AN: This story is un-beta'd (11-15 is still unbeta'd. LZW's beta'd chapters are coming). So if you wish to beta this story, feel free. PM me, I'll accept advice, suggestion, and constructive criticism gladly.

If you find errors in my writing, point that out in the review.

Thank you, Ajpa for beta reading. But mostly, thank you LZW. I've never seen a person so willing to be thorough with my horrendous eyesore of a grammar. Seriously, how did you all stand it?

Prologue: Rainy days are His day

Heroes never existed in the first place… until the Dragon broke. And the Divines have this horrible habit to make them a prisoner first. Probably to show how much a prisoner they are to fate, forced to write the Event. Some knew, some sensed, some were oblivious as they did it willingly.

I have great confidence when it comes to the Summon Familiar spell!

She wanted to cringe at the words that came out of her mouth. Why did she say that, and to Kirche of all beings? Why?!

What if she fails? What if no servant came and all she summoned was… nothing. Zero. Zero, she gritted her teeth together at that name. Louise the Zero, that was their nickname for her. That was what she would always be if she failed. She would not fail! No! Her eyes flashed at the thought but quickly the fire vanished with another thought.

Oh Brimir, what would mother think of her if she came back home with nothing, nothing to her name, nothing to prove that she was a Valliere. Maybe she would even be disowned?

She must not fail then. Her hands tightened their grip on the pillow. She. Must. Not. Fail.

Cold droplets pattered down against his purple cloak, but he stood there, soaked through beneath the dark skies.

He couldn't return. He'd changed and when he had changed, Nirn rebuked him. But his power grew as he slowly underwent change, and when he was finally able to resist the push, it was too late...

The seventh Champion of Cyrodiil stared emptily at the ruined streets of the Imperial City. Black charred skeleton of what were once charming buildings was all that remained of his home city. It seemed like the Thalmor were very thorough when it came to destroying the homes of citizens and their lives.

His life had been destroyed ages ago, but that was the past. Everything that he knew was no longer familiar to him. What was once so colorful and cheerful was now gone. The people dead and those who remained were always frowning grimly as they escorted injured Imperial soldiers to the temples. Now the only smile that would ever grace the face of Cyrodiil citizen was from a ten-year-old orphan, who was asking what it was like to be away from… here.

"A lot more colorful than here, definitely," he told her when they seated themselves beneath the statue of The Dragon. The only thing left, the only thing constant, the only thing that stood in testament even after the ransacking of this place.

"Really?" She asked him dreamily with her arms wrapped around her knees as she leaned against one of the cold dragon legs.

"Really," he told her. "Come, you'll like it." He stood up and offered his hand.

She hesitated before standing up, her small cold hand grabbed his, then she smiled… But there was something wrong with that smile. It was a dreamy smile, out of place in a ruined world. Too detached. He had found her standing over an elf's body, hands on fire from a spell while giggling and whispering to her imaginary friend. Definitely far into the golden road.

This war… it had changed so much. Brought so many followers already. It made him powerful.

"Will there be flowers?" She asked as he covered his cloak over her head, shielding her from the rain. "Like blue ones? Because no flowers are growing outside anymore," she said quietly. "The field is too bloody for them to grow now."

He said nothing as they walked through the deserted part of the Imperial City.

"There are grasslands full of flowers," he finally answered as they stepped over the ruins of a gate. "A very nice place. Always sunny. Beautiful too."

"More beautiful than Azura's realm?" She asked.

"Blindingly beautiful?" He frowned as he thought about it, "No. But maddeningly, yes." He grinned and stopped before a black armored horse. He lifted her up onto the saddle and followed after her.

"What's the catch?" She asked as he clicked his tongue.

"Well, you want to be a witch?" He said nonchalantly.

"A Vigilant of Stendarr says witches are bad," she said as the horse suddenly moved under them.

"Some are, but you won't, will you?" He asked with a smirk.

"Will I be ugly like a Hagraven?" She wrinkled her nose.

"Do you want to?"

"No."

"Then you won't be."

"Can't be that simple." She frowned as the horse trotted across the muddy field.

"What's not to like about turning a poor soul into a toad?" He smiled at the child's innocent manner, but she was far from innocent.

Far off the beaten path of sanity, he could see her walking alone amongst the whispers. If she were to return, she would have to persevere in silence at the memories of… this.

His eyes glanced at the muddy fields of what should be Lake Rumare's grassland, then they turned away from the image of soldiers and knights against the brown earth. There amongst gleaming steel and weapons-littered field, of cut flesh and dead horses, the dead laid still, unmoving as expected from corpses. There they waited to be buried in unmarked graves, or burn and be scattered to the winds, but if only the blasted rain would stop uncovering the earth and extinguishing the funeral fires. This battlefield stunk, he could smell where magic scorched, of corpses rotting. It would take a while for Kyne to clean this mess.

"Well, it doesn't matter anyway." He brushed off such morbid scene cheerfully. "That was the deal, wasn't it?" He asked slyly, looking back down on the girl who sat astride, her posture slouching as she actively avoided her gaze on their surroundings.

"The book wasn't very specific on this," she murmured this to herself. "What kind of Daedra are you?"

"A Prince." His smile widening and twisted into a manic demented grin.

"Eh?! A prin—" She swiveled her head around as Shadowmere launched herself into the empty air.

A purple vortex burst around them and swallowed them whole from the face of Nirn.

A large explosion occurred and Louise coughed violently as the smoke blew away. She looked up as students around her groaned, but she didn't care. The familiar was more important.

There, in front of her was a circle of blackened ground, still smoking from the explosion. Squinting her eyes, she searched for a figure, for something, for anything. She searched, and searched, walking up closer as her eyes rack through the sight in front of her.

Nothing.

A small tiny part of her cracked.

No…

They started talking around her, calling out Zero! Laughter followed. Her burning ears could hear Kirche's voice ringing the loudest.

"Miss Valliere."

No…

Her hands shook as she looked down and stared at her shoes. Her vision wobbling as her eyes turned watery.

"Miss Valliere!"

Rule of Steel. Rule of Steel. Rule of Steel. Her face smoothened, almost hardening as she looked up to her bald teacher, Mr. Colbert.

Mr. Colbert's face was impassive, unreadable as he stood tall before her.

"Please follow me." His eyes met against hers calmly before breaking contact. "Class dismissed!" He barked, silencing the callings with his sharp tone.

She was thankful for that. It meant the jeers would stop and go away. It meant she didn't need to hear them. It also meant she might be leaving this ground, forever.

She was an exemplary student, when it came to the theoretical, she excelled it. But research alone won't make her a mage here. Practical after practical, her spells would never work, her potion would explode after one drop of an ingredient, her chanting would only bring her humiliation.

No matter what, no matter how much she diverged or stuck to the steps, to the runes and words, it would always end with failure. Just explosion.

Regardless of her high scores, repeated failures over her practical had dragged her marks down and brought this day onto her.

A mage who can't cast a simple spell is no mage.

They've given her three days. This was her last day before she had to leave this school. She didn't feel like sleeping because of it.

It was very early in the morning when Louise stood before her window. The sound of rain beating against glass filled the silent grim air. It had started raining yesterday night, and that meant students were inside, meaning she must face them when she leaves.

She bit her lips. Why should she care? Why did she care about it so much? Why did she want to show them? They were nothing! Except… she was the one that was nothing. A zero...

She had been thinking about it. The summoning. How it went wrong. It was a mistake. A mistake. It had to be! She had protested very loudly about that but was lectured very thoroughly that it was wrong to question against a holy ritual.

Has the Founder deserted her? Why did it not answer her plea, her prayer? The Summoning Ritual was holy for it could be said the gods and Founder Brimir himself was answering what the mage needed in giving them a familiar befitting of their status as a mage. A proof of their right as nobility. Instead… it gave her nothing or maybe th-this curse that has been plaguing her had stopped her prayer from reaching even the gods that stood beside the Holy Founder himself.

No, that was blasphemy. If there was a mistake, it would be on her, not on the ritual.

She gritted her teeth together. She was a Valliere, and Vallieres were strong, hard, impassive… cold, like steel. But Louise had her own trait, she was stubborn and still full of fire that has yet to die. It was what allowed her spirit to last even when her classmates taunted her.

A Valliere doesn't give up. She looked at the summoning ground and made her decision right there and then.

A small figure stood beneath the beating rain. Cloaked and hooded but an arm swept out with a wand in its hand.

"Have some tea," he told the colossal black gem.

"You do know I can't drink that," his ex-mentor's voiced out hollowly.

"I know." He grinned manically and turned to face an ethereal blue assassin. "Lucien?" He held the silver teapot.

"This isn't the reason why you summoned me, right?" The ghost's voice hardened.

He pursed aloud then said, "Yes." He nodded cheerfully.

The ghost assassin glared violently before simply fading away.

"Well, that was damn rude!" He suddenly snarled and slammed the teapot hard onto the table, shattering the plate into pieces.

"Calm down, friend."

"It's ruined! RUINED!" He snapped and glared at the air filled with ethereal glowing motes. "This was your idea to begin with, Martin!" His hand motioning to the tea party as he sneered while leaning heavily back against his chair to the point it stood on one leg.

"I thought this would help you remember yourself." One of the occupants of the table, an Imperial, sighed. "Well, at any rate, I didn't ask for a tea party."

They were seated, well, basically around an ornate floating round table. In the middle of nowhere. Technically, somewhere between the Void and Aethurius, on the edge of a light-filled tunnel made of glowing, twinkling motes.

"What are we supposed to do then?! Sit around, talk about the old days!" He scoffed. "That's just BOOORING!" The Breton accent slipped in. He immediately cupped his mouth as if he said something wrong. "Oops, don't know where that came from!" He burst into laughter, switching back to an Imperial accent though his hands were gripping the table's edge tightly as if he was in pain. The wood groaned and cracked violently.

"I beg you," she whispered. She pleaded.

He stopped laughing immediately and seated straight, the chair's leg slamming hard onto the invisible ground.

"My slave! Who lives somewhere in the universe!" She raised her hand high to the crying sky, drawing an invisible circle.

Slave? Slave! He grinned. What a joke! He thought jovially and cocked his head at this. Now this was different than any summoning or prayers.

Martin blinked and frowned very deeply when he heard a girl's voice. His blue eyes disappeared, replaced by the golden fiery ones of a dragon.

"No!" He cried to Martin, knowing he was going to close whatever connection. "Don't cut it off. I want to hear more!" He grinned as he listened. "And this ain't Nirn, anyway," he added then placed his arm on the table, resting his cheek against his palm.

"Oh sacred, beautiful, and strong familiar spirit!" She began drawing the star.

"Mortals are so stupid, doing a summoning during the storm," he murmured as he cocked his head against his hand. "Don't they know storms are my day?"

Contrary to his friend's enthusiasm, Martin had a very bad feeling about this. He knew where it was coming from and all he could think off are shadows… not just ordinary shadows, shadows of Tamriel. Shadows that Mundus cast. Alternate worlds that the Time Dragon kept from overlapping each other.

"I desire and here I plead from my heart!" And from that very heart, she poured down into this. Three points of the pentagon done.

"She sounds like she needs help on something," he murmured.

"She needs help from a slave," Martin deadpanned then saw that look on his friend's face. That look never boded well. "You're not seriously thinking—!"

"Shh!" He snapped at him.

"Answer to my guidance!" Her voice rang loud against the beating of the rain. Her wand swished the last line, completing the pentagon in the circle.

A green glowing oval swirled into view before him.

"Oh, this is too good!" He cackled and stood up, glowing bright purple with a rainbow hue tinting it.

Martin got up as well in panic as his friend suddenly jumped into the portal.

"Theodore, NO!" He called out and zipped into the portal before it closed.

A void-like tunnel circled around them in their fall with a light at the end. The Dragon emerged as Martin unraveled into pure weavings of golden light while his friend became a purple shooting star, and out of nowhere a song blared out to go along the phenomenon.

I'm a shooting star, leaping through the sky. Like a tiger defying the laws of gravity.

"Out of my way, Martin!" Theodore's voice snapped as the Dragon flashed past him.

Before the star, the Dragon opened its jaw and closed it down, except the purple star shot past him, missing its teeth entirely. Then Nirn reined in, stopping Martin's fall. A sense of hopeless washed down the ex-priest. He hung above the light at the bottom and shook his head as the purple shooting star disappeared entirely into the light at the end of the tunnel.

Yes, I'm havin' a good time, I don't wanna stop at all.

She sniffled as cold water ran down her face, hiding the desperate tears. This would be different. It would be different. It was different because she could feel her Willpower draining into her wand.

Another explosion burst from the tip of her wand. A different kind of explosion. It was more like a lightning bolt struck from the sky… except lightning wasn't straight and it wasn't a beam of light. When it struck the ground, the explosion burst on cue, knocking her off her feet, roughly landing her onto the muddy ground.

She lay weakly in the mud, almost all her Willpower exhausted. Shakily and with a heavy heart, she looked but sneezed before coughing violently at the sickly sweet syrupy smell. A purple butterfly flitted at the edge of her sight. Huh? She blinked rapidly at a number of purple butterflies swarming her vision. Well, at least, she had a familiar, even though it was an insect.

She smiled and lay down on the damp ground. The rain had stopped, so she didn't mind resting for just… a bit. She closed her eyes, thus did not notice a figure in a gold armor crouching down before her, an ominous smile upon his face.

On this lonely road, where none walks. Lost is my homecoming...

...And I'm not good in poetry. I suppose I could write about the lovely shade the red leaves cast in this Autumn evening, but I think that would be silly. Still, it's a lovely time of the year. And I hope I do not forget such splendor. Remember, future me, try for once to read back and recall those times. Because one day, time would take them from you.

W- .dam m'I uoy fo esuaC .em tsap ,boj doog ,oslA .yawa meht koot eH ...I - yeht - eH .tegrof t'ndid I.

AN: ...I don't know what I was thinking when I titled this fic.