A few things:
1. I have not finished writing this story.
2. As I have not finished writing this story, updates will be sporadic, and under no kind of schedule, so you'll just have to keep coming back to check.
3. I am taking liberties, so don't come at me with your lore. I just want to tell the tale I've crafted for my Dragonborn.
Eating with the Companions was something else entirely. They all were only allowed to drink water at the table, and Cry heard from Vignar (an old fellow who was also a Gray-Mane, but who was a Companion) that it was because the younger bunch couldn't handle their mead. She decided that was fine, because she'd rather not be eating with a drunken lot of skilled warriors.
Still, even without drink, conversations went wild. Athis and Torvar got into a shouting match over whether it was braver to have killed a bear or a sabre cat alone. Skjor had only been able to end it by standing up and knocking their skulls together. Ria kept up a steady conversation with Vilkas, who seemed to only be sitting through it in an attempt to ignore the conversation that Cry found herself having with Brill, Vignar's -
"Man," Brill had said, to describe his role in Vignar's life. "I do things for him whenever he needs me too. He helped me get off the drink, and I wouldn't be here today if not for him, so I'm grateful."
To Cry, it sounded like Brill had gotten himself signed into indentured servitude, but she did not say that aloud. However, it seemed that Brill was not going to let her get her get away from the topic of life stories, because the next thing he said was: "So, what about you? What's your story?"
Cry supposed she should have been expecting this. After spending the entire day finding out about everyone else, it was only fair that everyone else found out about her. Still, she was glad she was getting away with just having to tell Brill, and maybe Vilkas, too, who she could see was trying very hard not to pay attention to the two of them, his eyes on Ria.
"It's nothing special, really," Cry said to Brill. "I was raised in Whiterun. My parents died when I was ten, and I wandered Skyrim for a few years before heading to Morrowind for a while. I only just came back to Skyrim a few weeks ago."
"So you're an orphan?" Njada had been listening, too, apparently.
Cry nodded in response to her question. "I decided I didn't want to help my older sister run the family farm, so I left as soon as I could. She sold the farm a few years ago to join the Stormcloaks, which meant that I was free to do whatever I wanted when I returned to Skyrim." She gestured. "And here I am."
"You made the right choice," Athis said, butting into the conversation as well. "Ain't no better place than Jorrvaskr, and no better group than the Companions!"
His statement was met by a hearty cheer of agreement, before everyone went back to their individual talks with one another. Cry glanced at Vilkas again. He was looking at her, now, even though Ria still chattered away next to him. Cry met his eyes, and his quickly darted away.
She rolled her own. So much for deciding to try and not pay attention, she supposed.
She had ended up sitting between Brill and Athis, both of whom were very friendly, but also both of whom kept speaking with her and keeping her from actually enjoying her meal. That was fine, she supposed, but she was also pretty hungry, so it was a shame when she was actually able to eat, and her meat had gone cold.
She was still eating when most of the table stood up to go outside for some after dinner training. Only a couple people remained, one of them being the maid, Tilma, who was probably waiting for everyone to get up to clear the table. The other was Vilkas, who sent Ria outside, telling her that Farkas could practice with her.
He remained where he was at the table, but Cry could tell he was fighting an urge to come and sit beside her. She eyed him, wondering why, what he could possibly want.
When he finally did work up the nerve to move, he did not sit down next to her. Instead, he stood off to her left, studying her while she ate and pretended not to notice him. Eventually, however, he cleared his throat. Cry made a show of looking over, and pretending to be startled to see him.
"Oh, Vilkas!" she said. "I didn't notice you were there." The expression on his face told her that he knew different, but she smiled pleasantly at him. "Did you need something?"
"You're from Whiterun?" he asked, and she exhaled a breath. Interrogation time.
"Yes. My family owned a farm near Rorikstead," she told him.
"How did your parents die?"
"Wow, jumping right into the personal questions, aren't you?" she asked, wiping her mouth with a cloth napkin. She looked back up at him as she dropped it on top of her plate. "I don't really think I want to share that information. I don't know anything about you."
"You want to know about me?" Vilkas asked, crossing his arms.
"I mean, I would like to know some things before I start talking about how my parents died, sure," Cry said.
Vilkas gazed at her for a moment, seemingly to take her in. Finally, though, he said, "Farkas and I grew up here in Jorrvaskr. Our father Jergen rescued us from a witches' den when we were barely more than toddlers. Whether or not he was our actual father, it doesn't matter to me. He left when we were seven, however, and he never came back. Where he went, I don't particularly care about that, either."
Cry blinked. That was a lot of information to take in in such a short amount of time. "My parents were killed by Forsworn," she said, because she wasn't really sure what else she was supposed to say.
Vilkas nodded his head. "That's known to happen, especially if you're near the border." He glanced downwards. "Why did you decide to go to Morrowind?"
"I just… felt like traveling," Cry replied. She was not about to tell him that she had been hunted by the Forsworn herself after killing a lot of them. "It was a good experience, too, being able to spend so much time there, and at such a young age, you know?"
"I've always wanted to go to Morrowind," Vilkas said. "By the time I could, however, I was an official Companion, and I didn't have the opportunity anymore."
"You could still go," Cry said.
"No, I have responsibilities," he replied, and that, apparently, was the end of the conversation, because he turned and walked away. Cry gazed after him, confused. She had expected more pushiness, but he hadn't really pushed at all, and he'd willingly given up information about himself…
She tilted her head as she stood up to allow Tilma to clean up. Maybe Vilkas wasn't so bad after all.
"I hate Vilkas," Cry grumbled to Lydia the following day. The two of them were heading out on a job from Farkas, to handle some wolves that were tormenting a farm.
"Why?" Lydia asked.
Cry explained to her what had happened that morning: Cry had gone to Vilkas to ask for a job, and he'd told her that she should have just gone to Farkas, who'd already told her he had a job for her to do. He'd been snippy about it, too, completely different from how he'd been the night before.
Lydia frowned at her. "And that's why you hate him?" she asked. "Because he seemed nice last night, but this morning he told you something completely reasonable?"
Cry opened her mouth to respond, but then closed it. She turned her glare to the ground beneath their feet. "Whatever," she mumbled, and Lydia nudged her with her shoulder.
"I'm sorry, my Thane, but you just seem to be reacting unreasonably," she said. "He might just have been having a bad morning; maybe he slept poorly."
Cry continued to glare at the ground. "Whatever," she said again.
Lydia sighed to herself, but did not say anything else.
They killed off the wolves, and Cry immediately turned to head back to Jorrvaskr, shoving her sad replacement sword into its scabbard. It was nice, knowing that they were going to give her jobs that were in Whiterun; she could take on a lot of them if they were all nearby, and maybe distract herself with them until Delphine and Esbern sent her a letter, telling her that they had figured out the location of Sky Haven Temple.
They made it back to Whiterun in record time, and Cry told Lydia to go back to Breezehome. She could tell that her housecarl wanted to discuss the topic of Vilkas, but she ignored this, and returned to Jorrvaskr alone.
She told Farkas that she had done the job for him, and he paid her one hundred gold. She blinked at the coin purse he tried to hand to her. "Really?" she asked, and he glanced up.
"Really what?" he asked.
"One hundred?"
He nodded. "The family paid the Companions two hundred and fifty. The person who does the job gets forty percent of the payment."
Cry continued to blink, not taking the coin purse. Farkas sighed after a moment, picked up her hand, opened it, and put the purse into it. He then walked away, muttering something under his breath about 'strange whelps'.
Cry shook her head, and quickly stuck the coin purse into her pack, which she carried down to the living quarters. As she went, she passed Vilkas, who was just coming up the stairs into the mead hall. He looked exhausted. Cry was tempted to ask him about that, but she made a last second decision not to.
She settled down on one of the beds in the shared room, and she huffed to herself as she gazed up at the ceiling. She needed to go visit the Greybeards, ask her about what had happened to her and her Thu'um that day in the Ratway. She didn't know how she would be able to get away with a personal trip so soon after joining the Companions, literally the next day.
She thought about it for a moment. She supposed if she took another job, she could go to High Hrothgar while she was out doing that.
Cry sat up again. Maybe Aela had something for her to do, since she doubted Farkas did, and she was not going to ask Vilkas, after seeing the way he'd looked coming up the stairs of the living quarters.
She found Aela down in the living quarters, seated on one of the benches against the wall. She glanced at Cry as she approached, an eyebrow raising. "Yes?" she asked.
"I was wondering if you had a job for me to do," Cry said.
"Didn't you just get back from a job you did for Farkas?" Aela questioned, and Cry nodded.
"I did, but I'm feeling restless, and Farkas's job was here in Whiterun, so it really wasn't a big deal." She examined Aela for a moment. "How'd you come to be a Companion?"
"My mother was a Companion, and her mother before her," Aela said, "and all the women in my family, back to Hrotti Blackblade." She smiled fondly. "I stayed with my father in the woods until it was time for my trial. We hunted everything there was to hunt, which was good training. Ma didn't live long enough to see me join, but I fight to honor her and all my Shield-Sisters through time."
Cry smiled a little. It was interesting, hearing all the different stories of how certain Companions had joined the group. Farkas and Vilkas had been initiated as children, Aela had always been bound to join because of her family's history with the group, Athis had just wanted a place to pursue his passion of fighting… all kinds of different backgrounds, and yet they all shared the same fire of the warrior in their hearts.
She thought that maybe she could get used to Jorrvaskr, and the Companions. She thought that, maybe, she would eventually become a good Companion herself.
"You wanted a job?" Aela encouraged after a moment of silence had passed between them, and Cry blinked, bringing herself back.
"Yes, please, if you have one."
"There's someone who could use some roughing up over in the Rift," Aela said, pushing a rolled-up parchment she'd produced from seemingly nowhere into Cry's hand. "Someone who spends a lot of their time at the inn. Go and take care of it."
Before Cry could say anything else, Aela stood and walked off, passing Skjor as she went. Skjor, however, paused, and caught Aela by the arm. Cry remained where she was, and listened in to whatever it was Skjor had to say to Aela.
"Are you prepared for tonight's hunt?" he asked her, and Aela's eyes darted in Cry's direction.
"I've been thinking we need to be more… discrete," she said at last, glancing at Skjor again.
"There's nothing wrong with what we're doing," Skjor said, frowning at her, and Aela shook her head.
"The old man doesn't like it. Let's just not be so obvious."
Skjor did not seem to be happy with this, but he did not say anything more. Instead, he let go of her arm, and turned a glare to Cry.
"Don't you have something to do, whelp?" he growled, and Cry immediately turned and scampered for the stairs to the mead hall, sticking the bounty in her armor.
The hall was empty, mostly. Vilkas sat quietly at one of the tables in the corner of the room, reading a book, and Torvar was talking with Athis about different types of weapons near the doors leading out into the training yard. Cry hesitated, and then decided to speak with Vilkas, just to see if he was all right.
She went over to the table where he sat. He did not look up from the book he was reading, and she stood there awkwardly for a moment, wondering if he had sensed her approach.
Just when she was about to clear her throat, he spoke: "What do you know about the dragons?"
Cry felt the color drain from her face. "Sorry?"
"The dragons," Vilkas said. He exhaled. "We've heard that dragons are reappearing all across Skyrim, and that one even attacked one of Whiterun's watchtowers." He finally looked up. "I figured you might know something more, considering you were traveling up until yesterday."
"Oh." Cry relaxed a little. She had thought… well, she had thought he'd somehow come to the conclusion that she was the Dragonborn. That had been a ridiculous notion, though. Of course he hadn't come to that conclusion; there was no reason for it. "No, I don't know much. I only know about the one that attacked Helgen, really, and then I'd heard that the guard here took down one, but other than that…" She shook her head.
"I see," Vilkas said, and then he returned his attention to his book. "Was there something else you needed?"
"I just…" She trailed off, and then sighed, silently. "No, nothing. Sorry for interrupting your reading." She paused. "What are you reading?"
"A book about the Dragon War," he replied. "I thought it might offer some information that would help in fighting a dragon, if I ever have to."
Cry let out a quiet scoff. "Reading won't really help with that," she said, and Vilkas looked up again.
"Don't you think so?"
She blinked, and then she cleared her throat. "I mean… it's a dragon. How can you learn how to fight one unless you're actually forced to do so?" She shrugged. "It just doesn't seem plausible that you can learn how to fight such a beast through reading a book."
"You can learn a lot from reading," Vilkas said, "even if it isn't necessarily what you were hoping to learn."
"Fair enough." Cry hesitated. "Do you like to read?"
"It's one of the few things I enjoy doing in whatever spare time I have," he admitted, and then he tilted his head, closing the book. "What about you?"
"I haven't had a chance to sit down and really read for a while," she said, and then she smiled a little. "I wish I could, though. I love to read."
Vilkas seemed to smile, too, but it was gone too quickly for Cry to actually judge whether it had been a smile, or just a twitch in his cheek. "Well," he said, standing and picking up the book. "You should find the time, again. Reading's important."
With that, he started to walk away, and Cry hesitated before blurting out: "Are you all right?"
Vilkas paused, and turned to look at her. "Sorry?"
"I just… earlier, you looked exhausted," she said, lowering her voice a bit. "I just wanted to make sure you were fine."
Vilkas was silent for a moment, and then he set his shoulders. "That is no concern of yours," he said. He then turned and actually walked away, passing by where Athis and Torvar stood by the doors, out into the training yard. Cry watched him go, and then she sighed to herself, both frustrated and hurt. She had only wanted to know if he was all right.
She rolled her eyes to herself. She didn't have time to worry about it. She needed to get to Ivarstead.
As she walked through Whiterun, she debated stopping in at Breezehome and taking Lydia with her, but decided against it at the last moment. Lydia did not know what had happened in the Ratway, and she did not want to give her housecarl any reason to worry about her, because she felt fine, now. It had just been in those few moments when fear had taken over, that maybe she wouldn't be able to use her Thu'um ever again. Now, though, she knew that she would be able to harness it, even if she didn't need to.
Still. She wanted to know what might have caused her problems in the other situation, and how she could possibly avoid it in the future.
And she thought the Greybeards might have an answer for her, even if it was one that she didn't necessarily want to hear.
