4E 202, Shor's Stone, Four days later
Serana
It had been four days. Four days since the portal had closed behind them in Sovngarde, since Alduin had finally, genuinely ended and the World-Eater perished for the final time.
The battle had been hardy and desperate, but the victory was as bitter as it was exhilarating.
She stood on the balcony of the royal quarters and looked at what remained of Shor's Stone.
The city was half ruined. The southeastern gate was gone entirely, the stone arch that Gerron had painstakingly built himself now reduced to a ragged gap in the curtain wall that the cold Rift wind now moved through without ceremony.
Below, the streets were filled with charred stone, scorched earth where dragon fire had burned so hot and sustained that the ground itself had changed color, and the thick grey-white of ash-covered bones that the cleanup crews were still working through.
Of the thirty thousand who fought in the battle, only nineteen thousand survived.
Serana had seen death. Centuries of it, in every form available to a creature who lived as long as she had. She had stood in the halls of Volkihar and watched her father turn entire villages to ash without moving from his throne. She had walked through the Soul Cairn, which was nothing but the architecture of death made permanent.
But never had she seen so many corpses at once, even if most of them were reduced to unrecognizable piles of charred bones. Not even the Night of Convergence had so many deaths.
Serana had been lucky, the same could not be said for many others.
The grim work of accounting had taken all four days and was still not finished. The names kept coming. Jarl Igmund of Markarth, Jarl Korir of Winterhold, even Grogmar, who had been at Gerron's side since before Serana even knew him.
Vigilant Tolan, Idecta the Hagraven, Commander Maro, numerous Legates, over two dozen companions and Dawnguard Knights—almost all had been slain to the last, fighting at the front along with their men.
…Even Ranessa, her housecarl. Her sworn sword. The woman who had stood in the doorway of the bridal chamber on the morning of the wedding and who had remained by Serana's side throughout the entirety of the battle.
Serana pressed her lips together and looked at the sky instead.
The Stormcloaks and Shor's Guard were just as decimated; only the College mages had the fewest dead, having focused on ranged bombardment. Yet their losses were no less dire. Only two hundred had survived, a mere third of what Savos had brought to Shor's Stone with him.
Speaking of the Archmage, the man had returned on the second day after Kiera, Gerron, and Serana returned from Sovngarde. None had known where the battle between him and Morokei had taken place, but the man had merely returned clutching Morokei's mask and the Staff of Magnus in one hand.
He had given them both to Gerron, claiming that the Eye and the Staff cannot be in the same place. He then merely nodded to everyone, before returning with the college mages back to Winterhold.
The reparation efforts below were handled by Gerron, as it always is. He had taken command of it the same morning they returned, still battered from Sovngarde, and had simply begun. The surviving Jarls — Balgruuf, Ulfric, Elisif, the others — had stayed long enough to coordinate their own forces' burial rites before beginning the long marches home, but Gerron had stayed. Of course he had stayed. This was his city.
Filnjar was everywhere. The old steward had not rested, she was sure — every time she looked down at the streets, he was there, directing the food redistribution, organizing the townspeople who had emerged cautiously from the bunkers the morning after the battle and immediately begun rolling up their sleeves.
She could at least take solace in that fact. The people of Shor's Stone were in this together. The ones who had evacuated prior to the battle had returned in droves, bringing with them supplies and tools as they all took the reparation efforts with grit and determination.
Shor's Stone had been built by people who still remembered where they had come from. When the Dragon War started, it was Shor's Stone who took them in. It was Gerron who gave them a home. All of that good will had finally been paid back.
With thousands of workers toiling by the day, it didn't surprise her that the southeastern gate was immediately being measured for reconstruction. From the plans Serana had seen, the new one would be built bigger and stronger, with a statue built at its base that held the names of all the guards that perished on that day.
When the snow came back in abundance on the second day and interfered with the reparation efforts, it was the Voice-Wielders that had come up with a solution.
Barely a hundred remained of the hundred and eighty who had marched here, a number that had its own particular weight, but enough. They had lined the main roads of the city and shouted LOK VAH KOOR in a coordinated chain, and the clear skies had opened over Shor's Stone in a long, clean arc that held through the afternoon and let the cleanup crews work in decent light.
The cleared sky hadn't lasted, of course. They were in the thick of winter, and the snow was back now, as gentle as a siege weather.
In the medical wing of the Ebony Palace, Valerica and the Legion alchemists had been running continuous shifts since the battle ended. Her mother's meticulous knowledge regarding every compound and combination helped in dealing with the many types of wounds the coalition suffered.
Keeper Carcette had not slept, and Colette Marence from the College had stayed on at Carcette's request. With the two of them together, none of the injured and wounded perished, and most of the people in critical condition were stabilized.
Most.
The Emperor was the persistent concern. He was alive, that much was certain. But apparently, the man had sustained an injury when Cicero snuck into the Ebony Palace. It was why Commander Maro was caught off guard. But Cicero's poison was unlike anything in Valerica's catalog, a compound that seemed designed to resist standard alchemical treatment. It kept him under, unconscious but still breathing.
Gerron was on it. Which meant, eventually, it would be solved. That was the nature of the man.
She heard the sounds from the streets below shift slightly. She looked down and saw one of the larger bone-piles at the western approach had been cleared, the debris carriers moving the ash to the designated sites outside the wall where the remains that could not be identified were being given a collective rite by the Priests of Arkay.
The cold had never bothered her. In the centuries of undead existence she had never once felt Skyrim's winters as anything other than comfortable, which was one of the small consolations of her condition. She stood at the balcony railing and let the snow fall on her shoulders and watched her city begin the long work of becoming itself again.
Her city.
It still surprised her, occasionally. The fact that this was home. Castle Volkihar was like that once, until it changed when her father did.
But now, home was a balcony in the Rift, in a city that currently smelled of ash and freshly melted snow, with the lights of the Ebony Palace behind her and the sounds of rebuilding below.
She realized then that she wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
The two moons rose as the evening settled. Masser and Secunda, their light laying silver across the courtyards and the broken walls and the places where the stone was still scorched black.
Vermithor was visible from here, curled in the lower courtyard below the Palace, his bronze scales dull in the moonlight but his breathing steady and deep. The wing had been tended — the blistered membrane cleaned and treated — and he was healing with the accelerated recovery of a Kruziik. Though there was no doubt that the wing would scar. Even now, she could spot the slight change of color in the scales where the wound had persisted. It didn't help matters that Vermithor had forced his wing to move despite the injury, back in Sovngarde.
But he would be himself again soon, which was a relief.
The door to the chambers opened as Gerron's steps crossed the room. He stood beside her at the railing, close enough that his warmth reached her even through the cold.
She looked at him.
He looked…ragged to say the least. It was expected. Gerron had spent the last four consecutive days organizing a city's recovery while running concurrent investigations into an imperial poisoning case, all after enduring a nearly twenty-four hours of battle.
His ebony plate was off, but the vigil and watchman's quality was still there. It seems when the city was healing, her husband had not even a chance to let the adrenaline melt away.
"The Emperor's poison," he said, by way of greeting.
"What about it?" Serana asked.
"Esbern tracked down a Penitus Oculatus archivist who had seen its effects before. The compound has an alchemical signature that matches a Morag Tong recipe from the Second Era." He leaned on the railing. "Valerica says she can synthesize a counteragent if we get three components, two of which we already have."
"And the third?"
"Felldew extract. Which means someone has to go to Peryite's Afflicted camps at some point in the next week."
Serana considered this. "I'll do it."
He glanced at her.
"I'm fully healed," she said, before he could say it. "Meridia dealt with most of the energy-clash damage from the Vampire Lord form within two days. The chest pain is gone. I am fully capable of walking into a camp of plague-ridden zealots and acquiring a reagent." She paused briefly. "Also, I'm more resistant to airborne contagions than anyone else you'd send."
"...Fair point," he sighed. "Take Karliah with you then."
"Sure."
They stood together for a moment as Serana leaned her head against his shoulder. Below, a group of townspeople were moving torches along the southern approach, lighting the cleared paths for the night crews still working.
A soft melody came from somewhere as someone began singing an old song.
Dovahkiin, Dovahkiin, naal ok zin los vahriin,
Wah dein vokul mahfaeraak ahst vaal!
Ahrk fin norok paal graan fod nust hon zindro zaan,
Dovahkiin, fah hin kogaan mu draal!
Serana smiled. While she may not speak the Dragon Language, she can guess what the song meant. She glanced once again at Gerron. "Nineteen thousand."
He didn't answer immediately. He was listening to the same song she was.
"Aye," he said.
"Do you—" She paused, finding the shape of what she was actually asking. "Does it get easier? The counting."
There was a long silence before he spoke.
"No," he said. "But it gets...different after a while. It's more like…like the marks on a blade after long use. They're part of it. They don't stop it from working."
Serana thought about that. She was never a leader. Prior to all this, she had never had subordinates or people who looked up to her.
She thought about Ranessa, and Grogmar, and the hundred Shor's Guard who had come to Sovngarde as spirits and followed Gerron into the final battle anyway, and the eleven thousand names that were still being added to the stone in the courtyard below.
'The marks of a blade, huh?'
"That's just like you to compare the feeling of loss to a sword," she said, to which he made a sound that was adjacent to a laugh.
She moved closer to him, and his arm came around her shoulders. Just the simple act of it, the way she could lean on him and he on her…
They stood there together, under Masser and Secunda, while Shor's Stone worked through the night below them.
After a while, she moved away from the balcony, pulling him with her. "Come on."
He didn't argue. Their lips met as they fell to the bed together.
The doors closed behind them, and the moonlight lay quiet on the empty balcony, and the city's sounds continued their slow, patient work in the dark.
…
4E 202, Whiterun
Balgruuf the Greater
Whiterun looked the same as he had left it.
He had been afraid, on the long road home, that something in him would find it diminished. That the scale of what had happened in Shor's Stone would make everything else smaller by comparison — the familiar walls, the familiar gates, the familiar smell of the city on its hill with the smoke rising from the Skyforge and the market sounds drifting up from the Plains District.
It was not diminished at all, if anything, it looked more.
It made sense, Balgruuf realized. The repairs after the attack on the city had finished, and Whiterun looked as good as new.
Dragonsreach caught the morning light the way it always did, the great hall's silhouette against the pale sky as old as the hold. Jorrvaskr was visible at the top of Gildergreen's hill. Despite the repairs, the streets were the same ones he had walked since he was a boy following his father's heels through the market stalls, learning what a Jarl owed his people by watching it demonstrated rather than described.
The gate opened and the welcome came.
It was not a formal reception, there had been no time to prepare one, and he had not sent word ahead. The news that all of Skyrim held was simply the news of victory, and celebrations were wrought in every tavern from Falkreath to Winterhold.
Clearing the gate, his children were the first to greet him.
Balgruuf had just dismounted from his horse when Frothar caught him around the waist. His son and heir had been growing, the top of his head now reached his father's chin. Dagny came a half-second behind, and Balgruuf went down to one knee in the snow and gathered them both in.
"We missed you," Dagney said, hugging tighter. Balgruuf can't help but let a few tears drop from that statement.
Letting them go and ruffling their hair, Balgruuf's eyes then met his younger brother's. The hug Hrongar gave him when Balgruuf finally rose was brief and firm and said everything the expression had been trying not to.
Farengar appeared from the crowd with his robes askew and a scroll already half-open in one hand, doubtlessly wanting to relay and learn every bit of news and even Balgruuf had seen in Shor's Stone.
"Later," Balgruuf said, before Farengar could speak.
Farengar closed the scroll. "Later," he agreed. "Welcome back, my Jarl."
One of the wagons in the column went ahead. The sight of it reminded Balgruuf of who was hidden behind that tarp.
Nelkir.
The news had reached Balgruuf after the battle. Nelkir was alive, taken in the mine, unconscious and unharmed but not waking. The Mephala connection severed when the Ebony Blade left his hands. His body was whole, but his mind was somewhere else.
The healers called it a coma. Valerica had written that it was likely the sudden severance from a Daedric connection that had been present since the boy was young. Not a physical wound but a spiritual one, the psyche needing time to reseal what Mephala had opened.
'He will wake, but when he would do so is another matter.' Valerica had said. He would wake, and when he did, he would need time, and patience, and his father.
Balgruuf could provide all three.
In the meantime, the city had needs and a Jarl had work.
He fell back into the rhythm of it as naturally as breathing. The dispatches that had accumulated in his absence were handled in order, the most urgent first.
A land dispute in the western farms that had apparently escalated in the absence of authority, a report on the ongoing rebuilding of Rorikstead, a request from the Companions for formal recognition of their expanded numbers.
That thought brought him back to the Companions.
Vilkas returned three days after Balgruuf, to a welcome that had all of Whiterun celebrating. The city had been watching the Companions' involvement in the war with the particular pride of neighbors who could say those are ours, and the warriors who came home with Vilkas were met with cheers.
The ones who did not come home had their names spoken in the mead hall of Jorrvaskr, in the old way, with the old words, the names of the honored dead joining the long list of Companions who had gone before.
Ysgramor-Reborn had practically earned unparalleled renown as one of Skyrim's greatest warriors, and the Companions had earned their reputation tenfold over. After the dragon war ended and a time of peace came, the Companions found themselves swamped with requests.
The years would continue to pass by, and the first news that reached Balgruuf that had him laughing out loud in the dispatch hall was the marriage of Isran of the Dawnguard and Aela the Huntress. It was apparently an emergency thing, since Aela was found to be pregnant with twins.
Balgruuf shuddered to think what kind of people the children would grow up to be. The blood and legacy of two Champions, a matched pairing that would have seemed improbable before the last five years had collectively recalibrated what improbable meant.
It was the same thought he had when Jarl Gerron and Lady Serana shared their pregnancy.
Woe it be to anyone who dared threaten those families.
The Dawnguard had formalized their partnership with the Vigilants of Stendarr by the time the winter season ended, the two organizations finding in each other the complementary capabilities that made the whole stronger than either part.
A chapter of both organizations had opened in Whiterun at Balgruuf's invitation, their presence in the Companions' quarter of the city already proving its value twice in the first month.
He had learned from Nelkir's incident. He would not again be helpless when a Daedric Prince took an interest in his city.
The other news that came from Windhelm was the highlight of the next year. Ulfric had returned to his city and received a hero's welcome. But to everyone's surprise, the Stormcloaks — the army, the organized rebellion force that had defined the political tension of Skyrim for the past decade — was disbanded.
Balgruuf could only imagine Elisif and Tullius' reaction to it. Every man and woman who served in the Stormcloaks was inducted into the Hold Guard of Eastmarch, but the Stormcloaks itself was reworked. Ulfric kept the name, and was now a title given to the ten greatest warriors in Eastmarch that would serve as the Jarl's own personal guard. The best of the best, royal guardians to the Jarl of Windhelm. A title of honor rather than a number.
Balgruuf respected that decision more than he had expected to.
He and Ulfric had disagreed about almost everything since the civil war, and some of those disagreements were going to take another decade to fully resolve. But a man who could win a war and then dismantle his own force rather than keep it as leverage, that was a man who had thought about what came after.
Galmar Stone-Fist, the Brown Bear of Windhelm, retired from active duty due to the loss of his arm. Instead, he now served as the Master-at-arms of Windhelm, responsible for training the Hold Guards, which meant Eastmarch's next generation of soldiers would know their craft at its fullest. That was a gift that would compound for thirty years.
The Emperor was still in a coma as well, which was troubling, considering the rumours of Thalmor movements. The man was still kept within Shor's Stone, guarded at all times by the Penitus Oculatus, led by Commander Gaius, who succeeded his father, Commander Maro.
Aranea Ienith had also chosen to permanently stay at Whiterun, which took Balgruuf by surprise. He had assumed she would have returned to her distant mountain shrine, but the friendship with Aela had apparently been the deciding factor.
When Balgruuf had offered her an advisory position within his court, she accepted readily. Balgruuf had long learned the potential of a Champion and was more than willing to let one of them stay close.
From his understanding, Aranea still regularly makes a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Azura on the mountains near Winterhold. Every time, she almost always hires the Companions as a protective detail. He heard from Vilkas that Aranea does this so frequently that the bodyguard job became a tradition of some kind for the new-blood.
With his business done for the day, he read the last few dispatches before setting them aside, cracked his neck, and walked to the windows of Dragonsreach.
The city below was lit with evening fires, the market winding down, the sound of children drifting up from the streets. Normal sounds. The sounds of a city that had sent a third of its adults to war and welcomed back the one-third who returned, and was now doing the quiet, necessary work of weaving the gap into itself without pretending the gap was not there.
Nelkir's chamber was down the hall.
Balgruuf walked to it, shadowed by Irileth as always, and sat for a while in the chair beside the bed, watching his son breathe in the slow, deep rhythm of the healers' sleep.
The boy's face was young again without the tension that Mephala's influence had put in it. Whatever mark the Daedric Prince had left in his eyes was gone, the darkness that had been there since he was nine years old simply absent.
He would wake up.
When he did, they would talk.
Balgruuf had many things to say. Not recriminations, the boy had been a child, taken advantage of by a Daedric Prince through proximity and circumstance and an unhappy home that Balgruuf himself had contributed to. The recriminations could remain where they belonged, in his own accounting of himself.
What he had to say was simpler. Harder.
I am your father. I am here. I was not always, but I am now.
He sat with his son until the moon was high, and then went to bed.
…
AN:The final epilogue will be out tomorrow, stay tuned.