Anton Boncoeur: Winter's Mage.

Once upon a time there was a small town know as Grandchat in High Rock. Though High Rock was in a state of constant war, Grandchat had three features that made it a wonderful place to live. The first was that it had no more resources than was needed to feed the mouths of its inhabitants. The second was that it was in the middle of nowhere and was nowhere on the path to anything. The third was that many a Comte (the hereditary leader of Grandchat) had taken great pains to build up strong defensive walls. In short Grandchat had nothing of use, was not on the way to anything of use, and the grand heap of nothing was hard to invade. Logically no one bothered. And so the people of Grandchat lived peacefully under the rule of a Comte Boncoeur—and occasionally a Comtesse Boncoeur—for many a generation…until the Warp of the West.

The Aedric gods had once again walked in Highrock and where there were once a hundred squabbling kingdom there were now only five. The town inhabitants awoke to find the Boncoeur Manor gone, with a handsome home in its place. The town mayor, who the townspeople had never seen before, was very confused. A shack had come up over night, in it, a man and a woman named Pierre and Marianne Boncoeur. The couple was well liked and respected and as a result, soon grew out of their squalor. Many women noticed that they felt the need to call Marianne comtesse—though why that was and what a comtesse even was they had no idea. As the years passed the couple proved to be barren and had no children. And yet the elders of the town could remember a smiling green-eyed boy, and Marianne on occasion would weep with great pain, not remembering who she grieved for.

Many years in the future, in the Imperial City, a small green eyed boy named Anton appeared before a statue of Akatosh. That he did not disappear shortly thereafter for a mundane reason was itself a miracle. Before the Great War, the Imperial City proper had been the jewel of the empire. The gleaming imperial palace sat at its center. Twelve walls emanated from the palace like spokes on a wheel. At the end of each spoke was a watchtower—allowing the City Watch to move quickly from one side of a wall to another, as well as to spot enemies from outside the city limits. Between each pair of walls stood a district, which was like a city unto itself, with its own purpose and character. Gates the height of ten men and the width of six lying down allowed citizens to move freely between the districts and the palace. Everywhere one turned, one could see the wealth of the empire on display, in the beautiful buildings, in goods flaunted by merchants and the jewels worn by the women, even the many races and colors in the city was a form of wealth.

The Thalmor invasion changed everything. Only the palace grounds had been rebuilt completely. The wealthy who survived the invasion had moved to the Elven Gardens district. Sometimes, with the City Watch out on the patrol, helped by hired mercenaries, the residents even felt safe. Everywhere else was a different story. The city was a society interrupted. The Thalmor had flattened enough houses and killed enough people that there were too few placed to live and too few men to build them. People slept in the husks of homes or even on the grass of the Arboretum. The chaos of the empire had made trade sporadic and traders wary of coming. The wealth pouring in from the rest of the empire seemed to grow smaller every year.

It was in this city that Anton appeared. If he had been taken in by the Thieves Guild or some priests in the temple district, his story would have been very different. His lot was far worse. He stumbled from place to place, his luck preventing him from staying in the clutches of those who would truly harm him. Being a smart boy, he learned how to use pretty eyes and pretty words to get what he needed. He would learn that remaining unseen could be more valuable than any handout of food or clothe. With his new knowledge he learned how to take from those he could not convince. Anton learned to fight as well. The small shank he carried had saved him more than once from street urchins like himself as well as more unsavory characters.

Anton lived like this for many years until the age of seventeen. He was not an unhappy boy. Through all of his troubles, one thing kept him afloat. He had a hope, a dream, one day he would steal enough gold to move far north, to the undamaged cities of the empire—to Chorrol, Cheydinhal, or even Bruma. He was even getting close to his goal, which was why he planned to do another job tonight.

-x-

Oh so very gently, I fiddle with the locks on the watchtower. So many who tried to get into the Garden District thought going through the gates and making a run for it was a good idea. How stupid of them. It calls too much attention, and even if you can slip out of the guards view, they know to launch a search. The watchtowers on the other hand, are a much easier route. The guards inside don't expect a sneak thief to be dumb enough to walk into a building teeming with them. They feel too safe to look for an enemy in their home.

I breathe a sigh of relief as the lock turns. It looks like this set might last. Lock picks are starting to become rare, and I have no idea where I'll find my next supplier. Inside I meet no guards, but the sounds of laughter and clinking mugs above me suggest they are upstairs. I waste no time getting into the Imperial City's finest neighborhood.

I pull out the clothes in my pack and start changing the moment I find a dark corner. Stealing clothes from the market district was one of my better ideas. Appearances are the most important thing in life. When someone yells, 'Help thief!' will the Watch be looking for someone who looks and sounds like the son of a member of the court, or are they going to look for a teenager in ill fitting rags?

With my impromptu makeover done, I step out of the shadows and make my way to my destination. I'll smile at a person here and there, occasionally working my hand into a pocket for a few septims. The road to the recently opened Drake hotel proves profitable. As I make my way through the lobby and up to the guest area no one gives me a second glance. Everyone assumes that just because you look rich you can't be up to no good. Oh well, I can't complain.

I decide to target a room on the southern side of the building. The south side has a view of the small park outside, and would cost the most. I can only pull a job like this once; afterwards security might be through the roof for the next five years. There's no way I'm settling for a small haul.

I have a good feeling about one door in particular, so I check for witnesses before crouching down and getting to work on the lock. The door costs me ten lock picks, but I still have to hold back a whoop of joy when it opens. The room is huge and filled with jewels, furs, and wines—perfect. I gleefully stuff my ill gotten gains in my pack…before it all goes wrong.

"Well hello there," says a tinkling, high voice. I feel a touch on my shoulder as ice begins to crawl along my spine. My muscles lock up quickly and I fall over like a log. A grinning Altmer stands above me. The door is wide open. For a moment, I wonder how exactly this elf lady managed to sneak up behind me, but the quiet, graceful movements she makes as she glides back to the door and locks it answers the question.

With a wave of her hand I start floating, which is a really bad sign. Mages don't exactly pop up left and right in the slums, so I have no idea what she's capable of. She waves her hand again, and I fall a few feet before landing on her bed.

"A human thief, how delightful!" says the elf before a wispy dagger appears in her hand. Oh god she's going to gut me. I try to move, to scream—anything, but it's no use.

"Now, now, don't be so difficult." She touches me again and the icy feeling in my spine returns. She brings the blade to my neck. Just as I think it's the end, she slices her knife downward. There is no blood or pain, just pressure, as she cuts apart my shirt.

"Much too dirty for these clothes…you stole them didn't you? Hmm, rather finely built though, you must be a clever sneak to eat so well." She glides her ethereal knife over the ridges of my stomach and I feel a chill that has nothing to do with her magic. Carefully she slices and removes every stitch of clothing I wear before gagging me with a strip of fabric. Each limb is tied to a bed post before she lets her paralysis spell fall.

"Do you know what I do for a living Breton? No? I work for the Thalmor embassy. It's really boring, a lot of meaningless paperwork. Not that you'd understand having a job," says the Altmer with a good spirited laugh. This woman was crazy.

"Anyway I absolutely hate it. The pay is nice and all, but nothing can compare with what I got up to in the Great War." A blood red flame springs to life in her palm.

"Can you guess what it was?" she says before slamming her palm into my chest.

OH GODS! I'm so afraid, I have to move. The ropes won't go! My heart…it's beating so fast. Everything is…OH GODS OH GODS OH GODS!

"Are you nervous human? Here!" A white light bathes over me and the terror stops. Everything is wonderful, and I'm so calm.

"You know humans are really only pretty when they want to scream. Shame you're a Breton. What I wouldn't give for an imperial…"

I don't understand what she means, probably something great… until she starts again with the blood red flames. But then comes the white light. Red, white, red, white, over and over again.

"Aren't I so clever—so delicious and not even a mark. I don't really need blood—that's more of Volenare's thing. How he loves to be the first to make a cut…" Her words trail off but she keeps going— long after I stop trying to pull free, long after my tears dry up. When I'm not under the dulling effect of that white light I realize she's caressing me, playing with me. It won't matter soon. With every round I feel my heart race faster and faster, until it suddenly it doesn't—it even starts to slow. My body is giving up; I'm actually going to die! The Altmer eases on her spell work to reach for my crotch. Please, I plead, someone, anyone, anything, HELP!

The first sign is the widened eyes of my captor, the second is a growl. Then there is blood. A wolf unreal and glowing, made of the same substance as the Altmer's dagger, leaps—and then the elf no longer has a throat. She doesn't even have time to scream. Just as quickly the wolf's bloody maw fills my vision. I flinch and… nothing. I open my eyes to find that the wolf steps around me, using his teeth to make quick work of the binds on my hands before doing the same for my feet. As quickly as the wolf appears, it vanishes.

I shakily sit up, not understanding exactly what has happened. From my new position I have a good view of my captor. She doesn't look afraid, or pained. Only the elegant arch of her brows betrays her surprise. Her gold spun hair lies artfully around her hair. She is golden everywhere, from her skin to her eyes, to her clothes, like a glowing idol—except where she isn't gold. Around her throat there is only ruby red blood, and as she bleeds, the red consumes the gold. Her pool of blood almost reaches me before I leap off the bed in horror.

Barely able to breathe, I go for my pack; pulling out the rags I normally wear—desperate to not be naked. In only manage to pull on my pants before I hear a sickeningly happy "Alinell my love, it is me."

An Altmer man comes in. He takes one look at the she-elf, and screams in horror. Then he sees me. His eyes look anguished, broken even, but then they fill with a strange fire and I know that whatever She (apparently Alinell) did, this guy will be worst. Not even caring if I survive the fall I grab my things and jump out the window.

The next few days are a blur of running. In the little time I have after the Altmer raises the alarm, I run past the gates into the market district. The guards are far more concerned with keeping people out of the Elven Garden district than in it.

In the Market Gistrict I get no rest. City Watchmen fill the streets like they never have before. Guards check each person coming in and out of the Market District one by one. The wanted posters for my arrest are amazingly accurate. I wonder if they used magic to refresh the high elf's memory. It is only my penchant for disguises that saves me. I spend the three days wearing a raggedy dress and a blond wig. My shoulders were too broad to make this a good disguise, but sticking to the shadows helped.

Glimpses of the dull armor of the Legion ruin my days, and the gold of the Thalmor haunt my nights. I sleep for at most twenty minutes at a time before I have to move in a desperate rush. The search for me eases up eventually but rumors speak of new, more drastic measures being taken soon. This might be my last chance to get help.

Just before dawn, I make my way through an alley to get to Lucia's door. I had met the imperial woman maybe five years ago, funnily enough, while pick pocketing her. She caught me, and thought I was adorable. Gunnar, her Nord husband did not. That's probably why she couldn't adopt me. Still she insisted on teaching me to read, and since the lessons involved her giving me free food I went along with it. After quickly rushing me in to avoid attracting trouble, I become the cause of a whispered screaming match.

Gunnar claims that by showing up here I was endangering him and Lucia both. Guiltily I realize he is right. His solution is to hand me over before the City Watch arrests them for aiding and abetting. Lucia argues that I am a good person (which I don't agree with), and that guilty or not, no one deserves the tender mercies of the Thalmor (which I do agreed with).

"Look we should at least hear his story!" yells Lucia. Gunnar, used to not getting anywhere with his wife concedes.

"Fine let the street rat talk—after he puts on some normal clothes" he growled. Looking down at my dress I can't avoid blushing.

After a shower and a change of clothes, Lucia is trying not to laugh as I dump my dress in the trash. It's ruined anyway.

"I'm surprised that disguise worked," she says.

"If anything," grunts Gunnar, "the Watch should have locked you up for being too ugly to be free."

"Ha ha," I say as Lucia hands me a cup of tea.

We sit and drink for a moment before Lucia says "Well tell us how you got in this mess."

I don't bother lying about my reason for being in the Drake Hotel—Gunnar and Lucia know me too well. When I get to what Alinell did to me and what the result was, I have to put down my tea cup. I'm shaking too much. Gunnar's great blond brows are drawn together. His lips are curled in disgust. I notice that like me, he is also trembling—but he is shaking with rage. Lucia just looks like she might burst into tears, but she clasps my hand and helps me keep talking. Occasionally she puts a hand on Gunnar's shoulder to calm him down.

"I didn't even do it! It was that wolf. I still have no idea how it came or… What!" Gunnar goes from looking enraged to completely incredulous. Lucia just looks sad.

"Is he kidding us?" said Gunnar.

"He might not know. He's an orphan, and there are so few Bretons in the city nowadays. Who would tell him?" At this Gunnar grew quiet before facing me.

"Look kid…Anton, there's a good reason for the Thalmor and the Watch to blame you. Once a witness said you were a Breton, and they found traces of an attack by a wild animal—they knew you were guilty."

"But how is that fair, the wolf—"

"All Bretons can summon wolf familiars to come to their aid. Like all racial powers it doesn't get talked about much, but I saw it used often enough by Bretons in the Great War."

"Shit! ... I guess I did kill her."

"Aye," says Gunnar. "Now we need to figure out how to get you out of the city." I'm surprised by Gunnar's sudden desire to help me, as is Lucia, from what I can tell.

"Don't look at me like that. The Altmer bitch had it coming. A Thalmor dungeon is no place for a boy, even if he's a street rat."

"Thanks," I say. I choose not to point out how much his argument sounds like his wife's but I'm too thankful to do so.

"We can't get him out through the gates. And the walls can't be climbed. The sewers are the only choice."

"Gunnar that's madness," said Lucia.

It is madness. There was more than one way to disappear in the Imperial City. According to some, one of them was to be grabbed by the mysterious pale men who lived beneath the city.

"It would be madness to stay."

Where would I even go? I wonder. Gunnar tells me to leave Cyrodiil. Alinell was apparently the Thalmor ambassador's lover. The man would turn all of Tamriel upside to look for me and he would be doing it for a long time. There is no province of the empire where the Thalmor have greater sway than Cyrodiil. The provinces controlled by the Aldmeri Dominion (Valenwood, Alinor, and Elseweyr) are right out for obvious reasons. And Morrowind and Blackmarsh are not the best ideas because I would stick out like a sore thumb. Hammerfell isn't part of the Empire and it's strongly anti-Thalmor, but it has an extradition treaty with the empire, and a pale Breton appearing among the Redguard was too suspicious. In High Rock, I would be surrounded by Bretons, but the paperwork to function in Breton society is too involved to allow me to keep my cover. Skyrim is the only choice

Lucia convinces me to let her sell whatever I managed to steal to pay for supplies. I hand over the loot in my pack with great regret. I spend the day in a closet with a bookcase pushed against it, in case the Watch comes calling. It is hot, and I am thirsty and hungry, but I'm used to it and I prefer this over being caught. Thankfully no one unexpected comes and it is Gunnar who pushes aside the bookshelf. Lucia stands, concerned with water and food and I have never been so glad to see her. As we eat, Lucia pulls out a new pack with a strange sheen.

"As you travel, you'll need to carry many things safely and quickly. A lot of your gold went to getting this from an old friend in the Temple district. It's water-proof and has an old charm to hold more belongings than can normally fit in it. It won't reduce weight however, so be careful. It also has a charm to prevent it from being seized. People may grab everything in your bag, but the bag itself won't be stolen."

"I'm supposed to believe that," I say, disgusted at Lucia's waste of money. Without a word Lucia gets up, picks up her coat rack with little difficulty and drops it into the much smaller pack. The rack completely disappears.

"Wow. Umm, never mind, thank you for this." Lucia smiles and pulls the rack out again, before pulling some more odds and ends out of the bag.

"I got a map of Tamriel, some lock picks, food for a few days, and furs for sleeping. I got you this archery set and a dagger. They're not very good quality, but they were the best I could get—sorry."

"Don't day sorry, this is much more than I thought you would get. Thank you," I say with complete honesty. This woman could have handed me over and grabbed my loot at any time. If she didn't want trouble from me she could have gotten me complete junk, and kept the gold. These supplies couldn't have been cheap or easy to find. Lucia was amazing.

"It's just that I don't know whether I should have gotten you better weapons or these—" Lucia pulls out five gleaming blue bottles.

"We've all heard stories of vampires beneath the city. I've been told that vampirism starts out as a disease like any other. If you come in contact with vampires, drink one of these. In fact you should drink one for every two days in the sewers; you never know what you might pick up."

This was—"Thank you so much…" I pull Lucia in for a hug. We separate at Gunnar's impatient grunt.

"'Nough of that," says Gunnar, unrolling a map of the Imperial City sewers. "I picked this up at work today." Gunnar was an overseer on the project to rebuild the Septim District (once called the Talos District). That's why he and Lucia can afford a home, even if it's in the Market District. It also left him in a position to access plans from the city.

"No one should miss this for a while. Yer heading for Skyrim so you need to head north towards Bruma and then get through the mountain passes. Avoid the roads, though small villages should be safe enough if yer desperate. The bridge is being watched, so once you get past the City Wall, you'll need to swim."

"Swim?"

"Yes boy. I'm sure you've swam through the waterfront with the other rats often enough to know how to do it."

"Gunnar!" says Lucia.

"What? It's the truth." He turns back to me. "The Market Sewers can be access from the south-east. From there you'll need to find the entrance to the North tunnel here." Gunnar marks a spot on the map, "which drains water into lake Rumare on the north side of the isle. Then after a swim yer free to move."

With the maps and gear in front of me, my situation suddenly hits home. I'm leaving the City, leaving home, forever. I'll never see the gleaming white-gold tower piercing the sky, the faded grey bricks of once stately homes, and the wild hidden gardens and secret streets. I'd never be in this place, where you could be invisible in a sea of people, free to be yourself because no one cared to look at a mask. I'd never see Lucia and Gunnar again. I've dreamt of leaving all my life, and now I want nothing more than to stay.

Despite the danger, Lucia and Gunnar see me off. Lucia checks to make sure I bring everything while Gunnar works to get the manhole open. While a last hug from Lucia and a handshake from Gunnar, I climb down into the darkness.

-x-

"He's going to die," says Gunnar.

"Don't say something like that!" says Lucia.

"What you think I want that to happen." For once, Lucia notes, Gunnar doesn't look absolutely thrilled with something horrible happening to Anton. He looks miserable.

"For a long time I though you did." Gunnar growls. He's such a typical brute, but Lucia finds it more amusing than repellant.

"It always surprised me that you were so cruel to him. I'd never seen you treat anyone else like that. I'd have took him in years ago if I didn't think you might do him harm."

"And you were right to do so," says Gunnar, not even able to meet my eyes. "I couldn't stand it…you replacing our boy."

"I was not replacing him! Wulfryk could never be replaced. I think about him every night, every time I hear a child laughing, every time I have a moment's peace. Anton wasn't Wulfryk, he was a boy who needed help…still needs help."

"And you were right. I admit it. Are you happy?" My Nord husband always a giant, a man who hadn't been young for a while now, suddenly seemed a chastened child—and we both felt ashamed. For how can I blame him, when I didn't fight harder for Anton? What had happened to me, what happened to the woman who would have marched up to her husband and said 'either the boy stays, or I leave.'

"No I'm not happy, and I don't know when I will be," I say. "Now come on let's head to the Temple District. Only the gods can help the boy now.