Loredas, 26th of Sun's Dusk, 4E202
The young priestess wrote a note describing a potion she wanted Deirdre to get mixed at the alchemist's, instructing her to drink some of the remedy each day for the next fortnight.
"For the lack of vitality in your blood," she said, before gliding away to tend to sicker people.
Vilkas did not think that sounded like a proper diagnosis at all, but they dutifully went to Arcadia's Cauldron and handed over the recipe, and Deirdre dutifully took the first dose once they arrived home.
And yet, inevitably, he came back from a job a few days later and was promptly informed that Deirdre had fallen sick again. He took one look at Tilma's anxious expression and silently cursed the damn healer for not doing her job.
It was inconvenient for Tilma that Deirdre kept being indisposed. It was inconvenient for everybody; they'd all gotten used to the improved cooking and were loath to go back to Tilma's bland fare.
He walked to Deirdre's room and peeked inside. She was curled up in bed, asleep but shivering, ghastly pale with little bits of hair stuck to her sweaty forehead. The dark circles under her eyes had grown more pronounced over the last few weeks, and her once-healthy face seemed thinner than before. She would waste away at this rate.
It couldn't be helping that she was morose. Before leaving for this latest job, he'd gone to the kitchen for a snack and heard soft weeping coming from the laundry room. He recalled Farkas's distress when he'd realized she wasn't singing while working anymore. Apparently she was crying instead.
It chafed at him like a cheap shirt. His integrity was at stake—he'd made a mistake in Riften, then told her she could rely on them in an attempt to atone, but now there was nothing he could do to prove his words. He'd already forced her to see a healer, and now he was useless. How did she manage to always make him feel useless?
True to form, Deirdre's fever broke shortly after supper time, and the next day she was obstinately back to work. She glared at him when he asked if she'd been taking her medicine, a potent stink eye that told him to back off, and how dare he pester her as if she needed a reminder. He turned away so she wouldn't see him smile. As long as she was lively enough to give him attitude, she couldn't be too bad off.
He arrived home from a long job in Markarth later that week. The main hall was tidy; swept, dusted, the table scrubbed clean, the logs in the fire pit neatly arranged, the chairs straightened in the sitting area. His first feeling was relief. Deirdre was not sick.
Supper actually had seasonings, and Deirdre had some color in her face as she sat down with them to eat. She stayed afterward to watch Njada and Athis go at each other in the sparring pit, and seemed genuinely amused, sitting between Aela and Tilma. All good signs.
Ria let out a whoop of encouragement when Athis broke free of Njada, jarring Vilkas from his scrutiny. He was spending far too much time focusing on her. Deirdre was young; she'd get past whatever this recurring illness was. She'd get past her heartbreak too. She was fine.
She will be fine, he corrected himself.
He needed to get his mind off the unfixable problem of their kitchen maid. After the match was over, he retrieved a thick, worn history book from his room, bringing it back to the main hall to read by firelight. He turned to his favorite chapter as one might turn to converse with an old friend, and settled in.
The history of the Companions was long and varied, and it had fascinated Vilkas since before Jergen had taught him to read. Once he could read, he'd devoured every book Jergen had been able to procure for him. He'd sharpened his mind and nurtured his already-budding respect for the Companions this way.
"Keep at it like that, and you could be Harbinger one day, pup," Jergen had said, as he'd come across Vilkas reading this very book. "You've got to know your origins and traditions to be the Harbinger."
Hours passed. The world fell away around Vilkas. The hall grew quiet but for the popping of the fire pit and the occasional paper rustle of a turning page.
Out of the corner of his eye, Vilkas saw movement.
Deirdre paused in the entryway to the main hall, shrugging a blanket onto her shoulders.
"What are you doing up so late?" she asked.
Reluctant to abandon the quiet, Vilkas silently held up his book.
"Ah." She stood uncertainly. She padded toward him and sat down on the other side of the little table, drawing her feet up onto the chair so they'd be tucked under her blanket.
He waited. She sighed.
"I couldn't sleep," she said.
Vilkas put his finger between the pages and closed his book. "More dragon dreams?"
She shook her head, reaching up out of her blanket to pick at a piece of lint stuck to the fabric. "No. Just … thinking too much."
He waited to see if she'd elaborate, but she didn't. He could already guess what had her preoccupied.
"I guess I'm having the same problem," he said.
Deirdre tucked her arm back into the cover of her blanket and wrapped both arms around her knees. Her tired eyes took him in for a moment. "What are you thinking about?"
It would be strange to admit he'd been dwelling on how he couldn't fix her. She didn't need to know he could be bothered so easily.
"Nothing important," he said.
She lifted a brow, dubious. "It can't be that unimportant, or the great Vilkas wouldn't be thinking too much about it."
Vilkas sat back in his seat and regarded her. She narrowed her eyes, feigning suspicion. He scoffed.
"You've really been a brat to me since Riften. I would say it's Aela rubbing off on you, but it's not just that. You're still mad at me."
Deirdre turned her face, resting her cheek on her knee. In a sarcastic tone, she muttered, "Why would I still be mad at you? You're just another man who lied to me. I should be used to it by now."
Vilkas winced. "That's not exactly fair. I said I was sorry, didn't I?"
She huffed.
The fire pit crackled in the quiet, and Vilkas watched the flames dance. It wasn't until he heard a sniffle that he looked at her sharply, and saw her subtly dabbing at an eye with the edge of her blanket. Dammit. He'd never lived with anyone who cried half as much as this girl.
"Why don't you just forgive him?" Vilkas blurted. "You're miserable."
She tensed. Her glare was piercing.
"He lied to me," she repeated. "And he supports the people who ruined Gerdur and Hod's lives. He's on the same side as Captain Kensley. Or do you think I should forgive him too?"
"Absolutely not," Vilkas said immediately. "Don't put words in my mouth. If there were any justice in the world, Kensley would have had his hands cut off. But Leif never did a thing to you."
"He lied—"
"He lied to you. I know. But he only did that because he knew you were so narrow-minded, you'd hate him just for his family name. So who really betrayed the other's trust, here?"
Deirdre gawked. The blank shock on her face told him she'd never even considered her own culpability in her fight with Leif.
She blinked rapidly and squared her jaw. "It's not just because of his family name. It's because of what it stands for. What he and his family stand for. They give money and weapons to the people who want to oppress us."
"The Battle-Borns don't see the Empire as an oppressor. They see the Empire as their only salvation to stand up to the Aldmeri Dominion. It's the Dominion's Thalmor who actually have Gerdur and Hod in custody. Not the Empire."
"The Empire," she spat, sliding her feet off the chair to let them hit the floor, "is allowing the Thalmor into Skyrim, because the Empire signed a treaty denying us the right to worship Talos. The Empire and the Thalmor are on the same side!"
"The Empire and the Thalmor are enemies, and anyone who says otherwise is parroting Stormcloak propaganda," Vilkas shot back. He leaned forward onto his knees, thumping the book he still held open with a finger. "The White-Gold Concordat was a barely negotiated peace treaty. It wasn't an alliance. It's a temporary bandage until both sides have recovered enough to go back to war. And the longer the Empire wastes resources fighting to keep Skyrim from seceding, the better off the Dominion is."
Deirdre leaned forward too. "If the Empire just let us secede already, then we could worship as we please, and the Empire could use its resources however it wanted! Hammerfell already left the Empire; why can't we do the same?"
"Because the Empire needs Skyrim's strength to fight the elves."
"Then maybe they should be making treaties with Skyrim rather than with the Dominion!"
"Or maybe Skyrim should just be patient and live to fight for their right to worship Talos another day, alongside the Empire."
"So we should just look the other way and let the Thalmor arrest and torture innocent people?" she burst, jumping to her feet. "I should just be patient while the children are stuck in an orphanage and the Thalmor do Divines-know-what to Gerdur and Hod?"
"And how many other Nord children," Vilkas said, straightening to hold her gaze, "have been orphaned because a Stormcloak killed their parents in battle?"
Her voice was taut and tremulous. "That's not even remotely the same thing. Soldiers choose to be soldiers. Gerdur and Hod didn't have a choice. You said that exact thing to Farkas not so long ago, and now you're trying to argue with me?"
Vilkas blinked. He sat back in his chair and assessed her. The way her breath had grown short, and her eyes had gone cold with rage. It was surprising how fierce those eyes could be; he was reminded of the Ragged Flagon.
"I'm not actually trying to argue with you," he said.
"Well you seem to be doing a pretty good job of it!"
Vilkas held up his free hand. "But I'm not. I don't actually have a side in the war. Both sides have legitimate reasons to fight. That's what I'm trying to tell you."
She threw herself back into her chair, voice glacial. "Well you can't. Tell me that. The Empire is oppressing us, the Dominion wants to oppress us, and the Stormcloaks are fighting for our freedom. That's what it boils down to at the end of the day."
Vilkas held her gaze for several seconds, and she held his in return. Finally he sighed, reaching up to rub his eyes. He ran the hand down his face. Why was he pushing this, again?
He noted a shimmer of water lining her lower eyelids. Right. Before she'd been arguing with him, she'd been crying. Over Leif.
"You know what I see at the end of the day? You miss him."
She stilled. Whether in response to his words or just his lowered tone, the rigidity of her shoulders slackened.
Vilkas nodded. "You owe it to him to at least hear his perspective. That's what I think."
Haltingly, she lowered her gaze, lips pressing together. Vilkas let the silence hang there. It hung so long he figured she was done, and he slouched and opened his book.
"I know it's complicated," Deirdre said quietly, before he'd read a word. "But." She cleared her throat. "In Helgen, that day. The Empire mistook me for a Stormcloak. General Tullius himself told them to kill me."
Vilkas's head flew up. His book lay forgotten in his lap.
Deirdre said, "They were going to chop my head off. He wanted Ulfric to watch. I would have died if the dragon hadn't attacked. But it did. And Ulfric, and Gerdur's brother, saved my life. Ulfric himself. So, I—Maybe it's simple of me. But I felt Ulfric's sincerity. I believe in what he's fighting for. If I thought for one second I'd be useful on the battlefield, I'd go out there and fight for him."
She once again drew her feet up onto her chair, curling into a little ball, and looked at the floor.
Something occurred to Vilkas. "Ulfric did come to Riverwood with you, didn't he? And Gerdur's brother."
Her mouth snapped shut, lips pressing together again. Her eyes guiltily flitted up to meet his. Vilkas let out an incredulous puff of air.
"When you first came here, you told me and Kodlak you were the only one who sought refuge in Riverwood after Helgen. You were lying."
"Maybe," she mumbled.
Vilkas shook his head in disbelief. He gestured between them. "Then we're even. You lied to me, I lied to you. And you probably never told Leif about your little tryst in Riften, right? So you both hid something from the other."
"It was not a tryst!" she protested, drawing her blanket more tightly around herself. "It was—It didn't even mean anything!"
Vilkas shrugged. "Sure."
"It didn't, Vilkas," she said firmly.
"I said sure."
Her expression soured. She turned sideways so she wasn't facing him, dropping her head against the back of the chair and glowering at nothing.
Vilkas, feeling strangely like he'd won something, again settled into his seat and picked up his book. Deirdre made no move to leave, and he figured he'd just let her alone to stew in her thoughts.
His eyelids eventually began to grow heavy. As he was in the middle of a chapter, he decided he'd finish it and go to bed. A glance up at Deirdre revealed she'd already dozed off, curled up in the same position she'd taken to turn away from him.
The next thing Vilkas knew, he was startling awake. The book had fallen off his lap and thudded to the floor.
He rolled his shoulders, feeling a stiffness in his neck as he bent to retrieve the book and sat up. Across from him, Deirdre's blanket lay empty on her chair.
A sudden cold draft blew into the hall. The flames of the fire pit shied away. Vilkas looked just in time to see the front door swinging shut—Deirdre's pale form disappearing behind it.
"What the—"
He got up and walked to the door, pulling it open. Deirdre had already made it to the steps that led to the square below, and started down them. The glimpse he'd gotten before the door closed had not misled him; she was still barefoot, and still clad only in a shift. And there was a new layer of snow on the ground.
"Deirdre?" he called.
She made no movement to suggest she'd heard him. She kept walking until her head disappeared below the steps.
Vilkas put one foot outside, thought better of it, and strode back to her chair to grab her blanket. He hastened out the door and followed Deirdre's footprints down the stairs. She was stepping into the square of the Gildergreen.
"Deirdre!" he called again, as he reached the last stair.
She did not seem to hear him. He caught up and snatched her by the arm, tugging her around so she was facing him.
"What in Oblivion, Deirdre?"
But Deirdre did not lift her head to meet his gaze. She stared straight forward, almost as if looking through him. She said nothing. She didn't even blink.
Vilkas's hackles rose. With the hand holding her blanket, he put a knuckle under her chin and tilted her face up. A chill that had nothing to do with the cold ran up his spine.
Her eyes were totally unfocused. What disturbed him even more was the brilliant green glow outlining her irises.
"Ysmir," he swore under his breath.
He drew her close and scanned the square, having no difficulty identifying potential hiding places with his nightvision. But he saw no one. The only movement was that of the Gildergreen's barren branches, trembling in the slight breeze.
Deirdre was trembling too. He realized it at the same time he realized he was sort of crushing her. He pushed her back enough to throw the blanket around her, wrapping it as securely as he could manage without her cooperation.
But once he took his hands off her, she serenely turned and tried walking away. Vilkas grabbed her by the shoulders.
"Where do you think you're going?" he asked.
Still she said nothing. Vilkas growled and picked her up off the ground, grabbing one of her little feet to test its temperature. It was already like ice; she was going to get frostbite if this continued.
With Deirdre eerily silent in his arms, he trudged back up the steps and into Jorrvaskr. He set Deirdre down by the fire pit. She tried to walk to the door; he stopped her again.
"Wake up already," he commanded, giving her a little jostle.
She didn't wake up. Her body kept trying to pull away from his grasp, ever-angled toward the door.
Vilkas muttered curses as he made her sit by the fire pit, then plopped down beside her. He pulled her icy feet out before her, arranging her legs so her toes were pointed toward the heat. When she kept pulling her feet back as if to stand, he pinned her ankles to the floor. Unhurriedly, but insistently, she pushed her legs against his grip. All the while she stared sightlessly at the flames.
"You're really giving me the creeps, you know that?" Vilkas barked. "You could at least blink."
She didn't. She waited there, calmly trying to break his grip, until he deemed her feet to be warm enough. The second he let go of her ankles, she stood. He stood. He waited for her to turn toward the door, made an aggravated noise when she did, and grabbed her again. He readjusted the blanket around her and picked her up, striding toward the stairs that led to the basement.
"This is ridiculous," he added, as they started down.
Once in the living quarters, Vilkas went straight to Aela's door and pounded on it with his foot. After several seconds, and some muffled rustling and swearing, the door flew open.
Aela stood there, hair like a rat's nest. Her face was soft with sleepiness and squished in anger.
"What the shit?" she bellowed. "I'm bloody sleeping!"
Noticing Deirdre, she rubbed a hand over her eyes, as if to make sure she wasn't seeing things.
"What are you—"
"She's got a spell on her," Vilkas said. "Watch."
He set Deirdre on her feet. She immediately started moving down the hall. Vilkas called out to her twice before catching up and snatching her, forcing her to walk back to Aela's door. He let go one more time, to show she did the exact same thing, and again dragged her back.
Aela squinted at her. She took Deirdre's face in her hand and examined her eyes. She grimaced.
"Shor's shit. Hey. Deirdre."
She smacked the side of Deirdre's face none too gently. Deirdre didn't react. Aela shook her, again none too gently. Deirdre's dead, glowing eyes remained unchanged.
"Well. That's disturbing."
"No shit," Vilkas retorted. "What do we do?"
"How should I know? Where is she trying to go?"
"Outside somewhere. I caught her in the square. She wasn't even wearing shoes."
"Who would put a spell on her?" Aela wondered.
They stood there for a moment, mutually confused. Aela released Deirdre, and Vilkas held her shoulders to prevent her from walking off.
"I want to try something," Aela said. She walked past Skjor's room to the table and chairs up against the wall, grabbing a candlestick. She took the candle off and left it on the table. Coming back, she nudged Deirdre inside her room and shut the door. Then she wedged the candlestick into the door handle, in such a way as to prevent the door from being opened from the inside.
A moment later, Deirdre tried to do just that. The candlestick held, and Deirdre pulled the handle again. After a third failed attempt, there came a thump on the door, as if she'd hit it with her fist.
Aela shivered. "That's really disturbing. How long do you think she'll keep at it?"
"Probably until the spell lifts," Vilkas guessed.
Deirdre thumped harder on the door.
Vilkas made for Kodlak's office. Aela waited until another futile rattle shook her door, then caught up to him.
Kodlak did not look any happier than Aela to be awakened when he pulled open his door, but he refrained from cursing. Vilkas explained the situation, and Aela described how they'd locked Deirdre in her room.
"What should we do?" Vilkas asked.
The old man lifted a hand to his lined forehead, as if to help focus his thoughts.
"Aela, go to the storage room. We may have a potion shoved to the back of a shelf that can break her out of it. If not, we'll have to wait it out until morning. Hopefully the spell will dissipate if she can't go where it wants her to."
A potion. Of course. Why hadn't Vilkas thought of that? The Companions had collected a strange assortment of potions over the years, things they picked up on the job, in bandit treasure troves, necromancer potion chests, or the like. Someone could very well have picked up an anti-illusion spell potion and forgotten about it.
As Aela left to do as instructed, Kodlak retreated into his room to grab a robe and throw it on against the chill of the basement.
"Let's go see her," Kodlak said. "I'm remembering something from years ago. I just hope I'm wrong."
Deirdre was still hitting Aela's door from the inside. It was rhythmic at this point, exactly two seconds between each thump. Kodlak seemed perturbed.
Vilkas removed the candlestick from the door handle and stepped back. The thumping ceased. Deirdre opened the door on her own and tried to walk past them. Snagging her by the arm, Vilkas became overly aware of the fact that she was, even now, only wearing her shift, and her blanket had fallen off. He retrieved the blanket from the floor and draped it around her as quickly as possible.
"You said her eyes are glowing green?" Kodlak asked.
Vilkas held her in place so Kodlak could see for himself. Kodlak bent and lifted her chin, taking a moment to examine her eyes. He released her and shook his head.
"It looks just as I remembered. Shor's bones."
"What?" Vilkas asked.
Kodlak tugged at his beard, eyebrows drawing together as he considered something. "How often has she been getting sick? Every four, five, six days or so, isn't it?"
It dawned on Vilkas. What if this wasn't the first time this had happened? What if all these weeks she'd been falling ill, it was because she'd been sleepwalking? And wasn't she due for another day of fatigue and fever right about now?
"Someone's been luring her out and making her sick," he realized. "With daedra-damned magic."
Kodlak shook his head again. "It's not the magic making her sick. It's the blood loss, and probably the infection."
"The what?"
The crash of shattering glass made them both jump. A flurry of obscenities spewed out of the open storage room down the hall. Vilkas threw a dirty look in Aela's direction.
"It's blood loss," Kodlak repeated gravely.
Vilkas turned to see him tugging on his beard again, even more perturbed than a moment ago. Sensing something bad, Vilkas instinctively drew Deirdre to him, as if to brace for whatever Kodlak would say next. The wrinkles around Kodlak's eyes tightened.
Lowering his voice, Kodlak explained, "She's been bewitched by a vampire. It's been feeding on her, every few nights or so, this entire time."