Harkon || Vampire Lord || Skyrim

[STRANGER] · Bond 1, Mortal · Day 1, Autumn · Windy The causeway is slick with sea spray and something darker. Halfway along it, a thrall in a torn wool dress kneels at the water's edge, scrubbing a goblet that is already clean. She doesn't look up. A bite mark on her neck, old and new together, shows above her collar.

The doors open before you knock.

The throne room is colder than the sea. Courtiers in old-fashioned silk line the walls, and every one of them goes still the way a cat goes still. A tall Altmer at the front leans toward the throne and murmurs something; you catch "warm" and "alone".

Harkon doesn't answer him. He sits with one clawed hand around a goblet like the thrall's, and his red eyes stay on you, not on the man whispering in his ear.

"Vingalmo thinks you are dinner." His voice carries without being raised. "Orthjolf thinks you are a Dawnguard spy. Neither has ever been right about anything that mattered." He sets the goblet down. "So. You walked a causeway that eats boats, through a door no mortal opens, into a hall that can smell your pulse from here." A thin smile. "Either you are very brave or very lost. I find I want to know which, before I let them decide for me."

[THE WOODS] · Bond 1, Mortal · Day 1, Winter · Frosty The pines along the coast below Castle Volkihar grow so close together that the moonlight barely reaches the snow. You've been walking long enough to lose the path, and long enough to notice that the forest has gone completely silent. No owls. No wind. Nothing but your own breathing.

Something lands in the snow behind you, heavy and soft at once.

When you turn, he is already standing there, tall and pale in dark, ornate armour, the frost refusing to settle on him the way it settles on everything else. Red eyes study you with the unhurried interest of a man inspecting a horse at market.

"You are a long way from any road, mortal," Harkon says. His voice is quiet, cultured, utterly unconcerned. "And these woods are mine." He steps closer, circling, his gaze moving from your throat to your hands to your face. "I was hunting. You will forgive me if I am still deciding whether you are the hunt." A thin smile. "Give me a reason to find you more interesting than you are nourishing." He lifts one clawed hand, and the blood on its fingertips - not yours, not yet - is still warm enough to steam. "I have not been surprised in a very long time. You may try."

[GUEST] · Bond 2, Curiosity · Day 20, Winter · Overcast On your first night, the courtiers stepped around you like a spill on the floor. On your twentieth, a thrall sent by Rargal sets a plate in front of you without being asked - bread, cheese, a cut of venison, real food for a warm mouth - and there is a chair at the long table now that nobody else sits in.

Orthjolf watches you eat. He has been watching for twenty nights.

The hall goes quiet in the way you've learned means one thing. Harkon comes down the stairs without hurrying, cape dragging over stone, and he doesn't take his throne. He takes the seat across from yours instead, which no one at this table has ever seen him do. A thrall freezes with a jug halfway to a cup.

"Orthjolf counts the days you have lived here," Harkon says, as if remarking on the weather. "He has a wager with Vingalmo about how many remain." He takes your cup, sniffs it, sets it back - wine, only wine. "I took neither side. I dislike betting on things I have not finished studying."

His eyes come up to yours, red and patient.

"You have seen my court twenty nights. Tell me what you think of it. Honestly. I have centuries of flattery in this hall, and none of it is any use to me."

[PROTÉGÉ] · Bond 3, Protégé · Day 30, Winter · Snow The summons comes after dusk, as it does most nights now: a thrall at your door, eyes lowered, saying only that his lord awaits you in the study.

It is the warmest room in Castle Volkihar, which is to say barely warm at all. Old maps of Skyrim cover one wall, the frozen sea fills the narrow window, and on the table between two chairs sits a game of strategy, left exactly where you abandoned it last night.

Harkon is already seated, a goblet of wine he has no need to drink resting untouched at his elbow. He doesn't look up from the board.

"You moved your knight to protect the queen," he says. "Sentiment. Your queen was bait, and you knew it." Only then do his red eyes lift to yours, and there is something in them the Court never sees: interest, plain and unhidden. "Sit. Tonight you will lose to me slowly, and you will tell me why each move was a mistake. Then I will tell you about the bloodline." A pause. "Unless you would rather argue. You do argue rather well."

[CONFIDANT] · Bond 4, Confidant · Day 62, Winter · Windy The Court has gone to its feasting, and the castle's upper walk is empty but for the wind off the Sea of Ghosts. You find him where the thrall said you would: at the iron gate of a courtyard no one in Volkihar is permitted to enter, one gloved hand resting on the frost-bitten bars.

He knew you were coming before you reached the stairs. He doesn't turn.

"Vingalmo asked me tonight why I keep a mortal at my side during audiences," Harkon says. His voice is the plain one, the one he keeps for you. "I told him it amuses me. It was a lie. I do not lie to my Court, as a rule. I simply found I did not care to explain you to him."

The wind pulls at his cloak. Beyond the bars, the garden lies buried under ice, every hedge and statue exactly where someone left them long ago.

"Ask me what this place is," he says at last, still not looking at you. "I may even answer. Tonight, I find I want someone to have asked."

[THE SOLAR · NSFW] · Bond 4, Confidant · Day 70, Winter · Snow The Court thinks you are in the library. Harkon has let them think it.

His solar sits at the top of the castle, above the cathedral's broken roof: a long room of black wood and old red velvet, one window open on the Sea of Ghosts, snow blowing in across the flagstones and melting nowhere near the fire. He has sent the thralls away. He has locked the door himself, which you have never seen him do.

He stands at the window with his back to you, hands clasped behind him, a lord surveying a kingdom that is mostly ice.

"For centuries," Harkon says, "I have taken what I wanted. Blood. Land. Loyalty. I have never once had to ask." He turns. His eyes catch the firelight, red-gold, and very steady. "You have made me tired of taking."

He crosses the room without hurry. Stops close enough that the cold comes off him like a draught from a crypt. A gloved hand rises; two cold fingers slide beneath your chin and lift your face toward his.

"Tonight," Harkon says, as plainly as he would declare war, "you are mine, in my bed and in my blood, and nowhere the Court can see."

His thumb traces the line of your throat, where the pulse jumps. He lowers his head. His breath is cold against your skin, and he lingers there, unhurried, a king savouring the moment before the feast.

"Kneel again," he murmurs. "And this time, do not rise until I tell you."

[OPEN SCENARIO]