Meme Announcements!

[skyrimkinkmeme]

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

Comments

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 1a/?

[(Anonymous)]

Inspired by a combination of many wonderful Ulfric prompts out there, but what I write seems to not quite fit perfectly any one in particular so…Self-prompt: An Imperial Dragonborn has sided with the Empire, but loses the battle of Solitude. She is a powerful enemy, even in defeat, and has many allies in Skyrim. Not to mention, Alduin yet lives. What is Ulfric to do with her? Angst, hatesex, and possible dubcon. Also a bit of altering canon events and timeline. Concrit welcome, please.

Title inspired by Eliot: “When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.”

------
Ulfric lounged on the throne of the Blue Palace with the same indolent sprawl many were accustomed to see in the Palace of Kings. Yet despite his outward appearance of calm, he felt his heart beat against his chest in a rapid staccato of betraying excitement.

With Solitude won, the throne of Skyrim was as much as his. The Imperials, cloying to their Thalmor, would be pushed out of his land like the festering cyst they represented.

All but one.

She was his.

His hand clenched on the armrest of the throne, chipped nails scraping into wood in impatience as he waited for his men to bring her before him. He gingerly moved his mouth, feeling the sharp pain that receded to a dull throb only when he kept it still.

He had refused to allow his split lip and swollen jaw to be healed by any potion or spell.

She had marked him so, in the final moments of the battle before his men had claimed the city. Before he had called upon his long dormant Thu-um to send her sprawling to the blood-soaked ground, a look of startled surprise in her wide, green eyes.

He liked it, this reminder of her rebellion, as it was also a reminder of her defeat. He wanted her to see it, to be confronted with the evidence of her failed fury upon him.

He wanted her to look upon him and know that he had not forgotten, that she would pay the price for it.

He heard the approach of soldiers, and looked up to see a woman standing between them, head bowed, whether in humility or shyness he did not know, nor care. A mass of dark mahogany curls tumbled in disarray around her shoulders. She wore nothing except a threadbare tunic that barely reached her knees, old and full of mended stitchings, but seemingly clean. She was so small the top of her head barely reached the shoulders of his guards.

He did not know her, and was not concerned at whatever claim or grievance she brought before the throne. He knew the responsibilities of the city were his to govern in the immediate aftermath of the battle, but at the moment he could only growl in frustration, unhappy to be delayed from his desired purpose.

At the low rumbling of angry sound - at the very same moment when he noticed that her hands were bound behind her - the woman picked up her head, her sharp emerald eyes narrowed to glittering slits of hate and malice.

The recognition was instant, he felt it hit him hard and mean, in his gut. And lower, heat curled in his loins, as if his body felt deeper kinship with her than his mind.

Her did know her, but not like this. He knew her in sweat-matted hair tightly braided against her scalp, on the rare occasion he had seen her without a helmet. He had thought it as black as pitch, always slicked with sweat and dirt and oils of travels. He had not known her to have quite so much of it, falling in thick, glossy waves past her shoulders.

He knew her in spattered, well-worn armor, also covered in blood and dirt. He did not know these lush curves exposed by the thin, clinging fabric, putting in the mind of man the desire to see such bounty exposed to gaze and roaming hand, to feel her ripe, soft heat cushion his own hardened weight.

But her eyes, these he did know. The deep green of emerald, framed by a thick fringe of dark lashes, flashing with familiar rebellion.

With disgust.

They narrowed at him now, as she caught him gaping like an untried boy.

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 1b/?

[(Anonymous)]

Ulfric clenched his teeth against the curling, possessive heat in his belly, and addressed her. “Dragonborn. Skyrim belongs no longer to your people. Do you choose death, or disgraced exile with the rest of your kin?" He paused for a moment, before continuing. "Or do you submit to my rule over you? Decide quickly, I have much to attend to in the aftermath of this battle.”

One of the guards gave her an ungentle shove, and she stumbled forward before catching her feet. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin as she seemed to come to some sort of decision.

He watched her slow approach through heavy-lidded eyes. It would be a mistake to assume her movement meant that she had submitted. He knew she was only sizing him up, as she did any able opponent. He knew she had found him wanting in the past, and that thought brought another wave of anger to boil his blood.

She was full of haughty pride, and like him she fought fiercely for her beliefs. He expected rebellion from her.

And he wanted it.

His body itched for a fight. He could almost taste the coming battle like he could taste the bitter tang of his own blood in his mouth, from the torn flesh inside his cheek.

He belonged to Skyrim. Skyrim was his.

And now the Dragonborn was his.

Even if he had to force her, she would submit.

She did submit.

He could barely keep his mouth closed, his surprise was so complete – she moved ever closer and sank gracefully to her knees at his feet, between his sprawled legs, head again humbly bowed. Her hair fell forward to brush against his hand resting on his knee. He couldn’t resist taking one of the heavy curls between his blunt thumb and forefinger, marveling at its silky softness, wondering suddenly when she had been given the opportunity to wash herself.

He knew she had many friends in Skyrim. Allies in Solitude who would aid her. If he wanted to quench any additional rebellion to his cause, he would have to deal with her quickly.

His hand clenched around a fistful of her hair. She seemed to take no notice, but when she looked up at him from between his legs, he could see victory sparkling in her eyes.

He felt a brief flaring of confusion at her complete look of non-submission, as if she had won some great battle here.

And then his surprise gave way to anger and a howl of pain as she quickly turned her head and sank her teeth deep and hard into the sensitive skin of his inner thigh, the covering of his pants only a thin, useless barrier.

The guards quickly stepped forward to haul her back as he stood in fury. One made as if to strike her, and he felt another type of anger rise in his chest at the thought of someone else touching that which was his.

“No.” It was a sharp bark of sound, and the guard looked up, hesitant.

He answered the unspoken question in a soft mutter of sound, meant for their ears only. “She is mine to break. Muzzle that sharp mouth of hers, and bring her to my quarters.”

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 2a/?

[(Anonymous)]

A scrap of cloth was shoved into her mouth and fastened tightly, and then her body was shoved into the room.

She barely suppressed a flinch as the door slammed shut behind her. She lifted her chin and faced the angry self-claimed High King. Even from across the room she could feel the heat of his barely repressed fury.

She should not have done such a childish thing. It was not worthy of her status and upbringing. Not worthy of the blood of the Dovah thrumming in her veins. Yet when it came to him, she could not seem to control herself.

As he bore down upon her, she thought upon her first memory of him - his eyes had been glinting with the same hate, the same seething pride evident in the wide set of his shoulders, but then it had been his voice muted by dank cloth.

She had known of him even before then. Two brothers she had lost to his rebel cause. Cassius, with the somber, brown-eyed gaze of their father. He had always been the more serious of her siblings, the eldest, with the weight of responsibility heavy on his broad shoulders. How she missed having him to turn to for advice, when she was troubled by difficult choices.

And Marius, her twin. The youngest, born but a few moments after herself, though she never let him hear the end of it. He had been easy to laughter, always a teasing joke at the ready. Brash, more inclined to the pleasures of drink than the study of history and war, but he followed his brother to war nonetheless. To war and to death. Even now she felt the sting of crippling tears at his memory, the loss was still too recent, the pain too raw, and she blinked rapidly to stem their tide.

She had followed in the wake of her brothers, to this toughened land of mountain and steel, and she had thought to meet her death with the man who had been the cause of theirs, who had taken so much from her without even knowing.

Who at the time had refused to even spare her a glance.

But she had not died that day. She had lived on, haunted by her past, and so she fought, and honored the memory of her brothers.
She fought, and watched as good men gave their lives, the sweet warmth of youth shattered and gored on axe and sharpened steel.

But no, she did not simply watch, she took such life. And she wondered, in the dark of night, if parents other than hers went mad with the grief of it all, until their own wavering candles of life flickered and died.

And the hate grew with each passing moon. It ate at her, clawed from the inside like an insidious wound, spreading. Hate for herself, but she named it hate for him, and she took comfort from the easy lie.

He was almost upon her, invading her space, stealing the very air. She took several shallow breaths, expecting the familiar smell of blood and sweat and battle. But the unexpected smell of spice and mint made her nose twitch, and abruptly reminded her that she was not in familiar territory.

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 2b/?

[(Anonymous)]

She had not thought it possible for him to advance any closer, but advance he did. If she took too deep a breath she would touch her chest to his. He was so close she could feel the deep rumble of vibration that was his voice, a snarl of sound and heat.

“That was a very foolish choice, Dragonborn. You seem to wish for death in the humility of your defeat. As a Nord, this I can understand. I felt much the same way, once. Long ago.”

She felt his large hand clench on her arm. The small movement was enough to move her flush against his chest. She had to crane her neck to look upon his face, so much taller did he stand over her. His nostrils flared, jaw clenched tight in whatever new frustration she had aroused.

“Or is it a different punishment you seek, instead of death? Oh yes, you will answer for the slaughter brought about by your own hands, but I can promise you this, Ysmir, you will find no atonement at mine.”

She shivered at his words, horrified to discover that he could recognize her own inner torment so well. She lifted her chin further to meet his eyes, but that proved to be a mistake. She felt the heat in his gaze clear to her toes, and behind it she saw something else – the same sharp cut of guilt that chiseled away at her own hardened soul.

Study your enemy well, daughter, as there you will find the truth about yourself. Know the enemy, and know yourself, and there you will find the key to victory.

The memory of her father’s wisdom brought with it a rush of shame, that she had not bothered to learn much of this particular enemy. She had been too consumed by hate and fury.

She was learning now, but perhaps too late.

Re: Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 3a/?

[(Anonymous)]

A shiver skipped down her spine, of cold but perhaps also of fear. She heard his snort of disgust as he tugged her further into the warmth of the room, depositing her near a table set with cheese and mead and the flickering of candles.

A thick rug was now under her feet, instead of the cold, hard stone. She did not call it kindness, as this new position put her as far as possible from the door, with the table in between her and possible escape.

She curled her bare toes into the plush, warm fabric, and tried not to look at the massive four-poster bed that dominated the center of the back wall, across from her position. Instead she scouted under the veil of her lashes for anything that could be used as a weapon. To her chagrin, he had not left even a meager cheese knife on the table.

“Such a shame, that Skyrim chose you. You cannot even handle her mild weather.”

His taunt interrupted her search, and as if to mock her further, he shook himself out of his well-worn fur-trimmed coat. She watched as he gently folded the weathered garment, his movements slow and methodical, before setting it down on a carved chair in the corner. His fingers traced over the fur collar, a soft stroking. The gentleness in his touch was surprising, drawing her attention to the massive size of his calloused, scar-flecked hands.

She imagined he could come close to circling her own delicate neck with just one of them. She tried not to imagine how those large, warm, battle-roughened hands would feel skimming so lightly over quivering, sensitive flesh, and another kind of shiver knotted in her belly.

He bent over to remove his boots and set them on the floor next to the chair.

She knew he was angry, could see it in the tense set of his shoulders. But unlike her own tremulous control, he seemed to keep his temper under tight rein. This did nothing to calm her fractured nerves. She desperately needed to regain her focus. This kind of enemy was the most dangerous, the most difficult to read, to know when the strike would happen, or from where.

“You are not even of this land, but Skyrim chose you. I have thought to listen to her as my guiding voice, but this… you are her betrayer, Ysmir.”

He looked up at her then – at a seeming loss, his voice no longer mocking. Part of her wanted to argue that his version of Skyrim was not the only true vision. But another part of her couldn’t blame him for his dismay.

She would not have been her choice either.

She longed to tell him such a thing. To shout it to the rafters, to spit back his precious Skyrim in his arrogant face. But she could not answer, and for this she was relieved.

Because a small part of her was afraid, deep down, that she would beg.

Plead with him to simply let her go.

Was that not a choice he had offered her?

It was over. She had lost. She had failed her people, her family.

Her brothers.

Her home.

Oh, how she longed for it. But she knew going back would not be any sort of salve for her soul. Without her family, she was as much a lone wanderer there as she was here.

But at least it wasn’t here.

She cast a longing glance towards the door and a snort of sound escaped him.

“You are welcome to try.”

He stood there, legs braced in a wide stance of power, arms crossed over his massive chest. There was challenge in his eyes.

When she did not budge, the look of mockery again twisted the rugged planes of his face into a cruel mask. “Little dragon, are you so easily conquered? Perhaps the lessons of your people have taught you to bow too quickly.”

She clenched her jaw around the uncomfortable fabric, damp and abrasive between her teeth.

Patience is a powerful ally, child. Do not think her lazy, nor idle. Arrogance is an honest thing, but diminishes wisdom. Humility, however false, can gain you that which passion destroys.

The words of her father again provided comfort. Let him think he had won. Sacrifice her pride to his demands. Wait for his guard to slip.

She squared her shoulders, her only sign of rebellion. She was prepared for whatever punishment he had planned.

Or so she thought.

Nothing could have prepared her for just how diabolical the Stormcloak rebel truly was.

He took off his shirt.

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 3b/?

[(Anonymous)]

It was casually done, only a soft shrug of dismissal to warn her, and then he pulled the fabric over his head without so much as a by your leave.

He managed to look even larger than when he had been covered by the bulk of his garments. His shoulders were impossibly wide, his chest broad, his belly tightly coiled with corded muscle. Scars of past battles were present almost everywhere she looked. Some old and white, some new, still raw and red, some partially hidden by the dusting of tawny hair that coiled on his chest and trailed in a narrow line down his belly. Her eyes, seemingly no longer under her own control, followed the line until it disappeared into the waistband of his pants, slung impossibly low on his surprisingly narrow hips.

When he made to remove those as well, she almost did bolt for the door. But she held her ground and stared resolutely at the floor as the pants and everything underneath joined the neatly folded pile.

His voice was a velvety caress. “You’ve now given me two marks, little dragon. If you had so wished to claim me as your own, you might have tried a simple asking. We Nords are not so barbaric in our courtship as the Empire is wont to paint us.”

She glanced up carefully to find him poking gingerly around a bloom of crimson on his inner thigh, where two welted crescents stood as stark reminders of her lost temper. The bruised skin was high on his thickly muscled leg, much closer to his groin than she had realized.

It looked like a lover’s mark.

She stiffened, feeling a flush of heat flare in her face and down her neck. Her eyes moved swiftly to his face, where she found a soft smile playing around his mouth, gentling the harsh planes of his rugged face, giving him a winsome sort of handsomeness that left her shaking her head for daring to think such a thing.

His deep voice warmed her again. “Perhaps I will return the favor.”

The image came swift and fierce to her mind before she could stop it. His wide, cruel mouth, teasing so close to her most intimate, most vulnerable place, his breath hot against her skin, the scrape of his teeth taunting her to a kind of begging that did not lead to bitter shame, but the sweet ache of release.

But only shame followed in the wake of such thoughts. Surely there was something wrong with her, and she cursed her betraying blood. It had always been too quickly heated by baser passions. She was like her twin in that fact, despite her repeated attempts to learn the icy control that had so governed her elder brother and father.

He was the enemy, she reminded herself. And her brothers were dead because of his war.

The enemy turned from her to the wardrobe, pulling out and putting on a richly woven robe, in crimson and gold, styled in the Imperial tradition. It sat too snugly on the breadth of his shoulders. After a moment of fishing around, he drew out a second robe.

She looked at it with longing, allowing herself a brief moment of hope, quickly dashed. He only pulled from the robe’s moorings the twice-stitched fabric that served as belt, and tossed the rest of the garment over his shoulder.

It fell in a disgraced heap to the floor, under the chair. The crumpled, rich fabric provided sharp contrast to the simple well-worn garments that he had folded neatly, and with such loving care.

It was as if an omen.

She knew which method of handling he would reserve for her.

She braced herself as he approached. He slipped the belt of fabric between his teeth and grinned wolfishly down at her in a mockery of her forced muteness.

She was not certain what to expect next, but it was not for him to wrap his massive arms around her, folding her almost gently into his chest. The feel of him consumed her, burned her like a brand, his scent filling her nose with each shallow breath. She felt a flare of panic, was about to struggle against him, until she realized he was working loose the knotted, abrasive rope that bound her hands behind her.

She waited, muscles tensely coiled. He took his sweet time, as careful and precise as he had been with his garments. She knew he was enjoying this. Her humiliation. The feel of her body. She longed to use the strength of her legs against his smug arrogance, but she knew it was not the time.

Not yet.

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 4a/?

[(Anonymous)]

She stood still within the circle of his arms, her cheek pressed against the warm, hard wall that was his chest.

For a moment, it was as if time stilled. They stood in this mockery of a lover’s pose for what seemed an eternity, until she felt the snap of her bindings loosen as the last coil of rope was wrestled free.

The small sound sent a rush of adrenaline coursing through her blood, snapping her to her senses.

She was fast, and agile, and despite her preference for weaponry she could be quite lethal at close range. Her small size had long ago taught her the value of using the enemy’s sluggish weight to her advantage.

A simple twist of her body, a jerk of her knee to his intimates, would give her the split second she needed to free her Voice from its cage.

Except that it didn’t.

Because he wasn’t where he was supposed to be. For such a large man he was surprisingly agile.

Her momentum, not meeting with the target she had expected, put her off balance. She might have regained her feet, but found her own legs were swept from beneath her.

She hit the floor hard, her head slamming back, a sharp crack of sound and pain. The brute followed her down. Frantic, she reached quickly to remove her gag, but he anticipated her, again, using his entire weight to keep her still as he pinned her arms above her head, one of his large hands enough to capture both her wrists in a vise-like grip.

She felt dizzy, knowing she should relax her limbs and give herself a moment to get her frenzied breathing under control, but this seemed impossible a task. Blood rushed through her ears as she struggled to breathe through her nose, and with each shallow, quick breath she inhaled the spice of recently soaped skin, and a darker scent that was distinctly male.

He pressed his lips to her neck, a scorching line of heat against that delicate skin. She felt his words as much as she heard them.

“A third attempt upon me this day. Do you yet beg for repayment?”

He nipped at this sensitive skin in gentle imitation of her earlier cruel bite, the scrape of his teeth sending a burst of responsive, unwanted heat to curl dangerously low in her belly.

His hands, those large warm hands she now regretted admiring, were pushing up under the hem of her tunic, already bunched around her waist. It was one of the small items Erdi had been able to smuggle her after she had been stripped of armor and all possessions. She wore nothing else underneath, only the silky fabric of his robe providing a thin and useless barrier at the point where his hips nestled firmly in the soft cradle of her own.

She felt his growing hardness there, where he pressed so tightly against her, and she struggled in earnest against him as the heat of his hands pushed up to expose her belly.

When she felt cold air caress her breasts, she dug her heels into the floor, hips rising, back arching, anything to dislodge the weight of him, a rush of heated panic coursing through her limbs. Some part of her knew that struggling against him in such a position would likely only serve to stroke his lust, but she felt cornered and trapped and itching and hot and she could not remain unmoving beneath him.

“Be still, woman.” The command was harshly given, snapping her to attention like the crack of a whip, but it was not enough to stop her struggles.

They were to no avail, superior strength worked in his favor, and her tunic was pulled up and over her head with a few simple yanks, leaving her naked and heaving beneath him.

His mouth found her ear, his own breathing surprisingly harsh, his voice pitched barely above a low growl. “When I take you for the first time, Dragon of the North, it will not be a rutting on the floor.”

His oppressive weight lifted, and she was hauled to her feet, spun to face the bed. He stood close behind her, ran his hands down the length of her bare arms, and before she could even shiver in response he deftly tied her hands in front of her with the soft, thick fabric that was nothing more than simple belt.

But it proved an able, if unconventional, form of binding.

She stood there, trembling, like a freshly broken colt just brought under saddle.

Uncertain of freedoms stolen, waiting for further attempts at domination with a wary spirit not yet tamed.

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 4b/?

[(Anonymous)]

She jumped when his chin came to rest on her shoulder, his voice the raspy caress of smoke and velvet as he spoke so close to her ear, through the tangle of her hair. “Do you remember the first time I held you like this in my arms?”

His hands did not remain idle, but traced lazy circles down her now quivering sides. His question barely registered in the haze of trepidation, but then the memory formed.

Helgen.

Alduin would have killed her then, on those curved stone steps of the crumbling tower, if not for this man hauling her back into the safety of his unwelcome embrace.

She was shocked he even remembered.

“Some might be inclined to argue you owe me your life.”

The daft Nord had proceeded to shove her out of the high hole in the wall after the Dragon’s retreat. Her fear briefly forgotten, she snorted at his presumption and audacity, giving a vigorous shake of her head.

This earned her a sharp bark of laughter, and then he pressed into her, dancing her forward.

“Perhaps you owe something else, then.”

She took a few stumbling steps, but dug in her heels when they were a few feet from the bed.

His fingers clenched around her arm, turned her in his embrace. “The bed is not the place for our coupling either. At least not in the traditional sense.”

Snaking one arm around her waist, he lifted her as if she weighed no more than a deathbell blossom, shrugging off her desperate, scissoring kicks to his shin with such ease she felt the flaring of frustrated temper. He leaned her against the closest of the four wide posts that stood at each corner of the bed, supporting her weight with his chest as he raised her bound arms above her head to secure the bindings high on the wooden pillar, above the joint where the cross supports intersected.

When he stepped back and released her, a slow slide down the length of his chest that left her senses reeling, she found his trap complete.
She was stretched, not given any leverage, unable even to rest her heels fully on the ground unless by great effort.

She knew the position would become painful if she were left too long, but worry for pain lost out to shame in the war of what concerned her most.

She was completely bared to his gaze, the backward cant of her arms leaving her chest arched, her breasts thrust forward as if in offering. Despite the heat of her recent exertions, the lingering chill in the large, vaulted room left her nipples peaked and already sensitive.

He stared down at her, surveying his handiwork, and his next softly spoken words caught her by surprise.

“Your own people planned to slaughter you that day.”

Could the man never do anything expected? She glared at him through the tangle of curls that had fallen over her face, unwilling to be confronted with how foolish she had been, how reckless to join in on the attack of the Stormcloak camp that chance had dumped in her path.

Newly arrived in Skyrim, carried on the swiftly beating wings of fury and vengeance, she was not yet officially enlisted, and in the heat of battle-victory she was not known as friend or foe.

She hadn’t even been given the chance to explain herself. It had always bothered her, tucked in the back of her smoldering resentment, but she would not be admitting such a thing to him.

He smiled brightly at her scowl, a fake thing that showed off the evenness of his white teeth.

“Not to worry, little prisoner. I have other plans for such a ripe catch. Skyrim has well taught many a Nord the importance of letting no thing go to waste.”

One hand traced a gentle circle at her wrist, near the bindings, before he trailed his fingers down. She twitched as he ghosted over the sensitive, ticklish underside of her arm. His hand continued its slow, gentle descent, his fingers tracing the line of her jaw.
Down the length of her neck.

And lower.

She willed her body not to respond against the feel of his large, firm hand cupping the weight of her breast in his roughened palm. A useless attempt, for when his blunt thumb flicked over her sensitive peak with a precise pressure that marked him instantly as experienced lover, creating a delicious, unceasing friction that soon skirted the boundary of pleasure and pain, a white hot lick of flame spread down to coil in her belly.

And lower still.

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 4c/?

[(Anonymous)]

As if he knew exactly where his touch had affected her most, he caressed down, teasing over her belly to trail his fingers through the triangle of soft curls at the juncture of her thighs. She trembled as he traced lazy circles over her mound, could not say if it was fear or anticipation, and pressed her thighs together.

He nudged his knee between them, gently but firmly urging her legs to part, exposing that most vulnerable place to the chilled air of the room and the heat of his intent gaze.

She had never felt so helpless, could barely form a coherent thought as he ceased his taunting and pressed even lower, his large, blunt fingers sliding over her slit. He parted her delicate folds with a broad, sweeping caress, spreading her slick inner wings wider as he traced up in a heated line until he found the rounded bundle of nerves that was soon to be her undoing.

He stroked once over her clit with the rough pad of his finger, the pressure of that firm caress sending a wave of heat through her body. He circled the swelling nub, keeping the pace slow and even, and she did not have the ability to stop the answering wetness that he drew from her using only the delicious friction of his calloused finger.

She swore to herself that this was the only reaction he would get from her.

But this was proved difficult.

By the divines, it was as if his hands were made for the stroking of a woman’s sex.

She strained against the hold he had on her, tried to think of other things, made no small attempt to deny him her submission in this. But there was no denying the torturous, unrelenting flicks of his clever finger, each rub on her clit sending a response that curled throughout her limbs, branding her body as his. Every nerve ending lit with life and fire as heat licked in waves, up her belly to her still tightened nipples, and down her thighs.

She had thought that he would punish her, simply plunder his spoil of war with a swift and rough taking. But this leisurely, rhythmic teasing was a different kind of taunt entirely. She had not known she could be brought to the brink so easily. She had not thought she had given a sign she was so close, but he was an astute observer, if nothing else, and he had swiftly learned the secret song of her traitorous body.

He was methodical in his intent, diabolical, and clearly unwilling to allow her that final rush of pleasure. Her pride wanted to call this a favor, but her body recognized the torturous betrayal when his finger ceased flicking and circling at the precise moment she might have found her release.

His rough palm rested against her swollen clit as his fingers sought another target, pressed lower, teased around the edge of her opening. When one thick finger pressing into the slick heat of her, her walls clenching around him of their own accord, she ground her teeth against the fabric in her mouth until her jaw ached.

And then a second finger joined the first, and with his size these two were enough to leave her with a feeling of fullness and stretching that was past all bearing. Her shame and fury were no longer a deterrent to her body’s demands. She leaned her head back against the wooden post and closed her eyes, unwilling to see the victory that would soon be in his own, and he allowed her this respite. Lost in the darkness, unable to deny him the reaction she had fought to hide, she opened her legs to him further and rocked her hips against his hand.

Waves of pleasure snaked up her spine, the tension coiling tighter between her legs, and she could not stop the low moan from escaping.

His answering groan sounded as equally wrenched from his throat unwilling, and her eyes snapped open to find a man who did not look victorious.

He looked as if in pain, his own eyes closed, his jaw tightly clenched.

Her gaze fell upon the bruising on his cheek. His bloodied lip.

Her work.

A stark contrast to the firm but gentle touch of his fingers within her, and at the intimacy with which he stripped away her pride and bared her very self, she wondered if she might have preferred to trade pain for pain.

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 5a/?

[(Anonymous)]

His eyes opened to catch her intent stare. For a brief moment, his expression was no longer mocking. He was so close she could make out the many flecks of rust and amber that sparkled within the green of his eyes.

With no hate in his gaze to sustain her fury, he became simply a man.

A man pleasuring a woman.

The odd moment passed quickly, interrupted by a sharp and intrusive knock at the door.

In that quick of an instant, his feral, predatory grin returned, sending a shiver of foreboding down her now aching spine, chasing away the heat of her lust.

She shook her head violently, putting forceful denial in her narrowed eyes. Surely he wouldn’t. Was her private humiliation not enough?

He ignored her silent protest. His voice was rough and low, betraying his own waning passion. “It seems the great jarl has received my good news sooner than expected. What a happy coincidence.”

This was not a man to wait upon the vicissitudes of fate or happy chance. He forged his path with the unerring and unrelenting progress of the mountain tempest, leaving just as unforgiving a devastation in his wake.

There were no simple coincidences where he was concerned.

And she knew, with a certainty that chilled her, that she was not going to like what waited for her behind the door.

“Enter!”

She stiffened at the sound of his shouted command.

The door was to her left, based on her positioning against the bedpost, but her naked body would be easy to spot for anyone coming into the room, should her tormenter decide to move.

But he remained standing in front of her, his massive form blocking the majority of her body, though her bound hands and face could be clearly seen, and her nakedness easily presumed.

The door swung open and a figure came stumbling into view, as if rudely shoved inside. The commanding figure turned, and she instantly recognized Balgruuf.

He looked furious, his words an angry demand. “Where are my children? I did not think even you could sink this low, Ulfric. I demand to know what you have done with my....”

Balgruuf’s tirade sputtered to a screeching halt the moment his gaze collided with hers over Ulfric’s shoulder.

If she thought her shame complete before, it was nothing compared to the rush of anguished embarrassment she felt at her trusted friend and mentor finding her in such a humiliating state.

His eyes flickered up to her bindings, a swift moment of gathering information, and then they moved to remain carefully level with her face.

His furious expression briefly softened, shared sorrow in his gaze. In the aching misery of her defeat, such a reminder of past kindness and current loyalty only sent a rush of tears to prick the backs of her eyelids.

“Oh, lass. No.”

His soft whisper of protest was a far cry from his earlier outburst of anger.

She blinked rapidly, clenched her jaw, worked her throat to try to swallow the pitted lump of anguish lodged in her chest. She could handle anger. Pain. Torture. But kindness and sympathy, when she felt she deserved neither, unraveled her facade as nothing else could.

She had failed him. It had been her task, to ferret his children to safety from sword and threat of death when Whiterun had fallen to Stormcloak fury. She did not know how they had been found so easily, but she counted it yet another failure, to add to an ever growing list.

She clenched her hands, pressed the crescents of her nails tightly down until they broke the surface of her palm, and she took refuge at the fleeting sting.

She felt the weight of Ulfric’s gaze upon her, and she refused to show him yet another weakness. He was hardly interested in the angry jarl at his back, did not even bother to look at him, so intently did he study her face.

Fury returned to Balgruuf’s voice, but she heard the underlying thread of anguish it hid.

“You are a beast, Ulfric, an unfit Nord for the high thone! Have you not an inkling of shame? Making war upon your own people. Raping women. Killing children.”

Ulfric’s voice cut like a knife through the angry jarl’s condemning litany.

“Your children are not dead. Not yet.”

Not yet.

An icy chill settled in her aching limbs, as she realized his play.

“I will not keep you any longer, Balgruuf.”

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 5b/?

[(Anonymous)]

She saw the moment the displaced jarl realized that the life of his kin rested in her hands. His face was red with anger, and fury, but there was a pleading look in his familiar gaze as he was pulled from the room by the guards.

The last she saw, before he disappeared behind the condemning shut of the door, was a look of slowly dawning horror at Ulfric’s next cruelly uttered words.

“Spread the news that our little hero has decided to join her sword to Stormcloak cause, and wish us happiness on our upcoming union. I am taking the Dragonborn to wife.”






------------------------
Note: Can we just presume, for the sake of emotional impact, that the jarl's children might actually be worthy of concern and not creepy creepers? Can I please have this little thing? Also, thank you for the warm, encouraging comments and the giggle worthy "Aw, yis!" This is my first fill here and it is nice to know I have some folks along for the ride. I hope I can meet expectation! More heated hot stuff incoming soon!

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 6a/?

[(Anonymous)]

The door slammed shut, and Ulfric was left alone with his prize.

The jarl’s children were an unfortunate, but necessary ploy to gain her obedience, for the time being. He had thought only to taunt her further with the title of wife. To see another wave of fury and hate spitting from those glorious eyes of hers. He was enjoying humiliating her. Shaming her, as she had done to him, when she had dared deny his cause with that haughty imperial pride.

But now that the words had slipped through his teeth, he found himself warming quite quickly to the idea.

His wife.

His.

Her Imperial blood should have been a point of disgust, but for some reason he could not make himself care. All of Skyrim would know that the Dragonborn herself had been won over to his cause. The symbol of her name, joined with his, would yet strengthen this land.

It would certainly solve his dilemma of what to do with her.

He would keep her.

It really was so simple, so brilliant, he wondered why he had not thought it sooner.

The fact that this was not a love match also did not bother him. He had never expected such, based on the status and destiny bestowed upon him. And with such ripe curves to heat his bed at night, what need did a man have for such weak emotion?

Even at the thought of her, he felt his cock twitch. He was still hard, and aching with the heavy, demanding throb of his unspent seed. His hand still lingered at the apex of her thighs, and he nearly groaned in anticipation of another round. She had felt so soft and slick against his hand, so tightly wrapped around just the width of his finger, it had taken all of his rather formidable control not to simply hook her legs around his waist and grind into her.

He had opted for patience. Self-denial was a lesson he had well learned. Sacrifice in the present for larger pay-off in the future.

And this pay-off, it had been sweet indeed, hearing her breath coming in soft hitches, increasing in speed and intensity, each one closer to the last than the one before. And when she had finally rocked her hips against his hand, her mind no longer having a say in what her body craved, he had almost spilled his seed against her belly in abject pleasure at the feel of her quivering, yielding flesh.

It would not be her only surrender to him this night.

He was looking forward to another round. He had enjoyed her attempts to best him. But at the moment, his Dragonborn did not look ready to fight him. She did not even look angry. Her head was down, her face hidden by a tangle of silken curls that fell forward across her cheek, her shoulders curling in a pitiful slump.

He pushed the hair back behind her ear, ignoring her immediate flinch away from his touch, before taking her jaw in his hands to lift her face to his.

He had seen the threat of burgeoning tears in her eyes, when Balgruuf stood at his back begging for his children, and he had a moment of fear that he would have to deal with such nonsense now, from one who had proven herself more worthy opponent in the past.

His eyes were dry, to his relief. But in their glittering depths he saw clearly, as if she made no attempt to hide it, a deep well of misery.

Some part of his furious, war-addled mind had wanted her broken, had wanted to look down upon this enemy as she lay at his feet, begging for what little remained from the remnants of her shattered self.

He had thought it would take more than sweetly forced pleasuring and the promise of a ring on her finger to break her. And he had thought he would feel at least some sort of victory when he had done so. But something else was twisting his gut into a knot of unfamiliar, ugly feeling. Something he could not place, would not name remorse, something that reminded him sorely of the idealistic and stupid boy he had once been, before betrayal and torture and defeat and fury had enacted their heavy toll upon him.

He had no desire to re-visit that old and weak self.

He let out a long suffering sigh, and then reached to make quick work of removing her gag.

As soon as the fabric was free from her mouth, she made foolish attempt at speech.

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 6b/?

[(Anonymous)]

“I will not…not….” She coughed, her words cracking at the dryness he knew must plague her throat. She made several attempts to swallow, frustration beginning to replace the sadness in her eyes.

He strode to the table and filled a mug of mead, returning to her side. She cast it a longing glance and licked her dry lips. She had a lovely mouth. Usually he only noticed its sharpness, but now it looked soft and full, lips swollen from recent abrasions. Her small tongue darted out again to sweep across the lower, fuller one, and he felt the unsatisfied ache in his loins hit him with a vengeance, his mind suddenly filled with visions of all the places he’d like her to put her mouth and tongue.

He pressed closer to her again, gave in to his body's demand to feel the heat of her, even through his robe, as he thickened to the point of pain.

The idea of wife was sounding sweeter than the mead in his cup.

“Mead to quench your thirst?” he asked innocently.

She looked at him with suspicion, obviously wary of any kindness. But she gave a curt nod, eyeing the mug as he lifted it to his lips to drink. He watched hers part with anticipation, but instead of touching the cold edge of the cup to her mouth, he lowered his own mouth to hers to let her drink from his lips.

She coughed and sputtered against him, not expecting this move. A new spark of anger lit her eyes as cold mead dripped down her chin.

He warmed at her change of expression, and swiped the mead from her chin with his thumb.

“Would you like to try that again, and perhaps swallow this time?”

“I would like a sip from the cup,” she gritted out, her voice a soft rasp of sound, still rough and cracking.

He did not deign to reply to such ridiculous request. She was going to have to learn to take whatever he gave her.

He drank from the mug again and lowered his mouth, holding his lips a fraction from hers in invitation. She hesitated, a brief moment, and then sealed her lips to his, opening her mouth to accept the drink he offered. She let slip a soft moan. Whether it was a reaction to his mouth or the mead, he was not certain, but his own answering groan surprised even himself with its intensity.

He pulled quickly back, angry at himself for showing his hand, but she did not seem to notice. She only eyed the mug in his hands with a newfound hunger.

“More.”

That one soft plea made him hotter than the most talented of mouths licking at his skin. Who was he to deny her?

He let his lips fall to hers again, but they remained closed to him, pressed tightly in a thin line. He softly kissed the corner of her mouth, traced the velvet heat of his tongue across the seam of her lips, but she only shook her head against him.

“More mead, I do not beg for your mouth, Nord.”

The fire of her temper was back in her eyes again. How easy she was to taunt. It was very difficult to hold back his smile.

She would be begging for his mouth soon enough, he would see to that.

He put on his best expression of false innocence. “Your bite is sharp, little dragon. You wound me. Perhaps you should specify more carefully when you are naked and yet beg a man for more.”

“I am not naked by choice,” she hissed. “And I have a name. I would have you call me by it.”

Still, she thought to make demands. Well, he could be reasonable.

“And I would call you mine, and have you call me husband. Does this seem a fair trade?”

The angry scowl on her face deepened, and his smile escaped before he could stop it.

This was more to his liking. Anger he could handle. Anger he knew.

He could not remember the last time he felt so alive. Even his recent battle victory had not sent this same rush of heat and pleasure licking through his body.

He sipped again and pressed his mouth to hers, and she drank deeply from his lips, a breathy sigh escaping her when he retreated. A third time, and he could not resist sweeping his tongue into the velvety heat of her mouth. She met it with a tentative swipe of her own, and yet again he found himself barely able to contain his groan.

Her bit gently at the plush softness that was her mouth, could smell the sweet mead on her breath as he teased at her with his teeth, whispering, “I would have you sip another taste from my lips.”

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 7a/?

[(Anonymous)]

Before she could respond with anything beyond the breathy sigh that escaped her lips at his nibbling bites, Ulfric sank to his knees.

She stiffened against the bedpost with something like a squeak, and he smiled in anticipation of other, earthier sounds she would be making soon enough.

He let his nose rest against her curls, at the arched bone that framed the top of her sex, and waited for her protest.

It was not long in coming.

“Balgruuf is right, you are a beast,” she hissed through clenched teeth.

He noted she chose to taunt instead of beg him to stop.

“Yes, dragon, and a hungry one.” He exhaled against her as he spoke, blowing softly when he finished.

“Did you not eat well enough at your victory banquet this day?”

He heard the scorn in her voice, but there was a shiver there also.

He pressed the flat of his tongue into her, keeping it firm and hard. Her soft folds yielded to his insistent advance, and he had his first taste of her, licking up in a broad sweeping stroke through her slit to the hood of flesh guarding her most sensitive prize.

“Mmm,” he groaned against her, “but I find myself famished anew. I quenched your thirst, it is only fair you satisfy my hunger.”

Her next attempt at protest came out as nothing more than garbled moan as he licked her again. At that sweet sound he took for surrender, the mug in his hand went forgotten, dropping to the floor. His freed hands caressed up her thighs, gripping them firmly to lift her legs and drape them over the width of his shoulders.

He supported her weight with his hands at her backside, careful to take the pressure from her bound arms, and this was not a difficult task. He was again stuck by how small she was, but he brushed such thoughts aside. If he found distraction in thinking of how tight and wet she would feel, the inner walls of her sex clinging to his cock to milk his seed from him, he would not have the ability to savor her.

And now that she was open before him, her scent surrounding him, he was unwilling to give up the territory he’d gained. Not that she could escape his conquest, as he cradled her seat in his hands and drank from her like the famished man he’d claimed to be.

He licked at her swelling bud with firm lashings of his tongue, relentless in his tasting of her, until her breath soon came uneven, full of those soft little hitches that drove him to the brink of his control and signaled her impending climax.

Not ready to finish this game so soon, he swept his tongue down through her velvety folds to tease at her opening, sucking at her wetness with his lips before pressing into the slick heat of her with his tongue, wrenching from her a keening moan that set his cock to weeping against his belly.

He burned to hear such sounds of pleasure from her again. In that moment, as he worked her with his mouth, teased her tight sheath with plunging strokes until his tongue ached, he could not think of a single thing he wanted more.

When he felt his jaw become sore from his current task and his earlier bruising, his chin and the hair upon it wet with the evidence of her arousal, he moved his attention higher. There, he sucked her swollen bundle into his mouth, scraped at her gently with his teeth to test her, and at the sweet sound of her near scream, he flattened his tongue in a more soothing stroking.

There would be no escape for her this time, and as her tremors reached their peak, he sent her tumbling over the edge, using the tip of his tongue to circle and press and flick and he did not stop even as she shuddered and clenched and bucked against his hold on her.

And yet still he pushed her, unwilling to let go this tender prize from the firm suction of his mouth, though she did beg and plead and try to wrest herself from him. He knew she was sensitive, but the lure of her voice in such a whimpering state was impossible for him to resist.

He heard her gulping in air, great gasps that exhaled with moans of please and enough and no more and finally, FUS.

It was not the end to her litany that he had been expecting. It was softly uttered, in the same aroused tone as her moans, but she put enough force behind that one, single, damning word to send him sprawling back upon the floor.

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 7b/?

[(Anonymous)]

She hung limply from her bindings, body still shaking from the force of her release. Such intensity of pleasure was unknown to her, and it rankled her sorely, that it should come at his hands.

His mouth.

But there had always been something about him that sparked an animal sort of fascination deep in her belly, on the few times she had encountered him in between battles. She had assumed it to be a result of hate, something she well knew was a force of attraction in a way, but now she wondered if she was perhaps as beast as she claimed him to be.

She took several breaths, waiting for him to move, to get up and strike her, certain now that she had gained the punishment of pain she no longer thought she wanted. When the pain did not come, she lifted her heavy lids to glance at him, still sprawled upon the floor at her feet.

She might have gained some small satisfaction at finding him in such a state, but then his body started to shake with an unseen force. She had not borne witness to this particular effect of the shout, and her brows furrowed in confusion.

A grunt of unfamiliar sound escaped him, something that did not quite seem like the effect of pain.

Then he made a noise that was something of a snort.

If the idea did not seem completely mad to her own mind, she would have said it sounded almost like laughter.

And then he sat up and she saw the wide grin splitting his face, his shoulders shaking with the force of his mirth. If she hadn’t been bound, her arms beginning to ache with the strain of the forced position, she might have found her own amusement at the sight of him so lacking his usual composure.

He looked almost boyish, his honey-kissed hair tumbling in disarray around his face, the robe hanging open and slipping from one shoulder, his even white teeth flashing so strikingly against the weathered skin of his face.

Was he going mad?

Was she?

He pushed himself up from the ground, and stood before her, still grinning like a mad fool.

“Little dragon, you do yet try me for a fourth time this day. I am now past the point of what I can endure.”

With that ominous statement, given with amusement still clear in his deep voice, he slipped out of his robe entirely. He had no words, no further taunt to prick her pride, he simply lifted her right leg to hitch at his hip, and pressed himself into the cradle of her own.

He was hard, everywhere, forged by this unforgiving land into a man of iron and steel, but he did not feel like the cold of metal against her. He was hot, burning like the flame from the forge. She was surrounded by the heat he generated, and she could feel the heat of his thickened shaft as he slicked it between her folds with his free hand.

The amount of wetness she knew pooled between her legs set her cheeks to burning. And then she felt the head of him guided to her opening, and there was no more space in her head for embarrassment. Her breath hitched as she prepared herself for a rough sheathing, ready for him to finally slake his lust upon her.

But, as in all things, he took his time, pushing into her in a slow tease of stretching, each inch of him that she took making her feel fuller than the last. He paused to pick up her other leg so that it joined the first around his waist, spreading her wider to accept yet more of him, an easy slide that sparked the bliss of white-hot pleasure at the very core of her.

This flame licked like lightning throughout her limbs, and she bit the inside of her mouth to contain her moan, certain that she could bear no more. Yet still he pushed deeper, slow and sure and unrelenting and hot between her thighs, a searing brand that had her tasting her own blood in her mouth, until finally she felt the base of him flush against her.

He stilled within her, and she met his gaze to find him staring with an intensity that made her shiver. She saw the lust in his eyes, the pleasure she knew he was taking from her, and gods help her but she felt the instinctual pride of her sex thrill through her. She may be his prisoner, bound to a bed that was not even his own, but in this moment, he was as much bound to her as she was to him.

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 7c/?

[(Anonymous)]

A rush of recklessness flared to match the coil of heat in her belly. She met his stare with a taunt of her own. “Is this all you have for me, Nord?”

He lifted a brow in surprise, and pulled his hard heat from her in a languid glide, before snapping his hips forward. She almost came apart at the friction and the feeling of herself stretching again to accommodate his girth. She could not stop her moan.

His mouth found her ear, his low, guttural voice sending additional pleasure, though his message did not. “You make such sweet sounds for me, little imperial puppet. I would hear more of this. I would have you beg for it, for all that I have for you.”

She lifted her chin at his arrogant smirk, and shook her head in clear denial, though she almost proved herself wrong at the next slow pulling and swift, filling advance.

She leaned her head back and closed her eyes at the almost unbearable pressure that was building within her. He took advantage of this position by dropping his head to her neck. She felt his lips there, the scrape of his teeth against her skin, and the tickle of his bearded chin. In the intensity of her feeling, other details emerged. The coarse friction of his hair-roughened chest against her sensitive nipples, his hands, so large and warm, cradling high under her thighs, squeezing her closer to him at each thrust.

Each slow, partial, shallow thrust.

She had thought it only a prelude to a deeper, faster pace, but he kept this from her, only teased and hinted at complete, final satisfaction. He rolled and snapped his hips against her, but he never pulled fully out, nor did he thrust completely back into her.

It left her gasping and straining against him for more and harder and deeper, but he maintained the stoic, tormenting, torturous pace until a fine sheen of sweat covered his skin and it was not long before she realized how foolish she had been to taunt him.

She panted against him, kept at the brink for longer than she could bear, her desire and need and lust driving her mad with the want, and she knew he would win in this, as he had won in everything else.

“Please…” It was a soft plea, and she wondered if he’d even heard.

She wondered if he would make her beg again.

Yet he moved so fast she cried out in surprise as he wrapped one arm securely around her waist, the other reaching up to undo the bindings at her wrist. He made quick work of it, carried her a few stumbling feet to push her back onto the bed.

Her legs were still wrapped around his waist, and he was still deep within her.

And then he wasn’t.

And then he was.

Deep, hard, full strokes that no longer teased at the edges of her release, but demanded she find her pleasure with a surety born of his own furious need.

Suffering, ended.

Death and guilt and pain and victor and prisoner, these were words she no longer knew.

There was no more war.

No more torment.

No more emptiness.

Just heat and fullness and soon to be completion and she wanted this moment more than he wanted her to suffer for it.

He covered her mouth with his, and she parted her lips, not caring if this meant surrender or depravity or nobility lost. She tasted him, as she tasted herself upon him, and he groaned against her mouth. His hips lost their meticulous control and he drove into her with wild abandon as he chased his release.

She felt her own building, a coil of tight hot burn that blossomed and flared the moment he reached a hand between them to roll his thumb over her still sensitive clit. He pressed there, even as she felt her walls spasm around his thickening shaft, guiding her completion to a lingering, exquisite rush of earth-shattering pleasure.

She clawed at his back, his name escaping her lips on a sob of garbled sound that was half moan, half scream. His answering, primal growl sent another shiver through her as he bucked into her a final time, his body tightening in the heated throes of his spilled seed.

She thought, for a brief moment, that she heard her own name fall from his lips like a prayer, but in her exhausted, sated state of languid limbs and trembling body, she attributed it to nothing more than the beginnings of a dream.

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 8a/?

[(Anonymous)]

Anyone who had witnessed the Dragonborn slay Mirmulnir at Whiterun’s western watchtower - her small, lithe body a blur of speed and grace and unerring precision – would likely not recognize her upon seeing her sitting so morosely at the table, her picked over breakfast at her elbow.

She was lost in her thoughts, having been, for the most part, left to her own devices for three days.

Left alone with nothing but condemning thoughts to keep her company.

Heated thoughts.

And some thoughts that made her wonder if indeed she had been driven mad.

Her last hazy memories of that night were of being cradled against a warm and solid chest, strong hands rubbing the soreness out of aching shoulders and abraded wrists, and finally – a thing that made her most certain these images were nothing more than a dream – lips fluttering tenderly against her temple and down her cheek as she was tucked back into the comforting warmth of the blankets.

Usually she went to bed with nightmares of blood and war and terror-filled eyes beseeching her sword not to fall. She never dreamed of sweeter things.

Her enemy must be getting to her head. She would have to make a greater effort to fight him.

And her next point of contention lie spread out on the bed, a most unholy offering, newly delivered that morn along with the food to break her fast.

Her wedding gown.

It was, she could admit, quite beautiful, with simple lines and rich, fine fabric that would no doubt accentuate every curve.

The fact that it was a blue in color, with detailed embroidery and white fur trimming, was not lost on her in meaning. But this was not her point of contention.

It was her breasts that concerned her the most. She had always flattened them with tightly wrapped bindings so that their ridiculous weight would not hamper her movements in travel and battle.

Yet the gown she was to don this day was accompanied by no undergarments at all.

Nor did she have any upon her person. She only wore the imperial-style robe, which was nothing to complain about in the loneliness of her prison room. But to stand in front of the hastily gathered masses of Solitude and pledge her troth to the enemy, this was shame enough even with a cover of propriety.

She gave a beleaguered sigh and stared into the flat metal bowl that doubled as mirror, imagining herself in the fine dress, breasts heaving for all to see, with this mess on her head, and it almost made her smile.

It would serve the beastly Nord right.

She was accustomed to bind her hair with a simple strip of leather at the base of her neck, and this was the full extent of her abilities. Her mother had occasionally styled it in an elaborate coil high upon her head for any social functions that their family attended. Once in Skyrim, Lydia had aided her in the habit of braiding in a Nordic fashion, which was to her liking. Plaits did not come undone, nor did curls of hair as easily gain freedom from their binds while fighting.

She was not sure why she had tried to braid it herself, perhaps out of boredom or some odd, fickle adherence to the traditions she had started to learn in her recent time here, but her hands, so well-tuned to the turn of a sword or throw of a dagger, became clumsy and disobedient the moment she tried anything with hair.

As far as she could tell in the dull reflection of the bowl, the top half of her head was now full of knots that clumped and spiked and reminded her of nothing other than the twining embraces of creep clusters.

She turned her head to find one particular braid bent out at an awkward angle from her head, ending in a tuft of hair that was doing a rather remarkable impression of a thistle flower.

It was almost impressive. She knew at least one Argonian who would be impressed, anyway.

She heard the door swing open and she dropped the bowl, embarrassed to be caught preening, and looked up to find her tormenter entering her lonely lair. He was wearing the robe that was a match to her own, as if he had not yet finished his morning ablutions.

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 8b/?

[(Anonymous)]

She did not like the way his eyes raked over her as he stalked closer, a warm caress, sweeping up from the opening of her robe, which did not quite close all the way over her generous chest, to pause upon her face. Then his heated gaze shot up to above her face, his brows lifting, a small smirk teasing one corner of his mouth into a mocking smile.

“Is this a new fashion of the Dovah? It’s very, uh…” He stopped, waving one hand in a circling motion over his head, as if he tried to come up with an appropriate description.

No doubt looking for the most insulting, she thought uncharitably, but the best he came up with was, “…lofty. No, striking. Really.”

She scowled, and reached up to rip out her failed handiwork. He was upon her in two of his massive strides, swatting her hands away. Before she could blink, he had picked her up, settled himself onto the chair and set her down upon his lap, both legs draping over one side of his. She twisted against him, tried to dismount from this decidedly warmer seat, but one arm snaked around her waist to fuse her tightly against his chest. His other hand began to pull her knotted work apart with surprisingly gentle fingers.

There was something decidedly domestic and intimate about a man’s hand in a woman’s hair, and this was a liberty she could not allow.

She squirmed anew against his hold on her. “I do not require your aid, Nord.”

“So it is your intention to appear in front of the gathered masses looking like you don a Forsworn headdress?”

She hissed, “I have to appear looking like your wife, think you I like that better?”

She felt as much as she heard his deep inhale and labored sigh, as if he was making great effort to maintain his implacable calm. “Word has been sent to your housecarl. She will be here to attend you after the ceremony. For now, be still.”

His rudely given command was not even noticed in the wake of his earlier comment. She lifted her face so quickly she hit his chin with the top of her head. She heard the crack of his teeth hitting together, saw his brief wince of pain, but she did not care.

“You will allow this?”

“You are to be my wife, not my prisoner,” he said gruffly.

She snorted, a loud indelicate sound. “There is a difference?”

His hand moved from her hair to clench around her jaw like a vise, turning her to face him. His fingers dug cruelly into her skin, so tightly did he hold her. It was, she realized, the first time he had touched her with the intention of causing physical hurt since the battle had ended, and it caught her by surprise.

“Would you like to learn it? I have been well schooled on the purgatory of confinement and abuse.”

She should not have forgotten his inherent cruelty. She saw it in his eyes now, as he spoke of prison. There was hate there, but pain also, and she found herself without words.

He released his grip at her mutinous silence. She sat there, cowed for the moment, his fingers back to being soothing and gentle against her scalp.

She allowed herself to relax, her mind turning over various possibilities. Lydia at her side was an asset she could well use to the advantage of escape.

Or assassination.

She stiffened against him, amazed at how quickly her mind rejected that idea.

The enemy you carry with you is your greatest foe.

She chewed at her lip as she considered her options, sobered at the memory of her family. She would not fail them. She would not fail her brothers, nor her father, who had poured his teachings into her even through her unruly adolescence, when it had seemed as if she did not listen, nor care.

But she had listened. She’d always listened, and if it came to that, she would do what needed to be done.

This would need careful planning. And patience.

She tried to keep her voice calm, testing dangerous waters. “And what of Balgruuf’s children? When will they be finished with their lesson?”

“They are safe enough, for now,” he answered carefully, threat underlying his voice. “And they will come to no harm while you remain well behaved.”

Her calm was not easily kept. “Think you I can remain such with hatred stirring my blood, when you condemn me to a lifetime of being bound to you? No prison this, you say, but nevertheless the torment is never ending.”

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 8c/?

[(Anonymous)]

One hand tightened in her hair, while the other came back to her jaw, turning her face to him fully. She shivered at the heat that was now smoldering in his gaze.

“Hatred is not all that stirs your blood, puppet.”

He pressed his mouth to hers in a brutal, punishing kiss, lips hard and demanding, tongue forcing its way between her teeth to plunder her mouth. He devoured her, and despite her inner struggle to resist, desire coiled in her belly, proving his condemning words correct.

How was it possible for him to incite her so? She wondered if it was her brief contact with the beast blood of the wolf that made her body so willing to ready itself for capable, proven mate, but there were many strong and able bodied warriors she had counted as companion, and none of them stirred her so.

None of them had defeated her, either.

At the reminder of his victory, she renewed her struggle, reaching up her hands to claw at his wrists and pry herself from his unrelenting embrace. But he was implacable, too strong even for her, and she knew her efforts were futile.

He only tightened his grip, and deepened the kiss, flicking his tongue against hers in a sordid reminder of how he had worked that velvety heat against the slick core of her.

Even the thought if it sent another jolt through her, tendrils of heat and lust sliding silkily down her spine to gather between her legs, where she felt the wetness gather.

She stopped fighting him then, more concerned with battling the evidence of her arousal. His mouth instantly gentled against hers, tongue retreating in favor of soft bites and licks against her lips, stealing her breath and will to resist and her moan escaped before she could stop it.

He pulled back, and she could see the sardonic glint of victory shining in his eyes; his beautiful, cruel mouth slanted in an arrogant smirk.

She wanted nothing more than to kick it from his smug face. She settled for glaring her renewed fury at him. “Yes, you can heat my blood with your mouth, Nord, but shame follows in its wake. It haunts me. Devours me as your mouth never can. Is this what you want to hear?”

He looked taken aback at her confession, and he released his grip on her hair and face, his voice husky. ”There does not have to be shame here, Ysmir. You are Dragonborn. The war is over, and you have a duty to Skyrim, one I would see you complete. You are soon to be my wife, soon queen to a high king. This also bears responsibility, and an honor that most would find…”

She interrupted him with a snarl. “You might assume so, but this marriage is a farce, to my mind. Do not pretend otherwise. It may gain you what you desire, for now,” she taunted, “but do not think you can manipulate me forever.”

He did not grace her with a response, simply shifted her in his arms to finish the bindings of her hair with quick, nimble fingers. His easy dismissal angered her, but it also gave her pause. He did not understand that her fury stemmed from more than her loss in battle, and his own false assumptions could work to her advantage.

She sat in his lap, trying to plot again, but it was difficult to ignore the heat of him beneath her, and the growing hardness she felt there. She shifted against him, and heard the indrawn hiss of his breath. He moved suddenly, grabbing the flat metal bowl from the table and waving it in front of her face.

Distracted, she studied the dulled reflection of herself, ignoring the stubborn jut of her chin and the flashing green of her eyes, to focus on her hair. Most of it was still a loose tumble of curls down her back, but braids at her temples, two on each side, kept the mass from her face. It was essentially the same style he wore, but despite its simplicity, it was flattering to her features.

She set down the bowl, and said, softly, “Thank you.”

His eyebrows shot up, as if surprised she could show simple gratitude. His mouth quirked in a small smile, the heat of it finding her ear, and his voice was as a silky caress. “Is there any other service my thane requires?”

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 8d/?

[(Anonymous)]

He switched from prideful command to this infernal teasing with a speed and ease that left her unsettled. She tilted her head towards the bed. ”I would like something to wear beneath that dress.”

He shifted underneath her, rubbing his hardness against her in imitation of her earlier gesture, while one hand traced a small circle above her knee with light fingers.

“I like you dressed better in this fashion.”

The deep timbre of his voice, pitched barely above a growl, sent a shivering response of pleasure to lick between her legs. Those heated, probing, pleasure-bringing fingers traced higher up her thighs, slipping under the hem of the robe, and her body tightened in anticipation.

She gasped at the intensity of lust that thrummed through her, pushed against him in protest, but again found his strength an ironclad barrier against her efforts. He simply shifted her position to his liking as if she were nothing more than a doll, pulling her legs apart so that she straddled his lap, her back to his chest.

She bit her lip as he widened his knees, forcing her own thighs further apart, spreading her sex to receive the pleasure of his hands that soothed in scorching circles so close that they brushed against her silken lower curls.

And she was more than ready for him, her slickened folds betraying her, even as his magnificent voice swept over her in a torrent of mockery and licking heat and sordid invitation.

“Show me how much hatred you have for me.”

His fingers danced closer, traced the outside of her sex in light, teasing strokes that had her arching towards the expert pressure he applied against her sensitive skin. And then those calloused, wonderful, circling fingers dipped between her folds, and she knew well the slickness that greeted him, could feel it in the way he slid against her, curling his finger at her opening to gather her wet musk and bring it to her clit, rubbing it there in an offering that was readily accepted, her body more than willing to respond to his caress by sending another rush of liquid to the very core of her.

She could feel herself dripping, and she knew it pleased him in the way he groaned into her hair and rubbed his hardness against the seat of her, soaking the fabric that separated them. She felt him pulling it aside with his free hand to expose his straining shaft.

He was not interested in the slow build of tension any longer. When his cock was freed, he lifted her hips and settled her over his length.

And there it was again. She couldn’t stop her load moan to save her pride. It was so pleasurable, so perfect, she'd thought it a dream, this rush of stretching and licking flames of heat and wetness that was just enough to soothe the rough and quick entry of his shaft.

His legs had her spread so wide that her toes could barely reach the floor. The position caused her entire weight to balance on his thighs and his thick cock and she nearly sobbed at the intense feeling of her inner walls so spread and filled. It was as if he touched the very heart of her.

His next words, whispered so sweetly in her ear, did not prepare her for what was to come.

“And what of this, my soon to be wife. Is this a farce?”

His hands put pressure on her back, shifting her body forward. She barely had time to brace herself, settling her hands against the table in front of her, before he began to move. He twisted his hips and angled himself within her, rolling the head of his cock with shallow upward stabs against the puckered silken skin of her inner wall, sending a jolting shock from her womb up her belly and through her limbs.

She could feel his thighs clenching under hers with the effort of his thrusting, and her next moan came out in a muffled choke, the bliss of this rocking, rubbing, near chafing penetration searing her, everywhere, with needle pricks of pleasure that skirted the boundary of pain with a heat that was almost past bearing.

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 8e/?

[(Anonymous)]

Ulfric heard her sobs and groaned, unable to take his eyes off of the view he now had of his own thickened cock, advancing to spread her sheath wide, retreating with her flesh yet clinging to him.

Talos, she was so tight around him, even with this pretense of a true fucking he still felt the coil of pressure building in his loins. He focused his attention to her back, roving eyes tracing over the soft expanse of her skin, marred by scars here and there that proved her a soldier tried in battle.

Tried against him, but she had lost.

The rush of possessive heat he felt at that thought was almost his undoing, and so he gritted his teeth and fucked his cockhead against her internal, swelling spot of pleasure, rolled her hips against him with his hands even has she choked and trembled and gasped and clenched her thighs around his in her effort to find escape from the torment of agonizing pleasure, and he did not let up this grueling abrasion of his shaft against her walls until she came shuddering around him like the clenching of a vise, screaming his name in the throes of her release as if she were dying.

She rested limply against the table in the wake of her climax, and he pulled her back against his chest, still hard and unspent within her tight, spasming folds.

Her breath was labored, her chest heaving with the effort to regain her breath. Her head rolled back against his shoulder, and he enjoyed the way her words escaped so slurred and languid. “Lust does not lie, Nord, but neither does it last.”

He smiled at her refusal to give in completely, enjoying her relentless spirit. He buried his face in her neck, breathing in a heady combination of heat and spice and sweetness, not willing to give her body time to recover. He bit down, not breaking skin but hard enough to send her arching against him with a hiss of pleasure-pain, the sudden movement of her hips sending a flare of heat to rouse his groin to an unbearable pressure and furious lust.

The shell of her ear was next to earn the attention of his teeth, and he whispered against her, lied to her, knowing he was almost spent. “Then I shall make it last.”

He ran his hands up her shivering sides to cup her breasts, and she arched into that touch also, as if she had given up fighting her desire for him. He rolled her aching nipples between his fingers, already peaked for his touch. “I could spend happy time just on these.”

She gasped as he pinched her, as hard as he had bit her, yet still she found ways to protest. “You talk too much, Nord. I prefer the silence of our first joining.”

He smiled against her skin, moving his hands to trace down over her belly, enjoying the way she shuddered at his touch. “Ah, but my mouth had other things to keep it occupied, then.”

He traced his hands down to her mound, used his fingers to gently separate the wings of her sex, before rolling her swelling clit between his large, calloused thumbs.

Again, she shuddered around him, clenching harder than before, her hips twitching on his lap, and he let out a ragged groan.

“Here, little puppet. My mouth was here. Do you remember how my tongue felt as I licked you? I remember how sweet you tasted.”

She moaned as he stroked her, chasing his hands with her hips, the rolling motions causing her walls to rub and tug and clench with insistent pressure on his hardened shaft, and he could take no more of teasing and delay.

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 8f/?

[(Anonymous)]

She was right, their impending marriage was a farce, on a heading to destruction if he did not navigate his way with careful planning. But this, this feeling of tightness and union, this could not be denied. She was his, and now that he had her, now that he had tasted the sweetness that was her sex and seared himself within the heat that was her sheath, he would not be letting her go.

And soon, she would know who stirred her blood as no one else, and at the moment he did not care if she felt the shame of it.

He shifted against her, lifted her legs to settle them between his own, so that her feet braced against the floor. He pushed her forward again, and she lifted her arms to rest against the table, but he reached around her to grab one and guide her hand to the pleasure point of her sex. Forgoing any further instruction or encouragement, he braced his hands at her hips.

At his first, forceful upward thrust, he heard her gasp. At the second, he felt her pressing against him, working her hips to meet his own.

It was impossibly sweet, impossibly tight, fueling his lust to impossible heights.

Gods, he was so tired of fighting. He clenched her hips in his broad palms, threw his head back with a guttural sound of pleasure and ownership that was nothing more than the growl of a beast, and let go of his control.

He rutted into her, guiding her hips and body as he impaled her sheath upon his shaft, working the muscles of his belly and backside until they quivered with the effort of his twisting, bucking thrusts, until he felt the sac of his seed seize up in a pressure and then a pulling and then there was nothing but the burning sweet hot fire of release as screams filled the room, and he did not know if they were his or hers.

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 9a/?

[(Anonymous)]

“I’m letting her go.”

Galmar’s expression was priceless. The loyal Nord opened and closed his mouth a few times, like he was working on a piece of hardened taffy from the Rift, before finally sputtering, in his usual articulate fashion, “What?”

They were hunched over a map at Castle Dour, discussing locations to canvas for hidden Imperial camps. His announcement had come rather sudden in the course of their conversation, and so he took pity on Galmar’s surprise.

“I cannot keep her here,” he argued.

Galmar leaned across the table with a sneer. “After that big fuss you made to marry her? I urged for execution. I only agreed to your bloody plan under the condition she be kept under our thumb. And your cock,” he added, as a snarled afterthought.

Ulfric brushed off the Nord’s accustomed brashness. “She is Dragonborn. She is no pet to be kept.”

Galmar spoke in precise, clipped syllables, as if explaining to a child. “She is the enemy, Ulfric. She is capable of many things against us. And you were the one to argue that she could serve use.”

“She has served use. Her name, joined with mine, has strengthened our cause. Is Skyrim not more united?”

“There are still those who fight against us. And there will be yet more legion soldiers sent to test our course.”

Galmar’s words rang of uncomfortable truth. But Skyrim could not fight enemies from without and from within. He had pushed her to do so for too long, as he had pushed the problem of the dragons aside in favor of the rebellion. And now these beasts were a concern that could no longer be shut out of mind and eye.

Skyrim had suffered for his greed, along with her people, but there was no going back on his decisions now.

Only forward.

If only he could close his eyes and not see death and corpses and scorched earth and rivers of tears. In his nightmares and haunting, waking memory, they dripped over his hands in burning rivulets of grief and latent accusation, as he handed over to widowed wives and broken mothers whatever small tokens soldiers were wont to carry with them to battle.

Foolish reminders of home and family and stakes that only raised higher as war raged on.

He dropped his chin to his chest and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and finger, as Galmar interrupted his moment of ridiculous self-pity.

“Be wary of your own course, Ulfric, and do not give strength to our enemies. Do not let her go.”

These words spoke to his baser desires. Oh yes, he wanted to keep her, and her responsive body, such a match to his own that he craved her even now, at simply the thought of how she felt pressed against him. Around him. He wanted to use her, and continue using her, in ways that would make Galmar’s weathered ears blush pink at the hearing of them.

Yet deeper, longer held desires called for sacrifice in the present.

He looked up and met the eyes of his old friend and confidant. “The moot will meet soon, Galmar, and we will have a true High King at long last. But keeping the Dragonborn locked in a tower, at the expense of Skyrim herself, will only serve as valid argument for the opposition’s cause. I have proven myself worthy to fight for Skyrim, and win her, and now I must show myself capable to hold her reins and guide her steps with careful hand.”

“And if your Imperial filly chooses to take bit between teeth and rally our enemies?”

Ulfric sighed. He was not looking forward to what must be done. “Then we will have to make sure any who would yet be enemy to our cause remain under hand and heel.”

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 9b/?

[(Anonymous)]

There was another reason he was eager to be rid of her, one that he would never dare confess to Galmar.

For how could he explain that her cries haunted his waking hours like the echoes of his own taunting past?

His mind flickered back to their wedding night, not so many days ago in counting. He’d not seen her since. He’d been busy with preparations and decisions and yet he could admit that some part of him was simply unable to look into her eyes and see, really see, such a well of hatred and resentment that went far beyond his role as enemy to her empire.

More fool he, to think that their union could ever have been anything other than one fraught with strife and fury and hate that burned and claimed and was blind to all else.

He’d been duped by the demands of his idiot cock, his own lust-maddened body, and the betraying response of her own yielding flesh as she moaned beneath him under the cover of dark and the pull of something that scorched even more deeply than the brands of hate.

Their coupling after their shared vows of union had been as heated as the fucking that had preceded them.

Rebellion had glittered in her eyes and stiffened her shoulders against his hands, at first. But how quickly she’d yielded to his touch, lips parting beneath probing tongue, breaths mingling as bodies prepared to do the same, limbs now warm and welcoming and soon enough her own hands had sought his flesh under the cover of clothes.

And then, neither garment nor inhibition had separated them, and not even the name of enemy could have prevented or hindered the heights of pleasure and pressure and release, this sweet escape from the damning bitter draught of life and loss.

She’d moaned his name upon finding her own bliss, and then not another sound had she uttered until sated, exhausted sleep claimed her. He’d remained at her side, awake, unwilling to leave the warmth of the bed in the wake of such union, never having been one to find easy sleep.

But before long her own seeming slumber had been brutally severed, and she’d been taken by the clutch of nightmares he knew all too well.

She’d cried out with sobs of horror and grief, garbled sounds of anguish.

Then, names, two in particular, in a repeated litany of misery.

He’d reached across the expanse of the bed to touch her arm, shake her awake from the horrors her mind brought before her. But instead of waking, she’d curled into his chest, some part of her unconscious, irrational form reaching out to the warmth at her side, seeking comfort from one not known as foe in the deep of night.

And for a brief moment her cries had silenced, until she’d lifted her head and opened her eyes, not struggling against his hold on her, yet the venom of hate had been clear enough in her voice despite the raspy, near drugged tone.

You killed them.

He’d killed many. It was the nature of war. He’d not understood her meaning, had tried to defend himself, but she’d spoken over him as if she had not heard.

My blood. My brothers. You killed them.

A sob of choked words he could barely understand as she dug her nails into the skin of his chest, her arms trapped between them, and their names fell anguished from her lips yet again, on a damning tide of accusation, and he had no further defense to put in her path.

A chill had snaked down his spine.

Had he?

His arms had tightened around her, he’d moved to speak, but then he’d noticed the fog in her eyes, a moment before her lids fluttered down and she fell silent against his chest, and he realized that she had not been fully moved from the deep of sleep.

But she had disarmed him, completely, and without mercy.

And she hadn’t even the grace to have been awake for it.

And so he’d held her, this wife who was his match in all things, who he desired with an intensity that overwhelmed him and confounded him, whose hatred he knew could not be tamed, despite the fact he had gentled her body.

He’d held her, this wife who would never be his, wrapped his arms around her lush, now yielding curves until her shivers subsided and her breathing grew deep and even and he’d buried his nose in her sweet-smelling hair until the soft, muted tones of dawn-woken creatures pulled him from the warmth of her side.

And he let her go.

Never Our Tenderness (F!/DB Imperial/Ulfric Stormcloak) – 10a/?

[(Anonymous)]

They had taken to calling her the Nightshade Queen.

Not many had seen her face in recent months, and the ones who had, those wandering tradesmen with whom she replenished much needed supplies, likely didn’t even know it.

Rarely seen, but death followed in her wake as sure as the storms came in winter, and dragons fell from the sky like the frosty snows of the mountain blizzard.

It was as if a new rhythm of the passing of hours and days, a rhythm as sure and as consistent as time itself. Dragons rose and so dragons fell, sometimes in close succession but in places that seemed too distant from each other to be easily traversed in the way of man.

So legends spread and grew and swelled in the telling.

She was the manifestation of Skyrim, a shade of the very land itself, rising up to purge this damning pestilence, so some said.

Others said that she had absorbed so many souls she had taken on the form of a dragon herself, and this is why she carefully avoided the company of man or mer.

Some had even heard tell of the rumor stemming from the College of Winterhold that she had found an Elder Scroll, that she had read it without paying the requisite price, but this was met with much scoffing and speculation and was often dismissed as mere blundering attempts by the college to re-gain lost renown.

And those who whispered throughout Skyrim of her unflinching fury and wealth of fearlessness in the face of Alduin might have been surprised to see the Dragonborn in her current moment, her perfectly human face and well-worn, well-dented armor hidden within the billowing folds of a deeply hooded cloak, as she eyed the last steps to Jorrvaskr with no small amount of trepidation.

It had been many months since she had graced this noble hall, and she was not sure of her welcome.

She had her reasons for avoiding her duties here. Shame, at first, for her loss in battle. Then perhaps confusion, regarding how to deal with her status as banished wife to a new High King. And soon enough her hunt for Alduin had allowed ample distraction and outlet for her rage and grief.

And even after she’d learned the awful, agonizing truth that there was not a dragon soul in all of Skyrim that could fill the empty ache of her lonely existence, she kept her distance.

Melancholy is an easy trap for a dovah to fall into.

Paarthurnax had been right to warn her of the dangers of keeping so far away from companionship, but she had lingered at the Throat of the World nonetheless, even after Alduin’s fall, lost in the tongue of the Dov.

The spur that finally set her path away from the mountain had come from unlikely source.

Ulfric Stormcloak.

She had not seen him since their wedding night, and although she attempted to push him from mind and thought, snippets of rumor still reached her. His status as High King, his training of new armies, his strengthening of the holds.

And even without news to remind her of him, he found ways to enter her thoughts, as if he were a part of her, as if absorbed into her being like the dragons she devoured.

Except dragons did not torment her flesh in the dark of night. They did not leave her filled with want and lust and itching such that, after her guilty musings had been pushed down by more carnal concerns, her body clenched and tightened with the quick, sweet release brought about by her own knowing fingers.

She was ashamed, that she yearned so for his touch, that her own body betrayed her. Even now, hidden in plain sight, she felt her cheeks burning at the thought of being claimed by him, pushed to her knees to be mounted and rutted and filled with the warm spurt of his seed and when had her fantasies become so brazen?

Perhaps she was going mad, perhaps she shouldn’t have isolated herself so completely. Perhaps he had been right to send her that message, which had come as no small surprise. She thought of the letter now, stuffed in her traveling bag, with his scrawling, bold script that swept across the page, letters tumbling over their lines, words battling for room and position as if each sought to reach her eye first with no concern for order and precedent.