as ice entombs lakes (elder scrolls online | freiwen/maxten)

[fiachairecht]

as ice entombs lakes. elder scrolls online, freiwen/maxten. freiwen does her own hair now. 300w, rated t. for kartaylir in battleshipex 2021.

Angst, triple drabble.

Title from the in-game book Frelytte and Pular: A Love Song

Freiwen does her own hair now.

She pins it back with fingers grown numb with warmth, sweeps it across her forehead and tucks it safely behind her ears. No more hiding, for a newly restored Jarl's daughter. No more shrinking from freedom.

Five years ago her hair had snapped off, newly brittle, and her head felt weightless. All of her did, then. The wind through her chilled body could never match Maxten's hands inside her, and she had thought: perhaps this is for the best. Perhaps I should shed my hair, my life, and I'll be—

Free. 

She's beginning to think that nothing is really freedom.

Five years ago Maxten had braided her hair, tied in bits of runestone and shells and her fingers had never slipped, had never felt clumsy. They were cold, but cold with magic, protection, and the spells she had woven into Freiwen's hair had felt like the only shield she would ever need.

Freiwen has no talent for magic. She considers her braids in the mirror, and she can see, maybe, if the light hits the glass just so, the echo of Maxten's hand in the twists.

But Maxten's hands will never sink into these braids. Her fingers will never twine through them so her nails scrape gently across Freiwen's scalp. She'll never pull them eagerly when Freiwen kneels between her legs, rough and perfect and always just enough to get Freiwen to pull back and laugh up at her, eyes and mouth shining.

Freiwen wears her only magic around her neck now, the amulet that Old Mjolen uses to tether her to the world of the living. She knows no spells to bring Maxten's hands, cold and bloodstained, back to her.

She does her hair anyway. She couldn't face herself if she didn't try.