Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Bethesda Studios and I own nothing at all except for the OC and plot. There is no profit made at all, really.
Summary: Because there was a deeper, darker version of Dragonrend… Now Alduin must learn to live again, not as a devourer of worlds, but as a man...
Genre: Adventure/Humour
A/N: Firstly, I must apologise for the short length of this chapter. I did so want to provide the crispy Stormcloak barbeque that some of you requested but no matter what I did, the chapter got away from me and this is the best I could do. I am somewhat rusty; I've been ill for the past two months and the effects have just begun to leave me. That being said, thank you very much to everyone who left reviews and very nice PMs urging me to continue with the story without pressuring me with demands. I would reply to all of you but I fear the author's notes would exceed the actual chapter! I promise a big battle in the next chapter; that has to happen. In the meantime, I hope this will do and that you like it. I've used some game dialogue; I've always been incorporating it actually but I assumed that you guys would pick up on that at once. Also, some references to Game of Thrones, which I love, and Loki, because I can't help myself.
DRAGONREND
XXXVII.
"Alduin's wings, they did darken the sky..."
I sucked up the gigantic sigh of exasperation that rose in my chest. A nerve jerked near my eyebrow and I frowned fiercely. I was not going to rise to the bait. Neither was I going to regret using the summons that I had been assiduously avoiding for months on end.
"His roar fury's fire, his scales sharpened scythes.."
We were hidden deep enough behind the relatively thick covering of the trees for me to dismiss any fears of being overheard. Besides, all eyes were on the dragon above as it circled the air above, shining with a bright hard gleam, like a blazing star set aloft. A star the colour of blood.
"Men ran and they cowered, and they fought and they died..."
If someone had told me that one day, I would be standing at the edge of a battlefield with a spectral assassin at my side, waiting for a dragon—or dragons, if one considered what Alduin truly was—to swoop down and save the day, I might have believed them. Even while reeking of dragon smoke and somewhat scorched by dragon flame, dishevelled, clutching a sword I couldn't remember how I knew to use, I might have believed such a tale. But if that someone had added that the spectral assassin would be singing...
"They burned and they bled as they issued their cries..."
A tone-deaf spectral assassin of the Dark Brotherhood to boot. 'Not a word Freyja. Just ignore him.' Shadowmere had allowed himself one long quizzical glance at Lucien before returning his attention to the eerily silent battlefield. After all, they were old friends and if old friends did not put up with one's idiosyncrasies, who would?
"We need saviours to free us from—"
"Oh stuff it Lucien," I snapped irritably, turning around to glare at the glimmering spectre at my side. Anyone else would have gotten the flat of my blade or a far more withering and rude reply. But this person, dead or alive, was not someone you said 'shut up' to.
"It suits the occasion," the legendary Hand replied with a grin that could only be described as wicked. Then again, that was the only kind of smile Lucien Lachance possessed. "And I do so enjoy the irony of it all."
"My ears will be assaulted in a few minutes' time by the mayhem and chaos of war. I don't need you adding to it," I muttered but the words lacked venom or any real conviction.
"Men screaming in their death throes, the hard kiss of blade against blade, and the delicious wet stab when metal punctures flesh. Is there any sweeter music in life?"
Anybody else would have sounded like a lunatic. Lucien managed to make it sound romantic and whimsical as he stood there, poised like a sabre-cat. Although the man was standing perfectly still, you knew just by looking that he was as nimble as lightning. Even if you could see right through him. "Silence, my brother," I quipped.
"I am going to let that one slide," he said dryly.
"If I were to guess, it would be right between my ribs."
His nostrils flared slightly and the corners of those hollowed out eyes turned up. It had taken some time before meeting Lucien's gaze did not make all the hairs on my skin stand on end. "Someone has already been there and done that. I pride myself on my originality."
There was no doubt that Lucien had indeed worked out how he would kill me. It did not mean he wanted to, it was simply in his nature to do so, the same way a jeweller would feel the urge to shape precious gems or the way a blacksmith would see possibilities in the ingots he put between the hammer and anvil. 'And he would see it as art. They all did. We did.' There was no use denying my part in all this, not when I was sandwiched between the supernatural allies only a Listener inherited. Even the immediate air around us felt cooler in spite of the fires and the blazing sun; here, the light was less potent and the shadows held a hypnotic dense heaviness that subtly drew a person's gaze.
"And speaking of originality, I do believe this is the first time a Listener has ever attempted to take on an army. Even with a dragon and a fallen god on your side, I have my doubts. Our kind, we tend not to do so well out in the open against large numbers of the enraged variety. Just ask your predecessor when you finally meet."
It hardly surprised me that Sithis knew exactly what had transpired or that he was making his presence, his claim, felt through Lucien. If Nocturnal and Azura were watching, suffice to say that he and the Night Mother were also a part of the largely invisible audience that watched my life play out on the stage known as Skyrim. All I could do was try to look out for the strings they had tied to me and make sure that if I did dance to someone's tune, it was because I had chosen to. As experience had so obviously shown, that was much easier said than done.
"And by the way, Cicero sends his regards."
Now that made me shudder slightly. "Sending him to Sithis was my way of sending mine."
Lucien's smile was all teeth. "I suppose I must trust the wisdom of our Lady. After all, she chose you."
"And I choose to enter this war," I replied shortly, aware of how much I mirrored Astrid's cool demeanour, right down to the way I folded my arms and the grim even smile levelled at him. If only the Night Mother had chosen her instead of being seduced by the prospect of taming a dragon... "Any soul that dies by your hand is for the Void. And these plains are ripe for picking." That would give Lucien something to put his daggers into, instead of my back which he would ostensibly be guarding. The man loved murder so much that he even alluded to his own constantly until I discovered exactly who Mathieu Bellamont was and what was the great treachery committed.
Now that the dragon had departed the skies above them, the battle had resumed. They thought it would not be returning. Shifting my gaze, I looked back to the top of the sloping hill, towards the path where I had left Alduin without so much as a backward glance. And it began. Light swirls of dust and ash arose. The treetops shivered violently, then the trees themselves shook mightily as great wings rose and fell. The sound roiled like approaching thunder on the horizon. A dragon climbed into the air.
And my mouth fell open. "What in the bloody Void is he doing?"
"Exactly what you asked him to do."
"I told him to use the dragon, not to ride it!" There had been times when I had been so petrified that I could have sworn that the idiom about feeling one's heart in one's mouth held more literal than figurative truth. This wasn't one of them. The truth was, I couldn't even feel my heart beating as I watched the dragon fly higher and higher, taking Alduin with it. He was supposed enter the fray only after the dragon had burned the soldiers to cinders, not wade out into the heart of it hundreds of feet from the ground. All it would take was a slip, a hand too slow to grasp those dangerous horns—
"You asked for fire and blood. And now Sithis asks the same thing." Lucien's hard tug on my arm caught me completely off-guard, made me tear my gaze from the sky to meet his sightless one. "We are messengers of death, you and I," he hissed, and I felt the chill of his touch swarm up my forearm as it sucked the heat from my flesh. "Together, we will unleash the wrath of our Dread Father."
'Your Father.' But the thought would not translate into words. It made no difference.
Lucien's expression gentled and he raised a hand, as though he would touch my cheek. "Child of darkness," he breathed softly, "one day you will serve him as I do now."
So he did know about the half-formed plans I had made, the ones I kept to myself, that I only thought of in the dead of the night as I listened to the sound of my breathing. They all did, and the message was painfully clear. There would be no escaping the Dark Brotherhood.
She had left him.
Alduin did not know which emotion he felt more, shock or fury. Against all his advice, against everything that her own eyes could see, the Dragonborn had seen fit to ride off on that black monstrosity of hers, leaving him standing in the middle of the road clutching a spare pouch filled with potions and soul gems that he had no intention of using. While Alduin had never lost faith in the fact that Shadowmere was not in possession of a brain, or at least a functioning one, he had begun to believe that Freyja did indeed have one. On several occasions she had displayed considerable intelligence and cunning for him to make her an exception to the rest of her race; that she was as much dragon as she was human was a mitigating factor of sorts, that much he had to admit. Still, he had expected better of her and that she had elected to march into war against an army three thousand strong just beggared belief and logic.
"That little...fool..." he bit out the words, clenched his jaws together so hard that his teeth ached. Something cracked in the pouch that he squeezed in his hand and he resisted the urge to dash the entire lot on the cobbled road. Even with a dragon, there was no way that he could guarantee her safety. She was a single individual in a sea of bodies; anything could happen, especially when Odahviing unleashed fire from above. This was not a battle strategy he had ever used or even dreamed of. In war he had flown freely with his lieutenants across the sky, meeting the winged traitors in battle and scourging their enemies below with both frost and flame. There had never been a need to protect anyone or anything.
It was entirely possible that Freyja had never considered all these. If she had, more fool she for having such blind belief in the success of such an ill-conceived scheme. And for having such confidence that her blatant manipulation of him would work...
He could do it, if he wanted to. Just turn around and travel back up that road. Perhaps when she saw that he would not capitulate to her expectations, she would realise the hopelessness of such a cause and have no choice but to follow after him. He was close enough to the Monahven for him to safely make it there on his own. Perhaps the Greybeards there would have answers and Words of Power to reverse the cursed ones she had laid upon him. Perhaps there was no need of her after all and he could leave her behind.
"OD AH VIING!"
'And more fool you for contemplating what you know is not possible.' Absently noting the slight stains left on his gauntlets by contents of the cracked bottle, Alduin grimly fastened the pouch to his sword belt. Hurrying over to the tree where Freyja had stashed their belongings, he opened his pack, tore a thick strip off the least favourite of his shirts and used it to fasten the Nightingale blade to its sheath. It would not do to lose the sword midway in battle. He had barely finished knotting the ties when the answering cry of a dragon echoed through the skies.
The thought of Odahviing asking all manner of impertinent questions and putting two and two together was vexing enough to make Alduin close his eyes briefly as he awaited the dragon's arrival. It would be a long time before he forgave Freyja for this. And at the back of his mind, her easy deception of him sat uneasily. In that dark dank basement she had known that he could summon a dragon and she had said nothing, done nothing until she had use of it, of him. She had kissed and held him, knowing that he had deceived her. 'Perhaps more dragon than human,' he thought. 'But the mortals have proven themselves particularly adept at treachery time and again.'
But there was no time for further contemplation as the sound of beating wings filled the air. Hot winds lashed his face and Alduin narrowed his eyes, resisted the urge to shield them with his hand even as he was blanketed by the huge shadow cast by the descending dragon. The ground beneath his feet trembled and with a bone-jarring thud, Odahviing dropped his wings to the ground.
"Hail thuri," the crimson dragon dipped his head low in respect. "How may I serve you?"
A series of demands rose to mind before he could suppress them. Most of them centred on requiring Odahviing to grab the Dragonborn off her horse and flying away to the other end of Skyrim so that by the time his stubborn wife made her way back to Whiterun, the battle would be over. Several did consider the ease with which his second-in-command could roast Shadowmere to a crisp. Naturally, none of these made their way to his lips simply because there was no scenario that would end well for him. At the same time, he could not very well instruct Odahviing to protect the Dragonborn at the cost of his life, which was really the command that was at the forefront of everything else. It would be construed as yet another weakness, something he could ill afford.
"The Dragonborn has ridden out into the battlefield you passed over and as such, that army needs to be dispersed at once. I need her alive and unharmed."
Odahviing cocked that disconcertingly huge head to the side and for the first time, Alduin realised those huge curved horns were almost as long as he was tall. Once again, being in such proximity to one of his own made him painfully conscious of the weak body he now inhabited. "She ran into the midst of a war in an attempt to flee from you?"
If Odahviing knew the truth, he might have rolled over onto his side and laughed himself into a stupor. "There is no accounting for the foolishness of mortals," he shrugged. "Apparently she has an ally in that city. She imagines that she will be safe there. I would let the city burn, or better yet, burn it myself but for the fact that she still is of use to me."
"Why not let me retrieve her? I could pluck her from the midst of the soldiers if you point her out to me."
"And of what use would you be to me without one leg? She'd sooner hack off your foot than let that happen. No, we will fly together and grant her the safe passage she so desires. And once we have vanquished this army, I will corner her within those walls."
The red dragon did not look entirely convinced but good sense, a healthy dose of fear and perhaps the impending thrill of bloodshed helped silence any remaining questions he had. Instead, he stretched out his neck, lowering it to the ground. "They will be no match for us. Mu fen zind!"
Grasping a horn, Alduin swung himself up lightly and dug the heels of his boots firmly into the other's skin. Odahviing grunted softly but did not complain as he began a smooth ascension into the air, spiralling up, beating back the smoke and ash that wafted towards them.
And although this was not a battle he had willingly involved himself in, there was no way of suppressing the familiar heady sensation that washed over him. Down below, the mortals milled, like tiny insects waiting to be crushed.
"Start with those strange machines. Burn them all."
He felt as well as heard the snow-winged hunter's throaty chuckle. "As you command, Zu'u fen al."
Later, the bards would write songs of this battle, this day when a dragon saved Whiterun. There would be many versions, different tunes fashioned, and the events would always be told and interpreted differently. But there was one line that remained unchanged.
That day, the skies rained fire.