Chapter Twenty-One
'When misrule takes its place at the eight corners of the world
When the Brass Tower walks and Time is reshaped
When the thrice-blessed fail and the Red Tower trembles
When the Dragonborn Ruler loses his throne, and the White Tower falls
When the Snow Tower lies sundered, kingless, bleeding
The World-Eater wakes, and the Wheel turns upon the Last Dragonborn.'
~Prophecy of the Dragonborn.
-B-
I frowned at my satchel, something I'd been doing for, more or less, the past half hour. Half-full. It should not have taken me so long to get it that full. I should have had it all packed fifteen minutes ago. But I kept drifting into thought, and my hands forgot what they were supposed to be doing.
I'd gotten a late start, having overslept myself. It had been unexpectedly pleasant to sleep in Breezehome's warm interior after a hot bath and a meal of hot, filling stew.
So I overslept, and my plans to speak to Jarl Balgruuf—assuming he'd see me, if only because I was 'The Dragonborn'—got reshuffled. I ended up speaking to him later in the afternoon than I wanted, which forced me to stay in Whiterun another night.
The conversation I'd had with Balgruuf still bothered me, the general cant being his asking 'you don't know how to talk to people, do you?'
Apparently the idea of a Rester being able to speak to all Men and Mer—regardless of position (or lack thereof)—is something I need work on.
Or, maybe, it was the topic to which he objected.
I'd asked him, as politely as I could, that he take back the title of thane he'd bestowed upon me—the title, the house, the housecarl, all of it. My argument was that I couldn't meet the obligations of a thane—never mind that I wasn't sure what they were. My second problem, and I addressed it obliquely, was that I couldn't pay Lydia myself, since my work isn't 'paid' by the usual standards.
Lydia answered this concern later: when a housecarl is provided to a person, the responsibility concerning me really was handled by the provider. Or, at least, it was in this case. She also expressed the notion that I could have asked her about all this first, instead of forcing her to watch me be awkward.
I could have strangled her, not the least because it was true.
My main concern—well, my spoken main concern—was answered by the Jarl in short order. He didn't expect me to fulfil any duties because he hadn't assigned me any, and he seemed to think I ought to have picked up on that without being told. I know I scrunched my face up at him as I resisted the urge to tell him I was apolitical for a reason, and this sort of thing was not in my purview.
His elaboration—after he seemed to decide I really was at sea with regards to how things worked among Jarls and their retainers—took place in the strategy room and answered my unspoken main concern: that of being a political pawn.
True, having me as a thane in Whiterun was useful to him: it implied allegiance to him. It would also give Ulfric and Tullius reason to pause. At the very least, they would have to try and figure out if I was who I claimed to be (or who others claimed I was) or not, without being so rude as to demand a demonstration of my thu'um.
Once my identity was confirmed—Balgruuf seemed sure it would be in fairly short order—those two contenders would have to consider the implications of the Dragonborn throwing in with Balgruuf. They would have to think and plan and that bought him time in which to shore up his own position.
He implied that if I ever had to talk to Ulfric or Tullius, I might want to refine my speechcraft somewhat. I could have fried eggs on the back of my neck by that point and, being a redhead, I'm sure all of me looked red at that moment. Balgruuf seemed to take this as a sign of penitence—or a sign that I was really, truly, so far out of my depth that any further criticism, well-intentioned or not, would be cruel.
I haven't cried under reprimand in years. Luckily, I wasn't thinking about crying: the corrections stirred a deep-seated resentment that made me want to prowl the room irritably. It also caused my throat and chest to go tight, a growl building up behind my teeth that would probably have shaken the roof beams of Dragonsreach as effectively as my bark of 'enough!' in Ivarstead shook the tavern.
It wasn't my usual flare of temper, either: it was a quiet, glowering thing, a glowing bed of resentful embers that would flare up if given fuel but otherwise would remain a dull glow.
It was good for me, too, Balgruuf continued. It meant that I had an excuse not to pick a side should Ulfric or Tullius try to recruit me.
I wanted to tell him I didn't need an excuse, that they couldn't make me to anything if I didn't have a mind to do it. The thoughts smacked of dragon, and hand-me-down memories. As did the resentful simmering.
I shuddered inwardly, but tried to give no outward sign of what I was thinking.
Having a home in Whiterun, Balgruuf continued, also made sense tactically—or so he said. In short, Whiterun is neutral ground, and shares a border with most of the other Holds (the exceptions being Haafingar and Winterhold). That means I can travel fairly freely with a decreased likelihood of hostilities.
He didn't say from whom I could expect hostilities and I didn't ask. I already felt like a stupid child listening to an adult lecture. On top of my shaking of the rafters in Ivarstead, my confidence about controlling my thu'um felt pretty ground down.
I felt like a mouse who'd ventured too far from her hole.
Balgruuf also pointed out that if I did pick a side—the Empire or the Stormcloaks—I should be sure to make it very clear that my choice was not his choice, please and thank you. I hope it reassured him when I said I had bigger problems than Ulfric and Tullius.
Balgruuf smiled at this, but it lacked humor. Of all the things I'd said to that point, this was the one thing he took most seriously. At least he trusted me to know my business.
Right now, my business is to get back to Falkreath and let the Order know what's befallen. Then, to Ustengrav—if I can find it—and retrieve the Horn.
I sighed, looking at my satchel.
A series of bangs sounded on the door, which immediately opened. "Bellona!"
I jumped, letting out a yelp of shock that carried a trace of power, but not enough to damage anything.
"Stay right where you are!" Lydia snarled. "What do you mean barging in like this?"
I arrived at the stairs just as Lydia drew her sword, ready to skewer this invader.
"Matt-Matteo?" the stammered word came out half in disbeleif, half in pleasure at seeing him. Of course it was Matteo, scowling at me. True to form, he'd barged into the house like he'd barge into one of the dormitories back at Headquarters.
"There you are!" he declared and, for once, he didn't seem irritated with my antics, in spite of his scowl.
He pushed past Lydia, using a magical shield to shunt her aside and protect his unarmored skin from her weapon. He came up the stairs and grabbed me in a hug that actually lifted me clear of the floor.
It's not like Matteo to be so…affectionate...and I squirmed uncomfortably at the display.
"You idiot," he chided, his tone at odds with his words, "we've been worried sick. I'm here to bring you home." His tone brooked no arguments. "Since you obviously can't seem to get away from Whiterun." He scowled at Lydia. "Who's she?"
"My housecarl," I sighed.
"Housecarl?" Matteo snorted. "What do you need with a housecarl? You have a home, and it's not here."
Irritation flared. Who was he to tell me anything?
I shook myself, disentangling myself from his bear hug hastily. "I know," I answered soothingly, more because it was trying to pinpoint why his reaction irritated me so much. It shouldn't: this is just Matteo's way. We always fight. We always get on each other's nerves. It's how we interact.
But today it truly irritated me. Maybe I was just out of practice dealing with him?
I didn't know how literally to take the Greybeards' somewhat vague assertion about 'soul of a dragon' but I began to wonder exactly what that meant and how it might affect me…
"I take it you know one another?" Lydia inserted herself into the conversation.
"Matteo belongs to my Order," I answered simply, then ignored her. This is a private conversation, after all…
…it was getting hot in the room. Too hot for a room with only a cooking fire and no windows taking direct sunlight…
"I was going to head out tomorrow morning. Bright an early," I assured Matteo.
Matteo studied me. "That's it? You've been gone more than a month—"
"I asked for messages to be sent. Didn't they tell you anything?" I asked, gritting my teeth. Why am I justifying myself to him, an insolent pup? My am I letting him push me? My throat began to tighten, but I fought it back my thinking about the time I set my own robes alight after coming to the Order of Julianos.
Patience. It's just Matteo. I don't need to be selfish and grumpy like this...
"All I got was gobbledygook, but Brother Killian didn't argue when I said I was going to find you and bring you back," Matteo responded. "In fact, he encouraged me to do it. Seemed to think something was going on that wasn't being bandied about."
I bit my lip. "Did they tell you where I went?"
"Not a damn word," Matteo snarled, "but maybe that was Killian keeping secrets. Old coot." Matteo only says things like that when he's truly disturbed.
"You know more than you're saying," I accused, somewhat to my surprise. Usually I would keep a comment like that—like so many—to myself.
"Bollocks," Matteo retorted sharply, but he glanced off to his left, a classic Matteo tell for being less than forthright.
"Bollocks back to you!" I snapped.
This made Matteo step back. He tripped on the stair and stumbled until he caught himself. It's not like me to snap back, but something in my chest hummed agreeably, wanting him back away like that. I took several paces forward.
Matteo's expression changed from irritation to something else, something softer, non-comprehension, maybe. Not fear—though that irritable part of me that seemed to come to the surface now that I was around normal people indicated fear would be fine.
No, it wouldn't. Matteo is a friend. I've saved his life. He's saved mine. We're friends.
The Greybeards weren't wrong: it's harder to be in control down here. I was braced for all the wrong things, and the urge to run back to them like a gopd with her tail tucked between my legs grew. But there was no point—
"What are you thinking?" Matteo asked quietly, his big eyes fixed on me.
That was when I realized his hair was a natural color: nondescript and dark.
"I'm thinking that—" I stopped. Normally I'd wave off whatever I was thinking as unimportant, but I found myself wondering why? Why be so careful what I actually say or how I say it? Why not just say what I think?
I could answer this, in a vague sort of way: ingrained habit from the hazy part of my life before the Order of Julianos.
"I'm thinking that you're more irritating than I remember. And that I shouldn't have been in such a hurry to leave High Hrothgar, as my temper seems a bit unreliable," I answered flatly.
Matteo's expression opened up.
I sighed, sitting down on the top step, forehead in my hand. "If you've heard that—" My throat locked up, this time because I'd begun to feel…unhappy. It was as if this meeting with Matteo was spelling out for me that I couldn't just go back to Falkreath, slip back into the fold for a time.
I'd been pulled from the flock, and now I had to make my own way. The thought made my eyes sting. I lifted my eyes to meet Matteo's. "I'm the Dragonborn." It felt like admitting to something horrible.
Matteo didn't seem to know what to do, so he compromised by perching on one of the steps, sitting almost perpendicular to me. "I'm not really going to be bringing you home, am I?" he finally asked, not looking at me.
I closed my stinging eyes, finding myself surprised at my own mopey reaction, "No, I don't think so."
"But you'll come back and tell Brother Killian?"
"Yes, I think that's best." What about my vows and promises? The things that bind me as a Rester, the things that keep me from wandering off when things get hard, or ugly?
"Dragonborn, huh?" he asked, snorting softly.
"So it would seem," I answered.
Normally, Matteo would probably have asked me to prove it. However—and I thought it painfully telling—he didn't. In fact, he glanced at the door as if wishing we could leave right now. "Can you tell me what happens now?"
The question surprised me. I've never known Matteo to be…uncertain…of anything. "Short term: I have to recover something for the Greybeards. Long-term…" I stopped, frowning at him, realizing that I didn't know what common perception of the situation was. I opted for honesty—if I expected it from Matteo, I couldn't do anything less than give it. "Alduin is back. The Greybeards think I have to try to stop him."
It was the first time I'd really admitted it to anyone, and the magnitude of what those two statements meant tried to come crashing down on me. It was one thing to think about it, talk about it, in the confines of High Hrothgar but, as with so many things, perception hanged once I came back down to earth, as it were.
Matteo shivered visibly, which prompted me to move so I sat next to him. He leaned his dark head against my shoulder, and I found I took comfort in the gesture. "I never thought I'd see something like that in my lifetime."
"Neither did I." I guess I always thought of Alduin's presence as one of those far-off future things that could never happen in my lifetime. Never.
"Are you scared?"
I wrapped an arm around Matteo's, surprised by this odd reversal of roles. Part of me was terrified by the idea of facing off with a legendary evil. Part of me, the part that seethed on and off, looked forward to such a testing in the same way I'd normally look forward to clearing out an undead-infested ruin. "I'm certainly not going in half-ready," I answered, even though this sidestepped his question.
"This dragon thing is giving the upper echelon headaches," Matteo declared. "They're not sure whether the dragons count as undead or not."
"They'll kill you all the same," I responded with unusual fatalism. The words were fatalistic because they meant that I couldn't avoid getting into fights with dragons either. I had that feeling.
And with every dragon I killed, something perverse and profane occurred. I couldn't take comfort in the Greybeards' assurance that, since being Dragonborn was a divine gift, it couldn't be 'perverse and profane.'
We, Arkay's Resters, rule that black soul gems are both unethical and immoral. Even regular soul gems are considered somewhat of a grey area. What would the Resters say about a being that could absorb the soul of another being just because she was close to the other at the point of death?
And what were the implications for me? If I were killed by a dragon would that dragon receive my soul?
Arkay save me. This is going to drive me mad.
AN: Special thanks to DevoutOfSheogorath, who brought a really ugly string of typos to my attention.