Talking, Questing

Yuri shot a look to Arngeir before saying one last word: "Bel". Arngeir heard for a moment before he was forced to kneel where he stood. Yuri flashed a mischievous grin that made the women's hearts skip a beat, said "It's my win!" and bent his knees before taking flight straight upward.

He barely heard the "Get back here!" behind him as the sheer white mountainside passed his front in a blur as he rose higher and higher. In less than a minute, the rocky view vanished without warning and he saw the sun again. A moon-shaped outcropping bordered the actual peak of the Throat and held a word wall, with a bronze-colored and somehow visibly aged dragon atop it. It seems despite dragons being immortal, Paarthunax had managed to look old.

Yuri lowered himself and landed amidst the snowdrift before strutting to an old friend and hopefully a new one. Paarthunax may have looked a bit decrepit, possibly from his lifestyle of abstinence, but Yuri still felt a dormant power similar to an inactive star within him waiting for an excuse to rend the world to ashes. "Hail, Partysnax," Yuri said.

"Akatosh has named me Paarthunax, such is my name until proven otherwise child." He stretched his long neck and leered at him. "Now, you must be the lad who tossed my brother into the side of this mountain and punished him something fierce since your language is so similar."

"Merely giving him a well-deserved welcome." Yuri had not stopped speaking in Draconic.

"AHAHA, I agree! You gave him quite the welcome for the day of his return. I imagine he will be much more careful with his trips to Mundus in the future. Now don't change the subject, lad. What is that language and how do I understand it perfectly?"

"It is Draconic. All dragons and even more intelligent lizards will be capable of understanding me. Let us say that there are other forms of Dovahzul outside of Tamriel and leave it at that."

"I have been holed up here for too long if a new Dovahzul has sprouted up. You certainly don't feel like someone who came from Tamriel, either. Ayleid, perhaps?"

"Nay, I shall always be man."

"You could be mistaken for a dragon with your etiquette and Magicka density, child. Now, why have you come and bothered my manpack?"

'Manpack? Ah.'

"I come with the Dragonborn, they had summoned her to receive their council yet mine precedes theirs. Such needed to be made clear."

"Dragonborn? No wonder, the Last Dragonborn has been prepared by Father at the coming of this tumultuous age. I will direct them to send her here soon to receive my council."

"I would like to be present. She can be quite bloodthirsty towards Dovah." Yuri remarked.

After this, they discussed their backgrounds for a while before Paarthunax started confessing the sins of his early days, as well as why he kept himself on this mountain away from civilization. Yuri thought about leaving him a gift before he left this world in the form of a specific shout, then they discussed the nature of Alduin and his defeat.

"We must find and teach the Dragonborn 'Dragonrend'. It is the only way to defeat a Dovah like him for good while he would still be mortal."

"I believe my own shout would do just as well, no?"

"Heaven Cursed, Earthen Bound. I heard it then. Your shout brings dragons to the ground for much longer than most Dragonrend shouting could accomplish, but it would not make Alduin mortal. Dragonrend is a terrible shout made from man's hatred of their slavers to bring them to their condition. We need to find the Kelle that was used here all that time ago and-"

"Mortal, Finite, Temporary. I already know the words to the shout, there is no need to find the 'Kelle'," Yuri remarked. "I can make a shout that is plenty better, just grade them as I make them alright?"

"Hmph, a Dovahzul is still a Dovahzul, dragons have no concept of mortality. You cannot-"

But Yuri wasn't listening. He had an idea, and he used his memory, or lack thereof, of his own death as inspiration.

"Neer Vii Waran Fey Kroen" Approach Death and (be) Grounded by Time's Passing. A double meaning as to be literally brought to the ground and grounded as into dust. This worked even better because sand and time were symbolically linked, at least for Yuri.

"First fuckin' try!" He said while Paarthunax couldn't move or speak due to the mortal epiphany he was experiencing. He wasn't even targeted by the shout. "Ah, my bad," And he released it.

"You used dragon tongue to convey mortality without saying it explicitly,"

"Mortality is associated with death, which we mortals are closely related to and yet know nothing of since none live to speak about it. Death comes for us all, no matter how long-lived we are, Paarthunax. I'm a bit intimate with the idea myself."

"Too intimate. Your will is unique enough to use it, but the Dragonborn will have an easier time learning the regular Dragonrend."

"...God damnit, you're right. Fine, we keep that one. Oh, can you tell your manpack that I am the senior here so I don't have to teach them more lessons?"

Paarthunax merely nodded before sending him on his way for now. But strangely, Yuri didn't leave immediately and flew to the peak of the Throat before retrieving a pickaxe and storing it, then flew down to High Hrothgar.

───※ ·❆· ※───

When Yuri got back, he remembered that he had not released Arngeir from 'Bel'. He had probably kneeled for ten minutes or more before the effects of his shout wore off and he could stand depending on the will of the victim.

'Oops'

All four of the human Greybeards were bowing once he got inside, and Arngeir expressed his apologies.

"We welcome the Master Tongue with open arms, Lightbringer. I apologize for my brashness."

"No need, I was riling you up, I share the blame. I hope we can learn from each other during our stay." Yuri may have been more polite than literal concerning the Thu'um, but he knew that to form a proper shout in Draconic here it had to be a sentence and some of the more local Thu'um is simply faster and thus more fit for combat occasionally.

It wasn't long before Arngeir asked for a favor from the Dragonborn that set a flag up for Yuri.

"Dragonborn, we have need of you to retrieve the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller from his tomb in Ustengrav of Hjaalmarch. A Word Wall may be found there among other challenges." He introduced the quest.

Yuri went bug-eyed before saying, "I gotta go do a thing," handing Tonilia a heavy pouch of Septims for the trip, and vanishing from sight with a dumbfounded Alera and Tonilia. Tonilia picked up the ball and invited herself to go with Alera and provide backup if necessary before they too left High Hrothgar to go to Ustengrav. Too bad they couldn't fast travel.

Yuri was flying at breakneck speed to meet up with a certain thief who would attempt to intercept his *cough* the Dragonborn with a note and a useless offer to kill a dragon for her like usual. It was sickening to him how the Blades just tell you to do the job Akatosh created you for using the recruits you gave them and the tools they took from the Sky Haven Temple you unlocked for them and all they gave you was a fucking potion for 25% less melee damage from dragons. And after being carried like bitches they have the GALL to demand you kill PARTYSNAX?! The worst part was the faction was useless, if you can kill dragons alone by the time you are given the option to kill Paarthunax then why would you do that for a faction designed to drag NPCs around to a radiant dragon killing quest for a measly benefit?

'I need to calm down, my hand might slip and kill someone.'

Yuri arrived above the sleeping giant's inn in Riverwood just at the foot of the mountain and disguised himself as a certain Khajiit in mage robes before descending and making his way inside.

'Esbern and Delphine are both here, how's about a curse whammy?'

He made his way to the counter and asked for the Attic room, which then prompted Delphine to crawl out of some dark corner and tell him to follow her to a room to his right. He closed the door behind him before Delphine brought him to a not-so-secret wardrobe door leading to the basement. Esbern was down here too, at some desk with parchment and charcoal spread around it while muttering and Delphine took a lean on the center table covered in a map. Chests and tables covered in cheap steel-make were hiding where the wall met the floor, parchments of varying sizes jutted from barrels near Esbern's desk. Esbern finally looked back and asked, "Is this who I think it is?"

"Hush. So, you're the Dragonborn I've been hearing so much about? I think you were looking for thi- huh?" Delphine fumbled through the satchel on her hip before Yuri raised his paw that already held the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller.

"How did you... UGH!" Delphine yelped as she was thrown towards a wall and pinned to it with Telekinesis. Esbern followed her shortly with a much raspier wail.

"What are you doing?!"

"Robbing the robbers, obviously. And cursing you for the troubles. I guess you were waiting for the Dragonborn, but I found your note first." Yuri turned towards Delphine with Erebus' signature red eyes. He held up a palm and a crimson fire sprung from it before he explained the curse it held.

"You shall flee from dragons for the rest of your days, never being able to face them. You shall leave Skyrim within five days and never return." Yuri took her future in dragon hunting and sent her packing. He then turned to Esbern and put his hand on his head, absorbing all the possible information from him he would need concerning Dragon Infusion potions and burial grounds, among other things. Another flame was born for Esbern.

"You shall document all historically pertinent knowledge of dragons and the Blades before donating it to Winterhold and leaving Skyrim shortly after." And one more he made for the both of them, "You shall forget about the Dragonborn and anyone you met on this day." And then he vanished.

Yuri careened to Ustengrav to the Northwest before finding the end of it and placing the Horn in the hand of the deceased Jurgen Windcaller and burning the note in his hand, then opened a portal back to High Hrothgar and innocently twiddled his thumbs.

Arngeir noted how fast he was before he kept to himself. It took two days for the pair to come back successfully with the horn and no complications. It was then that Yuri offered up their next adventure.

"Hey gang, how about we visit a certain Temple? I hear it can only be opened by the Dragonborn!"