"This isn't going to work," said Caprifexia, eyeing the runic circle that the cat had drawn suspiciously. "J'zargo is a terrible wizard."

  J'zargo looked up from his chalking and glared at her, but didn't respond – likely due to the fact he knew it was true. Her mortal charges, and newly acquired disgusting vampire hanger on, had decided that since Half-finger peak was close to a city with a lodestone they would get the cat to teleport them there. Caprifexia told them that was a bad plan, and that there was no need to be so impatient, but, as usual, they hadn't listened to her boundless wisdom.

  "He wasn't the one who got the snot kicked out of her by three rank and file Thalmor troops," said Serana, the nasty Vampire who Caprifexia was not allowed to destroy for totally arbitrary reasons. "And I'm not especially well versed in this sort of magic, but it looks fine to me."

  "I did not 'get the snot kicked out of me.' I triumphed – heroically," snapped Caprifexia, eruditely. "Besides, dragon's don't have snot, at least not in their real forms. Not that a filthy leech with delusions of grandeur like you would know that!"

  "You're not a dragon, you're just a very disturbed elf with a knack for polymorphism," said the Vampire, rolling her eyes.

  "What!? How dare- how dare you call me an elf!" shouted Caprifexia.

  "That's what you are," laughed the mean and wrong and mean vampire who Caprifexia really should have been allowed to vaporise, or at least kick off the edge of the ravine again.

  "I am not!" argued Caprifexia. Eloquently. "Am not! Am not! Am not! Am-"

  "Serana, she actually is a dragon," said Einar, interrupting her detailed rebuttal.

  "What? No way," said the vampire. "Dragons are huge, and they don't have four legs. She's tiny."

  "You're tiny!" said Caprifexia. "And- and- and… stupid!"

  "She's a dragon from another universe," said Einar. "And she's a baby – hence the… attitude."

  Serana gave him a very dubious look.

  "Why don't we just walk?" said Caprifexia, staring at the cat's clearly ineptly made teleportation circle. "I know you mortals are impatient since you're all inevitably going to die, but it's only two weeks or so to this 'Solemnity.'"

  "Solitude. And two weeks when the world is literally going to end in a month and a half is a lot," said Einar. "J'zargo says this will work – I trust him."

  "Allegedly going to end," grumbled Caprifexia. "We only have the word of some very irresponsible mortals. Did it occur to you that they might be villains? That this might be some elaborate double bluff? Of course not, you're just a bunch of simpering mortals, you probably can't even conceive that someone might try to trick you."

  "I'm not a mortal," interjected Serana. "I'm a vampire."

  "Ah, yes," said Caprifexia. "Mortals, and disgusting undead abomination."

  "Gee, thanks," said the abomination.

  "You're welcome, fiend," said Caprifexia, pleased that although they were a revolting rotting lampray, at least they had some semblance of manners – unlike her other charges.

  "There, J'zargo is finished," said the cat, straightening and putting the book he had been consulting and his stick of chalk in a pocket, dusting off his furry hands. "We are ready."

  "This rune-work is very shoddy," said Caprifexia, toeing at a wobbly line. "I don't think it is safe. I bet you've never even done this before. A proper wizard wouldn't need a runic circle. We should just walk."

  "J'zargo admits, he has not done this before…" said J'zargo. "But J'zargo understands the theory. It will work… J'zargo thinks."

  "See! Even the cat admits it isn't going to work!" said Caprifexia.

  "J'zargo is not a cat!" said J'zargo, once again continuing to deny his true feline nature. "And J'zargo did not say that!"

  "Sure, the cat isn't a cat, just like the sky isn't blue," said Caprifexia.

  "Is she always this bigoted?" asked Serana.

  "Yes," said Einar and J'zargo simultaneously. And wrongly.

  "Look Capri, you're outvoted, we're teleporting – whether you like it or not," said Einar.

  "Since when is this a democracy?" said Caprifexia. "I never agreed to that. I exercise my veto! I'm a dragon, I get a veto!"

  "Why would being a dragon give you a veto?" asked the vampire.

  "Because we're wiser and smarter than you small minded mortal fools," said Caprifexia. "Obviously."

  "Oh of course, obviously," said the vampire, chuckling at her own foolish doubt in the face of Caprifexia's self-evident draconic magnificence.

  "You don't get a veto," said Einar as J'zargo spread his hands and began to channel magic into the runic circle. "Now stop whinging, we'll be fine."

  "It's easy for you to say that! You're not a wizard!" said Caprifexia, her voice level and calm and definitely not high pitched and worried. "You don't know what happens with botched teleports! I do. You know, because I'm a wizard! A wizard you should listen to! If the cat makes even a small miscalculation, or if the lodestone on the other end is damaged, I could be smeared across six dimensions!"

  "J'zargo will be less likely to make a mistake if the small dragon shuts up," growled the cat as azure energy began to roll off him, sinking into the poorly drawn runes and reacting with whatever thaumaturgically conductive substance was in the chalk. Probably copper, given how cheap and expedient mortals were.

  Caprifexia grimaced as the arcane charge built, and closed her eyes as the light became blinding. A moment later there was a lurching sensation, and her silly mortal form's ears popped as the pressure suddenly shifted and a wave of sound washed over her.

  "What the-"

  "Hands in the air-"

  "Wait, they're mages-"

  "Someone get the General-"

  Caprifexia opened her eyes to find herself in a long stone hall. It was typical of mortal buildings: smokey sconces providing light, dirty floors, and ugly 'artwork' adorning the walls. There were boxes of goods and supplies stacked everywhere, along with tables, maps, and stacks of paper so high they looked in danger of toppling over.

  There were mortals in armour, mostly human, rushing about in a frenzy, and several of them had noticed Caprifexia, her mortal charges, and the undead tag-along's arrival. Noticed, and drawn their weapons.

  Likely villainously.

  They had arrived on a slightly raised circular stone dais, which she could sense was enchanted to serve as an anchor for teleport spells – a lodestone. That meant that J'zargo, unbelievably, hadn't made a catastrophic mistake, although he hadn't mentioned that they were going to emerge in the middle of an army. Not that she was worried – she was, after all, a dragon. A bunch of mortals with pointy metal sticks didn't scare her. At all. Obviously.

  "Whoa!" said Einar, holding up his hands. "No need for the swords, friends! We didn't know this place was being used as a barracks."

  "And if you know what's good for you-" began Caprifexia.

  "Capri, no," hissed Einar, covering her mouth.

  "You're mages?" came a vaguely dwarven sounding brogue as a human male with shortly cropped steel grey hair strode into the room. The General, she assumed, since he carried himself with a totally delusional amount of confidence – absurd, given his non-draconic nature.

  He gestured to the soldiers to stand down, which was lucky for them, because Caprifexia had been debating about how many seconds a hero was supposed to give people the 'benefit of the doubt' that Einar was always talking about before incinerating them.

  She'd been leaning toward about eighteen seconds.

  "General Tullius?" said Einar, before gesturing to Caprifexia and the others. "Um, they are. Not me."

  "College?" barked General 'Tullius,' making Caprifexia's hackles rise. She might be a hero, but she didn't accept any mortal bossing her around.

  "None of your- mrrph!" began Caprifexia, before being unjustly silenced by her supposed friend. Again.

  "J'zargo is from Winterhold," said J'zargo, wiping some sweat from his brow and glaring totally unjustifiably at Caprifexia. "The small angry dr- horned elf is… technically a member, the other lady is not."

  "And are anymore of the college coming? Did you get my message?" asked the General.

  "Message? No – J'zargo has not been at the college for weeks," said J'zargo. "Why?"

  "Why? Because I've got reports Whiterun has been obliterated by some kind of mountain sized monster, and I need more mages to fight the damn thing!" said the General. "If the college hasn't gotten my message, I suppose you'll have to do."

  "We have more important things to do," said Caprifexia, heading toward the door through which she could see the early evening sky. "We don't have time for whatever silly little mortal delusion this is."

  The mortal General grabbed her arm as she moved to pass him and Caprifexia stopped, more out of shock than anything else. It took even her brilliantly fast mind a few moments to process the sheer audacity of the elderly human. He, a ridiculously pompous mortal who she didn't even know, was grabbing her. Even if she was a hero, that was totally out of line. She was a dragon, he was just a squishy pink ape! Apes did not get to grab dragons.

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  "You're a member of a college, that makes you a servant of the Empire," said the General. "I'm drafting you-"

  "Servant!?" growled Caprifexia, recovering from her total shock, smoke trickling from her nose in outrage. "How dare you! Remove your hand at once!"

  "That's 'please remove your hand sir,' recruit," said the unbelievably impertinent mortal.

  "Easy Capri," said Einar in an urgent, whiny voice. "General, I'm sorry – but she's right, we have a very important mission that can't be put aside."

  Caprifexia's eye twitched, and more smoke began to billow from her nostrils. She was pretty sure that it would be well within the heroic guidelines to incinerate him. But Caprifexia was nothing if not tolerant and understanding, and Einar would whine at her if she taught this General a lesson him without 'just cause,' so she decided to give him at least a few more seconds with his various bits uncrushed and/or unburnt.

  "A mission?" said the General.

  "That's right, it's very important," said Serana, her voice ringing with a strange cadence. "If you don't mind, we'll just be on our way."

  The General frowned, his eyes growing glassy as Caprifexia stared down at the hand still holding her hand in ever mounting fury.

  How dare he touch her? Even if she was now a hero, that didn't mean that mortals were just allowed to grab her with their grubby little paws. She tolerated Einar's woeful manners regarding her personal space, but he was her friend. This withered bag of pus was not.

  "I… what mission?" said the General vaugely, shaking his head as if to try and clear it.

  "We need to find the Bow of-" began Einar as Caprifexia's patience ran out and she wound back her arm. "Capri, no!"

  Caprifexia's fist blurred forward, smashing the General's rude and impertinent nose underneath her heroic knuckles and sending him tumbling to the floor, where uppity, quite possibly villainous, mortals like him belonged. A hush fell over the hall as the man swore, cradling his bloodied nose and looking up at Caprifexia with disbelief – almost as if she had been the unreasonable one in the exchange.

  "For fuck's sake!" shouted Einar as the soldiers recovered from their shock and drew their weapons in a chorus of steel. "Sir, I'm sorry, she didn't mean that! Please, everyone, let's just stay calm-"

  One sword wielding mortal lunged at Caprtifexia, but her inner-furnace had already warmed up, and he fell screaming as a she opened her mouth and unleashed a jet of dragonfire straight at him, setting him aflame.

  He screamed and dropped his weapon, staggering about and falling into several crates behind him alight that were labelled with a terrible hand-written sign saying 'lemp oll' and 'houghley fammaple.' She had no idea what 'houghley fammaple' 'lemp oll' was, likely some nonsensical and superfluous mortal thing, like 'cheese,' or 'bandages,' or 'civil liberties,' and it probably wasn't important.

  "Capri, stop killing people!" shouted Einar, even as he drew his own sword and held it defensively in front of himself. "Listen, this is all a terrible misunderstanding-"

  Before Einar got any further with his ridiculously obsequious faux-explanation there was a whooshing sound, and in a wave of fire the 'houghley fammaple lep oll' boxes exploded outward, washing over Caprifexia, the General, the already burning soldier, and outward across the hall.

  Caprifexia roared, and did definitely not scream, in surprise as she was thrown to the ground, flailing a hand out wildly as she hastily threw up a shield in the direction of her highly flammable friend and two other companions.

  The fire raged on and on, with several more explosions going off around the room, before it gradually subsided into a merry blaze, revealing a slightly singed, but thankfully safe Einar behind three shields: an expertly crafted one of hers, and two other far more shoddy pieces of magic cast by the cat and the vampire. All around them, however, were the still and charred corpses of the villainous soldiers who had tried to press gang her totally unfairly into some kind of ridiculous mortal nonsense, and who hadn't been quick or clever or amazing enough to save themselves with magic from her righteous and totally justified fury.

  "Great going," said Serana, glancing around at the burning hall. "I can see why you're in charge."

  "They attacked me! You all saw it!" said Caprifexia defensively, picking herself up off the floor. "They were clearly villains! This was a… a dazzling piece of heroism! You should be impressed, I thwarted their dastardly plot and freed the city of Solemnity-"

  "-Solitude-" 'corrected' the trio together.

  "-from the tyrannical grip of… whoever these people were," continued Caprifexia, heroically gesturing at the remains of her vanquished foes.

  A burning beam crashed to the ground behind her. In the distance there was the sound of screaming.

  "Dazzling," agreed the vampire, who Caprifexia actually found herself warming to somewhat. "Truly, you're the hero that Skyrim deserves."

  "Thank-you," sniffed Caprifexia, brushing a few burning splinters off her jacket. "It's heartening to know that some people appreciate proper heroism, even if they're disgusting, vile abominations."

  "No," said Einar in his by now standard tone, unfairly angry at her. "They were not villains. The General just thought that he was within his rights to draft a college wizard for some kind of dire emergency that we now know nothing about. Which, by the way, legally speaking, he totally was."

  "He grabbed me!" said Caprifexia, pointing at her sleeve. "On the arm! Villainously! I think I have a bruise!"

  "Grabbing your arm is rude, but it isn't something that warrants an immediately homicidal response! How is this something I have to explain to you!?" said Einar. "Fucking hell, Serana was about to hypnotise him! No one had to die, we could have already been on our way! They might have even been able to help us!"

  "The other one lunged at me with a sword!" countered Caprifexia. Brilliantly. "It looked really sharp!"

  "A threat which you, mighty wizard you claim to be, could surely have dealt with less lethally than setting him, and then the entire building on fire!" shouted Einar unfairly.

  "You don't know that!" shouted Caprifexia back. "You're not a wizard! You can't even make a warelight! And how was I supposed to know that the fool would stagger into a highly combustible pile of 'houghley fammaple lemp ool?' Whatever that is…"

  "Lamp oil!" hissed Einar. "Lamp. Oil."

  "No," she corrected. "It quite clearly said 'Lemp Ool' – I'm a dragon, my memory is perfect."

  "You know, I don't even know why I'm surprised anymore!" raged Einar. "You're a menace Capri. A menace!"

  Another burning beam fell, along with part of the roof.

  "J'zargo suggests we leave," said the cat in a resigned voice. "Before the dragon's tantrum crushes us, or she kills even more innocent people."

  "It was not a tantrum," grumbled Caprifexia, following the shielded group as they rushed toward the doorway. "And they were villains. You mortals are just- just… so unfair!"

  "Yes, clearly we are the unfair ones," agreed the more level-headed Vampire as they emerged into the early evening. It was raining gently, and people were running about in a typical example of exaggerated mortal panic. It was just a little burning building, nothing to get too excited about.

  What drew Caprifexia's attention immediately, however, was the flash of golden light in the eastern sky that lit up with the outline of an immense humanoid for a split second before a gigantic bolt of lightning rocketed down from the heavens and struck something behind a distant peak.

  "Gods," muttered Serana as they quickly ducked away from the building and the growing crowd. "Is that… a Divine?"

  "Gods don't exist," snorted Caprifexia as the sky lit up again, and the silhouette appeared again in a different position, once again launching a bolt of lightning.

  While it definitely wasn't a God, however, whatever that was, it did seem rather powerful. Not as powerful as a dragon, obviously, but still she was relieved that they were headed south, rather than east.

  Caprifexia and her charges slipped easily past the frenzied mortals who were attempting to put out her righteous blaze, making their way through the city of Solemnity. There were both troops and civilians running here and there, glancing up whenever the there horrific sounding screams echoed in from the eastern horizon where more flashes of lightning revealed figures in the clouds. An old man in a ragged robe was shouting about the end of the world, although mortals were always saying that, so it was probably unrelated.

  "Capri – those things in Windhelm, the Faceless," said Einar, as they were midway through heroically liberating some poor imprisoned horses from the abandoned stables outside the city. "They were strong, but not God strong. If a Divine-"

  "-SABIGISMF-"

  "-whatever you call them," said Einar unjustifiably irritably. "If they're having trouble fighting something, what… what might it be? Assuming the same thing has happened to Whiterun that happened to Windhelm?"

  "Hmm? Hypothetically?" said Caprifexia, idly picking at her teeth with a talon where she had some fish stuck from breakfast that was annoying her.

  "'Hypothetically?'" said Einar. "But the people who contacted you from the future said-"

  "Mortals who dabble in time can't be trusted," sniffed Caprifexia. "This is all pure conjecture."

  "OK, hypothetically then, whatever," said Einar, finishing doing something complex with the horse's riding equipment and vaulting on top of the creature. "What might it be?"

  "Probably an Old God," she said after a moment's thought, flapping up onto his shoulders.

  "Ow! Watch the claws," said Einar. "And isn't that… really bad?"

  "It's also vanishingly unlikely," said Caprifexia. "Even if a large enough rift was opened to admit one of them, which is highly doubtful, this world's Void Integrity Quotient is still higher than one, so they can't manifest fully for more than a few moments under normal circumstances. The rift can't be held open indefinitely, so they'll have no source of sufficient Void magic to sustain them. The only way they would not wither into nothing was if there was some other source of power to sustain them, say a cult of mages or something – and even then the power requirements would be enormous."

  They trotted out of the stable, Einar glancing with a worried expression toward the eastern horizon, where more lightning flashed, and faint eldritch roars could be heard.

  "Capri, I'm really worried about this," said Einar.

  "You're always worried about everything," said Caprifexia. "Don't fret, it's just perfectly normal mortal neurosis – you're all like that."

  "If those people who contacted you are right, then two Gods – I don't care what you want to call them – die," said Einar. "Capri, they hold Nirn together, if Akatosh and Magnus are killed this world will end."

  "That's ridiculous-"

  "You yourself said how this universe is 'strange,'" said Einar, cutting her off. "How it doesn't work like your own?"

  "Yes," she agreed slowly. "So?"

  "So assume, for a moment, that the time-traveller's told you the truth and try and help me figure this out, OK?" said Einar. "You are, despite everything, smart."

  "Fine," huffed Caprifexia as the other two emerged with horses and they set off at a trot away from the still smoking town. "I'll indulge you, but only because I'm a hero."

  "So apparently you are somehow 'shrouded' from the view of the Divines," said Einar. "Right? And there is someone or something else like you as well."

  "The 'Major Fracture' yes," said Caprifexia, fishing out a book from where she had stashed it in Einar's saddlebag with a flex of magic and flicking it open. "Which, honestly, I object to. I should be the 'major' one. I'm a dragon, after all. They're probably not. And even if they are, then we'd just be 'Equal Fractures-'"

  "And let's assume, for a moment, that it's also true that they're also the ones going around blowing up towns and summoning Faceless, and maybe an Old God, and are the ones who are trying to kill Akatosh and Magnus," said Einar. "What do you think they are, and what do you think they want?"

  "Hmm?" she said, glancing up from one of the books that Sorbet Melon had given her, and which she was reading for the twentieth time to try and figure out exactly how one formed 'mana bonds.' "What was that?"

  "I said," growled Einar. "'What do you think they are, and what do you think they want?'"

  "Oh, probably another Planeswalker," said Caprifeixa.' "If this world is actually bound by some kind of rigid Fate then a being from outside it would inevitably cause at least minor damage to its silly continuity. We are the only beings to my knowledge that can safely navigate the void – other than Faceless, of course."

  "'Damage Continuity?' Like you when you killed the Dragonborn?" said Einar.

  "That was self-defence!" she objected. "And she was a werewolf, a creature of darkness! It was justified!"

  "So another Planeswalker – but why would they want to blow up towns?" said Einar. "Kill Divines? What do they get out it?"

  "Who can understand the mind of a villain?" said Caprifexia sagely.

  "You, since, you know, you were one," said Einar. "What were your people motivated by?"

  "We were pawns of the Old Ones," said Caprifexia. "We wanted to destroy the world and usher in the rule of the Void."

  "But Planeswalkers are immune to the 'Old One's whispers' – right?" asked Einar. "So it can't be that."

  "Einar, you know I can't follow your twisted, irrational, so-called mortal 'logic,'" said Caprifexia, flicking to the third chapter: 'Trans-planar Sympathetic Channelling: How to draw on mana across the Blind Eternities.' "Is there some point you're getting at?"

  "They must get something out of it all," muttered Einar, glancing across to the eastern horizon. "But what is there to get out of a shattered, barren, dead world…?"

  "They're a villain: maybe they're just evil? I wouldn't try and overthink it. You'll injure that tiny mind of yours," said Caprifexia reassuringly patting him on the head.

  "Don't know why I bother…" sighed Einar, bowing to her wisdom, and she buried her head in the book as they began to slowly work their way southward.

  A.N. If you like my writing, you might be interested in my fantasy adventure novel – – which is entirely pre-written and with chapters released every Friday!

  Mishka the Great and Powerful that isn't up on Royal Road yet!). However, I don't monetise or time-gate my fanfiction though (plz no sue!).