Latest Update:June 18, 2023
Summary: He was a hero, vanquisher of men and beasts, daedra and dragons. But now, Fate calls him elsewhere. How will he fare in this world, so unlike his own? "Wait... are those... rabbit ears?"
Link: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/10755330/1/Beneath-a-Broken-Moon
Word Count:144k
Chapters:27
Within the frozen reaches of one of Nirn's harshest lands, a stand-off was currently taking place.
On one side, a hulking, savage humanoid creature 3,5 meters tall, with rough grey skin, long, braided hair and beard, and wielding an uprooted tree with a large boulder tied to its end as a weapon. This was one of the giants, mighty beings that even the most seasoned veterans would think twice about fighting. They rarely travelled alone, and even more rarely attacked unprovoked, but such had been the case here.
On the other, a smaller and comparatively much scrawnier being, standing at about 1,75 meters, clad in robes and with his weapon left unused, strapped to his back.
Any uninformed passer-by could be forgiven for thinking that the latter of the two was in a rather ... precarious situation.
Up until they noticed the alarming number of frozen spikes dotting the taller contender's body, not to mention that the entire front side of the beast was charred black.
The giant suddenly collapsed to its knees, and then fell face forward to the ground. It wouldn't rise again.
The other being sighed, as the flames in his hands died down. The damn thing had appeared out of nowhere… What a lone giant was doing in this region and how in Oblivion had it managed to sneak up on him in the middle of the frozen forest would forever remain a mystery.
Oh well, he had dallied for long enough here. He wanted to be back at the college as soon as possible. After looting the corpse for anything that wasn't nailed down (earning him about 250 gold, the steel helmet of some poor sod who hadn't been as lucky and a giant toe, which he immediately discarded, why in the name of the Nine did giants carry these things around was something he did not want to know), his hands began glowing:
"Arvak, come."
A large purple orb appeared in front of him, and from within, the purple, flaming skeleton of a horse sprang forth. Many a man would run in fright of the nightmarish creature, but he just chuckled as he petted its snout:
"Good boy, Arvak" The specter neighed in delight.
With that, the man mounted up. Arvak was by far one of the best rewards for his services he had ever received, and the fastest method of travel he had available. Well, he had experimented with continuous use of Whirlwind Sprint, but that had only resulted in a sore throat and a few bruises from being launched forward in the air while traversing steep slopes.
And so he rode, and soon the scenery changed around him, the frozen forests of the Pale giving way to the frozen tundra of Winterhold, he would be reaching home soon.
Or so he thought.
Suddenly, the man felt a disturbance ripple through the air, and looked up at the darkening skies as the wind picked up around him.
'This is not natural.' He thought with a frown 'There's sorcery at work here, and a powerful one by the looks of it'.
Then he heard a noise that made his blood run cold, a noise that preluded one of the things Skyrim's inhabitants feared the most. He turned his head...
To see the white, swirling front of an incoming blizzard, so large and sudden it more closely resembled an avalanche.
He spurred his steed to run faster, and as if giving chase, the incoming storm devoured the distance between them.
He tried to use Clear Skies, but the ice cloud surged forward unaffected.
It was obvious to him at this point that whatever this thing was, it was deliberately trying to catch him.
And despite his and Arvak's best efforts, soon it managed to do just that.
For a moment, all the man felt was the biting northern cold and a sense of weightlessness.
And then he felt nothing at all.
/
When he finally came to, the first thing he saw was a thick canopy of trees, through which the moonlight shined.
'Uuurgh...What in Oblivion happened? My head feels like I've gone on another drinking binge with Sanguine...'
Slowly he rose, and as he shook the blurriness from his sight and from his mind, he remembered what had happened.
'Arvak's not here, so he probably returned to the Soul Cairn... The Blizzard caught us... and somehow carried me all the way here, wherever here is.'
He frowned. Had the freak weather somehow brought him to Falkreath? No... even in the darkness, he could see that the trees were all wrong, too green, too bright, and many of species he didn't recognize. He was someplace else, someplace different.
A beastly growl came from the nearby bushes, and the one responsible soon followed.
At first glance, it looked like a werewolf to him, and as insane as it sounded, he actually felt relieved for finding a familiar element in this place, even if he could not account for the bony spikes, red markings, the white bone mask or the baleful, red glowing eyes that held nothing but malice, hatred, and hunger.
The beast howled, and then pounced on him.
A bolt of lightning turned it into a pile of ash before it got halfway to its target.
'That might have been a little too much power...' The man mused, arm still outstretched and crackling with electricity.
Then, another howl echoed in the distance. And another. And another.
Soon, he found several pairs of red eyes glaring at him through the foliage.
'Oh, I see...' he thought dryly, as he finally reached for his weapon 'It's going to be one of those days, isn't it?'
/
Professor Ozpin was in his office, taking care of the recently formed teams' paperwork, when a knock rang on the door.
"Come in."
Glynda Goodwitch, his subordinate and fellow teacher walked in with some urgency in her step.
"Ah, Glynda, what seems to be the problem?"
"Sir, for the last 40 minutes, something has been driving the Grimm of the Emerald Forest into a frenzy. Our cameras picked up these images a short while ago." she stated, as she clicked on her scroll and a large screen appeared in the office, showing a person following a trail... with quite a few dead, fading beowolves behind him, some bodies missing heads, others were missing limbs, all badly burned.
Ozpin raised an eyebrow. The man, for it was clearly a man judging by his build, was wearing black robes with strange, golden ornaments, a pair of gloves with golden scale-like spikes along the forearms, his face was hidden by a golden mask, mostly undecorated except for the pair of tusks and a black, gold-trimmed hood, in his hand he had a massive, bloody axe of sharp, jagged design, with red-glowing filigree across the blade. He looked uninjured, but considering that his posture showed that he was tiring, that was likely to change very soon.
His other eyebrow joined the first when a King Tajitu, drawn by the carnage, blocked the stranger's path, and the man responded by throwing large, explosive fireballs into both its faces, taking advantage of the serpentine beast's pained thrashing to escape.
"Glynda, go rescue this man before he gets overwhelmed, and bring him here. Take a Bullhead."
"At once, Sir." The woman walked off quickly.
Ozpin kept watching the footage, wondering about the stranger.
/
"Yes, definitely one of those days..." The man grumbled as he made his way through the forest.
When he had first been attacked by the werewolf creatures, he believed that perhaps they were part of some kind of undiscovered branch of Lycanthropes, a unique strain of your run-of-the-mill moonhowler perhaps.
When he came across the bear creatures and proceeded to turn them into ice statues, he became less certain, but still willing to give the idea a chance, after all, he'd met werebears before.
Then came the giant fucking two-headed snake and out the window went that theory, along with a reasonable chunk of his magicka reserves just to give the damn thing the slip. It was a good thing that Hadvar wasn't around to see it, poor ophidiophobic bastard would've probably fainted on the spot.
Soon, he walked into a cliff, overlooking what seemed to be a massive ruin built within a large chasm.
"Oh that's just great..." He grumbled, then looked to the sky in an attempt to get his bearings...
...
...
What...
in...
...Oblivion?
There were two things very, very wrong in the sky.
One, there was only a single moon, Secunda was nowhere to be found.
Two, that moon was broken, one of its sides shattered into several fragments.
The gobsmacked man could no longer deny the suspicion that had been creeping in his mind.
Wherever he was... he was not on Nirn...
Loud howls came from behind him. The werewolves had returned, about 50 of them leaving the treeline to surround him. Either he had to get through them to escape, or take his chances with the abyss.
"To Oblivion with this." He said as he prepared to jump.
But before he could, a loud, roaring sound was heard, and a large metallic structure appeared in the sky.
The man gawked.
What the fuck?
What sort of sorcery was keeping that metal giant afloat?
The thing turned so one of its sides was near the cliff, and a gate opened, revealing a woman inside, who raised a... riding crop?
What the fuck?
She waved the thing, and several purple beams shot forward, flying into the werewolf horde and killing a few.
What. the. Fuck?!
"Quickly, get in!"
That snapped the man out of his shock. So, the werewolves, the chasm, or the strange metallic object. He was still pretty tempted to just take his chances with jumping, but whoever this woman was, she might have some answers about what in the name of Akatosh was going on.
And so making his decision, the man jumped into the strange flying contraption.
"Pilot, get us out of here." She stated.
The man at the controls did just that, but some of the beowolves had already recovered from the earlier attack, and were rushing towards the ship.
The woman prepared to drive them off, when the stranger grabbed her arm gently, shaking his head.
Eyebrow raised, she watched as he let go of her, faced the beasts, took a deep breath, and just as they began to leap, shouted:
"FUS RO DAH!"
The wave of Unrelenting Force slammed into the incoming monsters, disintegrating some and blasting the others back to the cliff to crash against those who had remained there.
And with that, they made their escape, ignoring the enraged howls and roars.
The man sighed in relief, then turned to see the woman looking at him, a surprised expression on her face.
She had strangely bright green eyes, unnaturally pale blond hair, and a rather...strange attire. But still, he couldn't help but feel that she was quite beautiful, more so than many a woman he'd met before.
"Thank you for your timely intervention, milady, you have saved me from quite a mess." He said politely, after all, she had just saved him.
Glynda quickly regained her composure. This man... she had never seen or felt anything quite like what he had just done. It seemed to be a Semblance, but the sheer power... Who was he?
"Think nothing of it. Just what were you doing in the Emerald Forest, in the middle of the night?"
"Emerald Forest?" The man shrugged "Your guess is as good as mine I'm afraid, Milady. One moment I am on my way to Winterhold, the next a sudden Blizzard, and then I wake up here."
He did not miss the brief confusion in her face.
"Have you not heard of Winterhold?"
"Can't say I have, no."
"And what of Skyrim? Tamriel? Nirn?"
The woman once again looked confused.
"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with any of those terms. You are currently in the kingdom of Vale, on the continent of Vytal, if that helps." was her reply.
Yes, definitely not on Nirn anymore. Great, just Great.
The man sighed and decided to change the subject. "Where are we headed, Milady...?"
"Goodwitch, Glynda Goodwitch." She answered, a bit surprised by his old-fashioned yet polite manner of speaking. "And we are currently in route to Beacon Academy, where the Headmaster, Professor Ozpin, would like a word with you."
A school, eh? Not quite the one he had expected to go to, but he supposed it would have to do given the circumstances.
"How did he know of my arrival?"
"We caught you on the cameras we have spread throughout the forest, you were causing quite the stir with the local Grimm."
Now was the man's time to be confused.
"Cameras? Grimm? What are those, Milady?" He gestured towards their surroundings "And for that matter, what sort of contraption is this?"
Glynda once again raised her eyebrow. What was wrong with this guy?
/
Ozpin patiently waited for Glynda to bring in their guest.
Soon, there was knock on the door, and in came the two, the man following Glynda, looking distracted even through the mask.
Not that he didn't have some reason to be. Gods damn, he was quite proud of his college, but this place was making him feel pretty darn inadequate.
"I am glad to see you were successful, Glynda."
The stranger looked at the person in the chair, a middle-aged man with unkept silver hair, also wearing a strange garment. The look in his eyes reminded him old Tolfdir and Savos Aren, calculating, but yet caring.
"Professor Ozpin, I take it?"
"Indeed, I am." the professor nodded "I am glad to see you are safe. You know, we were quite surprised to have found a man that seemingly appeared out of thin air in the Emerald Forest, even more so with the abilities that that man displayed against the Grimm. That being said... who are you?" He asked politely.
The stranger considered his options, and ultimately decided to go with the truth. He was out of his element, did not know nearly enough about this world to make up a convincing lie, and besides, if they had meant him harm, they wouldn't have gone through the trouble of picking him up.
"I'll try to keep it short." The man glanced at the pile of papers in the desk " A headmaster's job is never done, after all."
"You sound like you speak from experience." Ozpin replied, eyebrow raised in amusement.
Both the teachers could feel the man's smile through the mask.
"Allow me to introduce myself." He said as he removed it...
To reveal a young man in his early twenties, with shoulder-length wavy brown hair, short-trimmed beard, and a green tattoo of a wave-like pattern over his left eye. His yellowish-brown eyes reflected a wisdom and experience that far surpassed his age.
"Tristard Soverick, The last Dragonborn, and Archmage of the college of Winterhold, at your service." He stated with a polite, formal bow. "Now tell me, professor, how familiar are you with inter-planar travel?"
Link: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/10755330/1/Beneath-a-Broken-Moon