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Skyrim: A World I Need To Know
Seeing my reflection in your eyes was the first time I liked what I saw...He’d waited until the close of day when all chores were done, when the Caravan was outside the small hamlet, entertaining guests and customers, when the only thing keeping her from saying “yes” would be her own will. The old growth fir trees were turning black and violet against the pinks and oranges of sunset, and he’d approached her on the dusty road as she’d left the main focus of the trade and entertainment milling behind her.
“Iona,” the Nord began, dipping his head a little so that the much smaller woman would meet his gaze, “I wondered if you’d take a walk with me?”
She tilted her head, oversized ears flopping slightly with the movement, and he smiled wider at her. “Sure...something on your mind?”
He turned, gesturing towards the edge of the wood, bowing as was in his gentlemanly nature to do when in a woman’s presence. “You could say that,” he answered, a lilt of excitement in his voice. “There’s something I’d like you to see.”
Once more, he was guiding her through his memories, through one so warm and pure it was one he’d wrap himself in when times got to be too much as a child, as a young man, hells...even now. The scents of evergreens, the beginnings of dew, and loamy soil surrounded them in the old growth forest, and he took every opportunity he could to help her over a log or up a rise.
When, Iona? When did even touching your hand become something I looked forward to?
It was just friendship. That’s what he’d been telling himself over the past few days, and when he looked at it with a critical eye, it was stupid.
When’s the last time you happily pulled a friend into your bedroll, boy? Never.
He could discern fact from fiction later. For now, he wanted to just enjoy sharing something with her, with someone he cared for and trusted enough to allow into just a soft, simple thing that meant so much to him.
“Ulfric…”
Moonlight turned the open thicket ahead into a waving field of silver and white save for the sea-green glow of dozens of luna moths. The Cat barely had to duck under his arm as he lifted a heavy bough from one of the huge trees lining the clearing so that she could step into it. The ethereal creatures were everywhere around them, so many they looked like slowly floating stars in a sky of their own making.
“I’ve...I’ve never seen so many all at once,” Iona gasped, lost in wonder. “How?...how’d you know they’d be here?”
Crossing his arms behind his back, he closed the distance between them, a grin tugging at his face though he tried to mask some of the childish joy he felt. “They only live for a precious few days, you know. Don’t even eat. Places like this are safe for them to find mates and lay their eggs.”
“It’s like a dance,” Iona added, backing into him almost clumsily, and he was all too happy to reach out and steady her, to hold her really. “They’re all here to just...enjoy what time they have, I suppose.”
“Aye,” he chuckled, bringing her to the grass with him so that they could sit in the small open expanse. “My parents showed me this place on a rare family holiday of sorts...I was probably around eight winters old...even Galmar came. One of the few times we all got along.”
She detected the sadness in his voice, and it made her wonder. She’d learned so very little about his childhood, and what she had learned seemed to be love laced with copious amounts of pain. Shifting closer, she leaned against him slightly, feeling the need to not leave him alone even by mere inches.
“You keep sharing Windhelm’s treasures with me, Gentle Bear,” she remarked faintly. “I’m afraid I have nothing to give you in return.” Her chin lifted towards his face, and he saw the cosmos above captured in her large, trusting eyes.
“On the contrary, you’ve given me so very much, Kitten.”
It was a feeling, fleeting, but a thing he wanted to hold onto. A brave, dumb hope, and it seemed both to come out of nowhere and to have always been there at the same time. His eyes became sleepy and half-lidded, and he leaned more into her shoulder, his long hair flowing into the rivers of black draped over her own shoulder. He felt himself both smile and begin to slightly open his lips as he drew closer…
...and she laughed at him, innocent and beautiful, jarring him somehow wonderfully out of whatever trance he’d been in. “What’s so funny?” he asked before he caught the faint green glow above his own head.
“Stay still,” his friend giggled, and he obeyed, amused, as she slowly rose up beside him, leaning onto his shoulder, pressed against him. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt him.”
She was motionless for a moment before carefully returning to her place beside him, huge luna moth perched on her tiny white hand. “Apparently he thought he’d find himself a lovely wife atop your head.”
“Ah, yes,” Ulfric sighed, leaning forward over his legs, watching her look at her newfound friend in barely restrained glee. “They’re gentle, trusting creatures. They’ll use you as nothing but a perch if you sit still long enough.”
“Can...can we do that?” she asked, still spellbound by the magical thing on her wrist, its six feathery little legs lifting and moving around, tickling her as it changed position.
“I don’t see why not.”
“I bet they’ll like me more than you,” she ground out through a mischievous grin, another moth already landing on her shoulder.
“It’s a race then.”
She ended up with the most on her, the strange insects seeming to delight in walking around on her soft pelt that they rendered meadow-green with their innate glow. Once more, as he looked at her, he knew she’d somehow made one of his favorite memories better.
What other woman will ever do that for me? I shouldn’t think like this.
It was late when they began to weave back through the forest towards the road, Ulfric relying more on Iona’s natural night vision than the lights from Shor’s Hall above to keep him from tripping into her.
Though...falling on top of her wasn’t such a bad idea…
He nearly ran into her when she stopped in one of the thickets they’d strode through on their way to his memory. He could feel her tail swish against his legs of his pants, and he wondered if, now that they weren’t moving forward anymore...was he too close?
“It’s strange...worlds within worlds, isn’t it?” The thicket in front of them moved with life. The lazy, glowing trails of torchbugs and luna moths alike created undulating swirls in front of them, illuminating the trunks of trees and the petals of bachelor’s button. “All my days, I’ve felt so very small in a world so very large.” The words were soft...so soft he barely caught them. “This land I’ve never been to...Skyrim...it’s so vast...so harsh...and yet there’s this.” As she turned to him, she gestured to the quiet beauty around them. “I keep finding pockets of small bits of serenity...peace...that make me question what I think I see...what I think I know.”
For a man so large, he moved quietly. His eyes were cloud blue in the starlight, and she could feel his hair falling closely to her face, trapping her breath and his between the two of them. “Maybe conflicting things can exist side by side of each other,” Ulfric offered, his voice a low rumble. “Maybe separating them does each one a disservice. There is no day without night, no spring without winter…”
“No soft, gentle Ulfric without the intimidating Jarl, the KingSlayer?” she asked, clever eyes glittering as they looked into his own.
The large hands were so careful, so tender, in how they held her face, how they ran sword-worn fingers through her hair. A Master of Words, he’d stolen hers from her...as was his habit. “A man is many things, Iona, as is a woman. Think you are not a riddle to me, girl?” The backs of his fingers stroked over each fluttering breath in her throat as he moved more of her unruly black mane off of her shoulder. “A woman is a collection of conflicts to any man who finds himself interested in her.”
Her hands were mirroring his own, sliding up the wool-covered muscle of his ribcage, his chest, to his face and hair. The hypnotic dance of the moths and torchbugs circled closer, it seemed, and all the inhibitions that kept them apart in the larger world left the smaller one they found themselves in, there being no space for such things.
“Find me...someone so very common...interesting...Ulfric...?”
He leaned in closer, finding the courage he’d had but a fleeting grasp of just moments before. “Aye...very… and I’d like to kiss you, Iona.”
Redo of this older piece https://www.furaffinity.net/view/29765653/ and happens during the same time as these pieces https://www.furaffinity.net/view/25985758/ https://www.furaffinity.net/view/38133494/ .
Done in Clip Studio Paint.
Category Artwork (Digital) / Fanart
Species Unspecified / Any
Gender Multiple characters
Size 960 x 1280px
File Size 201.7 kB
Listed in Folders
Woah, so flippin' stunning and gorgeous! o3o <3 <3 <3
Happy New Year, dear!
May the inspiration and drawing mojo never leave you, always shine bright with ideas and creative ways to portray them! :3
Happy New Year, dear!
May the inspiration and drawing mojo never leave you, always shine bright with ideas and creative ways to portray them! :3
Thank you so much! I'm so appreciative of your support of my work.
You're welcome, dear!
Thank YOU for bringing us the joy and beauty of your artwork! ^w^ b <3
Thank YOU for bringing us the joy and beauty of your artwork! ^w^ b <3
I LOVED IT. Pulled some personal strings of my soul.
Really like how you made fur and glow effects.
Oh. Mind telling what was the hardest part of drawing this?
Really like how you made fur and glow effects.
Oh. Mind telling what was the hardest part of drawing this?
Honestly? The shading of the characters. I'm trying to get better with light sources and contrast, plus night environments mute colors, so you have to strike a balance between sticking true to the environment and still making the characters look right colorwise.
Today I learned that there is a flower called a Bachelor's Button! I also learned they they were found in King Tutankhamen's tomb!
Your writing is so beautiful. If you wrote a novel full of nothing but hardcore porn I'd still buy it just to read your prose. I'd be blushing furiously, but I'd read every word.
I adore the line, "A woman is a collection of conflicts to any man who finds himself interested in her." I love how you avoid the stereotype of, "Man bad and barbaric, woman make man nice". In your take, both Iona and Ulfric have a lot to teach one another. The best couples are the ones where each person is made greater by the presence of the other. Thank you for this :)
Your writing is so beautiful. If you wrote a novel full of nothing but hardcore porn I'd still buy it just to read your prose. I'd be blushing furiously, but I'd read every word.
I adore the line, "A woman is a collection of conflicts to any man who finds himself interested in her." I love how you avoid the stereotype of, "Man bad and barbaric, woman make man nice". In your take, both Iona and Ulfric have a lot to teach one another. The best couples are the ones where each person is made greater by the presence of the other. Thank you for this :)
*blushes* it means so much to me that you like my writing! I really do enjoy doing it!
And yeah, I like characters who are kinda multifaceted. And canonically, Ulfric is both a warrior and a scholar, and arguably, a philosopher. He's def' got more going on than being a berserker going on.
And yeah, I like characters who are kinda multifaceted. And canonically, Ulfric is both a warrior and a scholar, and arguably, a philosopher. He's def' got more going on than being a berserker going on.
Gaaaaah! Just when I thought I was ready to take a break from elder scrolls you draw me back in! Damn you!
There is no such thing AS A BREAK FROM ELDER SCROLLS!!!
Well that's amazingly gorgeous and lovely.
Great way to ring in a new year.
Great way to ring in a new year.
Having a little trouble seein' just now...
Reading those silly-@$$ tags, though... THERES A GUY MAKIN VESTS OUT OF NORD WOMEN... I didn't think that many people remembered Ed Gein.
Reading those silly-@$$ tags, though... THERES A GUY MAKIN VESTS OUT OF NORD WOMEN... I didn't think that many people remembered Ed Gein.
I love studying serial killers and abnormal psychology in general, so yeah lol I noticed the correlation between Ed Gein and the Windhelm Ripper lol.
Awww, thank you, Alu. Your friendship and support mean so much to me.
So pretty!!!! And the story reminds me of when I got to see actual lunar flowers bloom at night. There were so many flowers and fireflies that I thought I was in a different world!!! Stunning!
Muuuuuch better contrast here, and good colored lighting. I also see you are getting a lot more comfortable with digital. Good job!
I REDID THE SHADING SO MANY TIMES BECAUSE I'D LOOK AT IT AND BE LIKE "MR. RUGGELS WOULD KNOW I COULD TRY HARDER THAN THIS!" So I'm glad I got a little better lol! Thank you so much!
Well of course! It's up to me to be picky and skeptical, But you did good.
This looks great, but I MUST commend you on your writing. One thing I've always loved about your works are the wonderful stories you include with them. You're especially deft at character interactions- I can definitely feel the history between your characters in just a few paragraphs. I really love reading them.
Awww I'm honored you like my doodles and my drabbles lol! I try, really I do.
Oh wow, the lighting of this is super awesome, they look so amazing together! gorgeous work as always
thank you! I'm glad you like them. The lighting was sooo hard.
I like the art and all, but you do know that “dork” means (another word for private part here)
Well, I lost my other account due to hackers. Just great. At least they can’t take away the art.
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