Welcome to my new story, one which I hope I can carry on. I will update this every Sunday, or during the week whenever I have finished more than one chapter. I hope to get some good feedback. Before we continue I HAVE to say that this first chapter is a little rough, featuring rapists and a little bit of torture, but that'll be it for the rest of the story- hopefully. I do no way endorse such violent acts, and I wish it never happens.
**DISCLAIMER** I do not own anything to do with the Elder Scrolls Series, and all work is done souly for entertainment purposes and no money has been exchanged whatsoever. By disclaiming this I refer all rights to Bethesda Softworks, the truly remarkable game company.
Anyway, let's begin.
"Everywhere I go, trouble finds me, lost in this eternal circle of being trapped by this one unbreakable barrier, only ever saved when someone legitimately nice comes along. Then it loops, I get trapped again, and I can't escape."
Forsworn are animals, it's as simple as that. There's no compassion needed, they hardly deserve it after stealing people from their houses and later sacrificing them for no real reason par the 'Forsworn pride' or something like that. Luckily, since they are animals, they don't have very good cages, and so, after a few attempts, picking the lock to the cage is as simple as actually putting a lock pick in there in the first place.
Escaping was easy, too. The place was a simple, old, rundown fort. Very little guards were on duty; presumably they were off raping and pillaging some poor town or village, what guards there were are easy to sneak past, or stab with a goat horn lying around. Again, they're animals.
How the girl even got into this mess was beyond her. A simple courier job, going from Whiterun to Karthwasten, and it had to go past this fort. That's where she went wrong, staying on the so called 'safe' roads. "Never again" She vowed, "I'll never take the roads again" she muttered, collecting a few coins left lying on a stone table. "They say it's safe? That means there are genocidal maniacs waiting to collect more prisoners." The door was in reach, which was a nice change in pace, with only a little blood on her hands, she went into the sunlight, and decided to head north to Solitude.
"Carriage ride back to Helgen, get a ticket through the Frontier and build a nice farm in Cyrodiil." She kept repeating, as if it was a chant to magically summon some spirit to make her wish come true, "Stay away from the road, go across country and stay safe", chanting again, walking over a few rocks and down a rubble-like path, watching as the river flows downstream. "River, Karth river probably, follow north to sea of ghosts and that's solitude."
And North she went, treading carefully and keeping a watchful eye around her, the ragged clothes she wore mattered next to nothing against claws- or teeth- of bears or sabre cats.
Smoke, that's what could be seen across a ledge, that and a few men in blue armour. Armour they could lend, perhaps? Walking up, she overheard nothing, other than a few mutterings and an "Imperial scum." She would ask for help, she decided, and she would do so with the upmost haste.
And that's when it went horribly wrong.
She awoke with a startle, feeling something in her most private regions. She knew what it was, but pretended she didn't, as if it'll make the pain and the torture go away. The ragged clothes she wore were wearing thin, providing no protection to anything, it was a miracle she hadn't frozen to death.
"Come on, you Imperial whore" She could just about make out, but turned her hearing off promptly. That was her name for the last couple of weeks, counting the time was just one of the past times that the girl had learned, and it was enjoyable- but anything else was compared to what she as going through now.
The men were using her, the woman did nothing. A few gave a sympathetic gaze, the others ignored her. She was an Imperial, not even fighting in the war, and these men were doing these things to her as if everything was her fault, as if she wanted there to have been a great war, as if she had wanted the white gold concordat to have been signed, as if she had wanted her father's sacrifice to be in vain. But no, they did nothing to listen, they did nothing to stop, and they most certainly did nothing to stop their leader from beating her next to death.
She had caught his name, it was Istar Cairn-Breaker. She knew this name would later mean something to her, something that'll keep her going and won't stop until she completed a task, but she had no clue what it could be, how it could be, why it had to be.
It was fate, there was no doubt about it, the Gods had sent her on this stupid errand that only led to her own misfortune.
Even the sound of metal clashing metal outside the tent she was in couldn't keep her shame away.
Even when Istar pulled out of her and ran out the tent, screaming for his men to follow him, her shame wasn't away.
It wasn't even until a man, a grey haired man, came in and sat beside her did she feel some of her shame go away- as if he understood her.
And he just sat there, a few other men were standing outside the tent waiting for something to happen, and she had no idea what it could be.
But he sat, and waited, until he spoke. "You can stop crying now, Crimson." She didn't realise she was crying.
His voice was Cyrociilic, it was a fathers voice-the one you always came home to, the one she wished she would hear from her own father, a voice which brings ease to all around, a voice with authority but yet a subtle comfort that you need to boost you up.
The man also had arms big enough to wrap a whole human body around, and the gold tint on his armour pleasantly refracted the tears that had managed to end up streaming down the armour.
"We've got you some spare armour to put on," the man gently said, a gentleness she was rather fond of even after only a few sentences of hearing it, "you can keep it, and we'll take you to Solitude, you can rest up there. The Winking Skeever does a nice soup, I'm sure you can't wait for something like that."
The man picked himself and the girl up, and pulled her out the tent, almost as if the girl wanted to stay where she was-but she just couldn't move her legs.
A couple of other soldiers stood by, one holding out a peace of Imperial armour, tight fitting, but enough to cover herself, and the other one stood holding an Imperial flag, marking yet another site of Civil conflict and placing the flag as a memorial of the sort lived and bloody battle that took place. It was obvious that the Stormcloaks had fled, and they did so with little dignity- if they had any left.
The girl knew she'd become a symbol that the Stormcloaks were in the wrong, she didn't care. As much as she sympathised with the Stormcloak cause she would have thought that after her experience they are doing all the wrong things, all the bad and evil things.
The man led her to a horse, one which both of them would ride. The girl didn't care where she went, as long as it was away from the worthless camp she was in now, and for some odd reason she trusted the man with her life. She hoped that she hadn't misplaced her trust again.
