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skyrimkinkmeme) wrote2011-10-29 12:36 pm
skyrimkinkmeme) wrote2011-10-29 12:36 pm
Meme Announcements!
ANNOUNCEMENTS: UPDATED 12/16/2017
Happy Holidays, fellow Kinkmemers! I have returned and have no reasonable excuse for my absence except LIFE. I will be working on updating the archives. If anyone sees anything amiss, please let me know.
I am also hoping to find another Mod and an Archivist.
The more dedicated people we have in this Meme the less chance of it dying. I admit that being the sole keeper of the Meme is not great for the fandom. If something were to happen to me, for good, this place would go the way of the Fallout Kink Meme. Let's not let that happen! If anyone would be interested in Modding/Archiving, please drop me a line. Thanks! <3
Songs for Nomads 8.1
(Anonymous) 2014-09-14 05:40 pm (UTC)(link)The knowledge that they are safe lifts a weight that Freyja didn’t know she was carrying; when she ducks out of the tent, every snow-shard gleams afresh. Even the air tastes clean. It calls the blood to her cheeks and stings her throat on the inhale, tart with pine and cold.
Eitri wriggles out behind her, broad shoulders making his exit far more awkward. Freyja admires them furtively. His hair is a torch against the snow and the slate-grey spruce, like candlelight glimpsed through honey mead; it’s longer from weeks on the run, just brushing his leather pauldrons, and she imagines weaving it into warrior’s braids while his head rests in her lap.
Thorald is stirring a pot of oats atop the fire, watching her. Sudden heat kindles under Freyja’s skin. There is no knowing in his gaze, nothing but mild curiosity, yet abruptly she cannot help but wonder just how discreet she and Eitri truly were. “Hungry?” he asks, and Freyja quickly takes a bowl and sits by the fire, where the heat of the glowing coals will hide her flush. Breakfast is bland, but warm. The spiky branches of a snowberry bush poke at her back, and Freyja scatters a handful of the fruits in her porridge. They are near-unbearably sour until they’ve seen successive hard freezes; only cold will awaken the delicate sweetness that makes them so favored for jams and baking. Hers are still rather tart, but Freyja savors them anyway. It’s been many years since she tasted snowberries fresh from the bush.
“Can’t be more than a day or two before we leave the mountains,” Eitri says beside her. “How far to Windhelm, from there?”
Thorald cocks his head, thinking. “It’s about six days march from Windhelm to the Nightgate Inn, and another few days from there to the crossroads near Giant’s Gap. If we wanted to we could be in the city inside of two weeks, but I plan to stop in at Whiterun. That will make it closer to three.”
“Maybe longer,” Eitri muses. “The snows will be here in three weeks, and not only in the mountains.”
The berries sour in her mouth. Freyja swallows, abruptly unable to stomach their acid taste. In the fresh light of morning and the warm aftermath of their lovemaking, it was easy to forget the possessive desperation that helped drive her to Eitri’s bed in the first place. No longer. She is bound for High Hrothgar, and he goes to pledge his axe to Ulfric’s cause. Freyja watches him balance the bowl of porridge on his knees, not quite trusting his off hand to hold it steady, and feels a sudden hollow certainty that he will not live out the spring. Her throat floods with angry pressure. Something in her snarls that if she only knew the proper words she could shape it all to her will, shout fickle fate into submission, but she doubts that even dragons can do that.
“Where exactly are you headed, Freyja?” Thorald asks, breaking into her thoughts.
“High Hrothgar,” she mutters. “I’ve put off the Greybeards’ summons for too long.”
Songs for Nomads 8.2
(Anonymous) 2014-09-14 05:44 pm (UTC)(link)“I don’t see that I have a choice.”
“You’ll freeze to death, if the ice wraiths and the trolls don’t get you first.”
“Wraiths I can handle, and trolls too. It’s keeping to the path that worries me. It’ll be covered in snow by now, and that’s a long way to fall.”
“You could get Klimmek to guide you,” Eitri ponders aloud, frowning. “He’s made that climb hundreds of times. But he doesn’t make many trips once winter comes.”
Freyja shrugs. “Well, I’m worried about getting eaten by a dragon, too, but I’ll take each day as it comes.”
Thorald guffaws, rising to wander off in search of a convenient tree. Freyja finishes her porridge and sets it aside, staring into the flames. Joking aside, the logistics of a climb to High Hrothgar this time of the year are daunting. When Eitri takes her hand, she starts. Freyja nearly pulls away; he will do nothing but keep his word by going to Windhelm, and yet the idea makes her feel a foolish girl waking to a cold bed, to the betrayal of a promise written in flesh but never spoken aloud. As it turns out, though, he is only inspecting an abrasion across the backs of her knuckles. “Did you get this last night?”
“Probably,” Freyja says.
“I don’t think I thanked you, for killing that last justiciar.”
Her gut churns with the remembrance. “I thought he had you.”
“He did,” Eitri says, with that ease of self-assessment that she finds so admirable; many men she knows would be defensive, pride wounded by the close call. “When he disarmed me I was certain I was dead, and then you Shouted. I’ve never seen anything like it.” He gives her a sidelong look, earnest. “I’ve never seen anything like you.”
Freyja is a seasoned warrior who has traveled more of Tamriel than her two companions combined and probably killed more men as well, and she absolutely does not blush. “Are you trying to get into my armor again, already?”
“Yes.”
She barks an awkward little laugh at that. She can’t help herself; he’s usually so mild-mannered that this brazen, almost cocksure side unbalances her. As for Freyja, she’s a better with actions than words, and always has been. Put a sword in her grip or the body of one she cares for under her hands, and she can make herself understood clearly enough. But this sort of morning-after small talk has never come easily.
“You do that, you know,” he says, more gently. “Give me everything all at once, and then strap the armor back on. It’s a bit maddening.”
“Are we still talking about sex?” Freyja asks, dryly.
He smiles. “You’ve saved my life how many times now, and I don’t know anything about you.”
She frowns. “You know a lot about me.”
“I know you’re a sellsword from Whiterun, that you’ve traveled, that you loved a man – mer, I guess – who died. As of last night, I know you’re Dragonborn. That’s all.”
Freyja’s voice is a bit strangled. “That’s a lot to know about anyone.”
“Not really. I don’t know what you think about most of it, or how you feel.”
She regards him warily. “What do you want to know, then?”
“What’s your favorite color?”
Freyja laughs again, the tension broken. “All my important secrets, I see.” Eitri shrugs. “It’s blue.”
“Why?”
“I need a reason, now?”
“Everyone has a reason for their favorite color.”
Freyja throws up her hands. “Divines, I don’t know. It’s always been blue. My mother had a blue wool dress – light blue, like the sky in springtime. She looked beautiful in it. I was always running about in breeches, but I used to think that if I had a dress like that I might not mind so much.”
“There’s a reason.”
Songs for Nomads 8.3
(Anonymous) 2014-09-14 05:47 pm (UTC)(link)“No,” she says, “not anymore. My mother and father died while I was in Cyrodiil.”
Eitri looks pained. “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks,” Freyja murmurs. If there’s one thing she regrets of her chosen profession, it’s that. Her parents were well into their seventies, but their deaths were sudden – a bad outbreak of rockjoint one winter – and their only daughter thousands of miles from their bedsides. By the time she got the letter, they were already dead. “They lived long, happy lives, which I guess is all I can ask.”
“They must have been older when they had you,” Eitri muses.
“They didn’t think the gods would give them children,” says Freyja. “Lost two in the womb and had another stillborn son, before I came along.” Freyja’s smile is rueful. “I think I was a bit spoiled, especially by my father. He didn’t meet me until after the war was over.”
Eitri shakes his head. “The gods had a hand in your birth, that’s clear.”
Freyja blinks and then laughs, uncomfortably. “You say that like it’s nothing.”
“You’re Dragonborn.”
“And that, too.”
“Why shouldn’t I? It’s what you are.”
Freyja shrugs, not quite finding the words to convey her unease. Eitri shoots her a curious look, but he does not press the issue. “I won’t rest easy until I know you can make it up the mountain,” he says instead. “The debt I owe you—”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
Eitri outright scoffs. “You handed over your entire purse to some copper-septim smuggler to get us to Dawnstar, and that was after you saved my life, bought me armor, and then broke into a Thalmor dungeon as a favor. Has no one ever told you that you’re absurdly generous?”
“I’m really not,” she says. “There’s a reason they call the opposite impulse mercenary. And I handed over all my gold because I didn’t want to see the inside of Northwatch Keep from Thorald’s perspective, which makes me sane, not generous.”
He doesn’t bother arguing with that logic. “Are you truly worried about climbing the mountain?”
“I’ll manage.”
“Freyja – I’m not asking if you need a guide. I’m asking if you want one.”
His tone makes her glance up. Eitri meets her gaze squarely, earnestness written all over his face. He flushes slightly under her scrutiny. “I thought you were going with Thorald,” says Freyja, slowly.
It’s his turn to hesitate, looking troubled, and then to cover that hesitation with a joke. Eitri flashes her a charming smile, sly and sheepish all at once. “You’re prettier than he is.”
This time she does blush. Thorald chooses that moment to saunter back into camp, with a gleam in his eye that makes it shamelessly evident he’s been listening. He takes one look at her face and starts smirking broadly, and Freyja sweeps a leg beneath his ankle and drops him face-first into a drift. “Finally,” Thorald drawls, voice muffled by the snow.
“I’d like a guide,” Freyja says.
Thorald rolls over, beard and brows thick with white flakes. “And here I thought I was the beauty of this trio.”
Songs for Nomads 8.4
(Anonymous) 2014-09-14 05:50 pm (UTC)(link)Loreius’ farm turns out to be a small homestead atop a hill, with winter wheat planted in one field and chickens pecking amongst the fallow rows of another. Like a day laborer the sun is starting its homeward trudge, and the farmer invites them in. They’ve barely crossed the threshold when Thorald freezes. Seeing that her husband brought guests, Lorieus’ wife has laid the table with bread, meat and mead according to Nordic custom. But the woman isn’t a Nord. She’s not even an Imperial, like her husband. Though she wears the simple dress and work-roughened hands of every other homestead farmer’s wife in Skyrim, she has the golden skin and slanted eyes of an Altmer.
The farmer narrows his eyes. “Is there a problem?”
“No,” Eitri says, laying a hand on Thorald’s shoulder when the other man’s throat works without forming any words. “There’s no problem.”
“Won’t you stay?” asks the wife, but she looks uncertain.
“We can’t impose,” Eitri says. “Kynareth’s blessing on you for your hospitality, truly. But you’ve just gotten your husband back from a long journey, and we’ve still many miles to travel.” With that he steps firmly back through the door with Thorald in tow. Freyja, fairly certain she can’t improve on his courtesy, simply nods her thanks and follow them out.
They’ve barely made it down the hill before Thorald sits down hard and puts his head between his knees. Freyja can hear the air whistling through his teeth. “Breathe,” she advises; she’s seen this sort of reaction before, in war veterans and kidnap victims. Eitri offers a hand, and Thorald grips it so hard that the former smith actually winces.
Finally Thorald surfaces, white-faced and sweaty. “Sorry,” he manages.
“Not all Altmer are Thalmor,” Freyja reminds him, quietly.
“I know.” His tone is startlingly vicious, but the anger evaporates as quickly as it appears, leaving only exhaustion. “Just took me off guard.” Freyja wonders if the woman’s appearance was truly enough to panic him so, or if this is a delayed response to the other night’s attack – or to the orders their attackers carried. If the Thalmor knew her by name and wanted her dead gods know she’d be nervous, and her reasons to fear them don’t go nearly as deep as Thorald’s.
Weary in several senses, they slog halfway up the next rise before letting their packs fall amongst the rocks in an old mammoth boneyard. An odd place to camp, but a natural spring – the same that attracted the dying mammoths, no doubt – wells up from the ground there, and a few winterkilled trees nearby make for excellent firewood. Still, it’s an eerie spot to sleep. Great granite boulders ring them in like faceless sentinels. Elk bugle in the nearby forest while moonlight glints off the old ivory. The three of them huddle together round the fire, not yet willing to go to their bedrolls.
Songs for Nomads 8.5
(Anonymous) 2014-09-14 05:54 pm (UTC)(link)“They wouldn’t give you to the Thalmor, surely.” Together with Thorald’s sister, the younger Battle-Born son Jon was one of Freyja’s close playmates, growing up.
“No, but they’d hand me over to the Legion.” His tone is bitter. “Which, apparently, amounts to the same thing. They know I joined up with the Stormcloaks – half of bloody Whiterun knows, going by Avulstein and Idolaf’s shouting when we left for Windhelm, and those that didn’t witness the third eruption of Red Mountain heard tell of it later, I’m sure. No – there’s a hidden pass in the mountains just east of the river, and I’ll wait for word there. You can bring it yourself, if all else fails. That’s the fastest road to Ivarstead from Whiterun.”
Freyja blinks, surprised. “I didn’t know there was a road to Ivarstead this side of Riverwood. Not before crossing into Eastmarch.”
“It’s not a road. Just a game trail, really. You can’t even lead a horse over – maybe a pony or a mule.”
The snow piling up on the slopes of the Throat of the World is a looming shadow at the back of Freyja’s mind. “By the Nine, that’ll save us time!” she bursts out. “How’d you find it?”
Thorald hesitates. “You can’t repeat this,” he murmurs. “You’ll start a war.”
She nearly laughs – there’s scarcely room for another war in Skyrim at present – but one look at Thorald’s face shows that he isn’t joking. “What is it?”
He hesitates again. “There’s a Stormcloak camp there,” he finally admits. “That’s where I’ll be waiting.”
Freyja feels her eyebrows leap towards her hairline. “Ulfric’s got men on this side of the Whiterun border?” she asks, incredulous. “Balgruuf would be livid!”
“It’s just a scouting force,” Thorald says, quickly. “Not nearly large enough to be a threat. They keep an eye on the road.”
“That’s a damned big risk to take if he wants to win the jarl’s support.”
“You see my point,” Thorald says. “But there’s a ford near the big bend in the White, just before the gorge. I’ll cross there and make for that pass.” Freyja purses her lips, watching the fire. She’ll have to get him to mark it on her map.
“I know that one,” Eitri says.
“Everyone knows that one,” says Thorald.
“Sorry – what?”
Thorald smiles, looking a little less shaken. “You hum when you’re thinking.”
“We’ve been counting the tunes that we know,” Eitri laughs, though he smiles at her to soften the teasing.
Freyja lifts an eyebrow, amused. “What was I singing, then?”
“That old drinking round about the seasons – Sell-Sword Song.”
Freyja nods. She knows it well; it’s a song for nomads, full of restless longing, and every tavern in Tamriel deals in that sort of coin. “Go on, then,” Thorald says, eyes glinting with mischief.
Songs for Nomads 8.6
(Anonymous) 2014-09-14 05:57 pm (UTC)(link)“That means you, brother,” he says, this time to Eitri. The other man rolls his eyes a little, looking self-conscious, but he starts the round just the same.
I once loved a woman as fair as an evening
Of springtime in old Stros M’Kai;
But I lost her, in thrall
To the road’s siren call
Now I’ll wander this land till I die
Self-conscious he may be, and without the voice to make a bard, but when Eitri starts to sing about fair evenings he weaves cold fingers subtly into hers. Freyja thinks she sees a little smile tug at Thorald’s mouth. He doesn’t comment, though, just lends his voice to the first verse while Eitri starts the second:
I once tasted honey mead bright as the summer
In fields of Colovian grain;
Comrades laughed until dawn
Now their voices are gone
Till in Shor’s Hall we drink mead again
I once fought a sword-dance as wild as the ash-storms
In the autumn of Red Mountain’s fall;
I could tell you the stories
Of a thousand such glories
But I do not remember them all
I once was a young man, as steadfast as winter
In the northlands that I called my home;
I once was a bold man
But now I’m an old man
With nothing more left but to roam.
As the last to join, it’s Freyja left to sing the final verse on her own. Her voice wavers a bit, unaccustomed to singing for an audience; it sounds thin to her ears, after hearing it alongside the others. The last syllable is a puff of frost in the firelight. A breeze blows it swiftly away, and Freyja twines her fingers more firmly with Eitri’s, suddenly glad for the company of her two companions. Eitri is looking at Thorald, whose face has gone pensive. “Are you all right?” he murmurs, with a little jerk of his head back towards the Loreius farm.
Thorald shakes off his solemn expression. “Aye, I’ll be fine.”
Eitri studies him, and Freyja studies Eitri. Thorald is the man he pulled out of Northwatch Keep in his cousin’s stead, to whom he paid all the care and attention that he would have shown to Brokkr, had he lived. And Eitri is kin of the man to whom Thorald feels he owes an unpaid debt, who he is haunted by his helplessness to save. A sad sort of bond, forged in duty and guilt and grief, but the result isn’t sad. Theirs is a camaraderie even beyond that of men who’ve spent weeks sharing a tent in the wilds; they banter and laugh and make mischief like old shield-brothers, carry on wordless conversations like comrades who’ve had years to learn each other’s body language.
Under Eitri’s scrutiny Thorald shifts, gestures at himself with a jerk of his hand. “I just – I’m not in fighting shape,” he mutters. “I’m afraid the Stormcloaks won’t – want me back, and if I can’t fight...” His voice trails off.
Privately, Freyja thinks he’s borrowing trouble. Half the Stormcloaks she’s encountered have been stripling farmhands more concerned with where their next meal is coming from than with the proper grips of a blade; though he’s managed to battle the IVth Legion to a surprising deadlock, Ulfric is not nearly so secure that he can afford to turn away warm bodies. “You fought well the other night,” she says.
His face twists. “But you saw me today. I still – I thought it would stop. I thought—” he checks himself, looks at Eitri. “You don’t need to hear this.”
“Maybe I do.” Thorald shakes his head. “I know how my cousin died, Thorald,” Eitri murmurs. “I was there. I saw what they were doing to people.”
“That doesn’t mean you need to hear about it. Trust me. It’s not something you want haunting your dreams.”
“It already does,” says Eitri. Thorald just shakes his head again. After an uncomfortable silence Freyja whistles the opening line to Ragnar the Red; the men chuckle and fall back to singing, but all three of them sleep restlessly that night. Freyja cannot help but wonder if Eitri will truly let Thorald go on to Windhelm alone, when the time comes. She can’t say that she would blame him either way.
Songs for Nomads 8.7
(Anonymous) 2014-09-14 06:02 pm (UTC)(link)The wide familiar plains of Whiterun sprawl before them, unmistakable in the dusty purple and russet hues of her autumn cloak. The White River is a quicksilver streak in the distance, and Dragonsreach on its lone high tor stands proud and defiant as a warrior blowing a horn-call. The Throat of the World soars blue above the morning mist. A flurry of rising air carries the clean, earthy smell of tundra cotton.
Maybe it’s only the wind tearing unhindered across the steppe, but abruptly Thorald lifts the heel of his hand and dashes moisture from his eyes. Freyja looks away. She doesn’t blame him, though. The man spent three months believing he would never see the sky again, let alone the hold of his birth. And he must know that he cannot stay. The first place the Thalmor will look is Whiterun, and Jarl Balgruuf, committed to his neutrality, cannot shield him. Freyja stands beside him, looking down at their mutual homeland. The killing cold of the mountains has abated, but it’s clear that the year is dying. Snow dusts the ground in shadowed hollows. An elk noses among the windswept heather, velvet hanging in bloody shreds from his heavy crown.
But even the chill of late autumn can’t dampen the pleasure of treading well-known ground, as though the earth itself is now an ally in their personal quests. They make good time, so good that the thought of parting ways with Thorald at the White River inspires an occasional pang of melancholy. After the close, dark forests and snow-covered mountains of the Pale the landscape seems vast and open. Yet appearances are deceptive. The tundra is full of small hollows and rock-strewn rises, and being at the bottom of one of the former is like finding oneself in the trough between ocean swells. The dull roar of the wind, likewise, is isolating; even at short distances the three of them sometimes have to shout to be heard. The plains may seem difficult to hide in, but after years of hunting with her father Freyja knows that Whiterun is both a surprisingly good place for an ambush and a surprisingly easy one in which to get lost.
Usually the rolling hills conceal nothing more dangerous than hares or deer. But on their final afternoon of travel towards the river, they come across something none of them has seen before: a huge circle of freshly scarred earth, like the nest of some great beast or the blast of a monstrous fireball. “What in Oblivion?” Thorald murmurs.
Eitri steps down into the pit; it’s nearly waist-deep, and he is not a small man. He scuffs at the rich black loam with his boot. “Something the giants made?” he guesses.
The back of Freyja’s neck is prickling, though she can’t say why. “Come on,” she says. “Giants don’t like their sacred space invaded, if that’s what this is.” She has her doubts. There are several upright stones nearby, listing at haphazard angles in the tundra grass, but they bear none of the symbols that giants usually use. And they are old. She runs her hand over one, as they move on, and weathered lichen crumbles beneath her palm.
The surprise is in how quickly it happens. One minute they are laboring up a rise; the next the earth trembles, and a bellowing red-brown bulk breaks over the crest of the hill like a wave. They scatter. The mammoth does not even slow. Freyja stares after the massive animal, at the crushed bracken and trampled earth in its wake. It’s rare to see a mammoth run from anything. Sometimes sabrecats or the occasional bold wolfpack will prey on the young, but even that is unusual – and it’s not the season for mammoth calving, anyway. One hand curves around her sword hilt.
Songs for Nomads 8.8
(Anonymous) 2014-09-14 06:06 pm (UTC)(link)And stops, like a blade meeting a well-timed block.
White River Gorge lies below them, a steep-sided scar where the tundra meets Shearpoint’s unlovely bulk and the river scours the mountain down to its roots, like a huge tree growing beside an undercut bank. Rising spume marks the rapids still hidden by the gorge’s walls. Whiterun is scarcely three miles distant. She can faintly make out a few of the small farms that cling to the city’s apron, blue smoke rising from their hearths, but that is not what draws her eye. Between them and the gorge, close enough it seems to touch, a giant is doing battle with a dragon.
She sees the great scaled body flash in the sun, gleaming like fish’s mail, like slick hard ice over black rock. The spikes bristling along its spine appear smoother and sharper than those of the dragons she remembers from Helgen or the western watchtower. I am cataloguing dragons now, Freyja thinks, a little wildly. Perhaps there are multiple species. Perhaps I can write a field guide. To her morbid amusement, it promptly unhinges its maw and howls a cutting blizzard of ice at its foe, appearing to prove her correct. Or perhaps dragons are like mages, and favor one school of destruction over another. Perhaps this one simply prefers its food uncooked.
Beside her Thorald is swearing in a colorful unbroken stream, seemingly caught between reluctant awe and terror; Eitri looks like a man in need of a very strong drink or three. Freyja, for her part, just feels rather sick. She has slain men and monsters in four provinces, held the high ground – or gained it – against superior numbers, stood eye to eye with vampires and necromancers and now even a Thalmor hit squad, and never flinched. But this creature is the size of a village inn. And everyone in Skyrim, from the Greybeards to the bickering Dawnstar tavern-goers, expects her to know how to kill it. Fast as lightning, horrifically slow as a precious vase tipped from a table, she watches as the dragon snaps its teeth closed on one of the giant’s sinewy knees. There’s a wet crack, a heart-stopping howl, and then a gruesome display of the power in its jaws. The giant does not remain in agony very long.
She starts to back away, then. Whiterun is close, the surrounding farms even closer; though the giant’s club looks to have mangled one wing beyond the power of flight, the jarl’s men still need to know of the threat. But then – maybe with a predator’s unerring eye for rapid motion, maybe by pure coincidence – the dragon turns its head, gore dripping from its jaws, and spots them. Its Shout is a thunderclap given substance. From fifty feet away it sweeps them off their feet like pieces in a tafl game. Freyja lands hard enough to rattle her eyes in their sockets – and when she leaps to her feet, retreat is no longer an option.
It’s the same Shout she used on the Thalmor justiciar; she can’t say how she knows, as it was far more powerful than anything she could dream of accomplishing, but that thought goads rather than frightens her. She has met foes before who believed that size and strength gave them the right to kill and destroy and take what they pleased. She’ll meet them again. In this moment she feels only raging indignation at being challenged – and determination to answer it, if it means wresting the knowledge of how to Shout so mightily out of her enemy’s scaly, still-warm corpse. Her sword is out of its sheath before Eitri and Thorald have even picked themselves up off the ground.
Songs for Nomads 8.9
(Anonymous) 2014-09-14 06:08 pm (UTC)(link)The dragon roars, more in fury than pain, and she darts back along its body, using its own bulk as cover. Up close its sheer size is as much a drawback as an advantage. In some ways it’s no different than fighting a man with a greatsword, pressing inside the weapon’s reach where it cannot be swung to full effect. Freyja ducks beneath a tattered wing, searching for some sort of weak point in the belly, and her nose floods with a dark reptilian scent, heavy as the incense in a coven of daedra worshipers that she was once hired to destroy after they murdered one too many travelers.
She’s not sure why that memory surfaces now, but the split second of distraction costs her as the leading edge of the wing clouts her across the side. The gesture is more irritable than vicious, like the motion she would use to swat a fly. But the wing is hard there, heavy with bone, and the impact feels like a giant’s club. Before she can even make sense of what’s happened Freyja is skidding along the tundra like a stone skipped across a pond, crashing to a halt alarmingly close to the steep river bluffs. Her shield is gone. Ripped from her hand, and she staggers into a defensive crouch with her sword before her, ribcage searing on every inhale. The dragon’s malevolent yellow gaze locks with her own. It is already charging, claws gouging cruel furrows in the earth, and Freyja catches a burning breath at the intent she sees there, something older and far more intelligent than animal instinct. Her gut swoops. She lives or dies in this moment.
And then it’s upon her, and the reflex of a thousand battles commands her limbs. Freyja moves into the strike, feinting high, and when it rears back she darts beneath its chin; the long neck coils as it tries to track her movements, and when the dragon’s head dips she springs. One hand closes around a wicked spike in the row along its spine. Freyja swings herself up as though into a saddle, hooking her ankles beneath the creature’s throat, locking her knees around the muscled neck, and brings her sword whistling down to hack gracelessly at its eyes. The dragon screams. There’s no other word for it: a piercing shriek like that of a mountain eagle, mingled rage and pain and terror given voice as it jerks and writhes so viciously that it nearly bucks her off. Freyja gets a desperate two-handed grip on her sword, drives it point-first toward the joint where its neck meets the back of its skull, and finally the blade sinks home – raggedly, and then deeper as she throws her body forward a second time. The dragon convulses and then slumps to earth, with a ground-shaking finality that sends great puffs of tundra cotton to swirl in the breeze.
Before she’s even had the chance to feel shock or elation something lurches in her belly. The same sensation that she remembers from all those months ago, both terrible and exhilarating: like the heady rush of strong mead and the next morning’s throbbing agony all at once. She is falling, flying, fading, hot with triumph and cold with fury; Freyja clutches at the slick scales of the dragon’s neck even they melt beneath her, vision gone dark and bright. Her head roars. When it finally subsides she gasps in relief. Eitri and Thorald are calling her name. Freyja shifts, dizzily moving to stand.
And then she is falling in truth, as the loose rock and earth of the bank shears beneath the dragon’s weight and slides – tumbles – plummets to the river below.
Re: Songs for Nomads 8.9
(Anonymous) 2014-09-20 05:45 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Songs for Nomads 8.9
(Anonymous) 2014-09-25 05:34 pm (UTC)(link)Songs for Nomads 9.1/9
(Anonymous) 2014-10-05 02:29 am (UTC)(link)Pain lances through her foot. For a moment she fears that she has crushed it beneath a boulder or – worse yet – a dragon bone. Then she realizes that a territorial mudcrab has latched onto her boot. Freyja lands a vicious kick directly between its eyes, flat on her back but still forceful enough to send it soaring into the river. The scavenger bounces off a rock and sinks into the current, flailing. Freyja looks around.
Another mudcrab scuttles toward her, pincers raised in aggressive display. It strikes her as utterly absurd that she should feel fear now of all times, beside the bones of a dragon dead at her hands. But this one, unlike its fellow, is fully grown, and the claws of a mature mudcrab have been known to dent plate. When she was a girl Freyja made a game of bouncing pebbles off the creatures’ shells, poking them with long branches to watch them snap the wood cleanly in half. Some of the sticks were as thick as her wrist. Freyja gropes for her sword, but of course it is gone: dropped somewhere in her wild slide down into the gorge, and her shield flung aside on the tundra above. Grimly she scoots backward, fumbling for her dagger.
With truly impeccable timing Eitri comes skidding down the gravel bank and buries his axe in the mudcrab’s shell, so that it hisses faintly and dies, twitching. As he plants a boot on its back and gives the blade a ferocious yank Thorald splashes to Freyja’s side. “You madwoman,” he barks, when he sees that she’s conscious.
Freyja groans again and drops her head back into the chilly water. She’s already soaked to the skin, anyway. “My heroes,” she chuckles, and then grabs her side and resolves not to do so again.
“Are you hurt?” Eitri says, dropping to his knees in the mud, already reaching for her. Freyja moves gingerly, taking stock. Probes at her ribs. They feel bruised, not broken. “I don’t think so,” she says, and he seizes her under the arms and hauls her to her feet, perhaps more brusquely than he means to. Freyja sways a little, clutching his shoulder. Thorald, she notes gratefully, has collected her sword and shield. Moving to take them, she shifts weight to her left ankle and hisses. Eitri takes a firmer grip on her arm. “What is it?”
“It’s all right,” Freyja says, shrugging him off. “It isn’t bad, I can make it to W—”
Her ankle crumples beneath her. Freyja curses helplessly as Eitri catches her under the arms and draws her against his chest, looking white. She spits another curse, for emphasis. This is why she always carries a few healing potions. Naturally, when she doesn’t have a single one on hand, she’d be drawn into a fight with a divines-forsaken dragon. “What is it?” Eitri insists.
“It’s just my ankle,” Freyja says, through gritted teeth. “I don’t think it’s broken, it just – ugh – it won’t take my weight. Sprained, maybe.”
Songs for Nomads 9.2/9
(Anonymous) 2014-10-05 02:31 am (UTC)(link)His jaw is set stubbornly. Freyja bites her lip, looking at him. This isn’t how she imagined the three of them parting. “Thorald—” says Eitri.
“Do one thing for me, would you,” Thorald says. “Make sure my family knows that I’m alive. That I love them. And tell my mother—” his eye follows a speck of tundra cotton on the breeze. “Tell her to suffer the winter’s cold wind, for it bears aloft next summer’s seeds. She’ll understand.”
“Of course,” Freyja murmurs. She reaches out to take his hand, only for Thorald to pull her into a bone-crushing hug. “Thank you,” he murmurs, gruffly. “Both of you. I would never have seen the light of day, otherwise.”
“Take care of yourself.”
“Don’t get eaten by a dragon,” Thorald counters.
He hugs Eitri as well, slaps him on the back, mutters something in his ear that makes the other man color and duck his head, smiling faintly. “Be careful,” Eitri says, voice rough.
“Don’t worry,” says Thorald. “Maybe one day I’ll see you both in Windhelm, no?”
“You’ll see us before that,” Freyja tells him. “We’ll take that mountain road to Ivarstead, don’t forget.”
“Not if you don’t make it to Arcadia’s in time for a potion to do you some good, you won’t. Get going. Won’t do to be laid up when you’ve got a mountain to climb.”
It’s hard to argue with that. Thorald helps them transfer the essentials in Freyja’s pack to Eitri’s, lashing her sword and shield to the outside so they won’t trip her up. With one of her arms slung across Eitri’s shoulders and one across Thorald’s they walk up the riverbed, to a place where the bank slopes gently enough that the two men can help her climb out. Then Thorald gives them a brave little smile and makes for the ford, while they set off at a hobble across the tundra. Freyja can’t help craning her neck to watch him go, though it throws her off balance. Several times she catches Eitri doing the same.
“He’ll be all right,” she says, half to herself.
Eitri’s brow furrows. “Do you think so?”
Freyja considers, serious. “Yeah, I do,” she finally says. “He’s a strong man, to have made it through what he has. And it’s only been a few weeks. He’ll get better.”
Eitri still looks troubled. “Are you sure you want to come with me?” Freyja asks, voice low.
“Aye,” he says, uncharacteristically gruff.
“I’d understand, if you didn’t.”
“I said I did.” His breath is as short as his answer, labored with the effort of half-carrying her and all their essential supplies, so Freyja lets the matter drop.
By the time they pass the Whiterun stables, just outside the city’s first gate, the walls are casting long shadows and the yellow tundra grass is glowing red. Freyja’s whole being aches. It strikes her that when the Greybeards called she was in precisely the same position, trudging back to the city in the evening light after a harrowing fight with a dragon. Now here she is months later, come full circle. Preparing to start for High Hrothgar, as she was summoned to do in the first place. As if to complete the picture, when they turn the last corner Irileth comes bulling through the gates with a fleet of the city guard in tow, accompanied by a red-faced farmer who looks to have run all the way from Whiterun’s outskirts. “It came down from the mountains and landed by the river,” he babbles. “Didn’t wait to see any more, just ran for the walls. I don’t—”
“Right, men,” Irileth barks, cutting him off. “We don’t know much about these dragons, but we do know we can kill them. You’ve been training for this for months. When we reach the river, spread out, find any cover you can. I want every man who can shoot aiming for the wings to bring it down. Once it’s grounded—”
“It’s dead,” Freyja says, quietly.
Songs for Nomads 9.3/9
(Anonymous) 2014-10-05 02:34 am (UTC)(link)Freyja shifts more of her weight onto Eitri, in an effort to stand a little straighter. “Me.”
The other woman looks her up and down, measuring. Her dark eyes are expressionless, but there is a tiny frown line between her brows. Freyja recalls her skepticism about mythical Dragonborns, and wonders if she is reassessing now. After a moment she purses her lips. “Are you sure?”
“Nothing left but bones.”
“Well then,” says the houscarl, almost to herself. Shoots a glance back to her men. “Look lively – we’ll check it out and report to the jarl. Keep your eyes open and your weapons ready. For all we know, there may be more.”
“She’s cheerful,” Eitri mutters, as they limp through the city gates. Freyja laughs again, and regrets it. Again. “She’s good at her job,” she says, breathlessly. “Devoted to Jarl Balgruuf. She drew a sword on me when I first walked into the keep with the news from Helgen.”
His eyes widen, shocked. “You were at Helgen?”
“I forgot I never told you that part of the story,” she murmurs. “But yes. Not long after I crossed the mountains I practically walked into a Legion prisoner caravan, and with my luck it happened to have the tightest security this side of the border with Alinor. Some loudmouth on one of the carts chose that moment to blab about Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King, and suddenly that security was compromised.”
“The Legion took you captive for that?”
“I wasn’t thrilled either.” Freyja’s smile is wry. “Looking back I think they only intended to hold me until I was no longer a liability, but I was – ah – argumentative.” She hadn’t realized the gravity of her situation until she was facing the block. In Cyrodiil legionnaires were keepers of the peace, upholders of strict but strictly fair Imperial justice. Nowhere is Tamriel is the concept of a fair trial more enshrined than in the heartland, and no entity in Cyrodiil is more obsessed with regulation than the Legion; there is even (to the amusement of anyone with a sense of humor and the consternation, no doubt, of the Elder Council) a written code governing how to conduct a legal military coup. Freyja, accustomed to life in Cyrodiil, was violently incensed at being detained without just cause. But this was Skyrim, and not the Skyrim of her youth. Martial law was in effect. It did not occur to her, until she saw the depth of resentment on the Imperial captain’s face, that most of these legionnaires had spent months far from home in a cold, harsh land, engaged in partisan warfare with an enemy that looked and spoke and argued exactly like she did. Freyja’s every angry protest only made her more suspicious. “At any rate,” she says, “I had an excellent view of the first dragon in centuries with my head on the block.”
Eitri looks her up and down as though assuring himself that her neck is still in one piece. Shaking his head, he takes a firmer grip under her arm and practically drags her up the street to the apothecary. A bell jingles cheerfully as they barge through the door. Arcadia looks up from her counter, where she is tying bunches of dried lavender – the kind Whiterun citizens place in linen drawers or weave into broom heads, so the house will smell fresh on washing day. “Oh, dear,” says the alchemist.
“Are you a healer?” Eitri asks, coming straight to the point.
“Of a sort.” The woman scurries out from behind her herbs. “But if you’ve broken an ankle, you need to see the priestess of Kynareth. A potion will do you more harm than good if the bones aren’t set right.”
“It’s only sprained,” huffs Freyja. “I think.”
Songs for Nomads 9.4/9
(Anonymous) 2014-10-05 02:39 am (UTC)(link)“Foolish old woman!” he suddenly bellows, and turns in profile. His hair’s gone iron-grey, but there’s no mistaking the tones of Olfrid Battle-Born. “You know nothing of our struggles, our suffering!”
“And what of my Thorald?” she fires back – fiercely, though her voice quavers. Freyja feels Eitri tense beside her. “Is he nothing? So don’t talk to me about suffering!”
The warrior beside Olfrid has his nose, and there’s no mistaking where his loyalties lie; he wears the uniform of the Imperial Legion openly, with a quartermaster’s insignia on his chest. Freyja supposes that’s why Balgruuf allowed him in, in spite of the jarl’s professed neutrality. As the breadbasket and trading hub of Skyrim, Whiterun is making a profit from both sides. “Your son chose his side, and he chose poorly. And now he’s gone. Such is the way of war.” The legionnaire’s voice is stiff. “The sooner you accept his loss, the better.”
Fralia lifts her chin. “I will never accept his death. My son still lives. I feel it in my heart. So tell me, Battle-Borns, where is he? Where are you holding my Thorald?”
“Do you believe this old hag?” Olfrid asks his son – Idolaf, Freyja remembers. “Holding him? Why, I’ve got him in my cellar. He’s my prisoner. Face it, cow! Your stupid son is dead! He died a Stormcloak traitor. And you – you’d best keep your mouth shut before you suffer the same.”
“Come on, father,” Idolaf says, looking embarrassed now. Every eye in the market is turned on them. “There’s nothing more to be said here.” Olfrid spits pointedly in the dust and stalks away, grumbling. Idolaf opens his mouth as though to speak, but then he appears to think better of it and follows his father, shoulders back as though he’s on a parade ground. A hush descends on the square.
“Who in Oblivion are they?” barks Eitri, sounding indignant. Freyja starts to explain, but Fralia Grey-Mane overhears him, and speaks first.
“That’s the Battle-Born clan,” she sighs. “Got rich trading with Cyrodiil, and now they think they’re too good for us simple Nord folk. But I shouldn’t speak ill of my neighbors.” The vicious look she shoots at Olfrid’s back undermines her words, and makes it clear that she’s plenty more to say.
Freyja’s mind is on the Thalmor orders stuffed deep in her pack, on the sketchy physical description they contain – Nord female, light-haired and heavily freckled. She doesn’t want her name associated with Thorald’s escape in any way. She ought to burn the damned orders the first chance she gets. There are a lot of blonde Nords in the province, but Whiterun is one of the few places in Skyrim where she’s recognized, and market vendors gossip. Here, though, is her opportunity. “You said something about your son?” Freyja asks, quietly.
Songs for Nomads 9.5/9
(Anonymous) 2014-10-05 02:41 am (UTC)(link)“How do you know that they’re lying?”
“Idolaf grew up with my boys,” she says, more softly. “And he can’t look me in the eye, any more than he could when they snatched my snowberry tarts from the sill.”
Eitri opens his mouth to speak, but Freyja cuts him off. “Maybe we could help,” she says.
Fralia looks like she could cry with gratitude, but she gathers herself quickly. With a glance around, she scoops the last few pieces of jewelry into a basket looped over her arm. “Come with me,” she murmurs.
The instant the door to House Grey-Mane closes behind them, Eitri speaks. “We have a message from your son.”
“You’ve seen Thorald?” gasps Fralia. “Where is he? Is he all right?”
Freyja hears the telltale clink of steel before the bedroom door opens. Even so, she’s unprepared for the burly warrior who bursts into the room, battleaxe already drawn. Swiftly she scrambles back, ripping her sword from its sheath, and puts the firepit between herself and the gleaming double-bladed axe head. “Avulstein!” barks Fralia, in the tones of a Legion drillmaster – or a mother. Freyja remembers the name of the eldest Grey-Mane sibling, but even if she didn’t, it would be all too clear who she’s facing. Though his cheeks are fuller, unstamped by the gaunt lines of captivity, he looks so much like Thorald that he can only be his brother. “What are you thinking, mother? Who is this?” the man hisses.
“Please!” cries Lady Grey-Mane. “Put down your blades – they’re here to help!”
“And how do we know they aren’t Battle-Born spies? This was foolish! If they find me here—”
“I don’t care a silver septim about your damned clan-feud,” Freyja says, temper getting the better of her. She has traveled halfway across Skyrim, killed Thalmor assassins, and fought a giant flying lizard to deliver this message, and now she wants strong mead and a soft bed, not another fight. “Thorald sent us to—”
“She’s lying,” Avulstein growls.
“She’s not,” Eitri counters. The other man tightens his grip on the axe.
“Avulstein Grey-Mane,” Fralia says, quiet but steely. “You are under my roof – as are they. I invited them here, and I won’t have weapons drawn on guests in my home. Put it away.”
He does, looking shame-faced, although his anxiety is still evident in his clenched fists and the way he shifts his weight from foot to foot. He’s afraid, Freyja realizes. She wonders what he is doing in Whiterun. Even visiting his family is a risk, when he could be grabbed by a Legion patrol as soon as he sets foot outside the gates. “Fine,” says Avulstein. “You say you’ve seen my brother? Let’s hear it. Where is he, and why did he disappear from the Legion’s prisoner records?”
Freyja hesitates. It’s a lot to explain, especially to a worried mother. “Have you ever heard of Northwatch Keep?” she finally asks.
Lady Grey-Mane shakes her head, but Avulstein immediately looks so appalled that he forgets to be suspicious. “The Thalmor?” he gasps. Closes his eyes, steeling himself. “That’s worse than – oh, gods. At least we know where to hit them.” Fralia doesn’t speak, but her face has gone parchment-white.
Freyja shakes her head. “You don’t—”
“He’s my brother!” the man shouts, and no longer in a mock-whisper. Sinks down onto a wooden bench. “He’s my little brother.”
“Your brother’s alive,” Eitri says. His voice wavers slightly. Freyja glances up, sees a flash of raw envy and grief cross his face before his jaw works and the expression disappears. “That’s what she’s trying to tell you, if you’d listen.”
“How can you possibly—”
“Because we broke him out of Northwatch Keep three weeks ago,” says Freyja. “He's at a hidden pass near the road to Eastmarch, a few miles above White River Gorge - he didn't think it was safe for him inside the city walls."
Songs for Nomads 9.6/9
(Anonymous) 2014-10-05 02:44 am (UTC)(link)"Thorald said tell you to suffer the winter's chill," Freyja says, "for it--"
"--bears aloft next summer's seeds," Fralia finishes. The expression on her face is indescribable. "That's my boy. That's Thorald. Go to him, Avulstein."
He hesitates. "We can't come back, you know. Not until this war is over. I took a risk, this time, but—”
"Go," she says, kissing him. It makes an odd picture, the tiny old woman lifting herself on tiptoe to smooth back her big burly son's hair and press her papery lips to his cheek, the way she must have when she tucked him in as a boy. “Your father can get you out of the city, same way he got you in. Tell your brother that I love him - enough to know that an old woman travelling out to meet him will only attract attention. Take care of each other."
"Of course," says Avulstein, gruffly. He pulls a cloak from a peg, tugs the hood up to hide his face, and slips out.
The proud smile she wears for her son flashes briefly into pain when the door closes behind him, but Fralia Grey-Mane takes a shaky breath and steadies herself, graceful as a queen. "And you," she says, turning. "How can I ever repay you?"
"There's no need," Freyja mutters. "We couldn't leave him there, once we found him. It was the only decent thing."
"You've given me back my son," the woman insists. With a sudden determined purse of her lips, she marches into the bedroom where Avulstein was hidden. Freyja watches her pull a sword down from a plaque above the bed. “Eorlund made this,” she murmurs, returning. “As a...well. He told me to mourn and accept our son’s death. But then he spent weeks forging this sword, and he wouldn’t hear of selling it.” Gently, she presses the weapon into Freyja’s palms.
Freyja weighs the blade in her hands; it's solid, balanced, alive with a cold red gleam. Skyforge steel. The weapon almost hums in her grip, guarding an inner light, like a coal eager to leap into flame. "I can't take this," she gasps. "This is your son's, this is--" priceless. The sword is enchanted – and in the old Atmoran fashion, with runes glowing dully near the guard, not etched but worked into the metal itself. Less potent than a spell woven with soul gems, but it will last for a lifetime. The art of runic enchanting is nearly a lost one. There are two or three smiths in Tamriel who can do it, perhaps even fewer. Freyja is no merchant appraiser, but she knows swords – and this one is probably worth more than the house they are standing in, and everything it contains.
"Eorlund can forge him another, when this war is over," Fralia says. Freyja does not miss the woman's uncertainty, the breath of fear when she speaks of an end as yet unglimpsed, an end neither of her sons is guaranteed to see. "You should have it, dear. You've proven you'll use it well. Your parents would be very proud of you, Freyja."
Re: Songs for Nomads 9.7/9
(Anonymous) 2014-10-05 02:47 am (UTC)(link)Freyja laughs, short and startled. "I'd forgotten that, truth be told."
"You should see her, before you go," Lady Grey-Mane says. "She'll want to hear her brother's safe, and she's missed you since you left all those years ago. This war's been hard on her."
"I'd like that," Freyja says, and finds that it's true. She's almost forgotten what it is to have a childhood confidante just a stroll away.
"You'll see her tonight, if you room at the Bannered Mare," the woman says. "Though you're welcome to stay here. We're simple folk, but we've meat and mead and a spare bedroom now Avulstein's gone. It's the least we could do, truly.” She turns to Eitri. "And you, young man - I owe you a debt as well."
"Introduce me to the man who forged that weapon," he says low and fervent, "and I'll consider it paid."
"It's settled, then," Fralia says. "You'll stay for dinner at least, if you won't spend the night." She smiles. "And Eorlund will be polite if it kills him."
* * * * * * * *
Some three hours later they push through the door of the Bannered Mare. The tavern is rich with the smells of roast goat and woodsmoke and mead, but their stomachs are full of Fralia Grey-Mane’s venison stew, and Freyja shoulders her way to the counter merely to buy a room for the night.
“I’ve only got the one above the common room left,” says the innkeep. “Bit noisy up there, I’m afraid, but there’s a nice little balcony, and the bathhouse is free.” A steam bath sounds like a little piece of heaven – tomorrow. Tonight Freyja just wants to fall into bed; her ankle is still sore, in spite of the healing potion. “Is Olfina Grey-Mane here?” she asks.
“She ran out to chop more firewood,” says the innkeeper, cheerfully. “Loves the fresh air, that girl. Hang on – Jon, won’t you have another mead?” This to one of her patrons, as she sees him rise from the bar out of the corner of her eye.
“Don’t tempt me, Hulda,” he smiles, but hurries out all the same.
“Sorry,” says the innkeeper, turning back to Freyja. “Attic room’s all right, then?”
Songs for Nomads 9.8/9
(Anonymous) 2014-10-05 02:49 am (UTC)(link)I tell you, I tell you the Dragonborn comes
With a voice wielding power of the ancient Nord art
Believe, believe the Dragonborn comes.
FIXED VERSION 9.8/9.10 not sure what happened there
(Anonymous) 2014-10-05 05:19 pm (UTC)(link)Eitri raises a brow at her. “Something funny?”
“You won over Eorlund Grey-Mane,” she says, still chuckling.
Eitri blushes. “I think I made a fool of myself.”
“Oh no, he liked you. He was positively chatty.”
It’s Eitri’s turn to laugh. “Apparently Thorald gets his conversational skills from his ma.”
“And his brother got all of his father’s way with people,” Freyja says, though without heat.
“I hope they’re still there, when we start for Ivarstead.”
“Me too.”
Eitri hesitates. “I’ve been wondering,” he says, voice low. “Why did you never answer the Greybeards, all this time?”
Freyja drums her fingers on the nightstand. “I had my reasons,” she finally says, and then shakes her head, wryly. “Though they don’t seem like very good ones, with winter coming on.” Eitri rests his chin in his hand, brow furrowing, clearly unsatisfied with that answer. Freyja turns away, sitting on the edge of the bed. Draws her new blade out of its sheath. It’s an evasion, but after a moment she falls to admiring the craftsmanship in the light of the candles.
"That's a hero's sword," Eitri observes, resting a hand on her shoulder. Freyja is silent, tilting the edge slowly, watching the way firelight sluices down the fullers. "No one deserves it more, you know." She sheathes it again, carefully, and turns to look at him. Eitri meets her gaze unblinkingly. His eyes are so open that she has to look away.
“That,” he says.
“What?”
“That. What I just said. Why does that frighten you?”
“I am not frightened.”
Eitri looks at her with his deep sad eyes.
In that moment, the bard downstairs strums a single dark, shivering chord, old and well-known. The hum of the common room quiets. Into the lull the man starts to sing, voice accompanied by nothing more than a single plucked string here and there. A song as old as Skyrim itself, long used to rally warriors and bring hope.
Our hero, our hero claims a warrior’s heart
I tell you, I tell you the Dragonborn comes
With a voice wielding power of the ancient Nord art
Believe, believe the Dragonborn comes.
Songs for Nomads 9.9/9
(Anonymous) 2014-10-05 02:51 am (UTC)(link)Eitri chews on his lip. Flexes his hand. "I don't think heroes usually are," he says, slowly.
“I slew a dragon today,” says Freyja, talking over him. “A wounded dragon, half-crippled by a giant. You heard the folk in Dawnstar, talking of Numinex and Olaf One-Eye. Maybe I am Dragonborn, but I’m not that. Subduing a dragon, keeping it in his palace—”
“If any warrior could do it, I’d bet on you.”
“There were a lot of warriors at Helgen,” she says, moodily. “A whole century. The ones who are still alive are the ones who ran away, and that includes me. And then I ran away again, when the Greybeards called. I’m not...” Freyja stops. It’s on the tip of her tongue, the real reason she fears to shoulder this responsibility, only half-acknowledged even to herself.
Eitri regards her for a moment. When she makes no attempt to finish her sentence he speaks. “You know, I’ve always liked the song about King Jorunn.”
“Which one?”
“The one he wrote himself. The one about the sack of Windhelm.”
She knows the song. It’s a sad one, a headlong spill of grief barely contained by the strict metre of skaldic poetry, a structured wail from a man who lost his family, a warrior who arrived too late, a king who gained a throne he never asked for. “Why that one?”
“All those battles. But that’s the one he wrote – the one about failure. About his mother and sister dying in the palace while he was fighting through the streets trying to get to them. Other bards recorded his victories, but that’s the tale of himself he chose to put to song.”
Freyja’s never had much patience for advice couched in story and symbol. “Are you making some kind of point?” she asks, tired.
Eitri shakes his head. Leaning over he nuzzles into her hair, nibbles at the thin skin behind her ear. “Come to bed,” he breathes. “Forget the stupid bard.”
“That’s the boy whose nose I bloodied, actually,” Freyja says. “When I was young – I told you, remember? Because he said girls couldn’t play with wooden swords.”
She feels him smile against her neck. “What does he know, anyway?”
“A hundred ballads. Most of the Edda. The history of Skyrim,” she says, but she’s smiling herself, half-joking now. “Anything worth singing about any hero who’s ever lived.”
"Bards won't sing about this," he says, and kisses her throat. "But I intend to make it worthy of a song."
Heat flares in her belly. “Listen to you,” Freyja chuckles, to cover the sudden flutter of her heartbeat. “Where did a farmboy from Ivarstead learn about seduction?”
He tweaks the skin beneath her ribs. “I’m a blacksmith, not a farmboy.”
She smirks dryly. “My apologies.”
“You ought to laugh more often,” says Eitri – and rolls atop her, pinning her with his size and weight. Abruptly he’s tickling her, clever fingers scurrying up and down both sides of her ribcage; Freyja shouts with indignant laughter and grabs for his hands, but they slip through her grasp. She wriggles, cursing. Eitri grins wickedly at her, so she traps his leg with her own, locks her grip around his wrist, and with a furious surge flips him onto his back to straddle his waist, triumphant.
He doesn’t fight it. His thumbs come to rest over her hipbones, large hands flaring across the dip of her lower back. “Now that’s more like it,” he breathes, rather shamelessly. His palms cup lower.
Songs for Nomads 9.10/9.10
(Anonymous) 2014-10-05 02:54 am (UTC)(link)Their lovemaking is different tonight, and not just because it’s the first time they’ve come together in a bed. Their other two couplings were desperate with the hunger that comes of a recent brush with death. But this time Freyja is not looking for an easy way to cool her heated blood or calm her restless mind. She’s just looking for Eitri. She takes her time, searches for those particular spots where the smallest of touches can make his breath hitch. His earlobes are sensitive. A light scrape of nails, in the territory between his navel and his groin, will make him squirm. As she explores he watches her, eyes wide open, palms sliding across every bit of skin that he can reach.
When at last they both slump he catches her, panting, cupping a hand around the back of her skull as she moves to roll away. Freyja whines into the slick skin of his shoulder. His blunt fingers trail drowsily down her spine. “You all right?” he asks, voice already husky with sleep. Freyja nods.
“It’ll be all right,” he mumbles. It occurs to her that his question referred to more than the immediate moment. Freyja swallows back a sudden well of emotion.
“I loved him,” she blurts. It feels obscene to say Indros’ name here, now, and so she doesn’t. Eitri’s perceptive enough to work it out. “And I couldn’t save him. I didn’t even have the chance to try. How am I supposed to save the world?”
As soon as the reckless words are out, Freyja cringes. It’s the wrong sort of honesty, with a new lover still inside her, but it appears Eitri is either too good or too practical to be jealous of a dead man. Silently, he cards his fingers through the hair at the nape of her neck, runs his broad thumb along the rim of her ear. The murmur of the tavern rolls below them like the tides.
“You have the chance to try,” he says.
* * * * * * * * *
Morning brings frost. Freyja shivers pleasantly at the contrast as she leaves the small sauna attached to the back of the inn, steam still beading on her skin. After her time away and all the trouble getting back, it’s surreal to be leaving Whiterun again after only one night. But that, she supposes, is the lot of a sellsword – and a Dragonborn. When he finishes his own bath Eitri follows Freyja out the front door of the inn, prepared to join her in bartering for travel supplies. While the sky is pale blue, closer to earth the light is dusky grey. This late in the year the dawn takes a long time to scale the mountains. Still, the weather promises to be fine. It’s one of those rare clear days when the summit of the Throat is visible; the peak gleams red-gold with morning alpenglow, and as the sun finally clears the tops of the eastern mountain ranges it kindles the same flames in Eitri’s hair. The most industrious of the market vendors are already laying out their wares. Freyja takes a long, determined breath. Fastens her eyes on High Hrothgar.
Eitri puts a muscled arm around her shoulders, smelling of wool and newly clean skin. He smells different, and yet familiar. Like the Wind District, Freyja realizes. She laughs, sudden and clear.
Eitri smiles at her. “What?”
“You smell of lavender soap.”
“Problem?”
“Not at all,” she tells him. He smells of home.
Re: Songs for Nomads 9.10/9.10
(Anonymous) 2014-10-05 04:01 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Songs for Nomads 9.10/9.10
(Anonymous) 2014-10-05 05:24 pm (UTC)(link)Thanks so much for reading!
Re: Songs for Nomads 9.10/9.10
(Anonymous) - 2014-10-06 02:55 (UTC) - ExpandRe: Songs for Nomads 9.10/9.10
(Anonymous) 2014-10-10 02:13 am (UTC)(link)