"This takes a fair amount of explaining, but I'll try not to bore you. Dragons have been gone from the world since time out of mind," Eryka began, "but when they last flew the skies, there were no more powerful creatures on the face of all Nirn. (I gathered from the context that 'Nirn' meant the world, and didn't interrupt.)
"Humans were then the least of all the races. The elves and the other races of mer had much more magic, the Argonians had tough scaly hides and could breathe underwater, the Khajiit and other cat races had claws, speed and agility, but humans were soft, bare-skinned, and powerless. None could stand against a dragon in its strength, its magic or its rage, not men nor elves nor any of the other races, and no one but a dragon could kill another dragon, not so it would stay dead. Even if it were it to be killed, its wings slashed, its body rotted until nothing but the bones were left, all it would take was for another dragon to speak its name over the bones, and it would rise up again in all its power and majesty. Our ancestors of long ago worshipped them as gods, and is it any wonder?
"The dragons, being dragons, which is to say, proud, conceited, combative, quarrelsome, distrustful, greedy and possessive, accepted the worship and devotion of these humans, who willingly became their slaves. In return, the humans were protected from the other races, from other tribes of humans, and from other dragons, for a dragon will willingly yield nothing. Some of the humans were also given power over the others, and they became powerful priests and necromancers—the same ones who made the draugr what they are, in fact. They also became the rulers over their fellow men, for dragons could not be bothered to do the ruling. All might have continued in that way, except that Atmora, where once we lived, started to change from a green and fruitful land to one that was even colder and harsher than the Pale."
"Even worse than this?" I interjected, waving a hand around at the landscape, which continued to be covered entirely in snow and ice, and rocks.
"Even worse," she confirmed. "So bad that everyone abandoned it, which took some centuries. It didn't happen all at once. Dragons, dragon priests, and dragon worshippers all came to Tamriel and settled in Skyrim, the hard-won human bastion lands. But once here, the priests began to abuse their power greatly. "
"Hold on a moment," I put up a hand. "You're speaking of dragons as though they were intelligent."
"Yes," she nodded. "They were very intelligent. They had their own tongue, their own histories and they were the children of Akatosh, greatest of the gods. Certain words in the Dragon tongue, when Shouted properly, are a very powerful magic. That's how they breathe fire or frost and call the storms.
"I have to say, though, that the ones I've fought don't seem to be all that bright. They don't want to talk to me at all, and I have tried. In their own speech, too. I don't want to have to kill them, and it isn't as if there wasn't enough land and wild game to go around. If they'd only leave people and their livestock alone—. "
"You've tried reasoning dragons out of attacking?" I felt my face stretching into an involuntary grin. "Maker's breath, I would like to see that!"
"If you continue on with me, you will," she predicted dolefully. "I do a lot of ducking and dodging."
"Ah. Well, the reason I asked about draconic intelligence is, where I come from, dragons are merely beasts. Huge, flying, fire-breathing, and tough-to-kill beasts, I admit, but just great big lizards when all is said and done. I should know. I've helped kill them, and one of them was risen from the dead so it was twice as hard to kill again. Now, I have heard about a place where they worshipped them, but that was rare. Anyhow, that cult is gone. The only exception is when an Arch-Demon—something like one of your Daedric Princes—arises in the form of a dragon. It takes a member of the Grey Wardens—they're a special order of warriors—to kill one so it stays dead, and it costs him his life. Or it's supposed to, anyhow."
Somehow, both Alistair Theirin and Elissa Cousland had come through the Blight alive and stayed Grey Wardens. Elissa had also very cleverly managed to marry her widower brother to Queen Anora rather than making her lover king, so my money was on her having found a way to circumvent the sacrifice.
"Something like that did happen here about two hundred years ago," Eryka said. "The Daedric Prince of Destruction, Mehrunes Dagon, tried to open all the gates of Oblivion and destroy the world, but the last of the Septim line died to seal them shut forever. That's a whole story in itself, though."
"Right. So these Dragon Priests were abusing their power and, I'm guessing, their people too. That's usually how it goes. In my experience, anyway." I commented cynically.
"Yes. They were so tyrannical that the people rose up in rebellion. Up until then, the dragons took hardly any more notice of people than you would of ants. That is, none at all, until you find them infesting your food stores or something. But one of the things the dragons demanded was all the gold and jewels that humans could produce. When the tribute stopped and humans started squawking and waving spears, the dragons started flaming them. At first men died by the thousands, but then a few of the dragons and some of the gods started helping them. What gods do you worship?"
"I don't worship any god," I said, rubbing my forehead. "But we only have the one."
"Oh!" Her face lit up with comprehension. "And you call him what, the All-Maker? You said 'Maker's Breath' a little while ago."
"Uh—we do call him the Maker, yes…"
"Then Fereldan must be somewhere in or near Solstheim. Your people must be Nords from the Skaal tribe. They're the only ones I've ever heard of or read about where they have only one god. I always wondered how one god could be all things to all people, particularly when it's a male god. But then, that's the Skaals for you, even more manly than the Nords of Skyrim. So little respect for women they don't even allow a Goddess in Heaven."
"I'm almost certain it's a coincidence." I said. Well, I certainly hoped it was a coincidence. There was no 'almost' about that. "Anyhow, we do allow women in Heaven. A woman, anyhow. The Maker's Bride, Andraste."
"Never heard of her." Eryka frowned and dismissed the saint with a wave of her hand. "Well, whether it is a coincidence or it isn't, I suspected you couldn't be from anywhere the Nine are worshipped, because the priests of Julianos would never permit mages to be so treated. He's the Divine of scholarship and wisdom, so students and practitioners of magic come under his protection."
"You even have a god of mages here? Careful how you tread, Desire Demon. This is getting too good to be true again." I teased. I couldn't help it, for all I knew I shouldn't. I was—almost—happy, and it had to come out somehow.
She made a scoffing sound. "Tscha! You be careful, or I'll Shout you out of this carriage. Anyhow, for whatever reason of their own, the dragons and gods taught men to use Shouts in the Dragon tongue as the dragons do. Speaking Dragon takes a lot of study if you're not a dragon, and Shouting—when you Shout, you have to know and understand to the point where the word you Shout is the thing itself. It's known as the Way of the Voice. That was what made the difference. Men couldn't fly and they were still much smaller and more vulnerable, but they could and did made weapons and armor. Add to that the Shout, and they began killing the dragons. It was a long and bloody war."
"But they did not stay dead." I prompted, "because another dragon could speak their names over their bones and bring them back." This all seemed like some old story or fairy tale, with no relation to the world or the land I was now in.
"Yes. But not all dragons had that kind of power, and even among those that did, dragons are so selfish and conceited that they did not bother. Only Alduin, the Firstborn of all dragonkind, was foresighted enough to resurrect all the others, so the humans concentrated their attack upon him. Once he was gone, the dragons scattered and fled to the remote places of the world. Except now they are returning in force, and no one knows why."
She shook her head, then looked at me. "Some of this I knew from our histories and some I have learned from the last remaining keepers of the Way of the Voice, the Greybeards up on High Hrothgar. They won't tell me more until I return to them with the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller, which was what I went into that tomb of draugr and necromancers to get. Somebody who knows a suspicious whacking lot about me got there before I did and left me a note!"
That last statement was very nearly a wail of frustration. I had to laugh. "Sorry. You just sounded so—. Anyhow, I can see how that would be anticlimactic. I still don't see where you come into all of this. Why does it have to be you? Surely there are other intrepid would-be dragon-slayers out there."
"There are," she agreed, "and I've come across the bodies of a few of them, burned to a crisp or frozen solid and sometimes both. I've come across carriages and homes which were attacked and destroyed when I wasn't on hand. I'm the only Dragonborn—at least the only one that's known about. Only a dragon can kill another dragon, but the gods have seen fit to get around by making me. I'm human, mostly. I've a mortal body and a human mind and a human heart, but my soul is that of a dragon. It's always been that way, and I've always known it deep down, even if I didn't know the words for it. I know how to Shout without being taught for years. I can speak Dragon without learning it. I can kill a dragon and it will stay dead."
"That's—I—." I was still sorting out my response when the carriage was attacked by several frostbite spiders. Eryka and I killed them, although my offensive spells still weren't working right and I had to resort to, yes, clubbing them with my staff as I did the bear. At least with a spider it's easier to crack the carapace, although bears don't spit venom on you.
After we caught up with the carriage again and helped push it back up to the road (the horse had panicked), and got underway once more, Eryka asked me what I had been trying to cast, observing that it didn't look to her as though I had the finger positions right. The rest of the way to Morthal, the next Hold capital, was taken up with an impromptu lesson in how magic worked in this world, and by the time we got there, I could again cast firebolts with the best of them.
A/N: I am much happier with this chapter(Thank you, Lisa!) than I was with the original explanation, even if this doesn't cover nearly as much about the history of Nirn and the pantheon of its gods. Those will be showing up in the next few chapters.
A tremendous thank you to all who reviewed. I will be thanking members via PM, but an especial thanks to: Lisa, Ceg and Shakatan. And Lisa, who deserves it twice.