Kiin
Story Summary: What if instead of Alduin, the main villain of Skyrim was an ominous entity known as the Stillborn. What is the Stillborn? What does it want? Where did it come from? And what if the Last Dragonborn was a power-hungry fraud, hellbent on fooling the masses that he is their messiah? Either way, it’s up to the Dragonborn, Lucien Flavius, and Alhana to figure out the mystery of the Stillborn.
A rewrite of Skyrim’s main story. A Horror remake of Skyrim w/ light supernatural and grimdark elements. (Think Skyrim with a darker twist).
Foreword: This story is a remodel of Skyrim's main story. Slight changes to the lore are inevitable for story reasons. The main character of this story is a male Nord Dragonborn named Sasha (the one from the trailers). He will be romantically paired with Alhana, a character from the upcoming Skyrim Extended Cut mod.
Disclaimer: The Elder Scrolls belong to Bethesda, it just works.
Warnings: Violence, Sexual Themes, Suicidal Ideation, Gore, Drug & Alcohol Use, Abuse, Harsh Language.
Dedicated to the People of Ukraine, Palestine, Sudan, and Congo
~OoOoO~
“Most people are incapable of empathy,” – The Emperor, Caesar Tiberias.
It squirmed around and squiggled, contorting its grey body, lengthening, and stretching. Until it swallowed him whole.
“Relende sepal eipan.”
Sasha jolted awake, panting hard and covered in cold sweats. He tossed aside his blanket and got out of his small bed, staring into the mirror across from him. His room was in the attic, a column of light shining through the small circular window up top. Shelves of books lining the length on each side. The floor made of wood panels.
Sasha Kroum was a Nord, five-eleven in height, relatively muscular, twenty-five years old. He had a sharp face with prominent cheekbones and blue eyes with shoulder-length blond hair. Sun-kissed skin with deep eye-circles and a light, thin beard.
Sasha ran a hand over his tired face. He prayed to his shrine of Akatosh, showered, and changed into some proper clothes. He headed out of his room and had some breakfast before leaving his house. Bruma was a beautiful city. Snow covered log cabins decorating each neighborhood. Stone tiled flooring with the Count’s Castle in the back and lampposts stationed on each corner. Sasha passed the Chapel of Saint Martin, sidestepping the two Thalmor agents there and walking toward the Market District.
“Hail, Sasha,” called one of the Thalmor. His name was Armion.
Sasha looked towards them. “Hey, how’s it going?”
Armion stroked his chin. “I never asked, which god do you usually pray too?”
“I’m a Nord, but I don’t worship tyrants. My father was a Moth Priest, and my mother is a priestess of Akatosh. So, we worship Akatosh mainly,” Sasha explained carefully.
“See, Cirillian, I told you he was smart.” Armion clapped Sasha on the back, nodding. “You are a credit to your race, Mister Kroum.”
Sasha suppressed the urge to argue with the Altmeri soldier and turned away. He didn’t like that the Thalmor knew his full name.
While he was a Nord, he felt no sense of belonging to his race. He admired good people of all races, elves included. The prejudice between man and mer was such a stupid, childish battle in Sasha’s eyes.
His father, Fafnar and mother, Thorrun were strolling near the market stands. Some stands for meat and some for produce while others held jewelry or knickknacks.
Sasha hugged them both. “What are we looking for?” He smiled.
His father, who stood an inch taller than him, spoke, “something for tonight’s dinner.”
Sasha’s mother ran a hand through Sasha’s hair. “You’ve been through so much, we’re so proud of you.”
Hellfire streamed from the sky, melting his parents’ flesh into the snow below. Mist steaming off their corpses.
He closed his eyes.
Sasha Kroum grew up in Bruma, constantly bullied by the other kids and neglected by his parents and peers, sometimes even physically abused by his babysitters. Around age ten he began his schooling and continued until he graduated at age sixteen. He spent the first three years of school studying hard but ultimately fell short, failing several classes. He began to learn the way of the blade and bow when he was thirteen and took to it easier than studying. Around age sixteen, he started working odd jobs for the Jerall View Inn and developed his first and only crush on an Imperial girl of his class group named Juliet Carvain, niece of the Count. He spent the whole year hopelessly trying to win her affection to no avail. After seeing her courting Kavius Umbranox, an Imperial royal from Anvil, Sasha decided to run away. His parents never cared much for him, so it’s not like they’d miss him. Some corrupt guards found him asleep one day under a large oak tree and threw him into the Imperial City jail. Sasha was seventeen at the time. He spent the next many years as a prisoner. Falling into a deep depression, Sasha listlessly did whatever the warden told him to do, be it mining, farming, or cleaning. Though at the time he made a friend named Adius Vilius, an Imperial and fellow prisoner his age who became his first real friend. At around twenty-one years of age, Adius finally convinced the depressed Sasha he’d had enough of being a prisoner and they escaped.
Sasha and Adius became mercenaries, working jobs for people who commissioned them. They were both twenty-two at the time.
A necromancer hired Sasha and Adius to steal an ancient artefact (a necklace) from within the Arcane University. They acquired the relic from a noble named Atlas who was wearing it, but the plan went awry when Sasha killed Atlas and wrapped the necklace around his neck due to the fact that the piece of jewelry had an enchantment that it must be worn at all times to prevent the ghost inside escaping. They learned that the pendant inside the locket was host to the mind-fragment of a god called ‘Solat’. Solat began slowly trying to overwrite Sasha’s mind and take over his body, which would imprison Sasha as a passenger in his own body in the process. Since the necklace got banged up and opened, infecting Sasha’s mind, when he wrested it away from Atlas. The process would take a year to complete, time Sasha used to find a way to break the curse. He couldn’t remove the necklace either no matter what he tried. Sasha was haunted by Solat, and he reminded him that he would take over Sasha’s body. Sasha tried several avenues such as the College of Whispers and Scholar’s Guild to remove the necklace but to no avail. Adius consoled him during this time.
Through reliving Solat’s memories, Sasha learned that it had a partnership with Boethiah in the past. So, Sasha contacted the Daedric Prince and asked for help. Boethiah agreed if Sasha could get the Elder Scroll of the Last Dragonborn for her from the White Gold Tower. So, Adius and Sasha attempted to steal the scroll but ran into the Emperor, Titus Mede II. They managed to steal the scroll and escaped, killing the Emperor by accident. The scroll opened by chance on their way out of the city and Sasha had a vision, seeing a monstrous entity engulf all of Tamriel, all of Nirn.
And a prophecy sounded, “when misrule takes its place at the eight corners of the world. When the Brass Tower walks and Time is reshaped. When the thrice-blessed fail and the Red Tower trembles. When the Dragonborn Ruler loses his throne, and the White Tower falls. When the Snow Tower lies sundered, kingless, bleeding. The Stillborn wakes, and the Wheel turns upon the Last Dragonborn.”
After giving the scroll to Boethiah, she took Sasha to another dimension where he ripped off the necklace and confronted Solat. Solat said it had spent the last year overwriting Sasha’s mind and that removing it from him will leave Sasha hollow due to the extensive brain damage. Sasha ripped off the amulet anyway and was returned to his home. Permanently free of the old god.
“Goodbye, child of my enemy,” were Solat’s last words.
Sasha returned to Bruma with Adius. His parents rejoiced at seeing him after six years and pleaded for his forgiveness. Sasha, now twenty-three, forgave them and spent the next few months healing his mind. He began to worship Akatosh and Mara too. After curing his mind, he joined the Fighter’s Guild. His expeditions with the guild made him a figure of slight notoriety within the city and eventually he caught the eye of the Count, Desilus Carvain, who employed Sasha in various political ‘tasks’. When Sasha turned twenty-four, he traveled to islands and chains near Hammerfell, doing various political mercenary work for the Count as Cyrodiil elected a new Emperor at last -- Caesar Tiberias, an affluent member the Elder Council two years younger than Sasha, rumored to have traveled to Akavir in the last year. All the while Adius joined the guards in Bruma.
Now Sasha was twenty-five, having just witnessed his parents being burned alive.
The Dragon that did it was red and giant. A Serpentine head with six limbs; four legs and two wings projecting from its back. It was the biggest animal he’d ever seen in his life, easily the size of the city. Bruma was ablaze too, the neighbors and friends and community he’d grown up with all gone. Adius and Armion’s corpses were ash on the snow. Only Sasha survived. The red dragon roared, almost like it was laughing. He noticed gold scales outlining it and filling its underbelly before it spoke to him, flapping its wings in midair.
“I am Du’uljunyol, and I want you to suffer, Sasha Kroum.” It swooped off into the distance toward Skyrim.
Sasha closed his eyes.
He didn’t remember much after that, just that he apathetically collected the remains of his belongings from the burnt hovel that was his home. He buried Adius, his parents and dog, Jacques, then made for Skyrim. Why Skyrim? He wasn’t completely sure. But the Red Dragon had flown that way, so Sasha was too.
There wasn’t much on the road save trees, some wolves, snow, and Fort Pale Pass.
The border was empty, no guards on patrol. Skyrim was snowy and a forest of trees that led into Falkreath Hold awaited him. Large pines decorating the snowscape downward. Mountain ranges of beatific make walled Skyrim off from the rest of Tamriel. Sasha stepped down the hill. He felt nothing. His whole life had been nothing short of a tragedy. So, this was nothing new. From a tormented childhood to his struggles with school to Juliet to being wrongfully imprisoned for five years to almost being killed by a missing god and now this. Nothing ever went his way, and he’d given up on life.
Sasha was shaken from his reverie when a few men garbed in fur with steel helmets and blue badges rushed past him. Bear skins and totems adorning their armor. A man on a horse trotted past shortly after. The whole lot of them nearing the border.
Sasha didn’t really care where they were going though.
“Hey there’s one more of them!” Shouted an Imperial soldier from up ahead.
Aah crud, I forgot there’s a civil war in this province. Sasha held up his hands, not moving an inch as a battalion of Imperials neared him.
The soldiers rushed him. One of them was a huge Orc, who shoved his fist into Sasha’s head hard. Sasha backstepped and spun around delirious, falling onto the snow and passing out. He didn’t care what happened to him anymore, he was just the plaything of the gods’ it would seem.
I’ll see you soon, mother and father.
~OoOoO~
Auxiliary Info: That’s the first chapter! More to come, please leave a review. But yes, that Dragon burned down Bruma for a reason. It wasn’t simply dragons being dragons, it had intent behind its killing! Also, Alduin in this au, was sent forward in time from the Merethic era to the actual end of time, not the fourth era. The Volkihar don’t exist like they do in game, instead they’re present as described in pre-Skyrim lore. (But characters like Harkon and Serana don’t exist). And Miraak doesn’t exist either. Instead Alessia is the first Dragonborn. Be sure to check out my other Skyrim fics while you wait for this to update!
