Author's Note: This story is for a few of my characters for a roleplaying forum. The setting and characters belong to Bethesda and Zenimax unless otherwise stated, and I'm not making any profit off it. For this one, Vas'riel belongs to me, as does her companion. Quinn belongs to ScentofBlood.


3E 428, 28th of Second Seed

The night had conquered Vvardenfell, a land of far wastes covered by thick red sands. All that remained to be seen were torchlights under the stars, clustered close in the valleys at the lowest bases of the Red Mountain, home of terrible gods and death-filled blights.

The lights especially clustered around the chitin homes; shells of massive, long-dead creatures. Their exteriors had been white once, before aging to a dusty yellow and being covered in thick red gouts of sand and ash. Now they appeared to just be mud, mud in the shape of bowls and spheres, lit by the occasional torch on the outside, with small archways covered in thick cloths that shined from light attempting to escape from inside.

Inside the earthy hovels were cloths and small wooden constructs, all strewn across packed earth that made up the floors. Despite the alien terrain outside, inhospitable deserts and unnatural, bloodthirsty creatures, the inside was lively; the atmosphere light.

These were the Dunmer, a race of hardy elves with dark blue skin and prominent features. To humans they looked somewhat alien, an image that was magnified by the fact that they lived in one of the most hospitable continents in the whole of Tamriel. They had high cheekbones and jutting jaws, with thin eyes of black, red, or white, framed by pronounced and often protruding bones under their skin.

To most humans, at least, they looked unnatural. But there was one sitting on a small wooden stool in the side of one of the chitin yurts who saw a beauty in the race that her kind, and even her family, did not.

She was an Imperial, the majority race back on the mainland. They held power this far out too, their words and edicts near-law to even the hardy, independent Dunmer. By Imperial standards she was quite beautiful, and everything the Dunmer weren't. She had soft, rounded features and fine hair tied in a loose knot behind her head. Her skin was unblemished, a soft peach color that seemed to spite the sun-scorched dirt outside. Her eyes were large, their iris' a deep brown that looked over the lively atmosphere with a warmth and joy that bespoke a woman sitting with a family she loved.

These people weren't her family, she knew that all too well. In fact, before the Imperial and her companion had arrived in this tiny village in the shadow of the Red Mountain just a day before, she hadn't even known any of them.

But now they sat in a ring, just inside the walls of the yurt, passing bowls of alien, and for the most part unappetizing, food to each and every person, who would then scoop a helping on a cracked bone or old wooden plate lying before them. It didn't matter that there was an outsider in their midst, the girl may have been Imperial in appearance, but she had a light Vvardenfell accent, her jokes were local, and when a plate of clear guar jelly reached her hands, she took a handful of put it down next to her generous helping of fried cliff racer eggs.

Dinner happened whenever all the day's jobs were done and everyone was gathered. In such a small village it had to be like this, if everyone cooked their own meals and did their own chores nothing would ever get done, so the largest shell in the arid valley was put aside for everyone eat in. One of the village women led two of the men in preparing a feast every day, and then it was shared with laughter, stories, and some attempt to break the stress that attempted to fracture communities.

The Imperial girl seemed all too happy to oblige with all this, but even from the beginning it was apparent where her interests were. Her companion was a young Dunmer woman who had walked into town with her, seemingly a servant to her nobility. But her eyes had stayed on the Dunmer all night and all through the meal. The look of adoration and longing was apparent, only matched by the occasional flirty glance back from her companion.

When her plate was polished clean and set down the Imperial ducked away for a moment, returning with a lute to retake her chair. Her companion had been across from her until now, sitting on a bundle of furs on the floor like most the village-folk. It had been the perfect place where she could catch the eyes of the Imperial and share looks all evening. But seeing the instrument made her face light up visibly.

The Dunmer girl stood, while the Imperial placed the bottom of the polished mahogany instrument in her lap, testing each string with the nails from her right hand, while her left twisted them to be tighter or more loose. Her companion may have been slightly less obvious with her loving gazes before then, but the girl was so fixated on the instrument now that there she could stare openly, taking in each soft curve and displaced strand of hair as it contrasted against her light skin.

Moments later she looked up, appearing quite proud of herself. She caught an abashed looked, and smiled wide before strumming a single chord out of the lute. It sounded perfect and musical, a testament to keen ears and good craftsmanship.

There was a spin that left robes shooting out in every direction as the Dunmer took to the open floor in the center of the yurt, followed by another chord. Another quick spin and the Imperial started playing for real, notes and chords flowing from her fingers every time a fingernail hit one of the taught, gut strings. The Dunmer, a look of joy stretched across her pronounced features and crinkling her thin eyes, spun and flowed like a flower in the wind. When she wasn't moving recklessly across the open floor of the yurt, her shoulders and hips swayed with the beat or her back stretched and contorted, throwing her whole body in the dance.

Just a minute in had the spectators clapping rhythmically to the lute's solo, and soon the village youths and several of the older workers were up and filling the room brim-to-brim with cloth as robes and dresses were spun in joy. All throughout the song and dance, which lasted for hours into the night until homes and beds started to beckon, their eyes remained affixed to one another.

The world was an enjoyable experience, but no amount of fun or novelty seemed to tear their attentions apart. It only became more prominent as the night winded down and the two travelers were left alone in the gathering yurt. A bedroll had been rolled out for the visitors, and as they settled in they had turned to face each other.

Their heads seemed to hit the comforters at the same time, for their eyes hadn't moved yet, still staring into the other's. The Dunmer's iris' were red, the color of a light ruby in most lights. Now they were deep and mysterious, like a pool of a dark red wine. It wasn't the color that entranced the Imperial, there was so much more to her eyes than that. They were soft now, caring, understanding. They gave her the feeling of lying in bed in the mainland, protected from everything, before danger had ever entered her life. There was safety in that gaze that she knew was tempered by this woman's strength.

The Imperial's lips parted, and for a second a breath came out that brushed lightly against the Dunmer's hand, where they had linked palms with one another between them, and the Dunmer's own lips. The whispered breath soon took shape, forming a word that they could hardly hear, a name, "Vas'riel."

"Hmm?" Vas'riel replied, just a muttered sound of contentedness in return.

The Imperial opened her mouth, only to close it a few moments later with no sound escaping. Her brow furrowed, before her whole forehead relaxed. The emotions were apparent in her eyes more than her face, after a night of staring at Vas'riel in adoration they looked through her now, glistening in the tiny bit of starlight that reached into the dark yurt.

A thin blue finger untangled itself from her hands. Vas'riel reached across the sparse few inches to press against the girl's cheek and pull away one of the tears that had escaped.

They both already knew what troubled the girl. Her life had been a simple affair just recently, but enemies of her family had targeted her for whatever reason. Now the two fled north from the plantations at the southern end of Vvardenfell.

"Don't worry, heart of mine," Vas'riel spoke. Her voice sent chills down the girl's spine, it was always so smooth, and yet deep enough to give her a prominence that made her seem haughty at times. Even if Vas'riel didn't mind, the Imperial girl hated when people assumed she thought that way. "Even if they catch us, I will defend you. I'll protect you to my last breath and then some, and if either of us are to ever die, I'll challenge death itself to bring us back together."

Vas'riel, the girl knew, was the most selfless person she ever met. The quiet words spoken in that dark yurt put a smile on her face. After a moment, she felt her eyes growing heavy amongst the safety of the Dunmer's hand as it slowly stroked the tears away, her thumb smoothly circling the girl's cheek.

4E 62, 2nd of Sun's Dusk

It seemed to be impossible to figure what Vas'riel was thinking, even after her helmet was off. The older woman had sat down in a cave, some ways away from the mountain's peak, and was staring off into distance as she slowly stroked the skull she had been carrying.

Quinn was her current traveling partner, a woman who appeared as a Nord dressed in conservative robes. It was plain to see that she wasn't a local, poking out from beneath her shorter, blood-red hair were bone-white horns, and despite her modest dress and Nord appearance she shivered against the biting cold of the Throat of the World. The woman was currently giving her companion space, her eyes speaking of her distrust for the old woman already.

There was quite a bit of surprise already, when the old Dunmer helmet had been removed she'd been expecting a Dunmer, but this woman had ash-grey skin and small horns protruding from her forehead. She was a Dremora, a Daedric servant of Mehrunes Dagon, and yet no type of Dremora that Quinn had ever seen. And the truth was, Quinn had seen plenty enough Daedra that Dremora didn't surprise her. Vas'riel had yet to speak of such matters, offering only brief advice and quips, but she worked for powerful Daedra, the most powerful pantheon of gods that existed to Dunmer. The Daedric Princes. And Vas'riel's masters were Quinn's parents, so to speak.

"Vas'riel shall guide your steps, my child," Meridia had declared on the day it was decided Quinn was ready. The avatar of Nocturnal stood beside her, and around them were representations, faint images that seemed to take shape for just seconds, of another fifteen figures. Those shared Quinn's blood, the seventeen Daedric Princes, surprisingly all of whom had gathered for this moment. They were all silent as Meridia spoke once more, "Fear not, for this girl was our champion. We have faith in her still."

"See the world," Nocturnal commanded from Meridia's side, "Grow, child, and return to us once more."

That had been the last time she had seen her 'parents', just days earlier, before arriving here in the care of this woman. While her body was adapting, her daedric blood already thickening to the frosty cold of Skyrim's mountains, she was still unsure about her situation, about who the Princes had left her with. There was just something in the sunken look to the woman, or the dead gaze she held that seemed to stare through the skull she stroked so lovingly. Something that irked Quinn.

A powerful enough woman to have been considered the Daedric Princes' champion even years before Quinn was born, when her exploits in Vvardenfell had been told as legend, yet she had been expecting something else. This woman, Dremora, whatever she wanted to be called, was a wiry figure hiding under robes and enchantments, her gaze detached from reality, her body little more than a husk, from what could be seen of it.

Quinn turned, looking out the cave entrance and across the world of Tamriel, of Skyrim, where they had come to. Part of her wanted to take in all these new sights, these novel places. Part of her just wanted to wonder what had happened to turn the 'champion' into something like this without having to look into those dead eyes.