Chapter 8 - Dragonborn Lessons
"I'm surprised you're walking straight." Yang noted, nodding with approval at her companion as they walked through the outer gates of the city. Then she smiled at his glare, and teased: "Then again, you did only drink a tenth of what we did."
"I'm surprised you're walking straight." Jaune shot back without any real heat, as the early morning's brisk wind helped him slowly wake up. A few farmers were already tending to their fields outside the city, and as they stopped their work to wave at the pair Jaune took the time to wave back at them. Then he tried to glare at his companion, and continued: "You know, seeing as how your spine was broken yesterday, you drank double your body weight in alcohol, and you couldn't have gotten more than 4 hours of sleep."
"What can I say? Your Aura does good work." Yang replied easily, stretching her back and shoulders to demonstrate. Jaune had the grace to look away from the interesting effects it had on her t-shirt, though a few of the farmhands didn't until Jaune scowled at them. "Anyway, what did you think of the Companions?"
"Eh, they're alright, I guess?" Jaune said, shrugging. They were boastful, boisterous, and very physical, but his tomboy of a sister Jane was worse, to say nothing of his world's Yang or Nora. For a moment, Jaune had to suppress a grin, at the idea of Nora Valkyrie meeting the Companions, before his face fell as he remembered her. It'd only been a day or so since he'd last seen any of them, but he couldn't help but miss them. His good cheer turned to sentimentality, he idly wondered how his team and friends were taking his disappearance.
Yang misunderstood the look on his face, and quietly told him: "Hey, if you don't like them, you don't have to lie about it. I mean, sure, they did make us members, but since we've proven ourselves by killing a dragon, we're more like freelancers than the usual recruits that are stuck there training all day."
"That's not it..." Jaune reassured her, shaking his head. "Really, I've got no problem with them. They were very friendly, and very interested in hearing my stories. Really, I'd have thought you'd have liked to stay for breakfast, at the very least."
Yang fought down a sigh, and forced herself not to shake her head. Indeed, it was true that they'd taken a liking to Jaune's demeanor and stories, but the way Ria had all but draped herself over him like a cloak after a few drinks and asked that he demonstrate decapitating a bear in a single stroke had certainly rubbed a few people the wrong way, if she had to guess. She'd kept an eye open while sleeping, just in case a jealous potential lover tried to stick a knife in his back while he slept (she didn't know if Aura would protect him in his sleep). Also why she'd rushed them out before sunrise; the cook had been one of the many giving her friend an ugly look.
Not that she could blame them, even if she thought they were wasting their time. Aela was far more intimidating, as a member of the Circle and an established warrior, while the only other young female of the group, Njada Stonearm, had a personality that could politely be described as "caustic". Truly, if it weren't for Ria's sheer earnestness and enthusiasm as a member, she might have been suspicious of the young Imperial woman's motives for joining the Companions.
"Let me guess." Jaune suddenly spoke up, looking enlightened. "You were really excited about getting to the Greybeards and finding out more about being a Dragonborn?"
Yang breathed a sigh of relief, and mentally thanked the Divines for Jaune's obliviousness as she played along: "Yup. You caught me! Can't wait to Shout you into the air again!"
Jaune shot her look, studying her expression intently. Something about her tone and her face reminded him of when Yang was up to something, or hiding something. Then again, this wasn't the Yang he'd known for the past year, so he ultimately chose to shrug it off, replying: "Well, I'm not complaining... about leaving early! I just wanted to avoid the crowds and the attention! Damn it, Yang, I wasn't not complaining about being sent flying! It wasn't funny!"
Yang laughed, having made a show of taking a deep breath at his words. As she exhaled (and Jaune relaxed), she asked: "So, why do you not like the crowds? You seemed fine basking in the glory last night..."
"I enjoyed seeing the relief on the people's faces, Yang." Jaune corrected her, even as they crossed the bridge that marked the unofficial boundaries of Whiterun, and his hand fell to the greatsword in his sheath. The Jarl had warned them that the roads past the bridge weren't as well-patrolled (the guards were bring concentrated around settlements, for obvious reasons). Well, Jaune did have experience travelling through possibly-hostile wilderness.
"But?" Yang prompted, curious.
"I'm just nervous around crowds. When everyone's staring at me, I can't help but wonder, what if I mess up? Everyone would laugh at me!" Jaune explained, remembering his days in school. "Didn't help that I was clumsy and prone to messing up when I first started training..."
"That bad?" Yang asked, raising an eyebrow. Personally, she didn't really care about being seen messing up. After all, she looked awesome no matter what, and if other people wanted to complain about her work, she'd be the first to ask why they weren't doing a better job themselves.
"Well, I wasn't the worst..." Jaune weakly defended, thinking of Ruby's social awkwardness. He tried imagining a crowd cheering around her, and winced. She'd have hidden herself in her cape, or turned into petals within five minutes. Then again, he remembered being declared leader of Team JNPR, and specifically falling off the stage at Pyrrha's gentle nudging, and felt something within him cringe.
"Sure..." Yang said, clearly not believing him. "Well, don't worry about it anyway, Vomit Boy; you're travelling with the Dragonborn!"
"That means more people will be looking at us!" Jaune pointed out in protest.
"That means people will be too struck with our initial reputation to actually care about the little things." Yang corrected him with a grin. "We're heroes! You could probably throw up in the streets and someone would try to bottle it and sell it!"
Jaune punched her in the arm lightly, not wanting to injure his fist, trying to suppress a laugh. Instead, he asked something that came to mind: "What exactly is a Dragonborn, anyway? The guards only said that you could slay dragons and absorb their power?"
"Weren't you paying attention to the Companions last night?"
"After the fourth round, nope."
"Dragonborns aren't just dragonslayers... at the very least, that's not how history remembers them." Yang lectured. "According to legend, they are individuals blessed by the gods with the souls of dragons, which grants them the power to absorb the souls of the dragons they slay. I guess that's something dragons can do to other dragons' souls..."
"So, if a Dragonborn is killed by a dragon, would their soul be eaten by the dragon?" Jaune pointed out, concerned. Death was one thing, but losing one's soul? Jaune didn't know if this new life was a one-off thing, but he guessed that, at the very least, he'd be permanently dead if his soul was eaten.
"... you know, that's not something mentioned in legend..." Yang murmured, thinking about it. "I mean, we know about Sovngarde, but it's still not exactly common for a person to visit the afterlife and come back, so nobody can say for certain-"
"Wait, the afterlife?!" Jaune tried interrupting. "Wait, you were being literal?!"
"And I'd guess it's also because the Dragonborns who do die early to dragons don't get stories written about them." Yang pressed on thoughtfully, ignoring Jaune.
Jaune stared at her, considered the absolute bombshell she'd dropped on him, and decided to leave thinking about it to another day. After all, he had no intention of dying again anytime soon. Instead, he asked: "What are the more famous Dragonborns?"
"I guess the most famous one would be Talos... or as he was formerly known as, Tiber Septim, the man who reunified the continent of Tamriel, founded the Septim Dragonborn Emperors, ushered in the Third Era, before ascending to become the ancestor god of the Nords." Yang said easily, the knowledge being commonplace even six hundred years later. "Other than that... I guess his descendants count? But besides them, I can't really think of any..."
"Oum, the most famous Dragonborn founded an empire and became a god?" Jaune asked in an awestruck tone, eyes wide.
"Well... that's kind of a point of contention right now..." Yang admitted sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head. "You remember what Alvor mentioned, about the White-Gold Concordat and the Civil War?"
"Oh, right... the worship of Talos was banned by the elves in exchange for a truce... and the rebels want to worship Talos?" Jaune tried recalling what the blacksmith had said, with some difficulty. To be fair, he'd never been the best student, having survived Beacon in no small part due to Pyrrha's tutoring sessions, Ren's notes, and study sessions with Ruby (the last of which had rarely been productive).
"Openly worship Talos." Yang corrected him. "I'd bet my right arm that no small number of loyalists also worship Talos."
Jaune tried to understand, he really did, but it was a lost cause. History had never been his strongest suit, religion wasn't big in Ansel (or most of Remnant), and Skyrim wasn't the world he'd grown up in. He just couldn't understand rebelling against the government just over the right to worship.
But it clearly meant something to Yang, and the people fighting the war, so he decided to keep his silence, rather than putting his foot in his mouth. Instead, he changed the subject to safer grounds: "So, gonna try and become Queen or something?"
Yang chuckled, appreciating the change in subject, but didn't let him get away with it. She slugged him with enough force to rock him (though not hurt him; she doubted she could get through his Aura with a single punch), and corrected him: "It'd be High Queen of Skyrim, thank you very much."
"Alright, alright... so, what do you think they'll teach you?"
"I guess they'll teach me how to be a Dragonborn? Like we said, the gods must have given me this power for a purpose... and the Greybeards will help me learn my purpose as they teach me about my powers."
"..." Jaune found himself speechless at the answer that he'd have expected from Pyrrha and not Yang Xiao-Long, and wondered if her next line would be about believing in destiny.
Yang grinned, and added: "And I'll be known throughout the land! The songs of my glory would immortalize me!"
Jaune chuckled and rolled his eyes at the very Yang-like answer, finding himself thankful that Skyrim didn't seem to have boy bands. Then he elaborated: "No, I mean... what exactly do you think they'll teach you. Like, more Words? Stronger Shouts? Maybe they'll teach you to change the weather or turn someone into a toad!"
"Turn someone into a toad?" Yang echoed, amused. "I don't think I've ever heard of something like that... but I'm sure that, at the very least, it'll be interesting."
-IVARSTEAD, 3 DAYS LATER-
The pair trudged to the town at the base of the mountain in silence, as they had when they'd been effectively kicked out of High Hrothgar the night before. They were still scowling furiously, but Yang couldn't tell whether Jaune's scowl was from disappointment, annoyance, or from weathering the biting cold, just as she couldn't tell if the red ears peeking out from his makeshift scarf was because of the weather or embarrassment.
Finally, as they reached crossed the bridge into the town, Jaune spoke up: "So... that was... unexpected."
Privately, Yang had thought that Jaune's tongue had been frozen to the roof of his mouth. But she still grinned, unable to resist, and teased: "What was, sharing a bedroll with me? Or nothing happening?"
Jaune's scowl deepened at her, as he remembered huddling together for warmth in a makeshift tent on the mountain. It had been that, or attempt to travel through the blizzard, and the temptation of a warm bed hadn't been enough to rally them.
Then again, it hadn't been his first time camping; he'd gone on trips to the wilds often enough with his family, as well as team training exercises in the Emerald Forest. Nora had done the same with Ren, and Pyrrha had insisted on doing the same with him, during the brisk fall nights of Beacon's survival training camps, and Jaune had always marveled at how innocent and trusting Pyrrha was. After all, Pyrrha was basically a drop-dead gorgeous supermodel, but she didn't seem to see any problem with sharing a bed with her leader and partner. Jaune, for his part, had tried his best to live up to that trust.
Yang, however, had spent the whole night teasing him and making innuendos even he could pick up on. Then again, it was Yang; she was just like that with everybody, and so Jaune had decided not to think too deeply about it. Instead, ignoring her teasing, he corrected her: "I meant, the Greybeards only training us for half an hour."
"Yeah, that was... definitely not what I expected." Yang agreed, annoyed. To be fair, the tales of the Greybeards spoke of decades of secluded meditation to learn even the simplest of Words, so she could consider herself lucky that she had a shortcut. But still, they'd only taught her that Shouts consisted of up to three Words, had taught her the Second Word of the Unrelenting Force Shout ("Ro", after "Fus"), and then had taught her the first Word of a new Shout. And Whirlwind Sprint was a cool Shout, to be sure; she enjoyed the rush of just flying forward with the force of a hurricane.
But after those two Words, they'd decided that she only needed one final test to complete her training; to go to the tomb of their founder, between Solitude (the stronghold of the Legion, who had tried to kill her that one time) and Morthal (a backwater in the middle of swampy nowhere), and retrieve a horn. That had been all.
For climbing up the tallest mountain in the land, to meet with the secluded Masters of the Way of the Voice, they'd gotten Two Words, a quest, and a night of freezing their nipples off.
"Couldn't they have taught you a Shout that, I dunno, would make you fly like a dragon? Or breathe fire like a dragon?" Jaune asked, thinking of all his superhero comics. Yang with super-speed had been a sight (one he knew Ruby would have given up cookies for a week to see), and he'd laughed in excitement when her two Word-ed Shout had shaken the building, but he'd been expecting something more.
"Yeah, I was expecting a bit of Fire Breath too, at least." Yang admitted. "Well, at least the tomb'll probably be interesting."
"Traps, fake walls that only reveal themselves when you use the Voice? Maybe you need to use that new speed to hit two or three levers at once?" Jaune suggested.
Yang laughed at the absurdity of the statement, before pointing out: "Two levers at once? We could both just pull them at the same time, in that case. I doubt the tomb of the founder of the Greybeards, built thousands of years ago, would be so easy to overcome."
"By the way, this is supposed to have been a test all Dragonborns go through when they get trained by the Greybeards, right?" Jaune asked, as he thought about it a bit more.
"I... believe so, yes."
"Who do you think puts the horn back every time after they it to the mountain top?"
Yang spent a few moments to process his words, before choking on her laughter.
Encouraged, Jaune tried to continue, but was suddenly interrupted by a voice, shouting: "You there! You're the one they call Dragonborn?"
Jaune and Yang exchanged a look, before studying the trio of masked and robed individuals approaching them. Yang shrugged, and replied: "Yes, I am Dragonborn."
"Your lies fall on deaf ears, Deceiver. The True Dragonborn comes... you are but his shadow." Another accused in response.
The third followed up, shouting: "When Lord Miraak appears all shall bear witness. None shall stand to oppose him!"
"Woah, calm down now, what are you talking about..." Jaune asked, approaching them, before the first threw a fireball at him.
The fireball burst against his Aura, the white glow shielding him from harm, and as the smoke cleared, he glared at them, and drew his sword.
Yang was quicker, and jumped at the one who'd thrown the fireball, casting one of the few spells she knew in the meantime. A cloak of fire enveloped her body, and a flaming fist smashed the masked man's skull into the pavement.
The second rushed at her with a dagger, before screaming in pain as the flames burned his arm. Yang stared at him with her red pupils, before Shouting him into the nearby stone wall.
The third tried charging a spell, before the flat of a blade hit the top of his head. Jaune rolled his eyes as the figure collapsed, before sheathing his sword. He then looked at the fiery Yang (who reminded him of nothing less than a Yang Xiao-Long who was using her Semblance), and asked: "Since when could you do that?!"
"This Fire Cloak? It's one of the few spells I can do..." Yang admitted, not seeing the issue.
"Then why didn't you use it fighting the dragon?!"
"... you want me to light myself on fire, in the middle of the night, while a dragon is flying around?" Yang asked, skeptical, as the spell wore off and the bright flames around her died away.
"... okay, but what about Bleak Falls Barrow?"
"I didn't need it in the barrow. Also, bottom of a tomb that's been sealed for thousands of years? Bad time to run out of air." Yang pointed out, wiping her knuckles on the robes of one of the fallen men.
"What about last night?"
"... I can't exactly control the temperature, Jaune... I'd have burned the bedroll." Yang explained. "Anyway, shall we finish them off?"
"Do we have to kill them?" Jaune whined.
"Vomit Boy..."
"I mean, they're down and out right now! Let's just tie them up and leave them for the guards!"
"Vomit Boy..."
"Look, we want to know who sent them and why they attacked us, right?" Jaune defended his suggestion, mind racing. "Why don't we get the guards to question them while we grab some food and drink? It's not like they'd have a convenient note on them with all the details, right?"
Yang thought about his words, and begrudgingly admitted (to herself) that he had a point. Leaving them alive might be troublesome down the line; revenge was always a possibility. But intelligence was also important, especially if someone else was going around pretending to be a Dragonborn and trying to kill her. So, shrugging, she called for a guard, and after a brief explanation (complete with testimony from some of the farmers that she hadn't thrown the first punch), the injured trio were hauled off to the settlement's guard quarters for interrogation, and the pair were in the tavern, pecking at a simple meal of bread, cheese, and vegetable soup.
"Well, at least it's not jerky again." Yang quipped between mouthfuls, enjoying the warmth spreading through her body. The bread was hard, and the soup mediocre at best, but just the feeling of a hot meal after days on the road was nothing to be scoffed at.
"What's wrong jerky?" Jaune asked, ripping off chunks of cheese and putting it between torn-off chunks of bread.
Yang just stared at him, before saying: "Besides the taste, the texture, and the toughness?"
"Eh, it was alright. The bread feels a bit... off, though." Jaune allowed.
"Yeah, it's a bit stale..."
"No, that's not it. It's not bad! It's just... softer than I'm used to." Jaune admitted.
Yang stared at him, then at the stale loaf of bread in her hand. She then grabbed the bread from his hand, and poked at it. Nope, it was also as stale and hard as hers. "Vomit Boy, what are you talking about?"
"I'm serious! The bread at home is much harder than this?" Jaune defended.
"How hard can bread be?!"
"Mmm... we used them as weapons during a food fight." Jaune recalled wistfully. "Blake used two loaves to shatter watermelons Nora threw at them."
Yang recalled a melon she'd seen in the marketplace once, and stared at him in silent disbelief.
"Another one punched watermelons out of the air using turkeys as gauntlets... oh, right, then my teammate Ren tried fighting her with leeks! I think he buried them halfway into the ground when he threw them..."
The other patrons of the quiet tavern looked at him, then looked at Yang, who looked back at them with a look of utter incomprehension. Somewhere in the back, someone bought a fresh leek from the counter, and tapped it against the floor. Yang finally asked: "You're joking, right?"
"Nope, that was a fun food fight... we left a hole in the ceiling after someone got hit with a melon-on-a-pole..."
"... are you sure the food in your home is actually edible?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Fortunately, Yang was spared from having to answer when a guard came into the tavern, looking for them. As Jaune politely nodded at him, the guard began: "Alright, you two, I've got some information from the masked man."
"That quickly?" Yang asked in disbelief. "I don't think he was that cooperative... or conscious..."
"Well, no, we just searched him." The guard explained, before holding out a parchment. "See, he had this note on him, which I thought you might like to read.
Yang took it from him, and Jaune set his food aside to peer over her shoulder, as they read the following:
Board the vessel Northern Maiden docked at Raven Rock. Take it to Windhelm, then begin your search. Kill the False Dragonborn known as Yang of Bravil before she reaches Solstheim. Return with word of your success, and Miraak shall be most pleased.
Jaune groaned into his hand, cursing the stupidity of the world, as Yang couldn't help but rib him: "No convenient note with all the details, eh?"
"Dang it, Yang!"
Author's Note: And our heroes have now made it to the next step of being a Dragonborn: becoming an errand boy (or girl) for the Greybeards!
Yes, that is pretty much how it goes in Skyrim. You show up, get taught two words, and then you get sent for your last trial. Gotta wonder if anybody's actually failed the Greybeards...
From Miraak's perspective, sending the three stooges to try and kill you makes perfect sense. Either the three most useless cultists somehow kill you, and he removes one of the biggest obstacles of his return (which then becomes but a matter of time until he corrupts the spirit of the land of Solstheim), or they fail horribly, and the note he gives them leads the character right to Solstheim, where he can lure them in, and eat their soul to gain the power necessary to escape. But, from the Dragonborn's perspective, either Miraak is the most incompetent schemer in the history of Tamriel, or it's got to be a trap. Also, the cultists really aren't anything special. Sure, they're three novice mages, but by this point you've killed at least one dragon and been taught by the Greybeards.
And I'm treating the Beacon Food Fight like it's completely canon. Which means the food they eat normally is basically a weapon. In Remnant, everything must be able to kill a Grimm!
Just wanted to quickly address some stuff in the comments:
According to Racial Phylogeny (a book in Skyrim), "(g)enerally the offspring bear the racial traits of the mother, though some traces of the father's race may also be present". If Jaune had a child with any woman with magicka, they would have magicka, along with a not-insignificant chance of having Aura.
As mentioned in Chapter 6, nope, Yang does not have her Aura unlocked. I'm sticking to the self-imposed rules that Jaune has no magicka and nobody in Skyrim has Aura, just to keep things simple.
There might be other ES versions of the RWBY cast that have existed, though no, they won't be part of the story. Personally, if I did want to write a story with ES-versions of the cast, I'd have probably used Oblivion, 200 years earlier, since that bears more resemblance to Vale and the Fall.
Jaune doesn't get recognition in Chapter 7 because, a) rumors are flying around about the new Dragonborn, who is arguably a bigger deal than even the return of the dragons, and b) by the time everything's said and done, they leave Dragonsreach at 1 am in the morning, by which point most people would have gone to bed in preparation for the resumption of their normal lives in the morning.
Jaune and ES-Yang also have a tacit understanding that she handles the Jarl while he does everything he can to avoid anything to do with upper society, since, well... can you really imagine socially awkward and naive Jaune (or Ruby Rose) getting tossed into a new world they don't understand, and having to deal with politics and nobility? 10 minutes of politicking and they'd probably be plotting to fake their death. Sure, Jarl Balgruuf is a tolerant and merciful Jarl, but neither Jaune nor Yang have no reason to know that beforehand, and also have no reason to risk pissing off their greatest (and only) supporter and ally in Skyrim. Balgruuf did reward Jaune with coin (and ain't that more than what the Dragonborn's followers ever get), which ES-Yang accepted on his behalf, while he did his best impression of a mute statue.
Meanwhile, the Companions approach Yang instead of Jaune because they've actually met Yang. But they definitely recognize Jaune (even though he doesn't recognize them), and would certainly like to have both Yang and Jaune as members of the Companions.
