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ervona · 9 months

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Day 2: Beloved / Ritual for @tes-summer-fest

Each night on the twentieth of First Seed, the keepers of Azura’s shrine were on their feet even earlier than usual. High up on Mount Anthor the cool springtide wind danced and sang with nary a cloud passing by to obscure the Lady’s crown. Though many hardships had tried and tested them throughout the years, the Mad Star would not claim this night, nor the next.

Most folk from the city celebrated the dawn of the twenty-first in their homes or temple, but chosen priesthood and a few lay people would make the ascent, where in the darkness their distant forms bearing lanterns and magelights dotted the slope like torchbugs. The altar at the foot of the statue greeted them long since prepared and gleaming to impress the Queen of the Night Sky.

Flowers newly bloomed spun into wreaths, the dust of wayward spirits, iridescent shells and pearls, the phases of the moons carved into silver all caught the eye, but in that splendor what held most worth was aught offered from a worshipper’s own heart. In each hand a silvered mirror was held, so as not to gaze at their Prince’s fulsome brilliance directly.

Afore the first sign of dawn, the wind ceased for a moment as a breath held in anticipation. Where the golden spark first arose from the sea, a ring of light followed, encircling all they could and couldn’t see. They began the incantation. More so than usual, the acolytes were skittish, following their seniors to the point of inflection foreign to Winterhold-born youth.

With seafoam and petals and scent of roses did Azura come to them, senses captured, the presence overflowing from every facet of their surroundings. The words she spoke to each soul gathered here were obscured from others, her love a sanctum where all they wished to know of their destiny lay hidden.

How would one convey such joy for those not privy to it? Her most devoted were guarded and prone to jealousy. A mirror shattered, and an acolyte’s tears poured hot into the snow. And then it was over, and the harmony of voices turned to scattered birdsong.

The holiday that had grown around Azura’s summoning day was also one for loved ones to celebrate, feast and toast to all the gateways already crossed and those that awaited them. As soon as it was acceptable, the gathering scattered like leaves on the wind, and cleaning up in preparation for the eventide was left in the capable hands of Diviner Ienith, who had no family.

Her lot in life was not as sorrowful as one may think, since she was beloved by the Lady of Twilight, and each night that she would stroll the mountain restless with naught but a pallid light in hand, she would hear the same voice that had time ago brought the false gods to heel, but gentle as a breeze. She spoke in the word of Azura, and all willing to listen would receive it too.

Of the scant people still gathered, one caught her eye whom she’d known as Lay Priest Varen afore he left to pass his storied knowledge of Mysticism to students of magic. At times when her faith had been tested she’d considered that path as well, but learned to cherish her simple life. As one of few older than her, he was oddly spry enough to climb the mountain, though the many amulets hung about his person shimmering with enchantment must have helped.

“Aranea! Such a delight to see you,” he spoke with inordinate familiarity, and heeded not the ways that she gave off disinterest. “Even more so to tell you that an associate of mine has located Azura’s Star. For certain this time!”

That’s what you’ve said a few too many times before, was the thought on her mind, but she pushed it aside and tilted her head in feigned interest. “For certain? And where was it located?”

“Ah, that is yet uncertain. But in the case that I set out to find it, I extend the invitation to you. Azura must want you to recover her artifact, and with your vision-”

“Lady Azura wants for me to stay at this very shrine, and that is most certain.” She reached for the first thing she could grasp, and spun around to descend without looking back once, down and around until she reached the cairn from where the Prince was only partially seen.

Head spinning, she slumped down to the frozen stairs and dangled the crushed wreath in her hand like a pendulum. For all it was worth, it was true. Azura had shown her destiny, and the premonitions, cryptic as they could be, had never deceived her. Those who had no such guidance in their lives could never truly understand the responsibility she bore with pride, and only sought to use it.

She craned her neck towards the wall far more ancient than their statue but hewn from the same stone by those who had come before, and froze to a halt. A mighty, winged shadow descended upon it, but was gone in a moment. No, beyond her mind’s eye someone was there, heavy robes and likewise steps making no sound. She blinked a few times and stood up very carefully.

They seemed to be a Dunmer as well, perhaps someone from town who had wandered and was now lost, or simply interested in ancient Nordic structures. She knew she was out of practice in addressing ordinary folk, that was part of what Azura demanded from her.

Before she knew it, she threw her wreath and turned back the way she came from, at some point breaking into a sprint that left her out of breath by the time she returned to the now fully deserted shrine.

It was midday at the very least, and her preparations for dusk should have been underway much sooner. She scolded herself in her mind, but wasted no time. All would be ready for the crimson gate by the time it would even slip the minds of her juniors that they were needed for the ceremony too. But she could never fault them for enjoying their Hogithum dinner, for she would do no different in their place. Fortunately, she was bestowed with her own purpose.

The sky would take on each color of bruise soon enough, and having had her meal of scrib jerky she could only sit in silence with the offerings, wringing her hands with faint scratches left on them until it was time to conduct the ritual, perhaps on her own. There was no sorrow in that, for it made her holy bond even more special.

“Kena Aranea!”

She turned to the sound of her name and the voice that could only belong to one, well, two people running towards her up the slope at a speed most unwise, just waiting to trip on the stairs yet balancing quite well with some sort of cake in hand. Both of them, at that.

“You have returned in time! Azura commends you, and so do I.”

The acolytes giggled at that, looking back and forth at where they could set down the food. “My ama wanted you to have this, well, I was going to bring you a slice-”

“And my folks told me to bring something too! They all remember you from back when-”

“Ama then said to just bring the whole cake!” At a closer look, it was a comberry cake by way of snowberries, and a mushroom quiche.

“My warmest thanks to you and your families. I will just put these in the inner shrine, and you best be prepared. Think of what you would like to ask our Prince.”

She tried not to linger inside, to simply do what she came here for. While barely hungry, she was happy enough to weep, so she let her tears flow. That not only her acolytes but those she had known once thought about her on this day, that they would think to bring her…

But they are just here for an education, they will leave for greener pastures as they always do, soon enough you will be left alone, shoveling snow for all time, a voice in her head spoke.

“I am never alone, as long as Lady Azura is with me,” she replied, hand to her heart.

The silence that ensued was finally broken by the howling wind.

#tesfest23 #skyrim #tes #the elder scrolls #aranea ienith #assorted ocs and npcs but you're here for her #scrawling tag

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monstersandmaw · 3 months

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Footsteps in the Snow - Chapter Fifteen (sfw)

*don't get excited - it's not a new chapter (yet)* I can't find this on my Tumblr, so I'm posting it here from my AO3. 16 is nearly done though :)

Snowfall, and a change in the weather. Blissful domesticity is interrupted, and Argis begins to ask Lein a bit more about being the Dragonborn.

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Lein and Argis’ exquisite bliss lasted uninterrupted for just over a week, at which point it was broken by the arrival of a curious and rather disorientated young giant on one otherwise unremarkable and snowy afternoon.

Lein managed to scare the scruffy loner off with a few well-placed shock runes and fire bolts, and once they’d rounded up all the scattered livestock, and coaxed a snorting, plunging Sol back into his stall with the promise of a hot bran mash, Argis turned to Lein and chuckled. The sound of it was free and happy, and it set a chorus of whirling torchbugs loose in Lein’s chest.

“What?” he asked, ducking to scoop the last chicken out of the back of Sol’s stall and tuck her easily under his arm.

“This,” Argis said, gesturing broadly around at the ring of sturdy pines that protected Windstad from the worst of the weather. “It’s just… kind of ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous?” Lein set the chunky, brown hen down with the rest of her friends and tramped back through the scuffed-up snow to join Argis, still standing in front of the stable, arms folded casually as he watched the warhorse munch greedily on the bran. “What’s ridiculous?”

Argis was still chortling, shaking his head in disbelief.

A whispering breeze lifted the foremost strands of his dark, flax-gold hair from his mismatching eyes, and Lein’s gut twisted knowing that Argis was his to touch now, whenever he liked.

“Just a few months ago,” Argis rumbled as Lein joined him, “I was some illiterate grunt serving the Jarl in Markarth, and the worst I really had to worry about was some Forsworn nutter getting too close to him. But now? Now I’m learning to read, and I’m lying in bed with my lover late into day, cooking him meals, and watching fucking giants caper off through the trees with their loincloths still smoking!”

At that, Lein barked a loud laugh that rang through the pine needles and sent a couple of crows spiralling up into the silver-clouded sky.

“It’s just…” Argis faltered, setting his massive hands to Lein’s narrow hips as if to ground himself. “If you’d told me then where I’d be now, I never would have believed you.”

Lein grinned and reached up to tug Argis down into a searing kiss that made his bushy eyebrows shoot upwards in surprise. “But are you happy?” Lein asked in a hoarse voice when he drew back.

In answer, Argis grabbed Lein by the hips and hoisted him up so that Lein had little choice but to hook his legs around Argis’ waist while Argis shifted his hands to hold him securely under his thighs. “Yeah,” he croaked, gripping hard. “Are you?”

Lein nodded and kissed him again, more leisurely this time, with his arms snaked around Argis’ solid neck. “I never would have believed it either, you know?” he said between leaving tender kisses against Argis’ surprisingly full and soft lips. He couldn’t help lingering on the noticeable scars on one side, kissing him there over and over until Argis moaned and let his eyes flutter closed again. “I wish we could just hide away up here forever,” he added when he drew back with a sigh, eyes turning sad and distant.

Argis frowned, perceptive as ever. “What do you mean?”

Lein huffed a laugh and kissed the tip of Argis’ chilly, wind-reddened nose. He squeezed his thighs together like a rider trying not to slither off a careering horse and said with fragile nonchalance, “Dragonborn, remember? The one ‘destined to stop Alduin’ and all that?”

This close up, he could see again the way Argis’ gaze didn’t match. His left eye tracked slightly inwards, milky and sightless, but his right eye was fixed on Lein with a serious, compassionate, and unwavering stare. Lein wondered fleetingly if Argis had any vision left at all in his blind eye, and again if the injury had happened in the hagraven attack. He didn’t ask though. Argis looked suddenly too serious to add more weight to his already heavy brow.

While Argis continued to hold Lein firmly, he made his way over towards some snow-dusted logs that lay stacked up on one side of the clearing; all that remained from building the main manor. He rested his hips and lower back against them and let Lein continue to cling to him as though he weighed nothing at all. Beneath the lea of the wafting pines, he finally asked, “How far along with that plan are you? You don't really talk a whole lot about being the Dragonborn…”

“No,” Lein breathed. “I don’t, do I?” He sighed and laid his cheek against Argis’ shoulder, luxuriating in the unusual sensation of simply being held. Being short and willowy had its advantages in his line of work more often than not, and this was definitely one to add to the list.

“Do you have anyone helping you?” Argis asked in a quiet rumble. “Or are you taking everything on on your own as usual?”

Lein chuckled. “I’m not that riekling-headed, you know?” he laughed, and then shivered as the advancing winter snuck its icy fingers down his thin collar. “Alduin is the flipping World Eater after all. Even I’m not dumb enough to try and tackle him on my own.”

“Let’s go back inside,” Argis suggested, letting his hold on Lein’s lean thighs loosen, hands steadying him affectionately as he slithered back down into the snow. Once he was down, Argis kissed the side of his head before turning for home, and Lein grabbed a playful handful of Argis’ beautiful, solid arse, just to hear him grunt in surprise, and just because he could.

The warmth of the fire blazing in the stone hearth washed through Lein as the main doors closed behind him. He hummed softly and looked around for Argis when the other did not immediately join him at the chairs in front of the fire.

Argis had instead ducked into the small pantry-kitchen and he emerged a moment later with two tankards of warm spiced mead. “Here,” he said, offering one to Lein.

“Mmm. I knew I was keeping you around for a reason.”

“This morning didn’t count for anything?”

Lein flashed him a dirty grin, the ache inside him resurfacing at the reminder, and raised his tankard in salute. “Do it to me again later, and I’ll consider it.”

Argis just rolled his eyes and snorted, clinking his own mead against Lein’s before drawing deeply on it and then sinking into the chair beside Lein’s. “What does it really mean then… to be the Dragonborn?”

Lein remained on his feet. He hugged one arm around his middle and cradled his tankard in the other hand, staring off unseeing into the fire for a moment. “Technically, it means I have the ability to consume a slain dragon's soul and absorb its knowledge and power — which you witnessed yourself up at Eldersblood Peak. I can also use the magic of their language through the power of the Voice, or Thu’um. It’s what the Greybeard's teach, among other things. You don’t have to be the Dragonborn to do that last bit though.”

“Like Ulfric Stormcloak you mean?”

He nodded, then levered his mucky, snow-damp boots off and tossed them onto the hearthstones to dry off. That done, he tucked one leg up beneath him, folding himself into the chair behind him in a position that anyone else would have found unbearable after only a few seconds. Argis’ mouth twitched a smile, but he didn’t interrupt.

“Aside from that… it also apparently means I’m probably the only one who can kill the big lizardy fucker for good before he, you know… eats the world.”

“And just how does one kill the World Eater, who can’t be killed by anyone but you?”

Lein sucked in a breath through his teeth and then drained nearly half his mead in one go. The heady, sweet spices rushed to his brain and his belly, and he savoured the sensations for a long moment. Looking down at the hearthstones, he shrugged. Fragmented memories flared and pounded through his mind in a series of blinding flashes - the searing after-images of reading an Elder Scroll - and he screwed his mismatching eyes shut against the unexpected onslaught.

“Lein?” Argis murmured, a sharp note of concern in his voice, and Lein caught the soft creak of the wooden chair as Argis shifted, right before the firm, warm weight of his hand landed on Lein’s thigh.

Fighting down the spinning nausea, he opened his eyes and smiled briefly over at Argis before taking another breath and carrying on. “Sorry. I… uh… I read an Elder Scroll up on the Throat of the World, under the guidance of the leader of the Greybeards… I’ve actually fought Alduin once already…” He shot Argis a sidelong glance and saw that his eyebrows had risen, shock written clear on his face.

“You… what?” he whispered, strong fingers twitching in surprise where they still rested on Lein’s leg.

“Yeah. The Scroll let me see through a tear in time, back to when Alduin was first defeated, and I learned the Shout they used to bring him down. It’s… fuck, it’s a terrible shout, Argis,” he exhaled, shaking his white hair into his eyes with a shudder. “It translates roughly to ‘Dragonrend’. It robs them of their magic and brings them down from the sky so that you can fight them on the ground. But… it’s not a Shout that the Dovah themselves ever dreamt up; it’s man-made, and as such, it’s just… wrong.”

He shivered again, recalling the cold void it had left inside him after using it, and the look of abject horror in Alduin’s glowing eyes when he’d tasted again the power of a Shout that he’d obviously presumed lost to time. Lein had even pitied the foul lizard for a moment then, right before the beast had rallied and called down great hunks of rock to rain down from the sky above. He’d forgotten his pity pretty quickly after that.

“Anyway,” Lein forged on in a hollow rasp, “He finally realised that we actually had a real shot at beating him that time, so while I was still recovering from using the Shout, he recovered enough to take off. By all accounts, he’s vanished from Tamriel.”

“But… if he’s gone,” Argis asked, “… why do you have to fight him again?”

Lein shook his head and drank some more mead, more steadily this time. The spices warmed him and he tried to relax into the embrace of the chair.

Argis released him but stayed sitting forward in his seat, elbows resting on his knees, knuckly, scarred fingers laced; thoughtful and tense.

“He’s vanished,” Lein said, “But he’s not dead. I’ve still got to face him again. But… I’ll need a dragon of my own this time.”

At that, Argis jerked his chin up and looked like he’d been slapped. “Huh?”

Lein waggled his eyebrows and nearly laughed as he casually dealt Argis yet another staggering mental blow. A lingering hysteria bubbled away beneath his words as he said, “Paarthurnax, the leader of the Greybeards, told me I’d need to bring one of Alduin’s greatest generals to the only place in Skyrim that could actually hold a dragon - Dragonsreach in Whiterun. If I can talk some sense into the dragon, Odahviing, then maybe - just maybe - I stand a chance of finding out where Alduin went, and how to kill him for good.”

Argis was silent for a long time, jaw grinding, but eventually he sat back heavily in his seat and breathed out a soft curse.

“Yeah,” Lein said, finishing off his mead and setting the tankard down on the hearthstone with a soft clunk. “Exactly.”

“When do we leave?” Argis asked after a long minute with only the crackle of the fire to fill the huge hall.

“What?”

“You heard me,” he growled. “If you’re facing down the most dangerous dragon of all time, I’m sure as fuck not going to let you do it alone, Lein.”

Lein couldn't help but smile at that.

He pushed himself out of his chair and crossed to Argis to straddle him and sink down into his lap. With his hands braced on Argis’ massive shoulders, his lips found their mark. “I love you,” he whispered, rocking gently against him. “You know that, right? You don’t have to say anything back, but… I need you to know it.”

Argis’ face shifted into the sweetest and most awkwardly pleased smile Lein could ever have imagined, and he let his hands wander down to Lein’s hips. “Yeah,” he croaked.

Without urgency, Lein kissed him over and over, rolling his hips against Argis’, losing himself in the blissful sensation of simply kissing him, until a loud knocking on the manor door brought a frown to his face and a grunt of startled displeasure from the pair of them.

“Who in the name of the Nine…?” Lein sighed, clambering off Argis’ lap and heading towards the door, adjusting himself a little on the way.

“I’ll go,” Argis murmured from behind him, having risen with the swift efficiency of a life-long soldier. As he passed it, he grabbed his longsword from where it rested unsheathed and ready against the pale plasterwork of the entrance hall. In the space of those six short strides, his whole demeanour changed. If Lein hadn’t been mildly concerned about who was outside, he might have found it deeply attractive. As it was, he summoned his magic to readiness and stalked behind Argis to the main doors of the manor house.

The previously-relaxed set of Argis’ huge shoulders shifted to hold a tension that had Lein’s whole body thrumming. He was fairly certain that whoever lurked outside wouldn’t present a threat beyond anything they could handle between them, but nevertheless, he cast an armour spell on the pair of them. The teal light flickered in the entrance hall as it soaked into their clothes and skin, and Argis put his rough hand to the door.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“It’s me!” came a familiar female voice from the other side, giggling. “And Val. We didn’t just want to barge in, and Val’s got his hands full anyway!”

The tension fled them in a heartbeat, along with Lein’s gathered magicka, and Argis yanked the door open to reveal Valdimar at the bottom of the wooden steps, holding Iona in his arms and preparing to carry his new bride across the threshold.

Lein laughed in relief and stepped aside, and when Val noted the tingling remnants of magicka in the air and the crackle of enchantment around them, he grimaced a fraction. “Sorry, Lein,” he said. “I should have yelled sooner, but in my defence, I did have a face full of my wife’s hair in the way…”

Iona’s long, golden hair fell loose and wafted about in the sea wind, and where Val was wearing his usual scale armour, she had on a heavy, woollen, forget-me-not blue dress that bore some intricate embroidery around the neck, cuffs, and hem, and a noblewoman’s fox-fur shawl. Her only concession to practicality appeared to be her sturdy, fur-lined boots and, like almost every Nord woman, she carried a long knife at her belt. They looked radiant together, and Lein’s heart soared with joy to see them so happy.

“You’re both forgiven,” he beamed. “Come on, get in out of the cold. Are your packs still on the horses?” he asked, noting the fancy-looking beasts tethered beside a very unimpressed Sol in the stable across the yard. The stallion snorted and whinnied his disapproval of the strange horses, and Lein chuckled as he left the newly-weds and stepped out into the slushy snow again.

“Now, now, none of that. Where are your manners, lad?” Lein said to the stallion as he approached the sheltered loose-boxes.

Behind him he heard the low rumble of Argis’ voice and the answering chatter of Val and Iona. In the space of a few minutes, the manor house had filled with bustle and life again after a week of relative stillness and seclusion. Ahead, the two black mares watched him with ears pricked forwards and nostrils flared. He held his palm out to the larger mare and she snuffed at him curiously before deciding he wasn’t nearly as interesting as the full haynet that was lying on a bale of straw nearby.

“These fine ladies hail from Jarl Elisif’s own stables by the looks of the insignia on their tack,” he murmured to Sol. “We’ve got to be polite.”

Sol clearly had no intention of being anything other than unrelentingly hostile towards the two unfamiliar mares, and Lein apologised quietly to them as he untacked them and slung their large saddlebags over the stable’s central partition. Behind him, he heard Sol gnashing his teeth and stamping a huge hoof through the straw of his stall, huffing and shuffling conspicuously.

“We’re not really equipped for more than two horses at a time, so you ladies will have to share a stall until I can take you back to Solitude,” he said, taking a brush to the dark coat of the nearest. As he groomed over her withers and down her shoulder, the sharp nip of Sol’s pincer-like teeth on his shoulder made him yelp and flail, dropping the brush with a clatter as he spun around. The sudden movement spooked the mares, but they didn’t break their tethers.

“Ow!” Lein cried, elbowing the stallion in the cheek over the wooden wall between the two stalls. “Don’t be like that! And that’s going to bruise, you terror! What are you? Part dragon? By the Nine, that hurt!”

Sol glared unblinkingly at him and snorted while Lein nursed the pinched flesh on his shoulder with reaching fingers. Even through the fabric of his shirt, the horse’s teeth had given him a nasty nip. It would leave a vibrant bruise on Lein’s paper-white skin for sure if he didn’t fix it, so he let a trickle of golden healing magic flow between his fingertips, all the while scowling straight back at the unrepentant horse.

For a strange moment, Lein actually thought the snickering had come from Sol himself, but when he broke away from their staring contest to turn and look back to the house, he saw Argis trudging over to him through the slush, longsword now nowhere to be seen. He looked soft and relaxed and frankly delicious, with only his loose, linen shirt and dark, scruffy cotton trousers on, tucked into leather boots. He shook his head fondly as he took in the scene. “You getting bested by a horse, love?” he asked, and Lein’s stomach flipped over at the casually-offered endearment.

“By my own stallion!” he yowled like a wet Khajiit, tying off the flow of magic and rolling his shoulder ostentatiously. “The betrayal!”

“Maybe he’s the one who feels betrayed, what with your attention on these two mares,” Argis purred, stepping up close behind him and pressing a kiss to the side of his neck. Lein shivered and rocked back against the bigger man’s warmth and muscular bulk.

“You sure it’s Sol who’s jealous?” Lein shot and was rewarded with a low, earthy chuckle from Argis right in his ear. Adopting a lighter tone, in the hopes of coercing his awakening cock back into passivity, Lein turned to face him, laughed, and patted him patronisingly in the centre of his solid chest. “I promise to rub you down properly later, sweetheart…”

Argis snorted a laugh and turned away. “I’ll take these inside,” he said, and lifted the groaning saddlebags off the dividing wall with enviable ease.

As he watched Argis’ retreating back, Lein sighed. Bone-deep contentment seeped into him and left him feeling simultaneously grounded and giddy.

The mare he’d been brushing before Sol’s interruption had quietened again, and now that the stallion had made his point and was quietly sulking in the loose-box next door, a stillness fell around them. It was going to snow any minute, he realised, and ducked his head back out from under the shelter of the rustic stable. The clouds seemed innocently fluffy, but a new bite descended on the air and he shivered.

By the time he’d finished the first mare, Argis had reappeared and had already started on the second. For a time, the two worked in easy silence, breath frosting around them and mingling with that of the horses as the temperature dropped.

“Did you get a horse in the guard?” Lein asked as he picked out the mare’s hooves, levering out a chunk of stone wedged between the soft pad of the triangular frog and the shoe.

“No,” Argis replied. The regular rhythm of his hands passing over the mare’s black coat - palm smoothing out the hair after the bristles of the brush had cleared the mud and sweat away - was almost mesmeric as Lein straightened with a grunt to listen. “Too many of us, and no point really. My parents had a horse on the farm though. Ancient old thing. Tough as a bear though. We couldn’t really afford a horse, but I think they were too fond of her to put her down. No one would have bought her. My sister and I used to ride her out to the potato field and back in the summer.”

Lein’s breath caught in his throat. Argis had only once mentioned his sister, and that had been at the shrine of Arkay in Solitude, with tears tracking down his cheeks. “Nessa…” Lein breathed.

The steady motion of brush against now-gleaming black coat stuttered and he watched Argis’ throat work thickly as he swallowed. “Yeah,” he croaked.

“What happened to her, Argis?” he dared.

But Argis shook his head, teeth gritted, jaw set.

From the house, Iona called something through the flurrying snowfall to the pair of them but neither reacted. Lein crossed to his lover, placing his palm on the small of his back. “I’m sorry I asked, Argis. Your grief is your own. You don’t have to tell me.”

“I want to,” he said without looking at him, voice rough. “I just… I don’t know that I have the strength even now to… bring it all to words, you know?”

“I know.” Lein pressed a kiss to the curve of Argis’ bicep. “I’ll head back up to the house.”

He gave Argis the space to reorder his thoughts, and by the time the huge man stumped up the steps and shook the snowflakes from his hair, he seemed back to his normal quiet and stoic self. Lein glanced up as he entered the main hall from the entryway, momentarily tuning out Iona’s talk of the Blue Palace and the party the Jarl had thrown in her honour. Argis met his gaze across the table and a tiny smile graced his scarred lips. He blinked, nodded once, and then headed upstairs.

When Lein looked back at Iona, he found that she’d paused and was looking at him intensely. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I was listening. Val nearly started a duel when Bolgeir asked you to dance…”

A slow, soft smile dawned on her beautiful face, and she leaned over to where Lein now sat in the chair that Argis had inhabited earlier, and squeezed his forearm fondly. “I’m glad the two of you finally worked it all out.”

A lump formed in Lein’s throat. Gods, but he loved this little family of his fiercely. He prayed that this manor house of theirs would be enough for Iona and Val in the coming weeks and months of marriage. His vision blurred and tears welled as he thought tentatively of the possibility of welcoming a tiny child into the fold some day soon.

“Lein?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said, voice cracking. “I’m just… I’m a very lucky man.”

She rose and came to stand beside his chair, drawing his head to rest against her stomach and stroking his soft, white hair with her fingers. “We all love you to bits, Lein. I don’t know why it’s taken you so long to realise that.”

“It hasn’t,” he said, letting his eyes close and feeling the warmth of the flames in the hearth flicker against his skin for a moment. “… I know.”

She chuckled and stepped back, turning at the arrival of Val in the hall from the armoury. Lein leaned back in his chair to look over his shoulder and found the man with a lopsided smirk on his face and a brand new throwing axe in his hands. Lein’s brows rose — he could feel the enchantments on it even from that distance. “Wedding gift?” he asked, twisting in his seat. “Come on, Val, ’fess up. Who’s trying to out-do me?”

“Iona’s father had it commissioned,” Val said. “Here.”

Lein cleared his throat and stood, grateful for the distraction, and he took the weapon reverently from his housecarl. “Whoa,” he murmured, hefting the weight of it a couple of times. “That is some damned fine spellwork too. Who did this? Don’t tell me Sybille Stentor has stooped to enchanting weapons for you now?”

Val snorted and shook his head. “You think I’d let a vampire like her put enchantments on a weapon? And it’s not mine; it’s Iona’s.”

Lein raised an eyebrow and shot Iona a look. “He’s teaching you to throw axes now, is he?”

She giggled. “I think my father was hoping I’d use it on him, not with him…”

They all snorted, well aware of her parents’ snotty views on Val and, by extension, Lein. “Well, if you end up as good with one of these as you are with your knives and a bow, I can dismiss Val and Argis altogether. It can be you and me against the world. Watch out though, axes like this have a nasty tendency to bounce if they hit the ground on a throw…”

“Val and I are a package deal now,” Iona laughed. “No getting rid of either of us.”

“Thank the gods for that,” Lein muttered through a grin.

He turned the axe’s sinuously-shaped haft over in his hands and let his magic connect with the enchantments woven into the gently-curved wood and the pattern-welded steel. He sucked in a breath. Poison and stamina damage could be a lethal combination.

“This is a beautiful weapon,” he said to Iona. “You’re going to enjoy learning to throw it.” He turned to Val and added, “Feel free to stick a target up between the pines. I think we could have a little competition by the end of Evening Star.”

Val’s bushy brows rose at that and he took the proffered axe from Lein. “You’re staying that long?”

Lein shrugged. “Depends. I need to send a courier to Jarl Bulgruf in Whiterun, but the snow is going to start piling up soon. I’m not sure I really fancy going haring off into the wilderness this time.” He flashed a winning grin and added, “Getting old now.”

“You’ve got to be the most Argonian half-Nord I’ve ever met,” Val snickered, letting the axe dangle idly from his fingertips. “First sign of a snowflake and you go scuttling for a fire.”

Lein hitched a wonky smile and jutted his chin towards the armoury. “Feel free to put Iona’s axe on any of the displays. A weapon like that shouldn’t be tucked away in a chest to rust…”

Val nodded and headed back the way he had come.

Dinner that evening was a mellow affair, and Lein retired early. He didn’t linger in the tub that night either, heading up to his room with his hair still damp and smelling of lavender while Val and Iona talked at the fireside with Argis. He lit a candle or two with a tiny flame at the tip of his finger and curled up in bed with a book. He was four chapters in when the door creaked open and Argis slid sheepishly in.

“Hello,” Lein smiled, setting the volume on the table and looking up at him, hands lying soft against his thighs.

“Sorry,” Argis mumbled, shuffling about as he undressed.

“What on earth for? Looking so gorgeous? Stealing my heart? Winning over my little hodgepodge family here so easily?”

Argis flushed and laughed before meeting his gaze. “I thought you were waiting up for me.”

Lein shook his head, his white hair loose and falling around his face. “Just reading.”

The big man seemed quieter than usual, and Lein frowned. He shuffled over to the right hand side, which had quickly become ‘his’ side, and waited for Argis to climb in beside him. When he was settled, almost naked, Lein wriggled himself into a comfortable place at Argis’ shoulder and draped his arm across Argis’ huge chest. The steady drumbeat of his heart beneath Lein’s ear seemed a little quicker than usual, and he squeezed him tightly. “What’s on your mind?” he asked.

For a long time, Argis didn’t respond. He just breathed and stared at the rafters above, but eventually he whispered, “Something you said earlier…”

“Oh?” he asked as a shiver of fear shot through him. “Did I say something that upset you?” His thoughts instantly turned to asking Argis about his sister, but he knew Argis was still getting used to being in a relationship with another man. Perhaps he had been too free with his affection, even around only Val and Iona?

“No,” Argis rumbled, tugging Lein close to him as he went slack with relief. “No,” he said again, more gently this time, and kissed the crown of Lein’s head. “You said you wished you could hide away up here forever.”

“With you,” he added.

“Mmm.”

Again, Argis stayed quiet for so long that Lein nearly began to drift off to sleep in the warmth of his arms. His mind was just skimming the misty edges of unconsciousness when Argis spoke up again, voice little more than a rough whisper.

“You’ve lived the most extraordinary life already, and you’re barely thirty. It doesn’t seem fair that you have to fight him after everything you’ve been through. I… I wish… I just…” He heaved a massive sigh and whispered into Lein’s white hair that partially covered his neck and lower jaw from where Lein was lying, “I just wish you could rest, Lein.”

Lein’s chest tightened. Argis didn’t even know the half of what he’d been through yet, what with the necromancers who’d robbed his hair of colour and nearly robbed him of his soul, and the vampires of Volkihar Castle with their insane plan to blot out the sun that had seen him walk the Soul Cairn and face off against an ancient and powerful vampire lord, not to mention all the Dark Brotherhood contracts he’d taken on… He sighed, wishing he could express even a part of all that, but exhaustion washed through him and he slumped.

He hooked his left thigh over Argis’ leg, pressing the whole length of his body against the larger man’s and exhaling softly as sleep claimed him before he could respond at all.

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#footsteps in the snow #lein x argis #m/m fantasy romance #m/m romance

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