She was soaked to the bone and colder than she could remember being in a long time. Of course the Eastmarch weather had chosen today to rain instead of snow. After begging Ulfric for days to let her back in the field after being injured a week ago, he had let her go on a scouting mission at the edge of the hold.

Unfortunately she had been only halfway back to Windhelm when it had started to rain. Except it wasn't just rain. It was freezing rain. At first she hadn't minded, but by the time she had made it to the city she had decided that freezing rain was much, much worse than snow. The rain had soaked into her every pore. She was very irritated and looking forward to crashing on her bed in the room that Ulfric had given her in the Palace.

Her own room. Ulfric had given it to her after he had discovered that she had been sleeping in the Candlehearth Inn for the past two months and was almost out of gold. She had been so embarrassed when she entered her room, covered in sweat after a long day of making weapons to earn money, to see the Jarl sitting on her bed. He had insisted that she take an empty room in the Palace and she had finally accepted, his concern causing her to blush furiously.

She pushed open the doors of the Palace of Kings. She stopped in her tracks when she heard Ulfric speak. He and Galmar were exiting the war room, clearly in the middle of a conversation. "Well put, friend. Tell me, Galmar, why do you fight for me?" Ulfric asked his general.

Galmar's reply echoed her own thoughts. "I'd follow you to the depths of Oblivion, you know that."

"Yes, but why do you fight? If not for me, what then?" Ulfric pressed.

"I'll die before I let elves dictate the fates of men. Are we not one in this?" As Galmar spoke, Ulfric ascended the steps of his throne. He paused at the top before turning around to face Galmar.

"I fight for the men I've held in my arms, dying on foreign soil. I fight for their wives and children whose names I heard whispered in their last breaths." She could hear the sorrow in Ulfric's voice turn to anger at his next words, "I fight for we few who did come home, only to find our country full of strangers wearing familiar faces. I fight for my people too impoverished to pay the debts of an Empire too weak to rule them, yet brands them criminals for wanting to rule themselves!" Ulfric's voice rose and filled with a fierce passion that made her belief in him grow even stronger. "I fight so all the fighting I've already done hasn't been for nothing. I fight… because I must." His voice fell to little more than a whisper as he sat down on his throne, yet the words reached her ears as clear as day. Her heart did a little flip as her respect for her Jarl grew and she fell even further in love with him.

"Your words give voice to what we all feel, Ulfric. And that's why you will be High King. But the day when words are enough, will be the day when soldiers like us are no longer needed." Galmar stated with a small sigh.

Ulfric smiled at his general as he replied, "I would gladly retire from the world were such a day to dawn." She couldn't help but think that the world would lose a great man if he did.

"Aye." Galmar agreed. "But in the meantime, we have a war to plan."

A smile crossed her tired face as she approached the man that she trusted with her life and loved with all her heart. A new day was dawning for Skyrim, for all of Tamriel, and she would stand by Ulfric Stormcloak's side as he brought peace and justice to the land they loved.