“Well, what do you fancy doing today?” – asked Lena after they delivered the broken White Phial to Nurelion.

“Mzulft” – said Hauk decisively. “There’s that Aetherium shard there, and of course the ruin proper. As well as a few caves nearby – who knows, they could be interesting. And…” – he hesitated. “Let’s take Stenvar with us. The boy looked bored, he could use an outing.”

“Hardly a boy any more” – Lena smiled. “He looks fully grown to me.”

“Still a welp” – Hauk grinned. “And will probably complain about the cold in the caves. He always liked forts as a kid, always running off, and his mother going after him. His mother! She was a fine woman…” Hauk trailed off in memories. “I stayed with them quite a lot.”

“Sounds like you knew his mother really well” – Lena prompted cautiously.

“Yes… Her husband had run off soon after the wedding, gods know what he was thinking – just as the War started. I met her right after that, running a farm on her own.”

“So Stenvar..?”

“Is not mine, I don’t think” – Hauk was looking into the distance. “I think she was already pregnant by her husband. But we’ll never know, I guess. And” – he looked at Lena sternly – “he doesn’t know it, so please refrain from any mentions of me possibly being his father.”

“I think by now he would have guessed!” – Lena exclaimed. “He’s old enough to know how these things work!”

Hauk glared at her.

“I said no. I don’t want it talked about.”

Well, that was final.

…

Lena was walking up to Stenvar’s table at Candlehearth Hall and already heard his well-rehearsed pitch: “If it’s a mercenary you want, then the strongest one is right here… Oh hello” – he recognised her from their brief encounter last time. “All on your own this time? Sorry, I forgot your name.”

“Wolf” – said Lena. “And yes, I do need some backup – planning to explore Dwemer ruins on the Eastern border.”

“Wolf?” – Stenvar swallowed. “So that white-haired fellow last time…”

“Is my brother” – finished Lena. “But he’s not here today. Coming?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world!” – Stenvar was on his feet.

“Your fee” – Lena handed him a purse.

“No, I couldn’t…”

“Yes, you can. Or shall I just drop it off with the innkeep here?”

“Well, that’s a bit excessive… I do owe her money, but not that much…” – Stenvar stashed away the purse. “Let’s go.”

“Hello Stenvar” – Hauk stepped out from behind a column. “Keeping well, I trust?”

“Optio…” – Stenvar did keep his voice down this time. He looked at Lena and Hauk and back at Lena again. “So why do you need me?”

“We had a hard time with Centurions in the last ruin” – Hauk offered. “And we thought it would be fun to meet up. And please just call me Hauk.”

“If I knew you’d be there, I would have never taken the money!” – Stenvar exclaimed with indignation, reaching for the purse.

“Which is why Lena went to see you alone” – Hauk stopped his hand. “Keep it, you will be earning every bit of it, I promise.”

…

Mzulft was a disappointment – it was locked.

“Blasted magical locks!” – Lena cursed putting away Nocturnal’s skeleton key. “We’ll have to see if Farengar in Whiterun has something to open such things. But until then we can’t get in!”

The Stony Creek cave nearby provided a welcome opportunity to blow off some steam. The bandits were clever – they used runes and traps in the narrow passages, and Lena got knocked out a couple of times. But then Stenvar and Hauk coming behind her caused some surprise…

“Oh, this is one nice bow!” – said Lena picking up a bow from the chief. “Wait, this looks familiar… Look Hauk – it has a randomised enchantment! ‘The Edge of Ruin’ it’s called… It was Syl’s. I wonder what it is doing here?”

“Wasn’t it yours at some point? I remember you talking about it” – asked Hauk examining the bow.

“Yes, it was… Or one just like it” – mused Lena. “A lot of things went missing while I was travelling between here, Shivering Isles and the Northern Realms…”

“Shivering Isles and the Northern Realms?” – Stenvar whistled. “And I haven’t even been to Morrowind!”

“You stick with us, and soon you’ll wish you never left Candlehearth Hall” – laughed Hauk.

Leaving the cave and following a dirt road South and into the mountains, they found a camp in front of a wooden door. A mage picked a fight.

“Now why is it never possible to talk to them calmly?” – asked Hauk looking around. “I do hope I just knocked him out rather than killed – he was just a novice!”

“He was told to guard the place” – said Lena. “His self-importance overruled his thinking. Let’s go in.”

Ansilvund looked like a mine, but turned out to be an excavation site of a Nordic crypt. They were greeted by draugr and more mages.

“This is strange” – said Lena looking at draugr wrapped in linen stacked along the walls. “Necromancy?”

“Looks like it” – agreed Hauk.

Stenvar sighed. “I prefer to fight bandits. At least when I kill them, they don’t get up!”

…

It was snowing lightly when they came out. Ansilvund was the crypt of Holgeir and Fjori, now being defiled by Lu’ah al-Skaven in a misguided revenge after her husband fell in the Great War. A woman in grief using the grief of Holgeir to… what, exactly? There is no logic in grief.

They sat at the camp by the entrance, they needed a break. They didn’t speak.

Lena couldn’t help but think of that dagger through Hauk’s heart and her own venture into the Fade after him. Jowan had given a piece of his soul to let her do that… She would never forget it, or the grief she had felt seeing Hauk dead on the ground.

She put her head on Hauk’s shoulder, he pulled her close. She was silently crying. Hauk stroked her hair, letting the tears run.

Stenvar looked up from the fire, raised his eyebrows in a question. “I’ll tell you later” – Hauk mouthed to him. For now they’d just sit there, by the crypt of Holgeir and Fjori, holding each other close.