Disclaimer: I own only my plot and my characters. Chances are, if any reader recognises anything, it's not mine or part of the "Hero with 1000 Faces" theory. I am but a humble (and very poor) language student and sometime fanfic writer, so there's not much to sue me for.
To my readers past and present, I am so sorry it has taken me this long to give you a new write of a fic which received a surprising amount of attention, despite an obvious lack of lore knowledge and which was actually a plot bunny conceived of one very quiet Christmas day. Within two hours I had two chapters written. Crazy stuff.
This is my new fic. Same premise, but many things have changed. The most obvious thing will be that Harald Grim-Cairn is no more. I have read much and learned much over the last year and most fics of this type have an all-conquering Nord as the protagonist. I like Nords a lot, my third favourite race is Nord. I like those fics and give all my respect and hope to their writers, but I want to try something a little different.
I hope you enjoy and that the wait was worth it.
"Fangs of the Forgotten World" is over.
Welcome to "Wicked Man".
"Normal speech"
'Thoughts'
"Shouting"
"Daedric Speech"
Chapter 1
Nothing feels quite like dragon fire.
"YOL TOOR SHUL!"
"Fo Krah Diin!"
Any man may burn a hand or foot upon the hearth with enough mead in his insides and addling his brain, but that is not what dragon fire is. It is hot, searing blue and red agony given a physical form. The only worse physical pain to a mortal man is that of ingesting hellfire, which doesn't even exist upon the world of Mundus or so the priesthood says. Then again, until the black monstrous form of Alduin the World-Eater, son of Akatosh incinerated Helgen, killing off around four in five of the townsfolk and bringing a halt to a civil war that had lasted for a solid twenty-five years, no-one believed in the continued existence of dragons either.
The heat boils away the moisture on the skin long before it hits it. The air around the fireball combusts itself, independently of the ignited flame in the dragon's gut and lungs, because of the simple sheer power of the heat being expelled by the outwards breath of the Thu'um. The flames do not lick or burn as normal fire does, rather it devours as the dragon does, without mercy, without compassion, without care. It is the deadliest of the natural weapons carried by any reptilian creature known to the Synod, although that is understandable given the teeth and monstrous size.
'As the beast knew only hunger, so did its flame, though cunning by their very nature were the hunger and the beast.' The Dragonborn's frost breath chilled the conflagration from the belly and jaws of the firstborn of Akatosh, giving a few precious seconds of respite. He knew he wouldn't be able to use his Thu'um again so soon, so he lashed out with the Akaviri blade in his right hand, catching the Worldeater on his scaled snout and drawing a little more blood from the newest cut made. His one reward was roar of pain and furious, unquenchable anger. It was the ninth such slice made by Dragonbane.
Ducking down onto his front to avoid the bite which would have crushed armour, pierced skin, shattered bone and tasted blood, he drove the razor sharp sword upwards with a mighty cry and powerful swing, cutting into the lower jaw, drawing a slightly louder shriek. Alduin then did something unexpected, slamming his jaw and neck against the Dragonborn and throwing the heavily breathing and battered Redguard back onto the ground some feet away. Superior training under Karliah and Brynjolf enabled him to roll away to the left to avoid the lunge by the infuriated monster which could have engulfed him whole.
"Geh pahlokaal joor ! Yes arrogant mortal! Gahvon dir ahrk nahkip dii suleyk! Yield, die and feed my power! Iliis Dovahkiin ahrk motaas us zey! Hide Dragonborn and cower before me!"
The Dovahkiin snorted, derision clear in his anger. "Pahlokaal nivahriin dovah. Kiir dreh ni faas hi, fahvos fund Zu'u faas hi? Arrogant cowardly dragon. Children do not fear you so why should I fear you?"
"YOL TOOR SHUL!"
The snort of anger was his own only warning before he had to run to avoid the roiling inferno and roar that belched from the fanged maw that Alduin had as a mouth. It was only the combination of a five year stretch as a squire in the Order of the Candle scouting throughout the Alik'r Desert, another three spent as a tomb robber amongst the ancient Dwemer cities and the five years proud service in the war against the Aldmeri degenerates as a messenger and scout that allowed him to outrun the flames of the Worldeater's wrath. The fire died off and the Dragonborn turned to face the enemy.
Dropping Dragonbane to the earth he jumped up onto Alduin's snout, surprising and confusing the Destroyer and himself as he ran forward with the respective ever-changing gleams of a summoned sword and ice spike in his right and left hands. The spear-like shard of solid ice punctured the eye of the monstrous black dragon as the blade cut the other, completely blinding the massive reptile who bellowed in the worst pain that the Dragonborn had heard since the death of the Thalmor interrogator unfortunate enough to cross his path in Northwatch Keep. That particular kill was something that brought a smile to his face.
The Firstborn of Akatosh whipped his neck to and fro in a frothing level of anger and pain that few mortals can understand or could survive, nor would many want to for that matter. The Dragonborn was sent flying to the ground again for his trouble, quickly rolling backwards with all of Nocturnal's luck to grab the hilt of Dragonbane and run forward with a shrill battle cry in true Redguard fashion. It was a cry that had shattered the Aldmeri Dominion at Stros M'Kai, Hegathe and Sentinel. It was a cry that had defeated Mannimarco, the Camoran Usurper, the Hiradirge and Tiber Septim himself. It had no words or ulterior meaning, but the sound struck fear wherever it was heard, shouted by a Redguard with the want for death, butchery and slaughter.
From the Dragonborn's mouth came the almighty Thu'um, "SUH GRAH DUN!" imparting the speed of the very winds of Kynareth to his strikes which came in a faster blur than even the insane speed taught by Amren, Athis, Burguk, Delphine and any number of other swordmasters and warriors the Dragonborn had trained under in the eighteen months since his return to Skyrim. The cuts appeared deeper and quicker on the dragon's head than ever before, the fields of Sovngarde beginning to run slick with the blood of the Worldeater. The Dragonborn stabbed down, cutting through Alduin's lower jaw, through black armoured hide, skin, muscle and thick bone with a satisfied grunt.
The Worldeater recoiled with force, blinded and badly cut, angered beyond any natural belief. It was the opportunity the dragon needed, in his overdeveloped and arrogant mind at least. The serious wound was instantly cauterised as the sudden blazing heat of all stored fire in the throat and belly of the King of Dragons was forced out with a resounding, gloating, victorious shout.
"YOL TOOR SHUL!"
The Dragonborn stood before Alduin's conflagration, as it burned and charred his skin and hair, creating terrible pain... and he persevered as he had every time a dragon had scorched him with their flame over the past year and a half. The tall Redguard stabbed forward with Dragonbane a final time and pierced the Old God's skull through the bleeding left eye socket. The enchanted blade shimmered a little brighter as the lifeblood of the Worldeater decorated and anointed it. The massive black form of Alduin crashed to the ground with a booming noise that shook the earth, a last gasp leaving the titanic reptile's lungs as he died.
The Dragonborn dropped to his knees, utterly exhausted and more than a little elated. He began to laugh happily as he felt onto his back, legs buckling beneath him as the mists of Sovngarde cleared. The battle had been long, and Alduin had been unsurprisingly resilient to his blows, despite the inherent nature of Dragonbane in relation to the dovah. He stared up at the sky as Alduin's ancient soul began to flow into the void beyond, very different to the normal absorption that took place. Or so he thought for a moment. The vortex above him seemed to form the shape of his Great Enemy in immaculate detail, the ethereal blue becoming an angry orange and red which had the audacity to roar and dive at him. He could not move as the spectre struck his body, causing him to shriek in agony as the soul of the greatest dragon ploughed into his body with the force of a giant's hammer.
Not even after watching Hermaeus Mora strike down Miraak with all possible contempt and consuming the souls of some twenty dovah including those the Devourer had stolen from him, had the Dragonborn felt such a surge of power and fury and pain. Every piece and particle of his body felt as if it was being charged with lightning. The only comparable feeling was the Eye of Magnus; and was as powerful as to change the actual weather pattern of an entire Hold capital, albeit it was Winterhold, and unleash close to a dozen half-formed wraith spirits which were sentient enough to attack of their own volition. It hurt like nothing else, but brought with it a rush that quickly felt at home. Very soon, his brain couldn't take it, and he collapsed to the earth, unconscious.
As he lapsed into darkness the outer planes of Oblivion and Aetherius were in uproar. Akatosh looked upon his eldest son's decayed skeletal body and wept tears of anguish and sorrow, furiously roaring for the son that could and should have been; whose soul now was now at the mercy of a bloodied hunter, albeit one who had served himself in the past. Kynareth and Talos smiled as their champion put an end to the terrorizing of their people at the hands of the Worldeater and his winged armies, in spite of their patriarch's suffering. Arkay felt a great deal more at ease in his own skin, as it were, now that the Worldeater no longer plagued Lorkhan's realm, or Shor as his people knew him.
The Daedra laughed, all had dealings with the Dovahkiin at some point or another and they had had a lot of fun watching his progress, especially the Princes of Debauchery and Madness, Sanguine and Sheogorath. All were happy, save Mephala. She was livid, insulted and grudgingly, reluctantly impressed. The Dovahkiin had taken up her precious Ebony Blade, her holy totem of Lies and Deceit and then abandoned it in a chest in his house at Vlindrel Hall, with his Housecarl Argis the Bulwark to watch over it. She had whispered to him to kill that pathetic mortal friend of his, Lydia to gain power beyond his imagining and he ignored it with impunity and pride.
She hated those who took the high ground more than anyone, even that terrible flirt Sanguine. It wasn't even as if he was a priest of Arkay or some other self-righteous dolt. He had bashed an old man's brains in to assuage the disgusting creature Molag Bal. He had eaten the flesh of a priest to gain that revolting Namira's favour. The worst was hiring that mage and then giving him to that traitorous thieving bitch Boethiah as a sacrifice. He was an utter hypocrite of the highest order. She knew the stupid bird Nocturnal were laughing at her behind her back, and it was only a matter of time until Hermaeus Mora found out, nosy tentacled busy-body as he was. She didn't like this feeling of rejection and humiliation, from a blasted mortal no less! In her rage, Mephala did not see that the Dragonborn, the Slayer of Alduin, was already passing from the world.
The soul of a mortal man, even one as great as the Dragonborn, was not meant to sustain the power or spirit of a beast such as Alduin, an Old God, and the Firstborn of Akatosh. Should it be allowed to continue as it was; the dovah sil of such immense strength would either crush or overthrow the spirit of the Dragonborn, either killing his body outright or more dangerously, possibly giving a mortal vessel for the Worldeater on Nirn. Watchful Hircine was the only one who picked up on this, and he was annoyed by this turn of events. The Dragonborn was less his champion, than a minor avatar of his due to his wolf blood. He may not be able to claim him for his Hunting Grounds, the withered corpse-god Shor had the first choice that feast, but should gain the soul of Alduin the Destroyer himself... that would be a Wild Hunt for the eons of Men, Mer, Aedra and Daedra.
The Great Stag knew that his fellow Princes would lose interest soon and the Dragonborn could not survive on the will of the Hunter alone. He made the decision, as much for future gain as for current prestige, to help the Dragonborn in the best way thinkable. Hircine calcified him into the stone statue of a great hound, which he had his follower Aela place upon the peak of a great mountain beside the desiccated skeleton of his greatest enemy for the centuries that would have to be until Alduin's power could be absorbed, under the guise of a grave marker which the Companions would mourn at for the next millennia or so. The Daedric Prince, for all his power, could not foresee what his instinctive avarice at the thought of a future kill would wreak upon the world.
X-X-X-X-DOVAHKIIN-X-X-X-X
Ages passed as they are wont to do, the landscape shifted and changed, whether by nature or by design. The world warmed and chilled a little, bringing heat to the shores of frozen Atmora and ice floes to the shores of the Summerset Isles, Valenwood, Black Marsh and Elsweyr. The titanic shifting of forces beneath the surface of Nirn created a cataclysmic event, which both created and destroyed in equal measure, though the sapient races of Mer, Men and Beastfolk certainly saw more of the destruction than the creation which was on a geographic scale. The first of the 'victims' of the tremors was the Imperial City itself, which was drowned beneath a wave which swept up the River Niben and smashed the cities of Leyawiin and Bravil to timbers.
Thousands of years after the distant green summers enjoyed by Ysgramor and his own, Men began to return to the lands of their ancestors' birth. Men survived in the northern lands as they had always done, as much of the old nations of Skyrim, High Rock and to a lesser extent Hammerfell became submerged over the course of time, causing mass migrations across the northern ocean. So it was until the new wave of settlers came south via the island of Par Vollen, once called Solstheim, and by way the land bridge over the Anderfels Mountains which dominate what was Hammerfell.
The bigotry sparked in the lands of Men by Ulfric Stormcloak's failed rebellion drove the Altmer, Bosmer and Dunmer into the arms of the Aldmeri Dominion where they eventually became a single people, united by heritage and by blood, and their magic granted them a lifespan similar to immortality. The strength of the magic grew to the reckoning of the mages of old, beyond the visions of the Thalmor in all their failed jingoism and false talk of superior breed, who lay shattered by military and political defeats at the hands of Skyrim, Hammerfell, Cyrodiil, and Black Marsh. Their arrogance paved the way for their downfall at the hands of those they once tried to subjugate.
The lower end of the world chilled for a time, and those nations south of former Cyrodiil became surrounded and isolated by the ice and the chill. The Altmer fled the Summerset Isles for the warmer lands of Thedas, where they founded a powerful kingdom. The lands of Elvhenan, as they came to be known, grew to occupy much of the new continent of Thedas, which comprises all lands south of the Anderfels Mountains, a mighty range which rose from the earth in northern Hammerfell, specifically part of what were Cyrodiil and Morrowind.
The Dwemer returned, changed beyond recognition in body and with no memory of what their race had accomplished in the distant past. The clockwork cities of old were eventually stripped bare, destroyed or submerged by tremors in Nirn or sealed away from sight and memory by increasingly superstitious locals, regardless of race. The Dwarves, as they now called themselves with pride, built an empire that spanned a continent beneath the stone of Thedas, though they still found little in the way of use for the favours of the gods, choosing instead to revere the accomplishments of their own people.
The Orsimer regained favour with their patron the Daedric Prince Malacath, who sent them to the far northern reaches beyond Atmora in their millions, changed in much the same way as the Chimer had in order to become the Dunmer or as they themselves had done in the aftermath of the death of Trinimac at the hands of Boethiah. However, it can be said that physically the changes were vastly more significant and impressive this time. The Orcs grew in physical stature, losing the green tone to their skin and generally becoming something that was no longer Mer. They called themselves Kossith and became powerful on the realm of Nirn. In a strange turn of events though, they rejected Malacath and founded their own ideology, more in line with the elusive Jyggalag than the Patron of the Sworn Oath and Bloody Curse. They are now Qunari, followers of the Qun.
The Khajiit and Argonians fled to across the eastern sea, beyond the reach of bigoted human lords who sought to drive them out anyway. They avoided the sight of Elsweyr and Black Marsh becoming frozen wastes as part of the Sunless Lands, which would have destroyed them as a people as it did the Altmer and the Bosmer. To those who live there in the present day and age in what remains of Akavir, it is home, where they are unbothered by the bigoted lords of Men and Mer so despised in memory and in some instances, song and dance. The Beastfolk are largely forgotten in the current day and age, though some customs and language persist in memory, even if the source is forgotten, which is the way they would probably like it if they had any inkling of what was happening in their ancestral lands.
Though magic grew stronger as an ephemeral force, the ever-unpleasant fortunes of mages took a turn for the absolute worst. The Daedric Prince Vaermina, the Dreamweaver vanished for a few centuries and when she returned it was with wrath. She sundered the veil between Oblivion and Nirn, seeking to increase his own sphere of power. This connected mages to Oblivion in a way never seen before exposing them to the corruptive energies that Vaermina radiates, and their darker sides became manifest as what would quickly become known as demons. This would prove to have a catastrophic effect on the pantheons in a way none could have predicted.
Belief in both Aedra and Daedra fell away in civilised parts of the world, the people becoming embittered by the acts of the Daedra and the inaction of the Aedra. Most of the races of Men were eventually converted to the worship of a single deity known as the Maker, who had surprised the two pantheons and their followers by gaining strength inordinately quickly. He swept aside all opposition under the banner of His Bride, the Prophetess Andraste, who was an inordinately powerful mage from the city of Denerim.
The origins of this figure are hidden by time or the actions of zealous acolytes. In some small parts of the world, worship of the Old Gods persists. They are not to be confused with the gigantic dragons who came to be worshipped again by some humans and elves and who later became Archdemons. The wars that followed the rise of the Maker and the subsequent destruction of Elvhenan and later the Dales angered many of the Aedra and Daedra, whom the elves had been worshipping under various names and guises for at least two thousand years.
The dragons dwindled after the death of their leader Alduin, but what occurred was not easily forseen by any augur or seer. Many had died at the hands of the Dragonborn and his allies. Those who did not either fled to the side of Paarthurnax, who sat at the top of The Throat of the World, or went underground and went into a catatonia-like deep sleep. A handful of dovah remained above ground and was worshipped by some of the races of Men. The Chantry claims that they were banished underground by the Maker for taking away worshippers from him. This is however, untrue. They simply retreated underground as the others had a few millennia before.
The Falmer sometimes came across these sleeping dragons and tried to domesticate them, but failed hilariously. Until the severely weakened Daedric Princes Namira and Peyrite formed an unholy pact. The Falmer became infected with a horrific, corrupting disease the humans later called the Taint. They changed and twisted into even more vile creatures that eventually subdued a mighty dragon and corrupted it as well. At the same time, some ambitious mages attempted to gain access to a part of the Fade that couldn't be accessed by mortals, called the Golden Palace. The Maker threw them out of the Fade into the pits of the Falmer, who turned them into the first Darkspawn. They in turn corrupted and spread underground, reaching the empire of the Dwarves who fought them with the grim determination and stubbornness that defined them as a race.
Eventually men and women of the Anderfels sacrificed their lives to become Grey Wardens, who took a little of the taint into themselves, shocking and amusing the Daedra, to gain an awareness of the Darkspawn that in the end allowed them to destroy the Archdemon and drive the Darkspawn back underground. This happened another three times, each more destructive than the last. Empires rose and fell, plague and famine swept across the land and wars killed millions, but through all this the Dovahkiin slept on, his legend nigh but forgotten and the hound statue that contained him brought to a gilded prison in the middle of a lake, where a young mage who would change the fate of the world, but not in the way she could have, was being led through a cellar by her best friend and his new girlfriend. Ten thousand years had passed and the time was ripe for the beginning of a new story.
This is not the story of the Warden who saved Ferelden, who cast down the Archdemon Urthemiel and saved Thedas from utter annihilation. This is not the story of the Hawke who took flight and brought the Chantry and their imprisoned Mages to the edge of war not seen since the fall of Tevinter. This story is the return of a legend to the world and the return of a hero, the return of the world long forgotten to the world of today. The rise of old ideas and older gods after millennia of decline and the fall of a usurper who brought death and misery to untold millions.
In their tongue he was Dovahkiin, the Man with the Soul of the Dragon, the Man born to kill dragons. On the eve of the Dragon Age, let his name come forth to our tongues, for he is Dragonborn.