A/N: can't stop won't stop


He was one of the unlucky ones.

The text on his arm was not only black, but it was also in a script no one could read. Adults looked on with sympathy and pity, and one of those was worse than the other. The other children mocked him and called him names, saying that the gods gave him a monster, a demon, a beast from another world for a soulmate and they were dead now because of him. They laughed at him for years.

They stopped laughing when he accidentally devoured a dragon's soul when it died in combat in front of him.

They stopped laughing when more dragons came and named him Dovahkiin, and took him away for training.

They stopped laughing when he came back with a mask and a new name.

Miraak.


Twenty-one dragons.

He'd absorbed the souls of twenty-one dragons, bent the wills of dozens more, but it wasn't enough. He'd been on his knees before his temple, surrounded by the faintly smoking skeletons of the dragons he'd devoured, when Vahlok came.

Miraak had known from the beginning that Vahlok wasn't like the other Dragon Priests of Solstheim. Devoted to the Cult to the point of fanaticism, zealotry, he followed every order he was given by the dragons and bent over backwards to accommodate them, even to the detriment of the people he ruled. Zahkriisos, Dukaan, even Ahzidal were nearly treasonous in comparison.

So it came as no surprise to him that the dragons sent Vahlok to deal the final blow, too proud to do it themselves (too scared of Bend Will).

Miraak forced himself to his feet; if this was how he was going to die, he would not do it on his knees.

But then.

Then.

He felt the unfortunately familiar chill, smelled wet decay, saw deep green eldritch tentacles unfurl around him, and Mundus blurred away around him.

It would be a long time before he saw it again.


The damp cold of Apocrypha seeped down into his bones, stealing away warmth and life until he was almost as empty as the rest of the realm. The tiniest sliver of hope kept him going, hope in the form of the name on his arm. As time passed (and passed, and passed), the languages of the books that appeared in Apocrypha started to change, moving inch by painful inch towards the script on his arm, always hidden from the ever-watching eyes of Hermaeus Mora.

He kept reading and training and waiting, wandering the endless halls of the Oblivion Realm, occasionally talking to the rare person he encountered in the stacks before they inevitably became a Seeker. He kept waiting when he encountered dragons in Apocrypha, much to his surprise, and quickly bent their wills to his own. He kept waiting when he finally know the name on his arm.

He kept waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

But then.

Then.

Finally (finally, finally, finally), almost four thousand years to the day since he entered Apocrypha, his arm tingled, then burned like it was on fire, driving away the bitter cold.

And then he began to plot in earnest.


Then he received word that Alduin had returned, and a Dragonborn with him.

Of course.

He gave strict orders to his new followers, to avoid drawing either's attention. He didn't want them to know about him (or in Alduin's case, that he was still alive) until there was nothing they could do to stop him. He would escape Hermaeus Mora, and he would find his soulmate, and they would defeat Alduin – together, because he refused to accept that his soulmate would be anything less than his perfect match, his one and only equal.

And then they would bring order to the chaotic world.


And then the Dragonborn came.

Miraak had her sent back with barely a thought. He was so close to freedom that there were times he swore he could taste the sweet, clean air of Nirn, feel the warmth of the sunlight and the breeze stirring his robes. And somewhere out there, his soulmate waited, feeling those same things. They would never know the horrors of Apocrypha, save in tales he told them to warn them away from the Daedric Prince who ruled it.

Yet he couldn't help but be curious.

Miraak started digging into the records about this new Dragonborn, learning what he could from afar (and from up close, when he stole her kills). Copies of journals, scraps, discarded notes; all painted a picture of a strong woman who was trying to do right by the world and its people even as she pursued her own agenda.

But then.

Then.

He saw his soulmate's name, all four words, put down in print for the first time.

That made him stop, go back, and reread the paragraph about the most recent Thane of Whiterun. Then he started laughing. Hysterically. Helplessly.

The Dragonborn.

His soulmate was the Dragonborn, and he couldn't help but laugh, laugh until he cried, tears running down his face behind his mask, fingers clutching at one book of millions in the dark halls of Apocrypha.


The battle at the Summit was ferociously hard-fought, and if the other Dragonborn knew she was his soulmate, she gave no visible sign, her face concealed by Konahrik's mask.

She was glorious in battle. Though their sword styles were different, he was still hard-pressed to score hits on her, his strength matched by her speed, and more often than not, she matched his blows with her own. Her spellwork was nearly as good, though he saw only a limited slice of it: good with Restoration, and she kept hitting him with Shock spells to try to drain his magicka.

And her Voice – she only knew a few Shouts, and pieces of Shouts, but her Voice was strong and promised to get stronger.

She was everything he'd hoped she'd be.

Miraak heard her laugh more than once during their battle, and after the first time, he realized he was grinning widely behind his mask. Their blood was up, his like it hadn't been in millennia, lust for violence pounding hard in his heart. His dragon blood and soul left no room for softness in this fight, no room for pulled punches or shallow cuts, not even against his soulmate, and he could tell she felt the same.

But then.

Then.

"Did you think to escape me, Miraak?!"

He heard the soft boom and the rush of wind as his soul was ripped from his body, and the last thing he saw was angry blue eyes gazing at Hermaeus Mora's tentacle from behind Konahrik's golden mask.

Soulmate indeed.


But then.

Then.

"SLEN TIID VO!"

And Miraak opened his eyes to blue sky.