Look and Listen
The cold has a strange way of creeping into one's self when exposed to it for too long. It sinks into the flesh, and has given the denizens of Skyrim a demeanor that reflects the harsh climate. Not just the Nords, they are merely the longest standing examples of the tradition of austerity and practicality in the face of constant threat and bitter chill. Such was the relationship of the mage and the warrior.
For over a year they had been traveling together, trudging across the expansive landscape towards great dangers, and even greater treasures. Whether the mage was plunging into a corrupted crypt, or slaying a dragon at mountains edge, more often than not she was at his side. Typically clad in thick Ebony Armor, her stalwart approach to combat consistently bolstering his overwhelmingly destructive magic.
The more wealth he accrued and influence he gained, the more he hungered for those excursions out into the unknown, into the wild and untamed reaches beyond most people's ken, beyond the demands imposed by his station as Dragonborn and Archmage. It was something they shared in common: the need to briefly escape from what their races and titles said they should be.
Looking down into the light that emanated from the fire they'd built under a sheer rock outcropping, he busied himself with re-enchanting his drained armaments. The snow that had accrued on his robes from the day's journey had finally melted away, leaving him to turn his focus fully towards the flow of magic. Once completed, he remained awake for several hours, passively watching her move about on the camp's edge. Though it was her turn to keep watch, he couldn't sleep.
"Too many pressing matters, never enough time." He thought to himself as the flames danced about in the periphery of his vision. The occasional crackling of wood disrupted the melodious rush of wind around them. Somewhere in the distance, a low, indistinct roar resonated across the hillsides, either a moderately distant troll, or a far off dragon.
He returned to his silent gaze as she attentively paced the half circle of open space outside their temporary shelter. Occasionally she stopped, knelt down, and gazed off at nothing in particular, as if simply satisfied by the open space. Her armor possessed a strange black sheen, one which seemed to mirror the mixture of black and yellow her eyes glistened with in the fire light. Though possessing a helmet, she rarely wore it, preferring to sacrifice protection in exchange for a greater field of vision.
He had once heard it said that all Orcs were descendants of the original followers of Malacath, all cursed by the Daedric Lords to have beastly appearances that reflected their god-king. If such a story were true, then he ventured the curse must be losing its grip over time. Either that, or he simply had a different perception of beauty.
She possessed the small tusks and gray-green skin of her people. Her imposing, muscle-layered physique (though curvier than the norm), was overall a prime example of the Orsimer women. What's more, her voice instantly gave her away as Orc, even before the helmet was removed. It was a voice that came across as gruff and rigid, yet unmistakably feminine. Her jet black hair was pulled back in the distinct method of brawlers who preferred to keep their hair unobtrusive, but still growing. For all intents and purposes, she was as Orc as one could be,
and yet...
A sudden thought popped into his head that made him lightly chuckle towards the marbled rock wall on his left. He tried to muffle the laughter in his cloth sheathed shoulder, but to little avail. His chortling caught her attention. She postponed her sentry duty to commence a brief interrogation of her traveling companion.
"What's so funny?" She said, straight to the point, as he'd come to expect.
"Oh, nothing." He replied. "It just occurred to me that in all the time we've spent together, I've never once seen you with your hair down; I thought that was curious."
She gave him a quizzical look before returning to her post. Her walk had a casual swagger to it, born from great experience surviving the unbridled wilderness. The snow began to drift around their shelter. Her footprints created a distinct trench along the outskirts, like an imaginary barrier between them and the harsh, hungry creatures that skulked the hillsides. "You should rest up. We have far to go at dawn," was her only reply.
A large portion of their discussions were of this sort, that is, mostly non-vocal. Partially because of the amount of time they'd spent around one another, but also because it was simply their nature. Though words can carry great meaning (particularly for a studied college mage), for both of them action and clear expression always took precedence. A few looks and gestures spoke volumes on where they stood in relation to themselves, each other, and everyone else.
Finally realizing sleeps gentle embrace wasn't going to come tonight, his thoughts drifted back to when they first met:
It was near years end when he stumbled upon her clan in Skyrim's far Northwest. To say it had been a warm welcome would have been a gross inaccuracy. Bows had been quickly drawn on him from the battlements as he approached. They wouldn't allow admittance until he had done something to prove his goodwill towards them. Having always been the curious type (an innate quality he thought all mages possessed to some extent), he agreed to their terms: finding an enchanted pair of gloves stolen from the clan weeks before.
Many savage Forsworn fell to his elemental castings before he reached his goal. The sentry had looked quite surprised when he returned successful, no doubt she assumed he was soft or untrustworthy, as was the general view of magic in the north.
After greeting the chief and his family, conversation turned to Orcish traditions and customs. The chief explained that women usually went to separate clans to become wives of other leaders; it was a way of avoiding inbreeding while maintaining social ties between the divided territories. Additionally, it meant (in theory), only the strong and cunning reproduced.
At that, the chief had turned and gestured to his oldest daughter, a tall armored figure, who was practicing her sword skills on a dummy made of burlap, straw, and wooden posts. Each swing took out large gouges of detris. "She'll make a fine spouse for one of the other clan leaders." He had said with a measure of pride.
Culturally, the mage understood the need for such a tradition, but it was hard to remain objective when he could clearly tell from his first look that she dreaded the prospect. An unmistakable grimace, accompanied by an increase in her sword tempo, followed from the very mention of becoming some other chief's 3rd, 2nd, or even 5th wife. That was the first time he had read her without words, the first time he saw her as being fundamentally a free spirit.
When the rest of the clan had wandered outside hearing distance, he walked over to her. She continued to swing a hefty Orcish blade into the dummy's head and torso, occasionally gritting her teeth from the force exerted. Eventually she stopped to take a breath and wipe the sweat from her brow. He had been the first to speak up: "I'm by no means an expert on Orsimer behavior, but if I had to guess, I'd say you're frustrated about something."
Between heaving, exhausted breaths, she responded "My blood is calm; I prefer it to be boiling." Those strangely succinct and eloquent words marked the beginning of their adventures together.
It had been risky discussing the prospect of her leaving. But eventually he'd managed to convince chief Larak that she'd become a stronger, yet somehow more obedient wife, if she first gained some experience in the far reaches of Skyrim, outside the log walls. As he had put it: "That way, she'll no longer be curious about areas beyond Orsimer territory."
After a time, he came to value her greatly as a traveling companion, someone to count on in demanding situations that required less finesse and more force. But that was all; he possessed no other original motives beyond needing assistance in his dungeon diving. He acknowledged her strength and wit, and ignored the looks they received from the Nords, but for the longest time they remained two individuals in a mutually beneficial deal, nothing more, nothing less.
He couldn't quite place the moment when he knew he loved her. Several adventures came to mind, all with varying degrees of levity and severity, none providing the exact impetus.
One had been a fearsome battle in the middle of a unforgiving blizzard. Some two dozen bandits had ambushed them a few miles outside Windhelm. He had managed to scorch a handful of them into oblivion, but they just kept coming. Defense had never been his strong suit, and eventually a sword struck home on his mid-section, causing warmth to leak from him and splatter the formerly immaculate snow. On his knees he could feel a great deal of life fluid pouring from the newly opened space. For a moment he thought this was the conclusion of his tale, a falling away of all things, but in that instant he looked up to see that many more bandits had fallen lifeless to the ground and those that remained were running away towards some far away refuge. In the short span of his doubt, she had saved him. Blood cascaded down from a cut above her eyebrow as she spitefully called out challenges to those who fled. The red aura of her Berzerker Rage extinguished once the extent of his injury became apparent. She refused to rest until his condition improved.
Then again, perhaps love first came to light when they'd returned to her tribe 6 months prior. After a highly profitable dungeon dive, she had firmly expressed the need to return home. For almost two days, as they moved closer and closer to the stronghold, past mires and gnarled shrubbery, she hadn't spoken more than a few words about why they were going back.
"There's something I need to do. For my people, for myself." Little else followed.
He had assumed she was finally finished with his company, that they would now go down separate paths in life and depart as good friends. She would return to fulfill her tribal duties, and he would return to saving the world, or whatever requirements came from being known as the Dovahkin. Much to his surprise, she walked straight up to her father, and after greeting him and the rest of her family, she promptly threw down a hefty bag of gold on the table next to the chief.
"Father, the amount of gold in that bag is roughly five times my dowry. I would like to continue on my way through these lands, free from my previous obligation."
The mage honestly couldn't remember seeing a more dumbstruck Orc in all his life. Chief Larak agreed to her terms, and she parted in good standing with her tribe. That being said, he couldn't help but feel some animosity being directed his way as they departed.
"So, that explains why you were saving up for so long." He said, strolling away from the camp gates, which promptly shut behind them.
"It needed to be done." She Replied.
"I'm not disagreeing."
"But you don't approve. I can tell that much."
"...I don't mean to sound materialistic, but you didn't need to give them EVERYTHING you had."
"They'd have done the same. Besides, coin means very little to me."
"True enough."
He could have pressed the issue further, asked why her loyalty had changed, but somewhere deep down he new the answer: that in spite of her commitment to her kin and clan, his mission (whatever that might entail), had now become hers. As she had told him once, "Malacath teaches Orcs to follow their own fate."
He was reminded of why he first chose her, why he always came back for her help. So much of his life wavered and shifted as the world grew darker and buckled under the pressure,yet she remained, caring, constant, and largely selfless. In a strange way, her very presence added stability to his otherwise maddening existence.
But it wasn't the fact that she saved him, and never wavered in her commitments; it was the look that fell over her face in such instances: the focus on her face as he slowly healed the wound she helped to hold shut. It was a look of worry mixed with determination, from a person who refuses to let go of another. In both cases it was the same expression, not dependency, but a vision of a life better spent with the same kindred spirit. So much passed in a glance, more than volumes of works he'd read in the College of Magi's library.
Perhaps their was something unique about this night, the lonely sound of the wind breaking and howling against rocky crevices, the reminiscing that arrested his thoughts, or maybe some deep seated impulse that whispered "This is right." Whatever the case, after his innocuous jibe about her hair he felt a rapidly increasing fire in his heart, an impulse which was becoming increasingly difficult to repress.
He tried to think about other things: the long list of tasks that needed to be done for the citizens of Skyrim, the promising leads he'd picked up regarding powerful enchanted artifacts, sweet rolls, Red Nirnroot, anything at all. Inevitably, each successive thought wound up falling away as his gaze returned to her.
Though in most cases a perfect gentlemen, he was human, and therefore prone to desire like any other. It certainly didn't help that she remained consistently appealing to his sensibilities. Even with all the armor covering her form, he couldn't stopping admiring the curves of her figure, the swaying of her hips, the lovely red markings that traced from her eyes down below her chin. Even her height (a few inches above his own), was attractive to a certain degree, giving her an added element of physicality and long-legged sex appeal. Whether it was environment, lineage, or chance, he couldn't care less. Innumerable factors he'd read about in his studies of physiology melted away into irrelevance as primal thoughts emerged, firmly fixated on how ample her form was in certain key areas. "Thank the Divines Nord women have a similar build, we'd never have been able to find armor that fit correctly."
In that instant he knew that things needed resolution, one way or another. Simply enjoying the comfort of the other's presence was no longer viable. Though at their core instinctual, and focused on the outward aspect, his thoughts weren't base, tawdry fancies, built off of a momentary lapse in judgment. He respected her as a warrior, a friend, as the other side of the fulcrum that counterbalanced his (sometimes wistful) mysticism with sound practicality. But now he needed more, more of her, more of them. If not, then at least it could be considered an action resolved rather than pined at from a distance. This was Skyrim, love emerged swift and genuine; people never bothered to dance around the issue.
As she extended her view out beyond the evergreens, he walked up beside. Out of habit, he began to rub his thumb in circular motions against his middle and index fingers, causing small sparks of arcane energy to crackle from the tips. The sounds of the night were clearer from where they now stood, as though all of creation had decided to resonate in that one direction. He heard the faint low rumble of mammoths, calling for a calf that must have strayed too far from the herd. A faint glow in the sky to the south indicated civilization many kilometers away.
Without looking towards him, she spoke up: "You seem preoccupied by something. Care to share with the rest of the group?"
He couldn't help himself; it was his turn to look back quizzically. "I'm guessing by that you mean yourself and the horses?"
She nudged him in the ribs, only able to take his smart-ass remarks in small doses. "Yes, we are all dying to know what has you in such a mood. Speak up." With that, her face became more stoic, genuinely intrigued.
His heart began to race. He felt so foolish for that iota, thinking "For the love of Akitosh. I supposedly have the soul of a dragon. A dragon! Why is this so hard?"
"Well?" She said, cocking her head to the side, causing licks of fire to flicker in the blackened portions of her corneas, disappearing in the amber of her irises. Her lips looked glossy and full, allowing only small juts of tusk to protrude on either side. It could have been a sheer fluke of lighting, but to him, at that place and time, she appeared to be one of the most radiant creatures in all of Tamriel. He grinned, nearly laughing at himself for how sentimental his thoughts were becoming in the heat of the moment.
Deciding it was now or never, he wrapped his hands behind her waist and gently pulled her closer as he whispered "I'd very much like to see you with your hair down."
For a moment she pulled away, meeting his eyes with her own. For what felt like an eternity they exchanged tentative looks in a half embrace. To a viewer outside the incident, it would have been as if nothing had happened at all, but to them, everything passed with an almost magnetic intensity. Implied thoughts and emotions surged through subtle reactions and counter-reactions. He watched a small shiver reverberate down her body, uncertain of its meaning and cause.
"Cold?" Was the only response that came to mind. Internally he kicked himself for such a ludicrous question, utterly devoid of his usual cunning under pressure. "Cold?" He thought. "We're in the center of a tundra. I could have just as well asked if she has ever seen snow before."
Without warning, her expression shifted to something he'd never seen before and couldn't readily place. Before he realized what it signified, she forcefully pressed her lips to his (careful to avoid an unsavory face gouging), just before pushing him to the ground and straddling atop his lower abdomen. She reconnected the kiss, their tongues began to reflexively writhe around in a constantly shifting mass of lust. With a quick motion of her hands above her head, she undid the band that held her dark hair in place. The strands cascaded down and enveloped the two of them as she leaned forward to speak one simple, yet blazingly sultry sentence:
"What took you so damn long?"