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Dardeh stood at the top of a steep stairwell, on a mountainside overlooking a beautiful, snowy valley.\u00a0 A long pathway wound down the hillside and through snow-covered trees, through ranks of huge sculptures that looked like nothing so much as the Greybeards in their long robes. \u00a0Far down the valley, he thought he saw the peaks of a building. It could only be the Hall of Valor, or Shor\u2019s Hall as it was sometimes called. The wind was heavy and it was bitter cold, but in spite of that, this place was beautiful in Dardeh\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m in Sovngarde.\u00a0 In theory, I\u2019m still alive — and yet I am in Sovngarde.\u00a0 By what right am I here?\u00a0 Who am I to have this privilege? Who am I, to be looking at the Hall of Valor in the distance and not have come here by way of death?<\/em><\/p>\n He looked up, to see shining stars moving through a dome, almost, of purplish, shimmering light that cast a bluish hue to everything beneath it, and couldn\u2019t decide.\u00a0 Am I looking up at the pillar of light I saw in Skuldafn? Or is this something else? <\/em><\/p>\n He moved down the hillside as quietly as he could.\u00a0 The path descended, fairly sharply, from the snow down into the valley, into an area with greenery alongside the path.\u00a0 Near the valley floor, however, a dense mist filled the deepest areas.\u00a0 As thick as it was, once he stepped into it he would be basically blinded.\u00a0 He was just about to move ahead when he heard a familiar, but very faint, sound: a dragon.\u00a0 Alduin was flying somewhere, above the valley, above the mist.\u00a0 Anyone moving about on the ground would be completely vulnerable, not able to see death arriving on the wing until the sound of his wings alerted them, too late to escape.<\/p>\n Dardeh took a deep breath, drew his swords, and continued down the path.\u00a0 It was quiet, with only tree branches and grasses in motion as the wind pushed them, and he could only see a few feet on all sides; so when a soldier in Stormcloak armor and a fur hood stepped forward out of the fog Dardeh jumped, the hair on his neck standing on end.\u00a0 He raised his swords and readied himself for a fight, but the man shook his head and walked calmly, without raising a weapon of his own, to stand just before Dardeh.\u00a0 He spoke bravely, clearly, but in tones and cadences that spoke to Dardeh of an earlier time.<\/p>\n \u201cTurn back, traveler! Terror waits within this mist. Many have braved the shadowed vale, but vain is all courage against the peril that guards the way.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWho are you?\u201d Dardeh asked, not certain that he really wanted the answer.<\/p>\n \u201cNear Giants\u2019 Gap, in the gloom before dawn, we marched, unsuspecting into the Imperials\u2019 trap.\u00a0 Then we stood and fought, our shield-wall defending until by dawn\u2019s Light the Legion\u2019s ranks wavered. But I never knew if nights-end brought victory \u2013 a swift-flying arrow to Sovngarde carried me.\u201d<\/p>\n Dardeh\u2019s mind flashed back to the night he\u2019d passed the dead soldiers on the road, near Stonehills.\u00a0 That wasn\u2019t far from a place some referred to as Giant\u2019s Gap, just across the ridge of the mountains. What he had seen wasn\u2019t the aftermath of that battle, he was certain of it, but this man could easily have been one of the bodies stepped over \u2013 or on \u2013 by the opposing side.\u00a0 It brought his heart to his throat.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is this mist? Is it\u2026 I\u2019ve seen something like it before\u2026\u201d\u00a0 This is very like the mist Paarthurnax uses to shroud the top of the Throat of the World. I might be able to clear it, but I\u2019m afraid it would just draw Alduin in.<\/em><\/p>\n The soldier shook his head.\u00a0 \u201cI do not know, but none have passed through. Alduin, his hunger insatiable, hunts the lost souls snared within this shadowed valley.\u201d<\/p>\n The man\u2019s voice wavered.<\/p>\n \u201cCan you lead the way to where Shor\u2019s hall waits, beckoning us on to welcome long sought?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, it\u2019s at the far end of the valley.\u00a0 I saw it when I arrived.\u201d<\/p>\n The man nodded.\u00a0 He had seen it too, but stepping into the mist had clouded his mind, he told Dardeh.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve lost the way and wander darkly.\u201d<\/p>\n The man looked lost.\u00a0 He sounded lost. \u00a0This was supposed to be his final rest, his reward, and he was lost and alone. Dardeh didn\u2019t know whether to rage, or weep, or both at once, but he looked at the man and said \u201cYou follow me.\u00a0 I\u2019ll lead you there.\u201d<\/p>\n Dardeh moved farther down the path, his mind racing.\u00a0 He\u2019d not gone far when he heard the rush of wings just above and behind him.\u00a0 He whirled and looked up.\u00a0 There was nothing else in any plane of existence that looked like Alduin, and he was nearly close enough to touch as he swooped down toward them.\u00a0 Dardeh ducked, then turned to speak to the Stormcloak soldier.<\/p>\n He found nothing.\u00a0 The soldier had vanished.<\/p>\n \u201cNo!\u201d Dardeh roared, falling onto his knees.\u00a0 No.<\/em> I LOST him.<\/em><\/p>\n He thought of all the soldiers he had seen dead and dying by the sides of the roads.\u00a0 The guards who had fought with him against the dragons in Whiterun and near Rorikstead, and out by Karthwasten, all the souls that had gone not to the Hall of Valor somewhere ahead of him, but to feed the enormous power-hungry maw of Alduin. \u00a0The Nord citizens in Raven Rock who had died to the Lurkers because he was too slow. The terror being suffered by the poor souls who were left.\u00a0 This poor man, who had only been looking to him to lead the way home.<\/p>\n Tears dropped freely from his eyes onto the stones of the path he followed.<\/p>\n All the time I wasted.\u00a0 All those souls.\u00a0 I need to pay. Somehow.<\/em><\/p>\n He thought of Lydia, always wishing to fight alongside him but too precious to him to risk.\u00a0 What if she had been one of the fallen?\u00a0 He felt his fire rising within him at the thought of it.\u00a0 And what of Lucia? What would have happened to her then, if Lydia had been taken?\u00a0 What if Balgruuf and his brother had gone out to battle against Ulfric and had been among the dead?\u00a0 All of them, their souls might have gone to Alduin.<\/p>\n And what about Roggi?\u00a0 What if Roggi hadn\u2019t made it, when Miraak\u2019s Cultists nearly killed him?\u00a0 Would Alduin have claimed him, or would he have been one of the lost, cowering in fear as Alduin hunted him down in the land of the dead?<\/p>\n What about Briinda?<\/p>\n All those soldiers, all those fallen men and women, they had families, lovers, children, spouses who thought they would meet again someday, and none of them would. Not even Roggi and Briinda. \u00a0As sad as it made him to imagine, as much as he wanted Roggi for his own, Roggi deserved to meet the soul of his beloved wife when they passed to Sovngarde, as he felt certain they would.<\/p>\n The more he thought about it, the angrier he became, and the hotter the fire in his blood burned.\u00a0 It\u2019s not right.<\/em><\/p>\n Then he stopped, a thought occurring to him.\u00a0 The Stormcloak had said\u2026<\/p>\n Wait\u2026 If Alduin is hunting them it means that\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n He stopped, staring intently into the mists around him, his fists clenched.<\/p>\n Think! Think!<\/em><\/p>\n That means they\u2019re not all gone, not all consumed. He has to hunt them down, they don\u2019t just go to him immediately.\u00a0 I still have a chance to save them, the souls of some of these brave men and women.\u00a0 They only were doing what they thought was right, Stormcloaks and Imperials all.\u00a0 They deserve their rest in Shor\u2019s halls.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cNo more, Alduin,\u201d he said aloud. \u00a0\u201cThis ends now. You can\u2019t have any more, not a single one!\u201d<\/p>\n He stood, and he raged. He thought he could understand something of his father, the bottomless anger that kept him pushing his children toward violence from beyond the grave; and of Jine, the unshakable, arrogant faith in his own power that had spoken to him before the statue of Talos in Whiterun and which had helped him in the Temple of Skuldafn. \u00a0It was a powerful rage, all-consuming, the rage so powerful that it sometimes found him standing before a body he knew he had killed, but not how.\u00a0 He nodded to himself.<\/p>\n Today I am going to use that. Yes, father.\u00a0 On this day, I will be your son.\u00a0 I will use your rage, your desire to kill, and I will use it joyfully.<\/em><\/p>\n He raised his eyes to the sky before him and shouted, the words coming to him as though he had always spoken in this tongue. They erupted from deep within him, the roar he\u2019d used all his life mixed with his Voice, louder than it had ever been, filling the world around him.<\/p>\n \u201cALDUIN! ZU\u2019U LOS DARDEH AT-DADARH! ZU\u2019U NI DOVAHKIIN! ZU\u2019U FEN KOS DINOK!\u201d<\/p>\n Alduin. I am Dardeh at-Dadarh. I am Dragonborn. I will be your doom. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n It echoed back to him from the rocks he could see and those he couldn\u2019t for all the mist.<\/p>\n Ahead of him, he heard Alduin\u2019s roar echoing back to him but couldn\u2019t make out the words.\u00a0 Alduin wouldn\u2019t come to his call, not the way Odahviing had, not yet anyway, although he was certain Alduin\u2019s arrogance would have him there eventually. \u00a0It didn\u2019t matter.\u00a0 Dardeh needed to find his way to Shor\u2019s halls, and he started down the path before him.<\/p>\n I am Dragonborn.\u00a0 I am Nord. And by the gods I am also the son of a long line of men who kill those who stand in their way, who mantle the great serpents, and who, in this age, destroy the dragons.\u00a0 I can\u2019t do it alone but I will use every part of me to take you down, Alduin.\u00a0 Your time has ended.\u00a0 Ended, I say.<\/em><\/p>\n He trudged forward, down a hill to the left, and then came upon a short staircase to his right.\u00a0 He climbed it, and found himself just high enough out of the mist to get a good look ahead at the gigantic, magnificent fa\u00e7ade of the Hall of Valor. The great hall stood \u2013 almost floating – on its own island, across an unfathomably deep crevasse into which roared the waters from the mountains on all sides of the valley, and only a perilous-looking bridge of gigantic whale bones allowed access to it.<\/p>\n This is where I want to come when I die.<\/em><\/p>\n Right here.<\/em><\/p>\n I may only be half Nord, but in my heart I am all Nord, and this is my home.<\/em><\/p>\n He swallowed hard and moved forward.\u00a0 There was a gigantic man – nearly two heads taller than Dardeh – blocking the entrance to the bridge, dressed in the same kind of armor Dardeh had seen on Jine, revealing his huge muscles.\u00a0 He was not threatening, though; he merely stepped forward and said \u201cWhat brings you, wayfarer grim, to wander here, in Sovngarde, souls-end, Shor\u2019s gift to honored dead?\u201d<\/p>\n Dardeh looked to the sky behind him, snarling as the great dragon soared above the trees \u00a0and then disappeared back into the mist.<\/p>\n \u201cI pursue Alduin.\u00a0 His time is at an end.\u201d<\/p>\n The man raised a massive eyebrow.<\/p>\n \u201cA fateful errand.\u201d<\/p>\n He explained that his name was Tsun, shield-thane to Shor; and as such was the keeper of the gate.\u00a0 Only those souls \u2013 living or dead — who he deemed worthy through battle were allowed to enter the Hall of Valor.<\/p>\n \u201cBy what right do you request entry?\u201d Tsun asked Dardeh.<\/p>\n Indeed. By what right? I am not dead. I am not a full Nord.\u00a0 I am not even a fallen soldier who died a valorous death in battle.<\/em><\/p>\n He raised his eyes to meet Tsun\u2019s gaze and spoke quietly.<\/p>\n \u201cBy right of birth.\u00a0 I am Dragonborn.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAhh!\u201d Tsun said, his eyes gleaming.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s been too long since last I faced a doom-driven hero of the dragon blood!\u201d<\/p>\n But still, he said, nobody could cross the bridge until he had tested them.\u00a0 Dardeh nodded and pulled his swords.<\/p>\n He thought, later, that he remembered Shouts, but he wasn\u2019t sure.\u00a0 He thought, later, that he remembered whirling as if he was possessed by a true, full-blooded Alik\u2019r.\u00a0 What he did remember was looking up and seeing the gigantic Tsun splattered with blood from dozens of cuts, grinning from ear to ear, telling him that he had done well.\u00a0 And he walked across the whalebone bridge, looking down into the abyss, and into the Hall of Valor.<\/p>\n Dardeh had to fight to keep his composure as he looked around the great hall.\u00a0 Everything about it was enormous.\u00a0 A firepit that seemed almost the length of Jorrvaskr ran down its center.\u00a0 There were mead barrels taller than the tallest of the men he could see milling about.\u00a0 The tables were groaning with food, men and women were laughing, and it was warm, and welcoming, and beautiful.<\/p>\n A man stepped forward and spoke, and Dardeh nearly fainted.\u00a0 He recognized this face from sculptures, from stories, and from songs.<\/p>\n \u201cWelcome, Dragonborn!\u201d said Ysgramor of Atmor, leader of the Five Hundred Companions.\u00a0 \u201cOur door has stood empty since Alduin first set his soul-snare here.\u201d<\/p>\n Shor had ordered them all to stay inside, he told Dardeh, and so they had, all these heroes of past and present.\u00a0 Dardeh shuddered.\u00a0 Yes, a wise choice. <\/em>\u00a0What would happen if Alduin managed to consume the soul of a person like Ysgramor?<\/em><\/p>\n But there were three of them who were waiting for him, for Dardeh, to make one last attempt at the dragon, Ysgramor told him.\u00a0 Gormlaith, Hakon, and Felldir, the three Dardeh had seen in his vision, reading the Elder Scroll at the time-wound before Paarthurnax\u2019s wall.\u00a0 He ran to where they stood, at the right-hand end of the hall, and listened to them greet him as if he was somehow, in any way, their equal.\u00a0\u00a0 They told him that Alduin\u2019s mists were too great for any one of them, but that perhaps, with four of them together clearing the skies, they might well be able to take him down.\u00a0 Alduin cowers, they told him. \u00a0He fears you, Dragonborn.<\/p>\n Alduin\u2026 fears me.\u00a0 The miner from Markarth.<\/em><\/p>\n Dardeh followed them back outside and across the bridge.<\/p>\n Later, Dardeh wouldn\u2019t be able to recall all of the details of what ensued.\u00a0 It was as it had so often been:\u00a0 a blur of overwhelming sound, and motion, and swords.\u00a0 The sulfurous odor of Alduin’s flames, the woody scent of burnt foliage.\u00a0 Four great voices Shouting:\u00a0 \u201cLOK VAH KOOR!\u201d followed by Alduin\u2019s summoning of the mists.\u00a0 He recalled Shouting at the great beast over and over:\u00a0 \u201cJOOR- ZAH FRUHL!\u201d to bring him to ground, keep him grounded, as the four of them hammered at him with everything they had, dodging and weaving to avoid the destruction of his fires \u2013 but he could not have said how many times over he repeated the shout, how many times he needed to heal himself from the flames, or how many strikes his swords had made.\u00a0 Finally, at the last of it, they stood watching in awe as Alduin screamed his rage and confusion, arched his massive head toward the skies, and exploded into the void, leaving nothing at all behind, not even a bone.<\/p>\n Dardeh vaguely remembered what followed, numbly, distantly, as though he was outside himself looking down at someone else.\u00a0 He remembered hearing the Heroes hail him.\u00a0 He remembered talking to Tsun, being told he could linger in Sovngarde with the heroes if he wished, but that Tsun would Shout him home when he was ready.<\/p>\n Just like the Seekers did, when I first met Miraak, he thought, shaking his head and returning to himself just a bit. He grimaced, thinking of how thoroughly his life had changed by meeting Miraak. Maybe someday I will be able to leave that behind. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n The thing I wanted most, then, was to kill my enemy and return to Roggi.<\/em><\/p>\n I have killed my enemy here.\u00a0 And now all I want is\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n He could picture it already.\u00a0 Roggi would be waiting for him on the Great Porch at Dragonsreach, and they would return to Breezehome and celebrate their lives, and each other\u2019s love.<\/p>\n \u201cI am ready, Tsun.\u00a0 Send me home.\u201d<\/p>\n Tsun smiled, leaned forward, and Shouted.<\/p>\n Dardeh blinked and looked around.\u00a0 Once again he stood in the bitter cold at the Throat of the World.\u00a0 This time, the peaks around him were covered with dragons, and all of them shouting, speaking of Alduin.<\/p>\n \u201cAlduin mahlaan,\u201d they cried.\u00a0 Alduin has fallen.<\/p>\n NO! All the way up here? Not Whiterun?\u00a0 Why? Why??\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n The dragons swooped and circled the Throat of the World, all of them shouting a sort of epitaph to Alduin.\u00a0 The Dragonborn is his slayer, they said.\u00a0 His Thu\u2019um is silenced. We no longer follow him.<\/p>\n Dardeh shook his head in frustration.<\/p>\n I\u2019m nothing!\u00a0 I\u2019m nobody! I just want to go home!\u00a0 Leave me!<\/em><\/p>\n That\u2019s not right.\u00a0 I am the Dragonborn.\u00a0 And I have slain Alduin, with the help of three others of the greatest heroes who have ever lived.\u00a0 And I want to go home.<\/em><\/p>\n Paarthurnax landed atop the wall before him and spoke, for a time, about his sadness that his brother, the eldest, was no longer. \u00a0The world would never be the same, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAlduin had flown far from the path of right action in his pahlok \u2013 in the arrogance of his power.\u201d<\/p>\n Dardeh sighed. The arrogance of power. Arngeir had gotten that phrase from his master.<\/p>\n \u201cPahlok, is it?\u00a0 I suppose that should now become part of my name, given all the things I\u2019ve done since I first met you.\u201d<\/p>\n Paarthurnax bared his fangs in a toothy grin and reassured him that it had been necessary.\u00a0 He would not have offered his help otherwise.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd, as you told me once, the next world will have to take care of itself. Ful nii los. Even I cannot see past Time\u2019s ending.\u00a0 Savor your triumph, Dovahkiin.\u201d<\/p>\n Paarthurnax leapt into the skies, bellowing that he felt younger than he had in many an age, and flew away, only to be replaced by Odahviing.\u00a0 The dragon nodded to Dardeh.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have proven your mastery twice over. Thuri, Dovahkiin.\u00a0 I gladly acknowledge the power of your Thu\u2019um. Zu\u2019u Odahviing.\u00a0 Call me if you have need, and I will come if I can.\u201d<\/p>\n Dardeh nodded, and watched, numbly, as the great beast rose again and slowly receded into the distance.<\/p>\n I suppose I could have asked him to take me home.\u00a0 How stupid of me. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n And then he turned, readied his shout, and hurtled down the mountain.<\/p>\n \u201cLOK\u2014VAH KOOR!\u201d<\/p>\n Dardeh stood at the top of a steep stairwell, on a mountainside overlooking a beautiful, snowy valley.\u00a0 A long pathway wound down the hillside and through snow-covered trees, through ranks of huge sculptures that looked like nothing so much as the Greybeards in their long robes. \u00a0Far down the valley, he thought he saw … <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/baakay.com\/FanFic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/2-2-17-2.png\")
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<\/p>\nPart II: Duality<\/a><\/div>\nPrevious<\/a> \/ Next<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"