Morning grogginess washed over her body as the daylight slowly pervaded through the sleepy bliss. Why? She felt her body moan. The girl rolled over, trying to move her face from the treacherous daytime. Then she frowned. Shifting a little more, the brown haired girl cringed and reluctantly dragged her arm from underneath her head towards the source of the problem. I don't remember this being here, she thought lazily as she pulled the offending object out from under her torso. How uncomfortable, She thought to herself.

The girl opened one curious green eye slowly, as if she might be blinded if the movement were too fast- then let out a panicked shriek. Holy Lady! Dropping it suddenly, she scrambled- hands and knees- to the far wall. Pressing her back against its cold comfort, warily and carefully, she eyed the bone. Thessia felt a chill run down her spine, then let her eyes look beyond it. She collapsed against the stone in helpless bewilderment.

Her mouth opened as if to express her astonishment, yet she was unable to finish as her eyes continued to roam the extent of her chamber. Where am I? She thought. Chains hung from the ceiling with rusted links. A dim torch burned towards her right and the pervasive sunlight eked through a small barred window behind her- and far beyond her reach. Three cold, unfeeling walls rose ominously around her leaving little space for the door of iron bars. She had never seen anything like it.

Once she got her bearings, she was alarmed to find herself monstrously thirsty. Her eyes immediately latched onto the only possible source of relief. On top of a molding and lopsided table sat a pitcher and cup. Salvation. Thessia stood, feeling her legs wobble as she made her first step towards it. Hobbling uncertainly she made her way closer to the furniture. She reached her hand towards the tan jug.

"Well now, a pretty little Wood Elf."

She jumped at the sound and flung her arm across the table, knocking over the jug and spilling all its contents to the merciless floor. A mixture of emotions started to rise in her underneath her prevailing fear. Hopelessness. Discomfort. Alarm. Confusion...

The voice continued "You're a little far from the forest, huh?"

Thessia barley even noticed the source. Though she didn't realize it yet, it was the voice of a man in the opposite cell. Glaring at her from past the prison corridor, he dared her to take notice of his words.

Still shaking, Thessia looked at the damp ground in despair. She was so thirsty. So Thirsty!

"Looks like your days of woodland frolicking have come to a tragic end."

Something in his voice made her whip her head towards the bars. He was provoking her, and they both knew it. Thessia felt her fists clench as her emotions gathered and layered, each level laced with a new a sudden addition. Anger.

"To go from the gladed realm of Valenwood to a rat-infested hole like this… how very sad."

Every words he spoke seared through her pile of internal kindling and lit the fire that was waiting to be made.

"Those walls must feel like they're closing in on you."

With a ferocious yell, the elf flung herself at the prison gate, shaking the door in an unsatisfying rattle as it held its ground.

The Dark Elf continued unabashedly- smirking as his words produced their desired effect. "Pretty soon you'll go mad, and the guards will cut your throat just to stop the ranting."

Furious and heated, the girl's fiery temper soared throughout the cell.

It was enough to provoke the gods.

At that moment, the whole world froze. Everything was silenced and the people in all of Cyrodiil stopped everything they were doing for a few brief moments. And, if you had the ears to hear, there was a muted tapping sound. First, one loud click penetrated the silence, followed by six gentle taps. One more and the world resumed its normal pace.

Yet something was amiss.

Thessia threw herself in one last furious effort against the bars which then responded by… creaking open.

She stomped towards the offensive buttbrain, who kept on ranting. It was almost literally driving her insane.

The world paused yet another time, and it resulted in the opening of Valen Dreth's cell door.

Despite his cell door swinging open, his snide remarks never ceased. And neither did his infuriating smirk.

She approached him with murder in her eyes, her fists ready, and erupted in a mighty battle cry as she...!

"Umm… Robin, are you using cheats to do that?"

I jumped about a foot in the air (which, by the way, is an impressive feat while sitting in a desk chair), as a familiar voice shocked me back into cold reality.

"HOLY FUDGE-CAKES!" I said rather impressively in reply. I swiveled my comfy swivel-y chair in the intruder's direction with a glare fit to kill. Fit to kill and, of course, wipe a thousand annoying little brothers from off the face of the earth. Yet in this specific case, I only needed it for one.

"Andrew Joseph McClellan, you scared the crap out of me!" I said (probably unnecessarily). I continued to stare lethally his way. ... it didn't seem to be working. "I told you to KNOCK on the door when it was closed!"

Andy just shrugged his shoulders in a nonchalant manner and loped- literally loped- his way towards my bed before plopping himself down and looking at my ceiling-star collection. "It was open."

I opened my mouth for the denial, then vaguely remembered leaving it wide open on my way back from grabbing a PBJ and a cookie or four. Ooh yeah. Well. "I don't know how the heck it got open, Andrew." I glared at him accusingly, just in case he didn't get my point. "Why don't you guys ever shut my door? I mean, seriously." I continued. "Sometimes you guys can be really, really...," I paused for dramatic effect. "… inconsiderate."

There was no way in the world I was admitting he was in the right. It's like blasphemy.

He looked over sideways at me lazily, just so he could pointedly roll his eyes. Little jerk.

I looked at his careless and almost floppy appearance. When did he get so OLD? I suddenly thought. What is this? I felt my surprised anger slowly fade away as the corner of my mouth hitched up to the side in a curly lopsided smile. No matter what he does, I can never stay mad at him for long. "Oh, whatever."

My heart melted to see the little preteen trying to be all angsty and- and- … preteen-y. Why can't I stay angry? My mind didn't answer, instead I just thought, I love that boy. I shrugged, laughed, then stuck out my tongue, giving up completely.

"It doesn't matter, Andy. I forgive you," I heard his audible (maybe a bit too audible) sigh of disbelief, and I turned by back on him in favor of the screen. Thessia's inventory was open, and I frowned a bit. I was wondering what the heck her wrist irons were for if they don't do anything. They seemed a bit... excessive. I looked at them again. Well, it does look kind of cool. I was deciding whether or not to keep them equipped when I remembered that Andy had probably come to ask me something. He likes to get my help over any of our other siblings. He's got great common sense like that. I moved my head as so he could hear better and asked over my shoulder, "So whatcha come in for anyway?"

"Oh, yeah." He said in sudden recollection. "Mom told me to tell you it's already 7:45."

"WHAT!" I jumped up out of my seat and ran to the hallway, I could hear the toddlers playing and laughing joyfully from the toy room."Mom! What time is it?" I shouted in what I hoped was her general direction.

"You're still here?" was her faint answer. It wasn't the answer I was looking for, but it was definitely enough.

"Holy shoot, I'm late!" I scrambled around the already messy room, knocking things over and spilling stuff as I rushed to grab my books. I'll clean that up later. Maybe.

"Oh Andy, you could have told me!" I wailed at him. Honestly, I didn't have time to hear his excuse or whatnot. This was my seventh tardy of the semester, and we're only three weeks in! One more tardy and I had detention for the rest of the year. "Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, SHOOT!" I rushed out the door in a frenzied panic yelling bye to all the kids on my way out. I grabbed my aging bike from the side of our rusty tin shed, hopped on and pedaled as if my life were going to end. I prayed quietly to myself as my bike crunched through the autumn leaves, "Please, oh please, oh please-y please..." Repeating the prayer all the way to the front door I carried myself as fast and far as humanly possible just to hear the bell ring 30 seconds away from my first hour. I groaned and opened the door with FML written all over my face. Time to start another wonderful day.

Unbeknownst to me, though, that was the least of my troubles to occur throughout the course of the next 24 hours.

And somehow, in the whole mess of things, I didn't think once about the game I had left open on my laptop.

Not once.

AUTHORS NOTE

Alright, so this is my first story... EVER. Please help me out, if you can and review! Please! I'll love you forever and a day. Please tell me what you think because what you think is what I think about and if you don't tell me what you think I'm stuck on thinking about what you think about what I think... overall it's very confusing so spare me the pain and tell me about what you think. I'm feeling very sheepish. So help a sister out and review! Woowoo! Review!