Riding Paarthurnax to Skuldafn saved us from so much bullshit, and because he is fucking enormous the entire company loaded up onto his back ready for battle. Seriously, the guy is huge, bigger than Alduin and all the other dragons. While they had all been dead or porting through time, Paarthurnax had been out in the world chilling out, meditating on the Thu'um, and growing slowly without limit.
Dude was a big lizard beast and this is coming from the swole as fuck Lizard Daddy.
Unfortunately for us, our beat down of the World Eater caused him to pull all his forces back to the remote temple to guard the portal he made to Sovngarde. This meant that there were dozens of dragons between us and the portal. And their draugr slaves, not that those guys meant much to warriors like us.
Paarthurnax dropped us off and engaged in dragon combat with a pair of Legendary Dragons that flew far faster than any of their lesser kin. The impressive aged dragon made up for his less agile body with cunning linguistics, his knowledge of the Thu'um and it's intricacies allowing him to counter anything the other dragons sent at him and return to them a painful rebuttal.
We had far less luck as the many dragons began landing between us and our goal.
"Tater Tot." I said as I felt Serana buffing us up with as much magic as she could muster including some of the old school elemental resistance spells that didn't appear in Skyrim, "No matter what happens, you keep running to the portal."
"And leave all of you behind?" Brienne shook her head in denial.
"Yes!" I barked, "Now let me show you something!"
I cast a unique spell I developed that would automatically channel all my magicka into healing power till I cast a quick counter spell and Serana cast the strongest frenzy spell she could manage.
Years of anger management clashed with magic induced psychotic fury allowing me to harness my full strength and force just enough sanity to keep my targets dragon shaped.
An overeager brown dragon landed close to us and drew in a huge breath for his attack. I leapt at him with more speed and range than a jungle cat, smashing his head open with the Hammer of Might and moving on to the next.
"I AM KROGAN!" I roared as I leapt at my next victim. .
Scales of brown, green, white, red, orange, or even black, it didn't matter to me in my unstoppable charge to prove I am the badest lizard on the planet.
They couldn't hurt me. Nothing could hurt me. But every thunderous strike of my hammer hurt them.
I could see it in their eyes. The fear.
It tasted delicious.
I was pounding my hammer down into the dying face of a Revered Dragon when the magic finally slipped away. We were almost to the portal, Brienne was ascending the steps while the Companions held off the tide of dragons seeking to stop her, minus Skjor, Aela, and Njada.
"Hold the fucking portal!" Jack yelled.
In truth, if Alduin had let these dragons through to Sovngarde rather than us them to defend the portal he could have fought alongside them and likely defeated us, but the edgelord dragon had never shown himself to be cunning, just powerful and ruthless.
Serana looked absolutely taxed trying to keep everyone up with her restoration magic, but she couldn't be everywhere at once and I saw Athis get bitten in two by a pair of Elder Dragons who used him in a demented game of tug of war.
Vilkas and Farkas cut deeply into the pairs necks, but Farkas ate a vicious tail strike from an Ancient dragon and Vilkas became hard pressed to defend his downed brother.
Paarthurnax came down on top of a Legendary Dragon and shattered his head against the mountainside with an incredible Fus Ro Dah. Jack hit the second with a Flare when I tried to even the score on the aged green dragon. Her attack gave Paarthurnax enough time to smack the black bitch with his thickly spiked tail, tearing out some of the beast's compound eyes.
Kodlak and I killed an Ancient Dragon together and the old nord nodded his head grimly as we continued to hold the portal against a swiftly depleting force of dragons.
In truth, it was their lack of talent with the Thu'um that made this possible. If they had even an ounce the talent of Alduin or the dedication of Paarthurnax they would be capable of more than just flinging fire or ice at us, or the occasional Drain Vitality shout.
One such shout hit Kodlak and the old nord faded quickly, his flagging strength allowing him to be bulled over by an easily dodgeable charge from a Revered Dragon. An ice spike to the eye brought the beast down, but the damage was done.
Kodlak breathed a few ragged wet breaths before the blood in his punctured lungs drowned him.
"Nooo!" I heard Vilkas scream as the Legendary Dragon launched a Drain Vitality at this downed brother in spite as Paarthurnax squeezed down on its neck with his clawed foot.
The death of the last Legendary Dragon took the fight out of the lesser dragons as they backed off.
"Come on!" Vilkas shouted at them, "Come on, you cowards!"
Serana held the enraged and grieving nord back and we waited, staring each other down til the portal to Sovngarde exploded, nearly throwing me off my feet.
"It is done." Paarthurnax stated before he began conversing with the remaining dragons in their draconic language.
"Nothing is done!" Vilkas yelled, "Nothing is over! Not till every one of you bastards are dead and gone!"
"Sorrow is a loyal friend, Wolf." Paarthurnax stated, "You have won a mighty victory, but nothing of happiness. Such is the world. I go now to the Throat of the World, and to the Dragonborn. Odahviing will take you all home."
"No." Vilkas refused bitterly, "I will make my own way down these mountains."
Taking up Farkas's body and sword, Vilkas left our company for the final time.
It took the three of us a while to find any remaining pieces of our friends, but find them we did and placed them all on a quickly made pyre which our dragon mount lit before flying the three of us to Jorvaskr. Making arrangements for the future of the Companions would be poor chaser to saving the world, but the responsibility fell to us.