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Later, Dalamus won't remember most of what happened that morning at Helgen. He won't remember exactly how he and Ralof managed to make their way out of the ruins of the keep under Alduin’s nose, or the tense undertones of the conversation with the Nord soldier's sister; those details will soon be lost in the the terror-scorched blank that his mind creates to protect itself from it all.
The first thing that’ll really stick is how pissed it makes him that Irileth draws her sword on him in the Jarl's palace.
As if he still doesn't reek of smoke - he hasn't even rested since the horror at Helgen, he came straight to Whiterun from Riverwood. This body is the body that ran from the dragon, this cheek rested on the headsman's block. There is blood and soot on him in equal measure. This blue armor is an uncomfortable fit, because it isn't his. He is a refugee, not an insurgent trying to sneak into the country, and certainly not an assassin come to murder the Jarl in broad daylight. Surely the guards sent a message ahead when they opened the gates for him because he said, with his mouth, that a dragon had attacked? He certainly hadn’t run up the steps to get here.
“I don’t care if he’s taking visitors,” he snarls, throwing an arm out in the direction of the still-smoldering ruin across the hills. “Helgen was destroyed by a dragon!”
Dalamus gives his report to the Jarl and his gathered attendants - that Helgen was destroyed, and Riverwood calls for aid. He isn’t shy about very nearly being executed by the Imperials, but before he can launch into a side tirade over being snatched at Cyrodiil's border, Balgruuf waves a dismissive hand and steers the conversation back to the attack.
The second thing that he’ll remember of that day is the casual way he is volunteered for the wizard's phase of this dragon-slaying effort.
“Sera, I’m just a hunter,” because this is escalating quickly and he needs to bring these Nords’ expectations back down to reality. “I’ve got no horse and a borrowed bow. I’m lucky to have made it out of Helgen at all, let alone unharmed. I just want to go home.”
Farengar frowns at him, and leans in close to the Jarl’s ear. It’s an entirely unnecessary gesture; he puts no effort into lowering his voice. “It won’t do to send someone untrained after the Dragonstone. I’m sure we can find me a more capable assistant.”
Dalamus holds his fraying patience together with both hands. Balgruuf is nodding.
“Thank you for bringing us this valuable information. You can rest assured that we will send guards to protect Riverwood,” it's a clear dismissal, complete with a solemn nod.
“You say you want to go home. If your plan is to return to Morrowind,” he adds, and Dal simply doesn't have the energy to correct him, “you’ll be hard-pressed to do so with no coin or belongings. I invite you to rest in the city while you get your bearings, and take up some small jobs. The inhabitants of my city will certainly offer payment to one willing to lend his aid.”
Which is how Dal finds himself standing on the other side of Dragonsreach’s door, feeling small under the darkening sky. He's still penniless and unmoored, but he's got his freedom, at least, and an armful of leather worth more to him in coin than as armor. There was a blacksmith’s shop just inside the front gate - hopefully he can exchange the armor for septims or supplies there before they close up for the night.
The descent back through Whiterun gives the tightly-coiled spring in him time to unwind. His walk past homes and shops, around groups of gossiping elders and playing children, reminds him that this is a city like any other. What it certainly isn't is an undersized Imperial outpost; if the dragon circles back to come here, it'll be met with the full force of the city guard. There are enough men for Balgruuf's second to spare some for Riverwood, so he's done his duty. All the urgency and adrenaline finally relents enough for him to recognize the wiry form standing outside the front-gate blacksmith's shop as the woman from the fight with the giant outside the walls.
“You were headed here in a hurry,” she says, as if that's any kind of introduction. Perhaps she doesn't need one; his priority may have been getting to Dragonsreach with his message, but it's hard to forget a creature three times the size of a man trying to stomp her and her companions into the soil. “Leaving just as soon as you've arrived?”
“What's it to you?” This has been the longest day of his life, and he's aching for rest. Idle chatter can come after he's turned the Jarl's gifted armor into enough coin for a bed and a meal.
“You put three arrows in that giant without hesitation. An archer with aim like that from as far off as you were is either someone to celebrate, or a concern,” and the woman looks him directly in the eye. “Are you someone I need to be concerned about?”
For a heartbeat, Dal is gripped by pure animal terror. This woman whose name he doesn't remember isn't even his height, and her body language hasn't shifted from its casual lean against the wall of the blacksmith’s shop, but meeting her gaze feels like locking eyes with something wild and dangerous. Fortunately for him, the sensation is old news after the events of the morning, and it passes just as soon as it arrives. In its wake he's just more irritated, and he doesn’t try to keep himself from snarling when he answers, “If everyone in this country is so fucking concerned about me, the least you could do is let me leave in peace.”
A smile isn't the response he's expecting at all. It isn't even mockery, just a baring of teeth that crinkles the skin at the corners of her eyes. “That's a shame. I think we could use someone like you around here.”
And, while he is irritated, and exhausted, Dal is also penniless and unmoored. If talking to this woman with the feral gaze saves him time looking for work, so be it. “What's that supposed to mean?”
“It means there's something ferocious in you, and if it isn't out to kill me, I'd invite it to fight by my side,” her smile brightens, if anything, at his reluctant interest. “Have you heard of the Companions?”
“Can't say I have.”
A nod. “I assumed so. I would've said something earlier, but you were in a rush. You shared in our victory today - come to Jorrvaskr with me, share in our feast and hear our stories. And tomorrow, we can decide if you're a Shield-Brother or not.”
Dal tries to consider it for longer than a moment, but it’s really as good a plan as any. Maybe he’ll even get a bed for the night out of it. As an answer, he extends an open hand to her. “I'm Dalamus.”
“Aela,” says Aela, and gives his forearm a firm shake. When Dal goes to let go, she holds on, moving his arm to and fro to get a good look at his armor. “You should get rid of this, and keep what you're holding. It doesn't suit you.”
Dalamus sucks in a sharp breath. A hot shard of rage slices into his psyche, burying deep as any arrow. “I'm selling it. I won't wear Imperial armor.”
“Then get something better, just get out of this hideous mail. And do that here - Eorlund will beat us both if I bring you to Jorrvaskr wearing that.”
With that, Aela finally releases him to enter Warmaiden's. Ulfberth and Adrianne greet him warmly and are happy to give him new armor in exchange for his two unwanted sets. It's hide and leather, studded with bits of metal, easy to get on and off but still sturdy enough in a fight. It's also good enough for Jorrvaskr, or so Aela says. She explains the Companions to him as they make their way through the city, brothers and sisters fighting for fame and honor, former soldiers and sellswords aligned in purpose. Dal doesn't have the energy to concern himself with whether this is a good idea or not - it’s certainly better than the manual labor he'd probably end up doing otherwise.
The warriors he recognizes raise their mugs to him when they enter the longship-turned-mead-hall, and most of the others raise them to echo the cheer, regardless of whether they’ve seen him before. One woman and a pair of dour-faced Nords toward the far corner give him separate disapproving looks, but Dal doesn’t make it to registering the emotions behind that before one of the others claps a heavy hand on his back.
“I told you we’d see him again,” says a bear of a man with a massive sword sheathed over his back, his tone encouraging.
The next Nord, seated and balding and missing one eye, is distinctly lacking the tone when he asks, “When did you see him the first time?”
“This is Dalamus,” Aela explains, “He's the one who came across us at Pelagia Farm this afternoon. I think he could be fearsome.”
Dal's never considered himself particularly intimidating, but the support is strangely motivating. This room full of warriors is giving him the opportunity to be peers, isn't that better than anything he could’ve had in Cyrodiil? He smiles a little smile, stands up a little straighter, and echoes, “Could be.”
“Okay, calm down,” the one-eyed one lifts a hand, all but rolling his eyes. “She told me that you took off running as soon as you could tell the giant was down. How fearsome will you be if you can't stomach the sight of caught prey?”
“I wasn't running away from the giant. I was running to meet the Jarl,” Dal explains at the beginning of a long story.
Later, he won't remember most of what happened at Helgen. Tonight, he remembers every minute. He tells the tale of his worst evening and his worst morning, of fleeing soot-stained and blood-flecked across Skyrim's southernmost hold to ensure what happened to one town doesn't happen to another. By the end of it, he’s seated with the Companions of Jorrvaskr around him, strung up on his every word. The others follow with stories of their own worst days and hardest battles, and while Dalamus doesn't have nearly as many to tell, it's made plain that he'll have the chance to create some in their company.
...
The next morning, Dal doesn't wake up. He is assaulted by consciousness.
Everything hurts, down to his bones. Beyond the bones, even; there's an ache in the meat of his brain, leaking out into his eyes with each beat of his heart. Everything he did yesterday was a mistake, every single thing.
There's a sensation in his throat that can only be described as a threat, and he clenches his teeth together. He will not throw up. He refuses.
Fresh air. Soon, preferably.
Dal lurches out of the bed he'd fallen into in Jorrvaskr's lower level, wobbles unsteadily for a moment, then begins his shuffle toward the stairs. Torvald and Ria are face-down in their respective beds; they're both snoring so loudly, it's a wonder Dal is the only one awake. He picks his way up the stone steps to the main hall, falling through the door more than pushing it open, and is scrubbing the joint of his thumb into his eye when a hand claps heavily between his shoulder blades.
“Good morning,” Farkas says cheerfully, and so, so loudly. Dal presses a hand to his forehead as his skull rings like a bell. “Ha, glad to see you survived the night. Maybe you'll make it around here after all.”
“If I don't die before noon,” he mutters back, and toddles his way out the back door of the hall.
The breeze outside is delightful. It's cool on his face and in his lungs, and his stomach finally settles now that he's out of the stifling indoor air. The pain in his forehead bleeds away. Still squinting a bit in the morning sunlight, he makes his way out across the training grounds to a watchtower jutting out of the wall. Farmland extends for a few miles to the east, until a river juts across the land at the foot of the tallest mountain Dalamus has ever seen. It'd been in the background on his way from Riverwood, but he has to crane his neck back now, looking directly at it. The peak disappears behind clusters of clouds high in the sky.
“Hey, whelp.”
The call comes from across the courtyard; he turns around to face Vilkas, who's brandishing a sword at him. “What is this?”
“Are you joining the Companions or not? Come show me what you're made of.”
Dal swallows the alarm he feels at being challenged to prove himself already. What did he think would happen? “With what? All I see is real steel around here.”
The Nord laughs. “I'll find a wooden sword when I start to worry that you'll hit me.”
That rankles just enough to spur Dal to action. He finds the nearest blade and lifts it from its holder, then tosses its sheath over towards the tables outside of Jorrvaskr. It lands under a bench with a clatter. “I'm much better with a bow.”
“I'm sure you are. So is Aela. But she's strong with a dagger, too - you're welcome to try that instead.”
“No, this is fine.” Dalamus rolls his wrist, gives the sword a half-hearted experimental swing, and falls into stance. He hasn't done this since he was a boy; hopefully he remembers enough of it.
Breathe in, breathe out, he lunges. His strike is easily parried, as is the next. And the next. And the next. Each swing of his sword ends in the sharp ring of blades sliding edge-to-edge. Dal’s headache is back, he’s breathing heavier than he likes, and a few white strands have begun to fall into his eyes. Ralof took point whenever there was a fight under Helgen, leaving him free to shoot from a distance, but clearly that won't work here. He never liked fighting up close like this, death within arm's reach, but he looked death directly in the eyes yesterday. It's time for that to change.
Dal raises his arm and, with a shout, swings his blade down against Vilkas' hard enough to send the Companion stumbling back a few steps.
Panting, grinning, Vilkas lowers his sword. “Looks like I aught to go looking for some wood.”
The bones of his arm still singing with sensation, Dal grins back.
Between Vilkas’ and Aela's approval, getting the Harbinger to actually allow Dalamus to join the Companions almost feels like a formality. Kodlak gives him a gruff once-over, then extends an arm and a warm welcome. “I look forward to the tales you'll write in our company.”
Dal's training starts that very day, and continues as the other Companions are available between their assignments. Mornings are strength and stamina training with Vilkas or Farkas, and afternoons are spent working on blades with Athis. Aela shoots with him most evenings, helping him to tighten his aim and sharpen his vision, but there's a point every night at which he can't keep up with her on the strength of the moonlight alone. She always scoffs and manages some magnificent shot that puts him to shame, then works him on it for another hour.
After a few weeks, Whiterun feels less new. The streets and faces are familiar, and he's developed a routine - train, eat, fall into bed, get up and do it all over again. Dal’s quickly growing stronger and faster than ever, and aside from the change in location, the dragon starts to feel more like a dream than the horror that he survived. The guards have even seen him in the company of the Companions, so when he's sent to beat some respect into a mouthy bard out behind the Bannered Mare, no one gives him grief about it. He returns to Jorrvaskr that evening with what he thinks is an accurate understanding of what a Companion's career is like.
Then some scholar locates a fragment of Wuuthrad in Whiterun Hold.
Around the fire during meals, Dal had been told stories of the others putting down draugr, but he'd grossly underestimated the experience of the dead crawling from their coffins to attack him. He hesitates for a panicked breath, but Farkas just pulls the greatsword from his back like this happens to him all the time. Dalamus falls back to draw his bow and decides that it doesn't matter that the dead can walk if he can kill them again.
Then he accidentally traps himself behind a gate and Farkas turns into a beast, a wolf-man eight feet tall, to kill five Silver Hand warriors in quick succession. Dal pretends to accept the werewolf's extremely casual explanation, but his brow furrows in thought as they proceed. That explains Aela's eyes, and the scrap of conversation he overheard between Vilkas and Kodlak. He's only been in Whiterun for a handful of weeks, but if he stays for months or years, will he eventually find himself in the Circle? Aela'd said she saw something ferocious in him - how ferocious could he get?
Deep underground, at the bottom of the structure, the pair of them open a door into a cavernous hall. Upright tombs line the walls. The fragment lies in the center of the space on a table, but Dal walks right past it, even as he consciously keeps his steps light and quiet - there is chanting coming from the far wall. “Do you hear that?”
“What?” To Farkas, his voice cuts clear and loud across the still, empty space. “I don't hear anything.”
“How?” With every step, the voices get louder and louder, until Dal is standing under the curved, marked wall behind the table and his ears are full of shouting. He doesn't know what tongue the markings are written in, but it looks like language–
Dalamus’ hand touches the stone, and the dissonant, cryptic chanting sharpens into dozens of voices calling out as one united sound.
“This stone commemorates the child king Jafnhar,” booms in Dal's ears. The sound doesn't echo at all, even with the room's ample empty space. “Who was burned alive by the fire of the great dragon Lodunost.”
At the word fire, Dalamus’ mouth burns. Heat blooms on his tongue and up his sinuses, down his throat and into his chest like taking an overzealous draw from a pipe. He feels like he could spit flame, set the entire cavern ablaze with his breath, dig his claws into the earth and roar his name as a challenge into the sky–
“Hello?!”
Dal comes back to himself and the chamber is full of draugr, with Farkas keeping them out of reach with timely swings of his giant sword. Still, the undead are pressing him up against Dal's back in the center of this curved section of wall. With a swift curse the Dunmer draws his own blade and jumps into the fray alongside his Shield-Brother.
Only once they emerge successfully from the trial of the deepest chamber and are on their way back up with the fragment does Farkas ask, “Wanna tell me what that was back there?”
“I don't know,” Dal answers, entirely honestly. “Some magic on the wall?”
Dalamus is made a full member of the Companions under a sky awash in green light. When he finally staggers to bed that night, he dreams that he is the dragon above Helgen, gripping stone towers in his talons and roaring flame down upon the fleeing men below.
…
He feels like shit the next morning. Not hung over, just weary down to his bones. Athis is at the landing above the stairs, eyes cast up at the bits of broken blade mounted on the wall, but his gaze swings down to regard Dalamus on his way up.
“Good morning, Companion,” the Ashlander smiles at him, and ribs him with an elbow.
“Companion,” even in the aftermath of that strange not-quite-nightmare, Dal can’t resist a little smile back.
Athis is back to looking up at the wall. “So, Wuuthrad, hm?”
“The one and only.”
“Did Farkas tell you about it?”
Dalamus looks at Athis, who doesn’t turn to meet his eye. He looks back at the negative space outlined by the mounts in the shape of the axe. “It’s Ysgramor’s weapon,” he says, then lowers his voice to affect Farkas’ tone. “‘He came from the homeland and killed all the elves.’”
An incredulous snort spurts out of the elder Dunmer. “It’s a wonder they let us in the doors.”
“Why are you here?” Dal asks, then quickly adds some more words. “Sorry, I’ve been meaning to ask, but I couldn’t work out how. I didn’t have anywhere else to go, so when Aela brought me here, I figured I might as well stay. But what’s your story?”
“Not all that different, really. I crawled west out of the ash and ended up here.” He crosses his arms and shrugs. “Glory and honor matter as much to me as any Nord. Anyone who has an issue with my being here can take it up with my blade.”
“Hear, hear,” because that outlook makes enough sense for Dalamus to steal it for himself and think about it no longer.
“To that end, there is a contract. I was going to take it, but I thought to leave it to you as a gift, if you want it.”
Which is how he ends up clearing the living dead out of a crypt just outside of Falkreath. It'd given him pause, facing the experience of Dustman's Cairn over again with no backup, but the sword he'd lifted from one of the dead Silver Hand makes light work of the ghosts that wander the halls. He puts down the undead magician at the top of the structure built into the mountain, grabs its staff to return to the client as proof of a job well done, and heads back out into the night.
The rain had let up while he was inside, leaving him with a green-streaked sky bright enough to travel under without a torch. Falkreath’s sleepy, empty reputation is only supported by the fact that the inn closest to the gate has room for him when he arrives in the middle of the night.
It’s not too late, because there are others inside, scattered about on the seats around the fire. Dal buys himself a bowl of stew and an ale and settles in a corner with his back to the wall, propping the staff up to his right. He’s not quite tired enough to sleep yet, and after all that time alone with ghosts, it’s nice to rest his eyes on living, breathing people.
“I'm not going to ask that,” comes to him in a whisper. Dalamus takes a sip from his flagon, and a discreet glance over the rim reveals the speaker as a man seated at the next table over with his wife.
“Look at that staff!” the wife argues, her quiet tone slipping a bit. She corrals her volume to go on. “Surely he has something he can spare.”
The husband looks horrified at the very idea. “Svana, we are not so destitute that we need to beg alms from elves–”
Before he allows himself to become the subject of a marital dispute, Dal clears his throat. “Is there something I can help you folks with?”
All the affront goes out of the Nord at once. “I apologize for my wife, friend, she spoke out of turn.”
“No, she's a smart woman,” and he gives her a nod, then gestures at the staff over his shoulder. “That isn’t mine - I can't do magic. It's proof that I sent the dead of Halldir’s Cairn back to their coffins. The Companions were asked to take care of the problem.”
“Ah, I see,” the Nord’s sheepish, uncomfortable expression could sustain Dal for weeks. He clears his throat and nods a little nod. “Thank you for coming to the defense of Falkreath, Companion. Let us leave you to your meal.”
“However,” Dal continues, as if he hadn't spoken, “Your wife is right. I do have coin I can spare. What’s happened to you?”
Joining the Companions has paid better than any job he's had, and he isn't much of a spender. Most of it goes to the butcher or the bar. If teaching this beggar to be a bit less uppity about elves costs him a few drakes, so be it. He lifts his brows, imploring, and takes a sip of broth that warms his body on its way down.
The man looks around at the other patrons to make sure no one else is listening, fear lancing across his expression. Dal doesn’t bother following his gaze. Then the Nord leans in close, making fretful eye contact with him, and whispers like the words could summon it up just by being said - “There is a dragon flying these skies, Companion.”
Dalamus goes absolutely still. The warmth seeping down his throat turns molten. He takes a breath, but the air burns on its way in, scratches at his lungs like smoke, and he's only able to rasp out, “Where? When?”
“Weeks ago, now, about a month. It came from the north. Crushed our fields under its weight, gobbled up all our goats,” the man shakes his head, his wife looking distraught beside him. Then he seems to remember who he’s talking to, and his expression firms up. “I will find work. We’ll not go penniless.”
Dal can feel his heartbeat at the surface of his skin. “I was at Helgen,” he gets out, setting the bowl down on the table before he drops it. He doesn't quite manage - broth splashes out onto the table. “You need to go to Whiterun. There isn’t even a wall here.”
“That’s too far. There will be work here in Falkreath, eventually. What about our land?”
But he’s already shaking his head. The sound of the fire in the hearth is too loud. “This is hardly a city. It’s a village surrounded by trees.”
The wife speaks without looking up. Her voice is barely above a whisper. “Dragons can fly above walls.”
Dalamus had been looking up at the tower when the dragon landed on it. He’d settled his cheek in fresh, hot blood, eyes cast up at the sky, when it appeared. There were walls at Helgen. The walls hadn’t helped.
Before it’s even an active decision, Dal reaches into his coinpurse, shoves an unspecified half-handful of septims into the hands of the farmer, and marches out of the inn. He has to be away from here. He’s going outside.
The wind is blessedly fresh outdoors and he walks the town, gulping down huge lungfuls. It’s been a bit more than a month since Helgen… he wonders if the Jarl found his man to do the wizard’s work. Why didn’t Balgruuf give the Companions the assignment? Maybe it’s something only the magicians can handle - there’s no telling what Farengar would demand of them. Whatever the task is, the dragon needs to be dealt with, they can’t just let it run free. Even if that Nord couple’s worst day was the same as his own, it must have gone somewhere.
When he returns to the inn, his bowl of stew has been topped off and the Nord couple have disappeared from their seat beside his things. He finishes the food and the ale and heads to bed, but sleep doesn’t come; he stares uneasily at the ceiling until the fire in the main hall dies out, then he blinks and morning light is sneaking in through gaps in the roof.
Dalamus doesn't see the couple again before he leaves town in the morning. He grabs his pack and the staff and takes off up the road back to Whiterun, on foot since there are no carriages available for hire today. Lunch is a stop in Riverwood, brief enough that he manages to pop in and out without catching a glimpse of Ralof’s sister at the mill. He does see a few of the guards on temporary duty from Whiterun, and gives a nod to one gold-cloak’s faceless helm on his way north.
Those guards remain on Dal’s mind for the remainder of his journey. He and the farmer and his wife are not the only people whose lives were upended by the dragon. There are some who fared much worse - most of the others at Helgen were dead or near it by the time he set eyes on them, and he hasn’t heard of any other refugees reaching Riften - but these men who weren’t even there are being sent to keep an eye on Riverwood, with no expectation of when they’re allowed to go home. His responsibility began and ended at bringing the news to Whiterun, but will anyone ensure that Balgruuf is doing anything about it?
Dalamus mulls this over on his way into the city, past the shops and inns, beyond Jorrvaskr and right on up the stairs to Dragonsreach, until the massive door is opening before him and the guards each welcome him with a quiet, “Hail, Companion.”
Before him, Balgruuf and his company are making use of the massive feasting table curled around the hall's grand hearth. Irileth, as he has come to understand is his decidedly unfriendly kinswoman's name, springs to her feet. “You, again? You cannot just–”
“Not right now,” Dal doesn't even look at her. He keeps his eyes fixed on the Jarl in the center of the table, who calmly lowers his utensils to its surface.
“Residents of the city and the Hold are welcome to meet with me,” Balgruuf says, partially in response to his housecarl, but he keeps his gaze even with his unexpected guest’s. “But they usually do me the courtesy of scheduling their arrival. Is there something I can do for you?”
“A pair of farmers in Falkreath had their lands destroyed by dragon attack, shortly after Helgen,” he grips the staff tight, shoving away thoughts of fire and blood. “I came to ask after your wizard’s quest. Did you find what you were looking for?”
Balgruuf frowns. “When you last visited Dragonsreach, you told me you didn’t want to be involved further.”
“I still don’t. I’ve come to ask about your progress on behalf of the people I met.”
“Who are you to come here demanding answers, then?” Farengar snaps. He’s seated to Dal’s left, beside a pair of snickering children. “You were offered the opportunity to be privy to that information, but you’re ‘only a hunter’, so you said.”
“Farengar,” Balgruuf chides, before Dalamus can do more than raise an eyebrow.
The wizard relents, raising both hands, but looks no less sour in the face.
That handled, Balgruuf continues. “Now, is Falkreath’s Jarl aware of his unsheltered citizens?”
The thought hadn’t even occurred to him; he shrugs. “I can only assume the farmer reported their circumstances to the Jarl himself.”
“Understood. I can do nothing for people in a city in another Jarl’s Hold, and Farengar is right - you declined our invitation to become involved in the dragon investigation, and so you have no particular privilege to information on its progress. Did you tell this farmer that you would be able to give them assistance or information on my behalf?”
The refusal stings, but Dal keeps his expression and tone even as he replies, “No, I just came to ask. This is important.”
“I agree,” the Jarl says, and lifts his utensils - a clear dismissal, “It’s just also none of your concern.”
And so Dalamus finds himself outside of Dragonsreach yet again. The sky is still bright this time, and he’s neither penniless nor unmoored, with the beginnings of a home in the Companions. He can see the shape of a future forming in front of him - what does it matter if he’s not personally involved in addressing the dragon problem?