DESTINY

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT CLAIM TO OWN ANY ASSETS RELATED TO THE ELDER SCROLLS SERIES OR OF THE DRAGON AGE SERIES. SUCH ASSETS BELONG TO BETHESDA GAME STUDIOS AND TO BIOWARE/EA RESPECTIVELY.

This is one of many stories featured on this website that depicts the Dragonborn being in Thedas. However, unlike most of those stories, the Dragonborn will NOT be a Warden.

This fic has been in the planning stage ever since I first became a member of this website. However, my Halo/Mass Effect crossover came first.

This story will follow Dragon Age: Origins and perhaps Dragon Age II (depending on where this goes). As for Dragon Age III, I need to think about it... even though the game will have been released LONG before this fic reaches that point. So by then, who knows.

5/9 Edit: Neranya will no longer be the uber 'Master of Everything' Dragonborn that she originally was. Instead she will be more stealth/mage-oriented (Nightblade). Her strengths lie in subtlety and arcane talent, not in martial prowess.

And now I give you...

PROLOGUE

Whiterun. The greatest city in all of Skyrim. It was here that the Stormcloak insurrection's offensive was finally broken and turned back. Indeed turned back even unto the gates of the Stormcloak bastion of Windhelm. With the help of the Empire, the rebellion had come to a swift and just end when Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak's head adorned a pike within the city.

Among Whiterun's powerful and prosperous residents, there was one in particular. This one resident had saved Tamriel, nay the world, from annihilation by the Dragons, who were led by Alduin the World-eater himself.

In recognition for her great deed, she was lavished with praise and offered great rewards, such as vast hoards of gold and much land within Skyrim. She was often a guest of the Jarls throughout Skyrim; but often did she desire to simply retreat to the ancient fane of High Hrothgar to study with the Greybeards, and even to hold occasional conversation with her great friend, Paarthurnax.

Among her great deeds were the following:

She simultaneously rebuilt the Blades and became their leader, all the while concealing the fact that Paarthurnax still lived.

She joined the Dawnguard and led their crusade against Lord Harkon and his Volkihar clan of vampires. The Vampire lord's daughter, Serana, was spared their fate however. Upon their return to Skyrim, Serana proved to be a staunch ally and a close friend.

She had become known by many names... Arch-mage, Guildmaster, Nightingale, Champion of all Daedric Princes, and Listener of the Dark Brotherhood.

However, all revered her as the Dovahkiin. Dragonborn.

-ooo-ooo-

Years before her great destiny was revealed, she had been named Neranya. Hailing from a great lineage of powerful mages in the Aldmeri Dominion, she had shown great promise for the Thalmor. She was declared a prodigy even as a small child, displaying enormous raw talent in the arcane arts, much more so than even the most powerful of the Thalmor wizards and thaumaturges. Her unprecedented raw talent did not go unnoticed, as many jumped for the chance to train and mold this girl into a potent weapon for the Thalmor.

When the Great War broke out, the young Neranya's mind smouldered with the desire to help forge a new destiny for all Mer. With this desire in mind, she relentlessly pressed the Thalmor leaders for permission to join her comrades in the Great War. As much as some lusted for the opportunity to wield her incredible power against the Empire, she was deemed too young and not yet ready.

However, when word of the great brutal battles fought against the Empire arrived in Alinor; and of the savage atrocities committed during the sack of the Imperial City, Neranya had grown disillusioned with the Thalmor. All her life, she believed in an idealist's principle where the Thalmor would lead all Mer on a path separate from the Empire, and all would be peaceful. To that end, she accepted that war was an inevitability, but the brutality and the barbarity displayed by the armies of the Dominion horrified her.

At the age of 15, just after the Thalmor armies were finally brought to a halt by the Empire, Neranya left Alinor and stowed away on a merchant ship for the mainland. Once Neranya's departure was discovered the next morning, her family put out a vast bounty for her return. The bounty thus attracted many interested parties, and their agents constantly scoured the lands for news of her presence...

Eventually she arrived in Leyawiin, which was still under the nominal control of the Thalmor. Desiring to keep her presence a secret, she disguised herself as an average human by the use of her already prodigious talent in Illusion. Due to her strikingly beautiful and distinctive appearance she could easily be discovered by Thalmor agents or bounty hunters who would not hesitate to haul her back to Alinor. She found that if she disguised herself as an average human girl, she would be ignored by all.

Keeping up her illusory disguise during the day was exhausting, as the spell steadily consumed her magicka reserves. Only at night did she have the chance to stop the spell and rest.

Neranya's time in Leyawiin was extremely harsh, at first. When she left Alinor, she had basically thrown away her previous life as the scion of an extremely powerful and wealthy family. Now she was destitute with nary a septim to call her own.

One year later, the Thalmor occupation of Leyawiin ended due to the White-Gold Concordat being signed between the two powers. Now the city was under Imperial rule once more, which freed Neranya from having to constantly disguise herself. However, to enforce the ban on Talos worship – one of the major terms of the treaty – a contingent of Thalmor justiciars remained in the city. Neranya simply avoided them by utilizing her rapidly growing proficiency for stealth, rather than magical disguise.

Upon Neranya's 18th birthday, she came into contact with the Cyrodilic Thieves' Guild when she stole food out of a vendor's cart during one rainy afternoon. The act was noticed by some of the Guild members and she was quickly invited to join.

Unfortunately, due to her slightly pretentious nature she did not last very long in the Guild, which was little more than a gang of destitute vagabonds and petty criminals at the time. The Thalmor rule over the Imperial cities had all but destroyed the criminal underworld within them. Only now were they beginning to recover.

Seeing no further opportunity in Leyawiin; Neranya began to wander throughout Cyrodiil for the next thirty years, constantly trying to evade the legion of bounty hunters seeking to capture and return her to Alinor for the mountains of gold promised them.

By chance, starting on the year 4E 201, Neranya suddenly developed an insatiable desire to journey to Skyrim and start a new life. This decision was prompted in part by news that her family in Alinor had withdrawn their bounty, believing that she was either dead or 'gone native'. Now free from a life of constant watchfulness and wandering, she desired to start a life for herself in Skyrim. One night she rode on a merchant's cart into the Jerall Mountains...

Neranya's ultimate destiny would soon begin in earnest, starting the very next day.

-ooo-ooo-

Having succeeded at ascending to the top of many of the more clandestine and arcane organizations in Skyrim and earning millions of septims, her life seemed complete. Her destiny seemed to have come to fulfillment.

However, destiny has yet to play its final hand. Indeed the Destiny of the Dragonborn shall be intertwined with that of another world, one that is about to be consumed by a far more horrific threat than the dragons...

So ends the prologue. This is set up as a biography for my OC Dragonborn.

Also, for those of you who don't know... Mer = Elves.