"I was given the name Illiraën, and passed my childhood in Valenwood. From there, I wandered Tamriel until I, ah, found myself in Skyrim. When I came to Whiterun, it was in search of adventure."
The sprawling, spidery Gildergreen tree at the heart of the square gave me pause. A preacher wailed off to the side, and the sound, though harsh, dipped and bounded and bent around the great tree in a way I could almost picture it. Small as it was, by Valenwood standards, it reminded me of Falinesti's city tree; branches splaying wide as though welcoming a burden.
Or, perhaps, I thought in melancholy, turning to follow the curve of the path and leaving the click of bare, dry branches behind me, it's overburdened already.
I took my time approaching Jorrvaskr, feeling for every rough-hewn, ages-worn step. My brow furrowed and my eyelids closed as I focused on finding my way. Whiterun was well-organized, for a flat city, but I was a stranger, still, and possessed no adept familiarity with its numerous streets. Especially not this one, which I'd never had cause to walk before. I paused, exhaling, then breathing deeply. My senses strained for some sign of the famous mead hall. A muddled, almost immortal medley trickled on the wind.
There, it was. The cart driver outside the city must have been right when he called this the oldest part of the city. The ancient wood had settled solid, and almost fully lost its natural scent under so many coats of staining and paint. It had absorbed the smells of the surrounding land, and then the city that had slowly bloomed around it.
For some moments I stood in awe, just breathing in the wisping smell of the ages.
When I reached the threshold, I ran a hand over the carved paneling of the door; softened with age, but no less strong and sturdy for the wearing of time. This building had weathered eras untold. Hesitantly, I placed a hand upon its wrought iron handle. The door swung open with almost no resistance, despite its thick, heavy form. Immediately, the sound of a commotion within crashed against my ears. I tensed, my eyes snapping open in a futile instinct to search.
"Are those two at it again?" Footsteps hurried from one end of a single, long room to the other.
I closed the door behind me. I could smell fire and food. There was the tang of harder metals, too, but faint— weapons on display? Sweat and Man, over a light whiff of lye. Dishes clattered as they were abandoned in favor of this new entertainment.
"You dare challenge a Dunmer?" Crowed a cocky male voice.
"I'll enjoy killing you!" Came the opponent's retort. A woman; a Nord- her voice all edges, as if even that were made of steel.
The hard whump of flesh on flesh made me tense. A fistfight. I toed my way to an edge of the sort of railed walkway that lined the hall. I winced as the deep thumps of hard, intentional, flurried hits reached me.
"What is happening?" I asked of the air around me, distressed by so many unknowns and barely able to find my voice. This was Jorrvaskr, wasn't it? The sounds of boasting, grunting from the two fighters and the heckling of surrounding onlookers curled around a high ceiling and I tilted my ear up to analyze it. Like a boat, inverted and made a roof. Such an ancient, innovative design.
This is definitely Jorrvaskr, I resolved, wincing as the Dunmer choked, as from a blow to his gut or neck.
"Come on, Njada, he's giving you an opening!"
"Hit her!"
My blood pumped at the feeling of fighting, and I relaxed into what was, to all appearances, commonplace. I felt the combatants' footwork in the boards beneath my boots, and put my hands on the railing so as to lean into the sound of it and map their movements in my mind.
Both were armored lightly, but the Dunmer was considerably faster than his Nordic opponent. He hit quick, close, and in a flurry, then retreated before he could get pinned down by a counterattack. His feet barely brushed against the ground when he moved, only pressing down when he was taking a blow. There was never the slightest staggering thud to indicate he'd lost balance, even when Njada hit home.
But the woman was stronger. Her strikes were harder, more unforgiving, louder. She moved solid and deliberate, and did not give an inch when the Dunmer pressed forward and angled on his toes. I imagined her body barely bowed when the Dunmer hit home, if it bowed at all.
I kept expecting the brawl to end after a particularly pained cry or grunt, but the contenders were tough, thick-skinned; their stamina inexhaustible. It must have gone on for a quarter candlemark before I felt the thump of knees and hands hit the wood floor, and the Dunmer's ashen croak sounded: "I yield, I yield."
The fine hairs of my arms pricked as I heard one, two, three more closed fists hit bare flesh. My teeth ground and my blood rushed in my ears at the self-important gait of the Nord as she swaggered away from the downed body. Were manners so different in Skyrim that it was acceptable to beat a man when he had yielded? Judging by the sudden silence of the other spectators, I gathered that it was not.
A man with a voice like a cavern shaft echo, also a Nord, stopped Njada to ask about a shield grip.
"You're probably gripping it wrong." She responded sharply, rudely, and my eyebrows came down. Unnecessary brutality was apparently her trademark- first at fight's end and now with simple conversation. I decided I did not like her, and hoped she was not an example of how all the Companions behaved. If so, perhaps I ought to turn around now and leave the way I'd come, and not waste my time. I chewed a lip, then decided to err on the side of caution, and investigate Jorrvaskr further.
I took the couple steps down from the walkway and swung my arms casually at my sides— to disguise the fact that I was brushing my fingertips on things I passed to steer through the hall, and to alert me before I ran into something. In this utterly new place, with its faded smells and dampened sounds, my awareness was limited. And that made me nervous.
A brush of scratched leather on my right.
"Pardon me," I apologized immediately, eyes downcast, as I put space between the body I'd failed to notice. Their breath hit me, from somewhere just higher than my nose, and I reeled. How had I failed to notice the stench of brew that clung to this— I hesitated, but could smell nothing but the reek of mead. The wood beneath me creaked, the sound sliding past the figure and illustrating a mere silhouette. My apology fell awkwardly flat as I fretted blindly; the polite addition of "sir" or "madame" eluding me.
The body turned, belatedly acknowledging my touch and my words.
"Oh, excuse me," a male voice slurred and I could have slumped in relief at being enlightened- and at so kind a return. After hearing how Njada spoke to her fellows, I had no reason to expect civility to a stranger.
"Wait." I could imagine eyebrows furrowing over a drink-blotched face. "I haven't seen you before... Have I?" I opened my mouth to reply, but he beat me to it. I sensed a hand wave in the air between us apologetically, and heard the hair of his head rustle as he shook it slightly. "I'm sorry if I've forgotten."
I chuckled under my breath. If the man didn't know his own memories, a proper introduction would only be wasted breath.
"Who's in charge around here?" I asked, instead, listening to the stranger move and breathe.
His stance was curiously refined, in a distant way— his foot pressed evenly into the wood when he shifted his weight, despite his apparent drunkenness. Such sure bearing was not a trait I'd noted in my travels and interactions with laypeople. My anxiety was slowly shifting into curiosity.
"In charge of what?" His voice was loud, as brew-drinkers voices often were; but even slurring, his consonants were pronounced. My eyebrows came down, and I forgot to focus my clouded eyes on him as I learned his details. "I'm in charge of me, and you're in charge of you."
My lips pulled into a genuine smile, and I felt my eyelids press up in my eyes. Freedom. The word rang in my mind beautifully; I wanted nothing more.
"If you're looking to join up," he continued, and for a moment I wondered if my eagerness had split across my face, but there was no smile, no mockery in his tone as he jerked a hand to my left; "Kodlak's the one to be talking to."
"Thank you," I returned, and meant it.
"Yeah, yeah," he waved me off with a mutter, and my mouth screwed sideways to hold in a laugh. A curious man, I decided, and left him to his meal.
Kodlak. My mind stirred, remembering the name from the night at the farm when I'd met the Huntress and her fellows fighting a giant. Her hard, Nord voice had softened when she'd spoken of him- and not the lily softness of affection, but the way that ore goes lax in the smelter; a softness forged from respect. None of the voices in the present company called that name, or carried the weight of a man who could read souls out of eyes.
Turning left, as the drunk man had gestured, I found a bannister and followed it, giving up pretenses as the rest of the Companions ignored me after a first glance. I caught the faint whiff of ancient hide and that scent hair could get when it went unwashed in the woods, and recognized the Huntress from the farm. I smiled, and wondered if she'd noticed me, wherever she stood, and remembered me.
A scuff of my boot came back hollow and scarce. Stairs. I decided to take them, and lifted my head when the door at the bottom opened and closed.
"Oh, I'm just a servant, dear," a voice, watery with age, explained kindly and I flushed, realizing how imploring my expression must have been to make her say such. "You'll want to talk to one of the Companions, I'm sure."
"Kodlak Whitemane?" I inquired, reaching a hand as if to catch her sleeve when her thin form moved to pass me on the wide stairs.
"Through the door, at the end of the hall," she replied, a smile clear and present in her voice. I smiled, too, at her lack of hesitation; at her not taking a moment to look me over and measure my worth. It was encouraging to think that, perhaps, I really did look the part of a Companion hopeful and not just a, a— what did the Nords call it?— a milkdrinker.
These doors, too, were smoothed from the press of many hands. My heart mourned for the tree killed to make such idle furnishing. Who knew what stories the wood, if it had lived, might have told of all the heroes that had passed its eaves? I pressed through, burying the thought. Nords were, after all, so very fond of telling their own stories.
I stood, now, in a stone hall under the building, limned in the tang of lye— thanks to the elderly servantwoman, I now knew. Books, fabric, unstained wood, iron, weapons and armor and the people who owned them.
I had to remember to breathe slowly, deeply, as instinct to learn my surroundings pulled air fast through my flared nostrils. Living quarters, I pegged the place; by the smell of the colored stain alone. Lye was used on doors, and straw, and the tanned, sewn furs of beds.
The lack of movement here lent my label more credit. Why would warriors walk their bedrooms when daylight beamed and there were things to be done?
I sidestepped a long rug, and let the soft tap of my boots on stone guide me down the hall. The sound rolled instead of bounced, and I cocked my ear toward the ceiling in surprise, realizing it was curiously curved like the boat-roof up the stairs.
I passed a table, laden with the smell of food, and wondered unhappily whether the old servantwoman did all the Companion's cooking, too. Did the Nords disrespect their elders so? Was that another mark I needed to tally against them in my mind?
Voices, stunted, reached my ears and brushed away my thought. Surprised by how muffled the conversation resounded, I put a hand on the wall to feel its texture and moved cautiously toward the speakers. The structure felt like ordinary stone, but from what I could tell, it should have sent the voices echoing all throughout the hallway. Yet, it did not.
"— the call of the blood," I distinguished, finally, when stone gave way to a thick wooden doorway, as to a place of honored privacy. I smelled trophies of many kinds— flesh, paper, wood, leather, steel. Kodlak Whitemane's study, perhaps?
I stood aside, not knowing where a candle lay to guess its shadows and hide in them.
"We all do." My long ears snapped forward like a Khajiit, and my eyes widened. "It is our burden to bear." The aged voice had the rocks of years to move through, but it did so with strength. It was a waterfall; full of inherent majesty, each syllable pronouncing its authority.
Kodlak, I knew, and was struck with another wave of anxiety. I stood straighter and surer, to look— and feel— less like an interloper and more like a guest. I was supposed to be here, I reminded myself. I needed to be here.
Chairs creaked, heavy armor scraped, and the breath of voices faded. The conversation had ended. I stepped forward.
"A stranger comes to our halls," Kodlak noted, his voice hitting me straight. He was looking at me. I willed my beating heart to still. I was not a deer cornered in the dark; I was Lir, and I was no prey. A shiver across my shoulders made my jaw clench. I sensed the other man who had been speaking was eying me, as well. I lifted my chin a fraction, just enough that dim light registered in my blackened vision; the light from hanging candles showcasing my white-dead eyes. This was not a time to duck; to hide my handicap. If they did not know at the first, it would be a terrible deception. And warriors in honor— Shield-Siblings— did not deceive each other.
"I would like to join the Companions," I announced myself.
"Would you now?" There was amusement in his baritone and my teeth creaked as they ground together. Was he holding me in derision? Was it my lack of preamble? I stood stock still, not allowing myself to fidget- as a wolf staring down a nocked arrow.
"Come, let's have a look at you." A moment stretched and stretched until I could feel the space between my heartbeat as I waited for the worst. My eyes I fixed on something— Kodlak's voice, so probably his mouth. Gods, I hoped it was somewhere near his eyes.
I prayed. Oh, Y'ffre, I prayed. Let him see something in me. Let my years of struggling not be for naught. Let this honored Man scrub out the ridicule of Mer. Let me be worthy. Let me be worth something- anything.
The suspension broke with a simple thoughtful murmur:
"Yes, perhaps…"
I let out a breath I hadn't known I'd been holding. A 'perhaps' was all I needed.
"A certain strength of spirit."
I could have let off light.
"Master," the other man cut in, and I twitched to face him, angling my ears and pressing my feet to the floor to sense his movements if they came. I had forgotten he was there. "You aren't really considering accepting her?"
And like that, I could feel myself glaring blindly; the expression useless with dead eyes, I knew- not to mention utterly rude before a stranger, and an elder who had just told me the spirit behind those eyes was strong, despite their blindness. I bit down on my tongue hard to hold my scathing retort behind my lips, and forced my brows to slacken.
You expected this, I reminded myself. Your family weighed you, measured you; wrongly found you lacking. Others will ever do the same.
"I am nobody's master, Vilkas." I straightened at the iron in Kodlak's voice. "And last I checked, there were a few empty beds in Jorrvaskr for those with a fire burning in their hearts."
"Apologies," Vilkas offered. I did not move but for the thinning of my lips. He was not speaking to me. He wasn't even looking at me. His only "sorrow" was for being scolded. There was no real remorse for the words or the cruel sting they'd caused. "It's just that— I've never even heard of this outsider."
My eyebrows raised mockingly at his presumption – for the Man hadn't even asked me my name! –, but I yet held my tongue. When I'd lodged an arrow so deeply in a giant's throat that I could not pull it out, a shot made from fifty paces, at night, against a westerly wind, blind— there had been no question of name or fame, then. The Huntress had thought me worth her time to welcome. I didn't need to impress this milkdrinker; but even so... I wished for a moonless night and a deep Valenwood glade, and this Vilkas with a shield and blade, but blind as me. See how he felt then. See if his precious renown meant anything with an anaconda silent between his feet, or a panther in the boughs above his head with its claws outstretched.
"Sometimes the famous come to us," Kodlak agreed with patience unending. "Sometimes men and women come to us to seek their fame. It makes no difference. What matters," he looked at me and I felt pinned by his gaze, like a butterfly against velvet, "is the strength of their heart."
"And their arm," Vilkas sniffed, and I felt myself tense reflexively at the feel of his underwhelmed glance down my own arm. Thin, it was, but for a moment, I fantasized I could feel it against his brow, forcing the tender back of his skull hard into the wall behind. The moment passed.
"Yes, indeed." Kodlak chuckled indulgently, as to a child.
"How are you in battle?" He asked of me, and there was no trace of prejudgment in his tone. No amount of skepticism, nor a whit of mockery.
For a pregnant moment, I hesitated. I wanted to boast, I wanted to stamp a verbal foot over Vilkas' lack of regard and twist it into nothing. I wanted to be bold, assured. But I felt my eyes sliding in their sockets, nothing to hold onto. My heart thudded with the embarrassment of how I must look— a skinny, if roughened, little Bosmer in glinting new armor, never before worn as she endeavored to impress; her hair sticking out at all angles, cut by a dagger in her own uncertain hand; full moon eyes drifting blindly, the brightest part of her.
Kodlak's words echoed as if he spoke them again: A certain strength of spirit.
My pulse steadied and I swallowed my vanity and my despair. I had kept myself sustained, alive, safe, defended, all these years in the dark. But there was no denying my youth, and my inexperience.
"I have much to learn," I admitted finally, my shoulders dipping to weather a dismissal. But the emotion of the room did not cool or still. If anything, it lightened.
"That's the spirit!" I could hear the smile and approval in the old man's voice, and my heart soared— my scarred lips parted in a silent, shocked relief. Was I a Companion now? Is that what this— "Vilkas will get started on that."
My neck muscles tensed as I worked not to whip my head toward the distasteful boy-man. He had not moved so long as he had been sitting there but to lean his weight forward, metal bracers clacking against plate-skirted thighs, as though taxed to weariness by my presence.
"Vilkas," Kodlak ordered, and the younger man sat up again in his chair; the precise sound of it curling my lip as I was willing to bet he still refused to acknowledge me. "Take her out to the yard and see what she can do."
"Aye," the word was dragged from him, little better than a groan of displeasure, and I irritably wondered if he had petulantly rolled his eyes, too. My teeth ground at the perpetual rudeness of this 'Vilkas.' His voice sounded adult to me, and yet he threw his words around like a bullying lad whose stones had yet to drop.
He stood, armor creaking, and set off at a jog— nearly knocking into me. I bristled and followed, the noise of his going illuminating the long hall for me better, in my way.
He did not speak at all. No greeting, no nothing. Up the stairs, past the great table and center hearth— I nearly lost him in the voices and for not realizing there was another door opposite the one I had come in at the first. He did not wait for me. Did not even pause to see if I was following.
Outside, I tightened my bracers and the belts across my waist, all irritation. His steps led down a set of stairs, past a couple more wooden benches and tables, conversing people, another few stairs, and onto a sort of courtyard. The ground beneath me was cobbled stone, worn down and filled with dirt until the surface was near smooth. I smelled straw and canvas— practicing dummies?— and the hot smoke of burning coal. The wind was stronger, here, and I could smell open land and distant trees. We were near the city wall.
"The old man said to have a look at you," Vilkas said slowly, and I seethed.
Did he take me for a simpleton? Was it because I was a Mer? Blind? Smaller, and younger (by his flagrantly mortal reckoning)? His voice was somewhere like two hands above my own.
"So, let's do this."
He expected me to fail. I felt it keenly in his dismissive, obligated tone. My features settled like a rockslide at the end of its run.
"Just take a few swings at me so I can see your form." He elaborated, still with that infuriatingly didactic tone. The ring of sword out of sheath met my ears, and the dim thunder of a shield settling over an arm. "Don't worry," he mocked, sneering once more at my perceived weakness. "I can take it."
I focused on him utterly, determined not to be outdone. The scrape of his metal boots through dirt, on stone; the creak of his armor as he gestured, moved, leaned; the smell of the metal, and the man underneath; the faint tap of his weight, translated by the packed earth beneath our feet- when he moved, I knew it, and mirrored him. I learned his pattern. Step forward, step right, quarter circle, step back, step left, lift shield.
I caught a whiff of hair amid the musk of male and smiled. So. He had not donned a helmet.
"Don't just stand there," Vilkas spat, and I could taste his temper in the air as he went to circle and I countered. "Hit me!"
I did not respond to his taunt, but I did raise my hands; fingers closed into fists. Four years I had walked with the Suthay Khajiit of Elsweyr, when my own people had written me off after losing my sight. Of course, the nomads had no concept of blindness— even in the blackest of nights, they could walk with confidence. But fighting in close quarters, empty handed... They knew very much of that.
I waited for his patience to wear out. Waited for his pronouncement of my weakness to come.
His shield tucked in, his blade came up. I danced left, sword coming down at my right, and my arm flashed up and out, connecting solidly with the delicate flesh of his ear.
Murmuring voices sounded, and I realized we had an audience. I did not turn, did not allow the distraction as I kept on my toes as Vilkas's grunt gave way to resuming his stance.
"She just might make it," someone said. My heart galloped and my smile showed teeth.
I did not need him to strike again, now that he was aware that I was aware. I feinted right, and heard his elbow rise to shove me back. The fool's counter came too slowly. I leaped up, forward, tugged his shield down fast with one hand, and struck between pauldron and chestplate, ramming the tender muscle connecting torso and shoulder.
He grunted from pain, surprised and unwillingly impressed, and I did not allow him the chance to recover. Admittedly, he was more agile than most Nords; turning with me as I moved left in an attempt to flank. But the warrior, too bulky, was not fast enough. I swept my foot out suddenly, hooking his leg and pulling it from under him- just enough to teeter his center a fraction. I struck his sword arm away, hard, the blade clanging against the inside of his shield- cleanly halting his attempted bash at me when I'd broken through his defense.
Jump back, sidestep, jab, feint, strike—!
My knuckles split on banded iron- his shield. I hissed at the pain and retreated a span. The fool- not entirely a fool, it seemed- had been paying attention. Had taken a few hits patiently to learn me, in turn. I shook my hand before me, scowling. My knuckles were bleeding, I was sure of it.
In a breath, Vilkas filled the space I'd abandoned, putting me on the retreat. "Is that the best you've got?", he crowed.
Oh, I hated him.
I rained on the shield with my open palms, unexpectedly forcefully as my weight was launched into the assault. He staggered, grunting, and I ducked in. My grin was feral as I used our size difference to my advantage. I shouldered his shield away in the split second he needed to recover, to straighten— knocked his sword away with a braced wrist, and shoved an elbow into his armored gut, just enough to bend him, expose his—!
My fist slammed into his chin, reeling his head back and shoving his jaw against his skull with an audible clack of teeth.
I sprang back out of range, grinning savagely. Such a hit would have sent anyone sprawling, this Vilkas was no–
"Pretty good arm you have there," he conceded grudgingly, his stance like an iron wall once more. With a sharp, stunned prickle, I realized he had hardly recoiled. My eyebrows were high as I mirrored him. He could take a hit, I gave the bastard that.
But he would hit the ground. Hard. My teeth bared with resolve.
I reacted. Smell and sound and feeling ran together as every nerve went needle-sharp with want to bring Vilkas down. My feet slid and raised and rolled. My torso curved and bent; I spun and whirled. My fists were iron as I forced them against Vilkas's shield, his armor, again, again— again! When he gave an inch, I took a span. After some minutes, he was breathing heavily, his ears probably ringing from all I'd struck them, and I could smell blood, somewhere. Perhaps a split lip? Or just my own knuckles, which were raw, chapped, and stinging. He was still on his feet. Solid as an oak. I raged silently, my breath gusting and my every joint buzzing with exertion.
We considered each other for a tense moment. I flexed my fingers, gritting my teeth as they cramped.
"That's enough." Vilkas breathed finally, and I heard him straighten, his sword return to its sheath, and the shield dangle in his grip. I, too, relaxed, and felt my spine crack once, twice, on the way. I suppressed a wince. It had been a long time since I'd faced an opponent so much stronger than myself. Eight, I was not even used to such exertion- even wandering for as long as I had, and working for the past fortnight at Adrienne's forge.
I truly did have much to learn. Y'ffre willing, I would learn it here, in Jorrvaskr's halls.
"You just might make it." Vilkas muttered begrudgingly. A smile tugged on my mouth, curling my lips at the hard-won, hidden success- "But you're still a whelp to us, new blood. So you do what we tell you."
My smile dropped as though he'd slapped me. I wanted to spit at him; pull out my dagger and hold it to his throat. But I was wearier than I wanted him to know, and my hand would surely shake. So I ground my teeth and said nothing, indulging him in his arrogance as everyone else here seemed to do.
"Here's my sword." He thrust it at me before I'd had a chance to hear, smell, feel what was happening. I jerked to catch it as he let it go, dropping its generous weight into my smaller- and spent- arms carelessly.
"Take it up to Eorland to get it sharpened. And be careful." He sneered. "It's probably worth more than you are."
His footsteps led away without another word, thought, or backward glance. The sword was heavy in my tired arms, and they trembled faintly. My fingers, though, itched to swing the oh-so-valuable steel at his self-important back.
But that was a child's thinking. And what would that win me?
I breathed in the cold-sharp wind of Whiterun's plains, and breathed out my wrath. Turning my head til my nose caught the scent of a nearby smithy, I walked away; my weary knees only wobbling a little.
