welcome to the supermassive black hole

It isn't like Ulfric to miss lessons. From the moment he had appeared to the monks, Arngeir had never doubted his dedication, his tenacity. That was a decade ago now, but Arngeir's memory of the day is still crisp. There had been a fierce blizzard on the mountain, wind whipping about the Greybeards' robes like Kyne herself intended to whisk them away, when a bang had sounded at the front door, and then another, and then a third. Wulfgar had opened the door to find a bundle of furs on the front steps, a bundle that was a young Nord boy. When Wulfgar had stepped aside to let him in - purely on principle, because of the weather - the boy had stepped over the threshold and shaken the snow and some of the furs off himself like a dog. His eyes were clear blue, and burned with tenacity even as he shivered. His clothes were ill-fitting and likely stolen, the gloves too large. In one hand was a wolf skull, still smeared with gore, and in the other was a hatchet.

"I want to learn how to use the Voice," he had told them, pleaded with them. "Like the old heroes. Papa won't teach me, and he doesn't know anyone who will, but can you teach me, please? I really, really want to learn. I'll do whatever you say."

The skull and the axe had been proof there was violence in his blood, and the Greybeards had fed and housed the child for the night while they deliberated whether to attempt to teach him the Way. Could a child guarantee their adherence to its pacifist roots? Would the tedium be too much, the lessons too arduous? Finally Arngeir had called for Paarthurnax to break the stalemate, and the five of them had congregated in the courtyard the next morning, the boy wrapped in as many spare robes and furs as they could find.

They had waited out there for twenty minutes. The old dragon never joined them. Even still, Arngeir supposes this was inevitable. Paarthurnax has never shown himself to outsiders, not even a true child of the north like Ulfric Stormcloak, son of Hoag, the Bear of Eastmarch.

The Greybeards had seldom taken students. The strength of will required to truly understand even the basics of the Way was enormous. None had succeeded in staying on for more than a few years, and in that time none had truly understood the meaning of a Word enough to use one. But Ulfric, their kulaan, their little princeling, absorbed the philosophy of the Way with fervor.

The first Word they decided to present to him was fo.

It isn't like Ulfric to skip lessons, and Arngeir wonders if he has decided to leave the seclusion of High Hrothgar at last, with no warning. He had been quite troubled recently - homesick, he alleged. If he had left, it was not an act of frivolity on his part, and Arngeir could understand this. It was natural for a young man coming into his manhood to seek adventure, natural for his spirit to chafe at ascetic confinement. They had discussed this idea multiple times just that fortnight, and Arngeir had almost been convinced to allow Ulfric to leave and return to High Hrothgar whenever he pleased, but seclusion was essential to studying the Way. The Voice cannot be mastered without harmony between action and spirit. Ulfric had not been able to guarantee his adherence to the Way if he left High Hrothgar, and so Arngeir has not allowed him to leave.

However, neither has he tried to force Ulfric to stay.

But stay the boy has, and Arngeir is able to reacquaint himself with the feeling of relief. Ulfric is in the west wing, slumped in a chair, staring unfocused at the windowpane across from him. Snow lashes against the thick glass. There's a blizzard raging today as there was a decade ago, and Arngeir considers the poetry in this as he approaches, unnoticed.

On the side table next to Ulfric's chair is a newspaper, clearly rumpled, read over more than once and then tossed aside. The Black Horse Courier.

"Ulfric," Arngeir begins, a touch displeased.

"What?" Ulfric snaps, the word echoing around the hall, and he looks up at Arngeir. An unfamiliar kind of tenacity burns in his eyes, as clear and open as Kyne's blue sky, and his face is twisted with rage.

Ulfric knows what he's done. The disrespect is flagrant.

"Why have you disobeyed me?" Arngeir asks, pivoting, frustrated. They did not need supplies. There had been no delivery, or request sent for this newspaper. Ulfric had snuck out, in the dead of night, and gone to town to scavenge for one. Or maybe he had purchased one with the money he claimed to have given up

"I had to know. You don't understand that? It's such a torment, not knowing."

"You cannot let the troubles of the world affect you this way -- "

"Oh, can't I?" Ulfric's rage tightens over his face like a mask. "Why in Oblivion not, when the Thalmor are busy putting their boot on the Empire's neck?!" and he seizes the newspaper, flourishes it and shakes it about while he speaks and flings it back down, not interested in rehashing its contents for Arngeir's benefit. "That's the 'troubles' you insist on keeping from me? Am I not a citizen of the Empire? Should I not care about the safety of my own homeland?"

"Of course, that is the natural response -- "

"But I should be studying," Ulfric finishes, "Is that what you were going to say? I don't want to hear it."

"So you intend to leave us, and fight in the Imperial legion."

"Yes."

Arngeir sighs. "And I suppose there is nothing I can say to convince you otherwise? You've already made your mind up?"

"The Thalmor have taken Leyawiin already. Soon they will have Bravil. And after that, they mean to have Skyrim?"

"Unless you stop them?"

"I'm not a fool, Arngeir. One man cannot make all the difference. It would be enough for me to have done my part. The Thalmor intend to kill anyone who doesn't submit to mer ways, and all I am doing is fighting for those who refuse to submit."

Evgir unslaad. 'Season unending'.

"I suppose you've spent too long away from the real world to imagine that."

"Ulfric," Arngeir chides. Gently now, because he feels sympathy for the boy.

He is also terribly disappointed.

"What?"

"Promise me you will not use what I have taught - what we have taught you - on the battlefield."

Ulfric says nothing.

"Please. It would fly in the face of the Way. You know this. If you promise me that," Arngeir says, almost pleading - he can't just leave like this - "You can have your freedom here, like you asked for, come and go as you please."

"What?" Ulfric says, taken aback.

"Promise me you will adhere to the Way outside of this place."

"I cannot," Ulfric says, and he looks... not disappointed in himself, but... conflicted. Conflicted that he is not disappointed. The fire blazes in his eyes; there had been a snarl on his lips when he spoke of the Thalmor.

His conviction is heartbreaking.

"When do you intend to leave?"

"Loredas."

"All right," Arngeir says, "that should be enough time to finish your preliminaries on lok. And then you can go."

"Okay."

"Why don't you come take supper?"

It's not a question.

"Okay," and Ulfric rises from his chair, following Arngeir out of the west wing.

The crumpled Black Horse Courier is left behind, headlines playing the trumpets of war.