Chapter Text
Toward the end of Last Seed, after a month spent cutting separate swathes through the Nord-occupied lands of north-west Vvardenfell, the Dwemer and Chimer armies reunited at Hlavurok, a small town in the West Gash highlands. Over the long months of spring and summer, they had liberated mainland Resdayn and much of Vvardenfell from the Nords and the final push for victory – and long-awaited self-determination – was in sight. From Hlavurok, the joint armies were to travel another day to the stronghold of Berandas, which was currently fortified by Almalexia and a contingent of Telvanni and Indoril mages. They expected a Nord attack on the base within days, but Nerevar was confident that they would reach Berandas in time to fortify it. For one night, they could afford to rest in Hlavurok; an army could neither march nor fight on willpower alone.
The Dwemer army had arrived the previous day and had already set up a sprawling camp, a sea of guar-hide tents adorned with fluttering Dwemeri pennants, on the outskirts of town. Dwemer soldiers milled about, some carousing and others relaxing, and some of the more curious townsfolk had ventured over to trade with them and hear the latest news of the war. Nerevar and Vivec handed their guar to Alandro Sul, who would ensure they were rubbed down, fed, and watered, and directed their troops to set up their own tents and make themselves comfortable for the evening. Across the camp, Chimer and Dwemer soldiers, many of whom had made close friends during several months of fighting side-by-side, embraced in spirited reunions and were soon passing around bottles of sujamma and practising one another’s drinking songs.
In the largest tent of the camp, the Dwemer leaders studied a map of Berandas and its surrounding region, marking the known positions of the various armies and camps with coloured pins. Leaning over the map, speaking in Dwemeris too quickly for Nerevar to understand, was Dumac, who was tall and imposing in leather and brass armour with a brilliant red cloak about his shoulders. The sight of him made Nerevar’s heart begin to race. He looked far more comfortable now in the role of warrior-king, discussing battle strategies, than he had at the beginning of the war, although Nerevar wished he could see him again as he was in Rjakanzel, relaxed and draped in jewellery. Now his head, with hair done in tight braids, was bereft of its usual crown, and the frown of concentration on his face made him look older and sharper.
When he looked up and noticed Nerevar, however, his expression relaxed at once, and he strode over to grasp his hand in greeting. Nerevar couldn’t summon the will to care if the smile he gave Dumac betrayed him to the Dwemer generals.
“Good to see you’re still alive, qazarak,” he said, giving Nerevar’s hand a gentle squeeze. “And you, Vivec.”
“Serjo,” said Vivec, with a polite nod. “Has there been word from the Lady Almalexia?”
With some reluctance, Dumac released Nerevar’s hand and began to explain to Vivec the latest plans and developments with the campaign. A message had arrived from Berandas earlier that day, stating that the Nords had been spotted amassing at a nearby mountain pass and their assault was expected in two days’ time. Nerevar said little, but rather stood by and listened to the cadence of Dumac’s voice as he spoke; he watched the way he moved his hands and took notice of every time his black eyes flicked over to meet his, impatient for the chance to be alone. His mouth felt dry.
At last, once they had been thoroughly briefed, Nerevar and Vivec left the Dwemer to make their introductions at the mayor’s house, where the leaders of the to armies would be spending the night. The town mayor, an obsequious Hlaalu kinsman who owned a small yet profitable ebony mine outside of town, lived in a manor house on a hill overlooking the camp. He was overjoyed by the chance to host the hortator and the king in his home but, to Nerevar’s great relief, seemed to understand that what the battle-weary guests needed most was peace and quiet and left them largely to their own devices. The business the armies brought to his town, and the prospect of securing the future favour of the hortator with his hospitality, were worth far more to the mayor than their company. After showing Nerevar and Vivec to their quarters upstairs, he promised to have his servants prepare hot baths and send up food later in the evening, before bowing – so low his forehead almost brushed the ground – and disappearing down the hallway.
In his room, Nerevar breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the four-poster bed, eager for the opportunity to sleep comfortably at last after months of hard camp beds with their scratchy hay mattresses. Nerevar had set about removing his armour when the door opened with a soft click; he whipped around to see Dumac enter, quick and quiet as a cat. He leant with his back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, watching as Nerevar unbuckled his leather jack, and Nerevar stared boldly back at him, waiting. It was an unspoken game they liked to play and, this time, Dumac broke first.
“Nerevar,” he said, softly, crossing the room in several long strides. “I couldn’t greet you properly in the camp.”
He reached up to brush a stray lock of hair behind Nerevar’s ear and stroked his cheek with his thumb, adoring the way Nerevar leaned into his touch.
“Have you missed me?” asked Nerevar.
The urge was to pose the question like a joke – to laugh off the idea of Dumac thinking of him, worrying about him – but Nerevar found he couldn’t do it, and his voice came out small and quiet, his eyes darting up to meet Dumac’s. The emotion he saw there was soft and sweet enough to make his knees weak.
“Yes,” whispered the king.
He pressed a brief kiss to Nerevar’s lips and then looked away, busying himself with helping Nerevar out of his armour. The tension having left his body in a dizzying rush, Nerevar exhaled heavily and let his hands fall to his sides as Dumac tugged at the buckles on his belt and leg guards. The steady, unhurried movements lacked the urgency of a seduction; Dumac wasn’t undressing him out of lust – at least not yet – but rather, in a gesture that felt far more intimate, he wanted only to help him, to do something for him. When Nerevar was stripped to his undershirt and breeches, he set the armour to one side with care, for Alandro Sul to clean and repair in the morning, and nudged him toward the door to the room where the mayor’s servants had prepared the bath.
As was customary in Resdayn, the servants had set up two bathtubs – one empty, with a bucket of water nearby for rinsing off the worst of the dirt and sweat, and one filled with steaming hot water for soaking. Nerevar undressed the rest of the way and stepped into the first tub to rinse himself while Dumac stood in the doorway, twisting his hands together, showing a rare moment of hesitation.
“Are you going to get in?”
“I wasn’t sure…”
“Get in the bath, Dumac,” said Nerevar with a reassuring smile, shaking his hair out of his eyes.
Dumac laughed and began to remove his own clothes, his usual easy cockiness returned in an instant. It felt achingly intimate to wash the sweat and dried blood from his body as Dumac settled back in the second tub, wrinkling his nose as he perused the basket of strange Chimer soaps, waiting for him. He smiled to himself as he watched Nerevar wash, studying the way the muscles of his back and shoulders flexed and released with each movement, knowing that he would soon have the privilege of feeling those movements under his own hands.
When Nerevar was ready was ready to get into the bath, at last, Dumac grabbed his arm to stop him, saying, “No, turn around; the other way.”
“What are you planning to do?” he asked, smiling with faint amusement as he lowered himself into the water the way Dumac wanted him, with his back pressed against his chest.
“Wash your back,” murmured Dumac, now tracing swirling lines with one fingertip over Nerevar’s spine.
The hortator sighed wistfully and allowed his head to fall back against Dumac’s collarbone, giving him a face full of damp hair.
“Please do.”
With the washcloths and soaps provided, Dumac did as he had promised, and more, washing not just Nerevar’s back but his chest, arms, and legs, too. He was thorough and gentle, taking care not to brush against a fresh stitched wound on Nerevar’s thigh, which was inflamed after a day of being pressed against the saddle, and by the time he began to wash his hair it was more massage than bath. Nerevar’s breathing was slow as Dumac rubbed his scalp with lazy swirls of his thumbs and, while he couldn’t see his face, he knew his eyes were closed.
It was far more pleasant than Dumac had expected, tending to Nerevar like this, and he wondered if it would occur to Nerevar that bathing another person, even a lover, wasn’t the sort of thing that kings did, and that Dumac had never actually shared a bath tub in such a way before. True, he had taken lovers to the public baths in the palace before, but this was entirely different – just the two of them and the swishing of the water; private, even domestic. He smiled as he ran his fingers through the clean gold strands of Nerevar’s hair, now smelling of rosemary from the soap he’d chosen, and his other hand fall to stroke one submerged thigh.
“Thank you,” said Nerevar, his voice slow and sleepy.
“You are beautiful,” remarked the king, before he had time to think and, for a moment – feeling suddenly too exposed – he wished he could take the words back, but then he sighed and simply held Nerevar tighter, resting one open hand on his stomach. This was no time for regretting what was true; there was a war on.
When Nerevar turned around in the tub, sending water splashing over the sides despite his efforts to be careful, he was smiling.
“Shall I do you, now?”
Dumac had washed his hair the previous evening, when the Dwemer army had first arrived at Hlavurok, but he let Nerevar do it again anyway. He would not deny himself the chance to have those strong hands in his hair, returning his own favour, whatever the conventions were regarding such physical intimacy and the royal person. Unfamiliar with the sensation, he felt, at first, a little like a dog being petted, and was surprised to feel himself tremble, but it wasn’t long before he relaxed and allowed himself to give in to the exquisite touch.
Nerevar’s attention soon turned from Dumac’s hair to his bronze shoulders, and the regal column of his neck, and he began to trace their contours with kisses, first gentle and exploratory but growing more and more eager with each sigh of pleasure from Dumac. At last, Dumac grew impatient with the lack of space to move and longed to take Nerevar into his arms.
“It’s cold,” he complained, although Nerevar’s chest against his back was like a furnace. “Come to bed?” Nerevar laughed and kissed the back of his neck once more, making him shiver all over.
“Inviting me to my own bed, now, Dumac?”
“Do you object?” was his rejoinder, and Nerevar could hear the smug satisfaction in his voice.
“Not at all.” He stood, water running in rivulets down his back and thighs. “Come on, then.”
After a perfunctory attempt to dry themselves, they hurried to the next room, where the bed, made up with embroidered blankets and what looked to be a dozen pillows, waited invitingly. This was another first, for they had never had the opportunity to do this in a proper bed, and Dumac flung himself onto it with unrestrained glee, so unlike his usual poised self that Nerevar could only burst out laughing. He stretched out across the blankets, languid and bold under Nerevar’s gaze, and with one hand he patted the space next to him.
“Come, Nerevar. Must I wait all night for you?”
With cheeks flushed pink, Nerevar climbed up onto the bed, took Dumac’s face in his hands, and kissed him.
***
That night, in the manor house at Hlavurok, Nerevar gave in to his desire to fall asleep next to Dumac. In fact, it had been some time since Nerevar had slept in bed with a lover. Their established pattern had been for Nerevar to visit Dumac in his tent wherever the joint armies had camped that night, before slipping back to his own tent to sleep, but the manor house felt private and safe, so he allowed himself one more indulgence. They fell asleep quickly, exhausted from the days of travelling, from all the days of battle and the horrible tedium of war. Dumac slept curled against him, with his warm back to Nerevar’s chest, and Nerevar wrapped one arm around him to hold him close. Dumac’s hair, freshly washed and fluffy, tickled his nose every time he breathed in.
Nerevar woke to the sounds of a commotion – voices, doors slamming, and frantic footsteps on the stairs – and was on his feet with his sword in his hand before even realising he was awake, facing the doorway as the door swung open and a Chimer soldier, panting and pale-faced, tumbled through into the bedroom, followed by several others. The sight of the hortator, nude and with his sword at the ready, and the Dwemer king, lying on the bed propped up on one elbow, with the sheets tangled about his feet and a questioning look on his face, left all of them speechless. There was a long silence as the soldier and the guards stared, looking back and forth between the two of them, before Nerevar gave a huff of displeasure and snatched up the clothes he’d left beside the bed.
“Azura’s mercy, what is this about?”
“Lord Hortator…” stammered the messenger, finally tearing his eyes away from the Dwemer king in the hortator’s bed. “Lady Almalexia has sent word from Berandas. The Nords attacked last night and they need aid – there’s no time to spare!”
Nerevar slid his leather jack over his head and set about buckling the straps, his movements sharp with consternation. He had expected something of the sort – only a serious development would have warranted rushing into the hortator’s bedroom in the middle of the night – but this was concerning indeed. Berandas was still half a day’s ride away from Hlavurok; the messenger must have ridden hard throughout the night.
“Very well. Ready the camp; we leave for Berandas within the hour. Dumac, do you agree?”
Dumac had not moved from the bed. His expression was grave, but he gave Nerevar a wry smile and waved one hand in a gesture that managed to come across as grand, as if he were addressing subjects from a throne instead of naked and in bed.
“Yes, do as the hortator says. Now leave us.”