Chapter Text
-[<>]-Serana-[<>]-
“What happened back there?”
A fire crackled to life as it devoured the small pile of dry kindling. The moons were nowhere in sight amongst the midnight velvet sea of glittering stars. A stream rippled nearby and frogs croaked distantly.
Serana observed as Vigdis roughly ripped open the tarp, then draped it over the poles to create a simple but effective tent, as she had done many times before. Then the hunter idled, her back to the vampire, her broad shoulders tense, her freckled hands unnaturally still.
For once, Serana desperately wanted her to answer—even if she was callous and cruel in her response, anything would be more bearable than the silence that suffocated the very atmosphere beneath its invisible hand. Her glowing persimmon gaze lingered—curiously, anxiously, intensely—on Vigdis, whose rainy scent drifted faintly over the campfire.
Vigdis turned. Her shoulders dropped. The flames of the fire reflected and danced in her ice-blue eyes.
“I don’t know.”
The words were so quiet that, for a moment, Serana wasn’t sure they were said at all.
Vigdis sat on the damp earth across from the vampire. She added larger pieces of wood to the fire, her freckled features a cold, blank slate; yet her larimar eyes were fractured, split apart by the turbulent oceans of fear. Serana shifted—and instantly drew those haunted eyes to her own persimmon ones.
The silence persisted. Serana couldn’t stand it anymore.
“You don’t know?”
The question rang out across the empty space. It sounded much harsher than Serana had intended; anger flashed clearly in those ice-blue pools, her scarred jaw locked as her red brows lowered.
“No,” Vigdis snapped, “I don’t fucking know.”
The vampire sighed. “I’m not asking about . . . after.” Her shoulders tensed as she played with her pale fingers. “I’m asking about what happened to you.”
Freckled fingers raked through unruly red curls, her knuckles white. She exhaled hard as her nostrils flared. Her eyes fell shut, briefly squeezed tight as if in pain.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she finally forced out. “Stop sticking your fucking nose into—”
“I wouldn’t have to if you weren’t so fucking stubborn!” Serana chastised as she threw her hands up, exasperated. “Haven’t we been through enough? Why are you still shutting me out?”
“You fucking know why.”
“Please, Vigdis. Just trust me. Let me—”
“Serana.”
The vampire flinched and met the redhead’s eyes. Tears shined brilliantly, welled below tormented ice-blue irises. That broken gaze watered with a silent, desperate plea, peered beneath bushy red brows dipped in bitter anger. Serana had seen such an expression only once before; it lingered just behind her mind’s eye even now.
“If that makes me a monster, then so be it.”
A hard lump of hurt and sorrow lodged itself in the vampire’s throat. Emotions crashed through her, exaggerated by her own grief that clawed deep into her soul like bloodstains on a manicured rug. What should she say—what could she say?
She swallowed as the truth festered on the back of her tongue. There was nothing she could say.
Vigdis opened her mouth—only for a soft breath to leave her parted lips. The tears receded and ice-blue eyes flashed with a trained, cold focus. Her freckled jaw shifted. She reached for her dagger and unsheathed it, a strange blade that glimmered menacingly in the warm glow of the fire. Her fingers searched the ground beside her, then lifted a rock that she pressed to the uneven edge. Slowly, it glided down to the point, its song a hollow one that sunk in Serana’s ears and caused an uneasy shiver to roll down her spine.
“Don’t bring it up again,” Vigdis muttered, her soulless eyes never leaving the dagger as she continued to sharpen it.
Serana raised her dark brows. She had heard those words before; when hot fingers seared her cold wrists, that same dagger poised high above her head, icy eyes wide with a wild, violent fear and uncontrollable tears.
“Don’t bring it up again.”
The vampire brought her legs to her chest and rested her chin on her knees. Although it wasn’t the answer that she had hoped for, the hunter had said more than enough in that single sentence—and Serana knew better than to pry about her dead father, even if she wanted to.
“So, let me get this straight . . .”
Serana stiffened. Isran leaned across the table, his hands clasped as his steely eyes narrowed in anger, directed at the redheaded hunter beside her.
“You lied about retrieving Auriel’s Bow—even went so far as to hide it from me. You disobeyed my orders and didn’t report directly to me on Bloodchill Manor or Redwater Den. Instead, you stupidly infiltrated Volkihar Keep. And hunted down Harkon. Alone.” His glare worsened. “You’ve been nothing but trouble, Vigdis.”
It had taken Serana and Vigdis over a month to finally reach Fort Dawnguard. Storms had ravaged across Skyrim for the majority of their journey, which had forced them to rely on their feet rather than a carriage. They had hardly spoken since that night—and they had barely reached the fort when Isran found them and demanded answers. The hunter had no choice and relented to give him exactly that for the past two hours in curt, clipped tones.
“It’s thanks to me that anything got done at all,” Vigdis snapped. “And don’t act like Serana didn’t tell you about the manor and the den.”
“I wasn’t talking about what the vampire told me. I specifically told you—”
“What’s done is fucking done.” Vigdis sat back, her exhaustion so palpable that Serana could taste it. “Harkon’s dead. That’s all that fucking matters.”
Isran sighed deeply as he pinched the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes, aggravated. “Anything else I should know about?”
The vampire’s glowing persimmon gaze settled on the hunter. She wished that Isran would just let Vigdis sleep; it was obvious to Serana that her nightmares were worse than before, her fitful slumber often disturbed by a racing heart and sharp inhale. The lack of sleep pulled at her freckled features, drained of its natural rosy hue, accentuated by the dark shadows beneath her hardened eyes.
“No,” Vigdis growled through her teeth. “There isn’t.”
“Oh, but there is something else, isn’t there?”
All heads turned to Florentius, who stood beside Isran with a knowing grin on his lips, his peridot eyes alight with excitement.
“What are you talking about, Florentius?” Isran gruffed out.
Serana could feel Vigdis’ terror and rage, as if the Red Mountain itself had exploded beside her. Then, feeling became taste: blood and fire and smoke curled over her tongue, doused her throat and lungs. Serana swallowed thickly, even as raw, uncontrollable power snaked into her body and coiled around her bones. She had never felt such intensity before—and it scared her.
She stood up. “Floren—”
“She’s Dragonborn.”
Silence settled over the atmosphere. The taste in her mouth dissolved into nothingness, and Serana released the breath she didn’t realise she had been holding. Her shoulders dropped, but she continued to stand with an anxious apprehension as an endless meadow of questions bloomed in her mind at the priest’s words.
“I’m waiting to hear what exactly that means,” Isran pressed in controlled, measured tones.
“Surely you know what I speak of,” Florentius replied. “She has the blood—or soul, rather—of a dragon. A dragon in mortal flesh, as Arkay eloquently put it; like the Septims, but unrelated to—”
“She?”
Florentius gestured to the redhead. “Yes. Vigdis. Who else?”
Isran’s face became drawn, a hard glint in his silver eyes. He tapped his thumb against his hand, slow and methodical. The leader of the Dawnguard glowered with obvious fury—but a threat lay thinly veiled beneath it. Serana frowned in recognition, her dark brows creased. He had looked at her the same way when she first came to the fort, and to see the same expression directed at Vigdis . . . An ache stirred faintly in her chest.
“Unfortunately my knowledge only goes so far,” the priest of Arkay continued. “But this is a subject that the Greybeards would be well versed in. Arkay told me they have a residence—High Hrothgar, on the Throat of the World. I think it would be wise to seek them out.”
“How do we get there?” Serana inquired in place of the hunter, who still ruminated in silence.
The Imperial’s peridot eyes glazed over. “From . . . . Ivarstead.” Florentius smiled as his focus returned to Serana. “I’m sure the locals will be more than happy to point you in the right direction.”
While the vampire herself wasn’t so sure about these so-called Greybeards, some answers would be better than none at all if either of them were to truly understand what happened in the Druadach Mountains.
“I’m not done with you,” Isran growled. Persimmon eyes warily glided back to narrowed ice-blue ones, her freckled and scarred jaw locked as her pink lips pressed into an even thinner line.
“Listen here, Vigdis: I don’t give a fucking damn if you’re Dragonborn, whatever that means. That’s for you to find out and me to not care. You still blatantly disobeyed my orders and purposefully withheld information. I do not tolerate insubordination.” His glare worsened. “From this point forward, you are banned from the Dawnguard.”
“You can’t be serious!” Florentius protested. “I know you’re incredibly upset, Isran, but she’s still—”
“If she wants to redeem herself,” Isran interjected, “then she needs to do as I say.”
The Imperial folded his arms with a disapproving frown. “And what would you have her do? Hm?”
The Redguard shot him an exasperated look and Florentius childishly responded with a mocking face whilst sticking out his tongue. Isran rolled his silver eyes in annoyance, then turned his attention back to Vigdis.
“You’re going to find Agmaer. And you’re going to bring him back to the fort.”
The hunter exhaled through her mouth—and for a moment, Serana could’ve sworn there was smoke. “Where is he.”
“We stationed him in Whiterun to keep an eye on any possible vampire activity.” Isran briefly rubbed his temple, his eyes shut. “His last report was three weeks ago. Damn farm boy was too eager to prove himself to the order.” He dropped his hand; the worry and exhaustion on his wrinkled features faded back into a serious expression. “So if you want to consider yourself a member of the Dawnguard again, that’s what you’re going to do. Am I understood?”
No answer.
Isran leaned forward again, his tone low and dangerous. “Are we clear?”
Serana dared to glance at Vigdis again, whose icy dagger-like gaze was directed at the leader of the Dawnguard. Anger rippled off her in waves, each more powerful than the last. She clenched her freckled hand into a fist, her knuckles white. Her pink mouth parted and curled into a snarl.
“Crystal.”
Serana sighed for the fifth time.
After Vigdis had stormed out of the fort, Serana went after her—only to watch on as the hunter struggled with Mournloaf’s saddle for twenty long minutes, every curse known to Tamriel muttered under her breath in the process.
With a grunt, she finally managed to secure it properly, and shoved some of her unruly red hair behind her ear. The sun tickled across Serana’s pale hands, her face in the shadow of her leather hood.
“What now?” she asked dryly.
Vigdis flared her nostrils with a huff, then raked a freckled hand through her fiery hair in frustration. Serana didn’t expect a response, but it bothered her that the hunter had become so quiet. She stepped forward and reached out to touch the redhead’s hand—she wanted to feel that warmth bloom beneath her cold fingertips—
She stopped. Her pale hand hovered just above Vigdis’. A breeze drifted over them; her breath hitched as the scent of rain and earth swelled in her lungs, stained her tainted soul. It was a smell that grounded and ensnared her, a willing moth to the blazing flame.
But she couldn’t . . .
No. She shouldn’t.
Serana’s hand fell uncertainly to her side. She drew in a shaky breath.
“Let’s try to find those Greybeards Florentius mentioned,” the vampire offered lightly. “It’s on the way to Whiterun. We can hear what they have to say and . . . go from there.” She stepped closer and tilted her head, although Vigdis’ freckled face was veiled behind her hair. “Okay?”
The hunter lifted her head. An icy blue gaze crashed into a glowing persimmon one and shimmered faintly with spite. Then she turned her attention back to the horse, her features carved with angry finality.
“Fine,” she uttered. Serana’s shoulders slumped as Vigdis shoved her boot into the stirrup and hoisted herself onto Mournloaf’s back with ease.
Was she going to be like this the whole time—cold, silent, irritable? Serana couldn’t help but wonder if she was to blame . . . If her desperation to help had only pushed Vigdis away. Her fangs dug into her lip; she crossed her arms as if to shield herself from the outside world. How could she be so—?
“Are you coming or what?”
Serana looked up. Vigdis gazed down at her, a red brow raised as she held out a freckled hand. Persimmon eyes widened in surprise, her dark brows knitted with confusion.
The hunter scowled in return, impatient. “Well?”
The vampire blinked. Then, slowly, the slightest smile tugged the corner of her pale lips, and she took Vigdis’ warm hand. Her other pale hand gripped the back of the saddle for support and the redhead pulled her up effortlessly.
Once she was up, Vigdis released Serana. After a few small adjustments, the hunter grabbed Mournloaf’s reins and clicked her tongue just as the vampire’s hands rested on her waist. The horse neighed softly, then turned to follow the dirt path that trailed away from the fort.
Serana glanced down at her hand. Vigdis’ warmth still lingered there, the ghost of her touch burning in her cold palm. The silence between them was no longer distant or strained; instead, an unexpected comfort and a fearful yet daring hope began to fill the void that fluttered in her chest. She gently curled her pale fingers into a fist. She would hold on to this fleeting feeling until it was nothing but dust in her undead heart—and she would stay with Vigdis, for as long as the hunter would let her.
Serana shook her head. She cared too much now; she would never let Vigdis turn her away after everything they had been through. No, she would not leave her side—not now, not ever. She would stand with Vigdis against the world, against fate itself . . .
Even if it killed her.