Stars and Reprises

{A/N: My cat is my queen, I can barely type with how she has claimed my wrist as her headrest.}

Ilinalta's Deep was the fortress endangered by water yet untouched by it. The gang had to pass Riverwood once more and had to cross to the other side of Lake Ilinalta from the guardian stones to reach a fort that had slid off the shore from some kind of water-induced landslide and into the lake. On the shore overlooking two towers, one still standing upright while half-submerged, and the other tilted 45 degrees into the water with a hatch door in the top of it, our heroes stood.

"Ladies, I'm about to get you both wet. Please forgive me for the future-oof" Tonilia elbowed him in the side and whispered about how she already gets wet with him every night.

"Tonilia should be used to it already if the walls of every inn we stay at have something to say about it." Alera groaned wistfully while Tonilia smirked and nudged her instead, asking if she were jealous.

Yuri was guilty as charged, there was a reason he never put up wards when Toni got a hankering for it and Toni was in on it. Alera should've begun to wonder about how he makes her yell so loud.

"Ow!" Alera yelped and ran forward a bit to run away from the ankle attacker, a mudcrab that had crawled ashore. Veins popped in her forehead and she cleaved it in half before the slash continued on to gouge four more feet in the earth.

"Haha, alright let's move on to get this bastard." And Yuri jumped onto the tilted tower before opening the hatch and letting the girls climb inside like a gentleman. He followed shortly and they were given a downward slope view of the broken tower. Water ran down the walls and pooled at the bottom of the stream, walls that used to be on the side of the tower they stood on made for bumpy ground, and a skeleton hung in crucifixion in the middle of the shallow pool in warning.

"Is this supposed to scare us?" Toni asked and Alera chuckled. They had already killed three more dragons in their travels, and plenty of bandits who only saw two beautiful women and a 'pretty boy milk drinker'.

"Well let's use their warning and make it their nightmare." Yuri stepped forward and unbound the skeleton before catching it in Shadow magic and animating it in the red light of necromancy. A very lively black skeleton with glowing red eyes and obsidian armor much like the Shadow of War but smoother and a bit less cool was made. "I dub thee Jesus Junior! Onward to take your revenge!"

And the crucified man had risen, walking on water without issue thanks to his boots. The gang followed him through the tunnel and found more waterfalls.

"Wait, Junior!" And he cast earth magic to slowly but surely create earth stairs leading to the balcony above the waterfall, essentially skipping 75% of the fortress. He led them to a door that doubled as the mouth of the cobbled waterfall and found two necromancers in an altar room.

"Go, Junior!" And he sicked him on them.

"Who are you!" "Death comes for you!" Were their lines before the skeleton reach the Novices and lifted one by the gut with his sword. The living colleague tried to resurrect the dead one to fight for him, but Junior was quicker! He too was impaled while an ice spell bounced off the skeleton harmlessly.

"Are we just going to let Junior do all the work?" Asked Alera. "As long as he survives!" Said Yuri.

Junior tore through all the necromancers and lesser skeletons in their path as they went through dungeons and submerged stone pathways, reaching the Master Necromancer in the main tower that was still upright for the most part. When the final boss was defeated, Junior was dispelled as his bones vaporized under the pressure of Shadow magic. They climbed the spiral stairs on the inside of the tower and reached the top, where Malyn Varen's skeleton sat on a dinky chair with the star on his chest.

"That looks pretty broken." Alera commented.

"Now we bring it to that Nelecar guy and he'll cut it off from the influence of Azura."

"How did you know all this, Yuri? Do you have foresight like that follower of Azura?" Alera asked.

"...That follower and I do have some similarities. But the rest is privileged information," Yuri hinted at her and grinned while he opened the hatch above the tower and got out.

"And who are the privileged to get that information?" Alera followed him out.

"Those I trust, like Tonilia."

"You mean those you sleep with." Alera teased Toni behind her.

"I mean those who are ready to live with me for the rest of their very long lives," Yuri said in all seriousness. Alera was stunned, but glad he took what he needed to seriously.

Yuri opened another portal to the Frozen Hearth and found Nelecar once more, who was given the opportunity to find out that he was accosted by the Lightbringer himself by patrons who recognized Yuri.

"So the Lightbringer returns. I told you what you wanted to know, what else could you want?"

But Toni who had been playing with it had slapped Azura's star on the table to show a surprised Nelecar.

"Maybe this is my chance to make things right, the way Malyn intended." He wished.

After some exposition about what the Black Star would entail, Nelecar examined the star in his room while muttering, "These fissures and cracks aren't encouraging."

Nelecar used soul magic to investigate the star before coming to a conclusion. Malyn had succeeded in putting himself in the star, but needed to be fed souls while he was inside to sustain it. The star couldn't be fixed while Malyn was still inside.

"You want to put my soul in that thing to put him out of his misery, don't you." Yuri quipped.

"...Yes. Souls are only allowed in, not out. As long as he lives in there... You would be perfectly safe when you are ready to return, I assure you!"

"Let me do it." Toni offered. Yuri's soul likely couldn't be tampered with and she didn't want to risk the Dragonborn.

Alera was about to interject when Yuri interrupted. "No one needs to dive in there alone. I only came back to let you repair the star, Nelecar. Let me pull his soul out."

"But the barriers-"

Yuri raised his hand and it took on a purple glow, the star lifted up and the gem embedded into the center gained a vortex of purple light that encircled it, "Were made by a lesser mage." Yuri answered. The room reverberated with a hollow-sounding echo of ghostly wind that spread to the dining area, causing all patrons to flee.

"NELECAR! WHAT ARE YOU-" The bar owner came out, but was interrupted by a horrible wailing sound from Malyn and fled himself when he saw a ghostly head grimacing at him.

Malyn's soul was pulled out by his head like the day he was born, and he screamed quite similarly as well. "This is my realm! I have defied the Daedra! You cannot beat me!" Okay, maybe not.

Yuri gave one more tug and Malyn's whole body floated in its blue and transparent visage as he thrashed around with a horrified expression.

"Let go of me! I had achieved immortality and you ruined it! How dare-"

"Let go? As you wish," And he released his hand. From Malyn's feet, he began to dematerialize into specks and realized his poor choice of words.

"My god..." Nelecar uttered as he watched Malyn die.

"Some kind of immortality, he put himself in a lifeless prison out of fear," Tonilia added.

Alera said nothing. The display was already enough, she killed beasts and bandits, these types of situations were best left to her mysterious companions.

"You can fix it now, right?" Nelecar nodded dumbly and fixed the star under the scrutinous gaze of Yuri.

"Congratulations, you've altered the fate of a Daedric artifact and lived." He said as he handed the finished product to him.

Yuri palmed the Black Star, a black starfish-shaped item with eight curving spokes segmented in purple rings, with another purple gem in the center body. Yuri felt it with his own soul magic, and like intended it was only capable of storing Black Souls, and an incredible amount of them. This was no longer a Daedric Artifact, but a work of enchantment designed atop one. It was Yuri's ballpark now, he could recreate and alter this with his own theoretical applications of enchanting, souls, and runes to apply to a soul above Black grade like Alduin's or create one with more space. Maybe this would be the backbone to his own Philosopher's Stone?

{A/N: *wink wink*}

Yuri handed a pouch of 500 Septims to Nelecar for the troubles and sent him on his merry way before turning to his band.

"Yuri..." Alera looked apprehensive about having such a thing around. "You aren't gonna store all the people you can get your hands on in there, are you? Nelecar said Malyn got corrupted from the thing." Tonilia seemed unconcerned about the possibility.

"I'll confirm what he said already, Alera. This thing is no longer Daedric, and even if it was I would've been immune. Plus, you know me. Have I ever killed an innocent?"

Alera shook her head. She did indeed know Yuri. He is protective of her rights and personal space but never lets her miss a challenge or a chance to improve herself. He is kind, calm, confident, considerate, and has a strong sense of justice while giving concrete reasoning for anything that might have been deemed a sin otherwise. He has changed Alera's mind on multiple topics, but never pressed the issue if they still disagreed.

'That was silly of me. Any enemy of Yuri's definitely deserved it or was prepared to die.'

The gang decided to return to Whiterun to start working with the bones and scales that the dragons left behind when they died in the Skyforge and equip the Companions to start bringing dragon materials home.

The Companions were glad to see them again, Eorlund especially when they brought more dragon material and started working in full stride. Apparently they were recently attacked by the Silver Hand while they were away, but no casualties we caused and the Silver Hand were killed quickly thanks to Yuri's endorsement.

Yuri let the floodgates open and the Companions without Vulcan-make were given Blades armor and weapons enchanted for dragon-slaying while Yuri convinced Kodlak to take up the profession to gain more glory and dragon materials. It was a new age for the companions.

When Yuri brought out the Vulthuryol for the first time since he had killed him in Blackreach, his soul fled his body, and Alera, who was at the Skyforge and didn't get the memo, was confused about where the soul came from for a second. He now made plans to make and give a few of the circle their own Traveler's Grimoire specifically for dragon corpses to get Alera dragon souls at a passive rate.

Scales started adorning Alera and Tonilia's equipment, but they refused to use bone or scale in their weapons which wouldn't make them sharper, lighter, or more durable than Yuri could already do. Alera's upside-down horn helmet was replaced with the classic light armor dragon horned helm and Yuri managed to use ink and alteration to get Tonilia's set to be black. She refused the helmet, however. Yuri added a soul entrapment enchantment to every sword the trio used so that he could siphon black souls from their kills into the starfish on his waist.

With a little word of mouth, the Companions started to kill dragons repeatedly in mere days. Eventually, an emergency summons was made to them about a dragon attack at Kynesgrove. Yuri perked up at this immediately.

"Come on," He directed the girls. "We aren't missing this one."

And with a portal they were off. Yuri watched as the enemy once scorned flew over their head with a roar and landed on the dragon burial mound on the hill behind the town.

"He seems back up and running," Alera spat.

"Alera, you've got some experience under your belt. I'll get your back, so let's not let Alduin run away without a fight and take two dragons down at once." Yuri offered while they ran at incredible speeds, reaching the mound that Alduin flew over in mere seconds.

{A/N: I'm still planning on doing a small set of chapters on the main Dragonborn DLC quests after Alduin's defeat for the Black Books and Apocrypha which was interesting, but I do not want to cover Dawnguard at all. Auriel's Bow? Elder Scrolls that lead to Auriel's Bow? Nah. If you guys want me to go to Castle Volkihar to fuck shit up only, I am more than willing to, though. Pace will start to speed up occasionally to cover things that don't need to be expounded upon, I deffo do not want to be in Nirn much longer than 80 or so chapters but if you guys don't mind it then let me know and I can do more here.}