Chapter 1
Author's Note: Before you read this chapter, read 'I can't shut him out' and 'The Refugees' from the game Oblivion. You can find the latter on UESP under 'Books'. It'll make far more sense!
The woman ran through the town, heedless of the incessant cries of the newborn she was cradling. The boy had told her to board the afternoon boat to Cyrodiil, and she was not about to disobey him.
The white and red-roofed buildings flashed past. It was a pretty town, but she was leaving it and would never return.
As she ran past a tree she felt a pang of…something. Homesickness? A yearning for the trees of Valenwood, the only home she knew? No. She had never known Valenwood. He had kept her under lock and key. Bitterly, the woman wondered what Valenwood looked like now. Scorched earth? A sea of tar? She wouldn't put it past him.
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She had already convinced herself that this would be her life forever. His mistress, a slave. A whore in a mirthless palace, like a doomed bird in a glorious cage. For she was to die. The Cameron Usurper would never let her live to give birth.
Then he had come. A tall and handsome Imperial man. Really a boy. He had approached her as she was sleeping one night. Conquering her terror ( for an associate of the Usurper was surely an enemy of the highest degree to most of Tamriel), she listened to him as he, in flawless language and in the sweetest tone made her a proposition she could not refuse.
At the time she was heavy with child, and was barely able to make it to the baron's castle when she found herself brought to the foot of the hill the castle was on.
Not in the least bit confused, as he had explained his plan for her and her child in the greatest detail, she made her way up the hill.
The guards at the gate, thinking her another refugee or asylum seeker, let her in without question when they saw that she was with child. The boy had predicted as much.
The guards were expecting refugees. The Usurper's armies had reached High Rock at last, and the battle was too near the town for comfort.
Distressingly close to the tiny harbor town the sounds of metal and magic rang. The clash of mortal steel against daedric ebony, the roar of flame, the hiss of frost, the battle cries of mortals and Dremora…
Against this cacophonic backdrop the woman had given birth right there in the camp, on a grimy bed roll the guard had brought out for her and the injured.
A healer had talked her through it, and was stunned when she picked up the cleaned-off newborn and sprinted out of the castle. The woman ran down to the coast, as per the boy's instructions, grateful for the silver ring of fortification he had given her earlier and told her to wear only when she was in the castle.
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As she boarded the boat, she finally turned towards calming her hysterical newborn down. She thought of the challenges ahead. Learning Cyrodiilic, finding work, raising her child…
It was only later that she would ponder more closely the boy's only condition. That the child would, much later in his life, serve the boy. The woman would then look down at her baby and wonder what the boy could want with her little Mankar Cameron.