Direct continuation from the last chapter
Chapter 6
The unusual chill that permeates her bones eases once she passes through the city's gates; Lucretia pauses briefly to look behind her at the gate between her and the wilds of Skyrim. 'I still feel like a child; jumping at shadows and noises.' Lucretia already has monsters that stalk the depths of her mind that she willfully ignores, she doesn't have the time nor the energy for more.
With a sigh, she shakes her head and continues down the path leading through the market and head's for Arcadia's shop. This late in the day, Arcadia has already closed up and headed home for the evening so Lucretia lets herself in with the spare key provided to her. She wastes no time in organizing her flowery load into designated jars, bowls and shelves. Lucretia cleans the alchemy table and sweeps before setting out the tools and instruments Arcadia will need in the morning.
She tidies up the rest of the shop before locking back up and heading to the Bannered Mare for supper, she was feeling extra needy by wanting to spend more time around people instead of hidden away in her tiny closet-converted room at the temple.
The hum of a lute and loud chatter greets her as soon as the door opens followed by a gust of warm air. Almost immediately Hulda catches sight of her standing in the doorway and she calls out a greeting, "Come on in. Let me know if you need anything, or take a seat by the fire and I'll send someone over."
Feeling encouraged, Lucretia grabs the open seat with a stool next to the fire pit. She doesn't wait long before Saadia approaches her to take her order and she rushes off again–her gait always drawing Lucretia's eye for some odd reason but as usual she ignores it in favor of more important thoughts, such as when will she be leaving for Windhelm. It doesn't take long before she has her supper and a goblet of wine, both filling her belly with bliss. The thrum of the lute and the steady stream of patrons bustling about and chattering was soothing; after some time, Lucretia allows herself to be pulled into a conversation with Carlotta.
"Life's hard enough with all these men propositioning me. But that bard is the worst." Carlotta sighs in exasperation, shaking her head.
Lucretia halts a sip of her mead and blinks in surprise, "Someone is giving you trouble?"
Carlotta gestures with her head without turning to look at the object of her annoyance. "That bard Mikael is begging for a dagger up against his throat, the way he goes on about me. I've heard him boasting, saying he'll 'conquer me as a true Nord conquers any harsh beast.' Hmph." Her scowl deepens.
"Oh… I'm sorry to hear that. Has anyone told him to stop?"
"I can take care of myself. A Nord woman learns how to handle a few idiot men early in life. You'd best learn too, before he sets his sights on you." Lucretia didn't have time to feel the unease build at the thought that she could be harassed too before said person of annoyance seems to have been summoned like a Daedra to Carlotta's side.
"My dearest Carlotta, was that my name on your sweet lips?" Mikael smirks at the women before him as if he had won some prize.
The prior unease vanishes and annoyance takes its place. Lucretia had only ever seen him from a relative distance and he always seems to be attempting to charm women and horribly boasting about himself. Thankfully the times she had chosen to visit the Bannered Mare, it was always in the company of Ria and Farkas–one glare from Farkas always sent him scampering to the other side of the inn. Unfortunately, this was not the case tonight.
Undeterred by their looks of disdain, Mikael took up a seat next to Carlotta on the bench, leaning closer to her, "You look absolutely stunning today. May I buy you a drink?"
Carlotta leans away from him while trying to maintain a calm voice and says, "I'm not interested."
Mikael chuckles. "Now, now, no need to be so cold. I was just hoping to share a drink with a beautiful woman and her equally beautiful friend."
Lucretia raises an eyebrow, unimpressed look passes between both women.
"I simply don't have any interest in you. And neither does my friend." Carlotta's expression darkens. "Leave us be."
Lucretia watches as her companion becomes increasingly annoyed with the bard, her voice pitching louder as he again moves closer to her. She was unsure how to intervene without causing a bigger scene–a few others pause in their conversations to see how this turns out. She could see Saadia glaring at Mikael from the doorway to the kitchen, if she wasn't part of the situation she might have found it comical that the Redguard woman looked ready to hit him with a pot.
Mikael chuckles again. "Oh, I see. Still playing hard to get, are we? I like a challenge." This time he went so far as to wrap his arm around Carlotta's shoulder, tugging her against him. Lucretia was out of her chair just as Carlotta starts to yell, "Get off me, you-" her words cutting off as she was pulled backwards off the bench, the only reason she didn't hit the ground was in thanks to Lucretia catching her hands as she flailed, holding her aloft.
Everything is silent.
Lucretia pulls Carlotta to a stand and the older Imperial woman wraps an arm around her as she turns to see what was happening. There Mikael laid–his back hard against the stone with his legs still draped over the bench–and Vilkas glaring down at him, boot on his chest. "You're asking for a beating, bard."
Before anything worse can happen, Hulda calls out in a reprimanding tone, "No fighting inside!"
Vilkas grunts, removing his boot and forcefully pulling Mikael to his feet like he was a ragdoll. "It seems our resident bard needs to learn to keep his hands to himself. Leave them alone."
Mikael accepts his loss as it stands glaring in his face. "Whoa. Hey there. I didn't mean to make you upset. On my honor, Carlotta won't have to worry about me again."
"Both."
Mikael's face flitters with momentary confusion before he remembers the new, pretty Imperial in town who happens to be standing with his lady-love. "But sir, surely-"
Vilkas practically growls as he pulls the bard's face closer until they are nearly nose-to-nose, voice lowering. "Don't test my patience, bard." The remaining color saps from Mikael's face the longer Vilkas glares at him with molten silver eyes.
A line of sweat trails from his brow and dips below his jaw, Mikael drily attempts to clear his throat. "Y-yes, of course. I… I will never bother these ladies again. You have my word."
"Good, because if I hear otherwise I know where to find you." With a shove, Vilkas pushes him away allowing Mikael to fall back to the floor with a thump, and turns to Lucretia and Carlotta. Now that the confrontation ends without a fight, the rest of the patrons turn back to their prior conversations. Mikael quietly picks himself up and sulks to the furthest corner from them.
He glances over to Carlotta, assessing her rumpled dress but altogether she is alright; she gives him an assuring nod and thanks him for his intervention before excusing herself for the rest of the night after hushed words into the Imperial's ear which she nods in agreement. He pretends to not hear the exchange.
After she leaves, Vilkas meets the girl's eyes and gestures for her to return to her seat while he claims the spot at the bench. "Farkas will be upset to know you've become the source of some trouble."
Not the response she was expecting, Lucretia sits flabbergasted as Vilkas gratefully accepts a mead from an even more grateful Saadia. He watches her over the rip as he drinks, his silver eyes having lost its hard edge but their intensity remains.
"I didn't cause any trouble!"
Vilkas hums, one corner of his lips tugging up in mild amusement. "Didn't seem that way to me."
Deciding it wasn't worth arguing, Lucretia takes a moment to study the twin she has never spoken with before. He was always dressed in his armor when she saw him but now he was dirty and flaking with dried blood from someone unfortunate to be on the wrong side of his blade.
"You've just returned from a mission?"
For a brief moment his face twists into scowl, she assumes he became self-conscious at the mention of his dirty appearance but it quickly evens out. "Something like that. Good thing that you're in the city, the companions got word of vampire attacks in the valley. Farkas, Aela and Skjor are still out making sure we finished them off."
The heat of the fire did stop the return of cold dread, now she had an answer to why she felt like she was being followed. "I thought-" Lucretia takes a sip of her wine, hoping to ease the tightness that has crawled its way up her throat. Vilkas watches her like he already knows.
"I was out there today. On my way back I felt like I was being followed and there were weird noises, it sounded like a.. Like something, maybe a wolf, killed another animal? But not quite. I wasn't expecting-" She continues to ramble.
Vilkas listens as the little Imperial's heart races, thumping in fear of what almost certainly happened to her. He felt pity for her, the girl–woman–was as skittish as a hare. 'Thin too.' If he hasn't seen her hard at work collecting herbs for Arcadia and making potions as well as tending to wounds in the temple, he'd think she merely sat around like some docile wife to some milk-drinking nobleman and something about that sat weirdly with him.
He times his interjection so it didn't seem as if he wasn't paying attention to her words. "Have you ever considered learning to wield a blade?"
The question was enough to cause her to stop rambling and ponder his words. Her thoughts now on his question was already enough to work on calming her racing heart.
"Ah… No. I was also more partial to learning magic and spellcraft as a child–not that my brother or Grandmother would have ever considered the idea of me wielding a blade. Then I… Well to be frank, I got distracted by a boy."
Vilkas chuckles at her admission, "Normally, it would be the boy getting distracted by the girl and slacking off."
He watches as Lucretia's eyes take on a faraway gaze as she turns away from him to stare into the fire, a soft smile on her lips but it was bitter. "That was still the case, I was every bit of a distraction for him as he was for me. He wasn't much interested in learning how to wield a sword or any kind of weapon for that matter. The dreams he had… they were big dreams, especially for a child. He wanted to help people, make their lives easier."
"He was your sweetheart?" Curiosity peaked even though he felt a mild annoyance for this unknown boy.
Her bitter smile dips into a frown. "Yes, we were to be married."
Vilkas pushes just a bit more, "You don't seem happy about that. What happened?"
"He died." The words come out in a whisper, so low that if his hearing was not heighted by his beastblood he would not have heard her. Tears rim her eyes but she swipes them away before they could fall and takes another sip of her wine.
She clears her throat. "But that was a long time ago."
Vilkas doubts that. She was younger than him and if he had to guess, it was more than a ten year age gap. The boy's death was probably as recent as five years or so, fresh enough to hurt but far enough to mention it in front of a relative stranger. Then again, his brother spends much of his time in her company so perhaps his face is enough for her to forget that they are not as close as she and Farkas seem to be. 'Is this something they have discussed before?'
Vilkas decides to stop pushing his luck with this line of questioning and directs the conversation back to her immediate family–namely this brother she mentioned. That was enough to get her going for a while, she regales him with stories of their youth and the mishaps they seemed to get in. In turn, he shares some of his own. They too are twins but whereas she was shorter and displayed more Imperial features, her brother–Val, a nickname of sorts but he thought it was rather childish for a man–was tall and broad like a Nord. Everything else about them is identical.
Vilkas could not help but focus on the similarities between them. She was more interested in knowledge the same as he, while their own brothers prefer to simply take a sword to their obstacles. While he didn't like how skittish she was, he could understand the pull Farkas felt around her. He could sit here all night talking to her, he wouldn't mind if they met for dinner regularly just to talk. She was also quite pretty to look at.
Before it became too late, he walked her back to the temple before bidding her a goodnight. He was looking forward to talking with her again. And a bath, by the Gods he feels disgusting.
A/N: Okay, so hear me out. Vilkas/Farkas are 36 here where as Lucretia/Valerius are only 22. My reasoning for their age is due to when Jergen left to go fight in the Great War, they had memories of him so they had to be old enough to actually remember him before he left. Assuming he left in 174, same as when Skyrim sent their reinforcements, then I would put their age around 6-9. I choose to put them at 6 when he rescued them and 9 when he officially left, simply because it makes more sense to me.
Additionally, I am also going with the idea that the age of adulthood (aka coming of age) is 15 when it comes to arrange marriages for nobility.