Chapter Text
When the Last Dragonborn was born, Akatosh was immediately concerned. The Last Dragonborn, the one destined to face his first born and determine the fate of all the mortal realms... was a hard-headed, Imperial woman… with little aptitude in magic.
Of course the race and gender of the Last Dragonborn was all random chance, per the agreement he'd made with Alduin... and Akatosh was not meant to help them... not directly at least.
Those were his own rules, and no one could argue with him if he chose to break them, but Akatosh preferred to keep his words. Aside from the soul of a dragon and the innate drive to seek her destiny, he was not supposed to help her...
But Akatosh could foresee every possible outcome... he knew this little Imperial could succeed against Alduin... but it was far more likely that she would fail. Her path to victory walked a razor's edge. One slip and all of Nirn would be consumed in fire and reborn with Alduin in charge, not him.
Akatosh rethought and considered his rules and agreements carefully... he had never agreed he wouldn't help or interfere... just that he wouldn't directly... there was a very specific path the Last Dragonborn's destiny needed to take... she just needed… guidance to keep to that path...
Akatosh watched and considered the best ways he could potentially supply said guidance...
He wasn't particularly confident in any of his options, until one day... when Sheogorath came to him with a suggestion...
Normally, Akatosh would never consider listening to a Daedra— especially not Sheogorath. The idea was as crazy and unorthodox as all of Sheogorath's tended to be... but... Akatosh had to admit, it might actually work...
***
Adelaide Broussard lived in a small town in southwest Louisiana... a very small town— almost too small to be considered a town, where at least half of the 'land' was more swamp than land. But it was at least a large enough town to have a church, a school, a convenience store, and a library.
Adelaide worked for the library. Which she enjoyed... most of the time. It could get horribly quiet and dull sometimes. Actually life in general could get horribly quiet sometimes... especially since she lived alone.
She spent most of her work days reading a book and then her evenings in her small portion of the duplexed old house on her computer. The most excitement her week usually entailed was going to the school every Wednesday to read books to the elementary kids, and then every Sunday to the small church that sat up on stilts over the cypress swamp.
She wished she could get onto someone's alligator hunting team, that could actually qualify as an adventure. But she was all of five feet tall, and was lucky if she could weigh in at a hundred pounds. It didn't matter that she had done a variety of martial arts back in high school, or that she was great with a shotgun, or that she could paddle and steer a pirogue and drive a motor boat. Nobody wanted someone small enough to be alligator-bait on their alligator hunting boat.
So despite her Creole heritage and knowing her way around the swamp, she had to make do with reading books and playing games on her computer in place of a real adventure.
Most of her peers would have laughed at her if they knew she was still playing Skyrim.
The game had been out since she graduated high school, but Adelaide didn't care. She had modded the graphics, and changed the difficulty levels, and played over and over again with new characters, all of which she imagined up different personalities and backstories for.
Beating Alduin on the highest difficulty without dying once had been a goal she'd been consciously working towards for over a year now. It still wasn't a real adventure, but it at least felt like an accomplishment.
She'd finally pulled it off with a female Imperial Dragonborn that she'd named Catia.
She liked playing Imperials just for the bonus to finding coins and valuable loot, and at this point she'd started so many new play-throughs, she usually just went with preset appearances and used an online name-generator for names, but that had worked out well with Catia.
Adelaide thought Catia was rather pretty— the name and the character— even though Catia's appearance was an almost complete contrast to her own.
Catia had straight, silky black hair with a fair-olive complexion, and blue eyes; while Adelaide had kinked, curly (usually frizzy) brown hair with a caramel complexion, and mostly brown hazel eyes. Not to mention Adelaide's broad nose and wide lips, were distinctly different from the sharp facial features of any Imperial.
But all the same, Adelaide liked Catia. She had imagined up a nice simple backstory this time, nothing elaborate or tragic, Catia was simply and Imperial who had always dreamed of adventures, and so she had come to Skyrim... which Adelaide could definitely relate to... Catia was stubborn, tough, and stronger than she looked, but still kind, and... usually friendly...
But more importantly, with Catia, Adelaide had managed to complete the Companions' quest line, several small side quests, and finally the main story quest line, on the game's hardest difficulty, without dying once.
After that Adelaide was uncertain if she wanted to try any of the other quests... she almost felt like she needed to retire. She'd spent several evenings of real time just having Catia build Heljarchen Hall and then moving all of her things from Jorrvaskr to the new manor.
She'd also gotten her married to Vilkas and adopted Sofie and Blaze too.
Most of Adelaide's characters married Vilkas and then adopted either Sofie and Blaze or Sofie and Lucia. She wished she could adopt all three of them, but she was yet to install any mods that would let her.
She liked the kids, but Vilkas was easily one of her favorite NPCs— definitely her favorite marriageable NPC. She liked the slightly more realisticness of seemingly having to win him over by completing the Companions' quest line and becoming the Harbinger before he was marriageable. And although gameplay didn't show it as much as she'd like, Adelaide really liked how he was described as intelligent, well-read, and well-spoken. And of course he made a very helpful follower. She'd almost always take him with her everywhere as soon as the game mechanics would let her.
This time, she decided she had to build the library in Heljarchen Hall for him and then go out of her way to collect every book she possibly could to stock it with.
She was in the middle of that project when hurricane season started. Not even a week later, they got the news that the first storm of the season was already brewing... and of course it was forecasted to head straight for Louisiana's western coast.
*
The mandatory evacuation order hadn't come as a surprise to Adelaide. What she hadn't expected was to be on her own for storm-proofing the library before she left. Fortunately all she needed to do was pack her evacuation bag and her desktop computer and monitor into her car, but the outermost bands of the storm had already made landfall by the time she got home to do so.
Her downstairs neighbors were already gone, so she at least wouldn't have distractions, but she didn't like cutting it this close.
She was hauling her computer down the stairs of her porch when the sheriff pulled up in front of the house.
"Addy! What're you still doin' here?" He yelled over the wind.
"I'm almost out," she shouted back.
She felt a little less nervous seeing he was still in town. Sheriff Theodore LeBlanc tended to treat the whole town like he was their older brother and was on a first-name basis with everyone.
"You got gas?" He asked, "Maurice's place's 'bout to close, he's headin' out!"
"Yeah, I filled up on the way home," she yelled in response as she set the computer in the back seat.
"Good! You goin' up to your parents'?"
"Yeah."
"A'ight, tell 'em I said hi an' drive safe," he nodded, still yelling to be heard, "now hurry up an' get goin', I'm 'a make one more drive around, I want you gone when I pass back by!"
"Will do, thanks Theo!"
"Take care Addy!"
And with that the sheriff drove on and Adelaide ran back upstairs to grab her monitor.
The wind was getting worrisome by the time she got it secured in the backseat as well. She ran back up the stairs to lock her door when she heard the loud crack in the cypress branches overhead.
She almost managed to duck in time...
She really must have been playing too much Skyrim recently, because the last thing that went through her mind before darkness took her, was that that branch looked remarkably like Sheogorath's Wabbajack.