Reign Of The Septim
Loading Screen… Some highborn communities of Altmer utilize genesis pods in order to breed the most genetically pure bloodline. A practice many dissidents and priests have condemned. When Auriel taught the Altmer to 'walk in the ways of their ancestors'. Many believed this meant genetically, when in fact it refers to the holistic ways of the Aldmer, not their physical form…
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The room was black. A tusked face with glowing eyes appeared from within the gloom.
"Talos, you'll answer for your sins. All of them. I'll find you and I'll make you bleed so much that Anu Himself will hear our screams," the mysterious figure said.
"Who are you," Lorkhan asked, shocked at the vicious rage of the voice.
"I'm Konahrik, the Devil."
"What did I even do?" Lorkhan quelled the flame of fear in his heart.
"You'll see, Talos."
Lorkhan's eyes shot open. Same damn dream. He shifted uncomfortably on the comforter. The limestone mottling of the bed vallances glowed. Mist flowed and rose around him in perfumed scents. Dibella's doing. Crystalline colored foggy steam, clouding the circumference. Dibella strolled out of the washes, a cascading barrier of fog following her out.
She started dressing. "We're going to be late. If your wife, miss mother nature catches wind of us, you can say bye to this decent weather."
Lorkhan growled, stepping over to the indoor waterfall. "Join me in the shower."
Water dripped off his hairy legs and arms like raindrops onto the painted flooring when he was done. — The bedroom was glowing with a pink haze that radiated from the rising sun outside the window. A hole in the sky that Magnus, Dibella's former husband, had left when he escaped Mundus, the mortal plane of existence. Their bed rested on a circular platform near some gold-encrusted shelves.
"I am the Hero of Men." Lorkhan clenched a fist. "Why do my chambers look fit for a bloody woman!?"
Rosy blush crept onto Dibella's cheeks as they noticed their old clothes and the various bottles of aromatic oil scattered on the rug. Their escapades from the night before.
But Lorkhan's mind dwelt on the dream, who is this Devil, Konahrik?
"The door was locked." The ends of his lips twitched upward when he returned to reality. "Besides, who gives a shit. Not like anyone can do anything about us; I'm the most powerful god here."
"Your wife," Dibella's tone held a hint of ire. "You really out to anger her that bad?"
"Shut your mouth, harlot." Lorkhan roped his armor on, fastening a buckle over his waist. "You aren't meant to think, only serve."
"Fuck you." Dibella scratched the back of her head with her ring finger. She snapped the digits and was instantly clothed in a dress.
"I said shut up harlot!" Lorkhan yelled, eyes flashing red. He slapped her hard across the cheek, knocking her to the floor. Lorkhan grabbed Dibella's hair and pulled her onto her feet. "Don't back talk me again." He breathed down her neck, pressing his body against her. The goddess shivered, looking down in fear.
"Talos, you'll answer for your sins," the Devil's words echoed in his mind once more.
Sunlight polished the halls of Idavoll, Lorkhan's divine palace on Nirn. Dibella, gaze cast to the ground, roved dejectedly behind him. His citadel in the northern province held golden walls with high ceilings, red-velvet rugs draped on sandstone corridors alongside flower-filled vases among other decorations on the alcoves to the sides. His wives, as he liked to call them, Dibella and Kynareth were determined on making his castle look like women predominately lived in it. The central dining chamber kept a large white table in the center with thrones lining the length on each wing. Light seamed in from the cosmos outside and a fine assortment of foods rested on the countertop. Soup, fresh baked bread, and eggs.
Dibella and Lorkhan sat down along with the others present. Kynareth eyed him with a small frown from across the surface. Tsun Zenithar and Stuhn Stendarr, twin shield-thanes of Lorkhan were there as well with their mortal bedwarmers.
He cut into his eggs when Tsun spoke, "has Auriel made any effort to break through the borders? Him and his army of elves have been relentless, but we've deterred them so far."
A shadow grew from the corner of his cornea. "No, Auriel won't get in. If only that bitch-wife of his, Mara hadn't escaped our prisons. Quite the pair of breasts, she had." He smirked, feeling a rush of blood surge towards his loins. He had called her his 'tear-wife' to spite his brother, Auriel. Since she cried every time he had his way with her.
"This all started because you kidnapped her. Auriel would've left you alone otherwise despite the fact you betrayed him." Dibella took a long sip of red juice, emptying the glass. "You know what, I hope Auriel kills you."
"I'll deal with you later." Lorkhan clenched his jaw.
Tsun glanced upwards, ogling Dibella with a watery softness in his eye while Stuhn inspected his beard for any pieces of meat that might've escaped his mouth. "I suppose you're right, milord," conceded Tsun.
"I am always." Lorkhan downed a pint of ale, belching afterwards. He smashed it on the ground. "Another!"
"I gotta tell you, you're even worse here than where I'm from," a vocalization electrified. Lorkhan glanced around but he couldn't find the source of the voice. The voice had sounded unreal, like it was projected through a filter of some sort.
What? He stroked his long goatee-beard but didn't say anything.
"Did you hear that?" Dibella asked.
"Talos," the same unfamiliar inflection taunted hauntingly. This time everyone's heads swiveled towards the gaunt stranger sitting beside her like a spider. The uninvited wraith arrogantly sat in the middle-throne, usually reserved for Lorkhan himself. Though Lorkhan preferred not to eat in it. Thrones didn't mean anything anyways.
"Who are you!?" Lorkhan rose from his seat, fingers curling into a ball.
"Just another mistake of yours, Talos." The hooded man crunched his neck, an audible crack resounding off him.
You are the one from my dreams. The Devil…
"Who in blazes is Talos?" Lorkhan raised a brow. "I am Shor, Hero of Men, god of men."
The man or entity, whatever it was, removed its hood, showcasing an odd mask. The facial-covering bore two tusks protruding beneath where the mouth-line was placed. A bronzed-gold with eyeholes as well.
"Talos is you. Did you really think you could rape, kill, subjugate and get away with it?" The Devil replied calmly. "Do you like my mask by the way? It's calledKonahrik; after me now that I think about it."
"What did he say?" Tsun's brows quilted into a temporary unibrow.
"Just what's this all about?" Lorkhan rammed his fist against the tabletop. His hand coiled like a snake around the fork on his plate. "You want revenge? Did I kill your family, little elf? Well, I'll slaughter a million more elves if I must."
"It's about more than just revenge, Talos." Konahrik began to glow, electrical surges crackled over his icy armor-plating.
A gasp sounded around the hall; several servants dropped whatever they were holding. Lorkhan's heart stopped as the blinding white light enveloped his vision and the chamber combusted.
Rubble exploding everywhere, Lorkhan was cast back hundreds of feet, crashing into a ditch. He wiped the mud and ash from his mouth-beard, gazing up from the pond full of wispy reeds and sugarcane. Idavoll was blown to smithereens, in its place a gargantuan ebony and white, blood-stained Dragon elongated its spine towards the heavens, shrieking like a banshee. Their city of Drakefell shuddered.
Weren't dragons just a Knev myth?
Its victory laugh felt like someone was rubbing a sword over his spinal column. Broods of servants were swallowed when its head came down and dragged over the floor, as if it were a snake struggling to swallow a fat rat. The image made Lorkhan's stomach churn, puce traveling up to his throat as the overgrown lizard choked down its meal.
"I will unmake this entire world and destroy mankind," the Devil rasped in its crude laughter as the memory came to a close. Those eyes of it like the sky, he would never forget those eyes.
27th of Last Seed, 2nd Era 841
I'll find that Devil.
The finish of his bedroom was mossy and oaken in colour. The bedsheets disheveled and headboard skewed. Hjalti gazed into the mirror and rubbed the light stubble on his face. Beams of shadows drawing over curtains, like ghost light. Candles resting on the edges, always a pain to get alight.
Hjalti Early-Beard, the thirteen-year-old who can grow stubble.
Hjalti-Lorkhan went from his room and slid down the orphanage to the mess hall where the caretaker, Everald Jurard, and his younger half-brother, Agnorith Lariat were eating with the other kids. Hjalti licked his lips for the glop that was lunch. He halted when whispering tickled his ears from the central chambers. His fellow orphans were discussing something in quietude. Hjalti crouched down behind the corner and strained his ears to hear them.
"That boy is trouble. The priests from the temple marked him as cursed and the Lorkhanic cult have been asking to see him. I fear for his future," the unmistakable dulcet tones of the Wood Elven maid, Araeil Roseflower.
Everald scowled as Hjalti took a seat, grabbing some pork and devouring it without a fork. After which he helped himself to a lemon tart. The taste was sour yet sweet. He loved lemon tarts, one of the few fleeting pleasures of the world he'd created. Women, mead, good food. How can anything Akatosh make compare to this.
"Show some manners, Hjalti, or we'll kick you out of this house!" Everald shoved a set of knives and metal-sporks to Hjalti who just knocked them aside, the lines on his jowls folding into a scowl.
"My papa was a Breton king named Harlon. Who was Hjalti's papa?" Agnorith slammed his sippy cup on the surface so hard the grape juice sloshed out.
"An absolute heathen. Nord fisherman over in Koeglin," Everald filled in. "If Hjalti doesn't behave, he may turn out like him."
Good.
Three years later, when he was allowed to leave the orphanage, Hjalti followed the breadcrumb trail to Koeglin Village to find his father, Shealtiel Early-Beard. The port-thorp was mainly comprised of an aspen tree and some stilted hovels lying near-in the iliac bay. Hjalti looked over at the Adamantine Tower's gleam, way off. Inside a rundown warehouse he saw an old Nord man attempting to take advantage of a young woman, even younger than himself. Hjalti wrenched the bearded Skyrimese off her and looked him in the face. He saw himself, only the Nord's eyes were blue, once black hair greying, and cheeks full of lines. He was also chubby, a dock worker no doubt. The girl stood back, clenching her teeth.
A look of recognition dawned on both of the Early-Beards.
"Your Lilith Lariat's boy," the Nord groaned from the floor. "My son! I'm Shealtiel Early-Beard!"
Hjalti stomped his feet on the man's head until it burst open, and guts squirted out.
The girl's eyes widened but she said, "thank you," regardless. "I'm Julianna Lianius."
"I didn't do that for you. I did it for me. Sithis is my true father."
The Imperial girl's eyes twinkled at him fondly.
Hjalti found himself older by a year, now with a full dark-beard, training with the Alcairen sword-masters and participating in the riots of Alcaire under King Harlon Cumberland and Prince Alaric. The black soot training grounds were full to the brim with fighters from all stripes of life. A few young girls cheered from the sidelines, their mouths in awe as Hjalti struck down his opponents with ease and the grace of a god, slashing left, stabbing betwixt sheafs of scaled armor. No one could match him as he lunged from one end of the ash-ladened tarp to the other. He fought like he was in a dance. Parries, jabs, and jumps.
Hjalti smirked at the eight girls who were waving to him.
After training, Hjalti got one of the girls to go into the closet with him.
One of the Sword-Masters, Isidor Qurm, yelled at him when he saw the scene from behind, walking around the stables.
"AY. You fools! This isn't the place! Hjalti, get your ass in the barracks. Yana, go home." Hjalti reluctantly pulled up his trousers to his waist, buckling his belt. "At this rate, you'll impregnate every girl in the village." Isidor threw him ahead. "Damn fool. If Prince Alaric finds out, he'll have your head. Fornicating like donkeys in the street. Idiot boy, Alaric already doesn't like you."
After finishing up, Hjalti headed in to change in the training room.
"Rumors are saying they've located the next Dragonborn, over in northern Cyrodiil," said one of his fellow trainees to a colleague in the stall. This one was Walsh Dorell. One of Alaric's lackeys.
Hjalti listened in closely.
"Really?" The other replied. Vincentius Armilius.
"Yup, someone named Cuhlecain Sifr, son of the King of Kreath. Apparently, they are heirs to Reman and Alessia!" Walsh wiped ash from his face via a towel.
My plan is going nicely. It seems my other halves have made sure the bloodline remains intact. I hold history by the reigns. The Divines don't even know what's happening beneath their noses.
Lorkhan grinned gleefully, a separatrix of white gleaming through his hairy face.
That night two dead fighters were found in their bunks with their throats slit and Hjalti was reported missing.
The training temple was gone, the denizens had disappeared. A nineteen year-old Hjalti, his dark-hair grown slightly longer into a curly fringe, and beard now sticking an inch or two off his face, backpacked up a hill forested in pines, approaching a city covered by nature, somewhere in the vales of the southern Jeralls. There was little to no snow here, which indicated it was located in Cyrodiil and not Skyrim. Home to half-nordics, half-cyrodiilics known as Kreathmen or Cuhls. The tree above wept a tear, a white petal collapsing onto his shoulder-pad. Could the children of Kynareth know what he was about to do? But he just kept stalking into the glossy greenery and overgrown grove, until he found the steppe.
I'll do anything, kill anyone, until I've found my enemy, Konahrik. The image of the black wyrm blowing gaseous flames on him flickered through his mind. He would attain his revenge. He would find and defeat the Devil, Konahrik. Through the turbulent flood plains, black wastes, vampire infested ruins, nothing stopped him. I am the Hero. I will defeat Konahrik, the Devil. A group of men and women, aspiring to join Cuhlecain as his generals were also on their way up the mountain. But one by one, Hjalti slew them all, tossing their corpses off the cliffside. No one could stand in his way. He passed by a plaque mounted to an old Direnni outpost that read: Ysmir, Shor's Tongue, Dragon of the North and noble champion who defeated the Direnni and cleansed Skyrim of the Alessian Heresy. Hjalti's face erupted into an ear-to-ear beam at that. It feels nice to be appreciated.
Hjalti came upon a red-haired man who looked both Cyrodiil and Nord. From what research he'd done on Cuhlecain prior to coming here, he knew his father, Quintus owned the Far Falkreath Estate, a merchant family that eventually expanded into a small kingdom. They claimed ancestry from Arkay on Cassandra's side; Cuhlecain's mother, and Reman Cyrodiil on Quintus' side, as the wolf statue in the town square suggested.
"You must be Hjalti Early-Beard!" Cuhlecain threw an arm around Hjalti's shoulders as they stepped through the log-cabin styled settlement of Kreath. Hjalti took note of the hourglass necklace around Cuhlecain's throat. "Renald, my battlemage has informed me all about you. I'm Cuhlecain Sifr, Count of Kreath, but I'm sure you already know that. You know what I want most, Hjalti, my friend?"
Hjalti shook his head.All I want you miserable Dragonborn wretch is your blood.
A few finches sung and tweeted, landing on Cuhlecain's shoulders. "Haha, I've heard being Dragonborn like I am attracts animals to me. But anyways, all I want, Hjalti is peace on Tamriel. To unite this continent without bloodshed if possible.I do not wish to be overcome by greed or material matters like many rulers before me. For I despise these things."
And I despise you, son of Akatosh. The pathetic fiefdom assembled here was composed of dirt roads, shabby, wooden huts and piles of hay and stalls for washing. Town criers ringing bells and friars with bald ring-haircuts singing praises to Reymon Ebonarm, the Ninth Divine. The man who was once Reman Cyrodiil.
"Octavian." Cuhlecain bowed to the fat friar.
"King Cuhlecain."
The scene shifted and Cuhlecain sat on a throne. Hjalti seated next to him in a smaller chair, smiling rather smugly. Dain, Cuhlecain's childhood friend standing as his guard. "Seems making you my general was my smartest decision yet! The Colovian Estates will soon be ours."
Hjalti nodded.
"Depraved manmeri demon," whispered Octavian in the corner of the longhouse in regards to Hjalti. "With your insatiable greed, gluttonous drinking, and selfish ambition. – Beware this one King Cuhlecain. Him and Renald are surely marked by the Serpent."
Hjalti's wet hair tingled his neck. A haircut will do. The maids came in and served them all eggs, sliced bread, and milk. One he'd slept with named Diana smiled flirtishly at him and he squeezed her derriere before she left, his passion swelling as he tracked the sashay of her hips as she retreated. I shall have to find her once this charade of a political meeting is over. There was a new young woman Hjalti noticed, an errand runner for Cuhlecain named Beatia Ylliolos. Hjalti felt an uncontrollable urge to do something to the eighteen-year-old.
"Nonsense, my dear priest." Cuhlecain Sifr shook him off. "Beatia, go, take this letter to the couriers' office."
"Yes sir." Beatia took it and hopped away.
"Excuse me." Hjalti stood up and exited the farmhouse. He could feel his source of pride swell in his trousers.
He followed the woman under the dim glow of lantern lights. Beatia had deposited the envelope into a box outside the post office. After which she bumped into some Nords who bullied her, before running off crying behind the inn. The landscape descended into a valley with grass. Snowflakes gracing the blades of forest green.
Hjalti found the girl bawling her eyes out before she turned to look at him. "Oh, Mister Early-Beard."
After that night, the girl was always loyal to him.
Days later inside a brothel called Fulvia's Palace of Pleasure, Hjalti stroked his thick beard. Girls danced around him as he downed his mead and stood up, trailing deeper in to find a wench to sleep with him for the night.
Must find Konahrik.
Years in the service passed and Hjalti wore his fitted nordic-carved armour, trekking up a snowy hillside of Skyrim with his other incarnation; Zurin Arctus, another Shezarrine, like himself; the renewed form of Chevalier Renald. His other self was an interesting looking individual indeed. Apparently an Akaviri man. Hjalti himself; his beard had swollen an inch more in thickness. Both embodiments of Lorkhan hiked up the rocky terrain. For a while, Hjalti went alone into a cave. Inside the cave he received a vision as a surge of ash swirled around him. A demon formed from winds circulating there. It stormed round Hjalti's head. The third member of the Shezarrine trio had arrived. The oldest, an Ancient Nord known as Ysmir Wulfharth, the undead king.
"Hjalti, I teach you demon speech, so you may sway fools of your claim to Dragonborn title," the ash cloud rasped in its demonic oration. "Trick them as we once did." Only he and Zurin heard it as Hjalti exited the cave.
Hjalti agreed. Soon enough he was standing outside the gates to the Reachmen encampment called Hrol'dan. "ZPI GE DMR!" A distorted shout warbled from his mouth and the gates ripped open in a firework of explosions. A gift from Wulfharth.
"HE CAN SHOUT!" Yelled Nords all around. "YSMIR HAS RETURNED!"
Foolish sheep always come flocking to their shepherd. They thought Wulfharth a Dragonborn too, but they were wrong. I would never taint my kin with the foul blood of Auriel.
Hjalti and his men pillaged, raped, and burned their way through the Forsworn village, until it was at last theirs…
Hjalti and Zurin next attended Cuhlecain's wedding to the daughter of a Forsworn tribe leader they'd made peace with against Hjalti's wishes, her name being Medea. A cloud of perpetual rain followed Hjalti everywhere now though and the soldiers began calling him Talos Stormcrown. Despite the rain that fell from the cloud, it didn't soak him. For the cloud was his other triplet, Wulfharth in spirit form. Talos he was referred to because it was the modern Nordic dialect for Ysmir, which itself meant Dragon of the North. Though, even still, Lorkhan had not found the real Dragon of the North, Konahrik yet, and his ire spilled into other parts of his life.
As Cuhlecain kissed his new wife, Medea. Hjalti, Zurin, and Wulfharth conspired in dark corners. "We need Amulet of King," Wulfharth mused, "Sancre Tor. That way we get Cuhlecain on Tamriel throne."
"That is what we shall say," Zurin hissed, his nasty serpentine-styled lips smiling into an evil grin. "Once that amulet belongs to us, we can wrest the Dragonborn soul and abilities from the fool and merge it to yours, Hjalti. You will be the first individual in history to be both Shezarrine and Dragonborn. And I daresay the last."
"Then we kill those elves of Akatosh, our brother," Wulfharth grunted. "Cuhlecain never go to war with elves. He love every race. He fool."
Every elf will die, and Konahrik with them.
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A/N: the writing style in this chapter is very condensed since I'm trying to summarize this man's entire mortal life into a few chapters.1