My “Destiny” series is a group of Skyrim novelizations that have been in the works since early 2016. I have always been enchanted by the Elder Scrolls series but, especially with Skyrim, have been frustrated with how it tells its stories and sometimes buries it’s rich lore.
What started out as a run of Skyrim with a new character just to play the Dark Brotherhood questiline has turned into three separate stories, two of which I have defeated the dreaded NaNoWriMo challenge with. I’ve written 200,000+ words, done several pieces of art works, playlists, character redesigns and hours of research, staying true to the essence of the Elder Scrolls and it’s lore, while tweaking what just wasn’t fleshed out enough for my tastes.

The first, chronologically, in the series is “Destiny”, the story of a young thief named Mallorie finding out that, despite a life of difficulties and hardships, less than favorable means of making a living and a lack of faith in the Divines, she is Dragonborn, a legendary being with the blood and soul of a dragon inside a mortal body. This realization comes just in time for Alduin the World Eater, first of the Dragons and as close to divinity as any dragon could hope for, to return to devastate Skyrim, and in turn, the whole world. Crushed by her own insecurities and grappling with what being Dragonborn means for her as a person and what it’s doing to her body, Mallorie struggles to find her place in a prophecy she is certain didn’t have her in mind.

Whiel I don’t know that I’ll ever feel it’s “complete”, you can read it on A03

Click Here To Read

I’ve become very intentional with Mallorie’s design over the years, and especially so with what she wears. In the art above, you can see how she develops over the course of “Destiny”. First in the plain dress of someone who’s trying to keep her head down. She wears the dress throughout the story, keeping it past where most would have gotten something new. She has no money, no friends, just the clothes on her back. Even after she gets weapons and armor, either from the fort in Helgen or from actually having the money to buy some, the dress stays. She has the one pair of boots from her thieving days; at one point she had the money to get good boots, and she intends to wear them until they are beyond functional. Those are her boots. The party dress is not dissimilar to her servant dress, plain, just nice enough to fit in, but not flashy enough to draw attention. She hopes no one notices the boots, and even when it’s time to get to work, she doesn’t want to rip the dress, its the nicest one she’s ever had, so she tucks it out of the way.

“Sanctuary”, Chronologically the second, the first I began to write and possibly the least finished of the three existing projects.

    With all the rage and brutality and power of every dragon soul she has absorbed, all the trauma and ache of saving the world and all the pain of having to pretend serious damage hasn’t been done to her mental well-being, Mallorie is struggling to fit back into normal life. When a childhood abuser’s continuing tactics are brought to her attention, she crosses a line she can’t come back from; cold blooded murder.
She’s caught the interest of Tamriel’s most lethal group of assassins, and with the promise of family and sanctuary and the first sign of relief for the mind numbing amount of barely contained aggression, Mallorie joins their ranks, hoping tentatively for a place in the world.
Despite her recent recruitment, Mallorie finds herself named Listener by The Night Mother, the spiritual matriarch of the Dark Brotherhood, and that means she’s the leader now, according to tradition long since abandoned by Astrid, the current head of the Brotherhood.
Suddenly torn between her loyalty to Astrid and her promise of family, and the Night Mother, not to be ignored on principal, with her keeper, Cicero, who Mallorie can’t decide weather she dislikes or not, Mallorie has to decide what to stand up for.

Despite the murder cult, this ends up being a story of growth for Mallorie, a reveal of the damage that has been done from having almost no support both during and after the threat of Alduin, and the unhealed trauma of her childhood. It shows her moving past this to become someone who can balance all aspects of who, and what, she is.

Mallorie’s wardrobe is a little less…homeless person in this one, though you can see she’s still got the same boots. On her day to day, she’s dressed pretty plainly, still dark, muted colors, practicality over aesthetic. Her hair is still a mess, still barely keeping it out of the way. The dress she wears to the Stormcloak dinner at the beginning is her playing nice. She is not on good terms with Jarl Ulfric, so she wear Stormcloak colors, but it’s thick, heavy fabrics to keep warm; she remembers being cold in the dress she wore to the Thalmor Embassy. Her Dark Brotherhood armor is hand-me-downs. Individual pieces that are easily adjusted versus the gear you see in-game (hate it, looks difficult to get into, isn’t flattering, one size is does not fit all when it comes to a leather unitard thank you VERY much). Her armor at the end, a gift from the Night Mother, IS made her her, fitted pieces, stark black instead of faded, practical and flattering, she’s comfortable and confident in it, a metaphor, a symbol for her role; she’s earned it, it’s hers. (I also forgot to draw her boots but it’s fine)

Half of “Sanctuary“ is written from Cicero’s perspective, and he was harder to write for than Mallorie was.
His characterization suffers somewhat in Skyrim from some serious abelism; a deep misunderstanding of mental illness, or perhaps just…not enough time to get into it. All you get is this weird guy who talks funny and sings and dances and then you read his journal and it just isn’t really enough to get us from point A to point B.
I go into some of his history more, the effects of his long isolation with the Night Mother, how that has manifested in his current behavior, how coping with the loss of not only one but two families resulted in a fixation so complete he can barely relate to who he was before. We talk about how he feels the Falkreath sanctuary feels like something so far gone from what the Dark Brotherhood is supposed to be that even being there feels like a wedge between him and the Night Mother, the only thing that has been keeping him afloat all those long years.
We talk about how he sees Mallorie, the frustration of this brand new girl taking a role he’d felt he’d deserved, only to watch her refuse to own up to it, to skirt around the edges of her responsibility, bending to the will of someone who has no loyalty to the Night Mother, and it isn’t until he takes a moment to learn about her that he understands her priorities and see the reason behind them.

The third and most recent installment in this series, I surprised myself when I started writing this from Serana’s perspective instead of Mallorie’s. After thinking more about it, I realized this was another bone to pick with the game; the Dawnguard DLC, while very much a story about Serana, suffers somewhat from having to keep the dragonborn as the main character.

After the machinations of her cunning parents have left her locked underground for centuries, Serana awakens to find that her father has thrown caution and the usual vampire anonymity to the wind and aims to fulfill an ancient prophecy; blot out the sun so that vampires may live unhindered as the overlords of mortals.
Despite her questionable upbringing, the daughter of two followers of Molag Bal, the Daedric Prince of Domination and Brutality, the three of them becoming vampires in a long forgotten age by a ritual she can barely stomach thinking about, Serana immediately sets out to stop her father with the help of the unusual young woman, “Anya” who found her underground, despite her alliance with a group of vampire hunters.
Serana struggles with her family, stuck untangling centuries of emotional neglect, the cost of trying to keep both her mother and father’s favor as they opposed each other and deciding where her own values stand, and despite the support of her new friend, her gentle honesty and steadfast courage, Anya’s secrets build a wall that may be the difference in Serana having the strength to defy her father or giving up her very life to prove her worth to him.

It was a very interesting experience writing about Mallorie from a totally new perspective. While half of “Sanctuary” is told from Cicero’s perspective, I don’t get the option of switching back to Mallorie to fill in the gaps of Serana’s perspective, and this means I have to deal with Serana, and maybe even the reader, getting the wrong idea of Mallorie’s behavior sometimes.
Despite this, I knew writing from Serana’s POV was the right choice; Mallorie had already had her healing journey and there was nothing Serana could teach her about being her own person that she hadn’t learned on her own. Instead, Mallorie is to Serana what Cicero was to her in “Sanctuary“, the support figure. Mallorie does not need saving, and her quick bond with Serana has her fighting for her without even thinking about it.
Of all of the questlines I’ve written for this series, this one was the hardest to turn into a functional novel, and as such there were some changes made so that there was less fetch questing, less running around for no reason except to draw things out. After all that trimming, I realized i wasn’t sure if I had enough for 50,000 words in the first draft, and I ended up having to go out and expand on things more than I would have in the midst of NaNoWriMo

I’m not entirely sure what my goals are with this series. They will almost definitely end up on AO3 or something similar when (if?) I ever feel they’re all ready. I’ve had a few very wonderful friends give encouraging feedback and helpful suggestions, and despite my own insecurities, I truly feel I’ve written something special here, with the added bonus of being able to make my own artwork for it. I know Elder Scrolls has cannonized some outside novels, but I don’t know if that’s applicable given the changes I’ve made or if that team would have any interest in what could be seen as a very VERY elaborate fanfiction.

Currently, I’m planning on taking what I have and making something new. I’ve been revamping and changing characters, designing new gods, new magic. The heavy inspiration from TES will be obvious to those familiar, but I refuse to simply file off the serials.

I do know that working on this has been a point of pride for me, I never considered myself a writer until i was 70k words into “Sanctuary“, and now I’ve defeated NaNoWriMo twice! Cicero and Serana have been given a lot of love as well, and I like to think I’ve done them justice.

Despite my complaints, I do truly love the Elder Scrolls series, and I have been deeply inspired by it. Writing this out is a chance to take it further, the spend more time on something that may not have been given as much as it needed because of the medium in which it exists, and fully realize it in a why that scratches and itch for not only myself, but hopefully others some day.

Fun Links
Mallorie’s Tumblr Tag
Mallorie’s Art Tag
Cicero’s Tumblr Tag
Serana’s Tumblr Tag
Mallorie/Cicero Ship Tag
Mallorie’s Moodboard
Cicero’s Playlist
Serana’s Playlist