Victory or Sovngarde

Chapter Thirty-Nine

"Are you all right?" I asked, shocked that she was up and walking just a day after giving birth. "Do you need our help?"

Tyra shook her head. "No, Ylva, I'm fine." Then, she walked up to me and presented the bundle. "Meet Kensley, your nephew."

Vilkas and I craned in to look down as Tyra pulled back the flap hiding the baby from us. Once we laid eyes on his scrunched, red face, my heart melted. He was smaller than I expected, since Tyra had gone to full term with him, but that only made him all the more delicate. The mop of dark hair across his wrinkled scalp surprised me, too, since their other children had been wheat-blonde right out of the womb.

"Oh, Tyra, he is precious."

"I was there to catch him," said Farkas, pride beaming across his smiling face. I couldn't imagine how he must've been feeling, seeing his wife with his new son.

Only hours ago, Tyra and Farkas welcomed this new baby into the world. A new world. A better world than the one he was conceived in.

As one big family, we walked up the path back to Whiterun. I set Jergen down, Vilkas helped Embla back to the ground, and we led the way back to Jorrvaskr. With little evidence of the battle from the day before, no one would've suspected anything had happened. Sure, there was damage to the walls, gates, and ground, but nothing that couldn't be fixed in a matter of weeks. Everything would return to normal before long.

Just in time for the Moot.

Gods, I dreaded the Moot. I had no idea what to expect, and that worried me. When I oversaw the temporary truce signing at High Hrothgar before capturing Odahviing in Dragonsreach, I had seen just how three Jarls in the same room behaved. Ulfric, Elisif, and Balgruuf had been nearly insufferable together. Tempers ran high, egos stood in the way, and if it weren't for Arngeir stepping up to keep the peace, I wondered if we'd have ever come to acceptable terms.

Thank the gods I'd had the foresight to hide my identity at that meeting. I shuddered to think what would've happened if everyone had known my true identity. It was hard enough for everyone to believe that dragons were coming back, and that the Dragonborn had arrived with their return. I doubted anyone would've believed the Dragonborn to be a young girl who had grown up a farmer.

Destiny was strange like that.

When we arrived at Jorrvaskr, the children ran towards the sleeping quarters, to retrieve their toys or who knew what. The rest of us followed behind them, but only to help Tyra into bed. While my sister-in-law may have said she was strong enough to walk from the stables to Jorrvaskr, her face had started growing pale, and her steps had slowed.

"I've missed the sound of laughter," I remarked, smiling at the cheers and shouts of our children just ahead of us.

"These halls are filling up with children," said Vilkas, "and with Skyrim liberated, I feel much better about that future."

That was only a half-truth. We had won our fight against the Aldmeri Dominion, but Skyrim wouldn't truly be annexed until the Moot. I still had to meet with Jarl Balgruuf and learn when the Moot would be, because if he didn't set the time within the next four or five months, I doubted I would be able to make it. I would be too heavily pregnant to make the travels across Skyrim, but my presence there was necessary.

Oh, if only I wouldn't have to leave. I only wanted my time in the sun to come to an end. For almost ten years, I had been made a spectacle for all to see. Now, I wanted to return to the life of quiet, unobtrusive honor. Saving people from bandits, bullying drunken louts into submission, hunting for game, raising my family. I never wanted to be made a pillar of strength, or for the masses to look on my face and beg me for my blessings. I was no god, and I never would be. My only hope was to maintain my quiet life until I passed away into Sovngarde for good, whenever that would be.

Hopefully, it would be a long time before my death. I wanted to grow old, see my children have children. Pass on what I knew to the next generation. The Companion life wasn't the best for child rearing, but I cared not. I couldn't imagine a better life for my children, knowing they would be protected here.

With Tyra safely in bed, and Kensley still asleep in her arms, Vilkas and I took our leave of the proud parents. While they'd had time together since the arrival of their new child, I didn't want to take any more time away from them. I would have plenty of time to coo over my nephew, and with my own child coming in the next few months, I wouldn't run out of children to dote on anytime soon.

"When will we tell them?" asked Vilkas as we walked to our children's room. "I'm sure they would love to know."

"After they get a chance to rest," I replied. "I don't want to take the excitement or attention off Tyra just yet."

He chuckled. "Remember how they found out they were expecting Bria only days after we had the twins?"

I nodded. Oh, that seemed like an eternity ago. "Seems strange how it's happened twice now."

My husband shrugged, standing just down the hall from the children's room. "Well, not if you remember their wedding came only a couple months before the twins were born. Couples who are newly wed tend to spend a lot of time together behind closed doors."

Try as I might, I blushed. How stupid of me! I was married to this man, had given him two children, and was carrying his third. How could he turn me into a red-faced mess teeming with embarrassment over something that wasn't even crass?

He only made me more flustered as he leaned closer, lips grazing my ear. "As for you and me, well, we were just making up for lost time."

I slapped the back of my hand against his shoulder. "Hush! Someone could hear you!"

With a kiss planted to my cheek, my husband headed into the children's room, leaving me standing dumbly in the hall.

When I finally came back to my senses, I shook my head and headed towards the children's room. Gods only knew when I'd have my next meeting with the Jarl. I wanted to take all the time I could with my family before I was needed elsewhere.

But it wouldn't be long now. Soon, this wretched war would be over once and for all. When the treaties were signed and the High King declared, Skyrim would know peace.

I would know peace. For the first time in fifteen years, I would be allowed to rest, knowing my parents were avenged, my home was free, and my children were safe.

Gods, I can't wait for that day.