Sequel to The Gift. You may want to read that story first. I've tried to make this one as stand-alone as possible, but likely you'll enjoy it more if you know the story up to this point.

The Gift ends with a sort of short epilogue to tie up the story. In the years since writing it, I've always wanted to come back and tell the story of what happened in between the resolution and the happily ever after. This is that story. I have it completed, I'm just re-editing the final chapter because I'm a perfectionist. It should be out soon.

**WARNING: there are allusions to past child abuse and a brief description of a torture scene in this chapter. Read safely.**

Solitude had changed since the war.

Ashildr scanned the gathered crowd tensely through the oculars of her dragonplate helm as she rode through the subjugated city at Ulfric's side. There were hundreds of Stormcloak soldiers in parade behind them and thousands more garrisoned in the city, but it was impossible to tell what dangers awaited them in the capitol and everyone was on high alert. Although the Stormcloaks and a dedicated minority of "True Nord" civilians cheered and called out for Ulfric as he passed, most of the faces that lined the streets of the city were less than joyful.

Ulfric's contingent was parading into a wasps' nest of complicated loyalties and sedition that seethed so close to the surface that it could be felt in the very air. Every one of them - from Ulfric to his general Galmar Stonefist and right down to the dullest of the footsoldiers - knew it. It would once again fall to the Dragonborn to help win Ulfric's war for him, although this time it would be a war of influence and persuasion instead of blood.

There would be blood, too, inevitably.

Ashildr's sharp senses snapped her gaze on to a figure at the back of the crowd. A tanned face beneath a reddish-brown hood and dark eyes that were trained with steely concentration on Ulfric stood out from the others. His hands were hidden, but she could see him working covertly with something obscured by the bodies in front of him.

"Zun Haal Viik!"

Instantly, before he could finish raising the crossbow, Ashildr's Thuum rended the crowd and ripped the weapon from the insurgent's hands, flinging it away into the resulting scatter of bodies and rushing feet. The horses startled, but Ulfric and his officers were experienced cavalrymen and kept their seat. Ashildr had drawn her blade in a flash along with the Shout, ready to close on the would-be assassin, but she needn't have bothered. The Stormcloak guards descended on the man at once like a pack of wolves, cutting off his furious scream of " Death to the Usurper! " beneath a pile of bludgeoning bodies.

She watched impassionately as the guards secured the now limp figure and began to drag it away before turning to meet Ulfric's and Galmar's gaze in turn and exchanging a curt nod. The situation was handled. The triumphal entry could resume, perhaps at a faster pace, leaving the citizens to recover in their wake. Someone would get a dressing down or worse later for failing to notice a weapon in the crowd, Ashildr knew, but over all the parade was a success.

The High King had come to Solitude whether his enemies liked it or not.

Once they reached the Palace and dismounted, Ashildr felt Ulfric's hand clap on her shoulder and turned to find him grinning at her, exhilarated and pleased.

"Once again I owe you my life, Dragonborn. Talos favors us both this day."

The Jarl of Windhelm was as handsome as ever with his blue eyes and well-sculpted features. Once upon a time, Ashildr would have thrilled with pleasure at his touch, but no longer. That avenue was firmly closed. She merely smiled instead and her eyes slid to the side, noting the figure of Elisif the Fair as the younger woman emerged from the shaded portico with her maids and housecarl in tow to cast a chilly glare over the scene.

Ashildr had met the former High Queen once before when she had first come to Solitude back in those dark and confusing first days as the Dragonborn. The Legion General Tullius had wanted an explanation about the Dragonborn business with an eye to negotiating a contract, but Ashildr - still a sellsword at that time - had taken a few small jobs for the court to tide her over while she considered the terms. Even then, she had known that Elisif was doomed. The girl was sincere and dedicated and her people were fond of her, but it was obvious to Ashildr that there was no real talent for command there and her courtiers were already starting to hedge their bets with the opposition. Even if the Imperials had won the war, there was no way she would have retained the throne for long. Looking at Elisif's stoic, bloodless expression now, Ashildr wondered if the girl would have preferred Tullius' fate to the one that awaited her.

Ashildr drew back to stand beside Galmar as Ulfric's attention turned to greeting Elisif. She exchanged a glance with the housecarl and rolled her eyes as if to say, You know Ulfric, dramatic as ever.

He raised a thick blond eyebrow humorously at her in return and they watched their Jarl approach his sworn enemy and future bride before following the ill-matched pair into the Palace to begin the difficult work of reunification. Ashildr had to smirk as she saw Ulfric reach to lay a hand on the young woman's back in the fashion of a chivalrous bridegroom only for Elisif to tense like a bowstring and step silently and gracefully away.

Before it was over, Ashildr thought, Ulfric was going to regret this peace through matrimony business. If she had not already been through that wrenching ordeal herself, she might have laughed.

~~0~~

Royalty, it turned out, did have its perks.

The chamber that the palace chatelaine had prepared for Ashildr and Galmar was directly next to Ulfric's master suite and featured tall, airy glass windows that looked out over the expanse of sea cliffs that surrounded the castle. Galmar would have been assigned a chamber near Ulfric's anyway in order to carry out his duties as chief military advisor and bodyguard, but the staff seemed to have taken extra pains to please the Dragonborn and their new king's adopted kinswoman.

A fire was already laid and crackling in the hearth when, after what seemed like hours of meeting, greeting, and listening to the barbed compliments of courtiers, Ashildr was finally able to close the door behind her and breathe a sigh of relief. Gone were the days when all her patrons had expected of her was that she kill anyone who got in their way in exchange for a hefty sum of gold. She had suggested a return to that tactic to Ulfric under her breath during dinner, but he had only laughed. Deep down, he enjoyed all this posturing and pantomime. It was his weapon just as much as his sword or his Voice, whereas Ashildr would have rather killed a dozen more world-eating dragons than spend an evening at court.

By the time Galmar arrived from his final briefing of the evening - at which he had no doubt put the fear of Talos into the guards lest a repeat of that afternoon's mistake occur - Ashildr had taken her hair down and was carefully shining her boots next to the fire, letting the bit of tallow she was working into the leather soften in the heat of the flames as the familiar, rhythmic work settled her mind. She looked up and smiled weakly, feeling a different tension return as she watched him begin to shuck off his bear-hide and steel armor.

Her husband. It had been nearly two months now since she had married Galmar. The first few weeks had passed in a torturous fog of outrage, betrayal, and frustration at having allowed Ulfric and his council to coerce her into the arrangement in the first place. Ulfric had courted her during the war, but when the fighting was done, so was the budding relationship. She was too powerful in her own right as the Dragonborn. Neither the difficult political landscape nor Ulfric's pride would have allowed him to be eclipsed by his wife.

Although Ulfric still needed her at court and had honored her with his family name and a place of influence at his side, there had been too many rumors about their relationship for her not to be a threat to any future marriage alliance. If she had not finally acquiesced to the arranged marriage at Ulfric's urging, if she had told his councilors to go fuck themselves when they had cornered her with veiled threats and intimations of what could happen to her and those she cared about if she refused, then Ashildr had no doubt that a vial of poison would have swiftly found its way into her mead or worse, even without Ulfric's sanction

The situation, it turned out, was even more complex still. Far from suffering the marriage out of duty, Galmar had stepped in to fill the role of husband of his own choice - partly out of loyalty to Ulfric, partly to shield his colleague from the worst of what could have befallen her, but also in part because he wanted her for her own sake. They had spent months together fighting, planning, eating, and sleeping in the cold during the war. In that time, by his own admission, his feelings for her had turned from simple comradery into something much more. After the shock, the heartbreak, the ugly silence, the fights, and finally the understanding, Ashildr had discovered that the same was true for her as well.

The revelation came with its own complications.

"That was quick work out there today," Galmar remarked appreciately as he hefted his cuirass onto the armor rack next to her dragonplate and stretched his tight shoulders. "That bastard would have had at least one good shot before the guards got to him if it weren't for you."

The smile he turned on her was easy, warm, and genuine. She saw the irritation of the day bleed out of his expression, his brow unknitting and softening when he looked at her, and it pulled at something inside of Ashildr that she had long believed non-existent. There was nothing in her experience to tell her how to respond. She tried to shrug the feeling away.

"Ulfric was lucky. He might not be lucky next time. Did the guards get anything out of the assassin?"

"Dead," Galmar admitted with a disappointed curl of his lips. "Never woke up from the beating they gave him. Can't blame the boys for being overzealous where Ulfric is concerned, but I've had a talk with their commanders. The spies are tracking down any information about the man now. We'll know in a day or two if he so much as shat within the city walls."

With a grunt, the big housecarl lowered himself stiffly down on the edge of the bed facing her and began to remove his own boots. She watched him uncertainly. Only a day had passed since they had fought and their respective feelings for each other had finally spilled out into the open. They had been too weary the previous night to do anything but sleep, curled together in the narrow bed of the Dragonbridge inn, and so this was the first time since that they had been properly alone. Ashildr was at a loss.

She had never been loved before. It was a strange, giddy, frightening feeling.

If you think you can love me, stay with me , he had urged. You trusted me during the war. Trust me now.

She would try. If this failed, as the dour suspicion in the back of her mind told her it would eventually, then at least she would have made the attempt at happiness.

"I wouldn't put it past Elisif, either. You saw the way she looked at Ulfric."

Galmar huffed a long, weary sigh and shook his head.

"I warned him. I told him he should have her exiled down to Cyrodiil with the prisoner exchange, but he seems to think having her as a consort will satisfy her supporters. We've had her serving maids and the kitchen staff replaced. Nothing goes into that bedchamber without one of our stewards checking it over. Once we're back in Windhelm away from this pit of snakes, the danger will be less. I still wouldn't want to be Ulfric on the wedding night. As cold as she is, he'll freeze to death in that bed."

Ashildr couldn't suppress a snort of laughter, adding with a pointed glance, "Well, you would know the feeling."

The housecarl's smile split into a facetious grin.

"If anything, Dragonborn, I was afraid you'd roast me alive with that temper of yours."

"Ashildr," she corrected him gently. The title had never sat well with her and it seemed far too formal now with everything that had passed between them. "We're beyond ceremony here, I think."

The small concession seemed to please him. Galmar tossed his boots to the end of the bed and leaned on his knees, regarding her.

"It wasn't the time for us yet on our first night. You had a right to your anger. It wasn't my place to try to take it from you. When this business with the Moot and the coronation is over and Ulfric can spare us, we'll find a few days to ride out somewhere and do it justice."

The image of what he was suggesting - of Galmar and her alone in a firelit room with nothing between them this time and no one to interrupt - made a tight heat begin to spread through Ashildr's stomach. It would not be the first time. Two nights ago, with the rain and wind raking over the military encampment and with no other distraction but each other, the tight grip that she had kept clenched around her heart and her desire had finally slipped and it had brought them to this unfamiliar borderland where she could no longer retreat from Galmar but neither did she know how to approach him.

It seemed ridiculous to wait after they had already started down that path. However uncertain she was that this would work in the end, she was no doe-eyed virgin to be scandalized by a man's venial desires.

"We don't have to make a show of it, Galmar," she replied as she tried to hedge the discomfort out of her voice with a shrug. "If you want me, I'm game enough. I know sod all about marriage, but that part, at least, I can do."

He rose from the bed and approached her. Ashildr prepared herself to feel his hands slide onto her body, both wanting that touch again and fearing the loss of control over the small, yearning animal thing within her that Galmar always seemed to wake now whenever they were close. She smelled the faint musk of his skin and the residual earthy scent of leather and oil as he leaned down, his hands instead lacing into her hair as he kissed her.

It was their bargain - one kiss every night, a shared bed and table, and her promise to consider staying in exchange for his aid if she decided to leave - but the bargain no longer seemed necessary and she had all but forgotten it in the deluge of events over last few days. She returned the kiss with genuine feeling, remembering their bodies twined together in the darkness of the tent and feeling the ache for that release return over her like a fever. Galmar, though, pulled back as she moved to help him from his tunic.

"I do want you," he murmured to her before taking her hands and raising her knuckles to his lips, "but I want more of you than just this. When your heart is in it, we'll go again. For now, be with me."

Ashildr looked up into his face, the shrewd mercenary that still lived under her skin weighing his intent, and allowed some of the tension that had been building in her chest to relax a little under the earnestness of his expression.

"What do you suggest?" she acquiesced.

He turned from her a walked towards the sideboard in the room. After a few seconds of hunting, he came up with a bottle of mead.

"There's a tradition in Skyrim of newlyweds drinking mead together every night for a month after the wedding. We're late for it, but better late than never. I didn't have the chance to court you as I should have done. I thought we might fix that."

The idea of the old bear trying to charm her like some love-sick young pup forced a smile out of Ashildr and she warmed to the novelty of the suggestion. She settled down onto the soft bed in a crossed-legged position and accepted a cup of mead from Galmar as he poured for them and took up the place next to her. She raised it in salute.

"To a fresh start - for us and for Skyrim?"

"I'll drink to that."

They sipped the sweet burn of the liquor in silence for a moment, appreciating something nice after a taxing day. Galmar leaned back against the headboard and cast a game expression at her.

"Tradition has it that the mead brings a couple closer together. Liquid courage for the wedding night is my guess."

"We're going to need a lot more than one bottle if you want me drunk enough to take advantage of," Ashildr quipped at him over the rim of her cup and Galmar chuckled.

"I've worse things in mind for you. I thought we might talk instead," he bantered back, warming to the exercise, and then relented. "We know each other as soldiers. I want to know you better than that."

She tried to seem nonchalant about the suggestion, but it rekindled that undercurrent of anxiety that she had been feeling all throughout the last day. There was little in her life that would make for a buoyant conversation. Only the priest Erandur, her closest friend in Skyrim and traveling companion before Ashildr had enlisted in Ulfric's war, had heard the extent of her story. She missed the Dunmer's company often these days, but now more than ever. His prediction that she would find this marriage to be something more than an aggravating affront had proven true enough. Mara never bestowed bad gifts, he had told her. In her mind, she conjured his calm voice, knowing already the advice he would have given her under the circumstances.

You wanted a different life. Now you have it. Get to it.

"What do you want to know?"

He considered for a moment, rolling the burn of the mead through his mouth as he composed his question.

"You didn't give a damn about the cause in the beginning, just the contract. What was the end game? What was the plan when the war was over?"

The question caught her off guard. For most of her life, survival had been the goal of Ashildr's work - the means to scrape together enough resources to stay alive and out of the gutter. However, she had not actually needed either Ulfric's or Tullius' gold when she finally took a side in the war. The wealth that she had gathered during her travels as the Dragonborn alone would have allowed her a comfortable retirement.

She had even attempted to leave the work briefly. Her contracts for the Solitude court had earned her a cushy mansion in the Palace district. For a fortnight, she had lived the settled urban life - idling on her balcony over the sea, strolling through the market with the mirth of someone who had time to linger over her purchases, and trying to forget that she had ever been a soldier. When that failed, she had decamped to the simpler setting of her cottage in Whiterun and spent another week hunting in the hills around the city before the restlessness finally overcame her.

In the end, settled life had proved intolerable. The emptiness of her days spiraled into unchanneled aggression that had driven her back into her armor and out onto the battlefield again. Whatever it was that allowed the civilians around her to go about their lives in peace, it seemed to have been burned out of Ashildr long ago. She had made her way to Windhelm and struck a pact with Ulfric more out of desperate need for purpose and function than gold.

"I don't really know," she admitted at last with some difficulty and frowned at the golden liquid in her cup.

She didn't want to conceal the truth from Galmar anymore. She had promised him that much, but the words to describe what she had felt all those months ago did not come easily.

"I had always thought that if I could get ahead of the game - if I could just get enough coin together - I could settle somewhere. Find a house, get a dog, maybe run a tavern or a farm, and put my sword down for good."

She glanced up to see Galmar's expression crease with a very familiar pain as he listened.

"But you couldn't. So, you came to us," he grunted, finishing her thought for her.

She raised her eyebrows in silent acknowledgement, realizing that Galmar must have had similar thoughts throughout his years in the Legion and Ulfric's service, and finished the remainder of her drink.

"Why forge a blade if you're going to leave it in its scabbard on the wall? I don't think I cared about what came next. After Alduin and Sovngarde, everything was a fog for awhile. I had solid work with Ulfric - better than what I was doing before I came to Skyrim. You were a good commander. I had nothing to complain about but the cold. In the end, the two of you managed to convince me that it was a worthy cause."

"The two of us?" the housecarl asked, clearly surprised.

She had never said as much to Galmar, but Ulfric wasn't the only reason Ashildr had chosen to side with the Stormcloaks. She gave him weak half-smile.

"Ulfric's got a talent for making people believe in him, but he's an idealist. One man's Voice and vision weren't going to push back the Legion." She shrugged. "You, now - you were out there putting your skin on the line for him. A man like you doesn't risk his life on a fight he can't win. Ulfric got my attention, I'll admit, but I took a risk on him because he had a general of your caliber minding his war for him."

The older soldier gazed at her for a long moment. She saw his expression slowly change, opening in a way that she hadn't seen since that moment of relief when the last siege of the war was finished. His job was a somewhat thankless one, she knew. Ulfric was good at rewarding his supporters, but it was always Ulfric who was center stage. It was Ulfric who was accorded all the success. The idea that she had seen Galmar's work for what it was, even hidden beneath Ulfric's shadow, had clearly touched the housecarl.

At last, he refilled their cups and raised his to her silently before tossing it back.

"Your turn, now," he told her. "Ask what you will."

Ashildr pondered. There were so many issues left unfinished - so much that she did not know. Ulfric's account of the situation that had brought her and Galmar together was probably embellished, but she had the feeling that he had told her as much of the truth as she would ever know. At the end of the day, she decided, she had heard all that she needed to hear about it already. Nothing good would come of digging further into that den of Daedra.

One question that had burned in the back of her brain since Galmar had first admitted that he was in love with her leapt out from the others.

"Why didn't you tell me that you had feelings for me before the wedding?" she asked him, raising the difficult subject in the waiting silence before her better judgement could cut it off.

He stared at the horn cup in his hands, rolling the smooth surface through his fingers for a long few seconds before looking up at her.

"Would you have felt less betrayed if I had?"

Not a chance, she knew. Remembering those chaotic few days when she had torn back into Windhelm from the southern front and demanded an explanation for the rumors that had reached her, Ashildr was forced to concede the point. Galmar had done everything possible to avoid her during the initial shock. She did not know what she would have done if she had been able to confront him, but she knew it would not have been pretty.

"Fair enough," she admitted. "I guess what I want to know is when it started. I never knew you thought of me as anything but your second."

Galmar turned so that he was facing her. He studied her frankly, his eyes raking over her as if he were remembering something bittersweet.

"The first time you came to the Palace, I knew you were something I had never seen before, Dragonborn aside. Then I saw you fight at Korvanjund. You were a thing of beauty - swift, smart, and deadly. The fiercest woman I had ever met. Every day after that made me want you more - but I knew Ulfric had plans for you and by that time you already had eyes for him. Oaths and long friendship tie me to Ulfric. I had my suspicions about what he was doing, but it wasn't for me to stand in his way. Even leaving him out of it, we had a job to do. I needed your head in the fight."

The reminder that she had once fallen for Ulfric's flattery sent a chord of embarrassment shivering through Ashildr. In hindsight, she had to admit that the Stormcloak Jarl had set a clever trap to catch her. She would never have listened to his political rhetoric, but the man had a charm and charisma that had made her pay attention to him in other ways and he had pressed that advantage to the full. He had never made her any promises, never confessed any flowery feelings or overstepped the bounds of decency, but he had certainly kept her hooked on an undercurrent of flirtation, desire, and hints about the future. Maybe he had even believed it himself in the beginning.

One of Galmar's comments piqued her curiosity, though. Ashildr turned on the bed, slowly with the gravity of the mead humming through her veins. She wanted to be able to read his face when he answered.

"You had suspicions," she repeated. "You knew Ulfric was stringing me along?"

For his part, Galmar did not blink in the face of the accusation. He nodded his agreement, chagrined.

"I'd lay down my life for Ulfric, but I know my friend," he told her, showing a hint of a scowl at some troublesome thought. "He was courting an ornament, not a woman. I had a feeling you'd be more woman than he bargained on in the end."

He refilled their cups one last time, draining the bottle and setting it aside. The fire was burning down in the hearth and Ashildr could feel the lateness of the hour, but she sat with rapt attention. She had already more or less forgiven Ulfric - it would never have worked out between them anyway - but she knew that she needed to hear this from Galmar. His brow knit with regret as he continued.

"For what it's worth, I told him he'd done badly by you and he agreed. He never wanted your pain. The wedding, the house, gainsaying his council to match you to me instead of some stranger - that was his way of making amends. We should have brought you in on it. You deserved the choice. I'm bound to keep Ulfric's secrets, but I wasn't happy to keep that one. That wasn't how I wanted to come in to your life."

She had no doubt that Galmar was telling the truth. Ashildr felt the last residue of her anger disperse, vindicated finally by his admission that she should have been allowed to choose for herself. Ulfric could be a self-centered prick at times, but she didn't believe that there had been anything malicious in his decisions. As much as she resented the way he had treated her, he had genuinely been trying to find the best solution for the most amount of people. For Galmar, just as for her, there had been no good options.

"How did you want to come to me?" she asked.

The question had the desired effect. The brooding frown on his face lifted as his polished-steel gaze moved back outwards from his thoughts to settle on her face. The smile that formed as he looked at her, perhaps imagining another evening that might have been under different circumstances, made her begin to gently ache within.

"As we are now. A bottle of mead and my heart in my hands. I wanted to offer you a life with me, not force it on you. I haven't got Ulfric's looks or his title or his talent for words, but I don't need my woman to always be a rung or two beneath me looking up either. Fight your battles, Ashildr. Roam where you will. Just come back to share my hearth and my bed when you're done."

The shadows had closed in thickly along the walls while they talked. Ashildr took the cups and set them aside while Galmar washed his face and added a couple of logs to the fire for the night. Finally, she slid beneath the heavy furs and soft sheets of the four-post bed and felt Galmar do the same on the other side.

Morning would come early and tomorrow would be another ordeal. In the comfortable darkness, she felt Galmar turn onto his side and, by growing habit, she shifted accordingly. His heavy hand slid up the curve of her hip and ribs, lingering for a moment before his arm encircle her. She leaned back against his chest and, tentatively, allowed one of her hands to find his beneath the furs. She was reminded of the night that she had woken from the roaring horror of one of her nightmares and felt him there, his arms around her in the dark as he whispered safety to her until the vision of blood, sand, and death subsided.

"I would have liked to hear that offer," she admitted at last, feeling Galmar's fingers close around hers before they both drifted into the silent twilight of sleep..

~~0~~

"You're bloody kidding me."

Ashildr stood stunned in the Palace study facing Galmar and Ulfric, who was seated behind the great oak desk and looking up at her with a congenial smile. Galmar's expression was as inscrutable as always, but she was beginning to be familiar enough with his moods to tell that he was trying very hard not to laugh.

She gestured at herself with both hands, highlighting her soldier's leathers, plated gambeson, and the sword and daggers at her belt as if these things might have gone unnoticed.

"Do I look like a lady in waiting?"

Ulfric sat back in his chair, his hands open in a gesture of acknowledgement and placation.

"I know it's not your usual fare, Dragonborn, but it's only until I can decide on a suitable replacement for Elisif's housecarl. She needs protection and I need protection from any plots that she might have in play at the same time. No one can challenge my esteem for Elisif if I've assigned the Dragonborn herself to ensure my lady's safety. You would be expected to attend on her as my nearest kinswoman besides. It will only be for a few days."

Ashildr glanced beyond Ulfric to Galmar, who allowed his hard public expression to crack just enough to give her an amused lift of the eyebrow and a faint shrug.

The things we do for duty , he seemed to say.

Easy enough for you, you're not being sent into a den of sharp-tongued harpies , Ashildr thought back grumpily.

Ulfric was watching her with an expectant expression - good humored with her as always, but she knew there were limits and she had, after all, sworn her sword to his service. If this was how he wanted to deploy it, so be it. Ashildr stifled a sigh and spread her palms, bending in an exaggerated, elaborate bow of the kind that she had seen Elisif's simpering courtiers perform.

"As my king commands," she pronounced dryly.

Although Ulfric had, in a fit of gallantry, attempted to make Elisif remain in the Palace's master chambers while he slept elsewhere until the wedding, the former queen had immediately removed herself to a smaller suite as far away from Ulfric's quarters as possible. Ashildr approached the door, closed her eyes for moment to steel herself, and then knocked.

The attendant that opened the door was a pretty feminine thing - all perfectly coiffed hair, willowy figure, and expensive brocade. Ashildr didn't remember the girl's name, but she recognized her as Elisif's lady's maid. The maid's brown eyes widened slightly with recognition as they lit on Ashildr's face, but then they narrowed cooly.

So that was how it was going to be.

"I've been sent to serve in place of Elisif's housecarl until a replacement can be arranged," Ashildr rapped out in the gruff tones she used when conducting military business.

Better they see her as a put-upon soldier with a job to do than Ulfric's spy.

Without a word, the girl turned sharply back into the room for a moment and then opened the door to allow Ashildr entrance.

The chamber beyond was not large, but expensively furnished. It had likely been intended to house ambassadors and other dignitaries visiting the Solitude court. That Elisif would find herself living in the guest quarters of her own home now seemed yet another sad blow, but Ashildr was careful to keep her expression neutral. She was here on business and getting entangled in Elisif's misfortunes was not part of it.

The once and future queen was sitting before a polished silver mirror in the soft morning light from the windows as she put the finishing touches on her hair.

"Your presence is unnecessary, Dragonborn," she stated calmly. "I already have a housecarl with whom I am quite satisfied."

Elisif was not called 'the Fair" for nothing. She was a few years younger than Ashildr with long golden-brown hair that fell in a cascade down her back to her waist. Her complexion was as pale and perfect as moonlight and the eyes that reflected back at Ashildr in the surface of the mirror were clear and sharp like arrowheads cut from emerald. Today, she was clothed in dark blues and purples - not quite mourning attire, but similar enough to be taken as unspoken commentary on her betrothed's arrival.

Ashildr did not venture far into the room, but she did affect a slight bow, this time without the sarcasm she had shown Ulfric. Elisif, though she was no longer High Queen, was still the Jarl of Solitude and even if Ashildr had been disinclined to respect the rank there was no satisfaction in kicking a woman while she was down.

"I have my orders, my lady. You'll have another housecarl within a few days, but in the meantime the High King can't allow you to go unprotected. I will be discrete."

The younger woman turned with elegant grace and fixed Ashildr with an expression colder than the icy winter wind on the Sea of Ghosts.

"Skyrim," Elisif pronounced, as if gritting the words between her teeth, "has no High King at present."

Technically, she was correct. Ulfric had won the war, but the Moot had yet to begin. It would only be a matter of days and there was no chance that it would not be Ulfric on Skyrim's high seat in the end, but it seemed that Elisif was not about to cede even an inch of ground that she did not have to. Rather than debate, Ashildr only nodded her acquiescence and remained silent.

The morning waxed on despite the tension that surrounded the intruder in the ranks of Elisif and her minders. Ashildr followed the ladies through their routine, staying close enough to her charge that onlookers could see the Dragonborn accompanying Ulfric's soon-to-be bride, but far enough aside that she would not be confused for a participant in Elisif's affairs. She needed to be seen, not heard, and that was fine by Ashildr.

Far from the life of relative leisure that Ashildr had expected, the former queen's schedule was merciless. There was a breakfast with the wives and daughters of the visiting Jarls in which Elisif smiled graciously and made polite if somewhat distant conversation, followed by a gown fitting with the staff of Radiant Raiment for her wedding attire. Still before noon, there were meetings with the counselors who remained part of the city government to go over expenses, trade figures from the port, and matters of security. Ashildr stood silently through it all, her input rarely required, but she took the opportunity to reassess the woman who she very well could have served under different circumstances.

Elisif still relied upon the experience of her advisors in matters of practical governance, but her grasp of the delicate social environment at court was impressive. Ashildr watched her simultaneously charm and snub the new women who would be her social set during Ulfric's reign, allowing them close enough to feel included but never close enough to be comfortable. She noted the way that Elisif conferred with the seamstresses during the fitting, debating the subtle messages of cut, color, and accoutrement. Ashildr was not blind to the cutting remarks that the former queen was sending her way, either, under the guise of playful chatter with her attendants.

It was true enough that Elisif would not have been a skilled ruler in her own right, but she must have been a formidable consort for Torygg before his death, Ashildr surmised. If Ulfric could find a way to cancel out her hatred, he might end up with a queen for the ages after all.

The afternoon was taken up with audiences - anxious merchants, courtiers, and dignitaries scrambling to find their place in the new social order. Rather than hear the petitions in the great hall as she would have previously done, Elisif instead held her small court more informally in the Palace's immaculate garden. This was not by accident. Ulfric held the throne of Skyrim in trust until the Moot could formally decide. Elisif would not share an usurper's throne until she was left no other choice.

Finally, with the afternoon drawing down and a line of petitioners still waiting, Ashildr noted the silent signal pass wearily between Elisif and her steward Falk Firebeard - still nominally Solitude's seneschal until Ulfric decided to replace him. Falk made a few ceremonial statements to close the court and Ashildr moved carefully up to Elisif's side to escort her back into the Palace as the crowd of disappointed courtiers parted.

"Your majesty," a Nord called out above the others, apparently not to be denied. "Are we to have no answer then? How can your people stand if their queen sees fit to wed and bed the Usurper? Is Skyrim to be doubly betrayed by both the Dragonborn and our High Queen?"

The man was unfamiliar to Ashildr, but his build and the way he stood - cocked a little in his stance as if he were used to wearing an ax at his belt - belied the merchant's garb he wore. This was a soldier in civilian clothes. Ashildr moved quickly to intercept the hand that reached for Elisif's arm and snatched it by the wrist, placing herself deftly between the malcontent and the Jarl.

"I think you'd best keep your hands to yourself and your tongue in your head if you don't want to lose them," Ashildr growled at the man stiffly, meeting his angry blue eyes with a dangerous glare.

He spit in her face.

"Curse your name for what you've done to us, Dragonborn," he snarled back at her even as the guards grabbed his shoulders and hauled him back. "You were to save Skyrim, not hand it to murderers and thieves. May you never see the halls of Sovngarde!"

Ashildr wiped the spittle from her cheek and rapped out her command to the guards sharply.

"Put him in the cells and watch him. Inform Galmar Stone-fist that I've sent him a live fool to interrogate this time."

To the belligerent Nord, for the benefit of the shocked crowd, she bared her teeth in a menacing grin and saw the man pale slightly.

"I've already walked the halls of Sovngarde, kinsman. And so will you before the day is out, I'll wager."

Brooking no resistance and finding none besides, she took Elisif's elbow then and escorted her quickly to safety within the Palace walls before another word could be said.

~~0~~

By the time Ashildr's work was done for the day, the moons were high overhead. She was bone-tired, but a dull and unsettling energy still boiled within her as she walked with Galmar from the dark ramparts of Castle Dour back to the Blue Palace.

The dissident loyalist that had been stupid enough to speak his mind and spit on her in Elisif's court that day had indeed been dispatched to Sovngarde, but not before he had screamed his secrets out under torture in the dungeons beneath the castle. As the second most prominent member of Ulfric's personal guard, she had stood with Galmar and listened as the interrogator, with the aid of heated blades and other gruesome implements, finally broke through the poor bastard's resistance at last. A half-dozen names hardly seemed worth the ravages inflicted on the Nord's body, but it was a place to start.

As someone ever at risk of capture, torture had never sat well with Ashildr but nothing about war and its aftermath was pretty or clean. War wasn't the pageantry and heroics of the bardic tales. War was blood and pain and suffering in the hopes that one day the people - the good people, the ones with their humanity still in tact beyond the carnage - would be safe. What price was one man's life and sanity for that? The ethical calculus of that question was beyond her skill to answer. What was practical had always won the day for Ashildr and anything that remained could be drowned in the bottom of a bottle. For awhile.

Galmar was in a pensive mood, too. His day had been just as stressful as her own. When they reached their room, he leaned back against the closed door with a sigh, his helm thumping against the wood as he gazed upward into the dark rafters.

"Long day, dear?" Ashildr asked, feigning the sweet-tempered wife as she unbuckled her sword-belt and hung it on the wall by the bed.

"We should have burned this damned city to the ground when we had the chance," the housecarl grumbled as he moved to start disarming.

Sympathetic to the feeling, Ashildr approached him and began to help him with his armor. She had worn light gear today since she had expected to be at court, but Galmar always wore his full officer's steel and bear-skins. He relaxed at her touch, allowing her to tackle the difficult straps beneath his arms and set the pieces aside on their rack next to her dragonplate.

The dragon and the bear in domestic tranquility , she thought with a sudden stab of tired humor.

Galmar was watching her with a curious expression as she worked. She had recounted her report to Ulfric and him earlier, but they were alone now.

"About the incident at court," he began finally. "That milkdrinker actually spit on you?"

"He did," she grunted as she freed him from his cuirass at last and hefted it's weight onto the rack. "But he's dead now and I'm not. I'll let him have that one."

The big man scowled darkly at the thought.

"If he wasn't already dead, he soon would be for that. You can handle yourself, but anyone who raises a hand to you will have me to deal with afterward."

Ashildr chuckled, but his protective vehemence was touching all the same.

"What's left of them anyway," she agreed pleasantly.

Galmar poured water into the wash basin, tossed his arming tunic onto a chair, and set to scrubbing the armor sweat from his skin as Ashildr stripped off her lighter leathers. She watched, appreciating the curve and bunch of the thick muscles of his back and arms as he worked. He was not a young man and his blond beard and hair were salted with grey, but he still had a strong figure that caught her attention every time - and he knew it. She could see him grinning to himself a little as he showed off for her benefit.

"Don't take what he said to heart," he continued casting a glance back at her. "To the true Nords of Skyrim, you're a hero. More than a hero. The Imperials will say anything now with the Legion beaten and their power here destroyed."

"I don't feel I've done my job well enough if I'm not cursed at at least once a day," Ashildr cracked back, but she knew the humor was only a cover for darker thoughts.

The dead man's words were just so much wind off the gallows, but they lingered in her mind alongside the image of him hanging, bloody and dead-eyed, from his manacles in the interrogation chamber. Another life snuffed out for Ulfric and Skyrim.

She went to the sideboard and found the bottle of Blackbriar Reserve that she had paid a servant to acquire for her earlier. She - both of them, she suspected - needed something a little stronger to take the edge off of the difficult day.

"My treat tonight," she told Galmar as she brought him a cup containing a few fingers of the strong honey liquor. "We've earned it."

He accepted it and they stood beside the fire for a few moments ruminating over the day.

"Do you think it's an organized cell?" Ashildr asked finally, giving voice at last to the question of the evening.

The formal report to Ulfric would wait until morning, but both she and Galmar had heard the Nord's confession. Galmar frowned thoughtfully..

"Hard to say," he concluded. "They both had Legion tattoos, but that's common enough here and two doesn't make a movement. The names - I have a scribe looking through Dour's records, but I'd stake a good amount of coin on most of them being listed dead or missing in action. We killed or capture most of the active Legion in the city, but not all of them. Tullius was a crafty old snake, I'll give him that. I wouldn't have put it past him to plant a hidden resistance force in the event we took Solitude. His spies were everywhere during the war."

"If it's fifth columnists we're dealing with, then it doesn't seem like Elisif is in on it. The man at court directed as much ire at her as he did me."

The housecarl grunted in acknowledgement.

"Whether it's lone wolves or a conspiracy, we'll root them out. The days when Skyrim Nords could be stopped by Imperial threats and elf tricks are gone. If they can't move with the tide, they'll be crushed by it."

He sipped his drink, inhaled the sharp bite of the fortified mead, and cast a searching glance at Ashildr. He offered his hand and allowed the faint hardness that had come into his face to gentle again.

"Sit with me. It's been too long a day to dwell on the work."

She allowed herself to be guided to the bed, bringing the bottle with her, and settled onto her side across the furs. Galmar took up his usual position against the headboard, still shirtless. She noticed his eyes take her in, lingering over the emphasized feminine curve of hips and waist that her position afforded, and she smirked.

"Changed your mind? No better way to take the edge off a bad day," she teased him, only half seriously.

Even if he recanted his decision, she knew they were both too tired and in no mood to revisit that sack of cats tonight.

"I said I'd wait til your heart was in it, not that I wouldn't enjoy the view in the meantime," he responded, a growl of exaggerated lechery that made her laugh.

They both relaxed gradually, putting the unpleasantness of the evening behind them, and Ashildr looked up at Galmar curiously from where she reclined.

"What's it to be tonight? More questions?" she asked.

He nodded and gestured to her with his cup.

"Lady's choice first this time. Ask."

She surveyed him shrewdly for a moment and then settled on her question.

"You told me that you weren't a man for a soft woman to handle," she began, trying to word her question delicately. "Did you never try to settle down? You're handsome enough. Respectable. You must have had women throwing themselves at you."

Galmar smiled at her assertion that he was handsome, but his gaze turned inward to his memories and the smile diminished. He shook his head.

"No. I could have. I came close once, but it wasn't to be. All my youth was spent at war and afterwards on Ulfric's campaigns. If I'd taken a wife, she would have been left alone most of that time to wonder if she'd ever see me return. It wouldn't have been fair to leave a widow when I never had the time to be a husband." He sipped the strong, fortified mead and grimaced. "I would have tracked the stench of blood and battle into her life. It's the rare woman who can tolerate that for long."

"Which explains us," Ashildr finished, raising an eyebrow wryly. "I already have the whiff of war about me. I have no grounds to complain."

Galmar chuckled at that, but she could see that she had struck an uncomfortable note.

"You've known war, yes. You and I have been forged in the same fire. That's the least of what you are to me."

She was about to retort, but Galmar continued before she could speak, taking the reins of the conversation.

"I don't have to ask whether you've ever tried to settle down with someone," he told her, wittily turning the subject back on her.

Ashildr's lips quirked in recognition of the jibe and she shrugged. She had admitted as much the previous night.

"I am the stone of proverb, rolling downhill since the day I was born. Until I rolled into you, of course."

"Do you regret it?" he asked.

The question was delivered with a jocular warmth, but it was a serious inquiry. She considered for a moment before shifting on her back to look up at the housecarl.

"I thought I did. But, no. This was worth doing. There are worse places I could have come to rest."

She was not about to let him get away unscathed, though, and she smiled meanly.

"If it means I have to stop next to a tough old bear and his bad humor, so be it, I suppose."

When they had finished laughing, she sat up and refilled their cups, settling back to find Galmar studying her keenly.

"You never told me how you came to mercenary work," he ventured at last. "You weren't Legion trained - your fighting style is too mixed. You're too skilled for your age and too sharp at negotiating with Ulfric to have picked it up on your own. Who taught you?"

"Careful," Ashildr warned him,softly.

She glanced up into his face, watching him reading her the same way she was reading him.

"Some things are best left to the imagination. You won't like what you find down that path."

Galmar leaned forward, resting his large forearms on his knees, and did not let his steely gaze drop from her own. He lifted his bearded chin a little as a challenge.

"Try me."

He did not know what he was asking. Or, Ashildr reconsidered, he might and wanted to confirm it. Galmar wasn't a fool and he had trained and commanded thousands of soldiers in his time. He knew that she had lived rough all these years. She had promised him honesty. If he reconsidered all his fine feelings for her after learning who she really was, then it would be best to get it out into the open now before things proceeded further.

She drained her cup to buck up her nerve for the subject, cleared her throat, and then met his eyes again.

"My father was a mercenary. He had no kin to leave me with and so I grew up on the move with his company. I started carrying messages and collecting arrows for the archers when I was five. I was squiring for the heavy soldiers by the time I was eight: scouring armor and sharpening swords, playing cupbearer for the officers while they planned. I killed my first man when I was eleven."

Galmar listened attentively, his expression betraying nothing until she mentioned her first kill. She elaborated before he could ask.

"I was light and fast enough to make a decent scout by then so I would go out sometimes to creep around and report back on ambushes and troop positions. This clod-brained hulk of a bandit without the sense to armor himself properly got the drop on me in the underbrush, but he didn't count on a little girl being quick enough to skid under his guard and ram a blade into his ribs. The commander found it so funny that he paid me a full swordsman's wergild for that day and I was allowed to drink with the rest that night. I kept the dead man's belt dagger. I still have it."

The housecarl grunted, satisfied with the clarification. It was uncommon, but children could occasionally be found as pages and drudges in military camps and it was a narrow, blurry line between that and fighting. He nodded for her to continue.

"You mother?"

"I never knew her," Ashildr answered, feeling the dark discomfort of the memories prickling along her neck and spine as she thought back to the few times that her father had ever spoken of the woman who had given him a daughter. "She was long gone by then, either swanned off with another lover or fed up with my father's temper, depending on who you asked. The cook once told me that my father had picked her up from a brothel in Bruma and I was born a little over a year later. I don't know anything else about her, except that she was a Nord and mentioning her was enough to put my father in a rage when he was drunk. Which was often enough."

She poured again, resisting the urge to scowl into the deep amber contents of her cup before tossing them back again. The alcohol was loosening her tongue dangerously, she knew, but Galmar had asked for this. She hissed the bite of the liquor out between her teeth and pressed onward.

"It wasn't all bad. The company raised me and taught me everything I needed to know. My father's shieldbrother - Olaf - carved me a wooden training sword and taught me how to stand and where to strike. The camp steward and cook - a fat Breton who was so fierce with her iron ladle that even the biggest of the men wouldn't cross her - kept me fed and taught me how to turn dry rations into something worth eating. The fighting women showed me how to braid my hair to keep it from being grabbed in a fight and how to bind my chest to fit comfortably in armor when I was older - and how to put a man in his place if he got too familiar, for that matter. The Dunmer mage taught me to read, write, and figure so that I could help him stock and file his alchemical ingredients. It was a hard life, but by the time my father finally got himself killed I could stand on my own. I'm grateful for that."

She watched Galmar's face intently, waiting to see revulsion or pity form there. She did not want to see either, but she was used to being looked down on. Better that he know what she was - the bastard brat of a swellsword and a whore - so that there were no illusions about what he was getting.

In the end, Galmar took her explanation and raised an eyebrow in thoughtful acknowledgement.

"Explains why I couldn't nail down your sword style at first. You must have been taught from a dozen different techniques. Explains why you fight like a veteran half again your age, too."

"It made me what I am," she agreed, tightly, her tone bordering on a dare. "What I needed to be to become the Dragonborn and help you drive out the Thalmor and the Empire."

"It made you the woman I love," he finished for her, rounding the challenge back at her with crushing, unexpected grace that silenced any reply she could have given.

For a moment that seemed to last an age, they stared at each other. Galmar would not look away. He fixed her with an unfaltering smile, waiting to see how she would take the admission. It was the second time that he had told her he loved her. The first had slipped out during their last fight before she had agreed to try with him and see what came of it. Ashildr tried to scare up a witty response to take the power from the words that she could not yet yield to, but could come up with nothing.

"Poor you," was all she could manage with a hollow smile as she reached for the bottle.

His large hand moved over hers, stopping her.

"No more tonight," he told her gently.

When Ashildr lifted her face back to him to protest, she was halted by the concern she saw there. It was not a command. It was a request. Silently, she released her grip and allowed Galmar to take the bottle. He sat it aside and then leaned back against the headboard. His expression - far from pity or scorn - was laced with no small amount of pain.

"My father was councilor and housecarl to Ulfric's father," he told her somberly. "Stone-fist is an ancient name in Windhelm. Our clan has always been respected. While he carried out his duties for the Jarl and was known as an honorable man in public, in private my father beat and berated his wife - broke her spirit until she became a living ghost of herself. He bullied his servants and his children. When he died, it was a relief, not a sorrow. The difference between us is that the monster who fathered me could hide behind his family name."

He closed his eyes briefly, breathing in deeply and expelling a sigh as he opened them again and looked at her.

"Whatever made you, Ashildr, I would never wish it away."

In that moment, Ashildr very nearly reached out for the man sitting in front of her. She moved, her knees under her, staring at him as she fought the conflicting urges to give comfort and stay back in safety at the same time. A terrible realization cut through the initial shock of the revelation and she felt her stomach twist at the awfulness of it.

"That's why your brother is the way he is?" she asked cannily, keeping her eyes trained on Galmar as she waited to see how he would react. "That's why you protect him?"

He looked away and for a brief instant Ashildr wondered if there wasn't just the hint of tears in the corner of the big man's eyes, but it passed as quickly as it came.

"I was the oldest. I was the stronger one, the smarter one, the one that our father was counting on to uphold the family name and pride. From the moment he was born, Rolff could never measure up. Our father terrorized him, pushed him beyond sense, tried to make him the kind of man that would be a credit to the Stone-fist name. It ruined him."

It ruined him , Ashildr repeated in her mind, the hairs on her neck rising as she remembered the younger Stone-fist sneering in the face of a young Dunmer woman, ale on his breath and glazed in his reddened eyes. She remembered the thrashing she had given him as a result and how it had almost seemed to endear her to to him afterwards. She remembered him sitting at her table with Galmar in Windhelm and trying to make conversation - trying to get her approval as much as his brother's - and she felt sick.

"Divines," she breathed and this time she did not allow her reticence to hold her back.

She moved, kneeling next to Galmar on the bed as her hands found his shoulders and his bearded cheeks as if she could staunch the pain of the memory like a bloody wound. He had always initiated physical contact with her, but tonight she pulled him into an embrace, burying her face against his neck and shoulder as he enveloped her fiercely. It was a long, long moment before they broke again.

"You deserved better," she asserted as she sat back on her heels, shaking her head against the depth of feeling she had for his pain. "Rolff deserved better. Whatever happens between us, Galmar, no one will treat you that way again. Not in front of me."

"You're going to protect me, then, are you?" he asked, teasing her weakly. His voice was huskier than it had been previously, but deep and relieved.

Ashildr felt him brush loose strands of hair from her face, his rough palm settling on her neck and the pad of his thumb caressing her cheek. She could not have imagined even a few weeks ago that she would ever want that touch or that it would ever provoke a feeling in her other than unease. As she looked at him now, though, seeing the great Stormcloak general vulnerable before her, she was surprised at the strength of her desire to shield him from his demons and humbled at how his presence in her life seemed to form a barrier against her own.

Ashildr returned the smile with a sturdier one.

"Back to back, as we fought the Legion. I could do no less for a husband than I did for a commander."