Well, hello there. You seem to have found my first published fanfiction.

This will be a story centered on the adventures of my Dragonborn, and the backstory I've concocted for her. Assume that my Dragonborn has already been to Helgen, but has NOT discovered her Dragonborn-ness, completed the Dawnguard questline and is currently in the midst of the Thieves Guild one. I've tried writing the Dawnguard quests before, but for some reason I just don't like what I write. It also spares everyone from the Helgen scene I know we all love (hate).

(Disclaimer) Skyrim and all its associated plots, quests, characters, etc., does not belong to me. That's Bethesda's stuff.

I've written things for a long time, but I've never been brave enough to share what I write. So...be an awesome person and please tell me what you think? Read on, and hopefully, enjoy!

When there is shadow, there must be light...

I raised in a house of solidarity. Taught to be steadfast and true. I was taught to fight alongside my friends, to keep them so that they'd keep me. I was even taught to lead my friends to their death, if need be. It was something I never wanted to do. But the years passed, and tragedy after tragedy and atrocity after atrocity turned that steadfast, true girl into a bitter, lonely woman. Her faith-and her morals-began to leave her. I found I couldn't force myself to care about anyone's life because I knew I wouldn't be able to save them all anyway.

So I finally embraced that one teaching I had never agreed with. I made friends, led them into battle, watched them die, and my heart shed no tears. I was truly a warrior whose very soul had frozen over.

And that was even before I became the Dragonborn.

Suddenly, the world's problems were my problems. I could scarcely take two steps without having to face something else. Yet I fought the world's dangers like I fought my personal battles: with a heart of stone and a soul of ice, with an arrow in my bowstring and a shield and dagger strapped to my back and waist, unafraid of whoever-or whatever-I might face.

It was in this darkest and most destitute of times that I met two Dunmer, two Dunmer who would weave their way into my life so quickly and so tightly that I never had a shadow of a hope of evicting them. I tried to resist it at first. Caring for people only led to more trouble and tragedy further down the road. But as time passed on, and despite myself, I grew to care for them, to protect them. They refused to abandon me in my time of need, like only true friends do, and they also taught me about what being a hero truly meant.

Being a hero wasn't being the best at swinging a sword or shooting a bow, it wasn't about being able to cast the most powerful or most potent of spells, and quite honestly it wasn't even about being that particularly intelligent. Being a hero is knowing someone is hurting, knowing that someone is suffering, and helping them, whether you're giving them a shoulder to lean on or an ear to listen. It's about being there for others even if they haven't been there for you. It might not be that important in the grand scheme of things, but for each person that I help, that I befriend, tales of my name would spread. Folk would begin to seek me out, asking for my help, and no matter if it was as trivial as simply advising someone or rescuing their loved one from a bandit's lair, to them, I was a hero.

Most importantly, though, being a hero means bringing everything you've got to defend what you love, and not giving in until you're dead and cold on the ground. It means holding your ground even when your feet tell you to run. It means taking that last step forward when it might be wiser to take a step back. It doesn't mean facing danger without fear. That's called being foolhardy. Being a hero means you face peril, maybe even death, with your terror, and you stare that peril in the face and dare it to take you on, because you've got something worth fighting for. I haven't always been so fortunate to have that.

Whatever you fight for, fight for it with all you've got. Even so, you might lose it. And that's a bitter truth to accept. I know. I've been there many times before. But you still need to fight for something, because if you haven't got anything to fight for, then you're really only a shell of a person. It took me a long time for me to step back from myself and see that I really was nothing more than a frosty shell of someone who used to be a person. Someone that used to have emotions, someone who used to believe in the Divines, someone who used to care.

As soon as I realized the person I'd become, I was nothing short of horrified. I'd become like the fiends in the stories my father had read to me at night, growing up. I'd turned into a soulless, heartless monster that was too accustomed to atrocity and death, and not accustomed enough to joy and love and all those things that I know we all take for granted sometimes.

I turned myself around, made amends to those I'd wronged, did my best to make myself a better person. Some wounds were too deep to heal. They had to be let alone, and there was nothing I could do for them. It was challenging and painful to accept I'd royally messed up some things beyond repair, but the world would continue to move forward, and so would I. I'd had never turned down a task before then, but that was something I would not wish on anyone. Making the decisions I made, doing the things I did...and then trying to atone for all of them.

It's something that is simultaneously one of the most harrowing, excruciating, and humiliating things I've ever done, and purifying, aerifying and redeeming as well. It's something like a fever. Imagine that you have the most intense sickness you can think of. Then multiply that by five. Imagine you're in-and-out of consciousness, and even when you're unconscious, you still feel the pain. Then your fever breaks, your body attempting to mend itself. You feel tired and sore and unable to do anything, but at the same time you feel powerful, like you've just rid yourself of a great darkness. That's the closest approximation I can think of.

Regardless, I'm getting long-winded and you're getting tired of hearing me prattle. Here's what you need to know right now: my life has not been easy, but it's a life that I'm proud of surviving. It's the only life I've got, after all. May as well be proud of it, right?

My name is Odiana Sky-Born, and this is my story...