First story here. I have only a general idea of where this is going so bear with me. Double OC story, violence ahead and perhaps adult things. I'll let you know here if there is noteworthy stuff in later chapters when I upload them. Rate/Review/Crit much appreciated!
A wood elf quietly crept out from under a fallen tree and squinted with amber eyes into the sun. This was Aderyn Arash and she had just spent the night under a log in the middle of nowhere. She had nothing else going for her. Aderyn stiffly gathered her belongings, all of which she had scavenged from the forest just before the sun had fallen the previous night. How long had she been wandering? Where was she? This was no place she had seen before, everything was new. Dark thoughts slithered into her mind. Was she dead? How did she get here? What happened? Had she been drugged? Panic rose up from within her chest but Aderyn made quick to dispel it with a deep inhale of brisk morning air.
I will not panic, it is not my way. I think...
She couldn't help but think of how desperate she was for any shred of information. It was her right to panic, courage had no place here, not now.
She set out through the forest with the sun at her back. Sunlight filtered through the leaves and branches illuminating the path ahead with golden hues of a still fresh day. Aderyn marched onward only stopping to pluck edible berries when she came across them. She didn't have a plan, the only objective was to find someone, anyone who might be able to tell her what happened, or at least what direction to head. But the forest stretched on ahead of her without cease; there was no roads, no streams, no settlements, nobody. So she continued on.
Isolation made it easy to take in the details. She could see the veins in the leaves high above and hear the beat of wings from a distant insect. The aroma from far away flowers seemed nearer than ever and each hair on her bare arms detected the slightest shift in the cool breeze. Then there was a glint, a shimmering yellow hidden away in the tall grasses near a sturdy old birch. Her face alighted with curiosity and she rushed over to the mysterious sparkling. It was but a single gold Septim, lonely and abandoned, resting by the tree, but there was no disappointment in Aderyn's face. Someone had been here, there was hope, and she was close.
She leaned her shoulder against the white bark of the tree and turned the coin over in her hands but it wasn't until she held the coin up to the sunlight that she spotted a smattering of blood on a tree just past her vision of the coin. Immediately she stowed the coin away and rushed to the bloodstain still dripping crimson onto the dirt. A bloody handprint was smeared on the side of the tree was just visible. Aderyn knew little of what happened before she awoke in the forest, but blood was something she did know. Her focus drew in and she studied the scene and quickly picked up the trail. She pursued it with great agility hardly making a sound as she leapt over fallen branches and boulders. The blood trail had become wetter and heavier, and for frequent with Septims. It would be only moments before Aderyn discovered what lie at the end of it.