This doesn't belong to me

The Beginning or the End?

I guess you could say I was always quiet, never spoke really. That was my talent, I could make people think I wasn't really there, because by the time they noticed me I was gone. That was my trade, my birthright, I was a Changeling, a creature of illusion. If I had the drive perhaps I could have gone far, but I didn't. I just liked to be invisible. It was all a big game when I was young, sometimes I think not even my mother realised she'd had a child. But she did, I was just I'm… well a replacement. I was fae, good old traditional fae, where a male offspring was replaced by a fae child. Or maybe I'm not a child, who knows. I don't remember life before mother but that doesn't mean there wasn't?

I left mother not long after her sons seventeenth year, and wandered into the big wide world. Oh I started off as all inquisitive foolhardy youths do, hunting cliff racers round the islands, never far from a safe cave, or an abandoned shack for when things got a bit too dangerous. I once made the mistake of taking on a pair of mating betty netch, and spent the rest of the week holed up in an abandoned ebony mine, eating rats until the things were killed by a passing soldier on his way to market. He didn't really have a chance after his battle with the netch, he was sporting injuries, suffering from the blight, that ash disease so many of the races seem to succumb to. Easy pickings really. All I had to do was sneak up behind him when he was tending to his wounds and run the blade across his neck. His blood staining the chain linked cuirass that I later found myself wearing. It didn't fit round the bosom properly, but it didn't need to. That was my first taste of human blood, imperial I think, slightly sour to the taste, but his flesh when roasted slowly over the fire was…. Well waste not want not so they say.

I want to make one thing clear now, I'm not a vampire, I don't need to drink blood to stay alive, nor do I get injured by daylight, I get injured like most other creatures, by being attacked, but I have developed a taste for the slightly fatty taste of Elf flesh. Push comes to shove I'll delight in picking over the odd imperial, and a bit of cat, lizards hit and miss. I guess that's why I avoid them so much, I don't like wasting food and I can never eat a whole argonian, not even storing it.

Anyway, I followed his path to market and delighted in my first sight of the infamous town of Balmora, seat of the mighty Hlaalu, and the ever so impressive Blades. I heard tales from here to Mournhold about the spies that made the great houses tremble in fear. How the Temlpes had stopped plotting to assassinate any pretenders to the holy thrown in fear that they themselves would be. It was still a game at this stage, and I had convinced myself that I needed to usurp this terrifying faction for the better of all concerned. And it wasn't difficult. Rumours flew all round town and all round Morrowind that Balmora held the hub of the faction, so all I had to do was hang around long enough in the right places. So I did. For months I secreted myself in the taverns and bars listening intently to conversations trying to pinpoint where in town they were based. I had already broken into the different guilds to see, but still nothing.

Then came the breakthrough. The grapevine went wild with tales of a prison ship carrying a stranger of foreign smell, Khajiit's for you, to Seyda Neen where they'd be set free for some important mission that none were supposed to know of, on orders of the Emperor.

Now I'm not a stupid fae, chances were that secret mission on behalf of the Emperor would mean Blades somewhere, either the stranger was one, or would at least meet with them once. It stood to reason surely? And even if they knew not what they were here for, they'd know which questions to ask. So what would a sensible fae do in that situation? Surely what I did… I stood around the Census offices waiting, I was questioned several times by the guards, suspicious of the stillness in me, I was asked to show my papers to prove my origin…well we couldn't let that happen, so I ran to the lighthouse where I would be able to watch in solitude. I trusted myself not to let the opportunity to slip by. It was fascinating watching the villagers wandering, seemingly as normal, occasionally the furtive glances at each other, the hushed comments drifting in the wind.

Lets say I wasn't expecting what arrived, in fact I would say it was the most unlikely creature to go on a secret mission. A small, drained frightened wood elf, stumbling into the bright sunshine, his eyes squinting trying to adjust. You could imagine the smell as his clothes stuck to him, caked in what could best be described as mud. But still I made my advances, keeping him at a far distance but managing to hop onto the silt strider just before we left Seyda. We didn't speak, mainly because I hadn't made myself known to him or the caravaner.

The strider didn't make it to Balmora…

And that my dears is how Morrowind lost it's greatest hero, it's Emperor and it's defences in a night. But back then it was just a game, and now? Now I'm serious.