Chapter Text
Ulfric had been absent for his evening Dovahzul lessons with Einarth, and so it is that Arngeir wanders the monastery in search of him.
It isn't like Ulfric to miss lessons. The Greybeards had taken a calculated risk, accepting him as a student so young. He'd arrived on the steps of High Hrothgar bloodied, windblown, snow-bedraggled, and at first they'd ushered him inside simply on principle, to get him out of the weather. Arngeir remembers the day well. The blizzard had been a fierce one, wind whipping about them like Kyne herself intended to take them off the mountain. They'd scarcely gone into the courtyard for fear of being blown over. But Ulfric, son of Hoag, no more than a boy of eight, had shaken the melting snow off himself like a dog, and his blue eyes had blazed with life even as his body had wracked itself with shivers. In one hand was a wolf skull, still smeared with gore, and in the other was an axe.
"I want to learn how to use the Voice. Like the old heroes used to do."
There had been violence in him from the beginning, yes. The skull and axe had been proof enough of that. He'd been too eager to hear of Shouts that inspired valor in battle, that weakened one's enemies, that ripped weapons from their hands. The philosophy of the Way of the Voice had bored him. His progress was slow. The Greybeards had almost given up, but Ulfric was the tenacious sort.
They discovered, on a clear, windless day in the courtyard, that he'd learned the word fo almost by accident.
If he was proud of himself for this massive achievement, he never showed it. Instead that pride was fuel for his internal fire. Arngeir sometimes doubts that even Ulfric knows why that fire burns.
It isn’t like Ulfric, son of Hoag, to skip lessons, and Arngeir wonders if he has left them at last, with no warning, but he finds him in the western hall, staring out a window, elbow on the heavy sill and chin in his hand. Arngeir stops at a respectful distance - clearly Ulfric is troubled, deep in thought - and a long moment of silence passes between them.
Ulfric has never been completely comfortable with the silence.
“Did you hear the news from Cyrodiil?” he asks, and Arngeir shakes his head.
“I have not.”
He can just make out Ulfric’s expression reflected in the thick windowpane. Thoughtful, almost tired, and yet his eyes blaze. Arngeir has never seen them dulled.
“The Thalmor have seized Leyawiin.” The statement settles on his shoulders like a heavy mantle. “Bravil will surely be next. It’s only a matter of time.”
“I see,” Arngeir says.
Ulfric glances over his shoulder then, and says, “Do you?”
Arngeir says nothing.
“You don’t,” Ulfric says, a little coldly. He smiles, but it’s without mirth, and doesn’t reach his eyes. He turns to look back out the window. “They mean to spit on the Empire and everything it stands for. They mean to put boots on necks and have us relinquish Talos and admit their ways are better. And they mean to slaughter anyone who doesn’t bend.”
Arngeir still says nothing. Ulfric is angry about this, very angry indeed, and it is not wise to prod Ulfric when he’s angry.
“I suppose you can’t imagine such a thing happening.”
Arngeir begins to see where this might be going.
“Surely you don’t intend - “
“Of course I do,” Ulfric says, cutting Arngeir off sharply, turning full to face him and leaning against the windowsill, arms folded. The look on his face is defiant. By Arngeir’s estimation, Ulfric is not yet eighteen, just shy of it, and he is not built for battle, but Arngeir slowly decides that yes, he might make a good soldier, if he puts his mind to it. The endurance is there, the determination. “If there’s anything I can do to help prevent the Thalmor running roughshod over my homeland, I intend to do it.” His eyes meet Arngeir’s, chest rising and falling more heavily with emotion.
“I would hope,” Arngeir says carefully, “that you don’t intend to put your lessons to use on the battlefield.”
The sentence is hardly out of his mouth when he realizes he already knows the answer. It’s in the fire that blazes hard in Ulfric’s eyes. It’s in the ghost of a snarl on his lips when he speaks of Altmer that loath men. It’s in the way his fingers curl tight around his own fledgling bicep, as if aching to hold the hilt of a sword instead.
Neither man speaks, the tense silence thick and heavy in the air. “At least stay until Loredas,” Arngeir says, breaking it, “so we can finish your preliminary lesson on lok .”
“Okay,” Ulfric says, some of the anger and tension leaving him, and follows Arngeir out of the hall to take supper.