Meme Announcements!
Oct. 29th, 2011 12:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skyrimkinkmemeANNOUNCEMENTS: 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
In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [1a/?]
Date: 2013-04-01 07:59 pm (UTC)Tags: char:OC race:Nord char:F!DB race:Breton, kink:size, kink:rough, kink:dominance?
Summary: The Dragonborn is rescued by a stranger in the woods, and is surprised to find he knows nothing of the world beyond the trees.
Hope OP likes my take on the prompt. IDK. I messed with canon a bit, and the setting is sort-of around Meeko’s shack where all the pine trees are. Only imagine the forest bigger, and thicker, and wilder ;p Skyrim is so much bigger in my imagination~
**
Only the stupid travelled through Hjaalmarch’s forest at night.
The clever built a camp with a huge roaring fire, or stuck to the main road that eventually took one to Solitude. Even then it was said that people went missing on the road, lured away by spriggans was an old wives' tale. Food for the forest. At night the dewy wood was tinselled with bewildering moonlight, and the little-trodden paths were dark and choked with thorns that hid sharp rocks and roots, waiting to tear at unsuspecting ankles. The air is full of ripping, rending howls tonight; wolfsong.
Suddenly a dark shape appears and stumbles through the trees. This far deep in the heart of the woods the air is thick with the smell of pine, dead leaves and damp fur. Sour, animal smells. The traveler is lucky to have avoided the spriggans, who guard the forest's boundaries, not it's depths. The wolfsong begins again. Not so lucky, perhaps.
Here no matter the time of day, it is always dusk beneath the boughs. The dark shape resolves itself into a short, narrow-hipped woman, her chest rising and falling with every rapid breath. Long thin gashes bleed freely from her cheeks, scratched by thorns and branches that make her think of taloned fingers. The deeper one stumbles into the wood, the harder it becomes to stick to the trail for all the thorny bushes and brambles that spring up like new shoots.
In one hand the woman grips a short steel sword, and in the other a little ball of flame flickers dimly. She has her sword, her flame, and her voice. But she is wary of using the second, surrounded by so much wood. The fire might cook the predators that stalked her, but there was the chance she would cook with them. She is wary of using her voice. Her throat feels tight and the pungent forest air simply reminds her that she is in the Wolf's element. Her voice, if she tried to use it, would probably manifest itself as the merest whisper.
It is moments like these, that Gabrielle wishes that she’d bothered to learn a decent healing spell, or how to conjure light. A Clairvoyance spell would have helped, sketchy as the practice was. There isn't time to stop and rummage through her bag for the right healing potion, or even grab a quick little pick-me-up bottle for the extra stamina. Wolves at her back. Their haunting little song, call and response.
Mind the wolves, had been a passing hunter’s advice. Mind the bloody wolves.
The hunter was making the journey south from Solitude to Markarth. He told her about the heart of the forest. Trees that grew bigger than giants like tall, brooding sentinels. He said that packs of wolves liked to pick on lone travellers. The same as wolves outside of them, he expected.
But fiercer.
A bit braver, and made desperate in winter by the slim pickings.
Not a place for a woman, the hunter’s companion had sneered. Dark and dangerous, and mind she didn't get scared! Gabrielle had tartly replied that dark and dangerous was just how she liked things and could not find it in her to be scared.
In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [1b/?]
Date: 2013-04-01 08:04 pm (UTC)Big words from a little woman, the hunter commented not unkindly. Then, he added, Good luck. Mind the wolves.
Mind the wolves. Mind the bloody wolves!
He should have warned her to mind the thorns, the roots and rocks that hide beneath the undergrowth. You might say the roots and wolves were in cohorts, for many a traveller has met their end at a wolf's mouth after tripping on one.
Gabrielle trips now.
Her boots skid as she finds herself tumbling down a steep slope. Her pack slips from her shoulders. Oh, now the wolves are so close that she hears pants and snarls! She feels hot breath on her hand and reels away.
Her head collides with a tree-root. A blossom of pain in her skull.
Can't die, she thinks. Dragonborn.
Blackness.
***
Bloody word-count. Sorry to leave it so dramatically. Just a prologue really. Quite obviously of course, Gabrielle is going to be fine. I'll post the next bit soon, but OP you must understand: Game of Thrones tonight!
OP is going to explode
Date: 2013-04-02 01:56 am (UTC)You... you A!A, are perfection. and this story? PERFECTION. OMFG you captured the feeling of this prompt so exceptionally that I actually had to pause after every other paragraph and squeal in excitement.
You have such beautiful writing and even with how early on this story is, I can already feel the atmosphere, and I love it. Gorgeous, everything about this is gorgeous!
(and omg Game of Thrones calls for the pardon of all pardons, I have to catch up on it myself!)
Re: In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [1b/?]
Date: 2013-04-02 02:15 am (UTC)Please T.T
In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [2/?]
Date: 2013-04-02 11:34 pm (UTC)It might be a bed of leaves for all she knows. After all, the air is still thick with the sweet-sour smell of the forest, but Gabrielle is too warm to panic. In the back of her mind she is dimly aware of a dream that might not have been a dream after all. Little fragments of it drift back to her: being led astray from the path by strange glowing lights, becoming lost amongst the pines... then her flight from the wolves.
She tenses. She knows these broken sensations are a memory, not a dream. The forest smells that engulf her, of pine, of earth, of fresh air, tell her it was real. Now she remembers dreaming the memory several times; yet not how long she'd slept.
Wait. Slept. Sleeping. Sleeping means breathing. And breathing means living! She is alive! A glorious grin. Not in the belly of several wolves, or whatever scavenging creatures that might have found her remains after her rending! Her body hurts, but not enough to cause alarm, for pain means life!
Happily, Gabrielle pulls her eyes open and forces herself through waking dreams. Everything is so warm and cozy... It is impossible to reconcile this place with her forest nightmares. Above her creaks a ceiling made of ancient wood, black with soot and age. The slats are so old that vines and twisted branches creep through the cracks, decorated with dark thorns and tiny shining flowers. Diamonds made of delicate white petals. Another smile. How beautiful.
She lowers her gaze and notices her pale, naked collarbones disappearing beneath a thick cover of furs. The cover is made of bearskins haphazardly stitched together. Shoddy work-- but it is clean and unbelievably warm and she is grateful for it.
Her hands are beneath the covers also, and she flexes fingers one by one. The simple exercise has her grinning from ear to ear, and gives almost as much relief as the realisation of breathing. Alive, alive, alive! Both hands intact!
Gabrielle turns her gaze from where her fingers wiggle beneath the animal pelts to gaze about the room, awake and full of curiosity. Quite obviously, someone has rescued her and she intends to thank them, reward them, and be on her way as soon as possible.
The room is empty, yet something breathes.
There. Look. Almost invisible in a dark shaded corner of the cabin...
The fire reflects wild beautiful eyes, at once foreign and familiar. They are dark amber, ringed with predatory gold. Suddenly, her mind conjures up that almost-forgotten feeling, of stumbling blindly through the dew-dropped woods. The terrible song of the predators at her back.
The wolf's muzzle twitches.
A beaded string of drool hangs from its chin and shines for a second in the fire before it splatters quietly on the floor.
Gabrielle cannot help it. She forgets her pride and her peace, and screams.
**
“Don't scream!” someone orders from an unseen place. Who? Gabrielle is just about to summon another breath for a shout. Something to burn the wolf to a blackened crisp!
...Yol...
The voice breaks her concentration, but it distracts the predator also. It dawns on Gabrielle that the voice probably belongs to her rescuer. How pathetic that she is rescued twice in a row! The slayer of dragons does not need a rescuer.
“Kyne! To me,” the voice snaps. It is a dark, gruff voice. The kind that makes soldiers snap to attention.
The she-wolf, Kyne, regards Gabrielle with thinly-veiled disdain. Hesitantly she backs down and lopes away from the fireplace towards the voice. Her thick black fur gleams like fresh tar. This is no dull-furred scavenger, but a queen of beasts.
Gabrielle doesn't let her eyes leave the beast and follows its path towards the gruff voice. A figure towers in the doorway, their features obscured by flickering shadows. Gabrielle cranes her neck to look at him. The stranger backs away.
She can tell from his silhouette only that he is giant, male... and peculiarly tense. So tense that she visibly notices it. As if he is about to bolt from the doorway with his wolf, and take to his heels for the trees.
In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [2b/?]
Date: 2013-04-02 11:36 pm (UTC)Something is very odd about the picture the shadow and his wolf present. Something not very right.
“Kyne was keeping watch,” the voice rumbles. At her name, Kyne's ears prick upwards. The shadow's tone is clipped and very curt, as if it objects to an injured woman disturbing a wild beast. “No cause to make her panic,” it scolds.
“ Her panic?” Gabrielle attempts to sit up, but it's hard to keep herself covered at the same time. The shadow step further backwards, but she catches the quickest glimpse of his face. A flash of a frown and sun-kissed skin. A long, solemn face.
Entirely awake and acutely aware of her bare chest and the coarse rasp of bandages on her skin, Gabrielle almost feels cornered. “She tried to eat me! She chased me a mile through the trees!”
Understatement? Exaggeration? Gabrielle isn’t sure.
“The wolves don't like strangers in their territory,” the man says, his voice becoming lower, and warier.
Gabrielle watches his shadow shift its weight from foot to foot, the same way an embarrassed child might. She struggles to think of a weirder way to find the morning than to be confronted by a wolf and the shadow of its owner.
Why does this man hide? Does he know her face? Is he afraid of her? Has he done something to earn the wrath of the Dragonborn?
“What were you doing in the forest?” asks the shadow.
Gabrielle tries to sit up again. She removes an arm from the covers so that she can clasp them to her chest. She doesn't feel too embarrassed at the thought of her armour being removed. Growing up in a big family, had given her little modesty. Especially not when the tight bandages wrapped around her ribs tell her that her nakedness was necessary.
Of course, it doesn't mean that she doesn't feel the need for modesty now.
Pain.
Sudden pain, complete with the sickening, almost crunchy sound of bone scraping against bone. Gabrielle jerks back with a hiss of surprise. She sucks in a sharp lungful of air through her teeth, and her lips pull back in a snarl.
So much pain that she has no time to react to the spooked wolf in the corner that snarls back. The figure hovers even further away from the doorway now, entirely obscured. Agony. Fire licks at her ribs.
“Stop!” she growls, and breathes shallow. “Stop standing in the shadows like a frightened little boy and help me!”
The savage wolf already stalks towards her, its hackles raised. It pulls its upper lip back to reveal wet, yellow teeth. The figure lingers in the doorway for a moment longer and then rushes to her side.
His long legs closes the gap between them quickly, so quick that she barely registers his long, solemn face or the faint, embarrassed red of his cheeks. Suddenly a cup insinuates itself into her trembling hands. The man leans forwards. The pillows behind her back shift and to ease the pressure on her ribs.
Broken. How did her ribs break?
“Drink it,” his deep voice urges her kindly.
And yet, Gabrielle can't help but take offense to the way he pulls back quickly and goes to stand by the fireplace. When Kyne's head comes up by her elbow, savage teeth on display, he whistles sharply and calls her to his feet.
Gabrielle drinks deeply. She tastes spices that sear her throat, coupled with the almost sickly taste of honey. It tastes to her, almost the same way the woods smell-- fresh and sweet with a strange sour undertone. Sweet yet bitter, like blood and strawberries. The aftertaste is thick, fiery and strongly alcoholic. It goes shooting through her veins like molten lava, as if it tries to burn the pain from her body.
It's delicious.
“What is this?” She croaks. The 'medicine' certainly packs a punch! She gulps down more, until the pain subsides to a dull ache. Still she doesn't doubt that it would flare up again if she moves too much.
“What were you doing in the forest?” the man repeats. Oh so very gruff. If a bears could speak, they'd have his voice.
Re: In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [2b/?]
Date: 2013-04-02 11:46 pm (UTC)Oh so very gruff. If a bears could speak, they'd have his voice Hitting ALL my voice and size kinks with that sentence right there.
*sets up camp*
Re: In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [2b/?]
Date: 2013-04-02 11:52 pm (UTC)thank you for the comment! I rather like that sentence :3
In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [2c/?]
Date: 2013-04-02 11:40 pm (UTC)Her rescuer, she hopes. She isn't entirely sure when that fierce black wolf sits by his side. That thing watched her whilst she slept? Its eyes are never still, and always return to her.
Hungry.
She shudders and returns to looking at the man.
It is no surprise to see how wild a figure, the man cuts. Big, even for a Nord, he dominates the room. She stifles a laugh imagining him trying to fit through any doorway without his broad shoulders being a problem.
A flat, broken nose lends him an oddly leonine appearance, especially when coupled with the tangled mane of sun-bleached hair he sports. Scars on his arms, scars on his knuckles. Gabrielle can't tell how many years the Nord has on him. This is not an old man, nor a young one.
It's as if living out his days in the woods has granted this man a degree of agelessness. Gabrielle faintly remembers old tales of forest fae that guard sacred trees and keep them safe.
“Nothing bad,” the man breaks the moment… averts his gaze from her curious eyes. “Nothing good neither.”
Gabrielle opens mouth to reply. She wants to ask his name, give hers, or even ask about the wolf, but the strange Nord bolts from the room. Kyne, terrifying little beast, follows at her masters heels.
Gabrielle closes her mouth again, perplexed.
The fire crackles its amusement.
**
Thank you OP and reader!non for the lovely comments! Warmed the cockles of my heart. I was going to switch the tense, but I ended up changing it back to present... sorry if you spot any grammatical errors in that sense. Hope you all enjoy this. I have fun writing it :')
Re: In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [2c/?]
Date: 2013-04-03 12:29 am (UTC)OP would like to add that she too has a voice and size kink, not to mention a bit of an age kink 'This is not an old man, nor a young one' PERFECT. I am eating this story up, my GOD, I am going nuts over updates. WEEE!!
Re: In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [2c/?]
Date: 2013-04-03 01:12 am (UTC)Re: In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [2c/?]
Date: 2013-04-03 03:40 am (UTC)(Also, he has a pet wolf named Kyne. AWESOME.)
In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [3/?]
Date: 2013-04-05 06:05 am (UTC)“That was...”
That was... what? What was that? Different. Weird. Peculiar.
How should she react to that? What did she do with herself now? There isn't much she can do. It's clear to Gabrielle, that she will be bedridden for a while. Until her ribs heal. Or sooner, if her “hero” got so scared that he chucked her out on her arse and locked all his doors and windows. In any case, there's no moving about until her bones heal. Now Gabrielle is awake and in full control of her mind, she thinks she might also feel a certain in her feet, dulled by the medicine.
Gods, that man. Keeping her at arms length as if she was some sort of leper. How rude! But why? Did all anti-social woodsman avoid women like the plague? Gabrielle huffs in frustration, and lets her hands fall to her lap. Her curiosity is heightened by the sense of uselessness she feels bundled up in a bed. She feels a certain threat from the man, too.
Where are her things? Her sword! Her clothes! Shouldn't she be the one terrified and not vice versa? Being that she awoke without her top, her weapons, or any sense of where she was, and he... Well he knew who was in his home, in his bed, for surely he had put her there?
Gabrielle wondered if she should fear him, but couldn't find it in herself to be wary of the man-- the grown man-- who had all but cowered in her presence.
“I know I'm good,” she speaks aloud to the room again. Hearing her voice lends her a certain degree of comfort. “But I'm not that good.”
Not even by reputation. Often Gabrielle finds herself ripping through quite a few enemies before they gain some sense and start running. It is the curse of being a Breton, she supposes. No one in her clan ever grew tall, even her brothers. She supposes it is why she likes being the Dragonborn so much. It makes her a short, lippy firebrand like the heroines of old war-tales. Since she was a girl Gabrielle had possessed an unnatural strength. This, coupled with a flighty, dominating temper had seen that she got her way more often than any of her sisters. Gabrielle fondly remembers tantruming her way into being allowed to train with the sword like her brothers.
Finding out that she was the Dragonborn had been a momentous occasion for Gabrielle. Proud little thing that she is, she remembers thinking how right, how natural the proclamation had felt; her frustration at being made to jump hoops by the Greybeards when she had already been so sure of what she was. Gabrielle had always been of the firm, if very arrogant belief, that she was different to most people all her life. The word Dragonborn, was just another term for being very different to the rest of her kin.
Yes, a little voice in her head pipes up. The sort of snide, doubting voice that creeps up on anyone when they are left alone and idle. Different to your kin, indeed. All your sisters and brothers are married and wealthy, back home in High Rock. Meanwhile you slog about in the snow, getting dirty and killing dragons. You seem quite determined to make Dragonborn synonymous with 'old' and 'alone', cherie. Ah, Gabrielle knows that voice. It sounds like a mixture of her sadder thoughts and the waspish tones of a mother. She knows better than to listen to it. The Dragonborn has no regrets.
Gods. Ten minutes passed only, since the Nord had bolted the room. How did one with broken ribs not die of boredom? Could this wild huntsman keep a book or two beneath his bed? What a ridiculous speculation. Not that she can check with her ribs in this condition. Gabrielle casts her eyes about the room and hopes, with dry amusement, that she isn't surprised by another wolf.
Who on Nirn thinks to keep a savage beast as a pet? It is a wonder that her strange rescuer hasn't been eaten during one cold, starving winter. Good thing he hadn't been, or she might never have woken up in this warm little cottage in the woods.
Re: In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [3b/?]
Date: 2013-04-05 06:06 am (UTC)The wilder part of her imagination contemplates the odds of the bones belonging to the last girl who broke her ribs in the woods. That part of her has never truly grown up, and still stomps about her childhood with a little wooden sword held aloft.
Gruesome images come easily with a warm imagination. Perhaps it is time to stop counting things. Gabriell would have stopped soon anyway. The cottage is equipped with the most rudimentary tools for survival. The last thing she counts is a rack of knives and tools, probably used for skinning animals and other sorts of survival tricks. She realises now, how poorly equipped she had been for a whimsical jaunt through these giant woods. Turns her mind to lighter speculations.
She starts making lists instead, and tries to stave off the fact that she is going to get very bored very quickly in this place. Still. Words to describe her rescuer she lists as follows: Ranger, forester, woodsman and hunter. She contemplates whether or not savage or barbarian count, and reasons that the latter two would probably have killed her, not rescued. With that done, she lists terms for boredom: ennui... one. Inertia... two. Let's see--
Oh! Look! A crack in the wall. It might sound boring but the walls are made of the same warped wood of the ceiling. No pearly vines creep through this crack, placed fatefully at the level of Gabrielle's curious eyes. Instead, a ray of dim sunlight-- remember it is always dusk in the heart of the woods-- and that dewy-wood smell seeps through.
Is this a chance to see what is happening outside her little sickbed, perhaps? Or glimpse her mysterious woodsman? Gabrielle expects she will see very little... but it might be nice to watch the woods outside for a while. Despite travelling the length and breadth of Skyrim, she often didn't stop long enough to admire the scenery, always in a rush to get somewhere else. So, she wiggles her finger through the little hole and checks it for splinters. She widens it with her nails so that the flimsy thread of light becomes a tiny pool of sun collected in her lap. It takes a little bit of painful shuffling, but then she is close enough to the wall to spy and sit in comfort.
And now, she is rewarded. The new spyhole looks out into what appears to be a garden. She looks down to see that rows of leeks and cabbages frown in front of her wall. Two shaggy goats nose their way across the forest floor, looking for tough roots and fallen leaves. A little fence of woven branches separates them from making short work of the vegetable patch. Gabrielle notices that the she-wolf, Kyne, lounges indolently by their makeshift paddock. Her yellow eyes swing between greedily watching the goats and throwing quick glances at her surroundings. Gabrielle thinks that the wolf looks at the goats, much in the same way it looks at her.
Just as Gabrielle finds herself feeling bizarrely worried for the goats, she hears a sharp whistle. She smiles as Kyne snaps her jaw in irritation, growls once, and stalks away. Her black fur like the wing of a raven in the sun turns a dusty grey in the shade. It is always dusk in the woods, but for the little tears in the forest canopy where a few rays burst through.
“I'm used to your tricks,” Gabrielle tenses in excitement. She recognises the low, amused voice of the woodsman. “So sulk all you want, wolf.”
In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [3c/?]
Date: 2013-04-05 06:10 am (UTC)The Nord wears the almost uniform armour of all those who live off the land. Hide and leather. Good for moving quickly, but useless in a real fight, Gabrielle thinks. Her woodsman rolls his shoulders back and forth, stretching. Shamelessly, Gabrielle takes a moment to contemplate the way the powerful muscles of his back ripple with each motion. It's either that, or stare at goats, she reasons. You tell me which option is weirder.
The Nord moves again, stopping from place to place, as if looking for something. He leans over the side of the goats enclosure, and Gabrielle glimpses his amused smile when the creatures nip at his arms, looking for food. The sight feels rare to her, though she can't explain why, nor why she finds her own amusement at the sight of it. As he passes beneath a shaft of sunlight that splits the shadow, her eyes find something else. Stark white against the huntsman's skin is a set of teeth-marks, vicious but old. Healed long ago. A distinctly canine bite, she thinks. Perhaps he had not always gotten along with his little pet. Instinctively, Gabrielle searches the new clearing for the wolf. She spots it rubbing its muzzle against a tree on the other side of the garden. Strange little creature.
But there is no time to contemplate the behaviour of the wolf. When Gabrielle looks up, the huntsman has disappeared again.
Behind her, the door rattles.
Gabrielle tears herself away from her new spy-hole just in time. She feels unpleasantly hot at the thought of the Nord, already so skittish around her, catching her with her eye pressed to a crack in the wall like a shady little spy. Even if her intention is only harmless curiosity.
She snorts in amusement when she looks down and realises that her blankets have fallen about her waist, and pulls them up moments before her rescuer re-enters his cottage. As if he wasn't already nervous enough! Still, Gabrielle wickedly wonders if she should flash the skittish woodsman a bit of skin and see if he really would spins on his heel and rush outside again. Only half an hour or so previous, he could barely look in the eye! Maybe he saw something he liked whilst bandaging her ribs? Gabrielle doesn't imagine he sees many women taking leisurely strolls through the trees.
She forces her smirk into something more contrite and grateful-looking upon noticing the returned's suspicious expression. They watch each other for a few, long moments. Awkward silence ensues.
“Forgot my axe.” he says. He uses his bear-voice again. It had been much softer when Gabrielle had spied him talking to the wolf. Gabrielle finds she likes it, however. She might like it even more if the man spoke a friendly sentence or two. Or if he could at least explain his stand-offish behaviour.
“And your manners it seems,” she retorts sweetly. Never has Gabrielle met a man who acts so strangely; and yet he blushes each time she speaks. She tries feeling sympathy for him. He seems uncomfortable enough as it is and probably lived in the woods because he didn't like company; not for want of it. She reminds herself that the man could have left her to be eaten by his little pet. She tries to smile again. With all his scowls, it is difficult. First impressions, so the saying goes.
“I have manners,” is the—oh irony— rude and clipped reply.
“You ran away,” she has to remind him, and delights in the way he cringes at the statement. He rubs his beard with the back of his hand and shrugs in reply, as if he has no words to explain himself with. “And without even introducing yourself!”
“Fenrir. Have you seen my axe?” Manners indeed! Bandits have better manners than him! Or maybe it is simply Gabrielle's Breton snobbery making a show. Someone's ma had done a very poor job of teaching their child basic human interaction.
In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [3d/?]
Date: 2013-04-05 06:13 am (UTC)It makes Fenrir scowl, but he approaches all the same, as hesitantly as he has reacted to everything else. It is like she's an, injured animal, cornered yet waiting to lash out at whatever is closest. For a few moments, Fenrir speculates her gesture... she watches his blue eyes travel the length of her forearm and how his brow furrows in confusion. Gabrielle wiggles her hand and raises a dark eyebrow. Their gaze meets. Pale blue eyes. That blush reappears.
Gingerly, he stretches his hand out and gently lays it against hers. The callouses of his fingers are so rough and coarse, she hears the rub of his skin on hers as an audible rasp. And then their eyes meet again, as Fenrir dumbly presses his warm hand against hers; as if he doesn't know what happens next. Gabrielle does the rest, fervently hoping her own embarrassed blush isn't quite so embarrassed. But the heat in her cheeks only intensifies at Fenrir fixes her with a weird frown and asks in his deep, guttural voice, “What are you doing?”
His grip is very stiff, almost vice-like. A few shades from becoming painful.
Gabrielle flounders. What does he mean, what is she doing? “I'm introducing myself,” she mocks him, in disbelief. She wonders if he plays dumb for some sinister purpose, but his expression is almost painfully open and clear. She isn't used to people looking at her so honestly. “Mara's mercy. Are you simple?”
“No,” he growls back. Neither of them realise how they have yet to let go of each other. “Simpletons go haring through the woods at night, not watching where they step.”
Ouch. Okay, Gabrielle stops her lips from quirking up at his lighting-quick riposte. Definitely not simple, then... but who on Nirn didn't know what a handshake was? Who hadn't heard that old adage: Never shake hands with a Daedra?
Fenrir the Savage, obviously.
“This is how people introduce themselves,” Gabrille says, pumping their hands up and down to demonstrate. It is a hard example to continue, when Fenrir doesn't reciprocate the action. Instead, he fixes her with a cool, blank stare. She stutters out the rest of her example. “You say your name... you shake each others hands.” More staring. “Mara's mercy! What? Been living all your life in these woods, Nord?”
His reply is simple, confused, and shocking. “Yes. What of it?”
“And you've never introduced yourself. To anyone. In all of that time?” She jokes. Surely, he jests.
He looks away. If Gabrielle had listened harder she might have detected hurt in his voice. “You are not the first traveler to pass through my.... these woods.”
“I thought you said it was wolf territory.”
“...we share it. I've known all the wolves here since they were pups.”
“You're pulling my leg, aren't you huntsman.” In this day and age? Even in Skyrim? Someone completely out of contact with the world didn't exist. Even the Greybeards in their monastery knew of some events that passed outside their lives, and received visitors to drop off their supplies. Was this man trying to tell her, that he had lived his entire life in this forest? Self-sufficient? With nary a traveler passing through, and only wolves for company? “Is this the sort of joke lonely men play, out in the woods?”
“Is pulling a leg another kind of greeting? It seems even stupider than your handshakes,” the man's scowl deepens. Gabrielle is suddenly aware of how loud their voices have become. Her ribs ache.
“I know enough of the world, outsider, to know that I'd prefer it here... Now tell me your name. I wish to let go of your hand.”
Re: In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [3d/?]
Date: 2013-04-05 06:27 am (UTC)meant to be, " Gabrielle does the rest, fervently hoping her own embarrassed blush isn't quite so obvious as his."
Spazzy of me :p Tired today.
Re: In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [3e/?]
Date: 2013-04-05 06:16 am (UTC)“You're pulling my leg,” she repeats. She is faintly aware of how hot and clammy their hands are becoming, and wonders if she might retrieve her hand and find it bruised from his grip.
“If I pull your leg, could I unintroduce myself?”
“To pull someone's leg means to lie, or tease. You know. A joke.”
“I'm not joking,” gruff, always so gruff! The man was in a permanent grump, or so it seems to Gabrielle. She starts to feel queer inside holding a stranger's hand for so long, and wants to introduce herself. Her mouth runs off without her mind however, and before she can stop herself she teases him again.
“You're lucky this isn't High Rock. I would've expected you to bow and scrape and kiss my hand,” more of that blushing, and growling and sneering. “That is, if you know what kissing is, dear hermit.”
“I know what kissing is,” his grip tightens. Oh, his cheeks are as dark as anything now! Gabrielle feels almost gleeful at getting one-up on him. She doesn't know why, but talking to this man brings something of a bully out in her. Perhaps it is because he is so large and skittish, and her so tiny.
“Good!” she simpers. “It'd be very sad at your age, if you didn't. Hadn't.” Then she adds, slyly, for she cannot resist. “Have you, dear hermit?”
“Tell me your name,” he seethes at her. There is real heat to his voice, as if he cannot bare to be mocked anymore. His voice is a low rumble. Suddenly, Gabrille feels it is very plausible that this wild man might have grown up amongst the wolves and wild animals. Outside, Kyne must have heard their raised voices. Else some other animal whines and scrabbles at the door with its claws.
“Gabrielle,” she says, proud of her even voice. One didn't show fear to wild animals, or they strike, so people say. Gabrielle remembers how her father had always said: its probably more frightened of you, than you are of it. She wasn't sure which one to apply here.
“What do we do now?” asks Fenrir. His grip finally begins to loosen, and Gabrielle only now becomes aware of how fiercely they had held each other's hands. If there are slight marks on her hand, they are even darker on his.
“We say well-met.... Well-met.”
“...well-met.”
“Your axe is under the table... and in case you don't know, the proper reply is 'thank you'.”
“I know.” Fenrir takes several paces away from her. Glares at her for a few moments, before snatching up his axe. “I'm not simple, outsider.”
Funny how they stuck to their barbed nicknames, even after their introduction. “I was pulling your leg, hermit.”
“Unless you need more medicine now, I will return later,” he replies. Gabrielle is impressed by how cool and disinterested he makes himself appear. She thinks he might be just as curious of her, as she is of him. If she told him of life outside this forest, would he tell her of life inside it?
As earlier, before she can speak again he has left. It makes sense this time, Gabrielle supposes, settling herself back onto the bed. Throughout their argument she had found herself inching closer and closer to him. Or perhaps, Fenrir had been backing away. She couldn't tell, thanks to their ridiculous handshake...
Through the hole in the wall Gabrielle hears Kyne bark at the sight of her master.
We share the woods...
Her ribs hurt.
Gabrielle becomes aware of how tense she is; exhales softly.
Re: In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [3e/?]
Date: 2013-04-05 06:11 pm (UTC)And
"Mara's mercy!...are you simple?"
God, Gabrielle. She's such a snobby Breton, it's brilliant. They're dialogue is absolutely hilarious. I love the term 'my dear hermit.'
Even MORE curious about Fenrir. How did he come to be living in the woods? And all those questions ;) Liked their handshake. Tension. ;)
Re: In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [3e/?]
Date: 2013-04-05 06:11 pm (UTC)I love this story. Poor Fenrir. Gabrielle is a bit of a bully, isn't she? I can't help but like her, though. :)
Re: In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [3e/?]
Date: 2013-04-05 07:21 pm (UTC)OH my FREAKING god, Gabrielle is such a brat and a bully and I looovvveee ittttt! And wow-ee wow-ee, Fenrir already has a fangirl in the form of this gal, and she's rarin' and ready for his angsty lovin'.
I was so happy and giddy when I saw this update, A!A, in all seriousness. You are so talented.
P.S. For a second there my impish mind imagined that Gabrielle would see Fenrir stripping to sweatily and sexily chopping wood, whilst being mysterious and brooding of course.
Re: In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [3e/?]
Date: 2013-04-06 03:34 pm (UTC)I'm a now a Fenrir fangirl<3
Can't wait for the next update! :D
Re: In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [3e/?]
Date: 2013-04-10 07:10 pm (UTC)And your writing style is so beautiful wow I'm jealous.
Please continue.
Re: In the Company of Wolves F!DB/M!Nord [3e/?]
Date: 2013-05-03 01:22 am (UTC)