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Chapter Text

Wind foul as poisoned breath howled in her ears, whipping her hair and snapping at her clothes like a pack of starving wolves at the heels of a mammoth. The sickly green light coming from the poor excuse for a sky above made everything appear sallow, and the ocean of writhing tentacles beneath Sahrotaar's shadow was slick and oily, reminding her of putrid bile from a long empty stomach sated only with the oldest, stalest red wine.

Below, Seekers watched them from platforms among the greasy sea of limbs as they passed over, still and silent as a grave. Foreboding towers, built from unimaginably large stacks and archways made of countless books and tomes came forth from the otherworldly shadows. Still, Sahrotaar glided silently between them, unperturbed by their ominous presence. This was normal to him.

The air here was acrid, burning her nose and her lungs, but still, she had pressed ever onward through Apocrypha, weaving her way through the cursed labyrinth built by Hermaeus Mora himself, striking his Seekers down and leaving a festering trail of severed tentacles and rotten ashes behind her.

Sahrotaar caught an updraft, allowing it to carry him upward toward where more of the ugly, black appendages reached downward from invisible openings in the sky, grasping for something they would never reach. Through the sickening greenish gloom, one massive tower loomed before them. Above, another serpentine dragon circled and she felt Sahrotaar's muscles tighten beneath his fish-like scales as he ascended to the top of the tower. The arches and pools atop the tower indicated that this was his temple.

Sure enough, he was there, waiting for her as Sahrotaar landed. He was the only person she had ever encountered who truly understood how she felt, who truly understood the vile and sometimes undeniable hatred she felt, deep within her soul where Yolziinah gripped her in clawed clutches. He understood her more than anyone ever had, and still, he was her enemy. Not because she believed he was wrong, but because they could never exist together. Hermaeus Mora had seen to that.

The circling dragon landed heavily on one of two arches. A second dragon was already perched there, watching carefully as Sahrotaar lowered himself. Firien slid from his back, landing lightly on the plateau before she stepped forward to face Miraak, who chuckled upon seeing her.

"And so the First Dragonborn meets the Last Dragonborn at the Summit of Apocrypha."

Firien frowned, and Miraak watched her motionlessly. It bothered her that she could not see his face beneath his mask.

He turned to Sahrotaar, causing the other two dragons to snarl, and when he spoke, there was a hard edge to his voice. "Are you really so easily swayed...? No matter, I suppose. It will be over for you soon enough." He faced Firien again. "This is just as Hermaeus Mora intended. He is a fickle master, you know. But now I will be free of him. My time in Apocrypha is over. You are here in your full power, and thus subject to my full power. You will die. And with the power of your soul, I will return to Solstheim and be master of my own fate once again."

He paused, regarding her with what she wanted to believe was disdain before speaking again, his voice cold and trembling. "You no longer have any hold on me."

Firien suppressed a wince. He gave her no chance to respond as he turned his head sharply toward the dragons who lurked behind them, watching the exchange through narrowed eyes.

"Kruziikrel!" he barked, and Sahrotaar snaked his head between Miraak and Firien, his growl causing the air around her to tremble. "Relonikiv! Now!"

With matching shrieking roars, the two dragons took to the air, and Sahrotaar cast one glance toward Firien before he took off as well, leaving her to face Miraak alone. Above, the dragons collided in a flurry of wings and fire, but Firien kept her focus on Miraak, who had drawn his cruel, twisted sword.

She drew her axe, the old, half-useless blade she had taken from the weapons rack at Jorrvaskr.

Their blades clashed as the dragons above them did the same. Firien had no time to worry about Sahrotaar being outnumbered, as Miraak was bearing down on her with all the strength of a world-hardened Nord. Her arms trembled, but she did not give in.

Blood rained down on them, and Miraak made the foolish mistake of looking up as the dragons barreled over in a mass of shrieks, roars, and claws striking leathery hide. Firien used the opportunity to kick at his shins. He stumbled, surprised and slipping in the blood that splattered the plateau, and Firien swiped at him with her axe, the blade snagging on his robes as he leapt back and away from her. To her grim satisfaction, she saw his blood streaming down the axe's blade.

He could be wounded after all.

"Hermaeus Mora's laughing at us, you know," he snarled. "Do not be surprised when he betrays you as he has me. Kruziikrel! Ziil los dii du!"

One of the dragons suddenly dropped out of the sky, landing heavily on the plateau. He bowed his massive head and his body began to glow. Firien watched in horror as his scales and wing membranes turned to ash, and Miraak absorbed his soul. The wound in his side was no longer bleeding.

He chuckled darkly as she stared at the skeletal dragon in disbelief before leaping at her, striking with his sword. Firien reacted just a moment too late, and his blade sliced through her sleeve and into her upper arm. She growled in pain and frustration as she swung her axe toward his head, a Shout dancing on her tongue but she swallowed it down. She would not use them until he did. He dodged her blow and she missed by mere inches, but she continued her ferocious attack, swinging her axe this way and that. Once, her blade cut through his lower thigh, but he seemed unfazed even as his blood stained his robes. He stabbed at her, and she was a moment too late as his sword laced across her abdomen, ripping her leathers like they were nothing and into her abdomen. Her arm screamed in protest as she desperately redoubled her efforts in his small victory, yanking her axe back toward her and catching him on the shoulder in the process. The blade slipped through his flesh with disturbing ease.

With a choked gasp as the back end of her blade tore through apart the muscle and skin connecting his right shoulder to his neck, Miraak dropped to his knees, clutching at the wound as blood spilled between his gloved fingers. His right arm, his sword arm, hung uselessly at his side and he audibly snarled at her.

"Relonikiv!" he forced out. "Ziil los dii du!"

Relonikiv wrenched himself away from Sahrotaar and dropped onto the platform with a crash. He was in terrible condition, with gaping, bloody gashes decorating his body. He bowed his head low to Miraak and, just as Kruziikrel, he became nothing more than bone and whirling energy as Miraak absorbed his soul, his wounds healing into naught but puckered scars.

Miraak immediately attacked Firien once more, this time with more fury. They traded blow after blow, desperation fueling both of them; Firien for her survival, and Miraak for his freedom. Sahrotaar landed heavily nearby, his throat vibrating with a growl. She longed for his help but knew it was too dangerous for him to intervene. The less Miraak's attention was on him, the better.

As she dodged a swipe of a sword, she knew Miraak was right. Even if she won, Hermaeus Mora would be a constant presence in her life. She would have to live, knowing what she did here, all that she had failed to accomplish. Would she, some day, end up here too? Trapped in Apocrypha with no escape? Would she be doomed to wander the rotten tomes and collapsing shelves forever? She had never wanted to kill Miraak, once she learned of his plight, but Hermaeus Mora had given her no choice.

Such was the way of those as cursed and wretched as Daedric Princes.

As she danced away from yet another strike, she slipped in the slick mess of dragon blood that coated the stone beneath their feet. Miraak reached out and grabbed the handle of her axe, saving her from falling but still pulling her against him, his sword raised.

"I should rip your heart out," he said to her, his voice dangerously low and intimate. "Anything short of that would be a kindness, Shul-revak. One you don't deserve."

Panicked, Firien yanked her dagger free of its sheath on her thigh and plunged it into his side. The blade slipped between his ribs and while she knew it had been just shy of his heart, he still dropped her in shock and stumbled backward, forcing her to tear her dagger free of his ribcage. It hit the ground with a sharp clatter and she watched as his blood spread outward from the wound, darkening his robes. If left unattended, it could prove to be fatal.

He turned his head toward Sahrotaar, who had been watching the battle carefully. He exposed his teeth in a warning growl, but Miraak showed no hesitation.

"Sah—!"

"No!" Surprising herself, Firien smacked him with the flat side of her axe, catching his mask and tearing it free from his head. The mask clattered to the stone floor of the plateau and she found herself looking at the true face of Miraak, the First Dragonborn.

His long black hair had been tied at the back of his head, but flyaway strands danced across his forehead and fell into his haunting green eyes that glittered so dangerously against unnaturally black irises. A black beard obscured the lower half of his face, the longest parts of which were braided at his chin and held into place by silver beads with runes unfamiliar to her adorning them. Delicate black veins spiderwebbed their way through the skin around his eyes as he glared at her, teeth bared in snarl, with hatred she herself had only felt for a select few individuals in her life. But behind the hatred, there was pain. Pain and rage and desperation.

And she looked back at him with pity and resignation.

He opened his mouth to speak again, but Firien drove the blade of her axe to his throat.

"You have lost," she panted. "Do not make me kill you, Miraak, because I do not want to. You know I do not want to."

Inexplicably, betrayal was plain in his corrupted eyes. He opened his mouth to retort, his face contorted in agony, but he was interrupted by the appearance of a number of grotesque black masses of writhing tentacles and eyes floating above them. Sahrotaar cowered down like a beaten dog, and Miraak was lifted into the air by the revolting appendages, his arms raised and suspended on either side of him as though in worship.

"Did you think to escape me, Miraak?" Hermaeus Mora rumbled in his deep, slick voice. "You can hide nothing from me here."

From the oily pit in the center, a massive tentacle suddenly shot forth from the greasy depths, impaling Miraak through the back with a sickening crunch as his spine and rib cage gave way to it. It burst from his chest in a shower of blood and black ooze. Firien choked out a gasp of shock, her hands shielding her mouth in horror.

She had wanted to save him, if she could, and find a way to leave Apocrypha together. She had never been naive; she knew he hated her as much as he believed he loved her and she felt nothing but sorrow for him, but still, if there had been a way.

"No matter this loss," Mora continued, and the repulsive, double-pupiled eyes all turned on her. "Dragonborns are in short supply, yet I still found a new one to serve me. What do you say to that, Miraak?"

Miraak slowly turned his head to look at Firien. Blood streamed from the corners of his slightly upturned mouth as their eyes met. For a moment, she thought she saw something more within them, but the life there was quickly fading. When he spoke, his voice was as soft as it had been when he spoke her name for the first time. "May she... be rewarded for her service... as I am."

"Miraak harbored fantasies of rebellion against me," said Hermaeus Mora slowly, and she had no choice but to watch as his body burned up and dissolved the same way as a dragon's.

"No!" Firien tried to scramble away as she realized what was happening, but there was nowhere to go, and she had no choice but to absorb Miraak's soul. She clutched at her chest as agony rippled through her, but whether it was physical or emotional was indecipherable to her. Miraak was now nothing more than a skeleton that immediately crumbled to a pile at the base of the basin. The tentacle whipped the rib cage off, where it hit the pile with a hollow clatter, and then it was sucked back into the oily substance. "Learn from his example. Serve me faithfully, and you will continue to be richly rewarded. Rebellion is not an option... Shul-revak."

With that, Hermaeus Mora disappeared, and Firien exchanged a helpless and lost glance with Sahrotaar before looking back at the pile of bones that had once been Miraak. With violently shaking hands, she picked up his mask.

And so the First Dragonborn fell to the Last Dragonborn at the Summit of Apocrypha.