The fire pit in the center of the room crackled as the coals let off heat and light for the room. Around the pit was a stone table enough to hold 5 people on each side. At the head of the table sat a man. His hands were folded over one another just under his nose. The man's blue eyes were closed at the moment.
Sitting to either side of the man were men and women; leaders all of them, Jarls or Generals alike.
Where the Thalmor was to sit this meeting was empty, the man at the head of the table had them sent out.
Around the table were Men in grey robes. The Greybeards, their title.
The room was in silence waiting for the man at the head of the table, the Dragonborn, to make his decision.
His decision would shake up the civil war going on in the country. Either to favor one side or the other. So far, the Dragonborn had sat out of the silly, to his mind, war. A war, he thought, that was unnecessary when the end times might be coming.
Alduin had shown his dragon hide to the world. Instead of banding together to fight the beast, or, at the very least, calling a truce, the men and woman at this table decided to try and get something out of the deal, either to screw over the other side or gather more resources.
They had given the dragonborn an ultimatum. 'Either you're with us, or against us.' both sides said.
The Dragonborn sighed. He put his hands on the table and stood leaning over the table so that they would know to hear him out. Standing just under a Nord's height, the wood elf dressed in the hides of the fallen dragons he hunted a cowl to cover his head and a dragonbone bow on his back, The woodelf made an imposing figure.
"I have made my decision." The Elven Dragon stated.
Everyone sat forward on their seats.
"My decision is..." he milked the silence a bit. "That you're all children. Every one of you."
Some were shocked while the majority had scowls.
Before the first words could come from either main leaders, the Dragon in human form interrupted. "Alduin, the king of dragons, the eater of worlds, is out there. He is killing your men, destroying your farms, raising an army of undead, and bringing his dragon comrades back to life this very minute! AND YOU ALL SIT HERE AND BICKER ABOUT WHO GETS WHAT LAND?! Sooner rather than later, there will not BE ANY LAND TO FIGHT OVER! There will not be any gods to worship! It will all be ashes, dust, fire and death. Alduin is no mere dragon, if any of you can believe that. I've seen him in person several times. He is much larger than any dragon you've seen or heard of before. And he's only getting bigger and stronger!"
The dragonborn stood up straight for a moment and then began pacing around the room. "Instead of bearings arms to one another, we should be focusing on the very dangerous threat that is the eater of worlds. Instead of ripping your own country apart due to a law, that, mind you, was mostly ignored until both sides started getting all pissy about it you should have worked around it. And instead of trying to strengthen the country so that you could repel the Thalmor, you lot bicker and whine, and weaken the very land you stand on you should be rising up and helping one another. I don't care who is high king of skyrim in the end, you Nords and imperials can settle that on your own."
He had made a full circle around the table by this point. "This meeting was about getting both sides to leave Whiterun alone so that I could find out how to get and kill Alduin. But no, instead, here I am ranting about how you lot are acting like 3 year-olds wanting the same toy."
He sat back down. "So here is MY ultimatum. You lot, both sides of this STUPID war, are going to leave Whiterun alone. As the Thane of whiterun, I use my right to declare the hold under my protection. If I even smell an Imperial or Stormcloak near the city, I will personally enter this war... not on either side, mind you. No, I'll personally go around and destroy your war fronts, your crops, your leaders, and leave both sides so crippled that the war will end out of necessity, not victory."
He looked left and right into their eyes. "And if you don't believe that I can do that, please look back to the conflict of the forsworn and how they suddenly... stopped."
Everyone's eyes widened while the Dragonborn smiled. "Oh yes, I'm the perpetrator of that act. I wasn't even trying then, and I'm even stronger now. My voice has given me abilities far more than most can comprehend."
"Prove it." Jarl Ulfric stated out load.
A mutter of words almost unintelligible was uttered from the Dovakiin's mouth, and suddenly there was a steel dagger sitting before each of them. Everyone stopped at the implications of this. He could've assassinated them all, right then and there.
"Is that good enough for you? I can be in and out of a city long before any of you would have time to stop me. I can lay waste to entire cities before they even realize what happened. I'm now carrying the biggest stick at this table... Your move. Do you accept and go back to this petty war later, or do you deny my words and doom your people to a life of strife and death." The Dragonborn said as he sat back and let the shadows cover his face.
General Tullius picked up the dagger before him, as if to prove its existence. He looked up from the dagger to the man sitting before him, Ulfric.
Ulfric did the same, and the two stared into the other's eyes for a time.
"If Ulfric is in agreement with this, then I will as well. We will agree so long as the Dragonborn promises to never enter the civil war." the general said with almost seething hatred.
"We are in agreement then." The Jarl of Windhelm stated with controlled anger.
Both men knew to never allow the Dragonborn into the conflict. It would be as if the side that recruited the dragonborn would gain a massive power.
The Greybeard standing at the tail of the table then spoke. "This is the agreement then. In exchange for the Dragonborn's continued passive attitude towards the war, neither side will attack Whiterun or its hold. The preservation of the hold shall stand under the Dragonborn's protection, the Thane of Whiterun. If either side breaks the truce and attacks the city, the Dragonborn shall lay waste to both the imperials and the stormcloaks, and kill the leaders, making the ending of the war an inevitability through necessity. Do all here agree?"
Neither side looked happy; they came here expecting to get the upper hand on the other, but with an ultimatum like that, they couldn't afford a power like that to enter the war. Everyone stood from the table and stated. "Agreed."
Later, the dragonborn, with the help of Whiterun, managed to capture a dragon and in turn find Alduin's location. He killed the eater of worlds.
The Dragonborn never talked to the blades again, because he saw the teacher of the voice as a good mentor. Someone he never really had.
The civil war went on, but the dragonborn had no care for it.
The war turned for the worse, though, when the Emperor himself was assassinated, on his own highly(not really) guarded boat. What really scared people though, was that only the emperor was killed, and no one else on the boat had seen the assassin. The only proof was the knife slit throat the elder man had.
The leaders who had been to the meeting guessed who might've been the assassin, but dared not provoke the man.
The hold of Whiterun prospered under the Dragonborn's protection, bandits knew to never provoke the sleeping dragon there and the war never touched its lands.