As soon as the shout left his foe’s lips, Miraak was struck by a horrible sense of panic. He could have bolted, attempted to avoid it, but no– he was rooted to the spot, standing frozen and taking the full force of the shout.
At first, he resisted, but for only a moment. Then, he tried valiantly to fight it off. But his will tired, and as he fought against the shout’s power to the point of exhaustion, he relinquished his own will. He felt as though he had resisted for hours, and yet that all took place within the first two seconds of being struck, the aura having barely faded when he regained his footing, gaze drifting over to his opponent.
All at once, he felt as though a weight had lifted from his shoulders, as though his eyes had opened. He took two steps before lowering himself to his knees, head bent, a universal gesture of submission, that which he had assumed when, long ago, when he was not yet even a fully-fledged sonaak, he had been brought before Alduin, and discovered that he was dovahkiin. And now he knew. Now he understood. He had been deceived by Hermaeus Mora. His power was great, but it was not for his own– his power was meant to serve those more powerful than he. So it had been then, so it was now.
Miraak remained kneeling as his foe spoke, and then responded. His voice had lost its arrogance, taking a soft, calm tone. The bitterness, the anger, were gone as well. “Hi los onik, Thuri. Dii minne lost vul. Kogaan wah hi, hi drey bex niin, ahrk nu zu'u dreh koraav. ”*
He did not feel angered by the scathing criticism, only humbled– in his enthralled mind it was truth, and yet he still protested. “Zun reyvak naalein los vothni kod,**” he murmured. “And yet, if it is wielded by one who knows how to use it, it has great value. ”Hi kod zu'u. Zu'u los aar hin.***“
** Ω;; Hermaeus Mora birthed himself from the central muck pond--coalesced from a tower of intertwining tentacles and eyeballs. He showered Alexus with platitudes befitting of a Daedric Prince of his calibre; to his chagrin, Alexus had heard them dozens of times before.
The real prize knelt before him as a draconic soul bound to human cartilage. Miraak was his ultimate conquest--a rival doomed to come in last his entire life as a mighty enforcer until the throne was (once again) occupied. Rested his hand on Miraak’s pauldron.
Alexus siphoned off what knowledge was necessary from Mora’s BLACK BOOKS and sequestered them to an ornate chest never to be seen in his lifetime. By skimming WAKING DREAMS he was able to tear himself and his new hand from Apocrypha the final time. They spawned square in the center of Skaal Village looking worse for wear. This was one small step in the overarching plan to Alexus’s Dynasty to sew the Empire back together.
His power waxed in Mundus, and he felt whole again; the power of Akatosh functions at its apex within the confines of TIME. Though, the same could be said of Miraak (whose origins are parallel). Alexus surmises this at the last possible minute and has upwards of a second to prepare for round two.
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