The Green Mug Reeds

"So mommy saved you and Jordis from the mean monks?" asked Freya.

"Of course," replied Sofia. "Your mommy was very good at saving your daddy from horrible things. I did it all the time when we were adventuring." She gave me a cheeky grin. Then she picked up another mug and took a drink from it. Serana and I looked at each other and nodded. I held up three fingers surreptitiously.

"So what happened next?" asked Freya.

"Well," I replied. "The next morning I made Jordis my special magic breakfast potion and she helped me finish packing while your mommy spent her time making sure she was as pretty as Dibella."

"Mommy was as pretty as Dibella?" asked Martin.

"Still is," I replied.

Sofia sat there and smiled contentedly. While Martin looked at Sofia with renewed awe. Being four, it was easy for him to believe his mother was as pretty as I thought she really was.

"Baldor says he knows girls which are prettier," observed Freya. "He says so."

"Your big brother is getting such a beating when he gets home," concluded Sofia.

"Come up with a better reason than he thinks someone is prettier than you," I suggested.

"Don't worry Valentine," she answered. "I've got more than just a list."

"Once we finished packing," I continued. "We got into the wagon, said goodbye to Jordis who was going to watch the house while we were gone, and then we rode out of town and headed down the road for Winterhold. The sun was shining and warm, the cliffs by the road were covered in green vines and mountain flowers, and your mother was so happy and loved me so much she looked deeply into my eyes and she said . . .

"Did you put mead in the boot?" asked Sofia in a manner which suggested that this ride would be long and both physically and psychologically painful if I had forgotten.

"Take a peek," I suggested.

She promptly stood up and turned around lifting up the cushion and checking underneath. She saw all those bottles and she grinned happily. Pulling one out she popped the cork and turned to me and said, "Has someone told you what I'm like when I'm drunk or something?"

"Well I've heard that you sing a lot, and are easy to molest," I suggested. "And you sway about a bit and giggle really cute like."

"It's lies . . . All lies," she insisted. She took a few swigs from the bottle and we continued to ride down the road. "What a fine afternoon this is." she observed. We rode down the road and she leaned back and watched the cliffs roll by. "Do you know what I love to do in the afternoon?" she asked.

I shrugged. "Nope" I said. I had presumed she enjoyed drinking mead and adventuring. But we had been nearly together for a year and while I thought I knew a lot about her, she could still take me by surprise.

"Neither do I," she said.

"Well it's a nice warm afternoon," I said. "Think about what you like about today and that will help fill in the blanks."

She finished her bottle and noticed a farmer leading a cow down the road. The cow had those black tar markings on it's back which told that it was to be a gift to a giant. Sofia got a mischievous grin and stood up and threw the bottle at the cow. The bottle bounced off the rump and the cow snorted and charged forward, past the farmer who took off after the cow, having no idea that Sofia had been the one to sent it barreling forward in annoyance. I sighed.

"Is that what you enjoy in the afternoons?" I asked. I was, I will admit, a bit annoyed with her. You would think that saving the world would have given her a sense of responsibility.

"I like causing trouble," she concluded. She looked at me and smiled. When she noted that I wasn't smiling back she sniffed once at me and leaned back with that 'so who cares what you think? I know I don't' expression of hers.

The wagon rolled down the road for a bit. We were coming up to Dragon's Bridge.

"It's not that it hurt anyone!" she suddenly argued.

"Guilty conscious?" I asked.

"I did nothing wrong!" she snapped.

"Oh?" I replied. "That farmer had to make a sacrifice of a good cow in order to keep peace with the local giants and you made his trip just a little harder. And on a very nice warm and sunny afternoon which could have made his day just a little better and would have softened the loss he was going to have to face."

She slumped into the bench and crossed her arms and put on her very serious frowny face. Meanwhile I just drove the wagon forward, through Dragon's Bridge, over the Bridge, and then down the road, taking the first right road towards Morthal. I figured we would be at Morthal come evening. Then I remembered something Serana had said about Morthal. I wondered if that vampire coven was still up to no good.

"This certainly has turned out to be a rather miserable afternoon," she grumbled.

"In the midst of this halcyon honeymoon?" I queried.

She gave me a long slow look.

"I've said nothing," I observed. "What's going on in your head is your own thing. And I think you know that."

She remained silent and staring straight ahead as the wagon continued to roll down the road. A few miles down the road was where we reached another stone bridge which was built between rapids and waterfalls. The sun was catching the droplets of the waterfalls and making rainbows. I paused the wagon and just sat there looking at them. Sofia just stared ahead. I put my arm around her. She froze solid. I leaned back with my arm still around her and watched the waterfalls and the rainbows glimmering in them. Slowly the rainbows shifted as the sun did. I leaned towards her and whispered, "I love you" to her. She sighed and leaned into me.

"Tell you what," I suggested. "When we get to Morthal, and go into the bar there, buy a couple of farmers or ordinary workers a drink. You'll feel better. I promise."

She sighed again. I remained watching the waterfall for a bit. She looked at it for a moment and then looked at her wedding ring, that triple band of silver and gemstones that we had purchased from Ysolda when we were too drunk to remember doing it. Then she got up opened the boot, took out another bottle, and sat down next to me and snuggled up.

"I hate spending my money," she said. "So you buy the drinks for them."

"Okay," I said. "Since it's our money."

"Only when I want it to be," she replied. She leaned against me and we watched the waterfall for a bit more. "Seeing the rainbows in the waterfalls is so romantic. Watching it with you makes me fell all . . ." Then a pair of grey lumps with claws came scuttling up the banks heading straight for us. " . . . Like killing something!" she shouted and leapt off the wagon and barreled towards them, her ice spell in her right hand and mead bottle half full in her left.

"Need help?" I asked standing up and summoning up my fire bolts and Iron skin spells."

"Most people like to hunt animals," she said to one of the mud crabs as she blasted it into eternity with an ice bolt. "I also love to hunt people," she continued as she gracefully leapt over the second mud crab which reached for her with it's claws rather impotently given it's reach and her jump. With a single swivel kick, she sent the second mud crab flying over the horses and into the stream beyond. " . . . and pretty much anything else that moves."

She walked back to the wagon and got back up into the seat. There was a wicked little smile on her face. She then stood up and looked both up the road and down the road.

"Perfect," she said. "You saw what I did to those two mud crabs."

"Yes," I said with a bit of a grin.

"If you don't want to suffer the same fate, you will get into the wagon, onto the bed, remove your cloths, and I don't think I need to explain further."

"Yes, dear," I said pretending to cower. "You brute you."

I mean, you saw what she did to those two mud crabs, what could I do?

A couple of hours later, I pulled the wagon over the bridge to the other side and off the road. It was such a nice vista and the sun was getting so low I decided we would spend the night here. I began to gather wood while Sofia, reminded that yes she had agreed to fix supper when I took care of breakfast and lunch, started to get the stove heated up for an apple cabbage stew seasoned with salt and a few choice words about how she had once punched a guy to Oblivion for suggesting women belonged in the kitchen.

"I never said you belonged in the kitchen," I objected.

"You were thinking it," she accused me.

"Nonsense," I replied. "One can not spend any time with the heroine Sofia Florian the dragon slayer and vampire's dread and think for a moment she belongs in the kitchen and needs to knit." I paused for the punch line. "Once you have spent time with her, you know she belongs by the wagon stove and needs to make the bed."

Then I had to duck the three apples which were thrown at me in rapid succession. She did try to throw the cabbage too, but cabbages are too loose and leafy to make a good missile. I could have thrown up a ward, but I thought it would more entertaining to duck. And besides, she had to throw them through the wagon door to get me and that limited her kill radius. So naturally about ten seconds later, she realizes that she's just thrown supper out the wagon door at me. By this time I had collected the three apples and cabbage.

"I do believe you dropped these," I suggested politely.

She took them from my hands in a rather irritated fashion and proceeded to inflict horrible injuries upon them with the kitchen knife until, in her enthusiasm, she hacked her thumb nearly to the bone. She yelped and unleashed a torrent of profanity and cursing until I was able to take her hand and cast a healing spell upon it. Then I kissed it.

"Damn it Valentine!" she snapped while trying to shatter my rib cage with her 'big hug'. "I'm getting all sentimental which is really out of character for me!"

"Don't worry, Sofi," I whispered as I looked into those creamy blue eyes of hers. "You threw supper at me and that's very much Sofi. And you swore the paint off the wall so that's Sofi too. And you being upset that you happened to want to hug me because I mended your cut and showed my love for you is very much Sofi. So don't worry about your bit of sentiment. It'll pass."

She looked into my eyes.

"Now you're making me want to make love to you again," she sighed.

"Of course," I replied. "It is our honeymoon right? We're supposed to want to make love."

She sighed and smiled. "I suppose," she replied.

"So be a sweet little wife and fix dinner and we can do that afterwards."

She kicked me. But then, remembering she was hungry too, and seeing that I was not going to make it myself, she resumed cooking and we had a decent enough supper. Then I pulled out a bottle of Black Briar Reserve for her and she brightened up. And so we eventually got to bed and after the usual honeymoon activities just snuggled together for a while.

"It's nice being back in the wagon," she sighed. "I had forgotten how soft and cushy this mattress is."

"Made it special for you," I replied. I tried to steal a glance at her but the wagon was rather dark and there was no window to shimmer the moon light in. I could barely make out the location of her face, just a pale oval with black smudges where her hair was and two darker oval shades where her eyes should be.

"I keep expecting to hear Seri putter around down below, or open the door and go out for one of her long walks where she probably amused herself stalking innocent victims."

"I mean we can hope she just went for long walks," I suggested.

"Vampire girl? Taking a nice walk in the moonlight to sniff the air and watch the stars twinkle? I don't think so."

"Well we don't have to worry about that any more," I replied. "She returned to mortality. Got her cure. Having her honeymoon in Anvil."

Sofia giggled. "You think she's stalking him right now on the beach?"

"Stalking on the beach . . ." I mused. "Now that's a concept."

Sofia in the meantime, was mimicking some sort of creature with her right hand which was sneaking up my arm towards my neck.

"If she's doing that to my brother, he's not the only member of my family who is being hunted," I observed.

"I'm not stalking you," argued Sofia. In the meantime the pressure of her fingers suggested her hand was crouched and ready to strike from my shoulder. "My hand on the other hand," she added. Then it leapt and landed on my face where it commenced to scurry around for a moment until I managed to grab one of the fingers with my teeth. Sofia leaned up so her face was over me.

"I love you Sofia," I whispered. "I've loved you since I first laid eyes upon you."

"I know," she whispered back. She continued to run her fingers over my face for a bit.

"Took you a while to admit that," I recalled.

"I know," she replied. She kissed me softly on the lips once and continued to caress my face.

"So when am I going to hear you say that you love me back?" I asked.

"When you are not asking me to do it," she replied.

"Then how am I ever going to hear it," I asked, gently kissing her finger tips as they paused on my lips. "I'm always telling you that I love you."

"Get used to disappointments," she answered. "You should know by now you can never make me do anything."

"I can't?" I replied.

"I can feel your smile," she replied as her fingers caressed my lips. "You don't believe it but it's true. When have you ever made me do something?"

"When ever I give you Black Briar," I replied. "You drink it."

It was like she froze for a second. "That doesn't count!" she suggested in a rather intense whisper.

"Oh I'm afraid it does." '

"Does not!"

"Does too."

She knew I could keep this up all night. So she paused. I could almost feel her thinking it out. Then she ran her fingers in my hair, and her finger tips pressed gently into the whorls of my ears before she caressed my cheek again.

"Okay," she said it in a rather long exhale of breath. "I love you too. And do you know for how long I've loved you?"

"I'd like to know," I replied. I had my guesses, but it's one thing to think something, it's another to hear it.

She sighed. "I thought you would be a great sugar daddy when I watched Lokir catch up with you and start chatting. I kept expecting him to look back for me and you to follow his gaze and see me and I didn't want that." There was a pause. "But I didn't love you then. I didn't even like you. You were just my next target." She continued to caress my face. "But when I rode by you as you were trying to sleep in that cart I kind of got a closer look at you. You had no idea what was happening of course being you had been whopped on the head kind of hard and I could still see a bit of the bruise on the side." She smiled. I couldn't see it so much as hear it in her tone. "I realized then that you were kind of good looking." There was another pause. "It wasn't at the like stage but I definitely made a note that I liked looking at you. Then when you guys rode up into Helgen and there I was on the Inn porch drinking mead and watching you all getting ready for execution. I remember when you walked up to the two Legion soldiers, you had a confidant look on your face like you didn't think you would be executed and I was happy about that. It meant I could help you 'celebrate' your release you know? Buy my drinks, I'd get to play you for a bit."

I chuckled. It was so much Sofia.

"And then something goes wrong, I could tell. Suddenly you are leaning in and angry and the captain is pulling her sword out and pointing it at you. I saw you stumble over to that Stormcloak you would dash away with and suddenly I realized you were going to be executed and I didn't want that to happen. I mean, I thought it was because I was about to lose a rich sugar daddy, but at the same time, I also realized I was more upset about it than I should be."

"So it bugged you?"

"Yeah, I had to drain the entire bottle just to deal with it," she continued. Her fingers paused and she placed her palm upon my cheek and snuggled up so she could look more intently at me, using her hand to press my head more towards hers. "But then, you turn and say something and you clearly are putting on a show, or at least being the drama king and you are really looking like you are going to be the hero about it. And then I heard you shout 'I live and breath a Stormcloak' and walked right over to the block and put your head upon it. And all of a sudden I realize my heart is beating so hard . . ."

She kissed me for a couple of seconds. Then she exhaled.

"So when Alduin flies in and started to blow the place apart there I am, happy, and not just because I get to loot the inn of mead. I didn't start to pillage until I saw you had dashed into that tower. I didn't think of it at the time, but over the months we've been together I realized that if I hadn't cared, like I normally do, I would have started the taking immediately. I had to wait until I knew you were getting away. After that, well you know how that all turned out."

"You asleep on a hay pile with me just gazing at you totally unbelieving at how lucky I was to be looking at such a beautiful woman," I mused.

"Yeah," she chuckled. "I had of course, all my lines memorized on how I was going to 'run into' you at the Bannered Mare. I knew you would be there soon enough. But of course there you are in the stable and I did not expect that and you're waking me up so sweetly and I just totally lost it and my mouth takes off and the next thing I know I've pretty much given it all away."

"Well if it will make you feel any better," I replied. "I thought you were stalking me only because you were attracted to me."

"You are so naive," she cooed. And she kissed me again. "Of course you were seeing that part that I wasn't. But even then, I thought I just liked you. I wanted to pal around and adventure with you, sort of like that Breton, Glover, I paled around with after Horsa but before you."

"I thought you said you kind of liked him," I replied.

"Well I did, he was sort of special, but I was too much for him. I mean, who doesn't like to get drunk?"

"Well I don't exactly enjoy it either," I observed.

"But you were different," she replied. She was once again gently running her fingers all over my face. "You didn't not always drink with me, and you nursed your drinks, but you kept giving me all the one's I wanted, even when we were not in a bar. And you were funny. You would say the things I wanted to say but would say them first and I kept finding myself smiling. Like when you pulled that letter stunt on the two guys who were chasing after Camilla. Not that it surprised me that you pulled that one off on them. You would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind or a serious danger to the public to fancy her. But when you told me about the two letters you had written to her which were supposed to be from them, well you saw how funny I thought that was."

"You said we made a great couple or something like that then freaked out and claimed you meant team," I recalled.

There was silence from her for a moment while her fingers began running through my hair, combing it out.

"I'd get so scared," she whispered. "I was terrified I was falling in love with you. I was terrified you wanted me forever, and I was terrified you didn't. And then suddenly we fight Mirmulnir and he recognizes you are Dragonborn just before he dies and I go 'wait a moment, what have I snagged myself on?'"

"I remember," I said. I was gently stroking her back and shoulders, trying to give her a little support so she could still hover over me like she was. I really liked the fact that we were just being affectionate with each other. "You seemed to be both surprised and not surprised at the same time. Like you had convinced yourself that you had once again picked the winner."

"Well of course," she softly replied. Then she took a moment to gently kiss me for a moment. "I always knew how to get the guys I wanted for my fun times in the bars. But it's like when you buy Black Briar and the bar keep doesn't just give you a bottle of reserve by mistake, it was like she took me around to the back and gave me the whole keg since she didn't see the point of all that mead sitting around, and then hands me a silver mug to drink it in. It wasn't that I had picked yet another winner, it was that I had picked the biggest winner in all of Nirn."

I really wanted to see her face, so I cast Mage Light in a corner of the wagon by our feet. I sunk the magic point just below the blankets so that the light was muffled and dim. And I could see she had a quiet gentle sort of smile.

"You think I don't know what you're planning?" she teased. "You're now going to scratch my back and push the blankets down so you can 'do a better job' and then you'll stare at my boobs."

"And your problem with this is?"

"Who said I had a problem with it. I like being admired. So start scratching . . . Now."

I chuckled. "And you expect me to believe that this is all my idea? And you haven't told me yet when it was that you fell in love with me." I began to gently scratch her back right down the center as she liked the best.

"It was about then that I started to go kind of crazy," she sighed. "I'd sit there in the privy telling myself that you were just like the rest, you were not that special, you didn't love me, I didn't care about you. And then I'd relax and drop my guard and I was saying all sorts of things to you I didn't want to say and then I'd be embarrassed and trying to bluff my way out of it and convinced you were seeing right through me. And then you start insisting that you love me and I keep saying you don't because I'm so damn scared you do. And then the party with Sanguine, my idea of course. Get him drunk, really drunk, see what he would really say then . . ." she paused. "I was kind of hoping you were going to admit that it was all just 'bed talk'. You know, you were saying it to get me to make love to you. I could have handled that. Of course part of me would have been crushed, but if you were just like all the others, then I could turn that anger into a good shield for my feelings and then I'd be able to just play you until you were exhausted and out of coin and then I could move on."

"That was your plan?" I said.

She sighed. "I knew you would do it if I said please and smiled at you. I knew on some level you were totally smitten with me and if I pushed the right buttons you would do what ever I wanted you to." There was a pause and a bit of a sad expression in her face. "I had you wrapped around my little finger and I loved it and hated myself at the same time. And then we dashed off to the grove with Sanguine and it seemed sort of magical but I was too drunk to care and you were being so nice to me. I was not as drunk as you were so I remember this little bit. I remember that we started to dance around and around; well you were wobbling a lot and I was wobbling a little. But there were flowers falling all around us and there was the smell of honeysuckle in bloom and you looked at me and suddenly . . . It was like you were about to propose we get married and I realized right then and there that I really wanted to hear you propose. Of course I was going to say no but I so wanted that brief moment of hearing you say it . . ."

"And then?" I asked.

"Sanguine gave me another mug and of course I drained it while you stood next to me and sort of wobbled with a silly grin and then I turned to you, the one I thought was you and not your twin that is, and I said, 'You were going to say something Val?' . . . And I don't remember anything after that."

"So when you wake up in Markarth?"

"That was when I went totally crazy," she sighed. She paused to dab her eyes. "It was like all my dreams had come true which meant it was all a horrible delusion. And then you started to figure out my past and you still kept acting like you really loved me . . . and then I decide to make love to you saying to myself that I'm only being a little nice, I don't mean anything by it and it was . . . it felt so damn good. I mean it always feels good with you, expect just before my period when I get a little dry and could use a couple of fingers of butter or cooking oil if you know what I mean and . . ." she paused. "Damn it, I wasn't supposed to tell you that."

I chuckled. "And why not?" I asked.

"I don't want to creep you out right now." She looked down the bed. "You've not pushed the covers back like you normally do," she observed.

"It's cold out there," I observed.

"I guess it is," she said reflectively. "The waterfall and all that icy mountain water coming down. You hear the roar? I think it's relaxing. Funny how a drunk guard singing a really crude but funny song will keep you awake and annoyed but an even louder waterfall will help you sleep and be happy."

I nodded. "You went totally crazy," I suggested.

"Yeah," she sighed. "I began to crave the love making. It was like I would go crazy if we didn't do it but when I realized what that was going to mean sooner or later, getting pregnant I mean, I would go crazy over that too. I felt like a skooma addict. I couldn't get through the week without my fix and I hated myself for wanting you so bad. And then . . . " she sighed again and looked at me with a 'here it come's' gaze. "Riften."

I nodded. "I've not forgotten that day either," I said. "And I don't think I ever will."

"Yeah, it all came to a head then. You turn to me in front of Honorhall and I knew it was over. I knew I would have to tell you. I knew you really did love me and I was going to lose you forever. I was so damn angry it was over with. I was so damn angry I had already thrown it all away. And then suddenly, after we leave the temple and I've gotten all my anger and grief out, and I'm ready to say goodbye forever, You just toss away your Dragonborn and tell me it doesn't matter to you. And then I fess up that I might be pregnant and you just smile and tell me you're going to get me a meat pie for dinner and suddenly I realized that all that was standing before me was just Val, but not just Val . . . Valentine . . . but not just Valentine . . . My . . . Valentine. My very own Valentine forever. And that was when I was able to know, that I really loved you."

A single tear coursed down her cheek. She gave me one of those little trembly smiles while I wiped the tear off.

She sighed. "Of course there are days when I wish I didn't love you so damn much but I'm stuck with you now so I make the best of it."

I sighed back. "Poor baby."

"Yeah it sucks to be me." She snuggled up to me as I turned on my back. "Dispel that mage light . . . my love . . . And let's go to sleep in each other's arms."

We snuggled up and then she whispered . . . "and on my necklace? I want a big diamond in the middle."