As usual, you feel the beast before you see it. A silent noise in your head makes you turn around, long before you can hear the flapping of its wings. As always, you wonder if it's just your imagination or an actual sound, but you quickly dismiss the thought. You have to focus.
Suddenly it is there, above your head, rushing dangerously low over the rooftops. Suddenly the guard who has just talked to the girl is gone, swooped up by jaws that could easily bite him in half. Suddenly the air is full of the screams of humans or animals, it's hard to tell. They always sound the same when they are in panic.
Arrows fly through the air. Most of them do not find its target, but some do. Although a lot of them bounce off the scales, a few manage to pierce the wings, tearing the delicate skin between the bones.
It falls, crashes on the ground all of a sudden. Dirt fills the air, veiling the scenery. You cough desperately to get the earth out of your lungs while you run towards the stunned beast. It has no chance against the guards and warriors who use the opportunity to kill it. Axes and swords shatter the scales and cut deep in the soft flesh underneath to the hard bones.
And then it is over. From one moment to the other, the terrible enemy has become a heap of broken things. Dead. Harmless.
All of you stand there, panting, the bloodied weapons slowly slipping from the relaxing fingers. Exhaustion overwhelms you. You are tired, although the fight has been short.
Suddenly you feel wetness on your cheek. Rain falls, cleans the blood from you. It's not a storm. The sky is full of pale grey clouds with no defined shape, like a worn-out blanket. The small drops of water fall straight down. You welcome it. It's pleasant and nearly warm.
Slowly, the realization hits the people around you. They begin to cheer and to dance around the dead thing. Children dare each other to touch the mud-brown scales. Healers tend the wounded. Families wail over the corpses of their beloved ones.
You turn your face to the skies once more, close your eyes and enjoy the water. Your grandfather has told you a proverb once: Skyrim weeps for her children.
The dragon or you?
Because it nearly always starts to rain after I've slayed a dragon.