Author's Note: So, here is a little post-Lord of Souls oneshot gift. I also want to make anyone who cares aware that I have written a non-Elder Scrolls story called "Wrath to the Least" and that, if you want to read my work that is not fanfiction, that is the best place to do so. They don't let me link to things here, but just google "libboo Wrath to the Least" if you are interested! Now, enough prattle, on to the story!

The sun set on a scene of desolation as decay hung heavy in the air. Bodies lay piled against the shining white walls colored red by blood and twilight. Some looked as though they had died weeks before. Many had, before their master had forced them to march from where they had been killed to beseige the city but many, far too many, were mere hours old and what few whole surcoats remained bore the Imperial sigil. As the sun finally dipped below the western horizon, a figure, short and thin and clothed in shadow, emerged from a small hollow in the rocks, clutching his side as it knitted together visibly, but far more slowly than he was accustomed to. The figure surveyed the devastation before him.

"The fuck?" Leon said.

Aftermath of Umbriel

A Fanfiction Story of The Elder Scrolls

Leon was quite old, and a very odd case. Immortal, but still human at heart. Despite the patent impossibility of that conflict, Leon's compassion twinged something fierce when he looked down into the Niben Valley and, as his strength began to return, he saw that some of those who wore the Imperial colors were still moving. He cast his cowl over his face. He had been wounded by those undead creatures by sheer weight of numbers, and had felt unusually weak of late, with no idea why, and the loss of blood would tell his condition on sight if his face were visible. It was high time to get some answers, but he had other work to do.

He found one moving form quite close, a Nibenean wizard who wore the Synod's robes. He picked him up and moved him toward the road, laying him out as comfortably as he could manage, and began to look for more. When the first cart full of healers finally came by, he had gathered six wounded, but four had died, uncluding the Synod mage. The two remaining survivors were heald of the worst of their wounds and put on the cart. Leon followed, using his rapidly returning strength to effortlessly hoist what living people his sharp eyes could see. If the mages on the cart, and the survivors who were still awake and aware, wondered who or what he was, they said nothing. At last, the road branched two ways, and they found another cart coming the other way. Leon dipped into the shadows as though he were never there.

He moved quickly and silently accross the water, swimming between the now-floating bodies of the undead creatures. The Rumare was full of them. The water was never safe to drink at the best of times, being where all the refuse of the Imperial City emptied, but the stench would hang over the City for a year among those with the keen enough noses to smell. He did not envy the Khajiit he saw throwing the bodies from the docks at the Waterfront, also lining up wounded as a mage, this one from the College of Whispers, cast healing spells. He passed wordlessly by the house that had once belonged to Malendil, who had died of old age ten years past, but gave a nod towards it of respect for what she had stood for.

The City Gates were open now that a full day had passed since the fighting ended. As he went in a great circle on the main road through the city, he passed between a bustle of men and women, anyone with even a smattering of magical or alchemical talent, who were being shepherded by tired-eyed soldiers and guardsmen to where there were more wounded. He passed them and walked into a house with an open door, sat down on a chair in a basement room and waited.

The room was barely furnished, just the two chairs and a table, but oddities lay all around the room, most notably a circle carved on the floor and inscribed with unusual runes. As Leon sat, his side finished knitting together and his other wounds closed. The woman in his head stayed resolutely silent. She had taken the brunt of... whatever it was that had made him so much weaker. She barely had strength to speak to or through him recently. As the night wore on to morning above, she began to stir.

Days and nights were unusual for Leon. He had lived three thousand years and seen the ends of three eras, but the very forces that preserved his body were negligent about preserving his mind. So he had to filter things. Often there were sorcerous means to "consolidate" memory as his contact would say. The process hurt more than his body would have been able to take when that was as human as his soul, but if that was what it took to keep his soul human, he was willing to endure. As a result, though, many months would, in hindsight, feel like a single day but the actual process of waiting for a single day and night felt so long.

At last, when the sun set again after the battle, his contact bustled down to his basement. By human standards, the Breton wizard was veritably ancient, and by any standard incredibly learned and wise in Daedrology.

"Good whenever, Young Man." Leon said. Young Man was his own nickname for the sorceror, who did not like giving out his birth name.

"Ah. Good master vampire." Young Man said, his eyes sagging with sheer exaustion and hunger. He had been healing tirelessly since Umbriel vanished from the sky. "I did not expect to see you here."

"I didn't expect to see me here, but I need some answers." Leon dove right in. "Since a few years after the Oblivion Crisis, I've been weakening. Not much, not at first, so I didn't even notice when it began. Lately though, it had been getting worse. When Umbriel appeared over the ocean, I felt a horrifying weakness rip through me. She," Leon tapped his head, "almost didn't make it."

"Truly?" Young Man said, taking a quick nip of old, cold coffee that had been sitting on the table when Leon arrived.

"I don't lie. Not to you. Now, though, Umbriel's gone, and my strength is beginning to return, but hers is not."

Young Man pulled his beard, then grabbed at a green-covered book. He flipped through the pages, muttering. "I wonder. Recently, it has been harder and harder to reach Daedra associated with Clavicus Vile. It is said that, ehrm, certain Cyrodiilic clans of... your sort... have a greater part of their unique abilities from a pact with him. Perhaps if you tried the Shrine nearby?"

Leon rose. "Always a pleasure, Young Man."

"Just remember to bring me any interesting trinkets you may find." Young Man said, before falling into the other chair and, within a second, falling deeply asleep.

Leon locked the door as he left with a key he had been given some time before. In a bound he was off. He felt a horrible weariness in his heart, but he pushed his way through it, forcing himself to remember that his body was fast returning to peak strength. Within minutes he was out of the city, and within an hour he had left the stink of the dead behind. He slowed his pace as he approached the shrine of Clavicus Vile.

He felt a thrumming in his skull as he neared the place. Vengeance vengeance vengeance. She whispered. He allowed me... vengeance.

Leon shuddered. They never spoke about what had made her what they were, as well he knew it simply by sharing his body with her as a vessel. He entered the clearing and the shrine stood before him, the same as always yet horrifyingly changed. The statues stood as always, of Vile and his Hound, but they seemed to have an oily black sheen over them that swam in Leon's vision. He walked to the center and stared the statue of Vile in the eye.

After a moment, the oily sheen shifted and seemed to stare at him.

"What?" Said a twangy, high-pitched voice. "I'm a busy god, what is it?"

The force of the words took Leon almost to his knees. Each had been like a focused hurricane.

"I ask for a pact." Leon said. "I ask for you to give my kind what once we had again."

"The sunlight thing?" Said the hurricane-voice of the Prince. "What would I get for it in return?"

"You gave Lamae her vengeance." Leon said. "Or was that what she gave you for the sunwalking? Entertainment? Oh, I can entertain as well, my Prince." He quickly added the honorific.

"Can you now? Are you sure you aren't used up? You are quite old, for a human, even changed as you are. Don't you ever just want to lie down and let it all go? Unshoulder all the burden of millenia and let others take the reins?"

Leon's teeth ground together. "No. No, I do not think that." An edge entered his voice. "I may not succeed, but I intend to leave here with the Gift or not at all. So I may try to take it by force if I can't convince you."

The laugh was an awful thing, it was a thousand people being swindled as a sound, every double-dealing horse salesman ripped from flesh and turned to noise. "Oh, I doubt you could do that. All of my power is mine again."

"Nevertheless, if I go, think of all the shows you won't have anymore." Leon drew his sword and ran it across his palm, black blood dripping on the grass. "I swear this. Give me the gift, and you will never be short of entertainment while this world lasts."

That awful laugh came again, but then stopped. "You swear this? You will never die, or your soul is mine to do with what I will, until the end of Time itself?"

"I swear. Now give it to us."

The laugh rang a third time, and Leon felt power flow through him like a fire. She screamed inside his head as all at once her power was restored as well.

"Do not forget." Vile said, and then all was silent as the sun came up and its warmth kissed the tattoos across his face and hands.

That was dangerous. She said. But thank you.

"You can count on me for this sort of thing. I think I got the better half of that deal."

For a moment all was silent, then two voices laughed with one mouth. "I cannot give what is not mine. Strength alone will not help a fool!" Then Leon walked back to the City. There was much to be done.