Author's Comment: This story is rated T as it will contain violence and may contain minor coarse language/minor suggestive adult themes. It may also be rated M at times but it's too early to tell at the moment. I'm trying to make it my own and unique but it's hard to be original, so bare that in mind if you've read something similar. I also want to credit my friend Harriet, who took her time to help me beta this and hopefully future chapters too. On another note, the layout of the simple the line (like the one below) is where the single line paragraph would have been... It's hard to explain...

A Strange Place

A dim light pierced through the darkened cell, and where it finally reached the ground lay a body of a female. Her skin was ice white, her hair was matted, and her dirty sack clothing was indeed too big for her tiny body. She looked like she had been there for years, though she only came last night.

Her slight movements acted out a nightmare, but the savage dreams were interrupted by sour tone of a voice. "Time to wake up girl; you'll ruin your pretty face sleeping on that floor." Her eyes opened in confusion. She lifted her head of the ground and through the darkness, and she noticed a dunmer. His face was long and gaunt. His dark sour lips smiled, revelling yellow and black teeth, though most of his teeth were missing.

"Look, you're a pretty little imperial angel, in this light." he stated, with that disgusting grin still placed on his face. Her limp body trembled in fear, and her timid voice begged for so many answers. "Who are you? Why am I here?"

The grim smile wrapped around his face as he spoke once more. "Well since you're going to rot down here like me, its better if you knew isn't it?" The girl didn't reply, instead she lifted herself from the cold, stone slab floor and walked over to the bars, gripping the rusting metal with her soft, feminine hands. The light highlighted her simple figure, but her face was now covered in darkness.

"It's Valen Dreth and imperial scum like you give the empire a bad name, you see, best if you disappear..." his sour tone continued "Does that answer your question?" She stood there, in silence, her lips unable to move; in fact you couldn't really tell if she was breathing, but she just stood there. Her eyes were burning light in the darkness of her face. The dunmer backed away, he had never seen anyone like her. The shine in her eyes started to water, and her hands slid down the bars as she fell to her knees. Tears start to fall from her eyes. Each was like a diamond, and each shattered.

It seemed like forever has passed, yet she still leant against the bars, crying, as Valen sneered at her; he never seen anyone so pathetic in his entire life. He even guessed it was nearly time for that annoying guard to pay his daily visit. In the distance he heard the door opening and new voices talking, in his mind he found a new way to torment to the girl, "Hey girl, you hear that, the guards are coming for you," he laughed, with his spiteful smile plastered on his face once more. He loved the way she trembled at the thought of death. She was so young, had a whole life in front of her, yet he lead her to believe it was over.

"Glenroy," a strong female voice called "what's this prisoner doing here?" The girl looked up, to see a Breton in armour that didn't look like imperial legion's. By her side was that trade mark weapon of the Blades, an Akaviri Katana; there was no doubt she was a Blade- a bodyguard to the emperor. The person she called was another Blade, this time of her own race. He looked up in shock and replied "Must been a mix up in the watch, I…I." The Breton Blade just rolled her eyes and turned her attention back on the girl, who had moved some what away from the bars, all the way to the window, not wanting to get in their way. The imperial opened the cell door, but didn't enter till the Breton had; she walked over to what was the prison's version of a bed, followed by the imperial blade and two others. One person, a redguard, who was also a Blade, but unlike the others carried a shield, was the last to enter. The one that truly caught the girl's eye was a tall imperial, his hair was almost white, his hands and face bared his age, he looked to the girl as with sadness but also with relief in his eyes, as he stepped over to look at her. As he entered the light, you could tell he was no other than the emperor himself; his robes were hand woven from fine fibres and around his neck was large golden amulet, with crimson red diamond in the centre, surrounded by smaller gems, each a different colour.

"You…I've seen you," his voice spoke, he walking closer and continued "Let me see your face, you are the one from my dreams, and so the stars are right this is the day, Gods give me strength."

The timid girl gazed at him; she always thought that the emperor was some what crazy, but she knew what he had seen, she some how knew. The short silence was broken by her quiet voice "What's going on, your Highness?" His eyes looked away, as he brought up the tragic reality of his life, facing the eyes that will watch his end, helpless.

He cleared his throated then replied "Assassins attacked my sons and I am next. My blades are leading me out of the city along a secret escape route." The girl looked down. Before she woke she dreamt of three crowns, one gold and the other two, silver, then from the darkness torn robes fell and one by one they screamed and bled. Now she knew what that meant, the three princes dying by hands of assassins, but the rest still didn't.

"By chance, the entrance to that escape route leads though your cell," His sorrowed voice spoke once more, tinted with a smile knowing it would probably be his last he ever gave anyone, let alone to a lost child.

"Your Highness, do you know why I'm in Jail?" The girl seemed so confused on that topic; she didn't do anything wrong. All she remembered from before was the fact that she was at home and she just went to bed. How does one get from Chorrol to the Imperial City in one night?

"Perhaps the gods have placed you here so we may meet," his religious view, was naïve but deep down she knew it's the only logical explanation. Maybe they are real, the aedra. "…as for what you have done," he bluntly continued "it does not matter, that is not what you'll be remembered for."

"So I got my own way then." the girl's response was not what he expected, of the young imperial, being of the same race. Simpler views she would hold, as the youth do grow arrogant of the Chapels teachings, more common now then in his day. He knew he had, and he wasn't even taught in a chapel as she would have been.

Knowing he needed to reply, his aged lips replied "So do we all, but what end can be avoided when one's end is fixed by the almighty Gods?" The girl looked down. "Another naïve view" she thought to herself, "Why is he keep referring to the Gods- what have they ever done for us? Let the rich bath in gold and the let the poor beg, or is this politics doing? Then consider emperor a proud man! No more than one haunted by riddled dreams."

The Breton women grew impatient with the prisoner, and having the dunmer peer through his cell bars at her was not helping. How much Glenory threatened him! it was her impossible way of holding her command. She interrupted the emperor and the girl. "Please, sire but we must keep moving." Her simple plea led her hand to a switch. The stone bed dropped to the floor and the bricks moved, revealing a tunnel. The girl looked at it, sorrow filled in her eyes; and she didn't want to be left alone again, alone with the rat across the hallway. The redguard looked at his commanding officer and with a sigh she looked at the girl "You'd better come too; there's no way to close it from the other side."

The party started to move on, behind the grim walls of the cell as they led to white ruins, though most of the structure still stood, beams which were of no use were now piles of rubble and kicked pebbles wedged between the gaps of each stone of the slated floor.

"So I guess this is your lucky day?" The redguard smiled at the girl as her face seemed to light up among both the dark shadows and the pure light that entered through cracks from above. It was her eyes that most fascinating to the redguard. He never saw eyes that were enchanting as hers, they shone in the darkness of her face. It seemed as if they glowed, but maybe because to blue stuck out so much against that dark, grim, dull place they were in.

As her face turn towards his, her dark eyebrows pulled her into a silent phase, as to tell him "What are you looking at?" He just turned away from her, and picked up a pace in his walking.

Not far the group entered a small room. The girl froze in her tracks, for she remembered flashes of a room like this in her dreams. The room was small but had ledges from distance rooms and corridors as she remembered it, except in her dreams the place flowed red with blood from crimson ragged bodied and a hollow suit of blade armour stood in the middle. Around the armour were things related to a young girl. Ribbons were wrapped around the armour and bows held it up.

She looked at the Breton blade, the only female blade in the group. Unless one of the men did ballet when they were a child, it had to be her. Was she going to die? The girl, stunned with all her thoughts, didn't notice when the assassins attacked, and the bodies lay silenced on the ground. Uriel placed his hand on the girl's shoulder, thinking she was horrified on what just happened, but as he did, the dreams she contained came clear. Like him she was haunted but never understood why. It makes sense for him to be having these types of dreams, but a young maiden such as herself, now why did the Gods choose her?

"She's dead," the girl's icy lips spoke "they're all dead?" She looked up at Uriel with sadness in her eyes. Glenory started to feel his fallen captain's impatience. It was like a sickness, spending its life in the one in charge. "I'll take it from here," Glenory finally commanded "and girl stay put. Come on or we'll leave with one more life lost in this room!"

The girl sat down on as the emperor walked slowly past her. "Some come with us," she thought, "well at least the cell is bigger now." She turned her head towards the gate which the emperor and his blades were leaving from, and she saw Uriel whisper something to the redguard and walk away. The blade closed the gate, but before he locked it behind him, he called to her. "What is your name?"

"My name?" The girl looked like she didn't understand why ask a girl her name when your leaving her behind. She found it sort of rude. The redguard nodded, and the girl replied "Its Anastasia what's yours?" The redguard was now confused, maybe that's what he smiling about, but just like her, he replied "mine is Baurus." He smiled at her, she smiled back, locking the gate and leaving waving goodbye.