Chapter One
14th of Frost Fall, 4E 201
Markarth, Skyrim
Sky Haven Temple
Corruption will take root in the eight corners of the world, and the clock will start.
When the brass tower walks, time will be reshaped.
When the thrive-blessed fails, the red tower will shudder.
The white tower will fall when the Dragonborn Ruler loses his throne.
Once the snow tower lies sundered, kingless, and bleeding.
The World-Eater wakes, and the Wheel turns upon the Last Dragonborn.
That was how the prophecy should have ended, but as Esbern stared upon Alduin's Wall, a sixth scripture was written underneath the Akiviri scriptures along with the mural of a black shadow.
And amidst the blue skies, a tear in reality will etch itself into the heavens, bringing forth the blade of a Shadow Walker.
Esbern blinked at the prophecy of the World Eater more times than he could count, but the engravings of a black shadow sheltering the masses underneath his potent shroud were hard to miss on Alduin's Wall.
Knelt before the Akaviri engravings were two of his companions, a blonde-haired Breton named Delphine that Esbern had known for decades and a Nord woman named Freya who stood well above her companions in youth and stature.
Her face was smooth with flawless, pale skin and a sharp jawline sculpted by the gods themselves. Long strands of pitch-black hair cascaded beautifully beyond Freya's shoulders, complementing her Divines sculpted face.
Her eyes possessed a stunning pair of azure orbs that reflected the blue skies of Tamriel. What intrigued Esbern the most was how her eyes seemed to bream with intelligence that beguiled her amazon stature.
The Dragonborn is in every way a product of Akatosh, and the fate of Tamriel's damnation rested in her hands.
Freya raised the torch in her towards the etching of this so-called Shadow Walker. The Akaviri described this entity as a force of pure darkness that could sweep aside armies at will, seed the sows of terror in a nation, and disappear without a trace.
The term Shadow Walker was accurate by its meaning in Freya's mind, but this was little more than a ghost story. The Dragonborn spent much of her free time amongst the Companions, scavenging their illustrious archives that contained knowledge that dated before Ysgramor's landing on Tamriel.
Freya's pensive expression reflected Esbern's increasing confusion. The veteran Blade ran his hands over the Shadow Walker's visage, fingers digging into the engravings carved by their ancestors.
There was much more to this prophecy than what Esbern previously believed.
Then again, the elder Blade didn't ever dream that he would see the return of Alduin in his lifetime.
A week ago, Esbern was sheltering in the maze-like corridors of Riftens ratway, dodging Thalmor agents and Justiciars in their endless crusade against the fractured Blades order.
Esbern continued to draw breath because of the Nord woman called Freya, this millennia's Last Dragonborn and final hope for all of Tamriel.
She was a fierce woman with a cutting gaze that made the undead run for the hills in terror. Her first impression of Esbern was poor, considering the number of instances he told her in no uncertain terms to go away.
Freya made him pay for this by kicking down his impossibly locked door and dragging him by the scruff of his shirt through the ratway. All the while, she butchered her way through Thalmor Agents and Soldiers without breaking a sweat.
The Dragonborn and her Blade companions came here to uncover a weapon to use against Alduin and were somehow walking away with that and more.
"What is a Shadow Walker?" Esbern inquired under his breath, but Delphine heard it all the same.
The Veteran blade growled to herself and whirled on her companion with a cutting glance. "We're not here for myths and legends, Esbern. Find me the means of bringing down Alduin. Until then, nothing else matters."
"As you say…." Esbern acquiesced to Delphine's demands, but he didn't appreciate her disregard for knowledge. "….No one has an appreciation for the artistic wonders of the world anymore."
Freya ignored her Blade companions, venturing into the abandoned corridors of Sky Haven Temple, ever wary of each footstep she took while navigating the crumbling ruin.
Life has certainly become more complicated since her unfortunate involvement in the imperial ambush on her way to Helgen. Living the life of a Companion was supposed to be adventurous, but she never dreamed of being involved in a legend as old as Tiber Septim himself.
After Freya stumbled into the arms of Varkas battered and bruised, Aela's wolf blood almost sent her on a rampage after seeing her shield sister in a sorry state.
It was only the sheer fact that Freya's injuries were a culmination of long-dead Stormcloaks and a fucking dragon that tempered her fury. The red-haired Nord was every bit as fearsome as one could imagine, and it heartened Freya to have someone like Aela by her side.
Kodlack did his best to council Freya on her next move, but even his wisdom could not account for the trials ahead of her. She couldn't blame the Harbinger for not having the words to settle her nerves, and she doubted anyone in Tamriel could.
The Dragonborn sought refuge in the upper echelons of Sky Haven Temple, climbing the chipped staircase to the highest level and taking in a deep breath of fresh air. Freya's raven hair flowed in the wind, and she could feel the familiar bite of frigid air digging into her full cheeks.
In her biased opinion, Skyrim managed to maintain its natural aroma and remain untainted by the hands of man. No matter where you went, the landscape seemed to brim with such life that it took your breath away.
After a few moments of precious solitude, Freya tightened the rugged fur cloak around her neck and fidgeted with the iron-banded armor strapped firmly across her sternum.
She eyed the sizeable and fresh scratch into her armors side—a memento from a Forsworn Briarheart that desperately wanted to flay her alive.
The Briarhearts overconfidence earned him a particularly devastating Unrelenting Force that turned him into a wall ornament before Freya inserted a dagger beneath his ribs.
She left him to bleed out while she and Delphine went about the task of wiping out the local Forsworn alongside Lydia and a few Markarth guards conscripted by their Jarl to remove the infestation.
The Dragonborn ordered her Housecarl and the guards back to Markarth before the Forsworn retaliated in force.
Freya severely doubted they would allow this transgression to pass even if their command structure was still recovering from Madanachs death. She has no regrets regarding her involvement in their leader's unfortunate demise in Cidhna Mine.
"Freya!" Delphine called out to the Dragonborn. "Come look at this."
The Blades were at the far end of Alduin's Wall, with Esbern sitting upon one knee as he ran his hands over the ancient murals. Delphine tried her best to look interested, but she was far more invested in the results of their findings rather than the journey.
"This panel goes back to the ancient times when Alduin and his Dragon Cult ruled over the lands of Skyrim." The Blade's fingers dug into the etchings where the World Eater tasted his final humiliation. "His defeat is the centerpiece of this Wall."
"So will it show us how they beat him, or am I going to hear more stories about people who have long since passed?" The Blade scribe expertly ignored his companion's scathing statement and shared a brief glimpse of amusement with the Dragonborn.
"Patience, my dear. The Akiviri were not a straightforward people. Everything is shrouded in allegory and mythic symbolism." His fingers crawled over the Akiviri symbol etched into the wall. "This is the Akiviri symbol for 'Shout.' But...there's no way to know the exact shout they are alluding to."
"You mean they used a Shout to defeat Alduin?" Delphine's eyes immediately shot to Alduin's wall. "Are you certain?
"Hmm? Oh, yes. Presumably something rather specific to dragons or even Alduin himself. Remember, this is where they recorded all knowledge of the World Eater and his return."
An uncertain silence fell upon the trio. Esbern distracted himself with the inscriptions while Delphine's gaze remained firmly set upon the Akaviri translation. Freya awkwardly leaned to the side, her inquisitive nature prompting her to search Sky Haven for valuables and armaments.
If this temple was an ancient Blades stronghold, then there had to be a set of armor Freya could knick for her own personal use.
"Freya." She internally cursed Delphine for halting her search for Akaviri armaments. "Talk to the Greybeards. See if you can find out more about this…shout."
"I thought you didn't want to get them involved?" Delphine's severe disposition did not dissipate in the slightest.
"I don't." The Blade responded with a resigned exhale. "But we don't have the luxury of choice. My opinion remains unchanged, but even I'm not foolish enough to completely disregard them."
In Freya's honest opinion, the animosity between the Blades and the Greybeards was entirely ridiculous. The ancient's orders were forever bound to the Dragonborn, and constantly being at odds with one another sabotaged her responsibility of bringing down Alduin.
Freya would have left both of them in the dust if she didn't need the Blade's resources or the Greybeard's knowledge.
Delphine kept close contact with former Blade agents in almost every hold in Skyrim, giving her a potent intelligence network that kept her in the loop on Dragon attacks. Arngeir and his brothers were the only people in all of Skyrim with an intune understanding of shouts, and to abandon them would be foolish on Freya's part.
When both factions served their ultimate purpose, Freya would cut them loose.
The Greybeards wouldn't begrudge her leaving them to their own devices, but Delphine would almost certainly try to convince her to join the Blades.
The Breton would string up some honey words, but Freya knew that Delphine had her own agenda in all of this, and that gave the Dragonborn pause in fully trusting her. Esbern and a compassionate heart, but he would take the side of his fellow Blade in an instant, either out of loyalty or familiarity.
Trust was hard to come by in these lands.
"I'll find the-." Freya's voice caught itself when the mountain shook, and chips of jagged rock slammed into the ground. The Dragonborn's balance was snatched out from underneath her, and the back of her skull bounced off the temple floor leaving her vision blurred.
She barely perceived Esbern curled up against Alduin's wall, trying to protect himself from the falling rocks cracking all around him. Delphine pressed herself against the Akaviri inscriptions, praying to the Divines for salvation.
Freya wasn't willing to let the gods dictate her fate and stumbled towards the ascending staircase leading to the top of Sky Haven Temple. She'd be damned to oblivion before allowing herself to die via a cave-in.
"WULD!" The Dragonborn's lithe form crossed the stairway at breakneck speed, and she pressed her shoulder into the mountain top gates, willing the ten-foot-tall obstacles open.
Freya edged the stone doors wide enough to slip on through, but the shaking that tormented Sky Haven temple did not cease. The Dragonborn's eyes scanned the rustling trees and the panicking wildlife before they finally settled on the cloudless sky.
An unholy screech pierces the air, so loud that it forced Freya to duck for cover on instinct. Her instinctive impulse to seek sanctuary had been sparked by the past few months of Dragon hunting, and she prepared herself for a pitched battle.
Freya emerged from cover with an Ebony Bow in hand, but all manner of confidence shattered as she stared at the blotted skies. Dragons by the hundreds littered the heavens, but none of them were focused upon her or anyone for miles.
The Dragons had their attention firmly set upon the source of all this turbulent shaking that marred the blue skies. A jagged tear in reality etched itself into the heavens, spilling forth massive tendrils of darkness that beckoned the Dragons forward, but the Ancient creatures would not take the bait.
Freya feared that Hermaeus Mora was responsible for seemingly igniting a second oblivion crisis when a burning flame shot out of the tear in reality. Dragons avoided the descending fireball and continued to bellow at the tendrils with gulps of burning fire or icy breaths that froze the tendrils solid.
"Huh," Freya watched the Dragons seemingly perform the duty of protectors to Tamriel and charged headlong towards the abyss. The World Eater himself was amongst his brethren, crushing eldritch tendrils with his jaws and directing his followers forward.
In the most jarring spectacle Freya had seen to that date, Alduin the World Eater shielded Tamriel from a seemingly interdimensional invasion.
"Now I've seen everything." The black terror in reality dissipated under Alduin's constant attacks, and Freya would have cheered him on if it weren't for the fact he was trying to bring about his own apocalypse.
Freya was not impressed with the irony of I tall, and as she descended Sky Haven Temple, the fiery ball of flame slammed into the dense forests of Falkreath. Leaves were blown off their branches, and trees for close to a mile were rocked by the concussive force.
Jarl Siddgeir dispatched his Housecarl and a complement of guards to investigate the fallen star, seeking to extract riches or foreign elements for his benefit.
However, Helvard and his men would only find broken trees, burnt-out pastures, and the imprint of a humanoid etched into the crater.
An imprint that was suspiciously empty of all foreign life and objects save for a set of fresh tracks leaving the crater and disappearing into the untamed wild.
When Helvard reported back to his Jarl, Siddgeir called him an idiot and dismissed his Housecarls worries. He had better things to worry about than hunting whatever foolish creature who made off with his loot, completely unaware that this action would contribute to his eventual assassination.
For amidst the blue skies, a tear in reality will etch itself into the heavens, bringing forth the blade of a Shadow Walker.
This is going to be fun. Got back into Skyrim again with my most likely 100th character. This game is enjoyable but I always ended up making new characters with every mod breaking addition.
There will be a fundamental difference in Cyrus for this story and to avoid spoilers I won't go into significant detail.
This story will be updated on a biweekly basis for Wednesdays. The next chapter is ready but I am waiting until I get the fifth chapter done before posting it. I'm trying to get ahead by three chapters at all times so be on the lookout over the coming weeks.
Everyone have a great month and stay safe out there. Worlds gone mad.