A/N: This story is dedicated to DragonsDeadAndDancing, a writer who manages to entertain me with every piece they write. It's always unique things, too. Stuff I never would've thought of. So go have a look through D-DAD's stuff. You'll miss out on some gems otherwise.
Monsters existed in the world. Monsters were everywhere, hiding in plain sight. In fairy tales, the knight in shining armour on a white charger came riding in and slew the monster, riding off with the princess into the sunset.
Those were the kinds of stories he'd grown up with. These were stories most children grew up with. Stories of great heroes like Ysgramor and his Companions, of the Whitestrake and Morihaus and how they'd ended the tyranny of the elves, of the conquests of Tiber Septim.
The man who became a god was among his personal heroes. It wasn't every day that someone came along and unified an entire continent. It wasn't every day a man rose to godhood.
The childhood stories had always portrayed Tiber Septim as a lion among men. The truth, he realised, was much darker.
Atrocity after atrocity had been committed on that campaign. Some said Ysmir murdered his own mentor and allies to secure the position for himself. Slit his own throat and got rid of his Voice to appear innocent. A power-hungry man with a god complex.
A monster. Just like him.
Sinding found great relief in that vilification. No great man was above reproach. Everybody had skeletons in their wardrobe; the greater your deeds, the more skeletons.
The fact that heroes could be monsters soothed him in times when the going got rough. Not that he saw himself as a hero, no. The fact that he shared a trait with those great men whom he had grown up admiring made things somewhat easier to deal with.
For he knew better than anybody that he was a monster. It was why he had exiled himself. Why he knelt at the statue of Talos in the cave every day and prayed for forgiveness.
But then again, monsters deserved no mercy.
He hadn't always been that way. No, there was a time when he was but an idealistic youth hell-bent on joining the Companions. It was Ysgramor's legacy, he'd thought. It was the best way he had to be like those great men he admired.
The moment of his joining was the happiest moment of his life. Years later, when he was invited to join the Circle had been his proudest.
He'd learnt that the Circle members were all werewolves and his idealism had shattered.
Practicality prevailed, and he had taken the beast blood. He wanted to do a good job, be of service. If by becoming a great big mutt and ripping apart the bodies of the Silver Hand allowed him to do so, then so be it.
But then he got the Markarth job. Everything went to Oblivion after that.
It was a request from the Hall of the Dead. Something strange about the bodies. Someone, or something, had been eating the recently deceased. The Hall had been closed to visitors and the reason was being kept under wraps. It paid well, and so he went.
And he had met her.
To this day her voice came to him in his sleep, haunting his dreams and enhancing his already piquant nightmares. Always so silky and understanding... always so caring and welcoming...
Stay. I will not shun you for what you are, she'd said. You've found a friend who understands you. You can let go of your guilt.
And he had.
He knew not why, but he didn't regret his time with her. On the contrary, he had enjoyed it.
He'd woken up one day to realise that it sickened him. It was a rare moment of clarity since her voice always muddled up his thoughts somehow. So he had taken his leave while he had the chance.
Knowing that he couldn't go back to the Companions, he had decided to start over. He even got a job as a lumberjack in Falkreath. The only problem he still had was the bloodlust, so he had decided to pray to Hircine for a blessing. Another plan that didn't go well.
He didn't know whether Hircine was mad at him for fraternising with a Namira worshipper, but the Daedric Prince had slipped him a cursed ring that made him shift without warning. It had led to him mauling a sweet little girl barely in her tenth winter.
He'd been jailed. He'd hoped to rot in his cell for the rest of his wretched life.
Then a hunter had come along. Gotten his cursed ring cleansed. Defended him from Hircine's forces. Spared his life.
What that young man had seen in him, he did not know.
If a person feels guilty for his deeds, if he regrets them with his every breath and tries to make things better for the rest of his life, if he realises his sins on his own, then there is nothing anybody can do to punish him any further, he'd said and Sinding had taken it to heart.
He stayed in the grotto. He hunted when he needed to. He shifted and ran wild in the forest only when it was absolutely necessary. He prayed at the statue of Talos that had been miraculously there when he'd gotten there. According to the note he'd found in a chest, it had been an ancient sanctuary of the Blades, the last of whom had had met his end at the hands of a Thalmor assault, but managed to leave behind the statue, his katana and an amulet of Talos.
He tried to come close to whatever that young Nord had seen in him. He didn't know whether he was making any progress, however.
At the end of the day, he was just a monster. A monster asking for that which he didn't deserve.
"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil," he muttered as he knelt before the statue of Talos, hands clasped before him and eyes closed. "For you are w-"
A loud shriek destroyed the quietness of his surroundings and made him turn towards the entrance of his cave. He'd spent enough time around blood to know when a bloody deed was being enacted.
Very slowly, Sinding rose to his feet and walked to the entrance, keeping quiet and sticking to the shadows. Nobody usually came through the forest at night. The stretch of the forest near the grotto was free of bandits as well. He'd seen to that.
So who–
Another shout echoed among the willows and Sinding could keep his quiet no longer. Something foul was afoot in a place he had made his home, and he wanted to know exactly what.
For monsters existed in the world, but were too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous were the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions. Dangerous still those willing to be complicit in inaction when they had the opportunity and power to.
As he stepped out to investigate, Sinding felt that he was one small step closer to matching the potential that the young hunter had perhaps seen in him.
The potential for a monster to be a hero.