Hello there, readers! This is the second (the first being Passengers) in a couple of short stories I'm writing featuring my Dragonborns' friendships. In this case, I'm writing about one of my character's friendship with Ulfric Stormcloak. As with Passengers, while quests from the game will feature, the main focus will be on the relationships between the characters, not on the events of the quests themselves so much. (Partly because I don't want anyone to get bored reading about the same events they've played/read about many, many times before!)

Since this is a Civil War themed story, and I know those can be divisive, I should state now that I'm actually pretty neutral when it comes to the Stormcloaks/Imperials debate. I have an Imperial-aligned OC, and some who are on neither side, but the Dragonborn in this story sides with the Stormcloaks because it fits his personality and backstory. I apologise in advance to those of you who back the Imperials, but I hope most of you will still enjoy the story. :)


SONS OF STORMS


CHAPTER ONE – THE MAN IN THE IRON ARMOUR

Ulfric Stormcloak could never forget the moment he met the Dragonborn. Because it was the moment he came closer to death than he ever had before.

He had been close to joining his ancestors in the past. Spells had been hurled at his head that had brushed past him close enough to scorch his skin and blacken a few strands of hair. Swords had come so close to penetrating his armour that after the battle was over, he'd examine the steel mail that had saved his life and realise that the snap of just one more link would have killed him. And then there were those days curled in the corner of a Thalmor cell, hunger eating away at his insides, fear and shame gnawing at his mind, and the terror that every clink of metal that signified the opening of the door brought his destruction.

It never had. It had only ever brought pain. And guilt. And grief.

But those times, those narrow escapes, those brushes with death – they were not like his meeting with the one they called Dovahkiin. That was the first time he had been certain there was no escape. The first time he had not only feared but known it was over for him. The first time had felt his mind grow numb in the grip of a cold, terrible certainty that this was his end, that this was the last his eyes would see of Nirn, that the next sight that would meet them would be the skies of Sovngarde.

It wasn't, though. Because of him. Because of the Dragonborn.

It happened quickly, so quickly that no matter how hard he tried, Ulfric could never quite remember what happened. The Imperials had pushed them back, a relentless wall of blades and red and brown armour, and though Ulfric had shouted until his throat ached that they had to stay in their circle, his men had been broken apart. Already two of them had gone down between the Imperials' blades, though through the ever-moving throng, it had seemed to Ulfric that they had drowned in a sea of soldiers.

The legionaries, of course, were targeting him. He'd have been suprised if they hadn't. He was their enemy, the figurehead of the rebellion, and they wanted him gone. That was fine with Ulfric, it meant his men had more of a chance, but no one wants to be set upon by ten soldiers at once. He had fought with everything he had, of course. He had Shouted, let the Unrelenting Force Shout rip from his mouth, and one had crumpled as the shockwave slammed him into a tree. From the snapping sound that had accompanied his collision, Ulfric guessed he'd snapped the man's spine. And while he knew it would be some time before he could call the Voice to his aid again, he could still put up a fight wielding the same weapons as his own warriors. An axe and a heart filled with true Nord spirit were just as powerful as any ancient dragon magic.

But it wasn't enough. The legionaries kept coming. Ulfric hacked down one, whirled around to slice through the neck of another, twisted around – and a third broke through his defence, sword driving towards his heart. He reeled back far enough to dodge the strike, but he was off balance, his momentum was stronger than his reflexes, and he moved backwards too far. He knew instantly that he would fall, and fall he did.

One of his men shouted to him, and Ulfric gritted his teeth, struggling to find room to rise as the Imperials closed in. If he could just hold them off, take a few of them down, he could get back on his feet. If he stayed down, he was dead, but if he could get up, he still had a chance. If only I had a horse, Ulfric thought bitterly.

Still, he had an axe. And that would do. It was enough to slice into one man's legs, for instance, and send him dropping to his knees with a howl. It was enough to wave it so that another took a step backwards. It was enough to buy him space – beautiful, Gods-given space – to put his hands down on the ground, ready to push him up –

And one of the Imperial captains, a man in steel armour as thick as a mudcrab's shell brought his foot down on Ulfric's right hand. Hard. Too hard.

Pain shot through every one of his fingers and he knew then, with the soldier's knowledge that always understands the truth of every wound he is given, that when the Imperial lifted his foot, he would not be able to keep holding his axe. His fingers simply would not be able to grip it. And so it was. The booted foot rose up. Ulfric tried to close his fingers around the axe handle, and they wouldn't move. They were not broken. They were simply dead with pain – only for the moment, but it was the moment Ulfric had needed.

The Imperial captain kicked the axe away before Ulfric could reach for it with his left hand. And there was no space to move, no weapon to use as a shield, when the man brought his sword swinging down towards Ulfric's neck.

That was the moment. That was the moment of realisation that nothing could stop this, that nothing could save him, that nothing could prevent his death, and that after all these years of fighting, it ended now.

It was also the moment that the man in the battered iron armour leaped out of nowhere and sank his greatsword down into the Imperial officer's back.

It sank. There was a crash like rock splitting, and the blade simply sank. The Imperial toppled forward, limp as a plucked flower, and Ulfric knew from the way he fell that he was dead. He lifted an arm to push the body aside before it could fall on top of him, and as he shoved it away, he saw. The sword had come down with enough force to crack the Imperial's armour. The entire back had been broken into pieces.

The man in the iron armour lashed out again, his blade – a weapon long as Ulfric was tall - sweeping in an arc over Ulfric's head. A couple of the legionaries had the sense to either jump back or duck. But two or three more crumpled, their stomachs or necks slashed open.

And there it was again. The space Ulfric needed to plant his palms firmly on the earth and push himself up onto his feet again. He reached down, snatched up his axe with his thankfully now-responding fingers, and spun around, his eyes seeking his saviour.

The man with the greatsword had his back to Ulfric now as he faced down another group of Imperials, but while the face was hidden, the frame of the body was easy to see. The man was taller than Ulfric, taller than any of the Stormcloaks here, and his shoulders were broad as a bear's. His iron armour bore the marks of countless battles – notches, burns, dents – and of a mane of golden hair fell over the back of his neck, half-hidden by the helmet.

The build, the weapon, the fact that he was beating the Imperials back – all the signs pointed towards this man being a true Nord. A smile tugged at the corner of Ulfric's mouth. Just when everything had seemed most hopeless, this stranger had appeared. A reminder that the sons of Skyrim were willing to fight for their home. For him.

It wasn't enough, though. Nothing was going to be enough.

The Imperials were closing in, a little closer with every second. Already some of Ulfric's warriors had been disarmed, dragged to the side, dumped on the outskirts of the battle with their hands bound. Other Stormcloaks lay still, curled around their wounds, with the remaining combatants tripping over them or else trampling them into the dirt. And while there were Imperial bodies there too, both dead and dying, there were far too many left.

Ulfric saw Halgor go down, refusing to surrender as always, kicking and roaring at the men who seized him until at last they gave up and stopped his shouts with a sword to the neck. He saw Jund pinned, two Imperials holding each arm as he fought against them, though not hard enough to prevent them finally binding him, hurling him aside like a child throws aside bad apple he doesn't want to eat. He saw Kalla straining to get towards the main group of survivors and be grasped by the legionaries' hands on the way, saw her go limp with despair as they tugged the warhammer from her grasp. Ulfric managed to meet her gaze, and there was an apology in her eyes that made his heart both ache and burn.

Not many of them left now. Just him, and Ralof, and Hedda, and the stranger.

It was never going to last long, but they fought anyway, fought with everything they had. Even when Hedda fell, her neck pierced right through with an arrow, Ralof kept hacking away with his axe, felling two before they finally disarmed him. The stranger kept swinging that enormous sword to and fro while the Imperials paced back and forth around him, like wary wolves wondering whether or not it was safe to spring on a mammoth. And Ulfric kept Shouting them back, kept slashing and lunging and showing no mercy, even though he knew with a soldier's certainty that they had already lost this battle, that the end was coming.

It came at last. He was never certain, afterwards, how they did it. Sheer weight of numbers, he guessed. He fought for as long as he was able, but they were too many, and at last the axe was knocked from his grip, this time for good. The leather strips went around his wrist, and the gag around his mouth, so tight that it bit into the skin, so tight he knew he would never be able to call on the Voice. They hauled him aside, to where they had the carts waiting to take them away.

Leaving the stranger.

There were twenty or so around him now, a score against one man, and that one man put up a Gods-damn good fight. The exact details were later to blur together in Ulfric's memory, but he remembered at least five of them falling to the vast blade. The man stood still and strong as a mountain, not moving his feet, not retreating a step, just fighting. Until at last one of them came up from behind and slammed a mace down on the back of his head.

The blow wasn't strong enough to kill, not when the man was protected by his helmet, but it was enough. For a moment, he didn't move, and some small, irrational part of Ulfric's mind wondered if he would simply shrug off the blow. But then he swayed, and the sword fell from his hands, and he crashed face-first into the earth.

From someone around him, Ulfric heard a sigh of resignation, and he understood. While one of them, just one, had remained fighting, they had all been able to pretend that they might win. When the stranger in the iron armour fell, their hopes fell with him.

The Imperials seemed to falter, as if they were uncertain of what to do now that the battle was over, and the victory was theirs. And as was the way with Imperials, they needed someone to shout them into order before they returned to their usual organisation. The woman Captain bawled at them until they formed a line, then marched forward to examine the fallen stranger.

'Is he dead?' he demanded.

'We didn't check.'

'Then check. If he survived, we can take him with the others and set that right.'

One of the soldiers knelt beside the unconscious man, and - with some effort, since the stranger was so tall and muscular - heaved him onto his back. The Imperial frowned at the still form for a moment, then removed the helmet and bent close to the face, clearly trying to detect any signs of breathing.

'He's alive,' he reported, and there was an odd, startled tone in his voice. At first, Ulfric assumed he was just amazed to see someone survive such a powerful blow – but then the Imperial stepped back, and the real reason became clear.

Ulfric Stormcloak learned a new meaning to the word surprise that day. Nothing, nothing at all, could have prepared him for the sight of the face that had been hidden under the iron helmet. He had expected to see the pale, broad face of a Nord. Surely only a Nord would have leaped into battle to aid him. Only a Nord could have wielded so vast a weapon with such skill and strength and ease.

But the face he saw was not a Nord's face. It was a thin, long face, with high cheekbones and a pointed chin. The eyes – still open, though glazed over – were the colour of a rising sun. And the skin was yellow-gold.

Had Ulfric been able to move his mouth, his lip would have curled. This man was no man at all. He was mer. Elf. Altmer.

The enemy.

Ulfric glanced around at his men, and saw the same disgust and disbelief he felt reflected on their faces. A couple seemed simply stunned. One or two were grinding their teeth.

'Must be a Thalmor plant,' Jund muttered.

Yes, that made sense. The Thalmor would be the first to pull something like this – send in someone, disguised, to interfere with the battle. Perhaps they were planning something that required Ulfric alive, or perhaps they just wanted to see him die with their own eyes, rather than entrust his death into the hands of the Imperials.

Why, though, would any Thalmor agent wear that heavy armour, or wield such a weapon? The elf obviously had years of practise with the greatsword, but what Altmer learned how to use a two-handed blade? As a rule, they used spells, swords or maces, very occasionally bows. Never two-handed weapons. Never. And why would a Thalmor wear warpaint like this one's – two thick, dark red streaks on either cheek? And would any sane Thalmor braid their hair in the Nordic fashion? Because this elf's hair was braided, a thick strand of it pulled into a tight plait not unlike the ones Ulfric wore himself.

Still, there was no explaining some of the things elves did. Maybe Elenwen and her grunts had thought they'd mistake this man for a Nord somehow. Ulfric didn't know why the Thalmor would want to disguise one of their agents as a Nord, and he didn't care. He wasn't going to spend his last few hours of life trying to understand the minds of elves.

The Imperials were still hovering around the elf, checking him for weapons, emptying his pockets, dividing his coin up among themselves. A couple were doing the same with Ulfric's men, and Ulfric gestured as best as he could that they shout sit back and let them do it. There was no use fighting on now – the Imperials might well decide they were more trouble than they were worth and cut them down there and then. In Ulfric's experience, it was always wisest to wait until the last moment before doing something suicidal. There was always a chance that something might happen to save you. He'd been saved by pure luck more than once, and he wasn't about to entirely give up hope that it might happen again.

'Captain.' It was another soldier, a woman this time, crouching over the fallen Altmer. 'Look at this.'

She moved aside as her commander approached, but kept her hand cupped around the thing she was trying to show. And that meant Ulfric saw it too, a small bronze object, winking in the morning light. Shaped a little like an axe head threaded onto a length of twine.

An amulet of Talos.

Ulfric's first reaction was pure, unbridled fury. There was no place a Thalmor could find such an amulet except on a dead Nord, a true Nord who followed the Ninth Divine. The elf must have robbed it from a corpse, taken it from the body of one of Ulfric's dead kismen as a trophy. Except… it didn't make sense. Why would any Thalmor wear such a thing so openly? Not even many Nords who followed Talos dared to wear the amulet. Even if the accursed elf only wanted a memento of a battle fought and won, surely he would never wear the thing, never risk being mistaken for a Talos worshipper by his comrades?

Which left the only real option being that he was no Thalmor. But that made even less sense, because if that was true it would mean that the Altmer had gone to fight with the Stormcloaks, had saved Ulfric's life, out of… well, out of a will to help them. But no Altmer would ever fight for the Stormcloaks. That was a fact of life – water froze in the cold, night came after day, and Altmer did not support Ulfric. That was the end of it.

There were only two options, and each was as impossible as the other.

Best to stop thinking about it, Ulfric told himself. Your mind has better things to do now than worry about the motivations of an elf.

He couldn't help but watch, though, as the Imperial captain tutted and yanked at the amulet, breaking the twine and pulling it free of the elf's neck. And he also couldn't help feeling a surge of anger as the woman dropped the amulet onto the ground and pressed it into the earth under the heel of her boot. That was no way to treat Talos's holy symbol, whoever its bearer had been.

He had no more time to dwell on it, though, as the Imperials began to shepherd them onto the carts. They saved Ulfric till last, and to his distaste, by the time they came to him, there was only one cart left, and three prisoners to share it. One was Ralof, and he had no complaints about that, but the other was the unconscious Altmer. Two of the Imperials hefted him up onto the cart and dragged him onto one seat, then shouted for Ulfric to sit next to him.

Another way to humiliate me, he thought with a mental snarl. Defeat me, bind me, gag me, and then force me to die beside an elf.

An elf, who, for some inexplicable reason, wore the same amulet that still hung around Ulfric's neck.

The captain turned to the nearest man and barked at him to 'Fetch the thief.' The soldier nodded and hurried off into the trees, returning a moment later with his hand clamped around the collar of a Nord man with a dirt-smeared face and torn clothes, who was dragging his feet with every step he took and gibbering protests.

Must have caught him while they were waiting for us. A thief the man might have been, but Ulfric felt a tiny stirring of guilt. At any other time, this man might have been sentenced to a fine or a week or so in prison. But because the group of Imperials who'd apprehended him happened to have been looking for Ulfric and his men, the thief had ended up thrown in with a batch of prisoners scheduled for execution.

A batch of prisoners and an elf who might or might not be a Thalmor plant.

One of the soldiers leaped up onto the cart and cracked his whip. The horse threw itself against its harness, and the wheels jolted into motion.

Some minutes crept by in silence, other than the click of the horse's hooves on the cobbled path, and the occasional sniffs of the thief. Ralof made a few attempts at conversation, but wasn't able to get much out of the criminal other than that his name was Lokir, he'd been arrested for stealing a horse, and that he was a milk-drinking weakling. That third thing wasn't something the man said, exactly, but it wasn't hard to work out.

And then, at last, the Altmer began to stir. Ulfric sensed rather than saw that he was waking, and turned his head so as to keep an eye on him. If he was with the Thalmor, it would pay to be ready for anything he tried.

The elf lifted his head, blinked those unnatural golden-orange eyes a few times, and tried to lift a hand – to rub his head, Ulfric guessed. The elf looked down in surprise when his movement was hampered by his bonds, and looked at his tied wrists with an expression of resignation. Then he bent his head down, that overlarge chin pressing right against his neck, his eyes narrowed, as if he were searching for something.

'They took your amulet,' Ralof said.

The elf looked up at him, considered his words for a moment, then gave a small nod. 'Of course they did.'

Another surprise – his accent was that of a Nord. Not all that dissimilar to Ulfric's own. And he could tell that it was his natural way of speaking. Nothing about the words sounded forced or faked.

'I was surprised to see you wearing that,' Ralof remarked, and Ulfric might have let out a snort of amusement if he could. Of course - Ralof was just as bemused as he was. 'Not a regular thing for one of your kind to have on them.'

The elf let out a quiet chuckle. 'I know. But I'm hardly a regular Altmer, as you might have guessed.'

'Aye, that's one way of putting it.' The suspicion in Ralof's eyes was gradually being replaced by pure interest. 'Unusual choice of weapon, for one thing. And for another –'

'You don't need to tell me.' The elf's voice was light. 'I know you're surprised that I tried to help you. You probably reckon I had some kind of reason of my own. Well, I didn't. I helped you because that was a battle I wanted you to win, and I'd do it again if I had to. If I could.'

He paused and turned to Ulfric, and the look in his eyes… well, that could only be respect. 'I'm sorry I couldn't be more use to you, Jarl Ulfric.'

For the first time, Ulfric was glad of the gag, because that meant he could just grunt in reply, without trying to work out what in the name of all that was good and holy he thought about everything the elf had just said. For the Gods' sakes, it was bad enough being almost certainly about to die, without some walking contradiction of a High Elf turning up and confusing him.

'Well, you certainly gave those Imperials something to think about.' Ralof leaned back against the wall of the cart. 'Where're you from?'

'The southern coast of Summerset, originally. Near Sunhold. But I grew up further north, in Cloudrest. And you don't have a clue where any of those places are, do you?'

Ralof's answer was his shrug. 'Never been there, never want to. And won't get a chance to.'

'The first two are understandable, and the third's probably right.' The elf pursed his lips.

There was another lull in the conversation, and then Ralof asked the question Ulfric had been wondering himself, and which again made him glad that he was gagged, because it wasn't a question he'd ever have cared to ask an elf, and he was infuriated that this one was making him want to ask it. 'What's your name?'

'Arvenrior.' It was a typical Altmer name, and Ulfric was about to try and force his mind away from the elf again, when he added, 'Arvenrior Storm-Watcher.'

Storm-Watcher? Ulfric thought, and 'Storm-Watcher?' Ralof echoed.

'Storm-Watcher,' the elf affirmed, and left it at that.

So it was time to consider a new theory, distasteful as it was. A Nord surname, Nord braids, Nord fighting style, Nord warpaint… the signs pointed towards this man having had a Nord father. A half-blood, he must be, the product of a relationship between some Nord who'd lost his mind and an Altmer woman. And maybe what he'd said was true, and he had wanted to help the Stormcloaks just for the sake of helping them, because he'd been raised in a Nord way.

And Ulfric wished he knew what to think about that. This man, this Arvenrior Storm-Watcher – if he had cared enough about defending the Nord way of life to give up his life fighting the Imperials, what did that make him? Did it make him a Nord who just happened to have an Altmer body? Or did it make him an Altmer pretending to be a Nord? Ulfric wanted to believe the latter. It was Altmer who had been his greatest and truest enemy for more years than he cared to count. Altmer had tortured him, beaten him, shamed him, torn his life apart. The very idea that anyone wearing that body could have a Nord's heart within was repellent.

But if Storm-Watcher wasn't lying, then he couldn't be pure Altmer. No pure Altmer could wear Talos's amulet, or carry a Nord name, or risk their life for the Stormcloak's cause.

It made no sense, so Ulfric stopped thinking about it as much as he could, glad when Ralof changed the subject to the reason behind the elf's capture, and the horse thief broke in with a complaint about how he would have got away with his crime if not for the Stormcloaks. And so the journey went, with nothing more of note happening, except that when Ralof grimly remarked that Sovngarde lay in wait for them when the carts stop, the Altmer nodded, closed his eyes, and murmured a wistful, 'I hope so.'

When they passed the Thalmor, Ulfric's first thought was how much he'd like to leap out of this cart and somehow break his bonds and strangle Elenwen there and then. His second was to glance at Storm-Watcher. The elf was staring at his black-robed elves with the same kind of fury and hatred in his eyes that Ulfric knew was on his own face.

Which also made no sense.

By the time the carts stopped, nothing had arrived to save them. Nothing happened to save that horse thief as he tried to make a run for it, poor stupid wretch. And when the Imperials pushed and shouted them into lines waiting beside the block, when Tullius ranted in Ulfric's face about how the Empire was about to put him down (Ulfric was tempted to find some way to attack the man, if just for speaking about him like he was some kind of dog) and restore the peace (and the injustice, Ulfric added mentally), nothing had happened still. Nothing happened as Jund snapped at the priestess to shut up and get things over with the moment she mentioned the Eight Divines (good man, Ulfric thought) and sent a final, defiant verbal barb at the Imperials as the axe fell. Nothing happened as the citizens of Helgen bayed their approval, or as Kalla shouted at them in fury, and as that obnoxious captain ordered the elf forward.

Nothing happened as Arvenrior Storm-Watcher, the puzzle that had suddenly appeared to save Ulfric's live and then to throw what was left of that life into confusion, strode forwards, head high, eyes unafraid. Nothing happened as he shoved the Imperial captain aside with his shoulder as she moved to push him onto the block with her foot, or as he gently pushed Jund's headless corpse to one side, and bared his neck for the axe without a single flinch at the sight of the blood that smeared the wooden cube on which his head now rested.

Something did happen, though, as the executioner raised his axe, something really rather significant. And Ulfric, in the chaos that followed, still found time to reflect on how right his experience had been, yet again. There was always a chance that something would turn up. Jund should have held on for just one minute more, Ulfric thought ruefully, as he dropped to his knees beside the corpse of the nearest Imperial and used the man's fallen sword to slice through his bonds.

To be sure, he'd never expected a Gods-damned dragon to show up, but now it was here, he wasn't complaining.

He made sure Kalla made it into the relative safety of the tower, helping her carry the wounded Unlef. Koll followed on their heels, and then came Garvund, who collapsed almost the instant he was through the door. Ulfric scoured the smoke-filled scene for any more blue-sashed figures, and saw none.

Then Ralof appeared through the grey clouds, with Arvenrior Storm-Watcher one step behind him.

And as they clustered together in the tower, with Helgen burning outside, and Ralof led the elf up the stairs to seek a way out, Ulfric felt a peculiar certainty birth itself within his mind. He knew, with so much surety that the fact could have been placed within his head by the Gods themselves, that if he survived this, and if the man in the iron armour survived it too, nothing in his life would ever be the same again.


Well, chapter one has flowed nicely, which is always a good sign. Hopefully chapter two will follow soon enough.

I know I glossed over most of the Helgen scene, but as I mentioned, I don't want to dwell too much on game events - especially the opening, which I'm sure we've all seen a hundred times. I hope I'm getting Ulfric in character, but he's such a complex person it's hard, so I'd appreciate some feedback on that front. It's hard to show both sides of him - the narrow-minded man with all too many prejudices, and the experienced soldier who cares about his country and his men.

As for Arvenrior, more about him will be revealed in chapters to come. I do have a oneshot about him that explains his backstory, but it'll be talked about in this story too.

Thanks for reading!