Chapter 25 – Even In Death

"Ralof," a soft voice called to him. He tossed and turned. Visions of horrible things, of war, death, dragons and screaming children swept through his mind's eye. "Ralof," the soft voice called again. He was fighting an ugly Imperial. An axe burrowed into the man's shoulder. "Ralof." Still on the battlefield, Ralof looked up, expecting a Divine or some ethereal god to be hovering above him, but he saw only blue sky.

"Dinok!" The shout came from high above. It thundered, and shook the ground below Ralof's feet. A darkness blocked out the sun. Ralof searched the sky, but saw nothing. Again, the sun was shaded by an expansive darkness. And then Ralof saw it – a dragon. Black, shining and enormous, its wings spanned the width of a palace.

"Dragon!" Ralof shouted.

"Sii!" shouted the dragon.

"Ralof," the soft voice called from the ether again.

The skies brightened, and the dragon was gone. Ralof felt warmth and comfort wrap itself around him like a lover's arms. He felt the brush of soft tall grass and blooming flowers against his fingertips. Over the horizon he saw a rainbow form, then two more arching above it, fading as they reached higher into the heavens. He felt a warm breeze against his naked skin, tickle his neck, and run down the length of his back. He thought that he must be in Sovngarde.

"Ralof!" the soft voice called to him with urgency. The sky began to grow brighter, too bright. Ralof shielded his eyes from the growing blast. The light enveloped him and caressed his skin until he saw nothing but white.

"Ralof!" the voice called again, waking him from his dream. He lay on his torso, hugging the pillow beneath his head. He turned his head to the small window where the rising sun shone brightly over the mountain, and had woken him from his slumber.

"Ralof!" again, the soft, yet urgent voice called out in a harsh whisper. Ralof sat up, and looked around the room, but saw no one. His bedroom door was closed. He slowly rubbed his sleepy eyes. When he opened them, he saw a blue-white light appear and disappear in front of him. Startled, he jumped back on the bed, pressing his body against the wall. He thought he heard a whisper - a soft, dreamy voice speaking wordless noises into his mind. He felt an unexplainable comforting warmth, and tears welled in his eyes.

"B'?" he asked no one. His voice was shaky, quiet, and laden with hopeful uncertainty.

Then, suddenly, the comforting warmth and whispering voice was no more.

From the next room, he heard an infant cry.

Cautiously, he stood, wrapped a bed sheet around his waist, and walked down the hall to Eirin and Fjornir's room. He stared at the door handle, not sure what he would see on the other side should he open the door. He waited a few moments, listening to the infant cry. He didn't know which one it was, his son or Eirin's daughter. When he heard footsteps, he knocked. A moment later, Eirin was smiling at him from across the doorway. She motioned for him to come in, and he did. She walked over to the bassinet and picked up the crying Brynjarr, then handed him to Ralof. He held his son against his bare chest, closed his eyes, and hummed.

Eirin gently grasped Ralof's upper arm as she watched Brynjarr calm. Ralof opened his eyes and looked at Eirin. Her brown eyes glowed like molten bronze in the dim candle light. She was smiling at him, but Ralof felt nothing but sadness. Even Eirin's eternally kind eyes were no use in cheering him. He frowned, and nodded back toward the doorway, indicating for Eirin to follow him. They walked toward his bedroom, and closed the door.

Ralof kissed his son's head before speaking to Eirin. "I saw something," he said.

"Saw something?" Eirin asked.

"In my room, just a moment ago. I heard a voice calling my name in my dreams, and then I still heard it while I was awake. I felt...," he looked passed Eirin into empty space, "warmness..." He turned from Eirin and sat on his bed. "When it left," he continued, "I heard a baby cry. Brynjarr started crying."

Eirin sat in a chair across from the bed. "You think it was her, don't you?"

Ralof nodded slowly.

Eirin bit her lip. "Perhaps her spirit is... staying around a while, to see you and her son. Especially her son. She never really got to meet him, I guess..."

"No," he said. "Gerdur was...," he let out a choking, sobbing sigh, "Gerdur was sewing her back up. Hilde was cleaning Brynjarr. B' started bleeding... She left, just left." His hand caressed Brynjarr's small head.

"I would want my spirit to stay here, too, if I had died. At least for a little while..."

Ralof looked up at Eirin, and then down again, staring at his lap. "I wish I were waiting for her in Sovngarde."

"When are you going to let me marry you?" Vilkas asked Lydia. Her head lay on his chest. They snuggled close in his small bed in Jorrvaskr.

"Why would you want to marry me?" she asked.

Vilkas chuckled. "You know why," he said.

Lydia's fingers nested in Vilkas's thick, dark chest hair. "We don't need to marry."

"We don't need sweetrolls either, but I'd eat them all day if I could."

Lydia laughed, but then frowned. "You know how I feel about having children, Vilkas."

"Yes, yes, I'm aware. But marriage does not mean we need to have children."

"Then what's the point of marriage?" Lydia asked.

Vilkas was somewhat hurt by her unintended curtness. "You shouldn't be afraid to love me, Lydia."

Lydia sat up and looked down at Vilkas. "I'm not," she said defiantly.

Vilkas sat up, too. "I think you are," he said before taking one of her hands in both of his.

Lydia wanted to run, run away to some secluded place, to avoid this confrontation of feelings. In person, self-exposure was much, much different than in letters. But when Vilkas kissed her, she calmed, though only a little. Vilkas then moved his mouth to her ear. When she felt his warm breath on her neck, she felt like a fox being stared down a rabbit. The rabbit wanted nothing more than to love her, but she was worried she would accidentally rip the rabbit's throat open with her teeth. She waited to see what the rabbit would do next.

"I died inside, every day that I waited for you," he whispered. "Don't be afraid to love me." He kissed her neck. "I have always loved you. I always will."

"Jarl Sorli!" a guard came running into Highmoon Hall, panting when he stopped before the Jarl and her throne.

"Yes, what is it?" Sorli asked the guard. Pactur, her husband, stepped between the guard and his wife.

"There's," he paused to catch his breath, "a vampire. I saw her, in the graveyard, dressed in black, using some... some kind of magic."

"Magic? Since when do vampires use magic?..." Morthal's new Jarl asked.

"I don't know, Jarl Sorli, but she tried to use it on me when I saw her. I ran, fast as I could, straight here."

The Jarl played with a tress of hair while contemplating the matter. "Could be a necromancer." Her lips pursed and finger continued to twirl her hair while she deliberated. "Pactur?" she called to her husband.

"Hmm?" he asked, walking up beside her.

"Bring me some ink and paper. I think I know of someone who can help us."

Ulfric sat in his private chambers, staring at a blank piece of paper. He wondered what to write to Ralof, or if he should even write to him at all. Ralof is married, he said to himself. I am married. Silda is with child again. I am High King. I am High King... He scowled, thrust his large body up from his chair and stormed out of his chambers.

"Morthal, isn't that where your... where Alva lives?" Eirin asked Fjornir. He had received a letter from the Jarl of Morthal requesting his aid in dispatching a local necromancer causing problems.

"Yes." Fjornir did not want to go there. When Alva spoke of the village, he had gotten a chill, and wished to avoid the place altogether.

Eirin could see his discomfort and wrapped her arms around him. "You don't have to go, Bear. You're no one's servant."

The Dragonborn looked down at his wife, a frown developing across his lips. "Aren't I, though?" He kissed her, then turned to his sleeping daughter. Nehenarah was now six months old, and Brynjarr, three. "Is Ralof any better?"

"No," replied Eirin. "He seems lost, like a child, not knowing what to do without guidance. He...," she frowned at her conversation with Ralof several months ago, "he wishes he were dead."

Fjornir turned quickly to Eirin. He knew that she was regretting reviving him that day in the tent. "He has a son, now."

"But he wouldn't have... If he had died that day, he would have never... Brynja would be alive. If...," her body began to tremble, "I think he despises me, for bringing him back from the dead."

"He doesn't despise you, Dyra. Believe me, I know..." Having Eirin's ex-lover live with them while Eirin nursed his son was awkward, to say the least. He wrapped his arms around his wife. "If there's anyone he despises, it's me. For more than one reason..." He sighed. "I never told you, or him, about the choice he had to make in Sovngarde, and the consequences that came with it." He lifted Eirin's chin to look her in the eyes. "When he chose to return his soul to his body, he relinquished his right to return to Sovngarde."

"What?" Eirin asked, confused.

"His soul, once gone from here, will return to the Dreamsleeve, not Sovngarde."

Eirin stared at her husband. "He'll... never meet her again?"

Fjornir shook his head.

Her thoughts turned immediately to that day in the tent when she sent bolts of lightning into Ralof's lifeless body. Eirin buried her face in Fjornir's clothed chest, her fingers clinging to the fabric. Even in death, she realized she would never be with Ralof again. That part of her life was officially, completely over.

"Ralof," a voice called to him from inside a cave. The lofty voice echoed against the rock and carried out to him. He held a torch and an axe, and slowly entered the darkness. He crept further into the earth, passing glowing mushrooms and baby frostspiders. "Ralof," the voice repeated, again echoing through the natural tunnel. The voice made the torch flame whip about, threatening to extinguish it. Ralof saw a light ahead, and picked up his pace. "Ralof!" the voice called again, almost sounding excited. As he approached the light within the cave, the tunnel expanded into a large, round room. Sun shined into the cave, causing green life to grow and thrive. "Ralof!" the voice spoke his name and then giggled. Ralof walked cautiously through the green brush. Beyond the growth was a rock ledge, also bathed in sunlight. Below the ledge was a sleeping brown bear. He gripped his axe. "Ralof..." He approached the bear, ready to defend himself against attack. The bear slowly raised its head, then pushed itself up on its four enormous feet. Ralof heard it groan, waking its sleepy body. The bear lumbered away from Ralof, deeper into the cave. He turned back to the bear's sleeping area where he saw a large blue fabric. He walked further, approaching the ledge. When he looked down at the fabric, he saw the silver bear head emblem of the Stormcloaks. The silver began to shimmer. "Ralof," he heard again. The shimmering became brighter, and started to glow, but then quickly faded. Ralof heard the snap of a twig behind him. When he turned back to the green brush, the beams of sunlight exploded into a white-hot light.

Ralof bolted upright in bed. This time the light in his dream was not triggered by sunlight creeping into his room. The night was still black, and the room, dark. And then he saw it, a quick flash of light in the corner of his eye. He watched the room for further lights. In front of him, he thought he saw a faint shimmer. "Ralof," the same voice called to him again. He waited. A few moments later, the shimmering reappeared, and became denser, brighter. Ralof watched the light change shape, and eventually took on the appearance of a shimmering, watery human figure. It began to have the appearance of a solid mass. Ralof saw a face, and then a woman's body.

He stood. "B'?" Ralof asked, as he did months before, with a terrified hope.

"Ralof," the apparition said.

"Is... is it you?" he asked, inching forward toward the soft blue-white glow. The apparition became more human-like. Brynja's face was then staring back at him.

"Yes, Ralof," the apparition repeated.

Ralof reached out to his wife, but his fingers gripped nothing but air. Where his hand landed, the blue-white glow dissipated. He retracted his hand quickly, and the misty arm which he attempted to grasp re-materialized.

"I'm dead, Ralof," she said, "we cannot touch."

"But how...," he held his fingertips to the space just before Brynja's misty cheek. "Are you not in Sovngarde?" His voice was a whisper.

When the apparition spoke, lips did not move. Ralof was hearing her voice in his head. "Not yet, Ralof, but they are calling to me." Brynja raised her hand to Ralof's, their fingers crossing planes, never touching. "I have been trying to appear to you, in the in-between."

"I heard you in my dreams," Ralof said.

"Yes," she said.

Ralof began to cry. "I miss you." His hand hovered over her body, moving from her cheek down her arm, aching to hold her hand. "I wish to be with you."

"You must live, Ralof. You named our son for me... Live for him. Live for me." Brynja's light began to fade.

"Wait! Please, don't go... I can't do this without you." Tears ran down his cheeks.

"You can!" Her ethereal voice lifted high in his mind. "You will do well by him, Ralof! But do not sacrifice your happiness for him, my dearest friend. Find your happiness."

Ralof frowned, letting the tears stream down his scruffy chin and neck.

"Go to him," she said, faintly. "Go to him..." Her last words were but an echo in Ralof's mind.

"Wait!" Ralof attempted to grab the intangible. Before the apparition faded, Ralof saw Brynja smile. She was gone. His outstretched fingers curved into a fist. "No!" His cry was fierce, desperate, angry.

His mind turned off. From the corner of his eye he saw a chair, grabbed it, and smashed it against the wall. His arm swept across a small table, and sent a bowl of apples crashing to the floor. He cried out, and began to punch the wall, again and again.

Fjornir ran to his room. When he opened the door, Ralof stared at him. "You," he said in a vicious, low voice. Ralof stomped toward Fjornir and his hand landed across Fjornir's throat, shoving Fjornir against the door frame. "You should have killed me! I should be in Sovngarde now! With Brynja!"

Ralof's grip, fueled by rage, was surprisingly strong. Fjornir tried to break his grasp, but failed. Eirin came running out of her room, and gasped when she saw what was happening. "Ralof! What are you doing!?" She ran to the men, but Ralof pushed her away, hard. Her back hit the wall next to Ralof's bed. Fjornir gripped Ralof's forearm, struggling to break free. Ralof's hand began to tighten.

"Ralof!" Eirin shouted.

Fjornir closed his eyes. He took whatever breath into his lungs that he could. When he opened his eyes again, he looked at Ralof, and Shouted, "FUS... ROH." The force of the Shout stunned Ralof and pushed him back against the opposite wall of the bedroom. Fjornir rubbed his throat. Ralof slowly stood. He walked calmly up to the Dragonborn, and stood there, looking at the man who took everything from him. Eirin, Sovngarde, happiness. Fjornir began to say Ralof's name, but before he could finish, Ralof punched Fjornir in the jaw, then ran out of the house.