People milled about obediently at the dragon's call, until the last moments of their lives, when they ran. Some were fast enough, or more fortunate, or did not look very interesting.
The sky was very dark now, although it was still before sunset.
But the Imperial Legionnaires and Battlemages still obeyed General Tullius, who had not run.
He was furious that his plans for the afternoon had been forcibly changed by a zoological impossibility. He was trying to devise a strategy to make dragons extinct in the next few minutes.
The dragon happily circled the flaming ruins it had just made.
It might have appeared deliberate, but the dragon was also mildly bewildered.
Dragons are proud creatures and do not like being mildly bewildered.
With little warning, for no living person in the outpost could anticipate the behaviour of such a thing, the dragon dropped into the courtyard and began to creep laboriously through the smoke in the streets, looking for something interesting.
It peered over a wall into the shell of a large house, but everything it found was dead.
The dragon blew fire into the ruins anyway, in case anything began running away.
Second Archivist Eldaline saw this and scrambled wildly through the first stone doorway she reached. She knew very well that she had been screaming uncontrollably, because now her ears were ringing. She was too surprised to be embarassed.
"Flopsy?" she called. She continued her hopeless search for her missing soldier, who had been last seen under the roof of the tavern.
She screeched again as something grasped her arm with furious strength, even though it was not a dragon.
"Wilfred! Let go of me at once!" She ordered, as she was hauled into the tower and flung painfully against the wall.
"Mlphwop!" said Ulfric.
Eldaline said, "What?"
The Jarl of Windhelm remembered at this moment that he was still impeded by a linen gag and angrily removed it.
"I am Ulfric Stormcloak, and you nearly got me and my men killed! Talos smite you, you elven witch!"
"I would never have guessed that you were saying all that. And what do you mean by it, anyway? My intentions in coming here were good, you ungrateful human!"
"I've had enough of you!" roared the Jarl, brandishing his war axe, which he had luckily had the foresight to retrieve in the confusion. "You unleashed a dragon on my people just to break me out of here! Why didn't you just unleash your treaty?"
"And I have had enough of you." said Eldaline, and she clapped her hands together and prepared a small lightning storm. "You are the only person to benefit from this dragon, so I am left with no option but to deduce that it is yours. So put that axe away, Wilfred Stormcloak, before it becomes permanently fused to your arm."
Ulfric did not take his eyes off the Second Archivist, who had not moved from the wall, but he did take a step away from her. "I knew why you were here the moment I saw your hound-mistress following the Imperial through the gates!"
He gave the axe a last warning shake in her direction, for effect, and definitely not because his hand was trembling, before he turned and made for the stairs. "If you won't put your dragon back where you found it, then you can stay here with it and get eaten!"
"And may your poisoned words never be read again by Nords!" Apart from all the nice books you wrote about me. He added quietly.
The dragon was about to give up its search for interesting things to chase. The Legionnaires, while their arrows and spells were not particularly dangerous at a great distance, were not running about as much as it would have enjoyed, and swooping over their now concentrated remaining forces was invariably proving painful for both parties.
"Kyne's winds! Is that a dragon!" said the bird. "Never have I shared the skies with such magnificence! Allow me to compliment you on your great wings!"
"Out of my way, foolish bird!" said the dragon, said the dragon, in the language of winged creatures.
The bird migrated to High Rock in search of polite animals.
Eldaline was slumped in the window of the tower, and watched the circles drawn by the dragon become further away. The last light of the sun became apparent and lit the grey clouds of an approaching rainstorm, but still she didn't move, for she couldn't be sure if any of her limbs were still attached.
Through the window, amongst the ruin and death, Second Archivist Eldaline saw a golden head burrowing its way out from under a staircase.
It looked as confused as anybody else, but was cautiously refraining from running about until given official orders from a responsible person.
The sight was enough to push Eldaline up from her elbows onto her knees as she stared from the window in uncomprehending joy.
"ARALINA!"
Many accolades had been given, and many would yet be awarded, to the former Aldmeri scout, now elite soldier of the Thalmor, but Agent Aralina would always cite this one as the prize of her private collection. "Second Archivist Eldaline! You know my name! Oh, I am truly humbled by this honour! Where are you?"
Eldaline stumbled over the dead and other grisly suggestions of dragon. "Are you hurt? Can you stand? I will have somebody's head for this! I am so horribly startled."
"Hello, Madam!"
"We must leave this dreadful place. Even the dragon has left." said Eldaline. "I want to get indoors. Or underground. Or overseas. No! All three. Hold onto my hand, I'll help you."
"Second Archivist, I did not know there were dragons in Skyrim!" said Aralina. "What an astonishing discovery! Although I do feel that the Embassy might have informed me earlier. I must write to my mother! It is so nice to see you. I truly feared that you had been consumed by flame, or else by dragon. I do not know if I can stand, Madam, do I still have a head?"
Eldaline reached for Aralina's hand and began pulling her upright. It was an unsteady business. "Yes, you have a head. Can you not see it?"
"I think a terribly large about of wood has fallen on it, but not with quite the force as your secretary was hit with that plank, Second Archivist." said Aralina. "I tried reciting the four hundred diplomatic protocols to myself and am doing quite well, as I have remembered up to a hundred and twelve. Shall I stop now and assume I am fit for duty?"
"Is that you, General Tullius?" said Eldaline, upon discovering the named person next to some fallen beams and a precarious wall.
The General said, "How can I help, Second Archivist Eldaline?"
"I have just spoken with Wilfred Stormcloak, and he says that it is not his dragon. As it is also not my dragon, by process of elimination I must now assume it to be yours."
"My dragon?" demanded General Tullius. "Why would I have a dragon?"
"I mean, of course, that it is not a Stormcloak dragon, nor a Thalmor dragon, but I could not help noticing that there are dragons all over the Imperial banners, Imperial swords, Imperial uniforms and even Imperial coins. It is almost as though you are trying to insinuate some sort of legal ownership."
The General staggered into something resembling an upright position. "You think I somehow attracted it?"
"General, I am prepared to confess that my knowledge of animals that do not exist is rather patchy. Who do you think it belongs to?"
"I don't know, but when I find out, I'm going to cut their head off, twice." said General Tullius.
The Second Archivist looked around again, as though seeing the remains of the outpost for the first time. She had done this a number of times since the dragon had appeared. "How many of your Legionnaires are still alive? I need one of them to bandage my soldier's head. She has had a bump and needs to sit somewhere quieter."
Eldaline had left Agent Aralina recovering on an unscorched piece of house. She had assured the Second Archivist that she was feeling much better but had silently continued to recite the four hundred diplomatic protocols to make absolutely sure.
"Bandage your soldier?" the General shouted. "Eldaline, I have thirty dead and maimed Legionnaires, and a handful left alive to tend to them!"
"But they fell in the line of duty, General. We did not have to be here."
"Didn't have to be here? Didn't have to be here? This is completely true, you arrived uninvited to try and confiscate my prisoner! All right, Divines forgive me, here's my compromise. I've already dispatched my best runner to Falkreath, and I'm needed in Solitude. We'll patch up your soldier if you go to Whiterun and tell the Jarl what you saw here."
"I'm afraid that's quite impossible, General." she said. "The Jarl of Whiterun does not allow my Order into the city."
"Perhaps you should tell him that you want to talk about a dragon, and he might change his mind, Second Archivist Eldaline."
The General wobbled around in search of his Legionnaires, Eldaline to locate her soldier. "I will attempt what you suggest, General Tullius, but will hold you to account if the plan ends in annoyance."
"Oh, dear." said the General.
"Come along, Flopsy." Eldaline said. "We're going to be altruistic again."
continues