Once, Ulfric had fallen to the fever of his own aspirations and it had scorched him. The fire that consumes him now stems from a different ailment; not born of the mistakes of a green boy, but of those of a man already disillusioned with life.
As he burns, he dreams: of the war, of friends that he had known, their footsteps swallowed by the lush grass growing in the meadows of Sovngarde, and of home and his mother whom he has last seen over a decade ago.
When he wakes, a priestess of Kynareth touches cold fingers to his temples and for one blessed moment he does not know where he is.
He drifts away again before he can remember.
The Jarl's son sleeps through the rest of the night and the days that follow, waking only to slurp the hot broth the guards bring him. He cannot bring himself to touch any of the bread that accompanies his meals, but greedily drinks all the tepid water he can swallow. For a brief while it eases the dryness in his throat, douses the inferno raging within. However, the ache never subsides entirely, only growing worse as the illness takes its toll.
Ulfric has known the fever of infected battle wounds and the delirium induced by constant pain and malnourishment, but he has never been brought this low by sickness.
His bones hurt worse than normal as shivers wreak his emaciated frame and he is happy to fall into unconsciousness. In one of his lucid moments the warrior finds out that he has been brought more furs, and he is too tired and too weak to be ashamed upon realizing that he needs them all.
Somebody is thoughtful enough to light a fire and to leave a set of spare clothes on the foot of his bed. Ulfric dons the clean linen garments and discards the ones drenched in sweat. His gaze falls upon the desk, stocked with quills and an inkpot and he lurches for the seat.
Later he will not recall the letter he writes to father, full of angry words at being left here, forgotten. Only a scrap of charred parchment remains of the accusation after he tosses it into the fire, and on the morn it is picked up and thrown away by a guard who never spares a single thought for its content. It is probably better this way.
Eventually the fever breaks.
Ulfric is not sure he will ever find the strength to rise from his cot again. In time he does, but only because he has to.
'It will take time to return to his old self,' he tells himself and doesn't quite believe the lie. Here, in this pit, he will never heal.
Such bleak thoughts threaten to drown him in despair and to escape tries to find solace in old habits. He withdraws into himself to pray, to find the calm necessary to meditate.
The warrior thinks that the isolation might actually be helping. After all, it is nothing new to him.
But he is too restless and too riled to find the peace he seeks. His old master had always berated him for his passion. At least he isn't here when his former pupil tries to Shout and finds that he cannot.
In a fit of rage, Ulfric rips off the amulet he is carrying and tosses it away, cursing the Gods for abandoning him.
In the next instant he is standing at the bars, grasping for the trinket of which he saw but a glimmer as it flew to disappear in the shadows. But the small bronze pendant is lost to him and in his helpless anger he punches the wall.
Fuelled by his fury the strike feels like it should cave in the stonework, but instead something crunches in his hand and Ulfric has to choke back a yell of pain. He kicks a trunk, because it is either that or giving in to the urge to scream until his lungs are emptied of air, and he keeps kicking it because he needs a different sensation to distract him from the pain.
When it passes in favour of a ceaseless throbbing, he is feeling too worn out to do anything but sink down on his cot and bemoan his fate.
And worst of all: he only has himself to thank for this predicament.
It is like that that his visitor finds him, and Ulfric really isn't braced for the jovial greeting he receives.
"How are you?"
The Jarl's son tries to answer only for the power of speech to abandon him. Such a simple question to provoke so many emotions. He would like to think that the concern he imagines hearing is genuine. Ulfric coughs and clears his throat before he tries again. He is hoarse when he manages to rasp out, "My voice." It still hasn't recovered after his illness.
"Is this a bad time to thank you for not shouting me to pieces?" the lad asks. Uninvited, he lets himself into the cell to sit in the only chair there is.
Why didn't he? A part of Ulfric wants to think that he is better than that. That he would not use the Voice against an unarmed man. He never gets to answer.
"What happened to your hand?" the other man asks, bending forward.
Ulfric snatches his hand away, but not quickly enough. He looks up to see a frown forming on the blond soldier's brow.
"This needs to be set. I can get the priestesses. They can heal-"
"No magic," Ulfric replies.
The lad throws his head back. "Mara have mercy; Stendarr give me patience, and Talos strength," he intones in the same breath. "How did that happen?"
"I lost it." He realizes a split second too late and bites his tongue.
The other man appears confused by that statement. "Lost what?"
He does not know what exactly he was referring to either, only that he has not meant to reveal even that tiny detail. The anger swells and breaks free before Ulfric can do anything to hold it in. The lad is undeserving of his ire, but conveniently he is here to be hit with the full force of it. "My fucking virginity, you skeeverbrain!"
"And here was thinking about your common sense of self-preservation," the soldier bites back and both men refuse to look at one another in the uncomfortable silence that follows.
Ulfric cannot fathom why he feels like the loser of this particular battle when the other man is the first to speak again.
"Will you let me see it?"
A part of the blond man screams at him to never show his weakness, but he knows that now is not the time he can let the past govern him. He cannot simply leave the injury be.
Blood from Ulfric's split knuckles has painted rivulets of red over the back of his hand, yet it does not stop the lad from reaching out. When the Jarl's son flinches back, he slows his movement, opts to hold up Ulfric's palm with but one gentle finger.
The soldier squints, bringing his face closer to the digits. "Doesn't look broken."
His fingers stick out at a wrong angle and he cannot move them. Ulfric is sure they are broken, when the lad grabs them and wrenches.
Ulfric freezes, streams of cold sweat running down his back. He couldn't make a sound if he wanted to, because his heart has taken residence where his throat used to be.
After another brief inspection, the lad seems pleased with his handiwork. "I'll get you a bowl of water. Seems too late, but maybe they won't swell any worse." He gets up and leaves and Ulfric allows himself for the pent-up breath to escape his paralyzed lungs in a rush.
He can move his fingers a bit, and the feeling of wrongness is gone. The pain was surprisingly quick to abate. It is not the reason why he is shaking, either. He manages to get his breathing back under control by the time the other man comes back.
"How did you know?" Ulfric asks quietly. The numbing effect of the cold water is most welcome and he is in dire need of something to keep his mind busy.
The lad shows him his own left. The small and ring finger are crooked and when he makes a fist, it becomes obvious that he cannot bend them. "Broke 'em twice. Dislocated them more often than I can count. Blasted shield keeps getting knocked against them. Got them healed at the temple, but... they're pretty stiff. Hurts like a bitch when something moves around the wrong way." He sounds like he knows what he is talking about.
Ulfric nods. He cannot resist bending his fingers though he knows that he shouldn't. "You could have warned me."
"This way's quicker."
Ulfric knows he is not talking about the setting itself.
"Thank you." He understands that he should be grateful for the swift resolution, but in his heart he cannot bring himself to feel it any more than he can imagine what his reaction to what had just happened would have been a couple of months ago. And yet...
All he wants is to throw up. And Ulfric realizes that he will not be fine, maybe not ever, but in a while he will be able to pretend to again.
The urge is slow to pass, though.
"If you need me...," the lad says and sounds like he already regrets this decision, "Just call."
Ulfric resolves not to let those ever become an issue. He is sick of his life being in the hands of others. It is time to wrench it back. He has allowed his trip of self-pity to go on for too long.
"And don't go punching any more walls."
Yet he is glad that he did. Ulfric studies the patterns his own dried blood has painted his skin with. He is far from healed, but he knows that he has come out of far worse – not for the better, no. But he has become harder, like tempered steel. So many things try to chip away at him, he isn't sure of what will remain of him by the time they are done with him. If he will even recognize the man that will be left to emerge once all this is over. But he avows that that man will be the one they will break themselves upon.
If the Jarl of Markarth thinks he can subdue him, then Ulfric will make him rue the day he took on the heir of the Bear of Eastmarch.