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"The home of every living thing is the sky."
-Grandfather Kuzja, A Siberian Education

If one was to simply walk into Windhelm with the express purpose of visiting the Palace of Kings...and the King within it...it would be altogether easy to miss the side streets and paths that led to other areas of the grounds. She still considered herself largely new to the capital of Eastmarch, having only had reason to visit The Candlehearth where she stayed, the training grounds where Galmar would grin every time she earned another bruise, and the palace itself where she HAD been sure she’d pledged her loyalty to a man who didn’t want it.

As she wound through paths lined with what appeared to be lifeless dirt, brambles that had once been living vine, and stone archways that were frost-sculpted and wind-carved, she thought about how things were beginning to change. For a long time, Iona had only been concerned with things of immediate importance to herself. Those three places would have been the only places she’d have had a need of knowing. But now she knew of Sadri’s Wares and the hardworking proprietor within, she knew of the Argonian Assemblage and the Beastfolk inside who were desperately trying to carve out a home and a living in the stone of the City of Man, and she knew of the young and dewy-eyed blacksmith’s apprentice who would sharpen the world’s most perfect sword with her own damn teeth if it would only make the head of the Rebel Jarl turn towards her for a second. Just as she was learning more paths and alleys within Windhelm herself, she was learning more about the people within it.

And she was starting to know there was a difference between a man and the symbol a man had to be.

Dovecotes brought back memories of warm summers in High Rock that smelled like heather and seafoam. While the lavender scent of the heather was absent within the high walls of the courtyard, she could still smell the salt of the Sea of Ghosts on the winds, and the visage of the octagonal wattle and daub structure coaxed a pleasant sting within her chest, and she clutched her wool cloak about her shoulders a little tighter against the long-lost memories as she took in a deep breath and quietly padded towards the open door.

She could make out the flutter of white wings within the deep, carved dens that lined the walls even in the dust mote dotted shadows, but her eyes were drawn to the center of the dovecote where he stood cradling one of the round birds and reaching out an outstretched hand to another on a perch above, beckoning the creature with the flick of his wrist. There was a gentleness to the whole scene she would have thought incapable of existing around the stern power of Ulfric Stormcloak, and it was almost dreamlike even as the bird drifted through the single beam of light onto his finger during her approach.

“May I help you, Branded One?” She could tell his voice, while supremely confident as usual, had been lowered for the benefit of the fragile, cooing creatures in his hands. She could just make out the shine of one of his grey eyes flicking towards her in the contrast between light and shadow, and yet his head remained turned into the sun, observing the dove on the tip of his finger.

“Oh...I had assumed we were training today,” she ventured, left hand resting on the hilt of her Skyforge Steel sword as she stepped around into the light so that she could face him. Iona’s vision drifted from his face to his neck where the three scars she’d left just a week prior shone like silvery lines in the sunbeam.

So much had changed with those three lines. Before she’d written them in his flesh, she’d have not felt comfortable approaching him with almost intimacy. Before them, she’d not have stepped into such a scene with him. Things were changing in ways she could not understand as of yet even though she’d unknowingly been the catalyst for them.

As he turned to her, she could make out the smell of steel, mountain sage, and pure cold that seemed to follow him at all times from the woodsy smells of hay and plaster walls. “Even Jarls and Companions need breaks.” It was said through a smile, a fond one, as he looked down into her face. “If it’s all the same to you, we’ll delay it a couple of days.”

It was an invitation to leave him be, and she thought seriously about bowing and backing away, leaving this new Ulfric Stormcloak to something that seemed to be her memory, and yet she stayed, transfixed by everything she thought she knew about the man and everything she was beginning to truly know. “Wouldn’t ‘ave figured you for owning doves, my Jarl.”

A knowing smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Ah, think me more of a falconer than a humble keeper, Unblooded?”

“Not of doves...maybe ravens.” She rocked back and forth a little on the balls of her tiny paws, looking in the direction of several curious purring birds that poked their heads in and out of their nesting boxes.

“Oh, think of me as an Earthbound Shor then?” he teased, voice having a lilt at the beginning and end of each sentence. “Riding majestically throughout history with two greypelts and a pair of ravens at my side?”

Maybe it did sound silly when he pointed out what she had unknowingly assumed. “I suppose that is a little bit of a stereotype, isn’t it?”

A soft chuckle rose from his chest, and he stepped just a pace closer to her. “Falcons require a certain amount of time and consistency I can’t give them right now.” The bird on his outstretched hand became a cloud of feathers and down as it ascended once more into the rafters, its glittering black eyes still observing her from the shadows above while its compatriot remained cuddled into the bend of Ulfric’s arm. “Frostheart Doves are easy and are just as much a part of Eastmarch as I am. Seems fitting then to have them.”

Her attention then turned to the dove that remained with the Outlaw King. It seemed to have no constant shape as it transformed from an oval orb into a feathery gourd when it stretched its neck and wings out for just a second. “What...what’s wrong with this little lad?” she asked, pointing towards a wing she was sure had been favored, unable to be stretched out fully. “Seems a little...puny…”

“You’re one to talk!” He gestured with his free hand to her lack of height after he enjoyed some laughter at her expense. “He’s just small, and one of his wings was probably stepped on by an overzealous sibling or parent...maybe it was stunted within the egg itself...either way, he’ll be fine.” Light moved over the brown of his cloak as he shrugged his shoulders. “Want to hold him?”

It threw her off-guard, her tail flicked about behind her, and her ears turned outwards as her questioning eyes moved from his down to the blob of down now being cradled in his giant hands. “Eh, I’m more of a hunter of doves than a handler, my Jarl…”

“Are you sure? Thought a girl such as yourself would enjoy holding such a small soft thing.”

“Girl?! Don’t you mean “Cat”?” Even as she protested, her hands began wringing themselves nervously, readying themselves to answer his invitation with an action she was totally unsure of. “Don’t want the damn thing thinkin’ I’m hungry or anything…I’m sure he’s not had too many fond encounters with any feline.”

“If he was concerned, he’d have already taken off.” His right hand moved forward and gently pulled her hands into a cupping position. She was reminded of how big everything about him seemed and how small it made her feel…

...but even before his hands carefully began to hand the delicate bundle to her, she was reminded by the fleeting touch how almost gentle he could be.

"Why keep him if he's small and his wing is weak?" she asked him, holding the almost weightless creature carefully in her hands as the Nord nobleman's own lent their confidence to hers.

"Because everything with the will to try to be something more deserves that chance." The Nord’s hands were sooo warm beneath her own, and the tiny purring dove settled right down into her pawpads. There was a strange but not entirely unwelcome glow to the experience, the moment not being unlike the memories she’d found herself facing just before she entered the dovecote.

Why didn’t he take his hands from hers? She took to holding his feathery charge immediately, even lifting her hands up and making all the endearing high pitched sounds any woman would make at such a small thing. She didn’t need him to continue supporting her…

...and yet he did. Maybe it was actually touching her that got him to take real stock of the woman before him. She was out of her cuirass, and he remembered she had but one to her name. Perhaps she’d cleaned and oiled it recently, and that was the reason for the basic hide armor and traveler’s cloak she wore presently.

His nose wrinkled. To call it basic would be a damn compliment. “Where in all nine hells did you get this?” Ulfric asked, one of his hands moving from her own to tug at the ill-tooled leather of one of her shoulder straps.

Iona rolled her eyes and lifted her hands high enough for the Frostheart dove to easily flap its way to a perch above them before she shooed his hold on her away with the back of her fingers. “I’ll have you know twas an improvement to the blood-soaked, oversized Stormcloak uniform I stumbled out of Helgen in!” The Cat dusted off her hands before crossing her arms over her chest and tapping her toes on the cobblestone floor in the manner of all unimpressed women. “I made some of it when I landed in Riverwood and cobbled the rest of it together piecemeal some days and weeks afterwards.”

“Made it?!” It was as though the thought of her fumbling through the process of making armor was distasteful in his mouth. “Did you even kill the creature before you haphazardly carved that cuirass from its HIDE?”

Her mouth hung agape before she found words within it again. “Not all of us have a feckin’ ARMORY at our convenience, you know. Sorry this ain’t exactly high fashion…”

His hand was on her shoulder, turning her into the bisque light of the open door. At first, she kicked back against him slightly like an unruly kit would a parent. “Come with me, seems there is something we can take care of today.”

“Ya insult me and then want me to come with you?!”

“Not every honest observation is an insult.”

“THAT ONE WAS!”

And yet she walked with him through the paths he knew, the ones she was learning. Perhaps that symbolism would fall upon her later. As of right now, she was all fluster and impatience, two to three of her steps having to make up one of his long strides as she puffed out each growl and angry word in the direction of a man who seemed to regard them as either amusing or with a sense of total apathy.

Her voice became a little quieter as they entered the proper streets of Windhelm, crowded with the bustle of a busy day, but she still muttered from time to time some steps behind him as they weaved in and out of the throng around them. She didn’t even notice they were in the Stone Quarter until the heat of Oengul’s forge painted the white of her face in an amber blush. “What are we doing here?” she demanded, exasperated as her Jarl beckoned the aging smithy over to them.

War-Anvil nodded and wiped the soot and sweat from his hands on his leather apron as he approached them, each heavy step striking the drums of Iona’s large ears. “Aye, Jarl, how can I be of service?”

“Do you have anything that can be fitted to her?” Iona was pushed forward by the weight of the Nord’s musclebound forearm across her shoulders, and she felt a hiss-growl itching at the back of her throat. “Damn thing is literally running about the countryside in a carcass.”

“JUST FULL OF COMPLIMENTS AND FLOWERY WORDS TODAY, AREN’T YE?!”

Both men seemed to ignore her, and that made it all the worse. Hermir craned her head out of the doorframe of the shop to see what the fuss was about and almost apologetically met Iona’s embittered gaze with her own. War-Anvil lifted her cloak off of her shoulders, Ulfric’s fingers flicked at the dryrot on her pauldron before tugging on the patched up strap that held it on. She was pretty sure she heard Ulfric make some comment about most of it being “stitched together with all the know-how and craftsmanship of a blind man with a dagger”, but all she was sure of hearing was the angry rush of blood into and out of her own ears.

“I’m pretty sure we can get something together that’s better than what she’s got,” Oengul huffed, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand as he looked at Iona as though he was embarrassed for her. “In fact I’m damn sure we can.”

“Good. Let’s see to it then.” Once more, the Jarl was pushing her in the direction he alone had dictated, this time towards the warm glow within the blacksmith shop.

Her eyes were cold like the air around them as they screwed upwards at him over her shoulder. “I dunno how much you THINK you’re payin’ me fer my services in your ranks, m’lord, but I can’t see fit to BUY new armor if I can’t EAT it, if you get my meanin’, otherwise it’d have been done already.”

His next words rendered all of the ones she’d readied to follow them mute. The large hand on her shoulder moved from gripping her sternly to softly guiding her as it slid down to her middle-back. “You won’t be paying for it, I will. You’ll be no good to yourself much less me if you’re so woefully armored. Consider it part of your pay if your pride cannot bear a gift.”

To Be Continued...

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I will never draw a dovecote again. FUCKING NEVER. This part of the story happens shortly after this comic ---> https://www.furaffinity.net/gallery.....9618/Your-Move .

Traditionally sketched on my abusive sketchpad, greyscaled in ClipStudioPaint