[Author's Note]: Hello and welcome aboard! It's been a long time since I've tried my hand at a Skyrim novel, but after booting up the good old SSE after a few years, I decided I'd immortalize my latest character with a passion-project - and because I love worldbuilding out of the Elder Scrolls sandbox, throw in my own unique spin on a Skyrim premise.

As the title suggests, this novel will follow the Dawnguard questline. However, its story is going to wander right off the rails from the one we know ingame, and become a completely new take on the struggle between the Volkihar clan and the Dawnguard vampire hunters. This novel is also fully finished, so I can actually set and keep an update schedule. There'll be a new chapter dropping every 5 days, so be sure to follow along!

A big thank you to my beta readers who served as my test audience - your feedback and support was an invaluable source of motivation to get this mammoth undertaking finished!

Finally, as a general disclaimer: 95% of the characters will be canon and only a handful will actually be OC. However, a lot of worldly premises, lore, and character background have been enriched with creative license. With all that said, and without further ado, read on and enjoy!

-ACT I-

CHAPTER ONE

~THE BOOK OF MAXIMS~

Spring was returning to Skyrim, but the high windy slopes of the Throat of the World remained gripped in the icy jaws of winter. Kicked and tossed by the wind, snow flurried in punishing rhythms, clawing at the rime-slick rocks and skimming over the sides in silvery falls. It was a stubborn thing, almost alive, and battered the little figure struggling up the mountainside unrepentantly.

But the traveller was stubborn too. In fact, he made a point of it. He hunched his tall, broad body against the wind, tugged his green, frosted cloak tighter around his shoulders, and doggedly ploughed on, one crunching step after another. The wind contested him for every stride, but this was a battle the traveller was accustomed to. He swayed where he needed to sway, bending like a reed in a gale, unable to be uprooted. With every step he drew closer to his goal.

Finally the wind let down as the massive bulwark of High Hrothgar, ancient monastery of the Greybeards, arose through the snowy mist. Stiffly the traveller quickened his pace. The crunching snow packed into firm stone underfoot as he hurried up the steps and clumsily heaved the doors open.

The thick metal scraped loudly as he wrestled it across the floor, enough to squeeze his bulk through, then thudded and boomed as he slammed the wintry storm out behind him. The traveller had long suspected that the Greybeards kept it ill-maintained on purpose, to alert them when guests arrived. Not that these remote Voice Masters had many.

It was astonishingly quiet in here, with hardly a murmur of the outside world soaking through the thick stone walls. The traveller's shivering steps rang loudly through the spartan halls as he dived for the nearest brazier. The fire's warm glow was the most welcome thing he'd seen all day, and he gladly puffed and stamped and shook the snow off him.

"I don't know how you stand living up here all the time," he groused quietly through chattering teeth. "Snow's nice enough, but year-round? Don't you miss green?"

"We are men of peace," came Master Arngeir's resonant answer, "and take peace in knowing all is renewed in Kynareth's domain. Welcome, Solenarren. It has been a long time."

Solen tossed back his hood. Colour was flushing back into his pale golden face, and feeling returning to his pointed ears. A mismatched pair of almond eyes, burnished gold and forest-green, picked out the robed grey man appearing noiselessly from the shadows. He genuflected respectfully and smiled, pulling taut a scattering of old scars across his nose and cheeks. "Master. I hope I'm not interrupting."

"High Hrothgar is open to you, Dragonborn. It is our honour to receive you."

Did he know, Solen wondered? Arngeir's eyes were always shrewd and hinting at venerable truths. A soft, wet thud turned his head. He'd picked up a lot of snow in his climb up the mountain, and now that snow was fast becoming Skyrim's newest lake behind him. "Er, don't suppose you have a towel? I think I brought half the storm in with me."

Arngeir looked somewhere between fondly exasperated and resigned. "I will put a kettle on the boil."

The monastery was very large and draughty. It took some time before Solen felt he was as properly dried off as he was going to get. Arngeir showed him to the monastery's modest sitting room, little more than a pair of stone stools and a small table in front of a roaring hearth. Solen strung his travel-tattered cloak up beside it to dry, propped his ivory greatsword Eldródr under it, and set his soggy socks and boots by the crackling flames, all with the veteran efficiency of someone well accustomed to campaigning through Skyrim. His Harbinger's armour, wolf-fashioned steel plate thickly lined and padded with fur, was no worse than damp. Arngeir withdrew the hissing kettle, and Solen made his offering of snowberry leaves, freshly-plucked from the verdant foothills far below. Soon Solen was feeling much revived from the blistering climb, with hot snowberry tea in his stomach and his feet quite snug in a fresh pair of woollen socks.

"So, Solen," said Arngeir, once they'd drained their cups in reflective silence, "the saviour of Skyrim does not simply visit a group of old hermits for the pleasure of their company."

"Aw, can't he?" Solen said, smiling.

Arngeir did not return it. One day, Solen vowed, one day I'll crack him. "All right," he said, sobering, and refreshed their servings. "Where to start... do you know what's happened since I last left the monastery?"

"You have followed the path of your own choosing," said Arngeir. "I trust you remember what I told you, in our last meeting?"

"Every word. Am I a hero or a curse on future generations? Or just forgettable?"

"That was the essence of it, I suppose. Did you allow the Way of the Voice to guide you?"

"I tried, really. Just settle down and get back to adventuring, but... well, a lot can happen in five years. A lot did happen since the Dragon Crisis ended in '202." Solen sifted through his memories, rewinding time in his mind. Then he smiled, a little foolishly. "I got married."

Arngeir snorted. "I fail to see what that has to do with the Way."

"I know, but –"

"Well, I hope you did not climb Kynareth's sacred mountain to receive my congratulations, Dragonborn. Although you do have them."

Aha, so he does have a sense of humour. "My thanks, Master," Solen grinned. "Rayya, she's... well, at risk of sounding like the typical lovestruck man in over his head, she's..." And for ten straight minutes Arngeir was treated to exactly how incredible Rayya at-Mafurah was; her incorrigible will, deft swordsmanship, fearless battle-hardened spirit, their shared fondness for her homeland of Hammerfell, and the many adventures they'd shared across the province of their adopted home together, from chasing down the forbidden Gauldur legend across the crypts of Skyrim to run-of-the-mill Companions contracts. To Arngeir's eternal credit, he endured the gushing tirade with a perfectly straight face.

"I see," said Arngeir, when Solen paused to drink some tea. "What else?"

Solen caught himself. "Ah, yes. What else... well, in '204, I think, we went to Solstheim together. Have you heard of it? Little slice of land floating in the Sea of Ghosts to the north and east. Well, it turned out there was another Dragonborn there..." Arngeir's attention visibly sharpened. "The First of them all, actually. He was lost to time in the realms of Hermaeus Mora, the Daedra Prince of fate."

"Was he one to learn from?"

"I guess? He was enslaving everyone and stealing Dragon souls from under my nose, so he was a lesson against turning evil, I suppose." Solen frowned. "Rayya and I planned on leaving Skyrim after we got back, go visit Hammerfell again, but... well, there was the Civil War, and it was only getting worse."

"Ah," said Arngeir, and now he frowned.

Solen had anticipated his disapproval, right from the moment he'd signed his name to the Legion charter. "Will you let me explain?"

"You have nothing to explain," said Arngeir. "You are Dragonborn. It is the Greybeards' privilege to train you and your right to be trained. Your Voice is a gift from the gods, not an offering to them."

"It still sounds like you want an explanation."

Arngeir sighed through his knotted beard. "I suppose I would not mind one."

So Solen explained – how the skirmishes between the Imperial Legion and the Stormcloak rebels had only gotten bigger, bloodier and fiercer since the war's beginning in '201. Villages and hamlets caught in the crossfire, the rift between the two sides ever deepening. Finally there'd come a day when Whiterun had been assaulted. Solen and Rayya had hardly returned to the city to settle their affairs when the ultimatum was delivered to Jarl Balgruuf's doorstep. After that there was no leaving. Solen was Thane of Whiterun before he'd even been named a full Companion, and it was a responsibility he'd always taken as seriously as being Kodlak's successor.

After the Stormcloaks had been repelled from the city, Solen had been approached by General Tullius and Legate Rikke for 'negotiations', which were really an ill-disguised recruitment request. Solen had dithered for as long as he could. He had a whole plethora of reasons why he didn't want to sign on with the Imperial Legion, but it was Rayya who finally talked him into it. Who knows what would've happened to Whiterun if he hadn't been there? The city that had prided itself on its neutrality was no longer neutral. Solen supposed that was sign enough. Rayya had enlisted with him, with one of their terms to Tullius being that they were not sent on separate missions. Rayya had been his Housecarl before his wife, and she also took her duty very seriously.

So had followed eight months of gruesome back-and-forth conflict. Solen was a fierce heavy-blade fighter, his skill honed to a razor point under the instruction of the Companions, but in the end, every deciding factor of every Stormcloak clash was his Thu'um. His Voice had only grown in its power over the years. Between the fulfilment of destiny against the World-Eater, his cairn-diving adventuring, and the clash with his own kind in Solstheim, Solen could bend the world in two dozen different ways – humans were almost nothing to it now. His Unrelenting Force, which once upon a time had barely staggered his opponents, now disintegrated them.

Then there'd been Ulfric Stormcloak himself – leader of the rebellion, a fellow Voice Master, and once upon a time, Arngeir's student.

"I killed him," said Solen, when his recollections had taken them at last to the Windhelm assault of '205. "He asked me to. Said it'd make for a better song. For honour's sake I obliged him, not spite. Even though he did make some disparaging remarks about my ears."

Arngeir sighed long and slow. "Did that save Skyrim, as you hoped?"

"I don't know." Solen rubbed his brow. "It's brought some stability to the country and the Empire, but the rebel dream of a Skyrim free of tyranny lives on in the Snowborn extremists – the Stormcloaks who wouldn't surrender, and fled to keep fighting in the hills. Because that's exactly how they spin this whole thing. The Empire was never restoring order to a populace descending into anarchy, but giving Skyrim to the elves on a silver platter. And this –" He pointed at his face. "– doesn't help. In fact, it made things worse. I made Ulfric a martyr. Noble Nord freedom-fighter killed by a High Elf. Nevermind that I've never had anything to do with the Dominion. I was raised on a ship, for Morwha's sake!"

"Solen," said Arngeir quietly. Solen realized he was raising his voice – and his Voice. The mugs rattled on the table between them.

Solen drew a slow breath. "Sorry, Master," he murmured, and the mugs fell quiet. "I tried, I really did, to speak only in true need. But the Stormcloaks knew their soil far better than the Imperials did. We were almost always outnumbered, outmanoeuvred, and the Cloaks numbered in the thousands. Thousands of young men and women fuelled by their parents' spite."

"War corrupts everything it touches. There is no right side and no wrong side, only suffering."

"I only joined the war to stop that suffering, as quickly as I could. Still took the better part of a year, and then longer to clean it up. Going back and forth as the Empire's poster child to promote peace and conflict's end... it felt more like I was a blade being held at their throats, knowing what I can do to an army. I couldn't finish the two years' required service fast enough."

"What has been the outcome of those efforts?"

"Well... the war did end, so at least I got that going for me. The Moot happened, and Skyrim's got a monarch again, a High Queen. I know Skyrim still has her wounds, but now they finally have a chance to heal after gods know how long. Most of last year was spent helping reunify Skyrim. Guarding shipments being sent to villages, repurposing a bunch of old keeps around the province as Legion garrisons, negotiating treaties with the Forsworn – things like that. There's still some resentment for the Empire since the Talos law formally remains, but they shut down the Embassy, which was a big point in their favour."

"Embassy?"

"Thalmor Embassy. You know, the Talos-hunters. The ones who spearhead the reason why Nords hate High Elves with a passion."

"Ah. I remember, now. One of them attended our peace talks during the Dragon Crisis."

"You can say she was a nasty piece of work, Master."

"Well, I would not have felt comfortable drinking snowberry tea with her. I recall that General Tullius invited her as part of the Imperial delegation. What changed between the Empire and the Aldmeri Dominion, to warrant Thalmor expulsion from Skyrim?"

"You remember that dossier I waved around during the discussions that was definitive written evidence that the Thalmor, despite prior claim, were interfering with and prolonging the Civil War? Yeah, it might had something to do with that."

Arngeir was trying not to sigh again, Solen could sense it. "So," the Greybeard said instead, "the season unending has finally ended. Skyrim has a new High Queen, and with her crowning comes a chance for peace. As do you, Dragonborn."

Solen leaned back in his seat. "There is, isn't there?"

Arngeir folded his hands over one another, noting the distant expression that had settled in the Altmer's scarred face. "The thought has crossed your mind, I see. So, this is what has driven you up the face of Monahven this day, to seek my counsel on such things."

"I wanted to make lives better. When I picked up this... warrior-hero thing, it was all I wanted to do. But this war, everything around this war has just drained me. Every action I make I intend well, but no matter what I do there's those who think I'm the wrong one to wear the title of Ysmir, those who think I'm betraying them and Him, who think I have no right at all to have such sway over lives, and that I'm no better than my kinsmen of the south." Solen ran his fingers through the tawny ridge of hair on his head. "It's a battle I'm never going to have to stop fighting, wherever I go."

Arngeir's gaze shifted to the dragonbone battle-blade that Solen was seldom seen without. He spoke gently. "I thought you enjoyed fighting, young Dragonborn."

"Well... I guess I've learned to enjoy it, because the Companions knocked it into me, but..." Solen paused as he tried to figure out exactly what he wanted to say. "I guess I'm just... tired. Maybe I am ready to give peace a try."

"But not up here."

"Gods no, I want to put war behind me, not adventure." Solen fiddled with his Amulet of Talos, clinking the tiny hammer pendant softly upon his gorget. "Although that doesn't mean to say I don't want to visit from time to time. Freeze on the emblems, meditate on this hard stone floor..."

"You have nothing but time, Dragonborn," said Arngeir, with the barest hint of a smile. "No matter the storms that rage below, High Hrothgar remains above the clouds."

"Speaking of that," Solen said, checking the dryness of his boots, "I think I might nip upstairs and say hello before I throw myself down the Seven Thousand Steps again."

"Be careful when you do, please, Dragonborn. Those steps were laid by our founder, and I would hate to see them damaged."

The afternoon sun was just visible through the swirls of cloud and frost as Solen waded his way through the drifts up to Paarthurnax's peak. Perhaps a night's stay in High Hrothgar was in order. Solen had little fancy for sleeping in a cold stone cave, but it was better than digging a snow den and sleeping by the path.

The timeless Grandmaster of the Greybeards, the Dragon Paarthurnax, was reposed in meditative trance upon the ruined Word Wall, but his misty blue eyes opened as Solen drew near. The old Dragon (well, technically they didn't age, but Paarthurnax screamed 'old' in every sense of the word) seemed almost to smile. "Dovahkiin," he rumbled, and bared his jaws. "YOL TOOR SHUL!"

To those unfamiliar with the ways of Dragons, the cone of flame racing to envelop them would very likely be interpreted as a Dragon attempting to quick-roast them for dinner. Fortunately, as a well-fledged Dragonborn coming into his seventh year of such things, Solen knew the difference between attempted combustion and a warm welcome. The flames rolled around him, a blast of exceptionally desirable heat in this dizzyingly high, frigid point of the known world.

"Paarthurnax," he greeted in turn, and returned the elder's greeting. "YOL TOOR SHUL!" His flame washed over Paarthurnax in a scintillating cloak. "Drem yol lok. It's been a long time, Master," said Solen, genuflecting again.

"Drem yol lok. To your kind, perhaps," the Dragon rumbled. "But Time flows different for the Dov. It seems only a heartbeat ago when you stood victorious in the wake of Alduin's ruin, hailed as Thuri, the Voice without match."

"Well, for all I know it might've been," said Solen. "I've told you before that your heartbeats are notoriously difficult to hear."

Paarthurnax was not Arngeir; he rumbled with laughter regularly and freely. "Oriin ful, quite so, Dovahkiin."

Solen was glad Paarthurnax still took pity enough on him to translate, because he could still hardly string a sentence in Dovahzul together, despite years of his life spent yelling things in Dragon-speech. "You aren't too lonely up here, are you?" Solen asked, looking around at the otherwise-barren peak. "I still feel bad luring Odahviing down from the mountain."

"I have waited here, alone, for thousands of years, long before the first stone to the monastery below was laid," rumbled Paarthurnax. "In any case, Odahviing was not a dovah inclined to the Way."

"So in other words, he made a poor pupil." Solen tucked himself beneath Paarthurnax's overhanging bulk, in the shelter of the Word Wall, out of the wind. "He makes a good Legionnaire, though. Who would've thought?"

"Hmmmm." Paarthurnax peered down to affix Solen under one blue eye. "I hope you are not here to extend a similar invitation, Dovahkiin."

Solen laughed briefly and shook his head. "Actually, I wanted your opinion on something."

"I would be willing to lend my onikaan, wisdom, to you."

As succinctly as he could – which still took twenty minutes – Solen repeated his exploits across Skyrim and his intentions to change in the wake of it. "The short of it is that I think I'm done," said Solen, "done fighting other people's battles, and definitely done fighting other people's wars. You think you're doing something worthwhile at first, but in the end it always comes back to bite you in the, er, tail, and you realize in fixing something you broke something else. So Rayya and I are going to make good on our trip leaving Skyrim, get a bit of Alik'r sun on our bones again, then stick to the adventurer's life when we get back. We are coming back. I'm Harbinger of the Companions, after all. That's not a responsibility I can just resign from, like Thanehood or the Legion. But at least we'll just have the freedom to be ourselves again. Hunting elk in the plains, annoying some crusty old Deathlord in his tomb, slipping rabbit eyeballs in Vilkas's mead. No running around after Dragons or men."

Throughout it all, Paarthurnax sat still and attentive. When Solen at last fell silent, the Dragon blinked once. "Hmm. Kruziik suleyk ruahst hin sos. Ancient power runs through your blood, Dovahkiin."

Paarthurnax often liked to speak in riddles. Solen had never had much of a head for them. "Thank you?"

"Suleyk los vodahaan wah suleyk. Power is drawn to power."

"I guess? Paarthurnax..."

The Dragon rumbled and shook a mound of settled snow off his head. "Krosis. I mean to say... Dovahkiin, the world will not... vodahmaan, forget you quietly. Not so long as you draw su'um, breath. Take the world within, shape the world without."

"But I've done my destiny," Solen protested, "years ago. After that, I've gone above and beyond the call of duty as far as Skyrim's concerned."

"You are still challenged by the dov, are you not?"

"Very rarely."

"But it still happens. A challenge to power. Whose thu'um is the greatest. Whose suleyk is the greater. You desire drem, Dovahkiin, peace. You may find it. Or you may not. Because you are the strongest mortal alive in Keizaal, perhaps even all Taazokaan – and there will be challenge again."

Finally Solen began to understand. The Silver Hand. Alduin. Miraak. Ulfric. Politics. "Suleyk los vodahaan wah suleyk," he repeated, slowly and carefully. "Peace isn't possible for me, is it?"

"No, Dovahkiin, I warn you. If it is drem you desire, you must be ready to fight for it."