He remembered the exact moment.
She'd been on her horse, bowstring drawn back and aim focused along the shaft of an arrow. She'd shot down two of the bandits already, slowing her steed to a trot just before each arrow flew, finding her targets expertly before kicking her mount back into a gallop. The third time she'd slowed was when it had happened - when his vision washed gray and then flooded with red. He'd shoved back the man he had been fighting, forced him aside with a sudden furor that spawned instantaneously in his chest. His greatsword easily knocked aside the bandit's weapon, and in one clean swing back he took off the man's head.
He barely noticed. All he could see was the silhouette of a figure atop a horse; an arrow stuck from a limp body. She barely flinched as it struck her back, seemed to neither notice it nor care. The horse moved a few more paces forward before he saw a shudder run all throughout her body and her bow fell from limp fingers. She slipped from the horse's back with none of the grace she usually moved with - her body summarily sank into an ocean of tall, golden-brown grass.
He was already moving towards her, then, already pumping his legs as hard as they would allow him. The liquid orange of the setting sun spilled over the horizon behind her, setting aflame the dull brown of the countryside. It was in the dying light of day that he saw the grass shift, saw a dark form of lithe grace half-rise above its brown-orange crest. Against the incandescent horizon she stood - indignant, defiant - a blot of shadowed challenge to her foe. The shadow of the arrow shaft pointed straight and unbroken from her back.
He was getting closer. The orange of the lowering sun glinted off her blood-slicked hands as they rose. Light poured again around her; it flickered and pooled, blinking off and on again as electricity danced down the length of her arms. In the bright white luminance that followed he saw fractured moments that danced and teased him. Lightning crackled around the Dragonborn, fizzled and spat its vehemence at the ground and at her enemy. The archer used that light to find her and drew back the string of his bow.
An arc of lightning shot across the field, drowning orange in white; grass and sky alike were saturated until they bled indistinguishably together, blinding his sight and causing him to stumble. He heard, smelled, the impact of arcane lightning against flesh and leather, heard a body crumple to the ground and grass crush underneath its descent.
He'd been expecting all that. What he hadn't expected was the second fall; another body struck the ground, and he blinked his eyes furiously to rid the dark spots that lightning and fear had burned into them. He slowed to an uncertain stop as his sight returned - he wasn't even sure where he was any longer, he was so muddled with desperation and blood lust. His eyes scoured the grass where he was certain she had fallen, his breathing coming in short gasps - both from the run, and his own terror.
He couldn't find her.
He'd never seen her fall before. Six months together, and he'd never once watched her fall. There had been injuries, of course - one could not be an adventurer without injuries (he was particularly proud of an arrow she'd once cut from his neck, careful and quick to heal it and calling him a fool for displaying the scar at every opportunity). She'd once pulled her arm full from its socket and cried in pain as it dangled at her side. A draugr lord had once slashed her stomach so badly he was certain that the hand she held to the wound was not only healing it, but holding in her insides. She had her fair share of scars and stories and he'd once seen the woman survive a spout of dragonfire but it had never been like this. She'd never fallen so completely, never disappeared like a wounded doe, lost and meek and unable to be found.
Because he couldn't find her.
He was nearly to the point of reaching out and pulling whole chunks of wind-waving grass from the ground when he spotted the blood. One long strip caused a tall tuft of grass to sag faintly, weighed against the wind by its burden. He moved towards it to find more - deep scarlet burned its mark against the sea of flaming gold, only slightly lighter in color to the faint burn scars the lightning's path had left. Barely visible streams of smoke still rose from the packed dirt where errant arcs of electricity had landed, and in the middle of the blood and the scorch marks lay the broken body of his dovahkiin.
He was at her side without thinking, pulling her towards him with hands that had never felt more clumsy. With shaking fingers he pulled the iron gauntlets off, tossing them aside with little care to where they landed. That shaking did not abate as he struggled to place her head on his lap, struggled to blindly navigate the innards of his pack. Struggled to not shatter the fragile bottle of red liquid against his panicking movements.
It was then - that was the moment. He thumbed her lips apart and began emptying the contents of the potion into her mouth. His hands would carefully move to cut out the arrow, to remove the armor and cut off the shirt that surrounded the wound, to place poultice and bandage against the flow of blood that was only barely staunched by the concoction which dribbled from her chin. The revelation had nothing to do with his clumsy administrations; she'd shown him the basics of first aid and even before she had, his Father had instructed him on what he'd learned in the Legion. He would never be comfortable with performing those instructions, but if he was forced to choose between his comfort and her life it wasn't really a decision at all.
It had nothing to do with learning of himself. It had everything to do with her.
He'd seen her as so many things. The great adventurer, the capable fighter, the brilliant mage, the dovahkiin, the worldwise traveler, the hunter and the heroine. He'd traveled with her for so long, through so much, that he wasn't sure there was an end to the things she could accomplish. She had done so much - she was so much - it was like walking beside a legend. Walking the path of Skyrim's savior, of the dragonborn, of the mortal with the voice that could still the Divines themselves.
Yet here she lay, her head on his lap, her features drained of color. Blood pooled on the grass and sunk into the dirt, her breathing shallow and her eyes closed. Her body lay still and broken; for the first time he looked upon her, he saw none of what he'd seen before.
He'd seen her as so many things; never once had he seen her as a woman.
She was smaller than he was - he wondered if she had always been. His hands seemed huge and fumbling as they moved over her, tended to her, administering carefully as though fearful he might snap her little body in two. She was light; so much lighter than he would have imagined her to be. When the bandage was in place and he was ready to move her to what would soon be camp he marveled at the ease with which he lifted her. He was suddenly certain his sword weighed more.
The second realization came on the tail of the first. She was not just a woman, she was a pretty woman. He'd never had the courage to say that to a girl before, yet he couldn't help but think it of his dovahkiin. He'd watched her light ancient dragonpriests afire; watched her fire arrows into the throats of men who'd never known she was there. He had watched her in combat, moving with the liquid grace of a cat and the deadly precision of a viper. He'd seen so much of her he wondered, now, how her beauty had gone completely unnoticed to him.
He'd seen men in taverns stare at her - some of them even had the courage to approach her. She'd moved through these verbal confrontations as easily as she slipped through physical ones. But it had all seemed as though ... As though they weren't really looking at her. They didn't really see her. All they had seen was mead and swaying hips, and moved without the thought of what they were moving towards. He'd never made the connection. He'd never realized they saw then what he knew now.
As he lay her carefully upon her bedroll, his mind mulled the meanings of this epiphany. What had kept him from seeing her as she was - what had barred him from the understanding that a single arrow had ripped from within him?
Because she was the dragonborn. Because she was the legend. Because she was the hero, and the fighter, and the mage, and the dovahkiin. Because she was everything that wasn't a boring farm boy from Rorikstead. Because when she smiled at him he felt like he could kill a dragon - and he had, and he was suddenly convinced it was solely because of her.
Because she was all those things, and yet she was none of them. She was a mortal woman, a normal woman with her fears and her hopes and her fragile body. Because she had very nearly died and it had been nothing as glorious as a Daedric Prince or the eater of worlds, but simple bad luck. Because if he had lost her, he'd have lost some part of himself.
Because he was utterly, completely, madly in love with her. With her; not with the legend or the hero. With the quirk of her smile, with the rumble of her laugh. With the nape of her neck and the curve of her chin. With the keen sharpness of her eyes and the soft folds of her hair. He loved every careful step he could never hear her take, loved every word that slipped from her parted lips.
The passion that rose within him shocked him as certainly as the terror that the arrow had evoked. It seemed as though an arrow shot through him now, through his heart and up his spine, tingling his tongue and making his throat long to speak the things he could no longer not feel. He sat on his bedroll and could not even think of sleeping; he sat still and watched the steady rise and fall of her breathing. He sat for long enough that the torrent of his thoughts stilled to simple emotion, when his mind no longer formed the words for his feeling and instead merely pressed the obtuse irregularities of them against his heart.
Night came slowly and sunk around them heavily. Her horse returned - it always did - and whinnied restlessly at regular intervals. The wind grew colder and the only point at which he moved was to cover her more securely. Eventually, she stirred.
He knew right away; he'd been watching her. She hissed in a breath, scrunched her face as she turned her head towards him with a grimace. Slowly her eyes opened. He felt his heart strain once against its confines. He fought off the emotion that begged to curl his features. Fear, realization, curiosity and exasperation all had their turn within her eyes. When emotions stilled, at last she spoke.
"Oh." Her voice was strained; she must have been sore, "We won?"
He almost laughed. A smile ticked his lips and he felt that now-familiar emotion swell once more within him. "Yeah. Yeah, we won."
"Good." She breathed, then rolled her head so her eyes faced the stars, "Always good to win."
He didn't speak again. How could he? How could he tell a walking legend that he loved her? How could he tell her without admitting that, without knowing that, she deserved far better? He was a farmer. No matter how many times he swung his sword nor how many pieces of armor he strapped to his body he would always be a farmer. He was no hero, no legend, no tale of greatness built from humble origins. Everything good about him had come from her - every piece of himself that was strong and able and ready for the world had been raised and molded by her hand.
Without her, he was nothing. And to tell her, then they would have nothing.
"Erik? Is something wrong?"
So he forced a smile. It would be the first of many, he wagered.
"Nah." He waved a hand to her, "The arrow had me worried."
Her eyes had found his. His heart held its place in his chest. For a still moment he wondered if she already knew. Her eyes had the same depth as they always did. They looked as though they solved a puzzle or hid some great conundrum that was hers alone to keep. She looked about to speak, but that, too, stilled quickly at the first ripple of indication. A flicker of some dim emotion passed her eyes and he found himself, for not the first time, unable to guess at the inner workings of her mind. His dovahkiin stared and showed something - perhaps sad, perhaps forlorn, perhaps pitying - but ever beautiful nonetheless.
In a moment it was gone and he was left only with the memory and the mystery.
"Yeah." She said softly, finally, and settled back against her bedroll. "Me too."