The Dragon's Legacy: Return

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Fallen

The next few days continued as a blur to Eerika. She would only faintly recall the shadows of people before her whispering in dark, murmuring tones. She would also see flashes of fire and screams of pain among the people at the foot of her bed, she couldn't tell what was real and what was the dreams that the dragon's dark power had etched itself into. 

When she finally roused from her state of weariness, the pain and soreness from the battle slowly seeped back into her limbs. She carefully opened her eyes to look upon a stone ceiling, particles of dust floating in the candlelight.

But as she lay there trying to piece together where she was, suddenly all the events of the battle rushed back to her in an instant. Paarthurnax twisting through the air. Alduin being forced off the side of the mountain. Lydia's body half-buried in snow. Eerika felt a single hot tear slip down her cheek. She pressed the heels of her hands hard against her eyes and stifled a sob. 

Then the soft footsteps of Arngier sounded through the halls of High Hrothgar, his shadow stretched long upon the stone walls.

 Containing herself, Eerika wiped her eyes and sat up in the bed where she lay. 

The Greybeard stood silent a few feet from the bed, his hood shrouding his eyes as he looked at the floor. A moment passed before he lifted his head slightly, and spoke with a dry voice. "Master Paarthurnax wished to speak with you as soon as you awoke. There are matters to be discussed."

Eerika didn't reply but instead nodded her head solemnly in agreement. 

It took a long while for her to reach the summit of the Throat of the World, for her tightly bound leg only allowed her to hobble up the steep slope of snow. 

She found the ancient creature perched upon his usual place on the word wall, a fresh blanket of snow covering both the ground around it and the surface of the stone. Paarthurnax was looking to the North, his green reptilian eyes watching the distant forms of the mountains of the Pale. He only turned to face the Dragonborn when after she had been standing there for a few silent minutes. He studied her, looking over her wounds and the exhaustion carved into her features. With a deep breath that rattled in his chest, spoke softly. "There are no words, Dovahkiin. The loss of a fahdon, a friend, cannot be measured in any way shape for form imaginable."

Eerika looked down to the ground and held her breath to keep the lump in her throat at bay.

"But with your friend... Lydia... Through her sacrifice, victory was obtained. Alduin's allies will think twice after these events." 

"It was no victory," Eerika muttered before bringing her eyes up to the dragon's. "Alduin escaped... We failed."

Paarthurnax sighed. "Ni liivrah hin moro. This is not the final gran, battle. For not even the heroes of old were able to defeat Alduin in open combat. He was always pahlok, arrogant, in his power. Uznahgar paar. He took domination as his birthright. Nuz hi los mul. You truly have the voice of a dovah. You shake the loyalty of the dov who serve him."

Eerika gazed at the horizon to the North, watching the large clouds of a storm brewing over the immense plains. "Even if this is so, I must find where Alduin went. And one of these allies you speak of could tell us."

"Motmahus..." The dragon sighed, following her gaze. "But it will not be easy to... convince one of them to betray him." He looked down the face of the mountain and gestured his large head at the small speck of Whiterun far below. "Perhaps the hotkahsejun, the palace, in Whiterun... Dragonsreach. It was originally built to house a captive dovah."

"Dragonsreach was made to hold a dragon?" Eerika asked.

"Yes." He replied. "This was ages ago, you understand. There were more of us then. Before the bruniikk, the Akaviri, came and killed all my zeymah. I used to visit him from time to time, nearly crazed by lonliness and captivity. Tiiraz sivaas. He did not even remember his own name. I do not know how he came to be caught, but the bronjun, the Jarl, was very proud of his pet. Paak! The hofkahsejun has been known as Dragosnsreach over since. But a fine place to trap one of Alduin's allies, hmm?"