Well hello! Fable is back so soon and back in full swing! We left on a quite the cliffhanger so had to get this out to you ASAP. Hope you enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed writing it! Keep on being awesome, and remember to favorite, follow, and shoot me a review. It would mean the world to me! Thanks!

FUN FACT: Skyrim is the first game outside of Japan to get a perfect score from Famitsu.

Chapter 37: The True Mission

"His skin is fireproof, you do realize that, right?" Hiccup said, stretching his legs out in front of him and scraping his metal foot against the ground.

Toothless was currently sitting on top of Illuvitaar, keeping him pinned down until they could figure out something to do with him. He held a ball of flame to the dragon's rear, doing nothing more than annoying him. Toothless exhaled in annoyance before continuing to lick his paw but, ignoring Hiccup, a sweating Illuvitaar kept his magic lit.

"It's actually kind of pathetic. I would stop if I were you."

"Shut your face, you worthless twerp," he growled, keeping his fire pressed against Toothless. He attempted electricity next with the same result, the magic fizzling into the cold air.

Hiccup put a hand over his heart, feigning hurt. "I'm so emotionally damaged."

Toothless grumbled, tail curling to slap Illuvitaar in the face. He chuckled as the high elf moaned and rubbed his whipped cheek.

Hiccup sighed, glancing back towards the campsite. Chimera had told Hiccup and Toothless to stay with Illuvitaar and that the ice cuffs would not hold forever. Hiccup wasn't sure if this is exactly what she had in mind, but it was working none the less.

He just hoped everything was going alright. They had dragged Cicero into Chimera's tent and he hadn't been moving, and Hiccup was worried. Cora also looked horrified that she had shot him, and he honestly had no idea what had even happened.

He was too busy realizing he was actually charging into battle.

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"Chimera, I have no idea what happened," Cora pleaded. "I'm so sorry I lost control."

The dark elf grit her teeth and ignored her, ripping through his striped jesters outfit to expose his wound. She narrowed her eyes, propping his head under a pillow and brushing his hair out of his face.

He was struggling to breathe, sweat beading on his forehead. "Chi…my…Listener…"

"Cicero, can you feel your legs?" Chimera said, hands glowing yellow and rubbing around his wound.

He laughed and sputtered before smiling. "Is Chimera asking Cicero to dance?"

"He's going into shock. Cora, hand me that tunic. Behind you."

The wood elf whirled around before reaching for and handing Chimera a wadded up cloth.

Chimera pulled a healing potion from her robes and handed it to Cora. "Hold his head and pour this down his throat when I well you. Get in position."

The wood elf uncorked the potion and carefully placed Cicero's head in her lap. "Ready."

She nodded, looking to Cicero with compassionate eyes. She took off her belt and placed the leather between his teeth. "Cici, this is going to hurt."

With one hand clutching the tunic and the other the arrow, Chimera yanked the arrow out of his chest, blood spirting into the tent. Cicero arched up and screamed against the leather, eyes rolling back and hands clenching and unclenching.

She quickly threw the arrow to the side and pressed the tunic against his wound. She looked up at Cora. "Now."

Cora nodded, removing the belt from his mouth and pouring the sizzling red liquid into his mouth. She tapped his throat to manually get the liquid down as his mouth filled with blood. He coughed violently.

"Chimera, he's coughing blood," she panicked, eyes darting over his face. He looked too much like her father, blood gurgling in his pale mouth and light leaving his eyes. Cora choked a sob. "Cicero, I'm so sorry."

"The arrow punctured a lung. Any minute he will go into seizures. We need to heal him now."

"We?" Cora questioned, looking up with tears in her eyes. "Chimera, I know nothing about restoration."

Chimera grabbed her arm violently and yanked her closer. "This is the work of Sithis, which is why I told you to put that bow down around Hiccup," she spat. "Only Sithis can choose to heal him now. It's unnatural, no restoration is going to work."

"What does this have to do with me? Or Hiccup? Sithis is the birthed soul incarnate of Padomay, he would never bring someone to life."

"He heals with death, Cora, he corrupts the soul of those he possess. Just like yours. Cicero's is already pledged to him, it's his only chance."

The dark elf yanked her hands down to his wound, drenching her hands in blood. Cicero began to convulse under her hands, sticky raw skin smacking against her palms. She gulped audibly and looked to Chimera.

Her hands were raised above her head, head tilted backwards almost unnaturally, her eyes an inky black. "Hail Sithis! For we are with thee! No questions to his order and carried without failure, for Sithis is who I cherish and hail! Send the damned to murder the betrayed! Send them to the Void to seek further judgement from Sithis!"

Cora's entire body chilled with darkness, a presence suddenly there with them that wasn't before. Her hands shook violently, and that same pale grey took over her vision.

"We are the listeners to the Children of Dark, and by Sithis we leave his mark! Under the Mother of the Night, fix an agent broken, and speak to the unspoken! Hail Sithis!"

An inhuman voice escaped Cora's lips. A satanic male voice was birthed of her tongue. "Sithis answers."

And her palms soaked Cicero in inky blackness, his entire body flooding with pure darkness and expanding through his veins. His eyes glowed as his mouth spilled streams of living death. A white ghostly glow curled around Cora's fingers and blew her hair back, exposing deep black eyes overflowing with evil. "My humble servant Cicero shall live."

His wounds were closing, Chimera only watching in wonder. Winds were whipping in the tent, strange unnatural glows and hums escaped Cicero's body, and tendrils of blackness swirled out of Cora's hands.

Then it was gone. As quickly as it had come, the tent was silent.

Cora's eyes rolled back and she tipped to the side, catching herself clumsily. She rubbed her forehead and squinted her eyes shut, breathing deeply.

Cicero groaned, closed eyes twitching. "Chi…Chimera."

She knelt by his side, scooping her hand under his neck and helping him sit up. "What…what happened. I feel different…"

"You need to rest, the Night Mother no longer has insanity hanging over your head…you're cured Cicero. No more jester."

He moaned again. "Just a servant to Sithis?"

She smiled. "An agent of the Brotherhood, yes."

Then all eyes turned to Cora. She was curled tightly into a ball, shivering and clutching her legs.

"Cora…" Chimera cooed lightly. "Cora, we need to talk."

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Hiccup clumsily rose to his feet when Chimera exited the tent, looking her over carefully. She rubbed fingers to her temples, robes covered in blood splatter. She turned towards the trio, murder in her eyes. Sithis flashed into them and Hiccup found himself stepping away as she made a B-line towards Illuvitaar, pinned under Toothless.

"Come over here, bud," he ushered to Toothless. "I don't think we're going to want to watch this."

Toothless scurried off of the suffocating High Elf towards Hiccup, Illuvitaar instantly reaching for his throat and coughing. He pushed himself up and stumbled to his feet, locking eyes with Chimera. He grinned.

"Chimera, my dear," he slurred. "Let's talk, shall we?"

The Dark Elf simply drew what Hiccup recognized as Astrid's old blade from the brotherhood from her coat and approached the elf. His heart was in his throat.

She grinned. "Let's not."

Before he had time to even react, Chimera had the dagger raised at shoulder level, grabbed his neck, and stabbed down to drive it into his heart. Not a second had passed when she twisted it with a crunch and yanked it out, forced him to his knees, and slit his throat open.

Hiccup's eyes widened and the air left his lungs with a whoosh.

The light left his eyes as his blood sprayed into the shallow snow, dousing the white pack with red. Chimera kicked his body backwards and sheathed her dagger, Illuvitaar's arms flailing out to the side as he hit the ground in a lifeless heap.

"By the Gods!" Hiccup cried, putting his hands to his mouth and his knees suddenly weak. "Why in Odin's name did you do that!?"

Chimera spit the ground next to his body, turning away. "Because if he had never shown up this wouldn't have happened," she said, teetering on rage.

Hiccup tried not to look at Illuvitaar's body, bile rising in his throat painfully. "He was your friend, Chimera."

Tears rose in her red eyes as she whipped around. "Was!" she shouted. "He was my friend. Then he attacked us, kind of ruining the basic concept of it all."

Hiccup ran his hands through his hair. "But you didn't have to kill him, Chimera!"

Chimera smacked her hands against her forehead. "Gods damn it, Hiccup, when are you going to get it through your head? I've been watching you this whole time, prancing around like the Dragonborn of legends who can peacefully solve everything. Wake up, you child. You are in Skyrim, a land of kill or be killed, when will that register with you?"

Hiccup stepped forward. "You don't think where I come from it wasn't kill or be killed? Dragons and Vikings, murdering each other based on misunderstanding. What if this was a misunderstanding, Chimera? What if just talking to him would have answered all your questions?"

"Cicero was almost killed, I don't have time to think of compassion," she snarled. She took a step towards him. "I think you lost a grasp on who you were traveling with. Every single one of your companions here has killed people with no remorse. Cicero and I are pledged to the un-deadra of death and Cora has a soul blacker than night. Its due time you let that sink in."

Hiccup hung his head. She was right. "What am I doing, Chimera?"

She grit her teeth. "Trying to save the world the noble way, but it's never going to work. You're marching forward to kill a dragon, Hiccup. The World Eater's soul must be drained, yet you never let that cross your mind. You have been flirting with death this whole time, yet you are too naïve and trusting to realize that fact. Cicero, Astrid, Cora, Brynjolf, me, any one of us could have killed you at any point."

"I don't know about the rest of you but Astrid would never hurt me," Hiccup defended. "Never in a million years. She loved me."

Chimera scoffed, shaking her head. "That arrow in the High King of Skyrim was meant for you."

Hiccup knitted his eyebrows together. His heart sunk in his chest. "What? Why would Cora do that? Try to kill me?"

"Because she wasn't Cora, Hiccup. That mark of Sithis she harbors gave Astrid a window into her body. She wants you there in the Void, with her."

Hiccup shook his head. "Chimera you aren't making any sense. Astrid is gone, I watched her lie there. I know you killed her…put her out of her misery."

Chimera narrowed her eyes. "And she told me before she died that she'd be back for you, one way or the other. That's why we came with you. We knew she would try to reach you, we just didn't know how. I suppose she chose to come through Cora."

Hiccup simply stared at her. "You never cared about my quest," he breathed. "You just wanted to help Astrid even if that meant killing me."

Chimera shrugged. "I didn't come for fun."

Hiccup shook his head. "And Cicero?"

"Because of me."

Hiccup crinkled his brow, throwing his hands out to the side. "And I thought you were my friends? I defended you and ran into battle for you. I thought you genuinely cared about me…"

Chimera sighed. "We do, Hiccup, we do. But this was the bigger reason. Of course we want you to succeed."

"Sure you do," Hiccup spat, sarcasm heavy in his voice. "I'm better off without you…all of you."

Chimera turned to walk towards the tent. She waved a dismissive hand above her head. "You keep thinking that, Dragonborn."

Her back to Hiccup, she threw open the flaps of the tent to see Cicero sitting up and chatting lightly with Cora, hot tea in his hands. His chest was closed and clean against his bloodied clothes. Chimera smiled, sitting across from him. Cora inched away and cleared her throat.

Chimera took a deep calming breath. "How are you feeling, Cici?" she cooed, hand caressing his shin.

Cicero swallowed the remainder of his tea and placed a hand atop hers. "Like I haven't in years, my Listener. I'm great. I was just telling Cora of my days at the Bruma Sanctuary, in Cyrodiil."

His completely sane hazel eyes comforted her yet were full of undiscovered mystery. For the first time, his jester's motley looked completely out of place on him.

She was smiling, tears welling in her eyes. She sighed and looked down, attempting to wipe them away. "It's like I have a new man to fall in love with."

Cicero chuckled. "I'm still me and I still love my Listener." He looked to Cora, knees to her chest in the corner of the tent. "I filled Cora in on her unholy marking as well, Chimera."

"And why I was able to heal Cicero," the wood elf muttered. She held eye contact with the floor. "And why I'm trying to kill Hiccup."

She forced out the last few words before pulling her knees closer still to her chest, veins still rampant with darkness.

Chimera sighed. "That's why I asked you to put the bow down, Cora."

"Well how was I supposed to know I'd try and kill him? Someone didn't warn me about that."

"Like I said," Cicero interrupted, "we knew Sithis was going to come out of you and we knew Astrid would attempt to return from the Void, we just didn't anticipate both of those would converge at once, and on you."

"Chimera seemed to," Cora accused. "Otherwise she wouldn't have known I'd attack Hiccup."

The dark elf shook her head. "I had a hunch when I saw the darkness in your veins."

Cora stood up. "Oh, so you did know?"

"I was just trying to protect you. And Hiccup," Chimera quipped.

"You know what, you people are all kinds of fucked up," Cora spat. "You came along for no other reason than Astrid and you can't even tell me how to fix this, I didn't ask to be your champion."

"Cora, don't be rash," Chimera said. "I've told you, you have to purge him with the opposite of darkness, which is light. Light comes through even the roughest edges with love."

Fury fumed into Cora's eyes. "And you knew I couldn't do that."

"If I were you, I'd never wish to part with Sithis."

"Well I want to, even if that leads me away from you," she threw open the opening to the tent, "and towards Hiccup."

But Cora stared out into an empty snowfield in the middle of the afternoon. Cloud-filtered sunlight glinted off the swaying evergreen trees and outlines Illuvitaar's motionless body.

Hiccup and Toothless were nowhere to be found.

I just…I'm not even sure, just that the next update will be coming really soon!

And also, I'm also going to be writing a chapter or a side adventure based on a concept posed by YOU. That's right, gimme a situation and I will make it a reality with your credits. Send me a PM and see you next time!