Turdas, 6th of Frost Fall, 4E202
The Bannered Mare was aglow in the dusk-darkened streets, windows as yellow and inviting as a healing spell. As Deirdre stepped inside, the warmth of the bright, noisy room diffused across her cold cheeks. A few people nearest the door glanced her way, but she went otherwise unnoticed.
The air was close, smelling of woodsmoke, bodies, and savory cooking. While the upper floor of the inn housed the rooms for rent, the first floor consisted of a tavern. Patrons sat conversing and drinking at tables scattered throughout, with a few stationed at the bar to the right. Everyone, save one armored man sitting in the farthest, darkest corner, seemed to be there with company.
Deirdre's eyes went immediately to the distinctive head of red hair in the center of the room. Leif stood next to the fire pit, playing a lute to accompany his voice.
He'd adjusted his volume to be audible without drowning out the room's chatter, performing more for ambience than entertainment. Even so, Deirdre was surprised by the richness of his voice—it was fuller and deeper than she had expected, at odds with his boyish face. Gerdur had once made a similar comment about Deirdre's voice, and her appearance.
As she continued to listen, a bitter satisfaction pricked her heart. He's better than Sven, she thought.
But tugging on that thread—connected irrevocably to Riverwood, to Gerdur and Hod, to Captain Kensley—threatened to unravel the fortitude she had built up over the last month, so she hastily tossed it away.
Then Leif looked toward her. His face lit up. He smiled around his song and, like a flower finding sunlight, angled his whole body in her direction. The prick to her heart throbbed.
Leif tilted his head as he continued to sing, beckoning her. She maneuvered through the obstacle course of tables and chairs to arrive at the fire pit, and Leif gestured with a foot to an empty chair at the table nearest him. Deirdre, seating herself, exchanged polite nods with the middle-aged women on the other side of the table. She undid the clasp of her cloak and slipped it from her shoulders, too warm to wear it by the fire.
Leif kept glancing at her every few notes, one side of his mouth tugging up when he did so, and she returned the expression without thinking. When his song concluded, only the women on the other side of the table offered subdued applause. Deirdre joined them. Her heart gave a start when Leif met her gaze and held it.
"Thank you," he grinned. The firelight shone off his eyelashes. It brought out the red in them.
Her heart gave an even worse throb and she realized, This is dangerous.
Aloud, she said, "That was beautiful."
His shoulders hunched a bit even as he stood taller, bashful but pleased. "Thank you," he said again, still meeting her eyes. "It's not that impressive, though. I'm just here for background noise."
What if he isn't really as lovely as he seems? What if he is?
"You're better than just background noise."
He laughed a little. "Hulda—that's the innkeeper, over there—" he pointed out a Nord woman moving purposefully behind the bar—"is just letting me play as a favor. Her regular bard is going to be here in less than an hour."
He posed his fingers deliberately over his lute strings. "So, if it's fine by you, just one more song? And then, we can talk?"
It wasn't just his eyelashes that caught the light. His irises were practically amber. Was she kidding herself, thinking there was something special in the way he looked at her? Surely not.
Dangerous.
She could only nod, and Leif began to pluck a familiar tune. She laughed when she realized he was playing "Little Deirdre."
It wasn't until he'd started the fourth verse that Deirdre remembered there even was a fourth verse. Gerdur and Frodnar had never sung past the first three. She listened intently as the timbre of Leif's voice changed, and the women on the other side of the table gradually slowed their conversation to listen as well. By the fifth verse, Leif's expression had turned somber.
"Monster, I am bold but frail," he sang, so plaintively he could have been channeling Little Deirdre herself. "And so I climbed the mountain trail, to feel the wind and see the sky, that I might live before I die …"
This children's song should not have tugged at Deirdre with the same force that thoughts of Sven had. But whether it was Leif's skill in emoting or her own instability, Deirdre's heart grew more raw by the second.
By the time Leif finished, she realized she had been staring at him without blinking. The two of them ignored the applauding women as he turned to her. Leif was not smiling. He looked suddenly concerned.
Taking hold of the strap of the lute, he swung the instrument around so it came to rest against his back. He held out a hand. When Deirdre hesitated, he extended the hand a smidgeon further, inviting. She accepted it, grabbing her cloak with her free hand. She stood and followed him.
There's something about her, Leif thought, not for the first time, as he faced the girl sitting across the small table.
She'd grown tense as he'd led her up the stairs to the inn's second floor; he'd felt it through the grasp of her fingers. The hand holding her cloak had lowered to hover near the dagger on her belt. She'd relaxed when he'd turned away from the rooms for rent and made for the balcony that overlooked the tavern.
They were speaking casually now, neither quite ready to broach the topic of what had happened to her since their last meeting.
She wasn't as she'd been on Tournament Day. The difference lay clearly in her eyes, regardless of the expression on her face; there was a new gleam in them that could have been either woefulness or flint.
But still, he thought, watching the fluid motions of her small hands as she spoke about Jorrvaskr. There's something about her.
Though her dress was plain and rough, her hands were those of a kitchen maid, and her education was obviously limited, Leif was not blind to her uncanny grace—the kind he'd previously thought had to be taught. She sat flawlessly straight in her chair, shoulders rolled back and relaxed, chin neither tucked down like that of a submissive rube, nor lifted high in uncouth haughtiness. He'd even seen her elegantly cross her ankles, the way his mother did, after she'd sat in the chair he'd pulled out for her. When not speaking with her hands, she defaulted to folding them neatly before her.
Strange girl. Strange mannerisms.
But when she chuckled and rolled her eyes, recounting something the Companion Aela had said, he couldn't look away.
"They sound like a fun group," he replied. "They seem really tough on the outside."
"Oh they are," she assured. "But there's more to them than that. Vilkas, for example, is so hard to read. But if I watch him really closely, I can tell when he likes something. I think."
"Do you feel closer to them, now that you've been living there?" Leif asked, working up to the real question.
She considered, gaze drifting to a lantern hung over the tavern. The spot of light shone against the deep blue of her eyes. "Tilma and Farkas are the easiest to be around. It's funny, because Farkas should be the scariest, but that's Skjor. And Aela, I can talk to about almost anything. She's really … frank." She shook her head. "But I still feel like I don't deserve to be there. Sometimes."
Leif watched her watch the lantern. Her profile was especially pretty. Delicate. He would have taken out his sketchbook and pencil any other night, to try and capture it.
"Deirdre," he ventured. "Do you want to tell me what happened?"
He saw a subtle hardening of her features. She closed her eyes for a breath, then opened them.
"Before I do, just promise me one thing?"
He nodded, resting his arms on the table and leaning his weight on them.
"Please don't pity me. For any part of it."
Leif blinked. "I won't. But it must be bad if you're saying that."
The smile she gave him was more world-weary than he might expect from a face so young and sweet. "I suppose it could have gone even worse than it did," she said softly. "But, the day of the archery tournament, when my family and I arrived home …"
As she spoke, a pit opened up in Leif's stomach. If he wasn't mistaken, he'd heard about this—heard the rumors, seen the notices put up by the Jarl about Kensley's deportation. And while Leif knew none of it had anything to do with him, or his family, he also couldn't help a gnawing guilt. He found himself clenching his hands under the cover of his arms.
He interrupted her just once. "Otis Kensley?" he confirmed, through stiff lips.
She paused. "I didn't know he was famous until after this all happened. But yes. That Kensley."
The pit in Leif's stomach turned in on itself. He nodded for her to continue, eyes dropping to the table. She was, in fact, the village girl featured in the rumors.
She soon finished her story, surely having left out many details. But he could guess at them. He could look past her measured monotone to infer how distraught she'd been.
This isn't what Imperial officers are here for, he fumed. Kensley is giving the entire Empire a bad name. How are we supposed to reconcile and end the war if we keep giving our fellow Nords reasons to resent us? Why did he get the Thalmor involved?
He couldn't say any of this aloud. She would hate him.
"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely.
To his surprise, she reached out, touching his arm with her fingertips.
"It's not your fault," she murmured.
Their eyes met. By Dibella, if she wasn't the single prettiest girl he'd ever met. That shiny golden hair and snowy-smooth skin; those heavy eyelashes and rosebud lips—and all of it so charmingly illuminated by the low light. What had he done to deserve the sincerity with which she now looked at him? She looked so lonely and lovely, it gutted him.
He took her hand in both of his and focused on it. If only you knew, he thought, feeling like a con man. How quickly you'd pull this hand away. You'd never speak to me again.
"I wish there were something I could do," he said honestly. He racked his brain; did he have any family members with the right kind of pull? No. According to her, not even the Jarl had the power to fix what had happened.
This is just like what happened to the Gray-Manes, he thought miserably. The only difference was that the Gray-Manes had never been able to confirm what had happened to their brother. Leif didn't know which was worse: knowing full well you'd never see your loved one again, or living in the dark, wondering.
He had to confess who he was. His father had sworn him to secrecy on the fate of Thorald Gray-Mane, but this girl he had to be honest with. If she hated him, then she hated him.
But when he looked up at her angelic face again, he couldn't make the words come. He wanted to keep holding her hand. Wouldn't it hurt her to explain himself, after she'd trusted him in this moment?
I'll tell her once she's gotten to know me, he decided. Then, he could explain it without driving her away. And she would forgive him, and understand why he didn't make a point of telling her sooner. It wasn't really that important, was it?
Oblivious to his inner turmoil, her hand gave his a timid squeeze. "This is nice enough."
They talked for a long time. The people in the tavern below trickled out into the night at a steady rate, until there were only a handful of them left and the regular bard had stopped playing. Deirdre finally, reluctantly, said she'd better get back home. When they walked past the candle clock in the tavern, the innkeeper was replacing it—it was midnight.
The air was even colder outside than when she had arrived, and she held her cloak tightly closed with both hands inside. Leif, seeing this, took off his fleece-lined gloves and insisted she wear them until they made it back to Jorrvaskr.
He walked her there, just as he had earlier. Unlike earlier, Deirdre invited him inside. She told herself she just wanted to make sure he was warm enough to put his gloves on before sending him away.
Tilma had obviously left the fire pit prepared to burn the whole night and keep the hall heated. By its light, Deirdre saw Leif's cold-stricken nose was as rosy as his often-red cheeks. The hall was quiet. They were alone.
I must be a fool, she thought, handing him his gloves.
Why? He's not Sven, she argued.
Neither was Captain Kensley.
"Do you have far to walk?" she asked him.
He was tugging the gloves on. "I'll be fine. I've stayed out this late plenty of times. The cold is bracing."
He fiddled with the gloves longer than was necessary, until finally he could not pretend they still needed adjusting. But for the crackle of the fire, all was silent.
"Deirdre." He looked her directly in the eye. "I would like your permission to call on you again."
He stood ramrod straight, face stern in boldness, but she guessed the posture was a facade. When his eyes darted nervously down to her mouth, then just as quickly back up to her eyes, that confirmed it.
She gripped her cloak with her hands. He's not Sven. He's not Captain Kensley.
The question burst out of her. "Are you a good one?"
He stopped short. His head tilted forward as he tried not to look confused. "A good …? What?"
Deirdre resisted the instinct to break eye contact. "A man," she admitted. "There—Men can be—" She swallowed. Fisted her fingers more tightly in her cloak. Refused to look away. She had to see if he faltered.
"Are you a good man?"
He considered her. Carefully, he stepped closer. He lifted a gloved hand to almost, almost but not quite, touch beneath her chin. She tilted her head up anyway, mouth gone dry.
"Yes," he said simply. His eyes crinkled with mirth. "Remember? I promised the Companions I wouldn't be a shithead."
Deirdre blinked. She turned her head away so she could laugh, startled by the word, dropped so casually into the moment.
Oh, this felt good. To laugh. When she had regained some control of herself, she looked up to find Leif smiling his soft smile. She grabbed the front of his cloak, tugging him down to her level, and placed a brief kiss on his freckled cheek. She stepped back and released him.
"You may call on me again," she said, gauging his reaction.
His expression was stunned. His eyes found hers in disbelief. They fell, a second time, to her mouth, before he straightened with a furious blush and a stammer.
"Th-then I will. Call on you."
Deirdre held back another laugh so he wouldn't feel teased. She took his hand, guiding him toward the door as a slow warmth fell over her like a balm. "Please do."