Chapter Text
Solstheim, 1st Era
The sky above Solstheim was as black as the depths of the ocean. Thunder rumbled through the air as a storm of ash and snow whipped through the ruins of a long-forgotten ritual site. Columns rose toward the sky like broken bones, silent witnesses to a brotherhood that had crumbled to dust. In the distance, a dragon broke through the clouds, its roar lost in the howling wind.
Amidst the temple ruins stood Miraak, clad in the robes of the dragon priests. With his head raised and arms outstretched, he radiated a power that seemed to command the storm itself. His eyes shimmered with pure gold, filled with a divine power that even dragons feared. In them rested the legacy of the One who had created time itself: Akatosh, father of all dragons.
Miraak looked down, and triumph was in his gaze. Rising from the rubble was Vahlok, once his brother, now the sworn bearer of his doom.
Vahlok's breath was calm, his gaze unyielding as the Sea of Ghosts, his steps firm as the earth he had sworn to protect. Time might pass, but his oath stood. And what is weighed will be judged.
“Vahlok the Jailor...” Miraak's voice cut through the roar of the storm. “How fitting that you stand here, ready to serve your masters, even now as the world around us crumbles.”
“Miraak.” Vahlok looked up, his face marked with regret. “I had hoped you would see your folly before it was too late.”
An almost melancholy smile flitted across Miraak's lips. “If freedom is folly, then I am glad to be a fool. But you, Vahlok... you are the true tragedy. A man who seeks honor in servitude and finds pride in his humility.”
“Your freedom has made you lonely.” Vahlok's hand tightened around the hilt of his sword. “Once we stood as brothers, but now you speak like one who has forgotten what once bound him. We believed in you.”
Miraak's smile faded.
“Believed in me?” Contempt colored his voice bitter. “You kept me on a leash like a dog, tamed to serve your power. But I have risen. Never again will I allow myself to be bound! Not to you, not to the dragons, and certainly not to fate!”
Vahlok's grip on the sword hilt tightened, his breathing heavy. “Then the only path left is the blade.”
No sooner had the words been spoken than he raised his voice. His Thu'um shook the world: “FUS RO DAH!”
The ruins trembled and stones fell from the crumbling walls, plunging into the darkness like falling stars. Cracks spread across the ground like hungry snakes as the earth groaned and cracked beneath them.
Miraak staggered. For a moment, disbelief glowed in his eyes as Vahlok's Thu'um struck him. Just a step away, a massive boulder broke loose from the ground and thundered into the depths. It was as if nature itself had conspired against him, as if the elements wanted to shatter his arrogance.
But Miraak raised his arms and shouted, his voice vibrating with power: “VEN GAAR NOS!”
A wind broke loose, whipping through the walls, tearing debris and rocks from their joints and hurling everything in its path aside.
Everything except Vahlok.
The Guardian braced himself against the raging force, his rune blade like an anchor in a world on the brink of destruction. Slowly, with determined steps, he fought his way forward.
Miraak, however, remained standing.
His arms dropped, his chest rising and falling heavily. A soft throbbing spread across his temples, clinging to his thoughts, persistent and close. He blinked, shook his head, trying to shake it off, but the whisper remained. It settled in his mind like the first harbingers of an approaching winter: silent, cold, inevitable.
“You feel it, don't you?” Vahlok's voice was calm but final. “Your power is great, Miraak, greater than ever before. But it is corrupted. It has changed you.”
Miraak's eyes narrowed, their golden glow flickering briefly like the flame of a candle.
“You are mistaken, brother. My power is pure.”
“A delusion,” Vahlok replied. “Your pride will not save you. It will extinguish you, like any flame that burns too brightly.”
Miraak paused for a moment, the whispering in his mind intensifying, but he pushed it aside.
“Pride...” He slowly raised his head. "I am Miraak, the First. Bearer of a legacy you will never comprehend. No shadow will break me, nothing will command me. I am the origin. I am free, and I will remind you what it means to fear my power."
He raised his arms again and let his voice, filled with untamed power, be heard: “MUL QAH DIIV!”
An aura of brilliant white enveloped him like the glow of a rising star. His gaze burned golden like the sun itself, a light that dispelled all shadows. And yet he was human, formed from the rough soil of Atmora, with a heart that felt and bore burdens. His body was flesh and blood, his spirit grounded and yet touched by the heavens. He was both, mortal and divine, fragile and unstoppable.
With one leap, Miraak pounced on Vahlok. His blade tore a shimmering streak of light into the darkness. The clash of their weapons echoed like thunder through the ruins; stone splintered, sparks flew with every blow. Miraak pressed forward. His attacks were swift, merciless, driven by something greater than mere rage: a burning desire to prove that he was no longer bound. That he was right.
But Vahlok did not retreat. Blood ran from a wound on his arm, staining the hilt of his blade red and dripping into the dust.
The temple groaned under the weight of their powers. Columns tilted, walls cracked, deep fissures ran through the stone like open scars. The ground shook with every step, as if it could no longer bear their weight.
Miraak pressed on. His gaze was fire, his movements a storm. For a moment, he was once again the priest with divine power who brought dragons down from the sky and robbed them of their immortality.
And then... the world fell silent.
Miraak felt it. A whisper. Soft. Merciless. It pierced his mind like the first crack in the ice of a frozen lake, filling the void between the pounding beats of his heart. Dull. Hollow. Dull.
Darkness crept up at the edges of his vision, like ink on dry parchment. And with it came the familiar murmur, a promise he had once reluctantly accepted.
GOL.
HAH.
Words once taught with a gentle whisper now returned, directed against him: Bend Will.
Vahlok hesitated. Before him stood Miraak, who had just been bursting with vitality and power, as if nothing could stop him. Now he was strangely silent.
From afar came screams, the plaintive voices of those desperately fleeing the burning villages. Smoke rose in thick columns, disappearing into the ash storm that swept across the land. Flames blazed above the tree line, engulfing the shadows of the forest. The ground shook like a dying animal rearing up one last time.
This had to end. Now.
Resolutely, Vahlok raised his sword, ready to pass Miraak's judgment. But at that very moment, it happened.
Miraak raised his head, and in his eyes was a light that quickly faded.
DOV.
The last seal.
He had lost. Hermaeus Mora had won.
"Now I see it. I, a master of words, ruler of power, and yet... just a slave. A prisoner of my own ambitions. I wanted to be free. Free from dragons, from gods, from everything that stood above me. Freedom... a promise that crumbles as soon as you name it.
Every decision, every step... led me right here. How fitting, isn't it? Mora... no. He hasn't won. Not yet. I am not a tool in the hands of a capricious god. But I hear it. The whispering.
Was it worth it? The power I coveted now lies cold and heavy in my hands, meaningless. A light that faded before it could pierce the darkness. And now I see what I have lost. No song will sing of me, no name will remember that I, Miraak, was once mightier than the dragons.
Perhaps there is more truth in his mockery than I can bear. What remains of me? A shadow? An empty word? Nothing?
No. No. That cannot be all. Not for me.
I am Miraak. The First. Blessed by Akatosh. Master of my own fate.
If this is my end, whose story does it tell?"
Miraak opened his mouth to say something, but his lips formed a word that never reached the world. There was something unspeakable in his eyes: anger, pain, and... realization. His gaze sought out his brother's, a last desperate attempt to find something to hold on to.
Then reality shattered.
The air became heavy, thicker than lava. At the edges of the temple, a black mass began to writhe. Tentacles, grotesque, from a logic far removed from the world, shot out, piercing the ground and grabbing Miraak. They tightened, chains closing relentlessly around their prize.
Behind the tentacles, a rift opened, a glimpse into the realm of Oblivion, where endless rows of books guarded the darkness. Apocrypha reached for Nirn, its shadows seeping out of the portal, eating into the fabric of the world, blurring the boundaries of reality.
The temple finally shattered under this immeasurable force. Fragments of its former glory rained down, glowing red-hot. Miraak's contours distorted, and with one last, all-consuming jolt, he disappeared into the rift.
Vahlok staggered. For a moment, there was absolute silence, as if the universe had held its breath. But then the rumbling returned, more powerful and terrible than before. In the distance, he saw a huge chasm opening up, tearing the land apart and separating Solstheim from the mainland like a breaking ice field. Smoke and ash rose as the sea poured into the gaping cracks with raging waves.
What lives within a mortal... that worlds are shattered by it?
Vahlok stood frozen, his hand clenched around the hilt of his sword. The emptiness Miraak had left behind burned like a wound that did not bleed but still hurt.
The roar of the falling ruins, the rumbling of the earth, the distant howling of the wind, all faded away. The world as he knew it collapsed, while he himself remained in a silent eye of the storm.
Miraak was gone. Not defeated. Snatched away. The Guardian remained, and yet everything had fallen.
On a rocky outcrop, away from the ruins, stood two figures. The wind tugged at their robes, but neither of them moved. They watched the events from afar; beings who knew more than they revealed.
One was an old man, tall and cloaked in dark robes. His face seemed carved from stone: timeless and imbued with a dignity that had nothing left to prove.
Next to him stood a dragon priest. His metallic mask, old and expressionless, concealed any human features. But what spoke from him was by no means dead.
No voice had disturbed the course of events. They were not here to intervene. They had come to bear witness.
For a long time, only the roar of the wind lay between them before the priest broke the silence: “He was never weak, only free. But freedom is what order cannot tolerate.”
The old man did not answer. Instead, smoke began to curl around his form, as if he had grown tired of his shape. It grew, condensed, then the human form disappeared. And where a man had stood just moments before, a dragon rose, black as the end of time.
***
???, ???: Aimée
Aimée stood motionless in a hall whose walls disappeared into the darkness, as if time had swallowed them up. The glow of countless candles danced across the stone, casting shadows that rose like fleeting ghosts and dissolved into nothingness. A scent of burning wax, mingled with the bittersweet smell of blood, enveloped her senses. Her heart beat calmly, too calmly. She felt no fear, though she knew she should.
They were gathered in the center of the hall: figures in heavy robes, their masks like remnants of an era that had forgotten itself. Each of their movements seemed like a prayer, and yet there was silence.
A sound suddenly broke the silence, and Aimée knew: he was here.
He stepped out of the shadows, gentle yet inevitable like a tide reaching the shore. His every movement made the candles flicker, as if even the light trembled in his presence.
She couldn't take her eyes off him. The sound of his footsteps was soothing, almost like a heartbeat. One. Too slow. Two.
The golden mask concealed his face, but not his power. Aimée's chest tightened, her lips grew dry. It was as if her own heartbeat was taking on his rhythm. Three. Too close.
He raised his hand and the murmurs of the cultists fell silent.
On the altar lay a woman, young and beautiful. Her breath was shallow, each gasp a faint tremor. Her wide-open eyes searched the shadows on the walls.
What are you thinking, now, in this moment? Aimée's gaze wandered over the delicate curve of the woman's lips, over the slight fluttering of her eyelashes.
Are you ready to take your last breath?
The woman blinked slowly, as if she had heard the question. Her fingers curled, grasping at nothing.
Aimée saw the tension in her shoulders, the slight trembling that ran through her body. Her flawless skin betrayed her fear, yes. But not only that.
You feel it, don't you? How he touches you... deep inside. I feel it too.
The blade rose — a ceremony that forgave no mistakes. The metal caught the candlelight, refracted it into splinters, and grazed Aimée's face. She couldn't look away. Every movement of the ritual captivated her, hypnotized her.
A drop of blood fell. Then another. And then the young woman's life poured out in thin lines over the cold stone, filling the grooves and finding its way into the carved patterns of the altar.
She should have been horrified. She knew that.
The voices rose and their vibration hit Aimée right in the chest, like an ancient litany that asked no questions but demanded obedience. The chant called his name.
Then it happened. He slowly turned his head, and the slits in the mask focused on her as if no other gaze were possible.
Aimée felt it immediately. He had seen her.
A shiver ran down her spine, but her cheeks burned like fire. For a moment, she was sure that her soul lay naked before him. Her heart was racing. She wanted to look away, but her eyes remained fixed. There was this uncontrollable hunger, an urge not to look away, because understanding was not enough. She had to comprehend him.
The light broke in waves on the robes of the followers. Then, as if on an invisible signal, silence fell. One last drop of blood, loud as a heartbeat, and darkness descended upon her. Aimée sat up, her breathing heavy and uneven, but his echo remained.
***
Skyrim, 4th Era
She opened her eyes. Light. Air. And the echo of a song that lingered on. The freshness of the morning filled her lungs, causing the shadows of the dream to fade, but not his name: Miraak.
Aimée sat up, the rough wool of the blanket scratching her skin. She tried to gather her thoughts when a familiar sound reached her ears. A clinking, followed by the rhythmic tapping of a wooden spoon against a bowl. The smell of fresh bread made the metallic clattering seem softer. Einarth. A smile stole across her lips, as if someone had awakened the sun.
She swung her legs out of bed, the cold stone floor sending a brief shiver through her body. She quickly pulled on her cloak and stepped out of her chamber. The corridors of High Hrothgar were quiet as always, except for the sounds coming from the kitchen.
“Morning,” Aimée murmured as she crossed the threshold. Her voice was still hoarse from sleep.
Einarth looked up. He held up a rolling pin and silently pointed to a basket full of fresh bread. Aimée snorted.
“What is it this time? Please tell me you didn't add mushrooms to the dough.”
The Greybeard just grinned and gestured generously toward a chair at the table. Aimée sat down with a sigh as he placed a plate of fresh bread in front of her. She took a bite and her eyes widened.
“Mmm... pfan-tashtic!” she mumbled, the bread still half between her teeth.
Amused, Einarth looked at her and tapped his finger on his lips, a silent reminder of table manners. Aimée snorted, but still grinned as she put the next bite in her mouth.
“Is that... sweet?”
Solemnly, almost sacramentally, Einarth handed her the bowl: melted chocolate.
“In bread!?” Aimée laughed and shook her head.
Einarth just shrugged. Why not? he seemed to say.
Full and satisfied, Aimée finally pushed her plate aside and reached for a damp cloth to wipe the crumbs off the table.
“Chocolate...” she murmured, still smiling. “And you didn't just do that to annoy Arngeir, did you?”
Einarth's eyes sparkled in amusement. With a smooth hand gesture, he pointed first to the oven, then proudly to himself, and finally to the bread.
“Sure,” said Aimée with a smile as she helped him move a large flour bowl aside. “Be careful, or Arngeir will really start to—”
The kitchen door swung open and Aimée spun around. The bowl slipped from her fingers and landed with a dull thud on the floor, the flour swirling around her like a little snowstorm.
Arngeir stood in the doorway, his brows furrowed.
“Aimée.” His voice was calm, but the sternness in it was unmistakable. “It seems time is slipping away from you today.”
She felt the heat rush to her cheeks. “I... Morning? I mean, good morning, Arngeir!”
Einarth stepped forward, bent down to pick up the bowl, and gently patted Aimée on the head.
Arngeir let out a disapproving grunt and looked at her reproachfully. "Every hesitation weakens the spirit. The way of the voice requires dedication."
“I just wanted to...” Aimée glanced at Einarth for help, who nodded with a silent you can do it.
“Get ready and then come to the hall,” Arngeir said curtly. He gave Einarth a meaningful look that Aimée knew all too well.
She lowered her head and hurried past Arngeir. No sooner had she reached her chamber than she heard Arngeir in the kitchen. “You're spoiling her, Einarth. She'll never find the peace she needs this way.”
***
Aimée closed the door behind her and leaned against the rough wood. Peace... she thought. How long had it taken her to find this peace up here?
She remembered her first night in High Hrothgar vividly. She was eight years old. The icy cold had penetrated the walls of the monastery, and the silence had overwhelmed her. A silence that was too loud compared to... before.
The smell of smoke and blood still lingered somewhere inside her. The shadows on the walls — she couldn't remember if she had seen them or imagined them. Her heart had been pounding, too loudly. The screams? Perhaps they had been forgotten. Or pushed aside. But the images... she couldn't get rid of them.
Wulfgar had found her curled up in one of the barren corners of the monastery that night. He hadn't said a word; he never spoke anyway, but he had placed a small wooden figure in her hand: a fox, rough yet finely carved, like everything that came from Wulfgar's hands.
“He watches over you,” Arngeir had explained to her later, when she had found the courage to ask.
Aimée closed her eyes and reached for the little fox that still hung from her belt. She had never fully absorbed the peace and quiet up here, but she was close. Close enough to carry on.
She carefully removed the figure and placed it on the table. Then she poured cold water from a jug into the bowl and washed her face and neck. The coolness made her shiver briefly.
She ran a comb through her long, dark brown hair. Knots that had formed during her sleep slowly gave way, and finally she tied the heavy strands into a practical braid. A few stubborn strands still fell into her face.
For a moment, her blue eyes met her reflection, and her fingers thoughtfully tugged at the hem of her robe. With practiced movements, she pulled on her boots, slipped on fingerless gloves whose edges were slightly frayed from years of use, and finally fastened the fox back to her belt.
Aimée exhaled deeply, straightened her shoulders with determination, and pulled her cloak tighter around herself.
Ready.
The door to the great hall creaked open. Cold air touched her forehead and her footsteps echoed lonely between the high walls. Arngeir was already standing in the middle of the room, hands folded behind his back, his gaze as watchful as ever.
“Ready?” he asked without turning around.
“Yes, Master Arngeir.” Aimée stood before him, her posture upright, her hands resting calmly at her sides.
The Greybeard nodded. “Today you will practice Feim. You know the meaning: fade. A word of escape, but also of realization.”
Aimée breathed in, the word forming in her mind. As she opened her lips, she felt the sound brush against her chest.
“Feim...!”
The shout ran across the stones, but found no hold. The candles flickered only slightly, and the feeling of power slipped away from her again, like sand between her fingers.
“Aimée.” The sharpness in Arngeir's voice made her pause. “Your thoughts are wandering. The words of power demand clarity, not doubt.”
She bit her lower lip, frustration rising within her. Su'um ahrk morah. Breathe. Focus. Aimée closed her eyes, gathered herself again, and cleared her mind.
“Feim!”
This time, the power of the Thu'um filled the hall completely. Aimée felt the change immediately: a shimmering veil settled over her skin, lifting her out of the here and now for a heartbeat. And then, for a fraction of a second, her eyes shimmered golden.
Arngeir saw it, his expression remained impassive, but his gaze lingered. “So it shall be.”
He turned away from her briefly, allowing silence to fill the hall before turning back to Aimée. “Will you seek out Paarthurnax today?”
The dream returned; the blood on the altar, the masked figures, the gaze from the darkness. Not just seen, but recognized. A tingling sensation ran through her, a slight pulling in her chest.
Her fingers instinctively slid over the small fox figurine on her belt. Perhaps Paarthurnax had answers. Answers she secretly longed for.
Aimée slowly raised her gaze. “Yes... I was planning to.”
Arngeir nodded. “Perhaps you will find the clarity there that you lacked today.”
***
She had long since left the hall, but Arngeir's words continued to accompany her. Clarity. Perhaps it did not lie in tranquility, but up here, where the world breathed more deeply than her heart ever dared.
The wind tugged at Aimée's cloak as the clouds above her swallowed every trace of sunlight. She paused, took a deep breath of the icy air, and let it out with a shout:
“Lok Vah Koor!”
Her words rolled like thunder across the ridges, making the rocks tremble. There was a crack, then a tentative breaking, and the clouds parted as if invisible hands were pulling them apart. Sunbeams burst forth, feeling their way through the gaps and casting golden streaks across the snow.
Aimée blinked, feeling the wind dance loose strands of her hair around her face. It grew stronger, urgent, as if trying to push her off her path. But she remained, unyielding like the mountains in whose shadow she stood.
She let her gaze wander over the endless white. The tip of her boot absentmindedly drew a line in the snow as a song crept onto her lips. She gently rocked her head, letting the winter breeze carry the melody away.
Up here, everything belonged to her: the vastness, the sky, the wind. Here, she was no longer just Aimée. Here, she was a fleeting breath, a part of the mountains themselves.
Aimée stopped.
In front of her was a rock niche, half hidden under snow and ferns that trembled in the wind. When her fingers touched the rough stone, she felt warmth rising inside her, carried by memories.
It had been her first climb, on her ninth birthday. Wulfgar had taken her with him, silent as the snow, but reliable as the earth beneath her boots. A rock in a world of wind and abysses.
By now, she knew every path up here. But that one moment, that brief rest back then, had stayed with her.
Wulfgar had lit a small fire and she had run restlessly around the flames, drawing patterns in the snow with a stick.
“When will we finally be up there?” She had asked again and again, pausing only briefly to take a bite of the ham sandwich Einarth had packed for her.
The Greybeard had watched her silently, a hint of a smile on his lips. Then he had pulled a piece of wood and a knife out of his bag.
“What are you doing, Wulfgar?” Her voice had been bright with anticipation. She had sat down next to him, curiously following his hands.
Instead of answering, he had silently pointed to the sky: an eagle was circling above the peaks.
“A bird?”
He nodded and continued carving. Aimée could hardly sit still as wood became feathers and feathers became flight. When he was finished, he had handed her the small figure with a gentle look that promised without words that the summit was near.
The wind grew rougher, more biting. It tugged at Aimée's hair, screeched around the rocks, and whipped her cloak like a fluttering flag. But it wasn't just the cold that suddenly weighed on her. Something else, something indefinable, hung in the air, heavier than the wind.
She paused again, looking around alertly. A roar reached her ears: the flapping of enormous wings. Her heart began to beat faster.
When she had climbed the last ledge, the view of the Throat of the World opened up. Paarthurnax sat there as always, majestic and motionless in the middle of the ancient arena of stone and ice. The gray of his scales glistened in the sunlight, his eyes already resting warmly and knowingly on her.
“Drem yol lok, dii mal joor,” his deep voice droned friendly. Greetings, my little human.
Aimée smiled, the oppressive feeling in her chest immediately giving way to a familiar warmth. “I'm here, Paarthurnax.”
She stepped closer. The dragon slowly raised his head, his wings resting quietly at his sides.
“You called the wind and the clouds have cleared,” he said. “Your voice is growing, as it should.”
“It feels... natural,” Aimée replied as she sat down on a nearby boulder. “But sometimes I wonder if I'll ever master it like you do.”
Paarthurnax grumbled amused. “Patience, dii mal joor. Even the mightiest tree grows slowly but steadily.”
Aimée smiled, her gaze wandering thoughtfully into the distance. “Have you... noticed, Paarthurnax? Something is different. The wind feels heavier.”
The old dragon looked serious as he gazed toward the horizon.
“Look closely, Aimée.” With a nod, he pointed to something far away.
Aimée narrowed her eyes. Black clouds of smoke rose into the air, tearing through the clear sky like fingers reaching for freedom.
“What is that?”
“Alduin.” Paarthurnax's voice sounded heavy. “My brother has returned. Helgen... is burning.”