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Lakeview Manor breathes differently now. It had always been a quiet house — too quiet, in Lilliandra’s opinion, with the kind of silence that attracts thought like a sinkhole. But since Miraak’s arrival, since she’d dragged his bones across realms and forced soul and flesh together with a shout meant for dragons, the quiet had… shifted. Not louder. Not softer. Just occupied.
It unsettles Lilliandra more than she would ever admit.
She sits at her worktable sorting through dried flowers for alchemy inventory, marking each with thin strokes of charcoal on parchment. The task doesn’t require thought, which is the point. Her thoughts are uncooperative today. Miraak is somewhere outside — she can feel the faint ripple of his magic the way she always does. He doesn’t wander far. Doesn’t let her wander far, either. Not now. Not when Nirn is new again beneath his feet.
Elikar makes a low, irritated sound behind her — the kind he reserved for politics, mold in the pantry, or Miraak. “You two are unbearable,” he announces.
Lilli doesn’t look up. “Good morning to you as well.”
“I’m serious.” He strides in, arms crossed, expression souring further when he sees her amusement. “You’ve been like this since he's returned. And by ‘this’ I mean nauseating.”
Her charcoal pauses mid-mark. “You'll need to clarify—”
“It’s about him.” Elikar jabs a finger at the open doorway as if Miraak might appear there on command. “He hovers behind you like a bodyguard with separation anxiety. And you—”
“I what?” she asks, far too evenly.
“You act like a cat pretending it doesn’t want attention while absolutely wanting attention.”
She stares at him. “That is the most idiotic comparison—”
“It’s accurate.”
“It’s slander.”
“It’s exhausting to watch.”
A beat of silence. The manor creaks in the wind like it's agreeing with him. Elikar drops into a chair with the practiced misery of an older brother who had seen too much.
“You don’t like him,” she states.
“Am I supposed to?” Elikar counters, folding his arms. “This—” he gestures between her, the window, the whole house “—is sickening. I don’t care what. Just do something. Either stab him or kiss him.”
Lilli stares at him, utterly affronted. Elikar stares back, utterly done.
A beat. “I am not… floundering,” she says stiffly.
“Yes, you are.”
“This is different,” she insists.
“Yes,” Elikar agrees, “because now he’s on Nirn, and neither of you know what to do with each other without a Daedric realm buffering your emotional incompetence.”
Lilli bristles. “We’re adjusting.”
“You’re avoiding.” He leans forward, eyes sharp. “He follows you like he’s afraid you’ll disappear. And you— gods, I can’t watch you pretend you don’t care when you obviously do. You flinch every time he steps too close, then look offended when he steps away.”
That lands harder than she wants. She returns to her deathbells with unnecessary precision. “It’s complicated.”
“You don’t say.”
She would have thrown the charcoal at him if she wasn’t trying to maintain dignity. He knows it, too — which only encourages him.
“Do something about it,” Elikar said. “Anything. Go somewhere with him. Spend time together that isn’t… awkward brooding silence or hovering. It's not like any jobs await you in your current state.” His last sentence is spoken far more kindly than all others.
She stays silent at first, not needing a reminder the consequence of using Slen Tiid Vo had left on her body. She then scoffs. “What, like a date?”
He blinks. “You know what, sure, exactly like a date.”
Her stomach drops like a stone. “Elikar.”
“What?”
“That is— you— I don’t—” Her glare only lasts a moment before she sighs. “You’re insufferable.”
“I’m right,” he said, far too smugly.
She wants to argue. She really does. Instead, she finds herself staring at the dried flowers as if they had betrayed her.
Elikar sighs dramatically and rises to leave. “Figure it out,” he mutters on his way to the door. “Before I develop an ulcer, please.”
Lilli throws the charcoal after all. It misses him by an inch and shatters on the ground. It does not improve her mood.
A date. Her brother is deranged.
She tries to ignore the word, to discard it as one of Elikar’s dramatics — but it follows her like a persistent familiar spirit, circling, tapping, whispering. Thoughts snaring on themselves like tangled fishing lines.
A date.
An absurd concept. A juvenile one. Something for young Altmer newly introduced to the social sphere, not for two ancient creatures who have spent decades threading through each other’s lives like stubborn knots.
She tries to think of how she had done such things. So very long ago in Summerset, long before the war and even long before Hermaeus Mora took notice of her. Suitors, elaborate courtships, structured rituals: glade-walks under moonlight filtered through crystal towers, banquets with enough etiquette to drown in, dances where everything smelled faintly of lilies and ambition. She remembers the posture, the rules, the scripts. She remembers the suffocating weight of it all.
None of it truly fit her. And blessedly, none of it fits Miraak.
She tries to imagine dragging Miraak to a formal dinner in Solitude. He would last five minutes before insulting someone. She’d last three before throwing her wine at someone. She taps the table irritably. No.
She tries picturing a walk in the gardens of the Blue Palace — she rolls her eyes. It reminds her too much of Summerset etiquette and hates the idea of being found and addressed as her title as Dragonborn. Definitely not.
She thinks of their time in Apocrypha. The College is the closest she could think of. Lilli considers it for a whole ten seconds before her brain presents an image of Miraak dismantling an instructor with one sentence. Something enjoyable but she cannot tackle such a distance away.
A hunt? This one she lingers on.
In Apocrypha they hunted together often — sometimes beasts, sometimes knowledge, sometimes people who very much deserved it in their eyes. A steady rhythm, coordinated movement, the pleasure of something shared and dangerous and somewhat competitive.
She deflates almost instantly. Her body aches when she breathes too deeply. The use of Slen Tiid Vo carved hollows she hasn’t yet refilled. She is weeks away from anything resembling the stamina required for a proper hunt. And even if she weren’t — preying on bandits in her manner is frowned upon by local governance, apparently.
She tries to think why she's even considering this at all.
It shouldn’t matter. Miraak does not need whatever this is. He adjusts easily. He always has. He has been observing Nirn with that quiet, predatory curiosity — nothing overwhelms him, not truly. But he watches her differently here. As if the ground beneath her might shift. As if he is waiting for her to vanish between thoughts.
She runs a hand over her face, groaning. This is ridiculous. She should be able to solve this. She has solved far worse. Why is she trying to solve this? Because Elikar planted it in her mind and her mind has never been kind.
The petal sorting devolves into something pathetic — she’s aware of this, but awareness does not stop the downward spiral. She’s halfway through reconsidering whether Solitude’s museum could be a date (it couldn’t; they’d be banned within an hour) when the house shifts again. Not physically. Magically. A ripple across her senses — familiar, steady, annoyingly perceptive. Of course he would come now.
Miraak appears in the doorway like he’s been standing there long enough to feel dramatic about it. He studies her for a moment. “Your brother is gone,” he observes.
She tries to sound bored. “Tragically.”
“Mm.” He glances at the scattered deathbells. “You look… troubled.”
“I am working,” she says tightly.
“On pulverizing that same petal for the sixth time?”
She glares. “Five.”
“So you counted.”
She hates him.
He steps closer, hands behind his back, posture too calm for someone who causes so much chaos by existing. His voice is mild in the way that means he is about to be irritating. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing.”
He raises a brow. “You are lying badly.”
“I am… thinking.”
“That is worse.”
Her mouth opens. Closes. “What does that mean?”
“Whenever you think this hard, something explodes.”
She will not dignify that.
He tilts his head, watching her more closely now, the analytical intent of a man who has studied her like an unfamiliar spell. His gaze flicks from her hands to her pacing circle on the floor to the furrow between her brows. “Lilliandra.”
“What?”
“What did your brother say that made you attempt… this?” He gestures to the tragic petal arrangement.
She stiffens. “Nothing of consequence.” Miraak waits. She caves faster than she’d prefer. “He suggested, idiotically might I add,” she says, teeth clenched, “that perhaps I should take you somewhere.”
A pause.
“…Somewhere,” Miraak echoes, voice carefully blank.
“A date,” she snaps, mortified.
There is a full, loaded beat where he stares at her. “I see,” he finally says. “That would do it.”
“Do what?”
“Break your mind.”
She groans. “This is why I didn't tell you.”
“And yet you did,” he says, almost gently. “Which suggests the situation is worse than I assumed.”
She very seriously considers throwing the mortar at his head.
But Miraak’s expression shifts — softening at the edges, the tension in his shoulders easing. He steps forward, slow and precise, like approaching an animal he likes but expects to bite him anyway. “Is that why you are repeating the same sorting? You dislike the idea.”
“I don’t dislike it,” she snaps, then immediately looks horrified she said that aloud. “I simply— I don’t know what constitutes a date now. Nothing I think of fits. And you’re— you’re impossible.”
His lips twitch. “I am many things. ‘Impossible’ is fairly low on the list.”
She glares harder.
He steps closer again — close enough she can feel the calm, steady pulse of his magic. His voice drops, quieter but warmer around the edges. “You are overthinking.”
“Am not.”
“You are,” he insists, faintly amused. “Ferociously. It’s impressive, in its way.”
She almost kicks him.
He seems to sense the impulse and chooses that moment to reach out, slowly, and take her hand. His grip is sure. Not possessive. Just present. "I think you're right in failing to find something. Normal has never suited us. We don't need some elaborate Summerset ritual. Or whatever it is you think mortals do for courtship. We're far past that."
"We skipped it actually."
"My point stands."
She opens her mouth to argue — about what, she’s not sure — but he cuts her off with a look that is too honest to be smug, too familiar to be formal.
“Walk with me.”
She blinks. “…Walk?”
“Yes.”
“Outside?”
“Yes.”
“Doing nothing?”
His mouth curves — not wide, but devastatingly real. “Being with you,” he says, “is not nothing.”
Her heart stumbles. Her defensiveness cracks. She hates how easy he makes this and how much she needed someone to. “…All right,” she mutters, but her voice is much softer than before.
He doesn’t move immediately. For a moment they just stand there, her hand in his. Then Miraak’s thumb brushes once over her knuckles — a gesture so small she might have imagined it — and he lets go only to turn and nod toward the door.
“Bring a cloak,” he says. “Your brother claims this hold is ‘mild.’ He lies.”
She snorts despite herself. “You grew up on an island of ash and dragons. You have no right to complain about Falkreath’s weather.”
“Exactly,” he replies. “It’s autumn and I know what is inhospitable for you.”
She grumbles but reaches for the nearest cloak anyway, putting it on with a faint wince she hopes he doesn’t see. He very obviously sees it; he very wisely says nothing.
Outside, Lakeview’s air hits her like cold water— the kind of chill that seeps rather than bites. The lake lies dark and still below the house, ringed in pines and low mist. Birds pick at the shoreline. Somewhere distant, a wolf calls. The sky is washed pale, low clouds dragging their bellies against the mountain line.
Miraak falls into step at her right without being asked. He always has.
The first few strides are almost comfortable. She sets the pace by habit — long-legged, confident, like the world hasn’t shifted under her. Two dozen steps in, her ribs remind her that she shouted a dragon-soul back into flesh not that long ago. Her breath hitches. Her gait shortens half a fraction.
Miraak adjusts his pace instantly, so seamlessly that if she didn’t know him this well, she’d think it coincidence. He shadows her right flank: not crowding, not touching, but there — a warm weight in her peripheral vision. His head turns in quiet, constant measure, tracking sound and movement on the side where her hearing and sight isn’t what it used to be.
“Path is uneven,” he says mildly when he spots a root she hasn’t reached yet.
“I can see,” she says.
“I was speaking to the root.”
She huffs; it might be a laugh. “You’re not as funny as you think.”
The forest swallows them by degrees. The manor’s carved lines and stone give way to wild undergrowth and the soft rot of leaves. The smell is earth and wet pine. Lilliandra feels the house’s presence recede behind them, replaced by the broader, indifferent awareness of the woods — animals, wind, old magic sunk deep in the dirt.
She listens to the steady crunch of their boots. “You’re staring,” she says after a while, not looking at him.
“I am observing.”
“That’s worse.”
Miraak’s gaze stays on the treeline. “This place is… quiet,” he says, and the word sits strangely in his mouth. “Not like Apocrypha. There, quiet always meant something was listening. Here it only means the birds are busy doing something else.”
“Unobserved?” she offers.
He considers. “Less watched. Not unobserved. You see far too much.”
“Flattery,” she says. “Not subtle.”
“Only accurate,” he counters.
The path curves downhill toward the lake, then threads along the shore where the ground grows slicker. He shifts closer, not quite touching her, but his sleeve brushes her cloak whenever the path narrows.
It’s nothing remarkable if she thinks about it too hard. A mundane shoreline. Mundane air. Mortals somewhere beyond the trees, living tiny mundane lives. But with each step, something that’s been coiled in her since he arrived on Nirn unknots another fraction. She realizes, with faint irritation, that Elikar might have been right.
“This is stupid,” she says eventually.
“Walking?” Miraak asks. “Or indulging your brother?”
“Both.”
“We can turn back,” he offers.
If she hadn't known him, she would have easily missed the barely there tone that's reluctant at the idea of retreat. It’s not fear, not exactly. Just that old Apocrypha habit: forward is the only direction. Forward, or be consumed.
She shakes her head. “No. We’re already out here.”
“An endorsement,” he murmurs. “How romantic.”
“Don’t push it.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
They fall into another companionable silence. A pair of ducks lift from the water in a flurry of wings, mist parting around them. The sound makes her start — her right ear still slow to catch up — but Miraak has already turned his head, tracking them, so she doesn’t have to.
She notices that and immediately pretends she hasn’t. “You keep looking around,” she says instead. “Are you expecting attack?”
“Always,” he says, as if it’s the most reasonable answer in the world. “This realm is less… structured in its threats, but they exist. You’re vulnerable while you’re recovering.”
“I’m not—”
“You are,” he cuts in, not unkindly. “I watched you nearly fall asleep eating soup.”
She flushes hot. “You were not supposed to see that.”
“You live in a house with two nosy men and no doors that stop magic,” he reminds her. “You are seen often.”
She grunts.
He makes a quiet sound that might be a laugh. “Besides, if something did attack us,” he adds, almost idly, “I would prefer to be the one it hits first. You’re more repair-intensive at the moment.”
She side-eyes him. “That is not reassuring.”
“It should be,” he says. “I take better care of valuable objects.”
Lilliandra slows just enough to bump his shoulder with hers. “I am not an object.”
“I know,” he says.
She feels the truth in it more than hears it. For all his possessiveness, he has never treated her like a thing to be owned. A partner in war, in study, in monstrosity, yes. A piece of furniture, no.
The path narrows to a ribbon hugging a small bluff, rock dropping away toward the water. There’s room for them both, barely. Without comment, he shifts that half-step closer to the lake’s edge, putting himself between her and the drop. She rolls her eyes, but the part of her that still misjudges her right side some mornings relaxes a fraction.
“You do not have to treat me like I’m breakable,” she mutters.
“You are not breakable,” he says. “You are… currently dented.”
“That’s worse.”
“Temporarily,” he adds.
She huffs. “…Better.”
A little further on, a fallen log lies across the path. She angles toward it without thinking, intending to stride over. Her body reminds her — again — that nothing is as easy as it used to be. Her knee twinges. The world lurches, just a fraction, around the edges of her vision.
Miraak’s hand closes around her forearm, steady and sure, before she can stumble. He doesn’t haul her. He doesn’t fuss. He just anchors her long enough to correct her balance, then releases her as if nothing happened.
“I had it,” she says, more on principle than accuracy.
“Of course,” he replies smoothly. “I merely wished to hold onto you for a moment.”
She almost misses a step for a different reason entirely. “That was almost charming,” she says flatly.
“I’ll be more careful,” he promises.
“Don’t,” she says, and then immediately hates herself for how fast it comes out.
They both go still. The lake laps at the shore below, oblivious.
Miraak’s gaze flicks to her profile. “No?”
She drags in a breath, looks fiercely ahead. The pines ahead blur slightly before refocusing.
“No,” she says, more measured. “Don’t.”
Something loosens in his stance, subtle as a knot untying. “Very well,” he says quietly.
They walk on.
The slope is gentler here, but even gentle is work these days. She can feel the pull behind her ribs, the way her breath starts to steam a little harsher in the cold. The ground underfoot has turned treacherous in that Falkreath way — damp soil pretending to be solid, roots lying in wait like smug little traps.
Her stride shortens again, almost against her will. Miraak doesn’t comment. He just adjusts with her, matching her smaller steps without making it obvious, listening more than watching now. She knows because his attention tilts — not on the trees or the water, but on the sound of her breath, the scuff of her boots.
A low patch of loose stones sends a faint wobble through her knee. She corrects it, but not as quickly as she’d like. He notices that too.
After a few more yards, he breaks the silence. “Take my arm,” he says.
She snorts. “I’m not that frail.”
“I know,” he says. “You’re also stubborn and half-exhausted. This is not an argument about frailty. It is an argument about balance, which you are currently—” he glances at the next muddy dip “—losing to mud.”
“I am winning against the mud,” she says. “Barely.”
“Then consider this a… tactical advantage.” His tone goes dry. “If you collapse, I will have to carry you back. Your brother will be insufferable.”
“I’d recover just to haunt you both.”
“I am counting on you recovering before that,” he replies. Then, quieter, he tries again. “Take my arm, Lilliandra.” It’s the way he says her name that does it — not coaxing, not commanding. Just offering.
She scoffs again for form’s sake, rolling her eyes at the path ahead. “Fine.” She slips her hand through the crook of his elbow.
His arm is solid under the cloak, steady as bedrock. He doesn’t tense or make a point of it; he simply adjusts his posture minutely so her weight has somewhere to go when the ground shifts. The contact folds them a little closer together, bringing his warmth into easier reach. The cold that had been needling at her cheeks and fingertips recedes a fraction.
“Well?” he asks after a few steps, voice mild. “Has your pride shattered?”
“Completely,” she says. “You’ll be hearing the echo for days.”
“Good. Perhaps it will drown out your brother.”
She huffs a laugh, the sound puffing white in the air. The path dips again and she leans into him without thinking. His balance never wavers.
“It is efficient,” he says after a moment, almost as if he’s justifying it to himself. “This way I can steady you and watch the treeline at the same time.”
“Of course,” she mutters. “All practicality. No ulterior motives at all.”
“None,” he agrees. Then, after a beat, he says, “You are also very warm.”
She glances at him, incredulous. “I am not.”
“You are,” he says. “You run warm when you’re tired. You always have.”
The casual always sinks under her skin like a stone into deep water. Eighty years of watching, cataloguing, remembering. She looks away quickly, eyes tracking a crow lifting from a branch overhead.
They walk like that for a while: her hand resting against his sleeve, her shoulder brushing his whenever the trail slants, his body angling without conscious thought to keep her on the safer side of any drop or hazard. When the wind comes knifing down off the lake, she feels the way he turns just enough to take the brunt of it on his own back, cloak flaring.
“Stop that,” she mutters, squinting into the gust.
“Stop what?”
“Blocking the wind like a particularly overprotective wall.”
“I am taller,” he points out. “It would be a waste not to use the advantage.”
“You are not taller. I’m just tired and slouching.”
“Then remain tired,” he says, “so I can be useful.”
She squeezes his arm, just once, before she can think better of it. “That’s not how that works,” she says but there’s no bite in it.
“Perhaps not on Summerset,” he murmurs. “Here, we improvise.”
The path ahead bends back toward the house, the line of the roof just barely visible through the trees — a small, solid thing against the gray sky. She realizes, with a faint start, that the idea of returning doesn’t feel like retreat anymore.
It feels like going home.
With him at her side.