II.
Someone is calling your name. You don't recognise the voice.
Fog encircles your mind and all you see is darkness.
Again, the voice speaks your name.
A feeling stirs in the pit of your stomach. You feel something tug inside you. It pulls you forward in the dark.
The darkness folds back on itself. Then you see him, clad in nothing but a loincloth. You take in his muscular figure, his bare chest, dappled deer-like skin, and the skull of a stag he wears as a mask. Hircine.
Hircine calls to you.
The darkness has dissolved into dense forest. Enormous trees with thick trunks and roots that burrow deep into the earth, surround you. The ghostly notes of birdsong drift on a breeze carrying tendrils of mist. In the distance, you can hear wolves howling.
The Father of Manbeasts reaches out to you with his right hand. Your skin prickles and for a second you are tempted. No, not tempted. It's want that fills you. Want. Need. Desire. In this very moment you want very little else than to reach out to Hircine. Take his hand.
The wolf inside you tugs at your soul, pulling you forwards as if it is attached to you by a ethereal umbilical cord.
You wonder what it would be like to touch a Daedric Prince.
Hunger stirs.
Blood thuds through your body like a drumbeat.
You want to go and hunt.
Inside you lurks two beasts. There's the wolf - a gift from Hircine, given to you by The Companions. Then there's the dragon. A gift given to you at birth by Akatosh. Both creatures fight for dominance over your soul. Both twist around your very being, and both fight against each other.
The dragon half of your soul snaps at the wolf part, chases it around your mind and pushes it back into the recesses of your mind.
The drumming call to hunt begins to die.
Like a bolt of lightning breaking through the clouds, it suddenly occurs to you that you are not ready to die.
Hircine snaps his fingers shut, lowers his hand. 'You will come to me in time,' he says, and you know that whilst the wolf remains inside of you this is nothing but the truth.
You open your eyes and find yourself lying beneath a ruby coloured reptilian glare.
Your wooden shield is the only thing that stands between your delicate, soft body and that of the dragon's maw.
How flimsy that shield now feels. In the past you have been reassured by its solid wood and iron handles, able to deflect arrows and swords, but dragon?
The dragon surveys you through narrowed eyes, turns its head from side to side and then lowers it. Its nostrils flare, you hear it snort and for a second panic rises in you.
What if it's about to dowse you in flame?
Before speculation can be turned into an answer you feel hands lock underneath your arms and haul you backwards.
'What's the matter wolf pup?' Relief floods you at the sound of Vilkas' voice. 'I've never seen you shy in the face of the Silver Hand's most fierce warriors. What's a dragon to you?'
You scrabble to your feet as the dragon lunges for you.
Vilkas' fires an arrow and it strikes the dragon in the eye. A ripe red tear oozes from the wound and trickles down the side of the dragon's face.
The dragon roars, raises a front claw, slashes it towards Vilkas. Vilkas - who with surprising grace for such a muscular man - dances backwards whilst shouldering his bow and clasping both hands around his longsword. He swings the sword, moves close to the dragon and latches the blade beneath a scale. He twists the sword and the scale springs off, twisting through the air like a giants fingernail. Raw pink flesh exposed, Vilkas hacks his sword into the flesh.
The dragon arches his wings, hisses, stumbles on its legs.
Seeing that its attention is completely on your companion, you dig your sword into the wing closest to you.
The blade slices through the ebony wing membrane, makes a tearing sound like a knife cutting through leather. The beast thrashes, turns - mouth open.
This is your opportunity.
Sword in hand, you loosen your grip on the shield. The shield clatters to the floor just as you leap forwards. You bound over the dragon's snapping mouth. Launch yourself so that when you land it is atop of the dragon's head.
The beast throws its head from side to side. You grip onto his horns with your free hand. Then when you find your footing and feel as steady as one can on a constantly moving creature, you take your sword in both hands, drive it downwards, bypassing the flesh, the skull, and strike home at its brain.
'For Sovngarde!' Vilkas shouts, and you think the same things as you jump from the dragon's head.
The dragon staggers before slumping onto its chest. Like parchment being consumed by flame, its skin begins to peel away from its skeleton. Caught by the wind, the flakes of skin drift away like embers from a fire.
'By Ysgramor...' Vilkas mutters.
Decomposition in a matter of seconds.
For a second you forget what happens next. You forget the final song of a dying dragon. So when it hits you, it catches you unprepared.
Like a blast of wind, the soul of the dragon rushes towards you.
You hear words spoken in voices so ancient the whole world has forgotten what they sound like. And as the soul surrounds you - melds with your own - those voices fill your head, stirs an essence within you that you has remained dormant since birth.
Air feels your lungs. You want to speak, want to shout, want to scream.
Words run through your head, written in a language you cannot even begin to comprehend and yet you naturally understand.
You say one of those words and the world falls apart.
Vision blurred, you feel yourself fall into the horizon.
