3

Note: Thanks again to Y-Ko for observantly pointing out that this story has been up here before. I was a petulant child and removed it, then re-posted it assuming that no one would have read it before anyway, thus not have noticed. My bad. This is the last chapter that I previously posted and is still really only part of a build-up. Admittedly I probably could have incorporated it and the last couple into flashbacks or something and got straight into the main plot from chapter one but I'm far too methodical for that sort of thing. :p

I've also been a bit slower updating than I'd intended, sorry. I'll try not to do that too often but I've been busy; couldn't be helped..!

Thanks for reviews :)

The sun had not properly risen over Whiterun Hold. The scrub-grass and shrubs were still covered in a fine mist of frozen, crystalline winter morning dew. The night was clear, as it had been earlier, although there were fewer stars now and it had taken on hues of pink and blue, the twin moons in plain sight. The flowers, even the winter perennials were dead to the world, all-sleeping either for the season or simply for the night. The two wolves frolicked, trampled all that crossed their path. The frantic thump of eight massive, clawed feet and their excited howling could undoubtedly be heard in the city, the way that sound carried on the otherwise silent morning wind, but no guard cared to check on the commotion. Tales of howling; tales of werewolves. This was what Aela had been longing for. She growled playfully. She swore to the Gods, why must the boy keep leaving her? She leapt on his back, playfully grappling him, biting his neck. He rolled her; gripped her with his massive forearms and wildly kicked her with his hind legs, then bolted forward and continued to run. She yelped with glee and gave chase; pounced on him once more, pinned him, howled. It had been so long since she had howled with a Companion, she could barely place the last time she had felt so alive. Yes, she joined wolf packs and took down wild animals. It was so different. So different.

She was growing so bored of her human form, it was becoming almost unbearable; in her current state she forgot her troubles, her many losses, her suicidal ideation. She was free. It had been too long for Leonidus as well. Of course, the brotherhood had no issue with his lycanthropy but to them it was simply a tool of his trade, as it had been for Arnbjorn, who was too savage for his liking. Aela understood. It was the call of the blood. It was her blood he had taken, after all. It was a gnawing passion. They ran. They played, they hunted; they took down a bear. Aela jumped onto the creature's shoulders before it had time to react; she wrestled it, riding it as if it were a bareback horse, her arms reaching fully around its neck, her claws gouging at its sternum. It writhed and roared; lashed out at her with its teeth and claws but could not physically move its body in a way to be rid of her. Leonidus charged it head on and swiped at its jaw, dislocating its mandible with such force that the flesh tore and was left hanging only by sinew and fur. The animal attacked on, it's chest ripped open to expose muscle and bone, its tongue flapping as it tried to call out but could not resonate. Aela had severely torn at the flesh of its right shoulder, could see the tendons, watch the muscles constrict as it tried to bolt her off its back. Leonidus slashed its face again, this time taking out its eye and liberating the surrounding skull of all tissue. They were elated by blood lust. When at last the animal appeared to subside Aela loosened her clawed grip on its sternum to rise as Leonidus savagely bit into its jugular, shredding chunks of flesh, taking fur, skin, venous tissue and part of its trachea in his massive jaw as he pulled away. Aela leapt forward from the back of the animal's corpse, landed on her hind legs, then pounced on Leonidus, nipped at his chin and darted on, daring him to get up and chase her once more.

The two Companions eventually collapsed in unison amongst the frozen wildflowers of the tundra. Panting and content, gazing at the sunrise, they reformed as human. Leonidus, his naked skin sensitive again to the grass beneath him, propped up his torso with his arm and smiled at his shield sister. Aela, making no attempt to hide her body simply lay beside him; she made eye contact but managed no more than that. Her cynicism and sadness had washed over her like a flash flood the moment she was back in her skin and realised the situational nature of her short-lived happiness; back to normal everything would be. She turned her head away from Leonidus.

"Aela?" He gently tried to gain her attention, softly resting his free arm on her chest as she continued to look away, "You know I'm here if you need to talk." He assured. He was the harbinger, after all, despite the fact that his other duties often kept him away, but he also cared deeply for her; she fascinated him, so passionate, strong, always to the point, but also such a tendency to be secretive; they were similar in that way. He didn't share her need to keep up a façade, hide herself behind what more often than not came across as coldness, but then she was a very capable woman, he imagined she had spent most of her life being underestimated.

Aela lay in silence for a little while, internally fighting her sadness lest it manifest; undoubtedly it would simply transfer to anger, it always did, but that she could cope with. Her face flushed a little but she won the battle to keep her tears at bay. She looked back to the sky; the stars were almost all gone now. She shrugged Leonidus' arm away; she thought it presumptuous of him to assume that he had earned enough respect to touch her, but she said nothing. She respected him enough to withhold a tongue-lashing, at least.

The two Companions silently, found their clothes, dressed themselves and retuned to Jorrvaskr.

The dawn was breaking over Whiterun as Aela and Leonidus jogged up the gradual gradient of the Plains District towards the imposing stone steps leading to The Wind District and Jorrvaskr. Leonidus kept astonishing pace with the huntress despite his heavy armour, his conditioning and training with the Blades, mostly, had him barely notice he wore more than leathers. So different from when he had run from Helgen, that first day across the Jerall Mountains from Cyrodiil; on the contrary, that day the Imperial leathers he had found in the Keep had felt like Iron bearing down on his tired, burnt and blistered body. He had simply been adventuring, as he had done since his teens, and ventured into an unfortunately occupied area of the mountain range from where he hailed in Cheydinhal; he missed the architecture, the Nibenean flair for taking onboard Dunmer aesthetic appeal and practicality beat the damp, mossy stone Sanctuary draft any day; and the climate itself occasionally, particularly on the coldest nights in The Pale, but little else. It was his birthplace but his home and family were in Skyrim. Walking through Whiterun, however, reaching the top of the steps and seeing the Eldergleam outside the temple of Kynareth, the running water in the streets, never failed to remind him of his past life and make him smile. As they were about to pass by the temple to return to the hall they both noticed Liset sitting under the great tree. She gave them a smile and a small wave; Aela nodded acknowledgment but continued to Jorrvaskr without breaking her stride. She did not want the woman to mistakenly think that there was a chance of friendship between them; Aela felt nothing but dire contempt for Liset's comfort in everything so infuriatingly average. So un-liberated. She'd been given the beast blood, not even had to earn it, as well as the chance to live with the Companions in Jorrvaskr, and all she had done with the opportunity was ensnare Vilkas, one of The Circle, of all the men in the place, and taken down his prospects with her, simply by being careless in bed. Aela's anger started to grow again as she failed to understand how anyone could be offended by her lack of enthusiasm over such a non-achievement.

Leonidus held back to talk to Liset. The young woman smiled at him despite Aela's obvious avoidance. It was not difficult for anyone to tell that Aela's disapproval had disappointed her; she knew that they had little in common but when they had first met, she had hoped that the female warrior to whom her husband had always referred with such admiration, even when he had visited her in early on in their relationship back in Karthwasten, would at least speak to her.

"You shouldn't take it personally Lissy," Leonidus offered, as sympathetically as he could feign to be. He may have had a secretive, colder side but nobody could fault him when it came to manners, "Your chap was every bit as intolerant with me as she is with you when we first met, you know? Perhaps she'll come around to liking you when you're back in a condition to punch her in the face." Leonidus smirked a little at the image, as well as the memory of the initial perception he had received of a gruff, intolerant, unshaven attack dog when he had met Vilkas so long ago.

Liset laughed and blushed at the prospect of her husband's harsh tongue taking on Leonidus' Cyrodiilic wit. She knew that both of them could, and did get vicious at times but she had never seen them verbally spar with each other. She imagined that the power shift the two had gone through as Leonidus had ascended through the ranks much have been some experience. She didn't muse over the thought for too long, however; she was mostly just appreciative that someone from Jorrvaskr would speak to her. "Thank you, Leon," she sighed through her smile.

"What has you up so late then?" The Harbinger politely enquired.

"I'm up early!" She giggled, the memory of being able to stay up all night almost lost to her, "I couldn't sleep again," her tone dipped, "I…came to pray to Kynareth for the baby's stars…" As soon as the words had left her mouth she was fairly certain that she had lost Leonidus' interest and was pleasantly surprised even by the small talk he offered in response.

"Good luck. The Ritual can be an enviable sign under the right alignment. Although there's always The Serpent. I'm a Shadow myself though." He bowed his head and shot a sideways grin at no one in particular. Of course Liset would not know why his sign so suited him but speaking so openly about it amused him nonetheless.

"Vilkas is definitely hoping for an aspect that will help in battle one day," Liset admitted nervously, "I'm…" she faltered, "Concerned he will be…overenthusiastic…when it comes to training the child early, especially if it's a boy…" She paused briefly, suddenly breaking her thought with a genuine whole-hearted laugh, "I'm sorry Leon, you aren't really interested, are you?"

Leonidus was quite surprised by her intuition, it was rare that anyone noticed when he wasn't really paying attention; he was quite practiced at pretending. "Sorry Lissy, it isn't that, not really." He chuckled through a smirk, "Don't get me wrong, I am happy for the two of you" The whole idea amuses me greatly he thought to himself, "My mind's just elsewhere, I'm afraid." He added with apparent conviction; he wasn't being entirely deceptive. He was somewhat preoccupied with thoughts of Aela.

Liset's laughter eventually trailed off, "It's ok, really" She assured, "It's just, you asked me what I was doing. I can't really do much else right now. If anyone spoke to me more than they do, then they'd know I don't assume they all want to hear about…" She looked down at herself, "…well, this." She started to giggle again, "It gives them mental pictures of my husband that they could do without, I imagine." Leonidus snorted inelegantly at the unexpected observation his colleague's wife had made. She was correct, it was a mental picture that he certainly did not need. She grinned like a Khajiit and her pretty eyes sparkled with glee at her minor triumph, "Go on Leon" She gestured to Jorrvaskr offering him an escape, "It was nice to see you." She added with a quiet laugh.

Aela did not wait for Leonidus to finish talking before she had returned to her chamber. She appreciated the fact that he would run with her in the wilds more than she imagined he could comprehend, however it didn't quell her gnawing frustration at how non-committal he was to aiding her plight to rejuvenate the former glory of The Circle. She had immediately thrown herself into the chore of polishing her bow, lest she dwell too severely on how out of sorts she was and slip into drink again. She was due a contract later in the day and was still managing some level of success with battling her commanding inner voice when it came to work. She furiously channelled her energy into oiling and conditioning the gilded Elven weapon. The thought of having seen Liset after her run was still playing on her mind. The woman was the constant epitome, actual embodiment of everything, everyone she had lost. How everything had changed. How reactionary she had become and how pathetic that realisation made her feel. She bit her inner lip and furrowed her brow as she continued to scrub obsessively at all of the scratches and nicks to her bow with a leather rag and fine abrasive powder-oil mixture as she had always done. At least that was a constant. She worked at it harder, trying desperately to distract herself. It was almost as if the damn woman's face had been etched into the metal, the way that she played on her mind. Aela scoffed at the thought, slightly pleased by the idea of cleaning away all of the problems. Take her work; take it, project all of the ghosts onto it and scrub them away. She thought about Skjör again. How much better things had been before he had died. She longed to be able to think about him, remember the good times, without the desperate sadness welling up in her, but it still came. Every time she thought about him, about the old days, it came and it tore at her heart. She swallowed the pain and focussed it back into her anger, back into her polishing. She knew that she had to sleep away the middle of the morning before her contract, but also that sleep would not come to her yet, even if she tried to reach it; she was far too awake, her thoughts were still racing and disorganised, she would dwell on them in her bed or in front of her bow, and at least the latter accomplished something.