Six days since the dragon flew off.

Six day since Marcus had stood on what remained of the western wall (or, rather, what remained of what remained of it), arms crossed, watching the men gape as the corpse -- his corpse, their corpse, the trophy they had killed together -- shuddered, cracked, peeled itself off the shattered wall, and climbed into the sky. The wings had unfurled like sails catching wind, the rotted eye had regrown mid-flight. It had wheeled once, fixed each man in turn with that vertical-pupil gaze, then banked north, away from them, as if Fort Amol was no longer worth its attention.

Marcus had not been surprised. He had told them. The men had nodded, agreed, believed him in the abstract. And then it happened, and they stared at the empty sky like children who had been promised a second helping and received a switch instead.

He wished it would come back -- he really needed something to hit.

Bent had returned from Mixwater with a smile that would not leave his face, and he had not stopped talking about Aan since. Aan, whose name Marcus now knew because Bent said it forty times a day. Aan, who had a laugh like a songbird. Aan, who made the best stew in all of Skyrim. Aan, whose father ran the mill and had thanked Bent a hundred times. Aan, Aan, Aan.

Marcus had to listen to it. Worse -- he had to be supportive.

"Glad it went well," he had said through a smile that felt like a crack in his face.

"She asked about you, you know."

"Did she."

"Said to thank you again. For the cloak. She's keeping it."

"Good. She should keep it."

"She's really something, Marcus."

"Mm."

"She is. I know you haven't met her properly, but…"

"I'm sure she's wonderful, Bent."

Bent had beamed at him -- this enormous bearded Nord with an equally enormous warhammer on his back beaming like a boy with his first crush -- and Marcus had smiled through his swallowed scream. Then he had nodded, changed the subject to wall repairs, then went to the armory and punched the wall until his knuckles bled.

That had been four days ago. Things had not improved.

"She asked me about the sea," Bent said over breakfast, voice dropping into that low, wondering register -- the one he used when something genuinely moved him. "What it looks like, smells like, even tastes like!"

 

Marcus remembered that voice. He remembered the first time he had heard it, in a different life -- Bent's rough hand cupping the back of Trendil's neck, his mouth against her hair, murmuring something about the way the stars looked different from the south side of the mountain. A private thing. A thing she had treasured. And now he was using it for her.

 

The realization landed like a knife between Marcus' ribs. That voice -- that specific, unhurried, almost reverent tone -- had been theirs. It was the sound Bent made when he let his guard down completely, when he trusted someone enough to speak without armor. Trendil had earned it. Sweated for it. Bled for it. Let herself be broken and rebuilt inside the crucible of his slow, impossible transformation from rapist to ally to lover. That voice was the prize at the bottom of a very deep, very painful well. It had been sacred. Proof that Koren -- then Bent, then Hammerleaf, then Dragonspite -- had become someone worth loving.

 

Aan had earned it in six days.

 

"…and she has this way of tilting her head when she listens. Like she is not just hearing the words -- she is tasting them. Weighing them. She told me I talk too fast when I am excited. I had never noticed."

 

Marcus gripped his bowl hard enough that he feared it would break. "You do.”

 

He thought he had managed to keep his voice steady, but Bent’s expression changed – he looked at Marcus with the new quietly concerned expression he had developed -- the one that said he was starting to notice things about Marcus that Marcus did not want noticed.

 

Fortune finally came to Marcus’ rescue, alleviating the temptation to say anything that might betray him further, in the form of a voice calling from the wall. “Movement on the road!” The shout cut through the yard; Marcus was on his feet before the echo faded. Relief hit like a blade -- clean, sharp, immediate.

 

Bent’s mouth twisted. “Finally. Thought the world forgot we were here.”

 

Marcus almost said something to that -- something dry, something that might deflect -- but the words died before they formed. He did not trust his voice just now, not after that tone that still echoed somewhere he couldn’t quite silence.

 

“Go meet them,” he said instead. “See what they want.”

 

Bent blinked. “You’re not coming?”

 

“I’ll be there. Just need to make some arrangements first.”

 

Bent studied him for a moment, head tilting slightly, suspicion in his eyes. Too perceptive for his own good, sometimes, was Bent. But finally he responded with only, "Right. All right.”

 

He turned and headed for the gate, already calling for two men to join him. Marcus watched him go for half a breath longer than necessary, then forced himself away.

 

“You,” he snapped, pointing at three nearby soldiers. “With me.”

 

They straightened at once and followed. Marcus led them toward the inner buildings without slowing. He did not think about which room he chose; he only knew it needed to be away from the yard, away from the fire, away from Bent’s voice and the shape it had taken.

 

“That one,” he said, pointing to a half-collapsed room along the northern wall. “We need to clear it.”

 

The door hung crooked on its hinges; inside, the space was cluttered with broken crates, rotted bedding, and the slow creep of damp that never quite left the stone.

 

One of the men wrinkled his nose. “For the guests?”

 

“For anyone who doesn’t want to sleep in the yard,” Marcus snapped. “Move.”

 

They moved, and Marcus stepped in after them.

 

The air inside felt somehow colder than outside, stale and unmoving. He grabbed the nearest crate and dragged it toward the door; the wood scraped harshly against the floor, splintering further as it went. One of the men kicked aside a heap of old straw. Another wrestled with a warped table leg. The third hauled loose boards out in armfuls, dumping them just outside the threshold. They worked in silence beyond the odd grunt; hands on wood, on stone, on anything that needed shifting -- lift, drag, shove, repeat. The rhythm settled quickly, familiar in a way nothing else had been for days. No talking required, no listening required -- just movement.

 

The first crate gave way with a crack as Marcus heaved it aside; he didn’t pause, just bent and grabbed the next. His shoulders burned and his hands went numb where splinters bit through worn leather. It felt great -- he leaned into it, into the weight, into the effort, into the simple honest fact that this needed doing and could be done.

 

No past. No future. Just hard physical work.

 

“Here,” one of the men said, shifting a broken beam. “Take this end.”

 

They maneuvered it through the doorway together, angled it out, dropped it with a dull thud against the growing pile outside, then went back inside, then again. Time blurred. At some point, someone found a broom -- or something close enough -- and started pushing the worst of the debris into a corner. Another gathered what could pass for bedding and shook it out, sending dust into the air in choking clouds. Marcus coughed once, waved it aside, kept moving.

 

The room changed around them. Not fixed, of course, but cleared enough to be used – order out of chaos.

 

One of the men straightened, wiping his hands on his trousers. “That’ll do, I think.”

 

Marcus stepped back, breathing hard, and nodded, then clapped the nearest one on the shoulder.

 

“Good job. You have my thanks.”

 

They nodded and drifted out one by one, drawn back toward the yard and whatever novelty had walked through their gate. Marcus remained where he was for a few breaths. Long enough for the echo of effort to settle, for the tightness in his chest to ease just slightly, for the world to feel…quieter. Almost normal. He exhaled, slow and steady, then turned and stepped back out into the growing night.

 

The yard had shifted. Men stood in looser clusters, attention angled toward the fire where the newcomers had gathered. The low murmur of unfamiliar voices threaded through the familiar ones, changing the shape of the space. Marcus walked toward it, pace even, expression set. The fire was bright enough to cast the gathered figures in sharp relief; a dozen or more, sitting on crates and stumps, accepting bowls of stew, warming their hands. The smell of woodsmoke and cooking meat mingled with the rhythm of conversation, low and easy, and for a moment the world seemed a simple quiet place.

 

Two figures, in particular, stood out – they were nearest the fire while the other ten were farther back, which made them the probable leaders of whatever this group was. One was a Khajiit, sitting on a stump like a king holding court. The other seemed like a woman with dark hair but Bent stood between them, so Marcus was unable to get a good look.

 
"...and that is why," the Khajiit was saying, his voice a low, dry rumble, "Ma'iq no longer fights for money. Ma'iq has seen the alternative to his tongue, and it involves a great deal less sitting and a great deal more running. Ma'iq prefers sitting."

Someone laughed and the Khajiit's ears twitched. Bent said something Marcus could not catch and the Khajiit replied, "Ma'iq would rather be warm and fed than correct. But if both are possible, Ma'iq will take them."

Marcus was still three paces from the circle when Bent, sensing him, looked up and smiled and shifted slightly to the side, making room, clearing the line of sight. The woman turned and the fire caught her features and Marcus froze in place while fortune slammed its trap amidst gleeful cackles.

Dark skin. High cheekbones. Narrow mouth. The hard, worn architecture of a face that had weathered more than it should. Jet black hair pulled back, the barest hint of grey at the temples. Eyes the color of sapphires that met his across the fire.

Marcus felt the world drop away.

There was no mistaking it. Every line of her face was etched into him -- into Trendil, into the child she had been, into the daughter who had slipped out of a dark house seven years (in this Skyrim, only five months) ago and never looked back. The same eyes that had watched her across the training floor. The same mouth that had shaped the words that made up Trendil’s life.

Melissa Shae.

Her mother.

Marcus stood where he was, barely breathing, and waited for the world to start moving again. As if sharing his fear, it refused.

 

 

 

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