Lost Legends

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"It can't keep going on like this!" A young woman's voice gasped as two figures dove over a snow drift to avoid detection by passing guards. "We have been fighting for so long that no one even cares anymore!" She added, running her fingers through blue black hair that had already become brittle with the cold.
"Of course they remember, Dex." The young woman's companion replied in an annoyed whisper. "We fight for freedom from the imperial invaders who seek to make us bow down to them!"
The woman who had just been referred to as Dex rolled her grey eyes. "What does it matter who sits on the throne as high emperor? Either way, we're still left down here in the dirt." She added, poking her head up to see if the coast was clear. "The rebellion is just pushing back the tide, sooner or later the imperials will find us all, and execute us as promised."

"She will never be a queen. I certainly wouldn't allow that." Galmar hissed, twisting the dagger as Ulfric had done to him. Bree whimpered again, blood sliding past her lips. "Just as I will never allow you to become high king."

"How can you miss a monster?" Draco found himself chuckling. "How can you miss someone who is nothing but cruel to you?"

Ulfric could stand no more. He moved forward, his own sword drawn. "Fight me like a man, you coward! My life, in exchange for Her's!"

"I love you." Dex replied, as though that answered everything. "I acted like a child... All I ever wanted was for you to feel the same." She confessed, tilting her head slightly to touch her full lips to the edge of Draco's powerful jaw.

Bree was shaking her head wildly, her eyes wide with terror. Galmar grabbed a handful of her hair and snarled loudly, jerking her head back against his shoulder. "There's no exchange, Stormcloak. I want you both dead. Letting her live would accomplish nothing."

"You are in over your head now." Draco sighed heavily. "I hope you know that." He added, his powerful arm sliding around her waist and pulling her even closer to him.

"To what end?" Ulfric asked. "I am fighting to make Skyrim a better pace, why would you stand in the way of that?!"

"I'm always in over my head." Dex whispered, a slender leg resting over Draco's as he pulled her closer.

"Because I hate you!" Galmar shouted, his words slurred with the grief he still held for Poppy. "I fucking hate you and I don't give a shit about Skyrim unless it belongs to the Nords!" He finished, giving Bree a violent shake.

"Who was the man who thought you belonged to him?" Draco asked, though at that moment he could have cared less. He was sliding his fingers along her slender thigh, his lips brushing the baby fine hair on the back of her neck.

"That is what I fight for! I fight to keep Skyrim free from imperial rule!" Ulfric insisted, trying to keep Glamar focused on a common goal.

Dex's long lashes fluttered closed as Draco's lips brushed the back of her neck. The angry mob from earlier could burst in here right now and kill, and she wouldn't care. This was a perfect moment from her. Of course, that was until she had to answer Draco. "It was Brynjolf... King of the Thieves guild."

"And yet you are willing to let trash like this survive! I have watched you...the both of you...kissing in the street...mating in a dark inn. You are no longer a Nord. You are just like them! All you care about now is her!" Galmar roared, shaking Bree all over again. While he was distracted the slender Dunmer was beginning to work the dagger out of her mid-section, though it came at great cost.

Draco's fingers paused and he lifted himself up and off the bed. "You mean the one you grew up with?" He asked her. "The man you told me about?" He began hunting the room for his clothes, anything to keep from having to ask her the one question he truly wanted to.

"It is because I care for her that my conviction is all the stronger!" Ulfric boomed. "I fight for this land and for her! For a place we can both call home, without her having to look over her shoulder every step she takes!"

Dex could feel an icy cold spreading through her chest as Draco not only pulled himself away from her, but put several metres of distance between them. The slender woman hugged her knees tightly to her chest as her mate stalked about the room. "Yes, my childhood friend." She confirmed quietly.

"Then we are back where we started." Galmar growled. The next few things happened as if the Dunmer and Nord were in a sort of dance. Bree yanked the dagger the rest of the way out of her stomach and turned in Galmar's arms. Without missing a beat she thrust the dagger upward into the tender space between his ribs where it pierced his heart. The gray haired Nord fell like a stone, his unseeing eyes fixed on Breenan in shock.

"He is the one I sensed then." Draco said, yanking breeches over his lean hips. "He's the one with your scent all over him. Perhaps I should have killed him then, hmmm?"

Ulfric was also in shock. For a moment he simply stared at the scene, his jaw hanging open. It was the sight of Breenan's blood that finally had him at her side, his fingers pressing to the wound as Dex had done for Draco. "Silly girl..." He whispered, suddenly feeling so very helpless.

"Is that what you feel you should do?" Dex replied, very much aware now that she was indeed awake, and not merely dreaming. "He wanted me to be his queen... To rule the guild with him."

"I have to cut my hair..." Bree slurred, her bloodied fingers going to the ragged remains of what Galmar had left her with. "Almeada...was gone...I failed...I'm sorry."

"Why didn't you take him up on it?" Draco asked, inspecting the Ebony armor Ulfric had taught him how to make. "It would have been quite an honor."

"You failed no one." Ulfric breathed, gently pulling her fingers away from her hair. "You were so very brave. I'm so proud of you, lovely." He added, kissing the top of Bree's head gently.

That statement cut worse than anything else. "You really don't care that I love you, do you?"

A guard stepped forward, visibly shaking. "Sire...what do you want me to do?" He asked, looking uncertainly from the jarl to the dead man on the floor and then to Bree.
The Dunmer lost her will to stand and collapsed against Ulfric, making it clear she trusted him to catch her.

"I only know that you shouldn't." Draco whispered, not daring to look at her. "I don't understand why you chose to come back here when you could have been a queen... I have nothing to offer you."

Ulfric lifted Bree up into his arms, her blood now covering the both of them. "Take that body outside. Let the carrion have it, and even that is better than he deserves." He told the guard darkly. "And assemble the healers. I want every Mage in the palace to aide in the healing of my queen."

"Draco... Are you really so ashamed of me that you cannot even look upon me?" Dex breathed, her voice not as steady as she would have liked. "I angered Brynjolf by refusing his proposal... That is the reason he was hunting you. I... Told him I loved you, and that was the reason I could not be with him."

The guard gave him a questioning look but turned to do as he was told. Within an hour no healer had arrived, save Almeada herself.
"Well this went to Oblivion didn't it?" She muttered when a guard let her into Ulfric's chambers. "I let her go on her own and look what I'm left with."

"You told him what I truly am?" Draco asked, letting the ebony armor down from his face so that he was forced to look at her. "Is that why that crowd was yelling for the dragon?"

"What are you doing here, witch?" Ulfric growled from where he sat by Bree's bedside, holding her slender hand gently. "You made it clear you were above helping us the ast time I asked!"

Dex nodded, shrinking down slightly like a child that had just been caught doing something they shouldn't. "B-but he didn't believe me!" She stammered. "He said a dragon could not be a man, and I had been taken in by a con artist. I thought I could have kept you safe anyway... Until he turned up here last night."

"I said I would not help the dragon. You are lucky I am even in this palace with him here." Almeada said evenly, gesturing for the jarl to move away. "She may not survive this, you are aware of that?"

"Good." Draco nodded, meaning the belief and not anything else. "Let's make sure he keeps it that way."

Ulfric nodded solemnly, stroking Breenan's hair lightly. "I will risk anything... To save her, even..." he hated himself for uttering this next betrayal, but Bree was worth far more to him than Draco assistance. "You obviously have old business ith the dragon, save Breenan and you can do as you wish with him, or his mate."

Dex didn't reply to this. Instead she got to her feet and picked up her own boots from beside the bed. "You need your rest." She told Draco quietly as she headed for the door. "There are many maids around, should you require anything."

Almeada gave Ulfric a smile that was far beyond what a simple Dunmer mage would have given him. It was filled with an old evil. "I should thank you for that but I would rather keep my distance. I am not the one he should have to worry about anyway.

"Why are you leaving?" Draco asked, feeling rather bewildered to hear this. "What did I do?"

"If he is as old as the evidence suggests... How could he have any enemies left alive?" Ulfric asked, still thinking like a mortal Nord.

"Nothing... As always." Dex replied, though didn't turn around. "I am not asking forgiveness for what I did. I stand by the consequences of my actions. Can you say the same?" She added, then let the door shut behind her.

Almeada rolled her eyes at this, once again showing the jarl that she did not have the eyes of a Dunmer after all. "You are such a Nord, aren't you? Do you even truly worship Talos or take for granted that he was even there?"

Draco dropped wearily back to the bed, placing his head in his hands. It was all too much. How could be change? It had been hundreds of years and he hadn't accomplished it yet.

"Talos need not prove himself to a lower being." Ulfric countered. "But while we are at it... Who are you? I have seen many dunmerin my time, and you are not one of them. You may have fooled be before, and even fooled Breenan, but I see it now."

Dex was taking a wall alone in the forest on the outskirts of the city. For some reason she always felt far more at home camping in the forest, than she ever did in a bed at an inn. The young woman picked up a glowing ninroot and smiled sadly; Draco had always assumed she was like every other girl.

"If Breenan wasn't so worried about her beloved king she'd have seen it long ago." Almeada told him darkly, now kneeling beside the woman she was speaking of. "I have been looking out for this one since her birth. I am rather fond of her you see." She said, not answering his question.

Draco decided against the armor and instead went after Dex. He needed to keep her close to him. The reminder of Ulfric's words to him about this made it even more certain.

"And why exactly have you been looking out for her?" Ulfric asked, worried that he and Breenan had been fated with a destiny almost as cruel as tht of Draco and Dex.

Dex had sat down at the foot of an ancient oak tree, a fox cub curled up asleep in her lap as she too dozed lightly. she really did seem perfectly at home here in the forest.