Elvic chuckled lightly and leaned down, offering a hand to his felled opponent. Vilkas looked up at the older man, clearly dazed from both his sudden defeat and the teeth rattling blow to his now split chin. His pale eyes worked up a weak glare but he accepted the scarred hand none the less. They stood at eye level with one another and for a moment Aela half expected the fighting to start back up again. Instead, Vilkas brought a hand to his bleeding lip and flicked his eyes down to the shards of steel at his feet. "What do you call that?" Elvic's cautious smirk stole his rugged features. "It's an old technique, something I learned from an Orc Chief in my youth." He looked Vilkas up and down and reached over to squeeze his bicep. "You could pull it off with some practice."
Aela felt her mouth curve against her will as Vilkas shook his head and laughed.
Within a month the new recruits were following him around like pups, hanging on his every word and begging to be his shield sibling for his increasingly important jobs. Elvic fit in with them better than anyone but Farkas wanted to admit, and Aela knew it was only a matter of time before the circle was made open to him.
He spent much of his time alone, sitting beside the great hearth and pouring over maps or ancient looking scrolls when he wasn't tending to his equipment. He enjoyed the company of most of the Companions, the twins in particular as they warmed up to him. When night fell he'd come out of his corner and join in the drinking, brawling or raucous laughter like he'd always been a part of them. The huntress kept her distance from him when she could but when the candles burned low and stories of battle were exchanged, Aela left her place of observation and leaned in to absorb that gravelly voice. He had so many stories, some of them so comical, usually involving some mishap with someone's daughter or a run in with some of the stranger mating customs of the rest of Tamriel, that he had everyone in tears by the end of it and wondering how on earth Elvic has lived to his age. Other times though, he told story of true war, of the horrors of the high elves' dominion, of the destruction left in a master vampire's wake, of the strange intelligence of the falmar, and often the true depravity of mortal men. It was those nights that they all crawled somberly into bed.
She was taken off guard the first time he came to her.
She always rose early to hunt, the beast in her aware that the fauna of the deep woods thought themselves safe in the frigid, pink dawn of Skyrim's weak sun. The sky was still black when she rose, dressing in silence and gathering only her bow and a few strong arrows. A huntress needed no great comfort to hunt, that was something her father had taught her in her youth, before she was wolf but even then she'd been wild, craving the kill and the hunt. Being wolf completed her, brought form to the bloodlust and hunger for the kiss of the moon and the rush of wind in her ears.
Elvic was waiting at the end of the hall, dressed in a plain gray shirt and dark leather pants and boots, his hair loose against his shoulders and neck and a simple bow on his back. She met his eye, so sharp and strong, saw the beast lurking there. Not a wolf, but something, no human man had eyes like that. He smirked at her, the expression revealing the hard lines in his face, both from years of exposure to the elements and long healed wounds that had been wrought smooth by wind and rain. She felt heat gather in her chest and flutter south along her spine and then [i]there[/i] but offered him a smile in return.
There were no words needed as they ventured out into the dark, making their way across the farmlands and then deep into the wooded mountains. He was more warrior than hunter, that was obvious by the way he walked beside her in the dim woods, his cat's stride carrying him too quickly along the trails left by their prey. She watched him closely, saw the way the thin fabric of his clothes pulled tight over the decades old muscles of his hard body. His left ear had been torn at some point, his right forearm badly burned, and of course something had stolen one of those cat eyes from his handsome face. She wanted to touch his skin, feel the rough hair that appeared to cover most of his body, save for where scars had marred his skin.
He didn't try to take the lead, letting her lead them to a cove where she so often found grazing elk. Two bulls stood waiting for them, pawing at the rough grasses before tearing them up with their flat teeth. Aela drew her bow and gestured at him to do the same and she wanted to laugh at how small the wooden weapon looked in his gnarled hand. She tore her eyes from him and knocked an arrow, narrowing her eye and finding the beast's shoulder. His bow twacked first, hitting his prey clumsily in the side which sent the bull bolting into the tree line. Her arrow struck true, driving straight into the elk's heart, dropping him to his knees and then his side, where he took his last bloody breaths.
Elvic cursed quietly and stood up, jogging after his ill-fated prey. Aela watched him, noted the way he ever so slightly favored his left leg. Another scar to find. She drug her kill away from the open area before following after him, catching up quickly enough with swift feet and long legs. He was half crouched, following the blood trail of the wounded beast. She followed him this time, smelling the elk's panicked sweat and then attuning her sensitive nose to the man beside her. He smelled of dark soil and thunder storms, the deep musk of his sweat peppered with roasted meat. Her mouth watered.
\She saw the wounded beast first and gestured with her head He followed her gaze to where the elk lay on his side, breathing shallowly as his life blood leaked onto the hard ground. Elvic approached the deer cautiously, knowing the strength a dying animal could wield in its dying moments. He drew a long knife from his boot and crouched beside the beast's head, watching its eye roll wild and black in its head. Aela bit her lip as he drug the blade along the elk's throat, its blood saturating his powerful hands as he finished the job.
He stared somberly at the dead animal for just a moment before taking hold of its antler in one hand and then its back legs, slinging it easily over his broad shoulders. He offered white-toothed grin to Aela who tried not to quiver under it, instead returning the look with a shake of her red head. They made their way back to her kill and set about the skinning process then and there. He wielded his knife more clumsily than she did, but he cut in the right places and got the job done only minutes after she'd finished. He eyed her quick and near perfect work for a moment before nodding at it.
"Someone taught you how to do that when you were young?" It was more statement than question, but it warranted an answer from her none the less. "I grew up in the woods with my father, he was a huntsman by profession and hobby." Elvic nodded. "And your mother was a Companion?" She nodded at him, watching the dawn slowly light his features. "She was, just as her mother was and hers and so forth as long as we can track." He nodded, letting her wrap the meat they'd harvested in the skins of the beasts. "Are your people warriors?" Elvic looked at her, a little surprised by the question. "My father ran a farm near Ivarstead. My mother came from a long line of whores." Aela looked at him hard for a moment, wondering how a man of such strength and prowess had come from a nothing. He chuckled, perhaps at the confusion on her features. "I left home with a group of mercenaries when I was thirteen. Been at this awhile." She nodded and stood up, slinging her skin over her shoulder and watching him do the same.
They walked in silence, listening to the wood as the birds shook the night frost from their wings. Aela wanted to know more but she kept her mouth shut, reveling instead in his presence and in the breaking dawn.