Solitude remained vivid. Banners of all sorts lined the pillars of the city, from Winterhold's light blue crown of vines to Markarth's green twisted ram horns, as well as faction banners: the red arrow of the mercenary group Vaulting Drakes; the two wolf heads supplying the blade of a battleaxe representing the Companions of Whiterun. The city had never been so colorful in Thorunn's memory. She wondered how vibrant it would be when it came time for the wedding.
The morning after, she broke her fast with the king and a good deal of the Jarls of Skyrim. Jarl Dengeir of Stuhn who presided over Falkreath Hold sat among them, as well as Jarl Vignar Gray-Mane of Whiterun, Thongvor Silver-Blood of Markarth, and Skald the Elder of The Pale. Among these Jarls were their personal housecarls and stewards, though their Thanes remained within their Holds to rule in their stead. They'd had to bring in another feasting table to make room for all of them, as they naturally stayed within the palace.
"Your wine, m'lady," said a Bosmer servant girl as she leaned down to place a cup on Thorunn's coaster.
"Ah, no thank you," Thorunn declined. She'd drank enough the night prior. She was content to settle down with hot tea.
The Bosmer girl looked almost hurt. "Please, I insist. The cooks were so excited to have their wine tasted by the queen."
"I am no queen yet, but..." She looked at the wine thoughtfully, then made her decision with a quiet sigh of defeat. She was not typically a generous woman, but the pointy-eared girl's big brown eyes were awfully convincing. "Very well."
The elf smiled and laid the cup down, then bowed before moving to dote on the next attendant. Thorunn looked back to Ulfric, who had a suspicious look in his eye. He gave her a small shake of the head that was hardly noticeable, but Thorunn got the message anyway. She did not touch the wine, returning to the idle banter she'd been partaking in with Jarl Dengeir.
Many of the Jarls and stewards and housecarls remained after they were done eating to finish their conversations, but Thorunn and Ulfric did not. He walked alongside her as they left the long hall. "I think it's time you invest in a housecarl," he advised in hushed tones.
"Or a taster," she responded with a scoff. She was trained enough to be able to protect herself. A housecarl would be a waste of gold.
Ulfric regarded her sternly, not amused. "I am serious. The moment I announced our engagement, hundreds of people began writing your death rite. It will only worsen the closer you get to dawning your crown." He sighed as she said nothing. "If you will not take on a housecarl for your protection, employ one only to help me sleep better at night."
"I will consider it," she said, even as she decided she wouldn't.
"Please do," he affirmed. He halted at the top of the staircase leading down into the entryway of the palace. "With the city being filled to the brim with politicians, crime rate has spiked, and I must address these petty squabbles. You are free to do as you wish for the day, but please, Thorunn, find a housecarl."
So she did, despite not wanting one. She found the woman she'd been looking for at The Winking Skeever, head wrapped in the blue cloths traditional of Hammerfell and two cutlasses at her belt. Rayya was Redguard through-and-through, with dark skin coated in red warpaint and steel armor the likes of which Thorunn had never seen before. A blue cloth was wrapped around Rayya's waist, someone's favor, Thorunn presumed. She sat down across from the woman, who smiled at her approach.
"Your Grace," she said, bowing her head and setting down the bottle of ale in her gauntleted hand. Her thick Hammerfell accent was palpable.
Thorunn found herself wondering what brought this woman to Skyrim. Thorunn had met her during the years she'd been fighting against Alduin. There'd been a bear and a wolf, two fierce creatures unimaginably hard to take down when both were clawing at you. Rayya had turned the battle in Thorunn's favor, and since then, she had been a warrior Thorunn frequently turned to whenever she needed an extra hand.
"I am in need of a housecarl," said Thorunn, getting comfortable in the wooden chair she sat in. "I would be honored with your sword at my side and you would be well paid."
A smile reached the honorable woman's lips. She brought a fist to her heart. "A finer job I could not think of. My sword arm is yours, and your enemies are mine."
"Good. I understand this comes a bit abruptly, so if you need to return to Falkreath to gather your things, you may do so."
"Thank you. It will not take me longer than a week to return."
Thorunn nodded curtly. "Your service is appreciated." She stood and headed for the exit of the tavern. With her freedom, there was one thing she needed to do.
Solitude's prisons were unfriendly and dark, rusted cells lining damp stone walls that reeked of mildew and filth. Only one guard stood on the lower level where Thorunn needed to be, an old man with a white beard and a scrutinizing glare. He said nothing as she descended the staircase, allowing her to pass without question. She paid him no mind and continued on her way until she reached the cell of her fancy.
The man inside was not in any state to impress her. His bruises had healed marginally, making it clear that once the guards found out he was the son of a Jarl, they ceased their beatings. But that accounted for nothing when it came to how malnourished the assassin was, his cheeks sunken and the bags under his blue eyes- once vivid and acute, now glossy and gloomy -prominent. He didn't look up or seem to hear as Thorunn opened the cell gate with a master's key.
Wordlessly, she sat down on the ground, leaning her back against the wall and not caring for the well-being of her expensive dress. "I understand the weight of your oaths," she said quietly.
He looked up at her, and Thorunn saw what his father meant when he spoke of those big blue eyes. He was silent and apprehensive.
"I suppose telling you this will do no harm. No one would believe you if you tried to implicate me, anyway, and I have broken no laws," Thorunn spoke as if he wasn't there, like she was speaking to ghosts that had no concept of judgement. Perhaps these ghosts and Altair were one and the same. "I am a follower of Hircine, Daedric Lord of the Hunt."
That kindled a reaction other than stone-faced apprehension. He tilted his head slightly, an intrigued crease in his brow.
"I am also a follower of the Nine," she continued. "Despite shouting my love for Them on the day of my oath, despite wearing Their favors and praying to Them as I will, Hircine still accepts me as would any Daedric Prince I choose to follow. Do you know why?"
Softly, Altair shook his head, as she'd predicted.
"Daedra represent change. Aedra represent creation. Any hostility between the two is kindled only by men and their superstitions." She paused, searching his dirt-coated face. "Daedric lords do not care if you make oaths to the Nine. What they care about is that you keep your word to them, and unless they had cause for you to swear you will never follow the Aedra or make oaths to Those Above, adding Talos to your pantheon will not make you any less honorable."
Altair chuckled wryly. "And you would know?" he said quietly.
"I would," Thorunn said to him with all the certainty of the world.
"Why did you come down here? It could not have been out of the kindness of your heart. Are you looking for some sort of validation?"
"The only validation I seek comes from a shrine of Talos." She supposed she saw herself in Altair, if she was being honest with herself. He struggled with who he was, she could see it in the way he held himself, but more than that, he had something to prove. In a way, she felt obligated to make him see his wrongs. With every other life she took, she cared not if they understood the reasons why they had to die. But something in Altair, something foreboding but peaceful that she could not place, made her stay her hand. "The Daedra value perseverance, do they not? I wonder, why do you not simply lie to Ulfric, and tell him you will swear fealty to him and Talos only to save your life?"
"That's what you'd expect me to do, isn't it?" The curl in his lip was not friendly, the look on his face one of scorn. "You do not know me. Do not begin to think you do."
"Then humor me."
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why do you care?"
"One could argue that I am merely curious."
"Are you?"
"No," she said honestly with a shake of her head. "I care because I see a life that does not need to be taken. And perhaps... maybe... I have developed a fondness for you, if not a strong one." An affiliation may have been a more appropriate use of words, but the two were interchangeable when it came to her feelings for Altair.
He looked genuinely shocked at that. "I thought..."
She waved her hand impatiently, knowing what he'd jumped to. "Gods, not that sort of fondness. I am espoused to the king if you must know."
"I suspected as much." She could not make sense of his tone and made no effort to. He looked down, pausing in thought and chewing on his lip. When he looked back up at her, his confusion had returned. "But why? I have done nothing to warrant your care."
"Perhaps," she stated simply, shrugging. "yet you've acquired it nonetheless. What will you do with it?"
He scoffed, sitting back. His back leaned into the wall behind him with a soft thud. "Nothing. I am going to die."
"Only if you choose to do so."
"Choosing not to do so would mean choosing to forsake the Dark Brotherhood. You want me to betray my family and everything I stand for because you have developed the slightest of affection for me."
"I want you to betray your family and everything you stand for because it's the right thing to do," she snapped, temper rising dangerously. "What you stand for is murder. How can you not see what's wrong with that analogy?"
He sighed with frustration. "I don't expect you to understand. If you can't, leave me be."
"And if I can?"
"You don't."
"But if I can..."
He sighed again, rolling his eyes. "You're insufferable, you know that?"
"So I've heard," she said.
He allowed himself a small smile, but it didn't last long. They were pulled from their conversation when they heard someone descending the staircase, come to find out it was Jorleif, Ulfric's steward. The short and polite Nordic man strode over to the cell. If he had any thoughts on why Thorunn was sitting in a prison cell with an assassin, he did not voice them.
"Your Grace, the guards said they'd seen you coming down here," he said, hands clasped behind his back. "Ulfric would like to see you before the midday meal. He did not say if it was formal or informal." Jorleif was a loyal man, if passive to the civil war and untrained in war. Ulfric had excused this with the notion that he needed an unblemished mind from time-to-time.
She nodded. "I will see him," she said, and gestured dismissively. The steward bowed and took his leave while Thorunn got to her feet. She looked down at the man in rags. "Understand that neither the Nine or the Daedra will blame you for wanting your life. Think on it, if nothing else."
She, too, left the prisons then to find her king, but not before telling the guards to bring an unsoiled meal down for the prisoner as well as a bath and a clean change of clothes. They needed him recognizable if they were going to execute him.
She found Ulfric in his private study, slouched comfortably in a recliner with a book in his hand. The stitching in the leather cover of the book read, 'Kolb and the Dragon'. Thorunn's brow furrowed as an amused smile reached her lips. "Children's books? Light reader, are you?"
He looked up from the book with a pensive smile. "I was... feeling nostalgic, is all," he wearied. "Your parents did not relay you this tale?"
"Oh, they did, I just never particularly liked story time. You did?"
"I loved it." He closed the book in his hands and set it aside on the end table next to the recliner he resided in. He gestured to the cushioned chair across from his, identical to his own in every way save that it was green instead of red, and Thorunn sat. "My father didn't necessarily enjoy my affinity for books, for fear of his boy turning up to be a scholar instead of a warrior, but he didn't have much say when we received the letter from the Greybeards, requesting my presence at High Hrothgar."
"You've never went into detail of your time there," Thorunn pointed out, not unkindly.
"No, I suppose I haven't," he remarked faintly. "My father was not happy with it, I can say that much without doubt. I was his only son and my mother died giving birth to me, so essentially, I was all he would ever have in terms of an heir." A wistful look reached his blue eyes. He was eyeing Thorunn without really seeing her, instead seeing his memories. "Being chosen by the Greybeards is an honor, I know that and my father did as well. He had no choice but to let me go, but he was ever furious in his doing so. I was ten when I made the trek alone to High Hrothgar. I was twenty when I made the trek alone back to civilization."
"Why were you chosen, if I may?"
Ulfric saw her then, bouncing back to the present. He smiled. "You always may, dii lokaal," he told her gently. His smile faded and his past returned, a gloom settling over his features. "I was the son of a Jarl and a priest of Kynareth. My mother being an advocate for Kynareth made me targeted enough, but not everyone has an affinity with dragons strong enough to withstand the Voice. The Greybeards, they can... sense something in people. I do not know what to call it, but they sensed it in me, and I am ever grateful they did despite our less-than-graceful goodbye.
"My time at High Hrothgar was long and bittersweet. Many days were tedious, hours spent conditioning rather than actually learning. It is not as easy for us lesser folk to learn the Voice as it is for you, Dragonborn, as you well know. It can kill the strongest of men if taken lightly. But Arngeir and I were fast friends and got along nicely. I distinctly remember sharing a love for lemon cakes." A sad smile rose his lips, but fell almost as soon as it'd appeared. "And then the Great War began, and well... we did not see eye-to-eye. He was calm and collected, but I was outraged. My father sent me a letter, the first time he'd contacted me since I'd left Windhelm ten years prior, and spoke of war and his crooning of it. What was I to do?
"His approval was the one thing I lacked in life. I had a voice that could shake the ground, for Talos' sake, yet I still found myself lying awake at night, wondering if my father ever thought of me and if a proud smile rose to his lips at these thoughts." His tone had gone sharply bitter. "Naturally, I leapt at the chance to prove myself to him. Arngeir warned me that it would not be worth forsaking the Way of the Voice and that there would be dire consequences for using my gift for warfare, but I did not listen. Angry boys never do, do they? And so I left, my last words to Arngeir being that of scorn and distaste. He was my dearest friend, the closest thing I had to a father figure, and yet he paled in comparison to a man that couldn't look me in the eye without a frown of shame."
Thorunn reached out, laying a hand on his knee. She didn't know what else to offer.
His lips twitched at her touch, the beginnings of a smile that was never completely born. "He tolerated me during the war, but little else. I was a sword before I was his son. He made that clear the moment he handed me one and told me, 'You know which end to stick them with, don't you?' Around that time, I met dear old Galmar. He was even more angry back then, believe it or not, and he enjoyed taking it out on me while he trained me. And thank Talos he did take pity on me enough to train me, otherwise I fear I might have met an early grave. My father had no intention to teach me how to use the sword beyond 'which end to stick them with.'
"Still kept up with books, though," He reached over and patted Kolb and the Dragon affectionately. "The other men picked on me for it, but it was what separated me from them. They were stronger, I was smarter, and I could rip them apart with that witty tongue of mine." He tapped his temple for emphasis. "And now look who wears the crown." An aggrieved smirk graced his lips at that.
Thorunn couldn't help but wear a smirk of her own. "Thank you for sharing this with me."
Ulfric's eyes darted over to the sundial. "It was no trouble. I'm glad to have finally spoke of it after all this time." He stood, holding a hand out for her that she graciously took. "Come, we have only a few before it is time to break our fast." He led her out of the study.