《Caprifexia the Beneficent, Saviour of the Multiverse》


 An Expedient Tactical Retreat

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    Caprifexia, true Queen of the Black Flight, rightful Warden of the Earth, last daughter of Neltharion the Destroyer, and baby dragon ¨Ccorrectly termed ''whelpling''¨C of twenty two months was having a bad day.


    It had started well enough. She''d woken slightly before sunset, and once night had fallen she''d crawled from the small cave that had been serving as her strategically chosen and highly clandestine headquarters in search of food. After a few hours she''d managed to catch a rat in the nearby grassy mountain meadow, and after sating herself with the fruit of her successful hunt she had returned to her top secret base of operations to indulge one of her favourite pass-times.


    Caprifexia liked many things: rending the flesh of her foes with her razor-sharp talons; shattering the weak wills of mortals; and setting farmland ablaze and listening to the anguished cries of the villagers. Normal interests for any properly brought up and well adjusted young dragon. She also very much enjoyed reading.


    She had managed to salvage around a dozen tomes during her clever relocation after ''adventurers'' had sacked her home and slaughtered her brothers and sisters. While a far cry from the expansive library of her home, Blackrock Spire, which had sat atop the summit of the tallest mountain on the continent, it had been better than nothing.


    She had been half-way through a chapter on pyromancy when suddenly she had once again found herself under attack by adventurers. Now, as a dragon Caprifexia didn''t feel fear. No, her withdrawal from the dracocidal maniacs had been calm, collected, and entirely tactical. Any alarmed exclamations heard by any hypothetical observer would have been solely the result to the over-active imagination.


    Presumably the assassins had been sent by her last living brother, although it could have been someone from any of the inferior mortal societies who had had the temerity to take exception to her people''s quest to subjugate and/or exterminate them. If Caprifexia had been human, she might have thought it was all some kind of elaborate life-insurance scam. But she didn''t, since, as we have already established, she was a dragon.


    She hadn''t really been concerned by the assassins of course. They were just mortals, and she was a dragon. Mortals were, by their very nature, lesser and more limited beings than their dragon betters. Therefore she had never been in any danger. It was simple logic.


    But it had been mildly stressful to come within centimetres of being skewered by a spear, and of course she had better things to do elsewhere. Which is why, when a rift in space and time had suddenly appeared in a swirl of golden light she hadn''t hesitated in throwing herself through it with something that only the most uncharitable and wrong onlooker might have described as a terrified scream.


    The rift in space-time had led onto a strange platform suspended in an abyss filled with non-euclidian shadows, crackling clouds, and cords of dazzling energy. The platform looked as if it had been constructed by a deranged mind: walls of dwarvish masonry changed from one point to the next into elvish wooden paneling before shifting into dark orcish alloy barricades; tribal totems depicting great spirits and animals were joined to orderly geometric columns of black basalt trimmed in brassy metal; and the plants that grew here and there were twisted mockeries of reality.


    Seemingly endless vanished into the foggy, twisting, writhing distance, hanging suspended in the abyss, oriented at different angles and connected by haphazard bridges that followed impossible and contradictory laws of geometry. Stairs that led up and down at the same time, rope bridges that inexplicably split and forked, and stone spans that twisted in over themselves like corkscrews.


    The only common factor within the vast, seemingly endless mishmash of different architectural styles, climates, and general chaos were the stars. Floating at the centre of each platform, or thereabouts, were miniature suns blazed with a kaleidoscope of colour, connected to one another via the twisting, arcing mass of rainbow colour streams of energy that surged through the great abyss in massive torrents of power.


    Inconveniently for Caprifexia however, she had entered the rift with rather too much momentum to remain on the platform she had arrived on, and emerged from the portal in the star at significant horizontal velocity. Despite the best efforts of her small wings she had been unable to create any lift whatsoever, and had fallen down, then sideways, then up, then down, then in an entirely unclear orientation somewhere between up and down before finally colliding with another platform.


    Or rather, she collided with a piece of diagonally slanted masonry, bounced, hit what might have been a roof, bounced again, rolled off a column, and hit another roof before finally landing on the platform''s ground and rolling once, twice, and then three times before touching the platform''s star and finding herself transported.


    From one moment to the next she found herself plunged into foul smelling swamp water, higher than her head, all of which had been more than enough for the drowning whelp to decide it had very much been a ''bad day.''


    Caprifexia was many things: brilliant, witty, brave, elegant, and regal, to name just a few of her virtually innumerable qualities. What she was not however, was a good swimmer, and her lungs burned as she thrashed about in the water in a manner that to a foolish mortal might have appeared to be terror.


    Caprifexia realised that she was going to die. Realised that she, the last true member, and thus Queen, of her dragonflight, a being of immense perfection, intellect, might and majesty, was going to drown in a few feet of water. It was unfair, totally against the natural order, and more than a little humiliating.


    Then, as black spots began to creep in on her vision, she remembered that she was a dragon.


    To a foolish mortal, this might not have seemed like much of an insight. But mortals could be depended on to be disappointments. To Caprifexia, as a dragon, she knew that naturally, as a dragon, she had solutions to any and all problems she might find herself facing. As a dragon.


    In this case, the solution to the problem of being too small was to make herself bigger. She didn''t actually know how to enlarge herself with magic, at least not directly. Although one day she would be a sky-shaking juggernaut of scaled terror and destruction, that wouldn''t be for a few centuries. But that didn''t mean she couldn''t, after a fashion, be bigger in that moment.


    For a Black Dragon the capacity to infiltrate mortal societies and bend them to one''s will and/or destroy them was considered an essential foundational skill, and two and a half months earlier she''d managed to get the hang of the spell that let her assume a mortal guise. A mortal guise that would be able to stand in three feet of water without difficulty.


    So with a surge of magic, and a feeling of slight embarrassment, she began to transform herself into a young woman that, while not particularly tall, would be able to safely stand in the water without it going over her head.


    Her black scales shifted beneath her power, lightening in hue and smoothing as they changed into dusky olive skin. Her mane of thick black hair which ran down her neck, drew upwards, concentrating itself on the crown of her head as her eyes shifted to face forward. On her back her wings folded into her spine, her talons shortened into nails at the end of fleshy fingers, and her arms and legs reoriented themselves, lengthening and changing as sleek black leggings and a coat wrapped spun themselves into existence, until finally, a moment later, in the place of where a regal and majestic ¨C if somewhat small and drowning ¨C whelpling had been drowning stood a somewhat damp, somewhat short five foot two half-elven woman who looked to either be in her late teens or early twenties.


    Caprifexia was a remarkable wizard, but despite her prodigal nature she hadn''t ever quite gotten the spell right. Her eyes still glowed the same burning red as when she was an whelpling, she hadn''t managed to shed the now quite large ebony horns that jutted from her temples and swept back behind her skull, and her mortal guises'' cuspid teeth were too sharp and vicious to belong to any real half-elf.


    Had her home not been overrun and sacked by mortals she could have simply sought out the appropriate tome in their grand library, or asked one of her older siblings how to fix the problem, but as the last of her kind it was unlikely she would be correcting the ¨C very small ¨C error anytime soon.


    Muttering several curses that a young woman ¨C dragon or half-elven ¨C definitely should not have known she scrambled up onto some drier land, glad that no one had been around to see her rather embarrassing flailings.


    She sat down on a rock with a huff and took a moment to compose herself. Once no longer shaking ¨Cnot from fear, of course, since dragons didn''t get scared, but for a totally unrelated reason that was quite frankly not something that was of no concern to nosey mortals at all¨C she began looking around at the new environment she had definitely intended to come to.


    As the musty smell had told her, she was indeed in a swamp; and judging by the insect chirps, one infested with disgusting creepy crawlies. Caprifexia wasn''t scared of bugs. She was, after all, a dragon; that would have been absurd. She simply hated insects with a burning passion and wanted them to be exterminated to the last ant, or, in the mean time, at least be kept as far away from her as possible at all times.


    There were a few other bits of land here and there, but on the whole the swamp was mostly below murky water. Tall trees raised on labyrinthine roots rose in every direction creating a seemingly impenetrable wall of wood that extended off into the distance. The only light came through foliage so thick that although the sun was directly above her head it felt like it was already dusk.


    Something niggled at the back of her mind, telling her she was missing something. It was like an itch on her lower wing in the place she could never quite reach to scratch with her too-short neck, or like the small shards of bone that sometimes would get wedged between her teeth after a meal, and which she''d have to spend ages worrying at with her tongue to dislodge.


    No, she was fairly certain that the thing she was missing was important. Despite the buzzing and chirping of the swamp it was almost as if she was suddenly floating on a still ocean that had previously always been a raging tempest.


    So preoccupied was Caprifexia with the strange stillness that she didn''t notice the giant centipede crawling towards her until she felt the weight on her shoe.


    Caprifexia certainly didn''t hurl herself backward and land in a heap, screaming and swearing and scrambling away. That wouldn''t have been in keeping with her great dignity as Queen of the Black Dragonflight. That definitely didn''t happen.


    "Ahhhhh!" screamed Caprifexia, shifting back into her whelpling form and flapping up into the canopy, away from the creature that definitely didn''t terrify her.


    It took a lot of biting, clawing, and a few small gouts of fire, but she did eventually emerge from the thick canopy and out into the brilliant sunshine. From atop her perch on one of the higher trees she could see some mountains to her right, capped in snow, and she sighed in relief.


    Snowy mountains, unlike swamps, tended to have very few bugs.


    ***


    "You there," said Caprifexia in her most endearing voice. "Tell me what town this is called at once!"


    She had flown west for a while, figuring that if she remembered her geography correctly ¨C which of course she had ¨C she had probably landed in the eastern swamps she should hit the dead lands around the famous mortal wizarding tower of Karazhan, or if not that then the haunted woods beyond ¨C both of which would be a good place to lie low for a while.


    She had, however, not hit a desolate mountain range or haunted forest, and instead had found jagged snowcapped mountains that seemed to go on and on forever. There were a towns where there shouldn''t have been any towns, roads that made no sense, and ruins with strange, alien architecture nothing like the shattered dwarven city she had been to on a very enjoyable field trip with the rest of her clutch to illustrate what a successful razing looked like.


    Her second thought was that she might be in the north in the mountainous region of Alterac, which was an area she was less familiar with. But there was no immense lake to the west, nor any ogres or undead apes that the books she had read would have led her to expect in the north.


    After that she had thought she might be in the far western continent, Kalimdor, but that didn''t make sense either. There were swampy areas there, but to her knowledge none that lay directly to the east of snowy mountain ranges. And certainly there were far more pink skinned apes in this strange new place than there should have been on Kalimdor.


    So after several confusing days of flying back and forth looking for some kind of landmark she might recognise she had decided to simply land and gather some intelligence from local mortals using her overabundance guile and charm. She had picked one of the larger settlements, ringed by a large wall, and at the centre of which stood a stout stone keep.


    "This is Helgen," said the man, looking askance at her for some reason she couldn''t identify. "You have some kind of magical accident, elf?"


    "Excuse me?" she said.


    "Your horns," he said.


    "My horns? Oh, yes, that''s right," she said, inwardly cursing her inability to cast the spell correctly. "An accident ¨Cnot my fault mind you¨C that is definitely what happened."


    The man grunted in a way that might have indicated that he was extremely unimpressed. Or not. Caprifexia hadn''t interacted much with mortals. At least, ones that weren''t screaming in pain or sobbing in terror. For all she knew he might have been making an observation of how wise she was. That would make more sense than someone being unimpressed with her after all. Yes, that was it, a grunt of impressed¡­ ness.


    This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    "You with the Thalmor?" asked the man.


    "I am not with anyone," she said with an imperious sniff.


    She wasn''t entirely sure what a ''Thalmor'' was, but as a general rule Caprifexia operated under the assumption that if she didn''t know about something then it probably wasn''t important. After all, she was a dragon. If something was worth knowing, then, almost by definition, a dragon would know about it. QED.


    "On your way to Winterhold then?" said the man.


    "What makes you say that?" asked Caprifexia. She didn''t know what a Winterhold was either, although it wouldn''t do to let the mortal know that.


    "You''re a wizard, obviously ¨C only they''re stupid enough to give themselves horns by accident," he said.


    "Stupid!? Watch your tongue mort- I mean, man!" she said, almost calling him a mortal before she remembered her lessons and caught herself. Mortals didn''t call each other mortals, they actually thought they were not only important, but normal, as if it were normal to age and die like a pathetic insect.


    Then man spat at her feet.


    There are a few generally agreed upon rules that most Azerothians knew to follow when dealing with the magical apex-predators. Harris Flimphan, a Lordaronian scholar who wrote the book ''Talking with Dragons: Why don''t we just not?,'' had three cardinal rules for how to survive an encounter with a dragon:


    Firstly, be careful. Dragons are immortal, hyper-intelligent, hyper-magical, flying, armoured, fire-breathing killing machines. Even the ''nicer'' ones are dangerous. When dealing with a dragon, take all possible steps to not anger them and, if possible, run away.


    Secondly, dragons are Arrogant. They take insults personally, and even unintentional slights can result in a prospective dragon-scholar breaching the first rule and being incinerated. Compliment them and excuse yourself as quickly as possible before running away.


    Thirdly, under no circumstances should anyone engage or treat or even speak with a black dragon. Black dragons are all, to an individual, homicidal, megalomaniacal maniacs who have less empathy than the average paper bag. Run. Away.


    Unfortunately for the human who spat at her feet, one ''Harvor,'' he had not read Flimphan''s book, was thus unprepared when Caprifexia instantly saw red, and was only part-way through opening his mouth to say something else impudent when her fist rammed into his nose. It broke with a crunch, and he let out a muffled scream as he collapsed backward onto the dirty cobblestones.


    Caprifexia might have looked like a small young half-elven woman, but even in a guise she was a dragon, a being off immense might and magic. She didn''t need massive muscles to break a puny mortal like a twig.


    "Hey, she hit Harvor!" shouted another mortal from a nearby stall that seemed to be specialised in selling entirely uninteresting trinkets.


    Caprifexia turned toward the mortal and narrowed her eyes, and was just debating as to whether she should kill the man who had spat at her first, or if she should dispatch this second impudent fool and then get back to him when there was a rushing sound and the scraping of steel. She looked behind herself to see a group of armed and inexplicably angry looking mortals in uniforms.


    "That''s enough!" said one of guards, brandishing their sword at her ¨C as if she was the one who had done something wrong. "Elf, you''re under arrest for assault; you''ll have to come with us."


    "That man insulted me, and is- and is a racist!" she immediately countered, digging into what she had learned from a pamphlet she had read as part of her studies entitled: ''Incitement 101: ten fun steps to get mortals to kill each other.'' Step one, cast blame on the other person. "I was provoked!" she continued. "He threatened to kill my entire family, and burn down my home, and sell my brothers into slavery, and- and he wanted to harvest my organs, and carve-"


    "Disliking Elves is not a crime in Skyrim, and no he didn''t, I was standing right there," said the guard. "But please, by all means, resist. I got good at killing your kind in the war, and I would hate to let my skills get rusty."


    Caprifexia glowered at him, but didn''t resist as two of his fellows secured her arms behind her back and she was frog-marched towards a fort that lay at the centre of the town.


    Had she been older she would have simply fried them all with magic, or transform into a giant wyrm and rip them apart with her teeth, but while she was still a whelpling her hide wasn''t tough enough to turn aside mortal weapons ¨C she couldn''t defeat a dozen or more guards just quite yet.


    But she remembered their faces. Oh yes. Give her a few years to grow into a full drake and then she''d come back and show them the price of assaulting a dragon. She''d show them. She''d show them all!


    ***


    Two weeks later Caprifexia was still kicking her heels in gaol. Or rather, kicking the metal bars of her small dirty and dingy cell deep beneath the town''s squat keep. She was starting to feel antsy, too long in a mortal form made dragons get like that. It was a bit being stuffed into a too small box. Well, in her case, the box was a bit larger, but it was still unpleasant.


    "Hey!" she shouted, for the seventeenth time that hour, banging her boot against the metal bars. "When am I going to get ¨C what do you apes call it ¨C a trial?"


    "For the love of Akatosh, will you please shut up," said the only other inmate from the cell opposite hers, a swarthy human with tanned skin and dirty blonde hair. "Didn''t you get your answer when they socked you in the face for the tenth time?"


    Caprifexia did have several bruises from when the wardens had gotten sick of her imperious demands, but she was a dragon, the definition of stubborn, and she had simply etched their face into her mind, added it to her rapidly growing ''kill later list,'' and kept on going.


    "Hey!" she shouted, ignoring him. "Hey!"


    Then there was a rumble and the keep shook and something exploded outside. Some dust fell from the ceiling, and there was the sound of running far down the corridor.


    "Finally," breathed the man opposite her, rattling at his lock.


    "What''s going on?" demanded Caprifexia.


    "An opportunity, the guards will be distracted by whatever that is," he said, pulling out what looked like a flattened fork and trying and failing to fit it into the lock. "Damn, wish I had a proper pick."


    "You know a way out?" she asked, as another explosion rocked the keep.


    "Sure," he said, ineffectually scraping about the with piece of metal. "Not the first time I''ve been in here."


    "How about we make a bargain then: you agree to show me the way out of here, and I break that lock for you," she said.


    Mortals loved to bargain, at least according to her textbook. Ideally you made bargains where they gave you something first, so you could then immediately double cross them, but in this case that didn''t seem to be possible.


    "How are you going to do that?" he said sceptically.


    Caprifexia took her own lock in her hand for focused, weaving her magic into the necessary form.


    "Ignis," she intoned, using the nonsense mnemonic that she had associated with generating heat.


    Incantations were personal, and not entirely necessary. Accomplished dragons went without, but while Caprifexia was an amazing whelpling and far beyond the pathetic flailings of mortal mages, she hadn''t quite mastered word-less magic. Yet, that was.


    There was a crackle as her power made its way from her fingers into the metal, and the lock began to burn first orange, then white hot beneath her fingers, before dripping down onto the stones and landing with a hiss.


    "Why by the Eight didn''t you do that weeks ago!?" he said. "I wouldn''t have had to listen to your whinging."


    "You didn''t say you knew a way out," she said, stepping out of her cell and into the prison''s corridor. "So, do we have a deal?"


    The blonde man nodded and extended his hand. "You have my word, elf."


    "Caprifexia," she said, ignoring whatever silly mortal ritual he was attempting.


    "What?" he said.


    "My name, I am not called ''Elf,''" she said. "You will address me properly or I will kill you."


    "Oh, err, of course. Sorry, you''re right, that was a bit rude, I''m Einar," he said, peering at her as she repeated her spell on his lock. "How does that not burn your hands?"


    Because I''m a dragon. "Because magic, shut up," she said, opening the gate as the building shook once more. "Now what?"


    "Well, first I think we should-"


    Before he said could finish his likely needlessly long winded explanation the doors to the prison crashed open, cutting him off. A slightly burned looking woman with tanned skin and a short man with a shaved head entered the corridor. They were both wearing the armour of the ''Empire,'' as Caprifexia had learned it was called, and looked rather peeved.


    "There is a way out-" began the woman, before she saw Caprifexia and Einar''s in-progress breakout.


    Rather than being reasonable, the female guard yelled and drew her sword, not even bothering to ask if they had a good explanation for being out of their cells before charging them with bloody murder in her eyes.


    Now, Caprifexia was a practical young dragon. She knew that the more bodies were between herself and a sharp blade the better. Which was why she immediately pushed Einar towards the guard before turning, running off down the corridor in the opposite direction and definitely not screaming.


    "You bitch!" said Einar, recovering and following after her a moment later. "Throw a fireball at her or something!"


    Oh, right. She was magic. She knew that.


    "Augis," she said, tossing the fire that jumped to her fingertips behind her without looking.


    "Fucking hell," swore Einar. "Not at me! At them, at them!"


    Caprifexia threw another fireball blindly.


    There was a masculine scream as the spell hit something with a whoosh, and Caprifexia glanced back to see one of their pursuers fall to the ground, thrashing about as he tried to put the fire out.


    "Again, again!" said Einar.


    "Augis," she repeated, throwing another fireball, missing Einar by a totally intentional and well calculated tiny margin.


    There was a female scream, and Caprifexia slowed as she looked back again to see the woman in the metal armour thrashing on the ground and attempting to put the fire out. Einar was also swearing slapping at some fire on his arm from where she must have clipped him, and Caprifexia almost felt bad for a moment ¨C which confused her, since when did she care about mortals?


    Oh, she realised, it must have been because she still needed him to escape. That made sense. She also needed lackeys. Dragons always needed lackeys. And he seemed to have an acceptably small number of scruples. Yes, her ill ease certainly wasn''t because she had nearly killed him. He was just a mortal. That would be absurd.


    Behind him several of the more flammable parts of the prison were on fire, and Einar coughed as the air filled with smoke. It didn''t bother Caprifexia though, her kind lived in volcanoes by choice, and could process many normally toxic gases as part of standard respiration. It was one of the virtually endless ways her kind were infinitely superior to ugly hairless apes.


    Einar eventually managed to put out the fire on his arm, and made his way back to where the woman''s sword from where it has fallen.


    "Sorry, but you were trying to kill us," he said, taking up the blade, and after taking a deep breath quickly and efficiently ended the life of the still burning and screaming woman.


    The apologising was a bit poor form, but mortals were flawed creatures, and Caprifexia still revised her appraisal of him upward ever so slightly. Yes, she thought, he might make a decent follower after all. After all, according to her textbook, proficiency in murder was a core skill to look for in any potential minion.


    "Ugh. Bad way to go," said Einar. "Can you put this out? She might have some coin."


    "Glacis," she said, launching a ball of frigid mist towards the woman that made the flames splutter and die.


    Einar quickly rifled through her pockets, withdrawing a very singed bag filled with coin, which he pocketed, and a dagger, which he handed to Caprifexia.


    "What am I suppose to do with this?" said Caprifexia, looking askance at the dagger.


    "You stab things with it," he said.


    "That''s what you''re for, meat-shield," she said.


    "You- you are unbelievably arrogant," he said. "Seriously, I know you''re a mage and therefore it''s sort of expected that you''re a bit of a egotist, but do you seriously think you are better than me because you can set things on fire around with your mind?"


    "Yes," she nodded. Why was he stating the obvious?


    He sighed. "Whatever. Fine. Come on, the exit is this way."


    The tunnel sloped downward for another minute, empty cells lining both sides. Then they reached a dead end and Einar pushed open the cell to their left.


    "Are you drunk, mortal?" she said. "That''s just another cell."


    "Mortal?" he frowned. "Wow, you''re beyond arrogant, aren''t you? What think you''re a Divine or something? No ¨C there''s a passage."


    He pushed a semi-loose brick in the upper right section of the cell, before one lower down. There was a grinding sound that definitely would have attracted attention had the apocalypse apparently not been happening outside, and to Caprifexia''s surprise part of the wall slid away to reveal a dark passage.


    "What sort of imbecile designed a secret escape route inside a cell?" she said.


    "This castle is ancient, maybe it wasn''t always a prison," shrugged Einar. "Can you make us some light?"


    "Of course," said Caprifexia, raising her hand. "Lucernia."


    A pale white warelight burst into existence over her palm, before wobbling slightly. Caprifexia realised she had probably overtaxed her reserves a bit with the three fireballs and the cooling spell. She was a dragon, and thus good at magic naturally, but she was also very young, and hadn''t yet built up much in the way of reserves.


    It was a good thing that most of her fireballs had hit. Not that she would have expected anything less. She was a dragon after all, the definition of perfection.


    "Let''s go then," said Einar, ducking his head as he entered the tunnel. Caprifexia followed a moment later, and after ten or so seconds of walking the passage entrance shut itself just as the keep shook once more from whatever fortuitous destruction was going on up above to help cover their escape.


    ***


    Three hours later Caprifexia''s arm shook as she lowered herself carefully onto a fallen tree outside the small crack in the rock-face that the tunnel had emerged from. They were far from the town with the prison, three point two miles if her Earth-sense was correct. Which it was. She was a dragon after all.


    Ahead of them was a gently sloping alpine meadow. Wildflowers bloomed, in the distance she could see a herd of deer by a copse of trees, and in the valley''s floor a wending river shimmered in the noon-day sun beneath sharp snow capped peaks.


    "Hey, Capri? You OK?" said Einar. "Something bothering you?"


    Caprifexia gulped and stared down at her trembling web-covered arms, flashbacks of the dark cave illuminated by desperate blasts of orange light, the tangled webs, the bodies wrapped in silk, and the giant creeping legs making her shiver.


    "Giant. Spiders," she said. "Why is it always Insects!?"


    "Technically they''re arachnids," said Einar.


    "Shut up you stupid mortal," she snapped, peeling off some of the disgusting webbing.


    "Still with that?" laughed Einar. "Look ¨C I get it, you live longer than me, but you''re still going to age and die."


    "Age," said Caprifexia imperiously, forcing herself not to think about the spiders and instead focus on recruiting the beginnings of a new network of mortal servants she had been meaning to replace ever since the last of the dragon-cultists that served her flight had all met rather messy ends. She shifted her form, her voice taking on a slight eldritch cadence. "But not die."


    Einar turned blinking as a regal whelpling replaced the small half-elven woman, web still clinging to her forelimbs.


    "Behold!" she said.


    "You can turn into a lizard?" he said sceptically. "I mean, nice magic, but how does that stop you dying?"


    "Turn into- you foolish mortal," she said, flaring her wings. "I am not a lizard ¨C look, I have wings; I am a dragon!"


    Einar rolled his eyes. "Smallest dragon I''ve ever seen."


    "I- look, I am young, yes, but I am still an immortal being," she said.


    "As opposed to an elf who knows shape-shifting, and has a mild- who am I kidding, an acute case of megalomania?"


    "I am a dragon!"


    "Sure you are," he said, patting her on the head and nearly getting bitten. "Hey!"


    "Listen mortal, I am giving you the opportunity to be the first of my minions," she said. "I can give you power, money, fortune-"


    "How?" he said, rudely cutting in. "You''ve just been in prison for ages, and while you''re clearly a decent enough wizard, if you had that kind of clout I wouldn''t have had to listen to you whinge for weeks."


    "I am a dragon," she explained.


    "Even if you were, that explains nothing," he said, incorrectly. "Look, you make me laugh Capri, and after you stopped trying to push me into swords we worked well together. I know some people in Riften, we could go into business together ¨C cons, thieving, that sort of stuff; there aren''t that many spell-casters in the business, we could go far."


    Ah, ''business together'' was a mortal phrase for forming a working relationship. So he had some pride, but had clearly accepted her offer. Excellent.


    "Good idea, minion," said Caprifexia. "I do need contacts in the criminal underworld¡­ very well, I will accept your suggestion, we shall go to this ''Riften'' and begin work reconstructing a network with which I can take over the world."


    Einar rolled his eyes. "Whatever ''dragon,'' come on."

 The Great Apiary Deception

    "So she thinks she''s a dragon?" said her mortal lackey''s contact called Binbolf. Or something. She hadn''t been listening. He was a tall red-headed ''Nord,'' one of the locals in a region she had never heard of before ¨C ''Skyrim.''


    There were a few strange things about the area: the orcs and humans seemed a lot friendlier with each other than Caprifexia remembered reading about in her classes, there were cat and lizard people she''d never heard of before, as well as even more sub-breeds of elves than she had realised existed.


    Then again, mortal studies never had been her best subject. It had been taught by a drake too weak to have a proper job in her dragonflight, and who couldn''t control her clutch, so she had mainly dozed or read about more interesting things ¨C like magic.


    "Just go with it," said Einar, making some strange mortal winding motion beside his head. "She''s a pretty good wizard though, melts locks in her hand and can shapeshift."


    Caprifexia and her minion were currently in some very disgusting drainage system below the equally filthy mortal town of ''Riften.'' The air was close and damp, the walls and floor grimy and disgusting, and a very large part of her would have liked nothing more than to set it all on fire. There were various low-life looking types hanging around a rather slimy pool of water drinking slimy beverages, an eye-watering percentage of which was alcohol.


    Mortals really were ridiculous, thought Caprifexia as she watched one them throw back a toxic drink, always so keen to end their already short lives even sooner. And yet they had the audacity to complain when her people simply expedited the process. Hypocrites.


    "I suppose we could always use more wizards," said Binbolf, swirling his more sensible cup of some kind of tea in front of him. "Fine. Got a job that can work with two. The Goldenglow estate is important to one of the guild''s biggest clients, and we need you two to go and teach them a lesson."


    "How many should we kill?" asked Caprifexia. "Do you think one in every ten will do? A good traditional decimation? I''m open to suggestions."


    "What? No! No killing!" said Binbolf, frowning deeply and looking at Einar. "We just need you to get into their central office and steal the ledgers. Don''t kill anyone, and definitely do not damage the hives themselves."


    "No killing. Got it," said Einar, breaching the boundaries of their minon-master relationship by taking Caprifexia by the shoulders and steering her out of the subterranean bar.


    "Unhand me, mortal!" she said.


    "Yeah, yeah, yeah," said Einar, ignoring her. "Akatosh, you''re crazy Capri."


    "My name is Caprifexia," she said. "For an outlaw, Binbolf-"


    "Brynjolf. He''s called Brynjolf."


    "Do not interrupt me," said Caprifexia. "As I was saying, for an outlaw, Binbolf seems remarkably unwilling to destroy his enemies. I''m not sure I care for the class of criminal you are introducing me to, minion. I require lackeys willing to cause death and destruction, not soft-hearted thieves."


    "Fuck''s sake, my name is Einar. Einar."


    "I''m aware."


    "Brynjolf is one of the head honchos of the Thieves Guild here, so play nice with him if you want to us keep getting jobs, yeah?" said Einar. "Now, how do you want to do this?"


    "I want to burn down this honey factory, salt the fields around this squalid little city, and bathe in the blood of my enemies," she said. "But apparently no one cares what I want."


    "OK, what about a plan that doesn''t involve failing the mission before we even start it and hurting loads of innocent people? Something that doesn''t sabotage the honey production, and doesn''t involve murder."


    "Well what about some mayhem?" she said. "We could set fire to the area near the hives, and while the workers are dealing with that, we just stroll in and take the ledgers?"


    "I like the distraction ploy, but how about instead of setting things of fire we just pose as prospective buyers?"


    "That sounds less entertaining," said Caprifexia. "But acceptable, I suppose."


    Black dragons were masters of deception and subtlety after all.


    ***


    Smoke curled up the walls of the office, billowing in from under the closed door. The muffled sound of crackling flames reached them, along with more than a few screams.


    They were on the outer edge of the stinking mortal town, in a large mansion on the ''Goldenglow Estate,'' which was near a field where mortals in their endless depravity actually cultivated insects. She had wanted raze the hives to the ground on sight, but she had restrained herself and limited herself to just the mansion as part of her genius ''distraction'' ploy.


    But once she took over, then this apiary, all apiaries, would burn.


    "Hurry up," said Caprifexia, who was gripping the terrified manager of the Goldenglow Estate by his collar and shaking him periodically to stop him getting lippy.


    She had been going to kill him, of course, but then she''d remembered that Binbolf had begged her not to, and it didn''t pay to annoy one''s prospective minion in the ''wooing'' stage. You needed to speak softly, be gentle, offer to help them with whatever mortal neurosis was bothering them at the time, promise them power and wealth, and make them love you. The fear and terror came later. At least, that''s what her textbook had said.


    Also, for some reason she couldn''t identify, now that she was actually at the Goldenglow Estate she found the thought of murdering a mortal in cold blood a little unsettling.


    It must have been something she ate.


    "I''m going as fast as I can!" said Einar, hurriedly shoving the key into the lock and opening a cabinet that contained the ledgers. "Of course, if you hadn''t set fire to the damn building, I wouldn''t have to hurry!"


    "Please, I have a wife!" begged the manager, pathetically.


    "Shut up, no one cares," said Caprifexia to both of them, pushing the man over and giving him a kick in the rear for good measure. "Got them?"


    "Yes," said Einar, grabbing the books and stuffing them into a satchel. "Let''s go."


    "Good, now listen here ape," she said, picking the manager back up before he could crawl away and hoisting him back off the ground. "Tell the guards anything about us and I''ll personally pay a visit to this lovely wife you''ve been gibbering about. I''ll have dinner, it''ll be delightful."


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    "I''d listen to her if I were you," said Einar, making that motion next to his ear again. "She''s a fucking maniac."


    "OK! OK!" sobbed the manager. "Just don''t hurt me, please!"


    Satisfied, Caprifexia pushed him back to the ground.


    "Brynjolf is going to be so mad," said Einar, coughing as he opened a window and crawled out, dropping to the ground six or so feet below as Caprifexia shifted and flapped down after him.


    "Why? We didn''t kill anyone, and the hives are fine," she said gesturing with a claw to the wooden boxes that were clearly not on fire, unlike the main building behind them that definitely was. "We fulfilled all of his ridiculous requirements."


    "You''re a total psychopath," he said as he ran for the nearest wall and vaulted over. "And switch back, it''s weird talking to a flying lizard."


    "Dragon."


    "Fine, dragon," he said, putting up his hood and trying to look inconspicuous as Caprifexia flapped along beside him. "Capri!"


    Caprifexia waited a few more seconds just to show that he wasn''t the boss, she was, before switching and attempting to draw up her own hood. It got stuck on her horns and tore, but with a bit of wrestling she got it to come forward over her face. Very Stealthy.


    "Hey you!" said a guard as they rounded the corner. "You see what happened?" he asked, gesturing to the orange flames and smoke pouring from the building they had just left.


    "We certainly didn''t set it on fire," said Caprifexia, convincingly. "I heard that the manager was incompetent, and a drunk, and liked to gamble, and his wife was a criminal hiding from the law, so perhaps it was for in-sor-ance, and-"


    Einar put a hand over her mouth. "We don''t know anything about it sir."


    "Oh, alright then," said the guard. "Just stay out of the way ¨C we''ll be bringing water carts through soon, and we don''t need any gawkers underfoot."


    ***


    "What on Nirn were you thinking!?" yelled Binbolf, who was somehow upset despite having jumped through his absurd hurdles. "I told you not to damage honey production or hurt anyone! Does the word ''subtlety'' mean anything to you?"


    "We didn''t, the hives are fine, and no one died," said Caprifexia. "And I don''t ¨C hic ¨C like your tone, mortal."


    "At least the guards seem to think that it was an inside job, something about insurance fraud, and the drunk of a manager refusing to say anything at all about it," said Binbolf, rubbing his face before shaking his head and walking away, muttering under his breath. Probably about how brilliant she was.


    They were sitting in an unhygienic tavern hidden in the even more disgusting subterranian drainage system, and Einar had bought them a bottle of something that probably would have burned Caprifexia''s throat if she had been mortal. Caprifexia had insisted on sterilising her mug thoroughly with boiling water, which seemed to offend the barkeeper.


    "Hah!" said Caprifexia, tossing down another mugful of the liquid. "In-sor-ance," she said, using a word she wasn''t entirely sure the meaning of, but which she''d heard someone say in the subterranean bar the first time they''d been there. She was pretty sure it caused some kind of harm to people. Or at least involved destroying things. She wasn''t sure; it wasn''t important. "I ¨C hic ¨C knew it."


    "Capri, you literally made that stuff up not two hours ago, I can''t believe the guards fell for it ¨C you are an unbelievably terrible liar," said Einar.


    "Quiet minion," she said, pouring herself more of the ''rum.'' "You''re not supposed to ¨C hic ¨C back chat me. You''ll have to work on that."


    "I''m not your minion."


    "Sure you are, you agreed to ''go into business'' with me," she said, gulping down the entire mug. "And since I''m a dragon, and you''re a mortal, that makes this a master-minion relationship by definition. Anything else ¨C hic ¨C it would be like¡­ like a¡­ a¡­ mortal thinking it was equal to ¨C hic ¨C to a dragon!"


    "You''re deranged," he said. "And stop drinking so much, you''re tiny ¨C you''ll pass out."


    "I''m a dragon ¨C hic ¨C I have a strong consti- consti- constitution."


    "You''re not a dragon, you''re just a very disturbed young woman."


    "Why ¨C hic ¨C can''t you accept me for what I am, minion?" said Caprifexia.


    "Because dragon''s don''t turn into people, and you have four legs, dragon''s have two."


    "Nonsense, proto-drakes have two legs. I am a dragon, Blessed by the Titans, Scion of the Old Ones, Daughter ¨C hic ¨C of Neltharion the Destroyer, and Queen of the Black Dragonflight!"


    Einar snorted. "And I''m the Prince of Atmora ¨C see, I can make up stuff too."


    "Make up?" she said, starting to get confused. She''d thought he was just being a typical foolish mortal. But even their ignorance had limits, difficult as it was to sometimes believe. "Are, are you seriously ¨C hic ¨C telling me you''ve not heard of the Black Dragonflight?"


    "Yes Capri, I am."


    "And Lord Neltharion? My father? What about the Cataclysm?"


    "Cataclysm?"


    "You know, the reshaping of the world: delightful earthquakes, breathtaking new volcanoes, massive glittering rivers of lava¡­" she said, waving her arms about. "I was told quite a few tens of thousands of mortals died. It was all initially very successful." She scowled. "Until you mortals ruined ¨C hic ¨C everything!"


    "Nothing like that has happened for centuries, not since the Oblivion crisis."


    "No, it was a world-wide event, even ¨C hic ¨C even whatever backwater place this is would have felt it''s effects."


    "Never heard of it."


    Caprifexia frowned and looked at her drink, there was something wrong, something that had been niggling at her mind for weeks. It wasn''t anything she could definitively put a claw on, but it had started as soon as she had emerged from that abyss, when the stillness¡­


    She jerked back in her chair, nearly tipping over the dirty piece of furniture before Einar caught her.


    Apparently he was good for something as a minion.


    "Easy Capri, you''re just a little drunk, that''s all-"


    "N-no," she said, staring at her hands. "The whispers, the whispers are gone."


    "Whispers? What whispers?"


    "Ever since I was ¨C hic ¨C a hatchling," she said, part in awe, part in terror. "They''ve always been there, that''s why everything seems so quiet."


    "Are you talking about some kind of mental illness?" he said seriously. "Talos, I didn''t realise you actually had something. I''m sorry Capri, I shouldn''t have made those comments about you being crazy; that was nasty and unfair. My cousin has schizophrenia, and he is one of the greatest lads I know. You haven''t been taking any medication that I''ve seen, should we go to the apothecary? He found that-"


    "But if there are no whispers," she said, ignoring her minion''s meaningless babble as her slightly intoxicated mind slowly turned over. "Then this isn''t Azeroth. And if this isn''t Azeroth¡­"


    "Azeroth?"


    "Then¡­ then I''ve found a way to teleport between planets," she finished, standing up and declaring loudly. "I ¨C hic ¨C am the greatest wizard in history!"


    "Nevermind," said Einar, shaking his head. "You''re clearly fine."


    "Minion! Buy more of this horrific mortal drink, I want to celebrate!"


    ***


    Caprifexia woke the next morning with an immense headache. Someone had put her to bed and tucked her in with some rather ratty blankets, probably her dutiful, if slightly impudent, minion, after she had, well, she didn''t remember a whole lot after¡­


    Oh, right, the whispers. They were gone.


    Part of her was rather scared by their absence. They had been a constant in her life, shaping her, guiding her since before she had hatched. To be without them felt like she had been cast adrift on a turbulent sea.


    But at the same time, she felt a peculiar sense of liberation. Although she had never viewed it as such before, now that the whispers were gone she was entirely free of the influences of others, and, if she was honest with herself, it was a little disturbing that she''d never thought of the Old Ones as controlling her ¨C as upon free reflection they quite clearly had.


    Had that been what had motivated Wrathion, her dracocidal brother? Had he somehow broken the whispers and grown so disgusted that his kin were servants that he had decided to end them?


    She supposed she could understand that reasoning, dragons, proper dragons, were not servants after all, not even to Gods, old or otherwise. She''d still have to kill him one day for trying to assassinate her, of course, that was just how things were, but at least she might be able to give him a respectful nod before she crushed the life out of him.


    Regardless, she was safe from him here for the moment, assuming he didn''t also realise through some pale reflection of her sheer unmitigated genius the secrets of interstellar travel. She could build up an empire here, and then, when she was larger and even mightier she could return to Azeroth, kill Wrathion, kidnap a likely consort or two from one of the other flights and bring them back, begin repopulating her dragonflight, and then rule over this new world.


    But why stop there? Why not conquer world after world? With almost infinite resources what was there to stop her and her new, free, Black Dragonflight? They could be as mighty as the Legion, and not half as wasteful.


    She would rise! Rise as Queen of not just the Black Flight, not just of a single world, but as the Supreme Empress of the Cosmos!


    But first¡­ first she needed to get something to make her head stop spinning.

 A Strategic Application of Mercy

    Three weeks after discovering that it was her destiny to rule not only Azeroth, but the entire universe, Caprifexia sat upon her minion''s shoulder as he trotted towards the town of Whiterun.


    Binbolf had prostrated himself before her to ask for assistance yet again, requesting that she use her awesome might and incomprehensibly devious mind to steal a famous axe from the ''Companions of Whiterun:'' a drinking club for mead enthusiasts in a town to the north west of Riften.


    Or something. She hadn''t been paying too much attention ¨C she left the fine details to her minion. That was, after all, what he was for.


    They were nearly at the town, Whiterun, approaching from the eastern side because her minion had made a mistake with the map and insisted too forcefully that they take the other road, which she overruled because she didn''t like his tone, leading to them taking¡­


    Well, it was probably his fault that they had had to walk around an extra mountain range. She couldn''t imagine she would have made a mistake regarding geography, she was, after all, a Black Dragon, attuned to the earth, possessing an innate sense of direction, and generally being far better at everything than her minion. So that must have been how that had gone.


    Yes, that was it, her minion had screwed up, not her. Obliviously.


    To her right was a high range of snow-capped mountains, and to her left, was a large open plain of tundra split by a river. A few farms clustered around the water source, with a mill and a barn here or there, and the occasional mortal toiled away in the fields in the chilly, overcast air.


    "Ow! Watch the claws," said Einar, wincing as she flexed from her position on his shoulder. "I still don''t understand why we couldn''t get a second damn horse!"


    "Quiet minion," said Caprifexia, sniffing the breeze.


    "Not your damn- ow!"


    "There is something here," she said, ignoring him. "I smell sulphur, brimstone¡­"


    A roar shook the sky as a giant proto-drake descended from the clouds and barrelled towards a stout stone watchtower.


    "Unrelenting Force!" it shouted in some language Caprifexia hadn''t previously heard before, and a wave of kinetic energy rippled out from it and crashed into the tower, smashing through the masonry and sending most of the upper section toppling to the ground in a cloud of billowing dust.


    "Dragon!" yelped Einar, pulling on the reins.


    "Don''t be silly minion. That''s a proto-drake," said Caprifexia. "I am a dragon."


    "Not now Capri," he said, jerking the horse around. "We need to get the hell out of here!"


    "You think a degenerate mongrel like that is a match for a true dragon!? Pah!"


    "Capri, you''re a very small woman with a very big superiority complex who can turn into very tiny flying lizard. In contrast, that monster just knocked the top off a tower," he said, spurring the horse back down the road.


    "You''re right. Perhaps it isn''t worth my time," agreed Caprifexia confidently as the proto-drake swooped down and grabbed a guard in its claws, climbing to a good forty meters before dropping the screaming mortal to the ground.


    Proto-drake or no, it was rather massive¡­


    Yes, too big to concern herself with. It wasn''t like it was really getting in her way, and it would take so long to clean all the blood off her scales. Putting the clearly inferior creature down, which she obviously could do, would be a totally unproductive use of her valuable time. Yes, she wasn''t this silly little planet''s pest control, let them deal with it.


    Unfortunately the proto-drake apparently hadn''t been informed of her magnanimous decision to spare it, and wheeled around towards them.


    "Capri- Capri," gibbered Einar as the horse screamed in terror. "It''s coming right at us ¨C do something!"


    "Nubilas," Capri intoned, and a moment later a cloud of smoke billowed outward from her form, enveloping them both in thick, choking smog.


    It was a rather nifty spell that Capri had developed herself after noting that most mortals found it hard to breathe in perfectly comfortable environs. The idea was that she could use it in an enclosed space against foes and simply wait for them to choke to death with minimal energy needed. It also served to obscure things, which meant it was harder to be attacked from range.


    All in all, she was rather pleased with the result.


    "You''re a ¨Ccough¨C fucking terrible wizard!" spluttered Einar, jumping from the horse as it thrashed about, pressing himself against the dirt where he presumably hoped there was still some fresh air. But Caprifexia had made sure that such obvious workarounds were accounted for, and the smoke extended fully to the ground. "Are you ¨Ccough¨C trying to kill us?"


    "Oh, you''re so dramatic minion," she said. "Respirante."


    Einar gasped as a bubble of air ¨C a spell usually used for breathing underwater ¨C formed itself around his mouth.


    He coughed a few more times. "Now what?"


    "Now we wait for the proto-drake to get bored and find someone else to annoy," she said.


    "Clear Skies!"


    Caprifexia watched, disinterestedly and without even a single hint of fear, as her small cloud of smoke was blown away by a gust of wind and she found herself face to face with the very large proto-drake. She certainly didn''t yelp and press herself against the ground in an effort to hide.


    "Hmm," it said, stalking towards her as she quickly placed her minion in between herself as the proto-drake. "What are you? dragon, but¡­ not?"


    "How can you speak?" she blurted in response. "You''re just a proto-drake!"


    "I am a dragon."


    "No you''re not," she corrected, correctly. "You''ve only got two legs! I''m a dragon."


    "And you speak the tongue¡­ strange ¨C tell me little one, what is your name?"


    "I am Caprifexia, Queen of the Black Dragonflight, Aspect of Earth, Apex of Draconic Evolution, and future Ruler of the Cosmos!"


    The giant creature regarded her for a few more moments, sniffing deeply before snarling. "You are nothing, an impostor ¨C a foolish mortal taking a guise."


    "How dare you call me a mortal you overgrown lizard!" shouted Caprifexia, fury overcoming her mild unease. "Augis!"


    A scorching fireball jumped from her maw and rocketed towards the so-called dragon in a breathtaking and textbook example of an offensive spell.


    The so-called dragon ignored it as it washed over its face, causing no appreciable harm.


    "Pathetic, let me show you how it is done, Frost Cold Freeze!"


    Terrible blue frost magic surged from the back of it''s throat (yet more evidence of its fake draconic nature), and Caprifexia screamed as she saw death bearing down upon her.


    She regretted that she hadn''t made more of her short life.


    She regretted that she hadn''t lived every moment more fully.


    She regretted that she hadn''t exterminated every last bug in creation.


    She perhaps even regretted that she hadn''t been nicer to her minion.


    Actually no, probably not that.


    But most of all she regretted that she was about to die, and that she wouldn''t get to rule the universe.


    Then her minion, who she had strategically placed with astonishing foresight, grabbed her out of the air, and with a great leap just managed to reach a ditch ¨C which Caprifexia had, of course, known was there for such a purpose ¨C which was just deep enough to shield them from the freezing torrent. Although her minion did whimper slightly about the terrible cold streamed through the air above him, the big baby.


    "Capri!" he shouted through chattering teeth. "We need to get out of here ¨C teleport us, or something, anything!"


    Caprifexia coolly and calmly considered her options, she did not scream, and definitely did not panic in a similar manner to when she had been ambushed by her brother''s assassin.


    As planned, a tear in reality opened, and both she, and Einar fell through it before the proto-drake could meet it''s end at her mighty talons.


    It got lucky, this time.


    Unlike the last time she had totally deliberately made her way into the strange in-between place, when Caprifexia had been propelled by an explosion through the rift, this time she, and her trusty minion, simply landed on some crumbling masonry rather than falling through the void a few meters away.


    The ruinious platform that surrounded the miniature iridescent star was a hodgepodge of different constructions, the only constant the mouldering nature of the structures. Some parts were recognisably ''Nord,'' but others were in architectural styles she had never seen before, and other sections were simply rough timber haphazardly nailed together.


    All around, along angles that were slightly mind bending, even to a dragon, rickety and crumbling bridges led up, down, around, and across to other platforms with stars that came in various different combinations of blue, red, purple, gold, and green. While the last time Caprifexia must have simply fallen until she happened upon a world thanks to whatever strange geometry governed this place, this time she would be able to ¨C presumably ¨C simply walk between worlds at her leisure.


    "Ah ha!" she said. "I knew that I would master the ability!"


    "What the¡­ where are we?" said Einar, picking himself up and dusting himself off.


    "The paths between worlds!" said Caprifexia. "Behold my power minion! With this ability I will one day rule over the entire universe. Serve me well and I may make you a governor of a planet. Perhaps a continent. Maybe a city. Actually, let''s be realistic, a small hamlet, you are only a mortal after all¡­"


    She considered for a moment.


    "How would you like your very own house?" she asked.


    Caprifexia attempted to flap up to her usual spot on her minions shoulder, before yelping as she discovered that her wings simply didn''t provide any lift.


    "You OK?" he asked.


    "I cannot fly!" she said in horror.


    "Oh what a shame, you''ll have to use your proper form for once," he said, rolling his eyes, and jumping out of the way as she tried to claw her way up his leg. "No! Stop that right now!"


    "This is my proper form," she huffed, before reluctantly switching into the horned half-elf form that she normally only wore in towns.


    "So ¨C this is some kind of pocket dimension or something?" said Einar. "And the other stars are what, different parts of Tamriel?"


    "No minion, do keep up, these are different worlds," said Caprifexia. "One of them is my own, although I don''t presently know which¡­"


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    "Wait¡­ you''re serious?" he said, his eyes lighting up in wonder at the wondrous nature of her power. An appropriate reaction to her majesty, at last. "Those are other worlds?"


    "Indeed," she said.


    "Then why in Oblivion are we making peanuts working for the Thieves Guild!?" he said with a note of indignation in his voice.


    "Minion, you''re talking nonsense again," she said.


    "No ¨C listen," he said. "Different worlds have different goods, right? Just like in Tamriel, different countries make things others can''t, those get moved by merchants, and sold for a profit, right?"


    "I am not that interested in the particulars of mortal trade," she said. "That''s what I have you for minion."


    "But this is a monopoly!" he said. "We simply have to buy something one world has, but another doesn''t ¨C take it there, then bam, sell it for an outrageous price, and rinse and repeat. No competitors, we can charge whatever they can pay."


    "And this helps me take over the universe how?" said Caprifexia suspiciously.


    "Who needs a crown when we could have a trade empire?"


    Caprifexia did like the idea of having an empire, although she didn''t think her minion really understood how such things worked ¨C poor limited creature. Gold was all well and good for lounging about on, but no substitute for an army of lackeys that both loved and feared you.


    Oh well, perhaps his silly little scheme could be a building block to an empire. After all, mortals did like money. She wasn''t exactly sure why ¨C perhaps because it was shiney? They were simple like that.


    "Of course. I was already thinking of something similar. But just so I''m sure you understand my idea, why don''t you explain your current, limited understanding," she said, skilfully preserving the proper master-servant dynamic: she came up with the ideas, he carried out her will. It wouldn''t do to let him think he was capable of directing things after all.


    "We pick a world another world, scope it out, buy some stuff that we can sell back on Nirn, and by the time we come back the dragon should be gone," he said. "We should probably still get that axe, otherwise Brynjolf-"


    "Who?"


    "Brynjolf, the leader of the Thieves guild," said Einar. "Otherwise he''ll be pretty annoyed with us."


    "Oh, Binbolf."


    "That isn''t his name."


    "I think you''ll find it is minion. Honestly, you really should pay more attention."


    "Not your minion," he said. "But I will admit I was wrong about one thing, you are a great wizard. Stark raving mad, but undeniably great. We''re going to be so rich!"


    ***


    "Why would anyone want this junk?" said Caprifexia as they walked through a bazaar in the rather awful dusty and smelly city they had arrived near. She quite like the pyramids, and the heat, but it was full of absolutely filthy mortals. "This planet seems particularly boring. Minion, make a note to put it at the bottom of the invasion list."


    They had crossed one of the bridges to a nearby platform in the Void, a mostly purple and slightly red star that had opened onto a wide desert plane that was bordered by a glittering blue ocean to the south, and rocky, craggy red hills to the north. They''d followed a road to the city, and although Caprifexia had received a few wary looks, no one had dared challenge her.


    "It does all look rather mundane, doesn''t it?" said Einar. "And you really can understand these people?"


    "Of course, I am a dragon."


    "Hmm," said Einar, pausing before an arms dealer selling swords, daggers, and other mortal implements for hitting one another with. "Capri, I''m not great at magic, but none of this stuff is enchanted, is it?"


    "What? No, it isn''t," she said.


    "Has anything been?" he asked.


    "No, as I said, this place is incredibly boring."


    Her minion rubbed his hands together. Probably cold ¨C poor creature, without an internal furnace and proper scales it was a wonder any of his kind even made it through winter.


    "Can you ask the price for that sword?" asked Einar.


    "You, mortal ¨C how much is the sword?" she said in the local tongue, pointing at the weapon in question.


    "70 Honours," said the dealer, crossing his arms and frowning at her.


    "''70 Honours,''" she translated. "Whatever that means."


    "The local coins, I think," said Einar. "And can you ask the exchange rate between an ''Honour'' and gold?"


    "You, mortal, my minion wishes to know the ''exchange rate between an Honour and gold,''" she said.


    "Whaddya I look like, a bank?" he said. "Buy something, or piss off-"


    Caprifexia broke his nose.


    "What the fuck Capri!?" said Einar as the man fell backwards, howling in pain and spurting blood everywhere.


    "He was rude to me," explained Caprifexia.


    "You little bitch!" said the Arms dealer, grabbing one of his swords.


    "Whoa whoa, let''s all calm down," said Einar, holding up one hand to placate the dracocidal man, while the other surreptitiously gripped the handle of the dagger in the small of his back. "I''m sorry sir, she didn''t mean it, we''ll be on our way now."


    The man relaxed slightly at his tone, if not his words, lowering the weapon a fraction. Her minion, however, proved himself a great disappointment by not immediately stabbing the merchant when his guard was down. She was going to have to have a talk to him about the need to actually follow through when luring foes into false senses of security.


    "There, no need for any more violence-" said her minion, which was perhaps the most bizarre statement she had ever heard. There was always a need for violence, always a need to keep the mortals from getting inflated ideas of their own importance.


    No, she wouldn''t stand for this complete perversion of the natural order.


    "Fuerza," said Caprifexia, punching her first towards forward and releasing a blast of magic. It struck the sword seller in the chest, and sent him barrelling back into the stall behind him ¨C a soup vendor, eliciting screams of outrage and pain as the arms dealer was scalded rather badly by the hot broth.


    "Fucks sake Capri!" said Einar, taking her hand and dragging her away at a run.


    "Unhand me minion!" she said. "I was not yet finished destroying my nemesis!"


    "I can''t take you anywhere, can I? You''re a total psychopath!" he said, turning his head towards the several guards with leather armour and spears following them. "Open another portal ¨C quick!"


    Caprifexia focused, willing reality to part before her might.


    Nothing happened.


    "I don''t feel like it," said Caprifexia after a few moments.


    "Put your hands on your heads and get on your knees!"


    ***


    The cell door shut with a firm clang.


    "Why!?" said Einar, sitting down on the bench. "Why must you start fights wherever we go? Now I have to put up with another whole month in gaol with you because you can''t seem to act like a civilised being. ''Accessory to Battery;'' I should have known that trying to go straight wouldn''t work with you around."


    "The mortal provoked me; he refused to answer my question," said Caprifexia, examining her nails and licking some of the dried mortal blood off them. It was a little fishy. "And you worry to much minion. These pathetic bipeds don''t even have magic, it will be easy to escape. If you''re good, I''ll even take you with me."


    "It would be especially easy to get out if you just opened a portal to the in-between place," said Einar.


    Caprifexia frowned and seriously considered this idea, scrunching up her face in concentration, but eventually decided against it.


    "Of course; you can''t do it at will, can you?" said Einar. "You''re just to proud to admit it."


    "Don''t be absurd, of course I can; I am a dragon," she said. "I can do anything."


    "Go on then."


    "I told you, I don''t feel like it."


    "Is there anything common between the times you''ve been able to do it?" he said. "What happened just before the first time you used it?"


    "My brother sent an assassin to kill me."


    "Of course he did," said Einar. "Of course you don''t have anything resembling a normal family. OK, so both times your life was in danger, and your ability activated to save you."


    "''Save me?'' Pah! I could have taken that proto-drake ¨C if I''d wanted."


    "So all we have to do is trick your ability into thinking you''re under attack," he said, ignoring her in a very impudent manner. He stood up, and stretched out his hands. "Come here."


    "I do not like where this suggestion is going minion," she said, taking a half-step back as he advanced on her.


    "Come on, I''m not actually going to hurt you," he said. "I''ll start choking you-"


    "No."


    "Come on-"


    "No!" said Caprifexia, backing up into the bars.


    She couldn''t let her minion choke her. It went against all norms of master-servant relations. She was a dragon, the life of any mortal that laid a hand on her was forfeit.


    But she quite liked Einar, he was useful, loyal, and at times even pleasant to be around. And if she killed him she would be totally, utterly alone.


    Tensions that had been building for the past few weeks clawed their way up and into her chest, stabbing at her heart like a rusty dagger, and just as his hands closed on her neck reality popped like a soap bubble behind her, coalescing into a swirling portal that let to the in-between place.


    "See, told you," he said, ruffling her hair as he stepped through the portal. "You need to just make yourself afraid to use it."


    "I am a dragon, I do not get scared," she sniffed, rubbing her eyes and stomping through the portal, which closed behind her.


    "Whoa, Capri- are you crying?"


    "No!" she said. "There is something in both my eyes; it''s probably your fault!"


    "Whoa, hey, I''m sorry, I didn''t know you''d get upset," he said. "Hey, hey, we''ll find another way next time, OK? OK?"


    "No, you foolish minion, you don''t understand!" she sniffed.


    "Yes, yes, I''m a foolish minion, one who is very sorry, please Capri, stop crying."


    "I''m not crying!" she said, stomping off in a random direction. "Dragon''s don''t cry!"


    "Hey, wait up. We don''t want to get turned around in this place."


    "Shut up minion!" she said, sitting down on the edge of one of the platforms and staring out into the void of floating platforms and the endless walkways connecting them. The structures stretched out in all directions. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps even more beyond the shifting veils of fog and cords of glittering multicoloured energy.


    Einar sat down next to her, putting an arm around her shoulder, although thankfully didn''t speak anymore and let Caprifexia work through all her confusing anger and rage.


    Damned mortal with his damned kindness, and his personability, and not being easy to cast aside when no longer useful.


    It had been so much easier when she still had the Whispers. Without them she was broken, free or not. Without the Whispers she had all these distressing feelings that made her feel a bit bad about breaking that man''s nose, or pushing Einar towards the guards back in Helgen, or when she''d set that honey factory on fire, or when she''d broken that other man''s nose.


    And now she was blubbering like a mortal baby, some dragon she was.


    "So your brother tried to kill you?" he asked after Caprifexia''s shoulders had stopped shaking.


    "Yes," she sniffed, accepting his handkerchief and blowing her nose noisily. Ridiculous mortal noses, if she were in dragon form, or a bit older, she could have just breathed a little fire to clear out her sinuses. "He wanted to be the last black dragon alive."


    "You''re really doubling down on the whole dragon thing, aren''t you?" he said, looking up at a distant sun. "I suppose if you''re from a different world- oh, oh."


    "What?"


    "You''re a child ¨C aren''t you? This isn''t your real form, you are really that tiny, baby dragon."


    "A whelpling, I have explained this," she said. "You mortals really are slow to grasp fairly basic concepts, aren''t you?"


    "Sorry ¨C it''s just, well you look about twenty or so in your¡­ current form," he said.


    "Dragons mature more quickly than mortals: we have ancestral memories, are far more intelligent, more attractive, and are generally better at everything."


    "You certainly have much bigger egos," he chuckled. "So which one is your home?"


    "I don''t know where it is," she admitted, gesturing out to the void. "I was knocked by an explosion, and I can''t fly here ¨C I just fell until I hit your world. Somewhere above us, I assume."


    "I''m sorry Capri."


    "Even if I could return, it wouldn''t be safe."


    "Your brother?"


    "No. It''s hard to explain to a mortal."


    "Try? You''re my friend Capri, even if you''re infuriating."


    Caprifexia huffed. She shouldn''t have to explain herself to her mortal servant. She should be cold and imperious and flawless.


    But part of her did want to share her past with her minion.


    Some sick and twisted part of her.


    "My flight, we have a connection with the earth. Long ago this connection put us in contact with some beings called the Old Gods and it, well, at the time I didn''t think much of it, but they were whispering into my mind ever since I was in my egg ¨C whispering to all my people. Our foes called it a corruption, and- and I think that they might have actually been right. The Old Gods told me to kill and maim and destroy, but we didn''t used to be like that."


    "No?" said Einar.


    "We were the planet''s guardians, along with the other four dragonflights. We were supposed to watch over mortal-kind, guide and protect them, since they were so useless," she said. "But ever since I fell through this void, the Whispers have stopped. I don''t even know who I am anymore. I would have killed you in a heartbeat for putting your hands on my neck not two months ago, but now I''m crying! It feels like part of me has been cut away. Before I was something, I had a purpose ¨C to help restore my flight and achieve world domination. But now? I don''t know, I''m¡­ broken."


    She wiped her nose again and looked away, immediately feeling foolish. Proper dragons confided in other dragons, not in their mortal minions. Even when breaking down she couldn''t even do it properly.


    "It sounds like you''ve been set free," he said slowly. "Free to choose your own fate, free not to randomly attack people for no reason ¨Cwhich, by the way, you still do¨C free to be the person you want to be."


    "But what if I don''t know what that is?"


    "None of us really do."


    "You''re a mortal, I''m a dragon ¨C we don''t just scramble about in the dirt, we have destinies."


    Einar shook his head.


    "The fact that you have scales and fangs doesn''t makes you more or less or more of a person. I think sentience and creativity defines person-hood, not shape or sex or gender or species or longevity; and sentience means that you get to choose what you do with it," he said. "But if you''re looking for purpose, you say that your people were originally protectors? Why not be that again? With your abilities you could guard and protect the entire cosmos ¨C once you were a bit bigger, of course. I mean, I know I make fun of you, but for¨C wait, how old are you?"


    "Twenty two and a half months."


    "Twenty¨C really? OK, even more-so: for a little under two years old, you are a mindbogglingly powerful wizard."


    Caprifexia considered his words.


    Was that it? Was that her calling? To return to what her people had once been, as Wrathion reputedly was attempting to? Her father would have scoffed, but did it really matter what he thought? He had tried to destroy the world at the behest of the Old Gods after all, and following the orders of others was hardly proper dragon behaviour.


    And just because she might have lost something and was unable, and perhaps unwilling, to return to what she was didn''t mean she was somehow was forever broken.


    She was still a dragon, the apex of life in the universe, she could still have purpose ¨C even if she made it herself. And her minion was right, there was no reason she couldn''t set herself a new goal; and becoming more like her distant ancestors seemed as good a goal as any.


    "Yes, that''s it. Thank-you minion, I know now what to do," she said, standing and spreading her arms wide. "I will not conquer, I will not lay it to waste to worlds and crush them beneath my talons. No, I will become the greatest hero the cosmos has ever seen ¨C Caprifexia the Beneficent, Savior of the Universe!"


    "Well, Savior of the Universe, perhaps if you''re going to be all heroic then you should maybe stop calling me minion? Villains have minions; heroes don''t."


    "Really? How bizarre," she said. "Who does the menial work then? What do I call you then?"


    "You do," he said."And how about ''Einar?''"


    "I¡­ suppose," she said, shifting uncomfortably. "That will take some getting used to."


    "Great," he said, standing himself. "Well then, how about we head back to Tamriel. We still need to get that axe. But after that we can buy up all the cheap enchanted junk we can and flog it for an outrageous sum on that place we just visited ¨C they don''t have any magic, we''ll make a mint."


    "Those things don''t sound very heroic," she said. "Although, admittedly, I''m not really sure what it is that heroes do."


    "To become a hero you need supplies, books, training, the works," he said. "For that you need coin, so really, it''s your duty to extort as much money with your abilities as you possibly can."


    "Ah, of course, good thinking minion ¨C perhaps this hero thing won''t be too difficult after all."


    "Einar. My name is Einar."


    "Oh, yes. That."

 Compulsory Hero Tarrifs

    Caprifexia was munching on a bit of fried fish as she walked along a seaside boulevard of a dusty city that lacked magic entirely and had a name she hadn''t bothered to learn when she heard the shout. She was relatively sure that it was the same place they''d visisted before, and in which she''d been unjustly arrested for breaking a mortal''s nose who had absolutely deserved it, but most mortal city''s looked alike. They all had pyramids. Mortals loved pyramids. Everyone knew that.


    "Help, help! I''m being robbed!" came the plaintive cry of an elderly mortal woman as she struggled with a thin man with a bandana over his face who was trying to take her bag.


    Caprifexia paused for a moment, before taking another bite of fish and continuing on her way. The sun was shining down from above, hot and wonderful. The streets were filthy and disgusting, but the sea-air went some ways to mask the reek of mortality. It was, all in all, not the worst place to take a stroll and enjoy some nice fried fish. Yes, this new life as a hero quite agreed with her.


    "Err, Capri?" said Einar, gesturing to the altercation. "Aren''t you a hero now? Shouldn''t you, you know, intervene?"


    "Oh, right," she said, glancing between her tasty fish and the mugger. On one hand, she was supposed to be following in her ancestors footsteps, on the other hand¡­ tasty fish. "Ugh. Fine. Hold this, I''ll want it back," she said, pushing her half eaten snack into Einar''s hand and moving in the direction of the villainy.


    The thief managed to wrestle the bag away from the woman and broke into a run, helpfully in Caprifexia''s direction, and as he passed she stuck out her foot, sending him crashing to the ground. There was a nose-like crack, and blood began to spurt from his face.


    "Hark villain!" she declared in the local tongue, snatching up the bag. "Know that you have been bested by Caprifexia, Savior of the Universe! Do not feel ashamed, for you are but a mere mortal, and never had a hope of defeating me, Caprifexia, Saviour of the Universe!"


    The defeated villain moaned in pain as Caprifexia gave him a kick in the ribs for good measure, before turning to her minion and tossing the bag over her shoulder.


    "Come on minion, let''s get out of here before those guards show up again," she said rushing away from her fallen nemesis.


    "For fucks sake," said Einar as he rushed to catch up with her and the elderly woman broke into screeches of outrage. "Capri! Capri! You''re supposed to give the bag back!"


    "That''s silly, I''m a hero; I need its contents to support my heroing. Me saving the universe is more important than whatever pointless mortal thing she was going to use it for," said Caprifexia, slowing down as the woman''s protests faded into the background and they turned into a dark alley. "Let''s see," she said, rifling through the bag until she found a coin-purse. "Ah, money ¨C that''s what you said heroes needed, right minion?"


    "You''re not really getting this, are you?" said Einar. "And my name is Einar, not minion."


    "Oh, yes, Ei-nar," she said, pronouncing the word carefully as she opened the purse and peered inside. "Oh! That''s- actually, I have no idea; is this a lot of money, Ei-nar?"


    "Wow, yeah, she was loaded," he said, taking it out of her palm and counting the squat golden coins. "Nice haul Capri."


    "I think they went that way, officer," came a voice in the local language from down the alleyway.


    "Capri, they''re onto us," said Einar. "Conjure a portal, quick."


    Caprifexia scrunched up her face.


    "Capri!" he said. "They''re going to get us, be more scared!''


    "Dragons don''t get scared!" she explained.


    "There they are!" shouted the guards. "It''s that horned woman, the one who escape the gaol!"


    "Hurry up Capri," said Einar as the six men armed with rapiers rounded the corner stormed towards them. "They''re getting closer!"


    "I''m¡­ not in the mood."


    "Oh, look ¨C there''s a spider on your shoulder," said Einar.


    Caprfexia reasonably articulated her dislike of spiders, loudly, and a moment later reality shuddered, although that was obviously a coincidence, and a portal appeared.


    Unfortunately for the guards, the rift happened to manifest in-between Caprifexia and the charging officers of the law. And, as Caprifexia had discovered on her first trip, high momentum and portals to the in-between-place didn''t mix.


    "Get it off, get it off!" she said, stumbling through the portal.


    "Relax, there wasn''t anything there," said Einar, brushing her shoulder as the tear in reality snapped closed behind them. "See? Nothing."


    "Don''t do that!"


    "I''ll stop doing that when you learn how to make a portal without nearly pissing yourself," he said, coming to the edge of the platform and looking down at the six guards as they hurtled downward, screaming in terror as they fell. "Poor bastards."


    "Hah, take that villains!" said Caprifexia retrieving her fried fish on a stick as she basked in the feeling of yet another successful bout of heroism and watched the guards get smaller and smaller.


    If they were lucky, they''d hit another platform or bridge sooner rather than later, although speed and the impact of collisions did seem to be a funny thing in the in-between, since she hadn''t been hurt in the least. Then again she was a dragon, and therefore obviously better at everything, falling included.


    Caprifexia wondered idly, if they survived, if they''d find their way back to their home world, or step through another portal and become stranded on a different world.


    She munched on her fish as she mulled over the problem, before eventually deciding that since they were just villains, she didn''t really need to worry about it.


    In fact, wasn''t people being punished for villainy part of¡­ what had her minion called it? ''Just-This?''


    Yes, that was it. Instead of getting rewarded for their villainous behaviour, they got ''Just-This.''


    Whether that was just-locked-in-a-cell, just-hit-with-something-hard, or, if they''d been particularly naughty, attempting to frustrate legitimate heroing and the like, just-thrown-off-a-cliff-in-a-pocket-dimension-between-worlds.


    Something like that anyway. She hadn''t really been listening when Einar had tried to explain it, so the concept was still a bit fuzzy. Regardless, they weren''t her problem anymore.


    "Capri, they weren''t villains."


    "Nonsense, I am a hero, like the Black Dragons of old; it''s in my blood, it''s what I was born to be," she said, finishing her snack and tossing the stick after the villains. "People who are opposed to heroes are, by definition, villains. Honestly minion, do keep up."


    Einar looked like he wanted to argue. But then he just sighed and shook his head, no doubt because he realised how foolish it was to argue with a genius like herself.


    "Well, we didn''t sell everything, and I''m not sure we should head back there until things, err, settle down," he said, clearing his throat. "Why don''t we try another world?"


    "An excellent suggestion minion, perhaps there will be more villains to defeat there."


    "Einar, I''m called Einar."


    "Ah, yes, I keep forgetting, I''m-" she said, before biting her lip and trailing off. "What am I supposed to say next?"


    "''Sorry.''"


    "Oh yes: ''I''m sorry.''"


    "You know, that''s almost progress."


    ***


    "What about this one?" asked Einar as they came to a particularly ruined platform, which was mainly rough baked dirt, sand, and elegant but eroded ruins constructed from some kind of sculpted sandstone. "Looks deserty."


    "Huh?" she said with a tired yawn.


    "Well, there platforms represent aspects of that world ¨C right? Like, there are Nord, Aldmeri, and Cyrodillian construction styles on the platform that leads to Nirn; and that place we just went to, that didn''t seem to be anything but forest and bugs, it''s platform was just dirt and rocks and trees. This one has a lot of sand, so it should be desert-like, yeah? Maybe the locals are like the other desert place, no magic ¨C a perfect place to dump our junk."


    They''d ended up stuck nearly twelve hours on the ''forest and bug'' world, despite the near constant state of a certain emotion, that definitely had not been terror, that Caprifexia had been in from being near so many creepy crawlies.


    She also felt exhausted. She wasn''t sure why, but it was an effort to trudge after Einar as he ran on ahead, sketching a map and making notes and generally behaving like an excitable mortal fool. It was the longest they''d been in the in-between place, and they had passed dozens and dozens of stars. Caprifexia hadn''t been sure why they''d been passing by them, but had been too tired to ask.


    "They might have crafts we can sell elsewhere," he said, gesturing wildly as Caprifexia yawned and lent against some sandstone masonry, watching some dark sort of fog swirl ahead of them in the void. "Just think about the profit- hey, you OK Capri?"


    "Tired," she said, rubbing her eyes.


    "Yeah, you don''t look so good," he said with a frown. "But why? We haven''t done anything really strenuous. We just sat around for hours in that forest once you''d scouted. Are you sick or something?"


    "Dragons don''t get sick."


    Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    "Of course," he said wryly. "But just, hypothetically, if you were sick, we could head back to Nirn, it wouldn''t be a problem."


    "No, I''m not- I''m not ''boasting,''" said Caprifexia, using her minon''s term for her entirely accurate assessments of her immense ability. "Dragons don''t get sick. Ever. We''re magical creatures. We can get cursed, but not sick."


    "Then why are you so tired? Are you cursed?" he asked.


    "No," she said, shaking her head. "There was virtually no magic on that world, I would have noticed something attacking me."


    "Maybe creating portals to this place takes it out of you?" said Einar speculatively. "You''ve done three today, and it took you ages to get that last one working, even though you hated being around all the bugs."


    "Maybe," she conceded grudgingly. Sometimes Einar wasn''t a total fool, despite his mortal shortcomings. All magic did come at a price, and she didn''t really understand her amazing power entirely. At least, not yet.


    "Come on, let''s head back to Nirn ¨C we can get some rooms in the Bannered Mare and-" he said, pausing. "Capri, is that fog getting closer?"


    Caprifexia followed his gaze to where she had been looking before he''d started worrying over her, and blinked in surprise. The fog was coming closer, and not in any kind of happenstance way, but rather streaking across the void directly at them and rapidly gathering speed.


    Even as she watched the fog grew more solid, and within it she caught a few flashes of strangely colourless lightning, and what might have been a large vertical pupil.


    Then she heard it; the faint, clammy, slithering Whispers like the ones she had grown up with. They were somehow removed from the oneness with her she remembered, and she didn''t have trouble distinguishing her own thoughts from them, but they were unmistakably the same.


    Einar gasped, clutching the side of his head, and adrenaline coursed through Capri as she realised not only what she was looking at, but where she actually was.


    The ''in-between'' wasn''t some kind of pocket dimension between planets. This realm hadn''t been constructed by some deranged wizard.


    The structures around the stars that lead to worlds reflected the elements of reality within, as Einar had articulated in his foolishly roundabout mortal manner, but they were decaying, twisted mockeries of reality, a mishmash created by non-beings that didn''t and couldn''t comprehend mortal, or even immortal minds.


    She was in the Void.


    The creature chasing after her?


    Either an Old God, or one of their servants.


    The portals to different worlds?


    Beachheads.


    As soon as the realisation struck her it was like a veil had been peeled back from her eyes.


    Somehow before she had realised what she was looking at she had missed all the fleshy, twisted tendrils that sprouted all over the platforms and bridges, the impossible shadows that writhed in the space between the platforms, the streams of energy that bled from the stars wherever the tendrils touched them, the hundreds of eyes that sprouted from the void infestations, blinking at her and Einar and leaking yellowish goo, the terrible, all consuming Maw that lay directly above her, devouring streams of energy and power from across the vast, shrouded expanse.


    "We need to go minion," she said, grabbing his hand and dragging him towards the star. "We need to go right now."


    L???¨º??a???v?????? ???h???¨¬??m???,??? ???h???e??? ???¨«??s???¨½??''???t??? ??????????r???t???h??? ?????????u???r??? ???t???i???m???e???.???


    "What is going on? There is this buzzing in my head," said Einar, digging his heels in. "Something is wrong."


    ???e???''???s???? ???j???u???s???t??? ?????? ???p??????????h???e???t???i???c??? ???m???o???r???t???a???l??? ???w???o???r???m???.???


    "Minion!" she said, pulling at his arm ineffectually. "Minion! Listen to me we need to leave! We need to leave!"


    N????o?????????? ????????d??????????????????????''????????????????? ?????l???????????????????????????v??????e????????? ??????????h????????????i?????????????????,???????? ??????????????????????????????l????????l????????? ??????????h????????i?????????????m??????!????????


    "I can''t- I can''t-" he stammered.


    ??????????i?????l?????l?????? ??????????????????????????m??????????? ??????????????i????????????????????????????? ??????h????????i????????????m???????????? ?????????????????????????i????????l???????l???????????? ?????h???i?????m??????? ????????????k??????i??????l??????l??? ????????????????¨ª????????m????????!???????????


    "Minion! Minion! Snap out of it you pea-brained mortal," she said, wrenching harder and kicking at his shins. "We need to get to that star or we are both going to die, do you understand me? Minion!"


    Perhaps the tenor of composed and articulate reason in her voice shook him from his stupor, or perhaps it was because his arm was at danger of being pulled from its socket. Whatever it was, he finally started to move, and Caprifexia pressed her hand against the star just as the fog overtook them.


    They both collapsed onto sand, panting as the Whispers finally receded.


    "What the fuck was that?" said Einar. "What the fuck was that!?"


    "An Old God," replied Caprifeixa sprawling on the ground and staring up at the twin moons above her, shining brightly even in the desert twilight. The air was cool and dry and dusty, and there was barely a hint of wind. "The beings that corrupted my dragonflight; or something like them. Don''t you listen min- Ei-nar?"


    "How- how did they get to the in-between place?" said Einar. "Oh Divines, what if it comes through!?"


    "That isn''t a pocket dimension, that was the Void. And if they could enter as easily as us we''d all be dead," said Caprifexia, contemplating telling him about what she had seen once she''d peered past the mental compulsion.


    That would really scare him, she thought with a smile, and opened her mouth when another thought struck her.


    She had grown up understanding the horrors of the Void, they had guided her, moulded her ¨C and she had recovered herself despite that. But that was only because she was a dragon, possessing a mind labyrinthine in its complexity compared to Einar''s. It had taken centuries before her father had succumb to the Whispers, before the Old Gods had gained a foothold in her dragonflight.


    If she revealed what that place was really like, then it was very likely that his fragile mortal sanity would snap immediately. She''d seen it often enough in the mortal cultists who had served her flight. Especially if they ventured there again, which they''d have to if they wanted to get back to either of their homes.


    She shut her mouth quickly, feeling queasy.


    ''I don''t want to lose Einar. Einar is my friend,'' said a small voice in the back of her head.


    It might already be too late, she realised with a start. He had seen one of them. His sanity was probably already slipping.


    "Divines, the Whispers," said Einar, shivering despite the balmy afternoon air and drawing his knees to his chest. "They''re so¡­ so cold."


    "Ei-nar," she said seriously as she realised what she had to do, taking his head in her hands. "I need to burn out part of your brain."


    "What?" he said. "No fucking way. I''m not letting you mess around with my head!"


    "If I don''t, you''ll go insane. Mortals are not equipped to deal with the true nature of the Void," she said. "I need to remove your memory of the Whispers, and I need to do it now, before they spread."


    "Do you even have the slightest idea what you''re doing?" he said, pulling her hands off his temples and shuddering and glancing across at something that wasn''t there. "No, no¡­ get out of my head. get out of my head!"


    "Einar. You must let me repair your mind; I''ve read how to do it in a book. I can do this."


    His hands trembled around her wrists. Caprifexia rolled her eyes, he was such a drama queen.


    "Akatosh, you heard these from when you were a baby?" he said. "Divines."


    "Yes, until very recently. If I don''t get rid of them for you, they will never, ever, ever go away. I''ve seen what they do to mortals," she said, before her voice cracked under some strange kind of emotion that ached in her chest and she which found she didn''t care for in the slightest. "Please,Ei-nar, please trust me. You- you- I don''t know why, but you matter to me, I don''t want you to die. Every moment we delay they infect more and more of your mind."


    Her cheeks burned with shame at engaging in such touchy feely mortal nonsense, and she was glad that if she succeeded he wouldn''t remember her being so weak.


    Einar scrunched up his eyes, before releasing her wrists. "Divines, just do it, make them stop."


    "You cannot resist me, understand? If you do, I might damage your mind ¨C well, more than otherwise."


    "OK, OK," he said with a gulp.


    "The book I read said the spell inflicted more damage if the victim was agitated. So try doing the opposite of that," she said, before placing her hands on his temples and closing her eyes.


    "Victim!?"


    "Just shut up and relax, Einar," she said, running through her head how to do the spell properly again and drawing on her magic. "Mentus."


    Immediately she found herself swimming in a sea of thoughts. Despite what she often said, Einar wasn''t a fool, and his mind showed it. There was a constant stream of ideas, bubbling away in the back of his mind. New plots, new ploys, hopes and dreams for the future.


    There were also regrets, and anger. She caught a flicker of a memory of a towering man she somehow knew was his father, and the sharp pain associated with his image. She saw a flash of a small girl with the same hair as Einar, lying in a pool of her own blood, the anger and the rage and the deep sorrow and the thirst for revenge¡­


    Caprifexia drew away from his mind, feeling embarrassed for a reason she couldn''t quite identify.


    No, focus, she told herself. She needed to get rid of the Old God Corruption before it spread further.


    She drew closer to the stream once more, working slowly and methodically to identify the places where Void energy was leaking into his mind, removing every last memory of the Old God''s appearance, double checking she had caught everything before she withdrew from his mind and centred herself back in her body.


    "Ugh," said Einar, blinking rapidly and shaking his head. "What''s going on? Where are we?"


    "Some kind of desert," said Caprifexia, wiping away a non-existent tear from her eye and looking around at the rolling dunes cast orange in the light of the rising sun. It was rather pretty, and would be a good place for a nap.


    "But- we were- you''d just saved that lady''s bag..." he said, trailing off as he stared down at where it was slung around his waist. "What in Oblivion is going on? Why do I have the bag?"


    "I took an executive decision and accepted it as a mandatory donation," she said.


    "Stole you mean?"


    "Heroes don''t steal. They redistribute. Heroically."


    "Whatever," he said, opening it. "Hey, nice, there is loads of money in here¡­ but hold on, why don''t I remember any of this? Did I get hit on the head?"


    "No. I needed to burn out part of your brain to stop you going insane," she said. "It seems that I may have destroyed a bit more than I intended."


    "You did what!?" he shouted.


    "Calm down Ei-nar, everything is fine."


    "You- you- you little-" he said, glaring at her. "Who said you could mess around with my head!?"


    "I don''t like your tone, minion," she said, glaring back at him. "And you did, you silly hairless ape."


    "That doesn''t sound like something I would agree to," he said. "I don''t remember doing that."


    "That is rather the point," she said in an exasperated tone. "Perhaps I should have let your tiny little mortal mind snap? Let you turn into a gibbering wreck? You certainly wouldn''t be so lippy."


    They glared at each other for a few more moments, before Einar sighed and rubbed his temples.


    "OK. Assuming I believe you, what happened?" he said. "Last thing I remember we were in Astapor."


    "We were in the Void, and were attacked by something called an Old God," she said. "I saved you."


    "Are you sure you didn''t just do something silly and don''t want me to remember it?" said Einar.


    "I do not do ''silly things!''" she said, balling her hands into fists. "And I did save you! I did! I did! I did! I did!"


    "All right, all right" he said holding up his hands in surrender in the face her overwhelming rhetorical skill. "Thanks for saving me I guess."


    "There, that wasn''t difficult was it minion?" she said, before clearing her throat and adding in a slightly lower voice. "I''m just amazed it worked at all, I''ve only read a chapter summary on offensive mind magic for use in torture. I was mostly making it up as I went along."


    "Moving quickly on from the terrifying implications of that, can you tell me anything at all?"


    "The Old Gods are creatures of the Void so terrible that they drive people to madness simply by being observed," she said. "The memory of them acts like a kind of foothold into the mind, from which they can spread their corruption. You saw one, not a fragment or a tendril, a fully realised Old One. That memory let it begin to whisper directly into your mind. You were perhaps minutes from being consumed."


    "The¡­ Void?" he said. "What''s that?"


    "The thing you foolishly call the ''in-between'' place," she said. "The realm of non-existence that lies between the various realities of the multiverse."


    "Since when are we calling it the Void?" he said.


    "Since I deduced it''s true nature with my cunning and genius," she said.


    "Was this something from the part of my brain you ''cauterised?''"


    "Yes."


    "And are you OK?" he asked.


    "Of course. I am a dragon."


    "I thought you said that they drove people insane simply by looking at them."


    "I am a dragon," she clarified for a second time.


    "And?"


    "That means that my mind is almost infinite in it''s complexity compared to your own limited and generously termed ''intelligence.''"


    "That''s nonsense. I mean, you''re smart, but you''re also not nearly as clever as you think you are," he said. "And hold on, didn''t you say ''Old Gods'' corrupted your people a while back?"


    "Over the course of centuries. We are not fragile little mortals, we are dragons ¨C the apex of life in not only the universe, but the multiverse. Immortal creatures of magic so powerful as to be beyond anything your limited mortal mind could comprehend-"


    "Riiiight," he said, cutting her off mid sentence. "Just tell me if your going all axe-crazy again, all right? It''s pretty difficult to tell apart from your ''heroic'' persona ¨C I might not notice."


    "You are not very good at humour minion," she said with a huff.


    "I wasn''t joking."

 The Lupine Sobriety Stratagem

    Harsh sun blasted down on Einar as he trudged over seemingly endless dunes while Caprifexia flapped lazily along beside him, gliding on the heavy thermals. The air was still, and had a pleasingly sterile smell.


    "Ugh," he said, wiping some sweat out of his eyes. "And you''re sure you can''t make another portal?"


    "I told you, I''m tired," she snapped. "You''re the one who said you wanted to visit the desert."


    "What? When did I say that?" he said.


    "Oh ¡­ that must have been in part of your brain that I burnt out."


    Caprifexia wasn''t keen to venture back to the hellscape that the space between worlds had been revealed to be once she''d broken the perception filter, or at least enough of it to see the corruption everywhere: the tentacles and eyes and¡­ everything.


    "But you''re making loads of ice, how can you not make a portal?" he said, holding up the chunk she had conjured for him a few minutes beforehand to get him to stop whinging about the delightful heat, and which he had been pressing against his neck.


    "That''s different," she said.


    "What? How?" he asked.


    "Because I''m the wizard and I say so," she snapped.


    She wasn''t actually entirely sure why the opening of portals seemed to be qualitatively different to the rest of her magic ¨C she didn''t seem to actually be channelling energy anywhere when she opened the portals, which is one of the reasons she had some very small difficulty in conjuring them.


    "And you''re sure the oasis you saw isn''t a mirage?"


    "Of course I am," she said. "Unlike you squishy water-filled mortal bipeds, my kind thrives in the heat."


    They trudged onward, arriving some half an hour later at a small pond of water surrounded by rocky outcroppings that provided deep shade. There wasn''t even a hint of plant life, which was a bit strange, nor were there any of the usual horrific bugs that usually lived around sources of desert water. Not that Caprifexia was complaining, a world without bugs seemed all right in her books.


    Einar moved immediately to the crystal clear water, dunking his entire head before stripping out of his sweat-laden clothes and jumping in.


    Caprifexia on the other hand didn''t like water at the best of times, and instead flapped over to one of the sunnier outcroppings, intending to have a well deserved nap in the blistering sun after an exhausting day.


    The encounter in the Void had shaken her, insofar as a dragon could be shaken, and she was not looking forward to going back in there now that she could see it more for what it was.


    Moreover she was confused. Despite travelling through the Void several times, the domain of the Old Gods, she had not heard the Whispers until one of them had gotten close. And even then, it hadn''t been anything like what they had been like living on Azeroth. It had been muted. Weak. Obviously outside and without any real ability to reach into her as it once had.


    Something had happened to her when she''d first summoned up a portal to the Void, something more than just losing her homeworld, something fundamental.


    A pity she didn''t have the first idea how to actually go about researching herself.


    Resolving not to think about it anymore she found a nice flat part of the rock near the top of the outcropping''s sunny side, and was just settling down and about to close her eyes when something caught her attention in rock. It was faded picture of a winged humanoid, below which was faint, but still legibly a script of some kind, a simple message of six pictographs repeated over and over and over again.


    The angles do not add up, the circle does not close, the angles do not add up, the circle does not close, the angles do not add up, the circle does not close, the angles do not add up, the circle does not close, the angles do not add up, the circle does not close, the angles do not add up, the circle does not close, the angles do not add up, the circle does not close, the angles do not add up, the circle does not close, the angles do not add up, the circle does not close-


    She contemplated this for a few moments before shrugging and closing her eyes.


    "Mortals are weird," she muttered to herself, before falling into unconsciousness.


    <hr>


    "Capri!" came a plaintive cry, waking her from her slumber.


    The sun was setting in the west, casting the dunes and rock in a purple glow as the twin moons rose in the east.. The desert was beginning to grow cold, and although Caprifexia wasn''t particularly bothered, she wasn''t a squishy mortal after all, she did prefer the warmth to the cold.


    "Capri!" came another Einar-like cry.


    "Ugh," she said, stretching and yawning before flapping down towards the cry. "What?"


    "There you are!" he said huffily. "I thought you''d abandoned me."


    "I was sleeping," she said.


    Some small part of her felt vaguely hurt that Einar thought she might just abandon him, but Caprifexia quickly pushed the confusing feeling away and replaced it with the far more comfortable irritation at being woken up.


    "Well wake up you lazy dragon, there is something you need to see," he said, beckoning her over to a small crack in the rock. "I was exploring and¡­ come see for yourself."


    Caprifexia landed on his shoulder as they entered the dimly lit fissure. Like the area she had been sleeping there were inscriptions on the walls, another set of repeating characters beneath a winged figure.


    They are already in, we cannot get out, they are already in, we cannot get out, they are already in, we cannot get out, they are already in, we cannot get out, they are already in, we cannot get out, they are already in, we cannot get out-


    "No that isn''t- wait, is that writing?" he said, pausing. "Can you read it?"


    "Of course."


    "I''ve been meaning to ask ¨C how exactly can you do that?" asked Einar.


    "I am a dragon," she explained.


    Einar groaned. "That doesn''t- no, you know what, fine ¨C what does it say?"


    "''They are already in, we cannot get out,'' over and over," she translated. "There was another one, near where I was napping: ''The angles do not add up, the circle does not close.'' And it had the same picture of the winged mortal."


    "Creepy," he said with a shiver.


    The cave went quite deep, and twisted about on itself several times, and as they went further and further in there was more evidence of previous habitation. More phrases repeated over and over, and, here and there, faded and worn pieces of wood that might have once been a structure littering the floor and occasionally bolted to the walls with rusted pieces of metal.


    Then they took a sharp turn, and came upon five bodies of some kind of lizardmen type creatures.


    They had clearly been there a long time since their scaly skin completely dried out. Their faces, reptillian and therefore easier to understand, were contorted into looks of terror, and their eyes had been scratched out ¨C by their own talons, judging by the gore on their hands.


    "These poor bastards must have been the ones who wrote those messages," said Einar, squatting down next to them.


    "Why exactly did you think this important enough to wake me up for?" said Caprifexia. "Some dead mortals? Big deal ¨C that''s what mortals do, they die: it''s in the name."


    "Capri ¨Cyou''re a hero, apparently, remember? Heroes care about people dying."


    "Oh¡­ yes. Um, terrible, just terrible ¨C a real tragedy! Damn you cruel yet entirely predictable and inevitable fate! Damn you entropy! Damn you!" said Caprifexia, shaking a taloned paw for a moment. "But what am I supposed to do about it?"


    "I wanted your opinion ¨C you are, despite everything, a far better wizard than me."


    "Well, of course, I am a dragon."


    "Tell me then, little Ms. Wizard, why is there no rot?"


    Caprifexia frowned. "What?"


    "Rot and decay," said Einar pedantically. "Those are the results of tiny living organisms breaking down dead tissue ¨C right?"


    Caprifexia scrunched up her eyes and accessed some of her ancestral memories.


    They weren''t as good as learning something herself, and she had to consciously reach for them, which meant that she couldn''t really use them to synthesise new insights until she went through them bit by tedious bit to put them into her own memories, but they meant that dragons didn''t need to spend the first twenty years of their existence learning to read, write, and do mathematics like some kind of pathetic mortal.


    "Right, OK," she said after she had run through some basic biological concepts. "So what?"


    "They''ve just dried out. That''s it. And since we arrived here we haven''t seen a single skerrick of life, have we?" said Einar. "This is an oasis, but there aren''t any plants, not even some moss ¨C why?"


    "Minion, you are being boring. What does it matter?"


    "Capri ¨C everything on this world is dead. Everything. There are no plants, no insects, no bacteria. Aren''t you the least bit curious what happened to these people?"


    "Not really-" she began, before she remembered she was the Saviour of the Multiverse now, and she needed to care. "I mean- yes, of course, a few dead mortals? By the Titans! How will I sleep at night unless I uncover the reason for this totally unexpected turn of events?"


    "Real smooth," said Einar drily. "So can you cast some kind to spell to see if we can work out how they died?"


    "Of course," said Caprifexia, raising her claw and focusing her magic. "Diagn¨®stico." Then she blinked in surprise as impressions and information filtered into her mind. "Huh."


    "What is it?"


    "Void energy," she said. "They were exposed to massive quantities of Void energy."


    She turned the spell away from the corpses, scanning the wood.


    "Residue in the wood too," she said. "Everything has been saturated ¨C the life just ripped out."


    "Is it dangerous?"


    "No, it has dissipated," she said. "A while ago ¨C maybe three or four years."


    "So this world was scoured of all life less than a decade ago?" he said. "By the Void? Maybe those Old Gods?"


    Caprifeixa turned the wall, reading another of the messages.


    It is inside me, it is inside me, it is inside me-


    <hr>


    Caprifexia grimaced as she stepped into the Void and hundreds of eyes swivelled towards her. There were no whispers, thankfully, but the thought that somewhere out in the hellish non-euclidean realm there was at least one Old God was enough to mildly perturb even a dragon.


    "What''s wrong?" asked Einar, glancing around, the perception filter saving his tiny little mortal mind from unravelling.


    "Nothing," she said. "Come on. And be quicker about it this time you lazy mortal ¨C otherwise I might have to burn out more of your brain."


    Thankfully her minion''s map made it easy enough to get back to Nirn, and as she stepped through a portal into the chilly windswept tundra she let out a sigh of relief.


    To their south lay the still rather charred town of Whiterun. Although the local mead-club had succeeded in bringing down the mongrel, it was only after a large swathe of city had been reduced to ash.


    "We still need to get that axe sometime," said Einar. "Otherwise Brynjolf-"


    "Who?"


    "Ugh¡­ ''Binbolf.''"


    "Ah, Binbolf, yes, my other minion," she said. "I wonder how he is doing."


    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    "Capri, you''re a ''hero'' now, remember? I''m not your minion, and neither is Binbolf."


    "Oh yes, I wonder how my other¡­ my other¡­ err?"


    "Friend."


    "''Friend'' is doing, yes," she said, making air-quotes with her talons. "I suppose liberating an axe from the local drinking club is a worthy enough quest."


    "Drinking club? What drinking club?"


    "The ''Comparisons'' or whatever they''re called."


    "The Companions are a bunch of elite mercenaries, it is not a drinking club."


    "I don''t think that''s right. You''re probably misremembering things," she said.


    "I''m not, and also, we''re stealing it, not liberating it."


    "Didn''t you tell me off for that just yesterday?" said Caprifexia suspiciously.


    "I''m not a hero; I''ve never claimed to be."


    "Oh¡­ that doesn''t seem very fair," she said.


    It took them nearly half an hour to make it to the still somewhat crispy Whiterun, which had been rather badly burnt by the proto-drake after Caprifexia had spared it. The town was built on a rise a little way into the planes and not too far from the snaking river. It had stout stone walls, and several tiers clearly visible from afar.


    The highest of them was dominated by a large wooden fortress ¨C which was honestly one of the stupidest things Caprifexia had ever seen. A fortress, made of wood. Hah! Mortal stupidity never ceased to amaze her. It was still smoking and smouldering, but didn''t look in imminent danger of burning down.


    Inside the town, things were quiet chaotic, with mortals rushing about in a frenzy, carrying water, putting out small fires, tending to wounded, or distributing apples and other revoltingly sweet food to grubby, snotty faced children.


    According to what she overheard, the mortal hero responsible for saving the town had been a small shouty elven woman whose apparently ''unique'' power seemed to be that she had a voice and could speak loudly. Einar had been very impressed by the tale for reasons that Caprifexia couldn''t identify; she could shout as well, but he told her off when she did that. It was probably just some weird mortal thing like money, or cheese.


    Anyway, all in all, as far as Caprifexia could tell, it had been rather poor heroing. Although the town had been eventually saved, much of the upper district and a swathe of the hilltop fortress had been burnt very badly. Vastly inferior to her own efforts. But then again, she was a dragon ¨C she supposed it wasn''t fair to put mortal heroes in the same category as herself.


    "OK," said Einar in a hushed tone as they sat down in the corner of the mostly abandoned Bannered Mare Tavern. "We need to plan how to get this axe. Otherwise Brynjolf-"


    "Who?"


    "''Binbolf,'' otherwise he will be very annoyed with us ¨C and the thieves guild aren''t the best people to get off-side. Any ideas?"


    "Fire?" suggested Caprifexia.


    "No. No fire!" he hissed. "What is it with you and burning things?"


    "I am a dragon."


    "And what if someone gets hurt? That wouldn''t be very heroic."


    "Sometimes sacrifices must be made for the greater good."


    "Greater good? What greater good? We''re nicking an axe."


    "They''re just mortals after all, they''re just going to die in a couple of decades regardless."


    "Hey, I''m a mortal!"


    "I''m painfully aware."


    "You are such a bigot," said Einar rubbing his eyes. "And no, no fire. We need to come up with something less needlessly destructive. Something stealthy."


    <hr>


    "Hello, have you thought about purchasing some life in-sor-ance?" asked Caprifexia as the door to the hall opened.


    The Jorvaskr Mead Hall sat a little way away from other buildings, on a raised, rocky outcropping that stuck out from the lowest tier of the city. It was long and made of wood that thatch, but had been spared any damage in the attack. Perhaps because even a being as pathetic as a proto-drake had realised that mead enthusiasts weren''t a threat to anyone, and were therefar very far down the list of priorities when razing a town.


    Not that Caprifexia razed towns anymore. She was a hero. Heroes didn''t do that ¨C or so she''d been told.


    "You mean ''insurance?''" said the tall dark haired man in fur-lined armour, looking her over with an air of faint disdain.


    "That is what I said."


    "I didn''t think anyone would be stupid enough to try to sell us life insurance," said the man with a snort. "You do know this is Jorrvaskr, right?"


    Caprifexia wasn''t really sure why someone wouldn''t want to sell in-sor-ance to alcoholics, but then again, she wasn''t really sure what it was in the first place. She didn''t need to. Although many would never have suspected otherwise, she was not actually an in-sor-ance salesdragon. It was, in fact, a clever ruse.


    In the planning stages Einar had correctly realised that her peerless guile and incredibly skills of misdirection far exceeded his own, and thus she had been given the most important part of the operation.


    Or something like that, she hadn''t been really listening to his overly complex plan. Personally, she would have just preferred to set everything on fire. It would be easy, even. The apart from its stone foundations, the whole building was made of inflammable material.


    "It is a strong belief of mine that everyone should have the opportunity to have in-sor-ance," she said. "Even mead enthusiasts. May I come in?"


    The man looked confused for a moment, before shrugging and stepping back from the door. "Fine, just don''t break anything."


    Caprifexia bit back an insult at the idea that she would break something, by accident at least, instead nodding her head and smiling, doing her best idiot-mortal impression as they headed inside.


    The hall''s ground floor interior was a long and smokey room, with a fire-pit in the middle surrounded by long tables piled high with food and drink ¨C the club''s focus, after all.


    There were a set of stairs leading to some kind of basement at one end, and the walls were adorned with various tapestries and weapons and armour and other mortal knicknacks. On the far side she stopped a very old axe, the target of the operation, mounted above a slightly raised table. It was slightly magical, but only very slightly, and Caprifexia didn''t really understand why it was worth stealing.


    Still, Binbolf wanted it, and¡­ well she wasn''t actually sure why that was a good enough reason to steal it, but Einar probably would have whinged and whinged if she did something more productive, like napping. So here she was, liberating an axe. Heroically.


    "So, what are the premiums?" asked the scruffy mead-conissiour, sitting down and taking a long swig of his horn.


    "The what?" said Caprifexia.


    "The premiums ¨C how many imperials every month?"


    Caprifexia blinked in surprise, realising she had no idea what the man was talking about. This was what she had Einar for ¨C she didn''t even really understand what an Imperial was. Was it different from a gold coin? And if so, how? She knew that the other city had ''honours'' that were made gold ¨C was it like that?


    Why did gold even have value to mortals? It had some marginal usefulness in enchanting, although platinum was more thaumically conductive. Einar had tried to explain something about ''use-value'' and ''exchange-value'' to her back on the desert world, Astanor or something, but it had been confusing and boring, and she hadn''t really been listening. Was it because it was shiney? That was probably it. Mortals were foolish like that.


    "Ten thousand?" she said confidently, picking a number at random.


    "You''re having a laugh," said the man, taking a long swig from his mug before standing and grabbing her by the arm. "All right, I get it, you wanted to see the hall, but this isn''t a tourist attraction-"


    "-get your hands off my you mangy mortal drunkard-"


    "-hey, stop struggling you damn elf-"


    "-how dare you-"


    "-ow! She fucking bit me-"


    "-I will not be mortal-handled-"


    "-don''t make me smack you-"


    "-Augis!"


    Fire blossomed from Caprifexia''s hand as her patience snapped, smashing into the alcoholic man who had grabbed her and sending him flying back ¨C straight into the firepit.


    Coals and burning wood went everywhere as the man yelled and rolled from the blaze, both magical and mundane, spreading fire as he went.


    There was a scraping of steal as the half a dozen or so members of the mead-drinking club drew their weapons, and Caprifexia wondered for a moment if all such groups were so heavily armed, before such musings flew from her mind as the now burning man lunged at her with a ridiculously large sword.


    "You''ll regret that!" shouted the man, whose armour must have been quite high quality indeed to ward off a point-blank fireball.


    Caprifexia shifted her form, flitting under him as he brought his sword down into the space she had just been occupying and opening her jaws, the mighty furnace is her chest beginning to glow orange through her scales. Einar wouldn''t be pleased, but her plan had been better anyway.


    "What the fuck?" yelled the man as his sword cut straight through a table and stuck into the floor. "A damn wizard! Get her!"


    Caprifexia swooped down, opening her mouth and letting loose a powerful torrent of flame along the length of one of the tables.


    There was a movement to her left, and she yelped as she dived under a wild swing of an axe, barely avoiding being cut in two and not quite managing to pull up in time before she crashed into a float of gravy. The sticky brown liquid went flying, covering both herself and the surrounding area, but after a few tumbles she managed to return to wing, spewing more fire wildly as she went. The mead enthusiasts shouted and scaremed and rushed about like headless chickens, some trying to put out the fires, others chasing after her.


    Caprifexia banked at the end of the table, blasting the axe from it''s hangings with a bolt of magic and in a breathtakingly deft movement caught it in her claws as it fell.


    Unfortunately for the dashing and amazing and heroic whelpling, the massive double headed battleaxe was far, far, far too heavy for her small wings, and she didn''t even hold it for a second before tumbling to the ground, smearing gravy along the floor as she rolled.


    She heard footsteps behind her as she tried to clear her spinning head, and looked up just in time to see the scruffy, and now very crispy man who had let her in raise his sword and step towards her.


    Then his foot slipped on the watery gravy across the floor, which with her incredible draconic foresight she had obviously smeared there for just such an eventuality.


    He fell hard, and Caprifexia flapped back into the air, breathing more fire along the upper walls as the silly little mortals ran about in a frenzy.


    The smoke grew thicker and thicker as Caprifexia completed a second and then third pass of the large room, landing and switching back to her elven form next to the axe and scooping it up once she was reasonably confident the mortals wouldn''t be able to really see her.


    A flaming rafter smashed down next to her as she rushed towards the exit, strangely lupine howls echoing behind her as she emerged into the Skyrim air.


    "Capri, what the fuck!?" yelled Einar, who was rapidly descending from the side of the burning building, a rope tied around his waist and all manner of thieving equipment slung across his body. "I thought we agreed no fire!"


    "That doesn''t sound like something I would agree too," she said as he cut himself free from the rope and dropped the last foot or so to the ground.


    "And why are you covered in- is that, gravy?" he said.


    "Shut up minion," she said, tossing him the axe. "Here, carrying things is your job."


    "Not your-"


    "The wizard has stolen the Axe of Ysmir!" came a bestial sounding voice from inside the smoke. "After her!"


    Einar and Capri looked at each other for a moment, before turning and breaking into a run down the slope towards the main town, Caprifexia transforming as she went, flapping up to a safe height. She glanced back at the now burning and collapsing building to see a group of five humanoids, covered in fur and with wolven faces burst from the smoke, loping on all fours.


    "Fucking werewolves!?" said Einar in an unusually high voice. "The Companions are fucking werewolves!?"


    "I''ll rip you limb from limb!" snarled the lead pursuer in a surprisingly feminine voice.


    "You should try and run faster," said Caprifexia, helpfully, from above Einar.


    "Make a damn portal!" yelled Einar as he pelted down the stone path. "Make a damn portal!"


    "You''ll run off the edge of the platform," she said.


    "Do you promise you can make it straight away?" he said, glancing over his shoulder at the closing werewolves.


    "I am a dragon," she explained confidently.


    "If you get me killed¡­" he said, as he skidded a halt, trembling as he turned to face the angry and apparently moon-cursed mead enthusiasts. "Capri!"


    Caprifeixa focused, remembering what it was like to open portals and flexing her will.


    Nothing happened.


    "Capri!"


    Caprifeixa redoubled her effort, a tiny, strange, doubt emerging in thee back of her mind, and with it, the realisation that Einar was in rather grave danger, and that although it was still his own responsibility, she may have been very, very tangentially involved.


    "Capri!" screamed Einar as the Werewolves leapt.


    Straight into a portal.


    "See," said Caprifexia, shifting her form to elvish as she landed. "No problem."


    "Uh, Capri-"


    "You really should know better than to doubt my brilliance by now," she said, pointedly ignoring all the fleshy noises as she walked into the Void and over the eyeballs and tendrils, trying not to slip in her gravy covered boots. "I think that went rather well, if I do say so myself ¨C and I do."


    "Capri," hissed Einar, grabbing her shoulder pointing to the edge of the Void-platform, where there were two scrambling grey-skinned hands attempting to find purchase on some smooth Nordic-themed stone. "Look!"


    "Honestly, do I have to do everything?" said Capri, stalking over to the edge and raising her foot.


    "W-what is going on?" said a short elven woman with greyscale skin and blood red eyes who was desperately trying not to fall, both her hands scrabbling against the rock.


    Capri stamped on her left hand, making her let go with a yelp.


    "Capri, wait!" cried Einar as Caprifexia lined up her foot over the woman''s other hand.


    "What is it now?"


    "You can''t just kill someone in cold blood!"


    "I¡­ can''t?" said Capri slowly, scrunching her face up.


    "No!"


    "But she tried to kill us. Well you mainly. Still, I think that makes her a villain, which means she deserves Just-This," she said, indicating to her shoe. "''Just-boot'' in this case."


    "You''re supposed to be a hero! Heroes have mercy!" said Einar.


    "I can''t have both Just-this and Mercy, the first one is an exclusive ¨C it''s in the name," she said. "Honestly, don''t you know anything about heroism?"


    "What- what are you even talking about?" said Einar, before he looked down at the struggling elven woman and blanched. "D-dovahkiin?"


    "What''s a ''Proto-drake-born?''" said Caprifexia, translating Einars rather terribly pronounced proto-drake. "Is this another one of your silly superstitions?"


    "Dragonborn; a mortal with the soul of a dragon; honestly don''t you pay any attention to what I tell you-"


    "Oh, so she''s a proto-drake in elven form?" said Caprifexia, raising a boot over the woman last slipping hand. "Hah! I''ve been wanting to do this for ages! Say goodbye, you pathetic villainous imitation of a true dragon!"


    "What are you- no!" said Einar, lunging for her as her foot descended.


    He was too slow, however, and Caprifexia''s boot smashed into the woman''s remaining hand a moment before he tackled her to the side.


    "Unhand me!" she said, pushing him off her as a terrified scream began to fall swiftly away. "You might be my min- my ''friend,'' but I am still a dragon! I will not be mortal-handled!"


    "Divines ¨C Capri, what have you done!? What have you done!?" screamed Einar as he scrambled towards the edge of the platform that was now notably lacking the tips of any grey fingers.


    "Defeated a Villain," she said. "Heroically."


    "She was the hero," yelled Einar. "The only person in the whole world who could properly slay dragons! And you''ve killed her!"


    "No, she was a villian," said Caprifexia. "Keep up."


    "No she wasn''t! We''re the villains! We''ve doomed the world!"


    "I''m sure everything will be fine," said Caprifexia, picking herself up and looking over the edge at the rapidly fading elf-shaped spec, beyond which were a few other tiny humanoid shapes. "They are just proto-drakes ¨C what''s the worst they could do?"


    "Destroy Skyrim! Destroy Nirn!"


    "Pah! I doubt it ¨C if my father, a proper dragon, couldn''t destroy Azeroth, then an overgrown lizard isn''t going to be able to destroy your world, admittedly inferior as it is," said Caprifexia. "You know, I think I''m getting rather good at this hero business. What''s that? My tenth villain defeated in less than a week?"


    "No! Not ''nine villains!'' A petty thief who you tripped, four guards trying to stop you stealing an old woman''s bag, and five Companions trying to catch you for burning down their hall and stealing their axe. Oh¨C and one of them was the saviour of Nirn!" said Einar, pulling at his hair. "I was going to sneak in and take the axe without them noticing while you distracted them. No one was going to die! Nirn wasn''t going to be doomed! The Thieves guild would have just ransomed the axe back to them, and that would have been that!


    "But no! You had to set the entire fucking place on fire and kill five of the greatest warriors in Skyrim! You''re not a hero, your a menace! A tiny, megalomaniacal, sociopathic, bigoted, irresponsible, scaly little menace! Even the Dark Brotherhood doesn''t cause as much chaos as you do!"


    "Calm down Ei-nar," she said, wiping some now cold gravy off her face. "I know you''re a mortal, and thus can''t be expected too much of, but you''re becoming hysterical."


    "Don''t you tell me to calm down, this is a disaster!" he said, squelching back and forth over the fleshy void tendrils.


    "Everything will be fine. If these so-called ''dragons'' are such a big deal I can deal with them myself ¨C in fact, that sounds like a worthy quest for a hero of my stature. Without that usurper I will be able to focus fully on carving out my heroic legend on this pathetic backwater!"


    "''Carve out a legend?'' You won''t last a minute against a fully grown dragon."


    "Honestly Ei-nar, are all mortals so dim? You just observed me heroically defeat the woman who apparently slew some of them, effortlessly I might add ¨C I, therefore, am clearly more powerful than they are," said Caprifexia, shaking some increasingly cold gravy off her fingers. "It''s simple logic."


    "You are completely delusional! That was luck and because you caught her off-guard by using magic no one has ever seen before," said Einar. "Those creatures you call ''proto-drakes'' are about a hundred times your size and better at magic than you ¨C and there are dozens and dozens and dozens of them!"


    "Perhaps. But as a true dragon I have an unbeatable advantage."


    "And what is that?"


    "I," she said, pausing briefly for dramatic effect. "Am a genius."


    Einar hit his head against one of the nearby crumbling pillars.

 A Mutually Beneficial and Totally Amicable Relationship Termination

    Einar shivered, pulling his cloak higher as a frigid gust of wind blew across the tundra of the southern Pale. His horse descended the last few steps from the Whiterun pass, the ground levelling out and stretching off towards the distant peaks of the Windhelm Range.


    The Jarldom of Dawnstar was one of the most desolate areas of Skyrim, and not the sort place he would visit by choice, especially not in late autumn. The days were already short and the nights beyond frigid.


    He had bought the bay mare with a fraction of ''his share'' of the loot of the several stress inducing months of shenanigans and trying to keep that blasted flying lizard out of trouble. It was a period that even now, less than a week after leaving the meglomaniacal flying reptile behind, he was still in two minds about.


    On one hand, he was now richer than he ever had been before. It was a novel and welcome feeling after having scraped by on petty theft and the odd, usually shady, job for the past decade since he''d left the Imperial Legion.


    On the other, his world was quite possibly doomed because the juvenile monster lacked any kind of grasp of even the most basic points of honour and decency and had slain the Saviour of Nirn because she thought for some reason it was ''heroic'' to stomp a defenceless woman off a cliff into the void between universes.


    His horse stumbled in a pot hole, and Einar winced at where the burnt skin on his arm pulled as he jerked up to keep his saddle.


    Capri hadn''t been happy to see him leave.


    No, that was understating it. She''d been apoplectic.


    Although he was reasonably sure she hadn''t been trying to kill him, she had still thrown around enough fire during her temper tantrum when he had told her he was leaving that he was glad that the tundra in autumn wasn''t particularly flammable.


    Some part of him did feel a bit bad for leaving her back in Whiterun. She was, after all, just a baby; completely erratic, often irrational, and with a severely underdeveloped sense of right and wrong.


    That was fine for human kids, but Capri wasn''t a human kid, she was almost a meter of super-magical fire-breathing lizard capable of walking through the void, hurling boulder shattering magic around on a whim, and was totally and utterly convinced that she was not only the smartest being the multiverse, but also the wisest. It made for a rather deadly and chaotic combination.


    He''d told himself she''d been getting better under his guidance. She''d stopped calling him ''Minion,'' more or less, and he thought she might have been showing the beginnings of actual empathy towards people she regarded as ''inferior beings:'' i.e. everyone else.


    But then she had burnt down the Companion''s hall and killed the Dovahkiin while doing a mission that, in reality, only he actually cared about.


    It had been a wake up call. It had made him realise that he''d been kidding himself to think he had been curbing her destructive impulses, channelling her into becoming a decent sapient being, or at the very least, not a omnicidal maniac. He hadn''t been doing that at all, all he''d been doing was setting up opportunities for her to wreak havoc; opportunities that had been, if he was honest with himself, mainly aimed at enriching himself.


    From the city of Astapor an infinity away where she''d hurled half a dozen guards into the void, to Riften where she had set the honey farm on fire and gotten the manager arrested for ''insurance fraud,'' to the debacle at Jorrvaskr ¨C they were all situations created by him. The worst she had managed before meeting him was breaking some Nord''s nose in Helgen.


    She didn''t care about money, he didn''t think she even really understand the concept. In fact, she didn''t care about anything other than herself. Certainly not him, she''d made it pretty abundantly clear that she regarded him as a tool, not a friend. A minion, not an equal.


    She was probably already on some other world, curled up in a ball and napping in the sunshine; she could well have already forgotten his name.


    Maybe in a hundred years or however long it took for her to properly mature she could be a real hero, but until then it was in everyone''s best interests that she just stayed out away from civilised lands.


    He would just have to try and clean up her mess himself. That was why he was headed northward, to Winterhold and the largest library in Skyrim. If there was any information to be had that might help defeating the Dragons in the absence of a Dovahkiin, it would be there. He hoped.


    The sun was just setting as he came into what had once been a small town, but had swollen several times over with a large influx of imperial troops. They had brought with them the usual amenities of Cyrodillian civilisation: well maintained roads, impressive square palisade forts, neat lines of standard issue tents, and that perhaps most ubiquitous symbol of the Empire, a set of full gallows.


    Stormcloaks, or their sympathisers.


    Or perhaps not. Perhaps just those unlucky enough to have looked the wrong way at some young commissioned Cryodillian noble.


    "Papers," said a soldier from Hammerfall as he approached the checkpoint outside the town.


    Einar grunted in response, fishing out the forged documents he''d had made in Riften back before he''d undertaken the world-dooming quest to steal the axe of Ysmir, what felt like years ago.


    "Business in the Pale?" asked the soldier.


    "Heading for the College," answered Einar honestly.


    "For?"


    "Trying to find some way to fight the damn dragons."


    "Should be more worried about your Empire," said the man, thrusting Einar''s papers back towards him. "About fighting those Stormcloak traitors."


    "I did my time," replied Einar, flicking the reins. "I''ll worry about them when they can Shout a village to ash."


    He slept fitfully that night, memories and disturbing images from the darker recesses of his imagination blending together into a whirlwind of falling Dunmer women, his father returning home in bloodied armour and a string of elf ears around his neck, and endless fields of bones and sand and ash, above which soared a winged creature that cast a seemingly endless shadow again a blood red sun.


    The days rolled on, turning colder and colder as Einar left behind the Pale and reached the shores of Lake Yorgrim. The road became busier the closer he got to Windhelm until he was coming across several Stormcloak patrols a day. He was a Nord, so they paid him little mind, something he was glad of since he probably still had an arrest warrant or two out for him in the region.


    It had been quite some time since he''d been so far north, and although the landscape was just as bleak and frigid as ever, change was obvious.


    The most clear signs of suffering were the burnout townships. Some, he suspected, were the result of the civil-war, which although calming down now that the autumn snows were starting, had raged viciously over the summer between the Imperial aligned Pale and the heart of Ulfric''s power in Windhelm.


    Others, however, bore the tell-tale scars of dragons. Men didn''t gouge foot deep rents into rock, nor make fire so hot that even the most sturdy stone temples came to resemble the cooled flows of lava he had seen when he''d visited the province of Morrowind to the south east several years earlier.


    Some of the attacks were old, but others clearly recent. And while it was unlikely that even had the Dovahkiin still been alive she would have stopped those attacks in particular, he couldn''t help but feel at responsible for the stands of ash where houses had once stood.


    Dragons and civil wars, however, weren''t the only causes of suffering. The combined forces of nature and good old xenophobia also conspired to create misery.


    Camps of dark elven refugees from Morrowind that sprawled out around once-sleepy lakeside hamlets dominated large sections of the road. Thin canvas tents ripped, torn, and covered in ash seemed to be the only shelter they had, and looked to do next to nothing to ward off the autumn chill. He shuddered to think what it would be like for them once the true winter came.


    The destitute Dunmer looked at him with tired red eyes, gaunt faces, and open hands, and by the time the road forked and he continued his trek northward his coin-purse was lighter, and his heart heavier.


    Things became quieter as the road wove it''s way north into the icy wastes of the Winterhold, the nights turning frigid as soon as he crossed over the pass and descended towards the frozen coastline of the Sea of Ghosts and began to follow the icy sea-side road.


    People said that all of Skyrim was remote and rugged, but Winterhold was unlike anything he, a boy from the relatively warm south western Reach, had ever seen. Great cliffs rose up to never-ending snow-capped peaks in the west, and plunged down into the furious waters in the east. Here and there a few copses of hardy trees clung to life in the most rugged of all the holds of Skyrim, and in places the ill-kept and ill-frequented road disappeared entirely.


    More than once he had to carefully cross frozen rivers which ran only at the height of summer where the bridges had long since collapsed. He might be able to understand how mages, who could reshape the world around them with their mind, might choose to live in such a place, but why anyone else made their lives in this place, he had no idea.


    The road was completely and totally empty, with no set of tracks in either direction. At night the only sounds were the occasional howl of a wolf, the bray of a fat Horker on the rocky coastline below, and the howl of the ceaseless wind. Einar found himself missing not only Capri''s company ¨C prickly and capricious as it might have been ¨C but her skill with pyromancy. Say what you liked about dragons, Nirnian or otherwise, they were good with fire.


    It wasn''t until he was a few days out from the frigid college that he saw another soul.


    He had found a small copse of trees and set up camp for the night, and was trying to coax a fire into existence with a handful of semi-frozen pine needles and twigs he had managed to scrounge when he heard the crunch of snow.


    He whirred around, dagger half drawn from its sheath, expecting to find a hungry wolf. Instead his eyes fell on a comely Imperial woman in a very tight, and somewhat revealing scarlet dress over which she had nothing but a light mantle.


    She had long, shimmering black hair, sparkling yellow eyes that seemed to glow in the firelight, and blood red lips.


    Despite the cold and the flimsy state of her clothes she didn''t shiver, and instead gave him a wide smile that made him weak at the knees.


    Part of his mind found it odd that she didn''t seem cold, but the larger part of his mind pushed that thought aside as he sheathed his dagger and returned her smile.


    "Um, hello! P-please, join me," he stammered, not quite believing what was happening to him. It was like everything was a dream. The world seemed to shift and wobble, although he was sure he hadn''t drunk any alcohol. Perhaps it was simply his nerves. It had been a long time since he had found a woman so overwhelmingly attractive.


    "How kind of you," said the woman huskily, licking her cherry red lips delicately. "I am Maria."


    "E-Einar," he said, stumbling over his words. "Would you like some of my¡­ bread?"


    "Ah ¨C no thank-you," she said, flicking her eyes briefly to the stale slices he had cut for his dinner. "I wouldn''t want to¡­ spoil my appetite."


    That made Einar frown for a moment, before he relaxed.


    It didn''t matter.


    Everything was fine.


    All that mattered was that he was going to get to spend more time in this amazing woman''s company.


    "You look cold my lady," he said, standing and rushing to his saddlebag. "Let me get you a blanket."


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    "Why, how gallant of you," laughed the woman as he moved away, returning a moment later with his sleeping roll, her eyes flicking down to his neck as he drew close.


    He stilled, frowning ever so slightly as that nagging part of his mind reasserted itself once more as she reached up towards his face.


    Something was wrong, he thought as Maria pulled his head to one side and moved to¡­ kiss his neck?


    Well, no, that was fine, he certainly wasn''t opposed to such a lovely woman doing that, he thought as his heart pounded in his chest and she bared her unusually sharp teeth.


    "Augis!" came a squeaky shout from above them, and Maria''s gaze snapped upward, inches from his neck, as a ball of fire rocketed down from the frozen canopy.


    Her eye-brows shot up as the ball of mage-fire careened towards her, and she began to move ¨C impossibly quickly.


    Even her breathtaking speed, however, was not quite enough, and the fireball caught her in the arm and sent her spinning into the snow as a black blur rocketed down from the branches, spewing more fire as Maria roared in pain and anger.


    Einar saw red, drawing his dagger and slashing at the blur as it passed, eliciting a yelp of surprise from the creature that dared attack his lady as the blade caught it in the leg and sent it crashing into the white powder, the frozen water immediately beginning to melt and steam wherever the monster''s deep red blood dripped onto it.


    "You stupid mortal!" came a familiar voice as the lizard''s horned head emerged from the snow, spitting crystals. "I''m trying to save you!"


    Einar paused. He knew that voice¡­


    "Einar kill it! Kill it!" yelled Maria clutching her burnt arm and baring her fangs at the interloping flying lizard.


    The voice of his lady shook him from his stupor and he raised his dagger, setting his jaw as he advanced on the lizard.


    "Ugh, you pea-brained mortal," said the strangely familiar reptile as it flapped up into the air again, darting out of his reach. "Nubilas."


    Choking smoke billowed out from the flying lizard, and Einar doubled over, coughing and pressing himself against the ground as the acrid gas stung at his eyes and burned his throat.


    "That won''t work on me," hissed his lady from somewhere behind him. "I can still hear you little lizard ¨C Frosset!"


    A spear of ice rocketed through the smoke over Einar''s head, and there was a squawk of outrage, although, unfortunately, no sound of impact.


    "Listen to this then, you bloated corpse!" retorted the lizard. "Rudiat!"


    There was a deafening boom, followed by an immense, ongoing cacophony of discordant sound.


    If Einar had had to describe it he would have said it sounded vaguely like a thousand cats being drowned combined with an orchestra of deaf musicians all playing different pieces at the end of the world; only much, much worse.


    He dropped his dagger, jamming his fingers in his ears as the noise pressed down on him, so loud he could almost taste it.


    He felt blasts of heat and cold pass back and forth over his head a few times, before something heavy fell behind him, thrashing about for a few moments before growing still.


    The smoke faded, revealing a pile of ash spilling out of a slightly charred red dress, and Einar felt his mind begin to clear, the memory of the previous few minutes beginning to snap together into something approaching coherence.


    "Vampire," he gasped as he realised what he was looking at, or at least, he thought that was what he said. It wasn''t really possible to hear over the racket; whatever horrific magic Capri had cast was still going on and making it difficult to hear himself think, let alone speak.


    He turned around, his heart catching in his throat as he saw the small dragon on the other side of the clearing, glaring at him as deep crimson blood oozed from a wound on her leg. A wound he had made.


    "Shit," he said rushing over to her as the noise-spell mercifully began to fade.


    Before he crossed half the distance a wave of force blasted out from her, and he tripped over as the air was knocked from his lungs. Another spell washed over him, and he felt himself being firmly pressed down into the snow. His dagger rocketed out from his sheath a moment later and flew off into the gloom beyond the clearing.


    "¡­ weak-willed ¡­ pathetic ¡­ mortal ¡­ fool," said Capri, the ringing in his ears making it difficult to understand the full extent of her abuse as she crawled over, putting her small head up to his face and snapping her needle-sharp teeth millimetres from his nose.


    "I said I was sorry!" he said. "Do- do you know any healing magic?"


    "¡­ not ¡­ ignorant ¡­ mortal," said the Whelp, smoke pouring out of her nostrils. "¡­ didn''t ¡­ my supposed ally ¡­ stab me!"


    "I said I was sorry, she had me under a spell-"


    "I know," spat the angry whelp, releasing the magic and flapping off, settling on the other side of the clearing and licking at her wound. "You mortals are pathetic. Honestly, it''s almost like you want to get killed. It''s a wonder you don''t all perish as infants! Maybe I should have let her eat you, I''d probably have been doing the multiverse a favour!"


    "What are you even doing here?" he said, his concern fading away under the torrent of abuse and some of the weeks old anger he felt towards the small dragon returning. "Have you been following me?"


    "Following you? How preposterous. Dragons do not follow mortals, least of all mean and nasty ones like you!"


    "So you just happened to be in the tree above my camp for entirely unrelated reasons?" said Einar.


    "That''s right," declared Capri, nodding her draconic head as if this was an entirely believably explanation for her presence. "Totally unrelated reasons. If anything, I''m suspect of you; what were you doing camping below my tree? Couldn''t bear to be out of my awesome presence, I''ll bet."


    "Right¡­" said Einar.


    Capri snorted, flicking her talons towards his pathetic fire and making it roar into life as she began to pointedly ignore him.


    "Why didn''t its glamour work on you?" he asked after a few minutes of Capri''s patented ''no speaks.''


    "I am a dragon."


    "Oh of course. I would have also accepted ''because I''m a wizard'' or ''because I said so,''" he said, rolling his eyes as he moved over to the vampire''s dress and started sifting through the pockets for a few moments before fishing out a dusty coin-purse. "Again, why were you following me?"


    "I told you, you sieve-brained ape, you just happened to camp under my tree-"


    "We both know that isn''t true," he said sharply, cutting her off. "And, just so we''re clear, this doesn''t change anything. You might have saved me, but that doesn''t mean what I told you back in Whiterun is any less true: you''re toxic Capri, you''ve quite possible destroyed this world with your chaotic madness."


    Capri huffed and went back to staring into the fire for several long minutes, probably trying to come up with some kind of lame excuse. One that she no doubt would believe wholeheartedly was the definition of guile.


    "I didn''t have anywhere better to go," she said finally in a small voice, apparently finding the task too hard.


    "Yeah, not buying that either," he laughed. "You can go anywhere, an infinite number of worlds, why here-"


    "You''re here!" she said in a strangled voice.


    Einar look up to see the tears in her reptilian eyes.


    A feeling of shame welled in his breast as her hot tears fell to the snow, bursting into clouds steam. He''d seen her cry before, when she''d thought she didn''t have any kind of purpose, before she''d becoming nominally a ''hero.'' But that had been about her, not him, maybe she-


    No, he had given her enough chances.


    He had been kidding himself again to think she had changed; just because she reminded him a bit of Freya, at least in her ''mortal guise.''


    Well, minus the horns and the creepy glowing red eyes.


    "Wherever you go Capri, chaos follows," he said hardening his heart as he forced himself to remember the burnt out hamlets and melted temples that she''d unintentionally had a hand in. "And there are consequences for what you do-"


    "I know that you silly mortal!"


    "Do you? Have you seen the burnt out villages? The lines and lines of graves? Do you really understand what not having a Dovahkiin means for Nirn?"


    "So there will be a few more angry proto-drakes flapping about-"


    "No! No, you damned lizard! The legends say that Alduin, the greatest of the Nirn-Dragons, is destined to eat the world," said Einar. "If that''s true, then you could very well have doomed every living being on this planet by killing the one person who could stop him."


    "That''s just silly mortal superstition," scoffed Capri. "Those Proto-drakes, I will admit, are presently¡­ problematic for me to slay in open combat in the short term. But none of them could hold a candle to my father, and even he didn''t manage to destroy my home-world."


    "See, here you go again ¨C you don''t know anything about this world or it''s history; yet you act like you do. If you were a normal kid that would be fine, but you''re not, you''re a powerful wizard, a dragon; you can''t afford to make mistakes ¨C people die when you do."


    "So I can''t stay with you because of my species?" she said, sniffing and wiping her eyes with her tail. "That''s discrimination: dragonism. You''re a- a dragonist!"


    "That isn''t a thing," he said. "And it isn''t just that you don''t know things; it''s that you refuse to learn, and refuse to listen. Maybe I won''t live as long as you, maybe I can''t shrug off a vampire''s mind-magic like it''s a light breeze, and maybe you have an incredible intuitive understanding of magic ¨C but that doesn''t mean you''re somehow a better than everyone else, and it doesn''t mean you know everything."


    "I know I don''t know everything," she snapped. "I know that I don''t know how to be a hero ¨C OK? You were supposed to be teaching me, but the moment I made a mistake you started yelling at me and then just abandoned me!"


    "You¡­ you ''made a mistake?''" he said, his jaw dropping as he tried to process what she''d just said.


    "Of course I did!" she yelled, hot tears spilling from her orange eyes as she smacked her front talons down into the snow and made the fire leap up another meter into the air. "What''s so surprising about that!? I''m a whelpling! Of course I make mistakes! You can''t judge! When you were my age you were probably still crawling about and soiling yourself! If I was a human child you''d never be so mean, you hate me because I''m a dragon! Dragonist! Dragonist!"


    "I don''t hate you Capri, and certainly not because you''ve got scales," he said shakily. "I''ve just ¡­ never heard you admit fault before."


    Capri sniffed and looked away. "Dragons aren''t supposed to admit fault to mortals. It''s weak."


    "Says who?"


    "Says everyone."


    "Capri, by your own admission your people were corrupted and twisted into something dark and nasty ¨C don''t you think that maybe their dismissive attitudes towards non-dragons was a part of that?"


    "¡­ maybe," she conceded uncertainly, before shaking herself. "Although we are better than mortals at everything."


    Einar rolled his eyes. Was he being too harsh, leaving her behind? He had known she''d be fine physically, but he clearly hadn''t really understood her emotional dependence on him since it was normally behind an impenetrable layer of arrogance.


    And she had grown.


    Oblivion, she''d gotten into a mage-duel with a vampire to save him. That was leagues away from the dragon that had pushed him towards the Imperial soldiers during their escape from the Helgen gaol. She''d never have gone out on a limb for anyone back then; if he''d attacked her, enthralled or otherwise, he would have instantly been on the receiving end of a lethal fireball.


    And it wasn''t like she didn''t have quite an array of skills, skills that might be able to help him dig the world out of the mess she''d made¡­ well, they''d made.


    "OK, OK¡­ I''m sorry if I upset you," he said.


    "A mortal like you, upset me?" she said weakly. "R-ridiculous, I am a -"


    "-dragon. Yeah, I know," he said. "But I''m still sorry. I thought you¡­ it doesn''t matter. I was angry, but- but I wasn''t fair to you. I shouldn''t have said what I did."


    Capri sniffed.


    "This is the bit where you say: ''That''s OK Einar, we both said things we regret, and I''m sorry I killed the Dragonborn, but I know that together we can try and put this situation back together.''"


    "I didn''t know it was the wrong thing to do!" she snapped back. "It''s so hard to know what I''m supposed to do to be a hero, everything is so complicated with you mortals. I thought heroes were supposed to kill villains!"


    Einar sighed.


    "I accept your apology," she said snootily. "Even if you are an unapologetic, unreconstructed dragonist. It isn''t a good look you know, bigotry; especially coming from a silly little mortal like you."


    "That isn''t a- ugh, fine, I suppose that''s better than nothing," he said, going back to looting the vampire''s remains.


    "What are you even doing here?" asked the reptile, apparently just as eager as him to change the subject. "You''ve seemed very cold the last few nights, I can''t imagine it is for pleasure. Then again, you mortals are crazy."


    "I''m heading to Winterhold College," he said. "There is a library there, if there is knowledge about how to defeat the dragons-"


    "-Proto-drakes-"


    "-whatever you want to call them. If there is information on how to do that without the Dovahkiin it will be there," he said, checking another of the vampire''s pockets and drawing out a letter. "Huh, what''s this?"


    The envelope was made from thick, high quality paper. It had been opened, but the design of a snarling, bat-like creature was still visible in the blood-red wax that had been used to seal it. Inside was a slip of paper, filled with neat loopy writing that he couldn''t really read, but might have been a very old version of Imperial.


    "Hey Capri, read this for me?" he said, moving over and passing it to her. She accepted it with her talons, carefully unfolding the letter and holding it up to the light of the campfire.


    "''Fledgling Maria,''" began Capri instantly, not even needing a moment to translate from a form of writing she''d probably never seen before ¨C apparently ''because she was a dragon.'' "''Your King has need of your service. You are to travel to Winterhold College and search for any leads as to the likely present location of an Elder Scroll. Take care not to arouse suspicion within the college. Feed only on townsfolk as absolutely necessary. The Archmage is immensely powerful, and will certainly be able to discern your true nature upon close examination. Avoid him.


    "''Once you have completed your research you are to travel south again to Windhelm, in the eastern quarter of the city you will find a house marked above the door with an image of a Winged Woman, enter it and leave your notes with one of the people inside, they will be expecting you. Once you have done so your task is complete, and you may return to your usual hunts until I have further use for you.


    "''Do not attack mortals within the house in Windhelm. They serve an ally who is integral to my plans for the Black Sun, and who will be most displeased if her tools are damaged.


    "''Do not disappoint me,


    "''Lord Harkon.''"


    "Huh," said Einar. "What is the ''Black Sun?''"


    "I do not know, it does not elaborate," said Caprifexia, handing the note back to him.


    "Well it doesn''t sound good, whatever it is," said Einar frowning as he ran over the words again in his mind. "Well we should probably look into it when we get to Winterhold; anything that an organised group of Vampires are after can''t be good."


    "So I can come with you?" said Capri, her eyes lighting up.


    "Yes ¨C I''m sorry I left you behind."


    Capri grinned like the child she was, and for a moment he thought she was going to hug him. But then the moment passed and her imperious guise reasserted itself.


    "As you should be. You will, of course, need my help to clean up this mess you''ve made."


    "Yeah, ''my'' mess," he said, scoffing at Capri''s ability to assert completely counterfactual nonsense and act like she believed it. "Just try not to kill anyone else unless you absolutely have to, all right?"


    She gave him a withering look.


    Still, for a moment he had seen beneath her draconic arrogance to the lost little child beneath. The child desperately looking for a friend, and who was actually sorry she had upset him. And more than that, he had seen a glimmer of the person she might become if given a chance to grow.


    Maybe she did have a lot of blood on her hands for killing the Dovahkiin, maybe she was still an immature megalomaniac, maybe in the end she''d never been the ''Saviour of the Multiverse'' she thought she was.


    But he wasn''t perfect either. He was a thief. He was a liar. And he was a cheat.


    He''d mislead Caprifexia into smuggling goods between worlds in ''aid'' of making her a ''better hero'' when she was supposed to be his friend.


    He''d even killed people before. Never happily, but he''d still done it.


    Maybe all that mattered, maybe all that he could ask of both her and himself was that now they were trying to do the right thing, even if they both didn''t always quite know how.


    The Divines, after all, weren''t the ones who needed redemption.

 Prodigal Identity Theft

    Caprifexia shifted her form as they approached the frosted stone steps, wincing slightly as her wounded leg twinged from where her incompetent and weak willed ex-minion had slashed her.


    Like most wizard towers, Winterhold College was built in an incredibly precarious place. Surrounded by the angry Sea of Ghosts on all sides and rising on a pillar of dark rock hundreds of meters high its only connection to the mainland was via a thin crumbling stone bridge. It rose from the seat stack like a grey monolith, with two lower, roughly circular towers, and one much wider and taller one, furthest from the coast.


    It was early morning, and the air was still. The sea of ghosts roiled and crashed against the cliffs, a dull rumble from beneath, and a few sea birds squawked, but other than that it was quiet.


    Soft blue light streamed out of the window of a small guardhouse on the mainland side, and as they approached an elf of some description ¨C no doubt Einar would have some specific label ¨C emerged, shutting a thick and aged tome with a sharp snap.


    "This is Winterhold College, I am Master Wizard Faralda," said the elf, her eyes focusing onto Caprifexia''s horns and pursing her lips in what looked like disapproval. "What is your business?"


    "Hello. I''m Einar, and this is Capri. We''d like to use your library," said Einar. "To study dragons; find a way to defeat them."


    "Hmm," said Faralda, giving him a critical once over. "The College may have what you seek, but the way is closed to non-mages."


    "Ah," said Einar. "That, err, isn''t a problem. Capri here is very good at setting things on fire, and I am, err, good at¡­ polymorphism?"


    "Really? That is an unusual skill for a novice to focus on," said Faralda, her eyes lighting up with interest. "Please, demonstrate."


    Einar turned to Caprifexia and gave her a meaningful stare.


    "Lizardify," he said seriously.


    Caprifexia arched an eyebrow and crossed her arms.


    "Capri, change your form," he hissed under his breath, before laughing weakly and raising his voice. "Stage fright, I, err, guess, this normally never happens. Straight into a lizard, that''s- heh- that''s what happens. Almost always."


    "I am not a lizard," she hissed back. "This is blatant dragonism, you silly looking, dim-witted, bigoted little mortal ape."


    "That isn''t a thing. Don''t be difficult," whispered Einar. "Please."


    "Take your time, there is no rush," said Faralda.


    Einar glared at Caprifexia, thrusting his hands towards her again. "Lizardify."


    Caprifexia muttered under her breath, but nevertheless shifted herself into her true, majestic form. A small ¨Cregal¨C dragon replaced the horned elf, and she flapped her wings a few times before settling in the snow.


    "Remarkable!" said Faralda, clapping her hands. "I''ve never seen magic like that from a novice before! Are you sure you''ve not attended another college?"


    "Err ¨C no."


    "Amazing then," said Faralda. "Prodigal even!"


    "Err, um, yes ¨C that''s me, Einar, the prodigal mage¡­ heh," he said awkwardly, rubbing his elbow.


    "But-" spluttered Caprifexia, not sure if she was more outraged at the idea that Einar was prodigal at anything, or that he was stealing credit for her spell.


    "Capri," hissed Einar, putting his hand over her maw and whispering in her ear. "I can''t cast any magic, remember? I need you to play along so I can get into that library, understand?"


    Caprifexia huffed, shifting back to her mortal form a moment later.


    "And you?" said Faralda. "Can you use magic?"


    "Of course. I''m the real prodigy," said Caprifexia, summoning some fire to her hand with a flick of her wrist.


    "Not a bad fireball I suppose," sniffed Faralda, clearly unimpressed. "But nothing like your friend''s magic."


    "But he-"


    "But he¡­ is a friend, and it isn''t a competition," said Einar, putting his hand over her mouth again.


    Capreifexia glared at him as the mage turned, leading them across the crumbling icy bridge that in most places lacked hand-rails and plunged precipitously down towards the crashed sea below. Since Caprifexia could fly she wasn''t that bothered by it, but she couldn''t fathom why such aerially challenged creatures would ever make so something so patently unsafe.


    Inside there some kind of spell keeping the inner courtyard warm, along with a host of other spells on the gate that Caprifexia couldn''t immediately identify; because she couldn''t be bothered, of course ¨C not because of any lack of magical ability. The very suggestion of which would have been, obviously, absurd.


    The warmth meant, however, that the light snowfall melted as soon as it entered the arcane field, turning the entire inner courtyard rather damp and misty. Hopefully they also had some kind of spell to repel insects, otherwise Caprifexia was sure that the doubtlessly creep-crawly infested vegetation would mysteriously spontaneously combust in a matter of hours.


    "This is the Hall of Elements," said Faralda. "It is where most of the college''s lectures and meetings are conducted."


    "And where is the library? That''s all we came here for," said Caprifexia.


    "It is above the main hall," said Faralda with a slight scowl. "But there is an Alteration lesson about to start in a few minutes, I should take you there ¨C we can finish the tour later."


    "I''d rather go to the library," said Caprifexia.


    "That attitude is probably why you''re not nearly as good at magic as your friend," sniffed the impudent elvish wizard.


    "How dare you? You insolent, pointy earred-"


    "She means, you''re right ¨C she should definitely focus more on her studies," said Einar, clamping his hand over Caprifexia''s mouth for the third time in as many minutes.


    "Mmrph!" protested Caprifexia, forcing herself to remember that she was a hero, and that heroes were boring and didn''t set rude mortals on fire.


    Still, it was tempting, and surely a hero couldn''t be expected to refrain from such things all the time¡­


    Surely there was space for a bit of burning insolent mortals within the scope of heroism?


    Faralda however, removed the possibility, raising an imperious eye-brow and sniffing derisively before opening the door and moving out of range of Caprifexia''s righteous and heroic fire.


    She got lucky.


    "Capri," hissed Einar, distracting her from her righteous anger. "What am I going to do? I can''t do magic!"


    "You''re a ''prodigy,''" snickered Caprifexia. "I''m sure you''ll be fine."


    "Are you seriously annoyed that in order to get into a library that we need to access, in order to save the world, I am taking credit for your transformation magic because I can''t cast anything myself?" he said, pinching his nose.


    "Yes! It''s my spell, developed by my people, and impossible for you silly little mortals to even cast! You don''t even have an astral form!"


    Einar groaned.


    "And I''m the prodigy!"


    "Yes, and I know that ¨C what does it matter if Faralda thinks otherwise? Isn''t she just a ''silly little mortal?''"


    "She certainly is," sniffed Caprifexia. "Fine ¨C so long as we''re clear that I''m the prodigy, and you''re the magic-less meat-shield."


    "You know, I don''t know why I ever thought you weren''t humble," said Einar.


    "I don''t know why either, I am a dragon, and therefore better at everything than you," she said. "Humility included."


    They followed the arrogant little mortal wizard into the ''Hall of Elements,'' which was a large circular room with a font of mana in the centre of the room that seemed to be mainly there to provide light. There was a small group of various mortals already there, and Faralda was talking in excited, hushed tones to the oldest looking of them, who''s eyes lit up when he saw Einar.


    "Welcome, welcome!" said the man as the pair drew closer. "I am Tolfdir, Master Wizard and one of the instructors here at the College ¨C Faralda tells me you already know some fascinating Alteration magic Mr. Einar? A polymorph spell?"


    "Oh¡­ um, yes," said Einar, rubbing his hands together nervously. "My, uh, ''Lizardify'' spell I call it."


    "Well today''s lesson might be too simple for you then," said Tolfdir. "Though you''re welcome to participate if you want."


    "Oh no, I might just¡­ sit over here," said Einar in a relieved voice, moving off to one of the benches. "Long journey, and all that."


    "Well, all right then," said Tolfdir in a slightly disappointed voice, before turning to Caprifexia. "And you''re Mr. Einar''s friend? What''s your name? Faralda didn''t say."


    "Caprifexia," she said, huffing in irritation. It wasn''t fair, Einar being treated as being good at something. She was the dragon.


    "Welcome Caprifexia, you are most welcome. Now, this is Brelya, Onmund, and J''zargo," said Tolfdir, indicating to the other mortals, one of which seemed to be an upright Cat. It sniffed suspiciously at her. Caprifexia ignored them, since they clearly weren''t important. "And today we are going to be focusing on warding magics, specifically conjuring a shield to repel hostile magic. Are you familiar with this type of magic, Caprifexia? Remember, there is no shame in admitting yourself unfamiliar with a concept, you are a new student after all."


    "Of course I can create shields," said Caprifexia in an offended voice, flicking fingers. "Barricadus."


    A shimmering field of blue energy jumped into existence before her, and Tolfdir eyed it critically.


    "Not a bad first attempt, but you''d do well to incorporate a regenerative component ¨C otherwise you''ll have to manually repair any damage to it, and you might not have the necessary attention to spare in the middle of combat."


    "A regenerative component?" she scoffed. "That''s impossible."


    "It isn''t, observe," said Tolfdir, waving his hand and forgoing an incantation entirely ¨C the show off.


    The energy in the room shifted, and a moment later a white and yellow disc appeared before him. Unlike Caprifexia''s shield, which was more or less a solid skein of uniform energy, Tolfdir''s barrier surged and twisted, energy washing back and forth across it in a sort of circular motion, ready to reinforce any part of it at any time if it was damaged ¨C just like he had claimed.


    Caprifexia blinked several times. A wave of vertigo crashed over her, and the world seemed to spin as she tried to reconcile the fact that, on the one hand, this mortal appeared to be able to do something with magic that her flight had never developed, and on the other, the objective, transcendental, and multiversal fact that dragons were better at everything than mortals.


    While she could accept ¨Con extreme sufferance¨C that maybe some of them might temporarily have more experience than her with magic, the fact that they had come up with a way of shielding that generations of genius dragons had never developed was¡­ perverse.


    Unnatural.


    "H-how?" she stammered, her mind still lurching about as it tried and failed to come up with an explanation for what was happening to her.


    Was she dreaming? Was she drunk? Had she gone insane? A curse perhaps?


    "Rather than simply conjuring a skein of energy, as you have done, you have to work a more complex spell matrix that can take in energy and redistribute it. It takes a bit of getting used to, but with practice I''m sure you''ll have a good grasp of it in no time," he explained, taking a book out of his satchel and handing it to her. "Have a read of the first chapter of this, and if you''re quick, you might be able to get a few attempts in by the end of the class."


    Caprifexia hesitated, before stroppily accepting the book and stomping over to where Einar was sitting as the other students ¨C the other students! ¨C conjured shields like the one Tolfdir had created.


    "Capri, you OK?" said Einar.


    "This¡­ this is obscene," she said.


    "What is?"


    "How did they develop these shields?" she said in a horrified voice. "How do they have better magic than my Flight!? Well, in this single, microscopically small facet of the art ¨C but still. It''s horrific. They must have cheated somehow. Yes, that''s what is happening ¨C dirty cheating little mortals¡­ you lot disgust me; you should be ashamed!"


    "Maybe us mortals aren''t as limited as you seem to think."


    "But we''re dragons," she said. "They are ¨C you are ¨C you''re all just squishy little mayflies! This is unacceptable, mortals shouldn''t be- can''t be better than us at anything!"


    "Well then I guess you should be reading the book," snickered Einar.


    Caprifexia glared at him for a moment as she wrenched open the tome and began to angrily devour the text.


    It approached shield theory from a rather strange aspect, and the writer was far less precise than a draconic author would have been, which was to be expected from a mortal, but Caprifexia did have to admit that it was a rather fascinating way to create shields, treating the actual barrier as a secondary cause of the first spell, rather than directly creating it to begin with.


    Her first thought was that it would mean that the barrier formed too slowly to be useful, but there was some tricky mathematics at the back of the chapter that dealt with that in a way that was almost elegant ¨C for a mortal at least ¨C and when she snapped the book shut ten minutes later she was still a bit angry, but more interested to try out the new spell.


    She considered the incantation for a few moments, reflecting on her feelings and something vaguely Draconic before threading the energy from around her carefully into the proper matrix and linking it within her mind with the new incantation.


    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    "Obstantus," she said firmly, taking her time to make sure everything was flowing properly as the white and gold barrier slowly came into being before her, the energy of the primary spell swirling across and creating the barrier as a byproduct.


    "Oh very good, very good!" said Tolfdir, wandering over unwelcomly. "I seems you''ve got the same flare for magic as your friend. It is so good to see the younger generations taking such a keen interest in study. An excellent first attempt."


    "Of course it is," said Caprifexia, preening.


    "Make sure to keep the secondary flux under control though, otherwise you''re wasting mana unnecessarily."


    Caprifexia was about to snap something back and tell him to mind his own business, when she saw that he was actually right and made the adjustment, reducing the golden sheen of the shield and making it more transparent.


    "Good, good ¨C keep practising and I''m sure you''ll master it in no time," said Tolfdir, bumbling off again and talking to the upright house pet.


    Maybe, thought Caprifexia begrudgingly as she dismissed the spell and tried again, maybe these mortals might have a little to teach her after all.


    Capri grew more confident with the spell as the class progressed, and by the time it ended Caprifexia could cast the spell after only a few seconds of concentration. Not as good as her normal shield, but she''d practised with that for far longer.


    "Excellent, excellent," said Tolfdir as the lesson grew to a close. "I''m glad that everyone has such a solid foundation in the defensive aspects of Alteration. Safety, after all, is the most important thing to remember when studying magic. Now, I''m excited to tell you that rather than the usual lecture and practical with Master Wizard Colette Marence tomorrow, the Arch-mage has approved a field trip to the archaeological dig at Saarthal ¨C the ancient capital of Skyrim.


    "Although not mandatory, a firm grasp of history is necessary to pass the theoretical portion of the Trials ¨C although it will likely be some years before any of you attempt those; except perhaps Einar over there, if Faralda is to be believed."


    Einar laughed weakly and tugged at his collar.


    "There is also always the possibility that we may discover artefacts or spells from that era," continued Tolfdir. "Several surviving works from the age describe the conflict that eventually destroyed the city as being fought over some kind of immensely powerful object."


    Caprifexia''s ears perked up at that.


    She might be a hero now, but she was still a dragon. She didn''t care about money or jewels or in-sor-ance or other mortal nonsense. But powerful magical artefacts? Those were worth something.


    ***


    "Hey Capri, found anything?" asked Einar as they sat around a table in the library piled high with tomes later that evening.


    Outside the sun was setting, and a few tell-tale wisps of smoke wafted up past the large circular, almost floor to ceiling window that looked out from the Arcanium ¨C or ''library'' for people who weren''t mortals with over-inflated egos. Somehow, inexplicably, the tree ¨Cand the accursed bugs festering within it¨C had spontaneously caught fire shortly after Tolfdir''s lecture on shielding.


    Caprifexia certainly hadn''t had anything to do with it. It was a true mystery.


    The air was warm, and smelt pleasantly of candel wax and paper, and there weren''t too many mortals about. In fact, there didn''t seem to be that many who called the college home. Despite its rather impressive size, it seemed almost abandoned, with long, empty corridors, flights of stairs with steps gathering dust, and two or three times as many empty rooms as used ones.


    "Hmm?" said Caprifexia, looking up from her book of astrapmancy.


    "I asked, have you found- hey, that''s not a book on Dragons."


    "No, it''s on lightning magic. It turns out your world isn''t entirely useless after all, some of the authors are decent. Not as good as a dragon, but still, remarkable for creatures with such limited minds and lifespans. I''ll admit, it really is impressive the way your kind try and claw your way out of the mud even though you''re just inevitably going to die after a few short decades."


    "Capri, we came here to study a way to defeat the dragons."


    "And lightning can''t do that?" she said.


    "Since they reincarnate unless killed by a Dovahkiin, the last one of which you threw into the Void, no, it can''t."


    "That''s absurd, they''re not demons," said Caprifexia. "I would have sensed the Fel on them if they were."


    "What''s the Fel?"


    "This ¨C Pesadillus," said Caprifexia, extending a hand and summoning a small spark of arcane power. The azure spark danced for a moment, before Caprifexia viciously twisted the energy in on itself, turning the blue energy into a sickly green.


    Immediately her teeth began to ache as the magic surged against her control and the back of her mind began to itch. There was a reason that she didn''t use Fel magic often: even as a creature who had grown up bathing in the power of the Void, Fel magic was simply unpleasant.


    It might be powerfully destructive, but it was also insane for any but the most experienced dragons to try to use in a combat situation. And even they had to be careful, lest it corrupt them and begin to transform them into a demon.


    As for the mortals who used it¡­ well, the poor things had never been blessed with abundant supply of wisdom and usually blew themselves up. A self-solving problem, for the most part.


    Einar drew back in disgust from the green fire. Even as a limited mortal with no real magical ability to speak of he still had an instinctual revulsion of the twisted and chaotic magic.


    "That''s horrid," he said as she extinguished it. "But what''s it got to do with reincarnation?"


    "Only beings of the Fel are capable of reconstituting themselves in a realm known as the Twisting Nether after they are killed. It is because of the nature of Fel energy itself, which comes to infest their souls. Other beings need some kind of anchor, phylactery, or external artefact. Well, anything not on the level of a Titan."


    "Maybe the dragon''s, or ''proto-drakes'' as you call them, are like these Titans-"


    Caprifexia burst into laughter, earning a series of increasingly angry ''shushes'' from the grumpy orc librarian.


    "What''s so funny?" said Einar as Caprifexia''s mirth slowly faded and she wiped her eyes.


    "Titans are capable of reordering the cosmos, of creating life from nothing, of feats of magic that only real-dragons can even begin to comprehend," she said. "These overgrown lizards are no where near the power of a Titan."


    "How can you be sure?" asked Einar.


    "The being that assaulted you in the Void? When I had to burn out a bit of your brain? That was an Old God ¨C a being so incomprehensibly vast and terrible that it made you mad just by looking at it. Titans are far, far beyond even them."


    "Huh. OK. Then I guess this ''Fel'' thing is just another difference between our worlds-"


    "No, it is a Law of Magic," insisted Caprifexia.


    "Well I''m telling you dragon reincarnation is real. Real, and extensively documented. Maybe your ''law'' is wrong."


    "It isn''t. If you were an actual wizard, and not a just credit-stealing-faker, you would know this."


    Einar rubbed his eyes before taking a deep breath and apparently deciding to try to be more reasonable.


    "OK, assuming that you''re correct with this ''Law'' of yours, if the Dragons could indeed come back to life ¨C how could they do it?" asked Einar.


    "They could have phylacteries-" she said.


    "Which are?"


    "Objects that very foolish wizards ¨C mortals, obviously ¨C put bits of their mangled, dismembered souls into as part of becoming ''Liches,''" she explained.


    "And this lets them return to life?" asked Einar.


    "Sort of, although it is more that they gain control of an undead puppet that they foolishly think of as ''themselves,'' which can be destroyed without what''s left of their soul disintegrating. Although this arrangement isn''t true immortality ¨C like what I have ¨C and typically the Phylactery decays over a few centuries and they go slowly mad and then die. We had a bound one at Blackrock spire, we got to tormen- err, ''interact'' with it in Necromancy class."


    "OK, dragons have been around a lot longer than that," said Einar. "What else could explain their documented ability to come back from death?"


    Caprifexia tapped her lip and considered for a moment. "Another being could scoop up the souls of creatures at the point of death and store them in some kind of medium and then, assuming they were powerful enough, perfectly recreate the bodies and put the soul back in. If they were good enough there wouldn''t necessarily be any appreciable damage to the soul."


    "Akatosh probably does that then, they''re supposed to be his children," said Einar.


    "What is an ''Akatosh?''"


    "You really don''t pay any attention, do you?" said Einar. "Akatosh is the Dragon God of Time, Chief of the Nine Divines-"


    Capri-snorted and rolled her eyes.


    "What?"


    "Gods don''t exist ¨C even ones that are dragons," said Caprifexia. "That''s just mortal delusion; the universe and the multiverse follow concrete laws that with enough knowledge and skill can be manipulated by sentient beings, even limited mortals, like you, either physically or magically."


    "Err, no, the Gods do exist, there are countless instances of them intervening directly in Nirn, and Restoration magic draws directly on the strength of Mara ¨C the Divine of, among other things, healing."


    "Pfft."


    "There are also artefacts that confirm their existence ¨C the Elder Scrolls for one."


    "Every religion has ''holy books,''" chortled Caprifexia. "My people have watched religions rise and fall across ages beyond your mortal comprehension, and documented them extensively. We even created a few as a means to control you silly little gullible mortals."


    "The Elder Scrolls aren''t ''holy books'' ¨C they don''t contain passages and scripts ¨C they''re fragments of distilled reality; objects outside of time," said Einar.


    "That doesn''t make any sense ¨C objects do not exist ''outside of time,''" said Caprifexia. "Time travel, while possible, is incredibly difficult, almost always imprecise, and usually cause paradoxes that end up unmaking themselves and reverting the time-line to its previous form. Even the Bronze Dragonflight were pretty limited in what they could actually do ¨C and they were dragons."


    "Well it''s true," said Einar. "Assuming your right about your home, about Azeroth, and there aren''t Gods there, why do you think it is the same here? Mundus, Oblivion, and Aetherias might well be different."


    "That''s not possible¡­" said Caprifexia, sniffing primly before shrugging. "But very well, I''ll indulge your mortal nonsense a bit more."


    That''s what a hero would do after all; pat the silly mortals on the head and tell them that they were very clever. It wasn''t really their fault, after all, they hadn''t chosen to be born such limited, inferior creatures.


    She really had come a long way with this hero business. She should ask Einar if they gave out awards for heroism¡­


    "How magnanimous of you," said Einar, agreeing with her conclusion.


    "What''s this ''Mundus, Oblivion, and Aetherias'' then?" she asked.


    "Mundus is this world, while Aetherias are the various celestial bodies that orbit it-"


    "Rubbish, stars don''t orbit planets," said Caprifexia.


    "Err ¨C yes they do, they orbit Nirn," said Einar.


    "No, they don''t," said Caprifexia.


    "How do you know? You''re a baby."


    "I am a dragon," explained Caprifexia.


    "That isn''t a justification."


    "It is."


    "No it isn''t," huffed Einar. "Being a snarky winged lizard with supernatural powers doesn''t automatically make you right."


    "I am a dragon," she said slowly, as if explaining to a hatchling. Although even hatchlings weren''t so obstinate. "Therefore, I have ancestral memories of the laws of physics. QED."


    "''QED?'' What''s that?"


    "Quod erat Draconium. It''s a Draconic expression," said Caprifexia. "It means, literally, ''what the dragon said.''"


    "That is one of the silliest things I have ever heard. Fine, prove it."


    Caprifexia considered just ignoring him and going back to her book. But then Einar would probably keep on thinking he was right and she was wrong, and she couldn''t allow that. So Caprifexia huffed and pulled a sheaf of paper towards her and wrote ''Basic Astrophysics for Irritating Mortals'' across the top of the page in Einar''s ugly looking language.


    "The simplest proof that hopefully even you will be able to understand is that rather than circular or eliptical orbits, if you place a planet at the centre of stellar systems you have to plot ludicrous epicycles to make the model have any ordering at all, and can''t use it to predict anything," she said, drawing a circle to represent Nirn, another for a sun, and then a squiggly swirling line for another body. "Like this, see?"


    "No, that''s wrong," said Einar, grabbing her pen and making some rough drawings on the other side of the page. "The orbits of Akatosh and Julianos and everything else are circular around Nirn, like this. I''m sure there are dozens of books, and probably an Orrery or two, that will have the same diagram in this library if you don''t believe me."


    Caprifexia looked down at Einar''s rather poor penmanship, frowning as she tried to wrap her mind around how the insanity that Einar was spouting would actually function.


    "But that''s- that''s¡­ absurd. Stars are several orders of magnitude heavier and denser than planets."


    "So?" said Einar dimly.


    "So gravity, you ridiculous mortal!" said Caprifexia.


    "Well maybe the Eye of Akatosh isn''t larger than Nirn-"


    "That''s madness, then there wouldn''t be enough gravimetric pressure for solar fusion to occur!" said Caprifexia.


    "I don''t know what that means," said Einar.


    "So you don''t even know something that basic, but you feel qualified to argue with me?" said Caprifexia, throwing up her hands in frustration. "The arrogance of you mortals is astonishing."


    "As I was saying," he said, ploughing onward in the face of her overwhelming logic. "Beyond Aetherias is Oblivion, the realm of the Daedra-"


    "You mean the Void; I''ve explained this."


    "No, I don''t ¨C the ''Void'' is something else entirely, since we don''t get attacked by Daedra whenever we go there. I guess that''s beyond Oblivion?" said Einar speculatively, before shaking his head. "If it helps an analogy that is often used is to think of Nirn as like the yolk in an egg, Aetherias as the white, and Oblivion as the shell."


    "That''s ridiculous," said Caprifexia.


    "That reality; this one at least," said Einar. "Lots of people a lot more clever than me have proven all this. There are books here with experiments you can do yourself which might convince even stubborn little lizards."


    Caprifexia stared at the diagram Einar had drawn for several long moments.


    "But¡­ why?" said Caprifexia eventually, pulling at her horns. "Why!?"


    "Why what?"


    "Why would anything create something like that? It''s insane: a fake-sun that doesn''t run on fusion, an actually geocentric system¡­ it''s- it''s insanity! In order for this universe not topple over itself it would need to be actively held in place with magic ¨C a ridiculous amount of magic."


    "I don''t follow. Why? What''s so different about Azeroth?"


    "Azeroth is just one planet in a solar system that orbits a sun, and that sun is just one star in a galaxy of roughly one hundred billion stars, each with their own systems of stellar objects and planets ¨C some of which support life, some of which don''t. And that galaxy is just one of billions and billions and billions of galaxies ¨C even my people don''t know the exact number."


    Einar blinked a few times, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to wrap his small brain around the scale involved.


    "But that''s¡­. that''s crazy," he said eventually.


    "No, that''s normal; your universe is the one that is completely mad."


    "So there is just¡­ all this empty space?"


    "It is called the Twisting Nether ¨C a chaotic maelstrom of Fel and Arcane energy, the lifeblood of reality."


    "So who made your universe?"


    "No one. It emerged from the Void without direction. Naturally. Assuming for a moment, and bear with me on this, that you''re actually right about this world, then this universe could only have been made on purpose. Perhaps the beings you foolishly call Gods did it. Although why they would do anything so ridiculous is beyond me."


    "So now you concede that the Gods made this universe? Made Nirn?" he said after a few moments of thinking through what she''d just said.


    "They''re not Gods; Gods don''t exist."


    "But you just said-"


    "They''re obviously just a case of the ''Law of SABIGISMF,''" said Caprifexia.


    "Sabig- what?"


    "''Sufficiently Advanced Beings are Indistinguishable from Gods to Idiotic and Superstitious Mortal Fools.''"


    "And you say I''m the one that talks nonsense?"


    "It''s a Draconic term, I''m not surprised you don''t understand it. Anyway, this SABIGISMF or SABIGISMFs are clearly incredibly powerful, although they were clearly either drunk or bored when they made this place ¨C maybe both," said Caprifexia. "Perhaps¡­ I don''t know- perhaps a Titan who had my ability to walk through the Void might be able to make something like this. Although the question as to why still stands."


    "So now do you believe me then that Alduin, a dragon and child of Akatosh, and who is said to have the power to consume the world, is a real threat?"


    "I suppose on an artificial Plane, under the control of these presumably alcoholic and deranged SABIGISMF, then I guess that even a proto-drake could be hypothetically dangerous to even a mighty dragon such as myself," conceded Caprifexia slowly. "And so if there is some kind of being, or maybe even beings, directing this- this¡­ nonsense, then maybe without the ''Dovahkiin'' the proto-drakes can''t be killed, but¡­"


    "''But?''"


    "But outside of this reality, outside the power of the SABIGISMF, those silly rules wouldn''t apply ¨C a proto-drake thrown into the Void or sent to a different world couldn''t be reincarnated."


    "Your portals are too small to fit a dragon as big as Alduin is supposed to be through. We''ve discussed this idea before. We need a way to defeat Alduin within the ''rules of this world'' ¨C or at the very least, delay him destroying the world like was apparently done in the past."


    "Delay? What do you mean?"


    "Apparently ancient heroes somehow defeated Alduin thousands of years ago and stopped him returning until now," said Einar, grabbing one of the stack of books on the table and flipping it until he found the page he was looking for. "'' ¡­ and thus, Kyne, feeling sorrow for her children, begged Paarthurnax, brother of Alduin, to aid the mortals. Moved by the Goddess of the Storm''s pleas, the mighty Dovah taught the Tongue to Men, giving them the key that they would eventually use to end the great Dragon War and strike down Alduin.''"


    "What''s this ''Tongue?''"


    "Dragonspeech ¨C you speak it, I''ve heard you."


    "The Proto-drake language?" said Caprifexia. There is nothing particularly special about it ¨C and it''s certainly not as elegant as true Draconic."


    "It''s the language of the Gods. With enough understanding and practice it can be used to cast spells by ordering the world to change."


    "That isn''t how magic works," said Caprifexia.


    "You use incantations ¨C sometimes at least."


    "They make casting spells easier ¨C but they are entirely personal mnemonics," said Caprifexia. "Words don''t have any magic by themselves, it''s always the Wizard."


    "What have we just learnt about making assumptions?" he said petulantly.


    "Ugh ¨C I suppose if whoever made this universe was completely mad¡­" she said, glaring at the tome on lightning magic she apparently wasn''t allowed to read anymore. "So what, I just say ''Explode Book?''"


    Nothing happened.


    "What did you say?"


    "I told the book to explode," she huffed. "But nothing happened ¨C your Plane''s special magic is rubbish. Your so-called-Gods are rubbish. Your ''dragons,'' who aren''t even proper dragons, are rubbish. You''re rubbish-"


    "It definitely does work ¨C that dragon that attacked us used a the language to knock that tower over, and to nearly freeze us," said Einar. "And there are people who can use the Tongue too: the Greybeards, and Ulfric Stormcloak ¨C he used it to kill the High King, before the civil war."


    "And it can hurt the proto-drakes?" she said. "Stop them reincarnating?"


    "I don''t know, the book doesn''t say why it let the mortals defeat the dragons, or what they did to Alduin to render him powerless for all this time. But it seems a good place to start. We should head to the Greybeards, they might know more about this ¨C they are the experts on the Tongue."


    "I think we should go to Saarthal with the group tomorrow."


    "What? Why?" asked Einar.


    "Because there is apparently a powerful magical artefact there."


    "¡­ and?"


    "And that''s more interesting than this ''Tongue'' nonsense."


    "Capri, we should be focused on saving Nirn, not running off after shiny objects."


    "But Saarthal was inhabited by mortals when the proto-drakes ruled over Skyrim, it might have hints as to their nature, as well as ¨C purely incidentally of course ¨C powerful magical artefacts that are far more interesting," said Caprifexia.


    "How do you know that?" asked Einar.


    "I read it in a book," she said, shifting the stack and holding up a history tome.


    "Oh, so you can do research, but only when it interests you?" he groaned.


    "That''s right."


    "Ugh," said Einar, massaging his temples. "Fine, we can go on the expedition ¨C as long as it is only a few days ¨C on the off chance you''re right. But then it''s straight to High Hrothgar, OK?"

 An Unforeseeable Reversal of Character

    An Unforeseeable Reversal of Character


    "¡­ and that is why high elves, we altmer, must lead Tamriel. Only we can provide the vision that the world truly needs ¨C don''t you think?" said Arakno, a very annoying mortal who wouldn''t leave Caprifexia alone.


    He wasn''t a student, and seemed to represent, and never shut up, about something called the ''Thalmor,'' which Caprifexia was pretty sure was some kind of theology book club at the college. Maybe. Nirn''s SABIGISMFs had definitely been mentioned at some point. At least, she thought so¡­


    It probably wasn''t particularly important.


    Arakno also seemed to be labouring under the totally bizarre delusion that elves, of all things, were superior forms of life. And while it was true that they had slightly less of a propensity for dying than humans, they were still mortals. The idea that it was a good idea for them to be in charge of anything was ludicrous, after all, it wasn''t like they were dragons.


    The expedition consisted Caprifexia, Einar, the students she had met the day beforehand, the alteration instructor Tolfdir, and Arakno, who had announced at the last minute he was coming. They were presently on their way up a completely snowed over switchback path that climbed towards a saddle that apparently led into the valley that contained the ruins of Sarthaal where supposedly there were fantastically powerful magical objects, as well as maybe some boring information on the proto-drakes that Einar considered such a big threat.


    Far below them lay the currently calm northern ocean, glinting in the sunlight of a still, bluebird day. They had left the college at a completely unreasonable hour, when the sun had barely begun to peek over the eastern horizon, and that alone had put Caprifexia in a bad mood. What was worse, she had to walk all the way up the mountain on her still twinging leg from where the foolish Einar had slashed her, since her ex-minion and supposed ''friend'' was taking credit for her true form to pass as a wizard. He''d even had the nerve to refuse to carry her on his back. The nerve!


    Arakno had been twittering on for almost an hour, but Caprifexia was barely listening to the fool. Instead she was focusing further up the line to where Tolfdir was fawning over Einar: offering him advanced one to one tutoring, singing his praises, and somehow not seeing that unlike everyone else present on the expedition, who knew the basic cantrip to walk atop the thick snow, the supposed ''prodigal wizard'' was sinking into the fluffy white crystals up to his knees with every step.


    Mortals, she thought, they couldn''t even see through the most basic deception and manipulation, the ridiculously gullible, naive things.


    "It''s unfair that they give him so much attention, isn''t it?" said Arakno, following her gaze and speaking sense for the first time in nearly an hour.


    "It is!" she agreed, glad there was at least one other sane person at this college who could recognise her greatness. "He''s just a silly little mortal!"


    "He is, isn''t he," agreed Arakno, nodding along with her keen insight. "Why it''s you who should be getting their attention, since, naturally as an altmer, you''re a far more gifted student than that filthy nord."


    "Exactly!" she said, ignoring his deluded notion that snootier-than-usual-elves were somehow above any other mortal, and instead focusing on the other more rational parts of his statement. "But it''s ''do you want some private tutoring, Einar'' this, and ''oh you''re such a prodigy, Einar'' that. I''m the prodigy!"


    "You''d do well back home, you know, on the Summerset Isle," said Arakno. "You wouldn''t have to put up with these bigots, the tutors there would appreciate your brilliance."


    Caprifexia had no idea where the ''Summerset Isle'' was, but she did like the sound of somewhere her magnificence would finally be appreciated. Back home her people might have been reviled for their corruption, but no one doubted their power and majesty.


    "In the meantime, however, I would be happy to provide you with any extra-lessons denied to you on the basis of race," he said. "I am a skilled mage myself, and taught at the Summerset Academy for several years."


    Caprifexia was about to snort in amusement, before remembering that, strange and unnatural as it objectively was, sometimes mortals knew spells that even her people hadn''t. In small, esoteric and probably useless fields, obviously<u>,</u> but knowledge was power, literally in magic, and she could at least entertain their notions of expertise until she had drained them of their parlour tricks. Which she could then perfect with her draconic brilliance, of course.


    "I shall let you know if I require your ''assistance,''" she said.


    "I look forward to it. Now, I''m afraid I must discuss a few things with that fool Tolfdir about the excavation before we arrive. A pleasure talking with you, Miss Caprifexia. And please, think more on what I have said about the pressing need for mer leadership ¨C a young woman with your perspective would go far in the Thalmor," he said, inclining his head respectfully and offering her one last smile before lengthening his stride and moving up the line.


    He made his way further up the line, and Caprifexia reflected that he really wasn''t too bad, for a mortal. Sure, he was a bit annoying, but mortals couldn''t help that, and heroes had to tolerate irritating people and not set them on fire ¨C she''d checked. His notions of elven-superiority were clearly absurd, but he actually showed her the respect she was due, which was a nice change from the insolence and sometimes outright mockery of Einar. Yes, her friend could learn a lot from the nice elf, she thought, as she continued up the mountain pass.


    "Are you sure you won''t cast a snow-walking charm brother?" said the other ''nord'' man on the trip, whose name might have been something like On-mud, to Einar from further up the line. Caprifexia thought it would have been more appropriate to describe a mortal as ''In-mud,'' but unfortunately for Nirn, no one had consulted her about the local mortal naming conventions. "You look rather tired."


    "Ah, no ¨C good cardio," said Einar, the chatter of his teeth audible from all the way back where Caprifexia was as he struggled back onto the more firmly packed snow, stopping and letting the others past and waiting for her to catch up.


    "Finally," gasped Einar. "I thought that Thalmor prick would never leave you alone-"


    "You shouldn''t speak about him like that. Arakno, unlike you and the rest of these foolish mortals, actually can see my greatness. Your lack of tolerance for those different to you is a very ugly flaw, you should work on that."


    "His name is ''Ancano'' ¨C not ''Arakno,''" said Einar, wrongly.


    "I think you''ll find it isn''t."


    "Oh for Akatosh''s sake!" he said, pressing his hand against his temples and taking a deep breath of cold mountain air as he chastised himself for getting the nice elf''s name wrong. "OK, fine, whatever, ''Arakno'' it is. Listen Capri, he''s being nice to you because he thinks you''re a high elf, and he''s a rabid, frothing at the mouth altmer-supremacist maniac. He''s trying to manipulate you, and is apparently succeeding."


    "Manipulate me?" she scoffed. "I''m a dragon. We don''t get manipulated, we do the manipulating."


    Einar scrunched up his eyes and took a deep breath. "Just cast the snow-walking charm on me, please?" he said, shivering. "And also whatever heating spell the rest of these buggers are using to stop freezing ¨C I can''t feel my toes!"


    "I wouldn''t want to deny you the chance to show off your amazing magical prowess," she said sarcastically. "After all, they''re simple spells; even the cat can do them, apparently."


    "Oh for- are you still hung up on this? You know I can''t cast magic; you know why I needed to pretend to be able to polymorph you; you know that I think you''re a brilliant wizard. What more do you want?" he said. "And J''zargo is a khajiit, not a cat ¨C that''s super racist."


    "So you can discriminate against dragons, say we need to be held to unreasonably high standards, but I can''t call a cat a cat? How is that fair?"


    "You are, by your own terms, the only dragon in this world. You''re not from an oppressed group who are profiled as thieves as a matter of course. And I''m not discriminating against you. No one is discriminating against you. Oblivion, if what half you''ve said is true your people, your people were doing most of the oppressing back on your homeworld."


    "Dragonist," she sniffed, ignoring his confusing and probably fallacious argument. "I don''t know why I put up with your bigotry."


    "Just cast the damn spells," he said, shivering. "I didn''t even want to come here!"


    Caprifexia rolled her eyes, flicking her hands ¨C which were infinitely inferior to her talons ¨C towards him and muttering under her breath. "Nievelevantus. Comodus."


    Einar sighed with relief as the warming charm washed over him, and he grinned as boots barely even made a dent in the white powder snow when he took an experimental step.


    "Why haven''t you cast this on me before?" he said as they set off again. "The warming charm I mean. It would have made the last few months a lot more comfortable."


    "You didn''t ask," she said.


    "Divines sake Capri ¨C I have no idea what you, or any other wizard, is actually capable of. Beyond setting things on fire I mean, that seems to be about ninety nine percent of what you do."


    "I cannot held responsible for the ignorance of mortals!" she said, outraged. "Imagine! I would be the most guilty being in the multiverse!"


    "Imagine that," he agreed in flat voice.


    ***


    "J''zargo is wondering. He knows that Einar is a master of Alteration, but is he also an expert with the Destruction magics?" asked the cat, addressing Einar as they reached a rusty metal door.


    "Err," said her ex-minion, giving the metal an experimental push. "Um, no, not an expert."


    "A shame," said the cat. "J''zargo was hoping that there would be some real competition."


    Caprifexia scowled. She was an expert at destroying things. But did that cat ask her? No ¨C it asked Einar. She was getting sick of this ridiculous pretence that Einar was actually good at something other than being insolent.


    They''d arrived at Saarthal in the mid-afternoon, and had been broken up into groups to investigate the ruins and report back anything interesting they found. Thus far, however, Caprifexia was unimpressed. Far from the trove of magical artefacts she''d been expecting, there was nothing in the winding stone tunnels but the bones of long dead mortals, dust, and cobwebs. And where there were cobwebs, there was fire; at least, when Caprifexia was around. She didn''t know why she had let Einar talk her into coming on this ridiculous expedition.


    "Hey, watch it!" said Einar as she blasted a suspicious looking patch of silk. "Instead of setting potential spiders on fire, why don''t you open this jammed door?"


    "Why don''t you do it?" she grumbled. "You''re the ''prodigy.''"


    "Capri, don''t be difficult," he hissed, flicking his eyes to the cat, who was investigating some kind of terrible mortal carving on the wall.


    "Fine," she said, thrusting her palm ¨C which was infinitely inferior to her talons ¨C forward. "Fuerza."


    A jet of force erupted from her hand and blasted into the metal. The ancient hinges, which were probably more rust than anything else, exploded and a torrent of dust fell from the ceiling as the doors crashed to the ground, echoing throughout the ruins. Both she and the cat hastily conjured shields over their heads, funnelling the dust away from themselves, and in large part into the hair of a cursing Einar.


    "Did you really have to make so much noise?" said Einar, shaking his head and trying futility to get all the greyish dust out of his hair. "You know there might be undead here, right?"


    "You think that a dra- a very powerful, totally mortal and normal elf wizard, who is definitely not a dragon, would be scared of a few shambling corpses?" she laughed, remembering at the last moment that the upright feline with them was not actually a house-pet, but, allegedly, a wizard. A wizard who probably shouldn''t know the majestic truth about her. "And if you''re making me do the magic, you don''t get to criticise, ''prodigy.''"


    "It''s, ah, good practice for you," said Einar, clearing his throat as the cat moved into the corridor, increasing the illumination of his warelight with a wiggle of his claws. "And stop that," he added in a whisper. "You want him to realise I can''t cast magic?"


    "Relax ¨C mortals are fools," she said.


    "I''m a mortal."


    "QED."


    "Ugh. Stop using those, what did you call them, ''dragonyms?'' They don''t even make sense."


    "To a mortal, perhaps."


    Einar huffed and moved after the cat into the tunnel ¨C without his own warelight of course, because he was, in fact, not a prodigal wizard ¨C and Caprifexia took a few moments to check that there weren''t any cobwebs or spiders hanging down ahead before following them.


    She had barely taken two steps when there was a clunk behind her. Frowning, Caprifexia turned, directing her warelight back behind her towards the sound.


    The large rubble covered cavern lit up with the light of her spell, and long shadows danced on the far wall as she moved the small ball of light back and forth. Seeing nothing, she was just about to turn back to follow the others when she sensed a whisper of frigid, stale magic waft past her. It wasn''t a type of magic she had felt for some time, but even months and months after the fall of Blackrock Spire she knew necromantic energy when she felt it.


    Then what she had assumed was a rock jumped towards her, and she caught a glimpse of pale flesh before the creature barrelled into her and knocked her from her feet. In her surprise, she lost control of her warelight, and the room plunging into total darkness save for the two baleful points of blue light in the creatures eyes, and the angry red glow cast by her own irises. She fell with a shriek and landed hard, yelping as the in-dragonly fast undead creature raised a hand-axe and brought it whistling down towards her face.


    Sparks flew as the axe struck stone and her form shifted, and with an outraged roar she flapped out from underneath the ghoul and bathed it in flame. The undead creature groaned as her dragon-fire ripped through it''s body, still reaching out towards her even as it''s desiccated flesh sloughed away and the energy binding it collapsed.


    The orange flames gradually dimmed, but the room fell back into darkness shuffling and clunking sounds came from beyond the dying firelight, bringing with them dozens and dozens and dozens of sets of glowing blue eyes.


    Caprifexia calmly assessed her options, definitely did not scream, and was just about to make a reasonable withdrawal and open a portal to the Void when she remembered that Einar wasn''t with her, and without warning would be overrun by the ghouls. He was only a mortal after all, a magic-less mortal with a slightly more magical house-pet ¨C fragile creatures in need of her protection.


    Cursing her new heroic obligations she flapped off the ground and accelerated down the corridor Einar and the cat had taken, doing her best to ignore the cobwebs, and possible spiders, that clung to her scales as she streaked though the gloom. Einar turned to her as she rounded a corner and the rays of her newly conjured warelight reached him, a frown playing across his features.


    "What the-" said the cat, a feline eyebrow rising as she flapped to a stop before them, clearly overcome by the majesty of her true form.


    "Undead!" she shouted as behind her the sound of dozens of footfalls entered the hallway behind them. "Run you silly little mortals!"


    Einar hesitated for a moment, before grabbing the cat by the shoulders and pushing him onward as Caprifexia turned her head back towards the ghouls.


    They rushed towards her, moving incredibly quickly. With her wings she could easily outpace them, of course, but her bipedal charges were, in addition to their other shortcomings, far slower, and after a few quick mental calculations she realised that the ghouls would reach them in a matter of seconds.


    She spread her talons, visualising a line of fire running across the tunnel and pouring her power into her spell.


    "Augis!" she shouted as the creatures closed on her, and a pleasant heat rolled over her as a blistering wall of fire burst from the floor in front of her, reaching to the ceiling and charring the ancient masonry.


    "Hah!" she said. "Try and get past that you disgusting-"


    She hadn''t even finished her sentence when disintegrating body toppled through the fire, taking a large part of the power she had invested in it as it''s necromantic energy disrupted her spell, twitching for a few moments before growing still.


    A moment later another of the ghouls hurled themselves through her the wall of fire, and Caprifexia said several words that a young dragon shouldn''t have known as she realised she had only delayed, not stopped the ghouls. She turned and soared off after her companions, feeling her spell gradually weaken behind her as more and more of the reanimated corpses rushed headlong into the flames.


    "Run faster!" she said as she caught up to the others. "Move those limbs you ridiculous looking bipeds!"


    "J''zargo is wondering how the angry elf polymorphed herself," wheezed the cat as he stumbled onward, clearly unused to intense physical activity. "And how she can speak and cast spells in that form."


    "More running, less stupid questions!" said Caprifexia as they reached the end of the hallway.


    There was another door, but the cat blasted it open before they reached it, and they piled through it into a large, roughly circular room, at the centre of which floated a glowing ball of twisting metal roughly six feet in circumference that shone from within with azure light. It positively oozed magic, and Caprifexia forgot for a moment that they were being chased by a horde of undead.


    She couldn''t really tell what it was doing beyond that it was affecting space around it, but whatever it was, it involved a tremendous amount of mana.


    What was odd, however, was that it wasn''t pulling magic from the world around it, from leylines, or anything she could sense. Normally enchanted objects drew on the energy around them and then transformed it into some effect, and to the mystically sensitive this throughput was usually easily identified.


    It was possible to make an item that drew on energy and then stored it for later use, or gradually consumed some kind of magical fuel, but unless the object had detected them approaching and started emitting energy only after that, she knew of no fuel that could have kept whatever the orb was doing going for the thousands of years since the city of Sarthal had been inhabited. Even Titan relics didn''t have those sorts of internal reserves, and needed to draw on the power of the Twisting Nether.


    "Capri!" yelled Einar, shaking her from her reverie. "Stop gawking and help J''zargo!"


    Caprifexia wasn''t really sure what a J''zargo was, but she flapped over to Einar and the cat regardless, where the latter was busy reinforcing the door with some kind of ward. She lent some of her power to the matrix, and after a few moments the spell took hold and a barrier of blue-white light rolled over the door.


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    "There," wheezed the cat, lowering his claws and doing some approximation of a smile. "If any of them try to break down the door, J''zargo''s spell will stop them-"


    He was interrupted as a glowing blue axe head cut through the door, and the ward, with a shower of sparks.


    "Or," said the cat speculatively, stroking his furry chin. "If they were to have enchanted weapons, maybe not."


    "There must be another way out," said Einar, looking frantically around the room, which apart from the entrance they had come through seemed to be nothing but smooth circular walls, before looking at Capri meaningfully. "Capri? Can you, ahem, ''do anything?''"


    Capri looked between him and the glowing magic ball a few times. "But..."


    "Capri, this is serious ¨C we can''t get the shiny ball if we''re dead, can we?"


    She huffed before nodding, scrunching up her eyes and focusing on the mild unease provoked by the horde of super-fast, super strong undead that were battering through the cat''s ward, and trying to channel it into summoning up a portal.


    For a moment she thought she felt the familiar tug within her she had begun to associate with the strange magic she used to traverse the Void, but a moment after she sensed it, it vanished, and in its place the beginnings of a headache took root behind her eyes.


    "Capri."


    "It''s not working!" she exclaimed, calmly.


    "What do you mean it''s not working?" said Einar. "Be more scared!"


    "J''zargo feels as if he is missing something," said the very unhelpful cat.


    "I mean, it''s not working!" said Caprifexia, her voice rising a few octaves for completely unrelated reasons. "I can''t make a portal! It feels like something is blocking me."


    "Could the orb be doing it?" said Einar after a moment.


    "How should I know? I don''t even understand how this power works!" she snapped. "Just because I''m a dragon doesn''t mean that I know what every single ridiculously obscure, ugly, and probably pointless magical artefact does!"


    "J''zargo does not think that the spell will hold much longer," said the cat, clearing his throat. "Or maybe it will, who knows?"


    A moment later the door and ward shuddered against as an axe bit through the metal, sending out another wave of sparks and firmly answering the cat''s speculations.


    "Can you teleport us J''zargo?" asked Einar.


    "What?" said the cat. "No ¨C J''zargo would need time to prepare, and next to an object like this¡­ no, impossible. How is Einar not knowing this?"


    "Err, well¡­"


    "It does not matter," said the cat. "We must fight ¨C they will be through soon. You are the most powerful, you should take the point."


    "Oh well, um, I don''t think-" stammered Einar.


    "Now is not the time for false modesty friend," said the cat. "We need-"


    "I can''t cast magic!" exclaimed Einar, earning a confused look from the cat. "I''m not really a wizard! I''m a fraud! A charlatan!"


    "A lying dragon-credit-stealing-imposter!" supplied Caprifexia, helpfully.


    "But you were saying-"


    "Capri is the one that can shapeshift, I don''t even know how to conjure a spark!" said Einar, his voice taking on a high-pitched quality. "I just really needed to use the library, so we pretended it was me turning her into a baby dragon."


    "I see," said the cat neutrally, looking back at the door. "So the human is useless."


    "I can fight!" protested Einar.


    "You have no magic, no armour and weapons, and you are not khajiit ¨C clawless squishy pink paws will not help you," snorted the cat. "You will be killed in seconds."


    The mortal might have been quite hypocritical, but Caprifexia did approve of pointing out Einar''s many and varied shortcomings.


    "Probably less," she agreed.


    "I have a dagger," said Einar defensively, drawing the short blade.


    "So you are the powerful wizard then?" asked the cat, ignoring Einar and eyeing Caprifexia.


    "Hah! I am mighty beyond your comprehension, mortal."


    "And yet you fled from the Dragur. J''zargo does not think this is true," he said as the enchanted axe bit deep again, opening a large rent in the door through which could be seen a churning mass of pallid desiccated flesh. "But J''zargo supposes he has little choice. J''zargo suggests the not-wizard EInar stay behind him and the horned elf who thinks she is a dragon."


    He summoned fire to his paws, and Caprifexia did the same, worry settling into the back of her mind, like an itch in the spot between her wings where she couldn''t scratch. She had become used to the idea that she could simply withdraw strategically whenever too busy to deal with tedious nonsense. The idea that now she couldn''t tactically fall back when necessary felt positively stifling.


    She had grown more powerful in the past eight or so months since she had first arrived on Nirn, and could cast many more spells in quick succession before becoming exhausted. But she was still ultimately only a whelp. Had she been a fully grown dragon, or even a drake, she could have simply bathed the entire tunnel in blistering, magic corroding dragonfire, but her inner furnace was still far too small to produce anything like that amount of flame.


    Then the ward shattered and the undead creatures streamed forward into the room, dispelling thoughts about what might have been as she and the cat unleashed blasts of fire. The mage-fire tore into the creatures, disrupting the dark energy sustaining their unlife and making them fall to the ground in charred heaps after only a moment or two of ignition. But for every one they felled there were a three more ready to leap into their place, and the unquiet dead surged forward like a tidal wave, rapidly closing the distance between the door and where Caprifexia was defending the mortals.


    The cat changed tactics, launching a ball of super-cooled air from it''s paws. It worked, sort of, and the advancing undead slowed, ice forming and cracking and then reforming again reforming over their bodies as they forced their way forward through the rime. Caprifexia had to admit, to herself at least, that it was a rather impressive spell ¨C and far better than she had expected from the upright house-pet.


    She swapped tactics herself, letting her fire dissipate and summoning lightning instead. She wasn''t quite as practised with it as fire, but she didn''t want to make the undead''s movement''s easier by melting the cat''s efforts.


    Unfortunately it didn''t really work that well, and while it blew the odd limb off the thawing ghouls they seemed largely indifferent to even a lost leg, and simply crawled towards them as more of their fellows rushed into the circular room.


    Caprifexia''s mind raced as she scrambled around for something else. She could have tried to use cryomancy as well, but ice wasn''t exactly something that most Black dragons had an affinity for, and while she knew the basics, her focus had always been on pyromancy.


    But since that wasn''t working, she was going to have to try something else.


    "OK Caprifexia, just remember what the textbook said: subdue the soul, break the will, and bind it to your own," she muttered to herself, summoning up more mana and beginning to weave it into pale indigo light that flickered between her claws. She didn''t have much experience with the discipline, only ever having performed a simple banishing of a bound spirit, but if lightning wasn''t working, and fire was out, then her options for offensive magic that worked on undead were starting to run out.


    "Dominatus," she intoned, reaching out a talon and targeting a particularly big ghoul with an axe. The creature stilled, and for a moment her will battled against the magic animating it. Then she pushed past, seizing the remnant of the creature''s soul and ruthlessly crushing the last vestige of its consciousness, and a moment later the ghoul turned, cleaving through two of it''s former comrades with it''s massive battleaxe.


    "Hah! You think you''re a match for me, Caprifexia, master necromancer!?" she whooped, unsurprised by her successful first attempt.


    Her words had barely passed her fangs, however, when her dominated ghoul''s neighbours turned their attention toward their turned fellow, their rudimentary intellects possessing just enough insight to realise that it was now hostile, and in a few quick moments reduced her thrall to several small pieces.


    "J''zargo does not think that the the elf is really a master necromancer," chuckled the cat as Caprifexia scowled, turning her attention to another of the ghouls and breaking it''s will.


    Her second attempt had much the same result as the first, and although suddenly turning a random ghoul on it''s fellows and having them immediately begin hacking at the others was more effective than her lightning had been, it wasn''t nearly enough to stem the tide. The time it took to turn just one of the creatures to her will was simply too long, and slowly but surely both she and the cat began to retreat further across the circular room.


    Still more ghouls poured into the room, and Caprifexia realised that she had to change tactics once more; breaking their will one at a time was like trying to use a bucket to put out an inferno. She needed something far more destructive than her haphazard necromancy, and more effective than her fire and lightning had been.


    She could cave the tunnel in with lithomancy, earth magic, but without the ability to open a portal to the Void that would just mean they died slowly, rather than quickly ¨C and even if they got the rocks cleared afterward, the ghouls would be waiting on the other side. That, and she wasn''t entirely sure she wouldn''t collapse the room along with the corridor by accident.


    Caprifexia wracked her brains, her mind slowly pushing her towards a conclusion she really didn''t want to reach: that she only had one real option that wouldn''t trap them, and which might inflict enough damage to see them through the fight.


    Void magic.


    Ever since she had broken free of the Old One''s chains, and become the greatest hero in the multiverse, she had been reluctant to employ or practice with the corrosive energy of the Void in even the most minor of ways. The power was inherently dangerous to one''s sanity, and, even for a dragon, exhausting to wield, and even a single mistake with it would destroy the user and their soul utterly.


    When she had been corrupted, like the rest of her flight, those dangers had been vastly lessened, but it had still been not something undertaken lightly, and when she had practised with it back in Blackrock Spire it had only been under the intense supervision of an experienced Wyrm, and with very small quantities. Quantities far smaller than what she was going to have to employ to stop the ghouls.


    But it was powerful. Incredibly, unbelievably powerful. And at that moment she couldn''t see any other option that didn''t result in almost certain death. So, steeling herself with a growl, she plunged past the surface mana that swirled and churned around her, delving down to where eldritch, terror inducing energy scrabbled against the borders of reality. She reached out with her mind, grabbing as much of it as she dared before dragging it up and into herself.


    Mind bending energy, utterly devoid of colour swirled around her talons, drinking in the light around it as its whispers began to assault her mind. They promised her power, glory, everything she could have ever wanted if only she''d le?t???? ????????h????e??????m?? i??????????????n??????????????? .


    But Caprifexia wasn''t some novitiate mortal when it came to the Old God''s whispers, and ignored them, focusing instead on weaving the Void energy into the correct form for what she needed to do. The voices grew more frantic and insistent as she fed the spell, straining against her mental control, and her heartbeat became louder and louder in her ears as colour bled away from the world. Still she poured more power in, letting the ball of swirling, hyper-entropic energy build until it was larger than she was.


    She dimly heard herself yelling for the mortals to take cover, before she shoved the ball of unreality toward the ghouls and let go of the spell.


    The corrosive energies rocketed forward, barrelling straight through the first few ranks of undead until it struck the ground somewhere near the centre of the horde. The colourless energy collapsed in on itself, and there was a brief moment of stillness before with a blast of deafening sound the energy exploded outward, washing over the undead constructs, eating through decayed flesh, withered bone, necromantic energy, and stone floor alike and simply erasing it all of it from existence from one moment to the next.


    Caprifexia flapped back, ears ringing and hoping that she hadn''t miscalculated the power involved as the ball of expanding non-existence raced outward from the point of impact, getting closer and closer to them. It was possible for a skilled and powerful spellcaster to contain Void energy, but Caprifexia knew that was, for the moment at least, beyond her abilities.


    Then it stopped expanding, and she smugly noted that she had gotten the spell perfect as the devoid energy fizzed out a few feet in-front of the cat, who was scrambling backward on the ground with a look of terror in his eyes.


    Capifexia was about to say something appropriately pithy when a wave of exhaustion washed over her and her wings suddenly felt far too heavy to flap any longer. She crashed to the ground, yelping as she landed on her still only partly healed leg. Her vision flickered, and she must have blacked out for a few moments, because the next thing she knew she was vaguely aware that Einar was dragging her across the ground by her tail.


    "Stop that minion," she slurred angrily. "Bad mortal."


    "Capri ¨C you need to make a portal, you need to make it now!" yelled Einar.


    "Not so loud," she winced. Why did Einar always whinge at her? She never whinged. "What are you complaining about now?"


    "You didn''t get them all!"


    "Inconceivable," she said, drunkenly raising her head towards where, in complete insolent defiance of their draconic betters, nearly two dozen of the undead creatures were scrambling through the perfect half-sphere of a crater from where her spell had detonated.


    The cat was attempting to hold them back, but without her indomitable might to assist him his powers were proving to be insufficient for the task.


    A sliver of unease reasserted itself into her tired mind as she realised that she''d exhausted herself entirely, and wasn''t going to be able to fight them off. Yes, Einar was right, it was time for a tactical retreat.


    Focusing on her slight concern, she tried to use it to push aside the barriers of reality once more. She once again felt the process take hold for a moment, before once again running headlong into the same block, and immediately her headache ratcheted up another few notches.


    "Capri!"


    "Can''t," she said. "Trying."


    Einar stopped dragging her, and she realised that they''d reached the far side of the room. The cat was still casting balls of ice, but his movements were becoming sluggish, and his spells were even more feeble than his initial amateur flailings.


    It suddenly struck her that she was going to die. The minute the cat became as exhausted as she was they would be overrun in seconds. Above her Einar readied his dagger and set his jaw, and the cat stepped back and poured his magic into a swirling golden shield, erecting it just in time to stop a jagged looking sword from taking his head off.


    Caprifexia lay still for a moment, before growling and shakily pushing herself off the ground and wobbling to Einar''s side. If she was going to die, she wasn''t going to do it lying down.


    She was a dragon; guardian of mortal-kind; the greatest hero in existence. And maybe she didn''t know a whole lot about heroism just yet, but she knew enough that you didn''t let your friend''s face their deaths alone. Even annoying and disrespectful mortal ones.


    Cracks began to appear on the cat''s shield, and Caprfexia tensed, bringing the rest of her dragonfire up her gullet, waiting for the barrier to fall to unleash the last of her might.


    Before the barrier could fall, however, the attention of the ghouls turned, and a few moments later a wave of fire rolled over their back ranks, turning the corpses to burning pyres and washing forward, larger than anything the cat, or even she, had produced. As it faded, the shape of a familiar black and gold clad elf became apparent through the heat haze, bringing with it a feeling of intense relief.


    "Ah, look what we have here," said Arakno as he blasted apart the rest of the stragglers in what, even Caprifexia had to admit, was reasonably impressive magic. For a mortal, of course.


    "Your timing is most excellent," said Caprifexia, walking shakily forward as the exhausted cat lowered his shield. "They were beginning to become a bother."


    Arakno frowned at her for a moment, before raising a confused eyebrow. "Miss Caprifexia?" he said uncertainly.


    "Oh," she said, having forgot she was in her true form, and taking a moment to shift back and wobbling slightly from her exertion. "Ah, yes ¨C that definitely wasn''t my real form. I''m an altmer," she said, deceptively. "Not a dragon at all."


    "I thought that it was him that could¡­" he said looking at Einar and frowning, before shaking his head. "Irrelevant, I suppose. I am glad that you are unharmed. It would be a tragedy for the brightest student in this frozen hellscape to have perished."


    "It seems that luck is with khajiit today after all," said the cat, once again interrupting. "Hail Ancano, J''zargo is most pleased to see you."


    Arakno barely even looked at the cat, instead advancing on the orb and stroking his chin.


    "Incredible," he said. "So much more remarkable in person¡­"


    "J''zargo thinks it is doing something to the space around it," said the cat, coming to a stop beside Arakno. "Perhaps it is what the ancient snow elves were-"


    The cat''s speculations were abruptly cut off as the elf turned, unleashing a blast of lightning straight into the cat''s chest with a contemptuous flick of his wrist.


    "What are you doing!?" said Caprifexia, taking a half-step back in surprise, not entirely sure what was going on as the cat collapsed onto the dusty stone floor.


    "Cleaning up," said Arakno, his lip curling.


    As a mage the cat had some innate resistance to magic, but taking a powerful spell like that point blank was still almost certainly fatal. The cat had been irritating, sure, but Caprifexia didn''t think that warranted a summary execution. As far as she understood things, that was a villainous action ¨C something that a friendly elf shouldn''t have done. Was there something she had missing? Had she somehow not noticed that the cat had really been a villain? But no, he''d fought alongside her. And Einar had said that even villains shouldn''t be summarily killed ¨C that was what had gotten her into trouble about the proto-drakes and the ''proto-drake-born'' in the first place. What was going on?


    "Hmm," said Arakno, before turning to Einar, who has his dagger out. "It seems, Miss Caprifexia, that we also have a good opportunity to rid you of this pest."


    Time seemed to slow for Caprifexia as saw Arakno raise his hand towards Einar, realisation dawning on her as lightning arced over the elf''s hand as he prepared another bolt of lightning.


    Somehow, against all odds, Einar had been right.


    Arakno was not really a friendly elf at all.


    Caprifexia was moving before she realised what she was doing, and as the magic shot from the elf''s fist her she stepped in front of Einar, taking the blast in his stead.


    The bolt struck her in the sternum, and the force knocked her backwards, straight into Einar, and sent them both tumbling to the floor. Caprifexia screamed and spasmed as every nerve in her body fired simultaneously, and felt thick coppery blood spill over her tongue as she bit it in her paroxysms.


    "Why would you- you foolish girl! I didn''t mean to-" she heard Arakno say, his voice distraught as her vision flickered once more. "What a waste. You had such potential¡­"


    "J''zargo does¡­ not understand," croaked the cat. "Why?"


    "You think the I was ever going to let a bunch of dilettantes at the end of the world claim this prize?" said Arakno, his voice resuming it''s more usual, snooty tone. "You don''t even know what it is, of what it will be capable of in Her hands. This world will be unmade, khajiit, and the altmer will assume their rightful place as Gods. Not that you''ll live to see it¡­"


    There was a burst of complex magic, followed by a series of fading footsteps and a dimming light as the orb began to float away after the nasty elf. Gradually her body began to stop shaking, and Einar moved beneath her, gently rolling her off him.


    "Capri, Capri!?" he said, shaking her shoulders.


    "Why must you mortals be so loud!" she winced as her muscles gradually started listening to her once more, looking down and grimacing at where her coat had been burnt through and angry seared flesh was visible beneath.


    "How are you¡­ not dead?" said Einar.


    "Dragons are naturally resistant to magic, do keep up," she wheezed. "What, you thought I would throw myself in front of you if I thought I might die? That would be mad. Insane. Definitely not something I would have done. Just let me¡­ catch my breath."


    "You-" he began, before his head snapped towards the fallen cat. "J''zargo!"


    He rushed toward the cat''s side, and a few moments later the smell of cooked cat began to fill the room which, as someone who had eaten smaller, non-allegedly-sapient cats before, Caprifexia didn''t think actually smelled too bad.


    Would it be unheroic to eat a tasty cat if it had died of non-Caprifexia related causes? She''d have to ask Einar.


    "This is bad," said Einar. "We need to find a healer."


    Further down the corridor there was a boom and a rush of magic, and the ceiling shook above them, raining down dust.


    "What was that?" he said.


    "Some kind of earth magic, obviously," said Caprifexia, putting her hand to her chest and willing her coat, which in reality was just a construct of magic, back together. Her chest ached terribly, and she wouldn''t have said no to some healing herself, despite her heroic bravery. "That annoying elf, who I certainly didn''t ever like at all, is trying to crush us."


    "You must go," wheezed the cat. "It might not be too late for you."


    "Good idea-" agreed Caprifexia, pushing herself shakily up into a sitting position. Her head was throbbing horrifically, and she wanted nothing more than to lie down and have a good, long nap, but the thought of being crushed meant that she was willing to forgo that ¨C for now at least.


    "We''re not going to leave you," said Einar firmly as dust and pebbles started to rain down on them. "Not after you saved our lives. Capri, can you open a portal now that the orb is gone?"


    Capri huffed in irritation at the absurd idea that the cat had saved their lives, but nevertheless scrunched up her face and tried to find something to be mildly perturbed by, doing her best to ignore the crushing fatigue.


    Then a rock larger than she was landed beside her and with a yelp a tear into the void opened.


    She scrambled through it on all fours, trying to ignore the way that her chest burned and the Void tendrils and eyeballs squished and oozed beneath her fingers. Einar joined her a moment later, the trembling cat in his arms, and as soon as he was through the sound of falling rocks cut off as the portal snapped closed.


    "Where have you taken J''zargo?" asked the cat in a weak voice. "Is this Oblivion? Are you Daedra?"


    "No friend," said Einar. "Just focus on staying conscious, OK? We''ll get you help. And¡­ wait, Capri, are you really OK? Can you stand?"


    "Of course," she said, shakily clawing her way upright with the help of a nearby piece of only partially collapsed masonry. "Totally fine."


    "You''re badly hurt," he said.


    "Nonsense ¨C I am a dragon."


    "And you really can''t heal at all?"


    "No! I''m a wizard, not a priestess!" she snapped, closing her eyes and trying to push back her throbbing headache.


    "I don''t¡­ never-mind. If you can''t heal, we need to find someone who can."


    "The fools in that dusty city didn''t even have magic," she said, coughing a few times. "Tasty fish though."


    "J''zargo does like¡­ tasty fish¡­" said the cat.


    "What about your world?" said Einar. "That has powerful magic doesn''t it? Could you find it?"


    Caprifexia shifted uneasily. "I¡­ might recognise the architecture. But I do not know how far it is ¨C and an Old God will find us if we linger in this place too long, and I don''t think I can¡­ walk very fast."


    "J''zargo is going to die if we don''t get him to a healer, and you don''t look to good yourself," he said. For a moment she was confused, before she suddenly realised that the cat was actually called J''zargo. She had just assumed it was something weird he, and maybe other Nirnians, said every now and then. "It should be directly above us, more or less, right?"


    Caprifexia had a vague idea of the direction she had come from, or at least she thought she did, roughly to the right of where they were. She could see a dozen or so platforms with planes in that direction before the swirling darkness of the void swallowed the meandering structures, but at a glance none seemed to feature any obviously Azerothian architecture.


    "Maybe," she said. "Dimensions quite clearly don''t work like reality here, but it is possible I suppose. But if we don''t find it in the next twenty minutes, we must take the closest world. Getting the cat to a healer will be the least of our concerns if an Old God finds us ¨C you mortals will go insane after just a glimpse."


    "J''zargo is¡­ not a cat," said the cat in a faint voice.


    Einar nodded grimly and moved off, Caprifexia following at a slower pace as made their way away from Nirn, taking the most upward of the bridges that led between the different planes in the Void. Every breath seared in her lungs, and she found herself, for the first time in her life, growing cold.


    That wasn''t a good sign, she knew. Her inner furnace, an essential component of the bridge between her astral and physical forms, was located in her chest, and might have been disrupted by the horrible, nasty elf''s magic, since wounds transferred over between her mortal and true guises. And if that was true, then she was much more injured than she had first thought.


    Why had she jumped in front of Einar? It had been a foolish, reckless thing to do. Certainly nothing befitting a dragon, even an heroic one like her. After all, Einar, no matter how much she tolerated him, was in the end only a mortal, whereas she was the greatest hero in the multiverse. He would age and die, hopefully not for some time, but inevitably. Whereas she was immortal, and therefore had the potential to save a hypothetically infinite number of weak and vulnerable mortals. It was only logical then an immortal life was more important than a mortal''s. Wasn''t it?


    "We need to stop," she gasped as they reached a platform made up of gothic structures, almost, but not quite, like Gilnean buildings, which strangely weren''t ruined or damaged in the slightest ¨C unlike every other entrance they had come across thus far. "I cannot see Azerothian architecture anywhere, and it''s been nearly twenty minutes."


    Einar grimaced and looked down at the cat, who''s eyes were fluttering open and closed, and then to Caprifexia, who was shivering violently.


    "Talos damn it," he said, moving towards the orb of light that led to the unknown world. "We''ll have to try here then."

 A Stay of Summary Exorcism

    Caprifexia''s portal from the void snapped shut behind her as she cluched her chest. What felt like icy fingers slowly tightened their grip on her core, worming their way into her inner furnace inch by agonising inch.


    The nasty elf Arakno, who she had definitely always disliked, had possibly hurt her much worse than she had initially suspected. Although she was tougher than any mere mortal, her inner furnace was very magical, and very important, and the horrible elf''s lightning had almost certainly disrupted it. And she was cold; so cold. That, more than anything else perturbed her. Mildly. Being cold, like dying, was something mortals did. Not dragons. Not her.


    The unpleasant stench of stagnant water and rot pressed themselves against her nostrils. Unsurprising, given that they seemed to have emerged in the middle of some kind of mortal settlement. Mortals, she had discovered, were pretty much multiversally disgusting.


    Ramshackle mouldering buildings rose either side of a twisting cobbled street, and an immense silver moon dominated the sky. There were lanterns dotted along the street, but none were lit, and several of them looked broken.


    The magic of the place was laden with a heavy, sickly feeling, a cloying charge that she associated with a site regularly used for dark magic: necromancy, umbramancy, and curse rituals. There was no wind to speak of, lending the entire place an oppressive, sluggish atmosphere.


    The buildings were all boarded up, although here and there the wooden planks had been split open in great rents from what looked like claws, and whatever or whoever had been pulled back through the gaps had left smears of blood, now long dried. Typical poor quality mortal construction. If a dragon had made the defences, they would have been thick enchanted metal. With spikes.


    "Help!" called out Einar into the darkness. "We need a healer!"


    "They can''t understand you," slurred Caprifexia, her head spinning as she attempted to keep up with not only her seemingly never ending task of educating her mortal charge, but also the increasingly difficult prospect of staying upright. She staggered, catching herself against one of the cold metal lamp-posts. "You''re just a silly mortal."


    "You''re really hurt," said Einar in his most fussy tone.


    "Nonsense. Just need to catch my breath," she said, sliding a bit further down the lamp and finding a more comfortable position near the bottom. "I am¡­ dragon."


    "And you can''t heal at all?"


    "I''m a wiz-" she began, trailing off as the energy around her shifted and her head lolled upward, her wobbly vision centring on a dark alley at a right angle to where they had arrived. Although Einar wouldn''t have been able to see anything, limited creature that he was, dragons, in addition to their other virtually endless superior traits, had better eyesight than humans, and even in the darkness she could make out six humanoid figures drawing closer.


    "Oh thank the divines," said Einar a few moments later, when even his inferior mortal eyes eventually noticed them. "Capri ask them for help-"


    "Don''t think they want to help us," said Capri, clumsily pushing past him as six sets of yellow eyes zeroed in on her, confirming that she had indeed felt a whisper of dark, necromantic magic marking their approach. Undead.


    Without hearing or reading their language first, even a dragon couldn''t address them in their likely filthy tongue. But equally, since she was a dragon, she also had a way around that particular problem. With far more effort than it would have usually took for what was a pretty simple spell she reached for some of the surrounding power, wove it somewhat clumsily into a spell, and used it to launch a bundle of thought towards the undead.


    She wasn''t exactly skilled with telepathy, and without touch couldn''t do more than transmit simple impressions, but she did have at least something going for her in the present situation. Even as a whelp her mind was infinitely more complex with any mortal''s. That mean that rather than just projecting a simple impression that could be missed or ignored, she could blast out a bundle of intent at the mental equivalent of ear-splitting volume.


    <BACK OFF, I''M BIGGER AND SCARIER THAN YOU ARE! RAWR!>


    The figures recoiled as her telepathic threat washed over them, whatever remained of their rotting prey-instincts recognising her for what she was. For a moment she thought they might turn and run, but then the leader rallied.


    "Look and think you twits ¨C she''s just an exhausted elf," he said in an ugly language that featured a lot of ''V'' and ''Z'' sounds. "All bark, no bite."


    Several sharpened teeth flashed in amused grins, and if Caprifexia had had any doubts as to the character of the shambling corpses before, they were totally and utterly dispelled. She didn''t need Einar''s help to know that puns, and the appreciation thereof, were clearly signs of irredeemable villainy.


    "Vampires," said Einar beside her, once again demonstrating that while he was just a mortal, he had a mastery of at least one thing exceeding even the most gifted and powerful dragon: stating the obvious.


    "Don''t you dare stab me again," said Caprifexia woozily, wobbling to the left as her vision flickered as she strained to draw more on the surrounding mana. She almost lost her mental grip on the energy, before with snarl she forced it into a fireball that burst into existence around her right hand.


    The ghouls paused their advance once more, and Caprifexia smiled as toothily as they had. Yes, even at her most exhausted, a Scion of the Titans was in an utterly different league to a bunch of mangy, ugly, filthy bloodsuckers-


    The fire around her hand gutted out, and her vision flickered again as a wave of exhaustion washed over her. Somehow she had also fallen to her knees, and there appeared to be blood dripping down from one of her nostrils. That wasn''t ideal.


    Perhaps, she considered, she should open another portal. After all, even a dragon couldn''t really fight properly while face down on dirty cobblestones ¨C something she couldn''t really remember happening. Hadn''t she been on her knees?


    Yes, she''d open a way out in just a moment. After she''d had a chance to catch her breath. Maybe rest her eyes¡­


    Caprifexia was vaguely aware that Einar was screaming her name, but the thing that took most of her rapidly diminishing focus was the sudden abrupt shift in the magic around her.


    It was being drawn together somewhere to her right, and with a mighty force of will she turned her head from where she had fallen and opened her eyes, staying conscious just long enough to see a vortex of dark magic and a set of rather well made looking leather boots step out onto the filthy mortal road.


    Caprifexia opened her eyes slowly, wincing and closing them again a moment later as bright silver light seared its way into her retinas. Her chest ached terribly, and it felt like a wedge had been driven into her mind, but she was no longer cold, which was a good sign.


    Wait? Cold? When was she ever cold? What had been going on? They''d been in Sarthaal, and¡­


    Her head jerked upright as she remembered what had happened: the ghouls, Arakno''s betrayal, and finally the vampires. She didn''t seem to be still on the filthy street anymore, and instead was in a large workshop, lying on a desk in her true whelpling form ¨C odd, since she definitely remembered having a nap in her humanoid guise.


    Overflowing bookshelves dominated the curving room, punctuated only by windows and an immense blackboard filled with thaumic calculations and sketches. Back in Blackrock Spire her eldest brother, Nefarion, had had something similar. She and her brood had had the occasional class in there, and she could still recall the various laws and formulae for necromantic magic that had been scrawled across the slate.


    In one corner near a window Einar was sleeping on a couch, his mortal chest rising and falling gently. He didn''t look injured, which was good. The cat was there too, and didn''t seem to be dying anymore. She supposed that was good too, in a more abstract sort of way: like the fact that somewhere, some-when, some dragon had made sure that the mortals understood how to make fire so they didn''t freeze during the winter, or that greedy and shortsighted mortals hadn''t yet bred enough to over-fish all the rivers, leaving none for dragons.


    She her head turned further, freezing and baring her fangs when she spotted a white haired figure across the room. Silver moonlight framed an aristocratic face, within which burned the malevolent yellow eyes of an undead. Apparently Einar hadn''t dealt with all of them like she''d trusted him to when she''d had her nap. Typical.


    "Stay back, fiend!" she said, taking to wing and summoning fire to her talons. Unlike when she had first arrived onto the plane the magic leapt effortlessly to her command, and huge gouts of flame erupted around her claws, billowing upward higher than her wings.


    The vampire sighed, apparently unaware that he was mere moments from destruction. "Extinguish that before you hurt yourself, you foolish child."


    "Your mind magic won''t work on me, ghoul! Fear me, for I am greater than any hero you have ever faced! My teeth are daggers; my claws, blades; my mind, beyond your comprehension! I am an immortal being of cosmic power! I am Caprifexia, Herald of the Titans, last daughter of Deathwing the Destroyer, and the Greatest Hero in the Multiverse!"


    The vampire sighed again.


    "Well I have never heard of you," he said, before his ugly pallid face grew harder. "Your father, however¡­"


    Caprifexia hesitated. How did this ghoul know her father? Was she back on Azeroth? No ¨C no, the architecture in the Void had been wrong, and the sort of circular ''Y'' symbols etched into almost everything had born no similarities to any of the humanoid symbols she knew. Also, as far as she was aware, vampires, or San''layn as they were properly called, had been exterminated when the mortal armies had crushed the undead Scourge. They were also usually ex-elves, not ex-humans. Someone could have remade them, she supposed, but that seemed unlikely to her given the time that had passed.


    Which meant¡­


    "You can travel the Void?" she said, pouring more magic into the fire churning around her talons. "Pah, if you think that will help you, you are mistaken!"


    "My name is Sorin Markov," he said slowly, ignoring his increasingly impending doom. "I was the one who healed you, as well as your Khajiite friend. You are in my ancestral home, and safe here as my guests ¨C provided you do not try to set my laboratory on fire."


    She flicked her eyes over to where Einar was sleeping, searching for any kind of mystical curses or enchantments. There was a small field of simple magic around him that seemed to be aimed at reducing sound from outside it, but nothing more than that.


    "Why did you help them, abomination?" she said idiomatically after a few moments.


    "To modify a proverb, ''dragons in glass houses shouldn''t cause earthquakes,''" he blathered, his rotten brain apparently interpreting her demand to mean she was discussing the construction of some kind of indoor agriculture and tectonic magic. "I am told you are aware of the trans-planar nature of the Eldrazi?" he continued, the conversation swerving wildly away from plant cultivation. "''Old Gods'' as your friend termed them."


    "What about them?" said Caprifexia, slowly. "And when did you speak to Einar?"


    "When we arrived. You are fortunate to have such a dedicated advocate, for I was going to slay you when I realised what you were," he said. "But let us return to topic at hand. The Eldrazi are a fundamental threat to not only your plane, but all planes of existence. You understand this?"


    "I understand more than you can possibly conceive, you mouldering corpse," she said. "But that still doesn''t explain why you offered your ¨C nominal ¨C assistance to my friends."


    The vampire had the gall to glare at her. "And you! You would be dead if not for my intervention!"


    "Pah. I am a dragon. It was merely a flesh wound-"


    "You were unconscious and barely breathing, you had utterly exhausted your spiritual reserves, and your soul was beginning to disintegrate you ridiculous, arrogant lizard!"


    "I was just¡­ having a nap," she said convincingly. It might have been stretching the truth a little, but this ''Sorbet Melon,'' or whatever he called himself, didn''t need to know that.


    The vampire took a deep, useless breath and exhaled slowly, re-evaluating his flawed memory of the situation. Probably.


    "I hate children," he muttered to himself, meanly. "And dragons. Why did she have to be a dragon and a child?"


    "I can hear you, you filthy dragonist!"


    "I have travelled to Azeroth, and know what your people are," he said, picking up his goblet, which smelt of tasty blood, and taking a sip. He was, unsurprisingly, a poor host, however, and didn''t offer her one. Undead were so rude. Revolting, and rude. And disgusting. And bigoted. Revolting, rude, disgusting and bigoted; yes, that pretty much summed up the state of undeath.


    "Yes, I understand that ¨C do keep up."


    "Your friend said that you had managed to break the Eldrazi''s hold over you," he continued, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I was¡­ sceptical to say the least. I have never known something they have twisted to be redeemed, but could find no hint of any foothold in your mind."


    Caprifexia was more than a bit annoyed that someone had looked through her mind while she was napping, and her first impulse was to immediately destroy him. The only thing that stayed her talons was that she wasn''t entirely sure that that would be heroic, since he had apparently helped her friend.


    Einar had twittered on and on about how she should feel grateful if someone helped her. Which was pretty strange, since it was clearly the mortals who should be grateful for an opportunity to help their betters, dragons.


    Unfortunately Einar was also asleep, which meant she couldn''t check, so, after a moment of deliberation, she decided to give the apparently friendly ghoul the benefit of he doubt and not immediately incinerate him.


    Besides, she was actually quite interested to discuss the Old Gods and her change with someone. A dragon would have been better, obviously, but she supposed he would do as a poor substitute until a proper intellectual peer could be found.


    And after all, she could always destroy him later.


    "They stopped Whispering to me after the first time I travelled to another world," she explained, slowly letting the fire around her talons dissipate and landing back on the table.


    "So the ''Whispers'' ended, and presumably your corruption, when your Spark ignited?"


    "My what? ''Spark?''"


    "You''ve never met another of our kind? At all?"


    Caprifexia scoffed at the idea that a vampire of all things was ''her kind.''


    The Vampire gave her a withering look. "To put it simply, you and I are beings known as Planeswalkers. We are born with a Spark within us, which at some point, usually under stressful circumstances, ignites. It is what allows us to travel through the Blind Eternities ¨C or ''Void'' as you term it ¨C to different planes of existence. For every other Planeswalker I have ever met this transit occurs, from their perspective at least, instantaneously. But your friend said you move physically through it yes? And can take others? Describe it ¨C please."


    Caprifexia didn''t really like being interrogated. Dragons were repositories of near infinite wisdom, true, but they dispensed it on their own terms.


    But the vampire had helped her friend, apparently, and asked nicely ¨C which was admirable in some small way, she supposed. So trying to improve his limited understanding did seem to be fair, as well as heroic. And she was a fair, heroic, amazing, kind, and benevolent dragon after all.


    "The Void is full of platforms of mishmashed architecture strung together with bridges, floating amidst clouds of energy. Dimensions seem to be slightly unstable, and up and down aren''t as consistent as they should be," she said in a lecturing tone. "To put my intricate current hypothesis in simple terms that even you might understand, I believe that the platforms are made by the Old Gods as an attempt to break their way into the various realities."


    "And what was Innistrad ¨C this plane ¨C like?" he asked, sitting back and swirling his goblet as he reflected upon her immense wisdom.


    "Mostly this sort of ugly architecture," she said, gesturing to the high ceiling inlaid with gothic details, snarling gargoyles, skulking ghouls, and writhing tentacles. "Although it was less decrepit than the other platforms I''ve seen."


    "Perhaps that is a result of my defences ¡­" he mused, apparently so egotistical and deluded that he thought that he, a simple vampire, could affect something like the fabric of an entire reality. "And the others, they traverse these ''bridges'' with you?"


    "Yes," she nodded. "But since he is just a limited mortal, Einar doesn''t see it as it really is, not properly. And I didn''t either, not until we were attacked by an Old God."


    "You gazed upon the face of a true Eldrazi and survived?" he said in a sceptical voice. "Are you entirely sure it was not merely some kind of inter-planar spirit or elemental?"


    "I am a dragon."


    The vampire blinked. "What?" he said after a few beats of silence.


    "I am a dragon."


    "I did not mishear you," he said in an exasperated tone ¨C presumably annoyed that his own limited and possibly rotting cognitive capabilities couldn''t grasp the sprawling didactic expanse of her concise statement. "But that is not an explanation!"


    "Pfft. Shows what you know."


    "Why ¨C in terms that are not related to you being an irritating, flying, fire-breathing lizard ¨C are you sure it was not another kind of inter-planar being?"


    "You mort- err¡­ undead, are so rude," she sniffed, before beginning to explain the details very slowly in the hope he might understand. That was, after all, what a hero would do. "I am a dragon ¨C you''re still following? OK. Now, the Old Gods are bad. You know what ''bad'' means, yes? Excellent, you''re doing wonderfully. They made my people who are, remember, dragons, also bad. This means that we, the dragons, are experts on them."


    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    The Vampire ran a trembling hand through his hair, clearly struggling and failing to understand even her hatchling level explanation.


    "So I, and remember that I''m a dragon, know what they are like," she continued slowly. "That is why I know how to recognise ¨C that big word means to understand what one sees ¨C an Old God, who, again, are bad, when I see one. Was that clear enough for you?"


    "Like pulling teeth¡­" muttered the Vampire, rubbing his temples and closing his eyes. Caprifexia didn''t really see how a clear explanation was like dentistry. But maybe it was a foolish vampire thing. They were pretty weird after all, and had a fetish for biting.


    Sorbet fell silent, and while he dealt with whatever undead neurosis was bothering him at that moment Caprifexia took the time to look around.


    In addition to thousands of books on what looked like magic, there were also all sorts of magical artefacts strewn about the place, several of which looked like they were halfway under construction.


    Arteficing had always been an interest of hers ¨C one she hadn''t been able to really pursue since the fall of Blackrock Spire, so she flapped over to one of the in process of being built. It was a mess of runed plates of various thaumicaly conductive metals, several gemstones, and ugly, functionally un-necessary cladding.


    From a cursory glance it it seemed to be some kind of device that would amplify magical signals, although it seemed to have several glaring errors in its receiver. As far as she could tell it was only going to be able to detect a very narrow band of magical energy, which seemed pretty silly. What if there were signals on other bands?


    She fixed it.


    "Get away from that!" said the vampire as she was just finishing carving her improvements into one of the runic arrays with her razor-sharp talons.


    "I was helping," she sniffed as he moved towards her, shooing her away as he looked over her work.


    "I do not need the help of a juvenile reptile," he snapped, meanly, as she flapped back.


    "Of course," she said, rolling her eyes. "That''s why your receiver could only detect a tiny band of magical energy. Fool."


    "What have you- oh you little pest, you''ve ruined it!"


    "That''s a funny way to say ''improved.''"


    "No, not improved! You''ve made it so it''s going to detect everything, which is going to absolutely ruin its range. Spirits, I''m going to have to go to Kaladesh again just to replace this one part! Do not touch anything else, understand?"


    "Fine, have your silly broken artefacts, see if I care!"


    "It was not broken; it was built to only detect white mana signals for a reason!"


    "''White mana?'' Mana doesn''t have colours, or shades," she chortled. "Silly vampire."


    The ghoul roared inarticulately and bared his teeth. For a moment she thought he might make a lunge at her, and fire began to glow beneath her scales in her chest as she prepared to incinerate him. But then the moment passed as he balled his hands into fists, unaware of how close he had come to total anihillation.


    "Yes. It. Does," he said, trying and failing to reign in his worryingly intense anger at the immense scope of his own inadequacy. "There are five different kinds of mana. The Azerothian and Nirnian wizarding traditions are anomalies in the multiverse, not the rule."


    Caprifexia laughed. "That''s ridiculous."


    "No," growled the Vampire. "It isn''t. Red, Blue, Black, White, Green. Each reflects different aspects of the planes of the multiverse, and by virtue of their structure lend themselves to different forms of magic."


    "Nonsense," scoffed Caprifexia. "The Twisting Nether-"


    "-is an artificial phenomenon," snapped Sorbet. "Something, I am not sure what, created that stellar phenomenon. It is not normal. The place we are standing on, however, is a locus of Black mana: energy suited towards necromancy, umbramancy, sanguimancy, vlasfimancy, and offensive-telepathy."


    "Then how am I using this ''Black'' ambient mana to perform pyromancy you foolish corpse?" she chortled, drawing on the energy around her and shaping it into fire that danced around her talons as she wiggled them at him.


    "By transmuting the energy through your soul, which is a rare, and exhausting way of casting magic."


    "For a mortal perhaps."


    Sorbet took several more deep breaths, before apparently losing the battle with his wild and erratic temper.


    "Listen you horrible little reptile," he snarled, jabbing a finger at her. "I am attempting to help you, to educate you and give you access to more power in the hopes that you do not get yourself probably quite justifiably murdered before you can mature into a potentially useful ally. But you are not making it easy for me!"


    "You''re the horrible one," she said reasonably. "A horrible and nasty undead. I bet you don''t have any friends!"


    "In the multiverse there exist several different forms of mana," he said, ignoring her cutting jibe. "Mana which can be utilised either by drawing on the ambient energy around them, or by the wizard forming a bond between themselves and a place and calling on it across a distance. What you do is a variation on the former, and is possible because you are Azerothian. What I do is the latter, and means that I have access to not only potentially vastly more power than you do, but also do not grow tired through spellcasting."


    Caprifexia clicked her teeth before slowly landing on a bench. The undead might be moody, annoying, and have a very fragile ego, but she did like the idea of accruing more power.


    For strictly heroic purposes, of course.


    "Very well¡­ go on," she said.


    "How magnanimous of you," said the vampire, finally locating his manners and addressing her properly. "As I was saying, this place, Markov Manor and it''s surrounds, are a locus of Black mana. Because I possess the correct disposition to bond with it, and also have the skill to make a connection, I am able to draw on the power of this place, the energy of the land itself, wherever I am in the multiverse."


    "That does sound quite useful¡­" she admitted. If she''d been able to cast magic without growing tired, there was no way those ghouls could have overwhelmed her in Sarthaal. Not that she had really been in any danger. She''d had it all under control. Definitely.


    "As I said, there are also four other kinds of mana. Red reflects a passion. It is a fiery energy that usually can be found in mountains and badlands. Astrapmancy, pyromancy, cryomancy, terramancy and a few other forms of magic. I am not suited to it''s¡­ wild emotion myself-"


    "Really? That''s surprising. You seem to have a temper problem," she observed. "I''ve almost had to destroy you three times in this conversation alone."


    "Normally I do not," he said in clipped tones. "Dragons, however, for some reason, I''ve no idea why, seem to fill me with murderous rage."


    "Your own inadequacy is most likely the root of those feelings. Have you tried accepting that we''re better than you at everything? It shouldn''t be too hard since, even to you, it must be obvious."


    The took a shuddering breath and mimed strangling something around the size of Caprifexia''s neck.


    "Green is the magic of life and nature, it is formed by areas of the multiverse that embody unity and interdependent strength," he said, lowering his hands ¨C clearly not willing to confront his small, limited nature. "Spells for strengthening, healing, and animation of nature are some of the domain of green magic. It is another of the forms I share little affinity for ¨C for obvious reasons."


    "Because you''re a rotting corpse?"


    "I''m not¡­ never-mind," he said, shaking his head. "White is the magic of order and tradition. Hieromancy, fosomancy, healing, and various strengthening and bolstering enchantments are what it is typically suited for. It is rigid and unyielding, but also inflexible. I have some skill with it, although it is not my primary focus."


    "Lastly there is Blue, which is an energy suited to the quick of wit. It is tricky, subtle, and while not as overwhelmingly powerful as Red or Black, as any warrior knows, even the strongest blow can be turned aside with a skilful parry. Illusion, counter-spells, chronomancy, all facets of telepathy, and to a degree astrapmancy are possible with Blue."


    "And is it possible to gain connections with all of these different ''aspects of reality?''" asked Caprifexia.


    "I have only met one such being, a dragon-"


    "Of course," nodded Caprifexi smugly. It would obviously have been dragons that had taken the mastery of this convoluted sounding power to it''s apex. That had been a given.


    Sorbet massaged his temples again.


    "But in many thousands of years they are the only being I have met capable of wielding the sum of creation," he said. "Normally a wizard will specialise with a single colour. Some will possess ability with a second, and occasionally even a third type of mana. It is also possible, as a person''s personality changes, for them to find it more difficult to draw on one type of mana, and easier to draw on another."


    "And your powers are ''Black'' and ''White?''" she said. "Aren''t they opposed?"


    "All of us contain contradictions."


    "Perhaps that is why you''re so neurotic?"


    "Oh yes, I''m the neurotic one," admitted Sorbet flatly as Caprifexia clicked her teeth again and considered what he had said.


    "What about Void Magic?" she said. "That doesn''t seem to fall into any of those categories ¨C despite some people, usually mortals, confusing it with umbramancy, it isn''t ¨C and the power for it doesn''t come from inside reality ¨C least of all patches of dirt."


    Sorbet''s white eyebrows shot up, and he leaned forward with a hungry look in his eyes. "You are still capable of using the magic of the Eldrazi? Even now you are no longer corrupted?"


    "Even I, a dragon, have to be careful, but yes," she nodded.


    "Fascinating," said the Vampire, steeping his fingers once more and falling into a brooding silence.


    Caprifexia went back to looking at his artefacts, although resisted the impulse to help fix them since apparently her genius wasn''t appreciated. His loss, she supposed.


    "Perhaps that is why you physically move through the Eternities, why you can bring others with you," he said eventually. "Despite the corruption, the ''Whispers'' as you put it, being purged from your body and soul, you retain an instinctual and intuitive understanding of the Blind Eternities, or as you say, the ''Void.'' I wonder¡­"


    He brooded some more.


    "All this silly sounding ''magical theory'' does not explain why you are helping me," said Caprifexia. After being ever so slightly mistaken as to the intentions of the definitely-unfriendly elf Arakno ¨C who had been put strait to the top of her, heroic, ''to kill list'' ¨C she was not particularly eager to take apparently helpful mortals, or undead, at their word.


    "As I said, once I had ascertained you were no longer corrupted, there was no reason to kill you."


    Caprifexia snorted disbelievingly, earning a smile from the vampire for the first time.


    "Yes, there is more," he said, standing and turning dramatically to look out his window at the giant silver moon. "The Eldrazi are the greatest threat in the multiverse. There are other beings that can destroy Planes, but none that I know of, anymore at least, that can also move between them. I have spent hundreds of years reinforcing my home against them, but I am painfully aware that my defences are not foolproof.


    "Long ago I laboured with two other Planeswalkers to seal away three Eldrazi manifestations. We succeeded, but we could not destroy, only trap them ¨C and even then, only for a time. One day they will break free. I have searched for a more permanent method of destroying or rendering them inert. Century upon century, and yet I have found nothing.


    "You, however, represent something new. You can not only move physically and consciously through the Blind Eternities ¨C interesting enough to warrant my interest by itself ¨C but if you can wield the Eldrazi''s own power, then perhaps you are the key I have been searching for. It is in my interests to see you do not die prematurely, and there is seldom a surer reason to trust someone than because it is in their interests to help you. Think of my aid as an¡­ investment-"


    "A what?" said Caprifexia.


    "An investment-"


    "Is that something like in-sor-ance?" she said. "A mortal money thing? I don''t need that. I am a dragon."


    "No you ridiculous little¡­" he said angrily, before sighing and moving to one of the bookshelves that ringed the room. Apparently he was getting better at containing his irrational bouts of anger. Commendable, for such a limited being. "A metaphor; it does not matter."


    He spent a few minutes deliberating and taking down volumes, before bringing the pile over to her table. She flapped back away, still not entirely at ease with him as he set down the stack, but drew closer again as she started to examine the books. Even a quick gaze at the titles on the spines told her that they had been gathered from different planes, and the thought of so much new magical knowledge almost made her salivate.


    "These will teach you the basics of bonding with land magic, and about the different types of mana," he said, sifting through the books.


    "And this energy will work with the spells I already know?" she said, hesitantly sliding off the table and taking her humanoid form, which was more suited to reading books made for mortals.


    "Some, depending on what your actual affinity, or affinities are," he said, cocking his head to one side as he looked her over. "Your transformation spell is interesting magic ¨C it is not immediately apparent, even to me, that you are not really an elf."


    "Draconic magic is subtle, and far beyond your pathetic mortal flailing," she said, smoothing down her dark hair primly.


    "I assume that is why you still have horns and glowing eyes?" he said with a chuckle.


    "I would like to have seen you do better with fourteen months of magical instruction!" she said, smoke pouring from her nostrils in outrage. She had preferred him angry, rather than snarky. She got that enough from her ever impudent friend.


    The vampire''s lips quirked, but luckily for him, he didn''t dare argue with her further.


    "More general spells, such as teleportation, shielding, and arteficing are possible with all forms of magic ¨C although the spells may need to be heavily modified from what you know, or re-learnt entirely, and blue is normally the type most suited to those magics."


    Caprifexia decided not to tell him that she didn''t, yet, know how to teleport. It would only make him feel superior. Completely baselessly of course, but it still wasn''t a good idea to nurture those sort of feelings in non-dragons, they''d only end up getting disappointed after all.


    "And how will I know what my ''affinities'' are?" she asked.


    "You will have to discover that for yourself, no one can do it for you. Although I would suggest starting with red. Most dragon''s personalities lend themselves to that mana ¨C and you certainly seem¡­ sufficiently dragon-like to be a red wizard to me."


    She preened at the compliment, glad that she still seemed like a proper dragon after so much time away from her own people. Some part of her had been worried that she''d been going soft after spending so much time around emotional mortals. It was good to know that she was still as flawless and imperious as ever.


    "So how does one tap this power?" she asked, sifting through the books.


    "There are a series of meditative exercises to master, some theory to understand, which is why I have given you the books, and then you must go to a place and become familiar with it. To begin with bonding to even a single area, assuming you are even the right temperament to tap it, could potentially take you months."


    "And you are offering to teach me? This ''in-vest-ment?''"


    "No," he said. "I am not a teacher, and I have business elsewhere. And I will want my books back, in good condition. If you wanted direct instruction, there are a few colleges you could also attend on various planes, but it is not a simple matter to give directions in the multiverse ¨C particularly since we experience it so fundamentally differently."


    "I very much doubt that a bunch of mortals would have much to teach me. And besides, I have heroic duties on Nirn. I have to slay all the proto-drakes and stop the world ending. Or something like that ¨C Einar''s explanations are very boring. Regardless, it would clearly fall apart without my constant vigilance, and it shouldn''t be too difficult for a being of my awesome power to master this trifle."


    The vampire seemed about to ask a question, before he shrugged and moved towards the door, taking down a long black coat from a peg and throwing it over his shoulders.


    "Put those in a bag," he said, gesturing to the stack of books as he belted a powerful feeling sword to his waist. "I need to go, and I''m not leaving you alone in my workshop."


    "What about Einar?" said Caprifexia, looking back at her friend, who was still deeply asleep and looked to be snoring noisily behind the quiet ward. She needed to replicate ¨C and improve, obviously ¨C that spell. Einar''s nasal noises had almost pushed her to mortalcide on more than one occasion.


    "I trust that Einar, and the khajiite, know better than to go ''fixing'' things ¨C and have left them a note detailing why exactly it is a bad idea to try and steal anything from this room. You, however, might wreck years of labour out of sheer pique or bloody mindedness. Your friends can come and find you in a more¡­ child friendly area of the manor when they wake."

 A Glowing Disendorsement

    Caprifexia was halfway through the Book of Bonding, which obviously written by a mortal, when Einar made an appearance in the manor''s immense main library.


    She had been reluctantly permitted to use one of the desks by the grumpy Sorbet Melon before he had gone, although she was being watched by no less than three of his vampire lackeys, all under strict instruction to ''restrain that menace if she starts wrecking things.''


    The sun had risen hours beforehand, but the vaulted library was even more gloomy than when she had arrived. The vampires had enchanted their curtains to close by themselves, and no matter how she tugged and pulled and wrenched she couldn''t get them open again.


    She had considered setting the blood red velvet ablaze, but her ghoulish ''minders'' had already been glaring at her, and Sorbet, who she could grudgingly admit had helped Einar, had requested she not set his ugly gothic home on fire so, in this one, small, tiny, insignificant, specific instance, she thought that arson might not be the most heroic possibly course of action.


    "Capri!" cried Einar. "You''re alright!"


    "Of course," she said, waving her hand absently and staying focused on her book. "I am a-"


    She was cut off as Einar reached her, and in a move that definitely would have gotten him set on fire a few months earlier, picked her up in a hug.


    "Unhand me mortal," she said, perhaps not quite as forcefully as was really proper for dragon.


    "Divines Capri, I was so worried. When you were shivering, and then you collapsed¡­"


    "Yes, yes," she said, patting him on the back lightly as she heroically indulged his simpering outburst. "I understand, you mortals are very emotional ¨C but I am a dragon, we do not hug."


    "Of course," he sniffed, setting her back down on the thick carpet and wiping his leaking eyes before putting his hands on her shoulders and squatting down slightly so that they were face to face. "You saved my life Capri."


    "Again," she corrected. "What is this, the twelfth time?"


    "Second or third actually, depending on how you count it."


    "I''m fairly certain it is more than that ¨C what about at that prison?"


    "Helgen? You pushed me toward a woman trying to cut my head off. That definitely doesn''t count as ''saving my life,''" he said. "But never-mind, this time you could have died. It was the most heroic thing you have ever done."


    "I wasn''t in any danger," she scoffed.


    "The one who saved us, a vampire of all things-"


    "Yes, I spoke to him," she nodded. "''Sorbet Melon.''"


    "His name is not ''Sorbet Melon,''" said Einar. "Not only are you completely wrong, it would be an unbelievably massive linguistic coincidence for his name to be a dessert in Imperial."


    "I thought it was a strange name myself, especially since he can apparently speak your horrible sounding language; but, since I''m a hero, I didn''t say anything because didn''t want to seem culturally insensitive. Maybe all the bloodsuckers on¡­"


    "Innistrad," supplied Einar.


    "-sure, are named after desserts in Imperial?" continued Caprifexia. "Did you think of that, hmm? I think it says a lot about you and your still omnipresent bigotry, usually directed towards dragons, that you can''t accept that some people, usually mortals, just have terrible names."


    "¡­ anyway, he told me that you were very, very close to dead when he healed you," said Einar. "He said that the only reason you were alive was because, as you''d put it, ''you''re a dragon.''"


    "I''m glad you''re finally starting to understand basic concepts."


    "So are you feeling OK?" said Einar.


    "Fine."


    "Are you sure?" he said sceptically. "Not just pretending to be fine because you think dragon''s shouldn''t admit to being hurt? It''s OK, you can tell me."


    "I''m fine!"


    "Well¡­ good," said Einar. "Where is our host then?"


    "He said he had ''business elsewhere'' and that I wasn''t allowed to stay in the workshop because I might accidentally improve one of his badly designed artefacts. He also told me to stay in the manor, since my awesome power would be too devastating to the local flora and fauna if I were to venture beyond the grounds."


    "Uh huh, I bet that''s exactly what he said," said Einar,. "What are you reading? And¡­ he did say you could read his stuff? Right?"


    "He picked out some books on magic that he said I could borrow. Apparently as a ''Planeswalker'' I am even mightier than a regular dragon ¨C difficult as that might be for you to comprehend."


    "So long as you''re not stealing from him," said Einar. "This guy knows where Nirn is and can move through the Void like you. And he''s an absurdly powerful wizard. He is not someone we want to annoy ¨C OK?"


    "Pah, he''s just an unusually animate corpse-"


    "-who can snap his fingers and turn over a dozen other vampires to dust. Instantly."


    "What? When did this happen? Are you sure? That doesn''t sound plausible," said Caprifexia. "You don''t know much about magic, and are just, in general, usually wrong."


    "Yes I''m sure. It was when you collapsed."


    "Dragons do not ''collapse'' ¨C I simply did not think those feeble undead worth my time, and trusted you to deal with them."


    Einar put his palms to his face and sighed. "Whatever," he said. "Just don''t go pissing him off, OK? He seems like the kind who wouldn''t blink at killing us if we imposed too much upon his good graces. I''m not even sure why he''s so interested in you."


    "Perhaps because he recognises greatness when he sees it."


    Einar looked, for some reason, very unconvinced.


    "I suppose it would be useful cultivating lackeys-" she continued, tapping her lip speculatively.


    "-allies, you''re a hero, remember-"


    "-ah yes, ''allies.'' Even an undead, if they have a library like this," she said, gesturing to the expansive book filled room.


    She could quite happily spend years in a place like this. Books on magic were one of her favourite things. Along with napping. And fish.


    But she did realise that they needed to return to Nirn and deal with the proto-drakes. For one thing, Einar would definitely not shut up about it if they didn''t.


    "We should probably wake up the cat," she said, closing the book and stuffing it into a bag with the others. "We should be going, we need to visit the Neckbeards-"


    "Greybeards. And his name is J''zargo," said Einar firmly. "You can''t call him a cat Capri."


    "Why not?"


    "Because it''s super racist," he said. "We''ve been through this."


    "But he is-"


    "Capri, a hero wouldn''t call a khajiite a cat ¨C OK?"


    "Well¡­ OK," she said with a sniff. "That seems pretty arbitrary though. You''re lucky I''m such a tolerant and understanding dragon."


    "So she is really a dragon?" said J''zargo, who was a ''khajiite,'' not a cat ¨C apparently ¨C as they made their way back along the twisting and meandering bridges of the Void, or ''Blind Eternities'' as the frozen fruit loving vampire had called it. All around them shadows twisted and moved, as if alive, the light from the star-like orbs that lead to worlds contorting and bending under the mad illogic of the Void''s ever shifting dimensions.


    "From another world ¨C not a child of Akatosh," said Einar, who had taken it upon himself to ''fill in'' Caprifexia''s perfectly adequate and concise explanation of the situation. "And a baby one at that."


    "Are you sure she is not just delusional?" said J''zargo.


    "Listen here you small minded feline-"


    "I''m sure," said Einar, cutting her off. Rudely.


    "And all her people have this power?" he said, gesturing to the realm which, had he seen it as it really were, would have shattered his feeble cat-like mind.


    "No, that''s just her it seems," said Einar as they reached the platform and star-like orb that led to the dead, desert that had been stripped bare by the Void. "The Vampire who healed you could do it too. Although he said he couldn''t take people with him ¨C that''s also a Capri speciality apparently."


    J''zargo was about to voice yet another tedious question when Caprifexia caught a flicker of movement and a hint of light in her peripheral vision.


    "Einar, out, now!" she barked as she whirred around, her heart setting up a staccato in her chest as she gazed accross the abyss to another, more developed platform where she had spotted the movement.


    J''zargo began to make some protesting noises, but Einar, for once, followed her command instantly, grabbing the khajiite''s arm and dragging the stroppy moggy through a portal to the ruinous plane.


    Caprifexia took a few steps toward the orb of light, but didn''t immediately follow her friend and the khajiite.


    With Einar gone she didn''t have to worry about protecting his fragile mortal mind, which meant that she had an opportunity to gather some more information on what Sorbet had described as the ''most dangerous beings in the multiverse.'' The Old God had moved reasonably slowly the last time she had encountered one, and the Whispers would give her forewarning. At least, that was her ¨C brilliant ¨C working theory.


    Strangely though, she heard no Whispers, and after almost a minute of fruitless peering into the gloom was about to follow Einar when she saw the movement again.


    It was no longer on the platform opposite, and instead had travelled up one of the twisting bridges further away from her. Seeing any great distance was pretty difficult in the Void, but whatever it was glowed a bright gold, and seemed to have a vaguely humanoid outline.


    She watched for a few more minutes, as it wended its way along the pathways between worlds, until it faded out of view entirely amidst the churning mist, patterns of light, and contorting dimensions.


    W????e????????????? ?????????????f??????????e??????????????e????????????l???????????? ???????????????????y??????????o????????u???????????????.????????????????.????????????.??????????? ?????????????


    Caprifexia''s eyes widened, and her head snapped around as she began to feel the familiar stifling touch of the Old Ones descend upon her mind, like a wedge behind her eyes. In the opposite direction of the golden figure, and moving faster than she had remembered, was the formless, writhing mist of an Old God, or ''Eldrazi'' as Sorbet had called them.


    Y?????????o??????????u?????????????? ????????????????????o????????????n??????c??????????????????e???????????? ??????????????k???????????????n??????????????e??????????????????????w???????????????? ?????????????????????u????s??????????.????????????????????.??????????.???????????


    Like before she could see flashes of lightning within its form, and the occasional hint of what might have been an eye, and, now that she was looking closer, the occasional sinewy tentacle or maw full of twisted teeth. It was disconcerting to look at for reasons she couldn''t quite articulate, and it made her mind itch.


    But she was a dragon, and pushed through the discomfort, focusing on trying to observe anything potentially useful. She was a hero after all, the greatest one in the multiverse even. If the Old Gods were as big a threat as Sorbet had indicated, then it was her responsibility to uncover their secrets.


    L?????????e?????????????t????? ???????????????????????u????????????????s??????????????? ???????????????b?????a????????????????c???????????????k???????????? ???????????????????i?????????????????????????n????????????????????????,????????????? ??????????????????????l??????????????????????e?????????????t?????????????? ??????????????????????u????????????????s??????????????????????? ?????????b?????????????????????a??????????????????????c???????????????????????k????????????? ????????????????i???????????????n??????????????!?????????????????????


    Still, it was closing rather fast, and starting to cause a nasty headache. No. On second thought, Sorbet''s idea of investigating them had definitely been a bad one.


    And obviously there was nothing more to be learned, she thought as the itch in her mind grew more pronounced and she stepped toward the star that led to the desertous plane.


    She was just raising her hand to escape from the hideous creature when she stopped, cocking her head to one side as she saw that her skin had begun to faintly glow the same gold as the distant figure she had seen moments beforehand.


    W???????????????????????????????e?????????????????????????? ???????????????????w???????????????????i??????????????????????l?????????????????????????????l?????????????????????????????? ???????????????????????c?????????????????????????????????????o??????????????????????????????n??????????????????????????s??????????????????????u????????????m???????????????????????????????????e?????????????????????????? ??????????????????????y????????????????????????o????????????????u?????????????????????????.?????????????.???????????????????????????????.???????????????????????????????


    "Huh," she said, peering at the strange phenomenon. She wasn''t sure if she had simply never noticed it before ¨C a possibility since the Void seemed to be, to some degree at least, shaped by her perception and expectation ¨C or if it was the proximity of the Old God that had activated it.


    Now that she had seen it, however, she could feel the magic beginning deep inside her, in the same place that the ''tug'' came from whenever she Planeswalked.


    Y????????????o?????????????????????????????????????????u???????????????????????????????????????? ?????????w???????????????????????i??????????l???????l??????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????n????????????????????o????????????????t??????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????e?????????s???????????????????????????c????????????????????????????a?????????????????????????????????????????????p??????????????????????????????????????????e???????????????????????????????? ????u???????????s?????????????????????????????????????.?????????????????????????????.??????????????????.???????????????????????


    Caprifexia would have liked to examine it more, but the Old God was getting close, and with her best derisive draconic sniff, that sounded nothing like a yelp, she turned her nose up to the Old God and stepped leisurely out of the Void onto the dead, desertous plane.


    "For Akatosh''s sake!" yelled Einar as soon as she had crossed the threshold and the portal closed behind her.


    Her headache abated slightly as the Old God''s hold over snapped, but it didn''t disappear entirely, and certainly wasn''t helped by Einar''s very loud whinging.


    "Don''t do that!" continued Einar, his voice angrier than she had heard it since she''d dispensed Just-this to the proto-drake-elf, or ''Dovahkiin'' as he insisted on calling them.


    They had arrived in the ruins of a city wrought mainly from sandstone. Most of the structures were still standing, although in places what looked like waves of transformative magic had rolled through the city, shifting and breaking and changing the sandstone from elegant curves into harsh geometric pylons and lines.


    In places the sandstone had also been transmuted into a kind of green-purple crystal, which here and there had broken off entirely and now floated eerily in the air, with no sensible magic or spell of any kind keeping them afloat. The shadows they cast were a bit odd as well, and seemed to twist and turn at unexpected angles. If Caprifexia wasn''t sure that the Old God was gone, she might have thought herself still in the Void.


    It was dawn, and there was still a chill in the air. In the various alcoves and undercover areas shielded from the direct sunlight lay hundreds of desiccated reptilian corpses like the ones that Caprifexia and Einar had found in a cave on their first visit to the world. Unlike the bodies they had found in the cave, however, several of these corpses had been warped and twisted in a similar manner to the buildings, and here and there dull, dry scales transitioned into harsh geometric crystal.


    "Do what?" she said distractedly, wiping some of the ichor of her boots onto a nearby piece of hexagonal masonry and thinking over what she had just learned.


    Was what she had felt her ''Spark?'' Sorbet had said that it was what made a Planeswalker a Planeswalker. Was that why it had activated near the Old God? Was it what had purged the Whispers from her mind in the first place? Was it some sort of ''anti-Void'' energy?


    "Tell us to get out of the Void and then don''t follow us out for ten aedra-damned minutes!"'' said Einar, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her distractingly.


    "I was doing research," she said, her voice taking on the same angry tone as his. "And stop that, I am a dragon, I will not be shaken!"


    "Research!?" he all but screamed into her face.


    "There was some kind of golden figure moving in the distance, and then an Old God-"


    "An Old God!? How can you be so blas¨¦ about those mind shattering abominations?" said Einar, shaking her more. "What is wrong with you!?"


    "My mind is not so fragile as yours," she said, baring her slightly-too-pointy to be elven teeth at him. "And you will stop shaking me!"


    "Children should not be doing ''research'' onto eldritch horrors! Did Soren-"


    "Who?"


    "The fucking vampire!" yelled Einar, who had worked himself into a real state. "Did he put you up to this?"


    "I am a whelpling; not a child!" she said testily, shoving him back, her draconic strength making him stumble several steps. "And Sorbet and I discussed the Old Gods, but I am not the servant of anything, least of all a ghoul like him. I was curious, and if you stop mothering me and shut up long enough to listen I might tell you what I have found with my formidable intellect, you ridiculous overbearing mortal!"


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    "Fine," he said through gritted teeth, trying to reign in his mortal proclivity to nonsense before speaking in a more proper tone. "What did you find?"


    "I can glow," she said, holding up her hand and drawing on the power again. Golden light burst from her skin, dancing along her finger tips.


    Einar ¨C despite his inability to glow ¨C seemed unimpressed. "You''re a wizard, of course you can glow!"


    "No you fool-" she snarled, smoke billowing from her mortal form''s nostrils as she tried to think of an even simpler a way put things. Then she changed her mind. No. If Einar didn''t want to take her seriously, she wouldn''t take him even a little bit seriously. "You know what? I don''t have to explain myself to a mortal. Go and play in the dirt, or whatever it is you do when I''m not around."


    Einar balled his hands into fists, and was probably about to say something else completely out of line when J''zargo interrupted them.


    "J''zargo is not entirely convinced that this is a ''safe place,''" said the khajiite, gesturing to the dead reptiles.


    "Dead mortals ¨C what a surprise," said Caprifexia


    "What did this is long gone according to Capri," said Einar.


    "And how long must we stay here?" asked J''zargo.


    "Capri?" asked Einar.


    "Oh, so now my vast understanding is to be drawn on?" she growled. "My wisdom valued and not mocked? I am not merely a ''disobedient child?''"


    "What are you talking about?"


    "A few hours," she snapped, moving off. "I''m going to look around."


    "Wait, hold on Capri, we shouldn''t split up," said Einar, rushing to catch up with her and grabbing her by the shoulder again.


    "I told you to stop mortal-handling me!" she snarled, a hint of flame leaping from her mouth as she shoved him away again, harder this time, sending him tumbling onto his rear. "Meet me back here in two hours. Or don''t. Whatever."


    She transformed and flapped into the air.


    "Hey, no Capri, wait! Capri!" he called out as she rose and banked away from him.


    She ignored him, accelerating and streaking off deeper into the city.


    Damn Einar. In his eyes she could never do anything right. She got chastised for not being interested enough in certain boring things, like what exactly a ''proto-drake-born'' was, but then when she tried to actually investigate real threats, like the Old Gods, she got told off! It wasn''t fair at all!


    "Irritating mortal," she hissed as she flapped over a canal with crystal clear water and into what seemed to be some kind of temple district. There the thoroughfare was made of polished and finely cut interlocking pieces of marble, and on either side were huge buildings, long wilted gardens, and statues that dominated the skyline.


    She came to a stop outside the first large building, which seemed to be dedicated to a SABIGISMF that resembled one of the local reptilian humanoids with a beetle for a head. Compared to the rather simple buildings where they had arrived, the temple was ornately carved and constructed from marble that still gleamed purple and gold in the morning light. Sections of it had, however, been hit by the wave of warping magic, and the lower half of the statue had been twisted into some kind of eerie abstract representation of itself.


    Caprifexia thought the ''God'' itself looked absurd, and the idea that a being that looked like one of the locals but also had an insectoid head was somehow a representation of ''divinity'' was ridiculous even by the incredibly low standards of mortalkind.


    "Gullible mortal fools," she said, flicking her talons in a fit of pique. "Relampus."


    A lightning bolt burst from her claws a moment later, crashing into the marble and sending the silly beetle head smashing to the ground in a shower of masonry. Caprifexia felt a brief moment of catharsis, before it faded back into a confusing fury.


    She moved onward through the plaza, blasting another of the statues, this one of a reptilian with a fish head of all things, as she went. It didn''t help her anger ¨C anger she wasn''t entirely sure why she had. Einar had been dismissive towards her before ¨C so why was she suddenly so bothered by it?


    She thought she had been getting better at indulging mortals, which was a pretty core part of being a hero as she understood it.


    Was it the khajiite? She felt pretty ambivalent towards the feline wizard, it was true. But he wasn''t a villain, so didn''t warrant summary Just-a-fireball to the face. More than that even, she could somewhat begrudgingly admit that he had helped them against the ghouls. That made him, intellectually, an ally. Didn''t it?


    Why then did she still feel an increasing dislike towards him all the same? It was ridiculous, a random mortal shouldn''t have been able to get under her scales like that.


    She reflected upon their last interaction, trying to locate the thing that had annoyed her as she flapped by two more temples, reducing their large statues to rubble as she went.


    She approached the last of the five temple-like structures, no closer to any kind of answer, and was just about to obliterate the tall statue of a winged humanoid woman when she paused.


    Something stirred in her memory from the last time she had been on the plane, pushing the anger to the back of her mind for the moment as she tried to recall exactly what the link was.


    It took her draconic mind only a moment to locate the memory and bring it to the fore in vivid detail. The carving of a similar figure above the maddened rambling''s of one of this world''s unfortunate mortals floated into her mind''s eye, the words that had been carved beneath clear and distinct: ''the angles do not add up, the circle does not close.''


    Strange, she thought, lowering her claws and releasing the magic she had gathered. Why would a race of reptiles worship an apelike figure with wings? Usually mortals went for things that resembled themselves, didn''t they?


    On a whim she moved up the temple''s steps, passing under stonework that couldn''t have been more than a decade or two old and into the main chapel itself, and which was mostly intact.


    Inside were another five statues of the winged woman, looking down from equidistant points around the circular room. At the centre stood a withered reptilian figure who, unlike all the other corpses she had seen both in the city and the cave, had a look of pure joy frozen on the half of his face that hadn''t been twisted into geometric crystal.


    Arrayed around him on all sides on curving pews were dozens and dozens more dead reptiles. A few, mainly those towards the front, bore looks of similar bliss as what she assumed was the head priest, but most looked frightened. Caprifexia somehow found the former even more disquieting than the latter. The idea that anyone, even a mortal, would willingly embrace the total destruction of self was¡­ perverse. Sick.


    Capri was about to turn and leave in disgust, when she spied an open book on the central altar. She doubted that it would have any interesting spells in it, but sometimes religions did practice some kind of magic as an attempt to ''connect'' with their so-called Gods, so she moved over and opened it.


    The text, although somewhat faded on the papyrus, was easily legible thanks to her gift of tongues, and was the same as what she had read in the cave.


    The book was titled The Word of Mirael ¨C the apparent name of the mammalian SABIGISMF with wings whose statues looked down on her. It was fairly standard religious waffle, although the object of worship stood out to her as strange. Rather than the sun, or war, or weather, or fertility, the object of worship of this particular cult was what the book called the ''Great Absence.''


    "''Great Absence,''" she muttered, returning to the first page and tapping the word. Another way of saying ''nothing.'' Another way of saying ''Void.''


    Although she''d never completed ''Theological Manipulation 101'' back at Blackrock Spire, she was fairly certain that the worship of nothingness as a concept wasn''t a particularly standard mortal foible. In fact, as far as she could remember, the only Azerothian example was the Twilight Hammer. But they had been pawns of her people, and certainly not integrated into wider mortal society enough to have temples in cities.


    She turned her attention back to the book, her eyes flying over the pages as she absorbed the convoluted rambling, and slowly a picture of the religion began to take shape in her mind.


    The worship of the so-called Goddess ''Mirael'' had been a relatively recent phenomenon on this plane, which was called ''Zarrak'' by the locals. Although it was difficult to work out exactly what the dates mentioned in the text were relative to the present, the worship of five other SABIGISMFs had already been well established when ''Mirael'' had suddenly arrived on the scene and declared herself ''greatest of the Gods.''


    There had been a brief but bloody sounding war, during which Mirael slew the previous head of the lizard people''s pantheon, and after which she had been more or less accepted into the local''s system of belief, fundamentally altering the nature of their psuedo-cosmology.


    Rather than the previous ''cycle'' embodied by the previous head ''God,'' who had been associated with the Sun, after the rise of Mirael the religion had come to centre around a promised event called the ''Unity'' ¨C when it was said that Mirael would facilitate a ''transcendence'' for the Zarrakians, removing the ''suffering that was existence'' by ushering in ''Bliss.''


    ''Bliss,'' or ''Oblivion;'' the word had a double meaning in the Zarrakian language.


    Caprifexia turned, looking up at reptilian priest with a look of joy on her face, a few things clicking into place in her labyrinthine mind.


    The priest hadn''t been afraid on the world''s destruction. He had somehow known what was coming. Known, and wanted it.


    But the winged woman ''goddess?'' Once again, that stuck out as strange.


    There was no indication, from what she had seen, of any ape-like beings on this world. Of any mammal at all, now that she thought of it. But if that was the case, then where had the impetus for an ape-like Goddess'' form come from? Why not a lizard-person with wings? Was she an Old God?


    As far as Caprifexia knew, and she knew a lot, normally there were more tentacles, and they couldn''t actually physically take humanoid forms ¨C the reality of life was too alien for them to do more than some twisted, fleshy approximation. And there wasn''t any mention of ''blessed madness'' or anything else like the thought that had infested the Twilight Cult. No, whatever she was, this ''Mirael'' wasn''t an Old God¡­


    "There you are!" came the exasperated voice of Einar, breaking her chain of thought. "Divines Capri, I thought you''d left us!"


    "I was reading," she snapped, her anger at her supposed friend coming back to the fore. Why was Einar bothering her? Hadn''t she made it clear she didn''t want to have a look around with him?


    Then she checked her internal clock, somewhat surprised that three and a half hours had already elapsed. Oh, she realised, that was probably why he sounded annoyed ¨C mortals were very particular about time. Probably a side effect of a whole ''dying from old age'' thing.


    "About religion?" he said. "I thought you said it was all mortal nonsense."


    "It is," she said. "But this religion worshipped the Void, it seemed somewhat interesting ¨C considering what happened to this place."


    Einar came to a stop beside her, looking askance at the enraptured features of the head priest.


    "Hey Capri, are we OK? You seem more prickly than usual. Which is saying something."


    "Fine."


    Einar raised an eyebrow. "I''m not as smart as you maybe, but I''m not a fool ¨C something''s bothering you."


    "Just leave me alone."


    "Yeah¡­ I''m not going to do that," he said. "Come on Capri, we''ve been through Oblivion and back together, your like my little sister ¨C a really bratty one ¨C you can tell me."


    "That''s the problem!" she snapped, locating the source of her anger as it flared at being called ''bratty.'' "I''m not a child. Stop treating me like one!"


    "Capri, you''re two," he said gently, placing a hand on the gap in her spines where her shoulders met her neck.


    "I am a dragon!" she said. "An immortal being of intellect and magic!"


    "Yes, I know," he said. "But you''re a very young one. This is about me getting angry at you for being in the Void longer than us, isn''t it? Capri, I was just worried about you, I thought you were dead."


    Caprifexia scowled at him.


    "I''m sorry for shouting and shaking you OK? I know you''re not a normal kid ¨C in a whole lot of ways you''re incredibly skilled, but in others you haven''t got any experience. But I''ll try to differentiate between those two situations better, OK? In return, maybe you can let me know what you''re planning before you do it?"


    "You also laughed at me when I discovered something interesting," she said sulkily.


    "That you can glow?"


    "No ¨C not ¨C argh!"


    "OK, I''m clearly missing the significance of this," he said. "Please, explain it in small words that my silly mortal mind can understand, oh mighty dragon."


    "Fine," she said. "If you''re going to be reasonable, for once, I suppose I can enlighten you."


    "Very kind of you."


    "I know. Anyway, the movement I saw in the Void was a glowing gold humanoid figure, which I believe might have been another Planeswalker ¨C although it was difficult to make out. Then, when the Old God started growing closer I noticed that I was also glowing ¨C I don''t know if it was the proximity of the monstrous creature, or if my perception had somehow shifted."


    "What do you mean ''your perception shifted?''" he asked.


    "The Void seems to react to one''s understanding of it," she said, before pausing, wanting to phase things carefully so he wouldn''t accidentally see what she did and be driven mad. "I¡­ see more than you do in there."


    "What-"


    "If I explain, I will probably have to burn out more of your brain."


    "Oh, err, OK, no, please don''t tell me then," he said hurriedly. "I''ll just trust you know what you''re talking about."


    "A habit that would serve you well. Anyway, I noticed, because I''m amazingly self-reflective and insightful, that this glow seems to emanate from the same place I feel a ''tug'' when I open a portal. I believe it is my ''Spark,'' what Sorbet Melon-"


    "He isn''t called-" began Einar, before realising how wrong he was. "No, never-mind, what did ''Sorbet Melon'' say?"


    "He said the ''Spark'' is what makes me even more incredible than a normal dragon; it is what makes me a ''Planeswalker.''"


    "So it''s not just a fancy glow?"


    "No," she said. "And I think I might be able to use it to avoid your¡­ insect fetish when opening portals."


    "So I can stop carrying around a spider in a jar in my pocket?"


    Caprifexia flapped away, smoking trailing from her nostrils as the furnace in her chest began to glow through her scales. "You have what in your pocket!?"


    "Err, no ¨C I definitely don''t have a spider," he said, covering a suspicious looking part of his coat. "Don''t you dare set me on fire!"


    Caprifexia glared at him, slowly letting the power in her chest fade and landing on the altar again.


    "Well you''ll get a chance to find out if you''re right soon," said Einar. "We need to get going ¨C who knows how long it will take us to get to the Greybeards, and J''zargo needs to tell Winterhold what that Thalmor prick did."


    "Fine," she said, closing the book. After a moment''s deliberation she transformed, took it and put it in her bag before resuming her draconic form. "I suppose we can go then."


    They trooped out of the temple, Caprifexia taking her position on Einar''s shoulder, a perch that was getting progressively harder and harder to find comfortable due to having put on several inches snout to tail in the last few months.


    It took them almost half an hour to make it back to the concourse where they had arrived, and where an impatient looking khajiite was tapping his foot.


    "We are ready, yes?" said J''zargo. "She is done having her tantrum?"


    "Dragons do not have ''tantrums!''" she corrected.


    "J''zargo does not believe you."


    "J''zargo, play nice. OK Capri, do your thing," said Einar.


    Caprifexia flapped off his shoulder and closed her eyes, focusing on where she felt the tug and following it down to her core, where a blazing spark shone within her. Carefully she took hold of it with her mind and directed it outward, envisaging it cutting open a portal into the Void.


    For a moment nothing happened, but then she felt a familiar tug, and when she opened her eyes there was a portal before her.


    "Hah! I am the greatest Wizard in the multiverse!" she declared.


    "Impossible ¨C that is J''zargo," said the arrogant, and totally delusional cat.


    "Nice Capri," said Einar, cutting her off before she could explain in detail to the cat why he was self-evidently wrong. "Come on, lets get going ¨C we don''t want to have to put down on another plane again."


    Caprifexia''s form shifted as the others went through the Void, trailing after them as Einar consulted his map and began heading off towards Nirn, the fleshy, eye covered growths squelching under her boots.


    "Hey Capri," said Einar a few minutes later as they descended a particular rickety set of half-rotten planks and arrived at the entrance to the plane of Nirn.


    "What?"


    "Has Nirn always looked like¡­ that?" he said, pointing to the star that led back to his home reality that was somehow had a large, deep gash cut into it. The cut spewed out multicoloured light, which bled out into the void in pulses that resembled a heartbeat.


    She shrugged, placing her hand on the ball of swirling energy and opening a portal.


    "Probably."

 The Urban Avoidance Imperative

    Einar and the cat coughed as they emerged from the Void into a thick cloud of caustic smoke.


    Caprifexia, on the other hand, took a deep breath, closing her eyes and taking in a calming lungful the heady wood-scented vapour. In the distance she heard a scream, and overhead the faint thud of a large creature''s wings.


    It reminded her a bit of home.


    "Capri!" coughed Einar from somewhere in the smoke. "Help!"


    "You''re such a whinger, it''s just a little smoke ¨C Respirante," she said, pointing a finger in the direction her friend''s voice and conjuring a ball of clear air.


    The ambient mana felt a bit odd, like it had been stretched too thin, but nonetheless a moment later she felt the spell connect and her friend stopped spluttering quite so badly. Well, it stopped him choking, his mortal splutterings would doubtless continue indefinitely.


    J''zargo managed his own much less elegant spell a moment later, and she saw his outline straighten as she made her way to Einar, who had a hand on a stone wall.


    "This is not Saarthal," she said, peering at the stonework before looking upward. Although it was hard to see through the smoke, even for a dragon, she could tell that they were outside. There had been some ruins on the surface, and they had been decrepit ¨C even by moral standards ¨C but there had been snow, not mud on the ground.


    "Soren-" began Einar.


    "Who?"


    "-Sorbet teleported us after saving us from the other vampires," said Einar. "Damn, I hadn''t considered that ¨C we could be anywhere."


    Overhead there was a roar, and they all paused for a moment.


    "J''zargo thinks there may be a dragon," said the khajiite.


    "Of course I''m here-"


    "He means a proto-drake," said Einar, flattening himself against a wall. "Capri, maybe we should leave?"


    "If I cannot see in this smoke, it certainly can''t," she said, rolling her eyes and placing one hand on the wall to orient herself before heading down what seemed to be a street they had arrived on. "We should at least see where we are before indulging your mortal cowardice."


    Her hand ran over the reasonably smooth stonework for a few moments before coming to a far harsher and angular cut.


    "Typical shoddy craftsmortalship¡­" she began, trailing off as she turned to look at what she had felt, seeing that rather than just a badly cut block the wall had instead been warped into familiar sharp geometric angles from one point to the next.


    She cast a wide spectrum diagnostic spell, hissing as it confirmed what she had suspected.


    Void Magic.


    Lots and lots and lots of Void Magic.


    She should have picked up on it, noticed the ridiculously high level of entropic mana all around her. Titans, there had barely been a drop in the ambient level of the energy between the Void itself and whatever this place was.


    It was probably why the energy around her had felt so thin. And maybe, just maybe, Einar had been right that the rent he had noticed in the entrance-way to the Plane hadn''t been there when last they''d passed by; the tear that had been leaking the energy of this world out into the Void.


    "Why has the small dragon stopped?" asked J''zargo from behind her.


    "Someone has opened a Void aperture here!" she said. "Can''t you feel how the mana is all warped?"


    "Err yeah," said Einar. "You just did that Capri-"


    "No, not me you insufferable-" she said, freezing as she heard a faint stomping sound. Something began to itch in the back of her mind, and beside her Einar rubbed his temple.


    "Ugh, my head-"


    "Hide!" she hissed, grabbing Einar and pulling him across into an archway partially blocked by the detritus of a smashed wagon. A moment later the cat followed them, hunching down and peering into the gloom.


    As the stomping grew closer the itch in her mind grew more pronounced, and Caprifexia bit her lip as her skin began to glow golden, and what she had suspected was confirmed. It wasn''t an Old God, they couldn''t have manifested from such a relatively trivial wound in the skein of reality, but it was definitely one of their servants.


    "My mind hurts," whimpered Einar, closing his eyes and gripping his forehead.


    On an impulse, which she had probably picked from spending to much time around sappy mortals, she grabbed his hand in some kind of insipid attempt to reassure him. Rather than just prop up his fragile emotions, however, there was an actual effect, and the golden glow spread from her hand and moved up and over his body, visibly relaxing him.


    "What did you-"


    "Shush!" she hissed, grabbing the cat''s paw and extending her Spark''s field of protection over the khajiite as well.


    Not because she was especially concerned for his welfare, but because if the thing she could hear coming was what she thought it was, then she didn''t want it to have a telepathic foothold in the mind of anyone anywhere near her.


    A moment later an enormous figure appeared in the smoke, from the direction of where they had arrived, or rather, the two fleshy legs and two tentacles dragging through the mud belonging to it did.


    There hadn''t been many of the creatures in Blackwing Lair, since their presence alone tended to have a deleterious effect on the productivity of the mortal slaves, and the first affects of which had been felt by Einar, but there had been enough of them around for her to recognise one when she saw it.


    A Faceless One.


    Walking upright like an horrific caricature of a mortal, its body disappeared up into the smoke. In the place of arms and it had writhing purplish red fleshy tentacles that trailed along the ground, and rather than a face there was a hideous crown of more tentacles, several fang-filled mouths, and lolling tongues. Wherever it trod reality twisted and warped, and even as Caprifexia watched the cart they were hiding behind began to subtly shift and change, the wood taking on a kind of rough hexagonal pattern.


    Like the wall she had just examined.


    Like the buildings on bare, desertous world of Zarrack.


    Caprifexia''s breath caught in her throat as the monster came to a stop, it''s tentacles twisting too and fro as it made a kind of snuffling sound as it searched the area. Searched for them. For her.


    Of course, she thought, a being of the Void would have been able to sense her transit to and from it''s native realm. For an abomination like that her portal would have been the thaumic equivalent of summoning a thunderstorm ¨C obvious, flashy, and impossible to ignore.


    The fact that it hadn''t already found her, sensed her, however, seemed to confirm her brilliantly deduced theories about her Spark''s ability to ward off the powers of the Void. It was almost certainly the reason that the Old One''s hold on her had been broken in the first place, and why her incredible mind was even more resistant to their Whispers than a normal dragon.


    Although, amazing as Caprifexia was, it didn''t seem her protection was full-proof, and slowly but surely the tentacles crept closer, padding and pawing at the ground, leaving behind twisted geometry and a slimy residue wherever they touched.


    Carefully, taking care not to disturb the surrounding flow of mana too much, Caprifexia wove an illusion. It took a while, since she couldn''t use a mnemonic in case it heard, and she hadn''t practised extensively with the discipline, but she managed, keeping her focus even as the creature closed in on them, taking another earth shaking step and extending a tentacle toward the cart.


    Crash.


    The tentacles swivelled as the sound of something heavy and metal falling echoed from further down the road, followed by a high pitched Einar-like scream and the exaggerated sound of running footfalls.


    The creature took the bait, it''s tentacles moving off in the direction of the noise as it''s tree-trunk like legs lumbered off.


    "What the fuck was that?" hissed Einar as Caprifexia began to drag him and the cat off in the opposite direction. "Capri-"


    "A Faceless One," she said, the glow of her skin beginning to recede as the stomping faded into the distance. "A servant of the Old Ones."


    "What was it doing here?" asked J''zargo "And why did the small dragon not open a portal?"


    "That was a creature of the Void," she said. "They might not be able to easily cross into reality, but they can definitely move the other way. If I had Planeswalked it would have followed us ¨C it almost certainly felt me when I arrived."


    "J''zargo asks again ¨C what was it doing here?" said J''zargo. "J''zargo has never heard of these¡­ ''Void'' creatures before, and he is very wise and well read. And handsome."


    "I don''t know," she said as another roar shook the sky. "But we need to get away from here. Even I can''t fight a Faceless that big, so you wouldn''t stand a chance."


    "J''zargo is a mighty wizard-"


    "No," she said firmly. "You don''t know what you''re talking about, you foolish mortal. You will die if you attempt to fight them, and then Einar will never shut up about it. No. I forbid it."


    "J''zargo does not follow your orders-"


    "-Einar, make the cat behave-"


    "-he isn''t a cat-"


    "-J''zargo is not a cat-"


    "-whatever-"


    "-J''zargo, she does have a point," said Einar. "Capri does know a lot about the Void ¨C her people used to be pretty much slaves to it."


    "J''zargo still thinks he would triumph."


    There was a bloodcurdling roar in the distance that cut off halfway through, followed by the sound of a ground-shaking implosion.


    "Or¡­ maybe he would not," speculated the feline.


    The smoke began to thin as they rushed down the road. Alongside them more and more buildings that had been twisted by the effects of whatever had brought the Faceless to the town, and in places a piece of particularly twisted and geometrified wood or stone had floated entirely free of the rest of the structure.


    Then they turned a corner and emerged into open air, revealing a skyline of densely packed squat stone buildings aflame within tall curtain walls. Beyond the fortifications were towering jagged mountain peaks, their sides pure-white with heavy snow.


    It took a few moments for Caprifexia to place where she had seen their shapes before, but then she recognised them as mountains and ridge-lines she had passed to the east and then south as Einar had been following her to the college after his little tantrum, which meant, thankfully, that they were still in Skyrim.


    Within the town itself several clumps of mortals doing what could generously be termed ''fighting'' against perhaps half a dozen Faceless giants and myriad lesser voidspawn, and overhead, in smoggy sky several proto-drakes wheeled above the city ¨C probably responsible for all the pleasant fire and smoke.


    The single most eye-catching element, however, was the towering beam of colourless energy erupting near the centre of the city that shot into the sky and had utterly warped the surrounding buildings beyond recognition. It seemed to drink in the light around it, and even as Caprifexia watched she saw twisted masses of fleshy voidspawn emerge, ranging from creatures as large as her whelpling form to those the size of those horses the mortals loved so much.


    "This is¡­ this is Windhelm!" gasped the cat, apparently recognising the city.


    "What in Oblivion is that?" said Einar, pointing at the beam of void light.


    "That is the tear I saw on the entrance-way to Nirn when we were in the void," said Caprifexia. "Obviously."


    "Did the dragons make it?" asked Einar.


    "J''zargo does not think so," said J''zargo, gesturing to a proto-drake as it strafed a Faceless one, it''s fire consuming the towering giant entirely for a moment, before the flames faded, revealing an entirely unharmed monster. "They do not seem pleased by the presence of these ''Faceless.''"


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    "Einar, you''ve been here before?" said Caprifexia. "Where is an exit? We need to leave ¨C now."


    "What? We can''t just abandon this place," said Einar. "We need to help, you''re suppose to be a hero-"


    "What part of ''I cannot defeat Faceless'' did you not understand you rock-brained mortal!?"


    "But won''t this just spread? That rift I mean."


    "Unless a given existence''s metaphysical defences are utterly shattered, or there are extremely unusual circumstances, then the energy required to keep a void-tear open is equal to the factor of the size of the initial aperture and whatever that world''s specific void integrity quotient is to the power of the number of seconds since the aperture was opened," she explained clearly. "In the absence of any directed energy keeping the tear open, the diameter of the aperture will shrink at a rate equal to the factor of 0.033 times the inverse of the void integrity quotient to the power of the time since it stopped receiving energy, plus the initial size of the aperture."


    There was a moment of silence.


    "¡­ what?" said Einar in an exasperated voice.


    "E=ai?vt? and da?=0.033(-vt?) + ai?, respectively," she said, rolling her eyes.


    "What does that even mean!?"


    "They''re exponential functions you ignorant ape."


    "I don''t know what those are!" said Einar.


    "J''zargo believes the small dragon is saying, in her typically confusing manner, that the ''tear'' will close by itself eventually, no matter how much energy is being used to maintain it," said J''zargo, apparently eventually able to wrap his tiny mind around her perfectly clear explanation and rather simple mathematics.


    Honestly. It was a wonder that mortals had ever learnt to make fire.


    "Oh, that''s much clearer," said Einar.


    "It''s precisely what I said!"


    "Sure it was Capri," conceded Einar, rolling his eyes in shame at his own ignorance. "But for those who can''t do horrific mathematics in their head, how long is ''eventually?'' Those things seem virtually indestructible. Even the ''proto-drakes'' aren''t so much as denting them."


    "I''d need to know this world''s VIQ to answer that, and I would need to do some experiments to work that out."


    "Guess."


    "Well Azeroth''s VIQ was 1.0001, but I suspect that this world''s might be higher, since you don''t seem to have an Old God infestation," she said. "But if that tear was on Azeroth, without any energy being added to it¡­ thirty three hours."


    "So those things will keep on pouring out of that portal for more than a whole day? Capri, they''ll overrun Nirn."


    "Oh don''t be so melodramatic, no they wont," she said, rolling her eyes. "Faceless are incredibly powerful when able to draw directly on Void energy, but they are fundamentally inimical to reality and without a constant supply of power they and the lesser spawn will wither and diminish. This is a self-solving problem."


    "Dammit Capri, what about all the people who are going to get hurt before it ''solves itself?'' Hero''s care about that."


    "As I have said multiple times you deaf mortal: I cannot fight Faceless. My sentiments are irrelevant. We have no option but to flee ¨C preferably before you ask me any more inane questions."


    Overhead a proto-drake soared overhead, unleashing a shard of ice at a one of the monstrosities. It had more effect than the fire, and the creature stumbled from the force of the blow. But the ice didn''t piece it''s fleshy body, and instead a tentacle whipped up, snaring the fake-dragon out of the air and dragging it down to the ground. The two-legged reptile thrashed and roared, trying to escape, but the creature tightened it''s grip and the proto-drake''s movements became more and more feeble.


    "OK, I can see what you mean," gulped Einar as the proto-drake''s neck snapped with an audible crack. "There''s, err, a gate this way."


    "Why is the Dragon''s Thu''um not affecting the creatures?" asked J''zargo as they ran down the warped street, watching as to their right a Faceless, taller than the three story houses shrugged off another blast of fire effortlessly, responding with a torrent of void magic that narrowly missed the circling reptile.


    "Einar said the ''Voice'' is some ridiculous magic specific to this world," she theorised. "The ''language of the SABIGISMFs-''"


    "The what?" asked J''zargo.


    "Sufficiently Advanced Beings that are Indistinguishable from Gods to Idiotic and Superstitious Mortal Fools," explained Caprifexia.


    "What?"


    "She means the Divines," said Einar. "Capri is an atheist."


    "An¡­ atheist?" said the small minded feline, as if this somehow was an incomprehensible position, instead of self-evidently the most logical and reasonable one. "But the Divines exist. There is documented proof of their interventions and manifestations, J''zargo has read many accounts. Restoration magic comes directly from Mara. On what possibly grounds could they be denied?"


    "I have explained all this," said Einar. "But, as you''ve probably realised, you can''t really convince Capri of anything if she thinks she''s right and you''re wrong."


    "J''zargo has noticed this," said the cat, nodding and stroking his chin.


    "Are you done being ignorant mortal fools?" she snapped. "Good. As I was saying, if the ''magic'' of this ''Voice'' is just commanding the ridiculous artificial laws of this reality to bend to accomplish something, then it will have very little affect on a being outside those laws."


    "That¡­ actually sort of makes sense," said Einar as they rounded another corner, coming into sight of the gate.


    Ahead of them was a crowd of mainly civilians, cowering behind a line of blue-clad Nord men and women, who were struggling to push past a line of voidspawn to the gate itself.


    Had she been alone, she would have just flapped over their heads, but Einar was with her, and she couldn''t abandon him. Oh, and she was a hero. She should probably help the civilians escape the death-trap of a city. That was heroic, wasn''t it?


    "Out of the way mortals," she said, shoving a small child to the side who was taking up far too much of the road. They fell over and started crying, but that seemed very much like a them problem.


    The others swiftly parted, learning the small one''s lesson as fire blossomed around her fist, blasting forward a moment later and smashing into one of the lesser abominations. A blonde soldier yelped as the searing column lightly singed her hair and clothes, but as usual, it was nothing but mortal melodrama.


    "Ahh!" screamed the woman, batting at her hair as the flame-wreathed voidspawn she had been fighting convulsed and died. Well, not died, it wasn''t really alive to begin with ¨C it just sort of lost cohesion and sank down into the ground in a puddle of noxious bubbling fluid.


    Caprifexia ignored the ungrateful and flammable mortal''s over-the-top wailing, skewering another of the voidspawn with a viciously sharp spike of rock.


    "Capri!" whinged Einar as she obliterated a third spawn.


    "What?"


    "That thing ¨C the ''Faceless'' ¨C that we saw in the smoke, it''s coming! I can feel it in my head again."


    Caprifexia turned, her eyes widening as the twenty meter high monstrosity rounded the corner. Although Caprifexia couldn''t be sure, since it wasn''t called a ''Faceless'' for nothing, she got the distinct impression it was looking at her.


    The mob of mortal civilians also saw it, and probably felt it in their small, feeble minds. They surged forward toward the gate, screaming as they jostled past her and the mortal guards, ignoring the still living voidspawn even as the smaller monstrosities cut dozens of them down. The soldiers broke a moment later, adding even more chaos to the terrified stampede.


    "Cat, protect Einar!" she said, her hands shaking as she moved towards the creature, transforming and flapping above the throng. Her scales began to glow as the creature neared, although it didn''t block out the entirety of the creature''s telepathic aura.


    "J''zargo is not a cat!" said the cat angrily, but nonetheless obeying and grabbing Einar, pushing him towards the gate and blasting apart a voidspawn that lunged at him.


    Content that her friend was as safe as could be managed given the circumstances, Caprifexia bared her fangs at the approaching Faceless. Her normal magic would have more of an affect than the silly fake dragon''s ''Thu''um,'' but there was no way that even an immensely powerful whelpling like her could conjure a firestorm large enough to harm such a huge Faceless, let alone while it was being strengthened so much by it''s close proximity to the rift.


    That didn''t, however, mean she was without options to slow it down. She was a dragon. Dragons always had options.


    She reached for the sickly, cloying power of the Void, and immediately whispers far louder than anything the Faceless could manage pressed down on her, threatening to overwhelm her focus as she began to shape her spell.


    W?????????????????????????e???????????????????????????? ??????????????????w????????????????i??????????????????????l??????????????l??????????????????? ?????????????????????????????c??????????????????????????o???????????????n??????????s????????????????????????u????????????????????????m??????????????????e??????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????y????????????????????o???????????????????????u???????????????????????????r???????????????????? ????????????????????????????s???????????????????o???????????????????u????????????????????????l?????????????????.?????????.?????????????.?????????????????????????


    The magic built, colourless light dancing over her claws as she gradually forged it into a lance. The creature drew closer, it''s thudding steps shaking the buildings around her as the golden light from under her scales grew and grew and grew. Her head began to throb as the whispers began to cut into her mind, digging in like a dagger behind her right eye.


    Y???????????????o?????????????????u???????????????? ?????c???????????????a??????????????????n????????????????n?????????????????????????o?????????????t????????????? ??????????????????????????e???????????????????s?????????????????????c???????a??????????p???????????????e??????????????????.???????????.?????????????????.??????????? ????????????????????????


    "Nulius!" she shouted, and a lance of void light shot from her claws, streaking down the road and striking the charging creature in the leg.


    The silly ''Thu''um'' might have not worked against the Faceless, and normal, proper magic would also have had a reduced effectiveness on a creature soaked in the energy of unreality. But Caprifexia had not used normal magic, she had fashioned a bolt of razor sharp energy from the same force that animated the creature, so rather than bouncing off, or leaving a small wound, her bolt of void energy cut straight through the creature''s left leg in a shower of purple blood and gore.


    The creature screamed telepathically, and Caprifexia grinned ferally as it slowly and ponderously began to fall, crashing face-less first into the filthy mortal street with enough force that a nearby, half-burnt house collapsed.


    It wasn''t dead, she knew, but she hadn''t been trying for that. Even a whelp as unusually powerful, magnificent, clever, and generally amazing as herself wasn''t up to that kind of magic. It would heal, and probably quite quickly, but the attack had been enough to slow it down.


    And if the creature was foolish enough to stray far from the Void-soaked ambient energy of the tear? Well then it would begin to wither, and then she ¨C with perhaps some moral support from the cat ¨C would have no trouble ripping it to shreds.


    She allowed herself a few moments to bask in her victory before she turned, flapping after Einar and roasting one of the straggling voidspawn with a blast of dragonfire as she soared under the twisted stonework of the gatehouse and out into the churned snow, streaking after the fleeing mortals.

 The Feline Insubordination Incident

    <div>


    "What are you looking at, you filthy mortals?" snapped Caprifexia as she passed by a rough cookfire, glaring at the dozen or so dirty hairless apes smiling at her.


    Their grins faded, and they looked at each other in confusion as Caprifexia moved onward up the small gully, looking for where the bleeding-hearted Einar had run off to.


    It was the evening after Caprifexia had heroically single-handedly saved the inhabitants of the mortal city of Windhelm from total destruction, and for some reason Einar and the cat had insisted on ''helping'' the displaced refugees, rather than getting back to the, in comparison, far more interesting quest to kill all the disgusting proto-drakes.


    The camp itself was nestled in a sheer-faced gully around an abandoned, burnt out farmhouse at the edge of some woods. To the north, over what had once been fields, the fading light of the tear into the Void could be seen. On either side, to the east and west, rose steep, snowy slopes that quickly gave way to vertical cliffs, and high above them to the south was a towering snowy peak. It had a name, but she hadn''t been listening to Einar on the way up. After using Void magic she''d had a pretty bad headache, the last after affects of which hadn''t quite disappeared.


    The Faceless and their spawn hadn''t followed them, not wishing to stray too far from the source of their power, and apparently content ¨C as far as a nigh unintelligible horror could be content ¨C to battle the stream of proto-drakes that seemed drawn to the wound in reality like mortals to shiny baubles, and which could still be seen in the distance, pouring flame down onto the distant smoking ruins of Windhelm.


    The cat was off somewhere healing people, although she didn''t particularly care. Discovering that he had had the ability to heal came as no real surprise ¨C the lack of the discipline to stick one area of the art and seek perfection was emblematic of a scatty-brained mortal approach to magic ¨C and life generally.


    But worst of all, Einar had insisted that she wear her mortal form while in the makeshift camp. Apparently her true form would ''overwhelm'' the cowering, simpering, and dirty mortals. And while she could easily believe that, this was apparently a reason not to do it. ''Scaring innocent people'' wasn''t considered heroic. Allegedly.


    Finally, after snapping at three more groups of the dishevelled mortals for not minding their own business she found him boiling strips of cloth by one of the fires. Why exactly Einar thought that clothing made good food, she had no idea, but mortals were pretty weird and she didn''t have time to try and understand every single one of their irrational foibles.


    "There you are," she said, sniffing suspiciously at the bubbling mixture.


    "Oh, hey Capri," he said, putting a stick into the mixture and pulling out several of the clothes and arranging them to dry. "Need something? Get bored of your book?"


    "These mortals will not leave me alone," she said. "They keep on bothering me, staring, doing strange things with their hats, and holding out babies at me. I do not like it."


    "It''s probably because, and I know this might seem pretty weird, they think you''re actually a hero," he chortled, clearly finding the constant stream of irritation amusing. "After all, it was pretty impressive how you hamstrung that Faceless."


    "Everything I do is impressive, and that has never resulted in pestering before," she said. "How do I make them stop? Fire?"


    "No! No fire!" said Einar urgently.


    "How then?"


    "Capri, why are you annoyed about being appreciated?" he said. "Normally you demand recognition for doing absolutely nothing. Now your getting it for something you actually did. You actually acted like a hero, saving all those people-"


    "Their survival was purely incidental. I was protecting you, not them."


    "I suppose being a hero incidentally is still being a hero," he said. "Just be nice. OK? These people have been through a lot."


    "I am always nice. I am a dragon."


    Einar seemed to find this amusing, and chuckled to himself as he added more rags to the clothes soup.


    "Do you have any idea about what caused the tear?" he asked, growing more sombre.


    "Some kind of powerful spacial magic," said Caprifexia, waving a mortal hand airily.


    "Did someone on this side create it?"


    "Of course, if the Old Gods could open portals into reality from the Void on a whim this world would have been destroyed eons ago."


    Einar hummed pensively and went back to stirring while Caprifexia opened the first of the books Sorbet had given her, and which she''d been trying to read all evening. She wasn''t entirely sure that the undead hadn''t been pulling her tail about tapping remotely into the magic of a place and using it without changing it''s form, but the prospect of being able to cast magic without growing tired was too tempting to pass up.


    Even her relatively small use of Void magic against the Faceless had given her a headache that pulsed irritatingly behind her eyes. Not that any of the ''five aspects of mana'' would let her use void magic without the associated exhaustion, at least, she didn''t think so. ''Black'' seemed to broadly fall under the schools of umbramancy, and was not the un-energy of the Void itself.


    Caprifexia was just about to start one of the meditative exercises that the book spoke about when Einar finished cooking his rags and began to fold the dry ones for later consumption. Or something, she didn''t really care, what annoyed her was that he felt the need to bother her yet again.


    "Capri," he said. "That desert plane, the destroyed one-"


    "Zarrak."


    "How do you know it''s name- no, nevermind, ''you''re a dragon,''" he said, demonstrating his almost endearing limited capacity to learn. "Was it destroyed by something similar to what happened in Windhelm?"


    "I told you-"


    "About the ''Void Integrity Quotient,'' yes," he said. "But I''m asking if something like what happened Windhelm could be part of, err¡­ lowering it?"


    "No, that would be a separate process," she said. "It would require a generalised weakening of the barriers of reality, not a specific and localised rip in space-time."


    "But the actual ''rips'' that were made if the ''Void Integrity Quotient'' was bought to ''1'' could have been like in Windhelm?"


    "Hypothetically," she said, somewhat impressed he had managed to understand that much. Well¡­ the cat had probably told him. "At at VIQ of exactly 1, tears would neither expand nor contract without outside influence."


    "So how do you think ''Zarrak'' died?"


    "Does this matter? I''m in the middle of trying the make sense of that ridiculous vampire''s silly magic."


    "Yeah Capri, it matters."


    "Fine," she said, devoting her immense mind to the problem for a moment. "I suppose that the death of Zarrak''s so-called ''Sun-God'' could have weakened the defences of the reality ¨C if the SABIGISMFs of that world were integral to maintaining it, like they apparently are here."


    "Wait ¨C one of that world''s Gods died?" he said. "How do you know that?"


    "I read it in a book."


    "What ''book?''" asked Einar.


    "One I found in that temple, the one with the statutes of the winged woman."


    "So if Nirn''s Gods were to die, maybe even just one of them, then the same thing could happen?"


    "Probably," she said with a shrug.


    Einar trailed off again pensively, stacking the cleaned food-rags into a box and handing them to another one of the stare-y mortals. Hoping that she might finally be able to try out one of the book''s exercises, Caprifexia closed her eyes once again, calming her mind and sensing the mana around her.


    According to the book one accomplished ''bonding'' with the energy of a place by understanding it. She wasn''t exactly sure what they meant by that, she had been able to feel the ebb and flow of energy around her since before she''d hatched, the great flowing lines of power that were the lifeblood of reality, that kept the world''s various systems in balance, weaving together into the mind-boggling tapestry that was creation.


    And she already understood it, the various formulae and rules she had learned and put together from both her classes and ancestral memories explained what was happening around her. She knew why ley-lines formed, where they were likely to fork or fuse, and how to tap into them for ritual magic. She could list the seven laws of astral flux by heart. She knew how to weave power into fire and ice and electricity. She could feel if someone near her was casting magic, and sense if objects were affecting the flow of energy around them. She already understood.


    But that incredible and concrete knowledge, apparently, wasn''t wishy-washy enough for the discipline, because as the night trudged onward and she heard the simpering mortals grow silent as they bedded down under whatever shelter they could find she still hadn''t managed to create the ''bond'' that the book spoke of.


    "Stupid vague magic," she huffed, opening her eyes and standing, stretching her mortal body that had become sore for sitting in place for so long.


    Einar was still nearby, rolled up tightly in what looked like only one of his usual three blankets. She spotted the other two nearby, draped over two grubby looking children. He shivered, and she reflexively cast a warming charm over the recklessly soft-hearted fool and, after a moment''s deliberation, over the disgusting snotty nosed juvenile mortals as well.


    In the distance the tear was still open, although it seemed to be on it''s last legs. The proto-drakes were still attacking, and from the look of it, the Faceless were already becoming diminished.


    The entire episode was vaguely worrying, despite her attempts to reassure the latest of Einar''s never ending neurosis. Tears into the Void did not just open themselves, and the although she had heard of the rituals needed to create them, they implied incredibly powerful and complicated magic ¨C the kind that normally only ancient dragons could accomplish.


    And why attack this random mortal town? As far as she knew, and she was reasonably confident that she had a handle on the pointless mortal politics of this realm, it was pretty unimportant. It certainly couldn''t have been some kind of seat of power given the way it had crumpled instantly ¨C nothing that could possibly have threatened a spellcaster powerful enough to open the tear in the first place.


    So why had the caster done it? She was clearly missing something key.


    With a huff she pushed the thoughts aside and closed her eyes again, reaching out into the mana around her, letting it flow around her and trying to achieve the vague ''insight'' that the book spoke of.


    Nothing happened, but as the minutes ticked by and she delved deeper and deeper into the flow she began to feel a slight disturbance a few kilometres to the north. It wasn''t anything like what the book described, but she seized upon it and mentally followed its to it''s source. After all, the author had only been a mortal ¨C it wouldn''t have surprised her if they were wrong.


    The disturbance vanished a moment later, and she lost the thread. She was about to pull her consciousness back when she felt it again, clearer this time, next to the far, far fainter, but still distinct and identifiable sickly cloying feel of dark magic bunching around what felt like a dozen figures.


    A dozen figures who reeked of necromantic magic.


    Her eyes snapped open.


    "Einar!" she barked, rushing over to him and shaking his shoulder. "Einar! Wake up you lazy mortal!"


    "What? Capri?" he said groggily, half-pushing her away. "It''s super late, go to sleep."


    "There are spell-casters coming ¨C using dark magic."


    "Spellcasters?" he said, his brow furrowing. "What do you mean-"


    "Vampires, I believe," she said. "To the north, down the gully."


    His eyes cleared, and a moment later he was on his feet.


    "Are you sure?"


    "I am a drag-"


    "OK, you''re sure," he said, rushing over to J''zargo and shaking the cat awake. "J''zargo, Capri has sensed some vampire''s approaching."


    "Vampires?" said the cat, sitting up and rubbing his furry head. "Is she sure it was not just a bad dream? She is a child-"


    "Of course I''m sure, you overgrown mortal house-pet," growled Caprifexia.


    "J''zargo is not-"


    "We don''t have time to argue about just how much of a bigot Capri is," said Einar, pulling the cat up and pushing him northward. "I''ll wake everyone ¨C you two slow them down, do something wizardy!"


    The gully ran toward the ruins of the city itself, and had been the way that they had come up earlier that day, and although she could easily have flown over either side of the steep walls, east or west, the sheer cliffs were more or less impassable to the pathetic mortals that it seemed to be her responsibility to babysit.


    "How many did you sense?" asked J''zargo as he cast a series of warelights out over the snowy plane, illuminating it in flickering blue light.


    "A dozen," she said.


    "That is too many vampires to fight directly, even for J''zargo."


    "What about the mortals, could we use them as meat shields?" asked Caprifexia.


    J''zargo raised an eyebrow. "J''zargo thought you were a ''hero.''"


    "A pragmatic hero ¨C the best kind of hero."


    "If the refugees were all trained and armed they might stand a chance," said J''zargo. "But most are craftspeople, or labourers."


    "There were a few soldiers," she said.


    "That might help. But they are not trained to fight undead killing machines stronger and faster than they are," said J''zargo, scratching his furry chin. "And J''zargo does not think more than perhaps a dozen survived ¨C even with ten times that J''zargo would not give them good odds."


    Caprifexia cleared her throat and waited for a few beats.


    "¡­ so that''s a no on the craftspeople and labourer meat shields?"


    "Of course!" said J''zargo, having the temerity to sound exasperated. "You cannot save people by getting them killed!"


    "Fine, if we''re arbitrarily not allowed to use all the resources available to us what do you suggest?"


    "Vampires are weak to sunlight," said J''zargo.


    "It''s the middle of the night. Are you blind?"


    "J''zargo is just brainstorming."


    "''Storm?'' Hah. It''s barely a light squall with you mortals."


    "You are a very unhelpful ''dragon.''"


    "Alright ¨C they don''t like fire either."


    "Better," he nodded, looking up at the sides of the gully. "We cannot flee anywhere except backward, and there may not be a way all the way up the mountain behind us, let alone down the other side."


    "What about the vampires, could they surround us?" she asked. She wasn''t really sure what this world''s particular brand of vampires were capable of. Back on Azeroth they had had wings, but the one that had tried to eat Einar, and who she had set on fire, heroically, had looked more or less like any other mortal.


    "J''zargo does not think so," he said. "They are strong and fast, but those cliffs are very steep. Vampires are also arrogant, if we attack, they will likely not consider going around us."


    "Then we have another advantage, I can fly to safety."


    "¡­ J''zargo does not see how that helps slay the vampires."


    "I''m just ''brainstorming.''"


    "You are too small to carry anyone," he said. "What about opening a portal into the Void with your strange and inadequately explained magic? Evacuate the refugees that way?"


    "This close to a rip like that?" she said, gesturing to the still visible pillar of Void light. "A Faceless might feel it and follow us back into the Void. And then we''d all be definitely dead."


    She also wasn''t entirely sure, if it was her Spark that protected her friend (and the cat), that she would be capable of shielding so many people from the ravages of the Void at once. She had certainly gotten exhausted before when overusing her incredible, amazing ability in a short period of time, so immediately testing her limits with over a hundred of the mortal refugees did not seem a good idea.


    "Then we must either slay them all, or delay them long enough for the sun to rise," he said.


    "Sunrise is not for another four hours and sixteen minutes."


    "How do you know that so exactly?" asked the cat.


    "I am a dragon."


    The cat harrumphed and looked out over the snowy field.


    "J''zargo will begin making some runic traps," he said. "You go forward and scout, let J''zargo know when they are getting close."


    "Who put you in charge?" said Caprifexia.


    "J''zargo is the most senior wizard present, therefore he should be in charge. It is only logical."


    "Pah, ''senior?'' Only in time spent floundering with cantrips, not in ability or power or intelligence or general magnificence," she said. "Besides, I am immortal, you are mortal, therefore I should be in charge. It''s only natural."


    "We do not have time to argue this," said the cat. "Why are you opposed to my idea?"


    "I''m not, on principle," she said, transforming into her whelpling form. "But I''m in charge."


    "Does that mean you are going to go and scout?" he said as he moved forward, carefully beginning to carve a runic array into the snow.


    "Only because I''ve decided to incorporate elements of your suggestion into my master plan."


    "So long as J''zargo gets his warning, the small lizard can believe what she wants."


    "I am not a lizard!"


    "J''zargo is not a cat!"


    Caprifexia growled at him, before taking off into the air and climbing rapidly, heading northward. The moon wasn''t out, and the sky was clouded over, but the light from the Void rift cast eerie flickering light over the entire valley.


    She spotted the vampires less than a minute later. They were casually strolling up the snowy path in no apparent hurry, chuckling and laughing to one another. To the naked eye they looked like fairly normal, boring mortals. Most of them were humans, with one or two elves, and one of the reptilian humanoids - ''agronian'' she thought they were called ¨C who was wearing heavy, dark-steel plate armour, and who seemed to be the leader, judging by her position at the front of the group.


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    If they saw her high above them, they gave no indication. Caprifexia contemplated conjured a ball of fire and dropping it on them, but her brilliant plan, which she had J''zargo executing the grunt work of back near the burntout farmhouse, was the catch them unawares in a web of poorly crafted, but hopefully effective magically charged arrays.


    Usually runic arrays they were carefully carved into an object with a specific purpose by taking a circle, at least one kind of geometric shape, and whatever script the wizard in question preferred to work with. The combination of the shape, the distance between symbols, and the understanding that the caster had of all those elements was what turned the energy that the array was charged with into an effect of some kind.


    Normally one took pains to make sure if the array became compromised in some way then the energy would discharge in a more or less controlled manner, hopefully not entirely destroying the artefact or area in question so it would be possible to repair, and not immediately killing anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby.


    J''zargo''s arrays, however, were hopefully ¨C assuming he knew what his job in her master plan was ¨C not going to feature any such fail-safes. Instead they would be focused on hiding their thaumic signature as much as possible, and holding the energy in some kind of particularly destructive form so that when someone, say a vampire, stepped on the lines and disrupted them they would destabilise. Explosively.


    Back on Azeroth some of the mortal races had made a treaty banning the use of ''hidden underground trap-runic arrays,'' but her people had never paid any attention to such nonsense, and had used them extensively in their war against mortal-kind.


    From her vantage point high in the air Caprifexia could see Einar herding the bleary eyed mortal refugees higher up into the gully, and the cat working his way backward across the field, quickly carving circles, triangles, and symbols with his claws, charging the shape with energy, and then covering them gently in conjured snow.


    She waited until the strolling vampires were nearing a rise that would bring them into view of the farmhouse before turning and flapping back to the cat, who had worked quickly and was nearly back at the farmhouse.


    "They''re coming?" he said, finishing one last rune and covering it in snow.


    "Yes," she said. "Twelve of them, an agronian-"


    "-argonian-"


    "-whatever, seems to be the leader. She is wearing armour, it might be enchanted."


    "J''zargo sees," said the cat. "Come, help J''zargo with an illusion that the camp is still full ¨C we do not want them to know that we know that they are coming."


    Caprifexia nodded, glad that the cat was sticking so closely to her plan, and raised her claws.


    "Mentidus," she intoned, conjuring a few simple images of mortals cooking and drinking clothes soup. They weren''t fully three dimensional, the lines weren''t great, the colours were flat, and the movements a bit janky, but so long as the vampire''s didn''t look too closely it would seem from afar like a perfectly normal scene of mortal life.


    The cat conjured some more illusions, needlessly wasting time on realism as she conjured more images, until the now empty camp looked like it was filled with dirty mortals.


    Once they were done she flapped over to where the cat hunkered down behind the shell of the farmhouse, alighting on what had once been the structure''s eave as the group of vampires crested the rise and came into view.


    The vampires were no longer strolling along, and had instead fanned out, their movements full of swift and fluid grace. A human might have had had trouble seeing them, but Caprifexia had no difficulty picking out their dark forms. Cats, and she assumed therefore also ''khajiite,'' were also renowned for their eyesight.


    The vampires were almost halfway across the snowy field before one of them hit a runic mine.


    As one of the elvish vampire''s boots broke the thin crust of fresh snow there was a brief flare of orange lightning, before with a deafening boom an explosion sent snow and small bits of vampire flying across the field. The other vampires froze, staring at the pair of smoking boots that was all that remained of their fellow.


    He might have been a puffed up, overconfident, fluffy mortal fool, but she''d admit, J''zargo could certainly could create unstable and dangerously shoddily crafted runic circles. She supposed there were some upsides to being a terrible wizard.


    "Don''t move," hissed the agronian vampire, baring her teeth as her cold yellow eyes flicked over the field, eventually settling on the flat and completely obviously unreal illusions that J''zargo had put up in what could only be described as reckless expedience. "Wizards ¨C they felt us coming; you idiot Horvan, I told you not to curse that owl."


    "How was I to know-" began a once-human vampire.


    "Shut up," she said. "Retrace your steps ¨C exactly, unless you want to end up like Jezerella over there."


    "We''re retreating? But I was promised blood!" complained the apparently suicidal vampire called Horvan. "You said there would be easy pickings, that winged-"


    "Shut up before I rip out your tongue," snarled the Agronian. "We are not retreating ¨C we are falling back so we can detonate this death-trap safely."


    "J''zargo does not think they will like this next part," whispered J''zargo, holding up a paw as they began to retreat.


    "What?" said Caprifexia.


    "Not all the arrays were shallow enough to be set off by a boot," he said as orange lightning began to arc between his claws. "They passed over many before reaching that one."


    Caprifexia and the cat shared sharp toothy grins as he closed his fist, and Caprifexia again revised her estimation of the cat slightly upward in her mind.


    If the previous detonation had been loud, but the rest of the back line of runic-mines was ear-splitting. The entire far side of the snowfield erupted in a blaze of orange fire, obscuring the entire scene as ice, dirt, bits of clothing and vampire dust rained down on everything as far back as the burnt-out farmhouse itself.


    For a moment Caprifexia thought that her brilliant plan might have gotten all the vampires, but then the smoke cleared, revealing three figures still standing: the lead agronian lizard-vampire, whose clearly enchanted armour was glowing cherry red, and two singed looking fellows: a human man with an ash covered face who seemed very surprised to be alive and an elven man with greyscale skin and half of his hair burnt off who had summoned a shield around himself.


    "Sven, are you alright!?" said the agronian.


    "Fine¡­ ish," said the elf, rubbing his hair. "Are you sure this is worth it Sivvy? I''m not even hungry."


    "We just lost ten- no, wait, nine fledglings, fledglings we needed to find Serana," said the lizard. "And if we fail him¡­"


    "Ugh, you''re right," said the elf, pulling a few strands of black, burnt hair before his eyes. "Although I am going to tear whatever wizard did this apart. Just look at my hair!"


    "It''s not so bad¡­" said the agronian, reaching toward the male vampire''s face. "I think you look rugged."


    "Shut up Sivvy," huffed the elven vampire, pushing her hand away. "You have terrible taste ¨C remember that doublet you bought me? The blue one with frills?"


    "I thought it looked dapper," said the agronian defensively.


    "J''zargo thinks that we should fall back and cast more traps," whispered the cat as the two vampire continued to bicker, the third, human, vampire looking slightly embarrassed at the spat. "Einar should have evacuated the refugees far enough up the gully by now."


    Caprifexia nodded, flapping after the cat as he turned and sprinted deeper into the gully. Further up the mountain the farmland gave way to a pine forest, the snowy ground was a mess of footprints from the refugees that the lightly falling snow hadn''t even begun to cover up. That meant that they couldn''t reuse the runic mine traps.


    Thankfully wizards like Caprifexia were infinitely versatile, and with the help of the far more limited J''zargo, she had plenty of options for making the forest lethal.


    There was an explosion behind them as they reached the trees and began to lay down their traps. J''zargo seemed to be doing something to the forest itself, but Caprifexia had something far less arboreal in mind. She had noted during her immense battle against the vampire that had tried to eat Einar, employing her incredible deductive skills, that the undead creature''s senses were very keen.


    She had countered that with smoke and noise then, but neither of those would be particularly stealthy.


    Instead she carefully carved a few elegant draconic runes into the trees, casting a simple spell to turn them into temporary anchors. They wouldn''t last very long, but she didn''t need them to. As she worked explosions continued behind her, the surviving vampires slowly and methodically making their way across the field of runic mines.


    She managed to scrawl the draconic characters for ''Equilibrius'' on perhaps a dozen trees before the explosions had stopped, and the khajiite had already finished what he was doing and retreated further up toward the still scrambling refugees.


    Focusing, Caprifexia reached out for her inscriptions, grasping the strands of power and weaving a more complex enchantment on top of them, a curse that would play havoc with the balance anything in the forest.


    Caprifexia felt the spell take hold as the vampire''s were cautiously approaching the burntout farmhouse, and flapped up into the upper branches of one of the trees, above the effective area of the enchantment.


    The agronian in the plate armour stopped as she reached the corner of the farmhouse, sniffing suspiciously at where the cat had been.


    "A khajiite," she said, before sniffing again. "Something else too ¨C a bit like¡­ brimstone?"


    "A familiar perhaps?" said the elven vampire with the burnt hair.


    "Perhaps," said the agronian, straightening and turning to the forest. "Beware more traps. Wizards are seldom one trick ponies ¨C as you know, my Sven."


    The vampires entered the forest cautiously, sticking to the most well trodden areas. They entered the area she had cursed a few moments later, and Caprifexia felt the spell begin to take affect slowly. The human vampire stumbled first, rubbing his head in irritation. Then the elf tripped, sprawling into the snow.


    "What is going on!?" said the agronian woozily, digging her sword into the snow and leaning on it heavily.


    "Some kind of curse," said the elf, pushing himself drunkenly upward.


    "We should be able to move through it-" began the once human vampire, before the tree he was standing next to burst into motion, a branch smashing into his chest and sending him flying backward.


    Caprifexia, sensing an opportunity, took off, carefully staying above the area of her curse for as long as possible before diving downward at the sprawled vampire. It might have been debilitating for a vampire, but she was a dragon, made of far sterner stuff, and if she was careful to keep her time in the field to a minimum she''d be fine.


    The human vampire saw her a moment before she opened her jaws, but was too stunned by her majesty to move and just screamed as dragonfire washed over him, thrashing about for a few moments before bursting into a cloud of dust.


    Caprifexia grinned to herself and began to rise back into the air, before unexpectedly crashing into the snowy ground that had somehow gotten itself above her. Caprifexia whined as the world cartwheeled around her, spitting out snow as her senses went haywire and she tried to reorient herself.


    Apparently her magic was a lot more potent than she had realised. That was normally good, although in this instance¡­ quite bad.


    "Got you," came a hiss from above, and Caprifexia turned over just in time for a gauntleted hand to close around her neck and be wrenched off the ground by the agronian in plate armour.


    Caprifexia woozily spat fire, but the vampire pointed her head to the side, and the flames hit nothing.


    "What is it?" said the elven vampire, waving his hands about in what looked like a counter-spell ¨C probably for the cat''s silly animated trees. He seemed totally indifferent to the charred remains of the vampire Caprifexia had destroyed, and instead seemed to be mainly irritated by Caprifexia''s incredible enchantment.


    "Living," sniffed the vampire as the moving trees stilled. "Doesn''t seemed to be a summoned being."


    "Unhand me, you bloodsucking mongrel!" said Caprifexia.


    "Oh, and it speaks!" said the elven vampire, clapping his hands together. "Can we eat it Sivvy? I''ve never eaten flying talking lizard!"


    Caprifexia snarled and summoned fire to her talons, only for it to dissipate as the vampire tightened it''s grip on her neck and Caprifexia''s vision flickered.


    "None of that," said the lizard vampire.


    "It can cast magic?" said Sven, peering at Caprifexia for a few moments. "Oh! It must be a shapeshift! That''s very clever."


    "A shapeshift?" said ''Sivvy'' the lizard vampire.


    "A rare and rather hard branch of magic. This is one of the wizards."


    ''Sivvy'' ¨C which really seemed far too unintimidating to be the vampire''s real name ¨C hissed. "You''ve cost me ten of my fledglings, wizard."


    "Only one," gasped Caprifexia. "The cat did the mines! And the trees! It was all his idea-"


    "Which means you did this horrific balance curse," said the lizard, shaking her. "Undo it. Now."


    "Can''t," choked Caprifexia. "Anchored."


    The lizards'' grip tightened, and Caprifexia began to panic as her scales squeaked under the pressure. She could try and cast another spell, but the vampire would kill her before it took affect. She could try and Planeswalk, but that would almost certainly summon a Faceless, which would not only kill her, but destroy her soul.


    "Hold on Sivvy," said Sven, causing the lizard-vampire to pause crushing Capri''s neck. "We just lost ten fledgelings ¨C this one would be a good replacement. And I want to know how it did the shapeshift."


    "It burnt off your hair," said the lizard angrily.


    "I can grow it back ¨C I know a cantrip," said Sven airily. "And look how cute it is with those horns! Please?"


    "Fine," said the lizard with a half-hearted huff and a wry smile. "But only because it''s you."


    She shook Caprifexia roughly. "Change back."


    "Or?" squeaked Caprifexia.


    "Or I snap your neck."


    Given the choice between certain, imminent death, and slightly less certain, slightly less imminent death, Caprifexia chose the latter, her form shifting into that of a shortish, dusky skinned elf with glowing orange eyes and long, swept back horns. Her feet didn''t quite reach the snow, and being choked was perhaps even less pleasant in her squishy elven form, but at least she was still alive. Alive meant a chance to figure out a way out of the mess the cat had gotten her into by abandoning her and failing to stick to the plan.


    The lizard, however, wasn''t interested in any more chat, and before Caprifexia could so much as begin to come up with another brilliant strategy to get herself out of J''zargo''s mess the vampire grabbed Caprifexia by the horn and opened her mouth, revealing dozens of razor sharp teeth, and bit deep into Caprifexia''s neck.


    Caprifexia screamed, thrashing around as her blood steamed and spluttered as it met the air. She tried to call her magic to her, but the combination of pain and nausea from her own spell was too much for even her to focus past, and the power slipped through her mental grasp.


    The vampire slurped disgustingly at her neck for several seconds, before jerking back. A moment later Caprifexia hit the snow as the lizard pushed her away, staggering and falling to her knees.


    "Sivvy? Sivvy? What''s wrong?" said the elven vampire, rushing to the plate-clad vampire''s side.


    "It burns," hissed the lizard vampire, pawing at her throat as the veins beneath her fine facial scales began to turn a burning orange. "It burns."


    "I don''t understand," said the other vampire, conjuring magic to his own hands and running them over the lizard. "It''s not elven blood! It''s magical- cursed!"


    "Help," choked the lizard as the glowing veins spread further, beginning to char the scales above them. The scent of burning flesh filled the air. "Help me!"


    "I can''t get it out! I can''t get it out!" said the elf, panic rising in his own voice as magic swirled around him. "Sivvy, oh night, Sivvy-"


    The agroanian vampire''s eyes widened in terror, and she grasped at the collar of the elf''s finely made robes and cupped one of the his cheeks in a gauntleted hand.


    "I-" she began, before the blazing orange beneath her scales reached a critical threshold, and with a scream the reptillian vampire burst into a cloud of ash.


    "No!" screamed the elven vampire, tears streaming down his face as he pawed at the ashes. "No. No. No, no, no, no!"


    Caprifexia pushed herself upright, fighting through the wave of nausea and pain as the tears in her neck seared themselves closed, and allowed herself a snicker.


    "Hah!" she said weakly. "That will teach you to mess with a dragon, abomination. You''d better run, because once I catch my breath-"


    The elven vampire''s puffy, bloodshot eyes whipped up towards Caprifexia, and with a yell he launched herself at Caprifexia, grabbing her by the collar, wrenching her upright, and slamming her into a tree hard enough that spots appeared in her vision.


    "You killed her! You killed her!" he screamed into Caprifexia''s face, pulling her back and slamming her into the tree once again, hard enough that the tree, and several of her ribs, audibly cracked. "I''ll rip out your heart! I''ll flay the skin from your flesh and suck the marrow from your bones, make you beg for-"


    There was a whistling sound, and a dull thunk, and the vampire froze, staring down at where a sharpened end of a tree branch was sticking straight through his chest and, irritatingly, about a half a centimetre into Caprifexia''s own coat.


    The vampire''s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to scream a moment before he burst into a cloud of ash. Caprifexia slid down the tree, landing with a painful thunk in a pile of now empty robes and ash. A whole lot of her ribs were definitely broken, her neck hurt almost as much as when that unfriendly elf had shot her with lightning, her tongue was covered in her own blood, and she felt like she was going to vomit. Above her the tree retracted, returning to it''s normal, unanimated state.


    "Small dragon, are you all right?" came the voice of J''zargo, who was staggering drunkenly through her incredible enchantment.


    "Absolutely," she said, deciding, tactically, to stay where she was for the moment. "Totally fine. Obviously."


    "You were to retreat," said the cat angrily, squatting down and summoning soothing white-gold light to his hands. "Why did you not follow the plan?"


    "I was in charge," she said, whining as her ribs snapped back into place one by one. "You''re the one who didn''t follow the plan. This is clearly your fault."


    "The plan was for you to crash into the snow, get bitten and nearly torn apart by a vampire? J''zargo does not think this was the plan."


    "Exactly ¨C by your own admission you don''t even know what the plan was," she mumbled as the cat moved to her neck, closing the two holes.


    "The small dragon does not seem to be infected with vampirism," he said after waving his hands over her a few more times. "Did you know that the vampire would die if it attempted to feed on you?"


    "Of course," she said. "I am a dragon."


    J''zargo sighed and wobbled to his feet. "J''zargo is going to go and undo your spell anchors. Stay here and rest, your body has undergone severe trauma."


    "I''ll take that¡­ under advisement," she said, closing her eyes for a moment.


    When she opened them again she was over the cat''s shoulder, trekking further up the gully. Behind her the light of the void portal was down to almost nothing, and it was very, very dark.


    "Unhand me, mortal," she grumbled.


    "Ah, you are awake," said the cat, setting her down. "Good. J''zargo was sick of carrying you anyway."


    The cat set her down onto her unusually shaky legs, putting an arm around her shoulder to steady her before they continued onward.


    The gully narrowed, and after another five minutes they came to a line of nervous looking soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder around a hundred meters out from where the gully became impassable. Behind them were the other refugees, huddled together with terrified looking eyes.


    Eyes that lit up as Caprifexia and the cat came into view.


    "Capri, J''zargo!" said Einar, pushing past the line of soldiers. "Are the vampires gone?"


    "J''zargo the mighty wizard, and his assistant Caprifexia, destroyed them, yes," said the cat. "Although the small one was hurt."


    The line of guards threw down their weapons and hugged one another, and a few moments later a cheer went up from the crowd of refugees. Some of them even cried ¨C the mewling pathetic excuses for lifeforms that they were.


    "Divines!" said Einar, seeing the trail of dried blood on Caprifexia''s neck. "They bit you!?"


    "Not so loud," winced Caprifexia, covering one of her ears. "And I''m not your assistant, you terrible-wizard, you''re mine."


    "She is without infection," said J''zargo. "Her blood destroyed one of them when it attempted to feed on her."


    "The leader," said Caprifexia smugly. "Who had enchanted armour that he couldn''t so much as scratch. Really, I''m the only reason we won."


    "This is ''somewhat'' true," admitted J''zargo.


    "It was all part of my brilliant plan, although he was very slow to do his part," explained Caprifexia. "That''s why I got hurt in the first place, I had to improvise."


    "That is less true," said J''zargo impudently.


    Thankfully Einar didn''t pester her with more questions, instead finding a blanket for her to lie down on and try to forget about how much her everything hurt. Healing magic was good ¨C although J''zargo''s wasn''t anywhere as near as skilled as Sorbet had been ¨C but even for a magical creature like her it wasn''t perfect, and it would take some time for her wounds to settle.


    The rest of the refugees headed back down to their camp, but J''zargo and Einar stayed with her, sorting through the stuff that J''zargo had looted from the vampires.


    "Hey Capri, there is another letter in really, really old Imperial," said Einar after a few minutes. "Up to reading it?"


    "Of course, I am a dragon."


    "Here then," he said, holding the piece of paper in front of her eyes.


    "Lord Sven," she began. "I hope that this letter finds you well sated. As you may know, I recently tasked one of your fledglings, Maria, with researching the location of an Elder Scroll at Winterhold. According to my sources she failed to even make it to the college, so she is likely dead. If she was one of your favoured children, my condolences.


    "As fortune would have it, however, another of my agents has discovered where my wife managed to hide my daughter so many, many years ago. This, in turn, means that we now know the location of the Elder Scroll they took from me: Dimhollow Crypt, a small cave in the mountains to the west of the Pale virtually on top of those pathetic ''Vigilants of Stendar.'' In retrospect, that is likely the reason that it has taken this long to locate. I suspect my wife was amused at the thought that she could use those pious mortal fools as a shield.


    "My intelligence indicates that the order has waned significantly in power over the past few centuries, affording us a unique opportunity to not only remove a thorn from our side, but also to retrieve part of what we need for the Ritual of Black Sun. Although weakened, I would still suggest gathering or creating a few more fledglings for the actual assault. Lady Sivvik''s fearsome swordplay would also likely prove invaluable, should she be on hand to assist.


    "Once dealt with, enter the crypt and retrieve the scroll. I would once more advise caution, as my wife is unlikely to have left Serana undefended. A few eager-to-please fledglings to send in first is probably the easiest way to identify any traps, although I leave the details of this operation to you. Use your discretion.


    "Although our mercurial, and (you must forgive me for this my friend) flighty ally has assured me that my daughter is unnecessary for her modified ritual, I would nonetheless prefer her to be returned to me unharmed. Although, regrettably, obtaining the Elder Scroll must be our upmost priority. If you must put her down, then so be it.


    "I would also stay out of Windhelm if I were you, I''ve been told it is to be a ''test'' of something relating to the ritual, and that the results would be ''explosive'' ¨C whatever that means. There may be refugees, however ¨C so perhaps they might be a possible source of fledglings to throw into my wife''s traps? At the very least, it could be amusing to watch if you''re nearby.


    "Your King and Friend, Lord Harkon."


    "Wait, the vampire''s knew that Windhelm was going to be destroyed?" said Einar. "They summoned the Faceless?"


    "How should I know, I''m just reading the letter," said Caprifexia, pushing the stack of paper back towards him.


    "J''zargo does not like the sound of this ''Ritual of Black Sun,''" said J''zargo. "Not if its ''test'' destroyed a city."


    "It was mentioned in that other letter we got," said Einar, rummaging in his coat for a moment before bringing out the letter from the first vampire Caprifexia had heroically slain. "So were the Elder Scrolls ¨C seems this ''King Harkon'' really wants one."


    "Then J''zargo thinks we should make sure that this ''King'' does not get his claws on one," said J''zargo.


    "We already have a quest ¨C to destroy the proto-drakes," said Caprifexia.


    "J''zargo thinks we should leave that to the dragonborn," said J''zargo.


    Einar cleared his throat awkwardly.


    "What?" asked J''zargo suspiciously.


    "Nothing," said Caprifexia innocently. "I certainly didn''t stomp them off a bridge in the Void for their soul to be torn apart, their body broken, and their mind shattered by the Old Gods. That definitely didn''t happen. I have no idea why the proto-drake-born is missing. No idea at all. It''s a real mystery."


    Einar groaned, and J''zargo bared his fangs.


    "Is the small dragon telling J''zargo that she killed the Dragonborn?" said the khajiite slowly. "The only being in Mundus who can slay the dragons permanently?"


    "No," huffed Caprifexia. "I said that isn''t what happened. I said the opposite. Are you deaf? Ears full of fur or something?"


    "It was¡­ an accident," said Einar, clearing his throat and blowing their cover. "But yeah¡­ that''s why we''re trying to find a way to stop them."


    The cat put his face in his paws, and a moment later, began to scream.


    "Why did you tell him Einar?" said Caprifexia angrily. "Now he''s never going to shut up about-"


    "You are the most irresponsible people J''zargo has ever met!" yelled the cat, rudely cutting her off. "It is one thing to kill the Dragonborn, ''accident'' or no, but another to say nothing about it to anyone!? You are not heroes, you''re menaces!"


    "I technically never claimed to be a hero," said Einar, adjusting his collar nervously.


    "Now look what you''ve done, the cat is hysterical," said Caprifexia. "Everything was fine until you opened your big mortal mouth."


    "He''s not a cat ¨C we''ve talked about this, and I don''t think him being angry the issue here Capri," said Einar.


    "I do," said Caprifexia.


    "You didn''t even have to admit to doing it, you could have just told someone!" ranted J''zargo, pulling at his ears. "Anyone at all!"


    "We''re telling you now," said Caprifexia. "Calm down."


    "Don''t tell J''zargo to calm down!" yelled J''zargo, arcs of lightning surging around his body.


    "Don''t tell me what to do!" yelled Caprifexia back, matching his halo with her own.


    The cat took a deep breath and stood up, pacing back and forth in the snow, his tail flicking from side to side as he tried to reign in his wild and out of line mortal emotions.


    "So if J''zargo is understanding things correctly, there are now not only unstoppable dragons rampaging across Tamriel unchecked, but also a horde of organised vampires who have blown up a city and, if the ritual''s name is anything to go by, want to possibly do the same to the sun?" said the cat. "And you two thought that the proper course of action was to handle this by yourself?"


    "Um¡­ yes?" said Einar uncertainly. "Actually, saying that out loud, I realise how insane that sounds."


    "I am the greatest hero in the multiverse," explained Caprifexia. "And a dragon. We had everything under control."


    "This is what we are going to do," said J''zargo firmly.


    "You''re not in charge-"


    "Shut up!" said the cat, glaring at her and totally ignoring her warning growl. He was lucky she was now a heroic dragon, otherwise he would have been very on fire. "J''zargo will send a letter to the Archmage, detailing the situation: Arcano''s theft of the orb and attempted murder of J''zargo, the organised vampires and their plot, and the dragonborn''s¡­ ''disappearance.'' We will go to this Dimhollow Crypt and find this Elder Scroll before the vampires do. Yes?"


    "Why should we listen to you?" said Caprifexia. "You''re just an unusually fluffy mortal!"


    "Because J''zargo seems to be the only adult here," said J''zargo. "And because the small dragon''s last ''plan'' got nine of her ribs broken. The small dragon is no longer allowed to make plans."


    "I say we focus on killing all the proto-drakes," said Caprifexia. "That sounds much more fun."


    "This is not a vote, and even if it was, you would not get one," said J''zargo. "We are going to Dimhollow. That is what is going to happen."


    "J''zargo''s right, we need to get this Elder Scroll first," said Einar. "For all we know, this vampire ''King'' could have sent others to look for it. And hey, they''re pretty powerful objects ¨C it might help us against the proto-drakes- dammit, the dragons."


    "Fine," said Caprifexia grumpily. "But only because I was going to Dimfollow Crypt anyway-"


    "Dimhollow," corrected Einar, mishearing her.


    "That''s what I said."

 The Undead Liberation Initiative

    "J''zargo is just saying, the small dragon has not done anything worthy of the title of ''Greatest Hero in the Multiverse,''" said the impudent, rude, and most of all wrong cat.


    They were seven days into the trip across a frigid and boring plain that Einar had called ''The Pale,'' on the north western side of which lay Dimhollow Crypt and the supposedly important ''Elder Scroll'' that the vampires wanted so much. If Caprifexia had been alone, she could have crossed the seemingly endless and featureless sea of snow in a matter of hours, but with her two mortal charges things were much slower. And more annoying.


    "I saved Einar from a pack of werewolves," she countered.


    "One of those was the Dovahkiin, J''zargo does not think that counts as ''heroism,''" said J''zargo.


    "And a vampire!"


    "J''zargo thinks that may have been luck, but even if it was not, that does not make the small dragon ''the Greatest Hero in the Multiverse.''"


    "And I killed all those other vampires!"


    "No, that was J''zargo," said J''zargo, rewriting history. "The small dragon killed one intentionally, then got captured and destroyed one more unintentionally, before nearly dying and needing the mighty J''zargo''s rescue."


    "How do you know it was ''unintentional?''" she said. "You didn''t even know the plan in the first place! And I saved your life too ¨C after you fell for the nasty elf Arakno''s obvious lies."


    "Einar was the one who carried J''zargo, and convinced Soren Markov-"


    "Who?" she said.


    "The one you foolishly call ''Sorbet Melon,''" said J''zargo.


    "You''re the foolish one. And wrong. And ugly. And mean."


    "-and convinced Soren to spare your life and heal us," continued J''zargo, managing to ignore her ego-crushing insights into his character. "The small dragon also nearly died."


    "Yeah well¡­ you''re just an overgrown house pet!" said Caprifexia.


    "Capri!" said Einar. "You can''tsay that! We''ve talked about this."


    "And you''re just a silly looking mortal ape!" said Caprifexia, no longer willing to indulge his wishy-washy, touchy-feely mortal proclivity for dancing around the truth. "You can''t tell me what to do! I''m a dragon! The apex of life in the multiverse! The most intelligent and powerful and¡­ and¡­ best species there is! You''re just insects compared to me!"


    "J''zargo, please stop winding her up," said Einar.


    "J''zargo is merely correcting the small dragon''s fallacious view of her own so-called achievements," said the nasty cat.


    "J''zargo, she''s two," said Einar.


    "J''zargo fails to see why that means he should indulge her nonsense," said J''zargo. "Children need to hear the truth so they can learn; the small dragon even more than usual."


    "And cats need to be set on fire!" she stated, factually.


    "Oh hey, look," said Einar, pointing to a the decaying circular ruins of a mud-brick. "We can make camp there ¨C it will keep the wind off at least."


    Caprifexia didn''t see what they had to do with flaming felines, but it did get J''zargo to shut up, and she was finally able to return her attention to her book as the two mortals began unpacking and setting up for their needlessly complicated and inefficient non-dried-fish based evening meal.


    She was distracted from her study, however, by an annoyingly prickly magical field to the north, which only grew more irritating as she attempted, for what felt like the hundredth time, to go through the book''s meditation exercises to try and ''connect'' with the land''s mana.


    "Ugh!" she said, opening her eyes and flapping into the air.


    "What is it?" asked Einar, looking up from a pot of watery looking ''food.''


    "There is some annoying magic ¨C probably some kind of object, to the north," she said. "I''m going to go and destroy it."


    "J''zargo ¨C can you go with her?" asked Einar. "Make sure it isn''t some kind of trap or something?"


    "I am not a child!" protested Caprifexia.


    "J''zargo supposes," said the Khajiite in an irritated voice, as if he was the one being imposed on, putting down his own book and standing. "Come along then, small angry dragon ¨C let us see whatever this latest delusion of yours is."


    Caprifexia huffed and flapped off in the direction she had felt the magic come from, not waiting for the arrogant feline to catch up.


    To the north of the ruined hut was a small rise, at the top of which a cairn marked a burial site. That, by itself, wasn''t unusual. Due to the mortal propensity to die, there were mortal grave-sites absolutely everywhere, and you couldn''t walk five meters in any direction without tripping over some ancient memorial or the other.


    What was odd, however, was the wailing spirit next to it. A human-shaped azure figure that wandered back and forth next to the rocky plinth, swearing and wailing and cursing in a feminine voice.


    "It is just a ghost," said J''zargo coming to a stop and turning. "Ignore it."


    "Shouldn''t we exorcise it?" said Caprifexia. "It seems distressed ¨C that''s bad, isn''t it?"


    Stopping mortals for being distressed ¨C which was a never-ending concern ¨C was, as she understood it, a central part of being a hero. And she was a hero. A great hero. The greatesthero. A much better hero than silly J''zargo. And she was going to prove it to the arrogant moggie, even if she had solve every single meaningless and mundane mortal neurosis from Skyrim to Blackrock.


    "Since when does the small dragon care about random spirits?" said J''zargo. "And even if the small dragon knew the spells to release it, which J''zargo doubts, we do not have time. We need to get to Dimhollow Crypt as soon as possible, as well as warn the Vigilants of Stendarr that the vampires are targeting them."


    "You might be a terrible hero, you overgrown hairball, but I am not," she grinned, vindicated. "Go and have your horrible stew and be a non-hero. I, Caprifexia, greatest hero in the multiverse, will set this spirit free ¨C heroically! Unlike you, who won''t."


    "The small dragon may do as she wishes, J''zargo does not care ¨C but we are leaving tomorrow morning," said the cat, defeated, turning and stalking back towards the hut.


    Caprifexia watched the terrible excuse for a hero retreat smugly, before flapping over to the ghost and alighting on the cairn.


    "You there, ghost ¨C why are you still here?" demanded Caprifexia. "Why hasn''t your spirit faded?"


    The ghost turned at her words. It was impossible for Caprifexia to make out any kind of distinct features, but from the tips of ears that poked through the ghost''s long silver hair it seemed that they had been an elf in life.


    "What are you?" said the ghost eventually, it''s simple echo of a mind clearly struggling to cope with new stimuli.


    "I am Caprifexia, a dragon and the greatest hero in the multiverse," explained Caprifexia.


    "A very small dragon," said the ghost sceptically.


    "Yes, well¡­ I''m young," said Caprifexia. "Now answer my question shade ¨C why are you still here?"


    "A wizard bound and trapped my spirit," said the ghost. "A hero, you say? Will you free me?"


    Caprifexia didn''t actually care about the ghost one way or the other, but that annoying cat had denied her self-evidently true credentials as a hero and thus a demonstration was required, something that showed just how superior she was to the foolish feline. While he indulged his pathetic mortal need for sleep, she would save this decrepit echo from its torment. Heroically.


    And then rub his ugly mortal face in it.


    "Of course," said Caprifexia. "That''s what heroes do. Free people."


    "Excellent. The anchor to the spell lies in a cave to the north," said the ghost, clapping her ethereal hands together before turning and wafting further away from the ruined hut. "Please, ''hero,'' this way."


    Caprifexia flapped off after it, heading further away from the hut and out into the seemingly endless flat plane of snow. Above her the stars shone in the cloudless sky, and a green and blue aurora danced across the horizon. A mortal might have thought it bitterly cold, but Caprifexia was largely indifferent to the late autumn evening ¨C she certainly preferred it to the summer she had arrived in; snow and ice and howling wind meant no insects.


    She flew for almost ten minutes before the ghost finally arrived at a shallow, mostly snow filled depression that seemed to be the entrance to a cave or tomb. For a wizard as incredible as Caprifexia it was a simple matter to melt the hard packed frost away, revealing a worn set of stairs leading down into the earth.


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    To Caprifexia''s continued delight she didn''t see even a single spiderweb as her warelight danced over the roughly cut walls, nor any hint of any kind of creepy crawly denizen whatsoever.


    "Thank the Titans, a bugless tomb ¨C finally," she said.


    "I make sure to keep it clean of living filth," said the friendly ghost as they descended deeper into the darkness. The natural rock slowly gave way to artificial walls of smooth, cut stone, and the water on the damp floor began to be siphoned away by channels caved into the polished floor.


    "What was this place?" asked Caprifexia, idly examining an artistic embossed carving of a screaming faces on the wall. The artisan had been quite skilled, and although worn from the ravages of time, it almost looked as if someone had petrified a whole host of men and women and set them into the wall with magic.


    "A laboratory," said the ghost, becoming more animated, its edges beginning to flicker a deep blood red. "In life, I was a wizard. A visionary. A pioneer! But my so-called colleagues were cowards. They said the magic I used was ''dark.'' Fools. There is no such thing as dark magic and light magic!"


    "Mortals do love to project their ridiculous morality onto amoral mechanics of the universe," agreed Caprifexia. "They''re stupid like that."


    "Yes. Yes. Mortals," said the friendly ghost enthusiastically. "They content themselves wither and die, as if it is some kind of badge of honour! As if giving in to entropy is something to be lauded, rather than a weakness to be overcome!"


    "You know, it is nice to talk to someone reasonable for a change," said Caprifexia, nodding along as they reached a large metal door covered in a runic lock of some kind. "Normally mortals get annoyed when I point out their never-ending shortcomings."


    Before she had been largely indifferent to the ghost itself, but now she was beginning to feel good to be helping such a nice spirit find rest. Perhaps Captifexia had made one or two small missteps, but now she was really getting the hang of being a hero.


    There were two humanoid skeletons slumped on the ground front of the door. They seemed to have died while attempting to crawl away, and each of them had an arm outstretched in the direction of the entrance. Around their necks they wore metal chains, attached to which were small trinkets in the shape of hunting-horns, and although the magic was heavily diminished, Caprifexia could feel they were enchanted.


    Caprifexia swooped down and picked one up, holding it up to her warelight and casting a quick diagnostic spell on the object. The magic seemed designed to ward off blows and reduce their impact. It was quite cleverly made, for a mortal artefact, although far too degraded to be of any use.


    "The small minded fools who imprisoned me ¨C religious zealots," said the ghost venomously, gesturing to the corpses as Caprifexia dropped the necklace back to the dusty tiles. "The door is enchanted ¨C you will need to break the ward."


    "It won''t be a problem," said Caprifexia, extending her mystical senses as she cast her eyes over the door. The spell matrix looked rather tricky, but she was a dragon ¨C it wouldn''t prove much of a challenge for her.


    Two hours later Caprifexia snarled as the last part of the ward destabilised and the defensive magic discharged with a crackle of electricity.


    "Finally," spat Caprifexia, blasting the now flimsy metal door off its hinges and flapping through into the next room.


    "There may be Dragur," warned the friendly ghost, floating in behind her. "They usually form at loci of power, and this was my laboratory ¨C I had many¡­ cadavers."


    "Well, obviously," said Caprifexia. "What sort of laboratory doesn''t have cadavers? How would you practice necromancy?"


    "Yes, yes! Precisely," said the ghost with glee. "Oh, dear Caprifexia, I am glad that it was you who found me. I had been worried that I would have to trick whatever idiot eventually stumbled upon me into helping: most people are so squeamish about the more exotic areas of the art. But you are such a sensible young wizard."


    "The most sensible," agreed Caprifexia.


    "I have many books in my inner sanctum that may interest you."


    "I do like books," said Caprifexia, feeling even more pleased with how well her heroing was going. Caprifexia was sure that J''zargo couldn''t have done half as well ¨C he''d probably still be at the annoying warded door.


    Well, he''d had his chance to join her, and chosen not to ¨C he''d just have to live with not getting to look at the new books the friendly ghost was going to give her as payment for her heroism. In addition to the imminent, inevitable and crushing epiphany that Caprifexia was better than him at absolutely everything.


    They proceeded onward, emerging into a large cave with a chasm running down the middle of it. To her left a waterfall cascaded down into darkness, and far below she could hear the water running away into some even deeper subterranean cavern. There was a rickety looking stone bridge spanning the gap, although it had crumbled away in places and would have been perilous for any mortal to cross on foot.


    Thankfully Caprifexia was infinitely superior to mortals in virtually infinite ways, such as her ability to fly, and so she simply flapped over the deep abyss, the friendly ghost gliding along beside her.


    As Caprifexia reached the other side she caught the first whiff of necromantic magic, and with a rattle of bones half a dozen skeletons, all wearing the same horn necklaces as the two bodies near the first door, emerged from the gloom, glaring at her with frosty blue eyes.


    "More of the fanatics who chained me to this place," said the ghost. "Mindless undead ¨C just waiting to be broken to your will. I can teach you how-"


    "I already know necromancy," said Caprifexia, as indigo light crackled around her talons. She reached out, grabbing the mind of the nearest skeleton and breaking the remnant of will to her own. Its eyes flickered, the blue shifting into indigo as she solidified her hold on it.


    "Yes, yes! Excellent!" cackled the friendly ghost from beside her, clapping her hands together as Caprifexia flapped out of range of the others and grinned down at the baleful, but powerless glowing eyes of the skeletons. "A good spell young one, but you''re too focused on the individuals. These are unbound undead ¨C there is no other wizard to battle for control of their minds: generalise the spell."


    Caprifexia had never tried a cast necromancy spell like that before ¨C but then again the friendly ghost seemed to be experienced, and Caprifexia had only ever covered the basics back at Blackrock Spire. Carefully, taking the ghost''s tips under provisional advisement she modified her spell, releasing a blanket of indigo energy that settled over the massed skeletons.


    It took longer to break the group than a single individual, but the ghost was right, without any single unified will to oppose and thwart her spell, the skeleton''s feeble remnants of will flailed about aimlessly as they shuddered and shook, and gradually the skeleton''s eyes shifted from azure to purple.


    "You seem to have a knack for necromancy," said the friendly ghost. "You would make a fine apprentice, Caprifexia."


    "Of course I would," she agreed. "I am a dragon."


    "Come ¨C my study, my prison is not far from here," said the ghost drifting onward.


    Caprifexia flapped after them, bringing the shambling skeletons with her as she moved into a large room lined with bookshelves. There were several tables in the centre of the room, on which lay shackled skeletons. They rattled at her, and gnashed their teeth, but were unable to do anything else.


    At the far end lay a stone desk, atop which a pulsating purple gem hovered. The gem was surrounded by a runic containment array, carved into the stone and glowing with soft golden light. At it''s base was another skeleton, this one totally inanimate, their bony fingers wrapped around a staff.


    "My prison, and the wizard who died gaoling me" said the ghost, gesturing to it as Caprifexia alighted on the desk. "With it in place, I can only manifest this¡­ shade, and only in the area directly around my tomb."


    "I thought you said you were a ghost," said Caprifexia with a frown. "That I was releasing you so you could move on?"


    "That was before I realised you were no small minded fool," said the shade. "That you too understandthat magic is magic, and only cretins would put shackles upon its research. That we are wizards, we do not limit ourselves by the morals of prattling mortals."


    "You''re a lich," said Caprifexia, examining the gem, which was clearly a phylactery.


    It was simpler than the one that her people had kept in Blackrock Spire as a learning aid, but the essential form and spellwork was more or less the same ¨C at least, she thought so, she didn''t know the intricate details of the ritual used to make them. Given that the Lich hadn''t started to go insane, it couldn''t have been more than a century or two old. That was good, since insane liches couldn''t help her get better at necromancy.


    "Yes ¨C yes. You see, you understand," said the shade. "Release me, and you may take whatever books you like from my study!"


    Caprifexia did like learning about new magic, and the friendly lich had already proven a good source of knowledge on necromancy ¨C so they might not even be terribly written. And besides, heroes freed trapped people ¨C didn''t they? What could be more heroic than trapping a poor spell researcher who had been unfairly targeted by ridiculous superstitious mortals?


    Nothing ¨C obviously.


    "One moment," said Caprifexia extending a claw and her magic, destabilising the runic trap. It wasn''t hard, since all of it''s defences were pointed inward, and after a moment the runes sparked and fizzled.


    The shade cackled with joy, and a dark shadow launched itself from phyactery and swooped over the room, settling into one of the bound skeletons. The eyes turned a burning red, and the restraints and buckles snapped as the creature rose from the table.


    "At last!" said the friendly lich, cackling gleefully as the illusion of an elven woman shimmered into being around her new frame, complete with ornate purple and gold robes. "At last! Free! Free! Oh how I have waited! How I have dreamed of what I would do to those pathetic fanatics! They will rue the day they crossed me. Rue I say!"


    "So I can take whatever I like?" asked Caprifexia, gesturing to the library.


    "What? Ah yes, of course," said the woman, running her hand through her dark, illusory hair and smiling widely. "As agreed, dear child. Use the knowledge well, I am sure we will meet again. But for now, goodbye, I have vengeance to exact!"


    The friendly lich swooped out of the room, and her cackling laughter gradually faded into the distance.


    A warm fuzzy feeling settled over Caprifexia. In the past it would have disgusted her, but after hanging around the nauseatingly sentimental Einar she was beginning to become used to the vaguely sickening sensation.


    And although she was still getting to grips with being the greatest hero in the multiverse, she was pretty sure that helping more limited creatures, like friendly liches, with their problems and letting them realise their dreams was what it was all about.


    Sure, the lich would eventually go insane, thought Caprifexia, but at least they''d be able to enjoy a century or two of coherent existence before that set in ¨C that was more than what most mortals could hope for.


    She returned to the surface with her new thralls in tow an hour later, having given them the task of carrying her new books. Einar and the cat were playing some kind of card game.


    In the past they had invited her to play, but they had kept on cheating somehow and ''winning,'' and after she had set fire to their first deck they hadn''t asked her again.


    "Oh hey Capri-" began Einar, before he looked up from his hand. "Why are there a bunch of skeletons following you!?"


    "Oh these? These are my new book carriers," she said. "They were in the crypt I broke into."


    "Capri, necromancy isn''t technically bannedin Skyrim, but people are going to get very, very, very disturbed and unhappy if you walk around with a group of skeletons carrying your bags. Especially the undead phobic Vigilants of Stendarr we''re on our way to warn," said Einar. "Please, please get rid of them. They''re super creepy."


    "Now that I''m back I suppose I don''t really need them," said Caprifexia, waving her claw and directing them to dump the four bags full of books she had taken with the saddlebags. "I have you to carry my books already."


    "How did the small dragon go in breaking the ghost''s anchor?" asked J''zargo idly, placing down a card onto the flat rock they were using as a table.


    "Very well," said Caprifexia. "I released them from a magical prison. Heroically, I might add."


    "Good job Capri," said Einar, turning back to his cards. "You''re really starting to get a hang of this."


    "I know," she said smugly waving a talon and directing the undead to return back to the tomb. "And I''m much better at it than J''zargo."


    The cat ignored her, but she found she didn''t really care. Einar had once said that ''Heroism was it''s own reward,'' and while she still thought that was pretty silly (and that books on magic were certainly better), she found herself pleased to think that somewhere out in the cold night the friendly Lich was off living their unlife to the fullest ¨C all thanks to her help.

 The Ontological Malice Epiphany

    According to the map Einar had shown Caprifexia, while gripped by some strange delusion that she actually cared, the ''Hall of the Vigilants'' sat alone at the base of one of the regions innumerable peaks, dozens and dozens of miles from the nearest settlement.


    Again, labouring under another false impression that she was interested in mortal architecture of all things, he had also informed her that it was a long wooden affair, with a sharply sloped roof to keep snow clear in the long autumn, winter and spring months where snows were a regular, almost daily occurrence at the mountainous edge of the Pale ¨C the large plain over which they had been trudging for the better part of a week.


    To Caprifexia it seemed that building with wood was a recipe for disaster. Not only would a wooden construction struggle to last beyond a century or two without either magic or a lot of maintenance, but what if you happened to sneeze? Ridiculous.


    Reality, as usual, agreed with her, and as the pink and gold light of a new day unfurled behind them a great plume of smoke became visible on the horizon. As they grew closer the charred and collapsed ruins of the headquarters itself came into view ¨C evidence, most likely, of either careless mortal fools, or a dragon with some kind of allergy.


    "Typical shoddy mortal construction," she sniffed, before turning her attention back to her book. "It''s a wonder you lot haven''t all been crushed under the weight of your own incompetence."


    "You know, you could at least pretend that you care what happens to ''us lot,''" muttered Einar as he drew his horse to a stop. "And I doubt this was an accident. Damn. There must have been another group of Vampires."


    "J''zargo does not think so," said the cat, peering at the figures moving in the sparkling morning light. "Black cloaks¡­"


    The cat growled; or maybe purred, she wasn''t sure.


    "Thalmor," he said. "An entire squadron."


    "What? Why would they attack the Vigilants?" said Einar. "They worship Stendarr, not Talos."


    Caprifexia had no idea what a Talos was, but she knew she didn''t like the Thalmor ¨C not after Arakno the nasty elf had mildly inconvenienced her with a bolt of lightning to the chest, and nearly killed the terrible wizard J''zargo.


    "We should kill them," said Caprifexia, closing her book and flapping into the air, sparks swirling around her claws.


    "Capri, no," said Einar, grabbing her tail and very nearly getting himself incinerated as she yelped in outrage at his sheer audacity. "We''re not here to start a fight with the Thalmor."


    "But they''re villains," she said, yanking her tail free and hissing sparks at him. "Heroes, like me, kill villains. Do I really have to keep repeating such basic facts? I know you''re just a mortal, but are you entirely incapable of learning?"


    "Yes, they are villains," said Einar in a pained voice, as if she was the one being unreasonable. "But just because someone is villainous doesn''t always mean the best course of action is to just summarily execute them."


    Caprifexia scrunched up her eyes, trying to figure out how that could be reconciled with what she knew about heroism.


    "That doesn''t make any sense," Caprifexia declared after a few moments. "Heroes kill villains; the Thaltor-"


    "-Thalmor-"


    "-are villains; I am a hero; therefore I should kill them."


    "Capri, the Thalmor are a very large, very powerful organisation. All their troops have magical training. We are three people, and despite that vampire''s fancy sword you gave me, I don''t think I can take on even a single one of their soldiers reliably. We cannot attack a whole squadron."


    "I am not some limited mortal like you two ¨C I am a dragon," she sniffed. "I could slay them all."


    "Capri, no," said Einar firmly.


    Caprifexia considered overruling him, but the snooty elves probably weren''t worth her time anyway. After all, she had more important heroing things to do. Like reading.


    "They''ve seen us," said J''zargo, gesturing to the black clad figures who were moving towards them.


    "Capri, change. Quickly," said Einar.


    "Why?" said Caprifexia grumpily. She''d been enjoying being in her true form for the past week and a half, she didn''t really want to take on her silly elfine form.


    "Because these people are frothing at the mouth racists, and your elven form looks altmer," said Einar.


    "It''s itchy," she countered reasonably. "I don''t want to."


    "Capri," whinged Einar.


    Caprifexia grumbled, but eventually transformed, shifting her brilliant ebony scales into her long coat, dusky skin, midnight black hair, and long pointed horns. Her eyes, however, still stayed the same luminous orange, which irked her. What she wouldn''t have given to get her hands on a proper draconic book of magic to find out what ¨C very minor ¨C error she was making.


    "Alright," said Einar. "Capri listen, you have to pretend like you''re in charge. Like we''re your inferiors."


    "''Pretend?''"


    "Definitely don''t say anything about the Elder Scroll," continued Einar. "Don''t mention the vampires either ¨C we''re just passing through, OK?"


    "I am a black dragon," scoffed Caprifexia. "My people invented deception."


    "Please, please don''t screw this up," muttered Einar as the haughty looking elves closed in on them, hands on the hilts of their pointy metal sticks.


    Most of the nasty elves were wearing golden plate armour and silly looking helms, over which were pulled black cloaks. Leading them was a woman in hooded robes similar to the ones that the nasty elf Arakno had been wearing, and in her hand was a metal staff capped with an azure-gemstone that shone with obvious enchantment.


    "Greetings sister," said the elven woman, naturally addressing Caprifexia and pursing her lips ever so slightly at Einar and J''zargo. "What brings you to this frozen wasteland?"


    Caprifexia considered for a moment, before opening her mouth to spin an expert lie. "I am an insur-"


    "Wizards from Winterhold College," said J''zargo urgently, butting in where he wasn''t wanted and completely ruining her convincing backstory of being an insurance sales-dragon. "We are passing through."


    The elvish wizard gave her a funny look. "I see¡­"


    "They''re my minions," explained Caprifexia, quickly improvising a more believable cover from the cat''s shambolic attempt to lie. "They carry my bags, make my clothes soup ¨C you know, the usual."


    The nasty elven woman raised an eyebrow, before shrugging and turning back to the smouldering wreckage. "Do you know anything about the destruction of the ape''s hall?"


    "You didn''t do it?" asked Einar.


    The wizard wrinkled her nose at him before looking back at Caprifexia. "No," she said. "It was like this when we arrived earlier this morning ¨C we had been hoping for at least a night beneath a roof, but instead we found ruins overrun with reanimated corpses. Strange, to be sure."


    "Vampires?" said Caprifexia.


    Einar nudged her irritatingly with his boot, but she ignored him.


    The elven wizard cocked her head to one side. "No. Not vampires," she said. "Unless they were already entirely sated before the attack ¨C which, given how far we are from any settlements, seems unlikely. More likely a necromancer ¨C the Vigilants were rather opposed to the study, after all. Fools."


    "A necromancer?" said Caprifexia, somewhat surprised that there had been another apart from the nice Lich in the vicinity. They were in the middle of nowhere, and not that many mortals knew magic. Then again, she knew coincidences happened all the time; she wasn''t some ridiculous mortal who saw causation in every correlation.


    "It appears so. If they weren''t just apes I might investigate, but I have more pressing tasks. Have a good day sister," said the Thalmor elf, turning and sauntering off without so much as a backward glance.


    "What are the Thalmor doing here?" said Einar as soon as they were out of elven earshot. "Do they really expect us to believe they just happened to show up as the Vigilants had their hall burnt down?"


    "Perhaps they too are after the Elder Scroll," said J''zargo.


    "But how would they possibly know it was here?" said Einar. "What ¨C you think that the Thalmor are working with the vampires? They may be bastards, but I don''t think even they''d stoop that low."


    "They attempted to kill J''zargo," said J''zargo. "Jz''argo would put nothing past them."


    For once, Caprifexia was inclined to agree with the heroically-deficient cat.


    "We should kill them," she reiterate, reasonably.


    "Capri, no," said Einar, unreasonably.


    "We should see what they do," said J''zargo, opting for a typically less decisive option. "If they begin looking for the tomb in the foothills then we will know for sure what they are after."


    "We should check out the Vigilant Hall in the meantime," said Einar.


    "You''re right, maybe they had some interesting books," said Caprifexia.


    "Or there might be, you know, survivors," said Einar.


    "Ah yes ¨C that," said Caprifexia, nodding quickly and heroically. "Survivors. Obviously that''s what I meant we should look for first."


    She cleared her throat.


    "But keep an eye out for books anyway."


    As the nasty elves, who it apparently wasn''t heroic to kill, had said, the smouldering ruins were indeed lousy with wandering undead.


    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Unlike the ones in the tomb, these undead had most of their flesh and clothing remaining ¨C although they shared the same metal trinkets slung around their necks. Also, curiously, their eyes glowed red instead of either blue, or the purple that her own dominated creature''s had had.


    As they approached the ruins creature''s eyes snapped toward them in unison, and J''zargo and Einar froze as the creatures began to shamble toward them.


    "Shit," breathed Einar, fumbling for his new enchanted sword that Caprifexia had given him in the hope he wouldn''t be quite so useless going forward. "Whoever did this is still controlling-"


    "Caprifexia!" said the thralls in a chorus of groans and broken windpipes. "How are you! I wasn''t expecting to see you again so soon."


    "Capri, what the fuck?" whispered Einar.


    "Friendly Lich?" said Caprifexia. "What are you doing here?"


    "Why, exacting vengeance of course," laughed the Lich''s thralls. "Although I''m not here anymore. I''m headed down to one of my old haunts in Cyrodiil. Just keeping a hold on this puppets in case anymore of those fools were out. Getting to near the edge of my range though, so I won''t be able to chat long. Had a chance to read any of the books yet?"


    "You killed these people?" said Caprifexia, a strange tightness beginning to grow in her chest as she took in the bloodless faces and blank expressions of the recently deceased, and now dominated Vigilants of Standing, or whatever they were called.


    "Yes my dear, do keep up," laughed the Lich''s puppets.


    "But- but that''s evil," yelled Caprifexia.


    "Really," scoffed the Lich''s minions. "I thought you were wiser than that young one. ''Evil'' does not exist, you yourself pointed out how mortals have the ridiculous tendency to ascribe their shallow ''morality'' to the amoral mechanics of the universe."


    The world seemed to spin around Caprifexia as the reality that the Lich, against all appearances, had not actually been friendly hit her. And more than that, these people were dead, and, at least partially, because she had somehow, against all conceivable odds, been tricked into releasing an actually-not-very-friendly-at-all-Lich.


    "You''re not a friendly Lich at all, you''re a villain!" growled Caprifexia, her eyes flashing purple as she summoned up her will and wove it into a spell. "Dominatus!"


    The corpses froze as her domination spell rammed into the ''minds'' of Lich''s thralls. She felt the Lich''s linked consciousness, which stretched off to the south, recoil in surprise, and their control slipped.


    The corpse''s eyes flashed purple for an instant, before the Lich rallied their focus and the eyes turned crimson once again as they began to rush forward.


    Fire burst from beside her as J''zargo attacked, and Caprifexia grit her teeth as the Necromancer resetablished their control totally, their greater experience ¨C if not magnificence ¨C proving too much for even Caprifexia''s prodigal-but-admittedly-somewhat-inexperienced ability with the discipline to overcome.


    Beside her Einar drew his shiny new enchanted blade, which they had taken from the lizard-vampire''s corpse back near Windhelm and stepped in front of her, as if somehow she was the one who needed protecting.


    Caprifexia was just about to abandon her necromantic spell and switch to more directly destructive methods when the Lich changed tactics, releasing their hold on the thralls and seizing the psychic connection that Caprifexia had made in her attack.


    Caprifexia had never actually had a full psychic duel with anyone before ¨C the magic being used to initiate them from a distance being, for the moment, quite far beyond her abilities.


    Such duels tended to be zero-sum games in that you either you won, or you had your mind shredded, that both parties became immobilised and therefore vulnerable, and, generally, they gave the advantage to the defender because of the sheer energy and focus needed to simultaneously maintain the connection and overcome the opponent.


    In retrospect she realised it had possibly not been the best of ideas to make herself so vulnerable to such magic by opening her mind and attempting to dominate another necromancer''s thralls.


    While Caprifexia might not have ever actually been attacked in such a manner, she did, however, know the theory for how to fight it.


    Step one: seek to establish defences around your mind. Step two: attempt to trap your attacker. Step three: turn the attack around and attempt to dominate, or rip whatever secrets you could from their mind before destroying it.


    Easy, she hoped.


    Caprifexia focused on visualising a barrier around her mind, but had barely raised even a feeble defence when the Lich''s attack rammed through and into her consciousness. Caprifexia''s anger turned to fear as she fell back deeper into her mind, and out in the real world she felt her body seize up.


    A pity, came the voice of the not-so-friendly Lich, projected into her voice as Caprifexia began to struggle desperately against the overpowering tide of her enemy''s consciousness. I really thought you could be¡­ well now, what is this?


    To her horror she felt the Lich beginning to rifle through her memories, and hurled herself against the Lich''s presence. She failed to make any headway, and gasped, falling to her knees as she was driven deeper into her own mind.


    "Capri?" Einar shouted, his voice seeming dull as he grabbed her shoulders and shook her in one of his typically useless attempts to help. "Capri?"


    ''What''s this? Fascinating. You really are a dragon, aren''t you?'' thought the Lich, turning over a few of Caprifexia''s more recent memories ¨C of the trip across the Pale. ''But not a Nirnian dragon, you''re¡­ "Azerothian."''


    The undead followed the strands of memories, and Caprifexia suddenly found herself as a tiny hatchling, knocking her way out of her egg back in Blackrock spire.


    So young, mused the Lich as Caprifexia looked up at the memory of her mother, the giant Sinestra smiling down lovingly at her. Curious, perhaps you''re not a total write off-


    Then Caprifexia in her memory swivelled her neck, peering out over the hatchery to where several Faceless were tending to the hatching eggs of her brothers and sisters.


    The Lich''s mind recoiled from the Voidborn monsters, a deep, primal terror leaking through their mental link as Caprifexia felt the undead''s grip on her loosen.


    Of course, Caprifexia thought, she might have been protected from the power of the Void by her general amazingness, and possibly her Spark, but the nasty Lich had no such defences. Any memory of the Void acted like a portal for the corrosive energy, and through her the Lich had just stared directly at a Faceless. That alone they would likely recover from eventually, but Caprifexia had far darker things in her memories than just the visage of a Faceless¡­


    With a mental snarl Caprifexia smacked the panicking Lich away, wrenching back control of her mind and summoning up another memory. The memory of when she had first realised that her Planeswalker power was taking her through the Void, when she had come face to face with an Old God, and forced it on the Lich.


    The Lich mentally screamed in existential horror, and tried to withdraw from Caprifexia''s mind. But the small dragon didn''t let it go and grabbed the link, holding it firm as she went on the offensive, ramming her will through the link and into the petrified and spasming mind of the Lich ¨C some dozen miles to the south.


    So entirely was the undead focused on the unspeakable horror of the raw visage of the Old God that the villainous undead didn''t even seem to notice her presence as Caprifexia began to rip and tear into the creature''s consciousness.


    Fragments of depravity flitted through Caprifexia''s mind as she wrenched the villain''s mind apart: experiments on living mortals; an all consuming lust for power; rituals that would have made even her father blanch, Caprifexia destroyed them all. Once she would have savoured the besting of her foe, carefully extracted each and every piece of useful information from the creature''s mind and revelled in her own objective superiority, but as the images flashed through her mind and she methodically destroyed the monster''s mind the only thing Caprifexia felt was sick.


    When she finally released the last dregs of the Lich''s consciousness and centred on her own body once-more Einar was still shaking her, and J''zargo had also crouched beside her, a look of concern on his feline face. Beyond them the bodies of the Vigilants were inert and still, only a few of them charred from J''zargo''s magefire.


    "Capri?" said Einar.


    "I''m OK," she said weakly. "It''s dead ¨C or as good as."


    "Thank the Divines," said Einar. "J''zargo said you were under mental attack."


    "Why did the small dragon know it was a Lich?" asked the Cat.


    The tightness in Caprifexia''s chest grew, and she felt her eyes begin to itch as the images of cruelty flashed through her mind and she looked out over the now still bodies of the Vigilants.


    "I thought they were a friendly Lich," said Caprifexia hoarsely, putting a hand to her suddenly aching chest.


    "''Friendly Lich?''" said Einar in disbelief.


    "I met them last night ¨C they were the spirit I set free," she said in a small voice. "The one who was imprisoned-"


    "You didn''t say anything about a fucking Lich!?" yelled Einar.


    "You weren''t interested, you were playing your silly card-game! Probably cheating at it like you normally do," she sniffed, her eyes beginning to prickle unpleasantly as the memories of what the creature she had freed had done played over and over in her mind.


    "Capri, these people are dead because of you," said Einar, becoming even more hysterical. "Doesn''t that bother you even a little?"


    "How was I supposed to know that the Lich was evil!?" yelled Caprifexia back angrily, tears spilling from her glowing orange eyes. "How could I have possibly predicted they would do something like this!?"


    "Because all Liches are evil!" yelled J''zargo.


    "That''s Lichist," said Caprifexia. "Just what I''d expect from a hairy-"


    "Listen to J''zargo, you small, angry, irresponsible, and deranged dragon," said J''zargo. "The rituals involved in transforming oneself into a Lich are disgusting and vile, the sacrifice of sentient beings, the mutilation of one''s soul-"


    "How was I supposed to know that!?" said Caprifexia.


    "Because the small dragon claims to be a wizard," said J''zargo. "Wizards should at least knowwhat Liches are!"


    "I do know what Liches are!" protested Caprifexia. "And I''m a better Wizard than you, you absurd looking cat!"


    "J''zargo is not a cat-"


    "Capri, if you knew what Liches were, why by Akatosh did you release one!?" said Einar, interrupting J''zargo before he could pointlessly start an argument about his feline nature yet again.


    "I thought it was the heroic thing to do; they were trapped, heroes free trapped people," said Caprifexia, feeling very small. "I¡­ I didn''t know."


    There was something uncomfortably wrong with her chest, like it was being squeezed in a giant hand. She cleared her throat, but it only seemed to get worse. Was this the ''guilt'' that Einar had talked about? When someone had done something they regretted?


    She hadn''t been the one to kill these people, that had been the actually-not-entirely-friendly Lich. But she had been the one to free said Lich. At the time it had seemed the heroic thing to do, incredibly heroic even, but now she wasn''t so sure¡­


    "Capri," said Einar in a cold voice he''d only ever used once before with her. "You fucked up."


    "How was I supposed to know the Lich was a villain?" she said again, burying her face in her squishy faux-mortal hands. "How could I have known they were going to do this?"


    "Because they were a horrible undead monster," he said in an exasperated voice.


    They were dead because of her. Because of her. Because of her.


    "I didn''t know! I didn''t know they were evil!" said Caprifexia with a sob, a trickle of moisture running down her cheek. "I thought I was being heroic by releasing them! I wouldn''t have done it if I knew this would happen! I''m¡­ I''m sorry."


    She looked down at the ground.


    Einar sighed, and rubbed his face.


    "The small dragon thought that releasing a Lich was heroic!?" yelled J''zargo pulling at his ridiculous fluffy ears.


    "I didn''t know!" said Caprifexia, her voice cracking as she put her face in her hands and began to sob.


    "The small dragon thought that releasing a Lich was heroic!?" repeated the Cat, his voice rising another irritating octave.


    "J''zargo, enough," said Einar.


    "No, not enough," yelled the cat, standing and pointing at the ruins and the corpses. "These people are dead because of her. Because of her reckless arrogance! There is a reason that ethics are a core subject at the college, because the power that wizards'' wield means they cannot afford to abuse their power, nor afford to be so¡­ idiotically thoughtless."


    "I didn''t mean for this to happen!" wailed Caprifexia, feeling her stomach roil as what she now was fairly certain was shame and guilt crashed down upon her.


    "Your feelings are irrelevant-"


    Caprifexia turned the to side and vomited, her fishy breakfast washing over the rubble.


    "J''zargo, she''s a kid, and she knows she fucked up," said Einar, rubbing her back as she heaved once more. "She was raised by monsters ¨C she''s doing her best."


    "You''re defending her?" said J''zargo. "After everything she has done? All the destruction and harm she''s caused? She killed the saviour of Nirn!"


    "Because of a situation I put her in," said Einar angrily. "And if you''d actually accompanied her into the tomb, like you were supposed to, this wouldn''t have happened!"


    "Don''t blame this on J''zargo!" hissed the cat. "He didn''t think that a Lich was somehow not a being of total evil!He didn''t release them! He isn''t a total fucking idiot!"


    The Cat turned and stormed out of the ruins, sparks cascading from his claws, as Caprifexia battled to get her pathetically emotional mortal-like outburst back under control.


    "Capri, I know you didn''t mean for this to happen," said Einar. "But you made a very big mistake, and a lot of good people are dead now because of it. Not abstractly, not indirectly, but as a direct result of your actions."


    "What do I do?" asked Caprifexia, wiping her leaking eyes. "How do I make this right?"


    "You can''t," said Einar. "You''re going to have to live with this for the rest of your life."


    "I''m sorry," said Caprifexia, hunching her shoulders as her throat seemed to close up. "I won''t let anymore Liches trick me, I''ll see through villain''s plots; I''ll do better, I promise."


    Einar was silent for a while, before he nodded.


    "Come on," he said, standing and offering her a hand up. "You might not able to undo your actions, but you can at least help me give these poor souls a proper burial."


    Caprifexia didn''t know why mortals insisted on putting their dead in holes, but didn''t complain as she helped Einar drag the ex-thralls out of the ruins and begin carving out sections of the hillside with magic. It felt like a futile gesture, but if it meant something to mortals then perhaps it wasn''t entirely pointless.


    They might have been fleeting, irrational, ugly, infuriating, and usually wrong, but mortal lives did have value, they did have worth. It wasn''t fair that these ''Vigilants'' had died before their time, and there was no point denying it, it was her fault.


    She might have been a dragon, a member of the most magnificent, intelligent, and generally amazing species in the multiverse, but it seemed even perfect beings could make mistakes ¨C even her.

 Inconsistent Heroism Regulations

    J''zargo still wasn''t speaking to her as they entered Dimhollow tomb and descended into the cold, dank depths. The snow outside had been churned up by dozens of elvish boots, and had been tracked further into the spider-web strewn lair by the nasty, villainous elves. Here and there were a few faded carvings that, in mortal societies, were what passed for art.


    According to the cat the Thalmor had entered the dark subterranean entrance while Caprifexia had been burying the mortals who had¡­ unfortunately perished at the bony fingers of a Lich. A Lich who Caprifexia might have been somewhat responsible for unleashing out into the world, and about which she was still feeling a little bit bad. Well, actually more than a little bit bad. Her chest still hurt, and her mind kept on dragging itself unbidden back to the image of Vigilant''s glassy eyed corpses.


    The fact that the Thalmor were ostensibly looking for the same Elder Scroll as the organised vampires was, apparently, very bad news. Caprifexia didn''t really see why it was that surprising, of course two groups of villains would work together, they were villains; but it seemed to have come as quite the shocked to her small-minded and hopelessly fumbling mortal companions.


    Unlike many of the other disgusting caves and caverns that Caprifexia had been dragged into by her apparently arachnophilic mortal charges, Dimhollow was, true to its name, dimly lit by green-blue bio-luminescent fungus, which grew over the poorly crafted mortal masonry and cast light over the winding tunnel. This was good, in that she didn''t need to waste magic conjuring a light, and bad, because sometimes she missed a stray spider''s web in the gloom and had to calmly and methodically burn it off her body while quietly and very reasonably vocalising her disgust.


    They came across the first elven body after less than ten minute of descent, where the tunnel opened up into a long room covered with large stone tiles and with a single exit across from them. The nasty elf''s gaudy golden armour was charred and twisted, and tiny vents beneath them were still spewing fire over the blackened cadaver.


    "A trap," said Einar, re-establishing his role in the group as the person who stated the obvious. "There are patterns-"


    Whatever inane observation he was about to make was cut off by set of a three incredibly loud chimes, followed by a few indistinct whispers.


    "¡­no too early¡­ scroll¡­ not going to work."


    "Ugh," said Caprifexia, rubbing her silly looking pointed mortal ears as the sound slowly faded as she looked around for the source of the voices.


    "What''s wrong?" asked Einar.


    "That noise," she said irritably. "The chimes and the voices. Obviously."


    "I didn''t hear any noise," said Einar in a fussy voice. "Are you OK Capri?"


    "What do you mean, ''you didn''t hear a noise?''" said Caprifexia. "Of course there was a noise! Are you deaf?"


    "Oh kay¡­" said Einar, holding up his hands. "Well, I didn''t hear anything. But as I was saying, there are patterns on the tiles ¨C maybe they tell us which are safe?"


    "Who cares about the tiles ¨C there are apparently noises neither of you can hear!" she said, glancing around. She hadn''t been able to determine the direction, which was odd, but she was sure it hadn''t been a telepathic projection, those felt very different¡­


    "Capri you''ve been through a lot of stress today," said Einar, squeezing her on the shoulder in some bizarre mortal gesture she didn''t really understand. "Sometimes our minds play tricks on us. Yeah? I''m sure I didn''t hear anything loud that sounded like a chime."


    "Don''t presume to lecture me on psychology, you uneducated ape," she snapped, pushing his hand off her shoulder. "And there was a noise!"


    J''zargo looked like he was about to say something suitably idiotic, before sniffing and looking away.


    She cast a few diagnostic charms, but beyond telling her just how filthy the cavern she was in one, revealed little. She didn''t think she''d misheard, but maybe auditory hallucinations was another facet of this ''regret'' she hadn''t experienced before.


    "Well¡­ ''chimes'' or not, we need to figure out a way past the tiles ¨C don''t want to end up like that poor bastard over there," said Einar, nodding toward the burning elf. "I wonder if there is a hint around here¡­"


    "Or," said Caprifexia, shaking herself from her ruminations and stepping out onto one of the tiles in-front of her at random. "We could do this."


    The tile beneath her depressed, and a moment later fire billowed from jets in the floor, roaring around her in a pleasant inferno. Einar gave one of his typically wailing mortal cries of alarm, before trailing off slowly as the fire licked harmlessly around her.


    "Oh right," he said. "Fireproof."


    Thanks to Caprifexia''s magnificence it was a simple matter to brute force their way through the ''puzzle,'' and less than a minute later they reached the other side of the room safely. Normally Caprifexia would have made sure that her mortal companions were reminded of just how amazing she was, but the uncomfortable constricting feeling in her chest she''d acquired after the unfortunate incident with the not-friendly-Lich remained, and for once in her life she didn''t really feel like basking in her innate objective superiority.


    The tunnel sloped downward for another twenty meters, before reaching a junction with three options, and no obvious indication of which way the horrible elves had gone.


    "So¡­ which way?" asked Einar after a moment. "Can either of you, I don''t know, do some kind of magic to tell us the way to go?"


    "Does Einar have a lock of the elves'' hair, or a scrap of their cloak?" asked J''zargo snootily.


    "No¡­" said Einar.


    "Then no, J''zargo cannot ''do some kind of magic,''" said J''zargo, the terrible wizard.


    "Then what do we do?" said Einar.


    "J''zargo has read about these tombs. Traditionally there are multiple paths to the central burial cavern," said J''zargo. "Usually there is one safe path, and other, less safe paths."


    "What sort of people would design mazes like that?" said Caprifexia. "That''s the silliest thing I''ve ever- oh right, mortals."


    J''zargo turned away, apparently still not talking to her ¨C that, or unwilling to confront the reality of his death-prone people''s innate ridiculousness.


    His scorn shouldn''t have bothered her as much as it did, but her throat tightened up as the cat turned aside. Which was absurd ¨C she didn''t care what the cat thought of her? Did she?


    *


    It was almost three hours later that they emerged from the leftmost path, her mortal companion''s slightly singed, and all of them covered in some particularly putrid smelling water that had flooded a room the when cat had insisted he knew the correct solution to a mathematics puzzle and refused to listen to Caprifexia because she was, allegedly, ''extremely incompetent.''


    Luckily for them, Caprifexia, and admittedly the cat, knew a cantrip for breathing underwater, so they had eventually been able to make it into the next room by cutting their way through a heavy rune reinforced metal door.


    The central chamber of the complex was a large circular amphitheatre. A large section of the room to their right had fallen away into a ravine, and some kind of subterranean waterfall emerged from the darkness above and plummeted down into the gloom below, a very faint roar the only indication that it hit bottom at all.


    At the centre of the room was a large flat area, covered in some kind of groove based puzzle. Caprifexia wasn''t really sure why anyone would create puzzles that could be solved in order to lock things away ¨C if it had been her, she''d have just installed passwords or combination locks without hints. That, or ''puzzles'' where every answer, including the right one, killed whoever was trying to get in.


    But, as ever, mortals were disappointments, and even as they squatted down behind one of the stone benches near the top of the room the nasty elves ¨C who were significantly fewer than they had been when they''d entered the tomb, and significantly more charred ¨C solved the puzzle with a loud click.


    "Finally!" said the lead nasty elf wizard Caprifeixa had met earlier, and hadn''t liked, throwing up her hands as with a grinding sound a metal sarcophagus rose from the ground.


    "Now do we kill them?" asked Caprifexia.


    "There are still a lot of them," whispered Einar as the elves began trying to open the large metal box. "If that letter was right, there might be a vampire in there ¨C one not too pleased to see them. We should ambush them once they''ve opened it and are dealing with the vampire."


    "You know Einar, that isn''t actually a totally terrible idea for once ¨C I''m impressed," said Caprifexia kindly.


    "Gee, thanks," said Einar, carefully drawing his enchanted sword. "So what''s the plan of attack?"


    "We-" began Caprifexia.


    "The small dragon is not allowed to make plans," said J''zargo firmly. "Not after that last disaster. Or the one before that. Or the one before that."


    "Oh, so the cat is finally talking again?" asked Caprifexia, trying to ignore the pang of pain that accompanied the memory of the nasty-and-not-nice-at-all-Lich. "How novel. Have fun getting wet when you failed the puzzle?"


    "J''zargo is not a cat!"


    "Enough!" hissed Einar. "J''zargo, the plan?"


    "The angry and racist dragon should focus on keeping the troops busy," said the cat, who was the real angry dragon-hating racist. "J''zargo will deal with the wizard and then assist her."


    "No, I should fight the wizard, I''m better at magic and you''re just a squishy mortal ¨C you''ll get hurt," said Caprifexia. "You deal with the minions."


    "The small dragon is deluded," said the delusional feline. "J''zargo is the greatest wizard in Skyrim-"


    "-if everyone else were dead, maybe ¨C and even then, I''m not sure," said Caprifexia. "Remind me, which one of us can channel the most destructive force in the multiverse without going insane, and which one of us is on overgrown furball?"


    "And is rendered nearly comatose every time she does it," countered the cat. Wrongly.


    "Capri, just listen to him," said Einar in a pained voice. "You''re record isn''t exactly that rosy right now, is it?"


    Caprifexia felt another stab of shame as she was reminded of her minor and totally understandable error with the not-friendly-Lich, and looked at the ground.


    "Fine," she said, rubbing above her heart to try and stop the ache.


    "When vampire attacks, J''zargo will launch an attack upon the wizard," said J''zargo. "The small dragon will then attack the soldiers from above; in that order. Einar, you will stay here with J''zargo and fight off any elves that get close. Simple, yes?"


    "That''s what I was going to say anyway," muttered Caprifexia, shifting into her true form and flapping high into the shadows above the elves, watching as the elves beneath began prying the metal box apart with the hafts of their glaives.


    The two elven soldiers beat a swift retreat as the hinges finally gave, and a pale looking mortal in fancy clothes stumbled forward, a large scroll cylinder strapped to her back and a sword that looked very similar to Einar''s new one at her hip.


    "Ugh," said the vampire, opening her blood red eyes and looking over the elves as she rubbed her forehead. "You''re not my mother."


    "Thankfully," sneered the wizard elf, conjuring a fireball. "The Lady says you''re not needed for her ritual, so we happily don''t need to listen to your prattling father''s pitiful requests to ''spare you.'' It will be so good when we''re finally rid of you disgusting lampreys; working with you has been revolting."


    The elf wizard might have been a villain, but Caprifexia had to admit she was right ¨C undead were disgusting. Creepy, duplicitous, pallid, maggot infested monsters that tricked good hearted and immensely intelligent and heroic dragons into accidentally doing bad things.


    "I have no idea who you are dealing with," said the vampire, drawing her blade and summoning a ball of entropic crimson energy to her fist. "But you''ve made a mistake if you think I''ll go down easy."


    The elven troops levelled their glaives at the undead, and was just about to charge her when Caprifexia swooped downward, spewing dragonfire and hurling lightning from her talons, injuring three of the elves before they realised they were under attack.


    The vampire may have probably had a rotten brain, but apparently she wasn''t stupid, and capitalised on Caprifexia''s distraction, her vampiric form almost blurring as she streaked across the room, inside the guard of a reeling elf, and cut one of the pointy eared mortals clean in half.


    Of course, if there was a tally to be kept of villainous foes slain, that was clearly one of Caprifexia''s, since she had created the opportunity with her magnificent ambush.


    Unfortunately J''zargo was, as usual, the weak link in the chain, and the elven wizard ¨C that he had insisted was his responsibility ¨C launched a huge blast of telekinesis at Caprifexia that even with a hasty shield sent the small, heroic dragon careening across the room and smashing into the hard stone steps across from where she had entered.


    Caprifexia''s world swam as she rolled over, shaking her head and gasping for breath as she tried to regain her focus. Across the room she heard the cat attack with some kind of feline war-cry as more elves screamed and died beneath the blade and spells of the quite worryingly powerful vampire.


    Caprifexia flared her wins, and tried to take back to the air, but her right wing wasn''t moving properly, and all she managed was a brief wobbly glide before the pain forced her back to the ground.


    Cursing she shifted into her elven form, which was battered but functional, hurling a bolt of lightning at an elf who was trying to flank the vampire. The elf managed to shield, although her spellwork was pretty shoddy, and she still got zapped a bit. Unfortunately, Caprifexia drew her attention, and that of two of her fellows, who narrowed their yellow eyes at her small horned elven form and broke off from the others, advancing with weapons crackling with fire, frost, and lightning.


    Caprifexia gulped as she realised that her go-to response in such a situation, flying away and bombarding the mortals from the air, wasn''t going to work, and that she was going to have to fight like¡­ like a pathetic biped.


    Normally, of course, she wouldn''t find have found the prospect of facing three silly little elves with sharp sticks daunting, but the foolish cat had gotten her injured by not playing his part of his equally foolish plan, and she was, totally understandably, still feeling a little rattled by her titanic battle against the Lich, and the tangential role she had played in the death of all those innocent mortals.


    She also hadn''t slept that well, thanks to Einar''s snoring. Her breakfast might also not have agreed with her. Yes, normally she wouldn''t have been daunted at all to simply obliterate them¡­


    Oh, and of course as a black dragon she knew that brute force was seldom the most efficient way to win. Yes, she would be clever, not act like the overgrown house pet currently duelling the wizard and doing a much worse job of it than she would have. Really, even if she''d been at full capacity she''d have done the same thing.


    Caprifexia threw a blast of fire, designed to be obscuring and smokey rather than destructive, before turning and tactically retreating further up the amphitheatre at a quick hobble, limping from where her injuries had transferred over, and letting out a dragonly roar that certainly sounded nothing like a frightened scream.


    The elves, who unfortunately seemed to have taken her lightning bolt personally gave chase as the smoke cleared, throwing their own far less elegant and well crafted magic at her. Fire and ice and lightning crashed around her as she ducked behind a stone bench and hurriedly put her hand to the ground, sending out a pulse of lithomancy through the masonry that altered the stairs she had been running up into a steep ramp.


    "Hah!" she declared triumphantly as the elves slipped and fell, tumbling back down to the bottom level of the amphitheatre, one of them landing awkwardly and breaking their leg with an audible snap and a pathetic mortal scream. "You are no match for-"


    She was cut off as bolt of lightning blew up the bench she was using as a shield, opening several deep cuts on her right cheek. Her blood hissed and spluttered as it fell to the cold, dirty rock, and she let out another heroic roar as she crawled away and staggered to her feet, throwing a fireball more or less at random at the two remaining irritatingly persistent elves, who were already scrabbling their way up after her.


    The fireball missed the elves, but managed to hit one of the benches, shattering it and felling another of the elves as the razor-sharp shards of stone tore into their face and neck.


    Which had been what she''d planned. Obviously.


    The last elf, however, was more devious than the rest, and they reached the same level of the tiered amphitheatre as Caprifexia a few moments later, shielding Caprifexia''s follow up blast of magic.


    "I''ll enjoy gutting you, traitor," said the female soldier, grinning and running a thumb over the blade of her weapon. "I''ll- hey, come back here!"


    Caprifexia didn''t listen to the nasty-elf, and was already running, pausing only to pick up one of the benches with her draconically strengthened muscles and throw it at the elf.


    Unfortunately, while Caprifexia was many things, practised at throwing things around manually ¨C like a primitive mortal ¨C was not one of them, and it went several meters wide, hurtling down into the central area and hitting the vampire it the back, sending them tumbling toward the edge of the ravine.


    The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Caprifexia felt a moment of unease at having accidentally, if totally understandably, hit one of her allies, before remembering that despite their temporary alliance the vampire woman was an undead monster, and the ''Friendly Lich Rule'' needed to be remembered and respected and enforced ruthlessly to avoid another unfortunate ''Vigilants incident.'' Yes, once she dealt with the armoured elf, then she''d deal with the vampire. She''d thrown the bench to set things up to be easier in the future. It was forward planning. Clearly.


    Caprifexia was wrenched from her heroic machinations by the closing elf, and gave a third fearsome yelp as a shard of ice shattered above her head and coated her in sharp, freezing crystals, which opened more cuts on her face and neck. She turned back to the elf, just in time to duck under the blade of the elves weapon, which whistled through the air and cut deep into the masonry above her head.


    The young dragon didn''t really know much about mortal pointy stick fighting, but she knew the basics: you hit the villain until they died, and didn''t get hit yourself. Easy. To that end, Caprifexia grabbed the haft of the stuck glaive and pulled it from the elves'' grasp, surprising the pale faced villain with her sudden strength.


    Caprifexia shifted her grip to the end of the weapon, where her mathematical genius told her she''d have the best leverage, rather than copying the elf''s silly centralised grip, and swung the incredibly unweildy and poorly designed weapon at the elf. The mortal danced back out of range, drawing out a dagger from their boot and narrowing their eyes, but not moving to immediately attack.


    She swung again, but the elf did some kind of strange block thing, which was clearly cheating, and the weapon slipped from the Caprifexia''s grasp and clattered down toward the centre of the amphitheatre.


    "Time to die, traitor," said the elf, lunging straight for Caprifex''a heart with her dagger.


    Caprifexia yelped and managed to catch the elf''s hands, locking the dagger against the pointy eared mortal''s gaudy armour as they fell to the ground together. They rolled a few times, before the elf managed to get on top. The position didn''t really help her move the dagger, however, since even with her leverage and more experience in pathetically embarrassing forms of mortal fighting, Caprifexia was still stronger.


    Unfortunately for the elf, while Caprifexia might have been injured from the cat''s irresponsible deviation from the plan, and might have not really known the sharp end of a dagger from the hilt, there was one other major advantage that dragons in mortal guises had apart from their strength in such a situation.


    She hadn''t been able to manage it when she was smaller, but she''d grown significantly since becoming a Planeswalker, and her inner furnace burned far hotter.


    The elf froze as Caprifexia opened her mouth, sparks dancing at the back of her throat, and had just enough time to scream before dragonfire roared past Caprifexia''s unusually sharp mortal-like teeth and straight into the elf''s ugly villainous face.


    The elf slumped against her moments later, and Caprifexia wrinkled her nose as she pushed the heavy armoured and smoking mortal off her. Standing, Caprifexia brushed herself off triumphantly, taking a moment to bask in her heroic, flawless victory.


    Back toward the centre of the amphitheatre the other nasty elves had been dealt with, which was good, but unfortunately her noodle brained companion''s were standing impassively a few meters from the vampire, which was very bad. It was too far away to clearly make out the words, but she was an expert on mortal behaviours, and could tell from their body language that something was wrong ¨C that they were clearly enthralled by the villainous undead.


    A brief stab of panic raced through Caprifexia as the vampire laughed and shook Einar''s hand. Caprifexia cursed herself for having got so far away from her gullible mortal companions. She had failed the Viglants of Standing, but she wouldn''t fail her friend, or, she supposed, the mean and grumpy and horrible and mean cat.


    Caprifexia summoned up her will and power as the vampire let go of Einar and turned toward the ravine, stooping down toward where the Elder Scroll had fallen ¨C probably when the vampire had clumsily been knocked down for totally un-Caprifexia related reasons.


    Blinking was the magical art of bending space-time and moving between two points more or less instantaneously. It was related to teleportation, but limited to line of sight, and far easier. Although it was still not something Caprifexia was especially familiar with, since usually she more than manoeuvrable enough in her true form to avoid wasting so much power on compensating for a mortal''s inferior ability to move around a battlefield.


    She did, however, of course, know how to do it, and as the vampire came to a stop and stooped for the scroll the world bent around Caprifexia, who disappeared from where she was standing and emerged in a shimmer of light behind the villainous undead a moment later.


    Her foot lashed out as soon as she materialised, catching the bloodsucker in the small of the back and sending her flying out over the subterranean ravine.


    The vampire managed to turn as their sideways momentum gave way to downward, and Caprifexia had just enough time to see a look of incredulity turning to fury before the undead vanished from view, a howl of outrage echoing upward a moment later. The scream was cut off almost five seconds later by a loud splash, and was then followed by a lot of faint swearing.


    Apparently vampire''s could survive very long falls.


    "Hah! Take that villain!" grinned Caprifexia, propping a foot against a boulder and grinning down into the darkness triumphantly. "Bet you wish you could fly, but you can''t, because you''re just a silly walking corpse! Whereas I, Caprifexia the Amazing-"


    "What. The. Fuck!?" yelled Einar, interrupting her heroic monologue and rushing to the edge of the ravine and looking down. "Why did you do that!?"


    Caprifexia blinked at him in confusion, even her brilliant mind taking a few moments to process the sheer madness of Einar telling her off for saving him from a vampire. Again.


    "You mortals are infuriating! I just saved you, and what thanks do I get? None!" yelled Caprifexia, reaching down and grabbing the Elder Scroll.


    As soon as her fingers closed on the casing a crackle of static electricity zapped her hand, the amphitheatre rang with three chimes once more ¨C louder this time.


    "I''ve got it¡­ try the third form¡­"


    "There! The chimes again! And voices!" she said, whirring around to where she heard the noise. "Did you hear that? Even you must have-"


    "For the last time, there''s nothing there! Stop changing the subject!" yelled Einar, jabbing a finger at the ravine and ignoring Caprifexia''s clearly more important concerns. "She was going to be on our side! She helped us defeat the Thalmor! She didn''t want them or her father to get the Scroll! You just kicked her off a cliff for literally no reason! Why do you keep doing this!?"


    "Huh?" said Caprifexia, turning her attention back to him. "No, she''s a vampire, and therefore an evil villain. Look, that doesn''t matter, the chimes-"


    "A vampire literally saved your life on that other Plane," shouted Einar. "You''ve been reading the books Soren-"


    "-Sorbet-"


    "-that Soren lent you for the past two weeks!"


    "But she was a vampire," repeated Caprifexia, stamping her foot as anger began to bubble up in her breast. "A vampire!"


    She was getting sick of the rules constantly changing: don''t burn that person Caprifexia, burn that person Caprifexia; don''t steal that woman''s handbag Caprifexia, help me steal this ridiculous axe Caprifexia; don''t call J''zargo a cat Caprifexia, even though he clearly is a cat Caprifexia; don''t set Liches free so they can murder people, don''t kick this vampire off a cliff because I say so Caprifexia.


    "Fucking hell Capri," said Einar, taking a deep breath before leaning over the edge and calling down. "Serana? Caprifexia''s really sorry for kicking you off the edge ¨C are you OK?"


    "I''ll kill you, you duplicitous horned elven harlot!" came the faint voice of the allegedly ''not evil,'' but very, very angry vampire.


    "How was I supposed to know she was an exception to the Friendly Lich rule!?" said Caprifexia throwing up her hands in disgust. "You can''t keep on making up new criteria for heroism whenever you like; I know you mortals are cognitively challenged, but consistency is a core component of being rational."


    "What in Oblivion is the ''Friendly Lich rule?''" said Einar in an equally exasperated, but far less justified, voice.


    "That undead monsters are villains even if they''re acting nice," she explained. "I thought she was tricking you ¨C your noodly mortal brains are terribly susceptible to mind magic after all."


    "I know what that feels like now, she wasn''t doing it," said Einar.


    "J''zargo''s mind is not noodly either," said the cat, denying objective fact as he peered over the edge. "J''zargo thinks, however, that since the vampire is now very angry, we should leave before she climbs back up."


    "I''ll rip out your heart, and shove it down your throat!" came the voice of the still angry vampire.


    "Good idea. Maybe another Plane?" suggested Einar with a half-laugh.


    Despite the fact that Caprifexia could obviously defeat the vampire again as easily as she had the first time, that would be tedious, so with a nod she raised a slightly battered hand, her body beginning to glow gold as she drew on her Spark and used it to will apart reality.


    There was a keening sound, and a few hairline cracks of golden light appeared in front of her. Before a portal could fully form, however, the Elder Scroll in her grasp screamed in protest and unleashed another sharp zap of energy, destabilising Caprifexia''s spell and knocking her over with the magical backlash.


    Once again, the three chimes rang out, this time almost deafeningly, and for the first time accompanied by clear voices.


    "There. That''s the point!" said an unseen woman. "The energy spike, can you use it as an anchor?"


    "Capri? You OK? What''s going on?" asked Einar.


    "I can''t¡­ I can''t do it," said Caprifexia, alarmed. "It''s like when we were in those disgusting ruins, next to that orb! I''m being blocked! The Chimes are blocking me!"


    "It isn''t the dragon''s hallucinations, it is the Scroll," said J''zargo, pointing at the rolled object grasped in Caprifexia''s hands. "It is a fundamental part of Nirn ¨C it must be reinforcing reality around it, preventing the ridiculous dragon opening a portal into the Void."


    Caprifexia had to admit that sometimes the cat wasn''t entirely foolish ¨C for a mortal. Although he was the ridiculous one, clearly.


    "I''ll rip off your horns and skin you with them!" came the vampire''s voice, closer this time. "I''ll make regret ever being-"


    Whatever vicious and villainous thing the allegedly-not-evil vampire had been about to say was cut off, however, as colour suddenly bled from the world and the roar of the waterfall which had been omnipresent since they''d entered the cavern suddenly cut off, leaving an eerie silence.


    Caprifexia pushed herself up off the ground, frowning at J''zargo and Einar, who appeared as slightly coloured, slightly blurry objects. Her own form looked normal, with all the proper colours and movement it should have had, naturally, although she didn''t really know why the Elder Scroll was glowing a strange iridescent colour.


    "This is futile, there''s nothing here," came a male voice from behind her. "You know we can''t directly affect the Fractures ¨C it''s been tried!"


    Caprifexia whirred around, growling at two figures who had suddenly appeared, male and female mortals dressed in cream coloured robes trimmed in a red and white pattern. The man looked somewhat like the nasty Thalmor elves (Antmer, maybe?) while the woman was shorter and human-looking, with two long braids extending outward from either side of her hood. Einar would probably have known where she was from, although there were far too many inconsequential mortal races on Nirn for Caprifexia to be sure of exactly what sub category she was part of.


    "No ¨C I heard something," said the woman, peering around from under her hood. "The Lesser Fracture is here. I''m sure of it."


    "Lesser Fracture?" said Caprifexia. "What are you talking about? Who are you?"


    "See! I told you Tandil!" said the woman, staring straight through where Caprifexia was. "The Fractures are para-causal, but still affect the world around them! We can hear them!"


    "I demand you answer me!" spat Caprifexia, conjuring fire. "Who are you! What have you done to my friends?"


    "You friends?" said the woman, looking at J''zargo and Einar. "Oh, look at that ¨C they''re partially out of sync. Fascinating, I wonder why-"


    "This isn''t the time to indulge in your excessive curiosity Lomeria, we have limited time," snapped Tandil, looking vaguely toward where Caprifexia was. "Fracture ¨C I don''t know who or what you are, but you need to stop what you''re doing."


    "''Fracture?''" said Caprifexia. "I am not a ''Fracture.'' My name is Caprifexia, Saviour of the Multiverse-"


    "Saviour!?" said the man in disbelief. "You''re destroying Nirn! You somehow removed the Dragonborn from the Kalpa! You were there when the Eye of Magnus vanished! When Windhelm was erased! How can you possibly think yourself a saviour!?"


    "The proto-drake born died in a tragic Void related accident that I was only tangentially related to, and honestly, they put their fingers under my boots," explained Caprifexia. "And I have no idea what you''re talking about ¨C Windhelm was already under attack by Void creatures when I arrived. That''s very unfair for you to accuse me of such things. You''re mean. I don''t like you."


    "What is a proto-drake?" asked the woman.


    "The so-called dragons of this world," said Caprifexia. "Which is ridiculous, since they have only two legs. Real dragons have four."


    "Wait, what-"


    "Lomeria! Focus!" said the man.


    "What about the ''Void Creatures,''" asked the woman, ignoring her gibbering companion ¨C who reminded Caprifexia somewhat of Einar; a certain whingy tenor to his voice¡­


    "The Faceless that attacked Windhelm ¨C the Void Tear was open when I arrived," said Caprifexia. "I certainly didn''t cause it."


    "So you know what these creatures are?" asked Lomeria. "These ''Faceless?''"


    "Of course," said Caprifexia. "Abominations from the Void between worlds."


    "Like you?" asked Lomeria.


    "What? No ¨C if I were a Faceless, you''d be insane by now," said Caprifexia. "I am a mighty dragon of Azeroth, Queen of the Black Dragonflight even! A real dragon. I have four legs, like a proper-"


    "So if she didn''t open this ''Void Tear,'' then it must have been the other fracture," said the woman, cutting off Caprifexia''s attempt to educate her. "Caprifexia, yes? Do you know who it was? The one who opened the Tear?"


    "What?" said Caprifexia irritably. Now she''d lost her train of thought about proto-drakes and dragons. "Of course not, no ¨C if I knew that I would have killed them. Heroically. That''s what I do. I''m a hero."


    "So you''re opposed to whoever is opening these tears?" asked Lomaria.


    "Tears?" said Caprifexia. "There are more?"


    "Another was opened in Riften," said Tandil, glancing down at something she couldn''t see. "From your perspective¡­ three days ago. Another will be opened in a few hours in Whiterun."


    "''Perspective?''" said Caprifexia with a frown as she went back over the mortal''s yapping in the mind, throwing up her hands in disgust as she realised what was going on. "Oh don''t tell me you fools are messing with time! Honestly, why is it that mortals always think they can just dip in and out of the time-stream without repercussions? Your tiny minds are not designed to understand non-linear causality!"


    "That isn''t the issue," said Lomaria. "Listen, if you''re not trying to destroy the world, we need your help-"


    "Lomaria, she''s part of the reason we''re in this mess!" said Tandil.


    "And unless we change something Akatosh dies," said Lomaria, anger entering her voice for the first time. "We''ve tried everything else, and we know she isn''t bound by Fate."


    "We still can implement the Master''s plan," said Tandil. "Intervene directly."


    "The Psijic order have never been fighters, and whatever the Major Fracture is, it is unlike anything this world has ever known ¨C you know as well as I do that it is almost certainly suicide," said Lomaria. "We need her help."


    Tandil huffed, before shrugging. "Fine," he said.


    "Listen Caprifexia, we don''t have a lot of time-" said Lomaria.


    "You shouldn''t have any!" yelled Caprifexia, stomping her feet. "Time travel is dangerous-"


    "Whatever it is you are, there is another like you on Nirn," said Lomaria, interrupting her and demonstrating the depressingly common lack of manners so characteristic of mortals. "We can''t see them properly, and neither can the Gods ¨C it''s like you''re¡­ invisible, moving from place to place, upsetting the delicate balance of the tapestry of Time.


    "The other one has been here a lot longer than you have, years and years, and the damage they''ve caused in the Kalpa, the cycle of time, has been getting worse and worse, and it leads to a point of total collapse ¨C the death of Akatosh and Magnus."


    "And for those of us who don''t pay attention to such meaningless minutia¡­ what''s an Akatosh?" asked Caprifexia.


    "The Dragon-god of Time!" said Tandil, pressing the balls of his palms into his face.


    "Ah yes, Einar''s mentioned them; you mean the proto-drake SABIGISMF," said Caprifexia, correcting his silly superstition. "Well they probably deserve to die ¨C messing with time is incredibly foolish. You''ll be better off without them."


    "The Sabig-what?" asked Lomaria.


    "A ''Sufficiently Advanced Being that is Indistinguishable from a God to Idiotic and Superstitious Mortal Fools,''" explained Caprifexia. "It''s a dragonym. Gods don''t exist."


    The two time-wrecking mortals looked at each other with confusion for a moment, before the elven mad made some kind of strangled cry and walked away, disappearing a moment later.


    "I see¡­" said Lomaria, glancing after her departed companion. "Look, what you call them isn''t important, but what is is that they are essential to the continuing existence of not only Mundus, but Aetherias and Oblivion as well. We don''t know precisely how, and we don''t know why, but whoever or whatever the Major Fracture is, they kill Akatosh and Magnus a month and a half from when you are, at High Hrothgar, at the time-rift atop the Throat of the World. Beyond that? We don''t know for sure. Time begins to unravel, the Cycle breaks, and all we can see is fire and death and emptiness."


    "Time isn''t something you can just ''read,''" said Caprifexia, crossing her arms. "You''re probably wrong; or causing it with your totally irresponsible use of magic."


    "The Psijic Order, that''s us, is mobilising to try and stop them directly, but I don''t know if we''ll succeed," continued Lomaria, rudely ignoring Caprifexia once again. "Listen, you''re in Dimhollow Crypt, yes? Have you met Serana?"


    "Serana?" said Caprifexia, scratching her horn and trying to recall all the annoyingly non-standardised and complicated mortal names she was constantly bombarded with and then expected to remember. "No, I don''t think so."


    "She''s a vampire-"


    "Oh, yes ¨C I just kicked her into a ravine," nodded Caprifexia. "Filthy Villainous Vampire. Don''t worry, I''ve dealt with them, they shan''t threaten any of you feeble mortals anymore! My friends weren''t happy with my amazing heroism ¨C but then again, they never are."


    Lomaria put her head in her hands and said several very crude things very loudly.


    "Serana is very important!" said the woman in an angry voice once she had recovered somewhat from her tantrum, balling her hands into fists. "In the normal timeline, before you Fractures came along and fucked it up, she finds the Bow of Auriel with the Dragonborn ¨C who you somehow annihilated ¨C and together they stop the Black Sun."


    "The what Sun?" asked Caprifexia.


    "The Volkihar Vampire''s plot to blind Akatosh and usher in eternal night!" said Lomaria in an exasperated voice, as if Caprifexia was somehow supposed to know every ridiculous little villainous plot on their ridiculous little world.


    Caprifexia snorted. "Well that''s absurd ¨C the filthy, disgusting, revolting, bloodsuckers need mortal blood to live, how would the mortals grow crops to survive themselves? They really do have rotten brains-"


    "Will you shut up and listen!?" said Lomaria, pulling at the braids under her hood. "Serana is vital, we know that the Major Fracture gets the bow at some point. I don''t know if that''s what they use to kill Akatosh ¨C although it might be, since They created it¡­ Look, if you really want to help us, help this world, you need to get that bow and keep it away from the Major Fracture any way you can. For that you need Serana. Probably."


    "Err?" said Caprifexia, glancing down the ravine and pulling on her coat''s collar. "Are you¡­ sure we need the horrible, nasty, probably-villainous, vampire?"


    "Yes," said Lomaria., "Well, no, not sure ¨C your very existence on Nirn changes everything around you. But normally she is key to finding the bow somewhere just to the west of Haafingar Peak."


    Caprifexia cleared her throat. "She may not be¡­ entirely amenable to working with me."


    "What? Oh, right, of course, you kicked her off¡­" said Lomaria, glaring over to the ravine as she massaged her temples. "OK, OK ¨C I can fix this. You''re para-causal, and you have an Elder Scroll, which means that I can use it as an anchor, which I can then use to and move time back in this area, and because you''re a Fracture, you won''t be affected, and you''ll retain your memories¡­"


    "Absolutely not. Mortals shouldn''t mess with time," said Caprifexia, crossing her arms. "You''re not capable of the cognitive reasoning required to do it correctly. No, I forbid it!"


    "Time is already messed with!" yelled Lomaria insolently. "I''m moving things back. Just don''t kick her off again, for the love of Mara¡­"


    "Don''t you listen!? I said this is a very bad idea," repeated Caprifexia, stomping her foot. "Mortals shouldn''t-"


    Before Caprifexia could finish explaining in detail to the silly mortal that time wasn''t something to be played with, again, the world around her shifted. Behind her the roar of the waterfall played back in reverse, the water rushing back up the way it had came as colour bled back into the world. A few moment''s later the very angry, and then very surprised vampire soared out of the ravine and landed on the edge in front of Caprifexia, moving backwards until they were stooping down where the Elder Scroll had been.


    There was a brief moment of stillness and quiet as the reversal slowed back down, and the three Chimes sounded as time suddenly resumed it''s usual flow.


    "Argh!" said Einar and J''zargo, simultaneously doubling over and cradling their heads.


    "What the?" said the vampire, blinking down at where the Elder Scroll had been before turning to Caprifexia and frowning. "How did¡­"


    "Idiots!" spat Caprifexia, throwing the Elder Scroll at the ''apparently-not-evil'' vampire who she apparently wasn''t allowed to kick into the ravine.


    "What''s going on?" demanded the stroppy vampire as she caught the Scroll. "How did you get across the room? Why are Einar and J''zargo in different places?"


    "Because stupid mortals are playing with time!" shouted Caprifexia, jabbing a finger at where Lomaria had been. "You hear me, you stupid mortals!? You''re stupid! You''re primitive monkeys playing with forces you don''t understand! You know, the blues were really onto something with the whole Nexus War, mortals shouldn''t be allowed to wield-"


    "Capri, what''s going on ¨C why does my head feel like it''s been run over by a horse?" asked Einar from where he was doubled over, massaging his temples.


    "I told you, you stupid mortal; there are stupid mortals are playing with time!" raged Caprifexia, blowing up a particularly impudent looking rock with a blast of angry lightning. "That''s what the chimes were! Stupid, loud, ante-causal¡­ time-chimes!"


    "''Time¡­ chimes?''" asked the vampire, looking at Einar.


    "Don''t look at me," said Einar with a shrug. "Capri is sometimes, err, ''hard to follow.''"


    "''Oh look at me, I''m a mortal, let''s play with time magic even though my tiny mortal brain is too small to comprehend non-linear causality! Oops I broke it!''" said Caprifexia, ignoring their inane twitter. "Ugh, and they''ve probably created a paradox! Perfect."


    "Is she¡­ always like this?" asked Serana, looking askance at Einar and J''zargo.


    "Yes," groaned J''zargo, cradling his furry head between his paws. "Always."


    "Capri, please tell us what''s going on," said Einar. "Why are you ranting about time magic?"


    "Because some fools meddled with time to tell me a bunch of nonsense," huffed Caprifexia. "They undid me kicking the vampire off the ravine! Do you realise how irresponsible that is? No ¨C of course you don''t, you''re just a mortal! Like them!"


    "Hold on, undid what?" said Serana.


    "What ''nonsense?''" asked Einar. "Capri, remember how we talked about the need to be specific?"


    "Something about the world ending in a month and a half. Allegedly, anyway," said Caprifexia, waving her hand. "Amanosh and Mangoes dying. I don''t know, it doesn''t matter, what matters is that mortals are meddling with time; they''re probably the ones who caused the whole alleged problem in the first place-"


    "The ''world ending in a month and a half!?''" said Einar in his hysterical high pitched voice. "You didn''t lead with that!? No, stop. Start at the beginning, and explain everything."

 Uncompromising Anti-Imperialism

    "This isn''t going to work," said Caprifexia, eyeing the runic circle that the cat had drawn suspiciously. "J''zargo is a terrible wizard."


    J''zargo looked up from his chalking and glared at her, but didn''t respond ¨C likely due to the fact he knew it was true. Her mortal charges, and newly acquired disgusting vampire hanger on, had decided that since Half-finger peak was close to a city with a lodestone they would get the cat to teleport them there. Caprifexia told them that was a bad plan, and that there was no need to be so impatient, but, as usual, they hadn''t listened to her boundless wisdom.


    "He wasn''t the one who got the snot kicked out of her by three rank and file Thalmor troops," said Serana, the nasty Vampire who Caprifexia was not allowed to destroy for totally arbitrary reasons. "And I''m not especially well versed in this sort of magic, but it looks fine to me."


    "I did not ''get the snot kicked out of me.'' I triumphed ¨C heroically," snapped Caprifexia, eruditely. "Besides, dragon''s don''t have snot, at least not in their real forms. Not that a filthy leech with delusions of grandeur like you would know that!"


    "You''re not a dragon, you''re just a very disturbed elf with a knack for polymorphism," said the Vampire, rolling her eyes.


    "What!? How dare- how dare you call me an elf!" shouted Caprifexia.


    "That''s what you are," laughed the mean and wrong and mean vampire who Caprifexia really should have been allowed to vaporise, or at least kick off the edge of the ravine again.


    "I am not!" argued Caprifexia. Eloquently. "Am not! Am not! Am not! Am-"


    "Serana, she actually is a dragon," said Einar, interrupting her detailed rebuttal.


    "What? No way," said the vampire. "Dragons are huge, and they don''t have four legs. She''s tiny."


    "You''re tiny!" said Caprifexia. "And- and- and¡­ stupid!"


    "She''s a dragon from another universe," said Einar. "And she''s a baby ¨C hence the¡­ attitude."


    Serana gave him a very dubious look.


    "Why don''t we just walk?" said Caprifexia, staring at the cat''s clearly ineptly made teleportation circle. "I know you mortals are impatient since you''re all inevitably going to die, but it''s only two weeks or so to this ''Solemnity.''"


    "Solitude. And two weeks when the world is literally going to end in a month and a half is a lot," said Einar. "J''zargo says this will work ¨C I trust him."


    "Allegedly going to end," grumbled Caprifexia. "We only have the word of some very irresponsible mortals. Did it occur to you that they might be villains? That this might be some elaborate double bluff? Of course not, you''re just a bunch of simpering mortals, you probably can''t even conceive that someone might try to trick you."


    "I''m not a mortal," interjected Serana. "I''m a vampire."


    "Ah, yes," said Caprifexia. "Mortals, and disgusting undead abomination."


    "Gee, thanks," said the abomination.


    "You''re welcome, fiend," said Caprifexia, pleased that although they were a revolting rotting lampray, at least they had some semblance of manners ¨C unlike her other charges.


    "There, J''zargo is finished," said the cat, straightening and putting the book he had been consulting and his stick of chalk in a pocket, dusting off his furry hands. "We are ready."


    "This rune-work is very shoddy," said Caprifexia, toeing at a wobbly line. "I don''t think it is safe. I bet you''ve never even done this before. A proper wizard wouldn''t need a runic circle. We should just walk."


    "J''zargo admits, he has not done this before¡­" said J''zargo. "But J''zargo understands the theory. It will work¡­ J''zargo thinks."


    "See! Even the cat admits it isn''t going to work!" said Caprifexia.


    "J''zargo is not a cat!" said J''zargo, once again continuing to deny his true feline nature. "And J''zargo did not say that!"


    "Sure, the cat isn''t a cat, just like the sky isn''t blue," said Caprifexia.


    "Is she always this bigoted?" asked Serana.


    "Yes," said Einar and J''zargo simultaneously. And wrongly.


    "Look Capri, you''re outvoted, we''re teleporting ¨C whether you like it or not," said Einar.


    "Since when is this a democracy?" said Caprifexia. "I never agreed to that. I exercise my veto! I''m a dragon, I get a veto!"


    "Why would being a dragon give you a veto?" asked the vampire.


    "Because we''re wiser and smarter than you small minded mortal fools," said Caprifexia. "Obviously."


    "Oh of course, obviously," said the vampire, chuckling at her own foolish doubt in the face of Caprifexia''s self-evident draconic magnificence.


    "You don''t get a veto," said Einar as J''zargo spread his hands and began to channel magic into the runic circle. "Now stop whinging, we''ll be fine."


    "It''s easy for you to say that! You''re not a wizard!" said Caprifexia, her voice level and calm and definitely not high pitched and worried. "You don''t know what happens with botched teleports! I do. You know, because I''m a wizard! A wizard you should listen to! If the cat makes even a small miscalculation, or if the lodestone on the other end is damaged, I could be smeared across six dimensions!"


    "J''zargo will be less likely to make a mistake if the small dragon shuts up," growled the cat as azure energy began to roll off him, sinking into the poorly drawn runes and reacting with whatever thaumaturgically conductive substance was in the chalk. Probably copper, given how cheap and expedient mortals were.


    Caprifexia grimaced as the arcane charge built, and closed her eyes as the light became blinding. A moment later there was a lurching sensation, and her silly mortal form''s ears popped as the pressure suddenly shifted and a wave of sound washed over her.


    "What the-"


    "Hands in the air-"


    "Wait, they''re mages-"


    "Someone get the General-"


    Caprifexia opened her eyes to find herself in a long stone hall. It was typical of mortal buildings: smokey sconces providing light, dirty floors, and ugly ''artwork'' adorning the walls. There were boxes of goods and supplies stacked everywhere, along with tables, maps, and stacks of paper so high they looked in danger of toppling over.


    There were mortals in armour, mostly human, rushing about in a frenzy, and several of them had noticed Caprifexia, her mortal charges, and the undead tag-along''s arrival. Noticed, and drawn their weapons.


    Likely villainously.


    They had arrived on a slightly raised circular stone dais, which she could sense was enchanted to serve as an anchor for teleport spells ¨C a lodestone. That meant that J''zargo, unbelievably, hadn''t made a catastrophic mistake, although he hadn''t mentioned that they were going to emerge in the middle of an army. Not that she was worried ¨C she was, after all, a dragon. A bunch of mortals with pointy metal sticks didn''t scare her. At all. Obviously.


    "Whoa!" said Einar, holding up his hands. "No need for the swords, friends! We didn''t know this place was being used as a barracks."


    "And if you know what''s good for you-" began Caprifexia.


    "Capri, no," hissed Einar, covering her mouth.


    "You''re mages?" came a vaguely dwarven sounding brogue as a human male with shortly cropped steel grey hair strode into the room. The General, she assumed, since he carried himself with a totally delusional amount of confidence ¨C absurd, given his non-draconic nature.


    He gestured to the soldiers to stand down, which was lucky for them, because Caprifexia had been debating about how many seconds a hero was supposed to give people the ''benefit of the doubt'' that Einar was always talking about before incinerating them.


    She''d been leaning toward about eighteen seconds.


    "General Tullius?" said Einar, before gesturing to Caprifexia and the others. "Um, they are. Not me."


    "College?" barked General ''Tullius,'' making Caprifexia''s hackles rise. She might be a hero, but she didn''t accept any mortal bossing her around.


    "None of your- mrrph!" began Caprifexia, before being unjustly silenced by her supposed friend. Again.


    "J''zargo is from Winterhold," said J''zargo, wiping some sweat from his brow and glaring totally unjustifiably at Caprifexia. "The small angry dr- horned elf is¡­ technically a member, the other lady is not."


    "And are anymore of the college coming? Did you get my message?" asked the General.


    "Message? No ¨C J''zargo has not been at the college for weeks," said J''zargo. "Why?"


    "Why? Because I''ve got reports Whiterun has been obliterated by some kind of mountain sized monster, and I need more mages to fight the damn thing!" said the General. "If the college hasn''t gotten my message, I suppose you''ll have to do."


    "We have more important things to do," said Caprifexia, heading toward the door through which she could see the early evening sky. "We don''t have time for whatever silly little mortal delusion this is."


    The mortal General grabbed her arm as she moved to pass him and Caprifexia stopped, more out of shock than anything else. It took even her brilliantly fast mind a few moments to process the sheer audacity of the elderly human. He, a ridiculously pompous mortal who she didn''t even know, was grabbing her. Even if she was a hero, that was totally out of line. She was a dragon, he was just a squishy pink ape! Apes did not get to grab dragons.


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    "You''re a member of a college, that makes you a servant of the Empire," said the General. "I''m drafting you-"


    "Servant!?" growled Caprifexia, recovering from her total shock, smoke trickling from her nose in outrage. "How dare you! Remove your hand at once!"


    "That''s ''please remove your hand sir,'' recruit," said the unbelievably impertinent mortal.


    "Easy Capri," said Einar in an urgent, whiny voice. "General, I''m sorry ¨C but she''s right, we have a very important mission that can''t be put aside."


    Caprifexia''s eye twitched, and more smoke began to billow from her nostrils. She was pretty sure that it would be well within the heroic guidelines to incinerate him. But Caprifexia was nothing if not tolerant and understanding, and Einar would whine at her if she taught this General a lesson him without ''just cause,'' so she decided to give him at least a few more seconds with his various bits uncrushed and/or unburnt.


    "A mission?" said the General.


    "That''s right, it''s very important," said Serana, her voice ringing with a strange cadence. "If you don''t mind, we''ll just be on our way."


    The General frowned, his eyes growing glassy as Caprifexia stared down at the hand still holding her hand in ever mounting fury.


    How dare he touch her? Even if she was now a hero, that didn''t mean that mortals were just allowed to grab her with their grubby little paws. She tolerated Einar''s woeful manners regarding her personal space, but he was her friend. This withered bag of pus was not.


    "I¡­ what mission?" said the General vaugely, shaking his head as if to try and clear it.


    "We need to find the Bow of-" began Einar as Caprifexia''s patience ran out and she wound back her arm. "Capri, no!"


    Caprifexia''s fist blurred forward, smashing the General''s rude and impertinent nose underneath her heroic knuckles and sending him tumbling to the floor, where uppity, quite possibly villainous, mortals like him belonged. A hush fell over the hall as the man swore, cradling his bloodied nose and looking up at Caprifexia with disbelief ¨C almost as if she had been the unreasonable one in the exchange.


    "For fuck''s sake!" shouted Einar as the soldiers recovered from their shock and drew their weapons in a chorus of steel. "Sir, I''m sorry, she didn''t mean that! Please, everyone, let''s just stay calm-"


    One sword wielding mortal lunged at Caprtifexia, but her inner-furnace had already warmed up, and he fell screaming as a she opened her mouth and unleashed a jet of dragonfire straight at him, setting him aflame.


    He screamed and dropped his weapon, staggering about and falling into several crates behind him alight that were labelled with a terrible hand-written sign saying ''lemp oll'' and ''houghley fammaple.'' She had no idea what ''houghley fammaple'' ''lemp oll'' was, likely some nonsensical and superfluous mortal thing, like ''cheese,'' or ''bandages,'' or ''civil liberties,'' and it probably wasn''t important.


    "Capri, stop killing people!" shouted Einar, even as he drew his own sword and held it defensively in front of himself. "Listen, this is all a terrible misunderstanding-"


    Before Einar got any further with his ridiculously obsequious faux-explanation there was a whooshing sound, and in a wave of fire the ''houghley fammaple lep oll'' boxes exploded outward, washing over Caprifexia, the General, the already burning soldier, and outward across the hall.


    Caprifexia roared, and did definitely not scream, in surprise as she was thrown to the ground, flailing a hand out wildly as she hastily threw up a shield in the direction of her highly flammable friend and two other companions.


    The fire raged on and on, with several more explosions going off around the room, before it gradually subsided into a merry blaze, revealing a slightly singed, but thankfully safe Einar behind three shields: an expertly crafted one of hers, and two other far more shoddy pieces of magic cast by the cat and the vampire. All around them, however, were the still and charred corpses of the villainous soldiers who had tried to press gang her totally unfairly into some kind of ridiculous mortal nonsense, and who hadn''t been quick or clever or amazing enough to save themselves with magic from her righteous and totally justified fury.


    "Great going," said Serana, glancing around at the burning hall. "I can see why you''re in charge."


    "They attacked me! You all saw it!" said Caprifexia defensively, picking herself up off the floor. "They were clearly villains! This was a¡­ a dazzling piece of heroism! You should be impressed, I thwarted their dastardly plot and freed the city of Solemnity-"


    "-Solitude-" ''corrected'' the trio together.


    "-from the tyrannical grip of¡­ whoever these people were," continued Caprifexia, heroically gesturing at the remains of her vanquished foes.


    A burning beam crashed to the ground behind her. In the distance there was the sound of screaming.


    "Dazzling," agreed the vampire, who Caprifexia actually found herself warming to somewhat. "Truly, you''re the hero that Skyrim deserves."


    "Thank-you," sniffed Caprifexia, brushing a few burning splinters off her jacket. "It''s heartening to know that some people appreciate proper heroism, even if they''re disgusting, vile abominations."


    "No," said Einar in his by now standard tone, unfairly angry at her. "They were not villains. The General just thought that he was within his rights to draft a college wizard for some kind of dire emergency that we now know nothing about. Which, by the way, legally speaking, he totally was."


    "He grabbed me!" said Caprifexia, pointing at her sleeve. "On the arm! Villainously! I think I have a bruise!"


    "Grabbing your arm is rude, but it isn''t something that warrants an immediately homicidal response! How is this something I have to explain to you!?" said Einar. "Fucking hell, Serana was about to hypnotise him! No one had to die, we could have already been on our way! They might have even been able to help us!"


    "The other one lunged at me with a sword!" countered Caprifexia. Brilliantly. "It looked really sharp!"


    "A threat which you, mighty wizard you claim to be, could surely have dealt with less lethally than setting him, and then the entire building on fire!" shouted Einar unfairly.


    "You don''t know that!" shouted Caprifexia back. "You''re not a wizard! You can''t even make a warelight! And how was I supposed to know that the fool would stagger into a highly combustible pile of ''houghley fammaple lemp ool?'' Whatever that is¡­"


    "Lamp oil!" hissed Einar. "Lamp. Oil."


    "No," she corrected. "It quite clearly said ''Lemp Ool'' ¨C I''m a dragon, my memory is perfect."


    "You know, I don''t even know why I''m surprised anymore!" raged Einar. "You''re a menace Capri. A menace!"


    Another burning beam fell, along with part of the roof.


    "J''zargo suggests we leave," said the cat in a resigned voice. "Before the dragon''s tantrum crushes us, or she kills even more innocent people."


    "It was not a tantrum," grumbled Caprifexia, following the shielded group as they rushed toward the doorway. "And they were villains. You mortals are just- just¡­ so unfair!"


    "Yes, clearly we are the unfair ones," agreed the more level-headed Vampire as they emerged into the early evening. It was raining gently, and people were running about in a typical example of exaggerated mortal panic. It was just a little burning building, nothing to get too excited about.


    What drew Caprifexia''s attention immediately, however, was the flash of golden light in the eastern sky that lit up with the outline of an immense humanoid for a split second before a gigantic bolt of lightning rocketed down from the heavens and struck something behind a distant peak.


    "Gods," muttered Serana as they quickly ducked away from the building and the growing crowd. "Is that¡­ a Divine?"


    "Gods don''t exist," snorted Caprifexia as the sky lit up again, and the silhouette appeared again in a different position, once again launching a bolt of lightning.


    While it definitely wasn''t a God, however, whatever that was, it did seem rather powerful. Not as powerful as a dragon, obviously, but still she was relieved that they were headed south, rather than east.


    Caprifexia and her charges slipped easily past the frenzied mortals who were attempting to put out her righteous blaze, making their way through the city of Solemnity. There were both troops and civilians running here and there, glancing up whenever the there horrific sounding screams echoed in from the eastern horizon where more flashes of lightning revealed figures in the clouds. An old man in a ragged robe was shouting about the end of the world, although mortals were always saying that, so it was probably unrelated.


    "Capri ¨C those things in Windhelm, the Faceless," said Einar, as they were midway through heroically liberating some poor imprisoned horses from the abandoned stables outside the city. "They were strong, but not God strong. If a Divine-"


    "-SABIGISMF-"


    "-whatever you call them," said Einar unjustifiably irritably. "If they''re having trouble fighting something, what¡­ what might it be? Assuming the same thing has happened to Whiterun that happened to Windhelm?"


    "Hmm? Hypothetically?" said Caprifexia, idly picking at her teeth with a talon where she had some fish stuck from breakfast that was annoying her.


    "''Hypothetically?''" said Einar. "But the people who contacted you from the future said-"


    "Mortals who dabble in time can''t be trusted," sniffed Caprifexia. "This is all pure conjecture."


    "OK, hypothetically then, whatever," said Einar, finishing doing something complex with the horse''s riding equipment and vaulting on top of the creature. "What might it be?"


    "Probably an Old God," she said after a moment''s thought, flapping up onto his shoulders.


    "Ow! Watch the claws," said Einar. "And isn''t that¡­ really bad?"


    "It''s also vanishingly unlikely," said Caprifexia. "Even if a large enough rift was opened to admit one of them, which is highly doubtful, this world''s Void Integrity Quotient is still higher than one, so they can''t manifest fully for more than a few moments under normal circumstances. The rift can''t be held open indefinitely, so they''ll have no source of sufficient Void magic to sustain them. The only way they would not wither into nothing was if there was some other source of power to sustain them, say a cult of mages or something ¨C and even then the power requirements would be enormous."


    They trotted out of the stable, Einar glancing with a worried expression toward the eastern horizon, where more lightning flashed, and faint eldritch roars could be heard.


    "Capri, I''m really worried about this," said Einar.


    "You''re always worried about everything," said Caprifexia. "Don''t fret, it''s just perfectly normal mortal neurosis ¨C you''re all like that."


    "If those people who contacted you are right, then two Gods ¨C I don''t care what you want to call them ¨C die," said Einar. "Capri, they hold Nirn together, if Akatosh and Magnus are killed this world will end."


    "That''s ridiculous-"


    "You yourself said how this universe is ''strange,''" said Einar, cutting her off. "How it doesn''t work like your own?"


    "Yes," she agreed slowly. "So?"


    "So assume, for a moment, that the time-traveller''s told you the truth and try and help me figure this out, OK?" said Einar. "You are, despite everything, smart."


    "Fine," huffed Caprifexia as the other two emerged with horses and they set off at a trot away from the still smoking town. "I''ll indulge you, but only because I''m a hero."


    "So apparently you are somehow ''shrouded'' from the view of the Divines," said Einar. "Right? And there is someone or something else like you as well."


    "The ''Major Fracture'' yes," said Caprifexia, fishing out a book from where she had stashed it in Einar''s saddlebag with a flex of magic and flicking it open. "Which, honestly, I object to. I should be the ''major'' one. I''m a dragon, after all. They''re probably not. And even if they are, then we''d just be ''Equal Fractures-''"


    "And let''s assume, for a moment, that it''s also true that they''re also the ones going around blowing up towns and summoning Faceless, and maybe an Old God, and are the ones who are trying to kill Akatosh and Magnus," said Einar. "What do you think they are, and what do you think they want?"


    "Hmm?" she said, glancing up from one of the books that Sorbet Melon had given her, and which she was reading for the twentieth time to try and figure out exactly how one formed ''mana bonds.'' "What was that?"


    "I said," growled Einar. "''What do you think they are, and what do you think they want?''"


    "Oh, probably another Planeswalker," said Caprifeixa.'' "If this world is actually bound by some kind of rigid Fate then a being from outside it would inevitably cause at least minor damage to its silly continuity. We are the only beings to my knowledge that can safely navigate the void ¨C other than Faceless, of course."


    "''Damage Continuity?'' Like you when you killed the Dragonborn?" said Einar.


    "That was self-defence!" she objected. "And she was a werewolf, a creature of darkness! It was justified!"


    "So another Planeswalker ¨C but why would they want to blow up towns?" said Einar. "Kill Divines? What do they get out it?"


    "Who can understand the mind of a villain?" said Caprifexia sagely.


    "You, since, you know, you were one," said Einar. "What were your people motivated by?"


    "We were pawns of the Old Ones," said Caprifexia. "We wanted to destroy the world and usher in the rule of the Void."


    "But Planeswalkers are immune to the ''Old One''s whispers'' ¨C right?" asked Einar. "So it can''t be that."


    "Einar, you know I can''t follow your twisted, irrational, so-called mortal ''logic,''" said Caprifexia, flicking to the third chapter: ''Trans-planar Sympathetic Channelling: How to draw on mana across the Blind Eternities.'' "Is there some point you''re getting at?"


    "They must get something out of it all," muttered Einar, glancing across to the eastern horizon. "But what is there to get out of a shattered, barren, dead world¡­?"


    "They''re a villain: maybe they''re just evil? I wouldn''t try and overthink it. You''ll injure that tiny mind of yours," said Caprifexia reassuringly patting him on the head.


    "Don''t know why I bother¡­" sighed Einar, bowing to her wisdom, and she buried her head in the book as they began to slowly work their way southward.

 A Ballistic Based Impediment

    A Ballistic Based Impediment


    A discordant roar followed by a clap of thunder roused Caprifexia from her comfortable slumber. She poked her head out from the saddlebag she had been napping in a moment later, scowl on her face.


    "Stupid SABIGSIMFs!" grumbled Caprifexia, rubbing her face with a forelimb. "Can''t they be quiet? I''m trying to sleep!"


    "Yes, your disrupted sleep is clearly the issue here," said Einar, insolently. "It isn''t like the world''s ending or anything."


    They had been travelling southward for almost five days from the city of Solitude, along a road clogged with terrified mortals who, like her companions, seemed to believe that the end was nigh. Caprifexia had tried to explain to them that the giant Faceless that was apparently wreaking havoc on the Whiterun Plains would almost definitely run out of energy to sustain itself, and that everyone should just calm down, but they, predictably, hadn''t listened to her. As usual.


    Although the journey hadn''t been difficult for a mighty dragon such as herself, tbut he two mortals in the party had been struggling with the long days of travelling they were forcing upon themselves, and had been even more irritable and unreasonable than usual. And rather than deal with their hysteric mortal emotions they were taking them out on Caprifexia. As usual.


    They''d turned from the road the day beforehand and began ascending a ridge line to ''Half-Finger'' peak, where the very foolish time-meddling mortals who had probably triggered this whole alleged calamity in the first place with their reckless magic had told them there was a Bow that was somehow very important.


    Caprifexia thought it was pretty absurd to think that a fancily tied ribbon was going to either save or damn the world, but no one had cared what she thought. As usual.


    Fools.


    "The world isn''t ending," she shot back. "That''s nothing but mortal delusion-"


    "A Divine has been fighting something over there for almost a week!" said Einar, pointing eastward to where the sky was fractured, great cracks splitting the horizon with lines of brilliant gold and pale silver. "And those mages said that Akatosh-"


    "-Amanosh-" corrected Caprifexia. Correctly.


    "-no, Akatosh! Akatosh!" said Einar, doubling down on his error in typically ape headed mortal fashion. "That he was going to die-"


    "Mortals who meddle in time can''t be trusted," she said. "I''ve explained this-"


    "-and you also said that whatever that monster was it would be gone in a few hours, but it isn''t," said Einar, growing hysterical. As usual. "It''s still there-"


    "It''s not my fault your reality is stupid-"


    "Enough," said the cat sharply, cutting off Caprifexia''s detailed explanation as to exactly why Einar was wrong. "J''zargo hears something."


    Caprifexia turned her head and listened. "I don''t hear anything," she said. "You''re just imagining things-"


    "No, he''s right," said Serana, rudely interrupting her and pointing to the nearby crest of the hill. "Voices, up ahead."


    Her mortal charges slowed to a stop and dismounted, tying the exhausted horses to an anaemic looking alpine tree and creeping up to the crest of the hill.


    "Thalmor," hissed Einar as soon as they peaked over the edge of the rise, catching sight of several dozen gold-clad elves sitting around some kind of crumbling entrance-way built into the side of the mountain. "How are they here already?"


    "They must have found another Scroll somehow," said Serana, her unsettling glowing eyes peering out from her deep cowl. "Figured out that the Bow of Auriel was here."


    "If they are still here, they are still looking," said J''zargo. "J''zargo and the others may be able to find it first."


    "There are a lot of them," said Einar, glancing over the three dozen or so armoured elves. "Too many to fight, even for you Serana."


    "Agreed," said the vampire. "A distraction?"


    "That''ll just put them on edge," said Einar, scratching his scraggly beard and turning to look at Caprifexia, who was picking at her teeth boredly.


    "What?" said Caprifexia, feeling his gaze. "Did I miss some fish?"


    "Your ''clothes.'' They aren''t really ''real,''" he said. "In your elven form I mean. You could change them, right?"


    "Yes. So?" she said.


    "Think you can copy a Thalmor mage''s robes?" he said.


    <hr>


    The nasty, villainous elves looked up as Caprifexia crested the hill, her most villainous smirk plastered on her face as black and gold robes flapped around her. Behind her Einar and J''zargo shambled after Serana, trying to look even more gormless than usual. A difficult task, to be sure.


    "Halt," said one of the elves, a woman dressed in slightly fancier armour than the others. "Who goes there."


    "I am Vicereeve Caprifexia," said Caprifexia, who had, after much discussion had eventually reluctantly acceded to Einar''s insistent demand to use one of the villainous elves middle-ranked officers as a cover, rather than the top ranked ''Emissary.'' Even though she was a dragon, and therefore would have outranked any mortal in any organisation she chose to join, even for the sake of manipulation.


    "Apologies, we weren''t expecting you ma''am," said the elf, snapping to attention. "And the vampire?"


    "I am Serana, daughter of Lord Harkon," sneered Serana, doing a decent impression of a villain. Not as good as Caprifexia''s of course, but if Caprifexia hadn''t known better, and been told repeatedly that she wasn''t allowed to incinerate the vampire, she would have thrown a fireball at her.


    "I see," said the elf, justifiably wrinkling her nose slightly at the undead abomination before turning her attention back to Caprifexia. "May I ask what are you doing here, ma''am?"


    "I fail to see why I should explain myself to an underling such as yourself," said Caprifexia imperiously. "I have business here, that is all you need to know. Now get out of my way."


    "I''m very sorry ma''am," said the elf, stepping in front of Caprifexia. "I am under orders to stop anyone from entering the tomb."


    "You dare to presume to order me!?" growled Caprifexia, advancing on the elf and jabbing them in the chest with a finger hard enough that they stumbled back. "I am a Vicereeve!"


    "I''m- I''m sorry ma''am," stammered the elf, sweat beading on her forehead. "The Lady was explicit: no one is to enter the tomb, not until she finds the bow."


    "And how pleased, do you think, will she be when learns that you hindered her search by preventing us from delivering this?" said Caprifexia, hefting the uncomfortable feeling Elder Scroll. It crackled in her grip, protesting touching the skin of a being from outside its tiny, silly little reality.


    The elf''s eyes widened. "Is that- is that an-"


    "It is," said Caprifexia, poking the still crackling and protesting object towards the elf''s face and making her flinch back. "Now stand aside, fool, before I have you executed, whipped, and then flogged for obstructing a superior officer!"


    The elf paled and quickly stepped aside. "Apologies Vicereeve!" she said in a high pitched voice as she gestured to the entrance. "I believe the Lady is searching the upper levels already. Do you require an escort?"


    "No. Now get out of my way," said Caprifexia, pushing passed the villain and entered the tomb without a backward glance, conjuring a warelight as she passed into a tunnel that sloped upward.


    "J''zargo cannot believe that worked," said the cat as they passed out of earshot. "He was sure that the small dragon was going to get J''zargo and his friends killed."


    "I suppose when you have her levels of arrogance, it isn''t hard to fake being in-charge," said Serana.


    "It isn''t arrogance if you''re objectively superior. It''s fact," sniffed Caprifexia. "You''re both just jealous you don''t have such natural authority and gravitas."


    "You did great Capri," said Einar, ruffling Caprifexia''s hair and earning a mix between a deadly glower and a smile. "Now come on, let''s find the bow before this ''Lady'' does."


    The ''Tomb'' itself was less confusingly built and twisting as most mortal constructions, and seemed to more or less have only a single path leading upward. Unlike the other dank places she had been forced to enter, however, the usual undead monsters and eight limbed horrors were strangely absent. There were webs, and the occasional sign of recent magical battle ¨C a charred wall here, a shattered lance of frost there, and neatly cut, naked stone in a few places, but no sign of any bodies whatsoever.


    Whoever had been here clearly also despised spiders, which, although they were a villain, meant they at least had some taste.


    They pressed onward, and almost two hours after entering they emerged onto a raised mezzanine of a large, cathedral like-space filled with still whole stained glass windows depicting ¨C badly ¨C various pointy eared, blonde mortals.


    At the far end of the vaulted room was a large tunnel, from which came a soft white glow. Around the tunnel was a veritable platoon of Thalmor soldiers, and a handful of black and gold robed elven wizards who were standing around boredly. Unfortunately said boredom meant that they were looking every which way, and saw Caprifexia and the others immediately.


    "Who are you?" demanded one of the robed Thalmor Wizards. "The Captain was ordered to stop anyone from entering!"


    "I am Vicereeve Caprifexia," said Caprifexia, brushing some spider-web off her shoulder as she prepared for another dazzling display of guile. "I am here to-"


    "No you''re not," snapped the Wizard, stamping his staff. There was a surge of magic, and lurching sound behind them, and Caprifexia turned to see a grate slam down behind them, locking them into the room. "There is no Vicereeve ''Caprifexia.'' You''re an impostor!"


    Caprifexia blinked in surprise as there was a scraping of steel as over thirty Thalmor soldiers drew their blades and began to advance across the room.


    "What!?" How dare you!" said Caprifexia. "Me an imposter? You''re the imposter! Minions, arrest her!"


    The soldiers didn''t even break stride.


    "Well shit," said Einar.


    "I''ll have you all flayed for insubordination!" yelled Caprifexia. "I''ll have you pen-sons revoked! I''ll¡­ put you all on no rations! For a month! No, three months!"


    The elves were unmoved by her dire threats.


    "J''zargo, get the door," said Serana as she drew her own sword and stepped forward to meet them where the stairs led up from the mezzanine. "I''ll hold them off."


    Beside her J''zargo turned, raising his furry paws to the gate. He sent out an exploratory pulse of magic, only to immediately be hurled backward in a shower of sparks and sent sprawling onto the ground.


    "J''zargo, are you OK?" said Einar, rushing to the yowling melodramatic feline''s aid.


    "It''s warded," said Caprifexia, abandoning her brilliant attempt to convince the elves she really was a Vicereeve and casting her own, far, far less invasive scan. "As any real wizard could have guessed."


    "Can you break it?" asked Einar, helping the silly moggie to sit up.


    Caprifexia focused for a moment, before glancing back toward the advancing elves, who had slowed to a cautious walk as a result of some kind of fear spell Serana had cast. The gate was, surprisingly, quite well warded, and even for a hero as cunning, intelligent, and amazing as Caprifexia it would take her a while to unpick the nasty elf''s magic.


    "Not in time," said Caprifexia, shaking her head and turning back to the oncoming elves, turning her attention to search for some kind of advantage. Although as a dragon, if push came to shove, she could of course defeat a bunch of mortal fools in a straight fight, even the greatest of heroes sometimes got hurt unexpectedly, especially when they had incompetent companions ¨C like when J''zargo had gotten her crippled in their battle at Dimhollow ¨C so it never hurt to abuse every possible advantage.


    "Hey kid, I could use some help!" said Serana, hurling a blast of ice at one of the elves, who caught it on their shield and kept advancing.


    Thirty odd elves, versus Caprifexia and the vampire.


    Thirty elves¡­


    Vampire¡­


    "Respirante," she said, pointing her finger at first Einar, and then J''zargo. "Respirante."


    "What are you doing?" asked Einar as a bubble of clean air formed around his head.


    "Nublias!" she shouted, ignoring him and thrusting her hands forward, conjuring a swirling plume of smoke that billowed out over the vampire and the advancing elves.


    "Nice!" yelled Serana, who just like the vampire Caprifexia had saved Einar from had no need to breathe. Unlike the Elves, who were now hacking and coughing and, at least one of them, screaming as Caprifexia presumed the vampire went on the attack.


    Caprifexia shifted her form, flapping up into the smoke and soaring through the air, she''d practised and refined the magical smoke a fair bit since she''d first brilliantly employed it against the first proto-drake she''d met, and grown far more powerful, and the cloud hung low to the group ¨C just high enough to choke any mortal unfortunate enough to be inside, and to obscure any dragons who might be flying overhead and circling around to where the enemy wizards had been.


    She followed the sound of the coughing and opened her jaws, unleashing a torrent of dragonfire down onto the pathetic mortal villains. Unfortunately, while the elves were obviously inferior mages, several of them conjured spherical shields that were visible even though the smoke, and only a few of the more low ranking elves were consumed by her righteous dragonfire.


    She reached the end of the room and turned, intending to make another pass over the elves. But before she could reopen her jaws a conjured net of blue-black magic erupted from the smoke, wrapping itself around her and sending her crashing into the smoky depths.


    She hit something hard, metal, and smoking, which yelped in pain as Caprifexia rolled off it and across the floor, cursing in draconic as she struggled against the nasty, villainous, and totally dishonourable restraint.


    A pulse of wind raced through the room, and while it didn''t clear the smoke, it did thin it enough for her to see a very burnt, very angry looking elven soldier looming over them, halberd raised.


    "Obstantus!" shouted Caprifexia, conjuring a swirling shield to turn aside the blade a moment before it hit her before casting another spell. "Fuerza!"


    The elf''s neck made a disquieting snapping sound as Caprifexia''s blast of raw force hit them underneath the chin, blasting their head back at an angle that mortal necks were not designed to support. Unlike dragon necks, which amongst their virtually infinite superiorities had a far greater degree of free movement. A tricky, and difficult shot that she had definitely absolutely intended to make.


    Caprifexia yelped as the now dead elf collapsed on top of them, and struggled with her magical restraints for a few moments more before finally dispelling them. She needed to transform to get out from underneath the heavy mortal, and was just picking herself up and dusting herself off when a screaming elf emerged from the smoke at high speed, clipping her on the shoulder and sending her sprawling back to the ground before disappearing in the other direction.


    "Run for it!" screamed an elf, emerging from the direction of their flying fellow and sprinting away from where it sounded like Serana was busy heroically murdering elves. Well, semi-heroically, they were a hideous vampire after all.


    As they passed, Caprifexia grabbed for their leg, and the elf, however, saw this, and tried to dodge, meaning that rather than the elegant trip Caprifexia had been going for, they fell onto her in a tangle of kicking limbs.


    "Get off me!" screamed the elf as Caprifexia used her greater strength got on top ¨C where she belonged. The small dragon summoned a jagged piece of ice and rammed it down toward the prone mortal''s face. The elf caught it in desperation with both hands, slowing, but not halting the descent of the razor sharp ice.


    "Prepare to die, villain!" grinned Caprifexia, her greater strength bit by bit overwhelming the elf. "Do not feel bad, you never had a chance-"


    The elf headbutted her, their golden helmet smashing into Caprifexia''s nose.


    Her nose didn''t break like a squishy mortals, but it still hurt, and Caprifexia reeled back, anger warring with disbelief at the sheer audacity of the mortal.


    "You- you insolent little mortal!" she growled, rubbing her sore nose with her free hand. "You''ll pay for that!"


    "You''re already trying to kill me!" said the elf hysterically, trying and failing to push the razor sharp ice away. "What else are you going to do!? Help! Help! She''s going to kill me!"


    Before Caprifexia could heroically ram the ice through their eye, however, another elf emerged from the smoke at high speed ¨C this one missing an arm ¨C and smashed into her back, knocking her off the elf and to the ground for the third time.


    "Stop throwing people at me you stupid leech!" raged Caprifexia, picking herself up as the elf she had been about to mete out justice to fled toward the far tunnel.


    "It isn''t my fault!" came Serana''s. "I can''t even see where you are!"


    "Well I''m over here you-" began Caprifexia, trailing off as her spell destabalised and the smoke vanished, revealing a scene of bloody carnage.


    Unable to see the vampire, and unable to properly dispel Caprifexia''s brilliant magic, it seemed that the undead abomination had proved quite effective against the nasty elves. The lamprey was soaked in blood, and all around her lay bits and pieces of elves in a circle of death and destruction.


    "Well then, that went well," said Serana, picking up one of the more intact elven bodies with one hand and opening her mouth.


    "Ugh," said Caprifexia. "That''s disgusting."


    "What?" said Serana through a mouthful of blood. "You can''t talk. Your face is covered in blood too."


    "What?" said Caprifexia, putting a hand to her nose to find it was bleeding. "Oh, err¡­ yes, this isn''t mine. Definitely elf blood. Not dragon blood at all."


    A drop of the hot, bright red liquid hissed as a fell to the floor.


    "And I''m not drinking it, like you, you disgusting monstrosity!" said Caprifexia, wiping at the mess on her face, and quickly moving back to check on Einar and the cat. "How is the cat?" she asked.


    "J''zargo is not a cat, but will be fine," said the cat, glancing over the destruction as he pushed himself back to his feet. "And the small dragon? Is she well?"


    "Of course," she sniffed, surreptitiously rubbing her aching nose.


    "So, I think they know we''re here," said Serana, joining them, licking her disgusting lips disgustingly. "That smoke spell wasn''t bad kid. You''ll have to teach me it."


    "I doubt you could manage such a complex enchantment," sniffed Caprifexia, tweaking her collar as her ugly Thalmor robes flowed up and back into her usual coat, modelled after the one her mother Sinestra had worn in her elven guise. "You''re not a dragon, after all."


    "Uh huh," said Serana. "Clearly I''m the less experienced mage here."


    "Clearly," agreed Caprifexia, glad that although the vampire was revolting, at least she had a companion capable of acknowledging her immense superiority.


    Although it had been a bit messy, she was rather pleased with how well the fight had gone. After J''zargo''s error that had been blamed on her against the vampires, and the unfortunate¡­ ''Lich incident'' with the Vigilants, and her totally justified, but still perhaps unfortunate, although impressively effortless dispatching of the villainous Imperial Legion at Solitude, some small, tiny, ridiculous, part of her had begun to doubt her own unmitigated brilliance. It was nice to receive the reassurance that she was still a perfect being capable of wreaking righteous destruction upon lesser creatures.


    Strictly heroically, of course. Yes, things were going very well¡­


    The sound of footsteps pulled her from revelling in her righteous victory, and she turned toward the far tunnel, narrowing her eyes as several figures emerged from the gloom.


    The first figure was the tallest. At first glance she appeared to be a large feathery cloak, but after a moment''s examination revealed itself to be a set of folded alabaster wings. The ape-like, winged woman was dressed in a simple white dress and sensible travelling boots, and in her hand carried a golden bow that even from across the room Caprifexia could feel was deeply magical.


    Behind the winged woman were the villainous Thalmor, those who had run, including the noisy elf who was bleeding from the neck, but also another, unscathed elf who Caprifexia recognised with a snarl.


    "Arakno!" she yelled. "There you are, villain!"


    "What the¡­?" said Arakno, his eyes flicking to Einar and J''zargo, and then to the destruction that Caprifexia had wrought. "What is¡­?"


    "You may have somehow tricked me the last time we crossed paths," said Caprifexia, calling lightning to her fists. "But this time I know the villainy that lays in your heart, and I will put you in the ground, Arakno!"


    "My name- my name isn''t Arakno!" said Arakno in an exasperated, and wrong, voice. "I have no idea how you survived, Caprifexia, or what you are doing here-"


    "Wait," said the winged woman, who had been looking bored, now suddenly interested. "What did you call her?"


    "Caprifexia, my lady," said Arakno. "She was present when I retrieved the eye of Magnus, an altmer student from the Winterhold College-"


    "Caprifexia is not an altmer name," said the winged woman, cocking her head to one side. "My, my, my. You''re a long way from home, aren''t you? Dragon."


    Caprifexia started in surprise as it took even her brilliant mind a few moments to process the fact that she was being addressed in her native tongue: Draconic.


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    Azerothian Draconic.


    Addressed in a language that no one else on Nirn should have known, by a winged woman on a plane that, as far as she knew, didn''t have winged women. That made her a¡­


    Caprifexia took a step back as several things snapped together in her mind. Before that moment each point had been seperate. Disparate. But in that instant they clicked together like pieces of a puzzle, forming a single, unified whole.


    The rip in Windhelm. The giant Faceless that somehow, impossibly was staying manifested long after it should have shrivelled up and faded back into the Void. The fact that there had, allegedly, been two ¨C strictly equal ¨C ''Fractures'' that the stupid time-meddling mortals had mentioned present on Nirn. The Plane of Zarrak. The Temple to the ''Goddess of the Void¡­'' who had strangely not been a reptile like the local mortals, but an ape-like winged woman¡­


    This woman wasn''t just another trivial villain. This was a woman who had murdered a world. Murdered a world, and seemingly wanted to do the same to this one. Somehow, against all conceivable odds, those time-meddling mortals had actually been right. Nirn was in danger. Terrible danger. And not from those probably paradox causing fools, but from a being ¨Calmost¨C as majestic as Caprifexia herself.


    Another Planeswalker.


    "I know who you are. I know what you did ¨C to Zarrak, to Windhelm," snarled Caprifexia, replying in her first tongue. "You''re Mirael!"


    The winged woman smiled widely. "You''ve heard of me?" said Mirael, clapping her hands. "I do love a fan!"


    "I am no fan of you, villain! I won''t let you destroy this world," said Caprifexia, switching back to Nirnian as she channelled more power into the lightning around her fists. "J''zargo, Serana ¨C be careful, this woman is a Planeswalker. She posed as a Goddess on Zarrak ¨C she''s the one who destroyed it! Einar, run, you''re useless, you''ll just get in the way."


    "Oh, so they know what you are?" said Mirael, following her effortlessly back into Nirnian Imperial. "Odd ¨C I normally never bother telling my pawns what I really am, it just tends to cause confusion. Bless them, such limited creatures."


    "J''zargo is no one''s pawn," said the cat, before turning his attention to Arakno. "Does Arcano know what this woman is attempting to do?"


    "She is going to return the Altmer to their rightful place as Gods," said the elf, summoning fire to his fist. "Not that you''ll be around to see it, cat."


    "She is going to destroy this world!" said J''zargo, who for some reason was OK with Arakno pointing out his feline nature, but got snooty whenever Caprifexia did it. Totally unfair, and likely rooted in dragonism. "She is going to kill Akatosh!"


    Arcano paused, and several of the other surviving Thalmor looked at each other with confusion. "What?"


    "J''zargo has stood in a world stripped of all life," continued the cat, jabbing a claw toward the winged woman. "Stripped by her."


    "You lie-" began Arakno.


    "You''re also a Planeswalker?" said Mirael, cutting off her minion and holding a hand delicately to her mouth. "Oh no. How embarrassing! I''m terribly sorry, I wouldn''t have picked this world had I known ¨Cdon''t tread on one''s neighbours and all that¨C but I''m rather too far along to stop now, so again, terribly sorry, but you''re going to have to find a new home. Don''t worry, I can recommend some good ones if you like!"


    "Why are you doing this?" said Einar, who had defied Caprifexia''s orders to run, and had remained insolently where he was. "Why are you destroying entire Planes?"


    "Why?" said Mirael with a smile. "Why else? Power. That''s all anything comes down to in the end."


    "Power?" said Einar. "What power is there in a dead, twisted world? There was¡­ there was nothing left of Zarrak. Not even bacteria in the water."


    "Another Planeswalker¡­? Very odd," said Mirael. "You didn''t put together a party just for little old me, did you? I''m touched!"


    "He''s not a Planeswalker," sniffed Caprifexia. "I am simply more powerful than you can imagine ¨C they just stumble along in the wake of my awe-inspiring majesty!"


    "Really?" said Mirael, her eyes lighting up. "Now that is interesting. Surely then you felt it? You''re a Black Dragon. You were born steeped in the power of the Eternities. Zarrak was no barren waste, it was merely¡­ stripped of its impurities. Refined. Turned into a source of the most powerful energy in all creation."


    Caprifexia frowned, trying to make sense of the villains words. She was talking about Void Magic, that much was clear, but how could a barren waste give her that¡­?


    The books Caprifexia had borrowed from Sorbet Melon surfaced from the depths of her crystalline mind. Books she had been reading and rereading in an attempt to learn how to bond and draw power from places, from the ''land,'' or rather, more exactly, from the fabric of reality¡­


    "You''re- you''re creating Void Bonds," said Caprifexia aghast. "You destroy entire planes just- just so you can bond with the land?"


    "Ah ha! Now you''ve got it!" said Mirael, clapping her hands. "We really should compare notes, I''d love to hear about how you''re able to transport others with you. It would make things so much easier if I didn''t have to spend so long recruiting new servants wherever I go. I''d be happy to teach you the basics of bonding with the Void in exchange!"


    "You think I would- you think I would work with you?" said Caprifexia. "You''re a villain! A mass murderer! A monster!"


    "Oh don''t be boring, you''re an Azerothian Black Dragon and a Planeswalker," said Mirael, rolling her eyes. "The Multiverse is your oyster, our oyster; to do with as we please. Surely you, who weren''t raised with the tedious trappings of a nauseating slave morality, can see that? We are strong, they are weak; what more justification do we need?"


    "Just because mortals are weak and stupid and pathetic and terrible at absolutely everything they do and ugly and pathetic doesn''t mean they deserve to die!" said Caprifexia, her hands shaking in anger. "The strong should- the strong should help the weak! Or at least not hurt them! Not genocide them!"


    "They are ephemeral," said Mirael, waving a hand airily. "Mere fleeting moments. Even the longest lived immortal is doomed to die when the last embers of their Plane splutter out. Even Gods and Goddesses are but temporary bursts of activity. But us? We Planeswalkers are true Eternals ¨C we swim in an endless sea of possibility. We and we alone can dance between never ending pyres. What is a single world, a handful of worlds, to us? Nothing. Nothing at all. My dear, you only hurt yourself by allowing yourself to be shackled by silly little notions of ''Good'' and ''Evil.''"


    "I used to think like you," said Caprifexia. "I thought that just because mortals were stupid and short lived that their lives were meaningless. But they''re not! They might be inferior to dragons in every way, but they have friends, loved ones, and even if their efforts in art and theory will never measure up to draconic standards, some of it isn''t totally mediocre! You call it ''slave morality,'' but I am slave to no one: you''re the slave, just like I was before I broke free. A slave to an insatiable lust for power!"


    Beside her Einar beamed, but Mirael looked at her boredly. "Oh dear, you''ve really internalised this whole ''hero complex'' haven''t you? A shame, I was hoping that we could be friends ¨C it would be so much easier to scour this plane clean with a partner."


    "My¡­ Lady?" said Arakno, who had, along with his fellows, been growing increasingly concerned as the conversation had gone on.


    "Oh, Arcano ¨C you''re still here!" said Mirael, putting her hand to her mouth again, as if she''d just committed some kind of vulgar faux-pa, rather than admitted to planning to annihilate his entire universe. "That was clumsy of me, wasn''t it? It seems I got rather too swept up with meeting my new peer! Ah, annoying, you''ve been rather useful. Still, I suppose I don''t really need you anymore now that I have the Bow. Goodbye."


    "What-" began Arcano, before Mirael swiped a hand around and behind her, releasing a crescent of pure void energy that cut straight through the villainous elf''s torso, neatly bisecting him, before moving through the other elves and doing the same thing before they could so much as blink.


    Arakno''s eyes bulged in surprise for a moment, before his lifeless body crumpled apart along with his fellows. Caprifexia''s boiling blood seemed to run close, her mind reeling as the reality of what the winged Planeswalker had just done hit her.


    Wielding the power of the Void was one thing. Caprifexia could do it, of course, because she was so amazing, but it was possible for others to do it as well. Most mortals were driven mad by the Whispers of the Old Ones, but not only was this Mirael not really a mortal, she was protected by the same kind of Spark that had freed Caprifexia from her servitude.


    Still, even with that knowledge, the sheer casual way that the winged woman had wielded the most deadly force in the multiverse was, even for a dragon as incredible as herself, absolutely terrifying. She doubted even her father at his peak could have managed such an effortless and delicately controlled application of Void magic.


    "Monster," said Serana. "They were your allies."


    "They were tools," said Mirael lightly. "And you''re one to talk. Serana, isn''t it? Harkon''s girl? Did you know your father still has your portrait above his desk? Oh, heavens, the smell of that castle¡­"


    Mirael shuddered.


    "Ghastly."


    "Give us the Bow," said Serana, conjuring ice around her fists.


    Mirael tittered with laughter. "You really think you''re a match for me, little leech?"


    The Vampire yelled and hurled a blast of ice straight at the winged woman''s heart, but before the magic could strike home there was a pulse of golden light and the ice, Caprifexia, Serana, J''zargo, Einar, the bodies of the elves, and just about everything else not bolted down was hurled away from Mirael.


    The wind rushed from her lungs as Caprifexia hit and then slid down the wall, J''zargo on one side, Serana on the other. Her vision swam, and she took a deep gasping breath, trying to push herself up as the winged woman sauntered forward.


    "Now, Caprifexia," said Mirael seriously, flexing her fingers and summoning more Void magic, aiming it straight at Caprifeixa''s chest. "I want you to know this isn''t personal. I hate to have to put down another of my kind, to waste a Spark, but if you''re not going to play nice then I can''t just have you running about and ruining years of work. You understand?"


    "Wait!" wheezed Caprifeixa, raising her hands as her mind raced for some kind of ploy to use against the woman, some way they might escape. "Don''t- don''t you want to know how I can take other people with me when I Planeswalk?"


    The winged woman paused and cocked her head to one side. "I''d be lying if I said no," she said after a moment. "Alright, explain your power and I''ll let you leave. How do you do it?"


    Caprifexia gulped as she continued to search for a way out of the situation: it was possible to shield against Void Magic, but it was extremely difficult and exhausting, and not something she really wanted to test herself with in the heat of battle; she could blink behind the woman, but that would only delay the inevitable, and leave her friends open to attack; she could attack, but she doubted that even her mighty magic would have any more affect than the vampire''s had. What was more, this close to an Elder Scroll, she couldn''t even open a portal to the Void¡­


    Caprifeixia turned her head to the vampire, who was grimacing and pushing themselves upright, eyes zeroing in on the Scroll on her back. The annoying, para-causal, time-bending ''fundamental part of Nirn'' scroll that complained whenever it came into contact with anything from ''outside'' its little universe.


    No, she might not be able to block a pulse of void magic, but she was fairly certain that something so steeped in reality as an Elder Scroll could at least blunt the worst of the power.


    "I actually learnt it from- from an Elder Scroll," said Caprifexia slowly, her voice trembling.


    "How?" said Mirael with a frown. "They are blank for us ¨C we''re not part of this world''s silly little ''Cycle.''"


    "I used a spell," said Caprifexia, reaching out and grabbing it off Serana''s back.


    Lightning crackled and reality protested as Caprifexia''s hand closed on the Elder Scroll, and the vampire immediately grabbed it back. They struggled for a few moments, vampiric might warring with draconic strength.


    "Give me that-"


    "-get your grubby hands off it-"


    "-you stupid bloodsucker I''m trying to save you-"


    "-I will not- OW!" said Serana, releasing the scroll and nursing her hand. "You- you bit me! You bit me!"


    Caprifexia ignored them, taking a deep breath and holding up the scroll. "I-I can show you."


    Mirael regarded her skeptically. "Go on then," said the woman.


    "Well first, you need to-" began Caprifexia, before raising the object and then hurling it straight at the winged woman and immediately summoning a shield over herself and her ''friends.'' Snooty, unreasonable vampire included.


    The Elder Scroll struck Mirael''s outstretched hand, and there was a keening noise as the Void magic coating it reacted very, very, very badly with the ''a-temporal, fundamental piece of Nirn.''


    Caprifexia''s swirling shield shuddered as the two opposing forces clashed and a blast of force radiated outward, sending not only the winged woman and the Elder Scroll hurtling away from one another, but also smashing apart the vaulted room itself in an explosion of ancient glass and masonry, coating the rocky mountainside in debris for hundreds of meters.


    "Quickly!" said Caprifexia, summoning up her Spark. For a moment she worried that the Elder Scroll, which was somewhere dozens or hundreds of meters behind them, might still be too close, but then reality flexed and a tear into the Void appeared.


    "Through, now!" she said.


    "The Bow!" said Einar as there was a scream of rage from across the room. "Capri, we need-"


    "We can''t save your ridiculous world if we''re dead!" screamed Caprifexia, grabbing her foolish moral friend roughly and shoving him through the portal, glancing over to where the winged woman was flapping up from where she had come to a stop, some two hundred meters away, before doing the same with the cat and then the protesting vampire.


    She felt a pulse of Void magic from behind her as she hurled herself after her companions, and the deadly magic passed over her head as she landed on the squishy, disgusting tendrils and eyes that covered Nirn''s entrance-way, the aperture snapping shut behind her a moment later.


    "Where are we?" began Serana, before there was a pulse of gold and an enraged looking Mirael appeared behind them, her entire body glowing like Caprifexia''s. Caprifexia gave a totally fearless and controlled roar, lowered her centre of gravity, strategically, and scrambled, tactically, away from the world-destroying monster. She needn''t have bothered, however, as Mirael''s unfocused eyes slid over them unseeingly, and the villainess broke into a sprint toward another platform.


    "What the¡­ fuck?" said Einar.


    Caprifexia frowned as Mirael reached the next Plane over and vanished as she touched the orb, only to appear a moment later and sprint toward another platform ¨C seemingly at random.


    "She can''t comprehend the Void," said Caprifexia as she remembered something that Sorbet had said to her months earlier. "She''s searching for us, but she can''t see us. She doesn''t see things when she Planeswalks, it''s unconscious for her¡­"


    "Where are we?" said Serana sharply, cutting off Caprifexia. "It doesn''t look very safe."


    "The space between worlds, and no, it isn''t," said Einar. "We need to find somewhere to ''set down'' before the monsters that live here find us."


    "What we need is to find a way to stop her," said Serana, shaking her head. "Ambush her maybe as she comes out of¡­ this place? We need that bow-"


    "You saw how powerful she was, you stupid Vampire!" snapped Caprifexia.


    "She was strong sure," said Serana. "And that creepy magic looked nasty-"


    "It was Void Magic, you undead cretin!" said Caprifexia. "And not even my father had the precision she does!"


    "Well maybe your father wasn''t-"


    "He was a fifty thousand year old! Empowered by beings that ordered the cosmos to watch over an entire planet! He was closer to Godhood than your stupid ''Divines!''" yelled Caprifexia, tears beginning to prickle at her eyes. "You don''t know anything! You''re too stupid to realise just how strong she is! She''ll kill us! She''ll kill us!"


    "Hey, hey, easy," said Einar, hugging her in his typical melodramatic mortal fashion. "We''re OK. We''re OK."


    Caprifexia contemplated telling him to get his filthy mortal paws off her, but ultimately decided she could tolerate his insipid behaviour, for a while at least, and buried her face into his shoulder as her body trembled for totally unrelated reasons. It was¡­ cold. Yes, that was it. People trembled in the cold, didn''t they? Cold.


    "Alright, if you know so much about her, how do we fight her?" said Serana.


    "We can''t!" said Caprifexia. "She''ll kill us!"


    "Capri, take it easy OK," said Einar, rubbing her back.


    Caprifexia took a deep breath and attempted to get her slight discomfort under control. He was right. It wasn''t seemly for a dragon to show weakness in front of mortals, even if they had just come face to face with a world-destroying monster. Einar was one thing, but the cat would never shut up about it if she showed weakness in front of him, and the vampire was probably liable to attack her. Not that she was scared of Serana or her admittedly at least mediocre magical and martial might, of course.


    "We¡­ We need to regroup," said Caprifexia, forcing herself to focus on making a plan. She was a dragon. The mortals couldn''t be relied upon to stop someone like Mirael. As usual, it was up to her. "Find some cannon-fodder-"


    "-allies-" said Einar.


    "-whatever you want to call them," said Caprifexia, scratching her horn and trying very hard not to think about what Mirael had done to those villainous elves. "Assuming those mortals were right, we know where she is going to be when she kills Amanosh-"


    "-Akatosh-"


    "-no, it''s definitely Amanosh," said Caprifexia, a flicker of irritation breaking through her tiny, insignificant, not really worth mentioning feeling of disquiet. "You''re remembering wrong. I''m a dragon, I don''t make mistakes like that."


    "You are absolutely and totally wrong," said Einar. Wrongly.


    "The small dragon is right ¨C somehow ¨C no, not about the name," said J''zargo. "J''zargo has seen the destruction that even the small dragon can cause with ''Void Magic.'' We are not powerful enough to face a competent practitioner alone."


    Serana rubbed her temples and made a growling sound.


    "Who?" said Serana in an exasperated voice. "Capri killed the entire command structure of the Imperial Legion in Skyrim! Remember?"


    "That was- that was self-defence! Heroic, totally justified and righteous self-defence!" objected Caprifexia, wiping her sore, and treacherously running nose. "I should- I should be getting a medal! I saved the city!"


    "You''re a damned menace, you know that? You just gave an Elder Scroll to someone trying to destroy the world! Why did we even take you with us!?" said Serana, jabbing a finger at her. "And don''t think I''ve forgotten that you just bit me you wretched little lizard!"


    "You deserved it, you- you- you mean, bloated corpse!" said Caprifexia. Justly.


    "How would you like it if I bit you?" said Serana, taking a step toward Caprifexia and flashing her fangs.


    "Serana!" said Einar sharply. "She''s a kid, and she''s scared. Have a heart, yeah? And she saved us, we couldn''t have taken Mirael alone and you know it."


    "I''m not scared," sniffed Caprifexia. "Dragon''s don''t get scared."


    Serana glared for a few moments more, before deflating.


    "Ugh. Sorry," grumbled Serana, rubbing her forehead and turning away. "Just, we were this close to stopping all this! Stopping my father¡­"


    "Capri and J''zargo are right," said Einar. "We can''t fight someone like that alone. We need allies."


    "Who? Who is left?" said Serana, raising a hand and counting off digits. "You told me that the only other army in Skyrim, the ''Stormcloaks,'' was destroyed; Whiterun has apparently been eaten by that ''Old God;'' little miss megalomaniac over there managed to exterminate the Order of Stendarr, who might have helped us-"


    "That was an accident!" protested Caprifexia, tears prickling in her eyes as feeling a familiar ache in her chest at the memory of the ''Friendly Lich Incident.''


    Mortals were so unfair! She''d said she was sorry, why did they have to keep on bringing up the one time, fine, few times, she''d messed up? They never focused on all the good things she did. It was always ''why did you incinerate that person Caprifexia,'' ''why did you put that nasty villainous ape in their place Caprifexia, ''stop biting me Caprifexia, even though I''m horrible and deserve it and you''re trying to save me Caprifexia.''


    "-and then she blew up the entire Imperial Legion in Skyrim," continued Serana, ignoring Caprifexia''s eloquent clarification of the situation. "Who''s left? That might actually help us, I mean?"


    "The College," said J''zargo after a moment''s thought. "The College can help us."


    "Let''s just hope there aren''t anymore accidents there," said the mean and horrible and nasty vampire sarcastically.

 Automotive Justice

    Caprifexia circled over the ruined remains of Windhold below, peering down at the twisted remains of where the tear into the void had been and making sure there wasn''t any movement below.


    For the first time since Einar had had his little tantrum about her heroic slaying of the proto-drake in elven form, she was alone. Before she''d left Einar had whinged at her for ages, making her promise to ''not punch people unless they really deserved it,'' ''not free anymore liches,'' and ''definitely not set any part of Sorbet Melon''s house on fire.'' As if she was some kind of irresponsible hatchling!


    Although it would be ridiculous for a heroic dragon of her amazing calibre to feel nervous at not having her friends around, she wouldn''t have been violently opposed to having at least one of them trail after her. Not that she was scared to venture out alone. Again, that would have been ridiculous. She was a dragon. Dragons were independent and self-reliant and¡­ it still would have been nice to have Einar along.


    After they''d been driven off Nirn by the admittedly disquietingly powerful winged villain Mirael, and her mortal friends had calmed down from their hysterical overreaction, they''d put some distance between themselves and the peak, walking half a day over a plane that seemed to be nothing but an endless sea of waist high blue grass and indigo sky.


    Then when they''d returned to Nirn she''d been forced to put her life in the inept furry paws of J''zargo once again, who had somehow managed to not botch the teleport back to Winterhold College. Her friends had gotten to stay there, where there were nice soft pillows to sleep on and fresh fish, but she, of course, as ever, had been forced to pick up the heroic slack and implement the most important part of the plan which she''d, obviously, devised.


    Step one: find Sorbet Melon, the frozen fruit loving vampire of Innitstrad. Step two: see if he knew any powerful Planeswalkers. Step three: locate said powerful Planeswalkers and convince them with her charisma and charm to help save Nirn.


    Her going by herself was in part, allegedly, due to the time constraints. Because the terrible wizards of Winterhold college were terrible at magic and relied on lodestones to open portals, and Windhelm''s had been destroyed, it would have taken some pathetic mortal biped another whole week to make it down to the ruined city. Of course, since Caprifexia was so amazing, she had flown there in a few hours.


    Satisfied there weren''t any nasty surprises lurking in the ruins, she descended in the general area she thought they had arrived after leaving Sorbet Melon''s home plane of Innitgrad. The stonework of the pathetically constructed mortal buildings had been twisted and morphed, so it was difficult to be sure, but after a little searching she was pretty sure she found the alleyway she and the had emerged from the Void those weeks ago.


    She transformed into her mortal form as she landed. Then reality bent and twisted under her strength, and a moment later she stepped through into the Void, her boots squelching over the eyeballs and tendrils and other voidborne horrors she studiously tried to ignore. She took out Einar''s poorly drawn map and peered at it.


    "''Up the bridge that twists in on itself,'' then right at the plane with the fossilised palm trees¡­''" she muttered as she read Einar''s notations, looking around at the madly sprawling maze of bridges and platforms. "''Twists in on itself?'' They all do that! Damn mortal fool¡­"


    She harrumphed and put the map away, resolving that she''d just have to navigate using her superior draconic sense of direction and flawless memory.


    Caprifexia stepped through into a busy looking plaza and snarled, wrenching Einar''s map from her bag and glaring at the impudent paper. Several of the local mortals shouted in alarm at her sudden appearance, but she ignored them. Mortals were always getting scared, it was what they did. That, and die. She had more important things to worry about, like the fact that her so-called friend had gotten her lost!


    She knew she shouldn''t have trusted and relied on her friend''s handiwork. She''d followed his terrible instructions to the letter, but had that led her to Innitgrad? No! Instead she''d found herself in an entirely new part of the Void with floating islands she''d never seen, and had been forced to set down when an Old God had caught up with her. This was all clearly Einar''s fault.


    "Stupid map!" screamed Caprifexia, dredging up dragon-fire from her chest and unleashing it upon the impudent and wrong piece of paper.


    It burst into flames, and there were even more screams from the assembled mortals, but Caprifexia felt a bit better, and that was what was really important. Satisfied, she dusted the ash from her hands and looked around at the place she had arrived.


    She had emerged in a large plaza, above which rose angular towers painted in bright pastel covers, and capped in brassy metal domes. It was pleasantly hot, and the mortals all wore long, loose clothing in similarly bright colours to their buildings.


    That, however, wasn''t what really caught her interest. Overhead mechanical golems, wrought from similar metal as the dome, and glowing blue with arcane magic zipped through the air, riding on what seemed to be unusually powerful currents of magic that crisscrossed the sky. Blackrock spire had been built atop both a massive convergence of Leylines, and a tear into the Elemental Plane of Fire, but even the ambient magic of her first home hadn''t been anywhere near as potent as this place.


    Higher up there were even more mildly-impressively skyships, which wafted gently through the bright blue sky, moving between even larger sky-spanning shimmering threads of raw magic. She had always been interested in enchanting, and although she had a mission to fulfil, after she had defeated Mirael she would like to come back to this place and get a closer look at how they worked.


    She was distracted from her musings as she realised that the previously startled mortals were still screaming. Screaming, and pointing at her.


    "Pyromancer!"


    "Call the Enforcers!"


    "Run! Before she burns you!"


    "Help! Help!"


    Caprifexia turned to stare at the nearest screaming mortal, an elf, and glared, which only made them scream even louder as they stumbled backward and fell over.


    "Stop being so loud!" she commanded, stepping forward and picking the mortal up by the front of his wrappy-shirt-skirt-thing and intending to, heroically, put him back on his feet.


    The elf''s screams ratcheted up another notch, and he began to flail wildly at her, smacking her in the side of the head. While it didn''t hurt, it wasn''t pleasant either, and sparks flew from Caprifexia''s mouth in irritation. He screamed even louder.


    "Help, help! She''s going to set me on fire!" he whinged, tears and snot sliding down his grubby little face.


    Her first impulse was to do just that, immediately incinerate him for striking her. But Einar had made her promise not to burn anyone who didn''t really, really deserve it on her trip to Innitgrad, and while the elf was annoying, he wasn''t actually really a threat to her, so she resolved to try another thing that her friend was always going on about: diplomacy.


    Diplomacy was the art of tricking people into what you wanted them to do. From what she had been able to gather from Einar''s boring lectures, it different from other forms of deception and intimidation solely because it was a hero doing them. Given how good she had been at tricking and intimidating people as a villain, she was could probably add ''greatest diplomat in the multiverse'' to her ever-growing list of heroic appellations.


    "Cease that infernal racket!" she roared, shaking the elf like a rag doll in an effort to get him to stop screaming. "Cease your screaming! I command it!"


    "Help! She''s going to kill me!" sobbed the elf, somehow resisting her shrewd diplomacy. "She''s going to-"


    "Calm down you stupid mortal!" said Caprifexia, slapping him lightly across his face a few times. "I-" Slap. "-said-" Slap. "-calm-" Slap. "-down!" Slap.


    The elf slumped in her grip, rendered insensate by her cogent diplomatic arguments, and she dropped him onto the ground where he couldn''t hurt himself anymore. A trickle of blood dribbled from his mouth.


    Did people usually bleed from the mouth after a good diplomacy-ing? Einar hadn''t mentioned anything specifically about that, but he was always leaving out crucial pieces of information when he badgered her. It was probably normal.


    Pleased with her success, she looked around the plaza, which had cleared significantly, and was just about to pick a direction to explore while she waited to Planeswalk again when there was some strange warbling sound from behind her.


    "Freeze mage!" shouted a blue-skinned man pointing pointing some kind of silly little metal contraption at her. The was perched atop some kind of brassy, horseless cart that had four sphere-like wheels that glowed with inner light. "Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head, criminal scum!"


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    Caprifexia stared at him with incomprehension. "Excuse me?"


    Who did this man think he was, accusing her of being a criminal? She was a hero! A hero who had just successfully calmed down that grubby little elf with a stunning display of diplomacy. Hadn''t he seen?


    "I said-" repeated the clearly blind blue mortal.


    "''Criminal!?'' Do you have any idea who I am?" said Caprifexia. "I am Caprifexia! The greatest hero in the Multiverse-"


    There was a zap, and the strange contraption fired a jet of lightning straight at her. It impacted her chest, but unlike the nasty Arakno''s magic which had mildly inconvenienced her, it was incredibly weak. Her innate magic easily overwhelmed the pathetic discharge, and she didn''t so much as stumble. But that wasn''t the point, if she had been a squishy and weak mortal it probably would have atomised her or something.


    "How dare you!?" said Caprifexia, conjuring lightning around her fists. "How dare you!?"


    The man riding the flying cart''s eyes boggled and he rapidly began to slap buttons of the side of his zappy-stick. But Caprifexia had seen enough, and raised her lightning-wreathed hands. As the multiverses'' greatest hero, she had a keen eye for villainy, and this weird blue man had it written all over him. Not only did he not recognise diplomacy when he saw it, but he also assaulted heroic dragons for absolutely no reason.


    "Astrap!" she shouted.


    The man screamed as he was blasted from the cockpit of his machine, landing hard on the cream-coloured paving stones and spasming as her lightning arced over his body. She moved over and snatched his gizmo out of his hands, looking it over as she put a boot on his chest and pinned him to the ground. She considered finishing him off, but he was incapacitated, and heroes did, as she''d always known, show mercy for lesser beings. Sometimes, anyway.


    "Consider this a warning, villain," she said, waggling his zappy stick at him as he twitched and spasmed. "Next time I may not be so lenient!"


    The villain''s eyes rolled back into his skull, and he began to foam at the mouth. That was probably normal.


    Gratified with her heroic dispensing of justice, she turned to look up at interesting looking horse-less cart the villain had arrived it. She did have at least an hour or so to use up before she could safely Planeswalk again, so perhaps she could figure out how it worked before she needed to leave. Besides, as she understood it, by defeating the machine''s villainous former owner, it was now, by heroic right, hers.


    Her body shifted and rippled as she flapped up into the control seat, one of her claws gripping the control wheel while she searched for whatever made it go. She pressed a few of the dash-board''s buttons, one of which shot a beam of energy across the plaza that melted an ugly statue that no one had probably liked anyway, before she found a lever, pushed it down, and the cart whirred into life beneath her.


    Mortals, Caprifexia decided, weren''t completely useless. At least some of them. The ones that had made this once-villainous cart, for example, had at least had some idea what they had been doing.


    Ahead of her bunch of mortals who had been drinking cups of some kind of liquid, perhaps clothes soup, outside a shop melodramatically screamed and theatrically dove out of the way. They had just gotten clear when she, very lightly, clipped the side of the cafe''s patio, which was clearly bigger than it should have been. One, two and then three of the metal tables screamed as they were crushed beneath the whirring wheels before she swerved sharply left, then right, then left again to orient herself back down the main thoroughfare.


    Behind her more of the villainous cart-riders shot more blasts of their weak lightning at her. They had, apparently, taken exception to her heroic defence of whatever this city was called. Their shots went wide, however, since the cowards were far too scared to go at the perfectly safe and reasonable speed that was however fast it was when the speed-lever-thingie all the way down.


    The cart''s wheels screamed as she pulled the control wheel to the right with her clawed paws, and the well made vehicle cleverly oriented itself at forty five degrees to the ground as she went around a corner, repurposing a wall into a temporary road.


    An awning that someone had stupidly put above a vegetable shop in the way of the wall-road was smashed to pieces by the left-claw side of her cart, and crate of cabbages was reduced to paste by the right ones, but the horseless-cart was surprisingly sturdy, and no real damage was done.


    The surrounding mortals, in what seemed to be a local pass-time, screamed as Caprifexia''s cart thudded fully back onto the road as she did two intentional and totally controlled ''S'' manoeuvres in a row, knocking over some kind jewellery stand that clearly shouldn''t have been there, and crushing something that claimed to be a box for posts, before straightening up and speeding onward.


    "Stop in the name of the Consulate!" boomed another blue person in a flying contraption from overhead, unpleasantly loud. "Stop in the name of-"


    "Astrap!" she shouted, blasting the annoying thing out of the sky. The contraption twisted violently through the air and smashed into a building and exploding in a ball of azure-fire. Another heroic victory. She was really on a roll today. Einar would be so proud.


    Ahead of her several of the villainous cart-riders emerged from a side street, recklessly pulling out in front of her from a side road and screeching to a halt in what presumably was an attempt to stop her heroic investigation into their interesting villainous cart-machines.


    They also, presumably, thought she was going to come to a halt.


    Unfortunately for them Caprifexia hadn''t yet divined how the cart was supposed to stop, so instead of trying to work it out in the few seconds she had before impact she instead simply opened her wings and let her already substantial momentum carry her up and into the air.


    There was a massive crash beneath her, followed by a deafening boom as whatever kind of fuel tanks the contraptions used exploded, and she was blown slightly off course as the street below disappeared into a series of blue-tinged fireballs as the others ignited.


    That might have been a bit more lethal than she had been going for, but really, it was their fault for recklessly pulling out in front of her. And they were villains, after all, so they deserved whatever Just-fire they got.


    "Let that being a lesson to you!" she yelled as she circled the blazing wreckage a few times, using the thermals to rise higher before tilting her wings and alighting on a nearby tower''s balcony. A few on the mortals who had been drinking strong smelling alcoholic drinks and watching the righteous destruction below screamed and retreated inward, but Caprifexia ignored them and left them to their hobby.


    Her or so hour looking around and waiting for the Old God to leave was up anyway, and although there was surely more heroism that she could perform on this interesting plane, she needed to be moving on. This world would have to, somehow, manage without her.


    For the second time that day reality bent and twisted under her Planeswalker''s Spark, and she stepped into the Void. She checked carefully to make sure that the Old God had indeed gone, peering between the twisting bridges and platforms made from a mad-mishmash masonry, wood, metal, and natural stone all covered in twisted, fleshy growths. Between the platforms eldritch vapour flashed with a kaliedescope of magical energy, which raced too and fro on unseen winds.


    Although she had long ago figured out that she was travelling the Void, not merely some inter-dimensional realm between planets, she still didn''t really understand everything she was looking at when she travelled between universes.


    Sure, the twinkling stars were clearly the various realities she could hop between, the platforms around them clearly some kind of representation of the Old One''s attempts to break in, and the bridges paths between them.


    But what were the clouds of energy that streamed too and fro? Was that the power she drew upon when she summoned up Void magic from outside the walls of a reality? Or were they some kind of primordial energy that universes themselves were formed from? Was there a cycle of death and rebirth for universes? Or was the entire multiverse simply a process of decay? An inevitable decline, where one day the last of the seemingly endless realities would slip back into the Void, and this was all there would ever be?


    She shook herself. Her curiosity could wait. For now, she had a heroic quest to complete.


    She took out her notebook. It was time to make a proper map. One written in plain draconic. None of this poorly labelled and haphazard mortal nonsense.


    She drew a small circle, and then, in her jagged mother tongue concisely labelled it ''Explody Horseless-Cart Plane with Weird Blue Villains and Mana in the Sky.'' In brackets she created a dragonym for the plane: ''EHPWBVMS.'' Perfect, clear and understandable; not like Einar''s terrible excuse for a map that had gotten her lost in the first place.


    Now, to find that frozen fruit loving vampire''s home plane¡­

 Time Meddling Mortal Monitoring

    The caravan had been climbing the mountain for almost five hours, wending their way around the southern face when the planes of Whiterun finally came into view. Caprifexia had seen it before from the air months earlier, but if she hadn''t been told she never would have guessed she was looking at the same stretch of land as a few months earlier.


    Gone was the rolling plains, gone was the distant titular city atop the hill, gone were the rivers and farms. In their place was a shattered wasteland, the earth and stone morphed into an immense expanse of tessellated un-geometry, above which hovered more of the mind-bending shapes. In the far west, toward the town of Solitude, Caprifexia could just about make out a figure. Shrouded in the storm that had been raging for nearly a month and a half the creature''s baleful, eldritch howls could occasionally be heard faintly between the rolling thunder of the so-called Divine''s attacks.


    A large part of her hadn''t want to return. Had just wanted to leave Nirn behind when she hadn''t been able to find Sorbet Melon at his manor in Innitgrad. She''d actually considered, for a moment, fleeing to to another world and just forgetting all about the terrifyingly powerful Mirael and her Faceless puppets.


    But then she remembered that Einar and J''zargo were on Nirn, and she doubted she''d be able to convince them to leave with her. Besides, she told herself, if they were brave ¨Cor maybe stupid¨C enough to face Mirael, then there was no way she was going to be out-heroed by a bunch of mortals.


    So, after locating Innitgrad, with no help from Einar''s map, she had returned to Nirn a few days later to inform the mortals that no, Sorbet Melon, would not be helping them find powerful Planeswalkers since, as his butler-vampire had said: ''Lord Melon was off-world, and would be gone for some time.''


    Not that she had even wanted the dessert obsessed vampire''s help anyway. Besides, he was so nasty and mean she doubted he had any friends, powerful or otherwise. She could totally manage without their help. She''d been caught off guard by Mirael the first time. Yes, caught off guard¡­


    At least the cat hadn''t been totally useless, and managed to convince the actually quite polite and reasonable Archmage of the College that they needed to head to ''High Wrathgear'' to help Caprifexia stop Mirael from destroying the world. The grey-skinned archmage had managed to scrounge up nearly fifty or so mages for the defence, and although it wasn''t as good as having fifty dragons alongside her, the caravan''s presence did make her feel a bit less mildly nervous.


    Not that she was really that worried. No, she was simply¡­ realistic. Yes, realistic. Realistic enough to know that anyone capable of the kind of incredibly controlled Void magic that Mirael had demonstrated back at Half-finger peak was immensely dangerous. Not as dangerous as a dragon, at least a fully grown one, maybe even a drake, but still dangerous¡­


    "Mara''s mercy," whispered Serana, bringing her horse to a stop as she stared out over the desolation. "I knew it was going to be bad, but I didn''t expect¡­ this."


    "The world we visited," said Einar, bringing the horse he was sharing with Capri to a halt beside the leech. "Zarrak, I think Capri called it, it was just an endless desert. No life at all. Not even bacteria."


    "And that''s what Mirael wants to do here," said Serana, gripping her reigns so tightly that the leather squealed. "And my father is helping her¡­"


    "I doubt he knows what Mirael really wants to do," said Einar. "She didn''t hesitate to kill Arcano."


    "And that makes it better?" said Serana, her voice cracking like a whip. "He still wants to put out the sun. Usher in eternal night. Dupe or no, he''s insane." Serana slumped. "He¡­ wasn''t always like that."


    Caprifexia snorted disbelievingly, and received an unjust glare from Einar.


    "But hey, don''t feel too bad," said Einar, putting a hand on the blood-sucker''s shoulder. "Capri''s dad apparently wanted to destroy her world too, and just look how well adjusted she is!"


    Serana''s lips quirked upward, and the pair shared a chuckle. What was so funny about Nirn maybe ending, or her father''s omnicidal rampage on Azeroth, however, Caprifexia had no idea. She''d explained just how dangerous Mirael was to them, but did they curl into balls and start gibbering in fear like they should have? No. They just kept on going, even thought they were but gnats in the face of a being like Mirael. The only conclusion she''d been able to draw was that mortals, and disgusting undead abominations too she supposed, were all insane.


    The caravan continued onward, ascending higher and higher along the windy, snow-strewn path. Without a mage, or fifty, in the party the ascent would have been virtually impossible. Winter was in full swing, and they had been travelling through snow-drifts since two days after leaving Riften, moving against the stream of terrified refugees fleeing the region.


    It was nearly nightfall by the time they reached the stout stone-fortress that served as home to the tiny ''Order of Neckbeards:'' mortals who used the proto-drake tongue to do some kind of pathetic-imitation of proper magic. To their surprise, however, it was far from abandoned.


    "Are we too late¡­?" said Einar.


    "I do not believe so," said Archmage Aren, waving his staff and casting a spell that Caprifexia definitely and totally understood. "This style of ward, I recognise it as one the Psijic order favoured. It seems we may have more allies than we thought."


    Orange light spilled from every window, and a series of shimmering ward-lines, palisades, and tall ice-brick walls glittering with magic rose before it. Iron golems patrolled the walls, mechanical crossbows held at the ready and immediately turned toward them as they approached.


    "Who goes there?" challenged some variant of elven mortal who was wearing the same type of robe as the irresponsible time-meddlers had, his head poking over the icy fortifications.


    "I am Archmage Savos Aren, of the College of Winterhold," said the Archmage. "We know of the threat Nirn faces. My colleagues and I have come to stand against it."


    "How did you learn of this?" challenged the mortal on the wall.


    "Through Lady Caprifexia," said the Archmage.


    The Archmage seemed to be the only person in the world clever enough to actually addressed her in something approximating the appropriate manner, which was probably the reason he was archmage.


    "She knows much about the woman behind this calamity, and the strange magic they wield," continued the Archmage. "I believe you call her ''the Lesser Fracture?''"


    "I am not Lesser!" huffed Caprifexia from her uncomfortable mortal spot behind Einar in the saddle.


    Caprifexia had been given her own horse back at the College before they''d teleported to Riften, since Einar had insisted she wear her itchy mortal form at all times. The insolent, defiant, and poorly trained beast, however, had refused to obey her reasonable commands, and she''d been forced to ride behind Einar after said rebellious horse had spontaneously combusted for totally un-Caprifexia related reasons. Even though she''d had absolutely nothing to do with the self-igniting equine, Einar had told her off, and made her promise not to set any more of the gormless beasts of burden on fire, no matter how insolent they were.


    It was just yet another example of the constant unjust fire-related accusations that were levelled at her solely because she was a dragon. What had the cat called it? Racial-portfolioing? Yes, that was it. Another example of the racial portfolioing she was subjected to in the past few months: that just because as a dragon she was objectively superior to mortals and had the amazing ability to set things on fire, therefore any and all impressive pyromantic feats were naturally her fault.


    An insolent and badly behaved horse exploded in a fireball? Oh, well it must have been the dragon. Someone ''stole,'' smoked, and ate all the delicious fish from the cat''s pack? Had to be the dragon. Someone set the playing cards on fire when the mortals kept on cheating? Dragon. Somehow the Solemnity barrack''s stock of lemp ool caught alight and, allegedly, ''killed the entire command structure of the Imperial Legion in Skyrim'' who despite all appearances had, allegedly, not been villains? Obviously the dragon.


    She''d even gotten told off by Einar when she''d told him about her heroism against the blue skinned, horse-less cart driving villains on that city plane. He hadn''t even been there! He''d just assumed, because she was a dragon, that she couldn''t possibly have done something as manifestly heroic as setting that entire street on fire and foiling their villainous horseless-cart based rampage!


    And now? And now? Now she had been demoted to ''Lesser Fracture'' just because of who she was!? All this despite the fact that she was an objectively superior form of life to whatever nasty, ugly, winged mortal creature the villain Mirael was. It was blatant, unashamed, bigoted, naked dragonism!


    "I should be the ''Major Fracture,''" muttered Caprifexia, eloquently. "I''m the dragon¡­"


    "Shush Capri," said Einar, meanly.


    The mortal on the wall regarded them warily for a moment, before his head disappeared. A moment later there was a shout, and the large icy gates opened inward, revealing dozens of golems and several cream-clad mages looking down from a corridor formed by a second set of inner walls.


    "Well, err, isn''t this intimidating¡­" said Einar as the caravan passed over the threshold, the icy gates slamming shut behind them, another set opening ahead of them, revealing another line of golems bristling with halberds. A tall elven man, Tondril or something, who Caprifexia had seen back in Dimhollow (the grumpy one) stepped past them, running his eyes over their group, his eyes falling on her.


    "You are the Lesser Fracture?" said Tondril.


    "I am not the Lesser anything," protested Caprifexia. "I am a dragon-"


    "She means yes," said Einar, somehow compelling his insolent beast to trot forward. "I''m Einar, she''s Caprifexia-"


    "I know her name," growled the stroppy mortal, taking a step toward her and rudely jabbing a finger forward. "You have a lot to answer for."


    "Me!? You''re a mortal that meddles with time!" shot back Caprifexia. "Any minor, and totally hypothetical, minuscule, and not worth talking about mistakes I may or may not have made while on my heroic and very successful quest pale into insignificance in the face of the sheer unmitigated chaos you''ve likely caused! You''re lucky I don''t atomise you, you reckless mortal fool-"


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    "Please everyone, we do not have time for recriminations," said Archmage Aren. "And I rather think we need every ally we can find right now, don''t you my friend? Lady Caprifexia has much knowledge that can help us defend Nirn, including of our foe, the ''Major Fracture.''"


    Tondril grumbled.


    "Very well," said Tondril. "The Master is this way; no, not you Nord, just the Archmage and the¡­ Lesser Fracture."


    Einar gave Caprifexia pleading look, for some reason, as around them the caravan dismounted. Tondril led Aren and Caprifexia passed massed ranks of hundreds of golems to the stone fort itself as the others saw to whatever needs the smelly, hairy, and disobedient beasts of burden had.


    The inside of the monastery itself was dark and gloomy, but warmer, and the archmage sighed in relief as the heavy doors closed behind them, extending his hands toward the nearest brazier. It didn''t seem to be infested by bugs, but mortals were filthy, so there were probably some around somewhere, lurking in the shadows, just waiting to jump out at passing dragons.


    "You will wait," ordered Tondril, before sweeping away down a hallway.


    "What a rude mortal," huffed Caprifexia.


    "He does seem a little short, doesn''t he," agreed the Archmage, turning to examine some kind of art featuring a proto-drake. "Still, it may be prudent to be on your best behaviour, young one. You represent everything the Psijic order despises, chaos, and you are in the midst of an army."


    "I don''t fear a bunch of mortals," sniffed Caprifexia. "Besides, they''ll probably paradox themselves out of existence any moment now, the absolute cretins."


    The Archmage chortled, probably in agreement, and she pulled out a book to pass the time. The grumpy time-meddling fool reemerged a few minutes later, and gave her another totally undeserved glare before clearing his throat.


    "The Master will see you now," said Tondril, beckoning them down the hall.


    They passed several spartan looking cells before arriving at a large room dominated by a circular stone table covered in maps with a fire-pit dug into its centre. There were a handful of figures present, one in dark grey robes, the others in the cream of the time-meddling order of rude mortals ¨C one of whom Caprifexia recognised from Dimhollow tomb. ''Lombardia?'' Something like that.


    "Master," said Tondril, addressing an ancient looking dusky-skinned elven woman. "Archmage Aren of Winterhold, they have brought us reinforcements, and the¡­ Lesser Fracture."


    "Welcome Archmage, we are glad for your help," said the ''Master,'' bowing her head before turning and studying Caprifexia for several long moments. "As to you, I am unsure. Should I welcome you after all you have done to this world? What you did to the Dragonborn?"


    "That was self-defence!" said Caprifexia. "And she¡­ was a werewolf! I saved Whiterun! It''s not my fault you tiny brained mortals can''t recognise villainy when you see it! And, while we''re on the subject of mortal stupidity, do you have any idea how dangerous it is for people like you to meddle with the flow of time? I''m stunned you haven''t managed to erase yourself from existence."


    The she elf narrowed her eyes, and there were a few angry mutters around the room. Mortals, as ever, didn''t like hearing the truth.


    "Lomeria tells me you know of the creature''s that attacked Windhelm, that are presently tearing a path across Skyrim to Solitude," said ''the Master.'' "These ''Faceless.''"


    "The one heading to Solemnity isn''t a Faceless," said Caprifexia, waving a hand. "It''s an Old God ¨C or something like it."


    "Solemnity?" said Tondril.


    "Young Caprifexia has a habit of¡­ creatively remembering the names of places and things," said the Archmage. "I believe she means Solitude."


    She didn''t. She knew what the city was called, but she was getting sick of having to constantly correct mortals, so opted to instead let them wallow in their shared delusion.


    "And what is an ''Old God?''" asked the Master. "Some kind of Daedra?"


    "I have no idea what superstitious nonsense that is," said Caprifeixa. "No. It''s creature from the Void between universes."


    "And this is what you are?" said the Master. "Some other kind of outside influence?"


    "No, I''m a Planeswalker," said Caprifexia. "I can travel the Void, because I''m amazing, but I''m from a world called ''Azeroth,'' which is much more advanced and civilised and generally superior in every way to this sorry little backwater of a world. If I were an Old God you''d be gouging your eyes out just from looking at me."


    "And this other Fracture, what do you know of them?" asked the Master.


    "They are also a Planeswalker, called Mirael," explained Caprifexia. "They''re planning to lower your Void Integrity Quotient to less than one to allow for total, or near total, entropic collapse of this universe, in order to-"


    "The ''Void Integrity¡­ what?''" rudely interrupted the Master.


    "The ''Void Integrity Quotient,'' or VIQ," lectured Caprifexia. "Is a measure of how resistant a given universe is to incursions from the Void. Under normal circumstances at a value of one, any tear into the void will stay open, but not expand; any higher, and it will close over time; any lower and Void tears will grow larger and larger until the entire reality is devoured. The precise rate of change can be calculated using the formula-"


    "So it is how thick the walls of our reality are?" said the Master, cutting her off. "Has ours fallen below one? Can we repair it?"


    "If you''d let me finish, I would have explained that you rude little mortal!" grumbled Caprifexia. "And no, if it was below one Windhelm''s tear would have expanded and consumed this place by now. As I said, Mirael is planning to lower it by killing your stupid SABIGISMFs-"


    "Stupid ''whats?''" said the irritating mortal.


    "She means Divines," said the Archmage, helping his feeble minded fellow to follow her incredibly simple explanation. "It''s a ''dragonym,'' apparently."


    "Why doesn''t she just say that then?" said the ''Master'' angrily.


    "Lady Caprifexia," said Aren in a conspiratorial voice, leaning forward. "Is an atheist."


    The ''Master'' looked like she''d been slapped. "What!?"


    "I know, my reaction as well," said Aren, holding up his hands. "Young Caprifexia is full of interesting opinions."


    "She''s insane, more like," said the Master in a faint voice, rubbing her eyes with the palms of hands. "I''m listening to an insane person."


    "I''m insane!?" spluttered Caprifexia. "You''re the pointy earred time-meddling mortal-"


    "So that is why this ''Mirael'' needs to kill Akatosh? Magnus?" said the ''Master,'' rudely cutting Caprifexia off again. "To lower this Quotient?"


    "That is what I said," hissed Caprifexia. "Honestly, are all mortals deaf? Must I repeat everything I say ad infinitum?"


    "Do you have any suggestions on how to fight her?" asked the rude mortal.


    There were ways of countering void magic, she knew. Unfortunately, however, none of them had been covered in the curriculum back at Blackrock Spire before she''d been forced to leave Azeroth.


    "Not really," said Caprifexia with a shrug. "You''re probably all going to die. Void magic eats away at reality; you can shield against it, sort of, but not for long. You and the rest of the cannon fodder''s best bet is to try and weaken her so a proper hero like me can finish her off."


    "How helpful," said the ''Master.'' "So do you actually have any advice that could help us? At all?"


    "I don''t know, why don''t you just travel back in time ¨Csince you''re apparently so crazy you actually do that while only possessing a feeble mortal brain¨C and organise a proper army to fight against her?" said Caprifexia. "Honestly, you mortals, you always expect dragons to hold your hand. It''s pathetic, no wonder you all die so much. Maybe if you took some personal responsibility and pulled yourselves up by your feet-straps-"


    "We do not have that power," said the Master in short, clipped tones, once again demonstrating her complete dearth of manners and cutting off Caprifexia before she could impart her life-changing wisdom. "It took all of our resources just to bring the Order and our war golems to this point. The only reason we could manage it at all was because of the Wound in Time on the peak above us. The place where Alduin was banished centuries ago. There are other things that make it easier, anchors such as Elder Scrolls, for example. But even those have limitations, and often need to be in the same place at both points of time, something we cannot easily predict or affect."


    "You could have saved us all time and just said you''re bad at magic," said Caprifexia, summarising the mortal''s pitiful rambling excuses for their sub-par spellcraft. The ''Master''s'' eye twitched, floored, no doubt, but Caprifexia''s devastating and correct appraisal of their paltry abilities.


    "I believe you have covered most of the important points Lady Caprifexia," said the Archmage, seemingly the only person in the room, perhaps the continent, who actually had anything approaching courtesy. "Perhaps you should help your friends unpack? I can relay any other pertinent information that you have told me."


    "They do probably need supervision," sniffed Caprifexia, turning and leaving the rude mortals to their stupid maps and futile schemes and heading back out to where the Winterhold mages were setting up.


    None of their pathetic mortal machinations would ultimately matter anyway. As usual it was going to be up to Caprifexia to figure out a way to stop Mirael. Of course, since she was a dragon, she already had the broad strokes of a brilliant and cunning plan.


    Step One: Let the mortals soften Mirael and her minions up.


    Step Two: ???


    Step Three: Heroically Triumph.


    It wasn''t fully fleshed out yet. But she''d figure it out. She was a dragon. Dragons were good at plans, and she absolutely wasn''t out of her depth even if Mirael''s mastery of Void magic was terrifying and her so called allies were useless and she was only a whelpling and she wasn''t supposed to be here and she should have still been back with her clutch studying and why was it suddenly so hard to breath-


    "Capri, you OK?" asked Einar, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You''re shaking."


    "It''s- it''s cold! I''m fine! Go away you infuriating overbearing mortal!" she huffed slapping away his hand and stomping off toward where the mountainside dropped away in a cliff. Her stupid faux-mortal hands trembled, and something knot-like tightened in her stomach as what in a mortal might have been identified as ''panic'' settled over her.


    Feelings and thoughts that she hadn''t wanted to acknowledge finally overcame her draconic resolve, and she slumped in the snow, drawing her knees to her chest as she looked out over the desolate wastes of what had once been the plains of Whiterun.


    If she was honest with herself she knew wasn''t, presently, a match for Mirael. Once day she would be, of course, but as of right now she had no idea how to stop the winged villain. The mortal allies she had amassed to aid her would likewise be no real help. The other Planeswalker had destroyed whole worlds, slain beings with enough power to trick mortals into thinking they were Gods. What chance did she stand? A whelpling of not even three?


    She was going to die on this mountain. Alongside her friends who would never agree to hypothetically flee with her. Sure, she had faced what she thought was her death before, she was a hero after all, but it had always been in the heat of battle. She hadn''t just sat around and waited for a terrifyingly powerful villain to come for her. She felt like¡­ prey. A dragon should never feel like prey.


    "Hello, little dragon," came the cat''s voice, and Caprifexia quickly sniffed and wiped away the liquid from the snowflakes that must have melted in her eyes and streamed down her cheeks.


    "What do you want?" snapped Caprifexia.


    "The little dragon has been angrier than usual lately," said the cat, settling down beside her. "This is an impressive feat, J''zargo did not think it was possible."


    "Leave me alone," she grumbled, looking away. "Go find some wool to play with or something."


    "Alas, J''zargo could find no wool," said the cat, not moving and instead following her gaze out over the desolation. "It is frightening," he said. "Is it not?"


    "For a mortal maybe," she sniffed.


    "J''zargo does not think it is only mortals that should be afraid," said J''zargo, turning to look at her again with his yellow eyes. "This ''Mirael,'' she scares the little dragon?"


    "Concerns," corrected Caprifexia. "Dragons don''t get scared. And none of you have any real idea of how dangerous she is, if you did, you''d all be terrified out of your tiny little minds."


    "Who says we are not?" asked J''zargo.


    Across the plains there was a particularly loud rumble of thunder, and the silhouette of a giant figure in a bank of cloud hurled a blast of magic at the distant Faceless Titan. The monster spasmed as golden lightning raced over its body, but even in the immense blast of magic did not make it fall, and instead the colossus swiped one of its twisted arms through the bottom of the bank of shimmering cloud, turning the vapour black and indigo wherever it touched.


    Above the abomination the minuscule silhouette of what even Caprifexia could barely make out as a proto-drake buzzed toward it, unleashing a tiny glimmer of fire. Then one of the Titan''s arms lurched upward, catching and crushing the foolish lizard as easily as a mortal might swat a gnat.


    "If the small dragon thinks we cannot win, why does she stay?" continued the cat. "The small dragon could leave this world. She is a Planeswalker. She has magic that even J''zargo has not yet mastered."


    "I''m a hero! The- the greatest hero!" said Caprifexia angrily. "And heroes stay and fight! If you were really one, you overgrown hairball, you''d know that!"


    "Even when they are scared?" asked J''zargo.


    "Even when they''re scared!" said Caprifexia, before clearing her throat. "Not that, you know, I am¡­ because I''m not!"


    "It is OK to be afraid," said J''zargo, putting an arm around her shoulders. "And we do not need to be scared alone."


    "Hmph," said Caprifexia. "I told you, I''m a dragon, we don''t get scared."


    "Of course," said the cat. "But J''zargo is khajiit. He will stay with the small brave dragon for a while, yes?"


    She considered pushing the needy cat away, but she supposed if he needed to draw on her immense well of will and strength, she supposed she could allow that. Dragons needed to look after mortals, after all, even annoying fluffy ones with massively inflated egos.


    "Alright, just this once," she said, putting her chin back on her knees as they sat and watched the end of the world.

 The Villain Rehabilitation Programme

    The Villain Rehabilitation Programme


    "Why do I have to wear this infuriating form?" grumbled Caprifexia as she hiked up the narrow, windy, snow covered path with her silly little booted mortal feet.


    "You know why Capri," said Einar. "The Psijic monks are already annoyed at you as it is, no need to compound matters by making them realise you''re actually a tiny dragon in addition to being a fate-wrecking menace."


    She and her dragonist-apologist so-called friend were following after one of the Neckbeards, insane mortals who chose to live atop the frigid mountaintop despite being a squishy and eminently freezable. The sun overhead was obscured by grey clouds, and there was a brusque, cool breeze that pulled at her coat and carried small flurries of snowflakes. Normally Caprifexia didn''t mind cold weather, since unless you could find a nice volcano, warmth generally meant bugs. Now, however, the frigid wind seemed only another layer of irritation.


    Beneath her the eastern reaches of Skyrim and whatever the region beyond it was called stretched out into the distance. If she squinted particularly hard she could make out the lake-side town of Riften where the College had teleported to a week and a bit earlier. There were also, moving slowly along the roads, and small as ants, a constant stream of refugees heading south and east, fleeing the calamity that had so far claimed two cities and twisted and corrupted a huge swathe of central Skyrim. The train had thinned out over the past few days, but there were still a significant number of people on the move. It took time for most of an entire province to evacuate, which according to some of the Psijic monks was what was happening.


    Caprifexia rubbed her eyes. She was tired. She hadn''t been sleeping well the past few nights, in part because of the irritatingly loud fight that was still going on over near Solemnity between the plane''s so-called Gods and the massive Faceless, in part because as the, alleged, ''day of the battle'' approached she had been feeling¡­ on edge. Sometimes, if anyone could actually believe it, she might even have described herself as irritable.


    She didn''t think it was something she''d eaten, and obviously dragons didn''t get scared, so she could only put it down to being crammed for days and days and days into the monastery-come-fortress filled with two whole army''s worth of suspicious, ungrateful, and nosy mortal mages that complained endlessly: ''hey, don''t leave the doors open, it''s ''freezing'' outside!,'' ''hey, she stole my boring and poorly written book!,'' ''hey, someone''s improved the stupid mortal nonsense I was enchanting and now I''m stroppy about it for totally unintelligible reasons!,'' ''hey, she set my bedroll on fire!''


    The whinging was constant.


    "Why do I even have to be here!?" she continued after a few seconds of tedious silence. "This is boring! I want to go back!"


    "Capri, for the love of Mara, I''ve told you, six times, I don''t know!" groaned Einar, as if she was somehow being the unreasonable one. "All I know is that Brother Arngeir was very insistent you come with him, and since I''ve been told not in no uncertain terms to let you out of my sight, I have to come too. I''d rather be back in the warm monastery too! So stop complaining to me about it!"


    Her friend had been appointed her ''chaperone'' by the irritating, insolent, patronising, and incredibly ungrateful mortal fools after the alleged ''disastrous meeting'' that had been her patiently and diligently explaining the situation to the Psijic fools. Of course, the meeting hadn''t been a debacle, and their characterisation of it as such was simply another example of how terribly fragile mortal feelings were.


    "Why did it have to be so early?" she said, continuing to critique the situation. "The sun''s barely up! I''m hungry! This is boring!"


    "It''s nearly noon, and you''re the one who didn''t want to eat breakfast," said Einar. "You shouldn''t have stayed up so late reading!"


    "Why couldn''t we have this meeting in their ridiculous, but at least warm, headquarters!?" said Caprifexia.


    "I don''t know!" shouted Einar.


    Caprifexia glared at Einar, and was about to say something else insightful and brilliant about the unfair and stupid situation when the Neckbeard came to a stop.


    "Now Miss Caprifexia, Master Einar," said Arghgear, turning to them. "What I am about to reveal to you is the order''s most closely guarded secret, the true leader of the Greybeards-"


    "The who?" asked Caprifexia, frowning. She was fairly sure she''d never heard of such an organisation, so why would she care who their leader was? The mortals had gotten her up for this?


    Beside her Einar covered his face with a mittened hand and swore softly.


    "The- the Greybeards," said Arghgear, thrown by her simple question. "The¡­ Order of which I am a part? You have been staying in our monastery for quite some time."


    "Oh, the Neckbeards," she corrected, brushing some snow off her shoulder. "Fine. Continue."


    "That isn''t¡­ well, I suppose it doesn''t matter what you call us," said Arghgear, somewhat thrown. "As I said, the identity of our leader, Grandmaster Paarthunax-"


    "Why does your leader have a proto-drake name?" interrupted Caprifexia, translating the mortal''s poorly pronounced fake-dragon. "''Ambition, Overlord, Cruelty?''"


    "Proto-drake?" said Arghgear.


    "She means dragon," said Einar. "She has, err, unusual definitions."


    "I¡­ see," said Arghgear. "But yes, as you have surprisingly surmised, Miss Caprifexia, the leader of our Order, the one who taught us the Voice is a dragon, a ''proto-drake'' as you say-"


    "You serve a villain!?" hissed Caprifexia, summoning lightning to her fists. "I knew there was something fishy about you! Prepare to die, Arghgear-"


    "Capri, no!" said Einar, grabbing her wrists before she could heroically atomise the Neckbeard.


    "But he''s a villain-" she said.


    "No," said Einar firmly, giving her a look she knew meant that she was, allegedly, ''in trouble,'' before addressing the self-confessed villain-supporter. "Paarthurnax was the one who turned against Alduin, right?"


    "I see you know your history, Master Einar," said Arghgear, nodding, seemingly unaware that he was mere moments away from righteous destruction. "Indeed he was, and for years beyond counting he has stayed here in seclusion atop the Throat of the World."


    "That doesn''t sound villainous, now does it?" said Einar, having the audacity to glare at Caprifexia. "Saving people?"


    "What about the Friendly Lich rule?" she protested, nevertheless letting her gathered lightning dissipate.


    "Doesn''t apply here," said Einar arbitrarily.


    "But-"


    "Doesn''t. Apply,'' said Einar firmly. "The Greybeards, and their leader, are our allies. Understand?"


    Caprifexia grumbled. Honestly, he liked to complain when she made ''errors,'' but then when she tried to follow the heroic rulebook he got all annoyed. It was so unfair!


    "Why would I want to speak with an, allegedly, non-villainous proto-drake?" said Caprifexia.


    "Master Paarthurnax wishes to meet you, it is true," said Arghgear. "But in this meeting he is merely a facilitator, the one he wishes you to meet is Alduin himself."


    "Alduin!?" said Einar, taking a step back. "Fucking Alduin!? The dragon that wants to destroy the world!?"


    "I told you this Neckbeard was a villain!" said Caprifexia. "You never listen to me!"


    "It is not that simple," said Arghgear, quickly trying to cover up his clear and present villainy. "As you can see, in the plains below us and the sky above, this is not merely a battle for the continuation of man ¨C it is a battle for the continuation of Mundus itself. The Dovah are mighty, and if they can be turned to our cause we just may prevail."


    "I¡­ I guess," said Einar, clearly unhappy, but still willing to pathetically contemplate such a compromise. "I suppose we need all the help we can get. If he''s willing to help us stop Mirael¡­"


    "This is ridiculous," said Caprifexia, taking control of the situation before her weak willed and gullible friend could spiral into supporting outright villainy. "We spent ages looking for a way to kill him, and now, all of a sudden, we''re working with this villain? No, I refuse! I am a hero! The greatest hero! Heroes don''t work with villains!"


    "Capri, look!" said Einar, turning and pointing behind him, out over what had once been the Plains of Whiterun to where in the distance the huge monstrosity was still battling against something, or somethings, in the clouds. "Look!"


    "No. No I say! The ''Friendly Lich Rule'' isn''t something you can just ignore when convenient," protested Caprifexia, stamping her foot on the snow so hard she sank up to her knee. "It''s ironclad. Absolute!"


    "The ''Friendly Lich Rule'' was about getting you to think through the outcomes of your actions," said Einar. "And to make sure you weren''t being tricked into helping a villain. It isn''t about working with a villain because you have to to avoid a greater evil."


    Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    "This sounds like typical mortal equivocation," said Caprifexia, wrenching her foot free with a shower of snow. "Are you short-lived monkeys absolutely incapable of moral consistency!?"


    "Capri, you know how strong Mirael is," said Einar in totally unjustified exasperation. "We need absolutely every bit of help we can get."


    Caprifexia crossed her arms and looked away. It was true that Mirael was horrifyingly powerful. Enough to mildly frighten a mighty dragon like herself. Very mildly, mind you. More gently perturb than frighten, really. But that didn''t mean that it would be heroic to work with a nasty, villainous proto-drake.


    "Alright¡­ alright," said Einar, massaging his temples in the face of her unshakable draconic ethics. "Look at it this way you''re¡­ tricking Alduin into fighting more effectively against Mirael, who the dragons are already battling, by giving him information on how to fight her. Which is something that will ultimately benefit you, and make you¡­ even more heroic!"


    "Tricking him¡­?" said Caprifexia speculatively. She did like tricking villains, that was one of her favourite parts of being the multiverse''s greatest hero. "Like diplomacy?"


    "Yes, that''s heroic, isn''t it?" said Einar, nodding. "Convincing a villain to do what you, as a hero, want. Very heroic."


    "I suppose," said Caprifexia contemplatively. "Alright, yes, I''ll diplomacy him into helping us. But only because I was going to anyway."


    "Thank Akatosh," said Einar, praising his probably non-existent ''dragon-"God,"'' rather than the very real and clearly superior dragon right in front of him.


    "Well then¡­" said Arghgear, who had been watching their high level debate on heroic ethics with a look of confusion. "Shall we?"


    "Very well. You may lead on, Arghgear," nodded Caprifexia, before lowering her voice. "But I''m watching you, maybe-villain."


    "That isn''t my- never mind¡­" muttered the old man, leading them further up the snowy path. A few hundred yards later they rounded a large rock and emerged onto the peak itself. The top of the ''Throat of the World'' was a large, vaguely circular flat plane of snow with a sharp rocky crag on one side, beneath which sat an ancient looking ruin covered in proto-drake writing.


    Sitting on the ruin were two large proto-drakes. The first, and smaller of the two inferior, would-be dragons, looked old and haggard. Here and there bits and pieces of their scales and teeth were chipped, and their eyes were dull and glassy. The second of the faux-Wyrms was larger, and in a pale reflection of her own majesty had glossy black scales, and deep, burning red eyes. Aldoon, she assumed.


    "Grandmaster," said Arghgear, bowing his head. "I have brought the young Fracture, as you asked."


    "This is the one that disturbs the cycle? The one who erased the Dovahkiin from the Kalpa?" growled the large black proto-drake, who didn''t intimidate Caprifexia at all. Nope, not one bit. "A mere elf?"


    "Elf!?" spluttered Caprifexia, utterly outraged as she transformed into her real, majestic form and rose into the air. "I am no elf. I am a true dragon! I am Caprifexia, Queen of the Black Dragonflight, Scion of the Titans, and the greatest hero in the multiverse! I am creature of might and magic beyond your comprehension! See, I have four legs-"


    "Capri!" hissed Einar, grabbing her tail and pulling her down.


    Caprifexia''s outrage mounted as she turned back at Einar, snapping her maw at him. "How dare you-"


    "Capri," he whispered, a note of pathetic quavering desperation in his voice. "Please, please don''t enrage the world-eating dragon!"


    "He isn''t a dragon-" corrected Caprifexia.


    "It is small," growled Aldoon glaring at her with his red eyes.


    "Small!?" spluttered Caprifexia, forgetting about Einar. "I''m not small! You''re small! Tiny! My father was ten, no, a hundred times your size-"


    "Capri, for the love of Akatosh, shut up!" wailed Einar.


    "She is what we call the ''Lesser Fracture,'' yes," said the Arghgear. "And possesses information on the sorcery employed by our true, mutual enemy. She is, however, ahem, difficult."


    "I''ll give you difficult, you decrepit mortal maybe-villain-"


    "We cannot afford to turn away help, brother," said Paarthurnax. "She possesses wisdom we require. Ni Vus Fahdon, Okinan Ahst Grah."


    "Paarthunax, you waste my time with these mortals. What can a tiny elf-lizard hope to teach us?" said the black proto-drake, responding entirely in their silly fake-draconic.


    "More than you can possibly comprehend!" shot back Caprifexia in the same tongue. "And I am no ''mortal,'' or ''elf-lizard!'' I am a true dragon!"


    "You speak the tongue?" asked Paarthurnax, clearly awed by her incredible proper-dragon powers.


    "I speak all tongues," said Caprifexia, flaring her wings menacingly. "You pathetic drakes are but insects compared to my kind!"


    "It is insolent," growled Aldoon, raising his head and baring his teeth.


    "You''re insolent!"


    "Alduin, you have felt the severing of threads as I have. Unless we alter course, all shall end. There shall be no rebirth," said Paarthurnax. "How many Dovah have fallen to these pale creatures, never to rise again? Even Father struggles to wound the monster beneath this peak permanently. We cannot continue as we are. What harm is there in hearing this strange creature out?"


    The giant black proto-drake growled, and glared at Caprifexia for several long moments.


    "Pruzah," muttered the ebony lizard, switching back to Imperial. "What do you know of these twisted things, these Sivaas Nol Zeim, these creatures from beyond, that resist our Thu''um?"


    "Oh, so now you want my help?" sneered Caprifexia.


    "Capri!" begged Einar. "Please."


    Caprifexia harrumphed. Fine, she''d impart a fraction of her great wisdom, but only because Einar had asked nicely¡­


    "They are creatures of the Void," lectured Caprifexia. "Faceless. They are non-beings that exist in the space between worlds, a realm on anti-reality that constantly seeks to enter and destroy the various planes of the multiverse."


    "And why does my Thu''um fail me?" said Alduin.


    "Because your silly little proto-drake language is commanding this silly little reality to do things, and they''re not part of it," said Caprifexia. "Because, you know, it isn''t real magic."


    "Capri," said Einar. "Why not some more¡­ constructive suggestions? What could they do to harm it?"


    "They could try not being so useless," said Caprifexia. "It might be hard though, since they''re not real dragons-"


    "Capri!" whined Einar.


    "I don''t know," said Caprifexia, brainstorming for a moment. "They could try to physically trap, rather than directly harm It. Faceless still need to obey reality to some extent in this realm, so, I don''t know, you could put It in a pit or something? Bury It under rock? Impale It with spikes? It will get out eventually, but it might take It a while."


    "We have not yet tried this," said Paarthurnax. "I have been unable to speak to Father, have you-"


    "His attention is consumed, he does not hear me," said Alduin, shaking his ugly fake-dragon head and flaring his silly arm-wings to leave. "But I shall tell the other Dovah, perhaps he will notice our actions-"


    "Great Alduin, please, a moment more," said Arghgear, obsequiously bowing his head to the villain like the spinless mortal he was. "The creature you face on the plains is not what we believe will strike down your father."


    "My father is Eternal," said Aldoon. "He has no beginning, no end. Through me he remakes the world in fire."


    "And yet the Psijic Order say that not one week from now he will be slain, and Magnus along with him. Grandmaster Paarthurnax says you feel the threads of fate unravelling?" said Arghgear. "According to Miss Caprifexia, the other being like her that will do this is named ''Mirael.'' A magus of immense power who will soon assault High Hrothgar. For whatever reason, this place, the Throat of the World, is somehow central to her plans. The Order is sure that this is the site of the final battle. Will you aid us in stopping her?"


    "This ''Mirael'' is of no consequence," said Aldoon. "The threat lies on the Plains-"


    "Wrong," snorted Caprifexia. "Typical small brained, non-dragon reptile; it can''t appreciate the true, obvious threat. Of course, you don''t understand magic, so I shouldn''t really be surprised. Idiot."


    "You- you dare?" growled Aldoon, flaring his wings in a pathetic attempt to intimidate her.


    "The VIQ of this world is still above one, so the only way a Faceless could be sustained and empowered would be if it was being supplied with a constant stream of Void Energy. Duh," explained Caprifexia. "Mirael is obviously the one doing that; so if you don''t stop her, she''ll just rip open another tear and bring another through. If you stop her, it will die. As I said, you''re an idiot."


    "I grow tired of your insolence," growled Aldoon in proto-drake, baring his teeth.


    "And I grow tired of your stupidity, you villainous proto-drake," said Caprifexia, summoning dragonfire in the back of her throat. "I knew this so-called ''alliance'' was a mistake! I should put you down, you nasty, evil, ugly, overgrown snake!"


    Sure, things hadn''t gone that well for her the last time she had faced a proto-drake. But that had been months and months and months ago. She was far more powerful, and had a whole string of incredible victories to her name. Not a few weeks ago she''d saved whatever that city plane was called from those blue, cart-driving villains. She might not be able to defeat Mirael in open combat by herself just yet, but could take this little lizard; not only was she a true dragon, she was also a Planeswalker! And as Mirael had shown, Planeswalkers were clearly a cut above the pathetic so-called Gods and Godlings of this world.


    Also, she was nearly three!


    "Alduin, if she speaks the truth, then we must hold this Peak," said Paarthurnax, interceding to protect their villainous friend.


    "If she speaks the truth," said Aldoon. "Perhaps this is all a lie. Perhaps you are in league with her and this is another futile attempt to stop me; to trap me here as your protegees did so long ago."


    "If that is the case, then why did she annihilate the Dovahkiin?" challenged Paarthurnax. "It was the Dovahkiin who was destined to stop you in Sovengarde. Why would this strange creature erase them if she sought your destruction?"


    Alduin snapped and snarled, but had no rebuttal, and instead glared at the other proto-drake for almost a minute.


    "Very well," said the stroppy black-scaled proto-drake. "I will inform the Dovah of this new plan against the creature on the Plains, and then return to guard the Wound. It seems that we shall fight together one last time, Brother."


    The pathetic reptile took to wing, turning and gliding back over the twisted plains toward the Faceless monstrosity.


    "That''s right! Run! Run away, little villain!" she roared after it. "You pale imposter! You spinless worm!"


    "Thank-you for your time Grandmaster," said Einar obsequiously, bowing toward Paarthurnax even as he grabbed Caprifexia under her forelegs and lifted her off the ground. "We won''t take up anymore of your valuable time."


    "Unhand me at once!" said Caprifexia. "I am a dragon! I will not be mortal-handled! Don''t think I won''t bite you!"


    "Not if you''re not going to behave," said Einar, grumpily, stomping off down the slope. "Capri, he could have killed us!"


    "Pah," sniffed Caprifexia. "I could have taken him. He''s not even a proper dragon."


    "Not this again," groaned Einar. "And I thought you were getting better! No wonder I''ve been told to ''not let you out of my sight!''"


    "''Getting better?''" said Caprifexia, squirming out of his grip and shifting back into her mortal guise and giving with a withering look. "At what, recognising that the local dragons are pathetic imitations of my kind? I was always a master of that-"


    "At not trying to start fights for literally not reason!" whinged Einar.


    "It''s called Diplomacy, actually," she sniffed, brushing some snow off her shoulder. "You should try it sometime. If you ask nicely, I''ll even give you some pointers."


    Einar made an incoherent growling sound and raised his hands, miming squeezing something roughly the size of Caprifexia''s mortal form''s neck.

 Self-sabotaging Dragonism

    Serana looked down from the icy fortifications, tapping the hilt of her sword nervously as the vanguard of the joint Thalmor-Vampire alliance advanced over the far crest: a horde of scared, shoddily armed, and clearly newly blooded vampires. Behind them, in the moonlight the twisted, horrific ruins of what had once been Whiterun glittered, the mind-bending geometry reflecting the silver rays in a way that made her head spin.


    Serana had fought in plenty of battles before, although never one on this scale. The Psijic order had hundreds of members, and thousands of battle-golems that were finer, and more advanced, than anything she had ever seen before even in Dwemer ruins.


    Almost every single member of Winterhold college was present as well, bolstering their numbers with another eighty mages and a small army of atronachs. Almost every member, barring the megalomaniacal little flying reptile that everyone agreed was not only too young, but far, far, far too volatile and unpredictable to take part in a real battle.


    Sure, Capri might have been a pretty strong mage, and had enough innate powers as an ''Azerothian Dragon'' to make even a Higher Vampire like her jealous, but she was also incompetent in the extreme. Every single fight Serana had ever seen Capri take part in, the tiny ''dragon'' had only really survived through a combination of blind luck and natural resilience. She knew a few neat tricks, and clearly had a pretty good mind for spell-crafting, but she was two.


    No, Capri had been put ''in charge'' ¨Cfor she only consented to being in charge of things¨C of the defence of the Throat of the World, the absolute last fall back position that they had. Einar, her kindly, handsome, and seemingly infinitely patient minder had gone with her, mainly to make sure she didn''t decide to ''heroically intervene,'' as she would have put it, and quite possibly find a way to completely sabotage a crucial part of the defence. That or pick a fight with someone on their side for absolutely no reason.


    It wasn''t a bad coalition, all up, but from what their scrying had shown, the Thalmor had a worrying number of troops, and her father had managed to amass quite a sizeable horde of vampires from across Tamriel. Thousands of them were clearly new-bloods, cannon-fodder turned from poor hapless refugees fleeing Skyrim, but there were also entire retinues of vampires from the great houses across the continent. No one had seen the flying ''Planeswalker'' that Caprifexia was so absolutely terrified of, but Mirael was surely there somewhere.


    Serana reached into her satchel, bringing out a set of three phials of potions she''d brewed in the last few days of interminable waiting. They tasted foul as they went down, but she immediately felt herself grow stronger, faster, and tougher as they settled into her stomach.


    She drew her sword and bared her fangs, and a moment later with a series of ''whooshes'' the magical siege engines that the Winterhold mages had built fired, arcing massive chunks of jagged ice over the walls and toward the shakily advancing line of vampires.


    A few of the new-bloods managed to shield, but most of them clearly hadn''t had time to learn any magic since they''d been turned, and scores died as the icy projectiles crashed into their lines, bursting in waves of razor sharp ice that eviscerated entire formations. At the same time, runic ''mines'' began to explode, killing more of the new-vampires and briefly obscuring all view of the battlefield as the detonations sent snow spraying high into the air.


    Despite the casualties, however, the vanguard didn''t slow their advance, the rear ranks breaking into a sprint as they clambered over their fallen comrades. Behind them the from of the true army crested the rise, and the Thalmor mages began to cast. Serana raised a hand against the glare of two dozen fireballs as they smashed into the ward-line.


    Spellfire whizzed between the fortress and the army as the attackers closed, the cross-bow wielding golems turning their fire against the main army as the Thalmor archers also came into range. Most of the enemy fire was turned aside by the wards, but not everything, and Serana''s sword blurred up to deflect an arrow that streaked toward the blonde haired woman beside her who wasn''t quick enough to shield.


    "Thanks," said white-faced woman, Lomeria, Serana thought her name was, giving her a nod before conjuring a ball of crackling lightning and hurling it down at the oncoming vampires. The bolt struck one of disintegrated them instantly, before arcing between a dozen more and reducing them to ash.


    There was a roar from above, and Serana looked up to see a flight of seven dragons, Alduin the World Eater at their head, swoop toward the battlefield. The air shook with their shouts, and plumes of fire bloomed from their maws, sweeping across the battlefield and turning a further giant swathe of the new-blood vampires to ash.


    The dragons, however, did not come off unscathed, however, and one of them fell with a roar as the Thalmor and Vampire mages behind the vanguard concentrated fire on the closest, a brownish-red scaled behemoth that fell from the air with screaming roar and was immediately set upon by the tide of weak vampires. One of the fallen dragon''s companions turned back to aid them, but met a similar fate as his companion as they too were shot out of the air.


    Serana clicked her teeth in irritation, had the dragons bothered to coordinate with them they could have told them a head on attack against so many mages would have been suicidal. But dragons, regardless of what universe they came from, were apparently arrogant fools.


    The remaining dragons, Alduin included, realised that there were too many enemy mages to contend with out in the open, fell back behind the wall, hurling elemental blasts from afar. Things grew more chaotic as the battle progressed. Battles between a handful of mages were terrifying spectacles of destruction, two armies of magic users, and the five remaining dragons made it feel like they''d all been suddenly shifted into one of the realms of Oblivion. Fire and ice and lightning rained from the sky, and the mountainside shook with unleashed elemental power.


    The new bloods, whose numbers seemed endless, tried to raise ladders as behind them the older vampires and Thalmor kept their distance, focusing on shielding, blasting apart the fortifications, and taking down the protective wards. Serana restrained herself, shielding only occasionally, and not unleashing her magic below. She was a pretty powerful mage, it was true, and could wreak destruction from afar, but there were plenty of mages here who could do that, and few to none who could fight like battlemages in close-quarters combat.


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    She didn''t need to wait long though, as further along a particularly lucky group of young vampires managed to reach the wall with a ladder. They immediately began to vault upward. Serana broke into a sprint, racing past the mages and golems, and reached the ladder just as the first new-blooded vampire got to the top. It was a Breton woman, and judging by her floury apron, she had been a cook. A cook unlucky enough to run into one of the retinues of vampires that had made their way north against the flow of refugees.


    The woman wasn''t a refugee anymore, however. Now she was all snarling teeth and frenzied yellow eyes in the grip of an uncontrolled bloodlust. Serana took off her head before the vampire could get off the ladder, and sent the rest of them crashing back to the ground as she cut through the thick steel hooks affixing the ladder to the icy wall and kicking it back.


    She didn''t get time to revel in her swift victory, however, as further back along the line another ladder rose. And another. And another.


    Her sword and boots grew bloody as the areas around the ladders descended into wild melees, the young vampires clashing with the unfeeling and relentless war-golems. Serana lost track of how many of the new-bloods she slew, but it must have been close to a hundred before the wave of expendable arrow-fodder finally ebbed just as the dawn sun was rising.


    What young, lesser vampires hadn''t been slain burst into flames as the rays of sunlight washed over them, unable to withstand the uncomfortably bright rays. Although they had been trying to kill her, Serana felt a stab of pity for them. Even if they''d succeeded, her father never had any intention of shielding them from the sun. They''d been utterly expendable. Fodder to soften them up for the main army.


    A horn sounded in the distance, and Serana looked up to see the glittering Thalmor and Vampire hosts begin the main attack. The ward-line had failed perhaps half an hour earlier, there were great rents and tears in the icy fortification, and they were down to four dragons: Alduin, a dull-scaled green, and two yellowish wyrms. Hundreds of war-golems lay in pools of viscous black oil, and several dozen mages had already fallen.


    She spotted J''zargo down at one of the larger breaches with several other Winterhold mages quickly trying to patch the wall, and jumped down to join him.


    "Doing OK?" she asked her khajiit friend, lending her own magic to the effort.


    "J''zargo is unharmed," nodded J''zargo, directing a stream of freezing magic at the tear. "He has¡­ never fought in a battle like this before. The Lady Serana?"


    "Fine," she said, gesturing to her blood soaked armour as the last of the rent closed. "Not mine."


    "The Lady Serana has¡­ experience with battles like this, does she not?" asked J''zargo, rushing back up a set of walls to stare at the advancing main host, a hint of trepidation in his voice. He wasn''t on Capri''s level in terms of arrogance, no one was, but it was still unusual for the man to appear anything but totally confident.


    "Some," she said.


    "Can we win?" he asked.


    "My father''s managed to gather an awfully large number of vampires," she said. "Major houses too, thousands of years old¡­ they''ll be tough. Really tough."


    "But can we win?" he asked.


    "Maybe," she said, looking over the assembled mages and the ranks of glittering silver golems. "I''ve never seen so many mages in one spot, the Psijic''s golems are pretty deadly, and we''ve got proper dragons on our side. Want my advice? Keep your head down, focus on the fight, and look out for your friends. Worrying about the larger picture is just distracting unless you''re a commander."


    J''zargo flexed his jaw and nodded, and she gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze before turning her attention toward the advancing host.


    Spells began flying a moment later, and after that arrows, and once again the world narrowed as things descended into chaos. A blast of ice there, a shield here, parry that sword, stab that elf, kick that vampire who she thought she recognised¡­


    The sky grew smoky from all the dragon and mage-fire being hurled around, painting the churned snow blood-red as it obscured the rising sun. Psijic monks and Winterhold mages died all around her, and golems were rent apart by ancient, blood-lusted vampires, and another dragon fell, but she kept on fighting, her unholy might keeping her standing as the snow and ice turned to crimson slush beneath her boots. She lost track of J''zargo at some point, and hoped he hadn''t perished, but in the heat of battle wasn''t able to go and look for him.


    They lost the outer wall and retreated inward, but slowly, gradually, she felt the tide begin to turn. The Thalmor might have been numerous and well trained, but they had nothing compared to the iron discipline and crushing brutality of the Psijic''s golems. The ancient vampire''s of the assembled houses were powerful, but so were the assembled mages, and without the ability to simply physically overpower them, protected as they were by foot-soldiers who didn''t feel fear, they found themselves somewhat outmatched. And with four, then three dragons on their side, now able to have their backs watched by the Psijic and Winterhold mages, there were entire areas of the front where the elf-vampire coalition was simply unable to advance.


    Serana had just decapitated one Countess Krestovitz, a vampire from Cyrodill who she had once considered a friend, when a horn sounded, and the elves and vampires began to retreat. A cheer went up from the defender''s line as the smoke began to clear, and Serana was about to join them until a bank of smoke wafted apart and she saw a winged figure across the battlefield.


    With her enhanced vision Serana could see a smirk on the ''Planeswalker''s'' face as she flared her wings and pushed themselves into the sky, terrible ''Void Magic'' wreathing Mirael''s hands as she raised them toward the monastery.


    "Get down!" screamed Serana, diving to the ground and conjuring a shield around herself as Mirael unleashed her spell.


    The ball of void magic streaked overhead and struck the monastery behind them, condensing and collapsing in on itself before vanishing entirely. For a moment, nothing happened, but then with an immense ''whump'' the magic detonated outward, washing outward in a wave of twisting, deadly, and destructive magic.


    Serana closed her eyes as the front of magic hit, the ground shaking around her as the awful magic tore and clawed and bit at her shield, threatening to overwhelm it. Forcing away panic she redoubled her effort, reinforcing her shield as huge shards of ice and rock and metal crashed down around her. She heard dozens of her comrades screaming in fear and terror and pain, and a dragon roaring in pain. She wanted to help them, but she could barely hold the shield over herself, let alone anyone else.


    Slowly, gradually, the terrible magic ebbed away, and Serana opened her eyes to see the nothing but half-annihilated, and twisted bodies where her comrades and been, and ruins of ice and rock where their fortifications and the monastery had stood.


    A handful of other mages had managed to shield themselves, and some looked like they had been outside the blast radius on the western edge of the wall, but the vast majority of their force was simply¡­ gone. She spotted the twisted corpse of a half-eroded dragon, although no sign of the last two, hopefully at least Alduin had managed to survive¡­


    In the distance there was another blast of a horn, and she turned her head to see the regrouped Thalmor-Vampire alliance begin to advance, her father, who hadn''t yet taken to the field, riding smugly at its head atop a midnight black steed as overhead the hideously powerful Mirael wafted gently forward on her pair of alabaster wings.


    "Well¡­ shit," said Serana weakly, levering herself upright with her sword. She supposed that explained by Capri had been so terrified of the other Planeswalker.

 The Terminus Threshold

    "Fall back, fall back!" yelled one of the Psijic wizards as Einar parried an elf''s glaive and gave Caprifexia the chance to skewer them with a blast of dragon-fire. "We make our stand at the peak!"


    As Caprifexia could have predicted, and had, the foolish mortals of the Psijic Order, Winterhold College''s, and proto-drake''s so-called defences hadn''t lasted long against the inevitable assault. Oh, sure, they''d killed a lot of vampires and quit a few of elves, but the minute that Mirael had finally shown up she''d obliterated the entire monastery, the raised walls, and what remained of the ward defences in a single massive blast of Void energy.


    Caprifexia had survived, of course, because she hadn''t wanted to take part in the defence anyway, even before they''d turned down her offer to command it, and then slanderously judged her ''too unreliable and immature'' to have a section of wall herself, or actually even be present. She''s¡­ been holding herself in reserve at the peak, where the real fight was going to be. Yes. That was it. In reserve.


    Einar too, was well. She''d made sure of that. Other than that, however, only a handful of wizards, J''zargo thankfully amongst them, had managed to survive, regroup and begin retreating further up the mountainside. Of Serana there was no sign, which made Caprifexia a bit sad. The bloodsucker had been disgusting and vile and rude and mean, but they''d not been entirely irritating all the time. Sometimes she''d even recognised Caprifexia''s genius. It was a low bar, perhaps, but the world of Nirn and its mortal inhabitants were nothing if not disappointing.


    Beside her another of the battered psijic wizards fell with a scream as a vampire''s ice lance took them in the chest. On her other side J''zargo deflected a disc of dark energy, riposting with a blast of lightning and knocking a nasty elf soaring off the edge of the mountain.


    "You are not match for J''zargo!" said the cat, his tired, but still ringing with absurd triumphalism. "He is the mightiest wizard in Skyrim!"


    "Not everyone else is dead yet," sniffed Caprifexia, conjuring a bolt of fire and hurling it at an advancing elf. They managed to raise their shield in time, but it still knocked them back several meters down the churned snow slope.


    "The small dragon, is as usual, deluded," he began, deflecting another blast of magic. "J''zargo is- look out!"


    Caprifexia''s head snapped around. Time seemed to slow down as she saw a blast of crimson magic streaking up the snowy slope toward her. She flared her wings to dodge, even as she knew that it was no use. The spell was going to hit her. She''d been distracted by the stupid cat-


    Then something tackled her to one side, knocking her clear of the oncoming spell. She crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs as her¡­ rescuer screamed in agony.


    "J''zargo?" she said, shaking her head and looking up, her eyes widening to see her feline fiend yowling in pain as everything below his elbow dissolved into a sickly pile of tar-like goo, more lines of dark magic shooting up his arm.


    He''d saved her? Taken the spell meant for her? But why? He was always chastising her, going on and on and on about her tiny, minuscule mistakes. About the fact that he, deluded as he was, thought he was the better mage. She''d thought he didn''t like her?


    "J''zargo!" shouted Einar, turning from where he was further up the slope and making to go and help him.


    "I''ve got him!" said Caprifexia, transforming as her heartbeat hammered in her ears, audible over a distant Faceless scream and the annoyingly loud time-chimes that she assumed were a side effect of whatever reckless temporal-magic the Psijic Order were casting in the battle.


    "Nublias!" she shouted, hurling a bank of choking smog down at the advancing forces. Behind her eyes she felt a stab of pain, the herald of an oncoming migraine, courtesy of the massive amount of magic that she''d slung covering the mortal''s retreat up the mountainside.


    The smoke didn''t last long, not on the side of an exposed mountain and facing dozens of spellcasters, but it held long enough to cover her as she grabbed the arm-less cat and tossed him over her shoulder. In his typically ungrateful fashion he howled in pain from the sudden movement, but she ignored him as she sprinted up the slope heading toward the crest of the peak where Einar and the others were attempting to form some kind of battle-line.


    Spellfire whizzed around her, but the villains were poor shots, and she reached the peak without having her back blown out, lowering the injured feline behind their line and propping him up against a rock as she inspected what was left of his arm.


    "Why did you do that?" she said angrily. "I could have dodged!"


    "You could not have," said J''zargo, whining and holding his stump with a trembling hand.


    "Stop being so melodramatic, let me see," she said.


    "J''zargo is not- is not melodramatic!" gasped the cat, closing his eyes as she a diagnostic charm and letting the magic sink into his arm. Immediately the magic began reporting what was happening, and although Caprifexia wasn''t particular familiar with mortal-cat physiology she could tell immediately that it was very, very bad.


    "There is a secondary curse, it''s attacking your body," said Caprifexia, her heartbeat growing even louder as she saw the way the magic was continuing to tear its way into his body. "Hold still, I will dispel it."


    She wove together a counter-curse and pushed it into the cat''s body, trying to overwhelm the invasive magic. For a moment the dark energy stalled against her masterful magic before, somehow, pushing past her spell and reasserting itself with a vengeance.


    "It- it isn''t working!" she said in a high pitched voice as J''zargo moaned in pain.


    Her second spell had no more effect than her first, and she felt herself behind to panic. With a snarl she dug deep, this time overloading the counter-curse matrix and sending it surging down into her friend''s body. For a moment the curse resisted, before all at once it shattered, and the cat''s eyes snapped open as lines of silver light lit up beneath his fur.


    J''zargo''s breathing became slightly easier, and she slumped in relief.


    "There," she panted, a vicious headache pulsing behind her eyes. "Got it. Easy."


    Overhead there was a whoosh of displaced air, and the two surviving proto-drakes, Aldoon and Paarthurnax, passed by, fire billowing from their maws in a pale imitation of true dragonfire as they ignited the path, roasting dozens of elves and vampires.


    Even though it was only a moment''s respite, they weren''t going to be immediately overrun. Perhaps with the admittedly actually quite powerful lizard''s help then maybe, just maybe, they might even be able to stop them¡­


    Her hopes were dashed a moment later, as a blast of Void magic erupted from somewhere beneath them, shooting through the air and catching Paarthurnax in the torso as he wheeled around for another pass. The reality eating magic tore straight through the ancient reptile, and he plummeted from the air without a sound, vanishing into a bank of cloud a moment later. Of course, maybe they could have stopped the vampires and nasty elves, but Mirael was beyond the pathetic faux-dragons. She was beyond any one them, even Caprifexia, for the moment at least.


    Aldoon roared in anger, and turned toward where the blast had come from, but before he would try and use his silly ''Thu''um'' again, what Caprifexia assumed was the other Planeswalker released a pulse of blue-black energy that enveloped the proto-drake.


    Cruel barbed dark metal chains erupted all across the black lizard''s form, digging into his body, pinning their wings, and binding their snout. Momentum carried them forward, and the peak shook as they impacted a moment later.


    "What was that?" said J''zargo weakly.


    "The proto-drakes dying," said Caprifexia hoarsely. "Of course, it was to be expected, they''re not proper dragons after all."


    The cat grimaced, letting his head fall back onto the rock behind him. "The small dragon should run."


    "What?" said Caprifexia. "Run?"


    "This fight, even the mighty J''zargo could not win it," he said weakly, gripping her forearm with his remaining furry paw and fixing her with an intense look. "The dragon is angry, and annoying, and arrogant, but she is only a child. She has her whole life ahead of her. Go. Live. Tell the multiverse of J''zargo and his¡­ magnificence¡­"


    "No!" sobbed Caprifexia. "I won''t- I won''t leave you, you irritating cat!"


    "Jz''argo is¡­ not a cat¡­" he said faintly, his eyes fluttering shut.


    "Hey! What are you doing?" said Caprifexia, shaking his shoulders. "I got the curse out!"


    "J''zargo does not think it was enough," he said, forcing his eyes back open as blood began to trickle from the edge of his mouth.


    "What are you talking about? The curse is gone; you''ll be fine!" she said, ripping off part of his robe''s sleeve and wiping the blood from his mouth. "See, you''re fine. You''re fine!"


    "J''zargo feels cold," said the Khajitte. "J''zargo is¡­ scared."


    "Don''t be scared," she said, taking his remaining hand in hers. "I''m- I''m here, and in a minute, you''ll be fine! You''ll see! I''ll- I''ll take you to see Sorbet Melon! We''ll get your arm healed!"


    His eyes shut again.


    "Hey- hey," she said, shaking his shoulder. "Stay awake you fluffy mortal fool! Stay awake!"


    J''zargo didn''t reply, and his grip on her hand grew weak. Behind her there was an explosion as another wave of villains hit their line, followed by another trio of deafening time-chimes.


    "J''zargo!" she said, tears welling in her eyes as she shook his still body, the world around her seeming to spin. "J''zargo? No, no, no! I dispelled the curse! I dispelled the curse! Someone help me! Someone help me!"


    No one came, and her throat tightened as she closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against his, hot tears hissing as they slid from her cheeks and onto his frost-specked fur.


    He might have been insufferable, arrogant, and with a totally over-inflated view of his minuscule abilities. He might not have been nearly as tolerable as Einar, but they had fought alongside one another. He was her friend.


    "Wake up!" she sobbed. "Wake up you stupid cat!"


    He didn''t stir, and a feeling of numbness spread through her body. He was dead. Her friend was dead because she had been too slow, first to dodge, and then to dispel the curse. He''d died for her. It was wrong. Perverse. She was a dragon, she was the one who was supposed to protect mortals! Not the other way around. But she''d failed. Failed.


    Who was she kidding? She was a whelpling. A child. Infinitely more intelligent and powerful than a mortal child, perhaps, but a child nonetheless. She wasn''t cut out for all of this. Dragons normally didn''t leave the nest until they were drakes, and she''d been forced to flee hers before she was even two!


    J''zargo was right. She should leave. There was no Elder Scroll or anything else tethering her to this world. She could flex her might and open a portal to the Void. There was nothing she could do to turn the tide. This world was already lost, it had been lost the moment that Mirael had set her sights on it. Caprifexia raised a hand and summoned her spark, her body beginning to glow gold as she bought her power to bear and opened her mouth to yell for Einar and the others to follow her. At least she could save these people¡­


    Then she stopped, and the glow faded as she clenched her fist.


    No, she was a hero. Maybe she was only a whelpling, but her friends had thing or two about what that meant. Heroism wasn''t defined by age, or race, or even ability. J''zargo had only been a mediocre wizard, but he''d gone down swinging. He''d died a hero.


    Heroism was doing the right thing: no matter the odds; no matter the risk; no matter the threat. And maybe she didn''t always know exactly what ''the right thing'' was all the time, but she knew that heroes did not cower, and heroes did not tuck their tail and run. Not when running meant abandoning an entire world to oblivion. She would not let all the mortals who had suffered and died on this mountain perish for nothing. She would find a way to defeat Mirael, save Nirn, and avenge J''zargo¡­


    J''zargo.


    A deep growl rumbled in her chest as she stood, her trembling hands beginning to shake violently as she balled them into fists. Numbness gave way to raw, incandescent fury, and pressure began to build within her chest as she turned toward the oncoming elves and vampires struggling up against the barrage of spellfire. Her heartbeat boomed like a drum in her ears, and anger unlike anything she had ever felt raced through her veins like quicksilver.


    They had killed her friend.


    They had killed her friend!


    It didn''t matter that she probably couldn''t beat Mirael, that she was spiritually exhausted from casting so much magic, that she was tired and fatigued from weeks of poor sleep. None of that was important. Somehow, someway, she would make them pay for what they had done to J''zargo. She would crush and maim and tear and burn them for what they had done. She might fall, but like her ancestors of old she would go down raging at those who would threaten mortal-kind. She might have only been a young dragon, but she was still a dragon, and they would taste her rage.


    Electricity crackled around her boots as a feeling of immense power filled her, blazing fire leaping to her hands and pluming high into the air around her. She roared, her mortal form''s voice totally eclipsed by draconic bass as she stepped over a fallen Psijic wizard, hurling a plume of white-hot flame. It struck an unprepared vampire in the chest, washing over their body, overloading their personal wards, and sending the undead fiend screaming and burning out over the side of the mountain.


    Caprifexia raised her hands and poured her newfound-strength into the sky above her. Overhead thunder crackled and roiled as the elements bent to her power, and a blast of lightning as thick as a tree-trunk rocketed downward, smashing into the oncoming villains and frying half a dozen of the golden clad elves within their ornate armour.


    Some small part of her noted that she had never had the reserves for such massive spellcraft before, but the rest of her was so unbelievably livid that all she could think of was how she was going to use to surge of power to annihilate the next damned cat-murdering villain.


    Another bolt of lightning blasted downward, and the oncoming force hesitated as a group of vampires died screaming, collapsing into the snow a smoking corpses before bursting into piles of ash. Several more turned to run.


    Caprifexia splayed her fingers and summoned another blast of fire¡­


    Only for the immense well of rage-induced energy to abruptly run dry. The sky began to immediately clear, and the fire around her fists collapsed into a small puff of sparks.


    ''Oh,'' she thought, staring down at her empty palm as she realised what she''d done, and her previous magical fatigue reasserted itself. She''d finally managed to link with the ''land magic'' of a place, the chaotic, stormy energy of the peak beneath her. Sorbet Melon, and his books, had said that land magic was in part linked to temperament, and that Red was an ''emotional'' kind of energy. She''d thought it rather nonsensical before, but it seemed that her immense fury at her friend''s death had let her tap into the fabric of reality itself.


    She could still feel the depleted, frayed link to the deep well of magic, but no matter how hard she drew on it it stubbornly refused to grant her anymore energy. The other side of the coin, although it hadn''t tired her to use, it was fixed and definite in the strength that it could lend her. Normally she would have felt elated at finally having mastered a tricky bit of magic, but now? Now all she felt was hollow.


    Ahead of her the attackers began to regroup, and she ducked as one of them loosed an arrow straight at her, moving back as another member of the Psijic Order used some kind of temporal magic and the sky trembled with the sound of the telltale chimes signifying that someone, somewhere or when close was doing temporal magic.


    "Capri, are you OK?" said Einar, catching her as she stumbled back to the line.


    "They- they killed him," she said, her burning rage ebbing before a wave of grief. "They killed him!"


    "I know, I know," he said, hugging her.


    While dragons absolutely didn''t hug, Caprifexia was too upset to upbraid the silly little mortal for his breach of etiquette, and buried her face in his shoulder, tears flowing from her eyes.


    "Listen to me Capri," said Einar, squatting down slightly so they were face to face. "Without Paarthurnax and Alduin we don''t stand a chance, this is¡­ it''s over."


    "What?" said Caprifexia, wiping her wet eyes. "No. I am a hero."


    "Capri, you''re just a baby," he said. "You''ve got who knows how many millennia ahead of you. You''ve given it your best shot, you really have, but this isn''t your fight-"


    "No," she growled. "No I say! I will not abandon this world. I will not abandon you. Maybe I might have made mistakes; I know I have not always been a¡­ totally perfect hero. But I''ve learned, and I''ve listened, and I know that heroes do not run. Heroes do not abandon those who need protecting."


    Einar was about to say something else cowardly, when behind them, where the last of the Psijic monks and Winterhold wizards were making their last stand, there was an ear-splitting explosion; Caprifexia, Einar, and a handful of wizards who weren''t immediately atomised were hurled dozens and dozens of meters across the snowy peak, rolling to a stop only a few feet from the opposite edge.


    Caprifexia looked up, spitting out snow as across the body covered field of snow a familiar winged figure crested the rise. Behind her were several dozen elves and vampires, and a cart pulled by half a dozen miserable looking emaciated vampire-thralls. Atop the cart were a few crates, along with a large sphere, covered in cloth, but which Caprifexia immediately recognised as the ''Eye of Mangos,'' which Arakno the nasty, and now very dead, elf had stolen from her after he''d shown his true, villainous colours.


    Behind the cart came another large object, which it took Caprifexia a moment to recognise as the bound form of the proto-drake Aldoon. He was still wrapped in the cruel conjured steel and being dragged across the snow by some kind of spell, staining the fluffy white crystals crimson, but still seemed to be alive.


    Mirael was carrying the Bow of Audible in one hand, and looked over the field with an almost bored expression before she spotted Caprifexia.


    "Oh Caprifexia!" said the angel, her villainous face breaking into a wide smile. "Hello! Fancy seeing you here!"


    Caprifexia growled in response, and moved herself between the still insensate Einar and the evil Planeswalker.


    "I really do have to congratulate you on that quick thinking," said Mirael, her voice light and bubbly. "Throwing an Elder Scroll at a Void spell? I thought it was inspired. Simply inspired. Although, only once I calmed down, of course. At the time I felt it was rather vexing. But, water under the bridge, eh? No hard feelings, yes?"


    "You think I will- will just allow you to destroy this world?" said Caprifexia, struggling to her feet and bearing her fangs.


    "Shall I deal with this pest?" said a male vampire who was dressed in particularly fine looking leather armour. Behind him were several other bloodsuckers, two of which were dragging a battered and burnt, but still faintly struggling woman who it took Caprifexia a few moments to recognise as Serana, who must have through what she could only assume was pure luck survived the destruction of the monastery.


    "What?" said Mirael, glancing over to where the cart was being pulled to a stop and unloaded, the orb being carefully slid out onto the snow. "Oh, no, I need you for something else actually, my dear Harkon," she said, before motioning to the thralls. "Put it over there, away from the cart if you please. Ah, lovely."


    "Something else?" said the fancily dressed vampire as the thralls dragged the orb toward the centre of the field.


    "Yes," said Mirael, looking around the peak. "Interesting. The space-time around this peak is¡­ ideal actually. Hmm. Very odd."


    Mirael turned to Caprifexia and cocked her head to one side.


    "One more thing. How exactly did you know that I needed Alduin for the ritual?" asked Mirael. "That''s one bit I haven''t been able to figure out, how you knew to try and protect him? I had this whole rather complex plan to capture him but, as it turns out, I didn''t need to use it at all!"


    "Aldoon?" said Caprifexia, looking at the bound proto-drake.


    "Come now, we both know you''ve lost, and I''ve won," said the angelic woman. "No point in keeping secrets. Don''t be a bore, do tell; it''s been bothering me the entire way up the mountain!"


    "You¡­ needed him?" said Caprifexia. "Not the peak?"


    "What? No, of course not," said Mirael, looking around the flat snowy area. "I just wanted a relatively flat place for the ritual, and didn''t feel like walking back down that path. Although, it is quite a good space, thaumically speaking, I suppose. Dramatic too actually! I like that! But no, all I needed was the bow, the orb, the dragon, and the blood of a greater vampire."


    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    "Blood of a Greater Vampire!?" snarled the male vampire, stepping toward the winged woman and raising a finger threateningly. "You said my daughter was not required! You promised me, Mirael."


    "Hmm, what? Oh, no, she''s not needed. Or rather, not specifically," said Mirael, reaching over into the cart and withdrawing a fistful of golden, glass headed arrows from a crate. "Any Greater Vampire will do."


    "Any-" began the man, before, quick as lightning, Mirael''s rammed the handful of arrows straight through the vampire''s chest and into his heart.


    "Any Greater Vampire," repeated Mirael with a wide grin as the vampire''s eyes boggled in shock. "And look at that, lucky you, you''re closer."


    "You- you-" began the vampire, before his eyes rolled back into his head and he burst into a cloud of dust.


    "Lord Harkon!" shouted another of the blood-suckers as the undead creatures all drew their swords. "You traitorous cur, I''ll rip off your head!"


    "Will you now?" said Mirael boredly.


    She swiped her hand sideways at the advancing vampires, and a moment later the bloodsucker''s toppled apart as the thin band of Void energy cut straight through their torsos, bursting into clouds of ash and leaving just the prone, incredibly injured Serana who had been low enough to avoid bisection.


    "Finally," said a nasty Thalmor elf in black and gold robes, toeing Serana''s father''s pile of ash. "Working with those parasites has been disgusting."


    "Quite," said Mirael. "But they were useful."


    "Indeed," said the elf.


    "As were you, my lovely Ellisande," said Mirael, raising her free hand and pressing her thumb against her index finger. "Unfortunately, your usefulness has also run its course."


    "W-what?" said the elf, taking a half step backward. "But you- you promised me- you promised us all immortality!"


    "Yes, I did," said Mirael, still all smiles. "Unfortunately, I may have told a teensie-weensie lie."


    "You promised me!" screamed the elf, scrambling away and conjuring a shield. "No, please-"


    Mirael snapped her fingers, and elves howled in agony as twisted colourless flame raced up from their boots. Their cries, however, were drowned out by another set of three chimes that¡­


    Actually, thought Caprifexia, why were the time-chimes still ringing? The Psijic mages were either dead or, from the look of it, unconcious. Certainly none of them were casting any magic. She would have been able to feel it.


    Behind her the vampire thralls turned and ran, but they were apparently of no interest to Mirael, because she ignored them.


    "Ahh, it does feel good to tie up loose ends," hummed Mirael, turning to Caprifexia and raising a hand coated in Void magic. "One more though. Terribly sorry, I really hate to snuff out another Spark, but I just can''t have you running around sabotaging my plans."


    Caprifexia tensed, her mind racing. Part of her wanted to fight, to show this uppity winged woman the might of a dragon, but the larger part, the part that had grown as she''d learnt more about what it was to be a hero knew that she stood no chance in a fair fight.


    But since when did black dragons, even heroic ones, fight fair?


    So instead of fighting, Caprifexia raised her hands in surrender, and looked over the cart, her eyes fixing on a large, slightly charred scroll casing that had been haphazardly thrown into a box. A plan formed in her mind.


    What was it that the so-called ''Master'' said? That Elder Scrolls, the ''Time Wound,'' and powerfully disruptive events could serve as ''powerful anchors''¡­? Lombardia and whatever that blonde time-meddling had been called had mentioned something about that back in Dimhollow, and she''d been hearing the chimes for hours, just like before the pair''s time-stopping appearance in the dingy cavern.


    It was a bad idea. A terrible one even. She''d probably die long before she got a chance to pull it off. It might not even be possible to use magic in such a manner; she had learnt little about time magic beyond ''don''t.'' The chimes she''d been hearing might just have been the after effects of some chronomancy cast during the battle. And even if she did manage it, there was no guaranteeing that it would actually create a favourable paradox. After all, mighty though she was, she wasn''t a bronze dragon; an intuitive understanding temporal magic wasn''t a gift she had been born with.


    But if there was even the possibily to save Einar world, she had to try. If there was a chance to avenge her feline friend and wipe the smile from Mirael''s villainous face, then she would take any chance, pay any price.


    "I give up," said Caprifexia, raising her arms.


    Mirael raised an eyebrow. "And you expect me to believe that?" she chortled. "Please dear, I know all about your hero complex."


    "I know I can''t beat you," said Caprifexia, employing every ounce of her cunning diplomatic skill. "Being a hero was fun and all, but it isn''t worth dying over. Maybe I''ll try being an in-sor-ance sales-dragon instead."


    "I believe it''s¡­ ''insurance,''" said Mirael, still not lowering her fist full of Void magic.


    "That''s what I said," said Caprifexia.


    "This is a trick," said Mirael, looking at her askance. "You''re tricksy."


    "Even if it were, we both know I can''t defeat you," said Caprifexia with a shrug. "You''re too strong. Well done, you win. You defeated a whelpling; congratulations, I bet you feel really pleased with yourself right now."


    Mirael started. "You''re a baby?"


    "A whelpling," said Caprifexia, shifting. The effort all but winded her, but she managed, and a moment later she resumed her true draconic majesty.


    "Oooh, you''re sooooo cute!" cooed Mirael, releasing her hold on the Void magic and making a disturbing ''squee-ing'' sound as she rocked back and forward on her heels. "Look at your little wings! Your darling tail!"


    Despite herself, and the fact that she was engaged in masterful heroic trickery, Caprifexia glared. "I am not cute!"


    "Well, if you''re a child, then I suppose I can be lenient," said Mirael with a wide grin, waggling her finger at Caprifexia. "Although you best behave yourself, you hear? My affection for my fellow Planeswalkers only extends so far."


    "So you''re going to kill two of the local SABIGISMFs?" asked Caprifexia, flapping over to Mirael before transforming back into her horned elven form. She wobbling slightly from the strain, and almost fell over as she bent down to pick up on of the arrows stained with Serana''s father''s blood and making a show of inspecting it.


    "The what?" asked Mirael.


    "Sufficiently Advanced Beings are Indistinguishable from Gods to Idiotic and Superstitious Mortal Fools," explained Caprifeixa. "It''s a dragonym."


    "Hah, I like that!" said the cheerful villain. "Yes, that''s the plan: Akatosh and Magnus. Should be enough to get the ball rolling."


    Caprifexia refrained from correcting the linguistically challenged villain as to the name of the so-called Gods. "So you kill them, lower the VIQ-"


    "The what?" asked Mirael.


    "The Void Integrity Quotient," explained Caprifexia.


    "Oh, a strange way to put it," nodded Mirael, infusing some Void magic into one of the arrows with a seemingly simple charm. "But yes, I''ll kill them, and then the Eldrazi will be able to enter this world freely. The real trick will be to shore up the plane so it doesn''t collapse entirely once they''re done purifying its mana. But don''t worry, I''ve done this before. I''d go so far as to say I''m an expert."


    "So you use the bow and the arrows?" asked Caprifexia.


    "And a little charm," grinned the angle, waggling the faintly glowing arrow. "Took a lot of research to figure this out, I can tell you! But, you know, that''s half the fun!"


    "And then shoot the orb and¡­ the sun?" said Caprifexia.


    "The bow is only really needed for reaching the sun, the vampire blood and the Void charm is what will do the actual killing, the former to bypass their ''Divinity,'' the latter to actually slay them," said Mirael, nodding to the impaled Alduin. "And after that, Alduin. If I don''t kill him I''m pretty sure Akatosh will find a way to regenerate. Time¨C what did you call them, ''Sabigims?''"


    "SABIGISMFs," corrected Caprifexia, not surprised that the evil villain couldn''t comprehend simple and succinct concepts.


    "Ah yes, that was it," nodded Mirael. "Time-''SABIGISMFs'' can be tricky. Got to really work to make them stay dead. There was this one plane a few hundred years ago, what was it called¡­ Feldaria, I think? Anyway, this God of Time reincarnated himself eight times! I just kept on killing him, over and over and over, but each time, bam, back up he pops. In the end I just imprisoned him and found another way to destabilise the plane."


    "I see," said Caprifexia carefully, watching as Mirael knocked the arrow onto the string.


    "Capri, stop her!" called Einar from where he had fallen. "Stop her!"


    Mirael turned to look at her, clearly expecting Caprifexia to try what Einar had said.


    "I can''t," said Caprifexia with a shrug, earning a wide smile from the villain. "She''s too strong."


    "There''s a good girl," said the angle, aiming the bow upward.


    There was a twang beside her, and Caprifexia looked up to see the arrow vanish into the heavens. In the distant there was an agonised howl, and beside them Alduin let out a deep, keening sound as a colourless spot appeared at the centre of the sun. The twisted wound writhed, and began to gnaw its way outward across the celestial body until from horizon to horizon all of mountainous skyrim was plunged into a sickly white and purple twilight.


    From the edges of the gaping wound in the sky thin tendrils began to slowly worm their way out, reaching hungrily for the reality that had been opened to them. The air around them shimmered, and sheaths of golden light began to burn them away as that shadow of a giant bearded figure appeared in the sky. But no matter how many tendrils whatever the so-called ''God'' was called burnt away, more and more came.


    To a wizard as mighty and as in tune with the Void as Caprifexia, the shift was palpable. The space around her, already feeling stretched from the ''Time Wound'' above her, shuddered, and pulled even thinner. She''d never experienced before, but she knew without checking that the world''s VIQ had just been drastically lowered.


    "And now for Magnus," hummed Mirael, taking up another arrow and casting the same Void imbuing charm onto it. "I really was lucky that old Arcano found this, you know, I was about to give up on this world and find another."


    "Really?" said Caprifexia, surreptitiously edging over to where the Elder Scroll had been stuffed on the cart, hoping that Mirael wasn''t paying attention to her.


    "Really," nodded Mirael, turning her back entirely to Caprifexia. "That would have been quite vexing, let me tell you. I spent the better part of a decade convincing the Thalmor to take me seriously. And don''t even get me started on the things I had to do to get those disgusting vampires onside!"


    Caprifexia edged closer to the Elder Scroll, glancing over to Einar, whose eyes were wide, darting between her and Mirael. She nodded to him, and, for once, understanding entered his eyes.


    "You''re- you''re a monster!" said Einar, for once following her lead and drawing Mirael''s attention. "Don''t the lives of non-Planeswalkers matter to you at all?"


    "Not really," said Mirael, her tone still light and jovial. "You''re all just¡­ blips; moments that vanish like dust in the wind. But Planeswalkers? Little Caprifexia and I? We are the true Gods of the Multiverse. We and we alone are capable of fully grasping the scope, majesty and power of creation. You mortals? Even your Gods? You''re nothing but limited, blind, bound insects buzzing within the confines of tiny cages. Your fleeting lives, worlds, they are nothing compared to us." Her voice took on a wistful aspect. "You know, I am so glad I didn''t have to hurt dear little Caprifexia; now that would have been a tragedy."


    "But you were once a non-Planeswalker too!" said Einar as Caprifexia reached the cart and lent over the edge, grabbing the Elder Scroll. It crackled ominously as her fingers closed around it, and seemed to be a bit burnt around the edges, but Mirael was far too distracted by Einar to notice the discharge. "You had a home, a family!"


    "Oh please, even then I was so far beyond the likes of you," said the winged woman, rolling her eyes as she raised the bow and aimed it at the Eye of Mangoes. "I am an angel, a Divine Being, not some disgusting, mud-crawling monkey like you. I have no idea why Caprifexia puts up with you."


    There was another twang, followed by the sound of shattering glass, and Caprifexia nearly stumbled and fell as a shockwave washed over her and, from one moment to the next, the ambient magic in the air simply vanished. The only magical energy she could feel was her single link to the mountain beneath her, and far beyond that, the terrible empty energy of the Void itself.


    It was something that Caprifexia had never felt before, never even contemplated. A world without magic, or at least, non-land magic. Despite her precarious and time sensitive plan she flinched, her mind trying to process what had happened as she looked up to see the veiled figure in the sky near the open Void wound scream and disperse into motes of darkness. The writhing tentacles, no longer contained, surged forward, cracking and fracturing wherever they touched and letting in more of the eerie un-light from the Void.


    "Don''t say her name!" spat Einar, who as a feeble non-wizard had been unaffected by the death of this universe''s native magic. "She''s a filthy turncoat! A coward!"


    "Oooh, hit a nerve, did she?" said Mirael with a laugh as Caprifexia shook herself and continued to sneak over toward Aldoon.


    For a moment there was a flash of hope in the giant proto-drake''s red eyes, perhaps because maybe he thought Caprifexia was going to free him. The look, however, shifted to terror as Caprifexia very, very carefully reached down, past the borders of reality, and replicated, as best she could, the charm that Mirael had cast to imbue the Void magic into the arrow.


    Since it was her first attempt at the spell, understandably it was only mostly perfect, and she only nearly lost control of the spell and blew herself up. There was still a crackling sound and shower of sparks accompanied the pulse of energy as a migraine stabbed behind her eyes, but the magic sank in and held. It would work. She hoped.


    Mirael, who had been laughing at Einar stopped and turned, sensing the magic, and Caprifexia knew that she had mere moments to complete her plan.


    The small heroic dragon raised the bloody, Void-soaked arrow in her right hand, and hoping she wasn''t about to do something very, very stupid, plunged it down into Aldoon''s eye. The proto-drake howled in agony as the arrow bit deep. Caprifexia tensed, slowly turning her head to see a confused looking Mirael as the giant faux-dragon spasmed and died, lines of colourless light surging and tearing through the veins beneath his scales.


    Nothing happened, and Caprifexia felt her heart fall as the seconds ticked by, the hope that her future self might be able to use the situation she had created waning by the second.


    It hadn''t worked. Maybe she never lived long enough. Maybe she died in the next few minutes. Maybe what she had planned was impossible. Maybe the chimes hadn''t meant what she thought they had. Maybe the Elder Scrolls, despite how hyped up they were by the local mortals, were just rubbish.


    "I mean¡­ that works," said Mirael with a giggle. "Although I wasn''t expecting you to be so enthusiastic about helping me so quickly. You know, my dear little dragon, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship¡­"


    The winged woman trailed off as three deafening chimes, louder than ever before, rang out across the sky. Mirael''s wings flared as she turned around in a circle, her head snapping this was and that until her piercing blue eyes fell on the scroll clutched in Caprifexia''s left hand. For a moment she looked confused, before her face twisted into a mask of incandescent rage.


    "You duplicitous, wretched little bitch-" snarled the evil Planeswalker, arcs of gold and black lightning crackling around her as she raised a Void-wreathed hand.


    A beam of colourless light left Mirael''s hand, and as it streaked across the distance between them Caprifexia realised she was going to die. Rather than a feeling of fear, however, a strange sense of peace and calm fell over her. Maybe she''d never grow into a Wyrm, maybe she''d made mistakes, but in that single, seemingly infinite moment she knew that she''d finally lived up to her people''s ancient legacy. She was going to die, but as a protector of mortal-kind. She''d failed, but she was only a whelpling, and it had been a long shot. She''d done her best. She''d stood tall. She hadn''t run. She would die like a true dragon of old.


    Then she frowned as the deathblow didn''t come, glancing around as colour bled from the world. The bolt of deadly magic was still there, but had slowed to a crawl, and Caprifexia took a step to the side, watching as it crawled through the space she had been occupying until a moment beforehand. Other than herself, only Mirael remained unaffected and properly coloured in. The villain blinked several times, looking between her hand and Caprifexia.


    "Stupid fucking chronomancy," swore Mirael, hurling another blast of Void magic forward, only for it to come to slow to a virtual stop a few centimetres in front of her. "Stop stalling! We both know you can''t hold this for long!"


    "This isn''t¡­" said Caprifexia, before clearing her throat. "I mean, um, tremble- err, you''re not really a mortal are you? Um, tremble, im-mortal, at my fearsome temporal might-"


    "Shut up you stupid little girl!" shouted Mirael, slamming her fists together before drawing a blazing golden sword out from nothingness. "Fine, if I can''t use magic, then I''ll do this the old fashioned way!"


    Caprifexia yelped as the winged woman flared her wings and lunged at her, rolling out of the way of a decapitating strike and shifting back into her true form.


    "Come back here!" yelled Mirael as Caprifexia flapped away across the frozen, grey-scale peak.


    "No!" retorted Caprifexia, cleverly, as overhead there were another trio of charms, even louder than before.


    Mirael lunged at her again, but before she could strike there was a flash of light above Caprifexia, and a golden aperture opened a few feet above her head. The Elder Scroll was ripped from her claws a moment later, and then there was a yanking sensation from behind her navel as she suddenly found herself hurtling upward through a shimmering golden vortex.


    Energy swirled around her as she hurtled upward, flashes of scenes visible between the writhing and churning magic: a forest here; a town there; a woman washing clothes in a river; a giant wooly elephant thing¡­ all flicking past at a speed that even for a dragon was dizzying.


    Something dark and maybe mortal-shaped flashed past her, moving in the opposite direction, although it was moving to quickly to make out any details.


    Then, from one moment to the next, the vortex vanished and she crashed into the snow. Coughing and spluttering as she looked around.


    The enraged sword wielding Mirael, the broken Eye, the now very dead Aldoon, Einar''s hopeful face, poor J''zargo''s crumpled body, and Serana''s battered form had all vanished. Even the peak didn''t seem to be there anymore, and she was instead perched on a precariously floating island high in the air.


    Overhead the sun shone bright and strong, as if Amanosh had never been slain. Below her lay a huge perfectly circular ocean where most of the region of Skyrim should have been. In places sheer cliffs that looked like perfectly bisected mountains fell away, as if some giant being had taken a knife and simply cut through them. In the far north east, Caprifexia could see sheered off remains of what looked like the mountains above Winterhold, which she had trudged up what felt like years ago alongside Arakno the nasty and treacherous elf. The water glistened in the sunlight, and she spotted a sailing ship making its way across the vast circular sea.


    There was a sniff behind her, and she turned to see a familiar, frozen fruit loving vampire looking at her with a mix of sadness and triumph, the same slightly charred Elder Scroll that had just been wrenched from her grip moments beforehand laying in the snow by his feet.


    "Sorbet Melon¡­?" said Caprifexia woozily, pushing herself up. "What are you doing here?"


    "I forgot you used to call me that," said the vampire with a hoarse chuckle as he wiped at a teary eye. "Night, you were an annoying child."