What prompted this? I've been replaying Skyrim, and I've noticed something. Baalgruf is the worst father ever. Dangerous stuff in his house, raising spoiled kids and so on. So now, he reaps what he sowed. Hope you enjoy it, read and review!
-Baalgruf's end-
"I always knew that there would be a foe Irileth could not best." the Jarl of Whiterun mused, surprisingly unaffected by the death of his loyal housecarl.
"I had not expected it would be one of your Brotherhood though," he nods at my red and black armour, "she has proven quite proficient at killing your brethren in the past."
"They did not know how she fought." a surprisingly clear voice echoes through the empty hall. "They were easily surprised and defeated. Not many housecarls have knowledge of magic, and certainly not to the extent Irileth had."
"And you did know this? How, if I may ask? Were you a guard here? No, almost all our guards are Nords. A mercenary perhaps?" Baalgruf questions.
"Perhaps this will help." the clear voice says, and the assassin removes her mask and cowl.
"Athris? What is the meaning of this?" the shocked jarl says, not understanding why his previously loyal thane would kill his housecarl, and threaten him.
"A child has prayed to his mother, Jarl. The Dread Lord will have his due. I daresay you'll be quite surprised as to who prayed to us." the normally surprisingly warm, considering her race, Altmer had a cold look of amusement on her face as she said this.
"Who was it then? Who was the coward that couldn't even kill me himself!" the doomed jarl raged.
Calm as ever, the assassin's voice echoes through Dragonsreach. "You'll see soon enough. He requested to be here for the fulfilment."
Just then, light footsteps could be heard. "And here we have him! The caller himself!" the Dragonborn said, with excitement colouring her tone.
"NELKIR! Get back son, get help! This woman is here to kill me!" Baalgruf panicked, fearing for his son's life.
"I know why the woman is here father. I prayed for her!" the child seemed proud of himself.
"But... Why? I gave you all I could!" the Jarl simply couldn't understand what was going on.
"The whispering lady told me to, so I did!" Nelkir announced with pride.
"Your little angel has been consorting with Mephala, it would seem." the Dark Sister mused. "Maybe the Ebony Blade should have been hidden elsewhere?"
Baalgruf's head jerks so fast I'm surprised it didn't break his neck. "You know of the Blade?"
"Of course I do. All it took was taking the key from Farengar's pocket and replacing it later. It needed recharging though... Have you heard of the tragedy in Dushnik-Yal? The Orsimer stronghold that had been allied with the Dovahkiin?"
"Were you always this evil? Did I make a creature of Oblivion my thane?" he asks resignedly.
"Hmmm... I suppose my, ah, my 'descent' you would call it, started just before that." the Dragonborn said.
"How so?" Baalgruf enquired curiously, perhaps trying to buy time for guards to come.
"I am an Altmer, born under the Mage constellation. I was always going to be a proud, possibly arrogant, personality," the Arch-Mage of the college of Winterhold said, "And my Dragon blood and soul always clamoured for me to be more powerful, for me to dominate. I resisted this at first."
"Why did you stop resisting?"
"When I kill a dragon, I absorb it's soul. I absorb it's memories, knowledge and power. With most dragons, I only absorbed part of their memories, and I would be as an onlooker in them, watching them breathe fire and subjugate man and mer. But with Alduin... I know not whether it was because I was in Sovngarde, or because Alduin's soul was that much stronger, but I experienced the memories as he did. Thousands of years of memories... The morals my thirty years as mer had brought me were nothing in comparison."
"So in slaying a monster..." Baalgruf muttered.
"I became one. I realised what the Dragons did when they ruled. They brought peace." Athris said serenely.
"PEACE?" Baalgruf raged, "They brought nothing but death and servitude!"
"A man serves his lord, does he not? And there was no death without cause, if there was a revolt, it was put down. Quite like the Stormcloak revolt, no?
Peace through power, servitude to the strong. Work for the weak." Alduin's bane speaks.
"I know what you've been doing, Baalgruf." she abruptly changes topics, "You hope that if you keep me talking the guards will come, don't you? You can give up on that. The guards are dead, those on duty and those in the barracks."
"Shall I fulfil the contract, child?" she asks, drawing two dragon-bone daggers.
"Yes! Do it, do it!" the excitable child shouts. He'll do well in the Brotherhood later in life.
"I'm not going down without a fight!" the soon-to-be-dead jarl shouted.
"Unless you're as strong a dragon, you're not going to be much of a challenge." the fallen agent of gods said.
Baalgruf wordlessly drew his axe and stood.
Arthis breathed in deeply, and a black light covered her skin, hardening her skin yet keeping it flexible.
Her own personal chant went through her head. 'Once I was good, now I am not. For when I did fall the gods left me to rot. Now I hunt as I will, stalking any I desire to kill. And the Princes, they aid me, through powers they gave me. And now I see the sweetness of Aetherius is a lie, Oblivion and the Void I stand by!"
And so they stood, thane and jarl, in the same halls that had once held the dragon Numinex. The child stood on the balcony above them, smiling, corrupted by the Whispering Lady and all the more happy for it.
"Should it be fast or slow, caller? The Brotherhood takes requests!" The Altmer called, loosely holding her daggers.
"Slow! Do it slow! Make him hurt!" the clearly unhinged child giggled hysterically, prompting thoughts of a laughing jester in Dawnstar in the Listener. Yes, the child would do well in the Brotherhood.
"As you will it." the hero of the Nords said, almost mockingly. "Shall we dance, my Jarl?" yes, definitely mocking.
"We shall, traitor." the jarl sneered. He knew he would lose. He wondered at how he had been so foolish, to keep a Daedric artefact in his very home, with nought but a door to protect it. And now he would pay.
He charged, his axe cleaving through the air and almost removing the assassins arm. He overbalanced though, and stumbled past the Dragonborn. The fight could have ended then.
But no, the jarl was to die slowly, so his sole punishment was a shallow cut to the back of the knee, where hard steel gave way to leather.
The wound was small, but the treacherous thane had dipped her knives in a strength-sapping poison, and the jarl needed a second to recover from the sudden weariness that took his limbs.
When he moved again, it was not the graceful pounce it was earlier, but more the lumbering of a wounded bear. His axe swung once more, aiming to open his assailant's stomach, but once more Arthis dodged by a hairbreadth, and she opened a small cut at his elbow, with her other dagger this time, and it left so strong a burning sensation that Baalgruf could scarcely hold back a scream.
But he was strong. He would fight.
Now the assassin leapt forward, light on her feet, she was in and out of his reach before he had even noticed she had leapt. But he felt it. Burning pain along his collarbone, where shoulder met neck. Arthis' dagger had punctured the leather and poked the skin, just breaking the skin.
The jarl was getting desperate, while his thane just stood there, cold arrogance, certainty in her own superiority written all over her. His very own son stood above him laughing uproariously, a high, piercing sound that almost made him weep for lost sanity.
The Dragonborn sheathed her daggers, and stood with empty hands. The jarl took what he thought was an opportunity, and tried to cleave through her body from collarbone to hip, but his blade was halted in mid air.
'A ward, of course...' he thought, before his mind went blank and his body spasmed as Arthis struck him with a bolt of lightning. His axe went flying and stuck in the wall as he twitched.
"Permission to kill?" she jokingly asked the jarl's son.
"Yes yes, do it! Do it!" the fils laughed and clapped.
"Or," an idea struck the assassin, "would you like to try it, child? There is no feeling like it, I promise."
"Please don't," the defeated jarl begged, "just kill me!"
But already the child was running down the stairs, jumping with excitement. "Here child, take this." the assassin said, an almost caring look on her face. As though she spoke to a treasured cousin.
Or a younger Brother.
And she handed him a knife of ebony, dark as night..
"Do it slowly," she said softly, "the blade will shock him while he lives."
The child laughed, and grasped the knife. He went to stand behind his father, who's pleas for mercy had fallen silent.
"Bye daddy!" he said, sounding for all the world like his father was just going to work. And he drew the knife slowly across the jarl's throat, causing him to stiffen as electricity ran through him. The assassin stood next to the child, smiling approvingly and whispered to him, "Now finish it. Push it in deeper."
And the child did just that.
And Jarl Baalgruf of Whiterun, who named a dark elf his Housecarl and a high elf his thane, fell by the hand of his son.
And he passed into the void, where the Dread Father waits.