It is the Four Hundred and Thirty Second year of the Third Era. My name is Cassius Cordwainer and I was born in the Four Hundred and Thirteenth year of the Third Era inside the opulent walls of the Imperial City. Blessed am I to be an Imperial in my homeland of Cyrodiil under rule of Emperor Uriel Septim VII. I am a leather worker working under my father Julian Cordwainer, much like he did with his father, and his father's father, and so on for generations. Since I was a boy I have worked with a needle and thread inside my father's shop repairing shoes, stitching cloth and canvas, and even measuring weapons to make sheaths. It is honest work with honest pay- I have been told this by my father and my grandfather.
I cannot lie, I am happy with my life. I have Septims in my purse, food in my belly, and a roof over my head. But one thing has always bothered me. Twas not but a few winters old when my mother left us. Her name is Arianna Cordwainer, a proud Imperial as well, and according to my father she is an adventurer. She was not contempt with living inside grand walls, and though she was aging she still held on to her spirit and sword arm. My father says she has "the spirit of the dragon", and she always yearned for adventure. My father met her in their youth, around my age of nineteen, outside the Imperial City around the Great Forest whilst on a hunt with my grandfather. She was struck in the shoulder by a poisoned arrow, and my father and grandfather brought her back to our shop and home and nursed her back to health. After months of treating her, my father fell in love with my mother, and my mother fell for my father. When she was fully recovered my father married her and had me.
I will never understand why she left, and all my father will say is "she just couldn't be tamed". Even though I do not know her, I still feel as if though a part of me is missing inside my heart and sometimes I catch myself day dreaming of what she looks like and what would it be like if she still lived with us.
This is not a biography about my mother nor my father, so I shall be quite frank: my father, Julian Cordwainer, has recently passed away leaving me with no family. He died a few nights ago of a terrible fever. Friends of my father, my few friends, and business associates attended the funeral at my family's crypt just west of the Imperial City. I never knew the pain of losing my mother but I quickly learned the pain of losing my father. He was, in all his being, a great man. He donated to the Temple of the One, helped feed our neighbors, and was a teacher and mentor to me. He took me on my first hunt. He taught me how to defend myself with a blade. He taught me how to be the man I am today.
Of course it is expected of me to continue my father's business. I see no qualms with it, as I believe I can make a good life by working with leather. But would it be a great life? I spent many hours contemplating my life within the confines of my quarters. I am young, and I hope to live long and content. But what good would life be if I didn't have answers? What if I stayed ignorant all my life of the world beyond leather working?
The folly of my father was when he brought me to the Arena for the first time. He thought it would be a good lesson on life and death and how life is a gamble and you must be smart. But what I took in was the thrill of life and the heat of action. My father and I eventually became monthly spectators to the Arena, and I fell in love with the romanticism of fighting to the death for glory and for wealth. Eventually the other neighborhood children and I would host mock fights against one another, using sticks as swords. My father even let us use scrap twine and leather to make makeshift armor to cushion the blows of each other going at it for hours. Even though I was a child then, I still remember the how good it felt to pretend to be a hero. So now in mourning my father's passing I have decided to pretend once more.