the bargain

A/N: I am happy to say this fic is finally fully written and will end at twenty-one chapters including the prologue, parts, and epilogue! These are shorter chapters, much shorter than the previous 9k in the last one. So, I'm going to post the next chapter now with part 5 and the next one on Sunday! The remaining chapters will be posted early next week. Enjoy!

Content warning: graphic violence and child endangerment (offscreen).

Thump, thump, thump.

Even though she now has the capacity to be as graceful as a deer, as quiet as a stalking feline, and as agile as any creature of the night, she has chosen to be as loud and easy to find as possible. She is a god now, and it's become painfully apparent that she doesn't care to use it to her advantage.

All the better for him. Mannimarco chases after her. It was like dangling a rat in front of a hungry house cat, and letting it run free. It wasn't in the house cat to chase this pretty thing. He wouldn't normally, but the instincts are still deeply rooted.

His bride is running from him again, trying her best to escape him, and he would not have it.

He tears through the shining manor halls, fast on her heels, always only a few inches behind her. At one point he only had to reach out a hand and grasp her cloak, to pull her back. He could have teleported if he wished. Or shoved barricades in her way.

But he was particularly interested in why she was running. Where she was running to. Was he really this horrible? Really this scary, this unappealing?

He snarls and races faster, his white hair and cloak billow out behind him ins streams. He lets his powers take over. He had given her more of a head start. She had long since rounded the corner and into the great library where all his undead were guarding it. He must speak to her. He must get the information from her in whatever way he can.

Yell in her face if he must. By Oblivion, after all this time, after all he's achieved with this little vampire, he would change for her. He'd sink into the battered skin of her former lover and pretend to be him whenever she was near. If that's what kept her happy, then so be it.

He pauses, his breath no quieter than a mouse's, and peers around the corner. Just to see what his bride was doing. When his eyes land on it. When he sees her arms raised and hears that ancient spell weaving it's way from her lips to the statue, he snaps.

Mannimarco bursts through the door, throwing flames and ice from his body. Electricity sizzles down his arms and to the ground. Books, rows and rows of colorful spines, blow back into the air and scatter their pages into the wind. It's like a great force had entered the realm with the power he commands, the way he destroys the room with each blow.

But he must use such force. Because now, standing in front of him is his old friend. His first enemy. He steps, in staggered, weakened movements from his pedestal. A hand to his pale face, slick with sweat. He looks like a shell of his former self. Mannimarco slowly lowers his hands, ready to talk the man down instead of fighting him but when Vanus raises his gaze to Mannimarco, it's nothing but fearsome.

The flames licking the tall fireplace do nothing to warm the room. Vorstag stays ready at the table, his hands shaking near his short sword. To kill an innocent boy like this…he would rather die. He might as well knowing what was to greet him when he got back to Coldharbour.

But the boy across from him hasn't dropped his pleasant smile. He breaks the bread before him, a small plate holding a single loaf. "I was hungry. Do you wish for any food?"

Vorstag's gaze darts from his face to his little hands. He heard her. He knew it was Serana in his mind and based on what the daedra said, it was her. It was no trick of the mind. But he wouldn't expect anything less from the daedra tied to Mehrunes Dagon.

He was desperate in his isolation. After being cast out and locked away from Nirn for his actions, he's become restless. If anything, the war against the Night Mother showed them how antsy he was getting. "I'm full. I don't eat bread, anyways." He jokes.

The boy chew thoughtfully. "Interesting. I forgot about that. My host still needs food, don't want him to lose his strength anytime soon."

Vorstag flinches at it. It was confirmed, the boy was still alive under the daedra's presence.

The boy laughs. "I'll make a deal with you."

Vorstag evens his breathing. "What is it?" He chooses his words carefully.

"I will untie that silly thread between you and Molag Bal, if you create a bond with Mehrunes Dagon."

Vorstag's fists clench. "Escape one captor for another?"

The boy's eyes widen as he studies Vorstag intensely. "Yes, you will find him far…kinder than Molag Bal. He takes better care of his Champions."

The lies drip easily from this boy's mouth. Vorstag frowns, thinking back on what he knew of the Daedric Prince. He hasn't heard a good word about him, and for good reason. If the most feared Daedric Prince were Molag Bal, Mehrunes Dagon, the Prince of Destruction would be a close second. He might even usurp his captor for that title if he were running rampant on Nirn.

A powerful creature that should not be unleashed. "How does he have such a power? He can't get here, that was made sure of during the Oblivion Crisis and after the Night Mother."

The boy giggles and claps his hands, his eyes creasing with amusement. He takes another bite of bread. "How dully uninformed you are. I suppose that's a side effect of being Molag Bal's Champion. Tell me, how many times does he let you out of the cage to take a piss?"

Vorstag clenches his fists, his eyes narrow. The boy, daedra, gives him a savage grin. "Just joking, just making fun. You're far, far to tense for the current circumstances."

"I have every right to be. You know why I'm here?"

The boy sits up, eyes alight. "Oh! I know. You were going to kill me! Maybe tear my head off and keep it on a spike outside? Are you still going to?"

Vorstag opens his mouth, uncertain of what he was about to say when the boy sits back and begins crying hysterically. "Stop him. Please. He hurts me. He hurts me in here." The boy points to his chest with a shaking finger, his eyes wide and terrified.

The cries are undeniably from someone far younger than Vorstag. He can't help it. Hearing this young child's screams grates against his ears. He stands, laying his unsheathed sword against the table, if only to show his good intentions as he rounds the corner.

The boy keeps crying and gasping. Vorstag doesn't know what else to do but pull him to his chest, stroke his hair back. "It's alright. It's okay. I'll get rid of him."

"Will you?" A soft whisper before he hiccups.

"I will. I swear it." Vorstag runs his hands down the boy's hair again when he turns his head to snap at Vorstag. The vampire backs up, pushing the child away from him, but his teeth are latched on, tearing at his skin.

"By Talos!" Vorstag yells when the boy unlatches himself.

He breaks out into deep laugher. "I wouldn't be saying his name around here if I were you."

Vorstag stands panting, now a little too close to the fireplaces at his back. The heat licks its way up his armor. Warming him but also casting the boy in an angelic glow. His smile is anything but, he licks his lips and his palms before continuing, "Convincing, aren't I? Don't worry, the boy, I think his name is Malec? Mal? I can't remember. He's still kicking in me like an unborn babe. But it's not that pleasant." He scrunches up his face. "Anyways, if you kill me, you kill him. And, word around the street is that you have a hard time breaking your moral codes."

Vorstag can't say anything. He just stands there, staring.

"Knew it!" The daedra slams his hand against the table. "Here, how about I sweeten the deal? You untie yourself to your captor, and I…bring the kid back. Then we go back to the Deadlands as one big happy family?"

"You're not taking the child." Vorstag blanches.

"Hmm." The daedra taps his chin. "Well, we can't leave him here. His whole family is rotting, if you catch my drift. Maybe we could send him to the forest and a kind werewolf might take care of him? Hm? Shall we try those odds?"

Vorstag is breathing heavily now. Time is ticking. He can almost hear the clock, those invisible hands that tick down the seconds to his demise. He's thinking quickly, desperately trying to come up with some sort of compromise when the door opens.

Open might be too kind a word. It slams into the wall, sending the house rattling to its foundations and on the other side, Molag Bal himself ducks his head underneath the doorframe. He's littered in armor and weapons. The Mace held in his right hand. Face dark and grim, his fangs bared at the creature sitting at the table.

The boy breaks out into laugher, falling on the floor and rolling around and around. Vorstag remains pinned, his wide, fearful gaze, locked on his captor.

"Knew you'd screw it up." The Prince greets them.

Serana can hear the raging battle fading behind her. She wasn't a fool enough to stand like a deer locked in the gaze of a predator as Vanus and Mannimarco began fighting. She barely had a moment to say anything to the freed man before she ran off. Apparently, he knew what to do. It's as if all the years kept in a statue had finally boiled over. Which were the exact results she was counting on.

She dashes up the stairs, up the long and winding marble steps to the tower. The sounds of battle far behind her. But she couldn't risk that it would be a long one. If anything, the flames in Mannimarco's eyes tell her he absolutely loathes the way she disobeyed him.

Now, she's not sure if he'll be kind or cast her into some horrible circle of Oblivion. It was worth the risk. Every second away from that Orb and she doesn't know what's happening to her would be lover. No, it wasn't that trivial.

Vorstag is a good friend, and that relationship was just blooming into something sweeter, something more soul binding than before, when she was ripped away.

Her hands fumble with the lock. She had forgotten that Mannimarco always walked around with a set of keys. When no magic can break it, she starts punching at it. The door won't give, it won't even splinter, only molds around her fists before reforming back to it's original state.

She growls in frustration and tries again. She shoves at it, willing her hands to sink into the door and out to the other side when her wrists burn. Her teeth grit. Those damn brands, they were holding her back.

She tries again and again, kicking and tearing at the door and the surrounding stone when flames lick her back.

Serana spins, thinking it to be Mannimarco. Instead of her furious captor ready to tear her into two, she finds it's worse. Dawn stands before her, flames riddling her person. She wasn't Serana's anymore, she was Mannimarco's and she was probably just as furious as him.

"You think it's funny, don't you? You think it's wonderful to have me here as your centerpiece, while guests peruse the rows looking for their next read." Vanus stalks the room.

Mannimarco can't do a thing. His power blazes in his hands, swaths of pure darkness, ready to send Vanus to Oblivion should he have to.

He just can't make himself do it.

"I wanted you safe. In the best room possible."

"If you wanted me safe you would have let me rest with the divine as it should have been. Instead, you like to meddle with things that aren't yours, including the integrity of the rules of mortality."

Mannimarco flinches. His battle with Vanus was hard fought in their younger days. He thought he was finally coming around to it. If Vanus wished, Mannimarco would have taught him everything there was to learn about necromancy.

"And here we are. To make matters worse you aren't even mortal anymore." Vanus lets out a harsh laugh. "A god. That's what you call yourself, right? It's an insult to the gods who watch over us."

Mannimarco takes in a deep breath, his focus narrowing. "I never thought you to be ungrateful."

"Ungrateful? How am I supposed to feel? After being locked up in this gilded cage for long? Am I to be kissing at your feet, Lord Mannimarco?"

Every word and mockery stings. Every insult is another step away from forgiveness. Mannimarco stands strong, taking it. He searches for a way to disengage his friend and chase after his bride when his hand is forced.

Vanus lets out a harsh yell and charges him, power filling his hands, all the way up to his eyes. Mannimarco has only seconds to decide how to handle it, kill his best friend for good, or take the blow and set himself back?

He closes his eyes and lets chance take the reins from him.

Wood splinters, crumbles, cracks. A piercing scream sounds in the dark night. Vorstag closes his eyes.

Only a daedra, only a daedra. He quietly reminds himself.

One of the other daedra stands over the boy who was now splayed out on the table as the creatures raises a dagger above him. "What is it you want here with this man?" He hisses.

"The Champion is on the wrong team, and he's not even playing the game right." The daedra in the little boy's body gasps out, laughing still.

Another sickening crunch. Vorstag averts his eyes. He can't tell if it's bone or wood from the table with the daedra covering his view. He's pinned between two daedra by the fireplace. He can't move, can barely tear his eyes away from the horrible scene in front of him. He can barely keep his bloody tears in.

"Weak."

"Knew he was no better than a sniveling coward." The daedra at his sides sneer back and forth. One chuckles and pokes him where the abs should be.

"Too soft, I told Molag we should have gutted him from the start."

Their malicious comments quiet when Molag Bal enters the room. In his fist hang seven heads hanging by their hair. Each Nord has their mouths wide open. Vorstag's heart clenches as he notes the ages. They vary from young to extremely old. An entire family gone.

"What are these?" The Princes hisses as he holds the heads up to the daedra on the table.

"Those?" He breaks out into a squeal of laugher, "What do they call it? Collateral damage? They got in the way."

Molag Bal hisses and throws the heads on the pinned daedra. "I asked you what they were! How stupid is your lot? Did Mehrunes Dagon lose all sense when he sent you?"

The daedra in the boy's body sinks back into the wood, not a scratch on him now with fast healing skin. "I'm sorry. Please don't hurt me, Mr. Molag Bal."

"Enough." The Prince halts the other daedra around the room. All their bloodthirsty eyes were latched onto the prey on the table. "We start with the mind." Molag Bal pokes at the boy's forehead. The daedra smiles broadly in return.

Vorstag takes a deep breath, his eyes watering again. The boy in there, if he was holding on, whatever Molag Bal was about to inflict might just break him.

The Prince, as if hearing those quiet words in his mind, raises his eyes. "Remember, boy. This is your doing."

And he begins.

Serana screams as another firebolts comes her way. She ducks when the flames shoot above her, licking her cloak. It was already useless. The very edges were burning up. She moves to the side of the very narrow hallway when Dawn throws another firebolt.

"I'm yours. I conjured you!" Serana tries to get through.

What little use that was. Dawn throws another firebolt and Serana is finding the room even more suffocating than before. She can barely get around her. For all her godlike powers she can't seem to use them. Can't seem to grasp them. The only things that light up the place more brightly than the flames are the brands on her arms.

She screams when the flames slam into her arms, she falls to the ground right before the door. So close, she is so close and one of her spells from before had come back to haunt her. If only…

She stares up into Dawn's beautiful flaming eyes and notices the pain in them. For conjured creatures, Dawn was perceptive, Serana had found. In all the time with her, she could tell her emotions as well as any mortal or vampire.

"I release you. I release you from him and I release you from me." Serana says, softly. Her final attempt.

Dawn nods, a slight inclination. Are you sure?

Her words are a shock. Serana wasn't aware that Flame Atronachs had any semblance of consciousness. Any ability to hear and speak.

You can hear me? Serana pushes into Dawn's mind, and it is like cutting into the water. A slight boundary before falling into the ocean.

I've heard you this whole time.

Those words are breaking. Serana sinks to her knees as tears threaten. "I'm sorry." She says softly. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen."

Don't. A conjuration is temporary. Dawn reaches out her hands, her flames should burn but they only caress Serana's cheek when they brush her. I will help you this last time. As a freed creature, I am bound to no one and no land. Good luck, friend.

Tears race down Serana's cheeks when Dawn fades away. Her body falls into ash. Serana's hands begin to sift through it, when a lock sounds and she turns, noting the door is now open. And one look back down the staircase, she is grateful to note the roaring inferno blanketing the tunnel.

Mannimarco sobs. His friend is now dead in his arms, his lifeless eyes trained ever skyward. Him or Mannimarco. Him or his bride.

The tear in his heart had never quite healed, not after when Vanus attacked the first time. Not even when he was brought here. He had hoped that one day this man could be free.

But look at the foolish decision Vanus made. Mannimarco stares down at his as he lays the pale body on the carpeted ground. "Foolish Vanus. We could have been so powerful."

Mannimarco wipes the tears from his eyes and just like that, all sorrow is gone. Any love he had for is friend is now ash. "Clean him up." He snaps and Sorlod quickly leaves her post to come help.

Empty and raw. A million emotions swirl but nothing breaks the surface except for rage. His bride did this. She destroyed someone who was once precious, and at times, terrible to him, but Mannimarco never wanted to kill him. Never truly. His hand was forced tonight, and she will pay.

He stalks the path she took, up the manor steps and to the entrance of the tower. His hand curls around the open doorway and he only sighs when he sees the flames blanketing the area. How adorable. The Flame Atronach sacrificed herself.

What a waste, Mannimarco muses as he waves a hand and watches the flames slowly fade. Opening a path up for him all the way to the top.

Serana's hands shake as she moves the orb around on its pedestal. It doesn't burn but it has a weird frosty feeling to it, as if it had been encased in ice. She moves around the table, for the right angle and for the life of her, she doesn't know why she can't see him.

Her thoughts are solely on him. Not on Dawn's sudden absence. Not on Mannimarco who was still downstairs hopefully entangled in her trap. Her thoughts stay on Vorstag and he won't show.

Her fingers curl on the tablecloth when she hears a polite knock at the door. "Serana. I give you one chance to nicely open the door for me."

Tears brim in her eyes. She can't keep her terror in. Anytime she tries to focus on something and make it disappear or move. Any power she had; it fizzles.

"Serana, I will not ask it again. You have ten seconds."

She pries at the Orb, lifting up to stare up at it, when her fingers lock in place. A sizzling, cold kind of power races down her arms to her chest. Her eyes glaze over.

"Serana, do you know what you did? What you made me sacrifice, what you sacrificed? I had no idea some lowly mercenary had you in such a grasp." His voice darkens, the anger underneath finally making its way out.

Then the door slams, as if someone were pounding on it with such a force that it finally splinters. Wood flicks off and a hole begins to emerge. "Serana…" Mannimarco warns.

She's lost. Her gaze, unseeing and eager, searches the realms. Over Whiterun, over Dawnstar. Somewhere in the east, near Markarth. In a tiny cabin. Her view spirals, like a silent bird on fiery wings, it bursts through into the cabin without a sound, and she finally sees him. He's being held up with Molag Bals, large, talon tipped hand holding him up and near the fire.

Serana gasps. She had forgotten how tall he was, how scaly his skin was and how long his horns were. She almost feels his prying gaze on her but she resists. She only has eyes for Vorstag, who was now bleeding and bruised. Cuts line his head and down his neck as if he had gotten in a great fight. On the other side of the room, a few daedra hold back a little boy who is cursing and fuming at the sight of Molag Bal and his Champion.

"Vorstag." She whispers.

His eyes flicker open, gaping further under Molag Bal's crushing hold.

"What did I tell you? Are you any use to me like this? I should have known you were broken from the start." Molag Bal hisses. The look in his eyes… she last saw something like that before she changed over. A sight that she purposely had forgotten. Now, it sends shivers up her spine. Her mind threatens to break with the memories attempting to assault her.

She would not let the past strangle her and keep her down. "Vorstag. It's me."

"Serana." He chokes out.

Molag Bal's hand closes more tightly around his neck. "That fucking name. That fucking vampire. If you want one so bad, I'll make you another one myself."

She swallows hard, barely hearing the pleas and yelling in the room she was physically in. Mannimarco was there. "Vorstag turn so I can see him." She directs, the small idea taking root in her mind. She cowers at the thought. It was the last thing she wanted, the last thing her mother wanted for her.

"Never draw his gaze again." She had told her when she was being bandaged up. Her wounds were tended to with such harshness. Her mother was pleased but also…fearful. She'd never seen mother this scared. Not even after father's tirades.

She swallows her fear. "Molag Bal, please look into this amulet, I have something to show you."

The Prince's gaze lowers and sears when it finds her. "Trickery and sorcery, how inventive. This is the one, isn't it?"

"Just look." Serana pleads. She pulls the Orb away from her and ducks, just slightly so whoever was looking into the amulet could look into the room. Searching, scouring, she turns and points the orb directly at the door.

And directly at the sorcerer who was shaking so badly she wondered when he would explode. With all the precious things in this room, surely, he would want to keep them safe. Yet, even with the threat of the Prince presented in the Orb, Mannimarco only has eyes for her.

It's like he locked up. He was frozen, staring down into the amulet around Vorstag's neck. Vorstag chokes again but the clamping hands were lessening. It wasn't the lack of oxygen he was worried for, more so the lack of a head.

On the other side of the room, the smug daedra in the boy's body smiles up at him. The other daedra surrounding him seem to have frozen as well, like a hive mind for their Prince they all pause. The boy raises a finger to his lips. "Thank you," He whispers before turning to mist.

Vorstag can't even feel anything for him. The boy needed help, he was held captive and the daedra seemed to be waiting for the exact moment to leave without Molag Bal's notice. Whatever he was being shown in the amulet was enough.

Vorstag groans when he falls to the ground. His legs ache, his whole body aches. He hasn't had blood in so long and the blood before this task was never enough.

"You kept this from me." Molag Bal says, plainly.

"I didn't. I told you the truth this whole time. Mannimarco took her and I was trying to save her. He's alive and he isn't in your realm."

The Prince, for once, falls into the chair set out where the boy was an hour before. His hands hang limply in his lap. It's almost like he never thought of this. "He created his own realm, with its own rules."

"He's a god."

"Not a true one. A false one." Molag Bal sneers. "And that girl, she's one of them too."

Vorstag's heart constricts, "No…"

"She made the ascent. She's a god now. A false god." Molag Bal clenches his teeth. "That fucker. I told him he would never escape. You bring me such failure, you know that." He stares at his Champion now, who was laying limp and spent on the ground.

"I only ever told you the truth."

Molag Bal nods, slightly. "That you did, and like a fool I never listened. Maybe your morals held something for me after all." His slow grin sends shivers up Vorstag's spine. "Now that our attention is redirected, how about another task?"

Vorstag wipes his brow, the flames lick his back but in this bulky armor it was making his sweat. He stands on shaky feet but the next words nearly send him falling again.

"You do this for me, and I give you two hundred years to go wander Tamriel as you please." Molag Bal smiles again, as if he were mad, as if he had found something utterly delightful that he never thought possible.

Vorstag stutters, starting to quiver at whatever thought turns through the Prince's mind. By the gods, if only he had more blood, he just had to be clearheaded enough to understand. To be one step ahead of the Prince. "What are the terms?"

"Easy. For me and for you. You get your wish, I get my revenge, and we are free from more charades of mortals. You come with me, and we fight them."

"Them?" Vorstag asks, knowing full well what he meant. His body knows before it is confirmed, he falls to his knees before his Prince, silently pleading for him not to take him, not to command him. Not for this.

Molag Bal runs his tongue over his dripping fangs, as if he couldn't get enough of the idea. "Yes, boy. Come with me and fight. We need to be rid of them. I promise you'll see your lover, if only for a few moments before destroying her. It will be harder with two of them but the both of us can take them. I'm sure you've never thought of it before but there are ways to kill a god."