Author's note, I guess. I only uploaded this at the urging of a friend of mine, who seems to be enamoured with it. This is my story, and I'd rather let it speak for itself. Comments (especially critique) are greatly appreciated. I apologize in advance if I don't update as much as I should, but you should also know the best way to fix that is to get on my case about it, thus reminding me that this story exists. Now that that's out of the way, enjoy reading. Or don't, it's really up to you.
Chapter 1:Preface
Growing up in the Imperial City's Waterfront District is tough. Growing up without a proper family to support is even harder, especially for a Dunmer.
My name is Alanna Maliirain, although I don't know my parents enough to know if I've earned the right to their family name. They left me behind when they left Cyrodiil for their native land, Morrowind. I was three, and utterly alone in the world, wandering the streets of the waterfront, when my "aunt" found me. An altmer woman, she took me into her shack after her own daughter died and her husband fled from implied responsibility.
The peasants that inhabit the outer reaches of the Heart of Cyrodiil, as it was called, were a close-nit community, so of course everyone knew everything about each other; I heard the whispers. "Why in the name of Akatosh would she take in an orphan? She barely has enough food for herself." Luckily, that same closeness meant that I had friends, well, one anyway, an imperial named Volrina Caro. Her pale skin and stark blue eyes made a splendid contrast with my red eyes and ashen complexion. We were quite the pair back then, running up and down the shores of Lake Rumare. She was always the meek one, and I was the one who had to save our asses when we got into trouble. And in the waterfront district, being in trouble with the law was unavoidable.
Most adult residents pledge their allegiance the Grey Fox, the elusive leader Thieves Guild, the almost mythic bunch of pickpockets and burglars. In return for their loyalty, the Guild protects them, and it's against Guild law to steal from the poor, especially those on the waterfront. That isn't to say we were completely safe, people who are bitter about failing to join the Guild because they weren't skilled enough sometimes take out their failures on the residents. One night when Volrina and I were 10 years old, we became the target of one such individual.
Even then we had already starting to hate being poor, hated having to sleep in one tiny room with our families. So, every night the weather was warm enough, my friend and I camped out under a tree outside my aunt's shack. It was a hot Last Seed night, so hot that we weren't even in our bedrolls, just lying on top of them. Volrina had been asleep for hours, but my eyes refused to close, so I looked at the stars above.
I smelled his torch before I saw him. I assumed he would pass by, like all the others, but his angry demeanor only intensified when he saw us.
"Come here you little imperial brat." He spat, rousing my friend from sleep. She gave off of a bone chilling scream. He then attempted to assault her, but was interrupted by an Imperial Legion guard.
"Stop. You violated the law. You can either come with me now or resist arrest. I'm hoping for the latter, child molesting scum."
"You imperial dog! You think you can kill me?" Drawing his sword in midair, the sleazy breton viciously attacked the officer. The blade went straight through his armor, piercing his heart. As he fell to his knees, the attacker, believing he had won, laughed in the kneeling guard's face, kicking him all the way to the ground. Foolish in victory, the last ditch effort swing of the guard's silver standard issue longsword sliced the scumbag's stomach open. The Breton cried out in shock, but would've lived if I hadn't taken up the fallen sword and finish the job. His blood ran over my hands as the blade slid out of the body, the splatter staining my front half.
Most children would feel repulsed by the act, but for some reason I felt happy, in control. For the first time in my life, I had the power to make it better. I felt a grin come over my face, it spread as far as it could go. I was so caught up in the moment that I'd forgotten entirely about Volrina. She was curled into a small ball on the ground, too scared to even watch the proceedings. I dropped the blade I was still clutching and laid my hand on her shoulder.
"Shush, everything is okay now. He's dead. Are you hurt?" She sat up then, slowly, and as she looked at me, her eyes widened with concern.
"I'm...I'm okay. But you… All that blood…"
"It isn't mine, I don't have a scratch on me." I gave her grin, and she almost smiled back.
"What happened here? Are you kids all right?" My next-door neighbor, a young Redguard named Armand, had heard the commotion. Although it was completely in self-defense, my aunt was incredibly chauvinistic, insisting that a girl should not be allowed to fight, or even touch a weapon. I was never allowed to camp out again, at least while she was home. She worked in the mines a little way east of the city more often than not. I cherished the time she was gone and soon came to dread her return.
We ate well for months after that event; it was determined by Armand that my family got all the loot from the two corpses. As much as I wanted to, was unable to keep the sword, but managed to hide one of the daggers from my aunt. It was made of iron, but I treasured it as if it were ruby. I would polish it every night after my aunt went to bed, and I would practice it with it every chance I got. I tried to train Volrina, but she would always insist that she was happy just watching me.
I quickly realized that I had scared everyone that night, and to ever be trusted again I would have to learn how to blend in. I stopped practicing in broad daylight, stopped smiling at distasteful jokes, and basically felt like I was covering up every part of who I was becoming. I longed for the peace of mind I'd had the night ended that Breton's life. I didn't want to admit it to myself even, but the way my mind kept replaying that night over and over again left me no choice. I wanted to do it again, and the urge was strong. I managed to keep it in check for three years before I was presented with a temptation I just couldn't refuse.
On the nights that Margarette, my aunt, was working, I taken to breaking into rich people's houses and stealing their gold while they were gone. I was saving money to leave the waterfront behind. I had always timed my escapades that no one was in the house at the time, but on this occasion when I broke to the upper lock into the bedroom, a person was asleep in her bed. I froze for a few minutes, unsure of what to do. I could just leave, try another house. That would have been the safest, and most morally righteous thing to do in this situation. I knew it was "wrong" to even think about what was currently going through my mind, but I had never put much stake in the rules of society. I realized that this was a chance to do what I wanted to do for years.
I locked the door behind me, drew my precious dagger, and crept up to my unsuspecting victim. It was an orc; her powerful shoulders rose and fell with every breath. I watched her breathe for a few moments, anticipating stopping them. Then, with a grin, I did what I had wanted to do for so long. I dragged my blade across her neck, the edge slicing through tendons as if they were butter. As she woke up in a desperate panic, I took a seat, and watched her moan in pain, laughing with pure joy at a desire fulfilled.
Most people in Cyrodiil enchanted their entire houses with an anti-thievery spell. When taken the items would admit a faint but unmistakable red glow. Stolen items cannot be sold to merchants; it would unleash the law dogs and anyone who tried to barter them. That's why, in my early forays into thievery, I'd only taken gold, as the metal resisted almost any sort of enchantment. Sometimes the spell would break when owner or the enchanter died, as was the case with this Orc's property. I couldn't carry all of it that first night; I was only a teenager, and very small for my age as well. Even the bosmer boy who sometimes visited the lakes shore to torture the mud crabs that crawled there was taller than me. I had tried to introduce myself once, but the rich kid had taken one look at my ashen skin and peasant clothes and spat. Looking to the impaled but still wriggling mud crab and back into my red eyes he spoke, his voice as menacing as he could make it.
"Tell anyone about this you piece of Dunmer trash, and will be you instead of it." I didn't tell him that I understood, or that I wasn't frightened. I just nodded in surrender; he wasn't worth my breath.
Back to the matter at hand, my first real kill; the unprovoked and merciless slaughter. The orc's heavy, expensive armor and the profit it gave me were the beginnings of my exploration career. With money I could travel, travel and have the equipment to defend myself adequately. And if I could travel, than I could kill without rousing suspicion, there were plenty of bandits strewn about. Once I gave in that first time, nothing else really mattered. Not my aunt's attempts to make a lady out of me; I couldn't even feel genuine emotion to Volrina, my supposed best friend. I didn't let anyone know this of course; it wasn't much of a stretch from what I had already been doing. I carried on like I was a normal girl, if a somewhat antisocial one. I still smiled, still made conversation with my aunt, and even sometimes went to church with them, although their gods provoked no loyalty inside me.
After my "incident", as my aunt had called it, with the Breton, she had made me actually try and pray and beg forgiveness from the Divine's. I actually had tried, but the second I approached the altar I felt as if a thousand shock spells were cast into my body, along with a serious feeling of being unwanted. I only just avoided the on looking priestesses knowledge of my excommunication. I told my aunt that I'd been forgiven, if only to hide better. I went on this way for years, "traveling" when my aunt was away; playing the respectable citizen when she was here.
In the spring of my seventeenth year, my aunt had been home for an entire month on account of a mine collapse. It had been driving me insane, I'd been waiting for my freedom, but instead there was her. Eventually the call came too strong to ignore, and my already splintering resolve cracked. I snuck into a neighbor's house, put a gag in his mouth, and relished as my blade cut into his flesh over and over and over. He tried to scream through his cloth, and his writhing only made me want more. Hours later when I finally let him die, it was only because I had to hurry back before my aunt woke up. It was as I walked in the door, my clothes dripping lake water from the swim I taken to clean the blood, and saw my aunt's peacefully sleeping face illuminated by the moonlight through the open door, that it fully dawned on me. If I was ever have a shot at happiness, my aunt would have to be eliminated.
