Work Text:
The streets of Whiterun were crowded as Eriorm pushed his way through the city, his cowl low over his head to protect him from the rays of the sun. He headed for the residential area of the plains district, his eyes scanning the faces around him for who he was searching for.
The crowds thinned as he got to one-roomed shacks that stood on the outskirts of the walled city, with people hanging up washing and kids playing hacky sack. Eriorm found the woman he was looking for and approached her.
“Are you Olava the Feeble?” he asked.
Olava was an old Nord woman, sitting on the wooden bench outside her home, basking in the early Last Seed sun. She smiled at him. “I am. Can I help you?”
“My friend gave me this,” he said, pulling a blue token out of his pack and showing it to her. “She said you could see my future.”
She took the token and looked it over. “Ah, so you’re a friend of Gabriella’s. She’s always so nice, despite her occupation.”
“So can you see my future?”
“Of course I can,” she told him. “I don’t like to do it often.” She stood up and placed her hands on either side of his head. “Clear your mind. Relax.”
“What do you see?”
She took a deep breath. “I see a cave. No, a home. A place you feel secure. A sanctuary. I see snow, lit by the star of dawn. And you are not alone. There are others. A fellow child of the night, and a stalker of sands. But there is also blood and fire, and betrayal. Be careful of who you trust, Marksman. There’s something else… A potential for adventure, and wealth. It is a ruin, ripe for the plunder. Deepwood Redoubt. Far to the northwest. Through there is Hag’s End. The last remaining place of an assassin of old. A Dark Brother, who bequeaths his ancient earthly possessions to you.”
Eriorm swallowed the saliva in his mouth and shakily asked, “Is there anything else.”
She was silent for a moment, before saying, “Yes, there is. There is a Shout, and wings on the wind. There will be blood and death before the end, but your family will be there for you, the ones mentioned before and a forger of fire and a weaver of magic. A great serpent will try to rule the world, and you are destined to stop him.”
She pulled her hands off the sides of his head, and Eriorm took a step back. He didn’t expect it to be so intense. What she had said about blood, so much blood—what did it mean? His family, they were obviously Babette and Nazir, and the others his actual brother and sister, the blacksmith Wylillas, and the archmage Thaeolin.
And what was this about destiny? He was an assassin, and a vampire, who had already had a destiny to block out the sun. He couldn’t have two destinies, could he?
“Tell me, Marksman. Where will you be when the dragons come?”
It was two weeks until he knew what she meant. Dressed in the ancient Dark Brotherhood armour he found in Hag’s End, he was captured by Stormcloak soldiers and then Imperial soldiers, and taken to Helgen to get his head cut off by an executioner. Then the dragon came, and then the fire.
And suddenly he knew what she meant.