d|b

-Ross-

The mountains were collapsing. That was, at least, Ross's first impression of the tremendous quakes rippling through the walls and raining dust from the shrouded heavens. He closed his eyes, wrapped his arms over his head, and prayed to all the gods that they'd accept him quickly.

The thunder swelled in volume until Ross thought his eardrums would burst; and that was when there was something like an explosion outside his door with force too great to be considered. He dared to look and at once wished he hadn't; he saw the door flying straight for him, off its hinges, fringed by terrible blue light.

So this was what death looked like.

It crashed into him and all the breath was knocked from his lungs. Ross thought that it had crushed the life from his bones, only he was still conscious when the storm of light and force ended. He could feel it pressing him in an uncomfortable manner against the wall. He could feel a buzzing ache crawling through his body. He thought he might be sick.

"Get up, fox-throat! Get up!"

Ross's eyes snapped wide open. Uldmidaar's head hovered outside the shattered cell entrance, speaking frantically. "We cannot linger, we must escape, they will be coming for us both if we do not remove ourselves from their hellish hold!"

"What? What…?" He had to be mad. He had to be stark raving.

"Get up, rider!" Uldmidaar twisted around, eyes blazing. His jaws parted. Blue thunder tore from his lips and the walls strained and trembled. Ross shuddered, and became aware that his cell door was still on top of him, pressing painfully into his legs and arms and chest. This was happening. He pressed his shoulder against it and shoved it to his side, and weakly crawled out from his corner. His limbs were trembling but every sense felt as if it were afire. He could hear muffled shouting and strangled cries, and the voices sounded angry.

"Quickly, joor! There is no time and I need your aid!" The golden dragon twisted around, panting heavily. Ross leaned against the warped doorframe, trying to coax his shaking legs to take his weight. He stared at Uldmidaar; broken chains dragged in his wake from the manacles still fastened around his various joints. A huge iron yolk forced its prisoner to shuffle bow-backed, but fierce strength resonated underneath the gold-white hide.

"I don't understand," said Ross weakly, as the dragon turned back. "Why…what's going…why are you helping me?"

"Your fate and mine are sadly bound," Uldmidaar growled. "Dur nust woun gro sille…Curse they who took both of our spirits prisoner here! No, together we were brought here, together we must escape…it is only right. Geh vrah. Neither of us would be here if not for the other." His posture turned taut. "They come. They fight through the wreckage I have made of their entrance point. But it is only a delay. They come and when they do then we both are ended. Hurry!"

Ross stood bewildered where he was. He numbly looked the length of the passage he fringed; rows of empty cells, some blasted apart like his, stretched along one side of the wall. The other overlooked a deep pit where undoubtedly Uldmidaar had been held. Huge cracks ran along the ceiling now, and dust fell in colourless bursts with every heavy step the dragon took. A heavy brass door that could only have connected this prison to whatever fortress lay above was buckled and bent, straining on its hinges. It was trembling in response to the punishing blows those on the other side were laying on it. Their captors were fighting to get in. There really was no time.

He stumbled blandly after Uldmidaar, still too startled to comprehend much. Uldmidaar had pulled himself through the crumbling walls and back into the pit. Ross tripped over fragments of rock and other sorts of debris, barely noticing them. It was only when he stood preparing to leap down after the dragon did sense finally come back and smack him in the head.

"What are you doing?" he exclaimed, as the dragon hurled itself on a portcullis making part of the wall. "We're enemies! You should have killed me!"

"Hokoronne?" Uldmidaar twisted around, scowling. "And why do you say that?"

"You're…" Ross stammered for words. "You're…you're a dragon, you're loyal to the World-Eater, you hunt men for sport!" Now you freed me? It made no sense.

"Misunderstood!" Uldmidaar fumed. "To fool the so-called masters of truth! Such is the burden of my responsibility. Nii los ni eylok. It is not kind, my fate. It will be less kind if I remain here. No, your fate is not mine to decide, so come, help me with this gate!" He clawed at it savagely, and sparks flew from the vigorous contact from his large talons against the unyielding metal.

The banging from the busted door was growing dauntingly loud. Ross glanced at it in growing agitation. Still he didn't understand. He had to understand.

"Why should I help you?" he bellowed, over the rising clamour.

"Mey joor!" Uldmidaar whipped around, tail lashing. "I am no enemy of yours! I am no enemy of man!"

"You were at the vaxnilz! You killed that man—he was at your mercy and you killed him!"

"A lie!" Uldmidaar almost screamed it. He was agonized. "All a lie, do you not see? The man was caught and I was there, fortune placed me at the scene and what else could be done? He asked to die so the rest could live—I had to perform…" He roared and flung himself upon the gates again. "Kiirre do qostiid, I must return! For nothing if it ends tonight!"

Ross shook his head, overwhelmed…his madness…this madness…none of it could be true…none of it was wrong, not when it was like this. He hasn't done anything to hurt me, he thought dazedly. If he was an enemy of man he could have killed me…he doesn't…he didn't…he won't.

The furious banging on the buckled door was growing awfully loud. He could discern voices. Snapped back into reality, Ross was reminded of their predicament—if they were caught they'd be tortured or killed, and suddenly he knew he couldn't stand another moment more in this prison, asking questions that he couldn't answer. He forgot he was hungry, thirsty and exhausted the instant his eyes landed on something he thought could help. A collection of rusted black levers and gears protruding from the wall, and levers and chains all connected in such a way…

Ross staggered towards it, wrapped his hand around the nearest lever, and pulled with all his might. It barely budged; he'd lost a lot of his strength, but he threw himself upon it and used all his body weight to push the lever towards the ground.

Something groaned. Something rattled. Something clanked. Nothing moved.

Gasping, Ross pushed himself back upright, looked around quickly. There had to be something else. He could barely see, and groped desperately across the array of mechanics, searching for something, anything that could respond to his touch…

He heard a distant affirming bang, shouts, footsteps, the rasp of a sword. Ross turned far too late; the metal-clad warrior was upon him, sword high. He tried to flee but there was nowhere to run, he tripped over his own weary feet and fell on his face. The warrior was above him. Ross tried to stand and was kicked hard, flipped onto his back wedged against a pile of fallen debris, to stare at the silhouette of the man who was about to be his murderer—

An enormous shape reared behind him, snatched the swordsman in huge fanged jaws, and flung him back the length of the corridor. There was an explosion of vocal outbursts, profanities and warnings and commands all blurred into on dizzying slur. Uldmidaar wasn't finished yet. He filled his lungs and bellowed a word, and the world turned fiercely orange, so bright Ross was blinded. He closed his eyes and turned away trembling as heat seared overhead. The cacophony of voices morphed dreadfully into shrill screams.

The burst of fire ended. Ross heard the dragon's wings filtering the smoke away, pushing it after the enemy, filling the corridor with thick black clouds. "Hurry, joor," he rasped. "Hurry…please."

Ross pushed himself unsteadily upright and clung shakily to the wall. "You killed them, didn't you?" he croaked, not daring to look.

"Dur zey waan tol los ful, I hope not. Quickly, little one. Quickly."

Ross reached out; his sleeve caught on something, and his hand curled around a second lever, as heavy as the first, as much effort to push down. He hadn't eaten for days, and he shook badly as he draped himself over the handle and pushed down to earth as hard as he could. But the lever responded, after a few tries. From within the wall came a stern grinding, and the dragon suddenly emitted a cat-like cry of jubilation. "Nii bex! Zu'u fen daal, dii fahdonne!"

Ross looked down the corridor. He could hear their gaolers regrouping, and returning. They spoke furiously, and he distinctly heard them say kill. Freezing fear rooted itself deep within him, and blind to anything other than the thought of freedom and life, he stumbled after Uldmidaar.

The dragon had dragged himself under the raised gate and down a dark passage it had guarded. Ross clambered unsteadily into the pit and followed him, and for a moment stopped and stared. Chains dangled from the ceiling, or snaked over the floor in ruptured iron streams, and all had been broken. Had Uldmidaar done all this? Of course he must have. His cries had been powerful enough to crack stone and warp solid metal doors into grotesque statues; this dragon was powerful, dangerous, and yet Ross had no other choice but to follow him. Perhaps it was the sight of his blood, streaked across the floor in vast black smears, that persuaded him. He was not as powerful as he might be, and for some strange reason he had chosen Ross to help him, to spare his life now twice…even saved it from an otherwise certain end.

What does he want with me, this accursed creature?

This was soon revealed. The yoke grating loudly upon the stone floor, Uldmidaar dragged himself down the sloping path and to the end, where the floor changed suddenly into cold black water. He was trembling freely. His green eyes were very wide, and his breaths rattled oddly in his throat, akin to a sobbing, choking sound a human child might make. "Horseman," he rasped, "can you swim? Can you see in the dark waters?"

It struck Ross then how helpless he seemed. Uldmidaar was afraid of water. Perhaps dragons couldn't swim. He was certainly behaving like one that couldn't. His tail lashed in nervous strikes. He was bleeding profusely from several wounds, streaking over his aureate skin and puddling darkly around his talons and folded gold-shot wings. His head moved awkwardly, the yoke barely fitting the tunnel.

"We must move quickly," he rasped. "I cannot turn. I cannot defend myself. They are coming, I hear their footsteps, their shouting."

Ross said nothing. He didn't know what to say.

"Mortal," Uldmidaar whispered, "I ask you humbly—and warn you knowingly. It will be your death if you stay."

Ross shook his head. "If I go…my honour is nothing. I am nothing"

"Your honour will kill you if you remain. You will be nothing if you stay. Akatosh will give you no other chance."

Ross could hear them coming as well. Their footsteps crossing the pit. Any moment they would be upon them.

"Please," Uldmidaar croaked, for the second time that night.

A freerider takes no sides, Ross thought, but what sides were there? Life and death. A side was forced upon him and he had to choose, to live or to die, and long before he had donned the pin and taken to wandering the world, he'd chosen his side.

He seized the dragon's snout and threw himself into the black waters, and Uldmidaar followed.

Ross couldn't see underwater, but the moment he sank below the surface, his legs working furiously, he felt the current, and he knew they had to go down. His back rubbed against the slope of the stone hold they were trapped within, and he took a hand from the dragon's snout to feel the shape of it, to guide them both deeper into the waters. Uldmidaar was trembling, flailing, struggling with the yoke still snared around his neck, but he was still strong and soon Ross no longer had to guide, but hold on. The dragon pulled them down. Neither could see where they were going.

His lungs were burning, his head was aching from the pressure. Ross thought he was going to faint. He pulled them up. They had to go for air or he'd drown. He clutched Uldmidaar's head and pulled it up after him, and amazingly the dragon followed. Power trembled through his body as his vast wings worked to propel himself heavenward, his thick tail sweeping new disturbances in the river's unceasing flow, his talons ungainly and clumsy but kicking furiously. The dragon pushed them up, up. The pressure began to ease. Ross felt the chill of the river beginning to integrate himself in him, and felt a very different kind of darkness stealing up on him. He didn't dare open his mouth, and forced his lungs to burn.

And then his head broke the surface, and that was when he inhaled. Cold, clear, wonderful air filled him and the flush of dizziness subsided at once. Uldmidaar's head broke the surface too, and the dragon's gasp was louder and thrummed with fierce joy. Ross opened his eyes; the dragon's were already wide, and staring at the paling sky, silver-grey with dawn and peppered with the fading stars. He rumbled with measureless joy. "Akatosh, dii bormah, I hear you again!" he cried. "O, the shadows are fading from my mind! I am myself once more! Unahzaal werid wah pah tol los pruzah ahrk tovokei!"

Ross couldn't stay afloat. He sank a little and gagged as water flooded into his mouth. He spat it out and choked, flailing desperately in the river. He didn't let go of Uldmidaar, who didn't seem to mind.

They had little time to revel; they'd escaped the deathly dungeon but not those that had incarcerated them. A horn sounded, somber and clear in the early morning. Ross was exhausted, but he forced his leaden limbs to keep pummeling, keep him afloat, riding the current as it drew them further and further from a vast stone island that seemed somewhat familiar; in its shadow, Ross remembered, they'd been captured. Nets had been flung down from the sky…

…and that was what was going to happen again, he thought suddenly, if they didn't get out of here.

"The bank," he spluttered, "we have to get to the bank!"

Uldmidaar made no response; after his exultation, he seemed to recall that he was floundering in the broad river, but he no longer seemed afraid. With focused, determined sweeps of his powerful limbs he rode the water and pushed himself towards the shore. Ross lost grip of his bronze head and clung instead to the yoke.

The dragon's swimming was still clumsy and thrashing at times, but he forced his way to shore. His clawed thumbs on his wings hooked into the gritty dirt and a moment later his large talons drove into the muddy riverbed. Then he pulled himself out of the river and onto the bank, and Ross let go and sank wearily onto the steady earth. He flopped back onto his back and stared dizzily at the sky, and for a moment was tempted to rejoice as Uldmidaar had done—they were out, they were free, they were back in the open, under the sun and the stars and the moons when they rose again that night…

"Mal gein, look out!"

Ross saw the black mesh spinning down from the heavens, with impossible speed; suddenly there was an unbearable pressure on his throat, and the earth vanished from under him, and he felt hot breath on his back and neck as Uldmidaar swung him around. Terror overcame him and he struggled; he heard his clothes tear and he fell heavily to the ground. I knew it, he thought faintly, I was an idiot to trust a dragon, they hold their honour so cheaply…He waited for the killing strike, but it never came. He felt the snout push him roughly to his feet. "Flee, mortal, flee!" Uldmidaar shrieked. The net was stuck fast in the earth where Ross had been lying.

Ross tried to climb to his feet, but he was at the end of his strength and could only wearily sink back down onto his knees, choking on his own breath.

"No, joor, do not give up now, freedom is yours!"

The dragon wasn't making sense again. It hadn't killed him. It had pulled him out of range from the net. Why did it insist on saving him? Why? Why?

A long, angry hiss sounded in Uldmidaar's throat. Ross looked at him blankly; the dragon was turned back towards the mountainous cliff bridged on all sides by the river; he reared, his white wings flaring to obscure Ross's view, but he still heard the three-worded bellow and glimpsed the fireball as it spun with amazing speed towards the summit of the rock. It crashed with a resounding bang. Ross thought he heard metal and timber splintering together.

Then he heard hoofbeats.

He looked across the river, where the road stretched by. He saw riders. He was bewildered. Their hunters had horses as well? What kind of people were they? They could imprison dragons and shoot them from the sky, drag them out of sight and drive them mad in the darkness, and now they were horsed and riding straight for them, armed and ready to kill. "Uldmidaar," Ross whispered, and coughed angrily, and forced his voice to rise into a wearied but audible rasp. "Uldmidaar, they're coming. We have to get out of here."

"We?" the dragon echoed, twisting around. Then his eyes fell on the approaching riders and a furious oath swept from his lips. An arrow hissed past, and another. Ross pushed himself up, but didn't know where to go, where to run. He was without his horse, lost to the stonehold…he had no means of defending himself and lacked the energy to do so anyway…it was over. They had won. He'd sided with life but would die nonetheless.

Uldmidaar collected his breath and hurled another fireball. He wasn't aiming to strike them, but rather the road just ahead, where the fires flared in a blinding orange burst that frightened the horses and threw the approaching enemy into disarray, the armoured riders fighting to control their terrified beasts. Then, wordlessly, Uldmidaar's golden head slipped under Ross's legs and smartly flipped the startled Imperial onto his back. Ross came to face-down between the dragon's mighty shoulders.

"Hold on to me," Uldmidaar growled, and his huge body lurched upward. Instinctively Ross clapped his hands around the dark spines ridging his back and clung trembling as Uldmidaar began to climb. "I am too cold to fly," he growled, half to himself, "I cannot fly, not yet, but we must move out of range somehow…" His talons scraped effortless scars into the cliffs as he mounted them with speed that surprised Ross. He dared to look after a moment; the bank they'd rested on was already twenty feet below them, and they were still ascending.

Ross clung harder, aware of a strange hammering in his chest. It struck him then; he was riding a dragon. And the dragon had been the one to put him on his back. Again, it made no sense…not immediately, not while his mind was frenzied, his blood was scorching, and arrows came haring past them.

Uldmidaar at last began to haul himself over the lip of cliff, grumbling as he did so, as several of the shafts now stuck quivering in his flesh. Most had bounced off his stone-hard scales but some had struck home, penetrating the soft skin between the plates, and a few had driven into his pre-existing wounds, causing him even more grief. Ross dared to look down at the river and the road below them; the riders had swum their horses through the river and stood below them, shooting up. Any moment, Ross thought, and they were going to hit one of the dragon's vitals, and they'd come plunging back down to certain death.

A blur of black caught his eye; horror unfolded in his stomach but the net didn't hit him; it struck just below, pinning Uldmidaar's tree-thick tail to the sheet of stone under him. Uldmidaar shrieked and strained wildly against the snare, but he couldn't free himself. He struggled with holding on, trapped in one place as he was; the baked clay ledges couldn't support his continued weight. Lurching and bucking, desperately trying to stay upright while tugging in vain at his trapped tail, Uldmidaar was vulnerable, a fly caught in a web; the heavy yoke forced his head forward, so he couldn't use his Voice to defend himself. All he could do was receive the onslaught of arrows that tore into him; into his wings, which were soon shot deep crimson with multiple arrow wounds, into his open wounds, into his softer underbelly. His screams of pain grew louder and louder.

They're going to kill him. Ross's heart leapt harder, knocking on his ribs. And if they kill him they'll certainly kill me…It wouldn't take long for them to get a bead on him. He dared to look down again. Uldmidaar's agonized thrashes were tugging more insistently at the mesh binding him. He wondered when another net was going to come flying, trap them to the crumbling cliff face. His eyes focused on the mesh already binding the dragon. There were huge heavy barbs burrowed into the cliff, but the soil was still loose, and Uldmidaar's continued struggles was loosening it everywhere. The mesh was beginning to lose its grip. It still clung fast but it was weakening.

Ross knew what he had to do. There was no time to feel fear. Using the many ridges of small black spines along Uldmidaar's back, he cautiously clambered down, lower and lower until he crouched on the dragon's hips. From here he could almost reach one of the glistening black barbs that hooked the spider-web mesh into place. Shaking with trepidation, he eased himself towards it, a little lower, a little further…he had it.

Then he pulled. When it didn't budge, he pulled again, and again. Clay crumbled past his sweating fingers. He wriggled the barb and kept pulling. Inch by inch, it slid free. It was hardest only in the beginning. Now it was coming out almost steadily. He almost had it. The mesh was losing its strength. Uldmidaar's tail was beginning to move more freely, and more vigorously, as though the dragon sensed that its snare was coming loose.

Ross's shoulder burned. An arrow cut through fabric and skin with unreal ease. He suddenly lost all feeling in his struck arm, and he swayed. Alarm clenched his insides and his hale hand gripped the dragon even tighter. Then the pain blossomed, and he yelled it aloud, barely able to suppress the agony of his ruptured flesh. Uldmidaar heard him, for he gave a mighty bellow and flung himself heavenward. The snare's hook popped out of its clay socket and within moments the rest had as well, and Uldmidaar was free. Ross barely held on as the dragon lurched frightfully under him. He was losing his grip…any moment now he was going to fall…

Then they were on level ground. Ross could barely speak, barely think at all. His injured arm was tucked into him, a horrible tingling in his hand, while something warm and wet trickled steadily through his clothes and over his skin. Nonetheless he had a strong urge to get high again. He pulled himself over Uldmidaar's back until he'd found the hollow between the dragon's shoulders he'd rested in before. That was when the dragon's wings unfurled. They were badly peppered with arrows, but they still clapped the air, bending the wind to their will. Slowly, certainly, Uldmidaar lifted himself into the air. Ross watched the ground turn into a distant scape below them, too vague to feel anything, only watch as the sky became their domain. He clung to the dark spikes in front of him as Uldmidaar, with heaving, straining breaths, pushed himself higher and higher into the sky.

Ross watched the clouds slip by in silver wisps. He felt the frigid air knife his sweaty face and burn into his wound and tear at the ragged mess of his cloak. He twisted his head up to look ahead of him, but the iron yoke blocked any view of the dragon's head. He looked across one blood-splattered wing to see the silver sky. He pressed himself lower into the dragon's warm body to escape the worst of the cold and the scorching winds. With an ear to the thick scales he heard Uldmidaar's breath humming through him, felt his power sliding under his hide in a series of flowing, comforting vibrations.

A dragon flew like a horse galloped, Ross thought to himself, smiling idly. It was a motion he was very familiar with. He relaxed. Something told him there was nothing more to fear. He still didn't have to think about anything at all, and for now he didn't want to.

The sun was rising. It was a sunrise unlike anything Ross had ever seen. For the first time in his life, Skyrim was below him. He was above the world. Uldmidaar rocked steadily beneath him, his wings drumming the air in deep heartbeat thrums. Tamriel was a painted canvas under his feet…and it was beautiful.

So beautiful that when Ross opened his eyes and found his back pressed against it once again, he wondered if he had been dreaming.

He sat up and knew at once he hadn't; the returned pain almost made him pass out again. He clutched his hale hand against the seeping wound and felt his own blood trickle past his fingers. His hand had gone completely numb. Ross tore a strip of his cloth and hurriedly tied a makeshift bandage over the arrow wound, binding it tight to suppress the worst of the pain.

He wasn't in his cell. There was fresh air in his face. The morning was stronger, but not much time could have passed since the sun's rising. Ross looked around and immediately found Uldmidaar, crouched a short distance away and watching him impassively.

Ross was afraid, briefly; then he remembered all that had transpired in the last dizzying hour or two, and the fear went away. It was calmer now. The urgency had passed. Now he could learn what he still found unfathomable. His mind sharpened, and questions formed in his mind and on his tongue. The dragon waited as though it had expected him to ask. Ross opened his mouth to speak…and nothing came out. Suddenly he didn't know what to say. He bowed his head in defeat and looked away.

Uldmidaar spoke in the silence. "You wonder, joor. I do not blame you." He took a step closer with a strangled sigh. He seemed burdened with the yoke, which he hadn't successfully removed. His head was lowered to the ground, almost dragging. He let it rest there when he wasn't moving, his horny chin inches from the grass. "Much we have shared now. Too much."

Ross again asked, "Why didn't you kill me?"

Uldmidaar's eyes glittered. "I told you—"

"—on the road. You could have killed me on the roadside, and left, and we never would have been captured." This Ross first had to know. Why hadn't the dragon taken his life? Why had it spared him, when it proved itself willing to murder countless others like the rest of its brethren?

Uldmidaar frowned. "You saw what you should not have," he growled quietly, "and the trust of the Betrayed is shaken…but it will be restored, when I explain. You stumbled across us by accident, and in doing so…" He shook his head. "You should not have seen anything of that exchange, fox-throat. Your fate has changed because of it. You saw what it almost became on its own. What it has become now that we embraced and changed our fates together…I know not, nor do I want to. I have had enough dealings with mortals in this treacherous land."

Ross forced himself upright a little more, onto his knees, so at least he was eye level with his unlikely saviour. "You talk a lot about fate," he observed. "You told me…" Tampered with the fates of millions…

"As I said," said Uldmidaar, "you should not have seen that. You will ask what it is, why I reacted so furiously when you saw it, and I will not answer you, and you will turn bitter…but nothing else will have changed. I fear the days you once knew are over. The shadow men, they will continue to believe their obstinate beliefs. I am going to disappear, and soon they will not be able to find me. But they will not stop hunting you."

Ross touched the pin at his throat. The cold metal stung under his bloody fingertips. Strangely enough, he was not surprised to learn this. Subconsciously, he'd accepted this long, long ago. His mad dreams were ever so slowly making sense.

"They see us as allies," Uldmidaar continued, "and after what we have accomplished together, to them it is beyond doubt. Your fate and mine were one and the same before, and for that…a connection we have unhappily created between us." The dragon scowled. "Though perhaps it had always been the way of Akatosh. You witnessed my performance in Whiterun. Freeriders do not normally take part in a vaxnilz, but you did."

Ross blinked wearily. The old argument readied on his tongue, but Uldmidaar spoke first. "You still do not understand and I do not expect you to in a day. Know that what you saw wasn't what you thought. I appeared to murder Ulfric Stormbear as befitting a traitor's purge, but I did not. I appeared to utter an oath of fealty to Alduin, but I did not. The words were meaningless. I serve Akatosh, not him."

It was all coming true. It was all coming together. Ross wondered if he would ever believe it.

"All dragons serve Alduin," he murmured.

"No. All do not." Uldmidaar's nostrils flared. "Paarthurnax did not—ah, but you would not know of Paarthurnax, would you? Brother to Alduin, he was the first victim of the Dragonborn's betrayal. He was the one who gifted mortalkind with the Voice. He was the first of our blood to turn against Alduin and he was not the last."

Ross's brow furrowed. "You resist? You fight Alduin?"

"Geh, but not yet. We await someone…a child, yes, a child whispered through prophecy. We have felt its birth somewhere in Skyrim, we have been searching for it…and readying ourselves for the day when it is revealed to us."

"A child of prophecy?" Ross echoed. "You mean the Dread?"

"No." Uldmidaar glowered. "Not him. He strayed from his path. He betrayed his destiny as he betrayed us all. This is another. This is a path that Akatosh has granted, lain down in our uncertainty to right the wrong that has been done to us all. We know not when the child will come to us, only that it has been born…and we Betrayed will watch and wait, and gather our strength. We sense the time is near. Very near." His eyes snapped to Ross. "That is not your concern. Our fates are ended. Yours you must find elsewhere. Mine remains as it was, now that I am liberated. Now I must return, I am delayed enough, and there is still much work to be done."

"I still don't understand," Ross protested, as Uldmidaar's pale wings unfolded slowly into the cool morning air. "You say you resist—you fight Alduin—why did you kill a potential ally? You and Stormbear…you could have worked together, you could have been even stronger…"

Uldmidaar scowled. "I did not want to kill him," he muttered. "Fate placed us together. Our fates were bound to one another then. I was doomed to end him from the moment we came across each other in the mountain paths. I was only following my instructions when I happened upon the battle. Ulfric knew defeat was inevitable. He asked me to be the one." He closed his eyes. "He knew of us. He knew what had to be done. It was too late for me to flee or hide, I would be seen by the reinforcements. If I fled, if I hid, I would be seen as suspicious and labelled a traitor. I could not fight them, I was far outmatched. Ulfric knew his fate was to die…but he asked me, so that I could live."

He became very still. It was some time before he spoke again. "My purpose is cruel and lonesome. I know what I must appear to the commons, in order to maintain appearances, to continue with the work Akatosh has assigned to me without hindrance or risk of failure. I must be as monstrous as the rest of my blinded brethren. But I do not kill without reason. I do not kill for sport or pleasure. I do not feast on the flesh of mortal men to sate my hunger. I am not brought so low as the beasts."

Ross shook his head. "That's not true and you know it. I heard about you destroying a farm and devouring the people that lived there."

Uldmidaar's eyes opened slowly. "No," he murmured. "That was not I—what else, but young wyrms desperate to prove themselves?" He hissed angrily. "I heard the commotion from my lair—I roost close to Whiterun over its river—and proceeded to investigate, to help the mortals if I could, but it was already too late. The farm was ablaze and the wyrms were feasting. They scattered at my approach. I was foolish that night—I lingered when I should not have, trying to quell the blaze even though there was no point, the farm was dust. It was no wonder I was named the culprit. I awaited the punishment that came of a freeflier breaking hold-law…but it never came, and it made me angrier. Liars, deceivers, unjust rulers that dominate this world…it is not right, it is not how mortals and immortals were made to be. Alduin has corrupted so many into harbingers of chaos and mindless cruelty…and I count myself most fortunate that I was not raised under his shadow."

The dragon heaved a tired sigh. "This is enough. I must be away, and so must you. The shadow men will be hunting us both but they will follow the easier trail like any wise hunter. You and I have served one another and escaped together. The connection is sealed. Our fates were shared once and despite my misgivings I fear they will be shared again, such is fate's fickle nature."

Ross wondered what he meant by that. "You mean to say we'll meet again?"

Uldmidaar blinked. "If fate is kind, we will not need to. But fate is rarely kind."

Then his wings unfurled; still with the yoke about his throat, he pushed himself into the sky; he winged his way into the cover of the clouds; and then he was gone.

Ross did not move for quite some time afterward, but continued to think. He tied loose ends together, concluded in certainty, and ascertained that Uldmidaar had indeed been speaking the truth about all that he'd said. He was indeed no enemy of Skyrim, the freerider told himself, because Uldmidaar had not said Ahgelingrah. He had named the city before it, Whiterun.

Like the Nords of Old, like Kaarn Stormbear, he had named the world for what it was, and would be again.

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