AN: I've now planned out all of this Skyrim arc before the story eventually goes back to Wayrest. I imagine this arc will be about 50k words, and I've already written out the next segment. I'm still rather enjoying this so no problems with motivation, its just that I tend to leave an admittedly long time between postings. As always please leave a comment or review telling me what you thought of it, any questions or improvements you had and similar. It's nice to write this but it's a lot better when there's audience engagement.

-x-

Over the hills Harald came, journeying on to Whiterun. Over the hills, and through them, past farms and fields, and along streams and rivers running.

The mountains at the centre of Skyrim were to his right, off to the east, dominating the horizon like a whale cresting the waves. To the north were their cousins, more mountains which he knew were the border to the Pale, a kingdom away past ancient Labyrinthian which was told of in more tales than he could rightly name.

To the west he saw more plains stretching out dotted with spots of colour and pools of water. This was the great tundra of Whiterun and he hoped to see one of the mighty tribes of giants which were said to travel them. From this distance Harald would hardly be able to discern a giant from a wagon, but he could certainly see a few parties moving about and he guessed them to be either horsemen, herds and their shepherds or caravans coming to Whiterun. It was getting on to winter and thinking about the date Harald remembered that there would ordinarily be a great fair in Wayrest where merchants would congregate from all over. Perhaps they held the same tradition here, one last gathering before winter set in and closed the roads to all but the hardiest.

As he stood at the crest of the last line of hills before the ground levelled out into plains he saw Whiterun. It was indistinct at this distance, many miles away, but it was seemingly large, built around and on top of a hill, perhaps the last child of the hills he was currently looking at it from. He saw several walls and many smaller buildings, but couldn't make out anything from this distance.

He wasn't alone though. For the last few days a hawk or possibly more than one had been following Harald. It was clearly a sign, even without his experiences with signs and portents previously Harald knew that. However, merely determining that it was significant didn't do anything to tell him how he should interpret it or what he should do about it, nor had any of the hawks given him any instructions or anything for him to really interpret in the first place. He'd not noticed them following him at first but previously he'd seen one eating a serpent, and after that the boy had noticed the bird following him. He supposed it might simply be seeing several different birds but he doubted it. Even now one was resting on the branch of an old dead tree a little way ahead of him. They'd all certainly looked the same, each with a brown body, red wings and a mottled white underbelly and Harald had taken to feeding them. He'd been fortunate in his foraging during the journey and hadn't needed all the food he'd packed and so had been giving to the bird. As he approached it now he saw its beady eyes lock on him, head following him as he got closer. Without taking his eyes off it he reached into a pouch at his belt and pulled out some jerky, tossing it underhand to the bird. The hawk's beak closed nimbly around the meat, bringing it down to its claws and tearing into it. Harald watched it for a while, worrying at the dried meat. The bird looked up though and let out a shrill cry, flapping its wings a few times at him.

Harald didn't know a great deal about hawks, but he felt it was trying to tell him something and he smiled as he walked past it.

He approached the city stepping onto a good cobbled road that wound away across Skyrim toward the west. The sky was overcast above him and the air cool, though with his fur mantle Harald wasn't cold. The cobbles beneath his feet were well worn indeed, and he thought they must have been there for several centuries, ground down by a thousand feet. The road lifted his spirit as it reminded him of the past, when Master Vinothren had come to take him away from Alcaire to begin his life in Wayrest. He had lived a boy's life; on this new road he went to become a man.

As he approached he saw the true size of the city. It was both larger and smaller than he'd first seen up on the ridge. Larger, because now he was standing at the bottom of the large hill it was built into and wasn't looking down on it from a great height, but smaller because it appeared that the structures were far less densely packed than he'd first thought. When he'd crossed through the hills to look down upon Whiterun Hold earlier in the day he'd seen golden thatch roofs which seemed to cover the promontory, but now he got closer he saw that the difficulties of building on uneven ground had clearly not been resolved as on the hill itself there many spaces where large rocks stuck up like the half-buried bones of a great creature, impeding much of the planning he was used to from Wayrest. Whereas that city sat on a river and a relatively flat plain, with only one hill with cliffs as the highest point, Whiterun sprawled over its own hill and Harald wondered why the men here hadn't quarried more extensively to build their homes.

Perhaps it simply wasn't the custom in Skyrim to arrange engineering in such a fashion, but he still thought it odd.

As he came further toward the city he passed farms, a few mills on both water and plain, as well as coming through a smaller village a few miles away from the city. Due to its proximity this was perhaps the most prosperous village he'd come to since leaving Helgen and he drank in the sights with interest. Nevertheless, Harald hadn't come to this place for villages and he didn't bother to stop, pressing on toward the city. Gold shone at Whiterun's peak and he knew it to be Dragonsreach, the great hall of Olaf the one eyed dragonslayer. He'd heard they kept the skull of Olaf's enemy there and he dearly hoped to see it.

The gates of Whiterun were not as large as Wayrest's. However, it seemed to Harald that they would be more difficult to assault and so when considering their actual function, he supposed that they would be stronger than Wayrest's would be. Where Wayrest's walls and main gate were rather dilapidated due to the devastation of previous years as well as the unchecked expansion of the city, Whiterun's were ancient stone with a well-appointed wall curling around in front of them so any enemy had to approach the gate from an angle and be exposed to attack from three sides. Wayrest's were rather grander but more exposed and Harald consider that in general the Nords seemed a cruder, yet more honest people than the Bretons he'd grown up around, yet it saddened him to see the city of a dragonslayer less grand than one of mere merchants. However, having considered his earlier thoughts on the differing engineering skills of the two peoples he saw that there was at least a drawbridge over a deep moat and he followed a trundling cart as he went in.

The boy went unchallenged as he passed through the gates and up into the city and he went to a watchman standing nearby to see what he could find out about the city.

"I seek Jorrvaskr, where can I find it?" he asked simply.

The man looked at him, "I'm no Companion, but I should say you were too young by a few years, better that you return home and come again in time."

Harald thought for a moment. While he hadn't been entirely surprised that the Trollwaker in Helgen had discouraged him he suspected that man to be a Companion, and perhaps one of their officers. He didn't know what sort of structure they used in their organisation but he'd thought it strange given that in High Rock it was considered entirely normal for a boy of his age to begin a martial career, starting as a page to some lord or knight. "I've come far to do so, and I don't intend to stop here." He finally replied.

"As you say." Shrugged the watchman, clearly not particularly caring about the issue, though Harald guessed the question had likely made his day more interesting. "I'll not deny you if you're resolved in this, though if you've not come to the city before you should know that its divided into three districts going up the hill, you'll find what you seek at the highest level, and any there will be able to direct you."

After a few more questions Harald set off again, climbing up the hill, spirits rising even higher as he did so. He'd never been uncertain or out of place in his journey north, but it was good to be in a city again and he smiled as he walked, observing all the comings and goings of the people.

His people.

For though he saw a few foreigners for the most part the folk were Nords, like his father and grandfather had been, and like he was. Wayrest had a few of them, principally among the nobility and newer families who'd come down with Andorak's army two hundred years ago. However, most of the city had been Bretons of slighter build and darker colouring, with the other side of the river being their main home. The docks too had been more mixed, with people from all over Tamriel working as labourers, seafarers and artisans, the Lainlynmen from the other side of the Bjousale frequent among them though there were a hundred other tribes from Wrothgar, Mourhoth, Sentinel, and other kingdoms. Now he was in Whiterun he saw plenty of Cyrods and Nibenayans, as well as ruddy men from the Sundered Hills and Druadach in the Reach, and even a few Merfolk of various sorts, but most of the population were Nords, tall and strongly build. Both men and women wore their hair in braids, with the older of both sexes seeming to keep theirs up while the younger wore it loose. Their clothes were strange, but not so strange as to shock him for Harald had just been through Cyrodiil and so had seen many new fashions he'd previously been unfamiliar with. Here for instance he noticed that blue seemed to be particularly favoured among the Nords.

There were other changes though. In Wayrest the wearing of swords was forbidden unless the bearer was a knight, whereas in Whiterun each Nord man, and to Harald's surprise at least a few of the women wore weapons openly. It couldn't be that they were all knights, or as he'd learned they called them 'Thanes', so clearly there was no such law in this place. This only confirmed his hope that his were a proud people, and it gave him greater confidence as he walked. Here was the place he'd wash away the habits of the lesser Bretons and become what he'd been born to be, training alongside the Companions till he was equipped with the tools he needed to begin his golden path, the strength of arm and skill in the sword.

The hawk had followed him into the city and he saw it circling above him. On he walked, and Harald guessed at the three districts the watchman had spoken of. He'd called them the districts of Plains, Winds and Cloud and Harald had known that like in Wayrest they'd likely reflect the different divisions of wealth and order within the city. The Plains district was the lowest level, with the smallest and rudest housing, holding the market square as well as other particulars of industry and commerce. Further up there he passed through the Winds district, this one for the artisans and merchants to live in and he saw several workshops for higher value goods like an alchemist's or a clothier. This middle district also held the temples and Harald saw several to different gods in a sort of intermediate level between those of Winds and Cloud. This intermediate level was clearly that of the nobility and he saw many large well-appointed halls as well as a grand church several stories high on one side of an open space which held a strange beautiful tree. It stood proud in the middle of a wooden structure, a sort of scaffold around it where flowers had been placed and the boy saw that there were several people praying there.

Harald would have thought it an ash tree, but its bark was silver and its leaves were red-gold in the autumn as the wind whispered through its boughs. The breeze caressed his hair and the boy closed his eyes, hearing the soft run of water of some spring as it went down the hill to join the great river below.

Then he felt something pass above him and opened his eyes to see a large dark shape fly into the tree and disappear. The hawk had followed him there and he went closer to see it.

"Do you guide me?" he asked, looking up. The bird was there, brown eyes keen in the red leaves, its colouring let it blend in well, only the underside of its white mottled tail clearly observable as it perched on a branch.

The boy's eyes drifted downward and he saw a statue.

"Hail Talos."

For there he stood, a great man, a warrior, sword pointed down thrust into a serpent's head. Harald stepped forward around the praying tree toward his god. There were braziers burning on either side of him, and the figure seemed to rise up from the earth, its child and defender. One foot was on the serpent's back, the other hidden among its coils. His face was stern and unlike the shrine Harald had prayed at in the hills above Bruma this Talos was a soldier, outfitted in strong mail that given the size of the statue Harald knew must have taken many days for the sculptor to carve. He was bearded and wore a winged helm to battle, standing in victorious fatigue as he looked down at his enemy.

Then the hawk was there again, alighting on Talos' hands clasped over his sword to drive it down into the serpent. The bird called, its cry clear on the wind and Harald felt cold again, heard his heartbeat, blood rushing in his ears.

He prayed looking up at the pair, his father's grim face, his mother's keen eyes, "You've set me a road before me, now watch as I go out on it."

Behind them he saw the final district, well named for behind it he saw only the tips of the mountains and the clouds. There was Dragonsreach, a great hall with a golden roof, tall atop the rocks. It was like a proud man who stood after long work, ready to defend his own. Harald saw sentries on a wall about it, and there were many arches of wood and stone where the hall divided into subsections and cloisters where the Jarl of Whiterun made his home.

But Harald hadn't come for the Jarl or his hall and he turned away. Beyond him to the east was the Throat of the World and the highest mountain in Tamriel or anywhere else. The snow on its peak shimmered against the sky and it stood like a white spirit, massive yet silent. One day he'd climb the Seven Thousand Steps like Talos had, but that was in the future. Now he looked down, down below the peak to another less stark one, another slumbering beast on the top of Whiterun's hill.

Jorrvaskr.