Work Text:
Windhelm really wasn’t Mouse’s favorite city. She hated the cold stone walls, the uneven cobbles that hid under a layer of ice, the narrow alleys, the pervasive frost that leaked under her clothes and settled inside her socks. And the people. The people were probably the very worst part of the city, with their sharp tongues and scowling looks, their hearts as cold as the snow that fell constantly over their little shit hole. Mouse had only been to Windhelm a few times over the course of her career for jobs of a… various nature, but even that brief acquaintance was enough to leave a lasting impression.
She absolutely despised the place with every ounce of hate her slight form could hold.
Unfortunately, Mouse’s opinion of Skyrim’s worst stink-pit meant very little to the region’s weather. Storms came swiftly and erratically in this part of the world, striking with the wild fury of a sabre cat, icy and relentless. Blizzards of that nature couldn’t be weathered in a tent, and even the staunchest and most experienced woodsman would have no luck lighting a fire in the screeching wall of wind that swept down from Winterhold into Eastmarch. If you wanted to survive one of the north’s infamous squalls, you needed shelter, and that was that.
And if the nearest shelter was the city of gods-damned Windhelm, then you had to take it, like it or not.
Mouse definitely did not like it in the slightest, but the night was coming on fast and the wind showed no sign of relenting, bringing with it a sleet that knifed her skin and cut through her clothes as easily as paper. Even pressed up against Romlyn, huddled together under the thick cover of his fur cloak, there was no warmth—just the ice and the encroaching dark that brought with it nothing but the promise of an even greater cold. Without four walls and a roof over their heads, they would both freeze to death within the hour.
Windhelm or Oblivion? Mouse thought as she forced her frigid legs forward toward the walls of the city. I really can’t decide which is worse.
Personally, she might have chosen Oblivion, but one look at Romlyn was enough to change her mind. The tip of his nose showed pink under his gray skin, and his lips had turned purple, shrouded in fog with each breath he took. Frost clung to his eyelashes, white on white, and she could feel him shivering against her. She mustn’t have looked much better, because Romlyn caught her stare a moment later and flashed a grin. It wasn’t quite his usual, lopsided one, but Mouse returned it nonetheless.
"Y-you look like sh-shit!" she managed through chattering teeth. His answering laugh sent a plume of steam into the air.
"Better th-than you," he replied. He didn’t stutter as much as she did—an added benefit of never pronouncing his Ts—and his smile turned cocky as he gave Mouse a wink. Mouse went to elbow him in the side, then decided it was far more comfortable for them both to just huddle closer.
"It-t’s not-not a comp-petiti-tion!" she stammered. That only made him laugh harder, and Mouse wrinkled her nose.
This big idiot. She’d wanted to win that one.
Their words dried up as they approached the gate of Windhelm. A single man in the guardhouse came out briefly to admit them, not even bothering to ask their business as he hurriedly opened the door. In weather like this, the only business one could have was escaping the storm, and nobody wanted to stand around in the snow to have a conversation about it.
They slipped inside without any trouble, and the gate banged shut behind them.
There was no one out on the streets of Windhelm, but across the front courtyard that housed the massive, ostentatious statue of Talos, the lights of the inn shone merrily through slit windows. Mouse and Romlyn made for the glow as quickly as the ice-slicked ground would allow, sleet skittering across the cobbles to nip at their ankles in one final attempt to freeze them solid before they reached the doors. Romlyn tugged at the handle, hissing as the icy metal came into contact with his hands, and had to give it a few tries before he managed to wrench the door open. It had been partially frozen to the frame.
They stepped inside gratefully. The wash of warm air brought a little life back to Mouse’s stiff limbs and she shuddered involuntarily, her body shaking off the cold the same way a dog shook water from its coat. Behind her, Romlyn grunted as he pulled the door shut, battling a fierce gust of wind that had tried to keep it open and let the storm inside. The latch clicked as it settled into place, and Mouse breathed a soft sigh of relief.
That was one awful ordeal over with, at least.
She glanced around the barroom, pushing the hood off her head and brushing a few clumps of frozen snow out of her hair. There were a surprising number of people here. Some, like she and Romlyn, were obviously travelers come out of the storm: sailors, merchants, mercenaries, and wayfarers. Others were clearly locals. Mouse thought she recognized a few faces from some of her previous visits, but it was mostly the scowls that gave them away. They hugged their drinks tight, and a few even cast some nasty glances Mouse’s way.
Well, the feeling was mutual, bastards.
She ignored the looks and threaded her way through the crowded room toward the bar with Romlyn just a step behind her. The barkeep—a blonde Nord woman with frown lines etched into her aging face—was filling a mug for another patron as they approached. With all the bustle, she didn’t seem to have noticed either of them. Mouse wasn’t about to yell at her over the noise in the taproom, so she left Romlyn to squeeze between two large men seated at the bar and knocked softly on the counter top.
"Excuse me?" she said, raising her voice to be heard over the general hubbub. The barkeeper glanced up.
"Yes, yes, what is it?" she asked. Her voice was sharp, but Mouse couldn’t really hold that against her. She clearly had her hands full this evening.
"I’d like a room," Mouse replied. "For me and my husband there."
She gestured with her head to where Romlyn was standing a few paces away, trying not to get his toes stepped on by a group of tipsy sailors who seemed to be having trouble walking in a straight line. He’d pushed his hood back, and now his white hair hung about his face, dripping where the ice melted off of it.
The barkeeper’s scowl deepened as her eyes landed on him.
"Husband," she echoed. "Right."
There was something in her tone that sounded almost… disgusted. Mouse frowned angrily.
"Yeah, is that a problem?" she asked in a voice that said it had better not be.
The barkeeper raised an eyebrow, but she didn’t answer the question. Instead, she just slid the full mug of ale in her hand down the bar to a patron a few seats away and said, "Fifteen for the night."
Mouse almost choked.
"Fifteen!?" she said incredulously. "I seem to remember it being a fair bit cheaper the last time I was here!"
"Last time you were here," the barkeeper replied, "I was probably a lot less busy than I am now and you didn’t have him with you. You want better prices, try the Gray Quarter."
Mouse bit down a hostile retort. At any other time she would have had this woman’s hide for a remark like that, but she couldn’t afford to get thrown out right now. Lucky for the barkeep there was a blizzard raging outside.
She dug in her coin purse with fingers still stiff and clumsy from the cold and slammed fifteen septims down on the counter with enough force to rattle the dishes all the way down the bar.
"There," she hissed. "I hope you choke on it, fetcher."
She pushed off the bar before the woman could answer and stalked back to rejoin Romlyn. He smirked when he saw her stormy expression, that dimple that only appeared on the left side of his mouth showing briefly as he smiled.
"That bad?" he asked.
Mouse just grabbed his arm and dragged him toward the stairs.
"If I don’t have to look at her, I won’t think about killing her," she replied.
Romlyn’s answering laugh almost made her feel better. Almost.
She managed to regain her composure by the time they made it upstairs. The inn’s layout was unusual—a fact Mouse had observed on her first visit here—with the common room on the building’s second story. All the tables and chairs, performers and servers, as well as the massive, central fire pit that was a staple of all Nordic architecture were here. Mouse couldn’t begin to guess the logic behind the design, but it certainly did help to create a cozy atmosphere, even if the owner herself left much to be desired.
Apparently, most of the patrons shared that opinion, because the room was even more packed than the bar downstairs. Dozens of people milled about, laughing and drinking, enjoying plates of roasted meat and fish as they chatted in scattered groups. Most of the crowd was packed around the fireplace, but some of the less sociable sort hunkered in the corners, sharing murmured conversation with one or two companions, or else sat alone with their meals. A group on the far end of the room, clearly a few cups in, began a jaunty (if a bit off-key) folk song to drown out the howl of the storm. To Mouse, it looked as if most of the city was here, seeking the comfort and warmth of their fellows to combat the bleak ice and wind outside. Even with her admittedly biased view of Windhelm, she had to admit that the scene was… nice. Not quite as rambunctious as a night at the Bee and Barb back home, but still nice.
She and Romlyn wound their way around the other patrons, and Mouse had to dodge an errant elbow or swinging arm more than once due to her short stature. Thankfully, they managed to find a vacant table near the wall without incident. It was distant enough from the fire that the chairs felt cold when they sat down, which was probably why it hadn’t been taken yet, but the relief of finally being off their feet was enough to outweigh the minor discomfort.
Once seated, Romlyn flagged down the serving girl, a rather pretty, golden-haired young woman who gave them both a bright smile as she took their order. She seemed genuine enough, which was a vast improvement from the barkeep, but Mouse wasn’t entirely keen on the way she kept batting her long eyelashes at Romlyn every time she looked at him.
She made sure to flash her wedding ring when the girl asked her what she wanted to drink.
Once the server moved off to fetch their food, Romlyn shed his heavy cloak and dropped it over the back of his chair with a dense, wet slap. He stretched his legs, feet bumping against Mouse’s under the table, and sighed.
"I think I’m finally starting to feel my fingers again," he said. He flexed them experimentally in front of him, curling and uncurling them until he seemed satisfied with the results.
"I’m not," Mouse replied, pressing her lips together in an irritated line as she tried and failed to get her own fingers to cooperate. They were certainly warmer than they had been before, but they still felt unbearably stiff, and they prickled uncomfortably as their usual temperature struggled to return.
Romlyn made a low hum of concern then reached across the table and took Mouse’s hands in his own, turning them over as if looking for signs of frostbite. His fingers were thin and spidery, and Mouse could feel the rough callouses on the end of each even through her numbed, icy skin. He had a thief’s hands. Slender, smaller than most men’s, but Mouse was petite enough that they still enveloped hers completely. His touch was warm.
"Where’d you pick up these ice blocks?" he asked after a brief examination, but the teasing smile that played at the corners of his mouth told Mouse that her fingers must have lived to see another day.
"Same place I got the ones on my feet," she replied with a shrug.
"Well, fortunately, they don’t seem to be completely untreatable," Romlyn said. He rubbed her fingers gently then leaned across the table and raised Mouse’s hands to his mouth, breathing lightly on them to restore some of their warmth. Then he pressed her knuckles to his lips in a soft kiss and smiled up at her cheekily.
"Does that feel better?" he asked. His teeth flashed over the top of their clasped hands, and the orange fire glow seemed to dance in his crimson eyes.
Mouse returned his mischievous smirk and arched an eyebrow.
"Depends," she replied. "What’ll you do if I say no?"
"Mmm…" Romlyn hummed. He pressed another kiss to her fingers. "We might have to amputate."
Mouse leaned closer to him across the table and raised one finger to flick his nose.
"Don’t threaten me with a good time," she whispered.
His flirtatious grin cracked and he broke into a chuckle, leaning back and shaking his head.
"Your win," he admitted.
Mouse dropped her cheek into her palm and stuck out her tongue with a smug smile.
"Until bed," Romlyn added. He winked, but Mouse’s smile only widened.
"You wish," she replied in a sing-song voice. Romlyn’s only response was to blow her an exaggerated kiss, and Mouse choked back a snort just as the serving girl returned with their meal.
They lapsed into a companionable silence after the girl (Mouse watched her like a hawk the whole time) left them to their food. It was simple but nourishing fare: roast venison, a side of grilled vegetables tossed in oil, and a hunk of bread. Nothing extravagant, but after their long walk through the cold, it tasted like heaven. The warm, mulled mead that came with it was an excellent touch. It was flavored with some kind of heady spice that sat sharply on the tongue, then faded into the taste of honey as it slipped down Mouse’s throat. Even Romlyn had to admit that it was good, and his standards tended to be much higher than hers.
So maybe Windhelm wasn’t a complete shit-hole.
By the time they finished their meal, they were both feeling much warmer. Mouse had regained the lost feeling in her toes, and the damp ice on her clothing had long since melted and dried. The food and drink had filled her with a pleasant, drowsy sensation, and even the singers across the room were starting to sound alright.
Romlyn made a pleased humming sound, then stretched his limbs like a cat.
"Well, I think I could go for another round," he said. "How’s about you?" He nodded to Mouse’s empty tankard, and she instantly perked up.
"Please," Mouse replied. She passed him her cup as he stood from his chair. He took it with a very small, mock bow.
"Back in a wink," he said, and Mouse shooed him away with a wave of her fingers.
"Yeah, yeah. Just try not to get chatted up, okay?" she said.
Romlyn was already walking away, but he gave her a salute over one shoulder and called back, "No promises, love!" Then he disappeared down the stairs.
Mouse just chuckled quietly to herself and settled in to wait.
She intended to relax, maybe listen to the particularly bad rendition of Ragnar the Red that had started in the singers’ corner, but in that moment an uncomfortable prickle skittered up her back, like a spider climbing her spine, and made every muscle in her body go taut.
Someone was watching her.
She’d come to recognize that feeling over the years, and the sensation had her reaching involuntarily for her knife. She cast around to locate the source of those eyes that she knew rested on her, and in a moment, she spotted him.
There was a man sitting at the table pressed against the opposite wall. He had the look of a laborer: simple dress, a leather cap pulled down over his ears, with thick arms and a scruffy shadow of stubble across his jaw. He had a tankard cradled in his hands, and even from this distance, Mouse could see that his face was flushed with the drink. He made no secret of his staring, and his deep-set eyes drilled relentlessly into Mouse from across the room with a discomfiting intensity.
Even as she watched, the man took a deep swig from his cup, then rose and made a straight line for her table. Mouse tensed, loosening the knife at her belt. She didn’t like the looks of this stranger. His expression oozed with an angry sort of disapproval, and the twist of his mouth as he stalked towards her reminded Mouse uncomfortably of her days at the orphanage and old Grelod when she’d go for the switch.
The hair on the back of her neck stood on end as the man came to a stop right at the edge of the table, and she schooled her expression into one of ice-cold civility.
"Can I help you?" she asked.
The man scowled, crossing his arms in a blatant attempt to make himself appear more imposing.
"Aye, I think you might," he replied. His Nordic accent was thick, and he almost seemed to spit his words as he spoke.
Mouse’s brow furrowed into a deep V, and her fingers closed over her knife hilt.
"Oh?" she said. She didn’t even bother trying to conceal her hostility this time, and the man clearly sensed it. He planted one hand on the surface of the table and leaned down close to her with a threatening air. He reeked of ale, and Mouse eased the knife free of its sheath under the table.
"I need you," he said lowly, "to control that damn gray-skin of yours."
For a second, the comment had Mouse completely blindsided. She blinked, trying to grasp the unexpected turn of the conversation, and her grip on her weapon actually slackened. Then the words registered and her confusion drowned in a sudden, smoldering tide of anger.
"Excuse me?" she hissed.
If he’d been sober, Mouse was sure her tone would have warned the man off. She spoke low, voice more frigid than the blizzard battering against the windows outside. Anyone with sense would have realized that she was giving this bastard one single chance to walk away, but the man was buoyed by liquid courage, and his red-flushed face didn’t so much as twitch.
"You heard what I said," he growled. "Tell your gray-skin to keep his hands off, or get out of our city. Bad enough you decided to sleep with one of them, but don’t go around making that everyone else’s problem."
Mouse could physically feel the blood rising to her face, and her teeth were clenched so hard that a muscle in her jaw jumped. She stood slowly, her chair squealing against the floor as it scooted back, and planted her own hand down on the table, matching the man stance for stance.
"Let me get one thing absolutely clear," she said, thrusting her face barely an inch from the man’s nose. "I did not decide to sleep with him. I married him. If you have an issue with that, you either take it up with Mara herself, or Divines help me, I will take you outside. But call him ‘gray-skin’ one more time, and I’ll make damn sure you walk away from here with one less hand than you had before. You got that, fetcher?"
As she spoke, the man’s face had become more thunderous, but on the last word, his already-ruddy face turned a dark, ugly shade of crimson and the hand resting on the table tensed as if he longed to clench it into a fist.
A very small glimmer of satisfaction wormed through Mouse’s anger and she smirked. She hadn’t started using Dunmeri slang until after she’d married Romlyn, but now more than ever she was glad she’d picked up the habit. The look on the man’s face, like an over-ripe tomato about to burst, was worth it a thousand times over. His mouth twisted and his lip curled, deep-set eyes sparking under his thick brows.
The satisfaction was short-lived, because in the next moment, the man had Mouse’s collar twisted in his fist and she was dragged halfway across the table towards him. Cutlery clattered to the floor, and conversation around the tavern slammed to a dead stop.
"Listen here, you scrawny bitch!" the man spat. "I could have you out in the storm with just a word to Elda, so don’t test me! I tried asking nicely because a little half-breed like you wouldn’t know better, but if you’re going to carry on with that ash-skinned whore of yours, then I’ll march you in front of the Jarl myself! We got enough Imperial spies around here as-is, and we don’t need your bastard spawn added to the mix! I think Ulfric would agree."
Mouse knew she shouldn’t push this. The man was drunk and angry, and she was completely at his mercy right now. He was much stronger than her, too, and that grip around her collar showed no signs of loosening.
She definitely should not push this.
But he’d called Romlyn an ash-skinned whore.
So Mouse pushed it.
"Aw," she said, pouring as much pity as she could into her voice so that it practically dripped with mock-sympathy. "It almost sounds like you want him! Very sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t share! I’m sure Ulfric would agree."
She knew instantly that she’d screwed up. The man’s red face took on a dangerous purple tone and she was hauled almost clean into the air. She managed to hook her foot on the edge of the table at the last moment, and the whole thing moved beneath her, the wooden legs shrieking across the uneven floorboards. The crowd gasped and the man’s free hand raised into a white-knuckled fist, tendons all down his arm bulging with the sheer force of his rage.
"Talos hang you!" he bellowed, and Mouse squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation of the blow.
But it never came.
Instead of the solid, wet crunch of bone she’d been expecting, the soft hiss of steel on leather whispered through the room and silenced all other sound.
Mouse opened her eyes, and there, standing behind the Nord man, was Romlyn. The two tankards of mead he’d gone to fetch were in one hand and his sword was in the other. The cold metal of his blade rested against the man’s neck, icy in the firelight, pressing just hard enough to draw a thin line of blood from his flesh. The Nord froze.
"You hurt her," Romlyn said, "and I’ll put your head on the floor, s’wit. Hands. Off."
There was a beat of absolute silence, and then slowly, very slowly, the man released Mouse’s collar and stepped back. Romlyn circled around him, his sword tracing a half circle across the back of the Nord’s neck until he was positioned in front of Mouse. He stood there, looking small and slim compared to the man’s massive frame, but somehow none the less dangerous for it. The sword stayed poised to strike, and his easy posture reminded Mouse of a cat the moment before it toyed with its prey.
"I’m not going to ask what your problem with my wife is," he said calmly, "because I’m sure you’ll lie to me and I don’t want to hear it. So here’s what we’ll do instead: you go back to your table and plant your arse there for the rest of the evening, and I won’t run you through. Sound fair? Here’s your mead, love."
The last was directed toward Mouse as Romlyn passed over one of the tankards without ever taking his eyes off the Nord man.
"Oh. Thank you," Mouse said, slipping off the table and taking the drink. She sipped it appreciatively as Romlyn and her attacker continued to stare each other down. After only a second, the Nord’s gaze dropped.
"Fine," he growled. He spun angrily and stalked back toward his own table.
Romlyn lowered the sword, and the tension in the crowd gave way to an audible sigh of relief.
It could have ended right there. If the Nord man had just decided to take his defeat and drink peacefully for the remainder of the night, Mouse would have let it go. She would have excused his drunken behavior in favor of a pleasant evening with Romlyn and the whole debacle could have been laid to rest. But of course, as he was walking away, the man just had to take one final jab.
"Only good for one thing," he mumbled under his breath, just loud enough for Mouse’s pointed ears to hear. "Damn gray-skin must do it just the way she likes it."
That sealed it.
Mouse took one quick swig from her tankard, then shoved it into Romlyn’s now-free hand and ordered shortly, "Hold. My. Mead."
He shot her a confused look, but she was already moving toward the Nord. She crossed the room in just a few strides and grabbed the retreating man by his arm. He twisted around at the contact, startled, and Mouse gave him just long enough to register her presence before she replied, "He does."
Then she punched him.
It was probably the best one she’d ever thrown. She felt the coil all the way up her arm, and her fist sliced through the air before it connected perfectly with the man’s face. Her knuckles smashed into the side of his nose, and she heard the clean, satisfying crack half a second before blood erupted from his nostrils. He went down with a grunt, then lay there on the floor in a daze, clutching his face and groaning.
Mouse shook out her fist with a satisfied nod, then spun on her heel and marched back to her table amid a scattered collection of whistles and applause.
Romlyn grinned at her as she plopped back down in her chair.
"Hand better now?" he asked, pushing her tankard over to her across the table.
Mouse nodded firmly.
"Much," she said, taking the drink, and Romlyn inclined his head as if to say "expected as much."
He took a long pull from his mead and Mouse did the same as the crowd around them gradually returned to their own business.
No one made a move to help the Nord off the floor.
Romlyn took another sip, then lowered his tankard to the table and turned his gaze to the man on the ground. His expression was serious, and he appeared to be thinking for a long, long moment. Then, finally, he raised his eyes to Mouse and a slow smile crept across his face.
"What was it you just said about me doing it the way you like it?" he asked.
Mouse grinned back at him over the rim of her cup.
"Oh, I’ll tell you all about it tonight," she replied.
His laugh was sweeter than the honey mead.