Absolutely delightful. Say what you will about Maven Black-Briar, but there's simply something special about that woman's mead. Now, where was I? Ahh, yes, my triumphant return to Whiterun after slaying the dragon of the Eastern Watchtower.

As I was saying, night had fully fallen by the time I had returned to Whiterun after that comedy of errors. I had wanted nothing more than to crawl into my bed at Breezehome after reporting to Jarl Balgruuf, and sleep for days. Such a thing was not to be, not for me. As I entered the Market District, I was treated to a gruesome sight: Two vampires were feasting upon the corpse of the third shadiest merchant that I'd ever met. Though it was too late for me to save Belethor, I knew I would have to destroy those accursed things before they could continue to terrorize the city.

Taking a deep breath, I gripped the handle of the Orcish mace I'd been carrying since the day I liberated it from a bandit. This wouldn't be as simple as clearing a bandit camp, or even facing members of the Silver Hand. And, unlike when I faced the dragon, I was now alone, about to face off against creatures that were faster and stronger than I was. I just had to hope my armor was up to the task for when I inevitably took a hit. I crept forward, praying to Stendarr that they would be too focused on their meal to notice the clanking of my steel plate armor.

For once, my prayers seemed to be answered, and once I was close enough, I gripped my mace in both hands, and swung down with all my might, splitting the vampire's skull like an over ripened melon, gore splattering in all directions. I sat there, stunned that it had actually worked. Until my icy blue eyes met the glowing yellow of the other vampire. And let me tell you, she was one angry bitch. She leapt over Belethor at me, clawed hands extended, ready to tear out my throat. The only thing that saved my neck was ironically the brain of the dead vampire. As I tried to jump away, my foot slipped on a bit of his head jelly, and I fell flat on my back, watching her sail clear over me. Scrambling to my feet, I steeled myself, unready to die. There were simply too many innkeeper's daughters and lusty Argonian maids left in Tamriel for me to snuff it. Besides, there was no way I was going to go out without at least trying to warm Aela's bed.

The vampire hissed at me, her strange armor glinting in the torchlight. Before I could so much as blink, she charged, and I barely got my arm up in time to save my head. Without thinking, I grabbed her wrist, and brought my mace down on her elbow, being rewarded with a wet crack. Screeching in pain, she backhanded me. And what a hit it was. Like a troll slapping a goat, I was sent tumbling to the ground, my vision filling with white spots. The only thing that saved me in that moment was instinct, because when she leapt on top of me, fangs bared, I lifted my mace just enough to jam the handle across her gaping maw. I pushed as hard as I could, glad that my arms were longer than hers, just enough to keep her from clawing my eyes out.

Realizing she couldn't reach my face, she changed tactics, instead attempting to wrest control of my mace away from me. I was lucky she only had one working arm, otherwise it would have been a very short struggle. Even still, it took all my strength just to hold her up. I managed to work my legs between our bodies, and kicked out as hard as I could, which sent her off balance and gave me enough time to scramble to my feet. For good measure, I gave her a backhand of my own as I yanked away my weapon, rewarding myself with the satisfying crunch of a shattered nose.

The vampire then decided she wanted to even the playing field, pulling out a wicked looking dagger. Her slashes were frighteningly fast, but the battle lust flowed strong through me, giving my arms the strength and fortitude to meet her blow for blow. It was not to last, however. She was a creature blessed by Daedra, and, though formidable I had become amongst the Companions, I was still only human. I began to slow, even as her vampire blood healed her wounds, it would only be a matter of time before she overpowered me and delivered something more devastating than the scratch on my cheek.

My fears came true disappointingly quickly. Whether through her skill, or my abysmal luck, her dagger found purchase in the gap between my chest and shoulder plates, burying it to the hilt in my left shoulder. I staggered backward, flailing my mace desperately, and catching her across the chin. My back hit one of the beams holding up the eaves of Belethor's shop, and I slumped against it, my breath coming in ragged gasps as I struggled to keep my weapon between myself and the now grinning vampire.

"He was my Mate, you know. The one you killed." She said to me, voice deceptively calm. Of course, I would be too when faced with someone who posed as little of a threat as I did in that moment. "Hundreds of years we were together, hunting, stalking, killing. Living." She caught my weak swing, wrenching the mace from my weakened grip. "And that all ended tonight. With you. Perhaps I should remake you, turn you." She caressed my cheek almost lovingly, until she pushed her fingers roughly into the wound on my cheek, causing blood to flow over her claws. "Make you my plaything for all eternity." She licked her fingers, getting her first taste of my lifeblood. "Hmm, yes, you are certainly more handsome than he was, and tastier, too. I will enjoy breaking you, Toy." she then gripped the back of my head, pulling it to one side, exposing the soft meats of my neck and throat. Seriously, where were the guards when you actually needed them?

Before she could strike, however, I was saved by the telltale whistle of wood and air, a blue-fletched arrow striking her right through the temples, causing her to crumple against me, nothing more than dead weight. Unfortunately, that extra weight proved too much for my exhausted body to handle, and I went crashing to the flagstone. Despite the pained groan that escaped my lips -definitely not a whimper- I smiled. Only one person used blue-fletched arrows. "Don't tell me you were getting jealous, Aela."

She scowled at me, the edges of her mouth tugging her war paint into a fearsome appearance, but even in the dim firelight of the Market, I could see humor dancing within those storm grey orbs as she stalked down the stairs from the Cloud District, Farkas at her back. "Oh please. I simply couldn't allow you to have all the Glory. You took down a dragon, for Ysgramor's sake. The least you could do is allow me this." She finished with a motion to the dead woman that I'd finally managed to roll off of myself. Gingerly, I stood, leaning heavily on the same beam I'd been trapped against.

Aela stopped, still a few feet from me, and I could see her nostrils flairing, and those Hunter's eyes zeroed in on the handle of the dagger, still buried in my shoulder. There was a hunger in there, one all too similar to the one the vampire held. "Aela?"

With liquid grace, she was in front of me, one hand on the dagger, and the other shoving a healing potion into my right hand. "Shut up. Hold still. Drink that." Her words were short, clipped and I couldn't tell who she was more angry with; me for getting injured, the vampire for injuring me, or herself for having trouble controlling her Beast Blood. The none-too-gentle way she tore the jagged, curved dagger from my shoulder gave me a pretty good idea, though. I pulled the stopper of the potion out with my teeth and downed the concoction. The Blue Mountain Flower almost made the taste of the Blisterwort bearable. Almost. It was not a particularly powerful potion, but it would at least take care of the most grievous injuries immediately. I would need to take another in the morning to minimize the scarring, however.

I idly noted that she had stowed away the dagger without cleaning it, hoping that would not bode ill for me in the future. I gave her my best smile as I picked my mace back up and sheathed it. "Thank you, Aela. Truly."

She smirked at me, apparently unimpressed. And let me tell you, that was a blow to the ego. My smile has been known to drop dresses from all across Tamriel. Then again, Aela the Huntress doesn't wear dresses. "Next time, do not move so much, it was difficult to get a clear shot. Though, I should be glad it is night, for the glare of the sun off your bald head would have made assisting you impossible." Her jab at my lack of hair earned a bark of laughter from Farkas.

I chuckled, myself as I started up the steps to the Cloud District. "Tis the beauty of a strategy great, that I may blind mine foes with gleaming pate."

"If only you were as quick with your weapon as you were with your words, Bard, you may have gotten out of that without such a wound." Farkas growled. Then again, he was always growling, it made even the most cheerful drinking songs sound rather ominous. "Come, we are going to sing in your honor, Homvar Dragonslayer.

Definitely not the worst name I'd been called. Even still, I waved over my shoulder. "Go ahead, start the party. I still have to report to the Jarl regarding the watchtower." I also had to report this vampire attack, and probably mention that I still had yet to see a single guard. Proventus may want to have someone look into that.

My meeting with the Jarl ended as I had expected it to, with both Balgruuf and Hrongar insisting that I was supposedly Dragonborn, and that the Greybeards up in High Hrothgar had been summoning me of all people. I managed to not scoff in their faces, lest Hrongar also call me 'Puffed up' and 'ignorant'. That man had muscles on muscles.

By the time I had returned to Jorrvaskr, the mead was already flowing freely. Songs of honor echoed through the hall until nearly dawn. Honor to me for slaying a dragon, honor to the fallen Companions, especially Skjor, who had been lost a fortnight previously during a raid on a Silver Hand hideout called Gallows Rock. I personally presented the head of Krev the Skinner to Aela as a trophy that night. She had taken Skjor's death particularly hard among the Circle, and I wondered if maybe the rumors of liaisons between them were true. She had always shot down such rumors, but one never knows.

When the last of them had fallen into a drunken stupor, I finally made my way to my bunk, simply too tired to go all the way back to my home. Where I earned myself a few precious hours of sleep. I rose around mid morning, took a second healing potion, and made my way out to the training yard, carefully stepping over the still comatose Companions that littered the floor of the main hall. Surprisingly, I was not alone. Aela stood, her back to me, bow drawn taut, the muscles of her back rippling like the waters of a placid lake, the late morning sun igniting her auburn locks in a fire that I had no desire to quench. When she loosed her arrow, the twang of the string was equal to the music of the most finely tuned lute, the missile itself buried dead center in her target, joining nearly a dozen others. She truly was an amazing creature, and I found myself unable to blame Farkas for carrying a torch as bright as Miridia's Beacon for her.

I watched her for a few minutes more, admiring the fluidity of her movements as she loosed arrow after arrow into the target as I stretched, being careful not to tear the freshly mended flesh of my shoulder. I began to practice my swings. I needed to be stronger, faster, in case I ever ended up in a fight like that again. For hours we trained like that, our silence extended, yet amiable.

It was nearly noon when I felt her eyes upon my back. Having removed my tunic during the first hour, she was doubtless able to see my own muscles coiling and rolling with each strike against the straw dummy. Sheathing my mace, I took a few deep breaths, waiting for her to speak.

"You did not drink at this celebration, either, Shield-Brother. Torvar was quite put out that you would not join his competition."

I scoffed. "And end up in a pointless fistfight with Athis or Njada? No thank you. I know I've never said it, but I simply lost my taste for drink while in Cyrodiil."

I turned then, to see her seated casually on a bench, elbows propped up and the table behind her. Her eyes immediately zeroed in on the fresh pink skin of my newest scar. "It is healing well. It will be a good scar, with a good story." When she stood, I noticed the dagger in her hand, the same one that had been imbedded in my shoulder the night before. At least it was clean, this tie. "Tell me, what will you do, now?" She was getting quite close, closer than she had ever been, save for when she removed the offending blade, and normally, I would have liked nothing more than for her to be this close. But the hunger I had felt from her the night before was still there, she was on the hunt, and it seemed that I was now her prey.

I wasn't willing to show her any fear, so I returned her gaze. "As far as what?"

"Do not play coy, Bard. I am a Nord before I was ever a Companion, I know what it means to be summoned by the Grey Beards. Will you make the Pilgrimage?"

Well, shit. "I don't even know if it was me that they were summoning. It could have been any one of those guardsmen."

"Did any of those guardsmen absorb the soul of a dragon? Or use a Thu'um without any previous training?" She shook her head in exasperation. "You are not a fool, Homvar, do not play at one."

Damn it all to Oblivion. "You are giving me entirely too much credit, Aela."

"And you are not giving yourself enough. You have taken down giants singlehanded, faced off against leaders of the Silver Hand, emerging victorious where even the strongest of the Circle could not. You faced a dragon without fear, and snuck up on a vampire. All of these things you've done without so much as a drop of Beast Blood flowing through you." She traced the outline of my scar with the tip of the dagger, and I became acutely aware of the maelstrom of emotions and thoughts flitting across her face like a swarm of dartwings. "You bear a strength of will and moral fortitude with no rival, and exceptional physical prowess. Still you doubt yourself as Dragonborn? You are meant for great things."

"I'm not supposed to be meant for great things, I'm supposed to write about great things, sing their songs until I drown in coin." My voice came out as an angry whisper, unable to bring myself to yell when someone such as Aela stood before me. "I know all the stories, all the legends. I know what happens at the end of them all. The hero doesn't get to sow his seed, become rich, start a family. The hero never gets the Happily Ever After that everyone else gets to enjoy. He dies, cold and alone in some Divines forsaken corner of the world. Forgotten by everyone but people like me who only get to tell the story to drunks and fools as they drown themselves in cheap ale."

Instead of holding my gaze, she turned, taking quick steps back to the table she had been resting at, jamming the dagger deep into its top, and began to remove what little armor she wore, leaving her in just those barely there furs that had enticed me since the day we met. "I never took you for such a milk drinker, Bard."

"I'm sorry, what?" That was definitely not the response I had expected. Anyone who's gotten in her face before had found themselves on the ground before they could blink.

"You heard me, Whelp." She replied, rolling her shoulders, and bringing her fists up. "You are acting like nothing more than a milk drinking whelp." She whipped a fist toward my face, a blur of perfectly tanned punishment that I barely managed to deflect with an open palm. "you have strength, skill, and charisma. And you want to do what? Hide in an inn surrounded by tavern wenches?"

I did my best not to show her that the words had effected me. "Hiding is quite the strong word." And I wasn't going to tell her that I was looking forward to more than just tavern wenches.

"Fight me, Milk-Drinker." She threw a haymaker at my head, forcing me to take a step back in order to not have my jaw broken. "Fight me with everything you've got, or I'll kill you before any dragons have the chance." She threw punch after punch at my face, forcing me backward. "Come on!" She growled, not content with my dodging.

She wanted a fight? I'd give her one. I'd fallen into a pattern of stepping back as I deflected, circling slightly to the left so that I didn't get backed into the wall. I struck unexpectedly, pushing forward instead, driving an elbow right into the soft spot beneath her ribcage. I followed that by driving my forearm up into her chin. She staggered back and wiped at the corner of her mouth, red streaking across her chin, and a grin on her face. Oh, I've done it now, I thought to myself.

Back and forth we went, blow after blow, until it turned into more of a dance than a fight, our bodies speaking where words failed. And suddenly, I understood her. I was an anomaly to her, something that simply made no sense. I was strong, and seemingly virtuous, but I sought neither more power, nor glory for myself. That was why she watched me in such a manner over those long months, trying to understand my motives. And now, finally understanding that personal glory is not something I desire, is pushing me toward it all, so that I may better myself. But what I did not understand was the why. Why did she care to see me become better than I ever wanted to be?

I've no idea how long we were there, trading punches, smiling through the blood on our lips, but I was tiring, and my shoulder ached. The fight needed to end, and honor, damned as it is, demanded that I win. She rushed in again, fists swinging. I blocked each strike as it came in, my arms numb under their force. I would need to act fast. She threw another arcing haymaker at me, absolutely perfect in form, and something I'll one day write songs about, but at the time, it was exactly what I'd needed. I pushed forward into her guard, grabbing her right wrist with my left hand, and my right gripping that same elbow. I then pivoted, throwing my right hip against hers, and thrusting my shoulder up as I pulled on her arm. The result was her body sailing up over mine before landing flat on her back on the hard packed dirt, wind rushing out of her lungs. My execution, unfortunately, was far from flawless, and I ended up tumbling down on top of her. She was quick to react, and we rolled about the training grounds, each attempting to gain the upper hand in what had quickly devolved into a grappling match.

Finally, I managed to get a hold of her wrists with one hand as I twisted my body, knees landing on either side of her hips, and my other hand wrapping tightly around her throat. "Yield." I rasped, barely able to keep any breath in my body. She merely gazed up at me, hunger once again burning behind her eyes, still full of challenge. I leaned closer, pressing more weight down on her. "Yield, Aela." I spoke more forcefully, though her hot breath upon my cheek made the task all the more difficult. Again, she remained silent, but her hips rolled in a motion that I was quite familiar with. Never one to refuse an opportunity to get closer to a beautiful woman, especially one as fierce as the Huntress beneath me, I closed the distance between us. Not for a kiss. No, that would be too simple, too mundane. No, I brought my teeth to graze along her jawline before sinking lightly into the soft space below the curve of her jaw. She stilled immediately, and for a moment, I feared I had completely misread her signals, fears that were allayed the moment her eyes closed and she stretched her neck, displaying more of that delicious flesh. Eagerly, I went in for more.

And suddenly, our roles reversed. I found myself on my back, Aela's strong, supple body pressed against my chest. She made no effort to restrain me, or to remove herself from the position we were in. instead, her lips trailed an inferno along my neck and up my throat. Her teeth tugged at my beard before she closed in for a searing kiss. No hesitation, simply passion and heat. Truly something befitting her nature.

All too soon, she drew back, a satisfied smirk upon her lips, her delightfully firm backside pressing against the evidence of just how much I enjoyed the end of our battle. "That was for all you've done, the honor you've brought to the Companions, avenging the death of someone I saw as a father, and for being the only one capable of besting me in battle."

I laughed. All that just to earn her attentions. "We both know that I would have lost had you Changed."

"Yes, but then you would be dead, and I would never find out if your tongue is as skilled as the rest of your mouth." She laughed at my expression as she rose, affording me a view of parts of her body that no song will ever do justice, her furs just askance enough for their glory to shine through. "If you want an opportunity to prove yourself in that regard, you must go to High Hrothgar, and speak to the Greybeards."

I stared incredulously at her back as she fixed her furs and replaced her armor. "All of that, just to get me up that mountain?"

"That is most certainly not the reason I have chosen you, Bard." She slung her bow over her shoulder. "But it will get you up the Seven Thousand Steps regardless, will it not?"

By Mara was she right about that. "A trap worthy of Hircine himself." I muttered.

"And don't you forget it." Her gaze snapped toward the doors to the hall. "Now get up, the others are beginning to stir."

And so I did, dusting myself off and rearranging my trousers. "Why don't you come with me? The road is always easier with someone by your side."

Aela just shook her head at me. "I must stay here to keep the New Bloods in line. With Skjor gone, that task falls to me more than ever. Are you not Thane in a few Holds? Why not take one of your Housecarls? Lydia, or perhaps the Redguard from Falkreath. Rayya, was it?"

"Are you sure?"

The smile she gave me was something completely different from any other I'd seen on her face. It was warm, and filled me with a contentment that I didn't even know I'd been lacking in my life. "They are both capable warriors, loyal, and quite fetching. I am not a jealous woman, Bard, and you have just lamented that the hero never gets to have a family. To do that, you must survive." she stopped, her hand on the door. "And more women means more pups. A new generation of Companions for us to bring into the world." And just like that, she was gone, as were my final hopes of a quiet life.

I must say, friend, telling you this story is certainly thirsty work, and my cup has run dry. Would you be so kind as to get us another round? Oh, and don't mind old Sam over there, he's heard the story a few times.