Author's Note:

Dear all,

as with the first book, I am publishing this separate work for any side stories and extra stories for the second book. The first chapter is supposed to be the plotline summaries again, but since the book is not finished yet, those will come later. For now, I have extra stories to share before that happens so I'm publishing this work already. It won't get updated regularly, only when I have a new short one-shot to share. All of them will involve the characters and events from my main fic and most are canon for the story. I will specify which with each one though. The stories here are related to events from the second book, obviously, so if you're not caught up with that and want to avoid spoilers, leave these extra stories for later.

This particular one is a small two-part one-shot that portrays the life of one of the characters from the College of Winterhold, spanning over a few months after the plotline conclusion in the main fic. It didn't really fit into the main story anywhere so I decided to make it separate, but it is definitely canon for the story as a whole. I hope you'll enjoy.

Thank you for reading :3

Ashes to Ashes

Part I - The Ancestral Ways

"Can you hear me?"

The words came as if from far away. They often did. It always took her a while to realize that someone was talking to her. Always took a while to hear what they were saying. She felt as if she wasn't even here with everyone else in this place. On this plane?

Maybe she wasn't. She didn't even know anymore. And most importantly – she didn't care.

Maybe her mind was already starting to go. It would make sense. She couldn't concentrate on anything, not on her spells, not on her 'brilliant new ideas'. Everyone thought that she was so bright, so imaginative. Everyone thought that her insights would be the future of magical research and progress. And now? Now it just felt like Sheogorath was picking away at her clever mind. Piece by piece, dragging it inside his realm.

Maybe she'd be happier there. She sure as the Void hadn't felt happy here in a long time.

Not ever since that mess.

Not ever since she lost him.

Everything felt like it was clouded in a strange haze ever since. The celebrations, the relief, none of that felt real to her. She took some time for herself after that, roaming the College halls with no purpose and no destination. Most of the time she wasn't even sure what she was doing. Most of the time she wasn't even really aware that she was walking or eating or sleeping. It all felt the same.

It wasn't until the others stopped reveling in their victory and took some time to look at the damage they had left behind. It wasn't until they looked at her.

And suddenly, everyone was concerned.

Her fellow classmates kept trying to spend time with her, trying to take her mind off things. The Masters all told her to take time away from her studies and the new Arch-Mage even offered to postpone her second mid-year exams so that she could take them only when she was ready. And of course, Master Marence wanted to study her for 'afflictions of the mind' and 'cure' her.

As if there was any cure for grief.

The attention was overwhelming. It made everything worse. Especially since none of them really cared. They just did all that shit because it made them feel better. Made them feel helpful, kind, and concerned. They didn't care what happened to her, not really. They just wanted to say they tried to help. Empty, meaningless promises and gestures. None of them really cared about her.

Not like J'zargo cared.

"Brelyna, can you hear me?" Master Neloren scowled at her.

"Yes, Master, apologies. I was just… thinking about… the… the Tenth Eye and… and… life detection. If… if they could be combined," she answered. The first thing that popped into her head. She could see it on the board behind the lectern – Master Neloren wrote the words 'Tenth Eye' on there and then he scribbled some magical symbols below. She didn't know what it meant. She didn't know what Tenth Eye even was. She just mentioned that thing and her previous research. It tended to work wonders for her. Everyone assumed that she knew what the lesson was about.

"But that would be redundant," Master Neloren scoffed. Alright. Maybe it didn't work this time. "Life detection already reveals the unseen and… unless… did you mean to only utilize the spatial element only? To have the Tenth Eye make objects visible through walls and structures and into greater distances? Oh… Azura's breath, Brelyna, that is an amazing idea!" he gasped.

Huh. It did work.

Ever since Master Marence started to talk about 'curing' Brelyna, it became too much. The attention was too much and she definitely didn't want to be experimented upon. So Brelyna got… better.

If she just acted like she used to, people would leave her alone again.

So she started to go to classes again, talking to people, laughing, studying, practicing spells.

None of it made any difference. Everything was empty, everything was like a dream. She just did things out of old habits while her mind was elsewhere, wandering in times long lost, trying to find a way to cope with the loss of her only true friend.

Being a student at the College was not easy. It was quite cut-throat, to be exact. Everybody competed, everybody did whatever they could to undermine each other. The College had a habit of sending the less successful mages into the field, to study ruins or to go abroad into other institutions to gather lore. Nobody wanted to do these things. Mages from Winterhold were often shunned in other provinces. They were from the backwater and magically stunted Skyrim after all. And most of the mages that went into old ruins didn't exactly… return. The coveted positions were right there inside the College halls. But there were only so many of them.

Maybe that would change now that Arch-Mage Faralda was in charge. She always valued young talent and she always claimed that more students needed to be kept at the College to do research. Brelyna even heard that the Arch-Mage didn't allow students to go and explore ruins without mercenary escorts anymore.

But it didn't change how things used to be. The students never really got used to working together, they only got used to attempting to undermine anyone they could.

She may have been the same. J'zargo may have been the same. But their own relationship was different.

She still remembered how it started. How she muttered to herself in Master Tolfdir's class about her last failed experiment. She attempted to combine the new light spells that they had been taught recently to create an adhesive ball of light that she could move and stick onto another surface after it was cast. Her attempts never panned out and she had no idea why. It should have worked in theory. Instead of concentrating on the class, she kept going over her notes, trying to think of another approach. She didn't even notice when the class ended. She still sat there, agonizing over her research when suddenly a ball of light landed on her desk. J'zargo was standing behind her and, with a wide grin, he gestured with his hand and the ball of light sprang from her desk and leapt onto a nearby wall, sticking there. It turned out that she wasn't the only one not paying attention to the class. J'zargo, who had been sitting right next to her, was completely distracted by admiring her research ideas. In the end, it turned out that she was misunderstanding some of the runes. That was what J'zargo shone at. He was such a natural mage – everything came easy to him. He just needed to look at a spell in a book and he could cast it on the first try perfectly. But he admired Brelyna's ideas. He could never think of something so 'innovative', he said. And so he offered to help her with her experiments, to help her with her casting or even volunteer to try out her spells for her, as long as she occasionally helped him with his thesis ideas. And their friendship among the cutthroat rivalries blossomed beautifully.

But now all of that was lost. And she was forced to act like she was fine with it.

Master Neloren's lessons were especially hard. She hated looking at him. He was acting as if everything was fine too.

He may have had the same reason as her, but… she felt like he had been fine from the start. It made her sick. He and J'zargo were supposed to be close. An illicit affair, sure. Forbidden. Master Neloren couldn't act as if he had just lost a lover when J'zargo died. He couldn't let anyone know that there was ever anything between the Master and one of his students. But lives were still lost. He could have mourned a little.

She just wanted the lesson to be over already.

"What in the Void is that?" A grating voice right next to Brelyna's ear tore her away from her thoughts. And whose voice would be more grating than Nirya's, her fellow classmate's?

Brelyna reluctantly looked back at that stuck up bitch and followed her gaze to where it was staring. Nirya was focused on Brelyna's book splayed upon her desk. It was just a conjuration book. Brelyna must have gotten mixed up. It happened a lot lately. It didn't matter anyway. Who cared what book she dragged to the lesson? She didn't even look at it anyway. She may have accidentally opened that wrong book on a very advanced spell just then, but who cared? Did that bitch have to stare like that?

"Just grabbed the wrong book," Brelyna shrugged.

"Ah, and here I thought you might have decided to be a good Dunmer girl after all and make your ancestors proud by getting chummy with corpses," Nirya snickered maliciously.

'Corpses'? Was that even a necromancy spell that she opened the book on? For all she knew it may have been. She was never good at seeing the components at a glance, not until someone pointed them out to her. Not like J'zargo…

But Nirya was full of shit anyway, the Nords didn't like necromancy. They didn't even teach necromancy. Brelyna knew that there were some necromancers that traded with the College and shared some of their research, but they weren't working at the premises. Surely the spell was something else.

Pfft. 'Getting chummy with corpses'. That bitch. She knew how much Brelyna hated to be mistaken for a necromancer. It happened so much in Skyrim. Every Dunmer mage was a 'necromancer' to them, even to the Masters at first. They urged her to focus on conjuration right away.

And none of them even knew what the ancestral worship entailed. They were imagining raised corpses and mages making zombies to fight for them. They understood nothing. And it irked her even more because even the proper ancestral magics that her family hoped she would study, even that was never what fascinated her. In fact, the further from conjuration practices she got in her studies, the better. She didn't even know anything about these things anyway. She had always avoided it, ever since she was little.

Besides, from the little she knew, the magic could only raise the spirits of the ancestors.

She didn't want to see any of her ancestors.

She just wanted to see J'zargo.

But that was not possible.

Was it?

Why was it possible for the Dunmer to raise their dead to protect them, only because of blood relation? The Dunmer were cremated in their burial rituals. There was no blood, no connection to the blood in their veins. It made no sense. The spirits rose from the ashes, didn't they?

If she had someone's ashes, could she just raise their spirit, just like that?

She suddenly felt something she hadn't felt in months. She wasn't sure if it was excitement, a spark of intrigue, thirst for knowledge, or if it was… hope. Maybe she had dismissed her ancestral practices too fast, too harshly. Maybe there was merit in them.

But she needed to learn more first.

…

It was so cold.

Perhaps she should have been used to it by now. Winterhold was a cold place – the coldest place in Skyrim, some claimed. And that was saying something. Sometimes she wondered if the College was all the way up here so that it would deter people. Nords hated mages after all, right? She'd seen enough of that hatred in town.

But this place felt like something else entirely.

It wasn't even the cold of the ice and snow all around her or the profuse drafts throughout the place.

It was something more… unnatural. As if death and magic seeped through the walls.

The Midden. The dung heap upon which any unsuccessful College experiments ended up. Right before she entered this place, she wondered if she might actually come across some of her own experiments here. Alteration magic tended to have… interesting results when miscast. But the things she encountered there were nothing like her accidental mishaps. Disfigured corpses, strange spider-like creatures spewing acid or flames. It was not something that she had ever expected. It was no wonder that the Masters forbade everyone to come down here – they were the only ones who could.

But Brelyna needed to come here. She didn't know who else to ask. She had read everything that the College had on Dunmer faith and magic, on the Reclamations, on the ancestral worship, but it all just spoke of honoring your ancestors and tending to the family tombs. She didn't need a tomb, she needed her friend back. She needed to speak to someone who knew these things.

Master Neloren was not an option. She didn't really want to involve any of the Masters and he was born in Skyrim anyway. Besides, she didn't want to look at his face.

Funnily enough, there weren't any more Dunmer at the College that she could ask about such a thing. She contemplated going to Windhelm, as much as she loathed that idea, to seek out someone there who could help. Maybe the elves there had a priest? Or did they just forget their old religions?

But then she found the ideal alternative.

When she was returning the books to Urag, in pristine condition of course, he chuckled at her choice of topics. He said that she 'reminded him of young Dalbard'. When she inquired, Urag only specified that he was a student there: 'Dalbard of Dunlain, a Breton with a Dunmer father, obsessed with learning more of the ancestral worship'. She didn't think that much of it before something clicked in her mind. 'Dunlain'. Like the Augur of Dunlain. And since there was no trace of this Dalbard anywhere at the College now, she knew where to look for him.

It was perfect. Not only was the young mage interested in the same subject, but he also became this… entity, capable of seeing beyond what a mortal could. He could tell her so much.

The Midden was a dangerous place, of course, but she wasn't worried. She had an edge that nobody else had. She had J'zargo.

Or his scrolls, to be exact.

They weren't ideal at first. The primary tests were less than successful – the caster did get enveloped with J'zargo's incredibly powerful flame cloak, but unfortunately, the heat didn't spare the caster. J'zargo was so heartbroken then, he had been so happy about the spell, but it didn't work the way he imagined. Not until he enhanced with a surprising component – a stoneflesh spell, imbued into the cloak. It would protect the caster and retain the strength of the cloak at the same time. It was brilliant. She should know. It was her idea after all. One she was quite proud of.

They always made a great team when they put their heads together.

And they would again.

The Midden was confusing and large but with the scrolls in effect, she was safe. The creatures burned to a crisp in her passing and most of them didn't even approach when they saw the others fall.

It took a while of endless searching and wandering, but eventually, she reached her destination.

At least she was pretty sure of it.

She saw a large ball of light in the distance. She wasn't sure if it was a spell or a… being, but when she approached closer, she could… feel it. A strangely overwhelming presence.

Brelyna stepped a bit closer with trepidation. That thing made her… uneasy. Odd. She rarely felt uneasy around anything magical. In fact, she felt most at ease surrounded by marvel and anything beyond the mundane.

She had to fight through it though. It was just… irrational fear. Nothing to worry about.

"You have come," a deep voice suddenly echoed through the chamber, bouncing off the stone walls.

"You… you sound like you expected me," Brelyna looked into the bright light uncertainly.

"There are no more surprises for me, apprentice," the voice answered. "But you came here seeking which is no longer."

'Which is no longer'? No. That was a lie. J'zargo's spirit was there… somewhere. He could be brought back.

"No. I can bring him back. I know I can," Brelyna snarled defiantly.

"Not your friend. The man you came to seek here, in these depths. He is no longer. It is only I," the voice answered.

"Oh…" Brelyna's tension eased a bit. She wasn't even sure why she got so wound up at those words. She was fully prepared to have to defend her decision to bring her friend back. "You mean… the young mage you… you used to be. The one that did the research into ancestral magic?" She couldn't hide her disappointment. She came for his information about the Dunmer magic after all. Did he really… forget?

"The man you seek had a… different perspective," the Augur explained calmly. "The man you seek did not know what it means to linger when you should not."

"It's… it's different. J'zargo was taken from me too soon, he doesn't deserve this!" she shook her head briskly. J'zargo would want to be here, with her. She knew him! They didn't even get to say goodbye.

"The young mage was taken too soon as well, but it was his path. He would have wished for peace now. You think your friend doesn't deserve the same?"

"Why? Why when he can be brought back? I know he can!" Brelyna felt tears prickle at her tears from the frustration alone. This being was supposed to give her answers and it was offering conundrums instead. This wasn't how this was supposed to go. It was like it was trying to misinterpret her intentions. "I'm not going to keep him here! I'm not going to turn him into… into… something like… you. I just want to see him. He wants to come back, I know he does!"

"You presume another's mind more than I," it almost sounded like the Augur chuckled. "You are on your path already, apprentice, but you seek the wrong thing. Do you understand your people and their ancient ways? Did you not learn how they covet the reincarnate, yet bound souls to linger instead? Do you seek the same?"

"You… what are you saying? That J'zargo should reincarnate instead of lingering here? That's… that's not even real. Or… I don't know. Who knows where his soul is now?! If it's here, at least I'll know. At least he'll be here with me. With someone who cares about him." She read a bit in her research about reincarnation. There was nothing substantial about this, just some legends about old heroes returning as new ones to save the Dunmer from threats. That was just talk, something familiar for people to cling to. It had no substance. The ancestral ghosts were real. She knew that. There were so many records of them. This was just… pointless philosophy.

"Perhaps you will think on my words, apprentice," the voice answered almost disinterestedly. "That which you seek to set you on your path is not here, not in the halls you know. Those who sought the same could not remain among the mages."

"What? But… there were all these books on ancestral worship and magic. If it's forbidden, why would…" Brelyna shook her head, but the Augur interrupted her promptly.

"Is your friend bound to your Dunmer blood? Is your friend bound in death to protect your family? You seek in the wrong places. You should seek those who uncover the ways of transcending mortality."

That… was a good point. Maybe the ancestral worship really was bound to the Dunmer and their lineages. There wasn't any magical research in those books that could either confirm or deny that. But what could she do then?

"Where are these people?"

"The one who can lead you to your path lives in the city of Morthal, apprentice."

Finally! A real lead. Morthal? She didn't know about any mages there, but if there was one, she would find them. She would find out what they knew about 'transcending mortality' and she would bring J'zargo back.

"Thank you," Brelyna sighed in relief. It was less than she had hoped for. No spell, no sure way to resurrect her friend, but it was something.

"Remember my words, apprentice," the Augur spoke, letting his booming voice fill the room.

She wasn't sure why she should. Apart from her next clue, he didn't really tell her anything useful.

…

"My dear girl, I don't know what to say," Falion shook his head somberly after she had told him the tale.

She told him how bravely J'zargo died, leaving out some of the details about what really happened at the College. She told him how she was on a search to bring him back for months now.

That very night, after she had made it out of the Midden, she knew what she had to do.

She knew enough about the magic she needed to utilize by now. At least she was pretty sure of it. The Dunmer raised their ancestral ghosts from the ashes to guard their tombs. Necromancers raised the dead corpses they found. Those corpses never had the spirits of the departed, not their souls – those weren't the same people. But the ancestral ghosts were, weren't they? All ghosts were. There was something there – some overlap that she was missing. Some combination that she could create. She was very good at this sort of stuff. A component here, a rune there, eventually spells could be combined, their properties enhanced. She could do this with just a bit more insight into the practices themselves. Insight from someone who studied 'immortality'. But for that, she would likely need something that could bring J'zargo back.

She needed his ashes.

That was all there was left of him – of his body, of his presence here on Nirn. Whatever she would learn in Morthal, she would rather have all she needed than wait another second to see J'zargo again.

J'zargo was resting in the College basement in the memorial chamber, like all the mages that had fallen here on the College grounds. She had been there many times before, hoping that she would see his ghost there one night, that she could talk to him again. But there were no ghosts in these halls. There was just death.

The memorial room wasn't guarded. Nothing at the College was really guarded. The gates around the bridge were security enough. Nobody actually expected anyone inside to steal from their fellow mages. And people were used to seeing her walk into the basement in the middle of the night. Nobody would bat an eye.

She left the College that very night, heading for Morthal. She didn't tell anyone, she only left a note – she was going away for a bit, to clear her head. Nobody would be surprised by that, surely. And when she would return in a few days, she would shock them all.

She would not return alone.

She reached Morthal soon enough by a carriage and she asked around for a mage. Her search was quick – there was only one in the town. Falion. A Redguard who had 'left' the College due to unknown circumstances. That was perfect.

She met with Falion as soon as she could and the man was very friendly, eager to see someone interested in magic in this town. That was before she told him what exactly she was interested in. She told him the whole slightly-adjusted story. And she told him that she was searching for a way to bring her friend back to her.

"I am very sorry for your loss," Falion sighed regretfully. "But, my dear, what you're looking for… it's impossible. The dead cannot return to us."

"But… the Augur said that… that you study 'transcending mortality'. Isn't that what you were kicked out of the College for? Studying arts that they didn't approve of?" Brelyna asked desperately. The Augur said that Morthal held the answers for her. There had to be answers!

"I was not 'kicked out'," Falion scoffed incredulously. "I… yes, I have devoted my studies to conjuration and it… led me to the more… obscure areas of the art. When I left, I was studying necromancy and, yes, I have also been intrigued by the Dunmer practices, but I left because there was no one at the College to help me with my research, no material, no resources. I knew that I had to search for them myself instead of staying in place, waiting for something to drop at my feet. Eventually I moved here where my sister lives. I was more interested in the more traditional conjuration techniques by that time. Daedra and their binding and summoning. But I found out on my journeys that I can learn so much more out in the world than locked in those halls. So I never returned. Now I've… moved on to other research again. But I assure you my dear, I have studied a myriad of fields related to the conjuration arts, but none can resurrect the fallen. Not in the way you wish."

No. She refused to believe this. There had to be a way. The Augur sent her here. There had to be a way.

Falion said that he studied Dunmer magic and necromancy. She had already thought about this. She didn't need the man to tell her it was impossible. How many times had someone told her that something was impossible and yet she figured out a way? She just needed his research.

"Do you know any… spells? You said you studied necromancy and the Dunmer ancestral ghosts too? Have you ever tried these in practice?" She looked at him hopefully.

"I… did. I never got anywhere with the ancestral magic, but I was quite the proficient necromancer. Or still am, I suppose, if I wanted to," Falion sighed. He still looked forlorn for some reason. "But necromancy cannot bring one's soul back into the body. And do you even have your friend's body?" he scoffed.

"I have his ashes," Brelyna gave him a determined nod.

"Ashes? He was… burned? You… what do you expect to resurrect, girl?" he gave her a startled look.

His ghost? A being formed of ash? She had seen some of those illustrated in a book, though she had no idea how they came to be. Anything. Anything that could bring J'zargo back. It didn't matter what he looked like!

"Do you have any spell books?" she asked instead of answering his questions. He would just get judgmental about it anyway.

"I… I do," he sighed in resignation. "Very well, you can have my books for your experiment." She was sure that he offered them just to shut her up. Because he thought that she could do nothing. He didn't know how smart she was. He had no idea what she had managed to do before, even just as an apprentice. Master Tolfdir once actually called her a 'genius'. If anyone could figure this out, it was her.

She couldn't wait. She just kept imagining how proud J'zargo would be of her.

In whatever form that he was.

…

Brelyna sat tentatively on the ground when she found a somewhat dry spot.

The Hjaalmarch swamps were inhospitable at the least, but they would suit her purposes.

She spent the entire previous day studying the books that Falion had lent her. One was a 'simple' spell to summon an ancestral ghost and the other was a thick tome of reanimation techniques and spells. She was sure that she had figured it out. That she figured out how to combine these and raise a being that would carry on the spirit from the ashes. Granted, the Dunmer book wasn't really illuminating on how the spirit actually got into the ashes or how it all worked, but the spell was there. And she found the right components from it, she was sure.

Usually it took her a lot of trial and error to make her spell combinations, but not this time, she was sure. This time she would get it right on her first try. This time, everything was at stake. This was more important than any of her research before.

Success was practically a certainty. Especially when she was this determined.

She found a secluded place out in the swamp. It felt strangely poetic to her that she stumbled upon a statue of Mephala in there. Some Daedra worshippers must have built it there, or maybe moved it there – somewhere nobody could bother them in their frowned-upon practices. She never really cared for the Daedra but it was a good place, she thought. Mephala, the web-spinner. One of the Dunmer Reclamations. A Prince of secret knowledge and forbidden lore. It was fitting. Maybe Mephala would even stand by her in this endeavor, whatever that meant.

She made a small campfire outline with stones, but there would be no flames inside.

Instead, she solemnly poured out J'zargo's ashes inside.

She wondered if she should feel bad about doing that. She was sure that if people knew, they would think she was desecrating the dead or some such. But she wasn't. That was not her intention.

The ashes… they weren't really J'zargo.

Not yet.

She spread out her notebook by the shrine, open on her new creation. A resurrection spell.

To be fair, she wasn't exactly sure if she would bring forth a ghost or a body. She did have a body. That was another thing she made sure to have. She had scoured the swamp again after she had found her special place, searching for a corpse. She knew that she would find one somewhere. Bodies were easy to come by in Skyrim, especially in dangerous places. At one point, she reached some old cabin with an old rotten door broken in half. There were three bodies inside there with sacs on their heads and their throats slit. Disturbing. And the bodies were a bit… worse for the wear, granted, but beggars could not be choosers. And more than that, there was even a Khajiit among them.

It was just a precaution. She was pretty sure that it would be a ghost in the end, but she needed to make sure. So she dragged the heavy body all the way back to her special spot. It was very heavy and it took her so long, but she did manage in the end. It wasn't that far after all.

The body stung so badly, rotting and decomposing, but that was nothing. She would endure it. Anything for J'zargo.

And now everything was ready. A whole day spent in preparations, but it was ready. She was exhausted and kind of scared, but there could be no more delays.

She would have him back.

It felt a bit like the winds were picking up. She should hurry. She couldn't lose the ashes to the elements.

She raised her hands with determination and started to cast the spell.

It was difficult to keep it going for a while. The spell felt unstable. She had to stop at first, but her second attempt fared better. She managed to keep the spell up through the initial instability and she moved her hands into the ash.

It glowed faintly with a tinge of red. She vaguely heard a loud noise disturb her, but she couldn't lose her concentration now.

The ash around her hands started to move and swirl softly. It was doing something!

Hang in there, J'zargo. You'll be back with me soon.

A few more swirls. She could feel so much magic in the air. Crisp, crackling magic. A new experiment always felt like that. But this wasn't just an experiment. This was a solution.

Once more the noise tried to interrupt her. It was so loud. Like a roar. Probably some stupid troll or something. She couldn't get distracted.

The ashes shifted and started to float around her hands a bit. It made her heart skip a beat a little. It was working.

But then the noise came back. A strange rumbling as the wind picked up intensely. She wasn't sure for a second if it was her spell or the wind that moved the ashes, but a moment later, a heavy thud made the ground quake under her.

That did it. The red light from her spell disappeared as she startled and she instantly threw a death-glare at the source of the noise.

But she was only left staring in horror.

A dragon just landed near her. She hadn't even seen it. She hadn't noticed anything. The roars, the wind, the noise, she ignored it all, focused only on her spell.

She had never seen a dragon in her life. It was so big. So scary. What could she even do now?!

Before she even managed to realize what just happened, the dragon opened its maw and a bright flame formed at the back of it.

It was going to burn her!

Her hand flew up in panic and a steady ward formed on it. The dragon heaved and fire started to spew out of its mouth, but her ward covered her form safely.

When it stopped, she could only let out heavy panicked breaths. She was still sitting there on the ground while the beast's legs were submerged in the swampy water around her small island. And only then she noticed what happened.

Everything around her was burned, including her notebook. The ground was scorched wherever her ward did not reach. But most of all, it was covered in ash. All the marsh grass burned instantly, leaving nothing else behind. And then she noticed the stones of her 'campfire', strewn all over the place as J'zargo's ashes mixed with everything around, snuffed away by the hurl of the flames.

"What… no! What… what did you do?!"

Brelyna's fists clenched in fury. This beast, this thing, it just destroyed everything! Her last hopes of ever seeing J'zargo were gone and for what? For this fucking monster and its pitiful hunt after lone travelers?!

She got up on her feet swiftly. It felt like her blood was boiling. This thing would pay. She would make it pay so much for taking him away from her!

Her hands practically burst into electricity as she raised them up. Her spells hit in an instant – lightning shooting right at the beast's fucking face. She would turn it into dust! She would burn it to ashes, just so that it could get lost in the swamp just like J'zargo.

The beast roared, but it recovered quickly. It thrashed around a bit, spraying her with some of the filthy water as it stomped its feet, before it made a sudden movement. It turned briskly and its tail made a swift slash across the area. Brelyna got ready to jump out of the way, but the tail didn't aim at her.

It collided with the statue nearby instead.

The last thing she saw before the dull pain enveloped her body was Mephala's depiction, tumbling down right onto her.

She fell with a thud, letting out a gasp of shock and pain. She was luckier than she could have hoped for when the head missed her, but the stone shoulder collided with her stomach and pinned her to the ground with heavy weight, leaving her trapped between Mephala's neck and outstretched arm.

Brelyna saw the beast turn towards her again. It almost looked like it smiled.

It had its prey now at its mercy, as if trapped in Mephala's web.

Another Author's Note:

Thank you for reading :) The second part will be out soon enough.

In the meantime, in case any of you wish to re-read the parts preceding the events of this story (even though they were published only recently), you can do so in the Winterhold plotline: chapters XLV through LIII (45 through 53) of the second book.

If you really want to be meticulous about it, there are also snippets and preceding events in chapter VIII (8) of the second book and chapters XCV through XCVII (95 through 97) of the first book. Possibly chapter CXVIII (118) too, if you want to remind yourself of the previous version of J'zargo's scrolls :D

In any case, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed the first part of the short story :)