Greetings! Welcome to my first story I'm posting up here. I'm very excited to be sharing it with you all! Elder Scrolls: IV Oblivion, its places, characters, armors, weapons, etc. belong to Bethesda Game Studios. The character Amaranthe Kera belongs to me, Wordweaver-MASKEDXSONGSTRESS. And yes, its very, very, very easy to make a High Elf not yellow and nearly pure white! I just wish I could really give my characters the hairstyle I describe (It's still too short when its a full length when you have it down, and I hate not being able to have a character with curly hair!!) and we had a choice of height. I'd be the shortest High Elf in existence! :P And yes, I did lots of changes to the story. Its how a author with my mind lives!
Part I:
Prologue: Unfading Dark
Her eyes flicked about in the setting sun, fear gripping at what she had just done as she sat on the edge of the well, cleaning her blade and watching the guards. They knew plenty well who she was, and she knew them as well, but not for any good deed. But alas, they could never fully accuse her of the crimes she had committed, and she could walk the streets freely. And yet, her eyes showed more then enough that she had just killed again, and all the guards would haft to do would be lift the grate covering the well she sat on and discover the blood pools at the bottom.
As a group of the ones that always asked her who she had killed last began to form up and come over in her direction, she leapt guiltily off the well, sheathing the sword on her back against her quiver of arrows and fleeing away, and out the town gates. It would not be safe to reveal the new person giving her orders to kill, and she fled in the direction that would probably end up causing her the most hell when the mess was discovered: Imperial City. She knew she was not thinking properly because of what she had just done, but her instincts carried her there. Time blurred.
Now it was well into the night, and the clouds that had gathered in the heavens unleashed their rains down upon the city. Soaking wet, and her light-weight leather armor spattered with blood, she moved with an unnatural grace through the guards attacking her as she tried to resist arrest. And the battle in the nighttime plaza seemed to be in the solo female's favor, over the many Imperial guards, as she threw herself into a dodge roll and a arrow flew to the place she had once stood. Anther guard fell with three or four flashes of her blade, but with every ounce of blood she drew, she felt more sickened by what she had been doing for the past year. She had destroyed her own life in such a small amount of time, and taken so many lives. The last of this group fell frozen forever in time by the ice that came from the very tips of her fingers.
As anther group converged on her, she dropped her blade and surrendered. "No more. I can not do this anymore!" she screamed into the night.
Time was once more a blur as she was imprisoned. Days and nights turned into weeks, and then slowly months. The grace of her skills of everything she had done was leaving her, and she was more then pleased. She wanted to be let go when she could no longer wield a weapon properly, and no longer remember the destructive magics that had swallowed her whole. The dark elf in the cell across from her always spat insults across the hall at her, or told her the guards would kill her on the morrow everyday, but soon she learned the power to ignore and not hear him, and that was the only power she truly cared for anymore.
She opened her eyes, the dark blue shining in the moonlight filtering in through the barred windows of her cell. She had been captured during the early spring, and by the scent of the very air, she could tell it was now late fall. She would be free soon, and free to wander the world at her own will soon enough, even though it would not be in the realm of the living. But then she heard the dark elf yelling to her now. "Look, the guards are coming for you!" and he laughed madly. She closed her eyes again just as the clatter of boots echoed down the stairs and into the hall where the cells were.
Part I:
Chapter I: Awaken
She awoke with a yelp, her dark colored eyes flicking about the nighttime environment beside the lake. Her heart beat fast with fear, her clouded memories in the back of her mind somehow seeming stronger after the dream. 'Or was it… a memory?' She thought to herself. Her head drooped a little, the long black ringlets falling past her pretty, nearly pure white face. Her ears were sharp and pointed, but not quite as large as a bosmer's, nor as small as a dunmer's. A a long, silvery scar on her left cheekbone stood out somewhat on her face.
Pushing herself into a sitting position, she leaned against the rock she had been lying against when she had fallen down, exhausted after the fact she had not slept well the night before, and had swam across the lake to the opposite shore. She placed her hand on her pocket, suddenly remembering the object the Emperor had handed her just only several seconds before his death and not far from freedom. Or at least, freedom to her, a prisoner of Imperial city. She sighed with relief as her fingers brushed it, but the panic of her dream swallowed her. 'Breathe, Amaranthe. You're free now. If it was a memory, whatever you had done happened months ago, and is probably old news.' The young woman told herself, attempting to calm her unsteady thoughts.
Her memory was no more then a blur since she had awoke only three days ago in full recognition of where she was, and what was going on. Only three days ago had Amaranthe Kera really began to remember things that were happening in the present. Her past was hardly recoverable through her memories, she just simply did not remember. But she was positive of one thing, her skill with a sword and a bow and arrow was undeniable, alongside her destructive magic. She hardly had any idea what she was doing when she picked up a short sword down underneath the Imperial City with the Emperor Uriel Septim and his guards known as the Blades to try to help fight the assassins, but her movement with the blade had been fluid, graceful, and absolutely deadly like she had been trained for many, many years. When Amaranthe had discovered a bow and arrows, she used the weapon far beyond any proficiency she believed she would ever have with such a weapon. Her magic she had discovered on pure accident, when one of the assassins that had been trying to kill the Emperor came up behind her, and she sent him flying down the hall as a ball of fire.
But the same feeling that she had in the dream, or the memory, or whatever it was had struck her down there. That feeling of strange sickness that took her when she took the life of one of the attackers. Yet Amaranthe had no choice. It was either die, or feel a little ill and survive. And she could already tell, even though that dream did not really seem to show it, she was a survivor, and one very well capable of defending herself.
As her mind relaxed fully, she began to concentrate on the task at hand: reaching the Weynon Priory just outside Chorrol and delivering the Amulet of Kings to a man named Jauffre and finding the next heir to the throne. She knew that she should not rest, or sleep until she reached there, every second with the amulet out in the wilderness being in danger, but her tired eyes had won the last battle. They would not win the next.
Quickly, she stood up and walked over to the lake, her dark blue eyes flicking about again. Pulling off her tattered clothes to the bare minimum and throwing them somewhere they would be dry, Amaranthe jumped into the freezing water. The shock of the cold fully awoke her, and would probably keep her well awake for the next several hours. Not including, it eliminated all of the dirt and muck on her so she did not look like she really had broken free of prison through the sewers as she travelled down the road past other people. She pulled herself out quickly, changing back into her warm clothes and making sure the amulet had not fallen out of the pocket of her pants. She buckled the belt with her sheathed short sword around her waist once again, pulling the quiver of arrows onto her back and the bow. With a narrow scrap of leather, she bound her long black ringlets, which had been somewhat straightened by the water, loosely back, and sharply inhaled the night air.
Eyes flickering through the darkness once more, Amaranthe headed through the night to Chorrol.