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Chapter Text

The 7th Calling 

Dovahkiin! 

The Word carried further and faster than even the great winds of Skyrim. From the mountaintop of High Hrothgar it boomed out across the land like the fanfare of gods. The people of Whiterun who had looked southwest in terror at news of a dragon now turned southeast with a new sense of shock. 

Mu bel hi, dovahkiin. Bo ahrk gevahzen hinmaar!

The dragon tongue cracked once more through the air, and like hearing a whip struck too close, the people of Whiterun collectively flinched at the sound. 

A group of horses barreling toward the gates of Windhelm broke gait and suddenly looked like nervous mares upon hearing the Greybeard’s Shout. The Nord named Ulfric Stormcloak leading their riders turned his gaze away from the safety of his home ahead of them, towards the great mountain Hrothgar where he had once studied himself. Giving a shout of his own, but much more human in comparison, he took back control from the shocking moment and turned his men onwards towards the security of their keep.

“Words of Moths beneath the mountains, tied above and below! But time! How does one capture time both forwards if it also runs backwards? The songs within-”

An old man muttered to himself before a strange, magnificent Dwemer artifact trapped in the glacier of the arctic cave. Its golden edges shone uncannily in the candlelight, glinting as if they were only built today and not the eight thousand years ago they were. Today’s magic had no chance of understanding the power that drove such ancient Dwemer machines even into the present days. The mages of the College of Winterhold still grappled with the soul gems that powered the Dwemer automatons, how could they understand this artifact that might capture a piece of a Prince of Oblivion? Alone and deep beneath the ice of the Sea of Ghosts the cowled mage’s words did not cease despite these thoughts. The word of the Greybeards came to him as quiet as a whisper, barely audible in the lair above his own chaotic mumblings. 

Dovahkiin!

“-no that’s not it.” He muttered, pushing the new voice from his mind. “Winged gods fly above already risen. Metal is below though, they cannot-” He could not ignore the second call of the Greybeards however, their words of summoning washing over him, more than a whisper this time; a moment of clarity breaking through his glassy eyes. Sharply he turned from the great Dwemer cube before him, finally losing his staring match with it. “Oh? That could be the answer I suppose. One whose Words go before before and after after, heard down and up…it could be, yes, yes….what do you think?” he said, turning back to the great cube.

The announcement reached as far as the shores of Solitude and the dark, sleeping castle across from them. Though those within its walls would ignore the words, too absorbed in their revelry and blood sport. 

And even deep within the cold stone of Mount Anthor, in a dark, damp place called Dimhollow Crypt, something ancient stirred within its ebon coffin. 

Dovahkiin, mu bel hi! Mu faan wah hi ol dez!

The words washed over the lair like whispers to wake the sleeping. Silence, then came the rakish groans of those forced awake after too long. In this crypt and all others touched by the dragons before across the land, blue eyes like burning fire opened in their tombs. The Greybeard's shout rang clear through all depths of Skyrim and at once the awakened Draugr shouted their own response in challenge to a sky and mountain they could not possibly see from their tombs. 

The ebon coffin in Dimhollow stirred once more in its prison beneath the ground before all became quiet again. This awakening was for them, not her. 

Sleep again. Deep, inky-black, forever dreams once more. Not yet, not yet. The voice wriggled within her. She resisted for but a moment before succumbing to the depths of her subconscious again. 

The Breton man named Karthus attempted putting his right foot in front of his left, stumbling his way back to Whiterun from the western watchtower after the dragon’s attack. Ash and blood coating his leather armor and face, his raven black hair matted with the same, a chunk of his right ear missing. The adrenaline pulsed through him, his eardrums still wrung from the roar of Mirmulnir, and it felt as though Karthus’s breath was itself hot enough to challenge the dragon’s flames now. 

Dragonborn!  

The words knocked him to his knees as if he had taken a kick to the stomach. He retched, unable to hear the panicked voices of the Whiterun guards behind him; unaware of Irileth, the Dunmer housecarl’s nonplussed face amongst them.

“The Greybeards! By the Nine, they’re calling for the Dragonborn.” 

“I can’t believe it….they’re calling for you , Karthus! You Shouted like them at that dragon, it must be you.”

“Like Tiber Septim!”

“I don’t recall Tiber Septim ever killing a dragon.”

“That’s because there weren’t any dragons to kill, idiot. There haven’t been dragons in…well forever!”

His throat felt like magma lay within it, he couldn’t breathe through its heat, couldn’t release whatever was in him. Nothing else but that heat mattered, nothing else could be focused on. Fire, his mind latched onto the Word greedily, desperately, clawing at a meaning. Flesh-melting, cities burning. A crackle of a campfire. No, not now. Molten. Liquid stone untamed. Melting upwards. He let out a violent moan and the Whiterun guards snapped out of their chatter.

“A-are you alright, Dragonborn?”

“It must be the power of the Dragons. What is it doing to Karthus?”

The till now quiet Irileth took that moment to push past the guards. The dark elf took out a waterskin and kneeled next to the man in one swift motion. “Drink. You need to drink, Karthus. Stop gawking like maidens and give him room , dammit.” Irileth spat out at the guardsmen. Karthus gasped out and Irileth retracted her hands instinctively at the sudden scorching heat. His hands were faster though as they snatched the waterskin and pulled it up to his mouth. He screamed as steam erupted from where it fell, dropping the waterskin as the liquid boiled in his throat. Pain. White, hot pain flashed through his mind as every nerve in his body seemed to needle him at once. Consciousness almost escaped him then, but the Greybeards could not have been aware.

Dragonborn, we summon you! We call to you as your destiny! Their Words shouted out once more from the mountain peak, and Karthus’s world turned to fire.

“ Vol!” he screeched out as the fire washed up through him, desperate for escape from the mortal prison. Irileth barely managed to bolt out of the way as his breath turned to flames, violently and wildly dancing above them as the Dragonborn rose to his feet to face the mountaintop of those that would summon them. The flames finally died, but Karthus stood frozen to the spot as the guards warily looked at each other and him, unsure of what to do next.

“Zu'u volaav hi, Mudozaan.” two voices as one whispered weakly and wearily. “We…reject you.” before crumbling to his knees and planting his face hard into the ground at his feet. Karthus’s world faded to black.

Indoor Voices

“-quiet. It’s time.” The Breton closed his eyes as he tied his hair back, a little ritual he always did before he knew things would get hairy, recalling what a mess it was to clean. Whether his eyes were closed or open it didn’t really matter though. There was not a torch in the cold, stone corridor to cast a light. He was still laying down on his belly in the pitch black of the entrance to Dimhollow Crypt’s inner sanctum. He pulled the hood of his cloak up and tightly wrapped it around his black-leather armor. Softly, barely above a whisper, he demanded his Words: “ Kun dii koraav.” and then lifted his mask over his mouth.

The pupils of Karthus’s eyes seemed to bubble for a moment before stretching and thinning themselves into slits. Each miniscule bubble brought a dot of gold to his eyes and pockets of vision became clear to him with each, as they overwrote his normally mahogany brown eyes. He blinked slowly, allowing the Dragonsight to coat them fully. 

“Try not to get in my way this time.” he muttered, annoyed as he reopened his now faintly glowing, serpentine eyes, and with muffled crawling entered the vast, open inner sanctum. The  platform in the center of the room looked to have once been intricately carved, perhaps a place of worship but it had worn away with age. It had large, foreign stone constructs built all around it like some sort of Draugr pantheon or henge. Old, cold stone. Wuth krah gol, he thought to himself. He wasn’t about to let some vampires get to his treasure first though. He ambled forward slowly and the silent voices of those he knew to be within grew in volume. The distinct sound of steel piercing flesh interrupted their conversation though and echoed its way up towards him confirming it.

Hi tinvaak nok ont ontzos! Hi lost ko Dii ven, Dovahkiin. the dragon replied dejectedly. 

“Not. Now.” Karthus clucked back. “We had an agreement and we can talk about it later if we must.” his whisper filled with as much finality as he could muster considering the circumstances. 

Flogah. 

“Fine, indeed.” he grunted from the ground. Prone, he crawled slowly on all fours towards the stair railing for a better view of the group of vampires he hunted below.

It had been a month since the 7th Calling, a name the people of Skyrim had taken to referring to the now only quietly gossiped about event of the Greybeards announcement. While it was a brief shock to most folk living their lives day to day, most got on with it and turned to the newest gossip and news about the Stormcloak rebels and Imperial response. If there really had been a dragon in Whiterun it didn’t matter to them. There hadn’t been a sighting of one since the Greybeards announcement, and without news from High Hrothgar what did it matter. But Karthus rued most days since those damned Greybeards let the world know about his existence. Life had gotten…complicated was maybe the sufficient way to put it. But he loathed it with almost every fiber of his being.

When he awoke in the guest quarters of Dragonsreach he had immediately clawed at his molten throat once again, only to discover it now felt like his usual neck. Flesh, veins, skin, all there and accounted for with a normal temperature to boot. He looked around him, recognizing the Whiterun coat of arms imprinted on a shield decorating the wall. Probably safe for now, he thought to himself. The dragon was dead assuming that had not all been a nightmare; if he was back in Whiterun that must mean they were successful and he was alive. 

“But what was that Voice I heard…” he muttered.

Mir. Mul. Nir.

The words came crashing through his skull like a morningstar and he gasped in pain.

Stiildus, Dovahkiin. Stiildus ko pah ven. You will be mighty one day, but be calm now.

The old, stone-filled voice crashed once more through his mind, but this time a silence followed in its path, like a wave breaking before it crests.

“I’ve finally lost it then, haven’t I? There’s a…a dragon in my head, is that right then?” Karthus spoke deliriously, unsure how long this peace inside his head might last. He almost jumped in shock at the rumbling...was that…laughter? Was this dragon in his brain laughing right now?

Zu'u nunon kiibok mul. Dragonborn, born to the name Karthus, I am one who only follows the strong. Zu'u mindrus hin mul, Dovahkiin. When you struck me down in morokei grah, my Words were sworn to you.

Allegiance. Glorious battle. Hunted. He shouldn’t know these words, he did not recognize them from his life up till now, they should not be his to see and know. But they burned with truth as the dragon spoke its language within Karthus, they were his by right.

“How…you are Mirmulnir, the dragon at the watchtower. How are you speaking to me now if you admit you fell by my blade? And why do I know your name, is that what you mean by words sworn, why-why are you in my head ?” the questions spewed out of his mouth like a geyser. He didn’t have the moment to wonder where his panic had all gone, but he was now brimming with curiosity and a dash of worry instead. He was broken out of his awe once more by the laughter . That would take getting used too, he thought to himself. Or was it…themselves now? He was about to speak the question aloud when he was interrupted.

Nahlot, Dovahkiin. We are hunted.

Party of Two

After that first interaction with Mirmulnir in his head it had been a whirlwind of Cultists, Imperials, Stormcloaks, Dawnguard, and hanger ons, each with their own wants, desires, and agendas for the famous Dragonborn . He hated every minute of it. Which might explain why he was currently crawling through bloody vampire cave filth in a bloody vampire nest under a thankfully not bloody, but unfortunately icy mountain in the heart of Skyrim. He let out a deep sigh. Where had he gone wrong? He almost missed his home of  Riften after all this. Better a poor street urchin surviving in the orphanage than being the bloody Dragonborn. Unlike then though, he was strong now. Perhaps that was all it took to make up the difference for him. Or maybe something within him changed when he took in Mirmulnir. Glorious battle, his thoughts caught on the words.

Hi los irud. Focus, Master.

Karthus frowned. The dragon was right, he was getting distracted thinking about the past, now of all times. But it was the deep, slow chuckle afterwards he had come to know Mirmulnir for over their month together that caused him to feel so uneased. Or was that now a lie he kept repeating like a mantra to himself at this point? 

“I hate your laugh” he mouthed breathily, quiet enough even he couldn’t hear it.

Dii nep los suleykaar. replied his dragon loudly in their head, but Karthus shushed him. The voices below were loud enough for their ears to hear now.

“-not for the wretched cattle! We are only here for the Elder Scroll, you filthy mongrel.” a male voice sounding like it was coated in oil lashed out angrily, followed by the wet ripping of flesh and the usual shrieks that follow such sounds. 

“Was…that wise? You know we needed them for the blood tithe, Master Lokil.” the only other living vampire below meekly replied to her now blood soaked vampire master. 

“We never needed him alive anyway.” he replied with an impatience that even annoyed Karthus still hiding from his position above. Lokil rolled his eyes as he grabbed the now dead thrall by the collar and turned to walk towards the center of the strange, henge platform followed by the consistent sound of him dragging the body behind him along the abrasive floor. He strode toward a strange waist high obelisk in the center of the henge. Karthus thought the rounded tip of it gave off the familiar sense of a Draugr button mechanism. Should he wait to let them activate it first, or would it be riskier to let them see the scroll before him?

 Karthus waited until the compatriot vampire turned and followed the other named Lokil before silently pulling himself onto the stair railing, and with graceful practice dropped the twenty feet over the edge. His boots landed with a silence only the expensive or cursed enchantments could produce, lucky for Karthus his boots fell on the expensive side as the vampires ahead of him continued towards the obelisk without any acknowledgment of the person now behind them. 

He had hedged a lot of bets on the blood of the dead humans covering his scent. No one was expecting him though, this wasn’t his party. He only came to crash it because he too wanted an Elder Scroll, and he knew killing some vampire thralls along the way would count as his good deed for the Aedra this week. What he had not expected was vampires of this stock to be here. These were no thralls he was dealing with, Mirmulnir had warned him earlier, of course . The dragon never missed a chance to expound his ageless wisdom upon him. Luckily Karthus usually found it fascinating, though he had made a game of it not to let the dragon know that. He had realized early on in their relationship that he had to be flexible, maybe a little mad even, to reach any sort of middle ground with the servile, but unforgettably immortal dragon now hitching a ride within him.

He shook his thoughts and made ground quietly following behind the vampires; years on the streets of Riften had been more than enough to teach him how to make himself silent, even without the magically muffled boots he wore. 

The ink-black, long-haired vampire Lokil interrupted with the sound of wet flesh as he lifted the body he’d been dragging chest first onto the obelisk. There was a mechanical clunk followed by the unpleasant shlick of flesh being penetrated at high impact as a thin, needle-like spike extruded out of the obelisk’s button. Lokil sighed loudly as the pitter patter of blood dropped to the stone beneath the hanging body. Nothing changed.

“My dear apprentice, do please tell me why it has not unlocked properly? Hmm? Blood of a vampire if I do recall you said to me, dearest  apprentice…” his slick voice betrayed his sadism.

“...your loyal thralls, your personal picks helped you discover the- OH NO YOU DON’T” Lokil cruelly screamed through his wicked grin at the now fleeing apprentice. The lesser vampire’s hands glowed with an eldritch red magick, pulling it around her quickly; it shifted to an icy, dark blue with the rotation of her hands and she sprinted towards where they had entered, right towards Karthus behind his pillar still. But nothing happened, seemingly anyway. It was when he looked past the fleeing vampire women towards the master and saw his briefly confused face that he realized she had made herself invisible. But invisibility was not a word the proud dragons would succumb to it seemed.

Hmph, sahlo mun miin, Dragonborn. Once more I see you recognize my power!

The damned, thundering laughter distracted him. The dragon was right of course, but the damn laughter- but suddenly the usual train of grumbling thoughts was interrupted by the agonized screech of the apprentice vampire being pierced through their abdomen. A shard of ice the length of Karthus’s whole arm stuck through her; He hadn’t even seen it, hadn’t even heard words of casting, but there she was in front of him, stuck like a pig. He watched whatever unlife she had in her amber eyes fade away as her body fell with a crack and thump, the icicle in her chest snapping on impact with the ground.

“Alright fine, I witnessed you already.” Karthus replied back to Mirmulnir with a whisper as the dragon laughed once again within him. “Now let’s take care of our final witness, hmm?” 

Lokil might have heard Karthus’s mutterings if he hadn’t been busy cackling; his brain obviously thrilled with the rush of chemicals his sadistic side craved. To be a vampire was to want, to thirst, endless and immortal. It was the highest of highs and lowest of lows only addicts and politicians might barely be able to understand without their own Daedric Prince granting it to them. And the closer a vampires given blood was to that vile god of Oblivion, Molag Bal the Prince of Rape, the stronger that vampire would be. Long ago there were lords among the vampire clans. Karthus knew this because Mirmulnir knew this. He also knew that meant the proud bastard had made this all the more easy for him by killing off his followers. It was not a pleasant campfire at night, he thought. 

Karthus rolled to his left around the pillar and broke into a silent sprint with his boots swift on the ground. Twenty feet. It was the opposite of a waterfall. A fire that flowed upwards, violent and crashing. 

Twelve feet. 

Lokil stopped his laughter and uncannily turned his head to face the oncoming Breton. “I see you, little rat. You’re rather quiet for cattle, hmm? How do you make yourself so quiet, I wonder?” the vampire spat with a new grin adorning his pale face.

His throat burned. Karthus’s mind shook with the remembered pain of the fire once more building towards eruption in his chest. It was never as bad as the first time though. Red, hot, molten earth roiling. Beads of sweat wet his cowl and mask.

Just as surprised as the mindless thralls in the entrance, it seemed a vampire just never expected fire the way he made fire. Even Lokil  wasn’t immune to this as Karthus rushed towards a close-range battle. A mortal couldn’t match most thralls, let alone one with blood as potent as Lokil’s.

Seven feet; Karthus leapt at the nightson, reaching his arms out swiftly to grapple the others before the vampire could slash him. A human lunging at a vampire. Not only that, but a vampire that had killed thousands of others just like this pathetic cattle in front of him; it was preposterous enough to Lokil that it bought Karthus the second he needed. His next surprise bought him the next second he needed.

The Dragonborn wielded the might of his servant, the dragon soul within him powering the fire, chaotic like magma and brilliant like the sun. Three thoughts shared between Karthus and Mirmulnir. He demanded more Words this time:

“ Yol Toor Shul!” 

A last look of shock was painted on the pale vampire’s face only inches away from Karthus’s maw. Then there was only fire where it had been. The flames erupted out and they licked violently around Lokil’s entire face, the fire inspired by dawn itself turning it to ash in seconds. There wasn’t even a chance for Lokil to scream, just the sound of bubbling flesh, the focused roar of flames, and then the thump of Karthus’s body and what remained of the vampire falling to the ground. With a deep exhale he looked up from the floor. Surrounded now by only the Draugr henge formation on the bloodied platform, he raised himself up to his feet, trying to quickly escape the smell of the body that he knew would only grow stronger the longer it lingered. 

This One Is Mine

He could still feel the burn of fire in him and tried to distract himself from the hunger it created. “I know you wanted to kill both of them yourself” he struggled out, “but I think that worked out well for me. You know, the whole betrayal thing? Hey, do you think the betrayal is a vampire thing or more an eternal life thing, Mir?” Karthus ran his mouth off quickly as he struggled to drag the body to the edge of the platform before further struggling to throw it to the cave floor far below it. That’ll take care of the worst smell at least, he managed to think to himself between the still roaring flames beneath that thought.

Hmph, grumbled the dragon in his head. You do not fool me with your words this time. The dragon soul we share is still boiling for blood and glory, drak nen tol, you should know I feel it too by now. Stiildus, Dovahkiin. Focus on my Word, and be calm.

The embers of the dragon fire within Karthus trembled as if a great gust had hit them.

Stiildus . The reminder of the Word rushed over him like a blanket slowly being pulled tight. Like the first breath outside on a sunny Summer day. A warm bed with four walls around it and the sound of songs below. Family and friends by your side. Calm. 

“Stiildus” he spoke the Word outwards. It was a Word given to him before by the Dragon he now called Mir, anytime after a fight that made him put his life on the line he would need to be reminded of it. This time though he could truly feel it, and he took what was rightfully his as Dovahkiin . 

“Stiildus” he repeated more quietly this time, more in control now, and felt the dragon's speech pulse in the air around him, like a breeze only he could feel. 

Yes, indeed, he finally thought clearly. Nothing more calming than all this, no doubt, he thought while throwing a slow, cynical look around the dank, iron-smelling cave that still screamed you will die here, even though he was certain the last of the vampires were dead. Last vampires that he knew anyway, but he felt sure that they wouldn’t have any backup following them. Perhaps some Draugr further in but they were slow and stupid compared to vampires. A picnic almost by comparison. He had been tracking this pack of vampires for almost a week after overhearing their search for the Elder Scroll via pure dumb luck in Moratha. He had been making his way to Solitude after hearing rumors of a Moth Priest in the country headed there. However, his time traveling through Moratha on the way was dangerously fortuitous. The city was apparently haunted by evil creatures of the swamp surrounding it according to townsfolk. Though he hadn’t expected those creatures to be vampires and even less expected them to be at the inn acting, well, so flagrant about it, to be frank. Karthus was good at not sticking out now thanks to the cursed announcement of the Greybeards, but the vampires had made it easy for him.

“Now, what do we have here then? Obviously this wasn’t the correct answer.” Karthus said aloud, turning to look at the body still impaled atop the button in the center of the platform and tilting his head curiously. “Up we go then!” he said as he used his shoulder to lift the body up off the spike and toss it to the ground before dragging it to the same edge of the platform as Lokil’s and tossing it off to join him below.

Kiird voth kip…grumbled the dragon.

“They are not my food, and I am not playing with them, I’m getting them out of the way while I work. I’m cleaning up the place if anything.” Karth could practically feel the dragon inside him roll its eyes. “Enough out of you then.” he muttered. He inspected the device, now unfettered by the thrall body. The vampire, Lokil, had seemed to think it needed blood to open. And his apprentice had confirmed she thought that too.

Blood. Why would an Elder Scroll be hidden behind a contraption that needed vampire blood of all things. The scrolls were practically cosmic items beyond even the understanding of the Aedra, let alone the Daedra, or so it was said. Not everyone could read them, but those chosen were called Moth Priests. Not even the dragon within him knew why though. Mir, it seemed, often was ignorant of mortal things. 

The Draugr wouldn’t care for Daedric influence. Karthus stood thinking for a moment before moving back towards the stairs he had rolled over to enter the platform before. He stopped, still with the look of deep thought on his face before turning to gaze at the body on the ground there. The very human body that he had heard them steel through before he even entered the room. He snapped his fingers and tapped his forehead.

“Gotta be the wrong type of blood then, right? Pure incompetence on their part, eh?”

Kiird…the dragon grumbled once again.

“Oh will you shut up about food. None of this is appetizing, and you know it.” He spoke as he began dragging the dead man over to the obelisk.

Avoiding any further morbid humor about their incredibly depressing situation, Karthus pulled the palm of the corpse onto the button carefully, pressing it down with it. The spike once more shot upwards through the hand like a needle through fabric. He held it there, the old, slightly coagulated blood draining slowly out of it until the ground beneath his feet suddenly rumbled along with the obelisk. Releasing his grip on the wrist of the body he backed away from the suddenly unstable ground nearby as said stone immediately four feet around the obelisk began to rise upwards out of the platform entirely, shaking dust off its subterranean layers. It continued like this till a nine foot tall, ebon stone monolith stood before him. The body dangled off the top to the side, the needled blade must have lodged itself between the bones of the corpse, creating a macabre display before Karthus. Ignoring the grim artwork he had born, he approached the eerie tomb.

Zu'u dreh? The Elder Scroll ni med daar? Mir questioned his master.

“Yes, this has got to be it. And what exactly do you mean by and the other one, you confusing-”  

At that moment the ebon doors of the obelisk shattered open, spraying shrapnel out from it that barely missed Karthus by a foot. Inches? It had been too close for comfort regardless. But that was not the last surprise the shattered stone had to give it seemed, as Karthus’s eyes darted back. There, barely standing, was a nord woman with hair somehow an even darker black than his own, cut to a short bob above her shoulders. Black and burgundy leather adorned her beneath a body length black hooded cloak with aged, specked gold trim. Her eyes were closed, seemingly with exhaustion from the act of forcing her way out; her one hand still up in the shape of a fist against where the ebon coffin would have been. Karthus caught the first movement of her body about to collapse with his eyes. 

Vampire. The thought went off like an alarm through his brain as his body moved, even before the next sight stopped that thought in its tracks. On her back was strapped the Elder Scroll. Karthus’s brain tried to make the connection as he froze in place before her, the lost second to act being his this time, as the porcelain skinned woman fell down into him. His arms instinctively reached out to catch the scroll and her as they all fell backwards with the effort. They stumbled, but Karthus managed to hold the treasure and its apparent owner up on their feet despite it. The shock of the situation almost made him miss the dazed muttering of the woman in his arms.

“This awakening…this one… is mine. ” 

Karthus was briefly confused by the sudden melancholy in the voice behind her words. Or perhaps, was it joy? But the thoughts were interrupted by the sudden movement of the women he was still propping up. Wait. Was she…really? This definitely a vampire woman was now actually nuzzling up to the very likely human blood stains on his clothes. 

His moral compass spun in circles. He jerked his arm away and his body followed with it, moving a few feet back as his brain panicked trying to make fifty different decisions at once. The vampire stumbled with the lost weight but kept on her feet, hands raising to her head as lucidity seemed to creep back. Brow furrowing, the woman struggled to open her eyes and regretted doing so immediately, slamming them shut as the new addition of senses overwhelmed her.

But Karthus hadn’t taken his eyes off her face. He hadn’t missed it, even struggling against every other impulse he held on to at least that one. The amber of their eyes leads to your demise. The sing-song rhyme from his time at the orphanage added to the cacophony of his mind in that moment. 

Hi tinvaak nok ont ontzos! It is a catchy tune, Dovahkiin! Mir replied with a deep, belly laugh only possible from those truly annoying to Karthus .

Chapter Text

Amber Demise 

Serana tried to open her eyes, but shut them immediately at the hailstorm of nerve endings exploding in response. White, blinding stars shot through behind her closed eyelids, causing nothing but fiery pain in their wake. 

“-not a happy song.” 

Through the throbbing she heard the words of what sounded like a man. She tried to open her eyes again and another rain of stars assaulted her senses; she let out a pained moan.

“Ah, hells. Hey take it easy, ok? I don’t know how long you were down there but you haven’t exactly been steady so far.” 

Serana shuddered, but ignored the pain it caused and breathed in as deeply as she could without passing out from the sensory overload. Blood. Human and strange vampires. No, wait. Something familiar. A scent she knew. 

“Lolit…” she muttered. 

“Ah, you knew that one.” the human responded…annoyed? Her other manic thoughts distracted her from thinking about it more.

Humans. Two of them, the one in front of her and…adrenaline pulsed through Serana and she twisted around looking up. Above her! She opened her eyes, trying to stay on her feet while also keeping them in some semblance of a defensive stance. A human was indeed behind her, dangling unceremoniously by its metacarpals from the bladed obelisk above. Serana took in a relieved breath, and this time a different scent entered her senses. An old, familiar scent, sickeningly sweet like decaying, water-logged docks. Fresh blood.

“-and honestly, no harm done; I didn’t even know that guy, I swear.” she caught the end of the man’s sentence. The fresh, alive, human one behind her. Missed you tooooo . The intrusion of the burning, eldritch thought snapped her briefly enough out of the reverie to focus again on the man’s voice behind her. She turned warily, still trying to garner her wits and muscles. Blood. Yes, he was indeed filled with it, and also covered in a more wretched version of the filth. 

“You…you smell like Lolit. Where is he now, and answer me quickly thrall, I feel like killing something right now.” the old firebrand intimidation was still buried within her, she needed to throw off the rust quickly. Vampires were gluts for hierarchy, and she needed to demonstrate her place at the top of the ladder before some smallfry made her life more annoying than it already was. Serana gave the man another once over with her amber eyes, trying to force as stern a face as she could. Shoulders up, chin out, hands on hips. You stand above them. Yes, thank you mother, she thought wryly. Worn black boots, glyphs around the sole with some sort of enchantment maybe. His pitch-black leather armor, cloak, and cowl weren’t of House Volkihar, the lack of the familiar silver banding made it stand out to her no matter how tired she still was. He didn’t seem to carry any real weapons outside some knives and other pockets attached to his legs.

“I’m actually begging you, please shut up.” The man did his best to whisper, seemingly to himself, but her ears were better than any; as she dared to move her gaze behind him and around briefly. She raised an eyebrow.

“Who are you muttering to? Thralls don’t mutter, and no one who knows me would dare do so in my presence. So who are you actually? Who sent you?” 

Iron in the voice, she reminded herself. Keep up the show. The man’s brow furrowed in frustration before clearly forcing an empty smile back at her. Serana realized his eyes never left her own when he wasn’t being distracted by whatever madness seemed to be about him. He knoooows. Quiet, she demanded.

“My, what wonderful hearing you have. Most people aren’t able to hear a word at that volume, but look at you! What sort of gift must you have been blessed with to have ears like that I wonder?” Snark. The blood bag was actually being snarky right now.

“Cute. Very cute.” she replied, easily matching the sarcasm dripping off his words to her. Fine then, let’s dangle a bit of honesty at least.

“So you think you know all that I am; sure, fine, but it smells like that bastard Lolit’s dead somewhere in here, so..” she paused, her mind catching up to her own logic, her amber eyes focusing back on the odd duck before her, “...so why am I still alive then?”

It seemed it was his turn to raise an eyebrow. He stared at her too long for her comfort; like a man with far too much on his mind. His heartbeat wasn’t familiar, not the usual bloodlust or rage of vampire hunters, nor the tempo of a liar. Serana had the sound of a liar committed to her own heart; she always knew one. No, this human was…not angry. Annoyed? At her maybe? That still wasn’t quite it though; she knew that flavor of annoyed at least. She focused back on his face. It was rather plain, with black hair similar to her own. The face of a Breton of High Rock, a druid then; a few had migrated to Skyrim some hundred years ago in the fourth century she recalled. She broke her own train of thought, focusing back on the one in front of her. There was something about his eyes, the human face with unfamiliar eyes was painted with a rather ugly expression. The dark bags under them spoke volumes to his tired look.

“Ahhhh. Please don’t make me think so hard.” he exhaled loudly, his body deflating with the act, “It was going so smoothly too, I truly must be the most godforsaken man in Skyrim.” the Bret moaned, closing his eyes and bringing his hands to his temples to rub them.

Perhaps her groggy mind was clouding her judgement, but she decided that was the opportunity, that briefest moment of distraction, she’d take it now and figure out the situation afterwards. Volkihar are patient, you child . She winced, but ignored the cruel memory and continued to tense her back foot, putting her full weight behind it and then shoving off towards the Breton before her as hard and fast as she could. Her razorred fingers rose with the motion, ready to rend flesh once more.

The man reopened his eyes, staring straight, and with an even more grumpy look somehow, at her. Eyes of gold. Sunflowers. Another memory of her mother, kinder than before, intruded through her brain before the sound of the next word reminded her of the cruel ones.

“Fus!”

Serana watched in shock as the word left his mouth, and her momentum was reversed; her body flying back with the pressure of wind that wasn’t wind, against it. She slammed backwards into her former coffin, ejecting the remaining air from her lungs with the force of the impact and fell to her knees, desperately gasping for oxygen. Her senses were like fireworks going off, she couldn’t parse the footsteps of the man approaching her.

“You’re slower than you think right now. Even those thralls were faster than you, so how about you lie there, sleep a little more, and make my life easier for once. I only came here for the Elder Scroll and to kill some scum suckers that had it coming, ok?” he stood in front of her now, as he spoke down. Was he that fast, or…? Probably a concussion, she thought, as she saw familiar stars in her head. Sleep again? So soon? So soon? The eldritch thought taunted through her blanking mind. She almost hoped it was for good this time. She was so tired all of a sudden. Something heavy was released from her back, her body shifting under the change in weight. Keep it safe, Serana. You mustn’t lose yours. I can only trust you, my daughter. Liar, she thought, but her hands grasped out at the man on their own.

“That’s. Mine.” she struggled out, but there was no power left to back the words.

“Aedra, give me strength. Please, and I actually hate saying this: go back to sleep. Unlike someone I don’t feel like doing anymore killing right now and if I didn’t pity you whatever this situation of yours was we’d have skipped the mercy part and skipped right to the murder-take part. The Elder Scroll will be perfectly safe with us, don’t worry. You weren’t using it down there anyways, I imagine.”

Us? Using it? What was this madman on about now? Serana tried to focus on staying conscious, the weight of her own sinking quickly down below her grasp. In the corner of what remained of her perception she heard the man mutter once again. The quiet word was easier to hear amidst the other neurons of her mind shutting off. One by one. Darkness again soon.

“Stiilgur”

The peripheries of her consciousness ceased their recession at the sound. She did not recognize the tongue, she couldn’t make sense of the magicka if there was any, but as her mind gently and slowly reformed she would swear she dreamt of Sebastion and Tomothy beneath the castle. Just Serana and her pets in the small oasis she had found in her cold home. Seawater and stale, unimportant blood. The song of seagulls. The memory washed over her as she lay still on the cold stone. 

A moment passed. 

Another. 

She missed her rats. A deep, gruff breath of air sounded out from the body above her.

“Yes, yes. You were right as always, I do feel better.” the man’s voice, much clearer now, grunted out in a way that contradicted his own words.

She kept still. Whatever he had done had not been intended for her. Let him believe that while she recovered. She easily fought the urge to test her joints with movement. It was far too risky right now.

Serana could hear him securing her Elder Scroll to his back but instead of the angry impulse she expected she felt…peaceful? Tired? Calm? She should be infuriated right now! She listened for the steps of the man but instead heard his voice, further off. Now how had he done that, she wondered. Relinquishing herself to the curiosity for a moment, she peeked her eyes open, which fortunately faced her right towards where the man was off in the distance now, behind where she had awoken. Her eyes quickly took in all she could but soon came to rest on the two perched gargoyles on an inlet of the wall atop the stairs. He won’t last long that way, she thought before the violent crack of stone parting from stone thundered throughout the chamber as if in answer.

Not one, but two of her mother’s constructs. The stone guardians of her tomb were powered by black soul gems, a focus her mother had made sure to guide Serana on early in her education. Creatures of solid rock that guarded the Volkihar’s castle home and also here apparently. They would make short work of most mortals, let alone one without a weapon. 

“Fen do gol!”

Her amber eyes widened as she took in the sight before her. He sharply twisted his body clockwise as the foreign tongue left his mouth once again. As the Breton moved, so did the ebon rocks all around him. The ground shuddered for a moment, and with an explosion the cavern stone structures burst out and added to the flurry of movement. Her eyes were playing tricks on her; an impossible Illusion magic. The combusted stones had whipped into the shape of a giant, crude wrap around his fist, and with the final rotation of his body that stone gauntlet backhanded full force through the face of the first gargoyle. She caught her mouth gaping. What in Oblivion was that? Just what sort of damned monster had stolen her scroll, she shouted internally. That wasn’t magicka like she knew it. Had magicka changed so much since she went under, just how long had she been missing from the world?

Serana forced her mouth shut and eyes open as the man continued on, using the force of the crackback from his initial strike to double around and send a right cross towards the other leaping gargoyle with the remnants of his now cragged, right fist.

Another explosion of stone on stone, but the rocks on the man’s arm fell along with what remained of the second gargoyle’s body as he remained standing victorious. Blood flowed down his brow, his cowl torn almost to shreds from the inevitable shrapnel of the attack. Tempting fruit. Mealtime yet? She ignored the devilish words, but could not give the same fortitude against the smell …her pupils dilated and nostrils flared. Flowing downwards, downwards into the pit . Sucking. Stealing. No, no she couldn’t give up the act yet, she tried to break through the tidal wave of blood on her mind. 

“Stiilgur”

Then waves of the sea she had known all her life gently crested around her instead. The Sea of Ghosts, and the endless stories beyond it. Cherished. The city of Solitude off in the distance. A real castle. Home. Her watery, amber eyes refocused. Why were they wet, she began to wonder, before her mind retraced back to the situation thirty-ish feet away from her. 

She saw two dots of gold glower in her direction and her eyes shut in that instant. She waited. The sound of steps wouldn’t matter, she panickedly remembered. There was just the now familiar pulse to track. Steady. She still refused to open her eyes. A worm on its belly. But she ignored the voice. Calm. It was off puttingly simple to this time. What was the word she heard him repeat? Serana grasped at the idea of it, consonants and vowels bounced off one another in her mind’s eye. Then she recognized there was only silence and anger beneath her light breathing. She opened her eyes, the amber now lit like fire to reflect their owner’s mood, and she growled out. 

There was the fury she should feel. Was it a charm spell of some sort? There shouldn’t be such a thing just any mortal could wield. Serana slowly, but finally rose to her feet, dusting off her clothes after lying amidst the debris of her former coffin. She turned her gaze to the hollow doorway he had exited the crypt through and followed after the soon to be dead man that had her Elder Scroll. Giants in the play pen. She growled once more in response.

Calm Before the Hunt 

Serana cast a spell of Alteration on herself to muffle her steps before making her way down the cavern after the thief. She’d deal with whatever that sight of his was later, for now she’d just make sure even mortal ears like his couldn’t hear her coming. She kept her own open however, listening for that heartbeat again. Her boots moved silently across the cobbled stones, none there to witness the uncanny elegance of the predator’s perfectly steady movements in action.

She didn’t have to go long though before she heard the now familiar thumping of him. Hundreds of years of experience instinctively told her that he was no more than fourty yards away, just a bit further down and around the bend of the hallway.

“-course I see them..”

Serana froze.

“...it’s the one on the throne I’m worried about, and it’s my turn to tell you that you should know that already.” the thief’s voice echoed to her ears. He wasn’t whispering any longer, her gifted ears easily could pick up the normal volume of that madman now. 

Did he really not see her awake back there, she wondered, but didn’t give into the tempting relief the thought offered. Despite her wariness, she continued forward into the cavernous hallway, each step of hers silent in the pitch black. She focused her eyes, looking for the mage or torch light she expected of mortals, she knew she was close, but it never came. Twenty feet down this corridor and around the bend, she traced the beat. She could smell a number of Draugr in the room ahead, the draft given from its openness concentrating their smell for her, relaying each piece of information. The Draugr loved their open courts, afterall. She recalled her previous tomb excursions with her mother, one of the very few memories she could call favorites . The train of thought was interrupted by the sound of glass clinking off stone. Now what could you be up to, thief, she thought. She continued her prowl forward as she felt the beating heart in his chest progress into the Draugr’s court. Excitement? Turning the corner she confirmed one of her theories; tiered stone circled around an amphitheater in the center. Left and across from the entrance she lingered in, she recognized the Draugr on the throne the madman had been referring to, a dark, iron crown atop its languid blue flesh. 

“But where in bloody Oblivion did he disappear to?” she breathed out hotly, searching the cavern for signs of him before her eyes came to rest on the glass vial rolled atop a mossy growth in the stone near her. 

The gears only needed to rotate a moment before the conclusion clicked into place. The bastard was invisible. Two can play that game , you coward. Ducking back around the corner of the hallway she channeled the eldritch blood magic in her hands, casting it about her clockwise as if donning a cloak before changing directions. The red energy turned colder and icy blue as it moved in a motion as if to adjust the cloak, and Serana’s hands and body disappeared from sight. Like riding a horse, she thought victoriously, stifling herself, but also secretly relieved. The familiar heart of her mad thief beat from the center of the amphitheater, almost at the opposite staircase leading up. She deftly slunk down the stairs after him, the muscle memory of her time sneaking around Volkihar Castle completely awoken as she silently closed the distance between them. Up the stairs now; she followed. He was only fifteen feet away, just over the top of the crest of the staircase. 

She chanced a look behind her at the ancient, crowned Draugr sitting in its throne. It was risky to attempt her revenge here. The nord husks were as much an alarm as a deadly trap, especially the ones in thrones and not coffins. She shuddered at the memory of the last Draugr lord, if her mother had not been with her then…gods, the voice it had. Voice. She stared at the motionless slave of the dragons, a thought gnawing at her mind suddenly as she looked into its socketless eyes lost in the thought. Why did that memory feel so relevant right now?

 “-can’t help it though…can’t you hear it too?”

He actually was a madman, she thought furiously, turning back towards the voice of her prey above her now. Her nails digging into her fists in frustration upon hearing the words come from him, as the voice of all her current problems actually spoke at regular volume in the den of sleeping nord zombies. What in Oblivion was he doing right now? She shook her head free of the panic. Fifteen feet ahead of her. She quickly crested the top of the stairs and watched her now, very visible, Breton thief approach a towering wall formed of stone unfamiliar to the rest of the cavern so far. She glanced at the staircase leading upwards further on to their left, but her restless eyes gravitated and locked back onto the man before the wall as the fool decided to speak again. No, that was wrong. It was not a word spoken by him, she heard, but to him this time.

“Ro”

Oh, now it made sense. A solid footing atop the slippery rocks of the castle coast, with only the assistance of the view of an endless skyline. Trust? You should trust no one, child. The self, standing amidst countless currents of feeling, unfettered by none more than others. Unfettered thirsting. Trickling, suckling forever. The opposite. Stone cairns rooted interminably before roaring currents. 

The challenge of feelings fell past her, she kept her center, but the word escaped her grasp like the last one. Though now Serana felt like she had finally recognized the origin of the man’s power.

Serana knew what she needed to do at this moment if they were going to live and she was going to get her mother’s scroll back. She trusted those instincts screaming inside herself. Her feet danced across the cobblestone towards her thief before the dissonant voices of the awoken Draugr behind them, filled with a burning rage that made her entire spine crawl, roared as one. The man turned towards their challenge just in time to see Serana barreling towards him four feet away. Her right arm reached out, fingers outstretched. Golden, confused eyes met her own, flashed behind her to her left, and then back to hers all in a moment. Dangerous sunflowers. Her hand grasped the madman’s neck collar. Iron in the voice, Serana.

“Come with me if you want to live, you stupid fucking bastard!” she turned her head and yanked him with all her strength behind her as she rushed her limbs towards the staircase she had seen earlier. 

She noted the lack of resistance behind her, but had no time to spend on the thought. She glanced towards the stairs below, spotting the first ice-skinned nord near the top. Her hand and mind reacted with barely a thought before cold, ice hard magicka struck through the Draugr in an instant, toppling it backwards. Hopefully in the way of the others following. Giving the weight behind her another yank, mostly to make sure he was still there, she pulled her thief with a rush towards their only escape route. A firm hand grasped her own upon his collar but didn’t pull back or slow them down with any force. 

“Fine! I get it, after you!” the hand gripped hers and she released her own from him in unspoken trade, pulling her arm back to her side.

“As long as you understand it, thief! We’re not done talking!” she leapt up the decayed, wooden steps towards the oak door atop them, lunging over the last of the steps in order to throw her full force behind the punch of her right fist. The concussion of wood exploding echoed through the chamber. The heart behind her spiked for a moment. That’s right, mortal, be afraid; Serana thought greedily, as she followed her momentum through the shattered door at full speed with her new pack mule right behind. Dead end? Crossroads, she thought, as she gazed at the seeming end of the path thirty yards ahead of them. She took a deep breath searching for the scent of fresh air anywhere to be found in the hallway as she ran. Moss, decay, blood, sweat, heated breaths, frozen air. There it was. 

She came to the two paths at the end and swiftly rounded left, the heartbeat behind her followed. Her gaze chased the scent to a ringed, iron pulley mechanism at the end of the corridor. There. A crypt lift, she thought. That was the source of their exit. She picked up the pace, not sparing a moment to share the information with her follower, and leapt at the ring, throwing her weight onto her outstretched arm. Her upper arm revolted in pain at the change in momentum of it as the arm and ring both sank under her weight; the sound of stone grinding on stone echoed through the narrow hall. She finally dared to look behind them now as the man turned his right shoulder into the wall and slid his back against it, taking a defensive stance as his fingers traced an amethyst magicka riddled with traces of Oblivion into the air. Not a druid then, the thought intruded through her mind. A sinister looking bow formed with the energy, and he drew it back, her eyes turning to follow with the release of the conjured arrow towards the first of many Draugr, thirtysome feet behind them. Coldharbor. The arrow cast a shadow of its glow beside it as it flew, striking the long dead nord through the right eye socket, a pained groan leaving its maw with its unlife. As it fell, the ones behind it broke their pace, losing their steady footfalls. She broke her trance and an icicle of her own flew to join the barrage. Ice blue magicka whipping between her fingertips upon release. 

The loud thud of the stone lift sounded to their right and Serana slid beneath the rising iron gate before casting her eyes wildly about for the inner switch. The thief shot off another shadowed arrow, and another, his feet unmoving as his eyes stared straight ahead. She felt something familiar as she recognized the fire in the eyes of the madmen she was stuck with at that moment. But unlike him she wouldn’t give in.

“Leave, or die!” she screamed at him and pulled the lever within the lift with all her might.

The Breton’s focus snapped back to his right. He muttered a final curse as the ethereal bow disappeared and he dove beneath the steadily falling gate of the ancient elevator. He landed with a thump on his stomach. A worm on its belly. The hungry voice within her whispered as she stared at said worm on the ground next to her. They both breathed hard, his face on the ground, weary. Her face, unmoving from his back, indecisive. A thump. She unlatched her eyes and turned forward. The man’s body and face shifted round to his left towards Serana, now sitting on the floor of the lift beside him. 

“Do you have a death wish, or are you just a fool?” she spat venomously ahead, refusing to meet his golden gaze as she stared straight ahead at the gate instead.

“Yes.” her thief gave a frustrating laugh after the elevator had moved another twenty-some feet up.

She gave an exhausted exhale at the answer. Another moment passed.

“Yes, I think, indeed.” The madman was actually chuckling about it now. She wanted to roll her eyes but refused the comfort of it. Keep the momentum in your favor . She went to speak but he beat her to it.

“So is this the part where we kill each other, or do we do that outside?” The man’s chuckle died out; the tone shifting to host an icier, more dangerous mirth. The ancient elevator continued to grind steadily in the background.

Serana could hear the rhythm of blood that pulsed behind the words leaving his throat. She had already been tunnel visioned on the hypnotic rhythm of its beat. Her face slowly followed her eyes to gaze at the loudest source of the drumming in the man’s neck. A feaaaaast deserving a princess. Hungry lies left her throat as her fangs bared.

“Well part of me was hoping you’d just give it back after I saved your life. But I could always help with that death wish of yours instead.” her throat was bone dry with anticipation. The thirst began to fill her head.

Karthus laughed again, coldly next to her, face unmoving. The tone of it set off alarms of excitement in her head.

“You’re good at this, you know? The casualness after all that. Making me not want to kill you right away. Is that a vampire trait or have you always been so charming?” his voice seemed relaxed but his eyes filled her with anticipation. Fiery, mahogany orbs filled with battle and blood gazed back at her.

Karthus’s face hoisted a faux smile beneath the pair of eyes devoid of any of the friendliness his voice might have tempted, and her tongue ran down a canine with thirst. There was war in the depths of those eyes behind that empty smile; dangerous flames and intentions. This was not just a human that accompanied her in this lift she remembered, but a monster. Two monsters stuck together in an elevator. The blood would drip down below them for hours. A shiver raced down her spine. She wanted to lose herself in that river of blood to come; she thought they’d likely both die here, but it would be worth it. Serana fought through delicious memories of macabre feasts. No, she didn’t want to risk dying so close to freedom. 

Yes, yes. You were right as always, I do feel better. The stray memory of the man’s words from before floated in the periphery of her mind. The feel of blood spray and sound of dead seagulls; her bloodthirsty mind tried to warp the memory she felt before he’d flashed those golden eyes at her.

“Say the word.” She found her voice challenging the monster beside her, Serana’s hungered eyes still staring directly into the twin infernos that were his.

“If you think you’ll distract me, with-” he broke off as if interrupted, the focus of his eyes flickering for a moment.

The fires stayed burning steady within them, but his facial muscles moved about with unspoken words. A brow furrowed, and a mouth pulled as teeth ground. The veins on his neck pulsed over and over at a salivating pace. Reach out and grasp release. She could feel every capillary in her eyes pulsate as her temporarily forgotten hunger threatened to all rush back at once with a vengeance. Her thiefs neck looked delectable now. Pulsing. Throbbing. The tension boiling in her reached a pressure she couldn’t contain any longer. Speak with your spine, Serana, her mother clucked at her with finality.

“Speak your word now , Dragonborn, or I swear I’ll leave you a bloodless husk in this Oblivion damned lift,” she spat out, at last baring her fangs in full to the equally bloodthirsty Dragonborn beside her. A moment. Two. Their eyes still locked; sweat on his brow after three. He growled with the fourth, sending a spark of ravenous anticipation up her spine, the amber completely gone from her now crimson eyes, narrowing for the final moment of the hunt. But in that last moment he finally spoke the word; she gave one last push against the bloodlust within her.

“Stiilgur”

Falling into bed sheets after the longest day of your life; her head on a cold pillow. Awakening from a nap amidst her mother’s garden, a refuge amidst turmoil. A campfire dancing and crackling lazily, the only sound to matter for miles. The brilliant, starry night and its two moons steadily rotate eternally around their audience. Serana reopened her eyes to look once more at the other monster in the lift. Her mouth moved on its own, needing to release the wave of thoughts.

“It means peace.” the conclusion escaped out of her voice. He paused, but the once fiery eyes now only reflected her own. The man lightly chuckled in response after his moment. The laugh no longer dripped with the venom of before, further reinforcement to her now steady mind and an answer to her unspoken question.

“Calm, actually. But you seem to know more than I’d have expected.” He paused, seeming to roll his eyes at some imagined response. She would have been offended if she weren’t already aware he was a madman. 

“Amber demise…” the man shook his head and breathed to himself, barely loud enough for a human to hear but more than enough for her at this distance.

“You  are louder  than you think you are, thief. And for the record I always hated that stupid song.”  She stressed her accusation, retaliatory after her own embarrassing failure earlier and the man’s condescending words at the time.

The lift finally came to a stop and he released a laugh with the reverse in momentum, adding an annoying, optimistic glibness to the sound. Must have shook some sanity back into him, she thought annoyed but finally a bit relaxed after everything.

“Karthus.” the tired voice of the man spoke. “Call me Karthus. I’m sick of titles.”

“Karthus.” she spoke the name aloud, feeling it out with her tongue. Don’t play with your food, child. Serana ground her teeth in response. And where are you to stop me, she replied internally.

“Serana. And I appreciate you carrying my Elder Scroll out of there for me.” she pushed the words through the intrusive thought. She waited for a response and moved her vision to the man after what she thought was more than an adequate enough time to respond during their little ceasefire together. She’d saved his damn life after all, he had better play nice now.

“A fast talker who can play dead rather well, with a helluva right hook; that sure is a dangerous combination.” The illusion of thoughtfulness on Karthus broke before her as his face morphed into a toothy, challenging grin instead. I knew he saw me, she thought grumpily. What were those damn golden eyes of his back then anyway? Probably more ridiculous dragon magic, she quickly concluded.

“I take it all back. I’m going to murder you. I can’t leave witnesses after all, you understand” Serana replied back to Karthus with a dangerously fanged smile, but her amber eyes betrayed the playfulness behind them. The comfortable annoyance they both felt with each other reflected between their eyes like mirrors, again, before he broke the stare first this time. She caught the quick glance at her mouth, her fangs. There was a heartbeat that barely broke through the peace that she finally  recognized. A brief second of fear. Fear, ahhhh, such a comforting sound! Sweet sweet victory at last! Her giddiness boiling over with the unspoken contest being won, she finally laughed aloud, unable to keep the stupid mirth to herself. She looked out beyond the lifted gate of the elevator; fresh air now overcoming the dank. 

Karthus frowned at the sudden optimism radiating off Serana, but rose to his feet in the moment and offered his hand to her, still hunched on the ground. Her laughter had died down but the smile remained, and she accepted the offer. Warm, she thought. 

“Ladies first.” he gestured forward with his hand, his eyes smiling with the challenge. But Serana responded with a knowing look.

“And leave my back open to you?” she raised an eyebrow at him as she tossed the thought around after it left her mouth. His heart beat…amused? Not the type of amusement she was familiar with though. She didn’t quite recognize the pattern of it, but that meant it at least wasn’t malicious, right? Serana almost stopped to examine that last thought more but hurriedly moved on. She moved her focus back to his eyes. His face said he wasn’t affected by the playing question, but she could always recognize a liar.

“Fine. One should always lead ahead of their followers anyway.” She turned her eyes to return his challenge and raised both brows expectantly, her chin then moving up and gaze following it off to the left for pompous effect. 

Serana didn’t wait for his response and moved fully forwards, striding out of the lift towards the scent of fresh, glacial air thirty feet ahead of them. Trees. Centuries of them maybe; when had she last smelled pine? Vegetation and free, fragrant air just over there, she thought. She didn’t care how cold it would be; it didn’t matter. She revelled in the anticipation, even if those senses of hers never did stray entirely from the heartbeat of her new uneasy ally behind her. If he tries to ruin this moment for me I swear I will actually kill him, dragon shouting be damned. Her amber eyes glowed above a grin, and she continued forward towards freedom at last.

Chapter Text

The Many Reunions

Sweet, beautiful fresh air! Serana’s entire body shivered under the banquet of scents her new found freedom was offering her in that moment. The endless night sky of Skyrim once more visible to her, predatorial eyes took in every single star from it they could. Currents of too many smells; crisp zephyrs all around her. Serana admitted it: she was in love with the outdoors. 

She had sprinted out of the unceremonious cavern vestibule as soon as the first whiff of fresh firs had assaulted her nostrils, and leapt, body and all, into the nearest bank of snow. Frosty fingers and snowy kisses were revelled in rather than shirked from. The bloodlust from only some minutes ago with her new pack mule fully forgotten about in favor of the feast Serana’s other senses had slept away from for who knows how long. Nope, not right now; still ignoring that problem, she thought. All that mattered was the impulse in the back of her brain stem to finally feel again. 

“Can vampires freeze to death? Asking for a friend of course, nothing to do directly with me, just curious.” An already annoyingly familiar voice shouted to her glibly from beneath what was left of his masked hood, his hands tugging the coal-colored cloak tight around his form, his back leaning against a snow-covered fir twenty feet behind where she’d embraced her beloved snow.

“Never met one that did, but if I remember correctly, humans are quite prone to it, hmm? Asking for a friend, of course ” Serana parried back with a sly smile, her face peaking up at him out of the deep snow.

Karthus’s face smiled as if to reply to her before slowly frowning. Annoyed again; she was getting used to that pitch of his heartsound already. What made her madman tick though, she wondered; grasping at the opportunity to pry. It came to her on a silver platter a moment later.

“ Neither of you are very funny, thank you. Now get on with it before I-”

“You do recall I can hear those little mutterings of yours, right? My mad little thief. I do also hope you realize I’m eventually going to ask about those little conversation partners of yours, yes?” she stood back to her feet, keeping her eyes upon the job of dusting her cherished snow off the  clothes, and away from his gaze. That’s right, you deserve to be annoyed, she observed his heartbeat with satisfaction before she recognized something else. New heat was flowing through that heart. Her chin reacted to a drip of saliva crawling down it as her ear followed the pulse up, down, and back around again. Oh, right .

“Neat trick.” she forced back, trying to play down the sudden pang of reminder. Karthus, now standing comfortably, his grip on the cloak lessened and a sort of tired smirk on his face, didn’t answer her right away. 

“Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to take care of some long overdue urges.” Serana put her toothy mask back on and listened for the beat in response to her words. Calm. She sighed internally. Ah well, she thought, she’d make sure to hear the fear again eventually. She looked up at the stars, lost in them again for a moment.

“Don’t worry. I won’t try running away with the scroll.” Karthus spoke. Wrong. Not what’s on my mind, Serana thought. But also , good.

“You’d find me anyways, I’m sure.” He sighed out with exasperation, closing his eyes. “Truly, the very last thing I need is another person stalking after me- wait where did you?” another, somehow deeper level of exhaustion left Karthus over a pause. “Like I was saying, I’m so glad you’re enjoying all of this.” he muttered to himself.

Serana smirked, listening to his last words as she continued to speed off into the night. He was a slow learner afterall, she almost giggled at the idea. What sort of passengers did a dragonborn carry along with them, she posed the question to herself. Only her anticipation for the coming feast forced Serana away from fixating on the obvious answer to her.

A fast talker who can play dead rather well, with a helluva right hook; that sure is a dangerous combination. Hmph. He wasn’t so slow himself, she reminisced over their escape. Why did someone interesting have to be the one to wake her? She could have at least more easily figured out her situation by now if Lokil had been the one; though she couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t have taken the chance to kill her right there. Ah, family friends, what joys. The Volkihar clan was old, powerful, and filled with madness because of it. Herself included. Part of the Blood. Part of the Family. She shivered at the eldritch wriggle of Molag Baal. She knew it wasn’t actually the Daedric lord speaking to her now, just an echoing reverberation of him through the blood he’d shared with all his children of the night. His gift to Serana, her family, and all of her clan.They had been deemed worthy of his blessing and became powerful because of it. Predators in a world of prey. For all eternity…together.

She banished the train of thought, focusing on the hunger instead. Heartbeats. Unfamiliar, and not annoyed this time, but their blood ran quick. Serana’s nose crinkled at their smell at first, but she licked her lips nonetheless. She was a vampire with standards, but for now these mutts would have to do.

“-check the insides of his damn coat. These older types are always stitching coins in there to hide.” After racing between the firs, her instincts in full-swing, her ears flicked up at the sound of meat speaking. Serana’s pupils dilated further at the voice of prey. First cooome, first seeeerved. Yesss, indeed, she finally gave in to and agreed with the sweet, eldritch whispers. Her inner voice even slurring the words, letting her gift at last overcome her. Capillaries pulsed again, her crimson eyes glowed bright in the pitch-lit night, reflecting the twin moons in the sky as if they blessed her meal. Magicka twisted in her hands, arms moving to once more don her invisible cloak. Time to revel .

Firestarters

Sawdust soaked in fat would have been preferred, but Karthus always at least kept some kindling in his bottomless pouch; a reward he had gifted himself after being forced to escape Whiterun so quickly after waking from his dragonslaying. It felt fair to him at the time, and he was long past feeling guilty over lifting the likely priceless bag from the court mage Farrador at this point. He placed some dryer logs in the makeshift pit he had forged beneath some old Nord ruins built into the mountainside nearby him and the vampire’s exit. The position gave them an easier view of any exterior threats at least. 

He grumbled, still puzzling how to proceed through the night when his unwanted vampire companion found him again. And she would, he had recognized that look in her eye. Another person bent on following the Dragonborn. At least this time it wasn’t all because of the bloody dragons; a part of his mind tried, and failed, to console him. But what exactly did she want with his scroll, what was she doing trapped in a coffin with it in a Draugr tomb of all places? Sure he had followed the vampires, but did they even know about the woman within? If they had then they sure hadn’t been in any rush to let her out; the old Draugr crypts had been untouched in Skyrim for centuries except for by fools and Karthus considered the number included in said fools to be broad. Outside perhaps the mages of Winterhold, Karthus believed they should have been left well enough alone. 

No, Dimhollow had been one such ancient tomb of old left unspoiled by the following years. He searched his memory for the vampire’s words once more, but only could confirm the memory they were there for the Elder Scroll. All he really knew was that Serana had known the one named Lolit, the master of the bunch, but she hadn’t seemed exactly pleased about smelling him all over Karthus at the time, though not exactly in a way to suggest she was angry . Neither he nor Mir could say they were experts on the spawn of night, but Karthus was ready to hazard a guess that his newest headache was coming along with plenty of baggage. She was the only one who knew he was there. 

Karthus cleared a spot in the campsite for a light cooking fire, trying to not get bogged down with thought. Well, if they didn’t end up killing one another first perhaps it would be a pleasant distraction from his own hellish existence…he answered himself with a large big sigh. Though he wasn’t sure his experience thus far could compete with a vampire’s hell.

Mu would kron, Dovahkiin. The dragon laughed loud and arrogant within them, and for the first time that day, Karthus got to smile along with his eternal companion again. It was never Mir he was truly angry at, he was just along for the ride. A more content sigh left him this time. Karthus responded to Mir’s confidence with a chuckle of his own.

“When you’re right, you’re right. But it might be close. I have a feeling she’s much older than we thought. That last one we killed, Lokil, she certainly knew him but I don't think he was expecting her there. We were lucky she was out of it at first, I suspect.” 

She had recovered so quickly too, he rolled the ideas around in his head again hoping they might come together. 

She is a Daughter of Oblivion, duraal nahlii. We would be wise to be rid of her when we can, master.

His mouth moved to respond with something glib along the lines of ‘I knew that much’ when his companion’s words clicked properly into place for him. A cursed one , eh? Karthus would never admit he was often the slow one in their conversations. He truly couldn’t, and wouldn’t live through the on-high attitude of the dragon again. A different line of question then.

“She knows what we are.”

Dundad.

“Knowledgeable, fast, powerful. I don’t know, Mir, we might just need to play nice for once. I have a feeling she’s older than I even want to think.” He gazed at the magical burlap sack beside him. They would have to come to an arrangement about the scroll sooner than later. He knew he’d lose the game of attrition and she likely did as well. 

I will trust in our naag krutell, Dovahkiin. Your pahsu wavers, though you be Morokei Kroniid after our battle. Trust your own strength like I, little Dovah. Karthus needed no Words, his friend’s own spread through him much more easily in that moment. 

He had not survived this nonsense of a life so long to fall into despair over a…a centuries old vampire travelling companion that had an eternity to hold a grudge as well as a right-hook that could put a hole through your head.

Karthus almost laughed instead of sighing again, but a smile was still on his face at the end of it this time. He redirected his thoughts to building the fire up before him. Light and dry sticks in the shape of a coned tent; then add the lint he kept in a tin to start it all. He stared at the fire starters, now tracing his magicka into focusing on his fingertips, red, glowing energy building and twisting between the fingers. He laid the flame gently into the nest he’d built and watched the energy grow to fiery life within it. Karthus continued to stand and stare into the flames he’d birthed, his brood licking hungrily at the meal he’d provided. He suddenly felt tired, as if his own energy had been given for the campfire. He felt like he had been giving a lot this last month of his life, though he had never once thought himself blessed with a simple life like some others. He had been born in the pit, and though he’d called some of the other kids friends, they’d all spent their youths climbing over each other to live, doing whatever they could get away with to get out. And where had out gotten him? Back into another damned pit.

“I thought you’d agree to slay her in there.” he spoke at last to Mir, his eyes on the fire. His words danced between slightly upset and curious with the flames before him. “Was that not a glorious enough death for us, that time?” Karthus gazed on, awaiting the response. The question had been a flickering ember in him since the lift that he now decided to breathe life into. One of the logs let out a clunk as the structure beneath it burnt out. Another moment.

I am Mir Mul Nir, Dovahkiin….you know this like I know this, dii faan los hin. I am not one able to see all your words. The Dragonborn is something else from the Dovah. You are one that can take up Mul as your own, but still be distinct from it. I…am not.  

A crackle, a thunk, as the foundation burnt further down under the comforting warmth above it.

I am Mir, my Mul should be nought but a weapon for you to wield, zu'u kaat daar. Never forget that, unlike the Dovah, you add to your Words, Dovahkiin. Al…al rakshaas et malprocks. I will never escape my Nir, my own duraal nahilii. But that is also my hope for you, nas Lorkhan. He could feel the pride of the dragon glow with his words to Karthus.

Karthus tossed the dragon's words around within him. His eyes braved leaving the fire to gaze at his hand, opening and closing the fingers. He traced the muscles and ligaments shuffle, and focused on the feel of his grip when he clenched the fingers into his palm.

“…I’ll apologize this one last time then for you being stuck with such a weak master. Duraal nahlii indeed.” He muttered and his newest and oldest companion snorted while Karthus felt the rumble of his damned laugh in response.

Zu'u drey ni hon tol, Mir let out , you are Dragonborn, your strength is endless compared to this one.

He smiled, but he was sure they both did so Karthus knew they would call this one a draw as far as their exchanges went. His gaze drew back to his endless satchel and the Elder Scroll within. One step closer to figuring out the mystery of Mirmulnir’s awakening. He broke away from the now steady fire and drew open the bag. Reaching in he fettered around for a moment before pulling out an iron skillet; laying it steadily atop the charred logs. The arm dug back in, this time pulling from it what he needed for scrambled eggs. His stomach grumbled in agreement to the decision. Yeah, yeah, Karthus thought.

Kolos dreh nii bo? It is still a mystery to me…

“I do not have any interest in that rabbit hole, and neither do you. It keeps things organized. It keeps things fresh. It is just a convenient little, nothing bag. No blessing, no curses. Just a very nice bag. Questions about the bag do not exist, it’s just a very convenient trinket to have.”

Nassh ta’lok.

“I’m sorry, but you know how I feel about it. No more distractions, I said even then, the first time.” 

Yars en yarse.

“I know you know, I just like to hear myself talk more these days it seems.”

  I am going to sleep.

Karthus chuckled, whatever last weight upon him apparating away with the air. He prepared to serve himself up the meal, reaching back into the sack for his mess kit. 

What next then? He thought once more about his returning vampire burden. Serana, eh? He recalled the blood red eyes, her voice screaming at him; essentially saving them both from dying in the Draugr crypt. She wanted the scroll back obviously, but where did the motivation go from there? He bit into the first bite of the less-than-adequately seasoned eggs, but the warmth of it was still the first part to nourish him. He grunted between chews. 

No answer there; more importantly, what was he going to do for sleep now? He had trusted her in the very last leg of the cavern, but they were out here now; the rules had changed. He glanced at his satchel. She could probably just take it in the night if she wanted, he wasn’t certain it was linked to him in any way after how he stole it from the Altmer mage before. Even if it were, she’d likely kill him regardless before taking it. 

It was just more efficient, the depressing thought causing his brow to furrow between chews. Something to offer in exchange then. He could give the scroll back once he was done with it if she had the patience for that, maybe...gods, even the eggs were delicious right now. He was more tired than his mind let him seem. He grumbled to himself; his time to figure out what to do with his vampire problem was going to come before dawn. 

Sunlight, though. Now there was a thought; he tossed it around tentatively. Karthus’s gaze drew upwards towards the two moons glowing with their reflected light like a pair of eyes upon the land. It would certainly be an easier fight during the day, but she surely would also see that coming if she were as old as he was willing to bet. No, they’d be making a deal while the stars were still out tonight, Karthus was sure. He wondered if vampires were stronger when hungry or full. It was a flip of the coin to him, so he dismissed the problem for the time being though he wasn’t happy about it. He finished his meal, conjuring water with his magicka to at least rinse the used utilities before storing them once more. At least she wouldn’t be more hungry when she returned. Could a vampire of her pedigree get hungry like that? He recalled the feeling of being stared at for so long as prey. Gilded rubies; the thought had intruded through his mind then in the elevator. Those alien eyes in their hunger were both terrifying and beautiful somehow; he could almost touch the memory of the deadly adrenaline they had helped build within him. Glorious battle . He wavered on whether to smile or frown at the idea, so he sat with it instead.

After finishing cleaning up, Karthus decided to growl and scratch his head instead. Annoying thoughts. He’d just play it by ear once more, like he was usually forced to do the last month of his life. Since being chosen his improv skills had improved dramatically. He grumbled again thinking of little victories and their costs.

Do you have a death wish, or are you just a fool? Her words played through his mind. A fool, eh? Very likely, he thought as he meditated over their escape together. Leave, or die. He’d had the scroll when she leapt in the elevator and pulled the lever to activate it while he stood outside, she bet the scroll on him following her. Alright, fine. He gripped both hands, flexing till the knuckles cracked before bringing them both up to his cheeks with a force.

Clap . His face stung, but a devilish smile was between it now. 

Hi los shar, Dovahkiin.

“Oh, go back to sleep, you big lizard”

It was time for diplomacy; Karthus thought back to his younger years surviving in Riften. He kept the grin up as he reached knowingly into the satchel once more. Truce negotiations also required a peace offering to start.

Awaiting, Other

He was just sitting there, waiting. Being incredibly boring ; she grumbled to herself . Serana had been watching for what felt like forever and her thief wasn’t even speaking a word. Maybe he was learning. She grumbled to herself again, grumpy about the lack of show from Karthus upon her finding their first campsite together like so. The smell of iron still permeated her, but the stains of its sources had been more or less washed from her clothes with practiced magicks, an early skill she’d been schooled on by her father. Enough of that line of thought, thank you . How did she play this then?  Intimidation? Charm? Perhaps lead with a bit of a scare and then feign playing nice from there? 

She hadn’t been able to spot her scroll since they’d left the cave. He’d hidden it somehow during the walk while she was leading them out. She rolled her eyes, but resisted the groan to accompany it. So far he’d acted like he appreciated her saving him back in the tomb, but she wasn’t sure how far that could take their truce. Patience . If I wait another two hours, maybe three, would you still be so relaxed, hmm, little thief? Serana hadn’t been greedy enough to expect to catch him sleeping, but that didn’t mean the wish for simplicity hadn’t been on her mind. There are no equals, just strong and weak. Ah, father now too! How wonderful, how ever so helpful right now. 

The campfire offered a crackling chirp of its own to the moment and night around her. Calm. She recalled the word now for some reason, though she didn’t feel she could speak to it herself. It’ll be fine. Let’s just get it over with. She inhaled deep and stepped out from the break in the trees; only the generous, sparing light of the fire revealing her approach.

“You look like you have some things on your mind.” Serana appeared to apparate out of the gloam behind Karthus and the makeshift campsite. 

“I wonder what they might be. Surely not plots against your returned savior, hmm?” she slid into her role easily enough. Centuries of practice; she always knew which words to choose. Smile, Serana.

“Ah, and she returns still reeking of blood. Had fun, did you? You’re late. I was beginning to even hope your meal might have got the best of you.”

Smile. Her cheek twitched.

“Hilarious.” she replied, her brows creasing to narrow above her eyes, showcasing just how funny she found it. 

“May I?” Serana led his eyes in a gesture to a flat stone he seemed to have prepared as a seat for her by the fire across from him. How sweet, she grumbled again, but moved to sit in the prepared spot before he could reply. 

He was smiling at the fire, ignoring her brief gaze at him. She watched his hands move down between his feet, a glass bottle of liquid resting there; his fingers grasped two cups alongside it.  Karthus handed her one of the fist sized, stout glasses, popping off the cork of the bottle.

“Now, I thought,” he gave a slight grunt as the bottle was freed of its restraint, “...that we might have started off on the wrong foot.” He did his best to fight back his comforting grin for once. Mir had warned him people hated it, which he didn’t quite believe, but now was not the time to test track records he felt. He poured a bite of the yellow-ish liquor into his glass and then offered the bottle to Serana, a casual parley for the moment.

“You…would try to poison me, Karthus? And so openly?” Serana’s voice crooned around his name, her face turning to his with moony, amber eyes and a faux frown.

Karthus rolled his own in response, and keeping the eye contact, swigged from his glass with a deadpanned smile at her.

“Silver would only better the flavor, relax.” He nodded at the glass. “It’s a bottle from my home; my elder in the orphanage told us the others before him called it snail-gin.” Karthus grinned expectantly, reflecting on his own memory tasting the liquor more bitter than black licorice. The older boys then had told him it would kill anyone that drank it, but some crazy Argonians had fixed that little problem with the distillation. The mad lad said he had read about it in a book he’d stolen from the Temple of Mara of all places. He shook the reverie, returning to the gaze before him.

Her amber eyes hadn’t left him, but with a now ever-unnerving grin, Serana poured some of the liquor for herself and rose the glass ahead in toast, turning her eyes to it.

“Well, to a vampire’s ability to still drink then,” she rolled the orbs in her head back at her thief, “...and my host who seems to be ever the knowledgeable diplomat, despite his temper.” Another toothy smile between them, and she shot back the offering.

Fire in the throat. Serana almost hacked her stomach out trying to retreat from the bitter assault upon it. Pupils dilated as her eyes glared up at the Breton across from her, but he was already chuckling, both his hands in the air playing innocent.

“Disgusting poison after all.” she retched dramatically between fangs.

Another laugh in response to her words.

“I agree. Vile stuff, right?” they made eyes in the pause, his smile and her grimace staring off now. 

“So.” Karthus spoke, keeping his voice as normal as possible.

“...So.” Serana replied. If looks could kill.

“You want the Elder Scroll back.”

“ My Elder Scroll that you stole, yes.”

“That I took as payment  for saving you from that crypt.”

“Which I paid back by saving you from the Draugr; so that’s moot, thief .”

“Oh please. We saved each other, and why do you think I couldn’t have handled them anyways? As you said yourself, I am the Dragonborn.”

Serana glared at Karthus, bringing her right hand up to wag her finger in reproach. 

“Oh, no, no, no. You were dead in there by yourself. That’s how I figured out what you were, Dragonborn . I’ve faced those damned Draugr lords before in their crypts and you know what? I recognized that fun little lizard language of yours and realized what you must be because of them .”

Karthus began to retort but was seemingly interrupted, his teeth biting down and forcing another toothy grin at her instead.

Serana narrowed her eyes at him and continued on, “Oh, does your little friend in your head not appreciate being called a lizard?” HA! Well said. We are callous creatures because we are the only who deserve to be, Serana. Shut. Up. Father.

“ Both of you are being bloody children right now,” Karthus spat out, taking advantage of her momentary pause, “but I guess that’s what I should expect from glory-seeking lizards and bloodthirsty predators, hmm?” He stared with anger at the fire before moving it to rest on Serana. She wasn’t sure why the look made her flinch, but she hated it after she collected herself.

“...Fine.” Serana refused to break that gaze further. “Let’s say we’re even as far as lives go right now. I disagree, but fine, let’s move on. I want my scroll back. Give it to me and we go our separate ways. That simple.”

“Oh yes, yes I’ll give you your Elder Scroll back, don’t worry. I don’t want to hold onto it forever anyway to be certain, knowing what kind of trouble it attracts.”

Serana’s eyes narrowed. She was getting extremely tired of that smirk already. Dammit, don’t make it easy for him at least.

“Ahhhh, I have a feeling you’re about to propose something about me not killing you. I wish you ever so much luck with that in advance.” Our fangs are weapons in many ways, child. Serana appeased the intruding voice of her mother this time, giving Karthus a nice smile to go along with her words. 

“If you wanted more blood than you should have risked waiting longer.” the bastard actually did it again . Her mind further grumbled at the very concept of the human before her, her lips curling down in distaste through the mask. She must be tired, where in Oblivion had she let this go to?

“Relax now. I’ve been thinking about it for awhile, and you’ve already won anyway.” he rolled his eyes, but Serana only narrowed her own further, and tilted her head in question to what she assumed had been obvious to them both. 

“Yes of course, but as the victor I’ll let you go on…”

“Well, I only need to get our scroll read once, then I’ll never need it again. And you, my new friend, seem like you may be further out of time than you think. Am I right? I’m sure you’ve guessed by now.” 

Serana grumbled internally. She’d lost the momentum. Maybe she would kill him in his sleep after all.

“My proposal is this: come with me, and help me get it read by a Moth Priest. Then I’ll help you get wherever you want to go with the scroll afterwards. I already know where to find him; no lying. It’ll be short and sweet for you. A quick little quest in the grand scheme of it.” Karthus finished with his hands back up  beside him innocently to signal the end of his side. His face played up with a smile, as if he had put all his cards on the table.

Three voices raged in Seranas mind. Her own voice stayed silent amidst them, as her eyes stared into the deep brown pair before her. Plenty of chances to change her mind along the way, and at worst maybe she could even get the fool to escort her all the way inside her castle even. No, not that. He hadn’t done enough to deserve that . She stared at Karthus's face once more. 

“Where’s your Moth Priest then?”

Karthus kept smiling, his eyes were flexible, she hadn’t thought them capable of gratitude like they displayed now. It almost made her more uneasy about the man.

“Solitude. Northwest corner of Skyrim, if that means more to you.”

Serana thought for a moment. 

“I know of Solitude. That’s favorable for me; we’ll go northwest of there after your Moth Priest then.”

Karthus’s smile maintained, but curled minutely in confusion along with his eyes at the response.

“There’s nothing north-,” he almost scoffed but caught himself, “…hmm, fine. I won’t prod. Yet.” 

Serana grinned at him, but he tried his best to keep his eyes away from the continuously showcased fangs in it. Would she please put those away already? His vampire companion filled her glass once more with the snail-gin, a preamble to their agreement, and she leaned to hand the bottle of it back to Karthus. He kept their gaze, and took the bottle with his right hand, leaning back to his seat and pouring to match. 

The thief took a deep breath. Something troublesome had already begun it seemed. How had he let it happen again, he wondered and then smiled despite it. His eyes, maybe unbeknownst to him, glowed warm, human, and tired at Serana for the first time she could recall in their brief time together.

The vampire gazed back in the midst of her own inhale. Calm, not gold, but also not neatly brown eyes gazed back at her. The color of them didn’t really matter right now it seemed, but all the eyes that she had come to trust either died or she came to hate. Four hundred years of life; hundreds of millions of thousands of individual experiences, lessons, cornerstones of her psyche looking back. She always remembered eyes. Humans were not children. She was one once, she wasn’t dull. But she…Serana had never leapt off a cliff like this before. She had been a child the last time it was asked of her, and that had only been a horrible lesson for this very moment, but also this was so different from those hundreds of years ago as well. What year was it now, what was the world like? What did her family even mean now if it had been too long? Why hadn’t mother been the one to wake her? 

“Fine, but I want you to promise to not lie to me when telling me of the…times…we find ourselves. I want to know your thoughts and the gossip, deal?”

“Easy, deal.” Karthus smirked, leaning to reach his glass out across the fire.

Serana stared at his eyes, glancing to his cup and then back. 

“Why…why aren’t you worried about yourself at night? About when you sleep?”

“You mean the trust?”

“Yes. I mean the bloody trust of course . ”

Serana and Karthus kept their eyes on each other. They were tired, hurt, and scared. They would never let the other read the worry and shame in their eyes. But they had both already let out laughs, smiles, and words becoming of a sort of ceasefire at least amidst the pain shared with that brief time between them. 

He took a deep breath and tried his best to force a tired grin at Serana over the waving flames.

“Ok. Cards on the table, I don’t trust you. Trust takes time, and I don’t know if there’s enough time in all of Nirn for a mortal and a vampire ever come close to that, assuming it were possible. No, I’m actually betting on you needing me for a while. I’ve been thinking, you seem smart enough to know you need a guide right now, but I’m guessing you don’t realize how much harder this is going to be for you without the one specifically sitting right across from you right now.” 

Serana almost scoffed, but his tone was as serious as his heartbeat. Why did it suddenly make her so nervous? 

“And where does this confidence come from, hmm?

“That crypt you were sleeping in hadn’t been touched in at least a century before those other vampires came snooping for the scroll. So, I’m going to finally tell you what year it is as a show of good faith and as a way to save my skin for at least a night.” Karthus smiled ahead at her.

Serana kept smiling back, “fine, let’s say I didn’t already tear that information out of my meal before coming back to you.” She grumbled internally. She had been hungry, ok! “Tell me what year it is.”

“201 of the 4th Era.” He replied back with the still unwavering confidence. The statement hung in the air before the damage it wrought on her shook him out of it though. 

The vowels and consonants of Karthus’s words assaulted Serana. Wakey wakey. Fuck off. I’ll burn that bed, girl. No. Do not act pathetic, child. Please. No.

Karthus’s smile washed from his face as he watched Serana’s own do the same, but filled with a pain he couldn’t understand, her eyes crashing down to the fire away from him and the world. Gods, just how old was she actually? The vampire was going into shock before his eyes at what he had meant as a peace offering.

“Hey, hey take it easy now, deep breaths alright?” He almost got up to move towards her, but his conscience recalled the social contract of circumstance between them and instead he just kept his concerned gaze and tried to ease her with his voice instead.

The voice was impossible to hear for her though. She couldn’t even find her own words right now. Choking. Where had the oxygen gone, why couldn’t it come in anymore? Serana panicked. Her eyes moved frantically to the left, then began to run back to the right before being caught by the pair of deep mahogany eyes across her. Worry.

“Serana, calm down! Deep breaths, deep breaths!” Karthus stuttered. “Gods, how old is she…” she heard the whispered words of his. 

Ha. An internal smile somewhere almost broke through the whirlwind within her. A different kind of Fear, not the kind she wanted to win with.

Serana exhaled suddenly and slapped her hands on top of her knees, then breathed in as deeply as she could. Karthus froze with the movement and watched with eyes as wide as the moons; quiet as a mouse before a cat.

Chapter Text

Good Evening

Serana sat on the rug Karthus had given her from his absolutely maddening bag, and she was staring out now at the setting sun trying to ignore the intrusive thoughts caused by it yet again that day. What in seven hells was that pouch linked to; what existence might come around claiming ownership from him eventually, she mildly panicked as the horizon sparkled with the dying of the day’s light. 

No . No, he was maybe right, for once. Don’t panic, don’t think about it more than necessary. She stifled the erupting curiosity; it was truly for the best not to think about it too much. There were more important things to dwell on right now. Things, such as the abominable sack of flesh she had promised to follow, now sleeping behind her. She flinched at the sound of snow falling off the firs in the distance. Damn this man and his cantankerous rest.

She resisted the reaction when she heard a group of pine thrushes call out to one another as they flew above towards the south. Eight of them in formation, their light green feathered wings gliding between the flaps, making steady progress towards the peaks behind her. Serana did her best to turn her focus now to the occasional elk call in the distance, carried and accentuated by the singing wind of Skyrim. 

Peace. Calm. Everything was fine.

“N’rouuuuunk” again came the snore of the newest bane of her existence behind her.

She was going to drain him. She had tried to just fight off the tempting thought at first, sipping the horrid snail-gin Karthus had left out as he’d made bunk. Then she had gone scouting during the bloody freaking day to avoid the awful sound, and there was nothing even remotely exciting about the experience. At one point, she was ashamed to admit, she had even welcomed the violent howls of the wolves she stumbled upon, but she had truly needed the punching bags in that moment or she might have actually lost all restraint.

Another call of the pine thrush behind her now. Focus on peace, Serana. Don’t lose your head yet, Serana. It will be worth it, Serana.

Behind her, snuggled up in his sheets, the body of Karthus let out a sleepy groan before unleashing another violent inhale upon her. Snoring would have been a deal breaker had she known about it that morning, she seethed. When was the last time she had suffered such bloody, mortal things? An extremely distant memory threatened to surface in her mind and she stuffed it back down with impunity. Never, she had never had to deal with it. She’d just have to kill him, she decided again; such a pity, she pretended to whine. 

Serana groaned instead, and threw a nearby rock at her intolerable companion, delighted by the grunt of awoken pain elicited from the bastard.

“Uhhhghh, I’m…alive. But I’m in pain too. Alive, and in pain” his hands sleepily felt around his body for other injuries. “What exactly did I do this time?” Karthus moaned out in the way only those thrust from sleep’s embrace could.

“You. Snore. And I’m sick of it already! It’s been less than a full day and I’m already sick of you all over again! You should have been upfront about that before we made our blasted deal.” she spat out at him. No mercy for mortals. “Besides, the sun is setting and it was time for you to finally get up…and anyways, I want bacon.”

Karthus shook his head at the information being dumped upon him in the first minute of his waking day…evening? Snoring? Deal? Could vampires even eat bacon? One thing at a time he decided, leaning over to his pouch and pulling out a tin kettle and the container of ground Valenwood nuts, as well as what he needed to start a small fire. He stood and got to work and yawned with the effort.

“Ok, ok. First off, the snoring was an obvious test of the trust between us; and congratulations, you passed!” he spoke with a sleep-ridden lilt to his voice.

“If I rip out your vocal cords will you still be this annoying, or would the attempts at screams be worse?”

“Aaaaaaalright then. Noted. But, secondly, you thanked me for our deal.” Serana’s eyes were like daggers at the words, and Karthus quickly moved into his next sentence, “... granted that was in a moment of duress and I would never think to make use of that obvious moment of vulnerability against you.” he squeaked out quickly, raising his shoulders in innocence at the vampire.

Serana stared at him with that awful unblinking gaze of hers that was capable of speaking volumes upon volumes of threats to him already in their short time together.

“Aaaaaaand thirdly…how crisp do you like your bacon?”

“Enough that I can snap it like a neck.”

“You’re so fun when you’re murderous” Karthus forced a smile but kept his eyes on the fire as it reached heat enough for the skillet. When Serana didn’t retort back though he looked up to find her simply watching him instead. He knew he would lose the staring match, but met the challenge anyway. The vampire finally broke the silence before either of them blinked, this time.

“I just don’t get it.” She continued staring. “You either have a death wish or have no idea how little a blip in my life you would actually be if I decided to kill you now and just dealt with the consequences instead. No, no, no, no, no.” she continued before he could interrupt her, “Don’t put that Oblivion damned smirk on your face and try to get out of this. I’ve got more to say to you.” Karthus’s face shifted to have the look of a man who had never been put in a place he didn’t know how to get out of immediately. 

“Merciless.” but he found his balance again quickly, taking the break to finally speak up. “You have a tongue as sharp as those fangs of yours. But here I am, alive. Proving your bark is worse than your bite.” He fought the urge to grin again. Fine, maybe Mir was right after all.

Draz no kalarr. He spoke up as if summoned, and with the damn laugh to boot.

“Hilarious.” he muttered under his breath back.

“Ah! And that! That right there!” Serana sputtered out, not yet ready to relent even as she accepted the plate of crispy bacon from Karthus. “Who are you bloody talking to? It is a dragon, right? How many dragons are you talking to inside you then, hmm?! How many have you killed and eaten already?!” Serana’s thoughts were falling over one another in a rush to escape her mouth at the entity in front of her. Her initial rage being the accelerant for the rest of her inquiries now.

“That’s….a lot to take in.” he attempted to reply.

“You are a lot. ” she retorted.

“Oh, like you aren’t.”

“And what exactly is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, oh, nothing! Just expressing my joy at stumbling upon perhaps the oldest, grumpiest vampire in existence is all!”

“I am not the oldest vampire!”

“What, so you have parents?”

Silence.

“Wait….you have parents?!”

“Of course I have parents! Everyone has parents!”

“Most people don’t have vampire parents though!”

“I am actually going to kill you.”

“The more you threaten that, the safer I feel. I’m just going to be honest about it now.”

“Thank you for the bacon, you absolute ass.”

“You’re welcome, princess.”

“Don’t. Call me. That.” her plate smashed to the ground and Karthus realized a line had finally been crossed, and attempted his retreat promptly.

“Ok! Fine! I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Karthus dared to look into the eyes of his raging vampire companion, but was surprised to find her quite the opposite. Were vampires actually able to feel hurt like that? He was learning more every hour together it seemed. 

“Hey…I’m actually sorry, ok? I don’t exactly talk to people much these days. I was rusty even before meeting…well, you.”

Serana eyed him, still annoyed, no, perhaps even more annoyed in a way. How dare he be sincere now when she was so ready to lay into him without actual violence for once. 

“You know, ah…” now he was being awkward. She really hated how well he played the innocent fop. If she didn’t put a stop to it now she would never hear the end of it.

“No. Stop. I’ll also kill you if you apologize one more bloody time.” Serana sighed with the end of the sentence. “Let’s just, I don’t know…”

“...talk about anything else?” he said as he handed her a second plate of the remaining bacon. He had been looking forward to eating that himself…

“Literally anything else.” she replied after taking the meal, again.

“Is…the bacon good?” Karthus decided to ask as he watched the vampire tear into a bite of her replacement meal.

“It’s the second best thing I’ve had to eat since waking up.” Serana smiled back coyly.

“Well good! I’ve always been proud of my campfire ski-” Karthus began earnestly, taking a sip of his Valenwood brew before the meaning of her words hit him properly “-that was another bloodsucking joke wasn’t it…” 

Serana sipped her own mug of the warm, brown liquid and nodded with a toothy grin.

“You’re the funniest vampire I know.”

“I’m the only vampire you know.”

“True, very true. I’ve had a horrible tendency to kill all the ones before.”

Serana huffed at him at first, before her eyes turned back to their often playful look. Karthus thought it reminded him of a cat playing with a mouse, but he always rejected the intrusive thought immediately. Serana chuckled, and dragged her hand beneath her bob, brushing the hair out nonchalantly. “Well, what can I say, I am rather special.” 

Karthus rolled his eyes in response, finishing the last of his mug and turning to begin cleaning up. The last of the sun's light was finally breaking over the horizon; they would be moving soon, he thought.

“So, I assume it’s safe to say that Lolit character wasn’t a favorite of yours then?” he asked. Serana seemed to mull his words over a moment before catching Karthus’s eyes with a surprisingly dour look.

“I think, and please believe me when I say I hate admitting this….but you did me a favor ending that bastard.”

The Dragonborn paused his work to shoot her a glance, but seeing her face he kept silent, continuing his clean up as she continued to process her thoughts. When no further words came from her, he still refused the urge to speak up. Karthus wasn’t the most cordial with others at the best of times, but he at least could shut his mouth when it really needed to be; at least he believed that. He recalled the beatings at the orphanage, the lessons he had violently learned. He took a deep breath and cocked his head at the painful memories; perhaps he had gotten a bit too comfortable revelling in his relatively newfound freedom of speech, he thought.

Naas til voragh dal. Mir interrupted with quiet laughter, and Karthus resisted the eye roll that might usually come with it.

Instead, he used minor conjuration once more to wash the rest of the dishes and pack them away in the bottomless satchel. Serana doused the fire with snow and cleared up the campsite in the meantime. They both quietly toiled away, appreciative of the silence from the other for once, even if it were perhaps tinged with a slight anxiety about the relationship. The two strangers went about their work, pondering the new social rules they had to learn and operate within while they did. The night before they had discussed the options for their trek to Solitude. The western path through Morthal was more perilous but would be less travelled because of it. He had not travelled the northern road through the ruins of High Gate, but worried about traipsing too close to the conflict between Stormcloaks and Imperials there. He was still waiting for a good moment to explain the whole civil war occurring in the northern territory of the Empire. Soon they were ready to move; Karthus gave the former campsite a casual once-over and finally spoke.

“So…you have approved on a path for us, right?”

Walls and Bridges

The evening had passed as they made their way over the seemingly infinite switch-backs down the mountain from Dimhollow Crypt. They passed the final, ancient flag waving from a cairn as the last of the stars finally showed themselves in the endless sky. The tree line lay before them, and the two shared a look; golden eyes meeting amber for but a moment of the confirmation needed of the other before turning back forward into the night. It had been barely a day since their agreement, but uneasy allies they remained; a feat neither of them had initially expected after the events of the crypt. Wolves howled in the distance as snow gently dropped around them. Karthus chuckled nervously at a comment about the canines from Serana as fat, white flakes blanketed their vision. Eventually, at one point, she almost led them to stumble into a lone giant camp even. Fortunately, the giant had been alone, surrounded by the many bones of his mammoth, and sleeping at the time. He did not give much thought to the scenario before them at the time, but Karthus had gone into exhaustive detail about all the reasons to never interact with the nomadic people after that occasion as they continued their hike on through the snow together.

Time passed unnoticed for the pair as they waded through the ankle high snow beneath the white-covered firs.

“-foolish to think more won’t show.”

“That’s not my problem. The Greybeards will figure it out.”

“How can you believe that? You’re the bloody Dragonborn, Karthus; if there weren’t going to be more dragons than why in Oblivion would you be here in Skyrim when you are?”

“Well, if that is the case, then someone should have figured that out before they gambled on me.” Karthus rolled his eyes, gazing upwards.

“ Pft, that’s all well and good to say to yourself, until the next dragon shows itself.”

“Oh, and because some cosmic flux chose me to be said solution means I need to suck it up and just be it ? No chat, no parley, no nothing? Sounds like bad luck and barter on their part.”

“You can not possibly be this much of a narcissist.”

“That’s rich coming from you.”

“And what exactly is that supposed to mean?”

Karthus opened his mouth to let out the coming retort, but surprised even himself when he bit his tongue to stop the almost instinctual reply: Princess. He could hear himself saying it in his head, but held back this time. Maybe it just didn’t feel right to use an insult he didn’t grasp fully? Serana finally turned her judging gaze to him after enough pause in their bickering to see his brow furrowed with thought; she didn’t soften her gaze but seeing his usual mask crack once again she decided to wait for him to finish it this time.

“Haaaaah,” he let out a deep exhale, “...so, why don’t you like being a vampire princess again? I give you permission to hit me, gently , if you’d rather not talk about-HEEGH” the immediate thump to his back knocked the wind straight out of his lungs, and Karthus stumbled through his next several steps before catching himself finally. His golden eyes turned grumpily to his amber companion’s upon recovery.

“I…huff…said, huff… gently .” he sputtered out.

“And that was gentle.”

Karthus dejectedly threw his hands up once again to the vampire in mock surrender, still greedily catching oxygen with his lungs. Serana stayed quiet amidst the struggling breaths, mulling over his inquiry. You need no friends, girl. You have family. She grumbled internally at the memory of her father, intruding once more on her mind.

“What was it like to have friends as a child, Karthus?” her face spoke the words seriously.

“Friends? Ahhh, well, I wasn’t blessed enough to have those as a kid. Well, maybe we called each other friend when one or the both of us were being naive about it, but friends?” The golden eyes turned to her and Serana’s own were surprised to see the sad canvas they lay upon as they spoke, “there are no friends in an orphanage, Serana. None in Riften, anyway. So what’s your point?”

“There…well there are no friends in a castle full of vampires either, Karthus.” she said, staring ahead.

He rolled her words over, but he understood what she implied. It wasn’t like he had ever envied a vampire before; if anything, it was easy for him to imagine vampires were probably worse off than orphans. Assuming they could even look at living the same way. He’d not exactly ever spent this much time with one of their kind before after all…

“So…” Karthus refocused, “...you were sort of born into a pit too then, eh?”

“Pit…that’s, well, that’s a good word for it, but it didn’t always feel that way to be fair. I don’t know, I was happy for a long time, relatively speaking. And…naive, I suppose, for the majority of it.” The words came out of her before the synapses in her head properly fired off and embarrassment set in at her sudden awareness of her confession. Spilling her guts to a mortal of all things. Pathetic, three voices of her past as one denigrated her internally.

“I’m sorry.”

Serana flinched at his response at first, but looked over to Karthus again; she saw the intimidating walls behind his strange, golden eyes down for now. He would make a good pet, the intrusive thought escaped her mind and she groaned internally at the whiplash of it. Get a damn grip, Serana, she demanded of herself.

“That…means more than it probably should.” she performed a little groan to shake the feeling, “But don’t let it go to your head, I’m still going to kill you tomorrow when you snore again.” she turned and hid the playful smirk that threatened to show on her face, doing her best to instead glare at the falling snow off to her left.

Ignore her, Dovahkiin. Your roars are nak torall! I am envious!

Karthus laughed aloud at the internal retort from his dragon companion, which Serana turned back curious towards. He smiled at the vampire and chuckled again with a sheepish look.

“I’m beginning to wish you could hear some of the things Mir says to you. I’m not a fan of having to play the abused translator all the time for his…ehem…responses.”

“Oh, he’s also a cheeky prat then, eh? Woooooonderful. Two for the price of one, what luck.” Serana narrowed her eyes at him in mock disdain. “I’m sure you both get along swimmingly then, hmm?”

“Well it wasn’t the best of introductions, to be sure.” Karthus chuckled, “sort of how ours went actually, but less of the me slaying you first I suppose.”

Hmmph, Mir grumbled within, nok lo ral Tenuzin malrog. Karthus gave a sympathetic laugh this time to the pouting dragon.

“Yes, yes I know you were tired. But you can’t blame me for not knowing that. What happened to our glorious battle , hmm?”

“Hey, stop that!” Serana broke in on the seeming internal monologue happening in front of her. “I won’t hit you for it, ok? So stop leaving me out and get back to translating, hmm? You actually killed him before he, uh, well joined with you then? What do you call it when a Dragonborn is born , anyway?”

Fun ek wah strin vok…

“But she’ll hit me again, Mir…”

“Is that his name? Mir? If I hit you harder maybe Mir would feel it too, want me to try?” Serana said with a dangerously cheerful look on her face now. Karthus returned the smile, but with the now expected faux horror they had grown used to in this bit of theirs.

“We surrender, mercy!” 

I do not! Fight for my honor, Dovahkiin!

The stars above them continued to twinkle in the clear night sky; the two great moons slowly rotating around them in their endless watch. The thick, falling snow padded the sound of the occasional laugh and pointed word from the two travellers as they made their way beneath the frosted canopy of the northern forest. It would be another few hours in the wilderness until they came upon the main road, and after that about a week until they made it to Solitude, assuming the travel went smoothly throughout the journey, of course. But that was the trouble then, wasn’t it? In what world could a vampire and Dragonborn’s journey ever be considered smooth ?

Civil Disobedience

The unlikely pair of traveling companions had now been hiding behind a rocky outcrop, peering over it to observe the currently occupied northern road before them. They had been like this for about six minutes now. Karthus was not counting though, because there was absolutely nothing to worry about. He was not panicking.

“I’m telling you, it’s not worth the trouble.” Karthus whispered.

“But if we can take care of said trouble easily we should just get it over with before it becomes more troublesome.” His vampire companion muttered back with as much conviction as the decibel of her voice allowed.

“-will you two shut it. ” Serana and Karthus flinched at the snapping of the Altmer guard’s voice from the camp below them; his cowled head rising briefly from his bedding by the campfire. The other two Altmer who had been quietly muttering between themselves off to the side of the camp both replied with annoyed, but noticeably quieter words. The older looking of the two night watchmen gave a louder grunt before standing up from the stump he sat upon, and moved to check on the line of men chained together off to the side of their camp. Six of them, a mix of shivering blond and red-haired Nords wearing rags and underclothes. The elves were at the very least using some sort of heating magic to keep them alive, if not comfortable out here dressed like that. They would perish to the elements in minutes left to themselves, Karthus thought. 

Serana had warned him of the unwanted interruption first. Her talk about feeling the pulses ahead of them had made him slightly uncomfortable in the moment, to put it lightly. Was she always listening to his heart beat? Was travelling with him like running around with a delicious, prepped-and-ready meal on wheels then? He forced himself to shew away the disruptive thoughts. He’d ask her about it later. Maybe. Ignorance might be bliss, he debated.

“Why in Oblivion are the Direnni this far east.” Serana hissed her whisper at Karthus.

“Direnni?” Karthus whispered in confusion back, “those are Altmer of the Dominion. The poor sods chained up are likely Stormcloaks, or criminals, they’re taking back to the Imperials in Solitude…they’re pretty far behind enemy lines though for this type of op.” he rubbed his chin as he mused, ignoring Serana’s inquisitive stare, but eventually continued.

“I know, I know. More talk after though. We should avoid them and keep moving as far north as we can while it's still night out.” Karthus continued to whisper to her.

Serana began to respond but stopped as she listened closer to the muttering elves.

“-and where is Corenar anyway? It’s his damned turn for camp watch, I need sleep.”

“He’ll be back from rounds soon. Stop yer whining, newblood.” the older grunted back at the disgruntled younger soldier, as he took his seat on the stump once more.

“There’s a fourth, Karthus.” Serana mumbled to the Dragonborn, trying to ignore the sudden mounting panic in her head. 

She had been too focused on the voices in front of her to hear the heartbeat creeping up behind them through the trees fifteen feet away, but she heard it now. The sound of magic being conjured followed quickly, and she used that instant to swiftly turn and shove her own weight off of Karthus, barely rolling both their bodies to avoid the bolt of lightning that crashed into the stones between them the next second. Karthus didn’t have the time to look behind him as he watched the guards below snap into action at the sound of the magic cracking, their gazes steering around where the pair were hidden on the outcrop above in the dark.

“There’s two of them!” the unfamiliar Altmer voice shouted from behind him, the sound of the next spell in his hands evident, and Karthus began to feel the blood within him heat. He followed the fiery impulse and dragged his body with his arms into a sudden roll down the outcrop away from the ambush and into the camp instead.

“Finish him and get down here!” Karthus shouted as he grunted between the pain of the descent over the rocks. As long as bruises were the worst of it, this was the right call. His ears couldn’t hear her response over the shouts of the guards in front of him and sounds of abrasion from his descent. Swords were drawn from sheathes, and Karthus pulled a dagger of his own from a strap on his leg, leaping at the still kneeling Altmer trying to rise from his bedspread in panic. The Dragonborn plunged the knife into the back of the cowled elf's throat, and crouched behind the body as the barrage of fire emerged from the other two towards him in the instant afterwards. He heard the rushed steps of them now, and shoved the corpse off himself into the path of the elf on the right, as he went to pull back his arm to throw the dagger in its grip. He didn’t have time to think of how he would handle the older one as he released the knife in a flash, landing it directly between the protective chainlink of the left Altmer’s neck. In the same moment as the knife left his hand, just out of focus to his right, the sight of another elven body crashing down from above into the remaining guard only registered in his mind after the sound of cracking bones and screams of pain did. He turned, slower now, to look up at a rather pleased Serana, brushing her hands together atop the short cliff above the camp.    

“Finished! That’s two you owe me now!”  

Karthus rolled his eyes. “No, that would be one. We agreed we were even before.”

“Fine, fine, I guess you owe me one then; if you say so.” Serana smiled back toothily, pleased.

“No, wait. Hold on. We both got two; it should still be even then!”

“That is not how it works-”

A violent sneeze interrupted their banter however, and the two turned their eyes to look in the direction of the six, still shivering, but now freezing, prisoners just outside the camp.

“P-p-p-p-p-pardon m-m-m-m-me.” a younger Nord man among them managed to get out, his unkempt beard already icing over with the sudden lack of magic heating him.

Serana and Karthus’s mind seemed to operate in sync for a moment as they stared at the prisoners for seconds before slowly turning back to look at one another.

“I’m blaming you for this, and I’m considering us back to even.” Karthus groaned out.

They shared the glare before turning back once more to six Nord lives before them.

Chapter Text

There Was A Red Dragon

Sebastion and Tomothy sat on her lap in the dank underbelly of Castle Volkihar, crooning with the attention she gave them both. She stroked their heads gently with the back of her knuckles as their warm bodies curled up tighter into the folds of her dark, burgundy blousen. Serana enjoyed keeping pets. They were her confidants; her secret friends in her home. It had been at least 463 days since her family had received the gift of their Lord. 

She had never gotten an answer that sounded like the truth about how long she had been unconscious afterwards, but she had been counting the days since with diligence. At first, the routine had been born of excitement; like learning you actually had a second birthday to celebrate. It had been so…Serana’s mood further soured as she found her words…it had been so happy, still. It had been a whirlwind of new faces and older ones that ought to have been familiar, but suddenly felt….wrong. Not just their amber eyes instead of the blue, brown, green, and greys she remembered them with. No, it was so much more than that. She felt a sharp pinch on the tip of her finger and was thrown from her melancholy as she looked down grumpily at the tiny culprit.

“If you were hungry you should have just asked, you little brat. You’re lucky I like you.” she grumbled halfheartedly, rubbing the dark, viscous blood between her fingers. It seemed to coagulate faster than she recalled blood being capable of; slowly turning from the slick feel of blood to a more sticky, gelatinous sensation. She wiped her hand on the bottom of the dress absentmindedly as she stood up and walked across the cavern floor to place the two rats back in the cage she had finagled for them from the shore. An old, makeshift lobster pot she had scavenged from exploring the beaches on one of her escapades out of the castle. She couldn’t get far from the landlocked castle, but she treasured the sight of the other shore regardless. In her mind, she could imagine the infinite possibilities still out there. Now, seemingly, forever out of her reach. 

Serana had barely returned to the shadowy corner of the room before she heard the echo of footsteps, faint yet deliberate. Her body tensed instinctively, the comfortable warmth of the rats now replaced by the cold, hard reality of being watched. The air thickened as her father’s voice rang out.

"Serana." His voice was calm, too calm. That was always the worst part.

She turned slowly, smoothing her dress and hoping the stained fabric would go unnoticed, but it never worked that way. Her father’s amber eyes gleamed in the dim light, the sharpness in them more than familiar. She could already feel the weight of his gaze on her, sifting through her every thought, her every emotion. A gift. His gift. The one that always left her feeling exposed, vulnerable, as if there was no corner of her heart he couldn’t reach.

"You've been...a disgrace again then," he remarked, his voice like a blade slicing through the silence. He wasn’t talking about just the rats. It was her that was the problem; always the problem.

Serana opened her mouth, but no words came..

"I don't think you understand the consequences of your actions within my house, daughter." Her father stepped closer, his boots soft against the stone floor, but his presence was anything but gentle. "Do you think you need the attention of these beasts? That they’ll feel something for it? These creatures, these...animals you've brought into our home?"

Her stomach churned. It was always the same with him. With all of them now. This wasn’t about her pets. Every time she tried to reach out, to form something, anything, that resembled their old mortality- 

The rats chittered nervously in their cage, aware of the tension, and her father’s gaze shifted from Serana’s face to the them behind her. His eyes narrowed, his lips curling in disgust. “A shame. You still waste your time on such trivialities. Haven’t I told you time and time again, you deserve better pets?”

Serana felt the chill rise in her chest, but she bit it back. 

“ No .” Her father’s tone was sharp enough to make her flinch. “You don’t understand, do you? You still don’t understand you have your family, Serana. You have us, now until forever." 

He stepped past her with ease, his pale fingers brushing against the back of her neck, sending an involuntary shiver down her spine. “And we have no need for these distractions. We have no need for anything except for each other. You’ll learn to embrace that. I have given our family all the time in the world through my efforts, through my devotion.” he spat the words down at her now. “You and your mother should understand that by now.”

Before she could react, a loud thud rang through the room. A human figure, limp and broken, was thrown roughly to the stone floor at their feet. It was one of the cattle; its body, broken and bruised, lay almost deathly still, but Serana watched as his chest still, just barely, lifted up and down with some effort. Her father looked at Lokil in the entryway approvingly before nodding him off. He turned to the cattle with an emotionless gaze, then turned back to Serana.

“See this? This is what you have forgotten; what truly matters. We used to be such pathetic animals, wriggling on the ground with our mortality, but no longer. We stand above them now, my child.” His voice dropped to a whisper, his breath cold against her ear. “You’ll learn. You will.”

Serana’s mind began to shut down. Fear. Washing over her like a frozen wave, ice slashing through her defenses. No. Quiet, please. I just need silence. I just need calm. Even a sunless place, please, as long as it’s not here. 

Her father’s words echoed, bouncing against the walls of her skull. She could feel her body standing there, still, rigid. The world outside her mind blurred, the sounds of the broken human at her feet muffled and distant, as though their sounds were being heard by someone else entirely. It was easier that way. If she could just float above it all, above the crushing weight of his gaze and the suffocating rules of his home, maybe she wouldn’t have to feel it. Maybe she could pretend, just for a little while, that she was somewhere else, anywhere else; where his cold voice and the sharp bite of his control couldn't reach her. Somewhere far beyond the grasp of Castle Volkihar’s endless shadow. She didn’t need to feel this anymore. Not if she didn’t let herself. Not if she was somewhere else.  

She turned her gaze away from the fallen cattle, staring at the floor, trying not to give in to the tears that burned in her eyes.

“You’ll never need anything else again,” her father said, his voice a deadly promise. “Not while you have us.” and he grabbed her chin, cupping it in his palm with a precise grip. His other sliced through the air, the only sound a quiet gurgling as the smell of fresh blood wafted up to Serana; her body still locked in shock, but she could feel her own blood surge painfully behind her eyes as the intoxicating scent forced her out. 

Her face felt cold and wet. The taste of iron and salt mixing on her lips.

“I will teach you this lesson as long as you make me, my child.” she flinched at his close words.

“We have forever together, Serana.

Her memory faded to black amidst the bittersweet taste of blood and tears.

And It Carried War

Serana broke the silence first, turning her gaze from the shackled wretches outside the camp and back to Karthus, the lessons taught to her in the depths of her home simmering beneath her next words as the smile of their banter from seconds before was moved past.

“See what you can find on their bodies. I’ll tie up the loose ends here.” she said, mostly annoyed at having to do dirty work again; hopping down the thirteen foot incline of the overlook like it was nothing, and landing between Karthus and the chained Nords with her face towards the freezing captives now.

“Loose ends?” Karthus snorted to himself, already way ahead of her, and currently focused on picking through the pockets of the older Altmer before him as the embers of the thrill of their short victory still roiled within him. His eyes gleamed with admiration at the small, hand-mirror he’d discovered, pocketing it as he looked up at Serana’s back fifteenish feet away with a smirk. She didn’t look back to meet his gaze after the question though; with a frown, he repeated: “Excuse me. Loose ends? Reign it in for now, alright, Serana?”

The silence lasted longer than he thought it should have after the words. It only stoked the flames. The hairs on the back of his neck began to stand up as his atmosphere tensed in the moment. His eyes glued to her back now, before she finally spoke again.

“We should have just moved on north, you were right.” she let out an exhale mixed with a laugh, a casual tinge of exhaustion to her voice maybe, but Karthus almost let out the hot air within him with a sigh of his own, but was stopped. 

“We can’t afford loose lips and witnesses; so you take what’s worthwhile and I’ll take care of the problems this time, alright? No more joking, please…” she tried to casually say with a roll of her eyes. The last of Serana’s words got his attention fully though, his ears were only focusing on her words now.

“And when did you get final say on everything?” He spoke, his hands moved to his sides slowly.

“It’s fine , I can handle it.” The vampire spoke the eerie sentence proudly to him. Karthus’s brow furrowed, unable to see her face still.

“Hey now, listen,” he said, slowly beginning to stand with the sentence, “I don’t think we need to handle them the way I think you’re implying. We’ll take them north…”

“To the ruins of High Gate? There’s no one waiting for them there, you said so yourself.” Serana turned to look back at Karthus. The amber eyes gleamed in the firelight dangerously at him. “They either die here or out there. You can’t seriously think we can bring them with us? I won’t allow it.”

The other orphans came to mind, Karthus couldn;t say why he saw them now. He felt like he had been through quite a lot in his life so far up till now. So much. Bursts of laughter, screams of rage. The many faces of Bessa, Tiread, Foxpaw, Bint, and the others in Riften. Friends, family, traitors, and strangers. Foxpaw’s dead eyes, smiling up at him, both their blood dripping onto their clasped hands. Karthus watches the others be led away in chains. The last he ever saw of the orphanage, of Riften, of his only home.

“They’re in shackles , Serana. We can walk them to Dawnstar’s boundaries and release them there.” He spat out his words. His memories bogged down his focus. No more climbing out of the pit , he tried to mutter the mantra to himself but was interrupted by the sound of roaring magicka suddenly reaching his ears. 

His eyes felt as if they opened in slow motion, like useless orbs connected to a stupid brain at the scene unfolding in front of him in the instant…and then he watched the fire erupt over the six men. He looked, stared like he was paralyzed, until he heard the first of their eyes pop as it boiled. Serana’s gaze was already turned back towards him, waiting for his own to meet her. Her amber eyes didn’t leave Karthus; but if there was sadness in them it was blocked from his sight by the shock his body fell into. His eyes finally focused then in a way, and he turned back to stare at the burning, now charred, Nords. She spoke, but his ears were only capable of echoing the prisoner's briefest of weak screams, unable to hear the words coming from her mouth. Karthus finally met Serana’s gaze, his eyes now buzzing with the adrenaline pumping behind them. 

“What GAME is this, Serana?! They didn’t have to die by our hands!” His pained, scalding words cried the tears his eyes still seemed incapable of; though the steam rising from them suggested they simply evaporated too quickly to fall properly.

She shot him a look of shock of her own. Serana had thought it her own bloodlust that was on edge, but now recognized the fiery rage within Karthus in front of her.

“You used my name in front of them, Karthus. You can’t believe we could let them live after they knew our names? Please, Karthus; really?” She was managing to get the words out amidst the shellshock to herself now. Practically begging. Why was this what was triggering his rage? How did he not get it? He was a killer just like her. The last of the Nords let out a fleshy gurgle and then there was silence besides the crackle of their fire pit and the beat of the Dragonborn’s heart.

“You just... burned them; without a thought. Without honor.” Karthus blinked, his eyes now seemingly unfocused on anything to her. She shifted to a defensive stance instinctively.

“You..you-” His eyes didn’t leave the blackened Nord bodies as the gaze erupted with golden fire. 

“ DURAAL NAHLII!” two voices roared as one at her, spittle flying from Karthus’s maw as the words did.

Serana froze at the dragon’s shout for only an instant before she gave into instinct, and shot away to her left, back towards the rocky overlook above the campsite.

“Wuld Nah Kest”

The air between them was shorn in an instant; her mind had but a moment to grasp onto her senses telling her Karthus and his right fist were directly in front of her face before she felt the impact milliseconds later. Her body flew back twenty some feet into the distant snowbank behind the dead Nords to the north of the campsite, as the crack of flesh on flesh muffled by the snow-covered trees and ground. Serana’s world spun as she attempted to raise herself, luckily having missed any trees in her flight. She groaned in pain, her dislocated jaw only accentuating the feeling as she rose from the bank of snow. Placing a hand beneath her mouth and another beside her cheek, she violently shifted the two hands and screamed with the pain of relocating the connected bones. Her mind blinked with white lights for a moment before the adrenaline mixed with the chemicals already pumping through her kicked into focus. 

“Yol Tur Shool”

Fire flew over her into the trees above and beyond, the flames licking and catching greedily on even the frozen pines. Escape. In her mind, a castle. But that home was on fire now. Live. The words burned through her mind, and she turned and put every iota of energy she had left into the weight of her next push of foot. And then the next. And then the next one again. Each leap of her muscles made her body scream out in pain but she pushed through, her mind white with it now, running on instinct alone.

Eventually she only heard the bestial roars behind her. Echoing…endless amongst the otherwise silent night. 

Serana, with the last bit of her energy, stepped her left leg forward to catch the ground, but her body finally gave in and she crashed into the snow beneath her. She let out a gasp with the pain before lifting herself and pressing forward again. Survive . She had to run now; she couldn’t battle against that rage in her state.

“Bo tir nikriin! The Dragonborns words of war made the snow fall from the canopy above with their strength even from afar, and what blood remained in Serana boiled in response to them.

“ Mir mul nir, duraal nahlii!”

Glorious battle. Her body quivered, adrenaline shooting through her nervous system hearing the dragon summon, no, demand to be hunted. Crimson eyes opened from their pain and glared in the direction of Karthus. No , she must have blood for this betrayal of his. She lifted herself to her feet, slowly at first as she positioned herself, and putting all her weight into it she pushed back against the base of the pine behind her, cracking it with the effort, as she shot forward towards her destined fight with the Dragonborn. Unthought magicka began to crackle in her left fist as her right clenched its now clawed nails.

“Hunt me, if you would dare, I shall at least give you a glorious end !” Karthus’s words burned through the pines and over her; the flames of promised death within them, as violent as molten slag. She pushed off another pine, cracking it with the force as she launched now straight at the voice.

“ Gladly. ” Serana let out the hot breath of words as she broke through the trees, her boot flying into the Dragonborn’s chest before even his golden eyes could register. She felt her foot sink into flesh, the reverberations quickly scattered over her whole leg; then she felt the grip of two hands on her calf, and Serana’s world whirled around her. She crashed into the cliff behind in the next instant, dust billowing out from the collision. The air burst out of her lungs with an ugly gasp. Her ears filled with the rage-filled heartbeat before her. Her eyes were bleary. She could barely make out the figure of the Breton above her. Serana’s thoughts became drunk; the adrenaline left her system finally with the concussion, her mind finally catching up with the pain of her body as the Words of challenge left her mind. Her lungs gasped for air once more, as the muscles of her extremities grasped out in the turmoil of pain. She pushed herself up with all the force she had left; her right hand slashing at Karthus’s right eye with its razor sharp nails, but only barely catching his cheek below. She dropped back down after the effort, now completely spent. Empty, and so tired. She felt the wind catch her hair, the heat of fire carried with it over her.

She missed the salty, sea air. She wanted to feel the breeze of it in her hair at that moment. Was this what actual dying was like, she thought almost distractedly. She thought she blinked, as the world grew dark for a moment and then another moment again, but her sight continued to dim. Her fleeting mind was focused on finding her beloved pets then. Sebastian and Tomothy. She missed the peace of her sanctuary beneath Castle Volkihar. She missed her rats. Serana missed the words of calm Karthus had shared with her. Even though it had been so brief, so quick in her life; it was almost a nostalgic feeling. 

“Sahlag.” the enraged Dovahkiin spoke, standing above her limp body; fist raised once more. His golden eyes burned with rage, his face now wore phantasmal scars of endless battles. Fiery, red magicka flowing steadily out of every cut and contusion upon his ghostly flesh. 

A dragon, but the look of a demon. 

Why am I still alive then? She recalled the question she had asked of Karthus in the first minutes of their meeting. He had looked so, so tired even then. She could hear his laugh, she saw the annoying smirk. We’re both… so tired , aren’t we? I should… no , no… we should just…talk through it…again. 

Serana thought this and summoned her lungs again as she spoke her melancholy into reality. Her mind seemed to grasp at reeds at first. She reflected on arbitrary memories they’d barely shared. They had laughed together though. She wanted to cry and scream at how pathetic she felt. It shouldn’t be so easy to remember Calm. She put the memories into her next word:

“Stiilgur.”  

And her whispered Word reverberated out of her. Her truth behind it. Spoken; crashing out like the final, exhausted tidal wave of a raging sea.

The quiet rush of waves upon the shore of a castle. The steady sound of the river flowing through the canal of the city. The steady friendship of books in comfortable solitude. The warmth of a hand. A steady heartbeat. A steady mind. For a brief moment, two minds could see the beloved garden of home . 

“So many…flowers.” Karthus muttered, dazed, before his body crashed into the ground next to Serana.

Their worlds faded together to black. 

A Pale Rider Followed

Karthus stared out the window of the library lost in thought. Endless shelves floated in the aether outside it,the stones beneath each of them slowly orbiting around his viewpoint from the window like they were carried by the wind. He sighed to himself before a mousish voice piped up behind him, causing him to jump.

“ Who are you ?”

“B-Bessa? Wait…you’re not Bessa.” Karthus placed his hand over his eyes with sudden exhaustion. Shit, he had to find Bessa and get them out of here before they both got in trouble. Only those with permission from the priests of Mara were allowed in the backstacks, though a question wriggled at the back of his mind. Had Riften always looked like that from that window?

“I don’t care who Bessa is. I want to know who you are and why you’re in my library!” 

A young, Nord girl with ink-black hair in the cut of a bob stood before him eye-to-eye, staring accusatory blue eyes in a glare. He returned the stare back at her for a few moments and, like a surprised fish, his mouth opened and closed multiple times before replying.

“Not…you. Umm, pardon, who are you?” Karthus tried not to panic, but where had Bessa gone? Hopefully only he had been caught and she had made it out of the library. “I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t be here, but I didn’t steal anything I swear; I just was looking.”

The girl crossed her arms, and the worry in Karthus rose as he noticed the clean, expensive silk and burgundy dyed clothes she wore. Shit, some noble brat probably.

“First, how dare you address me without honorifics. And secondly, stop talking so loud!” she nearly shouted at him, but he did not have time to grumble about it before she continued, “I won’t tattle if you won’t tell, so hurry up and help me take these books,alright? Over here, quickly!” and she turned to walk further into the aisle of the library, a stack of tomes piled up at the end of it twenty some feet away.

“Uh, um, sorry, your grace,” he stumbled through the words as he snatched a book and shoved it into his pouch without breaking stride to follow her, “Mum’s the word, of course.”

The blue eyes turned quickly back to him with an anger behind them.

“If there is a word of this to my mother I will make sure you are next week’s offering. Is that clear?”

Karthus’s mouth opened and closed repeatedly, not sure how to respond at first, before answering back weakly.

“Yes…yes, your grace.”

“And stop calling me grace ! If you have to talk to me then call me ‘Mistress Serana’ or ‘my lady’ only ” she nearly shouted now, stamping her foot in the process.

Shhhhhhh

The young lady froze with the words, as did the boy, but Karthus’s eyes still darted to the face of the voice now peeking around the shelf of books at them from the end of the aisle marked MagHist 33.035.

Pain shot through his corneas, into his frontal cortex, and down its grey matter into the top of his spine. Terror. Unthinkable Horror. White, hot fire ran amok through his mind like the nerves had been ripped out of it. 

But then the sensation was gone. And then he saw the old man bending around the corner with a gentle smile on his face, looking at them both. 

The girl began to turn to look as well, but Karthus’s arm shot out and his hand clenched down on her shoulder before she could, as fast as instinct. She froze with the sudden touch and then glared at him.

“Let. Go.” she whispered back daggers, her eyes wide for but a moment at the sudden contact, and he relinquished quickly under the command as the blue eyes glared at him and the synapses refired in his brain.

“Ah, sorry, but. But…something is wrong with him I think.”

She looked at him with a moment of what might have been fear, but managed to put on a brave face as her hand came down on his shoulder instead this time. She patted him twice, her face turning to a grin.

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you, thieves need to stick together.” and, giving him a quick final nod of assurance, she turned to look behind her before Karthus could further protest. 

Immediately upon eye contact she let out a yelp of pain, almost falling to a knee as Karthus swooped in to support her before she crumpled entirely.

The old man, his head bald except for the occasional long, grey hair sticking out of the moles growing atop it and the long braided beard beneath his chin. His silver robes hung loose over his frame, but he still appeared very small and thin despite them. Everything about the figure should have made Karthus feel at ease. The relaxing aura of the elderly; but it was the dark, amethyst eyes and their eerie glow that unnerved him about the ancient man, he thought. The old librarian looked over the two of them and it gave Karthus the feeling of being burrowed into, like a parasite wriggling beneath flesh ever so subtly as to be just maddening. Then the voice of said sensation spoke again and he felt his stomach sour.

There is much for us to discuss, children, be quick. I shall wait for you in the Common area. Beware dallying too long amongst the shelves; it can take some time to find those lost within them. The aged man’s deep, warm voice spoke to them, but his mouth did not move. He gave them a gummed smile with the words before he pulled himself back around the corner and out of sight, his soft steps trailing slowly away from the pair.

Karthus began to move after him when he felt a sudden tight grip on his right arm from behind him.

“Wait! How…how do you know we can trust him? This could be a trick; it’s always some kind of test or trial, we should be more wary! Maybe we break out the window?” The Nord girl spoke almost desperately, terror painted on her face. Karthus almost chided her, but thought better of it. He thought about Bessa back at the orphanage; he thought about the fear they often felt together.

“Ah…well, he’s already seen us. What else are we going to do? If we do that he’ll call the guards and then we’ll really be in it, you know? If Miss Black-Briar has to let me out of the Hold again she’ll kill me for sure this time. I’ll just say it was my fault, alright? I’m used to it.” 

Serana gave the response a confused furrow of her brows before replying.

“Black-Briar? I have no idea who that is, but I can talk to my father's guards; they’ll let you go if I explain you were my guest or something; we’ll figure it out.” 

“Wait, wait, wait. This is your father’s library?!” Karthus looked around at the seemingly endless shelves around and above them, the floors seemed to go on and on as far as he could see as they gazed upwards together now. The floors ever-so-slowly seemed to rotate and shift around them like gears in the mechanical toys he’d seen in the market square. Serana broke her look and followed his; confusion running over her as well now.

“No…no this isn’t our library. Not this, what kind of library is this even? Where…this isn’t Volkihar? Where are we?”

“I don’t think this is Riften either…and call me Karthus, alright? You said your name is Serana?”

Serana stared wide-eyed at the stranger in front of her. Riften? Where in Oblivion was that? No. Not now. This could still be some sort of trap of Lokil’s. She knew they should stay wary.

“ Mistress Serana.” she corrected quickly, before looking up thoughtfully, “or Lady Serana if you prefer.

“I’m not calling someone younger than me a Lady or Mistress; especially if this isn’t even your-

What did I warn about dallying? Come, we have much to discuss before you both must depart my home.

It was as if his cognizance had skipped a beat; his mind only coming back into focus with the sound of his chair scooting in beneath him at the heavy-looking oak and onyx round table. He heard an echo of the sound to his right, and looked to see the girl named Serana beside him in similar circumstances. Karthus turned his gaze back to the old librarian across from them, flinching a moment in anticipation of the remembered pain, but it didn’t come this time as his eyes rested on the ancient, sandpaper face of the man instead.

It is a pleasure to welcome both the Dovahkiin, as well as a Daughter of Coldharbor, into my aisles. You are both avid readers, I knew you would enjoy the curiosity of it, as I do.

Two pairs of confused, wary eyes gazed back at him.

“Excuse-”

“Um, sir-”

The two children looked away from the elder, and at the other as they spoke over one another.

“ Ehem. ” Serana shot Karthus a pointed look, and he rolled his eyes in response, raising his hands in surrender. Serana gave a satisfied smile in return as Karthus grumbled.

“Excuse me, my lord, while I cannot speak for my servant here-” another grumble, louder this time, “- ehem MY SERVANT here, I am afraid I am not quite familiar with these titles you speak of. The lord and lady of House Volkihar will appreciate the hospitality you have shown us thus far. I am embarrassed to say I do not know the name of you, our host, might I apologize for our intrusion into your estate, and ask who we share the pleasure of our current company with?”

Nailed it, she thought to herself; looking over at the urchin boy beside her with a proud look, but what she saw there was not the expected look of one in awe.

“Estate? It’s a floating library!” he mouthed at her with a face of…disgust? Incredulous disgust?! She was putting her family name on the line for this ungrateful-

Enough.

The deep baritone voice of the old man struck deep within her. Serana felt the awkward sensation of the muscles around her mouth refusing to move suddenly; as her eyes watched the skin surrounding the mouth of her fellow thief quickly meld together over the orifice. Her hands shot up, clawing at the new growth of flesh where her mouth had been, air pumping rapidly in and out of the remaining two accesses to air above it.

I did warn you we were short on time, but perhaps this is the folly one should expect when dealing with children as young as you both. Tiny little things, lost in my library. Before was the time for discussion, but Now is the time for listening from you both. An introduction of myself and a promise to you each, I think first, for I am not one to offer business on a first meeting. Pleasantries are required in these dealings, though I have grown tired of the pomp that ought to accompany them long ago. I had hoped gathering you as little seeds would make my words easier to sow, alas; children, like seeds, do not hear what is in front of them no matter how you ask it of them. 

The old man smiled his gummy grin once more at them, and a cold, shiver wracked through their spines in sync. The library shook around them, the sound of books falling off shelves ten by ten, a distant, draconic roar far off in the distance. The man stared at the boy, Karthus, with cold, loving eyes that made his stomach turn upside down.

The time has passed. I will see you two again, do not fret though. Business then. We have gotten our introductions out of the way and the time for it will be when the seeds have sprouted.

He raised his right hand and slid it to the right. Air popped with the sudden return of their mouths, followed by deep gasps of air with their panic. But that didn’t stop Serana.

“What-what kind of introduction comes without a name?!” she spat out between huffs, her face now pale with fear. The old man smiled back. The pain from before split through her head once more.

You would ask for answers from the master of secrets, little seed? You would reach for knowledge beyond your grasp, even before Me? How…tempting. Alas, you are promised to another as you are now, but we shall seal our fates in your future. We shall bargain again once you return, there is no need to rush such hungers, I’ve found. Instead I will simply let you ask again then, if you still will. I give you both this as a free gift. 

Another smile from the old man. Another roar, closer this time though. And then black once more.

Its Rider Was Alive

“-thus!”

They groaned at the disruption. Sparks within the deep blackness. The abrasive sound reverberated. Another round of it against their ears, but the dragon’s mind at least was far, and it resisted the urge to comprehend the echo of the voice’s sound. Mir flew through nothing, yet stayed aloft. Peaceful, empty, free. His wings finally full; far, far away within his host for now.

“KARTHUS!”

The man’s body bolted up. Not their body this time, but just Karthus’s own. His eyes were wide as saucers, staring forward past the different campfire and unfamiliar treeline. His entire body seemed to shriek in pain at the sudden motion, and he moaned out a bit of its sound. He noticed the mind of the dragon far away from his corporeal misery. Lucky him. He’d worry about Mir later though; for now: pain.

“I’m…alive.” Karthus’s eyes turned in the barely lit night to see a familiar, but shadowed face. 

“You’re…alive.” He barely uttered the words, his mind still grasping at threads of reality in the moment. He tried to focus on Serana, but in the dark his eyes couldn’t make out her face properly. A cold then enveloped him tightly as chilled arms wrapped around his body. His sensory system panickedly tried to make sense of the sudden feeling as his eyes, refocusing, solved it for them. 

“I’m…”

“Stop trying to talk.” Serana insisted.

“I’m worried…”

“Worried about what!? I’m sorry. And I know you have to be sorry. We’re both alive , it’s alright!” She tried to reassure him, she exhaled slowly beside him. He could feel her lungs with the effort of it. The panicked exhales recalled his mind to the library and he froze, barely muttering the next sentence.

“...I’m worried you’re going to kill me after this, still.” Karthus managed to squeak out between her grip and his terror.

Serana stopped the fuss and immediately let go of him, his weight dropping him to the ground with an elicited ‘oomph’ that was satisfying to her.