Work Text:
The journey to Skyrim was long and arduous, and he only wishes he didn’t have to come here in the dead of winter where it seems the only things that grow here are the mounds of ice.
Tenya finally reaches the docks at Windhelm on a dinghy with papers from Solstheim forged by an Elven wizard who once lived there.
He’s a long way from Cyrodiil.
It would have been easier to dock in Solitude, to avoid the cruel frozen sea altogether, but Tenya’s arrival was meant to be kept a secret from the empire, and there is no place in Skyrim more far removed from it than Windhelm.
He’d worried that coming here disguised as a merchant wouldn’t be enough, but after word of another traveler from being here spread, whatever that meant, most of the dock workers kept their distance as if the name itself was cursed.
From what he knows, the only things unfavorable about Solstheim are the dust and ash spawn.
Tenya mutters a small incantation to expel the sea spray from his clothes before carrying on from the docks. Snow falls constantly from the sky here, blanketing everything already gray and dreary in a heavy coat of white, and he’s not sure that even the rumored cloudless skies above Solitude could withstand a Skyrim winter. It’s almost cruel how cold it is here. He isn’t sure his constitution is built for it, but an Iida never complains about their circumstances, especially when there’s a job to do.
And he does have a job to do, more important than his life.
The Windhelm guards don’t seem to mind him as he slips in through one of the outer gates, and he keeps his head down even as some of the occupants from one district heckle their neighbors in the other. He hates it. It goes against everything he believes in, but time is of the essence, and he was not sent here for justice.
An orphan shivers in the cold on the outer ring of the city, one foot in the Grey Quarter and one foot in the Stone. Tenya gives her thirty gold pieces in exchange for one of her flowers, and his heart aches a little that he can’t do more, find her somewhere warm to stay, but he cannot help her. He cannot help any of these people, not even he doesn’t move faster.
Their comfort won’t matter if the world is swallowed.
Rumors of the dragons’ return to Skyrim quickly spread throughout the empire. The first story of course was the eradication of Helgen, where Tenya is headed to now.
He can still remember the names of every Imperial soldier lost there posted at the center of the capital for everyone who might have known them to grieve and for the rest of the citizens to pay their respects, but most of them, as far as he’s aware, were Nords protecting their homeland from any threats to the empire. They wouldn’t have had family so far from home.
No, the lives lost at Helgen were of Skyrim, this cold and hardened land, and Tenya will mourn alongside them quietly as he travels south to the birthplace of this coming apocalypse.
He was sent from the comfort of his library here to study the dragons as beings that are not beings that were, bring back their bones, and if he can, locate an elder scroll or two.
From what he knows, the Mage’s College here is merely a shadow of what it once was, and he was warned that in turn, the people of Skyrim don’t trust mages.
The Greybeards know more than anyone else when it comes to dragons and all their secrets, considering they were the ones who taught Ulfric Stormcloak how to shout, but he was warned that an inexperienced traveler can’t reach High Hrothgar without a guide, and even if he found one, they wouldn’t let him through the doors.
He’s on his own here, but he’s been instructed to find as much information as he can—starting with the ruins of Helgen—and send back messages to his Order, and then maybe somehow someone will find out how to stop the dragons from destroying the world.
Tenya pushes his way through the front gates of Windhelm, and the first thing he sees is solid white, almost completely obscuring the bridge before him.
He minds his steps as he crosses, reminding himself that there is no finer stonework in the empire than in Skyrim, and once his feet touch solid earth again, he makes his way towards the stables to purchase a horse.
He buys a sturdy looking brown and white mare from a man called Ulundil for a thousand gold, just barely leaving him with enough for food and housing, but there’s no way he could possibly walk the distance to his destination on foot.
Tenya greets his horse and gives her a sharp bow, only startling her slightly, before telling her that her service will not only greatly benefit the empire, but all of Tamriel beyond, and then he apologizes for taking her away from the comfort of her stables.
They take the road south towards Kynesgrove, following the directions scrawled out onto Tenya’s map while making sure to keep an eye out for any Imperial or Stormcloak camps along the way, tasked with avoiding both sides while he’s here in Skyrim.
It will be a long ride, but he will not let the unforgiving Skyrim cold or the unfamiliar gait of his horse break his spirit.
He’s come here for dragons. What could be more exciting than that? Especially for a mage who spent most of his life poring over thousands and thousands of scrolls and tomes dedicated to them, along with his studies of the different trees of magic.
It has all come to this, this journey from the comfort of his Order’s library and training halls to the road from Windhelm to Helgen for any possible clue to the dragon’s origin, how to defeat them, and most importantly, how they could have returned after so many years.
And even with his wit, determination, and confidence as an Iida mage, he doesn’t know if any of those questions can be answered, not by him or by anyone else.
If only he could find one clue.
Smoke rises above the trees in the horizon, and Tenya slows his horse, looking out at every direction to make sure he didn’t stumble upon a battleground or a bandits’ camp.
The shouts that follow sound like screams.
He kicks his heels, and his horse gallops down the road towards the smoke, and Tenya sees a scattered group of people running away from a burning village while several guards in Windhelm and Stormcloak tabards run towards up the hill with their weapons drawn.
“Dragon! Dragon!”
Tenya’s eyes widen, and he leaps off of his horse, stumbling to the ground with a scuffle that tears his trousers. A dragon? It can’t be.
He leaves his horse on the road, not wasting any time tying her down, especially if she too would need to run to safety, and he runs towards the hill just behind the guards.
"No, you don't want to go up there! A dragon! It’s attacking!"
A woman stops him, eyes wild with fear, and Tenya doesn’t have a chance to mutter a calming spell. Calming her could get her killed anyway.
“Where,” he asks, already out of breath, his lungs tight from the cold.
"It flew over the town and landed on the old dragon burial mound,” she says, gripping his cloak. “I don't know what it's doing, but I'm not waiting around to find out!"
“Go,” he nods. “Run!”
Tenya runs up the hill towards the dragon, ignoring all the cries and warnings, the burning buildings, and the screaming voice inside his head that curses him for running towards a beast that could char him to bits and swallow him whole all at once.
A dragon. Here. In Kynesgrove.
He hasn’t been in Skyrim for more than an hour.
An ear piercing cry echoes out, and he stops, boots sliding in the dirt and snow at the edge of a large stone circle, and he looks up to see a humongous black dragon swooping above, breathing a cone of fire out that catches one of the guards. The scream as he burns will haunt Tenya’s dreams, but not nearly as much as the dragon’s voice that follows will.
“Sahloknir, ziil gro dovah ulse. Slen Tiid Vo.”
The dragon’s voice thunders out in a language Tenya doesn’t understand, and the guards fire their arrows at it from either side, a mixture of hold patrol from Windhelm and Stormcloak soldiers, while a single fighter in a steel, leather, and fur armor stands at the edge of the stone circle, body poised for a fight.
The ground quakes beneath their feet, shaking them all off kilter, and most of the arrows miss. Tenya stumbles back, and the stone circle shatters, and against everything he ever read about or imagined, the skeletal form of a dragon climbs out from the ground below.
The second dragon lets out a powerful roar as its body restores to flesh and life before their eyes before it looks up at the black dragon and speaks.
"Alduin, thuri,” the second dragon calls out. “Boaan tiid vokriiha suleyksejun kruziik?
"Geh, Sahloknir, kaali mir,” the black dragon says before flapping its wings and turning towards the lone fighter. “Ful, losei Dovahkiin? Zu'u koraav nid nol dov do hi. You do not even know our tongue, do you? Such arrogance to dare take for yourself the name of Dovah. Sahloknir, krii daar joorre!”
The black dragon flaps its wings, sending a powerful gust of wind over the scattered pieces of stone and knocking everyone there back three steps, and then just like that it’s gone, sparing this single village from Helgen’s fate.
But there is still a second dragon.
Two dragons.
In less than an hour of stepping foot in Skyrim, Tenya has seen two living, breathing, speaking dragons with his own two eyes, and if he plans to tell his Order this, he will have to survive this very moment.
He will have to survive an encounter with a dragon.
The second dragon flaps its wings and takes to the skies, and the first arrow strikes its underbelly. It lets out an angry screech and turns towards the guard that shot it, who now shakily tries to notch another arrow.
It rears its head, and Tenya braces himself to watch a man get burned alive.
“Sahloknir!”
A woman’s voice cries out, and Tenya jerks his head in time to see the lone fighter reach down and grab a piece of stone before throwing it with all her might towards the dragon, catching its tail with the edge.
In that moment, the guard is spared, and he steadies his bow enough to release another arrow towards the dragon's throat.
Yes, they must fight this.
All of them.
Tenya’s fingers tingle with magic. He’s only ever sparred with the other mages of his Order, and he’s never fought for his life, but it’s not just him he has to look out for. These people, these few guards and this lone fighter, he has to fight for them too.
The dragon swoops towards her, and Tenya’s first bolt flies out, a sloppy cast, he knows, that barely grazes one of its wings, but it’s enough to make the dragon lose its target.
The frost bolt launched at it slows the dragon on one side, causing it to tilt and crash into the ground, and Tenya readies his second spell, lightning meant to hurt.
The fighter grabs her axe and swings, carving into the dragon’s shoulder, and it screeches just in time to block Tenya’s get back!, but luckily she still hears him in time to jump away from Tenya’s charged bolt.
Lightning crackles throughout the dragon’s form as it jerks in pain, and three more arrows stick into its hide.
At this rate they are going to be chipping away at this being for hours.
The fighter swings again, and as the dragon raises its head, Tenya has the thought to throw a ward in front of her, absorbing most of the breath and burning through most of his magicka along with it.
He can’t go on like this.
Another guard shouts for its attention, and the strategy forms. Keep it on the ground, avoid its mouth and tail, and damage when you can.
Tenya reaches down and grabs a piece of broken stone and tosses it towards its ear, catching the dragon in the eye and blinding it partially before it attacks the guard, and then he reaches into his pack and downs a potion before chucking that bottle at it too.
Three more casts.
Three more charged casts, and he’ll either take the dragon down, or he’ll be left with just his fists.
The fire in his hands comes naturally, a spell he never loved using because it felt wrong to throw something so dangerous at a living person, but he doesn’t see himself having another choice here.
He holds it until his palms blister, and he can feel the magicka briefly restored by the potion draining out again, and he unleashes it right for the dragon’s belly, charring its underside with a loud, thunderous explosion that nearly takes one of the nearby guards out with it.
The dragon angrily slings its head around towards him, and the force knocks the helmet off the fighter’s head, revealing her thick brown hair just cropped at her shoulders.
“Again!,” she shouts. “Aim for his throat!”
Tenya nods quickly and charges another blast, and this time as he readies it, the dragon looks right at him, both of them knowing that whoever strikes first will be the other’s demise.
This time he readies a swell of ice until it feels like his fingers are all frostbitten, his arms trembling from pain and power as he gives it all he’s got, and the moment the dragon opens its mouth, Tenya releases the spiraling orb of ice towards it’s teeth, stopping the fire breath before it can come out.
Ice and frost spread out over its tongue and fangs, swallowing up both fire and sound, and as the dragon shakes its head from side to side, the fighter digs one of her daggers into its hide and pulls herself up onto its back.
He wants to help, wants to aid her, but he’s out of magicka and potions, and therefore completely out of distractions.
“Hold your arrows!” Tenya shouts, and he sees the woman climb up to its neck, sling her axe around its throat, and carve.
He knew the people of Skyrim could fight, but he never imagined one willingly butchering a dragon like a boar.
Blood spews from the cut, but the dragon still lives.
It throws her off its back, and she skids across the ground into the grass, and Tenya runs to her, tossing her one of the health potions he picked up in Windhelm.
“Thanks,” she coughs out before drinking it, and the scrapes on her cheeks clear away to two pink bubbles.
“I’m so sorry to ask you this, miss, but do you happen to have any spare–?” Sahloknir’s roar bellows out, and Tenya scrambles to finish. “Magicka?”
“Sure,” she says, tossing her pack at him before getting up and running back towards her dropped axe. “Take what you need to kill this thing!”
“Right,” he says, digging through the bag. “Okay.”
His fingers pass over four cheese wheels, seven sweet rolls, one iron cauldron, a suspicious white beacon he doesn’t think he should touch, a dragon priest’s mask?, two scrolls of invisibility, seventeen iron daggers with various low level enchantments, and at the bottom he spots all of her potions.
He locates two greater magicka potions and swallows them, body trembling as the homemade brew courses through his veins, and although he thinks he might be able to see into the spirit realm now, he can at least cast again.
The dragon can’t seem to breathe its fire anymore, and Tenya sees as it fights on the ground, gnashing its teeth at the fighter who chops back with her axe.
He’s never seen anyone so fearless before, but there she is, battling a dragon face to face and swinging like her life depends on it.
On one side the guards and soldiers fire their arrows, some running up and slashing at its wings and legs, and on the other, Tenya fires off blast after blast from each hand, balls of red and blue barreling towards it.
And with a shout louder than he’s ever heard, he sees the fighter raise her axe and bring it down, burying it between the dragon’s eyes.
The dragon rears its head back with a cry, and Iida holds his last spell as it teeters in the air just for a moment before collapsing on its side with a loud thud.
It’s done.
The life leaves its body with that final blow, and just as she retrieves her axe from its hide, a strange light pours out from the cut right towards her.
He freezes in awe as some kind of magic leaves the dragon and enters her, and against everything he’s ever read in his books, the dragon wilts, its returned flesh from its resurrection disappearing once again as all of its life, its soul is given to her.
Consumed by her.
And then it stops.
The fighter stands before a pile of bones, just as still as Tenya is.
She turns to him with wide eyes, and he shakes his head at her that he doesn’t know.
He doesn’t know.
What kind of magic could this be?
This wasn’t in his books. He never studied this.
A Stormcloak soldier runs towards her, his armor covered in his own blood and partially burned, but he is alive. It seems they all are.
"I can't believe it,” he says. “You're dragonborn!”
“Dragonborn,” she echoes. “What do you mean?”
Tenya approaches, out of breath and too curious not to find out more. Yes, the word dragonborn has appeared in some of his texts as a part of Nord folklore, but it isn’t found in any other histories across Tamriel. The existence of a human with dragon blood was all but dismissed by his order. “Yes, what do you mean?”
"In the very oldest tales back when there still were dragons in Skyrim, the dragonborn would slay dragons and steal their power,” the soldier says before turning towards the warrior. “That's what you did, isn't it? Absorbed that dragon's power?"
“I don’t know,” she shakes her head. “I don’t know what happened to me, I’ve never done that before.”
“Have you ever slain a dragon before?” Tenya asks, and she turns to him with a frown.
“No,” she says. “The only other dragon I’ve ever seen was the one at Helgen. The one who was here before. Alduin.”
“You were at Helgen,” he says with wide eyes. “We were told there were no survivors.”
The warrior takes a breath and nods. “There weren’t. At least I don’t think there were. A soldier and I escaped through the caves underground. We ran. I don’t know anything else. He told me to meet him at Riverwood, but I went to Falkreath.”
A soldier.
She doesn’t specify any more than that, so Tenya wonders if it was one of the Imperials stationed at Helgen and not a Stormcloak.
It’s good someone survived that awful attack either way.
“You must be,” the Stormcloak soldier says. “There's only one way to find out. Try to shout, that would prove it. According to the old legends only the dragonborn can shout without training the way the dragons do.”
“Shout,” she asks, unsure.
“Like Ulfric Stormcloak,” he says, and she glances at Tenya.
“There’s no reason you shouldn’t try,” he says.
“Am I supposed to just shout out? Like a scream?”
“I think it has to be the dragon language to work,” Tenya says and looks at the soldier, who is clearly the expert here. “Isn’t that right?”
“Sounds right to me,” he says.
“I don’t know any dragon words,” she says. “I’m sorry, I’m just a regular mercenary making a delivery to the mines. You’ve got the wrong girl.”
“Wait,” Tenya says. “The dragons. Earlier. They spoke to you.”
“Yes,” she blinks. “Alduin called me a fake dragon, and then told Sahloknir to kill us.”
Tenya and the soldier both blink at her.
“You heard him,” she says, eyeing them both.
“I heard a strange language,” Tenya says. “I didn’t hear that.”
“That’s the dragon language,” the soldier nods. “We didn’t hear none of that.”
“Try it,” Tenya says. “Say something that feels like that.”
She nods and flexes her hands as if to ready herself like she’s performing on stage in front of a crowd of people and not here with one curious scholar and the soldier whose life she saved.
“You can look at me if it’s strange,” he says. “I take all dragon business very seriously.”
She nods again, and smiles slightly before taking a deep breath.
“Fus!”
Tenya doesn’t have a chance to blink before he’s thrust backwards, off his feet and into the air a good three paces before he lands on his back in the dirt, skidding slightly and tearing his cloak more on the broken stones.
“Oh Talos, I’m so sorry!”
He groans in pain as the snow flutters down towards him almost mockingly, and the warrior rushes over, dropping down on her knees at his side.
“Are you okay?! Oh, Divines, I didn’t know it would do that! You flew so far!”
He groans again and nods, wishing his dignity could have held on at least for one night in this country. “What’s your name, warrior?”
“Ochako.”
“Ochako,” he says. “I think you might be this dragonborn.”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I just opened my mouth, and that’s what came out. I had no idea, believe me, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he groans as he finally sits up. “It’s quite alright.”
The soldier rushes over next to them and pulls out a small health potion to share with Tenya. “That was shouting, what you just did. Must be. You really are dragonborn then.”
Ochako looks up and frowns. “What do I do now?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “I’m just a soldier.”
She looks at Tenya, her brow furrowed with worry.
“I think we’ll have to find someone who knows more about dragons,” he says.
A loud crack of thunder strikes out, causing both Ochako and the soldier to lose their balance. Tenya grabs her arms to keep her upright, and the soldier catches his own footing just as the collective of voices booms out from the mountains.
"Dovahkiin!”
“What did it say,” Tenya asks as all of their heads jerk around for the source.
“Dragonborn,” she says. “They called for the dragonborn.”
“I think we have to find them,” he says, nodding.
“We?” Ochako asks, surprised.
“Ochako, if I may call you that,” he says. “I will not begin to presume that you can’t handle yourself in any situation, because I just watched you chop a dragon to death, but in any case, I just came a very long way to learn about dragons, and if traveling with you will get me the answers I’ve come for, then yes, I mean we.”
“I’m, umm,” she says, lowering her head and her voice to a whisper. “Wanted in three holds.”
“I do not have any qualms about traveling with criminals,” he says and lowers his voice as well. “Or anyone who sided with the Empire.”
Ochako’s eyes widen, big and round and quite beautiful even while ringed in soot and dirt.
His chest tightens in a way he’s never experienced before, which must be the adrenaline.
“I would be honored if you would allow me to accompany you,” he says.
“I don’t know where I’m going,” she says.
“No one asked me, but it sounds like the big scary voice cloud boom came from the top of High Hrothgar,” the soldier says. “Well, if you two are alright, I best join the rest of my men in putting out the fires.”
“We’ll help,” Ochako says.
“Yes, we will,” Tenya says. “And then we’ll go to High Hrothgar.”
Ochako nods in agreement, and the soldier nods once at them both.
“I’ll take my leave then.”
Ochako pushes herself up to her feet and helps Tenya up to his. “I won’t go without helping these people first.”
“I understand,” he says. “Dragonborn.”
Her cheeks dust slightly as she turns away with a smile, and she walks back towards the downward slope of the hill. Tenya grabs both of their packs off the ground and slings them over his shoulder before following, stopping only to grab one of the dragon bones for research.
It’s already cold to the touch like it was never alive at all.
He can see now his time in Skyrim will be far more adventurous than he ever expected. He will have to send word about this back immediately.
Although, for now, he might wait to tell anyone in his Order about Ochako. He still has too much to learn about her and too many questions he still doesn’t know how to ask yet.
“How did you earn your bounties,” he calls out and sees her whole body flinch before she continues to walk on like she didn’t hear him.
He smiles to himself and nods.
There will be plenty of time to speak on the road.
Tenya walks to the base of the hill and sees the buckets of river water being passed up by the remaining villagers, and he grabs one as well, tossing it towards a small burning building outside of the entrance to the mine.
They will lose one day like this, but in trade, they will have done something good for these people, and for that, Tenya will be closer to the truth of the dragons than any mage in his Order ever has been.
And no other mage but he will ever be so lucky as to fight next to Ochako.
A true warrior of Skyrim and the dragonborn of legend.
The Dovahkiin.
And she’s terrible at alchemy.