This was one of the prompts for Fandom February. I had meant to do the others, but as my friend bestowed upon me Dragon Age, I soon became enraptured and lost my inspiration to finish out the month with my Onmund/Dovakhiin fics. But I know there has to be some Onmund fans out there, so I hope you enjoy this fanfic.
The Dovakhiin is left nameless so that you can pretend she's yours. For the most part. My portrayal of the Dovakhiin tends to have magical preferences.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Elder Scrolls series.
She was always a lover of color. There was no rhyme or reason to the assortment of colors on her armor and jewelry and weapons, so long as none of it was red. He'd be eagerly looking at a merchant's potion wares only to find that when he looked up, the Dragonborn had vanished, lured away by the vibrant magentas of a tunic or the chilling blue glow of an enchanted dagger. She broke the silence with her observations, how clouds with undertones of lavender seemed to carry a hint of mystery and how rich berries appeared on the side of the road depending on their hue.
She was always a lover of color.
But then one day they were sent to take books from a group of Necromancers. Death. A lot of death. Onmund contributed, striking them down with lightning bolts. A former student and his flame atronach did their fair share too, but the deaths counted on their fingers were nothing compared to the deaths that built themselves around the Dovakhiin like walls and bars around a prisoner.
In the instant where a particularly young Necromancer in a library fell to her attack, she merely stood there, staring. Her eyes always took in all the color around them, how it all worked together and fought yet balanced in just the perfect way. Her gaze was always bright and lively and waiting to take in the next big miracle.
But in that moment Onmund could only see her eyes register the red blood spilling out onto the filthy stones beneath, staining her boots and her arms as she ran to the body, drying deep and dark in her hair as she rested her forehead against its chest and the liquid life bubbling from it. It shuddered beneath her, and then death folded over the magic user, wrapping him up, taking him out of his red-tainted prison of flesh.
"Oh…" And with a shaking exhale she settled the body back onto the floor, swallowing as she glanced around, taking in the carnage.
Then she stood. "Could you do something for me?" she asked her companion.
"What do you need?"
"Please help me take these bodies outside."
They spent hours taking all the corpses into the light of day, burying them deep, murmuring them prayers and hopes for swift passage into Sovngarde. They had never done that before. They had always kept trudging on to the next quest, the next step in the Dovakhiin's destiny or in the mission given to them by the innocents.
She glanced down at her hands, took in the red that almost seemed to claw its way over her skin and under her armor, and with a frustrated shriek she ripped the braids from her bloodied hair and started for the river below, jumping over large boulders, hurtling down the ridge as she tore off her armor piece by piece, recklessly tossing it all with loud clangs.
She plunged into the river, and she did not come out until every trace of red was gone.
Onmund wondered what else she might have done, perhaps rubbed her skin raw until she saw the reddening of her skin from her efforts and, with a panicked inhale, froze and waited for the water to cool her down once more. She cried and screamed, that he could hear, but as he refused to look out of decency and respect for her, he couldn't be sure of anything else.
At first it appeared to be a one time thing. Onmund knew it had left a deep mark, but he thought nothing else of it at first.
But then she started abandoning rubies at first glance when she opened treasure chests. Red pieces of jewelry were sold to whoever she could encounter first, and Imperial soldiers made her wince if only for the way the sun shined on the reddened leather of their uniforms.
"I hate red," she finally murmured after ripping the red curtains from the rods in her home, and Onmund could only nod and watch her hold the fabric over the fire pit with darkened eyes.
But it was unfortunate, because red could be such a marvelous color. If only there was a way to show her.
These moments of panic didn't happen often. It was only on days with excessive blood shed and killing that she stopped, frozen in the center of the carnage, taking in the gleaming pools of red. He wondered if that was why she used magic. If it was because the strike of a lightning bolt to the heart or being frozen solid didn't tend to spill much of the life liquid.
After becoming Archmage, the two no longer were in the Hall of Attainment together. She now had to sleep in Aren's old quarters, and so Onmund had no way of knowing that she had started to have nightmares, horrid images of deaths where her vision went red, where the walls bled it, where somehow everything started to smell like the wretched color, if that was even possible.
And during those days she woke from her bed with her breathing heavy and ran to the bathing quarters. It was usually around three in the morning, and those who were up late were reading books, not bathing, so she stripped and entered the main bath as always, lying there feeling the red liquid that filled her pump wildly in her chest, waiting for the clearness, for the utter lack of color in the water, to calm her senses.
But one night Onmund woke to alcohol splattering across his face. Some of the Illusion students had gotten drunk and had sought to take it out on the Destruction apprentices. With a snarl, he shoved them out of his dorm and stalked to the bath.
That was where he found her, laying against the side of the tub with her eyes staring blankly at the wall as she hummed a comforting song from her childhood, trying to lull herself into a drowsy state once more.
Was it accurate to say that something roughly the size of a frost troll had found itself lodged in his throat as heat flooded his cheeks?
"Ah-!" Why had he made a sound? Why was his hand flying to his mouth as he stood there stiffly staring at her with widened eyes, not knowing what to say as he tried to mentally berate himself for so obviously raking his eyes over her slick, lithe and muscular figure turned blurry beneath the surface of the water.
That brought her out of her trance, and her eyes flickered to him. "Onmund?" she whispered in confusion, watching as his mouth opened and closed and as his body - still clothed, thank the nine - flushed.
"Ah, um, er… um…" Gods, why couldn't he just turn around and run?
A smile slowly slid onto the Dragonborn's face, and she snatched a towel from the edge of the tub to wrap around herself as she stood and walked towards him. "Have a bit of a drinking problem, huh?" she asked with the quirk of one eyebrow, gesturing to the large stain of alto wine that proudly displayed itself on his tunic.
"What? Ah, no. I-Illusion students. I, uh, came to wash it off, but, um, well, you were… ah, you know," he corrected her quickly, feeling his skin turn scarlet all the way to his ears.
"Oh," she replied thoughtfully, staring up at him with one hand firmly pressing the towel to her body. The longer she stared at him, the more uncomfortable he got, the redder his skin turned. And yet, despite the color he had now taken on, the Dovakhiin started to giggle.
"How many colors do you think you can turn?" she asked through her mad giggling.
Onmund cleared his throat, trying to laugh away how much warmer he suddenly felt for some inexplicable reason. "Ah, just… uh, just the one."
She lazily ran a hand up his chest. "Well, good thing I happen to love red," she informed him as her hand finally made it to one of his braids. With a tug, his lips were hers.
I have now done my part, contributing to the dismal amount of Onmund/Dovakhiin fanfiction. Reviews, critiques, and comments are much appreciated. Thank you very much for reading!
Sivo