Dar'Shan, the Khajiit Assassin
Prologue
The air was damp in the forest of Falkreath Hold. It was early morning; the 23rd of Rain's Hand in the 200th year of the fourth era. A steady drip could be heard in the air from dew rolling off the pine needles onto the soft, moist dirt. The abundance of life and agriculture could only be compared to the tropical rainforests of our world, with one important difference; the air had a distinct and penetrating cold. However, as if completely oblivious to the frigid Skyrim environment, birds could be heard chirping and singing away all around.
A winding stone path carved its way through the trees, overgrown with weeds that rose up through the space between the rocks. The evergreens towered on either side of the path, casting both sides in shadow. Walking along the path was a hooded khajiit, the feline man-beasts of Tamriel, dressed in red trimmed black leather armor; the Shrouded Armour of the Dark Brotherhood. The cats face was visible under his black hood. His fur was a dark orange with black stripes, his facial structure comparable to that of a fierce Bengal tiger. He had a massive scar from his upper right forehead, through his right eye, and down below his jaw. His eyes were a putrid green, and had a disturbed determination about them. He was on contract, traveling to Falkreath for an assassination.
"Embarrassing," he thought, "After everything I've put into the brotherhood, a contract on a pathetic shop owner?"
A blue-winged butterfly fluttered in front of his face. He swatted at it, annoyed.
Astrid, the leader of the brotherhood, had shown him a great level of disdain even after after he had proven himself to the rest of the chapter. His successes on his assignments demonstrated his abilities to be far superior than the others, including Astrid. Her jealousy was understandable; it wouldn't be long before the rest of the chapter voiced their expectations for his promotion. This assignment, no doubt paid for by one of the shop owner's competitors, was obviously given to him so she could accept the glory for the rest of the open contracts.
Dar'Shan was drawn from his thoughts by a pair of men not far ahead. He squinted, and saw that the men were heavily armed: clad in full iron armor with steel longswords strapped to their belts.
"Bandits!" Dar'shan cursed himself under his breath for lowering his awareness for such vain ponderings. It was too late for evasion; the bandits were too close and had already seen him. They started walking in his direction. Four more bandits stepped from the shade of the brush to his rear, three rugged looking nords and one dunmer, all in brown leather armor. They were armed with heavy iron maces. Dar'Shan turned his attention back to the nord ahead of him. Displaying his leadership, the nord stepped ahead of his orsimer partner.
"What do you want with a such a humble khajiit traveler?" Dar'shan asked, with a hint of an innocent purr.
"Don't play games with me, traveler." The bandit captain snapped, tossing Dar'Shan a black cloth sack. "Put all of your possessions in that bag, including your weapons."
Without so much as flinch, the khajiit let the sack fall untouched to the ground.
"And if I don't?" he snarled.
The captain chuckled. "It would be a mistake."
"Clearly, you underestimate my abilities. The only mistake I've made today is not cutting your throat the moment I laid eyes on you. It's not a mistake I'll repeat."
"Please. You're massively outnumbered." The captain said with a chuckle, "Just do as I say and you can walk out of this predicament with your life."
With a twitch of his tail, Dar'Shan lowered his body like a bipedal tiger ready to pounce. The six bandits all unsheathed their weapons in unison. Dar'Shan heard the creak of bows being drawn from the shade of the canopy. He uttered an incantation under his breath and easily located two pairs of marksmen hidden by the forest brush on both sides. They were visible to him by a glowing blue smoke.
There was a tense stillness. Dar'Shan closed his eyes, drawing on the energy from the forest around him. The captain seemed amused, mistaking Dar'Shan's brief meditation as a sign of fear. Dar'Shan reopened his eyes, balled his fists, then conjured fire in each of his palms. Seeing this, the two bandits to his front charged, weapons raised high, and the four behind the khajiit followed suit. Dar'Shan charged the flames in his hands and fired two fireballs into the forest to each side. They impacted with with a deafening explosion sending all four marksman flying into the open, but not before they had the chance release their arrows. Two flew off into the distance harmlessly, and the other two were easily dodged with a forward roll, towards the captain and orsimer ahead of him. Ducking a few clumsy sword swings with ease, he unsheathed his dagger and slashed twice in quick succession. The first sliced into the captain's thigh on his right, and the other left the orc on his left gasping desperately for air. The orc grabbed in vain at the gaping wound in his throat, but soon fell to the ground; dead.
While out of sight behind the leader, Dar'shan cast chameleon on himself and disappeared into the shadow of the forest canopy.
The captain looked disapprovingly at the fallen orc. Blood pooled around the body, tainting the peaceful vegetation around it. He stepped over the lifeless carcass and limped towards the four men.
"Find him!" the captain barked, "Bring him to me."
Dar'Shan, still concealed, retrieved a vial of a potent green poison from his pouch and dipped his dagger. He lept from his cover toward the nearest bandit, the dunmer, nicked him on the arm with the poisoned blade. The elf's red eyes rolled to the back of his head. He fell to the ground as Dar'Shan, still invisible, sprinted to the other side of the path.
"Coward!" the captain bellowed. Then, searching the shrubs for the elusive khajiit assassin, "Show yourself!"
Startled, a flock of birds flapped away in momentary chaos. One remained, chirping and hopping on a pine branch eagerly, as if entertained by the violence before him.
"Perhaps you should choose your victims more carefully," Dar'Shan snarled, mocking the overconfident captain from the darkness, "First, I'm going to kill the rest of your pitiful comrades. Then, I am going to rip out your heart and feed your soul to the great and glorious Dread Father."
The captain's face went pale white, finally realizing the cat's dark identity. He knew that this mysterious khajiit "traveler" would fulfill his word. Dar'Shan charged a frenzy spell in one hand and fear in the other. He fired his Frenzy spell, a purple glowing orb, at one of the nord bandits and watched as he crushed his two surprised kinsmen's skulls with a few heavy swings of his mace. Then, he cast his Fear spell, and purred with delight as the nord ran away in sheer terror.
Dar'Shan stepped out from the shade and let his chameleon spell fade away.
"Now, Sithis will have your soul."
"Then take it, if you can!" The captain screamed in fear disguised as rage and charged forward, swinging his sword recklessly. Dar'Shan ducked easily under his clumsy attack and sunk his still poisoned dagger deep into the captain's chest. With an added thrust he shoved his entire hand into the captain's ribcage with a loud crunch. As promised, Dar'Shan ripped out the captain's still beating heart with a vicious twist of his wrist. Blood squirted and splashed from the captain's chest cavity onto Dar'Shan's cuirass. Dar'Shan tucked the dripping heart away into his pack as the captain's body crumpled to the ground.
Dar'shan looked down on the bloodied corpse and chanted;
"May your soul pass without hindrance into the realm of the Dread Father, and may he be satisfied with it. May it provide sustenance to the fingers of the Black Hand and to the Brood Mother, and resource to the darkest of all brotherhoods."
With a satisfied sigh he stooped down, removed the bandit's band from his right index finger, and slipped it onto his own. He then continued on his path without another thought.
Notes- My plan for this fanfic is to separate Skyrim's Dragonborn questline from the Dark brotherhood questline. Hopefully, that shouldn't interfere with lore from any future tes games, as I have never seen any Elder Scrolls history books identify any guild heros to be the same hero from the main questlines. This part of the story started off as a forum post (pre-skyrim release) in which the original poster asked who our characters would be and how our characters would dispatch a group of ten bandits. It then grew into what you see here. I've tried to make the story as reader-friendly as possible so that someone who isn't very familiar with TES lore could easily follow along with the story. Any and all input, including criticisms, are very welcome. Any suggestions for future chapters would also be greatly appreciated. And, of course:
Thank you for reading!