Ulfric stood on the balcony of his palace, the stone walls of Windhelm just below, stained by the gathering darkness. Snow fell, dying with a whisper around him, like his dying rebellion.
Ulfric found himself thinking resentfully of the Empire, of those damned-to-Oblivion elves, and of the shield-brothers and sisters whose lives had been wasted on a quashed cause.
Even worse, he began to remember his forbidden romance with the legate. Oh, Talos, why? A tear, hot and salty with grief, welled in his eye. The Jarl remembered their shared childhood in Ivarstead, the bittersweet memories of chasing skeevers through the streets, of sharing sweetrolls near the old barrow and warming their hands on the tavern hearth fire.
Then they grew into adolescence; the girl had grown into a beautiful young woman, with wit as sharp as a glittering sword and a mind for strategy unmatched. It was near the old barrow that they lay, the night before he was due to join the Greybeards, when they had shared their first kiss. From that day forward, they vowed to never part.
But he had begin to see what the Empire was doing, from his elevated stance in High Hrothgar. Ulfric remembered the day Skyrim fell: the day the White-Gold Concordat was signed. He had watched as Legate Rikke betrayed him in the worst way.
Now, it had come to this. Ulfric remembered Legate Rikke knelt on the floor of Castle Dour, clutching her armoured chest, begging the Dragonborn for mercy. Ulfric hadn't been able to call him off in time, and she had died at the feet of her first love.
Ulfric stood on his balcony, imagining beautiful Legate Rikke in the mists of Sovngarde. He daren't let on to anyone how he had screamed internally when he saw the arrow fly into Rikke, the way she slumped at his feet. The future they could have had was gone.
All because of some Gods-forsaken war. All the time she was alive, the rebellion seemed worth something. Everything seemed like it was worth the loss of a few lives. It was all so futile; and it had taken the loss of his one true love to realise that.
Ulfric remembered what he wanted to do now.
"Talos guide me," he muttered. With a heavy heart, he fell into Sovngarde, where he could see the wonderful Rikke again, for eternity.