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Yes, she did, on occasion, wear an Amulet of Mara. And yes, there was a tradition in Skyrim – a tradition she could respect because it was based on logic she could accept – that, when one was looking to marry, to start a family, they declared their eligibility by wearing said amulet. Weddings were short, simple affairs, and rings were only provided by the Temple in special circumstances. Most could not afford silver bands, let alone gold. Iron and steel were far cheaper, and Mara’s blessings ensured that the metal would last longer than they ever would.
But she was a certified healer, an Adept Restorationist – of course she would wear an Amulet of Mara – not that anyone cared. She was an elf, with the height, ears, and eyes to match, and Nords were not the only ones so deeply mistrustful of her kind, or so notoriously suspicious of magic.
Oh, yes, she claimed to be helping, but everyone knew what she was really doing: mining the miserable for money, which she would, undoubtedly, spend on fine food, finer furs, and the finest wine because she, of course, never cooked, never hunted, never did anything but sit on her arse and issue insults, complain about the cold climate, even colder company, and praised the Thalmor with every spare breath.
Why would she ask anyone to marry her when everyone would refuse?
Beyond a few barbed compliments – the overwhelmingly unimaginative standard Skyrim seemed to impose upon wooing women – which she took in stride, Jadis had received neither the assessment of affection nor the promise of a proposal.
“You’re beautiful!”
Uh-huh. One day, they would spin something new.
“You’re like a goodness in human form!”
Yeah… That one hurt.
“The aspect of Dibella incarnate…!”
Flattery would get them absolutely nowhere.
“If I could rearrange the runes, I’d put ūruz and īsaz together.”
Such sickening originality.
People would give her that look if she ever wore her amulet in their company. They would say, without words, what they thought. She would ignore them, for the most part, but it was worse in town, and downright ridiculous in the city. On the outside, Jadis remained unfazed, unconcerned that their eyes followed her every move, waiting for her to make a fatal mistake. She could not always hear them gossip, but their laughter was unmistakable. No one wanted half-elven spawn, but they pitied her because, in their mind, she was still searching. Husband Hunting, they called it.
Sometimes, a foolish soul would ask the obvious, but once she told them that, yes, she was, in fact, wearing an Amulet of Mara, like every other disciple that took their vows, they would leave her be. The idea of an elf, and an Altmer at that, worshipping a human god was, apparently, too much for them to contemplate.
She had also made solemn vows to Dibella, Zenithar, Arkay, Akatosh, and – and –
And how was she supposed to convince them that she believed in the Nine Divines?
What would they say if they saw her praying to Talos?
‘Stop defiling that Shrine’, most likely.
Scandalous.
What would they do if she claimed her God-given… what? Birth-right? Destiny?
Would anyone even believe that she was the prophesied Last Dragonborn?
No. No, she was not of a mind, or a disposition, to envision the bloodshed. Instead, she drained her tankard, wishing it held something stronger than water.
“I’ll die before I marry again.”
“Again?”
Her eye twitched, her lips thinned, but she said nothing.
“Jadis?”
But she had not always been Jadis, had not always aspired to be the White Witch, Queen of Skyrim, Empress of Alinor. Once, she had been plain old Amethyst, and it was Amethyst who found love in the most unlikely of places, and Jadis would never find another soul like him. Even if they, somehow, managed to strip away her armour, her robes, her flesh and bone, they would never melt her frozen heart.
“Yes?” Jadis asked, perfectly composed.
Silver eyes, dark, like molten steel, crinkled in concern. His gaze alone wove questions, questions the silence weaved between them, but he did not speak, and Jadis did not wait for an answer. She rose fluidly to refill their tankards – Honningbrew Mead for him and lukewarm water, boiled by mage fire, for her – as the pounding feet of an invisible mammoth dodged her every step.
“Hey!”
The hand that grasped her supple, slender wrist – corded muscles connecting thick, callous fingers – was gentle, his inhumanly warm skin a balm against the goosebumps that broke out across her frozen flesh.
“Talk to me.”
For a moment, she actually considered it.
“…Not tonight, Farkas.”
He nodded once, neither reluctant nor reassured. “Okay.”
His fingers lingered, unafraid, and the moment stretched on for far too long. Jadis knew Farkas did not want her, not like that, but he had staked a claim. She was their Shield-Sister, but he was the first to shed blood with her. If anyone ever did want Jadis, they would have to get through her baby brother first. Life had been… interesting, to say the least, since their misadventure in Dustman Cairn.
She offered him – her friend, her brother – a tentative smile, small, shy, insecure, and so unlike her bittersweet sharp smirk that, suddenly, he was by her side, drawing her closer. Step by step, breath by breath. Her head came to rest atop his shoulder, and he simply held her, let her quiver quietly, silently, safe from the vultures that circled her still living corpse. His large hands ran smoothing circles over her back, his heat burned through her robes, and something bubbled up from beneath, a memory that, somehow, slipped through cracks in the ice, poking a hole in her once perfect dam.
Pressed between her chest and his solid steel breastplate, Jadis’ Amulet of Mara had nowhere to go, no escape. She would have bruises tomorrow… but they would fade. Her heart, however, would remain frozen.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
She arrived at Markarth with the dawn and was fortunate enough to seek shelter with Ri’saad. He had, of course, heard of her misfortune, and consequently halved her fee for accosting his caravan. She slept like the dead, rising only when Magnus turned in for the night, though with The Reach gripped in the heart of winter, Jadis still had a few precious hours to browse the market stalls.
It was on her usual supply run that she met Margret. The woman was an accomplished liar, to be sure, but Jadis had no to reason to cause a spectacle, or let a half-starved miner have his wicked way with her, and neither did she have any desire to call attention to herself. Well, no more so than usual. She did, however, enjoy their discussion. It appeared that Margret knew very little about jewellery, and Jadis was only too happy to educate her.
“Did you know Eorlund crafts?” she asked. “Yes, Eorlund Gray-Mane. His weapons are, I assure you, second to none – at least for a steel smith – but his silversmithing leaves a lot to be desired. You made a wise decision, coming to Markarth.”
Her tone, of course, implied otherwise, but Jadis did not give Margret long to ponder, though, given the newfound tension in her posture, she had, undoubtedly, imagined what would become of a lone wolf found sniffing around a bear’s cave.
“I have heard great things about the silversmiths here. Oh. But I see the rumours scarcely do your work justice.”
Kerah was, like her husband, a talented silversmith, and her work demanded admiration. The Silver-Bloods, of course, had their own certified smiths, but the Nords lacked the refined and graceful delicacy Kerah weaved into her life’s work.
“Hm. No, I am afraid not, dear. You would suit warmer colours,” Jadis informed. “Try wearing something red tomorrow. And change your lip balm. Peach does not suit you in the slightest.”
Margret’s facial features could only be summarised as “gauntly masculine”, and her tanned complexion outright declared that her father’s family had been interbreeding for countless generations. She was, without a doubt, an Outsider from Cyrodiil. Her red hair, however – a deep bronze, naturally lightened with exposure to the elements – was an envious asset. She insisted that her sister was much fairer, with long blonde hair and deep blue eyes: a true Nord, in their father’s mind. If her words held any credibility, which they seemed to, then they were some admirably strong genes.
“You are from Haafingar, yes?”
She only asked to be polite and took her arm out of some misguided that thought that her presence could offer some measure of comfort. She knew all too well what it was like to wake up in a strange world surrounded by strange people.
“When you next visit the capital, stop by Radiant Raiment, and tell Taarie that Jadis sent you. Your sister, on the other hands… I feel she would best suit blue? She detests the colour? Favours green, you say? Divines, no! You would clash. But silver and green… red and gold… Yes. Yes, I can see the symmetry. Your father must be beside himself having children as different as night and day.”
Finally, Margret settled on purchasing a silver locket, fixed with a single flawless emerald, for her mysterious sister. Intuitively, Jadis felt that this unnamed woman was older and, most likely, a soldier, given the versatility and practicality of her purchase. It was not something for the nobility to admire. It was something for a family to treasure. But as to why she, a spy, was in Markarth… Jadis said nothing, asking instead if Margret had visited the Temple of Dibella.
“Then I insist on a tour. Did you know that Thonar’s wife was once an Initiate? They do not take kindly to that sort of… matchmaking, if you take my meaning.”
Only when the stalls started closing did they part ways, and if Margret heard her whispered warning and decided to sleep with a dagger under her pillow tonight, she gave no indication of it.
“If your father is not proud of you, then I guarantee that your sister is.”
It was as Jadis made her way up through the narrow, jagged, spiralling city streets that the heavens opened. Marginally, at first. Then a sudden desperate downpour that had her soaked to the bone in a scatter of heartbeats. She did not feel the cold, not as much as she used to, and revealed in the solitude afforded her by the whimsical weather.
Just as she passed under the dwarven arch heralding the rise of the residential district, a hot hand grabbed hold of her shoulder. In the blink of an eye, she had her assailant pinned against an oddly unadorned, dreary door, with an arm twisted behind his back. His heart hammered against her eardrums like a siren's song. In a breath, she released him and stepped away, off the porch and out into the rain. He apologised for startling her, declared himself a Vigilant of Stendarr, and asked if she possessed any knowledge about the abandoned house behind him.
“You are not a Vigilant of Stendarr,” she frowned.
He had the robes, though every College Apprentice received those – once they passed their exams, of course – and he knew well enough to wear heavy armoured gauntlets and greaves, but his amulet lacked the customary inscription, which meant he had not passed his initiation trial.
“How… How do you know that?” he asked, awestruck by the pale hand inspecting his smooth warhorn.
“I was one. Before.”
“Before what?”
Jadis raised her head, her eyes. She smiled and watched him shiver.
“If you were Vigilant, you would know, and what I know about this house will get you killed. Walk away, mortal.”
She knew he would not listen, knew he would drag her with him, knew she would have to kill him. It was a small consolation, knowing that his death was quick, his end clean, his pain almost non-existent. At least his misery was short lived. That she did not have to hunt for dinner was just an added bonus.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Where are you going?”
“Out,” she said.
To hunt, he knew. She said to stay put, encouraged him to get comfortable. She said she might be a while. That was hours ago, now, back when Magnus bid them a cursory ‘goodnight’. The air was clearer here, high in the mountains. Colder, too, but Teldryn would endure, preferred it to hacking up ash every time he closed his eyes.
Magnus’ glare appeared all the more accusing when reflected off the ice. He woke Teldryn prematurely, but he need not have worried about waking her. She was nowhere to be found. Her bedroll was empty, the leather cold, the snow-dusted ground perfectly preserved, and a thin layer of undisturbed ash coated her pack. He sent out his Familiar, a Felsaad Tern, before starting on breakfast, rekindling the fire and adding another log for good measure. He threw his share of rations into a pot of steaming ice. It boiled over and burned in his absence.
His bird returned in good time, but her body was darker, heavier, her eyes unseeing and energy spent. She lingered long enough to embrace him, to tell him, to show him where she was. His mind knew where to go, and his legs responded automatically, instinctively, until, finally, he found her.
She had curled herself up into a corner, Magnus at her back, a sheer glacial wall towering in front, but her face – her skin – was red raw, blistered and bleeding freely, weeping meekly from wounds half healed hastily. Her robes were wet and ragged, torn to tatters, blackened with bloodstains. He hoped that they did not all belong to her.
At the sound of his voice, hoarse and unsure, she cracked open a dreary, lifeless eye, heaved a sigh that made her ribcage rattle and whispered, “You came”.
“’Course I’d come,” he snapped, tearing off his cloak.
It offered some measure of protection, shielding her from Magnus’ disapproving gaze as he walked, carrying her between his arms, her weight dead and warm, like a draugr twice killed.
“Stop!” she rasped, fighting free from his hold to drag herself away, shivering, he feared, because of him.
“Jadis…?” he ventured, tiptoeing closer.
“Your pulse,” she said, by way of explanation, but it was enough.
“You won’t hurt me,” he assured, frowning.
When she looked back, twisting her neck at such an obscene angle because, beneath the pain, he could see her hunger, almost feel it as if it were a tangible force, a presence unto itself.
“You’re not like them,” Teldryn insisted because, of all the things she was, and all the things she could be, a cattle rancher was not one of them. “Now, stop being such a s’wit. We’re almost back at camp.”
Reluctantly, she conceded, allowing him his little white lie.
He had to set her by the fire to tend her wounds, but she did not deny him this or protest at his proximity. Her robes were beyond salvaging, and the potions in her belt pouch had shattered, riddling her grey flesh with red freckles of glass.
“My bag,” she gasped.Teldryn brought it, but her fingers refused to cooperate. She ripped through dead flesh and tore apart the new skin underneath, cursing her inability to open even a buckled clasp. She had him search for a thick leather wrap. Beneath it was a spare set of robes, but the wrap itself was lined with tools and knives, sporting a variety of shapes and sizes. The blades were all fixed with her accursed nickname: Obsidian, stronger than Nordic Steel, and sharper than even Summerset diamonds.
He had to concentrate, his focus entirely devoted to her, removing every slither of glass with the utmost care, but the wounds – a nest of miss-matched bites and mauled claws – showed no sign of healing, and Teldryn’s skill in the restorative arts left much to be desired.
After counting their remaining potions, and checking twice for more, she sighed. “Not enough.”
Teldryn had to agree. She would have to drink half of them, if not more, and until then she would be incapable of travelling. The dosages, however, would demand a day or two more than they – than he – had supplies fore. There was no choice. He could see no other way.
“Sit up for me, your majesty?” Teldryn asked, his smile cock-sure.
He ignored the snaps and cracks of her grating bones, waiting patiently, tentatively, until she met his eyes. The brightness of his own was reflected in the dull, congealing shadow of her own. Hunched as she was, their difference in height proved inconsequential, and he knew that, even as he made his proposition, she would refuse. She turned him down flat.
“What other choice is there?”
Teldryn let the question linger, awaited her response with baited breath, hoping blossoming in his chest when she whispered his name. His logic was sound, she could not dispute it, and for all her concern and fear, he had faith in her. He believed in his Queen.
She encouraged him to get comfortable. Hesitate he did, but still, Teldryn removed his armour. She did not permit her eyes to linger long, not as she levitated another log, positioning in the fire just so. Seeing her clad in naught but her underwear – she, of course, refused to wear clean robes until she bathed – put Teldryn in two minds when, without warning, she straddled him. He wore nothing but a simple tunic and breeches, allowing him to feel the odd clammy warmth of her skin when her breasts pressed against his chest.
“Jadis…?”
“Shush,” she consoled.
Slowly, cruelly, her lips worked their way from his right cheek down over his throat, then up and round to the tender flesh coating the right side of his neck. All the while, her long nails skirted over the back of his skull.
“Jadis?”
They had not done this. It had been a first for him, finding Vampires living on Raven Rock. He went alone, and there was no one to stop him from following their orders. He stood, he sat, he lay down, forced to endure feeding, after feeding, after feeding. The act was intimate in and of itself, but they had never condoned such… seductive methods. They had no time to play with their prey.
“J-Jay… Jade… Jadis…”
Her tongue attacked him, tenderising his flesh, and Teldryn groaned, gathering her to him, rocking into her embrace as her legs wrapped around his waist. He could feel his heart beating and wondered how it felt, how it sounded, to her. Soon, her teeth joined the fray, and beyond the sharp sudden scratch of pain, his senses were blanketed in pure bliss. His eyes fell shut of their own accord, and Teldryn's head swam with the nameless sensations that granted him weightless, endless pleasure. He gasped every time she sucked, somehow felt her swallow, his body attuned to every feeling: her fingers carding through his hair, her nails scratching at his scalp, and his painfully prominent erection straining against her sopping wet heat.
At one point or another, Teldryn fell back, his body splayed across their bedrolls, his pelvis rocketing up as she grounded down. For a moment, Teldryn opened his eyes, though he could not recall why, and even if he had, his blurring sight affording him no further luxury than staring off into Oblivion. He was talking, but the words made no sense to him. All Teldryn knew was that it had never been like this with them, that he wanted more, that he never wanted it - this, them - to end.
Then, suddenly, it was over.
She kissed his neck, her lips hot and swollen, and her tongue smoothed over the souvenir she left behind, but Teldryn felt strangely empty, unsatisfied.
“N-No. No, Jadis –”
“Shush, Teldryn. I’m here. I’m here. You’re safe. You hear me? You – are – safe. It’s over. Shush, shush, shush… It’s over… It’s over.”
Teldryn could not comprehend how her voice sounded so strong and yet so very far away. Her body was still within his grasp, and his arms clung on for dear life, her cold skin a blessed balm against his feverish flesh. Moaning insensibly, face nudging at her bound breasts, fingers irritably searching for the cord that would unwrap them, success could not come swift enough. He snapped it clean, felt them fall free – he wanted to name them, to christen their peaks – permitting him to lick, nip, and suck, summoning a Shout Teldryn felt in his very bones. She drew her arms around about him, her hands trailing over old scars, her magic mingling and merging with him, and he felt like a new mer. A hundred years younger, faster, stronger.
“Teldryn, plea –”
He met her lips with renewed fervour, silencing her shouts and cries as he rose, holding her aloft, her legs still wrapped around his waist, and they fell as one, their positions reversed. Teldryn lay atop, his lips, teeth and tongue caressing every inch of honeysuckle flesh as he descended, fingers pulling at the ties of her underwear until she lay gloriously bare before him. Her light and life and searing passion had returned, enlarging and empowering her eyes. Teldryn took a moment to admire them, to admire her, face and flesh flushed red with blood. His blood. Her plump lips, bruised from their duelling, called to him. He lowered his head, too enraptured to resist, and groaned into her mouth as a pair of cold hands roamed up underneath his shirt to glide over his chiselled abs. Limbs ladened with adrenaline tore the offending garment free, and she saw fit to tug his breeches over his arse, granting him wonderous freedom. He shucked them down, kicked them free, and then he was bare before her, relishing the way her burning eyes drank him in.
He leaned closer, offering her a tender kiss first, an unspoken promise she swallowed unwittingly, demanding more, and Teldryn was only too happy to oblige. As his tongue tenderised her breasts, praising their pebble-hard, dusky peaks, he ran a long, slender finger across her quivering folds, groaning when he felt how hot, how wet, how ready she was for him. He slid his finger inside, eyes fixed upon her face, even as his lips and tongue hiked up one mountain and down the other. He soon added a second, crooking them just so, watching every emotion explode, the shockwaves rippling through her
features as he inserted a third, a fourth, his thumb circling her clit. He stretched her pleasure with every stroke, building her up even as he tore her tore her down, watching and waiting for the storm to settle so he could do it again.
When Teldryn pressed a searing kiss to her pulse, she rocked her hips against him, her every desire transmitted through the breathless exclamation that was his name. Trailing open-mouthed kisses back down her body, Teldryn rose, resting on his thighs as he stroked himself, slicking his thick, pulsing shaft with her glistening fluids. She watched him hungrily, her hands roaming to knead her breasts in his absence. He returned his fingers to her spasming heat once, twice, three times, until he was well and truly lubricated. Teldryn rose over her, a pillow of corded shadow, and with their bodies flushed against one another, he lined up his head, met her lips tenderly, sweetly, and entered her slowly, succeeding in only sheathing himself half way. The groan that tore from his throat was inhuman. She was tight, almost tighter than he could bear, but the way her muscles coiled and constricted around him banished his every thought. He set a steady pace, penetrating deeper and deeper with every thrust, picking up in speed and rising in power until they were fucking, fast and hard.
His name fell from lips in a litany, her prayer accompanied by the most delightful noises Teldryn had ever heard. Groans and moans, gasps and pants, half strangled cries, and a tirade of words in a language he did not know, could not place, had no mind to translate. He had one hand on her waist, the other switching between fisting with hers and curling into her hair, yanking her head back to expose her neck as her free fingers shredded his skin, each attack drawing blood from his back as he fucked her into Oblivion. She met his warning with her lips, and Teldryn hooked her legs over his shoulders, ploughing deeper still, growling through their battle of tongues. She snapped first, her Shout echoing through their cave, deafening Teldryn to everything but his release. Her legs fell, his trusts shallowed, and he collapsed against her, their sweat-slick and sex-scented skin fraternising with the smell of snow and wood smoke.
“My Queen,” he sighed, pressing a kiss to her racing pulse.
Teldryn eyes were closed, his ears numb to all sound but the hammering of his heart. He did not see her tears fall. He did not see the White Witch cry.