10 - DOVAHJUN
“Not the Dragonborn,” Arngeir’s glistening eyes cut into my very soul, “But the Dragon King.”
Borri, Wulfgar and Einarth slap their swarthy chests. “DOVAHJUN!” They bow to one knee. I stare at Arngeir, too struck to speak.
I want to implore if this is some sorta joke, yet my little ferretin brain can just not hammer out who in all the world would bother to prank a dumb fuck like me.
“Why- why- what?” I stutter, feelin big n stupid n laid-out, expectin the Greybeards t’start laughing at me any second.
They don’t. Arngeir stands; he regards me sternly beneath his cowl. “This is a great honour, you understand? Perhaps not so great given the current circumstances; you’re hardly likely to be merited on your dragon lineage with the Dark Father on the rise again – but great nonetheless.”
“I dun understand. What you’re sayin-”
“Oh, come now,” Arngeir smiles, but his humour is ill and grey as the macabre rock of the monastery. “For how long can you deny it? Did it not strike you as odd that your flesh does not burn in intense heat, that you speak the dragon tongue naturally, that the bitches are at your beck and call?”
How did he know all that? “But,” I protest, “Maybe that is the case now, it never was before. Be- before my brother went got kilt, I – I – I burnt as good as any other Nord. I- I’d never spoken to a dragon. I-”
“For there were not dragons.” Arngeir’s expressions softens. He ushers me away from the long bloody streak that is ex-Brother Happy. The other Greybeards stand aside as Arngeir leads me to the kitchen. There he sits me at the table and sets about refilling the kettle from an iron cauldron.
“You are but weak,” he says after a time. He ain’t lookin at me but I guess he ain’t talkin to the kettle. “And you are very young. Were the dragons not awakening, it is likely your heritage would never have been uncovered, and one impetuous night would have gone without repercussion. Tell me, is your mother alive?”
“In Morrowind,” I say, as this seems to be an answer between the two, “Holidaying.”
“And you mentioned family? A brother? Do you know your father?”
“Of course I know my ruddy father.”
“Resemble him, do you ?”
“More’n likely. We’re all Nords, we do tend t’have a certain similarity of being. Resistance to cold. Hearty battle cries. You know.”
“I do. And yet here we are.” Arngeir sets a mug in fronna me. He takes a seat behind the cheese platter. The other Greybeards fuss about with their mops in the corner. Arngeir smiles. “Forgive such abrasive questioning from an old man. I need to know the truth.”
Dun mistake me: the only thing keepin me from walkin out of High Hrothgar forever is this cold, leaden sensation Arngeir is right. Also it’s snowin up a blizzard outside, so bugger that. I sip my tea.
“I can’t tell ya the truth. I dun know it. You’re implyin my darlin mother – and dragons – and I din even believe in dragons a couple days ago. You’ve gotta be barkin mad.”
“Probably,” says Arngeir, which is of little comfort. “So humour an old senile. Your mother, she never mentioned anyone by the name of Sam Guevenne?”
Din sound like much of a dragon name. Oh, but... “I think she did, yeah. Long time ago, afore I left home. Yeah, that’s right. If you ever meet a man by the name’a Sam Guevenne, punch im in the nose’n stay the Oblivion away from im! That’s what she said.”
Arngeir lets out a dry chuckle. “Perhaps one day you will know the story of what happened on the night of your conception.” Sheesh. Now there’s a line I never want to hear again. “For now, you must be content to believe me. You, boy.”
“Skole.”
“Skole, are a mortal man of immortal lineage, at least on your father’s side. Your mother sounds enough a force on her own.” I can only agree. Arngeir speaks into his tea cup. “And here we had been expecting the Dragonborn! Ha. I suspect that one too should be along soon enough.”
I have a question. “If my father is a dragon, why dun I have scales?”
This is much to Arngeir’s amusement. “Why indeed. Have you not heard the tale of Old King Olaf and the dragon Numinex? Some versions of the story, particularly those versions written by bards, have King Olaf himself being Numinex with the power to transform between a dragon and a man at will. Even Akatosh was said to have merely assumed the form of a dragon at the peak of the Oblivion crisis. And there are other things to consider. Perhaps you gained that one’s human side.”
“Even so, how can me mother’ve lain with a dragon? They only started showin they ugly heads a few days ago!”
I could think of questions for days and days, for as long as it kept me from goin out into the world t’be shot by the first savvy guard with a bow’n arrow.
“Not all dragons rest, Dovahjun. There are those who combatted the slumber of death.” Arngeir sets down his tea, drained. “I can’t share with you more without knowing better your allegiance.”
“Right then. Why-”
“‘What’ should be your question. What is my next move? What can I do to prove my allegiance? Will you be asking that now, or do you need time to think, and put into practise what you have learnt at High Hrothgar?”
The one thing I dun need time t’think bout is how I need time t’think bout things. “I dunno,” I say, as it’s as good an answer as any. “If what you’re tellin me is true – if I’m half dragon- I mean, everyone sure was stoked I’d kilt those pair’a dragons...”
“You have the soul of a mortal,” says Arngeir, gently, “No dragon you slay will stay dead, not as it would if struck down by the Dovahkiin.”
“Then I can’t even slay dragons. Which was about the only thing I were ever good at.” I sigh. Back to bein myself again, it seems.
“All is not lost. Your father is a great dragon, your mother a terrifying woman. And you, Skole, are a formidable man by both birth and by action. Keep in mind that the only way forward may not be to render extinct Skyrim’s dragons, and you will do well.” He stands. “Now. If we are done, you have given me a rather large hole to repair.”
Descending the Seven Thousand Stairs is a heckova lot easier than the reverse. I sprint past the troll with my pockets laden with supplies, while the troll swears heartily n pegs snowballs at my head.
By mid-afternoon I’m in Riften, where I pocket some easy gold pawnin the contents of an alchemist’s satchel I, er, found in a, er, abandoned shack. My first item of business in the capital is to organise Margeth’s funeral. The man at the Hall’a the Dead tells me he’s good to go whenever the funeral ceremony is done, but only the Temple’a Mara can do the ceremony and it already has two weddins booked for the afternoon and can’t get to the funeral until tomorrow. I tell the young priest there that’s fine, as I have no desire t’get back ter Whiterun too soon. Oh sure they’ll all be overjoyed at the news their hero is half dragon. Whoopde-fuckin-doo. Irileth will prob’ly have my hide as her new leather underwear.
Riften is exactly the same as always, vendors hockin their wares from the town centre n some poor beggar shoutin as he drowns in the canals down below. Skooma-riddled Argonians shuffle soullessly up and down the docks, as blank-faced as if the screeching gulls had taken their eyes. The Black-Briars are insidious as their namesakes, strangling the wealth of the city, gettin blown from every angle as the general population struggle to stay afloat. The canals stink of sewage and the government stinks of corruption. Gods, it feels like home.
I’m kickin up dust out fronna the Temple, wonderin whether I should head up to Shor’s for the night or get drunk n pass out on the floor’a the Bee n Barb, when up sallies the most peculiar Dunmer I’ve ever laid eyes on.
Like a boy, he’s wearin shorts, and he has on this yellow shirt which swamps his scrawny frame, big red welts on the shirt like plague welts. A floppy cloth hat squats on his dark hair, and of all the wretched footwear in Tamriel, he’s wearing bloody sandals. Sandals! It’s a wonder he hasn’t stepped on a bear.
“Nice Temple,” he nods to said temple. “I’m a priest’a Mara, actually.”
I nod. Good for him. Bit of a strange occupation for a Dunmer dressed as a spaceman, but who was I to talk? I’m the ruddy Dovahjun.
I must be givin him evils or somethin, however, cause he looks down his front and then laughs. “Oh, I’m on holiday at the moment. Need a bweak from all that nasty business – well, never mind – in Dawnstar. I’ve been up there fowever, it feels. Never seen the Temple’a Mawa. It’s weally something ewse.”
What was weally something ewse is how his voice just allova sudden changed from the clipped Dunmer accent to somethin you’d dread hearin in Windhelm’s Grey Quarter late on a Fredas night. The Windhelm accent teeters between ars and waws.
“The name’s Erandur,” the Dunmer sticks out his hand. He has a handshake like an Expert thunder spell. “You are?”
“Skole. Skole Stone.”
“Are you a wegular of Mawa’s?”
Sort of wantin to get rid of him, I say curtly, “My brother is dead. I’m here organising his funeral.”
“Oh. I don’t have any brothers. But both me parents are dead, and it was up ter me to organise their last huwahs. I know how awful it can be. Can I buy you a dwink? You look like you could use one.”
Such kindness from a stranger. I wipe a tear from my eye. “Sure. Bee n Barb?”
Erandur considers. He nods. “If that’s the local waterwin hole, I’m weady.”
Ten hours and seventy-nine beers later, we’re stumblin north along the road ter Shor’s Stone. I’m teachin Erandur a song about teenage girls. He’s just taught me one called ‘The Arch-Mages’s Staff Has A Knob On The End’.
“Eran-Eran-Eran-Eran-Eran-Eran-Eran-Eran-Eran-Eran,” I say, as he practices the teenage girl song, “Back at me house, right, there’s this wonderful chick with this arse you could just sink yer fist into, if you want to, if you wanna, if you wanna you know.”
Eran leaves off singin to gape. “A stunt whore? You’ve got a ruddy stunt whore in your house!” I nod. “Aw, cor! Let’s hurry!”
We’re doin just that when from above the trees there is a WHUMP, and the great shadowy form of a dragon alights before us.
Erandur and me stop dead on the road. The dragons rears its head. Erandur cries, “Sweet Vaermina! Someone call Animal Control – it’s a blasted dragon!”
We both burst out laughing. “Go on,” I says to the dragon, “On yer bloody rocker.”
“Yeah, take a hike.”
We saunter past the beast. From the corner of my eye I catch smoke peelin from its nostrils. It follows our progress with one idle yellow eye.
“Oi, Erandur,” I thump him on the head, “Block yer ears.”
He does.
My throat feels suddenly strange, my belly full of fire. I wheel on the duplicitous dragon, and shout, “DIN YER HEAR ME, SCALY? I SAID ON YER BLOODY HORSE!”
Trees shook; the grass caught alight. Clouds drained into the moon. The dragon remains frozen for an instant, then, with a fantastic clamour of wings it leaps to the air and WHUM-WHUM-WHUM- beats it like a bat outta a spriggan cave.
“See,” I say to Erandur, urging him to uncover his ears. “Tole you I was the Dovahjun.”
He frowns. “No you never.”
Silence between us. Um. Surely I would have mentioned it somewhere between the first drink at the Bee n Barb and the last in the bottom of Maven Black-Briar’s mead warehouse. At last I venture, “I’m sure I did.”
“No, you never.”
“Well all right, I am. I’m the- the- the thing- the dragon king. The sort of hero who’s supposed to take out all the dragons, cept opposite.”
Erandur regards me sombrely. There’s not many a creature can regard you more sombrely’n a Dunmer.
“Right,” he says after a few long seconds’ pondering, “That being the case, you being a hero, maybe you can help me?”
I’m pissed as a pissed pig and highly agreeable. “Yup. Sure. Anything you want. Just don’t tell anyone I’m the dragon thing. King.”
“You see I’ve got this bit of a problem with a curse-”
“Look, Eran. I already agreed. Dun talk me outta it, just lead the way.”
Erandur seems for a minute he might protest. Then he shrugs, and nods along the northbound path. “Suit yourself. To Dawnstar it is.”
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A/N: This is late. I stayed out in the heat and humidity too long yesterday and ended up with sunstroke. How pathetic is that?! Today I feel hungover. Please enjoy this chapter with the knowledge a lot of extra effort went into it (fetch my violin). Also, if you recall the days of text gaming, please check out skullanddog.keepandshare.com for Someone Else's Adventure, a short, sweet, and admittedly quite odd hurrah to those heady days of passion and spelling errors.
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