Chapter Text

Chapter 1: Elves and Paladins

People in warmer countries love to imagine that anywhere north of them is frozen solid year-round, with everyone wrapped head to toe in fur.

Well, they should see Skyrim! Compared to the local climate, the Far North would seem like a tropical resort.

But I'd better start from the beginning of the chain of events—one that only I could possibly have gotten myself into.

It all began in a fairly ordinary way...

Back in my homeland, there had long been a problem with idiots who got behind the wheel of their SUVs after getting drunk and couldn't care less what color the traffic light was as they blasted through intersections at ninety miles an hour or more.

Then again, I wasn't exactly any better.

Of all the times to check the news about the Oblivion remaster, I just had to do it while I was halfway across a long pedestrian crossing. Maybe I could have reacted in time to avoid being killed on the spot. Honestly, I never even had the chance to process what was happening.

The screech of tires.

Blinding headlights.

A fleeting glimpse of the front end of a car...

And then... Darkness.

Followed by light.

And suddenly I found myself in the body of a baby. In other words, a body that refused to obey me and seemed to want nothing but sleep.

But the years passed.

I came to terms with the fact that I had, for all intents and purposes, been reincarnated. And even with the fact that I was no longer in my own world...

The scenery around me certainly didn't evoke the twenty-first century. If anything, it felt like the depths of antiquity. It also helped that I hadn't exactly been reborn as a human.

I was an elf.

A Snow Elf.

They looked much like humans, save for their pointed ears, the somewhat sharper features of the men, and skin so perfectly white it resembled freshly fallen snow—a look that somehow felt entirely natural.

Given the local climate, it certainly fit.

My new kin inspired neither the uncanny valley effect nor any sense of revulsion.

So the process of getting used to my new life went surprisingly smoothly.

It was my own fault for getting distracted and letting my last chance to keep living in a human body slip away. Now I'd be living in an elven one instead, and I couldn't exactly call that a bad deal. Dying at five hundred instead of eighty... That sounded pretty good to me.

Though I'd already spent thirty of those five hundred years here in Tamriel.

Besides... Divayth Fyr had managed to live all the way to the era of the games. So what, was I any worse? Couldn't I do the same? 

No. My goal in this second life was to meet the very people I'd once played as. The Nerevarine. The Champion of Cyrodiil. The Last Dragonborn... And the protagonists of the first two games as well.

Not to mention Tiber Septim—also known as Talos—Alessia, Pelinal Whitestrake, Ysmir, the Dragon of the North, Mannimarco... Serana... Hundreds of them! How could anyone find themselves in a world like this, in a reality like this, and not want to meet them? How could I pass up the chance to visit Akavir? No way. I'd work like a madman if that's what it took!

How had I figured out that this was the world of The Elder Scrolls made real, despite the different language and unfamiliar names?

Well, for one thing, it was hard to miss familiar words like Altmer, Ayleids, Dwemer, Falmer, and mer in general—that is, elves. On top of that, there were also maps of the lands the elves had explored. It wasn't exactly difficult to recognize the unmistakable outlines of Tamriel, Summerset, and Cyrodiil, even for someone who wasn't a fan. As for me, I'd sunk plenty of hours into the last three games, even if I never managed to make it through the first two.

"Feator!" a woman's voice called out, beckoning me over.

Ah. There was my name again.

You should always listen to your mom—even if she's your second one and happens to have long ears.

Dragging myself off the couch covered with the hides of local beasts, I stepped outside and almost immediately spotted the woman who had called for me. She was standing in the inner courtyard of a white-stone manor alongside a very distant relative of mine—my fifth cousin, if I remembered correctly.

"Done lazing around the house?" the devilishly beautiful but faaar too serious young woman asked sternly. Though "serious" wasn't quite the right word. Our interests simply happened to clash.

"I'm not lazing around. I'm reading serious books." I rolled my eyes, refusing to take the bait. Then, adopting an unbearably sweet tone, I continued, "Vaisy, you do realize a knight-paladin is supposed to master magic as well as the sword, don't you? Or have you been so busy with your training that you've forgotten what a book looks like?"

Those very interests, to be precise. What made it even more entertaining was the fact that she, like me now, was an aristocrat. Which made her every inch the proud (and still adorable!) elven noblewoman.

"Pfft..." Mother couldn't hold it in, earning herself a mildly irritated glance from the white-haired cutie, who wasn't wearing her usual white armor today.

Then she gave me a thoroughly skeptical, faintly disapproving look with her icy blue eyes.

Dressed in clothing far too light for Skyrim's weather, she paid absolutely no attention to the subzero temperatures surrounding us.

Then again, I'm unusually fond of warmth by Snow Elf standards, even if I don't actually feel the cold.

Northern scenery simply doesn't do much for me. Endless blizzards, howling snowstorms, and nothing but snow as far as the eye can see just aren't my thing. Never mind the fact that I'm far more resistant to the cold than humans now.

For the first few years, the phantom sensation of constant cold never stopped haunting me, and it shaped my very first passion in this new life—staying indoors with my books and studying magic.

In other words, I embraced being a complete bookworm.

And yes, this world really did have honest-to-goodness Magic! The real thing! The kind that lets you hurl fireballs and lightning around!

"...Then let me ask you the same thing." My distant cousin—whom I called Vaisy for simplicity's sake and because it amused me—smirked with unmistakable pride. Her pale eyes sparkled mischievously as she continued, "You do realize a knight-paladin is supposed to master the sword as well as magic, don't you? Or have you buried yourself in books so deeply that you've forgotten what a sword is?"

"Magic has better range. By the time you reach me with your sword..." I replied with a mocking smile, shamelessly exaggerating what magic could actually do. It wasn't nearly as overpowered as I was making it sound. "...I'll have roasted you fifty times over."

And yes, I turned out to be exceptionally gifted with magic.

More specifically, with fire magic.

Among Snow Elves, that was an extremely rare talent, for obvious reasons. I supposed that was one lingering effect of having once been human.

"Not everyone is good with such an unconventional element," she muttered with an irritated frown. Still, she couldn't exactly deny that I had a point. "If you were normal, I wouldn't give a damn about magic..."

"Yeah, yeah. Tell that to the southerners when you meet them," I snorted, drawing another chuckle from Mother while Vaisy's face settled into an expression of utter disdain.

Like a significant portion of the Snow Elves, she wasn't particularly fond of the mer—that is, the elves—who lived farther south. And considering Skyrim sat at the northern edge of Tamriel...

Well, that meant we disliked just about everyone.

Grumpy northerners looking down on cheerful southerners. Some things never change.

"All right, that's enough." Mother clapped her hands, cutting our exchange short. "That isn't why we're here."

She tried to knit her brows into a stern expression, but Vaisy and I merely traded equally amused looks.

"Funny how the only time you two are united is when you're ganging up on someone else," she observed, naturally noticing the moment.

"In any case, my son. You've now seen thirty winters, which means it's time to begin your sword training. Your body has developed enough..."

Considering I looked about fifteen now, she wasn't wrong.

"...and it's time to build up the proper reflexes. You haven't changed your mind about becoming a knight-paladin of our god Auri-El, have you?" she asked, her tone growing noticeably cooler and more serious.

"I haven't," I replied just as seriously, because my new people took their faith in our god, Auri-El—Akatosh—very seriously.

I had been a staunch atheist in my previous life, convinced that God deserved no worship whatsoever—nor did any of the other supposed supreme beings humanity believed in.

But here...

At least these gods actually existed.

And Auri-El, in particular, seemed like a pretty reasonable deity. After all, he'd helped save the world during the Oblivion Crisis.

Sure, the Hero and the emperor's bastard son had done plenty themselves, but without the power Auri-El had granted them, Mehrunes Dagon would've chewed them up and spit them out.

So, all things considered, I was perfectly willing to revere him—even if not quite as fervently as the rest of my kin.

"Excellent." She nodded in satisfaction, a warm smile spreading across her face. "Vaysiniel, I'm leaving him in your hands. It's not as though I secured a full twenty years of leave for you for nothing."

"Twenty whole years away from serving Auri-El, you mean…" the girl grumbled with a slight frown. Unlike my mother, who answered to Nerdanel, she was far more devout.

Paladin brain rot. What else was there to say?

"But it's a necessary sacrifice for the sake of raising a new member of the Brotherhood of Auri-El's knight-paladins," she concluded, fixing me with a highly promising look utterly devoid of anything resembling sisterly affection.

Oh, I had a feeling I wasn't going to enjoy the next several years.

Then again...

No. Enough with the panic.

This would help me live a long life—and avoid getting myself killed in all the adventures I was absolutely, without a doubt, going to stumble into.

With my luck, how could it possibly be otherwise?