Providence always seemed rather finicky and arbitrary to me, as I am not vouchsafed the omniscience of the Nine. Thus, and forgive me Talos, I cursed the Aedra when I felt the wheels rolling underneath to carriage as I awoke. I looked around to see where I was. We were crossing into less snowy regions of land, the bitter cold being offset by the heat of the ahead region and the flames of the hearths of civilization, the township of Helgen.
"Ah, you're awake! Kinsmen, how are you? The contusion upon your brow seems dire, and most painful," laughed an unidentified Nord. He was wearing Stormcloak colors. The humor of my situation was beyond my comprehension, and I simply gritted my teeth as I felt the waves of pain wash over my body.
"I see you are in no laughing mood, forgive my disrespect, kinsmen," said the Nord, "My name is Ralof, and I will be the first to give you an apology for your unintentional capture; damned Imperials must've altered our orders. Forced march right into the abatis and deliberations of a dreadful Imperial garrison!" Ralof cried with a faux despair, chiding the maneuvers and machinations of the upper echelons of the Empire.
My vision was shaky, and I could no longer feel the motion, nor even the sensation, of sitting aboard the horse carriage. A kind of existential vertigo, I guess. I uttered a healing spell and felt relief, my vision returning. The Imperial driving our horse carriage must've noticed my utterance, and was not very pleased because of it.
"Hey, you, Nord in the potato sack, shut up. No magic on the way to the headsmen, understand?" The Imperial angrily, and rhetorically, inquired. I opted for deference.
"Of course, sir Guardsmen.", I shakily responded. I felt my heart racing as I said this. The anxiety I have been grappling with has been a recent development. I seem the part of the stoic, warrior Nord, but something about the civil war put me on edge. The effluence of blood tainting the rivers of the Rift all the way to the snows of the Pale. King Toryyg's death seems to have been accompanied by a plague of anxiety and uncertainty that dispersed across the breadth of Skyrim. I tightened my fist then, not because of the deference, as it was not forced from me, but because of my frustration at fear being so easily provoked by an Imperial Guardsmen. The humiliation thereof was enough to drive a man insane. Though we were no co-equal in relative position, the ontology of the man gave no impression of divinity. I was afraid of the Gods, of non-Men and non-Elves. Being afraid of these things, even when these things are trying to murder you, is indicative of servility and weakness. I pondered my anxiety, and I attempted to reason away the fear. The wheels rolled over a stone and I lurched backwards, slightly hitting my head on the pole which held an unlit lantern on the side of itself, cleaved to it by a steel binding.
"Just can not get a break, eh, kinsmen?" Laughed Ralof.
We crossed into Helgen after another hour, and Ralof spoke again, "I used to find these Imperial walls so safe," and he then turned to Ulfric, leader of the Stormcloak rebellion, and asked, "What about you, eh, Ulfric?"
Ulfric was bound at the mouth, and tried responding to his comrade Nord. Realizing he had made a fool of himself in trying, and that this was the point of jest being hinted at by Ralof, he rolled his sea-blue eyes, muffled laughing accompanying the eye roll, and Ralof laughed too. I could not believe my eyes; the murderer of the Hing King was laughing, while bound at the hands and mouth, with an infantryman, and one that jested at his expense, no less. I was shocked, and my mouth very nearly became agape at this exhibition of camaraderie. If nothing else, the brotherhood amongst the Stormcloaks is admirable. Thereafter, I saw General Tullius convening with high-ranking Aldemeri officials, such as Ellenwen, and this provoked an insatiable anger. After having aided in the defense of Markarth, my home, from a massive bandit raid with this very General, I felt a rage that dissipated all longing to serve the Empire. I was, thenceforward, caught between a rock and a hard place when it came to the civil war. What kind of General has a soldier smote the brow of a civilian refugee with the hilt of a dagger because he had some vague connection to a Stormcloak party that was in the same immediate area? One that is more pragmatic than idealistic, and the subordination of the latter to the former is admirable except in my case.
"Alright, last stop, Nords!" cried the Imperial Guardsmen, with a smirk as he stepped onto the ground from the horse carriage. He put his hand on the hilt of his sword as he stepped to the left side of the carriage, monitoring us as we stood up, slightly hunched in the back, from sitting and stepped onto the ground. There was an Imperial holding a list, and he started naming the prisoners and sent them, in order, to the headsmen axe. When I was called, he said my name, and my place of birth.
"Jonah, of Markarth," the man almost inaudibly whispered, looking up from his list to meet my steely eyes, "I am sorry, kinsmen." He said, with a look of absolute resignation.
I was walking towards the headsmen's block when the Imperial party heard a roar. It seemed to proceed from a mountainous alcove adjacent to Helgen, and they assumed it must've been a very angry bear. The execution began; however, the roar became closer immediately thereafter the headsmen rose his dreaded axe. The anxieties of the Imperial garrison were heightened, and the consummation of fear was accentuated by the landing of a dragon, a dragon, atop a tower in Helgen. By Talos, it was blacker than blackest night, with petrifying eyes of deepest crimson. The dragon's scales were pointed and jagged, almost as ancient Nordic daggers found in ruins, and the dagger-like outlining of his wings accentuated the breadth and scale of his wings once they unfurled. The geometry of his wings blackened the sky, his maw smote men dead for fear, and his Voice, the dreaded Voice, conjured falling magma rocks from the very Heavens. Akatosh Himself would've been impressed. Magma rocks plummeted into the ground, and the flames thereof spread like serpents to lick, and crack, the wooden pillars of villagers' houses.
The headsmen dropped his axe and ran away and I picked myself up from the box, my ears were ringing from the thundering Voice of the dragon. I was Ralof gesture towards me with great rapidity and urging, and I rushed towards him. As the tower door slammed behind us, I heard the blood-curdling screams of the Imperial garrison echo and reverb in the stone blocks. I felt as though I entered a coffin.
"Could it be true, my King? The return of the Dragons? Are the legends true?" Ralof fanatically inquired of Ulfric Stormcloak.
"Legends do not burn down villages." Was the only utterance of the man.
I walked up the stairs, lost in thought as the fighting consumed the village in a cacophony of embers, the crack of lightning spells, and the crying of the wounded and afraid.
'H-how?' I thought. I reached the top of the stairs when, abruptly, the Dragon crashed through the walls, instantly killing a Stormcloak tending to the body of his fallen comrade. The Dragon roared and flames erupted from his maw as though it were Red Mountain, and the heat forced me to recoil and fall down some steps. My shin hit the stone and I gasped for the pain. I uttered a healing spell, and rushed back up, reading to evoke a frost spell. When I got back, there was a smoldering hole in the wall and the fragrance of charred flesh filled my nostrils. I looked out of the wall to see a township filled with smoke, fire, and death. I looked down and there was a hole in the ceiling of a home. I jumped down, and, after this, my consciousness will not let me remember, definitively, what happened until I got inside of another building in Helgen. There are disparate images of children with the flesh of their legs fused together due to the blasts of white-hot flames on their frail bodies, dying of shock. I remember battlemages stern visages as they summoned frost astronachs and large, projectile ice crystals. Lastly, I remember the Imperial which had apologized to me carrying my collapsed body into a fortified building. I suppose, in summary, what I remember is overwhelming devastation and suffering.
Then, after I enter the building, my memory returns. Hadvar was the name of the Guardsmen. His countenance was assured, but plagued with fear. He knew either he would live, or he would die, and that his chances of the former were augmented into favorable disposition if he rescued me. I felt the taste of a potion pour onto my tongue and slide into my stomach. I felt sharpened cognizance and the replenishing of my stamina. Hadvar gave me a sword and some armor, stating, "If you want to live, follow me."
We rushed through the basements of the building, the cracking and bursts of the overhead foundation nearly crashing debris on our heads. We eventually made it out into a cave, and there encountered Frostbite Spider. I drew my iron greatsword and slammed the blade into the beasts' skulls, one by one. Their poisonous blood splattered on my blade and gauntlets, and I felt a quasi-catharsis in killing them. Being in control, being able to plot my destiny, is very important to my sense of well-being. Finally, we exited the cave system and hid behind some rocks as the black Dragon flew overhead.
The last thing I remember of the incident is the sun being eclipsed by the black Dragon, and Hadvar turning to me, saying, "Nine help us; the Dragons have returned." Thereafter, Hadvar and I fled into Riverwood, and I was given supplies necessary for the journey to Whiterun, to warn Jarl Balgruuf that Dragons are attacking. I exited Hadvar's family's home, and looked back towards the direction of Helgen. Smoke plumes billowed as clouds in the firmament above Helgen. Smote with anxiety, and spurred forwards with bravery, I made my way to Whiterun.
That's how my journey began.