Hc: Miraak has a huge crush on the LDB but doesn’t know how to convey his feelings and is just super awkward with romance in general
okay LOOOONG post time because I love last the dragonborn/first dragonborn shit OKAY. Very long post because god dammit, I ramble too much. This might sound like a toddler wrote it.
Miraak literally hasn’t seen another human being in 4,000 years, he probably loses his shit when the feeling of just being attracted to someone punches him in the face.
He’s just chilling on a giant book in Apocrypha, dipping his toes in the ink water or something and planing how exactly he’s going to kill the Dragonborn to the very detail. Then they actually arrive in Apocrypha, and the very fibers of their souls are screaming out to each-other like “same hat!”, and it feels like every inch of himself is burning on the inside, while the outside remains blandly mild in the stale humid air of Apocrypha.
But he’s a strong minded man, so he swallows it down and continues on with his edgy monologue. He tells the Dragonborn he must kill them, but he can hardly bare hearing the words come from his own mouth as they’re paralyzed on the ground right in front of him. He can practically taste the power radiating off them, layers and layers of dragon souls woven together and wrapped around their own soul, the very soul he knew the in’s and out’s of despite not knowing a thing about the person that it belonged to.
And THEN the poor man’s brain is like “oh no they’re hot” and he's dealing with emotions and thoughts that he hasn’t had since before the first era. He can’t even remember the faces of anyone he used to know, or whether or not he liked looking at them. All he knows is that he’s seeing a face that looks so foreign but feels so familiar, and he does like looking at it, and he doesn’t know why he does. All he knows is that the dragon soul inside of him is thrashing within it’s flesh prison, desperate to be as close as possible to it’s only match.
Dragons by nature, are not empathetic or familial creatures. They can be, as such is the case with Paarthurnax, but it is not an instinct they have embedded in them like mortals do. Miraak is a human, cursed to the same raw feelings as any other would be. Dragon souls vibrate with each other on a level that human souls do not. A dragon can always feel another dragon.
That sense of automatic familiarity paired with the inherent human desire for love and belonging? Paired together they do not bode well for a man trying to kill the only other living being in the universe who understands him. The only one. Every dov is a piece of Akatosh, all siblings in a special way, but no dragon will ever think, feel, and care the same way humans do. He could never find solace in the company of a dragon.
Now that their souls have had a glimpse of each other, every moment he spends thinking of killing them sends the dragon inside of him wreathing in agony and distress, something dovah are not accustomed to feeling. Before he realizes it, he’s going out of his way to appear in spectral form in front of them to absorb the souls of their kills. He finds himself speaking to them, lingering for a few moments longer than necessary, invigorated just by the feeling of being near them in an intangible spectral form.
He tries to convince himself that all these odd things he’s feeling are just his inner dovah aching for the power of absorbing their soul. He tells himself that after he kills them, it will all go away, and he’ll be able to finally tear free from Apocrypha. (hes dumb forgive him its been a while)
He has no need to show off, all he needs is to get the job done and over with as quickly as possible. And yet, he casts Dragon Aspect on himself without even realizing it, dancing around them in combat and stalling, using the Thu’um when he doesn’t even need to. He doesn’t realize that his actions mimic a dragon’s, bringing as much focus on themselves when they want to appear boastful and magnificent, rare moments of civility and friendly indulgence where they bask in each other’s vanity and challenge each other in friendly competition.
The dragon companions he keeps with him in Apocrypha are very confused as to why he’s technically doing the dragon equivalent of flirting when he’s supposed to be killing them and reaping their power. Humans are so weird amirite?
If the Dragonborn spares him and finds a way to free him from Apocrypha and team up with him, he would not be able to properly address or recognize his feelings for a long time. It’s not until he’s grown accustomed to seeing couples hold each other close in the cold and whisper sweet things to each other, or heard a few sappy love songs/poems from bards that it starts to dawn on him. And when it does, he’s distressed because he remembers next to nothing about what it means to care for someone. Even in his time as a Dragon Priest under Alduin’s rule, he didn’t get to indulge in petty things like love and affection. His role was a full time commitment. Of course he had seen people courting each other outside of just having children, but he had never experienced that himself.
He’d show his affections in very strange ways, because he isn’t quite sure how to say it, and he’s still in partial denial of it all. It would be borderline annoying and obsessive things, like insisting on healing all of the LDB’s wounds even when they’re perfectly capable of doing it themselves, or needlessly jumping in front of them during battles with dragons because he gets over-protective without realizing it. It gets to the point where the LDB has to pull him aside like ”bro what the fuck is your problem it’s getting exhausting” and then cue the cheesy awkward and dramatic fanfiction love admission trope.
also do u like, know how INSANE it would be to the rest of Tamriel if TWO Dragonborns of legend teamed up, let alone got married or something? They would probably be two of the most important and powerful people alive. Especially with all the forbidden knowledge Miraak had obtained over the few millennia he spent in Apocrypha. Like, I’m serious. If they defeated Alduin together and saved the world? They would probably be worshiped. They would almost be Talos level of worshiped, eventually.
also just like imagine if they took power over the Empire. Like, a Dragonborn emperor and Dragonborn (whatever your ldb idenitifes as, empress/emperor/sovereign/etc) and maybe secured a new ‘Dragonborn’ bloodline/heired family. And the LDB would have Odahviing and Parrturnax on their side. Just imagine the power they’d have.
I’ve been meaning to write a fic about that for a long time actually. I’ll get to it soon I swear.
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