Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-66.243.250.142-20150422232604/@comment-9212235-20150425083417

Are they released back into their immortal states like they would be if they died away from the dragonborn? Or would they...I don't know, become one with Akatosh again or something? I only think the latter because it would make sense on a divine level. Some quick backstory to help out. The first Time God was Aka (sometimes called Aka-Tusk). He was shattered into an unknown number of pieces. The largest of which became the Time Gods we know now. These are in no particular order: Auri-El, Akatosh, Alduin, Alkosh, Bormahu, and Tosh-Raka (I might be missing one). The lesser shards are the dovah, the jill, and Dragonborn. The Last Dragonborn (LDB from now on) absorbs their souls into himself, making his personal shard larger, like a water droplet combining with another to back a large bit of water.

Given that Akatosh is widely believed to be the father of dragons, Akatosh isn't so much the "Father of Dragons" as he is just the most powerful of the shards of Aka thanks to the Marukhati Selectives when they made him in the First Era.

...and Akatosh is a spiritual being, a dragon's soul might return to Akatosh's being when they are released from the dragonborn upon death. This would also keep in the theme of the scenario of a dragon that is killed by a dragonborn is dead forever. See above. This isn't quite it.

Or perhaps, in expanding upon this theory, maybe the dragon souls become one with the dragonborn's own spirit even after they die. This is the correct answer.

I mean, who's to say that a dragonborn's soul would exist the same way as a mortal's soul would in the various afterlives. After all, the dragonborn is clearly described as having the soul of a dragon and not a mortal's. A Dragonborn's soul is actually very unique. With the exception of the most of the Dragonborn Emperors and possibly Miraak, all Dragonborn are also Shezarrine. Reman, Talos, Pelinal, and the LDB, to name a few, were all Dragonborn Shezarrines. They had the soul do Lorkhan and a dragon, gifted to them by Akatosh, because Akatosh is a little bit partially Lorkhan.