Work Text:
The sun is dying at the edge of the horizon.
It bleeds, as it has done hundreds of times before: crimson-copper, golden-silent, far, far away, to the very borders of the sky. It flows down somewhere, either on the ground or into the twilight gray that deepens every second. To be reborn again in the morning. As it should be. As it always does.
Except today.
It's hard for Nahkriin to believe that it will fade away tonight. He has read too many sacred texts – and written some himself – to believe that the end of the world will be so simple. First, there would be years of despair, disease, and famine until the earth was a barren wasteland. Like homeless ghosts, the few survivors would wander around, too angry or too wretched to die. Children would pass away before they could speak their first word, and their mothers would clutch them to their chests, praying that someone or something would finally put an end to this misery.
Then, from the torn wound in the sky, a shadow would emerge, stretching out to the four corners of the world. Extinguishing the stars. Shaking off the dust of obsolete kalpas from its wings. And sinking its teeth into this one.
Rays would flow from its jaws like nectar.
Nahkriin is not afraid of such an end because, as a healer, he knows the price of life and the price of death. Sometimes, it is welcome because only the end can stop suffering. As a priest, however, he must fight the fears of those who have not yet accepted this truth. Celebrating the winter solstice, for example.
Skuldafn is preparing for it on a grand scale. Holly and ivy branches curl over each door, mistletoe garlands hang above them, and here and there, out of the corner of his eye, Nahkriin notices young silhouettes standing behind them. The smell of spices and wine wafts through the corridors all day long for the travelers who arrive here. Closed and hidden, today the temple still welcomes all devotees who are ready to walk through the wild mountains to meet the dawn or eternity in the house of the World Eater.
Along with new people come legends, funny and silly, scary and the kind that will freeze the children’s hearts on long winter evenings. So, when the darkness knocks on the windows with either clawed fingers or spruce branches, hundreds of candles chase away shadows from all quarters. The only ones burning brighter are the undying fires in the stone bowls: on the first of the thirteen days preceding the Solstice, he lit them himself with his magic and blood — a drop, of course, but an important one, like every sacrifice to the gods. In front of them, he swore to protect those gathered under this roof for all thirteen long nights and even longer if the sun would rise afterward.
Oh, it's his job to guarantee that, too. For many, many years now.
And he started long before the Solstice.
Nahkriin recalls the moment he came to Skuldafn: yesterday's priest from a remote temple, the day before yesterday's apprentice, and once a slave, he did not know why he was chosen among the worthy. Although he was pleased, the embarrassment didn't disappear, and when he finally decided to ask, Alduin didn't give any clear answer, too. “I'm curious,” his god said, then looked into the frosty distance again. There, under the cover of snow, spring was hatching.
He didn't understand even in the summer a few years later when the temple garden bloomed wildly for the first time. His master rarely spoke to him, preferring to fly, and yet, that day, he came down. Asked him why he cared about something that would wither away so quickly, and Nahkriin did not know what to say when his god asked such a strange question. The only possible answer was honesty. Some things are valuable precisely because their lifespan is short, so they should be enjoyed to the fullest.
It must take a decade for them to have sat at the crossroads between golden and rainy autumn, peacefully inhaling the scent of the rotten leaves. Nahkriin loved this time of year for its gentle, no longer scorching rays and the steam already rising into the air from his breath. Once, on a day very similar to this, he almost made his last one willingly. Alduin saw it when he touched his soul before making his choice in Bromjuunar. Alduin wanted to know why he was ready to die then but now smiled.
Nahkriin remembered all the endless philosophical works in the library of Skuldafn and some from the other great temples. Scrolls from elves who could have lived for centuries and searched for a special meaning. The Word walls where dragons left memories of their eternity. None of them fit.
It was simply that life, no matter how short, was worth the pain.
The one to endure and the one to cause.
Old Hjalti finds it hard to walk in this world because another one has been calling him for a long time. He used to be a warrior and a good one, as he remained until the end. When a wake-up bear appeared in the mountains at the end of winter and turned several travelers into bloody pieces, he took his bow and went hunting without telling anyone.
He killed the beast but did not die as he wanted: Nahkriin, no matter how much experience he had, could not distinguish where and whose meat was on the snow for a few long moments. He stitched Hjalti the best he could, and yet, when the old man came to him in pain eleven months later to ask for a special honor, he did not refuse.
Just asked if he wanted a bit of herb in his festive glass to calm his nerves.
Hjalti shook his head. He, too, knew the value of death and life.
And how carefully Nakriin sharpens his knives to separate them with one blow.
The blood from the slash does not flow down his palms: Nahkriin is too good at healing to be bad at killing, so he has to bring his point and ring fingers closer to the wound to gather it. Brush the blade of the ritual dagger and wait a few seconds until the silent, bowed crowd behind him holds its breath in anticipation of the most important moment in this frosty night.
Then, he raises his gaze to the incarnate end of the world, who has given a drop of his eternity today just to satisfy his curiosity.
Alduin's scorching red eyes stare into the slits of the mask with a mute question. The only one he does not know the answer to because he does not know death.
Nahkriin reaches out to touch his god.
"Yes," he answers simply, "one more year."
Somewhere beyond the mountains, right along the bloody line, dawn cuts through the veil of darkness.