AN: So this really should have been another chapter for my Space Between fic...but said chapter disappeared from my computer :( Thus, Shield and Sword took it's place and let me be creative before I take a second stab at the chapter I had FINALLY finished...ah well, such is writing.
I love Skyrim, and this Companion in particular was a nice change. I'd suggest to listen to the song 'My Love' by Sia, because that was what I was listening to when I wrote it, but I'm sure anything will do :)
Beware a bit of melancholy - and as always, reviews with constructive comments and suggestions are always welcome :)
Disclaimer: I don't own either Skyrim, Bethesda or anything else beloning to ZeniMax.
She has come a long way since the wagon, since Helgen. And yet, perhaps she has not traveled far at all. Perhaps it is merely that she has changed so very over the course of such journeying.
She had woken without sense of self, without expectation. And because she could not remember, it was only the changes that had happened over the course of the past year that she could truly claim as her own. She did not recognize the calluses on her hands, but her reflection, the hair on her head had changed steadily the more she had traveled. How could strain and exhaustion age her so rapidly, she had once wondered as she touched the white that shot through her braid, smoothed a wayward curl. But this paleness, this aging was hers, and hers alone. A testament to events that she could remember, that she could easily call her own.
But the rest remained lost, frustratingly so. She knew she was more than a name, more than a woman of the north with the skills of a warrior. She had been someone once, a person with past instead of just a future.
Elina Stonehall.
It is a name with a meaning, a place of birth. But where?
Dovahkiin may have been her title, but her duty is long since done. She is a woman without a past once more.
Nudging her horse the final few feet to the stables just outside Markarth, Elina felt a pang of emotion as she dismounted, her eyes scanning the sturdy walls and towering mountain under which the city sat. She could hear distant rumble of a voice much beloved and yet unrecognizable.
"This city has been my home since before the imperials ever set foot here. My forefather fought against the Foresworn as I do now."
There is a smile on his lips though she cannot she his face, a kiss upon her brow though she does not know who he is. And the not knowing pains her, makes the heart beat ache in her chest, the wind her lungs.
Another question, another piece lost.
The full memory seemed to hover just out of reach, like mist upon a mountain face, elusive and almost impossible to discern from the mountain it obstructed from view.
She no longer bothers to strain herself with wanting, waiting for the memory to come to her when she knows it will not. The aching will not go away, but she has long since taught herself to live with such things, and as she allows the groom to take her mount away she allows the pressures of survival push the pain down.
It does not come back for hours and by then she is bedded down, alone in the silence of night. She allows herself to remove her armor then, releasing each strap, unhooking plates from one another until the heavy pieces come apart and she can arrange them on the small room dresser.
The cleaning takes several more hours and her hands tremble by the time she finishes with the last. But her duty is done, and once more she is a woman lost in a sea of unknown.
Candlelight casts gold across the room, warming the cold stone, illuminating the skin that the cold has made rosy. Pulling off the padded under coat, the woman hesitates for only a moment before leaving the thin linen shift in place. Stained from travel, she knows it is more function than beautiful, but for a moment she imagines it softer, silkier, and she can sense the memory once more.
Closer.
Closing her eyes, she does not have to look to see her fingers trace the long scars on her arms. Lying upon the firm bed of the inn, she can see in her minds eyes as hand passes from shoulder to elbow, following the milky white whispers of a life that she cannot remember. There are newer wounds, burns from fighting dragons, but these old marks are the ones that haunt her most.
Trophies for battles she does not recall. Strange to her, she had spent many nights following their paths along her sloping body, connecting them until they are like the stars of a constellation, the points that make up who she is.
She falls asleep alone, but in her minds eyes the memory floats closer still. And in the darkest part of the night it descends, disappearing with the first light of morning.
They had known each other for years, been comrades in arms since before they had been strong enough to raise shields. She the stern warrior maid with a fierce scowl and even fiercer skill in arms; he had been her opposite. Quiet but gentle, his easy smiles had won him friends and though hesitant at first, she had come to be among them.
- My Love.-
"I am the elder, Argis, so you will do as I say." She was barely more than a woman grown, but there was no mistaking the iron will of her voice. A leader among men, she was their strength, their sword.
But if she was Markarth's sword, then surely he was their shield. A practical man, he would defend the city just as he would defend his fellow warriors. Not everyone could be as relentless as their lady leader, and it was he who would remind her.
"The men deserve a night off, maiden." His voice deep and melodic echoed in the empty hall where they were conversing, "They did not celebrate once the victory was had, nor did they protest when you pushed the campaign into the mountains. And we are victorious now more than ever before. Let them have their revelry."
"Do not call me that, Argis."
As if all she heard was his pet name for her.
And though he says nothing of her scowl, the smile on his lips grows wider. He has not missed the telling flush of her cheeks, the way she cannot look him directly in the eye.
They have been friends for years, and she knows him better than anyone; has shared his triumphs and been beside him to bury friends lost. So too does he know her: Elina Stonefall of the perpetual scowl, the rigid discipline, Elina of the gentle laughs and private smiles.
"Don't call you what, maiden?"
Voice soft with tenderness, he cannot help himself as his large hand comes up to brush away the wisps of hair that frame her face. She is so very beautiful to him, this warrior maid of scars and scowls, so strong. And yet there is also a startling vulnerability in her now, an uncertainty revealed in the hesitant way she slowly glances up to meet his gaze.
"Argis."
Swallowing faintly, she licks her lips as one feminine hand comes up to slide over the larger one on her cheek. There is little room for speaking now, the eyes revealing what words cannot. Silence then, and amidst the shadowed columns of the hold the pair find that lips reveal what eyes cannot.
-Leave yourself behind.-
She is a warrior, not a maiden.
The thought makes her pause halfway through her shower, forces a frown upon her lips amidst the harsh spray of water and wafting scent of soap.
She is not a maiden. But she is a Nord woman, and has embraced her penchant for warfare, her ability with a blade. The hearth is no more her home than the stables are his, and yet he continues to call her by the title until it had become what she associates with his affections, with her tenderness towards him.
She cannot decide whether this makes her happy or insurmountably angry.
Argis is quite unlike any man she ever expected to accept as her lover. He was a warrior, and in this she has no doubts, but he is also infuriatingly sweet and gentle and…
The hot blush on her cheeks makes her stop short and Elina cannot resist the urge to submerge her head in the water that still falls around her. It washes the scowl away, but the rosiness in her cheeks remains stubbornly in place.
He may be nothing like she expected, but it would be a lie to say she had not come to depend on him, care for him more deeply than she had anticipated. And indeed, he was always her mind, her thoughts drifting towards him every once in a while.
He seemed to be everywhere.
"Such a fierce expression, maiden." There was an amused chuckle second before a warm body joined her beneath the spray. Hands, long since made familiar, skimmed the side of her jaw, down the slope of her neck.
"Did you dream of Foresworn this morning?"
She does scowl then, the familiar expression seeming to amuse her lover only further. He grins as he kisses her lips, ignoring the fierce expression.
"Was it really such a bad dream?"
Gently cajoling, he moves around her to pluck the soap from its ledge, lathering it thickly between his large hands. Unable to help herself, Elina watches as the soap moves between them, taunting her, reminding her of what else those hands are so good at.
"It wasn't a dream."
She meets him eye to eye but at her sides her hands twitch for want of moving, of touching him. He is never far from her mind, her memory, or her passions.
But before she can act on her impulses he turns around, his well muscles shoulders and back glistening in the early morning light. Humming softly, his voice thrums in the small space, filling the air, echoing in her chest.
Entranced, Elina wonders when it was that she became so very taken with this strange Nord man who is gentle and sweet as well as dependable.
And when at last her smaller hand presses into the warmth of his back, absorbing the heat of his skin she releases the breath she had not realized she was holding.
"I thought I recognized that expression." There is a smile on his face as he looks over his shoulder, "Only I can make you blush like that, maiden."
-Beat inside of me.-
It is the last night with her though he does not yet know it. Surrounded by the dim lights of candles flickering in the coolness of a mild winter wind there is quiet and deeper still, contentment.
She lies next to him, nude save for the thick furs that cover her to the waist, her back exposed to the air. Just beyond their bed the fire roars uninterrupted and the heat is enough to allow them this luxury with one another, this intimacy.
Beside her, he sits, half-upright as he traces the scars on her back, turning them into patterns, curling arabesques. These are marks he knows well, reminders of the events they have shared together, and as he leans down to press his mouth on the slope of her back he can feel her sigh. He has watched her every evening for many years, and never has he felt so in love as he has this night.
"Do you believe such things can last forever?"
The smile on his lips is knowing as his lover opens her eyes to look at him. He does not need her to explain what she means by 'such things' just as he understands she may never accept his answer.
She is still his warrior maiden, his beautifully fierce lady and though they have come to care deeply for one another, there are parts yet unexplored. What would she say if he told her that he had come to love her? It was not something one said on the eve of battle.
She asks again when he does not respond, her voice tight with worry.
"Do you, Argis?"
There is pain in her eyes now, for even now she is the rational, the logical one. Her hand touches his chest, above his heart as she asks.
Smoothing a hand down her back before carding gently through her hair, Argis smiles though he knows she cannot see it.
"I like to think so."
"Even if we were parted?"
She presses, expression intense as she turns, searches his face for some answer that is known only to her. Whether she finds it or not remains unspoken, but as he takes her into his arms, pressing her close he whispered into her ear, kissing her softly as they both drift to sleep.
"I said I believed in forever, maiden, and I meant it."
- Leave you blind. -
He wakes up alone in a bedroom that should have been theirs, his good eye scanning the dimness of the room to find nothing has changed. The ache remains, the loss of the woman who was both warrior companion and lover.
It has been years, there have been Foresworn to fight and dragons have come to Skyrim, but his first thought every morning remains unchanged, the grief fresh.
He does not like to think about what else she could have been, but it seems this morning is to be especially cruel, and the dreams linger in his mind.
Wife, Mother of his children.
There is a necklace waiting for her on the top shelf of their dresser, an amulet that was to be a surprise. It has done nothing but collected dust since that night, the skirmish that went so terribly wrong that cost him both his sight and his heart.
The scars across his face had faded with time, but he had never been the same since. They have titled him now, pronounced him the Bulwark for his ability to protect the city. But every utterance of that title seems a cruel joke, for he has failed to protect the one person whom he was never to fail.
His stubborn, dutiful, love with her fierce scowl and sword.
He is only half conscious of the trip from bedroom to washroom, the routines which make up his life passing by in a blur. It is only when he is tightening the straps of his armor, pulling the leather tighter, the plates closer, that his mind clears enough to think coherently once more.
The Jarl had contacted him about today; the new Thane was in need of a housecarl.
It had been a while since he had bothered with politics, content to do his duty within the ranks of warrior. But to be a banner man of the Jarl, to serve those that would serve the city is an honor he knows would have made her proud. He accepts the post because it is what she would have done, would have forced herself to do. And indeed the tenants of his class have given him the means to survive day after day.
Duty.
Honor.
The words echo in his mind as he climbs the stairs to Vlindrel Hall and knocks on the large stone door. Having stood empty for many years, its door well locked, it is with some surprise that the warrior finds the abode opens easily with the key from the Jarl.
The house itself is well befitting a Thane, large, with space for weapons, books and there, across from the dining room and the Thane's bedchamber, a small space for him.
It is a tidy quarter, not lavish, but in his many years he has never longed for such things. All his belongings, all his treasures, are in the small bag at his waist, the small bag he now places in the top drawer of this new dresser.
Small comforts are all he allows himself, and the pain of abandoning the home that had once been theirs is absorbed in the constant ache of his chest, his heart.
Behind him, the door to his room creaks ever so slightly as it swings open.
"Hello?"
The voice is melodic, husky, but undeniably female, the word more an interrogative query than polite question. There is an iron clad control behind that single word, and Argis knows that this new Thane has come to power through strength of will as much as force of arms.
And she will be good for Markarth, he knows this without looking at her. He can sense it for he has sensed such things before, has been around leaders who have felt and said and acted like this Thane.
He understands her without having to looks, but when at last he does turn it is with a stunned silence that his eyes rest on the woman behind him, and recognizes her.
The smile on her is harder than he remembers, and indeed everything about her is harder, more grim. The scars on her face and down her neck are unfamiliar, but the eyes are hers, and the small quirk in the corner of her mouth is as he remembers it.
And that is when he realizes that somehow, someway, he must have lost his senses. Because the woman he loved is dead, lost on a battlefield in the icy mountains of the Reach. She is not this Thane, this rumored Dovahkiin.
"My Thane?"
The words are hard to force out, but he does so, turning fully on his axis so as to face her fully.
"I am Elina." Her expression gentles as she catches sight of the scars on his face, the eyes which blinks unseeingly, "You are Argis the Bulwark?"
And though she does not recognize him, and he cannot truly be sure, he inclines his head in deference to her question, stiffening as small hands press a much larger weight into his hands.
"I present you with your namesake, Bulwark."
There is a small smile upon her lips now, and for a moment Argis sees a ghost no longer his vision filled instead with that of his lover.
'Maiden', he calls her softly.
The word is met with a fierce scowl.
And everything was as it should be.
My Love.
Leave yourself behind.
Beat inside of me.
I'll be with you.