Ivarstead, Fellstar Farm

"Not many people out and about today," Lydia remarked, furrowing her brow skeptically. "Strange. It's such a beautiful sunny day, snow notwithstanding."

She turned to Sal who stood a yard away. The Argonian leaned back against a long wooden fence that surrounded a rectangular vegetable farm. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared blankly out across the plains.

"Well, at least we'll have privacy." When Sal said nothing and only nodded stiffly, she launched into her discourse. "Okay. Let's recap what we know."

She counted off on her armored fingers and paced back and forth along the fence. "We know that you're having nightmares; they're chronic, persistent, lucid. They're about Sovngarde and your final battle against Alduin the World-Eater. We also know that you've got a significant amount of shell shock from the Skyrim Civil War that's gone untreated. You had a flashback to the Battle of Fort Amol last night. Finally, you haven't fully recovered or moved on from either of these experiences. That's what concerns me the most."

Sal nodded but again remained silent, awkwardly shifting his weight on the fence and crossing one leg over the other.

Lydia continued. "Now we've discovered that your exposure to the Elder Scroll is the cause of all of this." She put up one fourth and final finger. "So, we know the cause; now we have to find the cure."

"But Paarthurnax said it's not that simple," Sal reminded her, his absentminded gaze landing on the vertical rows of ripening cabbages in the farm soil. "We heard him. I'll bet my tail that even he and Odahviing don't know how to reverse the Scroll's effects upon my mind."

"Neither do the Greybeards, for that matter," Lydia joined Sal at the fence and also leaned back. She laid her head on Sal's shoulder and folded her arms thoughtfully. "Through the Way of the Voice, they're resigned to their passivity. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Great. Back to square one, aren't we?"

Sal exhaled through his nose in an irritated response. Lydia lifted her head up and planted a comforting kiss on his cheek.

"Do you want to go to the Vilemyr?" she asked, brushing snow from Sal's forehead horns and shoulders. "I'm starving. All that hiking up and down has sure worked up an appetite. Come on, let's go have some lunch."

Most of the villagers of Ivarstead had gathered at the Vilemyr Inn. Alfarinn stood in the center of the tavern warming his hands on the fire pit. His passengers each passed him a Septim. Lydia went up to the counter while Sal found a table hidden on the opposite end of the inn, well away from snooping ears and prying eyes.

A tired sigh escaped him. He stared blankly at the empty table. As soon as Lydia laid down the ale, he threw his head back and desperately chugged his tankard down.

Lydia gave him a sidelong glance and shook her head. "For Ysmir's sake, Sal!" she sighed. "If this is your way of drowning your sorrows—,"

"Drowning my sorrows?" Sal repeated incredulously, his smile rather crooked and his scoffing laughter ungenuine. "There are no sorrows! There is nothing wrong with me! What sorrows do I have to drown?" Blatant disbelief laced his sarcastic tone.

"Oh, come on, we just went over this!" Lydia threw her arms up in the air exasperatedly. "Do you want the list again, alphabetically or chronologically?"

"How about neither?" Sal slammed his tankard down on the table, sloshing ale everywhere. He picked up his fork and absentmindedly dug into his bowl of salad.

"Are we going to talk about what's going on with you at all, Sal?" Lydia folded her arms on the table and stared at her stress-eating friend, her expression pained. "Sal, please, let me help you. It's what I'm here for. I want us to have a fun night tonight here in the tavern so that we can take our minds off what's happened. After we get the necessary grievances out of the way, of course. But I can't enjoy myself, and I know you can't enjoy yourself, until you prove to me that you're okay."

"What do you want to do, Lydia?" Sal asked, keeping his voice down and staring sideways at the female Nord.

"I want to talk about what we discovered today," Lydia explained, her tone of voice surprisingly calm and composed. "The Elder Scroll, the Civil War, the flashbacks, the nightmares, Sovngarde, the Thu'um; everything."

"No," Sal stated assertively, pointing his fork at her. His voice sounded hard and forceful. "I don't want to talk about any of that for the rest of the day. I don't even want to think about it, either. I mean that adamantly, Lydia."

Lydia grumbled in frustration. She pulled her plate of salted venison towards her and pushed the other to Sal. "I can't watch you eat and drink your problems away, Sal-Gheel. It's not like the Dragonborn and it's certainly not like you. This is just…"

She put down her knife and fork, looking pained, barely having touched her meat. "This is far too painful for me to watch," she confessed in a low voice.

Sal gave Lydia a stony look; she hardly flinched. He swallowed his bite of salad and took up his tankard of ale again. But Lydia instantly seized it away from him, placing it on the table beside theirs well out of reach.

"Pull yourself together, Sal-Gheel! You are not a Khajiit and this is not moon sugar!"

Sal growled and clenched his fists. "Give me my drink, Lydia," he scathed at her irritably through gritted teeth. "I'm fine."

"No, you are not fine at all!" Lydia huffed in exasperation. "Don't give me any of that denial crap! How long until Alfarinn starts worrying about you, too?"

They glared at each other for a solid bated minute. Only the cheerful, carefree Ivarstead villagers and the singing of the performing bard, Lynly Star-Sung, and her lute drowned out the deafening wordless silence between them.

Without so much as a warning, Sal's tail suddenly whipped up and pushed Lydia aside, before Sal himself lunged forward to retake his ale from the other table.

"Shor's blood, Sal-Gheel!" the alarmed Lydia shouted and leaned precariously backwards in her seat.

But when Sal sat back down with his drink in his hands, she immediately stood up and planted her palms furiously on the table. "What do you think you're doing?!"

"It was the Elder Scroll, Lydia!" Sal shouted at the top of his lungs, though the ambiance in the Vilemyr drowned out his raised voice. "Now that I know the truth, I can't think properly! I need…I need to get it—get the stupid—Scroll—the Elder Scroll—the Kel—out—out of my head…"

He trembled restlessly in his seat from his shoulders to the tip of his tail. His hand that gripped the tankard of ale shook, dangerously spilling the drink on the table surface. He let go of his drink and pressed his fingers to his temples, closing his eyes and massaging his head lightly, his breathing turning rapid and sporadic.

"Sal-Gheel?" Alfarinn appeared and sat down on Sal's other side. "Mara, mother of love, what's wrong?"

"I'm fine!" Sal sprang up and abruptly waved Alfarinn off. He dropped his hands in his lap and smiled. But the smile was abstract and empty, lacking emotion, as though some amateur artist had only slapped it onto a poor portrait of his face. "I'm right as rain, I promise, Alfarinn!" Sal laughed, but his laughter did not sound hearty or lively; instead, it sounded bare and forced. "Never been better, in fact!"

Alfarinn raised a doubtful eyebrow but said nothing. He drew a pipe of briar wood and a miniature mortar and pestle from his travel pack, into which he dropped a small handful of Blue Mountain Flowers to crush and place in the pipe. When he stood up to light it in the tavern's fire pit, Sal immediately stood up to follow him.

"Alfarinn, wait!" Sal swung out of his bench. "I just remembered that I owe you a drink for taking me to Whiterun!"

Lydia bit her lip hesitantly, but then shook her head. Let him go, Lydia. He's just trying to take his mind off of everything. "Make it two," she called over to Sal. "Another one for bringing us to Ivarstead!"

"What's with the sudden mood swing, Sal-Gheel?" Alfarinn asked, letting Sal take him by the arm and lead him to the bar counter.

"Mood swing?" Sal-Gheel shook his head in denial, wrapping his arm around the Nord's. "I'm fine, Alfarinn. I swear to the Divines I am. Now let me buy you a couple of drinks."

He withdrew ten Septims from his coinpurse and laid them on the bar counter. "Wilhelm, I'd like to buy my carriage drinker two Nord meads, please."

Wilhelm gave Sal a strange, unreadable look, but took the ten coins and fetched the meads. Sal swiped them out of the barkeep's hands and pressed them into Alfarinn's hands.

"Consider these as thanks for all of your help, Alfarinn." Sal forced himself to smile and led Alfarinn back to the table. "It's mine and Lydia's way of repaying you for everything you've done for both of us. I meant to do this for you back at the Bannered Mare, but I got caught up in something else. I'm sure you understand."

Alfarinn raised a suspicious eyebrow, but said nothing. Sal jumped half a foot in the air, startled, when the Nord pressed his utensils and plate of salted venison into his clawed reptilian hands. The strained smile and false laughter left him in an instant at the feeling of the cold and lifeless metal utensils pressing into his palms.

"Maybe…" He stared distantly at his knife and fork. His eyes looked hollow, like his mind had strayed far away from even himself. "Maybe I'm not fine after all."

"You're downright wired, Sal," Lydia placed Sal's mead beside his plate. "You're not right as rain in the slightest. Let us help you, Sal. That's all we want to do."

Another pregnant silence fell between the three, more thunderous than the first. Lydia watched Sal eat his lunch with distracted anxiety, as if trying to fend off the wave of intrusive thoughts now flooding the forefront of his mind. Alfarinn, sensing the weighty tension, left to go light his pipe.

Lydia cleared her throat and spoke at length. "Sal—?"

"There is nothing wrong with me!" Sal protested angrily at the top of his lungs. "Don't you understand that?"

He dropped his knife and fork noisily on the table and pressed his hands to his eyes, sighing stressfully. All eyes in the inn turned to him. For a moment, no one around him said a word.

"Is everything all right?" Wilhelm, the bartender, came over to check. His words sounded firm but sympathetic, not judgmental or suspicious.

"Please pardon my Thane's behavior, he is not well!" Lydia pleaded with Wilhelm.

"Well, as his Housecarl, please do try to keep him under control, miss," Wilhelm advised Lydia. "Otherwise, I'll have to ask both of you to leave. At the very least, you should get a room together if he gets worse." He turned away and went back to his counter.

"I'm going to go check on Misty," Alfarinn hurriedly told his passengers. He disappeared out the door before anyone could stop him.

"Sal?" Lydia wrapped an arm gently around Sal's shoulders. "Can you hear me? Are you okay?"

Sal's trembling slowed until it stopped. He dropped his hands by his sides and planted them unconsciously on the wooden bench. After a long minute of silence, he finally opened his eyes.

"Fine. You want me to prove I'm okay, yes? Is that what you want?" Sal did not look Lydia in the eyes, instead staring at his unfinished salad and venison. A faraway gleam coated his eyes. His speech came out pressured, breakneck, hurtling forwards without pronounced aim or destination. "All right, I'll do that, if only to put your mind at ease. Where should I start? At the beginning? That's the perfect place to start. In fact, it's logically where all stories start, good or bad. Brilliant idea. Excellent. Wonderful. I'll start at the beginning."

"Sal, for Tsun's sake—,"

"I'm not originally from Black Marsh, if you must know," Sal cut her off, not hearing her interjection, continuing in that same sprinting speech. "I actually come from a small town called Bravil in Cyrodiil. It was the poorest, filthiest, and most pathetic mud pit in the Niben Bay. You'd not find any place more pitiful in Tamriel. So, as you can imagine, I lived on the streets, a homeless orphan, forsaken by both my parents and by the gods themselves in a destitute place."

"Sal, you know full well it's not like that anymore—,"

"You don't know what it's like, Lydia!" Now it was Sal's turn to stand up and plant his palms on the table, staring hard at Lydia. "To beg, borrow, and steal just to get something to eat! Or having to drink from the river because it's the nearest water source, or sitting under the rain gutters with an open mouth after or even during a storm! I can imagine curling up in empty bedrolls every night wrapped in nothing but extra newspapers and the clothes on my back to ward off the cold! I never knew if I was going to get my next meal; where, how or, when! Meanwhile, you lived in luxury in your high palace of Dragonsreach! You never had anything to worry about because you slept in your comfortable bed every night, and dined on feasts for kings and queens every single day!"

"Sal, please—,"

A thin sheen of tears had filled Sal's eyes, his hard stare suddenly softening to a soft, somewhat somber, distant coldness, his voice dropping to a delicate breathy whisper.

"Did you ever think about them, Lydia? Did you never consider the beggars on the streets of Whiterun, the homeless, destitute, impoverished, hopeless, and lost? Did the thought of helping them, even in the smallest possible way, never cross your mind? Or did you just turn your head, stick up your nose, and walk on by without regarding them? Did you just pretend that they didn't exist or at least weren't worth your time or aid?"

"Sal, you know that's not true," Lydia gently placed her hand on Sal's, curling her fingers over his. "You know I never did any of that. Please sit down and we can talk about this."

Sensing no other option and feeling the truthful empathy in her words, Sal slowly sat back down on the bench. He perched his elbow on the table and leaned his face in his palm, staring at his food with an air of disinterest. A second later, he dropped his head in his hands once more.

"Sal…" Lydia put her hand in his sympathetically, lacing their fingers together. "Listen to me. I'm not going to claim to understand how you feel, or what you're feeling right now, because I don't. But I do want you to know something. I'm here for you. You're not fighting this battle alone. I'll be here if you need someone to talk and spill your feelings out to. You can rant and ramble and rage and rave all you want to me."

"You…" Sal looked up and stared at Lydia through his fingers. "You wouldn't ever judge me?" His voice sounded broken and brittle.

"Never, Sal," Lydia shook her head and smiled reassuringly. "I won't ever judge you. I'll only listen while you pour out every emotion and thought that's cluttering your mind. I know you need this catharsis."

Sal sighed in a blatant defeatist manner and scratched his scalp anxiously. Lydia comfortingly rubbed his back.

"I promise you, Sal," she tried to console the unstable Argonian, rubbing up his back to his shoulders and then down to the base of his tail. "I will do everything in my strength to help you get that Elder Scroll out of your head."

Sal slowly stopped shaking and looked up at Lydia, his eyes wide and a look of genuine surprise painted on his face. He opened his mouth to speak. But all that came out was a meek, "Thank you, Lydia."

Lydia planted a comforting kiss on Sal's forehead at the base of his horns. "You're very welcome, Sal. Well…" she thought out loud, picking up her knife and fork and slicing up her venison. "It's a hell of a long way back to Whiterun. I suppose we'd best spend the night here. Then, tomorrow, we can go anywhere we like. How about it?"

Sal shrugged nonchalantly. "We can have dinner here tonight, I guess. They have delicious venison."

"That they do," Lydia chuckled, putting a piece of her meat in her mouth.

They passed the time until dinner listening and singing along to the bard (or in Sal's case, trying to sing along) and her seemingly endless setlist of popular Nord battle and drinking songs, swaying from side to side on their bench and swinging bottles of mead. Sal was told off to stop singing after the first song because his more than apparent lack of a voice made the villagers' ears bleed, much to his and Lydia's amusement. When Lynly Star-Sung began a song about the Dragons, Sal stopped his pretend drunken swaying and listened intently.

"Alduin's wings, they did darken the sky,

His roar fury's fire, and his scales sharpened scythes.

Men ran and they cowered, and they fought and they died.

They burned and they bled as they issued their cries."

"I recognize this song," Sal remarked to Lydia. "It's called 'The Tale of the Tongues'. I remember hearing it for the first time in Candlehearth Hall the week after I defeated Alduin and came back from Sovngarde. Curious that I haven't heard it since."

"Really? Well, that's strange." Lydia added, laying her somewhat intoxicated head on Sal's shoulder. "Mikael never sings it in the Bannered Mare. I'm pretty sure this is my first time ever hearing it." She took another long swig of mead.

"Why am I not surprised?" Sal chuckled and put his arm around the drunk Nord maiden, holding her close to his side and tucking a lock of hair back behind her ear.

"We need saviors to free us from Alduin's rage,

Heroes on the field of this new war to wage.

And if Alduin wins, man is gone from this world,

Lost in the shadow of the black wings unfurled."

"The Three Tongues…" Lydia slurred her words, nuzzling her face into Sal's neck and closing her eyes.

Sal stroked Lydia's sleek black hair and sipped his mead. "Felldir the Old, Hakon One-Eye, and Gormlaith Golden-Hilt. I wouldn't have defeated Alduin without their help."

He knew what words came next. Summoning his courage and his strength, he opened his mouth to join in the chorus.

"But then came the Tongues, on that terrible day.

Steadfast as winter, they entered the fray.

And all heard the music of Alduin's doom,

The sweet song of Skyrim, sky-shattering Thu'um."

Perhaps his Dragon soul gave him this energy, but his voice issued forth from his mouth like a melodic roar, courageous and confident, pure and melodic note for note, a sound that surprised even himself.

"And so the Tongues freed us from Alduin's rage,

Gave the gift of the Voice, ushered in a new Age!

If Alduin's eternal, then eternity's done,

For his story is over, and the Dragons are gone!"

Praising applause met the end of the bold and fearless duet. Lynly Star-Sung gave Sal a thankful smile and a congratulatory pat on the back. Sal gladly dropped a handful of Septims into her lute case.

As the night wore on, Sal bought a room for the night for himself and Lydia. He slipped his arms under her shoulders and legs and carried her away.

"You see, Sal?" Lydia stared through inebriated eyes. The alcoholic mead did not change the warm fond smile she gave her friend. "You can sing pretty well. In fact, you can do anything you put your mind to."

"And you're so cute when you're drunk, Lydia," Sal teased her, grinning and showing his fangs in the firelight.

"Shut up, lizard-brain," Lydia muttered threateningly back.

Cyrodiil, Bravil, 16th of Rain's Hand (Hist-Deek), 4E 187

"Stop, thief!"

A little Argonian child sprinted at full speed through the dirty windswept cobblestone streets of Bravil, clutching a long loaf of warm freshly-baked bread close to his chest. The young hatchling bolted as fast as his wicker sandals would carry him, kicking up gravel and dirt in his wake.

"Excuse me! Coming through!" He pushed villagers aside or dashed between them without breaking pace.

"Hey! Watch where you're going, street urchin!" A Breton snapped as the Argonian inadvertently knocked him onto the wall of a house.

"Sorry, sir!" he apologized over his shoulder.

"Don't you know it's bad manners to push people around, kid?" A female Nord glowered disapprovingly when he burst through her and her husband.

"Yes, ma'am! Sorry ma'am!" he waved apologetically behind him.

Behind him, an Imperial wearing a baker's apron waved a spatula around angrily in the air.

"Get back here with my bread! Guards! Thief!"

Speeding breakneck through the village streets, the Argonian dared not look over his shoulder. He kept his eyes fixed forwards, blinking out the buffeting afternoon wind drying out his eyes. His pace only increased when the furious shouts of the Imperial baker pierced through the deafening wind into his reptilian ears.

Left, right, up, down, diagonally. He could not stop or slow down. Between him and the baker, a clattering of metal boots accompanied the already earsplitting cacophony – the Town Guard had joined in the pursuit.

The heavy metal boots drew closer until they were almost on his heels. A burst of adrenaline suddenly spiked in his veins, causing him to bolt even faster over the long hanging bridge leading to the north square. Loud, harsh voices of the Guard compelled him to stop.

He hurried past the Fighters Guild and The Fair Deal, then turned a corner and emerged into a residential area. The Guards and the baker stopped shouting. Their voices receded into faint echoes in the distance.

The Argonian slowed his pace down to a jog. Through his adrenaline-induced haze, he noticed that the streets were empty of people. Not a single villager was present in the area.

All of his senses perked up at the new sounds of shouting and metal boots on stone coming his way. He dashed off the street behind the nearest house, where he hopped and crouched behind a closed wooden fence, holding the bread close to his chest.

The group of Guards rushed by him, followed by the baker. They stopped him in the center of the street.

"Did you see him run this way, sir?"

"I think so, officer, but now I'm not so sure. He's a quick fella for an Argonian."

"Could've sworn to the Eight I saw him dash off in this direction, Captain…"

"Don't worry, we'll keep looking. Everyone split up. If you see the thief, give a holler."

He watched and listened until they were out of sight and earshot. Then, mustering his strength, his feet carried him over to the other side.

He looked over his shoulder for a split second—

"Whoa!"

His sandals caught in a thin crevice in the cobblestone. He lurched forward and flopped onto the dirty street on his stomach. The bread went flying from his hands and landed on the stone.

The Argonian collected himself and lifted his head. Again, he blinked the wind out of his eyes and wiped the stone sediment from his face.

The bread had landed beneath the low awning of an abandoned store, safe from the dirt. But then—

"There he is!"

A pair of rough strong hands seized the back of his shirt collar.

"Gotcha, you thieving little twerp!"

"No!"

Dry calloused hands lifted him off his feet into the air. The Argonian thrashed his scaly arms around and waved his feet in the air, flailing and fighting against the baker's grip.

"Let me go! Let me go!"

But the baker growled and tossed him aside. "Back into the dirt where you belong, thief! Maybe you'll think twice before stealing from my bakery again!"

The Argonian pulled himself up from the second painful landing and lay on his side. "No! Give it back!"

"No!" The Imperial glared sharp daggers at the Argonian, his eyes burning like fire. "A thief is a thief, kid! If I catch you in my bakery again, I'll chop your scaly hands off!"

"That's my bread!" the hatchling protested.

But then the color drained from his face. He froze in place as the Town Guards swarmed him. Two armored officers seized his arms and pulled him backwards.

"Get off me!" he pleaded, fighting wildly against them. "I'm not a thief! Please! I only took it because I was hungry! Let me go!"

"Shut up!" the baker snapped furiously at the helpless Argonian child being led away by the guards. "Shut your mouth, you wretched little street rat!"

"Give my bread back!" the Argonian screamed at the top of his lungs.

"Silence!" the baker raised his hand and slapped the Argonian hard across the face. The hatchling cried out and slumped defeated in the Guards' hands, whimpering from the blow.

"Please…"

"I've had enough of this! Guards, take him away!"

The Argonian did not even fight back as the Guards towed him away. They released him at the town square.

The Guard Captain knelt down to talk to him. "Listen, little one. We'll let you go since you're only a child. You won't go to the city prisons and you won't be tried in the city court as such. Don't worry. Just don't do any more stealing ever again, all right?"

Whimpering with fresh tears rolling down his cheeks, the Argonian hatchling nodded wordlessly. The captain stood up and walked away with his guards in tow, leaving him alone.

Completely, utterly, helplessly alone.

That night, Masser and Secunda neglected to shine their lights on the ten-year-old Argonian hatchling that curled up at the feet of the Lady Luck statue. He wore nothing more than a sleeveless rag shirt, knee-length trousers, and a pair of dirt-stained open-toed wicker sandals. All of his clothes were speckled with dust, grime, and water stains from his failed attempt to escape from the baker and the city guards.

He shivered uncontrollably in the bitter cold lying on the small bedroll that had been left there by an unknown person next to the statue, his only blankets a pilfered collection of that week's daily copies of the Black Horse Courier: The Great War Ended…but at What Cost?; Sale at A Warlock's Luck: 30%-off This Weekend Only!; Andionis Lirasnus to Release New Book in Renowned 'Runes of Aetherius' Series; and Lady Luck: Myth or Material?

So hungry…

He had had nothing to eat that night, and drank only from the icy-cold canals of the Larsius River that flowed through town. He rubbed the spot on his face where the Imperial baker had smacked him; it still stung with a fresh searing pain.

So he shut his eyes tight, trying to convince himself to fall asleep. But he shook both from the cold and from the heaves of his own silent sobs, his throat aching from crying soundlessly into the apathetic night sky. He laid his head restlessly on the pillow, his hands holding a copy of Who and What are the Thalmor?

Mom! Dad! Where are you?!

Sal sat upright in bed, breathing heavily and holding his aching head. The four walls of the Vilemyr Inn materialized around him.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and dropped his head in his hands. Behind him, Lydia stirred and sat up.

"Sal?" she whispered. "Are you all right?"

Sal did not answer as he gripped the wooden frame of the bed and shut his eyes. He appeared to be desperately trying to push the images of his newest nightmare to the corners of his mind.

"Was it another nightmare?" Lydia asked, throwing the covers off her body and joining Sal at the bedside.

Sal shuddered but did not open his eyes. "I…I dreamed of my life back in Cyrodiil, of my time living as a street orphan in Bravil. I remembered that time I stole a loaf of bread from the town baker and tried to run away with it, but I was caught."

"You saw a memory from your childhood?" Lydia threw off the blanket and joined Sal at the bedside. "How is that even possible?"

"I—I don't know." Sal opened his eyes and stared in abject confusion at Lydia. "Maybe it's the Elder Scroll? Maybe—,"

He cut himself off. All the color drained from his face. His eyes widened in realization.

"The residual aftereffects of the Elder Scroll are tapping into the repressed memories contained in my subconscious. They're bringing them to the forefront."

"It's stirring the memories from your past?" Lydia clapped her hands to her mouth and stared at Sal in shock. "Oh, Sal…" She put an arm around Sal's shoulders and the other on his chest. "Sal, I'm so sorry…"

"What…" Sal's breathing was labored, and he heaved as though he'd just finished running a marathon, his eyes wide in confused disbelief. "What kind of power is this? What else did the Elder Scroll possibly do to me? What if I don't want to remember anything from my past?"

Lydia rested her hand on Sal's chest and shook her head, feeling his erratically beating heart and sighing anxiously. "I'm afraid those are questions I can't answer, Sal."

But Sal did not hear her words, as Odahviing's rang loudly in his head: "Consider yourself blessed, Dovahkiin. Your dovah spirit protected you from the most adverse effects. But be wary not that you know the truth. Leh hin zii liivrah; lest your spirit diminish. Your mind may not be so stable now that it has discovered such a terrible truth."

"Is that it, then?" Sal asked in a hopeless whisper. "Is there truly no cure for my nightmares? Am I cursed?"

"I wish I knew, Sal," Lydia confessed, rubbing Sal's shoulders. "I really do. But the truth is, I don't."

That was enough for Sal. He pulled his knees up to his chest and curled up into a ball. He shut his eyes tight, though it did not stop the fresh stream of tears flowing freely down his face. He sat still as a statue, not daring to move, only bowing his head beneath his legs, resting his forehead on his kneecaps.

"I'm…so sorry, Lydia," he heaved through his cracked voice. "I…didn't mean to drag you into any of this. I'm sorry I'm such a burden."

"No, Sal, no," Lydia leaned into Sal and gently uncurled his body. She began rubbing the back of his head, speaking in a consoling whisper. Taking his head in her hands, she raised it to her eye level. "Sal, look at me."

When he opened his eyes, Lydia's heart wrenched to notice that tears filled them to the brim. She took his cheeks in her hands and wiped the tears away using her thumbs. "You are not a burden, Sal-Gheel. Not to me. You are my Argonian brother and my best friend. You are the Dragonborn, the savior of Skyrim and the chosen champion of Akatosh. You are everything I've ever wanted, and I love you, Sal."

"Really?" was all Sal could bring himself to say in a raspy voice, reaching up to wipe his eyes on his arm. "You truly think that?"

"Yes, my dear Sal," Lydia kissed each of Sal's cheeks. "I believe that wholeheartedly. Every single word."

Lydia returned to caressing Sal's body. "Do you know how loved you are, Sal-Gheel?" She ran her hands compassionately over his chest, stomach, shoulders and back. "You are more loved than you know. You have a Housecarl who would defend you with her life, and who would die for you. You have three brothers-in-law who wish the best for you and want to see you be happy. You have a beautiful, loving, and devoted wife who sees you as her whole entire world. And soon – who knows how soon? – you'll have a little hatchling of your own, that loves you as his or her father. Maybe you'll even have more than one hatchling, who knows? I reckon that's for the Hist to decide, not me."

Lydia laid her hands on Sal's pectorals and stared into the Argonian's enchanting cyan eyes still glistening with tears. "Look, the truth is, Sal, you are wanted. You are valued. You are needed. Most importantly, you are so deeply loved."

Sal took a long breath, held it for a couple of seconds, then exhaled. Yet the fog of confusion and hopelessness in his mind did not disappear.

"But…" Sal's voice diminished to a deadened hiss, turning away from Lydia and letting his gaze wander. "What if I can't be Dragonborn like this? I read the Elder Scroll, Lydia. I brought this on myself. I'm cursed, Lydia."

Lydia moved her hands together until they rested on Sal's heart. "Then don't be the Dragonborn right now. Not until you're better, at the very least. Don't be the Dragonborn as the Dragons or the Greybeards or your average everyday layman of Skyrim would define it. True strength isn't in your Dragon spirit or in your Voice. It's in your heart. All you have to do is find it."

"And if I can't?" Sal turned to face, his expression anxious and his tone panicky.

"Then we'll work a little bit at a time until you do," Lydia clasped Sal's hands and gave them a comforting squeeze.

Sal sighed and leaned into Lydia's arms. "I'm sorry, Lydia. I must be acting like such a manchild—,"

"Manchild?" Lydia restrained herself from laughing and cradled Sal in her arms. "Sal, I've seen you slice the heads off Draugr like blocks of cheese and bash Stormcloak heads into your shield without hesitation. I've seen you defy gods and verbally punch in the faces of Daedric Princes and their minions using burning sass that would make the Bards of Solitude envious. Hell, you literally fell through a portal into Sovngarde and slew the dreaded World-Eater himself in the land of the dead. If anything, Sal, I'd say that you are not a manchild; far from it, in fact."

Sal allowed himself a small forced chuckle, though it failed to alleviate his numb emptiness. His eyes instead fell on something sticking out of Lydia's travel pack.

"What's that, Lydia?" he asked, nodding towards it.

"Oh, this thing?" She pulled it out of her pack and showed it to him. It was a book, wrapped in a black binding and bearing a strange metallic emblem resembling a Dragon emblazoned in its center. The cover was ragged around the edges in white and tan, and many of the pages stuck out of the sides. "It's just something I brought from home for a bit of light reading, in case we ever had some downtime or we needed to wait in line or what have you."

She opened up the cover and pointed to the first page, reading it aloud by the moonlight streaming into the bedroom through the window. "The Book of the Dragonborn, by Prior Emelene Madrine, Weynon Priory."

"Weynon Priory…" Sal's eyes flashed in brief remembrance. "That's in Cyrodiil, right outside the city of Chorrol."

"You don't say. Nothing I'd know about." Lydia flipped through a dozen pages until she came near the tail end. "Here's a section I think you might be interested in. Right there."

She passed him the book and laid it in his trousered lap. "Why don't you read it starting from the top of that left-side page?"

Sal, albeit reluctant at first, took the book and read the passages aloud.

"'Lastly, we come to the question of the true meaning of being Dragonborn. The connection to Dragons is so obvious that it has almost been forgotten – in these days when dragons are a distant memory, we forget that in the early days being Dragonborn meant having 'the Dragon blood'. Some scholars believe that was meant quite literally, although the exact significance is not known. The Nords tell tales of Dragonborn heroes who were great dragonslayers, able to steal the power of the dragons they killed. Indeed, it is well known that the Akaviri sought out and killed many dragons during their invasion, and there is some evidence that this continued after they became Reman Cyrodiil's Dragonguard (again, the connection to Dragons) – the direct predecessors to the Blades of today."

He paused and glanced briefly at Lydia, who coolly waved at him to continue. "Keep going. You're at the best part."

Sal continued reading. "'I leave you with what is known as the Prophecy of the Dragonborn. It is said to originate in an Elder Scroll, although it is sometimes also attributed to the ancient Akaviri. Many have attempted to decipher it, and many have also believed that the omens had been fulfilled, and that the advent of the 'Last Dragonborn' was at hand. I make no claims as an interpreter of prophecy, but it does suggest that the true significance of Akatosh's gift to mortalkind has yet to be fully understood.

'When misrule takes its place at the eight corners of the world.

When the Brass Tower walks, and Time is reshaped.

When the Thrice-blessed fail, and the Red Tower trembles.

When the Dragon Ruler loses his throne, and the White Tower falls.

When the Snow Tower lies sundered, kingless, bleeding.

The World-Eater wakes, and the Wheel turns upon the Last Dragonborn.'"

Sal gingerly closed the book and looked up at Lydia, thoroughly confounded. But Lydia, instead of being perturbed, glowed in the moonlight, her eyes twinkling.

"You see now, Sal? You are not a coincidence. You are not a burden. Your birth has been foretold for the past three Eras by the Elder Scrolls themselves. Your coming into this world and your destiny are no mere happenstance. You are the Last Dragonborn."

Sal's eyes suddenly flashed with memory. "Alduin's Wall…in Sky Haven Temple. The Prophecy of the Dragonborn was written there."

"Exactly," Lydia pointed a knowing finger at Sal. She took The Book of the Dragonborn and returned it to her pack. "All of this points to you, Sal-Gheel, the great Dragonborn of ancient legend. Alduin, the return of the Dragons, the Civil War, the fulfillment of the Prophecy, the signs of the times; it's all for you. Your power is unparalleled in this world. Your strength is immeasurable both internally and externally. I know I've told you this already, but your fame has spread across all of Skyrim since Alduin was defeated at your hands."

She cupped her chin in her hand and tapped it thoughtfully. "That song you and Lynly sang at dinner, how did the third verse start?"

"'And so the Tongues freed us from Alduin's rage,'" Sal recited, staring back at the closed room door and visualizing the tavern that lay beyond. "'Gave the gift of the Voice, ushered in a new Age.'"

"Yes," Lydia nodded and held Sal's hands in her own. "Believe it or not, you're one of the Tongues, too; and not just one of them, either, but the greatest of them all. What was it that Paarthurnax called you?"

"Kulaan ahrk Dovah," Sal recalled in perfect Dovahzul. "A prince among Dragons."

"That's precisely what you are, Sal-Gheel," Lydia admiringly traced the outlines of Sal's muscles and stared into the twin pools of cyan that made up his eyes. "I went along on this journey to help you find these answers, Sal, and I won't rest until we've uncovered all of them. Every single one. I want to see you smile again. I want your smile to be genuine, full of happiness and light. I want your eyes to be as lively and joyful and captivating as they once were. My only wish, Sal, is for you to be happy, more than anything else."

Lydia unfolded the blanket and wrapped it around the Argonian's body. "Go back to sleep and I'll watch over you, Sal. I'll protect you the best I can from those horrifying nightmares."

Sal, sensing tiredness descend upon him once again, lay back down on his side and slipped beneath the covers. His eyes closed as soon as his head hit the pillow. "Thank you, Lydia," he mumbled drowsily. "For everything."

As Sal drifted off to sleep, Lydia tucked the blanket over him, stroking his scalp feathers and whispering affectionately, "Sweet dreams, my Dragon Prince."