A/N: I ought to warn you, this tale starts off not even sort of like Skyrim. There'll be plenty of dragons and whatnot from the next chapter and onwards, but bear with me for now. I believe I've taken a new approach on the Elder Scrolls series.

Chapter I

"May wisdom settle in your soul."

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Loredas, 5th of Sun's Dawn, 4E 210

My name is Daniel. I cannot remember my surname. I suppose I kept one in the past, but so much time has gone by since I arrived here . . . and these people have been calling me "Dragonborn" for so long . . . my last name gradually faded away into nothingness, just as my old life did. I remember Boston, however. Assured, Solitude has its tall towers, and Markarth being built into a mountainside certainly gives those buildings an illusion of great height, but the skyscrapers that I was once so accustomed to . . . they are nonexistent in this land: here in Skyrim.

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I bought a gun a few months ago, right around the time the Bruins lost the Stanley Cup to Chicago. I'd been living in the city for three years and my apartment had been broken into on ten separate occasions – ten. I figured it was about time. In the few months that I had owned the Ruger I'd fired it on only two occasions: both while practicing at a gun range. I was neither an avid marksman nor a huge fan of the sport; my only intentions were learning the basics, just in case.

So that's what I did. I learned about the safety, how to reload a magazine, where to properly place my hands, and when not to put my finger on the trigger. Then I bought a small safe, shoved it in the back of my closet, locked the pistol in there along with an extra magazine, and hadn't looked at it since.

Unfortunately, my neighbor's badgering about my purchase of the firearm had lasted for as long as I'd owned it. "You're too young for that thing," the old man would say. Or, "I don't feel safe with that weapon just across my hall."

"It's not your hall," I would tell him. "And would you stop calling the cops on me? I'm twenty-two and I have a license to carry. It's legal." That jabbering between us occurred three or four times a week. I'd lost count of the times the police had shown up at my door because of him; eventually they stopped coming altogether.

"I don't give a damn," he would holler, "I'll do as I please!" Then he'd try and spit at me. Perhaps back in the '50s he could have done so successfully, but nowadays the glob merely fell onto his withered chin and he would grumble and shuffle back into his apartment without even noticing.

I don't know why I started thinking about my neighbor. Maybe adrenaline did that to you, made your thoughts fly. Maybe my life was flashing before my eyes. I couldn't be sure. I was only aware of my clammy hands making it incredibly difficult to unlock the safe.

Out of the ten times that my apartment had been broken in to, only one of them occurred while I was home – and that was right now.

I'd flown out of bed at the sound of glass shattering in a room nearby; my eyes had registered a glowing number 2 on my alarm clock, among other things. It was sometime around two in the morning.

I was kneeling on shaky knees in the back of my closet – clothes and shoes of the such strewn behind me as I had anxiously dug my way to the safe – and with equally shaky hands I turned the dial, over and over and over again.

Thirty-seven, eighteen, twenty-four . . . thirty-seven, eighteen, twenty-four . . . The numbers whirled through my mind as my fingers whirled about the dial, slipping every so often because of the nervous sweat that had broken out over my body. I pushed some hair out of my eyes and squinted in the darkness. Why won't it open!

I could hear the falling pieces of loose glass and the crunch of the intruder's footsteps as he slowly made his way through whatever window he had broken. Then there was silence. I held my breath but could not override the pounding of my heart. I assumed he was listening for me, if I was awake, if I was home. He can hear my heartbeat.

And at the sound of a click I jumped. I could feel his presence behind me. He had cocked the gun, had it aimed at my head, I was about to die. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die in my pajamas like an idiot unable to open his own safe. Detectives will come and investigate the scene and see my body and laugh. What will my parents think? I squeezed my eyes shut and sent a prayer up to God.

Then I realized with embarrassment – and great relief – what had actually happened. My hands were working tirelessly at the dial and after countless attempts the small silver door was unlocked. It had clicked in doing so. I yanked it open.

With the weight of the Ruger in my hands I was slightly calmer, but I could still hear the drumming of my heart and nearly taste the adrenaline. I stuffed the extra magazine in the pocket of my sweatpants and got to my feet, feeling a bit braver than I had been moments ago. I wasn't going to die. Not tonight.

I held the weapon in front of me as I had seen so many officers do on TV shows. My bare feet stuck slightly to the cool hardwood floor as I crept across my room and hoped I wouldn't step on any broken glass. When I reached the doorway I lowered the gun so that it wasn't blatantly obvious that I had one, and peered around the corner. With one eye I saw that the window at the end of the hall was still intact – he must've come in through the living room then, it was the only other window that led out to the fire escape.

I swept across the hall like a ghost and, pressing my back to the wall next to the living room's entryway, glanced around the woodwork. At the sound of more crunching glass, however, I jerked my head back to safety. My heart rate hadn't slowed. I shifted the Ruger in my hands and subconsciously pulled up the left side of my sweatpants: the extra clip in my pocket was weighing them down. From the sound of the glass, I pinpointed the intruder's location in my mind's eye. If I was correct, he'd be to the left of the TV; so when I stepped out from behind the wall, that's where I pointed the gun.

An angry cab driver was blaring his horn in the distance and silver moonlight blanketed the sleepless city of Boston. There was frost in the late November air, and all of these details drifted in through the shattered window. But all of these details were insignificant and a world away in light of the dark silhouette before me.

"Don't move," were my first words to the stranger. I'd rehearsed the line in my head a millions times between moving from the hallway to the living room, each time sounding confident and controlling, but as I finally spoke the words aloud I was surprised by the level of fright in my voice. That fright was mirrored by the weakness of my arms and the sweat that dampened the back of my neck. The pistol suddenly weighed a ton, yet I kept it centered on the torso of my intruder. I didn't have the nerve or skill to attempt a head shot.

The glow of the moon created a silver outline around the stranger before me. I couldn't see his face, though he was perhaps half a foot shorter than I was. The man didn't appear to have a weapon of his own nor did he raise his hands in surrender, as anyone with a gun trained on them might. His arms were concealed within what must've been a trench coat or even a robe of some sort, and his head hooded. I vaguely wondered how he had broken the window.

The man was as motionless as he was wordless, and I was as baffled as ever. "What do you want?" I demanded of him, my voice steadier. No response, and suddenly every horror movie I'd ever seen flashed through my mind. The light switch was across the room and I didn't dare move from my position, didn't dare break my concentration. That's when the demons get you and the ghosts possess you and–

Get a grip, I told myself. "Get out of my apartment," I ordered the intruder. Again no response. I was beginning to panic and could feel the anxiety rising in my blood like smoke from a fire. "I'll shoot you I swear if you don't leave!" I motioned with the Ruger. More silence and stillness but I made sure to keep my finger off the trigger. I had half a mind to call the police, if only the phone weren't in the other room.

"I have the right! You're breaking and entering and I can do it." My words were deceiving. I shook silently, dreading the thought of actually pulling the trigger, killing someone, and I wondered why in the world I had to be tortured by the presence of this unwelcome guest.

Then finally the person spoke, softly, and I was shocked by the sound of the voice for this intruder wasn't a man: it was an elderly woman. And she said, quite simply, "Daniel."

I could feel myself go pale and wondered if it was visible in the moonlight. "Who are you?" I asked, the pitch of my voice rising despite my desperate efforts to control it. I was horrified by the presence of this mysterious, hooded old woman. "What do you want?"

"Daniel–" she repeated as she slowly revealed a hand from her trench coatish-robe.

"Don't move!" My breath came out in frosty puffs now. The air of late November was cruel and poured in through the window, and although I knew I should be freezing in only a t-shirt and sweatpants, I was hot all over. The gun shook in my hands. I could feel an anxiety attack coming on. "I mean it!"

She extended her arm towards me, palm facing outwards. The moonlight traced each one of her fingers with a silver glow and she said very peacefully to me, "–calm down."

Instantly it was as if a wave of cool, liquid tranquility had washed through me. November's night reached my skin, the icy air an extreme relief. I could feel myself uncoiling, and slowly I removed my finger from the trigger, unaware that I had ever put it there. My breath was light and even, the frosty clouds formed by it were long, and gradually I lowered the gun to my side. I was still aware of the woman before me, aware that she was trespassing, but I no longer felt any form of hostility towards her – only a deep curiosity.

"Who are you?" I asked genuinely, this time out of interest rather than apprehension.

"I cannot tell you that, Dragonborn," she said.

Dragonborn? I mused.

"All I can say is that you are needed desperately, and that is why I have come here." She spoke earnestly enough that I wanted to believe her, but I couldn't quite grasp the situation. Not to mention she didn't quite make sense.

"What? Is this some sort of prank–"

"I assure you this is no game," she said curtly, cutting me off. "You must go now and take this."

"Go where? Who are you?" I was bewildered. But the old lady was in her own little world. She removed something from around her neck and offered it to me: a silver necklace. It dangled from her fingertips and gleamed in the moonlight; some sort of emblem hung from its center that I couldn't quite make out.

My bare feet stuck to the floor from having stood there so long, but I stepped forward and took the necklace by the cord. As soon as it was in my grasp the woman continued talking, "Give this to the first woman you meet. She will understand its significance, but whether she decides to inform you is up to her. She will help you – at times even more than you know."

"What does that even mean, 'the first woman I meet,' as if I haven't met a woman before . . ." My thoughts drifted off as I held the necklace up in the moonlight. It was beautiful, and seemed to reflect the moon's light with pride. The emblem at its center consisted of a magnificent sapphire. The necklace was really more like an amulet. "Where am I going again? How will I know if I give this to the right person?" I couldn't believe the questions I was hearing myself ask. As if I was actually going somewhere.

"It will be the right person."

"Alright then." I couldn't help admiring the gem. "So am I taking a bus or something?" I asked absentmindedly. "I hope you brought tickets 'cause I'm not buying."

At this the woman laughed, and it seemed so unusual for her to have a personality under that hood that my attention was actually drawn from the amulet. I looked at her inquisitively, realizing that I still hadn't seen her face and knew nothing about her.

"What's funny?" I said. She had no response, and the honking of a horn from down on the street seemed to snap me back to reality. I felt the gun's weight in my hand again; the magazine in my pocket was still pulling on my sweatpants. I offered the necklace back to the woman, uneasy, wanting her to leave. "Here, take it," I told her. "I don't want this, and I don't want you here anymore. Please go."

She refused to take the necklace back, shaking her head and tucking her arms back under her robe. I imagined she was smiling, but there was no way to see. The moonlight continued to cast an eerie glow from behind her, and I realized that every expression I'd made during this encounter had been clearly visible to her . . . and suddenly I was angry. I wanted nothing to do with her or this game anymore.

"You have so much to learn," the old woman said, seeming amused. And with that she sat down, cross-legged, right in the shards of glass she had created in entering my apartment. All I could do was raise an eyebrow. "May wisdom settle in your soul," she said.

I dropped the necklace, letting it fall to the wood with a clatter. I raised my pistol and once again trained it on the woman, finger beside the trigger, exhaling frosty air. With my free hand I adjusted my sweatpants and began to back slowly across the room. It was time to turn on the light.

She'd started chanting before I'd taken two steps. It was a soft, foreign language that seemed to emanate from her, and was not one I recognized. With each step I took she grew louder and the words more powerful. I couldn't understand them, but it was as if I could feel them. The words were alive; I could feel them seeping into my bones and pounding with my heart. And I hated them.

I wasn't even halfway across the room by the time I could do nothing but sink to my knees. I covered my ears. I wanted to tell her to stop; I tried desperately to speak, but her voice was overpowering and when I opened my mouth I could only silently gasp. What was happening was far beyond me. I doubled over in the still pain of the chanting. I could feel myself losing myself. The room spun. Haze filled my vision and then dark clouds crept in to mask the haze. Her voice was all I heard. Her deafening, defeating voice. It shook me to the core and it crushed me, left me paralyzed, left me falling, and for every moment I fell a part of my being disintegrated until even the pain was no more. There was nothing, nothing but the voice, nothing but the chanting and the words, words, words.

Then, abruptly, even the voice was gone.

Everything was gone.

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Reviews are tremendously appreciated. :]
Thanks for giving this first chapter a chance, assuming you've read it all since you're reading this message,
Rudyeie