Skyrim's Sovereign

Chapter 1

          When the dragon's scaled tail swats me over the ship's edge, I know I'm a goner. The frigid waters of the Sea of Ghosts rushes over me, I shut my eyes.

My mouth isn't so fast and I swallow a gulp of the salty sea.

Good job, Fenrir Righ. My brain yells at me.

I think certainly someone has shoved an ice blade down my throat.

Above the surface, I can hear the dragon's roar rippling across the waves. It seems so distant down here.

My black metal suit of armour pulls me straight to the bottom of the bay. Thank the Divines, this suit was magically imbued a long time ago. In fact, I won it off the Ebony Warrior—an unbeatable legend known across Tamriel.

He'd heard of this Dovahkiin as the locals call me. Approaching me one day while on a visit to WhiterunCity, he told me he'd beaten everything there was to beat and I was his next target.

This Ebony Warrior longed for the Halls of Victory in the blissful rest of all warriors, Sovngarde.

I remember those rolling fields and magnificent mountains of that wonderful home of the dead. It was where I'd fought alongside ancient spirits of warriors long since passed to defeat the wicked Alduin, World-Eater. He was a demonic dragon threatening to end this world.

Right now, that is another lifetime ago. Or so it feels.

I am the new Ebony Warrior and the Helm gives me the ability to breathe underwater.

I could stay down here forever, I thought. So peaceful. A little chilly, but still quiet.

A rumble above the surface brings me back to reality.

My wife is up there! By the Divines, why under Magnus was I standing down here?

Marching up the frozen silt incline, I open my mouth, letting the cold water flow into it. Oh, did I mention I was Dovahkiin? Another term in Skyrim's language is Dragonborn. I am the last.

My kind has only appeared once maybe every five hundred years or so to help push Tamriel's history forward into new eras.

My destiny was to defeat Alduin, among other things.

One other thing, we can speak the tongue of the dragons. This is called the Thu'um. We call them Dragon Shouts.

My voice echoes through the current, my body lurches upwards. In a split second, I'm shooting from the sea, a black knight rising from his cold slumber.

I'm airborne.

The cold air rushes between the crevices in the kinks of my armour.

It's thrilling.

Unsheathing the long sword at my waist, I yell to the sky.

"Hey," my eyes stare through the helm's view line. I see him...or is it a her? I never figured out how to tell dragon genders apart. Oh well. "You! Dragon! Have you ever heard of Dragonsbane?"

The leathery monster beats the air with his wings, hovering above me, just out of reach.

I've climbed to the pinnacle of my ascent and now gravity is pulling me back to Nirn. Landing with a clang, my Ebony Boots of Frost Suppression keep me from breaking my legs.