Frina perched on the edge of her seat before the fire in Roggi and Dardeh’s home, wondering whether there was any possibility that she could feel more uncomfortable than she did right at that moment. She and Roggi sat next to each other, separated only by a low side table. Across from them, on the other side of the fireplace – a space that was not so very large in physical terms but which felt as though it could have been the other end of Tamriel, right at the moment – was Dardeh.
Roggi had kept up a steady stream of chatter and jokes whenever they were all awake, during the carriage ride. Dardeh had dozed and said nothing, looking a million leagues away. Frina had tried her best to keep up her end of the conversation and had tried to remember that this was Roggi, after all; but it had been difficult when each laugh reminded her of the one she’d heard accompanied by screams.
But we have to hold it together, all of us, she thought. We’re on our way to another important assignment. Ulfric is counting on us.
She’d seen them smile at each other once, when the carriage driver made an exception to his usual rules. He’d dropped them off at the intersection just down the hill from Mammoth Manor, saying that the Dragonborn earned special treatment as far as he was concerned.
“Always,” Roggi had said, smiling at Dardeh, standing close to him. Dardeh hadn’t said anything in return but the cold expression he’d worn all the way from Windhelm had softened, and he’d given Roggi the slightest of smiles in return. Frina had watched them closely, and had been impressed yet again with how clearly they were bonded to each other.
But there’s something wrong with Dardeh. I don’t know what to think. It worries me.
They’d had a nice enough meal, all of them working together to make it; and then she and Roggi chatted about inconsequential things while they ate. Roggi showed her the bedroom on the lower level and told her to make herself comfortable.
“Dar’s housecarl used to stay here,” he said.
“The one who went back to be with Balgruuf?”
“Yeah. Lydia.” Roggi looked around and sighed. “This house is just too empty. The last time I was here Lydia was, too, and three children.” He chuckled. “And a fox.”
“Children?” Frina had asked him, surprised.
Roggi smiled. “Yeah. We adopted two girls, Lucia and Sofie. And the third child is Brynjolf the Younger. He’s Dar’s half-nephew.” His smile faded. “We sent all of them to his father before we headed off to Windhelm. It doesn’t feel like home here without all of them running around. But at least it’s a comfortable place to spend the night.”
All of that and Dardeh still hadn’t spoken, as far as Frina could tell. She glanced at Roggi; he was staring at Dardeh but getting no response.
Enough of this. These boys need to talk and I’m in the way.
She cleared her throat and pushed herself out of the chair. “I’m going to call it a night. We leave first thing in the morning, yes?”
Roggi never even shifted his eyes away from Dardeh. “Yeah. Night, Frina. We head to Galmar at daybreak.”
Frina had to step in front of the fireplace to leave the room, breaking the line of sight between Roggi and Dardeh for just a moment. When she looked back at them, though, it was as though she hadn’t even existed in the room. Roggi was still staring at Dardeh and he was still staring into space.
She went to the room in the basement and took off her armor and her boots, feeling more than ready to sleep for a few hours. She was just about to slide into bed when she realized that her mouth was dry. It didn’t matter how well Whiterun had gone as a battle, not knowing what Galmar had in mind for them next had her nervous. She sighed and padded barefoot up the stairs, thinking to get a mug of water, and stopped when she heard the voices.
“Dar, you have to talk to me. Come here.”
Frina froze as she watched Roggi pull Dardeh up out of his seat and hold him, close, his hands on either side of Dardeh’s face, and for a horrified moment she was afraid she was going to witness them kissing. She didn’t intend to eavesdrop, not really; but she couldn’t pull herself away. Instead, she sank down onto the top step, low enough that she could see them without being seen.
Dardeh shook his head and pushed Roggi away.
“Roggi, no. Enough.”
Roggi dropped his hands and sat back down, crossing his arms angrily. “Alright, so I can’t kiss you anymore. Fine. Can you at least tell me what’s going on?”
To Frina’s surprise, Dardeh dropped down onto the floor, sitting cross-legged at Roggi’s feet as though it was too great an effort to return to his chair. His eyes once more took on that far-away, almost blank expression they’d had before, and he simply sighed.
Roggi made a disgusted noise.
“So you heard me doing a job for Ulfric and it was more than you could take. Is that it? Honestly. You. Your sister. Even Brynjolf. All of you have had this picture in your minds of what I am, who I am. Assumptions. Expectations. Of all people, Dar, you’re the one I’d expect to most understand what that feels like. ‘You’re such a good man, Roggi.’ Bah. I have tried to tell you otherwise, all of you, ever since I’ve known you. I’ve never been a good man, Dar. I’ve never been a nice man. I told you about it that night in Windhelm after I broke my rib and you didn’t seem to care then, but you do now? Is that it?”
The longer he talked, the more distressed he sounded. Frina wanted to go stop him, to comfort him somehow, but didn’t want him to know that she’d been listening.
“I spent years after Briinda died trying to build myself a little shell that I could hide in. I did a really good job of it, too. Roggi the miner, the latest in a long family line of friendly drunks in Kynesgrove, everyone loves him. I wasn’t expecting to meet Dag, or Brynjolf, or Delvin. I most definitely wasn’t expecting to meet you. And you…”
He trailed off. Dardeh glanced up at him for a moment, and it almost seemed as though he was about to snap out of the fog he’d been in. But his eyes glazed over again and he looked back toward the floor, blankly.
Roggi sighed.
“You. Why, oh why did I have to meet you? Standing outside Whiterun. Oh sure, I had somehow convinced myself that I wanted your sister and I was going to have this normal life again but that was the beginning of the end for me and I knew it, somewhere inside, and so did she. ‘He likes you,’ she said. I must have turned a hundred shades of red. Dar,” he breathed, his shoulders dropping. “I got strong again because of you. I was able to find some… peace, about what happened to me and who I am, because of you. You made me believe in myself again. You’re the love of my life. And now you’re going to leave me, just because the truth is uncomfortable? Is that it?”
There was a long silence. Frina reached up to wipe away the tears that had formed in the corners of her eyes and that threatened to make her give herself away with sniffles. She had never heard Roggi speak about himself in this way before.
“No, that’s not it, Roggi. Not at all.”
Dardeh glanced up again, just for a moment, but then went back to staring at the floor. It looked almost as if the effort of holding Roggi’s gaze was too much to bear, as though the weight of his own thoughts was forcing his eyes down. He started speaking, his voice a dull monotone.
“I thought about leaving, you know, that night in Windhelm. Barely got any sleep. I remembered going through the torture room in Helgen Keep while Alduin was burning the village down. All I could think of that day was how sick a person had to be, to want to make another person suffer. I remembered that, watching you sleep, and wondered whether I needed to leave you. And I knew that I couldn’t. Even though we weren’t together then and I didn’t think there was a chance we ever would be.”
“Oh, I see. So I’m sick, is that what you’re saying?” Roggi’s voice sounded like ice.
“No. Well, maybe a little. But if you are, so am I. I’ve seen too many things since then. And done too many things myself.” Dardeh’s eyes flickered up again, and when he opened his mouth again a torrent of words flooded out.
“And that’s what’s bothering me. I was so full of myself, thinking that I was above this war, that I would never join the Stormcloaks.” He laughed, a bitter, humorless bark. “The day Alduin burned Helgen, Ralof rescued me and made me put on a dead soldier’s armor so I could survive and all I could think about was getting rid of it. Because how could men kill each other, knowing that the other guy loves his family just as much? I was so much better than that, I thought. Right. I’m a guy who can Shout people to death and not even know it. I’m a guy who can…”
He paused for a moment, his voice catching in his throat.
“An assassin came after me once, Roggi, not long before I found you in Kynesgrove. I held her up on my sword and made her dangle there just because I wanted to watch her suffer.” He shook his head. “I’m not so different from you. Not at all. Hearing you working that guy over reminded me. It’s not that I ever disagreed with the Stormcloak cause. Obviously. It’s just that I am such a damned hypocrite, Roggi. Such an awful hypocrite. I had convinced myself that all those high and mighty things you told Ulfric about me were true, that I was so good for being above it all because if I threw my weight in with one side or the other that side was bound to win. And yet here I am, no better than anyone else. And you stand with me anyway.”
There was another long silence. Frina watched the expression on Roggi’s face soften.
“Yes. And I always will.”
“But why?”
“I just told you. You’re the love of my life.”
He stood and held out his hand to pull Dardeh up again. He put the other hand on Dardeh’s cheek, made sure they had eye contact, and spoke, very slowly and gently.
“Don’t you understand that, Dardeh? After all this time? I should have died when Briinda did but the gods made me live. There was a reason I had to keep going. You… are my reason. I will never not stand with you, my love.”
“Roggi…” Dardeh’s eyes softened, and even from across the room Frina could see them glistening with unshed tears.
“Let’s go get some sleep, Dar. We have more battles to fight tomorrow. We don’t need to be fighting each other. We’re not perfect, either one of us. We need to stop pretending that we are. All we can do is the best we can.”
Frina slipped back down into the basement as they turned to make for the stairs. It wouldn’t do for them to know she’d heard their conversation. She slipped under the covers, deciding to forego the drink of water she’d wanted earlier.
Dardeh was wrong, when he was talking to me in Windhelm. He’s not second-best. Not at all.
She would have expected that thought to make her sad. But somehow, it didn’t. She would have expected to hate Dardeh all over again, for being Redguard and male and for having taken her sister’s place.
But somehow, she didn’t.
The next morning dawned bright and cold. It got colder. They hadn’t gone very far up the road when Frina started hearing an odd, hollow, roaring sound that got progressively louder as they went farther south and east.
Roggi looked up to the sky and groaned. “Are you kidding? Again? How many of them are there in this one corner of the world?”
“By the Nine I’m tired of this,” Dardeh sighed, lowering his hooded helmet down over his face. “Well, let’s go do it.”
Frina looked back and forth between the two of them as they started trotting down the hill off the road. “What are we… oh Talos help us,” she said as a huge form swooped down over them, the wind of its passage shaking the trees.
She’d never seen a dragon up close before. This one was terrifyingly beautiful, silver and grey with dark tips on its horns, and it shook the earth when it landed on the side of the hill near them. Frina stood and stared in awe; and then as the creature roared and a cloud of frost billowed toward them she shrieked in fear and rolled aside. Even so, some of the dragon’s breath caught her and she yelped with the pain of it.
Dardeh leaned forward and Shouted – a huge explosion of force and sound – and the beast was suddenly outlined in blue energy. It screamed and pounded its tail into the ground, shaking the trees around them and dislodging small stones from the nearby banks. Frina gasped as she saw a comparatively small figure in drab green armor rushing toward the dragon’s head.
“Roggi, no!” she cried; but of course Roggi couldn’t hear her. Dardeh was near the beast’s tail, slashing at it with a sword that sparked energy with every blow and Roggi was slicing deep gashes in its head and neck with his dragonbone greatsword. The dragon managed to fight its way back into the air, but only for a moment: Dardeh Shouted at it once more; and once it was shimmering with power it dropped to the ground, snapping and snarling.
Frina rushed forward, slashing at the beast’s wing with her war pick, not knowing whether she was helping but hoping that the additional wounds might stop it more quickly. She hadn’t taken more than a couple of swings at it, though, when Dardeh stabbed down into its side. It flailed backward once more and then crashed to the ground, dead. And then Frina witnessed a thing she’d heard rumors of but had never thought to see with her own eyes. The dragon’s body caught fire and its energy, swirling and pulsing visibly, rushed toward Dardeh and into him.
She stood there for a moment, shaking with excitement, and wonder, and fear. “Dragonborn,” she whispered. “He’s really the Dragonborn. Like Tiber Septim.”
As she watched the last tendrils of energy swirl around Dardeh and saw that what had been a great silver dragon was now just a skeleton, Roggi came trudging out from behind the skull and grinned at Dardeh. Dardeh ran to him, wrapped his arms around Roggi’s waist and pulled him forward into a kiss.
Frina froze. A part of her mind wanted her to scream and run away from what she was seeing, a thing that all of her upbringing told her was wrong. The rest of her, though, just watched.
It’s just Dardeh and Roggi.
Dardeh pulled back and touched Roggi’s cheek. “Are you alright? You were so close in, Roggi. I thought the bastard was going to be the one that got you, finally, and I was scared…”
Roggi chuckled. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s going to take more than a dragon to take me away from you.” His gaze slipped past Dardeh and settled on her. She watched Roggi’s face go from the flush of exertion to a flaming red.
“Oh… Frina…”
Dardeh stepped back from Roggi and turned to stare at her. He looked like he’d just swallowed an insect by mistake and, in spite of his statement to the contrary, he was nearly as red as Roggi. Frina couldn’t help but giggle.
“Look, I can’t say that I was ever expecting to see that. Any of that, but especially this…that. But you are married, after all, so whether I like it doesn’t really matter, now does it? Besides, you should see yourselves. You are so very red.”
“I am not,” Dardeh started to protest, trailing off when Roggi pointed at him and started nodding and laughing.
They continued their journey to the Stormcloak camp. Frina noticed that every so often one of them would reach for the other, just brushing their fingertips together in a reassuring touch. She wasn’t even certain that they were aware they were doing it. She remembered Briinda, tiny and blonde, bounding around Roggi like a puppy and swallowing him up into hugs at every opportunity and her heart rose into her throat.
Briinda thought the sun rose and set with that man. I can’t help but think that she would just want him to be happy, no matter what. And he’s clearly happy.
They stopped for a moment in the ruins of Helgen. Dardeh was somber. He pointed across a collapsed building toward one of the old Imperial towers and said “That’s where I was the first time I saw Ulfric Stormcloak. I almost ran into him trying to get away from the flames. It seems like such a long time ago, now.”
Roggi frowned. “I had forgotten you knew him before you met me.”
“I wouldn’t say I knew him but we at least got a good look at each other before Ralof herded me into the keep and cut my bindings loose. He didn’t like me then, either. I looked like a Redguard prisoner to him.” He shuddered. “It was that close, Roggi. One second later and my head would have been in a basket instead of here on my shoulders. I’m pretty sure Ulfric would have been next.”
“Who would have thought we’d end up fighting his battles for him again?” Roggi muttered.
Frina frowned. “Well I always intended to. I would have, a long time ago, if I hadn’t been just a little girl. And then Ma and Pa took me out of Skyrim when, well. You know.”
He nodded. “It was a good thing they did. You didn’t need to see what happened after you left. It was hard enough as it was. At any rate, you’re here now and we’re going to finally end this stupid war.”
The encampment was east of Helgen and west of the pass through the mountains, tucked up on the north side of the road. Galmar met them there, looking grim. Some of the brothers were being held prisoner in Fort Neugrad, he told them, and he wanted them to join Ralof and his men and get them out. There was an entrance to the dungeons that might let one of them slip in, he said, but it was underwater and would be tricky to enter.
“They’ll never expect an attack from the inside. Go get them out. Talos be with you!”
They turned and headed back down the road at a trot. The fort was across a ridge from them, on the road that led to the Pale Pass farther up in the Jerall Mountains.
“I hate to say this,” Dardeh said quietly, “but I really don’t swim very well.”
Frina laughed. “I do. You guys meet up with Ralof. I’ll go see if I can find the back way in.”
Roggi glanced at her, looking worried. “You sure? We can’t…”
“You can’t keep an eye on me if I’m not with you? Roggi, please. I’m young, but I’m used to fending for myself. I wasn’t expecting you to watch out for me when I came back to Skyrim. Go. Slay some Imperials. I’ll sneak in the back.”
Roggi looked embarrassed. “Sorry. Automatic reaction.”
She could hear the fighting already as they neared the fort. Dardeh and Roggi ran forward as she scrambled back up into the bushes and around the side of the fort toward the pond behind it. She was scanning the back for the most likely place a submerged opening might be when she heard Dardeh – the Shout he had used to rally the troops in Whiterun blasted out through the trees and rang off the rocks.
Frina found what she was looking for. There was a large downed tree leaning against the back of the fort, looking conspicuously as if it had been placed there on purpose. She slipped into the icy water, shivering but grateful for her Nord blood, took the deepest breath she could manage and swam forward and down, using the tree as a guide and slipping through a crack in the old fort’s foundation. She came up gasping but almost immediately heard the sound of men calling out in hoarse whispers.
“Up here! The guard has the key!”
To Oblivion with the guard, she thought as she slipped up through a dirt ramp into the lowest level of the fortress. There was a cobweb-filled storage room with a staircase leading to a room that held several cells.
“Shh. I’m getting you out. Don’t alert him.”
Frina was far from an expert at picking locks but she did have the tools, and the prisoners didn’t. They weren’t difficult locks, though she did have to try a couple of them more than once for being distracted by the men.
“Thanks!”
“Let’s teach these bastards a lesson!”
“Shh!” She hissed. The men’s gear had been tossed in a nearby chest; as she freed each of them they made for it and got re-equipped.
“Let’s get out of here!” she called, making her way up around the circular stairs, assuming that they were behind her. Just as she was pushing her way out through the door onto the roof of this portion of the tower, though, she heard behind her, “I’ll water the ground with your blood!” and wanted to turn back.
But there was no time to turn back. The battle outside was in full swing, with arrows flying, spells being cast across the courtyard from her, and the sounds of screaming and clashing weapons filling the air. Frina drew her bow and took several shots at an Imperial archer on the ground just beneath her position but had to fall back when one of the returning arrows grazed her arm. She hissed in pain and cast healing on herself, and by the time she was recovered the battle had moved away from her, beyond the tower where the prisoners had been and past the other side of a covered archway.
She ran forward, following the unmistakable sound of Dardeh disarming an adversary with his Voice. There was a huge mass of Imperial soldiers before her; she fired her bow into it over and over and could tell by the grunts and cries of pain that she was hitting some of them. Her pulse began pounding in her ears, so loudly that she could barely make out which voices were crying “Talos smite you!” and which were shouting “For the glory of the Empire!”
Suddenly she found herself face to face with both Roggi and Dardeh as they ran for a door to the interior of the fortress.
“Come on!” Roggi shouted. “Ralof says there’s more inside!”
They ran into the fort, Frina trailing. Dardeh sprinted for an opening on the far side of the room, growling “I’ll try to make this quick!” By the time she made it to the door Roggi was there, screaming and taking a mighty swing at an Imperial swordsman who did not block it. He fell to the floor yelling “I cannot best you!” and Frina stepped to Roggi’s right and fired an arrow into his chest, ending him.
They ran past the dead man and around a corner, up half a flight of stairs and onto a balcony, where an archer stood in the next doorway looking confused. Dardeh drew his bow and fired at the man, growling “Alright, you wanna go?”
Frina grabbed her melee weapons and ran toward the man; the moment it had taken her to draw them saved her from stepping into the path of yet another Disarm shout from Dardeh. She winced at the sharp, incredibly loud sound; the archer stumbled backward and fell into and over a footlocker at the bottom of a bed. Frina darted for him and finished him off by burying the needle-sharp spikes of her war pick into his chest.
It was suddenly very quiet aside from the three of them panting with exertion. Dardeh lowered his bow and walked toward a closed door, pushing it open.
“When I was a child,” he said, “I dreamed about having a fort like this all to myself to…”
“Dar! Look out!” Roggi shouted as an Imperial swordsman stepped out from the next room and took a swing at him. Dardeh blocked with his bow – barely – and Roggi stepped around him and lopped the man’s nearer arm off with his greatsword. The man screamed, and Roggi smiled.
“Is this what you want? Eh?” he growled, lifting the greatsword over his head and bringing it down, overhand, into the man’s chest.
“I don’t think that’s what he wanted, Roggi,” Frina murmured, astonished once again at her former brother’s ferocity. He glanced up at her and grinned.
As he pulled the sword out of the man’s chest the room shook. Dardeh had run back into the tower and around a corner and Shouted at whatever adversary he had found there. Dishes rattled and dust flew; but by the time Frina reached Dardeh she found his target still scrambling to his feet. Dardeh was advancing slowly, chuckling in a way that made her skin crawl. She ran past Dardeh and buried her axe into the man’s skull, putting him down.
“Good enough,” Dardeh said from behind her.
They made their way out to the courtyard once more. Ralof stood with his hands on his hips, surveying the area, and nodded at them as they approached.
“Great work,” he told them. “Get back and tell Ulfric of our success. I’ll stay here and clean up the mess. Glad you were here.”
Frina looked around the yard in dismay. A mess it was. The Imperials had poured out of the fort itself and for the most part had massed around the same doorway, having been blocked by Stormcloaks from spreading out. The bodies were piled thick. A few of the dead were in Stormcloak uniform but it had been, without question, an overwhelming victory for Ulfric’s troops. Frina was excited, exhilarated; this is what she had come to Skyrim to do, and she could barely wait to report back to the Jarl.
And then she looked at Dardeh. He looked stunned.
“By the gods, Roggi. What have we done here?” he murmured.
“What we had to do, Dar,” Roggi answered. “What always happens in wartime. One side wins, the other side loses. We were on the winning side this time. In no small part because of you.”
Ralof shrugged. “It’s a shame this was necessary, to be sure,” he said. Then he looked past the men at Frina and grinned, his eyes twinkling. “You were instrumental in freeing the prisoners. I’ll be certain to let Ulfric know. Your efforts should not go unrewarded.”
Frina realized, then, that she was just desperately cold from having been soaked to the skin. Her exertion hadn’t dried her off, and now she was starting to shiver. She walked to one of the dead Stormcloak soldiers and knelt, gently closing his eyes and taking the cloak from his body.
“I’ll be happy enough if it’s rewarded with this cloak so I don’t freeze to death,” she said. “I’m really cold.”
“Well let’s get on our way back to Windhelm, then,” Dardeh said. “We’ll stop as soon as we find a good spot and Roggi can make us a fire.”
“Oh I can, can I?” Roggi snorted in mock anger.
Ralof laughed. “Get going. I’ll see you again soon, I’m sure.” He smiled at Frina again, and waved them out the gate.
They hadn’t gone too far before Roggi started chuckling.
“What are you laughing about?” Frina asked.
“Old Ralof is sweet on you, I think,” he said with a grin. “What do you think, Dar?”
“You’d know better than I do what a guy hitting on a girl sounds like, Roggi. I bow to your superior experience in that department.”
Frina felt the heat rising into her cheeks. Ralof? Likes me?
“I’m sure you must be wrong about that.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Roggi said, grinning ear to ear. “I’ve known Ralof a long time and I’ve not seen a gleam in his eye quite like that one.” Dardeh chuckled.
Frina watched the looks passing between them and felt annoyed. “You two are just teasing me.”
“Oh, maybe just a little,” Roggi said, putting one arm around her shoulders and giving her a quick squeeze. “But I do think he likes you. You could do worse.” He pointed to a flat area beside the road. “That’s a decent spot for a fire. What do you say, Dar? Get this girl warm and dry again before we head back to Ulfric?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, but started assembling a ring of stones and stacking the materials needed to build a fire. Dardeh turned to look at Frina and smiled, his eyes warm.
“Not a ‘girl,’ Roggi,” he said. “This is a warrior. And yes, it’s time to start a fire. Thank Talos she went for the swim and not me.”
Frina smiled back at him, even as her emotions did a confusing dance in her chest. I wanted to hate this man, but I can’t. He’s one of the most terrifying people I’ve ever met and yet he’s so kind. I don’t understand him. But I am glad to be here with him.
“Thanks, Dardeh,” she finally managed. “And I’m a very cold warrior, as it happens. Now if you would be so kind as to help your husband build that fire, we can do something about that even sooner. My fingers are frozen.”
Dardeh looked at Roggi, glanced at the firepit, and grinned, his eyes dancing.
“Sure, I can do that. Stand back a bit, Roggi.”
“Dar, no, really?”
Dardeh took a deep breath and leaned forward.
“YOL!”
Frina jumped as flames shot out of Dardeh’s mouth and, where a moment before there had been a pile of branches and kindling, there was a busily crackling campfire.
“By the Nine you’re a loud man, Dardeh,” she finally managed.
Roggi took out his bow and snorted. “Showoff. Sit down and get warm. I’ll go find some rabbits. If you haven’t scared them all off, that is.”
Dardeh took Frina’s hand and pulled her closer to the fire, then sat down. He turned to smile at Roggi. Frina once more saw the love between these two men as Roggi snickered, smiled, and moved off into the woods.
I wonder if anyone will ever look at me that way, she thought. She pictured Ralof’s smiling face, the twinkle in his eyes, and sighed.
“What is it?” Dardeh asked, giving her a curious look.
“Not Ralof,” she said, shrugging.
Dardeh tossed back his head and laughed.
“Yeah, me either.”
She stared at him for a moment before she realized what he was getting at. And then she started to laugh.