Jane gave him an exaspperated look "You do realize that this is skyrim, right? Quite possibly the most frost bitten section
of the empire?" The man waved a hand vaguely in the air. "yeaaah, but the Dwemer choose this place in skyrim because it was hard to get to, and the fact that it had the
lowest snowfall, so that the machines could work in an enviroment where overheating was less of a problem, and they were less likely to get trapped in
the snow." "Listen the entire RUIN is encased in ice, the snow is at least 3 legs deep! IT SNOWS HERE! just like everywhere ELSE in the godforsaken place!"
The man raised an eyebrow "So I assume you aren't from around here?" "No, I was just visiting and I got entangled in some... important buisness."
The man started walked back from the way Jane had just come, for whatever reason, Jane decided to follow. "So what's your name."
She glared at him, "Starling Jane. Though most people call me Dovahkiin nowadays." The man turned and gave her an intregued look. "Dovahkiin? Really?"
She massaged her forehead with one of her hands. "Yes, and no, I'm not a legend, and no I'm not going to 'shout' for you." The man rolled his eyes "I know Dovahkiin exist" he said pronouncing the word perfectly.
"But most of the one's I've met in my time were nords or imperials, Oh and my name's the Doctor my the way." Jane raised an eyebrow. "Dok-Tor? what is that, some kind of weird ancestrial nord name?"
The man frowned "Nope, and it's more of an occupation than a name really, but right now it's as close to a real name as I can get, oh but I love your name- sounds like something out of a fairy tale!" Jane smiled a little
"Thank you, Most people don't really compliment me on that." The man's smile got a little wider and warmer. "You're very much welcome, but can you indulge me a little?"
Jane's eyes narrowed "As long as it isn't what I think it is." The man cocked his head to the side like a dog, then the realization hit suddenly, his face got flushed almost instantly and he started waving his hands back and forth rapidly,
"NO!Just- NO! I just wanted to ask you a question!" She laughed a little at his obvious embarrassment "Ask away then" she said. The Doctor regained composure before talking again "Did this Khajiit mention anything... Odd? I mean, even for a skooma addict"
Jane shrugged "No, mostly he was screeching about skooma up until he saw me and tried to kill me" She paused for a minute, suddenly remembering something "But I found his brother's journal. He was trying to get him off skooma for good and he mentioned something about
him going into withdrawl pretty badly. Something about hallucinating faces in the ice-" The man suddenly turned towards her. "Wait, he said something about faces in the ice?"
"Yeah-" she fished the book out of her rucksack. "it's in here if you want to-" the doctor roughly snatched it out of her hands. She decided to ignore that.

Now that she was out of the steam filled ruins, Jane was beginning to shiver. She hoped her horse had found a warm alcove nearby to hide in, and she wished that she'd known about the gas leak in the ruins before hand.
Although she was much more clear headed afterwards, her fire spells had caused a massive explosion, and while she managed to escape with minor, easily healed burns- the same could not be said for the woolen cloak she wore over her armor.
Once she managed to put out the flames there wasn't enough of the cloak left to be made into a sock, much less protect her from the cold. She found the remains of a small fire pit and magically ignited the embers.
As feeling began to eb back into her fingertips she could have sworn she heard a a shreek but she brushed it off as moisture in the logs. She noticed that the Doctor had pulled out the rod and was waving it over the ice walls.
She could tell there was a deep frown on his face. "oh this is not good, this is very not good" Jane got up and walked over to where the man was staring at a huge wall of ice. "What's 'not good'? Please tell me you aren't taking a skooma
addict THAT seriously?" The man turned towards her, and his expression was far different from the one he was wearing just a few minutes ago. Despite the fact that he couldn't have been much older than his late thiries There was something very old in his expression, it was an expression that had hints of sadness and rage, but foremostly fear and impatience.
Suddenly Jane understood that she wasn't dealing with some harmless mad Nord who had gotten lost in the ruins, this man was much more than he appeared to be, and she was a fool for thinking otherwise.
"Do you know the reason why so many Khajiit are addicted to skooma?" Jane tried to retain composure, and pretended to be nonchalant. "I always assumed it was because they were the one who make it, I mean it's hard for a merchant not to have sampled his own wares right?"
The man shook his head. "No, it's true that Khajiit invented moonsugar, as well as skooma. It's also true that they keep the process of making moon sugar a secret, but don't you think that a civilization that has been using this for thousands of years would have built
up a tolerance to it? Khajiits have a higher tolerance for moonsugar, processed or not. It takes much more than one little taste to get them addicted." Jane gave a shrug. "I don't know, why then?"
"Khajiit have very good eyesight, as well as hearing. Better, in fact, than any other species on Nirn, some better than others. sometimes a Khajiit's eyesight is TOO good, and they turn to skooma to cope." Jane sighed, in spite of the fear of whatever this strange man was capable of she was getting annoyed.
"So what you're saying is that he WASN'T hallucinating." "Yep" He replied, putting an annoying emphasis on the 'p'. "That there really is something in the ice." "uh huh" He said, face just a little pale.

Jane watched the madman for a moment, then turned on her heels. "Alright, I'm done. I've got more important things to do than to humor you. Hope you find whatever you are looking for."
She hoped the man wouldn't notice the way she was walking away just a little too quickly, and decide that she was a threat. Suddenly she heard the man shout in surprise, and she heard a familiar whistling noise, she turned and when she saw the giant icicle flying towards her she tried to dodge it.

Unfortunately she only managed to keep it from hitting her head. The ice was imbeded deep in her stomach, but unlike the usual spell she was used to, it wasn't just some sort of phantom, an illusion of pain that would wear off soon after the caster was killed.
This was real. Jane's eyes began to water a little, and she wasn't sure if her vison was bluring because of the tears she was fighting to keep back, or the blood that she was losing.
But she managed to see that the man was backing away from the wall of ice but keeping his eyes focused on a point in it. She followed his gaze, with some difficulty, and saw something that was impossible, despite all of the impossible things she'd already seen.
There wasn't just a face in the ice; there was an entire person- and they were angry. Jane had trouble hearing, but she could have sworn that this- this Dok-Tor, was talking to the thing in the ice.

It could have been the pain, or the very real possiblity that she was dying, but she could have sworn that it was talking back.
At first it sounded like a series of high pitched screeches, but slowly they became words. It was hard to understand, what they were saying. But she managed to catch the words "time lord" "Elder scroll" "Cracks" and "War"
None of which sounded good. Jane grunted and tried to stand, but was unable to get further than her knees. Even though she had visons of death before, this was the closest she had come to actually dying.
Many things went through her head, things like wheither or not skyrim would be able to survive Alduin and his minions if she died; If it was possible that there was another, undiscovered dragonborn somewhere in skyrim that would
take her place;

If being Dovahkiin meant that she would go to sovengarde after she died, or if she would go to some unknown afterlife reserved for Bretons;

If her family back in Hammerfell would mourn her, or if they'd already forgotten her;

but the one thought that kept going through her mind was that if she was going down, then she was going to take this thing with her. She drew on her last bit of strength, and remembered a spell that she had learned not too long ago, but had never used
because of the pain it caused her familiar. She mentally asked her wolfish gaurdian to forgive her and summoned him. The flames licked at the ice, causing the creature to draw back, her gaurdian wolf howled in pain as the flames ate at it's etherial prescence.

The Doctor recognized the spell, and jumped back in a mixture of fear and horror. The gaurdian gave her one last look before he charged at the creature. As her vison started to go black she felt someone grab her shoulders, and the ground shake with the force of the blast.

Then she stopped.

She was somewhere... else. It looked like somewhere in Skyrim, judging by all the snow, but it wasn't cold, the air was admittedly a little cool, but not uncomfortably so. The snow was more or less an illusion. She saw a fortress and heard voices and laughter coming from it. She decided that she should go there, and maybe see if someone could explain where she was and what she was doing there. As she got closer she saw the door open and someone came out and the started walking towards her. When they got close enough that she could see their faces she almost didn't recognize them, as the distance between them got shorter she started to smile. Someone grabs her shoulder.

"You aren't ready Dovahkiin. There is still much work left to do"

Yes, I know Bretons come from High Rock. So please don't try to remind me in the reviews. I hope you have enjoyed the story so far, however beware; as I may neglect this one to tell a new story, or work on one of my other, pre existing ones in the future.