Hello!
This is my first fanfiction, but not my first story. I absolutely love the Elder Scroll series, but Skyrim is my favourite. Especially if it's modded and has some interesting NPC-s in it *wink*While I was playing I always felt the need to write Lio's story down, so that's how all this started. A big thanks to the creator of Interesting NPCs, Kris Takahashi! His mod is probably the best out there, a total must have!
I hope it's readable! I'm not a native speaker, so there could be mistakes, I hope you'll forgive me.
Do help me improve and review! I'm always grateful for any tips to improve my language! I hope at least some will find this okay lol
Update 26.03.2015
Due to a new school and many projects I haven't been able to write for a very long time. As a bit of an apology I've been correcting the chapters I already have online. Once summer comes I'll have new chapters up! Sorry again for the loooong delay! :)
1.
Lio never had to think of consequences.
She never had to do anything for herself.
Being the daughter of a rich Breton noble had caused her life to be somewhat different from the others'.
Never was she seen guilty in anything and never did she have to think for herself. People around her worked their hardest to make her dreams come true. Everything she wanted was brought to her on a silver platter. No, scratch that. Everything was brought to her on a golden, jeweled platter.
Lio could only be seen at parties. Her dresses were brilliant and glimmering, made from beautiful silks, her golden jewelry far from modest and shoes made of top quality leather and soft fabrics. Her hair was crowned with the most beautiful stones and her nails were polished to perfect shapes.
She often stayed quiet by his father's side, but she could sometimes be seen mingling. Her smile made the parties shine, as if she was the sun. Lio was loved and feared. Her life was near perfect.
At least this is how it seemed for others. For them it sounded like her life was just flowers and taffy. For the girl herself it was far from it. For her, this life of her's was the most dreadful thing she could imagine on Nirn.
Only the inner circle of her family and acquaintances knew what it was really like. As a rich aristocrat's daughter her life had never been too fun. She was always studying, always forced to stay locked away in her room in their manor in the city of Jehenna. The most Lio had seen of the real life in the city had been through her stained windows, blurred and unfocused.
She was commanded to be docile. Any emotions except shyness and happiness were never to appear on her face or through her actions. If she did or said something wrong a beating from her nannies to any other part but her face was to follow. No one had seen the bruises under the long-sleeved dresses.
She was never alone and the constant commanding yammering of the maids and nannies hired to take care of her drove her mad every day. Her dreams, in reality, were nothing of importance. All that mattered were her father's wishes. The golden, jeweled platters were locked away in her father's trophy cabinet, where she could never touch them.
The only ever times she had a chance to go outside were by his father's side. At those times she was just a decoration on his right hand, something everyone around could praise and talk about.
"Oh, what a lovely dress your daughter is wearing today, Moricyan," the ladies used to coo. Lio would just flash a smile like she was told to, and walked along on Moricyan's side without a single complaint.
So, one day Lio got enough. She planned her escape carefully for months, reading books about foreign lands and independent living in secret at night, and by the time she got 20, she stole everything from his father's safe and made haste out of their house with all the jewelry, gold coins, gemstones and the clothes on her back. She took the first ship at the port, an old sloop named the Skinny Horker, to make the trip from High Rock to her new home.
No one had noticed her escape due to her feigning illness the evening before and the ship set sail with her nervously sitting in her own private cabin. A single sapphire ring was enough to make the Nord captain offer her private quarters.
It wasn't much, as there was only a lousy, hard and smelly bed, a shabby table, a candle, a chest, and the "Biography of Barenziah, v1". She had seen the book in her now previous home many times, but had never gotten around to it. All her time was spent on playing the flute and learning about culture, history, family business and music.
Lio had decided that a small island in Morrowind called Solstheim was a good place to start a new life. Living on Solstheim was a good option as she needed to stay hidden from his father. Life there didn't seem as difficult as living far away in a remote place, where, even though alone, she would have to forage and hunt for food and be all by herself. A life in Solstheim wasn't as attention pulling as living in a big city, where word of her presence would travel back to High Rock quickly. Lio knew the people of Solstheim were probably very unwelcome of strangers and she would be a loner, but at least then none would know her identity and word of her whereabouts wouldn't spread.
Solstheim's climate was fair enough and she wasn't against the monotone look the whole island had due to the ash from the Red Mountain's eruption. The biggest town had seemed decent enough from all the descriptions she could find in books. Lio decided that it was quite the ideal place for her to settle down on her own and finally be independent.
The captain had said that it would take many days to reach Solstheim. They would pass by Skyrim and he mentioned there would be a big chance that they might even dock for a while there. The cold and rocky land of Skyrim didn't seem not one bit interesting to Lio and she shrugged when she was asked if she would want to take shore leave. The temperatures were one thing, but the constant snow in the northern areas, which was even worse than it was in Jehenna, was another thing. Snow might've been beautiful in paintings, but in reality it made Lio shudder with disgust.
The captain offered her food and allowed her to freely walk around the ship. The first day had been fun as the crew, made of only men, was quite welcoming to a young woman. She felt free for the first time in a long-long while. The old men made her laugh and some even showed her the ropes of a sailor's job.
The only major flaw Lio found in her trip so far was the food. She endured the dirtiness and seasickness well enough, but the ship's meals were on a whole other level. Lio was used to the food Moricyan's private cook used to make. The ship's cuisine tasted and looked plain. It seemed like the only ingredients aboard were potatoes, tomatoes and salt. The food's only redeeming feature was the fact that the menu consisted of three different culture's recipes. Keeping back bile at all times, she forced the food down as to not starve completely.
The second day hadn't been as fun as the first. The crew hadn't been as warm to her as before and most seemed too busy with sailing and rigging to talk to her. The captain was still as joyful as ever and didn't mind her sitting at the ship's point. The air was cold and the sea was restless.
"I was hoping for calm waters this time around, but it seems I picked a very bad time to travel to Morrowind. I'm betting there will be some snowstorms near Skyrim," the captain told Lio once, a lazy smile plastered on his face. She leaned over the wooden rail and tried to reach to touch the surface of the water.
"Ooh, better not do that, miss. Beneath those waves swim the slaughterfish, who are praying on everything that moves above," the captain said and Lio recoiled. The old man laughed and some of the crew snickered.
"Stop laughing," she mumbled, her face red, and they did as told.
"Yes, yes," the captain said and hummed a tune that was barely hearable over the sound of the ship going against the waves.
At nights Lio kept reading the biography. She saw somewhat of a similarity between her and Barenziah. Both were daughters of nobles. Both left their home, voluntarily or not. The book helped find some sleep. She had slept during the first night, but as the height of the waves increased, her time of sleeping decreased. On some nights she couldn't stop herself and let out everything she had eaten during the day.
Lio's first sailing experience had a good start, but gradually got worse. Even food lost its little appeal for the spoiled young Lio.
During the day she enjoyed her newfound liberty of speech and spoke her mind bashfully whenever she saw fit. It was as if the locks to her mouth had been broken off and she could breathe for the first time. When she was little, she used to talk to herself in her room, but now she had the captain and crew to talk to and oh, how she loved it.
She talked about everything. Her emotions, her memories, her dislikes, her likes, everything she could think of. When she liked something, she said it. When she didn't like something, she made some noise. When the older men were talking about something she knew about, she had to voice her thoughts. Lio took her chance and made most of it.
When the third day rolled around the crew didn't say much anymore. The moment Lio stepped on the deck, a heavy silence fell. The captain only answered her questions with mumbles and the others didn't really seem to notice her, even if she was almost screaming.
"Why aren't you working? I'd really like to get off this boat sooner," Lio said to one of the grey-haired men, who was sitting in front of his rigging station, doing nothing but picking at some cheese.
"He has to eat sometimes, Lio," the captain frowned. Lio noticed the missing title from her name and couldn't help but scoff.
"I pay you in such amounts that couldn't even dream of. Don't treat me like that," she said with a small amount of anger in her voice, stepping closer to the captain, who was nonplussed by her words.
"Money isn't the problem here. This is still, last time I checked, my ship. You will respect us and keep your mouth shut." The friendly captain had suddenly turned into someone completely different. Lio was appalled and jerked back slightly, her eyes narrow.
"Scum," she grumbled quietly, turned around and marched down to her cabin. She slammed the door shut and puffed the air out of her lungs.
Lio didn't understand what had happened in the few days to make the crew hostile towards her. All she had done was speak to them. Conversing didn't seem like a bad thing.
Lio knew she probably wasn't going to get much food from the crew that night and decided to let all her emotions out like a small child: Lio cried. She cried for hours and beat her already flat pillow more until the feathers started to fly out of it.
"What do you have against me?" she mumbled through her sobs. No one answered her except for the quiet noise the ship made when it met with more waves.
"Miss Lio?" a quiet voice asked. Her head jolted up from sleep. Lio's face was a mess and she rubbed it quickly with the sleeve of her fancy blouse.
"What do you want?" she mumbled in a grumpy tone.
"Here, the last of the dinner," the captain said and put a plate on the table. The lousy leftovers presented to the girl made her stomach turn.
"Listen... I have to tell you the truth. Since you talked almost about everything that has happened in your life, I get that you've never been allowed to express your thoughts. I get it that you've been locked up, beaten and commanded to do things not your way, but your father's. But... you act like a spoiled brat. You command us around like it's your job. It's not. We try to be kind and listen to you, but it gets annoying. If it continues this way all through the trip, I'm sure none of us can take it. You need to learn to keep your emotions in check and your mouth shut, or else the ship will make its way to Solstheim without you," he said nonchalantly, while Lio's eyebrows kept rising higher and higher in embarrassment, surprise and disgust.
"What do you mean? I... I don't act like a spoiled... What..." she cut in, stuttering, her voice high of embarrassment.
"Captain! Come to the deck!" a panicked voice yelled from the deck and the captain hurried out of the room, leaving Lio mumbling by herself.
The sloop was rocking heavily and things were starting to shift out of place. The plate fell off the table and shattered, but Lio ignored it. It seemed far away. She was dumbfounded and speechless. Her eyes stared into emptiness as she tried to process what she'd heard.
No one had told her something as rude before. She had been scolded by her father and nannies in the past, but she had never been called spoilt or a brat. Lio had only received compliments that she's a very adult-like young girl, too mature for her age. The things the captain had accused her of seemed like nonsense. She was a passenger and she had the right to complain. The crew had never exactly seemed nice. They had reminded the girl of the older men in the town, who wanted to marry her for her father's connections and money.
Talking about everything interesting one thought about had always been one of the basics in mingling. It seemed to her like they were the ones who had no social skills, had no idea how to act in the company of noble women.
She understood then.
These men weren't raised in the company of anyone noble. These were the best examples of people outside of the manor walls. So this was the real world. This was how it really worked. Nothing was sugarcoated like it was in Jehenna. Poor people, the ones who had seen life in its' true ways, didn't care about what some noble's daughter had to say. They didn't care about her story. They didn't take the ramblings of some spoilt brat.
None of the nobles ever said anything when she threw a tantrum, but for the people suffering outside of the fancy walls of a big mansion a few words were sufficient. They put things into order as they saw right. They had no mercy for kids like Lio and she realized it all too well. How she had seen the world in such a naive light shocked her.
Making do in a foreign land seemed suddenly a lot harder than it had when she had planned her escape back at home.
"I'm not saying a word to anyone again," she whispered and fell back to bed, falling into a restless slumber, and feeling out of this realm. Not even the waves could disturb her overtired sleep.
Salt was in the air. Lio's skin felt sticky. Pearls of sweat rolled down her forehead, tickling a bit. Her skin itched and breathing felt difficult. She struggled in her sleep, turning around and mumbling restlessly.
She heard loud noises and splashes in the back of her mind, but couldn't pinpoint their origin. It seemed far away and unimportant. She heard yelling and saw some men running across her view in a hazy dream. Everything was wet, the smell of mold and salt was heavy in the air, and suddenly she was out of breath.
Lio jumped awake on her bed. She coughed heavily and slowly opened her eyes, seeing why she had felt so bad. Knee-deep water splashed around in her cabin and everything was soaked, including her. Her bed was in the water and some had gotten in her mouth. She had breathed it in and it had caused her to choke.
Frantic yells could be heard from the deck and the ship was rocking too hard for Lio to stand up. A storm was causing havoc outside and Lio would have emptied her bowels if she'd eaten something the day before.
"We're going down!" a voice suddenly shrieked through the rain and thunder.
"And I thought the fourth day couldn't get any worse than the one ones before..." she mumbled to herself and held on to her bed with all her might, pushing her long nails into the moldy wood. The sound of waves crashing against the boat and wood breaking under the pressure were enough to render her almost deaf. Cold water was numbing her toes and fingers.
"Hold on, boys!" the captain's roar thundered across the sea and the ship plummeted into something so hard that Lio's grasp on her bed slipped and she was thrown against a wall.