Lily
I was thankful that I’d had the foresight to have both of our gear enchanted with temperature regulating magic as we arrived near the entrance to Bleak Falls Barrow because the snowy mountain would likely have been quite cold otherwise. Maybe not as much as Ilum but certainly more than I’d have liked it to be.
“Why are we even doing this? That wizard guy said it’s just a map of dragon graves, right?” Missy asked shortly after we began walking towards the ruin I remembered so well. Based off of what I could see so far, this Skyrim was certainly a lot larger than that of my memories so the dungeon was probably different, too, but I still felt somewhat nostalgic approaching this specific ruin.
“And Alduin is returning dead dragons to life.” I informed my twin. “They don’t know that yet but the one who told Farengar about the Dragonstone definitely knows that dragons can’t permanently die unless a dragonborn ate their soul afterwards.”
“So they literally can’t win without a dragonborn?” Missy sounded horrified and I sighed as I realized where her mind had wandered.
“Yes but we’re already here to help them with that. Stop blaming yourself for a simple mistake. You couldn’t have known where or when you’d end up.” I admonished her, hoping that it’d do something for her despite knowing the guilt would still eat away at her until she felt like she’d made up for her mistake.
And I could hardly have hidden that information. Not without eliminating every source of that information despite people likely researching dragons a whole lot more now than when they’d all but faded into myth. Not to mention the fact that Alduin might just resurrect a dragon in front of us at some point, unlikely though that was.
No, it was better to tell Missy now than to have her risk learning it in a situation in which her life would be at risk.
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one who almost doomed an entire world. And that mess in Star Wars is still going on.” Missy muttered, sounding annoyed.
“But I am here to help you deal with that.” I reminded her calmly. It was hard to get angry when I knew her emotions to mostly be guilt and determination with little else mixed in. That did not, however, mean that I appreciated her ungratefulness. I was just willing to look past it for both that reason as well as the fact that I was getting something out of it myself.
Before Missy could reply, however, I held up a hand to stop her. “There’s people up there. We can discuss this further in the ruins if you really want to.” They were almost certainly bandits but Skyrim wasn’t quite as unfriendly a land as the Lands Between and, either way, Missy was here with me.
My twin nodded, unaware of the bloodshed that’d probably occur soon.
“Stop right there!” An archer called out, voice almost drowned out by the wind. “Move along and we won’t have to kill you!”
Sighing, I took out my zanpakuto and, by using Shunpo, I reached his side in an instant. “Are you sure you want to threaten us?” I asked blade severing his bow’s string. “I’m pretty sure that weapon of yours is no longer effective now.”
His eyes were wide open in fear and he was shivering from more than the cold now, I was sure. It was a beautiful sight to see.
“How about you try running to your friends? You might even make it before I cut them all down.” I offered cheerfully.
Just as my words began to sink in, however, I sensed a burst of mana coming my way and not only dodged out of the way but bent space so the ice shard lodged itself in one of the archer’s kidneys.
“Hey now, friendly fire isn’t very friendly!” I called out, so very amused now.
In the Lands Between, I didn’t bother with these things. Creatures that had already given up on even speaking with strangers rather than just attacking were less fun to play with. These people, however, almost certainly came up with some explanations for why they did these things.
I wanted to drown them in enough misery and despair that they fell apart.
‘Ah, Missy’s here.’ I reminded myself just as I felt my twin bending space to join me, my desires being suppressed once again. “Pretty sure those guys are bandits.” I told her, smile still on my lips as the archer began to try to crawl his way to his allies.
“Can’t we just hand them over to the authorities?” Missy questioned, gulping not at the dozen or so bandits before us but the thought of taking their lives.
I shook my head in response. “I don’t think Whiterun can spare the guards to guard these guys with both a civil war going on and dragons showing up.”
“A civil war?” Missy asked, whirling around to face me and making me have to redirect an arrow into a wood elven archer’s knee when the bitch dared to try and hit my distracted twin.
Her screams made me push down the urge to smile as I answered, “Skyrim’s a part of a large empire. Except, some parts of Skyrim would like that to no longer be the case so now they’re fighting against each other instead of preparing for the inevitable second war against their common enemies. It’s quite a stupid conflict but I can’t exactly call the one who started it particularly intelligent in the first place.”
The bandits just stood by during my explanation, clearly shaken to the core by me casually redirecting every projectile they’d sent against me so far.
“So…we really have to kill these guys?” Missy definitely didn’t like the thought of it but I could see the beginnings of determination in her stance.
I nodded happily. “Just think about it like that: There’s so many dangers in Skyrim right now and, rather than helping out, they chose to become another one. And, if they continue to live, they’ll just hurt someone else.” I knew there was more to it than that, that these people had some reasons for turning towards banditry.
Maybe Missy would have that realization at some point, too, but this was where the propaganda she’d been manipulated by would become useful to me. She had quite a black and white view of the world and these people would swiftly end up in the black once she got over her hang-ups about having to kill people rather than monsters.
It was manipulative and I hated that but seeing dad being so concerned made me realize something. I’d rather manipulate Missy into a better mindset than have her die trying to act out her heroic ideal.
I had issues with manipulating loved ones because, to me, who I knew little about it, love was about accepting and caring about someone despite all their flaws and trying to change that went against that in my opinion. Except, if part of her was self-destructive, how could I claim to care about her when I let that part remain unchanged?
“Alright then.” Missy squared up her shoulders in determination before closing the distance between her and the bandits, her lightsaber ignited and in her hand.
Smiling proudly as she began to fight, I stabbed my zanpakuto down through the first archer’s left lung before casually pulling it out and moving along. Really, threatening both Missy and myself made him deserving of a somewhat slow death. Maybe it’d even feel a bit like drowning as his lung filled up with blood.
Humming a cheery tune, I used Shunpo to quickly take out the remaining archers as well as the mage, decapitating these people just in case Missy would get suspicious from seeing me target the same place each time.
Missy could deal with the melee ones while I figured out that ice shard spell. It was honestly incredibly simple and probably worse than the ice magic Ozma included in the information he gave me but it was the first bit of this world’s magic that I got to inspect aside from the alchemy and enchanting tables.
‘I ought to visit Winterhold at some point.’ I mused, quite excited by the thought of the library that’d await me there.
Besides, the Eye of Magnus would be nearby, too. With that alone I’d probably be able to power all kinds of wards through my pocket dimension, including the anti-Grimm one in my dust mine since that one has its focal point in my Traveling Home anyways.
My thoughts on all my future looting of this world were put on hold when, after cutting down the last of the bandits with her lightsaber, Missy fell to her knees and began to retch. I froze for a few moments before slowly, cautiously moving towards my twin. Then, I leant down and embraced her from behind.
‘They’re bandits. You did the right thing. The world will be better off without them,’ Missy’d know all those to be empty platitudes coming from me. I didn’t care about right or wrong, didn’t care about the state of the world or the people those bandits would’ve hurt. Maybe she’d be able to tell herself those things but I felt like it was better to just be there and give her what comfort I could rather than to try and figure out what to say in order to not mess everything up.
So I held Missy until she calmed down enough that I felt like I could change the topic without making things worse. “You alright with going on now? If not, I can take care of this myself.”
“I’ll be fine.” Missy declared confidently as if we didn’t both know that she was the furthest thing from confident at the moment.
“If you say so.” I replied, sighing at her stubbornness but also knowing better than to argue. If Missy really weren’t in any state to fight or wouldn’t be before we reached the more…problematic mana sources I could sense in the tomb, I’d make her go home but I was, at the very least, confident in my ability to deal with some remaining bandits, draugr that barely felt stronger than them and some magic spiders.
Missy
I still felt sick as Lily and I walked deeper and deeper into the tomb. Her cutting down more bandits while cheerily humming didn’t help, either. What did help, though, was that Lily gave each and every one of the people she fought a chance to just…walk away. When we’d encountered the group as well as later on with the guy struggling on a mechanism that was weirdly simple, she offered them an out that I knew she wouldn’t have given them if I hadn’t been there.
Only one of them took it. She was a mage, according to Lily. Everybody else decided to try their luck despite having the option to give up. My twin didn’t even demand that they turn themselves in. She just told them to either leave this place as fast as their legs could carry them or die.
“Stop.” I muttered angrily when Lily took her time using Force Choke to slowly kill a man. To her credit, Lily immediately snapped his neck as soon as I complained.
“There’s only one other living humanoid left in this place.” Lily told me after the man’s body had collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. “I assume you’ll feel better about killing undead, giant spiders and a handful of other monsters.”
“Probably.” I told her, honestly still a bit shaken.
Lily scrutinized me for a moment before sighing. “Missy, if you don’t feel up to it, I’ll take care of it myself.” She offered and I knew she was being genuine. “You can go home, recover in peace and just wait for me to grab the Dragonstone so we can give it to Farengar tomorrow.”
I knew her offer was sincere. I knew it wasn’t her looking down on me or anything, just her being worried about me. I still hated it. Hated knowing that I was shaken up so much when Lily was perfectly fine. “I can keep going.” I replied, determined now to at least see this through before sorting out my feelings on this.
“Then let’s get going. I have something to do tonight and there’s a lot of enemies we have to get rid of.” Lily told me, not questioning me on it.
As we began to walk, however, flowers began to spread all over the area, covering the entire floor I could see at any given moment thanks to the small rooms and narrow hallways. The field also seemed to move together with Lily.
“What’s this?” I asked, curious about the sudden appearance of the red flowers, some petals being carried around the area by a nonexistent breeze.
Lily smiled at me as she answered, “A precaution. Specifically, it should prevent the use of a specific power of the undead here. It also has the benefit of making this place not smell like, well, a tomb.”
Well, she was right about that. The flowery scent was definitely a massive improvement. It was still pretty surreal to walk through a tomb covered in crimson flowers, though.
“Will you tell me more about it after we get out of here?” I asked, guessing that Lily was being paranoid again.
Lily shrugged in response. “Sure. It’s not particularly complicated but I can tell you later.” That answer just confirmed it to me. Lily just didn’t want to give anything away here.
We walked for a while longer before reaching an area full of cobwebs. There was something really creepy about it but the flowers actually made it less creepy and more weird.
“Mind getting Taylor for me? These spiders would be some decent additions to her collection.” Lily requested, smiling after killing some rats.
I sighed but nodded, getting ready to grab Lily’s first student.
Lily
Arvel didn’t get much of a chance to continue talking before I drove my zanpakuto into his chest and used the Force to grab the golden claw from his corpse.
A fire spell from Remnant burnt up the spider webs and set the thief’s corpse on fire while I threw it to the side with some more telekinesis.
I had no need of his journal or any of his possessions. I could’ve grabbed them all, of course, but what value could such mediocre things have to me at this point? The weapons and corpses of the draugr found deeper into the tomb were far more interesting. However, the sheer number of undead was bothersome, I decided, so I simply rushed through each room with Shunpo past a certain point and didn’t pick up everything.
After all, I had promised Sellen that I’d return to learn more tonight and I would keep my word.
Missy didn’t seem happy about me taking all the kills but she understood the need to hurry up and so just followed along without complaining about it.
So, after cutting my way through over a hundred undead, none of which seemed to have been able to use the Thu’um, we finally reached the door for which I’d grabbed the golden claw and I laughed as I inspected it.
“What is it?” Missy asked, tired but also curious.
I began to push the symbols into the right positions as I answered, “That door is ridiculous. It’s strong enough that I’m fairly certain I could try with all my might to push the damn thing and it wouldn’t budge.”
“What’s so funny about it?” My twin seemed confused now.
“What’s funny is that this thing could probably handle the entire tomb collapsing in on itself. Making that thing must’ve taken a lot of effort and I doubt it was prepared for just anyone.” There were two theories in my mind at the moment. Either that theory about the doors being meant to stop the draugr was true or the dragon cult was simply trying to prevent someone like, say, the Last Dragonborn from reaching these areas.
No matter what, I was quite certain at this point that those doors were meant to stop even someone who could, for example, use a lore-accurate Unrelenting Force shout. Or someone who had a whole lot of mana in their body for being a walking or, in this case, sleeping corpse.
“Mind if I take care of the last one, too?” I asked my twin while we were walking towards the word wall. I had never read the translations of those things before but, as the carvings entered my sight, I learnt Dovahzul and quickly passed it on to Missy before relearning it via Omniglot.
‘Here lies the Guardian, Keeper of the Dragonstone and a Force of unending Rage and Darkness.’ Ignoring how edgy all of that sounded, it was interesting. What was even more interesting was the way the carver’s understanding of the word Fus entered my mind as I approached.
There was still something lacking to truly speak it and have reality bend at my command but I now understood the concept of Force just as clearly as whoever had left this word here. Judging from how overwhelmed she looked, Missy had been given the same boon.
“Go ahead.” Missy told me after shaking her head to clear it from the onslaught of information she’d just received.
Smiling just in time for the coffin to open, I began to chant, “Sleeping crest of turbidity. Arrogant vessel of lunacy. Boil forth and deny. Grow numb and flicker. Disrupt sleep.” A wave of gravity began to root the draugr to the floor as I continued to speak.
“Fus Ro Dah!” The draugr yelled but there was no echo to it, no wave of Unrelenting Force ready to try and tear me apart.
My flower field had declared the traits, the laws of this world to be void, irrelevant. Here and now, the Thu’um, relying upon this world’s nature to function when not enhanced by my Foreigner perk to free it from that restriction, was incapable of affecting reality because I had declared that the laws which permitted it to work didn’t exist.
“Crawling queen of iron. Eternally self-destructing doll of mud. Unite. Repulse. Fill with soil and know powerlessness! Hadou #90: Kurohitsugi!” I grinned ear to ear by the end of my incantation, the draugr still stunned by its failure to utilize its Voice as a large coffin made of dense black reiatsu formed around it. Preventing it from being so oversized as to cover half the chamber had taken a great deal of control already so I was curious what this version would look like.
Then, spikes formed all over the coffin for just an instant and, as the coffin dissipated, it revealed the draugr to have been torn apart in many places, three of its limbs and chunks of its body simply not present anymore.
Despite that, its eyes were still feebly glowing with a blue light. I was about to finish it off when I felt a small breeze for an instant and heard a sigh, “Dodge.” I had no idea where the voice had come from but my danger senses agreed that I had to get out of the way and the reason for it was revealed quite quickly, a spear of ice almost skewering me. The spell didn’t affect an area so my flower field hadn’t blocked its formation and the draugr had used its own sword as both a catalyst and the tip of the spear to speed up its casting.
Amused by its futile resistance, I used Shunpo once again and, when I came to a halt a second later, the draugr had already been decapitated by my zanpakuto. “I suppose I might as well thank you.” I whispered to my sword. I hadn’t needed the warning but, with how confident I’d been that the fight had been over after my single Kidou, my aura might’ve still taken some damage from me getting grazed by the surprise attack.
And I was almost certain that that voice had been my zanpakuto’s spirit because it certainly hadn’t been Melina’s voice and I was unaware of any other incorporeal spirits attached to me at this point in time.
Turning towards my twin, I saw her trying and failing to hold in her laughter for some reason. “What’s so funny?”
“That incantation!” Missy replied immediately and I had a feeling I knew where this was going. “Know powerlessness!” She imitated me between fits of laughter. “I’m pretty sure I heard you say that in front of the mirror years ago!”
“That incantation wasn’t even something I came up with!” I defended myself, regretting giving Missy fluency in Japanese at this moment.
“But you definitely would’ve if that’d been your spell!” Missy argued, calming down enough to just giggle instead of laughing. “It’s so edgy it could’ve come right out of one of your speeches!”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I sighed and walked over to the remains of the undead before using the Force to search for the Dragonstone while Missy continued to laugh at something that was the fault of the shinigami. Really, most of these incantations barely made sense at the best of times.
“If you’re done, we should probably get back home. I still have stuff to do tonight and you still have to sleep.” I reminded her, definitely not blushing from embarrassment.
Anyone else and it wouldn’t have been a problem. Who’d have had the gall to tell me that my incantations were edgy? Either my personal power or the fact that I could deny them access to my services would’ve shut them up.
But Missy didn’t have that problem. She knew I liked her too much to hurt her and I definitely wasn’t going to stop teaching her.
“Yeah, yeah.” Missy waved me off while finally managing to get her amusement under control. “Just make sure not to be too much of a tyrant today, oh Queen of Darkness.”
“Some day I’ll find a memory-removing spell and then you’ll never remember all those things I said when we were kids.” That hadn’t even been me practicing in front of a mirror. I’d just seen the title, thought it sounded cool and, when playing with Missy, declared myself the Queen of Darkness.
In hindsight, that was a mistake but so was most of the stuff that left my mouth when I was a kid.
“I’m sure you will.” Missy taunted, confident that I wouldn’t go through with that threat. She was right, of course, but that didn’t make her any less annoying.
At least I was about to study glintstone sorcery some more. That’d make this night pleasant, I was sure.
The heat is still miserable but my allergies are getting better. I hate summer. If I could, I’d remove the season.
Anyways, hope you enjoyed and let me know if you have any feedback