A/N: Written for the LJ Elder Scrolls Kink Meme.
Prompt: Weird prompt is weird. What is your dragonborn's relationship like with their family members? Could focus on multiple family members or perhaps just one. Any time period is acceptable, like when they were a child to an adult. Whenever you like. Or maybe a reunion between the DB and their family after years if adventuring away from home, maybe they've changed into someone unrecognizable. I don't mind any possible approaches, be they sweet and warm or something really dark. Go wild anons! Multi fills would be super cool. Length doesn't matter.
Note: This is AU in terms of ages and certain DB lore. I've kept canon names where appropriate. Mentions of necrophilia. No spoilers.
Disclaimer: I own nothing except for the original concepts.
-/-
Eydis runs on desperation alone, an ominous tower fading into the distance behind her. She can't use the road for fear of bandits, but it seems Stendarr will take pity on her as she spots a game trail weaving into the trees. Hopefully it will lead her near a hamlet or a watch-tower; she will be glad for any help really. Her hair lifts in the night air and she stands for a moment, stock still, head tilted back, eyes catching on the stars. She can't remember the last time she saw the sky or felt fresh air on her face. She can't remember the last time she felt this alive. She breathes in, breathes out and pulls her cloak closer. Escape now, think later.
It was luck and a propensity for brunettes in a realm known for its blonds that separated her from the ones they killed or used in their obscene experiments. They'd made her cook and clean and warm their beds like a prize bitch. Lucky … her mother had named her for luck, though months into her captivity and her name had felt more like a jinx. Her whole family were incredibly superstitious, particularly her father who used to tell her stories of Hircine's Wild Hunt and the howls he would hear around his childhood home in Whiterun Hold. So when the poison vial dropped from the half-scrubbed necromancer robe she didn't hesitate. Perhaps it was luck. Maybe it was even Divine or Daedric influence, but she didn't question it. It had been half-empty and weak and probably only enough to send them to the privy and not their deaths. She'd poured it into the stew anyway. And it had been enough; enough for her to grab a cloak, a knife, a stale hunk of bread and slip away in the resulting confusion. How long it would last was another matter.
Seeming to sense her turmoil, the child shifts restlessly and her hand drifts down to rub the bulge of her stomach. She could not face childbirth in the dark. She could not face her child growing up under a tower among beasts, beaten and eventually brutalised into one of them. The man who'd sowed the seed was a monster; a maggot who revelled in the profane, gloried in death and putrefied flesh. If there was something beyond 'necromancer', he was it. He'd taken especial pleasure in necrophilia. Often he would kill a slave or an apprentice that had committed some minor infraction and reanimate them. Above all else, he loved to bury himself in her while she was forced to service the corpse. Sometimes he would capture a draugr, restrain it and watch while she mounted it, pleasuring himself as she did so. There were no words to describe the things she'd had to do, what she'd felt, how she'd cursed the Divines ... and then begged them for forgiveness.
Yes, the child's father was a monster, but Divines preserve her, they would never meet. Her grip tightens on the fillet knife. And if they found her—here, now—by her own hand she'd send herself and the child to Oblivion. One way or another, her child would never know its father.
Akatosh, God of Time, lend me speed and slow their pursuit I beg you! Grant me this one blessing and I will anoint your altar and no other for the rest of my days.
-/-
Eydis gives birth in the backroom of a tavern in a border town called Helgen. Surprisingly and against all odds the birthing goes well and isn't as lengthy as she expects.
"He's perfect Eydis," the barkeep—Matlara—declares and hands her the screaming bundle.
Her eyes are half-lidded and she is beyond fatigued but she forces herself higher on the bed and reaches out for him. She holds him to her breast and sighs in relief as he immediately latches on with a healthy sounding grunt. Nothing could've prepared her for this moment. She feels a strange sense of helplessness, a feeling of uselessness that grips her whole being. In fact she can do nothing but stare because—as if in slow motion—she sees the hands, the tiny feet, the pursed mouth and the red face, but then she sees the tuft of hair. The hair is wet, yes, but the colour is distinctive, one she's only seen once, a shade she (illogically) never hoped to see again. Her throat immediately clenches and she struggles to hold in her tears.
"You should name him Ragnar; I've never seen such vibrant red hair!"
She's frozen.
It's not his fault. I will love him for this too.
A moment passes, she swallows. "Don't be ridiculous Matlara; he'd be teased all his life."
She looks down again and feels something click into place.
He's mine not yours. Mine.
She names the boy Daithi – meaning 'swift'.
...
Eydis eventually decides to stay in Helgen even though she has family in Whiterun. The road is no place for an infant, but she also needs time to figure out how to explain ... the situation.
...
Days become weeks, weeks become months, months become years and Eydis lingers in Helgen. There's always something that needs doing, and she has good work at the tavern. They live in a modest dwelling just outside the town wall (it's incredibly expensive being a single mother) and Daithi is happy. She chose his name well because her son is growing as fast as a weed; nearing sixteen summers and he's nearly of a height with Matlara's husband, one of the tallest men in town.
Though Eydis has refused all offers of marriage (much to the consternation of Vilod, one of the local hunters) Daithi does not want for much. He is good friends with Matlara's boy, Haming, and the blacksmith is willing to apprentice him if he wishes it.
Eydis is content.
And then, of course, an arrogant Jarl decides to kill a King and start a war.
-/-
Daithi has never once asked about his father. It's clearly something his mother is protecting him from because she would never keep anything so important from him unless it had the ability to hurt.
—Good monahhe will always seek to protect their yunkliinne. —
Hey, when did you wake up? I thought you were sleeping!
—Your pathetic joor ramblings were giving me a headache.—
Well shut up. I'm not in the mood for your pithy sayings today. Mother made me promise to help Vilod kill that wolf that's been hanging around.
—You would think she would have taken him as ahmul already. She is lucky to have such a dedicated male.—
Don't talk about her like that! She's your mother too.
He feels a growl rattle between his ribs and rolls his eyes. What a ponce.
...
Daithi is young and lithe and swift, but ultimately inexperienced. Not even the prickle of dragon instinct tingling in his fingers saves him from the paranoid border guard. Vilod has warned him not to venture too close to the border. Ulfric has smuggled too many recruits through already for the Imperials not to have caught on by now. But no one has ever accused Daithi of having common sense, more the opposite really (what Vilod has taken to calling 'troll-headed recklessness').
He twists his hands, determinedly trying to loosen the rope; unfortunately whoever tied it was incredibly talented in making a constrictor knot. SANGUINE'S COCK! Annoyed he gives up and twists from side-to-side trying to see where they are. The cart is taking its sweet time down the road but Daithi is relieved to see they're heading back to Helgen. Well they do have a checkpoint there you idiot.
—Zeymah what is happening? —
You really do have the worst timing.
Daithi feels a prickle of frustration from the dragon.
Mother is going to kill me.
—I wish I could kill you but then I would be dead also. Why am I cursed with such a pitiful joor? —
Oh boo hoo. How about you lend me some of that famed dragon strength and we bust this joint? A little flattery never went astray when dealing with his twin.
—We are outnumbered four to one and this vessel is fragile. I would prefer to watch and wait.—
He feels his brother recede and then it's just him, a dumb thief, a fanatical Stormcloak and (wonder of wonders) His Highness Ulfric himself.
Well 'this vessel' is gonna get some shut-eye.
"Hey Stormcloak! Wake me when we get to Helgen."
"My name is Ralof, boy."
-/-
Eydis has been feeling slightly off all morning. This being her one free day of the week, of course she isn't surprised. But it is a peculiar feeling. She hasn't felt like this since ...
Damn that boy! If he's pilfered Ingrid's chickens again I'm going to wallop him.
She doesn't realise she's still holding her fry pan until she makes it through the town gates to the sight of a total mobilised regiment of Imperials, a gaggle of Thalmor, cartloads of prisoners ...
"I said, next prisoner!"
... and her son being forced down in front of the headsman.
Eydis sees red.
-/-
You would think the fact that he has a dragon soul living inside him would make him prone to the misanthropic rages of Dragon Priest legend. But seeing his mother nearly prune the head off the Imperial headsman suddenly makes Daithi very glad of his control and the fact he's the dominant personality because his mother completely fails to notice the dragon flying around above her.
—Zeymah, if your eyes do not deceive me that is ... —
A freaking massive dragon who's about to burn us all to Oblivion!?
His brother has no time to reply because his mother grabs him by the ear and starts towing him into Helgen Keep.
In the coming weeks, months and years, Daithi learns to dislike that prickly feeling he gets in his fingers because it always seems to precede one of two events: either a painful thrashing from his mother, or some pre-destined mission he has to do for the good of Nirn.
-/-
Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.
Loveliness extreme.
Extra gaiters.
Loveliness extreme.
Sweetest ice-cream.
Page ages page ages page ages.
Wiped Wiped wire wire.
Sweeter than peaches and pears and cream.
—Gertrude Stein (excerpt from Sacred Emily, written in 1913)
-/-
A/N:
[Stein said that in the time of Homer, or of Chaucer, "the poet could use the name of the thing and the thing was really there." As memory took it over, the thing lost its identity, and she was trying to recover that - "I think in that line the rose is red for the first time in English poetry for a hundred years."]
Now I never expected to think when writing this fill, usually it's just PWP. But a combination of RL family drama, reading Stein and filling the prompt got me thinking ... do we ever really know our parents?
Thanks for reading.
(Ugh dovahzul. monahhe = mothers, yunkliinne = hatchlings, joor = mortal, ahmul = husband, Zeymah = Brother)