“He’s going to live.”
Vilkas flinched at Danica’s voice and tried to conceal it, his back ramrod straight, almost ridiculously so. Why he took such measures, he had no idea. Other than Farkas, they were the only two in the temple, and she’d seen her fair share of family members distraught at the state of their loved ones. He’d not been sure Farkas would last the night – why should he hide that from Kyne’s priestess?
But he should. Vilkas knew he should. A Companion in the Circle, confidant and protégé of Kodlak Whitemane himself, his strength should stand without question, unwavering in the face of danger or tragedy.
Vilkas forced himself to meet Danica’s eyes, soft and gentle in her kind, sympathetic face. Something oily and hot oozed through his belly, and he blinked and looked away, his fists clenching at his sides, his cheeks on fire. He was strong enough at least to confront his true feelings.
Shame. Cringing, flooding shame.
Not for his worries over Farkas, not for wondering whether or not his brother would live or die. No, not that – he was right, that was perfectly normal.
Vilkas yawned, and raised a fist to stifle it. His own fault - he’d barely slept last night. Danica’d offered him one of the spare beds in the temple and he couldn’t complain of lack of comfort, but the thoughts whirling inside his head, accusing and pointing with hard eyes and gnarled fingers, hadn’t let him rest.
Puling coward. Weakling. Failure.
Not that anyone in Whiterun shared his opinion – their expressions mirrored Danica’s: soft, gentle eyes in kind, sympathetic faces. But they didn’t know the truth, didn’t know what he’d done. The source of his shame. Warrior that he was, protector of Skyrim that he was, he’d frozen, last night outside the gate. Frozen, instead of finding some way to help his brother. And options abounded: get the carriage, get the wheelbarrow.
Get. Fucking. Danica.
Anything would have been preferable to nothing, but no. He’d stood there on the cobblestones, stood and wrung his hands, and begged Aela for help. Farkas burned – literally burned – right in front of him, his skin glowing like embers. Over half his body nothing but char, according to Danica’s assessment. But there he’d stood, and done sweet fuck all.
After Farkas had passed out on the grass, Aela was the one to run to the temple and bring back Danica, a carriage, and a bucketful of potions.
She was quick on her feet, Vilkas thought to himself, bitterness and guilt curving his lips in a sneer, and it might be only due to Aela that Farkas would live at all. She’d also cleared city streets, allowing the carriage driver to speed through the village and the marketplace, stopping only at the steps leading to the Wind District, where they’d carried Farkas, wrapped in layers of linen sheets, up to the temple.
“He shouldn’t, though.”
Danica’s voice broke through Vilkas’s pity party, and he forgot his shame for a moment, turning sharp, blue eyes on the priestess. He’d thought the same thing, but he was no healer and hoped he’d been wrong, that his injuries weren’t as severe as they first thought. “Why do you say that?”
“The burns alone…I’ve never seen anything like it,” Danica said, stepping up to Farkas’s bed to run a hand over his mottled bicep. “Looks like a mixture of flames and steam. He shouldn’t have been anywhere near a Dwemer ruin, and I don’t know what else could do that to a body. And see here?” She lifted his shoulder a couple of inches and pointed to a large welt on its underside. “Places where something stuck and burned, something sticky, like pine sap or tar caught fire and held fast, burning all the while.”
Vilkas shuddered, but didn’t respond.
“I mean, the burns alone should have killed him. But how long did he walk in such a state? The body dehydrates quickly when burned, and how he didn’t die of thirst I’ll never know. Not to mention the stress on his body – his heart should have given out. And his pain…”
She shivered and her voice softened. “I haven’t seen anything near this bad since the Great War.”
Vilkas looked at her with unconcealed surprise, his eyes peering into her unlined face. “The Great War? Pardon my insolence, but you don’t look old enough to have been a healer over thirty years ago.”
Danica smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Vilkas wasn’t sure, but he thought they looked older, suddenly, their tawny depths seeing and reliving things better left in the past. “Kyne‘s blessing,” she said, “works in mysterious ways.”
Vilkas felt a flicker of curiosity kindle to light. The compulsion was almost irresistible – he yearned to pepper Danica with question after question until the whole delicious story came pouring out and he could revel in the knowledge. But he swallowed his questions instead, and turned back to Farkas.
His brother lay unclothed beneath a light linen sheet, sleeping as he’d slept since passing out on the road last night. His eyes weren’t swollen anymore, and despite the red angry marks on his neck and arms, and his shorn hair, he looked like Farkas again. “How long do you think he’ll need to sleep?”
“Another day should do it,” Danica said, resting the back of her hand on her patient’s forehead. “He’ll still have scars, but the tissue damage should heal by then, and the risk of infection will have passed. I’ve alternated healing with potions – stamina potions – to help with blood loss, too. Yes, tomorrow night should do it.”
Vilkas nodded. He needed more information: what happened on the road from Dawnstar, and who (or what) had attacked his brother? Other than the man lying unconscious on a temple bed, only one person in town could help him find out. He turned to leave, giving Farkas one last glance. “I’ll be back soon.”
The morning sun streaming down on the Gildergreen fairly blinded him as he stepped out into the courtyard. He grunted and blinked, swiftly trotting downstairs to the marketplace. For some reason, he thought it’d be cloudy, even though he’d seen the sun rise hours before. The tension coursing through the city had him feeling like a storm was brewing – or maybe it was just him, he didn’t know.
He kept his head down amid merchants and villagers buzzing around him, curious to know how Farkas fared – what was he to say? ‘He was burned alive, down to the bone, and might be fine physically, one day, but how do you recover from such a nightmare and not be fucked in the head’ seemed harsh. Vilkas settled with a repeated “he’s on the mend.” That, and a quick half-smile seemed to do the trick.
An axe’s thwack had him flinching again, and he looked sharp in the direction of its sound, up the hill toward the back of Belethor’s shop. Just Sigurd, the shop assistant, chopping firewood, and Vilkas felt shame flood his face once more. Just a guy chopping firewood, not the end of the world.
“A bit tetchy this morning eh, brave warrior?”
Olava’s voice sounded like gravel grinding under his boots, as usual, but something else in its tone – a touch of mockery, maybe, or mirth – stopped Vilkas in his tracks. He turned his head toward the bench where she sat, little blue bottle in hand. She grinned and took a sip, licking her lips with relish, but whether she enjoyed her whisky or his discomfiture more, Vilkas couldn’t say. Her smile, like Danica’s, didn’t quite reach her ancient eyes. But unlike Danica’s, Olava’s gummy, blackened rictus radiated – he narrowed his eyes and took a step closer – was that...malice?
Vilkas walked on down cobbled streets, tightening his fur-lined cloak against a sudden chill breeze. Whether malice or gum disease, he wasn’t sure, but her cackle at his retreating back had him cringing and striding a little faster. Gods, he needed sleep. Just a bitter crone enjoying her liquor, not the end of the world.
Warmaiden’s finally came into view, and Vilkas was relieved to see the blacksmith outside her shop. Adrienne sat at her grindstone under the covered patio, a steel sword in her practiced grip. She looked up at his approach and eased her foot off the pedal. “Hey,” she said, resting the sword’s hilt on one knee, “courier came through about an hour ago from Riften, I believe. Red-faced and panting – showed Laila Law-Giver’s insignia and ran straight up to Dragonsreach. He’s not come back down yet.”
Vilkas nodded. Kodlak had ventured up to Dragonsreach earlier that morning for a council meeting – if aught was amiss, he’d let Vilkas know when he returned to Jorrvaskr. But Vilkas knew, already. Between the freak storms and what happened to Farkas, and now one of Skyrim’s unflappable couriers so uncharacteristically …flapped? He wasn’t imagining it – that sense of wrongness.
“Thanks,” he said, and leaned against a wooden column, his hands jammed in inner pockets of his cloak. Eyes on the prey, not the horizon, as his brother liked to say. “How’s the girl? Britta?” He wondered, after his words left his lips, if Adrienne was as tired of hearing that question as he was.
“The same,” she said. “Physically fine. Danica found a few places that might be healed burn marks on her neck, but otherwise, fine. Funny, that. If she was in the same fire that injured Farkas…”
Adrienne pushed herself up from the grindstone and set the sword on her workbench. She leaned against an opposing column and met Vilkas’s eyes. “Is Farkas-”
Vilkas let out a ragged breath and knocked his head back against the column. Adrienne huffed. “Yeah, I know you have to be tired of hearing that. But we all saw that carriage speed past and heard Britta screaming, and Danica… He’s yours, Vilkas, but he’s ours, too.”
“I know, I get it. It’s just,” he began, and cleared his throat, digging his boot into the loose dirt floor, “Danica said he shouldn’t be alive. He’ll make a full recovery, but…”
Adrienne gazed at Vilkas, her eyes flicking over his pale face and clenched jaw. “It’s never easy, you know, no matter how much you’ve seen. It’s just...different when it’s someone you love,” she said, and settled back down with the sword she’d been sharpening. “Go on inside. I think Ulfberth’ll let you talk to her. I know you have questions.”
“Thanks.” Vilkas shoved open the door to the shop, but unease stopped him with one boot on the stoop. Warn her, warn them all. He turned around. “Adrienne…”
“Yeah?”
He shook his hair back from his face. Warn them about what, though? Maybe Farkas was right, he did worry too much. “Nothing,” he said, and walked into the shop.
“Hey, man.” Adrienne’s husband, Ulfberth War-Bear, stood at the counter, polishing a steel sword with a soft cloth. “I’m sure you and Ana traded stories and news already,” he said, a grim smile touching his lips, “so I won’t badger you with more questions. Britta’s in the back room.”
Vilkas nodded, relieved. Ulfberth had always been a man of few words. A hunter from Eastmarch, he’d clashed with Adrienne once on the price of pelts for her leathercraft. Adrienne won that fight, Vilkas remembered, for the most part because Ulfberth realized he wanted the woman more than the trade. The rest was history.
“Want to come with?”
“No,” he said, and set the sword down, resting his elbows on the counter. “I’ve been thinking of calling you down anyway. You know the only thing she’s said since we got her home?”
Vilkas shrugged.
“Farkas. That’s it. Just ‘Farkas.’ That’s the answer to any question we’ve asked her. And sometimes she says it…just because.” Ulfberth jerked his chin up toward Vilkas’s face. “You and him are twins, and even though he’s half again your size, there’s a resemblance. Maybe she’ll respond to you. I hope she does. I’ve been holding off sending a courier to Jona until I have something more to tell.”
Vilkas nodded again and walked around the counter to the family’s living area. A warm kitchen and sitting room was lit by a large fireplace and table lanterns. Colorful rugs littered the floor, and Britta sat on one, rocking back and forth on crossed legs.
So much trauma for such a little girl. He wondered, more than a little bitterness creeping through his thoughts, if Jona, Britta’s mother, had seen this coming. Vilkas sat across from her, his ankles tucked under his thighs. “Hey, Britta.”
The girl stopped rocking and looked up. Her eyes brightened for a moment, then fell as she took in his thin face, chestnut hair, and shorter, slighter build.
“No, I’m not Farkas,” Vilkas said, the corners of his mouth twitching in a sad smile. “But he is my brother. And I wanted to let you know he’s doing ok.”
Britta said nothing, and clutched the stuffed bear she held in her lap and continued her rhythmic sway.
“You did a good job getting him back to us, you know? I saw what you did, keeping him upright, keeping him moving. And we – all of us – owe you a debt,” Vilkas said, and paused, watching the girl stare at the floor. Well, he’d known it might take time – his own experience gave him unfortunate insight into childhood trauma.
Thirty-odd years later, and the necromancer’s cage where he and Farkas spent their third or fourth year still hovered at the edge of his thoughts. No one knew how old they were when they went in or came out – Kodlak had guessed as to their ages and even assigned them a birthday, the twenty-sixth of Rain’s Hand. Almost two months away, Vilkas realized, looking up at a calendar hanging over Ulfberth’s desk.
Neither brother remembered how they got there, where their parents were, who their parents were. Even details of their rescue and the aftermath were little more than flashes of memory – bright lights and clanging steel and high-pitched screams. But Kodlak told him later that neither he nor Farkas had spoken for months afterward, their minds likely incapable of processing the hell they’d been through, and that they were safe and sound on the other side.
Vilkas had no way of knowing what Britta had seen or endured, but judging from her current state, it had to have been a bloody, terrifying nightmare. He pushed himself up off the rug. “Just wanted to let you know, and if you want to see him, if you want to see Farkas, tell your uncle and I’ll be right down.”
She stared up at him. He turned to go, but before he’d reached the door, a scuffling sound made him stop and turn back to the girl. Britta stood not two paces behind him, her blue eyes wide. She nodded almost imperceptibly, and Vilkas smiled, the sudden lightness of his heart going a long way toward dispersing that cloying miasma of shame hanging about like a giant’s reek.
It wasn’t much, Vilkas thought, the memory of his brother’s burned and broken body hovering behind his eyes once more, but it was a start.
Art Credit: InsanitySquirrel, DeviantArt
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