A/N: Never thought I'd say it, but I have officially lost interest in writing a crossover with Harry Potter. In turn, my interest in the World of Ice and Fire has been revived. Thanks in no small part to House of the Dragon. Regardless of how you feel about the way Game of Thrones ended, and believe me when I say I agree with the majority opinion that it bombed, I'm just glad that we had it in the first place.
"Don't be sad because it's over or that it ended poorly, be happy that it happened."
- Whoever said that
Besides, we have more ASoIaF shows to look forward to. An Aegon's Conquest show, which is what we all originally thought House of the Dragon was going to be. To my understanding, we're also supposed to be getting a Robert's Rebellion show, a Dunk and Egg show, and even a Jon Snow show. Which, to my understanding is intended to give Game of Thrones the ending it deserved. And fingers crossed we still get a Long Night show after the horrid pilot episode for Bloodmoon saw that canned.
After listening to a synopsis of the pilot episode, I'm GLAD Bloodmoon was canned! Especially after hearing that detail on how they were going to portray the Children of the Forest, with the undertones that would've brought! Whoever came up with that should've been fired on the spot! Anyways, I digress.
This here is a revival of a previous attempt I made at writing a crossover between TES and ASoIaF which I eventually took down. Nine posted chapters with an unfinished tenth, the whole story was FAR from over! I still have what I had written of that, posted and unposted, on my computer. The plan was for a 'Massively Multiplayer Crossover' that, in hindsight, would've veered straight into crackfic territory. In fact, some of what was already uploaded could've been considered crackish. When I canned it, I considered keeping it up as a sort of publicly available archive that I later decided against. Be that as it may, I'm going to reuse some assets of what came from that here. It'll be posted here, as well as on AO3.
Now without further ado, let's do further and proceed with the prologue.
Musings of a retired Mercenary
The turning of the Third Era to the Fourth saw a drastic change in the political landscape of Tamriel. The Septim Empire fractured, but lived. Morrowind became a volcanic wasteland. Argonia broke away and became little more than a collection of barbaric raider states. Through sheer force of will, we have endured. For through the founder of our great Septim Empire, we uphold the legacy of the legendary Roman Empire from the lost lands of Terra, they're why we call ourselves Romans! Nothing can stop us!
That's what they used to say anyway. Then the Third Aldmeri Dominion formed, led by a highly militant group of Elven supremacists consisting entirely of High Elves calling themselves the Thalmor.
As the Thalmor consolidated their grip on the Summerset Isles, Valenwood, and Elsweyr, they rapidly established themselves to be the greatest threat to the Empire, though were briefly overshadowed by the Umbriel Crisis. The Thalmor viewed all non-Altmer as inferior, to be subjugated or eradicated. Be they Human, Argonian, Khajiit, Orc, or even other Elves. They say they champion Elven Supremacy, when they really champion High Elf Supremacy. As the Fourth Era entered the middle of its second century, war with the Third Aldmeri Dominion seemed inevitable. But then, something miraculous happened. Something which would buy us 16 years.
A trio of Merchant Caravels under the command of the famed explorer Constantine Colossus departed from the Empire's far-flung eastern territory of Esroniet, I was a hired bodyguard of his. Colossus was attempting to chart a trade route that would bypass Akavir and take you from Black Harbor to Anvil by continuously sailing East. After a voyage that lasted a grueling two months and nine days, and saw the loss of two of his three ships, we reached land that wasn't chains of uninhabited islands. Only it wasn't the western coast of Tamriel, or anywhere known.
We had discovered what we would soon learn was an entire uncharted continent inhabited by peoples that spoke the same Common Tongue with feudal kingdoms comparable to our own back in the turbulent Second Era. We had landed in a scenic spot known to the locals as Sea Dragon Point, on a small peninsula in the northernmost territory of Westeros. Collectively referred to as the 'Seven Kingdoms', (even though there's actually nine) and ruled from the Iron Throne. Colossus thought 'Seven Kingdoms of Westeros' sounded boring and not very incentivizing for business. So, he coined the term 'Iron Kingdoms of Westeros'.
We persuaded the local nobles who held jurisdiction over the small peninsula; House Glover, to allow us to settle on the small peninsula. They first took us to get approval from their liege Lord Edwyle Stark, who in turn took us to get approval from his liege King Aegon Targaryen the Fifth. Meeting the King was a shock for us when we noticed their coat of arms: A red dragon on a black field, same as ours. Only this one had three heads while ours just had one. While we were shocked, King Aegon was intrigued by this similarity, in fact, in was there we realized that just about every Westerosi was intrigued. It turned out this was just the kind of thing we needed to break the ice and ingratiate ourselves with these people.
Several seals of approval later, we had ourselves our little peninsula. We sent word back to Tamriel of our discovery, and founded a village close to Sea Dragon Point named Colossus in honor of my old boss, Pluto rest his soul. Business was good and the village grew rapidly. Any fears of war with the Third Aldmeri Dominion rapidly faded into the background.
Because of this comfort, we were in for a rude awakening on the 30th of Frostfall, 171 4E. A Thalmor Ambassador arrived in the Empire's capital of the Imperial City, more commonly known as New Rome. Gaining an audience with Emperor Titus Mede II, (or Emperor Titus III) she presented an absurd ultimatum. When the Emperor refused it, it was war.
War raged for four bloody years in Cyrodiil before a truce was called. It was effectively still a surrender on our part. The subsequent peace treaty was called the White Gold Concordat.
Eventually, as a far-reaching consequence of the terms of the Concordat, Skyrim descended into chaos and civil war. As if it couldn't get any worse, even Dragons returned. Not one has been seen since the early days of the Empire six hundred years ago, not counting an unverified encounter at an undisclosed location in Vvardenfell twenty years ago.
Amidst the chaos, the hero that our Empire needed emerged. Over the past two years, he brought the rebels in Skyrim to heel, he pacified the Dragons, and even made friends with a few of the beasts.
They call him ' The Dragonborn'. His real name is Marcus Julius 'Caesar'. He currently serves in the Roman Army attached to the Twin Legions, (encompassed by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Legions) which are under the command of the legendary General Gaius Maximus Tullius. Caesar is a military prodigy! At just the age of sixteen, he already holds the rank of Legate, placing him as one of the officers that report straight to General Tullius. Some say he is even worthy of being Emperor, claiming that as Dragonborn, it is even his birthright. And yet, he seems content to allow the newly crowned Emperor Antonius to sit the Ruby Throne while he commands his 'Knights of the Dragonborn' (an offshoot of The Blades) in search of adventure, fortune, and glory.
He sure seems to be on an adventure now, as he has just shown up here in Colossus with a contingent of his Knights in tow. A member of House Tharn (going by the coat of arms on his clothes) is with them too. Wonder what they're here in Westeros for.
Colossus has grown immensely since we first arrived almost fifty years ago. What was once a humble inland village grew rapidly into a sizable seaport recently dubbed the sixth city in Westeros, home to Tamrielian and Westerosi alike. The Iron Kingdoms of Westeros have seen their own fair share of drastic changes since then too. The most glaring of them being that the Targaryens are gone, or rather, they've been exiled.
About sixteen years ago, there was a particularly nasty civil war dubbed by the victorious rebels as Robert's Rebellion. We stayed out of it.
Six years after Robert's Rebellion was a smaller but equally significant rebellion out of the Iron Islands. We were briefly involved, as the Ironborn attempted to raid and sack Colossus, before they were repulsed by our defenses very quickly.
The Dragonborn picked quite the time to come over here though. Because tensions are high between the Empire and the Dominion again, and people are worried about a coming war. And with the Empire's hero so far out on the frontier, the Thalmor are likely to take advantage of that.
At any rate, I've got a strange feeling that quite a tale is about to unfold.