I could hear the crackling of the fires and the low rumble of the avatars before I opened my eyes.
The smell of blood and charred hair flooded my senses; I could feel wet snow beneath my hands as I moved my fingers, my cheek resting in the freezing slurry as I lay sprawled on my stomach. Something heavy bumped against my elbow as I moved my arm.
I felt concussed. Like I was suffering from the effects of a powerful hangover.
It was only as I tried to open my eyes that I felt the pain; the ache of bruised flesh covering my body, the sting of salty sweat in open wounds. Sticky blood lined the black fur inside my armour. I coughed and spat as a bloody fractured tooth rolled across my tongue from the back of my mouth, the aching hole gaping where it had leaked blood into my cheek.
My vision was a blur as I slowly opened my eyes, still lying face down in the filthy snow.
The glare of burning fires dimly came into focus; the wind rustled through the torn and bloodied robes of dead Thalmor, their butchered and burnt bodies lying in piles around me.
Blood covered everything in a rancid, congealed slick. Organs lay strewn next to disembowelled corpses; the gleaming white surfaces of broken bones protruding from fractured limbs surrounded me.
The snow fell silently upon the eerily still scene of death. The snowflakes settled on their pallid skin and hair, resting on the surfaces of open and dead eyes.
'Victory is yours on this night of tears, qolaas. Saviik se iiz fahliil.'
Naslaarum's unnaturally deep, growling voice was uncharacteristically low and soothing; it was then that I realised that he was sheltering me beneath his enormous wing.
He slowly and gently brought his head around to bring the tip of his beak close to the side of my face; I smelled the smoke as a gentle rush of his hot breath blew across my skin.
Voslaarum sat on the snow in front of me, calm and still, his huge eyes inquiring almost gently as he lowered his face to see me, the broken silver reins dangling from the sides of his mouth.
'Kos hiu sahlo, Dovahkiin?'
I vaguely recognised the words. Are you weak, Dragonborn?
They were protecting and nursing me.
After the destruction I had wrought and the things I had expected of them, they were here guarding me as if I were a wounded kitten.
I winced in pain as I tried to get up; my arms gave out beneath me and I fell back down into the sloppy snow, noticing with some shock that my wrist had been slashed and that I had only limited movement in my left hand; nearly all of my little finger had been torn away, the stump of ragged bone and torn skin throbbing with heat.
'Ungh... hargh.' I spat out the split tooth that was still in my mouth, blood spattering the ground next to my face as I exhaled loudly.
My armour was dented. I could feel the strange, excruciating hollowness of the deep cuts on my legs and sides, the edges of the wounds lined with pain.
'You must return to your people, qolaas.'
'I.. I can't... get up.'
A sickening wave of intense nausea swept through my body as I turned my face and vomited blood.
The baby.
I could feel the intense cramps, creeping across the surface of the hard lump in my belly in waves as the muscle hardened and bunched up.
A steady, hot trickle of fluid began to pool between my legs.
Naslaarum carefully swung his head down and I heard a dull chink as he closed the tip of his beak around the black metal collar of my cuirass; blood dripped from my mouth as he gently lifted me to my feet, the searing pain of my many wounds causing me to cry out as the action of straightening my posture forced them open.
No scream emerged from my open mouth; only a pitiful dry squeak.
It felt as though my life was slipping away. My body was battered and torn. I collapsed to the ground again as soon as the dragon released his grip, gasping in agony as I realised that my leg was broken.
A low, uneasy growl emanated simultaneously from the avatars as they looked on helplessly, not knowing what to do.
There was nothing that they could do.
'Try again, Dovahkiin. Unt wah siiv mulaag.'
There was a hint of desperation in Voslaarum's voice; Naslaarum again gently touched his nose to my shoulder as I felt my eyelids become heavy.
The rolling pain in my stomach slowly began to build again as it rippled across my belly; I felt the distinct stirring of the little creature within as the soothing darkness began to creep in around my eyes.
I heard the rumbling growls from the avatars suddenly intensify as their heads suddenly raised and they turned to look behind them; the pounding of hooves crunching in the snow suddenly faded into my hearing as I felt hot tears streak down the sides of my face as I closed my eyes, and all around me became dark.
'No!'
In my state of delirium, I could not tell who it was; it no longer mattered.
The comforting blackness washed over me as I drifted away, and the pain dissolved into it.
There was nothing.