Ulfric Stormcloak is certain of only a few things about the Dragonborn, and after she returns from Sovngarde claiming to be a god that number dwindles to nearly nothing. But the Thalmor have begun to strengthen their grip on Skyrim, and the Dragonborn's ambitions will either take her to the heights she swears or to the Planes of Oblivion.
And she intends on keeping him by her side, no matter the cost.
This is a sequel story to Dragon's Conquest, available at /s/12283857/1/Dragon-s-Conquest
Estormo healed away a burn that slipped past the edge of his ward, his flame atronach dancing in the ashes of that foolish Synod's own weak little conjuration. Researchers, all the same in their obsession of study. Study was meant to be applied, meant to be used, and used in the glorification of the Aldmeri Dominion, at that. His atronach twirled, flipped, and then exploded in a burst of light. Estormo hated her theatrics, but he hated even the thought of the effort of binding a new, less pompous Daedra more.
He patted down the Synods' bodies; their robes were enchanted with all sorts of little tricks that made surviving a delve into some gods-forsaken ruin like this one a little more likely, but the Synod was still too backwater to consider that someone like him may follow their little schemes. No, they were too tied up in short-sighted politics with that College of Whispers group to even look twice at the Dominion.
And the Dominion was too focused on subjugation of the lesser peoples to remember that, ultimately, they strove for the ascendance of the Altmer.
Fools, the lot of them.
At least Ancano had never lost sight of the true goal of the Thalmor, and he'd chosen Estormo to help him work for the Dominion when even they were distracted and scattered. He'd wondered why the talented mage from one of the Families of the Court had chosen him, a lowborn mage who'd never even seen combat in the Great War, to be his own personal spy. Perhaps that was precisely it; he'd never seen combat, and was from a simple trading family in Shimmerene. Estormo had no records on him outside of the mandatory conscription papers, and his marks had been high, but not exceptional.
He was unexceptional, unassuming, almost nonexistent, and he played the part well. As average as a naturally superior Altmer could be; not even the Great Court had paid him a second glance when he acted a guard, standing in the back of their meeting chambers, slipping notes from desks, poison in goblets, atronachs through windows. He was perfectly suited to get in, do his work, and get out, unlike the magnificent Mer Ancano was. Ancano walked into a room and took up all the air for himself.
Estormo pulled a thick research journal from the pockets of one of the Synod, paging through its notes on 'ancient' magic items and locations of 'power' and how to access them. He unfolded a map of Skyrim, pressed flat in the back cover of the journal, dotted with near-perfect circles with letters next to them; code. But no matter, the Synod had located quite a few of their low-level weak little…toys.
He stepped back and looked at the glowing light aimed at the wall, what the Synod had exclaimed was so unexpected before Estormo stepped in to kill them and tried to make heads or tails of it. It looked like two big blobs of light placed off-center of some strange shape-
No, that was…Skyrim? Estormo held up the map, trying to hold it still and line up the borders of the image with the borders of the map. Why was the Synod map so cluttered compared to this Dwemer construction? Perhaps magic had shattered since their disappearance, from a few impressive sources to a smattering of nothing special. The smaller of the lightpoints lined up to…somewhere in the mountains, and the other lined up to Winterhold.
Winterhold.
Where Ancano had come across that ancient glowing runic orb that he'd spent so many careful words describing, ordering Estormo to find out exactly what it was, what it was capable of. And Ancano had barely figured out a name for it over half a year ago; the Eye of Magnus. And nothing more about the Eye was said in his latest correspondence, nearly two months old now. It was unusual for Ancano to go more than a month without an update letter appearing under his head whilst he slept, but he was under strict orders not to initiate contact, to only reply briefly at very specific times. The absolute worst thing Estormo could do was to appear a letter in Ancano's lap when he was in a critical meeting with the First Emissary.
And, given that the Eye of Magnus was, no doubt, one of the more powerful objects in existence by virtue of having such a name, the smaller, dimmer light in the Skyrim mountains somewhere was less powerful, but on a similar level if the Synod were right in their notes on this Oculory. Estormo marked the location he'd need to travel to in charcoal, pocketing the notes.
He summoned his atronach once more, giving her a simple command. "Incinerate them. Leave no trace." And though the Daedroth had no true face to speak of, Estormo could've sworn she smiled.
A trickle of snowmelt found its way in the cracks between the stone floor, hastened by a chunk of ice falling from the Dragonborn's filthy hem. The moisture that had wicked up her robes past her knees was dry almost down to her ankles, the roaring fire uncomfortably warm to Ulfric. He sat by the table, straddling the bench to face her as she shivered by the fire. Every so often she would open her mouth and act like she was about to speak, before closing it again and sinking back into the chair with a little groan.
Lydia puttered around Breezehome, tidying what was already clean and making half an effort to put up the ruined armor and scales she'd carried in her sack. She talked about nothing in particular, jumping from explaining how her profits had been over the past month to detailing gossip she'd overheard at some tavern, seemingly just to fill the air with something over cracks from the logs and the Dragonborn's labored breathing.
She'd half-heartedly waved away any questions they'd asked her on the slow walk back. She'd collapsed in the first chair through the door, gasping something about catching her breath and collecting her thoughts. She'd pushed the Graybeard's robes past her elbows. The wounds on her forearms were mottled and strangely patterned, with occasional regular bands of pink scars rather than blisters of all colors.
"The Jarl is coming by this evening," she finally murmured as Lydia finished some inconsequential story about which shopkeep was seen leaving who's house by some barmaid. "I'd like to know everything that's happened before he arrives. Namely, the Thalmor, for starters."
"They arrived yesterday afternoon," Lydia explained. The Dragonborn stared at Ulfric, looking him up and down. She paused to focus on the lightning scars webbing his face, the bandages wrapping his right hand, the salve seeping through them in a bright blue. "That priest Heimskr is dead, and they blew up the Shrine. The Graymanes were arrested, too."
They were already arrested. That was the first Ulfric was hearing of it, granted, he'd spent the night under strict supervision of a priest who gave him no updates that weren't directly related to his own healing. His eyes burned with fatigue from lack of sleep, and a headache was beginning to gnaw at the base of his skull. But he was still in better shape than the Graymanes, arrested and ready to stand trial for their nonexistent crimes of daring to worship their own god.
"And they attacked Stormcloak," the Dragonborn added.
"No, they didn't," Ulfric corrected. "I took the spell for the man they did attack."
"Who?"
"Vignar Graymane."
"Damn." The Dragonborn winced and moved her hand to her abdomen. "Lydia, was any Graymane not arrested?"
Lydia shrugged. "Depends on who you get your rumors from. Some say the kids are being shipped off to Honorhall, others say they saw little Annia being led out of the Clan hall in toddler-sized chains."
"Who's Annia?" The Dragonborn asked.
"Fralia's granddaughter. Her Ma's with child, and her Da's been missing for months," Lydia said. "Little girl can't be much older than three."
"Her father," Ulfric said, "is Thorald?"
The tense air in Breezehome somehow managed to get that much tenser. The Dragonborn looked towards Lydia; she wasn't too familiar with the Graymanes, it seemed. "Do you know what happened to him?" Lydia asked.
Other than what Fralia had sobbed to him not a day earlier, no. "He never joined my army. He's either dead or captured. Fralia asked me to find him and get him released."
"Ha! She'd better worry about her own self right now," the Dragonborn spat. "Anything else of note? Uthgerd bring any more brain-rotted messages from Delphine?"
"To tell you the truth," Lydia replied, "it's been fairly quiet here. The other Housecarls are either on schedule or slightly ahead of schedule."
"And you?" The Dragonborn turned to him.
"I joined the Companions."
"Ah. Good people. Have they hounded you about being a member of the Circle yet?"
Ulfric blinked. "It's been a month."
"Exactly. They dogged me about it after a few jobs." She wheezed and burst into a wet cough, swallowing hard and gasping for air briefly. "The Crown?"
Ulfric stomped on the floor. "Right here," he said. The Dragonborn nodded and choked back another cough. "What happened to you? I've never seen wounds like those-"
"Alduin's blood was poisonous, and Sovngarde is not for the living," she interrupted. "I'll tell the story when the Jarl arrives. It's long and I barely have the breath to speak it once. Lydia, I want to read any letters that came. Could you bring them here?" Lydia nodded and stepped upstairs. "Vittoria Vici's wedding is in a few months. Stormcloak, we need you to be on good terms with her." She paused to catch her breath. "And the rest of the Solitude nobility."
Ulfric was silent. Solitude wasn't like Whiterun; it's citizens couldn't be bought with gold and Companionship. No, they'd chased him out of the gates with arrows grazing his horse for miles. Perhaps she'd forgotten. The wounds on her head were substantial, a long gash was stitched up from her hairline and curved around to her cheek decorated what part of her face wasn't covered in burns and blisters. "You understand the last time I went to Solitude-"
"Vittoria told me she wanted to invite you," the Dragonborn interrupted. "She's marrying the son of Vulwulf Snowshod."
Vulwulf, the fanatical old man. While Ulfric had never been on quite as good terms with him as his father had, he'd always admired him for being so uncompromising in his beliefs. Vulwulf swore up and down it was him who'd convinced Jarl Laila to support his rebellion. His own son marrying the Emperor's cousin had to be devastating to him.
"She thought it might end the war," she continued.
"It doesn't matter what Vittoria thinks. Elisif will hang me the second I walk through her gates."
"You said the same thing about Jarl Balgruuf."
"Things are more personal for Elisif," Ulfric reminded her. Lydia handed the Dragonborn a stack of letters.
"She won't. She's a stupid woman who does as her steward advises. And her steward does as the Thanes advise. And guess who the Thanes answer to?" The Dragonborn ran her finger under the creased paper of the first letter, its wax seal already broken. Blood smeared over the paper and she drew her hand to her chest to staunch the cut.
She looked over at him. Ulfric sighed; of course she actually wanted an answer. "You?"
"Mmm hmm."
"I know she's a puppet. It's not the nobility I'm worried about," Ulfric argued. "It's the people."
"They didn't even like Torygg that much anyways."
"My Thane," Lydia said, "do you remember the first thing we saw in Solitude?"
The Dragonborn glanced up from the letter and thought for a second. "That was an anomaly."
"Oh, was it? They don't just execute people in broad daylight for no reason."
"They certainly tried it with Stormcloak and me."
Lydia grew two shades redder. "They tried to chop off your head for the same reason they chopped off that man's and by the Nine they'll try it again if you take Ulfric into Solitude!" Lydia moved to the other side of the fire to where the Dragonborn could see her better. Ulfric hadn't noticed her turning her head since she'd returned; she swiveled at her waist and darted her eyes around instead. "There's a letter from Jordis in there, and she's said they burned an effigy of Ulfric when Solitude got word of the end of the war."
Ulfric blinked. He knew he was well-hated, but taking the time to tie straw in his likeness and dress it up, only to set it on fire was a kind of animosity he'd never quite heard of. He was almost honored by it.
"They were celebrating the end of a war," the Dragonborn replied, trying to emphasize what she could around an increasingly graveled voice. "I'm sure there would've been similar festivities in Windhelm."
Well, he'd never had a real figurehead of an enemy to rally his armies around. General Tullius, maybe, but few ordinary people were familiar enough with the ins and outs of the Imperial Legion to recognize the name. And the masses of nameless Thalmor were appropriate, if they didn't scare the life out of half the Great War veterans in his army and far more of the unblooded. Which left the little waif Elisif, perhaps the least threatening thing to ever come out of such a grisly thing as war.
"Solitude never saw any fighting," the Dragonborn continued. "It's not like I'll leave him to his own devices for a month, either. He'll be fine, right, Stormcloak?" She flipped her letter to the other side.
Lydia looked at him, fuming. Ulfric wondered why she cared for his life so much; it's not like she was the one vying for the Ruby Throne. Perhaps she figured that, if he were to die, the Dragonborn would be in a much worse position to enact her whimsies, and that hard work would be transferred to her. "I can defend myself against the common citizen, and perhaps a guard or two. But not the whole of Haafingar. If things are as delicate as Lydia claims, I'll be dead within the day," Ulfric said. "If not, politics is a game without many winners, especially in the Blue Palace. It was once the playground of choice for assassins."
"Oh, don't act afraid of a little assassin," the Dragonborn said. "None of the ones Tullius sent for you came back alive."
And none of them made it past his guard. One particularly inventive assassin had attempted to scale the side of the palace; he'd been discovered some time later with his brains frozen to the ground. But, regardless of creative attempts on his life, Ulfric didn't exactly have a guard sworn and dedicated to protect his own life with theirs. The Dragonborn slowly raised her bottle of bright red potion to her lips, taking a slow drink as he found the words to reply. "Angry mobs and well-paid assassins are two enemies I no longer have the resources to defend against."
"You've been relying on your reputation to protect you and your assets so long," Lydia said. "He doesn't have your reputation! It reflects poorly on you to drag him from Hold to Hold like some simple mercenary. People talk, my Thane. How long until rumors fly of you being some traitor to the Empire? You're lucky the rumors've focused on Ulfric, not you."
A thin line of potion dripped from the corner of the Dragonborn's mouth. "I'm accelerating things, Lydia," she replied. "I have an army of dragons, now. I killed an aspect of Akatosh and took his Soul to be my own. And Kynareth herself named me the Shezarrine. Since when do rumors dull the shine of divinity?"
Ulfric's stomach churned. The Dragonborn was claiming to be a god. Not just any god, either.
Talos, or a step away from Talos. By Kynareth herself, no less.
She was lying. She was delusional, and that was that. Ravings about him being High King, about her being Emperor, they were all as obtainable as dreams.
But Talos was once Tiber Septim; Dragonborn. And before that, He was Wulfharth the Ash-King, and before that, Pelinal Whitestrake. And if some theologians were to be believed, Talos is ultimately the reincarnation of the dead god Lorkhan. Of Shor. And who better to be Shor in mortal form than the woman who had just walked through Shor's own realm and returned to speak of it? Who better to announce it than the wife of Shor?
"You need to rest before the Jarl comes by," Lydia said. "I'll help you upstairs-"
"No, I want to sit by the fire," the Dragonborn interrupted. "I haven't been warm in weeks. Stormcloak, how are the Companions? Do they miss me?"