Chapter two: Introductions and Deductions
Colbert rose to his feet, brushed the dirt off of his robes and directed his attention towards the gigantic man in the black, red-glowing armour. It seemed no one dared to answer his question, so as professor employed by the Tristain Magical Academy it fell to him to do so. He strode forward to the man, until standing just a few meters in front of him, carefully positioning himself between the unconscious form that was Miss Vallière and the man. You could never be too careful, after all. Then, he spoke.
"You are at the Magical Academy of Tristain, and you were summoned here by the student behind me, who was looking for a familiar."
The man mumbled under his breath, and Colbert caught something about "conjurers always trying ridiculous things", and then he spoke.
"What's a familiar, and why do I suddenly qualify under that title? Also, where is this academy located?"
Colbert felt slightly irritated, even commoners were supposed to know enough about nobles to serve them usefully; this included the basic knowledge about familiars. Then he suddenly realized something: the man did not know where Tristain was located. He might be from a distant land where magic didn't exist for all Colbert knew.
"A familiar is a being, usually an animal, summoned by a mage as a magical partner and guardian. Regarding the other question, I assume you know of Tristain?"
The man cupped his chin into a massive hand, thought for a short time and spoke again.
"I have never heard of Tristain, nor of a practice of summoning permanent familiars not from the oblivion planes. Even so, is it normal for a human to be summoned?"
"No", Colbert replied, "Not at all. In fact, I have not heard of any human familiars being summoned for millennia, at least."
Colbert noted that most of the students seemed to skitter towards the main academy tower, whilst keeping several dozen watchful eyes towards the summoned man. Good, he thought, that will get them out of the way if anything more happens.
The summoned man thought for a moment, then asked a new question.
"What will happen to the girl if I were to, say, travel home? Also, speaking of home, have you ever heard of Skyrim?"
Colbert pondered what he should say, for this was after all a very peculiar case, but he gave the standard answer.
"Miss Vallière would likely be expelled from the academy, as she then would have no way to prove her magical prowess. She has had a history of failure, the poor thing, so she will probably be married off to some noble to secure her family's status. As for the place you call home, I have never heard of Skyrim, and I take great pride in being knowledgeable."
The Dragonborn once again cupped his chin, and thought. Despite what his rather large size seemed to suggest, he was very intelligent, and he now used that same intellect to assess the situation. He had been summoned somewhere far away, likely to another continent, at the very least. The scenery around him, green pastures and leafy forests, did not match any description of Atmora, Akavir or any of the other continents on Nirn, implying he was either on a new, unknown continent or, more likely, on a different planet altogether. That meant several things.
Firstly, the girl who had summoned him, now lying unconscious behind the bald mage, had a frightening amount of power. To actually teleport a living, non-daedric being from one planet to another, without seriously harming or modifying the being… As a quite competent mage, though not specialized in Conjuration, he realized that it would take an immense amount of magical power, likely more than any reported mage in tamrielic history to pull off this feat. The intellectual part of him didn't want to condemn her to a life of forced marriage when she showed that much potential.
Secondly, this new planet was likely home to entirely new creatures to fight and new weapons to master, something the Dragonborn had been lacking for nearly a decade after finishing off the World Eater, killing the first Dragonborn, Miraak, reducing the Volkihar vampires to piles of ash (except for Serana, of course), quelling the Stormcloak rebellion, restoring the Empire to its former glory and destroying the Thalmor. The warrior part of him nearly salivated over the prospect of a new adventure, one which didn't start out with him nearly being decapitated in a small town.
Thirdly, he looked upon the girl and saw her weak shape, now stirring. Powerful or not, she was a child, and he took care of the little ones. He had never adopted one, as he thought his life too unsure for a child, but he had funded several orphanages early on in his career and had continued to do so as he went. Several of the children actually tracked him down once they reached adulthood, asking for training to become adventurers themselves. The protector part of him felt compelled to lift his shield in defence to the little one, and that settled it.
He was staying here, at least for a time. Between the Imperial Army, the Dawnguard, the reformed Blades, his small army of housecarls, the dragons who acknowledged him as their overlord and his old friend Brynjolf, now leader of the Thieves Guild, the Empire was going be fine. Thus, he could leave Nirn, at least for a time.
After this decision, looking around him and seeing that most of the other students had retreated into the academy, the Dragonborn redirected his attention towards the mage in front of him who was currently trying and failing to pour the contents of a small bottle, likely a lesser healing potion, down his summoner's throat.
"I have decided to stay in this world, at least for a time." He released his tense shoulders somewhat and crouched beside the bald mage. "That takes too much time, let's use magic instead."
The mage paused his efforts to pour the potion down Miss Valliére's throat, but only long enough to say "Yes, I know, but I am sadly not very skilled with healing magics, leaving us no real option."
The Dragonborn flexed his right hand, causing an amber orb to appear, hovering above his palm. "Don't worry, Iam skilled with the art of Restoration." He extended his arm towards the girl and the amber glow extended to surround her body, restoring her stamina as well as healing the many bruises she got from the summoning explosion.
Colbert was shocked, his mind moved quick as lightning. This man was a noble?! No, his brain reminded him, this man was from an unknown land, it was very likely that nobility had little to do with magic there. If he was a noble, surely he would have introduced himself by now, or at the very least told them his title and runic name. Also, seeing as the summoned man didn't chant anything and used no wand, this left three possibilities.
One, he could be using the simplified and concentration-controlled art of Battle magic, so named because it was often used in battle where time for incantations were short. However, to heal with battle magic would require extreme concentration on every single wound, requiring sight of all wounds at the very least, meaning that was not a possibility.
Two, he could be using magic in another way, like how the elves were said to ask spirits for aid in battle. However the man was decidedly not an elf, and humans couldn't communicate with spirits in this way, meaning this was not the correct answer either and leaving only one possibility.
The man was using a whole other system of magic, one not requiring chanting or wandplay. This hit Colbert as lightning would a lone tree in the middle of a flat field. The man might as well be from outer space, this sort of thing had never been documented in Halkeginia. Ever.
Some would claim the man was a heathen, not using the magic system of Willpower established by the Founder. Others would keep the man in a cell, studying his every move to find his secrets out.
Colbert did neither of these, but made a mental note the size of a carpet to study the man and his strange magics further at a later date. For now, the man was standing up and Miss Vallière was returning to the land of the awake.
Sitting up and rubbing her eyes, the girl suddenly froze when she saw the imposing sight of the gigantic warrior. "W-who are you?"
The Dragonborn furrowed his brow. "You should know, girl, you were the one who summoned me here. I have many names, and more titles, but you may call me Ysmir."
Colbert intervened before the girl realized that her summon had mentioned having titles, feeling it was best to let him break the news later, in a more private location.
"Now Louise, it is time to bind your familiar, is it not?"
The girl stood up, a bit groggily but still, and almost without thinking chanted the necessary words, pulled Ysmir down to her level and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. He remained almost indifferent, but took off his left gauntlet and studied the runes being inscribed there. Colbert noticed the runes looking strange, but chalked it up to them too being affected by this man's strange magic.
However, the girl, too felt a sharp, burning sensation on the back of her left hand. The symbol formed was that of a dragon.
"Ah," Ysmir exclaimed, "It seems I get to mark you too! That there is the imperial seal, long standing symbol of the power of the dragonborn. Also, the banner under which I fight."
Louise responded by promptly passing out, luckily getting caught by Ysmir before she hit the ground. After asking Colbert for directions, he lifted the girl into his arms, as one would a very small child, and went about finding her room.
Once he had entered the academy, he briefly put his summoner down on a bench and retrieved from a small pocket on the outside of his backpack his compass; another object heavily enchanted by the enchanting professor at the college of Winterhold. As long as he had rudimentary directions to a location he wished to go to, the compass would show him the way and, to a lesser extent, the distance. Picking up the girl with one hand and holding his compass in the other, Ysmir followed the tool as it directed him to a room he presumed was the one the good professor had pointed out as the room where his summoner normally resided. Entering, he closed the door behind him and put the girl down on the bed. He caught himself trying to approximate the age of the girl, but even he had to admit that thirteen was much too young to have such great power to summon someone such as himself, from another universe no less!
His own powers hadn't awakened until he, only aged twenty winters, had killed his first dragon, Mirmulnir, and absorbed its soul. Then, and only then, had he been able to use the first Thu'um he had ever learnt, Unrelenting Force. It turned out later that absorbing massive amounts of draconic power had other effects too, such as making him age extremely slowly, lose the need to eat and acquire a lesser resistance to magic, all similar to the traits dragon kind possessed. The reduced aging in particular had been extremely helpful in his adventures, as he would be nearly eighty winters old had he lived as a mortal. As so often happened nowadays, he unknowingly sat down in a chair and drifted off into old memories.
He awoke after nearly an hour of reminiscing over past adventures, particularly the day nearly thirty winters ago when Lydia had resigned as his housecarl, feeling herself too old to be of any use in battle anymore. Instead she united all of his housecarls into an efficient, extremely loyal small army of warriors, rangers and sorcerers, governed by Lydia, the Grandmaster, First of their ranks, who dispatched these warriors all around Tamriel as an extra security measure to protect the innocent and uphold imperial law. Now known as the Knights of the Dov, they were treated with utmost respect by the people and had all the authority of a praefect in the imperial army when it came to calling for Imperial Justice.
Looking out of the window, Ysmir felt he had purpose again, true purpose, for the first time since he defeated the desperate invasion organized by the Thalmor nearly a decade back when they realized the empire was becoming more powerful than it had ever been before. After that he had felt happy, of course, but also bored. Banditry had hit an all-time low, according to the imperial outposts, the Dark Brotherhood had been partly reformed, partly killed off and now worked as a silent taskforce, dealing with corruption and other crimes on the Emperors command, and the Thieves Guild had to inforce a continent-wide set of rules including never killing and, if called for, appearing to help defend the Empire. All in all, the continent was safe.
Even the Psijic monks had reappeared, if only to tell him that they were most impressed with how things had turned out. They still practiced sorcery, mysticism and other kinds of magic on their Isle, and they had promised to warn the Emperor should anything happen in the foreseeable future.
The fact that they hadn't warned old Titus Mede III about the disappearance of the Dragonborn meant that it probably came as a shock for them as well. Still, they would manage. Everything would work, because he had designed it that way. Even if he was ever killed, the Empire would keep on working like a well-oiled dwarven machine.
Rousing himself from his memories once again, Ysmir turned to find a pile of hay on the floor beside the bed. As he had slept on much worse bedding before, the Dragonborn calmly retrieved from his backpack a bear skin and a small bottle of stamina poison, which was the only way he could sleep peacefully. Laying down and drinking the potion, he drifted off to the lands of the sleeping, dreaming of dragons, glowing noisy roots and green explosions.