Love and Bounty

Chapter Twenty-One: Family Matters

"He's had it coming for so long," Deeja uttered, the words dripping with venom as she gripped her tankard. "And finally my egg-brother has the sense to give him what he deserves."

Gods, she's cute.

Her scowl eased into an upturned curl of her lips as she told Hrolf of Captain Hargar's recent downfall. Her bitter pleasure in admitting every detail told him everything he needed to know about her and the Captain's history of mutual animosity and abject hatred—and from hearing Deeja's account, it was entirely warranted, from her end.

Ever since Hrolf found Captain Hargar and Deeja bickering back and forth, the former's presence made him uneasy, but things had changed. If Hrolf found the Captain trying to intimidate Deeja again, he couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't beat him into a pulp, at the very least. He should have known that the Captain's hatred could inspire him to leave Deeja for dead, should circumstances allow it to look like an accident. His inability to see it almost cost him a friend.

...aye. Just a friend.

Downing swig after swig of sweetened mead, Deeja babbled on and on about her spats with Captain Hargar, her words bitter but wry as she savored her revenge from the brim of her foamy tankard. All the while, Hrolf lended a faithful ear—that is, until Deeja's ramblings fell silent.

She stared into the yellow booze, the froth within latched to the tankard's sides as if for dear life. The furrows of her scaled face deepened in thought, and her brow wrinkled as her slitted yellow eyes gleamed like sunshine on the sea. Deep in the throes of a staring contest with her drink, she murmured:

"Hrolf?"

"Aye, Deeja?"

She paused, her lips tightening against her face. "Can I... ask you for some of your father's advice?"

"Always," Hrolf said.

A soft smirk broke through her pensive expression, but it vanished as quickly as it had come. Those golden pupils of hers didn't so much as flick away from her beverage.

"What did he have to say about family?"

Hrolf cocked his brow.

"Specifically sibling relationships."

In all affairs other than their regrets and select skills, Hrolf's parents had always been secretive. He had never met any of his grandparents, and come to think of it, he wasn't sure if he had any uncles or aunts to speak of. Whatever wisdom ma and pa might have had on the subject died with them.

A cold pit opened in Hrolf's stomach. Maybe in Sovngarde.

"Nothing I can recall," he said.

Deeja winced. "And your mother?"

Hrolf's brow wrinkled with slight concern. "Much the same."

The Argonian woman, lost in thought, picked up her tankard and gave it a swirl, swishing the frothy fluid as a sigh dribbled from her maw.

"Why do you ask?" Hrolf inquired. "Did Jaree not take the Captain Hargar situation well?"

"It's not that. It's..." Finally, she flicked her gaze to Hrolf. "...about the other one."

Gulum-Ei.

"I don't know what to do," she murmured, chasing the rasp of her voice down with a long swig of mead. "It's eating me alive. I feel like the worst sister in all of Tamriel, letting him go off on his own like that... letting myself believe he's the bad guy because my brother says so..."

Hrolf kept quiet and let Deeja continue.

"Part of me wants to just forget about it, but the rest of me can't. I keep thinking about that look on his face when I last saw him, and I—..."