A Good Man Goes To War, Ch 5: Valor

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    Snow gave way to white, burning sands and skies a brilliant blue. Scant, fluffy white clouds burst against Paarthurnax’s face, their moisture welcome on his leathery skin. His wings tipped, and the horizon shimmered. Blue sky met languid turquoise water.

     

    People didn’t usually smile and wave when dragons flew overhead, but these did - a crowd of happy men, women, and children lounging lazily on a holiday beach, their faces rich and dusky in the sun. The dragon tipped his wings in greeting and wheeled overhead, swooping and dipping in warm, salt-scented thermals. Sunshine glanced off golden scales, iridescent and shining.

     

    He couldn’t remember ever feeling so joyful, so…alive.

     

    Another white cloud floated just ahead. No, not a cloud, but a flock of gulls – Paarthurnax could hear rustling wings. As one, the gulls dived for the beach, and the ground shook with the force of their touchdown. Walls of sand erupted from the center of the blast, casting the beach in shadow.

     

    How strange. 

     

    Paarthurnax glided over the beach, his stomach pitching along with his wings. The mass of gulls darkened to black, and writhed in the sandy waves. Red, burning eyes opened and stared.

     

    “Brother.”

     

    Paarthurnax felt something cold and soft splash against his face.

     

    But...the ocean's so warm.

     

    He threw a wing out against the chilly invader and willed himself to stay asleep.

     

    “Brother.”

     

    Fuck. Paarthurnax brushed a clump of snow from his snout. “Your-"

     

    Another clump hit him right in the eyes, and he blinked it away. "Your timing could be better, brother. And stop kicking snow at me. I assure you, it lost its novelty centuries ago.”

     

    “Oh dear,” Alduin said with a sneer, “did I interrupt your nap?”

     

    “You did.” Paarthurnax answered in clipped tones. He wouldn’t elaborate – his dreams were his, alone.

     

    Alduin eyed Paarthurnax, his face inscrutable, and watched his brother stretch once more, shaking snow from ragged, golden wings. “You waited for me, all this time. You truly waited. All alone on this heap of rock.”

     

    Paarthurnax snorted. “You didn’t believe me.”

     

    “No,” Alduin snarled. He kicked at a snowdrift with one clawed foot.

     

    “I alone knew what had happened,” Paarthurnax said. He wasn’t surprised Alduin had doubts, that he required proof before he’d believe such an outlandish story. Four thousand years…gone. Sometimes Paarthurnax could hardly believe it himself. “I alone knew you would come back here, but not when. What choice did I have?”

     

    “You've always had choices. Oblivion take it, you were the only dragon in the country for how many centuries?" Alduin paced before the curved wall, throwing an accusing claw up at his brother. "Then again, maybe you aren't one of us after all. No self-respecting dragon would have passed up that sort of opportunity.”

     

    "As I said, it was my task. But I suppose you're right. I did have choices, I always have."

     

    Alduin took a shuffling step toward the time wound, and flinched. Paarthurnax fought to keep the corners of his mouth from twitching. “As do you.”

     

    The two dragons stewed in silence. Paarthurnax felt himself begin to nod back off, when his brother made a rumbling sound in his throat. Paarthurnax looked up to find Alduin’s narrowed eyes focused on the ground, his bony brows lowered.

     

    “So,” Paarthurnax began, pausing for another mighty yawn, “is something on your mind?”

     

    Alduin’s feet shuffled in the snow, and he appeared almost uncomfortable. Confused, even. Odd emotions for any dragon, Alduin especially. He rumbled again and snapped his eyes up to his brother. “Why did you heal me?”

     

    “Talk of choices once again. You are my brother. I do not wish you pain.”

     

    Alduin snarled and waved a clawed wing over the edge of the mountain. “What of our brothers and sisters? Did you think on their fate when you encouraged the humans to read that cursed Scroll?”

     

    “The Scroll was a last resort, remember?"

     

    "I do," Alduin said, his voice barely a whisper. "I remember."

     

    Paarthurnax's throat closed, and he coughed to clear it. "I am sorry, brother."

     

    "You're not sorry you tried to kill me. You're just sorry the attempt was unsuccessful."

     

    "I am sorry it came to that at all. But back to your first accusation. Did I think on their fate? Yes, and yes again, every day of the last four millennia.” Paarthurnax nodded and folded his wings under his chin. “There is a time for everything – you know this as well as anyone. Better, even. Perhaps our time has come and gone. But my answer is still the same – I healed you because you are my brother. I do not wish you pain.”

     

    “But you will not support my rule," Alduin spat. "You never have.”

     

    “It is not your place, Alduin. Akatosh-“

     

    “Akatosh,” Alduin intoned, the name harsh on his tongue, “I flew for days over old mountains and new cities and heard prayers to Akatosh, among others. Others who failed to answer. New names for old ideas. I do not concern myself with beings who languish, sequestered in their own little paradise and leave us to this wasteland. Whether they deny their own power, or lie powerless – either way, they matter not.”

     

    Alduin stepped closer to the time wound, his feet and wings steady this time. “I remember hearing those prayers called in my name, you know, before anyone spoke of Akatosh. I will make this land my own once more.”

     

    Paarthurnax nodded. “And the dovahkiin?”

     

    “Another puny human with the Voice is still a puny human. Hungry for power and overly reliant on an instinct for self-preservation.” Alduin snorted. “Just like the last. If this one crosses me, he will die.”

     

    “We all die, eventually,” Paarthurnax said, and huffed, a small puff of smoke escaping his jaws. He had yet to see this dovahkiin, but he couldn't blame Alduin for his estimation, based on past experience alone. “But what will that puny human do while he lives? Maybe he and all the other puny humans will decide this world is worth saving.”

     

    “Is that what you’ve been doing while mouldering alone on this mountain? Amassing pearls of wisdom in hopes you might change my mind? Or save me?” Alduin narrowed his eyes at the hint of a smile on his brother’s face. “Save what’s left of your energy, instead. I do not need it.”

     

    Alduin stepped back and sprayed fire in an arc on the ground. He rumbled under his breath. Paarthurnax peered down at his brother out of the corner of one sleepy eye and watched him settle onto warmed earth. Curious. But then again, dragons craved company, and company was in short supply these days.

     

    He forced his eyelids open and waited for Alduin’s next question, whatever it might be. Alduin showed no indication of changing his course, and was, quite frankly, as much of an arrogant ass as he’d ever been. But he had come back, and for a conversation – not a brawl.

     

    It wasn’t much. But compared to the ways Paarthurnax imagined Alduin’s return playing out, he deemed it a halfway decent start.

     

     

     

     

    Vilkas pulled a semi-clean cloth from the neck of his armor and scrubbed at his brow, trying to catch drops of sweat before they fell into his eyes. No luck. He swore at the sting, earning a snicker from Aela, and backed away from the dead giant cooling on top of the Battle-Borns’ winter leeks.

     

    A cow ambled through the broken fence and mooed just behind his back. Vilkas turned to scratch his scruffy brown head and puzzled over what might drive a giant from the northern herds. Every so often, one lost his way chasing a mammoth up from Secunda’s Kiss, but Vilkas had never seen one wander down from the Pale.

     

    He’d been upset, too – the giant. It was hard to tell; they didn’t have a sweet disposition on a good day, but this one they’d caught running.

     

    Fleeing.

     

    Vilkas wasn’t sure about that last, he only had the guards’ word for it. They’d held him at bay with arrows from the watchtower while he and Aela’d run from Jorrvaskr to finish him off. But according to the guards, this northern giant had seemed off-kilter, sort of like a rabid wolf or an angry drunk – veering from side to side and growling, swinging his club at nothing they could see, and lumbering closer and closer to the city wall.

     

    Vilkas wondered if it had anything to do with yesterday’s freak storm. He’d been out before dawn in the training yard and noticed lightning atop the Throat of the World. Thick, white clouds usually hovered around the mountain, but that morning the clouds had turned orange – fiery orange, laced with lightning, and spinning like a whirlwind around the peak. He’d stood and stared before running back inside to fetch someone – anyone – to see it, too. By the time he’d found Aela, stumbling around the kitchens and searching for her breakfast, the storm had passed, the sky dark once more.

     

    Vilkas tried to squash the wave of discontent building in his gut and kicked at the giant’s crusty, bare foot. “Aela, I saw Arcadia grab you in front of her shop – she asked for the toes, didn’t she.” It wasn’t a question. Whiterun’s herbalist knew a good opportunity when she heard one. Or smelled one. The giants’ penchant for mammoth cheese and lack of penchant for bathing amounted to an alarm system all its own.

     

    “Bleagh.” Aela knelt on the grass, gathering arrows and cleaning the heads before sliding them back into her quiver. She pantomimed a gag. “She did indeed, dammit. She said she’d pay very well, and she’s going to have to. I admit there’s something therapeutic about hacking them off, but carrying bloody toes through the street in that string bag she gave us? That’s just disgusting. More to the point, I’m not sure the guards’ll allow it.”

     

    Vilkas noticed an axe in a tree stump near the fence post and stepped that way. “We’ll use that. Not that the Battle-Borns owe us use of their equipment in exchange for protection, buuuut…”

     

    “They kinda do?” Aela skipped past him and grabbed the axe. “I’m ok with it. I’d rather explain to Idolaf why that axe is dull than explain the same to Eorlund. He’s way scarier,” she said, and rolled a log against the giant’s foot before taking a swing. One toe down, nine to go. She could probably make that in four swings. “Hey, have you heard anything else from Farkas? From the sound of his last note, he had no idea when he’d be home.”

     

    “That’s right, I forgot you left on your hunting trip right after the courier did. He sent one more letter, another courier came next day. Turns out, Jarl Skald fired his Imperial guard, replaced them with Stormcloaks. Farkas hired three of them for backup and should have left a few days ago, if that blizzard he mentioned let up,” Vilkas said, and grimaced. Aela’d finished with the first foot, and her bare legs were spattered with blood and bits of bone. “Quite a statement on Skald’s part, yeah?”

     

    “Yeah,” she agreed, and grunted, taking her last swing. “Ulfric fucking shit the bed this time. His days have to be numbered, and small numbers, at that.”

     

    “Hmhm…”

     

    Vilkas murmured something Aela could interpret as assent, but privately, he figured the Stormcloaks had the right of it. Not that he was a religious man – Vilkas couldn’t care less which absent character from the fairy stories had a place in whose pantheon, or a shrine at the Temple of the Divines. For the most part, the gods had no bearing on his own life at all. Kyne’s healing power, sure – he witnessed that at work every day. Dibella, too.

     

    In fact, had the Dominion outlawed Dibella’s good works, Ulfric’s little war wouldn’t be necessary at all. Skyrim and the rest of the Empire would rise – Vilkas chuckled to himself – rise against that sort of provocation with extreme prejudice. The Companions might even take sides in that battle.

     

    But Talos? Tiber Septim, Ysmir Wulfharth, Hjalti-Early Beard...whoever he’d been in life, the only thing he’d done for Nords was get them involved in far too many pointless and deadly wars. And as far as Vilkas was concerned, that hadn’t changed. Whether or not he’d ascended or mantled or just died, Vilkas didn’t care enough to fight about it, nor did most of Skyrim, it seemed.

     

    Yet, he couldn’t help thinking his country would be better off without the Empire’s long nose and even longer arm. After all, hadn’t they turned a blind eye to Madanach invading the Reach? King Istlod, too. Just sat in his palace in Solitude and let witchmen rule in Markarth for two bloody years. Ulfric may well have done it for his own purposes, but he took it upon himself to drive the bastards back into the hills, and that counted for something in Vilkas’s book.

     

    No disrespect meant for the dead, but King Torygg seemed cut from the same cloth as his father – gave zero shits for matters affecting folk outside a palace or at the very least, a walled city. Whoever ruled the Forsworn in Madanach’s stead sent streams of horror and evil to harry Falkreath and the Reach. A few of them even terrorized Rorikstead from time to time – Kodlak and his second, Skjor, petitioned Torygg months ago to assist with a rash of child abductions in the area, but were met with excuses, and then silence.

     

    And the Dominion took every opportunity to uphold the bloody, fucking White-Gold Concordat, sending more and more of their goons every day to hunt, torture, and execute Nords. Nords whose only crime was a desire to live as their parents had, and their grandparents. No, regardless what god stood where in the aloof, deaf heavens above or beyond, Skyrim was better off on her own.

     

    Vilkas spied a wheelbarrow by a stile, and rolled it over to Aela and her gruesome handiwork. “Thanks,” Aela said, wiping her own brow with a blood-speckled gauntlet. “Hey, did you see that huge flock of birds this morning? Flying above the clouds? I didn’t see your orange storm yesterday, but could be thundersnow on the way. Birds fly high like that, sometimes, when clouds are warmer than the air below.”

     

    “I did see them,” he said, staring down the northern road and remembering those strange shadow-shapes in the gray, overcast sky. That sliver of unease niggled at his gut again. He turned back to Aela and grabbed a toe, tossing it in the barrow with a wet squelch.“Olava said…”

     

    Aela looked up from the barrow, her brows raised above merry green eyes. “Olava said? You’re listening to Olava now? You know she’ll tell you anything in return for a bottle these days.”

     

    It was true. Olava had a reputation as a seer, and a good one. But she also had a reputation as a connoisseur of firewhisky, and Vilkas seldom saw the old woman wandering the village without a little blue bottle in her hand. “I know, I do,” he said, and tossed in another toe. “And anyway, what she said was impossible. It’s just-“

     

    “I get it, Vilkas,” Aela said, lifting the wheelbarrow’s arms and fixing him with a sympathetic look. “Ulfric’s mess is everyone’s mess. We’re all uneasy, and with so many of the company jumping ship to join the Stormcloaks, it’s a wonder the rest of us aren’t asking Olava if she’s willing to share. Especially you. I know Kodlak’s grooming you to be Skjor’s second after he’s gone. Lots of stress and uncertainty.”

     

    Vilkas heaved a sigh. Kodlak’s eventual retirement or death wasn’t something he wanted to consider. He’d rather think about-

     

    “Olava said it was a dragon,” Vilkas blurted out, staring at the ground. He immediately regretted it. “What flew through the clouds, I mean. Not birds, but a dragon.” He met Aela’s wide eyes and quivering lips and flinched, waiting for the laughter he knew was on the way.

     

    But it never came. Instead, a faint noise echoed from somewhere to the north. Aela groaned. “Not another giant. I swear-“

     

    Vilkas threw up a fist and held his breath. Something about that noise pricked at his spine. A voice? He wasn’t sure, and sprinted through the field to the fence.

     

    He spotted movement on the northern road, and shaded his eyes and squinted in the late-afternoon sun. Whatever it was disappeared behind the horizon. He watched the road for another minute or two, then shrugged and turned to follow Aela toward the gate.

     

    Probably just a stray dog or a fox.

     

    Vilkas took a breath and steadied himself, and forced his thoughts back to the task at hand – they needed guards to help move the giant away from the wall. Wolves and scavengers were sure to move in after sundown, and no one wanted vermin so close to the city.

     

    Another noise, halfway between a croak and a yell, and Vilkas’s spine tingled again. He turned around and trotted back to the fence. The sun disappeared behind clouds and without the glare, the distant road slowly came into focus.

     

    The road and its occupants. People – not an animal or a giant, but two people, one large and one small. Maybe a man and a child? Vilkas took another step and watched the man list to the side of the road, followed by a high-pitched cry. Not another drunk, he thought, an accusatory glare floating down the road toward the figure pitching this way and that, despite the child’s efforts to keep him standing.

     

    That’s all Whiterun needed. Not even a year ago, a man in a similar situation had approached the gate with his own child – a girl called Lucia. He’d not made it a week in town before he’d absconded with a case of the Bannered Mare’s best whisky, leaving the girl to the mercies of strangers. Luckily, she’d found a home with Amren and Saffir, a nice couple in the village who already had a child of their own. The Companions assisted them with expenses - no one in Whiterun wanted to see any kids from their village go to Honorhall, Whiterun native or no.

     

    Vilkas took another step down the road and narrowed his eyes. He didn’t recognize the child, a slip of a thing with dirty hair, wearing a mud-caked dress. But that man. Something about him seemed so familiar…

     

    The unease in his belly grew cold, freezing and shattering, sending slivers of icy fear through his heart.

     

    “Shit,” Vilkas yelled and threw his sword in the grass. He took off down the road. Aela looked over her shoulder, and let the wheelbarrow rest on the cobblestones. She squinted into the distance, and color drained from her face.

     

    “Oh, shit,” she echoed in a terrified whisper, and ran to catch up with her shield-brother.

     

    Vilkas had no words for what met him on the road. He tried to speak, letting his mouth fall open in hopes a sentence or two would tumble out. Something to help. Anything.

     

    “Farkas…”

     

    He finally croaked out a choked whisper, and his throat closed up behind it. Something soft brushed his arm, and he looked to his side to see Aela, her eyes shining with tears. Vilkas had never seen Aela cry. Not once, not even when they’d ripped their wolf spirits from their bodies, killing them at swordpoint inside Ysgramor’s Tomb. But this…

     

    His brother stumbled toward them, naked from the waist up. Black, oozing burn marks covered his chest and arms and face, and his eyes swelled shut. Dark, dried blood caked his tattered leggings and boots. And the smell...he’d never been on the wrong side of a fireball, but he’d been in close quarters with someone who had. He’d never forget it.

     

    Farkas...”

     

    Farkas lifted one of his hands, a bloody mess of blisters and peeling, blackened skin, and pointed across his body to the child at his side. A little girl, nine or ten by the size of her, clutched Farkas’s other ruined hand in both of hers, swaying and softly keening under her breath. She stared up at Vilkas with wide, blue eyes, blank but for terror and, Vilkas thought, the wispiest of threads connecting her mind with sanity.

     

    What in Oblivion did she see?

     

    Vilkas tried a tiny smile, for the girl’s sake, and managed to twitch the corners of his mouth a little before giving up. He swallowed hard. “Gods, Farkas, what happened? Were you in a fire? Is this Ulfberth’s niece?”

     

    Vilkas motioned to the girl and walked behind his brother. Farkas looked dead on his feet, but Vilkas saw no way to support him without hurting him even more. A patch of white caught his eye beneath layers of black skin and oozing blood.

     

    Holy fuck, is that bone?

     

    Tears sprang to his eyes, and he shook his head again, hopelessly blank. He looked around, searching for a way to help his brother – wood to make a stretcher, or…or –

     

    Nothing. Nothing. His head spun in useless desperation, and he turned to Aela. “Help him, please. I don’t…”

     

    She covered her mouth with her hand and scrubbed it down her face, nodding and swallowing what Vilkas assumed was a cry. Or a scream. “The wheelbarrow,” she said, motioning behind them with a thumb and starting to walk backwards down the road. “No, better yet, I’ll get the carriage, and-“

     

    Just then, Farkas’s feet shuffled sideways, toward the road’s grassy shoulder. A ragged breath escaped his white-coated lips, and something that might have been a word. His knees buckled, and he fell, mercifully unconscious on the grass.

     

    The little girl felt his hand fall from hers and her eyes widened even more. She stared at her own empty hands for a moment before throwing her head back and screaming, her blue eyes staring into the darkening, stormy sky.

     

     

    Fun fact:  the Companions have never fought the giant in any of my games. Never. It just doesn't happen. I didn't know it was even a thing until last year when I discovered fanfic. :)

     

    Art by PanzerTheTank, DeviantArt. No, I'm not making Paarthurnax and Alduin humanoid in this story, but I really like this pic. It’s called “We were brothers, once,” so that title in mind adds another layer of melancholia here. 

     

                                                          

     

     

     

     

Comments

4 Comments   |   Karver the Lorc and 3 others like this.
  • Paws
    Paws   ·  April 21, 2018
    I think Vilkas is spot on here. Someone needs to listen to him and then plant that seed within Aldmeri Dominion minds: The moment they think it would be a good idea to outlaw Dibella, the entire race of man would rise up and unite. Probably on many differ...  more
    • ilanisilver
      ilanisilver
      Paws
      Paws
      Paws
      I think Vilkas is spot on here. Someone needs to listen to him and then plant that seed within Aldmeri Dominion minds: The moment they think it would be a good idea to outlaw Dibella, the entire race of man would rise up and unite. Probably on many differ...  more
        ·  April 21, 2018
      Yep. Heh, heh. Rise. It just doesn’t get old. 


      Seriously, though. Take away  sex? No way we’ll take that lying down. Heh, heh. 
  • SpottedFawn
    SpottedFawn   ·  April 14, 2018
    Poor Farkas! The healers of Whiterun have their work cut out for them. Nicely written, again! I enjoy the banter between Parth and Alduin. This seems a tale of two pairs of brothers - some dragons, some wolves! (well, ex-wolves) Did Aela give up her werew...  more
    • ilanisilver
      ilanisilver
      SpottedFawn
      SpottedFawn
      SpottedFawn
      Poor Farkas! The healers of Whiterun have their work cut out for them. Nicely written, again! I enjoy the banter between Parth and Alduin. This seems a tale of two pairs of brothers - some dragons, some wolves! (well, ex-wolves) Did Aela give up her werew...  more
        ·  April 15, 2018
      The wolf spirit thing comes out bit by bit. My first story had Aela and Skjor leave the Companions when the rest of them decided to get rid of their spirit, and I wanted to do something different here. What might make Aela make a different choice. So we’l...  more