn whenever and was aware of what she was doing, even while she was in control of her body, the warrior found that she could not do the same. When Miraak took charge, she could only see and feel fragments of what he could and was not strong enough to take back control. The Dragon Priest, on the other hand, could force the Last Dragonborn to see and feel everything he was doing while still keeping her body under his control. The man had done that once so far, when he defeated all of the Skaal warriors in combat. The betrayal she saw in Frea's eyes had been heartbreaking. It had been her voice telling her and her people that they were worthless, less than nothing. It had been her body and weapons drawing their blood and destroying their homes to make them submit. Miraak took pleasure in the pain she had felt and from having his revenge on the ones who had helped aid the Last Dragonborn in defeating him.
The Dragonborn cried when Miraak released her but her sorrow quickly turned to rage. She would free herself and somehow make Miraak suffer, she vowed.
The woman turned away from the food, though her stomach was rumbling and her throat was parched, to make her way into the bathing chamber. She picked up the clean set of robes and a towel along the way. Thankfully, Miraak allowed her to bathe her own body. Letting hot water flow from a faucet into a large tub, the Dragonborn undressed and slipped into the water, sighing in relief. The thought of Miraak bathing her body made the Dragonborn shudder in disgust. She always made sure to wash herself so Miraak would never need to. The woman didn't like to think of what the man could be doing to her body or allowing happen to it while he took over.
Finished her bath and clothed in another set of robes, the Dragonborn left the bathing room, yawning widely. The warm water helped with the aches in her body but her head still hurt, like it usually did. The pain was probably a side effect of Miraak's control over her.
The food was cold now but she didn't mind. She devoured the meal, some type of meat with vegetables on the side, and gulped down the water in the pitcher, forgoing a glass. She was ravenous. It seemed like Miraak had been skipping meals, again. Did that stupid man not know how to take care of her body?
The woman sighed and decided it would be useless to try and break free of the manacles as nothing she tried had even remotely worked. She sat on the bed and thought instead. What she needed to do was fight Miraak's soul with her own. She needed to find a way to strengthen it so that it was a match for his. But how was she to do that? Meditation? Willpower?
The Dragonborn buried her head in her hands as she was unsure if anything would work. She had to find some way out of this. The warrior could not allow herself to be used like this. She needed to defeat Miraak once more and then try to fix everything he had destroyed, though the people of Skyrim and Solstheim may never believe that it had been Miraak and not her that had hurt them. What kind of things had Miraak made her body do? How many people had been hurt by her hands? The woman quickly shook these thoughts out of her head. She did not want to think of that yet. Focusing on getting out was a priority before worrying about anything else.
The Dragonborn was too exhausted to do much more tonight but she made the mental commitment to work on willpower and meditation next time she woke up in this room. The warrior was not used to using means other than her Voice or weapons to defeat an enemy but she had no choice but to try something new. Maybe then she could take back control of her body and keep Miraak from ever taking over again. The thought of success allowed the Dragonborn to relax as she lay on the bed and closed her eyes.
Sleep well, Dragonborn. There is much for us to do tomorrow. Miraak's voice taunted as woman allowed sleep to claim her.
One more of Miraak and a female Dragonborn. I had a longer story in mind but I had to cut it down, else I would never write it. Still working on one more fic but that one's giving me a lot of trouble.