I miss the Skyrim fanbase. And I miss writing fanfiction. I haven't done any in a long time, mainly because of writer's block and other personal issues to work through. But I'm going to give it another shot. I'm not used to writing on a regular basis so don't expect chapters to be up too regularly, even though I'll do my best. I'm writing this on a whim but I hope you guys like it! It's going to be a bit similar to my most popular fic on here: Silver and Sapphire. Hopefully this one will have the same astronomical response as that one did.

I hovered on the edge of the stone cliff, just staring down at them. Bandits definitely weren't the most civilized groups of people in Skyrim but this particular batch just seemed downright savage. They huddled around a campfire, the light snow clearly bothering them since none of the brigands that I could see were Nords. They weren't much accustomed to the cold. I barely even noticed it. All of them were men. It was a bit odd to see the burly males looking so weak, quaking with their arms wrapped around themselves in an attempt to retain body heat. If there ever had been any women, I had an odd foreboding feeling that they had been violated or murdered. Or both.

I felt my lip involuntarily curl into a sneer, my hands clenching tightly around my bow as I watched these pig-like brigands talk amongst themselves. They were too far down for me to catch what they were saying but I knew that was probably for the best - bandits only spoke of horrific things that any decent person would have been repulsed by. I watched as one of them - the largest of the six I could see - burst into a series of hearty guffaws. If they had come from anyone other than a lowlife like him it might have sounded jolly. But if you could see the man's face as the laughter left him, it just seemed maniacal.

I drew back my bowstring, an instinct of mine notching the arrow into place without me even realizing it. I felt an abrupt sense of control wash over me as I held the weapon in my hands - my subconscious knew how protected I was with my bow drawn and how nearly unstoppable I was. At the moment the position I was in was absolutely perfect. The bandits couldn't see me, would never spot me at this time of night, and the snow was a natural cloak that worked better than any invisibility potion or spell. By the time one of them had an arrow in his neck and the others would be noticing, I could down most likely two more. While the rest of them were scrambling for their practically useless weapons some may be trying to spot me, but I would down another three. I already had the entire situation planned out in my head. It would be quick, simple, clean, and I would receive my coin from the Jarl. A simple job. I had done a million like it before. I had originally worried that they would run out of bandit camps to send me to, but the damn thieves seemed to spawn as if from nowhere. I had no problem with it. This bounty hunting was starting to almost become an occupation.

I trained the tip of the arrowhead to be just below the largest bandit's skull. I wanted to silence him. He had just barely stopped laughing, but even with his mouth closed, the haunting sound still echoed inside of my head. My eyes narrowed and I held my breath to further steady my weapon and ensure accuracy, while part of me was certain I would make the shot. I had made tougher ones, after all, in much more hectic circumstances. At this moment there was nothing that could break my concentration. Nothing else seemed to be around me. Looking back on it I realize a dozen or so things that could have gone wrong, but in that moment none of that came to mind.

I let it fly. The familiar, very quiet sound that I recognized immediately as a bowstring was barely heard by me, meaning it was silent to my targets below. My eyes followed the wooden shaft automatically, time seeming to move slower than it normally did as the projectile pierced through the snow.

It was very satisfying to watch it make contact - to see the arrowhead pierce flesh, to watch the familiar spurt of crimson taint the blindingly white landscape, and to hear the familiar final strained gurgle that was obviously the last sound someone would make. I watched the body slump to the ground, a small puddle of blood forming around the ear canal where the arrow had pierced. It took only a few brief seconds before the panic erupted, but by then I had already drawn my bowstring back and set loose another arrow, this one jamming itself right between the eyes of the bandit to the deceased one's left. He fell next to the other fresh corpse.

None of the remaining brigands had long-range weaponry at hand. By then at least a few of them had realized that their attacker was using a bow, which clearly must have also made them understand just how doomed they were. Their mouths were open like they were screaming, or possibly shouting out desperate commands to their peers, but I couldn't hear them. My intense focus blocked out any potentially distracting sounds. I downed another one. And another. And another. There was only one left. He was standing in the center of the carcasses of his companions, blood surrounding him in splatters. There was even some of the crimson dotting his own bare arms. He looked frantically from his left to right, trying to determine where the arrows were coming from and who was killing everyone. Clearly he couldn't tell. For a moment, just a flash of a second, I felt slight remorse when I saw the look of terror in his eyes.

But I didn't let it overtake me. I pushed it from my mind before I let the last arrow go. It hit the Redguard square in the forehead. He fell hard onto his back, joining his group of delinquents in Oblivion. Possibly Sovngarde. I highly doubted it. My bow slowly lowered and I remained on this rocky cliff, still in a crouch, just listening to the sound of the howling wind around me. I didn't much mind the cold, but I was beginning to notice the hair on my bare arms sticking up. I glanced down, judging how high up I was, and let out a breath I hadn't noticed I had been holding in. It left me in a small cloud that dissipated into the air once it came from my mouth.

How many times had I done this? Killed a group of people without thinking a thing of it? I wondered if my conscience was becoming altered from all of the murder and violence I was constantly around. It wasn't much different than it had been before, but it had usually just been hunting. Animals, maybe a troll or a sprigan. A thief that might try to rob me on the road, but that was rare. Now I was slaughtering people - humans, orcs, khajiit, argonians, it didn't matter - like it was the most normal thing in the world. A few years earlier I would have been appalled to know how many lives I had taken. Yet for some reason, I was unfazed by it then. Even when I let my thoughts drift to potential guilt I might be able to feel, even when I imagined families grieving or children waiting for a father that wasn't going to come home, I didn't get upset. It just seemed like an interesting thing to think about.

I stood up, my legs a bit cramped from being crouched for so long. My eyes scanned their camp. There were a few bags of coin scattered around the fire, and most likely some more in my victim's pockets. I briefly considered retrieving it but decided against not to. I would have to descend the cliff and I wasn't in the proper mood. I felt a bit out of sorts. And the weather seemed to be taking a turn for the worse. I walked back the route that I had come, heading towards my camp.

My guard was down. That didn't happen often. My thoughts were beginning to envelop me which I hadn't experienced in a long long time. Vivid images from my past distorted reality. Staring at the white, sparkling ground seemed to be the only thing keeping me from entering some sort of involuntary flashback. I would rather not revisit my past if I had the option. Although not exactly looking where I was going made me a bit unaware of my potentially dangerous surroundings, I didn't care. I knew my way back to camp without having to pay much attention. I simply let my feet carry me there while I tried to keep my mind from wandering too much.

I had gotten back to my camp in what seemed like no time at all. The fire had been extinguished by the snow and was now just a pile of ash and died out embers. My tent was keeping most of the white flakes from making contact with my bedroll, but either way I knew that I was going to nearly freeze to death. Shrugging to myself, I slid onto the comforting fabric and tugged my thick blanket over me, one made of several different animal pelts that was only a bit effective in keeping me warm. Sleep didn't come easily but I didn't give up on trying to doze off. I wanted these thoughts to leave my head and was convinced that slumber would cause them to vanish. That wasn't the case, unfortunately.

The strange recollections I was getting from my life years before and the very slight guilt that I felt for taking so many lives just to make some coin was plaguing my dreams considerably. I wouldn't exactly classify them as nightmares but they weren't at all pleasant experiences to deal with when you were simply trying to restore your energy. Blood seemed to be a major factor. It was on basically every surface. Even then I wondered why that was so. I wasn't one to be squeamish around the crimson liquid and I didn't necessarily see it in an abundance, just a sole spurt when an arrow hit flesh and a small pool after death. In my dreams, however, it would appear in buckets. I even found some in a tankard that I almost drank from at a point. The unexplained images I received while I was out were enough to eventually wake me up in the very early hours of the morning, the stars having barely faded from the sky and the sun not yet visible.

If I didn't like something I did anything in my power to change it or to get rid of it all together. I didn't like these nightmarish dreams I had, and they had only occurred once. I knew that my mind wasn't the most considerate thing in Tamriel and it would flood my head with flashbacks and thoughts at the most inconvenient times. I wasn't ever sure what brought them on and I could do nothing to stop them, but it seemed that it was happening more frequently now that I was killing all of these bandits for coin. So as I sat up in my bedroll, rubbing my heavy eyes with clenched fists, I decided subconsciously that I wasn't going to be taking bounties from the Jarl any longer. In fact, I decided that I wouldn't kill anyone unless it was self-defense from that point on. I wasn't sure how long I would keep that promise, wondering if my bloodlust had grown stronger with all of the murders I had committed lately. I decided not to think about that, slightly fearing the answer.

I knew all too well that old Ulfric might be a bit sore with me for not continuing to eradicate every potential threat in the area he controlled, but it didn't have to be my job. I was no Stormcloak and I didn't plan on taking sides in a war I viewed as completely unnecessary. I was a Nord, true, and I worshipped Talos just as much as any of the other divines, but I wasn't going to risk my life just to make sure you could openly worship him without being cut down by the Thalmor. I also had no grudge against elves. They were fine by me - I had met plenty of great ones throughout my travels across the province. Just because there were a few stuck-up Altmer wanting to change our way of life didn't automatically mean that every other elf in Tamriel shared their views. I knew quite a few Nords other races would consider to be uncompassionate and racist - which was justified - and I hoped that they didn't assume all of us were like them. I had no problem with other races. I had a feeling Ulfric couldn't say the same thing. At least not about elves, anyway.

I wasn't very interested in politics and I stayed out of them effectively. I was only doing these bounty missions for the Jarl now because I wanted some extra spending money in case I ever wanted some shiny new armor or a decent pint of mead at a tavern that wasn't completely run down. I didn't need the coin and I could make do without it, I had for years before. And I was willing to do that again if it saved me the trouble of not being able to get a decent night's sleep.

I emerged from my tent, relieved to see that the snowfall had stopped. Although it was far from warm, my nose wasn't as numb and my breath was no longer visible. The white flakes gathered around my ankles and I was grateful I had bought a new pair of boots the last time I was in Windhelm. If I was just wearing my fur shoes my feet would have little to no protection from direct contact with this freezing, loose terrain. I glanced down at the leather article of clothing that stopped at the middle of my calf. They glowed slightly green with an enchantment I had forgotten the specifics of. To me all it did was make the boots much more expensive. But in my mind if something was worth more gold that meant it had to be higher quality than the other products worth less, right? Or at least I told myself if I ever started worrying I had been ripped off.

My life was without routine. It was a fact that I was usually indifferent to. I just went about my day doing whatever came to mind without a second thought, not thinking of anyone other than myself the majority of the time. It was only lately that I had started to feel a hollow kind of loneliness. Maybe it was seeing the strange sort of camaraderie between the bandit packs I kept wiping out, and I longed for it. Or maybe I was simply remembering times from when I was younger, living in a small settlement with other people of my age to associate with, and now I was alone in the wilderness. Now that I thought about it, I hadn't spoken a word to another person for months. My brow furrowed for a moment, that realization a bit unnerving for some reason. My social skills might have been dwindling and they already hadn't been too stellar. I was afraid that the next time I tried to talk to someone I would stumble over my words or have such a hoarse voice they would wonder if I was ill. I cleared my throat and opened my mouth to say something but decided against talking to myself like a maniac, abruptly worried that someone around might hear, or that predators would detect the noise. Not that I couldn't handle them. I just wasn't in the mood for a fight.

I didn't like this loneliness I felt and I wanted to remedy the empty, throbbing emotional pain that seemed to jab at my chest like an ice spike. The wilderness was certainly no place to be if you wanted to be around other (civilized) people. But I didn't have nearly enough gold to buy property in a city and I didn't much want to be practically living inside of an inn. The only thing I could think of doing that would take the least amount of time was joining a guild or a group of some sort. There would most likely be some kind of initiation but that would take less time than raising thousands of gold to purchase a decrepit shack would.

I wasn't the most well-informed person in Skyrim, that was a given. Living out here, isolated in the wilds - only receiving information and gossip from what I managed to overhear from housewives' conversations in the marketplace at Windhelm - kept me thoroughly out of the loop. The only guilds I currently knew about might not have even been existing at the moment, possibly being wiped out or disbanded long before. I knew of three: The Companions, in Whiterun, which was a long, rather dangerous trek that might not be entirely worth it. I had heard they only accepted those of admirable moral standing, and if I was being utterly honest with myself I wasn't certain I would be classified as someone with a "good heart". A group that might accept me even with all of my flaws and distorted moral compass would be the notorious Dark Brotherhood, but I knew that they were very selective in their recruiting. Plus I hadn't the faintest idea of where their location might be, so I couldn't go about finding them and asking politely for admittance. The last group - or guild, rather - was the Thieves Guild.

I paused for a moment at the thought of them. Their location was Riften, unless that had changed since the last I had heard. From what I remembered they were very powerful and had a large amount of control over the basic economics of that city. They were even involved with some people in the palace, or with the most important figures residing in the place, at least if the rumors I heard were true. People didn't know much about them but I did slightly recall overhearing from a conversation between two Rift guards that the stealthy clan was found in the sewer system beneath the city - the "Ratway", I believed they had called it - and that there was some place called "The Ragged Flagon". If even the guards knew about it I assumed that it wasn't very hidden and was easy enough to gain access to. I frowned in thought.

I wasn't the stealthiest person around but I could be dead-silent if I wanted to. I had just recently vowed not to kill anyone unless in self-defense, and the Thieves Guild didn't allow any type of murder if the information I remembered was still accurate. I knew where it was located, it was feared by most people, guards knew where the members resided and did nothing to stop them from continuing with their dealings, and they must have made decent coin - but that wasn't one of my main concerns. At that moment it seemed that the Thieves Guild seemed to be the most viable option if I wanted to make fast friends. And Riften wasn't all that far. If I traveled by night as well as day, I could make it there in a matter of days.

Yes, it seemed that I had set myself a destination. And as I bustled about packing up my camp, preparing for travel after what felt like ages of just staying in the same spot, I realized that I hadn't been this excited in years.