Miraak awoke.

That in itself was an oddity, as his last memories were of his defeat by the last Dragonborn's hands and his impalement on Mora's spikes, but what was equally strange was that he was lying in a warm bed of furs, a fire crackling merrily in the hearth.

He scrabbled into a sitting position, mind racing. His mask and robes were gone, he noted, replaced by the simple tunic and breeches of a commoner. His magic was muted, a smoldering coal burning low in his chest, as opposed to the vicious wildfire that wrapped his whole being.

The door opened, and the last Dragonborn entered.

"You," he snarled, and he lunged, aiming for her throat.

She easily sidestepped his attempt at an attack- an admittedly pathetic attempt, but an attempt nonetheless- and tripped him as he passed, grabbing his arm and twisting it behind his back as she forced him to the ground. He was forced to kneel as she increased the pressure, sinking to his knees with a roar of anger.

"Are you done?" the Dragonborn asked, her expression unchanged from the placid smile she had been wearing since she has entered.

Miraak bared his teeth, barking obscenities as he struggled.

The Dragonborn let out a disappointed sigh. "Sit," she commanded, releasing her grip on him and straightening.

Miraak felt his legs collapse and he landed on his backside with a jolt. His eyes were wide with shock, horrified that his own body had betrayed him.

"What," he breathed, "have you done to me."

"I suppose the real question is what did Hermaeus Mora do to you," she replied with a nonchalance that made his blood boil.

"Do not play games with me," he snarled. "You witch, what have you done."

"Rather rude of you to insult the one who freed you from an afterlife of servitude under our good lord," she said mildly. "You haven't even bothered to learn my name."

Miraak froze. Freed him?

"Now, if you've calmed yourself," she began, "I would be willing to explain why you are here."

"Let me up," he growled, shifting uncomfortably on the ground.

The Dragonborn observed him for a moment, studying him with a slight smile.

"I think not," she said finally, moving away to seat herself on the bed. "I rather like the sight of you beneath me."

Miraak flushed with rage and embarrassment. "You mock me," he snapped, irritation clipping his words short.

She let out a quiet huff of laughter. "Perhaps," she said. Lines of amusement crinkled the corners of her eyes. "But it is better than what you would have suffered beneath Mora's thumb." She paused briefly. "Well, his figurative thumb, seeing as he is an amorphous mass of eyes and tentacles."

"Enough of your blathering," he barked. "Explain!"

She let out another soft laugh. "So demanding," she said, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth.

She let him linger in silence for a few more excruciating moments before she began. "Our good lord was rather eager to be rid of you," she said, steepling her hands beneath her chin. "It didn't take much effort to convince him to pawn you off to me as a thrall, of sorts."

"A thrall?" Miraak said incredulously. "You intend to use me as a servant of your whims?"

"Of course not," she replied, waving off his anger. "I am going break you and leave you a shell of a man." At Miraak's enraged sputters, she continued. "Or at least, that's what I told Hermaeus Mora."

She settled more comfortably among the the furs, lounging like a contented cat, a casual air unbefitting of one holding a man's fate in their hand. The disgraced Dragonborn bared his teeth in defiance, lifting his chin up proudly even as he was sprawled on the floor.

"In reality," she said, "I suppose I'm keeping around for amusement."

Miraak bristled. "Amusement?" he spat. "You shame me, bring dishonor to my name, everything you have done, for amusement?" He struggled to rise to his feet, but his legs refused to comply, and he had to settle for glaring up at her. The effect was largely diminished by the lack of his mask the the difference in height.

"You think me to be so petty?" she asked dryly. "No, defeating you was, admittedly, a priority. You were dangerous. Keeping you alive, however, was a choice I made on a whim. You should be thanking me, you know." She pat the space next to her. "Come here."

Miraak rose, and he walked, stiff-legged and against his will, to her side, finally slumping onto the bed next to her. He clenched his hands until his knuckles went white and he could feel the skin of his palms break under his nails.

"So obedient," she murmured, something indecipherable in her eyes. Miraak was caught in her stare, wide eyed and heart hammering, as if under a spell.

"Now, I suppose you are wondering how I do that?" He very nearly flinched away as the sound of her voice snapped him out of his daze.

"I could care less for how," he said darkly, "as much for all the ways I could kill you to make it stop."

The Dragonborn clicked her tongue disapprovingly. "Then you wish not to know?"

Miraak battled with his pride for several moments under her expectant gaze, conflicted and uneasy. His stubbornness warred with his curiosity until the latter won.

"How?" he asked, with the air of a man defeated.

She smiled at him- smiled like one might smile at a child, he realized, with condescending affection and amusement. The thought made him grow hot with anger, but something else, something he couldn't identify, made a flush creep up his neck.

He was nearly startled out of his skin when she began untying the laces that held the front of her shirt together, but he was held in place be the same force that had kept him on the floor. His breath hitched as the neckline of her shirt dipped lower, revealing the shadow of her cleavage and-

"What is that," Miraak said, voice devoid of emotion.

A dark, geometric tattoo spiraled down her chest, the abstract head of a dragon curling over her heart, the neck gracefully arching up to her collarbone and past the other side of her sternum before diving down and disappearing beneath her shirt.

"Mora's parting gift," she replied dryly, tying her shirt back up. "You should see your own."

He did flinch at that, lifting a hand instinctively to his chest. Then, almost desperately, he pulled his tunic over his head, tossing it aside and splaying his hands over his ribs.

As she said, on his chest was a near mirror image of her own tattoo, and he could see where it travelled from his collar down to where it's tail ended at his hip, just below the waistband of his breeches.

"What are these?" he growled, anger burning in his stomach. "You would let Hermaeus Mora brand us with these shameful pictures!"

"I think they are quite nice," she said easily, leaning closer to study him. A finger, calloused but gentle, traced the path of the dragon's body down his stomach, and Miraak restrained a shiver.

"Enough!" he barked, grabbing his tunic in a half baked attempt to hide from her touch. "What do they do?"

Thankfully, the Dragonborn withdrew her hand.

"They bind us together," she said. "Your soul will follow me wherever I go. If I die, so do you, and you spend an afterlife with me."

Miraak felt his blood run cold. "And where," he said slowly, tunic forgotten in his lap, might that be?"

She snorted. "Who knows?" she says. "Maybe we spend eternity together in the halls of Sovngarde, knocking mugs with Ysgramor. Maybe we run with Hircine on his endless hunt. Maybe we wander the shadows of Apocrypha once more." She ran her fingers under his chin, tilting his head towards her. "Or perhaps," she purred, "we join Sanguine in his eternal debauchery."

Miraak jerked away, as if burned, and the Dragonborn laughed in response. "Relax," she said. "Sanguine has no claim on my soul, and I have no such designs for you- your virtue is safe."

"Why you-" he sputtered, the damned heat returning to his cheeks with a vengeance.

She laughed again, teeth bared in a mockery of a smile.

"Furthermore," she continued, amusement warming her voice, "our good lord placed… a charm, of sorts, on us. If I give a command, albeit a simple one, you must obey. I have yet to see how… specific I can get before the it is no longer within the bounds of the charm."

"So I am to be your dog?" he snapped, flexing his hands impatiently over the cloth of his breeches. "That is your grand plan for me? Your final attempt to strip me of my pride and humiliate me?"

"A dog, you say?" she hummed thoughtfully, a smirk curling at her lips, and he felt his stomach plummet. "Well then, the bed is hardly the place for you if that is what you think yourself to be."

Miraak cursed himself for falling for the trap so easily, and was, at least, not surprised when she rose to her feet and crooked a finger at him. "Come, pet," she said, leading him out of the bedroom.

He felt his legs carry him towards her, having, at least, the presence of mind to hold on to his tunic, and out the door and down a set of stairs, and finally into a large room, where the Dragon seated herself in an overstuffed armchair in front of a blazing hearth.

"Sit," she said, and Miraak tried to deny the action, teeth gritted till he could his jaw groan in protest, but his body complied without a struggle, obediently settling at her feet as he quietly seethed.

"Good boy," she murmured, cupping his face with one hand.

She studied his features intently- the striking ridge of his brow, the sharp line of his jawline, the strong slope of his nose- and pulled away with a soft, disapproving hum, as if she had looked him over and found him wanting. Somehow, the thought struck an unpleasant chord in him, the idea that he was inadequate and lacking.

Miraak shook it quickly, disgusted with himself. Why should he care for the opinion of this mortal, half-baked Dovahkiin, this insignificant human woman?

The insignificant, half-baked Dovahkiin that conquered the World Eater, the tiny, treacherous voice in the back of his mind whispered. The mortal, human woman that did what you could not and brought the dragons to their knees.

The one who brought you to your knees.

A scowl twisted at his mouth, and he sneered at the ground as the Dragonborn sat in silence, each lost in their thoughts.

"Lycka," she said suddenly, her voice piercing the quiet like an arrow.

Miraak glanced up at her, bewildered.

"My name," she clarified, rising to her feet. "It would be best for you to learn it."

And so she left him, on the floor at the foot of her chair, as she walked away

Lycka. The name, he noted, was Nordic. However, the woman in question was decidedly not.

She was tall and broad shouldered, but that was where the similarities ended. Her skin was a deep, warm bronze, the tone of someone born with tanned skin and spent many years in the sun besides, not quite as dark as a Redguard's, but a far cry from the pale complexion of a native of Skyrim. Her hair was dark, a brown that was a shade away from black that spilled over her shoulders like ink, thick and smooth. Her eyes were slanted, resembling an Mer's more than anything, a dark, rich amber, captivating and fathomless.

He remembered those eyes the most, the way they glowed gold in the green cast of the world of the Black Books, the molten fire in their depths when she absorbed a dragon's soul.

Pretty, he supposed, but fierce. There was a hardness to her, even more so than the inhabitants of the wild lands. A strength to her jaw, the straightness to which she held herself, even as she faced him in the heart of Apocrypha.

The Last Dragonborn, surely, but certainly not the least.

Miraak would sooner bite out his tongue than admit it aloud.

It wasn't until several minutes later when Miraak tried to get up that he realized that he couldn't, and that, apparently, the Dragonborn's- Lycka's- orders were valid until explicitly otherwise, and quietly resigned himself to a night on the floor.

hmm. not my usual brand of writing, but what can you do. new fandom, new rules. (admittedly, not really a new fandom, but my first story for it, at least)