It was going to take several moments for Dardeh’s eyes to adjust to the darkness in Moss Mother Cave. His hearing was fine, though, and he heard bears snorting and growling somewhere ahead of him in the darkness.
They’d been almost back to Mammoth Manor when Roggi stopped him, cocking his head to one side. He heard something, he’d said, and they needed to check it out. There was a path just across the road from their home, a path leading into the deeper forests on the westernmost border of Falkreath Hold, and it was in that direction that Roggi led them. Not too far down the path they had heard the voice of a man muttering to himself; that had led them to a badly-wounded hunter named Valdr, seated just outside the cave. He’d been part of a group hunting the bears, but once they’d gone inside spriggans had killed the others and he had barely escaped. There were two of them in there, he said, and he didn’t want to simply leave their bodies to rot.
Dardeh personally had been ready to see their children and spend some time resting in his own bed, but Roggi was insistent that they help this poor man retrieve the bodies of his friends. So in they went, after giving Valdr a powerful healing potion.
Dardeh blinked several times and found his vision clearing; just as well, because the bear he’d heard had gone silent and he couldn’t use it to judge direction any longer. There was a torch up ahead throwing a tiny bit of light, and he headed for it, bow drawn. They swung around a corner to the right.
On the floor of the cavern just ahead of them he saw a dark mound that could only be the carcass of a bear. He frowned, and squinted into the dim, misty light ahead.
“Spriggan,” Roggi whispered from just behind him.
At last he caught movement from a spot just in front of the cavern’s wall. It was definitely a spriggan: nothing else had that same odd, angular shape, not even a dwarven construct. Dardeh took careful aim on it and loosed an arrow. His first shot struck the creature dead-center. It suddenly went invisible and Dardeh’s second shot missed; but the spriggan had some variety of magic enabled that emitted bright specks of light. He watched the specks move down a ramp in the cavern and approach and then shot at them. The arrow’s impact broke the spriggan’s invisibility.
Dardeh sneered. Spriggans were woody creatures.
“YOL – TOOR SHUL!”
The spriggan cringed backward as it caught fire. Roggi ran past Dardeh and through the lingering flames to begin hacking at it, knocking it down. Dardeh followed him, alarmed at the thought that Roggi himself might catch fire, and they lay waste to the spriggan. He whirled to stare at Roggi.
“Are you alright?”
“Of course. What’s the matter?”
Dardeh had a flare of bad temper. He wanted to shout at Roggi to stop running in front of him, it was dangerous, he might die. But he thought about how poorly his outbursts had ended recently. He’d been afraid that he’d destroyed his relationship with Roggi over just such an outburst and didn’t want to risk such a thing happening again. He took a deep breath instead.
“I was just worried that you’d stepped into the flames. You look fine though.”
Roggi nodded. “Sorry about that, Dar. It’s a bad habit. I’m fine. Let’s go.”
Dardeh grinned, surprised but pleased that Roggi had acknowledged his own occasional foolhardiness. The spriggan wasn’t a dragon, but it could have killed him just as thoroughly. Both of us are being careful with each other right now, I see. Well, I guess it’s important to pay attention to reality once in awhile.
A few steps across the open cavern had them finding the body of the first of Valdr’s companions. She was lying in a pool of blood, face-down. Roggi squatted next to her and felt her neck for a pulse, even though both of them knew she was dead. He shook his head and stroked her hair before standing.
“What killed her? The bear?”
Roggi stroked his beard, thinking. “I don’t think so. Valdr said they were pelt-hunting. I’m going to guess that they killed that bear, then wandered too close to the spriggan and it killed her. Or… them.”
“I suppose so. Those claws are dangerous enough even without its poison and magic.” Dardeh looked around. “But we heard a bear when we came in. It’s not this bear. Keep your ears peeled and eyes open because I think we’re going to find another.”
Not far beyond the body was an area where a deeper, central channel was flanked by ledges on either side. A downed tree straddled the opening, looking as though it had been purposefully placed to serve as a bridge across to the ledge on their right. Dardeh found a sloping path up to the left ledge and walked carefully across the log. There were definitely signs of people having been there; he saw one or two clear footprints as well as scuff marks that were older. He was about to go investigate when Roggi hissed.
“Bear.”
He spun around to see that there was, indeed, another bear – likely the one he’d heard earlier – wandering calmly toward the back of the cavern. They were going to have to get rid of it in order to find the other hunter’s body. He started unloading ebony arrows into the beast as quickly as he could draw the bow. The bear turned and rushed them, heading for the ramp across the gap. Before he could say anything Roggi had scurried back across the downed log and met the bear head-on at the top of the ramp. Two massive blows ended the confrontation before Dardeh even reached the end of the log.
“By Talos, Roggi, how can you be that strong?”
Roggi grinned. “Practice. Oh, I guess I’ve always had strong hands. I wasn’t nearly in this kind of shape when your sister met me. Too much mead, too many years of doing only what I absolutely had to do. But it didn’t take long to come back once I started working things again. Gotta be strong to keep up with the Dragonborn.”
Dardeh rolled his eyes and laughed. “You really do have something special, though. You’ve heard the others your age talking, how they’re old men, all of that.”
“Yeah, and it’s just because they haven’t kept at it. Brynjolf’s my age and look at him. Man could lop the head off an assassin with one blow, and that was before he was a vampire. He came back from being nearly dead and was still stronger than lots of those milk-drinkers who give up.” He smiled. “Sometimes there’s injury, or illness. Aside from that, not a one of these people we’re helping out right now couldn’t be just as strong as I am.”
They pushed forward into the huge cavern that had clearly been hollowed out over the eons by action of the elements. An opening far above them let in enough moonlight for them to see a good distance ahead. It clearly let in plenty of sunshine during the day given the lush, thick foliage surrounding a pool fed by a trickle of water from another opening in the ceiling.
Just before they entered this larger space Dardeh caught something in his peripheral vision, a shape or color that was neither one of the fallen logs nor another natural object. He stepped toward it and knelt down, frowning as he realized that this was the second corpse they’d been seeking.
“Well, here he is. Do we keep going?”
“Valdr said spriggans, plural, and we’ve only killed one. I think we’d better at least check. It would be a huge waste for him to come in here after all of this and get killed because we weren’t thorough.”
“Ok. Seems reasonable to me.”
Over the next half hour or so the two of them killed several more spriggans. The first stepped out of a tree – or so it appeared – just as Dardeh turned left into the main cavern. The second was an earth-mother: a much stronger and hardier spriggan that took a great deal more effort to subdue. She also stepped out of a tree, on the far side of the pool, just as they started up a sloped path that ran near to her. They had her down, at one point in the battle, down on her back; then she rose and ran away toward the cave’s entrance. Roggi chased her down, yelling “I’ll carve you into pieces!” and did just that, with Dardeh adding only a few blows at the end of the battle.
It was still dark when they found Valdr again, near the mouth of the cave.
“It’s done, then,” he said. “Justice. If you can call it that.” He handed Dardeh a dagger, and said “Look, I want you to have this. I know it isn’t much, but it’s important to me. Ari gave me this dagger when we first started hunting together. Always said it brought her luck. You should be the one to carry it, now.”
Dardeh started to open his mouth, to object. This was his friend’s dagger, important to Valdr. Roggi’s hand on his arm stopped him. He looked at Roggi and saw a soft smile on his face.
He’s right. How important were Dadarh’s swords to me, even after the original grips were burned away in Helgen? They carried meaning only for me. If I’d given them to someone else the meaning would still have been mine.
“Thank you, Valdr,” he said. “This means a great deal.”
Valdr nodded. “I’ll give them a proper burial and then head back. Come find me if you’re ever in Falkreath. You’ll always be welcome at my door.”
Dardeh and Roggi trudged back across the road and let themselves into the back door of Mammoth Manor. Dardeh took off his heavy boots in the smithing room, so as to be quieter, and padded across the floor to peek into the children’s’ bedroom. The girls – and the ever-watchful fox – were curled up in their beds, fast asleep; and he couldn’t help but smile.
We’re absentee dads most of the time these days. Ever since the war really heated up. But they have good people taking care of them, and they’re warm and safe and not dependent on the charity of strangers any longer. I think they know we love them. I hope they do. It doesn’t matter how much I doubt myself most days. When I look at Lucia and Sofie I know I’ve done something good in this world.
He found himself stifling a huge yawn as he made for the stairs up to their bedroom. It was going to feel so very good to stretch out and sleep after all the running, fighting, and falling they’d done. He was mostly out of his armor by the time he stepped into the bedroom.
Roggi was already under the covers, his hair spread out over the pillows in the way that always made Dardeh smile. Roggi’s day-to-day appearance was so neat and controlled, with his beard and hair pulled back and tied up. When he let his hair down, he seemed like someone else altogether. Dardeh remembered the first time he’d seen Roggi with his hair free; it had been right after Ulfric tossed Roggi into the table with his Voice and broke his rib. He remembered the vivid bruise spreading across Roggi’s back as he struggled to bind his own wounds, perched at the edge of the bed in Candlehearth Hall.
And there was I, trying to keep it all under control while looking at all that gorgeous hair, and having to run my hands over his back to fix that rib in position. It’s a wonder I managed to not give myself away that day. Who knew that he was looking at me the same way, even then?
Well, I guess Ma did. She and Ulfric.
Dardeh smiled at his husband and slid into the bed beside him.
“You’re not asleep already, are you?” he whispered.
Roggi rolled over and propped himself up on one elbow, smiling. “Not even close,” he said. He moved closer to Dardeh, sliding his warm, pale body over Dardeh’s and leaning in to wrap him in a long, sensuous kiss. The hair Dardeh loved so much fell down around both of them. Dardeh had been utterly worn out, and ready for sleep, but he found himself responding to Roggi as he always did, eagerly and with every inch of his body. He lifted his arms to pull Roggi closer.
That was when things got… interesting.
Roggi stopped him. He slid his own hands along Dardeh’s arms, pushing them up over his head, and stopped when his hands reached Dardeh’s wrists. He lifted himself up and left the kiss, long enough to shake his head and smile.
“No.”
“Aw, come on, Roggi, I want to hold you.”
Roggi’s eyes were dancing with some emotion Dardeh couldn’t quite identify. “And I told you no.”
Before he could pull his hand away, Roggi had somehow, in one quick movement, slipped a loop of leather cording around Dardeh’s wrist. He felt his arm being pulled higher, toward the head of the bed, and for a moment Dardeh felt a twinge of panic. He tried to pull his other hand free but realized that he couldn’t. Roggi was much stronger than he was, Dragonborn or not; and a moment later his second hand was also held fast above his head.
He couldn’t move.
“What are you doing?” he whispered.
“Whatever I want,” Roggi said in that low voice that never failed to excite Dardeh no matter how angry or frustrated or distracted he might otherwise be. He swung himself up over Dardeh, facing backward, and slipped more leather strips around Dardeh’s ankles. He fastened the first to the foot of the bed, pulling Dardeh’s leg out straight while using his own weight to pin the other; and then repeated the procedure, leaving Dardeh completely unable to move.
“Roggi, what is this…” he hissed.
Roggi swung back around and straddled Dardeh, grinning down at him.
“Exciting, isn’t it?”
Dardeh wanted to say no, but he knew that the evidence Roggi could see made it obvious that it was. And Roggi clearly found it so. Instead, he repeated “what are you going to do?”
“What I’m good at, Dar,” Roggi said. He reached across the bed and produced from somewhere – probably under the pillow where Dardeh couldn’t see – a piece of soft-looking cloth.
What is this?
Roggi was quick. Dardeh didn’t have a chance to say a word; and a moment later he couldn’t have said a word even if he wanted to, for Roggi had him gagged before he could protest.
What is he doing? What he’s good at is…
Roggi?
“Now then,” Roggi said, straddling Dardeh once again. “Isn’t this interesting? I have you under my complete control. I could pretty much do anything I wanted to you, Dardeh, and you couldn’t stop me, not even with one of those Shouts of yours. What should I do? I told you I was going to do what I’m really good at. What do you suppose I mean by that?”
He maneuvered himself off the bed, stood, and walked toward the safe. Dardeh heard the click of the lock as Roggi bent over it, and the squeak as its door opened.
By the Nine. He has a set of tools in there, doesn’t he; the ones he brought home from the Thalmor prison.
He found himself squeaking in panic as the realization hit him, his heart rate rising. He pulled against the bindings but realized that his hands were too beefy, his wrists too thick, for him to be able to maneuver himself out of them. He was well and truly trapped. His mind flashed back to the room where they’d found Korst, when Roggi had said Dar couldn’t help him “unless you can revive one of these guys and tie him to the rack so I can get in some practice.”
He shuddered.
Roggi wouldn’t hurt me, would he? Could he really do something like that to me?
As Dardeh grunted, pulling against the bindings, Roggi straightened and turned back to him. His eyes were dark with excitement, and he was grinning. Dardeh couldn’t see his hands.
“Interesting, isn’t it?” Roggi asked, moving slowly back toward the bed. “You can’t move, you can’t speak, you can’t do anything at all except wait and see what I want. And you know the kinds of things I’m good at, don’t you, Dar?”
Roggi slipped back onto the foot of the bed and straddled Dardeh once more as Dardeh’s heart started to pound in fright. He looked at Dardeh, saw the terror that by now had to be showing clearly in his eyes, and laughed.
“Told you I tortured people for a living, Dar. You don’t imagine I did all of it with my toolkit, do you? There’s an art to it. You have to be able to see what will frighten a person the most. I’m really good at that.”
Ysmir’s beard, Roggi.
Roggi watched him for a moment longer. Dardeh knew he must look completely panicked. He also knew that any physical excitement he might have been feeling up to that point had utterly fled in the face of the terror of having the man he loved show his true colors in a way he hadn’t ever, before.
Roggi sighed. His eyes softened for a moment. He held up his empty hands for Dardeh to see; and if Dardeh hadn’t already been on the bed he surely would have fallen as he realized that the toolkit was still in the safe.
“Dar, I need to say something and I need you to truly pay attention. Can you do that for me?”
Dardeh nodded, and made a noise that would have been yes if he’d been able to use his lips or tongue. Roggi smiled.
“Don’t ever hold me with a Shout again. Just don’t. I know it’s in your nature to react with your Voice. It’s one of the things that makes you exciting, and you excite me more than anyone else I’ve ever known. Which, I’ll have you know, is really something.” He began caressing Dardeh’s stomach with his hands as he spoke. “But this is what it feels like, that complete helplessness. I’m sure this is what it feels like for all those people I tie to the rack.” He grinned. “You’re surprised I could do it so easily, aren’t you?”
Dardeh managed to nod.
“I’m good at what I do. Possibly the best. That’s why people are afraid when they realize who I am. Even Ulfric is afraid of me. I’m fast, and I’m strong.” He leaned forward and stared at Dardeh, his eyes intense. “But I was terrified when you held me with that Shout, Dar. I couldn’t do anything. I was angry, yes, but mostly I was terrified. I’ve seen what you can do to people with your Voice when you’re angry, and I didn’t know what you intended to do to me.” He shook his head, his hair dropping down and partially obscuring his face. “Dardeh, you needed to know what it feels like, so that you don’t use it as a convenience ever again.” He sat back up and grinned. His eyes were dancing, his gaze almost hungry. “And you needed to see what I feel like when I’m the one in control. Don’t ever do that to me again, Dar. OK?”
Oh gods, Roggi, I am so sorry. I told you I was sorry but I can see that’s not enough.
He nodded, feeling the tears gathering in his eyes.
Roggi slipped off Dardeh onto the bed beside him, and reached out to touch Dardeh’s face.
“I wouldn’t ever hurt you, Dardeh,” he said softly. “I couldn’t possibly. It would be hurting myself and, warped though I may be, hurting myself is not a thing I enjoy. I love you, Dar. I just wanted you to see what it’s like on the other side of that much power. Like I told you. I’m powerful too.” He reached up and scooped his hair back out of his face.
“Now then. There are a number of other things I’m really good at. I think it might be time I remind you of them.”
Roggi’s hands began doing things. His mouth did other things. Dardeh found himself moaning against the gag in his mouth, tears running down his cheeks because he was so sorry he’d hurt Roggi and the moans happening involuntarily as Roggi teased his body to the brink over and over, stopping just before he reached his release only to wait a few moments and start again.
It was a very long time before Roggi finally took the gag out of Dardeh’s mouth and released the bonds from his arms and legs. Dardeh pulled Roggi to him, exhausted, fitting himself against Roggi’s warm back, and pulled the covers over them. He wasn’t sure what it was that he wanted to say, exactly.
Finally he leaned forward and kissed Roggi’s neck. He was rewarded with a low rumble of satisfaction and contentment.
“Roggi.”
“Yeah?”
“You are so good at that.”
“Which?”
He chuckled. “All of it.” He knew that Roggi would understand.
All this time, he’s always treated me as the superior in this relationship. Always, he acted as though mine was the only power that mattered. Now he’s shown me what I always knew, somewhere – he’s my equal in every way.
Roggi laughed. “Thank you, my love.”
“No, Roggi. Thank you.”
I needed to be reminded of who I am.
A few moments later, both of them drifted off to sleep.
___
The next day Dardeh and Roggi spent time visiting with the children and the housecarls. Or, rather, they visited with Lydia. Rayya tended to stay back from the group and while she was friendly enough if they asked her a direct question she didn’t volunteer information. Lydia still seemed a bit subdued, but Dardeh thought that was a reasonable reaction to having been on the losing side of the war and having her Jarl abandon her. He made certain to reassure her that he was beyond delighted to have her back in his household and that she never need be concerned about being left behind by either of them.
They also spent some time soothing aching muscles in the sauna. Dardeh had been afraid that he wouldn’t be able to move after spending all that time straining against bindings the night before. They didn’t speak about it at all. What he found instead was that he couldn’t help swapping hungry, knowing glances with Roggi, the kind of glances they’d shared after that first encounter in the tent, up on the southern border in the Rift.
I’ll never take you for granted again, my love. I don’t think I could even if I tried.
The looks Roggi gave him in return said that was all he wanted.
There would still be at least a day before Ulfric officially redeployed Shadrick’s unit to Helgen and the messenger got back to Shadrick. Then they would need to strike camp and travel south. They tossed about the idea of just taking a few days to relax, but Dardeh was restless.
“This place, Roggi,” he said, handing the book to his husband. “Folgunthur. I’d be willing to bet there’s a dragon priest in there, and a word wall.”
“Really, Dar? Again?” Roggi looked down at the book and flipped through it. A few moments later he was nodding. “Ok, ok. You talked me into it.”
Roggi spent an hour or so working up some potions he thought might be useful for them to have, and Dardeh made sure there was a good edge on their weapons and no serious damage in their armor. They then hugged the girls, said goodbye to Lydia and Rayya, and started north.
They’d descended from Falkreath Hold to the bleak tundra of Whiterun and were nearing Rorikstead when Roggi pointed to a collection of tents clustered around one of the old ruins.
“They weren’t here the last time we came through, were they?”
Dardeh scanned the horizon and shook his head. “No. That battle we saw was farther east. This must have popped up while we were away doing things for Valerius.” He squinted, shaded his eyes and looked again at the encampment before them, and snorted when he saw what he thought looked like the red and brown of enemy uniforms. “Imperials? Are they really so cheeky as to have set up a camp right out in the open like this?”
Roggi nodded. “Sure looks like it.” He grinned and slid his sword out of its sheath. “We could send a runner to Ulfric to let him know what’s going on, but… “
Dardeh laughed. “Yeah I seem to remember your favorite Jarl telling us that if we ran across any groups of stragglers we would know what to do. Shall we?”
“We shall.”
Dardeh readied his bow and ducked down low as they approached the camp. They were nearly able to touch the nearest of the tents by the time someone actually said “Imperial business. Be on your way!”
“Oh, but this is on our way!” Dardeh said, sinking an arrow into the man’s head. A clanking to his left caught his attention; and not a moment too soon, as a pikeman was rushing toward him. He turned, pulled out his swords and braced himself; the man’s weapon struck Dardeh’s armor at just the right angle that it bounced off, throwing the soldier to the ground. Another, a swordsman, attacked from Dardeh’s right; Dardeh Shouted and set him alight, then ran past and finished off the pikeman who was struggling to regain his feet.
He heard Roggi just behind him and to the right, and glanced back to see his husband slice through an archer. They exchanged a quick look – Roggi grinning from ear to ear – and then they both ran down the length of the row of tents to dispatch an officer in gaudy armor. It was quiet for a moment, and Dardeh thought they might be done; but Roggi’s head suddenly swiveled around.
“Is someone there?” he called out.
There was, in fact, another foot soldier at the far side of the camp. Dardeh had neither seen nor heard him. Roggi laughed. “Ha! Found you!” and darted across a shallow pool of water to attack the man. Dardeh followed, marveling at how often Roggi spotted enemies before he did. It took them only a moment to finish the Imperial.
Dardeh heard mumbling from a tent just ahead of them and stepped in. There were three badly wounded soldiers lying on bedrolls on the ground. He stood there for a moment, just staring at them. They weren’t likely to survive without a healer. Roggi had no magic and he had only a self-healing spell.
“Damn it,” he muttered. Then, in a quick series of attacks, he put all three of them out of their misery. When he was done, he turned to leave the tent and found Roggi standing outside it, just staring at him.
“You ok, Dar?”
Dardeh nodded. “Yes. I just couldn’t see leaving them out here to suffer.”
Roggi nodded. “It’s a hard choice to make, sometimes.”
“Sometimes it takes a hard choice to teach you something about yourself,” Dardeh answered. Then he headed north, wondering whether they would ever truly come to the end of the war he hadn’t wanted a part in to begin with.