Ulfric groaned. A deep, throaty rumble that lightly echoed around them in the quiet room as he made his irritation known. "By the gods, if you don't stop.." he warned sleepily, his voice hoarse from disuse, though it did nothing to deter Arielle from pursuing her goal of warmth. Only mere seconds passed before she once again pressed her icy feet against the burning heat of his legs, eliciting another surprised hiss from the man beside her. "Arielle.."
"It's cold." she mumbled, as if the frozen state of her feet hadn't made that blatantly obvious. The fire had died down to mere embers, no longer offering it's warmth and despite the thick fur blanket on top of her, the room had become cold enough to wake her. With another groan he tossed the fur off himself and rose from the bed. Arielle's eyes cracked open enough to spare a tired glance toward the window as Ulfric rounded the large bed in nothing but a linen tunic and she could see the sky just beginning to lighten. It was around this time when Ulfric usually started his day so she greedily moved over to his side of the bed, trying to soak up the leftover warmth while he quietly went about the room. With a tired yawn and the lingering heat enveloping her, she began drifting back to sleep.
She was pulled from that half-slumber moments later, startled awake by Ulfric joining her under the fur blanket from her side of the bed. Her eyes opened in time to see him scoot closer, his features now distinguishable in the soft orange glow that bathed the room and she realized that he'd fed logs to the fireplace to bring the fire back to life. He pulled her closer before nearly covering her small body with his own, much larger one and she clung to the Nordic heat that enveloped her, heaving a contented sigh as her eyes fell closed once more. The sounds of their combined breathing and the crackling fire quickly lulled her back to sleep.
When next her eyes opened, she could immediately tell how late it was by the bright, natural light seeping into the room from the window. She was alone in the room, but that was nothing new, she often woke by herself. Though her eyes did spot the silver platter of food sitting on the table, waiting for her and her stomach immediately made it's yearning known, growling almost angrily at the sight of the spread. She sat up, stretching her arms as she did and wrapped the thick fur blanket tightly around herself as she made her way over to the table, plopping down quite unceremoniously into one of the chairs.
The sweetroll was still warm inside, she discovered when she greedily tore the flaky pastry open and shoved one of the icing covered bits into her mouth, entirely ignoring the fancy silver cutlery as she did. One of the books she'd borrowed from the library, a book on lost legends, was sitting on the table and she flipped it open to the page she'd previously dog-eared and picked up where she left off the night before. Suddenly feeling ill, she was forced to retire to her room early in the evening. Thankfully, aside from a rather acute bout of exhaustion, nothing had come from it. She mentally chocked it up to the lengthy feast two days prior.
Arielle quickly learned that the city of Windhelm would throw a feast for just about anything to do with Nordic Culture. It had only been two weeks since the New Life festival finally ended and already they had another feast to honor Ysgramor's first five hundred companions on the thirteenth of Sun's Dawn. The 'Feast of the Dead' lasted well into the night and after drinking more than her fair share of wine and all the dancing she'd done with the Jarl, she was left thoroughly exhausted and that was before he even took her to bed.
Feeling better for the time being, she lazily picked at the offered breakfast while she read her book. And when she finished her pastry and fruit, she was more than content to take her time dressing. She picked her favorite dress from the closet, a Stormcloak-blue one of thick velvet with a rounded neckline and adopted a simple hairstyle of pinning the top of her blonde tresses back, allowing the rest of her soft curls to hang freely to her waist. As she left the bedroom and made her way down the stone steps, her mind recalled it was well into the night when the Jarl joined her in bed the night prior. He'd left early in the morning, and how he managed to do so after the feast she wasn't sure, venturing with Galmar and a battalion of men to a Nordic ruin on the outskirts of Eastmarch to retrieve an ancient crown. Which was, just about the strangest use of his time as far as she was concerned but the Jarl was a stubborn man if she ever met one and once he decided he wanted something, he would do whatever needed to be done for him to obtain it. Though she didn't know whether his quick return was a sign of success or failure in his mission, but she was sure she would hear about it soon enough.
Soon enough came quicker than she thought it would when Ulfric called out to her as she passed the open door to the war room. She entered the room, approaching Ulfric's large desk though her attention was stolen by Galmar's hands as he leaned far over the war table to swap out a red flag for a blue one just inside the border of the Reach, the corner of his lips turned up in a rather triumphant smirk. The newest addition signified the second victory inside the Reach. The Stormcloaks were closing in on the hold's capitol Markarth and she was sure it was only a matter of time until the army marched on Solitude. Each victory, despite the many lives lost along the way, seemed to strengthen each soldiers resolve, making them even more hungry for the eradication of the Legion in Skyrim. The end was finally in sight, and they were practically starving for it.
"I heard you were ill." Ulfric said, his deep voice interrupting her thoughts and stealing her attention from the map. He was regarding her with a look she couldn't quite decipher when she met his eyes. A small part of her mind wondered when exactly he'd heard, for he had not tried to lay with her when he returned from his quest, though that could of had more to do with his own exhaustion than hers. "I was tired." she said, waving a hand dismissively.
"And now?" he pressed, catching her hand only to bring the back of her palm to his lips in a chaste kiss. Ignoring the slight tickling of the hairs of his goatee against her skin, she focused on how she felt. Aside from a slight bit of lingering exhaustion and a brewing headache, which she was sure she could make a potion for, she felt normal. "I'm fine." she told him, half wondering where the sudden bout of concern had stemmed from. Of course, now that she thought about it, it wouldn't do the Jarl any favors if she were to fall ill and see Sovngarde before she could give him his heirs.
Seemingly satisfied by her response, he hummed, releasing her hand and her eyes strayed to the small table behind him. That's where she saw it, the crown Ulfric had gone to fetch and she could not stop the deep frown that came to her face at the sight of it. The Jarl must have caught her expression because he called her name, but she was already moving away from him, toward the table with a deep crease set in her brow, her frown deepening with each step that brought her closer to the crown.
She wasn't sure what the Jagged Crown would look like, but she knew what sat in front of her was nothing her mind could have conjured on it's own without seeing it first. It was a helmet of steel, but adorned in the teeth of dragons, arranged in a circle to look like spikes on a crown. It was.. about as Nordic as a crown could get, she supposed. Plenty of Nordic warriors she'd met in her journey had adorned themselves in bone jewelry but the sight of the teeth of her kin did fill her with a type of sadness. Suddenly Ulfric was beside her, a wall of steel, wool and fur to her left while one of her hands reached out, the tip of her finger stroking the point of a tooth. The crown was old, the teeth coming from no dragon she'd ever known but that realization did nothing to budge her frown. And she couldn't help but wonder, what would happen to her own body when she died?
The thing was heavy, very heavy she discovered when she picked it up with both hands to examine it closer. She couldn't imagine wearing the thing for any length of time, but Ulfric was a strong man, he would have no trouble wielding the helmet, she was sure. "What are your thoughts of it?" he asked, attempting to break the silence when she still hadn't said anything. She placed the Jagged Crown back on the table, being careful of it's weight before she reluctantly turned to face his curious expression with her frown still firmly in place.
"I'm thinking.. I would like to be burned, if for no other reason than to prevent someone from making a crown out of me." she said before sweeping past him, the smooth velvet of the skirt of her gown trailing behind her as she left the war room. Lydia was waiting outside the door and followed her, the pair quickly making their way to the library.
"Would you wear a helmet made of dragons?" she asked her companion as she sat in the chair at her desk, pulling the cork off a small red potion bottle and downing the herby contents, making a face as she swallowed the viscous mixture. With her recent bouts of headaches, she'd gone through more than a few potions lately and she was more than glad she had the skill to help herself.
"I would if I killed it myself." said Lydia as she browsed the many tomes at the closest bookshelf. Arielle hummed while she flipped the Book of the Dragonborn open to the page she'd left off the day before. "That's a good answer." she said, dipping her quill pen in a bit of ink and resuming the task of adding her own thoughts and facts she knew to be true to the tome mostly filled with conjecture. It was only one book of many, but she thought to leave behind at least some semblance of what she was, and what she was not.
"But a crown is different." she said, earning Arielle's attention. Her hand stilled against the page and she watched Lydia continue her search for literary entertainment. "How so?"
Lydia smirked. "Well, I can't imagine High King Harald created that crown by simply plucking the teeth off a dead dragon he stumbled upon in the wilds. Not if he were a true Nord anyway." she paused, shooting Arielle a playful smile before she continued. "But crowns get passed down through succession. Just because Ulfric didn't kill the dragon himself, doesn't mean he's no right to wear it if he's named king."
Arielle sighed, knowing Lydia was right. As much as she hated the idea of staring at a crown made of a dragon's teeth for the rest of her days, she knew he had every right to wear it if the moot declared him king. Her lips parted, but before she could thank the woman for her honesty, they were interrupted by the door to the library opening and she looked over to see the Jarl taking up the majority of the doorway. "Leave us." he said to Lydia who complied, making her way out of the room and closing the door behind her as she did. He carefully approached her where she sat at her desk, til he towered over her and she was forced to crane her neck uncomfortably to meet his icy blue eyes. "You're upset." he said assuredly and she pressed her lips into a firm line before she responded.
"I'm not upset." she said after a moment, sure that her words were true after her talk with Lydia.
"I do not appreciate being lied to, Arielle." he warned, in that deep voice of his and she sighed, tearing her eyes away from his expectant expression to land on the still open book in front of herself, her personal notes hastily scribbled in each of the inner and outer margins.
"I'm not upset." she reiterated, tapping the tip of an index finger against the desk. "I'm just.. uncomfortable with parts of one of my kin being used as a decoration. I understand it.. I just don't like it." He hummed, but said nothing as he considered her response. One of his hands caught her attention as it strayed to two books -'Ruminations on the Elder Scrolls' and 'Effects of the Elder Scrolls'- that were stacked on the corner of her desk.
"These are yours.." he said, more to himself than anything else as he lifted the top book to examine the one beneath it. She looked over in time to catch the expression of almost concern flicker across his face. "You sought out an Elder Scroll?"
"I had to. It was necessary to learn the Dragonrend shout. Without it, I could not have defeated Alduin." she said.
"Where did you find a moth priest in Skyrim?" he asked, briefly catching her off guard with his historical knowledge. He looked back at her, meeting her deep blue eyes and she shook her head. "I didn't." she told him, her eyes dropping to the desk while she remembered the vision she was granted at the Throat of the World. The sight of Alduin ripping apart her predecessors was not a pleasant one, and one she vehemently wished she could forget. She was torn from the memory by the warmth of his fingers tracing the length of her jaw, nearly startling her with his sudden display of affection. "What happened to you?"
"Temporary blindness." she said with a frown. "I'm not mad, as far as I can tell. I suppose that makes me.. lucky." Yes, definitely lucky. For she had seen what happened to Septimus Signus. His mind was sundered, his sanity snapped, leaving him but a shell of the man he used to be from the mere glimpse he spared at the contents inside of an Elder Scroll.
"Blessed." Ulfric corrected. "By the gods themselves." And she did not miss the trace of adoration in his tone. His religious tendencies never failed to surprise her and though she was raised to see the gods as benevolent, she could not bring herself to agree with his sentiment. For the past year had brought only pain to her heart and burdens to bear, her memories of happier times the only thing that kept her going. Somehow she held out, all the while praying that the gods would take pity, that they might grant her respite from all she'd suffered, but so far she'd been granted no such kindness.
Anger welled deeply inside her at his words. "Blessed?" she repeated, her tone laced with irritation before letting out a sardonic laugh. "Don't you mean cursed? What have the gods ever done for me aside from bring me misery and suffering in exchange for doing their bidding?" she said with a bitter snap, rising up from her seat at the desk and marching angrily toward the door, her hands clenched in tight fists at her sides.
Though she must have gotten up too quickly, for she only made it a few paces before an abrupt dizziness settled over her mind. Dark spots flickered across her vision while the room around her seemed to be tilting and tipping with her dizziness and her body suddenly felt much heavier than it had before. Part of her mind registered her name being called as her pace significantly slowed, but the voice sounded far away, as if she were under water. She made it to the door, only for her vision to darken further til her consciousness slipped away, her eyes closing to the sight of the stone floor rushing to greet her face.
A tingly feeling pulled her from slumber, closely followed by a dull pain radiating across the side of her head. With a groan, she opened her eyes to a bright, white light. A healing spell, she realized after a few seconds of consciousness. The glow was too bright and she allowed her eyes to close as the pain in her head lessened with each second that passed. When the pain was gone and the tingle of healing faded, she opened her eyes once more and blinked a few times to get her bearings. She was in her bed again, with the faces of Windhelm's healer and midwife staring back at her.
By order of the Jarl, a thorough examination was done to discover the cause of Arielle's fainting spell. Though, the cause was no great mystery, the reason for her sudden exhaustion and headaches as well were revealed when the aging midwife questioned the date of her last menses. Truthfully, Arielle had not bled since before she was wed to the Jarl, but that was nothing new for her. The stress alone in the past year had her cycle taking on quite the irregular pattern. She assumed, since her stress had not yet waned with her recent marriage to the Jarl, that it was only keeping up with that particularly unpredictable schedule.
Arielle stopped listening to the two women once it came to light that she was with child. Rather, she opted to retreat inside of her mind, ignoring what was going on around her in order to process this new revelation. She expected it would happen, especially with how committed Ulfric had been to the task. But expecting it to happen, and it actually happening were.. so different. One of her hands moved to her abdomen of it's own accord and she was suddenly awash with fears of the unknown. A gentle touch of fingertips pressing against her temple, snapped her out of her intrusive thoughts and her eyes found the familiar hazel ones of the healer. "Does that hurt?" she asked and Arielle shook her head, earning a smile from the Nord.
For privacy's sake, and since she was no longer needed now that her head had been healed of the cut she suffered during her fall, Sonja left. Leaving only Arielle and the midwife, Doria, who was busying herself by the fireplace, heating a kettle of what Arielle assumed was tea. She watched the woman add herb after herb from her satchel before leaving them to steep for a few moments. She sat up in her shared bed, moving the pillow to the headboard before leaning against it. No sooner had she found a comfortable position did the aging midwife return, offering a mug of the freshly brewed tea. She accepted it with both hands, but concern of her fainting spell had her reluctant to drink. "I fell." she said, her voice wavering with shame. "Did I hurt it?"
The midwife pat Arielle's wrist in a gesture of comfort, a reassuring smile on her face. "I'm told, aside from your head you fell on a rug. I've seen hundreds of babes into this world and yours is far too small yet to be hurt by a little tumble." She breathed a sigh of relief at that and drank the offered tea while the midwife unloaded a mountain of information on her. Everything from foods and alchemical ingredients to avoid to activities to abstain from. Sex was still allowed, to her great displeasure. Though, she wondered how her pregnancy would affect the current circumstances between her and the Jarl. Perhaps, now that she was with child, he would not want to lay with her again.
After leaving a written copy of the information she was given on the bedside table, Arielle watched the midwife leave the bedroom, her long grey braid swaying behind her as she set out, determined to educate the kitchen staff about what Arielle should and should not consume. Once alone, she sat up in her bed, letting her feet hang over the side to touch the top step of the dais while one of her hands gravitated back to her abdomen. Aside from fearing the ramifications of this newest development, she was surprised that she didn't feel any different. She thought when she was with child that she would feel something, a sort of connection. But she didn't, she felt the same and a small part of her mind questioned the midwife's diagnosis.
Wanting, no- needing confirmation of her pregnancy, she left her now empty mug on the bedside table and rose from her place on the bed, being mindful to not move too quickly lest she become dizzy again and made her way over to the large vanity beside the fireplace. Once there, her lips parted for a shout to escape from her throat. It was softer than most, a raspy whisper that veiled her vision with glowing dots of red in the distance, detecting the life force of those around her. She could see the retreating glow of the midwife as well as another glow fastly approaching. Her eyes went to herself in the mirror, glowing red swirled deep in her chest, the seat of her soul. Then, much lower, in the pit of her belly she spied it, the smallest flicker of life growing inside herself.
The realness of her pregnancy hit her then, nearly overwhelming her with a sense of responsibility and foreboding. A feeling reminiscent of having the fate of the world thrust into her hands. Except this time, it seemed only her world was at stake. That soft red glow somehow suddenly seemed more precious than her own life and that realization struck a type of fear in her she hadn't felt in the longest time.
The door opened, catching her attention as the glow faded away and she looked over to see the Jarl approaching her while wearing the closest thing she'd ever seen to a genuine smile on his face. "Better news could not have come this day." he said when he reached her, his thick fingers brushed her hair away from the side of her head to examine it and she could not stop the frown that came to her face at his touch, every part of her mind telling her to seclude herself from others, to protect the precious life inside her. "How are you feeling?" he asked her while his eyes studied her hesitant expression before dropping to where both of her hands rest on the blue velvet dress covering her abdomen.
He covered her hands with one of his own, much larger ones while she considered his sudden interest in her pregnancy. Of course, now that she thought about it, why shouldn't he be? Her intended purpose was finally fulfilled, an heir to Windhelm's throne would be born before year's end. But she could not think about what this would mean for Windhelm, she could not think about anything beyond her ascendancy to motherhood. "Overwhelmed." she told him honestly, watching his face as he marveled at her abdomen that had yet to show an ounce of change.
"To be expected, I'm sure." he said confidently. "Jorleif is handling the announcement as we speak and Galmar is arranging the hunt."
Her expression morphed into one of confusion. "Hunt?"
"It's tradition for the father-to-be to celebrate with a hunt. The bear we kill will be made into our son's first blanket." he explained while his free hand threaded itself through the soft curls at the base of her neck. She wasn't sure how to respond to that. Under normal circumstances she might crack a smile at the twisted tradition of a Nord celebrating new life by ending another, but she hadn't known normal in a very long time and she was still coming to grips with her newfound responsibility.
"I want you to be comfortable." he said, his deep voice snapping her out of her straying thoughts while his hand left her abdomen to pull her closer, til she was forced to crane her neck to meet his eyes. "And if there's anything you need, if it's within my power, you need but name it and it's yours." With that said, he released her hair, only for his thumb to stroke the length of her jaw. "For now, you should rest." he said before leaning down to press his lips against her forehead in a chaste kiss.
Then he was retreating and she watched him as he left the room, leaving her stunned and wearing an expression of utter bewilderment from his over affection. But her thoughts would not dwell on the Jarl of Windhelm for long, her attention was soon focused on the new life beneath her hands. And as she gazed at her abdomen in the mirror she realized, for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, she had something to hope for.