Second entry by Liz_Danly, and perhaps my favorite of her three stories. All of them are wonderful, but this one... well, you'll see.

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"Not—by the Nine, Jergen, if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, hold it with both hands!"

"But I'll fall over!"

"You're already falling over! Keeping both hands on your weapon and tucking your arms in close to your chest would help you balance. Look, you sister's followed all my instructions, and she's not falling over, is she?"

Jergen's shoulders slumped. "I guess not."

"All right. Now do as I say or you won't be getting your real sword come spring."

Something like fear flashed in the small Nord's eyes and his free hand whirled through the air to slam onto the wooden sword's hilt. Ylva chuckled from where she stood under the porch.

Vilkas heard her unmistakeable laugh, turning. "You two keep practicing. Use the dummies, please, not each other, or there will be Oblivion to pay."

He stalked over to his wife, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her as if they'd been married yesterday and not years ago. Her heart fluttered in her chest.

How did he still do that?

She nodded to the children, now whacking at the straw figures in the yard. "How are they doing?"

Vilkas shrugged, craning his neck to watch them. "They're getting better, but still far from wielding anything made of Skyforge steel. They'll learn."

Ylva smiled, watching Jergen and Embla bicker after their swords had accidentally knocked together. "They're going to replace you and Farkas one day, you know. I swear that they sound exactly like you two when you fight."

Vilkas smirked. "Must be a twin thing." He shook his head. "I don't mind one of them replacing me one day, though I think they both have too much of their mother in them to be entirely like me."

"I wouldn't want either one of them to be entirely like you."

Vilkas pulled back, a slight frown marring his handsome features. "Really?"

Ylva nodded with a smile, looking out at the children. "Could you imagine what life would be like with two of you?"

Vilkas pulled away with a scoff. "Oh, stop it."

"We have enough trouble with just one of you."

"I said knock it off." Though he said it with a smile.

Ylva smiled, taking a sip from the tankard of water she held.

"It's strange." Vilkas was staring blankly out into the yard.

"What is?"

"I remember the first day I was here, the day Jergen took us in." His expression turned wistful, and his lips quirked up. "Now I see my own children growing up in the same place I did, with a family like nothing I'd ever known."

Ylva thoughtfully pursed her lips. "Could you imagine what would've happened had you never met me?"

Vilkas scoffed, chuckling. "Mass pandemonium, for one thing. Boredom, for another."

Ylva raised a brow. "You? Bored?"

Vilkas gave her a look. "It could happen. I'd eventually run out of things to read, given the severe lack of literary material here in Whiterun. And then punching things to death would get boring. Farkas and I might have killed each other just to have some sort of fun if you had never stopped by."

Ylva nudged him with a shoulder. "But I did, so you don't have to think about it too much."

Vilkas turned to her and planted a sweet kiss on her cheek.

"Ew! Mama and Papa are being gross!"

Embla laughed and tackled her brother in a melodramatic attempt to get away from her parents. Jergen pushed her off, and they stumbled to their feet, half-covered in dust.

Vilkas laughed out loud. "That wasn't being gross. This, however—"

And he yanked Ylva to him, knocking the tankard from her hands so that it spilled on the stones below, and firmly planted his mouth on hers, dipping her down low like a court dancer.

Embla and Jergen both exclaimed in shock and disgust, and jointly surrounded their parents as they broke apart, whacking them with their wooden swords. Vilkas and Ylva pulled apart, breathless from the kiss and from laughing.

Eventually, Ylva had rounded them up and gotten them to put their swords down. "Now, you two, inside. Dinner should be soon." She gently butted them with the swords towards the door, and they ran inside, giggling all the way.

She sighed, turning back to her husband with her hands on her hips. "Did you have to do that in front of the children?"

Vilkas shrugged, a mischievous glint in his eye. "They liked it. They just don't know it yet."

Ylva sighed. "I should strangle you."

Vilkas' smile grew, and he tilted her chin up with one hand. With the sun lighting them from behind, their lips met once more.

And from their hiding place behind the door, Embla and Jergen giggled, both separately dreaming of their own future lives.