Disclaimer: I do not own the world or characters that Bethesda so creatively imagined.
As a lazy smile wound its way across Teldryn Sero's regal features, Rowena couldn't help from smiling herself at his libertine expression. It was during these rare moments of emotional expression that she cherished; her mysterious dark elf follower wasn't apt to expressing feeling at any time other than blunt sarcasm and cool detachment. Although Rowena often appreciated his distance and ability to rationally assess situations with logic, it was nice to see him for once surrendering himself to the simple pleasures of life. She watched with quiet fascination as his eyes closed and the subtle sea breeze ruffled through his dark hair. The usual crease between his eyebrows had vanished in what seemed to Rowena to be a feeling of total peace and exhilaration. She found it difficult to wrench her eyes away from this fascinating spectacle when one of his brilliant scarlet eyes cracked open and the small smile turned into a discriminatory smirk with the characteristically sardonic demeanour he so frequently embodied.
"Enjoying yourself?" he asked with an upward curl of his lips. Although he had closed his eyes again Rowena could practically feel the mischievous glint sparkling in them, the same glint that always appeared when he was teasing her.
Rowena had to take a moment to collect her jumbled thoughts before responding. "I… I could ask you the same question." She finally stammered, earning herself another one-eyed sidelong glance from the dunmer sell-sword. He chuckled and this time both his eyes opened, the deep crimson irises fixing on Rowena's sparkling sea green ones.
"I haven't left Solstheim in three years. Three whole years wasting away on that smoking volcanic slab of netch shit with nothing to do but drink, piss, and drink some more." He looked away, off into the grey smudge on the horizon that Rowena knew to be the province of Skyrim, the place that had been her home for the last three years ever since her initial arrest. So much had happened since then and she had grown so accustomed to the provinces' harsh wintery landscape and cold tundra climate that she had almost forgotten there were others who would be ecstatic to return there. Personally Rowena would have preferred to stay on Solstheim for a bit longer and explore all of its hidden secrets, but honestly she had grown so tired of Teldryn's endless requests to return to Skyrim that she had finally relented. Some part of her was excited to see her homeland, the part that wanted to head back to her comfortable home in Windhelm and check up on her friends with the Thieves Guild, but she knew that this wouldn't be the last time she saw the mysterious island of Solstheim.
One thing had been bothering her about Teldryn's confession, however, and it had been a question she'd asked herself ever since she'd heard the sell-swords intriguing story. She couldn't contain the curiosity anymore, even if it would come across as intrusive. "If you hate Solstheim so much… why didn't you just leave? Come back to Skyrim, or Morrowind?" Rowena asked, eyebrows knitting together and lower lip catching between her teeth. The expression on Teldryn's face sobered and he acquired that familiar distance in his eyes that always piqued Rowena's interest.
When he took so long to answer that Rowena feared he never would, she cautiously approached him, stepping up next to him at the bow of the ship so that they were standing shoulder to shoulder, staring out across the bleak expanse of steel grey water with nothing but the shadow of Skyrim lurking in the eerie mist ahead. She glanced at him but quickly looked away when she detected the clouds in his eyes and she instead fixed her line of sight on the constant, unceasing horizon ahead.
"What about returning to Blacklight? Every time you talk about it…" she trailed off, not daring to end the sentence in case he became guarded and detached like he always did when she tried to make analyses about his emotions. "I mean… you just seem like you miss it."
"Of course I miss it, don't you have any idea how much I've wanted to do all the things you've been thinking all this time?" he asked, his voice ominously low. Rowena bristled slightly at his combative tone of voice, his defensive ways causing her own defensive walls to rise up as well. She turned her body to face him and was about to tell him off for being so passive aggressive when her momentary flare of annoyance diminished with the sight of the crestfallen dunmer standing before her, not even recognizing the usual exuberant and sarcastic elf she knew. She faltered for a moment, leaning back against the curve of the boat and looking down at her worn leather boots.
She heard Teldryn shift beside her and one glance up showed her that he had turned to face her as well, his eyes burning into her face with a kind of manic urgency, as if all this time he'd been supressing the answer he'd always been avoiding. "I can't. I was stuck. No money, barely enough to scrape by on sujamma and cheap lodgings at the Retching Netch, waiting for somebody, anything to come around and save me. Is that what you want to hear, Rowena? Is this what you want from me? To hear my sad, pathetic story so you can… what?"
Rowena frowned but forced herself to look up at him, her own gaze meeting his fiery one. She tried to adopt a calm and collected mannerism but found it hard to formulate sentences under his debilitating glare. "N-no, I was just asking. Of course I don't… why would I…" She sighed and gave up, turning again to the front, the smudge against the horizon getting increasingly larger with every passing minute. Teldryn sighed heavily beside her and ran a hand through his spiked black hair with an air of exasperation oozing out of his very pores. Finally, Rowena said, "I just want to understand."
Teldryn made a derisive sound in the back of his throat and shook his head. "Some things are better left alone." Relative silence settled upon the two of them then, with nothing but the sounds of the other sailors hollering to one another and the ship bell tolling.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry." Rowena apologized after several short minutes of tense silence, the frustration between them building up into an insurmountable tension that she could no longer endure. "It's just, I feel like if we're going to be on the same page we need to at least know a little bit about one another, don't you think?"
He was quiet again for a minute, but from the softening of his facial expression Rowena thought that she finally may have gotten through to him in getting him to open up. Then he closed himself off again and with one last fleeting glance at her, he stepped down from the prow and walked away, leaving her alone to look out across the lonely expanse of steely water and the faint smudge of familiarity on the horizon.
I staggered down the darkening path, clutching the burn on my shoulder, gritting my teeth against the pain and hobbling on the leg that hadn't been violently slashed open during the bandit attack. Solstheim was in much worse a state than I could have ever imagined – even despite hearing all the stories of the power-crazy immigrants that inhabited the small island and the ashspawn that infested its every inch, I still couldn't have realized the full degree of trauma that it was currently in. As I stumbled into Raven Rock, the first town that I had visited upon visiting Solstheim, I made my way toward the Retching Netch in the hopes of renting a room for the night and getting a chance to tend to my wounds in the best way I could. For now all I'd managed to do was bind up the cut that riekling had given me, which had at least ebbed the flow of blood which had previously been cascading from the wound, but unfortunately I had no means to help the burn that the ashspawn had inflicted on me immediately after the initial attack. The only restoration spell I knew was very general and mostly ineffective, so my burn had persisted the whole walk back to the only official dark elf settlement on the island, and my leg hadn't fared much better. Already the cloth I had used to bind it was soaked with my crimson blood, the liquid slowly darkening with each step I took. When I finally reached the door to the inn, I slowly pushed it open and was welcomed by a warm light beckoning me in and the sound of voices murmuring softly.
I had to resist from collapsing right then and there when I was so close to the sanctuary of a private room and a warm bed. I walked in and the first thing I saw was the mysterious man that had always sat in the same chair to the far left of the bar, the strange and alien-like helmet he always wore masking his facial features and shrouding him in mystery.
As the sun slowly slunk below the horizon, Rowena's head began to nod with exhaustion after the long and stressful day. Sitting on a hard, cold wooden bench along the starboard side of the ship, however, was not an ideal place to sleep, so each time she thought she was going to fall into a blissfully unconscious state she found her head snapping up again, eyelids fluttering open as her harsh reality came back into sharp focus. The line dividing her dreamlike state and the real world was continuing to blur rapidly. For a fleeting second she saw the high walls of Whiterun, and the next she was peering up at the Throat of the World, apprehension filling her stomach and fear prickling the hair on her forearms. Next she was looking into someone's face, a dark elf who was oddly familiar…
"The dragonborn, on this very ship…"
"Would you knock it off, Sogrlaf?"
"What? It's just odd, is all. You hear all about the legendary dragonborn from the stories, running around Skyrim and saving the world, then next thing you know she's boarding your ship... she's rather easy on the eyes, wouldn't you agree, Lygrleid?"
Teldryn Sero sat in a chair in the far back corner of the ship's inner room, his head leaned back and chitin armour helmet casually masking his features from recognition. He had propped his feet up on the wooden table in front of his chair and had been attempting to sleep for some time, however the constant motion of the ship coupled with the idiotic banter of the crewmates had prevented him from doing so. Instead he had been sitting for an agonizingly long time in the uncomfortable chair, forced to listen to the scoundrels make rude and pigheaded remarks about his female nord companion, the one who also just happened to be the mythic dragonborn of legend and hero of Skyrim. Teldryn assumed that the nwahs were too wrapped up in their shallow conversation to notice the silent dunmer brooding in the corner, every inch of his body from head to foot covered in light chitin armour; or perhaps they did see him and merely believed he was in fact asleep. Unfortunately for them, he had been fully conscious throughout the duration of their discussion, and Teldryn wasn't going to sit idly by for one more moment as the men continued to objectify his patron. Teldryn eyed the men silently, sizing up his marks as he always did when he was analyzing potential prey – one of the men, a blonde-haired nord and the biggest, loudest and rudest of them all, was laughing obnoxiously and slapping a fist against his thigh, his other hand holding up a mug filled right to the brim with what appeared to be mead. Teldryn knew that they had been drinking throughout the course of the night, opening keg after keg of mead and filing their cups as they talked nonsensically and rudely. That was all fine and good – it would be easier for Teldryn to slice their throats if they were slow and blundering.
"…It's a real shame she wears all that bulky armour. I'd love to get a nice clear shot of her–" the blonde nord's derogatory sentence was cut off when the men noticed Teldryn, perhaps for the first time that night, standing over them menacingly. The brute paused for a moment, looking Teldryn up and down before smirking stupidly and taking a huge swig of his mead. "So, what've we got here? A grey-skin, eh? From that smoking shit pile Solstheim?"
Teldryn's fingers balled into fists at his sides, and he could feel the fire burning steadily in his stomach, rising like lava in a volcano up his throat. "How ever did you guess?" Teldryn asked, his voice low and feigning calmness in his attempts to control himself.
"I'm familiar with your kind, elf." He said the word with contempt and spat bitterly on the floor to the right before looking back at Teldryn with a dilapidated smile, his words slurring from the effects of the alcohol. "Why don't you take off that scary mask you got there?" he paused and looked around at his goonish friends, a malicious spark igniting in his eye. "On second thought, keep it on – I bet it's much more attractive than your ashy face."
As the men guffawed Teldryn made his move, and in one fluent motion he had managed to kick the chair out from under the blond nord and pin him against the wall behind, his hand wrapped around the man's meaty neck. The mug of ale he'd been holding clattered to the floor, spilling its amber contents on the wooden panels and seeping through the cracks. The laughter stopped immediately and Teldryn stared into the blond man's face, who was now gasping and choking for air under his strong grip. One of his friends got up and was about to pull Teldryn off when the latter, calmly and assuredly, used his free arm to elbow the nord square in the nose, sending him sprawling back in pain.
"You know, I happen to know your kind quite well, too…" Teldryn directed his words to the big blond nord now, watching with deep satisfaction as his face began to purple and his hands clawed desperately at Teldryn's grip. "A big, blundering buffoon of a nord bringing shame and dishonour upon your entire race by burying your sorrows in the bottom of a bottle of mead, looking down upon anyone who doesn't share your heritage because you're too much of a coward to admit to yourself the absolute waste of space and oxygen that you are. Well… did I get it right? Please, tell me if I'm missing anything. I wouldn't want you thinking that my kind can't make a proper assumption about a common lowlife like yourself."
"F-fuck… you…" the nord's face had contorted and twisted in hatred as Teldryn had conducted his analysis, and he managed to squeeze out the words despite the fact that his face was now the same colour as Sadri's famous sujamma.
"Say one more idiotic remark about my companion and I will burn you alive. You can count on that." Teldryn subtly ignited a deep crimson flame in the hand that wasn't holding the man's neck against the wall just to add effect to his words. "So much as one sideways look at her and you will regret the day you ever boarded this infernal ship." There was fear in the man's eyes now, to the great satisfaction of Teldryn, and just as he was about to permanently punch the smirk off the nord's face the sound of a door being thrown open and loud footsteps resonating over the wooden panels of the ships caused him to hesitate.
"What in the name of Talos is going on here?" Teldryn grimaced under his helmet when he recognized the low and domineering voice of the ship's captain, Gjalund Salt-Sage. The nord's eyes had drifted over Teldryn's shoulder and the dark elf subtly turned his head, his eyes immediately falling on the burly nord man, his wild dark beard flecked with flakes of snow and his eyes narrowed into points of annoyance as the scene before him unfolded.
"Evening, Salt-Sage. I was just getting acquainted with your… vernacular crew here. Quite charming, really. You sure know how to pick them." Teldryn drawled sarcastically, watching in slight bemusement as Gjalund surveyed his surroundings, taking in the nord on the ground, his nose squashed and bleeding after getting elbowed by Teldryn, and Teldryn himself, still holding the big brutish blond against the wall as he kicked and struggled against him. The fire in Teldryn's palm was still flickering ominously, illuminating and casting strange shadows on his contorted helmet.
"Sero. Let the poor man go. We play nice here on the Northern Maiden. You know the rules. And douse that magic, before you burn the whole ship down and everyone on it."
With a small but dramatic sigh Teldryn made a theatrical show of releasing the blond nord and putting out the flame in his hand, watching with contempt in his eyes as the man slumped against the floor and clutched at his neck vindictively. He looked up at Teldryn with an inferno of hatred in his eyes.
"You're going to pay for that, grey-skin."
"Do I detect… was that a threat, my nord friend?" Teldryn looked innocently up towards Gjalund before turning back to the snivelling nord on the floor. "Didn't you hear your captain? Try to… play nice. You know, you could learn something from him." The last sentence had a hint of animosity in it, a fact that was not lost on the nord, as his mouth curled into a sour grimace of utter hatred. A serpentine smile wound its way upon Teldryn's lips and for a moment he wished that the man could see his expression beneath his chitin helmet. He turned on his heel abruptly, satisfied with how it had all turned out, yet immensely disappointed that Gjarlund had showed up before the real fun had begun. Teldryn nodded at the captain, intending to move past him through the door leading to the upper deck – he needed some fresh air to clear his head, and his vision was rimmed with red. However the burly captain placed a menacing hand on Teldryn's bicep, effectively halting him in his tracks.
He lowered his head to mutter in Teldryn's ear. "Sero. Pull one more move like that, and I will not hesitate to throw you off this ship and feed you to the netches. This is my ship and you will abide by her rules so long as you're on her. Don't test me. Do I make myself clear?"
Teldryn's expression soured, but he had expected this from the cool, detached captain of the Northern Maiden. Teldryn respected the man, who was hardy and brazen and good at what he did, all traits that he had come to admire. So he gave a small, curt nod in response, realizing he was quite lucky that Salt-Sage was taking this whole ordeal uncharacteristically diplomatically. "Crystal, captain." He wanted to add another sassy remark but refrained when he saw the severity in Gjalund's eyes, and he turned away, opening the door and trudging up the steps leading to the upper deck.
The cold, sharp breeze helped clear Teldryn's mind of the clouds of anger that had collected in their deepest catacombs, and he pulled his helmet off to fully relish in the feeling of the cool air washing against his feverish skin. He allowed his eyes to close as he calmed himself, his heartrate slowly decreasing in speed as he tried to forget all of the perverted things the nords had said about Rowena. Teldryn frowned for a moment, realizing the magnitude of his feelings for this woman he barely knew, who had hired him just over a week ago and had never opened up to him more than to explain briefly about her near-decapitation in Skyrim years ago. He barely knew a thing about the mysterious nord maiden, aside from the fact that she was dragonborn and had the uncanny ability to pierce the heart of a reaver from a mile away with that dark, ornate bow that seemed to hum with magic and electricity every time she strung it. And yet, despite not knowing the most fundamental facts about her, he had already grown fiercely protective of her (although he knew better than anyone that she didn't need protection from any man, woman, or beast, adept and skilled as she was.) Just hearing those men talk about her in such graphic and cruel terms had lit a fire in his stomach; and while he was used to getting into drunken brawls with idiots, the subject matter and reason for the fight usually stemmed from a personal insult towards himself, rather than on behalf of somebody else's defense. This struck Teldryn as strange. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt protective of someone.
Just as he was thinking this he caught side of the woman he had just been thinking of, and the image he found of her would forever be burned into his mind as a moment of pure adoration and hilarity. Lying, slumped on one of the wooden benches on the side of the Northern Maiden, was Rowena, the dragonborn of legend, her shockingly red hair pulled back into a messy side braid, pieces falling out and framing her delicate, feminine features as her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm of relaxation. Teldryn had to restrain himself from allowing the bubble of laughter to erupt from within his throat, but after his initial surprise to see his aloof and detached patron fast asleep and innocent as a lamb wore off, that unfamiliar pang of possessiveness swept through him again and he approached her cautiously, afraid to wake her in her state of peaceful slumber. As he grew closer he saw that her full, rosy lips were parted slightly, her head lolling slightly to the left to expose the side of her porcelain white neck, its gentle feminine slope leading Teldryn's eyes to where it connected to her delicate shoulder and sharp collarbone. He caught his breath when she murmured something incoherent in her sleep, and he froze, worried that he had woken her – or worse, that she hadn't really been asleep and had caught him staring at her in this compromising state – however to his intense relief she merely turned over into a position that looked increasingly uncomfortable. Teldryn shivered against the now unwanted chill of the wind blowing off the water, shocked and amazed that Rowena could handle this intense cold – must be her nord blood, he thought fleetingly. He looked down at her face, so innocent and worry-free in stark contrast to the cold and carefully arranged, mechanical expression she always wore when waking, the expression Teldryn assumed was adopted in order to protect herself from the harsh and bleak reality of the world. He felt an uncomfortable pulling in his heart, entirely unfamiliar and alien, and he suddenly felt as intrusive and perverted as the nords who had been talking about her as he watched her in this vulnerable state.
"T-Teldryn…? Is that you?" Rowena's eyes were still closed, but her mouth was moving, and the words would have been inaudible if not for Teldryn's close proximity to her. He cringed, eyes widening in shock and humiliation at having been found out, however her voice sounded like that of someone who had been drugged, as if she was still halfway between consciousness and the eerie catacombs of sleep. "Sero…"
Teldryn's breath hitched at the sound of her voice breathily calling him by the name she always used when criticizing or reprimanding him, and despite the fact that he disliked her calling him this while waking, there was something highly arousing about the way she said it now, in this strange in-between state of waking and dreaming.
"By the eight, Rowena," Teldryn murmured under his breath, shaking his head and fighting back the sudden lustful tightening in his groin as he watched her turn over in her sleep again, still incoherently whispering his name. "Boethiah, forgive me," he muttered as he bent down to scoop the small nord up into his arms, her frame surprisingly light despite her physical strength and prowess. Her eyelids fluttered as he carried her toward her private sleeping quarters, snowflakes collecting in her long eyelashes and clinging to her crimson hair. The tightening of her arms around his neck and the feeling of her lean body against his own didn't help Teldryn fight off his increasingly mounting arousal and he grit his teeth, annoyed at her for being the way she was and having the effect on him that she had.
"You're not going to remember this tomorrow, dragonborn, got it? And even if you do, I don't want to know about it." Teldryn lowered her onto the rough bed in her quarters and pulled the sheepskin blanket over her body as she sighed contentedly. Teldryn stood over her, watching for a moment, hating himself for the sudden rise of affection he felt towards her radiating warmth throughout his entire being. "Damn it."
Like it or not, she had gotten into his skin.