Happy holidays, guys! Sorry I couldn't update sooner. I've been really busy...anyways, let me know what you guys thought? ^^
The chilled wind seemed to cut through Vilkas' armor and made him hold Aeiron closer to him. He and Lydia were about half way back to Whiterun, a time that seemed to crawling along slowly while the aurora above danced and flickered with endless energy. The Stormcloak general had become more of a handful then he ever thought possible within a matter of days. And just when he thought things couldn't become worse, the howling in his ears had reached new heights and was constantly testing the Companion's sanity.
"It's been a little over thirty minutes," the Housecarl informed as she trudged along with the battle axe hanging loosely from her hands. "She should wake up soon... at least, she normally does after these episodes."
"Episodes?" Vilkas gave her an incredulous look and blinked his eyes several times. His arms for a brief moment forgot the bundle he was carrying. "You mean this has happened more than once?"
Hesitantly, Lydia nodded in reply and eyed the stone-paved road. "The first one that she had while I was around was when I was her Housecarl for only a few days. She completely left the world and was yelling at someone that wasn't there. Apparently, she was recollecting a past experience from when she and her father were constantly on the run."
The woman turned to the sky almost as if she were praying to any divine that would hear her. Vilkas looked back at Aeiron for a moment before looking up ahead at the road. "She kept yelling in some language I've never heard. I'm pretty sure almost everyone in Skyrim can say the same. I asked her about it once and Aeiron said that it was a language called Gaelic, but nothing else..."
"Kodlak might know something. He seemed well acquainted with Aeiron when she first arrived at Jorvaskr." The Companion nodded to he sleeping brunette that shifted ever so slightly in his arms. He meanwhile heard an unfamiliar roar in her blood that made his wolf stir almost uncontrollably. A small inhale of air through his nose made the man's feet stop abruptly and his heart pound faster. Blood seemed to clump at the back of Vilkas's throat as he looked at Lydia. She showed confusion with her uneasy stance and the wary look in her eye. As they slowly turned to look up ahead the scent was already unmistakeable and heading their way, fast.
"Vampires," Vilkas breathed out, almost growling out the word. He quickly turned and set Aeiron down by the side of the road slowly, laying her down as he had in her bed the last time. A choked gasp from Lydia made him turn quickly and draw his greatsword. Five of them, he counted; their eyes the color of blood and their scent wreaked of it as they stalked closer. The Companion's eyes scanned them all, seeing that two were Blood vampires while one was a Fledgeling and two were Mistwalkers. The wolf growled at them and then snapped at Vilkas to change and finally let the beast free. For once, the two seemed to agree on something, but then there was Lydia...
"Give us the general and we'll let you two go," one of the Mistwalkers spoke up; a deathly pale Bosmer with unmarred skin and a young face full of death in her eyes. The five had surrounded Lydia and him by this point and were slowly shortening the distance between them. Vilkas turned his head when he heard metal clatter to the ground and saw Lydia pulling out her war axe, staring the Mistwalker in the eye while scowling. The wind seemed to pick up.
"Lydia...?"
The Housecarl turned to see Aeiron stirring on the ground, rubbing her eyes groggily. She turned on her heel when hearing a loud scream and saw one of the vampires throwing themselves at her with their fangs and claws out, ready for the kill. Lydia began to bring up her war axe but she wasn't fast enough. The next thing she knew, the Housecarl was being pushed down to the ground.
Aeiron beat her to the punch by standing in front of her and blocking with the claws on her gauntlets. The general was pushed back a few inches before she quickly moved one arm away and stabbed the undead dark elf in the abdomen with her claws. She kicked away the elf and tightened her knuckles and flicked her wrists as the brunette turned to face the remaining four. The claws retracted and a pair of blades came from the underside of her gauntlets while her eyes glowed a bright ice blue. Another gust of wind blew by and the other vampires readied their claws and fangs, ready for the kill.
The Celt bared her teeth with her eyes narrowing, hairs on her body standing up straight as rulers. "Is é do chuid fola mianach (your blood is mine), vampires," Aeiron growled out and turned to look at the Housecarl and Companion. "Stay out of this," she turned to look at the undead leeches once more and grinned immorally and her newly sharpened canines were being licked over by her tongue.
One of the Mistwalkers scoffed and flexed his body and rolled his head before beckoning the general towards them. "So be it, Celt. You'll wind up regretting ever breathing those word-"
He didn't get the time to finish. One of the blades on Aeiron's gauntlets had already pierced him right through his chest. She stood in front of him before stabbing him with the other blade and then turning to face the oncoming fledgling. The axe they were wielding was deflected and then Aeiron kneed her in the gut, bringing both blades to stab the Fledgeling in the neck and then kicked her off with the same leg.
The Mistwalker from before came at the general once more. Aeiron dodged and shifted off to the right, tearing a large gash in his arm before once again dodging and countering with an aimed kick to the back of the leg and a swipe to the throat that barely left a scratch. Te other Mistwalker began using a life draining spell on the Celt. Aeiron staggered and fell onto her knees, and then shortly after she was on all fours. Her eyes changed and the glowing died down.
A battle cry and a close call with a greatsword made the undead Bosmer stop the spell and her impish grin fall. Vilkas stood panting for a second before rushing over to Aeiron's side. "Get up!" he yelled louder than he meant to. Aeiron looked up at him and nodded, the blades retracting. Her back faced his and Aeiron clenched her fists and brought her claws forth once more.
"My Thane!"
She turned to see Lydia toss her axe through the air. Aeiron smirked at the Housecarl and caught her axe, twirling it out of muscle memory before bracing herself for the oncoming fight against the four remaining vampires. The wind began to pick up once more. "Vilkas," she eyed him through her peripheral vision through her regular gray-blue eyes. He glanced at her the same way before eyeing the two vampires in front of him. "Have you ever killed a vampire before?"
"Aye." He replied with a small smirk. "I've killed one of everything in Skyrim." Aeiron scoffed at his cocky reply and rolled her eyes. Vilkas' smirk faded and he scowled at her.
"Only one?"
The Companion was about to give her a snarky comment when the four descended upon the two, shouting at them that their lives were about to end. Aeiron reacted first by kicking one away and swinging at the Blooded vampire, grazing its shoulder and part of his back as he shifted and moved in to swing at her with his sword. Vilkas stepped around the general and blocked before kicking him in the gut and bringing his sword down upon the vampire. The greatsword sliced through the vampire's collar bone and down to his abdomen before Vilkas kicked off the corpse and turned to face the remaining three.
Aeiron was meanwhile busy fending off the other three vampires, dodging intensely and fending them off in what seemed to be a dance that took years to memorize. Whenever one of them tried to use a leeching spell, she would step in back of one of the other two vampires just as it was being cast, almost as if she knew what to look for before striking a deadly blow. Her eyes quicky glanced from one side to another, seeing the three lined up in a row. She smirked before opening her mouth and directing her thuum at the three vampires. "Krii, Lun AUS!"
Vilkas watched them stumble back a bit before turning his attention over to Aeiron, who was wasting no time in going for the kill. He scoffed lightly before slicing through the other Blooded vampire. "I forgot you were the Dragonborn for a moment!"
He heard her laugh in bitter amusement but heard no other reply above the clashing metal and grunts from their fight. She dodged and swung at the one Mistwalker's leg and effectively removed the Bosmer's leg below her knee. While she screamed out, Aeiron stabbed her with the end of her axe right through her heart. The other Mistwalker, a Breton, charged at her almost instantly. The general pulled her axe out of the corpse and then dodged.
Aeiron lost a few hairs ducking down and dodging an axe that was sent flying through the air in back of her. The steel axe planted itself right into the Breton's skull and the vampire fell to the ground dead. She turned to see Lydia with her right arm still extended in the air, a small satisfied smile on the Housecarl's face. Aeiron straightened up and smirked while resting her axe on her right shoulder with both hands still on the handle. "Thanks!"
Lydia merely nodded with a frown and walked over to retrieve her axe. Aeiron turned to look at the Companion that was eyeing the corpses warily before sheathing his greatsword and walking over towards the two women. Aeiron chuckled dryly and the other two turned to look at her with a quizzical look. Lydia turned to face her after yanking her axe out of the vampire's skull and wiping the blood off in the grass. "We make a good team," the brunette finally revealed after seeing their expressions with a juvenile smile and twinkle in her eye.
"I suppose," the Companion shrugged with a nonchalant look. Aeiron turned to eye him and beamed, grin widening.
"Aeiron!" Lydia called out.
"Hmm?" She turned to look at the Housecarl, not seeing where her axe was swinging. Te next thing Aeiron knew, something heavy blocked her axe's trajectory and she heard Vilkas yell out in pain, followed out by a long groan. Lydia and Aeiron both turned to see the Companion covering his face with his handsand falling to his knees. "Grumpy...! VILKAS!"
She had just slapped Vilkas with her axe.
"AEIRON!" The said Thane looked up at her Housecarl to see the scowl on her face and cringed lightly.
"I didn't mean to-" she sputtered out while nearly dropping her axe. "It was an accident!?" Lydia merely crossed her arms and let the frown on her face deepen.
"Woman..." Vilkas looked up at the brunette through a small peep hole he made through a gap in his fingers and used it to glare darkly at her. The Dragonborn gulped and laughed nervously, lowering her axe in front of her.
"Are you...alright?"
"Ysmir's beard woman...Does it look like I'm alright to you?!" He turned to look up at her and dropped his hands. A lovely shade of red now colored his face where the bridge of his nose would be, and his eyes had an ever so slight tinting of amber to them.
"Now, now..." Lydia thankfully intervened and came between the pair, raising her hands in front of them. She knelt down to help the Companion back up onto his feet. "Let's head back to Whiterun before we encounter more trouble."
Aeiron sheepishly nodded and trudged along side the two back to Whiterun as the sun was beginning to peak over the horizon.
Through the course of the entire day after being welcomed back, Aeiron made it a point to avoid the grumpy warrior whenever she heard him approaching and left the room the minute he showed up. Vilkas was doing nothing but looking at her with a dark sneer on his face and muttering under his breath about how much of a handful she was. Farkas and the others seemed to find the whole ordeal amusing, much to the general's pain. Aela offered to "reason with the bastard" but Aeiron turned down the offer, despite as good as it had sounded.
Kodlak seemed to reason with Vilkas after he called him down into his room sometime after lunch. No longer was he sneering, but Vilkas sported a scowl whenever he set his eyes on the brunette. And by lunch, she lost all the fucks she could give and merely smiled and waved as she remembered her father doing towards people who hated him with a cheeky grin and a wiggle of her fingers while waving at him from the other side of the room.
She sat at one of the benches by the front doors, slouching and occasionally sipping her chocolate milk while reading one of her books. Farkas sat down next to her and offered her a sweetroll with a small smile on his face. "Don't let Vilkas get to you. He's usually like that."
Aeiron nodded and accepted the treat with a smile in return. "Thanks," she spoke in between bites. "Even though it is my fault he's like this..." The brunette sighed and looked up at the twin with a nervous smile.
"Yeah," he replied. And then he started chuckling slowly, grinning wider when the Companion saw the brunette's scowling at him. "Lydia told me what happened. Gotta say, I wish I was there to see it."
She shrugged and then leaned her head against Farkas' shoulder. Aeiron heard his low chuckle once more before he wrapped an arm around her and rubbed her arm reassuringly. "Thanks, Farkas," she said quietly.
"Anytime," he replied before looking down at her. "Ralof was asking for you earlier. Danica let him get some fresh air before returning to the temple and he stopped by here asking where you were."
Aeiron stiffened, smile dropping and quickly rising from her seat on the bench. "Feck!" She turned to face Farkas quickly and started talking a mile a minute with that thick brogue of hers. "Thanks, Farkas! I have to go now..." Aeiron bolted for the staircase towards the living quarters but then stopped on her heel when she reached the stairs, turning to wave at the Companion. "I'll be back later!"
Farkas smiled, clearly entertained as he watched the brunette run down the staircase and hear the doors open and shut in a record breaking time. He sat there for maybe twenty or thirty seconds, about ready to get up and approach Vilkas when the doors opened once more and Aeiron bolted up the stairs and ran out of Jorvaskr's doors. Farkas paused for another five seconds, half expecting her to return, before getting up and walking over to the long table and sitting next to his brother.
Vilkas was munching on a loaf of bread and reading the book that he had returned with after his earlier talk with Kodlak. Farkas sat down as loudly as he could, making his twin glance up at him in annoyance before returning to the book. The bandage on his face where his eyebrows met above his nose was thick and trailed onto the bridge of his nose. He looked absolutely ridiculous.
"Nice bandage," Farkas comented as he reached for a bottle of ale, trying to hide the smirk on his face. The comment worked. Vilkas slammed the book shut and slowly turned his head to look at his brother, eyes with a tint of amber to the.
"What in Shor's name do you want, brother?" Much to the twin's annoyance, Farkas' smirk grew as he sipped his ale while holding eye contact.
"You seem distressed, Vilkas. Are you going to continue to glare at her every time you watch her pass by and run out the door for Ralof?" He said the Stormcloak captain's name in a teasing manner, and once again he got the response he was expecting; Vilkas getting up and storming away to his room where he could brood with his brother's laughter following him every step of the way there. "Good luck with that!" Farkas called over his shoulder once more. When he heard the doors open and then slam shut, he took another sip of his ale while shaking his head in amusement.
He could read his brother like a book.
