Farkas sat his horse and tried to remember the last time he felt so underqualified for a contract. He’d slain giants. Chased bandits and thieves from one end of the Rift to the other with no trouble at all. Last year, Kodlak sent him and Vilkas to roust a nest of hagravens outside Rorikstead, and he had to admit they’d been a challenge, what with their screeching and disease-ridden claws and nonstop fireballs.
Britta, Ulfberth’s eleven-year-old niece, was proving just as formidable.
“Do you have any kids?”
“No.”
“But there’s other kids in Whiterun?”
“Mmhm.”
“What are they like?”
Farkas tried to picture the horde of ankle-biters constantly roaming the village, begging for a game of tag. “Um, there’s a…little one, and a loud one, and one with – I don’t know, ponytails?” Sweet Dibella, I’d rather be fighting hagravens. “I don’t know what to tell you, Britta. They’re not my kids, I don’t know what they’re like.”
“But,” the little girl whined, “what am I going to be doing there?”
“I don’t know,” Farkas said, rubbing his eyes and trying not to snap at the kid. His eyelids felt like sandpaper. “That’s for your aunt and uncle to decide. I’m just supposed to get you there safely, as I told you yesterday. And the day before that.”
Farkas’s head ached after two nearly sleepless nights peppered by brutal nightmares – storms raging on top of a mountain, lighting and screaming wind. Fire raining down on a battle, bloodier than stories he’d read in Vilkas’s books. Bodies burning and breaking on the mountain’s peak. The screams…
And something roared, something huge and fast as lightning. Roared and flew on wings, black as night, its eyes red. Fiery.
Farkas shuddered, and his horse whinnied, sensing its rider’s unease. He stroked its neck and scanned the snowdrifts along the frozen road. Nothing, as usual, but between the nightmares and that weird incident back at the inn, Farkas had to admit to feeling a little shaken up.
Worse than all that, though, Ulfberth’s niece was proving…chatty. Farkas found most conversation tiresome on any given day, but Britta chattered nonstop. His Legion recruits, Sprague and Sebastian and Arrius, rode with them and were doubtless better talkers, but no – it was Farkas Britta annoyed with her fairy stories. It was Farkas she’d badgered into some weird role-play involving a princess and a chipmunk at a wedding. And always, the endless, maddening barrage of questions.
Farkas was in no mood.
“What if they want me to learn how to smith? I don’t want to do that. Mama’s never let me near a forge. I’ve never even picked up a dagger.”
Farkas rolled his eyes. Ulfberth’s sister was a surprise – as different from her brother as she could possibly be. Tiny and delicate, her piercing blue eyes shone with an intensity that had Farkas inching back during their introduction. Just a step or two, maybe. And her white face glowed unearthly pale, surrounded by a messy cloud of raven-black hair.
On top of all this, she fancied herself some sort of a seer. In fact, she’d sent Britta to Whiterun on account of a premonition – war and disaster the likes Skyrim had never seen. And she wanted her little girl inside a walled city when it came. According to the innkeeper back in Dawnstar, she was the real deal, and made people more than a little nervous.
Farkas put no stock in magic of any kind, and a mother who’d abandon her child to go petition Idgrod Ravencrone – another nutty seer – to listen to her rantings and ravings wasn’t worth much in his book.
“You’ll do as you’re told,” he barked, and glanced over his shoulder. The little girl’s blue eyes widened in her thin face. Farkas’s own eyes softened a bit, and he swore under his breath. An eleven-year old girl had no business living among strangers. She’d already lost her father to a hunting accident years ago, according to Ulfberth. What she needed was her mother; even an unstable mother had to be better than none at all. “Ulfberth and Adrianne are friends. They’re kind and they have a warm home. You’ll be fine, Britta.”
Britta rode in silence for a blessed minute or two, and then pointed off the road to a grove of spindly evergreens. Under snow-bowed branches peeked a tumbledown henge, its black-stained monoliths stark against the white ground. “What’re those?”
Farkas looked where she pointed, and huffed. The girl really hadn’t been out much. “Weynon Stones. Built by ancient Nords come down from Atmora. No idea why, or for what. You could ask my brother when we get to Whiterun, that’s more his speed. But there’s a shrine to Talos there, so it’s important for Nords. Most Nords, anyway.”
“What do you think about Talos?” Britta patted her horse’s neck and the beast trotted forward a step or two until she was riding beside Farkas. “The fight, I mean. Ulfric.”
Farkas snorted. “Not my fight. I protect the people of Skyrim, and that means I protect them from Thalmor who want to hurt them for no reason. And from Ulfric, for that matter, if he tries anything he shouldn’t. I’m a Companion, and Companions don’t take sides in the civil war.”
“But Ulfric killed your king,” Britta said, her eyes flashing a little too much like her mother’s. “Doesn’t that-“
“I don’t care much for politics, and-“
“Mama said Talos is coming back. Well, not Talos, but…”
Britta cocked her head to the side and frowned. “Ysmir, Dragon of the North,” she recited, her tongue tangling a bit around the unfamiliar name. “That’s it. She said Talos wasn’t just one man, but many. And Ysmir’s coming back to save Skyrim.”
Talking politics made Farkas’s head hurt, and talking mysticism made it even worse. “Hey, Britta,” he said, clearing his throat and swallowing around a sudden tightness in his chest. “Can we not-”
He coughed and pulled at the fur-lined neckband of his armor. Something felt off, like he was riding into battle without his sword or his greaves. He tapped the sword at his hip for reassurance.
“Mama says Nords shouldn’t worship him, though.” Britta ignored Farkas’s objections and continued her lecture. “He took things that weren’t his and lived without honor. Mama says Nords hold a lot of the wrong people in rev – um, r-reverence, like Ysgramor-”
“What’s wrong with Ysgramor?” Farkas did snap then, coming to the founder of the Companions’ defense. He hoped his tone might warn Britta away from her line of conversation, or even better, conversation altogether. Something was wrong, something was…off. But what?
He nudged his horse with his left foot and gently pulled his reins to the left. The beast lumbered slowly across the road in a giant circle, and Farkas scanned the snowdrifts again, catching the eyes of his guard. Nothing seemed amiss, but...
“Well, he invaded and killed all the elves that lived here,” Britta said. “That wasn’t right.”
“They tried to kill him first, and his family, from what my brother told me,” Farkas said, pulling at his neckband again. His heart beat faster, hard against his chest, and his armor felt tight. “And anyway, they didn’t kill all the elves. Some of them are still here, aren’t they?”
“Did he really have to follow them to Solstheim and wipe them out?” Britta frowned and planted her hands on her hips. “That’s just mean. And then –“
“Yeah, well. Reachmen rip each other’s hearts out and replace them with damn pine cones,” Farkas said, his voice sounding choked to his own ears. His nightmares flashed behind his eyes, and he heard a sudden pounding of hooves. Thunder and lightning crashed in his head.
Something’s coming.
He groaned, and grabbed the hilt of his sword and pulled it a few inches. “We evolved, didn’t we?”
Arrius pulled even to Farkas and gave him a once-over, her eyes narrowed. “Sir, are you quite all right?” She looked back over her shoulder at the other Imperials and shrugged.
In lieu of answering Arrius, Farkas gagged and slid from his horse, the contents of his stomach rising. Fire. Glinting, bloody steel. He barely made it off the road before emptying his guts in the snow-covered grass. Black wings.
“Oh no!” Britta cried out with surprising sympathy for all her whining, and dismounted, searching through her saddlebags. “Are you sick?” She trudged toward Farkas, a red bottle in her hand.
Farkas backed up and clambered onto an embankment. He couldn’t see what was chasing him, but something had to be. The roads looked clear, but he could swear he heard screaming off in the distance, and his blood fairly boiled in his veins. He couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t breathe.
Scrabbling at his armor, he wrenched the chest and backplates until the buckles fell open. Loosening the plates helped. Farkas gulped lungfuls of air before jumping off the embankment, and walked back to his horse for his waterskin. Just a few hours to go before they reached Whiterun, and he could get a good night’s sleep, catch up on the gossip. Listen to Vilkas’s take on the whole Ulfric mess, and see how many more-
“Sir.”
Farkas started at Arrius’s voice. She pointed toward the south, her expression much like his own must have been just before he threw up. Farkas shaded his eyes against the snow’s glare. The southern sky had grown dark, and something seemed to slither through gray clouds, heading their way. Something…monstrous big. Like a thousand hawks, or a flying mammoth, or…
Black wings, lightning fast.
Farkas swore out loud, this time. His nightmares had never come true before, and they weren’t going to start now. He and Britta didn’t have time to mount their horses – they’d have to run for the henge. “Go!” Farkas spurred Arrius’s horse, and she took off, not waiting for additional guidance. “Head for the stones,” Farkas shouted, and the remaining guards followed.
Britta squealed as Farkas grabbed her up and carried her under one arm. A roar shook the ground, and he stumbled. They weren’t going to make it to the henge. Another roar, and a gout of fire sprayed the road to the north, overtaking the guards.
Farkas stood in shock, watching the thing fly to the north and slowly make a circle in the darkened sky before coming back their way. They wouldn’t make the stones either. He looked around, and saw a small hollow under the embankment by the road. He and Britta might be able to squeeze in. With his shield and armor between them, even if the monster decided to spit fire again, the girl might make it out alive.
Farkas set Britta on her feet and knelt down on the slushy path. “After it’s gone, head down the road south,” he directed, and pointed toward Whiterun, trying to keep his arm from shaking. “Tell the guards what you saw and get to the jarl. And tell Ulfberth to explain to Kodlak what-”
“N-no.” Britta shook her silver-blonde head, her eyes never leaving the flying monster circling above the clouds. It flew higher than before, but Farkas could still hear its roars – or growls, they sounded like now, almost like a discontented wolf searching for prey. What’s it waiting for?
“No, no, no, n-no,” Britta said, hysteria taking her already shrill voice up another octave. “I can’t. I can’t! Y-you-“
“Yeah,” Farkas said, and clapped his hands on her shoulders. “I’m going to try.” He pulled Britta’s chin down. “Look at me. I’m going to try. But if I can’t, if I can’t get out of here, you’re going to need to know what to do, and where to go.”
Britta hiccuped and shook her head again.
“Hey,” Farkas said, and forced himself to smile. He hoped it looked like the real thing. “You with me, here?”
The terrified little girl finally nodded and swallowed hard, her blue eyes wide and wet with tears.
“You’re going to be fine,” Farkas said, and tossed her into the snowy hollow. He arranged his large form over her slight one, and pulled his shield behind his back.
The ground shook again, the concussion from the beast’s wings flinging snow and mud into the hollow, and Farkas gritted his teeth, waiting for the roar he knew would come.
And the fire.
Dragon, he mouthed to himself, giving voice to what he’d known, but never believed. From that first morning he’d awakened, shuddering and sweating from nightmares filled with black wings and red eyes, he’d known.
A dragon, alive, in the sky. In his sky. He’d seen pictures of them in barrows, and in books Vilkas and Vignar liked to read. The palace at Dragonsreach was built around their legend, of course. But that’s all it was – legend.
Kyne. Akatosh. Talos. Please…
No more.
Mara. Dibella.
Legend no more. Real, and circling closer, ever closer. Farkas’s muscles tensed with the strain of holding his crouch above Britta. Not that he was anxious to die that day, but what was taking so long? Where was the roar, and the fire?
What are you waiting for?
Another roar, and Farkas felt the shield on his back shake in his fist. Britta screamed against his chest and beat his armor with her tiny hands. “Shhh,” Farkas crooned. She’d started to whimper and fight, and Farkas couldn’t blame her. She’d seen that dragon fly down and kill their guards in seconds flat, and they’d been galloping at top speed. He and Britta should have been easy pickings.
But the fire didn’t come. Instead, the earth convulsed under their hollow and great heaps of dirt from the embankment rained down, covering them with dirt and rocks and rotting roots. Farkas held his breath and tried to keep most of the dirt from Britta’s face, and listened. Silence. A booming thud, and the ground shook again.
More dirt fell into his face, and Farkas knew – the dragon had landed, and stepped closer. Something very like a sniff sounded from outside the layers of mud and snow.
Another step, and a wave of rage surged through Farkas’s body. If not for Britta, he’d smash through his muddy cage and fight the dragon, one on one. Death would come anyway – it might as well come with a sword in his hand. Instead, he pushed his anger down, and bottled it up in a silent scream.
What do you want?
More silence, and then a low, guttural laugh. The beast shuffled its feet and spoke one word, in a language Farkas didn’t understand.
But beasts didn’t speak, he reminded himself. Just another growl. He tightened his core and held his crouch, continuing his prayers to every god in existence.
One more dark chuckle, and a swift intake of breath, and Farkas’s existence dwindled to little more than fire and screams and pain.
I worked my favorite Farkas in-game dialogue here. :)
Also, my daughter had me do that exact role-play once. Princess and chipmunk. No idea where they come up with this stuff.
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