Rarely has Vilkas travelled this far north, and the bitter winds bite to his bone with every gust. When the men camp at night, the Companion finds himself huddling into his furs with naught but his memories of home to keep him warm; worse, though, is the fact that his only wish is to have Mayenor tucked into the furs with him, bare body pressed tightly against his. As he drifts into an uncomfortable sleep night after night, he imagines the warmth of her skin, remembers the heat that sparks between them every time their lips meet, and he can't hold back an overwhelming feeling of despair.
He and Brynjolf have made excellent time on their journey from Riften to Dawnstar; even so, it's been nearly two weeks since he left Whiterun, and he's dismayed by the homesickness that consumes him. How, he often wonders, does Mayenor stand flitting from place to place, group to group, with no home to anchor her? He knows where he belongs, and being away from it for so long is crippling to his morale; still, he soldiers on and stays silent about his personal discomforts. Ever at his side and ever ready with some infuriating quip, Brynjolf seems perfectly content to leave his fellows behind for as long as it takes. Then again, Vilkas thinks bitterly, a hive of thieves is hardly a family.
His only consolation is that Brynjolf shivers just as violently as he does when the wind whips through the trees.
They reach Dawnstar on their sixteenth day together, and the townsfolk, hands shaking with fear, point them northeast when they ask about the black door. Every local seems to have heard of the door; every man and woman retreats into their homes at the mention of it. The men ignore the peoples' warnings and follow their stammered directions until they're hopelessly lost in the wilderness. As night falls, they pitch their camp under a rocky outcropping in the mountainside and try to nurture a fire despite the endless winds threatening to extinguish it. Brynjolf settles into his sleeping roll shortly after eating, but Vilkas sits up for a while, staring into the weak flames, and allows himself a few moments to think.
What is he doing? That's the question that weighs on his mind day after day, more heavily when the going gets rough. He's risking everything to find a girl that risked everything to get away from him. What sick determination keeps him going? What modicum of pride makes him think anything will change just because he's undergone such an ordeal to find her? She's run away from everyone she's ever gotten too close to—he and Brynjolf are prime examples—but who's to say she'll run back to him when she leaves the Dark Brotherhood?
But then, a little voice in the back of Vilkas's mind reasons, she came to him when she left Brynjolf. Even though she didn't realize it at the time, Vilkas is confident there's something between them—something that she can't possibly share with anyone else—that draws her back to him time after time. She's come home to the Companions, yes, but Vilkas finds himself believing part of her has always come home to him.
He's snapped from his thoughts by a noise outside the firelight, and his hand goes to the sword lying beside him. He stands and readies the weapon, gripping it tightly in his right hand, and squints to see farther into the wilderness.
He hears the arrows whizzing through the air even before he feels pain blossom across his arm, and he drops his sword in surprise, hissing an ugly curse that wakes Brynjolf from his dreams. The thief springs to his feet, a dagger in each hand, and eyes Vilkas with a frenzy in his gaze. The Companion kneels to gather his sword, left hand clasped around the shaft of the arrow that juts from his right bicep.
"What happened? Who is it?" Brynjolf asks, tensing and scanning their surroundings.
"Fuck if I know," Vilkas grunts in reply, bracing himself and pulling the head of the arrow from his arm with a growl of pain.
"You've made a mistake, boys," says a soft, cooing voice from the darkness.
"Fuck," Brynjolf breathes, eyes widening. "It's the Brotherhood."
"So you purposefully sought us out?" Another voice, this one young and feminine, asks. "Brave."
"Hardly," the first voice snorts. "More like idiotic."
"We don't want any trouble," Vilkas says once he regains his voice, discarding the bloodied arrow on the ground and straightening.
"Too late for that, Companion," the man—Vilkas has decided he must be Altmeri; no one else possesses such a dangerously smooth voice—chuckles. "You've set up your last camp, I'm afraid."
"Take us to Mayenor." Brynjolf demands, suddenly brave. The voices fall silent, and the men exchange wary glances. They know better than to think that the assassins have left; instead, the silence sickens them with fear of the unknown.
Suddenly, white heat flares in the back of Vilkas's head; as he falls to the ground, he sees Brynjolf slump face-forward into the snow beside him. Just before his eyes flicker shut and the light fades from his vision, he realizes the white snow is stained red with their blood.
He wakes up in a dim, cold, windowless chamber, and the first thing he notices is pain. His head throbs with it; his arm aches where the arrow pierced the muscle; his wrists sting from chafing caused by the manacles that encircle them. He lets out a low groan before he's even fully awake, and a wry chuckle answers it.
"Some welcome, huh?" Brynjolf rasps. Vilkas turns his head to look at the other man, wincing as he does so.
"You look like shit," he informs the thief, who snorts softly.
"You're not so hot yourself, Companion." The two stare at each other for a long moment, and, for the first time since they met so long ago outside Falkreath, Vilkas feels as though he truly understands the redhead.
"Where are we?"
"Torture room. Probably in the Dawnstar Sanctuary." Brynjolf pauses, considering. "Or Hell. I'm not really sure at this point."
"How long have you been awake?" Vilkas asks then, noticing the long, angry, red whelps striping Brynjolf's torso. The other man follows his gaze and grimaces.
"Not long. I picked the lock on my chains. They didn't like that." Vilkas hesitates before asking his next question.
"Have you seen—"
"No."
"Do you think she's even here?"
"I don't know. I don't care anymore. This is all your fucking fault."
"Your dumbass friend told us to come here!" Vilkas argues, scowling. Brynjolf opens his mouth to respond, but a door to their left opens, and he falls silent immediately. Vilkas quickly follows suit.
A slight figure dressed all in black enters. The shape is definitively feminine, but a shroud covers the woman's face, all except for her eyes, which are too hooded in darkness to be seen. Behind her, a huge Redguard steps into the room, followed by two more black-clad figures, and closes the door.
"Who are they, Listener?" Asks the taller figure, and Vilkas recognizes his voice as the one from before they were kidnapped.
"I don't know." He feels his throat go dry when the shrouded woman speaks; though he can't make out any of her features, he knows that voice, and it sets his heart to racing. Mayenor steps closer to them, and Vilkas almost speaks, but he remembers the whip-marks criss-crossing Brynjolf's back and decides against it. As she gets nearer to him, the light catches the slit in her mask, and Vilkas sees the green eyes that have haunted his dreams these past months. He can't help but suck in his breath.
"Yannen, Erelie, leave," the large Redguard says, and the two black-clad figures, apparently the ones who found Brynjolf and Vilkas, look taken-aback.
"What? We found them!" The Breton girl whines, and the Redguard snarls at her until she draws back toward her companion. The Altmer catches her elbow comfortingly, but stands tall.
"We deserve to stay and watch," he says, chin tilting stubbornly into the air. "We could learn something. You know we never get to torture the captives."
"I said leave," the man repeats, voice growing impatient. The girl—Erelie—huffs a sigh.
"That's not fair!" She pouts, and Mayenor whirls suddenly to face her. The rage radiating from her is so strong even Vilkas flinches back toward the wall to which he's chained.
"Leave," she hisses, and the pair stumbles over one another to obey, slamming the door behind her. Once they're gone, Mayenor relaxes. "You too, Nazir," she adds, voice softening to the point it's almost familiar to Vilkas again. The Redguard shakes his head solemnly.
"No. I know who they are, May. You don't have to hide from me." Though Mayenor hesitates, she nods once before turning back to Vilkas and Brynjolf.
As badly as his body burns with pain, it's nothing compared to the torture in Vilkas's heart as he watches his beloved transform into someone he doesn't even know. The Mayenor he knows if strong and fierce, yes, but he would never describe her as cruel or evil. But the way those initiates had fled under her gaze was testament to the fact that she was something terrifying now, something ferocious that scared her underlings.
But, as she surveys the men silently, Vilkas can't help but see the woman he loves under her thorny new exterior. And, when her gloved hand reaches up to undo the clasps keeping her shroud in place, his heart begins to race all over again. She moves the fabric that obstructs her face, lifts the hood from her hair, and stands before him in all her glory.
"Hello, boys," she says softly, seriously, glancing at Brynjolf before letting her gaze settle for good on Vilkas. "Welcome to my home."