"My friend, is this the path you truly wish to take?"
Jarl Balgruff was a gruff man not prone to emotions, but even he for once managed to sound a little sad as he questioned the young man standing before him on the northernmost shores of Skyrim that led to the vast ice laden sea that few dared sail.
Friend was not a word the Jarl of Whiterun used lightly, but if anyone had earned it, Jarel the Wanderer deserved that title. A no name peasant caught up in the events between warring nations churned out a hero few would associate with the young lad that had stumbled into Whiterun's Keep two years ago. But every hero started somewhere, and rare were the ones who came from wealthy homes and prestigious bloodlines.
Jarel had vanquished the dragon problems that had plagued their wintry isles, freed Skyrim by helping force the Imperial occupiers out of their snowbound lands when he had joined the war effort, and earned the admiration of any true Nord.
But perhaps that sudden reputation was what had driven the young man's sudden decision to seek his fortune's elsewhere. Having lived a simple life before all this, Jarel was unused to the fame and recognition that came with his deeds. Some men spent their lives futilely chasing deeds that would have their names sung around every tavern hearth, but not the most famous man in Skyrim ironically.
"It was a journey I meant to take for many years, but I never had the chance nor the means."
Soft were the dragonborn's reply, a habit he had picked up after he attained the voice of dragons. Even the slightest of emotions could turn simple words into unfathomable power when spoken by one who possessed the gift of dragon song in their veins.
The Greybeards spent a life in solitude to master control over their voices, and even they were bound to vows of silence despite a lifetime of experience. The fact the lad could speak normally at all was a miracle that could only be attributed to a natural aptitude for mastering a dragon's power.
"There is not much further north of here lad, what is it you hope to find?" asked Jarel curiously.
Skyrim was the furthest north of any civilization recognized by the empire, only wild tribes and the odd hermit dared live beyond the icy realm of the Nords. There were no official maps of the ice bound lands further than Skyrim, the few who dared navigate those treacherous waters did so from experience and a willingness to trust their fates to the whim of the gods.
Green eyes looked up at the older man, a serene gaze that the Jarl knew could harden and burn with the madness of battle rage in but an exhaled breath. The young man sometimes seemed to exhibit two separate personalities, the quiet, shy unassuming lad who often looked awkward in the heavy eldritch armor he wore. But when necessary, it was impossible to mistake him for anything but the deadly dragonborn warrior the Norse had been singing songs about for centuries.
Though not a large man by comparison to most Northerners, Jarel had a gaze and presence that made him seem almost larger than life. More than one fight had been quelled simply by a flare from those savage gold tinted eyes. Even the bravest of men were simply animals that had learned to speak and dress in clothes, and an animal always knew when it was in the presence of a predator greater than itself.
"I never told anyone this, but I am not from these lands," Jarel said with a frown.
"Well you certainly seem to share more Imperial features than Norse," commented Balgruff with a laugh.
And indeed Jarel did, with his slightly shorter height, wiry frame and dull brown hair; he was hardly what most expected when picturing the hero of the Norseman who had freed Skyrim from the clutches of tyranny.
"Aye, that be true," chuckled Jarel. "My mother, the woman who raised me always told me that she had found me as a babe, wrapped up in a shawl in the woods near a dead dragon. She kept the shawl and showed it to me when I was older. There were symbols, perhaps words. All with no meaning I could ever decipher, but doubtless originating from my homelands."
"So you will journey into the unknown to find people that might understand them?" questioned the Jarl.
It seemed a foolhardy quest, but then again the lad had done the impossible before. If anyone could pull it off, perhaps it might be Jarel.
"No, that would be stupid at best," laughed the warrior, unknowingly echoing his friend's earlier unspoken thought. "Nay, I spoke with a trader by the name of Johann, a sailor of the northern waters who recognizes the text. I already have a heading, perhaps half a month's journey if the waters prove tame."
"And what will you do when you arrive at your homeland?" Balgruff asked curiously.
"I will see if I might still have family. The trader told me that it is not a large society further north, small tribes and villages. Surely someone will remember tales of a babe lost to a dragon in decades past."
The Jarl nodded and reached out a hand which the young man immediately clasped without hesitation. Decades spanned between the two men, but theirs was a friendship forged in the fires of war, a bond only warriors who had shed blood side by side could achieve.
"May the gods watch over you in your journey my young friend. Know that Whiterun will always welcome its hero no matter how much time has passed, and my hearth will always have a seat for you or any of your kin."
With that, the older man stepped back to his entourage of bodyguards, allowing others to step forward and say what could be their final goodbyes.
Jarel could feel his arms going numb from the amount of forearms he had clasped, but the smile on his face was genuine. Growing up as a simple farm boy who had cut wood for extra coin and hunted to help supplement his family's stores of food, he had never dreamed that one day he would stand up to the oldest dragon in the world and help turn the tides of battle against an empire that spanned half the known world.
Yet here he was, saying goodbye to the many friends and comrades he had never thought he would have had as a simple farmer. Fate had a strange way of turning aside the plans of simple men, most ending in tragedy. Jarel counted himself to be the lucky few who had stumbled into a life greater than expected, even if he hadn't been entirely willing at the beginning.
Finally, only one remained, his dark haired housecarl that had been more than just a companion to him. His heart ached as he took in the downtrodden form of Lydia, the woman who had had his back throughout all his journeys in Skyrim. Almost a decade his elder, she had at first been a bodyguard, then become a confident and close friend with time and finally in the last moments before war broke out, his lover.
Neither regretted their brief intimacy, but both knew deep down that their paths would lead them elsewhere. They had enjoyed what little time they had together, their burning passion perhaps driven by the knowledge that it could not be forever.
"Watch yourself out their Jarel, I won't be there to guard your back anymore," teased Lydia with a sad smile. "You never were very good at keeping awareness when the battles got too large farm boy."
The young hero reciprocated with a tired smile of his own. "You could come with me Lydia, plenty of space on my ship for both of us."
"Plenty of room in the cabin bunk too I wager," the dark haired woman laughed with a twinkle in her eye.
Jarel could not help but blush. Yes, the thought had crossed his mind. A month long journey at sea with no one to disturb them and plenty of time to explore the more carnal needs of the body. What red blooded male could avoid such fantasies?
"But my loyalty was sworn to Balgruff and Whiterun," she continued sadly. "My honor holds me here."
"Aye, that I know," Jarel acknowledged solemnly.
She reached her hand forward, forgoing the kiss that they had come to share as greeting and farewell. A heavy melancholy pulled at Jarel's heart as he clasped her forearm. A part of him had hoped that she might come with him, that they might continue their journey together. But such was life, paths came together and paths parted. Lydia knew the road she walked; he was still searching for his.
"Come back some day," she said as she turned away to hide the unshed tears that had sprung in her eyes. "Come back and bring me tales of lands far away."
"Aye, that I will," he promised halfheartedly.
They both knew that promise was unlikely to be fulfilled, but there was nothing more that could be said.
With that, the last of the Norseman left their hero alone to his final preparations. They would not stay past the farewell, for superstitious belief said that a ship that left berth with friends and family watching was one doomed never to return.
And so Jarel's new journey began, alone on a single small ship stocked with enough provisions to last a long lonely journey and crudely hand drawn chart that promised him answers. Leaving behind title and fame, the young man braved the unknown waters to seek his past further north, unknowing that his fortunes were once more about to turn.
For the people of Skyrim, so ended the tale of the mighty Dovahkiin, a hero of the commoners who stood up in their time of need and stepped down when his duty was fulfilled. In time his story would become murky with retelling as all legends were destined to be lost to the mists of time, the handful who personally knew him passing on to Sovngarde wondering if they would meet him there.
Yet the story of Jarel the Wanderer had only begun. The saga of his early years in Skyrim was the first chapter in a long book that would one day span the breadth of the world.