Neria

Morndas, 21st of Sun's Dusk, 5e 100

It was a dreary, wet and cold day and Neria had passed few travelers and wanderers on the road. The dirt was soggy and mushy beneath her feet and she could feel the bitter and unmerciless cold sink into her toes and feet. It was into the month of Sun's Dusk, and it was already unforgiving and relentless in its frosty wrath. Neria Larethan didn't mind it all too much. Although she wasn't as resistant to the harsh cold as the Nords were, she was familiar with Skyrim's unrelenting climate and weather and was always prepared for the worst.

At the moment she was dressed in thick and warm fur armor, boots, with thick gloves under her gauntlets. It was going to be a pain in the arse to strip down for the night. She had spied a small inn nearby and she was exhausted with the day's travel and adventure along the way. As she had made her way to Solitude she had encountered more than enough bandits as well as roaming skeletons and necromancers trying to catch her by surprise. Yes Skyrim was a beautiful and wonderful land but also very cruel, you had to always be aware and cautious at every turn lest you wanted to end up dead.

Neria was an Altmer, or a High Elf , her race had supposedly hailed from a mysterious continent called Atmora. A hundred years had past after the civil war in Skyrim, and just as things had started to settle down, tension had started to build again between the remaining Elves in Skyrim and the Nords along with the other races. Skyrim had been in an uproar after Ulfric had slayed the High Queen and then only a few years later, Ulfric, Jarl of Windhelm had been murdered as well. Some people believed that it was the Dark Brotherhood who had received a contract from a sour Imperial or someone who sympathized with the Elves, but who knew? Nobody would ever be brave enough to contact the Dark Brotherhood and ask them.

The people of Skyrim had no clue who to put on the throne now. Whether it should be a Nord or an Elf or someone of a different race. The children of the High Queen's had been slaughtered in their beds as well, leaving no remaining heirs to the throne. Some people had suggested putting the Dragonborn on the throne, but very few people even believed in the so-called 'Dragonborn,' a person with the body of a human but had a soul of a dragon... It was hard to believe. And even if there was a so-called 'Dragonborn' where was he or she? Why hadn't they come out and reveal themselves? Couldn't they see that Skyrim was on the brink of war yet again? And perhaps this time, there was no peace after it. Maybe the people of Skyrim would fight until the very end of their existence, who knew? All Neria knew was that Skyrim was moving towards very dark days, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to be there when they came or not. However Neria also knew that if the Dragonborn was really out there, she would want to help them save Skyrim for any disaster that could befall on the land, it was her home now.

"Neria...? Neria...? Hello...? Anyone in there?" a young male voice called to her, tugging at her clothes slightly and she was pulled out of her deep thinking.

"Sorry Farian, I was just..." she trailed off, giving the small Wood Elf a faintly sheepish smile.

"Day dreaming?" he finished. "You should focus Neria, a dragon could swoop down any second and snatch you up!" he cried, his beady brownish-black eyes glancing around suspiciously for any dragon activity. Farian was small like all the other Wood Elves, with tan skin, beady eyes, and dark brown hair tied back in a short pony tail. He had his homemade oak bow slung across his back with his quiver of iron arrows. She also knew that he kept a glass dagger in his right boot as well. He was a bit paranoid, but in Skyrim nowadays you had to be at least a little if you wanted to survive. It never hurt to carry a backup weapon of some sort either.

"Me? Why do you think the dragons are always going to snatch up me?! What about you!" Neria said, crossing her arms over her chest as she continued to walk. Farian had to lengthen his stride and quicken his pace quite a bit to keep up with her long slender legs.

"Because you have more meat on your bones and your a lot taller than me so they'll see you better, it's just common sense for them to eat you first!" Farian shot back, crossing his own arms across his chest.

"Alright Lord Logic, whatever you say" she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm but she couldn't help but smile a tiny bit. They bickered like siblings. She glanced over at Farian and noticed that his lips were slightly curved up into a faint smile as well and she grinned.

"Oh thank the Divines!" Farian gasped and he suddenly halted and Neria slowed to a stop as well. They had finally reached the small inn they had spotted. "Let's get inside before we freeze to death!" He said as he hurried up the small wooden steps and opened the door, quickly entering and leaving Neria outside for a moment to observe the small inn. She didn't know why, but she felt like something was... Off. Her skin prickling a warning as she slowly ascended the stairs and walked to the door, pulling it open and slipping inside and shutting the door quickly to keep the cold out. The inn was called the Old Hroldan Inn and apparently Tiber Septim had once stayed in the very same inn. It was located in The Reach and was run by a Nord named Eydis and her son Skuli.

The Nord woman came up to them from around the bartable to greet them. "You'll be looking to rent Tiber Septim's room I take it?" she asked them and Farian looked a bit taken back, his eyes widening slightly as he glanced up at Neria who smiled kindly over at Eydis.

"Well, why not? How many people get to say they got to sleep in the bed that the Emperor slept in right?" Neria murmured down to her companion who smiled faintly back at her. "We'll take Tiber Septim's room I suppose" Neria turned back towards the lady who was suddenly frowning at both of them.

"I'm sorry, but the room is taken actually, but you can have one of the other rooms" she spoke in a clipped voice.

Neria blinked twice, glancing down at Farian who just shrugged and scowled slightly. She knew it had to be because of their race. The Nord's still didn't accept any Elves presence in their homeland.

"Alright then... Ten septim's right?" she asked as she started to pull out her coin purse.

"Twelve, actually" Eydis sniffed, looking away from the two with a slightly disdainful look in her eyes. Eydis, like a lot of the Nords kept a hate buried inside them for the Elven race, though it tended to come out once an Elf appeared within their sights, even if the Elf never did a thing.

Neria was now frowning deeply two, but didn't say anything as she plucked twelve septim's from her coin purse and placed them in the innkeepers outstretched hand. "Here."

"Skuli!" Eydis suddenly called, her hand fisting around the gold coins and shoving them into the pocket of her apron she was wearing over her tavern clothes.

A little boy dressed in a red tunic and blue breaches came running up to them quickly from the cellar and stood in front of them and studied them slightly. "Follow me to your room please" he said, motioning for them to follow as he began to walk towards the back of the inn.

"Why did she ask if we wanted to stay in the room if it was already taken?" Farian muttered under his breath but Neria didn't answer, she didn't want to be the one to tell him that there was still a deep seeded hatred for the Elves. He'd have to figure it out himself.

"Here it is. My mother can give you food and drink as well if you are hungry or thirsty, but if you drink too much, you're out, no drunks," the boy said firmly as he looked between the two. "Goodnight," he said with a faint nod before stalking away back towards his mother.

"You go ahead and sleep, I'm not tired at the moment" Neria murmured to her friend and smiled softly.

"Alright, but make sure you get some sleep, it is still a long way to Solitude" he told her before slipping into the room and leaving her alone.

Neria made her way over to the crackling fire and sat down on a bench and leaned back against the table. Her blue eyes raked slowly around the large inn, taking in every detail she could until she paused on a dark figure.

It was a man, she could tell faintly, dressed in black, a black that looked darker than night even. He had a hood up over his head and a matching black cloth covering his mouth and nose, just showing his dark eyes. He had a powerful and commanding aura, and a graceful, lean body. She couldn't tell what race he was, but she could see inky black jagged bangs covering his dark eyes slightly. He looked like Death himself, and she couldn't help but shiver. Her heart was pounding in her chest a little and she was finding it a little hard to breath. What was a man like that doing in a small, remote inn like Old Hroldan? Whatever he was doing here. it couldn't be good, she knew that.

He was leaning back against the table like she was, very at ease while she was on edge and her whole body tense with apprehension. He was watching the innkeeper, Eydis, with a steady and almost a slightly hungry gaze... Like he was watching his prey.

'An Assassin. He's an assassin of the Dark Brotherhood... I know it!' she thought silently to herself, even though she didn't know how she knew this. She could just feel it. It was then that he tore his gaze from his target and looked straight at Neria with an intense dark stare, like he could see right through her. 'He knows that I know... Is he going to kill me too?' she thought with a shiver. One thing was for sure, he was definitely an assassin... And he had come here to kill Eydis. But why? Sure she wasn't all that pleasant, at least not to any Elf, but she had a son, probably a husband too who would miss her. She couldn't let the boy become an orphan.

She slowly stood up, pretending to casually stretch and yawn widely. Her eyes didn't leave the assassin's for a moment, wanting to show him that she wasn't scared, at least on the outside. She was absolutely terrified on the inside. She finally broke his gaze, stalking over to the innkeeper and smiled over at her, however she just merely scowled as she continued cleaning a tankard.

"What do you need Elf?" she asked a bit sourly.

"That man over there... Who is he?" Neria asked, resting her elbow on the bar table, trying to look innocent.

The woman glanced up and over at the assassin before turning to look at her. "Why that is none of your business and I do not gossip about my customers. Now is that all?" she asked in an icy voice.

"He's from the Dark Brotherhood, he's been looking at you this entire time" she finally said, dropping any innocent pretense she had kept up before. "He has come to kill you... Or maybe your son, but someone here is going to die tonight. I suggest you leave."

Eydis slammed the tankard down, her eyes fierce. "Do I need to have my son throw you out? How dare you suggest that- that man- has come to kill me or my son! How dare you, you filthy Elf!" she practically shrieked.

Now Neria could see why someone could have sent an assassin to kill her.

"I'm trying to help you, you Icebrain!" she hissed and the Nord woman looked taken back that an Elf would insult her. "I don't want your son to become an orphan, and I'm guessing you don't want that to happen either, so I suggest you pack your things and leave before one of you or both of you ends up dead!"

Eydis had suddenly went quiet, her hazel eyes flickering with fear as she glanced back at her son who was playing with a wooden sword and a straw dummy. "Alright" she breathed with a small sigh. She glanced at Neria for a second, looking like she was going to say something but didn't and turned away, moving towards her son and started to speak in a hushed voice to him.

"That was very brave of you."

Neria whirled around the face the assassin cloaked in all black. He spoke in a soft but lethal voice, she could tell that he was smirking.

"But that won't save them, I will kill her, or someone else from my family will perhaps..." he trailed off, slipping towards her until she could feel his warm breath through the cloth that was covering half of his face, his dark eyes boring through hers. "She is already marked by Sithis, she will meet him in the Void" he whispered, his dark eyes lifting up to watch the mother and son hurry into their room to pack their things. "Maybe not today, but someday I will claim their souls" he murmured. "And they won't be able to even scream before I slit their throats."

Cel

She had just prevented the inevitable from happening. It would happen anyways however, an assassin of the Dark Brotherhood never gave up on their target, he would finish his contract.

A slow smirk slid onto his lips as he watched the High Elf's eyes widened and a flicker of fear ran through them. Fear not solely for herself, but for the Nord woman and her son. They would die by his hands, and she knew it, she couldn't stop it or help them, not unless she wanted to be killed too. And that's what made it all too sweet. He was tempted to kill her, not because she was an Elf and he was a Nord, it was because she had stepped into something that she shouldn't have, and costed him his kill at the moment. So she would pay too, unless she wanted to die by his hands as well.

"You should leave, you and your little companion" he finally spoke again after a moment in a quiet voice.

"Why?" she asked after a moment, her blue eyes locking with his for a moment.

"So I don't change my mind and kill you" he replied simply with a small shrug, another grin tugging on his lips, even if she couldn't see it. "You stopped me from doing my duty, that was my contract," he continued, eyeing her up and down slowly. "Really, I should kill you, you know too much already" he breathed, moving around her like a hawk circling its prey. "Of course I can not deny..." he let out a small sigh. "That the chase is thrilling" he breathed into her ear and she tensed up and he couldn't help but smirk again. "So Elf, run, run and never look back, because surely I will be there."

For a long, stretched out moment, neither of them said anything, it was just silent. They could both hear the mother and son packing up their things in their room in a hurry, talking in hushed murmurs.

"I won't let you kill them" the Altmer breathed, her eyes wide and round still but they hardened into resolve. "I won't let you!"

The assassin laughed softly, "And how are you going to stop me?" he asked in a purr as he slipped away from her, creating a small gap between them, she could still feel his body heat, and the intense gaze of his lingering on her.

"I'll kill you" she said after a slight pause, tilting her head up slightly, her eyes fierce again. "Get out. This is their home, that boy will be orphaned if you kill his mother, are you really so heartless that you'd take that boys mother away?" she asked in a whisper of disbelief.

The assassin studied her with dark eyes for a moment before speaking, "yes."

The Elf was taken back but quickly steadied herself again, smoothing over her expression of shock and horror. "Then you are a monster" she said in a soft voice.

"My dear, I knew that quite some time ago when they first took me in, I have accepted my fate... Have you accepted yours?" he asked her, a cruel smile curling on his lips.

The Altmer shook her head and turned away, "they won't die, not with me and Farian besides them," she said roughly.

The assassin chuckled once again and shook his head. "You really think that the Nord woman is going to let you travel around with them? You Elves sure think highly of yourselves... I suppose that's why they call you High Elves" he murmured almost thoughtfully with another chuckle. "You can't stop her death, she will die... And you just might lose your life trying to save hers... Do you really think it's worth it?" he asked, actually sounding curious, peering at the Elf with dark eyes.

"Yes, they love each other very much, they must have gone through so much together" she snarled, letting her anger flow out of her. "How can you take away something so precious? A life" she breathed.

Cel rolled his eyes, "I forgot that the Elves were also very dramatic as well" he said mostly to himself. "I will take her life because someone wants her dead, and Sithis has marked her soul, I take life for Sithis and the Nightmother, I will take her life, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. Maybe if I feel merciful, I will take the boys life too."