Sharing Burdens
THIS IS SO LATE... so so late. BUT THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR WAITING AND I LOVE YOU SO MUCH @spacesmilodon i hope you LIKE ITT ToT)
Summary: Iduun had joined the Companions after a past at the Thieves' Guild. Even if she was the Dragonborn, it did not feel right, to Vilkas, to accept someone with her history in their ranks. However, as they got to know one another, perhaps Vilkas ought to rethink on how he saw those around him...
Commission info HERE and HERE!
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The air was thick with the stench of rotting flesh. Ash, debris and blood rained down from the sky, as explosions above and below shook the very core of the earth.
No matter how fast she ran, there was no escape.
She was out of breath, but there was no end in sight. The sky crumbled above, and the earth squelched with decay beneath her — there was no escape.
With her weapons in hand, she tried to reach the end, to reach the house, to reach him—
But she never made it.
No matter how many times she relived that moment, no matter how many times she went over it in her head, the outcome was always the same.
She never made it.
The sad smile on his lips as putrid blood gurgled his throat.
“No…!” She tried to speak, but her voice never came out. She tried to touch him, but the inherent disgust against what was consuming him stopped her hands. What a fool!
His voice sounded so distant. He said something, but in her ears there were only explosions. Unknown monsters shifted, encircling her. She was trapped. They were trapped.
Dread filled her. The air grew colder, her heart raced, and a sense of impending doom consumed her.
As she turned around —
“Ah!” Iduun woke up in cold sweat, panting. She sat on the bed with a startle, reaching for her weapons by instinct.
For a few seconds, as her eyes shook, she tried to place herself in reality.
“Huff…” She breathed heavily, still getting adjusted to where she was. Seeing in the dark was a meager bonus from her contract with Nocturnal, so it wasn’t as though she didn’t actually know.
She simply had to shove the memories back to where they belonged.
It was over; she had failed. She saved some, but lost so many more.
With each step she thought she gave in the right direction, the world seemed to disagree with her. The more she tried, the harder it became; it was too much to bear, too much to carry.
Too much… too much.
“Hahh…” Iduun sighed, shaking her head to snap out of it, her flowy, bright red hair following like streaks of fire. “I won’t gain anything by berating myself here,” she whispered, since only thinking had been too hard. Careful so as not to wake up any of the other Companions in the room, she got up, finally noticing the weapons in her hands.
An axe and a sword. Her lips trembled and her shoulders hardened as she looked at that combination, once again resorting to shaking her head to do away with the memories.
She left the room as if running away, sheathing back her weapons while not sparing a glance back at the bed. As she went out of the room, she took a few bottles of mead on the way to the mead hall, intent on welcoming the day early.
She embraced the cold embrace of Whiterun in the middle of the night, feeling more awake and grounded as she went up the stairs.
To her surprise, there was someone else still (or already?) awake in the middle of the mead hall, close to the fire, buried in a book.
It was Vilkas.
She didn’t notice, but her shoulders sagged visibly once she realized it was him, her chest feeling slightly less burdened than a moment ago.
Although he had heightened senses as a werewolf, it was still hard for him to feel the presence of one blessed by Nocturnal unless she wanted to be found, so it took until she was close to the table for Vilkas to finally look up from his book to where she was.
Surprise was visible in his eyes, and he almost hid his book on instinct, but managed to control himself and simply closed it as she approached. “Dragonborn,” he said somberly, shifting his weight on the chair, suddenly conscious of his posture.
“Doing some hard reading, I see,” she placed a tuft of hair behind her ear as she sat one chair away from him, placing the bottles she had brought between them. “These are always a great company for a difficult book,” she said, tilting her head to the half-empty bottle beside him.
“Indeed,” he chuckled stiffly, his throat parched for some reason. He wet it down with some mead, feeling a bit of clarity return to the back of his eyes.
Iduun.
A beautiful woman with fiery hair, reserved personality, a strong sense of justice and of self. The last Dragonborn; Former member of the Thieves’ Guild; and also… bearer of Nocturnal’s blessing — or rather, curse — a fact Vilkas recently learned about by pure coincidence.
He had always felt scorn towards her despite her strong arm. A former thief? What was the Companions turning to, if they could resort to allowing anyone to join? Even if Kodlak had approved of her — and even if her strength preceded her — Vilkas was still skeptical of her presence in their leagues.
So he had no right to say that they got along well, not after the way he trained her harder than the others; not when he watched her movements closer than the others… Not when he judged her before getting to know her circumstances.
Thus, they were often seen bickering high and low, no matter the time of the day or where they were. He always found faults in her, and she wasn’t one to take it lying down either, so they always had something to say to one another.
Some, like his brother and Iduun’s friend, Rannah, would say that they actually got along really well, but that couldn’t possibly be the case. Not when he treated her like that.
And yet, she approached him with a weary face but a friendly smile, as if it was actually true.
Vilkas bobbed his head to her, then to the bottles. “Hard night?” He dared to ask, wondering if he was prying too much.
Iduun popped one bottle open, gulping half of it down at once, making Vilkas flinch and wave his hands apprehensively. After she put it down, she dried her lips with the back of her hand and sighed. “Yeah.”
He hardened his jaw at the regret dripping from her voice.
She, too, had a past he did not know about. She, too, carried burdens he couldn’t possibly imagine.
She, too, was the bearer of a curse she wanted to escape from, though had no way of knowing how.
It was unfair that she was going to help them with their own curse with Hircine, while still bearing her own against Nocturnal.
Therefore, Vilkas wanted to do at least some research on how to help her with her own woes; the book he had been reading was regarding Nocturnal, though it was worded more like a fairy tale rather than anything concrete.
Still, if he kept it up — if they worked together, perhaps — he was sure they would find a way. Kodlak found some clues after years of searching alone, but if she and Vilkas were of a mind to do it together, then…
Noticing Vilkas’ hesitation, Iduun glanced at the book under his hand.
“Ahh, so you know,” she said simply, leaning back against the chair.
As if caught in the act after trying to play it cool, Vilkas flinched, lowering his head. “I… apologize. I did not mean to intrude; I came upon it by coincidence,” his voice was hoarse, but his tone was firm. “I’ve no right to have treated you the way I did…”
“Oh? Whatever might you be referring to?” Her lips went up at his attitude. He had always been a principled man who was hard on her due to her sketchy background. And yet, still, he was sincere in his praises and did not hesitate to give out the proper rewards to any of the jobs she had taken. It was natural that he would look at her with scorn, but Iduun could see where he was coming from, so she was not affected by it. “I thought we were getting along just fine, weren’t we?” her smile was weak, as her mind was still reveling from the nightmare, but the feelings were true.
Looking at his surprise and seeing his countenance relax to the point of leaning back to the chair made her appreciate the moment even more. It felt like a new memory was being created; a new moment was painting over the terrible happenings of her past, allowing her to look forward instead of inward.
He chuckled, perhaps remembering something or the other about how Rannah and Farkas were always teasing them about that very subject, setting her off as well.
“We were, were we not? We were… we do…” he breathed out, picking up his bottle and raising it to her. In turn, she lifted hers, clinking them together in a toast. “To breaking our curses.”
“To breaking our curses,” she repeated in a lower voice, her chest filling with warmth even as she downed the rest of the chilled bottle. She sighed after the last sip, placing the now empty bottle amidst the full ones. “There are many more where that came from, will you join me?”
“Anytime, Shield-Sister,” he answered promptly, moving to the chair that was empty between them. As they drew closer, so did their whispers.
Iduun smiled more brightly this time, exhaustion slowly being lifted from her countenance in the face of pleasant company, while Vilkas’s perpetual scowl easened as they grew closer.
“Would it be too bold of me to ask regarding your… situation?” He tried to be as mindful as possible, but although he had a good head on his shoulders, he was no minstrel. There was only so much a man who had been raised a warrior from infancy could accomplish, especially regarding interpersonal relationships.
Noticing the awkward sincerity in his expression, Iduun closed her eyes as the smile that did not seem to go away grew in her lips. Even though she was about to talk about the unspeakable things she did not dare utter in the past, she felt that it would be okay, if it was him.
She shared details she left out even when she opened up to Kodlak, a few days ago.
Back then, he had asked her to go find the Glenmoril witches and behead them in the name of the Companions, so as to lift their curse laid by Hircine. Feeling a bond of trust between them, Iduun told him that her own soul was also snared by a Daedric Prince, one whose hold she also hoped to break free of.
To Vilkas, she whispered more details regarding the contract and the happenings within the Thieves’ Guild, under the ever-constant cracking of fire and the slow break of dawn.
He listened to her closely, at times patting her shoulder in solace, other times keeping silent in a way to allow her to continue at her own pace.
She spoke of things no other soul had ever known, but still, he listened with great care, chipping in with his own experiences regarding Hircine’s curse. He, too, was plagued by nightmares.
Nightmares of hunting; of tearing flesh apart, of destroying any and everything he ever cared about only to return to his senses and see their blood dripping from his own hands.
The madness of the Wolfblood, the inability to ever feel rested after a night’s sleep; the bloodthirsty need to butcher one’s enemy and— and the herculean control one needs to suppress these urges.
They found solace in each other’s experiences, drawing closer with each tale. Their whispers were barely audible to anyone but themselves, as the mead around them ran dry and their lips loosened.
Topics that started somber and, quite frankly, rather depressing, turned brighter as their moods lightened. After a while, they were speaking of amusing or befuddling memories, dissolving into quiet laughter together.
Most of Vilkas’s stories referred to times Farkas had put his fist where his mouth was, or times he had to save his brother from near-death experiences — which turned out to be funny in the end; while most of Iduun’s stories were about her failing some perception checks and having to run away in the most impossibly embarrassing ways possible.
The change of pace was gradual, yet so very welcome. They had never spent so much time talking together before.
It was, perhaps, their first positive interaction ever since Iduun joined the Companions.
Truth be told, it was a wonder they hadn’t hit off sooner.
Under the cover of night and the warm embrace of the fire, with the pleasant atmosphere of the twilight… it was as if Jorrvaskr was their secret place.
For those few hours, there were only the two of them.
“This may be the first time we’ve discussed something other than the Companions — or related matters,” Vilkas confessed as light started to filter in through the gaps under the doors. “To be honest, I appreciate it.”
The Dragonborn leaned on her arm over the table, looking at him with a warm gaze and a fond smile. “We should spend more time together,” she said slowly, sizing him up for his reaction.
Vilkas’s eyes perked up and his shoulders rose slightly, making him appear bigger. A smile could barely be contained upon his lips as he nodded, turning away to take another sip of mead. “You said that.”
As Iduun opened her mouth to say, “so I did,” the door to the dorms downstairs swung open, ever so quietly, but it was loud enough to break the idyllic bubble the duo had clustered themselves in, being suddenly thrown back into reality.
The steps going up the stairs were swift and quiet, fit for a hunter, and sure enough, the one who graced them with her presence was none other than the altmer hunter, Rannah.
“Oh, I thought I was the first one awake,” she scratched her cheek as Vilkas stretched himself to appear farther away from the Dragonborn than he really was. “Did I come at a bad time? I can juuuuust slip away,” she openly showed motions of sneaking, making Iduun giggle.
“Nonsense,” the Dragonborn replied, getting up from her seat, under no shortage of creaking from being in the same position for so long. “We were just about to leave as well, weren’t we?”
Vilkas cleared his throat, mechanically getting up. “Indeed we were. Yes. Just about.” He nodded, quite proud for playing it cool as he turned around to tidy up the empty bottles.
Rannah lifted one eyebrow in doubt, looking from him to her friend. Iduun winked with a smirk, then turned back to the stairs, making Rannah cover her mouth so as not to guffaw.
“If you’re going out to hunt, may I come along? I feel a bit stiff,” she asked, not waiting for the reply as she went down the steps.
The altmer bit her lower lip, still trying to contain her laughter, and a weird sound came out when she tried to say, “sure.”
However, after she cleared her throat to give a proper response, the door opened even before Iduun could touch the handle, revealing none other than Farkas.
“Ah,” they said in unison, almost colliding.
“My bad,” he said as she nodded and made way for him to pass. “Thanks.”
Seeing how he barely looked at her, almost too anxious to go up the stairs as if he was after a certain someone, it was Iduun’s turn to bite her lower lip to avoid laughing. “No problem. Hey, Rannah?” She raised her voice on purpose, making not only Farkas but Rannah flinch all the way up there. “I think I’m passing the hunt for today, I’ll go back to bed for a bit.”
“Oh? Sure, good night, then.” Rannah’s voice replied from above, and Iduun saw how Farkas got a spring in his step as he went up. Just before Iduun closed the door, she heard Rannah’s tone sweeten considerably as she let out an exclamation of surprise. “Oh, Farkas… I didn’t know you were awake.”
“Yeah, I usually wake up at this time to train,” he scratched his head, his hands sweaty for some reason.
Iduun closed the door behind her, still hearing a bit of their conversation through the gaps.
She slowly made her way back to the communal room, enjoying each step she took through the hard wood floors, taking in even the slightest smell.
It was striking the difference of her mood between when she had left earlier that night to how she came back at dawn. Then, she could barely place herself in reality, let alone realize where she was stepping; now, she vividly saw each book, each misplaced sweet roll, each scratch on the wood.
By sharing her burdens, they had lightened their weight on her shoulders so much she felt on cloud nine. Her steps bore no sound at all and her chest was light as a feather.
Truly, they should spend more time together.
Even she was surprised at how well that meeting had gone, in spite of all that had happened between them.
Vilkas was a good man; a man with a good head on his shoulders, with a great sense of responsibility and a strong arm to have around in battle.
She looked up to him, as a person, as a Shield-Sibling, as a warrior and as a woman.
Not even realizing she was smiling as she sat back on bed, Iduun lay back down and closed her eyes thinking only that yes, they should spend more time together.
