The revelry was still continuing the next morning, though the clean-up effort was beginning to pick up. Ulfric kept to the edge of the roads to stay out of the way of people hauling dragon bones and their drunk friends home. Bards played upbeat songs and cheered on those still with a bottle in their hands and those sweeping the streets evenly.
Ulfric paused at the steps of Jorrvaskr, a weight settling in his stomach. He'd gone to sleep the night prior assuming the Companions would accept him, but they had little to no reason to. They had little to no reason to accept anyone, but they did anyways. The worst that could happen would be humiliation. He'd experienced far worse than the Companions could ever give. He started up the stairs and opened the wide door to Jorrvaskr.
The lively hall didn't pause for him, though the door scraped against the wood floor. Half a dozen Companions lounged on basic couches and chairs, listening to an old man speak about a contract he'd taken. Ulfric stood in the doorway listening to the man's tale of his fight against a bandit clan that had trained bears to fight for them and wondered how much of it was exaggerated. The man didn't notice him, keeping his voice low and gruff and almost annoyed at his audiences' insistence for more details.
"Didn't take much to figure out why they had attack bears; the bandits' weren't worth their daggers. Most of 'em surrendered after I took care of their little pets."
"How many bears, Skjor?"
"Three. Surprised they didn't have more; can't take two steps without tripping over one of the beasts in the Pine Forest. What do you think, visitor?"
Ulfric blinked. The man, Skjor, didn't turn, but the Companions listening all suddenly noticed him and stared, waiting for his answer. "I've not heard of anyone training a bear before. They were probably trained from cubs. A shame they turned to thievery; they have a rare talent."
"Not amongst Bosmer."
Well, it was a rare talent amongst any other race, Ulfric thought to himself. "I'm here to join the Companions," he replied, not pausing to acknowledge Skjor's clarification.
"Of course you are. And you think we'll accept you because you've already gone and made a name for yourself," Skjor said. "That doesn't matter here."
"Good. I don't want it to."
Skjor finally turned and eyed him up and down. Ulfric was glad he hadn't worn the ebony armor, instead opting for his usual attire of leather and fur. It wouldn't exactly convey the humble persona he was trying for, not that his Jarl's clothes achieved that goal much better. "Talk to the Harbinger. He has final say on who can join our little family of warriors." He stood and crossed the hall to stand before Ulfric. The hearth behind him played with the shadows on his face, giving him a predatory look. "But, before I let you down to see Kodlak, what do you seek from the Companions?"
Ulfric couldn't help but laugh. He'd asked the same question to each Companion he hired to bring in a fugitive, deal with troublesome bandits, scare away a pack of wolves making its home too close to the roads, or anything else the Companions were well-versed in taking care of quickly and cleanly. He'd gotten a dozen different answers from a dozen different Companions. "Well, it turns out I'm not cut out for politics. I supposed I'd try to help Skyrim in some way I'm actually good at."
"Gutting skeevers for coin, that is," Skjor clarified.
"Yes, exactly."
Ulfric sat across from Harbinger Kodlak Whitemane silently, slowly sipping the sour medicinal tea Kodlak poured him. It helped with swollen joints caused by a long day of training or hiking or "just being half as old as the hills," Kodlak said with a warm smile.
Kodlak went on for some time, meandering his subject around a few related points, namely his definition of glory and what it meant to help your brothers and sisters in and out of arms. The man preached selflessness and humility, of knowing yourself, your friend, and your enemy equally well. "That being said, if joining the Companions is what you want, who am I to tell you no? You've got a fire in your heart and honor on your mind."
"I don't want to be treated any differently."
Kodlak laughed. "I'd been expecting that since you walked into Jorrvaskr. You know you're not nearly the most famous Companion we've ever had, right, Ulfric?" He sniffed and stretched his neck. "We don't care about anything you've done before now. Frankly, it's none of our business."
A new start. Kodlak's words landed with a heaviness the man hadn't expected. Ulfric expected as much, but to actually hear it- "Of course, Harbinger," Ulfric replied. None of the relieved sigh he was fighting to keep to himself until he was alone slipped through.
"That doesn't mean we can protect you from your past, however," Kodlak added. "You're a man with many enemies, and yours are likely more persistent than the usual hot-blooded rival. We stay out of political matters; we are not immune to the changes they bring." He held out his hand. "As of now, I name you a tenderfoot Companion. All you need for full membership is a member of the Circle to take you on a provisional job and vouch for you."
Ulfric took his hand and shook firmly. "Thank you, Harbinger."
"Jorrvaskr is open to you, Shield Brother. Fall in a bed if you're tired, eat when you're hungry."
Nariilu pushed the last Draugr corpse into an urn, wincing as its armor clanked against the pile of other bodies already inside. She looked to the guards at the entrance to the crypt; no movement. They remained their statue-like position along the walls. It was a miracle they weren't on high alert. She'd spent the entire night and most of the morning clearing out the plaza one Draugr at a time, hiding their bodies as she went.
It was exhausting work, even more so after she decided that using telekinesis to move them was more magicka than it was worth. But still, she felt keeping a low profile would be better than besetting all of Skuldafn on her. At least Draugr had little reason to switch patrols more often than every week or so; having a new guard come through and discover they were replacing nothing but air would be a surefire way of exposing an intruder.
Hopefully the gods would show a bit of mercy and have the Draugr stay put for a while longer. But with her luck? They'd be changing the guard within minutes.
She hadn't even made it inside the city itself yet. The barrow was insurmountably giant; it disappeared into the mountains beyond, and wound who knew how far beneath the ground. Even the smallest of ancient family crypts held a hundred corpses, and larger barrows housed thousands of roaming Draugr. To take on a city full of them, alone? A dragon roared behind her and she froze, watching it rise in flight and circle once before leaving the valley. Not to mention them.
Nariilu cast an ice rune at her feet and slipped into the alcove housing the urn. Her bones ached with effort of killing and hiding what must be a hundred Draugr. Her head fogged with the remnants of fatigue from warding all of Whiterun, swirling with new exhaustion from lack of sleep and the drain of casting spell after spell for hours.
At the very least, the crowded courtyard surrounding the inactive portal was now empty. Once she got that staff-she had to get it before the Dragon Priest returned and was alerted to the loss of his Draugr-it shouldn't be much effort to activate the portal and jump through.
To Sovngarde.
She yawned and sat down, hiding herself as best as she could to snatch some much needed rest. No telling how deep the Dragon Priest rested, or how many guards he had ready to Shout her into a wall. But she supposed that would be an issue for after she woke up. Nariilu tried to remember the last time she went to sleep with the sun so high in the sky.
Ulfric emerged from the living quarters to find the main hall mostly abandoned, save for a pair to the far end of the hall. "Hey! Are you in?" One of them, a woman in oiled hide armor, called.
"In what?" Ulfric replied. Was he being recruited for a job already? He moved towards the two.
The other one, a sinewy man with a mead bottle in his hand, rolled his eyes. "The Companions. What'd Kodlak say?"
"Oh. Yes, I've been accepted."
The woman let out a celebratory whoop, and the man raised his bottle. "Congratulations, Ria, I figured you'd be the Whelp of Whelps for a long-ass time," the man said.
"Shut up, Tovar." Ria punched Tovar in the arm and placed her hands on her hips. He faked pain, rubbing his arm and muttering something about a bruise. "It'll be nice having some respect around here. Hope you like polishing swords!"
He didn't, and hadn't polished even his own sword in a while. Not since the night camped on the road before the last time he'd likely ever set foot inside the Solitude walls. "How often do contracts come in?"
Tovar scoffed. "Right to business, huh? You're no fun." He set his empty bottle down on the stair railing. "The fun stuff used to come in a couple times every week. Now it's just daily small shit, since the army's rolled in. No prisoners but soldiers, now, and the Harbinger won't let us touch 'em. The bandits're keeping low, too, so we've been stuck with escorting scared merchants and savin' milk-drinkers from mudcrabs that dig up from their floors."
"You're just mad you didn't get to fight that Giant at the farm last week," Ria quipped. She turned to Ulfric and shrugged. "It's not as dry as he says. Nobody wants a drunkard for a Shield Brother."
"Comes in handy against Vampires." The pair launched into an animated argument that suddenly escalated when Ria swung a quick left hook, meeting him square on the jaw.
Tovar fell, just barely catching himself on one knee, using the long dining table to steady himself. "Alright then!" He yelled, launching himself into Ria's legs. Ria slammed down with a thud. She twisted her body under Tovar's, bringing her legs up to kick him in the stomach, dodging a weighty blow aimed at her head.
Ulfric almost intervened to pull one off the other but stood back and watched, noticing the twin fire in their eyes. He hadn't seen a good brawl like this in ages. They tumbled around on the floor for a bit before Ria finally made it out from under him, jumping up and grabbing Tovar by the collar of his leather armor before he could stand to pull him hard to his side. He wasn't sure who he would place a bet on if this were a bar fight.
An elderly woman emerged from the side stairs, picking up the bottle Tovar had left on the railing without so much as a glance in the direction of the brawl. She gave them a wide berth, a laundry basket full of neatly folded blankets on her hip. Tovar grabbed Ria's leg as she attempted to kick him, pulling her down to the floor once again.
"Hello, dear," the woman greeted Ulfric with warmth and a tired smile, still not giving notice to the two trying to pull each other's hair out on the floor. "Fresh faces are always welcome around here. I'm Tilma, the housekeeper. If you need anything, come and find me."
"Of course," Ulfric replied. He gestured to the fight. "Is this…common?"
"I doubt they'd have it any other way," Tilma replied with a soft chuckle. "I try to stay out of their way when they roughhouse. As long as there's not too much of a mess, I don't see any reason to keep the children from their fun."
"Fine! Fine!" Ria slammed her palm on the floor. Tovar triumphantly held a few strands of dark hair in his pumped fist as he stood up from sitting on her back. Ria rolled over to sit and stretch her neck, looking around for any more observers. "You didn't see this."
"Sure you did!" Tovar flashed a yellowed grin and smacked Ulfric hard on the back, settling his hand on his shoulder. "Come on, man, we've got a contract to fill. Love you, Tilma!" He blew a kiss to the old woman, already leading Ulfric to the back entrance of Jorrvaskr with a slight limp. Ulfric gave more of his arm to help support Tovar. Tilma put her basket down and pulled a rag from her belt. She handed it to Ria to staunch her scraped arms, muttering something about getting blood out of wood.
Tovar took Ulfric to the courtyard outside of Jorrvaskr, a large training ground with dummies and sandpits and targets, almost all taken by warriors in mixed armor. Others lounged on long tables under a patio, chatting amongst themselves and placing bets on the wrestlers in the sandpits. Ulfric noticed Aela shouting at two archers about form and tension and how to hit the broad side of a dead mammoth.
"This is where most people are, usually," Tovar said, sliding down onto a bench. He hissed and pulled his leg up to rest on the bench. "Unless it's raining. Then everyone's pissed off inside or at The Bannered Mare. But yeah. Best place to find a contract, if someone else doesn't snatch it up first. But you being new and all, you get priority since you gotta prove yourself before they let you off probation."
Ulfric looked around at the companions, only noticing Skjor near the edge of the patio, sitting on a table watching a wrestling match. Animated discussion about dragons flowed around the Companions. "Who's in the Circle?"
"Skjor, you already met him, I guess," Tovar answered, vaguely gesturing in Skjor's direction. The man held out his hand and two Companions dropped coins in it as the match finished with one combatant being thrown hard out of the ring. "And Farkas and Vilkas." Tovar paused and looked around. "They're not out here, Shor knows where they're off to, but if you see them, you're not as drunk as you think. Twins, you see."
"Ah." Ulfric had met the two men a few years back after they cleared Craigwallow Slope of a particularly troublesome group of mages that had been kidnapping merchants. They'd brought back the cleanly decapitated heads of some thirty mages and shrugged when Ulfric thanked them, mentioning saber cats and bears in the area. They'd had no way of disposing of the bodies, they said, and advised him to wait a few days for the feeding frenzy to die down before sending guards to clean everything up.
"And over there's Aela, the Huntress," Tovar said. "Don't even think about it. She'll castrate you if you so much as look at her wrong."
"Speaking from experience?"
"The wenches down at the Mare would tell you no." Tovar snorted and reached for an abandoned tankard. He looked inside it and took a swing. "But I heard she can hit a bullseye from around a corner. I don't doubt it. Watch this." Tovar punched Ulfric in the shoulder a bit too hard for his liking and then cupped his hands around his mouth. "Hey! Aela! Show those snowberries how it's done!"
Aela fired a rude gesture back as other Companions shouted in agreement. "Hold!" Aela called, pulling her bow to draw in one smooth motion and shot a bullseye in each of the five targets, swiveling at the waist. She reset and went down the line again, splitting each one of her arrows one after the other. Ulfric blinked and clapped along with the rising cheer. She didn't seem to take time to aim at all, her drawing arm effortlessly moving from the quiver at her hip to anchor at her chest and back again.
"Go get them, Tovar," Aela commanded, throwing her thumb behind her towards the targets. Tovar cursed. She holstered her bow and looked over the patio for Tovar, smirking as he limped his way to retrieve her nonbroken arrows. Aela looked past him and scowled at Ulfric, then softened her face just enough that Ulfric could be sure she wasn't mad at him for some reason, and crossed towards him. "Trip down the stairs?" She asked, pausing as she met Tovar.
"You should see Ria," Tovar chuckled back.
Aela scoffed and stepped over the bench to sit beside Ulfric. "Guess you don't crave gold as much as most."
Ulfric shrugged.
"Nariilu pays her mercs pretty damn well. Takes a lot of guts to pass up her prices. Guess whatever happened on the Porch yesterday was enough to put a little fear of death in you," Aela stumbled through her delivery, half sounding sarcastic and half sounding ready to use him as her next target. "Surprised she didn't come with you here. Said she wanted some more contracts of her own." Aela paused. "Or is that why you're here? To get her contracts for her?"
Ulfric imagined word of the Dragonborn's whereabouts would've been halfway to Dawnstar by now if the guards had still been there when she flew away on the back of a dragon. "She…won't be around for a while."
"Oh, gods, was she hurt?" Aela dropped her voice. "What in Oblivion happened yesterday?"
"No, nothing like that," Ulfric answered. Aela let out a breath. "Last I saw, she was riding on a dragon to find Alduin." No use in elaborating on the details; she probably wouldn't believe him. He barely believed the truth himself.
"Damn. Cheers to her, and guidance on her hunt," Aela hit her chest twice with a closed fist, tapped her forehead, and threw her open hand to the sky. "She took back her sword?"
"What?"
"You're carrying an ebony sword now. Not Daedric," Aela said, pointing to his hip. "Must've been hard to give up."
Ulfric shrugged. "I find myself very adaptable, as of late." Aela sat in silence for a little bit, her gaze traveling over the porch to Tovar yanking the arrows out of the targets. "The Harbinger said I have to take a contract with a member of the Circle," Ulfric finally said.
She leaned back and let out a long breath. "I have something. Don't know if you're up to it, though. I was waiting for one of the twins to return to go with me."
"What is it?" Ulfric asked, and quickly added, "I'm up for it."
"Hmm, good attitude," Aela said. "Did you notice the weapon fragments on the wall inside?"
Ulfric shook his head. Granted, the fire was low and the hall lacked windows. It was hard to see anything in the flickering dim light.
"Don't blame yourself; we don't have many. Ever heard of Wuuthrad?"
Who hadn't, at least in Windhelm. He held a few fragments himself, on display in his quarters, passed down from his father from his father and so on. He often meditated on Ysgramor's legacy in front of the three ancient ebony pieces. "Ysgramor's battleaxe," Ulfric answered. He wondered why he never thought to ask the Companions if they'd stumbled across any fragments themselves.
"Exactly. It was shattered to fragments some time ago and hasn't been all together since…" She trailed off. "I'm not sure. Ask Skjor. He's the historian of the Circle. Anyways, you don't want a history lesson."
"I don't mind hearing the history of the Companions."
"I mind telling it. Ask Skjor," Aela snapped back. "Word came in a few days ago leading us to a group of bandits at Valtheim Towers. It's a place we get a contract to clear every so often. Good place to extort anyone traveling through Shearthroat Pass. We've not gotten a contract for that, it's a purely internal matter to retrieve the shards. So there wouldn't be any money in it for you if you want to tag along. If you want a paying contract to prove yourself, ask Skjor, over there," she pointed to the man, "or wait for the twins."
"I'm in," Ulfric said.
"Good. We'll leave tomorrow after dawn," Aela said, "And be back the morning after. Don't wear that fancy ebony; I like to move quietly. Thank you," she added, taking her unbroken arrows from Tovar. "On second thought," she handed them back, "go and practice your aim."
Tovar sighed. "Yes, Aela."
"And keep your damn back straight!"