A/N: It's done. It's finally done. Between finals and summer school and arguing with caterers I managed to crank this thing out at four this morning because I couldn't stand another minute of it languishing. This is the last installment, unless I'm hit with some random inspiration in the near future.
I have an idea for another one-shot in the same universe as my story Beyond the Sea (which I shamelessly referenced here), so keep an eye out for it. And thank you so much to those who reviewed; it really does give you a kick in the pants to finish.
Shimmermist Cave had been disgusting and putrid and horrific and the very embodiment of every terrible thing that had happened to him up to this point. Ondolemar shudders as he stabs his battered steel shortsword into the dirt of the Whiterun plains, unable to bear the sight of Falmer fluids a second longer. Vilkas scowls at him nearby.
"You need proper training," the Nord snaps when the Altmer pushes himself to his feet. "Magic will only get you so far, and we are not the College of Winterhold."
"Believe me, I am well aware," Ondolemar fires back, slamming his sword back into its sheath with far more force than strictly necessary. He is woefully unskilled with the weapon; the Dominion's military, before he'd been promoted, had focused on grace, speed, and flexibility. He had been taught to strengthen his body to stimulate the mind, to hone his magic until it was as natural and effortless as breathing to summon storms. Never, not once, had someone handed him a hunk of metal and told him to flail about.
He can feel the waves of disapproval rolling off of Vilkas from where he stands, and Ondolemar does his very best to ignore him. If either of them want to avoid having to take any more of these little adventures together, he'd best keep his mouth shut.
The human seems to have the same idea, because it is several moments before he speaks again, and when he does, his accented voice is considerably more even. "The sun is going down," he notes, shielding his eyes as he faces west. "We do not have enough light left to make it back to Jorrvaskr."
"Are you suggesting camping in front of this daedra-cursed cave?"
"No," Vilkas snaps, before he sets his jaw. "We'll make for the river and set up there for the night. There should be enough game for supper." And as he brushes by the Altmer, he asks, "How's your aim?"
Extraordinary, it turns out; Ondolemar finds arrows and fletching much more to his liking than flinging a sword about. It was not so different from directing lightning, if perhaps a bit less precise. His shoulders ache and his fingers are bleeding by the time he has managed to kill a large buck, but as he lugs it back to their small camp across his back, the look of begrudging respect on the Nord's face makes his sore muscles worth it.
"Do you know how to skin it?"
"Of course. I am not an imbecile."
"My mistake," Vilkas sneers, and flips him a narrow knife. "Get to it."
Ondolemar only just avoids bristling, clenching his jaw as he catches the wolf-bone handle in his palm and makes the first cut. It is gory, messy work, but he remembers these days well from his time as a foot soldier, and he finds his hands recall the movements better than his mind does.
He works in silence for several long minutes while Vilkas watches him from the other side of the fire, brow furrowed and elbows braced on his knees. He is a slim man, by Nord standards; smaller than his great hulking brute of a brother, but what he lacks in muscle he makes up for in height. He is a head shorter than Ondolemar himself, but he remembers the way the man had looked at Elismyra's eyes, the day he came to Whiterun, and how their faces had been on the same level and entirely too close -
Six and a half feet, then. Give or take.
"You're ripping the meat," the Nord notes flatly. "Pay attention."
"You do it, then," Ondolemar spits back, eyes snapping up from his kill - where indeed his hands had strayed from their course - and glares at the other man. "And cease your staring. It is unnerving."
"Not so much as your presence in Whiterun," Vilkas growls darkly, and the elf stills before can stop himself. He had hoped to avoid such a discussion; he doubts his ability to keep his temper, and if the violent storm brewing in the Nord's eyes is any indication, he is not a man of patience, either.
When Vilkas stands, Ondolemar halts his skinning entirely and sits back on his haunches, bracing himself for the inevitable. He can already hear Elismyra's frustrated admonishments.
To the Altmer's considerable surprise, he does not approach; Vilkas stays on his side of the campfire and paces, hands behind his back, and just when Ondolemar thinks he has thought better of instigating an argument, he speaks.
"Why are you here?"
He feels his brow quirk, and before he can stop himself, Ondolemar quips, "Because Elismyra told me to. I thought that was rather obvious."
"Knock it off," the human snaps, and pins him with his cold blue eyes and the Altmer feels the gooseflesh erupt on his skin. "You know what I mean. Why did you come to Whiterun? Why join the Companions when you loathe it so much? You do not belong here."
"I wonder if you spoke those exact words to her when she joined your cause," the elf spits, incensed. He does not have to explain himself to this barbarian, and the Eight take him if he lets himself be needled. "Magic runs in our blood stronger than swordplay in yours."
"I don't give a shit about your magic, or hers," Vilkas hisses, conveniently ignoring the pointed question, and finally stomps around the fire to advance on him. Ondolemar rises to his feet, slowly drawing himself up to his full height, but the warrior is undeterred. "I was there when she came back from Markarth. I saw what you did to her, what your fucking Dominion made her feel. I cannot begin to fathom why she allowed you in, or why she -"
"So this is jealousy, then?" Ondolemar prods, savoring the warped snarl that curls across the Nord's face. "You're going to tell me you have no idea what she sees in me and I am only going to cause her pain? That you, perhaps, are the better man, and would treat her as she deserves? Don't waste your breath," he growls, letting the tiniest of sparks web between his fingers. "I gave up everything for her."
The deep bark of hateful laughter that bursts from the Nord's mouth makes him flinch. "You are kidding yourself," Vilkas says, "If you think you have given her anything. She does not trust you, and she is right not to; your kind would gut her in a heartbeat and parade her head on a spike, given half the chance."
"My kind?" Ondolemar seethes, clenching his hands into white-knuckled fists, remembering too well the aching throb in them the last time he had given in to the temptation to strike him, "I have no people, not anymore. I turned my back on their cause, on my whole life, because she was right. Because I -"
"Because you were thinking with your dick," Vilkas accuses, folding his arms tightly across his chest, and Ondolemar notices how his hands are shaking. "Don't you dare lie to my face, you piece of scum. You came here because you wanted a roll in the sack, and your type picks one person for that. You came for no one's sake but your own, espousing honor and repentance when you do nothing but continue to take and take from her!"
"You dare presume to know my reasons?!" The Altmer roars, what pathetic scraps of his patience he had clung to withering in an instant. "I have spoken nothing but the truth since the moment I arrived, and it is you who continues to hound after me and throw about baseless accusations! I -"
"Your timing was perfect," Vilkas growls venomously, sarcasm dripping from every word, and Ondolemar snarls. "Mere hours after our city was assaulted, the dead piled in the streets and the blood deep and thick in the canals, you show up and demand her trust, her bed, her heart when she has spent her days bleeding and fighting for people who will never thank her." Villas takes a threatening step toward him, and the growl that tears from his chest is unearthly. "If you cared for her like you pretend to, you would let her be. You would look around you, for once in your cursed, miserable life, and realize she has given far too much already to be yanked about by a man that admitted to her face he would have killed her!"
"How is it my fault the Stormcloak invaded your precious little town?" Ondolemar barks, and this time the electricity the sizzles across his skin is far from subtle. "How is it my fault that she chose to defend the Jarl and his people, or what their perceptions of her are? Do not blame me for circumstances I cannot control!"
"You are missing the point!" Vilkas bellows, teeth bared, and he shoves his hands through his dark hair and clenches. "How can you claim any sort of affection for her when you continue to ignore her needs? When you are always making everything about you?! Not once, not a single time in the weeks since you arrived, have I heard you say anything even remotely kind about her!"
Ondolemar clenches his jaw around the scathing words and mindless howl burning on his tongue, but before he can make a sound, the Nord spits, "You have given her nothing but heartache and betrayal, and Hircine take me if I let you manipulate her into your fucking bed. She has suffered far more than she should, and I will not let you break her again; she's had enough of that already."
"You love her," The elf accuses through his teeth, and the words taste of nightshade.
For a moment, there is nothing but the sound of their labored breathing, of the crackle of fire and magic, and Ondolemar works his jaw and flexes his fingers to prevent himself from… he does not even know what. He has suspected from the moment he saw the way he looked at her, and his suspicions are confirmed when the Nord can longer meet his eyes.
"It makes no difference," Vilkas finally says, and while his voice is still knife-like, the venom is gone. "She has made her choice, regardless of her better judgement."
"And you are the better choice, I take it?" Ondolemar hisses, unwilling to let it drop because how dare he accuse him of such callousness.
I thought you were different. I thought you could feel.
And suddenly he sees the heartbreak in her eyes and feels the icy tendrils of her magic on his skin, remembers the quiver in her voice and the glass over her eyes, and he is ashamed.
Before he can flinch at the reminder that it is not such an unpopular opinion after all, Vilkas answers. "There is no one worthy of her hand. She is…"
"The best of us."
"Precisely."
"On that account, at least, we are agreed," the elf huffs, and he lets the magic rippling in his muscles to fade. "But you are wrong. There is nothing I would not do to please her."
Vilkas snorts his disbelief. "Then why do you push when she is not ready? Why do you demand her heart when you know you have failed in its safekeeping before?"
Ondolemar finds he cannot deny the question and its bitter truth, and he sits back down onto the dirt, next to his cold kill, and stares at the snapping flames in the center of their camp. But instead of answering, he intones, "I asked her to marry me."
The guffaw that explodes from the Nord's chest is far more mirthful than the last. "What I wouldn't have given to see her face."
"She denied my hand."
"No shit," Vilkas deadpans, and moves back to his side of the fire, resting back onto the log he had been using as a bench before. "You cannot tell me you expected her to accept. You know next to nothing about her."
"That is precisely what she said," Ondolemar sighs, scrubbing a hand down his face as he takes back up the skinning knife. The blood has congealed in the grass surrounding the carcass and matted the animal's brown hair. "Yet she refuses to tell me anything."
"Because she has spent so long hiding from the Dominion, from all those who would see her dead. Because you shattered her trust before you defected and now she does not know what to think."
Ondolemar looks up at him, through the heat of the fire, and finds him watching his movements intently. He tries not to be annoyed. "And yet she has deemed you worthy, when you gave her the scars on her back."
Vilkas winces so violently he almost regrets the words, but when the Nord hangs his head and sighs deeply he finds he is more curious than vindictive. "Aye," the human says, "That I did, and I will live with that guilt for the rest of my days. I was… a different person, then. It was another life." And his eyes are distant when he says, "She gave me another chance; much like you, I suppose."
"Tell me about her," Ondolemar whispers when he can no longer bear the oppressive quiet. "Please." At Vilkas's quirked brow, he adds, "I swear on my life I ask for no one's gain but my own. I have always spoken the truth; I am here to prove my loyalty, and I want nothing but to understand."
Vilkas analyzes him for a long while, his piercing eyes roving over the Altmer's face, probing and searching and measuring, and just when he thinks he will not answer, he nods.
And tells him everything.
How she had fled the great black dragon in Helgen, and ran straight into the arms of Kodlak and her fate.
How the dragons came, one after another, searching for the blasphemous elven Dovahkiin, and how she had met them each time, her face like stone and her chin held high.
How she had wept at Kodlak's death, and how Vilkas himself had blamed her for it. "The first betrayal," he says with a bitter smile that does not touch his eyes.
How his murderous grief had chased her from their halls and into the claws of the Thieves Guild, and the safety she found in anonymity.
How her predecessor had left her for dead in the bottom of a crumbling ruin, and only by the grace of the Divines had she survived her second heartbreak.
How her flaming thirst for revenge lead her to Astrid and the Night Mother's embrace, and how she, too, had tried to kill her when her back was turned.
How she always walked out of the flames a little darker, a little harder, one more piece missing.
How the dragons kept coming, never ceasing, and how she wept over their skeletons while glowing lustfully with their power.
How she loathed Ulfric and his arrogance, his neglect for his subjects, his overwhelming need to divide Skyrim's people when unity was what they needed most.
How she had sobbed when she discovered she would never bear children.
How she bore the literal weight of the world upon her shoulders, and never once complained of how she had never asked for this, never received the gratitude she deserved one thousand times over.
How she stood, tall and proud, on the Great Porch of Dragonsreach, and the solemn acceptance of her death as she mounted the sparkling ruby dragon, even as he begged her to reconsider.
How the sky had thundered when she returned, broken and burned and battered but alive.
How she had cried, tears of joy for once, into his shoulder when she told him she had seen Kodlak, and he was inside the golden halls of Shor where he belonged.
How she had vanished for months, and came back hollow and mechanic, and it was then he had learned of the latest broken dream that was Ondolemar himself. Only the last in a long line of pretty lies and crippling despair.
How her hurt and her anger pushed her to Tullius, and the seething hatred in her eyes as she swore undying loyalty to the Empire, her lip curling as a Thalmor agent chuckled down the hall.
How the Battle of Whiterun had raged, how she leapt in front of blades and arrows alike to save her comrades, and how her Voice had boomed into the night, heralding fire and wrath and death.
It is then that Vilkas falls silent, his brow lowered and his pale eyes brooding, and Ondolemar sits in shocked silence as he attempts to wrap his mind around what he has been told. He cannot doubt the truth of his words, not when they are so hollow with sorrow and guilt, and he finally understands.
"Thank you," he mutters, and he means it. "You are… a better man than I expected. To have seen her through such trials."
Vilkas's chortle is low and rumbling, and his eyes are achingly sad. "I suppose that's the highest praise I can expect. And do not thank me." He nods at the black outline of the city behind the elf. "Thank her."
"I intend to."