#and he’s like this is my semiferal wife’

[thirsty-4-ghouls]

Me rambling about my Dragonborn oc while sleep deprived:

Long post

I know what made Embla want to fuck vilkas, but what would make him want her? She is a mage who often uses stealth, but she does have great aim with a bow, which he probably would think is hot. Also she worked her ass off to afford a house the moment she realized she could give that orphan girl she recently met a place to live (I know her name, but it’s probably the sort of vibe impression from outside). That was probably attractive to a guy who went through what he did, if not slightly suspicious of her motives at first (because, again, his history).

I think I remember at one point him having actual canon dialogue about you being a suck up if you ask to help too often but she was genuine in her asking and probably looked like this 🥺 which I don’t think he would have expected if he had assumed she was trying to get brownie points.

She’s just genuinely going around like “after being bullied for years by my peers where I grew up, I’m finally making more friends and following my scholarly dreams! In an incredibly convoluted way” While also feeling like “I’m not used to people being this polite to me in public, it’s sort of suspicious and overwhelming.” She went from , weird kid in a small town who wants to be a mage, in Skyrim, and not having many friends, to people treating her better for multiple reasons. There was a lot of whiplash. She left the farm as an adult woman. She spent YEARS in the community she grew up in before actually leaving to try the college of winterhold and then getting wrapped up in the whole Dragonborn thing on her way there, after being arrested! For unspecified reasons.

And at some point, surprisingly quickly, she went from talking to vilkas and being like “I mean, he’s not the hardest on the eyes but he seems like an asshole” to thinking “oh shit. I actually think he’s kinda funny and not as bad as I first thought. Also, am I attracted to him?!”

I know that with that game it’s just “complete the quest line and wear the amulet of Mara and they’ll marry you” but I like to role play, really flesh out stuff where I was given a blank spot, and I like to pick apart what would actually make these characters act that way with her. I’m doing my best to get into their vague brains but I’m not sure I’m good at it.

And I mean, she didn’t even let them know she was also a mage until she had to heal someone and was like “that’s my job” which was admittedly very early in the quest line and it probably wasn’t too hard to learn about the Dragonborn being a mage, but she still didn’t actually mention it until they were in the trenches and someone was down. It was the first time they brought her anywhere so it’s not like she hid it very long, but she still didn’t explicitly mention it before that.

It wasn’t a secret, but she doesn’t always go around telling everyone given her history. If she thinks you might be a jerk about it she just doesn’t say anything, but she’s very bad at not using magic, especially when someone is injured. She’d be crawling in her skin if she left a follower injured for too long.

And when she did reveal it it was to heal his brother, so who knows what impression he got from the second hand information.

She was totally prepared for them to be disappointed in her using magic AND weapons, but then they were the opposite (canon dialogue and all that) and she was left thinking “huh? You guys aren’t, actually never mind!” Her headcanon/canon to me reason for joining the companions wasn’t even something along the lines of “I want to be an honorable warrior!” She didn’t say anything but her real reason was “these seem like the least shady people to learn how to do physical combat from around here. Probably least likely to just shoot me for asking!” She, again, has not had the best history with warrior types before the game started.

Also it kinda turned out that for a fighter vilkas was apparently (according to the game lore) sort of nerdy I guess and she thinks that’s hot. Which made me picture him watching her talk about magic theory and practice and being like “she’s sort of attractive right now” because that would be funny and interesting for their story.

I’m also imagining her talking about some quest she went on and him being like “holy shit” because her story is crazy but probably true. She’s like “and then I started arguing with a deadric prince because I thought their idea was honestly kind of terrible” and he’s feeling twenty different emotions, one of which might be attraction.

Sometimes I think about how he lashed out at her when she came back and they had been attacked without her, and how she was like “this cuts, but I know what makes him feel like that. I know what wanting someone to blame is like.” And then he was like “I’m going to go fight the entire base with or without you, but I’ll judge you if you don’t come with.” And she was like “Akatosh’s scaly balls, you’re going to get yourself killed! We’re talking about this later, but I’m going with. No, it’s not because I think I need to redeem myself for being gone because I was asked to do something, I’m going with because you’d fucking die without backup if you charge in alone in this state.” And afterwards he was like “I’m sorry, what I said and did was shameful” and she was like “I mean yeah, for sure, and it was hurtful and uncalled for, but I do understand where you were coming from, even if I didn’t agree. I’m honestly happy you took the time to yell at me about going with because otherwise you’d probably be dead right now 🤨” she waves her hand and continues “also who hasn’t snapped at least once about revenge? I mean, when I did it I didn’t misdirect my anger on a friend, but people do dumb stuff when emotional.” And I know that that isn’t exactly how canon goes, but it’s how Embla did and there’s not really anything that suggests it wouldn’t go like this.

“Are you saying you thought I couldn’t do it?” “Look back at it now, think about the state you were in and how you carried it out, do you? 🤨” she stared out trying to convey empathy and stuff and now it’s a discussion about how dumb the idea was 😆 he gets to call her plan stupid when she says she wants to fist fight miraak for being annoying. It’s fair. Even though she probably wouldn’t actually fist fight miraak. Probably. If he saw some of the stuff she actually did pull off though… we don’t talk about those things.

Also that post i read years ago where someone said he would probably respect the amount of work that goes into becoming a mage, even if he doesn’t agree with it. and I absorbed that into my headcanon as how he would feel about her a while into this quest line.

They both have braincells, but somehow she has the impulse control, which is impressive considering it’s her.

They probably share impulse control but she gets it most of the time when it comes to fights, let’s be real. He’s out there trying to stop her from eating a new plant just to see what it does. Her mage friends let her do it >:( when the other needs to step in she’s out there climbing on roofs to get a better view or he’s charging into fights impulsively.