"Caught dinner!"

Ingrid beamed with pride as she held the two rabbits above her head. She'd been hunting barely an hour, which she felt made up for the fact she had to ask Farkas to set up the tent for them. With enough effort she could usually set it up herself, but never quite properly. Often it would fall by morning, and the promise of sleeping in a well-made tent that night was too good to pass up based on her pride.

"A rabbit each," he assessed as she approached camp. "Good. I plan to have plenty of energy for those 7,000 steps tomorrow. Fire's ready to go."

She was quick to settle in and skin the rabbits. Dinner wouldn't be flavorful tonight, but it would be enough to fill their stomachs for the night, which was all she needed. "Good thing we decided to camp tonight," she said as speared one of the rabbits with a stick. "It gets freezing up there at night. Foot of the mountain is much warmer."

Farkas raised a brow as he laid out a bedroll in the tent. "I thought you liked the cold."

Shrugging, Ingrid laid the first rabbit over the fire, moving on the drive a stick through the second. "Certain kinds." She laid the second rabbit out and continued on. "The cold up on the mountain is this windy cold. It cuts like a blade. I hate it."

"What kind of cold do you like, then?" He asked, moving to sit beside her by the fire.

"I like the cold in Windhelm," she explained, giving the first rabbit a turn. "It's dry. It feels more refreshing than anything."

He chuckled at this, looking into the fire. "So that's why you spend so much extra time in Windhelm."

Ingrid shrugged, moving on to the second rabbit. "It's good for my skin."

"I just thought you might have had a thing for a certain Jarl." He smirked immediately, well aware and entirely expecting the smack in the arm he received.

"Now you're just being mean," she laughed, watching the the rabbits slowly began to brown.

He laughed, shaking his head. "I'm just messing with you."

"You know," she began, looking up to the sky for a moment, "all this talk has been about me. What about you, Farkas?" She caught his gaze with hers, mischievously grinning. "When are you going to take a wife? You've got a long line to continue."

He shrugged, looking back into the fire. "I've got someone in mind." There was a small smile on his face as he said this, and Ingrid was almost insulted that this was the first she'd heard of it.

"What?" She asked, her eyes wide. "And you've kept this from me? Shield-brother!" She scolded. "We aren't moving from this camp until you tell me about her. Farkas falling for a gentle lady type," she mocked. "You big softie. I knew it!"

He reached up and scratched his shoulder. "Nah, she's anything but gentle," he corrected. "She's kind of scary, actually. If she says she'll do something, she always does it. Nothing stops her." He paused for a moment. "But the best thing about her is that she always does the right thing. If there's a decision to be made, you can always trust her with it."

"Oh, gods, it's Aela, isn't it?" Ingrid gave a long exhale. "Farkas, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Aela… subscribes to the Dunmer method, if you catch my meaning."

"Aela?" He gave a loud, singular laugh. "No, not Aela."

Satisfied with the first rabbit, Ingrid removed it from the fire, offering it to Farkas. "Well, she must be quite pretty to get your attention away from hitting things and knocking everything over," she teased.

"Oh yeah," he agreed, tearing a leg from the rabbit. "She's beautiful, alright. ...But it doesn't really matter." He took a bite from the leg, chewing for a moment before proceeding to continue with his mouth full. "I think she might be marrying someone else soon."

"We should kill him, whoever he is," she suggested matter-of-factly as she took her own rabbit off the fire. "I don't know who he is, but he sounds awful." She shot him a wink.

He shook his head at this. "It's good to know you're looking out for me."

"Whoever she is, I hope it works out." She tore some meat from the rabbit and inspected it. "The way you talk about her, it sounds like she's missing out on someone who really loves her."

He didn't respond to this, focusing on his dinner. The two spent the rest of the evening in relative silence, focusing on preparing for the next day's journey. Not long after the sun set, they agreed to sleep in shifts. Farkas would sleep first, and she'd keep guard on camp. She was used to the steps, after all. He'd need all the extra rest he could get.

Her quiver on her back and her bow by her side, she settled down beside the fire with her book. The Dragon War, a book she'd found entirely by accident in Riften. Usually she wasn't one for stealing, but she was about to instigate a Dragon War herself, so really, it was more like a donation to her. To help. That's what she'd told herself, anyway. She had to prepare for this at any cost. She had to win this. She couldn't fail, not after all the promises she'd made.

'Dragons, being dragons, embraced their role as god-kings over men. After all, were they not fashioned in Akatosh's own image? Were they not superior in every way to the hordes of small, soft creatures that worshipped them? For dragons, power equals truth. They had the power, so therefore it must be truth...'

Ingrid stopped reading when she realised she'd stopped paying attention to the words half way through the paragraph. Instead, she found herself distracted with trying to figure out who it was that Farkas was talking about. She struggled to think of anyone who was about to be married who fit the description. The only person she knew who 'might be marrying someone else' soon was…

Her eyes widened and she glanced to the tent, where Farkas was sleeping peacefully. No. No, he couldn't… he wouldn't…

What happened next was almost as though it was beyond her control, as though her brain shut down as she shrugged her quiver off her back and on to the ground. Softly, she approached the tent, her heart racing, feeling immensely grateful that neither of them were still gifted with the beast blood, lest he hear her pulse from afar.

She entered the tent, kneeling beside him, watching him for a moment. Had it been this whole time? Had she really been that oblivious to it all? It all made so much sense to her now, and that scared her.

Regardless, her body worked automatically, leaning down to his face and gently taking his lips with hers. Long enough to make a statement, but quickly enough to wake him up. His eyes opened, still sleepy and confused as he came to realise who was hovering over him. "Ingrid?" He asked, striking her emotionally. He almost never called her by her name.

"I'm an idiot," was all she could manage before he grabbed her by the waist, pulling her against him to her surprise and kissing her with an intensity that made her entire body boil. She would have been lying if she said she'd never thought about this before, but she had completely ruled it out.

She reached out for the cover of her bedroll, pulling over to them so they could both fit as his hands fumbled at her armor. She began to assist, although she was as clumsy and frantic as he was, and the armor was tossed aside as though it were nothing. If anyone chose to attack them now, they'd be at the disadvantage to end all disadvantages - but that meant very little to her right now. For the first time since she'd done away with the beast within her, she could hear and feel his heart. All of a sudden, she realised how much she'd missed it.

"Did I hurt you?" He asked, noticing a developing red mark on her shoulder as she lay against his chest.

She laughed, a quiet laugh, soft and gentle. "You ask that a lot." Tilting her head upwards to face him, she smiled. "If I hadn't have liked it, you would have known. Trust me."

He leaned his head down to kiss her head. "I know, you can handle it, I know."

The two shared a brief silence before she spoke again. "It's a full moon," she whispered, peering out of the gap in the tent flap. "Can you imagine if we'd still had the gift?" She joked.

"Probably would have broken the tent, if not a limb or two," he chuckled before pausing, stroking her hair as he thought. "You felt it too, didn't you?"

She nodded against him, grazing her fingertips over his torso, tracing an array of different shapes. "Yeah. Like I still had it. Like the blood never left." She glanced back to the moon. "Do you ever miss it?"

He gave a content exhale. "All the time. I had it for so long that I felt lonely when it wasn't there anymore. But I like sleeping now. It's quiet, I don't keep waking up or tossing around."

"Can I ask how long you kept this to yourself?" She asked. "In case you hadn't worked it out, I can be pretty oblivious."

"I figured." He smirked and tightened his grip on her for a moment. "I knew I liked you after I saw you fight for the first time. You were as good as Aela, but quieter. Sneaky. I think the first time I actually wanted you was when we had that fight,though, after you took the blood." He frowned. "Maybe that was why I was so angry. Feelings snuck up on me."

"Then why didn't you ever say anything?" Ingrid re-positioned herself to lay on her stomach and lean on her arm so she could see him face to face.

He shrugged. "At first I just wasn't sure. Thought it might be the beast blood trying to find me a mate. And by the time I was cured and realized I still wanted you, you'd already turned down Vilkas. If he wasn't good enough for you, how could I-"

"Aht!" She hissed, putting her hand up to silence him. "Don't compare yourself to him. We've been through this."

"Sorry," he shook his head. "You're just so smart, and I figured you would have wanted someone as smart as you."

She leaned in to plant a soft kiss on his jaw. "First of all," she cooed, running her fingers through the hair above his temple, "I'm not that smart, I'm just very lucky. And second of all, book smarts aren't the only smarts. He may be able to list every battle Ysgramor fought, but does he know as much about the wilderness as you? Can he spot an enemy's injury a mile away so he knows where to strike?" She gave a wicked smirk, nestling her form against his. "I bet he doesn't know how to do what you did to me before." She delivered another kiss to him again, whispering as they pulled apart. "Maybe the Greybeards can wait another day. This is good."

"It is good," he agreed, his free hand drifting down to rest on the small of her back. "But there's a world to save, Dovahkiin," he teased.

Ingrid merely rolled her eyes in agreement. "Fine. But once this is over I'm spending the entire week in Breezehome and the only people I want to see are you and Lydia." She began to relax into him, still wide awake, her eyes fixated on the moon. "I don't think that's a lot to ask."

"I'll make sure of it," he said, following with a long exhale as his eyes shut and he let sleep finally take him. "I promise."

Note: This is going a place I promise