- Pablo Nergigante
- Apr 16, 2002
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[u]How Skyrim Changed My Life: A tl:dr by R.C. Dragonbourne, esq.[/b] (thats my pen name btw)
A cold winter’s gust pierced like a dagger, throwing snow into the frigid air. It danced and whirled in its small cyclone, shimmering in the moon’s light. As I watched from my window, I slowly and methodically turned over my Oblivion special edition replica Septim coin in my hand. It was an exceptionally cold night in rural Pennsylvania. The time was 3:10 AM. I had been playing Skyrim for over 16 hours straight. Taking a mead break to stretch my legs, I turned and gazed at my warm room. By the hearth, the fire roared with life as cold gales battered down the flue. Its heat and crackle were utterly intoxicating. I sat down onto my couch, luxuriating in the faux-mammothskin quilt I had draped over its leather cushions. I picked up my long wooden wizard-style pipe and packed it with some more Synthetic Kratom/Spice mix I bought from the local apothecary (headshop) known as “Homer’s Gold” and inhaled deeply. The exhaled smoke danced across the room as I felt a newfound wave of warm contentedness wash over me.
I was just about to drift off to sleep when I was suddenly awoken by a loud crash outside. I immediately rose and walked to the window to see its cause. Outside, I could faintly through the flurry of snowfall make out a shadow by my yard. Grabbing the nearest light source I could find (an old lantern I use for camping) I stepped out into the cold night air. Looking down, I spied small tracks in the snow, leading to my garden (I started homebrewing my own brand of mead with Juniper berries mixed in preparation for the Skyrim Special Edition release a few months back). It was at that point I immediately knew who the culprit was.
The neighbor who lives next door is a new-age hippie entrepreneur who has quite a successful and lucrative business making and selling homemade Kombucha, with the secret ingredient being milk of Sus Scrofa, more commonly known as the wild boar. For years he has kept a poor handle on these beasts, and they constantly were escaping their pen and wandering over to our yard. If you have any experience with wild boar you know that they are mean and dangerous animals, and none were meaner or more dangerous than “Bubba” the seven year old Alpha of the group. He was huge, even for a boar, with spotted brown fur and two massive bone-white tusks, one of which was broken from the many fights against rival boar it had endured. I harbored a particular hatred for this beast ever since it broke out into our yard two years ago and killed our dog. What happened next was the final straw that broke the Hammerfell camel’s back.
Raising my lantern I saw that my garden was in tatters. My prized Juniper berries and hops were ravaged. What hadn’t been eaten had been trampled beyond repair, and my hops were completely decimated. Adding insult to injury my Steven Universe scarecrow had been punctured and rendered in twain on the cold ground. I felt the rage of a thousand burning suns rise inside me, and right then and there I knew this was it: “Bubba’s” time had drawn nigh.
Returning to my house I assembled my leather armor pieces I had made up for last year’s comic-con, replete with my horned customized Dragonhelm. The Dragonhelm was the next evolution of my previous creation, the “Oblivion hat” which was a baseball cap repainted in Imperial style and with a small mp3 player loaded with the soundtrack to Oblivion inside that I used for hiking and getting immersed in the game. The Skyrim variant came pre-loaded with the theme of the Dovahkin on loop. I pressed play and lowered the helm onto my head. As the opening drums began to thunder, I was imbued with a renewed vigor. I looked over at my twin ceremonial hand-axes that were the centerpiece of my hearth, made by a smith recommended to me at PAX by fellow blade collector and my personal hero, Gabe Newell. I took them down from the mantle and held them in my hands. Over the years the blades had become quite dull, so I took them to my fathers shed and ran the grindstone. The Skyrim theme blasting from my Dragonhelm swelled as the sparks of the blade bounced off my Pokemon pajamas. I dropped a hair on each blades edge, which they split in twain. Pleased, I suited up and holstered them, tightening the leather straps on my armor. I looked at myself in the mirror and smiled, confident that tonight was the night that cursed beast shall finally perish.
I went outside and rigged a net trap to a tree, baited with some of the finest goon-crafted Firey Fatty Beef Jerkey money could buy, which surely no living creature could resist. My assumptions were confirmed when, after 20 minutes of silent waiting in the snow, I finally heard the trap spring and the telltale roaring squeals of a boar. I ran over to find Bubba flailing and thrashing, trapped in the netting and hanging from the tree.
“We meet again, old friend.”, I uttered with such venomous contempt that I’m sure even the animal could understand it. I drew a small dagger, ready to pierce it’s heart, when suddenly it lurched it’s head sideways unexpectedly, knocking the dagger in my hand and cleaving a large gash through my palm.
“By the nine! You filthy cur!” I spat, ripping some cloth and spooling it around my wound. Blood trickled and stained the snow at my feet. Bubba took this opportunity to attack the netting and freed himself, dropping to the ground with a thud. I cursed the beast and looked up just in time to catch it escaping. It ran about a yard away and turned to face me. It began pawing at the snow, preparing to charge. It was at that moment I knew what had to be done. I was to kill this monster in cold blood.
But first, a little backstory: I had never been keen on killing. When I was a young lad, my father took me hunting. He was the son of Norwegian immigrants, born into a poor family in Allentown, PA. When the factories closed down, my grandfather and my father had taken to surviving the winters by hunting deer and other game in the woods. My father loved to hunt. It is his favorite thing to do in this world, and he tried to pass down that passion to me. I, however, could never develop a taste for it. I found the entire affair cruel and distasteful, especially considering that in today’s day and age our family could buy our food at the local supermarket. I still remember that faithful day. It was a brisk autmn dusk, and my father and I had zeroed in on a young buck that was drawing water from a nearby stream. My father readied his compound bow and handed it to me.
“Go on, son. Take the shot. Make your father proud.”
I pulled back the arrow, feeling the resistance of the bow in my hands. I had a perfect killshot lined up, but for some reason my body would not release the arrow.
“Come on son, do it!”, my father shouted. But it was no use. My trembling arms would not let fly it’s deadly arrowed cargo. All I could think of was the poor, innocent deer who’s life I was about to take. Tears flowed down my face as I raised the bow one last time in an attempt to muster the courage, but I simply could not.
“What is wrong with you, boy? Make your father proud!”, he shouted behind me.
“I cannot papa!”, I cried. “I cannot!”
I dropped the bow and ran crying back to my father’s truck, slamming the door behind me as I picked up my Gameboy Advance, hoping Shantae would free me from my shame. An hour later my father returned, the dead buck draped around his shoulders. He placed it in the truck, and without saying a word climbed into the cab and took off.
We sat silently as we drove for miles. Finally, I broke the silence.
“Father, are you angry with me?”, I asked him. My father silently stared ahead, until finally he spoke.
“Not angry, son. Just……disappointed.”
From that day forward we drifted further and further apart. My father took less and less of an active role in my life. I could sense how deeply I had let him down, but it was simply not to be. My father is a builder and a woodsman, a man of the earth. Whereas I became a man of Logic, Reason, and Science, eschewing the harsh world of nature to the comfort and warmth of a video game and a laptop tuned to r/ScienceisFuckingAwesome. This rift continued for years until we barely spoke anymore, my father often retreating to his small hunting shack he had purchased off a few miles from our property in the woods. Many days my father and I never so much as exchanged a word, with him preferring to chop wood alone by his shack. It saddened me to know I had failed him as a son in his eyes that faithful day I accompanied him on his hunt.
I became enamored with the Elder Scrolls series, particularly Oblivion. I enjoyed the lazy and content life of an Imperial, stoned and strolling through the ardent fields of Cyrodill. When Skyrim was released, I was hesitant. Offput by it’s cold and harsh world, I never got past the first mission without quitting. I felt like a failure. Both in the world of Tamriel, and in our world to my father and his Nordic ancestors. For years, I shamefully avoided the game. That all changed, however, when Skyrim Remastered came out this year. In a matter of weeks, I was transformed from a soft milk-drinking imperial to a hardened Stormcloak, yet I still felt like I was a fraud, not a true Son of Skyrim. While playing, my mind would often drift back to the hunting incident with my father, and the shame I saw in his face all those years ago, came flooding back, as it did in this moment.
It was now sixteen years later since that faithful day in the woods. I was now a man. I was now ready to face my destiny. I gripped the handles of my hand-axes tightly. The large full moon casted a bright pall over the cold plain. The snow and wind howled furiously, to the point where all I could hear were my own heartbeat and the Skyrim theme pounding away from my Dragonhelm. Across from me, Bubba prepared to charge. At that moment, despite it all, time seemed to slow. I looked around at the near-impenetrable treeline ahead of me, and at my back the cliffs edge of a large ravine jutted out only a few feet until becoming a sheer drop. There was no escaping this. It was time.
At that exact moment, the Skyrim theme climaxed triumphantly, with the chorus loudly chanting.
”DOVAHKIIN, DOVAHKIIN, NAAL OK ZIN LOS VAHRIIN!
WAH DEIN, VOKUL, MAHFAERAAK AHST VAAL!
(Dragonborn! Dragonborn!, by his honor is sworn,
To keep evil forever at bay!)
With a demonic, shrill squeal Bubba raised tusks and charged at me with full force. I raised my hand-axes and rushed him with a primeordeal shout that came from the very depths of my being.
We finally collided, tusk and bone and steel and flesh clattering together, echoing into the frozen black night. I felt as if a train had collided with my torso as I was knocked to the ground. Undaunted, I sprung to the air just in time to block another strike from the foul beast. It’s tusk had slipped past me and jabbed deeply into my side. I let out a cry and kicked him off of me, almost falling off the cliff to the frozen tundra behind me. I regained my composure however and readed myself for yet another strike. Bubba gave me a final death charge, but this time I was ready. Anticipating his leap, I thrust the hand axe into the depths of it’s belly. Stunned, Bubba stopped in his tracks, raising it’s head to the heavens and uttering a soul-shuddering shriek that could have woken Mehrunes Dagon himself. The Skyrim theme continued to blare in my head giving me an otherworldy sense of power, the horns blaring while the chours continued their chant.
Ahrk fin norok paal graan fod nust hon zindro zaan,
Dovahkiin, fah hin kogaan mu draal!
(And the fiercest foes rout when they hear triumph's shout,
Dragonborn, for your blessing we pray!)
”HUAH! HUUH! HUAH!”
“Begone foul beast! By the Nine, I shall send you to the depths of Oblivion!” I cried, and, channeling the spirit of the Dragonborn himself, gave my best Nord shout.
“FUS…RO DAH!!!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, delivering the killing blow and driving the axe in my left hand down with a thunderous slam directly into its head, splitting the boar’s stone-thick skull into pieces while simultaneously decapitating it.
I stared silently, watching what was left of its head tumble down the ravine.
“Fare thee well, foul swine”. I said aloud, sheathing my axes. Adrenaline was now pumping through my veins, and my heart pounding like mad. I was covered in blood, both mine and the boars, along with snow and dirt. My dog had been avenged. And, Finally, I had embraced my roots, and was now a true Son of Skyrim. I ripped some more cloth and tended to my wounds, and then, hefting the boar’s considerable carcass across my shoulder, began making my way into the woods, focused on the journey that lie ahead.
An hour later, I reached my destination. My father’s hunting shack stood before me, smoke billowing dreamily out of the stone chimney atop the snow-covered roof. By this point it was dawn, and the sun had begun to rise. For a moment I was taken aback by the beauty of the light, and how similar it looked to the volumetric God lighting in Skyrim Remastered.
“Godd Howard, you drat genius.”, I said while laughing to myself. “Talos bless you.”
I saw my father in the window, fast asleep in his chair inside the cabin. With all my strength I kicked open the door, which I realized was slightly unnecessary because it was unlocked. My father awoke with a shock and looked up, not even recognizing me.
“Who- who are you? Wait a moment…” he said, and wiped his eyeglasses with his shirt and put them on.
His face turned from one of alarm to utter shock and amazement. He now realized who was standing before him. I dropped Bubba’s hefty carcass onto the coffee table with a loud thud. Even in the state it was in, my father immediately recognized the body of the beast whom he also had despised all of these years, along with my wounds and the blood on my axes.
“Father.” I said. “For you. Now you shall have enough meat for the whole winter.”
At that moment my Dragonhelm’s mp3 player Bluetooth automatically connected with the Sonos surround sound hifi system my father had installed and the final chants of the Skyrim theme played throughout the cabin. My father said nary a word, until he silently stood, tears in his eyes, and embraced me.
“You are…my son. I am...so proud of you. My son.”
Tears streamed down my face as we both knew at that moment, that the rift had finally been healed. The Skyrim theme gave its last remaining bellows as I gazed out the cabin window to the bright and snowy domain outside. A cold winter’s gust pierced like a dagger, throwing snow into the frigid air.
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Dec 6, 2016 15:46
Cat Army 
