Deception, Domination, and Dragons (Skyrim Self-Insert)

“Come on! The Imperials aren’t going to give us another chance!”
 
When Ralof grabs for Svanna, yanking her from my grasp, I don’t try to stop him. I just follow along, not wanting to trigger any sort of frenzied attack from the Stormcloak. I am, after all, still an Altmer, and though he doesn’t know it, a Thalmor Agent.
 
But I’m also the human being who ‘played through’ this opening sequence just about a week or so ago, and so I know what to do. I follow closely after the lithe young red head that I’ve pegged as the Dragonborn, and make sure to do as she does. We go up the tower, and I keep well behind her as Alduin strikes near the top, killing an unlucky Stormcloak mook right in front of Svanna’s eyes.
 
As she falls back, yelping in shock, I’m there to catch her. Internally, I curse to myself. This would have been the perfect opportunity to cast a bit of magic on her, save for two things. One, my hands are still bound together most effectively, making pretty much any magic all but impossible to do with any degree of subtlety. Two, if I fuck around here, if I interfere whatsoever, who’s to say Svanna will survive this? And I do need her alive… the Last Dragonborn has to stop Alduin. I know that much.
 
Of course, my Thalmor half might not agree entirely, but my human half’s conviction is enough to stay my hand for now. And so, I catch Svanna, so she doesn’t go tumbling down the stairs and possibly break her pretty neck, something she shoots a grateful look my way for, even as I give her a half-smile, half-grimace in return.
 
“See the inn? Jump through the roof and keep going! We’ll follow when we can!”
 
Ralof is right on time with his advice… and after a moment’s hesitation, Svanna takes it, leaping clear of the tower. I take it as well… I have to, there’s no choice in the matter. Follow after the Dragonborn or stick close to Ulfrida and Ralof. Tempting as it is, even knowing that Ulfrida escapes Helgen alive… I’d rather not put myself at the mercy of the prejudiced Stormcloaks when I’m a Mer. Just not smart.
 
And so, I leap, and thanks to my Thalmor training, land on the upper floor of the inn with little problem. Svanna looks a little surprised by my presence for a moment, but the moment is broken by another roar from the World-Eater, and then we’re up and running again, sprinting through Helgen. Hadvar is, of course, right where I expect him to be. For a moment, Svanna nearly jumps back at the bared sword in his hands. But then the Imperial’s face softens at the side of us.
 
“Still alive then, Prisoners? Stay close to me if you want to keep it that way!”
 
Svanna relaxes, and the two of us follow after Hadvar as he leads us through the burning town. There are a couple more encounters with Alduin, a couple more moments where I fear that that moment will be my last. There’s also a moment when we pass by Helgen’s closed gates, where General Tullius and the Imperial Archers are trying to mount a pitiful defense.
 
Elenwen and her Thalmor guards are nowhere to be seen though, and thankfully the General doesn’t try and stop us. After all, we’re no one special… not even dressed in Stormcloak colors either. And so Hadvar gets us through with ease and leads us towards the relative safety of the keep. When we pass by Ralof, there’s the usual banter, and I’m cautious, waiting to see which direction Svanna runs in. This is, after all, one of the earlier choices you can make in the game. Go with Ralof into the Keep or go with Hadvar into the keep. Either way, I wasn’t splitting up from the Dragonborn, that was for shit sure.
 
But whether she just doesn’t notice Ralof, or whether Hadvar’s willingness to get us away from the Dragon and even away from his own superiors swayed her, Svanna doesn’t even hesitate. She follows Hadvar, and I do the same, the three of us escaping past the doors and barring them shut behind us.
 
It’s not like the game though, I find. It doesn’t all of the sudden go quiet once we’re out of the open. The ground is still shaking with Alduin’s passing, and I can still hear his roars and the roaring of flames as well as the plaintive screams of the civilians trapped outside with him. As Hadvar steps forward, face drawn and solemn, I shiver a bit, knowing I’m far from out of the woods yet.
 
“Here, let me get your bindings.”
 
As he does so, starting with Svanna and then moving onto me, he nods his head to the weapons and armor racks behind him.
 
“Get some gear. You’ll need it if you’re to survive this.”

I don’t miss the grateful look that spreads across Svanna’s face. And honestly, it’s probably mirrored at least a little bit on mine. Hadvar might have been willing to follow orders and execute us a little bit ago, but at his heart, he was a decent man. And fuck off dragon attacks had a way of bringing out that good man, it would seem.
 
As Svanna gravitates towards Imperial Light Leather Armor, I move over as well, reaching out to grab something. Only, to my utter shock, to see the armor I’m reaching for disappear the moment I pick it up. Blinking stupidly, I hear a surprised noise from my left and glance over to see the nascent Dragonborn staring at my empty hands, even more surprised than I am.
 
With no other choice, I immediately try thinking ‘Menu’. And to my surprise and distinct pleasure… it works. The world around me abruptly grays out, everything stopping and coming to a standstill as I find myself staring at the game menu for Skyrim. Specifically, the compass that points towards Skills, Magic, Items, and Map.
 
The Thalmor would be baffled, but the human in me knows exactly what is happening, and its only further evidence that my human memories aren’t some strange mental illness, or a fabrication meant to trick and confuse me. This is real… but it’s also a video game, isn’t it? Heh, god this was exactly what I needed.
 
Moving my thoughts ‘up’, I select Skills and am immediately beset with information, as well as the constellations that represent each of my skills. My name is this world, which I’d already known, is Vayral. My Race is of course High Elf. But much more interesting is the fact that I’m apparently already Level Twenty-Five.
 
To be fair, the starting level makes sense… but doesn’t exactly fill me with overwhelming confidence even still. After all, the creatures in Skyrim, the video game at least, scaled with your character’s level. Did that mean we were about to be fighting Level Twenty-Five Stormcloaks? Was I going to get Svanna killed just by being around her? Was SHE already Level Twenty-Five, or had she started ‘the game’ at Level One like the normal Dragonborn Protagonist did?
 
These questions and more plagued me… but I was in no rush to get back to it. I had all the time in the world apparently, since I could freeze time whenever I wanted. Checking out my skills, I’m not surprised to find most of them are in the low twenties at best. Some are higher though. My Illusion Magic, for instance, is already at Seventy Five. And I’ve got all these Perks to spend thanks to being Level Twenty-Five…
 
I quickly take every Perk I can to make my Illusion Spells as powerful as possible. I especially like how several of them say they’re cumulative with the others, making them stronger and stronger. The Thalmor in me is amazed by this concept of… easy advancement through video game mechanics. After all, for him, or rather, for me, I earned my experience with Illusion Magic through sweat and tears over decades of hard work.
 
And now those decades of hard work would be backed up with some serious game bullshit it seemed, as I also went ahead and put my saved up points into Magicka and Health. I would probably need to stack Stamina eventually as well, because that was directly tied to inventory space, but for the time being, I just didn’t want to die… or run out of what I needed to cast spells.
 
Moving on from Skills to Items, I find the Imperial Armor in my inventory and equip it. Immediately, I feel the armor settle over my shoulders. The leathers aren’t uncomfortable… but it does feel weird to be wearing it, especially for my more… Thalmor sensibilities. We didn’t fight and win a war against the Empire, just to be wearing their colors, now did we? But then, the alternative would be to wear Stormcloak colors… so yeah, that shut up that part of me right quick.
 
Moving over to Map shows little more than the local area we’re in, but that’s to be expected. I quickly swap to Magic and look under Illusion. While I’m tempted to ‘equip’ Charm and use it on Hadvar and Svanna right here and now, my Thalmor memories tell me that that takes time to work properly and is best used for one on one experiences. No reason to alienate allies just yet.
 
And so, I equip Calm and Fear instead, before taking a deep breath and leaving the time stop I found myself in.
 
Even Hadvar lets out a yelp when I suddenly go from rags to wearing leather armor in the blink of an eye, and Svanna leaps back a little, eyes wide as if the little Nord is spooked. Giving them both a smile, keeping my hands at my sides and nonthreatening as possible, I just chuckle.
 
“Sorry… magic. I am an Altmer, after all…”
 
“… Right.”
 
Under his breath, Hadvar wonders what the hell I was doing with the Stormcloaks. Meanwhile, I quickly equip the rest of the leftover gear that Svanna doesn’t grab, noting how she still has to put everything on normally and carry her things on her. Which means… she doesn’t have the same game abilities as I do? She’s definitely the Dragonborn, I believe that with all my heart, but she’s not a Gamer. She’s a real person, who will soon find herself buckling under a destiny that might just be too big for her.
 
Svanna from Riften… just who was she really?
 
Well, one thing was for certain, I wanted her alive and healthy. And so, as we follow Hadvar deeper into the Keep, I use my Thalmor memories and experience to their fullest. My Calm spells do the work of pacifying any Stormcloaks we run into, allowing us to actually keep our hands clean, something Hadvar even looks grateful to me for.
 
Of course, eventually we run into a group of Stormcloaks too large for me to pacify all of them, and the ensuing fight requires a bit more finesse. I take an arrow to my shoulder at one point that… I don’t even feel it, not like I should, based on my Thalmor memories, but it knocks a chunk off of the red health bar that shows up in my vision, and that’s more than enough for me to panic cast Fear in that archer’s direction until Svanna is able to get to him and finish him off.
 
When we finally come to the bear, it might be the first time in my life that I take Hadvar’s advice. When he suggests we sneak past it, Svanna nods solemnly and drops into a crouch, and I do the same. I even get a level in Sneak while we creep on by, the Cave Bear never actually waking up. An odd experience, given I would normally pepper it with arrows from far enough away until it died… but I wasn’t willing to take the chance this time around.
 
Shortly after the bear encounter, we reach the end of the line. Coming out into daylight, we’re just in time to duck down as Alduin goes roaring high overhead and flies off into the distance. The World-Eater completely fails to notice us, of course, and thank fuck for that. I didn’t fancy our chances of taking him down in a straight fight, that was for sure.
 
In that moment, when Alduin is flying away from us, I open up my menu, freezing time again and checking the Map. Now that we’re out of the cave, it’s the World Map… and what I see there takes my breath away and fills me with excitement. Because its not the vanilla Skyrim World Map I see… no, it’s A Quality World Map, the World Map Mod I was using on my latest playthrough of Skyrim, before I somehow woke up here with memories of a life lived as a Thalmor.
 
And if this mod was installed… then that meant other mods I’d had installed were probably functioning in this world as well. And that could mean… that could mean everything. Because I wasn’t the type to play fair. I’d cheated my way through most of my Skyrim playthroughs, in fact. Especially after I found out about SexLab and all of Skyrim’s myriad of pornographic mods.
 
At that point, I’d just needed the levels to get to the points in the game where I wanted to get so I could set up or force certain sexual encounters. There’d been times when I’d simply used console commands, but no amount of thinking really hard opened up those. I might have had a gamer interface and even a gamer body, but I didn’t have access to console commands in this playthrough, unfortunately.
 
That was okay though, because if this was indeed my modded version of Skyrim, there was a barrel in Whiterun with everything I needed in it. But if this was also a living, breathing world… that barrel could be discovered and looted by some random fucker at any time. The thought fills me with as much dread as the thought of it being there fills me with hope.
 
… I needed to get to Whiterun on the double, no matter what. It was imperative. Literal god-like power depended on it, and that had even my Thalmor half VERY interested.
 
As I come out of the menu, Hadvar straightens up from his instinctive crouch and clears his throat.
 
“Right… if you care for it, my advice is for you two to keep your hands clean from here on out. Neither of you were on the list… so I don’t think the two of you are involved with the Stormcloaks, are you?”
 
Svanna and I mutely shake our heads, prompting a nod from Hadvar.
 
“Good. That’s… good. The Dragons being back… that’s bad. I’ve got family in Riverwood, if you want to head there. We can put you up for the night. But… people will need to be told that Helgen is gone. People need to know that a Dragon destroyed the entire town. You two, if it’s not too much trouble… will you spread the word?”
 
Seeing no reason to disagree, I just nod.
 
“I need to get to Whiterun anyways. I’ll tell the people there. Or maybe… we’ll tell the people there?”
 
I give Svanna a hopeful look, which causes the gorgeous red-haired Nord to blink in surprise. I’ve tried to be nothing but kind to her so far, to try and build something of a repertoire with the young woman I KNEW would become Dragonborn. And yet, still she hesitates, the adrenaline wearing off, and the NEED for us to work together finally fading away now that we’d escaped.
 
Before she can reply, Hadvar clears his throat.
 
“Right, well I’ll leave you two to discuss that amongst yourselves. The sun is setting soon, and I want to reach Riverwood by nightfall. If you don’t decide to stop in the town before heading to Whiterun, best of luck to you.”
 
And like that, the two of us are alone, Svanna fidgeting nervously and me watching her. In that moment, as Hadvar walks away and disappears around the bend… I know exactly what I have to do. It takes less than a second to ‘equip’ Charm Magic, and what would normally take minutes of preparations is ready in an instant as I raise my hand… and Charm the Dragonborn. Svanna stiffens, but I can see the magic taking hold, her lips parting but no words coming out as her eyes glaze over slightly. Smiling, I cock my head to the side and offer her my other hand in friendship.
 
“What do you say… friend?”
 
Nothing more than that. I’m not pushing for anything further. It takes time to truly worm your way into someone’s mind, even with Charm Magic. If I can have uninterrupted access to Svanna in the coming days, weeks, and months… I can make her into whatever I want her to be. But for now, all I need is her to want to be around me, to want to continue traveling with me.
 
I could just leave her here and head for Whiterun myself… but the roads of Skyrim are dangerous, and I know traveling with someone is infinitely safer than trying to go it alone. And what better traveling companion then the Dragonborn?
 
After a moment that feels far too long, but is only a second or two in truth, Svanna smiles broadly… and takes my hand in her own, giving me a nod.
 
“Sure, friend. Let’s travel together for a while longer.”
 
Holding in the sigh of relief, I begin walking down the road with Svanna at my side, Whiterun our destination. It was there I would find out whether or not I could become a god.

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