Skyrim One-Shots

Ulfric x Reader(Female) ~Shenanigans Of Cloaked Shit-Storms~

She knew what pain looked like.

She could see the crack of a bone in another person, in a broken wrist, a shattered ankle, a snapped collarbone, without having to look that hard. She could see bruises hidden under clothing, screaming purple handprints in places they should not be, ribs broken and ribs fractured, without ever having to touch and inspect.

She could see pain in eyes. In worn hands. In hollowed-out cheeks, starved from years on the streets. In smiles that were so genuine, the person had to be having the best day of their life. In scars and in laughter. Behind closed doors and behind closed hearts, there was suffering and suffocating and terror.

She knows the feelings all too well. She's been there. She's felt it herself so many times she's simply gotten numb to it.

Skyrim, in her dangerous beauty, enthralls her people and snaps them in half. She gently reaches for her citizens' hearts in her soft, warm grasp, and holds them for a few years, letting them have the good days, then crushes that heart in her tight, strong fist, and opens her hand to let the ashes float away in the wind. Then, the person mourns- with anger, maybe, or sadness, or one too many ales.

But once the pain is gone and they get back on their feet again, a new heart grows. It grows until it is too big, too strong for the person's body, and her ladyship smolders it to ash again. It hurts a little less this time, but that doesn't mean there isn't any pain.

The cycle repeats, over and over again, until the person does not feel any pain. They have grown and experienced, from first heart-break to a broken, crippling back, preventing them from work, and they do not fear her anymore. She smiles, and she leaves them be. They have learned life and appreciated it and understand it's purpose.

Some never understand. Some, she has to smolder their hearts on a daily basis. Some, she must crush when they are not ready, so the pain may morph them into who they truly are. Some, she must beat down over and over and over again to teach them to stand, to teach them to fight, to teach them that they are a force not to reckoned with and they must protect all those that cannot keep getting up.

And in icy blue eyes beside her, the woman dressed in rags sees suffering she sees in glass, in her own eyes. In hearts beaten down and stomped on by life, by Skyrim. She sees him, even though she does not know his name, and she smiles, a soft, assuring thing, like they will make it out of this alive and she will remember him.

His mouth is bound, his lips covered by a white cloth, but the barest of nods is her return. The man is broad-shouldered and nearing 50, if not over, and has seen more than any man should, Nord or not. He has seen death, has shaken hands with Arkay, and he is not afraid right now.

Truthfully, she is terrified, and she takes his calm, accepting confidence (though anger radiates off him like light from a torchbug) and she helps herself to his mostly stable aura. Her eyes flicker away once she needs no more of this, and she watches the trees as the cart they are on passes them. Her wrists are bound harshly and she cannot feel her hands, and she does not like the feeling- she is helpless. She has no dagger or sword or anything at her back or hip or belt and it makes her feel vulnerable and weak and she's looking for something to ground her, though it only makes her feel worse that she needed grounding in the first place.

In his silent, masked eyes, he understands. He understands that she is scared and he lets her be weak, because if he himself cannot breakdown like that, he will let others have the relief of it. He is a locked jar, waxed shut and then buried six feet under. He is untouchable. 

But in reality, and in some slight, dark humor he has shown no one, he is very touched by a lot of things. People that chew with their mouths open like goats? It pisses him off. People that stare at him like he's some sort of rare beast? He'd like to glare them down and see how they like it.