The Prophet 4: Mercy

• Posted by Clement Bilhorn August 21, 2013 - 956 views

  Serana, bride of the Dragonborn.

  

  Now captive for his crimes.

  "Serana, of no family," says Skulnar, his voice harsh and clear. "On the following charges are you sentenced.

  

  Treason, for you have been inculcated in plotting against the Dawnguard, the noble men and women who have given their lives to protect Skyrim from the darkness beyond.

  

  Murder, for you are not charged with merely hindering the efforts of the Dawnguard, but with killing many of their number.

  

  And greatest of all offenses: vampirism. For there is no clearer evidence of your evil than your willing enslavement to the King of Rape, and your desire to enslave the rest of Skyrim." He pauses, clears his throat, glancing back at the small crowd. He relishes this. "But we, Skyrim's defenders, will not see you succeed."

  "Still more dangerous than you," he continues, "is your husband, the so-called Dragonborn. A thief, villain, and murderer, a wild beast the Empire sought to tame for its admittedly admirable ends, he has left you to face justice alone. What sort of creature are you to call that man your husband?"

  But Skulnar, small man that he is, does not know what sort of creature he has captured. Serana merely wishes to be free, and it is so.

  

  This is not taken lightly.

  

  "Legate Skulnar," Serana says, raising her hand, silencing the commotion. "Jarl Siddgeir. The Dragonborn is not your enemy, nor am I. Do you see me trying to escape?"
  

  "I see a vampire whose head rests too close to its neck," Skulnar growls.

  "The Dragonborn is a hero." She ignores Skulnar, turning to the Jarl. "How can you not see this? How do you deny it?

  Ulfric the traitor...

  

  ...Harkon the monster...

  

  ...Miraak the enslaver...

  

  ...and Alduin the Destroyer, firstborn of Akatosh himself!

  

  The Dragonborn has slain all of these, and still you charge him for the same crimes any number of your own Legion has committed?"

  "You say some strange things, vampire," Siddgeir says. "Things that beggar understanding."

  "What do you mean?" Serana asks.

  "Ulfric," Siddgeir says, "was a rabid dog--the Empire would have put him down in time, with or without your mate's help. And as for this Harkon, Miraak and Alduin...are we to believe that the Dragonborn in fact killed these? We have scarce heard of them beyond the frantic chattering of the young, the gullible, and the insane. And if what people say is true, then why should we believe that a vampire with the soul of a dragon would, in fact, kill a vampire, a dragon, and another Dragonborn?"

  "But--"

  "Who here saw this?" Siddgeir says, addressing the crowd. "You've all heard the stories, but who here saw this Dragonborn enter Sovngarde, the realm of our ancestors, and slay the Destroyer? Who here saw him take up a god's weapon and slay the oldest of vampires? Or enter the realm of Hermaeus Mora in the flesh? Ulfric's death is the only one in which the Dragonborn had any part, and several months' service to the Empire does not excuse a man for a year's worth of evil."

  And Serana realizes that he is right. Who will speak for the Dragonborn? The Blades, his former allies, now his enemies because he would not be the hero they worshiped? The Dawnguard, clearest witnesses to his fickle and self-serving nature? The people of Skyrim, whose brief glimpse of a free land was dashed by one man's hatred for their kind?

  Vampires, dragons, thieves, and the dead. These are the Dragonborn's allies. No one else will speak for him.

  Except, of course, for me.

  

  I will speak for the Dragonborn. I will speak of him to these shivering, hapless fools, playing at power like children first learning to say "no". 

  

  But although meddlers they wish to be, meddle they cannot. The course of history is stronger than them, brushing aside such pretensions as it draws toward its inevitable conclusion. 

  Some resist, some quite strongly. If I stomp hard enough, they say, if I plant my feet in the sand and pout and scream, maybe my footprints won't be washed away by the coming tide. Maybe I will matter.

  But all will pass away.

  

  All except the Dragonborn. He will remain, imitable as rock. But every rock has its weak point, its cracks and its fissures. Apply enough pressure at the right moment...

  

  ...and it shatters.

  But apply it too quickly, and the rock may endure--forever changed, but still there. And so Serana and her future will have to remain in my care for a little while longer. It is the future of another to which I must now tend.

  

  More so than the evil of men does the justice of men disturb me. A man is born to power and his word, the people think, must be of import. His justice, they tell themselves, is more than noise on the wind--he can say what is right and what is wrong. Justice will transcend time, even if flesh will not.

  They worship justice, these people, that arbitrary determination of worth. "Mercy!" the man cries, recognizing, like all men in need, where power lies.

  

  Oh, you tortured fleck of chaff, doomed first to chaos and then to obsolescence... Don't you see?
  

  This is your mercy.