Whiterun is burning.
It shouldn't be a surprise after her frenzied journey back from Windhelm where the righteous warriors of the North speak of honour and battle glory like others speak of the divines, though somehow Aia had not quite expected to return to a city already under siege.
"The Stormcloaks have been waiting out in the countryside for several days already," they tell her in Dragonsreach as she confirms what Jarl Balgruuf knew the moment he gave her the axe.
Aia realises, of course, that they have been preparing to take the city long before the letters between General Tullius and the jarl have solidified Whiterun's loyalty to the Emperor. That they have been waiting a long time for their prey, sneaking around the city borders like a pack of sabre cats. So much for honour.
"Actually, sir," a nervous-sounding legionnaire points out with the voice of someone who does not desire to carry the message. "They are on the move now. Soon they will have reached the barricades."
Within a few moments, Dragonsreach has been emptied of all capable warriors and Aia runs down the many steps with guards behind her and Irileth in front of her.
This, she thinks briefly, is what war feels like.
The blade feels cool in her hands, soothing ice against the burning buildings around her and the terrified screams of the civilians running in criss-cross patterns around the falling rocks and still-burning wood tumbling from their homes. Some scream the names of their children, others cast scattered prayers to Talos; a few of them are cursing, putting up a fight without weapons and with little prospect of victory.
"Everyone get inside the Jorrvaskr now," Aia hears one of the senior Companions shout from the stairs leading up to it. "Come on!"
The old mead hall is a building far from the city border, resting deep within the Wind district, yet Aia can't feel particularly convinced that it won't fall, too. The stench of smoke in the air makes every scrap of hope hard to cling to, the screams and battle cries dissolve most of her conviction that this had been the right choice, after all.
As though there is a right choice.
What harm is there in letting a few legionnaires die instead of our own people? Proventus' rhetorical question hangs unspoken in her memory, like a dark shade.
Ulfric is towering in there, too, arms folded across his broad chest as he stares down at her from his throne in Windhelm. We're tired of bleeding for an Empire that won't bleed for us.
Blood, she thinks as her fingers tighten around the hilt of her best blade. It's always about blood.
The crowd confuses her. Even now, after several battles in the company of others she hesitates, startles; she's so used to her own sword being the sole weapon and her own body the only concern that it feels foreign to run in this odd pattern, to fight in a formation, a whole set of armours and shields and weapons drawn.
They run, fast, to the gates and people shout as they pass, some fall down and Aia stops to help them up at first but quickly she learns that it's no use, that it won't help. The only thing that will aid them in any way is reaching the attacking invaders. There's no time to stay and mourn the collapsing city.
Down by the main gate where Legate Rikke gives the gathered soldiers orders and motivation, Aia notices that the whole frozen, infertile field down below bathes in fog and smoke, rendering the approaching rebels ghost-like. It is resembling a sentimental painting of war: grey heavy strokes, rain, darkness, and sharp blades that meet somewhere over it all.
"Everyone with me!" Rikke shouts. "For the Emperor! For the Legion!"
Aia fights with a thousand battles in her body and the memory of Sovngarde at the edges of her mind. She has grown into a warrior in this country; Skyrim has taught her the way one must dance around an enemy, the pattern in which one must lift and retract one's sword, the price of both victory and loss.
They fail to hold the barricades but the fight is over before the Stormcloaks has reached the gates, regardless. They are too few, too disorganised, to take a city like Whiterun and Aia thinks as she passes dead bodies and dying soldiers curled up around their own defeat, that they must have known this even as they travelled here.
As the Jarl thanks them all, safe inside the city gates again, she looks at the sky. A smoky light flutters across the horizon that appears strained in the cold night, as though its ropes are about to snap.
.
*
.
That night, Jorrvaskr is a temporary home to many of them.
Ysolda, Hulda and Mikael carry food from the Bannered Mare where one of the walls has caved in but the rest of the building stands after the guards have put out the fire. By the fire, Rikke orders a couple of soldiers to help serve food and ale to the civilians and another few to search the city for the last few inhabitants that have not yet been counted among the survivors.
Hadvar slumps down at the table where Aia already sits, warming her cold, slightly aching hands on a bowl of potato soup.
"You made it!" He grins. His face is still streaked with ash and blood and sweat. "I was sure I'd find you face down in the mud."
"I'd never give you the satisfaction," Aia replies, taking a spoonful of soup. It warms her up from the inside and she almost groans with the pleasure of thawing, slowly but surely.
"Ha!" Hadvar reaches for a bowl that is held out for him and they eat in silence, watching the room bustle with people. With survivors, Aia reminds herself. There are, by all accounts, many survivors gathered around these tables and in these halls. Men, women and children holding on to each other, exchanging these habitual phrase and sounds that can sound so empty but aren't, not a night like this one.
Later, as the noise fades out, Aia curls up as close to the fire as she dares, sleeping heavily and dreaming of fire and ashes burning away the cold.
.
.
There's commotion in Castle Dour when she finally reaches it a few days later.
Just outside the war room where she had expected to see General Tullius she instead spots an unknown Breton who's wrapped in a fur coat and carries an infant in his arms. He looks bewildered, like he hasn't slept in several days. Sometimes, Aia reflects, you can see and smell grief just by being near someone.
"There," a guard says firmly, trying to steer the visitor outside again but he manages to evade and step inside the other room instead.
"You are not allowed in here," another guard attempts, but before he has caught up with the intruder the General has approached to see what's causing the quarrel.
"You imperial dogs!" The man suddenly starts crying, furiously, with the sound of a howling animal. Aia moves closer, curious and sympathetic in equal measures. Tears are rare in this vast war of theirs, it's almost as though they are being saved for something else, something worse though she cannot say for what. "Three children... she has three children."
General Tullius is not a physically imposing man but standing in front of this Breton, he resembles a Nord, tall and towering; Aia watches his face, the way it remains utterly calm as he studies the other man in his visible discomfort. The only thing that changes is his voice that falls more softly in the room, giving his words different contours than the urgent orders and the clear-cut assessments. He must be used to them, Aia thinks. The ones left behind.
"We will fight these so-called rebels, I can assure you-"
"I don't care about the bloody Stormcloaks! The dragons can take all of Ulfric's men and all the Imperials for all I care! Hilda... " The Breton shakes his head, defeated, as though he still can't quite believe what he's saying. "I just want her back."
"The guards will see you out," the general says and his voice is sterner now, almost cold in its tight composure, but Aia can see he touches the other man's back briefly, a gesture so quick it could appear invisible.
But she sees it.
It slips out of her mind with greater ease the longer she lives in this world of conflict, but days like today, she cannot forget all these minor devastations everywhere; they are nobody's fault, they are the currency of war. Aia had seen it so clearly in Legate Rikke's face as they were leaving Whiterun, crossing fields washed red and black with blood and fire; she had seen that hardness that comes from determination in the face of all these doubts. They are my people, auxiliary.
She sees it again now, in her general's closed-off expression, in his stern gaze as he turns to the guards that have failed to keep the war from his doorstep. He stands in the midst of all this uproar and lawlessness with the task of steadying them all. It would, Aia supposes, transform anyone to stone.
"I was under the impression that your job is to guard the castle," he says sharply to the young man who had tried to oust the visitor from the castle as Aia arrived.
"Y-yes, sir."
Tullius waits for a beat, giving his words greater impact when he does speak. It intrigues her how he uses everything he possesses to intimidate and lead, create order and mitigate damage already done. There is steel there, steel and resolution, but nothing in it strikes her as malicious.
"Then why don't you make sure that there are no more civilians running around in here?"
The guards both lower their heads, a collective motion of embarrassment. "Yes, sir."
When they have left, the general nods towards Legate Adventus who greets him with his usual blank expression that Aia has heard the legionnaires jest about more than once. They say he is a magnificent soldier with a magnificently shallow intellect.
"Make sure the compensation is raised for that woman's family, Legate."
"Will do, sir."
With that, Tullius returns to the table in his war room, leaning against it for a moment. His hands rest heavily against the wood and as he exhales, Aia can see a weary frown in his face that is promptly smoothed out as she announces her presence by clearing her throat.
He looks directly at her; she holds his gaze for a heartbeat.
"Ah," the general says and the hard line of his mouth softens noticeably. Aia smiles a little, though it almost feels inappropriate after the scene she just witnessed. "You're back. Good. Sit down."
"What happened?" she asks, looking at the spot where the grieving man had stood.
Tullius gives her a long glance.
"One of our camps in the Pale was ambushed," he says after a moment's hesitation and there's a streak of tiredness in his voice that lands somewhere in her chest where it aches, chafes against the images of Whiterun and the ghost-field outside it.
"Oh."
He shrugs, rubbing his forehead with one hand while the other pushes the map on the table a bit further away as he, too, takes a seat. "Nothing out of the ordinary," he says.
"Everything about this war is out of the ordinary," Aia retorts, feeling a sudden pang of anger directed towards everyone and nothing in particular. It's the ghost-field again, the burning houses and Rikke's eyes as they had stepped over dead Nords in the streets.
General Tullius's expression is unreadable as they look at each other again, then he nods, though she isn't certain it's a sign of agreement.
"I heard the battle of Whiterun went very well," he says instead. "You have done a great deal to help solidify the situation there. Excellent work."
Now it's Aia's turn to nod. "Thank you."
"The Empire rewards excellence," Tullius continues. "And so do I. I'm promoting you to Quaestor. Take this sword as a token of the Legion's appreciation."
He hands over a blade that has been resting on a bench nearby and Aia looks at it, turns it over a couple of times in her hands; it's finely crafted, a weapon to treat well and maintain properly.
For so long now she has taken jobs where she's found them, been given coin in exchange for her services and been on her way again. While there are people who have awarded her with more personal gifts as tokens of their gratitude, she is unused to being promoted and appreciated in this clear, regulated fashion.
"It's a splendid sword," she says, a bit needlessly.
"Of course it is." He sounds vaguely irritated or possibly the slightest bit amused - it's impossible to discern which one of these emotions that runs through his mind as he observes her.
For a while, neither of them speaks and she is struck by the restfulness in it, in lingering here in this room that is anything but calm and peaceful but somehow manages to conjure up these emotions all the same. She could remain in here, hiding from the world.
It is rare, Aia thinks, for her mind to settle and her body not to be in constant flight.
"Is there anything else?" Tullius asks, reminding her that rest has very little place in their lives at the moment.
He looks up, holding her gaze for a moment as Aia turns the decision over in her head. There is a time for everything and these are days of war, not her private worries. Even so, she lets out a breath and reaches into her pack to find the note she's been holding on to since she snatched it from a dead assassin.
"There's this, sir."
Tullius stretches out his arm across the table to take the piece of paper; she places it in his hand and sits back, waiting for him to read it. While he does, she observes him in silence, watching the harsh lines in his face shift as his expression goes from the usual composed neutrality to a more serious, almost concerned frown.
"Execution orders from the Justicars," he mutters.
Aia nods. "They ambushed me north of Whiterun."
"Unfortunately there is no way to prove this is authentic," he says, with a tired sigh; he turns the paper over in his hand. The parchment makes a soft, scraping sound as his fingers move over it.
"The assassins were thalmor, at any rate." Aia had been caught unaware just outside camp, her limbs still half-dormant, her body hollowed out by battle. Before she had drawn her sword, her instinctive th'um had drowned them all in fire, raining down like Ulfric Stormcloak's attempts at taking a city that didn't belong to him and never will. "Not that this is much, as far as evidence goes."
"I believe you."
She tries to mask her surprise, but makes a poor job of it. The general hands back the letter and she lets her gaze run briefly over the words again.
"Do not waste time worrying about these assassins," he says suddenly. "We will look into it. But for now, I need you for our war."
"Yes." Aia nods. "I agree."
"Someone like you needs greater flexibility than other soldiers," her general continues, eyeing her carefully even now, as though he is evaluating something about her. Perhaps he is unconvinced about her focus on the mission, she thinks. She should not have shown him the letter; though it's too late for regrets, she wishes she had thought better of it beforehand. Gaining General Tullius's trust has proven no easy feat and she is reluctant to have it snatched away from her hands again, after all her efforts. "I believe our next task should be Winterhold. It's in close proximity to Windhelm and will keep Ulfric weary enough to make foolish mistakes."
"Then I will be there to take advantage of them, sir," Aia says, almost too-quickly, like a child eager to prove her worth.
And the strangely warm glint of approval in Tullius's eyes tells her it had been the right thing to say.
