The next day, the sun had hid itself behind a heavy blanket of white clouds, leaving Skyrim to collectively tremble in the prickling chill. Farkas could see in his wife a change just as clear as the weather; she was edgy from inactivity, and it wouldn't be long before the troubles of the world called her away again. He understood it would be in bad taste to thank the gods that she had spent the last week with him in Whiterun, considering the circumstances, but he could not help thinking it every once in awhile. She dressed in simple townsfolk clothing again, plaiting her hair back dutifully, slipping on her bond of matrimony and then her ring she swore increased her archer's skills. He knew right then she would be leaving. There were other small changes that he noticed as he followed her down the stairs: her bow had been restrung before returning to hang on the rack by the door; the salvaged pieces of her elven armour were strewn about in conspicuous places – her breastplate mysteriously repaired and propped up in the corner. The passed week had been the longest amount of time they had spent together since the very first outing they had gone on to search for the shard of Wuuthrad and he was not happy to see it at an end.
Lydia had excused herself, claiming an errand, so they ate breakfast the two of them alone. Dryn would smile at him placidly when he met her eyes, already her focus was turned inward to where she had to go next, what she had to accomplish. He could see that she was resisting taking out her journal right in from of him, scouring over her many notes, accounts and rumours of promising adventure. If he were to turn his back though, or leave the room, he could be assured she would have it out and be deciding which path to take to her next goal. Farkas wondered if she even had a goal in mind, or whether she just needed to be away again.
Leaving the house into the cold morning, Dryn was several paces ahead of him, just as eager to be out of the house as she clearly was to be out of the city. "I'm going to Jorrvaskr," he said.
The elf spun around, as if she was surprised that he was so far behind her. She took a couple sheepish steps closer. "I'll walk with you. I wanted to see Belethor about his latest shipment."
"Arrows?" he started off up the street, and she fell into pace with him, shrugging in response to his question. "Aela's got some bandit trouble." He dropped the statement casually, careful not to phrase it as an offer. It was no secret that Dryn had a strange obsession with rooting out bandits wherever they happened to crop up. Even if she had a more important task to accomplish, she gone off a half dozen times into the depths of a mine or ruin to wipe out outlaw infestations. Aela had asked him whether Dryn was feeling up to a slaughter, and he'd promised to bring it up with his wife when he had a moment.
If she was going to be leaving anyways, he thought, he may as well go with her.
"Oh?" Dryn's eyes lit up and he knew she'd caught the scent of adventure. It might not have been dragons, or a life-altering mission, but it was something for her to do and it wouldn't take her far away. "What's been happening?"
"The usual- attacking trading caravans and the like," he reached for her hand and she returned the gesture, weaving her fingers into his. "She thinks a couple of them are ex-Silver Hand, so it makes sense she's taken an interest."
Dryn wrinkled her nose in disgust. She had defeated her wolf spirit and cured herself of her lycanthropy as the twins had done, but there would always be a deep, sour note in her heart when the Silver Hand were mentioned. The loss of Skjor and Kodlak were unforgivable trespasses and she would forever be bitter. All the more reason to assist Aela in ridding Skyrim of any last remnants.
It was unfortunate then, that as soon as Farkas had her interest piqued, and he was sure she would accompany the Companions are their little quest, that a courier raced right up to them, nearly colliding with Dryn. "Letter for you! Your hands only." The elf, a Bosmer like Dryn but long since acclimated to Skyrim and city life, rummaged through his pack and shoved the aforementioned letter into her hands. "That's it." With the same speed he had arrived with, he left with off to deliver other news to other people.
A bit stunned, Dryn turned the letter over curiously in her hand. She had regularly received quaint missives from people she had helped, or people who wanted to help her, but this was thick, expensive parchment sealed with official-looking red wax. The formal, sprawling writing that addressed the letter to her made her name seemed significantly fancier than it was. The imprint in the wax was the paw of a bear.
Farkas had let go of her hand, watching over her shoulder as she broke the seal. "It's from Ulfric, isn't it?"
A flicker of guilt passed over Dryn's face, before she nodded once in acknowledgement. "He said he'd contact me soon..." she began to read the letter, explaining herself slowly as she did. "He gave me an axe to deliver to Jarl Balgruuf, but I was to wait until I was contacted. I guess they're ready now."
"An axe?" Farkas recognized the nord tradition, and wondered if Dryn saw the significance. He watched as she folded the letter carefully, and slid it into her pocket. Sighing inwardly, he knew he had lost her to the Stormcloaks again. Her lust for bandit blood, or vengeance against the Silver Hand, still could not take precedence over the mad battle of Ulfric Stormcloak and his wild rebellion. The strangest thing for an elf to be obsessed with, but he wasn't going to start the fight they'd had over it again. "You had better get to Balgruuf then."
Dryn's red and black eyes snapped up at him curiously. She knew Farkas didn't hate the Stormcloaks, but he was oddly unsettled by his Bosmer wife participating so actively in the civil war. After Helgen and her near execution, she had made no secret of her hatred for the Empire, and had nearly as much Imperial blood on her hands as she did bandit. Still, Farkas not making any protest whatsoever left her feeling wary. Ulfric had given a command, though, and she intended to follow it promptly. "I guess I better."
"I'll help Aela," he said in finality. Feeling the familiar sensation in his heart that she was slipping away from him again, he opened his arms and was comforted when she happily joined his embrace. He memorized the moment: his small, wild woman wrapped in his arms, intensely warm against the frozen world around her, nestling her face into his chest; because he didn't know when they would share another. "And Dryn."
"Yes?" She turned her chin up towards him with a subtle smile.
"I love you. So be careful this time."
Her smile grew a little wider. She lifted herself up on her toes and kissed him softly. "I love you, too."
Dryn had done everything short of begging, which she was ashamed to admit she had nearly done. Jarl Balgruuf's words were ringing in her ears as the doors to Dragonsreach closed behind her.
It's time for Ulfric to face me as a man, or march his Stormcloaks up to the gates.
She had asked him to reconsider. To see what she had seen in the faces of the Imperials, to see that Skyrim, as all countries, needed to be free of this fickle tyranny. Irileth, who had never been on Dryn's side but who was still a sensible woman, had brought up the White Gold Concordat; and still, even in his fury, Balgruuf did not turn from his sway towards the Empire.
You can return this axe to our friend. The esteemed Jarl of Windhelm has my answer. Make sure he gets it.
She was desperate then. Setting her foot on the step to the dais, she stared him in the eye and pleaded him to think harder about it. In his face though, she saw the decision had been made, likely before she had even broached the subject. He told her that she had to go now, that it was by his grace that she was not executed right then.
Deliver the axe, personally, as a last act of our friendship. If you come back to Whiterun, or step foot again in this hall, I'll brand you a traitor and have your head right back on the block.
She was escorted out of the city by Whiterun guards, not even permitted to stop at her own home to collect her things. They marched her right out of the gates, and saw her onto the carriage to Windhelm before any of them turned back to the city. Without her weapons and without her armour, Dryn was on her way back to Ulfric with Balgruuf's answer.
"Then I was wrong about him," Ulfric said in his rumbling purr. Leaning over his map, coloured flags beneath his gaze, he surveyed the country he loved. "You were right, Galmar."
"Again?" grunted the old warlord.
Ulfric Stormcloak sidled around the table, dragging a finger carefully along borders. "I'm in no mood to joke."
As soon as she had arrived at Windhelm, Dryn had abandoned her simple civilian garb in favour of the armour available to all Stormcloak soldiers. In the blue tunic and leather armor, she fitted the part of one of Ulfric's loyal soldiers, but she wasn't feeling it. As the two men went back and forth, Galmar eager and encouraging, while the leader of the rebellion appeared disinclined to waste the lives he knew he had to, Dryn sunk into her own thoughts. Exiled from Whiterun, she had been denied the opportunity to even explain to her husband or her friends what had happened. Her friend, former friend, she thought bitterly, Jarl Balgruuf had openly declared his intent to kill her if he ever saw her again. She had made her decision to join the Stormcloaks, but now it seemed she had no choice but to forcefully overtake the city she loved. There was no way she would let them not include her in the battle, though she imagined they would certainly want her there; because she knew, in her heart, that she needed to be there to protect the ones she loved – and to make the bastard Balgruuf kneel before her in surrender. Her bitterness was not well placed, she was not seeing how the Jarl was just trying to protect his people, she was only seeing that he had chosen to side against her, and he would pay for his folly.
The camp outside Whiterun was ready, it had been for some time. The week long delay in her delivering the axe had only been for Galmar to do a personal inspection of the troops. Ulfric had genuinely believed the other Jarl would prove that he was a true Nord, but he was a tactful enough leader to prepare for the possibility that the opposite might come true. When the discussion ended, Galmar left in the utmost hurry, the glory of battle like a carrot in front of him. For a handful of moments, Dryn was alone with Ulfric. She pulled herself out of her own head in order to give him the attention and respect that he deserved.
The leader of the rebellion was studying her coolly. They had never been alone in a room together, and Dryn felt a sudden awkwardness creeping up on her. She had spent very little time in the presence of nobility, and there was a pang of guilt from her current resentment of Balgruuf. At least the Jarl had always been welcoming of her, kind and friendly, considering she had done a number of favours in the name of Whiterun. She had quickly become his Thane, and his friend, and she had never felt herself to be his lesser. In the presence of Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak, however, she suffered a case of feeling very small- something she was not accustomed to.
"I want you on the front lines," he said, his palms on the edge of the table. His cold eyes never wavered, never left her face. "I have a feeling about you. Your place is on the battlefield and I want you there."
She nodded, "Understood." Hesitating before leaving, she finally recognized that one was not supposed to leave the company of a Jarl unless dismissed and she was not sure if what he had said was an immediate dismissal.
The span of a few breaths passed before he spoke again. "You live in Whiterun, don't you?"
Clenching her fists, renewed rage at Balgruuf surfacing, she had to bite back the hostility that threatened to come forth. It was definitely not appropriate to vent one's frustrations to a Jarl. "I have a home there, yes. And friends."
If Ulfric Stormcloak, the indomitable spirit of pride and righteousness in Skyrim, could show any sympathy to another being, he was then. "The battle will have started by the time you get there. I don't have the opportunity to say it often, so I will say it to you. I am sorry for what this war has wrought."
His unexpected compassion stung her hard. For a second, she lost the air in her lungs. Her bitterness flickered and waned, and for the time he held her gaze and she saw that his word and heart were true, she felt a stillness and lightness that was unfamiliar to her. It was as if he had taken all of her sorrows and her burdens and placed them onto himself with a few simple words. She knew then, why Ulfric had such a following, why men and women flocked to him in such numbers. She knew then, that Ulfric was meant to be High King.
The city was burning. Catapults reined fire as terrible as a dragon, flying at the city and from within its walls. A great ball of flame struck the earth only a few dozen paces from where Dryn stood, as she listened to the words of Galmar. In the garb of a Stormcloak soldier, she was indistinguishable from the rest of them; in her hands she held an unfamiliar bow, at her hip a borrowed dagger. Galmar was quick and concise, and soon they were running, dodging and ducking as they sped toward the hill that led to the city. For the beginning, she kept pace with her fellow soldiers, holding back and staying with them. Staying together meant staying alive, she kept telling herself, but at the first sign of a Imperial colours flashing amongst the stones, the first arrow to narrowly miss her, the rage took over.
Dryn held the hunting bow in her hands, notching the simple steel arrows. Nothing near the quality of her own weapons, what was sharp and pointy would suffice with cutting into the flesh of her enemies. If it had been a Whiterun guard she saw first, it may have caused her to hesitate, to feel at least some regret; but when she saw red cloth beneath plate mail, she saw only blood after that. The first fell with an arrow in his throat. The next took two, one in the shoulder and the next in his gut. The defending soldiers had sensibly taken the high ground, staying on the walls to peg off the invaders; but they had not anticipated the unrelenting accuracy of the Dragonborn. Her natural skill from her years trained by her countrymen, led to a remarkable fluidity to her movements- drawing an arrow and letting it fly in one smooth action. Her arrows flew with such speed, that she quickly had to loot the corpses she came across, Imperial and Stormcloak alike, to gather fresh ammunition.
While her fellows locked themselves in close combat, or attempted to bring down the gate with force, Dryn leapt onto the rubble, deftly climbing it until she was face to face with the defenders. Her dagger skills were not so honed, but she was still a formidable challenge- small and fast with the blade. The unlucky Whiterun soldier to engage her was given a deep, fatal wound to the gut, spilling his innards so that he would be in horrendous pain for the hours it would take him to die. So absorbed was she in the mayhem, that it took a Stormcloak soldier below yelling up at her for her to take practical action. "Open the gate!"
In between fights, she slammed down the lever and the drawbridge crashed into the ground. The Stormcloaks poured in, the tide to claim the city was turning.
Inside, her feet took her straight home- the door hanging ajar and not a soul within. Her armour lay scattered where she had left it, but her bow was gone. There was no time to change, she would have to make do with what she had. Grabbing a handful of arrows where she kept them by the door, she left Breezehome and made a beeline straight for Dragonsreach.
She met up with Galmar and a handful of soldiers on the stairs, but no words needed to be exchanged. They were at the stronghold for one purpose. Galmar led the way, but Dryn was at his elbow, fresh arrows notched as they broke down the door. The defence was less than expected- the Jarl had sent out most of his soldiers to protect the city, and had left very few for himself. However, he was not cowering in some far room, he was in the middle of the hall, waiting for them. Irileth was at his side, and the two were amongst the charge that met the Stormcloaks.
Dryn set sights on the dark elf, but Irileth was ready for her and the arrows went wide. The Dunmer leapt from the height of the stairs over the fray, swinging her sword to take off Dryn's head. Stumbling backwards, she narrowly avoided the razor sharp blade, and had to quickly duck another swing. With no time between advances to draw her dagger, she swung her bow around and used it to parry the next attack. The blade stuck in the wood, nearly snapping it but not quite, allowing Dryn to push forward and swipe the other end of the bow upwards into Irileth's jaw. It was just enough to set the other woman off balance, and in one, slick motion, Dryn unsheathed her dagger and drove it into the dark elf's shoulder. It was not a killing blow, but it took her down, and Balgruuf was next.
Galmar had sufficiently beaten back the Jarl, and needed only the timely addition of Dryn to bring the man to his knees. "Enough! That's enough, I surrender... I surrender."