Sovngarde.

The afterlife Nords dreamed of.

Nariilu could see why, it was beautiful. The sky had an aura that put Skyrim's twisting blues and greens and purples to shame, the air was sweet with honey and just cold enough that a warm blanket would be cozy instead of necessary. Far off in the distance, a choir was humming a thundering battlesong that lit a fire in her heart and revitalized her from panting and doubled over on the damp earth to standing tall. She gazed towards the horizon, settling on Shor's Hall, glittering gold in eternal sunrise.

It was far grander than anything Nirn could ever create. Even from this far, she could tell the Hall of Valor was a massive structure of grand golden and bone towers, at least the size of the entire city of Solitude. And closer, hooded statues stared her down with welcoming. Or foreboding. She couldn't tell what emotion they were conveying through stone.

That was it, she realized, the Hall of Valor was where the first great heroes from the Elder Scroll were, the ones who managed to push Alduin through the Time Wound by Eras. Perhaps here, in Aetherius, they could help her push him outside of Time itself. Hopefully she wouldn't need the Elder Scroll, or it would just show up somewhere around her like artefacts tended to do. And, even if the heroes weren't in the Hall of Valor, some ancient Tongues with long-forgotten Shouts that would no doubt come in handy against Alduin would be there, in the prime of their afterlives and hopefully ready to share their knowledge.

Down below in the valley below, a multicolored mist danced around pillars and statues of stone and bone, occasionally letting up to reveal a winding path through the mountainous terrain. She wanted to rest forever, admiring the landscape. A ghastly roar pulled her from her thoughts.

Alduin needed to die.


The cart Lydia took from the stables was able to make the trek to Korvanjund, nearly at the northern border of Whiterun Hold, in amazing time. "It'll take a lot longer once it's loaded up with gold and all," she warned, pulling the cart off the road to a path marked by a tower of rocks. The barrow's weathered stones blended into the low mountains, gravemounds on either side of the path marked with Imperial and Stormcloak helmets, respectively. Ulfric tried to remember who he'd sent to retrieve the Jagged Crown to no avail. He'd let Galmar take the lead on this mission; it was his research that discovered the owner of the crypt, after all.

Lydia pulled the cart to a stop along the great barrow trench, tying up the horses to a more stable-looking pillar. "Doesn't look like anyone's been here in a while, so that's good," she commented. A soft dusting of snow rested undisturbed in the trench and swirled in winds caught between the walls. She jumped down from the cart, Ulfric following suit. The ebony armor was quiet, even as he landed hard. He hadn't realized how much he missed it and its warm enchantment. "We'll make sure it's clear before we go in with the crates."

Ulfric bit his tongue to call it graverobbing. He'd justified stealing the Jagged Crown off of High King Borgas' head already, and it didn't take a philosopher to see little difference between taking one of Skyrim's most valued artifacts and the vast wealth of ancient kings. And he had nothing to argue if the two turned out to be one in the same. He didn't want to hear Lydia argue as much again. He stepped down the stairs, noting dried blood and gore along the walls and floor. Praise to the gods that Galmar hadn't gone with the doomed party.

No Draugr were in the first few chambers, but the stillness of the air and wrapped corpses left Ulfric uneasy as the pair delved deeper through rows of sarcophagi and urns. "How many barrows have you been in?" He asked to break the silence.

"Ten or so." Lydia paused and consulted the Dragonborn's map at a intersection. "Most of them have been raided to Oblivion and back by adventurers through the years, but a few of them have sanctums that haven't been touched. Like this one." She tapped the black claw hanging at her hip opposite her sword. "You?"

"I've paid my respects to the dead around Eastmarch." The ceremonial days of the dead were never as unsettling as this; he left sacrifices on behalf of Windhelm in the first room of the crypts, never going beyond the ancient doors to the realm of Arkay as the priests did briefly to give their blessing to the souls within. Ulfric never put much thought into how the sacrifices would be used by the dead. It was no secret that his ancestors walked amongst themselves, cursed by ancient necromancy. The very thought of an honored warrior's soul being perverted in such a way churned his stomach.

They stepped over the occasional Draugr corpse marred with sword or axe. Modern weapons rested near frozen pools of blood; the fighting had gone within the barrow, and up to a wide door of ebony, embossed with circular sigils. Lydia pulled the claw from her belt and flipped it around, turning the sigils until she was satisfied. She shoved the claw in the door and it disappeared into the floor.

A lone Draugr waited for them on the other side, one arm barely connected by leathery skin and hanging useless at its side. It charged; Ulfric almost felt bad for it when Lydia shoved it down with little effort. She stomped down on its skull and it twitched before stilling forever. "Great. Dead's up walking," she groaned.

They passed more dead than living Draugr, but the sight of seeing a dried corpse step from its resting place was nauseating. Even worse were the bloated, rotting bodies of soldiers from both sides locked deep within the crypt, missed by the gravediggers that buried the fallen closer to the surface. Their smell was thick, distracting. Lydia brought a hand to her face as they made their way through a grand room scattered with still Imperial Soldiers and a handful of wandering Draugr. How deep did the battle go?

He and Lydia split up, he took care of the two Draugr charging from the left, and she ran past to attack an archer on the other side of the chamber. He dodged an axe, the swing surprisingly smooth and well-aimed from the ancient warrior, blocking the heavy swing of a greatsword from the other. Ulfric braced his shoulders against the weight of the emaciated, sunken barbarian, her jaw pulled back in a guttural screech.

The axe warrior pulled back, ready to swing again. "Daanik kendov!" (Doomed warrior!) Ulfric pulled back to step out of range of the axe blow, letting the greatsword slam to the ground. So Draugr spoke Dov, of course they did. They lived during the times of the Dragon Cults. He stabbed through the helmet of the axe warrior, grabbing his weapon as he fell and turning to chop through the disintegrating armor of the other.

The ancient axe crushed bone, faltering her grip. Ulfric yanked his sword free of the fallen warrior, slashing at her stomach. He nicked his blade on the iron of her armor, but managed to do enough damage that she fell to one knee. Ulfric brought the axe down, denting her helmet into her skull. He turned to check on Lydia; she snapped the shaft of an arrow sticking from her shield, the archer in a pile at her feet.

He prayed for the souls of the Draugr before joining her to pass through the next corridor of coffins and corpses. Ulfric couldn't imagine willingly invoking necromancy to prevent the greatest of their days from spending eternity with Shor in Sovngarde. He didn't think about all the hundreds of thousands of Nords that had been interred in such a way over the centuries.

Gradually, the rows of burial shelves gave way to rows of chests. Lydia opened one to reveal it was full of dusty jewelry, magnificently made and inlaid with gems as large as coins. And the next chest opened held piles of coins from the First Era, embossed with the rough portrait of St. Alessia. "Don't get too excited," Lydia said, noticing him staring at the gold in the chest and then the dozens of others along the corridor. "We aren't even to the main crypt yet. And we still have to haul everything up to the cart."

They'd need more than one cart, Ulfric thought. So this was how the Dragonborn made her money. Plundering graves for long forgotten treasure. And so deep beyond where other adventurers tread, beyond puzzle doors and past corpses plenty. "Where did she find that claw?" Ulfric had seen a few before, in private collections of nobles who didn't know what they were besides an interesting artifact.

Not that he had guessed they were the keys to the oldest tombs in Skyrim, either. Scholars had theorized that they were once used in the Dragon Cults as representation of dragons in ritual, perhaps for ceremonial sacrifice, or even just to place in homes as small shrines to the beasts. To say the claws were keys to the tombs of kings and queens? A historian would be laughed out of the room.

"No idea. She just finds them on the floor in front of the doors," Lydia replied. "It's the craziest thing. I'll search a whole room for the claw, and she'll just walk up and pick it up right where I was just looking. Probably some dragon thing us mere mortals can't understand."

"Right," Ulfric said, not joining Lydia in her little chuckle. "What does she want to do with Korvanjund's treasure?"

"The gold? Spend it to rebuild Whiterun, again," Lydia said. "Not nearly as much damage as she figured there'd be, but she still wants you to deliver the reparation money personally."

"I'll be hung by half the city."

Lydia laughed, even though Ulfric hadn't been joking. "Whiterun's run by gold as much as any other merchant's city. If you go around handing out free money, you'll be known as 'Ulfric the Generous' by Midyear. Besides, you're a Companion now! Everyone likes them."

Ulfric didn't voice his doubts. Lydia was too optimistic in her youth. She had the air of a noble, the edge of a warrior, and the bright eyes of one who'd never seen true hardship in her life. "Do you truly believe the Dragonborn will see her schemes to the end?"

Lydia bit her lip. "I'm not sure either one of us knows the true extent of what she's got in mind. Nariilu might not even know herself. But I'm sworn to serve her, no matter where that takes me."

"That's not what I asked."

"I will not discuss what my Thane told me in confidence."

"She didn't even tell you she would be sparing my life," Ulfric said. Lydia paused.

"My Thane had her reasons. She hides things from me as she hides things from you." She steeled her face and continued down the hall. Ulfric recognized that look from many a skilled politician. Nothing could be gleaned from her in this state.

Ulfric doubted the Dragonborn had much less to hide from him. Aside from her inane ambitions for the Ruby Throne, she'd revealed the details of her interrogation at the hands of the Thalmor. And he hated how she trusted him with her greatest shame along with her greatest aspirations. Perhaps it was to settle her own mind; she'd read his Dossier more than once by her own admittance. Ulfric felt the unwilling confidant of the Dragonborn, and yet he wanted to know more about her and her outlandish desires, if only to satisfy some deep curiosity to watch exactly how she failed.

Or if she succeeded, to stand as the High King of Skyrim alongside an Empress who faced impossible odds, destroyed the Thalmor and their heresy, all because she woke up one day and decided that's what she wanted. Either way, it would be a spectacle for the ages.

He and Lydia pushed the heavy doors open to the final, grand crypt. A large throne was raised on the far end of the crypt in front of a grand mural carved into the wall that spanned nearly to the ceiling, depicting giant trees rising over a group of warriors in obviously Nordic armor, defending from a group of beasts of all manner of ghastly shape. Two sarcophagi stood on either side of the throne, already open and with their inhabitants crumpled and still in the center of the crypt. Piles of gold lined the crypt, with glittering gems of all colors catching the light of low burning oil lamps spread throughout the hall.

Lydia whistled. "Never seen mounds of gold like this. Nariilu wasn't kidding about that treasure."

Ulfric only barely heard her. He stepped forwards, over the Draugr, up the few stairs to the throne to where a corpse sat tall, holding its own head in its lap. High King Borgas, still adorned in his Jagged Crown, stared up at him with lifeless eyes.


Nariilu crouched down every so often to make sure she was still on the worn path. The fog was oppressively thick, with Alduin's roars sounding from all around. He hadn't noticed her yet, or at least, he hadn't let her know. Perhaps he was still looking for her in the fog.

Instead of the sweet smell of the air near where the portal had dropped her, the fog was choking and sour, and smelled of rotting wood and metallic blood. It burned her eyes and lungs, leaving tears streaming down her face as she blinked away the stinging. She couldn't see two feet in front of her even without blurred, teary vision. Nariilu didn't dare cough, just in case the massive black dragon was inches behind her, ready to swallow her whole without her even realizing.

That'd be a hell of a way to condemn Mundus to end. Not even putting up a fight. Akatosh preserve his lastborn, and damn his firstborn.

And the occasional soldiers, more often in Stormcloak armor than Imperial, were just plain depressing. Blank stares and slumped shoulders and pleas to help them find the way. Her invitations to follow her were met with confusion and repetition of their original question, never moving from the spot they stood in. Well, if Alduin hadn't found these souls, at least a month old by this point, he likely wouldn't find her in as much time.

She didn't feel hungry any more, or tired. Nariilu wondered if she was just here in soul, but figured she wouldn't have her simple Elven body if she weren't in Sovngarde in at least some corporality. She wouldn't feel the dragon souls if it were just hers, either. They were louder than ever before, like they already knew they were to help her defeat their former master.

Nariilu took one step at a time along the path; it was too easy to miss the dirt and stone move to stone and spare grass, and getting back on the path and in the right direction, at that, was time she didn't have. Another figure appeared in the fog ahead of her, sitting on a fallen statue. She steeled herself to ignore the soul's pleas for help.

"Please, I knew your soul in life. Let me gaze upon your face and remember."

Nariilu froze as she passed the soul, her mind running through a list of Nords she'd seen dead. Gods, she didn't know if she could face Erik. She turned slowly, squinting at the man until suddenly his identity hit her like a train.

"Galmar?"

His eyes narrowed, none of the exhaustion the others held present on his face. "Dragonborn, even in death you dog my steps. How come you're here? Shor himself will cast you out! May your name be cursed by all sons of Skyrim, with scorn unceasing!" Galmar Stonefist jumped up from his seat, reaching for his greataxe.

"Wait!" Nariilu held up her hands. "Who killed you?"

"I should ask you the same," Galmar replied, steeling his footing. "No wonder I couldn't find the true High King amongst these cursed mists. Honor to him, slayer of the Imperial's pet witch-elf."

"No, no, I'm not dead! How else could an Elf get into Sovngarde?"

Galmar paused. "Admit to your trickery all you like. It changes nothing."

Gods, no wonder he and Stormcloak got along so grand. At least Stormcloak had finally let go of some of his insufferable stubbornness. "You weren't supposed to be dead. Did General Tullius kill you?"

"As if he would have the honor to kill a man himself. No, he turned me over to your glorious golden allies! Did you expect anything different, great Dovahkiin?" Galmar spat. "You watched as I took credit for all of Ulfric's doing. I condemned myself to death as you condemned the greatest man of our Era to slavery. Did you already sell him down to Mournhold? I should kill you for your trespass in this holy plane."

Tullius liked to loudly complain about the Thalmor taking in every prisoner of war that had any possibility of being useful. He blamed their acquisitions of Stormcloaks as the reason the war had been dragging out so long; they couldn't get any useful intelligence out of the rank-and-file soldiers the Thalmor ignored for…whatever strange rank names the Stormcloaks had.

Alduin roared, closer than Nariilu had heard him before. "We don't have time for this. Alduin could devour you any second now. Do you have any idea how to get to the Hall of Valor?" Galmar seemed more coherent than the other souls. Perhaps it was because he only recently died, perhaps because he once knew her. Well, he knew her in the barest sense of the word. "We need to leave, now!"

"As if I would lead an elf that would see the end of Nordic civilization to our ancient kings." He slammed the hilt of his greataxe to the ground. "You've lost the way for all of us with your treachery. You pervert Sovngarde with your very presence, blinding the worthy from our rightful home. Can I have no peace from damned Thalmor, even in death?"

Nariilu caught the heavy blade of his greataxe on a ward. Galmar scowled at her. "I don't want to hurt you, I'm trying to save you!" She snapped. She braced her legs against the weight.

Galmar spit at her, the glob landing square on the ward. "You've damned the people of Skyrim to be slaves of the Thalmor, and her dead to be slaves of the World Eater. Try and save yourself, elf, it's about all you think for."

She winced as the ground shook and a piercing roar bounced through her head like a clapper to its bell. Clear screams traveled over the mountains and echoed in the valley path; Nariilu couldn't tell what direction they came from. Then again, she wasn't sure if it even mattered at all; Alduin was close. Galmar pressed down on the ward harder, as if force could break through magic. But he could easily outlast her like this. Wards were expensive and best used for only seconds at most. Already her fingertips were numb from holding it as long as she had.

Nariilu cursed and twisted a hand, casting a Calm spell on the man. His axe shifted down further, sneaking through the ward before it caught on the magic again. No telling if the spell would work; he was dead, after all, and the Imperial Mages always said the Aetherius did strange things to magic, but her ward worked well enough. Galmar's eyes glazed over. "I'll be leaving now. What about you?"

"I'll do what I died doing; protecting my people," Galmar said, pulling back his axe. He stepped back from the pass, looking behind her with a battle-ready snarl. "Tell Ulfric…," he swallowed hard, "tell him to stay strong. He's got a lot of us waiting for him, and I've got one hell of a tale ready with a whole barrel of that snowberry mead he likes."

"I will," Nariilu promised, nodding at the man and taking care as she dropped her ward and backed up, edging her way past and keeping an eye on his axe. She started a jog past him, stopping just as he was behind her. "Which Thalmor killed you? Ulfric would love some revenge in your name."

"I wouldn't tell you even if I knew; you'd probably give the bitch a promotion," Galmar muttered. "But she didn't get anything out of me. Tell Ulfric that, too. Go! I'll kill the World Eater while you run with your tail between your legs. The sooner you leave Sovngarde, the sooner my brothers and sisters and I can find peace from you elves." He blinked and stumbled, resting his weight on his axe. Nariilu hurried down the path, hearing insults and curses shouted behind her.

And then, all of a sudden, Nariilu was left in eerie silence, even her own footfalls were muffled in the fog. She felt a chill run down her spine as if her bones had been replaced with ice. Every part of her being screamed for her to run, hide, and her dragon Souls argued for her to turn, fight, kill.

A ghastly roar left her ears ringing, the hot breath from Alduin's maw pushing her as she broke into a sprint along the path.


a/n: lol sorry about the delay my computer literally broke in half. also 8 week block classes are sinful