Author's Note:
Sorry for the late chapter! I got a little too trigger-happy with the Skyrim Kink Meme during my free time :) The next chapter after this is in the works though, so I'll probably post it in a couple of days. Hope you like it!
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"Dear Eric,
I miss you terribly. Things have gone insane here. How are you?
My journey was alright, and I got Kynareth's blessing and boon. I'll tell you more when we next see each other (it better be soon). Tell mother her amulet was of great help – it was actually Kynareth's amulet, destined for me or some such.
Vilkas and I are getting along much better since our journey. You might've had a good idea in that thick skull of yours, after all. Much harsher during training, but he actually talks about random stuff with me outside of it. His personal library is impressive, and I've already abused his offer to 'peruse it if I so wish'. I think he and Farkas miss you almost as much as I do. Are you sure you're not in love with him, and not Carlotta?
Carlotta and Mila miss you. You have a note from her with this letter. I won't say I've peeked at it (I have) but I suggest you save up for an Amulet of Mara by next year.
I have something very important to tell you when you get back. I feel like the weight of the world's on my shoulders. The Circle said they'd help with my problem and give me special training sessions…that is I'll spend most of my time training and sleeping and nothing in between until they deem my skill acceptable.
I'm also sending over some gold pieces with the courier, please give them to ma and pa. About 1500 of them, looted from dead bodies (but don't tell them that). They're wrapped in cloth and hidden in three wine jugs in a crate. Call me paranoid, but you never know these days.
Please come back soon.
Love, Amina."
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Dustman's Cairn was exactly what it said on the tin: full of dust and dead men, or rather, undead draugr.
Amina hacked and slashed her way through the draugr, which didn't particularly seem in top form that day. Most of them were already missing limbs or sporting crushed skulls, and the dust seemed unsettled even before they came inside. The degree with which the tomb had been disturbed was eerie, and she hoped that it had been just a couple of bandits, and not something worse. And more, she prayed that whatever it was wasn't camped out in the middle of the tomb, sleeping among the dead. She hated fighting serious opponents in cairns. There never was enough light and she loathed adding to the already present stench of death and decay.
Farkas stayed behind, observing her to see if she, indeed, was fit for advancement, but couldn't resist hacking away a bit himself. He laughed with every strike, his smile wide and his muscles taut, relishing in the experience of battle. Even if it wasn't a great one. It was in times like these, he thought, that he felt the most alive. In the heat of battle, nobody called him stupid, because he was among the best. In battle he got the most praise, and the most respect, and the awed looks usually reserved for his brother shifted towards him. He was the strongest of the lot, and his powerful hits garnered more attention than Vilkas' strategies and calculated moves. Not that he liked stealing his brother's thunder, but praise was scarce towards him for anything else than his fighting prowess. And anyway, Vilkas had everything else. Let him have their admiration while fighting, at least.
After the draugr were dispatched, he took a long look around them, and observed: "Looks like someone's been doing some digging lately."
"Digging? By the way things are unsettled, it seems like a proper archeological excavation. Did the guy that gave you the information say anything else about the tomb, mention something like this? What was he like?"
Farkas shrugged. "Just a smart man. I didn't ask questions because - "
"Because you didn't care." Amina smiled. He laughed.
"You've come to know me. But no, nothing other than what we know."
"I don't like the look of this, Farkas."
"Yeah, the air smells wrong."
She arched an eyebrow at him. "You can smell the air?"
"It smells…err. Not stale. As usual." He stammered.
"Well, I guess it does smell a bit like fresh air and too little like the undead, I'll give you that. You have a fine nose there, Farkas".
He laughed, looking to the side rubbing the back of his neck. Amina narrowed her eyes suspiciously, but she let it pass. It wasn't the time to inquire into Farkas' inner workings, at least not until they got out of that cave.
Amina made sure to loot all the chests and urns in the cairn. At Farkas' raised eyebrows she told him "Well, it's not like they have much use for it, is it? And poor old me needs the funds, anyway."
"Those are money for the dead."
"Which we killed again. They owe me money for health potions, by that logic."
Farkas groaned. "My brother would've kicked you for being so disrespectful to the dead."
She gave him a cheeky smile. "But he isn't here, you are. And you don't care enough to stop me from robbing the draugr blind."
"I'm changing my mind about the good part of you knowing me well."
A fleeting smirk passed Farkas' face, and for a moment she saw Vilkas in his place. Amina was reminded that the brothers were actually twins, two sides of a coin, and that the reason they looked so different were not their faces, but their manner, their expressions, the way they sat and walked and talked. But in that single smirk Amina saw their similarities, and she felt an odd pang in here chest. She had a vision of Vilkas smirking at her over the edge of his blade as they sparred, his laugh haughty, his feet swift, knocking her down and telling her to get back up or else. She couldn't wait to get out of this godforsaken ruin and train some more with him. For entirely professional reasons, of course, she told herself.
Moving forward deeper in the bowels of the cairn proved easier than going through that first room. The draugr had been dispatched cleanly, their rags and bones coating the floor, making it hard to walk without stabbing your legs with bone shards or tripping on ribcages. Amina wrinkled her nose in disgust. No wonder Meridia chose her as her champion, these things were an abomination.
She had Dawnbreaker strapped to her back, its hilt wrapped in cloth to mask its light, and the blade hid by its scabbard. She'd use it if things got too dire. It had rotted in her chest for enough time, and emboldened by the Circle's acceptance of her and Kodlak's kind words, she had decided to take it with her. And besides, she had the nagging feeling that Meridia would grow displeased if her artifact wasn't used to cleanse tombs at least once in a while. However, the draugr hadn't given her any reason to use it, and she was starting to fear that whatever reduced them in such a state wouldn't be dealt with a sword. She feared that they weren't undead at all.
That's when Farkas' stopped her short, one arm in front of her. She bumped into it and lost her breath. It had been like bumping into a brick wall. She sometimes forgot how strong Farkas was because of his puppy-dog manners and gentle approaches.
His nose was upturned, his mouth slightly opened, as if he were tasting the air. She could see his ears twitch underneath his long hair, and the hairs on his arms were raised on end as if affected by some unknown electricity floating around.
"There's someone in here." he whispered. "Be cautious."
"How do you know?" Amina whispered back, bewildered.
Farkas just shrugged at her and pressed forward in the ruins. As they advanced, the draugr were replaced by claw marks on the walls and bits of fur and blood on the ground. Farkas shuddered, recognizing the smell and the fur instantly, but he couldn't say anything. Amina was too curious, too prone to asking questions, and if he interrupted their mission and sent her back home, then she'd butt her nose into everything until she either found out, or she was distracted by something else grander.
That's when he saw it.
"There's a body over there!" Amina cried out, and rushed towards it. Farkas made to grab her arm and stop her, but she was too quick, too desperate to see what it was about, to help, so he couldn't catch her.
Her ghasp of horror was ever-telling. Farkas made her way towards her, and saw her crouched over the body, kneeling in his blood, her hands readied to help, raised towards him, but not knowing what to do. She trembled like a leaf, frightened by the sight.
He was half-transformed, his hands and feet that of a werewolf, his torso and head that of a man. He had probably tried to transform, to die as a man, but the pain and his wounds prevented him going all the way. Farkas' heart hurt for him, and he shuddered in empathy. The man was slashed in all possible ways, the work of a sadistic hand. His belly had been cut up, and he had been left to die a slow and agonizing death, alone in the cold and surrounded by draugr. The cuts were too clean, too precise, too aimed to hurt for it to have been the work of the undead. And the shackles on his hands and feet screamed loud and clear that he didn't come into the cairn on his own, or because he had wanted to.
Amina cradled the man's head into her arms, stroking his hair gently, her eyes filled with tears. "Who would do such a thing?" she asked, her voice trembling.
"He's a werewolf." Farkas answered simply, because that was probably the only reason for the cruelty inflicted upon him. Amina whipped her head around towards him, furious. "And what of it?! Werewolf, vampire, whatever, they are all human, or half-human, or whatever. The least they deserve is a quick, clean death, if they ever do anything wrong, but not…not this. This is just cruel."
Farkas' eyes widened. Was there…acceptance in her words? Mercy?
"It was probably the Silver Hand."
"Silver Hand?"
"Werewolf hunters. They don't care – if you're a werewolf, you die."
"Even if you're innocent? Or turned into one against your will?"
"They don't care."
"That's inhumane."
She stroked the man's forehead gently, her eyes downcast and sad, and Farkas felt his own heart constrict. So much time had passed since anyone else had not considered werewolves monsters, so much time since he had heard mercies called in for them, too long since he had heard nothing but fearful whispers in taverns about supposed man-beasts roaming the woods under the full moon. Right then and there Farkas decided that Amina was, by right, his shield-sister.
The wounded man groaned, and Amina half-way jumped out of her skin in surprise. His eyes opened, one gold and the other brown, and looked up at her as if she were an apparition sent by merciful Mara herself. He opened his mouth and tried to speak, but only a pained croak came out.
"Shh, you're safe." Amina whispered to him after getting over her initial shock. "Do you think you can drink a health potion? I don't know if it will help, but it will ease your pain, and you'll feel much better, I promise." She rambled. The man gave a weak nod, and Farkas tossed a healing potion from his pack towards her. She gently poured it into the man's mouth, and it started taking effect.
Cuts were mending together, the flesh knitting itself and leaving behind raw pink portions of new skin. Bruises faded away into nothing, and she could feel the man was breathing much easily. Even so, potions don't do miracles, and the concoction couldn't fix his broken bones or slashed up belly. It could only make him numb to the pain and high enough that the stone floor felt like the warmest bed.
"Who did this to you?"
"Silver Hand." He croaked. "But I deserved it…I…I killed a little girl. I…transformed and I couldn't – couldn't control myself, not with that ring. They…found me in Falkreath…tied me up…in the middle of the night. Dragged me here." Tears prickled his eyes. "Got what…I deserved, did I? If they hadn't… come for me I would've hung myself anyway."
"You deserved a swift death, like every criminal does. Not this. Not like this. And…you couldn't control yourself. It's not your fault."
"Is it not?" he raised his right hand towards the light, looking at the specks of dust that swam around it, the light filtering through his fingers, that cursed ring, remembering better days.
"I stole this ring…from the altar of Hircine himself. I thought…I thought it would make me…normal again. Control my beast. Get back to my parents and sister…be family again…not be a beast." Tears were freely falling from his eyes now. "And when I…killed that little girl…they threw me in jail, even…though I tried explaining. And then these Silver Hand got me…and well, here I am."
A beat of silence. The man is sobbing, and Amina turns towards Farkas for advice, a word, anything. Farkas can only stare, wide-eyed and tense, his lips pursed and his muscles coiled, as if the man had just given him a death sentence. It strikes him, in that moment, how lucky he is for his control. But it also dawns on him the limitations of his being, of his condition. For a brief moment, his heart stops, and he realizes that as far as he was concerned Aela was wrong, wrong, wrong. But he shrugs it off, because that's what he does. It's of no immediate importance, he can't do anything about it, so why beat his head over it? He looks away from the man so he doesn't get reminded again of his own mortality, not now when he has calmed himself down.
"Is there anything I can do to help you? Maybe go visit your family, tell them something for you?"
"Are you sure about wanting to do me favours?"
Amina nods, her eyes red and puffy, trying to control her tears.
"Then take this ring…hunt Hircine's white stag and talk to him, and give this thrice cursed thing back to him as my…retribution. Release me from his hunting grounds after I die. Plead with him for me. That's…all I ask."
Amina took the ring from his finger and held his hand. "Of course."
His hand tightened around hers so hard she could feel her joints pop.
"Do you promise?"
"I promise."
He gave a sigh, and closed his eyes. "Now go…please…I'd like to try and transform the rest of me before my time comes…and I'd like to…be alone. For when I die."
"Are you sure you're going to be alright alone?"
He gave her a toothy smile. "I'll be fine."
Amina turned towards the man one last time before they made their way further into the cairn. She could feel her hands trembling, and the ring she put in her pocket felt as if it was burning through the fabric and imprinting on her some kind of primal fear, a sense of impending doom, a feeling of unescapable destiny. She was sick and tired of inescapable destinies. But who was she to deny a dying man's request?
"Are you going to really help him?"
"Of course." Amina snapped. "I gave him my word."
Farkas decided to test the waters. "Even if he's a werewolf?"
She glared at him. "I didn't expect you to be so judgemental. It's not his fault for being what he is!"
"But what if it were? What if he chose it for himself?"
Amina frowned. "Still, he didn't want to hurt anyone. And for me intention is far more important than the outcome. And besides, he's still human, still worthy of a promise kept. I've seen 'normal' people that act more like monsters than werewolves ever do. I'd rather get locked in a room with a werewolf nearing a full moon than a bandit. At least the werewolf won't hurt me on purpose."
Farkas tried to contain his smile. For sure, he'd be proud of calling her a shield sister on that logic alone. He felt like hugging her.
The next room was large and imposing, but it looked like a dead end.
"There must be something here, somewhere." She muttered. "A lever, maybe?"
Farkas nodded. "Look for it, I'll keep a lookout."
And she did find a lever, only instead of helping her find a way out, it trapped her. Pulling the lever again had no effect, and she started panicking. She flung herself to the bars of her new cage and gripped them tight. She frantically ran her fingers up and down, searching for a lock, or anything that could be picked, but found nothing. She yelled for Farkas, knowing full well that any loud noise in a crypt was just asking for trouble, but what could have she possibly done? Maybe a few weeks of starving would've slimmed her down enough to let her pass through the bars, but she didn't have the time nor the willingness.
"Look at what you got yourself into now. Just sit tight, I'll go find the release lev-" He suddenly stopped, his ears perking up at a faraway sound only he could hear. And then after half a minute, Amina could hear it too, the pounding of boots, the unmistakable clink of heavy armor on stone.
They came pouring in like a flood, from every direction, jeering and showing their teeth at Farkas, who, for some reason, looked only mildly amused at the onslaught of people circling him, surrounding him. She yelled again for him, and struggled against the bars.
"Time to die, dog!" one of them said, stomping his foot in the ground, as the others getting closer and closer to Farkas, caging him in. "We knew you were coming! Your mistake, Companion!"
"Which one is it?"
"Does it matter?! He wears the armour, he dies!"
And then Farkas turned his head slightly to her, and gave her a look she couldn't decipher. And then he gave out a sickening cry, more howl than scream, and his body took a monstrous form. She could hear his bones popping, and then his armour started flying off, ripped at the seams. His skin rippled like seawater in the storm, and in its place hide and fur started bubbling through the surface, sprouting at high speeds from his back, his limbs. His form grew, hunch-backed and terrible, his limbs lengthened, his hands so big his gauntlets popped right off, nails lengthening to claws. His face changed last, deformed and lengthened into a snout, his blue eyes golden and white canines gleaming in the torchlight.
Amina screamed. He slaughtered them all.
He ran off to a side room, and he was out of sight. Amina felt like fainting, and leaned into the table behind her. Her heart was beating like mad, and she was overcome by a primal need to run away and get as far away from the situation as possible. It's just Farkas, she told herself. Sweet, gentle Farkas who smiled a lot and fought well and was her friend. Farkas who'd do her no harm. Just Farkas. But for as much as she said she'd rather be locked in a room with a werewolf, she had never imagined seeing one transform would be so frightening. It was something primordial, probably, this fear, from when men were still prey to beasts and not the way around, from when she was still little and afraid of bumps in the night. She calmed herself, steered herself towards the calm and happy memories of Farkas, memories of the days spent at the Skyforge when he'd teach her about heavy armour, the training sessions, that day in the broom cupboard when she'd cried and he'd dried her tears. Just Farkas, Farkas of the Companions, sweet, compassionate, honorable, irreproachable Farkas. Her wildly beating heart slowed down, stilling into a resemblance of normalcy.
"Farkas?" she called out, her voice slightly trembling. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Found a lever that might get you out. Do me a favour and bring me something to wear, will you? I'm naked."
Amina blushed furiously.
"Eorlund will be furious with you."
"He's had time to deal with it."
The gate opened, and she started her good habit of looting corpses, this time keeping an eye out for whatever Farkas could wear. Which was a hard task, because Farkas was massive. He was a full head taller than most Nords she knew, with a back as wide as a table and thighs thick as tree trunks.
She followed his voice and closed her eyes. He took the clothes from her, and for a few minutes the only noises were that of fabric. When she finally opened her eyes, she had to suppress a snigger.
"You look ridiculous."
Farkas frowned. He felt ridiculous, too. The shirt was too shirt, showing off his belly button like he was some cheap tavern whore, and the pants were much too short.
"I hope I didn't scare you."
"A little, at first. It's…not a pretty sight. But I calmed down soon enough when I remember it was just you."
Farkas huffed. "Others fear my name and you get calmed down by it!"
She giggled. "I know you're secretly a teddy-bear, Farkas. Or shall I say…teddy-wolf? So…you're a werewolf, huh?"
"It's a blessing given to some of us Companions. We can be like wild beasts. Fearsome."
"Furry!"
He glared at her.
"So…are you going to make me a werewolf after this?"
He gave a booming laugh, and put his hand on her shoulder. "Oh, no! Only the Circle have the beast blood. Prove your worth as a Companion and one day, we might share it with you. But only if you want to. Still, 'Eyes on the prey, not on the horizon.'"
"Well…I don't know if I want to now, but I'll let you know once I'm the Circle."
He laughed again. "Now that's the spirit! Let's keep moving, we still have Draugr to worry about."
But it wasn't just the Draugr they had to worry about. The more they made their way through the crypt, the more signs of a frostbite spider infestation they found. Amina started to worry when she saw Farkas look a little green, but nothing prepared her for the girlish shriek he gave when one of the wretched things descended from the roof of the chamber they were in. He screamed shrilly and hacked away at it with such fervor that Amina didn't even have time to blink. Once the spider was sufficiently dead, he backed away from it and gripped Amina's arm in a vice. She winced.
"F-Farkas, are you alright?"
"I-I h-hate those bloody things. Too many legs. And their webs are gross. And eughhhh." He shuddered, still a little green-faced. Amina suppressed a snigger and rubbed his forearm in an attempt to soothe him.
"There, there, Farkas. They're all dead now, anyway. You made sure of it."
"Damn straight. Disgusting things. They serve no other purpose than to scuttle around and be gross."
While they fought and maimed their way through the rest of the crypt, Amina couldn't help but replay one of the Silver Hand's words: they knew they were coming. Was that wise man Farkas talking about a double agent? Or did perhaps the Silver Hand intercept the information and target Wuuthrad fragment locations especially to get at the Companions? …Or was it perhaps a more sinister ploy? The line probably escaped Farkas' mind the moment he finished fighting, but Amina understood that something like that could have dire consequences for the guild. If the Silver Hand were werewolf hunters, it made sense to target the Circle for sport and glory…and it the Circle was targeted, the whole guild was in danger.
And then, they found it, and her thoughts fled her head, quieted at the sight of that piece of greatness. It was but a shard, but she could feel its power, she could hear it humming with its past. And what a horrible past it was. She picked it up and looked at it, at the grooves inscribed in the metal, and knew she was holding history. Wuuthrad, the weapon wielded by Ysgramor and forged by his son Ygnol, who represented all the hate mankind had for elvenkind after the Night of Tears, the great genocide the Snow Elves inflicted upon the early Nords. And now there weren't any Snow Elves, and that weapon was responsible for their demise. She wondered what happed to them. Had they fled? Had they all been killed? Or where there any Snow Elves left, untouched by Ysgramor's wratch and by Wuuthrad's edge? She felt a pang of sorrow thinking about all that blood shed and happiness lost, and all because they shared the same earth and couldn't reconcile their differences.
"Are you going to stare at it longer? Or do we head back home?"
Amina snapped out of her thoughts, as if from a trance.
"You go back home and tell them we retrieved the fragment. I'll go and deal with our friend's…furry problem. Just like I promised. And maybe visit ma and pa while I'm at it. I'll go to Falkreath, find out more about our friend and Hircine's stag, and see where it takes me from there. Maybe if it's close enough to Rorikstead, I'll drop by and visit my parents."
He looked worried for a moment, as if she were running away and not fulfilling her promise.
"You are coming back, right?"
"Of course I am, silly."