“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” – Lao Tzu
Qaralana didn’t understand what was going on.
They’d been standing beside the dragon’s bones, and an enormous sound had split the air. She’d heard a word within that huge sound – “Dovahkiin” – and then Roggi had taken off up the road as if the gates of Oblivion had opened at his heels.
I have no idea what that meant, or why Uncle Roggi looked so frightened.
She ran after him, her heart pounding. When the adults were afraid, she was afraid. That had been a constant, throughout her brief life. They’d seen things, had experiences that she could barely imagine, and they knew when to fear and when not to fear. When Uncle Roggi was afraid, Qara was terrified.
She was just turning up the pathway to Mammoth Manor when she heard the door slamming into the wall behind it. She heard Roggi’s bellow ricocheting off the walls inside the house.
“Dardeh! Dar?”
Is he okay? What is Roggi worried about? What is wrong with Uncle Dar?
She heard the door on the far side of the house slam.
What she didn’t hear, she suddenly realized, was the horrible, wracking cough that had been carrying all the way down the road the previous day. It was entirely too quiet; eerily so. A chill ran up her spine.
Oh by all the gods. Please tell me that he’s not…
Her heart started pounding as she approached the house. Not only could she not imagine her world without Dardeh in it, she couldn’t imagine what would happen to Roggi if he ended up alone.
Roggi shouted again.
“Dar!”
This time it was a different sound she heard in Roggi’s voice. She wasn’t entirely sure what she heard – but she did know that it was coming from the deck, outside. Rather than going through the house she trotted around the corner, between the smelter and the deck.
There they were, the two of them. Dardeh sat on one of the benches, calmly smiling up at Roggi – who, she thought, looked as though he’d aged five years in the last ten minutes. They stared at each other, silent, with entire conversations happening in the expanse of their gazes: fear and longing, reassurance and love.
As Qaralana walked up behind Roggi she confirmed what was so important about what she was seeing. And what she wasn’t hearing.
It IS silent. Uncle Dar’s not coughing! He’s really not coughing anymore! What…?
“Are you alright?” Roggi said, finally breaking the silence.
Dardeh nodded. “Much better now.”
Both Qara and Roggi gasped. For what had always been one of the deepest and most resonant voices in the large group of extended family was wispy and low. It wasn’t that she couldn’t understand what Dardeh was saying, not at all; but his voice had a bubbly, raspy sound to it, as though he needed to clear his throat. It made her want to clear her own. She’d heard people sound this way before if they’d yelled too long and too hard and hurt their throats as a result. She’d heard people who were ill sound like this as well; and while that would have been her first thought given how hard Dardeh had been coughing, he wasn’t coughing any longer. In fact, he no longer had the look of dire illness about him.
“Your voice, Dar.” Roggi was very quiet as both he and Qaralana moved up to stand nearer to Dardeh.
He heaved a great sigh and nodded. “It’s gone. Pretty much shot. But it’s ok. I won.” He glanced at Qaralana and frowned. “The cough’s gone, too. I suspect I know why. Are you alright?”
“Me?” Qara looked from one to the other of them. “Yeah? I’m… pretty sure I am?” She couldn’t keep the uncertainty out of her voice; and it was the truth that she was completely uncertain. She had no idea what was going on, or what Dardeh meant, or what had just happened to her and to Roggi, out on the road. Not really. “Why do you ask?”
Roggi shook his head and addressed her without breaking eye contact with Dardeh. “He’s talking about the Greybeards calling for you, Qara,” he said quietly. “I thought…” His voice thickened with emotion. “I thought that meant Dardeh had died. For a minute I thought…”
Dardeh smiled and shook his head. “I would never leave you, Roggi. I don’t think I could if I wanted to. You give me strength. And I’ve really needed that strength, lately.” His eyes glistened with unshed tears.
Qaralana’s head spun. “I still don’t understand. One minute you’re sick, Uncle Dar, and the next…”
Dardeh smiled at her. “And the next you’ve devoured two dragons, used a Shout you never learned, and had the Greybeards call you Dovahkiin. I’d be surprised if anyone in Skyrim missed hearing the Greybeards just now. Cyrodiil, too, I’d reckon. I could hear the dragons from here, and I heard you use Dragonrend. What I think that means is that I’m no longer the Dragonborn, Qara.” He and Roggi exchanged another look. Then he nodded at her again.
“You are.”
Qaralana looked at her beloved uncles, both of whom were staring at her; and her knees began to shake. “I don’t know what you mean. I don’t know what Dragonrend is…”
Dardeh grinned. “Did the first dragon catch fire when you killed it?”
“Uh… yes. And it was destroyed, all except for the bones.”
He nodded. “And you absorbed its energy, yes? Felt all warm, and full?”
Qara swallowed hard. “Like I was going to burst open.”
Dardeh smiled up at Roggi again. “You saw it, didn’t you. I know you must have.”
“Oh yes,” Roggi said. “Of course I did. But we didn’t have a chance to talk about it, really, because there was another dragon.”
Dardeh nodded and turned to Qaralana again. “And when you were fighting the second dragon, what was going through your mind?”
Qara chewed on the inside of her mouth, frowning. “Let’s see. I was trying to figure out what kind of dragon it was. I was afraid Uncle Roggi didn’t realize it was there, because its attack was so quiet.” She paused, trying to remember the particulars. The creature had jumped over them, again and again, so quickly that she couldn’t get a good shot in on it – and she wasn’t much of an archer, so it had put her at a real disadvantage.
“And?” Dardeh’s bubbly, raspy voice was gentle, but persuasive.
“And I was really mad at the stupid thing, because it wouldn’t land anywhere! It kept hop scotching us, and I’m not anywhere near as good with a bow as Chip is. I wanted to go at it with my blades, and I wanted Uncle Roggi to be able to hit it with his sword. All I could think of was the same thing I yelled at the dragon who flew away, in Ivarstead.”
“What was that?”
“I yelled…” she looked into Dardeh’s intense gaze, suddenly afraid. “I told it to get down. Onto the ground.”
“Well it wasn’t quite that,” Roggi said quietly. “It was more like…”
“Joor,” Dardeh said, slowly, frowning as the sound left his mouth. “Zah. Frul.”
They were just syllables as he uttered them: small, and flat, and quiet. He lowered his head for a moment; and Qaralana was taken aback to see several fat teardrops drop onto his clothing, making large round spots.
“Dar,” Roggi breathed, as if in shock. He reached out to lay a hand on Dardeh’s shoulder. Dardeh reached up to cover Roggi’s hand with his own.
“It’s gone, Roggi. I can’t do it anymore.” He lifted his head then, and wiped his other hand roughly across his eyes. “But Qara can.” He smiled at her. “Can you do it again? Can you Shout? Yell for me, exactly the way you did it at the dragon.”
Qara was shivering. She closed her eyes, remembering what she’d felt and thought as the ugly green dragon danced just out of the reach of Roggi’s greatsword. Without opening her eyes, she thought it again: Get DOWN here! But what came from her throat was a huge sound, full of rage, and command, and the need she had felt at that moment to dominate and destroy the huge creature, as she had its beautiful, icy cousin.
“JOOR- ZAH FRUL!”
It crackled out across the lake, reaching the sunken tower of Ilinalta’s Deep and rebounding, traveling back to them and returning – several times over, before the sound finally dissipated. Qaralana opened her eyes and stared at her uncles.
“I… did that?”
“Yeah, you did,” Roggi said. “You did it before, too. I recognized it because I’ve heard Dar use it so many times…” He trailed off and looked at his husband, his face wreathed in sorrow. “It’s called…”
“It’s called Dragonrend, Qara,” Dardeh rasped. “It’s a Shout, in the language of dragons. Dovahzul. It’s a special Shout, one that was created by mankind to control the dragons, especially Alduin, the one I killed who was called the World-Eater, the Eldest Son. They can’t understand it, because it contains the idea of mortality. But if you can Shout it, you can bring one to ground, and hold it there for awhile, maybe long enough to kill its body.”
“And then, niece,” Roggi finished, “you – and only you, I think? – can absorb its soul.”
“Probably,” Dardeh said quietly. “We won’t know for certain until I’m near a dead dragon. But I’m sure I will never Shout again. I’m pretty sure that means I’m back to being nothing more than a miner, Roggi.” He grinned, lopsidedly. “Can you still love someone if he’s nobody special?”
Qara watched the two of them as if from a distance, in a fog. She knew what all these things meant, in theory at least. But the idea that they were talking about her – that was almost too much to comprehend. And yet, she could feel the power that she’d taken from the two dragons, filling her up. She had felt the muscles in her own body produce the huge sound that had come from her and reverberated across the lake. She knew her uncles wouldn’t lie to her.
Three days ago I was worrying about what to plant in my garden. Now I’m…
It was when Roggi made a strange, choked sort of sound that she was able to wrestle her attention back to what was happening around her. He was holding his hands out to Dardeh, and his eyes were as moist as Dardeh’s had been a few moments earlier.
“Dar. You will never, ever be ‘just a miner.’ I’ve told you that before. You’re the one who gave me the courage to keep going when I thought my life was over. You’re the reason I kept putting one foot in front of the other all these years.”
Dardeh chuckled. “Not Ulfric?”
Qara felt her eyebrows rise. What does Ulfric have to do with anything?
Roggi snorted as though he was angry, but his eyes glimmered with love. “No, not Ulfric. You. Besides,” he said, waggling his eyebrows, “you’re hardly a nobody. Thane in Whiterun. Thane in Markarth. Thane in Falkreath. Thane in Windhelm. And wasn’t there an offer in Winterhold too, at some point? I forget.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Dardeh laughed. “Tell you what. I feel better, but I’ve been sick for a long time and I could really use some of that special tea you make. If you still think that old dream of mine is still worth dreaming, that is.”
“Yeah, Dar, I sure do,” Roggi said softly as though he and Dardeh were the only two people in the world, pulling Dardeh up to his feet. “Dahmaan hin hahnu, my love. Now and forever.”
Qaralana blinked. Roggi’s words had not even a hint of power to them, but she recognized them and what they meant. They were in the dragon tongue and they meant… Her mind cast about for meaning, and as if someone had opened a book to the appropriate page and laid it before her, the meaning came clear. Remember your dream.
I wonder if anyone will ever speak to me with that amount of love in his voice.
“Remember your dream,” she murmured, not quite realizing that she’d spoken aloud.
“Not that it’s that exciting a dream, Qara,” Dardeh said, chuckling. “Two old men making each other tea. But I’m sure you must have more questions than you know what to do with right now. I don’t know whether I’ll have all the answers, but I can at least give you more information than I had before I had to climb up that bloody mountain to meet the Greybeards.”
Roggi turned to her and smiled, releasing one of Dardeh’s hands but holding firmly to the other. “Come on inside and I’ll make us all some tea,” he said. “This is a lot to take in, even for me, so I can only imagine what you must be feeling.”
She nodded. “Yes, I’m… a little…”
“Overwhelmed?” Dardeh said in his new, wispy voice. “I don’t blame you. I am, too, if I really admit the truth. It’s going to be hard to get used to just relying on my sword arms again after so many years. So let’s go talk about it. I have at least a few answers for you.”
And thus, Qara found herself some time later, seated on the floor in front of the fireplace, between her two uncles. Roggi had made them all tea, and food, and they’d refreshed themselves before settling in to talk. Dardeh had, between and through mouthfuls, told her the legends of the Dragonborn, and Alduin, and Paarthurnax, and the great heroes who had worked together to create the Dragonrend Shout. Qara had nodded so many times she was half afraid her neck would be sore the next day; but it was so much information to take in that she didn’t want to interrupt Dardeh with questions.
Roggi did that for her.
“So, Dar,” he said finally, “all this being the case, why were you coughing? And you keep saying that you were fighting. Who? You killed Alduin. And Miraak.”
Dardeh shook his head. “No, that’s just it. I didn’t kill Miraak. Hermaeus Mora did. I just went through Oblivion to soften him up.”
Qara laughed. “Went through Oblivion. Nice.”
Dardeh frowned. “No, I’m serious. I literally went to Oblivion. Apocrypha, to be exact. That’s where the problem started. I’ve been fighting myself, really.” He turned to Roggi and reached across the space to squeeze his hand. “Can you get something for me? Upstairs. In my pack. At the very bottom are some letters, tied with a leather strip. I think it’s finally time to share them with you.”
Qara had just begun to feel a little more settled. Yes, it was tremendously strange to think that yesterday she’d just been a kid helping Dardeh off the dock, but today she could absorb a dragon’s soul. But it had happened. It was a fact. She was learning about it from the only other living person who’d had this experience. The fact that this was also a blood relative who she adored had been helping her to feel calmer about things.
Now he’s telling me he’s been to Oblivion?
Roggi returned with a thick packet of papers, and handed it to Dardeh.
“This is the one?”
Dardeh nodded. “Yeah.” He untied the letters and flipped the top one open, smiling as he read down the page. “See, here’s the thing. When I went to Solstheim, I was chasing the Cultists who almost killed you, Roggi. You remember that?”
“How could I forget?” Roggi frowned; and Qara followed suit. She’d never heard this story before.
“Well, it wasn’t all that long after I got there that I realized that even though Miraak was behind the Cultists, he wasn’t the real danger. The real threat was Hermaeus Mora. Here,” he said, handing the letters to Roggi. “I never sent these to you, but you should see them now, I think. I think now’s the time, at last.”
As Roggi scanned down through the letter, Dardeh turned to Qaralana. “You see, Mora wants power. And knowledge. And he was using Miraak as a tool to try to get it.”
Qara’s head hurt, trying to follow what he was telling her. “And who was Miraak?”
Dardeh nodded. “I forget you don’t know all this. He was a Dragon Priest, back in the days of the Dragon Cult. He eventually had his temple on Solstheim destroyed by the dragons and their other priests and was jailed there. For eons. And why? Because he found a Black Book that took him to Apocrypha – where he met Hermaeus Mora and became his servant in exchange for immense power. Mora taught him a Shout that he could use to bend others to his will. He tried to use it against his masters, the dragons.”
He stopped, noticing that Roggi was staring at him. Something unfathomable to Qara passed between the two men. Dardeh heaved a heavy sigh.
“I learned that Shout, too,” he rasped. “I had to, in order to get to Miraak. But it’s an evil thing, that Shout. It’s the culmination of every bad thing about having the dragon blood in you. It feeds that desire for domination.”
“Dar,” Roggi said quietly.
Dardeh shook his head and turned to face Qaralana again. “You see, the way I was able to find Miraak was through Hermaeus Mora’s Black Books, which took me to Apocrypha myself. I’d met Herma Mora before, once, here in Skyrim, and told him I would never serve him – but those books kept increasing my powers as Dragonborn whether I liked it or not.” He closed his eyes and frowned as if in pain, before opening them again and looking directly into her eyes. “I could reduce a man to ashes with a Shout. With a couple of different Shouts, really. Nobody should have that kind of power. People died because I was trying to get to Miraak.”
He stopped and took a sip of his tea before continuing. “So I got to him. And I had him almost dead. And Hermaeus Mora intervened, killing him before I could. Then he told me that I was his new Dragonborn – his new servant.”
Roggi interrupted them again. “Dar, these letters.” He cleared his throat as though he was having a hard time to speak. “I can feel how distressed you were. How you thought it was all your fault.”
“It was. I was the one who killed all those people. The Skaal would have kept their secrets if not for me.”
“We’ve talked about that before. You had no way to know what was going to happen. Hermaeus Mora was the one causing the problems, not you. But Dar…” Roggi paused, gesturing with the papers. His hands shook. “You said in them that the reason you never sent them was…”
Dardeh smiled. “That I thought about you every single second of every single day? That I was in love with you and thought you’d never feel the same about me? Yes. We’ve talked about that before, too. Remember?” His voice was small, and raspy, and so very different than it had been just a day before; and yet it was warm and full in a way that it had always been.
Qara felt herself getting emotional, wishing she could sink through the floor, or disappear. I shouldn’t be hearing this…
“Even then?”
“Even then. From the moment I met you. But I thought I was the one who was a problem, and I was so alone and afraid. And I’ve been afraid, ever since then. Afraid that Mora was going to take me over after all.” He looked back to Qara and grinned. “Don’t give me that look. Yes, even the Dragonborn gets afraid.” The grin faded. “The more time went by – the more dragons I absorbed – the stronger I got? The harder it’s been to keep him out of my mind and away from my power. He wanted it, Qara. He wanted to use me to get control over Tamriel, by virtue of my dragon blood, to get into the Imperial Library for all its most priceless and secret knowledge. It got really bad just before you were born. Then we had a few years of peace; but he’s been at me again for a year or more. And then who knows what he would have done, if he’d gotten hold of the Empire?”
“And so you killed your own voice?” Roggi asked.
“Yeah. I did. You’ve seen first-hand how dangerous I was, Roggi, especially with that Shout.”
Roggi frowned. “Yeah, I have. I have to admit it’s true.”
“The harder he tried to get me to Shout, the more I coughed, holding myself back. I had to muster up the courage to do it, Roggi; but you gave me that courage by being here with me, always. I would have let that cough kill me if I had to, so that he wouldn’t get access to me. That’s what I meant when I said I’ve been fighting so hard. And now it’s over. I knew it was over yesterday, when Qara ordered me into the house and I could feel her power.”
Qaralana had been processing all of this, slowly, and thought she understood what he was saying – at least in general terms. But her mind suddenly found the final piece of the puzzle and snapped it into place, and she started to shake.
“Uncle Dar,” she said, her voice wobbly. “Does all of this mean that he’s going to come after me, too?”
“I hope not, little girl,” Dardeh said gently. “Think about it. You have no reason to go read any of his Black Books. Miraak’s been dead since well before you were born. The only reason I met him in the first place was that I was trying to defeat Alduin, and he’s gone now, too. The crazy mage who thought he could become Dragonborn through our bloodline is gone, turned to dust while you were just a baby.”
“Oh. Oh, I hadn’t thought about that. But then – why? Why can I do this now, just as you…”
“I don’t know, Qara,” he said. “The Greybeards told me that the gods put a Dragonborn into the world at times of great need. There must be a reason why your gift is revealing itself now. I just don’t know what it is.”
“Dar,” Roggi said quietly, “shouldn’t we tell her?”
Qara’s gaze snapped to Roggi. “Tell me what? And you’d better tell me, if it’s something important! I need to know!”
Dardeh grumbled. “All right. You may as well know. We think you absorbed your first dragon just before you were born.”
“What?”
Qara’s head swam more, as they took turns telling her about Sayma’s encounter with the dragon, and how they hadn’t been there, and how it was the only possible explanation for why the dragon had been destroyed.
“Your mother has some power in her. Not much, but enough to be able to understand Dovahzul. You took the rest. That’s why you could Shout at the dragon today.”
She shook her head. “It still makes no sense. I didn’t know the words!”
“But I did,” Dardeh said gently. “There’s more than one way to learn the words of power, Qara. One of them is to receive the knowledge directly, from a dragon like Paarthurnax, or from one of the Greybeards. I learned a number of words that way.” He smiled again, and reached out a hand to touch hers. “When you touched me, to help steady me into the house and then up the stairs, I could feel your power. After you gave me that tea, I was very relaxed and my mind must have been open. And that was the Shout that was on my mind, because I was fighting Hermaeus Mora so very hard all day long. I’ve never done it before – never transferred my understanding of a Shout to someone else – but I’ve known how it was done for a long time now, and I think that I must have done it then, inadvertently.”
All three of them sat in silence. Qaralana felt stunned; and Roggi looked as though he felt the same.
“Well. That might explain some things,” Roggi muttered.
“Like what?” Dardeh asked.
Roggi grinned. “Like how I knew what you said to Edwyn Wickham that day, up on the roof of the College. There’s no good reason in the world that I should have suddenly been able to understand that language after all that time of just hearing…noise. I sure can’t do anything with the words myself. I think that’s the reason I’m still alive, Dar. I think somehow, something in you gave me the power that I needed to stay strong, long enough for you to get rid of him and help me live.”
Dardeh chuckled. “You’re the strongest man I’ve ever met, Roggi. In a whole lot of different ways.”
Qara knew she was missing nuances of meaning in this exchange that she would never understand; but she did have to suppress a giggle when she saw her uncle Roggi blush furiously. He smiled, an almost shy smile, to her mind, and spoke again.
“Well it wouldn’t be the first time I was strong because of you, Dar. I don’t think I’d have made it after you went to Sovngarde if I hadn’t had that little bit of hope that you’d come back for me.”
Dardeh grinned at him. “So I guess you don’t think I’m crazy any more?”
Roggi chuckled. “Heh. No crazier than I am.” He looked down at the packet of letters and rose from his chair. “I’m gonna go put these away. For safekeeping. They’re pretty special.”
Qaralana and Dardeh rose as well, and watched him walk slowly up the stairs. She turned to her uncle and smiled.
“You two are really something, you know that?”
Dardeh nodded. “He’s the love of my life.”
“I hope I have someone like that some day. But in the meantime, Uncle Dar…” She stopped, not quite sure what she wanted to say.
“What is it?”
“I’m scared. I don’t understand why this has happened to me, or what I’m supposed to do with it.”
Dardeh nodded. “Why you? It’s in our bloodline – our Redguard side. I’ll explain it to you sometime, but for now I think you’ve got enough to chew on. I don’t know why it happened right now, either, Qara. There must be something important that you need to do. But I’ll help you all I can. I know so many Shouts and can help you with them if you need help. I can take you up to meet the Graybeards if you want.” He reached out and gathered Qaralana into a hug.
“Just know that you’ll never be alone. Not as long as either one of us draws breath.”
Qara felt her eyes stinging with tears; but she wasn’t going to let this very brave and strong man see her cry. She pulled back from him, smiled, and nodded.
“Thank you, Uncle Dardeh. I’m glad I’ll have your help.”
“Of course, Dovahkiin,” he said.
“And that means…?”
Dardeh at-Dadarh of Markarth, her uncle – half-Nord, half-Redguard, descended from a long line of those with great power – looked at her and smiled.
“It means Dragonborn,” he said. “It used to be my title. Now it is yours.”
But, she thought as she smiled back at him, I don’t know why.