Being the Thane of Falkreath is nice and all, I suppose, but that's not why I came to Skyrim. That, and I have more important things to do than sit around on my duff lording it up - things like warn a Jarl about a dragon attack. There's no way he couldn't have heard of it by now, but I said I was going to do something, and that's what I'm going to do.

Whiterun is effectively caught in the middle between the Stormcloaks in the east and the Imperial forces in the west. So it's no surprise that there is a little internal strife in the city, but I wasn't prepared for what I saw.

 

I figure this has something to do with the civil war. Either that, or the boy is a little milk-drinker.

And then there was a priest of Talos openly preaching in the city.

I can understand his being upset. That was a pretty low blow for the emperor to agree to, especially when we fought the Thalmor to a standstill. 

But kids and priests weren't the only ones fighting.

I can know what an heirloom of lost parents would mean to someone. I tell Amren I'll go looking for his sword when I get the chance - it'd be rather bad to get a family heirloom and then not have a family to bring it back to.

On the way to the Jarl's palace/fort Dragonsreach, in the ritzy part of town, there sits this giant tree.

Looks like at one point it was very important to the town (I wish I had studied up more on Skyrim tourist attractions, but I didn't figure I would be doing much traveling), but now it's dead. For some reason this is more sad to me than just another dead tree.

After all my sightseeing is done, I eventually make it to the Dragonsreach. Some Dunmer in armor named Irileth stops me from talking to the Jarl, but with my news she takes me right to him. They all had indeed heard the news from Helgen, but weren't sure what to believe. With my eyewitness, and the reputation of Alvir backing me up, the Jarl accepts that indeed dragons have returned, and sends troops to help protect Riverwood. 

The Jarl then takes me to his court mage Farengar, who has been researching dragons. Farengar wants me to go get something called the Dragonstone from Bleak Falls Barrow - and lucky for him, I just happen to have it on me. 

As soon as I give it to him, Irileth barges in with another soldier, saying that Farengar needs to hear something very important, and that I should come too. We go to a planning room, and the soldier tells us (us includes the Jarl) that a dragon has been sighted at a watchtower a bit outside of town. 

And of course, I get sent out with the soldiers to help take care of it.