About the Author: I'm a programmer, writer, and quality analyst for the medical field. I've been writing off and on for a long, long time, likely longer than some of my readers have been alive. The past five or so years haven't given me a wealth of time to keep writing, with school and work, but I've been steadily getting back into things.
About Cheyla: Cheyla is probably my favorite character right now, and it's hard to say why. She's not really that strong; she's not talented; she talks kind of funny and swears a lot; and she isn't the best at getting along with even good people. But, all-in-all, I feel like she's the most human character I've ever made.
She was also made for RP'ing, so if you want to join Cheyla and Hauch's adventures sometime, you can join her at The New Cornerclub, my TES RP site. The link is just thenewcornerclub dot com.
Synopsis: Cheyla has always been a brash girl, quicker to curse you out than read you poetry. But Cheyla is known for a lot more than her temper. She's known for battles both long and quick; for saving empires and starting wars; for her struggles and her resolve. But every story has to start somewhere, and hers starts off a little road leading to Bruma...
My family gave in to debt when I was young. They owned a farm in the foothills, where my mother tended a garden of herbs and vegetables and my father raised farm animals and hunted vermin. It was a small, homely place. Barely two stories, with stone foundations and fresh lumber walls, it held just enough room for my parents, myself, and my two siblings to roam through the cabbage patches and to the hill above the river.
In the summer and spring, we often spent our entire time out there, hidden in the brush and rummaging through the trees. The land here, half-way between Bruma and the Imperial City, had been cleared of the less savory wildlife before my father was born, or so he said, so it was safe for us to run and play.
It was safe, except of course inside of the ruins or caves. An Ayleid ruin sat not a mile from the cabin, and one brisk spring's day we ventured too far and my brother's leg was gouged as a consequence. The guardians of the old tombs always came back, no matter how many adventurers delved inside. They would come, too. There was an adventurer at least every year, if not every month, stopping by for our hospitality and hearth and to hang their swords up for a single moment's rest before going back to some invisible war that only they could see.
My interest in those types bordered obsession, to the point where I can still remember the ones that passed through. There was a pair of Dunmer sisters one day. One of them looked as strong as my father, but was patient and doting as a mother, while the other taxed my parents' generosity with demands and annoyance to the cold. The summer after, a Nord came in that I swear was as thick as a bear and twice as tall. His companion was an odd one, a walking lizard that spent her time playing with us children and talked so much about caves I didn't think she could say anything else.
I was so intent on those adventuring types that, when the fleshy pink creature sliced open my brother's leg, I stood guard over him while my sister ran back to get my father. I had only a stick, raised in front of me, but I swung it like a sword at the darkness and felt like I banished any threat from rising against us. In truth, I'm surprised the curses I was shouting didn't lure more of the monsters out at us, but maybe my loud mouth caused some good that day and actually scared the creatures off. I never did figure out.
Instead, reinforcements in the form of my sister and parents ran in to save the day. My mother grabbed me up and pulled me away, while my father took hold of my brother's leg and lifted him in the same swoop.
I wasn't too worried. At that moment, not a hint of worry had crossed my mind. There was blood, yes, but those rough-shods that had came and passed had seen their fair of wounds like these and more, and were none the wiser for it. My little mind was proud of what I had done, in fact. So proud that I was exuberant and alive when we returned home.
"Fa'ver, mo'ver, did you see me?!" I was shouting. Not the brightest thing to do, since their faces were strained and serious. "I kept 'dose beasts back 'n more! Why, no'fin could 'ave got past me!"
"Cheyla, quiet!" My mother hushed me, placing a hand over my mouth. She sent me up to the loft with no food that night, and I hadn't the least clue why.
I think I started to understand later that week, and then the next month, and the next. My brother didn't leave his bed after that. A fever struck him within the week, and he looked haggard and worn for a year after, paler than the inside of good bread most the time. Responsibilities abounded with his care; the feeding, washing, the talkings to at night. I didn't want to do any of it, but finally my mother convinced me that, if I was truly a brave little protector, that was what I should do.
So I gave him his stew until the next summer, when my father whittled a crutch from a sturdy branch and he finally ventured up. Any talk of adventures and exploration seemed like so long ago. In the meantime, the sturdy little boy I had known had become a thin wisp of a man.
Adventures, in general, escaped me. My sister was older than me by three, and with my brother lain up for all but the most basic work, she had to take on the extra. So she dug the earth up as the frost thawed, hauled the bushels to and fro, and helped my father drain the kills and strip the meat. All the while I sat as relatively still as a child can, watching for any events that might have struck my fancy while helping my mother with the handy-work. She taught me from a young age to shoe a horse, to melt a metal into a nail and use it to reinforce a wall, and to wash clothes and clean leather and iron.
All the while, they turned back the travelers that had once walked in so openly. They did this, and they kept my brother laying down as he thinned more and kept my sister working in the field.
Those were my worst few years, because while I may have been handy, I wasn't still. I wanted to move, tussle, and boast as a child would. The thought kept in my mind that one day soon I would do that, that once my brother recovered my sister would have some free time, or maybe when the field was sown and a buck had been cleaned and smoked already.
I managed one day with my siblings. The spring had been a hard one. An early frost took much of the garden before it could be saved, and it had been my idea to forage before the next frost, so my sister, brother and I had travelled half the length to Chorrol picking berries, fruit, and hunting the rabbits that darted out to steal our haul. While I had been unfocused, I found us all different.
My sister was tall and wiry, with hard muscles from hard work, while my brother walked with a crutch and limp, all skin and bones. I had a little fat on me still, but I had grown to his height and tougher by far. There wasn't a boastful head among us save mine, so my young mind automatically made me the toughest. The toughest, as every child knows, is also the leader. The job I gave myself was to lead us through the forests, the backwoods, and the fields that still beamed from the frosty crystals.
My clearest memory was standing there on a hill, surrounded by gold, while my brother and sister came to join me. There might have been a voice in my head telling me that I was pushing him too far, but I wanted to hold onto the feeling a bit longer.
I did. He came down with another fever a few days later, and was sick all through the winter.
It was a bad winter, the worst I had ever seen. Snow coated the mountains after it first whipped in liking a ghost howling at our walls. It shook the foundations, and occasionally the floor itself shivered under my feet while we all huddled against the fireplace.
Save for what we had saved and foraged, the crops were gone and many of the livestock had frozen. A few hearty ones survived, but there was too little making it through the winter to hold us all. Most of the winter that I actually remember was how hungry and cold I was, or how miserable I felt. There was only a brief break to the snow-fall that was afforded to us, and my father used it to ride out on our last horse.
The snows came back shortly after, worse than before. They whipped the house, over and over, until I could feel the sidings that I had put up buckle and fall, dragged away into the night. My brother cried, perhaps for the fever or the fright. I almost did, until I recited to myself how strong I was and how crafty. The adventurers from old returned in my minds I, hearkening me their strength and resolve.
We almost starved, if not for my father riding in from the blizzards. He brought us food, glorious parcels of ground flour and dried meats and fruits. There were no questions about where he got it.
I should have questioned it. There wasn't a county around that would loan this much food during this bad weather.
The answer to the question I never asked came after the winter was over. My father and sister, now looking emaciated with hunger, began to work the fields and butcher the surviving animals. Not long after, a cart came through, rolling behind a man on a horse that I had never seen before.
I remember his horse best, because I didn't understand how it could be so healthy looking. The blizzards and ghost winds had sucked the strength and muscle from ours, and the ribs of the surviving two could easily be seen. But this man, his horse was a powerful beast with a shining coat and a high head. His shoes were iron rings that looked newer than a bit of the iron around us.
The man himself wasn't that bad either. He was dressed in finery the kind I had never seen before. His pants may have been a riding leather, but he wore a coat the blue of a dawn's sky, and a cloak that was a bright yellow like the sun on a clear day. Even his hair was pretty, long and tied into a bun, with a golden clasp pulling his beard together under his chin. Topping it all off was a crown perched upon his head.
"My Liege," my father had called him. He bowed, too. It was my first time watching someone bow for real. There had been times in the past where someone, telling a story or reciting a tale, had bowed to myself or my sister in jest and drama. But there had never been anyone that my father had shown this much respect to.
Words were passed, after that, between the man on the horse and my father. I had already run off, unable to hear them beyond the far-off timbre of their voices. This was important news. It wasn't every day that a visitor came by, and never one so important looking.
"Oi!" I shouted as I ran into the house. "The'as some bloke on a fancy-big horse here'a all decked in sparkles!"
Somewhere in my young mind, it never occurred that my mother might be in the house. Maybe it wasn't important after all, but I remember looking at her face after I shouted that and seeing her looking shocked, almost sick. My brother and sister heard it as well, curiosity marring their expressions, but it was nothing like my what my mother looked like. It never occurred to me, either, what it meant when she grabbed hold of my sister as she moved to pass her.
I didn't put much thought into it. Old people thought odd thoughts, after all.
We all gathered up that afternoon near the road, where the Liege and his cart had been joined by a band of men. They all rode horses, thick-looking monsters with shaggy hair that hung down over their hooves, and they all wore armors of leather, cloth, and chain. I had seen adventurers in the past, but never so many people and so many weapons.
My father had been talking to the fancy man on the fanciest horse, and that was where we joined him. I stood a bit away from the others, getting as close to one of the big horses as it would let me. Even the jaw was different than our horses, like it was built to eat meat or something. While I observed, the others were being observed.
First the fancy man looked over my mother, who was holding my sister close to her. Then, my sister, who stood two heads shorter than him, but was all strength on the surface. He smiled at her, before moving to my brother, thin and held to a crutch as he was.
He seemed to finally choose, and moved to my sister. My attention was only fully brought out when my mom cried out.
"Wait, m'lord," my father said. He was a thinner man, like the rest of us, with a long face held under a beak-like nose and a long, stringy beard. "We cannae look afta' the boy on our own. We cannae even look after ourselves! Please, spare the girl."
"I refuse to take the boy," the fancy man said. It was the first thing I'd heard him say, and his voice resonated oddly in me. He had a funny accent, like every word had to be pronounced like it was spelled. It reminded me of the Dunmer from long ago.
"M'lord, there is another." After a moment, I realized that the very air seemed to have changed. A dozen and more heads looked my way, and I had never felt so intensely scrutinized in my life. For some reason, I ended up smiling.
"She's a waif." He said. I didn't know what a waif was, but he said it like he was talking down on me. He spoke like he was better than me.
"Oi'm no waif!" I shouted back to him, which was perhaps not the smartest idea given how many armed cohorts he had. Luckily, it drew little more than laughter. "Oi'm ' strong as my sista'. Flippin' 'ells, Oi'm strong as any boy my age!"
My sparked ire drew him closer, and for the first time since the stranger had arrived, he looked at me. Over the thick, plaited beard and curving nose, his eyes were like a wolf's. They stared me down like a predator, pulling my courage from inside of me and sticking it in my throat like a lump.
But my foolish, headstrong self didn't back down. I stood up to him. I squared my shoulders and bared my teeth, despite my father's background insistence that I shut my face.
"Little one. Who do you think you are?" He asked, slowly, calmly.
I had only one answer to that. "Oi'm Cheyla!"