Skyrim is the property of Bethesda Softworks. Hello to Darth Rabbits, zumoritoo, and Haldir639. I'm glad you think well enough of my work to follow it.
Aela and I had stopped for the night on the high path that wound around the base of The Throat of The World. The aurorae were out again that night and the passing shimmers of green and blue caused her wolf-eyes to shimmer as they caught the light. She sat in my lap beneath the heavy blanket we shared. She was hardly a waif of a girl who could easily fit within my crossed legs or nestle into my chest; but the arrangement was comfortable and intimate, which was all that really mattered.
I brushed her rust-colored shocks away and pressed my chin on her shoulder, inhaling deeply of her scent of pine and feminine sweat.
"I never asked Aela. How did you come to be a Companion? I asked.
"My mother was a Companion," she explained, "And her mother. And all the women in my family, back to Hrotti Blackblade, who sailed with Ysgramor. I stayed with my father in the woods until I was old enough for my Trial. We hunted everything there was to hunt. Good training. Ma didn't live long enough to see me join, but I fight to honor her and all my Shield-Sisters through time."
"What of your father?" I asked.
She just shook her head and felt slightly tense in my arms now. Thinking back, I'm the only one of the Circle to ever speak much of their family. Or even to have one beyond my shield-siblings.
"What's your story? How did you become a fighter?" she asked into the growing silence.
I thought for a moment, rubbing her thighs and gazing into the flames before us.
"I think of myself as a ranger, I'm too scrawny for a shield-wall. I'm the first in my family to make a career of it from the start. Dad inherited the family farmstead before the Great War began. He felt it his duty to join the Legion when the elves went on the war-path. I guess they needed officers because when they found he was landed gentry, they made him a Tribune and handed him a cohort. I was all of three when the war finally ended," I laughed as Aela relaxed back into me, "Gods I was terrified of dad when I saw him for the first time. Mom brought me to the gates of Kvatch to welcome him home. His voice roared when he dismissed his cohort. He just stood there; waiting for every legionnaire to find their husband, wife, or family before turning to us. The light on his armor hurt my eyes. I think I hid behind my mom's skirts when he came over. That was the last time I was ever afraid of my dad.
"Growing up he told me all kinds of stories about his time in the Legion. When it was time to pick a trade, my heart told me I should stay out in the forest and meadows. I had been studying to be a scribe."
"I'm glad you picked a useful career instead," Aela said, folding her hands over mine.
I smiled again, rocking back with her in my arms, "I don't know. I still love reading. I picked up a lot of lore, some tactics, poetry, all useful stuff."
"Poetry? Useful?" she asked with an incredulous voice.
"Absolutely."
"Let's hear it then."
On the Gold-Coast Road, the foxglove grows / Between the crosses row upon row / That fix our place and in the sky, / The larks still bravely singing fly. / Scarce heard amid the cries below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago / We lived, felt the dawn and sunset's glow / We loved and were loved, / But now we hang on the Gold Coast Road.
"Sounds like you have something personal against the Thalmor."
I nodded, feeling again an old pain that I had come to terms with long ago. I had cut down so many people… "I was three years old when dad came home. Then the elves began their crackdown. I saw the first cross when I was five. Imagine being five years old, standing next to your best friend. The two of you and the rest of the town are made to watch as his dad gets tied to a piece of timber and then made to walk to the place where he would be left to die."
"When was the last time you heard from your family?"
I hadn't had much time of late to reflect on how much I missed my family. "It's been about ten years since we communicated. I left a letter a few days before I left to join the Knights of the Nine. I couldn't talk to them after that."
"You hate elves?"
I shrugged, "Not particularly. Mom and dad taught me that bigotry is to be mocked, not participated in. The elves are just people like us. Even the Thalmor soldiers are just men and women out doing their jobs for the most part. Dad never admitted to hating them and I never learned to hate whole the species myself. Let's face it: Nobody chooses what they are. We are all what Akatosh made us."
"You must hate something. Everyone does."
I shifted my hands, lacing my fingers with hers and crossing our arms over her body in an embrace, "I hate false prophets. They destroy families, fuel this miserable civil war, and create monsters like Delphine. The list of the Thalmor's crimes goes on and on and on. Against it I can only do what seems right at the moment. I just hope my family will be proud of me when I can return to them."
"You're a strong person Ieago. Your family would be proud of the man you've become."
"I hope so."
"The quality of your character is one of the few things the Grey-Manes and Battle-Borns agree on anymore."
Aela untangled herself from my lap and shifted to our packs. She opened mine to get at that evening's rations when the amulet and the ring I bought in Riften fell out. She scooped up the heavy pendant and looked back and forth between it and me with eyes wide.
"An amulet of Mara?" she gasped, looking sharply at me, "Do you know what these mean here?"
Trying to speak around my thudding heart in that moment was one of the most difficult things I've ever done. I hadn't planned on proposing tonight. A familiar spot on my right arm itched.
"Uh, yeah. One of the priests in Riften told me all about it."
"So that's where you snuck off to." We sat quietly for a time, looking into each other's eyes. Hers shifted from green to gold to blue in the light of the aurorae and our campfire. I think the rest of our shield-siblings in Whiterun could hear my heart race.
"So you're looking for marriage then?" she prompted.
"Are you interested Aela?" I asked.
"I'll not lie, I am. But what's the ring for?"
"It's an engagement ring. The Nord way is more straightforward, but the Cyrodiil way still feels more right to me. First, the suitor takes his lady someplace private," I took the ring in its box from her knelt. "Then he gets down on his knees-"
"-I like the Cyrodiil way-" she grinned.
"-And then he holds the ring up to her and asks 'Will you marry me Aela the Huntress?" For long heartbeats I was terrified that she would turn me down.
"Yes. It'll be you and me."
I never dreamed I would hear her voice catch.
I slipped the ring on her finger and it was like feeling a dam break. I stood up, howled at the sky and kissed her hard. The fiercest, strongest, most sensitive woman I have ever met just said "yes".
In Flanders Fields by Lt. Colonel John McCrae is hands-down my favorite literary work. With only superficial adaptation I feel it does a brilliant job of capturing what I think would be one of the prevailing attitudes of post-Great War Cyrodiil: "This had better have been for something."
Thank you for reading as always. Touchy-feely chapters like this are had to write and even harder to post. I hope you enjoyed it and I welcome all constructive feedback.