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Just a quick, heartfelt dose of gratitude and thanks to everyone following along on Akhara’s adventure. Your likes and reblogs of her story are deeply and genuinely felt and counted. I appreciate each and every one of you. Strength and honor always, my friends. May your journeys be ever-valorous, your sweet rolls ever-fresh.
THE WORLD EATER ================= As one, the mighty Thu'ums of Gormlaith Golden-Hilt, Hakon One-Eye, and Felldir the Old, and Akhara Shug prevailed, for a third time driving away the aetheric fog within which Alduin both took shelter and feasted. Feldir, whose age was directly proportional to his wisdom, was right; the apocalyptic monstrosity cast across time, the beast who had glutted on the souls of thousands of innocents, witnessed his God-given power diminish in the very magickal fanes from which his arcane gifts sprung. For the very first time, the great black dragon known as the World Eater felt a very real, very mortal emotion. He felt fear. . A deafening roar split the silence, so immeasurable in rage and volume, that the very bones of the bridge to Shor's Hall rattled. Tsun, crystal-blue eyes never leaving the sky above, slowly removed his incredible, twin-bladed battleaxe, his fists taking the weapon firmly in hand despite his insistence that he would, as Shor's shield-thane, remain neutral unless directed by higher lords. The howling of the spectral winds rushed into the canyon, and the three Nordic heroes squinted, steeling themselves for the evil they all sensed approaching on swift wings. . The orc warchief's eyes bulged as she watched an enormous flaming boulder plummet forth from the sky on a direct collision course for her newfound allies. Akhara tried to scream, "Watch out!", but at the speed the meteor was traveling, she knew it was useless. Just as Felldir looked up above him and beheld the immense chunk of brimstone barreling toward him, the meteor stopped its descent, stopping motionless just feet away from the Nord battlemage. The old man's jaw fell open as he turned to look at Akhara who was reaching out desperately with one arm, using nearly all of her strength to telekenetically freeze the boulder in mid-air for several moments before heaving it several dozen meters against the side of a nearby promontory. This spared Felldir's life, but only for a moment, as Alduin used the chance afforded him by the distraction to swoop down out of the aetheric shadows, snap the hero up into his mighty jaws, and lift off again. . As the World Eater did so, Hakon hurled his battleaxe into Alduin's flank, causing it to become lodged there and slicing open a sizeable gash in the nigh-impenetrable, natural armor of scales the beast wore. On her part, the Green Queen wasn't about to let Alduin escape for a second time, much less with a Nord hero clamped tightly down in his jaws. . At the same time the boulder Akhara had diverted erupted into sand against the side of the cliff, she bellowed Dragonrend after the creature. With both a gigantic axe stuck within his ribcage and an aetheric command shackling him to Mundus, Alduin's wings failed him as he beat them desperately and maddeningly trying to launch himself once more into the air. Of the three Nord heroes, Felldir was the one the World Eater loathed the most, and he had planned to make a slow and agonizing meal out of the old crone. But now he had little time to react, for his three ancient enemies were now joined by a fourth, perhaps significantly more powerful ally, and he had little time for such vengeful indulgences. As he stumbled and crashed back into the earth, plowing through earth, grass, stone and mud, the first child of Akatosh espied Gormlaith and Hakon nearly upon him already, and he whipped his neck and jaws, releasing Felldir from his fangs and sending his body crashing into the other two as they ran up on him. . This bought Alduin few precious seconds, enabling him to reposition himself, square his immense frame, and charge up a billowing spew of molten dragonfire from within his belly. But as the World Eater made to release the incendiary bile from within his gullet, the beast felt something like a dozen plainstriders stomping their massive feet down upon his head all at once. The loudest, most bone-shattering, and most aetherically-charged FUS RO DAH Alduin had ever heard from the lungs of someone who wasn't a dragon tore into his face, neck, and chest without warning, and it resulted in Alduin swallowing back the molten discharge, belching loudly and painfully before vomiting forcefully all over the ground. . Akhara was moving at full sprint toward the monster, but Felldir, having recovered from the shock and the immediate pain of his injuries, lunged forward and plunged his blade deeply into the dragon's esophagus. Black blood hemorrhaged out immediately onto the three Nord heroes who assumed ready stances for whatever wroth might ensue next. Alduin's alarm and fear was now palpable and obvious, as he choked and sputtered on his own blood and balefire. He tried to breathe fire a second time, but by then, Shug had closed the distance and vaulted into the air, connecting a shield bash beneath his chin and causing his maw to snap shut at the exact moment the fire breath came, causing an explosion of smoke and flame to splash out of either side of the dragon's elongated snout. . Alduin roared in pain and in fear. It was not a confident roar. It was the braying of a dying beast who was too prideful and too blinded by hate to know it was already over. However, for as well-made as Nord steel might be and for as powerful the lungs of the orc dragonborn were, this was Alduin the World Eater. It would take more than a few critical blows, a shield bash and a few well-placed shouts to truly defeat him. . It was at that moment that the once beautiful and tranquil, rainbow vortex in the sky opened up, littering the battlefield with a hailstorm of flaming ice, deadly meteorites and aetheric lightning strikes. The warchief felt the hair on her arms rise, standing on end as the air became electrified by magickal influence. Small stones, pebbles, bones, and earthen debris all slowly began to rise from the earth, levitating into the air. The Warlord of Cradlecrush Rock called out to her allies to warn them, but it was too late. . Alduin's mighty tail whipped around and crashed into Hakon, literally blind-siding him on the side he couldn't see out of. The steel of his armor literally warped and caved, causing him to crumple and roll and taking the wind out of his chest and he slammed into a nearby stone protruding from the earth. Gormlaith called out to her battle-brother, but Alduin sneered villainously and swept her up into his jaws, twisting his head sharply from side to side until he was certain at least a healthy few of the Nordic warmaiden's bones had snapped and fractured. Finally, Alduin saw the orc on swift approach, and released Gormlaith into the air directly toward her. . TIID KLO UL . Gormlaith's armored body ragdolled through the air at but a fraction of normal speed. Akhara ducked under the human obstacle easily, resuming her charge at Alduin only to realize that while everything else around her had been affected by the Slow Time shout, Alduin had not. The two met in melee combat. The World Eater was badly wounded and bleeding profusely, but Alduin was the first of his kind. The strongest of his kind. Akhara Shug struggled to land blows that mattered, but few would penetrate. She found herself standing toe-to-claw with a much larger, much more magically-endowed opponent that was growing ever-stronger by the minute. The Green Queen knew she had to end the battle and quickly. But how? She needed something or someone to distract the beast long enough to find a spot where Alduin was vulnerable and to bury her emerald scimitar as deeply within it as it would go. . The Slow Time shout wore off suddenly as the dragonborn's focus was now greatly divided, and while she was no novice to shouting, the simple truth was that she'd been training for less than a year. Even in terms of a dragonborn's naturally accelerated learning abilities, it was a devastatingly short amount of study when matched against a mythological God-beast like Alduin. The dragon's tail whipped into the orc and shattered her shield into a million wooden splinters. She dropped her blade at the force of the impact, but had no time to react when Alduin used his own head and neck to deliver a follow-up strike that knocked her spinning back through the air, the World Eater in hot pursuit, hungry to put an end to this green inconvenience once and for all. . Tsun barely ducked out of the way as the orc's body sailed over his head and smashed into a gigantic bone pillar behind him. Alduin the Destroyer was too bloodthirsty and enraged to realize how close he'd now encroached to Shor's Bridge, and before he could even skid to a halt, Tsun's mighty hands reached forward and grabbed the beast's powerful jaws, holding them open and slowly beginning to actually push the winged devil slowly backward down the hill and stairs. . Akhara shook the white and the stars from her vision, spitting a dollop of blood and spittle from her mouth before tightly gritting her orcish tusks together and clamoring to her feet. She heard an old man's voice ringing in her ears, but she couldn't entirely make out the words. She clutched at her head, rubbing her temples, trying to quit the ringing in her pointed ears. She found herself staring across the way at Felldir whose mouth was moving as he shouted at her. Then she heard the words, but not in the voice of Felldir, but that of Tolfdir. And yet, the words were clearer now than when Tolfdir had originally said them: . "The staff! Use the Staff of Magnus!" . Akhara channeled whatever aetheric energy remained available to her. Sparks and bluish-purple light engulfed her as her hands, beginning interlaced, stretched apart forming a cylindrical column of energy between them as the Staff of Magnus was summoned across planes from Mundus to Sovngarde. As though supercharged by its proximity to the aether and the very source of all magicka, the entire staff vibrated and hummed like an old Dwemer convector, sparks crackling and leaping from the orb at the head of the weapon. She rose to her feet, then walked up beside Tsun, a bolt of powerful energy leaping from the weapon to Alduin as she did so. Shor's shield-thane immediately released his grip on the dragon and took three awestruck steps backward. . "I will beat you and I will flay you before the living God that made you!" Akhara bellowed over the howling winds, the crackling of arcane fire, and the roaring of Time's greatest enemy. "You brought this end upon yourself, monster! Now, only now, do I truly see, do I truly understand!" . The dragon howled. The orc stood stationary before Alduin while the three heroes now gathered around the stunned and magically-shackled dragon. The immeasurable power of the Staff of Magnus subdued the beast presently, a power that not even Alduin could challenge. . "You were not meant to end this world," Akhara said at last. "You were meant to end one age and start another. Don't you see, you vain, winged fool? You were supposed to restore the balance! The world is perched on the precipice of the greatest war it has ever seen, a war between mer and men, and you, Alduin, were the deterrent! But your lust for power has blinded you, beast, and you will pay for that blindness with your life!" . The Nord heroes all descended upon Alduin as the dragonborn aimed the staff directly at Alduin's head. Tsun tossed his enormous battleaxe to Hakon whose muscles bulged when he caught the enormous blade. Blinded and burning from the arcane lightning from the staff, Alduin reared up into the air. Hakon winded up for momentum, then swung Tsun's axe directly into the wound he had left with his own battleaxe previously. Alduin spasmed and convulsed as the cold Nord steel penetrated scales and leathery flesh, burying deep into muscle and sinew. Akhara saw the opportunity for the death blow. . "Felldir!" she screamed. The old battlemage nodded, and she tossed the staff to him. While he kept the energy of Magnus staying the dragon fast, Akhara sprinted back, collected her emerald scimitar, then ran at Alduin at full clip, launching herself into the air by using the hilt of Tsun's protruding axe like a rung on a ladder to project herself high enough into the air to drive her enchanted blade straight down through Alduin's maw, Snaga's arcane alterations cleaving through mouth, tongue, flesh and scale. . The World Eater howled with rage and agony the likes of which another dragon has never known throughout the history of Tamriel. It was a sound that would never be heard again, and that few would ever be able to recall. But it was on that day that a God had died and perished from the world, a being that had literally shaped entire cults, religions, beliefs and cultures. Known for his rule over Skyrim during the Merethic Era, Alduin had always been considered the "wellspring" of the Nordic pantheon, as well as the harbinger of the apocalypse, believed to have a greater role in reshaping the world entirely. Now, he was gone from the very world he had played such an integral role in creating. Whether or not it was for the better, things would never again be the same. The very direction the winds of Time blow was changed that day, yet no one, not even those heroes who had committed the deed, had the foggiest clue how it had changed or even to what degree. For now, there was only celebration, for what are mortals but souls who must live in the moment, exhilarate in the brief instances in their short lives. Every second, every action, every victory or defeat, every yearning, dream, swing of the sword or stroke of the pen is given tremendous meaning by the mortality and evanescence of their deeds. While Akhara did indeed remain for a time in Sovngarde to cheer, revel, and quench her thirst on the ambrosial liquors, wines and mead of the Nord afterlife (it's not often an Orsimer receives the privilege of visiting the golden halls of another race), the story of her quest as the dragonborn was only just beginning. Both Malacath and Hermeus Mora had set their many eyes upon her, and an even darker threat was stirring far, far to the north...
The draugr here were old when the world was young. More magickally attuned to the ruinous powers they serve, nearly every single risen skeleton was a warlord of legend. The battle of the ages began long before Akhara even reached Alduin’s nesting ground in Sovngarde.
Out of the darkness, into the light...
Death comes on swift wings...
