Disclaimer: I don't own Skyrim or A Song of Ice and Fire, I just like playing around with their characters. Credit goes where credit is due.

Summary: Colin didn't know who he pissed off, but he woke up cold and hungry in the middle of a snowy wasteland. Being the Dragonborn really sucked sometimes. [A Dragonborn appears Beyond the Wall story.]

Rating: Mature

Author's Note: This is exactly what it sounds like: the Dragonborn being shoved into Westeros. Now for a big thank you to my friend Igornerd who helped me write and polish this into something worth reading.

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Dragonborn in Westeros

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Chapter 1

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Colin Stormcrown

"Son of a—"

Colin jerked awake to a freezing wind. He yelped with discomfort as he squirmed to his feet and looked around with wild eyes, pulling his cloak tightly around himself in a desperate attempt to ward off the cold. It didn't work, and he swore as the winds howled and battered at his body.

There were no major landmarks as far as he could tell. No lighthouses or Mage's Colleges, no evil vampire fortresses. Not even roads or simple trails to follow. Just snow, ice, and lots of rocky hills. It was like a cross between the Reach and the Pale. What mountains he could see, he didn't recognize. They were strange to him. Too white, too lifeless. Even the skies were a solid grey with clouds and swirling snow.

"Where the hell am I?" he demanded to no-one in particular, shivering despite his Nordic blood. Divines, he hated the cold. What he wouldn't do for a warm bottle of mead right now.

Colin was one-hundred percent positive that he was supposed to be warm and lazing in his bed in Breezehome, stumbling drunk with a belly full of food and drink. Instead he was... wherever this was, cold and unpleasantly sober. Had someone drugged him? It had happened before, when that Dark Brotherhood assassin had kidnapped him and demanded he murder her prisoners as "compensation". And then there was that time he'd accidentally gotten into a drinking contest with Sanguine and ended up halfway across Skyrim with a lot of angry people after his hide. Colin didn't know who or what was responsible for this unwanted adventure, but they were smart not to show themselves. He probably would have killed them for this.

Knowing his luck, it was either a Divine or a Daedric Lord. But the Divines had a strict policy against interfering directly with mortal affairs whilst the Daedra (unfortunately) had no such restrictions, so it had to be one of them. Colin took a moment to review everyone he'd pissed off in the past three years.

There was a pulse at his waist, and Colin reached down and grasped the hilt of his sword, sagging with sigh of relief as Dawnbreaker sent a wave of warmth through his entire body. At least Meridia wasn't mad at him. After he was sure he wouldn't be freezing to death, he checked on the rest of his supplies. He was still wearing his leather armor, thank the Divines he'd been too drunk to take anything off. His purse of gold was still there on his belt, sixty or so septims jingling inside. His burlap knapsack was next to him, with a map, a small roasted rabbit joint, some deer jerky, a few leather straps, and most important of all some Blackbriar Honey Mead. Colin might have hated the family, but their mead was simply divine. With a cry of relief he grabbed the bottle and hugged it close before popping the cork and taking a large swig.

A pleasant warmth spread down his throat as the sweet nectar filled his belly. He burped, and with great reluctance replaced the cork. He didn't know how long it would be 'til he got his hands on another bottle, so he had to make this one last. He carefully placed everything back into his knapsack before standing and looking around. Just snow, ice, and a cold fucking wind.

He hated this place already.

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After two days of trudging through snow and ice, he was still lost.

The landscape hadn't changed at all and he still didn't recognize anything around him. Just unfamiliar mountains and lots of snow. Way too much snow. Even Skyrim wasn't this bad, except for the far north, and only in winter! Where the hell was he?!

Fucking Daedra with their fucking boredom and their fucking "Quests".

Grumbling murderously to himself, he leaned back against a rough black boulder that stuck out in the white landscape like a sore thumb, groaning as he took pressure off of his cold feet. If he wasn't a Nord, he would have been frozen by yesterday. If he didn't have Dawnbreaker, he wouldn't have stood a chance at all. The bitter chill that preceded frostbite was already nipping at his toes and fingers. New snow wasn't falling, thank the Divines for their small mercies, but the wind was whipping up whatever was on the ground already in a blizzard-like effect.

Shouting the wind away wasn't working, much to Colin's displeasure. The air would settle for a minute or two before another gust would drift by his face, almost mocking him, and then the winds would rise again in earnest. There was just something more... wild about the skies here. And frankly, his throat was getting sore, so he had to limit his attempts to get rid of the accursed wind. Sometimes he could see for miles and miles over pristine, sparkling tundra, but more often than not he couldn't see two feet in front of his face.

He was sorely tempted to simply Whirlwind Sprint his way across this godforsaken frozen wasteland, but there was danger in using the Shout when he didn't know the landscape. Rocks hid under the snows, as did pitfalls and cliff drops. Best case scenario, he'd just trip and maybe break something. Worst case, he'd fall to his death before he had the chance to turn himself ethereal.

The cold was sapping at his strength and warmth nearly as fast as Dawnbreaker was giving it. He'd had to resort to carefully breathing fire at the ground and heating himself over cherry-red rocks, but it annoyed him that he had to do it so often. He was almost out of food and drink despite rationing it, he hadn't seen an animal this entire time, there weren't even any trees to burn, and he was still completely lost. Colin tried his best not to dwell on his misfortune, but it was really hard not to! He had to keep moving, had to find food and shelter if he wanted to survive.

The third day dragged on as Colin forged through ankle-high snow, and just before the sun disappeared over the horizon he saw it.

Smoke.

A thin, dark pillar trailing in the sky.

At this point Colin didn't care if he was walking towards friend or foe. He was walking towards fire and warmth and if the Divines were kind at least one bottle of mead. The sun vanished and night overtook day, but Colin didn't stop, steadily making his way towards the tiny speck of light in the distance. Dawnbreaker pulsed in his hands, as if encouraging him not to give up.

When he was about two-hundred yards away, he saw figures in the distance outlined by the small fire. They were standing up, pointing at him and waving weapons, yelling words he was too far away to hear. Colin grunted and kept moving forward despite the obvious warnings. Either they would share their fire or he would make them share. After three days of wintery hell he wasn't in the mood to argue.

When he was close enough to see the people's faces, he stopped and tensed. They were all pale-skinned Nords, but they were dressed in furs with crude iron weapons, bearing neither the sigil of the Empire nor the Stormcloaks. In Skyrim, poor people—armed poor people—camped out in the godforsaken wilderness usually meant one thing. Of all the rotten luck, the first fire he saw belonged to bandits?

Why, Nocturnal?! Why?!

Had he offended her lately? He couldn't remember.

It wasn't like he couldn't take the bandits—he could, probably with both hands tied behind his back—but he was in no mood to fight. He was cold, he was hungry, he was tired, and he just wanted to eat and sleep.

As Colin walked toward them, one of the men stepped forward: a red-haired giant with a truly magnificent beard, easily a full head taller than him. Colin didn't consider himself short by any means, this man was just huge, with large beefy arms and a chest to rival even Farkas back at home. The bandit snarled and rose his axe threateningly. "Come on, then! You are not getting any closer without a fight!"

Colin stopped where he was and frowned, gripping Dawnbreaker under his cloak and relaxing as the sword sent a comforting pulse of warmth through his arm. "Friends, I am cold, hungry, and tired. I only ask to share the warmth of your fire before I freeze to death. I'm no threat to you unless you force me to be."

The bandits exchanged looks, and Colin wondered if they were planning to kill him.

"Don't trust him, Tormund!" one of the women shouted, another redhead, this time aiming a bow straight at his chest. Colin was reasonably confident he could use a Shout to get out of the way or get rid of the arrow, but he really didn't want to take that chance. "He's not one of us!"

Colin raised an eyebrow. These people were a bit too jumpy for his liking. If he let down his guard around them, they just might stab him in the back and slit his throat for good measure. No, better to stay on his toes here.

The giant man, Tormund, hesitated and then lowered his axe before calling out to the archer woman. "He's not a wight, Ygritte. But if we don't share our fire he's sure to become one."

At that the people, thirteen in all, began to lower their weapons. Except for Ygritte.

"What's a wight?" Colin asked, doing his best to ignore the crazy woman who wanted to kill him. Was it some new kind of undead? He'd seen draugr aplenty along with his fair share of reanimated corpses and enough vampires too last a lifetime, and even a few ghosts here and there, but he didn't know what wights were.

The question earned him strange looks, including a suspicious glare from Ygritte who still hadn't lowered her bow. "How do I know the he's not just trying to trick us?" she loudly demanded to Tormund.

Tormund ignored Ygritte's question and turned back to him. "Who are you, stranger? What are you doing alone in the tundra?"

Colin was about to answer when one of the women fell to her knees with a startled cry, a spear sprouting from her chest. She reached up and tried to grabbed the shaft, but she lost her strength and fell over on her side. She died with her face frozen in pain and her eyes wide open. Blood pooled around her, staining the snow a bright arterial red.

The men and women stared at their fallen comrade in shock, frozen for a few seconds before a second spear hit the ground right next to Ygritte's feet, jolting her out of her daze. "Wights!" she screamed, and everyone just ran, completely ignoring Colin (apparently deciding he was less of a threat) as they raced past him, not even bothering to explain. He stared at their rapidly vanishing forms before turning back to the campsite, where the dead woman's body was still bleeding all over the ground.

Even if he wanted to run, he couldn't. He was too tired, too cold, and weariness seeped into his very bones. If he tried, he wouldn't be fast enough, and even if he was fast enough he'd pass out from exhaustion and hunger and freeze to death shortly after. Whatever was coming, Colin had to face it head-on. Stendarr's bones, what he wouldn't do for a warm bed right now.

Gritting his teeth against a chill that seemed more sinister than normal, Colin drew Dawnbreaker and held it out in front of him, guiding his path with the sword's enchanted sunlight. On instinct he ducked, slipping out of his knapsack and allowing it to drop to the ground, and a spear whistled through the air where his head had been a second earlier. Colin turned and saw a skeleton pulling a rusty knife out of a rotting leather belt, and he charged it without hesitation. The skeleton brought its knife up to block, but Dawnbreaker didn't care. She carved through the crude iron blade like it was paper, making her way to the bone where her very touch burned and destroyed. A single swipe rendered the skeleton a smoking pile of ash with a cloven knife on top.

Colin heard screeching behind him, and he whirled around with a snarl to see... Arkay preserve him, hundreds. Hundreds of the undead, just standing there. Staring at him. Some were skeletons, nothing but bones holding blades. Some had skin draped over their bones like an ill-fitting coat. Others were more freshly dead, with flesh and skin and eyes that glowed a terrible shade of blue.

Colin could feel the dragon in his soul rear up in response to the threat, seizing control and honing his senses. His exhaustion fell away, ignored or cast aside, it didn't matter. New strength rushed through his limbs. Dawnbreaker flared aggressively in his hand at the sight of so many undead, and his dragon blood sang a battle hymn in his head.

"Tiid!"

His soul gripped time itself and squeezed, forcing reality to submit to the blood of Akatosh. The world slowed around him. The dead were charging him, but they were about as fast as a stone dropped through water. Colin, thanks to his status as Dovahkiin, had no such disadvantage. He rushed forward, his accelerated mind registering the dead's delayed reactions as he charged with a savage roar and cut through them like wheat.

Most swords would have gotten stuck in the cold, dead flesh, maybe even cracked after hitting bone so many times, but Dawnbreaker wasn't just any sword—she was perfection, crafted by the hand of a Daedric Lord as a symbol of her power. She was the purging flame of Meridia's wrath, the light of a new day forged into a weapon unlike any other.

And with her in his hands, Colin was unstoppable, mowing through his enemy like a demon. With each slash, a walking corpse burst into flames and collapsed into piles of ash. The undead—wights, the bandits had called them—tried to rush him all at once. They were faster than he expected, moving over the snow and ice like they weighed nothing, but Colin was in the midst of a Shout. He was a whirlwind, spinning out of the way of their strikes while cutting them down in the same movement. Their swords were either blocked or missed entirely. Their spears thrust into empty air or were thrown into other wights. They tried to surround him, but he wouldn't let them, relentlessly exploiting the weak spots in their formation, taking advantage of the fiery discharges Dawnbreaker expelled to ward them off.

Inevitably, the Shout wore off, and time shook away his control as it resumed its usual pace.

If he was at his best he could have easily decimated them all, but he wasn't. He was hungry, cold, and tired. Three days lost in the snowy wasteland with not enough to eat had taken their toll. He noticed it when he was too slow to entirely avoid the swipe of one of the swords, earning himself a shallow cut on his left side. He growled, then lashed out with Dawnbreaker, watching as the skeleton burned into ash before quickly moving on to the next enemy.

Further into the battle, a second wight managed to sneak up on him and stab him in the left shoulder with a rusty dagger. White-hot pain flashed through his mind, then he snarled and lopped the thing's head off. The headless body stood for a few seconds before it fell to its knees and keeled over, burning all the while from Dawnbreaker's enchanted fire.

Colin swayed on his feet, clutching the dagger still buried in his left shoulder, but he didn't pull it out. He didn't have the time to cast a healing spell on himself, and if he took it out while he was still fighting he'd bleed out in less than a minute. He'd have to wait until he got away.

Then he felt it—the deep cold.

He'd heard legends about such a thing, the kind of cold that killed off all life and had forced the ancestors of the Nords away from the frozen shores of Atmora. It chilled him to the bone, ignoring even the warmth of Dawnbreaker and drew from him a pained cry. His movements slowed and for a brief moment he feared that the undead would take advantage, but as he spun around he saw that they were giving him a wide berth, surrounding him but carefully not coming in range. There were less than half of them now, the others mere ash against the snow. But Colin didn't let his guard down and stood at the ready, Dawnbreaker raised in silent aggression, cleansing light pulsating from her guard.

The ranks of the corpses parted, and out stepped... Colin didn't know what it was. It was tall and pale, with defined noble features and long white hair, and the same terrible shade of blue eyes that he'd seen in some of the fresher corpses. It was unclothed save for a loincloth, and in its hand it carried a blade that looked like it had been carved from some special glowing ice. It raised its sword at him, opened its mouth, and screeched, and Colin thought his ears would burst from the awful noise. It slithered around his ears—cracking ice, shifting glaciers, and the howl of a frozen wind all at once.

For a fleeting moment, he was frightened.

And the dragon deep within him was enraged at the thought.

Like the memory of a dream, the wisdom of Paarthurnax echoed in the corners of his mind.

It is change given form, power at its most primal.

Colin inhaled deeply, tasting the cold wintery air.

What will you spare?

If he'd been looking at himself, he would have seen the back of his throat glow a bright cherry red.

What will you burn?

"Yol!"

His Thu'um erupted from his maw in a brilliant stream of power, and his world was swallowed by dragonflame. The crackling of fire and screams of the dead filled his ears, and the heat of the Shout warmed his body even as it devastated everything it touched.

When the Shout had run its course, everything was shrouded with steam and smoke. Stray winds cleared the air, and Colin saw the ground was smoking and charred, and the rocky surface that had been buried beneath the snow was uncovered and glowing bright red with heat. The blue-eyed ice demon stood there alone, staring at him with an open mouth and wide eyes. For a hundred yards behind it, the wights had been reduced to nothing but ash that was quickly being blown away.

Colin couldn't help but be impressed that this monster had managed to withstand the flames, but he could see steam rising from little cracks in its skin, almost like boiling water trapped inside ice. The monster looked down and touched one of the cracks in horrified fascination. It was dying, Colin realized. Then the thing fixed him with a gaze of pure hatred, wailed, and shattered, breaking down in a pile of melting and boiling ice shards until nothing remained.

The action reminded him of Ice Wraiths, although the Wraiths just melted when they were killed. Did this mean it was dead? Probably, even if he'd never seen it happen before.

Colin was so distracted by the sight that he almost didn't hear the whistling of a sword. He darted forward with a strangled yelp, barely avoiding the ice blade of the second monster that had snuck up behind him. He whirled around and it screeched at him, and Colin wanted to cover his ears as fear crept up his throat. He'd killed one of them already, but there was something plain unnerving about these things.

Then it charged with an astonishing speed that rivaled even Master Vampires, and Colin barely managed to block with Dawnbreaker, his injured shoulder screaming with protest at the motion. Their blades chimed like bells as they clashed, and the thing screeched again before shoving him away with unholy strength and raising its sword high above its head. Colin rolled out of the way of the first strike, the brought his sword up to block the second, and he couldn't help but hiss. Just being near it was like fighting someone with a Frost Cloak, except it was worse. The cold was sapping at his strength, numbing his limbs and making it hard to move.

Their blades clashed again and again, fire against ice, neither gaining the upper hand. They were caught in a deadlock, both refusing to give ground, and Colin saw it up close. If there had been a fusion of sorts with a draugr and dremora, created with power over ice and snow, this was probably what they would have looked like. But this was no simple dremora, and it certainly wasn't a draugr. This felt more sinister than either, the battle hymn in his blood far more urgent.

Snarling, Colin allowed heat to build up in the back of his throat before unleashing it in an explosive Shout.

"Yol!"

To Colin's horror, he missed, and his dragonfire sailed out into the crowd of undead instead of the creature he was facing. The monster had apparently realized what he was doing and jumped out of the way at the last possible second. It faced him with a screech and advanced, light and limber on the snow. Colin could instantly tell that this one was a lot more cautious than the last one had been.

Fucking cold, fucking necromantic ice demons, fuck fuck fuck—

Dawnbreaker flared without warning and the monster recoiled, shielding its eyes with an ear-splitting screech.

I love you, Meridia!

Colin ducked under the creature's blind swing and lunged, stabbing it through the chest. When it screamed, its features distorted with pain, Colin could feel something warm and wet dribbling out of his ears. Such a tortured sound, as if its very soul was burning. Knowing Meridia's religious hatred of the undead, it probably was.

He watched the light in its eyes slowly fade. And then it exploded, much like most undead unfortunate enough to have a taste of Dawnbreaker, but the scale was far larger than usual. From the center of the monster's chest where Dawnbreaker was still buried rose a fire, blue and yellow and full of vengeance. It erupted from the creature's body, tearing it apart in the process, completely ignoring Colin as it spread out in a ripple of pure destruction. As it passed over him, he felt warm and safe, like he was back home in Whiterun in the Bannered Mare, sitting with his friends and drinking himself stupid.

Well done, my Champion, he heard Meridia whisper in his mind. There was no mistaking her voice, womanly and dripping with power.

The wave of cleansing flames went past him and rushed out over the land, burning through the ranks of the dead, leaving none but the living unscathed. In an instant it was over, and Colin was surrounded by a field of ash and abandoned weapons. He looked around, and when he saw nothing else in the snow, he swayed on his feet and collapsed bonelessly, darkness clouding his vision.