Sunlight glistened over the canopy of green and red surrounding a small grass clearing. A light fog hung just bellow, but the view within the woods was clear. In the grass clearing were four pitched tents, a wooden rack with bows and axes hanging from it, another rack with animal fur strung to it on each corner and the remains of a bonfire that had burned out the night before. A lone young boy, wearing a simple red tunic and white trousers ran from this encampment into the woods, a big grin plastered on his face. A quiver of arrows was strapped to his back and he gripped his hunting bow hard in his left hand.
The boy slowed right down as he reached the edge of the woods and proceeded slowly, being sure not to step on any fallen leaves and sticks. He continued deeper into the woods until he found what he was looking for; a small heard of deer feeding on low-hanging leaves and berries from a nearby bush.
He immediately dove behind a tree to avoid being seen, while still watching the deer closely. The biggest one suddenly turned its head in his direction. It was a majestic beast with white fluffy fur on its chest and neck, contrasting with the grey on the rest of its body. Two large antlers sprouted from its head and branched out in all directions, creating an imposing sight to behold. The deer quickly decided that there was nothing and returned to its grazing.
Harald knew this was his chance. He quickly pulled out an arrow and notched an arrow right in the middle of the bow string. He slowly crept around the tree until the deer was in full view, and pulled the bowstring back to his ear. With baited breath, he waited for the deer to turn it's head once more, which eventually, it did.
Gotcha, Harald thought to himself as he released the arrow and let his breath go. The arrow struck right where he wanted it to; right behind the ear of his quarry. The beast slumped down, unmoving, as the rest of the heard ran for their lives.
A wide grin formed itself on Harald's face and he eagerly raced up to his kill, drawing a hunting knife from his boot. This will impress father for sure, he thought. He was about to dig his blade into the loins of the beast, just as father had taught him, when he suddenly began hearing strange noises from the camp. He turned around but he was too far away from camp to see anything past the trees. The noises, however, sounded like there was an argument of some kind going down.
I suppose that this isn't going anywhere, Harald thought as he sheathed his blade and turned around to head back to camp.
As he approached the clearing, he began to make out who was there, and saw a group of figures that he didn't recognise. He saw his father speaking to two figures in black hooded robes. This visage made Harald's hair stand on end, and he instinctively dove behind a bush, doing his best to see and hear what was happening without being seen or heard. A small crowd was gathering around them, including Harald's mother,Aunt and a big brute of an Uncle closest to the weapon rack.
"So you're sure that we won't find a shrine to Talos in any of these tents?" the voice asking this sounded like that of a high elf, and Harald matched it to one of the robed people.
"Who in Oblivion takes a whole damned shrine to a hunting trip?" demanded the voice of his father. "I don't need your damn insults, Thalmor! Leave my family be!"
"You were rather passionate about your opposition of the White Gold Concordat, though, weren't you, Thalin?" This voice was that of a woman, but carried the same foppish snark as that of the male high elf.
"And that hasn't changed," his father retorted. "See, unlike your backwater Isles down south, here in The Empire, we have a thing called, 'Freedom of Speech'…"
Another golden elf, this time in a suit of golden armour with feather decorations around it approached the group, holding something that hung from his hand. Harald felt the blood drain from his face as he saw what it was.
An amulet of Talos.
Harald had, in fact, known that the worship of Talos was banned throughout the empire, at the behest of the Aldmeri Dominion. His whole family had fought in that war before he was born. It had not stopped his family from revering him, however.
Harald's heart began drumming rapidly inside his chest. He began to almost pant, breathing so fast. He pressed his hand into his mouth in his attempts to remain quiet.
"And what do you expect us to make of this?" The male elf asked.
"So, planting evidence on your victims, are you?" Harald heard his father yell. "The Emperor will have your hides for this, I promise you!"
"Ah, yes, the Emperor," the male sighed. "Do you know who we are, Nord?"
"Thalmor Justiciars," Harald's father replied. "Why is that-"
"So you know what it is we're doing here?" the female asked.
"Kidnapping innocent people under false pretext, by the looks of things," Harald's mother spoke up this time.
"We're here to make sure that your Emperor wasn't lying when he said he would eradicate the worship of false gods and stupid beliefs," the male Justiciar replied.
"What does it matter to you elves who our gods are?" Demanded his father.
The female turned directly to his father, and Harald could see her face.
"So, you admit to the belief in Talos, do you?" She asked him.
There was silence. The elves in the golden armour began to close in on Harald's family. Harald could see his other Uncle slowly pull an axe of the rack behind him. After what seemed like minutes, the madness began...
The Uncle suddenly buried the axe into the head of the male Justiciar, prompting the other elves to draw their swords. The female leapt backwards to avoid a knife blade in his father's hands. The women had also suddenly armed themselves with axes and bows as the fighting continued. His uncle began chopping down armoured elves. He cut down three of them before a fourth ran him through from behind with a sword. He looked up to see his father, mother and Auntie rush towards the female, axes in hand.
Harald wanted to join them, but something was keeping him from moving. Not a trap or a piece of his clothing caught on the bush, but some unseen force inside him, pulling him back to where he killed the deer. He couldn't even reach for the bow strung around his body. The pull became so compelling that eventually, Harald couldn't ignore it anymore.
He ran. He rand deeper into the forest. From between the trees he could just see a bolt of lightning strike his father down as he looked back. Two more struck out at his mother and his Aunt. Though he couldn't see them fall, the sound of their screams was enough to let him know what had happened. He turned back and continued to follow the pull that was taking him back to where he came. He could see the deer in sight, and he darted in front of a tree, where he stopped and sat listening to the carnage from the camp.
From the camp, the sound of thunder echoing throughout preceded a cry of agony that Harald recognised as his mother's. This repeated itself three more times, each with a different voice, but he heard his father's twice. All became quiet, save for the female Thalmor's voice giving some muffled order that Harald couldn't hear. A few moments later, the smell of burning linen hit his nostrils, followed by the treading of feet off into the distance.
Harald closed his eyes as tears began to fall in waves from his eyes and began to sob. He didn't have to go back to the camp to see what was going on. He knew. He picked this moment to let out his anguish and sorrow and cried hard into his knees.
Suddenly, a strong hand grabbed his arm and pulled him up from the tree. Harald opened his eyes and found himself staring right into the face of an gold armoured high elf. He was not alone either. Two more of his comrades were with him, just behind.
"Did you really think we were not aware of you, little one?" asked the elf with a menacing grin.
"Argh! Let go of me!" Harald yelled, prying at the fingers of the elf's hand.
The elf and his comrades laughed as he struggled. "Come now, boy. Don't you want to see your family?" The elf asked, brandishing a smooth curved elven dagger.
Panic set into Harald. However, his arm suddenly developed a mind of its own. In an instant, Harald found his had clasped firmly around the handle of his hunting knife which was suddenly in the eye of the elven soldier. The Elf loosened his grip and slumped to the ground, knocking Harald over in the process. The other two took a few steps backwards before one of them angrily drew his sword and rushed at Harald.
"Come here, you little shit!" the aggressor called out at him.
Harald clawed up to his feet and made for the tree, but he was not fast enough to evade being grabbed by the back of his tunic and dragged back to the ground. He found himself staring upwards with the point of an elven sword aimed right between his eyes.
"Let's see how you fucking like it, cunt!" The crazed elf yelled, raising the sword over his head. Suddenly, a great furry mass knocked the elf sideways out of Harald's vision. Harald turned to the direction they both went to find the biggest wolf he had ever seen in his life ripping the throat out of the elven soldier. When he lay there, limp, the wolf looked up at Harald, teeth still bearing, blood dripping out of its maw. Harald heard a commotion behind him and looked. Another big wolf had taken down the other elf, and the two were in a struggle with the elf holding a mace in between himself and the great jaws of his attacker. He was finally able to roll the wolf off him before rolling the other way. He stood up with incredible grace before swinging this mace forward at the advancing wolf. The wolf yelped as the mace struck it in the side of the head.
Harald once again let instinct take over. He had unconsciously flipped his bow over his head and into his hand, notched an arrow, drew and loosed it at the elf. The arrow struck the unsuspecting elf in the neck, and after grasping at the wound, he collapsed, unmoving.
The wolf stood up on it's paws and looked at Harald. He suddenly became aware of breath blowing on the back of his neck. Harald turned to see the first one, which was much bigger, right near him. In a panic, Harald backed himself up to the tree he was hiding near, and pressed himself against the trunk. The big wolf approached slowly, only moving one paw at a time. When he was once again on top of Harald, he stopped.
Harald could smell the blood on his snout, and even saw it dripping of his whiskers. He closed his eyes and braced, waiting to meet his inevitable fate...
A soft wet object began rubbing against his face. Harald opened his eyes slowly and could not believe what he was seeing. This great wolf, who was just before ripping an elf's throat out, was now licking his face as a dog does with its master. After more than a few licks he stopped, and just looked into Harald's eyes. Out of his peripherals, Harald could see that there were other wolves – a whole pack – that was now getting stuck into the deer he had killed. The big wolf nuzzled him with his snout, and Harald instinctively wrapped his arms around the great beast's neck and buried his face in his fur. Once again, he began to release his sorrow...
…...
A loose stone on the road knocked Harald out of his nightmare. As he woke, he was made suddenly aware of the cold air on his skin, and the rags he was wearing in place of his furs and effects. He tried to stretch but found that he could not separate his hands. He looked down to see that they were bound together with some sort of leather binds.
Great, he thought to himself. I'm a prisoner. Harald took this opportunity to observe his surroundings.
He was sitting in a carriage, with a handful of other men. One directly in front of him, who had the same coloured hair as he did, and only a bit shorter, with a braid down his left side. He was dressed in a leather cuirass over a mail shirt and a royal blue cloth wrapped around him. Harald looked down the road to see that there was an Imperial soldier driving the carriage. His armour perplexed Harald, though. This was not a legionnaire, as he thought when he got caught up in a battle between these blue dressed Nords and the Imperial army. There was no lorica segmentata armour with heavy bracers and helmet, but a pair of wide mail straps across the soldier's shoulders, attached to leather fittings around the waist. The bracers and helmet were also made from hardened leather. His sword was familiar, as was his diamond shield which sat on the seat next to him. There was also a short spear sitting underneath the shield, not a pilum.
This soldier was an auxiliary, not a legionnaire.
"Hey, you," he heard the man in front of him suddenly say. "Finally awake."
Harald turned to the man in front of him, but said nothing.
"You were trying to cross the border, right?" He continued. "Walked right into that Imperial ambush. Same as us, and that thief over there." He turned his head to his left.
Harald turned his head to where this man was pointing to with his face and saw another man, this time with shorter dark brown hair, dressed in similar rags to the ones that he was wearing.
"Damn you, Stormcloaks," this new man spat. "Skyrim was fine until you came along. Empire was nice and lazy. If they hadn't been looking for you, I could've stolen that horse and been halfway to Hammerfel!"
He suddenly turned to Harald, this time with a more sympathetic look on his face.
"You there," he said. "You and me. We shouldn't be here! It's these Stormcloaks the Empire wants.
"We're all brothers and sisters in binds now, thief," the first man retorted.
"Shut up back there," came a voice that could only have come from the auxiliary soldier driving the carriage.
Harald's focus was on a third man, sitting right next to him. His hair was blonde, much like Harald's own, but shorter like the thief. He wore heavy furs over his shoulders. The most interesting part of this man was that he had a gag over his mouth. He was also the only one with a gag over his mouth, as far as Harald could see.
"What's wrong with him, huh?" he heard the thief ask.
"Watch your tongue!" yelled the first man. "You're speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King!"
"Ulfric? The Jarl of Windhelm?" asked the thief, before a wave of realisation seemed to cascade down the thief's face. "You're the leader of the rebellion!" The man began to look around anxiously. "But if they've captured you... oh Gods, where are they taking us?"
"I don't know where we're going," the first man replied calmly. "But Soverngard awaits..."
"No! This can't be happening! This isn't happening!" the thief began to wimper.
Harald looked down the road and saw that they were approaching a wooden gate on the road. The horse-thief was still sobbing and begging to no-one in particular, but was shortly interrupted by the first man.
"Hey," he said. "What villiage are you from, horse thief?"
"Why do you care?" the thief spat back.
"A Nord's last thoughts should be of home," the man replied.
Harald didn't hear the answer, for his mind was taken back to his small house with the shopfront in Bruma. He smiled sadly as he remembered selling the latest hunting spoils with his father after a successful hunt. He remembered running down the streets with the other children and playing pranks on the guards. Even the sound of the gates ahead opening didn't distract him from the memories of watching the local blacksmith working with iron and steel, or with ebony from Morrowind, or Valyrian steel from Essos. He wondered if any of his old friends from Bruma were still alive, and if so, what would they made of his disappearance?
"Tulli Generalis, Et exertam carnifex exspectat!" A distinctively Imperial voice called from atop the gatehouse. Bruma may have been full of Nords, but Harald could still recognised Cyrodillic when he heard it.
"Bonum. Sit hoc fieri," replied the voice of an elderly Imperial. Harald's heart began to beat as hard and fast in his chest as it did they day his parents died, as he fully understood what was going to happen.
He was being taken to his execution.
"Shor, Mara, Dibella, Akatosh... Divines, please help me!" he heard the horse thief pray.
Harald looked down the column as they entered the gate and saw a grey haired rider, dressed in Imperial colours, break away from the column to approach three other figures, one of whom was also on horseback. Harald's jaw hardened as he recognised the face of the one on the horse. The Thalmor woman who murdered his family. The other two elves in their golden feathered armour at her sides confirmed her identity. As his carriage passed them, the first man spoke up again.
"Look at him," he sneered. "General Tullius, the Military Governor. And it looks like the Thalmor are with him. Damn elves! I bet they had something to do with this!"
Harald couldn't hear the conversation that passed between the Thalmor and this 'General Tullius', but he stared straight at them until they disappeared behind a thatch roofed house as their carriage continued on down the road.
"This is Helgan," the man in front of him continued. "I used to be sweet on a girl from here. 'Wonder if Vilod is still making that mead with juniper berries mixed in." He chuckled as they passed a tall stone tower with black banners with the red Imperial dragon hanging from low hanging windows. "Funny. The Imperial walls and towers used to make me feel so safe.
Harald's eyes fell to the floor of the carriage as he remembered feeling the same way in Bruma. "Don't worry, son, the Elves can't reach us here," his father once told him. Clearly he didn't account for what went on outside those 'Imperial walls and towers'. Not even the pack of dire wolves that had replaced his family were safe, as they to were taken away from him by force.
As they passed through this new town, Helgan, the locals began to come out of their homes to investigate the new arrivals. Ragnar heard a conversation between a father and his son behind him and was relieved to hear it in a language he recognised.
"Who are they, Daddy?" the boy asked.
"You need to go inside, little cub," the father replied.
"Why, I wanna watch the soldiers," the boy questioned.
"Inside the house, now!" the father demanded.
"Yes, Pappa," the boy conceded.
He felt the carriage suddenly stop, and he looked up to investigate. His and other carriages had stopped on the left side of a small stone archway. Those carriages that had stopped before them were already unloading their prisoners.
"Why are we stopping?" asked the horse-thief.
"Why do you think?" the first man replied. "End of the line.
Harald looked straight into the eyes of this first man as he continued. "Let's go. We shouldn't keep the Gods waiting for us."
Harald nodded and stood up with his newfound acquaintance. they all turned to face the end of the carriage, where another auxiliary soldier and what appeared to be an Imperial officer (judging by the helmet), this time a woman, were waiting.
"No! Wait! We're not rebels!" The horse-thief pleaded.
"Face your death with some courage, thief," the first man deadpanned.
"You've got to tell them! We weren't with you! This is a mistake!" Demanded the thief.
The imperial officer suddenly began barking orders at everyone, strangely, in his own language.
"Step towards the block when we call your name! One at a time!" she snapped.
"Empire loves their damn lists," he heard his new acquaintance mutter next to him.
The auxiliary had a notebook in one hand and a quill in the other. He began to read out the names.
"Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm," he read first.
"It has been an honour, Jarl Ulfric," the acquaintance called out to the gagged man as he walked off to the left.
"Ralof of Riverwood," was the next name to be called. This name belonged to Harald's new acquaintance, as he marched off in the same direction as 'Ulfric Stormcloak'.
"Lokir of Rorikstead," the auxiliary read next. This name was the thief's.
"No! I'm not a rebel! You can't do this!" The ragged thief protested, before suddenly breaking into a sprint past the two Imperial soldiers up the road from whence the carriages had come, despite the Imperial officer calling him to "Halt!"
"You're not gonna kill me!" Lokir could be heard as he had almost reached the bend.
"Arquitis!" the Imperial office called out. From one of the towers, an arrow struck the thief in the back of the head. He fell forward, and ceased to move at all.
"Anyone else feel like running?" the officer asked as she turned back to the prisoners.
Harald was breathing shallow and quick, staring at the now dead thief when the auxiliary addressed him.
"Wait, you there," he said, pointing his quill at Harald. "Step forward."
Harald did as he was instructed and slowly took three steps forward, eyes locked with the Nord in the Imperial armour.
"Who are you?" the auxiliary asked.
Harald thought for a moment. The Empire had abandoned him and his Uncle in the wake of their family's slaughter at the hands of the Thalmor. If they knew who he was, what if...
What's the point, a voice in the back of his head asked. They're about to execute you anyway!
Harald took in a deep breath before he gave his answer.
"I am Harald Thalinson."
For those of you who know me from Dragonball Harmony, Welcome to something right out of left field. This is basically the plot from Skyrim's main quest line, but with some actual emotion and more... appropriate dialogue (and by that I mean swear words!). Funnily enough, it was the show 'Vikings' that inspired me to do this, but with an A Song Of Ice And Fire sprinkle tossed in. It's technically a Skyrim/ASOIAF crossover, as the two universes exist together in this story, but we'll only get hints of it as the story progresses. Also, I'm trying to not to mess with George R.R. Martin's canon to much, so for that end, Robert's Rebellion, the catalyst for the events in Game of Thrones, is 183 years away from happening at this point. Hope you all enjoy!