#idgrod

Her gaze was amused and sympathetic.

„Qhourian… Hjaalmarch may be the least important hold of Skyrim, but you don't stay Jarl for more than twenty years without some insight into local politics and without the right connections. I know exactly what I get myself into if I help you, believe me. And I’ll help you gladly, at least it’s some change to the daily grind.“ Her grin was mischievous, but then her face became serious.

„But I’d like to ask something of you in return.“

I should have known it. „What is it? Another dragon?“

She smiled warmly. Suddenly I wasn’t the Dragonborn any more. Just a… friend?

„No, no dragon. In fact, dragons aren’t that much of a problem any more, at least in my hold. A certain someone has spent quite some time here and trained with my guards, and I must confess their skills have improved a lot. Hjaalmarch has never been safer, and my boys can deal with dragons easily now. Hope you don’t mind that they steal your souls.“ She chuckled.

„No, I want something more… personal. Perhaps I shouldn’t meddle at all into these affairs, but somehow… I care for my people, and the story with Jonna and Farkas… you’ve no idea how glad I am that it turned out so good. He’s even made his peace with Falion. It’s not only that he’s useful for us, and that he’s helped Morthal a lot recently. I just like him.“

I clenched my teeth. Was it really necessary that we talked about this? Of course she sensed my retraction, my resistance, but she didn’t let go.

„I don’t know what happened, and I don’t know what you’ve done during the last months. It’s not my business.“ My frown grew deeper, but her gesture stopped my reply. „But I know that you’ve been missing for quite some time during the winter, long enough to convince a lot of people that you’re long dead. Even if that was your intention, Farkas is not among them. He lost so much recently, but he still believes that you live, and he won’t lose this one hope until he sees your corpse with his own eyes. Please, Qhourian… I won’t tell him where you are or what we've spoken about, but at least let me tell him that you’re alive and well. Just this knowledge would take a load of grief from him.“

I buried my face in my hands, lost for words. There was this cut in my life, and nothing before it mattered any more. Breaking away, forgetting, repressing the memories, it had empowered me to survive. My way of dealing with things. It seemed that I had to live my life in small portions, short periods of stability until everything broke apart once more and I had to start anew. But somewhere deep inside of me I always knew that my refusal to face up to the events which led to this cut would start to haunt me, sooner or later. It was inevitable. That moment had come, it seemed.

I didn’t want to know what Idgrod meant when she said that he’d lost so much. I didn't want to deal with him or the other Companions and even less deal with the memories of our time together. But I had to confront the fact that my act of simple self-preservation had caused pain. It was the last I thought of back then, after the death of the child, after... Vilkas. By cutting myself away from the pain and the world, I had also completely locked out everybody else.

Until this moment I never realised in that clarity that what I did had an impact on others, the same way the actions of others had such a fatal impact on me. That I had the power to cause pain… or grief, or joy. That my actions did matter, and that it’s impossible to outrun this responsibility.