With Dawnguard coming out for DLC and since I'm stuck in Military School without my ps3, I have no idea what will go on in the new DLC, aside from what I can find out on Wikipedia and such. If anyone is playing it, please give me plot info details because the School wi-fi disables the site.
I've taken the most recent constructive critisism into effect and as of now, I'm going to experiment lessening the internal monolouge and increase the dialouge. Thanks for the advice, Reality and Fictionand Laconeko. But I do believe it's too late to change things already set in motion, but I will take advice into account for both this story and Conduit of Zero. Please comment on the change in writing.
*SPOILER ALERT*
For those who will be worried that the Guchie fight will be altered because of Dov's appearance, don't wory! THey're all going to assume he's a mercenary or stage hand hired to be Louise's familiar, with the exception of Colbert (who is the only one in the academy who believes in the Daedra)...yes, yes, they're all idiots, aren't they?
As for the concern about Odahviing being called in this world...let's just say that I have something GLORIOUS! planned for that.
I LOVE...LOVE! fanfiction dot net! It feels so GLORIOUS upon my eyes!
DISCLAIMER!I do not own the Elder Scrolls franchise, nor do I own the Zero no Tsukaima one. They are owned, respectfully by Bethesda Studios and Yamaguchi Noboru.
Chapter Three
Call of Valor: The Third Response
My head still smarted from the strange magic that had knocked me off of my feet and despite the ringing that I had in my ears, my armor and body still seemed to be in one piece. Good.
The poor dragon that I was currently patting had smelled the blood on my armor and had "flown" into a panic. Normally, the Dragon Tounge was only used for the airborne reptiles of Skyrim, but I had hoped that with my talks with Odahviing and lessons with Paarthurnax in the high mountains of High Hrothgar, my skill in the Dragon language was sufficient enough to calm down a rampaging and scared dragon.
The language barrier was no issue, suprisingly enough. The Archmagus of Winterhold within me assumed that the dragons in this world had a common ancestor with those of Skyrim, allowing me to be able to have a dialouge with her. Though I am sure she had only a remote idea what I had said, she still instinctively managed to understand what I said:
Not an enemy...Only to those who are evil...Your soul is as pure as fresh snowfall in a winter night...I am your friend...
Digressing from that, the view that greeted me when I took off my helmet was shocking to say the least. In the lands of Skyrim, no field of open grass should be this level. And there were always myriad pieces of rock and debris of a campfire lying around. But what got me was the eunormous stone castle with four towers stretching higher into the sky than the tallest peak of Ulfric Stormcloak's castle. Now mind you, I only visited his city to investigate the murder. I still was undecided about the civil war.
Aside from the castle, there was one more thing that I found odd, little far from disturbing, about my current location. There was a group of young boys and girls, barely near the age of reason, dressed in the most revealing clothes I've seen since...ever. But beside each child, an animal either was growling at me or hiding behind the legs of their apparent owner. There were some animals that I could recognize: a cat, a dog, a fro- was that a floating eyeball?
There was but one thing I could discern from this madness: I was in no land in Skyrim that I could recognize.
Removing my hand from the blue dragon's face, much to her protest, I turned my vision to the person that had blasted me with the strange magic that had warpped the air around me. Calmly walking up to the girl, the only girl without an animal beside her legs, I noted, I knelt down and met her gaze that had constantly been following my path.
"Little girl," I said, attempting my most...disciplinary voice as possible, "Magic is a dangerous skill. Only when you have the most noble intention of killing someone should you use a magic as powerful as that."
Initial response to my attempt to communicate? A string of words in a foreign language, small hands grasping the side of my face, and a kiss. A kiss from a girl, who had the hair color of an unusual hue, looked only a little shorter than the squatting Falmar and looked as mature as a villiage child.
Slightly recoiling, I was about to deliver a prompt retort before I felt magica building up inside of me. A boiling sensation concentrated itself on my left hand and I yanked my gauntlet off to see what was happening. I briefly gritted my teeth as I saw, to my horrific curiosity, magical runes searing themselves into my skin before flaring brightly, then fading away, leaving naught but lines, twisting and spelling out characters of a foreign magic.
With a tingling sensation in my hand, I experimentally flexed it, causing the joints to crack and startle the pink haired girl out of her shocked state. The balding magus, once seeing that I was a human, albeit a well armed human, approached me cautiously, though he had ceased his magica output on his fiery staff.
"Well, Miss Vallière," he cautiously said, and I snapped my head upwards at the sound of my home tounge. "It seems that despite your...unusual summoning, you have successfully contracted a familiar on your first try."
"B-but, professor!" the girl, Vallière, stammered. "I have never heard of summoning a human as a familiar!"
A sinking feeling made itself present in my chest as I began to connect metaphorical dots with the words coming out of the strangers' mouths.
"Nevertheless, you are sacredly bound to have him as your duitiful familiar. It would be sacrilige to otherwise assume so."
I realized that I was about to enter into another mad adventure, being dropped onto a path by forces beyond mortal comprehension and understanding' a mere piece in a game about to unfold upon this strange land I was in.
"Now listen here, sir," the mage said, addressing me with a caustic tone. "I don't know what your intentions are and neither do I know how you have Daedric weaponry and armor on your person. But, I will let these slide, for you are now the familiar of Louise Vallière. If you harm her in any way, shape or form, I will show you what will happen when the saftey of my students are threatened."
In summation: the Divines were screwing with my destiny. AGAIN...Dammit.
"Um...sir?"
Dammit.
DOVAHKIIN DOVAHKIIN DOVAHKIIN DOVAHKIIN DOVAHKIIN DOVAHKIIN DOVAHKIIN DOVAHKIIN DOVAHKIIN
Many hours later after my arrival in this land, my "master" began to initiate an interrogation within the walls of her bedroom. She seemed in a bad mood when she marched up to the one place she could call a sanctuary from outside interference. Especially when said interference was the contempt and mockery of her peers, except for a blue haired girl who kept her unnerving gaze at me.
The other students had mocked her, calling her a fraud for "hiring a mercenary commoner to act as her familiar". Although, it was also said that the "commoner mercenary" must have had experience with dragons (snide comments were heard about stable duty and cleaning up filth, but those were immediately shut up as I sent them a glare that could kill) as he was able to calm down Tabitha's Wind Dragon when she had a "leave of her senses".
Of course, the interogation was delayed even further when, after the students flew away back to the castle, the balding mage introduced himself as Colbert and told me to show him my hand. I had no intention of angering him, for after a brief Aura Whisper, I saw an immense power inside of him, writhing and coiling inside of his body, repressed by a strong layer of emotion.
"Familiar! Are you listening to me at all?"
I repressed the urge to sigh and diverted my thoughts to the girl sitting on her bed, gazing me with an irate look.
"Terribly sorry, Miss," I said, trying my hardest to keep the sarcasm in my voice. "My mind was elsewhere."
Drawing herself haughtily, she exclaimed, "Familiars must always keep their undivided attention to their masters, and they must also address their masters by their title of authority!"
Staying my hand (for the time being), I replied, "You were saying, master?"
"What is your name?" she asked simply, but the words she said had a profound impact on my mind.
I could not remember my name. I could not even remember anything before my capture at the hands of Imperials at the border of Skyrim. Ralof said I had been bludgeoned behind the head when he saw me stumble out of the woods, and that probably contracted a severe memory loss.
At Hadvar's inquiery as to who I was, I simply told him that I had lost my memory in the ambush. That female bitch of a captain designated me as a "renegade", so I was subsequently labled as "Renegade" on the Imperial lists. Even though I was Imperial myself, I often joined in on the Nordic jokes about Imperials and "their damned lists".
But after discovering my destiny as the Dragonborn, I created an alias for myself, using the Dragon Tounge and my birthright of destiny.
"My name," I carefully said, "Is Dove Ahkiin, Master." I took tare to accent the "e" at the end of my first "name", hoping that no one would discover my dragon heritage.
"As you are my familiar," she proclaimed haughtily, ignoring my name, "You must obey each and all of my commands! Failure to do so will result in punishment appropriate to the gravity of the offense."
I shoved the imaginary laughter of Cicero out of my head. Hard. I gritted out, "Very well. What tasks would you have me do, master?"
My prayers that I would have a task to fight something (to blow off steam) were denyed as my master began to disrobe herself in front of me. "You may clean these!" she said as she threw a white shirt, landing onto my face. As more objects of clothing were thrown my way, I was thankful to the Divines for shielding me from the sight of a girl (who claimed to be of sixteen years of age) with the body of a twelve year old, undress in front of me.
Removing the shirt from my eyes when a long period of seconds elapsed since a cease fire was made, the girl was in the process of slipping on a night gown muttering to herself. "I can't believe that I got a commoner as a familiar! Why such a simple looking thing? I wanted a griffin, or a dragon, or something powerful and majestic like that. Why a commoner?" she bemoaned, dismissing me as both a male and that of the human race. Well, I was Imperial of the human race, to be acurate, but...really?
"You know," I commented to her dryly, "In my homeland after one person introduces themselves, typically the other person does as well, Master." I mean, it was common curtosy, although I had a mental instinct when it came to names. I would always know the name of the person I was talking to, despite having never met them in my life! Must be a perk as the Dragonborn and it didn't work here.
"I am Louise Francoise Lu Blanc de La Valliere, a noble, and I won't be addressed in such a tone by a commoner," the newly introduced Louise said in a huff. "Now, take those and the rest of the laundry and get to work. If you come back before they're clean you'll be forced to sleep outside for the night."
"From your actions I can tell that you are...enraged at the prospect of having a human familiar," I responded, in the same tone of voice as earlier despite her chastisement. "I take it from your statements that human summons are unusual in whatever ritual it was you performed that brought me here?"
"Why are you presuming to talk to me when I have already given you an order, familiar?" Louise demanded of me, her hands on her hips and nose in the air once more, despite her sitting position on her bed. "It is your duty as a familiar to obey! Now hurry up, or there will be no food for a week for you!"
I chuckled despite myself. "Very well, Master. Is there anymore that require washing?" The apparent amusement that her orders drew from me seemed to irritate her, but she simply waved a hand towards a corner with a small laundry basket. "Will you be going to sleep while I take of these?"
"Yes," she said, noticing my familiar way of speaking to her and not seeming to like it but choosing not to comment on it. "I shall expect you to have my outfit prepared for me in the morning."
"At what time should I wake you?" I asked her, gathering together her discarded clothes.
She took a second to consider this before finally settling on an appropriate time, "Dawn. Wake me at dawn, familiar."
"When this task is completed, is it acceptable that I familiarize myself with the castle?" I paused at the doorway, waiting for a response.
When it came to directions, I was as knowledgable with the land around me as Aela with the beer stock in the basement. But despite my intuition, I had to visit the area at least once in order to have it imprinted permanently into my mind, ere I be as lost as a Blade in a floral market (Delphine hated flowers, dismissing them as "useless, girly...THINGS!")
"Hmm. It will be helpful if you know the way around if I have any errands for you. Very well," she deigned to respond to me as she crawled into her bed and settled herself beneath the blankets.
"And one more thing before you sleep, Master," I continued. "Where is it I shall be sleeping?"
Despite the rumors that had circulated around Skyrim about my boundless strength that required no sleep, I was still a mortal. I could get tired and stamina potions were only a temporary regain in energy. Besides, I would always feel refreshed after a good sleep. My killing rate always would increase with such activities. That was why I cured myself of Lycanthropy and that Aela and Farkas would never benefit from the perks of a good night sleep.
Without another word she waved her hand to a spot against the wall a few feet from the bed that was covered in straw. I couldn't contain the growl the whole situation had been drawing from me, and my mental rage fummed through my mind as I shut the door behind me, cursing Sheograth and wondering what on earth I did to make him hate me.
Ok! Here's where I'm going to cut off for now.
Sorry for not answering any questions now, but I have to go to sleep because of military curfew.
I've based this dialouge sequence off of the similar scene from The Hill of Swords in order to "add more dialouge". But seriously, who doesn't draw inspiration from this work of art?
Please review!
