Quest 1: Prologue
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim '10th Anniversary Edition'
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In A Time Before Time
Lorkhan lifted her against the limestone mottling of the giant bath. Water flowed and rose around them in perfumed scents. Crystalline with pristine silver-tapped faucets cascading foggy steam, clouding the circumference. Dibella tightened her legs around him as he entered her. She stretched her arm over his head, clutching his scalp, digging her fingernails into his short strands of hair.
Lorkhan slid an arm around her back aggressively and pressed into her. She cupped his neck, drawing a finger over the larynx. His chest pushed into hers as he deepened the expression, his facial hair chafing her chin.
"We're going to be late." Dibella shoved him off her. "If your wife, miss mother nature catches wind, you can say bye to this decent weather."
Lorkhan growled, grabbing a cloth-towel, but knew Dibella was right. Water dripped off his legs and arms like raindrops onto the painted flooring. — The bedroom was glowing with a pink haze that radiated from the rising sun outside the window. A hole in the sky that Magnus, god of magic and Dibella's former husband had left when he escaped Mundus, the mortal plane of existence. Their bed rested on a circular platform near some gold-encrusted shelves and a violin. - Rosy blush crept onto Dibella's cheeks when she noticed their clothes and the various bottles of aromatic oil scattered on the rug.
"The door was locked." The ends of his lips twitched upward. "Besides, who gives a shit. Not like anyone can do anything about us; I'm the most powerful god here."
"Your wife, man," Dibella's tone held a hint of ire. "You really out to piss her off that bad?"
"Shut your mouth, whore." Lorkhan roped his armor on, fastening a buckle over his waste. "You aren't meant to think, only serve."
"That's rich." She scratched the back of her head with her ring finger. She snapped the digits and was instantly clothed in a white dress.
"I said shut up whore!" Lorkhan yelled, eyes flashing red. He slapped her hard across the cheek, knocking her to the floor.
After he had his way with her once more, forcing her to redress, they departed. Sunlight-night polished through the halls of Idavoll, Lorkhan's divine palace on Nirn. Dibella, gaze cast to the ground, roved dejectedly behind him. Lorkhan's citadel in Skyrim or Mereth, the cold domain, held golden walls with high ceilings, hanging crystal chandeliers, red-velvet rugs draped on sandstone corridors alongside animate portraits, flower-filled vases among other decorations on the alcoves to the sides. The central dining chamber kept a large white table in the center with thrones lining the length on each wing. Light seamed in from the cosmos outside and a fine assortment of foods rested on the countertop. Soups and soufflés, baked bread and eggs.
Dibella and Lorkhan sat down along with the others present. Kynareth, Lorkhan's wife eyed him with a small frown from diagonally across the surface. Tsun Zenithar and Stendarr Stuhn, twin shield-thanes of Lorkhan were there as well with their mortal bedwarmers.
He cut into his eggs when Tsun spoke, "has Akatosh made any effort to break through the borders? Him and his army of elves have been relentless, but we've deterred them so far. Although, the Heartlands have suffered the most because of it."
A shadow grew from the corner of his cornea.
"No, that self-righteous elf sympathizer won't get in," Lorkhan assured him. "If only that bitch-wife of his, Mara hadn't escaped our prisons. She had quite the pair of breasts." He smirked, feeling a rush of blood surge towards his loins.
"This all started because you just had to rape her. Akatosh would've left you alone otherwise." Dibella took a long sip of red wine, emptying the glass.
"I'll deal with you later." Lorkhan clenched his jaw.
Tsun glanced upwards momentarily, ogling Dibella with an odd watery softness in his eye while Stendarr inspected his beard for any pieces of meat that might've tried to escape his mouth. "I suppose you're right, milord," conceded Tsun.
"I am always." Lorkhan downed a pint of ale, belching afterwards. He smashed it on the ground. "Another!"
"I gotta tell ya, you're an even bigger prick here than where I'm from," a vocalization electrified. Lorkhan glanced around but he couldn't find the source. The voice had sounded unreal, like it was projected through a filter of some sort.
What? He stroked his short-goatee but didn't say anything.
"Did you hear that?" Dibella asked.
"Talos," the same unfamiliar inflection taunted hauntingly. This time everyone's heads swiveled towards the gaunt stranger sitting beside her like a spider. The uninvited wraith arrogantly sat in the middle-throne, the biggest one, usually reserved for himself. Though Lorkhan preferred to not eat in it, as to not spill anything edible on it. Last thing he wanted was to drag the elven slaves from their pen to clean it.
"Who are you!?" Lorkhan rocketed from his seat, fingers curling into a ball.
"Just another mistake of yours, Talos." The hooded man crunched his neck, an audible crack resounding off him.
"Who in blazes is Talos?" Lorkhan raised a brow. "I am Lorkhan, god of men and this world."
The man or entity, whatever it was, removed its hood, showcasing an odd mask. The facial-covering bore two tusks protruding beneath where the mouth-line was placed. A bronzed-gold with eye-holes as well.
"It's good you're also mute in the future because your voice is annoying. Did you think you could rape, kill, and do whatever you wanted without repercussion?" The weird man replied calmly. "Do you like my mask by the way? It's called Konahrik; after me, now that I think about it."
"Did he say future?" Tsun's frons quilted into a temporary unibrow.
"Just what's this all about?" Lorkhan rammed his fist against the tabletop. His hand coiled like a snake around the fork on his plate.
"I'm going to kill you now." Konahrik began to glow, electrical surges crackled over his icy armor-plating.
A gasp sounded around the hall, several servants and lesser spirits dropped whatever they were holding. Lorkhan's heart stopped as the blinding white light enveloped his vision and the chamber combusted.
Rubble exploding everywhere, Lorkhan was cast back what felt like hundreds of feet, crashing into a ditch. He wiped the mud and ash from his mouth-beard, gazing up the pond full of stalks of wispy reeds and sugarcane. No. Idavoll was blown to smithereens, in its place a gargantuan ebony and purple, blood-stained Dragon elongated its spine towards the heavens, shrieking like a banshee. Its victory laugh felt like someone was rubbing a cheese grater over his spinal column. Broods of servants were swallowed when its head came down and dragged over the floor, as if it were a snake struggling to digest a fat rat. The image made Lorkhan's stomach churn, puce traveling up to his throat as the overgrown lizard choked down its meal.
Okay. Stop. Breathe, he told himself, closing his eyelash-devoid lids as the vomit slid back down his tubes. He in-took a long breath, focusing all his energy on healing himself. The storm clouds of Kynareth above threatened lightning as they greyed in the outlook. Smart woman. Mind racing, heart throbbing, Lorkhan fixed his attention onto the opponent; Konahrik mutilated his people. The Dragon pinned one down, singularly and individually ripping off each limb of one of his commanders, gore and innards painting the walls. Severed skulls rolled down the hillside, a river of crimson akin to a geyser sprinkling from the remains of his castle. The whole thing crumbling into itself. Konahrik continued to twist sinew by sinew, ligament by ligament, brick by brick. Everything was decimated, nothing spared by his enemy's rage. Its dark-brown eyes ripped through every defense, dripping in the sticky lifeblood of hundreds. Breathing thickly, hands held out, amongst all the dead bodies strewn around the death lizard. The scenery pictured before him: snowing cliffs, monumental mountains, whispering forests, colourful groves, luminescent rocks like jewels on waterfalls, gardens of flowers and rosebushes smelling strongly of fragrances. All that was ripped away from him.
What could I have possibly done to earn this?
Thunder announced lightning that struck the horned Dragon, blinding one of its eyes. Tsun assumed his bear form and thrust himself into the Evil One's ribcage. The dragon threw him like a javelin three field-lengths away before socking Kynareth, who had turned into a giant-wolf and leaped at him, into a pile of rocks. Stendarr cast the ground and grew into a flying blue-whale, snapping his maw at Konahrik. The whale clamped down over the Dragon's cranium.
Stendarr did it! He got him!
Something trembled under the roof of Stendarr's mouth… Engorging his brain, the evil dragon ripped through the whale's skull-lining, shaking him around like a giraffe on shrooms and discarded him onto a family that was trying to escape, crushing all of them, their bones crunching into the dirt. The Warlord screeched its horrible victory-roar into the sky and widened its wings as if marking its territory, jeering like a viper in the process. It knocked over the last remaining wall of the ruptured mansion and stomped on all fours, wings flaring, toward a hamlet where Lorkhan could see children tottering.
"Riil, dii uth, gekenlok daar himdah ko hin nah. Krii do Shor' joriin," Konahrik rasped as beasts conjured, formulating from seemingly nothing and enveloping Lorkhan's homeland into a hellscape. The monsters charged and fought with Lorkhan's soldiers, easily beating the men. Lorkhan aimed and ran as fast as his legs could carry him, springing up a bit when he saw Konahrik's maw crack open slightly. "YOL TOOR SHUL!" A whole contingent of Lorkhan's soldiers were fried to char under the Dovah's fire-breath, their blood becoming tar. Like ink, the ebony-droplets spattered the tundra as if the land itself was weeping.
The Dragon neared the children with every crunch, munch, and pound it made, no doubt going to envelop them in its hell flame. Lorkhan's hamstrings screamed as he rammed hard into Konahrik with everything he had, knocking the demon astray, swinging his fist and flinging a stack of charred bits into the air to fly back and blind the titan.
Taking his chance, Lorkhan transformed into his forty-foot serpent form and stood across from his nemesis as the children ran away to safety. "You sshalt die by my fangss!"
Konahrik recovered, shaking his head. They both got into battle stances, posing back. Eyes squared, violet and black gold. The two lunged. Lorkhan struck at him. I've got him, he's as good as dead.
Konahrik dodged, hissing venomously. Before Lorkhan noticed, the Dragon's claw-enclosed fist jammed into his windpipe, lifting him off the ground and flailing him into the dew. Lorkhan writhed, bleeding on the natural floor, shifting back into a Nordic man.
How? He said he was a mortal… how-how can an ordinary person possess enough power to defy a god? Sniffing himself, he smelt of sweat, blood, dirt, and piss. Come then, Konahrik, I welcome a challenge. What a fool you are. I'm a god, how can you kill a god? What a grand and intoxicating innocence, how could you be so naïve?
"Hin fen los sahlo, your will is weak, god of fools." The dragon's lips curved into a cruel, serpentine grin. "Every word that exits your mouth is as pathetic as your lie-filled legacy." Konahrik flapped his wings as dust clouds gathered. He took off, coming back down to swoop in majestic arcs, reigning down more fire upon Lorkhan's army and people. Killing thousands. Armed and unarmed alike. Innocent and guilty both. Adult and child. The dragon even transformed back into a man briefly to skewer an old man personally. The oddest bit was Konahrik's arm itself shifted to become a sword and back before he resumed his dov identity.
Lorkhan's body ached, laying miserably, but he picked himself up. He was the only one who could stand up to this devil and defend mankind. Lorkhan steadied a catapult, firing it into Konahrik's wing and causing the overgrown lizard to falter as he jumped onto its back, wrestling with his satanic horns to get a grip. They flew for a while, the Evil One diving into lakes and peaking over sharp mounts to attempt to shake Lorkhan off, but he didn't budge.
The gigantic ebon-surmounted dragon streaked through the sky, soldiers razing up like kindling when its hellfire blew down below on the fields and tundras of Skyrim. Lorkhan clutched the dragon's arching antlers, trying to steer it away from his leftover army. He grunted when its skin singed him on his palm.
He gripped the black titan under the jaw and wrenched up, to block the maw from spewing anymore death upon the Nords. Konahrik folded his wings in, descending quickly, making Lorkhan's stomach lurch. Crashed into the soil below, spattering rocks and dirt, sending Lorkhan flying twenty feet ahead into the woodworks and tenements of the housing arrangement. Or what was left of it. Lorkhan climbed through the torrent of burned building, shoving debris and rubble off him, watching the monster use its claws to stomp and skewer several Nords, burning hundreds more. Lorkhan gagged as Konahrik in a disturbingly human way stood, using his legs to smash the village war-chief into the rocks and then using the draconian talons to rip off the Nords' arms. Its tail swung a full circle, devastating houses of the war-torn village. More moulting lava shot from its mouth, engulfing a good quarter more of his men, try as they did to retaliate. Splinters of wood and chunks of rock scattering ceaselessly.
Is this retribution for Mara? For raping those women and killing those elven-children?
From where he was kneeling, the firedrake seemed a mountain, blackened lights dehydrated of melanin nestled in sunken eye-sockets.
"Talos," Konahrik gnarled.
Why does he keep calling me that?
Lorkhan laid back, cradling his bleeding chest with one hand, using the other to support his weight. The bodies of countless Nord soldiers sprinkled around him on the glistening white hills of Skyrim. The swirls made it look as if the sky had cracked open, water falling from Aetherius into the mountain lakes embedded in the peaks and glaciers of alps that dwarfed even the biggest tree.
Akatosh would never resort to genocide. This can't be one of his men.
"Sir," uttered a troop who had been battered and roasted under the tartar's flames. "Sir," she coughed, reaching her blackened sticklike arm out for Lorkhan.
"Serna, where are the rest of the civilians?" Lorkhan traced the woman's burns with his eyes, grimacing where it scarred her lower legs. He had had fun times with her, a shame it would not be so again.
"A... a Stranger came here earlier," the blonde grounded out in between gasps of pain, "he... he told them to leave. Made the soldiers stay. Said, something was coming. He was wearing some odd mask with- with horns. Killed a few of us and… and summoned all sorts of dark things when we refused. Shor, he… he murdered your wine-wives and the old man, Bjorne."
Lorkhan's gut twisted. Why the seer? Dibella, she didn't stay to fight… His insides felt uneasy when he pondered where or who his bed-wife might've fled too. Hopefully not Akatosh. Or worse, that devil dovah.
"His is the one they fear," she mumbled in pain. "When that devil came, he said awful things about you, my grace. He called you a womanizer and murderer."
Lorkhan enclosed the woman's thin-steel blade within his fingers, inserting it in the crook of her neck. He pierced the blade through her throat, a gush of blood gurgling out like soft jam. A painless mercy killing. - He covered his forehead to make out the form of Konahrik devouring a swathe more of men ahead of him. The dragon had four legs and a set of tattered, skeletal wings.
"Did Akatosh send you?" Lorkhan quaffed blood into his fist.
"I sent me," it said in a hollow demonic warble. "These are the consequences of your sins, Talos. Your pointless greed, insatiable lust, obsession with power and fame."
"Again, with that fucking name, Talos. I'm Lorkhan, also known as Shor. Hero-god of mankind," he clarified, groaning and getting up on his knees. "Your scales will make for decent armor, pathetic wyrm."
The Evil One propelled itself into the air, sending choking grime storms in every direction. Lorkhan's arms and legs expanded, conjoining, unraveling into a forty-foot violet serpent. Scales with jewel-edges. Lorkhan pounced after his adversary. Striking into the air. The new holes in Aetherius lit up the world in a vapor of color, magenta mixed with a pink-white aurora borealis. The colour sickened Lorkhan.
Who is this man? He dodged a fang as his body encircled the scales and stalagmite-like spikes that jut from the dov's torso. Where did he even come from? Is he an elf? Bloody pointy-eared demons.
Lorkhan tried to clamp Konahrik's alligator-like snout in between his expanded jaws. They spun around, dragon dive-bombing. Shaking loose of Lorkhan's grip. Konahrik moved in a sweeping arc and hailed fire upon Lorkhan, but it didn't faze him through the armoured scaling of his giant snake form. Lorkhan glided lower, over the burned buildings of the city. Whoever remained screaming as the Evil One's underside darkened the sky.
"Shoot the dragon!" Lorkhan's Shield-Thane, Tsun shouted, directing his infantry to attack Konahrik. He had made a comeback.
So, he made it out. There was no sign of his main wives though. I cannot beat this thing, but I can banish it to wherever it came from, Lorkhan decided.
Nords spread on the ground hardened their resolve, pulling on chainmail and steel helmets, cocking back the chains and bow-strings of catapults and ballistae respectively. Lorkhan threw himself at the Evil One before he could roast the soldiers, smashing him into the mountainside. Slabs of aged rock and sediment, peeled from erosion dusted off and into the waters. Konahrik the Evil One fell into the blackness of it all. Lorkhan followed quickly, submerging into the lake. The icy coolness slid over his skin and briefly tingled. There was a giant underwater tunnel system which Lorkhan slithered through, glowing purple tendrils dotting the walls. The dragon reared and abraded against him to get back through to the sky. Lorkhan entrapped him with his tail and body, squeezing hard as Konahrik shot them into the air.
Lorkhan mustered all his strength and mana together, blasting the dovah back to whence it came from, opening a portal and allowing it to be swallowed up by it. Konahrik grasped and with his last breath hissed into the void, cursing Skyrim, "I unleash hordes of monsters and evils onto your land. So, your people may always live-in fear behind walls!" Then he was gone.
Transforming back, snakeskin sliding to the pale structure of bones and various organs. He collapsed onto his knees, swaying from exhaustion and electrolyte dehydration.
It's over. Akatosh and the others will find me soon, then I'm dead. Lorkhan stared around at the sea of of people stitched together, their lives cut short and rendered meaningless by the dragon man. These were his people, the ones he'd fought tooth and nail for. Now gone.
Flames crept up his face. Whoever that was. I'll find it, some day. Until then, every elf will know its deserved pain in its stead.
He crawled and laid onto his back, the newborn sun eddying above him, disillusioning him. He breathed, head-spinning. Everyone gone. His chest swelled and expelled with the tempo of his breathing until sleep robbed him of any further thought or action.
Lorkhan's dreams were an endless whirlwind of what felt like spiritual warfare. The Evil One haunted them, threatening to destroy him. He saw the dragon's weirdly human fist come down and smash him into bits from above, prompting him to waken.
...
A small but smelly stream of sweat perspired from Lorkhan's temple, intermingling with the veins on his forehead, vague white outlines erupting across his vision. Lodes carrying vesicles of ichor and eyelids separating.
There they sat, in the council chambers of the Adamantine Tower. The other Aedra yawning, emaciated faces and baggy eyes.
Kynareth and Dibella, his now ex-wives, stood opposite him. They've betrayed me.
Dibella's mouth drew into a cold line. "How the tables have turned."
"Whore," bellyached Lorkhan lowly.
"Hypocrite." She blew steam out her nose. "Come up with something original for once. Everything you've done is a cheap imitation of something better."
Kynareth didn't say anything. That broke his heart.
The other gods, his siblings studied him, the glint of hatred and malice reflected in their stares. Dibella Y'ffre, the Maiden. Kynareth Tava, the Warrioress. Mara Nir, the Mother. Xarxes Arkay, the Reaper. Julianos Syrabane, the Wiseman. Lorkhan Shor, the Devil — but personally, he preferred Warrior. Aside from him, Tsun Zenithar, the Smith and his twin Stendarr Stuhn, the Apologist, his two loyal shield-thanes were chained up beside him, mouths bound.
Akatosh, the Father and Lord of the Divines, strode in and shut the doors. He didn't say anything. Instead, his brother's face was concerted inward.
"Kill me, and the Nords will forever demonize you. I am to them, a Messiah." Grinned Lorkhan. Inside he was reeling though, the wounds from his injuries seared.
The top of the tower was a plain, harrowing, stygian sight. A lockbox. A contraption of damnation.
"Lorkhan, many in Skyrim call you a hero. But a hero doesn't use his power to wage war, normalize marginalization, and execute innocents." Akatosh ran a hand through his long golden locks, shifting the position of the bow on his back. "You started this war! Plunged Mundus into chaos! And now we're going to put you down and restore the peace!" - "Give him his last rites."
"Okay," Lorkhan confessed. "But why the Dragon, Konahrik?"
Akatosh's brows jaunted upward. "The who-what?"
"Don't play stupid. I know you sent that fucking thing to kill me and my soldiers," Lorkhan growled. "Didn't think you, the holiest holy man of all to stoop so low."
"Verily, I didn't instruct anyone to kill your people. I am not like you," grunted Akatosh, who they called Auriel also. "Now, hold him down." Akatosh approached Lorkhan. "You really lied to us all, and now we're weaker because of it. You've trapped the mortals in this prison you call a world, slaughtered anyone who's not a human, and tempted those who aren't mannish enough."
Lorkhan's jaw clenched. "Who cares. These people will die. They're expendable. We're not. We can tug at the very fabrics of existence; learn things no one has learned. Reality is whatever we want it to be. Those fools owe us everything, brother!"
"You brought them into this world. You created suffering and 'expendable' people," Kynareth reprimanded him.
"Because you're so sinless." He spit at her feet. "What're you going to do to me anyway?"
Akatosh shifted through some scrolls on the desk and opened one up. He nodded at his wife.
Mara, the same woman he'd raped, stood up to him. "As we demote your soul to the nothingness you have earned, we send you eternal damnation. For you are the salt and earth of Nirn."
Lorkhan's rage twisted like the inferno of a furnace. "My people will never forget me! To them, I'm a hero. They'll always venerate me and abhor you, Akatosh. And their worship will provide me with the strength to return!"
"Just like your allies, your people will eventually learn the truth." Akatosh looked tired. "Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life; he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin."
"Did you rehearse that?" Lorkhan snorted, eyes roaming over Akatosh.
The dragon-god of time unsheathed his blade and skewered Lorkhan's heart onto it, ripping his body in two. Akatosh attached Lorkhan's heart to his bow and sent it spiraling over the horizon to the east. His soul excised and body thrown into the sky. His blood painted the grounds of the heartland before his heart landed in the centermost area of the eastern ash lands, Resdayn. Somewhere above a Zen Garden, a white fountain played, trickling interlinked tears.
A droplet of lifeblood escaped the slit, fissures from he knew not where. A memory of the devil they called Lorkhan. But how could this happen to someone like him; weren't strong, virile men like him considered heroic?
He calls himself Konahrik, and he's gonna end you, and everyone like you.
So it began, Serpent and Dragon entwined, an ouroboros, loop of endless conflict. Scales on scales, teeth embedding the others' skin, leaving traces of one on the other. The cyclicality and polarising reality that persisted through linear kalpas; from clueless cavemen with tall tales to medieval renaissances, industrial revolutions and wars with steam-powered innovations and giants to times with ignorant fools stooped in misplaced values and virtual distractions proceeded by a technological utopia with cyberware everywhere. Erupting in nuclear fallout, dark ages and the emergence of magic, a massive flooding and a world of never-ending ocean ruled by sapiential crustacean. Finally, a world full of angelic elves, magic intrinsic to its core, birthed from memory-retaining water and the infrastructure of worlds past. The Dragon wished to excise the Serpent, as the Serpent wished so to the Dragon.
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Pre-Story Notes:
This story is an AU, meaning it's not compliant to the canon lore or world of Elder Scrolls. This story is set in my own recreation of the Tes world where things evolved and happened differently. A version of the universe where the lore makes more sense and is simpler. Technology is different, some events are different, etc. This story is my version of the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, where Talos/Lorkhan is the main villain, not Alduin. To be honest, the only reason I can even call this 'Skyrim' is because it's set in Skyrim and involves the Dragonborn story, but in a whole new way. Skyrim is also different here in terms of environment, with different cities and political climate. A very high fantasy version of Skyrim. So basically, this is a hard reboot of Skyrim and a soft reboot of the entire Tes franchise. To make it easier to understand, just act like Skyrim never came out and the last game in the franchise was Oblivion. I took Skyrim and made it a blank canvas and filled it with my own ideas, locations, and stories. And lastly, this story is mostly set in 4E 22, not 4E 201. I won't be acknowledging any events not relevant to the story for simplicity's sake. And some events are changed, characters may look different and be in different time periods. I appreciate thoughts, advice, feedback, critique. This story has taken me three years to write because of OCD, it is entirely finished now and will be fully posted by 11.11.21. I started the original idea of a high fantasy Skyrim when I turned 18, and now I turn 21 soon as I post this first chapter. In those three years this story has morphed, changed, been restarted a lot. It was only through the grace of God and encouragement of friends, family, and fellow writers that it finally got completed. Last thing, this story is a mesh between the genres of Cyberpunk and Medieval Fantasy: a Cyberfantasy.
