Brogan Bearclaw stared into the horizon. A storm was brewing.
"Won't be long now 'til it reaches here,"he thought. His black hair dropped over his eyes again and he grunted, sweeping it aside.
"Why did I decide to build a house in the rainiest part of Skyrim again?" he thought as he climbed down from the roof of his newly finished manor. The ladder creaked a bit under his weight.
His horse Frost looked at him from his stable with hungry eyes and stomped the ground with one leg. "Oh no you don't. Erik fed you today already."
Frost let out an arguing huff.
"No!" Brogan answered and stared the horse dead in the eye. The horse stared back, neither of them flinching even slightly. After a few moments Brogan finally let up. "Talos' balls Frost, you're as stubborn as a bloody mammoth!" Frost huffed agreeably as Brogan threw him an apple. "But you won't get any more 'til tomorrow!''
Frost looked at him with a gleam in his eyes.
"You're too clever for your own good" Brogan grunted and walked over to the house's main door.
He opened the door and yelled in: "Erik, Rayya, come and help me cover everything from the rain!"
"At once, my thane!" Rayya's voice echoed from the main hall.
"Yes, yes, coming!" Erik's voice came from upstairs with a lot less enthusiasm. The young lad had thought that adventuring with the fabled Dragonborn would be a lot more exciting and while he had been on many adventures with him, ever since he'd accepted the role of the Steward in his manor things had gotten really boring. At least Llewellyn, the bard he'd hired had taken up most of the stewardly duties, so he didn't have to care about those anymore.
"Erik, collect all the animals into their pens. Rayya, you help me with the tools."
Erik sighed and started herding the chickens into their coop and steering the cow towards her pen.
"Is there something wrong with the lad?" Brogan asked Rayya, nodding towards Erik as they gathered pickaxes and shovels from the yard.
"I believe he wishes life would be more exciting around here, my thane," she replied. Thunder struck somewhere in the distance.
"I'll send him hunting tomorrow. We'll see if that'll cheer him up a notch"
The storm came quicker than Brogan had anticipated. The rain hammered loudly against the roof and thunder roared every few moments. Rayya was sitting in the main hall, arm wrestling with Erik. Brogan sat next to them and watched for a few moments.
"Whoever wins will get an item of their choosing from my armory. Of course, this excludes my personal arms and armor that I cannot recreate, such as the... gifts, I've gotten from... important people. Like the black bow." He meant the Nightingale bow, but couldn't tell them that he used to be the greatest thief in Skyrim. It was among his most guarded secrets.
"Is that stick even worth a damn in a fight anyway?" Erik grunted as Rayya gained a bit more ground. "To me it looks like nothing but some ornamental crap."
Rayya smirked, knowing well that Erik was riling Brogan up with that line. Brogan loved that bow and Erik knew it.
"Listen here, milk drinker! That bow has killed countless dragons as well as the - "
Erik cut him off. "...As well as half the Stormcloack army. I know! You've told that same story a hundred times, old man! For someone with only 30 winters behind him you talk like one with 70!"
"Don't try your luck, 'Slayer'," Brogan answered with fiery tone. Rayya laughed and lost the strenght from her arm, resulting in Erik hitting her hand into the table.
"You two fight like an old married couple!" she said as she made room for Brogan to sit opposite to Erik and left to grab some mead from the kitchen. Erik grinned. He knew that 'insulting' Brogan's priced items made him mad, and he was much better company when he was mad.
"Llewellyn!" Brogan exclaimed as he lighted two candles on the left and right side of his arm. "Come sing us something that will drown out the racket that rain makes!"
"Of course, milord." Llewellyn answered as he stepped from his room with a lute in his hand.
Brogan thumped his elbow on the table and grabbed Erik's hand. "We start when the music starts," he said, staring Erik in the eye. Erik nodded.
Llewellyn cleared his throat and played a few notes. Then he started: "Ooh, there once was a hero named Ragnar the Red who came riding to Whiterun from ole Rorikstead..."
Erik and Brogan stared each other down as they tried to overpower one another.
"I win and I get that bow!" Erik said with that same grin of an untrained mercenary wannabe of a farmer he'd been when Brogan had first met him.
"Oh? And what could you give to this bet that would be equal in worth to my bow?"
"Nothing, really. But I want to see you lose it!" Erik grinned even more widely.
"Well in that case I'd better not lose then."
Rayya was in the kitchen pouring mead for the three of them. The mouthwatering smell of a roast boar rose up from the oven and made her stomach rumble as she listened to the rain and the occational thunderstrike. She didn't know why, but for some reason she was sure that the life of her thane would soon change drastically.
"...oh you talk and you lie and you drink all our mead now I think it's high time you lie down and bleed!" Llewellyn continued his song.
"Ready to give up?" Brogan asked Erik.
"A true Nord... never... backs down!" Erik hissed back under his breath.
"As you wish." Brogan chuckled and finally put his full strength into the game.
"And the braggart named Ragnar was boastful no mooooore... When his ugly red head rolled around on the floor!"
Erik let out an involuntary cry as Brogan pressed his hand into the candle fire. Llewellyn put down his lute and fetched some cold water for Erik.
"When armwrestling, you must remember to never use all your strength at once. Tire your opponent out, then give them a taste of true Nord strength. Same lesson applies for fighting too," Brogan instructed perhaps a little smugly.
Erik's grin was long gone and had been replaced by a deep frown. As he cooled his hand in the water, he listened closely to Brogan's words. He might not like the method in which Brogan taught him things, but he heeded his lessons regardless. Llewellyn disappeared into the kitchen at the same time as Rayya came from there with three mugs of mead on her hands. She set them onto the table, splashing some of the mead.
"I see you lost, kid" Rayya laughed as she raised her own mug on her lips.
"Well, he did beat you, so he gets to choose one item of his choosing from my armory," Brogan said over the edge of his own mug. "Go on, lad, go pick something you like!"
Erik didn't say anything but his body language told everything to Brogan. "Watch how they move. How they tense their shoulders. How their brows rise just that little bit. They like your deal," he remembered Brynjolf telling him, and he chuckled as he watched Erik pretend he wasn't really interested. Llewellyn came out of the kitchen carrying a full roast boar on a tray and settled it carefully onto the table. The delicious smell filled the room.
"Think we can eat this on one standing?" Brogan asked, looking at Llewellyn.
"Milord, if I may be so bold, I'd say we of this household could eat an entire mammoth in one standing"
Brogan laughed and hit his empty mug on the table. "Go fetch the jar here, and grab yourself a mug too, tonight we'll drink 'til we drop!"
"Of course, milord," Llewellyn answered and headed towards the kitchen again. Erik walked out of the armory wearing Brogan's self made dragonscale armor. "Whatd'ya think?" He asked and held his arms out like he'd just performed a magic trick.
Brogan gave him a passing glance, then looked at his food and started talking. "I hope you prove yourself worthy of wearing that armor, lad. Now, sit down and eat!"
Llewellyn returned from the kitchen and sat next to Rayya. Everyone filled their mugs with mead and started eating. They sat around the table for a long time that night, eating, drinking and singing songs and trading tales.
–
Everybody woke up to the banging on the front door. Brogan was too hungover to think properly.
"Door! Go open the Erik!" he yelled from his room. Erik wasn't in any better condition to speak or walk for that matter and just mumbled incoherently as an answer. The banging continued.
Llewellyn, who didn't seem to be hungover at all, rose from his bed and made it neatly. The stairs complained with squeaks as he headed downstairs and opened the door to reveal a small man nervously wringing his hands, his travelling clothes and bag filled to a breaking point with pergament rolls revealing him as a courier.
"Yes?" Llewellyn said.
"Is this the house of Brogan Bearclaw?" the courier asked timidly. "I've got something I'm supposed to deliver. For his hands only."
Llewellyn scoffed. "In this household, I am his hands. Now would you please give your delivery to me?"
"But I'm supposed to give this to Mr. Brogan only," the courier stuttered.
"Oh, for the love of the Nine just give it to him and shut up! Can't you understand there are people hungover here?" Brogan yelled from his room.
"Please, my thane, not so loud..." Rayya groaned from upstairs.
"Very well then," the courier said and handed a letter to Llewellyn.
"Looks like that's it. Got to go!" He sighed and started to head away from the manor. Llewellyn closed the door and headed to Brogan's room.
"Just put it on the nightsand," Brogan mumbled trough his pillow.
"As you wish, milord," Llewellyn answered. He placed the letter onto the nightstand and opened the window, letting sunshine and fresh air inside the otherwise dark and musty-smelling room. Brogan tried to argue but talking hurt his head, so he decided against it, instead burying his head under his pillow.
He woke up with a much clearer head after a couple of hours. He sat up and held his head on his hands.
"Worth it..." he thought as he got up from the bed and put on his working clothes. He rubbed his eyes and yawned, noticing the letter on his nightstand. He broke the seal on the letter as he headed out of his room and into the dining hall, where Llewellyn had prepared breakfast for him and the others. Erik and Rayya were both eating already, Erik digging in to some bread and cheese and Rayya some of the leftover boar. Brogan sat down and gathered the rest of the leftovers; bread, eggs, cheese and some butter on his plate, filled a mug with milk and started burrowing down on his breakfast as he started reading the letter aloud.
"'To the most esteemed Sir Brogan Bearclaw. You've become something of a legend here in Skyrim. Every Jarl's court holds your word in high regard, as a thane as well as the Harbinger of the companions. You are a warrior of most' blah blah blah." He skipped the pleasantries. "'I would like to invite you to join the Dawnguard to fight the evergrowing vampire menace. You would get a free place in our keep as well as a position of command in our organisation. We need people like you, and Skyrim needs us.' Signed Dawn Commander Isran." He crumpled the paper into a ball and threw it into the fireplace.
Erik stopped eating. "Are you serious?" he asked. "You were offered a chance to be the hero you used to be and you just threw it away? Why!?"
"I'm retired," Brogan answered and swept his hair aside from his forehead.
"You are 30 years old! True Nords fight until they are too weakened by old age to grip a sword! And if you're truly retired then why do you keep practicing yourself in archery and swordfight? A retiree would have no need of those!"
"I practise because it pleases me, lad. Why do you care about that anyhow? And I fought until there was nothing left to fight," Brogan answered with a piece of boar a his mouth. "This 'vampire menace' is nothing but an excuse for fools to make some quick coin. I won't be a part of that. I still have my dignity." He drank some milk from his mug.
"Says the man hiding in the woods, pretending not to give a shit about the world around him!"
"Hey!" Brogan yelled, slamming his mug to the table. "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. I intend to retire as a hero, and let myself be remembered or forgotten as such."
"So you're afraid for your reputation?"
"No." Brogan sighed. Erik noticed the same look of great regret in his eyes he had from time to time since right before he decided to move into the woods.
"Finish your meal and grab a bow, you're going hunting." Brogan grumbled.
Erik didn't argue, leaving the house after the breakfast and heading into the woods.
"Come with me, Rayya. We're going to get rid of that altar on my backyard," Brogan told Rayya.
They stepped outside. The forest was still wet from the storm last night, and smelled wonderful. Brogan filled his lungs with air and held it in for a couple of seconds before breathing out.
"Are you alright, my thane?" Rayya asked with a worried tone as Brogan headed towards the tool shed.
"You don't have to be so formal all the time, Rayya," Brogan replied. "I won't die just because you won't address me as your thane all the time, as you might have noticed if you're lucid enough when you're drunk." He opened the shed door.
Rayya's face wen't completely red. "I...uh..." she sputtered.
"There is no harm done," Brogan chuckled. "I actually prefer it when you act as a friend instead of a bodyguard." He threw a her a shovel.
"Well, if you so wish, then I shall act more casually"
"Please do," he said as he grabbed two pickaxes from the shed and shut the door. As they walked by the eastern wall, Brogan stopped to check some damages on the wood. Clawmarks of a troll. He sighed as they continued on their way towards the hilltop. They headed down the hillside behind the house and Brogan slipped on the wet grass.
"Shit!"
He cried out as he slided down the hill on his back. Rayya was laughing her head off watching the situation above him on the hill.
"Ugh... Screw you too, Rayya!" Brogan let out as he climbed up. "Now get over here and help me with this damned stone!"
Rayya came down a lot more carefully, avoiding grass and mud and stepping only on solid rock. When they were both standing next to the altar, Brogan gave her a pickaxe.
"If we're fast, we'll get this done in a couple of hours or so," Brogan said as he looked at the altar. There was some moss covering it. Nobody had maintained it since he'd killed the necromancers using it for their dark rituals. He shivered as he remembered the mangled corpse on the altar, and the necromancers standing around it. He lifted his pick over his head and struck it down on the stone slab. Blue sparkles flew from the stone on impact, but the stone was unharmed. He struck again, and this time there were more sparkles, but the stone was still undamaged. He struck it once more with all his might and the slab split in two as all the magical energy it had contained burst into the air, throwing Brogan and Rayya on their backs.
Rayya picked herself up quickly. "I expected a bigger explosion."
"There wasn't much magic left in it," Brogan answered as he rose up. "See the plantation on the bottom stones? Nature was going to claim it back."
"Well, let's get to work," Rayya said, tightening her grip around her pick.
After 3 hours of hitting metal on stone, the altar and the stone pillars surrounding it were finally nothing but a neat pile of stone rubble. Brogan wiped his hair off his sweaty forehead.
"Done..." he said as he threw his pick onto the ground. He looked at Rayya. "A nice mug of cold mead would be perfect right about now, eh?"
Rayya didn't answer, just stared into the distance.
"What's troubling you?" Brogan asked as he walked to her side.
"It's just that..." Rayya started. "Are you certain that you don't wish to be a part of the Dawnguard? Erik has a point, you could be a hero again."
"No," Brogan grunted, not looking her in the eyes. "I'm done with that life."
Rayya looked at him and he had the same regretful look in his eyes. "What happened?" she asked.
"Huh?" The distant, regretful look that had been lingering on his face was suddenly gone.
"What happened that made you stop adventuring and retire so young?"
"Nothing happened!" Brogan hissed angrily and started to make his way up to the house.
"Bring the tools with you!" he barked. Rayya sighed and started picking up the pickaxes and shovels. She carried the tools over to the shed and grabbed some oat for Frost. He was happy to see food in his manger and neighed happily. She patted his head fondly. "
When's the last time your mane has been brushed?" she asked, brushing pieces of hay and other trash from Frost's mane. "I should take you for a ride." Frost's eyes widened, and he looked at her with pleading eyes.
"If it's okay with Brogan, I'll take a ride with you around Falkreath. You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Rayya cooed at the horse.
Frost neighed with a high pitched voice. Rayya chuckled as she continued to brush his mane.
–
Brogan was inside, drinking. Doubt started to bang at the back of his mind. He drowned it with mead but it came back soon.
"Should I have taken Isran's offer? Should I have taken up arms again? Should I have started to use the Voice again? NO!" he battled the thoughts in his mind. "I won't use the Voice ever again! None of my friends shall suffer under my power again..."
He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Lewellyn!"
"Yes, milord?" The bard appeared from the kitchen.
"Send word to someone that I'm paying gold to whoever carries that pile of rubble from my backyard. Also, I need some proper stone and wood."
"At once, milord."
Rayya stepped inside the hall. "My thane, would you mind if I took Frost for a ride? He seems anxious to run again." She had a warm smile on her face.
Brogan looked at her with tired eyes. "Sure, whatever. Just feed the other animals first."
"Of course, my thane." And with that, she was gone. Brogan sighed and swept his hair aside. It was really growing too long.
"Is this what I truly want?" he thought. "Is this how I want to spend the rest of my life?"
–
As Rayya was saddling Frost, Llewellyn approached her with a note in his hand. "If you would, please give this to the steward of Falkreath. She'll send it forward for the right people."
"As you wish," Rayya answered as she tightened the saddle. She grabbed the note and put it in her pack. "See you later!" Then she rode off.
Llewellyn headed indoors and found Brogan sleeping with his head on the table. "...Never again..." he mumbled in his sleep.
When Brogan woke up about half an hour later, Erik had returned from his hunt with a nice catch of two deers and five rabbits. Brogan streched his arms and yawned.
"Did Rayya go out with Frost?" Erik asked as he sat down opposite of Brogan, a mug of mead in his hand.
"Yeah, she thought Frost might want to run for a bit again," Brogan answered, filling a mug of his own from the tankard on the table.
"You up for a game, old man?" Erik asked and grabbed a deck of cards from the table.
"Sure, why not." Brogan answered..
The rest of the night went rather normally, some eating, singing and drinking as well as a small argument between Erik and Brogan. Brogan decided to go to bed early; this night he wouldn't stay up and drink so late. His thoughts still taunted him. Your fault... Not a true Nord... Forgotten hero...
"No..." he whispered to himself. "I will not be forgotten as a hero who lost his way."
His thoughts haunted him for a long time before he finally fell asleep.
–
Next morning, he woke up early and snuck into his armory to check the mannequins. A lot of random armors he'd made for sale, now forgotten. He sighed as he opened the locked cabinet he kept on the far side of the room.
"I never thought I'd open this blasted thing again..." A puff of old, damp air flushed over him. "...but I never thought those two fools would talk me over to doing this either."
He moved the false back panel aside and stepped inside. His secret room was exactly like he'd left it over five months ago. There were more mannequins near the walls, each holding a different armor, different parts of his life since his return to the Homeland. There was the Wolf armor of the companions, the Imperial Legion scout armor, Thieves' Guild armor, the Nightingale armor, the Guildmaster armor, and the specially enchanted dragonscale armor: Dragonmail as well as the Deathbrand stalhrim armor he'd taken as a 'souvenir' from Solstheim and the partially burned Dark Brotherhood armor he'd taken from one of the assassins after torching their sanctuary. And in the middle of the room, a place for his most treasured armor: an empty mannequinn. He had always thought that he'd find an armor fitting for the title, but he never could.
Brogan decided to grab the the Guildmaster's hood but dressed himself in simple dark clothes. He'd travel to Dawnguard keep incognito. There were weapon plaques on the walls. There weren't many options here, as he kept most of the weapons in the main armory. Regardless, he took the Nightingale bow and tried to remember what Karliah had told him about the bow but found that he'd long since forgotten about it. He sighed as he put it on his back. He grabbed a couple of unique shortswords he'd crafted for himself out of the remains of Alduin he'd smuggled out of Sovngarde. They were black as the night, and sharper than anything else in the known existance. He swung them around a bit and then stuffed them into their proper sheaths. Last, he looked at the glass cabinet on the other side of the room. It contained all the daedric artifacts he'd collected troughout his adventures. There were a few good ones, such as Azura's Star and Meridia's Dawnbreaker Blade, but it also contained some of the more distasteful ones as well, such as the Sanguine Rose and the Ebony Blade. He shivered as he looked upon the cabinet and tried to forget he'd ever owned any of those artifacts. He was glad that at least there weren't any of the really bad ones such as Boethiah's or Mehrunes Dagon's artifacts. He cast one last look on the different armors before heading back up to the main armory. The air felt a lot fresher as he climbed up the stairs, placed the back panel on its place and locked the cabinet. He took an arrow quiver from the wall and checked its contents. A fine batch of Dragonbone arrows carefully tipped in poison. "These will do..." he thought and grinned as he strapped the quiver on his hip.
Llewellyn had gotten up and started to prepare brekfast. Brogan grabbed a wooden bowl and a spoon and started banging them together as hard as he could, making as much noise as possible.
"Wake up people! We eat and then we leave! We're headed to Riften!"
Erik groaned upstairs. Rayya was silent but Brogan could feel her anger.
"Hurry it up! We're burning daylight!"
Rayya came down, tired as ever.
"ERIK! Get down here now or you'll leave with an empty stomach!" Brogan yelled from the bottom of his lungs. Erik stumbled down the stairs and almost fell down the last few steps. He sat down, put his head on the table and fell asleep again.
Brogan's hair dropped over his eyes again and he decided that that was enough. He looked at the mirror on the wall and grabbed a dagger from the armory. Then he returned to the mirror and stared at himself with his hair over his eyes. He looked like a 50-year-old man with his beard.
"Not anymore," he thought, slicing off a chunk of his hair with the dagger, quickly shortening the hair that was constantly cloaking his vision. Then he shaved his beard. He'd aged rather well for a Nord. Cutting off the excess hair and beard made him look like a 25-year-old.
Llewellyn made a lot smaller breakfast this time, containing just some eggs and bread and cheese and milk or water for drinks. Erik lifted his head sleepily and started munching on some eggs. Rayya ate some bread with cheese and butter and Brogan simply ate an egg with a small piece of cheese on a slice of bread. When they were ready to leave at seven o'clock, Brogan headed to his room and opened a safebox. There was a lot of different valuables along with a fat bag of 10 000 septims there. He grabbed the bag and and three other coin pouches each containing 2000 septims before locking the safe again and heading back into the main hall.
He threw the bag of 10 000 septims to Lewellyn. "Hire the Companions to watch over the house while we're gone. Also, this should be enough to buy food and pay for someone to get rid of the rubble pile and for some workers to build stairs down the hill on the backyard. Make them build a small hut on the rubblepile's place too. I'll see to finishing it myself." Lewellyn was almost crushed with the weight of the gold hitting him in the chest.
"As you wish, milord," he said with what little air was left in his lungs after having the air knocked out by the bag.
"And to think you paid me only 500 septims," Erik grunted.
Rayya scoffed "I wasn't paid anything!"
"So my food, my house and my great company aren't enough for you two?" Brogan laughed. Rayya had put on her traditional housecarl steel armor and her Redguard scimitars on her belt. Erik put on his newly won dragonscale armor and grabbed a solid dragonbone greatsword from the armory.
"Well, let's get going," Brogan said and pulled on his hood. He didn't want to attract too much attention and hoped that this way he'd just look like some important idiot with an armed escort. He saddled Frost and hopped on. "We should be able to get some horses for you two in Falkreath," he said as he started riding slowly away from his manor for the first time in six months.