Hey y'all, first off, I want to apologize for the wait and wish you a happy new year. A quick note before we get into it. This chapter will be going back into Celegriath's perspective. Because there is a language barrier I need to make it so that the people of Skyrim sound, y'know, foreign to him. I went with Icelandic for the early settlers, but I'm going with Latin now. I know they're still a Nordic people but it was my headcanon for a while that everyone speaking to each other in the Elder scrolls games are just speaking Cyrodilic, which I assume sounds similar to Latin seeing as they're based heavily on the Roman Empire. So, that's what we're going with. If it gets too confusing let me know and I'm happy to change it, but for now just assume everything Celegriath is saying while in his perspective is in Falmer. I also think it's worth mentioning, while in Freyja's perspective, she will refer to Falmer as the deranged twisted creatures and Celegriath as a Snow Elf. Alright, that's all I got. Thanks again so much for your support and feedback, enjoy.

Chapter 3

Celegriath looked down at his feet, inches away from the edge of an endless abyss, a darkness so thick he felt it the true epitome of nothingness. And yet… there was a welcoming feeling to it. It seemed to beckon to him, that he may at long last rest. How did he get here, he wondered. How long had he been staring into the abyss. He had little time to dwell on it, before a searing pain spread across his body. It was without focus at first, but soon narrowed into different points on his body. The wounds inflicted on him throughout his military career returned to him, the club that bashed his head, the spear that tore open his shoulder. Even before then, to childhood injury and even heartbreak. His parents' disapproval. Erelhin's sadness. The despair of children. He could hear their voices. The pain and the emotions came flooding in, surrounded him, and the only escape seemed to be a final leap into the pit. He inched ever closer, his toes now hanging over the edge. He could only stare, transfixed, trying desperately to find an end, to know where it might lead him.

"Will you jump?"

A voice spoke to Celegriaths right, speaking loudly and clearly above the pain of his memories. He wanted to pretend he didn't hear. Even the offering of the question offended him, as if it were his choice to make. He certainly didn't look to see who spoke the words. A part of him felt he knew.

"Why not? Am I not deserving of it?" he offered in response, a deep frown setting upon his face.

"What you deserve has little to do with your decision."

The response only angered Celegriath even further. He supposed it may have had some truth to it, but he didn't care. He wanted to be alone, to finally be free of all the weight of his past.

"Why are you here? I forsook you a long time ago. You did the same to me, to your people. Why come to me now when I can finally find closure?"

"This is not closure. You can still right our wrongs."

Celegriath squinted his eyes shut and shook his head, like a child. He didn't care anymore. He didn't want to be noble, he wanted to rest. For the torment to leave him. He tensed the muscles in his leg, preparing to jump.

A noise to his left stopped him. A door, or at least a silhouette of one, creaked open, letting in beams of sun and the crisp morning air. Celegriath scowled and recoiled as soon as the wind reached him. He wasn't ready to be in the sun again. He wanted to rest. But he felt himself being dragged away from the pit, the pit that would bring him away from the voices, the pain. He cried out, trying to crawl back towards it in desperation, but the pull was relentless. Suddenly he was at the door, looking out. There was a woman. Looking in at him. He could see her face, the olive skin, the freckles that dotted it, warm brown eyes.

"An atmoran….?" He asked quietly.

"Yes. She will need our help. They all will."

The voice again. Ever persistent. Celegriath rolled his eyes.

"I doubt that. You're no help to anyone anyways. Besides, this is only a dream…"

"And now it is time to wake up."

And then Celegriath fell, for what felt like an eternity. Not towards nothingness, but towards an opening, a light. A part of him wanted to fight it, to retreat, but another felt just a glistening of hope...


Celegriath gasped for a breath of air as he shot upward into a sitting position, suddenly awake, as if it were his first in a thousand years. He continued to breath heavily as he quickly took in his surroundings. The first thing he noticed were the cobblestone walls around him, lined with torches. A furnace was lit at the end of the room opposite the bed he was apparently occupying. He looked down at himself. His lower half was covered in cloth trousers, his upper in a loose fitting shirt of the same material. A blanket was put neatly over him. He was lying on a bed of furs held up by wooden beams. This was not an elven room, that he was sure of. He had no weapons, no armor. He held out his hand. A spurt of light emitted from it but not much else. No magic, either. He certainly wasn't being held prisoner, or at least not from the look of things. There was even bread and cheese on a silver platter to his right.

A snore from the left suddenly caught the elf off guard. He quickly turned his gaze to find a small woman asleep on a chair. It wasn't the same woman Celegriath had dreamt about. This one was much older. She was wearing robes, and her brown hair was braided back, revealing a set of ears that were pointer than Celegriath expected. That was about where the similarities to elf-kind ended. Her features were mostly round, mostly human-looking. A half-breed? Celegriath did not think it possible. He supposed the features between Men and Mer were similar enough to allow for such a thing to be within the realm of reality, but under the withstanding political climate no Mer or Human would try to mate…. Celegriath decided to move past such thoughts and further assess his situation. Should he wake the woman up? Should he try to escape? She wasn't armed, was not dressed as a guard. She could be a kind atmoran/elf...thing that simply stumbled upon him and nursed him back to health. Maybe his dream wasn't a dream. The last thing he remembered were the great war machines and masses of Atmorans marching towards his home. He still had to warn them, had to help defend them, if it wasn't too late already.

Celegriath slowly slid out of the bed, being as quiet as possible. He glanced back towards the older woman, still fast asleep. Feeling confident she would stay that way, he began rummaging through the various drawers and chests in the room, which there were very few of. It was mostly quills and inkwells, parchment, various books and scrolls he could understand none of, and a large amount of medical supplies. Still, no weapons. All he needed was a magicka potion, something to rejuvenate him, get his spell casting abilities back in order. Celegriath looked around desperately, until his eyes finally landed on a magicka potion. Sitting right in the sleeping old woman's hands. The elf rolled his eyes. Just his luck. He would move to a different room to search, but he had no idea what was waiting for him past that door, and he had to be prepared to defend himself. He would just have to be slick about it.

Celegriath slowly approached the woman, his bare feet soundless on the soft rug beneath him. When he got close enough, he slowly reached out for the potion. His attention was entirely focused on the bottle in her hands, so it gave him quite the scare when she started speaking to him.

"Denique in eo concitante!" She spoke, with a very bright smile. Celegriath yelped and fell backwards, now at the mercy of this seemingly sweet old woman. "Quomodo sentis?" She spoke softly, and moved towards Celegriath slowly. He couldn't help but back away. She hadn't given him many reasons not to trust her, he just….couldn't. He glanced at the potion still in her hands. It certainly wouldn't be difficult to overpower her, take the potion and run. The Part-Elf creature seemed to notice his fixation on it.

"Nonne tibi est huius cupio?" she held it out to him, a smile still on her face. Celegriath looked at her, confused. Poison? No, no that was ridiculous, she could have easily killed him in his sleep if she wanted to. 'Damnit, Celegriath, just take it,' he thought to himself. So he did. He eyed her the whole time, waiting for her to pull out some hidden weapon or attack him with some spell, but she didn't. Strange.

"Ego dicam Archiepiscopi te esse sursum quod cursor. Ad somnum?" she patted the bed, motioning for Celegriath to lay in it once more.

Celegriath stayed where he was. Something about this whole situation felt wrong to him. He felt like he was in some sort of fever dream. He had never seen any sort of architecture like that which surrounded him, not even in the various Atmoran settlements he had been lucky enough to witness. It wasn't just the architecture, it was the clothing, it was the food, not to mention the completely foreign language she spoke to him. There were no curves and rolls of the tongue to make it seem elven, but neither was it guttural like the language of the Atmorans. He could have ended up somewhere outside of Tamriel. There was know way of knowing how that might have happened, but it was the only explanation that could be produced. Had he been teleported to some strange dimension or plane of existence? Or maybe…. Just how long had he been floating in that river?

As Celegriath tried to begin to unravel the implications of his arrival in...wherever he was, the window shattered behind his supposed caretaker. The woman turned suddenly, only to find a crudely forged axe bury itself directly into the side of her neck. She let out a choked scream and fell to the floor. Celegriath's eyes widened, looking up at her assailant as he hurriedly pushed himself away from it. It was one of the most vile creatures he had ever laid eyes upon. It had large pointed ears and pale skin with an almost green hue to it. There were two sockets where eyes may have been once, but now there was a rough skin, as if its eyelids had been welded together. It was hairless, had two large slits for a nose, and jagged, pointed teeth. It might have had some semblance to a man or an elf once, but now all it seemed to be was a savage and bloodthirsty monster. Its armor appeared to be made from some sort of chitin, and was cobbled together over the creature's torso and legs. Its weapon was made of the same material, looking to be the claw of some large insect or crustacean. This very weapon was being swung towards Celegriath with ferocity. He barely managed to roll out of the way, the makeshift axe firmly planting into the wooden floor.

As he rose to face his attacker, the window to the left of the bed quickly shattered as well, another creature flying through it, armed to the teeth. Celegriath finally figured out where he was, it was Oblivion. The falmer that had slain the caretaker managed to free its axe from the floor, now striking savagely towards the elf's midsection in a horizontal strike. The creature appeared to have been only guessing where Celgriath might have been, because he was able to stumble away from it quite easily. The other creature looked directly at where Celegriath had stumbled to, lunging at him with a chitinous spear before the Snow Elf could react. He felt the unfortunately familiar feeling of being stabbed, this time in his left leg. Celegriath let out a yelp and fell to one knee. This sound must have been music to the ears of the creature to his right, for it immediately let out a snarl and swung its axe at him once more, this time very much on target. Celegriath tried to move, but the other creature maintained pressure on the spear thrust into the elf's leg, effectively trapping him. He desperately lifted his right hand to block the attack. The axe flew into his forearm. Celegriath let out much more than a yelp this time. It had gone deep, and once again the elf felt that he was staring death in the face. He just wanted to go a few days without being stabbed, he did not realize that was so much to ask for.

He had to fight back with something, but his other hand was already holding the….magicka potion. Celegriath mentally facepalmed, before uncorking the bottle with his thumb and downing it in one swig, fighting through the pain. Energy surged through his body, and the fingertips he could still feel tingled. He screamed at the creatures, their weapons still embedded in his body, and violently jerked his forearm free from the axe. Blood spewed from the wound, but Celegriath did his best to ignore it as he began to cast a spell. He brought his hands together, an intense ball of heat and energy forning between them. The creatures must have sensed it, for the one with the axe took a final swing to finish him off. It never landed. Celgriath pointed his index and middle finger with both hands at his attackers to his left and right. Two beams of light and intense heat shot out from the orb he had formed, blasting them backwards against the wall, dead in an instant. Celegriath collapsed, and with his remaining strength pulled the spear from his leg, letting out a groan as he did so. Out of one violent mess, straight into another it would seem. He had a healing spell, but he had to be careful, or he would drain all his energy and faint, potentially resulting in him bleeding out. The spell he chose worked slowly, but effectively. His wounds closed and Celegriath soon enough found himself able to stand. He was drenched in sweat and blood, but he was still breathing. The same could not be said for his caretaker.

He ran to her and pulled her away from the window, in case more of the creatures came pouring through. He gently laid her down and prepared a healing spell, but her soul had already left for Aetherius. Celegriath knelt beside her corpse, shutting her eyes and saying a quick prayer, ensuring it got there safely. Enemy or not, in the brief time he had known her, she had been nothing but kind to him. It was the least he could do. He looked over at the broken windows. What to do now? He could try to escape that way, but he had no way of knowing what sort of enemy force might be there waiting for him. He had no idea where he was at all, as a matter of fact. The Snow Elf needed to understand the circumstances he had been thrust into before he could just go galavanting home, if that were even a possibility at this point. He sighed, standing and picking up the chitin spear the creature had left behind in death, thrusting it a few times into the air. It was surprisingly well-balanced, albeit a tad heavy. Celegriath was still weak from the blood loss and being unconscious for an unknown period, but he had trained with a spear since he was a young boy. He figured he could be of some use to whoever these people were. Maybe enough to get someone to explain what on Nirn was going on.

He gripped the spear tightly and moved towards the door. He could now hear the screams of people, snarling of creatures, spells being cast, and the clash weapons. He released the latch and pushed the door open, peeking outside as he did, his weapon at the ready. Celgriath was in some cylindrical room, a pool of water at its center with a beam of light shooting straight up from it. It gave everything a distinct blue hue. Surrounding the pool were offices or bedrooms he supposed looked similar to the one he was currently leaving. Bodies of the creatures and robed men alike littered the floor. The bodies of the creatures were burnt to a crisp or impaled with now melting spikes of ice. Mages. Celegriath had guessed earlier from the intricate designs on his caretaker's robes. Perhaps they were all healers, and he was in some sort of hospital. Maybe a place of research or worship. The door leading outside was swung open, the howling winds pushing it back and forth. Celegriath felt the chill of the air seeping in. Underneath the blanket of wind, fierce fighting could be heard.

Deciding that the room he was currently in was clear, Celegriath pushed the door all the way open. He winced as it creaked loudly.

"Colette?!" A gruff voice suddenly piped up from the pile of bodies on the other side of the room. The elf held his spear up and tried to pinpoint where the voice had come from exactly. "Ego eram vultus tui...No possum sanandum. A-...auxilium postulo…."

The voice was strained. The man speaking was hurt, and badly. Celegriath wanted to leave him, to just find out where he was and go home. But he had made a promise not to stand idly by while there were those in need. He cursed himself, and moved towards the voice.

The man was leaned up against the pool of water, surrounded by dead creatures. His brown and orange robe was soaked with fresh blood. He wearily lifted his balding head with a relieved smile, hoping to see, Celegriath assumed, whoever was called 'Colette'. The man's smile fell immediately when he saw who was walking towards him.

"Qui-? Abite!" The man pointed his hand outward towards Celegriath, a ball of flame sitting in his palms, its tendrils licking at his fingers. The man glanced nervously at the Chitinous spear being held by the mysterious figure in front of him. The man was using his other hand to cast a rudimentary healing spell on himself. It was clearly not enough. Celegriath raised his right hand, slowly lowering the spear in his left.

"Relax. I can help you." The elf stood where he was, both hands now raised. Celegriath liked to think he had a good bedside manner. He had watched his mother calm many men scarred by the fields of battle. It, of course, would help if the man he was speaking to understood Falmeri. Which, judging by the look of pure confusion Celegriath was seeing, he didn't. The raised hands and tone in which Celgriath spoke must have been enough, however, for the man lowered his flaming hand. He continued to attempt to heal himself with a spell that was not simply strong enough. Celegriath approached slowly, and put his hand on the struggling mage's, and slowly lowered it.

"Let me." With that, Celegriath opened his palm, casting one of the more powerful healing spells he had learned from Erelhin. Tendrils of light spilled from his palm, surrounding the man beneath him. He groaned as his bones adjusted back to their proper place, skin and muscle being glued back together. He gasped, looking over himself.

"Erat miris!" the man exclaimed, the smile returning to his face. "Quis es?" The round-ear now looked at Celgriath with a raised eyebrow. The elf said nothing, for even if he knew what the man was asking, he couldn't answer.

The battle could still be heard outside. The man must have taken notice of it, for he gave Celegriath a look of thanks and a firm clasp on the shoulder before rushing outside to help his comrades. The elf looked at his spear and sighed. Here he was again, in the middle of a battle he never asked for, fighting for his life. He supposed he should consider himself lucky, fighting a beast so hideous and so vile. There were few trepidations in his mind over killing them. Not that the Northerners couldn't be hideous or vile. Then again, so could the snow elves. 'This continuous inner philosophical jargon is exactly what got you in trouble last time,' Celegriath thought to himself. 'Just get out there and fight.' He picked up his spear and followed the man outside into the fray.

Even Celegriath's Falmer blood could not prepare him for the icy storm that awaited him outside. He could hardly see two feet in front of him. The wind seemed to bat itself into his eyes and offset his movement, as it was working in tandem with the monsters attacking this place. What Celegriath could make out was not pretty. The man he had helped was currently helping another mage blast back the monsters with a wall of fire. They seemed to be pouring into the plaza from a busted open metal gate, leaping into the fire for a chance to attack those behind it, seemingly without care or concern for their own well-being. There were two other mages within the center of the plaza holding fighting off creatures that were climbing up and over the walls and emerging from various rooms surrounding them. Celegriath charged towards the target closest to him.

He thrust his spear into the creature's heel, its full attention having been on the two mages in the center of the plaza. Before it could react, he swung his spear to the side, causing the creature to fall onto its back. Celegriath swiftly removed his spear from the creature's heel before firmly planting it into its neck. The pale, pitiful thing grabbed at the Snow Elf's spear, letting out one final struggled snarl in protest before its eyes glazed over and rolled back into its head. Another creature took notice of its fallen comrade, and proceeded to lunge at Celegriath in a downward strike, knocking his chitinous spear to the ground. The elf ducked out of the way of the follow up strike, moving quickly into the creature's guard, past its sword. He firmly grasped the pitiful thing by its jaw with his right hand, and with his left emitted a spell of intense heat into the creature's face. That move was meant to blind opponents, which clearly wouldn't apply here, but it certainly did some damage to the creature as it kicked at him in a desperate attempt to get away. He put more energy into the spell, and soon the creature went limp. Celegriath dropped its body, landing on the snow covered ground with a thud.

He looked at his hands in surprise. His magic was stronger than normal. There was a presence there, something not only giving him more magica but making his spells more powerful. When Celegriath lifted his eyes he found that he was back to back with the other four mages in the courtyard, and judging by the snarls and excited chattering around them, they were surrounded. Celegriath scooped up the sword from his fallen enemy and held it in front of him. If the blizzard wasn't so blinding, he might have had some hope of victory, but how was he supposed to fight an enemy he could not see? And yet they had stopped attacking for a moment, and the elf and the mages stood for a moment, waiting.

"Restitere Romani…?" One of the wizards spoke out, softly.

"Stilentium stultus!" Another spoke in a harsh whisper in response, seemingly trying to shut him up.

But it seemed the damage was done. Arrows suddenly started whizzing at them, and the angry faces of the monsters came forward out of the blizzard. One of the mages cried out as an arrow found its mark. The others started firing random spells in all directions, but they were doing so blindly.

"Lok Va Koor!"

The words cut through the blizzard like a sharp knife. Celegriath felt shaken to his core, struggling to find balance as he tried to figure out what was happening. Very quickly, the storm started to recede, giving the survivors a glimpse of just how hopelessly outnumbered they were. The courtyard was littered with the creatures. They were on the ground, clambering on the walls, and on the roof armed with sword, spear, bow and arrow alike. And they were all focused on one thing. The source of those magical words that had staved off the blizzard. Celegriath followed their gaze, seeing none other than the woman from his dream. She was armed with a longsword, and was clad in steel and leather armor. Before, when he awoke, she made him feel safe. Now every bone in his body was telling him to turn and run. That she was a threat. The creatures must have felt the same way, because they were frozen in their tracks, unsure whether to attack or retreat. The woman made the choice for them. She, followed by several other mages, came charging wildly out of the keep into the mess of monsters.