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Athis's return to Windhelm after he walked away a decade and a half ago, swearing he’d never come back, wasn’t exactly the glorious homecoming he’d never have admitted to imagining even under pain of death. Getting into a brawl with a thuggish Nord barely ten minutes after passing through the gates was hardly the dignified behaviour of a Companion of five years standing; even less dignified was slipping on a patch of ice and giving the Nord the opening to break his nose.
At least he’d won the brawl. Even if he could taste his own blood in his mouth and his nose was throbbing so hard his eyes watered, he left the Nord bleeding and spitting out teeth on the frosty steps behind him as he climbed the steps to Candlehearth Hall.
He would have found better drink and better company in the Snow Quarter, and for significantly better prices, but the brawl had left him annoyed. He wasn’t in the mood for the slums, where he suspected the familiar sights and smells would feel like personal reproofs.
Conversation hushed when he shouldered his way through the door with a scowl, and then stopped completely when the men slumped at the bar saw he was a Dunmer. Athis shook his cloak back, making sure his sword was visible, but they still gave him a few hard looks, eyeing his broken nose. Once he was a member of the Circle, he told himself, not one of them would have the guts to look at him like that.
"Lost?" one of them muttered as he walked to the bar, and they all sniggered quietly, but this died down quickly when Athis gave them a contemptuous glance. Truth was, he was already regretting coming here – the ale always tasted of piss this side of Skyrim and somehow he doubted they’d be serving sujamma, which was at least part of the reason he'd come to Windhelm in the first place. It was impossible to get hold of in Whiterun, and lately he'd had a hankering for the tastes of his boyhood. Still, there wasn’t a chance in Oblivion he was going to shame himself by turning on his heel and walking out now.
The sour-faced woman behind the bar looked like she agreed with her patrons, but she took his money without a word and slid his tankard of ale across the bar to him, the greasy liquid slopping over the side. He took it with a curt nod and climbed the creaking staircase to the upper room.
Candlehearth Hall had always been strange. The tales went it hadn’t always been an inn, that it had once been a guildhall in the days when the long-defunct Mages’ Guild held sway across Tamriel. Whether it was true or not, Athis didn’t know, but upstairs he could almost feel the centuries of gathered magic that had soaked into the wood like kitchen grease. Unlike downstairs, his presence drew little more than a few brief glances and a welcoming smile from the serving girl. The atmosphere was close, thick with the smell of wood smoke from the enormous fireplace that dominated the centre of the room, with its reportedly ever-burning candle in pride of place on the mantle and, rather less mystically, several potatoes baking on a rack underneath.
At the table directly in front of the fireplace, appearing at first glance content and relaxed in the full searing heat of the flames, sat another Dunmer. At least, Athis assumed the figure was a Dunmer: hard to tell, given it was wearing traditional chitin armour from head to toe. It would have been an unusual sight anywhere in Skyrim; here in Windhelm, where the Dunmer were expected to know their place and be grateful for every scrap they were thrown, he might as well have spat in the face of the jarl himself.
Whoever he was, Athis liked him already.
The helm turned his way, and while it was impossible to tell for certain, Athis felt himself being scrutinised. His customary look of stone-faced contempt remained unchanged, but he inclined his head, and the Dunmer lifted his ale in greeting, then gestured for Athis to join him. Athis hesitated – he hadn’t come in search of conversation – but he was curious now.
"Greetings, sera," the Dunmer said as Athis sat down. His voice was gravelly and sardonic, with an air of experience that implied he had encountered just about everything that an adventurer could encounter and had found it all rather dull.
Athis nodded to the armour. "That's a sight I thought I'd never see in Skyrim. Especially in Windhelm."
"I did wonder why everyone kept looking at me. And here I thought it was because of my devastating good looks," the Dunmer said, gesturing to his unseen face. "Teldryn Sero, for my sins. Lover, poet, mercenary for hire."
Athis snorted and swallowed the ale. It proved exactly as disgusting as he’d expected. "I'm Athis. I'm a Companion."
The helm tilted. "How convenient," Sero drawled. "I happen to be in the mood for company."
Athis scowled, flushing dark. "I'm not–"
"–Not that sort of Companion, no. I know what you are. Always a pleasure to meet a fellow mercenary. So long as they haven't been hired to kill me, of course. You haven't been hired to kill me, have you?"
"Not this time."
"Thank goodness for that. I'd hate for us to get off on the wrong foot."
"You're looking for work in Windhelm?"
"I'm between jobs. If anything, I'm looking for an excuse to leave. I used to live here, a long time ago. Coming back reminds me of exactly why I left. It's bleak and cold, and scarcely a congenial face to speak of. Present company excepted, of course."
Athis's mouth tightened in acknowledgement of that, although he wasn’t quite sure if Sero had intended it as a compliment or as biting sarcasm. Possibly both.
"My employer and I parted ways recently. In not entirely amicable circumstances. Although I confess I'm grateful to him for getting me out of Solstheim. Have you ever been to Solstheim?"
"Never."
"Don't. It's a wretched place. If I wanted to be knee-deep in ash I'd never have left Morrowind, and it's colder even than Skyrim. I've heard Dagon's Deadlands might be bleaker, but I wouldn't bother putting drakes on it. You don't say much do you?"
"I try to keep my own counsel."
"Which is all very well as far as it goes, but it does tend to hamper conversation." The helm shifted again, the flat glassy lenses reflecting the firelight as Sero studied something over Athis’s shoulder. "Friends of yours?" he asked mildly, indicating a table at the edge of the room with a tilt of his helm.
Athis swivelled in his seat, and growled under his breath when he saw who Sero was referring to. The n'wah he'd brawled with, one eye swollen, had come up the stairs and was deep in conversation with a group of similarly unfriendly looking Nords, who were now turning and glaring at their table. Jaw clenching, he turned back to Sero, carefully making sure his sword was close at hand.
"I have no friends in Windhelm."
"You shock me," Sero said dryly. "Have I mentioned I'm for hire? My fee is exceedingly reasonable. I'll even throw in a discount for a fellow Dunmer."
"I don't need to hire a mercenary."
"No? Pity. I was rather enjoying our little chat."
As one the Nords stood and approached their table, the five of them spreading out. Conversation stilled as the patrons of the Hall sensed another brawl. Athis swallowed down another mouthful of the horrible ale and turned in his chair. "Did you miss me so much you were hoping I'd blacken the other eye?"
The bar maid tried to intervene. "Rolff–"
"Stay out of this, girl. This damn greyskin assaulted me. And now he's drinking in here like he owns the place, him and his..." He looked at Teldryn Sero, obviously unfamiliar with the armour, and sneered. "...All right, I don't know what in Oblivion that is."
"It's chitin armour, you fetcher," Athis spat.
Through all of this Sero seemed entirely unconcerned, leaning back in his seat, his poise one of unconcern or amusement or hidden rage. "That eye looks nasty," he told Rolff. "You really ought to get it seen to." And then, when Rolff cast him a less certain look, unnerved perhaps by Sero’s manner, he waved his hand in a placatory manner. "Oh please. Don't mind me."
Athis glared at him. He might have hoped, paid employment or not, that Sero could have backed him up.
"Outside," Rolff said to Athis. "We'll settle this like men."
"I'd be happy to oblige," Athis spat. "If you have any men for me to fight."
And if it was a fair fight. He had a feeling that whatever was waiting for him outside would be anything but fair. The girl looked torn, chewing on her lower lip, and two of the Nords were slipping out, making their way down the stairs. They'd be waiting outside. This time the bastard wouldn’t be taking any chances.
Rolff scoffed. "If I had my way, you honourless piece of shit, you'd be confined to the docks with the cats and the lizards."
"‘Honourless?’" Gritting his teeth, Athis stood and squared up to him. "I am a member of the Companions of Ysgramor," he snarled. "There is more honour in the tip of my little finger than in every inbred member of your entire sister-fucking family combined."
Softly, Teldryn Sero groaned up at the soot-blackened rafters. "Now he speaks."
Rolff had blanched white with rage. "What the fuck did you say?"
Athis jabbed him hard in the chest. "You heard me, fetcher."
For a moment, Rolff held himself very still.
The blow didn't quite come without warning: a flicker in Rolff’s eyes gave the game away, and his knuckles glanced off Athis’s cheek as he dodged the swing of the fist. The serving girl yelled at them to stop, and chair legs scraped against the floorboards as onlookers rose to their feet.
Athis grabbed for his own sword, but one of the Nords seized his wrist with a grip strong enough to grind the bones together. It bought Rolff enough time to punch him in the gut. Athis doubled up, the breath momentarily driven out of him.
Enraged, he jerked upwards, and headbutted Rolff, his forehead crunching into Rolff's nose. Even that indirect impact flooded his own broken nose with blinding pain, but then another fist, weighted with a pewter tankard, smashed into the side of his skull, driving him to his knees with the force of a hammer blow. His vision bled black. Only a boot slamming into his gut kept him from passing out.
He clenched his hands into fists, readying himself to surge upwards and punch the nearest underside of a jaw, and then Rolff gripped his shirt. Firelight glinted on the blade of a drawn dagger as Rolff hauled him upwards.
Something crunched.
The grip around Athis’s throat went slack as Rolff crumpled to his knees.
Teldryn Sero threw aside the remains of the chair he'd just smashed over Rolff's head as the Nords swung towards him, exchanged a look and then as one charged. There was a crack in the air like the snapping of a whip, a smell like the air after a lightning storm. Someone screamed and the Nords froze. One, the uglier one, recoiled, and tripped over Rolff’s legs, landing clumsily on his backside.
In the middle of the room, a graceful elongated figure twirled and spun, rivers of incandescent flame crawling over its body. It seemed calm, otherworldly, which of course it was, carrying with it the acrid burnt-metal stink of Oblivion. It gave off waves of heat that seemed somehow, impossibly, cold, and set his teeth on edge. As Teldryn Sero took a step towards Athis, everyone else backed off.
"The honorary Nord," Sero murmured to Athis as he helped him to his feet. "By which I mean idiot. Now might be an excellent opportunity to make a swift exit."
As they made their way to the stairs, the fire atronach drifted idly after them. Athis could feel its unnatural heat beating against the back of his neck, making his skin prickle with gooseflesh. Downstairs, the landlady opened her mouth to screech something at them, then she spotted the atronach behind them and whatever she was about to say dried on her lips. She went white, could barely do anything except stammer in response to Sero’s cheery "Goodnight, sera," and Athis’s glower.
Outside, shadowy figures started towards them the moment they stepped through the doorway, then froze when the atronach followed. There was a long doubtful pause, then one by one, the welcoming committee melted into the night with nothing to show they’d ever been there but the footprints in the fresh-fallen snow.
"Ah well," Sero said. "I was getting tired of Windhelm anyway. It's something of an improvement on Solstheim, but that isn't saying a great deal. Would you mind if we travelled together for a while? I'd appreciate the company."
"I'm not going to pay you," Athis growled. He glanced up at the sky. It had started snowing again, and he glared balefully at the flakes of slow drifting down from the deep-indigo sky, pulling his cloak tighter around himself.
"Well, there's gratitude for you."
"For one thing," Athis tossed back over his shoulder, "I don't have the coin."
"Pays well then, does he, this Ysgramor of yours?"
Athis opened his mouth to retort, then met the flat glassy eyes of the helm. "You know very well who Ysgramor is, don't you?" he said, frowning. "You're mocking me. "
"Affectionately, I assure you."
"I'll buy you a drink," Athis said grudgingly. "The next inn or tavern we pass."
Sero clapped him on the back. "Ah. So things are looking up. I knew they would, eventually. No good deed, or whatever that saying is."
"No good deed goes unpunished?"
"Oh, is that how the phrase goes? I always did wonder. It explains a lot. I really must try to be less altruistic."
Unexpectedly, Athis almost laughed.
* * *
Athis always had preferred travelling in company, but at least his Shield-brothers and -sisters were used to his ways and were usually content to travel in a companionable silence.
It was different travelling with Sero, who was voluble and seemed to have something to say on every subject under the sun, from Imperial subsidies on ebony mines, to the East Empire Company, to the Civil War. Athis tried to ignore him, but Sero seemed to have the knack of drawing him out.
"Dragons," Sero said gloomily when Athis asked what had happened with his previous employer. "And the restless dead. I saw more draugr travelling in his company than I have the rest of my life. Still, I suppose it's better than bonewalkers."
Athis lip curled. "There's little honour in grave robbing."
"But quite a lot of coin."
"If you value coin above honour."
"Goodness, you have gone native, haven’t you? If I didn’t know better, I’d swear I was travelling with a Nord."
He’d also been growing curious about the face under the chitin helm, and when they made camp he got his answer. While Athis built up the fire, Sero pulled the helm off, tucking it under his arm, rolling his shoulders. He was older than Athis, and by quite a bit, with thickly arching black brows, and a hooked nose with heavy ridges at the bridge, the strong lines of his face emphasised by black paint which followed the ridges of his cheekbones and merged with several days of stubble. A mohawk of bristling black hair was shot through with threads of silver.
Sensing Athis’s scrutiny, he turned towards him and returned to the fire, squatting on his haunches, examining Athis in turn. "So what was it that brought you to Windhelm? Family in the Grey Quarter?" he asked, and when Athis didn’t answer, he tried another tack. "You're an Ashlander, aren't you?"
Athis’s gaze snapped up. "How did you..."
"Only Ashlanders can pull off that particular brand of surly hostility. It's a gift your people have. I've often thought it's something to do with having to live in a yurt."
He looked at the fire, jaw working. "It's hard to be an Ashlander without a tribe."
Sero's head tilted, the question unspoken but impossible to ignore. The words knotted in Athis's throat, and he swallowed roughly, wondering whether he should answer or tell the nosy fetcher to mind his own business.
"Ash and reavers," he said shortly when he finally decided there was no harm in answering the question. "What the ash started, the reavers finished. They left me for dead."
"And so you came west. How long ago?"
"Nineteen years."
Sero hissed. "You can't have been more than a boy."
Athis lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Seventeen or eighteen. Old enough." Actually he'd been closer to fourteen. Which had probably been just as well, since he would have frozen to death on his journey through the Dunmeth Pass if it hadn’t been for a hunter taking pity on him, and he doubted she’d have been willing to help him if he hadn’t looked so pathetic. "It was a long time ago. And I’m not a boy any more."
"I can see that."
"You can smell the ash on the air," he said, gesturing to the sky. "On still nights when the air is clear and the wind's blowing from the east. I don't like it much."
"Do you miss Morrowind?"
"Do you?" Athis retorted roughly, and Sero cast him a look, more amused by his hostility than offended by it.
"I'm only an adventurer," he countered. "I'll go back one day. When I've had my fill of the life of a mercenary and I've made my fortune."
"I'm going back too."
"Every Dunmer says that. Very few of them mean it. And even fewer of them ever actually find their way back." His red eyes caught Athis's, and held his gaze, steady despite the pain that glinted in their depths. "There's barely a place in Morrowind for those of us who never left."
Athis stared at him, his throat tight. He made a scoffing noise and looked away in a manner that indicated he was done with the conversation. For once Sero kept quiet. Athis couldn’t tell if he was relieved or not.
It had been a long time since he’d let himself think about those years, but after they settled down for the night, he found himself thinking about them while he lay awake with Sero uncharacteristically still and silent beside him. He remembered that skinny, half-dead boy who’d washed up on the streets of Windhelm because he hadn’t anywhere else to go, not knowing what he’d find there, whether there’d be a place for him. The smell of ash had clung to his clothes and hair; for weeks afterwards, even after he'd bathed, he'd smell it coming out of his pores.
He glanced at Sero and rolled onto his side.
"Sero?" he hissed. "Sero, are you awake?"
"I am now," Sero muttered after a reluctant pause.
Holding his breath, Athis placed his hand on Sero’s hip.
There was another still heavy pause. Then Sero opened his eyes and stared hard at him, his expression unreadable.
Athis swallowed, desperate suddenly to snatch his hand away.
If he did, he was pretty sure Sero would say nothing, and they’d both pretend to go to sleep and not a word would be said the next morning. They’d part ways as soon as they possibly could and they’d never see each other again. If he moved his hand.
Instead he left it where it was, aware suddenly that he could feel the heat of Sero’s body through the armour and the hide. Like all Dunmer, he burned hot.
Then Sero rolled towards him, and at the same time he lifted the hide he used as a blanket, the invitation unmistakeable. Athis exhaled shakily, leaned close and kissed him. There was a patch of stubble just beneath the fullness of Sero’s lower lip, and it brushed roughly against Athis's lips as they pressed against each other. Sero pulled the hide across them both, enclosing Athis in a warm space heavy with the scent of sweat and the lingering aroma of netches.
Sero reached down, tugging up the skirt of his hide armour and parting his linens. Athis groaned involuntarily as Sero’s hand wrapped around his shaft. His hips bucked, and he knew immediately that he’d come too quickly, far more quickly than he wanted.
Urgently, he yanked at the fastenings of Sero’s breeches and reached inside, the cock springing out into his grip. As he closed his fist around it, Sero let out a soft hiss of desire through his teeth. But Athis was already clumsy, losing the rhythm as his pleasure build, rising in force until he came, gasping out his pleasure into Sero's throat where his skin smelled of sweat and leather. His last few strokes were too fast, almost frantic, and he caught himself as he recovered, forced himself to loosen his grip.
Sero’s lips were bruise-dark and swollen and on an impulse Athis leaned in and caught the lower lip between his, sucking on it lightly as he shifted his grip on Sero’s cock to something more artful.
Sero half-closed his eyes, his jaw tightening. "That's it," he murmured on his next breath. "Like that." And he groaned, back arching and his hips thrusting upwards, as Athis settled down beside him, his head resting on Sero's shoulder, and stroked him, slowly drawing his hand along his shaft.
When Sero came his hand tightened in Athis's hair and he pulled Athis's mouth to his in an open-mouthed hungry kiss that was all tongue and teeth, as his body shuddered through its peak.
Afterwards, he let out a long, satisfied sigh, his hand resting on Athis’s back between his shoulder blades as Athis settled down beside him and brought his mouth to Sero’s ear.
"I'll be one of the ones who goes back," he said, quiet and fierce. "I swear it by Saint Nerevar."
Sero fixed him with a steady assessing gaze.
"I believe you," he said finally, and for once his tone was completely serious. Athis hadn’t been expecting that, and, startled and pleased, he smiled. Sero flashed his own wolfish grin. "With your talent for making friends," he added archly, "you'll fit right in."