A/N: And I'm back again, sorry for the short delay. For those who were wondering, the quotes from the last chapter were ghostnusters; "We came, we saw, we kicked its ass." the second quote was from The Hobbt: An Unexpected Journey; "I've never been so wrong in my life."
Onto the story, Aela has returned from Gallows Rock, alone, bringing bad news with her.
I awoke the next morning, splayed out on the floor of the main hall of Jorrvaskr, my head pounding from the night before. I glanced about and found Falin, curled up at my feet, sleeping peacefully. I vaguely remembered her antics from the night before, once we finally convinced to have a drink. She had looked vaguely like she was going to be sick, then she had taken the bottle that Torvar had offered her before retreating into a corner to drink it quietly. We had completely forgotten about her until she had reappeared and began hugging everybody – apart from Njada, who had been somewhat put out until Athis had started hugging her instead. I grinned at that memory. I stood up, groaning as my head began to pound even harder, unfortunately I had absolutely no memory of what I'd done the previous night, and indicator that I had had far too much drink.
I headed down the stairs towards the living quarters, intending to go to my chest where I had a small stash of hangover curing potions. As I approached my bed, I noticed a trail of muddy footprints leading towards the rooms owned by the Circle. As I followed the tracks, drawn by my hung over curiosity, I realised that the tracks led to Aela's room. That meant that she was back, and so too were Skjor and Ram-Ku. I immediately looked at the mirror next to me to make sure that Ram-Ku hadn't decided to draw on my face while I was passed out. Reassuring myself that he hadn't, I entered Aela's room, and found the huntress curled up on the floor, crying quietly. I was completely taken aback, Aela was always the strong one, the sharp-tongued leader. I had never seen her look so sad, so vulnerable. I had no idea what to do, so I approached the huntress. "Aela?" I asked, "Aela, are you ok?"
She looked at me, and in her expression I saw the Aela that I knew, "Do I look ok to you whelp?" She spat viciously, before breaking into a renewed flood of tears. "He's dead." She sobbed, "Skjor's dead."
Her words hit me hard enough that I had to sit down. "Skjor? How?" I whispered.
"We took Ram-Ku out on a raid." she explained between sobs, "It was his initiation into the circle." I was slightly confused by this, Ram-Ku in the circle? He had been a Companion barely a couple of months, yet he had already been accepted into the upper ranks. "Skjor had gone ahead to scout it out," Aela continued, "Ram-Ku and I followed shortly afterwards." She swallowed deeply, "We should have been quicker, we should not have let him go alone. The bastards overwhelmed him, he was dead before we got to him." I nodded, many a great warrior, of which Skjor was now one, had lost their life due to being overwhelmed by superior numbers.
"He died a warrior's death Aela, Shor will have welcomed him to Sovngarde with open arms." I told her. She laughed, a bitter sound, totally devoid of any humor. I put it down to her sorrow at the loss of her closest friend.
"Yes, he would, wouldn't he?" Her voice, like her laugh, seemed bitter. She laughed again, before breaking down once more, flinging her arms around me, sobbing into my shoulder. "Why?" She howled, "Why did he have to die? I loved him."
I wrapped my arms around Aela's shoulders, which I noticed were covered in wounds and newly-formed scars under her armour. "I know Aela, I know. But he was a warrior, he knew that this could be his fate, and knowing Skjor, he would rather have gone out fighting than to wait for age or disease to claim him first." A thought struck me, "Aela," I asked, "What about Ram-Ku? Did he make it out, or did he…" I couldn't finish the question, Ram-Ku was one of my best friends, but also the thought of having to tell Falin that he was dead was too much for me to bear. Aela looked up at me puzzled, but also slightly anxious.
"No, he made it out, but I thought he was already here. He left long before I did."
"Shit," I cursed, "Where could that stupid lizard have gone?"
When no reply came from the huntress, I looked down to see that she had fallen asleep. Carefully, so as not to wake her up, I lifted her unconscious form onto the bed, laying the covers over her. Then, hangover quite forgotten, I turned towards the stairs, to tell Kodlak that his oldest friend would not be coming back.
The Harbinger had taken the news stoically, just sitting there silently as the rest of the Companions expressed their cumulative disbelief.
"How did you say he died?" Vilkas had queried.
"Aela said that he was overwhelmed by bandits." I replied.
"Where are these bandits?" Njada had demanded, Skjor being one of the few Companions other than Kodlak that she truly respected.
"Apparently Ram-Ku tore them apart." I said. Njada nodded, no doubt imagining, as had I, the massive Argonian tearing limbs off the bandits with his bare hands. Somehow the image didn't seem to unrealistic.
Farkas and Falin both remained silent, though for different reasons. Falin because she couldn't speak, and Farkas because he appeared to be having difficulty taking it in. Kodlak also sat silent, his head in his hands as silver tears streamed down his face. Athis had gone outside to take out his emotions on one of the training dummies, whilst Torvar was attempting to drown his sorrows in his mead.
"What about his body?" Kodlak raised his head form his hands, "What did they do with it?"
"They burnt it." I told him, "Apparently Ram-Ku had wanted to send the entire fort up in flames, but Aela talked him out of it." The old man nodded, and that's precisely what he looked like at that moment, not the Harbinger of the Companions, not a great and noble warrior, just a tired old man for whom some of the joy had gone from life. He stood and addressed us, the tear tracks cutting through the grime on his face.
"Skjor is dead, his soul is gone to Sovngarde," he stumbled over the words, reinforcing the image of an old man. I felt disheartened to see the leader of the mighty Companions brought so low. "But his legacy will live on, in us, the friends that he left behind." His voice grew stronger, filled with conviction. "We will remember him, his names and his deeds, in story and in song, in steel and in blood. Both in the mead hall and on the battlefield. We will tell his stories to those who will listen, we will use the lessons and the techniques that he taught us to further our own prowess and that of the Companions. We will show any who seek to harm us that just because one of us falls, we will not. We will remain strong and we will prosper. We are the Companions of Ysgramor!" His voice rose in volume, "We will carry the legacy of Skjor proudly on our shoulders! We. Will. Remember. Him!"
"We will remember him!" We chorused back. We quickly resumed our normal duties, albeit somewhat sobered up by the loss of one of our largest personalities. Vilkas and Farkas handed out jobs to us more junior members of the Companions, but they did so silently, with grim expressions on their faces. Kodlak retreated to his room below Jorrvaskr. The only one who did not move was Falin. I approached her gently.
"Are you feeling ok?" I asked her. She nodded slowly in response. "Ram-Ku will be fine," I told her, "He's a survivor isn't he? He's come through worse than this before now. He's probably just become distracted by some tavern somewhere."
She gave me a small smile in response, but I could tell that she was not fully convinced. "Come on," I told her, "Let's go and get a job from Vilkas, go and kill some things. Yeah?" knowing that the act of doing so would draw Falin out of her shell. She nodded her assent, and trailed after me as I approached Vilkas.
Vilkas sent us off to a place named Swindler's den, where we had been tasked with retrieving a stolen family heirloom for a rich Thane from Solitude. It angered me that people could get so angry about such a trivial issue when there were people dying in Skyrim. The Thane had probably never stepped outside Solitude, or if he had it would have been to get on a carriage to do business. Falin was constantly trying to distract me from these thoughts with her limited knowledge of illusion magic, conjuring flickering light displays in her hands. I smiled weakly, Falin was the one who was missing her friend, who could be out there in some godsforsaken cave in the furthest reaches of Skyrim, and yet she was the one comforting me. I needed to pull myself together and focus on the job at hand, or Skjor would not be the only Companion lying dead in some far-flung location.
Our travel to the cave was disrupted only by the presence of a Stormcloak scouting party who had made entreaties to coax me to join their cause – until they realised that I travelled with a Dark Elf – then their words had turned to curses and insults, aimed at both Falin and me. We did our best to ignore them, to pass by without any problems. And we did so; right up until the last Stormcloak spat in my face. In my current state, I had not been thinking rationally, and in response he had received a Skyforge steel sword to the throat that had pierced the metal faceplate of his helmet. He had screamed as the blade of my sword cut off the supply of air to his lungs. His comrades had drawn their weapons and charged at us. My sword and Falin's potent destruction magic making short work of their lightly-armoured forms. Once the Stormcloaks had been dealt with, we continued towards Swindler's den, encountering no further obstacles or distractions.
Inside the cave, we had encountered a large group of bandits, most of whom had been busily counting out the gold from their latest haul, or swigging bottles of stolen mead taken from merchants and traders. They had been easy prey. Many had fallen before my blade, and others had fallen, screaming, to Falin's vast array of destruction spells. We headed deeper into the cave, seeking the necklace, where we encountered the bandit chief. Clad in full steel plate armour, he presented a much stronger challenge than we had faced so far.
The edge of my blade scraped uselessly over the man's steel clad torso, raising a spray of sparks in its wake. The man laughed derisively, and raised his steel warhammer over his head, completely focussed on me, completely forgetting about Falin. The Dark Elf darted in, raining fire down on the head of the bandit, causing him to drop his warhammer as his helmet welded itself to his head, the metal deforming as it changed to fit the contours of his head under the intense heat of Falin's magic. Not wanting to lose my prized Skyforge blade, I grabbed one of the swords that had been laid on a nearby table nad plunged it through the deformed metal, into the man's mouth, killing him. We then searched the chest that he had been standing over, finding amongst other, various bits of loot, the requested necklace, and a number of spellbooks bearing the symbol of the school of destruction on the covers. These, along with a set of magicka potions went into Falin's bag, whilst an adept mage hood replaced her apprentice one covering her pointed ears. Falin grinned at me as we left the cave, returning to Whiterun and Jorrvaskr
A/N: This was my first real attempt at speech writing and I hope I did ok. Also, if anyone wants me to include an OC of theirs in the Companions, PM me a bio and I will see if they fit in with the story. Until next time.