MY HAND, MY HEART, MY SOUL
Dagoth Ur x reader (romantic)
Warnings: mentions of death, murder, corprus, depression, identity crisis, loneliness, reader is Nerevarine and very stressed about it, short appearance of a Dark Brotherhood assassin is a warning too because they are SCARY
Notes: I tried going for something more ambiguous this time, leaving the ending pretty much to your interpretation. You're free to choose what I meant by 'your real name' here :)
You stood in a large chamber, its walls the color red. On either side of you, two crowds of people stood, their faces shining with mirth and what seemed like recognition – no, it didn’t seem like it; they did recognize you. They called out your name. Nerevar.
A tall man in gold appeared by your side. He took your arm, his hold so tender but cold, it made you want to pull away – he wouldn’t let you. He led you through the chamber, towards some kind of an altar. A reddish-pink altar, you figured – and it moved. It hung from the ceiling, a big, pulsating mass, and pulsated above the ground.
You felt the urge to vomit. You turned to look at the man, whose masked gaze remaining facing forward; you tried to scream, but you found there was no air. Your mouth opened and closed like a fish’s, your chest fluttering in vain as you struggled to mimic the process of breathing, hoping against hope that it would work.
The masked figure stopped you in front of the altar, you could see now that it was a heart. A large, beating heart. The man turned to face you, and as you turned your head to look at the crowd, you saw their faces were now decaying. They stared at nothing in particular, the flowers they held falling from their hands. It felt as though you were standing in a field of corpses – and it sure felt as though you were becoming one yourself.
The man pulled you out of your thoughts by pulling you closer, three red eyes meeting your own terrified ones. There was something so familiar about this man, about his touch and…
“Sweet Nerevar…”
…his voice.
“Sweet, sweet Nerevar…” the man repeated, one hand going up from your waist to cup your cheek. “Come back to me, my friend. Come back, and we shall know no pain!”
His voice. You remembered it from… from where? Were you even alive when he first talked to you? Were you even you?
“Nerevar…” he said again, his voice fading away. Or were you fading away? “Nerevar, come back to me… come back…”
You awoke to the feeling of a cold presense in your small room. Your trembling hand reached down to your hip, pulling an old, rusty dagger out of your pocket. You opened your eye just wide enough to see someone raising his weapon at you, and in a flash, you threw yourself at the man, slicing and stabbing and tearing at his armor. It wasn’t the first time an assassin had woken you up – but it was the first time you were glad to be pulled out of your nightmare.
The Red Mountain stood before you in your next dream. You fell on your knees in front of it, your hands reaching out as if to embrace it. Tears were frozen on your cheeks, your throat fluttering in vain as you tried to scream. You wanted to call out to someone, to someone you knew or you thought you knew. Your body trembled, and the world was silent.
Suddenly, a cacophony of noises deafened you, coming from everywhere at once; the sounds seemed to emerge from within you, threatening to tear you apart. A dark figure clad in gold started descending the mountain, and the noises grew louder the closer it got – and then your dream ended.
You woke up, the morning light shining right at your face through the window. Shouts and hushed whispers came from outside, further awaking you from your restless sleep. But it was a voice from outside that made you sit up in bed and your heart beat faster.
“Open the door, outlander,” the unmistakable voice of an ordinator rasped through the door. “By the decision of the Tribunal, you are sentenced to death as the false Nerevarine. Open the door this instant.”
You bit your tongue to hold back a curse, your gaze snapping to the window. You grabbed what little things you had, your hands beginning to sweat as you heard the door shake and rattle. You opened the window, threw out your backpack, and squeezed yourself out afterwards. Thankfully, the ordinators seemed to only be outside your door.
You ran without turning back, your legs aching and your lungs burning. You heard your door finally giving in to the force of the ordinators, and it shattered, sending splinters everywhere; the men rushed inside, but they didn’t see you anywhere.
“Find the false Nerevarine!” one of them barked, and the men ran back out of the tiny building, spreading out to find you. And you, meanwhile, kept running.
Something pulled you to the Red Mountain. It wasn’t curiosity or the need for adventures – it was something deeper. Something ancient, something older than you. It wanted you, bled for you, and painted a way to itself with its blood - it breathed for you. It was ready to die for you.
The road to the Red Mountain was long and exhausting. The people just seemed to get crazier the closer you got to it, and the beginning storm didn’t make it any better. The rare people that you bumped into would tell you to either get out of there or come see the mountain. A terrifying cacophony of pleas and screams and laughter filled the air, and you could feel your mind coming apart from the sheer intensity of the pain surrounding you.
But a single voice cut through the overwhelming surroundings of yours, whispering your name: Nerevar. Your name… since when was it your name? Who even were you at this point?
The voice grew louder when you stopped in front of the mountain. You fell to your knees, your vision growing dark and blurry. You tried to remember a name, a familiar one. It felt on the tip of your tongue, made your head spin and your body ache.
“V… Voryn!” you cried out finally. “Voryn! I’m here! I’m back!”
And the skies fell down. They swallowed you whole, devouring your mind and body and leaving naught behind but dust and memory. You now remembered.
You stood in a large chamber, its walls the color red. On either side of you, two crowds of people stood, their faces shining with mirth and recognition. They called out your name.
A tall man in gold appeared by your side. He took your arm, his hold so tender and firm. He made you feel safe. He led you through the chamber, towards the Heart.
You turned your head to the figure, trying to read his bottomless eyes – they shone with happiness.
The masked figure stopped you in front of the Heart. The man turned to face you, and as you turned your head to look at the crowd, you saw them frowing flowers at you. You finally felt like you belonged.
The man pulled you towards himself, three red eyes meeting your own.
“My dear one,” he whispered, his hand gently cupping your cheek. “My friend.” He fell to his knees, his hands wrapping around your own. “My love. I offer you my hand,” his mask began melting, the gold leaking down his face and onto the floor, “my heart,” his face, revealed, now shone with a layer of thick molten gold, “my soul.”
His cold, gentle lips pressed against your hands, and the crowd called out your name.
Your real name.
You were home.