Leidenschaft and
@Peik bring to you...
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Her arms burned in a way they hadn't a long, long while. She was short of breath and red in face, but she pulled hard on the rope gripped tight in her white-knuckled fist. "Heave, you bastards!" One of the men said, both hands around his mouth to project his voice instead of lending them to doing what he was telling the rest of them to do. There was timeless quote about good leadership or the laziness of men in there somewhere.
She rolled her eyes, wanting to stroll up to the mercenary and knock his teeth into his belly. The ballista finally was in place and she let go of the rope, taking a couple stumbling steps back and putting her hands to her knees as the deck croaked and creaked in protest before finally settling. She hauled in burning cold breaths and growled, moving her hand to her hip and wiping her forehead. Despite it being cold as Coldharbor, her forearm still came away wet from her forehead. She looked up at the ballista, the huge thing looming over her and the others, placed there because she thought she should try at busting a vein in her forehead rather than sitting and resting.
She was done now, though, and no amount of cajoling or shouting would get her to lift her arse from the deck now. She spotted Sadri milling about the deck amongst the others, almost lost in the crowd if it weren't for the warmth she had when she caught sight of him, wanting to keep it. A warm smile spread across her face, "You, Long-Ear! A drink with a lass?"
The long-ear in question, having been practicing the timeless art of looking like doing something but actually doing nothing, first raised his head up and gave a blank stare like a deer caught face-to-face with a hunter with his bow at the ready, but relaxed after seeing who it was that had called out to him. ''Aye aye, cap'n!'' He shouted in reply with an amused tone. Smiling, the mer picked up the long, broadcloth-covered object that he had been pretending to inspect, and walked over to the woman, sitting down next to her. Underneath the shadow of the ballista, he could not help but feel somewhat small, but the slight feeling of awe quickly subsided.
Sadri unslung his flask of flin from where it had been hanging, and offered it to Solveig, only to question its lightweight feeling while keeping it up. He opened the flask and rotated it downwards, and only a slight drip fell down for a moment. Seemed that there was nothing but the smell of flin in the damn thing now.
''Well, either you have a bottle somewhere, lass, or we're going to have to suffer each other's company sober,'' he said sarcastically, although there was nonetheless a hint of regret in his voice - not out of the fact that they had nothing to drink, but moreso out of the fact that they constantly seemed to drink when alongside one another. Had they no tolerance for each other? Was the inebriation their primary reason for sticking together? Many questions of this kind dawdled around Sadri's head, gnawing at his brain. Perhaps it was this uncertainty that led him to drink, most of all.
"I'd hardly call it suffering." She chuckled, playfully slapping a hand on Sadri's shoulder when a look of worry twitched across his face. She handed Sadri her waterskin after taking a couple pulls from it herself, "Only water, my skin of whiskey is belowdeck. You're better company to endure than most though. At least you're not Leif," She said, "As much as the whispers about the Company make me pity him, I do remember he once said he'd 'pollinate my flower' back in Windhelm."
Sadri somewhat relaxed, and internally felt a cloud of warmth after Solveig's reply, and chuckled slightly as the woman slapped his shoulder, although he did feel a slight jolt of pain from the spot where a crossbow bolt had pierced through his arm earlier, thanks to the impact. He grabbed the waterskin from Solveig's hand, and started taking a long sip, although his relieved moment would be defiled, and his water poisoned, by Solveig quipping about Leif's words. He coughed with a choke, and put the waterskin away from his mouth, filled with conflicting feelings of hatred, dejection, self-pity and jealousy, tinged with a hint of indifference that hurt him most.
''Erh,'' he grunted, trying to get back on track. ''I was like him once. Doesn't get you far,'' he said, trying to sound normal, but the artificially produced calm in his voice betrayed his internal frustration.
She'd seen it in Cleftjaw's face when he saw Sadri the first time, saw it in a lot of newbeards over her years as a tavern maiden and a simple woodcutter. She'd like to think she could pick out what troubled Sadri under all the scars of his face. She also knew men's pride never grew any more flexible from the time when they were babes to bulls, so she could forgive Sadri his insecurities and imperfections. She sighed, "It didn't get him anywhere. I'm not some fair-skinned damsel given over to men like Leif, I've seen them before and they've never had me. Don't tell me you were worried the stalwart ice-brain who can't keep his fruits in his trousers threatens the worldly Sadri?" She chuckled, "Honestly, it does surprise me to know that you were like him once. Then again, I'm sure even my father had his times in his youth."
''It's not that I was worried, really. Gets him anywhere or doesn't, I don't really have the right to judge, do I?'' Sadri said, his tone quickly drifting into a more distorted, emotional voice. ''I'm... I'm just jealous, really. Sorry,'' he apologized quickly, feeling dumb for having considered himself too old for reliving such feelings, as the ones he felt right now, at some recent point in his past. ''But yeah. Trust me when I say men can change big time. I honestly don't know how I'd treat the younger I. Or if I could recognize him.'' He kept silent for a moment, contemplating, but it felt too scary after some time. ''Then again, I guess everyone would change after four decades of misadventures.''
Solveig smiled, nodding. "I see. By all accounts, my father makes it seem like the man he was only a few years ago was some stranger with the same Name. I like to think I know the man well enough that he hasn't changed as much as he thinks he has." She took another sip from her waterskin before adding quietly, "A valiant effort in trying though. You say you've changed. Well, good or bad, d'you think?" She asked.
''Damn, woman, you sure ask the hardest questions,'' Sadri said, chuckling. ''Well, I really can't say. I've let horrible things slide getting here,'' he continued, shaking his head, half in regret, half to forget. ''And I've learned a lot of things, too. I don't consider myself a wise man, but I've sure as Oblivion gotten a lot more wiser. All in all, I can't say, really. What do you think?'' He asked, hand on the cloth wrap next to him.
She thought for a bit. How could she imagine the mer she loved committing, or at the least, 'letting slide horrible things'? Then again, taking a life could be considered horrible to some, and she looked down at her hands, remembering the Dunmer from only an hour ago. Best not to dwell, dwelling never benefitted anyone. Before she knew it, she was thinking of Windhelm and spat, a little more acid on her tongue than she expected, "I reckon we've all done things. We both know it." She sniffed, sighing, and then smiling, "But as you said to me, we can let go. Or at least accept."
''Yup. Let go, move on. You can't live otherwise,'' he said, drifting off somewhat. The way the conversation had been going, Sadri could not help but feel somewhat angry at himself. He'd ended up in a spot where all he could say to the woman he loved was regrets from past misdeeds. ''Speaking of learning new things... Just look how they come to use.''
Deftly, he unwrapped the cloth around the long object and pulled it upwards, letting a glass spear fall inbetween Solveig and himself. It gleamed in its own naturally reflective properties, but a trained eye could tell unnatural roots growing into the tip of the spear through its malachite-iron shaft, Sadri's little tweak to Madura's brother's weapon.
''For you,'' Sadri said silently. ''I've tinkered with it down deck somewhat, burnt a gem into it. Haven't tested how effective it is, but glass is already pretty deadly. With the gem, you should be punching through most you find. Figured you'd like it,'' he said, with a somewhat sad tone, eyes fixed on the spear.
Solveig gasped as Sadri propped the spear up between them. It was a work of beauty that she thought she would only witness in the hands of kings and heroes. When Sadri had told her that he'd tinkered with it, she couldn't help but smile. It was as much an art-piece as it was a weapon. As her fingers traced the elegant carvings across its shaft, she felt almost that she wasn't worthy of such a thing. But the Nord in her told her it was to insult a weapon to not use it. She grasped the thing in a strong fist, "I...Sadri..." Her lips worked to form words of the little gasps, but failed. She settled on hugging the Dunmer. She chuckled, eyes still fixed on the spear, "Were you a jeweler once too? Where did you find this? Did you make it?"
Sadri felt a rather indescribable warmth following a moment of surprise as the young Nord woman lashed forwards and grabbed him with a strong hug. Despite feeling a beaming happiness from the way she had accepted his gift, Sadri could not help but feel a fear, a doubt, of her enthusiasm in picking up a tool of death. He quickly threw away these ideas - he did not want to feel doubt at this moment, just the warmth of her arms. Although this quickly faded when she asked if he were a jeweler, which, followed with her reaction to the shaft's carvings, made him realize she might have misunderstood what he meant by the gem.
''Oh,'' he chuckled nervously. ''By Anu, you overestimate my skills. I got it from Bthamz, found it the way you see it here,'' he mused. ''I'm no jeweler, I'm afraid, I don't have the skills yet. But I know my way around soul gems. That's its gem, you see, I've enchanted it,'' he explained. ''Like this one here,'' he said as pulled a jade-studded ring from behind her ear with a sleight-of-hand trick he had learned years ago. ''Some nobleman had gifted me this back when I had first joined the Company. I think it'd suit you well,'' he said as the ring stood in his good palm.
He was much more enthusiastic about this one - it was more than a tool of war, which was a subject he could not help but want to distance himself from, now that he and Solveig had gotten closer. The thought of losing her was one he had to stalwartly banish from his mind in every moment of clarity, despite not even being properly together.
"Sadri..." She gasped, after a few moments of her mind scrambling to recognize what he was holding after it came back from behind her ear. No matter how good a gesture it was to gift the spearwoman with an ornate spear as this one, but the ring... The ring had more meaning to her. She felt her face getting hot now, her mind racing to find a suitable idea for a gift to match these. A sword, she thought, at first. Now, it seemed like it'd be a crude gift, like gifting a smith a smithing hammer. "I don't know how to repay this... it's- it's beautiful. I've never been gifted something like this."
Sadri stood there with a faint but certain smile, eyes looking at nowhere in particular, as she spoke. He wanted to just tell her that her being there was enough, that her love was enough, but could not find the strength in himself to say it.
''You don't have to repay for it, you already have,'' Sadri said finally, leaning back and supporting himself on his two arms. ''You know, Solveig,'' he started, but could not exactly continue. He gave a long pause. He didn't know what to do after this point. Seventy-something years, many loves, and yet still, he was as clueless as a toddler at moments like these.
''I think I love you,'' he blurted out all of a sudden, looking straight at the tip of his boots standing in front of him.
She remained there, still as a deer after a twig breaks underfoot, looking at Sadri as he stared off. It was adorable, or as adorable as one could say Sadri could be. Her mind swam with his echoing words. Her fingers intertwined with each other as she looked at the toes of her own boots, thumbs twiddling away as she tried to gather up the strength to say something, anything, to reciprocate. She could scream her boasts to the heavens, look the Kamal in the face and tell it that it was to die by her hand, proclaim her many fights in the Circle. This was but another time like that, she told herself, "I-I...Sadri..." Her hand crawled towards one of his own and she touched the cold metal of it, though if she was disappointed that it was not flesh, she didn't let it show. She wasn't. "Me too. Ah, love-think I love... I feel the same way." She squeezed Sadri's hand in her own.
"I'm glad, you know, that at least one good thing happened to me while I joined the Company. Getting my father to leave fighting behind isn't going as well as I'd planned, but... this is good." She said, staring down at the grain of the deck.
The Dunmer accompanied the woman in her stare, silent.
''Yes, yes it is.''
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