*Note* I do not own any of the Skyrim characters that I happen to include in the story. I have made up many characters or used real ones and just changed the names. The same goes for any locations I may mention.
My head was in so much pain. My hands where bound and where rubbed raw from the chafing of the rope. I was teetering back and forth, splintering wood rubbing against the back of my legs. I peeked open my eyes and bright morning light flood in. I looked around a bit.
I was on a horse drawn wagon, and not a nice one at that. I wore a potato sack like the three other men on the wood benches next to and across from me. I wasn't scared, I faced death before. How was this any different.
"You're finally awake." said the man across of me, he had a thick nord accent. I didn't reply. I looked around, just listening to what the nord was saying. Apparently, I was riding with a horse thief, a Stormcloak, and their leader, Ulfric. I stared them down as the Stormcloak finished talking. I hate the Stormcloaks.
After some thought, I realized that the very people who I was fighting with, where taking me to my death. I slowly remembered trying to explain to the idiot Imperial guards that I was simply at the wrong place, the wrong time. I wasn't completely innocent, though. At the time, I was trying to steal the Danare family heart stone, an extremely valuable piece that would sell well on the black market, but I had no idea that a mass murder was occurring at the same time.
I swiftly ran down the stairs, but was caught my surprise when a dog attacked me. I tumbled to the ground and was fighting it off when several imperial guards came in. I didn't understand why they went straight to arresting me instead of asking what happened first. When they turned me around to bind my hands, I saw four bodies, all of the Danare family.
I knew that stealing the heart stone was wrong, but I knew it certainly was not punishable by death. Ten years jail time, tops. I probably could have even paid the crime fee...if I hadn't been stealing the heart stone for the money.
Coming back to the present, I dipped my head as we entered the Imperial town. I was just another victim of poor timing. We halted to a stop, stood, and filed off the wagon.
"I didn't do it!" cried the horse thief, as he sprinted away from the execution site.
"Archers, shoot!" Shouted a commander, and I watched the thief crumble to the ground.
That's one way to go, I thought, walking toward the general.
"Who are you?" he said looking up at my face. I didn't reply. He stared at me harder.
I had bright red eyes, unusual for a wood elf. My dirty dark brown hair was pulled into a messy braid, my war markings on the right side of my face suggested that I was originally from the Scarlet clan, known for their special abilities and thieving. I am an exceptional member, or at least was, for my unique ability to control blood of another had me next in line for leader. I screwed up, big, though. Almost as bad as I did this time. Don't blood control another member if you want to stay friendly with a clan. So, I got kicked out for almost killing a top member, hence why I took the risk of stealing something so large, I was broke.
"Victoria Scarletblood." I stated, a name given to me by my clan.
I wanted to use my ability to escape, but my hands where so tightly bound, I barely got any circulation to them. Not like it mattered, I was going to die anyways.
A priest read us our rights, or something like that, but got cut off by a prisoner.
"Lets just get this over with."
I watched as the Stoarmcloak bent onto the chopping block. The executer raised his ax and brought it down on his next. The blood and gore (and the lack of a head) indicated that the man, was dead. I felt a little bad, but would it be cruel to say murder didn't often bother me. Except, well, when I was being blamed for it.
He seamed nice enough, but the Stormcloaks where all more cruel and horrible than the Imperials could ever be. Even this wasn't as bad as when those damn rebels raided my clan. They cut down my best friend, my parents, even my cat. I was weak and young so I did what I could do, I hid, sobbing for the loss of the ones I loved. I was only six at the time, so I really badly wanted to do something, but couldn't because of fear.
I laid my head on the gore smothered block. I wondered if they would be surprised to see the velvety color of my blood.
The executer raised his ax. Well, this is it. Then out of freakin nowhere, a huge dragon landed on the building to my left. The black beast startled the executer and made my ears scream with its deafening roar. Panic rose. All the attention was now on off me, so I took the chance to escape. To think, saved, by a dragon.
I stumbled and tripped over a block of cinder from a broken tower, my head still pounding from the roar. I hit the ground, catching myself with my chin. Pushing off the ground with the little force I had left, I hoisted myself up and ran to take cover. If I had waited a second later, I could have been toasted. Bright, fiery flames shot past me.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
I held my breath and stuck to the wall as the black beast passed. I could hear it stop in front of the entrance. I made my self stiller than a lion, waiting to pounce. A large, onyx snout came through the doorway, it sniffed twice, paused, and left. I left the building, running the opposite direction of the dragon, I weaved in and out of the panicked crowd. As I was sprinting towards the entrance, a hand popped out of an alleyway and yanked me to it.
"Follow me." said the woman. Not having anyone else to trust, I stayed close to her. She led me into a collapsed stone tower.
"This way," she whispered, stepping carefully over the rubble.
"Help me move this." She commanded, putting both hands against the fallen rock and pushing. I pushed it with my shoulder because I couldn't use my hands. We finally managed to move the huge block and it revealed a metal grate. The woman laced her fingers between the bars of the grate and yanked it out of its hold. Tossing it to the side, she started climbing down the ladder and motioned me to follow.
We made it to a small room, filled with crates.
"This is a storage space for an armor and weapon company, it also doubles as an escape route."
As she cut my binds off, I inspected her more closely. She was a brenton with curly dirty blond streaked hair with brownish-green eyes. She wore mage's robe and she was using a dagger to cut my rope.
"I'm Claire Lightsky." she said, cutting off the last of my restraints,
"Thanks for helping me," I said, twisting my wrists.
"Go find yourself some armor, now." she went to a shelf and started putting the food on it into her satchel. So much had happened in the past thirty seconds but it felt like a blur.
I rummaged through a few crates before digging up a one-handed ax and an imperial set of armor. I'm good with one-handed weapons (the best at archery!) and could use healing magic. Beside my own ability, I could barley do the most basic destructive magic. Leaving one hand open so I could use my regeneration and ward magic, I placed the ax on my belt, ready to be pulled and used at any time.
Claire finished packing her food and lead me through a passageway.
"The company that owns this inventory is a big one, and doesn't like having their stuff stolen," we rounded a corner, "There will be guards placed down here, probably just hired bandits off the streets. Be prepared for anything." She stepped slowly out into a four-way passage intersection.
I was so close to the wall that the scratching of my ax against the stone echoed through the chambers.
"What was that?" a voice said. A man and a woman, both bandits, came rushing towards us.
"Looks like we found us a couple of Imperials." said the man as he drew his sword, the woman did the same.
I pulled my ax and attacked the man, Claire went after the woman. These two where too easy. A lightning bolt and an ax chop later, they where sprawled across the floor, dead.
"This way." Claire whispered, I stuck to her like paint on a wall.
"I don't think I ever caught your name." she asked when we walked into a cleared-out room.
"Victoria Scarletblood." I answered
"You're what, 17?" she asked, I nodded.
"You're a little young to be at the chopping block already." she glanced at me
"Crime has no age," I said, "and I got accused of the wrong one at that."
I told her how I wasn't a Stormcloak, but wasn't quite an Imperial, either.
"I think they're both bastards." she responded, I smirked.
She put her finger on her lips and motioned me to follow her, slowly. She peered into a room with three men and a woman, chatting around a table, flaunting at all the gold they had.
Claire pulled her face into a very serious and focused expression. She took a moment to concentrate, her palms glowing. She shot her hands out and three large bolts of lightning shocked two men and the woman. They fell like dominos. I rushed out with my ax and swung at the last man. He blocked and hit me in the face with the hilt of his sword. My nose bled purpley velvet liquid. I swung at his side with my ax again, this time hitting him sending him to the ground.
I held my nose and used my healing magic to regain my strength. My nose still bled, but at least the pain was gone.
Claire stared at my blood, wide eye, "Your blood, its purple."
I wiped the blood off my face with the back of my hand and nodded, "Its the result of an ability I have. You can hardly call it blood, though."
Because of my blood powers, if my blood was like everyone else's, I would hurt myself in the process of controlling others.
"You're going to have to show it to me some time." she said. We wandered through the cave before we came to the main camp. It was a large space, filled with about five enemies.
"That's a lot of people to fight." Claire said as we slightly looked over a low wall.
"I think I have an idea." I suggested.
Much like Claire did before, I pulled into a very concentrated face. Twisting my arm down, my fingers cupped and strained, one of the sitting guards stood up. I hadn't mastered this ability and it used all my magica, so I only had one shot at this. I flicked my wrist up, and put up my other hand. I kept my other hand closed, directly keeping his face relaxed and his mouth shut.
As I swung my arm down, he did the same. I twisted to the right, he followed.
"Hank, what are you doing?" said one of the bandits, Hank didn't reply. Claire watched as I made him cut down all of his comrades.
"That was horrible!" she yelled at me, "Making some knowingly kill their co-workers!"
"Don't worry so much," I replied, a bit hurt, "He wasn't conscious."
Claire looked almost afraid of me. I felt bad I ever did anything. She didn't talk to me until we got outside.
"I'm not angry at you." she said, "I'm something I'm not proud of, either."
The moon was high and full in the sky. Claire started glowing.
"I probably should have told you before."
She started to twitch, her hair becoming thick and dark. Her face elongated and she grew in size. I knew what she was. I darted behind a bush and watched as she turned into a terrifying werewolf. Her teeth where clenched and she flexed her long, sharp fingers. She howled at the moon, and ran down the hill.
I had a little panic attack, what was I going to do? I remembering that I was Bosmer (I don't know why I forgot) I pulled myself together and used the little magic I had left to use 'command an animal', I ran to find a target.
I searched the area and found a bear eating a dear. I raised my palm and a blast of magic spelled from it. The bear turned and sat like a dog in front of me. I mounted it and took off after Claire.
I almost wish I mounted a deer or something, because this bear was slow. I clung on to its fur as it jogged down the dirt path, I had about ten minutes remaining until he turned wild agian. I followed the massive footprints down the trail, towards a village.
"Oh no." I thought out loud.
"Ahooooooooo!" another howl, but not coming from the village. This time it was wolves, and about ten of them.
"Crap," this had been the largest wolf pack I had ever seen.
They went after my bear, biting and growling. I fell off and tumbled to the ground as my bear fled. I scooted back as they edged towards me. I became more nervous with every low rumble that came from their throats. I went to grab for my ax, but I must of dropped it for there was nothing there. The smell of blood was in the air and it shown on the wolves teeth. Their last meal apparently wasn't enough for them.
One bit at my ankles, I yelped. I wasn't very strong, so there was no way I could fight them with my fists, I dropped my weapon, and my bear was a traitor. There was no way I was getting out of here alive. I was backed up against a rock. My ankle ached and bled, but I didn't have enough magic to heal it. Something caught the corner of my eye. Claire's satchel! it must have fallen off when she turned into a werewolf, but here was she? I could use some help right now.
Not a split second after the thought, a black shadow darted across me, two wolves fell. The wolves backed away from me, looking around frantically for the thing that took out their brothers. The shadow darted a cross again, only two left. The remaining wolves stuck their tails between their legs and ran away yelping. A werewolf stood before me.
I panted and sweat beaded off my face, she came closer. With every step she became shorter, her hair went back to blondish-brown and her skin returned to the light tan it was. She stopped in front of me.
"Sorry," she said, "I can't control the first few minutes."
I gave a sigh of relief that she wasn't going to eat me. I trotted over to her bag and tossed it to her.
"You might want to put some clothes on first."
Claire got dressed as I summoned my last bit of magica to ease my bite pain and we stayed alert as we walked down to the village.
"You never know what will come out of the night." she said twisting her head to look behind us.
"Like you?" I smirked,she gave me a look.
"So where are you from." she asked, I shrugged.
"Not quite sure exactly, I think I was born in Skyrim, but I can't say where. " I touched the markings on my face.
"Looks to me you're from the Scarlet guild."
"Yeah, my parents took me there when I was young, right before they died." I sadly remembered the day they died.
"I grew up in an orphanage in Riften with my older brother." she put a piece of stray hair behind her ear, "Its a town of crimes, you learn to survive there."
"Looks like I would so fine there. I grew up a thief."
"You and I both", she chuckled, "The worst I could do was maybe steal a coin or two from Grelod, the orphanage owner. The year my brother was old enough to leave, he left, and went to Solitude to become a merchant. a couple years later, I left too and went to Dragonsreach, in Whiterun, and that's where I joined the Companions. Its a organization that are werewolves and fight for the Imperials," she took a breath, "My brother came to Whiterun a while later. He was a man of trade, not a fighter. He got in a fight with a drunk Imperial soldier, the soldier pulled a knife, and I haven't forgiven them since. As for the Stormcloaks, they were just horrible to me when I was in Riften. Pushing me around like I was no more than white trash. "
"Whoa, some story you got there." We arrived at the town a couple minutes later and we asked around for an inn.
"Take a right at the brewery and it should be right next to the guard tower." said a citizen
Following her instructions, we got two rooms, spent the night, then got some supplies and left the next morning.
Little did I know that this journey to nowhere would lead me right to my destiny. The unknown fact that I, was dragonborn.