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skyrimkinkmemeANNOUNCEMENTS: UPDATED 12/16/2017
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"Divide and Conquer" Ulfric Stormcloak/M!DB, 6b/??
Date: 2013-08-28 04:59 pm (UTC)Let Ulfric clean up his own damned mess.
In the way that all youths are, Audric was quick and sure in his presumptions, and he had presumed to know the nature of Skyrim’s civil war. He was an educated young man, was aware of the complications of natural resources and political economics and religious conflicts. At a glance, he’d thought he’d untangled the riddle of what drove Ulfric’s rebellion. And all in all, he couldn’t say he disagreed; Justiciars being allowed to come into homes in the night, to arrest families and torture people to death, in the Empire’s own prisons, no less...it certainly left a sour taste in his mouth.
He had to return to Riften. If not to settle the matter of Ulfric, then to locate this Esbern fellow. He’d told Delphine he would work quickly; then again, he’d told Ulfric he’d be back in a matter of days. It had been over a week since he’d departed.
Inhaling an impressive breath, he dove under, submerging himself in the dark and quiet.
Ralof was at the fire when he returned, the small house filled with the smell of a smoky broth. Audric deposited himself in a chair at the small kitchen table, dripping all over the place. He couldn’t remember when, exactly, Ralof had relocated to this isolated shack in the woods, but much as he appreciated Gerdur and Hod (not to mention their illimitable hospitality), Audric preferred the privacy.
“So, when do you think you’ll be able to revisit civilization?” he teased. He sniffed the air, gorging himself on the rich aroma of wood smoke and dinner.
“Ha, give it a year, or two.”
“Probably after they recapture Ulfric,” he stated evenly. He didn’t actually intend to give the man up, but he’d surrendered to curiosity, and now he was angry. “I’m sure things will calm down considerably.”
Ralof sighed, his shoulders sagging under some invisible weight, and Audric resented his own childish grudge for burdening an already tired man. “I’d rather wait out my days in the wilderness than see Jarl Ulfric meet the headsman’s axe, friend.”
“Well,” Audric paused, turning an empty tankard over in his hands, “at least you wouldn’t actually have to see it.” He didn’t need to look up; he could practically feel Ralof’s frown. “But really, you could just change your name, maybe retire to Falkreath.”
“A false hope, but I would change it to something braver,” he mused, filling Audric’s mug with water.
“Oh, I don’t know.” He gazed upward, locked eyes with his friend. “I like ‘Ralof’ all right.”
Ralof chewed back a grin, twisting it into submission. “You’ve made that clear.”
“I could enunciate my point, after dinner.” It was a half-offer though, sincere as it was. Audric was exhausted and preoccupied and acutely aware of just how badly he needed to wash his mouth out, for his own sake before anyone else’s.
“Not this time,” he smiled, “but perhaps the next.”
Audric pouted. “A dragon could make lunch out of me before next we meet, for all you know.”
“I doubt that,” he frowned. “Besides, you seem distracted.”
“I wasn’t joking about the Thalmor. It was closer than I’ve ever wanted to get, but necessity dictated a visit to the Embassy.”
Ralof turned sharply, scrutinizing him. Eventually, he regarded Audric dubiously and said, “Well you made it out alive. The question then is how did you make it in? And what necessity could drive you into that pit?”
“How I got in was through sheer charm and good looks,” he offered.
“Sheer dumb luck, more like,” Ralof pinched his cheek condescendingly.
Audric pushed him away. “At any rate, my business there is my own.”
"Divide and Conquer" Ulfric Stormcloak/M!DB, 6c/??
Date: 2013-08-28 05:02 pm (UTC)“Curiosity killed the cat, you know.”
“It isn’t curiosity,” he growled, “but concern.”
The fire snapped angrily in the grate, and the blaze of popping embers flashed, reflected in their eyes. When Audric refused to comply, Ralof stood and walked away. For a moment, Audric wondered if he would be dismissed.
“You needn’t be concerned about me, friend,” he offered tenderly. “It’s a delicate matter, is all.”
Ralof afforded a glance over his shoulder and said, “You’ve entrusted me with matters more delicate, before.”
No, I haven’t, Audric thought. The legs of the chair – carved haphazardly, in a hurry – scraped unevenly against the woodgrain, making an awful noise. Getting to his feet, he found his clothes and pulled them on, in such a state that he didn’t notice his shirt was backwards. He was already arranging his armor when Ralof came to him, clutching his forearm in a grip that gave him fright.
“Don’t go.”
Apologize, Audric willed, silently, turning a savage gaze unto his good friend. Ralof released his arm as though wounded; fear looked foreign, carved into his ordinarily resolute features.
“I forget, sometimes,” he murmured, “you’re not all human.”
So used to Ulfric’s nescient digs at his race, Audric nearly spat some superbly choice curse words before he realized that it wasn’t his lineage being referenced, but his blood, directly. He actually smiled. “I’m not all dragon, either,” he assured.
Gingerly resting his hand on Audric’s shoulder, looking upon him from several inches’ height difference, he smirked, “Obviously.”
Casting his gaze out to the night beyond the windows, Audric sighed. “I ought to be going before the night is out.”
Nodding, Ralof steered him back to the table, pulled out a bottle of ale to be shared between them. “Perhaps just one tale then – my own, as you aren’t in the spirit, this evening.” Sitting across from Audric, he offered all he had in the way of an olive branch. “Take your pick, hm?”
Audric studied Ralof’s face, searching for new lines, more or less color, since their long ride together on that cart. He thought of Ralof’s outlook on fate that day, how he was prepared to meet the Divines, how he would stand for Ulfric before his own life.
And here, Audric decided, was an opportunity that might never rear its head again.
“Tell me,” he pulled from the bottle, “about Ulfric Stormcloak.”
"Divide and Conquer" Ulfric Stormcloak/M!DB, 6d/??
Date: 2013-08-28 05:09 pm (UTC)Still, he had so many questions, and no way to get answers.
At Riften’s south gate, he dismounted and shooed the horse on its way. It was a good, sturdy animal, but Audric had no business keeping it. He imagined it wouldn’t be long before Shadr found it, anyway.
The streets were empty, but for a few guards. He was tired and bitter, and wanted to make time stop, for just a while. He turned before the meadery and slipped out onto the docks. Naturally, it wasn’t long before disruption found him.
“So, how long has it been, this time?”
Audric flopped onto his back to look up at the shadowy figure of Brynjolf. “I don’t know.”
“Me neither.” He got to his knees and shifted until he could sit comfortably beside his guildmaster. “But I managed to get into trouble while you were away,” Brynjolf declared with a grin, as if bragging.
“Lady-trouble, I presume?” Audric asked. Usually, he was eager to be regaled with Brynjolf’s many and varied escapades – and also to exchange some of his own. But it was the end of a hard journey, punctuated with harder truths, and Audric felt as though his bones had grown dense with all the responsibilities he’d worked so hard to shirk.
“Of a sort.”
“Mm. And I suppose you’re just bursting to detail the particulars. I’m curious: was her enthusiasm while you fucked directly proportional to how hard she slapped you upon discovering that you’re an unrepentant cad?”
Silence descended over them. “Is that a hint of jealousy I detect, or is it just the road getting the better of you?” Beneath his nonchalance, there was a waver, an ounce of disquiet.
“Neither.”
“Well good. For the record, I was referring to Maven; a slap would’ve been welcome, instead of the chewing I got for covering your hide.” Brynjolf’s lips against his hair shocked him. “Please, finish up this ancillary business of yours. Etienne told me about your little tour of the Thalmor Embassy.”
Audric’s blood went cold.
“And now the Ratway is crawling with agents – looking for you, I suspect. And Maven tells me the Embassador was fuming, that her office had been sacked, and with no less than at least ten casualties strewn about the premises.”
Audric searched for something to say, but the well was dry. He didn’t know what he ought to apologize for, didn’t know how to explain himself.
“Bellamy, what have you done?”
He hadn’t told Brynjolf about his...birthright, for lack of a better word. He’d eschewed his identity as Dragonborn from the beginning, accepting it only once it became inevitable, and upon meeting this lovely, captivating man, he’d gone to great lengths to keep it to himself. Not that it was usually terribly difficult, in a country that expected the title for one of its own. But the dragons – Alduin, ultimately – were becoming more numerous, more insistent, attacking closer and closer to city walls. And though he was as qualified a secret keeper as he was a thief, some secrets were simply too big.
"Divide and Conquer" Ulfric Stormcloak/M!DB, 6e/??
Date: 2013-08-28 05:14 pm (UTC)Brynjolf frowned. “I hope the gold was worth your pound of flesh.”
“They were Thalmor.”
“It’s that sort of thinking that sired the war.”
“And that is a gross oversimplification.”
For a moment, it looked almost as if Brynjolf might hit him in the face, or just walk away entirely. But his jaw eased and the tension melted out of his shoulders and his eyes fell fondly to Audric’s own. “Just once, can’t you put some faith in my wisdom?” he was joking, of course.
“You’re old, Bryn, not wise,” Audric smacked his arm. “Besides, I don’t put faith in much.”
“Mm.”
The two of them sat side by side, leaning into one another, Audric’s head on Brynjolf’s shoulder as they gazed out at the darkened windows of Goldenglow. The property looked stark and abandoned without its old patrol.
“I don’t want you doing these outside jobs,” Brynjolf murmured. “Look where that got Etienne.”
“Every time you try to tell me what to do, I want you to remember that I wanted to turn down the position of Guildmaster”
“I’m not asking as your right hand, lad, I’m asking as your friend.”
Audric sighed. “I can’t heed that request. The work I’m doing is important – though, I often wish it wasn’t my burden.”
Pulling back, Brynjolf gazed at Audric a while, his expression inscrutable. “You called it your burden. I don’t know Audric Bellamy to suffer anyone’s burdens, including his own. What is this wearisome errand you’re carrying out?”
I’m purging the world of an ancient and terrible race, he thought sullenly. I’m fulfilling a destiny I don’t entirely acknowledge.
“You won’t tell me,” Brynjolf smiled grimly. “Fine, keep your secrets, and I’ll keep mine.”
It was hard to imagine that Brynjolf had many secrets.
At long last, he pulled Audric against him, kissed him on the temple and whispered in his ear, “Master Bellamy, might I call upon you this evening in your home, or are you still entertaining your fugitive guest?”
Audric whined, wrapping his arms around Brynjolf’s waist. “Please, take me here on the landing, no one need be the wiser.”
“As if you could quiet yourself for even a second,” Brynjolf teased him. “You know,” his voice reeked of the same oiled charisma as if he were peddling Essence of Spriggan’s Breath or some such fanciful ware. “Goldenglow is up for sale. Maven needs a new overseer.”
Audric scoffed. “Divines save that sod’s poor soul.” Working for Maven, even indirectly as he sometimes did, nauseated him, at best. It was his quiet and eventual goal to cut the guild’s ties with her entirely; if he’d wanted any part in political intrigue, he would’ve stayed in High Rock.
“Oh, I don’t know. Think about it: that whole, big house to ourselves, running the guild from a comfortable distance…”
“Ourselves?”
“You could keep Honeyside, let your friend stay at his leisure, and we wouldn’t have to spare coin just to catch up after your long excursions – not that we don’t take it right back, but that’s hardly the point –”
“Wait, wait, slow down. Are you suggesting I buy Goldenglow?”
“Not at all,” Brynjolf beamed cheerfully. “I’m suggesting that we buy it, together. Go in on it in halves, as that would only be fair.”
Audric felt as if his stomach had dissolved and he dearly wished that the rest of his body might follow suit. “And then what? A happy announcement? You don’t seem the type and you know I’m not. What kind of stunt are you trying to pull here, exactly?”
Brynjolf’s big, sonorous laugh rang over the lake, scaring a thrush into flight. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
Crossing his arms, indignant now, Audric rolled his eyes.
"Divide and Conquer" Ulfric Stormcloak/M!DB, 6f/??
Date: 2013-08-28 05:16 pm (UTC)Ever since he had agreed to aid Ulfric in recovering his political stature, Audric would occasionally entertain the idea of having Maven deposed, preferably in a public and humiliating fashion.
“Well, I need to get to bed; I’m really and truly tired.”
Brynjolf stood and offered his hand, pulled Audric to his feet. His eyes traveled slowly, predacious, along Audric’s body. “That armor looks better on you than it does me.”
“I don’t know about that.” The memory of the first time they’d donned the Nightingale armor together was still crisp in his mind. “Nocturnal’s uniform does you more favors than you deserve.”
The two of them walked together, back into the city and at a leisurely pace along the canals until they found themselves in the low light of the lantern by Audric’s door.
“Goodnight, Bellamy. Get some rest. I’ll pawn your numbers off on Karliah, this time.”
“Thank you.”
“And when next you decide to go gallivanting off to places you don’t belong, tell me.”
“Why, so you can try to stop me?” Audric chortled.
Gently, Brynjolf placed his hand on Audric’s neck, the pads of his fingers weighing against his skin. “So I can worry about you properly.”
Audric stood, in mild confusion, and watched until Brynjolf faded into the shadows before he finally turned and unlocked his front door.
Ulfric was sitting in the kitchen, writing in a journal. As Audric’s eyes found the points of him, his thoughts became a snarled tangle of like and dislike, of admiration and loathing, of pity and antipathy. Unknowing, Ulfric looked up from his work and even afforded him a slight, tentative smile. “Good evening.”
Audric nodded and passed into his bedroom. He slipped out of his armor out of eyesight. “I was expecting a lecture,” he admitted at length.
“Whatever for?”
“I was much longer than I said I’d be.”
Ulfric considered this in silence, thoughtful, discerning. “I was...troubled, by the protracted absence, but I saw you come up the south road.”
As Audric crawled into bed, he wondered what else Ulfric had seen; moreover, he wondered why it bothered him so.
Re: "Divide and Conquer" Ulfric Stormcloak/M!DB, 6f/??
Date: 2013-08-31 11:35 am (UTC)Re: "Divide and Conquer" Ulfric Stormcloak/M!DB, 6f/??
Date: 2013-10-06 07:55 am (UTC)