The great cave was usually a place of quiet, murky danger, hushed tones and soft bioluminescent light. Here and now it was a tempestuous war zone with foot soldiers battling on the damp cave floor and magical energies arcing overhead to light up the thick air like Sheogorath himself was present. There seemed to be every manner of deranged enemy possible fighting the combined might of Tamriel that had not seen since Tiber Septim last conquered the known world. Thousands of brave men and women dared to march on FalZhardum Din and in three massive groups they invaded the subterranean hold. Yet they were attacked every step of the way and the real battle had begun in the main cave. It was a shame that after all of this they were being beaten.
The de facto leader of the third expeditionary force chopped into the chest of another falmer bearing poisoned, chitin weapons. Protected by the heaviest, most solid armor around she shield bashed another and drove her magnificent, skyforged blade through its neck. A falmer spear hit her in the back hard enough to almost knock her over and Lydia whirled to chop the haft of the weapon as it came at her again. The ruined polearm fell to the ground and the feral creature launched a handful of thunder at her in response. The tired warrior lifted her heavy shield to absorb the damage and stepped in to ram the edge of it into the falmer's stomach. The creature doubled over and she ruthlessly hacked its head off in one clean blow.
The spasming body and loose head tumbled down the small outcropping she stood on as she looked around to take stock of the situation. For the moment there was no one nearby to kill and she let her arms down. The cavern though was far from empty as the main horde of the falmer engaged the invaders alongside an army of vampires, chaurus and Dwemer automatons. Of all of them there were none she feared more than the Steam Centurions, terrifying constructs that rampaged through their forces like giant metal reapers of men. The sturdiest of armor might stop one of their steam powered blows but the wearer could still be killed by the sheer pulverizing force of the attack.
Besides the many ferocious defenders she had already seen the khajiit had revealed his deadliest servant, the sickly dragon that the Dawnguard survivor had spoken of all those months ago. Seemingly weak and falling apart they discovered it was the quite the opposite. Its thundering voice and necromantic skill decimated the second army to throw their battle plan into disarray. Even though they had felled it twice it kept coming back to display what seemed like a perverse sort of immortality. Lydia took this all in stride to look around for the nearest battle and found it not far from her tiny hill. There was a group of Argonians fighting tool and nail with a pack of chaurus and dwarven spiders that did not seem to be going well. First allowing herself a couple of deep breaths and a short break she started to trudge towards them when a powerful explosion behind her made the dark haired warrior whip about.
Through a smoking crater some twenty feet in diameter the architect of the entire invasion, the imposing Imperial Battlemage Procyon Klast, came running. His stately robes were spattered and singed, his face and hair still smoking from the blast as he ran up to her.
"Procyon! You're hurt!" she shouted.
"Never mind! The north flank is lost!" he yelled back.
"Where the hell is the First Army!?"
"Balgruuf never made it!" he cried. "The cat brought the cave mouth down on their heads!"
If it was possible for Lydia to be distraught then she would have sung them a funeral hymn but she didn't have the time nor energy. "We're losing! Losing, Lydia!" Klast urged. "Take the men and find the cat! Finish this!"
Weary and disheartened the warrior nodded grimly. "I will clear your path! When I break through, go and don't look back!" he ordered.
"You're coming with me! We're leaving together!" she insisted.
Half of his face was red and scorched, the tips of his graying hair burned black but the tortured look in his eyes was a glimpse of true pain. "You're leaving with me!" she repeated.
"I'll clear your way!" he uttered, his voice almost inaudible over the din.
When she made it to the Dragonborn's command post far up on FalZhardum Din's highest building the roar of the pitched battle below was fairly muted. Alone the former housecarl walked across a circular dias on the other side of which the cat was rapidly speaking commands into Dwemer machines even she could not comprehend. He was switching between standard and fluent Dwemeri effortlessly as he directed his forces seemingly all from this one place. When the warrior neared the center of the dias he stopped talking in that rolling, throaty accent that plagued her dreams. Turning around slowly the Dragonborn faced her for the first time in years.
He was exactly the way she remembered for better or worse. Beautiful gray, black and white fur in swirling patterns wrapped around his well muscled body and handsome khajiiti face. His eyes were bewildered at the moment but that brilliant amber hue never failed to startle her. He was dressed in simple black robes but she knew that he was fully prepared for total war despite appearing unarmed. She could just barely see the top of the deep scars poking out from his robes which riddled his torso and were created by monstrous, draconic claws. On top of his head he wore a miraculous artifact, an item that shouldn't exist: a tempered metal crown studded with the mythical material they long searched the depths of Skyrim for, Aetherium.
"Lydia?" he said in utter disbelief, his feline eyes barely understanding what they were seeing. She tried to say something but emotion and a terrible weight on her chest stopped her. His eyes oscillated as he struggled to come to terms with her presence.
"You found the forge then?" she asked to try to break the ice but he didn't respond. This was harder than the ceaseless fighting it took to get here in the first place.
"You are the one who led them here..." he rapidly deduced.
"I...I..." she stumbled.
"Never would this one do something like that to you." he said and the cat's stupefied disappointment cut her to the bone.
"This one didn't want to harm khajiit!" she pleaded. "He has to stop!"
"The world can try to bury him and we will only smile at this. But Lydia tries to kill him and he knows only sorrow." the Dragonborn shook his head sadly.
"Please...please forgive me. My Thane...dear one...Drozo'aja."
"Do not call this one that! You have no right anymore!" he huffed.
"You don't know what you're doing, what your actions have lead to! People are dying, the world is in pain, dear one!"
"Pain!? PAIN!?" he roared and his voice slipped into an inhumanly deep, dragon baritone that made the stones underneath them shake. "Pain is the price of living in this world! Pain is the elves of Valenwood and Summerset murdering khajiiti kittens in their beds! Pain is written on this one's body by the son of Alkosh! Pain is khajiit's great friend coming to kill him as thanks for saving this world!"
With heart breaking anguish and bottomless regret she rested her hand on the pommel of her sword. "Please believe me that I never wanted to do this."
"Only a fool would believe so." he spat as she backed up to the outer edge of the dias. "You sicken this one."
The hair on the back of her neck stood on end as he began to amp up whatever frightening abilities he had acquired since she last traveled with him. Before he could act almost twenty heavily armed, elite assassins and skilled mages broke their cloaks of invisibility and silence to reveal themselves. As one the mages hit him with a stream, no, a river of mighty electric current that fried the vampire cat where he stood. Throwing his head back he howled in agony and fell on his knees to the hard stone roof. Lydia cloaked herself like they were and circled around them all as the mages poured enough pure energy into him to fell a dragon.
When they had to stop there was a great black mark where they had scorched the rock underneath him and he sat on his haunches stiffly shaking. Lydia wasn't convinced he was incapacitated yet the warriors of the detachment surged forward to finish the job. She went to cry out at them to stop but they were already in motion and it would have broken her concealing spells. When they reached him she heard the Dragonborn utter a string of words and the cat blurred. Not only unharmed he moved faster than the eye could follow and three of the warriors were dead before she knew what was happening. Zig-zagging like lightning from one to the next he slowed to where he could be seen stabbing the strike party with twin daggers glowing red hot in his hands. Carefully watching him as he was hit by fire, ice and more electricity Lydia saw none of them even slow him down as his weapons rent metal and plate like they were made of paper.
She was nearly in position when he shouted again and had she been caught in the blast radius she would have been blown away too. Some of them went screaming over the edge of the building from the force shout and those that didn't were scattered in tumbling heaps. She'd seen this many times before as he pounced on the warriors first with quick, fatal stabs to the heart or throat almost without stopping. He was halfway through the mages when she closed in on exactly where she needed to be. Coming up from his rear as he killed two more she angled towards his back when he finished with them. Only a few paces away when the last mage fled for his life the cat unexpectedly threw one of his glowing knives. The weapon flipped end over end to strike the robed man in the spine as Lydia raised her sword in the air. It should have been a near debilitating blow but even being attacked from nothingness he still twisted away instinctively and she just barely scored a thin cut across his back.
Her enchantments disappeared and he spun to hit her point blank with a savage Fo shout, a deadly eruption of cold and ice that she'd seen kill a giant dead in its tracks. She knew him well though and her armor was specially prepared and altered to resist him. Much lighter than normal plate it was rigorously enchanted to stop both cold and dragon breath attacks like he favored. The shout would have likely killed her outright in her normal armor but Lydia barely felt the chill. With only a fraction of the force and damage getting to her she marched into the jet of frost with her shield held high. Bashing him because she knew that he would be forced to close his eyes when breathing at her she landed a solid blow and blindly struck through the frost with her sword.
The weapon hit nothing but air and she backed up immediately. It was too late though for the Dragonborn retaliated by ramming his remaining dagger through the top of her shield. She felt the waves of heat radiating from the weapon but it wasn't long enough to harm her. It was a short lived hope as he used the embedded knife like a lever and threw her entire body to the left. Spinning to the ground Lydia felt weightless for half a second before the floor hit her like a battering ram. Dazed and her equilibrium readjusting she offered little resistance as he ripped her shield from her arm and planted a knee on her breastplate. Trying to angle her sword at him she was again overpowered as he latched onto her wrist and slammed it down. With his other hand he put his deadly claws around her windpipe so that she felt the very tips of them on her bare skin but then cat hesitated. Panicking Lydia yanked the spare dagger from her hip and as she looked up at his bloodied face she buried the needle like knife to the hilt in his chest.
His lungs deflated and her master's face grimaced in mortal, shocking pain. Taking his hand off her throat he gripped the dagger and she let it go fearfully. With superhuman resolve he grunted as he pulled six inches of metal out of his own torso. Hot blood fell on her iced breastplate as he held the slick dagger over her face. The moment seemed frozen in time as they looked at each other and a couple droplets of his blood lightly dotted her cheek. Taking a ragged breath that made him growl in his throat he suddenly moved his hand and dropped the weapon harmlessly to the side of her head. Before slumping off of her to the floor his determined, tortured expression as he looking deep into her eyes made an indelible mark on her psyche. Laying on his back with his legs twisted the other direction the cat panted his last breaths as Lydia rolled over to cradle his head.
"Drozo'aja..." she bawled softly. In what had to be terrible pain he reached out to the air and a dremora appeared from the ether standing next to them.
"Is my-" it started to say before seeing them.
"Give her...the bow." the Dragonborn quivered. Its black eyes showing disbelief the entity nevertheless silently pulled a magnificent, eldritch white bow from thin air. Handing the weapon to a confused Lydia it gave her a look of pure disgust before fading back to Oblivion.
"What, what..?" she stumbled as she laid it to the side.
The khajiit lifted a paw wet with his own warm blood to her face. "This one...could never harm you, ghk!" he coughed on his own fluids. "The bow is how he rules the sun...this one names you the Scion of Auri-El..."
Lydia had seen many people, goodly and evil, pass on to the afterlife and she knew that he wasn't long for this world. His hand fell to the floor and she blinked through the tears to say, "Wait, my love, please, there's so much I need to-"
His drooping eyes floated open and he whispered, "Lee-dee-ah...dearest one...go on for..."
The Dragonborn's body went limp and he exhaled one last gurgling breath that was more gravity in action than his diaphragm moving on its own accord. His chest did not rise again and the former housecarl could do nothing but watch the light leave his dazzling eyes. In a near catatonic state she sat up and listened to the distant sound of the battle still raging below. Looking at the bodies surrounding them Lydia started stripping off her armor as fast as she could. When she was done she pulled the bow over her head and then stooped to heft the Dragonborn's still warm body over her shoulder. She could not leave him here like this and already began to plan the fastest route to an elevator, far away from this place.