the girl with the golden hair

Disclaimer: Standard disclaimers apply. Etc.

Warnings: Not particularly canon-compliant, because let's face it, whereas Skyrim is a fun, fun game, it doesn't make for great fiction (re: suspension of disbelief is not a thing that ever happens). Hard M for a reason – violence, sex, also violence with sex (of the pillaging kind), and the worst kind of purple prose. You've been warned!

Edit May 29th, 2014: I've polished and added materials to chapter 1 (this chapter). I'll likely edit chapter 2 as well, though I think I'll wait until I'm finished more of the fic to do that particular re-haul. I'm also fairly certain by now that this is actually going to be two fics, not just the one.

Thanks for reading!

An Ending/Sunset at the Rim of the World

"The World-Eater awakes, and the Wheel turns upon the Last Dragonborn."

- The Book of the Dragonborn, Prior Emeline Madrine

Sif falls, and the impact fractures her spine in three places.

Alduin laughs, gleeful as his bite-sized toy tumbles through the air to land with a painful crunk. He can see it twitching, can smell the blood wafting through the chinks in its metal scales; soul of a dovah - ha! - in a pale, fleshy little body. Like a worm, wriggling up from the mud naked in the rain; a pale, hairless little worm playing dress-up with tinkling little slabs of metal cobbled together. The tawdry gleam of fake dragon-skin offends him.

Pathetic.

The World-Eater spreads his wings, and blots out the sun - no, he blots out the sky.

Alduin's roar shakes mountains to their roots, shakes the gods in their thrones and sends tremors through the tangled skeins of time.

(The Wheel turns.)

Riften always reeks of refuse and bad decisions. The prison is no different, though the physical reek is accompanied by the spiritual miasma of corruption and despair, shit and silent blades through soft gullets in the dark. The guard rattles the bars of her cage with a sneer. "Rise and shine princess! Wouldn't want to miss your big date!" He makes a gesture across his throat, laughing at his own joke. The woman says nothing.

Ingun Black-Briar sits alone in her cell, clothes threadbare and hair shorn short. She is the last Black-Briar, heir to a kingdom of sticky-sweet puddles and an executioner's axe; she sits ramrod straight, eyes dry and mouth unsmiling, the last true princess in a city of beggars and thieves.

Sif crawls. Her last potion swirls heat within her belly, though in her heart of hearts she knows it will not be enough.

Alduin laughs; he is toying with her. The first dragon flies through the air in tighter and tighter circles, like a scaled vulture. Sif imagines Alduin landing, one talon pressing with deceptive delicacy against her shoulder blades; she imagines him shoving that talon straight through, pinning her to the ground like a butterfly to an alchemist's primer-board; she imagines him taking her legs into his mouth and yanking her apart, just like that poor bastard at Helgen.

Sif crawls faster. She'd had to shed her armor - bent inwards and ruined beyond repair, it would have eventually gnawed her in half - and is reduced to her single layer of bloodied undercoat, its only enchantment for the weather. So Sif crawls, clawing at the dirt with desperate hope towards where she thinks her satchel's been flung.

Sif crawls towards her destiny; Alduin laughs.

(The Wheel turns.)

Vilkas sits alone in Kodlak's chambers, the strongbox open beside him as he reconciles the accounts. Somewhere in Jorrvaskr, Torvar shouts, is met with a roar of laughter; his door creaks open as Farkas tromps in, tray in hand. "Brother!" Farkas is unrelenting in his cheer. "You forgot to eat!" He puts the tray down with a thump. Vilkas merely grunts, too busy scribbling to wave him away. His twin hovers, blocking his light. He can feel his temper begin to fray. "Farkas. Thank you. GO."

Farkas goes like a puppy with its teeth kicked in; Vilkas does not hear the quiet resignation in the soft click of the latch. Beside him, septims gleam a soft, buttery gold under candlelight. The warm glow sends the early tingles of a migraine through his skull; Vilkas thinks of gold tangled between his fingers and the beast seems to snap and thrash against the cage of his ribs. The migraine blooms as he resists the urge to smash the strongbox and every gold septim in it against the walls.

Vilkas will not surrender.

Alduin roars, his thu'um a wave of white-hot flame. It is fitting this should end in fire. Sif's golden hair catches, ignites until she is wreathed in a burning halo. She cannot pause to dampen the flames. Sif's thu'um is a ripple in space; it sends her careening into the air, desperation birthing a recklessness that is nothing like her. This country has eaten her, piece by piece, and now it will swallow the rest of her.

Sif falls upwards, buoyed by her thu'um; Alduin's laughter cuts into her even as his talons rend her right arm to shreds.

Sif's scream dies in her throat and Alduin laughs.

(The Wheel turns.)

Forsworn overrun Markarth. Kerah is the first to die, gaping at the arrow that seems to sprout from her throat. Her fate is the kindest to be had: Hroki is caught fleeing and the Forsworn make a game of her, leaving her corpse splayed and naked in the street.

The Silver-Bloods are rounded up like cattle, and one by one their heads go rolling on the hard Dwemer stones, to be hung from the walls along with their butchered bodies. Thongvar is left alive, spread-eagled in the main square with his guts glistening in the sun.

Madanach is king. He feasts, not knowing his crown will be measured in hours, not days.

Deep within the bowels of Understone Keep, Ondelemar smiles, and gives the order.

Sif is dying.

Her last potion is a fading burn worming through her gut; her right arm is a ruin of bones and mangled meat. Her staff is in pieces, and her fine blades have gone spinning off the mountain-side.

Magicka flickers at her finger tips with the first trickle of a healing spell then nothing, for her well has run dry.

She has her legs, her left arm, and the power of her thu'um.

Alduin is enjoying himself to distraction. His muzzle is wet and red with her blood as he eats what is left of her right hand. He does not need to chew; he tosses it back and swallows, a tiny dot in the sky beside the ominous black blotch that will consume the world.

It is a small distraction – but it is enough.

"JOOR ZAH FRUL!"

Alduin crashes to the ground; he's not laughing, not anymore.

(The Wheel turns.)

Cicero dies in a ditch with a mouth full of mud.

Babette burns beneath the cold light of a winter sun, pinned to the ground by a spear as the faithful set her to the torch; she goes up like paper.

Saadia looks at the ruin that was once Dawnstar sanctuary, and cracks her knuckles. It is time to get to work.

Sif climbs the dragon's head. She looks the World-Eater in the eye as he trembles with mute fury - mortality offends him. She feels the violence simmering beneath the weight of her thu'um and understands her time is short.

Sif has only her left hand. The glass gauntlet has seen better days, but it is still functional. Her throat is raw, but beneath the pounding of her own mortality she feels the soft bloom of recovering magicka.

She slams her fist into the dragon's eye and screams out her last spell.

Alduin roars; the sky seems to shatter, and dragon and dragonborn plummet from the roof of the world together.

(And the Wheel turns upon the last dragonborn.)

Erandur pounds his fists raw against the doors of High Hrothgar. He screams with the desperation of a sane man in a world gone mad, but the wind whips his words away; they scatter like ashes on a stormy sea.

There are tears, perhaps. His lashes are frozen together, and the tips of his fingers have begun to show the early signs of frostbite. The priest has yet to notice. His cowl flaps open and flutters behind him like a half-mast flag.

Erandur screams.

Only the wind whistles in response.

Here is a tale for the bards: Once upon a time a girl with golden hair went up the mountain.

She didn't come back down.

A/N:

I've buffed up Alduin because the title "World Eater" ought to mean something, and I'm changing Erandur's abilities to actually make some sense with his background. Because seriously Bethesda, what the hell.

SRSLY.

Everything will make sense eventually. I think.