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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.
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Songs for Nomads 8.9
Date: 2014-09-14 06:08 pm (UTC)The dragon roars, more in fury than pain, and she darts back along its body, using its own bulk as cover. Up close its sheer size is as much a drawback as an advantage. In some ways it’s no different than fighting a man with a greatsword, pressing inside the weapon’s reach where it cannot be swung to full effect. Freyja ducks beneath a tattered wing, searching for some sort of weak point in the belly, and her nose floods with a dark reptilian scent, heavy as the incense in a coven of daedra worshipers that she was once hired to destroy after they murdered one too many travelers.
She’s not sure why that memory surfaces now, but the split second of distraction costs her as the leading edge of the wing clouts her across the side. The gesture is more irritable than vicious, like the motion she would use to swat a fly. But the wing is hard there, heavy with bone, and the impact feels like a giant’s club. Before she can even make sense of what’s happened Freyja is skidding along the tundra like a stone skipped across a pond, crashing to a halt alarmingly close to the steep river bluffs. Her shield is gone. Ripped from her hand, and she staggers into a defensive crouch with her sword before her, ribcage searing on every inhale. The dragon’s malevolent yellow gaze locks with her own. It is already charging, claws gouging cruel furrows in the earth, and Freyja catches a burning breath at the intent she sees there, something older and far more intelligent than animal instinct. Her gut swoops. She lives or dies in this moment.
And then it’s upon her, and the reflex of a thousand battles commands her limbs. Freyja moves into the strike, feinting high, and when it rears back she darts beneath its chin; the long neck coils as it tries to track her movements, and when the dragon’s head dips she springs. One hand closes around a wicked spike in the row along its spine. Freyja swings herself up as though into a saddle, hooking her ankles beneath the creature’s throat, locking her knees around the muscled neck, and brings her sword whistling down to hack gracelessly at its eyes. The dragon screams. There’s no other word for it: a piercing shriek like that of a mountain eagle, mingled rage and pain and terror given voice as it jerks and writhes so viciously that it nearly bucks her off. Freyja gets a desperate two-handed grip on her sword, drives it point-first toward the joint where its neck meets the back of its skull, and finally the blade sinks home – raggedly, and then deeper as she throws her body forward a second time. The dragon convulses and then slumps to earth, with a ground-shaking finality that sends great puffs of tundra cotton to swirl in the breeze.
Before she’s even had the chance to feel shock or elation something lurches in her belly. The same sensation that she remembers from all those months ago, both terrible and exhilarating: like the heady rush of strong mead and the next morning’s throbbing agony all at once. She is falling, flying, fading, hot with triumph and cold with fury; Freyja clutches at the slick scales of the dragon’s neck even they melt beneath her, vision gone dark and bright. Her head roars. When it finally subsides she gasps in relief. Eitri and Thorald are calling her name. Freyja shifts, dizzily moving to stand.
And then she is falling in truth, as the loose rock and earth of the bank shears beneath the dragon’s weight and slides – tumbles – plummets to the river below.
Re: Songs for Nomads 8.9
Date: 2014-09-20 05:45 pm (UTC)Re: Songs for Nomads 8.9
Date: 2014-09-25 05:34 pm (UTC)Songs for Nomads 9.1/9
Date: 2014-10-05 02:29 am (UTC)Pain lances through her foot. For a moment she fears that she has crushed it beneath a boulder or – worse yet – a dragon bone. Then she realizes that a territorial mudcrab has latched onto her boot. Freyja lands a vicious kick directly between its eyes, flat on her back but still forceful enough to send it soaring into the river. The scavenger bounces off a rock and sinks into the current, flailing. Freyja looks around.
Another mudcrab scuttles toward her, pincers raised in aggressive display. It strikes her as utterly absurd that she should feel fear now of all times, beside the bones of a dragon dead at her hands. But this one, unlike its fellow, is fully grown, and the claws of a mature mudcrab have been known to dent plate. When she was a girl Freyja made a game of bouncing pebbles off the creatures’ shells, poking them with long branches to watch them snap the wood cleanly in half. Some of the sticks were as thick as her wrist. Freyja gropes for her sword, but of course it is gone: dropped somewhere in her wild slide down into the gorge, and her shield flung aside on the tundra above. Grimly she scoots backward, fumbling for her dagger.
With truly impeccable timing Eitri comes skidding down the gravel bank and buries his axe in the mudcrab’s shell, so that it hisses faintly and dies, twitching. As he plants a boot on its back and gives the blade a ferocious yank Thorald splashes to Freyja’s side. “You madwoman,” he barks, when he sees that she’s conscious.
Freyja groans again and drops her head back into the chilly water. She’s already soaked to the skin, anyway. “My heroes,” she chuckles, and then grabs her side and resolves not to do so again.
“Are you hurt?” Eitri says, dropping to his knees in the mud, already reaching for her. Freyja moves gingerly, taking stock. Probes at her ribs. They feel bruised, not broken. “I don’t think so,” she says, and he seizes her under the arms and hauls her to her feet, perhaps more brusquely than he means to. Freyja sways a little, clutching his shoulder. Thorald, she notes gratefully, has collected her sword and shield. Moving to take them, she shifts weight to her left ankle and hisses. Eitri takes a firmer grip on her arm. “What is it?”
“It’s all right,” Freyja says, shrugging him off. “It isn’t bad, I can make it to W—”
Her ankle crumples beneath her. Freyja curses helplessly as Eitri catches her under the arms and draws her against his chest, looking white. She spits another curse, for emphasis. This is why she always carries a few healing potions. Naturally, when she doesn’t have a single one on hand, she’d be drawn into a fight with a divines-forsaken dragon. “What is it?” Eitri insists.
“It’s just my ankle,” Freyja says, through gritted teeth. “I don’t think it’s broken, it just – ugh – it won’t take my weight. Sprained, maybe.”
Songs for Nomads 9.2/9
Date: 2014-10-05 02:31 am (UTC)His jaw is set stubbornly. Freyja bites her lip, looking at him. This isn’t how she imagined the three of them parting. “Thorald—” says Eitri.
“Do one thing for me, would you,” Thorald says. “Make sure my family knows that I’m alive. That I love them. And tell my mother—” his eye follows a speck of tundra cotton on the breeze. “Tell her to suffer the winter’s cold wind, for it bears aloft next summer’s seeds. She’ll understand.”
“Of course,” Freyja murmurs. She reaches out to take his hand, only for Thorald to pull her into a bone-crushing hug. “Thank you,” he murmurs, gruffly. “Both of you. I would never have seen the light of day, otherwise.”
“Take care of yourself.”
“Don’t get eaten by a dragon,” Thorald counters.
He hugs Eitri as well, slaps him on the back, mutters something in his ear that makes the other man color and duck his head, smiling faintly. “Be careful,” Eitri says, voice rough.
“Don’t worry,” says Thorald. “Maybe one day I’ll see you both in Windhelm, no?”
“You’ll see us before that,” Freyja tells him. “We’ll take that mountain road to Ivarstead, don’t forget.”
“Not if you don’t make it to Arcadia’s in time for a potion to do you some good, you won’t. Get going. Won’t do to be laid up when you’ve got a mountain to climb.”
It’s hard to argue with that. Thorald helps them transfer the essentials in Freyja’s pack to Eitri’s, lashing her sword and shield to the outside so they won’t trip her up. With one of her arms slung across Eitri’s shoulders and one across Thorald’s they walk up the riverbed, to a place where the bank slopes gently enough that the two men can help her climb out. Then Thorald gives them a brave little smile and makes for the ford, while they set off at a hobble across the tundra. Freyja can’t help craning her neck to watch him go, though it throws her off balance. Several times she catches Eitri doing the same.
“He’ll be all right,” she says, half to herself.
Eitri’s brow furrows. “Do you think so?”
Freyja considers, serious. “Yeah, I do,” she finally says. “He’s a strong man, to have made it through what he has. And it’s only been a few weeks. He’ll get better.”
Eitri still looks troubled. “Are you sure you want to come with me?” Freyja asks, voice low.
“Aye,” he says, uncharacteristically gruff.
“I’d understand, if you didn’t.”
“I said I did.” His breath is as short as his answer, labored with the effort of half-carrying her and all their essential supplies, so Freyja lets the matter drop.
By the time they pass the Whiterun stables, just outside the city’s first gate, the walls are casting long shadows and the yellow tundra grass is glowing red. Freyja’s whole being aches. It strikes her that when the Greybeards called she was in precisely the same position, trudging back to the city in the evening light after a harrowing fight with a dragon. Now here she is months later, come full circle. Preparing to start for High Hrothgar, as she was summoned to do in the first place. As if to complete the picture, when they turn the last corner Irileth comes bulling through the gates with a fleet of the city guard in tow, accompanied by a red-faced farmer who looks to have run all the way from Whiterun’s outskirts. “It came down from the mountains and landed by the river,” he babbles. “Didn’t wait to see any more, just ran for the walls. I don’t—”
“Right, men,” Irileth barks, cutting him off. “We don’t know much about these dragons, but we do know we can kill them. You’ve been training for this for months. When we reach the river, spread out, find any cover you can. I want every man who can shoot aiming for the wings to bring it down. Once it’s grounded—”
“It’s dead,” Freyja says, quietly.
Songs for Nomads 9.3/9
Date: 2014-10-05 02:34 am (UTC)Freyja shifts more of her weight onto Eitri, in an effort to stand a little straighter. “Me.”
The other woman looks her up and down, measuring. Her dark eyes are expressionless, but there is a tiny frown line between her brows. Freyja recalls her skepticism about mythical Dragonborns, and wonders if she is reassessing now. After a moment she purses her lips. “Are you sure?”
“Nothing left but bones.”
“Well then,” says the houscarl, almost to herself. Shoots a glance back to her men. “Look lively – we’ll check it out and report to the jarl. Keep your eyes open and your weapons ready. For all we know, there may be more.”
“She’s cheerful,” Eitri mutters, as they limp through the city gates. Freyja laughs again, and regrets it. Again. “She’s good at her job,” she says, breathlessly. “Devoted to Jarl Balgruuf. She drew a sword on me when I first walked into the keep with the news from Helgen.”
His eyes widen, shocked. “You were at Helgen?”
“I forgot I never told you that part of the story,” she murmurs. “But yes. Not long after I crossed the mountains I practically walked into a Legion prisoner caravan, and with my luck it happened to have the tightest security this side of the border with Alinor. Some loudmouth on one of the carts chose that moment to blab about Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King, and suddenly that security was compromised.”
“The Legion took you captive for that?”
“I wasn’t thrilled either.” Freyja’s smile is wry. “Looking back I think they only intended to hold me until I was no longer a liability, but I was – ah – argumentative.” She hadn’t realized the gravity of her situation until she was facing the block. In Cyrodiil legionnaires were keepers of the peace, upholders of strict but strictly fair Imperial justice. Nowhere is Tamriel is the concept of a fair trial more enshrined than in the heartland, and no entity in Cyrodiil is more obsessed with regulation than the Legion; there is even (to the amusement of anyone with a sense of humor and the consternation, no doubt, of the Elder Council) a written code governing how to conduct a legal military coup. Freyja, accustomed to life in Cyrodiil, was violently incensed at being detained without just cause. But this was Skyrim, and not the Skyrim of her youth. Martial law was in effect. It did not occur to her, until she saw the depth of resentment on the Imperial captain’s face, that most of these legionnaires had spent months far from home in a cold, harsh land, engaged in partisan warfare with an enemy that looked and spoke and argued exactly like she did. Freyja’s every angry protest only made her more suspicious. “At any rate,” she says, “I had an excellent view of the first dragon in centuries with my head on the block.”
Eitri looks her up and down as though assuring himself that her neck is still in one piece. Shaking his head, he takes a firmer grip under her arm and practically drags her up the street to the apothecary. A bell jingles cheerfully as they barge through the door. Arcadia looks up from her counter, where she is tying bunches of dried lavender – the kind Whiterun citizens place in linen drawers or weave into broom heads, so the house will smell fresh on washing day. “Oh, dear,” says the alchemist.
“Are you a healer?” Eitri asks, coming straight to the point.
“Of a sort.” The woman scurries out from behind her herbs. “But if you’ve broken an ankle, you need to see the priestess of Kynareth. A potion will do you more harm than good if the bones aren’t set right.”
“It’s only sprained,” huffs Freyja. “I think.”
Songs for Nomads 9.4/9
Date: 2014-10-05 02:39 am (UTC)“Foolish old woman!” he suddenly bellows, and turns in profile. His hair’s gone iron-grey, but there’s no mistaking the tones of Olfrid Battle-Born. “You know nothing of our struggles, our suffering!”
“And what of my Thorald?” she fires back – fiercely, though her voice quavers. Freyja feels Eitri tense beside her. “Is he nothing? So don’t talk to me about suffering!”
The warrior beside Olfrid has his nose, and there’s no mistaking where his loyalties lie; he wears the uniform of the Imperial Legion openly, with a quartermaster’s insignia on his chest. Freyja supposes that’s why Balgruuf allowed him in, in spite of the jarl’s professed neutrality. As the breadbasket and trading hub of Skyrim, Whiterun is making a profit from both sides. “Your son chose his side, and he chose poorly. And now he’s gone. Such is the way of war.” The legionnaire’s voice is stiff. “The sooner you accept his loss, the better.”
Fralia lifts her chin. “I will never accept his death. My son still lives. I feel it in my heart. So tell me, Battle-Borns, where is he? Where are you holding my Thorald?”
“Do you believe this old hag?” Olfrid asks his son – Idolaf, Freyja remembers. “Holding him? Why, I’ve got him in my cellar. He’s my prisoner. Face it, cow! Your stupid son is dead! He died a Stormcloak traitor. And you – you’d best keep your mouth shut before you suffer the same.”
“Come on, father,” Idolaf says, looking embarrassed now. Every eye in the market is turned on them. “There’s nothing more to be said here.” Olfrid spits pointedly in the dust and stalks away, grumbling. Idolaf opens his mouth as though to speak, but then he appears to think better of it and follows his father, shoulders back as though he’s on a parade ground. A hush descends on the square.
“Who in Oblivion are they?” barks Eitri, sounding indignant. Freyja starts to explain, but Fralia Grey-Mane overhears him, and speaks first.
“That’s the Battle-Born clan,” she sighs. “Got rich trading with Cyrodiil, and now they think they’re too good for us simple Nord folk. But I shouldn’t speak ill of my neighbors.” The vicious look she shoots at Olfrid’s back undermines her words, and makes it clear that she’s plenty more to say.
Freyja’s mind is on the Thalmor orders stuffed deep in her pack, on the sketchy physical description they contain – Nord female, light-haired and heavily freckled. She doesn’t want her name associated with Thorald’s escape in any way. She ought to burn the damned orders the first chance she gets. There are a lot of blonde Nords in the province, but Whiterun is one of the few places in Skyrim where she’s recognized, and market vendors gossip. Here, though, is her opportunity. “You said something about your son?” Freyja asks, quietly.
Songs for Nomads 9.5/9
Date: 2014-10-05 02:41 am (UTC)“How do you know that they’re lying?”
“Idolaf grew up with my boys,” she says, more softly. “And he can’t look me in the eye, any more than he could when they snatched my snowberry tarts from the sill.”
Eitri opens his mouth to speak, but Freyja cuts him off. “Maybe we could help,” she says.
Fralia looks like she could cry with gratitude, but she gathers herself quickly. With a glance around, she scoops the last few pieces of jewelry into a basket looped over her arm. “Come with me,” she murmurs.
The instant the door to House Grey-Mane closes behind them, Eitri speaks. “We have a message from your son.”
“You’ve seen Thorald?” gasps Fralia. “Where is he? Is he all right?”
Freyja hears the telltale clink of steel before the bedroom door opens. Even so, she’s unprepared for the burly warrior who bursts into the room, battleaxe already drawn. Swiftly she scrambles back, ripping her sword from its sheath, and puts the firepit between herself and the gleaming double-bladed axe head. “Avulstein!” barks Fralia, in the tones of a Legion drillmaster – or a mother. Freyja remembers the name of the eldest Grey-Mane sibling, but even if she didn’t, it would be all too clear who she’s facing. Though his cheeks are fuller, unstamped by the gaunt lines of captivity, he looks so much like Thorald that he can only be his brother. “What are you thinking, mother? Who is this?” the man hisses.
“Please!” cries Lady Grey-Mane. “Put down your blades – they’re here to help!”
“And how do we know they aren’t Battle-Born spies? This was foolish! If they find me here—”
“I don’t care a silver septim about your damned clan-feud,” Freyja says, temper getting the better of her. She has traveled halfway across Skyrim, killed Thalmor assassins, and fought a giant flying lizard to deliver this message, and now she wants strong mead and a soft bed, not another fight. “Thorald sent us to—”
“She’s lying,” Avulstein growls.
“She’s not,” Eitri counters. The other man tightens his grip on the axe.
“Avulstein Grey-Mane,” Fralia says, quiet but steely. “You are under my roof – as are they. I invited them here, and I won’t have weapons drawn on guests in my home. Put it away.”
He does, looking shame-faced, although his anxiety is still evident in his clenched fists and the way he shifts his weight from foot to foot. He’s afraid, Freyja realizes. She wonders what he is doing in Whiterun. Even visiting his family is a risk, when he could be grabbed by a Legion patrol as soon as he sets foot outside the gates. “Fine,” says Avulstein. “You say you’ve seen my brother? Let’s hear it. Where is he, and why did he disappear from the Legion’s prisoner records?”
Freyja hesitates. It’s a lot to explain, especially to a worried mother. “Have you ever heard of Northwatch Keep?” she finally asks.
Lady Grey-Mane shakes her head, but Avulstein immediately looks so appalled that he forgets to be suspicious. “The Thalmor?” he gasps. Closes his eyes, steeling himself. “That’s worse than – oh, gods. At least we know where to hit them.” Fralia doesn’t speak, but her face has gone parchment-white.
Freyja shakes her head. “You don’t—”
“He’s my brother!” the man shouts, and no longer in a mock-whisper. Sinks down onto a wooden bench. “He’s my little brother.”
“Your brother’s alive,” Eitri says. His voice wavers slightly. Freyja glances up, sees a flash of raw envy and grief cross his face before his jaw works and the expression disappears. “That’s what she’s trying to tell you, if you’d listen.”
“How can you possibly—”
“Because we broke him out of Northwatch Keep three weeks ago,” says Freyja. “He's at a hidden pass near the road to Eastmarch, a few miles above White River Gorge - he didn't think it was safe for him inside the city walls."
Songs for Nomads 9.6/9
Date: 2014-10-05 02:44 am (UTC)"Thorald said tell you to suffer the winter's chill," Freyja says, "for it--"
"--bears aloft next summer's seeds," Fralia finishes. The expression on her face is indescribable. "That's my boy. That's Thorald. Go to him, Avulstein."
He hesitates. "We can't come back, you know. Not until this war is over. I took a risk, this time, but—”
"Go," she says, kissing him. It makes an odd picture, the tiny old woman lifting herself on tiptoe to smooth back her big burly son's hair and press her papery lips to his cheek, the way she must have when she tucked him in as a boy. “Your father can get you out of the city, same way he got you in. Tell your brother that I love him - enough to know that an old woman travelling out to meet him will only attract attention. Take care of each other."
"Of course," says Avulstein, gruffly. He pulls a cloak from a peg, tugs the hood up to hide his face, and slips out.
The proud smile she wears for her son flashes briefly into pain when the door closes behind him, but Fralia Grey-Mane takes a shaky breath and steadies herself, graceful as a queen. "And you," she says, turning. "How can I ever repay you?"
"There's no need," Freyja mutters. "We couldn't leave him there, once we found him. It was the only decent thing."
"You've given me back my son," the woman insists. With a sudden determined purse of her lips, she marches into the bedroom where Avulstein was hidden. Freyja watches her pull a sword down from a plaque above the bed. “Eorlund made this,” she murmurs, returning. “As a...well. He told me to mourn and accept our son’s death. But then he spent weeks forging this sword, and he wouldn’t hear of selling it.” Gently, she presses the weapon into Freyja’s palms.
Freyja weighs the blade in her hands; it's solid, balanced, alive with a cold red gleam. Skyforge steel. The weapon almost hums in her grip, guarding an inner light, like a coal eager to leap into flame. "I can't take this," she gasps. "This is your son's, this is--" priceless. The sword is enchanted – and in the old Atmoran fashion, with runes glowing dully near the guard, not etched but worked into the metal itself. Less potent than a spell woven with soul gems, but it will last for a lifetime. The art of runic enchanting is nearly a lost one. There are two or three smiths in Tamriel who can do it, perhaps even fewer. Freyja is no merchant appraiser, but she knows swords – and this one is probably worth more than the house they are standing in, and everything it contains.
"Eorlund can forge him another, when this war is over," Fralia says. Freyja does not miss the woman's uncertainty, the breath of fear when she speaks of an end as yet unglimpsed, an end neither of her sons is guaranteed to see. "You should have it, dear. You've proven you'll use it well. Your parents would be very proud of you, Freyja."
Re: Songs for Nomads 9.7/9
Date: 2014-10-05 02:47 am (UTC)Freyja laughs, short and startled. "I'd forgotten that, truth be told."
"You should see her, before you go," Lady Grey-Mane says. "She'll want to hear her brother's safe, and she's missed you since you left all those years ago. This war's been hard on her."
"I'd like that," Freyja says, and finds that it's true. She's almost forgotten what it is to have a childhood confidante just a stroll away.
"You'll see her tonight, if you room at the Bannered Mare," the woman says. "Though you're welcome to stay here. We're simple folk, but we've meat and mead and a spare bedroom now Avulstein's gone. It's the least we could do, truly.” She turns to Eitri. "And you, young man - I owe you a debt as well."
"Introduce me to the man who forged that weapon," he says low and fervent, "and I'll consider it paid."
"It's settled, then," Fralia says. "You'll stay for dinner at least, if you won't spend the night." She smiles. "And Eorlund will be polite if it kills him."
* * * * * * * *
Some three hours later they push through the door of the Bannered Mare. The tavern is rich with the smells of roast goat and woodsmoke and mead, but their stomachs are full of Fralia Grey-Mane’s venison stew, and Freyja shoulders her way to the counter merely to buy a room for the night.
“I’ve only got the one above the common room left,” says the innkeep. “Bit noisy up there, I’m afraid, but there’s a nice little balcony, and the bathhouse is free.” A steam bath sounds like a little piece of heaven – tomorrow. Tonight Freyja just wants to fall into bed; her ankle is still sore, in spite of the healing potion. “Is Olfina Grey-Mane here?” she asks.
“She ran out to chop more firewood,” says the innkeeper, cheerfully. “Loves the fresh air, that girl. Hang on – Jon, won’t you have another mead?” This to one of her patrons, as she sees him rise from the bar out of the corner of her eye.
“Don’t tempt me, Hulda,” he smiles, but hurries out all the same.
“Sorry,” says the innkeeper, turning back to Freyja. “Attic room’s all right, then?”
Songs for Nomads 9.8/9
Date: 2014-10-05 02:49 am (UTC)I tell you, I tell you the Dragonborn comes
With a voice wielding power of the ancient Nord art
Believe, believe the Dragonborn comes.
FIXED VERSION 9.8/9.10 not sure what happened there
Date: 2014-10-05 05:19 pm (UTC)Eitri raises a brow at her. “Something funny?”
“You won over Eorlund Grey-Mane,” she says, still chuckling.
Eitri blushes. “I think I made a fool of myself.”
“Oh no, he liked you. He was positively chatty.”
It’s Eitri’s turn to laugh. “Apparently Thorald gets his conversational skills from his ma.”
“And his brother got all of his father’s way with people,” Freyja says, though without heat.
“I hope they’re still there, when we start for Ivarstead.”
“Me too.”
Eitri hesitates. “I’ve been wondering,” he says, voice low. “Why did you never answer the Greybeards, all this time?”
Freyja drums her fingers on the nightstand. “I had my reasons,” she finally says, and then shakes her head, wryly. “Though they don’t seem like very good ones, with winter coming on.” Eitri rests his chin in his hand, brow furrowing, clearly unsatisfied with that answer. Freyja turns away, sitting on the edge of the bed. Draws her new blade out of its sheath. It’s an evasion, but after a moment she falls to admiring the craftsmanship in the light of the candles.
"That's a hero's sword," Eitri observes, resting a hand on her shoulder. Freyja is silent, tilting the edge slowly, watching the way firelight sluices down the fullers. "No one deserves it more, you know." She sheathes it again, carefully, and turns to look at him. Eitri meets her gaze unblinkingly. His eyes are so open that she has to look away.
“That,” he says.
“What?”
“That. What I just said. Why does that frighten you?”
“I am not frightened.”
Eitri looks at her with his deep sad eyes.
In that moment, the bard downstairs strums a single dark, shivering chord, old and well-known. The hum of the common room quiets. Into the lull the man starts to sing, voice accompanied by nothing more than a single plucked string here and there. A song as old as Skyrim itself, long used to rally warriors and bring hope.
Our hero, our hero claims a warrior’s heart
I tell you, I tell you the Dragonborn comes
With a voice wielding power of the ancient Nord art
Believe, believe the Dragonborn comes.
Songs for Nomads 9.9/9
Date: 2014-10-05 02:51 am (UTC)Eitri chews on his lip. Flexes his hand. "I don't think heroes usually are," he says, slowly.
“I slew a dragon today,” says Freyja, talking over him. “A wounded dragon, half-crippled by a giant. You heard the folk in Dawnstar, talking of Numinex and Olaf One-Eye. Maybe I am Dragonborn, but I’m not that. Subduing a dragon, keeping it in his palace—”
“If any warrior could do it, I’d bet on you.”
“There were a lot of warriors at Helgen,” she says, moodily. “A whole century. The ones who are still alive are the ones who ran away, and that includes me. And then I ran away again, when the Greybeards called. I’m not...” Freyja stops. It’s on the tip of her tongue, the real reason she fears to shoulder this responsibility, only half-acknowledged even to herself.
Eitri regards her for a moment. When she makes no attempt to finish her sentence he speaks. “You know, I’ve always liked the song about King Jorunn.”
“Which one?”
“The one he wrote himself. The one about the sack of Windhelm.”
She knows the song. It’s a sad one, a headlong spill of grief barely contained by the strict metre of skaldic poetry, a structured wail from a man who lost his family, a warrior who arrived too late, a king who gained a throne he never asked for. “Why that one?”
“All those battles. But that’s the one he wrote – the one about failure. About his mother and sister dying in the palace while he was fighting through the streets trying to get to them. Other bards recorded his victories, but that’s the tale of himself he chose to put to song.”
Freyja’s never had much patience for advice couched in story and symbol. “Are you making some kind of point?” she asks, tired.
Eitri shakes his head. Leaning over he nuzzles into her hair, nibbles at the thin skin behind her ear. “Come to bed,” he breathes. “Forget the stupid bard.”
“That’s the boy whose nose I bloodied, actually,” Freyja says. “When I was young – I told you, remember? Because he said girls couldn’t play with wooden swords.”
She feels him smile against her neck. “What does he know, anyway?”
“A hundred ballads. Most of the Edda. The history of Skyrim,” she says, but she’s smiling herself, half-joking now. “Anything worth singing about any hero who’s ever lived.”
"Bards won't sing about this," he says, and kisses her throat. "But I intend to make it worthy of a song."
Heat flares in her belly. “Listen to you,” Freyja chuckles, to cover the sudden flutter of her heartbeat. “Where did a farmboy from Ivarstead learn about seduction?”
He tweaks the skin beneath her ribs. “I’m a blacksmith, not a farmboy.”
She smirks dryly. “My apologies.”
“You ought to laugh more often,” says Eitri – and rolls atop her, pinning her with his size and weight. Abruptly he’s tickling her, clever fingers scurrying up and down both sides of her ribcage; Freyja shouts with indignant laughter and grabs for his hands, but they slip through her grasp. She wriggles, cursing. Eitri grins wickedly at her, so she traps his leg with her own, locks her grip around his wrist, and with a furious surge flips him onto his back to straddle his waist, triumphant.
He doesn’t fight it. His thumbs come to rest over her hipbones, large hands flaring across the dip of her lower back. “Now that’s more like it,” he breathes, rather shamelessly. His palms cup lower.
Songs for Nomads 9.10/9.10
Date: 2014-10-05 02:54 am (UTC)Their lovemaking is different tonight, and not just because it’s the first time they’ve come together in a bed. Their other two couplings were desperate with the hunger that comes of a recent brush with death. But this time Freyja is not looking for an easy way to cool her heated blood or calm her restless mind. She’s just looking for Eitri. She takes her time, searches for those particular spots where the smallest of touches can make his breath hitch. His earlobes are sensitive. A light scrape of nails, in the territory between his navel and his groin, will make him squirm. As she explores he watches her, eyes wide open, palms sliding across every bit of skin that he can reach.
When at last they both slump he catches her, panting, cupping a hand around the back of her skull as she moves to roll away. Freyja whines into the slick skin of his shoulder. His blunt fingers trail drowsily down her spine. “You all right?” he asks, voice already husky with sleep. Freyja nods.
“It’ll be all right,” he mumbles. It occurs to her that his question referred to more than the immediate moment. Freyja swallows back a sudden well of emotion.
“I loved him,” she blurts. It feels obscene to say Indros’ name here, now, and so she doesn’t. Eitri’s perceptive enough to work it out. “And I couldn’t save him. I didn’t even have the chance to try. How am I supposed to save the world?”
As soon as the reckless words are out, Freyja cringes. It’s the wrong sort of honesty, with a new lover still inside her, but it appears Eitri is either too good or too practical to be jealous of a dead man. Silently, he cards his fingers through the hair at the nape of her neck, runs his broad thumb along the rim of her ear. The murmur of the tavern rolls below them like the tides.
“You have the chance to try,” he says.
* * * * * * * * *
Morning brings frost. Freyja shivers pleasantly at the contrast as she leaves the small sauna attached to the back of the inn, steam still beading on her skin. After her time away and all the trouble getting back, it’s surreal to be leaving Whiterun again after only one night. But that, she supposes, is the lot of a sellsword – and a Dragonborn. When he finishes his own bath Eitri follows Freyja out the front door of the inn, prepared to join her in bartering for travel supplies. While the sky is pale blue, closer to earth the light is dusky grey. This late in the year the dawn takes a long time to scale the mountains. Still, the weather promises to be fine. It’s one of those rare clear days when the summit of the Throat is visible; the peak gleams red-gold with morning alpenglow, and as the sun finally clears the tops of the eastern mountain ranges it kindles the same flames in Eitri’s hair. The most industrious of the market vendors are already laying out their wares. Freyja takes a long, determined breath. Fastens her eyes on High Hrothgar.
Eitri puts a muscled arm around her shoulders, smelling of wool and newly clean skin. He smells different, and yet familiar. Like the Wind District, Freyja realizes. She laughs, sudden and clear.
Eitri smiles at her. “What?”
“You smell of lavender soap.”
“Problem?”
“Not at all,” she tells him. He smells of home.
Re: Songs for Nomads 9.10/9.10
Date: 2014-10-05 04:01 pm (UTC)Re: Songs for Nomads 9.10/9.10
Date: 2014-10-05 05:24 pm (UTC)Thanks so much for reading!
Re: Songs for Nomads 9.10/9.10
Date: 2014-10-06 02:55 am (UTC)Re: Songs for Nomads 9.10/9.10
Date: 2014-10-10 02:13 am (UTC)