#lilmothiit

The Lilmothiit Dragonborn tilted his head, tail lashing. “Do you understand what you’re talking about? Or is there any form of justice you understand that isn’t execution?”

Esbern scowled. “Justice demands that this dragon die for his crimes. My oath as a Blade demands it.”

“Well, now,” Matherion replied, air hissing through his muzzle. “Let’s talk about that, shall we?”

He pointed. “Your oath as a Blade demands the death of one who was responsible for such crimes in a time of war – regardless that it was a war. Would you say that’s correct?”

“Of course,” Esbern agreed. “I would have thought that that was clear and obvious.”

Matherion nodded. “And then – there is that Paarthurnax, separately, was the one who first taught mortals the Thu’um. The leaders of the rebellion against Alduin were his pupils, and without his actions then Alduin would have been impossible to defeat. If it is a good thing to defeat dragons who wish to rule mortals, then Paarthurnax is the root of all of that.”

“Irrelevant,” Esbern replied, with a shrug. “Good actions cannot erase past crimes.”

“I see,” Matherion said. “So… you do remember that the Blades are responsible for the Great War, correct?”

Esbern blinked.

“...what?” he asked. “You blame us for the crimes of the Thalmor?”

“A book in your hideout declares that the Blades acted inside Dominion territory prior to the war,” Matherion countered. “That they could do what the Penitus Ocultus could not, and that the Thalmor were not fools, and knew early on that the Blades were an enemy. They presented the heads of Blades agents found inside Dominion territory to the Emperor as part of the declaration of war.”

His tail lashed, then he trembled slightly and got it under control. “Esbern – did you commit any crimes in the Great War?”

“You compare me to this dragon Paarthurnax?” Esbern demanded. “My crimes are nothing like his!”

“So how long should you be exiled for?” Matherion replied. “Esbern, Paarthurnax has been in self-imposed, peaceful exile for around four and a half thousand years. When Alduin’s Wall was constructed, he had been a pacifist three thousand years.”

“How can you be so sure?” Esbern asked. “You have been taken in by the lies of that dragon.”

Matherion shook his head, and his eyes danced with fire.

“Don’t you understand?” he asked. “You know I am the Dragonborn because of the death of Mirmulnir. I absorbed his soul – and his knowledge. I took in his memories and all that he was.”

The foxkin sighed. “It is… something that I regret, but I accept that it was necessary. Alduin’s return had too strong a hold on Mirmulnir, and drew him down to once more fight for the one who he so adored. And Mirmulnir is not the only dragon who must be stopped… but not all dragons must be stopped. It is the fact that they fight for Alduin which causes that.”

“So that is it, then?” Esbern asked. “You will not act to fulfil the oaths of the many Blades who went before?”

“If the oaths of the Blades required the death of dragons, then they were singularly bad at it,” Matherion muttered. “Mirmulnir and Paarthurnax were friends, Esbern. Friends for longer than the Empire has existed. I know him as well as I could know anyone… and I know far better than the garbled tales of Alduin’s Wall.”

Esbern shook his head.

“If you are so blind as to believe the thoughts of a dragon over Alduin’s Wall…”

“Esbern, think!” Matherion pleaded. “Alduin’s Wall was constructed three thousand years after the Dragon War! My people vanished less than one thousand years ago, and so much of what people say about them is nonsense – that we have many tails, that we have many forms each like all the moon-forms of a Khajit at once… no. I trust dragon’s memories over the garbled recollections written down more than half of the way between the Dragon War and now.”

He fixed Esbern with a glare. “I think there is still good the Blades can do, Esbern. But if this is something that you and Delphine think is something I must do, that you must insist and that five thousand years of exile is insufficient punishment… then we must part ways.”

Esbern said nothing, and Matherion turned to leave.

At the door, he paused, and looked back.

“It’s a shame that the last of the Blades turned out to be the least of them.”

“Do you want me to kill you, foxkin?” Esbern demanded, surging to his feet.

“You swore an oath,” Matherion replied, forcefully. “The Blades are meant to work for me, as I am the last Dragonborn… and no other Dragonborn, nor any leader of the Blades, for the last several thousand years has considered Paarthurnax’s crimes to be irredeemable. Are you an honourable man, Esbern, or do you want to clutch at the scraps of justification you can find, so that you can tell yourself that your life was not wasted? That your beloved order did not waste itself provoking a war and get itself all but destroyed, partly at your behest, mere years before Alduin’s return that was their reason for existence for forty-five centuries?”

Esbern looked like he was poised barely short of killing violence, and Matherion’s claws dug into the frame of the door.

Then he sighed, and let the tension leave his furred shoulders.