Author's Note:
Tropes? Did anyone ask for tropes? 'Cause we got tropes...
Fredas, 21st of Frost Fall, 4E 202
Vilkas woke later than he normally did. He could tell, because Farkas's bed was empty, and the usually heady scent of breakfast had faded to almost nothing.
Sitting up, he deduced that he must have slept poorly, despite sleeping late. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. His throat was dry, too, like he hadn't had a drink in a week. He coughed before getting up and heading to the washroom.
Walking up the stairs after getting dressed, he noticed his limbs were sluggish. That contract from the day before must have been more taxing than he'd realized. Damn trolls.
He sat at the dining table and mechanically began dishing up some lukewarm porridge. Across the table, Deirdre and Athis were sitting on the bench facing each other, the former holding her hand palm-up between them.
"Can you feel the magicka gathering?" Athis asked, tapping a finger to the center of her palm.
She nodded, eyes fixed unwaveringly on her hand.
Vilkas popped the spoon from his mouth. "What are you doing?"
They jumped in unison, looking over as if surprised to see him. Athis slapped a hand on the table.
"You broke her focus!"
Vilkas, taken aback, tried to growl, but it tickled his throat in a bad way. He turned his head and coughed into his hand.
"Athis is showing me fire magic," Deirdre explained. "For self-defense."
Vilkas shoveled a large gulp of porridge into his mouth, trying to swallow away the continuing itch in the back of his throat. Hoarsely, he said, "For self-defense?"
Athis crossed his arms. "I suppose you think she should be doing frost spells?"
"Well yes," Vilkas retorted. "As that would actually make sense. Fire is too hard to control. Setting people on fire just makes them flail. With frost, you can freeze them in place. If she just wants to blast someone and run away, frost is better."
Rather than contradict him, Athis pointedly turned to Deirdre. She hunched her shoulders.
"My frost is terrible," she mumbled. "It just turns my fingers blue."
Athis hummed in agreement. A surge of inexplicable annoyance made Vilkas's blood boil. He felt the urge to cough again, and again tried to suppress it with porridge. What in Oblivion was wrong with his throat? Had he breathed in too much dust on his trip home? It had been windy on the road.
"And how long did you even try at frost spells?" he snapped. "Did you give up when you didn't start shooting ice spikes right away?"
They both glared at him, Athis bristling in particular. "What kind of Dunmer do you think I am? We spent days on frost. Just because you haven't been around to see it, doesn't mean I haven't done my due diligence!"
Vilkas snorted and focused on his food. He was, abruptly, too tired to argue.
"B'vek, did you step on a nail or something?" Athis griped. "It's not like she can even do much. I'd be happy if she could light a candle, at this point."
Vilkas said nothing, now just wanting to get breakfast over with. He needed to sort through any mail and give his armor a thorough cleaning after what he'd put it through yesterday. Damn trolls. Damn troll guts. Damn everything.
Deirdre and Athis went back to their magic lesson. Vilkas listened to them in wearied irritation as he worked on his porridge, contemplating whether he wanted to bother with anything else on the table.
"Close your eyes if it helps," Athis was saying. "Think of things you associate with fire. A torch, a hearth."
She dutifully closed her eyes. "I'm thinking of the fire pit."
"Sure, vyruma. Whatever you can picture. Just make it fire."
After a minute of silence, Deirdre's face scrunched.
"Nothing's happening," she said.
"Try a different visual. Something crystal clear; you've got to feel it. You have to channel it from your mind first. Direction from the mind is the only way we can control magicka."
She nodded. She shook out her shoulders and took a slow, steadying breath. Several seconds later, a tendril of smoke began to rise from her palm.
Athis leaned forward, starting to smile—when a jet of fire shot up from Deirdre's hand.
Athis shrieked; Deirdre jerked back; Vilkas froze. Athis leapt to his feet, furiously beating at his face with his hands, trying to put out his eyebrows.
"Are you all right? Are you all right?" Deirdre cried, standing and half-reaching, half-flinching. Her fire had immediately gone out. "I didn't mean to!"
Athis stopped smacking his face, instead pressing his hands flat against it as a yellow glow outlined his fingers. After a moment the light faded, and he drew his hands away. The brief tinge of red on his dark skin was gone. As were his eyebrows.
He blinked rapidly at Deirdre. She clasped her hands together as if afraid they'd shoot fire again, eyes going big and watery.
"I'm so sorry!"
Athis, blinking some more, shook his head. "Ah, no—That. Caught me off guard. Shit."
He ran his fingers over his face, as if to check for wounds he hadn't healed. Dumbfounded, he turned to Vilkas.
Vilkas, seeing there was no damage, shrugged. "Told you."
"But—how?" Athis marvelled. He pointed a finger at Deirdre. "What did you think of after the fire pit?"
The girl's eyes darted between the two of them. She wrung her hands. "I'm sorry, I—I should start clearing the table."
She promptly stepped over to said table and snatched the nearly-empty porridge pot, then spun to flee to the kitchen with it.
"What was that?" Athis asked.
He turned to Vilkas to say more, but Vilkas cut him off with a bout of coughing. Athis took a quick step back.
"What the—And what's wrong with you?"
Vilkas shook his head, unable to speak. The stuffed-cotton pressure in his head grew worse with each cough. He grabbed the nearby water pitcher and drank directly from it, until he was sure the worst of the itch in his throat had been subdued. Even then, taking a breath almost brought on another fit.
"Ugh. I don't know. Throat's dry."
"You sick?"
Vilkas almost laughed. No, he wasn't sick. He hadn't been sick in over ten years. Not since he and Farkas had joined the Circle and become immune to human disease; it was one of the perks of his condition. Among the various downsides.
"I'll be fine in an hour or two," he said.
Vilkas felt worse. Much worse.
Reading the mail had given him a headache. Scrubbing his armor clean on the back porch, in the cold, had brought a deep, dull ache to all his muscles, and exacerbated his cough. His throat was on fire. His vision was swimming.
He told himself he had just slept poorly, and had somehow strained himself fighting the trolls. Those were the only explanations.
After trudging to his room and stowing his armor in its chest (he'd moved it from the back porch to the foot of his bed once the frost had set in), he remained there on the floor beside it, too tired to move. But Tilma had wanted him to go and fetch some barrel from some merchant. Or something. Or maybe it was sacks of … flour? No. Soap? Did soap come in sacks?
He glanced up at his bed. It looked more inviting than usual. Either Tilma or Deirdre had gone through and made it up, along with Farkas's, smoothing out the thick winter blankets and fluffing the newly-stuffed pillows. What if he just took a cat nap?
A wolf nap, he thought, and was immediately disgusted with himself. The cotton in his skull was applying too much pressure on his brain, and he massaged his temples.
A knock came at his doorway. Standing beside the open door was Deirdre, with a stack of letters in her hand.
"Another courier just came by," she said.
Vilkas tried to sigh, but it came out a cough. He got unsteadily to his feet and approached her with a hand extended.
She peered up at him as she gave him the letters, lips pulling into a concerned moue.
"Are you sick?" she asked.
He rifled through the letters. "No."
He slipped past her, turning his head to cough as he did so. She trotted to keep up with his stride, scanning him from top to bottom.
"I think you are," she said.
He waved her off. "I don't get sick."
"Stop for just a second."
He did so, shooting her an exasperated look. To his surprise, this didn't phase her. She placed one hand on her hip and beckoned with the other. "Bend down here so I can feel your forehead."
He glowered. She frowned back, sternly, like a mother scolding her child. And in his current state, he couldn't make heads or tails of it. His withering glare should have made her back off by now.
"Well?" she prodded, beckoning more urgently.
"I just told you, I don't get sick."
"Everybody gets sick."
"Not members of the Circle."
This gave her pause. She recovered quickly, brows puckering. "Well, prove me wrong then, and let me feel your temperature."
He increased the fierceness of his "leave me alone" look, but Deirdre was not cowed. She even had the nerve to exaggeratedly lift one eyebrow, as if to reply, "I'm waiting."
Vilkas made a show of rolling his eyes, bending just enough that she had to tiptoe to press the back of her hand to his forehead. After a moment she drew her hand away, expression worried.
"You've got a fever," she declared.
He grunted dismissively and resumed walking away. "Maybe it's food poisoning."
She gasped. "It is not!"
"Well, I'm not sick, so what else would it be?"
Voicing her irritation with a great huff, Deirdre caught up to him as he opened the door to the stairway.
"Stop being a brat! If it were food poisoning, everybody else would be sick too!"
He stopped short with his foot on the first step. He turned to stare at the younger, shorter, much less mature girl glaring daggers up at him.
"Did—you just call me a brat?"
Deirdre jerked her chin, now placing both hands on her hips. "Yes. Because you're being one."
His eyebrow twitched. At a loss for words, he trudged upstairs and decided he would just ignore her.
Deirdre placed a bowl of broth on the table, and watched as Vilkas immediately made a face. He looked down the long, long length of the table, to where all the other Companions had gathered as far away from him as possible. They were dishing up big servings of venison pie.
Vilkas coughed and scowled at the broth again. Deirdre exhaled in frustration.
Despite the fog in his eyes, the flush of his skin, the painful sound of his coughs and increasing hoarseness of his voice, Vilkas refused to heed Deirdre's advice and go rest in his room. And the more she tried to convince him, the more he dug in his heels. He'd even declined to have someone else go on Tilma's errand to the market. By the time he'd lugged the heavy barrel into the kitchen, he was visibly shuddering and covered in sweat, much to Deirdre and Tilma's alarm.
Now he sat at the table by himself, because no one else would come within ten feet of him, making faces at the broth she'd thrown together from the pie fillings.
Perhaps if he were a child, Deirdre could understand his attitude. He had to watch everyone else eating pie to their hearts' content, after all. But Vilkas was not a child.
"You. Are. Sick," she said. "You need something easy on your throat and easy to digest."
"I. Don't. Get. Sick," he croaked. "This is ridiculous."
Deirdre almost threw her hands up and said, to Oblivion with it. But Vilkas's ire was a sad version of its usual self, and he couldn't even maintain his glare because he had to cough again. She winced at the way the air scraped through him.
"You're shivering," she pointed out.
"No," he said. He pushed his bowl away and lowered his head to the table.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm tired."
Deirdre covered her face with her hands and tilted her head back, groaning.
"What's going on here, then?" came the voice of Kodlak.
Deirdre lowered her hands to see Kodlak had come up from the basement. The confusion was plain on his face, and he gestured between them in question.
"Kodlak!"
"Kodlak!"
Deirdre and Vilkas stopped short, eyes meeting in mutual annoyance.
"Please tell Vilkas he's sick," Deirdre said, without breaking eye contact.
Vilkas did the same. "Tell Deirdre that's literally impossible," he snapped.
Kodlak was quiet. Then he made a quiet, puzzled sound. "Well. It's supposed to be impossible …"
Vilkas's head swiveled toward him.
The old man scrutinized him intently. After a moment, he reached up to tug on his beard, as if in thought. "Obviously, I've never seen it before. But …"
"But?"
Vilkas rose to his feet. The fury he was going for was ruined when he had to catch himself on the table. "What are you—You said, ten years ago—!"
Kodlak nodded. "Yes, I did say. And for the rest of us, it's held true. It's supposed to hold true. But I can't deny what's in front of my face. You look sick to me."
Deirdre's curiosity was piqued, but she held her tongue. Since moving to Jorrvaskr, she'd developed a theory that joining the Circle meant more than a mere promotion. That there was some process involved they could not openly discuss, that made the Circle stronger. And, apparently, immune to illness.
Almost immune, she corrected.
"I told you," she said to Vilkas.
Kodlak continued toward the rest of the Companions, with one last, contemplative look at his fellow member of the Circle. Vilkas just stood there, staring blankly into space. Then he coughed some more, and the arm propped against the table sagged under his weight.
Deirdre felt a surge of sympathy. She sighed, placing a hand against his non-supporting arm. Even through his sleeve, he felt unnaturally warm to the touch.
"I know you don't want to be sick, but you're just making yourself sicker trying to go about as usual," she said, balancing her tone between sensible and coaxing. "I bet you'd feel so much better if you went to bed."
She gently patted his arm. His bleary eyes found her face. He lifted his hand from the table and swiped the back of it across the sheen of sweat on his forehead. He looked at his hand. His shoulders sagged.
"Fine," he muttered, shrugging her off and turning his face. "I don't even care."
Thrilled, Deirdre perked up and caught his sleeve again, to draw his attention back. "How about I go get something for your fever from the alchemist? I'll bring it down to you."
He scoffed. "With soup?"
"If you want it," she chirped, ignoring the sarcasm.
He shook his head weakly, stepping toward the stairs. "Fine."
Once Vilkas had disappeared, Deirdre threw both fists into the air. She whirled to face the other Companions.
"I wore him down!"
Torvar snickered, and Ria choked on her food when she tried to laugh. Njada just cast her eyes heavenward, sticking a forkful of pie in her mouth. Deirdre wished Aela weren't away on a contract with Skjor, so she could praise her.
"You did good," Farkas acknowledged. "He was trying to scare you off."
Deirdre puffed herself up, fists on hips. "I know. I'm starting to think he's all bark and no bite."
Farkas glanced at Kodlak, who chuckled.
"Perhaps with you, lass. He can't exactly beat you into submission in the sparring ring."
"Hmph," Deirdre tutted. She tossed her hand haughtily. "That's his disadvantage, then."
She practically skipped to the room she shared with Tilma, tucked back a little ways next to the kitchen, to fetch her cloak and the gloves Leif had gifted her. In the room, Tilma was sitting in her rocking chair, quietly knitting some winter stockings for herself. She'd had a lot more time to do things for herself, lately.
"Heading somewhere?" she asked, as Deirdre threw on her cloak.
"The alchemist, for Vilkas."
The old woman hummed in surprise. "And he agreed to this?"
"He did. After much convincing."
She cackled. "Good, good. Stubborn lad."
Deirdre agreed. Against all evidence telling him he'd been wrong, he'd refused to budge, for hours, even to his own detriment. It seemed even the unflappable Vilkas had his flaws. It was gratifying to discover.
Leaving Jorrvaskr, Deirdre started down the stone stairs to the street. She looked ahead and saw none other than Leif on his way up, illuminated by the last remnants of purple twilight and the crackling braziers on either side of the stairs. He spotted her at the same time and beamed.
"Deirdre! I was just coming to see if you'd finished supper," he greeted, pausing on the steps and extending a hand. She hurried down to take it.
"I'm going to the alchemist. Vilkas is sick and needs a remedy."
His voice dropped lower in concern. "I hope it's nothing serious? Can I come along?"
She squeezed his gloved hand with her own, tugging him down the last steps. "I don't think it's too serious, because he's been fighting with me all day. And yes, you can come along."
"Fighting with you?"
She huffed a laugh. "Yes, he's been acting like a child. He didn't want to admit he was sick."
At that, Leif visibly relaxed. "That's surprising. I guess you won the fight?"
She grinned. "Of course. I'm great with children."
They continued hand-in-hand, leaving the Cloud District by way of old cobbled streets and a variety of stone stairways, descending all the way to the Plains District in the lowest part of the city. It was in this district that they found the alchemist's shop, just around the corner from the market and the Bannered Mare. The bell above the door jangled as they entered.
Inside the shop, the air was pungent with a mixture of floral, spicy, and bitter scents—a downright assault on the senses, in Deirdre's opinion. She had no clue how the owner didn't suffer from daily headaches.
Said owner was a middle-aged Imperial woman named Arcadia. She greeted Deirdre and Leif from behind her counter.
"Good evening! What brings you in tonight?"
Deirdre approached her, Leif in tow. There was an alchemy table pushed against the wall opposite Arcadia's counter, and beside it stood a man and a woman, both wearing cloaks with their hoods lowered. The woman was waving around a pestle as they carried on a quiet argument.
Turning to Arcadia, Deirdre smiled politely. "I'm looking for a remedy for someone with a fever."
She described all of Vilkas's symptoms as Arcadia listened.
"Sounds like it could be the rattles," the woman said. She nodded decisively. "I have something for fever already made, but let me whip up a syrup for his cough, as well. It will soothe the throat and suppress the coughing so he can get some rest."
"That would be perfect, thank you."
Arcadia's eyes crinkled happily as she excused herself, heading for the back room.
"Sounds like we have a few minutes," Leif said.
Deirdre scanned the shop. The walls were lined with shelves holding bowls, jars, and pots of varying sizes. Bundles of flowers and herbs hung from the ceiling at regular intervals. A couple of glass display cases with locks held what must have been the rarer, costlier alchemical ingredients.
"Let's browse," she suggested, thinking back to her Flora and Fungi book from the Riverwood Trader. She wished she still had it—she was already starting to forget a lot of the names and characteristics of the species in its catalog.
They worked their way idly around the shop, reading labels and taking curious whiffs of things. Leif took a sniff of one jar and immediately shoved it away from his face, gagging. He set the jar down and gestured frantically for her not to copy him.
"I need to step outside," he choked. He waved in apology as he rushed out the door. Deirdre gave the jar a wide berth, approaching a vase of fresh mountain flowers instead.
Before she had even leaned in to smell them, she became aware of a presence over her shoulder. She jerked back and saw the man who'd been by the alchemy table. Somehow, silently, he'd come within half a foot of her before she'd noticed.
"Interesting perfume you have there, lass," he said in a dry, rasping voice.
The back of Deirdre's neck prickled. The man was chalky pale, with straight, strikingly black hair falling past his shoulders. His eyes, though dark, had a gleam to them that Deirdre couldn't interpret.
She glanced past the man to see his companion watching them. The woman had the same disquieting gleam in her eyes, and was also quite pale, but with yellow hair pulled up in a bun.
Ignoring how Deirdre had jumped, the man came a step closer, leaning in and audibly inhaling. His eyelids actually fluttered. "Very interesting," he repeated, and it occurred to Deirdre that the light in his eyes resembled hunger.
Simultaneously, the bell above the door jangled again, and Arcadia's voice announced, "Here we go, one fever remedy and one cough syrup!"
Deirdre darted around the man toward the counter. Arcadia was holding two different bottles, one in each hand. Leif was shaking snowflakes from his hair.
"It started snowing!" he exclaimed in delight, also approaching the counter.
Deirdre's heart was racing. She pulled out her coin purse to pay Arcadia as the woman tied tiny labels around the bottles. She imagined she could still feel the man and woman watching her—or had they gone back to minding their own business now that she wasn't alone?
Leif must have noticed something was wrong. His excitement faded as he got a look at her face. After Arcadia had wrapped up the two bottles into a single bundle, he took the bundle into one hand and grabbed Deirdre's hand with the other.
As they left the shop, he leaned down to ask, "Are you all right?"
Deirdre wasn't sure. The interaction had been brief, and the man hadn't even touched her. He could have just been mistaken by the scents in the shop. She was not wearing any perfume. As if she could afford to waste money on that kind of vanity.
She shook her head dismissively, forcing a smile.
"It's nothing."
It was not fair, Vilkas decided. It was not fair that he was sick. Not poisoned, not injured. Sick. Like any average human.
It was not fair that of all the werewolves he'd encountered, in all his twenty-three years of knowing about them, he was the only one who'd ever gotten sick.
He thought back to his ten-years-younger self, hotheaded and shortsighted and sure, so sure, that the beastblood was something he wanted. He'd thought he was man enough to make that kind of decision; he'd thought the pros far outweighed the cons.
But so much for the pros! he fumed, as he coughed so forcefully it made his chest ache. It didn't matter if he laid on his side, back, or front; the coughing didn't stop, and his body was screaming at him.
He was in this state when a rap came at the door, as of a shoe hitting it. Without waiting for his reply, the door opened to admit Deirdre. She was balancing a tray awkwardly in her hands.
"You sound awful," she said, using her foot to nudge the door nearly shut. Vilkas dragged himself into a sitting position.
Deirdre strode to the long dresser that served as Vilkas and Farkas's joint bedside table, setting the tray down. On top of it sat two little bottles, two wooden bowls, a spoon, and a folded washcloth. One bowl was steaming, the other was filled with clear water and nearly-melted snow chunks.
Deirdre lifted one of the bottles and studied its label. Vilkas studied her face.
The lack of dark circles under her eyes stuck out to him, if only because he'd gotten used to seeing them. Similarly, the air of gloom she used to carry had faded. Or she'd done a better job of hiding it.
It occurred to him, as she broke the seal on the bottle and began pouring its contents into the steaming bowl, that he'd started thinking of her as morose. But she hadn't always been morose, had she? At her birthday party, and after the archery tournament, she'd been downright cheerful.
Considering she'd lived through the dragon attack on Helgen, the most horrific event since the sacking of the Imperial City during the Great War, she'd been admirably upbeat when he'd met her. And she'd bounced back rather well after the spider fiasco. No one at the tournament would have suspected she'd suffered a day in her life.
And now she was bullying him, a Companion twice her size, into going to bed early and eating soup and taking his medicine. And she wasn't morose. She wasn't even meek.
"You're a bully," he summed up.
Deirdre stopped stirring his soup, taking the bowl in both hands with a click of her tongue. "Little old me, bullying the big bad Companion? Nonsense."
She handed him the bowl. The steam wafted across his face, soothing and warm and smelling of tomatoes.
It hadn't been tomato soup, earlier. He liked tomato soup, though he couldn't recall ever telling her so. He took up stirring it, even though whatever she'd poured in had already been fully assimilated.
"What did you put in this?"
"A fever remedy. Between that and a good night's rest, you should be better by tomorrow. Or so the bottle says."
Vilkas grunted. Feeling her eyes on him, he scooped up a spoonful of soup and stuck it in his mouth. It was delicious, just like it had been the last time she'd made it. He resigned himself to having lost another battle, and ate another bite.
Swallowing, removing the spoon, he replied, "I don't usually get a good night's rest."
Deirdre said nothing for a moment. She tugged at the rumpled blanket over his lap, straightening it, before seating herself on the edge of the bed.
"I don't either," she replied.
Vilkas didn't look up from his soup. He slurped another spoonful.
"Is it bad dreams?" Deirdre asked.
He chuffed. "I don't dream."
She crossed one leg over the other and placed a hand against the bed, head tilting. "At all?"
Now I've done it, Vilkas thought, postponing his answer by eating. He glanced to see her eyes were bright with curiosity, one side of her face lit warmly by the lamp on his dresser.
He looked away again and shrugged one shoulder. "Not since I joined the Circle. Do you have bad dreams?"
She hesitated. "Yes. What did you do to stop dreaming?"
He fought a wry grin. She wasn't about to let him distract her.
Debating how to answer safely, he let her wait it out as he ate big spoonfuls of soup. Her lips had started to pinch with impatience by the time he fished some words from his fevered brain.
"There's a ritual. To join the Circle. After that, you stop dreaming."
"What kind of ritual?"
He set his spoon in its bowl and turned to cough into his fist. Once it passed, he rasped, "When you join the Circle, I'll tell you."
She made a small sound, both disappointed and understanding. Vilkas wondered what kind of wild theories she was forming. If she learned the truth, she'd never dare to argue with him as she'd done today. She'd go back to being wary of him at the very least, or terrified at the worst.
Abruptly, this thought bothered him. Deep down in his gut. He wasn't sure why. Hadn't she been annoying now that she wasn't wary, treating him like a child, refusing to take no for an answer?
It's better than her moping and crying, he supposed. Yes, he much preferred arguing, if he had to choose.
"When you're finished with that, you should drink this cough syrup and put a cold cloth on your head," Deirdre said, nodding at her tray.
He eyed the second little bottle. "On its own? Without food?"
"Yes, of course. It's supposed to sit on your throat. It'll help with the irritation and stop your cough."
"But what if it's disgusting?"
Deirdre blinked at him once, before suddenly laughing. She lifted a hand to cover her mouth, as if surprised at herself.
"Honestly," she giggled, trying to reign herself in. "How old are you, anyway?"
Vilkas watched her drop her forehead into one hand, still smiling despite how her posture slackened as if from fatigue. He wasn't sure when he'd last seen her laugh. Had she laughed at her birthday party? Or on Tournament Day?
Must have, he thought, because that's when she ran into that ginger kid. And he'd noticed that same kid had been hanging around Jorrvaskr, nearly every day. He must have been the source of her mood change.
Good, he thought. At least she had someone she could feel at ease with.
He shook his head, lifting the bowl to his lips. "'Honestly?' I don't know how old I am."
He tipped the bowl to finish off the soup in a few gulps. The warm liquid settled pleasantly in his stomach, and he felt the beginnings of drowsiness hit him. When he lowered the bowl, Deirdre had stopped laughing.
"You don't know how old you are?"
He shrugged, handing her the empty bowl with the spoon in it. He leaned his head back against the wall behind him, eyelids heavier than they had been a moment ago, head hot.
"Me'n Farkas never knew our parents, so we don't know when we were born. Jergen just found us one day when we were little."
She stared at him, the mirth having vanished from her face. She seemed on the verge of saying something, leaning forward as she did so. But she stopped herself. She stood and set the bowl on the tray.
"Who's Jergen?"
Vilkas let his head loll forward as he looked at his hands. He had a foggy memory of how big Jergen's hands had been when he'd pulled them out of their little cage, in the dark cave. They'd seemed like indomitable, unbreakable hands. He'd been scared at first, and he'd tried to fight, but even in that moment the strength of Jergen's grip had awed him.
He shouldn't be talking about this. But his brain felt almost as soupy as—well, his soup.
"He was a Companion," his mouth answered. "He rescued us from a cult of necromancers."
"Necromancers?"
He grunted. "They had all these animals in cages, and then us. My brother and me. I don't know why."
He shook his head as Deirdre just stood there watching him. "Jergen raised us in Jorrvaskr, even though he says I bit him. I don't remember biting him, though. He called us feral pups. Ha."
The air tickled his throat and dragged several coughs from him before he could continue rambling, which he was glad for. He felt Deirdre's slight hand fall on his shoulder. She was holding out the second bottle to him, and when he saw her face, he paused.
"Don't look at me like that."
Her eyes didn't deviate from his. "Like what?"
He took the bottle from her, trying to steel his expression to get rid of whatever she thought she'd seen there, even though his face felt like hot mush. "Like you are right now."
Blatantly ignoring him, she let her full lips curve into a smile. "What, you can't be on the receiving end of compassion?"
"No."
She drew her hand away and turned to pick up the folded washcloth from her tray, dipping it into the bowl full of water. "Well, what are you gonna do?" She lifted the cloth and wrung it out over the bowl. Her eyes slid over to meet his again. "Bite me?"
Something—a sensation as warm as tomato soup—slid through his chest.
Wrenching his gaze free, he broke the seal on his bottle and downed the whole thing in one go. The viscous, cool mixture fell stickily down his throat. He swallowed and made a face. It tasted terrible.
"A bully," he mumbled.
Deirdre placed the icy washcloth against his hot forehead. He shivered, involuntarily, as a wave of cold swept across his scalp. Nine Divines, that felt good.
"Hold this for a moment," Deirdre instructed, as her little hand took his and guided it up to the cloth. She took the potion bottle away from him, then left his side and returned holding Farkas's pillow. She set it behind him along with his own, fluffed them, and with a light touch to his chest, pushed him to lie back.
"Frodnar had the rattles last year. You'll cough less if you sit up slightly."
The backs of her cool, delicate fingers touched his cheek. He almost followed the touch as it drew away.
"You're still so warm," Deirdre murmured, as if to herself.
Vilkas realized his eyes were closed. He'd let go of the washcloth. Deirdre must have removed it and soaked it in the water again, because it returned, magically cold. And like magic, she was humming something soft and pretty. The sound may as well have been a caress; it unwound all the tension within him. He fell asleep right away.