TITLE: Progression
WORDS: 2,538
COMPLETED: 1/22/21
[R E Q U E S T]

When you really begin to think about it, we were all born to die. Everything was, no matter if it's the minuscule life of a mangy rabbit who only battles throughout life in a desperate fight to survive; or if that life belongs to the vicious predator that is the dragon, with a fire in its soul and the hunt ever present on its mind. Everything concludes. Nothing goes on forever.

Progression is a crucial role in life. Many will claim that time can go on forever, ticking by even when the world is vacant, but that's a false claim. Time is only a manmade concept. Progression, however, is what they're thinking. Progression keeps going, even beyond the inevitable end of everything. Even when the entire planet ceases to exist, all those around it will continue to progress through life as if nothing had ever changed. Progression is the only thing that will never end.

Dashing throughout the plains that covered central Skyrim, the sabercat's legs pumped fast in a desperate attempt to do something that it's never been forced to do before: outrun a predator. Never in this poor sabercat's life had it ever been conceived as prey. But it was intelligent enough to assess that it was being hunted. And its chances for survival were slim to none. Growls were fast to chase the large cat, which was now scampering around like a traumatized kitten.

Not even minutes later, I witnessed the large beast tackle the sabercat, the two of them struggling against the other until one fell motionless. I hadn't even been shocked when the werewolf looked up at me, green eyes gleaming with pride before morphing.

The large body began scaling back, taking the shape of a human. Muscles shrinking down and matted grey fur disappearing back into pale skin. The dog's snout had began pushing back into the skull, shifting from beast to human. Once the ears had disappeared, human hair the color of copper tumbled down and laid over the woman's shoulders. Eventually, the beast had turned back into my Shield-Sister, Aela, who was simply smirking at me.

"Told you I could do it," She spoke with somewhat of a smug expression on her face. She was hardly ever one to boast and brag, but when it came to the close relationship that the two of us shared, competition was a rather regular thing.

"Yeah? I could've done it quicker," I input as she looked exceptionally annoyed at my bold claim. But she only shrugged at me, making her way over to my side.

"Perhaps. But before we prove that fact, we need to offer this beast to Hircine," Aela explained as I nodded, following her lead as the two of us made our way over to the now deceased sabercat.

While, sure, the two of us might be having a competition as to who the strongest was, but we weren't just going to leave these animal corpses laying around for no reason. Instead, the two of us planned to offer these dead monsters to Hircine, who was the Daedric Prince of the Hunt. Hircine was also the prince who loved and claimed those of us who suffered with the lycanthropic condition, which was just a fancy way of explaining that he treasured werewolves and other creatures of the sort.

I watched over Aela carefully as she pulled out a small steel dagger, placing certain cuts in the flesh of the beast before muttering a prayer to Hircine, explaining how she offered this beast to him. I respectfully stood at her back, waiting for her to finish what she was doing.

Once she was done, she looked to me with pride shining in her emerald eyes.

"Since you're a big strong man, then perhaps taking on a giant in this form won't be so difficult for you," She explained to me, sarcasm dripping from her words and amusement dancing in her eyes. I just nodded, knowing that I didn't need to shift into a werewolf in order to kill a giant.

"Sounds easy enough," I retorted, grinning confidently at her before the two of us began walking around the field, away from the sabercat corpse, and in the direction of Rorikstead, in need of a different sector of the plains. The pair of us began walking, hand in hand, around the large plains that covered the center of Skyrim.

Perhaps I should explain the relationship between the two of us. Even though the two of us never really brought it up in order to make it official, we acted as if we were dating. The other Companions in Jorrvaskr treated us like a couple, as well. Vilkas and Farkas poked fun at the two of us for it all the time, which was rather hilarious seeing as it always seemed to make Aela extremely flustered. While the two of us always tend to hold hands and keep close to one another, we've still yet to have ever shared a kiss.

"No ranged weapons, either. Let's see how skilled you really are at melee," She challenged me next as I simply shrugged, accepting it as if it was fine. However, simply the mental image of fighting off a giant with nothing but a couple feet and a steel sword between us did make me rather nervous. Especially since a giant could step on me without really even thinking about it.

After walking through the vast fields, we found ourselves on the outskirts of one of the giant camps. The two of us ducked down behind a log, watching two giants herd a pair of mammoths around the plains and over towards one of the rivers. My heart lurched in my chest as I looked around, not exactly seeing how I was going to get one of them alone.

"There's no way I can single-handedly fight off two giants and two mammoths with only a sword," I explained as she nodded briskly, completely understanding that was true.

"How about this. We tag team it. Each of us is allowed to transform, and we each take one giant and one mammoth," She explained, changing the rules on us. However, I liked those rules quite a bit better.

"Sounds great," I responded as she nodded, the two of us transforming from the distance we were at.

My heart rate sped up, all of my bones burning as I felt them growing larger. My skin stretched as my entire figure grew. My jaw felt sore as my teeth grew into fangs, my skull expanding outwards as the pain became excruciating. A howl of pain left my lungs, which escaped out into the air around me. However, Aela let out the same painful cry from the position next to me. Once we were done morphing, power and invincibility clouded all of our judgement. That was always the most dangerous part of the transformation. While shifting itself might be exceptionally painful, you were almost immediately drunk on power afterwards. You felt as if you could do anything.

After the transformation, I looked over and was met with the familiar green eyes that Aela possessed. I was always thankful that she kept them when she changed, due to the fact that I always found them rather comforting. When she noticed my (E/C) eyes, she seemed to relax as well.

I abruptly turned my head, finding myself staring out at the camp, all the colors vibrant and blurry. However, my vision was focused intently on the giants and mammoths. Aela was the first to take off, sprinting on all fours towards the camp. I was quick to follow after her, finding the two of us making this almost like a race.

I picked up speed, attempting desperately to beat her over to the camp. But, when she'd noticed what I was trying to do, she'd began to run faster. Snarling, I attempted to run faster than her, the two of us running side by side. I'd given her a smug look, but then I felt something heavy smack into my ribs, and I was flung across the section of the field we were in.

I got back to my feet, my eyes quickly finding their way back towards the scene that I'd just been thrown from. Aela let out a howl, finding herself pouncing on one of the giants, scratching and thrashing as I sprinted back towards the scene. The other giant was about to swat Aela off the first giant's back, but I came to put a stop to that. I lunged at him, catching him off balance and resulting in him falling and hitting the ground. I finished him off as quickly as I could manage, noticing that Aela had killed her giant as well. Then we found ourselves left with only the mammoths. And they were not happy with us.

The first mammoth flung its head at the two of us, one of its tusks catching Aela and flinging her far away from us. I gritted my teeth in anger, growling as I quickly ran to one side of the mammoth and climbed up on its back. I began swatting at it, resulting in noises of pain to escape the beast. As I continued to make the creature bleed, Aela jumped up on the same mammoth as me, the two of us working together to take down the monster. With the two of us working in tandem, it didn't take too long for the beast to collapse on the ground. Then we jumped to the second mammoth, doing the same thing and ending its suffering rather quickly.

After everything was deceased, we both morphed back into our human bodies. Gasping for air, I found myself looking over at Aela, who seemed just as exhausted as I was.

"You ass! If you hadn't been trying to race me, than that giant wouldn't have hit you!" She scolded me, dashing over to me and watching me wince when I attempted to move. I definitely broke quite a few ribs from that encounter.

"What about you? Are you alright?" I asked her in a much gentler tone than she had previously been using with me. She just sighed in defeat, rotating her arm and showing me a large bloodied cut on her forearm, which was given to her from the mammoth tusk. I was quick to tear a large strip from my undershirt, wrapping up her cut.

"Shit... We'll need to get you back to Jorrvaskr. And fast..." I murmured before the two of us heard a loud growl. Freezing up, we looked at one another with so much worry, knowing exactly what kind of monster that growl had belonged to. And neither of us were in a stable enough state to deal with it.

A large shadow passed over the two of us, Aela tilting her head back and her eyes widening as I continued to wrap her arm up to stop her bleeding. I fished a couple of health potions out of my bag, giving her one and drinking one of them for myself.

I was quick to pull out my bow after finishing the potion, nocking an arrow, and proceeding to draw the string back to the edge of my lip. I lined up my shot so it would hit the dragon that was flying over us, releasing the string and hearing the dragon howl in pain from the arrow hitting it. Suddenly, the beast was more upset than it previously had been.

The world shook as the creature landed before the two of us, it's scales a light blue and grey color with black and white accents. Its eyes were a pale shade of blue, and as it opened its mouth, it sprayed frost at the two of us.

Turning my attention towards Aela, I watched her pull out her bow as well. I witnessed her bite back the pain shooting through her arm, knowing what she had to do if she didn't want to die. And I found myself admiring her a lot more than I had ever admired anyone.

The two of us struggled and fought against the dragon in our human forms, but due to the fact that there were two of us, we managed to slay the beast much quicker than I had expected us to. As the beast tumbled to the ground, the two of us simply stared at the corpse of the dragon. And we panted, completely out of breath and both of us in immense pain.

"We've got to get back to Jorrvaskr," I muttered to her as she sat next to the dead dragon, carving the symbol of Hircine and reciting another prayer to the Daedric Prince. I carefully placed a hand on her shoulder, knowing the two of us weren't in any condition to have to face anything else.

"I know. We have to do this first, though..." She gently explained to me as I nodded, going back to the other corpses and doing the same thing on the giants and mammoths. After we'd finished sacrificing the deaths to Hircine, we began heading back towards Whiterun.

"Did you make it any worse?" I asked in a concerned tone of voice, looking at her arm and inspecting it rather closely. She looked down at her injury, as well, nodding shamefully. Sure enough, she wasn't wrong. Her drawing her bow back had caused the injury to get worse.

"C'mon. We need to get you help immediately," I explained, my tone getting sharper and far more serious. Just as I began walking the two of us back, she tightly grabbed my forearm with her good arm. I paused, looking back at her with concern.

However, I completely lost my entire train of though when she quickly pushed her lips against mine. I didn't even really need to think twice about it before kissing her back, placing one of my hands against her cheeks. Carefully, we released the kiss and looked at one another with widened eyes.

"After battling a sabercat, two giants, two mammoths, and a dragon, I decided that I wanted to do that before one of the two of us gets killed for being a dumbass..." She whispered softly as I smiled, weakly laughing as she smiled back at me.

"I wasn't about to complain," I assured her weakly, wrapping one of my arms around her as we began limping back towards Whiterun, her helping me stand while I made sure she didn't injure her arm any further.

She placed her head against my shoulder as the two of us walked back, causing me to dreamily smile down at her.

Perhaps the world was ever progressing. Maybe there wasn't anything that any of us could do about it. But that didn't matter. All that mattered was that I had her. And I hoped that as the world progressed, she would be with me through it all. Because, in the end, I've been hopelessly in love with her for as long as I can remember.

I just hoped to be able to watch the world progress with her at my side.