No one learned what Aela and Azrael told each other. No one on Nirn knows, except for the two of them.

It was a rainy night; they entered the Bannered Mare drenched and their hoods and cloaks were dripping water on the floor, their faces cool as the winter gales. They sat, silently, while the Dunmer shot lighting straight from his eyes at anyone who dared to so much as eye them. After a while, they seemed to calm down a bit. Azrael asked for two mugs of mead without uttering a word more than needed and sat again on the bench side by side with the Huntress.

The Harbinger of the Companions awaited for the two drinks to arrive and only once Hulda had gone he started talking.

'Time to explain,' he said. It sounded more like and order than anything else.

'You know what this is about. And I already told you that you seem too smart to me to live long.'

'Don't try to fool me.'

'I'm not trying to,' she complained, annoyed. 'I'm just saying what I think. You know exactly what this is about, and yet you ask me. Why?'

'Because I want to hear how you explain it, in what twisted way you like the idea of keeping the cursed blood of the Beast in your veins,' answered the Dunmer cooly.

It was about Midnight, and they had been fighting over that single point for all the evening, and the situation never changed: Aela felt uneasy answering the Elf's questions, and he willingly kept on asking, as if he liked watch her suffer.

This is the true taste of vengeance… thought the Dunmer. But in truth, he didn't like to inflict that pain on her; it was more. He didn't understand her viewpoint, which was something that had happened very rarely in his life. That was why he kept asking questions, even through the answers he was given grew increasingly vaguer.

'It would take forever to explain why I took this decision,' Aela said.

'Dawn's a long way off. And I've got a great share of patience. Although... you were able to cut away a lot of it.'

'Why are you so angry with me? What have I done?'

'I'm the one asking the questions.'

'Oh, really? To be precise I was the one starting.'

'I asked you why you wouldn't want to come with your Shield-Brothers to Ysgramor's Tomb to cure yourself of that curse, like everyone else has.'

'But I was the one asking you if you wanted become one of the pack!' she hissed. She wanted to cry, but the other guests in the tavern could not be allowed to hear them, or else something disastrous could have happened.

'Let's pretend you have a point,' said the Dunmer. 'In this case, let me tell you a story: sit comfortably, it will be a long one.'

Aela obeyed and crossed her legs. She would have finally got her answer. However, she would have been quite surprised when Azrael started telling that story.

'You know... there was once a Dunmer, like me, and very similar to me: he had black hair just like me for instance. His were short, however; he cut them every week with a knife, the same knife he used for everything else where he lived; he shaved himself twice a week, and thus didn't have even a shade of beard. A common thing among my kind in the region where he lived. This Elf was the orphan of two fighters, his father a swordsman and his mother a sorceress, both killed in an uprising in Blacklight.'

The last thing Aela would have expected was the story of one of his kind. Dark Elves were scattered all across Tamriel, and everyone had a sad story to tell, but Azrael didn't need to tell of others for a sad story, he had his own.

'Anyway,' he continued, 'he remained alone, and learned to live on his own. Life didn't exactly go easy on him, and with time he developed a great survival instinct, and, to his surprise, maintained the ability to learn new thing very quickly. He grew suspicious, distant. Everybody who remembered his childhood told me that even as a kid he was silent and sharp. After some time he encountered two other little Dunmer brothers, a male and a female, and decided to live with them. I knew these friends of his very well, and I could tell you long stories about them, but that's not the point. After a short time they found an empty property and settled in a small house at the edge of the fields. They started tending to those crops, and as they grew up they became farmers. They were lucky. Most orphans die in times like these. They grew up together, helping each other and living a life they all desired. My friend had a lot of very good memories of those moments when I met him.'

'And how did you meet this… "Friend" of yours?'

'Since we were very young. We were reunited when we arrived in Skyrim. Then we got captured by an Imperial patrol and were brought to Helgen. They executed him and I was saved by that Dragon, remember?'

'I remember. Tell me about his time in the farm.'

Azrael took a deep breath.

'Well, after some time his male fellow died, and he remained alone with his other mate, the female. Those were hard times. He remembered moments when the two of them sat for hours, sad and uncertain about what could come next. They did their best, but it wasn't going to get any easier. Those who knew him told me that during that period he became even more shadowy. He avoided contact with most people, except for his friend. Unfortunately, she died shortly after, and soon he ended up alone. He made a living on his own for three long years. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, he found a little orphan on the road: a kid, a girl, maybe one or two years old at maximum. He took her with him, and treated her like his own daughter.'

The Dunmer's gaze got lost in the crackling fire, but he didn't stop talking. Aela never saw that gaze from him, never even suspected he had part of himself that didn't live in the moment. She had a problem with him: she knew only what Azrael had chosen to reveal her, and that wasn't much. It didn't represent what the Elf really was.

'They went of for sixteen years, living in the ashlands outside Blacklight. That girl made him forget all the pain, helped him get past the death of his two friends and go on. It was a new life, with a new mission and someone new to care for. They lived on the edge of the world. But one day, their attitude probably grew annoying to some, and a group of hired assassins burned down their house and kidnapped the girl, which had become a young woman by the time. It was then I met this person again: we escaped Morrowind together, pursued by those assassins, and we ultimately arrived in Skyrim.'

Aela frowned her forehead, incapable to understand where the Dragonborn was going with all that.

'He talked to me for the whole way. About his friends, his daughter, his farm… All of it. He was so afraid that the thugs had taken and killed her, but he had no choice. He could only escape, nothing could have saved her. From that moment, he told me, he had one fear. From the moment his friends died, he had come to fear and hate death more than anything, but while traveling and talking he realized that it wasn't death that bothered him, but the fear that someday it might have been his turn to steal someone's life. He was afraid of killing.'

Aela snorted, irritated by that pointless tale.

'What does any of that have to do with us? With you and me?'

'He kept a Beast inside him,' Azrael calmly replied. 'That is what is has to do with you and me. He had a Beast within him and he was afraid it might, someday, wake up.'

'And what of it? What matters, if he's dead?'

Azrael narrowed his eyes and looked at her for a long time, his irises blazing with a hellish red light; that single glance burned directly through Aela's soul like a flame melting wax, pierced her like the spear of the hunter pierces the prey.

'Humans…' he whispered, closing his eyes and shaking his head. 'You're like children that never grow up, because you don't have the time to nor the will to. That Elf was me. The one you see sitting beside you. When I escaped Helgen with my life, I thought I was given a chance to start anew. Live a life free of disdain and cynicism… A life where I could live with other and not be the distant, estranged person I've always been. You proved me wrong. I never changed, I had only convinced myself that I had. I am still me, nothing in the world will change that. I don't want a life of honor, integrity, fairness, justice… No, I'm happy as I am. You showed me. The thing I feared the most was insanity, being unable to think. And you made that fear real. I feared the Beast inside of me could wake. Well, I don't know how, but you, Aela… you managed.'

She did. She felt crushed under a boulder of nameless feelings that Azrael would have simply categorized as regret and guilt. Aela knew those names but never knew their meaning, until that moment. For her, everything was clear and sure. Everything she did was good, there was no doubt about it. As sure as it is that a drop of water falls to the ground and does not raise in the sky, she was sure about what she did. No guilt, no regret. Those were for the weak.

But that was not exactly the way it was. Everything Azrael had showed her, it was lie. The little things, the sharp tone in his answers, the coolness he showed when something annoyed him. Those were the little things he couldn't suppress of himself. She should have known, or so she thought. She felt crushed, and knew at once she was foolishly falling for him.

'I'm…' she mumbled, confused about what she was saying. 'I'm sorry.'

To Aela's surprise, Azrael laughed. Even that proved devastating for her. That laughter was dark, mocking and sad at the same time, a mixture of power and deep understanding that cracked her spirit even further.

'I thought I'd never hear those words coming out of your mouth,' he whispered.

'Me neither,' she replied.

Even if someone overheard their conversation by chance or intentionally eavesdropped on them, that person couldn't understand much. Azrael's tale seemed a normal one, without any particular significance or meaning; to a Man or a Mer, but not to a Wolf.

'I kept a sleeping beast inside of me my whole life,' said the Elf, in a whisper. 'It almost awoke when I had to kill for the first time, I came to the Companions because I hoped you could help me put it asleep forever. And instead of helping me… you waked it. In your pride and blindness you laid a curse upon me without even asking.'

'But you accepted,' Aela reminded him, but that was her last line of defense.

'Like I had a choice…'

Those few sarcastic words tore even that last defense apart. They stayed silent for a long time, enough for Hulda to notice it. She looked at them, but Azrael shook his head slowly, and so she turned away. There was a lot more to be said, they both felt that in the very air surrounding them, but their tongues where stuck. They needed a moment to think, maybe breathe. Azrael surely understood that more than Aela did.

'Come,' he thus said, standing up. 'Let's go outside and have a walk.'

Secunda was already high above the plains and Masser was raising against the horizon. The moonlight shone bright in the cloudless sky and dyed the land with a vague blue shade. The wind made the grass rustle, and the whole plain outside Whiterun looked untouched, except for one thing. In the grass. There was a long trail… no, two trails, very close, that led from the stables to the open plain. It was rather strange at that point in the night, because an animal wouldn't tread that close to the buildings.

Let's follow the trail then: it led in the open, to the West for the most part. It went on for quite a bit, and then stopped when the grass ended and rocks took over. No traces to follow, but from there you could see huge rocks that bent towards the plain. On one of them sat two figures, shining darkly in the moonlight.

It was quite funny: if one saw them he would have immediately thought they were two men, but they were not. On that large stone sat an Elf and a Wolf. No humans to be seen in a mile.

'I get you're… "interested" in me, are you not?' said the Elf.

'You always were too smart for my taste,' said the Wolf, grinning. 'But now I like that. Yeah, I am.'

'And what of Skjor, then? Ready to betray his memory? For a "whelp" like me?'

'We were close, I know, but he died. He hunts with our master in the Hunting Grounds, feeling eternally the thrill of the Chase. But now… I might choose something different. Know why?'

'No, but I just might have got a hint.'

'Say it.'

'No.'

'I love you.'

We could stop describing that silence for ages, but you can imagine that. The Dunmer in particular felt that weight and he endured it, ice on his face, wonder in his heart.

I don't feel a damn thing… he realized. I don't even know if that's for the better or for the worse. She was the one betraying me, not Skjor. She crushed my sanity for her own pride. How am I supposed to feel the same thing? And yet… Not that I don't feel anything, it's just that I don't succumb to it. Maybe. Or maybe the path I chose stripped me of all emotions, and for good this time. I've been a sensitive one, but this? That is not for me to judge, or is not the right time. Either way…

'Tough luck…' he said, glacial.

'I know,' she said. 'That doesn't take your intelligence to understand. And so we come to the conclusion of this whole conversation, and return to where we started.'

'What a surprise.'

'I don't want your cure for the thing you call a curse. I'm used to live with that. And in the end I'll return to the only person who accepted me as what I was.'

'That's your fault. Entirely yours,' replied the Elf.

'Because before you turned into a Werewolf you liked me? What could have been done? Nothing. What's done is done, and time has swapped our roles: now I'm the one desiring you and you the one refusing.'

'Nothing denying that. At least I had the decency not to ask.'

'It's precisely one of the things I like about you. We're like ice and fire, utter opposites, but we fit together as such. Nothing denying that too.'

They stared at each other for a long moment.

Azrael saw a woman with the eyes of a wolverine and bronze hair. Her skin was still smooth and untouched except for the few scars. Her body was strong and agile. In those wolfish eyes shined a strange light: hope, regret, plea, fear, and other nameless things. She was just that: he understood her perfectly, nothing of her could hide from him.

Aela saw an Elf with eyes burning like fires and raven-black hair. His whole body was shaped perfectly for his people, with strong and prominent muscles. His ash-colored skin shined of a mysterious bright in the moonlight. She tried to imagine his as he described himself in his tale: shaved, with short hair, possibly without the long scar that disfigured his face going from the right ear to the mouth, and had difficulties doing so. His eyes were blazed with resolve, determination, arrogance and strength alike, but deep inside them there was… a cold sea: calm, tranquility, patience. And it was not superstition, just consciousness and understanding. Everything could have happened to him, but nothing would have ever broken him. Death treaded only where his gaze rested.

He was invincible, because he wouldn't have accepted defeat. He was immortal because he wouldn't have accepted death. No other ways to say it: He was an Assassin.

Aela, in that moment, saw the Assassin.

'If you're fire, I extinguished you,' said Azrael.

'And if you're ice, you froze me solid. And for good.'

'So damn hard I can't even reason with you…' he whispered. 'You really want to remain a Beast?'

'Yes.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes.'

'Then you will remain a monster for your entire life, understanding neither our world nor the wolves' one. Do you realize you'll be an outcast in both, not part of either? You're choosing to be alone.'

'You too are alone.'

Azrael grinned. 'But that was my choice.'

The Elf sighed deeply and watched the horizon. Dawn was still some way off, but the first light already peaked out behind the mountains. The wind stopped blowing strong as before, and the air was slowly warming. The two of them sat still, looking at the weak rays of the sun.

'Where will you go next?' asked the Huntress.

'I'm off to Ivarstead this very morning. I'll walk there. It'll take me two or three days at most. You?'

'There's troubles in Haafingar, I'll go and see to that.'

'Always the same old things…'

'Yeah, precisely. They'll keep me entertained until my time comes.'

'Really? Took you for someone who lived only the here and now,' observed the Elf.

'I did. Before this night.'

Azrael stood up and looked to the West. He felt someone calling for him. He had began to hear the whispers of the Shadow, reminding him of his true fate.

'Azrael…'

The Dunmer turned towards Aela, quite surprised: It was the first absolute time she called him by name.

'Yes?'

'What is the answer to all of this?'

'The more interesting thing is actually the question itself.'

'Do you have a clue?'

'Perhaps. You?'

'I don't. But maybe… maybe it's just the creaking of the trees.'

'Or perhaps the howl of the wind.'