Urrgghh. Everything hurts.'
I groan. My wrists are in pain, from poorly made but tightly knotted hemp rope. My head hurts, like I ran into a wall. I feel a cold breeze blowing by my face and I shiver. My body is covered in a thin burlap tunic that does nearly nothing to stop the piercing wind, and even less to stop the bugs trying to crawl in my ears.
I open my eyes and try to brush away the bugs, before realizing it's futile — my hands are tied together. I look down, and see the footwraps covering my feet. The rough wood of the carriage below me pinches the flats of my feet.
I glance upwards. Directly across from me is a man. His pale skin is muscular, built up on what looked to be years of hard labor. He has bright blue eyes, shadowed by sleep-deprivation and something… deeper. He looks straight past me, barely even flickering at my movement. A cold, hard gaze, rebellious despite his restrained circumstances. His gilded hair shines in the sunlight, and — Shit. Another bug crawls into my ear and takes my attention away.
'No, it can't be'. That short view I just got should be impossible.
His head turns to me, finally realizing I'm moving, and a voice from him speaks up, shaking slightly. It's not the confident voice he used to have, from in the game.
"Hey, you. You're finally awake."
The creaking wheels reinforce what I'm seeing and hearing.
The man bears chainmail armor, covered by a leather padding. The long blue scarf wrapped upon it with belts tightly strapping it to him prove it.
This man is Ralof. His strong Nordic accent makes it all the more obvious. I look past him and at our surroundings. The sun hanging high in the sky, the birds chirping loudly, the angle of the hill we're on. The tall pines, the roughly cobbled road, halfway to ruin from years of overuse. It's all exactly as I remember from the game… But now that I'm experiencing it, reality's hitting me.
Ralof continues monologuing. "You were caught trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us. And that thief over there." He nods to my right.
The thief, sitting opposite my side of the carriage, in rags similar to mine, speaks up angrily. "Damn Stormcloaks. Skyrim was fine until you came along. Empire was nice and lazy. If it wasn't for you, I'd have stolen that horse and been halfway to Hammerfell by now."
I look a bit further to my right and see him – the Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak. The leader of the rebellion, his mouth gagged, his hands crossed and tied. There's a story behind this man.
In the game, Jarl Ulfric was considered a murderer, who used the power of the Voice — the Thu'um — to kill the High King of Skyrim. It's said he Shouted him to pieces, but given that the events were in the past, it's hard to know for sure. The Stormcloaks, his army and faction, fight for him. He was the reason they ended up creating this entire rebellion against the Imperial Empire.
I notice that as people speak, the Jarl looks at each of us in turn, before focusing on the fact that I'm kind of staring at him. He pounces suddenly, jerking towards me and I flinch slightly, moving back. He's not exactly intimidating, given the fact that he's tied up like a pig, but it's this… aura around him. It's the air of his legends surrounding him, like meeting a celebrity. Like how I'd feel if a rock star I just met did the same thing.
Ulfric leans back in his seat, and starts to laugh or at least, tries to, before choking. He leans over his knees and it's obviously the gag choking him.
The thief continues complaining, regardless of my silence and Ulfric's distress.
"Me and you," He proclaims, looking at me. "We shouldn't be here. It's the Stormcloaks the Empire wants." The thief frowns at Ulfric, still coughing the gag out of his throat.
"Now, we're all brothers and sisters of Skyrim." Ralof responds, trying to placate the thief's anger, now turned to confusion, still seemingly not understanding Ulfric's plight.
"Eh, shut up back there!" The soldier driving our carriage calls back to us in an angry tone. His voice was weathered, as if this weren't the first time he's told us to be quiet.
"What's wrong with him, huh?" The thief asks, quieter, gesturing at Ulfric, still choking on his gag, only not as quiet as he was before.
"Watch your tongue!" Ralof snaps, still ignoring that his hero was dying to a rag. He raises his tied hands, in an attempt to display his wonder at the dying man next to me. "You're speaking to Jarl Ulfric, the true. High. King!"
"Ulfric? The Jarl of Windhelm?" The thief asks. "You're the leader of the rebellion. If they captured you… Oh, gods, where are they taking us?!"
"I don't know where we're going, but Sovngarde awaits." Ralof answers, despondently. He runs his hands through his hair and sighs.
Sovngarde, the afterlife the Nords believed in. Similar to the Valhalla of Norse belief, it's a giant mead hall you celebrate in eternally until the End of Days. However, instead of Odin, you have Shor. Shor was the Nordic representation of Lorkhan, a god said to have been killed off by the other gods thousands of years ago. Whether or not Shor was a true embodiment of Lorkhan is still a contested idea, but in any case, it doesn't matter, because Shor hasn't been seen for a long time now. He's considered to be MIA among the gods, if not outright dead.
My attention turns back to the thief, as he says in a terrified voice, "No, no! This can't be happening. This isn't happening!"
'So… If I really did get transported inside the game, then am I in control of the skill trees, and can I learn things instantly, or are they like in real life, where I have to learn skills by practice? If that was the case, magic is going to be abhorrently difficult to learn. I should pick base sets of skills to learn, to make it easier on myself, then, right?
What about the mods, or even worse, the DLC's from the game? The vampire threat… Miraak? He'd be a nightmare to have to fight…'
I woke up where the Dragonborn normally does in-game, so I can draw the conclusion that I'm the Dragonborn. If I'm the Dragonborn, then chances are, I'll have the same powers and abilities as well… meaning I have the same duties and responsibilities of the Dragonborn, too. 'Great… Now I have to save the literal world.'
If this is as real as it feels… I can't take any chances. 'This phenomenally sucks. I really was looking forward to a more casual adventure.'
A cloud of dust rises up from the carriage ahead of us, and we shift to a more reinforced cobblestone road. The gates of Helgen soon come into view, past the woodline. Atop Helgen's walls is a palisade. Guards inside bear spears, unlike their counterparts in-game. Helgen used to be a quiet town, but for the last 50 or so years it's been an Imperial fort, due to the rebellion. Outside the gates, guards stand up straighter as the lead riders ahead of us ride into town, curving off the road to a small stable. Other riders stop and turn just off the road to watch the procession.
I take a deep breath and prepare myself. Grimacing, then speaking. "We're here. Helgen."
I look over at the horse thief, specifically at him, before continuing.
"It's worse than you think it is. But listen to me. So long as you don't run, you'll be fine. Better to face a sword head on than an arrow in the back." Knowing what will soon happen to the thief if he doesn't heed my warning, I should at least do my part in preventing his death.
Ralof chuckles a short breath, before saying, "How true. So, you can speak, after all?" His head turns back to the thief. "Ay, what village are you from, horse thief?"
The thief looks at me slack-jawed, mouth open wide, like I'd either said something profoundly astonishing, or deeply troubling. He swallows, answering in a soft tone. "What do you care?"
Ralof speaks grimly. "A Nord's last thoughts should be of home."
The thief broke down a little more in that moment and finally relented.
"Rorikstead. I'm… I'm from Rorikstead."
I don't know what that thief was thinking, but he's probably grieving; for both him and his loved ones. A moment is all it takes for the faces of my family and friends run through my eyes as I take a deep breath and feel that Ralof may have been wiser than I thought. Half a second after I have that thought, the voice of an Imperial soldier breaks through, and my thoughts waver.
"General Tullius, sir. The headsman is waiting." A male officer says, riding up to a commander arguing with an elf about ownership over 'the prisoners'. 'Us, more like.'
The General nods, breaking out of the argument, and kicking his horse into a trot. "Good, then let's get this over with."
If I remember right, the general was a good man, he just happened to be serving a weak empire that forgot who it was after the deaths of its earlier rulers, the Septim Dynasty. The Imperial Empire is now under the control of the Mede Dynasty, and while the new Emperor wasn't so bad, it just happened to be the case that he inherited a dying cause, that being the Empire.
"Shor, Mara, Dibella, Kynareth, Akatosh. Divines, please help me!" The horse thief pleads to the Nine Divines, truly terrified of what's going to happen next. 'Pleasedon't run, like you usually do…'
We pass through the 5-meter wall of Helgen. The straw-packed roof of the palisade reminds me of how easily this village will burn once he comes. We turn left and move on. Things were happening as I remembered from the game, but there were definitely more houses than I remember in Helgen's town. Far more, at least a dozen more.
"Look at him! General Tullius, the military governor." Ralof loudly proclaims with disgust, before spitting to the carriage floor. The general turns his head to look at us, a creased brow above his eyes, before turning back to the
"And it looks like the Thalmor are with them. Elves. I bet they had something to do with this." He continues, the racism in his voice apparent.
The general himself was literally sitting on his own high horse, a powerful brown warhorse. It was clearly bred for battle, and as for its' willingness: a mouse ran away from our carriage, likely scared of the vibrations and noise, only to be stomped on by the horse. The horse takes its foot off the mangled bloody spot once known as a mouse and licks up the remains. 'Didn't know horses were omnivorous. Not exactly how I wanted to find out, either.'
It looks across to me. Its eyes feel too intelligent. I shiver, and a cold feeling drips down my spine, so I instead gaze to the high elf sitting next to Tullius.
The leader of the Thalmor, the high elf bitch herself, First Emissary Elenwen, sat upon a brown horse across from the general. Elenwen, despite being an inhuman beauty, literally, was cruel. She consistently has innocents tortured and families killed, but because she is of relatively high status in the Thalmor, she's pretty much lgeally untouchable.
I shouldn't worry about it, though. I'll make sure to kill the bitch in this life.
We turn towards the right, facing towards a part of Helgen's keep. The old stone is covered in green moss, and the smell of freshly-made bread baking in a house nearby wafts into my nose. I take a breath of that tantalizing scent in, and, for just a second, am reminded of the fact that right now, this town is still… Just a town. There are normal people going about their days here, not knowing of their future.
'How blissful it must be for the ignorant to not know the truth.'
As we're passing by the houses on the right, the scent of that bread growing ever stronger, Ralof comments wistfully, a sad smile etching it's way out on his face. "This is Helgen. I used to be sweet on a girl from here. Wonder if Vila's still making that mead with juniper berries in it. Funny. When I was a boy, Imperial walls and towers used to make me feel so safe."
He sighs and shakes his head.
We pass a young Nord couple standing near a house, and they turn their faces away from us, frowning in disgust. I don't blame them. The scent emanating from this carriage… Well, it ain't the best. If it's the fact that we're prisoners about to be executed… Well, I don't blame them for that, either.
"Who're they, daddy? Where are they going?" A Nord boy asks from a house we were passing by. He's around the age of 11, with bright blond hair, blue eyes, and a green tunic. He's sitting cross-legged on the porch of his house.
I remember this scene in-game. It was rough the first time, but then I realized that this game was truly equal, showing bright, beautiful sights of life while hauling you off to the dark pits of an execution as well.
"You need to go inside, little cub." The father calmly tells his son, nodding towards the door behind him.
"Why? I want to watch the soldiers." The boy asks, curious.
The father commands the boy, his face hardening into stone. "Inside the house. Now."
"Yes, papa." The boy grudgingly listens to his father, and heads inside.
"Get the citizens out of the cart! Move it!" The Captain, an Imperial officer, shouts out. Her voice rouses the soldiers under her command to prepare the carriages for the people to get out.
'Citizens? We're citizens now? What happened to us being prisoners?'
"W-why are we stopping?" The thief asks, as the carriage ahead of us pulled off next to an executioner's block.
"Why do you think?" Ralof answers, "End of the line."
The carriage we were riding slows before the wall and we stop. Ralof nods over at me before saying, "Let's go. Shouldn't keep the guards waiting for us."
I look over to where Ulfric was sitting, having finally beaten the fight against his gag. His nose flares.
Ulfric moves stiffly, jumping off first, then the horse thief, then I follow.
The thief looks at the guards and fearfully exclaims. "No, wait, we're not rebels!"
Ralof grabs his shoulder. "Face your death with some courage, thief." Ralof speaks, trying to rouse some bravery in him, despite the fact that death, the executioner's blade, was no more than a dozen meters away from us.
"You gotta tell them! We weren't with you! This is a mistake!" The thief pleads with Ulfric. Despite the current situation, I think this was at least a little bit funny, considering that Ulfric's mouth was tied, and he literally could not respond.
"Hck… Right, you… you can't…" The thief realizes, but then he gasps, glancing to me. He whispers out a sentence that I can just barely make out. "A sword head on…"
"Step towards the block when we call your name! One at a time." The Captain from before coldly calls out, before gesturing to the officer ahead of us, Hadvar.
"Huuuhhh. Empire loves their damn lists." Ralof complains.
"Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm." Hadvar checks Ulfric's name off of a list he's holding. Ulfric steps forward to the executioner's block, and Ralof speaks. "It has been an honor, Jarl Ulfric."
"Ralof, of Riverwood." Hadvar calls out. Ralof walks past the guards and to the block, where Ulfric stands waiting, the scowl on his face maintained.
"Lokir, of Rorikstead." Hadvar calls out. So, the horse thief's name was Lokir.
'I never remembered his name. Probably because he always dies in the first five minutes of the game, but still. Now, it should be right about now that —'
'Wait, what? What is this? Why isn't Lokir running away? Did what I said earlier actually work? Does this mean that I can affect the events of the game? If that's the case… There's a whole lot more that I can do, then.'
My heart pounds, and I watch on in confusion and anxiety.
Hadvar looks at his paper, then at me and says, "Wait. You there. Step forward."
I take a few steps forward.
"Who are you?" he asks, ready to pen my name down along with the rest.
I consider for a moment, reminding myself of the name I always use in games. I might as well use the name I've always had.
"Drake. My name is Drake."
After I state my name, Hadvar writes it on the paper then looks to the captain.
"What're you doing here, Redguard? You a sellsword? A sailor from Stros M'Kai? Captain, what should we do? He's not on the list."
I'll just keep quiet for now. There are many species of Man, but since I don't fall under any of them, it'd be pointless to explain any right now.
"Forget the list. He goes to the block." She says.
At that, Hadvar's face twists up, and some of the Imperials around me start looking slightly confused, like this was out of character for her.
'If that's the case… Screw my previous statement, this scene has always bothered me! Besides, the next scenes will happen regardless, so… It's fine.'
"Um, ah, excuse me? Why do I have to die, if I've committed no crime? I was just trying to cross the border," I question her openly and loudly, rolling with what Ralof said earlier.
'If there are witnesses, then maybe…'
The Captain freezes midstep. Her face goes through three completely different phases of confusion and worry, before settling on confidence as she turns around.
"I… I don't know why I said that… Hmm." A slight frown appeared on her face as she spoke again, and her nose flares. Her eyes meet mine, before breaking away and focusing on empty space. "Hadvar, belay my previous order. You, Redguard, don't go anywhere until I figure out what to do with you. I'll have to ask you some questions after this execution anyway, like what in Oblivion were you doing near an ambush on a Stormcloak supply line?!"
"Bad coincidence?" I suggest, smiling halfheartedly. I'm not even convinced of my own answer. "I just follow you, then, right?"
"Y-yes," She hesitantly assures herself of her response, nodding. "Follow me. You there, remove his bindings."
A soldier cuts open my bindings while the Captain walks over to the executioner's block, where the Headsman is waiting. I quietly follow her, rubbing my wrists.
My opinion of her definitely just changed. 'She's not the cold-hearted bitch I thought she was! She does have a heart, she was just limited to following the script!' What just happened indicates that the actions I take can and will influence events unlike the game, where most scenes happen the same no matter what you do.
Alduin roars far off in the distance as General Tullius is speaking. The horses, stabled away somewhere, buck loudly and neigh. I get closer to the Captain and explain.
"We need to move away from the tower next to us. That roar was a dragon, and it will be here in less than a minute. If you don't believe me, people will die."
The confusion on her face is replaced with a cold face as if I just told a bad joke. She raises an eyebrow and answers in a deadpan tone. A guard who hears me laughs.
"A dragon. Ha, right. Those haven't been alive for hundreds of years. It was probably just an avalanche on one of the mountains."
It clearly doesn't matter. She's going to end up performing her scripted duties here.
'Fuck what she thinks, I'm not going to die like the rest of these noobs.'
The cleric, a priestess of Arkay, was reading them their final rights, when one of the Stormcloaks interrupts her.
"For the love of Talos, shut up and let's get this over with!"
He walks past her to where the block was. He kneels against the Headsman's block, and as the Captain steps on his back to keep him still, he lifts his head up, locking eye-to-eye with me.
I simply stood there, staring. Watching. What else could I do? I may have escaped the axe, but I couldn't help him escape it. I suppose I shouldn't exactly feel bad for him, though. It was his own actions that brought him to this moment.
"Alright. As you wish." The priestess complies, annoyed. The Stormcloak shuts his eyes, grimacing in a tight sad smile, and shouts out.
"Come on, I haven't got all morning! My ancestors are smiling at me, Imperials. Can you say the same?"
A single tear slides down the man's cheek and drops into the bucket. He swallows and tenses his muscles before relaxing them.
The Headsman raises his axe and swings it down. With a heavy *shing!*, the head of the Stormcloak is split off the body and drops neatly into the basket and rolls around to face the sky. His eyes shut one last time in that final second, and his face looked to be at peace. Less than a second passes in a tense silence, and a female Stormcloak's voice screeches out. My eyes flicker to her as I swallow a weird feeling in my gut.
"You Imperial bastards!" She falls to a knee, clutching her chest and crying. 'Who was she to him, to feel such pain at this death? A lover? Family? What if she were his wife?'
An Imperial-supporting villager yells out, "Justice!" It's a Nord. Glares from other witnesses stare at him, and he puts a hand on the axe on his belt, silently threatening them. They turn back to the scene of the execution, and he crosses his arms again.
Another villager agrees with the one from before, backing him up, shouting, "Death to the Stormcloaks!"
Unlike the others, Hadvar holds some respect for the man, when he says, "As fearless in death as he was in life."
"Next prisoner," the Captain calls out.
Next was… an unnamed Stormcloak who would've died a death that was unfit for a true warrior of Sovngarde, but then the second roar came.
It echoes off the snow-capped peaks, causing a minor avalanche to occur. The wall of snow flows down the mountain, and into a valley hidden by a ridgeline. This time the roar was much, much closer. Alduin was going to attack soon. I can feel it, and it's not just me. The stabled horses buck and stomp the ground again. They shiver and neigh loudly, pulling away from their ropes. Birds fly out of the trees.
"There it is again. Did you hear that?" Hadvar asks, nervously.
"I said, next prisoner!" The Captain ignores him, her voice shaking slightly. She can feel it, too. She glances to me, before shaking her head, and gesturing to the horses, commanding a soldier to go and calm them.
Hadvar shakes his head and shivers, letting out a breath and speaking up to a Stormcloak, gently putting his hand on their shoulder.
"To the block, prisoner. Nice and easy."
'Oh, boy'. Alduin's coming soon. Like in 10 seconds, soon. I edge my way away from the tower and towards another building, as quickly and stealthily as possible.
The Captain pushes the next guy to the block. This man too, looks at me, just as the Headsman raises his axe.
Then, of course, it finally happens.
Alduin roars, and becomes visible as he banks around a mountain to the east and crashes into the tower. When he hits the tower, the top half blows into rubble and is thrown over everyone's heads. Along with the rubble was a gust of wind from his massive wings that throws nearly everyone off their feet, crashing into buildings, parts of the fort, and to the ground. It blows away dust and dirt, practically creating a sandstorm.
The sky turns dark as he spreads his wings, then bright again as he pulls them in, hooking his clawed wings into the tower as he crawls close to the scene of the execution. His head lowers and waves around, looking from person to person.
Alduin's black scales and horns were even sleeker in person. They sparkle with an onyx gleam against the sunlight, and he takes a breath before roaring, shaking his head like the T-rex from Jurassic Park. I run forward, falling into a roll next to the block, where the second prisoner had fallen down. By now, he's gotten up. His face was not only confused but deeply, deeply disturbed. I pull him to his feet, and he runs off, heading to one of the towers.
Shouts ring out, as people are waking up from their stupor and reacting to Alduin's presence. Alduin takes off, before banking back around for a second attack.
"What in Oblivion is that?!" General Tullius yells out. He, as well as his entourage, had been thrown to the ground by the gust but had now gotten up.
"Sentries, what do you see?!" The Captain shouts.
"It's in the clouds!" One screams.
"Dragon!" A Stormcloak cries, pointing to a spot in the sky, before Alduin dives down like a hawk. The Stormcloak tries running away, making it a solid 15 meters. Alduin snaps his wings out, slowing his descent. He catches the Stormcloak with his legs, and hovers midair, flapping his giant wings and creating massive gusts of wind.
The blowback from his descent throws debris, and a cobblestone catches me on the shoulder. It spins me around and I fall to my hands and knees, before getting back up, turning to face the scene. I watch on in a strange trance, born of abject horror.
Alduin throws the body upwards at an angle, snapping at it with his mouth, eating half of the body, then shakes the rest away before flying off. The remains fall to the ground with a sickening thud. A man nearby retches.
They freeze in fear, cowering, before being reprimanded by an equally terrified officer trying to put on a semblance of bravery.
"GET UP! We have to fight ba-" The officer cries out, pulling out his sword. Obsidian claws burst from the sky and wrap around his torso. In a blink, he's ripped from the earth upward, limbs flailing, his scream catching in his throat. He's gone.
'If this is hell on earth... What waits for us after?'
My head pounds as thoughts echo through my head. Something hot hits my head. It runs wetly down my face. It drips past my open lips and into my mouth. Copper. I touch it, and my hand pulls away crimson. More falls around me, like rain. I look to the sky before diving out of the way.
A corpse slams where I was standing, and skids and skips across the ground, having fell at an angle. The officer.
I look around me. I stand in a pool of blood, a square meter at least, of blotchy, dark crimson mud. I can feel the sticky soil through my thinly wrapped feet. It squelches between my toes.
Pieces of a Nord's head stares at me from the ground, the spots where his eyes should be, empty. The man's eyes have splattered out of his head in a disgusting small white puddle of sclera, less than a foot away from the rest of the corpse on the ground. His armor-encased chest had exploded from the impact, for the most part.
The corpses' lower half was entirely missing, his armor snapped in half by Alduin's jaws, parts of his clothing torn into tattered rags. The man's intestines slowly slide out from what's left.
A weird, cold, numbing feeling spreads out from the pit of my stomach. My body tenses up, freezing as I watch Alduin. He flies around Helgen, roaring, before hovering high above us. Words echo out thunderously, and the air shivers.
I take a deep breath in and watch the sky as it tears itself apart.