[A/N]: Up and over the 2000 view milestone, woot! Thank you again for your wonderful support, folks! And now, where were we with this tale? Ah, yes...

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

~...IS SUPERIOR TO THE BEST ACTION EXECUTED TIMIDLY~

It could have been hours. It could have been days. Rayya lost all sense of time as she clung fitful and numb against Aela's shoulders. Through the raging blizzard, the exposed glacial plains of ice had shifted slowly into a mountainous canyon, dotted with the odd pine. It was here that Aela's mighty endurance began to sharply wane.

She'd run at a full gallop nonstop since the battle, long-lost in the misty storm behind them. Fast as any horse, if not faster. Her graceful lupine lope became a rough canter, then a staggering dogtrot. Her breath scraped between her teeth like cloth on a washboard. Her bright eyes dimmed, and she lurched with every panting step. Suddenly Rayya sensed that she would collapse.

"Aela," she whispered. Her throat had swollen painfully. Some words wouldn't form at all. "We need... stop... rest."

Aela growled weakly in answer. She briefly put on a fresh burst of speed, but it lasted only moments before she was back to her lurching, staggered gait. Saliva swung in curtains from her jaws. She grunted, pushing her exhausted self ever onward. Fearful of pursuit.

Then, without warning, her limbs folded, and she sank face-first into the drift.

"Aela!" Rayya slid off her shoulders. Aela growled again, struggling to rise. She managed only one more step before collapsing again. She whined shrilly, a strange keening howl against the wind, and shifted back. It was a remarkable thing to witness, even half-frozen in a Winterhold blizzard; scarlet fur retreated into skin, claws shortened into fingers, the beastly blood-splattered muzzle shrank into a human face. Whatever blood-magic had written the curse into Aela's form had kept her armour on beneath it, perhaps drawn into the mysteries of Oblivion with her human shape; a good thing, because when Aela the Huntress resumed her Nord form, she was as exhausted as ever, and the armour she'd worn up north to the College was thickly furred and scale-plated, her old adventuring gear she'd worn in her travelling days with Solen.

Solen. Rayya's eyes swept with unshed tears. No, she couldn't think about him now. Not now. Not with the fatal chill creeping in. She hauled Aela's arm over her shoulders and helped the Companion upright. "Come on. Keep moving."

Aela was so fatigued she couldn't talk. There was no chance of either of them continuing to travel. Rayya looked frantically around for some form of shelter – any kind of shelter. A tiny cluster of pines loomed out of the deep blue darkness of the blizzard. It would have to do. "C'mon," Rayya gasped again, and half-hauling, half-dragging Aela, she made her way towards the pines.

It was the longest, most painful walk she'd ever made in her life. Rayya's hands and feet were agonizingly numb. Her elbows and knees almost refused to bend. Her lips were chapped so dry that they cracked and bled in the icy air. She wore a woollen cap beneath her headwrap, but her ears still felt as if they'd turned to ice. She shivered so hard that it was all she could do to keep one wobbly foot placed in front of the other. But, inch by inch, the pines crawled closer, until at last they were beneath the trunks and snow-laden boughs.

They folded in a graceless heap below a pine trunk. It offered only scant protection against the driving wind. "Aela," Rayya rasped again. Aela groaned faintly in answer. Rayya tried feebly to dig a snow den, but her arms were like planks of wood. She managed to get a shallow scrape in the snow, and herself and Aela dragged into it. That was all the energy she had left to her.

"Aela," Rayya repeated, because they couldn't go to sleep. No matter how tempting it was, the promise of oblivion to slip away from this torturous cold. But Aela was already drifting, and leaned into Rayya like a deadweight. Rayya leaned back, holding her close, trying to conserve their body heat. It was their last defence against the unrelenting chill.

Here, at last, Rayya could start to think. About their enemy, their failed mission, the baby. Pregnant. The fingers of ice that ran down Rayya's spine were much colder than the chill of the storm. When? How? Well, she knew how that would've happened, but when? Fitfully Rayya cast her mind back, one month after the next. Dimly she realized she hadn't bled for two months. So focused had she been with keeping herself and her husband alive in their Skyrim journeying that she'd completely forgotten to keep track of her cycle. And there'd been a night, there'd been several, when they'd taken out the day's frustrations in each other's arms...

Gods.

And the vampires – the Elder Scroll – Rayya had no doubt the Volkihar champion, Gendolin, was winging his way back to Castle Volkihar with his prize. But his vampiric thralls – they wouldn't be affected by this snowstorm. Aela had run far and fast, but a vampire didn't need to stop and shelter. Rayya's ears burned with the vampire lord's command. Kill them all. Her eyes stung with tears for Vilkas and Njada. Her last shaky glimpse of them etched in her mind...

Rayya breathed lightly. Sleep was becoming irresistible. Luring her down, to a warm pocket deep beneath her skin, as she and Aela became blanketed in frost and snow. She could only fight it so much longer. Solen... I'm sorry.

"Hello."

Rayya forced her eyes open again. I'm dreaming. But the warm breath that struck her backside was quite real. Groggily she turned her head. A pair of lambent green eyes blinked cheerfully at her out of the snowbound darkness.

"I followed you," said Fiirnaraan, bobbing his frills. "I wanted to see a kel up close."

"Fiir..."

"My full name," the Dragon frowned. Rayya's swollen throat couldn't finish his title. He seemed about to protest the point, and then he realized, "Oh. You are cold. And there is no kel. And you smell of blood."

"Fiir," Rayya rasped, "tell... Solen..."

"And you cannot speak," Fiirnaraan assessed. His long sinuous body circled out from beneath the pines. His frilled tail scraped alongside a pine trunk, shivering the snow from the branches; his wing puffed out automatically to stop the snow from falling on Rayya's and Aela's heads. "You do not look well. Did the sosvolunah beat you in the game?"

"Solen," Rayya repeated thickly. She'd grown very dizzy. She closed her eyes.

She heard, as if from a thousand miles away, the Dragon's breath hissing gently through his teeth, like a kettle at comfortable boil. Then his body carving through the snowy drifts. Something warm and immense pushed up behind her spine, and suddenly the wind's bite was gone, and the air quickly growing still and warm. Rayya drowsily opened her eyes to discover the sky had turned to leathery green skin. For a moment she wondered if Fiirnaraan had eaten them, and then her mind caught up and properly assessed that she and Aela were outside his body, pressed against the wonderfully warm, soft scales of his pale underside, tucked there by his wing. "Fiir?" Rayya whispered, bewildered.

The Dragon's head was pressed on the other side of his folded wing, but his voice seemed to emanate from within his chest, beneath Rayya's ear. "It is a poor night for flying."

The snow beneath them was still cold, but Fiirnaraan's body was warm, and in the little pocket beneath his wing Rayya felt life slowly creeping into her numbed flesh. How strange it was to lie against a Dragon's chest, gently rising and falling with his slow peaceful breaths, and not be remotely afraid. Solen might be on to something after all with these beasts, she thought, resting her cheek against a warm knot of leathery scales. She closed her eyes and at last allowed her exhaustion to run away with her for a while.

Rayya awoke to her name rumbling soft warning in the Dragon's throat. She stirred groggily awake, every inch of her complaining as she dragged herself from the warm embrace of peaceful slumber. She couldn't speak, but she rapped a finger against Fiirnaraan's scales to alert him she was awake. The rumbling stopped. Fiirnaraan went completely, remarkably silent and still, like a snowshoe hare that had scented a fox. Rayya couldn't even hear him draw breath.

Then he went invisible. It was incredibly disorienting – one moment he was there, the next vanished as if into thin air. Rayya still felt his warm, solid body beneath her head, yet his shielding wings had become translucent as a window pane, if a little wavery. She felt horribly exposed – were they exposed? – but the falling snow above her head never touched her. She was still cocooned inside the shelter he'd made of his body, similarly veiled to the outside eye.

It was difficult to fathom how much time had passed, only that the blizzard had calmed into a breezy snowfall. But Rayya felt much better. Still frigid, but she could bend her limbs a little, and in the warm space under Fiirnaraan's wing her breaths didn't scorch her lungs. She glanced sidelong at Aela – dead to the world, but only for how heavily she slept. Rayya let her rest and returned her attention to the sparsely wooded vale beyond.

She couldn't see anything at once, but Rayya's opinion of Fiirnaraan had increased considerably within these last hours and she decided to trust in the Dragon's judgement. She couldn't think of any other reason for him to waken her unless friends – or enemies – were close.

The rage of the storm had died away; the wind hardly moaned. Thus Rayya heard the spine-chilling snarl ring very clearly through the cold air.

They manifested into sight a moment later – four dark shapes. Three of them humanoid, the fourth hideously canine. Rayya saw the glitter of their burnt amber eyes, like fell stars in a frozen sky. She held her breath. Again reminded herself that she was completely hidden. From sight, at least – but my breath? My scent? These things made an unpleasant reminder. Or was her scent similarly veiled, contained beneath the dry green-black folds of the Dragon's wing?

The vampires and the death hound drew closer. The hound's ghastly, fleshless face skimmed the snow, fangs agape, drawing gulping breaths into its nightmarish maw.

Tracking us. Rayya's hand fumbled for her scimitar. She knew as soon as she felt it that she wouldn't be able to draw it. Her fingers wouldn't bend, her hand couldn't grasp. Fear froze the breath in her lungs. All she could do was lie still, and watch, and wait...

The anticipation was gruelling. Rayya fought to keep herself calm, her heartbeat slow and her blood cool in her veins. Aela remained unconscious, slumped in a hollow with her pale war-painted cheek pressed against the Dragon's motionless chest. Rayya concentrated all her senses on the incoming enemy. Their dark, slightly-warped forms drawing ever-closer towards the Dragon's membranous wing. Their footfalls were quiet but audible. Of course they felt no need for stealth. They were the hunters, seeking to flush their prey into the open. She heard the hideous rasp of the death hound's breath, nosing out impossible scents beneath the frozen layers. The crunch of its bloodless paws in the snow. Closer. Closer... A stone's throw from where Fiirnaraan lay still as marble, veiled only by his supernatural camouflage and a thin blanket of snow...

Then they stopped. The death hound shifted its head. One red eye glittered like a live coal. A slightly different noise, almost imperceptible, gurgled from its throat. "Useless thing," growled one of the vampires, with a deep, bristly male's rasp. Vaguely Nordic, mostly ominous.

"It wouldn't have run far, he said," spat a second – nasally, female, with a trace of the Heartlands accent still audible in the snarl. "They only hold shape so long, he said."

"I'm surprised none of us smelled it sooner," said another female – eloquent, haughty, almost definitely Altmer. "It seems Harkon's new favourite isn't quite as omniscient as he'd want us to believe."

"He was right about the Scroll," said the Nord.

"Yes, I suppose," said the High Elf. "And yet he sends us after the werewolf."

"It's not the werewolf he wants," said the Imperial. "That beast we do with as we see fit. It's the Redguard woman – alive and unspoiled."

Rayya again strained to wrap her hand around her scimitar's hilt. Not happening, bloodsucker. The death hound paced a slow, noiseless circle around the three vampires as they bickered.

"Hmph! I wouldn't care if he asked us to find a fresh corpse. Gendolin's getting far too big for his boots, if you ask me," sneered the Imperial. "He's hardly been in our court three months, yet he's ordering us around like we're the new blood."

"He's supped from the Bloodstone Chalice. He killed Stalf and Salonia. And he found Serana." The Nord's voice softened with caution. "Mind what you say around that one. He may be young, but he's dangerous. Very dangerous."

"And insane," the High Elf added. "Making an enemy of the Dragonborn."

"Oh, there was bad blood between him and the Dragonborn long before Dimhollow Crypt," said the Nord.

"So cut his throat and be done with it," huffed the Imperial. "He travels all the time. It'd be simple to –"

"Slaying the most famous hero in Skyrim?" the Nord chuckled. "You seem to forget that was already attempted. Fate doesn't favour ignominious conclusions. How do you slay Dragons, Castia? With spectacle. Young lord Gendolin intends one that Skyrim will remember."

"And to do that he needs hostages, does he?" groused the High Elf.

"Of course. We've a long night ahead of us before our day finally dawns."

"The dog still hasn't picked up the scent."

"She and that hound of Hircine won't be far. Spread out. Look for snow dens."

The three vampires peeled apart. Two wandered elsewhere – the third, the Nord, approached the pines with the death hound. Rayya held her breath, though she knew even with Fiirnaraan's camouflage it was surely only a matter of time before they heard their tired heartbeats. Then what? She couldn't fight, Aela was as good as dead, and Fiirnaraan – would he fight, or would he vanish? Solen said he wasn't a fighter, but surely he wouldn't just abandon her and Aela to their fate. Yet Solen had warned her that it was unwise to trust a Dragon...

Rayya at last tightened her fingers around her swordhilt. All I know is I won't go quietly. The vampires called softly to one another. The Nord vampire was so close that Rayya saw his pinched, pale features. His boots crunched in the snow as he drew slowly, slowly closer towards Fiirnaraan's wing...

Then the wind died. The snow stopped falling. All with entirely too much suddenness to be natural. Even the vampires paused. "What's that?"

A Shout. Rayya knew it immediately. She'd seen Solen use it too many times to count, though for a dizzying moment she scarcely believed it. Nor did she want to. Her Housecarl sense of duty overwhelmed all other thoughts. Turn around! I'm not worth dying over – these vampires, Gendolin, they want you dead! She pictured him riding alone through the treacherous valley road, unknowing of the danger that lurked ahead. Thu'um and all, if the vampires took him by surprise –

Fiirnaraan stirred; a soft, quick breath, a slight shift of his head, by the sound of the snow. One of the female vampires hissed, "Torches!" And they disappeared as if into thin air, all of them. Even the monstrous hound. The oppressive sense of being hunted lifted with the rapidly clearing skies.

Fiirnaraan's deep breaths hummed through his being. For a moment he rolled back into visibility. He dislodged a mound of snow on his head and raised it proudly. His head-frills splayed to their widest fan, then flexed sharply backward, as if to some immense pulse. He giggled, his sidelong pupils dilating to great black circles. "Oh, he has heard me, he has heard, and the vampires did not. What a game this has been!"

Rayya didn't understand a jot of how Dragon magic worked, and she didn't care to. All that mattered to her was the joyous, renewing sight of a line of torches funnelling into the snowy vale, chasing away all the fears that lurked in the wintry darkness. Hope was a powerful thing. It settled as potent as any hot drink in her stomach – especially as she heard her husband's voice shouting on the wind. Calling names. Hers. Aela's. Rayya only wished she could have called back to him, or at least had the strength to mount her feet and run to meet him. He headed the mounted Imperial patrol, a frantic expression on his golden face, eyes raking the treelines even as he beelined for her location. Fiirnaraan had gone invisible again, perhaps out of nervousness of the numerous Imperial scouts that accompanied Solen.

But there was no hiding from the Thu'um. Rayya saw her husband's mouth move, and his mismatched eyes briefly attained a matching vermillion hue – his Aura Whisper – as they focused on Fiirnaraan's immense mound of life-aura. "Fiirnaraan!" he shouted. "That you, buddy?"

Rayya knew Fiirnaraan was right beside her, but she still twisted around in surprise when she heard his voice answer plainly right in the middle of the Imperial patrol, causing many a turned head and a startled horse. "Say they will not hurt us, Dovahkiin."

"Right, right – stand down, all of you. What you see next, weapons down. Rayya!" Solen swung himself out of the saddle. "Rayya! Are you there?"

"She is fine, Dovahkiin," said Fiirnaraan, and resumed visibility in a graceful flourish. The Imperial soldiers swore and cursed and generally made a great fuss; Rayya only had eyes for Solen as Fiirnaraan lifted his wing. There was briefly a gust of icy air, so numbing it snatched her breath away, and then she knew only the warmth of his blessedly solid embrace. Rayya twisted her head into the fur line of his collar to hide her tears as he held her tight.

Solen drew back and ran anxious hands and eyes around Rayya's frostbitten face. "Rayya, are you hurt? What's happened? Gods, your throat –" His trembling fingers gingerly outlined the bruises under her jaw. Rayya pushed his hand aside – right now that wasn't important, and even he knew it. I'm alive. That's more than any of us bargained for. The mission, Solen!

"Aela!" Solen shook Aela vigorously until her eyelids flickered. "Speak to me – what's happened? Were you attacked?"

Aela, thankfully, roused. She gathered her wits quickly, in the way only a warrior her seasons could. "We were ambushed. We lost the Scroll." Aela wiped her mouth and spat a glob of foul blood into the snow. "But I left the bastard something to remember me by."

"What bastard?" Solen demanded. "Who?"

"Gendolin. That's his name." Aela's grey eyes flashed like Skyforge steel. "The Bosmer prick that I'm told broke your nose."

Rayya's exhaustion saw her recall little of what else transpired in the pine grove alongside the Winterhold valley road. She remembered herself and Aela being wrapped in thick woollen cloaks, as many as the Imperial troops could spare, and being hauled over a warm saddle, which Rayya could hardly sit. She remembered Solen saying something to Fiirnaraan, who then spoke with the Imperials, who gradually lifted their anxious hands from swords and bows, and there was some sort of talk about rewarding him with a whole horse. She remembered Solen climbing up behind her, and she remembered falling asleep against him as they rode steadily back to Fort Kastav, Winterhold's Imperial garrison.

Kastav was a sorry little fortress, as far as fortresses went, hardly bigger than a riverside hamlet; but its short, thick walls had been repaired, and its subterranean labyrinth of corridors and rooms were warm and well-lit. Rayya glimpsed Fiirnaraan making himself comfortable in the spacious courtyard, licking his jowls in hungry anticipation of an old, plump carthorse being coaxed from the stables, watched on by twoscore morbidly fascinated Imperial soldiers, before the Fort doors shut out the icy dawn and she was hurried off to the healers' wards.

Rayya slept for a day under a healer's care, drifting in and out of golden dreams while a healer's hands soothed the deep bruising to her neck and windpipe. Aela needed little more than a mountain of food and a long unbroken sleep curled on a bedroll in front of a roaring hearth.

The day passed, and Rayya soon felt considerably recovered. Her neck was still beastly sore, but the healer's work had been thorough. She could take food and drink, and speak again, if in a bit of a rougher rasp than her usual. Solen remained beside her throughout. Despite having had her neck crushed in a vampire lord's grip, Rayya found the whole affair almost embarrassing; she hated being fussed over, no matter how severe the injury. And Solen could get as fretful as a mother hen, fussing with her blankets, clasping her hand, calling for a healer's help at the slightest discomfort.

"Solen, enough," Rayya rasped, as she sensed Solen about to shout for a third helping of garrison stew. She was still hungry, but she forced the bowl aside. There was too much to be said that could no longer wait. "Be quiet and listen."

"I'm sorry, I'm... you just... you know I worry." Solen gently caressed her neck, where the swelling had gone down but the bruises still remained visible. "Gods, if I'd had any idea, I'd have –"

"You'd have gotten yourself killed," Rayya rasped, brushing his fingers aside – gentle as they were, her neck was still frightfully sore. Her hands as well, badly frostbitten, but she'd be fit for travelling in a day or two when she could grip anything with strength. She shuddered to remember that dark, icy night, what would've become of her if not for Fiirnaraan. "How'd you even find us, Solen?"

"Fiirnaraan." Solen shook his head in wonder. "That Dragon's curiosity and his good sense saved your and Aela's lives. I'd hardly crossed the Hold border from Pale to Winter when I heard him Shouting for me."

Rayya blinked in surprise. "I didn't hear a thing." Granted, I was asleep for most of it, but I've heard you summon Odahviing enough times.

"Well, that's his little trick, isn't it?" Solen laughed quietly. "Gods, but I'm glad he found me that night in the Pale. What was that gremlin doing up in Winterhold at all? Did Isran send him? I entirely forgot to ask..."

"No, something about being curious to see an Elder –" The mission slammed itself back into the forefront of Rayya's mind. "Solen, this isn't just about some prophecy anymore. They're after you."

Solen waved a hand. "Of course they are. We were killing vampires long before the Dawnguard –"

"You don't get it," Rayya snapped. "He's after you. Gendolin. He wants you dead."

Solen could be damnably blasé about threats to his life. "So does half of Skyrim."

"Aye, fools and bootwipes and idiots, but this is different. They said... I overheard them talking in the snow, the vampires, looking for us – looking for me." Rayya seized his hand. "You want to know why that Volkihar champion didn't cut your throat in Dimhollow? He wants to make a spectacle of your death – whatever that means."

Solen seemed more puzzled than intimidated. He shrugged his mantled shoulders. "Well, that's different. A picky killer. I'm the Dragonborn – how much bigger of a spectacle does the git want?"

"I don't know. But I seemed to have a role to play in it. Those vampires were tracking Aela and I. They wanted to kill her, like Vilkas and Njada, but I was –"

"What?" Solen's face grew ashen. "Vilkas and Njada are dead?"

Right – he couldn't have known. Rayya closed her eyes. "They came north with us. To protect the Scroll..." How hollow it sounded. It had all been for nothing. She forced down a scream of frustration and settled for twisting her fist into the wool blankets of her cot.

Solen stared into the flames of the hearth beside them. "Did they... die well?"

Rayya recalled her last glimpse of them – overwhelmed by number. She nodded. "As bravely as any Nord could."

Solen brushed tears from his eyes. "I'll... I'll ask Captain Tovendas to send some troops out, get their bodies... d'you know where they fell?"

"A day out from Winterhold..." Rayya hissed through her teeth. "Gendolin and his little crew were waiting for us. Like they were expecting us."

"Morwha..." Solen put his head in his hands. "I should've come with you."

Which begged the question. "Solitude – how did it go?"

"Well, Tullius was Tullius, but he's sent a fast courier down to Cyrodiil to fetch the Moth Priest." Solen laughed bitterly. "For all the good it'll do us now. We've got no damn Scroll for them to read, and no clue where to find another one. Gods, but I hope we're right about the Volkihar, having no means to access those Scrolls... if we aren't..."

Rayya mused on her own words. Expecting us. The ambush could not have played out more perfectly... except for Aela. Aela – the beast blood was the only thing that had turned the tide, however wretchedly briefly. Then Rayya's blood chilled again, as she remembered the revelation. The room spun a little. Involuntarily her hand went to her stomach.

"Rayya?" Solen was all concern again, his warm golden hands over her mahogany brown. "Does it hurt? Should I send for –"

"Send for the healer one more time and it's you who'll be needing her."

It prompted a flicker of his old grin out of him. Rayya forced one that was hopefully real enough to reassure him. "I'm fine, Solen, but..." But. She drew a deep breath. Morwha's eyes, something she never thought she'd ever have to say... "Solen, there's something else."

Two words. How were two words so hard to say? What was she meant to feel? Joy? Sadness? Fear? Disgust? What? The life kindling in her womb, enough of it for Aela to hear... she couldn't feel anything. What if she was wrong? What if Aela was wrong?

"Rayya?" Solen's hand on her face. Grounding her to the present, just as her touch brought him back when he drifted in memory. Rayya clasped it and pressed her cheek into his palm, anxious for his touch.

It occurred to her, suddenly, almost darkly... He doesn't have to know. She'd stop in Whiterun, quietly acquire some tansy tea, or pay a visit to Danica Pure-Spring if she was really that far along...

But Rayya knew it would shadow her forever – a secret of that magnitude would poise a what if over their heads for the rest of their lives. Though Solen loved her beyond the twin moons, he'd certainly never forgive her if she didn't even tell him about the situation at all. Or he might never forgive himself, for putting her in the situation to begin with. Either way, she couldn't do that to him. Better he know.

There was nothing for it. Two words. "Solen, I'm..."

Suddenly she was angry. Gods above! This was the worst time! Of all times! It wasn't fair! Why was it so hard! It was with almost bitter defiance that she finally got the last word unstuck from her aching throat. "I'm pregnant."

Then it was done – it was said. Rayya visibly felt the silence smother them. Anxiously she searched her husband's green-gold eyes for his reaction. It was immediate. He recoiled in one swift motion, as if she'd turned to glass he was fearful to touch; his hand clapped over his mouth, and for a moment his shoulders trembled. Rayya watched him and waited. She could practically see this revelation consuming all others he'd heard, until it was the only thing that remained in his dazed mind.

"She said... she said..." Solen shook his head, stunned. "Danica said it – it wouldn't happen. It couldn't happen."

"I know what she said. We'd be more fertile with our own than with each other. Unlikely, Solen, but not impossible." Gods, what was going through his head? What was going through hers? Rayya hardly knew herself. "Well, unlikely happened."

"But how – how d'you –?"

"I'm late. Besides, Aela said she heard it."

"It's that far along? But you're not –" Solen awkwardly mimed a rotund belly.

Rayya couldn't help but roll her eyes. Did men ever get taught the basics of womanly functions? "Solen, that's months into it. I'm only two. I think."

Solen jumped off the bed as if stung. "When did we –? Gods, when? Was it that night in Old Hroldan?"

"Maybe, or in the Redoubt after we – look, Solen, what's done is done, I don't care when it happened – it's happened!" Rayya snapped. Her temper suddenly felt very short, far too short to deal with Solen's panicked dithering. She was the one with child, not him! "Stop making a fuss out of this. We've got enough to worry over without some ill-timed conception! I'll resolve it. Visit Whiterun, speak with Danica about –"

"You're not –" Solen's mismatched eyes pinned on her. "Rayya?"

Rayya felt something in her crumble. There was an anxious expression in his face that she wasn't so sure she liked, mainly because there was a part of her that matched it entirely. "Solen? What?"

Solen paced, back and forth, back and forth. "Rayya, if it's... unlikely, then... then it might be the only chance we ever have."

"Chance? Solen, we already decided we'd never –"

"I know, but..." Solen clasped his hands behind his neck, the picture of agitation.

"You've said your reasons," Rayya continued, "you've made your point clear on this, over and over. And I agree with them. Neither of us would make very good parents. Well, you might, I suppose, but I – I wouldn't."

Solen stared at her. "Why not?"

Tall Papa's mercy – he's changing his mind, isn't he? Right in front of her eyes, no less. Rayya wrapped both arms around her sternum. "You know why not," she snapped. "We're adventurers! We hardly sleep in the same bed twice! And that's only the tip of the iceberg. The Thalmor are hardly going to forget about you, you know full well there's a second Great War looming in the distant future between the Empire and the Dominion, the Dragons could decide any day to go rampaging again, and right now we are losing this fight with the Volkihar! This is a responsibility neither of us are ready to shoulder, Solen!"

Solen sat down heavily on the end of the cot. "I know all that, and I accept that, but – I want to know why you don't think you'd be able to do it. If all of that..." He waved a hand. "...didn't exist."

It felt different discussing motherhood when one suddenly faced the prospect of it. Rayya scootched along the cot until she could sit alongside Solen, seeking the security of his solid embrace. Their arms settled around each other as they faced the crackling hearthfire, dwelling.

"If all of that didn't exist," Rayya murmured, "then maybe." She'd had a good upbringing in a family as fair as any other – a mother who loved her, a father who taught her, even an older brother who helped her find her sharpest edge. For a moment she dwelled on the idea of it, motherhood – writing home to her kin of the news, watching her belly swell. Now that Rayya thought about it, she hadn't written home to her family in a long time. They didn't even know she'd married, let alone to a High Elf. She wasn't sure if they'd be shocked or glad or even believe it.

Altmer had always been particular about their genealogy, and family trees were a subject his people took to with great passion, Solen said – something about maintaining the 'purity' of their Aldmer ancestors. Interracial unions between Altmer and others had always been rare as a result, even outside the Summerset Isles. Then the Aldmeri Dominion had reformed, and exacerbated the whole dark idea of purity. According to Solen, they'd made a point of making interracial couples and mixed-blood children disappear. Anything that tarnished the pure ideal was purged – deformities included. Solen had been cast out from his own kin as a hulkynd – 'broken child' – when a childhood accident had permanently discoloured one of his eyes. It was reminded in him all again, the way he touched his hand gently to his temple, above his green eye. Abandoned in the wilderness and left to die, until his uncle had found and taken him, a child of four, to sea...

Solen had only very hazy memories of his homeland as a child, and all others went no further than the docks of Alinor or Sunhold in Summerset, and Vulkel Guard or Skywatch in the Auridon isle. But he remembered the beggars and the hulkynd he'd seen in the alley shadows, abandoned by a society turned heartless and cruel by Dominion supremacy. Those memories haunted and troubled him – miserable reminders of how far his people had fallen in the eyes of the world. Not that Skyrim's a gleaming jewel, Rayya thought grimly. Such matters had improved with the Civil War ended and the Thalmor expelled from Skyrim, but anti-outsider sentiments still hummed under the scarred surface. Surely Solen feared any children he sired faced similar revulsion and a lifetime of torment as half-bloods. Or, as children of the Dragonborn, with targets painted on their backs.

Solen rested his long chin on his clasped hands. "Say we kept it," he said suddenly. "For argument's sake. What happens then?"

Something that Rayya had never once imagined. But she answered anyway. For argument's sake. "Then we'd retire. Whiterun, I suppose. Settle down in Breezehome. Take up some boring, safe job. Chopping wood for the Bannered Mare. I would, anyway. You'd be stuck in Jorrvaskr all day watching the whelps train."

"Or helping Eorlund at the forge."

"Or that. But we'd hang up the swords, put the armour away, live off our fortunes. Raise the kid." It was an uncomfortable, disorienting thought. Rayya loved the thrill of adventure and travel as much as Solen did. And yet she thought again of writing home, watching her belly swell. Life – real life – growing inside her, one day to take breath and open its eyes...

"And if we didn't keep it?" Solen murmured.

"You mean – give it away?"

"Gods, no." The answer was immediate, and Rayya felt foolish for asking it. Of course Solen wouldn't do such a thing. The idea repulsed her, as well. Any child of hers was hers, damn it. "I meant... if you went to see Danica, when we return to Whiterun."

Rayya's turn to rest her chin on her folded hands. "I imagine she'd put me to sleep. I'd wake up sore, and... empty. A few days bedrest, then it'd be like nothing had ever happened."

But it had happened – and Rayya knew it would weigh on them for the rest of their lives. She was human, and he was an elf, and Dragonborn no less – gods knew the odds were against them from the start; if they changed their minds, would it even happen again? Rayya suddenly understood why Solen's former certainty had dissolved into such hesitation. So many reasons, but it's still a chance we might never see again...

Again, she rested her hand over her belly. Gods, she'd never been so uncertain about anything before! What frustrating agony! There was no telling how this would even end – she needed to see Danica either way, get a priestess's appraisal of the child's health – she'd heard enough horror stories about miscarriages and the increased chance of it between humans and mer, adding to her disdain of pregnancy.

Yet speaking it all aloud, now that it had happened, had made her realize she was not as opposed to keeping it as she'd expected. Intended, even. They say parenthood changes you forever, but – gods, this much?

Solen's head was suddenly against hers. "I'm so sorry I put you in this position, Rayya."

There he went, blaming himself – Rayya turned and faced him, impatient. "No apologies. It's not like it was unpleasant." He'd definitely come a long way since their first night in bed, she had to admit. "We just – we need to decide what happens next. And fast." The mission sprang sharply to the forefront of her mind. "The Volkihar have a second Scroll. We need to warn the Dawnguard. That takes priority."

"Right. The prophecy..." Solen hissed through his teeth. "Damn their eyes! All right. Rayya – you're going to Whiterun."

"We are. It's on the way, Solen, and when they find –" Rayya grimaced. "When they find out about Vilkas and Njada, the Companions will need their Harbinger. The Circle's down to two, including you."

"That's what I need you to do for me." Solen took her hands. "I need to meet this Moth Priest as soon as I can, and figure out some way forward for the Dawnguard. But you know the Companions as well as I do – and they know you. I'll name you regent in my stead."

That was a rich idea – Rayya wasn't even a formal Companion. "Solen – you can't withdraw me from the fight! I don't know if I want to keep the baby – and I'm sworn to protect you!"

"Whether you're keeping it or not, you'll still be in Whiterun longer than I can afford to be." Solen took her head in his hand again, fingers brushing the soft shaved fuzz on her scalp. "And I swore to protect you too, Rayya."

Rayya pressed her forehead against his. "Solen – this can't be about me. Gendolin wants you dead. He's a monster, Solen – Isran didn't understate the danger of the vampire lord. Now, more than ever, you need me by your side. I won't let you face that thing alone."

"He won't." Aela stepped into their ward, bearing aloft a fresh tray of food, steaming-hot from the Kastav kitchens. Rayya almost didn't recognize her out of armour, wrapped in several layers of wool clothing, her face scrubbed of its war-paint – but her silver eyes glittered with their usual steel as she placed the warm tray across their laps.

"Dare I ask how much you overheard, Aela?" Solen asked, with a tired smile.

"Some of it," she admitted. "Sound carries easy in these halls. And you know how sharp one's senses stay, so soon after a transformation." Aela squatted down across from them, poised on the balls of her feet like a crouched wolf. "I agree with Solen, Rayya – you need to be the one to head back to Whiterun and keep the rabble in line."

Rayya narrowed her eyes. She couldn't completely ignore her hunger, and attacked the food as she spoke. "What do you plan on doing, then?"

"Joining Solen." Aela cracked her neck. "I have shield-siblings to avenge and a hunt to finish. Besides, no Companion goes into a fight without a shield-sister at their back."

Rayya turned to Solen. "In short, I'm getting replaced. Because either way, I'll be unfit for duty." The blunt truth of it stung, acid on her tongue; a Housecarl unable to protect her Thane. A wife unable to protect her husband. It was a bitter potion to swallow, and Rayya had issue choking it down. "Whiterun isn't safe, you know. Gendolin's after me, too. Those vampires wanted to bring me back to him alive. Something about a hostage."

Solen's eyes darkened. "You didn't mention that."

"Likely as a way of messing with our dear Harbinger's head," said Aela, pragmatic. "Better than that bat-faced craven have tried to play off Solen's heart. None of them have bested a Dragonborn. None of them will. Not even Gendolin, champion of the Volkihar."

Solen squeezed Rayya's hands in his. "Go to Whiterun. Stay with the Companions. Get them – and all of Whiterun – aware of the threat that's coming. If Isran hasn't already, I'll get him to send some Dawnguard operatives up to help. And don't talk to anyone unless you can see their eyes. That's as safe as any of us are ever getting, wherever we are."

It was good to see him focused again. Rayya kissed his cheek. "Don't worry about me." About us. "That's an order."

Solen's smile was warm with his old humour. "Aye, Housecarl." Then, more tenderly, he kissed her. "And whatever you choose... whatever comes, whatever happens, whatever... I'll be with you. Okay?"

Rayya hadn't realized how much she needed to hear that said aloud until she heard it. She blinked aside a quick tear and nodded. There was still so much to fear... at least it wasn't this. "I know you will, dear."

Aela sensed Rayya's lingering unease and rested her warm, strong hand, calloused from the bow, on Rayya's wrist. "Irileth's fate won't be yours, Housecarl Rayya. This I pledge to you. For all your sakes, you know it's the right thing that must be done."

It was. Of course it was. In Whiterun, Rayya would be as safe as anyone could be in these times; Solen would be free to focus on the task at hand, and not risk distraction worrying for her health. Meanwhile she'd have time to think on her outcome. Again her hand settled on her belly. She couldn't feel the life within, not tangibly – perhaps it just wasn't big enough, as she admittedly had little knowledge on how these things worked – yet she knew now that it was there, with a feeling that ran far deeper than anything she'd ever felt before. Maybe that's what Dragon magic – what any magic – feels like; some instinct you can't describe, but you know runs alive in your veins.

Rayya's hand settled at last on Aela's, and gripped tight. "Protect him," she ordered. "At all costs."

Aela flashed her a wolfish grin. "As our Harbinger has ordered, sister, no Companion goes into a fight alone."