*Author's Note: This is the first time I've done a fanfic for Skyrim, and it's been awhile since I've written anything major. Some might not like how I started the way I did, but this its unique own story interwoven with certain main quests. I'm not that familiar with all the lore of Skyrim, I just want to write the best possible story I can. I hope you enjoy it and and feedback will be much appreciated.
Chapter 1 - Skyrim Hospitality
I was a long way from High Rock. Twenty one years of life were about to end. So many things happened since Mother and I fled that land. We spent a year hiding from my father and I ended up prepared to die regardless. Our long midnight locks cut short to hide our appearances. Yet no matter how hard I tried, those three scars on my face could never be removed. Not it mattered in Helgen. My hands were tied as I sat in a cart with three other fellow captives.
Someone might have thought I was someone important to be captured by the Empire. I shared the cart with this...Jarl Ulfric; a man I seriously hated at that particular point in time. Not as much as my father; at least this Ulfric and I both made mistakes based on ignorance. There was Ralof, who I was still angry at for his inconvenient laughter when he saw me naked as a baby in the arresting hands of the Legionnaires. At least one of them had the decency to give me some worn clothes to wear. The last man was someone I didn't remember or care to remember. He was just some horse thief they picked up along the way. Frankly, I couldn't blame him for being angry at the other two men I shared the cart with.
My companion-in-chains spoke spun a long ballad about the town and some girl he knew once upon a time. As for Helgen's beginning...it was probably a Nord who named it after his pale, unattractive wife when they found this place. That is, after wondering around like the blathering idiots they probably were and winding up in a place that anyone could find assuming they had common sense. Would it have made any difference if they'd executed us in the Imperial City? What did it matter to my father if I died here instead of in Evermore?
They told us to get out of the wagons, and we did. We were all dead. It was going to be the end of my short life; a life that consisted of a shop, a farm, the most unusual first love, my dead sister, my mother's magic lessons, and that...tournament.
That damnable tournament. Then there was the grand finale; my father losing his damned mind and sending trained killers after me and mother. Mine was not exactly a charmed life.
They forced us into lines and a helmet-less Legion soldier read the names of the condemned men. Next to him was a tall female Legate. The fourth man in our cart tried to run. He said he was from Rorikstead or some place. He didn't get far. I would have ran, but I found a better way to embarrass myself.
"Who are you?" the man asked. I answered as if I'd had too many sweetrolls.
"I am Annabelle Croix, daughter of Sophia Croix. I have no ties with these...Stormcloaks. You people really should investigate my father...he's trying to kill me you know?!"
I did notice Ralof lowering his head. If he had his hands free, his forehead would have been in his palm. But, as I continued my rambling, I hoped these Imperials would realize it was all a misunderstanding.
"I was just trying to bathe, you see? I hadn't washed in like three weeks, which for a woman is just... unnecessary. Unsophisticated. Un..seemly. Un..."
"Thanks...that'll do Breton." he said. "Legate, ma'am, what do we do with her? She's not on the list."
The male seemed a reasonable sort.
The Legate only had cruel eyes and her response was quick, "She goes to the block." I never forgot those words.
The other man reassured me that my remains would be sent to High Rock. My blood boiled right then. Giving my father and his friends that satisfaction was unacceptable. If was going to die, I was going to be on MY terms. I still had that right, at least.
"You can send my ashes back to Bruma, and while you're there, you might want to pay my mother a visit and tell her why you killed a perfectly innocent woman!" I roared at the pair.
There was nothing but rage. I tried to move my hands, but the Imperials made quite sure they were secured. As I quickly learned, it seems Ulfric was given a similar treatment. The soldiers must have assumed that we were extremely dangerous.
And they were right. This General Tullius, if I remember right, spoke to Ulfric about a power called the Voice. Whatever it was, it had to be greater than anything me or my mother knew. He used it, apparently, to kill the High King of Skyrim.
With that knowledge, there was only despair left. There was no way out. I'd failed mother. I'd failed my sister. And somewhere, my insane father would laugh once it was all said and done.
My mother kept a shrine to Julianos in the back of her shop. She said very little about her life before she married my father. She was damn good at it though. Some of the local soldiers back home knew. They once called her Sophia the Great. She was an even fifty summers, yet had much youth in her features. When my father did his work for the Count, me and mother ran the adventurer's shop she opened after my sister died at six years old. Every morning, we prayed to that shrine of Julianos.
I prayed to him again, as I was led to my execution; the pitiful end of my life.
How did this happen?
I'm going to say this. There was a time, not so long ago when I didn't have a problem with the Imperials. The Empire was a good thing, I was told. I never once thought the Empire was a corrupt entity that had to be brought down with sanctified wrath. My family was too busy trying to get by everyday in the Count lands, just like everyone else.
The Empire was just part of everyday life. So, a year after me and my mother fled High Rock...at no point during all those back alley magic lessons and pickpocket schemes did anyone bother to inform us that a lot of people in Skyrim didn't think that way! We had our hands full evading my father's men, doing odd jobs for the local Thieves Guild for much needed coin, and setting bandits on fire from the deserts of Hammerfell to the Colovian Highlands. We heard rumors, but little hard evidence. Apparently, the High King was dead and it was a big deal. Thalmor? The last I checked they weren't accosting Julianos worshipers. Stormcloaks? Who were they? I received a quick education.
I ran back through it in my mind. When I arrived in Skyrim, I learned the map was a bit inaccurate as I ended up farther off than I'd hoped. I was supposed to end up in this place called...Falkreath. Instead, I ended up crossing paths with a small battalion of soldiers camped out at a place called Darkwater Crossing apparently.
Ulfric Stormcloak was rather cordial to me. The rank and file...not so much. It's not that they were completely rude, just completely juvenile. It was almost like they hadn't seen a woman in months...which wasn't true because there were a few women among them. To be fair though, as much as most men annoyed me, I couldn't blame them; none of these women were exactly lookers. These Stormcloak women looked like their faces had been melted off by a Shock spell.
Ulfric gave this rousing speech to his men the night before it all went to mammoth excrement. I have to admit, I was moved. Now, don't get me wrong, I wasn't about to run off and join the fight to "free Skyrim".
I had only two objectives when I crossed the border. One, find the College of Winterhold and my mother's friend of a friend...this Mirabelle. Two, investigate this...Dark Brotherhood. Mother and I had a debt to settle with them. I decided to turn in after this Jarl Ulfric was done. They were on their way back to the city of Windhelm. It was a stone's throw away from Winterhold, someone said, One of the other soldiers, Ralof, stopped me and offered me a drink.
"You may not be a Nord, but there's no reason you can't enjoy a little Skyrim hospitality." he said.
He seemed a bit different than some of the drunken idiots he called comrades. Definitely fit though...not interested, but fit nonetheless. I wanted to leave, but I couldn't refuse.
One drink, one drink. Don't rush it. Drink your drink. Say good night, good sir, and walk away. And I did.
The final thing I remembered was the ultimate humiliation the morning after. Now, for most people, that would be waking up next a giant spider...or the wrong man or woman. I've woken up quite a few times to all three scenarios. What happened that morning was one of the great, all time embarrassing things I'd ever experienced in my life. The Imperials raided the camp, killed many of the soldiers, and captured the rest. Including me. When I was bathing...
Ralof tried to sneak a peek at me as they handed me some clothes to wear.
"Is this what you call Skyrim hospitality, Ralof?!" I spat back.
Define humiliation: being forced to dress in front of men at sword point. There were dock girls in Anvil who received better treatment than that. With that, whatever love I had for the Legion died.
...The first man to die wanted it over quick. I couldn't hold back though. I felt tears seep out my eyes for the first time since I was locked in that prison cell in Castle. However, there was this...odd sound in the sky. It stopped everyone. At that moment, though...it never occurred to me it was something out of my nightmares. This entire farce of an execution, my father's madness, my home so far away, and all I could was cry like a little girl. The anger was gone as my eyes watered and I couldn't wipe them away. Tullius wanted it over and done with, the Legate even more so. It was almost like she had it out for me. The reasonable Legate told me to go nice and slow, as if there was any other way!
As they put me down on the block. I looked up at the sky. Tears must have glistened from the sun's rays. That distant sound, however, came back. I imagined my eyes were held open by other hands...as I looked up and a beast came from the sky, black as night, wings unfurled, and a face filled with death. It looked right at me. It roared, the ground shook and I found myself face first in the sky came asunder and everyone shouted in fear but me.
They called it a Dragon.
Ralof had said, "the gods wouldn't give us another chance." In that case, I took his advice and ran like my legs were on fire. Actually, in that case, I think they were at one point. I ran into the nearest place I could, a tower nearby. I'd seen it when I jumped off the wagon, never thought I'd be running from a mythical creature and using it as shelter. They brought me to Helgen to be executed for the crimes of others. As rolled around on the floor of a ruined tower, in a embarrassing attempt to put out my smoke-filled clothes, a part of me knew I would die anyway. The question was how. Would the Dark Brotherhood finally track me down? Would my father? Would the Imperials find me and finish the job? Then, out of nowhere, my mother's voice came into my head. No...not here, I thought.
Get up Belle...GET UP!
No, I couldn't let her down. It was too soon. It was a struggle, but rolled over with my bound hands...and I got off the damn floor.
Next – Chapter 2: Brave New World