The interior of the barrow is rather large, much larger than it appeared to be from the outside. The ceiling is peppered with gaping holes where it isn't entirely collapsed, letting snow drifts pile up against walls and feather across floors, pale sunlight illuminating the dark corners of the ancient stones.

It looks like something out of Lord of the Rings, Desmond thinks, as he skitters silently around fallen pillars towards a trio of bandits arguing around a campfire, Aela just off to his left.

He motions her forward and she nods in understanding. She charges in, a distraction, stabbing one man through the chest while he hops up on a pile of weathered masonry and takes out their archer with three quick arrows. The last bandit gets the privilege of both a sword to the gut and an arrow through the eye socket. It is fast and quiet and far too easy.

He loots their corpses and moves on, an oily feeling twisting in his gut. The scene flashes before his eyes- Borgia guards on the banks of the canals grab everything you can you don't have enough time and you need medicine-

He runs his hand through his short hair and counts his fingers six times(find a synch nexus find a synch nexus findasynchnexus-) and shoves the feeling way down where he doesn't have to think about it anymore.

He brushes off Aela's concerned looks and soldiers ahead, killing some giant rat things- skeevers? He thinks that's what they're called- and a frostbite spider without much thought. Then there's a man(a dark elf, like Irileth), suspended from the ceiling by giant webs, and it's so unexpected that he almost laughs.

The guy says something about treasure, and to be honest he's just a little too shifty for Desmond to be comfortable with, but leaving him suspended is just cruel, and they need to go down that corridor anyways, so he flips on his eagle vision(why hadn't he been using it before?) and thoughtlessly buries a dagger in the guys stomach when he all but blazes red like a beacon in front of him. When the elf's health bar has petered out and vanished, he flips his grip on his knife and hacks at the glowing weak points in the webs until they are just shreds at his feet.

"He might not have been an enemy," Aela says quietly from behind him as he sticks the elf's strange golden claw thing in his bag.

"He was."

She frowns. "How could you tell?"

He pauses. "…call it a gut instinct."

She frowns again, more considering than disapproving, and mercifully lets the subject drop.

He's almost sad that they didn't just turn around there, because the next room has zombies in it.

He freezes in actual shock when he sees them and the only thing that keeps him from getting his skull caved in is Aela's battle cry, which startles him out of his stupor quickly enough to force his hidden blade through the throat and spine of the one coming at him, the dagger in his hand simultaneously disemboweling it.

(His fingers brush it's chalky papery skin and he watches the sightless gleam leave it's clouded eyes. He wants to throw up.)

When the reanimated corpses lie mangled on the floor and Aela is looking at him, so concerned it hurts, his endocrine system decides that this is the straw to break the camel's back and now is an excellent time to release all the pent up anxiety and disbelief and emotions in one breathtaking panic attack.

He comes to in a corner ot the room, curled up as small as he can make himself, muttering in Arabic and clawing at the circuit board scars on his arm. He knows he's been crying, can feel the sting in his eyes and the burn in his lungs, and Aela is sitting cross legged across from him. She is, mercifully, not touching him(thank god, once Shaun tried to pat his back and nearly got a blade in the eye because all he could see was threat threat threat), but speaking softly about nothing in a soothing tone of voice.

(His eagle vision flips on without permission and only when he sees the unmistakable glow of azure does he calm down.)

He takes a few deep breaths and wipes half dried tear tracks off his face, smiling bitterly. "Sorry you had to see that."

She shakes her head. "Do not apologize. Battle dreams are nothing to be ashamed of, and not something that can be helped." She pauses. "Although I have never seen someone come out of them so quickly."

He plastered an approximation of a smile on his face. "I've had lots of practice."

She frowns. "You should not have had to." She shakes her head again and sits back on her haunches. "I am sorry this has happened to you."

Desmond stands slowly, stretching his cramped muscles, and making his way towards the door out of the room, Aela falling in a step behind.

"Well, sometimes we just don't get what we want. Life isn't fair."

#

He says the same thing at the Word Wall a few rooms later, arms wrapped around himself tightly so all the new knowledge in his head doesn't shake him apart and spill out of the strained seams of his psyche.

Aela wordlessly hands him the Dragonstone and brushes an uncharacteristically gentle hand over his shoulder. Something solid settles between them, something like friendship. He thinks he might have gained another touchstone for his tattered sanity.

It's a nice thought.