Honor Demands

"Raven Rock Stronghold. My calls for the unconditional surrender of your forces and an immediate cessation of all hostilities has been ignored numerous times. I therefore have no choice but to assume your purpose on Solstheim is hostile, and to treat Raven Rock Stronghold as an enemy of the Empire. I warn you, any attempt to breach Fort Frostmoth will be met with an equal level of aggression. I will do everything in my power to wipe you and your forces off the face of Tamriel. There will be no further communications between us.

General Falx Carius

Garrison Commander, Fort Frostmoth."

Captain Veleth's eyes flit from the writing to Felwinter, back to the writing, then back to Felwinter. The Dunmer waved the note around. "I suppose it is too much to ask that this be your idea of a terrible joke?"

"It's a bit much, yeah." Felwinter had resumed his original seat as soon as they returned to the town. Veleth had managed to get into cleaner clothing that better hid his bandages in the meantime.

The Dunmer started to pace, each step slow and deliberate, one foot in front of the other. He let out a humorless chuckle. "This man has been dead for several hundred years."

Felwinter nodded. "Yes, he has."

"Why is a dead man moving against my town?" The frustration he had kept so well contained was slipping out. It could be heard in the low, clipped way he was asking his questions. "Damn it, why is he winning?!"

"We can't be sure with the information we have." Felwinter tracked him as he moved back and forth.

Veleth waved his hand irritably. "That doesn't matter. We know where he is but we can't attack. We don't have the men to both assault a place like that and keep Raven Rock defended. We barely have the men to defend Raven Rock if this Falx decides to attack."

Felwinter hummed. "I know of Carius but not about Frostmoth. Can you tell me more?"

"Built by Imperials when they first began stationing soldiers in Solstheim. Falx Carius was its last commander until Red Mountain-"

"Blew its top?"

Veleth affixed him with a look that was both amused and annoyed. "He was supposedly confirmed dead during the recovery efforts but if the mountain didn't take him, age would have."

"Yes, I think we can confirm he's undead like his soldiers and I think we can assume there's another behind Carius. But what of the place itself? Technical details."

"Scouts report Spawn patrolling the area," the captain said, "They naturally attack anyone who gets too close. Almost all the gates that would bar passage are in disrepair. I had a feeling about its importance when attacks worsened but since the attacks worsened, I haven't been able to look further. It's a ruin though. A strong enough force could take it."

Felwinter shrugs. "A strong enough force...or a few good men."

Veleth stopped pacing and affixed him with a look.

"Or two good men."

"Felwinter…"

"Fine, one good man, one woman and me."

"Felwinter! Ruin or not, that place is still a fortress. You'd be outnumbered three to one!"

Felwinter huffs out a small laugh, standing and saying, "Trust me, I've faced worse."

Veleth scoffed. "I don't understand this, Felwinter. I don't understand you." He watches Felwinter take Zazikel from its place against the wall. "You come to our town, not even here for up to a day and you throw yourself into not just one, but two of our battles? Why does this matter to you?" he demanded, "What do you seek to gain?"

Felwinter silently strapped Zazikel on, his back to the Dunmer. "I'm here for personal reasons, captain."

"What kind of reasons?"

"Personal reasons," he repeats, "And these undead, this general, they all might have something to do with those reasons. And that?" He lifts his hand and points out the window, in the direction of the Earth Stone, "That definitely has something to do with those reasons."

Felwinter turned around completely and stepped closer, his voice dropping. "I am going into Frostmoth, I'm taking that fort, I'm going to put Carius back into the ground where he belongs and as repayment, I'm going to hear more about what that stone is, what it's doing and who is responsible, so I can put them in the ground too."

Veleth bore his scrutiny longer and better than most would have but with a weary sigh, he turned away. "Fine," he said, "I will fortify the town. We will stay out of your way."

Felwinter was never asking permission. He thanked him anyway. With one last nod, Felwinter pulled the door open and stepped out. His housecarls stood against the wall of the healer's clinic, where he had left them. Wordlessly, they followed as he began walking. The sun was going down, quicker than he was used to this time of year. He wondered if he'd have time to talk to Moth but he felt it better to wait until the morning, before they left for the fort.

"Thane?"

"Mm?"

"Sounded a bit intense in there," Jordis said, "Is everything alright?"

"Everything's fine. We have a plan now."

"What's our next move then?"

"He's in Fort Frostmoth...so we'll be taking Fort Frostmoth."

Behind him, Gregor nods, his hand adjusting and readjusting on the hilt of his blade. "How many will we be taking?"

"Just three."

Gregor slowed. "Veleth can only spare three men?" His eyes locked with Jordis when she turned to affix him with an odd look.

"Veleth isn't giving us any men. We're the three. We will be taking the fort."

"What?!" He balked, drawing nearby eyes. He moved closer to Felwinter, lowering his voice. "Thane…"

"When do we move?" Jordis asked.

"Thane?" Gregor called again.

"Tomorrow." He points to what appears to be an inn, one of the first places to have started receiving traffic after the attack, from civilians and guards alike. Felwinter could imagine needing a drink, after something like that. "We'll rest there for the night and move out in the morning."

"Thane!" Jordis and Felwinter stop. Gregor was a bit behind. "A fort? Just the three of us? Against a fort?!"

"Yes?" The man had the gall to give him that look, as if it was ridiculous that he could mean any other way. Before Gregor could point out how ridiculous this was, Felwinter silenced any further argument. "It's getting late. We should eat and turn in, prepare for tomorrow. Come on."

Gregor's shoulders fell but still, he followed. Felwinter easily got them a table for the night, rooms to leave their things in and enough food to hold them till morning. Gregor listened to the other two talk all through the early evening and remained sullenly silent. They talked about the upcoming moot, the rooting out of Stormcloak encampments, some girl named Serana, looking for books out of Solitude's palace. Nothing that even slightly concerned tomorrow.

As Captain Veleth had promised, not a single one of Felwinter's septims had gone towards drinks. One long-haired Dunmer started their round, personally putting one of the mugs into Jordis' hands. She had saved him from a Spawn's sword through the back and this was just a small token of his immense gratitude. Then another guardsman, then another, then another until it was going all around. The innkeeper even had to start transferring funds to the sujamma merchant from before just to keep up with the orders. As Veleth said, no one had been lost today; what better reason to celebrate.

Eventually, Jordis decides to retire. Gregor knew this when Felwinter entered his room and greeted him with a small nod. The Nord had left half an hour earlier. His sword lay across his knees, a whetstone in his hand. He had stopped sharpening it a few minutes before, lost in his own haggard and fearful reflection. He wondered if his thane could see the way the blade trembled in his grip. The way his shoulders were hunched and tight.

"I've been meaning to get you a new one," Felwinter told him quietly, "Armor too. Didn't have the time before we left."

Gregor just grunted. Sleepy and drained as he was, he did not trust his voice to not say something he could regret. Sleepier than thought, he guessed as he had only just now realized his thane was in his room. He begins to stand. "Apologies, thane. I didn't realize I was to be in the other room." He sounded as if he was reading from a letter.

"You're not. We're sharing." Felwinter tossed his bag onto a desk against the wall and stretched with an exaggerated and obnoxious groan. He dropped down on the bed, hard enough to bounce slightly and began to tug at the laces of his shoes. "You were quiet tonight."

Gregor remains still for a few seconds more before reminding himself that he should sit down again. The Nord lowered himself slowly and heavily, eyes never leaving Felwinter as the man ripped off his shoe and tossed it into a corner.

"Thane."

"Gregor."

Gregor sighed, "Do we have a plan for tomorrow? For how we will attack Fort Frostmoth?"

Big shoulders jumped in a shrug. "Still making one. I'm sure I'll have one by the morning."

"So we have no plan, none of the numbers needed and somehow, some way, we are supposed to take an occupied fortress from those occupying it and hold it?"

There was an edge in his voice that Felwinter could detect. It wasn't very surprising. There was a reason he had chosen to share with him, though he did warn Gregor that he was a man that took some getting used to.

Felwinter countered growing frustration with coolness. "Why not?" he asked, "Not my most unfair match up." He looks Gregor in the eye. "Doesn't seem you're handling this as well as it seemed."

The Nord exhales sharply, squeezing his eyes shut. "Thane, before today...I had never even seen undead. Much less monsters like this."

"None of us have seen monsters like these," Felwinter reminds him, "But you have taken forts."

"Aye, with a plan of attack. And three times the men!" He exhaled again and kept his eyes shut, "I did not mean to shout. Forgive me, thane."

"For what?" Felwinter grinned and Gregor let his eyes open again. "I did tell you I would take some getting used to. As long as you're smart, you listen and you keep your head about you, you'll be fine. We'll all be fine." The black gauntlet on his hand disappeared and the bare fingers scratched through the wiry black hair on his chin. "Jordis, Lydia, Argis, sure, they're sick of my shit. But they're all still here for a reason, despite having faced worse odds than this. It's why Jordis isn't nearly as worried about tomorrow as you think we should be."

"And what is that reason, thane? Why do they stick around?"

"I take care of my people, Gregor. Always. If you remember anything about me, remember that."The look in his dark brown eyes was the most serious Gregor had ever seen him.

The sincerity and surety with which Felwinter answered brought Gregor's eyes back onto his. For the first time in hours, his lips began to quirk up into a small smile. "I suppose it would do me well to remember that I fight alongside the Dragonborn." Felwinter gave an obnoxious smile, full of good humor and teeth. "Though, you do appear to have taken a few hits in your time."

Felwinter's bare hand immediately comes up to his left cheek, tracking the three grooves drawn into them. "Dragon fight," he said, "Was protecting a friend."

The hand falls down to the right side of his neck. "This was when I was betrayed by someone I thought an ally."

Gregor's eyes tightened in a wince. "Looks deep."

"I barely survived." The man shrugged again, "He didn't, when I found him."

"Where's the body now?"

"Sliding through some slaughterfish's intestines, I assume? Or serving as fertilizer for seaweed."

A loud snort escapes Gregor's nose before he can stop it. Felwinter only grins wider. "And this one?" Gregor asked, gesturing to his nose, "What of this one?"

The smile falters and starts to lower. "This was when I was a kid." Gently, he takes hold of the bridge of his nose. "A ball got thrown through a window. The lord of the manor, some nobody looking to throw around what little weight he had, demanded the guards take me in."

"But it was an accident…"

Felwinter snorts derisively. "It also wasn't me. But the 'Redguard' must have done it, so obviously it was me. They took me in and locked me within a dank cell for hours. I was seven. It was terrifying."

Even as he spoke, Felwinter's tone went lower and lower. "I begged them to let me go or at least, call my mother so she could clear things up. My face was pressed against the bars and one of them, a man taller than I am now, kneed me so hard in the face my nose burst. Hurt worse than anything I had felt before in my life and even some things after."

"Gods, man…" Gregor could no longer hide his shock.

"Took my mother several-hour healing sessions, every day for two months to have it appear even semi-normal," he continued, "It was to the point where I would find her sick from exhaustion afterwards and even then…" The man took in a lungful of air, sealed his mouth and breathed out through his nose. Just barely, Gregor could hear faint, faint whistling. "Doesn't happen often but it happens."

"Does it still hurt?"

Felwinter shook his head. "No, stopped doing that a while back, years after it happened." He sighed, absent-mindedly but through the nose again. Gregor could hear the whistle. "But I suppose I should be grateful," he said. "The look in that guard's eye. He wanted to do so much more than one simple hit. He enjoyed my pain. He liked that a helpless child was afraid of him."

"Sounds like a man who not many people are afraid of," Gregor noted, "Or have any respect for. And I see why. Who puts their hands on a child like that?"

"You'd be surprised." Felwinter began to divest himself of his shirt, tossing it away onto a chair once it was off and flopping down on his bed with a content sigh. Gregor slowly and silently followed suit, pulling off his shirt and boots before moving himself underneath the covers. The candles snuffed themselves out as soon as he was finished, leaving them both in the pitch dark.

Gregor asks, "Where is the guardsman now?"

He hears Felwinter scratch some part of his body, in thought. "He enjoyed my fear," he said again, "And then someone else enjoyed his, I'm sure of it."

Gregor shifts to look at him in the dark. "Was he...did you…"

Felwinter laughs at him. "Gregor, I was still a child."

"Ah." He huffs out a laugh. "Alright."

A beat of silence passed.

"But my mother wasn't."

Gregor shifts again and lets the silence carry on, leaving that last sentence and all its implications in the air. Felwinter breaks it again. "I'll bring in extra help tomorrow, Gregor. It won't just be the three of us, I'll make sure of it." Felwinter yawned loudly, then said, "Rest easy Gregor. We'll get through this alive. All of us."

Gregor's eyes stay on the dark figure laying across the room and bit by bit, he feels the tension leave him, from his shoulders to his neck to his fingers.

"Alright," he says, "Alright. I trust you, thane."

Sudden but soft noise wakes him. Surprising, given how deep of a slumber he had been shaken from. For moments after waking, he forgets where he is.

The soft bed and large room bring it back to him. He was in his mother's childhood home, a room she outfitted just for him. Someone else had lived in it, Felwinter could tell by the old tomes and papers but she would never tell him who. Whoever they were, they were never here anyway.

He slid out and padded his way to the door, rubbing his eye with a fist while the other hand was outstretched ahead of him, feeling his way in the dark. When he could feel the cool wood of the door and the cold knob, he turned it and pulled, looking both ways down the hall. He searched for figures, tall silhouettes in the dark. He almost expects to see Lord Lucius walking them.

Grandfather was not here, he reminds himself. Away on business in Camlorn. Instinctively, he rubbed his cheek, recalling the times he made the mistake of calling him 'grandfather' in his presence. Then he rubbed his nose and winced when it stung.

There was no one. Felwinter made his way to the top of the stairs, too afraid of being caught to make a light. He took hold of the railing with both hands and started downwards, where he could now hear voices coming from one of the smaller, less ornate drawing rooms in Dragon's Ascent. One where less important guests were received. There was light emanating from the cracks in and around the closed door. A small amount but Felwinter had learned from experience that it was enough for him to peek through for times when curiosity took hold of him. Times like right now. He tiptoes to the crack, drops gently to his knees and peers through.

He has to stop himself from letting out a growl of frustration. Some guardsman's ass was in the way. But he could hear his mother speaking, as well as another person. A man. He can just barely make out what is being said but the man's voice sounds panicked, desperate. The other, his mother, was as cool and quiet as always.

There was another sound. A third voice. He couldn't hear it under the talking and he definitely couldn't see it. All he could tell was that he didn't recognize it and that something was wrong with it.

"What if you're caught?" The man demands of his mother, "What if the authorities find out?"

"I suspect they will be angry."

"And if they come after you?"

"If they choose retaliation over feeding their families on the coin the Drakon family provides, then I doubt they will be missed."

The guardsman before the door shifted in stance, making Felwinter jump slightly.

"What of his family?"

"He has no family. Mother's dead, father long gone," she said, "No wife to greet him when he returns home, no husband to hold him at night. No children…" Movement, a pained grunt, then his mother's voice in an even lower and more threatening tone. "No one to mourn him."

The guardsman shifts again and Felwinter consciously keeps himself from springing away from the door in panic. This time, he was moving out of the way, allowing Felwinter to see who she was speaking about. His eyes had just moments to focus on the figure at the center of the room and even less time to comprehend what he was seeing before a massive hand suddenly wrapped around his mouth and tore him away from the door. His struggling was put down as soon as it began by another arm wrapping around his torso and lifting him.

Felwinter was bodily carried away from the closed room. At the foot of the stairs, the grip loosened just slightly. Felwinter tore himself away and turned to face his captor.

"Ser Castel, I…" the beast of a man who served as the Dragon's Ascent master-at-arms, clad in armor heavier than three of Felwinter, stared back down. The blank look on his weathered face did more to take the wind from his sails than anger or annoyance did. Felwinter couldn't hold his gaze and so, lowered it. "I heard a noise," he mumbled. His gaze came up and returned to the door. He remembered those icy, blue eyes. His breathing became labored. His nose started to sting.

"Why is he here?" he seethed.

The knight followed his eyes to the drawing room. Then, in that deep, rumbling voice of his, he simply answered, "Honor demands."

Felwinter looked between the door and Castel, over and over. Ser Castel stepped forward and waved him up the stairs. A firm but silent reminder that Felwinter had training in the morning and lessons after. This would not be an excuse if he was late.

Felwinter reluctantly obeyed, taking each step one at a time while Ser Castel watched him go.

He wished he could go back. Even with the knight's words, he struggled to believe it was the same man as before. The anger was gone, the burning coldness, like hard ice pressed to your skin, was gone. The malice was gone.

All that was left was fear; fear and pain deeper than any he had been made to feel that day. His nose still hurt. He still distrusted guards. He still feared that jail and through it all, those blue eyes permeated everything.

He wished he could go back. Honor demanded and somewhere, deep down in a place he did not recognize, Felwinter wanted to enjoy.