Once again I come to. My head hurts even more than before. But at least it’s still on my shoulders.
I am not dead!
But how? And what is happening?! Did I really see a dragon?!
All around me is mayhem! Explosions, shouting, destruction, fire, dead bodies littering the ground.
Fire. Fire from the sky. Fire from – yes, there is a dragon!
More shouting. Directed at me.
The Stormcloak, that dirty Nord!
“Come with me if you want to live!” I heard him say.
Why is he doing this? Doesn’t he know what I am? Doesn’t he know what he is? I’m a hated ‘grayskin’, he’s a vile Nord. Or maybe he’s just too stupid to have noticed.
Whatever else I may be I am a survivor. I do what I can to stay alive. So once again I do what I do well: I run. Towards a Stormcloak.
Through the flames and over the rubble, struggling to find my way, my vision fogged, my head spinning, I swallow my pride & follow the sound of that hated voice.
“THIS WAY! COME ON!”
I stumble into a tower, full of the dead & the dying. And him – bloody Ulfic!
Condemned to death as a Stormcloak, now rescued by them, and by Ulfric himself!? My gods, why do you toy with me?!
And dragons?!
Maybe I have died & gone to Oblivion after all!
The Nord calls me “friend”.
DON’T CALL ME “FRIEND”!!
I run up the steps of the tower. The dragon! Thrusting its massive head through the stone wall as if it was paper it roars, & all is fire. I fall back, somehow unhurt.
The dragon flies off, leaving a gaping hole in the wall. I jump through it and down into a ruined building below. The Stormcloaks don’t follow me.
Good.
I run out to find terrified men, women and children, cowering in fear, not knowing what to do.
And now this – my would-be executioner, the petty official: he now is to be my saviour?!
“Good: you’re alive!”, he says
“What do you care?!”
Ignoring me, again, he bellows “Follow me if you want to stay that way!”.
I follow.
If this isn’t Oblivion it comes a very close second! Fire, falling masonry, men fighting, burning, screaming, and everywhere that dragon, with its flames & its ground-shaking roars. Tullius & all his men are helpless against it.
This Imperial seems to know where he’s going; I stay close to him.
We run, somehow avoiding the dragon, avoiding death. Maybe this man too is a survivor, in his own way?
Now sprinting, now hiding, stopping, dodging: we emerge into a courtyard. The Nord is also there; he wants me to come with him!
I choose the lesser of my two evils; I follow the Imperial into the Keep.
Inside the Imperial - 'Hadvar' - tells me to take whatever armour & weapons I can find there. Scouring the room, I work quickly; I have done this a few times before...
A chest: iron sword, Imperial armour, helmet and boots. Good! I am at last starting to feel myself again.
We move on, but to what? To safety, to danger, death?
I don’t know.
What I do know?
I am Shinbira. I survived.
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