Work Text:
In an era of turbulent change, the seasonal visit of the pollinators to the Gildergreen was a reliable constant. Even in Vilkas' oldest memories of Whiterun, he could recall the comforting drone of the bees at work: their fuzzy little bodies descending on the colorful flowers of the square to buzz about the tall tree that marked the city as blessed by Kyne. He remembered the solid shape of the Gildergreen's trunk against his small back, and the bee that had landed softly on his hand as Kodlak knelt to tell him Jergen wouldn't be coming back from the war. Vilkas had nodded stiffly, his face a stone mask, until Kodlak relented with a sigh and left him alone. Only the bees saw the tears of a young boy mourning the loss of a man he had dared to love as a father. Part of his heart died that day.
What did bees know? Did they pass down lore from one generation to the next, as Vilkas' new family did? Was there a Vignar Gray-Mane among the insects that spoke of ancient history to a young bee foundling? Years of flowers dying and blooming, years of loss and change, and Vilkas grew no closer to understanding the insect companions that joined him whenever he rested against the Gildergreen. This ritual belonged to him alone. The pollen did not agree with Farkas—not that his brother was the type to sit in brooding silence for long hours on end, anyway. Farkas wasn't stupid, as some of the whelps dared to whisper when they thought the twins' weren't listening. No, he merely possessed the enviable gift of total self-assurance. Few doubts had ever plagued him: wordly burdens rested on Vilkas' teenage shoulders like a mountain, but his twin moved through life unencumbered.
"Why can't I be like him?" He asked a bee, as it settled on the petals of a flower next to his right foot. "Why must I be the one to worry about everything?"
The creature gave no answer.
Things grew easier, in some ways, when he and Farkas were finally permitted to prove themselves worthy enough to join the ranks of the whelps of Jorrvaskr. Adulthood presented many opportunities for distraction. There were people to kill now, and beasts, so Vilkas could distract his foolish mind from its incessant goal to keep him awake thinking of all the world's grim possibilities. Sometimes he drowned his thoughts with mead or ale, but this proved to be a temporary reprieve after a few unwise nights provoked an intervention by Skjor. For weeks, all Vilkas knew of the harder spirits was the smell of them as he scrubbed Hilda's floorboards with abrasive wool. His hands were raw and red for an entire month. It was quite a while before he could hold a tankard again without shuddering.
His visits to the Gildergreen became less frequent, though they did not cease entirely. The priests claimed Kyne and the rest of the gods were always watching. In Vilkas' opinion, they ought to mind their own damned business: the bees in the square knew nothing of the blood he spilled outside the walls of Whiterun, and that was how he preferred it. The bees hadn't seen him washing away his sorrows with drink, or trying to forget about life while tangled in the sheets with some traveling bard. They didn't know how he tried to fill the hole in himself with pouches of gold, in vain.
"I knew your ancestors." Vilkas studied the bee that crawled along his bare arm, between raised hairs. The air was nearly too cold for the bugs. Winter was not far off. "Did they tell you about me? Did they speak of a lost child, trying to find his way?"
He'd grown accustomed to the silence of the bees, long ago. Their mere acceptance of him, their ignorance of the darkness he carried inside, was comfort enough.
Vilkas longed for that comfort in later years, during sleepless nights plagued with visions of the hunt.
The blood changed everything. The twin foundlings of Jergen were the youngest ever chosen to join the Circle. A testament to their prowess, claimed Skjor and young Aela. About damned time, growled Arnbjorn. Kodlak only watched in silence as two young men crept into the Underforge to drink the cursed blood of a warrior they had admired all their lives. Vilkas wondered afterwards if things might have ended differently, if he and Farkas had chosen Skjor or Arnbjorn for their sire instead. Had some of Kodlak's cool resolve been passed down, through the curse? Is that what had kept Vilkas from losing himself completely?
Farkas went first, and his change was predictably chaotic. The Bannered Mare was abuzz for days afterward with stories of chicken coops raided in the night and fences trampled by some monstrous beast. One farmer claimed his three dogs had run off to join the pack of a dark creature sent from Oblivion itself. Few believed his story: if werewolves really did exist, would they really spend their time running around the tundra chasing elk with the local hounds?
Kodlak only ever smiled once when speaking of the blood, as far as Vilkas recalled, and it was when he told the tale of how he and Aela had found Farkas naked in a clearing surrounded by three sleeping dogs. The exhausted canines finally struggled home after a while, their bellies full of meat fit for a Jarl. Kodlak forbid Farkas from repeating the episode. Vilkas laughed nonetheless when he heard that the dogs now howled like clockwork every night at a certain time, calling out to their miraculous feast-giving companion.
"They were actually really good company," Farkas would say, every time the story was told. "Listened better than the whelps do, sometimes."
Gods, how Vilkas loved him. Even Hircine's curse—Hircine's blessing, Skjor would say—could not touch Farkas' core of virtue. It was one less burden to worry about, anyway. In the days leading up to Farkas' changing, Vilkas had been plagued with nightmares about all that could go wrong: he knew that if his brother hurt anyone, it would be his responsibility to deal with the consequences. He'd had a horrible vision of his sword pressed to Farkas' neck. At least the pain would not have lasted long. After bringing Farkas peace, Vilkas would have fallen on his own sword.
This was only one of many intrusive thoughts that visited Vilkas as the fateful day approached. Even the steady presence of the bees did little to allay his fears that the beast blood would doom his twin.
He should have been worried about himself.
The second Kodlak's blood entered his body, Vilkas knew he was lost. His constant darkness, swollen with a sinister new power, manifested into a wolf that craved everything Vilkas had ever taught himself to fear. Instead of eating chickens and running with dogs, Vilkas spent his first night as a werewolf sprinting desperately through the wilds. He would come to learn in the weeks to follow that he'd never be able to outrun the shadow he now carried inside. Kodlak tracked Vilkas to the forests of Falkreath, and brought him home. An unspoken pact was forged between them on the quiet journey back to Whiterun: a pact to resist the blood, whatever the cost.
One final surprise waited for Vilkas upon his return. After receiving a warm welcome from his shield-siblings, he pretended to be well for several hours before stumbling outside to visit the Gildergreen. He thought that perhaps his childhood ritual could bring him some small measure of peace.
But the weight of the tree against his back felt less solid now, somehow. Instead of warmth, Vilkas' heart filled with a growing dread. It was the middle of a sunny day, at the height of Rain's Hand. And yet the bees refused to land near him. He watched them visit distant flowers, but they buzzed away at his approach.
"It's me," he muttered, hating the edge of despair in his voice. "It's still me, you stupid creatures. Don't you remember?"
"You're not like them, anymore."
Vilkas' head jerked to Arnbjorn, who'd been watching from the steps up to Jorrvaskr.
"You're not prey," he continued, and his cold eyes seemed to be staring deep into the depths of Vilkas' corrupted soul. "Ought to be happy, little pup. In this world, you're either the hunter or the hunted. Skjor understands that. So does my daughter. You're moon-born, now. There's nothing left to fear."
"I'm nothing like you," growled Vilkas, but he felt his wolf's fury enter his words.
Arnbjorn must have heard it, too. His laughter followed Vilkas all the way back to his quarters.
The Gildergreen started to die only a few weeks after that. Nothing to be done, claimed the priests and priestesses of the temple. Vilkas learned to stop looking at the damned tree that had brought him nothing but pain. He closed his ears to the dwindling buzzing of the bees.
His sleeping mind clung to hope, against his own wishes. Vilkas rarely slept well. Most nights he was visited by nightmares of hunting, of slaughter and bloody victory.
But sometimes, when he was most in need of comfort, Vilkas dreamed of his childhood in Whiterun. His mind filled with visions of fuzzy little forms bobbing amidst blooming petals dusted with pollen. How did the haunted foundling of Jergen keep from losing himself, in the long years between his first changing and the restoration of the Circle's purity? The answer: against all reason and certainty, Vilkas dreamed that the bees learned to love him again.