The embers were still smoldering by the time I exited Dragonsreach and returned to the scorched ruins of Whiterun, intent to see Lydia in my home – our home, that is.
Even with blood dripping from a stab wound to the foreleg, an arrow to the shoulder and three blades (including my own) pinning him down, the Jarl, Balgruuf the Greater, still refused our demands for a surrender. Galmar swung his dulled and bloody battleaxe, only to be blocked by Irileth, the Jarl's housecarl. Galmar, in his rage, was about to take a swing at Irileth when Balgruuf, unbelievably, stood up, limping in between Galmar and Irileth, announcing his surrender. A true Nord, as far as I could tell: loyal to his own people and honourable to the end, with battle rather than blood flowing through his veins.
"Peace! Peace, damn it, peace!"
Galmar raised a knife (just as dulled and bloody) at Balgruuf's neck. "Say it," he demanded.
"I surrender," and with a blow to the head from Galmar's fist, Balgruuf fell on his knees, with Irileth barely being able to catch him on time.
"Dragonborn," Galmar said, turning to me, "head on back to Ulfric at Windhelm. Bards will sing of this glorious victory!"
"Dragonborn?" Balgruuf said, but I barely heard him. I heard him say something else, but I didn't even make an effort to hear it. I immediately turned away from Galmar and his bloody, Nordic rage; I turned away from the Stormcloaks looting what's left of the food and the silverware in the halls; I turned away from Balgruuf, who, as far as I could tell, was still attempting to stand on tired and bloodied legs.
The fighting had disappeared in Whiterun. The Companions, Gods bless them, had boarded up Jorrvaskr and decided to not join in on the fighting. If anyone could be said to be true sons and daughters of Whiterun, it would be the Companions, singing songs of victories in Jorrvaskr. The Gildergreen – either by pure luck or by the will of the Gods – remained untouched, its leaves still bright purple. The monument to Talos still stood, like an unconquerable guardian to the gates of Dragonsreach.
The remaining Whiterun guards, as well as the remaining Imperials, were being escorted into the dungeons of Dragonsreach. Exhausted, wounded faces looked up at me as I passed them by, some whispering as they recognized the Redguard who had joined in the fighting. "Dragonborn," they whispered. It's all right, as this isn't new to me. I much prefer this tame reaction to the complaints of many Stormcloaks about how a Redguard - born and raised in the desert and never even having been told stories and legends of dragons – could become the Dragonborn. It didn't matter. What mattered was Breezehome.
After helping Balgruuf – I suppose it's just Balgruuf now, since old Vignar Grey-Mane has replaced him as Jarl of Whiterun – deal with his local dragon problem, Balgruuf turned me into a Thane, gave me an axe, to be used as a symbol of my authority rather than as a tool for battle, a housecarl to serve as my personal guard, and a home for a foreigner to call his own in Skyrim: Breezehome, the first place that I could safely call my home since I left the desert.
Whiterun was as much my home as was the desert, and so it was that only a week previously, and with a heavy heart, I handed to Balgruuf the axe of Ulfric Stormcloak, only to have it returned to me, as a symbol of Balgruuf's intent to keep Whiterun loyal to the Empire.
As I passed Belethor's shop – I could hear Belethor inside protesting as the Stormcloaks were trying to break in – some of the Stormcloaks would greet me in a congratulatory manner ("Hail, Dragonborn!" "They will sing about us, Dragonborn!" "If only you were a Nord, you would surely enter Sovngarde!").
"Dragonborn!" The voice came from behind me. I turned to see Ralof, sporting an open cut across his chest. "I bet I killed more than you, I was counting."
"Were you now, brother?" I said, grasping his arm in welcome, "I reckon you would have the eyes of a dragon then, if you were able to see that far ahead in the battle to be able to count that many." He laughed and I smiled - something I had not done in a long time. In a time such as this, it's good to have a friend such as Ralof. "Are you all right?"
"Just a scratch, Dragonborn. Some Imperial got lucky."
"You must be getting slow. Perhaps it's time to go back to Riverwood and retire?" I said, jokingly, of course.
"Not until I see your grandchildren turn into the dust they were raised in, Dragonborn," he said, heading off in some other direction.
Without knowing it, we had walked up to Breezehome. The windows were boarded up shut, but the door, it seems, has only been locked. Using my key, I opened the door, to be greeted by a woman shouting at the top of her lungs, running at me with a sword. With a swift motion, I took out my scimitar, still bearing some of the stains of battle, and parried. "Lydia!"
Lydia, the housecarl assigned to me when I became Thane of Whiterun, had become a loyal housecarl, a great adventurer and an even greater friend. However, her loyalty has always been to Whiterun. Thus, before I headed on to Windhelm to tell the pompous, arrogant Nord that people call a Jarl that he has captured Whiterun, I had to fix matters at home. Not that the Stormcloaks would mind. His people are dying by the hundreds and yet there he sits in the so-called Palace of Kings while the sweat on his brow is yet to turn into ice.
"Thane!" Lydia exclaimed, dropping her sword and falling to her knees. "Forgive me, Thane! The windows have been boarded and I have no knowledge of the outcome of the siege and I had to protect our – I mean your – home and had I known it was you at the door-"
"Lydia, there is nothing to forgive," I reassured her, closing the door behind me and helping her up.
"Of course. Honor to you, my Thane! Congratulations on your victory."
I ignored her remark. No Redguard could ever hope to have a victory on the side of the Stormcloaks.
"How was it?" she asked. She knew me all too well for me to lie or skirt around her question.
"Brutal," I answered, taking a seat beside the embers of the dying fire in our home. "Brother killing sister; sister killing brother – all for liberation. Liberation from what?"
"From the Empire and the Thalmor – you said so yourself," she answered, taking a seat beside me.
"From the Empire and the damned elves. Yes, of course." I could feel myself slouching, leaning back on my seat; my scimitar fell with a clang on the floor and my feet could feel the dying warmth of the embers (I remembered my bare feet walking through the sands of the Alik'r desert). To this day, I know not whether this was from the heavy guilt or from the fatigue.
"You know you don't have to fight for those damned Stormcloaks," Lydia said, moving her seat closer to mine; her warm hands grasping the blood on my arm. When she saw that I was covered in blood and dirt and soot from the battle, she got up and went to the pail of water in a kitchen and then, with a clean rag soaked in the water, started cleaning my arms. I resisted.
"Leave it," I told her, "it reminds me of the desert."
She put the rag back in the pail and looked me straight in the eyes. "Do you believe in Ulfric's rebellion?"
After a long silence: "I don't know," I finally answered.
"Do I believe in the independence of Skyrim?" I continued, "of course. My family bled and died for the freedom of the desert. Unfortunately, I was only old enough to hold a knife when the sands rose up in righteous fury."
"Then why doubt Skyrim's liberation?" she asked, returning to her seat.
I didn't answer. A philosophical argument regarding my participation in the so-called "liberation" of Skyrim wasn't the reason I returned to Lydia. "How are you?" I asked her.
Surprised, she looked away and straight into the dying embers. Smoke was still rising from the remnants. "That's why you're here, isn't it?" she finally asked. "You want to see where my loyalties lie?"
"Yes," I answered her. I picked up my scimitar and rearranged the fire, attempting to find a little more warmth.
"I am loyal to Whiterun and my Thane."
"Precisely my problem," I told her, once again dropping my scimitar on the floor. Back then, it sounded like the sound of my scimitar clanging on the floor reverberated all across the Hold. The silence in Breezehome seemed to be more unbearable than the screams of the dying and wounded I had heard just moments ago.
And then, at that moment, I remembered Ulfric: how he gave Baalgruf an axe and if Baalgruf gave back the axe, then that meant that Ulfric has declared war on Whiterun. I went to my weapon rack near the doorway where the axe that Baalgruf gave me was placed, on display.
Not fully understanding the Nordic customs, I gave the axe to Lydia. "What is your reply?"
Lydia stood up from her seat, the embers of the fire behind her were slowly dying. "I will be loyal to my Thane – to the Dragonborn - until the day I die. However," and with that word, I felt my heart sink into my chest, "before I met my Thane – before I met the Dragonborn – I was a woman of this Hold, a shield-sister of Dragonsreach, a housecarl of Whiterun." With eyes that burned and didn't for a moment leave mine, she handed the axe back to me.
"Keep it," I said. It was enough that she wanted to hand the axe back to me. To Oblivion with Nordic tradition – I'm not a Nord, and I wanted her to keep the axe. If anything, it was a parting gift, along with – "Breezehome is yours, Lydia."
"My Thane?"
"After this… this liberation, I won't return. Breezehome, Whiterun, Dragonsreach – I'll be leaving all of this behind. The sands are calling to me. Therefore it seems only fitting that Breezehome be yours. You have spent more time in this home than I have."
"There is nothing in the desert," she said, placing the axe back on the weapon rack.
"Yes, and I can live with that nothing." I remember her laughing after this comment. Perhaps she didn't quite understand it, perhaps she thought it was the most absurd thing to ever come out of my mouth. Either way, her laugh is the most human thing I've ever heard in a long time.
"Farewell then?" I asked. The embers crackled in some newfound power. A tiny fire was glowing behind Lydia. This home felt more like the sands than it ever did in my stay in Breezehome.
"Farewell then, my Thane – I mean, farewell, Dragonborn. I hope the sands treat you better than the Stormcloaks."
Closing the door behind me, the smoke from the fire could be seen rising from the windows. I would meet the sands – but not yet.