Dovahkiin, In Do Laas Ahrk Dinok, Kriid Do Keyye Ahrk Jul, Gein Rahgol Kaaz

And so, cat and pony ventured forth on a journey of magic and education, the much, much older Khajiit taking Twilight under her metaphorical wing as if the filly were her own daughter.

Not that she’d ever admit it.

And lo, the time passed quickly, days turning to weeks, weeks to months, months to years. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. This is the story of one day in particular. A mere week after Jo’hira took Twilight as her charge when Celestia could not, the young filly and the young-looking Khajiit sat in one of Canterlot’s many parks, enjoying the breeze and the sun.

Twilight looked up from her history tome as a sudden question struck her mind. “Jojo?” she asked, her nickname for the Khajiit spilling from her mouth. Jo’hira looked up from her own text, this one a treatise on ancient Dwarf Pony Law.

“Yes, little one?”

Twilight blushed and pawed nervously at the parchment of her tome, “W-well, it’s just that… this book mentions you quite a lot, and it goes back to right after Nightmare Moon… so… I was just wondering… how old are you?”

Jo’hira blinked twice, then chuckled heartily, “Ohoho~! The filly has the sense to ask the right questions after all! Come, Twilight, and let me tell you a story.”

Twilight complied, sitting down in Jo’hira’s lap as the Khajiit swapped into a set of comfortable clothing. “Truth be told, Twilight, I’m old. Older than even I know. I was around for the Griffon Wars, I helped beat back the scourge of Tombstone and his draugr-ponies, I even managed to do a little bit of work in the dragon negotiations.”

Twilight stared up at her secondary mentor with awe in her eyes. She had no idea that her strange looking bodyguard was so… prolific.

Jo’hira continued, “My story goes back to a time… a time and a place, long, long ago and far… far away. All the way to a place called Tamriel… and a land, long forgotten by now, known as Skyrim….”

Thousands of years ago, subjective time…

Jo’hira, then known as Joanna Hiraga, woke up to a strange rocking motion and a splitting pain in her skull. As her mind drifted to full wakefulness, a strange calm settled over her as flashes of memory not her own flickered through her mind.

As the existence known as Joanna Hiraga took a back seat in her own mind, the body of Jo’hira woke up fully, and Joanna watched, relying on her other memories to keep from arousing suspicion. Said memories told her that she was a thief and a fire mage, one who was caught trying to cross the border on a stolen horse.

Jo’hira sighed to herself as the cart stopped, still tuning out the words of the Stormcloak soldiers with her.

“Jojo? What’s a Stormcloak?”

“Half of a civil war, Twilight. Now hush and let me tell my story.”

“Okay.”

Jo’hira sighed as she stepped up to the headsman’s block, waiting for the exact moment that Alduin would appear and screw Helgen over. She felt nothing but a deep resignation, her human memories slowly bubbling to the surface once again through the haze of her Khajiit life. A boot to the spine pushed her to her knees, her head resting uncomfortably on the stone block as blood stained into her fur.

She counted through the seconds as the headsman raised his axe.

Five. The headsman drew back.

Four. The priestess droned on about her last rites.

Three. The captain shouted a few orders, though Jo’hira tuned them out.

Two. A distant roar shook the background. Jo’hira smirked and tensed her muscles in preparation.

One. Alduin slammed into a guard tower and unleashed his meteor shout.

Zero. Amidst the confusion, Jo’hira sprung away, clawing lightly at her bonds as she dodged and jinked through the falling hail of meteors. The rope stayed intact as she cursed, picking her way through the flaming rubble. As she came upon a dead guardsman, she blinked twice and rubbed her eyes. Then she did so again, until she finally came to the conclusion that the floating crosshair marked ‘Search Imperial Guard’ was not a hallucination.

Jo’hira’s head snapped back as a whole new set of information clicked into place, revealing hundreds of thousands of tiny gestures and motions that would allow her to act as if she were merely playing a game, rather than falling prey to real world physics.

Her eyes and nostrils flared open as she swiped the air in front of her, time seemingly stopping as a menu popped up in front of her, bearing all the items that the dead guard had carried… including undergarments. With a disgusted and slightly confused sigh, Jo’hira took everything from the guard, idly noting that each item of clothing and armor automatically resized to fit her body, just as it did in-game. As she equipped the looted armor and weapons, she cut her bonds on her new sword, taking off a moment later towards the now visible quest marker at the top of her field of view.

“Jojo?”

“Yes, Twilight?”

“What was your life like before you woke up on that cart?”

“Well….-”

Fire. Fire everywhere. Joanna screamed as a falling piece of metal impaled her through her leg and pinned her to the floor. All around her, people screamed and died, flames bursting through the air from the cackling, robed figure floating not twenty feet away.

The air was sweltering and Joanna desperately wished for someone, anyone, to save her.

And with a quiet pop of displaced air, her wish was granted, a shadowy form stepping from a swirling portal and dispelling flames wherever it went, bringing an unearthly chill to the air.

Joanna shivered, desperately gasping for clean air. The figure stopped in front of her, seemingly not paying attention to her grasping fingers.

“Merchant!” the figure called out, shaking the earth with its strange double tones, “I got a bone to pick with your wimpy ass!”

Joanna stilled and desperately hoped to not be noticed. Unfortunately, the shadowy figure’s opening move was to rip the support strut from her leg and launch it at the still cackling figure– Merchant?

Joanna couldn’t help but scream, drawing both figures’ attention to her. The shadow at her side reacted first, picking her up and filling her with an ice cold feeling, not painful, but rather comforting, like a nice patch of shade on a hot day. After carefully examining her for what seemed to be an eternity, the shadowy thing nodded, patted her on the head, and tossed her behind him and into a portal.

The last thing Joanna saw was the shadowy figure chokeslamming the Merchant into the ground, streamers of shadow flying everywhere. She passed out to the scent of chocolate ice cream and ozone, a faint smile on her lips as her body changed to suit her costume.

“-.... it wasn’t exactly the most exciting thing I’ve ever done, kiddo.”

“Awwwww! But I wanna knooow!”

“Hush. I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

“Okay…”

“Now, where was I?”

“You were finishing something called… uhhh… uhhhmmm… the Eye of Magnus?”

“Has time passed that quickly?” Jo’hira looked up at the setting sun. “Huh.”

She shook her head and gathered her thoughts, “Well… it happened like this…”

The College of Winterhold. Eye of Magnus Questline. All other Quests completed (Mostly).

Jo’hira strode into the central chamber of the Hall of the Elements, clutching the Staff of Magnus in one hand and a Legendary Blades’ Sword gripped in the other.

“Alright Ancano. Your bullshit ends now!” She levelled the sword at him, ready to kill him as soon as he made a single false move.

“My bullshit? Please, with the Eye of Magnus, none may harm me! So run along, cat, and I might decide to spare your miserable life. Perhaps I may even allow you to become my… slave.” Ancano leered at Jo’hira, her armor doing little to conceal her rather voluptuous figure.

Jo’hira snarled and charged forward, ignoring Tolfdir’s warnings and lashing out at Ancano with as much fury as she could muster. Ancano stepped back from the force of the blow, robes shredding where the blade contacted, but otherwise was completely unharmed.

Jo’hira roared and lashed out with the Staff, causing the floating orb in the center of the room to shut for but a few moments. She took the opportunity and charged forward with a Whirlwind Sprint, passing by Ancano with her blade pointed out and forward, lopping off his head before he even had time to blink.

Ancano’s head fell to the ground with a soft whump, his body following soon after. Jo’hira sighed and shouldered her blade and leaned against the staff. “Finally… finally done with this goddamn thing.” She muttered, idly searching and looting Ancano’s corpse before dragging it into the courtyard and burning it.

She strode back inside the Hall, lowering her head and muttering a prayer for Savos Aren’s long dead body and soul, and went to address Tolfdir. As she entered, she heard Tolfdir conversing with someone else, someone she recognized. Quaranir, the Mage of the Psijic Order.

Strangely, the both of them wore identical looks of panic on their faces, most likely stemming from the fact that the Eye of Magnus was pulsing ominously. Then, all hell broke loose, Magical Anomalies spilling forth from the Eye and attacking all three occupants, driving Jo’hira towards Tolfdir and Quaranir, until she stood right behind them, a straight line between the two older mages and the door. The Eye pulsed faster, an orb of energy slowly surrounding it and growing.

“Oh this is so not good.” Jo’hira muttered, steeling herself for her probably most idiotic act to date, even beyond going to Sovngarde to kill Alduin. With a mighty roar of “FUS RO DAH!”, she blasted Tolfdir and Quaranir out the door of the Hall, just as the Eye of Magnus reached critical levels and detonated, washing out her view into a blaze of bluish white.

Then everything went dark.

“And when I woke up, I was lying in the Castle of the Two Sisters with a giant hole above my head and a very confused Celestia looking at me.” Jo’hira chuckled at the memory, Celestia’s face still bringing her the giggles even a thousand years later.

Twilight stared at her bodyguard, enraptured. “So what did you do after that?”

Jo’hira shrugged. “I ran off into the forest for a few years, got to know the land and such. Also, I dealt with a bunch of new things, but that’s a story for another day. C’mon munchkin. It’s getting late.”

Indeed, the sun had already set, and the lanterns in the park had been lit nearly half an hour ago. Jo’hira gathered the lavender filly and her books, placing Twilight on her head and stuffing her books and doll into her inventory, before walking off, right back to Canterlot Castle.