Chapter Text
He notices that something is different before he can even open his eyes.
First; it feels like he’s moving. He very certainly remembers falling asleep on his couch for a nap, so this should not be the case.
Second; the air smells like dirt, trees, the musk of the wilderness. Since his apartment smells like dust and lemon air freshener, he can deduce that he is no longer in the place that he had fallen asleep.
Third; there is a repeated sound of hooves on cobblestone, which…? Does not bode particularly well, seeing as he hasn’t even seen an actual, living animal with hooves since those mountain goats at the zoo two years ago.
Dominic opens his eyes, and finds himself in a horse-drawn carriage.
And, strike… game over. He’s definitely not where he’s suppose to be. Looking around himself now, he mentally adds a note of urgency to the thought: He’s really nowhere near being where he should be.
This scene, though, is familiar. For a moment Dominic is unable to feel anything but absolute bewilderment. Then the god-awful headache of the century hits, and he lets out a quiet groan.
“Hey you,” the man sitting across from Dominic pipes up, as if on cue, because it is. “You’re finally—“
“Awake, yes, thank you Ralof,” Dominic grumbles. “And about ready to kick some Thalmor ass.”
The other three men in the cart with him appear a little startled at his claim, but both blondes give him knowing and sympathetic looks, though Ralof is also confused.
“How do you know my name?” The man asks, “I haven’t even introduced myself.”
This.
The wooden floorboards of the cart beneath them. The passing trees, and trotting horses and looming, brooding soldiers that surround them.
This is his stage.
The very thought soothes the rapid beat of his heart for just a moment. For a moment, he’s able to breathe easier.
Dominic feins a wounded expression, leaning back as if to take more room for himself to process this revelation.
“Ralof, you… you don’t know me?”
“I… no? I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
“Are you… are you serious?”
Uncertain, Ralof sends an uncomfortable look toward Ulfric, who in turn is leveling an intense stare at Dominic.
“I’m afraid so, friend.”
“Don’t call me that,” Dominic snaps, drawing upon his utter bewilderment of finding himself in this situation to begin with. “If you—If you don’t even remember who I am , don’t call me that.”
The nord carefully chooses not to speak to that, and Dominic lets himself get a good look at his surroundings.
Trees, trees and more trees. A path that is more dirt than cobblestone, overworn with years of use. There’s a deer up ahead of them, beyond the line of Roman-reminiscent soldiers upon their horses. It stares at them as their progression approaches, before darting off into the trees. Dominic, in a moment of hysteria, kind of wishes he could go with it. He’s not looking forward to laying his neck out on a chopping block covered in the blood of who knows how many corpses. Think of all the medieval diseases that dance along the pumping veins of these unwashed people.
What a strange thing to be worrying about right now.
“—this isn’t happening.”
God, Dominic wishes. He wants to be back in his apartment right now.
“Hey, what village are you from, horse thief?”
Dominic shakes his head slowly, tuning them out. He turns his head just enough to see that Ulfric is still staring at him with a heavy look made grim by the glare of his brows.
Dominic scoots over closer to the man, until their shoulders are almost touching, and ducks his head down.
“Just making sure,” he says under his breath, “but I’m assuming you don’t know who I am, either?”
Ulfric Stormcloak stays still and silent, staring endlessly, and for a long while Dominic thinks the man might just refuse to answer him altogether, which wouldn’t even be out of character for him, to be honest. But, after a minute or two passes, Dominic earnestly staring back at him and waiting, the leader of the Stormcloaks gives a slow shake of his head.
Dominic very carefully keeps his face blank, but tenses his shoulders up. He turns to look out past Lokir’s shoulder, at the trees that are steadily passing them by, and lets out a quiet huff.
“I’m not sure what to feel about that,” he says to himself, pitching his voice quiet and with some level of feeling. He quirks a mirthless grin, “Maybe... relieved?”
Loud enough, however, for Ulfric to hear it. Ralof glances over at him too, and Dominic fixes his expression into something a lost man would wear.
There’s a dip in the road a while later, and Dominic sees the gates of Helgen rise in the distance, getting closer with every minute of silence that passes by. The cart ride is longer than he remembers it’s suppose to be, but perhaps that is what’s more realistic. Or, he’s just woken up earlier that he was meant to. He isn’t sure.
He isn’t sure about any of this.
Horses off to the left, the Imperial General stares across the road at them as they’re carted by. Ulfric looks away from Dominic long enough for their eyes to meet, and there’s an almost anime-moment of lightning zapping across their connected glares. Laughter bubbles up Dominic’s throat, and he just barely presses it back down. Not quick enough, Ulfric’s gaze snaps back to him, and now Ralof and Lokir are staring, too.
Dominic shakes his head at all of them. He’s a little hysterical, he won’t lie to himself. There’s a feeling of panic biting constantly at the very edge of his senses.
He bows his head and brings up his bound hands to press against his aching cranium.
“I-I don’t remember how I got here,” he mutters, perhaps a bit too loudly, and another weak laugh spills out of his mouth.
There’s a whack at the back of one of his shoulders, and he sits up to find a soldier leaning over from his horse, eyes narrowed. Dominic blinks, and there are white letters floating brightly in the air above the man’s head. That’s a… very video-game like feature, for the otherwise very real world he found himself in.
“Shut up,” the soldier mutters, and Dominic stares at him for a moment, before leveling an acidic glare back.
“Don’t you fucking dare tell me what to do, Tyson Amaranthe,” he spits out, and the soldier rears back with a look of surprise.
Dominic scoffs. “Let me guess, you don’t know who I am.”
There’s a moment of hesitation, before Tyson the soldier wordlessly shakes his head. Dominic throws his bound hands—did he mention that they’re bound? It’s very uncomfortable—into the air and gives a stressed sound from behind clenched teeth.
“Of course .” He says.
He glares at the wooden floorboards of the cart and doesn’t look up again until they’ve arrived at their destination.
The chopping block.
The child asking his father what was going on made something sick squirm around in Dominic’s stomach, and for a moment he tries to firmly ignore it, before he finds out he just can’t, and looks up with a look of nauseated dread upon his face.
“I… I don’t…” he looks back at the house the kid had been herded into, and then up at the sky. Already there’s the sound of very distant thunder echoing across an otherwise completely clear blue sky. Dominic knows it isn’t thunder.
Nobody else does, and they won’t until it’s far too late.
He sucks in a breath, and lets it out again too quickly. He squeezes his eyes shut and gives his head a little shake. A mistake, because it just causes his raging headache to step it up a couple notches. He wants to clutch at it, but his hands are bound —he lets out a half frustrated, half fearful groan.
A hand lands on his shoulder. “Easy,” is murmured into his ear, and he’s hauled to his feet.
He opens his eyes as Tyson the soldier, with an odd, unnamable expression under his helmet, gives him a push toward the open end of the cart. Everyone else has already climbed down. He feels the other men staring up at him, and Dominic takes another breath and just barely doesn’t stumble on his way down.
Did Haming the kid survive the destruction of Helgen? He doesn’t remember. He’d never followed Hadvar, always Ralof. Did Haming’s father? Dominic… doesn’t believe so.
Dammit .
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
With hysteria bubbling up his throat again, Dominic looks up at Hadvar as his name is requested, and huffs a laugh.
“I can’t… believe this,” he says, and then, “I’m Dominic . Dominic Moriah. But, you don’t remember that either, do you, Hadvar?”
Ralof jerks away, just slightly, like he’s been slapped. He manages to stay in line, be he’s throwing a searching look over his shoulder at Dominic now, just shy of completely bewildered.
Hadvar is demanding answers, asking him what he means. The captain lady who dies very quickly in the prologue is looking increasingly irritated, and Ulfric is still staring at him with gleaming eyes and an unreadable expression on his face. Maybe it’s the gags fault.
Dominic doesn’t know what he even wants to do, here. But, it’s best to keep his options open, right?
Maybe he’ll die.
He might just fucking die .
“He’s not on the list, Captain,” Hadvar finally says, when it’s clear Dominic isn’t going to answer.
“Forget the list,” the bitch says, Dominic has always hated her. He glances up, and the words Denisa Hardolf float above her head. “He goes straight to the block.”
Hadvar pauses.
“But—“
“Straight to the block,” Hardolf commands, and Hadvar looks a little bit uncertain, a little bit sick.
“By your orders, Captain,” he says, and then turns to Dominic—
“Do not tell me that you’re sorry,” Dominic tells him, quietly, firmly, and Hadvar swallows. “Do not.”
“Go and stand next to Ral—that one, the blond one,” the imperial says instead, and Dominic thinks it’s telling how he can’t manage to get Ralof’s name out.
He takes a step back and, under Tyson’s escort, goes to stand next to Ralof. Next to Ulfric. Who still stares. Dominic very consciously doesn’t look back at the man.
Doesn’t he have other things to worry about? Ah look, there’s Tullius, perhaps—yes. Ulfric has a new subject to glower menacingly at. Dominic’s shoulders relax just slightly, now that those eyes aren’t drilling into him.
“Ulfric Stormcloak,” Tullius begins, and Ulfric’s eyes narrow. “Some here in Helgen call you a hero. But a hero doesn’t use a power like the Voice to murder his king and ursurp his throne.”
Ulfric growls, making an aborted movement to lunge forward. The surrounding imperial soldiers raise their weapons, but the man’s muscles just spasm and he stays in place.
Tullius’ face remains stoic, but he looks hateful. “You started this war—“
Dominic goes ramrod straight.
“—flung Skyrim into chaos. And now, the Empire is going to put you down and restore the peace.”
He can’t help himself. He scoffs, loudly. “Are you fucking kidding me.”
The town center goes quiet. At his shoulder, sword drawn, Dominic can hear Tyson the soldier swallow.
Hardolf bristles. “How dare —“ but Tullius holds up a hand to quiet her.
The general doesn’t move for a long moment, but eventually he turns to pin Dominic with a hard stare.
“What was that, prisoner?”
Dominic considers him for a moment, considers his situation, but—fuck it.
“My name is Dominic, Tullius, you know that—ah,” he stops, and then gives a despairing chuckle. Ralof, Tyson, and Hadvar all shift uneasily. “...Nevermind.”
“No, continue,” Tullius’ stare is boring a hole into him. The man’s face is even more unreadable than Ulfric’s was, but that’s okay. Dominic knows how to read people. Tullius is insulted but inquisitive—that’s good. Now, if only—
“Do you honestly believe Ulfric started the war?” Dominic asks. “Because he didn’t.”
There’s a mad chuckle. A few voices call out, enraged—Dominic ignores them, and so does the general. Tullius is almost amused.
“Obviously you were not there to see, but that man is a kingslayer, a murderer—“
“Well, yes,” Dominic says simply, and Tullius frowns. “I’m not saying he isn’t a jackass—he is.”
Tullius’ lips quirk up at that. From behind him, Dominic can hear the insulted muffled curses Ulfric is spitting at him. Serves the dick right, honestly.
“But killing Torygg—that didn’t start the war. This war’s been brewing since long before that, and you’re trying to tell me that none of you have figured it out yet?”
“Figure out what,” Tullius’ voice is dark, and promises pain. He’s no longer amused.
“This civil war is just the fallout of the war before it—The Great War? You know, the one against the Aldmeri Dominion? That war?”
“That war is over ,” Tullius says crossly.
Dominic rolls his eyes. “Oh, sure , with the White-Good Concordant, right? The peace treaty both sides signed to end the war, when both sides were down and weary— Let me tell you something for a moment, General. Both sides of the war were run ragged, that’s true, but at the time the Empire had the high ground. We all know that. Those elves knew that, too. And we all know the treaty was signed because everyone was tired of war , yes? Can I ask you something, General?”
Tullius leans forward, sneer across his face. “Your time is running short, for however long you planned to stall—“
“Tullius,” Dominic says, voice carrying a commanding note that makes the General and surrounding soldiers go stiff (dear old dad had been a marine, a sergeant, too. Dominic’s been on the receiving end of the boot camp instructor voice enough time to pick up a nuance or two). Looks like soldiers are still soldiers despite the world they come from.
He levels his voice out again. “Tullius, how do you defeat an enemy that is greater than you, outnumbers you?”
Tullius’ lips press together. “How does that have anything to do w—“
Dominic leans forward, dark smile stretches across his face. “You divide and conquer.”
Captain Denisa Harolf is scowling. There’s a sound of metal against metal and Dominic suddenly has a sword pointed at his throat. Tullius doesn’t move to stop her. “What in the name of all the divines are you talking ab—“
“The Dominion was never looking for peace with the White-Good Concordant, and they certainly aren’t now,” Dominic shrugs, careful of the blade point at his skin. “Why fight a losing battle when you can lull your enemy into a false sense of security, establish embassies within its borders to fill with your own forces, and word a treatise that gives you a level of control of the situation? And then, you just keep taking .”
The floor is his now. He has the attention of everyone from Tullius to Ulfric to the damn Priestess standing behind the headsman, who has yet to pick up his axe. Dominic keeps one anxious eye on the sky above, wondering how much time he has left. Surely… he’s pretty sure it should be up by now. He’s been a little long winded. Where is that dragon?
“The Thalmor are our allies,” the captain says.
Dominic gives her a searching look. For all her bravado, the woman doesn’t look nearly as convinced as she’s trying to sound.
“The Concordat was some pretty murky waters, Hardolf,” he intones gravely, watching her jerk back, lowering the sword just slightly without meaning to. “It’s full of fanciful wording and polite prose, but at the end of the day, what it really does is give a foreign power the right to send their own agents into our territory, and summarily execute our own citizens for following our own damn religion.”
Silence. And then the sky rumbles.
Dominic’s heart picks up speed. And he sways. An arm stretched out to steady him, and he looks back. Tyson. Dominic still isn’t sure what’s going through the guy’s mind, his face his difficult to read with the beard in the way.
Tullius is clean shaven, however, and he is positively contemplative.
“There were extenuating circumstances, peace relied heavily on compromise, else the treaty wouldn’t get the time of day from either nation.” The general tells him.
“Right,” Dominic scoffs. “The enemy you’re at war with comes up to you under a flag of truce to bring you a treaty they wrote, promising an end to hostilities, but only if you let them come into your borders and kill your citizens for worshipping any god that they don’t agree with.”
Tullius’ jaw works. He’s grinding his teeth.
Dominic takes a moment to appreciate how hard all these people’s brains are working in this town today. Clearly they don’t normally get this sort of exercise. He can almost see the stream coming from all their ears.
“Now, of course, when your right to worship your own gods is legally revoked from you, you get upset over that. It’s understandable.” Dominic shrugs. “We were getting by easily enough in the beginning, reporting about the lack of Talos to the Dominion even as our statues of him stood tall—what could they do? Their hands were full of the rebellion of Hammerfell and they were still rebuilding their forces after the finale of the Great War. Things came to a head, however, when someone finally pressed the issue.”
Dominic turns to pin Ulfric with a disapproving glare. The man rears back, looking offended even with the gag, and the feathers of the stormcloaks standing bound beside him are obviously ruffled. Dominic shakes his head at them.
“From what I understand, the Jarl of Markarth promised you freedom of worship should you rid the hold of the Forsworn—underneath the Concordant, he didn’t have the power to promise anyone anything of the sort. Of course, the Dominion would double down on him for even thinking of it, and they did, didn't they? By that time, they’d rebuilt their forces to the point where the Jarl of Markarth relented to their demands. I’m sure that upset you, Ulfric. Perhaps enough to go through with campaigning a rebellion, yes?”
Ulfric spits out something, but the gag makes it unintelligible. The man growls in frustration. Dominic watches him for a moment, and then shrugs. “A rebellion? Against the promise of the concordat? That, of course, gave the Thalmor the right to exercise their given permission to purge Talos worship. And they did. They are. Everything to bring the Talos situation to head, going just as planned, I imagine.”
He turns to raise an eyebrow at Hardolf, who looks like she’d just ate a lemon. “Of course, now we have a civil war on our hands; one side is a rebellion sapping resources from an already war torn empire—an empire which, by obligation of its recent peace treaty, must expend even further resources to combat this rebellion. Furthermore, Skyrim is in a unique position in said empire. It connects three separate territories under the empire together. Should it manage to secede, the Empire is effectively shattered . The only standing military in the world that is strong enough to stand up to the might of the Dominion, broken irreparably.”
“What are you getting at here,” Tullius says, and his voice is weak—he’s thinking, and he’s coming to the exact realizations that Dominic wants him to. Dominic brings his shoulders up a bit, just under his ears, and holds them there, tense. He ducks his head low and gives it a slow shake from side to side.
“Is it not frighteningly obvious, my friend? Like I said, the Aldmeri Dominion may have brought forth the Concordant, but they never intended to bring peace with it. And now we, Skyrim, in our naïveté and self-centered obliviousness, have walked right into their hands, playing to their tune like we are puppets on a string.”
People are looking around at each other, some with wide eyes, others with heavy frowns. A few glare down at the dirt beneath their feet. The sky rumbles ominously overhead as these people consider his words, and Dominic is once again struck by the wonder that Tullius is still letting him speak. People don’t tend to like it when you try and change their opinion and perspective with facts. Dominic’s learned that the hard way, back home, over and over again.
But nobody stops him.
“So yes, Ulfric killed our high king, and he certainly should experience the consequences of that crime, but,” Dominic’s shoulders drop, and he brings his hands up to press the rope against the throbbing spot at the side of his head. “I… I’m sorry. I am just so confused about why we are fighting family …. When the true enemy is so clearly obvious.”
There isn’t anyone who speaks, for a long moment. Ralof is looking between Ulfric and Hadvar with a flummoxed look on his face, and Hadvar is staring down at the ground like he thinks it’ll give him all the answers. Tullius has his fists clenched, knuckles white. He’s breathing steadily, deeply, controlled, but he looks absolutely pissed.
The sky rumble again, louder this time, and Dominic can just barely make out the voice of a dragon in it. Hadvar’s hears snaps up, eyeing the sky with suspicious and unease, and Dominic ignores the light touch at his elbow and falls to his knees.
Time’s up.
“What’s that noise ?” Hadvar presses out, stressed and upset. The revelations Dominic just served don’t seem to pair well with the ominous ‘thunder’ and Hadvar looks to be at his wit’s end.
“It’s thunder,” Hardolf grumbles, and stalks forward a step to strike her sword out at Dominic—his binds.
The ropes slice clean in half and fall to the ground, and he rubs at his wrist faintly certain they shouldn’t have cut that easily. Then he gives a mental shrug—must be the video game mechanics.
“It’s not,” he mutters, vision blurring for a second. He says it with a note of urgent wonder, as if he’s just realizing it.
Tyson helps him to his feet—apparently Tullius has given the word. The sky rumbles again, and Dominic gives a hysterical laugh.
“What?” Hadvar asks.
“It’s not thunder,” Dominic says, and that’s when Alduin himself comes falling out of the sky and into the overhead tower with an almighty roar.
Dominic sucks in a sharp breath, before heaving himself to his feet. He uses Tyson’s grip on his elbow as leverage, and shoves the man back behind him, taking a few stumbling steps forward even as the rest of the people present are scrambling backwards with terrified screams and crying curses.
“Tullius,” he shouts, “Hadvar, Ralof—Ulfric. Have your people get everyone out.”
He doesn’t get an answer, and he looks over his shoulder to find them staring at him from several hundred feet away, gaping incredulously as they watch him stumble forward toward Alduin.
“ Now !” He demands. “Don’t use the gates! Hadvar, is there any alternative—“
There’s a rumble from above his head, like thunder but laughing , and Dominic knows he’s out of time.
He spins around and lifts a hand out as if to hail the mighty beast above them. But what comes out of his mouth isn’t something anyone else but the dragon can understand.
“ Het , Alduin!,” he calls, as loud as he dares, just loud enough to be heard over the screams, in the tongue of dragons. Dominic is a language geek, and the internet was a wonderful place full of knowledge and learning opportunities that he’s going to sorely miss. “Great dragon, eater of worlds! I greet you!”
The dragon’s huge head — it’s… so much bigger than the game had ever made it seem to be—tilts down at him. The size of the dragon completely eclipses the tower it’s sitting upon, the shadow of his bulk casting darkness across the entirety of Helgen. It’s like looking at a great predator hawk perching upon the smallest strand of hay. Dominic isn’t sure how the stone and mortar is able to support the great thing’s weight. Even as he watches, stones crumble continuously as if they were merely water running off the edge of a cliff-side.
Standing tall, wings spread as if to show off his monstrous size to which they are merely ants in comparison, the dragon blocks out the sky from his sight. This, Dominic thinks, this is what comes to mind when someone says the words World Eater . Not that copy-and-pasted dragon sprite with extra horns the game had passed off as such. No, that… pales in comparison to this. It’s so hysterically inept, he almost wants to laugh .
Dominic’s breath is coming in clipped, harsh pants. He’s terrified. He’s never been so scared in his life. He’s not sure what he’s doing here. What’s he doing ?
“I- I know of your plans to destroy this place— May I humbly make a request, if it pleases you?” He asks, in shaky Dovahzhul.
The king of all Skyrim’s dragons leans forward, off the crumbling lookout tower he’s using as a perch. He angles his great head downward, so that he can eye Dominic up and down like a lion would a flea, and he snorts.
Despite being two hundred feet away, the breath from the dragon’s nostrils blasts Dominic with heat and ruffles his hair, and forces him back a step. He kind of wants to cry. He doesn’t know what he’s doing but—
A glance over his shoulder. Hadvar and Haming’s father are lifting the young boy into the doors of the keep, all three of them throwing looks toward Dominic and the dragon with harried, wild eyes as they move hastily to disappear into the levels below. There are Imperial soldiers and Stormcloaks running all over the town, ushering the citizens out of their homes and all of them racing in the direction of the keep, just barely managing to not look like headless chickens. Everyone is remaining eerily silent in their stark terror.
“Who are you, to presume to know me, and speak my name? A joor ?”
Alduin’s voice is deep, dark. It feels like the decibels of it rise up from the very depths of the ground under Dominic’s feet, as if echoing throughout the multitude of caves systems that Dominic knows lie beneath the land before coalescing together and hammering at his ear drums. His hearing is ringing oddly.
“Perhaps,” Dominic replies, out of breath. “But you feel familiar to me, great dragon. Like I should know you. Who am I to question that?”
Another huff of humid, heated breath makes Dominic’s eyes dry. He blinks rapidly. A play, this is just a… play.
“Regardless of forces at work that you do not understand,” the dragon rumbles, “how dare you think to stall me from my prey? I shall just devour you as well, mal gein .”
“But why ?” Dominic pleads. “If you mean to consume the world as you are intended to, why kill these humans before then? Can you not graciously allow them to live until the end of times? I know now with your arrival here that our time left on this earth is short-lived, but must you end us before our doom even arrives? My lord, I’m only asking for clarity—what is your intended point in this?”
A hissing sound emanates from the coal black scales. Dominic squints—the obsidian things are shifting ever so slightly, not unlike the feathers of a bird might. He jerks his gaze back up to the dragon’s face, and has to swallow down bile at the cold look of amusement in the monster’s eye.
“This is to be an example,” Alduin tells him, settling down on his haunches like a cat would, just before it pounces. “A heralding call, and a warning of what is to come. An announcement of my arrival, and the imminent demise of you lesser beings.”
Dominic takes a breath. “I understand, great dragon. However, would it not be wiser to allow us to leave? You will destroy their home regardless, that I know… is that not enough? For them to disperse across the land and bring first-hand accounts of your great destruction and immovable might to the rest of us?”
“Hmmm,” Alduin squints does at him, head lowering even further as if to peer at his smaller form more closely. And then, the dragon rears his head back and—for a terrifying, heart stopping moment, Dominic is truly convinced he’s about to be eaten, right then and there.
But instead, the World Eater only laughs. The rumbling, belly-deep sound rolls over every surface of the town and bounces off the hills of the valley around them. Dominic feels it reverberate in his very core, and can’t help but tremble.
“Why should I, mal gein ?” The dragon asks, obviously entertained. He leans in even further and suddenly he’s much too close for Dominic’s poor heart to bear. “Tell me a reason why I should bend to your inane request. Convince me.”
Dominic stares up at him. The inky blank of the beasts snout is a hairbreath away from his face. He can’t stop shaking, and he doesn’t even think he’s breathing anymore.
His hand lifts without his permission, and he touches fingers to the scales. They’re smooth, warm beneath his skin. They twitch, pulsate, like something alive—because it is, he realizes. This dragon is real, alive and—
Absolutely completely capable of using his skeleton as a toothpick.
“I said you were familiar to me, great one,” he tries to say it louder, but his voice is weak, almost to the point of not working. “You feel as I feel, deep inside myself, only stronger. Much stronger. A hundred thousand times more than just the small spark that flounders confusedly in my chest—my soul. I’ve…” He trails off, sounding dazed.
Damn. He sure hopes he’s the dragonborn and this isn’t some weird alternate universe type of thing going on.
He’s going to die. What is he doing? He’s going to die .
No, no, no, he can do this. He was top of his class in theater. He can do this. Shakespeare, Hamlet, MacBeth, the Iliad shorts—
Special effects never had a live, breathing dragon the size of a skyscraper, though.
No, he can—
“I’ve never had that side of myself feel so... awake, before,” he finishes, and swallows.
The eye blinks at him. It’s perhaps five times the size of the doors to the keep. A thin, transparent film slides across the gleaming, intelligent orb, before the scaled lid shutters closed, and then opens again.
Dominic can’t read Alduin’s face—it’s too inhuman, too big, too draconian. He can’t decipher the minute shifts in the musculature. Do the brow ridges raise with surprise and puzzlement, as with humans, or does it mean something else entirely? He isn’t sure, and it makes him uneasy. He’s not used to not being able to read someone.
Dragon, or no.
Alduin snorts underneath Dominic’s hand, flames licking out but not reaching beyond the beast’s teeth. One of the smaller teeth is as big as Dominic’s entire body. His muscles all tense, he wants so badly to jump away and maybe even scream, but he locks down on himself, and only gives a violent spasmodic twitch. His hand feels like it might be going numb.
“ Dovahkiin ,” Alduin breaths into his face. It’s like standing in a desert. Dominic is sweating profusely. “Yesss, I can smell it on you now, the dragon's soul that lies within your small, breakable, mortal husk. What makes you think this will convince me, mal gein ?”
Dominic tips himself forward and presses his forehead to the scales. They’re so warm, they’re searing, they almost burn. He feels like he can curl up and go to sleep and finally get some actual rest of the like he hasn’t experienced for years.
“Whyever you wish to do your given duty now, be it out of spite and malice or honor, I care not, great lord. I simply beg that you stay your fire from our lives this day, and I’ll not willingly stand against you should we meet again—as it is surely not my place.”
“A grave thing for one such as you to promise to that which I am,” Alduin growls, “and how am I to know if you would keep your word?”
“I’d sooner die by my own hand than break a promise,” Dominic says haltingly. His voice cracks at the end in a sob, his fear and distress shining through at last despite his attempts to bury it. “And a promise to you, of all beings? Should you take retribution against me, great one, could I even stop you?”
The scales pressed against his head pulse with heat, and Dominic’s entire skull throbs painfully. He pushes himself up with a quiet whimper and finds himself stumbling a few steps back, only able to stare up at a creature that, on a whim, could end him then and there.
“Please, lord,” he says, prays really. He’s not sure if he’s asking Alduin or a god that he isn’t even sure is there anymore. “I know it is not my place to ask, but I find that I must.”
“I will bathe all who I find in fire,” Alduin tells him severely. Dominic cringes in on himself, and that giant snout presses forward to shove him back a few steps. The scales that come into contact with his chest burn like molten stones straight out of a smelting oven. He cries out, cutting himself off harshly before a curse can slip free.
“I see that all the rest of your joor have retreated back into their flimsy stone den. If you are cunning enough to lead them to freedom outside my gaze... then I will spare them this day. But their home is mine, and will perish.”
“You are most gracious, Alduin.” Dominic breathes, unable to believe his luck. What is the catch?
“Hm, yesss,” Alduin flowers at him, eyes glimmering. The amusement there is faded, replaced by something else that Dominic is unable to name, something more serious. “Their lives are returned to them for now, should you succeed.”
He presses in again, and smooth hot scales collide almost gently with Dominic’s chest. He swallows down the hysterical noise that wants to tear out of his throat. The body heat of a dragon is nearly overwhelming.
“You, however, dovahkiin …” The ground shakes with Alduin’s rumbling laughter, tremors climbing up Dominic’s legs and settling in his hands. He clenches them into fists, but they still shake.
“You are mine , live or die.”
“Yes,” Dominic whispers back, voice weak and his entire being full of a sick kind of horror, but what else can he do but agree? “Yes, great dragon.”
The scales—each one nearly as big as Dominic himself—pressed to his chest pulse once more, before Dominic finds himself being shoved back roughly.
“Leave, now.” Alduin commands, straightening up to tower once again over the town and the valley beyond it. “It will be decided next that I lay my eye on you, if your fate is to end in fire.”
Dominic shakily climbs to his feet from where he’d landed breathlessly in the dirt, and turns. He looks over his shoulder at the glittering eye that stares down at him with something indescribable in its depths, and bows his head.
Pivoting entirely, he jogs over to the entrance of the keep, and pushes the doors in. They open, the entrance hall is completely empty. Dominic takes a moment, ignoring the garbles and jumbled thoughts of the beginnings of a panic attack that rip at his mind, and tries to remember the route to the tunnels that lead out into the valley.
Helgen is standing around him, for now, daylight still peeking in through the still functional windows of the keep. Dominic pauses for a moment at the landing of the stone stairs that lead downwards to catch his breath, and marvels at the strange circumstance his actions have led to, to not have him running like a frightened mouse through brimstone and fiery death.
Yet.
He stumbles forward and makes his way down into the keep.
