[A/N] So this is the first of some gift fics that I'm writing for the winners of my fanfiction giveaway that was going on over on Tumblr a few days ago; this one is for beanmachine5, and I'm really proud of how it turned out. I'm not used to writing romance that isn't angsty on some level (which is probably not good), but I really should try it more often: fluffy fics make me feel quite happy inside. :D

[DISCLAIMER] I do not own The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim or anything related to it; that's Bethesda's deal, not mine (sadly). Scota is not exactly mine either, but the concept for her belongs to beanmachine5.

ACCEPTANCE

"Farkas."

He looked up from the grindstone and the sword that he was sharpening. She stood in front of him, arms crossed over her chest and looking pointedly at him, head tilted to one side.

Her eyes flitted to the Skyforge steel sword that he was holding steady and then back to him, seeing that he was outfitted in his armor. "Where's the fight?" she asked lightly.

Farkas chuckled. "Far away from here. Some bandits have run over a mine down near Riverwood; I'm going down there to put a stop to them." He'd just received notice from Vilkas this morning; his brother, in a fouler mood than usual, had shoved the bounty notice under his plate at breakfast before stalking off. For a moment, he'd wondered about what had riled up Vilkas this time, but after looking at the parchment, that had gone out of his mind.

One eyebrow went up. "Alone? That's ambitious."

"Of course not. There's a lot down there. I've got to get a shield-brother to come along with me." He stood up from the grindstone, sheathing the sword at his side.

"How about a shield-sister?"

Farkas frowned. "But – but don't you have things to do? Harbinger things?"

She sighed, tossing her head contemptuously. "Vilkas can take care of it. Besides," she added, "I need to get out of Jorrvaskr for a bit."

He was beginning to suspect that she had had something to do with Vilkas being so touchy this morning. She usually did. "Does my brother know about this?"

She shrugged. "He will soon. I'll meet you at the stables in an hour." Before he had a chance to get another word in, she turned around and strode off, her long black braid swinging behind her with every step.

It had been nearly two years since she'd came to Jorrvaskr: a petite Breton in worn-out armor with nothing but a rusting iron mace at her side and streaky whorls of red war paint on her cheeks. He remembered, because he pointed her there.

Aela and Skjor had both expressed doubt about his choice, but they'd changed their tune once they saw the Breton nearly break Vilkas's shield during her test. Ria and Torvar and the other whelps were impressed and excited, probably mostly because they were no longer considered the "new bloods" any longer. Vilkas was considerably less enthusiastic, but he'd grudgingly accepted Kodlak's decision.

As for him... he struggled to find a word that would adequately describe how he felt about the Breton. Interested? No, it seemed too impersonal, with too many meanings and too many ways to be misconstrued. Enthralled? Perhaps a bit too strong. Fascinated? Yes, that word seemed to fit.

The Companions did not want for beauty – Njada and Ria were both attractive, to say nothing of Aela – but the Breton was not so much beautiful as she was striking, with the rakish scar running past her lips and the gleam in her eyes when she sensed a win and the deliberate, swaggering way she walked (somehow manageable for her even in steel armor). She wasn't like his other shield-sisters, and that made her mysterious, dangerous – perhaps even both.

Almost two years later, he could say with certainty that she was definitely both.

But something wasn't quite right about her today. Instead of witty remarks, all that came out of her as they rode down the road to Riverwood was biting, caustic sarcasm. She'd helped him clear out the mine with a grimly determined efficiency, and made to leave almost immediately after the last bandit had fallen to his sword, without even taking a look at the loot that the bandits had collected – which Farkas knew was unusual in and of itself. And now here they were, resting outside the mine, and she'd barely said more than a word.

Today, she didn't seem quite like the woman he knew.

"Um..." He tried to find something to break the silence. "I didn't see you use any of your magic back there."

She looked over at him, an almost exasperated look on her face. "No, I didn't."

"Why not?" he asked. "There were plenty of bodies for you to... y'know... reanimate."

He'd discovered her unusual talent for necromancy during her Trial. While navigating Dustman's Cairn, Farkas had looked behind him at one point, and was nearly shocked out of his skin to see a Silver Hand shambling behind them. He'd beheaded it with a sweep of his sword and was even more baffled to see it crumble to dust. His bewilderment only increased when the Breton turned around and scolded him for killing her thrall.

"You raised that?" he'd asked in disbelief, pointing his sword at the pile of ashes.

She'd given him a dry little smirk. "Any other conjuration masters you see around here?" Her gaze turned hard. "Got a problem with that?"

Farkas hesitated. The Companions didn't outright despise magic, but they weren't tolerant of its use; Vilkas in particular was virulently anti-magic, and if he'd found out that the Breton was a necromancer, he'd lobby for her to be thrown out of Jorrvaskr for sure.

Then again... she already knew that he was a werewolf, which she was definitely not supposed to know. He'd already made her swear to keep that secret, so why couldn't he do the same with her?

"No," he said. "Actually... considering what we're up against... it might be useful."

The Breton smirked again. "Exactly."

She chuckled softly. "'Reanimate'? That's a four-syllable word, Farkas. Were you looking through my notebooks again?"

Farkas frowned. Unlike others in Jorrvaskr, the Breton never teased him about his intelligence. ("Your intellect's normal," she'd once said in passing. "If you can outclass sheep and the superstitious morons around here, you're doing just fine.")

The Breton noticed his expression. "What?"

"You're – you're not quite yourself today," he said.

She sighed irritably. "Well, if you include being a necromancer as part of who I am – which I do – then I haven't really been 'myself' since Vilkas discovered what I could do."

When he and the Breton had left for Driftshade Refuge, his brother had been filled with sorrow and rage: sorrow for Kodlak's death and rage for the Silver Hand that had taken both their leader's life and the fragments of Wuuthrad that they'd worked so hard to collect. When Vilkas had returned, he'd had nothing but rage – rage at the Breton.

"You knew," he'd accused Farkas. "You knew all along what foul things she was capable of, and you never told me or anyone else in the Circle."

"She's not like the other crazy mages we've had to hunt down in the past, brother," Farkas had protested. "Scota's different; don't you see that?"

"She's ambitious. She's arrogant. And she's drunk on power." Vilkas's mouth was tight. "You're wrong, brother. She's just like them."

"At least you don't have to hide it anymore," he offered.

"It was easier to hide it," Scota said flatly.

Farkas thought for a moment. "You couldn't have hid it forever, though."

She shrugged. "No. I couldn't have." Suddenly, she laughed again, but it was a dry, cynical sound. "I didn't expect to last this long in the Companions. I figured that I'd be found out within a month and then I'd be sent packing out of Whiterun. Go up to the College of Winterhold, set up a laboratory in the Midden, and conjure to my heart's content."

"You didn't expect to be asked to join the Companions?" It surprised him. "But you're not half-bad with a sword."

"No. No, I didn't." Scota's face fell a little. "That was my oversight."

"You stayed." It struck him then. "You wanted to leave, but... you stayed."

The Breton sighed. "Yes, I stayed. Despite all of my urges, I stayed." She leaned back, planting her hands in the grass behind her to prop herself up. "I kept telling myself to leave, but I didn't. And now, I'm Harbinger and there's no way out."

Despite her notable role in retrieving the Glenmoril Witches' heads and the fragments of Wuuthrad, Vilkas hadn't wanted her to come with them to Ysgramor's Tomb. "She is not worthy of being called a Companion, let alone a member of this Circle," he'd insisted, glaring at Scota all the while. "She would disrespect the tomb with her – her unnatural magic."

"You always have such a way of making people feel welcome," the Breton had drawled, leaning against the stone wall of the Underforge.

"Don't be stupid, Vilkas," Aela had snapped. Although suspicious of Scota at first, the two of them had progressed from friendly rivals to overly competitive friends."We wouldn't be doing this if she hadn't provided the means for a cure. She's coming along."

And so it came to pass that the four of them – all Circle members, all werewolves, and all looking to pay Kodlak a final goodbye – found themselves at Ysgramor's Tomb. Surprisingly enough, Vilkas stayed back; whether it was from regret over the bloody revenge he'd taken on the Silver Hand or from distrust of Scota, Farkas could not tell.

But he'd found himself making a hasty retreat as well after he and Aela and Scota had run into a sizeable den of frostbite spiders; ever since Dustman's Cairn – and Scota raising one from the dead without thinking about it – the creatures had given him the chills. So the two brothers had waited together for their shield-sisters to return.

And they did: Aela with two less witch heads in the sack, and Scota with a new title – and without the gift of lycanthropy.

"I thought... I thought power was something you wanted," he ventured. "I remember you told me once that you liked the feeling."

Somehow, Scota managed to shrug. "And I thought I wanted to be a werewolf, too. Y'know: plenty of strength, very fast, good hunter, all that. Turns out that it was a bit too much for little old me to handle." She sighed. "Kodlak was right about everything: the gift being a curse, the dangers of power, the tolls of revenge. I just didn't listen to him."

"So you're thinking of – of not being a mage anymore?" Farkas asked, surprised.

The Breton snorted. "I'd sooner chop off my hands. No, what I've been contemplating lately is... satisfaction."

He frowned. "'Satisfaction'?"

"Look, Farkas, I'm not one for dramatic, woe-is-me monologues, so I'll keep this brief," Scota said bluntly. "I've never been satisfied with anything in my life. When I was a girl, all the wealth and influence my parents had wasn't enough, so I ran off to Cyrodiil to study magic. Then I got bored with the Synod and the College of Whispers, so I struck out on my own. And finally, when I deemed my prowess as a necromancer to be 'negligible,' I set off for Skyrim to enroll at the College of Winterhold." She shrugged again, leaning forward and draping her arms over her knees. "It's just the way I am. I just – I just never thought I'd be happy with joining a band of alcoholic, battle-hungry warriors who hate magic. But strangely enough, I am."

"You're satisfied now and you don't know what to do," Farkas surmised triumphantly.

She smiled slightly. "See, you're smarter than people give you credit for. But yes, that's exactly it." Her lips pursed in thought. "So tell me: what do I do now that I've actually found somewhere that I enjoy being?"

"Well... you stay, I guess. I mean," he said, "it would be kind of silly to leave somewhere that you like, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, it would," the Breton mused, her eyes coming to rest on him. "Or someone."

He gaped. "You – you like –?"

Scota threw her head back and laughed. "I take it back," she gasped in between peals of laughter. "You really can be dense sometimes, can't you?"

"I'm just surprised," he confessed, coloring a bit. "I just didn't think that someone like you would be interested in someone like me."

That one eyebrow went up again. "'Someone like me'?"

"You know: beautiful, talented, confident... all that." He grinned sheepishly. "With the power to reduce me to a stuttering mass of muscles with a single smoldering stare."

She went off into hysterical giggles again. "Farkas, that's downright poetic. Are you sure you never went to the Bard's College?"

"Pretty sure. But – but I'm also pretty sure it's not quite exaggeration if it's true."

A little smile slowly crept across Scota's face. "Well... there is that," she said, her smile turning just the tiniest bit wicked. "What did you say I was again?"

"Beautiful, talented, confident –"

She launched herself at him, nearly knocking him on his back in the grass. "I can deal with that," she purred, leaning over him. "How lucky was I to find a big, strong Nord man who's not only a warrior, but a poet?"

"Well, there's more to me than just being good at hacking people to bits," Farkas managed; he found himself getting a little distracted by the way Scota's lips were tracing the stubble on his cheek. "I mean, normally Vilkas is the bookish one, but –" He stopped.

So did the Breton. "What is it?"

"Vilkas." He sat up, wrapping an arm around Scota to keep her from falling off his lap. "He's going to have a heart attack when he finds out about this."

She chuckled. "Your brother's already survived plenty of shocks, most of them due to my behavior. I think he'll live."

Farkas laughed as well. "You know... I think he will, too."

The End

[A/N] Thanks for reading, and please leave a review if you liked it!

BrunetteAuthorette99