Rise of the Dragonborn

Chapter Five- Daring to forget

I had planned on spending the next day in my room, trying to recall any other details from that awful nightmare. I needed to know who I killed. I couldn't bear the thought that I had dreamt of killing my own husband but I couldn't bear the thought of hurting an innocent child either. Either way, I needed to know.

To aid my memory, I tried every trick in the book. A healer once told me that standing on your head helped you to remember things. Needless to say, that ended painfully and to no avail. Kaldmir just so happened to walk in as I was in a tangled heap on the dusty stone floor. "What the Gods are you doing? Ha," He mused, throwing a pile of clothes at me. "Come on, I never finished that tour" He pulled me up and dusted my nightwear off, suddenly noticing my dismay. "Last night really shook you up, didn't it?" He said, sitting me down on the beautiful green quilted bed. I didn't know what to say. How could I describe my dream to him? It would only upset and alienate him when he saw how disgusted I was with myself for dreaming such a thing.

Without realising, I had been crying silently for almost half an hour. Kaldmir hadn't left my side but appeared extremely concerned with my vacantness. He pulled me up from the bed at last and onto my unsteady toes. "Get dressed. We can talk about it during the tour if you like. Be outside your room in 10 minutes." He hurried away as he spoke those last soft words.

Those 10 minutes passed so swiftly. I donned my mage robes as I could feel the chill seeping in from the canyon, alerting me that it was the typical northern bitterness I had grown so used to. My robes felt so comforting and reminded me of the time I had spent up at the college, meeting Onmund, learning new spells and even discovering, and destroying, the Eye of Magnus. The robes were even reminiscent of the dirt-stained sky blue robes Marcurio had trained me in years prior. The memories brightened my mood and just in time.

Kaldmir ran to the corner of my room in a hooded black outfit with a green trim, nothing I had ever seen before, "You ready?" he beamed, almost out of breath. What had he been doing? I asked myself while clambering up from my resting place on the deer-skin rug by my bed, "For what? What are we doing? Why are you out of breath Kaldmir?" All of the questions seemed to just spill out of my mouth before I had even chosen to say them. Without speaking, he replied by beckoning me to follow him. Curiously, I did.

I followed the vampire, to my surprise, up the spiral stairs and onto the roof. This early in the morning, the sun wasn't shining here yet and the roof terrace was in a dark shadow, I figured this is why he needed me ready so urgently, before he would get fried in the sun.

The view of the surrounding mountains was breath-taking, even better than from the valley floor. The mountains gleamed in the salmon pink light; the light reflecting on the fresh snow on their peaks glittered and danced as the sun's rays awakened. I caught a glimpse of the lone Elk also awaking from his slumber. His coat, like the mountains, blanketed in a layer of snow from the characteristic Skyrim night just passed. I watched in awe as he shook himself off and disappeared behind the rocks jutting from the cliff face.

Catching my breath, I turned to see Kaldmir leaning against the tower wall. "It's so much fun walking on top of the wall there you know" he gestured to the wall I had been looking at the deer through. "You can't be serious? I've done some dangerous things but I think you take the sweetroll for writing your own death wish with this!" I laughed, eyeing the seemingly endless descent to the base of the fortress. He leaped effortlessly to his feet and bounded up onto the wall. My heart skipped a beat. "See, nothing to worry about! Helps I'm immortal but yeah" He raced along the wall, end to end, skipping over the gaps in the wall like a new-born goat learning how to prance on its new legs.

As the sun gained strength, Kaldmir leapt down and landed feet in front of me, startling me. "Your turn I think" He said, holding out his hand. I had fought in a war, defeated dragons, fought hoards of the undead but heights still gained the better of me. I mustered all the courage I could and took his hand tightly. He lifted me up and placed me on the wall. I almost couldn't look, but when I finally opened my eyes, I saw what I had been missing. The adrenaline propelled through my veins and my brain grew accustomed to the height. I slowly stood up and took those first few steps. They felt as wobbly as a child taking their first steps would, that probably wasn't a good thing considering where I was. After a few minutes, nothing could get me down from there.

I paced the fort walls for hours, jumping and running across them as if I had been my entire life. My face was beaming and you couldn't tear the smile from my face if you had tried. Kaldmir sat back and watched, also smiling, as I used a sword as a balance pole and even managed to juggle three bottles of mead, all stood hundreds of feet off the ground. "This is amazing!" I shouted, followed by a huge scream of delight that echoed through the peaks as a thunderous roar. I soon realised the sun was beginning to shine on the roof top, and that Kaldmir would be in grave danger soon, even in his shaded spot behind the tower. I jumped down, not as gracefully as I had hoped, stumbling onto my hands and knees laughing hard, and decided to retire to my chamber to read for the rest of the day. Kaldmir also left to tend to Bran and Sceolang.

I had the most fun that day, than I had had in a very long time. Yet as soon as I entered my room, the dream came flooding back like an ocean of ghosts on a haunting tide. Was there any escape; any way to forget?