Lydia balanced on one foot, shivering in her thin cotton shirt. Despite the cold, sweat beaded on her brow. She was intensely aware that each breath might be her last. Her armor, discarded to increase her ability to balance, lay in a pile beside Delphine, Esbern, and the extremely unhappy Volund.

It was toward her that Volund's anger was directed. Even though it was for his own sake that she was doing this, it still stung that, for the first time since she had known him, he was well and truly angry and it was because of her. She tried to put it out of her mind; the fewer distractions she had right now, the better.

She saw the next tile marked with the increasingly-familiar symbol which Esbern insisted was Akaviri for "Dragonborn." The tile was perhaps five feet away from the one she currently balanced on. Each was only about a foot square, and in between were other tiles with other symbols. Each of these, if pressed down by the weight of a human being, would set off a rather fantastic – and deadly – series of traps.

When it became clear that the only way forward was for someone to jump from tile to tile, avoiding all but the "Dragonborn" plates, Volund had been about to start in on the task at once, but Esbern and Lydia had physically stopped him.

"If you die, Dragonborn, the world is doomed," Esbern had droned in his rasping voice. "It is folly to risk your life on mundane traps."

"He's right, my thane. And even if you weren't Dragonborn, it's still my duty to stand between you and any threats to your life. I can't save you if you're out there and the traps go off."

Volund had laughed then, though it wasn't with humor.

"A Dragonborn who's afraid of any little thing that might kill him isn't going to do much good against dragons, now is he?"

Esbern had frowned. "That is different. Of course you must fight the dragons; you're the only one who can. But anyone can do this."

Volund had argued the point until Lydia, increasingly frustrated, stripped off her metal plates and leapt to the first Dragonborn block. Volund had yelled, had ordered her back, had been about to follow her out there before Esbern summoned a frost atronach and had it restrain the Dragonborn. Finally, he had calmed down enough to watch Lydia's progress.

She had already made it two-thirds of the way across the trapped area, but all it would take would be one fall, one slip, or one missed jump to end her life. She made the next leap, landed shakily, then steadied herself. She looked back at Volund briefly, and saw that he looked ready to yell again.

Then she realized that he wasn't ready to yell, he was ready to Shout. He was going to intervene if it looked like she would fall, but she wasn't sure if he would try to use Unrelenting Force or Whirlwind Sprint to save her. If he used the latter, they would probably both die instead of just her. Just one more reason she would have to succeed. She shook her head and made the next jump.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

After she had pulled the lever to disarm the trap, Volund sprinted across the plates. He hit her in what was half hug, half full-body tackle. They hit the wall behind Lydia fairly hard, and she grunted as air was forced out of her lungs.

"You don't get to do that," Volund growled.

"What," she gasped, "disobey you?"

"No," he said. "Die. You're not allowed to die."

Esbern and Delphine were polite enough to pretend that they didn't see the desperate kiss that followed.

Author's note: Sorry for the lack of updates this week, everyone. This is NOT on hiatus, I have NOT given up on it, this has simply been an extremely demanding week IRL. I'll return to regular updates as soon as I can!