Delayed End
The Dragonborn held their steps before the Hall of Valor.
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Stuhn wasn't there. Instead, something else was guarding the Whalebone Bridge. And it was a familiar figure. It was the black-winged dragon, the World-eater Alduin.
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"You've come to kill me, Dovahkiin, at long last."
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"Indeed I am. But didn’t you release this mist to hide yourself from my blade? And you will yourself to land before me this time, not by Dragonrend. Why?"
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"My destiny is written and fixed, as is yours. What is the point to evade it?"
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"Suddenly you start to sound just like Paarthurnax."
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"I shall remind you: I am the firstborn."
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"I still don't understand. If you would accept fate, then why you were against it all the time?"
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"Because it is also my destiny. My nature. Paarthurnax would follow me, slaughtering thousands of your kin, and then befriended men to turn on me. Why? Because he was once misguided and then bent his evil instinct to childish kindness? No, it is only because his nature made him so."
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"And your nature makes you to accept execution on my hands? That sounds sad."
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"Yes, and also no. I am made to be killed by the last Dragonborn. And I am also made to swallow this world."
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"You cannot swallow a world when you are dead."
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"I can. I said, I am Alduin, Firstborn of Akatosh."
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"I'm always confused by this line. You said you are firstborn of Akatosh, right? How is a dragon born? Then, if you were born beyond time, what made you firstborn?"
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"I was born when Time was, Dovahkiin. When Akatosh made the starting, he also wrote down the ending."
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"You said Akatosh gave you birth. Is that some kind of metaphor? Does that mean you are the evil side of the great Time Dragon? And you are here, in Sovngarde. Does this mean you only eat souls of the Nord, or by eating the world you only mean eating Skyrim?"
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"I am end given form. The golden Akatosh saved all of you two hundred years ago, do you not remember? We are not one dovah. He saves men, mer, cats and lizards. I eat worlds. And by worlds I mean Tamriel, Nirn, and far more than them."
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"I have another question. Great Akatosh is your father. Who is Alkosh then?"
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"Alkosh was my father once. It is no longer."
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"One cannot first beget someone, then choose not to be its father."
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"They can. For we are dov... incarnation of time itself."
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"How?"
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"We are fluid and not fixed. Alkosh would say, 'just like cats'."
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"First you said your destiny is fixed, and now you're saying dovahs are like fluid cats."
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"Yes. A dovah has many destinies, and each of them is fixed tight."
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"You're making even less sense."
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"I hope you could comprehend, dragonborn. For you are dovahkiin, a mortal made dragon. Your fate is spun and intertwined Vomindok... Incomprehensibly. Even the Webspinner could not tell your destiny, mortal."
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"So, you are not sure about my fate. What makes you believe I would certainly kill you, then?"
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"The Kelle have spoken, dovahkiin. They spoke of your triumph. They wrote down my demise."
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"Elder Scrolls? They only give obscure prophecies, if Imperial scholars are to be believed. You may still have a chance, world-eater."
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"A Kel do not foretell. It only wrote down future, just like what your diary would do."
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"Sure. But I've read it. I can just choose not to do it, right? Like, I can just walk away from you today. Then you could eat out the whole Sovngarde and gain tremendous power, or stuff like that. And then you could fly away and rule poor Nords again. Right?"
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"Right. Someone else had tried."
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"And?"
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"And yet there you are. As I have said, you are a Dragonborn, no matter the first or the last. A Dragonborn that is meant to slay me. So come, challenge and battle me, not as the fragile mortal you are, but as my ancient foe once did!"
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"Ancient foe? You mean Hakon, and..."
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Their words were interrupted by a gust of winds. Rising to the heavenly sky of Sovngarde, before once again breathing flames and calling down rain of meteors, the World-eater spoke of one last thu'um:
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"Niid. Far more than them, Strundu'ul."
