title: aurora borealis
summary: "You know, that helmet is very, um…flattering. It really brings out your eyes." — Farkas/Kana
dedication: to mollie.
notes1: er, yeah, Kana is my character. just so you know. i ship her with every member of the Companions evar. even Aela. unf.
disclaimer: disclaimed.
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Kana encounters the Companions for the first time when she's nineteen and a half.
It's wintertime — outside, Whiterun is blanketed in white, true to its name. Children are playing, throwing hastily ill-formed snowballs at one another; the stalls have shut for the season, buried under four inches of powdery whiteness and certainly in no state to be used for trade.
Kana curses under her breath. Breezehome's lock is frozen firmly on itself. Her attempts to thaw it out are almost comical, as far as everyone else is concerned.
"Oi, love, you havin' trouble?"
She mutters profanely again, louder this time, face flushing even in the cold. As she turns, she sees her breath on the air, plain as anything.
"No, I'm n-not," she furrows her brows disapprovingly at the man in front of her. "You want to m-mind your own b-business?"
The man lifts his eyebrow. He can't be much older than she is, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two at a push. Dark hair and dark eyes contrast well with his pale skin; he's clad in armour, quite expensive-looking for a young man; he wears the smirk of a nobleman, the arrogance of a king.
"Th'name's Farkas," he offers without prompting. "And you are?"
She eyes him, suspiciously. "…are you trying to chat me up?"
He — Farkas — shrugs carelessly, with a look of amused condescension on his features and a glint in his eye. "S'pose I am." He jabs a thumb in another direction, over his shoulder, to a building on a hill that looks oddly like a prison. "Come up to the Jorrvaskr for a bit. We'll get someone to break in for you, later, Miss…" He trails off expectantly.
"Kana," she says with her head held high. "Just Kana."
Reluctantly, she follows him to the prison on the hill.
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Farkas is the one who buys her first suit of armour. It's leather — feather light and easy to move in, albeit not completely durable. He buys her first sword; her first bow and arrow; he teaches her to fight.
Initially, it's Aela who wants to 'raise' Kana — another girl in the Companions is what she's longed for for an age. But Farkas has taken a liking to the girl with the sharp glare and the tendency to fall over her own feet a lot.
"It's all in the swing," he tells her, for the nth time, no longer teasing, but with plain frustration lacing his tone.
But Kana lost interest an hour ago — this whole swordsmanship thing is quite fun, in retrospect; she's dancing around the training field out back, heaving her sword over her head and back down again, oblivious to the danger of her own idiocy. She's laughing and twirling, and as irritating Farkas is finding the whole thing, she actually looks pretty cute.
She stops still at the sight of his face — unimpressed does not begin to summarise it.
"Alright, alright," Kana breathes, digging the blade into the grass. "If it's all in this swing, show me it. Teach me."
He pulls away from the post against which he was leaning, and moves behind her. Carefully, he grips her hands that grip the sword, and he guides them.
By dinnertime, the training dummy is in pieces, and Kana is determined to declare her new found 'talent' to everyone she encounters.
Farkas still thinks she's adorable.
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Kana starts to take life a little more seriously when she turns twenty-one.
She's loyal to the Companions, not just a drifter out for training sessions and free food, anymore. She's fiery, good with a blade, good with a bow — she's good all-round. A warrior.
Kana ambles into the Jorrvaskr one morning decked in full armoury, fur and studs and leather and steel all in one ensemble. She has a quiver of arrows slung over one shoulder, her bow on the other, and a sword, sheathed on her thigh. Her face is concealed by a helmet.
"I'm going to aid the Imperials," she announces to the room of stunned quiet people. "We're going to send Ulfric Stormcloak to the Void."
Aela the Huntress clears her throat. "Are…are you sure you're ready for that? Ulfric Stormcloak is…well, he's the one who — "
"Killed the high king with his voice, I know," Kana smirks under her helmet. "I'm the Dragonborn. Anything he can shout, I can shout louder." She gives a salute, and turns for the door.
When she's left, Farkas leaves his seat and follows.
He follows her down the steps of the Jorrvaskr, and catches her by the wrist. She raises an eyebrow at him, silent, before smiling. "If you're worried I'm going to die, don't be."
"But…you're an idiot," he says bluntly; she flinches. "You can't take on an army of Stormcloaks and their leader."
"Can't I?"
"No," Farkas drops her wrist, and looks away. "But, um, you know, that helmet is very, um…flattering on you. It really…brings out your eyes."
Kana stares amusedly at him, for a moment, two, three, before landing a punch on his upper arm, and laughing.
"I'll bring you back a souvenir," she says good-naturedly. "You can count on it."
Then the idiot's gone —
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— and by morning, she's home, and a little less of an idiot than before.
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"Is that — " he prods the pendent around her neck. "Why are you wearing an Amulet of Mara?"
Kana flushes a little red, not that he can tell in the dim light of the crypt. The mission they're on is a gruelling one, however its location is one filled with abandoned bandit camps, still stocked with bedrolls and basic utensils. Neither are sure where the bandits are — neither really want to know.
She finishes scraping mud off her boots with her dagger before she replies. "What's it to you if I want to get married or not?"
"I 'unno. I was just wondering…"
In the damp crypt, they've been unable to light a fire; instead, Kana lets flames dance across her fingertips, in her own attempt to keep warm. She's suddenly very interested in the flare on her right middle finger.
"Wondering what?" she asks, and he stays silent. To cover the quiet, she snorts, "What, are you interested or something?"
"I won't lie, I am."
"…oh."
"And what about you?"
Farkas gives a half-hearted smirk. He sits back, scratching the top of his head, while Kana sits staring at the flames in her lap, not-so cleverly concealing how badly she's blushing.
"I — hnngh." Her reply, Farkas is pretty sure, isn't in English.
He sighs, shaking his head. "Look, Kana, living like this…life's too short and too fast-paced to hang around thinking about things — you don't have time to sit back, watch the clouds pass…if you wanna get married, let's do it. You and me."
She looks him square in the eye, and for the first time, breathlessly, he smiles. He actually smiles —
"Marry me, idiot."
— and she smiles back.
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notes2: aw, love them. c:
notes3: please leave a review!