Whitest Man in Skyrim Chapter 26

“My Thane, I must this decision. You asked I give counsel in matters such as these. You feel slighted, but your anger will only lead to poor decisions.”

I look at Lydia. She means well. I know she does. Brelyna looks nervous. I imagine if I weren’t near-vibrating with rage she might be agreeing with Lydia and backing her up. But no, as we leave town heading west I know there’s no changing my mind. “It would take more than a day out of our way for the three of us to get back to Riverwood. Carriages almost never come out this way with Morthal being a nowhere swamp village.” Hold capital my pasty white arse. “If I go alone I can get to Riverwood, then High Hrothgar and hopefully be back with you in a few hours.”

“While all of that is true it doesn’t address any of the reasons it’s a bad idea.”

It doesn’t. They’re excuses at best even if they’re good ones. I’ve spent days now being jerked around by people and I just can’t let it stand anymore. Not ‘don’t want to’. ‘Can’t’. There are certain people I want on my side. Others I don’t care about. For better or worse Idgrod is a Jarl. While I have disdain for the Greybeards I need them too much right now. But Delphine? Delphine is a woman for whom a firm hand might just be beneficial for defining our relationship. I don’t give even half a shit about her little shadow war with the Thalmor. I don’t care in the slightest about the chip on her shoulder or her tragic past. I know who she was, I know who she is, and I know who she will be if I let her take charge.

No. I reject it out of hand. My pride might be going mad right now, completely out of my control, but I can feel even if I put it on a leash I would never be able to accept her bullshit. I’m dealing with it now.

“Make your way to Solitude. I’ll rejoin you soon.” I can’t ignore the disappointment on Lydia’s face, adding, “I promise not to do anything drastic.”

“I suppose I’ll have to settle for that,” Lydia sighs.

“Please take care of Brelyna for me until I get back.” Wait, “What am I saying. Please take care of each other.”

“As you command, my Thane.”

“Yes sir, Mister Casey.”

I nod, place my hand on Lydia’s marker, and–

-(-)-

–reappear outside of Whiterun. Much as I wish I could just pop back to Riverwood, I don't have a marker down there. There’s Winterhold, Whiterun, Morthal, the one I have on me and the one Lydia carries. That’s it. I’ll need to make more sooner rather than later. I have the money for it, just not the resources or the time. And so now I get the fun of running back south again, contemplating exactly how I’m going to introduce myself to Delphine. At least the Greybeards’ ‘teachings’ are coming in handy. Wuld is fantastic for cutting down travel time. Jumping forward fifty feet every few seconds? Love it. No matter how much I’m scaring the shit out of wildlife with my constant shouts.

I’m not sure what I feel as I cross the bridge just outside of Riverwood, as I walk down the cobblestones toward the Sleeping Giant Inn. There’s relief that my time is no longer being wasted as I'm finally where I need to be. Except this entire exercise is a giant waste of time. Nope. Yeah, relief is off the table. All I have in me now is that particular brand of ‘done with everyone’s shit’ that has been hanging over me since heading for Ustengrav. I stare at the building for a second, deciding my approach. It only takes me that long because with my non-existent patience, direct feels like the only option.

I push open the door, turn and walk directly up to the bar. Delphine opens her mouth, ready to say something, ask what she can get me or offer me a room or something. Whatever it is she was intending to say is forgotten as I reach into my robes and pull out the bit of parchment that carries a distinctly musty scent and place it down heavily on the counter. I’m here. I’m not dealing with her cloak and dagger shit. She knows what this is. She knows why I’m here. And by my silence and unblinking stare I have no doubt she knows exactly how displeased I am about it.

“... I see,” she says as she opens the folded parchment to take a single glance at the words she herself wrote. “We should speak in private.” She tells the other inkeeper that he’ll need to take over for a while before leading me into her room, then through a secret door behind her closet into a basement room. I take a glance around. Alchemy station, enchanting station, a lot of ingredients, some books, a map, some training equipment that is entirely useless in such a small space.

The blonde Blade walks around the table to lean on it from the other side, effectively taking her place at the head of it as though she has the power in this room. She glares at me. “What in the planes of Oblivion was that?” she demands. I continue to stare at her, not saying a word. “Do you have any idea how much risk you just put me in for no good reason?! All you had to do was follow the instructions written here! I didn’t evade the Thalmor for this long just to get discovered because an idiot couldn’t follow simple instructions!” I still don’t respond. “Well?! Say something!”

“Do you know anything about dragons?” I ask, completely ignoring her tirade.

“No,” she responds sarcastically, “I spent the past few months working with any authority I could find and didn’t learn a damn thing! You–!”

“Evidently,” I cut her off before she can dig herself deeper. “Well, as one of those authorities I know a couple of things so let me give you three pieces of advice. First, never play games with dragons. They don’t appreciate being manipulated. Second, never make demands of a dragon. They are prideful creatures. Act like you’re superior to them and they will be all too happy to show you that you are not.”

“Are you threatening me–?”

“And finally, IIZ!” The shout isn’t powerful with only a single word, and with my weak dragon soul there isn’t a lot of power to put into it. Even so, the sudden onset of freezing cold that falls upon Delphine forces her to stagger. Her limbs stiffen. She struggles to move. Which makes it all too easy to move around the corner of the table and use a telekinetic push to slam her against the wall and hold her there. “And finally, never, ever, ever tell a dragon to say something. Their words will always have more power than yours.”

“You’re not a–! Ngh!” She tries to fight, to push herself off of the wall, to get some sort of control over the situation. Feeling helpless is probably what she hates most. It’s all she’s felt ever since the Blades were tossed aside and the Thalmor started hunting them down like animals. Everything she’s done in the years since has been an attempt to get control again.

I can sympathise. But I also don’t care. “Not a dragon? Seems you don’t know anything about dragonborn either. That’s only natural I suppose. The last one anyone knew to even have the dragon blood died two hundred years ago. Martin Septim was a good man to my understanding, though his nature suggests he wasn’t actually dragonborn. Too humble. Too self-effacing. There’s a reason the last true dragonborn conquered all of Tamriel.” The chilling effect of my shout seems to be weakening. Either this display was good enough to show the pecking order or it wasn’t. Either way, the only way to find out is to let her go. The hold of my spell weakens, and then releases entirely. “Another impromptu lesson then. Seems being a teacher is in my nature. Conceptually, dragonborn are dragons. They have the soul of a dragon. Therefore, I have the soul of a dragon. All of that advice I just gave you? Unfortunate as it is, all of it applies to me as well.”

I watch her as she thinks over her next move. Her belt carries a dagger. A reasonable weapon for a humble innkeeper to have on hand. Her hand grips the hilt. If she draws it, she’ll have a much less pleasant reunion with the wall. “Now,” I say, continuing to watch her, “Here is what will happen next. You will give me the horn that you stole. Then, we will do proper introductions without all of this cloak and dagger and posturing. Is that agreeable?”

It’s amusing that now she’s the one staring silently, though her reason isn’t to unnerve me. She’s deciding what she should do. On the one hand I did attack her and now she feels cornered, even if she brought it on herself without realising it. On the other hand, she needs me. There is no replacement dragonborn. I’m it. If her desire to remake the Blades as dragonslayers is anything more than lip service she can’t go against me. Not to mention even if she succeeds in killing me (a big if in this small a space with me ready for her), she’d be dooming the world. Though I’m not sure she knows that part.

I don’t know what conclusion she comes to, but I know it causes her grip to loosen on her dagger. That it sees her walking to the set of shelves and take an ugly, ridged horn from the top shelf and put it on the table. “A dragon horn,” I note aloud, “Of course it is. So,” I say as I take the horn and stash it in my pack, “Proper introductions. A fresh start putting poor decisions behind us, hm? My name is Casey, former assistant to Farengar Secret-Fire, part-time lecturer at the College of Winterhold and dragonborn. And you would be?”

“Delphine,” she answers shortly.

“Nice to meet you.” Let’s pretend I’m not lying. I don’t remember whether she would have told me her real identity at this point in the game but she sure as shit isn’t going to now. “And why were you so desperate to meet me that you interfered in matters that weren’t your business, dragging me back to this town when I could be back at High Hrothgar by now?”

“The dragonborn is the ultimate dragonslayer,” she explains stiffly. “And I have reason to believe the Thalmor are responsible for the dragons’ return to Skyrim. The way I see it, our goals are aligned.”

“Reason to believe, hm? And you aren’t planning on telling me what that reason is.”

“After how this conversation has gone, do I have any reason to trust you?”

“After how you messed me about and wasted my time, do I have any reason to care what you have to say?” I shoot back. “If you dragged me here just to not tell me things I’ll just bloody leave with what I came for. I’ll even be generous and forget this entire conversation ever happened.”

She sniffs with dissatisfaction. This isn’t how she wanted this to go. Not by a long shot.  Even so, I doubt I’m the worst thing she’s had to deal with. “How about a compromise then. You’re a dragonborn. That means you can absorb the souls of dragons, make sure they can’t come back to life, right?”

“Correct.”

She steps back up to the table, spreading out and weighing down the parchment atop it. “This is a map of the dragon burial sites across Skyrim made using–” She stops. Looks at me. “Farengar’s apprentice, you said.”

She paid attention to what I was saying at least. That’s not nothing. “I did. I was the one who got the thing that map was drawn from.”

“Fine. The thing is, some of these burial sites have been dug up. So I propose we go to one that hasn’t been hit yet. Maybe you can take the soul of the dead dragon, stop it being resurrected, or maybe we find whatever it is that’s been resurrecting them. Either way we get something valuable out of it.”

I sigh to myself. She’s not entirely wrong. One less dragon is always a good thing. And even if I have a lot to do otherwise, this is an opportunity to get ahead of Alduin, so long as we get it done fast enough. “Fine. How long will it take you to get to the site you want to use?”

“Most of a day. Why?”

I put my last teleport slate on the table. With the benefit of hindsight, I should have dropped one off at Windhelm. That’d be my biases acting up. Whiterun, Solitude and Riften seemed higher priorities with the latter being too far out of my way.

And yet I dropped one at Morthal. Morthal. I need to plan ahead more. “This lets me travel to any other of these markers I’ve made. Keep it on you and I’ll be able to get back to you instantly. You’ll be able to travel faster on your own, meaning ‘we’ can arrive there sooner.” And I’ll get to rest. And make another marker.

... The Greybeards! Shit! There aren’t enough hours in a day.

-(-)-

Was it rude to pop out of Delphine’s secret room, leaving her to explain where in the hell I went to if I don’t leave with her? Let me once again be one-hundred percent clear. I don’t care. She may only have been the last in a line of people who decided it was in their best interests to fuck with me. It may be petty of me to decide fuck her in particular. But at least everyone else had a purpose for what they had been doing. Idgrod may have decided to use me but she was at least doing what she had to for the sake of protecting her people. The vampire in town was a threat, the ones outside of town an even bigger threat. And she compensated me for my work. Delphine on the other hand is working for her own interests. She said it herself. The only reason she gives half a shit about the dragons right now is because she thinks the Thalmor are behind them.

Also, she didn’t pay me. After all, if she wants me to do something for her it’s only right to– FUCK! Fucking dammit! How many times have I said or thought that since killing Mirmulnir without even realising? Just one dragon slain and it’s been warping the way I see the world ever since. My thoughts had sometimes felt alien to me ever since Sheogorath did his thing, handed me a dragon soul. But at least they had felt alien. Some strangeness to them I didn’t understand. A chafing under orders even when they made sense. A defiant attitude to authority. I was never like that before. I was passive to the point of self-destruction, never wanting to get in anyone’s way. Then I got a dragon soul and suddenly I was mad at Aela for using the knowledge and experience that I paid her for. And then I devoured another dragon soul and those feelings felt more and more natural. I just... Stopped questioning them.

I’m losing myself to this. Two dragon souls. That’s all it took to get this bad. It’s only going to get worse from here.

And... While I can be pissed at the Greybeards for their methods and for jerking me around so much... I can’t deny I need them. Not anymore. It was easy to dismiss them. The civil war indirectly caused by them, Ulfric using his reputation partially earned by studying under them, and their complete inaction despite all of that. It was easy to see them as indolent old men satisfied in their being quite literally above the petty concerns of others. Even easier as they bossed me around, acting like it was some grand trial to teach me when they demanded I come to them in the first place.

I don’t like them. But I need them. They’re the only ones who have the slightest idea how to help me.

The great doors of High Hrothgar no longer bar my path, opening readily for me. The easy warmth of the braziers are a pleasant contrast to outside. Going from inside a pleasant inn in a somewhat temperate climate to the top of a frozen mountain was a change I should have prepared myself for more than I had. I take a moment near one of the braziers to warm myself up as Arngeir approaches me. “Dragonborn, you have returned. With the horn, I trust.” I swallow my irritation and pull it out of my pack. “Good. You may return it at your convenience but I insist you do so at some point. Now, what did you learn from your journey?”

“I learned your super secret thu’un training ground tomb isn’t anywhere near as secure as you think it is. Someone stole the horn before I got there.” I can’t help the flat glare I send him. “And so after running halfway across the province, I then had to go somewhere else to track down the thief before I could come back here.”

“That is somewhat more of an undertaking than we had intended,” Arngeir hums.

My eyes close as I force myself to be calm... er. Calmer. For a half-instant I consider using the spell to enforce it on myself but immediately realise how poor a decision that would be. “I also learned exactly how necessary your training is. I fundamentally disagree with you on a number of different things. We will need to have a talk about Ulfric Stormcloak at some point. But the fact of the matter is I need your help. What having a dragon soul means... I barely feel like myself anymore. I’ll probably never be how I was before all of this. On some level I’m glad for that. But being so quick to anger? So easy to insult? So ready to enforce my will on others for minor transgressions?” For as pissed as I was at the time, the clarity I got from ‘showing Delphine her place’ told me exactly how little she truly inconvenienced me. “I’m losing grip on myself. I need you to help me get it back, or at least stop it from getting worse.”

Arngeir doesn’t smile. He simply nods in understanding. “Then your task was a worthy endeavour for imparting the lesson we wished to teach.” He turns and walks toward the middle of the entrance chamber and I follow him. “Only the dragons themselves have a greater understanding of what it means to be a dragon. Were you a nord raised on tales of the Greybeards as so many are, you may have come to this realisation naturally for those you revered treating you with such disrespect. After all, as the dragonborn you are owed respect, are you not?” The sarcasm in his tone is subtle but undeniable. “You however, you held disdain for us from the beginning. And so someone else intervening to impart this lesson was a blessing in disguise.”

The other Greybeards approach as Anrgeir continues to speak. “We hold little enmity for your lack of respect for our traditions. They are not yours and will never be yours. As the last dragonborn your destiny lies beyond these ancient walls. However, the harm you could cause in reckless disregard for your nature is more than we are willing to ignore. So long as you understand this and are willing to learn, to control your nature rather than let it control you, then we are willing to teach.”

“I’m willing to learn.” I want to bow my head. I do. But I can’t. I just can’t bring myself to. He’s right. I don’t respect them. And so I can’t treat them with respect and deference I don’t feel.

“Then we shall teach. Here. The final word of Unrelenting Force.”

Minutes later, I stand outside the walls of High Hrothgar. Staring at an uneven cliff face, Arngeir standing just a little ways behind me.

I take a deep breath in with the word, “Fuuus... RO DAH!”

The air in front of me shatters, a wave of force blasting forward into the cliff wall. The snow on the uneven rocks blasts away leaving bare stone that breaks and cracks, a massive indent forming in the solid surface. “Jesus...”

“Shouts are comprised of three words,” Arngeir explains to me unnecessarily. “The power of a shout grows exponentially with every added word. As you slay dragons and take their power for your own, that will also grow the power of your voice. At their strongest, shouts have been known to wreak incredible destruction surpassing anything in living memory. This is the power you hold. And this is why control and understanding of one’s self is vital to the Way of the Voice. Now come, the time has come that we must recognise you as dovahkiin.”