Cry came to realize shortly into their journey to the Silver Hand hideout at Driftshade Refuge that Vilkas refused to waste any time. He wanted to see the end of the Silver Hand, and he meant to see it as soon as possible. He cut down wolves and skeevers and spiders that met them on the way without any remorse, swiftly killing with his greatsword, barely giving Cry a chance to do anything.
He would not speak to her, and Cry did not blame him. He was angry with her, and talking would only slow them down. Two reasons to stay silent. There was probably a third, one that she wasn't entirely sure of the name of, but perhaps one she could guess: he was hurt. If he was anything like her…
Well, that was a door she didn't want to open, not just then. They were heading off to kill what remained of a mercenary group that had been after their own faction for years. Cry figured it was the wrong time to open up doors leading to feelings of the heart that didn't exactly match feelings of the mind.
She also realized that Vilkas was a very good fighter. She had known this already, but seeing how he handled the different wildlife, she was brought face-to-face with warrior Vilkas, rather than just Master at Arms Vilkas.
A third thing she realized was that she and Vilkas made a very good fighting team, especially when they were faced with their first human adversary of the trip.
A group of bandits had set up camp on the road they were taking to reach Driftshade, which was a bad thing for them, because Vilkas was having none of their nonsense, especially when they made the bold decision to try and rob the two of them.
Vilkas had cut off the head of one immediately, and Cry had quickly moved around him to stab into the one that jumped towards Vilkas as soon as her companion's head had been cleared of his shoulders. Vilkas retaliated, then, by killing the one that jumped towards Cry, bringing an end to the bandits.
When they were all lying on the ground around the two of them, Cry glanced at Vilkas, who calmly cleaned his sword's blade off in the snow. He seemed not to have noticed the magic that had just happened with the two of them and their swords, and Cry turned away again, deciding not to comment on it. He wasn't in the mood, obviously, and she really wasn't, either.
They reached Driftshade Refuge in the early morning after the Silver Hand attack on Jorrvaskr. There was only one Silver Hand standing guard outside, which Cry thought ridiculous. Vilkas dispatched him without much ceremony, and pushed his way into the Refuge itself. Cry sighed, and followed after him.
The main door inside, which led directly to where they wanted to go, was barred on the other side.
"They were expecting us," Vilkas said. "The fact that they only had one man on duty outside makes me think they don't expect us to do much damage." He adjusted his grip on his greatsword. "They're in for a nasty surprise."
"Was that you admitting I'm good?" Cry asked, glancing at him and hoping for some kind of sign that Vilkas was going back to the man that she'd gotten to know over the last weeks. Alas, his eyes were still cold as steel, and she turned away again. "Never mind."
"Let's go," he said. He cut across the room in front of her and headed into an open door on the left. Cry followed without much of a choice.
She caught up with him, only to find that he had already killed the two Silver Hand in the next space. He glanced at her only briefly. "We're not going to leave any of them alive," he said. "I'm going to go ahead; you stay back, and make sure I get them all."
He started to leave again, but Cry was not going to have that. "Vilkas," she said, as firmly as she could manage, and he paused, looking back at her. "The last time one of us went ahead on their own, they died," she said, keeping her voice hard. "Do you want that to happen again?"
There was a shift in his expression, but it was barely there. If she hadn't known him as well as she did by that point, she probably wouldn't even have caught it. He closed his eyes tightly, and turned away from her again. It was then that Cry realized what he had been planning on doing, and she let out a breath.
"You're doing so well, Vilkas," she said, softly. "Don't wreck that in your thirst for vengeance." She took a step towards him, and placed a gentle hand on his arm. She was rewarded by the fact that he did not jerk away. "Vilkas," she continued. "Let's do this the way that Kodlak would have wanted us to, as warriors, and not as beasts."
There was a moment of silence, and she could almost feel Vilkas's internal struggle. He wanted to listen to her, she knew, it was just so hard to see past the fact that the Silver Hand had acted so wickedly, and not to retaliate in kind. Still, she would not remove her hand from his arm, not until he got through it.
Finally, finally, he relaxed under her hand. His eyes opened, and they were clear. There was still a fire in them, but it was a fire that she wanted to see, not one that she was afraid of.
"You're right," he said. "We should do this in the way of the Companions, the original Companions." He offered her a smile. "I'm sorry."
"No, I am," Cry said. "I should have known what you were struggling with from the beginning." She gave his arm a squeeze, and then let go. "Are you ready?"
Vilkas nodded. "Are you?"
"Always," Cry replied, and she pulled out her sword. Twirling it in the manner that she had adopted from watching him train, she grinned at him. "Let's do this."
They moved further into Driftshade Refuge together. Methodically, making sure to take down every last Silver Hand, they worked their way through it. Cry made sure to watch Vilkas's back, and she could tell he was watching hers. They fought the Silver Hand like two Companions of old would, with a power fueled by the fact that they were capable, and they were fighting with a Shield-Sibling who was also capable. It was interesting, the feeling that Cry had as they made their way through Driftshade, and interesting what she felt once they had reached the last room, and had taken down the very last Silver Hand.
As Vilkas went around and made sure they were dead, she approached the table they had been sitting at. On top of it, in a crude pile, were the fragments of Wuuthrad. She carefully slid them into a coin purse, and then placed that into her pack.
Vilkas walked over to where she stood. "Did you get them?" he asked, and she nodded, pulling her bag back onto her shoulders. "Good. Hopefully, they aren't ruined beyond the point of Eorlund being able to put them back together."
"Is that the end goal?" Cry asked in surprise, and Vilkas glanced at her.
"Why wouldn't it be?" he queried, poking his head into a cupboard in the corner.
"I don't know," she said. "I just… never really thought about it." He turned back around, holding a small coin purse, and stuck it into his own pack. "We should probably get back to Whiterun."
She turned, and started to walk up the stairs that were leading to the door that had been barred off. "Cry." She stopped when he said her name, and turned around to face him again. Vilkas still stood at the bottom of the stairs.
"I…" He paused, and then let out a breath. "Thank you."
"For what?" she questioned.
"Talking me down," Vilkas responded. "I was… incredibly tempted to just… shift, and let the wolf take care of all these bastards." He kicked at one of the Silver Hand, who moved limply from the force. "It was better that we did it the way we did. Kodlak would… be more approving."
Still, Cry could tell that he didn't sound sure, even about that. "Do you really think so?" she asked, and Vilkas shook his head.
"No," he said, quietly. "I don't. Kodlak didn't care for this kind of nonsense, for returning what was given like this. He would have probably given both of us a talk about letting our hearts get the better of us once we returned to Jorrvaskr."
Cry took a few steps back towards him. "Do you regret what we did here?" she asked, and he hesitated a moment.
"I would like to say no," he said at last, "but I don't think I can. Even though we handled this in the way true Companions would, it was… brutally unnecessary, to take them all down." He glanced at her. "Nothing to be done about it now, however."
Cry wished there was more for her to say, but she really did not know what there was in response to that. Vilkas offered her a smile.
"It's all right," he said, moving up the stairs to join her. "It's over, and you're right; we should get back to Whiterun. They'll be preparing the old man's funeral."
Vilkas moved ahead of her up the stairs, and Cry glanced back towards the dead Silver Hand momentarily before following him.
It was raining in Whiterun when they returned, and Vilkas was the first to notice how empty the streets seemed. "A lot of people will be at the Skyforge," he said, picking up his pace a bit. "We should hurry."
They jogged together to Jorrvaskr, and up the steps to the Skyforge. Indeed, it seemed most of Whiterun had shown up for Kodlak's funeral. The old man was laid on a pyre over the forge itself, dressed in his wolf armor. Cry inhaled, and paused at the top of the stairs. Vilkas moved into a spot next to where Aela stood.
"Who will start?" Eorlund asked from the other side of the area where the forge was located.
"I'll do it," Aela said. She inhaled. "Before the ancient flame…"
"We grieve," the others said, softly, and Cry found herself saying the same, although she hadn't known what the appropriate response would be before then. It was as if something inside of her had been alerted to it.
"At this loss…" Eorlund said.
"We weep." Again, they all spoke, aside from the Whiterun citizens.
"For the fallen…" Cry glanced sideways at Vilkas.
"We shout." Everyone spoke, and he glanced at her.
"And for ourselves…" Farkas said, and Cry quickly faced the forge again.
"We take our leave."
Aela approached the pyre, and set it alight with the torch she held. She then turned around to face the gathered crowd. "His spirit is departed. Members of the Circle, let us withdraw to the Underforge, to grieve our last together."
The crowd started to break up, and Cry was about to follow the other Circle members down the stairs when Eorlund stopped her.
"Do you have the fragments of Wuuthrad?" he asked her, and Cry nodded wordlessly, pulling her bag off of her shoulders. She retrieved the coin purse she had put them in, and handed it to the blacksmith. "I have a small favor to ask you," he said, peering into the purse.
"Which is?"
"Kodlak kept a piece of it close to him at all times. Would you go and retrieve it from his quarters? I don't think I'm the right one to go through his things," Eorlund said.
"And you think I am?" Cry asked him.
"Better than me," he said. "At least you'll be delicate about it."
Cry snorted. "The last thing I am is delicate," she said, and Eorlund smiled. "I'll bring it to you."
"Thank you," he said, and he turned away from her towards the forge.
Cry headed down the stairs, and into Jorrvaskr, passing where the Companions who weren't Circle members sat at the outdoor area, all of them looking glum and resigned. She ducked inside, and went down to the living quarters, stepping into the empty Harbinger's rooms at the end of the hall apprehensively. It was odd, knowing that no one was in there, waiting to speak with her. More often than not, Kodlak had been there, seated at the table in the corner of the room, waiting to offer advice, or even simply to listen.
Her heart ached as her eyes landed on the table, and she quickly passed it by, wiping at her eyes, which were beginning to tear up. Hold on, just a little while longer, she thought to herself, heading into the bedchamber.
She went for the bedside table, and pulled open the drawer there, first. Inside, she found the fragment. Underneath it was a small leather journal.
She hesitated a moment, her hand holding the fragment of Wuuthrad, and aching to pick up the journal. She glanced over her shoulder. No one would come downstairs and see her reading it. Perhaps she was meant to read it, and that was why she had been the one to be sent down to retrieve the fragment.
She placed the fragment down on the table itself, and picked up the journal. She sank down on the edge of the bed, and opened it.
The first few pages spoke of a dream that Kodlak had had, about the fate of Harbingers that had come before them, and how they were all dragged to the Hunting Grounds, ruled by Hircine. He spoke of someone who helped him free the Harbingers from the Hunting Grounds.
Afterwards, he wrote about mentioning the dream to the other Circle members at the time of the dream. Aela and Skjor were, unsurprisingly, unbreaking in their decision to go to the Hunting Grounds in their afterlife, while Vilkas struggled with the idea of it, and Farkas was generally unbothered.
Then, Kodlak wrote about her arrival. Cry felt something twist inside of her when he wrote that she had been the one to be in his dream, to help him fight against the Hunting Grounds fate that seemed to await all Companions. She also learned that Vilkas had been struggling with fighting the will to transform for quite some time.
Kodlak wrote about how Cry was an adept warrior, but how he was reluctant to reveal her part in his dream to her. He wrote about how he had been searching for ways to cleanse his blood, and how he had realized that the choice to allow the Companions to become werewolves was a mistake.
He wrote about how Cry was continually proving herself, how he was unsure of what her response to the question of the beast blood would be. He wrote about how he had known that she and Aela had been taking their urge for revenge out on the Silver Hand long before he had spoken to her about it.
He wrote about having regrets that he had not been given the chance to speak with Cry more often. He wrote about how he thought that her appearance in his dream marked her as the one to replace him as Harbinger. He wrote about how he was certain that she would be able to carry the Companions' legacy, how she was the best suited to the role of Harbinger.
He wrote that he hoped that he would be able to teach her in the ways of the Harbinger, and reading this, tears came to Cry's eyes. He had wanted to teach her. He had wanted to mentor her, wanted to prepare her for the role. And he hadn't been able to, all because of things that she had indirectly caused. He had wanted to be cured so badly, had wanted to ensure that he was around to teach her how to lead. And he hadn't been able to.
She bent her head over the journal and let out a sob. Oh, Kodlak, she thought. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry.
"Cry?"
She closed her eyes, and quickly closed the journal, turning her body in such a way that would hide the fact that she had been reading it. Vilkas stood in the doorway leading to the bedchamber. He frowned when he saw the tears on her cheeks.
"Sorry," he said, beginning to turn away. "I just wanted… never mind. When you can, meet the rest of the Circle in the Underforge. We have some things to discuss."
He walked away again, and Cry glanced down at the journal. She placed it gently back into the drawer of the bedside table, and closed the drawer itself. She then glanced around the room, wondering if maybe it would become her own, soon. She didn't know how the process of choosing a new Harbinger went, but if Kodlak's wishes were known throughout the Circle, she didn't seen any reason why she wouldn't be put in the position.
Something inside of her yelled for her attention, then, and she half-heartedly gave it. What about the dragons? You know, Alduin, the World Eater? Are we just going to… I don't know, completely ignore that?
The dragons. She had completely forgotten about the dragons. She hadn't completely forgotten that she was the Dragonborn, but she had forgotten that, apparently, she had a destiny to fulfill that was completely separate from the one that Kodlak had thought she had to fulfill.
There's no reason I can't fulfill both, though, right? she asked herself. I can still deal with the dragons, and then come back and be Harbinger, right? That is, if they want me to be Harbinger. I definitely won't force myself on them.
She nodded to herself. There was no reason she couldn't do both. She would just have to remember that she had a dragon problem to deal with, and not let herself get completely absorbed with Companions duties, like she had.
She wiped her eyes again, picked up the fragment of Wuuthrad, and stood up. She glanced around the room one final time, and nodded again, more to Kodlak's spirit this time, rather than to herself.
