"It still has magic."

"Does it? Why would someone who can just Shout ever learn? And even if it can, it will not think of it immediately, and be unused to it."

"And how do you propose to do that?"

"The hard way."

"...what's the hard way?"

Step one: get its attention anywhere but on Ruby. He's just some guy, no one to pay attention to, here's an illusion over him that makes him even easier to overlook. He's good with illusions.

Step two: atronachs, magic, distraction. Attack the dragon from many directions at once so it can't curl into itself and needs to always be active.

Step three: keep an externally-fuelled barrier on Ruby so that when he's inevitably targeted he won't immediately die.

Step four: wait until it's been Shouts (apparently they have some sort of cool down time, the more powerful it is the longer it takes to recover) and then jump onto the back of the dragon's neck. Magic toughness or no, an incredibly sharp ethereal blade made for this purpose will cut through the scales.

The dragon shakes him off almost immediately, but not fast enough to avoid having its throat slit through. It doesn't die, because it's a dragon, but it's definitely sufficiently surprised at losing its main abilities that it decides it's time to retreat.

Step three point five: leave a specially constructed, almost infinitely thin, incredibly tough aetherial string wrapped around the root of of the dragon's wings.

Step five: pull.

It topples back down to the ground before it can get very high at all, and at that point it's lost.

"Die and be forgotten, foul beast," says Ulfric once it's not moving anymore. Half a score of his men were just killed by this dragon and death is too good for it.

"...the sounds, the, the Dragonborn sounds—"

"Where?"

But he's moving, almost unconsciously, towards the dragon's corpse, until there's nothing else in the world but him and the dragon. No one else, no sounds other than those, those... drums...

And the dragon... starts glowing. Its skin grows thin and its light starts flowing into Ruby, eldritch winds draining its essence until all that's left is it's skeleton, petrified.

When that's done, Ruby notices there's a small clearing around him, and everyone is completely quiet, watching him.

"...you. Who are you?"

Ruby looks at him and says,

"Fus,"

and a wall of force pushes Ulfric (as well as a couple other people next to him) off their feet and away from him.

Some of his guards take a defensive stance but he lifts a hand to tell them to hold while he gets back to his feet. "You're Dovahkiin."

...he smiles. "I am."

"Come with me, we should—"

DOV.

AH.

KIIN.

The sound is louder than the dragon roars were, but somehow less destructive; nothing topples or breaks, no windows shatter and no torches fall. And everyone understands.

"That would be your Greybeards?"