Guide:
Dwemeris
Thoughts
"Speech"
"Dovahzul"
Warnings/Disclaimer: see chapter 4
Chapter Warning(s): Alduin. Trauma.
A/N: Super-irregular updates, but hey at least they're there.
Translation guide:
Stin: freedom
Dii: my/mine
Ahmul: husband
Fahdon: friend
Kogaan: blessing
Pogaas: much/many
Last time…
Skyrim is in chaos – Time's run out.
Chapter 66 – Dragonrend
The road to High Hrothgar, once we decide to get a move on, only helps to show me further how severe the situation has become in my absence. Even though… I don't remember any of this happening while I was doing Dark Brotherhood jobs. Surely, I'd have remembered rocks falling from the sky as if crumbling down a mountainside, in the middle of an open field?
Surely I'd know if entire caravans vanished?
Surely, I'd have been aware of the seasons moving as they pleased, no longer sticking to their natural order?
It's Frostfall, but as we pass by Korvanjund, there is no thick layer of snow and ice to be seen – flowers are blooming, and sabercat cubs are frolicking through them, heedless of our presence. Their parents are nowhere to be seen.
It's Frostfall – the midst of winter, but at the Loreius farm a bewildered couple is bringing in a bountiful autumn harvest.
"The leaves on the gourds are turning yellow."
"But… It's the middle of winter?"
Whiterun seems to be covered in thick mists that come with the early spring.
A guard walking ahead of us in Ivarstead suddenly stumbles and falls to the ground – not dead but fast asleep. Another one tells us, in a voice drained and deadened, that it's been daytime for over thirty-six hours.
We've only been on the road for a few hours, at most.
It takes two weeks to cover the distance between Nightgate Inn and Ivarstead.
None of these things serve to make me any calmer. The Elder scroll across my back is a heavy burden, heavier still now that I see what hinges on it.
"I don't suppose we can stay the night in Ivarstead and move up the mountain in the morning?" Marcurio asks, leaning heavily on the Wabbajack. The sad face carved out in the wood seems to ask the exact same thing mournfully.
"It's still light. And it will still be light by the time we get to the top." I huff, glancing at the cloudless sky above us, the sun showing no sign of going down anytime soon. "We move up the mountain and rest at High Hrothgar for a few hours, then go see Paarthurnax, aye? We'll be there before you know it."
"Yeah, yeah."
We cross the bridge and take a few steps – and the next thing I know we're in knee-deep snow, with no footsteps behind us and High Hrothgar rising in front of us. Seriously, the offerings chest is only a few feet away.
Marcurio lets out a slightly hysterical cackle, disturbed. "Well, you were right! We really did get here before knowing it!"
"This is highly unusual." I agree blandly, reeling inwardly. Just to be sure, I pat down the scroll on my back, but it hasn't vanished into thin air.
I take another step, and my vision doubles.
A man is walking, alone, down the stairs towards me. He doesn't see me but is talking to someone who stands where I am standing right now. The world is bathed in a cold blue, like icy caverns hiding forgotten realms. "Ulfric, son of the Jarl of Windhelm, you say?" The man, I now realize, is Arngeir, younger, with less wrinkles and yet a face full of them as he asks me if I'm alright.
"Dragonborn? Are you unwell?" he asks, and I'm back in the present. My head feels like a dragon stomped on it.
"Fine." I croak out even as my knees buckle underneath me and Marcurio has to rush forwards to prevent me from eating snow.
"No you're not." Marcurio grunts as he moves his arm around me to support my weight and get me into the monastery, Arngeir leading the way and opening the doors for us as I fumble and slip up the stairs, my head pounding in sync with my heartbeat.
"It's what my father did to me," I mumble into his master robes of destruction as he sets me down but I only cling to him tighter. "It gives me… visions. It will pass soon."
"I'll believe that when I see it."
As it turns out, the attack does pass relatively quickly, and I refuse to remain in High Hrothgar for long afterwards even though my lover pleads with me to rest a little.
"After Paarthurnax helps me with the scroll and I find out how to defeat Alduin. I've waited far, far too long. I must do this."
…
The top of the Throat of the World is as frigid as it has always been, uninviting and icy and treacherous, with a dead Word Wall to the side and Paarthurnax meditating, waiting, eternally.
The dragon's milky eyes open at our approach, and though I spot distortions in the light not too far away, I do not let my eyes stray in that direction – it might be a remnant of the visions, or a trick of the light, or yet another sign that the world is crumbling. Or being eaten, I should say.
Paarthurnax sigh brings me out of my thoughts.
"And so, you return at last, Dii Fahdon, with that which you have sought for so long. The Kel – the Elder Scroll. Tiid Kreh…Galos. Time shudders at its touch, as it trembles before the wrath of Alduin. There is no question. You are Doom-Driven, Goraan, but not alone. I sense within you Kogaan Akatosh… the blessings of Akatosh. Go then. Fulfill your destiny and find Stin – your freedom. Take the Scroll to the Time Wound. Do not delay any longer, for Alduin will soon come here."
I nod solemnly at the old dovah, who has helped me with so much along my journey. My eyes stray once more to the strange phenomena of dancing light, curving in directions it should not, whirling hypnotically like leaves carried in a circle by the wind.
A glance at Marcurio gets me a reassuring smile. "I'll be here no matter what." He claims in a low voice, and I smile helplessly back at him before stepping inside the Time Wound and unrolling the Elder Scroll with frozen fingers.
It's almost a relief when the world falls away around me in a vision that does not overlap, cast in red rather than blue. The edges of my vision blur and I cannot bring myself to move, but my headache vanishes like snow before the Alik'r summer sun and my heart remains steady. This vision is warm and comforting, not cold and unnatural and sick, and I relish in it even as I focus on the scene playing out in front of me, unafraid of any in the present stabbing me in the back whilst I am no doubt vulnerable.
The strange, alien symbols of the Elder Scroll are burned onto my retinas, visible like spider threads. A dragon, orange-scaled and proud, roars out a challenge to three Nord warriors – no, two warriors and a mage – who lift their weapons and charge fearlessly. I do not know their names, but I believe they must be the friends Paarthurnax spoke so dearly of – Hakon, Gormlaith, and Felldir. Soon, it lies dead, and the three convene to speak only a few steps away.
It is so strange, to see history further back than even the First Era I hail from. This is the Merethic Era – where Dwemer had barely come into being, if at all. Nevermind most other elven and human races.
"Why does Alduin hang back? We've staked everything on this plan of your, old man." The warrior, one-eyed and fierce and reminding me, oddly enough, of Brynjolf, asks brusquely.
"He will come." Felldir, the mage, states calmly. "He cannot ignore our defiance. And why should he fear us, even now?"
"We've bloodied him well. Four of his kin have fallen to my blade alone this day." The third person, a blonde woman stouter than Mjoll the Lioness calls out, the battle-lust still in her bearing.
They mention Dragonrend, and then my eye falls on the Scroll on Felldir's back. I am not the only one surprised to see it, but the only one to also carry it upon my back.
"Felldir!" the redheaded warrior – Hakon? – Cries, aghast. "We agreed not to use it!"
"I never agreed. And if you are right, I will not need it." Felldir replies dryly, and I cannot suppress a snort. Mages. Always thinking ten steps ahead.
"No," Hakon agrees, drawing his blade as if to accentuate the statement and taking a deep breath. "We will deal with Alduin ourselves, here and now." His conviction is stronger than rubies, and the other warrior, who must then be Gormlaith, grins savagely.
"We shall see soon enough – Alduin approaches!"
"So be it." Hakon says, almost a whisper, and his eyes are hard but saddened, a quiet, solemn resolve seen in those knowing full well death awaits.
And then the ground and sky, nay – the very world trembles, and Alduin swoops in on his clawed black wings, larger than life and a blot against the sun, drowning out the light with his size and cruelty dripping from his every breath and shift.
For a brief, heart-stopping moment, it's like our eyes meet, and I cannot breathe even as I am incapable of stepping back or even shivering at those red, red, eyes, seeking and wishing to see only death and destruction. Chaos. Evil. If there were ever personifications of such things, Alduin would be.
His voice echoes, mighty and dark, and with the ringing in my ears, I cannot hear them.
Gormlaith's call to arms comes as a splash of water in my face. "Let those that watch from Sovngarde envy us this day!"
Then the three Shout, the Thu'um they use rattling my very bones even as it ingrains itself into my skull, carving a path through my ears and digging deeper and deeper, filling me with a deep, unnatural loathing even as I know I can never forget the words. The Shout has no place in the Way of the Voice the Greybeards study and I prefer – it is twisted, meant only for Death, and it – it shows. I can feel it behind my navel, a sickening lurch at the thought of having to use it.
Alduin crashes into the ground, enraged and panicked, and in a brilliant, horrifying moment, I understand. Empathize with him.
"NIVAHRIIN JOORRE! What have you done? What twisted Words have you created? Tahrodiis Paarthurnax! My teeth to his neck!" He continues to curse and tell the warriors they shall die today, before the fight commences.
One falls, and it is not Alduin. Gormlaith goes, screaming, off the edge of the mountainside after she is flung from the dragon's maw.
Then, the remaining two use the Elder Scroll, and cast Alduin into the flows of time – into the Fourth Era, to become the burden of the last. To become my burden to bear.
"You are banished!" Felldir howls, and it is not a howl of victory.
The world falls quiet. "It worked… You did it…" Hakon gasps, voice aggrieved as his eyes search not for the World Eater but for the edge, to where their third had vanished.
"Yes," and oh, how tired did he sound in that single breath! I couldn't bring myself to hate these people, not for what they did. Not for sending Alduin away, nor for forcing Akatosh into involving me – Last Dragonborn or not.
"The World-Eater is gone… May the spirits have mercy on our souls."
I forgive you.
I blink, and the scene disappears. My vision clears and dims before coming back in full – no more strange colors dancing at the edges. I feel the cold bite in my clothes, feel the rustling of the Elder Scroll – not quite paper – against my fingertips. Sounds return to me, and I hear Marcurio shouting at something in the distance.
Black wings unfurl in the midday light, blotting out the sun, and it's like the vision all over again, only now I am the warrior standing in between Alduin and his victory, standing alongside Marcurio and Paarthurnax.
Red eyes meet mine, and this time I do not freeze in terror, nor do I shiver. I merely remember the quiet resolve on Hakon's face, the bloodlust of Gormlaith, and the calm serenity of Felldir in his darkest hours, and breathe.
Alduin circles above us, voice carrying through the clear air towards us. "My belly is full of the souls of your fellow mortals, Dovahkiin!" He calls, first in Dovahzul and then, as if remembering the time I could not speak the dragon tongue, in the common language. As if that would make his taunts more effective. "Die now and await your fate in Sovngarde!"
As if I will end up there. I shall go to the Void, if Sithis wills it. I have done too much and made too many suffer to see the halls… haven't I?
Paarthurnax roars in reply, taking to the sky. "LOST FUNT! You are too late, Alduin! Fahdon! Use Dragonrend, if you know it!"
Marcurio, at my side instantly, draws his staff and fires the Wabbajack without pause. The thunderbolt that it fires does little more than annoy the black dragon, but the mage is undeterred, as am I even as I draw my axes. Luckily, I have two of them to call my own this time. I have done with only one for far too long.
Breathe.
Breathe.
Inhale.
Shout.
"JOOR ZAH FRUL!"
And it burns, hurts like fragments of glass forces through my throat, cutting and painful and wrong – but Alduin falls to the ground, roaring threats and then it's a deadly game of dodging his teeth and tail and Thu'um and fucking meteor showers, hitting where I can until he rises again. Then, I force the Word of Power past my lips, over and over and over until I need to do so no more and every breath is like a death rattle in my chest, my throat feeling like it's torn to shreds from within.
"Meyz Mul, Dovahkiin. You have become strong. But I am AL-DU-IN, Firstborn of Akatosh! Mulaagi Zok Lot! I cannot be slain here, by you or anyone else! You cannot prevail against me. I will outlast you… Mortal."
He takes flight, having noticeable difficulties doing so, and sails away, out of reach of my Shouts and out of reach of an exhausted Paarthurnax, bleeding sluggishly from the teeth marks in his shoulder, where wing meets body.
"You truly possess the Voice of a Dovah. Alduin's allies will think twice after this victory." He grumbles appreciatively, settling himself next to the Word Wall. Marcurio slumps down against the stone with a sigh, having resorted to Destruction magic after realizing that the Wabbajack was being uncooperative against Alduin. He uncorks a magica potion and raises an eyebrow when he sees me watching him, jerking his head towards Paarthurnax as if to say 'I'm tired. Go talk to him.'
"It was not truly a victory, though. Alduin escaped his end once more." I remind the old dovah, who chuckles. "Niid, this was not the final Krongrah – Victory. But not even the heroes of old defeated Alduin in open combat."
I suppose he has a point.
"So what happens now? We need to chase him down – but where'd Alduin flee to?"
"Indeed…" The dragon ponders for a while. "Perhaps… one of his allies could tell us. Motmahus. Though it will not be so easy to… convince one to betray Alduin. The Hofkahsejun… the palace in Whiterun. Dragonsreach was created to capture one of the dovah. One might be trapped there once more, hmm?"
He says it as if convincing a Jarl in the midst of a political crisis to make some room and time to trap a fire-breathing dragon into his wooden palace is a good idea.
"I…Fine. We'll see what the Jarl has to say about it. Hopefully, we'll be able to capture an ally without too much… drama."
Marcurio snorts derisively. "I wouldn't get my hopes up."
My shoulders sag and I resist the urge to groan like a petulant teenager. "I know."
Then: "How would we even get a dragon to Dragonsreach? I don't suppose we can send them a letter?"
Paarthurnax snorts, shaking his large head as if to shake off the snow from his back. Small whips of smoke drift from his nostrils as he turns to me.
"Niid, Goraan. But… you may call upon him."
I raise an eyebrow. "Like… In a Shout?" but the old Dov, blast him, remains stubbornly silent, as if telling me 'you figure it out yourself'.
How would a Shout be able to call a dragon? Hmm… Paarthurnax is saying it for a reason. What do I know about the Thu'um? I… project my voice with great force to achieve different effects based on three words…
Three words to make a whole Shout.
Paar-Thur-Nax.
Sah-Lok-Nir.
Mir-Mul-Nir.
Dov-Ah-Kiin.
Marcurio grunts as he walks up behind me while I'm thinking and drapes himself over my person like a cat begging for treats or attention.
"I don't mean to whine, but can you have your Dwemer-y contemplating session somewhere warmer?"
I chuckle even as he places his icy hands on my face – still flushed from battle – and lets out an audible groan. Placing my own hands over his, I look back at Paarthurnax, who seems… Fond. A bit confused, perhaps.
"Dovahkiin, Laan Dreh Haalvut Kro… I must ask… Your indulging in this Kro, human sorcerer... You are Zeymahzin? Or perhaps Thur-Aar?"
My brain automatically translates for me after the many sessions in Dovahzul with this very dragon: Zeymahzin: companion or battle companion. An honored friend or companion, who serves besides someone. Thur: lord, master or king. Aar: slave, servant.
"Niid, Paarthurnax. He is my… That is, we are -" Hmm, the best translation would be…
"He is… Dii Ahmul."
Marcurio makes a vague noise of inquiry, but Paarthurnax settles comfortably. "I see. Pogaas Kogaan, Dii Fahdon. Blessings, my friend."
"What does 'Ahmul' mean?" Marcurio whispers into my ear and I swallow at the contrast of his hot breath, feeling myself flush at the older dragon's approval. "Thank you, Paarthurnax. And – getting back to the topic now – Dragon names are Shouts, right?"
He nods, greying wings fluttering in the wind and claws digging into the snow when the weather worsens. "Indeed. And I know one who shall come at your call – no true Dov would turn down the challenge inherent in your calling. They will wish to test your mettle against their Thu'um after today's battle. Listen, and hear his name: Od Ah Viing!"
Snow Hunter Winged? Alright then.
This is it, isn't it?
With a strange sort of finality that echoes deep inside my very bones, I know that I will not see Paarthurnax again until Alduin has been defeated. Never again if I die in the attempt. The future is uncertain at the best of times, and now is the time for farewells.
"Thanks for everything, Paarthurnax."
I wish it didn't sound as permanent as it does.
"Best of luck, Fahdon. Go, now, before the skies make traversing the mountain too treacherous. Akatosh guard you."
A feeble smile is the only thing I can manage as I grab Marcurio's hand and turn my back to my draconic friend and companion, to whom I'd spilled even my best-kept secrets.
It has never been harder to walk away.