The skies echoed with the loud clapping of thunder and the rain was pouring heavily. Dread and violence was the smell of the wind that was blowing heavily. Below was the ringing of steel hitting each other and the battle cries of no less than thirty men. The Nords, all clad in steel and fur, were of humongous sizes for a sentient beings. Each having sharp and heavy blades on their hands, ready to charge at any moment.

"This is it, kinsmen! The day when we finally remove all of our enemies on the face of Skyrim! While our brothers and sisters are going to face the World Eater, we shall also kill the last of the damned elves of our land!"

This speech of their leader elicited another war cry from his fellow men.

Across the field stood a tall and pale Elf. His long white hair was already drenched in both rainwater and blood due to days of running away and killing the Nords who wished to hunt him down. His pupil-less eyes were showing visible signs of fatigue. There was no way to run as they finally cornered him into a tall wall of stone.

And now, it seems that his death would finally caught up to him as a band of Nordic Tongues were now aiming their blades towards him. He was tired of running away. He made up his mind to stand strong and fight his way through it. If he will emerge victorious, he can live for another day. And if not, at least his soul will be free to go back to Aetherius.

"FUS RO DAH!"

With a synchronous gesture, all Nords then let loose a thundering shout that exploded and traveled fast towards him. If all this raw and destructive force would hit him, he would surely die. So he did what he think is the best course of action.

"Feim." he whispered as he then turned ethereal, letting the shout of the Nords to pass through him and smash to the walls.

During this short opening, he was about to nock an arrow to his bow when he realized that he had already spent them all up. Because of this, he solidified and compressed his Magicka into the shape of arrows in which he immediately used to fire at his enemies.

Although he got lucky and landed one directly to a Nord's head, killing him instantly, others were quick enough to dodge or block it.

"You killed Lograld! You're going to pay for that!"

The man beside the fallen one charged towards the Elf in a blind rage. He swung his mighty axe in such fury that it became too hard for the Elf to dodge. However, due to more than twenty years of experience fighting his Nordic hunters, he managed to defend himself against his slightly shorter yet much bigger opponent.

After he escaped the frenzied Nord, he realized that he have to go all out or else he would surely going to die. There will never be a slight chance of tomorrow if he would hold back a bit against these warriors who achieved power and mastery of the Voice that they could survive an encounter with a dragon by themselves.

"MUL RII KREIN!" he shouted to the sky.

The shout parted the clouds, revealing the sun which is now sending a ray of its energy towards him. Most of the energy then seeped through his body while the remainder covered his whole body in a yellowish white flames.

"STRUN BAH QO!"

Three Nords simultaneously shouted, hoping to block the ray of sun from him.

"Hah! The sun won't be enough to save you for we are the chosen of the storm!"

However, their shout did not stop the Elf from gathering the energy of the sun, the purest form of Magicka from Aetherius. When he was done absorbing Magicka, his eyelids opened and showed a pair of bright yellowish white eyes that shone amidst the storm, same as the flames that were surrounding his body.

Although he can feel his strength drastically increased, he doubted that his body can handle it for long due to his fatigue.

And then the fight continues. With his renewed vigor, he tried to fight them all at once by keeping a distance from him while firing them with the sun enhanced Magicka arrows. He was doing this all while also trying to evade and endure the lightning strikes from above.

However, none of the Nords relented as seeing the struggle of the Elf only fueled their own vigor. They violently pursued him with their blades and shouts even though their numbers are steadily declining due to a fraction of the strength of the sun at his disposal. This was because they knew that they were bound to win as eventually, the Elf will surely succumb to his injuries and fatigue.

Several hours have passed and the Elf was already injured beyond belief. His borderline effeminate look was replaced with an almost the appearance of an undead. He was covered in his and other's blood, as well as burns from lightning bolts. However, he still stood up and the light of the sun still burns through him even if his body looked like it was about to fall down.

The Tongues themselves were down to just a handful, all tired from the hours of fighting yet still on a better shape than the Elf. They were the Tongues as well as the Companions, few of the best fighters that the Nord race could offer. Their honor demanded that they should succeed in murdering the Elf even if it would be the last thing they would do.

Wanting to end the fight at that instant, they mustered all of their strength to send out one final shout for each of them.

"FUS RO DAH!"

"YOL TOOR SHUL!"

"VEN GAAR NOS!"

"FO KRAH DIIN!"

Soon after, various shouts erupted from the Tongues. From raw force, fire, wind, ice, each of them were traveling fast towards the Elf. There was no way that he could survive this as his throat can no longer muster up a single voice to counter the upcoming shouts and his feet had already lost all its strength to run.

With that, all he did was to grab on to his amulet which has a pendant depicting a sun with eight curved rays. He then let go of the tense feeling on his body, awaiting his impending death. At least he would take solace in the fact that he stayed true to his fate until his last breath.

But suddenly, a greenish sphere enclosed him. He cannot explain the phenomenon but it feels like his very being was being removed from where he stood. Whatever this was, the Elf just accepted his fate and closed his eyes.

All four shouts collided at the spot where the Elf stood and created a massive explosion that even the Nords themselves were blown away by the impact. The sound of the explosion that echoed across across the land was coincidentally joined by another loud roar from a different location.

...

"My thane! What are you doing?"

I snapped back to reality when I heard the scared sound of my Housecarl. She was lying on her back, looking at me with a terrified expression. To my horror, a blade of pure Magicka was already a few inches away from her throat. It was only visible to me but I think she could feel its presence.

In response to this, I immediately dissipated the Magicka blade and helped Lydia stand up by offering my hand to her. At first, she was hesitant to take my hand but she did so anyway.

"Uh, what happened to me, Lydia?"

"I don't know, my thane. You collapsed after you extensively trained with your magic. When I tried to wake you up, an invisible wall suddenly pinned me to the ground."

I was relieved that I didn't do anything because it would be very difficult to explain to the Jarl that I somehow killed one of his people by accident. And of course, as far as I can tell, Lydia hadn't done anything to me that was worth killing her. In fact, she was actually developing into a useful companion as her retorts had significantly lessened from the first time we've met.

Now I've remembered why I chose to stop primarily using the pure Magicka manipulation. It's the same reason why I chose to live on the outskirts of Cyrodiil for most of my time here in the new era. I am a dangerous and wild person who wanted to start anew now that the age of Nords actively hunting me down is over.

"I, uh... I'm sorry, my instincts just kicked in. Are you all right?"

"No need for that, my thane. It's kinda my fault. Of course you would react violently if you were woken up from sleeping on the wilds... Although if you wouldn't mind, I would like to ask what caused you to react like that."

I'm glad that she let it slide off just like that because I won't be settled if my follower would continue to complain to me about it. In fact, I was actually surprised that she didn't fight back because if it happened to me, I don't know how I would react. Well, I think I can share a bit of my past just to help her act accordingly and we won't end up killing each other.

We went to the nearest fallen log, one that was fallen due to my training, and sat there under the shade of another tree.

"The reason why I acted like that is because I always lived my life being hunted by men, Nords specifically. So whenever I'm in the wilds and someone wakes me up, I tend to be more violent than usual."

"That's... I didn't expect that. Are you a survivor of war? I heard that there were Elves that were killed here in Skyrim after the war."

So she thinks that I am or was with the Aldmeri Dominion and the people here were pouring their anger to me from their defeat in their so-called Great War. It's far from the truth but it's basically the same premise.

"I'm not with the Dominion if that's what you're asking. So I migrated to Cyrodiil and tried to live with honest jobs there. Bandit hunting, selling wooden sculptures and alchemical stuff, I even worked at a lumber mill at some point. However, my homeland has always been Skyrim so I tried to return here, only to be caught up by the conflict of Imperials and Stormcloaks.

"I think you knew the rest. Helgen got destroyed, I bring the word to the Jarl, killed a dragon, and now I'm the Dragonborn and a Thane of Whiterun despite only staying there for two days."

For now, those are the only things that I could share to her. Maybe I would share some things to her in the future assuming that she won't betray me and I won't be force to put her down. However, my time travel is one thing that I would probably keep as a secret for the rest of my life.

"I feel that the delivery of your story should be more dramatic because those are some heavy stuff, my thane." And of course, she would quip something.

"Well, it's not like I can change something from the past. Besides, not every Nord that I've encountered now was trying to kill me or anything."

"Yeah. But soon, the Stormcloaks and the Imperials would surely seek you out and ask you to join their cause."

"They can try, but I will remain neutral. Unless they would use force, in which I trust you know what will happen."

To my surprise, what she shown me next was a genuine smile. I've already saw this kind of expression a multiple times but never once was it directed towards me. Besides the obligatory smiles that I received whenever I've accomplished some jobs in Cyrodiil, no one has ever smiled to me.

"Of course! Your excellent Housecarl will step in and cut their throats!"

Of course she wouldn't pass the chance to toss herself up. She's still fixated on the idea that she was the one that should protect me. The thing is that I very much needed the fighting experience to get back to my former strength and surpass it so that I may stood a chance against Alduin which was unfortunately already been prophesized according to the books. Although it also doesn't hurt to make her stronger along the way so that I may have an ally who would at least survive the life that I'm heading towards.

"Well, speaking of your service, do I have to pay you or that was already provided by the Jarl?"

"We are basically personal soldiers issued by the Jarl to the nobles of the hold so we also get our salary at the Jarl same as other soldiers but only a bit higher."

That makes sense. I'm not the one who hired her so the one who appointed her to be my housecarl should be the one to pay her.

"By the way, there's actually something I was about to say before you... you know, slam me to the ground."

"Go ahead."

"Um, we're already hauling a lot of our spoils from the bandit camps so I'm suggesting that we should get back to Whiterun to sell all of these."

"We'll, I wasn't t hauling a lot before you said that you should carry some because you swore to carry my burdens..."

Now that I've mentioned it, the way she said it back then was a bit sarcastic. No matter, she swore to serve me so that also means that she'll have a fair share of the valuables that we looted. Of course she can also have a share of the earnings since I'm not a slave driver.

...

We are currently back in Whiterun. There are a bunch of bounties that I'd like to claim here from all of the bandits that we've killed back and forth the High Hrothgar. There's also the loot that I'd like to sell to earn some extra money.

After I entered the keep, I immediately went towards the steward to claim the bounty. To this day, I still don't know how they confirm that I indeed killed those bandits but it doesn't really matter as long as I get the appropriate pay for my service. Still, I can't help but wonder.

"You've done us a great service, Thane. Here's six hundred septims for two bandit camps as reward."

Proventus then handed me the purse with the appropriate amount of money. Well, there's only five gold and ten silver coins but each gold amounts to a hundred while silver amounts to ten septims each. I could only imagine how much of a hassle it would be to carry six hundred copper coins.

"And thank you for this." I replied while receiving the purse of money.

During the last trip, I've earned a total of two thousand septims including the bounties and the loot that I sold to the blacksmith and the general store. For some reason, the store owner paid a huge amount for the copy of the tablet texts found in the steps to High Hrothgar. Of course I still have my own copy of it.

Meanwhile, my Housecarl was just sitting near the fire at the center of the hall, warming herself. I decided go there myself because I also want a bit of warmth before I go outside and head to the tavern since it's already night. I then sat there for a few minutes before standing up again.

I looked at the purse of septims on my hand. These would be Lydia's share of the bounty and although I'm not sure if I'm obligated to give these to her, I would still do it just to avoid her side comments in the future. Well, it doesn't really matter because I would still have one thousand four hundred remaining which is still a very good amount for just one trip.

"Here, catch."

"What's this for, my Thane?" she asked after catching the purse with her two hands.

"Your share of the bounty."

Without waiting for her response, I headed towards the door and went out of the keep. I then head to the bench surrounding the huge dead tree just to unwind a bit. The preacher who is usually in front of the statue has already went home, which makes the place more peaceful.

It was a clear night with the two moons in full display, as well as the stars and the northern lights which are visible all around Skyrim. As much as I love daylight, there's also something magical about the night sky that makes me want to just stare at it before I go to sleep ever since I was just a kid.

To further enjoy the peaceful setting, I grabbed a piece of wood inside my backpack and began sculpting in the image of a dragon. Of course, it wasn't on the image of Alduin, or at least the hideous form he has now. I modeled it based on the various depictions of Auri-El from what my parents told me and the books I've read, a feathered dragon surrounded by a dazzling cloak of yellowish white flames. Due to my experience with wood carving, it only took a few minutes for me to carve the general shape of the dragon.

Meanwhile, I noticed that there's someone watching me. I glanced to the side and saw the figure of a malnourished child. She was very thin and the bags on her eyes suggested that she did not have a proper sleep for a while now. Her clothes wasn't really that dirty but it has the distinct look of being worn over and over for too long.

I know that look in her eyes. She's definitely an orphan. I was lucky that I was raised in the wilds that I'm already capable of providing my own sustenance by the time my parents passed away. However, the orphan in front of me was born in this age where almost everyone is civilized. This will be very difficult for her.

She was staring at my wooden dragon sculpture. Okay, I think she found it strange that it was floating instead of me just holding it with my left hand.

"Can I help you, kid?" I asked her.

"I um... Mister... can you spare a coin?"

She was struggling to force those words out of her mouth, an indication that she's very new to this lifestyle of being a beggar. Either that or she's just a bit afraid of this scary-looking masked Mer.

I sheathed my dagger and reached in to my pocket, grabbing whatever coin that my hand came in contact with. When I opened my palm, it showed ten silver coins. It was a bit too much to be given away but it's no problem to me considering that there are plenty of ways to earn money due to me being a Dragonborn.

"Here, spend it wisely, okay?" I said as I handed them over to the child.

The child had the mixed look of being immensely thankful and being hesitant as she opened her hands to receive the coins. Shortly thereafter, she accepted the coins with teary eyes.

"Thank y-you so m-much, kind sir!"

I just simply nodded and continued on my sculpture. For some reason, the child didn't rush towards the inn to get food. Instead, she sat beside me at the vacant space of the bench I'm currently sitting at. She was probably still curious about my sculpture and wanted to see me finish it.

About an hour has passed and my sculpture was finally done. And yet, the child was still beside me. Upon closer inspection, she already fell asleep, which is quite dangerous for her considering that she's still holding on to the silver coins on her hand and anyone could just rob her.

My only option right now is to carry her to the inn and get her a room before I get my own. With that, I picked her up and went to the inn.

While she's still sleeping on my arms, I remembered that she took a liking to my wooden sculpture so I just decided to give it to her by placing it on her torso. As if she knew, she immediately took hold of the sculpture while clearly still being asleep.

After that, I arrived at the inn. I then paid two rooms. One for me and one for the child. Probably due to my untrustworthy look being a masked guy and all, the innkeeper took it upon herself to carry the child to her own room.

As for me, I decided to stay awake for a bit longer just because I wasn't in a hurry to sleep. I decided to have a meal consisting of venison chop and a slice of cheese while listening to some gossips being discussed by the patrons of the tavern. Well, I wasn't one for gossips but it never hurts to at least know what are some recent happenings in the surroundings.

I found myself listening to the conversation of a blonde Nord clad in armor and the innkeeper.

"I heard a member of the Companions have been raised into the Circle... This hasn't happened for a while, has it?"

"Aye. In fact, it was their newest member. I can still remember him asking me where he could learn magic. Ironic, isn't it?" the innkeeper replied.

"Yeah, I was beside him the whole time, you know? Then you told him that magic is for the weak, and by that you mean Elves. Good thing you told that the Companions were recruiting." Oh really?

The talk about magic being a think for the weak instead of being a warrior reminds me of the pitiful insecurities of people when it comes to their fighting style. Mages will say that fighters who uses their physical strength are dumb while Warriors will say that the ones who uses magic are weak.

Although one may have preferences, it's completely stupid to ignore one over the other. There are just circumstances where one fighting style won't be effective at all. For example, fighting a ghost with an axe is just plain stupid. Also, back in my time, I once fought a Direnni Mer for some reason and he just absorbed all spells I dishes out towards him, only to die once I began to slam his head on a rock.

Well, it doesn't matter. My fighting style is my own.

Suddenly, my train of thought was interrupted by a loud howl. It was so loud that most of the patrons were also alerted by it. I was about to ignore it when I also heard series of terrified screams.

Due to my experience in the wilds, I developed an intuitive sense of aggression and bloodlust. And this time, those two were off the charts. It feels way too different to a common wolf, this one feels like it specifically craved for the life of a sentient being.

Even if I'm already sleepy, I immediately ran outside and headed towards the source of the source of the sound. I carried the enchanted axe that the Jarl gave me just in case things go south.

Indeed, it went south. As I was about to climb the stairs towards the wind district, a hulking figure of a humanoid wolf stared down at me. It was covered in blood with more of them accumulating on its hands and mouth. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that it just killed a person, probably multiple.

This confuses me. Clearly, this beast of Hircine already went on a rampage and yet the so-called warrior group of Whiterun were not around to try to stop it. Could it be that they were all defeated by this werewolf?

Oh right, no time to think. Fight first, ask questions later. I was only given a snarl as a warning before the beast immediately pounced towards me with its claws in full display. With my Magicka, I redirected its trajectory to my left, letting it fall down to the ground, me barely avoiding its attack.

However, the beast wasn't fazed by even a little as it just continued to dish out its frenzied claw slashes. This made it a bit predictable for me because it just repeated the same left and right motion of its arms. So what I did was I lured it towards an open an uninhabited place inside the walls so that the likelihood of casualties will decrease.

"Now, let's see what you're made of, spawn of Hircine!"

The moment we reached an uninhabited area, I decided to fight back using my magic. For each swing the werewolf made, I either evaded or blocked them while inserting counterattacks of my own using an invisible Magicka spear.

Frustrated, the werewolf let out a primal bellow which sounded more like a roar than that of a howl. Due to an inexplicable reason, I somehow had the powerful urge to run away from the beast. Unfortunately for it, I've been subjected to much scarier expression of presence courtesy of a dragon's Dismay shout. That level of intimidation just won't work on me.

However, during that slight moment of hesitation, the werewolf was quick to take advantage of it as it immediately pounced towards me. Only my sheer battle instincts saved me by raising a Magicka shield around my body which instead caused me to be flung to a sizeable distance.

Okay, it seems that even a bit of overconfidence would always lead me to an undesired outcome. And besides, I'm not here to enjoy the thrill of the fight, I am here to kill this feral and bloodthirsty monster here and now. Feral? It's been a while since I pondered on that word...

There's no denying that this werewolf was very powerful. Obviously, this wasn't just some sort of disease that was contacted from another werewolf encounter. Werewolf blood as strong as this one must only be willingly given and acquired, another reason to kill it right this instant before it could prey to other mortals and become stronger.

To end it once and for all, I threw my axe directly at the werewolf's forehead. Even with its own fire enchantment, I also overcharged it with my own sun magic, which resulted in both damaging magic seeping to its brain in a matter of seconds. If that wasn't enough, I still made my my Magicka spear stab into its heart while pouring sun magic to its system.

I didn't even realized that I had some spectators. Most of them were the guards while some of them were the patrons of the tavern that I saw earlier during my brief time there. While some of them were cheering for the death of the werewolf, few of them were uncharacteristically silent.

After I released the magical spear, a few guards approached me. All of them are wounded with claw marks, an indicator that they survived the werewolf attack before it turned its attention towards me. Maybe the same howl that almost made me flee from it was also used towards them, making them unable to fight it due to their fear.

"Oh, it's you, Thane! First, a dragon, then now, a werewolf. We are honored to have you in our hold!" Easy with the compliments, that might have stroked my ego if I was someone else.

"I might have been late to react if I say so myself. Although I have to ask why there's a werewolf here inside the walls."

"We don't know, Thane. All we knew was there were also some werewolf attacks some years ago but it seemed to be an isolated case since there were also reported case of them attacking settlements at random."

Okay, maybe it was just a case of a random Hircine worshipper who happened to have a strong blood and decided to take advantage of the large population of this city. From the looks of it, the werewolf was very powerful and was enough to feast on several people here and could still escape here with minimal problems since its howl was strong enough to intimidate and deter the guards.

And as expected from a powerful werewolf, I, together with the guards, saw the beast reverting back to its human form. For me, it doesn't really matter who this man is since he's already dead. But for the guards, knowing his identity would greatly benefit their investigation since it would help them find his potential connections which could help prevent this situation from happening again.

For some reason, I could see from their faces that they somehow recognized the bleeding corpse on the ground. Some of the spectators were in a hurry to leave the scene while some who remained had the look of horror in their eyes.

"This can't be..." one of the guards stammered.

"Uh, what? Someone you know?" I asked, not knowing what was going on. For all I know, this person was just a madman who let loose the beast of Hircine to a city.

"He... He was the newest member of the Circle of the Companions!"

A/N: I can't help it. I'm irritated by the fact that the Companions had the balls to do the werewolf converting ritual inside the city.

Made up dragon shout translation:

MUL RII KREIN: Strength, Essence, Sun( Magnus) — Basically functions as his own Dragon Aspect but using the energy of Aetherius.