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Okay, so apparently my muse wants to write another Skyrim fanfic. This time we're looking at how Fahdonmul defeated Alduin in the Dovahkiin's absence, and it's running to at least six chapters.

Icon art by  den-99

While Sweet-Roll-Devour is my creation, I owe a lot to an anonymous contributor writing a fanfic about him, which helped gel his personality. Skyrim and its characters are property of Bethesda, of course.

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Fahdonmul: The Death of Alduin

Chapter 1 - The Throat of the World

Somewhere very close by, there came the whoosh and flap of leathern wings followed by a loud thump that shook the ground outside. Arngeir knew of only one thing that could make this sound, and he had heard it many times before - but he knew that this time, something was different. Something was wrong.

Opening the ancient doors, the old man gazed across the courtyard to the sight he knew he would see - a dragon had landed there. Not the ancient he revered, but a stranger. An intruder.

The brown dragon raised his head like a wolf baying at the moon, and roared loudly. This he followed with a deafening Shout of the kind Arngeir knew only too well. "PAAR-THUR-NAX!" the creature bellowed, shaking the very hills. There was an answering roar, and a Shout in return. "FAH-DON-MUL!" the words echoed back.

The newcomer blew a long stream of fire into the sky, and the mountaintop lit up in return. At last, without moving his body, the brown dragon craned his neck sideways to consider the ancient Nord. "Paarthurnax will see me now," he remarked in the common tongue.

"Volaan," Arngeir called, trying to keep the alarm from his voice. "We are men of peace, but know that we have mastered the Voice as well as a mortal may. If you force us to, we can rend the wings from your body by words alone.
"We know what one dovah can do to another, so if you seek to threaten our leader, remember that we are not helpless, even against one such as you."

The dragon laughed. "I honour your courage," he said. "You guard the Old One well... But I am not here for violence. A bad thing has happened, and I seek his counsel and wisdom."
So saying, he fanned his wings and launched into the air. "Indeed... if he dies, darkness shall follow," the dragon added bleakly. "But I swear to you, Greybeard, I will defend the Old One as best I may. For I am not helpless either."

* * *

Fahdonmul landed on the top of the mountain, crouching respectfully beneath the elder dragon perched on his word-wall.

"Old One," he said in dovahzul. "It has been a long time." He craned his neck and tilted his head in the direction of the Greybeards' mountain fastness. "You are not starting up a new dragon cult, are you?" he asked suspiciously. "That did not end well before."

"Hah," Paarthurnax laughed. "In truth I had considered it, but... as you say, it would not end well. The Blades, or what is left of them, suspect that I lead the Greybeards still, but fear of the Voice has held them back. If our old enemies had proof that a new dragon cult had arisen... Well.
"The Greybeards are mighty, but even they could not hold back a large mob with torches, pitchforks and crossbows led by those dragon-murdering brutes. For you know as well as I, Young One, that the Nords only remember the dragon cults as they were after Alduin had turned them to evil, not the beautiful balance we had before."

"All because of Alduin,", Fahdonmul snarled bitterly, making the name sound like an insult. "You know, of course, that he is back?"

"I know this all too well," the Old One said. "But things are what they are. His very purpose is to consume the world... and either he has been sent now to fulfil that destiny, or the gods will send one to aid us. The fate of the world is in Bormahu's claws, as ever.
"If Mighty Akatosh, in His wisdom, has chosen to bring about the End of Time, who are we to thwart His will?"

"The traitor has not come to fulfil that destiny," Fahdonmul stated with certainty. "For him, no time has passed. He has not learned from the Dragon War, and he is headstrong. Even the murder of our race will not suffice to teach him that mortals can best us, only the little-death of discorporation can serve for that.
"No, it was foretold that he will raise minions for another attempt at conquering the world, and carry on as if nothing had happened. I have seen much evidence that this is so."

"It was also foretold that a Dragonborn would stand against him," Paarthurnax pointed out. "Long have I prepared for the coming of such a one. Yet, if you have heard Alduin's boasting on the winds, you will know that this prophecy has come to nothing. We are out of reckoning."

"This too, I know all too well," Fahdonmul said bitterly. "The Last Dragonborn was beheaded, as mortals so love to do to one other. Alduin feasted upon their ziil at Helgen and has bragged about this deed from here to Pyandonea.
"But it is an ill wind none can ride... a Dragonborn would have devoured many of us, thinking us all to be mere monsters, realising only later that they had destroyed their own brothers, potential allies, even friends."

"Old One," the brown dragon continued. "I have met several brothers on my way here. Even among those whom Alduin has restored to life, few truly support him. Most obey out of fear, fear that he will feast upon their ziil as he feasts upon the sil of so many mortals.
"But some among them whisper that I am chosen to do what the Dragonborn should have done... that I am to be his undoing, the one sent to aid the world if the true chosen one failed. But if this is so, I do not know how!"

Paarthurnax raised his head and fixed the smaller dragon with a hard stare. "And do you believe this, Fahdonmul? Do you truly think that you are some kind of Chosen One? A pawn of the gods?"

"I do not know," Fahdonmul admitted. "But I, a lesser dragon of no great stature, have survived, when many hunters far better than I have not. Some of my escapes were miraculous... it may indeed be that the gods have set me aside to fulfil some great purpose, when I stand here while so many others far more deserving than me, have been murdered. That is why I am here, Old One... To ask for-"

At that point there was a flurry of wings and a huge, orange-hued Ancient Dragon landed on a nearby rock with a loud crash. He saw Fahdonmul and hissed as if in pain.

"No!" he croaked, emitting a small gob of dragonfire and outstretching his wings to make himself look even bigger. "Stay back!"

"Peace... He is here by my leave," Paarthurnax stated. "Be calm. He is not with the Dark Traitor."

Fahdonmul craned his long, flexible neck backwards to gaze at the other dragon, his head actually upside-down and almost touching his own back. "Sweet-Roll-Devour...?" he enquired. "It is you!"
The brown dragon turned slightly so as to contemplate the newcomer with his head in a more sensible position.

"I heard you died," he said. "You were slain at a bakery in the early First Era. But... Alduin would never have raised you, surely?"

The big dragon trembled with fear. "He did, Fahdonmul. He thought I was Bokronag... I think he got the burial mounds mixed up. And then.... he tried to devour me when he realised his mistake!"

"Peace," Paarthurnax said. "Be calm. He is not here. The Dark One has more pressing matters than pursuing a renegade dovah. Here, you are safe... for the present, at least."

* * *

"First, let us assume that Bormahu intends for someone to defeat Alduin," Fahdonmul began. "He created a Dragonborn, after all, and left them clues to guide them to their destiny. If He truly intended for the world to end now, He would never have left the door open for one to save it."

"That is so," Paarthurnax agreed. "And it may be true that He left further doors open in case those who oppose Him interfered. Whether you are one of these contingency plans, I cannot know. But I do not presume to know His mind either, so I cannot rule that out."

"If we suppose it is true, that I was intended to take over the fight against Alduin, how should I do this? What would you have told me if I were the Last Dragonborn?"

"If you were the Last Dragonborn, then in all likelihood, you would have fallen in with the Blades, and murdered several of our brothers before finally realising that you too were a dragon, in soul and mind if not in body - and that you had been slaying your own kind." Paarthurnax answered. "We can skip that step, thank Bormahu - but the Last Dragonborn would then have learned, through the records of the Blades, that Alduin was attacked by a Shout long lost to time."

"Dragon-Rend?" Fahdonmul looked appalled. "I have heard rumours of such a thing. The ancients used it to knock dragons from the sky and murder them while they lay prone." He shook his head. "Mortals call us cruel, but they can be just as bad, if not worse... Be that as it may, I do not know how this Shout was done or why it worked."

"We are dragons," Paarthurnax pointed out. "It is said to have forced our kind to understand mortality... a concept our minds cannot begin to comprehend."

"I do not understand," Fahdonmul said, cocking his head in confusion.

"That is the point. We cannot," Paarthurnax replied. "To be forced to understand that which we are not designed to know... that is a form of torture."

"No... I mean that... I do know that we can die!" Fahdonmul protested. "When the World-Eater performs his final task, we too shall end, shall we not? We cannot see past Time's End, and as creatures of time, I doubt we can live past it either, unless Bormahu puts us all back on the board for another game in the next kalpa, as he is said to have done with Alduin.
"But many of us... most of us, have been slain indeed... the good and the evil alike. And those who died to another dovah and had their souls devoured... From that fate they do not return.
"I have spent thousands of years avoiding death, Old One, as have you. Sweet-Roll-Devour here has even experienced mortality! And would this Shout not also break the mind of a Dragonborn? For they are dragons also."

"I do not know the answer to these questions, Young One," Paarthurnax sighed. "Nor do I wish to dwell upon them overmuch. But you asked for my plan, and I have told you it... to show the Last Dragonborn a weapon against Alduin and pray to Bormahu that they would not also turn it against me, and the other dov who seek Alduin's downfall."

"It is a risky plan," Fahdonmul admitted. "I like it not. But were you to have done this, how would you teach them the Words, if as you say, the Shout is lost and those of our kind cannot know it?"

"Alduin was sent through time by means of a Kel," Paarthurnax said. "Here, at the summit of this mountain, the fabric of time is still ruptured from that event.
"Were the same Kel, the so-called 'Dragon Scroll' to be read here again, it is likely that one could see into the past, to Alduin's banishment and learn the terrible Words used to discomfit him.
"What use they will be to a dovah, I cannot say... but if you truly seek to defeat the Eldest, you may have need of that Kel. For it defeated him before and may do so again."

"Then I shall seek it," Fahdonmul said, stretching his wings.

Just before he took off, the brown dragon turned to Paarthurnax and grinned evilly. "Old One... Is Alduin still the Eldest?" he asked. "For he has jumped forward in time, while the rest of us, even those like Sahloknir or our friend here, who have slept the long sleep of discorporation... All of us have known the passing of time.
"But since Alduin has not, since he has skipped more than four thousand years, he may now be the youngest!"