Arc 2—When Darkness Falls—Chapter 2:

We arrived home late that evening to find letters from several jarls requesting help with dragons. Alduin was gone, true, but other dragons were causing trouble across Skyrim. Since the jarls barely had enough troops to guard their towns due to the war and not nearly enough troops to send some gallivanting across their holds in search of the beasts, they were forced to look for other solutions. Knowing that I had ample experience with dragons, they'd gotten the bright idea to have me take care of their problem. Fortunately, they all promised rewards for my assistance.

I'd just spent far more money on our trip than I'd planned, so I was already planning to stop by Hulda's to pick up another of the jarl's bounty posters. However, that was really in the back of my mind. I was gritting my teeth over my tongue-lashing at the hand of Idgrod's father and was feeling my heart being squeezed unmercifully at her rejection. Therefore, it wasn't long before I decided to accept the jarls' requests. Realizing it had been a while since their requests had been sent, I decided that a few more days probably wouldn't hurt. I would spend that time with my Lucia before departing.

I remember keeping up a happy face, smiling and enjoying my time with Lucia, but there was a great sadness in my soul at the severed connection with Idgrod. I don't know if Lucia caught the change in my personality, but Lydia soon did.

"Are you okay, Thane?" she had asked.

I was honest with her, but not completely. "Idgrod and I won't be seeing each other anymore. We decided it would never work, but it leaves me somewhat sad."

I'll never forget the expression on Lydia's face or what she said. "I'm sorry, my Thane, but I feared that might someday be the case. As much as you liked her, I wasn't sure if she would ever be good enough for you."

Two nights before we left on what we eventually dubbed our "Great Dragon Tour," we had dinner with War-Bear and Adrianne. It was a very nice meal, but I dreaded what I had to do after putting my Lucia to bed. It had taken surprisingly little effort to get her to agree, but I'd already named Lydia to be Lucia's guardian in case I didn't return someday. As a result, generous accounts had been set up for both of them at the palace in the event of my death. In addition to exacerbating my cash flow problem, there was a little problem with that arrangement.

Lydia was my near constant companion, always traveling with me and experiencing the same dangers that I faced. If something were to happen to her, too, and neither of us returned, I needed a backup plan. Therefore, I asked my friends if they would step in as Lucia's foster parents in that case. Lydia's account would remain the same, but it would be willed to them if neither of us survived. I told them that the account in combination with my little house should be enough to cover their costs of raising Lucia.

I didn't understand why but Adrianne's eyes misted over, and she suddenly got up from her chair, crying, and left my home.

"Ulf, I'm so sorry. I don't know what I did—"

"Aerik, don't worry. It's not you. It's a long story, actually, but the short version is that Adrianne never wanted children. She said more times than I can count that Skyrim was just too hard a place to even think of bringing kids into the world, much less raising them here."

I felt horrible. "Oh, I'm sorry, Ulf. I had no idea that she felt that way or that she didn't want kids. I would never have asked if I'd known, and wouldn't have asked you guys to watch Lucia during my trips. I'll make other arrangements before I leave again."

He shook his head. "No, Aerik. There's no need. All of that was before she spent so much time with Lucia in recent months. She loves the girl and has slowly softened her stance." He smiled as he continued. "She has since changed her mind completely. She's now carrying our child."

~ESV~

I was surprised when Adrianne and Ulf came over the next morning. She stepped forward and kissed my clean-shaven cheek before rubbing it lightly and throwing Lydia a wink. "Aerik, Ulfberth and I desperately want both you and Lydia to come home safely, but it the need ever arises, we would be honored to take Lucia as our own child and the big sister of our baby."

I thanked them and congratulated them heartily on their own upcoming addition. Later that day, I made the appropriate legal arrangements with Adrianne's father, the steward at Dragonreach. The man, having only recently learned that he would soon be a grandfather, now learned that, if my luck was really bad, he might be inheriting another grandchild. Strangely, I couldn't tell exactly what his feelings were about that.

Since we were leaving very early the next morning, we took Lucia to the smiths' home that night. After putting her to bed, the War-Bear and I clasped arms while Adrianne hugged Lydia, and my housecarl and I wished them the best as we presented them a small gift to celebrate their upcoming baby.

~ESV~

When we walked into Riverwood the next day, I was surprised to see a small crowd gathered in front of the inn. I'd passed through Riverwood, briefly, on escaping from Helgen, and had only met the blacksmith, the shopkeeper, and the shopkeeper's sister. Two later trips to meet Delphine had been rather clandestine, so I didn't know anyone else in town; I was surprised to learn there were so many people. Someone up front was speaking but I couldn't understand what they were saying until we moved in close.

"—xth one in the last two months. Every time supplies come from Falkreath or Markarth, they're intercepted by these guys! The jarl in Whiterun refuses to do anything about it since the bandits are in Falkreath Hold. The new jarl in Falkreath refuses to do anything since the bandits are only bothering travelers leaving his hold. That leaves us trapped in the middle!"

"So what do you want us to do, Lucan?"

"Listen, we don't get the supplies we need, and everyone in town is hurting. If we can't depend on the jarls, we need to do something for ourselves!"

"Like you're going to do it!"

"Hey, I've got a bad back. That's why I'm a shopkeeper rather than doing something that could make me more money."

There was round of laughter when Lucan said that, but someone else spoke up. "So you want us to send someone down to fight these bandits, but you don't want to be a part of it? We've seen what happens; they rob or even kill our people if we stray to the south! Whoever tries to go after them will die! We can't—"

"Maybe I can," I called.

Lydia's head shot around at me in surprise with her standard "are you crazy?" look, but I didn't respond to her since I knew she was probably right. "Tell me what you know about these bandits."

There were actually two competing groups of bandits, one holed up in an old mine and the others staked out near the split in the road to Helgen. It took two days, but Lydia and I systematically wiped out both groups, rescued parts of a couple of shipments from the bandits in the mine, and collected and sold most of the personal gear from both groups. With the small reward we received from the townspeople, it had been a fairly profitable two days.

In addition, Lydia had reminded me of what she called the hideous claw just before we left home, so I'd thrown it in my bag in hopes it might be the one that Lucan had told me had been stolen from his shop. I'd recovered it from a barrow months earlier but had never openly been back to Riverwood to see if it really was his missing centerpiece. It either was his missing claw or was so close that he claimed it, so I gave it to him in return for a small reward. Of course, I really wanted it out of my backpack by that point, so I'd have probably given it to him just to get rid of it.

Between having recovered some of their goods and having restored their hideous claw to them, Lucan's sister, Camilla, seemed quite taken with me. We had a community celebration that night, with everyone in town singing, dancing, and drinking, but the woman spent the entire evening at my side. It wasn't long before I caught Lydia giving me a warning with her eyes. Still hurting from the rejection by Idgrod and with my heart still not quite ready to let her go, I didn't really need Lydia's look, but it was appreciated when I realized that the young woman was far more determined than I had anticipated. I'm not sure how Camilla managed it, but she ended up being my dance partner in, I believe, every dance.

We came out of a spirited reel to a round of clapping, but I was taken aback when Camilla slipped into my arms and almost melted against me. Her soft lips were on mine in an instant and I surprised myself when I didn't resist. It was as if the world was spinning around us as we slowly turned and I was almost completely at peace for that particular moment in time.

It was a very brief moment, though. As we continued our slow turn, my eyes, which had never closed, met Lydia's tear-filled eyes. She turned away quickly when she saw I'd caught her and and walked away. Realizing what I'd done, I started to pull away from Camilla only to catch sight of the village bard, who was looking at me with hate plastered across his face. Hoping I wasn't reading it wrong, I steered Camilla in his direction, and, when I was close enough, I quickly switched her grasp from me to him. Slipping away without even telling her goodnight, I went in search of Lydia but had no luck until I returned to our room in the inn. She was already in her bed with her covers pulled tight around her and a pillow over her head.

We left for Falkreath the next morning and it was a long, quiet walk. We were well on our way when we came upon a roadside shrine, but it wasn't the typical happy place of worship. There had been a massacre.

Lydia came and stood by me as we looked at the bodies. "What do you want to do, Thane? Gather some wood or leave them?"

"It would take too much wood for a pyre for all four of them. Let's just bury them. I'll dig the hole and you gather some rocks to top it to keep the animals out."

"I am sworn to carry your burdens."

I wasn't sure if I was detecting a degree of exaggeration in her voice, so I asked, "Or would you rather dig the hole?"

She frowned at me before finally laughing and giving me a mischievous grin. "Thane, I'm sworn to carry your burdens, not dig your graves."

I don't know what it was, but that seemed to break the icy silence between us and we went to work. Not having a proper shovel, it took a good while to dig the hole for the four bodies. I figured I was getting close when Lydia called out to me, "Thane, come here. You need to see this."

Hidden behind a rock where it had fallen was a fifth body.

"Crap! I hate bandits. I sure hope we got the ones that did this." Even as I said it, I knew that wasn't the case. These people had been killed at about the same time we were finishing off the second band of bandits.

My first thought, however, quickly changed when Lydia rolled the body over. It was a male Thalmor.

"Damn!"

"Exactly," she agreed. "At least two of the bodies had arrows in them like the ones in this guy's quiver."

"I didn't know these bastards were operating around here."

"Me either. Whatever, a dead one can't be good. I don't know why they would have left him here, though."

"The dead folks appeared to have put up a fight, so one of them may have killed him without his companions seeing him fall? Back there, it might have been tough, so the others might have thought he deserted or maybe chased off after one that was escaping."

"So what do we do?"

"We remember what the bloody Thalmor did here and we make the hole a little bigger..."

After we buried the bodies, we cut across country from the lake road to the south road to Falkreath. In doing so, we crossed a bluff overlooking the lake and the mountain to the south. "Wow! This is such a pretty view," I said to Lydia. She took a look and nodded in agreement before we moved on.

We got to Falkreath late that afternoon and reported to the jarl. I'd selected a suitable present in advance, but was disappointed when the man took it without thanks and then started complaining that it had taken us so long to get there.

"I'm sorry, Jarl. I didn't realize that you'd already had your dragon problem solved by someone else. There are several other jarls who've requested our help, so we'll be on our way."

The man turned red and started sputtering before finally saying, "Wait! It's okay. A bit of delay in such trying times as these can be understandable. The dragon's been seen..."

We stayed in the inn in Falkreath that night, but it was crowded since several families that had been burned out by the dragon were staying there. These people were practically celebrating that we were there to put an end to the menace, but I felt sick at my stomach as I spoke with them. My delay in coming, as much as it meant to me and Lucia, had cost some of these people almost everything.

The innkeeper made a small room available for Lydia and me, but it only had a single bed. Lydia was preparing to sleep on the floor, but I told her no. We'd shared a bed about that size before, so we'd do it again or else we would both sleep on the floor.

Personally, I wasn't looking forward to the night on the hard surface; I didn't want either of us to be stiff or sore when it came time to fight the dragon. Therefore, I was quite relieved when she said, "Thank you, Thane."

"Lydia, I'm sorry about last night. I didn't mean to let things go so far with...her."

"It's okay, Thane. I know your feelings, and particularly your feelings about me, so I shouldn't have reacted as I did. Your business is none of mine unless you will it. And speaking of business, I hope we can deal with the dragon quickly. Can you believe how much some of these people have lost? They need to feel safe again so they can move on with their lives, whether it's in true safety or not."

Realizing she'd deliberately changed the subject, my thoughts turned to the poor families, including a couple of babies that I heard crying in the adjacent rooms, and I was soon dwelling on it. "Lydia, I shouldn't have waited. I should have had us come at once so we could put a stop to it."

"You don't know that, Thane. And besides, which jarl would you have helped first? What about the others that you couldn't? You couldn't have blamed yourself for what happened to them. Not rightly blame yourself for them, anyway, and you shouldn't blame yourself now." She sat down on the side of the bed. "Come. Let's get some sleep so we'll be rested enough to kill that beast tomorrow."

We were touching when we lay in the little bed, and Lydia, sensing the regret I was feeling over what had happened to the families in the other rooms, put her arm back around me to comfort me. "You can only do so much, Thane. And you can't save everyone." She gave me a comforting squeeze before moving her arm back in front of her.

Lydia was a muscular woman, but she was a woman and a beautiful woman despite not being my usual type. I kept telling myself that, but the softer parts of her curves pressing against me soon stirred a feeling that I had to that point resisted when with her.

"Uh, sorry."

She laughed. "Thane, I'm not. I'm actually quite honored, but now is neither the time nor the place. That silly girl from Morthal is still deep in your heart, even if the slut from Riverwood was trying her best to get into it…or into something, anyway… and these people here are weighing heavily on your mind, too." She hesitated before whispering, "Aerik, I care about you, far more than you probably realize, but I am not here as a replacement for her…or the slut…or as a comfort versus thoughts of the tribulations of the people here. If the time and situation is ever right for us, we'll know it and we'll act on it then."

"Thank you, Lydia. You are one very smart and very dear woman. That makes a lot of sense."

"I'm glad you realize that, Thane, so you won't mind me saying this: Until we get to that point, if ever, you'd best control yourself and keep your hand away from there."

~ESV~

My Aerica, sitting on my knee, sees me cough as I flush at that memory. "What is it, Daddy? Are you okay?"

"Yes, dear. Just remembering that as being a very, very rough time."

~ESV~

Author's Note:

Thanks to everyone reading this story as I continue it with Arc 2. Thanks to all who have commented, followed, or favorited it, too.