Skyrim One-Shots

Ulfric x Reader(Female) ~The Stormblade~

Ulfric would be lying if he said he wasn't pining for her attention in the subtlest ways.

A simple grasp of her shoulder to add something before she went off on a mission. Having her across or next to him during councils or lunch or dinner. Giving her a little more leeway on her uniform, though she never trespassed the rules in a first place. He supposed he was looking too hard and too long- thinking too much about it. It was the same damn uniform as Galmar and all the other generals had. Her hair was always slicked back firmly away from her face without a single strand touching it (she had strict hair regulations for herself being in the army and all Ulfric supposed) and never once had he caught her off guard and never once had she missed a salute or fucked up a title. She was perfect at what she did.

She was perfect at being professional. Every single other general let loose often, drank a bit at gatherings, the like. She never did. She blended in so well and was so skilled at keeping herself out of her work it was impressive. And yet, it aggravated him to no means.

Never once had he heard about her own life. Never once had he heard her speaking, even on question, about what she did while she wasn't deployed. She went somewhere, obviously, but no one knew where. Fuck, he had sent a courier after her once when she left and the kid lost her after three minutes. Those runners are just about the best trackers you can get, and they lost her in minutes.

Ulfric did not know her name. She was only General Stormblade or Stormblade or Stormy. That was it. When she joined, she was her title. She was Unblooded, or she was Ice-Veins. He felt like he knew everything about her but in reality, he knew nothing, and she was a master at directing attention off of herself. She was a master of hiding her own personality, her own life. No one knew anything about her other than she being the Stormblade and following every single rule to a spec of dust. 

She was the definition of unreachable and unreadable. She was the only person who Ulfric could not, for the life of him, figure out. He didn't know her motives. He didn't know her name, for the love of Talos, and he was infatuated with the idea of her.

Infatuated. What an awful word. It was shallow and fleeting, but Ulfric had been obsessing over her for the past year. He was much more than infatuated with her at this point but he didn't want to give a name to something he didn't want to think about. Sure, she held no ring of marriage on her fingers, but he wouldn't put it past her to slip it into a pocket or a necklace and hide it under her armor.

He could afford to lose her, he knew that. As a jarl, he could afford to let her go. But really, the very thought of letting her go made him feel like he'd just gotten a load of cowshit smacked dead in his face.

So, the fact that he had just won the war and now had to discharge her was just about the last thing he wanted to do. His victory was washed over by the impending dread of having to go to her inn room just across from his and tell her the simple words. A simple goodbye. A simple break, maybe.

Putting it like that only made it worse. It made Ulfric feel utterly childish.

She made it impossible for any bonds to form, and yet, one had. He was not able to express it, nor act on it, but dammit, he wasn't descending into madness. She knew what she was doing, and he just was the only person who could see it. 

He couldn't talk to her like he could Galmar, he couldn't just talk to pass the time. He couldn't be that informal. She would out-class him and he would look like a drunk fool. He had to be strictly professional with someone he wanted to be more than friendly with. 

Sitting on his rented bed with his elbows resting on his knees and his face covered with his hands, an amulet of Talos hanging mockingly on his neck, Ulfric was ready to scream in frustration. He had shed of his normal robes (he hated them) and into a tunic and trousers tucked neatly into his boots that reached his mid-calf; he didn't look like a jarl should. He looked like a farmer, maybe a lumberman.