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.
About a week later, Cry decided that she really needed a new weapon. The one that she was currently wielding was flimsy, and with how much work she was doing for the Companions, as well as her search for Words of Power taking her into the dark recesses of Nordic ruins, she needed something sturdier.
So, she went to the place that she thought would offer her the most for her money, which was the Skyforge. As she suspected, Eorlund was more than happy to show her a selection of his weapons, and she elected to look more closely at the swords, knowing that she'd never handled an axe very well.
Unfortunately, not even any of the swords were the weapon she wanted to spend upwards of one hundred gold on.
Cry examined the one that was currently being held up for her inspection for a moment, and then she shook her head.
"I don't think a short sword would suit me," she said, and Eorlund let out an impatient breath.
"So what do you want, then? I don't have all day, lass," he said, putting the sword back down on the edge of the forge. Cry sighed.
"I really have no idea."
"Well, then you look at these, and make up your mind on your own. I have work to do," the blacksmith said, and then he walked off towards his grindstone.
Cry gaze down at the weapons sitting on the edge of the forge. All of them looked nice, but none of them were speaking to her. She'd always been told that when a weapon was right for someone, it spoke to them. None of these were doing that.
"Well," she said after a few moments, "I guess I'll decide later on."
Eorlund didn't respond, and when she looked over at him, she saw it was because he had the grindstone going, and most likely hadn't heard her.
She started down the stairs towards the training yard of Jorrvaskr. She glanced around as she reached the bottom, and saw that most of the other Companions had come outside as well, and were training in various parts of the yard. Vilkas stood on the raised dining area, his arms crossed, and his eyes narrowed, as he took in all the trainees.
Cry passed by where Athis was standing with Aela, and watching as she showed him the proper way to hold a bow. Aela looked over at her as she passed by, and Cry smiled at her.
Instead of smiling back, the woman returned to her explanation. Cry turned her gaze to the ground, picking up her pace, slightly.
"Hey, you! Whelp!" She turned, and saw the other twin, Farkas, crossing the yard towards her. She frowned to herself, wondering what he wanted. It had already been made clear to her that none of the Circle members spoke to the whelps unless they wanted them to do something, or they felt like sharing, which was a rare occasion. And Cry really wasn't in the mood to go on yet another job. She'd just gotten back from one that morning.
Farkas paused in front of her, and Cry shied backwards. "Did you pick up a weapon, yet?" he asked her, and she shook her head.
"None of them seemed right," she explained, and Farkas sighed.
"Well, you'll need to find something, because we have a job to do, you and I."
Cry frowned slightly. "We do?"
Farkas nodded. "Skjor wants to be the one to explain it, though, so we should head inside."
Cry nodded, and followed him towards Jorrvaskr. They passed Vilkas as they went, and she accidentally brushed against his shoulder. She winced, expecting to get scolded, but he merely grunted and sidestepped.
She relaxed, and went into Jorrvaskr after Farkas. Once inside, they found Skjor sitting at the mead hall table, eating a late breakfast of fried venison and eggs. He glanced up at them, and lifted an eyebrow.
"Must you interrupt while I'm eating?" he asked, directing the question more to Farkas, who shrugged.
"You said it was urgent."
Skjor snorted, and looked at Cry. "It is," he said. "Someone's found another location of one of the shards of Wuuthrad."
"A shard of what?" Cry asked, completely confused, and Skjor exchanged a look with Farkas.
"Of Wuuthrad. You know, Ysgramor's axe?" Cry's expression must have answered that question, and Farkas snorted to himself. "Whelps."
"Easy, brother," Skjor said. "Not all of them were raised here in Jorrvaskr like you." Cry glanced sideways at Farkas, curious. She'd learned from Vilkas already that the two of them had lived their whole lives in Jorrvaskr, but she'd never been able to talk to Farkas specifically about it.
Not that she had the chance to do so, now. Skjor was still talking. "You and Farkas are going to go to Dustman's Cairn and retrieve the shard," he told her.
"Why aren't I going alone?" Cry asked.
"First of all, you may be skilled with a weapon, but you're not skilled enough to fight what's down in those ruins on your own," Skjor responded. "Secondly, Farkas will be there to assess you, and to ensure that you do the mission honorably. Thirdly, this is a mission that Kodlak decided you could handle, so it's best if we send someone along with you to make sure you don't mess it up." He grinned at her. "Fair?"
"Fair," Cry replied wearily.
"Good," Skjor said, sounding pleased. "Head out as soon as possible. Now, let me get back to my food, would ya?"
He turned back to the table, and Farkas took Cry's arm and tugged her away from it. She looked at him.
"So, you were raised here?" she asked, and he nodded.
"Vilkas and I were found by our father in a cave surrounded by Hagravens," he explained. "They don't know what we were doing there, and neither do we. The only life we know is the one we've had here at Jorrvaskr, and it's the only one we care about."
Cry smiled slightly. "I'm glad you found a home," she said to him, and he shrugged.
"It's a good one." He then looked at her again. "Get yourself a weapon, and meet me at Dustman's Cairn when you can. It's a bit to the northeast of Whiterun. Just follow the road, and you'll get there."
Cry nodded, and then Farkas was out the door. She stared after him, wondering how he had so much energy. Glancing around, she exhaled a breath. Where was she going to find a weapon she could use temporarily?
"Whelp." She glanced over her shoulder and saw that Vilkas had entered Jorrvaskr. He approached her, and gave her a once over. "Don't you have a job to be doing?"
"I do, but I still don't have a weapon," she responded, and Vilkas released an irritated sigh.
"Why didn't you just borrow one from Eorlund, like you said you planned to?"
"This might sound stupid to you, but none of those weapons spoke to me," Cry informed him, crossing her arms. "When I pick a weapon, it needs to feel as though it'll work well with me, and none of those felt like that."
Vilkas was silent as he gazed at her, and then he snorted to himself and looked away again. "Well, you'll have to pick something, at least for this one job," he said. "Come here."
He led her around the edges of the mead hall to a weapon rack where a sword and a battle axe hung. He took the sword off of it and handed it to her. "Use this for now."
Cry gave the sword a few swings, frowning to herself. She then looked at Vilkas again. "I don't like it."
"Well, you don't have a choice," he said. "You should've taken better care of your other one."
"You practically broke it in half!" Cry exclaimed, and he shrugged.
"It was flimsy." He pointed to the sword she was holding. "You'll use this. Go."
Cry glared at his back as he walked away again, and then she exhaled angrily and stalked out of Jorrvaskr into the streets of Whiterun. She hated Vilkas so much, him and his stupid temporary sword.
She found her way to Dustman's Cairn, just like Farkas had said she would. She found him standing outside what looked like a big burial mound, his arms crossed.
"Took you awhile," he said, and then he turned and climbed up the mound. "Come on. We can do this fast if we don't waste time."
Cry sighed to herself, but followed after him. She was surprised to find that the mound covered up a door that led into the ground, which was something that was all too familiar to her. She glanced sideways at Farkas.
"We have to go in there?" she asked, and he nodded.
"Why?"
"I just don't really want to," Cry explained, feeling very nervous. "I mean, there's usually dead people walking around in there, and I've dealt with a lot of those."
"So this should be no problem," Farkas decided after a moment, and then he pushed open the door and headed in. Cry let out a curse before following after him.
The door opened into a room that had a table in the center of it, and was brightly lit with torches. Cry frowned as soon as she saw this, and Farkas hummed to himself.
"Looks like someone's been digging here, and recently," he said. "Stay sharp."
"Right," Cry said, quietly, and she pulled out her sword. She looked at him when he didn't move. "Are we going?"
"This is your job," Farkas said. "You should take the lead, don't you think?"
"Oh, yeah, right," Cry agreed, and she glanced around before shrugging her shoulders and gesturing. "That way?"
Farkas didn't respond, and she exhaled before heading the way she'd pointed.
They made their way deeper into Dustman's Cairn. Cry did her best to stay on her toes, keep an eye out for draugr, which she had thought would have made more of an appearance than they'd had. Instead, it was mostly just the threat of getting lost that was plaguing her.
She probably stopped more than was necessary, to make sure they were going in, what she thought, was the right direction. Farkas did not say anything to assist her, which was kind of worrisome. Him not talking was even worse than him giving her feedback, she thought, because she literally had no idea if she was doing the job the way it was supposed to be done.
Still. How could you excavate a Nordic ruin differently than the way she currently was, and had done since her return to Skyrim?
Eventually, they reached a chamber that was closed in by a gate leading forward. The gate itself was shut, and Cry sighed, looking around the room. Farkas had wandered away, and stood examining a throne that looked like it would break if anybody sat in it.
In a small room next to him, Cry spotted a lever. She ducked into the room, and yanked on the lever. She could hear the sounds of the gate opening, but, in the process, the gate to the room she was in closed.
"Piss," she cursed, walking to the gate itself, and gazing at the hard wooden planks. There was no way she was getting through it, unless she decided to Shout, which she was not going to. Even then, she didn't know if a Shout would work for her to get the bars down. She'd learned quite a few Words, recently, but with the lack of dragon souls she'd obtained, she had not been able to really learn them, so they were useless.
Farkas came over, and she smiled at him sheepishly. He sighed. "Don't worry, I'll figure out how to get you out of there," he said.
Cry nodded, thankful, but before Farkas could move away, a group of people appeared, each holding a sword made of what looked like silver. They formed a semi-circle around Farkas, who glared at them.
"It's time to die, dog," one of the people hissed.
"We knew you'd be coming here," another said, this one an orc. They were an interesting group, Cry thought, made up of a lot of different races. At first glance, she would have said they were bandits, but there was something about their organization that made her think otherwise.
"Your mistake, Companion!" a third spat.
"Which one is he?" the only woman in the group questioned.
"It doesn't matter," the first man said. "He carries one of those weapons, he dies."
"Killing you will make for an excellent story," the woman said, grinning wickedly.
"None of you will be alive to tell it," Farkas said, and Cry was surprised to hear that he sounded rather calm. There were five of them, and only one of him.
Just as Cry began to think this dilemma through, however, Farkas suddenly hunched over, and shook violently. Before Cry even knew what was happening, he sprouted dark, coarse hair all over his body, and he grew much bigger. His arms elongated, his hands forming into huge paws with claws on the end of them. He grew taller, and his boots turned into even bigger paws. Cry pushed herself against the back wall of the room she was stuck inside of. Farkas had just turned into a werewolf.
The group started to attack, but Farkas was unbothered. He grabbed one and tossed them away. They hit the opposite wall with a crunch. He swung one big paw at the woman, who shrieked as the sharp claws cut clear through her leather armor, leaving a huge gash on her chest. Farkas hit one of the other men with his opposite paw, and tore a large part of his throat out. The orc he jumped at, pushing him into the ground, and Cry winced as he tore his throat out with sharp teeth.
He didn't even have to deal with the one that was left. The Nord had raced out of the room as soon as he could.
Cry gaped at the dead orc with the missing throat as Farkas disappeared from view. Several moments passed, and then the gate in front of the room she was in lifted. Cry did not move, however, and after another moment, Farkas approached, back in his normal form.
"I hope I didn't scare you," he said, and he sounded slightly amused.
"W-what was that?" Cry managed.
"It's a blessing, given to some of us," Farkas replied. "We can be like wild beasts, fearsome."
Cry blinked at him. "Are you going to turn me into one?"
"Oh, no, only the Circle have the beast blood," Farkas replied. "You're here to prove your honor just to join the Companions. Eyes on the prey, not the horizon."
"You're going to make a lot of werewolf jokes now, aren't you?" she asked him, moving away from the wall, and Farkas smiled.
"Only when I can think of them."
Cry let out a breath. "So… Aela, and Skjor, and Kodlak…"
"All werewolves," Farkas replied. "And Vilkas, too."
"That might explain some things," Cry mumbled, mostly to herself, thinking of Vilkas's mood swings, which had plagued her for the last week. From the look on Farkas's face, however, she could see that Farkas had heard it, and she cleared her throat. "Let's just get through this place."
Farkas did not argue, although he seemed much more relaxed as they continued through Dustman's Cairn. They ran into more of those people, who Farkas said were 'Silver Hand', a group that fought desperately to kill werewolves all over Skyrim, including the Circle. They thought that all Companions were werewolves, however, which Farkas said was ridiculous.
"Why's that?" Cry asked him after they had cleared a chamber.
"Kodlak doesn't like being a werewolf. It used to not be a choice; once a person was put into the Companions, they became a wolf." Farkas shrugged. "The old man changed things. Now, only Circle members are werewolves, and only if they want to be." He paused. "Well, until Aela and Skjor get to them."
"What do you mean by that?"
"When Vilkas and I were invited to join the Circle, Aela and Skjor told us that we wouldn't be true Companions unless we took the beast blood," Farkas replied. "They said there's no reason to refuse a gift like the blood."
"And so you took it?"
"We had no choice," Farkas said. "We wanted to be true Companions."
"Even though Kodlak, the Harbinger, insisted that you didn't need to be werewolves to be true Companions?"
Farkas frowned at her. "We aren't here to discuss Vilkas and I's choice; we're here to see if you can get through this honorably."
Cry held up her hands. "All right, all right. Sorry. You can't blame me for being curious. Let's go."
They made their way through the ruin to the final room. Cry hesitated before stepping inside it, however, feeling wary all of a sudden. Farkas glanced at her, moving forward to join her after poking through the dead bodies of the Silver Hand that they had finished off in the last chamber.
"What is it?"
Cry shook her head, peering into the room ahead of them. "I just… something feels strange about this next room," she said, quietly, and, standing where she was and focusing on it, she realized why it felt strange. She could hear the whispers, could sense the power.
A Word Wall. Damn.
She looked at Farkas. Deciding that she didn't have time to panic about this sort of nonsense, and figuring he owed her a secret to keep, she said, "So… something odd might happen, in this room, but I don't want you to worry, all right?"
He frowned at her. "What do you mean?"
Cry exhaled a breath. "You'll see."
She headed into the room first, and wasted no time in walking all the way to the other side, to get to the Word Wall. She paused in front of it, feeling Farkas's gaze on her, and she stared directly at the glowing Word of Power.
Warmth washed over her, and the word echoed in her head: Yol, fire, Yol, fire…
"Fire," she whispered, and then she grinned to herself, almost forgetting that she was not alone, that she had just done the very thing she had said she wouldn't do, which was reveal herself as Dragonborn to one of the Companions.
Turning around, she noticed Farkas, and saw that he was blinking passively at her. Cry opened her mouth, ready to explain, but then the all-too-familiar sound of coffins breaking open rang out from all corners of the room. Cry looked past Farkas, and realized that practically the entire length of the wall, on both sides of the room, was lined with said coffins.
"Great," she muttered under her breath, and she pulled out her sword. Farkas had already done the same, and he circled around the bigger coffin centered in front of the Word Wall.
"Keep your eyes open, and watch your back!" he called to her, and then he swung at one of the draugr that had approached, its eyes glowing viciously.
Cry decided to take his advice, but also to give her newfound Shout a try. She'd been holding onto a soul that she had claimed from a dragon she and Lydia had fought, alongside the people of Ivarstead. She'd wanted to use the knowledge it possessed on a Word that she thought would truly help her in bad situations. If this wasn't a bad situation, and if a Word that she hoped would allow her to spew fire wouldn't help her in it, she had no idea what she was even doing with herself.
She waited until there were several draugr in front of her before focusing on the fire in her chest, which was burning more brightly now, with the anticipation of being used. Farkas finished with the two he'd been dealing with, and looked over at her.
"What are you doing?" he shouted, and began to race over to where she was.
Cry held up her hand, however, and Farkas skidded to a stop. She grinned, and let her Shout ring: "Yol!"
Fire that she couldn't feel burst from her mouth, and made contact with the four draugr that had cornered her. All of them let out hisses, and turned around, hurrying away, burning. The smell of cooked flesh hit Cry's senses hard, but she ignored it, instead hurrying after the draugr to finish them off.
As she did so, more came out of the coffins that hadn't yet broken open, and she heard Farkas huff.
"Could you do that again?" he asked, sounding hopeful, and Cry smiled at him.
"Just stand back," she said, and went to work.
Several minutes later, all of the draugr that had been in the coffins lining the chamber were on the ground, burnt to crisps. Cry had managed to take care of them all, suffering from only a minor burn herself. Farkas had lingered in the background, watching her walk around to make sure they were all dead. She finished off the last one with her sword, mostly because she felt rather burnt out (hah), and then walked over to where he stood.
"That was… something else," he said, and she grinned wanly at him.
"Thanks."
"Do you want to explain?" he questioned, and she sighed.
"I'm the Dragonborn," she said. "I can learn Words of Power, and channel them into a Thu'um, or Shout, except that I can do it exceptionally fast, like the dragons." She paused. "And, I can kill dragons, and make sure they stay dead."
Farkas blinked at her. "We'd heard that there was a Dragonborn," he said, "but we've heard a lot of different descriptions of who it actually was." He tilted his head. "You were not one of them."
"Gee, that's good to hear," Cry said, "because the Thalmor are looking for me, and that's part of the reason I joined the Companions, so… it'd be really nice, if you could… I don't know, keep this to yourself?"
Farkas exhaled. "I really shouldn't," he said, and Cry dropped her shoulders, hanging her head. "But I will."
Cry glanced upwards. "Really?"
"Sure," Farkas said with a shrug. "It's nice, knowing something not everyone else does first." He grinned at her. "Besides, I can hold this over your head, and ask for any favor I need done."
Cry frowned at him. "That's not very fair."
"No, it's not," Farkas agreed
Cry glowered, and he beamed. After a moment of this, Cry sighed. "Fine," she said, "but you have to tell Skjor that I did well."
"Oh, you did well enough even without you having to ask me to tell him that," Farkas said with a wave of his hand. "Don't worry about that."
"Really?" Cry asked, hopefully, and he nodded.
"Let's get back to Whiterun," he said, and he wrinkled his nose. "It stinks in here."
Cry chuckled, and led the way up the stairs to the pathway that one of the broken open coffins had revealed behind it.
