Skyrim belongs to Bethesda. Any OC in this story is mine, though. :) Enjoy!

Shêza shoved Isben out of her way and dove at the skeleton-like figure behind him. She tore into it with her dagger, wrenching it free when the monster swiped at her with its sword. She hissed and deflected the blow, then tackled the creature to the ground and sliced its corded neck open.

Isben shook where he stood, gripping the wall behind him for support. His heart almost leapt out of his throat when he felt something latch onto him. He turned his head and almost wished that he hadn't. A bony hand, the skin stretched tight, had itself locked around his wrist. Isben shouted, catching Shêza's attention, and her eyes darted over to him struggling to free himself, but she was too preoccupied with two more of the skeleton-like monsters to assist him.

She hissed and, satisfied that Isben wouldn't see, scratched at one of them with her claws while slicing the other one with her dagger.

Isben pried and pulled, but the hand wouldn't release him. His blood went cold as the hand slowly become an arm, a shoulder, then a torso, and finally, when the monster pulled itself out of its shelf—coffin—he was face to face with it.

It wasn't a skeleton, as it had skin, though it was thin and shriveled to wrap tightly around bones and organs. Nor was it a zombie, as there were no signs of decay or rot. And it certainly wasn't a wraith; it lacked the telltale screech. Whatever it was, one thing was for certain: it was angry. No, not angry. Incensed. Complete and utterly incensed at him for disturbing its ancient slumber. It voiced its fury by raging at him with a roar of garbled words that were almost deafening.

He swallowed heavily. His first choice of reaction would be to scream in terror. His second would be to scream right back at it, as he didn't appreciate having his hair blown back from his face and the monster's spittle and dust decorating his forehead.

Divines, these are the least of my problems!

With a shout, Isben used his free elbow and rammed it down on the creature's offending hand. It lost its grip on him, but its hand hardly suffered any damage—not even a bone broke, these things were so hardy!

The skeleton-like being uttered more nonsense in outrage before swiping its hand at him. It slapped him hard on his wounded shoulder, and Isben backed away with a yelp. He quickly reached for his knife, and his fingers jittered against the hilt. The monster lumbered after him, cackling and smiling in delight with having its prey backed up into a wall.

When it was close enough, Isben lunged at it. His aim was terribly off and only nicked the creature's arm. Clumps of blood fell from the wound, and the creature hissed in irritation. Isben ducked around it when it swung a fist at him again. It chased after him, gurgling out more nonsense, but every time it tried to knock Isben off balance, he somehow managed to slip away.

This little game of cat and mouse continued until they were on either side of a pillar. When Isben would try to sneak to the right, it would cut him off. When he'd scurry over to the left, there it would be.

Both monster and half-elf huffed at each other. The monster, having grown impatient, braced its legs and charged at Isben. He gasped and dove to the right, hoping that he'd leapt far enough away.

He hadn't. His ankle caught on the monster's, and Isben fell to the ground. He clenched his teeth when his bad shoulder slammed against the floor and tried to turn on his back to defend himself. But there was no need to. Shêza, with her two opponents slain, tackled the thing to the ground right beside Isben and buried her knife in its skull. It flailed beneath her, one of its elbows slamming into her jaw, but she was relentless, hacking at the base of its neck until its head rolled off of its tight-skinned body.

She panted on top of it and absently wiped the blood from her jaw. The monster's lifeless eyes stared right into Isben's, and he swallowed nervously.

"What in the name of Oblivion are these?" he muttered as Shêza helped him up.

"Draugar," she said. She gave the corpses a disgusted glare. "Very ancient, strong Nordic warriors."

He cleared his throat and rubbed his sore wrist. "Strong, indeed!"

"They're said to have served Dragons." Isben paled at her words, those black eyes staring right at him burning in his mind.

"There... isn't a Dragon in here, is there?" he whispered.

"No," she said immediately. "I would have smelled it." She realized her mistake too late, but if Isben noticed the panic in her eyes, he didn't say anything.

"I suppose the smell of smoke and Dragon-breath would be a dead giveaway," he mused to himself. "I'd prefer this place to flood with an army of slaughterfish than face a Dragon."

"Why? Just to pick their scales and eggs?" she asked with a smirk. He smiled at her, a cute but somehow still annoying little smile, and she rolled her eyes at him. "We should continue. No doubt your screaming woke more of them up."

"Just a moment," he said as he walked over to Arvel's corpse, mindful of the pressure plate. With Arvel pinned to the wall of spikes, it was easy to loot his belongings without any trouble.

"What are you doing?" she spat. She grabbed his wrist, her grip iron-tight, and glared at him murderously. "Maybe it's acceptable for elves to pick off the dead, but here in Skyrim, we have a little respect for those in Sovngarde."

"Which I clearly witnessed just minutes ago." He motioned over to the dead Draugar. "I just want the Golden Claw." He sighed when she seemed even more disgusted with him. "Listen: I'm not one to be seduced by mountains of gold or wealth—I've lived a content, paltry life. My hunch is that this claw—whatever it is—will unlock something. Hopefully a door, as in the door leading to the Dragonstone."

Her grip eventually loosened on his wrist enough for him to pull free to continue rifling through Arvel's knapsack. "And to add a point in my favor," Isben said, "I'm sure the owner of the claw would want it back." He grinned when he found his prize. It was a wondrous piece of work, looking exactly like a Dragon claw. Upon closer inspection, he saw tiny intricate scales etched into the claw.

"This would put several Akaviri artifacts to shame," he breathed out in awe. "If this is as ancient as Bleak Falls Barrow, it's in remarkable condition. Of course, Lucan might have swept it down with an oil cloth, but all the same."

Shêza didn't seem nearly as impressed with it as he was. "Can we go? I don't want to wait around for the Draugar to find us." When he didn't hear her and still rummaged through Arvel's bag, she huffed, snatched the bag from him, and shook all its contents out onto the floor.

He frowned, tutting something about rabies, and picked up a journal amongst Arvel's other mundane belongings. Isben nodded in understanding when he finished reading. "So he did steal it from Lucan. He runs the Riverwood Trader—"

"I know who he is," Shêza said. She took the journal from him and flipped through its few tattered pages. "'When you have the golden claw, the solution is in the palm of your hands.' Rubbish," she snorted.

"Even thieves have a right to creative license." Isben shrugged. "Well, shall we?"

There were more Draugr tombs in the Barrow, and Isben and Shêza developed the semblance of a routine: Shêza, since she had more experience in battle, would leap at them with her dagger and cut the closest one to shreds, while Isben, having more experience running from battle, would distract the other Draugar until Shêza would finish them off.

It was silly, and he still felt like bait, but it worked.

They stopped just in front of a narrow hallway with a set of three axes swinging horizontally across the passage. Isben cleared his throat nervously and shifted on his feet. "I have a bad feeling about this."

She grunted and crouched closer to the axes, studying the rhythm that they swung to and their different paces. After a moment, she nodded. "There is enough time to clear it before they swing back." She stood and flexed her muscles.

He stared incredulously at her, his mouth gaping open. "You can't be serious—what if you don't make it?"

She let out an annoyed tch at his question, and before he could protest more, sprinted through the hallway. He gasped and closed his eyes, waiting for the sound of flesh being punctured by blades. When the axes still cut through the air with quiet hisses, he dared to open his eyes and slowly crept closer to the hallway.

There was Shêza, grinning smugly in victory and unscathed as could be on the other side of the axes. She felt along the wall and smiled again when her fingers brushed against a pull chain. "Lucky for you," she said with her teeth bared, "you won't have to brave the axes." The axes came to a screeching halt when she pulled the chain down. He eyed them still, not trusting whether or not this was another trap. She groaned when he still didn't move.

Carefully, and ignoring her complaints, he edged around the blades, letting out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding only when he was safely by Shêza's side.

"Man-child," she muttered before pressing on, the two of them dealing with the inane Draugar still lurking in the depths of the ruin.

Soon, Bleak Falls Barrow opened up into a cavern, and when Isben took a sudden intake of breath, Shêza had her bow out and arrow nocked in a heartbeat, waiting for another Draugr to rush them. Instead, Isben hurried over to a pillar of rock in the cavern, splashing through a small stream (Shêza cringed at how noisy he was), and started plucking at the pillar.

"What are you doing?" she hissed.

"Glowing mushrooms," he said. "I'm surprised they even grow here. They're excellent reagents for suppressing the effects of a lightning-based attack, you know. My guess is that the natural light they produce has something to do with that. Of course, I'm no expert on glowing mushrooms."

Shêza blinked at him, her nostrils flaring in boredom and irritation. She took him by the arm and dragged him onward. He somehow managed to pry more of the mushrooms off the cavern walls and stuff them into his pack. After he had used an empty vial to scrape bonemeal from the Draugar, she supposed mushrooms were less disgusting.

Still, she didn't want to know what else he kept in his knapsack.

"Did your Ayleid ruins ever have one of these?" Shêza asked as she stared at a wall with three different rotatable wheels in the center of it, each depicting a different animal of Skyrim. In the middle of the wheels was a round plate with three holes, and the plate had the outline of a claw etched into it.

"No," Isben called from the opposite end of the hall. He held his torch closer to the walls, murmuring to himself in utter fascination of the scenes they detailed—as if the walls were tapestries made of stone. "This must be the Hall of Stories Arvel mentioned in his journal. Just what stories are these?"

Shêza groaned and rolled her eyes. "I'm more interested in this wall, which clearly the claw belongs in."

"These are Dragons!" he said excitedly, pointing at the stonework. "Have Dragons always been in Skyrim?"

"If they lived here, there would be more Helgens, wouldn't you think?"

"Of course," he said with a dry chuckle. After a few more moments of trying to discern what tale the Hall of Stories illustrated, Isben joined Shêza. He pulled the claw out of his pack, and she aligned it with the holes in the plate.

"How are we sure if these animals," he pointed at the wheels in the wall, "are aligned correctly?"

"The other walls didn't have any clues?"

"Oh yes," he snorted, "the Dragons burning down cities were very helpful in solving this."

She shook her head and turned the claw over in her hand, raising an eyebrow at the three symbols scrawled into the claw's palm. Wordlessly, she rotated the animals on the wheels until they matched those of the claw—Isben looking over her shoulder to see what she was doing all the while—and placed the claw in its proper place in the plate.

The wall creaked and groaned as the wheels spun. Dirt and dust fell from the wall, as it was not a wall but a door. Eventually, the door lowered itself into the floor, but not without Isben snatching the claw from it first.

"Lucan," he said as a reminder when Shêza looked at him. They moved past the door, Shêza in front, into another cavern. This one was much more narrow and danker than the one with the glowing mushrooms. Also quite dark in here, Isben thought, and he walked a step closer to Shêza.

Every muscle in her body coiled and tensed when her idiot companion put a hand on her shoulder. She bristled at the innocent touch and took in a deep breath, schooling herself into not biting his fingers off.

"Do you hear that?" he said so softly that she had to strain her ears to hear him. They went completely still, their breaths hardly audible as Shêza listened around them.

"No," she said at last.

"It's..." Whatever it was, it was very faint, as if it was an echo of an echo. His brow furrowed, and he cocked his head to the side, staring straight ahead of him. "It's a chant."

"You're imagining things," she grunted. She continued walking, shrugging Isben's hand off of her shoulder.

"No, I'm not." He hurried over and stood in front of her, blocking her way. There was fear in his eyes, and he stared pleadingly at her. "It's a chant, I know it is. Though, judging by the deep sounds, I say it's male. Or maybe just a woman with very bad vocals." He sighed when Shêza brushed past him, and without any other options, he followed at her heels.

The ceiling of the cavern opened up, revealing waterfalls seeping through cracks and cascading into a pool surrounding a small island. The sight was quite beautiful, Isben noted, but what was more fascinating was the slab of rock on the island—rather, the glowing etchings on the rock.

And the closer they moved to the rock, the louder the chants became. They crossed the bridge leading to the island, and Shêza sniffed the air for any danger. She growled at a coffin placed at the head of the island, smelling something very foul, very dark, but very much alive—or undead.

A sudden groan drew her attention away from the coffin toward Isben, who had fallen on his knees. He clutched his head with both hands, pulling his hair free of its holder, and curled into his chest. The chant was booming, both in his head and around the cavern, echoing off of the stone walls. It was surrounding him, choking him, and even when he plugged his ears with his fingers he could still hear it—

Feel it. He could feel it. The words the voice sang—the voice itself, so familiar, so comforting, so frightening that he realized it was his own voice coming from that rock, his own mouth making those horrid words of a forgotten language.

And yet, his mouth was closed. He was not chanting, he was not saying anything, and yet he was.

Shêza cautiously approached him, noticing his quaking shoulders. The elf's finally gone mad. It was bound to happen, I knew it. Stupid man-child. She drew her dagger, wary of any sudden, violent moves, but still uncertain as to what she should do. She couldn't hear a damned thing besides the loud splashes the waterfalls made and his own frantic breathing. Carefully, he brought himself to his feet, shaky as they were, and hobbled over to the rock.

The words were roaring now, blocking out everything else in the world except the glowing markings in the rock and the deafening chanting. His vision was blackening around the corners, and yet he knew his eyes were opened as wide as possible. He told his body no, step back when he realized that the closer he came to the rock, the more his vision darkened.

But his feet would not listen as his voice pulled him closer. When he was pressed against the stone, everything was black, save for those glowing markings. They were bright—too bright, burning through his eyes, burning like the eyes of that Dragon—and when he closed his eyes to block out the light, he could still see them, as if they were branded behind his eyelids. He tried to scream when he felt another pull against his soul, but his voice was drowned out as something—

Something wispy, something like string and smooth as silk yet cold as a blade, forced its way into his mouth and into his throat. He blinked his eyes rapidly, trying to push the darkness away. He tried to close his mouth, but it was pried open, something keeping it open so that the glowing markings could complete their transformation into his body.

He heard Shêza shout something, but couldn't make out her words.

She hissed and whirled around as the coffin's lid came popping off. A terrible smell filled the cavern, and she fought the urge to cover her nose. She growled, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end, and flexed her fingers.

This was no ordinary Draugr, that she could tell. She knew that it was something far more sinister as it pulled itself out of its coffin. Its eyes beneath its spiked helmet gleamed with ice-blue rage, and it snarled at her and brandished its weapon.

She stood her ground, growling louder in warning, the claws of one hand outstretched while the other held her dagger. The Draugr seemed to laugh as it realized what exactly she was, and it clanged its sword against its shield as a taunt.

She snapped her teeth in outrage, spit flying from her lips, and sprung at the Draugr. Their blades locked together, and she swiped at its exposed bony hip with her claws. But the Draugr countered her attack by using its shield and bashing it against her hand. She hissed in pain and sidestepped away from the Draugr, shaking out her hand before leaping at it again.

But before she was even close enough to slice at it, she was flung back in the air, as if she was dead weight, and landed in the pool.

Fus.

The word echoed in Isben's head, its meaning unknown and yet perfectly clear to him. He didn't know—he shouldn't know—what it meant. But he did, and he didn't, and he didn't know how to use it, but he did know how to use it.

The word rolled around his mouth like wine, but when he tried to speak it, it barred itself away from his innermost reaches, retreating into the darkest recesses of his mind. He tried to coax it out, but it would not come.

Something was locking it away. Or, rather, he was lacking the means necessary to unlock it.

"Fus... Ro... Dah!"

Isben blinked his vision back into focus, the world and the cavern slamming back into reality in a single moment. His head pounded at the sudden invasion, but he ignored the throbbing enough to see Shêza charging a Draugr. The Draugr itself was terrifying, but what was more terrifying were the words that it choked out. They were raspy and dry, as if it had been hundreds of years since this Draugr had last spoken—or when it was last Man and not Undead.

The words, he could understand. Something inside of him knew what they meant.

Shêza was launched backward just as the last syllable left the Draugr's mouth. A blue wave escaped its thin lips, as if force itself was given a form. The wave washed over Shêza, rippling into her entire being, and dissipated, sending her flying backward.

Fus.

Force.

The Draugr, satisfied that Shêza was no longer a threat, turned to Isben.

A/N: I actually do not know for certain if it is 'Fus Ro Da' or 'Fus Ro Dah'. In the guide book, it's 'Dah', but when Draugr use it and subtitles is turned on, it's 'Da'. So if I ever switch from Dah to Da, you know why.