I am overwhelmed. I just had a fascinating conversation with a dragon. The conversation was both practical and philosophical, and I’d have to say it was the first time I’ve ever been tempted to be interested in philosophy. Let me see what I can remember.
First, Paathurnax taught me the dragon word Yol, for fire, just to see if I could learn it. I did, and I demonstrated my Voice by breathing fire on him, which he found perfectly enjoyable. I can’t say it inspired confidence that this Shout would be useful in battle. I felt like I had belched in his face, and he’d complimented the odor of my last meal. I licked my teeth and spat to remove the taste.
“Why have you come?” he asked.
“I came to learn the Dragonrend shout,” I told him.
“Of course you did,” he replied, disappointed. “You would not have come just for good conversation with an old dovah. You seek your weapon against Alduin.”
That comment made me feel a bit defensive. “Can you teach me Dragonrend or not?”
“No, I do not know it. It can not be known to me. Your kind, joor, created it as a weapon against the dov, dragons. Our minds can not even comprehend its concepts. It was said to force Alduin to experience the concept of mortality, a truly incomprehensible idea for the immortal dov. When you use a Shout, you bring the Word closer to yourself. Thus, I believe that using Dragonrend would bring mortality closer to you, as well as to your enemy.”
That was when I really began to realize how little I understood about Shouts. I still wasn’t ready to let the conversation get away from the practical, though. I’m not exactly a scholar, you know? I’m more of an action person. “How can I learn it then?” I asked.
“First, a question for you,” he stalled. “Why do you want to learn this shout?”
“Because… I like this world and don’t want it to end?” I thought I was being a smart ass, but Paarthurnax seemed to take the statement at face value.
“As good a reason as any. Many would agree with you, though not all. Some would say that all things must end to allow new things to come into being. Perhaps this world is simply the egg of the next. Would you stop it from being born?”
For less than a second, I wondered if it was somehow selfish to try to save the world, but then I realized that this simply proved that philosophy was horseshit. “The next world will just have to take care of itself,” I told him.
“A fair answer,” he granted me, “But perhaps you are just a part of the balance. Perhaps those who seek to hasten the end shall delay it, and those who seek to delay the end may bring it closer. But you have indulged my weakness for conversation long enough. Tell me, do you know why I choose to live on top of this mountain?”
“To avoid being hunted down and slain by the Blades?” I suggested.
“Hrmm. You think I am moved by Faas—Fear, but Faas moves me less than Viing—Wings, Freedom. No. Few today know that this is the very place that Alduin was banished from time by the ancient Tongues. Perhaps none but me remember how he was defeated. And perhaps I do not remember as well as I thought I did.”
“Using Dragonrend?” I asked.
“Yes and no,” he hedged. “Alduin was not truly defeated at all, else you would not now be seeking a means to defeat him. They used the Dragonrend Shout to cripple him, drive him out of the sky. They used an Elder Scroll to cast him adrift on the currents of Time.”
“Are you saying they sent him forward in Time? That they just put off their problem to us?” I asked.
“Not intentionally. Some thought he was banished forever. I knew better, which is why I have lived here for thousands of mortal years. I thought I knew where he would emerge, though not when. Now, he has emerged, but not here. I was mistaken. I know not where he emerged, and thus I know not how he emerged.”
“He emerged in the basement of a farm house outside of Markarth,” I said, childishly pleased to know something that this ancient dragon did not.
“How was this accomplished?” he asked in his ponderous voice. “You must tell me, what was the rift from which he emerged?”
I described the amulet, the race to find it ahead of the Dark Brotherhood and the Thalmor, and the words on the back of the amulet, and the effect of speaking them. When I was done, Paarthurnax pondered and hrrmmmed for so long, I was not sure he would speak again. When he did, I finally learned something true about what happened that awful day.
“I did not know that this thing existed. If I had, I would have acquired it long ago and done what I could to destroy it, or at least to prepare for it. That amulet held a link to—or a piece of—Alduin’s soul. The ancient Tongues, my misguided friends, must have used it as a lock to seal shut the rift they had created, and Alduin has held on to it ever since, like the very tip of a claw jammed into the door just before it slammed shut.”
“So all this time, all it took was for someone to read those words to bring him back?”
“Not just anyone—only someone with the Thu’um, a Dovahkiin. One who could shout the prophecy using the power borrowed from Alduin’s own soul.”
“You mean that if we had allowed the Thalmor or the Dark Brotherhood to have that amulet, they could not have used it?”
“Hrrmmm. That is true. Only Alduin could use the amulet. But I hear the Zin-Faen—the Honor-bane—in your voice. You find fault with yourself and it weakens your Thu’um. You misread what has occurred. You imagine that you used the amulet to conjure Alduin into being, but in truth, it was Alduin that used you. Alduin has called out for thousands of years in his immensely powerful Thu’um to manipulate any with the ability to listen; he has clawed and torn at this Time Wound until it was large enough for him to emerge once again. You were not Cause, but rather Means.”
“Thank you for that, I guess,” I said. I considered whether I preferred being used to having caused, and concluded that anger was a more comfortable emotion than guilt. “So how do we stop him?”
“With the Kel—the Elder Scroll. Its power goes beyond mere prophecy. It exists outside of time, and thus, can be used to open again the rift that was opened in ancient times. If you brought that Kel back to this place, you could peer through the rift and learn Dragonrend from those who created it.”
And that astounding idea is the reason why I am now on the road to the College of Winterhold, seeking to find an Elder Scroll.
Comments
Great journal, Piper Jo! I should confess I just read them yesterday, but I won't miss any single one in the future. Love how you aproach the story from the per... more