A changeling's visit to Skyrim

The sun was hanging low on the horizon when they made it back to Whiterun, their legs incredibly tired from all the walking around. As they approached the city gates, a guard called out to them.

“Greeting court wizard.” he said to Stross “Didn’t expect to see you outside; you’re normally holed up in that study of yours.”

“Huh? Oh, right.” Stross suddenly remembered the form he was in. “I should probably change back.” he told Fenora as the entered the city. Changeling glamor spells took next to nothing to maintain once they were in place, but taking the form of your employer was never a very bright idea. Wait, were they even getting paid for this?

Fenora stopped him before he could disperse his illusion however “Not just yet.” she said giving him a devious smile “What do you say we play a little prank?”

Stross wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but he was inclined to follow her lead. Unless she wanted to do something dangerous at least.

Farenger was in his study up at Dragonsreach, currently glossing over a tomb brought to him by his associate in the field of dragon research. He believed it to be a copy of an older text, perhaps dating back to the first dragon war; the terminology used was all correct for that time period.

“Well?” the woman beside him asked “Are we getting anywhere with this? My employers are anxious to have some tangible answers.” she stated impatiently.

“Calm yourself.” he told her “We’re retrieving knowledge from hundreds of years ago; you can’t expect answers to just come walking in the door.”

At that moment, Fenora and Stross came walking in the door. Moving over to the table, Stross held out the dragonstone for Farengar to take. But when he reached out, he found none other than himself handing it to him.

“Wh- I- What?” he stumbled over his words, his brain attempting to make sense of what he was seeing. His duplicate just stood there smiling, before breaking out into laughter. Farengar just stood there baffled as Fenora joined in as well. Then a realization hit him.

“This is fantastic!” he exclaimed “You’re me, which means I finally have someone around who can appreciate my knowledge! You have no idea how painful it is to be surrounded by such morons all the time.”

“I resent that!” came a yell from the other room. Farengar paid no mind to it, and continued to ramble on about the possibilities.

“Umm, sorry to burst you’re bubble,” Stross stopped Farengar as he got into his speech about world domination “but I’m not actually you; this was meant to be more of a harmless prank. Sorry.” he apologized as he dropped his illusion, returning to his previous form.

“Oh” Farengar deflated “that’s unfortunate, I guess I’ll just have to wait until my army of clones is complete then. But what matters now is that you got the dragonstone.” he looked it over, his attitude quickly bouncing back.

“I’ll just need to overlay this with the other maps in order to find the ancient dragon burial sites. And decode this on the back.” he turned it over, revealing a few lines of text in the same pattern as the wall in Bleak falls barrow.

“Oh that?” Fenora spoke up “It says ‘here lie our fallen lords until power of Alduin revives.”

“Power of Alduin?” Farengar glanced at the tablet “Of course, Alduin was the leader of the dragons during the dragon wars. This marks the burial sites where his followers were buried; it was said in an old prophesy that when he returns, he’ll raise his followers and attempt to devour our world. That must be what it means!” Farengar’s mind raced as he put the pieces together.

“I must be off, give me a copy of that map when you finish it.” the woman said before quickly leaving the room.

“I’ll be sure to do that!” he called after her “As for the two of you, this is too big to be left alone.”

“So you’ll help us prove that Helgen really was destroyed by a dragon?”Fenora asked.

“Actually, that won’t be necessary anymore.”  he told them “You see, after you left, several refugees from Helgen came to Jarl Balgruuf claiming the same thing you did. Unable to refuse the plea for help from so many, he took action and tightened security across the hold; great right?”

Stross and Fenora felt their jaws hit the floor.

“So you’re telling us that all that dungeon delving we did was for nothing?” Fenora said, her eye twitching.

“Of course not! You retrieved the dragonstoe for me didn’t you?”

Before Fenora could beat the court wizard to a pulp while blaring profanities of how they could have died and how annoying she found him, Irileth came with urgent news.

“Farengar, the jarl needs us, a dragon has been spotted.”

They all quickly gathered in the war room. Jarl Balgruuf and his advisor Proventus were already there, along with a pair of guards.

“We’ve just got news that the dragon was spotted near the western watchtower.” Irileth told them “The guard who brought us this news was badly injured, and said that the tower had been destroyed when he last left.”

“Well I won’t just stand by while this menace burns my hold and slaughters my people.” Balgruuf pounded his fist on the table for emphasis “Irileth, prepare a squad, have them ready for battle.”

“My men are already at the gate as we speak.”

“Excellent, but remember, this isn’t a death or glory mission, we need to know what we’re up against.” he told her as though it were a bad habit of hers.

“You two,” he turned to Stross and Fenora, his features relaxing slightly “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you before, but we need your help more than ever now. I know it’s a lot to ask of anyone, but you were at Helgen, so you have the most experience dealing with dragons.”

“Yeah, if running away from them counts.”

“Right, you heard the Jarl,” Irileth got their attention “you’re with me. Let’s move it!”

“I’d like to come along as well; I value the chance to see an actual dragon.” Farengar chimed in.

“No,” Balgruuf told him “I can’t afford to lose you out there; I need you to continue your research so we’ll know how to defend ourselves.”

“Face it Farengar, that dragon would rip you apart if it got its claws on you.” Irileth told him before he could interject “But don’t worry, I’ll be back to tell you all about it once I have that dragon stuffed and mounted on a wall.”

Farengar sighed in defeat “Well, I guess it’s back to the books. I envy your chance to see an actual dragon.” he told Fenora and Stross.

“Wait wait wait.” Stross threw his hands in the air (and waved them like he just didn’t care) “Do we really have to fight a freaking dragon? Don’t we have a say in this?”

Though it was, in truth, a very reasonable question, everyone took a moment before responding.

“You’d be doing a great service to Whiterun?” Balgruuf offered.

“A chance for glory in battle!” said Irileth.

“I still need someone to visit the twenty-two dragon burial sites across Skyrim to document which ones are sealed and which ones aren’t.” Farengar told them.

…

“Come on Stross, we’ve got a dragon to fight.”

“Right behind you.”

Farengar watched as they left “One day you’ll have your army of clones.” he told himself "One day.”

At the main gate, a group of four soldiers had been assembled, though the only way you could tell them apart was by their different helmets.

“Alright men listen up; a dragon has been spotted!” Irileth called them to attention. “As soldiers of Whiterun, it’s our duty to stop it.”

Most of them muttered about how royally screwed they were, while a third pointed out that Irileth had said ‘duty’.

“Shape up men! This dragon threatens our families and homes; could you call yourselves soldiers if you did nothing to stop it? Could you call yourselves Nords?” Irileth paced before them “And think of this, the first dragon to be spotted in Skyrim since the end of the last age. We shall have the honor of slaying the beast, the triumph this day shall be ours!”

The soldiers cheered.

“What about what Jarl Balgruuf said about this ‘not being a death or glory mission’ and ‘finding out what we’re up against’?” Stross asked.

“Oh stop killing the morale.” Irileth said in an annoyed tone “Forward men, let’s kill us a dragon!”

When they spotted their destination the sun was beginning to set, sending its orange rays across the ground and illuminating the smoldering wreckage that was Whiterun’s western watchtower. The walls had been reduced to rubble, and the training area was in shambles. Even the main tower was barely standing.

Now just imagine how bad it was AFTER the dragon hit it. *rimshot*

Anyways, the group stopped at a hill, getting a spectacular view of the destruction.

“Well, I don’t see a dragon here now. But it sure looks like he’s been here.” Irileth examined the tower and skies from a distance “Alright, let’s move out. Check for survivors.”

“Hold up!” Stross stopped them “I need to run through a few things in case we run into that dragon down there.”

“Fine but make it quick.” Irileth said impatiently.

“I will.” Stross began “I’m not from around here, but if the dragons in Skyrim are anything like the ones in Equestria, we need to be smart about fighting them. Dragons are strong, breathe fire, have scales tougher than armor… and most of the time, they’ll be the biggest douche-bags you’ll ever meet. But they’re not invincible. If you have to fight a dragon, get it on the ground first; you won’t be able to do anything to it in the air. Once that’s done, don’t approach it head on, attack it from the sides and aim for the area on its torso just under its arms;” he pointed to his own armpits for reference “remember this, and we should all be fine.”

When they reached the watchtower, Irileth spotted a guard lying in the center of the wreckage. Quickly moving to him, she found he was alive.

“Ackbar, are you alright? The dragon, where did it go?”

He mumbled something illegible.

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

Ackbar grunted again.

“Didn’t quite catch that.”

He finally shoved her off him “You’re kneeling on my chest!” he shouted “Also it’s a trap.”

Sure enough, the dragon that had destroyed the watchtower landed on the ground with a thunderous crash. It spotted Irilith and roared in her face, covering her in saliva and chewed-up bits of steel.

“Halt!” a guard shouted as he ran up to the dragon’s maw “You’ve committed crimes against Skyrim and her people. What say you in your defense?”

The dragon squinted its eyes “What do I say?” its mouth seemed to curl into a smile at this. It’s eyes lit up as it spoke only three words “Yol…TOOR-SHUL!”

A torrent of fire was released from its gaping mouth, showering the guard in embers. As the guard screamed and frantically rolled on the ground, the dragon took to the sky and began to circle the area.

“Don’t just stand there, shoot it down!” Irileth ordered.

The soldiers drew their bows and began taking pot-shots at the dragon as it passed overhead. But between the streams of flame it shot along the ground and the sheer speed at which it flew, nearly all their shots missed, despite Irileth’s instructions to ‘make every arrow count’.

Eventually, the dragon grew tired of the air game and touched down once more.

“Okay!” Stross yelled “Remember what I told you; don’t face it head on, flank it from the sides and-

“Charge!” Irileth yelled as she drew her sword and ran headlong into battle.

“For Skyrim!”

“Fall to me dragon!”

“Never should have come here!”

“LEEEEROOOOOY JENKINS!” her guards shouted as they drew their weapons and joined her.

Stross could only watch as they completely disregarded his advice, and were pimp-slapped through the air by the dragon’s tail. (Mirmulnir used tail whip – it’s super effective)

“What are we going to do now?” Stross yelled as the dragon covered their hiding spot in another gout of flame. For the last ten minutes it had disregarded all the guards, and focused solely on them.

“I don’t know!” Fenora shouted as she fired another arrow only to have it bounce off the dragon’s scales like the last twenty. “Nothing works on this thing! How did they expect us to kill it in the first place?”

“We weren’t.” Stross reminded her “This was supposed to be recon, not search and destroy.”

Time seemed to slow as Stross thought hard about how to get out of their predicament.

“We can’t run; that dragon is way too fast. That also means I won’t be able to match it in the air, at least not with these wings.

“Teleporting away might work, but the fact that teleporting brought me all the way here last time- nope, not doing it.

“If we could ground it somehow we could get away or even kill the thing, but then there’s its fire breath. Unless some buckets of water magically appear we’ve got nothing we can use to stop it from cooking us alive.

“I doubt any magic I have will help us. I don’t have any combat magic beyond that fire spell, and dragons are fireproof!

“Grounding it and running is definitely the best option. But how?”

Then Stross saw the tower, and had an idea.

“Fen! I need a sword.”

“Here, take this one.” she tossed him an iron longsword. He caught it and collapsed under its weight.

“I can’t lift this!”

“Grow stronger!” Fenora encouraged.

“Don’t you have anything smaller?” he gave back the sword.

“I’ve got a pair of daggers, here.”

“Perfect, can you cover me while I run for that tower?” he pointed.

“No I can’t ‘cover you’. I can’t even hit the damn thing!”

“That’s not what I wanted to hear before I did this!” he shouted as he leapt from the shelter of the rock and dashed towards the ground entrance of the tower.

The dragon spotted him immediately and gave chase, diving straight for him with a stream of fire. Turning on his heel, Stross focused his magic and threw a small glowing orb. It stuck to the dragon’s left eye and promptly exploded into a blinding flash. Its vision suddenly obscured, the dragon veered off course and plowed into the ground, angrily pulling itself into the air again as Stross made it inside the tower.

Rapidly ascending the stairs, Stross made his way to the top of the tower. The dragon rose up to greet him as he peered over the edge. Stross jumped back, narrowly avoiding its fire-breath. Flying above him as Stross got to his feet, the dragon swooped down on him, talons raking across the stone as it did so. The changeling in its clutches, it flew higher into the air.

But then the dragon made the mistake of throwing him. Stross saw his chance, drawing his daggers he stabilized himself before rushing back towards the dragon at full speed. He was once again encased in a burning halo as he dove towards the dragon, slamming into it from above.

The dragon barely registered the impact, but that didn’t matter, because Stross’s targets all along were the dragon’s wings. Stabbing the daggers into the leathery membranes, he dragged the blades all the way through until the length of the wings had been slashed. Thrown off by the dragon’s flailing, he hovered there as he watched the beast fall to the earth dozens of feet below, breathing a spiral of fire the whole way.

Back on the ground, Fenora had just watched the most amazing thing she’d seen all day. Stross, that fiery little bug she’d met just that morning, had just brought down a freaking dragon. But after the dragon fell to the earth, it got back up again, more enraged than ever due to the loss of its wing.

As it indiscriminately breathed fire on everything around, Fenora saw her chance and drew the greatsword she had “acquired” from Bleak falls.

“This ends here!” she yelled as she charged at the dragon’s side.

They say that gravity and momentum are great allies when they’re on your side. Fenora learned this to be true today as she plunged the entire length of the sword into the dragon’s chest and out the other side.

The dragon howled in pain and flailed on the ground as the enchantment on the sword froze its insides while the blade cut through its flesh. Despite this movement Fenora kept her balance, working the blade back and forth and continually re-angling the blade for deeper wounds through the one hole in the steel-like scales.

Craning its neck to face the accursed mortal, the dragon attempted to incinerate her. Stross saw this, rejoining the battle he slammed down on the dragon’s head, hard, pinning it to the ground. In anger it shot off streams of flame anyway as Fenora pulled the sword from its side.

Joining Stross atop the beast’s head, Fenora took the sword into a reverse-grip. Stross grabbed onto the pommel and poured his magic into the blade, turning it white-hot. Then together, they drove the blade of freezing, molten steel into the dragon’s skull. Finally, the flying death machine lay dead; the heroes perched victoriously atop its corpse.

The two breathed heavily as they looked to each other.

“Nice job.” Fenora said, thinking of nothing better to say.

“You too, that got intense there.” Stross responded out of words himself.

Then they broke out laughing, leaning on each other for support as their lungs burned. But they didn’t care. They had just taken down an entire dragon practically by themselves. To both of them, it was nothing short of incredible. They got so caught up in the moment that neither of them noticed the dragon slowly releasing light like embers from a fire until it became a whirlwind around them. A form rose from the light, spreading its ethereal wings, and Mirmulnir’s soul floated there before them, its body like the night sky illuminated by the morning sun.

“Dovahkiin… impossible.” It spoke before dispersing into a shining, golden mist that rushed towards Fenora, absorbing into her being.

For several moments they just stood there, Irileth and the soldiers from before had emerged, limping from their hiding places to witness the events.

“Fenora?” Stross asked “Are you sure you’re not part changeling?”