I feel you so much about needing to talk about Vilkas!
I always want to talk about my OTP Taniiaae and Sinding.
Ok, here is one for you! Does Vilkas have a relationship with your Dovakiin? And how did they meet!
HIIIII 🧡✨️ thank you so much for the ask! You're going to have to tell me about Taniiaae and Sinding 👁👁
(Took me FOREVER to get to this and I am so sorry! I've just been drowning in work and feeling ded </3)
☝️ Vilkas and my Dovahkiin are in a romantic relationship! In my writing, they courted for a few years, and were freshly married right before 4E 201. I'm working on fleshing out the timeline through some oneshots and I'm currently doing some rewriting, so it's been a blast!
✌️ (Forgive the yap I am about to go on, I'll try and make it cohesive as possible. I just want to say there is a LOT of headcanon-ing, just so I can rant with this prefaced already!)
They met in the year of 4E 189, Lorika was freshly 18 years old and Vilkas was 19. She joined reluctantly, as it wasn't exactly her choice to be there. She proved to have potential, but only knew as much about combat as a disabled war veteran could teach his own daughter, and it was mostly self defense.
Vilkas was skeptical of her joining at first: From his perspective, Lorika was the daughter of a nobleman and a Great War veteran who was respected through the hold, and in addition had connections to the clan Gray-Mane, who famously serve the Companions (in short…. He believed the only reason she managed to get into Jorrvaskr was by nepotism).
Plus, he was a teenager, and a rather grim one at that. I wrote that Farkas was actually younger than Vilkas and that he ended up as a parentified older sibling, both of them robbed of different things in the process. So from the get go, there was ignorant jealousy simmering for the new girl, thinking she must have been comfortable growing up with a big house and a blood family.
From where Lorika stood, her aloof father pushed her out of her home, then pulled her from her life at the Temple of Jhunal (where she was pursuing an education as his behest), and dumped her at Jorrvaskr's doors — either to succeed as a warrior by his wishes, or to dishonor the family and herself. (This is a rough spot for me as I'm doing rewrites like… constantly… but regardless, he had designs for her, and life at the heart of Ice-Heart Manor was often tense).
They didn't have the most romantic meeting, Vilkas choosing to shut down her attempts at small talk as he'd have rather ignored and avoided her at that point and just wait for the woman to drop out, but when Lorika continuously proved she was there to stay, well, he had to concede at some point...
(This reminded me about an interesting writing wip I had...)
(I am going to post it)