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Ulfric Stormcloak stands at a crossroads. The two paths are ones he has contemplated abandoning all together—though he knows turning back has its own consequences. He is young—barely trudging through his nineteenth summer. Hearthfire looms. If he does not choose a path, his twentieth year will be spent in silence, too. Some would say he has wasted most of his life up until now atop this very mountain.
Monahven—or the Throat of the World—has been his home since he was a boy. He recalls the day he was made to leave and make a new home upon the mountain. One moment, he had been pelting Balgruuf with snowballs in the fields surrounding Whiterun while their fathers spoke in Dragonsreach—and the next, so it seemed at the time, he’d been relegated to a corner of High Hrothgar. Has it been a decade already? Ulfric is sure, with the disconcerting news the pilgrims bring with them daily, that his time will be better spent elsewhere.
But here is where his conflict lies. His father expects him to honor his calling—all believe it to be his becoming a Greybeard. Below, however, his home might fall to ruin before his eyes, all while he does nothing but shovel snow and contemplate ancient tradition. He did not choose this path, and given the chance to go back in time, he would not have. All this despite how beautiful the Way of the Voice is—but beauty does not win wars.
Ulfric stands in the courtyard of High Hrothgar, and seethes when he closes his eyes. He knows of the Thalmor, and what they have done. So many lives lost—good men and women, some of which he’d known growing up—all for what? He glances at the path that leads up to the peak of the mountain—a path he has heretofore been prevented from walking. He has not mastered the Shout needed to clear the way. Most of the Greybeards, despite their age, have not. Their leader lives alone upon the peak in the harshest of elements. He stares down at the world and lets the chaos continue, despite the power he must wield to have this position.
Part of Ulfric wants to force his way through and make his case. Would the leader, mysterious as he is, release him from his oaths? It would not clear the shame that would fall on his father’s house for abandoning such a sacred duty. His home, though? His people? Would they not be worth the risk? The sacrifice?
In his mind’s eye, Ulfric envisions great battalions of Imperial soldiers marching from the White-Gold tower in Cyrodiil. He has never been there before, but he has seen the bas-relief carvings and gold-framed paintings in other places here in Skyrim. Despite his feet being so firmly planted in the soil of this province, he cannot help but feel a call to action. He has a single Shout, and with it he can make himself as valuable as an outfit of soldiers all on his own. He can turn the tide of the War. He knows this, and yet some piece of him still feels conflicted.
The Way of the Voice does not allow room for war, Great or otherwise. It is an acetic life of peace and meditation. That Shouts are acquired at all only serves as a way to preserve the gifts of Kyne. Or, really, to remember the toil of his ancestors. At the same time, it feels wrong to let this power go to waste when the world needs protecting once again. And it does need protecting, now more than ever.
Once again, he envisions the great seas of steel, silver blades clashing against bitter moonstone. The ground is trampled below the boots of armies so large, his mind cannot rightly fathom them. The alternative, of course, is utter destruction. Burning cities, crushed villages. Peasants left with nothing walking lost upon torn-up roads. The Thalmor seek to unmake all that had been built, and they will continue to fight until every last person in the Empire falls. This is an indisputable fact. Ulfric knows he could be of use, and stop the devastation from happening at all. Or—he could at least try.
He understands hate, the more he thinks about the plight of the Empire and the advance of the Thalmor. He finds it difficult to let it go of this rage, as is required if one intends to follow The Way of the Voice. Arngeir will have something to say about this failure. Regardless, Ulfric can’t help but feel drawn. His home, this danger? It is another call to action. He feels it like a fire in his chest, locked behind his sternum. It is as if with a Shout of Unrelenting Force, he could exhale flame instead—like dragons, in the old tales.
Suddenly, he feels the weight of his decision lift from his shoulders. It is as if his mind is already made up. If he is honest with himself, he knows he made his mind up long ago. He will fight. He will protect the people who matter most to him. This, he knows, is a thing that will define him. Silence really had never suited him.
Ulfric thinks in cases like this, perhaps it is better to seek forgiveness than to ask permission.
He has only this one life. Is it not within his Gods-given right to make the choice of what to do with it?
He shivers in the cold as the wind tears at his face. Snow coats the cobblestones of the courtyard. He realizes he has forgotten the shovel in his hands, and the tasks he was meant to be completing. The iron gate across the way squeaks on rusty hinges, subject to the gusts of the wind off the peak. The grey robes he wears have failed to keep the bite of the weather from his bones. He is young. It is not as if the Greybeards have wasted too much time on his training. Though he feels sorry for thinking it, he knows they can replace him with another Nord from the province. He may be powerful, but he is not the only one with an affinity for Shouting. There will be another, Ulfric is sure. He does not know why he thinks this with such overwhelming certainty, and pushes the thought from his mind. He leans the shovel against the weathered stone of the monastery. One of the others can handle this task if it is of great import to them. It is time to go, before he gives himself an opportunity to change his mind again.
He does not own much—the only things he had in his pockets as a child and the robes on his back. The march down the mountain will be cold, and he is as likely to frighten the people in Ivarstead. It is a small price to pay. He can ignore the call no longer.
The old stone of the building he walks through houses a millennia of memories. There is a gravity in the silence, broken only by the tapping of his boots on the stone floors. He rushes past the meditating monks, knowing if he hesitates even a moment, he might turn back around and take a different path. He hates that he still feels torn, despite the surety he had looking out across the snowy horizon. He must fight. It is a truth he can no longer grapple with. And yet, there is a pull of grief. This place is all he has known for so much of his life.
And yet—his future opens up to him like a book. Its pages are blank, unlike the crumbling volumes he has read in his time growing up in this place. He gets to write the story now. It is no longer a thing others will decide for him. He does not intend to become famous or notorious. All he wishes to do is protect those who do not have a voice. He has been granted that, and more, and he will make use of it.
Ulfric pushes open the front doors to High Hrothgar. His heart is hammering behind his ribs. He has never been permitted to touch these. He runs his fingers over the intricate knotwork etched into the heavy stone. The metal accents are frigid. Fire never did warm this place as much as it should. He will leave this place like a phantom leaving a grave, letting the wind howl through its hallways in his absence. The air will crash as it fills the place he had been staying, not unlike thunder after a strike of lightning.
Ulfric will have to contemplate storms another time. The doors creak on their hinges as he moves through them into the real world on the other side. The sun shines into his eyes as he crosses the threshold. There is a whisper in the wind calling him forward. His foot hovers over the snow that has drifted and packed itself into a wedge, trying and failing to force its way inside the building.
Nobody tries to stop him as he takes one step, then the next.
Too soon, High Hrothgar is far behind him and Skyrim in all her glory looms ahead. The wind is calmer here, and the sounds of rural life greet his ears. He fights the overwhelming urge to turn and look back over his shoulder. He feels something like regret, though he knows well what he must do. He is scared, he thinks. For the first time since he was a child, he feels a true fear. He shoves it deep down. Now is not the time for doubt.
He has just this one life, doesn’t he?
Why, then, is this next part so hard?