Initiation
The prey had no idea it was being watched.
She inhaled sharply, drawing back her bowstring as she aimed, carefully, for the prowling bear down below. One wrong move and it would see her, sitting on a tree branch above it, and it would likely knock her down and maul her within seconds.
Telaendril smirked. As if it would have the chance.
She let her arrow fly, and it struck true, right through the bear's left eye. It let out a mighty roar that startled the birds from a nearby tree, but it could do little more than that before it succumbed to its wound.
Smiling proudly, Telaendril swung down from her branch to retrieve her arrow from the bear's skull. She'd have to clean and sharpen it tonight, as she only had a limited supply of arrows to hunt with. Heavens forbid Father would ever buy her a new quiver full.
Her father was wealthy enough to afford it, surely. The Bosmer has built himself a very well-off business from selling fine-looking clothes to those who could afford them. Ironically, he wouldn't have been able to afford one of his own garments when he first started – but now that he had earned his Septims, he acted as though he was part of nobility. A large home in Elden Root, dinner parties with his associates every week, the finest ales on every shelf; her father had embraced wealth to the fullest.
Unfortunately, this meant Telaendril was supposed to act the part as well – dress up nicely, learn table manners, all the nonsense. Telaendril didn't have much patience for nonsense.
What she loved most was hunting. The thrill of stalking prey, with all the dangers that came with it, that was what made her feel alive. A stark contrast to being a lady, in any case.
Luckily, Valenwood had no shortage of woods, and Telaendril often found herself wandering the forests not far from the city she was forced to call home. There were always plenty of things roaming around, just waiting to be pierced by one of her arrows. She wished she could take her kills home, to eat their meat, make clothes from their fur and mount their skulls on her walls, as the Green Pact dictated. But her father would surely throw the carcasses out of the house the minute she brought them with her – and her along with them. As much as she disliked it, she could not afford to be kicked of the ridiculously large house the two of them shared, no matter how much she wanted to leave. She simply had no place else to go.
Soon, though. She had been saving up every Septim she'd come across the past few years, and it wouldn't be long before she could finally set out and be her own person. Perhaps she'd open up a shop, sell the meat of the creatures she killed. The thought made her grin as she swung her bow over her shoulder and began the short hike back to Elden Root.
She could tell by the sun low on the horizon that she was late, and she cursed. The woods provided shelter from the bright summer rays, and she'd lost herself hunting. If she wasn't back home by the time the sun set, her father would have a fit. The old man was already cross enough with her as it was, with her refusing to be the perfect delicate doll he wanted her to be. She'd have to placate him tonight, lest she fancied staying in the woods permanently.
Not that she was happy about it, mind you. Her father was throwing another one of his ridiculous dinner parties tonight, and Telaendril had been mandated to attend. Usually her father didn't want her within sight of any of his clients, so Telaendril knew he was planning something. She hadn't been able to deduce what it was just yet, but she was certain she wouldn't like it.
So she'd come to the woods at noon to shoot away her frustrations, hoping it would help her calm down enough for the upcoming dinner. It had helped, to some extent – but now she'd have to hightail it back to the city if she even wanted to make it back in time. Ironically, the thought was enough to make her glower again.
Regardless, she sighed in resignation, she had little choice, and so she begrudgingly set for home at jogging pace.
Telaendril was furious.
No, scratch that, she was beyond furious. She was so angry the cutlery in her clenched fists shook, making a rattling sound against the porcelain plate full of untouched food in front of her. How dare he? How dare he?!
When she had returned not fifteen minutes before the guests were due to arrive, her father had immediately seen her bathed and clothed by one of the servants he employed. When she entered the dining chamber, a meagre half an hour late, she'd found not only the couple whose patronage made up around a quarter of her father's profits, but also their youngest son, Sildor.
Sildor was a squat, sorry excuse for a Bosmer with beady little eyes and the intellect of a goblin. He was also rich, which apparently made up for his complete lack of personality according to just about every unwed girl in town. Worst of all, he was sitting across from her at the dinner table at that very moment, which could only mean one thing.
Father was trying to marry her off.
And to this oaf, too. Sildor had been ignoring her as pointedly as she had been ignoring him, and despite her unwillingness to have anything to do with the idiot, his utter lack of interest was wounding her pride. She was pretty, damn it, and articulate, and good with a bow. Any man with eyes in his head should be all over her, especially in the ridiculously frilly dress Father had forced her to wear. Yet Sildor made a point of only addressing her father whenever he spoke in that stupidly slow voice of his, despite Father's plentiful attempts to draw her into the conversation. As she watched the two of them converse, Telaendril had a hard time deciding who she despised more.
To stop her hands from shaking, she took to viciously stabbing the piece of veal on her plate with her knife, imagining first Father and then Sildor in place of the piece of meat, blood running from their eyes like blood had ran from the eye of the bear she'd shot that afternoon. Despite everything, the mental image made her smile.
Her father's sincerely insincere comment about how lovely she looked when she wasn't scowling was enough to wipe it from her face, however.
The evening dragged by impossibly slowly, but Telaendril got through it – would have gotten through it, had she not overheard that vile, stupid, arrogant arse say the following words: "Our children would look terribly caballine, Mother."
He hadn't made the slightest effort to lower his voice, and when he flashed a polite smile in her direction, Telaendril realised he thought she did not know what caballine meant. And that was a much worse insult than the one he had spoken aloud.
"Do you take me for an idiot?" she asked mildly, her rage having reached the point where she felt deliriously calm.
That startled the entire table into silence immediately.
It took Sildor a while before he found his voice. "I– I beg your pardon?"
"Do. You. Take. Me. For. An. Idiot?"
His mouth opened and then closed again without a sound coming out, his eyes shifting from her utterly relaxed face to the knife she was holding in her clenched fist. Telaendril looked at her knife, too, and serenely thought what a service she could do the Nirn if she would just stick the blade in his crotch.
And she did.
Afterwards, everything became a blur; there was blood, and screaming, and crying, and someone tried to hit her but she was still holding her knife and they did not get very far.
In the end, though, Telaendril was running, her blood-stained dress torn to bits, her bow slung hastily over her shoulder, the purse with her savings jingling merrily at her hip. She did not stop until she had crossed the border into Cyrodiil.
Pell's Gate was a lovely, tiny, inconspicuous village just south of the Imperial City. In its inn, Telaendril found refuge, and all she had to do in return for her room and board was a little hunting in the nearby forest. Besides the fact that the dull, quiet life in the small town was slowly but certainly driving her mad, the arrangement was ideal.
It had been almost a month since she had been forced to flee Valenwood. She knew that her actions hadn't been severe enough to warrant an order for her arrest across the border, but she also knew that the gold in her father's pocket was enough to ensure her demise if he chose to flaunt it. So she would stay in Pell's Gate and lay low for a while, let the whole thing blow over. Three months, she'd thought to be acceptable, and then she would be off to one of the larger cities to try and make a living for herself.
Coincidentally, she'd already changed her name. When the innkeeper had asked for it, she'd called herself Telwen – she'd already spoken the 'Tel' before she thought she oughtn't use her true name, and the subsequent stutter made it evident that she wasn't being entirely honest. But the innkeeper was kind, and didn't comment on her obvious alias. For that, Telaendril was grateful. With her new identity and a small measure of luck, she would be able to live out the rest of her life in relative peace.
Luck, however, was not with her.
He came on a Sundas, not a week before the date she had set to leave the village and head for Chorrol. She had travelled deep into the woods in search of game, wanting to bring back as much meat for the people of Pell's Gate as she could as a way to thank them for their hospitality when she needed it most. The sun was already starting to set, but Telaendril was a skilled archer, and she would be able to make good use of these last minutes of daylight.
She almost shot him, when he appeared nearly soundlessly behind her, his black robe blending in with the approaching darkness so well she wasn't even sure if he was there, at first. Not until he spoke, to her horror, her name. "Telaendril."
She balked, keeping her arrow nocked just in case. "I'm sorry, you must have me mistaken for someone else," she told him as calmly as she could, though she could not fully suppress the tremor in her voice.
"Oh, but I haven't," was his response. "You may call yourself Telwen, child, but that does not mean I will not take your life."
Her blood froze. Of course he was an assassin; she should have been able to tell from his attire alone. But who had sent him? She'd suspect Sildor, but she knew he would never have enough courage to contact a hired killer. His parents, perhaps, or... or her father. Of course.
She drew back her bowstring, aiming the arrow at the assassin's heart, and asked the dreadful question. "Did my father send you?"
He smiled. "Yes."
She let her arrow fly, then, and without waiting to see if it had struck true, she ran. If it was the last thing she did, which seemed uncomfortably likely at this point, she would take her father down with her.
Had she looked back, she would have seen that her arrow had missed, and that her would-be assassin was making no attempt to follow her. He stood, twirling the wasted arrow in his long, slender fingers, and smirked. "Let us see if you have the guile to hunt larger prey, Telaendril."
For once in her life, Telaendril was glad her father's name was known across Tamriel. She only had to ask a passing Imperial Guard, who was happy to tell her that the famous merchant was staying at The Tiber Septim Hotel, right in Talos Plaza District of the Imperial City. The grin he wore as he spoke of her father made her want to punch him in the face, but she suppressed the urge and thanked him for his help. She couldn't afford to be taken to the Imperial Prison now; she had to find her father and end his miserable existence.
The darkness had completely set by the time she located the Hotel, but Telaendril waited until night had truly fallen before making her move. She spent most of her time observing the route of the guard's patrol; they were ridiculously easy to spot now that they had lit their torches, and Telaendril soon figured out she would have a margin of opportunity spanning three minutes. Too easy.
She waited patiently until the guard was out of sight, and then began to scale the building. Telaendril was an exceptionally skilled climber; she could clamber up even the smoothest of trees, and this particular building had so many weathered spots for her to place her hands and feet it couldn't even be called a challenge. She was up to the second floor in an instant, the open window swiftly reached. If only her father hadn't taken up the habit of sleeping with his window open, he might have lived a while longer yet.
She swung herself inside, landing hard on top of the ridiculously large wooden desk the Hotel provided its patrons. The sound was enough to startle him awake, sending him tumbling to the floor in a mess of blankets and flailing limbs. Telaendril was on him in a second, pinning his arms to the floor with remarkable ease. Before he could even think to react, she had snatched an arrow from her quiver and drove it straight through his right hand.
His scream was muffled by the blanket that still covered his face. She waited patiently, a ghost of a smile on her lips, for him to stop struggling. When he did, she took another arrow and used it to pin his other hand to the floor.
Someone must have heard him that time, she thought ruefully as he let out an unearthly wail. She'd have to wrap it up quickly, lest she be discovered.
Telaendril leaned in close, putting her lips to his ear. "You really shouldn't leave the window open at night, Father. You never know what vermin may enter though it."
He made a sound that might have been her name, but Telaendril couldn't quite hear him over the noise of her own heartbeat pulsating in her ears. There could be knocking at the door, too, but she didn't wait to find out. She stood, drew her bow, nocked a third arrow, and buried it into his skull.
Telaendril jumped out the window and ran.
She had gone to sleep somewhere deep in the woods, the drying blood still sticky against her skin. When she woke, he was there again, his dark appearance this time a sharp contrast with the daylight flitting through the canopy of trees. Telaendril sat quietly, strangely at peace with her inevitable fate, and waited for him to strike. Instead, he lowered his hood, and smiled.
"You sleep rather soundly, for a murderer."
A/N: I love Telaendril. She's always the first person I go to after completing a contract and the first one I ask for advice when given a new one. If she's not at the Sanctuary, I wait for her to come back. I thought her story of joining the Brotherhood was brilliant, so I wanted to flesh it out a little more. I always wondered about the 'deeds she did not care to discuss' that got her banished from Valenwood. I was also curious exactly how she'd escaped from Lucien (because, you know, he's Lucien), and I came to the conclusion that he must have let her go voluntarily to see if she was Brotherhood material. Ergo, my version of Telaendril's initiation into the Brotherhood. Thank you very much for reading; any feedback is much appreciated!