"Let's go. Release Odahviing," the Dragonborn ordered, open the doors to the Great Porch so hard they slammed into the walls. "Take me to Skuldalfn." The whites of her eyes, the part of her Irileth swore up and down made it so obvious she wasn't fully elven, flashed as she approached the dragon like he was her fallen prey.
"Zok brit uth! I warn you, once you've flown the skies of Keizaal, you envy of the dov will only increase," Odahviing said, shifting eagerly under the yoke. He either didn't care or didn't see how the Dragonborn scowled and hunched herself over. Ulfric felt a chill run down his spine as she passed him.
"Are you sure about this?" Balgruuf asked, though he still took a step towards the wheel. "Releasing a dragon is…well, I don't think I need to say it."
"I'm sure." The Dragonborn stood and watched the yoke raise instead of helping; it was much harder to lift the damn thing than to drop it. She squeezed the strap of the sack like it was the only thing holding her in Mundus.
Odahviing stretched as soon as he was able. "Amativ! Mu bo kotin stinselak," he announced, lowering his head so she could climb onto his neck. "The freedom of the sky awaits."
"Joor, zah frul!" The Dragonborn Shouted without warning. Odahviing screeched and Ulfric grabbed the wheel again in case they needed to drop the trap once more, but the Dragonborn slinked forwards until she was easily stepping to avoid Odahviing's full body shudders. She was in the way of the trap. "I will never let you die," she said to Odahviing, grabbing one of the large horns from his head and holding his head deathly still.
The words echoed ominously to Ulfric. She had plans for the both of them, though it seemed she was far more hostile to Odahviing than to him, going by the crueler edge to her tone. If the Dragonborn had said the same to him, it would've been a promise. To Odahviing, she meant it a curse.
"You will be my slave for all eternity," the Dragonborn continued. "The sky will never again mean freedom for you. I suggest you savor the beginning of your end."
"What is she saying?" Balgruuf whispered. Ulfric blinked, suddenly realizing the Dragonborn was speaking pure Dov.
"Threatening him to keep his word," Ulfric answered.
Odahviing was sent on a harsh coughing fit that transitioned to a deep laugh. "Just like a true dovah! Alduin has no chance against your rage, you have no chance against your own nature. Doom-Driven indeed!" He continued the conversation in Dov, Ulfric whispered an approximate translation to Balgruuf.
"Shut up." The Dragonborn switched back to Tamrielic, climbing on Odahviing's neck. "Be ready when I return." She stared right at Ulfric.
Odahviing turned around even though the Porch was too small for him to do so, knocking into the columns and walls without a care. Then he leaped forwards, clearing the balcony in one jump, wings spreading wide as soon as he was able. "May Kynareth guide you as you pass through her realm!" Balgruuf yelled after the Dragonborn, cupping his hands to his mouth.
Ulfric watched them fly away until long after Odahviing was nothing more than a red memory on the horizon. He tried to wish she wouldn't come back, but just couldn't force himself to put any weight behind the thought. Ulfric clenched his fist around where the hilt of his sword should be.
Skuldafn was surrounded with dragons. They perched on crumbling, ancient towers and soared over the mountains. "This is as far as I can take you," Odahviing announced, just as they crested over the final chain of mountains before the valley Skuldafn was built into. From here, Nariilu could catch the eerily smooth gait of Draugr patrolling the walls and buildings. "Fight bravely."
"You aren't going to help me?" Nariilu asked. He had better, if he knew what was good for him. She had to give Odahviing credit; he knew she couldn't use Dragonrend on him and risk alerting every single dragon in the area. There were too many for her to fight all at once, not even counting the Draugr.
Odahviing landed on the wide stone path that led from Skuldafn to nowhere. "I shall look for your return. Or Alduin's," he answered, taking off again. As much as Nariilu would've liked to Shout him out of the sky and remove his scales one by one for Farengar to study, she instead darted to the side of the mountains, pressing herself against the stones.
Skuldafn rose high above her; its external structure bigger than any barrow she had seen and far more ornate than Bleak Falls. Nariilu squinted at the Draugr guarding the grand stairs; they weren't much to be worried about. Decaying armor and rusted swords adorned cracked skin and exposed bone. Low ranking warriors in life, they hadn't received near the amount of embalming that would keep them any sort of threat for more than a century.
Though their glowing eyes gave Nariilu pause regardless of how close to falling apart they were, and being swarmed by them would be deadly at best. She swallowed, and stepped out to fire off two ice spears at the nearest ones; they crumpled into their leathers without much noise, and none of the others patrolling the arches above the stairs reacted. Excellent.
She took things one step at a time, one ice spear for each Draugr, making her way up the stairs and hiding beneath arches whenever a dragon lazily patrolled overhead. She was more cautious than she felt she need be, as the whistling wind would cover most sounds, and the ebony on her armor would, from the sky, at least, mark her a higher-ranking Draugr to the dragons.
Unless one looked for too long and caught a glimpse of her soul.
Nariilu crouched low against the stairs and peered into the city proper. "Shit," she hissed. Hundreds of Draugr, dozens of dragons, and a Dragon Priest guarding a huge glowing portal in the center of the city. No sneaking past that. Even worse, doors to the crypts looked well-kept; no telling what was inside.
She took a deep breath. No Shouts until all the dragons were dead; they'd know exactly what she was the second she opened her mouth. No attacking the dragons until the Draugr were dead; she couldn't defend from the sky and ground at the same time, and the dragons would alert everything if they were attacked. The magically inclined Draugr would need to die first so they couldn't raise the corpses of the lower-ranked Draugr. And they would all be on high alert if any of them found a dead-actually dead-body, so she needed to either work fast or work silently. Simple enough. Not easy, but simple.
The Dragon Priest pulled something-was that a staff?-from near the portal and it faded to nothing. Then, the Dragon Priest and half a dozen ebony-clad Draugr disappeared inside. Well, that was just great. Now she had to get the staff, too, and who knew if there weren't more priests floating around. Nariilu took a few deep breaths and stretched out her hands.
The sounds of celebration would've been deafening if Ulfric were in the city center and not wandering aimlessly on the Porch like some lost child. Muffled yells and songs were barely a distraction as he paced and counted stones and seconds between gusts of wind. Blades, Companions, Greybeards, would any of them truly take him in?
"Ulfric."
He swiveled, locking eyes with Balgruuf. The Jarl carried two silver mugs in one hand and held open the door to Dragonsreach with the other. He motioned for Ulfric to follow with a twitch of his head and led him into Dragonsreach and to his personal chambers. Balgruuf sat down at a sparsely decorated dining table. "Oh, come now, Ulfric," he said when Ulfric hesitated to do the same, "sit and chat."
Ulfric sat opposite to him, wordlessly taking the mug offered him. Thick honeyed mead sloshed inside, a drop or two falling over the rim and sliding down the silver. "What is there to discuss, Jarl?" His words drowned in the sprawling tapestries and thick rugs around the quarters. Ulfric would've much preferred to hear his words bounce around the stone until they melded together into one unintelligible noise.
"What isn't there to discuss?" Balgruuf sighed and raised his mug, then sat it down hard. "No word's come from General Tullius, other than to kiss his own ass for ending the war. Bah, useless Imperial. I don't doubt for a second he'll try to take the Dragonborn's work all the way to the Senate. I'll tell you where word has come from," Balgruuf said, scowling across the table. "Riften. I found out you weren't dead through Maven."
Ulfric bit his tongue. Balgruuf nearly spat out the words. He and Maven hadn't gotten along well for years, not since she started taking customers from Honeyside Meadery, but she paid very well, and Balgruuf was never one to turn down profit. He could only imagine how he was taking her rise to Jarlship, and all the trade power that came with it. Another part of Ulfric sank; what if Maven had accused him of connections with the Thieves' Guild? He supposed he wasn't in much position to turn her claims around. "And?"
"And? How in Oblivion did you manage to walk away?"
Ulfric shrugged. "The Dragonborn wanted me alive. She negotiated for my release."
"I know you, cousin. You don't accept defeat. You'd sooner fall upon your own blade. What did Therel promise you?"
"Nothing. I only knew of her plan with Odahviing on the road to Whiterun," Ulfric answered. Balgruuf didn't seem satisfied, so he continued, "She invoked the Old Laws. It appears the Empire does have a shred of respect for tradition." He dug his fingers into the plating on his thighs. How much of her plan did Balgruuf know? "Apparently, as long as I don't break any more laws, my head is safe upon my shoulders. And, if I am to gain a sliver of the honor I mistakenly believed I once held, I intend to keep it there."
"Honor. What do any of us know about honor?" Balgruuf muttered. He spat onto the rug. "We fight amongst ourselves, and for what? Neither of us is dead, but thousands of the citizens we claim to love are already rotting in their graves. Gone are the days of our fathers when battles were waged for glory."
Balgruuf finished his drink in one long pull. Ulfric hadn't seen him so upset since his first wife died in labor, his child following soon after. It was his indecisiveness that killed them, he wept for days after, if he had agreed to sacrifice one for the other, there would at least be one of them still living. He'd been an aggressively stubborn man since then, never one to dwell on the consequences of his actions and certainly not one to even consider any alternatives to his decisions. And truly, it had taken no less than an army at his doorstep for Balgruuf to rethink his neutrality.
"Don't even start about the Elves, Ulfric!" Balgruuf growled. Ulfric blinked, trying his damnedest to keep his face blank. "The Elves didn't bring this, we did. If any of the Jarls had thought for one second about the good of our people instead of the good of our 'honor', Skyrim would be a prouder nation. We are starving dogs fighting over Imperial scraps. Do you know what Mede himself sent me after your damnable Siege? An Imperial Draft Order and chests of gold. They send gold like it will act as gauze to a wound. It didn't even pay to rebuild after the Siege.
"But I suppose that's what being a good obedient Jarl gets me. I doubt you ever received such generosity from the Empire, or you would've never challenged them. I wonder how many died waiting for me to choose a side! How many died because I wanted to make a statement about the futility of our fighting?"
"You're the last person who needs to take blame," Ulfric said.
"Don't flatter yourself; we all have a share in it. Perhaps you swung your sword first and the Dragonborn last, but that doesn't discount all those that fell in between. I ordered a stalemate of back-and-forth skirmishes for months." They sat in silence; none of the revelry from outside of Dragonsreach could be heard through the thick stone walls. Balgruuf finally spoke. "I'll ask once more; why did Therel let you live?"
"Perhaps," Ulfric weighed his words, "she grew tired of bloodshed."
"And why do you let yourself live?"
"I've made too many mistakes to fix, led too many to their deaths, given too many false hope. It would be easier to die, and don't think I don't ask that very same question of myself every spare chance I get. I once prayed to Shor for a death that would be sung about for generations to come, but I never once prayed to deserve it," Ulfric paused and finally met Balgruuf's steeled stare. He felt the weight of Whiterun in the man's eyes, the weight of the legacy of his fathers and of his sons. The weight of the legacy that Ulfric himself had left behind with his hands bound more times than he wanted to count.
"The gods have had ample opportunity to kill me, and yet I live another day while thousands die in my stead," Ulfric continued. "They won't let me die, and now I can see my ruin as a foundation for something greater than myself."
Balgruuf sighed into a deep chuckle. "You sound like the Dragonborn. Finish your mead. Self-important, even in humility. I would expect no less from the Bear of Markarth." Ulfric sipped his mead, just letting the drink wet his lips. "This is the part where I'm supposed to banish you from my city."
"I can be gone within the hour."
"I don't give a damn if you stay," Balgruuf said, just barely managing to not cut him off. "By the gods, I'm tired of our divisiveness. I want my citizens safe. I want my family safe. It shouldn't be a political statement to say that I want to keep deaths to a minimum. Men against Elves, Aedra against Daedra, Men against Men, Empire against Dominion, Stormcloaks against Imperials, what difference does it make to the child who grows up alone?"
Balgruuf looked a hundred years old. He bit his cheek and laughed to himself. "Do not think that I forgive you for all that you've done over the years," Balgruuf went on. "I understand; I do not condone. You staying in Whiterun makes a statement to the Empire, to the Dominion, a statement bigger than keeping the shrine to Talos up in the city center. Decide for yourself if you want me to make that statement. I'm prepared either way."
Ulfric stepped down from Dragonsreach to the Cloud District, pausing every so often to admire the revelry from afar. Drinking songs would begin in unison, then gradually mold into whatever each individual desired. With the sun only beginning to dip in the sky, he wondered how late the celebrations would go. He kept his helmet on his head, hoping that it would disguise him at least a bit from a populace that hated him more than the ebony would make him stand out among a sea of iron and steel and leather and fur.
He pushed through the crowd, ignoring drinks being thrust at him with admiration for his armor and sneers being thrown at him when his face was occasionally recognized. Finally, finally, after what felt like hours of moving through an increasingly drunk crowd, he made it to Breezehome. The crowds were thickest in the streets near the house; it seemed the local taverns were overflowing, with people triumphantly climbing on dragon bones and passing around tankard after tankard. Ulfric couldn't wait to get away from the noise and chaos.
The door was locked, of course.
Ulfric sighed and moved to the back of the house, grateful that the side streets were mostly empty, though some loitered in small groups timing each other's drinks away from the main crowd. The backdoor was locked, too, and Ulfric knocked on the off chance that Lydia was having a relaxing afternoon inside instead of reveling with the crowd.
To his surprise she opened the door. Lydia's hair was a sweaty mess of loose braids; she ran a comb through them to detangle the damp locks. "I figured you'd come here." She disappeared inside the house, leaving the back door open for Ulfric to follow. "You can stay as long as you want," Lydia called from the main room.
"How long did you travel with the Dragonborn?" Ulfric asked. He leaned in the doorway to the main room, placing his helmet down on one of the crates and working on the clasps for his bracers.
"More or less since she killed that first dragon," Lydia answered. She pulled a strand of hair from where it had stuck to her facepaint. "It was off and on for a few months, but she sent me back to Whiterun permanently not long before she went to Solitude to finally answer that draft."
"There hasn't been a draft since-" Ulfric stopped himself. Of course there would be a draft for the Civil War, the Empire's forces were still depleted from the Great War. That was part of his reason for striking sooner rather than later.
"Oh, apparently it was only for Elven veterans," Lydia said. "Something about longer lives needing longer service. Therel never told me all the details. Not my problem, I suppose. It was why she came to Skyrim before she got caught up in all this dragon business."
He gently placed his bracers beside his helmet. They felt heavier in his hands than on his arms. He wasn't surprised she'd lied; to be known as a traitor would destroy her reputation. The Dragonborn likely kept her time with the Thalmor known to only herself. And to him.
"Who knows," Lydia continued, rebraiding hair out of her face, "without that draft, I'd probably still be sneaking trainings with the guard behind my father's back. Well, I'd rather be out adventuring than this." She gestured around with her elbows. "But I've got a duty to preform, and I'm sure that I'll be out in the thick of it soon enough now that my Thane is finally putting Alduin in his place."
"And if she doesn't return?" Ulfric asked. Lydia's fingers stumbled, crossing the wrong strand over.
She didn't acknowledge it, keeping the twist in and continuing down to the ends. "I'll get a new Thane, I guess. Probably a boring merchant. I'm guessing you won't be joining in on the festivities tonight?"
Ulfric scoffed. "I have no place to drink with the city I tried to burn."
"Don't sell yourself short-you did more than try."
Ulfric stayed up late. The revelry didn't die down until hours after the first candle he lit to read by sputtered down to nothing. The Dragonborn's shelves were well populated with history texts detailing the biographies of Fourth Era High Kings and other political figures the Imperial Historians deemed important enough to record and mass produce with enchanted quills and cheap paper. Good enough distractions for anyone to kill time, though it took a special kind of person to find the dry facts interesting.
His mind wandered back to the book shoved in the wall more than once. Ulfric found himself pacing more than reading in the early hours of sunset. He hated to pull himself from his unwelcome memories to realize he was pulling back the quilt over the scar. The Thalmor would be in Whiterun soon enough, and he wanted to be long gone before then. Their long robes and high chins whispered in his dreams more than they had in decades.
He forced himself to focus on the uniform print throughout the book, recounting significant decrees and policies made by High Queen Hjova back in the middle days of the first century. The author had a fascination with her, a turning point in Skyrim's history, he insisted, as she struck every piece of legislation related to the Oblivion Crisis from the Lawbooks. Instead, she focused her attention inward towards rebuilding the still-devastated areas.
The Dragonborn left a twig on the page that began a recount of her popular civil policies. Throughout the section were little scrawled notes and inserted pages in the Dragonborn's straight hand on how to revise them for a much more 'politically fragile' Skyrim. Even the Dragonborn's ramblings were uninteresting to Ulfric; many of her plans seemed to come down to handing out her wealth to whoever needed it-or wanted it-in order to boost her own reputation.
She hadn't seemed to consider that her fortune had its limits, and social programs weren't nearly as profitable as investing in businesses. A blacksmith of all people should know that misused materials run out much more quickly than those properly managed. Still, Ulfric decided that she had grown up poor, and hadn't had anywhere close to the education on the delicate balance of economics that he had. She was already throwing her money at any store that would take it.
Still, money could only take her so far, though the Empire knew how to spread it like influence around the dull masses. At least he had pointed out their flawed system of golden puppets, even if it had cost more than he would likely ever realize.
And the Thalmor's stranglehold on the gems and precious metals buried beneath their cursed Isles found their way into Imperial pockets and told them exactly where to send their bloody Septims. Ulfric almost wished they would go ahead and declare war instead of playing ally to the Empire. How long would they send their spies into courts and councils before they finally struck?
Ulfric wondered if the Dragonborn would come back with proof that it was truly the Thalmor that had called the Dragons to return. He'd been suspecting as such since Helgen, though he assumed they would wait to reveal their part until Tamriel was in ruins and they swooped in to end the Dragons' reign. The Dominion would take credit for solving a crisis they had caused, just like they'd done with the Void Nights. But the Dragonborn claimed it was the result of an ages-old prophecy from the Elder Scrolls, a prophecy that he himself had caused to finally occur.
He supposed it didn't matter who had caused the Dragons to return. They had returned and killed untold numbers across Tamriel, and when-if-the Dragonborn killed Alduin, Ulfric imagined that there wouldn't be too much of an effect on the current situation, except that the Dragons may just stay dead for once. Hunting all of them down had taken entire Eras for the legendary Dragonslayer Blades until they finally buried the last one.
They weren't nearly as legendary now that they'd all been slaughtered by the Thalmor for daring to serve Talos. The Blades hadn't associated with the Empire, not since the end of the Septims, just dared to challenge the Thalmor campaign against Talos before anyone else had noticed. The Blades had sounded a near-silent alarm in the final months before the Great War, with disguised Watchers showing up occasionally to council with Jarl Hoag.
Ulfric hadn't understood why his father had refused to send aid to the Blades. It wasn't until he finally stood on the battlefield against the Thalmor Wizards and Battlemages and Spellswords and Nightblades that Ulfric realized that what Windhelm could've spared would make little difference. During the first massacre, hundreds of the most elite warriors in all of Tamriel fell to the Thalmor with ease, and a reserve of town guards would have only added to the pile of heads the Thalmor left on Mede's throne room floor.
He wondered if there were more Blades around than just the few the Dragonborn knew of. She had extended an invitation for him to join, though judging from her outburst days prior, the remaining Blades weren't exactly returning to their ancient form of servants to the Dragonborn. Ulfric smiled remembering how pissed off she had been, and then felt the dull ache of a nearly faded bruise.
Still, it had sounded like the ancient ways were what she wanted, and by the gods the Dragonborn knew how to get what she wanted, or at the very least get one step closer in ways that few could account for. And the support of the Blades would be one thing to legitimize her rule as Empress if she ever managed to actually get that far before falling off her own pedestal of arrogance.
But until that day, the dragons were much more of an issue than she. And so were the Thalmor, but he couldn't do much about the Elves until the Dragonborn returned. And until then, Ulfric had a much bigger issue of keeping himself alive. He could flee to the hills and forests like a lowly bandit and wait for either the Dragonborn to find him or for Alduin to swallow the world. Or he could stay in Whiterun and paint a political target on Balgruuf's back.
What was there for him in Whiterun? A house where he could hide from the citizens who hated him, perhaps the only shrine to Talos left in the Empire. The grand temple in Windhelm was likely in rubble by now, if Elenwen had her way.
And the Companions. The legacy of his ancestor; mercenaries that worked for the good of Skyrim's people, whether they could pay or not. They'd done more to honor Ysgramor than Ulfric had, and that Aela woman seemed more pleasant company than the Dragonborn, even if she had been more pissed off than a hungry troll for their brief meeting. 'It should never be about the coin, in my opinion.' Well, she had asked him to inquire about joining if he survived, and damn if he hadn't survived.
What was the worst that could happen, at the very least? They were notoriously apolitical. The Thalmor couldn't touch him, legally, but that wouldn't stop them, if Elenwen changed her mind about keeping him alive. If they couldn't have him as a symbol of the Empire's ineffectiveness, they wanted him at the center of Skyrim's politics where he could be manipulated to influence the Jarls however their slimy golden hands wanted. As a Companion, he would have the respect of the people, after he proved himself of course, but no influence in palaces and longhouses.
The Thalmor might just kill him for refusing to play their little game. But that would be their problem, and the Dragonborn's if he did die. It might even help her out; Companions were trusted throughout Skyrim even more than the punctuality of the Couriers. Former Companions were sought-after advisors. Galmar had numbered amongst their ranks in his younger days, before he left to fight in the Great War.
Gods, Galmar. Ulfric prayed every night for his safety and his soul. The Empire were kind to their prisoners, officially. But in truth? Prisons kept executioners busy and corpse-haulers busier. He often forced himself to imagine what his best friend had to endure in his stead. Ulfric's life had cost Tullius' anger, and there was no doubt that his second in command was bearing the brunt of it.
But there was no use dwelling on what he couldn't change. There wasn't much to dwell on at all.