In the 201st year of the Fourth Era, dragons returned to Skyrim.
A hero was prophesied to stand among them, to become the one they feared.
The Scrolls foretold an end to the tyranny of Alduin in the form of his mortal bane, the Dragonborn.
Faithful to destiny's intangible course, the path was followed, the enemy pursued.

The end of the World-Eater was near...

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-Prologue-

The great beast was floundering. With a thunderous roar, he plummeted, crashing, sending a flurry of snow into the churning air, and it was then Malus knew that the battle was in their favour.

He advanced, axe dripping red as the eyes of this fallen god. Alduin reared his head at his approach and drew back his lips in a rattling snarl.

"Dovahkiin, you cannot win."

Malus responded, heaving the axe into the joint of the dragon's wing. Alduin shrieked and lashed out. The Dragonborn shrugged off the blow, but the force sent him staggering, and gave the beast time to recover, hissing, spitting curses in his tongue.

Even trapped to the ground, enfolded in the villainous energies that was Dragonrend, the World-Eater was still a fearsome sight to behold. Ebony scales covering every inch of him, with eyes dark and red as desire glaring from the huge ridged skull. He drew breath and Malus dived, but the rising Thu'um was cut short as a blast of ice struck Alduin from behind. There was a great whirring of wings overhead as Paarthurnax circled.

"Zeymah tahrodiis," Alduin snarled, rearing. Malus charged, striking a wicked blow upon the exposed chest. The dragon screamed and thrashed. The Dragonborn barely had time to swerve clear, snarling his displeasure as flecks of black blood rattled over his armour, splashed onto his face. When the World-Eater recovered he twisted around, still crippled, lunging and snapping. Each blow Malus fended away, and when the creature stopped to draw a wearied breath, Malus struck hard and true, cleaving the beast's jaws and earning another agonized howl.

"Pruzah, Dovahkiin!" Paarthurnax landed, breathing deeply.

Alduin's eyes flashed murder. With a scream, he lunged at his brother, and the force of the huge black body thrust past knocked Malus clean off his feet. As he picked himself up from the snow, he watched them fighting with violent strength, wordless shrieks and howls erupting like Shouts from their throats. Black and grey, they writhed, sending sheets of white flying beneath their flailing, pounding tails and beating wings.

Black dragonblood splattered the snow by the time they pulled apart. Both were wounded but Malus saw Paarthurnax had certainly taken the worst beating. One wing hung limp at his side, the flesh scored with countless talon wounds, a deep gash had been opened on his face and his breathing was deeply laboured. It was hard to discern any wound on Alduin against his obsidian scales, but dark droplets were falling quickly from the ridges at the base of his throat.

Dragonrend was wearing off at last, and Alduin threw back his head and bellowed, wings flailing. Paarthurnax lunged, catching his brother's wing in his jaws. The World-Eater hissed and lashed at the aged dragon's head, biting hard upon the skull before thrusting him away. Paarthurnax fell into the snow where he lay still, breathing quickly and shallowly. Before the killing blow could be struck, Malus had driven his axe into Alduin's neck. Blood splattered, and the great beast staggered.

Malus wrenched the steel free and watched as the huge black head sank against the snow, eyes narrowed, breath rattling as he inhaled and exhaled. What pain he felt, he did not show nor sound it, yet it was clear the god was verging on defeat. As the jaws brushed the snow, Malus advanced, the axe sound and ready in his hand. He raised it.

And Alduin laughed.

It was a dreadful guttural thing, yet he laughed, and as he laughed he opened his eyes and met Malus's own. Malus hesitated beneath the red stare. He was not afraid, no longer, never again, yet he did not land the killing strike.

"I have seen your heart, Dovahkiin, and it is mine."

Malus furrowed his brow. Heaving breath, Alduin lifted his head, a strange smile upon his lips.

"You claim to be dovah, yet you refuse to be."

"Speak sense, demon," Malus growled.

Alduin laughed hoarsely, yet it was growing stronger. He raised his head higher and higher until he looked down upon the mortal who so nearly had taken him. "I have seen your heart, joor," he rumbled, "and I have seen the rahgol that fills it. It is ahzid, full of irkbaan." Bitter, he said, full of hatred. "You feel suleyk in you, and suleyk you crave." Power, he spoke of. "And when it seems the greatest suleyk in all Taazokan has been gifted to you, a mere joor of Keizaal…you have been told to beware it. Your Thu'um is weak in your hesitance. Your hesitance fills you with ahzid rahgol, yet what you do not understand is it is such a rahgol that gifts to dov their mul, their ahkrin, and their suleyk." Strength, courage and power, he said.

Malus shook his head to clear the haunting words, gripped the handle of his axe, determined to see this deed through. "I have all that already," he snarled, "and power…I have power over your life, that of a self-claimed god. If that is not power, then power is nothing."

"Suleyk is nothing indeed, when you are told how to control it." Alduin leaned closer, his smile ever wider, eyes glinting like rubies against his dark bloody head. He could have taken to the air, yet here he lingered upon the snow. "And you have been told, so often, so many times, little dovah. It angers you, does it not? The rules, restrictions, the claims made by lesser joorre." He chuckled at the responding silence. "Geh, I have your ear now, Dovahkiin. Listen, treasure my rotte. It is the kruziik rotte of an even more kruziik qostiid that guides you now, yet there is still so much you have not been told, that the lein has not permitted you to learn."

Malus stared the World-Eater down. "Like what?"

Alduin gazed. "What will happen when your qostiid is fulfilled, little dovah. What becomes of you then? Of the lein? It is my duty from Akatosh that I render about the coming of the new world, the next lein…your bards sing about the great hun destined to protect the lein from its eater, yet do they sing about the krasfaal, the pahlok, that plagues your morokei lein?" He spoke now of corruption and arrogance. "When the lein has used you, you shall be useless, cast aside like a crippled sivaas, and your joorre will show you no more aaz than I ever do to my hokoronne. You shall lose your mul, you shall lose your ahkrin, and you, above all, will lose your suleyk."

He leaned closer, and Malus made no move to strike him. The eyes bored closer and closer, full of scarlet belief. "Think, Dovahkiin. They whisper behind you. They look at you in faas. They despise your…dumedak." Difference, he said. "And when the Dovahkiin falls, none shall weep for you, and leave your slen to be devoured by grohiikke. When you are unneeded, the lein shall go on, kroved, hinzaal, munax." The world would go on, he had said, corrupt, ignorant, cruel.

"Dovahkiin, niid…" The words rasped from behind, shaking, trembling with effort, yet filled with desperation Malus found curious to behold.

"This qostiid was cast by such a lein," Alduin snarled, "and made you a pawn of dilon zoorre. To qahnaar dii, the World-Eater, chosen by Akatosh to render about the rebirth of worlds! With such a rebirth I would purge krasfaal from the slen of the lein, banish nivzah koraakke from the hearts of pahlok joorre, and bring about an age of drem, of thaarn, and of moro this lein has never known."

Alduin, the World-Eater, spoke of banishing false beliefs from arrogant mortals, and render an age of peace, obedience and glory Nirn had never seen. Malus listened, and he did not protest.

"Dovahkiin!" Paarthurnax was urgent, his voice quivering in his bloodied throat; Malus turned to face the old dragon, struggling to lift his head, full of weakness as his blood splattered the snow about him. "He speaks not of purging munax, only of growing his own suleyk across the lein. Do not heed such tahrodiis nokke!"

Malus did not answer. Treacherous lies, the old one claimed his brother spoke.

"Dovahkiin," Alduin growled, "dii feyn, make your choice. In one lein, you would have all the suleyk you could dream. All would fear you, respect you, treat you as their jun if you willed it. Dii laas hin, my life is yours, yet give me dilon and you have promised yourself a powerless life."

"Do not listen," Paarthurnax grunted, pushing and skidding in the drift. "Dovahkiin, thousands look to you for hope! Thousands more will speak of you in teyye as the hun who slew the feyn do junne!" He spoke from the Song of the Dragonborn, bane of kings, he had said. Yet men were too banes of kings. Men had hungers to swallow the world as great as Alduin's, and men were corrupt, ignorant, weak.

And he, Malus, was strong.

"Dovahkiin," Alduin growled, "make your choice."

And Malus made it.

In three strides he stood over the old one's trembling throat, the axe swung high. Paarthurnax struggled and screamed, even as the blade bit deep, deep into his neck, through the flesh to the bone beneath, shattering it, penetrating it, thrust downward with more power than Malus had ever known he had. The blood that coated the axe was warm and sweet. He wrenched it free. The dark wound began to smolder.

Paarthurnax could not cling to life for long, yet he surely must have died listening to Alduin's great rumbling laughter.

"Dovahkiin, pruzah," he purred, and Malus turned, dragon flesh catching fire behind him. "Your rahgol shall be feared, your irkbaan known throughout the lein. You shall be worthier than my zeymah ever was."

Malus spoke softly, dangerously. "I am no subject."

"Niid," said Alduin, eyes glinting. "You shall be dovah—and I name you Joor Paal Rah, Mortal, Foe, God, that all dov shall see you for what you were truly destined to be." Malus looked back at the burning body of Paarthurnax, and Alduin rumbled behind him. "I shall make you stronger than ever this vax could have, teach you secrets known only to a god. Together, Dovahkiin, this lein shall be purged."

The Dragonborn felt suleyk from the old one's soul fill his body, warming him against the bitter cold of the Throat of the World. "My lord," he smiled, and met the eyes of victory. "When do we begin?"

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