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The Road to Kynesgrove
III: Cruelty
"Delphine, I think we're stuck."
The Dovahkiin and the Blade stood on a whisper-thin shelf of rock with nothing but open air surrounding them on three sides. Acajou had one hand on her hip and the other scratching the back of her head, her face plastered with a perplexed look. Delphine, blue and shivering, loomed next to her like an angry shadow, her hands tucked into her armpits and her armor decorated with thin fingers of ice. Behind them, a nearly sheer cliff of rock and ice from which the shelf protruded shone in the midnight moonlight, regal, beautiful, and impossible to climb.
Delphine hadn't been surprised when Arngeir had met them both at the entrance to High Hrothgar with two bowls of warm soup and orders to eat and immediately leave. The old man had affixed her with such a look of mistrust and hatred that she had had to restrain herself from punching him right in his bearded face. Between spoonfuls of meaty broth, Acajou had tried to convince him of her brilliant plan, but he would have no part of it.
"You must understand, Dragonborn," he had said as he closed the doors of High Hrothgar to them. "You are most certainly welcome here. We can even stomach the presence of this...friend of yours...in the monastery. But to take her up to where our master meditates is unthinkable. I'm sorry, but I must turn you away."
They had both stared at the closed doors in silence before Acajou said, "I have another idea."
Which is how they had ended up stranded nearly all the way up the north face of the Throat of the World, in the middle of the night, with their only options being to turn around and hike five hours back to High Hrothgar or remain on the ledge and succumb to hypothermia. Delphine's fingers itched to close around Acajou's throat.
"How wonderful," Delphine said, frustration making her voice clipped. "It finally occurred to you that neither of us are mountain goats."
"I didn't know it would be this steep," Acajou said. She craned her neck. "I wonder if we can get up there?" Delphine followed her pointing finger to a ledge thirty feet up.
"I don't know if this has sunk into your skull yet, but we cannot possibly climb a vertical ice wall, Acajou." Delphine ran her hand down her face. "We'll have to go back down the mountain and camp out somewhere and then try another route tomorrow. Or, you could do as we asked and get rid of Paarthurnax so we don't have to go through this ridiculousness. How does that sound?"
Pushing out her lower lip, Acajou scanned the crags and peaks surrounding them. The delicate engravings on her armor were clogged with snow and her nose was bright red from the cold. She seemed to turn several ideas over in her head, contemplating each one, and then her eyes brightened. She turned to Delphine with a clap of her hands. "I have an idea!"
"I hope it involves turning around and thinking this through before we both fall to our deaths." Delphine said sourly, and then staggered, almost fell, as Acajou seized her under the arms in a breath-robbing bear hug. "Whoa—w-wait, what are you doing?"
"Wuld na kest!"
Her stomach was left behind on the narrow ledge as her body was launched forwards through empty air, straight up the mountain's slope. Delphine couldn't even draw breath to scream. She clamped her eyes and mouth shut and prayed to every Divine she could think of that they would end up safely on solid ground; that they wouldn't break too many bones when they fell; that they would at least be spared the embarrassment of dying while trying to scale the sheer face of the tallest mountain in Skyrim.
And then their forward momentum was gone and they were falling forwards, the narrow mountain shelf rushing up to meet them—
"Guh!" Acajou's aim had been off by a few degrees; Delphine was thrown into a snow bank on the ledge while Acajou caught the lip of it with her solar plexus. Her hands closed on fists of snow as she started to slip, solid ground hundreds of feet below her swinging boots. Seeing the Dragonborn about to fall, Delphine, powdered with snow, lunged forwards and grabbed both of her forearms.
"Can you push yourself up with your feet?" She called, bracing against the substantial weight threatening to topple her over the ledge.
A wheezing gasp was her reply. Rolling her eyes, the Blade grit her teeth and dug her feet into the lumpy rock beneath the snow. Back and neck muscles bunching, arms burning, she locked her fingers around Acajou's arms and pulled. Despite the cold, sweat broke out on her forehead. She straightened to her full height before Acajou was able to swing one booted foot onto the ledge. Even then, she didn't let go of Delphine's arms and looked up into her face, eyes wide and shining.
"That was close," she croaked. Obviously she hadn't gotten her breath back. Delphine sat down heavily next to the exhausted dovahkin, resting her elbows on her knees and dropping her chin to her chest. The wind gusted around them, numbing her face; she breathed deeply to slow her pounding heart.
"How did you do that? That was a wall of ice. Did you run up it or something?"
"I don't know, exactly. I just did it and hoped for the best."
Of course. "Do you ever stop to think before you do things like that?"
Acajou looked slyly at her. "No, but it worked, didn't it? I was so scared I was going to fall, though!" She chuckled at herself until Delphine punched her in the arm and stood up.
"Next time, warn me when you're gonna do that. Idiot."
But Acajou was grinning, breath coming out in clouds, and she struggled to her feet amidst a chorus of creaking and banging armor. "Look where we are, though!" She exclaimed, wriggling with happiness like a puppy.
Delphine looked; the mountain fell away from them in shining sheets of grey and white. Far below, the rest of the world encircled the mountain like a skirt, visible only between the haze of clouds drifting lazily by. Everything shone in the starlight. She would have enjoyed the view if she wasn't so tensely focused on the task ahead of her.
Acajou passed her in a blur, scrambling up the rocks, slipping every few steps. "Come on!" she called over her shoulder, sinking up to her knees in snow but continuing her dogged way upwards. "We can get up there this way."
Delphine watched as she made it the last few feet over the slope and onto what looked like solid ground. Her body buzzed with newfound energy born from apprehension. She placed one foot in front of the other and began the last few feet of the climb, the moon watching her back as she pulled herself through the snow.
The mountaintop was wind-whipped and filled with snow being churned up from the ground. From here the stars seemed so much closer, the sky so much clearer; the aurora looked so close it seemed like Delphine could reach up and touch it. The peak of the mountain was still some several hundred feet up, but the Blade had gone as high as she needed to. She knew she was being watched and turned to face her foe. Acajou took her hand, squeezing her fingers.
"Let's go."
Delphine trailed Acajou into the clearing, her movements instinctively becoming more subtle; she struggled to keep her composure and not go charging past the Dovahkiin with her sword drawn. He was right there, a silver silhouette against the navy blue sky, white as the snow perpetually covering the Throat of the World. Perched on the wreck of an intricately carved stone wall, long neck hanging low, Paarthurnax regarded them both with an air of regal patience, waiting for them to draw quite close before he raised his head a fraction and huffed steam into the air.
"Drem yol lok."
Acajou turned and beamed at Delphine. "He said hello," she said.
"Really. I didn't hear him." Delphine's heart pounded in her ears but it was drowned out by the sound of the dragon's steady, deep breathing. His eyes didn't leave her form for a second; the feeling sent shivers crawling down her back and legs. This dragon was a slaughterer second only to Alduin. This dragon had killed and tortured for no reason other than the fact that he was stronger than all of his victims and his nature demanded that he lord this power over humanity. Men and women, children and infants, pulled apart by his teeth, his claws; burnt by his fire.
"Dragons are hard to understand sometimes," Acajou informed her knowingly, "but it gets easier if you listen really closely." She looked up at Paarthurnax with such affection in her face that Delphine felt queasy.
"This is Delphine," she told him; his head remained level, his eyes fixed on the Blade's face. "She's my friend and she's come here to talk to you."
Couldn't the Dovahkiin see how dangerous this was? How foolish? Hatred for the Greybeards boiled up inside of the Blade and her hands balled into fists. This nonsense was going to end. Delphine didn't care if she lost her life in the act— she was going to do her duty as a Blade.
"You look a little scared." Acajou stepped away from Paarthurnax, her cheeks flushed with the cold. "Don't worry. I promise, he will not hurt you."
With a firm shove with one hand, Acajou pushed Delphine towards Paarthurnax, smiling at the friendship she was creating.
Now, Delphine's body told her, her hand already moving towards her scabbard, closing on the hilt of her sword. Her eyes were fixed on the throbbing pulse under his jaw; she could already envision his blood staining the ground, melting the snow. In her mind, he was already dead, the Greybeards were only powerless old men on the top of a mountain, and the Dragonborn was a true dragonslayer that would lead the Blades to their former glory. It would all start with this dragon's death. Let Acajou be upset with her now. If only she could just provoke Paarthurnax into attacking them, proving that all dragons could not be trusted.
Placing the heel of her hand on the tip of her hilt, she threw all of her weight into one mighty thrust forwards. All of her breath was expelled in one great rush, hoping with her entire heart that her blade would strike true and she would make her warrior ancestors proud.
Acajou was desperately speaking the Voice again and Delphine thought, 'it's too late', just as a human form instantly appeared directly between the point of her blade and Paarthurnax's throat. Delphine had just enough time to blink before her sword buried itself to the hilt through Acajou's upper torso, entering her shoulderblade and punching through the skin just underneath her opposite collarbone.
For one terrible second the world around them was silent. The snow and the wind ceased their incessant, blustery whistling in Delphine's ears and she could hear, to her dismay, the little gasp of surprise that escaped the Dovahkiin's mouth. The moment seemed to last forever, long enough for Delphine to count the individual, star-shaped flakes of snow stuck in Acajou's short hair and notice the first, slow drops of blood from her nose that soon became an uncontrolled stream.
"Delphine." She sounded more puzzled than mortally wounded and she looked down at the blade erupting from the skin above her breast with her mouth twisted in thought. "You promised."
The Blade had no answer for her and, perhaps for the first time in her life, a needle of guilt stabbed into her heart. Her hands squeezed tighter around the hilt of her sword. "Idiot," she breathed.
Paarthurnax reared his head back and thundered a roar that nearly burst Delphine's eardrums. In her subconscious, she somehow knew that he was addressing her, and she feebly wished that he would kill her quickly. She knew that she didn't deserve to be granted the mercy of death even by a creature as foul as a dragon. She'd just struck through the Dovahkiin. What would Esbern say? She had just killed the saviour of Tamriel.
Two impossibly strong hands seized her by the backplate of her armor and yanked her backwards. The back of her head smashed into the ice-hard ground and she hissed, curling into a reflexive ball, choking back nausea. When she blinked the stars and snow out of her vision, she turned her head to see that Acajou had sunk to one knee on the crimson ground at her feet and that Paarthurnax stood close by her, tattered wings half-opened, his head almost pressing against her side. The air around them both was humming; Delphine guessed that was the dragon way of whispering to someone. Before she could stand up, a dark figure blocked her view.
"What have you done?" Arngeir's voice was beyond fury. "Barbarian! You have killed us all!"
How did he get here so fast? The snowy rock beneath her bucked once, twice, and she felt herself slipping downwards, into a fissure in the ground that grew larger with each one of the Greybeard's strangled words. Reaching down and hauling her up by the collar of her armor, Arngeir held her over his head, her feet dangling off of the ground.
"You do not even deserve to go to Oblivion for what you have just done," he said. Delphine felt a trickle of something warm and wet slide out of her ear, realizing it was blood. "I should have guessed that the Blades' bloodthirsty natures could not be curbed by even the Dovahkiin. When Alduin consumes this world, it is my wish that he vomits your soul out into the next world as something to be reviled and hated!"
"She got in the way," Delphine ground out. "If you hadn't brainwashed her into the thinking Paarthurnax was good, this never would have happened! You didn't teach her the truth until it was too late! You are at fault just as much as I am!"
The hands holding her up by the throat trembled. Delphine managed to crane her neck and look into Arngeir's shadowed face. His eyes streamed tears. With a careless movement of his arms, he sent her soaring in an arc through the air to crash to the ground again. She managed to protect her head this time and struggled to her feet as soon as she was able. The guilt was threatening to overwhelm her. She had to talk to Acajou. As soon as she limped forwards, however, Arngeir was standing before her, blocking her way to the dragon and the human he was protecting.
"She needs help," Delphine snarled. "Get out of my way. I can fix this."
"She is beyond help." Somewhere above them, a small avalanche of snow rolled off of the western peak of the mountain, shaken loose by his Voice. "She was dead as soon as you first spoke to her."
"Look, old man, stupid accusations aren't going to help any of us right now! Just get out of my way!"
"Yol tor shul!"
Delphine had heard that Shout before. Fire breath. When Arngeir pronounced the first syllables she felt a cold wash of acceptance, all of the fight going out of her. Death seemed so easy right now. She closed her eyes and held her arms out, ready to be bathed in the flames-
-and felt nothing but the wind. No, not wind. Breathing.
"Enough, Arngeir."
The voice burned like fire in the air and rattled her whole body, filling her with a feeling she couldn't quite place—something between complete terror and overwhelming awe. She knew it was Paarthurnax even before she opened her eyes but she was still surprised to see that the dragon had thrust his head into the path of the fire Shout and had taken the brunt of the attack for her. He turned to regard her with milk-white eyes, the flames still licking at the snow-silver scales on his face.
The blood had drained entirely from Arngeir's face and he stumbled back a few steps, horrified for losing control, but his dovah master looked only at Delphine. She couldn't kill him now, even if she tried. His ancient gaze pinned her to the spot, deadening her senses.
"Watch, kriid." His voice seemed to come from the beginning of time itself; her head felt like it was splitting in two. She hadn't known that dragons could actually speak so that she could understand. "Behold what must be done to correct your mistake, born of your hatred and intolerance of that you do not understand."
He arched his neck over Acajou and opened his mouth.
"Sil dir vo."
It sounded like a prayer, a heartfelt wish, rather than a Shout. There was no shockwave through the air, no physical manifestation of what the words meant but Acajou's slumping form suddenly straightened; she fixed her eyes on Paarthurnax and her mouth opened, streaming red.
It started in small ribbons, thin enough to be spiderwebs, floating up from beneath Acajou's skin to weave lazily around her body, illuminating her drooping eyes and the sword in her breast. It looked like Sahloknir's soul after he had died and, for one breathless moment, Delphine thought that Acajou was already dead; that Paarthurnax had said something to her to send her painlessly to Sovngarde. The golden and purple threads grew in their intensity and size until Acajou's body was completely engulfed in light too bright to look at directly; until it seemed like the entire Throat of the World was made of gold. Delphine covered her eyes with her hands and trembled despite herself. Beside her, Arngeir shielded his face with his sleeve, his anger replaced by awe.
Gradually, the light faded again, and its warmth was replaced by chill winds. Bereft, Delphine dropped her hands, blinking and shivering as she looked at the place where Acajou was.
Her body lay awkwardly on the ground, motionless, still as death. Her skin had taken on the pallor of stone and her eyes were half-open- but that wasn't what made Delphine's heart skip a beat.
Standing directly above the Dovahkiin's silent form, pine tree green and looking, Delphine thought, as baffled as anything without a human face could look, was a dragon.
Oops! I promise the next chapter will be more light hearted, hahah. Please let me know how you like the story so far! Many thanks to Thug for betaing, and thanks to br, MadameHyde, Chadam, and HowAboutThisForAName for reviewing!
kriid = slayer