Aela's face was still flushed from angry tears and too much drink when she made the climb up what seemed like the ten thousand steps to High Hrothgar to reach the main hall of Jorrvaskr from the living quarters. She stank of stale mead and Colovian brandy, her leathers were soaked with alcohol; her green, usually striped war paint was smeared, her striking face for once visible, but too tainted by her mood to be beautiful. She staggered, and gripped the banister; sneered at the whelps that dared to catch her glance in their mild confusion. She was not herself, she knew that well, her mind was swimming in Aetherius, but anyone who dared to question her would surely feel her wrath. Her stride faltered as she reached the top of the staircase. She re-assessed her bearings, took a breath, straightened up and marched over to the tables in the centre of the room. She stopped in front of Farkas, forced herself not to meet his eyes, steadied herself on the table and poured herself a tankard of ale.
"Who do you think you're passing judgement on, oh great cleansed one?" She spat contemptuously at Farkas, he who had cast aside his wolf following the death of Kodlak, their former Harbinger. She continued her effort to focus only on her drink.
"Whoa sister," He objected with a confused scowl, "I thought we'd been over this!"
"Leave her be, brother" Vilkas' low voice cut in from his seat across the room. He did not make any effort to move, he was preoccupied, cradling Liset who had fallen asleep in his arms as he absent-mindedly ran his fingers through her hair.
"No!" Aela snapped, whipping round her body as if possessed, and breaking the devout vigil she was holding over her ale, glaring furiously at the man, her eyes suddenly lit with hate, "You! You dare to defend me?" She roared, throwing her tankard to the floor with a force that caused it to bounce off the hardwood boards, "I pity you! You with your little pet! Your little 'woman'! What has become of you? You've become more akin to kitten than wolf!" she turned her attention to Farkas, "Both of you! I remember the days when I was proud to call you kin! When you were warriors!"
"What did you just say to me?" Growled Farkas angrily, "If you're questioning my skill, let's go! Right now!" He had already reached for his sword.
Vilkas remained silent, smouldering, seething that the commotion had caused his wife to stir. Their child could feasibly be born tomorrow and live; she needed her rest. He had been very patient with Aela, despite their earlier brawl; she was an old friend and a great warrior but still, he felt his anger begin to swell. His expression was dark.
Aela ignored Vilkas' eradiating fury and focussed her attention on his brother. She went to draw her sword, immediately devastated, realising that she wasn't carrying it. She never forgot to carry her weapon. After screaming at the brothers, she was once more enraged, destroyed by the thought that she had also lost such pride in herself. As Farkas' sword swung above her head, she ducked, slipped in the ale she'd spilt and stumbled. Farkas scoffed, and then bellowed hysterical laughter until the humiliated huntress growled and kicked him hard in the knee. He collapsed and hit the floor with a roar and a thud that shook the floorboards, his heavy armour denting the ancient wood that had hardened almost to the strength of iron. Aela scrambled and unceremoniously dragged herself to her feet before he could catch her. On impulse she ran. Before she was aware of her bearings she had fled Jorrvaskr, lost her cheated competitor, past the irritated lovers and charged out of the imposing double doors that lead into the frosty air of Whiterun's black Morning Star's night.
She continued to run. She longed to join her beast-kin in the wilds; to run through the tundra with the wolves, maybe hunt, wanted to kill, didn't care. Could already feel the warm, metallic-tasting blood, perhaps of a stag, seeping between her beasts sharpened teeth; feel her claws, her jaws tearing at flesh, hear the snapping and clicking of tendons and muscles as the sound resonated up her face and into her sensitive ears. She couldn't, she was too drunk, sober only enough to be aware of how drunk she truly was. Before he was cleansed, Farkas could always handle being drunk in his wolf's skin, but he was the only one. Her hatred and resentment of the loss of her pack overwhelmed her again. Farkas had been wasted; Vilkas, with whom she had always fought but still respected – whom she'd though so wise, so balanced, had been taken by a woman. The woman may well have been wolf but was not her kin. Leonidus – the accursed 'Harbinger'. Stupid Imperial, all his priorities wrong. She had been his sire; she had gifted him and where was he? On another job in Dawnstar, he claimed. He was always in Dawnstar these days; he should have been at Jorrvaskr, beating the others into submission for their weakness. Kodlak, the old man. He would not have been better in the end, she mused, for he was also weak, refused to accept his blessing. Now dead. Dead. Skjör was dead as well. He had been her twin soul; they had run together, hunted, killed together; bedded together. Yes, he had died a noble death but he was still dead. She wanted him; she saw his face in her minds-eye, heard his voice, felt him between her legs, smelt his fur, and tensed with the thought of his claws running up her back. She missed him to a point that was driving her to madness. Even if her minds former ramblings on the state of her own mortality had simply been the beginnings of psychosis, as she feared, she may as well have been with him for what little reason she could perceive that she had left to live. She hoped that her drinking would catch the attention of Sanguine before Sheogorath came calling. One or the other would take her before Hircine delivered her back to her love that they may hunt together once more in His name. What would Hircine want with such a failure? She was disorientated. She wasn't even sure which district she had run to. The pale stone steps and multi-story wood framed buildings appeared to tower over her; she could almost see them drag as Nirn span on its axis. The cobble-stoned ground span and warped. She had reached the bottom of a staircase and collapsed. A guard, arms folded, gave her a cautionary stare. She vomited in the open gutter.
Several hours had passed and Aela could vaguely pick out the muffled voice of a quiet Imperial talking to a Nord. Posting bail. She squinted and tried to assess her surroundings. She had awoken in Dragonsreach Dungeon. She wondered if she had remembered correctly punching a guard, resisting arrest. She had a vague inkling that this had been the case, although she could not be sure. Her head hurt. She rubbed her brow and a crust of dried blood crumbled and stuck to her eyelashes. Yes, then. She supposed that she probably had.
"Aela," A low-toned, velvety voice stirred her. She knew the voice well; he was her beast's son. The closest that she and Skjör would ever have to a progeny. It was Leonidus Viria. The thought of Vilkas and Liset flashed momentarily in her mind and renewed her irritation.
"You took your sweet time, Leon," she spat, almost perturbed that the Harbinger had actually shown up. It would have better appeased her bitterness to be left in the dungeon for the night.
"I understand that you chose the foot of the steps to the Wind District to…" he paused, "purge you grievances."
Aela glared at him. He was wearing his Blades armour. He'd been fighting Dragons again, she assumed. The dark metal bands and gilding looked unequivocally beautiful as a backdrop for his dark, mostly loose but hero-braided hair, contrasting his pale skin and jade green eyes. He had grown a beard again, stubble really but he had not yet reached his mid-twenties. He was dirty, bloody. His hands were mildly charred. She had already scorned him about using magic, particularly when he'd attempted to enhance the enchantments of Wuuthrad. Arrogant boy. Deceptive as well, he'd hidden his inclination towards elements of the craft rather too well as an initiate. She wondered what else he was hiding, though grudgingly, could not deny his proficiency as a warrior. He must have only just arrived back in town from Dawnstar. Somehow though, he still managed to look like a doll and speak as smoothly as one of the Imperial Council. He was smug. She had known him for eighteen months or more and that still annoyed her about him.
"I understand that you're taking me back to Jorrvaskr to answer for my behaviour," she mocked, cringing as she sat up on the small cell's basic little bed. She wondered when she'd pulled her stomach muscles.
The guard walked up beside Leonidus, opened the gate and walked away. The two Companions stared at each other, each awaiting commentary on the situation from the other. Neither spoke a word but the Harbinger's flat stare said enough to make Aela bite her tongue and move to follow him back to the mead hall. She was embarrassed but at least she was sober, or at least more so than she had been. She was thankful for the early hour, the brothers, the woman and the whelps would mostly be in bed; she could deal with feigning sincere apologies when the sun rose.
Leonidus approached the doors to Jorrvaskr. He turned the handle and pushed against their stiff, heavy hinges, standing aside for Aela to whisk past him towards the living quarters. The woman's rage and altering mood in general greatly intrigued the Harbinger. He had known many people with stories of events in their lives that seemed similar to what she was going through now. Few had ended 'well' in the traditional opinion. He walked straight through the hall and out of the double doors on the other side, into the courtyard. He sat down on one of wooden chairs, carefully undoing the belts on his heavy cuirass, trying not to let it clank to the ground and wake the others. Oddly, the quiet, secretive man had an affinity for the place. Of course, it felt good to be around his kin; rarely in his travels had he come across other wolves who had not run feral; the Circle appeared to have at least a level of control over their wild-sides. However that was not the reason that he felt, relatively, at ease here. It had been a long time since he'd lived as a warrior and Jorrvaskr gave him a sense of nostalgia and a chance to drop his guard, even if only a little. He had genuinely been a warrior once; before the call of the Grey Beards, before Delphine had sent him through the Rat Way in Riften to find Esbern, where he had fallen in with a way of life that required somewhat that one must always be aware of his back. Things had already escalated in that direction for him by the time he travelled with the Companions to Ysgramor's tomb, and en route had come across a strange little jester with a broken wagon and a dead mother. The farmer whose land it had been had warned him that it could have been anything in the crate that the little man carried. It had deeply offended him that landowner had assumed he had not realised this. The fact was that he had not cared; let the skooma and the arms flow free, people needed them. He was aware at that moment how warped his moral code had become. As far as he was concerned, he did still have morals; they were simply not the same as the set that he'd started out with. He had lost nothing but his naivety. How surprised he was, that when he eventually put that logic to the test and performed his first revenge killing for a little boy in Windhelm, he met up with the jester again, as well as his new family. His cuirass lay on the floor as he looked up at the stars. Despite all that, yes, he liked it here. The cold of Morning Star did not bother him. He was in Whiterun. It had been at least six weeks since he'd left Dawnstar for more than a contract and Dawnstar was cold. Nonetheless he watched the sliver of the frost that coated everything around him, plants, rocks, even his own warm breath, as it twinkled and fogged. It struck him how it mimicked the sky. So clear, so dark, with a few frosty clouds, the stars perfect, sharp and silvery, as though he could see the points of several million tiny daggers in the distance. He chuckled curtly under his breath. Daggers. His shield-brothers would undoubtedly scoff at that one. He smiled as he casually rubbed at a new scar he'd acquired – a nice set of fingernail marks on his right clavicle. That mark had been a bitch. Never sneak up on a cheating Dunmer whilst she's still in the act if you value your looks. Oh but her face; it had been worth it.
He stayed in the courtyard for a little while before he noticed Vilkas approach. He did not move the man was no threat to him.
"Waterworks have you up in the night, Vilkas?" He teased with a smirk, "Must be getting old." He quickly scorned himself for forgetting that his old friend's sense of humour was lacking, that he had clearly been away too long if he had managed to forget which twin he was talking to.
Vilkas sneered and wondered over to the slightly younger man with a mild swagger, "Liset can't sleep, she said I have started to snore" he muttered, leaning on the veranda and sighing, "If I have it was her shoddy repair work to a recent broken nose that was to blame…but Kodlak always did assure me that a fight was often best avoided…So I just came out here."
Leonidus fought to keep his face straight. He succeeded but with great effort. Vilkas had made his statement with a level of seriousness that almost seemed feigned, yet it still seemed inappropriate to question whether the fight in question was in reference to the supposed broken nose he could have avoided or his hormonal wife. Leonidus let the feeling wash over his head, "So, she's got to be what? Eight months now? More? She's got pretty big while I've been away, friend. Are you excited yet?"
Vilkas smiled. Again, a genuine, serene smile. Leonidus was slightly shocked; he had only asked out of politeness and expected more to be mocked for absconding to Dawnstar for so long again, than given such a rare glimpse of an emotion other than rage from the big man. He had only ever had dealings with Babette, the un-child and Aventus, never with an actual, normal child. He supposed that this was an example of what they did to people.
"She is thirty six weeks, so thinks the priestess" Vilkas stated, the smile not leaving his face, "Excited does not accurately cover it, brother." He was admittedly happy to have been asked; the other Companions had been somewhat avoiding the issue. None were as actively angry with him as Aela with her constant complaints of his weakness, carelessness and selfishness, but he was an intelligent man and well aware that the thought of a child in Jorrvaskr was not to everybody's taste. He had in fact thought about moving them out of his quarters and into Whiterun proper, but the frosty reception they had received, particularly from the huntress had ignited his stubborn streak; he was still in the Circle, he had not always agreed with Skjör or the other elders as a whelp but had always adhered to what was asked of him. He had idolised Kodlak Whitemane, and was happy for his brother when he had followed by his example and cast aside his lycanthropy, even though he had not been ready to do so himself. It was the way things were done and tradition was what kept the Companions alive as they were, not descending into yet another band of ruffians and sell-swords. Besides which, Jorrvaskr was where he had grown up himself.
"I am glad you've found happiness." Offered Leonidus. He did not particularly care either way for Liset himself, she was too insipid of character for his liking, but had never offended him. He did not feel it was his business to interfere.
"Aye," Vilkas nodded agreement and said no more.