Work Text:
Eydis has been traveling alongside Rumarin for a few months now and has come to the realization that she could not possibly survive without him. In fact, she has no idea how she had even managed thus far in her short lifespan before ever meeting the uncharacteristically good-humored High Elf.
Every day she spent at his side battling hordes of trolls, bandits, and dragons alike is a day well spent. His witty mannerisms and general lack of seriousness keep her relatively sane, somehow easing the burdens of her responsibilities ever so slightly from her shoulders. Had she not had Rumarin to keep her grounded, she fears she would succumb to despair at the general state of Nirn and her ever-growing list of duties.
She comes to the somewhat horrifying realization that she is desperately in love with him during a tough battle with a particularly fearsome dragon at the top of a mountain. The battle lasts for hours, draining her mana pool repeatedly before she runs out of potions. It is only after she is shouted almost into Oblivion, slamming forcefully into a word wall that she thinks “ Oh perfect, now I’ll die before ever knowing if Rumarin feels the same.”
The elf is alarmed, of course, shouting needless obscenities at the dragon with a voice full of panic as she tries to pull herself together and stand. Unfortunately, she’s likely mortally injured and isn’t doing a good job of keeping her balance. Eventually, thanks to Rumarin’s distraction, she manages to sneakily stumble her way behind the dragon to strike a killing blow with Dawnbreaker plunging through its maw. As the dragon falls, her vision blurs as the words written in dovahzul on the wall she’d been thrown into begin to make sense.
“Oh we won,” Rumarin remarks, “It’s always good to come out of these things alive.”
Normally Eydis would be happy to laugh off the post-battle adrenaline but the pain in her side distracts her. The Nord has completely depleted her mana pool along with any potions that might have helped heal her. Her restoration magic may as well have been useless.
Eydis fights back a grimace and manages to wave Rumarin over to loot the skeleton before they begin to make their way down the snowy mountaintop. Thus far, she had managed to hide the grievous injury to her side from the elf as best as she could in order to avoid frightening him. No point in dwelling on her inevitable demise just yet.
As the pair start their rather arduous journey back towards civilization, the closest being Winterhold, she thinks she is very likely going to die within the next few moments.
“Rumarin?” Eydis asks quietly, earning a confused glance.
“Yes? You’re awfully quiet tonight, are you eyeing up those horkers for dinner? Because I’ll have you know that they taste of leather boots and I refuse to partake in such an unrefined cuisine,” the elf can’t help but joke, mocking the haughty tone of his fellow Altmer. A smile grazes the corners of her mouth before she grimaces in pain.
“I think it best to set up camp,” she suggests instead and this stops Rumarin in his tracks.
“But you said the Frostfruit Inn would be awaiting us tonight with casks full of mead and buxom serving wenches,” he whines. She’s fairly certain that she never promised such a thing.
He’s staring down at her peculiarly and finally she moves her hand from her side, revealing her blood soaked robe and stained hands. His eyes grow wide before he wordlessly starts sputtering and shrugging off his pack to erect their tent, right in the middle of the snow. Soon she is tucked within Rumarin’s bedroll, somehow far too hot and far too cold at the same time. Meanwhile, Rumarin scrambles to stoke a fire, melt some relatively clean snow in a pot, and rummage through his pack for extra supplies.
“You’re absolutely certain you don’t have any magicka in you?” He asks for seemingly the thousandth time.
“I’m all out of juice,” she insists, ruefully.
“And we just so happened to finish off the last of our health potions yesterday, did we?”
“It’s useless, Ru,” Eydis answers, not unkindly. She lays shivering in the bedroll, clutching her bleeding side in a vain attempt to stem the flow.
“The Dragonborn can’t just die!” Rumarin practically shrieks in his panic and if Eydis weren’t on the cusp of certain death she’d have been startled by the seriousness in his tone. “We have alchemy ingredients, do we not?”
“We do,” Eydis concedes weakly but shakes her head, falling back into the blanket. “But only an experienced alchemist can temper the blisterwort over a cooking fire - ”
The Nord is abruptly interrupted when Rumarin comes barreling over to shove the blankets aside. Before Eydis can protest, he takes a dagger to her Expert Restoration Robes, shredding the fabric to expose her chest and therefore her injury. Fighting back a pained yelp at her sudden lack of modesty and the excruciating pain, Eydis tries to brace herself as Rumarin presses crushed blue mountain flowers into her side.
The agonizing sting sends a fresh wave of tears to her eyes. The high elf’s hands shake against her bleeding torso. “I know, I know it hurts but please do stop squirming !”
The pressure ceases as Rumarin scrambles to grab the boiling water. The pain is blinding and before Eydis can say another word, she is falling into blessed darkness.
Rumarin POV
Rumarin notices almost immediately that his fellow traveling companion has lost consciousness. Panicking, he yanks the cooking pot from over the fire and tries to ignore the burning of his hands as he rushes back into the tent. Using the torn shreds of Eydis’s former robes, he makes quick work of washing out the wound with the rapidly cooling water.
As he works quickly, he can’t help but rue the fact that he couldn’t just be a normal, functioning Altmer. Conjuring weapons is impressive, yes, but a bit of restoration magic here and there could have easily prevented this situation from happening. The guilt at his own magical ineptitude and lack of realization that she was even injured gnaws at him as he finishes wiping out the dirt and rubble from her alarmingly deep wound.
For good measure, Rumarin attempts a quick restoration spell that infuriatingly seems to come to Eydis so easily and - nope, nothing.
He practically sprints back over to the dwindling fire, throwing the pot back over the flame before he scrounges in her pack for some other alchemical ingredients. After hours and hours of observing her work at the College of Winterhold, he had picked up at least a thing or two about making an effective healing potion. Of course he’d put on a big show about ignoring what she was doing and impatiently waiting for her to finish up so they could leave the stuffy college, but really the way her eyes lit up as she succeeded in creating something new was positively enchanting. He could do little but watch in awe as she smiled down at her work.
Now, he manages to use the remaining water to soak the blisterwort and crushed blue mountain flowers. He sprinkles in a healthy dose of wheat and tries not to gag as he tosses in some charred skeever hide. Taking care to glance back at Eydis to note the rise and fall of her chest, he simply waits as the ingredients break down and the potion bubbles away. The snowfall begins to rage around him, chilling him down to his core as he shivers and stays alert. He simply can’t let the Dragonborn die. That wouldn’t do at all.
After what feels like ages, the potion appears to be the general consistency of Eydis’s own goopy creations. Rumarin hurries to pour the concoction into a spare waterskin before he’s tipping her head back into his lap. He tries very hard not to take note of her state of undress and her feverish skin as he works to pour the potion down her throat.
Working in batches, Rumarin continues filling the waterskin with the potion from the cooking pot and helping the unconscious Nord swallow the viscous liquid. After she manages to down the rest of it, Rumarin takes care to watch the skin on her side as it ever so slowly begins to knit back together. Placing a hand over her brow, he breathes a sigh of relief after feeling her skin begin to cool. He’d heard from somewhere or other that if the fever breaks she’s likely to survive the night.
Given that knowledge, the Altmer finally relaxes. He unceremoniously chugs down some water and a bruised apple before he crawls into the tent and collapses beside Eydis. Although he’d thankfully managed to bring the Dragonborn back from the brink of almost certain death, they were still right in the middle of Winterhold during a particularly nasty snowstorm. The fire had completely died out by the time Rumarin had finished making the potion, leaving him and Eydis to likely freeze to death within the next few hours if he wasn’t careful.
Groaning in defeat, Rumarin tried to think back to those ‘survival skills’ Otero had once droned on and on about. Although he had been living the merry life of an adventurer for a few years now, he couldn’t say he had ever been in a position where he would need to keep someone other than himself alive. Sure, he and Eydis had been in many battles together before, but this was altogether new territory.
Otero had once mentioned something about sealing in your shelter and using body heat to stay warm. Immediately, he grabbed a few spare pelts to hang around the openings of the fur tent, effectively sealing off any more snowfall from blowing into their shelter. Although the wind was still beating furiously against them, the pelts were thankfully just heavy enough to stay put.
Rumarin tried very hard not to think too much about what he was next going to do. He began by removing his tangible weapons, laying them beside Eydis’s Dawnbreaker and Nightingale Bow, before he began slipping off his boots and tugging off his various belts. His own rather faux college robe came off next, leaving him shivering in nothing but his smallclothes. As the Dragonborn snoozed away tucked into the both of their bedrolls, Rumarin very cautiously slipped behind the Nord and laid the rest of the blankets over them.
Her skin, once feverish mere moments ago, now felt like ice. Fighting back his hesitation, Rumarin pressed himself up against her. He carefully wrapped his arm loosely around her so as not to aggravate the healing wound. As he settled in behind her, he felt her body shiver violently against him. The sudden feeling of cool metal against his chest alerted him to the amulet that Eydis had donned, having slipped behind her neck. His eyes practically bulged out of their sockets when he realized that she was wearing an Amulet of Mara.
Why on Nirn would she be wearing that ?
Rumarin tried to think back on their interactions with the various people they had encountered in their line of work. Who could have possibly caught her eye? The Nord had made absolutely no mention of any suitors, although there was certainly no shortage of people interested. He had always amusingly watched from the sidelines as she gently turned down the bountiful offers of dalliances, one night stands, and even the occasional marriage proposal. He couldn’t say he had ever seen her even flirt with anyone else so really, she could not have possibly been looking for marriage.
Unless… she had meant to wear the amulet for him? The mere thought sent his pulse racing furiously. He had never even considered the possibility that Eydis would be interested in him like that. Truthfully, Rumarin considered it to be a miracle that they were even friends in the first place. Altmers and Nords weren’t exactly well-known for getting chummy together.
A smirk couldn’t help but play at his lips as he considered it. Wouldn’t it be quite the laugh for a Nord and an Altmer to marry? It would really stick it to the whole Altmer superiority thing.
There had been a couple of rather memorable occasions when she’d not so subtly hint to a handsy Nord that she and Rumarin were married. It never went beyond a protective arm over her shoulder and they hadn't bothered to mention it again. And yet he couldn't deny the fluttering of his pulse when he held her to his side, glaring down at some silly human who thought they possibly stood a chance with the Dragonborn.
By the gods, Rumarin thought in astonishment, Am I really thinking of this?
It’s not as if Eydis wasn’t a beautiful woman. She laughs at his jokes! Really, that’s enough to charm the breeches off of him. If anything, her status as the Dragonborn and their easygoing friendship had made her seem untouchable. So he was more than happy to follow behind her, getting lost in the sway of her hips as they chattered and joked mindlessly throughout the day. He had always had a healthy appreciation for the voluptuousness of a Nord woman. Yet she was alarmingly kind; a bit too kind for his liking most of the time. Usually her kindness had wound up putting them both in wildly ridiculous situations and it was rare that they were ever fairly compensated for all their hard work.
But a life with Eydis meant a life in the shadow of a hero; which meant a lot of helping people with menial tasks and putting your nose in where it doesn’t belong. Perhaps that wasn’t so much of a bad thing. He was literally helping her fight off dragons, there’s a good chance he’d probably make it into at least one or two of the bards’ tales.
And yet he could not forget the feeling of utter terror when he realized that he could lose her. He was not a skilled healer by any means and had only managed to pull this off by remembering how Eydis had brewed her own potions. What if the next time this happens he isn’t so successful?
Most glaringly terrifying is, unfortunately, their difference in heritage. He had quite a few decades on her already, at least a century, and was bound to outlive her by several hundred years. How could he cope with losing his potential wife after spending so little time together? And what if Nord and Altmer babies inherited the Nord mortality? Should they begin a family together, Rumarin could outlast even his own children. It’s not exactly like elf and human relationships are touched upon during the talk .
Now that was a lot to ponder.
Rumarin held her closer to him, feeling the amulet against his chest while his cheeks burned furiously with a blush. Look at me , he thought ruefully, pondering marriage and babies with the bloody Dragonborn .
Eydis felt so fragile underneath him. It felt… somehow right to hold her like this. He buried his nose in her soft hair, inhaling her calming scent of honey and snowberry. It was altogether so pleasant an experience, the elf really did hope that when she woke in the morning she wouldn’t kill him for the audacity.
Their shared heat had finally stemmed off the worst of the cold and finally he could feel himself drifting off. Oddly enough, he drifted off to thoughts of sarcastic little Nord babies speaking the dragon tongue.
Eydis first took note of the heat surrounding her when she opened her eyes. She was in their tent, snuggled up in both sets of bedrolls. Turning, she winced at the sting in her side and glanced behind her to find Rumarin dozing off with an arm dangling over her body. Immediately, she felt her pulse spike and panicked. What was she even supposed to do in this situation?
The Nord lay as still as she could, her mind racing for a way to approach this tactfully. Should she move?
The sound of the blizzard outside beating against the tent alerted her to the seriousness of their situation. She peered down to find she was lying on top of the remains of her favorite robe, leaving her in nothing but a breastband and smallclothes. To her surprise, the mortal wound she had sustained the previous evening had healed significantly throughout the night.
She carefully extracted her hand from the blankets and cast a quick healing spell, relieved to feel her mana pool had been restored. The familiar warm glow enveloped her, sinking deep within the rest of the wound to finish clearing it out.
The last of her magic died out and so she relaxed closer into Rumarin’s arms, closing her eyes at the wonderful feeling. It was unlike anything she has experienced before. The sarcastic High Elf had single-handedly kept her alive and sheltered them both from the raging storm happening just outside. Despite all the time they had spent battling side-by-side, this is the first she’s ever felt truly taken care of.
Eydis can’t help but grin stupidly as she opens her eyes again to peer over at him. The elf is fast asleep with his makeup, no warpaint, smeared over his high cheekbones. His mouth had fallen open during the night, leaving a thin trail of drool against his bedroll and likely her hair too. She can’t help but find him ridiculously endearing.
The Dragonborn turns over to face him completely, only now taking notice of her Amulet of Mara dangling between them. Her cheeks grow hot at the realization that Rumarin will have probably seen it. Truthfully, as a mage skilled in restoration magic, the amulet was ideal for casting. It’s not as if marriage was on the forefront of her mind when she decided to throw it on.
Yet, she couldn’t deny that a part of her was thrilled at the idea of Rumarin finding it and just asking. Maybe he felt the same when he looked at her?
She is well aware of her Nord heritage and how that may be a detriment to their potential union. There is no denying that she would die far before Rumarin would ever join her. An insecure voice in her mind wonders whether Rumarin is even interested in humans. Altmers are graceful, poised, and beautiful. Nords aren’t exactly known for their elegance. Despite how positively silly Rumarin is, she still feels like a bumbling fool beside him.
Eydis carefully places her hand against the elf’s golden cheek. His face is cool to the touch and still he does not stir. Her heart races in her chest as she sweeps a thumb over his high cheekbone.
She sits up and leans over him, gently murmuring, “Rumarin.”
A single startled snore is her response before she brushes his cheek again and says more firmly, “Rumarin, wake up.”
The spellsword’s eyes fly open in a daze, looking around the tent wildly before falling on her in confusion. Eydis leaves her hand on his cheek.
“Oh so you’re alive,” the elf says sleepily, though his tone sounds far more relieved than she’s ever heard. He blinks blearily at her, golden eyes peering down to her side to ensure that the wound has properly begun healing. It is then that he takes note of their general state of undress, eyes widening comically as he quickly averts his eyes. “...And touching me and we’re both very half-naked.”
He seems to wake up more with that statement and bolts upright. Eydis drops her hands nervously into her lap, wringing her thumbs together as she looks away. “Y-yes well you did destroy my college robes - thanks for that by the way, they were my favorite, authentic pair. Doesn’t explain why you’re not wearing any clothes though.”
Eydis chances a look at the Altmer and she’s greeted with a rather sarcastically indignant scoff. “Hey, I did you a favor; that horrible mustard robe was not your color. And I will have you know that sharing body heat is a survival tactic! Nothing untoward on my end. I can’t help but feel like you may be glossing over the whole saving your life part of this whole ordeal.”
Rumarin seems to realize that they’re still in a small tent in the middle of the wilderness during a snowstorm and hurries to lie back down and bury himself further into the blankets. Luckily, Eydis’s Nord blood is keeping out the worst of the cold.
The Dragonborn lies back down and turns her back to the elf, feeling a little silly. What had she expected anyway?
His voice interrupts her thoughts, “Eydis... I couldn’t help but notice that you’re wearing an Amulet of Mara. Are you…? Are we…? I should just shut up right now and let you speak.”
She feels her breath catch in her throat. Were they really going to have this conversation half-naked in the middle of a snowstorm? Bracing herself, Eydis flips back around to face him.
“What do you mean?” She can’t help but wonder. “Are you interested?”
The elf’s golden eyes seem to bulge out of their sockets as a rather fetching pink blush spreads across his cheeks. “Well you’re not what we modest folk call subtle, are you?”
Despite the precarious nature of their conversation and the furious pounding of her heart, Eydis can’t help but crack a smile at his antics.
“But yes, I’m interested,” he continues, the sentence stealing the very breath from her lungs. With a challenge, Rumarin adds a bit shakily, “What of it?”
Warmth spreads throughout her being and her heart practically soars. She knows she’s grinning like a fool because the high elf sits back up and dazzles her with a somewhat anxious smile of his own.
Eydis just can’t help but tease him. “I was just thinking you and I could settle down, you know, get married.”
His pink blush deepens into a searing crimson, spreading up to the tips of his elegantly pointed ears. He has never looked more breathtaking.
“So… that’s it then. Rings, babies, balls and chains,” he answers quietly, dumbstruck and yet hopeful. Eydis is elated. She can’t help it as she launches herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck and giggling like an utter fool. Rumarin joins in with her laughter, nuzzling into the top of her head as he holds her just as tightly.
She raises her head from his warm chest, astonished to find his golden eyes gazing upon her so affectionately.
“Works for me,” he whispers before closing the space between their lips and dragging her back into the blankets.
They stay in their tent long after the blizzard has passed. Not a day later, they turn south and make for Riften.