I've been very busy and kinda running on empty, but behold, chapter four.
I took some liberties with this, since I think we can all agree that the Dragonborn probably does not hear a choir of barbarian men singing the Song of the Dragonborn when they learn a word of power. Here is my take on the whole word wall and dragon soul thing, anyway.
Once again, please do leave me a quick review if you are enjoying the story so far!
CHAPTER 4: Sepulcher
After hours of inhaling the scents of blood and decay, I long for nothing more than I long for fresh air, even if it is the sharp cold wind of the mountain and snowflakes flying into my nostrils.
Both of us are covered in dust and a lot of other particles I don't want to think or get into detail about, though at least draugr have no blood to spill, which is a relief. The only blood we're covered with is our own – well, we do have some stains caused by frostbite spider remains, too, much to Irma's great disgust. She battles undead corpses like she's been doing it since she was three, but place a baby frostbite in her path and she'll hide behind me demanding I kill it. Almost as bad as Arvel.
Speaking of which. The group of bandits in the temple had spoken of a member of their group named Arvel, who had gone ahead with 'the claw'. Delving deeper into the barrow, we had come across a screaming dark elf caught in webbing, begging us to kill it! Kill it! Kill it! – who promised to show us the claw and the secrets it could unlock if we would only free him from the web, despite Irma's insistence that we just slit his throat and get a move on. Of course, he'd made a run for it, but he didn't get far; leaving us to battle against a miniature army of rising draugr before we could finally take the claw from Arvel's dead body. I remember musing that he could've lived if he'd only worked with us instead of against us, and Irma had told me in less than elaborate words that I was a naive idiot.
The claw had been the key to a door which only led us deeper into the tomb, which made me somewhat uneasy, though not enough to suggest quitting while we were ahead and returning the claw. Draugr crowded the small enclosed spaces and passageways, and even with Irma's winning chop-and-hack method, fighting them off was increasingly difficult due to their sheer number and the exhaustion starting to set in. The smallest moment of hope had sparked when we'd found a snowy clearing, but there was no way out, and upon crossing the bridge we found ourselves closed in among dirt walls again. It seemed like we might never find the way out, let alone the Dragonstone.
I'm carrying a weak, threadbare sack bulging with various items on my back – the sack stolen from the bandits, the items plundered from every chest, urn and ancient storage spaces Irma could find – and I can see the strain on Irma's back with her own overstuffed knapsack, though she will clearly never admit it after I may or may not have called her a hoarder earlier on in our little journey.
A sharp hiss comes from behind me, and I pause, looking over my shoulder at Irma, who is frozen in a silent, attentive state. I focus on listening for whatever she'd heard – and then I hear it. "Running water," I whisper, and Irma's face floods with hopeful excitement, her lips curving just a little as she follows me deeper into the cave, our steps suddenly much quicker. The area is huge, we realise as we cross a vein of flowing water, bats screeching overhead as if protesting our invasion. A single sarcophagus sits at the top of the stairs ahead of us, surrounded by a huge ancient wall with strange engravings in it.
"This must be it," Irma whispers, heading toward the stairs, and my hands are already lifting the battleaxe from my back. If this experience has taught me anything, it's that valuable objects are almost always guarded.
"Be careful," I warn in a loud whisper, uneasy as she hurries up the steps and starts searching the area around the coffin. Nothing happens though, even as I stare at the coffin in anticipation of it bursting open any second; even as Irma tries to pry it open herself.
"It has to be here," she mumbles, her arms falling to her sides as her shoulders slump. "Where else could it be?"
She sounds dejected, and I look up at the stairs ascending near the waterfall. "Maybe it's up that way," I suggest, though when I turn back to her, she's distracted, staring at the wall.
It's not really staring, though – she seems to be in a trance, more so by the second, and I frown as she approaches it slowly. I'm not sure what's got her so concentrated, but she looks as if she'd just seen Talos himself, the way her eyes never break away from the wall. My only concern right now is that ominous coffin and the stairway on our left, which has 'way out' practically written all over it.
"Irma, I think someone may have gotten that stone before us, we should probably just – "
"Do you hear that?"
I blink at her, and she turns her huge full-blown gray eyes on me, her mouth open in awe. I hear absolutely nothing.
"Hear what…?"
"Something like… whispers? Chanted whispers?"
With some great degree of apprehension I watch Irma step closer and closer to the wall, as if it were beckoning to her. I have a bad feeling, but that is probably to be expected when your companion starts showing signs of possible insanity. "Um. No. Irma… can we…"
Her fingers rise to rest upon a set of the foreign symbols etched all across the wall, and I still have a firm grip on my battleaxe as she speaks quietly – maybe she doesn't want to interrupt the voices in her head. "Force," she murmurs, and I feel my brow loosening up a little from its frown to make way for surprise – and confusion. Could she actually read that?
A loud bang echoes in the space, accentuated by the cracking of stone and the light hiss of settling dust, and I know what that sound means. Irma turns around in synchronisation with me, both of us staring as something rises from the coffin – a draugr, but he's definitely a cut above the rest.
"This is your final stand, creature," I spit out.
This is it. I will kill this thing, end this misadventure, and escape this place. I need to return to Windhelm and rejoin my kinsmen in the fight for Skyrim. I am a Stormcloak, not a tomb raider, and yet here I am risking myself for a claw and an old rock. For the first time, I realise that chasing Irma into a mountain was probably among my dumber ideas, though it was typical if nothing else – pursuing some beautiful, wild thing into the bowels of the earth with no regard to my responsibilities or even my life. Yeah, typical.
Irma delivers the first blow to the animated corpse, and I follow through with an axe in the side. Yet somehow the draugr remains standing, even with the bloodless gash in his decayed body, and we need to make some retreat – I push Irma forcefully to make her back up, since I know from experience she won't do so herself.
"Get back!" I shout to Irma as I block the descent of an ancient greatsword in the draugr's hands. "Remember what I told you? Stay out of striking range. He doesn't bleed, but we do."
She looks as pleased with the plan as I expected her to, but even with the scowl she heeds my advice and runs to the short set of steps to the left as I distract the draugr in combat, though the heavy greatsword against my battleaxe is a pain. They're evenly matched but the weight of each blow back and forth doesn't allow me to strike anything but steel. This is until Irma, poised atop the coffin's edge, attacks; and sure enough, as I attack from the front and her swords slash mercilessly into the creature's back as it tries to decide who to attack, its stance is visibly weakening.
Yet even as he begins to falter, he makes one final effort to turn and swing at Irma, who just barely dodges with a sharp arch backward, but the movement has her losing her balance, hitting the coffin's edge rather hard before falling down whatever height there was between the raised ground we stood upon and the one below.
I shout her name instinctively; and then, with anger overwhelming me, I swing my battleaxe as fast and hard as I can, plunging one of its blades into the draugr's stomach – or, what would have once been his stomach. He goes crumbling with an unnatural groan, and I immediately run to the steps, leap down to the ground and run around the elevated area to find Irma sprawled on the ground, attempting to get up, her gaze unfocused.
"Irma!" I shout a little too loudly as I lift her from the ground, supporting her back, but she pushes me away. I try again despite her refusal. "Stop that, we need to – "
"No," she croaks, pushing herself up a little to point desperately up at the coffin. "The stone… the Dragonstone, it's in the coffin. Go get it… quick!"
For a moment I'm lost as to what I need to do, her words reaching my brain with a vast delay as my gaze focuses instead on checking her for any severe wounds, but she grabs my arm firmly and shakes it, which succeeds in gaining my attention. "The stone!" she cries, and I finally get up and return to the coffin, realising she must've seen it inside before tumbling over the edge.
It was an odd thing, hardly anything to go to all this trouble for, but I pick it up carefully nonetheless, though I do give it a firm shake first. I've had enough dead dust clinging to my skin for one day.
The stone goes into my sack, tucked safely among the softer materials we'd found, and I hurry back to Irma, who has managed to get herself sitting up; and I give her an affirmative nod. "We've got both the stone and claw," I say, "now please, let's get out of here."
Kneeling down on one knee to try to pick her up, she bats my efforts away, but she at least lets me act as the support as she pulls herself up onto her feet. When she comes close to falling again, she reluctantly clings to my arm as we head up the longer flight of steps, and I hope we don't encounter any other surprises up here, because I'm exhausted, Irma's sprained her ankle, and I'm certain I speak for her too when I say we both want to go home.
Sure enough, the evening sky glares at us from the opening of the final chamber, a grand reward for the arduous journey. Of course, our work doesn't end there – we are still a good height above ground and the road downhill is steep, and Irma refuses a healing potion.
"It's a waste," she tells me. "For what, a weak ankle? No, we've already had enough bottles shattered when I fell. I will walk it out."
"You won't be able to walk it out once we both lose our footing and break our legs on the way down – that being if we're lucky. Just take one damn sip or two, for the sake of my back."
A moment of consideration, and then she finally accepts with a sigh. Our descent is, needless to say, much less labour than it could've been, and I'm grateful. Speaking of grateful –
"Hey," Irma says suddenly, breaking the silence that has dominated the fifteen or twenty minutes spent walking back toward Riverwood. "I'm really… I'm just… thankful for your help today." Her gaze averts when I look over at her, and she clears her throat briefly. "Really. I may have found the claw and stone on my own, but… I'm not so certain I'd have made it out alive. So… thank you."
Well, it's safe to say my previous qualm about following her into Bleak Falls Barrow has just completely dissipated.
"What was all the admiration of that wall about?" I ask lightly, though it's still a little unnerving when I remember how she'd seemed to lose herself in the engraved text. "Were you truly able to understand that writing?"
Irma is silent, and for a moment I worry I might have upset her, or worse, she'd experienced something terrible; but she eventually speaks again. "I couldn't understand any of it," she says softly, her eyebrows drawn and eyes narrowed at the path ahead, as if trying to remember. "But I could hear – no –"
She stops, a frustrated little exhale coming from her before she looks at me, attempting to explain. "I heard the word," she continues, "I didn't understand at first, especially when you couldn't hear it, but then I realised I was not hearing with my ears. It was as if it was spoken straight to my soul. Among these strange chants in a foreign language, I heard a single word – force; one of the words on the wall, and I understood it. I knew how to read it, and I knew what it meant – instantly."
I keep my eyes trained on the road, because otherwise I would be staring at her like she'd grown an extra head. I mean, how could I respond to that? She had been given the understanding of an ancient inscription from some mysterious force, which only she could hear, and with her soul, no less.
"Do you think," I begin, still uneasy with the idea (but definitely feeling much better than before); "that it has something to do with the Dragonstone?"
Irma considers this, clearly having not thought of that idea yet. "You may be right," she muses. "Whatever it is, I'm certain Farengar will have the answers."
I'm not sure what it is, but even after we cross the bridge, even after we return the claw and sell the treasures we'd carried, and even after I pass the Dragonstone to Irma, she never tells me goodbye.
And honestly, if she's simply forgotten about my promise to let her go her own way after we obtained the Dragonstone, I'm content to lay it to rest.
"It's a map."
"Well obviously it's a map. But what destinations does it mark?"
"Maybe that writing on the back explains it."
"I think this is dovahzul."
"Dragon language?" I muse, rubbing my nose for the hundredth time, feeling it still clogged with dust. "Would make sense, considering it is called the Dragonstone."
Irma turned the stone in her hands, flipping it to show the map once again. It was a map of Skyrim, with markings of several mysterious locations. "Maybe I could've learned more from that wall, had you not rushed me out of there."
"Learn what?" I snort, shaking my head. "How to sprain another ankle? Awaken a few more dead guardians?"
"Hey, watch it," she warns, "I don't even know why you're still here."
"Because I keep you alive."
"Right. By playing it safe."
"What happened to the ever-so-grateful lass I met an hour ago? And anyway, if you think you could've learned more from that writing on the wall, how come you aren't hearing any whispers from the writing on this stone?"
"Alright, listen," she says with finality in her voice, stopping in her stride to look at me. "I did not ask you to accompany me. Why don't you just go back to Windhelm and join your raincloaks?"
"Stormcloaks," I amend with a huff, "And I will. As soon as I see you gain safe passage back to Whiterun."
"Well, there it is," she gestures to the rise of peaked rooftops in the distance, the grand sweep of her arm somewhat sarcastic. "You've kept me safe. Thank you. Now feel free to be gone."
Despite the situation, I begin to smile. "Won't be that easy to get rid of me," I assure her, resuming my walk much to her chagrin.
The rest of the trip to Whiterun is quick now that we aren't speaking, and our pace is considerably faster, probably due to the inflamed tempers we had each lit. As we walk through the city gates, however, the sounds and scents of the evening Whiterun bring about a good, easy feeling, and my mood immediately shifts for the better. Whiterun had always been among the best cities in Skyrim – if not the best; possessing that warm, friendly environment that could easily make any man desire to call the city home.
"How did you even gain an audience with the Jarl?" I finally ask Irma, breaking the silence as we ascend the steps toward Dragonsreach. "What did you do after we parted ways at Helgen?"
"I went straight to Whiterun," she answers simply, "gained entrance into the city by telling them I'd escaped a dragon attack at Helgen, and they directed me toward the palace."
"So you were the one who got reinforcements to Riverwood?" I realise belatedly.
"It wasn't my original intention," she replies honestly, "but yes, reinforcements were sent after I told them my story."
"And then you met the court wizard..."
"Who sent me on a death mission after a Dragonstone."
We step through the doors of Dragonsreach, and Irma makes haste to walk toward the throne as I stare after her. Adventure seems to follow her everywhere – or maybe it's just danger.
The throne is empty. The jarl has probably retired to his chambers for the evening, but there aren't many others around, either. However, Irma makes a detour straight into a chamber on the right, which is where I glimpse a figure in robes – court wizard, I'm guessing. Irma stops at the doorway, and while I want to tell her to go ahead and interrupt since we clearly have important reason to do so, she seems to be intent on listening to a conversation happening inside.
"Time is running, Farengar," a female voice says, "don't forget. This isn't some theoretical question. Dragons have come back."
"Yes, yes," the court wizard, Farengar, dismisses. "Don't worry. Although the chance to see a living dragon up close would be tremendously valuable..." He moves to retrieve something else, and I see the woman he is talking to now, clad in leather armor but hooded – somewhat suspiciously. "Now, let me show you something else I found... very intriguing... I think your employers –"
He finally notices Irma, stopping mid-sentence, and his face changes from concentrated to excited. "Ah, yes, the Jarl's protege!" he exclaims, abandoning his desk to meet us as we walk into the room. "Back from Bleak Falls Barrow? You didn't die, it seems. And you arrive with a friend, too?"
She ignores him as she places her knapsack down, opens it, and pulls out the stone, presenting it. "This stone bears many questions."
"Ah!" he cries, excitement no longer enough to describe his glee. "The Dragonstone!"
"You went into Bleak Falls Barrow and got that?" the strange woman suddenly says, her hood still low and her posture still slouched, but noticeably interested. "Nice work."
"Indeed," Farengar regards the woman with a nod, "seems your information was correct after all." He turns to Irma, still beaming. "You are clearly a cut above the usual brutes the Jarl sends my way."
The wizard makes to take the stone, but Irma is reluctant to put it within his reach just yet, a frown on her face. "I want to know what it is," she tells him firmly. "What does the map mean, and the text?" She looks over Farengar's shoulder at the hooded woman. "And what do you want with it?"
I place a hand on her shoulder, and she looks back at me with a frown, though no anger in her expression. "Let him have the stone," I advise gently, and she turns back to Farengar slowly, hesitantly handing over the stone tablet. I clear my throat. "I believe that, being the ones who retrieved it, we do have some right to know what that Dragonstone means."
"Of course, and I understand your curiosity," the man says gently, "but I'm afraid I have no information to give, at least not until I've had time to study."
"Are the inscriptions on the back written in dragon language?" I ask.
"They are," he confirms, "but of course, the text is lost on me until I manage to translate it. My associate here has also been assisting me in this research – once I find some answers, I will impart them with you both."
"Just send me a copy when you've deciphered it," the woman says, and though I can't see my companion's face, I'm certain she's looking at the other woman with the same suspicion that I'm feeling, though she doesn't voice it.
"Very well," Irma finally complies. "So then, what happens now that you have the stone?"
"That is where your job ends and mine begins. The work of the mind, sadly undervalued in Skyrim. Certainly, you may return at any time, if you wish to learn more of my progress with –"
"Farengar!"
The loud shout startles us all, even the hooded woman, and we turn to see an armor-clad dunmer rushing in, pushing past us to reach the wizard.
"Irileth, what is it?"
"Farengar, you need to come at once," she says quickly, urgency in her tone. "A dragon's been sighted nearby."
Irma gives me a look, which I return – shock, confusion... and the tiniest measure of anticipation. The dunmer – Irileth – then turns her focus on us, glancing between us before nodding. "You both should come, too."
"A dragon!" the wizard exclaims, his animated demeanour taking over once more. "How exciting! Where was it seen? What was it doing?"
"I'd take this a bit more seriously if I were you," Irileth reprimands as we follow her out of the wizard's study and up the stairs to the right in a hurry. "If a dragon decides to attack Whiterun I don't know if we can stop it."
Balgruuf the Greater, the jarl of Whiterun, is in the room upstairs, speaking to a guard, who looks like he's just seen a ghost. "It was just circling overhead when I left," he's saying, panting like he'd run a mile. "I never ran so fast in my life...I thought it would come after me for sure."
"Good work, son," the jarl tells him. "We'll take it from here. Head down to the barracks for some food and rest. You've earned it." He turns to us, his kind expression growing more severe as he addresses the matter at hand. "Irileth, you'd better gather some guardsmen and get down there."
"I've already ordered my men to muster near the main gate."
"Good, don't fail me. And you..." He's looking at us, and seems to be questioning my presence with his gaze, though before I can introduce myself, Irma beats me to it.
"He survived Helgen, and helped me retrieve the Dragonstone."
"Ah yes, the one who helped you escape – Ralof, is it?"
Wait – he already knows of me? I find myself speechless before the jarl, and Irma is unwilling to meet my gaze, so I stand there stunned until I finally stutter a weak – "Uh, yes, my lord."
"Very well," Balgruuf nods. "There's no time to stand on ceremony, my friends. I need you both to go with Irileth and help her fight this dragon. You survived Helgen, so you have more experience with dragons than anyone else here. I will reward you both for your service in bringing us the Dragonstone after you return from the watchtower."
This is our cue to leave, as Farengar expresses his hopeful wish to come along and see the dragon, too. We leave our belongings in the wizard's chamber, taking only our blades, as well as our bows and arrows.
"What a curious thing," I mutter as if deep in thought, and I can practically sense Irma's tension from here as we head down the steps from the palace toward the main gate. "The jarl knowing who I am, just like that –"
"Alright so I mentioned you," she interrupts snappily. "So what? Save your arrogance for the battle ahead."
My victory lingers as a smirk on my lips, though I make sure to match Irma's pace as we leave the city and head down the path toward the stables. "You really think we'll encounter this dragon tonight?"
"I have a strong feeling that we will, considering our luck with dragons so far, but at least we won't be trapped in a burning town without weapons this time."
"Positive thinking," I say, my speech broken a little by the exertion of my running. "Well, if the dragon does come to meet us, maybe you can reason with him, now that you know some of his language."
Irma glares at me, and I can't help grinning. Then she chuckles, and that really catches me off-guard. "If I'm lucky, this dragon will eat you before I defeat it."
I run a hand through my hair to push it back, my grin still plastered on my face. "If I'm lucky, maybe I'll defeat him for you and then you'll have no choice but to admit I'm your hero."
We come to a jog and then stop by the rocks near the watchtower, waiting for Irileth and the guards to catch up. We inspect the nearby ruin – flames, smoke and dust. Nothing seems to be moving, neither dragon nor man.
"I don't see anyone around," I murmur, and Irma crouches back down next to me.
"Or anything," she says, and I realise we're both whispering. "What could that dragon possibly want with a watchtower?"
"Do you think it was the same one from Helgen?"
"Doubt it... that woman with Farengar, she said dragons are coming back. I think there are a lot more than just two."
"You two, get up and stop dallying."
It's Irileth, and Irma stands up to meet her first, though I remain close to the floor, cleaning the blades of my axe of the built-up blood and dirt.
"No movement so far," Irma informs her. "No people, no dragon either."
"But it sure looks like he's been here," Irileth says, before turning to the guards, expression steeled. "I know it looks bad, but we've got to figure out what happened. And if that dragon is still skulking around somewhere." She draws her weapon, and I stand up with my axe along with everyone else. "Spread out and look for survivors. We need to know what we're dealing with."
I start to head toward the tower, and I catch up to fall into step with Irma. "Stop dallying," I imitate Irileth quietly, complete with the accent, and she looks amused, much to my pleasure. She looks like she's about to say something, but then I get knocked backward, barely keeping my footing as I find myself face-to-face with a guard, looking very much like the one back in Dragonsreach.
"Kinsman," I start to say, "are you –"
"No!" he cries, stepping back before running around me, "get back! It's still here somewhere! Hroki and Tor just got grabbed when they tried to make a run for it!"
Looking over at Irma, we agree on an unspoken plan before sprinting up the path to the tower, knowing we'll get a better view to watch for the dragon at the top of the tower, but we barely even get to the doorway before a loud roar stops us in our tracks.
"Kynareth save us," a guard shudders as he crouches nearby, "here he comes again..."
We run back the way we'd come, opting for even ground as the dragon unleashed his fire once more over the tower. I realise a battleaxe won't do me much good when I see the giant beast fly overhead, and I swap it for a bow quickly, drawing an arrow back with a shaky arm but completely missing. Nearby, I see Irma taking position behind a target practice board as she fired her arrows at the creature and I grunted at my own hesitance. Was I afraid? I'd survived a dragon before – I'd do it again.
"Come down here and fight, you coward!" Irileth yells. "Find cover and make every arrow count!"
Her shouting is somewhat inspirational, and I see the frightened guards start to regroup and ready themselves after hearing her courageous words. I join some of them as they moved to hide, and I find Irma there, too.
"Look at its back!" she yelled over the chaos, and I was surprised at the attention the guards paid her – she seemed to exude an odd sense of authority, as if she was a dragonslayer with years of experience. "Your arrows won't pierce its scales. Aim for the belly and for its wings if you can – we need to force it to the ground!"
With their 'orders' received, the guards spread out in the courtyard once more, aiming, drawing and firing at the dragon; and sure enough, the arrows which made their mark in the dragon's underside and wings visibly affected it much more than those which almost bounced off its scales.
"Irma!" I call as we meet in the middle of the yard, and she glances at me quickly before turning her eyes onto the skies again. "We need higher ground."
She considers my words, and then points at the raised pathway. "There," she replies, "he always dips lower over that section to breathe fire into the yard. Come with me."
We run toward the steps, hurrying to get to the top before the dragon's flight brings him to the spot. We both draw our strings back, aiming at an empty sky, but soon enough the dragon appears from behind the tower, flying close, and we fire straight up into its belly as he flies over us, and he roars angrily.
"He's coming back this way!" I yell, watching the dragon change direction to return to us.
"His wings! Aim for his wings – on my mark!"
As he approaches, I draw the arrow back, steadying my breathing and concentrating. I know that he's coming for us, and that as soon as I fire that arrow, I need to jump off the wall and onto the ground behind it if I want to avoid the scorching rain of flames that was about to be served onto us.
"Now!"
The arrows fly, and I grab Irma's arm and pull her as I leap over the edge, tumbling to the ground and rolling toward the edge of the wall just as fire consumes the bridgewalk. And sure enough, just as the dragon flies overhead, he lets out a loud, pained groan and comes crashing down to the ground, his wings failing – but he's not down yet. I watch in terror as he awkwardly crawls toward us with little grace, but before I can react, Irma is on her feet and unsheathing her blades, meeting the dragon head-on.
"No! Irma!" My protests do nothing as she battles the dragon – slashing, stabbing and evading, and I stand up to run toward her, about to yell at her to move aside when the creature shows the familiar signs of preparation to breathe fire –
But she leaps forward, lands on its head, and drives both her swords straight down into the dragon's skull. The dragon lets out a thundering cry before it collapses into a lifeless heap, Irma tumbling off its head and rising to her feet, panting. And then, as if the day hadn't been strange enough, something... extraordinary happened.
The dragon fades as if melting, as if life was physically leaving its body in fiery wisps, flowing away in the air – and straight into Irma.
"What's happening?" a guard cries behind me.
"Stay back, everyone!" Irileth yells.
Panicked, I can't back away, but neither can I go to her, to try move her away from whatever was happening; my feet unmoving. I'm left staring as she glows with the golden aura before the darkness of the night shrouds everything in black once more, no proof of what just happened remaining except for the bare skeleton of the dragon, lying behind a silent and deathly-still Irma.
I begin to say her name, but it fades away into a whisper, and I have no other words. The guards approach, standing next to me in mixed shock and awe, and for a moment I think I may have been dreaming, but then Irma turns around, unreadable silver eyes gazing over each of us before stopping on me, and my breath catches. Something just happened to her, something important. Something what had happened at the wall in Bleak Falls Barrow. One of the guards finally dares to step forward, but his expression isn't one of fear – it's one of... hope?
"I can't believe it... you're... you're Dragonborn!"
What.
"Dragonborn?" Irma finally asks, her gaze moving to the man who'd spoken, her voice soft and uncertain.
"In the very oldest tales," the guard explains, "back from when there were still dragons in Skyrim, the Dragonborn would slay dragons and steal their power. That's what you did, isn't it? Absorbed that dragon's power?"
She swallows. "I felt a surge of power but – I don't know, I don't know what happened."
"There's only one way to find out – try to Shout. That would prove it. According to the old legends, the Dragonborn can Shout without training, the way the dragons do."
"What in Talos' name are you talking about, Sjoran?" another guard scoffs. "Dragons and Dragonborns?"
"That's right! My grandfather used to tell stories about the Dragonborn. Those born with the Dragon Blood in 'em. Like old Tiber Septim himself."
"I've never heard of Tiber Septim killing any dragons," a third guard says, and the one named Sjoran shakes his head with a withering look.
"That's because there weren't any dragons then, idiot. They're just coming back now for the first time in...forever."
The second guard pauses, before looking at Irma. "If you really are Dragonborn," he says, "like out of the old tales, you ought to be able to Shout. Can you? Have you tried?"
There's silence. No one moves, and I can't tell what she's thinking, but just as I'm about to speak up, she opens her mouth and shouts a word, a foreign word which echoes loud, throws us back in a gust of wind... a sudden, powerful force.
The word from the wall. She understood it because she was...
"Dragonborn," I whisper in awe.
By the Nine – I think my life just became a whole lot more complicated.
Review? Yes, no, maybe?
