Dragonsreach stood on its cliff as high and foreboding as ever, overlooking the whole city. A true place for a ruler.
The trio climbed the long stone stairs followed by curious glances of bystanders and guards, but most of the people were a new generation and had never seen Nefasteri. Traditionally, the Harbinger had always been an integral part of the city, occasionally even advising the Jarl on politics and the working of the city, everyone had grown to Vilkas in the role.
"I should've come sooner," Nefasteri said to no one in particular.
"Why? You can't do anything for Balgruuf," Vilkas laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"I don't know, I just ... I feel like I have to do something. Like I should rush off for some miracle cure, or something like that. Like I've been living my life for others. And now ... those lives are ending, one by one, and suddenly I can't do anything to stop it."
Aela and Vilkas fell silent, not having a reply to a statement such as this. They were warriors, not thinkers, and life hadn't given them much time to think. It was always fighting.
The guard on watch duty beside the door respectfully opened one side for the warriors as they approached. Nefasteri strode through like a queen, head held high, with Vilkas and Aela trailing behind with a more modest step. The hall was empty, save for the guards and a lone cleaner. Up, just below the ceiling, swirls of dust turned in the light, but the floor was in twilight, lit by a single fire.
Since the wasting disease had gripped Balgruuf, he had been relocated to the second floor, where a bed was constructed, and the old man could still conduct his and the hold's affairs with some dignity. It was only a matter of time when he would be moved to the Temple of Kynareth, and one of his sons would take up the reins of leadership.
A guard was standing by the stairs to the second floor. He stepped away once he recognized Aela and Vilkas, but Nefasteri received a hard glare. She couldn't help but notice that the guard put his hand on his sword in a not entirely harmless manner.
The second floor had been changed since Nefasteri last saw it. Gone was the war table and the bookshelves - in their place stood a great soft bed on which the Jarl lay fully clothed, surrounded by his court. Nefasteri's heart clenched when she saw the old man. His pale face had fallen, covered in spots and wrinkles. His muscles had fallen away, and now an old wasted man lay here, waiting the door to shut on his life, instead on the hearty and well Nord Nefasteri had left here twenty years ago.
Irileth was the only one who looked the same - and she would still be here like this, even when Nefasteri died herself, and long after that as was expected of an elf. Proventus was here too, talking in soft, lecturing tones to a girl of twenty, that Nefasteri had never seen before. She supposed that would be the new steward in training.
The room was brightly lit, since the old Jarl's eyesight had wasted away with his body, but he recognized Nefasteri nevertheless. He even tried to sit up in the bed, but a nurse held him back, casting a condemning look at the trio. If she had been given her way, no one would be allowed to disturb the Jarl. Everyone in the room - Proventus and his trainee stewardess, Balgruuf's brother, the five guards and the Jarl's son - eyed the trio, ready to move at the slightest show of threat, but Balgruuf waived them away with his eyes trained on Nefasteri.
"Dragonborn, you have come home," he began in a crackling voice, the sort that one waits for to die down any minute, but it finds strength and keeps going.
"Yes, my Jarl. I have come to pay my respects." Nefasteri knelt by the bed.
"And I suppose you will not tell me where have you been all these years?" Nefasteri smiled. Obviously the disease had not wasted his strength of spirit and the was an amused spark in his piercing blue eyes.
"No, my Jarl, that I will not do. But is there anything I can do, before..." Nefasteri trailed off. 'Before you die' sounds more like a 'just get on with it' in the wrong company, and this was definitely the wrong company.
"Before I die?" the old man chuckled with some difficulty, "Don't look so shocked, girl. I know my fate. All I need of you is the promise that you will do your best for Skyrim to your very last breath."
"I promise." Even saying this, Nefasteri pondered on the unchangeable fate of being Dragonborn. Always for Skyrim, for the people, for the Jarls.
"Very well, girl. Now I grow tired again - that happens far too much these days. You will excuse me."
Nefasteri stood up and bowed. Warriors never curtsy, no matter what gender they are.
The streets outside were just as sunny, full of life and activity, bustling market-people and bystanders. Where Heimskr's preaching place had been, a group of acrobats tumbled, juggled and spun. They had a crowd of admirers, children mostly, but a few elders with nothing better to do all day were watching the show too, along with a happy pair that had the suspiciously radiant air of newly-weds about them.
"Nef? What will you do now?" Aela asked when the silence of Jorrvaskr snapped over the din of the busy streets beyond the door. The hall was empty, save for a servant sweeping the floor in a corner. Smoke curled through the rafters, but the fire in the pit had long since died down.
"I have an idea. I will do my best for Skyrim, and I will start with the most miserable of it's children..." Nefasteri's gaze was fixed somewhere on the opposite wall.
Aela looked at Vilkas, who shrugged and shook his head. Nef hadn't always been this puzzling, but that's what twenty years can do to someone.
Nefasteri snapped back to the immediate reality and turned to the two warriors. "First, how do I make Vilkas the Harbinger properly?"
"What? You want to step down?" Aela asked for confirmation, while Vilkas just stared.
"Hmmm? Yes, you could call it that. Oh, right, what about that carriage? Did you send someone to check?"
Vilkas said, "I sent Heylan. He should be back already. I'll go check." With that he strode off, across the hall and out the other side to the training yard.
"I think you gave him quite a shock. He has always been content with being the Second, and you rattled him with the offer." Aela smiled and led the way on Vilkas' trails.
"Wasn't an offer. I have a plan, and I need people to know that they can't look to me for orders," Nef barked rather than said, but followed the huntress nevertheless.
Out in the yard, Eana was training again, this time more gently. Vilkas was at the bottom of the Skyforge, talking with a huge, black-haired Nord.
"You should be proud of her," Nef said to the other woman after a moment of companionable silence.
"We are. But wait until you see Farkas' twins. His and Lydia's."
"Ye gods, are you serious? And me, the sheep, I haven't even visited Lydia."
Nefasteri would have been ready to bolt to Breezehome there and then, if not for Vilkas, who appeared at her elbow, silently as a cat. "To Falkreath the next carriage is in half an hour."
"I could have wished for more time, but we will have to make do. Is Farkas back?"
"Not yet."
"Fine. You tell him I was here, and I'm going to be back again in a few days. Probably."
Aela burst out laughing, while Vilkas said with an admonitory scowl, "That's what you said last time."
"No, this time I truly promise, I will be back soon."
A promise that turned out to be only slightly false.