A/N:: Hello there! Welcome to my newest project! I would first off like to say that I do not own Skyrim. I just own specific names, and personalities of my characters that you'll read about. Second of all, I'm going to go ahead and apologize for how rushed or dull the prologue is. Thirdly, there will be spoilers. Through-out the entire story so I suggest that if you have not played the game, then don't flame me for ruining it for you. I gave you a fair warning. This is a difficult task that I've set myself up for and I'm really excited to do it! With that said, please, please, please Read and Review. I will take constructive criticism, but no flames. I hope you enjoy, and I hope that you will continue to follow me as the story progresses! Enjoy!
Prologue
The air, was so much more different in Skyrim than it was in Cyrodiil. So much more crisp. To her it seemed like the snow was much whiter than the snow that fell around Bruma. Different area, no more bounty. No more threats of prison, and definitely no death sentence for her. She could start fresh here. No-one here knew her, so it wouldn't be that hard to build up from scratch. She wrapped her arms around her lithe body, walking through the snow in cloth sandals, she looked around her new area of conquest. Thinking of what she could do. She didn't hear armor clanking up behind her, didn't hear the snow crunching loudly behind her either. Sadly, she didn't feel the blow to the back of her head either. When it happened, she fell forward and immediately passed out.
The air had become slightly warmer, but not by much. Horse hooves clapped against a path; a sound she hadn't heard since she'd ditched the guards somewhere along the Jerall Mountains. She opened her eyes slowly, her vision horribly blurry. Closing them once more, she felt a throbbing sensation at the back of her head and groaned. She opened her eyes again, still blurry but at least she was able to see shapes this time around. She slowly lifted her head, seeing a human-like blur in front of her. Turning her head she could see a bobbing blur in front of the blocky, wooden blur that kept her inside. Then whatever she was in, hit a rock and she bounced a little. Carriage... She was in a carriage. Which meant that she'd been caught.
When her vision cleared, she looked around again and noticed that she was still in Skyrim. So... She wasn't in a carriage on the way back to Cyrodiil. Slightly good news. The bad news was that she was still having a carriage way somewhere, and probably to her death. Sighing heavily she looked at the man in front of her. Not a bad looking Nord, but not her type. Obviously not if he was bound by the wrists in the same carriage as her. She listened to him talk, before another Nord male (one that was slightly unpleasant to look at) spoke a bit bitterly. When the name Jarl of Windhelm, Ulfric Stormcloak was brought up, her green eyed gaze drifted over to the Nord beside her. Well, he wasn't dressed like some petty thief, or a grubby assassin, or a merchant who ripped people off. Which definitely meant he was a Jarl... whatever a Jarl was. What pegged her as odd was that his mouth was wrapped shut with cloth. Like no-one wanted him to speak.
She caught his gaze for a moment, enough to make her whip her head around to look back at the man who had spoke to her originally. She listened to what he had to say to the horse-thief. If Nord could think back of their home, she could as well couldn't she? Even though she wasn't a Nord? She lowered her head, eyes staring at the rope that bound her hands together. She had no home to think of though. A traveling merchant she had been, peddling the goods she had found, and ripping people off so that she could make a decent amount of septims. At least until they tried to arrest her in the Imperial City, back in Cyrodiil.
That's when she heard commotion and looked up to see that they'd just went under the gates of a place the first Nord called Helgen. Then he mostly spoke to himself about some lady making some sort of mead with juniper berries. She looked around, mostly at a family that was outside their house to look at them. She turned her attention back to her fellow death-row mates, and listened to the horse-thief frantically call out that him and her were not rebels. Rebels for what? She didn't know. When the carriage stopped, she stood up with the men, and got off the carriage and stood behind Jarl Ulfric.
Then the names were being said. First the Jarl. Then the first Nord she had seen, Ralof. Then it was the horse-thief, Lokir's turn. However, what surprised her was that he attempted to run from his fate. As he made it up the hill, Imperial archers shot him in the back and he fell like a limp doll. The one who was calling names asked her to step forward, and remarked that she wasn't on the list. Which, wasn't surprising since she'd only entered Skyrim not too long ago.
"Name's Elyse Bl'ood, and I doubt you even have that on their lists. If you need to know what race I am, it's Breton," she spoke a bit quietly, but the Nord seemed to have heard her and ignored her for a bit to talk to the woman beside him. Apparently, she failed to make a great impression to save her life for she was heading to line up with the rest of these people that were deemed traitors. While the lady that had scowled at her spoke to Jarl about starting a civil war, there had been a deep roar that sounded in the sky. Everyone became silent and looked around, but nothing was seen. Her attention turned to the Priestess of Arkay, a thin brow raised up in surprise that they were even getting a priest to speak for them. However, when the priestess spoke, she was interrupted by an impatient Stormcloak member that... apparently wanted to die more than be preached to. It was an little unsettling to see someone's head roll.
The Imperial Captain said it was her turn, and before she could step forward, her head shot up to look for the source of the secondary roar. At least until she was brought back to the reality that she was going to die today. She moved toward the chopping block, and was shoved to her knees too roughly for her like, and bent over so that her torso was almost slammed down upon the block. Admittedly, she lost her breath for a quick moment. She stared up at the sky, trying to look past the guy with the axe. What were they called? Headsmen? Whatever they were, she tried to look past him so that her last view of her life was the brilliant blue skies.
Just then something large and black flew over the mountains with another roar, and her eyes widened. The Imperial soldiers around her commented about it. She watched as the dragon landed on the tower, just as the headsman raised his axe to chop her head off. Such a thing made him stumble away from his position, so she was initially safe... if looking at a dragon could be called safe. It was looking at her, and then it shouted at her. The shout startled her, and made the headsman stumble yet again and even knocked her from the chopping block. Then the sky grew cloudy and turned a vicious red color. It made her vision blur for a moment as she tried to recover from the shock, even as meteors fell from the sky and pelted Helgen.
Finally recovering, she pushed herself up to her feet as best as she could after she was told to get up by Ralof. She followed him into the tower that had it's door open and once she made it inside she turned to look at Ulfric and Ralof as they spoke. She needed to itch her back, and she raised a hand to do so. She frowned when she remembered that her hands were bound together before following Ralof up the stairs, and when he stopped her, the side of the tower busted inwards, killing a Stormcloak. Both looked out the gap, and she listened as he told her to jump to the building.
Elyse gave him a look, before looking back at the destroyed, burning building. Taking a deep breath, she ran forward and landed with a stumble, as well as managing to burn her elbow on some flames before she headed down the stairs and outside. Now what? She looked around, confused as the dragon flew around breathing flames upon Helgen. That's when she noticed the little boy, and the one Nord that asked who she was. After a little bit, he had instructed her to follow him, and she did. She wasn't going to die in Helgen due to a dragon attack. She stuck close the man who, during the time they were hiding below the dragon against the wall, introduced himself as Hadvar. They went through a destroyed burning building, where she managed to burn her arm again. It never crossed her mind to just hold her hands over the flames to let the very hot fire burn the rope binding to set her free.
She continued to follow him up until she spotted Ralof. There she waited a tad bit impatiently as they exchanged some words, her attention more on watching the dragon flying around and just destroying what had used to be a nice looking place to live in... if you weren't deemed a Stormcloak that was. When she looked back down, she noticed that she was alone and panicked badly. She ran to the furthest door and struggled to open in and pulled it shut behind her.
"You! You left me out there, Hadvar!" she cried out in a panic, leaning against the door and breathing heavily. Hadvar apologized as Elyse moved closer and held her hands up. He took out a knife and cut the ropes, and she was instantly over at the desk to pick up the gold pieces that she had seen before she moved to rummage through the chests to swap her dingy prisoner garb for Imperial Legion clothing. From the weapon racks, she took both swords and gave them a halfhearted swing before following Hadvar again. There was a lot of following, and it was beginning to annoy her. She wanted to be on her own! To do things the way she wanted to do them!
He opened the gate, and tried to talk to the Stormcloaks but she knew better and as they drew their weapons, she began to hack and slash at one of them. Hadvar took on the remaining Stormcloak. After a minute or two, both had fallen and he moved to go open the next gate. She dug around in the Stormcloak's pockets before running through the gate, and running ahead of Hadvar. She chuckled quietly in amusement as he called out after her, and her reaction was a near shriek when the hallway was blocked by fallen rubble.
Regaining her breath, she opened the door as calmly as she could, walked in, and charged at the Stormcloaks that were there. Before he could bring up the word health potions, she'd already dug through a barrel and picked up a minor health and minor stamina potion before picking up one more health potion and leaving the room. There were so many Stormcloaks, and the next batch she didn't bother herself with. As Hadvar, the Interrogator and the Interrogator's Assistant fought off the Stormcloaks, she helped herself to the book, the septims, the lockpicks and whatever else she deemed useable. With the lockpicks, and ignoring the chatter, which was starting to give her a headache, she lockpicked a cage door open and took what was of use to her there before leaving to follow Hadvar. She did take a couple of pit-stops to unlock cage doors, hoping that there were things in there.
They went through another area that was filled with corpses, and without a care, she picked what coin she managed to find before heading into the next area with the Nord. He staggered back into her when an arrow hit him in the shoulder, and with a shove she moved past him and began to attack the nearest Stormcloak soldier. Once the area was clear, and she had a quiver of arrows on her back, she continued to follow like she was some obedient pup. That's when they pulled a lever, a bridge lowered, they crossed it and it collapsed behind them.
She explored on her own a bit, leaving Hadvar on his own, at least until she found nothing interesting. With a yawn, he shot a glance at her and she smiled nervously.
"Hey... I'm tired, hungry, and not liking caves all ready. I had a busy day. You know... Almost getting my head chopped off and all that," Elyse commented and he sighed heavily as they pressed forward. She would've walked blindly into the bear's den if he hadn't pulled on her arm and forced her to crouch. He handed her a bow and some arrows, and she looked at the mother bear for a moment. Did she want to risk having to fight a bear? She shook her head vigorously and slowly crept past the bear, Hadvar following her this time until they were in the clear.
They left the cave and she inhaled fresh air deeply, before crouching again when she heard the dragon roar before it flew off. After a moment or two, Hadvar mentioned that they should split up at least until they both reached Riverwood where he'd introduce her to his Uncle Alvor. So, she smiled at him before she took off through the wild brush on her own. She ran at first until she grew tired even more quickly, then settled for walking.
It was nightfall when she had made it to Riverwood with a couple of wolf bites on her legs and arms. The pain didn't register as she yawned into her hand. She heard footsteps behind her and spun around with the longsword out, and pointed at the perpetrator. Elyse relaxed when she saw it was Hadvar, and resumed following him to his Uncle's house where she listened to a slightly less than exciting discussion before she was given gifts.
She headed for the door afterward but before she left, she turned to look at Hadvar, smiling gently at the Nord man that had kept her safe during the dragon attack on Helgen.
"Thank you, Hadvar. For everything. Maybe we'll meet again someday. Until then, stay safe and farewell," she said before she left Alvor's home, to go outside of Riverwood and sit by the campfire that she'd seen when she'd gotten here. Looking into the fire, she yawned again. Tiredly she pulled out the bread and carrot that she'd been given and munched on it slowly, drinking some ale to wash both down. Once she'd emptied the bottle and finished her food, she curled up on the bedroll and stared at the fire until she passed out. Tomorrow... Tomorrow she'd start her life, whether or not she needed to speak to the Jarl of Whiterun about the dragon issue. Tomorrow... was only just a couple of hours away.