This arose because I was standing under Paarthurnax and looked into his eyes and thought "Oh my god, there are galaxies in there!" - ignoring the fact that of course that in the Elder Scrolls world, there are no galaxies, just collections of pathways to magic arranged in a pleasing and meaningful form. Also, there's a poem by William Blake, Auguries of Innocence, which starts off with:
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
Swap "palm of your hand" for "eyeball of a really old dragon" and yeah that's where my brain was veering.
It must be awfully mesmerising to be under the wing of a dragon, both figuratively and literally. Imagine the conversations you could have with a being that has existed since almost the dawn of time. Imagine the pressure of that existence on the mind. Mmm. Deep.
Anyhoo. Enough rambling. Storyteller is Calamathiel (female dunmer Dragonborn). Tense is deliberate. Translations for the draconic & terminology used are at the end.
The climb up the mountain is as tiring as always. High Hrothgar is almost as cold within as it is without, chill stone damp with the icemelt of centuries, cracked and crumbling with age. It is a wonder the Greybeards don't succumb to lungrot well before their beards grow grey.
I pause in the lee of a rocky outcrop and ease the straps of my pack, fighting to regain my breath. The sky is crystalline and milky, sharp with cold. White clouds scud across the sun, every cloudshadow sending a brief chill over the trail. Breathing deeply hurts, not as much as it did the first time I climbed the mountain, but still every breath leaves a lingering aching fire in my chest and throat.
I sigh, briefly amused at the dragonish plume of breath that huffs before me. It is not a Shout, not even such as I am capable of, merely a purely mortal outrushing of warm air meeting cold. Laden with the essence of life, misted in its finality. Shivering, I push off from the rock and trudge on and upwards through the snow.
The wind tends to howl, here on the Throat of the World. Snow whirls past in plaited threads, stinging as it collides with unprotected skin. The sky itself shudders at the passing of one of the dragon horde, predatory shadow skimming darkly over crisp snow, and I feel as the chicken must when the hawk passes overhead. It's eerie here at the best of times, even on a calm day in full sunlight. When you arrive at night, in a raging storm, the world muffled under thick driving snow; or under an ethereal aurora-laden sky, the air singing with electricity - it's possible to forget that there is anything, anywhere else.
It's easy to just be, up here. No wonder the dragon chose this place as his lair.
I calm my breathing before walking up to him as he crouches atop his Wall. Paarthurnax, the eldest of the dragons, now; my teacher and mentor. Ancient being perched upon ancient stone, both weathered and grey and worn by time. I hear the eternal thrum of his breath, the distant thudding of his heart as I draw close.
"Drem yol lok, Dovahkiin." His voice resonates deeply, waves of sound that wash through me: head to toe, chest to back; reorganising, rearranging, resettling my innards. Every time I hear it I am stirred, startled anew.
"Paarthurnax," I say, and incline my head.
Massive talons scrape over stone as he shifts. "Do you wish to meditate upon a Word?"
I shrug out of my pack, leaving it propped against the stone, and walk closer to him. His head swivels to keep me in view. "No. I just wished... to talk."
He chuckles deeply in amusement. "Indulging my weakness for speech, again?"
"And my own."
"Hmmm, orin. Just so." He watches me as I clamber onto the wall and I try to move with grace, not an easy task on icebound rock.
This close to the dragon I am conscious of the great warmth that emanates from him, like a banked hearth on a cold night. His breath quietly thunders past, a constant in, out, in, out that runs as a calming counterpoint to the howling of the wind over the peak. He is stone and sulphur scented, with an underlying reek of copper that makes me nervous. His body is enormous, blocking out the sun and dwarfing my fragile mer body completely.
Paarthurnax settles down more comfortably on the rock once I'm seated, wings folded back and neck curved sinuously so he can keep me in view. I look up into that great eye, misted with time and flecked with all the stars of the Void, and as usual am lost. The shining orb holds me effortlessly, draws me in, dumps me into the midst of Oblivion. I'm swimming amidst nothingness, floating forever in the vastness of eternity. For a mere second I behold all that was, all that will be: the movements of Aedra and machinations of Daedra and everything in between. I am a god, the god; my eyes touch all of time and my fingers behold all the bridges to Aetherius. I dance a joyful galliard with Secunda, a stately pavane with Masser; I flirt with Magnus' elemental cloak and bask in his presence, bathing in the essence of magic. I am a dragon in my arrogance, a worm in my humility; both vaster and more insignificant than anything that came before or will come again.
And then he blinks and I'm merely a woman, cold and uncomfortable, short of breath and acutely aware of my own fleeting span of days, sitting on a old stone wall beneath the wing of the greatest predator alive. I shiver and I swear if he could smile that dragon would have the hugest smirk on his face right now.
I remind my lungs to breathe and look up at him, at all he represents, and wonder how he manages to continue to live day after day, year after year, century upon century upon millennium. Surely the weight of all his time would be too oppressive to allow him to continue to go on?
He blinks again and his eye is once more clouded with age, with mundanity. Perhaps it is within the mind of a dragon - not-born, unchanging, unyielding - to accept the pressure of immortality without so much need for reassurance, as we lesser races do. Perhaps he truly is a child of Akatosh. Perhaps, if he is, then so am I, and we are truly kin.
The thought is sobering, for if it is true, then I am fatebound to destroy my brethren. I am a kinslayer. For a woman without bloodkin of her own save those chosen only recently, this is not a path to be contemplated for long. The ache of loneliness where the warmth of family should be cannot be soothed so easily.
Perhaps my face, fleshy and mobile, reflects these thoughts. Perhaps my gloom infects the air around me. Perhaps the very essence of loss permeates the aether between us.
For whatever reason, Paarthurnax rumbles, recapturing my attention.
"So, Dragonborn. Tell me of your ahmul, your mate. Talk to me of this one."
I smile. It is an indulgence. Soon enough his mood will shift and he will dwell upon the death of his kin by his kin, hurl himself into the air to disappear for days while he mourns his loss and fights his very nature; but for now I allow myself to follow his whim. I tell him of my love, my Farkas: strong and sure and dedicated, lover and Companion, fellow beastchild; waiting impatiently at home by a warm fire.
I am not sure he understands the nuances of mortal relationships, but the telling is a happy one; and for a moment we share that warmth before the coldness of the Void descends upon us again.
Translations: Ahmul - husband; Drem yol lok - "peace fire sky": greetings, hello; Dovahkiin - dragonborn; Orin - quite, as in "yes, indeed".
Terminology: Greybeards - monastic order historically linked to guiding the dragonborn. High Hrothgar is their stronghold. Oblivion - the infinite plane which surrounds the mortal plane, composed of many planes in and of itself. Aedra/Daedra - divine beings who dwell in Oblivion, worshipped by mortals. Aedra roughly translate as "good", they created the mortal world, Nirn. Daedra roughly translate as "evil", they cannot create, only change. Very, very roughly. Aetherius - the plane of magic. To mortals it appears as the sky. Secunda - the lesser of Nirn's two moons. Masser - the greater of Nirn's two moons. (not going into their relationships/history/cosmology here...) Magnus - the god of sorcery, who departed Nirn upon its creation and tore a hole in the fabric of Oblivion through which the light of Aetherius shines, which mortals perceive as the sun. Stars are lesser holes torn in the fabric.