The next morning the gate of Kynesgrove was thrown open and the people of the village were already prepared. While the average populace of Nords distrusted Khajiit the business owning ones treated them as just another form of shopping experience. Kynesgrove was a village of farmers mostly and was the sort of breadbasket of Windhelm. Most of the food that was grown here was shipped off to Windhelm that was the seat of this hold and the rest was up to the farmers on what to do. At the moment the farmers had an abundance of extra goods to sell to the caravan to buy luxuries from other places the caravan had.-
I didn't stick around to get gawked at by the locals as the caravan did it's business and headed east towards the mountains to check out the dragon burial mound. The area was a calm one that teemed with life if you'd only stop and pay attention as I went around the village and deeper into the forest. Birds singing in the trees, small creatures going about their business in the underbrush and even the low grunting of a bear lumbering through the leaves.-
I took a moment to just soak it in and wasn't in any hurry to reach my destination. finding the mound itself was easy as it was a bald spot on the forest floor with a circumference of twenty five or so yards in every direction. In it's direct center was a bald spot where nothing grew leaving the ancient stone rim that the Nords long long ago created to house the remains of a slain dragon before they threw dirt over top of it. To most people the place would just seem like a strangely infertile place with hints of old architecture.-
To me though I could feel the dormant soul below the ground not alive but equally not dead, just waiting. For what you might ask? The return of Alduin who would revive this slain dragon. This particular dragon was known as Sah lok nir or Phantom sky hunt. It was one of the few that survived the dragon war only to later be killed by a Nord in the first era. Honestly that outcome was hardly a surprise at all since like a great many dragons that survived the dragon war that freed the mortal races from the dragons this one couldn't bring itself to keep it's head down.-
It tried to rule as a sort of mini tyrant in the area and as a result eventually got killed for it. This story was dreadfully common to be honest as there had to be dozens of others just like it. To explain why you'd need to understand first that to dragons domination was in their very natures. From the very beginning they were made to be among the most powerful things on the face of the planet, unaging, powerful and proud to the point of arrogance more often than not. It was hardly surprising that they'd try and run roughshod over the lesser races.-
Sensing the soul of a slain dragon was no easy feat though as I was only able to do it through a series of things that you'd be hard pressed to find someone else having. The first was my abnormally powerful soul that was nearly four times more powerful than a normal adult soul, not including mages of course. The second was the familiarity to words of power within my soul. The third was my understanding of mysticism magic and the final piece was my understanding of conjuration magic.-
Combined I could make out the barely noticeable hum of the dragons soul laying dormant in it's bones. Not that this really would help me anyways since the only time a dragons soul was useful was when the beast was alive or at least "awake" enough to be "defeated". I could say with utmost confidence that there was not a single necromancer or other being that could do anything with the soul in it's current state. Dragons were by their nature conceptual beings after all and so the rules of souls applied especially heavily to them. Of that I am referring to the rules of severing and conquest.-
These were the rules that governed how the [soul trap] spell and most conjuration spells functioned. It was why you couldn't just rip the soul out of a living creature by hitting them with a standard [soul trap] spell. Souls bound to things were as the name implied bound to those things and that bond needed to be severed first, hence the rules name. The rule of conquest was, simply put, to the victor the spoils. No one knew why but the person responsible for the death or defeat of another creature had a sort of world enforced "dibs" on the soul of the thing killed.-
[Soul trap] spells used this rule to actively give this dibs a route to be claimed by trapping the soul of whatever it was used on in a gem, assuming you had the right quality gem on hand that is. There was a whole lot more to it than that but I wasn't getting into metaphysics, that was a DEEP rabbit hole. Anyways I meditated over the bones of the dragon while straining my senses to try and pick up any nugget of the words of power the soul had.-
They were always there just at the edge of my awareness darting into and out of my perception. My meditation must have been far deeper than I realized however was by the time my mind returned and I opened my eyes I apparently startled the few small creatures that had gotten near me without me noticing. At least three birds, a weasel and even a fox were spotted hurriedly fleeing from my waking form. I stretched causing my joints to pop pleasantly before I checked the sky for the rough time of day.-
It had been several hours at least as the sun hung high above marking the middle of the day. I didn't rush back to Kynesgrove as the caravan wouldn't be leaving the place until at least tomorrow. I calmly drew out my sword and started to run through my forms at full strength instead. I hadn't had much chance to practice while we were traveling and the few fights we had were over before I could even warm up properly. Finally getting a chance to get in proper work was something I had no intention of wasting.-
My size and muscles weren't for show as the blade moved through the air as though fending off some phantom of great skill leaving blurs behind. I shadow sparred against a mental image of myself for well over two hours working up a nice sweat before I called it to an end. With a casual spell I cleansed myself of sweat and dirt before I finally went hunting for dinner. I managed to bag a deer with a bad limp that I found grazing near the base of a tree a few miles from Kynesgrove. Nothing overly impressive but a good target since the limp would get it killed eventually anyways.