Author's Notes: In this story the Dragonborn is NOT the leader of all the guilds like in the game. Those events still happen but they are performed by OC when relevant.

This story has lots of OC, so just a heads up if that's not your thing.

Itallics denotes a flashback.

...

A knight in black armor laid on the ground in almost complete darkness. The only light was the reflection of what seemed to be a distant moon. He awoke confused and in pain. He sat up and saw the ground beneath him ripple and waved like water beneath his movement. He fought through his pain and stood to his feet.

He looked in all directions and still found nothing but an endless void of darkness all around him. His breath felt cold and labored. The environment was not cold but every breath he took created a push of cold air. Matter of fact, this environment felt like nothing at all. No wind, no heat, so smells, no sound. Complete nothingness. He put his hand on his chest and felt ice. He tried to see through the darkness and felt several parts of his arms and part of his face was also trapped in the cold sting of ice as well. He wasn't impaled and it wasn't stuck to his skin, it was as if his heart and lungs frozen. He could feel his veins pumping the cold through his body.

He heard a familiar voice echo his name through the darkness. He started to walk around and try and find the voice. The ground beneath continued to ripple under his feet. He was walking on a sea of black water. He finally heard the familiar voice of his wife echo from above him.

"He's not dead. He can't be" the voice cried.

He noticed the water in front of him started to ripple as if someone was approaching. He tried to cast a bound sword but nothing happened. He tried to cast a flame spell to light his path but was still not able to produce anything. The movement of the water was getting heavier and then completely stopped. He then saw what appeared to be an empty robe float towards him. The small reflections of the moon providing his only light seemed to follow this empty robe until could see the figure wearing the robe was just a fog as black as the water he was standing on.

The water began to ripple again and from beneath him hundreds of snakes began to arise from under the water. The snakes slithered in a circle around the knight. The circle was getting bigger and bigger as more and more snakes appeared from underneath the water. After making several circles around him the snakes all the slithered away to the hooded figure and started to disappear into the fog.

As more snakes were engulfed by the fog it started to form a solid figure. Eventually a human like face developed under the hood and the figure began to seemingly float towards the night. It had the face and shape of a human on its top half but the bottom half looked like that of a snake.

The figure continued to move closer leaving a trail of fog behind it. Snakes continued to slither around the figures body. They were even slithering in and out of the figures nose and mouth. As the figure got closer the night could feel a sickness in his stomach as if He was poisoned. The feeling intensified the closer the figure got. The knight fell to his knees and started to heave and tried to vomit but nothing came out.

"Death is not your destiny today" the figure said in an echoing androgynous voice.

...

Prologue:

The last ten years had been wildly eventful for the province of Skyrim. Honestly, probably the most eventful for all of Tamriel since the Great War with the Aldmeri Dominion.

It started with Jarl Ulfric killing the king of Skyrim and an attempted Succession with his stormcloak militia in which the Legion had to step in and defeat them. This resulted in four of the five holds in Skyrim having new Jarls appointed by the Empire. Then dragons returned after 1,000 of years which sparked the Thu'um of the last Dragonborn.

The Emporer of Tamriel was assassinated while in Skyrim and it was believed to be at the hands of the Dark Brotherhood. A group long thought to be gone in Skyrim. And this is only what was known to the general public.

An ancient vampire had attempted to enthrall all of Nirn and burn out the sun. The college of Winterhold was under the leadership of a new Archmage after the discovery of an ancient magical artifact proved to be more powerful than anyone realized and caused the deaths of Archmage Savos Aren, his second in command Mirabelle Irvine and the colleges Thalmor Ambassador Ancono Armion.

The companions of Whiterun were also under new leadership but were very tight lipped about why as it would reveal old secrets that they were vigilantly keeping.

The Thieves guild and Dark Brotherhood were also showing a much greater presence in Skyrim than they have in decades but this was only spoken through whispers and the underworld.

This turmoil of the last decade should have broken Skyrim. It left them battered and bruised without question but they persevered through to come out stronger with a new sense of unity and strength.

Nowhere was this more evident than in Winterhold. At one point Winterhold was the crown jewel of Skyrim. The capitol city and the main hub for commerce and academia. Until nearly one hundred years ago when an event called The Great Collapse wiped out all but a few roads worth of buildings but somehow left the college unscathed. The reality is that a storm and a massive tidal wave destroyed the cliff side the city was built on and swallowed the great city into the sea. Grief and ignorance led people to Blame the college and the experiments being performed there.

For nearly a century instead of rebuilding the city they remained stagnant in ignorance and treated the college as a pariah. As a result the college and the city were always at odds and winterhold would remain a cold dead shell of its former glory. That was until the civil war.

One of the first actions performed after the death of Ullfric Stormcloak was the forceful removal of any Jarls who sided with him. Jarl Kraldar was named the new Jarl in Winterhold and he immediately took the opportunity to make his life long home a better place to be.

In the beginning he was met with resistance by both the college and the city. Too many of the citizens still hated the college creating a general fear and disdain of magic. The college had no interest in helping rebuild the city as they had grown wary of the resentment from the locals despite the fact that the college was the only viable source of economy the city maintained since the great collapse.

During his first year the college had found an artifact known as the eye of Magnus. This caused a chain of unfortunate events that led to the colleges Thalmor ambassador going mad and killing the Archmage and senior professor.

A young (by elf standard) Altmer student named Yarwil Vanifar was named Archmage after his heroics in not only stopping Ancano before he destroyed the whole college and the city but also in controlling the artifact until it could be safely removed from the college forever. This even involved delving into the infamous Labyrinthian. It proved helpful that he had contact with Psyjic monks but most people considered that a rumor anyway.

Yarwil saw the benefits immediately of having a fresh start with the city thus a relationship was born between Yarwil and Kraldar to help rebuild the city and the college to make them both respected and synonymous together as they were so many years ago.

They also were fortunate enough to have an outside influence help them grow. Skyrim was at this point being saved by magic users. A man named Jorgensen Snow-Shield had Been discovered to be the DragonBorn. A former student of the restoration arts at the college himself and was already a well renowned Vigilant of Stendar.

Upon the dragons reappearance and his discovery that he was the Dragonborn, Jorgensen recruited and led a team to help him fight the dragon Menace. The first recruit was his own Housecarl, The trusted and loyal Lydia. Next were two Legionnaires who had developed quite a reputation for their skills during the civil war. An Imperial spellsword named Travius Velsala and his Orc friend Vhornyak Gol-Uruk.

These four traveled all Over Skyrim for nearly five years fighting dragons, bandits, daedra, vampires, anything that intended harm to the people of Skyrim. When Alduin was defeated Word spread quickly about the band of heroes.

The Dragonborn was the ideal perfect Paladin hero Skyrim needed at the time. A Nordic warrior who made use of healing magic and could make the undead flee in terror. The use of his Thu'um inspired everyone who witnessed it.

Travius exceptional ability with flame, conjured weapons and alteration defenses weren't as revered by the people due to the idea that they were "evil" forms of magic but because he was using them for good of the people it was helping these forms of magic be seen in a better light.

With magic users being sung about in taverns all over Skyrim and being discussed at every dinner table and mess hall, Skyrim was not only becoming more trusting of magic but also embracing it. The college was seeing an influx of students to the likes they hadn't seen since before the great collapse.

Jarl Kraldar made another decision that may have been the most controversial any Jarl has ever made. He knew before Winterhold needed business or new homes it needed people. Thus proclaimed the decision to make free land available to anyone who wanted to build on it. Your race, your religion, your age was irrelevant. The remaining citizens and business still occupying winterhold were at first incredibly unhappy with the Jarl as they felt allowing anyone in was dangerous and would allow crime to overrun the city. A valid concern.

However the people came around to the idea once their coin pouches began expanding. Within a matter of months an eager dunmer arrived starting a lumber mill that provided the means for homes to be built as well as to export. A shipping dock was constructed on the northern coast. A caravan company opened making the normally astronomical cost of getting goods to Winterhold plummet. Next was blacksmith shop followed by alchemy shop. The inn had to triple its size to accommodate. Alongside the general goods store was racking in profits at levels they had never seen before.

Khajit, who were generally shunned in most holds were happy to move in and fill the labor jobs in the city that made them feel welcome for once. Dunmer left Windhelm in droves to seek out a new home where they weren't treated as second class citizens. Bosmer who were becoming displaced by the Thalmor began showing up. Humans from all of Skyrim and Tamriel as a whole started to arrive for land to build homes for the families they would have otherwise never been able to obtain. Winterhold was no longer the depressing dead frozen waste it had been for so long. It had become a beacon of hope, opportunity and new beginnings for those who were willing to put in the work for it.