Chapter 20
He finds himself standing in a grassy dale ringed with towering spruces and jutting shards of mossy stone. What little of the horizon is visible through the arboreal canopy is dominated by rows of forested mountains with barren grey peaks. Countless insects buzz restlessly in the foliage, an ever-present symphony that rises and falls at the direction of some unseen conductor. The air is stagnant, but dry and cool as it often is in these alpine regions.
I'm dreaming.
The realization comes to him instantly. He's certain of it, though he isn't sure how or why. This kind of awareness in a dream isn't normal for him, so that fact that he's lucid is itself very unusual.
He isn't pleased with that revelation. His dreams are rarely something to look forward to, and quite often they're the opposite. It's a reasonable expectation based on past experience that whatever happens next won't be enjoyable.
Well, let's see what we're working with here. He unenthusiastically scans the glade, already wanting this to be over and done with. Whatever you're going to throw at me Vaermina, just hurry up and do it. I'm supposed to be making up for lost sleep, dammit. More of these dreams aren't what I need.
Other than an uncommonly large oak tree in the center of the glade, the only other remarkable features are a cluster of two dozen stone huts with thatched roofing positioned beneath the shadow of its branches. Canvas tents, unfenced training grounds, and scattered fields of various vegetables irregularly encircle the buildings, the haphazard arrangement giving the distinct impression that this settlement is either nonpermanent or newly-established. Various weapons, tools, and other miscellaneous implements are strewn about. Curling columns of blue smoke rise from chimneys and open-air hearths.
He doesn't see any people moving around despite the smoke and other evidence to the contrary. The settlement is seemingly deserted. Odd, but this is a dream. Odd is par for the course.
He shoves aside a patch of tall grass and stoops to peer into the nearby underbrush. Nothing. No tracks or anything else of note. I guess there's nobody here today. Strange.
He straightens and turns back to the settlement. A frowns tugs at his lips as a nagging sense of foreboding descends over the glade. He can't shake the feeling that he's missing something here. Something significant.
The sense of uncertainty doesn't last long. Realization hits him all at once. His eyes widen with abrupt comprehension and his breath hitches.
He isn't sure how he failed to see it sooner. This stretch of mountains is exactly the same as when he last laid eyes on them. This moss-ridden forest is intimately familiar. That oak tree towering overhead is identical in every way. Despite his initial lapse, this is actually a place that he knows very, very well.
This little encampment up in the highlands of northern Cyrodiil is the place where his last gang took refuge for their final couple of years, before… before Morven died, along with most of the others. His dreams have taken him here many times before. He distinctly recalls a particularly bad one the night before he and Lokir were captured by the Imperials at the Darkwater River.
Really, he has no idea why it took this long for him to recognize his surroundings. It just… didn't click for some reason. Though to be fair, it's been many moons since he last stood in this field in person.
He snorts sardonically. To think this settlement, so peacefully generic in appearance, was actually the den of a band of thieves and killers. If those thieves and killers were present at the moment, he's sure he would feel differently. They were a rowdy bunch. Funny how from this distance, it doesn't look too different from any little village.
It even reminds him a bit of another settlement nestled in a different range of mountains – those of Craglorn, where he was born and spent his childhood. He doesn't often think of that nameless little hamlet. But that's neither here nor there.
He doesn't allow the familiar vista to lull him into a false sense of security. His gaze sharpens as he continues to scan the glade, increasingly alert. His last several dreaming visitations to this place were nightmarish experiences of hatred and vitriol. Nothing seems explicitly out of the ordinary yet – barring the camp's lack of inhabitants – but that's how they always start.
He tenses in preparation for that inevitable turn for the worst, already resigning himself to another torturous nightmare. It's much more unpleasant to know what's coming beforehand. He usually never realizes until after he wakes up.
A faint noise from the right draws his attention. It's the rustling of dry grass, like something shifting its weight or taking a step nearby. Whatever it is, it sounds big. Certainly much bigger than a man.
He turns to search for the cause, a hand drifting to his belt out of ingrained habit. What he sees in the grass leaves him utterly petrified, though not for the usual reasons.
There's a dragon sitting ten paces away, settled on its bulky haunches with wings folded inward as it gazes towards the camp. The creature is massive, easily the size of a house, with scales colored beige and a hint of olive. Its forest-green eyes are focused unwaveringly on the rustic panorama before them. It exhales, a long rasping sound that makes him question how in Oblivion he didn't notice its presence earlier – assuming it was actually there and didn't somehow instantaneously appear. This is a dream, after all. You never know.
He doesn't dare speak or move a muscle, but it ultimately doesn't matter. The dragon soon breaks the lengthening silence.
"This place means much to you, I see," it rumbles. Its words are deep, powerful, like the bones of the earth grinding together. Much deeper than the voice of any man. "It lies at the center of your being. Curious…"
He immediately identifies this dragon as the owner of the disembodied voice that has been harassing him nonstop since the watchtower. Their tones and manners of speech are identical. That's as far as he gets along that line of thought – he doesn't currently have the mental wherewithal to begin making sense of the potential implications. The revelation that a dragon has been talking to him inside his head is… well, completely unbelievable.
Even though he risks invoking the beast's ire, he can't help it. He isn't sure what to ask, but he has to ask something.
A question slips out before he has time to reconsider. "W-what are you? Why are you here? This is…" He stops and rubs his throat, startled to find that his voice is working perfectly well, without any trace of being hoarse.
The dragon seems to find his question amusing for some reason. It noisily huffs, releasing a wispy cloud of vapor from its nostrils and the corners of its maw. "You fail to recognize me. Hin koraav los sahlo. Perhaps this is not unexpected."
When the dragon doesn't continue, he dares to speak again. "Should I?"
"Does any living creature not recognize their own reflection following sufficient study and contemplation?" it replies. "Do you not perceive your own nature? If you do not, then let this truth be known to you now. I am you, and you are I. We are one and the same."
It twists its head to regard him with one huge eye. He freezes in place, though nothing in its stance or demeanor indicates hostility. The weight of its gaze has a physical presence, oppressive and unnerving. It makes him feel small.
"You ask why I am here. The question, Qahnaarin, is why I would not be here."
He licks his lips nervously. "What the hell does that mean?"
The dragon readily obliges. Sort of. "The water of the land and the water of the sea are distinct existences from one another. Ful nii los. One is sweet, palatable to your mortal kind, while the other is bitter and prone to storms, dangerous and wild. But where they meet, they swirl together to form something new – something distinct from their original states of being. Neither sweet nor bitter, but both, and yet also not so. Such is the manner of your existence, and of mine as well."
He has no idea what the dragon is talking about, but he refuses to interrupt its dissertation. Pretend you're interested and maybe it won't turn you into paste. That's a good plan.
But as the dragon continues to wax philosophically in a manner that would surely make more sense to an egghead wizard, Mull recalls once more the vision he experienced at the watchtower, right after the defeated dragon's body dissolved. An especially memorable image rises to the surface of his memory.
He is soaring above a sea of clouds on wings of dull green, the airs of heaven easily giving way to his shapely form. Warm updrafts wash pleasantly over his scales.
Wings of dull green…
The exact same wings and the exact same scales of the dragon sitting before him now.
Not only that, but he also recalls that moment of terror and crystal clarity as he emerged from the arcane blizzard to come face-to-face with the dragon, drenched crimson with the blood of his allies. It had looked down at him with green serpentine eyes, those of a predator arrogant in the assurance of its superiority.
The same vertically-slitted green eyes as the one now regarding him, belonging to the same dragon.
It's obvious now that he thinks about it. This isn't just any dragon. This is the dragon that fell to the blades and arrows of Whiterun's warriors beneath the shadow of the Western Watchtower. The hows or whys of its presence in this dream are irrelevant. Whatever the reason, it's here before him and apparently in a talking mood.
"Your name is Mirmulnir," he mutters. "Allegiance-Strong-Hunt. But… you're dead. We killed you at the watchtower." His calloused fingertips trace the new scar across his brow. "I saw you die."
And that's another thing. This dragon is a 'he.' Not an 'it.' He doesn't know how he's so sure of that, but somehow he simply knows. Clearly the winged monster is a whole lot smarter than he'd first assumed. Hell, they're holding a full-fledged conversation! If that isn't a sign of some level of sentience, than nothing else would be.
He almost feels guilty for believing the dragon was little more than a mindless beast, a rabid creature rather than an intelligent being. Or rather, he might feel that way if so many men and women hadn't been gruesomely slain by tooth, claw, and magic. He pities them a whole lot more than this reptilian monster.
The dragon makes a plangent noise halfway between humming and growling, causing the ground to shudder beneath their feet. "Mirmulnir," he repeats. "That is what I was called in life, and what you may call me now should you wish. However, a name denotes the mun – an individual, a being distinct from all others, the embodiment of pride and the exertion of one's will upon the world. That is something I may no longer claim to be except through you, for it is just as you say. Indeed my hubris was great, and so too was my downfall."
The dragon pauses, possibly noticing Mull's carefully vacant expression.
"It is apparent to me that my manner of speech is incomprehensible to you." He sounds vaguely accusatory. "Not only have you been resolutely insistent upon refusing my call in the waking world, but you also now fail to adequately comprehend that which ought to be simple. You joorre are so young. So ignorant of Lein, of the world and its ways. It is disappointing to me that my Qahnaarin would be one so lacking."
The dragon releases another cloud of smoke and idly adjusts one of his wings. Mull cautiously continues to watch the enormous being, instinctually unwilling to look away from something so large and unambiguously dangerous. He's hoping the dragon won't become antagonistic if he hasn't already.
After staring him down for a while, Mirmulnir eventually deigns to continue. "Listen well Qahnaarin, for there is much that you have yet to learn. These are things that you must know. My sil, my soul, has been absorbed into your own. That is the meaning of my previous words, which I have now made straightforward for the benefit of your rudimentary mortal comprehension. The events that took place during and after my demise were possible only because you are Dovahkiin. I am the vanquished, and thus I have become less. You are the vanquisher, and thus you have become greater. Such is your inborn nature."
Dovahkiin means Dragonborn. That much he's able to piece together due to his strange affinity for the dragon tongue. Upon hearing that word, he feels a sharp twist in his gut that he doesn't like very much. He isn't happy with the direction this monologue is taking.
"However, a soul cannot be destroyed by any means known to me, even in all of my boundless wisdom. Upon the turning of the cycle of life and death, a soul is rather merely… repurposed. Reconstituted. Made new. What it fundamentally is cannot be changed, but all other facets of its existence are intrinsically malleable. And so here I stand before you, clad in the radiant splendor that I once possessed in life. I have been slain, but my soul continues to live and breath alongside you. Do you now understand?"
"I…" No. It goes without saying, but there's a lot that he doesn't understand. First and foremost, the question of why Mirmulnir is here, in this dream, speaking to him about things that make no sense.
The only thing he's taken away from this for certain is that according to Mirmulnir, he's Dragonborn. Dovahkiin. The warriors of Whiterun said much the same during the night of the battle. And there isn't a man alive who doesn't know about the Dragonborn.
"The Dragonborn are the greatest heroes of mankind. They're masters of the Voice, and they supposedly consume the power of dragons they slay."
The dragon regards him silently. He swallows his anxiety, though it's no longer caused by his reptilian enemy's presence so much as his unease for this topic of conversation.
"Are those legends saying a dragon's 'power' is actually their soul? And that would mean when you died at the watchtower, your soul was…"
He trails off. He doesn't want to continue that sentence.
Draconic green eyes twinkle indecipherably. Mirmulnir's jaws part slightly to reveal off-white fangs, though the gesture isn't overtly threatening. It's almost a grin, if a dragon is even capable of producing such an expression. "Do not hesitate to speak the truth, Qahnaarin. You already know that it is so."
"…You think I absorbed your soul." The words escape from his lips with incredulity.
The indisputable fact of the matter is that something happened at the watchtower after Mirmulnir died. There was that cloud of aetheric light, that field of fallen stars, that… whatever in Oblivion it was. It appeared when the dragon's flesh burned away, and it vanished into him just as quickly. He can't deny that it happened.
He can and will deny that the cause of that phenomenon was his apparent status as Dragonborn, or whatever other absurd delusions the Nords might've come up with in the meantime.
But what he's wondering most right now is why this ghost of a dead dragon is looming above him and claiming the very same thing.
"You are correct regarding the nature of the Dovahkiin, or Dragonborn as your kind say it. I would naturally expect that the greatest of the joorre would be those whose veins host the blood of the dov. But you must understand that this title also holds another meaning. Dov-Ah-Kiin . Rendered thus, it means 'Born Hunter of Dragonkind.'
Mirmulnir's grin widens. It's a terrifying sight.
"Indeed, upon vanquishing one of the dov, a Dovahkiin will consume their life energy and their sil, and so the dovah becomes one with the Dovahkiin. Ful nii bo. What you witnessed upon the conclusion of our mighty battle was the devouring of my sil by a Dovahkiin. And that Dovahkiin was you."
Those words slam into him like a mallet, one after the other. He isn't able to get in a word edgewise as the dragon continues.
"This ability is not a characteristic unique to the Dovahkiin. All dov may absorb the sil of our brethren following their demise, although such a thing is exceedingly rare. It is not often that my kind are slain, and we do not suffer under the yoke of the count of years as do the mortal races. If we are to die, then it must be by the actions of another. Such was my own demise."
His mind whirls with this new information. Most of it is nonsense – he doesn't have the necessary context to interpret what the dragon is trying to tell him. What little he does understand is merely further confirmation that a Dragonborn hero can consume a dragon's soul, and that as a supposed Dragonborn he should be able to do the same. Which is trollshit, of course. He remains adamant in his stubbornness. Surely there's some other explanation. I'm not sure how much I'd trust the word of superstitious Nords or some ghost dragon from a dream, anyways.
That does leave the question of who he would trust to explain an event like the aftermath of the watchtower, but he chooses to ignore that inconsistency. He doesn't have a rebuttal for it.
"But for now that is all I will say," rumbles Mirmulnir, as if sensing his increasing distraction. "Among the dov, there is no knowledge that is shared freely. All things have a price that must be paid. More will be revealed in time, by myself and by others. For now you must ponder that which I have bequeathed unto you. You will comprehend the truth in my words in due time, once you have grown greater." Without further explanation, the dragon returns his full attention to the nearby encampment.
Mull wants to insist that his new acquaintance clarify what he meant by… all of that… but something anomalous on the edge of his vision prompts him to mimic the dragon. It doesn't take long for him to identify the change in their environment.
There's movement among the houses. Before the bandit camp had been strangely deserted, but now it's inexplicably teeming with life. People clad in homespun clothing and utilitarian armor walk along the dusty roads or through adjacent fields, the majority with weapons hanging from their belts. Some are practicing with wooden swords in the training rings. A slew of domesticated animals loiter in their pens, and birds flutter effortlessly between the great oak's many branches. They've all appeared from thin air, fleeting shades emergent from humble graves left long untended.
The sheer nostalgia of this view is overwhelming. His knees wobble. He breathes deeply, appreciating the crisp air laced with wood smoke and a hint of mountain orchid. Although he knows this is a dream, the realization that he's here once again is enough to drown out everything else.
It doesn't seem like a nightmare this time. The worries and vexations cluttering his mind are pushed aside by a scouring wind, even the mystery of the dragon's presence and incomprehensible statements. He can worry about Mirmulnir and the Dragonborn bullshit later. As for right now…
He takes a step forward and immediately feels the overpowering weight of Mirmulnir's scrutiny fall on his shoulders. He disregards the dragon and steps again, his full concern now devoted to the encampment ahead. It's a special thing, to be here without it all going to Oblivion like usual.
He longs to walk those narrow dirt-paved lanes once more, to feel the texture of daubed stone on his fingertips. To exchange greetings with brigands who he used to know and fight and raid alongside. To casually insult the pair of cats that always lounged near the butcher's hut as they lazily regarded him with slitted eyes, no doubt silently doing the same. To reprimand the younger men and women among their ranks for failing to perform their daily duties in favor of rolling dice behind the goat pen, and knowing full well he'd tolerate it when they did so again. To share vulgar jokes and laugh uproariously with Lotosk, or to converse with Joren about more solemn matters around a fire with mugs of spiced mead. He'd even be willing to deal with the more difficult members of their gang, those he didn't get along with and never would, if it meant being able to return to those days.
It wasn't all rainbows and butterflies. It was a hard life however you look at it, and it turned him into a hard man – or maybe he was a hard man drawn into a suitably hard life. Either way, it was the life that he chose for himself. He was too dumb and mean for anything else. He accepted that a long time ago.
Under most circumstances, it isn't the sort of life he thinks anybody with a shred of common sense would want to willingly go back to.
Now, with the clarity that only hindsight can bring, he knows that he'd give anything to turn back time and return to this place if only it meant Morven could stand at his side again – or perhaps more accurately, that he could stand at hers.
He longs for these things, both the good and the bad, and yet something now holds him back. One of his arms reaches forward of its own volition, seeking to grasp that encampment and draw it near to him, but against his will he forces his errant limb back down to his side. Instead he watches sadly as the bandits go about their business without him, lost in morose introspection.
Once or twice, he catches a fleeting glimpse of Morven's flaxen hair moving among the huts. It redoubles his temptation to run down there and sweep her up in a desperate embrace, to revel in her presence once more, to feel her warmth – but he knows perfectly well that none of this is real. She isn't here any longer. Even if he returned to this place in the waking world, he wouldn't find her. She's rotting in a shallow grave elsewhere in these mountains.
Whenever he's cursed to dream of this place, he always sees her, speaks to her, and touches her skin. And every single time it ends the same way, with a terrifying approximation of the woman he knew for so long shrieking like a banshee, cursing him for failing to be better. He always relives the moment of her death accompanied by some twisted corruption of her last words.
This time he's fully aware of himself. He knows this is just an apparition. She's gone and won't ever return to this place. He most likely never will either. And so he holds himself back.
The dragon who's presence he'd honestly forgotten – as impressive as that is – now snakes his horned head in front of him, twisting to face him while interposing between his gaze and the encampment. "Why, Qahnaarin, do you value this place so, and yet feel hatred towards it just as much? I must profess that I do not understand."
"…Care to elaborate on that?" he tiredly asks. Though this dream has gone much better than the norm, it's still sapping his willpower. It's an insult, like dangling a fatty cut of meat in front of a caged dog. Nice to look at but painstakingly out of reach. He's ready for it to end even more so than before.
"I am now a part of you, just as you have become more likened to I in turn. I know your thoughts – in some ways, perhaps even better than you do yourself. But on this matter I find myself perplexed. What worth does this location possess? Is it not merely a hovel of powerless joorre scrabbling in the dirt, no different than thousands of others? Surely this place is beneath the notice of one who is Dovahkiin."
It takes him a few seconds to digest the question. He admits that the dragon's description of their lair isn't inaccurate.
"…If it's that important to you," he grumbles. "This was the hideout of the last gang I ran with. When we weren't out raiding, this is where we'd stay. These mountains gave us a degree of security we couldn't find anywhere else. A lot of the older men kept their families here, and it's where we'd usually hunker down during the winter. It's been a long time since I last stood here. I… I must miss it." Never in his life did he imagine he'd be speaking about this to anyone, much less a dragon of all things, but… here they are.
"You have not answered my query."
"What do you want me to say?" He raises his voice. "I'm not some priest who talks about people's feelings for a living. I don't know how to respond to a question like that." He inhales to steady his racing heartbeat. "I have a lot of good memories about those people down there, but I have a lot of bad ones too. That's all there is to it. If you really 'know my thoughts' like you said, then I don't need to say anything else. I'll leave it at that. Talking about this is pointless. You're just a hallucination anyways."
Mirmulnir doesn't seem to like his explanation. The dragon's broad chest reverberates menacingly and he stomps forward, blocking Mull's sight of the camp with his leathery wings and scaled torso.
"This base sentimentality is unbecoming of my Qahnaarin," he growls. "You would allow these joorre, these insects – nay, not even they, but the mere memory of their existence – to hold sway over you so? To so disgracefully hold you hostage in your own mind? To torment you without suitable retaliation? You are Dovahkiin! Such weakness when challenged thusly is not the way of the dov, and nor is this wretched reminiscence. Our way is that of dominion and of resolve. We do not falter to the weaknesses of the flesh like the joorre. You must free yourself from this self-imposed enslavement."
He grows too angry to care that the dragon could squash him like an ant if given the inclination. "In case you didn't notice, I am one of those joorre." The dragon-word rolls off his tongue with a richness that he can't properly describe, but he barely notices in the heat of the moment. "I'm not some wonderous hero who can go prancing off to save the world, like the Hero of Kvatch or whoever the hell else. I'm no Dragonborn. I'm a man, and not even a good one at that. If that doesn't work for you, then too bad. Go find someone else to play your riddle games." He works his jaw and falls silent, unable to continue. He's livid.
"You know not of what you speak," the dragon snarls. "To deny your own nature is unacceptable. There is no dovah that would willingly debased himself so. There is no alternative. You must accept what you are, Dovahkiin. As must we all."
The idea that he could be Dragonborn is absurd. It's ridiculous. It's so unimaginably far from anything he's ever thought to be remotely within the realm of possibility. The stuff of legends, a subject of myth, something of which songs are sung in taverns and poems recited at public gatherings. There's absolutely no way in Oblivion he could be Dragonborn. It's inconceivable.
In the moment, he simply isn't able to form the words to properly express that conviction to this gargantuan nuisance of a dragon. He's running too hot. He doesn't trust himself not to do something incredibly stupid. So without any better alternatives, he bites his tongue hard enough to draw blood and walks away.
That turns out to be the wrong decision. Mirmulnir exhales loudly enough for the air itself to vibrate nauseatingly. "…So it has come to this, then. My condolences, Qahnaarin, but I see now that I have little other choice. There is but one undeniable truth in this world, and that is the righteousness of power. This is the law by which we live and we die, by which we rise and we fall upon currents of time. Those who are weak must not become ignorant of their rightful place in the ordering of Lein. Those who would oppress you must themselves be oppressed in turn. They who would bind you in chains must be burnt to ash!"
With that decisive proclamation, Mirmulnir swivels his serpentine neck to face the encampment once again. Scorching air surges from his nostrils, igniting nearby patches of grass and flowers from the sheer heat alone. His maw opens wide.
Mull realizes what's going to happen the moment before it does. He reaches for a sword that isn't there and sprints desperately back towards the dragon, delusional in his frantic desire to forestall the monstrous being's wrath. "Don't you dare-!"
"YOL TOOR SHUUUUUUUUL!"
A flash of fiery light envelops him. The camp is incinerated in an instant along with its inhabitants, who don't even have time to scream. The trees burst into flame like so many twigs thrown into a bonfire. His vision goes completely white, rendering him blind. It feels like he's standing in the middle of a blazing furnace, hemmed in on all sides by inescapable agony.
Just as quickly, everything fades away into a cold black nothingness.
-x-
He awakens in a profoundly foul mood.
His sheets are completely soaked through with sweat, as are his sleeping clothes. His pillow is lying crumpled in a corner on the far side of the room. Watery rays of sunlight filter through the opaque windows.
After taking a minute to steady his breathing and let the anger simmer down, he slides off the edge of the bed and starts cleaning up his mess. The priestesses aren't going to be happy about this bedding. The sheer amount of perspiration he exuded during his dream is… extraordinary.
He remembers everything that transpired during the dream down to the tiniest detail, like it was a real experience rather than a nighttime foray into Vaermina's realm.
Thus the foul mood. Reliving the past is never an enjoyable occurrence, but having a dragon berate him for his purported weaknesses only served to make it that much worse. That's a sentence I never thought I'd have a reason to string together. What in Shor's name is my life coming to?
Breakfast hasn't been delivered yet, so it must still be early in the morning. The priestesses are usually quite industrious. With nothing else to do with himself, he spends a couple of hours sitting and stewing in the memories of recent events, both hallucinatory and otherwise.
No matter what he does, he can't prevent his thoughts from returning to that broken tower beneath the clouded moons and the dragon that destroyed it. He recalls just how strange he felt and acted over the course of that night, fighting alongside full-fledged warriors with barely a second thought. He's never been involved in a battle as insane as that, though that's probably true for just about anybody. After all, it was a battle against an ostensibly extinct creature. But more than that, he's no veteran warrior – he can fight and kill to survive, but that's it. Something like fighting against a dragon… it goes without saying that it was a horrifying encounter.
He cringes as he recalls how he'd so thoughtlessly charged the dragon alongside the men and women of Whiterun. That was an objectively stupid thing to do. I can't believe I was such an idiot. It's a damn miracle he didn't get himself killed. The majority of them weren't so lucky.
But most significant of all are the things that occurred after Mirmulnir was slain. First was the vision he experienced of another life long ago, one that was not his own. Only now does he comprehend exactly what that vision was.
It was about Mirmulnir. He was Mirmulnir, seeing what the dragon saw through his own eyes, hearing what he heard, feeling what he felt. In his most recent dream, Mirmulnir claimed to now be a part of him. The fact that he relived what appeared to be segments of the dragon's life immediately after consuming his soul – allegedly – does lend some credence to that statement.
And then there was the Shout that rendered him mute. Fus. Just like everything else, he still can't believe that actually happened. He's assuming it was a Shout – though he's skeptical, for what that's worth. But regardless of the specifics, it was certainly strange.
He isn't a Tongue. He doesn't know any more about the power of the Voice than he does about the intricacies of Argonian mating rituals. The fact that he was somehow able to Shout is very, very, very unusual and very disconcerting. Not to mention how unbelievably exhausted it made him afterwards or what it did to his throat.
Last but not least, the icing on the sweetroll is his supposed Dragonbornness, which he's still trying and failing to wrap his head around. The less said about all that nonsense, the better. He's already dwelt enough on it to last himself a lifetime, and it's only been three days.
His lingering anger from the dream steadily grows worse. Before long, he's filled anew with incredulousness, cynicism, frustration, and above all else desperation. Desperation for those who cried 'Dragonborn' to have been wrong.
Mirmulnir had a lot to say about the Dragonborn, which is a troubling development in its own right. He hopes it was all ultimately just a figment of his addled imagination.
But the longer he spends thinking about it, the less likely that seems. There are too many things that don't add up otherwise. And the less likely it seems, the more he starts thinking the gods must have an exceptionally sick sense of humor.