Summary: Ulfric's people call her Storm Blade, the angel of the Liberation. Imperials call her the Black Witch, who lays Empire strongholds to waste. Still others call her the Dragonborn. But to me she has always been Narisa, my twin sister, my dearest friend, the only one I ever loved.
Notes: Basically a retelling of the Civil War quest line through the eyes of the Dovahkiin's brother. Some alterations to canon have been made in order to suit narrative flow. Elder Scrolls series lore, while heavily researched, may not be a hundred percent accurate, as the only game I have access to at the moment is Skyrim. Hopefully, the errors on my part won't bother anyone too much. I was inspired to write this fic because my own brother and I started playing at roughly the same time; he sided with the Imperials while I joined the Stormcloaks, and we made up all these scenarios about what would happen if our characters met in battle. So, Jay, this is for you.
I'm Always In This Twilight
Empires fall and old gods fade away, but one thing the Dunmer know for certain is that Molag Bal holds us close. And why should he not? For he is Fire Stone and we are sworn to serve the fire. For he is of the House of Troubles and we are born for little else.
My earliest memory is Molag Bal laughing as Narisa and I were ripped from our mother's womb. I was older by a few minutes and, thumb slick in my mouth, I locked eyes with the Desecrated Prince while my sister's first breath emerged in tandem with our mother's last, on moldy blood-soaked sheets far from the bones of our ancestors.
I saw him every day after that, lurking in alleyways and the corners of dilapidated rooms as Narisa and I were passed from stranger to stranger and, when charity finally ran out, learned to beg and steal in order to survive. When Narisa cried from hunger or when I burned with fever we could not afford medicine for, I would hear, in the background, like a ghostly memory, the cruel song of Molag Bal.
In our sixteenth summer, news of job openings in the fertile mines of The Reach drifted throughout Skyrim on the lips of the Khajiit caravans, eventually finding its way to our ears. We packed what few belongings we had and walked out of the Gray Quarter forever. As the gates of Windhelm slammed shut behind us, Narisa jumped, startled by the sudden loud noise on that clear day, and then she flashed her first real smile in months. In that moment, I thought we had banished Molag Bal for good.
I should have known better. He was only cracking his knuckles. The Dunmer are not meant for hope.
Barely have Narisa and I untangled ourselves from the borders of Eastmarch when we stumble across a group of Stormcloaks in the wilderness. The camp is ambushed before we can walk away. Imperials spill out from the circle of trees and the air is rent with battle cries and the clash of metal. Someone twists my arm from behind, forcing me to my knees. I am about to protest that my sister and I are not rebels, but another legionnaire comes up to me, raising his club. The words wither on my tongue as I glimpse Molag Bal grinning over the man's shoulder, armored to the teeth, black as a starless night.
What is mine stays, he growls, and it is the sound of blood gurgling from freshly-slit throats. You are Dunmer. I find you always.
He swings his mace as the Imperial's club is brought down against my skull, and it is lost, all of it, all my grand fantasies of a better life, all my modest actual plans for the future. All that I could have had.
Sometimes I dream of Morrowind although I have never been there. When I sleep I fall deeper into the hidden parts of myself that echo with the voices of my ancestors. The shadow of the Red Mountain, the needle-sharp rocks of Sheogorad, the hot breezes that churn throughout the black land before crashing into the icy waters of the Sea of Ghosts… None of them belong to me. They are visions of a past I have not experienced. They are memories I never lived.
And yet they seem so real.
I am jostled back to consciousness by a violent shaking motion which indicates the cart is creaking over a patch of rough ground. Swamp fog, humid and greenish blue, is still tangled in my eyelids; I blink away the Bitter Coast and see instead the towering pines of Falkreath Hold etched against a frozen sky.
Out of pure instinct, I quickly glance down at the bundled figure nestled into my side to reassure myself that she is still there, that I didn't lose her during the Imperial ambush or during this long voyage in chains to Azura knows where. Narisa stirs, mouth yawning and eyelids fluttering, waking up at the same time I do, as usual, as can only be expected from a twin sibling.
Her gaze meets mine. "Bitter Coast?" she asks, although she already knows what my answer will be. Narisa likes to check that we dream about the same places no matter how many times it's been proven that we do; we are two halves of the same soul, after all.
"Yes," I confirm. "Some tomb in the marshes. You?"
She shrugs. A half-smile plays on the corners of her pale, thin lips. "I was flying."
"You were a cliff racer in another life," I tease.
Despite my lighthearted tone, I find myself pondering yet again the implications of how consistently my sister dreams of flight. Could it mean that her soul is less anchored to the earth, more given to fickleness and fancy? That would be a bad thing. The Dunmer do not watch the skies; we are creatures of fire and rock. We know so much about Morrowind even though we were born and raised in Skyrim because the ancestral memory has been handed down to us. It's embedded in our bloodstream. I wonder what part of that memory gave Narisa her wings, and why it seems to have completely passed me by.
"Felvan," she says, her tone abruptly serious, "where are the Imperials taking us?"
A rusty chuckle draws our attention to the prisoner seated across us. He is a Nord, with a Nord's fair hair and piercing features. I dislike him on sight, but Narisa seems fascinated.
"Trust me, child," he says in a rough baritone, "you don't want to know."
His gaze flickers to my right and I follow it. My heart sinks at the gagged, hulking visage of Ulfric Stormcloak, the Jarl of Windhelm. If we were captured with him, then we are in worse trouble than I had imagined.
"My brother and I are travelers," Narisa argues. "We didn't do anything."
The blond man shrugs. "You're Dark Elves. You must have done something. That's the general attitude."
No, I want to say. We are Dunmer, but we are also Moriche. The Black Marsh once trembled before our might. We waited for the Nerevarine. We survived the volcano. We are the children of Boethiah. We rose from the ashes when your civilization was but a dream of lesser gods.
Those are the ghosts of the past talking, so I remain silent. My nose prickles not with the dark spices of Morrowind, but with the smells of forest air and wood and sweat. My sister and I are not in the home of our ancestors; we are in Skyrim, and in Skyrim we are nothing.
They call her to the executioner's block first. I count this as mercy; I alone will have to carry the burden of watching the only one I love die.
Narisa steps forward, hands bound. She trembles like a leaf in the first gusts of autumn, but she holds her chin high as all eyes track her progress.
"Too young," mutters a brown-haired soldier standing near me. I glance at him in surprise; I had not thought the Imperial Legion capable of regret. But my attention doesn't stay fixed on him for long.
Proud of you, I think, watching my sister as she meets her death head-on. I remember how loudly she wailed when her stomach was empty or when she was afraid. This time she is silent. Perhaps what matters most is that you are brave at the very end.
I could attempt to save her. I could call upon the fire of my ancestors, cloak myself in the blazing inferno that is their wrath. Narisa and I are hopelessly outnumbered, but at least we can die like Dark Elves, not like men. In truth, she might have an actual chance at escape if I can just help get her hands free; of the two of us, she has always been the more skilled at destruction magic.
I am just about to summon the embers, when a chill and unearthly cry shatters the air. We all look around. What was that?
And then there is the mighty beating of wings, the flash of scales in the sunlight, the gleam of ancient eyes, and a rush of smoke and heat unlike any that I have ever known.
Dragon, roar the voices of my ancestors as the beast swoops down from the heavens, incinerating everything in its path. Dragon. Perish in fire, like we did. Not old and feeble in your bed, not on your knees and a human's axe biting into your neck. Fire and blood. The only way the Dunmer should agree to die.
In the midst of all the commotion, I lose sight of my sister. But not immediately; no, that would have been too kind for those ill-favored by fate. I see her before the world is engulfed in flames. Her name tears itself from my throat. She whirls around.
"Felvan!" she screams. She takes a step toward me, but with an almighty creak, a burning house comes toppling down and she is dragged out of its path by the blond Nord prisoner, who has managed to loosen his ropes.
No. Give her back. I reach out with my own bound hands, but I am too far away. People are running and shouting, jostling one another in desperate attempts to flee, the gargantuan shadow of the beast falling over all our faces. I am swept up in the crowd, knocked off course.
"Follow me," someone says.
I blink, trying to clear my vision. It is the brown-haired soldier, armed with sword and shield.
"Follow me," he repeats, as Helgen crashes and burns to the ground. "I will see you through."
When I look back on that day, I cannot recall clearly the sequence of events. I remember only the little details: the clank of Hadvar's armor, the look on my sister's face when she said my name for the last time, the maze of rock and water and green light in the caverns under Falkreath Hold, littered with corpses- Imperial legionnaires, Frostbite spiders, and, sprawled out near the exit, keeping vigil even in death, a brown cave bear.
"Someone passed through here before we did," Hadvar remarks. "Good thing, too. Did all the dirty work for us."
The bodies are singed almost beyond recognition, as if our unknowing benefactor had taken the dragon's fire and released it beneath the earth. There is no art to the scorch-marks and the charred limbs, only a fury devoid of restraint. The killer was untrained, yet powerful.
"Wouldn't want to cross this man, whoever he was," says Hadvar as we edge past the slain bear.
"It could have been a woman," I reply.
He shoots me a look that can almost be interpreted as pity. I had told him about Narisa as soon as we could catch a breath, had abandoned my pride and begged him to help me find her. But then the roof collapsed and there was no going back that way…
After a moment, his expression clears. "Aye," he agrees. "It could have."
In all my life to come, I will always be grateful to him for this one kindness.
"You should join the Legion," Hadvar tells me after we have made short work of a couple of wolves encountered on the path to Riverwood. "We could always use capable fighters like you."
I don't say anything. He presses on. "It's a decent job. Pays well enough. You'll constantly be on the move. The patrols will take you all across Skyrim."
And perhaps you can find your sister, are the unspoken words that hang in the air.
So I make my way to Solitude.
Life in the regiment is not as glamorous as the bards make it out to be. It involves grueling marches in the hot sun as we travel among the Holds. It involves mind-numbing hours of sentry duty and wiping our asses with leaves. The veterans are bawdy and jaded, the new recruits tentative and oftentimes the victims of insults and pranks.
Although I try to remain as silent as possible, I still bear the brunt of everyone's contempt because of my race. In addition to that, I am apparently not as good a fighter as I thought I was. My movements are slow and clumsy under the weight of Imperial armor. I have difficulty holding the shield in one hand and wielding the sword in the other. This is not how the Dunmer fight, this ungainly, plodding dance of block and swing, with a helmet obscuring peripheral vision and heavy boots impeding footwork.
But one day we come across an overturned cart on the road to Riften. Behind the cart is an old man's corpse, covered in the slash marks of sabre cat claws. I am ordered to examine the body, and, upon doing so, I discover a host of grizzled scars underneath all the still-fresh blood. This man was a warrior and he died a warrior's death.
Sprawled at his side are two slender, curved swords.
"Those are Akaviri katanas," our captain tells us. "You rarely see them these days. Flimsy things." He snorts derisively, his hand resting on the hilt of his greatsword. "A woman's weapon."
I hold one up. It fits perfectly in my hand. It feels perfect. Graceful and light.
"Yours if you want them, Elf," says the captain. "Like I said, they're women's blades. Appropriate for you."
Everyone laughs.
A few days later, we run into a troop of Stormcloaks. Having eschewed my shield in favor of dual-wielding my two new swords, I slice through the ranks of the foe, the katanas flashing in the sunlight as I whirl and dodge. In speed and agility, the Dark Elves are second only to the Bosmer of Valenwood. I call upon the wrath of my ancestors, and fire dances along the sharp edges of my blades. When the battle is over, five Stormcloaks lie dead at my feet, while the other legionnaires stare at me with surprise and the beginnings of respect.
After that day, no one laughs at me ever again.
I ask around everywhere I go, but I can't seem to catch the slightest hint of Narisa's whereabouts. Nobody has seen a little elf girl in ragged clothes wandering alone or in the company of Stormcloaks. My only real lead is from an Argonian merchant in Hjaalmarch who tells me that he had been accosted by bandits and someone had helped him. A small feminine figure in novice mage attire, who had shot ice bolts through the bandits' hearts.
"She could have been Dunmer," he says. "But I didn't get a closer look. She walked away without saying a word."
My fellow legionnaires believe I am on a wild goose chase. The word from Helgen is that only a few made it out alive. I can see it written all over their faces that they think my sister is dead, buried in rubble and ash.
But they humor me. In a time of war, soldiers are no strangers to hope. We need it the most.
Honestly, though, hope has little to do with it. She is not dead. I would have felt her die. I would have felt the phantom pain of her passing as her half of our shared soul escaped the confines of its body. I would have experienced a cold shudder running down my spine and known for sure that my twin sister had gone to the final rest in Azura's embrace.
Narisa lives. I have to believe this. I have to find her.
Tonight we have set up camp at an abandoned Talos shrine. Tiber Septim glares down at us, rock-carved features angry and fierce and perhaps a little sorrowful. What happens to men when they become gods, and what happens to gods when they are forgotten?
The captain is in a good mood, for tomorrow we will be marching to his childhood village of Rorikstead. He turns in early, but gives us Auxiliaries free reign to talk. We huddle around the campfire at the base of the statue's feet, and perhaps there's something about the cold night, how the aurora glows and the stars seem to go on forever, that opens up men's minds and turns soldiers into philosophers.
"Way I see it, this isn't our war," Lassnr grumbles. "The Thalmor are determined to stamp out Talos. We're just their hired grunts."
"What've they got against him, though?" asks Hridi. "I've always wondered. Why does the Dominion hate Talos so much?"
"It's because of what Talos is to us," Niels replies darkly. "He was a human who ascended to godhood. The Thalmor don't want us getting ideas above our station."
Normally this kind of talk would warrant a one-way trip to the block. But I have come to realize there is a certain code of conduct among legionnaires. Even though not all of us get along, storming a necromancer fortress or bringing down a frost troll together instills a quiet, discreet brotherhood that gives us license to say what we want.
"You've never shared your opinion with us, Felvan," Niels suddenly says. "About the White-Gold Concordat and the rest of this mess."
I stare at him across the flickering fire. A while ago, when he thought no one was watching, he'd surreptitiously cleared the debris from the altar and touched his knuckles to the shrine with reverence. What you fight for in Skyrim is not always what you want.
I shrug. I think about Molag Bal swinging his mace and Azura's curse and the fall of the Tribunal. There, under the relentless silver light of the two moons, in the shadow of the Sundered King, I think about how Narisa and I believe in each other and how there has never been room for any other kind of faith.
"My opinion doesn't count," I say at last. "The gods exist, but I am Dunmer and they left us a long time ago. That's all I know."
The next morning, on the march to Rorikstead, earth and sky begin to shake. As one, we drop into combat stance, bracing ourselves for a dragon to rise up from the horizon.
But there is no enemy in sight. There is only a disembodied chorus of deep voices, calling out, "Dovahkiin!"
The name tears across the landscape, burning itself into the sky, and when it is over and gone, leaving nothing, not even an echo, there is a strange light in the captain's suspiciously damp eyes.
"That could only have been the Greybeards," he whispers. "The summons… I never thought I would hear it in my lifetime."
"What summons?" I blurt out.
"The Greybeards are calling the Chosen One to High Hrothgar," Lassnr starts to explain, but he is cut off by a snort from Vhosek.
"That's nothing but one of your Nord fairytales, comrade," says the Redguard. "A child's story for the night-time hearth, not the battlefield."
Lassnr scowls. "Didn't you hear that just now, Vhosek? It was no fairytale," he argues. "It means only one thing. The Dragonborn comes."
The rumors start gushing in hard and fast. All throughout Skyrim, as we march past sleepy little towns and remote hamlets and bustling cities, innkeepers and bards and merchants and their customers are abuzz with the return of the Dragonborn. The sources contradict one another; some talk of a fearsome warrior who beheads the great lizards with one stroke of a battleaxe, while others insist on a conjurer who can bring the dead back to life to join the fight. The only common consensus is that it is a woman.
"Not even a woman," purrs a Khajiit vagabond who claims to have witnessed one of the battles from afar. "A mere slip of a girl. She called lightning down from the heavens and fried the monster to a crisp."
But he styles himself M'aiq the Liar and few people, if any, believe his tale.
I no longer dream of Morrowind. Instead, my slumbering soul takes me to eldritch grottos and snowy peaks in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes to forests and cities I traversed weeks before. In these visions I can still feel Narisa's presence in the skies above me, spreading her ghost wings. But no matter how hard I squint at the clouds, I can't see her.
And then one night I dream I am on what has to be the highest mountain in the realm, with all of Skyrim stretched out below my feet and the jeweled hues of the aurora shifting above my head in brilliant, shivering veils.
In the distance I spy the huge figure of a dragon, curled up on the rocks, silhouetted against the stars.
Not a dream, then. A nightmare.
The dragon cranes its neck toward me. I dig my heels into the snow, steeling myself for the inevitable rush of flame that will either kill me in my sleep or jerk me back into waking.
Instead, it speaks in the tongue of mortals.
"You." The ancient voice fills the world. "I know you, Fahliil. I count you as fahdon. Friend. Mortals are not usually allowed here, not even in dreams, but for her sake I will permit you to leave gently."
"Why?" I ask.
Fire spurts from the great scaled lips. "Because you are… zeymah. The only one she has ever loved. Go now. And have faith. She will carry your heart to Sovngarde."
I wake up. In the darkness of the Pale Imperial Camp, my cheeks are wet with tears for the sister I swore to always protect.
I am not at Whiterun when it falls. The survivors trickle into Fort Neugrad, where I am currently stationed, with missing limbs and oozing wounds and eyes still widened by some unimaginable horror. They speak of a woman in black robes who had shattered the barricades like they were twigs with a single fireball, who had shouted words in an arcane language that tore men's weapons from their grasps, who had wiped out several Imperials at once in an explosion of lightning and flame.
"The Stormcloaks have a witch on their side," they say. "A sorceress with red eyes…"
A few days after my regiment leaves Fort Neugrad for our next post, we receive word that it has been captured by the Stormcloaks and their black-robed witch.
"How?" rails our captain. "We had mages there! They should have been able to render her powerless with their lightning!"
Out of breath from fear and exertion, the messenger tells us that once the sorceress' magicka had been drained, she'd come running at the Imperial mages, a staff twirling in each hand, zapping them with bursts of elemental destruction.
The captain sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"We're in trouble," he says.
The war is going badly. Every week, we lose important footholds in the province. Every week, new stories of the Black Witch, for that is what they call her now, reach our ears.
They had her surrounded in Fort Sungard, cut off from the rest of her troops, but she planted flame and shock runes on the floor in a circle around her that detonated under the men's feet when they tried to close in.
In Fort Snowhawk they fell upon her with maces and swords, but her skin became hard as ebony, rendering her impervious to the bite of metal.
At the Battle of Fort Hraggstad, she walked into the courtyard and called down a storm. Lashes of hail and rain and lances of meteors, and it was all over in a matter of minutes.
They say now that the Black Witch is also the Dragonborn.
The rebels become braver. At Nightgate Inn, Lassnr almost gets into a brawl with a drunken old man who yells curses at us.
"The Empire's time is done!" he screams as his more sober friends drag him away. "You will fall to the wrath of the Storm Blade!"
We barely have time to dwell on this threat, because in a few hours we receive orders to assemble at Solitude, the final bastion. As we march off, it seems to me like the land of Skyrim is holding its breath. The last battle is about to begin.
Snow crunches under my boots, the same ash-tinged snow that covers winding streets of stone and ice. I am in the Gray Quarter, although I swore never to return, and that is how I know I am dreaming.
"What is mine stays," whispers a soft voice. I turn around. My sister is before me now, wrapped in mage's robes and moonlight.
"You're not flying," I remark.
"I have learned to sheathe my wings." She sounds different. Older. Her hood is pulled low over her face, exposing only the tilt of her nose, the curve of her chin. "I came from the Throat of the World bearing scars and wisdom."
"Where are you now?" I ask.
"Whiterun. But…" She hesitates for a second. "I am leaving soon."
"Where are you going?"
"Where you cannot follow," she says sadly. The hood slips off and her eyes are huge and haunted amidst the features that are eerily like mine save for our new scars which are etched in different places. "Brother," she murmurs, looking so young and so lost. "Brother, I am afraid."
I reach out for her, but she steps back into the shadows, cloaking herself in darkness. In that moment, she could almost be Azura, queen of dusky skies and evening stars.
"I will come back," she promises as the world starts to blur into waking. "Wait for me a while. I will find you. I will be with you soon."
The day of the battle dawns clear and bright. Over the high gates of Solitude I can see smoke rising from the Stormcloak camp. Lassnr, Hridi, and Niels all look a little pale, but their eyes glitter with excitement, already feverish with the glory of Sovngarde.
I do not share this sentiment. When the Dunmer die we go to Azura. Twilight and shadows. It is not glory we seek, but peace. And I will never know peace until I see my sister again.
War cries rise up from beyond the gates. We ready our weapons. It has begun.
The thing about being a twin is this: you are never alone. Not really. During all the long months of this endless war I would feel a sharp pang in my stomach after supper and know that Narisa was going hungry that night. I would be seized by an incongruous gladness after a messy battle and know that somewhere my sister had triumphed. And sometimes I would feel dragons, flame and frost all around me, terror and adrenaline pumping through my veins. I remember the headdresses and cooking fires of the Forsworn and the shadowy figures and silent blades of the Dark Brotherhood, and I know that these memories are not mine but Narisa's. I have lived, however vaguely, the shape of her story, because we are two halves of the same soul. But only one was destined for greatness.
In all the time of our separation I have never been alone, and that perhaps is the worst kind of loneliness. And perhaps that is why all these months I have been walking in the footsteps of Azura, who rules the melancholy twilight and the desolate places in our hearts.
I see Azura now, holding out her arms to me as Stormcloaks and Imperials meet in one last desperate clash. And I see Molag Bal, too, laughing and laughing because what is mine stays. The twin katanas dance through air and sunlight, slicing neatly into armor and flesh, and over the roar of battle I hear a voice, strong and clear like the crash of a mighty wave, call out, "Odahviing!"
The dragon descends upon the spires of Solitude, breathing furious gusts of flame that consume swaths of my fellow legionnaires. We are routed, it seems. The war is lost and I am fighting only for my life. I hack off the nearest Stormcloak's head and catch a flurry of black robes at the periphery of my vision. All our mages are in blue, so this isn't one of ours.
I spin around. In the heat of battle my instincts have taken control and I barely register the hooded figure before my katana whirls to meet its neck. Taken by surprise, my new opponent blocks with a staff, which splits into two against the sharp metal. I move in to deal the finishing blow, but a couple of firebolts knock me off my feet.
So this is it, then. My death, in fire and blood. Molag Bal comes closer, preparing to swing his mace once more. I stand up, swords at the ready, steeling myself to meet my end at the hands of the Black Witch.
But those hands drop to her sides. When she speaks, it is not to utter an arcane incantation, but to say my name. She takes off her hood, and here on this final battlefield, after all this time, I am looking into my sister's eyes once more. At last.
The twin blades slide from my grasp, clattering to the ground. I drop to my knees in grateful surrender.
Amidst the coils of dragon flame and the gleam of soldier's swords, stars and shadows drift in Azura's wake. She smiles at Molag Bal. She stays his hand.