Author notes: Thanks to the people who took time to review this story. Your opinions and encouragements are a real help to me.

For those who played Skyrim, this story takes placed in the 200th year of the Fourth Era, which means before the game starts. Among other consequences, the High King of Skyrim is still Torygg. You will also see that I opted for a bigger population for Skyrim, starting from the dimensions for Tamriel (in The Elder Scrolls Arena : Player's Guide, it is said to be roughly 4000 km from east to west and 3000 km from north to south, for a surface of 12 million km²) that are slightly bigger than Europe. This puts Skyrim in the same league as Germany and will necessitates some adjustments on travel times. More directly, this chapter will show the College with more space and people as the ones shown in the game. Finally, this story also supposes that my usual play-through of the Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind game took place.

Buffy looked at her hosts as she finished her story. She hoped that she had remembered well enough what Giles had told her about the Old Ones and how Earth had been, in the beginning, a demon dimension and from there what she knew about the Slayer, including what Molag Bal had told her in the ruins. She tried to decipher Mirabelle's expression, wondering what the woman was thinking and what decision she would take regarding her stay at the College.

I have been frank… the only thing I omitted is Dawn's nature as the Key of Dagon, only saying that Glory had declared her to be the right sacrifice.

"There is probably more about your sister than you know," said Mirabelle, "but this is not a direct concern. Phinis, could Molag Bal have brought Buffy to the Saarthal site without you detecting it?"

"Easily," replied the summoner.

"He wanted me here," said Buffy. "The tattoo, the language he 'taught' me… He made sure you would be the ones to find me and that the only sensible option would be to stay at the College. The next question is obviously: why?"

"Indeed," said Mirabelle. "Our luck in this matter is that we are dealing with Molag Bal."

"Hem… why?" she asked with a frown. "I met the guy and…" she said while shuddering.

"Yes, he is generally considered one of the worst of the Daedric Princes and he considers mortals as toys," replied Phinis. "But where we have luck is that Molag Bal takes care of his toys. Unlike Clavicus Vile who almost invariably finds some a way to twist a bargain so that it will destroy the mortal daring to contact him, Molag Bal deals frankly."

"Domination… he wants people to submit to him," said Buffy. "I mean… he wants to see how much people will bend to gain his 'blessing'. He told me to 'be a lion among sheep'. Why here then?"

"The obvious reason would be learning magic," said Brelyna while going through her notes. "From what you told us, I get the feeling that the Watchers wouldn't like it if a Slayer learnt magic."

Buffy frowned. Again, the keyword was Domination. She remembered her fellow Slayers Kendra and Faith, as well as the few Watchers she had met during her career. Kendra would not have dared to contradict a Watcher and… well, Faith and she had issues but she had never considered the Dark Slayer the way those commando Watchers did. They had never seen Faith as a person. Somehow, Buffy was getting the impression that Molag Bal was tired of seeing his 'daughters' treated like crap. He wanted them, he wanted her to be 'lions among sheep', not 'expendable tools'. He had a plan to change things and she was part of it.

"No, they wouldn't like it… and it motivates me even more to work hard," she replied with a smirk. "May I stay?"

"Under the conditions I told you earlier," replied Mirabelle. "Molag Bal's intentions do not seem to be harmful to the College, though we will have to take some precautions. Your particular relationship to the Daedric Lord must stay secret. The fact you are coming from another world will be impossible to hide but the official story will be an accident with unknown causes. There are precedents in Tamriel's history and it should work well enough. In particular, I want you to be very careful about a High Elf named Ancano."

"Why?"

"Ancano is not one of the teachers. He is an advisor sent by the Thalmors… detailing all of this would take a long time so we will have to address this during your history lessons. To be very short, a peace treaty called the White-Gold Concordat was signed twenty-five years ago between the Empire and the Aldmeri Dominion. It was not favorable for the Empire and the Thalmors are emissaries of the Dominion's government. While we are independent and the Thalmors cannot force themselves in, the Arch-Mage allowed an advisor to stay on College grounds to placate them…"

Mirabelle took out a volume from a nearby shelf and turned some pages before using a quill to note down something.

"Brelyna, I assigned the room between yours and Yisra's to Buffy. Can you show her to the Hall of Attainment and let her meet the other students? I will have her supplies brought there in the meantime."

"Of course, Ma'am," replied the Dunmer.

"Phinis, I assign you as her main tutor for the time being. No need to put more people in the know. Brelyna, your notes…"

"They are organized enough to be used as a rough report, Ma'am. I can give you the final version tomorrow."

"Very good."

"Wow…" said Buffy as she took in the view.

She was standing on the exterior wall of the College, safely draped in a fur cloak to make up for the fierce north wind. The College was a big castle built on a rocky headland with cliffs maybe a hundred feet tall. On top of it stood a series of buildings that looked, from above, like a series of interlocked rings and discs. Northeast, facing the sea, was the main keep they had just exited, with the Arch-Mage and Master Wizard suites, a huge library and, from what Mirabelle had told her when going to her office, a kind of Aula Magna called the Hall of the Elements.

The exterior wall she was standing upon was actually the top of the College's central building, a thirty foot tall ring. From what she knew, the infirmary was there, as well as the classrooms and laboratories. Finally, she could see two other towers west and south. One of those was probably the 'Hall of Attainment' Brelyna was leading her to.

She looked around to see what was surrounding the College. Sea-side, the landscape was a maze of small, snowy islands and she could guess ruins on some of them. She frowned and turned around to look at the land side. A village… no she had to stop thinking as if she was still in California. She made a quick estimation of the number of houses and thought about big families. Probably over one thousand inhabitants and that made it a town by medieval standards. The town was nested against a mountain and she found the view to be a very Kodak moment, with all the snow-covered roofs and the tiny trails of smoke coming out of the chimneys. However… some things were just wrong. The first one was that the city walls were big… too big for a town of this size. As her gaze reached the cliff, she started to understand why. There were jumbled ruins at the bottom of the cliffs, particularly in the kind of small canyon separating the College from the town.

"What happened?" she asked, facing Brelyna.

"The Great Collapse, some eighty years ago. Winterhold was then a city rivaling Solitude, Skyrim's capital city. The actual causes are unknown."

"Earthquakes are frequent in the area?"

"Around here? Nothing worth noting down, at least not for someone born and bred in Tel Uvirith."

"Your home city?"

"Yes. It started as a tiny settlement but…"

"I sense a story there."

"Too long for being told in full while standing in the cold," she said while inviting Buffy to follow her on the wall's walkway. "To be very short, two hundred years ago, a big volcano called Red Mountain had a major eruption. It was a catastrophe for Morrowind and it didn't help when Black Marsh took advantage of the chaos to attack us. Tel Uvirith, despite being near the volcano, had been protected by the Nerevarine's magic. My people flocked to her and she led a coalition that stopped the invaders."

Buffy had a little smile. She was still learning to decipher elven facial expressions of course but she was pretty sure of what she had seen in the Dunmer girl's face when she had said 'Nerevarine'. It was the kind of admiration one in her home country had for people like Lincoln, probably amplified because Buffy was pretty sure the Dunmer girl knew this Nerevarine personally. A part of her wanted to ask more but she didn't want to hurt the girl by delving into personal questions given how complicated Brelyna's relationships with her family seemed to be.

"I suppose the College was protected by magic too?" she asked, coming back to the initial topic.

"Yes and this was actually a problem. The townspeople… some think an experiment here went wrong and caused the Collapse."

"Could they be right?"

"Impossible to say for sure but I don't think so. What's sure is that the College used to be fully inside the city."

Buffy had a look at the stone bridge leading to the town. There were a few problems with it though, like the lack of pillars to support the structure.

"Shouldn't they repair it? I mean, I can understand the lack of pillars if magic is supporting it but the rails are gone in many places too."

"There have been talks about it but… I think the Arch-Mage prefers to leave it like that for the moment."

Buffy had a little frown. She had yet to meet the Arch-Mage but she could already feel that his decisions were causing some tensions in the College, like allowing that Ancano guy here.

"Here is the Hall of Attainment," said Brelyna as they reached the upper entrance of the west tower. "We girls bunk here and the boys are over there in the Hall of Countenance," she added, pointing the south tower.

"And the teachers?"

"They have their quarters in the upper floor of the main ring."

"Is the girls' dorm off-limits to boys?" she asked, remembering some of the rules at the one she had resided in for a while.

"Great Azura, no! I mean… we're all adults and it's not a monastery. Also, we are wizards. We like to… experiment," she finished with an impish grin. "Joke apart, the boys know better than to take liberties with us. Physical strength does not matter much here. Other than that, all the teachers ask on the matter is to be discreet and to take potions against pregnancy. There are not that many of us anyway. With you… we're twenty-three in total at the moment, fourteen girls and nine boys."

"Only twenty-three?" asked Buffy with round eyes, once again looking at the huge buildings around her, probably designed to house and trains ten times as many students.

"I know… It's not much and the College feels empty at times."

"Hem… it might be a silly question but how does the College finance itself? With so few students, I doubt…"

"Enchanting and alchemy services make up most of the revenue. Professor Turrianus is the person to go to if you want more detail about it."

They entered the tower and went down the stairs. Buffy kept the fur cloak on her shoulders. The inside was only a little less cold than the outside and she was betting that people were used to gathering in rooms with fireplaces. Her theory was quickly confirmed as they entered the common room that hosted several small groups of women of various ages busily studying on one matter or the other. All were wearing the College uniform but the colors were varied. She remembered that it had something to do with the fact the uniform was magical.

Buffy listened as well as she could as Brelyna presented her to the students and told them that she only knew Daedric at this point. She studied the apprentices' reactions when Brelyna reached the 'from another world' part. It was mostly interest, though some had a hint of fear in their eyes. All in all, it wasn't too bad, she decided. The Dunmer then led her to a table where a human girl whose type would have likely been considered Afro-American in Sunnydale, dressed in red college robes was talking with another clad in deep blue robes. This one was more exotic. A lot more.

"Buffy, please meet my friends Yisra and Ilas-Tei," said Brelyna.

Buffy waved hello while Brelyna said something to the other girls in Latin that she didn't care to translate. She was too fascinated by Ilas-Tei. Sure, she had met some demons that had reptilian traits but this was different. Compared to some of those demons, she was even rather tame, humanoid except for the tail she could see pointing from under the heavy robes. The differences between Ilas-Tei and those demons lay elsewhere. The first she had noticed was that the green and black scales of the girl's head – whose shape reminded her of a tyrannosaur's – were all shiny. Buffy was actually betting that Ilas-Tei was using cosmetics developed for her species. The second was the way Brelyna had not even thought about warning her about one of the girls being non-human or non-elven. Dinosaur people, as Buffy was calling them in her head, were therefore a normal part of Tamriel's society.

"Sorry, Brelyna says you only Daedric. Only few words. Conjuration not me good," said Ilas-Tei in a strange, raspy voice as she rose from her chair.

Buffy concentrated, trying to remember everything she knew about Latin. Deciphering a written text when you had time to take notes and check the thesaurus was quite different from trying to talk.

"Same Imperial for me," she replied slowly, hoping her 'Giles' Latin would be understandable. "Was… question your people."

"We call ourselves Saxhleel," replied Ilas-Tei slowly in Latin, "but the Imperials call us Argonians. Welcome to the College."

She extended a scaly hand with short claws and Buffy shook it. It was warm, maybe a little colder than a human's but definitely still warm-blooded.

"Thank you."

Buffy looked at the pile of books on her room's desk and smiled. Sure, there was a little part of herself that wanted to sigh at the amount of work she had to do before she could pass her introductory exams in a little over a month but she ignored it. She turned to face the roll of paper on which she had drawn a calendar. Her tests were on the 28th of Sun's Dawn, the second month of the Tamrielic year.

She was smiling because in the month since her arrival, she had been what she could never be, both in Sunnydale High and at the UC Sunnydale. Here, she was an almost normal student. Sure, the classes were not what she would have taken as electives back in California but it didn't matter. What mattered was the routine life, her interactions with the friends she had made on this world: Brelyna, Yisra and Ilas-Tei.

That and the fact I don't have to worry about the next apocalypse, just about passing my exams.

She had progressed well on some matters, less so in others. Imperial Latin was down. Once she had gotten used to the accent, it had just been a matter of learning the local expressions and vocabulary, some of which had been influenced by an old elven language. It was still slightly more complicated than switching between American and the Queen's English, but she could handle a conversation without mangling too many things.

Nordic was more complicated. As Buffy had supposed with the whole Viking theme in the local architecture, Nordic was just another name for Old Norse, though again there were influences from another non-human language, this time the one of the long-gone dragons. Still, she would be able to manage in the matters of asking for directions, ordering mead at an inn and other basic things, maybe a little more if she had some time to prepare her sentences in her head.

Thankfully, most people in Skyrim speak Imperial and there is French…

She giggled softly. It had come after she realized that some of the people here, like Mirabelle or Colette, had French-sounding names. She had then learnt that they were from a people called the Bretons and yes, they had their own language, one that sounded like old-fashioned French. Normally, that wouldn't have helped her much… if not for a certain Halloween night.

After three years of thinking of that night with dread and remembering the noblewoman I became because of Ethan's costumes as 'Lady Useless'… but now… now the memories she left me are not so useless anymore. It's not only the language… I bet that in this world all those lessons on etiquette she had will become very useful if I have to deal with nobles. Also, it means I can fake being a Breton if needed as they tend to be pint-sized too.

Her smile soured as her thoughts drifted back to Sunnydale. She hoped that they were all right as her chances of ever going back to Earth were slim at best. It was not only the difficulty of traveling through the Oblivion planes. The problem was that she was pretty sure that Molag Bal would sabotage any attempt in that direction. He had said to her that she was free 'up to a point' and to 'make a life for herself on this world'. To Buffy, the implications were clear.

"To use Xander-speak, I'm just as stuck as the Surfer after he rebelled against Galactus."

"Hi, Buffy," said a voice from her room's entrance.

"Hi, Yisra… what's the what?" she asked, finding back her smile. Making some equivalents of her Cali-speak in Latin had become a fun pastime of hers lately.

"Some of us are going in town to spend the evening at the Frozen Hearth. Talsgar the Wanderer is in town."

"Who?"

"Right… sometimes I forget you still don't know the important things. Talsgar is one of the best bards in Skyrim."

Buffy looked at her books and then thought about her schedule. She was on schedule and she needed a break anyway.

"I'm in," she said while going to her wardrobe to fetch her cloak and gloves.

She walked with Yisra, who had started to talk about her project to improve flame cloak spells and create a long duration, low intensity variant whose purpose was to protect the caster against the harshest blizzards. Buffy was mostly listening to the Redguard girl, still lacking the magical theory to help her new friend much. Still, she had discovered that she was often able to make interesting observations thanks to her combat experience.

While the College didn't exactly have a good relationship with the town of Winterhold in general, the Frozen Hearth was an exception. Situated near the bridge leading to the College, it was a frequent hangout for the apprentices and the two innkeepers, Dagur and Haran, were always welcoming them. Their little girl, Elrid, also often came to ask questions about magic.

Tonight though, the inn had welcomed a lot more than the usual crowd and Buffy and the others had only barely managed to find somewhere to sit and listen to the bard. She could see Dagur looking quite happy at how full his inn was. As for herself, she had to admit that the evening was pleasant. Talsgar had – in her probably biased opinion – a little something of Viggo Mortensen playing Aragorn. It was the voice she decided. His voice reminded her of the few scenes of the Lords of the Rings where Aragorn sang. She had since long stopped concentrating to translate the text in her head, just letting herself be moved by his deep voice and the masterful strokes of his harp.

Tara would love this… she thought with a little alcohol-helped melancholia.

She clapped cheerfully as the bard finished his performance and left some of her allowance in the hat that passed around the audience.

"I will get some more beers," said Brelyna. "Who wants one?"

Buffy raised her hand. Her tolerance for alcohol had grown since her arrival, in good part thanks to the lack of other things to drink. She started to discuss the show with Yisra, Ilas-Tei having preferred to stay at the dorm to work on her Calm spells. Suddenly, her gaze was attracted by Brelyna at the bar. She was trying to fend off the attentions of a big Nord man in leather armor. Buffy got up and approached, catching a few words over the inn's noise that sounded like 'Grayskin' and 'sluts'. She recognized the first as a common slur used by the Nords against the Dunmer and Brelyna had told her that female Dunmer teens had a reputation for being rather wild thanks to an unauthorized biography of the queen Barenziah.

"I'm normally not one to get into brawls but it looks like you need to be taught some manners," said Buffy taking the man's arm.

"Do your worst, wizard," replied Bjorn, turning to face her. "I can endure your sorcery."

She looked at Dagur who was mouthing silently 'outside'.

"Let's go outside," she said. "Unless a big Nord like you is afraid to face a tiny Breton waif?"

She saw Dagur's nod of relief and fought the smile that was appearing on her lips as Bjorn followed her. She knew that even with her basic knowledge of spells, there were many things she could do to neutralize him using magic. But she also knew that it wouldn't help the College's reputation. No, she needed to do things in a way Nords would respect.

She walked straight to the city guard standing on the other side of the street, remembering some cultural differences she had discussed with the Nord apprentices. Those were currently influenced by the rather difficult political climate in Skyrim. A lot of Nords resented the White-Gold Concordat and particularly the part that forbade them from worshiping Talos. From what she had understood, Talos, aka Tiber Septim or Ysmir, had been a Nord general who founded the Empire some six hundred years ago and became a god in a way similar to the old Roman Emperors on Earth. The Thalmors – who she had discovered to be elven supremacists – could not tolerate that and had obtained the outlawing of Talos worship as part of the peace treaty. A rebel faction called the Stormcloaks was disagreeing violently and wanted Skyrim to leave the Empire. They had quite a few supporters in Winterhold and it meant that ancient Nord customs sometimes took precedence over Imperial law.

"Hem," she said concentrating to speak Nordic as clearly as she could. "This man insulted my friend's honor and I intend to teach him manners. Without magic. Is that fine?"

The guard looked at her, probably noticing her size and comparing it to the one of her adversary. Finally, he shrugged. A fair fight between two willing participants was a time-honored tradition around here.

"As long as you accept the outcome if he beats you and don't damage people's property, this is fine."

"Thank you," she replied with a smile.

Back on the patio of the inn, Brelyna was worried about her friend. This man was twice as big as her and she wondered if she could do something discreetly. Her fingers had started to move when she felt a hand on her arm. It was a little girl, maybe a Breton, she remembered seeing in the audience.

"Your friend wouldn't like it and look at them! This is going to be so fun!"

Brelyna frowned, wondering what was happening when she saw the man rush to try to grab Buffy, hoping to use his greater mass and strength against her. Except she wasn't there anymore.

"Tag, you're it," said Buffy while she tapped Bjorn's shoulder, having flowed behind him in a supremely elegant movement.

Bjorn tried for a punch that the Slayer deflected easily with her left hand while the right struck right in the man's chest. He staggered a little, soon finding back his breath while the girl from another world stood nonchalantly.

Brelyna heard the little girl standing next to her giggle softly.

"She's so pretty," said the girl in the Dunmer tongue. "So innocent-looking and yet…"

Bjorn roared and lunged toward her friend while Buffy… it was effortless, as if she was using the man's strength against him, letting his mad charge transform into an uncontrolled fall that made him end with his mouth full of snow.

"Calmed?" asked Buffy. "Seems not," she said as she saw him rise again and take a dagger out of its sheath.

She let him charge again and Brelyna was expecting her to make another projection. Not this time. Buffy's moves became almost a blur and the Dunmer counted six strikes in less than ten seconds, using both hands and feet. Bjorn collapsed, nursing his arm while Buffy caught the dagger on the fly and started to make it flip expertly around her hand.

"Nice balance. You see," she said, "your mistake was not to ask me what I was doing before becoming a wizard. So…"

Bjorn was looking at her. The mouthful of snow he had swallowed had removed any trace of drunkenness from his head. He was a caravan guard and he had seen how her strikes had been so precise they had ignored his armor. He was strong and honestly skilled. She was smaller than him but her skill…

"I admit my defeat," he said. "I lost due to my own fault, because I underestimated my opponent."

"And…"

"I take back the words I said about your friend."

"Good enough," she said while handing him back his dagger.

Near Brelyna, the strange kid nodded.

"That was fun… say hello to your friend for me, I still have my chores to do before going to bed," said the little girl.

"I don't even know your name…"

"You can call me Babette. A pity I don't have time to stay, I would have liked to meet your friend. Maybe next time! I hope we'll be friends!"

The little girl waved goodbye and quickly slipped into the maze of narrow streets of the town. If Brelyna had looked better, she would have seen that the kid was tailing someone from the inn's patrons, a merchant who was rumored to have ruined several people with shady deals. Neither did she make any connection when, the day after, the merchant was found dead… and too little blood found around given his wounds.