Istind Hearthome, age twenty seven, bit back a curse as the dagger he had entrusted to his wife found its way into his belly whilst he was sleeping. He knew that this would end him, he enchanted the damned blade personally with the ability to absorb life, but in such a way that any magic from the school of Restoration wouldn't be of any aid. A true masterpiece he learned during his time in the Dark Brotherhood.
He coughed out a glob of blood and blearily looked towards his attacker. He knew her, lay with her, and fathered her two children; only to be stabbed with the very blade he gave her for her protection. Her dark brown hair hung over her colored face and her clothing consisted of simple black coverings that covered the whole of her body.
Camilla Hearthome, formerly Camilla Valerius.
She showed no emotion on her face, her eyes which were at one point a bright green were now slit yellow; the sign of Vampirism. He knew she'd grown fear him, to hate him, after gaining her affliction, and blamed him for not being there to stop it. As cruel as it was to admit, his duty as Dragonborn forced him to be away, just it had many a time before.
It happened some four years ago. He was patrolling the roads to Windhelm, as was his right being their Jarl. He'd killed Ulfric Stormcloak and the man's lieutenant by shouting the pair off the Throat of the World in a fit of rage. He called for a meeting of the Imperial and Stormcloak leaders for a temporary truce to deal with the greater threat to Nirn. While General Tulius was willing to ceasefire for a time to deal with the dragons, Ulfric was trying to swindle cities and allegiances. In the end, for ending the rebellion in the same way it started, using the Thu'um to kill a Jarl, Istind was named Jarl of Windhelm.
During his patrol, a group of oddly clothed cultists came up to him and asked if he was the false Dragonborn that there had been talk of. He was more bemused than anything, so he answered that he indeed was, and they retaliated by trying to chop off his head. He quickly dispatched the cultists and, after looting their corpses, found a note with orders and the name Miraak.
He went to Solstheim, the place where the orders originated from, with both Dawnbreaker and the Blade of Woe on his person, and begun his search. What happened in the next weeks was like a blur. Miraak, as it turns out, was the very first of the Dragonborn. He was thought to have been killed eons ago, but, like Istind, he became the champion of a Daedric Prince, Hermaeus Mora, and was healed in the Princes realm of Apocrypha. For the rest of his days, he was immortalized in Apocrypha, given access to the forbidden secrets Hermaeus Mora kept, and finally after millennia after millennia passed he wanted to escape his bindings.
Istind knew that this man, predecessor or no, needed to be put down. He did the only thing he could and sought knowledge in the Black Books; the artefacts of Hermaeus Mora. The Prince was willing to part with information, Istind learned of the Thu'ums that Miraak personally created, and, in exchange for access to Miraak, Hermaeus asked him for the secret of the Skaal. It was difficult to make the tribe shaman give up their secrets to the Prince, who they considered their lifelong enemy, but the threat of Miraak was enough to make him talk.
Finally, Istind and Miraak fought. Constantly during the fight, Miraak would call for the dragons he enslaved and kill them in an instant with a curiously four worded Thu'um of Zii-los Dii Du, Spirit-is Mine Devour and regained his health by absorbing their souls. It was lucky that Miraak was, by the standard of Meridia, unnatural and susceptible to the holy fires of Dawnbreaker. They battled until Miraak ran out of dragons, and Istind finally ended him. He absorbed Miraaks soul, learned all of the Thu'ums his fellow Dovahkin knew, and left Apocrypha a changed man.
Upon returning to Windhelm a week and a half later, he was greeted to the sight of his people rejoicing at his return. Apparently a group of Vampires had attacked the city in the dead of night, raping their women and making thralls out of the guards. He rushed to the Palace of Kings, ignoring his people, and made way to his wife and children.
There, standing over the fire in the main hall, was his wife Camilla. He called out for her, trying to get her attention, but upon turning around he was greeted with the sight of tears dripping from a pair of slit yellow eyes.
She told him that the children were safe, they were placed in one of the palaces many hidden cellars, but she and their unborn child was not so lucky. They raped her continuously, they said that it was a message to him from the Volkihar clan, and turned her. The child they didn't know she was pregnant with, a girl, was killed when the curse made its way into her body, and was birthed prematurely by some seven months a stillborn. Even if they cured her vampirism, it was unlikely she would never be able to have children again based on the damage to her womb.
Istind held his wife, comforted her in any way he could regardless of his duty to Meridia, and for that night alone the world knew not of his wrath.
Come morning, however, that would change.
He left his wife's bed in the early morning, before the sun was fully up, put on his gear and left for the road. He made his way near the top of one of the many mountains surrounding Windhelm and let his Thu'um be heard.
Paar Thur Nax.
It took nearly an hour, but the elder dragon appeared. He was curious, naturally so, as to why the Dovahkin would call for him. It was customary for other dragons to only call each other by name when they intended for combat, but the Thu'um of Istind was recognizable even from the far reaches of Nirn where Paarthurnax was, and he knew that Istind would not call him for combat. It was the way Istind spoke, the rage in his voice that made even the common tongue shake like an untrained Thu'um that Paarthurnax understood.
Istind reminded him of the Alduin of old in that moment.
Istind told Paarthurnax about the attack that occurred while he was gone. That his unborn child was now dead and his wife raped and turned into a monster that, according to his patron, he needed to kill. And he wanted revenge. Istind told- no, he commanded Paarthurnax to gather all of the kin that followed his Thu'um and return to this mountain. Paarthurnax normally would never consider taking orders from anybody, especially a youngling, but this was owner of the Thu'um that slew Alduin, and more so it was that of a student, so he agreed.
Three days later, Istind, Paarthurnax, Odahviing and some one hundred dragons met.
Chaos was the only word to describe what occurred.
Paarthurnax knew of the Volkihar clan, he remembered hearing Greybeards of the past speaking of them, and knew the general area they roosted. To the far northwest of Skyrims border, on an island castle that could only be reached by boat. At least for Joor, mortals.
The dragons, with Istind on Odahviings back, flew towards the castle, and found it within the hour. Carnage ensued. The castle was burned by all sides by over one hundred shouts of Yol Toor Shul, turning the cold castle stone into liquid fire. The vampires inside screamed in agony as the castle melted on them. Those that made it outside found themselves to be the meal of the many dragons surrounding the burning wreckage.
Castle Volkihar was no more after that.
He bade Paarthurnax and his kin thanks and Odahviing brought him back to Windhelm. After this event, Istind gained a somewhat fanatical hatred to all vampires aside from Camilla. He spent the next four years of his life hunting each and every vampire coven he heard rumor of. He knew Meridia was pleased with his work. Camilla however was not pleased.
Which was why he had a dagger in his belly. She had, over the years, grown further and further from Istind. His being the champion of Meridia made it a form of sacrilege to lay with her, and he began taking mistresses to his bed instead. Over the course of those three years, his wife went from being the mother of his children to a stranger that shared he shared his home with. It was only natural that she believe he would kill her eventually. If she ran he would hunt her down for certain, and so she chose to end the problem on her own. She would likely take the children to High Hrothgar then disappear, that was what they'd agreed upon should he die before they started training.
One final cough of blood escaped his mouth, and Istind Hearthhome, Dragonborn, Jarl of Windhelm, Champion of the Daedric Princes Nocturnal, Meridia and Azura, passed on from Nirn.
Nocturnal grinned as she swiped the soul of her champion out of Nirn and into Oblivion. Ever since he became the champion of Meridia and Azura, they'd planned to do this. This would entertain them immensely, that was for certain.
She allowed his spirit to take the form of a babe and had him suckle on her open tit, fully aware that he was cognizant. Her champion was like her child, and what mother didn't allow their child their breast? She remembered clearly when she chose to make him her champion. He was but a simple assassin for the Dark Brotherhood, and took a contract from her last loyal Nightingale Karliah to kill Mercer Frey and return the Skeleton Key. He accepted, and Karliah gave him all of the traitor's habits for a clean kill.
Clean would never be what Nocturnal would call it, but the deviousness of the plan made her shiver in delight. She knew that she wanted this mortal for her own after that.
He stole potions of invisibility from the local apothecary in Riften and used them to seal off the hidden entryways and exits in the manse of Mercer Frey. Istind waited some two weeks, but eventually the traitor returned to his home and Istind struck.
He called for the red and blue dragon, Odahviing she believed he was called, and commanded the wyrm to burn Riften; starting with the manse.
Oh, it was wondrous. The carnage he wrought. The way he made it seem like it was just a wild dragon by casting an illusion to turn the red scales green. Odahviing killed a quarter of the townsfolk, Jarl included, and she delighted in the screams of pain Mercer Frey gave. She stole his spirit afterword's, he pledged his very being to her eminence after all, and gave him to her Daedric servants to torture and rape for the rest of eternity.
Istind looted the wreckage of the manse, and found the Skeleton Key soon after. He returned it to Karliah, and in that moment Nocturnal came to him. She hadn't been that entertained in centuries, and wanted to reward this mortal properly. She named him her champion, gave him the Daedric horse Shadowmere that she gifted to the Dark Brotherhood eons ago, and minor access to one of her realms of influence. He chose the realm of shadow, and so the magic of Shadowstalk, the ability to remain unseen for a short few minutes once a day, was granted to him.
"Istind, my dearest champion, I welcome you to Evergloam." She announced, her attempt at a warm smile looking more like a sinister smirk. Istind kept his attention on her while the body she crafted for his use fed on her breast. She stroked the back of his head and continued talking. "Yes, apologies, you're busy aren't you? Well then, allow me to speak and you will listen." She flexed her breast, and milk began to seep into her champion's mouth.
"Nirn is the culmination of what you call the Aedra, they gave up part of their very being in order to create it. In some ways, Nirn itself is an Aedra and its sphere of influence is mortality, but that's philosophical talk. It is because Nirn has the essence of the Aedra that we Princes are so attracted to it. Our realms of influence are greatest on Nirn than in any other realm of Oblivion aside our own. It was because of that, that when Nirn was first made a group of us Princes grew curious. We said 'If they could create this wondrous world by giving up parts of their essence, we can surely create something far better without such a price!'"
Istind stopped his suckling, which Nocturnal took to be an action of shock. She patted his scalp back into her breast and continued her tale, "Yes, at one point in time we wanted to be like the Aedra in that regard. But we wondered, 'How do we create our world?' We decided that, instead of putting our very essence into this world, we would put pieces of power, our realms of Oblivion into it. From Mehrunes Dagon came Essos, a land created solely from a cut off portion of the Deadlands. From Molag Bal came the Lands of Always Winter, a land taken from Coldharbor, and the White Walkers, another term for his Soul Shriven. From Sheogorath came the island nation of Valyria and other smaller island nations along with much of the ocean and seas of the Shivering Isles. From Malakath came Dorne, a land taken from the Ashpit. From Hircine came Ashai, the rest of the Seven Kingdoms and many of the lesser beasts from the Hunting Grounds.
"I myself, along with Azura and Meridia, your other patrons, created the cycle of Night and Day, Summer and Winter. Meridia made the sun, I made the moon, and Azura made sure that it would cycle. Clavicus Vile, always the prankster, called himself the Many Faced God and gave his devout the ability to change faces. Hermaeus Mora brought the knowledge of obscure magics into our world. Peryite brought with him a new form of Daedra, bastardized creatures meant to mock Akatosh, and called them dragons, as well as creating a curious little pestilence called Greyscale." She chuckled as Istind choked lightly on her nipple and pulled him up. She put him over her shoulder and forced him to burp. She could feel the shame coming off of him in droves, and savored in it. She cradled him in her arms, turning her silver eyes onto his form.
"The rest of the Daedric Princes didn't instill any power or land, but mindsets to the peoples of our world. Boethiah gave the peoples of this world the natural state of mind to kill. Namira took over religion in Ashai. Sanguine, similar to Boethiah, gave the peoples of this world much looser morals in comparison to Nirn. Vaermina offered a rare few people the ability to see the future in the form of dreams. Mephala gave them politics, and more importantly, corruption.
"Finally we have Jyggalag, the last to add something to this world. He, after separating from Sheogorath in the end of the Third Era, chose to add the destruction of Sheogoraths island nation of Valyria, and instilled the belief in honor."
She smirked, noting how the infant Istinds wide eyed look was ever so entertaining, and returned his mouth to her tit. "We chose not to name our world, though we did name its countries, and it was fine until we realized there was an issue. We didn't have any mortals. We never honestly realized at the time that Nirn was so interesting to us because of its mortals. Well, we decided that in order to fix this without giving up our essence, we'd take them from Nirn.
"Those that followed us willingly and openly, for a time, were taken from Nirn and placed on Westeros with their memories wiped of their old home. The Aedra didn't challenge us, those mortals went against their teaching as had to pay for their actions. We only took men, no mer or beastkin, and made sure to do this as many times as we could. We called the Nords the First Men. The Bretons were the Andals. The Imperials were the Valyrians. And the children of the single Redguard and a Breton became the Dothraki. Hermaeus Mora decided to steal a small group of Dwemer, they forsook the Aedra in pursuit of knowledge so no fuss was made, and renamed them the Children of the Forest. Histories were made and names changed and so on and so forth. Nirn is often called our playground, but Westeros is our sandbox; we made everything there purely to say that we could. You might ask me, 'Mistress, why are you telling me about this?' and I have an answer for you my dearest champion.
"Boredom."
The infant form of Istind blinked at Nocturnal with bulging cheeks filled with her milk. She pulled him off her tit and wiped his mouth with her thumb, her smirk still in place and her silver eyes shining in mirth.
"We haven't really done much with Westeros as of late, and decided to see what would happen if we took as similar role as the Aedra did and just watched from afar. Parts of the world were fine, other parts… Well, the best way to put it is that Sheogorath and Mephala are far too entertained right now. Molag Bal decided to command his White Walkers to begin reforming his armies, so Meridia wanted to combat him. Myself and Azura were growing tired of the world as well, Azura so much so that she allowed the state of Summer and Winter to last long years so she wouldn't have to pay attention. So, we three decided that the most fun way of dealing with our boredom would be to bring our dearest champion unto this world."
Istind had swallowed that of the milk and was trying, and failing, to form words. All that escaped his mouth were spit filled gurgles, and the more he tried the more frustrated he became. Nocturnal couldn't help but laugh at the predicament, finding her champion to be more far entertaining than ever before.
"Yes, we decided that you would entertain us. Oh don't glare, we didn't intend for you to die in such a way, nor so young. Mephala likely did that. Anyways, I will place your spirit into the body of one of the people that will be central to Westeros, and you will do your duty to Meridia and combat the White Walkers.
"Your powers as a Dragonborn will be sealed off, temporarily of course. We wouldn't want you to die once more now would we? No, your power will be sealed off until something significant happens, Azura already decreed when and where it will occur. We do this so that you might understand the peoples of this world more, and you will."
She lifted Istind up so that they were face to face, and placed a lingering kiss on his brow. "When you enter Westeros, make sure you trust your instincts. You are still my champion, and both Shadowmere and the Shadowstalk are yours to use. Meridia will, eventually, reunite you with Dawkbreaker, and Azura will help you along the way, though her star will be useless to you as it always has been." She couldn't help but snicker at that. Azura, her dearest sister, had been very annoyed upon learning her champion had no interest in Enchanting, even when he had an unbreakable soul gem.
She poked the infant form of Istind on the forehead, and smiled as he shrunk and returned to the formless spirit he entered Evergloam as. She turned around, a map forming out of nothing with all of the details of Westeros marked down. She poked the diagram that said Kings Landing, and watched as name after name appeared. She smiled widely when a name appeared, noting that it should be dying from some local disease, and pushed Istinds soul into the written name. Istind was sucked into the name, and its greying words which symbolized that it was dying darkened into a rich black.
Nocturnal smiled once more, looking at the name. "I hope you continue to entertain me for many more years my dear champion." She traced her fingers over the name once more and uttered the new name of her bemusing champion.
"Jaehaerys Blackfyre."
A/N: Hey there guys, Umodin back with a random update. So, after watching the GoT S6 teaser, I decided to get into reading GoT and ASoIaF fanfictions. I found myself drawn more to the crossover community on those pages than anything, and a few stories made me bust out my Xbox360 and reroll some Skyrim. I had a blast just going back through that game, and decided that in love for both the game and GRRM's series, I'd try for a crossover.
A trend I noticed when it came to crossovers in GoT is that, most of the time, people cannot explain how their character was brought to Westeros. I hope that, upon this explanation, you fully understand how this happened and find it to be understandable. I don't want you to find it believable, that ruins the point of fiction, but finding it understandable is always a good thing.
I decided to mainly skip Istinds like in Skyrim and go straight into the nitty gritty of why he was dead and all that good stuff. Now, something you should be aware of is that he was born under the Thief. He is, in the end, more of a sneak than the hero of legend we encompass when playing Skyrim. He is willing to do terrible things for the good of Nirn as well as his own pocket. Somebody in GoT I'd compare him to would be Varys combined with Bronn personality-wise with the combat skills of a smaller Drogo.
Bit of history when it comes to the character Jaehaerys. Jaehaerys Blackfyre is the firstborn son of Serra Blackfyre, a whore from Lys that later married Illario Mopatis. It's not expanded on if Serra had any children in cannon or if she was truly a Blackfyre, only speculations and such. I chose to have Nocturnal place him inside the form of a dying babe instead of rebirthing him because, well, birth is more of Mara's domain and Nocturnal probably wouldn't bother with anything of that nature. Plus it'd be more entertaining for her if she watched him learn about the world in such a way.
On the mention of Nocturnal and her nature, you have to understand one thing. I picture the Daedric Princes to be brutal, which I showcased with her punishment of Mercer Frey, and interested only in their own entertainment. In the case of when Istind died, Nocturnal was taking a mickey at Istinds pride by turning him into an infant and forcing him to breastfeed. I find her to be one of the more tame Daedric Princes, as are Meridia and Azura to which Istind is their champion.
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