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."

"As important as you?" Ulfric breathed, though he too knew they had to answer. "Do not move." He told his wife with a grin as he reached beside the bed for his pants.
"What is so important I must be disturbed?" He asked the guard as he evened the door, wearing only the pants he had grabbed.

"How did I get here?" Dex asked, making every effort to pick herself up without aid. "Where am I?!"

"The...man you brought in...the prisoner..." The head Mage was white as a sheet and looked as if he might decide to puke all over the other man. "He's started speaking strangely...It's an ancient tongue and...it's scaring the hell out of the staff. We need to get him to the dungeon and chain him before he does something terrible."

"The Stormcloaks brought you here." Galmar said gently, knowing better than to move closer to her. "The ones who hurt you...they're dead..."

"He's awake?!" Ulfric hissed, stepping out into the hall to close the door to his bedchambers and keep from exposing poppy to this conversation.

"I don't know what they wanted from me." Dex whispered, her knees hugged tightly against her chest where she remained seated on the floor. "I told them I wasn't a spy, but they wouldn't believe me! That's when they... When he..." She closed her eyes, wishing she had some sort of head injury that would wipe that memory away.

"Yes and he's angry. But...I can't understand a word he's saying." The elder mage all but cried. "He's becoming extremely violent. Please, Jarl. We must take him to the dungeons...leaving him alone even for a moment is extremely unwise!"

"You don't have to finish." Galmar told her, kneeling so that he was on her level but not moving closer. "I know what they did to you. And they paid. All of them."

For once the Jarl was in agreement with his Mage. "Call my men, Galmar is still with my queens pet, he will be of little use right now." He knew what the language was, he just didn't think anyone else needed to know.

"I wanted to make him pay!" Dex suddenly shouted. "He deserved no less than to have a rabid skeever gnaw his manhood off!"

"Will you be coming down with us?" The mage asked nervously. "I think that perhaps we would all feel safer if you did."

Galmar nodded at this. "I couldn't agree with you more. But you see, I knocked over a fire pillar and we had little time to escape. Since I wanted to be sure he didn't, I ran him through."

Ulfric selfishly didn't want to leave Poppy's side, but he knew his duty to the safety of his people. "Have the men assemble, I shall join you there shortly."

Dex was staring down at her palm, where her torturer had branded it with a reshot poker. As she did this, she was reminded of what she had done to Draco. It was strange... But even now she thought she could hear his voice. "For what it's worth... Thank you. But you should have run me through too."

The mage nodded and was gone. Back in his room, Poppy was already beginning to dress herself, having already guessed the out come of the hall meeting.

"Why?" Galmar asked her. "You are as innocent as anyone in all this. Why should you have to die for something a foolish man did?"

"Lovely, I'm sorry but I..." Ulfric was already appologising as he entered the room, though stopped when he saw that Poppy was more or less dressed. "The man I brought back with me... We're going to move him, he could start getting violent."

"Because I can't ever forget what he did!" Dex shouted, her grey eyes devoid of all hope as they looked up at Galmar.

Poppy nodded slowly, trying to keep the sadness out of her eyes. Their time together had been so short. "A king first, my love." She whispered, turning to hunt for her undergarments. "I understand. You don't need to tell me anything."

"And you think killing the man or yourself would change that?" Galmar asked her, his tone extremely gentle. "There's sense in wasting your life for one foolish man."

"I disagree." Ulfric told his wife firmly. "I do this to keep you safe, everyone else is merely an after thought." He added. "If I left him here in the keep... And he broke loose, he could come straight for you."

"Two..." Dex whispered quietly, her thoughts again with Draco. She wanted to blame him for all of this. If she had never met him... She would still have been just another body in the rebellion.

"Ulfric, you don't have to pretend. You don't really know me. Your profession of desire for me...is not needed. I am yours to command just like everyone else in this keep." Poppy told him gently, trying to pin her hair in a bun on her head.

"Is that why you were in the Brotherhood?" Galmar asked her. "Because you were trying to hurt a man that hurt you?"

Ulfric's deep blue eyes were infinitely sad as they watched Poppy. "If that's what you think, perhaps it is best I return to the battlefront." He told her quietly. "I don't need to know everything about you, to know how I feel." That said, he shut the door quietly behind him.

Dex nodded her head ever so slightly. "I don't know why I let myself fall... He was an arrogant son of a Falmer." She added, turning her face away from Galmar, not wanting this stranger to see the weakness in her eyes when she thought of her dragon.

Draco was hissing like an angry cat when Ulfric arrived in the room. The Mage and another had managed to back him into the corner but neither of them were willing to get closer than the edge of their swords would allow.
The golden eyed man was snarling at them in an unfamiliar tongue and it was clear they couldn't understand a word of it.

"My mother used to say all men are that way." Galmar chuckled, slowly holding a hand out for her. "Our queen will be returning soon. She'll blame me if you're not in bed."

Ulfric was calm as he entered the room, not even drawing his sword. "This is thanks I get for soaring your life?" He asked Draco, though didn't fill the mages in on the details of this.

Dex had reached her hand out to accept Galmar's when she again saw the angry brand on her palm. "I don't care what your queen wants." She whispered, again hugging her knees to her chest.

Draco cocked his head, though did manage to stop hissing. The narrow of his golden eyes would tell Ulfric exactly what he thought of having his life saved by the man who'd tried to end it.

Galmar sighed heavily, his own large fingers folding in on themselves. "Can I at least get you a blanket?" He asked her softly.

"Continue acting like a beast and I shall simply have to have you out down like one." the Jarl continued calmly. "I bring a snarling monster to the keep... And my right hand man brings a broken little girl. As you can see, my tolerance for charity is rather thin at the moment."

Dex shook her head, causing her dark hair to fall over her bruised shoulders and conceal her face somewhat. "You need to let me leave." She breathed.

"Ulfric Stormcloak is not known for tolerance." Draco said darkly, keeping distance between them as he sat down on the cot. His right eye was still in bad shape though it looked to be healing. His hand however.

"I'm afraid not." Galmar said, shaking his head. "You are not well and you are certainly not in the right state of mind to be going anywhere."

"No, I am not." Ulfric agreed. "So you can understand, my desire to help you wanes with each passing minute that you cause uproar in my keep." He added, noting that Draco's eye was indeed healing. "I am reluctant to let you live at all, given the destruction you have caused. Not to mention, the fact you apparently abducted a young woman, simply to feed your hunger." if only the Jarl had known exactly which hunger Dex had sated in the dragon.

"Then I am your prisoner?" Dex asked, one silver eye visible through her thick hair. "You will not free me, nor will you execute me. You make little sense, given we are at war and you clearly think I am an imperial."

Draco's laughter was deep, shaking the room they were in. The two Mages all but hit the floor, wailing for Talos to save them. "You humans..." He purred, waving a hand of dismissal at the three of them. "You assume everything, don't you?"

"Now wait just a moment there." Galmar said thinly. "I never claimed you were anything other than a woman in need of help. Are you trying to tell me something because you have a death wish, child?"

"Get out!" Ulfric suddenly barked at the mages. This dragon clearly had deep secrets, and the Jark did not want anyone else hearing them.

"I saw the way you looked at me when I first woke up... The same way every other Nord looks at me!" Dex hissed. "I grew up in the thieves guild, I am not an imperial spy! Despite what you small minded, superficial people may think!"

The mages were only too eager to obey. They were out the door in a moment, slamming it behind him.
"You've been with a woman." Draco said as the door shut. It was more for something to say than anything else. "Too proud of yourself to sleep, Jarl of Windhelm?"

Galmar held up his hands. "I did not. If I did, I do not realize it and I apologize. I hate those who have intolerance for other races. Please..."
"Galmar!" Poppy opened the door and glanced from her husband's right hand man to the woman on the floor. "The floor is like ice! Dex...let me help you back into bed."

"Why should a man not be proud of his wife, his queen?" Ulfric asked, his blue eyes watching Draco closely. "If you can take human form... That means you could have defiled countless maids across Skyrim, foul creature."

"No." Dex's voice was hard as she scooted away from Poppy. "You will keep your hands to yourself, if you know what is good for you!" the young thief was still trying to decide her next move. The thoughts that didn't revolve around Draco and his brutal dismissal of her, left her thinking of what her torturer had done to her. Dex truly did wish for death.

"Wouldn't that work well for you?" The dragon shot back. "Then you could tell your people that I mated with elves and get rid of them." He chuckled. "My what a massacre that would be."

"Dex, you remember me. Don't you?" Poppy asked softly, grabbing for a heavy fur and holding it out for the other woman as she knelt beside her. "You saved my life in Helgen."

"If we're getting rid of elves, why not all the imperials too?" Ulfric replied coolly. "It would be easy for me to tell my people that anyone without a pure Nord bloodline deserved to die. But then, that would make me no better than the imperials themselves, or the Daedra."

"Despite how much I wish for it, I do not have amnesia." Dex snapped, taking the fur from Poppy, simply to stop anyone else from trying to offer aid. "You are part of the plot to keep me here, I have nothing to say to you, little girl!"

"You didn't complete the mating with your queen." Draco said, turning the subject back on the other man. "Why not? Isn't it your job to procreate? To continue the succession to the throne?"

"There is no plot to keep you here. Trust me." Poppy said with a snort. She knew very well how Ulfric would feel if he knew the truth about Dex. "Galmar and I are only trying to help, believe it or not."

Ulfric actually chuckled quietly at this. "Where is the fun in succeeding at that on the first attempt?" He mused. "However, I would not injury my lady's honour by details what we got up to, Dragon." The Jark was pacing now as he watched Draco. "If you are such an expert on mating, why do I smell nothing but dragon on you? Where is your own mate?"

"Liar!" Dex practically screamed. "I want to leave, and he won't let me!" She added, jabbing one of her broken fingers in Glamar's direction. "Too much of a child to kill me, yet not cowardly enough to just let me go so I can compete the task myself!"

"There are no others of my kind." Draco said, suddenly finding a deeper interest in the wardrobe across from him than the king in front of him. "Only the Dragonborn. And that, your majesty, is none of your business."

Galmar's face went a deep red and he clenched his fists at his sides. "You know nothing about me, woman!" He roared, stomping out of the room and slamming the heavy iron doors behind him.

"Ah, the Dragonborn." Ulfric echoed, though he still watched Draco. "I have been hearing stories of that creature appearing all over Skyrim, and yet..." He sighed heavily, thinking back to Poppy's village, to the thief who have summoned up such power. It was merely lucky for Dex that she had been so badly injured, Ulfric hadn't recognised her when Glamar had brought her here. "I find it hard to believe that such power could be given to a child."

Once the doors shut, Dex turned her hopeless gaze on Poppy. "With him gone, you can't stop me from leaving now." She informed the other woman, shakily pushing herself to her feet, using he wall for support.

"Not a child anymore." Draco whispered. He'd said this in his own tongue, though was unable to hide a wicked grin. After a moment he turned his eyes back on Ulfric. "I should punish you for what you did to me." He growled.

"Oh please." Poppy rolled her eyes as she moved closer to Dex, taking the other woman by her arm. "I'm only going to ask you once to lay down or I'll make you."