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.
Galmar, his oldest friend (not in age years, he'd like to add, though the grizzly bastard is old), has said he is very unfazed by everything save for a few select things, but Ulfric silently disagrees.
To start a war, you have to be very fazed. To chug a full bottle of spiced wine, filled with a poison he knows has been slipped in it, and stare the assassin down that had tried to be clever for the entirety of his drink and walk it off for the next month despite the fact he tried to vomit it all out is being very fazed. He is not unfazed.
He is a temperamental fuck and he's only let it show a few times, and people think he is otherwise a very calm and mellow person.
No. He is a vessel of pissed off, tired, overworked, and utterly drained of everything in him.
People think he can do no wrong, that he on the right every time. Truthfully, he doesn't know if this fight is worth it anymore, and he drinks enough to choke a horse, but he pretends he is something he is not. He does not have someone to share this side of him with, so he shares it with himself, and as depressing as it can be, he finds he does like himself beneath the mask of Jarl Ulfric, or Ulfric Stormcloak, leader of the rebellion that dares challenge the Empire.
With himself, he is Ulfric William Stormcloak, a son with no parents- a little bit of a rascal and a lot of trouble in one body. He is a grinning, happy man, who does not care that he has been tortured by the Thalmor, only that he got to spit in Elenwen's face the last day he had to deal with her. He is prideful and possibly a little jealous, even spiteful at times, but he is content waiting for someone that he may talk to.
Ulfric is a bit of an oddball inside, mostly weird and fairly awkward with women, but he knows how to fuck and fuck good. He is full of bad innuendos and smirks when no one is looking or hearing, and his hands roam more than they should when there is a consenting, fine lady by him. When it is only a friend that he fucks, he is confident and still Jarl Ulfric, but a part of him peaks out in the play.
When he has a woman who he wants to be more than friends with, one to wake up to (he's only ever experienced it once at 18, and it's by far one of the best times of his life), one he can cherish and be just Ulfric with, no titles, nothing. Just him.
Ulfric is easily ruffled when his guard is down. He is jumpy and a bit of an over-eager idiot, but his woman would like that. He stumbles over his words and suddenly he can't seem to talk when he is around her, and she will give him Oblivion about it.
He thinks it is stupid some nights, thinking about that mystery woman Mara has picked out for him as he does paperwork and such, but he can find a chuckle out of it. He doubts he will find that 'one.' He doubts he will have children to carry on the eras old legacy of Stormcloaks. He knows his father will call him an absolute shit-storm of a man when he reaches him, and Ulfric will laugh and agree. He will be the best disappointment of a son there ever was because he really wasn't a disappointment, he just didn't have kids of his own. He missed out on a big part of life for most people.
And that him would be okay with it, if not a bit embarrassed.
But right here, right now, on this damn cart, Ulfric is not happy. Ulfric is more than angry, and Galmar will get a mouthful of this anger when he comes back to the Palace of Kings. He had sworn this would be the death of him, and gods be damned, it might be. Oh, the shit he'd give his friend in Sovngarde.
Ulfric is slightly distracted by the woman beside him, looking uncomfortable and exhausted, and he relates to her on a soul-to-soul level. She looks beat because she was beaten by the damn Imperials that had snatched her while she was minding her own business and he tells himself he will awkwardly apologize to her once they get out of this. He is indifferent to women as a Jarl, but something about her is reading him like a book and he doesn't like it. She knows he is angry, she knows he is remorseful and apologetic, and she is telling him what she feels in return.
He notices, important to him for some reason, she likely has a nice ass, though he can't quite tell because he doesn't want to actively look and she is sitting. He does not know why that catches his attention in a very fazed manner once more, and he's having a bit of a crisis at that moment to ignore his body's natural reaction.
Ulfric is not usually bothered by women. Even the hot ones his housecarl brings back to the Palace of Kings at night; he is unfazed. He is now very fazed once more, and this woman is dirty, tired, and exhausted.
But so is he, and he (for some reason), feels a great need to fix that. He wants to clean himself off, trim his beard, put on his council-day best and tense his shoulders because he knows women like a man with some sharp ass shoulders. He is more than happy with her looking like she is now, though other men would be absolutely disgusted (aren't women the fairer sex? Shouldn't they be always perfect and put together and compliant and docile? Shouldn't they do this, this, this, and this for any man?) but Ulfric is good with her just being by his side.
The cart jolts over a rock and she's bounced off her part of her bench so much she comes crashing into his shoulder with her tit, and she lets out this quiet, throat-scream and he cringes. That'll have hurt like a bitch with his shoulders and the force of her coming onto him.
She's scrambling to let him have his personal space but she just can't get back to her spot because she cannot keep her arse on the wood because she does not have enough mass to keep herself down. He nudges her shoulder with his own, and he shrugs.
She apologizes quietly, he quirks a brow, and she rolls her eyes. She then turns, laying her feet where she sat before because the rocky part of the trail has passed, and she rests her head against his shoulder. He relaxes it the best he can, and she does fall asleep.
When one of his Lieutenants, Ralof, wakes, the young man is looking at the woman on laying on him like the way he looks at a sleeping draught after 5 nights of awful sleep and Ulfric's instantly pissed off again, because this woman has obviously claimed him for the better and Ralof does not get the right to stare like that at his new friend.
But all that he shows is cold, icy blue eyes, staring into the treeline.
She likes him.
She likes him a lot.
She does not know his name, but she will, and she will memorize it. Every letter, every syllable, and she will use his name like it's the honey she's been craving all year.
As a moan, if she's lucky.
She hopes he will be her husband.
But she knows she will die thinking that.
For she is getting off the cart, and the executioner's block is taunting her name.
But she hasn't yet said a word to him.
Ulfric is right and pissed.
Tullius' face does that to a person, but Ulfric especially. The way his hair is cut? Absolutely disgraceful to any man. At the very least, he could style it! But no, it's simply cut short. The bitch is balding and it's for the world to see. Disgusting.
And his voice? It's high and squeaky and shrill. It sounds like a girl (girls are not to be looked down upon, but if a grown man is comparing another grown man to a girl, it is at that point in which the man being compared has to actually address himself in a mirror) and Ulfric wants to barf. This is not a man! This is a disgrace to actual men!
He's wearing a skirt, for Talos' sake! A skirt!
Ulfric is so distracted by his internal rant about Tullius' absolute wussiness that he doesn't hear the first valley-rumbling roar of something that is not normal.
The second time, there is a dragon atop the tower in front of him, and he's bolting to the nearest safe space like an addict for a good hit of skooma. Ulfric personally prefers the Redwater skooma because it doesn't taint the brain as harshly and was addicted to it for a good year after the Markarth incident before he got clean and only rarely has a pipeful of it when it is most needed.
Ulfric, when he gets inside the tower, is looking out into the chaos outside and sees Ralof and his new friends come bolting in, both slightly singed and frazzled but she seems to be in better shape than even Ralof. He's grabbed a knife from the floor nearby and already has his bonds gone along with his gag.
Ralof tries asking a stupid question and Ulfric gives him a deadbeat answer, spotting a nasty burn on his woman's arm (he's not letting this go now). He can't help her and he's suddenly mad at himself at that fact.
"That was a dragon- from legends, yes." he states simply, running the knife through her bonds and then the soldiers'. She chuckles, adapting and finding humor in his unhumorous statement, but Ralof can only bite his lip. He's basically a boy, and Ulfric can't blame him for being terrified right now. Ulfric's seen worse, and it hasn't hit yet that what he saw was a literal fire breathing dragon that shouted better than him, so he's on an adrenaline high.
Ulfric watches as her hands ignite in healing and the yellow mist wraps around her afflicted arm, healing it in a pinch and his pride shrivels up and dies inside of him. She's never going to need help. He can't try to offer to stitch up a wound because she's already fucking healed it. My learned skills are useless! Mara has forsaken me!
He doesn't know why he's thinking there will be a next time, because for the life of him he will not let her get hurt.
But he shows none of this, and even her perceptive eyes cannot read his mind and he is too good at a mask to let her see anything more than he showed in the cart.
He's not in pain anymore.
Before, she thinks, she may have mistaken the anger for pain, because he looks angry.
But she really believes she's just reading him all wrong now, and he's too good at his game and she hasn't known him for long enough to see his patterns. She does not understand this man.
And she understands everyone.
So she likes this challenge.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
extra thicc chapter
dani out,
adieu!