Chapter Text
Once everyone, soldiers and prisoners alike, had broken their fast, Captain Placidia assigned Kjaskyr to finish packing the wagons while Hadvar and the others saw to the prisoners. Hadvar was personally responsible for the Kingkiller, which was, he hoped, a sign of trust from the Captain. Wordlessly, he held out the gag.
Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm, leader of the rebellion, rolled his eyes but took the gag he'd been wearing for the past two days. Hadvar of course had never been around anyone using the Thu'um, and wasn't actually sure the gag would stop Ulfric if he put his mind to Shouting them all to Sovngarde. But the tall blond man tied the gag around his mouth and held his hands out to be bound. Hadvar had just finished tying the man's hands together when the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stood up. There was a greasy feeling in the air and a sense of pressure changes. The wind gusted noisily through the trees in their campsite. Hadvar opened his mouth and had to immediately spit out leaves.
Then it got weird.
Hadvar had seen magic before, though always against his will. He'd never seen the skies turn green. He'd never felt this sense of weightlessness, nor seen leaf litter and drops of sweat lift slowly into the air. He'd never smelt—by the Eight, what was that smell? Something smoky, acrid and sharp, almost like burning hair, and behind that, a scent exotic to Skyrim, stone baking under a desert sun. The smell had such weight Hadvar began coughing, and he wasn't the only one.
Fortunately the prisoners felt the effects of this strange magic as well; if this was a rescue attempt, it wasn't going well. Between the gusting wind and his ears popping, Hadvar couldn't hear what his captain was shouting, and the odd weightlessness elongated her normally terse hand signals into near illegibility. Hadvar was pretty sure she was saying to be alert but that Ulfric was still their priority.
'Of course, I don't know what else we can do right now,' Hadvar thought.
Then a scream Hadvar heard not with his ears but in his mind wrenched all thought from him, and one agonizing, eternal moment later, it was all gone. And in its place, a body? A person, Hadvar decided, seeing their chest rise and fall. The person was wearing strange clothes in strange, too-vibrant colors. The skin on their bare arms was fair as most Nords, but given how they had—arrived here, he wanted a good look at their ears before he'd believe they were a Man.
The captain barked, "All right, it's over, whatever it was. Finish getting the Stormcloaks into the wagons. Hadvar, Einora, get our newest arrival loaded up. I want to be out of here before that starts up again."
Einora knelt by the stranger and tried to shake them awake. Nothing. Hadvar glanced at the Kingkiller. "I trust you're not planning to run?"
Ulfric grunted and managed to look offended even with half of his face covered. He may be a traitor, he may have killed the High King with the Thu'um, he may have plunged Skyrim into a civil war, but he was still a Nord, apparently. Hadvar nodded once, then went to help Einora carry the stranger.
The stranger's open vest, a deep jade color, had a hood which covered their ears. They also wore strange spectacles, with their thick lenses and the frame made of no material Hadvar could name. 'Is it a magical sleep?' he wondered. Like most of his countrymen, Hadvar disliked and distrusted magic, but he also knew that someone who couldn't be woken up was someone who might never wake up. He hoped this strange person didn't arrive here only to die.
By the time he and Einora reached the wagons, they were all loaded up, so the stranger was placed next to the Kingkiller, who suffered them leaning on him with a good grace.
***
The two wagons trundled down the road, with the captain leading on horseback and Hadvar as the rearguard. An hour into this morning's journey, the stranger in the second wagon woke up.
"Hey, you're awake," said the other prisoner wearing the steel blue Stormcloak uniform, his voice thick with relief. The stranger raised their bound hands to wipe at their eyes, then looked around. Even now that the stranger was sitting up and moving under their own power, Hadvar had a hard time gauging their gender. Their clothing was so foreign as to give no clues—soft, wine-colored trousers that gathered at the ankle and a very short, sleeveless tunic the color of a ripe pumpkin under the hooded vest.
The stranger was clearly an adult but their face was beardless as a youth. They were fat, especially in the abdomen and thighs, and the softness of their face and arms made Hadvar think they were a woman, but their chest was as flat as an Argonian's and their brown hair was close-cropped. They reminded him of his friend Stig, a Child of Azura who bound his breasts and had saved his life in battle more than once.
The Stormcloak prisoner didn't ask the stranger any questions about how they had gotten here, and Hadvar understood. Magic wasn't something most Nords wanted to even understand, and yet … he found himself curious.
The Stormcloak was now talking to the fourth prisoner in the wagon, a horse thief who'd been unlucky enough to get caught up in the ambush at Darkwater Crossing. The Stormcloak was reminiscing about a girl from Helgen, but Hadvar had been watching the stranger, and at the name of the town, they—he?—stiffened and grew significantly paler. Then he stretched his bound hands toward the horse thief and said, in a pleasant baritone that was still scratchy with sleep, "Don't run." He cleared his throat, swallowed then continued, "If you run, they will shoot you." The stranger looked as though he wanted to say more, but glanced warily at Hadvar—and Ulfric, for some reason—and fell silent.
The horse thief shrugged one shoulder and said, "Who said anything about running?" Hadvar could see the panic in the thief's eyes and the tension in that shrug. He'd seen it in hundreds of soldiers who weren't as battle ready as they'd thought. He wondered how the stranger had recognized it. Watching the stranger as closely as he could from the corner of his eye, Hadvar addressed the thief. "He's right, you know." A fleeting, secret smile crossed the stranger's face, the same expression Stig wore when strangers saw him as a man. He pointed to the walls of Helgen which had just become visible to everyone in the cart. "Archers."
Hadvar watched the color drain from the thief's face and slowed his horse just a bit, to give the prisoners some semblance of privacy. Ulfric and his soldiers, traitors all, were destined for the headsman, and Hadvar felt he owed them a few moments for thoughts of home, and maybe a prayer to Talos.
As for the thief and the stranger, well, horse thieves were usually whipped rather than executed, and the stranger had broken no laws. But Captain Placidia was a hard woman, and General Tullius would have no warning of the stranger. Hadvar couldn't help feeling uneasy.
***
The soldiers and wagons made their way into Helgen, a fortified town in eastern Falkreath. The town was small but lively, the rhythmic sounds of Igna working her forge punctuated with gleeful, childish shrieks. Hadvar waved to a few friends. Torolf, the local lumberjack, called out, "Hadvar! Let's catch up later!" Hadvar waved in acknowledgment, and rode on. The wagons stopped in front of the Imperial barracks, and Hadvar saw that the headsman was ready and waiting. He dismounted, took the list from Captain Placidia, and read each name as they came off the wagon.
"Ralof of Riverwood." The Stormcloak soldier stepped forward. "Lokir of Rorikstead." The horse thief. The stranger said something too quietly for Hadvar to hear, but he thought it was 'don't run'. The thief didn't respond, but his shoulders were tight and hunched as he got off the wagon. "Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm." The Kingkiller's stiff back and proud shoulders were a stark contrast to the horse thief's posture.
Hadvar looked at the stranger, who hadn't stood. "Name?"
The stranger swallowed and said, "Reuben."
Hadvar grunted. He'd never heard the name before, but it could be a Redguard name. He didn't think the stranger was from Hammerfell, though. "And where are you from?"
The stranger shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't think you'll be able to send my remains back, if that's what you're asking."
Hadvar turned to Captain Placidia, lifting his open palms in question. Then, he said aloud, "What should we do with him?" He was rewarded with another secret smile.
General Tullius, oblivious to the question of the stranger, started declaiming about the Kingkiller being brought to justice. Captain Placidia glanced at the General, clearly unwilling to interrupt him. "With the others," she said.
The Captain turned to join Tullius, but the stranger—Reuben—spoke up. "Why am I being executed? What law have I broken?" There was a quiver of fear in his voice, but he stared the Captain down.
Captain Placidia stiffened and turned back to Reuben, her face dark. She snapped, "You are accused of illegal ingress into Skyrim," then turned on her heels and joined the General.
Hadvar said, "I am truly sorry."
Reuben, still staring after the Captain, said, "Resisting arrest." At least, that's what Hadvar thought he'd said; the man had spoken so quietly he couldn't be sure. Then he looked at Hadvar and said, "It's not your fault. I may need help getting down."
Hadvar held out a gauntleted hand, and Reuben stood up and then sat down again with an alarmed look on his face and only the smallest cry of pain on his lips, quickly swallowed. Hadvar found himself reassessing this strange man. He was obviously no soldier, had clearly lived a soft life, but was also no stranger to pain. 'A puzzle,' Hadvar thought, but a puzzle who was about to die.
"Sorry," Reuben said, his face and voice a pleasant mask. "I broke my leg, oh, half a year ago now? Sometimes it's still painful. Let me try again." He stood more slowly, putting most of his weight on his right foot first and then testing the left. Then he took Hadvar's still outstretched hand and stepped off the wagon, right foot first, then gingerly testing the left again. He nodded to himself and some of the tension left his jaw and shoulders. "Thank you," he said, releasing Hadvar's hand. This close, Hadvar was sure Reuben was not a Mer—his ears weren't pointed and his blue eyes were those of a Man.
Reuben—the stranger—joined the other prisoners while Hadvar made his way to his superiors. Captain Placidia told the Priestess of Arkay—Talia, he thought her name was—to give the prisoners their last rites.
"As we commend your souls to Aetherius, blessings of the Eight Divines upon you," Priestess Talia began, and Hadvar couldn't help but wince. Loyal as he was to the Empire, he was still a Nord. He didn't like the Thalmor telling Nords who they could and could not worship anymore than Ulfric did. But the only reason the Mer—the elves were cracking down on Talos worship was because of this damn civil war. Because of the Kingkiller.
So it wasn't a surprise when one of the Stormcloak soldiers from the first wagon—Hadvar thought her name was Gul—stepped forward and shouted, "For the love of Talos, shut up and let's get this over with."
Hadvar forced himself to watch her execution. Then the Captain barked, "The foreigner next!" A distant roar punctuated this statement.
"What was that?" Hadvar looked over the walls, but there was nothing in sight.
"It's nothing," the captain insisted. "Next prisoner!" The stranger walked toward the executioner. When the distant roar sounded again, the stranger's shoulders hunched around his ears and he looked to the sky before kneeling in front of the block. Another roar, much closer this time. The captain ordered the archers to be ready, but the headsman was still raising his axe.
Reuben—the stranger took a deep breath and said—no, sang, "Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai eloheinu, Adonai—"
Then the dragon attacked.