A/N : When I first published this, this part was two chapters instead of one. I wanted to get this story out of my head to fast I think, and the story suffered. SO, I rewrote it and I hope you think it is better now...

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my ideas and the characters I created, everything else is Bethesda's

In a small cemetery outside the city of Chorrol…

A slim figure swathed in black knelt in front of a weathered gravestone and pushed back the hood of her fitted armor, revealing the thin pointed face of a Breton. Her pale features were surrounded by a corona of pale hair twisted into a no nonsense braid pinned close to her head. She traced gloved fingers over the letters etched deeply into the stone. 'Derene' and two dates merely ten years apart. There were so many theories among the city guards about who had murdered a little girl and left her gutted corpse in the forest to be found by another child the next day. It was a horror story, and the only people who knew the truth were not going to enlighten the authorities any time soon, of course, fifteen years had passed and mucked everything up beyond their original proportions.

The young woman took the time to brush dead leaves away from the area, before laying an arrangement of flowers on the grave., then stood up and considered a second much more battered headstone erected nearby. The date of death was only two days disparate from the other, although it looked older, and much abused as if it had been knocked over more than once. Someone had picked it up and replaced it in the correct indentation, although it was a bit crooked. Her lips twisted in contempt and she pressed her boot against the stone, as she did every year on this night, and pushed.

The stone toppled easily, and a small chunk broke off from one corner with a satisfying crunch as it hit the half frozen ground. Magicka crackled at her fingertips as she felt the urge to obliterate the memorial that had no reason to be anywhere near her personally sacred space. She curled her hand into a fist and simply spit on it instead. She wondered who kept putting it back in place, but she wasn't going to stick around to find out either. She hadn't set foot in Chorrol since she was ten years old, and had little intention of changing her habits now.

If the young woman knew that she was almost a local legend in the nearby town, or that young men had dared each other in the taverns the night before to sneak out to the cemetery and get a look at what many claimed was a disembodied spirit of some sort, she might have laughed and set to give them a good scare. Then again, she might have slit their throats and left their bodies to further the mystery. She was an impulsive sort of person, and always had been. It had almost gotten her in quite a bit of trouble now and again, but her quick thinking was pretty good at getting her out of it too…

Fifteen Years Previous…

M'Shajirr could smell the blood a half a mile away before he came across traces of it. The Khajiit wrinkled his nose slightly. Not in disgust of course, blood bothered him not at all and never had. One would not be suited to his line of work if one were… ah… squeamish. The trail was entirely obvious, and it made him wonder why this one was suited to the life of an assassin. As a speaker for the Dark Brotherhood, he had been given an intrinsic knowledge that told him when and where a fledgling murderer had made their first kill. Some said that it was Sithis whispering in his ear, and others said it was a gift from the Night Mother. Either way it had dragged him out of bed and out into an unseasonably cold night of Hearthfire. Dammit, he was getting old.

The trail was hardly broken by a thin trickle that could barely be called a stream, and he jumped over it nimbly. Maybe not so old, he chuckled to himself, and then sniffed the cold air again to find his way. The smell of blood was thick here; a rusty stain marred a few smooth pebbles at the water's edge. His murderer had tried to clean themselves up it seemed, so maybe they wasn't entirely the fool their headlong flight had indicated.

He didn't have to go much farther until he found the killer's sleeping place. He growled softly in mild annoyance. The killer had to be small, perhaps a Bosmer, he thought to himself, since they had burrowed beneath a clump of bushes to hide. If he hadn't been able to smell the blood and feel the tug of whatever magic drew him here, he might have passed it up. Cursing foolish murderers, he pushed the bushes away as silently as possible to get a look at what might be the newest member of his family.

The traditional phrase, "You sleep rather soundly for a murderer," seemed so inappropriate when looking down at the little Breton girl huddled in a hollow between two bushes. Even if she had attempted to wash her hands, it would have been beyond foolish to try to clean the absolute mess of blood that coated her dress. She would doubtless have frozen to death if she had tried.

M'Shajirr wasn't an expert on telling the ages of human children, but he knew enough to tell she hadn't yet hit puberty, so she was quite young indeed. She still clutched a knife in her small hands, holding it more like a favorite toy than a blade as long as her forearm, and he took the liberty of relieving her of the weapon. He doubted she was very dangerous, at least not to him. The thought made him smile and he wondered whom she had killed.

With a long-suffering sigh, he revised his plans for the evening.