//------------------------------// // 4 - The First Introductions // Story: The Dragonborn's Magical Adventure in Equestria // by blackjack //------------------------------// ====== Chapter Four /\/\/\/\ To be honest, death wasn’t so bad. I don’t remember much about the actual dying part, one second I was on the ground bleeding and in agony, the next; I was standing on a stone floor with both my swords in their sheaths. The stone floor was built upon a hill that lead down into a mountainous forest. Glancing upwards, the sky was a radiant vortex of light, leaking bright colors down onto the world, like the aurora borealis I had seen on dark nights. When I looked to my sides several people of all races walked by me. As I reached out towards them, they dispersed and floated upwards, into the sky. Out in the distance, I could see a large, tall structure, and before it, a bridge made of bones. That was when I realized where I was. A small smile filled my mouth as I began to walk down the hill. I carried no fear; the days of such a feeling were long gone. I was dead, and this was Sovngarde. Paradise. The forest floor crept up on me faster than I was expecting, it was as if Sovngarde itself was calling me, pulling me, aiding me as I strode down the path laid before me. I saw several more people as I went, Imperials and Nords, Wood Elves and Altmer, walking the same path as I, but they broke off into other directions, directions I knew were not for me. The only path for me was down the hill, across the bridge, and into the mead hall, for all my days to come. Eventually the ground cleared and before me stood Tsun. The giant armored guardian nodded as I advanced, and moments later stepped aside, revealing the whalebone bridge. He gave me a nod as I stepped onto it, and soon I had begun my way across. I paused for a moment as I reached the end, before me, past the bridge, sat the hall of heroes. It shined a bright light, so amazing a spectacle. I felt it, pulling me forward, calling out to me. My small smile widened as I started to approach it. When I reached the door, I lifted my right hand and placed it on the smooth surface, running my fingers over it for several seconds. Looking behind me for but a moment, I had a sudden feeling of satisfaction. I had made it. The world was saved, by me. I had left my mark on history, and would spend eternity with the greatest heroes who had ever lived. Not a single better ending for my life came to mind, I was, for once, content. I pushed against the door. Nothing happened. I pulled the door instead, throwing all my strength into it, but it wouldn’t budge. It wouldn’t move. I hit it lightly, than hard. I rammed into it, I kicked it, punched it. But the door would not open. I fell to my knees, confused and worried. I had died; I was supposed to go there. It was my home, it was calling to me. This wasn’t right, this couldn’t be right. Then I felt a hand touch my shoulders. I whipped around and saw… well, I can’t really say. The face that greeted me was so, so… pure, so fine, so utterly perfect that it defied all explanation. My mouth dropped as he raised a finger to my mouth, preventing me from speaking. Before I could do anything, he said in a calming voice, “Relax, your days are not yet over.” Then I felt the floor around me vanish, the eyes that moments prior I had been looking into vanished amidst a plume of smoke, everything went black-then bright white-before falling back into darkness. ---- I awoke in pain. All around me the horse people stood. One, the lavender horse I saw earlier, stood behind them. Her horn was glowing a faint violet and shooting off sparks in every direction. Seconds after opening my eyes, the pain from my wounds hit me. I gasped, my mouth filling with blood as I did so. My side was in agony; my gut was bleeding my life out onto the floor around me, and my shoulder hurt whenever I tried to move. I couldn’t stand it, I tried to rise, to do something to end the horrible pain, but when I did, I fell back down. The horse people wasted no time, one of them, a rainbow maned pegasus that I barely recognised as female, leapt forward. I thought she was going to try to help me at first, but instead she grabbed my left arm, and with a single shove, had it pinned to the floor. “Come on guys,” she yelled, “Twilight told us we have to hold it down!” I tried to kick the horse off, but when I lifted my leg, an orange horse with a hat galloped forward and slammed it to the ground. I tried to yell at her to move, but when I did all I succeeded in doing was opening my mouth and letting a stream of red flow out, down my chin and all over my armor. When I attempted to make words, my throat felt dry and rough, and I instead ended up coughing up a bloody wad of something. Just then I felt a sudden burst of pain. I yelled as loudly as I could, despite my throat’s rawness. The pain was so great that I managed to lift the leg the orange horse was holding down. When she tried to grab it again, I kicked her in the gut and she fell backwards with a groan. “Rarity, Fluttershy, I’ll need your help with this one!” I heard the rainbow haired horse shout. I was about to punch her, knocking her off me like I did with the orange one, when I felt another hoof grasp my hand. I shook it in an effort to get free, almost worked; it was obvious the horse holding it down hadn’t tried to restrain someone before. But, ironically, as they say, close only counts in horseshoes. I was about to break free when, with a snap, the orange horse had a rope around my limb. She tugged it forward, and, to my surprise, was strong enough to prevent me from pulling it back. My hands started to shake and I felt a sudden warmth in my throat. Turning my head sideways, I spat out a steady stream of blood across the ground. My vision began to fade, just like before, when I heard another voice, this time from the lavender horse. “Girls, hold it down!” The others doubled their efforts to keep me on the ground, and were joined by a pink horse and yellow pegasus, both of which were stronger than they looked, and each held a limb down by themselves. A white one rushed forward and pressed herself against the wound on my gut, keeping the bleeding down. “Any minute now, Twilight!” she pleaded in a worried tone, “I don’t think we can keep it down for much longer.” “I know, just let me think!” The lavender one shouted in response as she approached me, “Alright, keep him tight. He’s going to convulse, badly. You need to keep him as still as you can.” “Twilight,” the orange one answered, “Not tah sound rushed but” she paused to keep my arm down when I jerked it up suddenly, “We could use that spell of yours right about now!” The unicorn nodded her head slowly as she walked right up to me, leaned down until her horn was touching my head, and told me, “Keep calm, this is going to hurt.” Then the spell shot a spark forward. It leapt right over my head, and landed on my body, where it seemed to slowly twist its way inwards. At first I didn’t feel any different; I was still in agony and struggling to get out of the hold of the horses. Leaned my head back and spat out another glob of blood. That was when the pain really started. I have been hurt before. I’ve been stabbed, shot with arrows, burnt, and more, but let me tell you, nothing was as bad as this. It was unbearable. Dozens of wounds all over my body knit themselves together without heed to my torment. It was the most agonizing thing I have ever felt. I screamed, using all the power in my body, filling the sky with a pain-forced shriek that could have been heard all the way in Morrowind. It hurt so much that I managed to muster the adrenaline to throw all the horses off me, I even managed to cut the rope on my arm with a swipe of my claws. When I started rolling around, cramping my arms toward my chest and shrieking, shaking, and flailing from the pain, the horses jumped forward to get me back down. That was about when I passed out. ---- I didn’t dream. Not a single whisper, not a single sound. I didn’t even know I had passed out until I awoke sometime later, in a dark room, on what appeared to be a bed. My awakening wasn’t uncomfortable. The first thing I noticed was a deep and impenetrable veil of darkness. Then it began to fade, slowly wearing itself out as my eyes began to open and take note of my environment. Before I inspected my surroundings, I tried to move, but my efforts were in vain. My limbs felt heavy, and loose. When I attempted to lift my arm, I ended up only barely managing to lift a finger. I took solace in that small movement. The rest would hopefully come later. I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with air. The wounds I had suffered hurt no longer, in fact I felt rather good. Better than I had in ages actually. It’s hard to describe, but I felt, alive really. I had come so close to death-but a hair’s grasp from it-and yet here I was, alive and fine. Since it appeared I wouldn’t be able to do a whole lot soon, I began to test the limits of the control of my body. Opening and closing my eyes was easy enough, but looking around felt almost sluggish. For some reason I wasn’t able to get my night eye working and the room stayed in darkness. I tried to move my hands again, and this time succeeded in curling up my ring finger. That was good, that was progress-if rather minor. I soon tried the same with my feet, but I had yet to regain feeling of them. I couldn’t even tell if I was moving them or not, especially with the darkness. After three attempts I stopped trying at all, and instead diverted my attention to my hands again. Not only was I able to curl up my finger, but now I could make a fist, with both hands too. Lifting an arm up was still beyond me though, so instead of moving them, I simply continued to lift and close my fingers, slowly but efficiently working feeling back into their joints. When I could finally move my arms, I rolled them over numerous times. Then feeling returned to my toes, and I wriggled them freely. A smile appeared on my lips. I cracked the stiffness from my knuckles as I rotated my neck. My natural night eye was returning to me, but somehow it still wasn’t powerful enough to pierce the darkness, which concerned me. It didn’t bother me though, nor did it distract me enough from my task of sensitizing my limbs. It was several minutes after I had woken when I had regained enough control to attempt to sit up. Pushing my hands to my sides, I lifted myself upwards, albeit with more difficulty than I should have had. When I was fully up, and in a sitting position, I rotated both my shoulders, and sighed when I felt the joints relax. I lifted a hand to my shoulder, feeling for a wound, of any kind, but I found none. I did the same for my chest and abdomen, with equal results. I opened my eyes widely while I threw my legs over the side of the bed. After stretching my arms wide and letting out a loud feline yawn, I hopped down, expecting my legs to catch me and hold me upright. I guess I was expecting too much from them, for when they touched the ground they buckled and I fell down with a ‘thump.’ Swearing as I rolled onto my back, I stared upwards at the ceiling, wondering just how I had ended up here. My thoughts went to the lavender pony and her spell, her painful, painful, spell. The mere memory of the agony it had induced was enough to make me shudder. Nothing should hurt that much, nothing. I wouldn’t wish such pain on my worst enemy. I tried to stand up once more-this time I nearly succeeded-but when I was about half up, I slipped and had to catch myself on the bed side to prevent myself from falling to the floor. It was almost annoying, I knew I would have all my faculties back after some time, but seeing myself tripping around like a fool was infuriating. After several minutes of leaning against the bed, I figured I was strong enough to stand. I was right, but barely. It took all my strength to keep myself up, and even then my legs shook from the strain. The sudden lack of strength in me was concerning, but not very. I wondered how I had ended up so paralysed, so weak. I obviously wasn’t crippled, nor was I cursed. No explanation I brought up made any sense which brought even more frustration upwards, I hit the bed as hard as I could, which wasn’t very hard in that condition, and winced as a shock of pain shot into my fist. Pushing off the bed to steady myself, I opened my eyes and closed them multiple times, scanning my environment as my night eye slowly returned. I was in a small room, there was a window, but something was blocking my sight from behind it. Next to it sat a small table, plain, made of metal, and on it stood nothing but a small candle, unlit. I didn’t see a door. Figuring that more light would help me, I walked towards the candle, holding my arm against a nearby wall for reinforcement. By the time I was halfway there, I let go of the wall, and continued unaided. Not wasting any time, I conjured up a small flame in my hand, and lit the wick. I raised a hand to my face as the sudden light shined into my eyes, making me leap backwards from the shock and land on the bed, cursing all the while. It took me about a minute to get my eyes adapted, and by then, I had most of my strength back. I could stand and walk easily, and my legs shook no more. That was about when I noticed another person in the room. It took me several moments of staring to realize it. Whatever the watcher was, it was using an invisibility spell to keep itself concealed, but unfortunately, it was trying to hide from one of the best thieves in the world, and I had spotted it in moments, and stared at it with a curious demeanor. There was an audible, but quick gasp as the cloaked thing spoke. “Thou hast seen me!” It sounded surprised. My response was immediate, “No, but Do’Jzir doesn’t have to. The dust in the air isn’t flowing through you. A good guardsman would have spotted you in seconds.” The cloaked thing gave a grunt and something shined from under its veil, then the particles in the air shimmered momentarily, but floated through the space it had left. I chuckled. “You are now behind Do’Jzir, to khajiit’s left.” I heard a grunt of frustration. “How hast thou seen me this time?” The thing asked, more of anger than curiosity. It had a female voice, strangely accented, similar to that of a high born. “You cannot be seen with the naked eye now.” I turned to look straight at the invisible shape to my right, despite not being able to see it. “But you still make plenty of noise.” I parried. Another grunt, another flash of light, and even the noise the invisible female made was gone. I walked towards where she was previously, and sure enough, where once something stood, now was thin air. “Better.” I explained to the space in front of me, “But not good enough. You are to khajiit’s direct left, hiding behind the table.” This time I got an angered half-yell. “I beseech thee, how doth thou spot me?” the female queried, I could tell she was not used to being caught when invisible. “Some secrets are for Do’Jzir alone.” I answered. “As if thou could do better.” The female taunted. It brought a smile to my face, I hadn’t been challenged to something like this in months, and I could use the practise, I’d been neglecting stealth recently. “We can, and more.” I walked over to and blew out the candle, filling the room with a shadow of darkness, “Just watch us.” I heard a snicker of laughter as I crouched, turned, and rolled across the floor. Halfway through the roll a veil of darkness took me, and I vanished from all sight. The invisible female huffed and began to search the room. She checked the table, top and bottom, the corners, the ceiling, every little crevice was searched by her. The process took several minutes, and when she was done, she made an irritated grunt and stomped the ground with her leg. “Fine, where art thou hiding?” she surrendered. “You should have turned around; this one has been behind you this whole time.” I replied while lighting the candle in the center of the room once more. “Now, khajiit believes introductions are in order, no?” The cloaked female made a final grunt, and removed her enchantments. Standing before me was another of the horse people, as I expected, but like the royal horse I saw before; she was both a unicorn, and pegasus. Unlike the other one, where it had a bright shimmering mane and hide, hers was a dark, almost depressing blue. She wore a scowl on her face, but it appeared fake, forced. I stroked my chin, “Curious.” I opined. “What?” the dark blue horse demanded, “What is curious?” she almost appeared offended. Almost. “You.” I answered. “Or rather, everything here is curious, or rather, it appears curious to Do’Jzir, he hasn’t seen anything like this before.” The blue horse shook her head for a moment, “I could say the same of thou. Why doth thee speakest in such a manner, it is most confusing.” She asked. “Many a khajiit speak like this.” I cleared my throat, “I can change, if it pleases you.” She furrowed her brow, “No, if it is inconvenient don’t.” she studied me with her eyes, “How art thou awake?” I glanced down, at myself, examining myself in the same fashion as she did. I was dressed in my black shirt and trousers, both of which carried numerous blood stains. My other belongings were nowhere to be found. “What do you mean? Is khajiit not meant to be awake?” She nodded, “Twilight said her spell was to keep thee sleeping for nigh a day. It’s yet to be a quarter.” She pulled her eyes away from me, “But that is unimportant. I am getting ahead of mine self, my name is Luna, Princess of the Moon, Co Ruler of Equestria. Thou art…?” I rolled my eyes, “Do’Jzir, of Skyrim.” I paused, “Khajiit.” She raised a hoof to her chin, “Khajiit?” I nodded, “Yes. Khajiit is what this one is, like you are…” I paused for several seconds. I was about to say horse, but they were much too small, too compact. “Pony.” I finally finished, the name suited it well and rolled off my tongue easily. “Ahh. Khajiit is thine species?” I nodded. “Well, Do’Jzir, since Celestia is away,” Luna continued. I raised an eyebrow at the name, “It falls to me to welcome thee to Equestria.” She stretched out her left foreleg, a handshake, albeit with a hoof. I took it for several seconds and retracted my hand. I leaned back against a wall as she continued. “I would like to say this, very informally of course, but I thank thee for saving mine sister.” I thought back to the royal horse fighting the Valkynaz, “The one down in the village, during the attack?” I asked, getting a nod as an answer. The gesture brought a smile to my face, “Do’Jzir cannot ignore those in need. He is happy to be of help.” Thinking now of the royal horse and the dremora made me think about the town. “What happened to the town, after this one passed out?” I asked, “We hope they repelled the attackers.” She waved a hoof in front of her, “Do not worry; with thine help we expelled the creatures back into their gate. All is well, although the gate hath yet to close; naught hath come out of it.” That worried me, the gate would have closed if they were done with it. My thoughts were cut short as Luna continued speaking, “Now that thou hast mentioned it, I pray thee, what were they? It is obvious neither thou, nor they art from this world, doth thee have any knowledge of them?” I lifted my hand and inspected my claws to give me something to focus on, “Yes, this one knows much of them, but he would rather speak of it later, with the other princess, Celestia, so you say her name is.” Luna grunted, “Why? I hold just as much authority as Tia, pardon, Celestia.” I stretched out my right hand index finger claw, it was cracked, probably the dullest of all of them, “That attack is only one in a series of events. Deadra lords do not simply open gates to Oblivion for no reason.” I lowered my hand to my side, “There will probably be more, they will increase in number. For a while you may be able to repel them, but there will be more and more. If this one is to tell you of everything now, then we want both you and Celestia to hear, both of you need to know this.” Luna gasped, “I understand, but how shall we stop them?” I rubbed my hands together nervously, “Khajiit….does not know. We are sorry.” Luna's eye spiraled downwards into a frown, she seemed worried, “How canst thee be sure?” “An event very similar to this happened to Do’Jzir’s world hundreds of years ago. It took the death of one of our rulers to fix, and even then, we lost hundreds of people, and one of the largest of our cities was destroyed.” I pushed myself off the wall, “It all started with one town, and soon these gates were spread across the land. Just like now.” Luna looked shocked, “I must speakest with the others of these tidings. Art thou sure?” She questioned. “As sure as any can be.” I responded. “Then come with me,” her horn lit up and a door I hadn’t noticed before opened wide, “We need to converse with Twilight and Celestia about this.” She ran out. I looked to both my sides, shrugged, and followed. ---- (This chapter was a bitch. (Editor’s Note: Especially Luna’s vocab!) I don’t know why, it just took so much more effort to write than any of the others. I just couldn’t decide how to do it, I ended up with four different drafts of this, each with a completely different scenario, but this was the sole one that worked, and even that was rough. If you feel it was lacking in quality, then please accept my apologies. I’ll try to make them better as they go on. Special thanks to WesternWxyzvv for editing, I'd never have gotten rid of half of the errors if it hadn't been for him. Feel free to like or dislike, It helps me either way. Oh, and comment. Sorry for the delay, I'll try to release more chapters sooner.) (Editors Note: Blackjack hates lists, I feel this is important to know people ;) Inside joke)