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The Nords of Windhelm were always talking about a hero. Their hero, in fact. I always imagined someone scruffy, and gruff. Tall and full of mead. Just like a Nord.
He was a dunmer.
I didn’t think anything of it, at first. Dragons were alive again, that’s all I understood. It wasn’t a legend of my people, and it wasn’t a legend the Nords were going to help us understand.
He came one day at Ambarys’ bar. Silent, and covered in ebony armor. He was short, much shorter than Nords usually were, and sat down. I remember the place getting quiet. Why would a Nord deliberately come in the Gray quarter? I believed he was there to make fun of us, like they all did. Hurt us, even.
"Nords are not welcome here.", Ambarys said that day.
"I’m not.", the Dragonborn answered. He removed his helmet, and that was the first time I saw him. He was one of us, in this horrible city. Dark hair and dark skin, eyes of ruby.
He was a stranger to me, this day. Was for a long time. But his presence left something unsaid in our community. No one could let the world know that he was a dunmer, especially not in this city. What would they do to him if they found out that he was not one of them? What would they do to us, believing that we stole another thing of theirs?
I was in the corner of the room that day, and I remember the racing thoughts coming to my brain. Ambarys told him that he could sleep in the Gray quarter that night. He tried to protect him, even if that stranger was perfectly capable of helping himself. But Ambarys knew too what would happen to him if the Nords found out.
That evening, I stayed quiet in my corner and took a few glimpse at the Dragonborn. He didn’t talk at all, as if he never learned how to. His movement were stiff yet gentle and he had an axe on his belt.
He slept on Ambarys’ floor that evening. Oblivious to the persecution we were subjected to.
With time, the Dragonborn came to my shop after days of adventuring. The more I interacted with him, the more I realized how unsocialized he was. I didn’t know what happened to him. But he was never mean. Always trying to help. He never talked much.
However, when he stood before me, it felt as if he was scrutinizing every inch of my being. Analyzing every one of my moves. "What did he saw that I couldn’t see?", I always asked myself. He never told me what he was guessing.
"You’re thinking, Sadri.", he told me one day.
"I’m in trouble.", I answered.
That day, he helped me like he helped our community. Helped me getting rid of the stolen ring I bought by accident. Helped all of us. The guards would have arrested me, arrested everyone of us. Made us pay with every coin we had.
It was like seeing a shadow. He moved silently, just like the way he talked. As if his whole existence was reduced to silence. But maybe it was the truth, that he was made of silence and shadows. He had a way to never take up space and make himself forgotten. Never participated in conversations at Ambarys’ place, and preferred to watch us quietly. Yet, he became an essential presence of the evening even if he melted with the background. A shade of the walls.
"Do not get yourself seen, Dragonborn.", I whispered to him, getting closer.
"Never.", and with those words, he left. Left me and our future hanging. I trusted him, however. I knew that he wouldn’t harm us. That he wouldn’t harm me.
The coldness of Skyrim crept through the door he closed, but I didn’t feel any of it.
He returned that night, not saying a word to me or the others. When our gazes met, the Dragonborn let me know that he took care of the stolen ring. He didn’t smile.
Maybe he didn’t know how to do it.
I told him he could sleep at my place, this time. He was covered in ebony armor when I told him. I couldn’t see his face or his eyes, but I like to think he was grateful. At this point, I knew he wouldn’t talk. I found out he spoke with his eyes, mirror of the soul. Men said he had one of a dragon, but I never saw one. I never saw the fire they all talked about. There was no pride, no grandeur and ego. I only saw tiredness.
He ate and drank as he usually did, this evening. In silence. It didn’t bother me, I did the same. There was a silent agreement, and I didn’t feel the need to fill the room with words.
He didn’t remove his armor when he slept. He sat on the floor, body pressed against a cupboard. I felt myself looking at him throughout the night.
I appreciated his presence, no matter his strangeness. He had habits I never thought of, habits of someone who fought a lot. I didn’t, and that was one of the many things we did differently. The Dragonborn was different. He was a hero.
Someone the people needed. Someone the world needed. Someone I needed too, even if I didn’t want to admit it at that time.
I saw his chest plate rise and fall many times during the night, following his steady breathing. I felt myself hoping that he would be able to relax, even if the situation was not ideal. I was only a dunmer, living in the Gray Quarter. My hospitality never would have been able to overcome the insalubrity of the place ; I wanted to help him too, the same way he helped me.
Of course, I couldn’t do grand gestures. I wasn’t the jarl of Windhelm, and I could only offer a warm meal and a place to live. I didn’t feel bad about it, it was just who I was. It was enough for him. Just the way he was enough for me.
"Goodnight.", I finally said after watching over his slumber for what felt like hours. He didn’t answer while I dreamt of him.
The day after, he cried when I offered him the same meal we ate the night before. It was a simple soup with old bread. Yet, he told me it was one of the best he ate.
I never knew why.
The first time he opened up, he looked like a child put in front of death. Maybe that’s what he was once, powerless and surrounded by blood. He always looked so serious, devoid of any feelings. The monotonous tone in his voice became familiar at one point, calming even. As if any trouble that existed was not worth of emotion, but I saw sparkles in his eyes when something good happened.
I saw the little twitches of his fingers when he was happy, the quiet sighs instead of words. Ambarys told me that I became great at reading him, but I would say that he opened up to me. Maybe for outside eyes, his language would look the same for everyone, but I knew. Oh but I knew when he stopped clenching his teeth at the mention of something he liked, or when he slightly moved food towards me when he thought I wasn’t looking. He didn’t do this in front of the others. He never did.
In a way, I was proud of this. Proud of being his friend, proud of being one of his loved ones. Proud of knowing him. He came into my life, but I barged in his. I was a quiet person and he was a cold man, but I was the fire warming the tip of his fingers, flames licking in front of his eyes.
That day, he told me about his involvement with the Tong. How he knew death once, and continued to pursue it. How Nerevar himself, praise Azura, helped him out of the darkest time in his life. He didn’t get into much details, but I was happy to be a confident of some sort. To know him more than the world knew him, because the world took so much without asking and he gave it freely to me.
He was a walking mystery, but I wanted to think he was simply trying to breathe. Trying to find his place into this world, to find where he could belong. I would have said that he belonged here, but I let him find his place himself. The world took his chance at choices already.
I did not understand everything of his. I tried, as he tried to understand the merchantry I talked about. That was enough.
"What happened with the jarl of Whiterun again?", I asked out of curiosity. He answered with ease, with the same voice I started to long for.
“You will not believe this.”, he said, and I chose to believe him instead.
With time that passed, I never thought that I would care for him like I would care for a lover. He grew on me, and I lamented his absences. Days without seeing him became lonely, and I thought of him at every creek of my doors. I was enamored with the Dragonborn, one could see misery, but I only felt warmth and hope.
If he was a martyr, I would become the family he left behind, but he wasn’t dead and I wasn’t either. He told me one day of his duty and the things he had to accomplish to save us all. The only thing I remembered is that he could disappear. I was scared of seeing him dead, his corpse never returned to us, never taken care of properly in dunmeri traditions. I would have shielded him from fate if I could, but gods worked in ways I couldn’t understand, and he was closer to gods than I could ever be.
"Will you come back?", I asked with fear in my voice.
The Nords believed in Sovngarde, afterlife, and this is where he had to go. Alduin, World-Eater or First-Born of Akatosh, it didn’t matter to me. All I wished was for safe travels, and for prophecies to be kind on him. I didn’t knew at the time everything Nerevar went through, but I knew he lived, and I wanted it for him too. Azura guide him, I prayed silently.
"I will try.", the Dragonborn answered, and I knew he feared his own death too.
Now, I was sure about one thing : I loved him deeply. I knew he loved me back. The Dragonborn always looked at me with eyes I couldn’t describe. I had the privilege of seeing his face often and I was grateful for that. He never smiled. Never frowned. If he did, it was so subtle that you usually wouldn’t be able to see it.
But his eyes always had some kind of hope in them. Pain, too, but there was a liveness he couldn’t see. Sometimes, he could see himself in the reflection of my eyes, and I hoped he could see the same thing I saw. He wouldn’t believe me when I told him sweet nothings, but I only told him the truth, and even if truth was warped, it was mine. Love maybe made me see differently, but different wasn’t wrong, and I knew he had a vision of me I couldn’t grasp either.
I kissed him, this evening. Just our lips brushing. He didn’t know how to respond, but he didn’t go away. He stared at me, his eyes full of an emotion I couldn’t describe. Longing, maybe. I knew there was trust. He trusted me with many things. He trusted me with his body and soul, and I took care of him as best as I could, as best as a simple mortal could. His dragon soul was louder than he ever was and would ever be, and I was the witness of it.
In silence, hands trembling, he brought his fingers to my cheeks. I knew this was hurting him. Touch was difficult for him, he told me so long ago. Painful even. Yet, he stayed.
The Dragonborn tried to kiss me, too. He didn’t knew how, but I remember wetness and the taste of salt coming from his tears. I didn’t comment on this out of respect. Maybe out of fear, too. He was always so difficult to grasp, dissolving into thin air as soon as you stopped looking.
I think I cried too, because it was a goodbye, and I was never good with goodbyes. A last moment before we had to part ways, before he had to slay the threat on Nirn. I wanted this moment to last longer, to have him between my fingers just a bit more, but Death was calling him once again and he couldn’t leave her for too long.
He stayed in my arms as long as he could, and I woke up alone with no promises of return.
I thought he would never come back. Maybe he started another life somewhere. I couldn’t get him out my mind, to the point where I was told I looked miserable. I was indeed, and waiting was killing me. The weeks became months and the months became years, but I never stopped waiting.
Ambarys told me that he could have died, but I did not want to think of it. How could he die? Heroes weren’t supposed to die. Or maybe they did, once their job was done and there was nothing left to do. Heroes were called by adventures, and if there was no more of it, maybe they died just like the flowers that wither as soon as they are hit by a ray of sunshine. He had grown on me like vines, and had planted mint into my heart when I wasn’t looking.
I loved him, and everyday he was away felt like torture. His death wouldn’t resolve the pain I felt, and I felt a pain worse than death. The time that passed only made it harder to wait and hope, but I never stopped hoping. I was called a fool, and I think I was.
I saw him one day, and I felt myself burst open. It was like seeing a ghost for the first time ; the Dragonborn looked like a ghost too and I wondered at first if it was just hallucinations of my mind. He walked towards me with an exhaustion I have never thought possible, dragging one foot after the other as if it pained him to live. He wouldn’t talk, almost breathless, and I knew then it was him and not someone else.
“You live, by the gods you live-“, I said in a whisper.
I think he died in my arms when the night came. Confusion was written all over his face. Desperation, maybe, as he held onto me and cried on my stomach. I had only seen him cry once, and this time broke my heart. I cried as he cried, our tears filling rivers maybe ; mine were of hope and a longing that finally stopped.
I had bruises, his fingers clenching my skin. I think he didn’t realize that it was real. That I was real, still. His sobs were ugly, but I understood. Tried to. I mourned him and he mourned his life. He cried until his body gave up and stopped shaking.
His old self died in my arms, the night he came back. Never would be the same. But I would stand still and I would pray for his path to be bright.
I woke up with the Dragonborn wrapped around me. His body tense, traces of tears on his face. I knew there were dried tears on my face too.
Sovngarde and the Nords took him for three years. Three years were we believed he was dead, or worse. There was always worse. But he returned, whole. Azura guided him safe to home. To me.
I knew what fate did to heroes. I knew of the hardships of Nerevar and I knew what fate did to him. But now I could see, too, and my understanding became different. Books and songs never prepared me for the pain he must have felt, and mine. I wanted to resent them, fate and prophecies, and I wanted to hate what they did to him. But I chose to let go, and to love him instead. He knew enough violence already, enough war, enough pain, enough blood. Gods were never kind to him and stripped an easy life off of him as soon as they could. The meddling of Mephala only put me in his path and weaved us together, but I knew I chose to put myself in front of him, and that he chose to hold me while we walked.
Deep into my thoughts, I didn’t notice the Dragonborn waking up. Once again, he was trying to understand what went behind my eyes and what my soul was screaming for. Maybe he understood that I was screaming for him, not believing that he was alive and well in body. Maybe he understood that I was longing for his return, like a widow waiting in front of her husband’s grave for a sign.
He smiled faintly, just like I remembered, the sight engraved into my mind and distorted over the years. He grabbed my hand, his head carefully laid on my torso, and intertwined our fingers. As if he was trying to create words that didn’t exist yet, he closed his eyes and I saw tears again coming from them, water as clear as the skies when Alduin died.
"Revyn. Thank you.", he said to me.
And I answered, "You’re home, Shurik."