SO, this is my first attempt at trying to post a story here! This is my beginning chapter so I hope it doesn't get bashed too hard, but constructive criticism is allowed. It will help me out a lot! Thanks for those who give my story a chance, much love. P.S. The calendar and such, I saw this being used by AshleighAishwarya in her story Runaway With My Heart (another Elder Scrolls fan fiction.) I would appreciate if you checked that out! It was my whole inspiration for writing again.- Duchess

Chapter One

Location: Imperial Jail
27th of Last Seed

The chill of cold stones sent a strong shiver throughout her body and it roused her from her slumber. With half opened eyes she, unwillingly, rose from her hard bed to see light pouring in through the tiny slit of a window. Memories rose to haunt her.

It had been an accident...

Bile rose up within her mouth.

I hadn't meant to...

Her stomach became uneasy, but she couldn't let what had happened upset her. This wasn't her fault, she had explained, and when asked upon whose fault it was her answer had made several people angry.

"Ooh, you've been talked about quite a bit, Nord" a mocking tone sounded throughout the air. Her eyes could barely even see across her bars into the other cell, but she managed to make out, what looked like, a Dark Elf.

"Excuse me?" Her body began to lean forward to hear the voice a bit better.

He grinned a bit, though she really couldn't tell. "The guards are quite talkative when they think everyone's asleep-" the other prisoner laughed "- look at you, so young, so pretty. I'm sure the guards will forget you're a monster"

She flinched.

"I'm not a... monster" she tried to defend, but her voice quivered in her throat.

Another laugh erupted from the being across the narrow hallway, "You don't sound so sure and from what I've heard you truly are a beast. You're going to die in here Nord."

New voices started to faintly echo into their prison cells.

"Here they come... for you! He he he he" The other prisoner mocked.

A familiar, almost painful, friend visited her rather quickly. Fear.

"My sons are dead, aren't they?"

The soft 'chinks' and 'clanks' of armor were becoming quite apparent to her ears long before she ever saw these voices and a curiosity took hold of her, replacing that fear with its youth. Curiosity had never truly sat inside her or made her wonder more than it did now.

"We don't know for sure sire. The messenger had only said they'd been attacked besides my job now is to get you to safety" That voice sounded a little too familiar for her liking, but she did not think on that long. Her thoughts were focused on the man who worried for his sons. A guard had called him sire. Curiosity took hold once more, filling her and moving her as if it her body were its own. She moved a little further out from her bed to cautiously creep up so her eyes could peer through the bars. Not a lot could be seen in the damp prison but what the flickering torches would allow. The end of the stairwell could be made out quite clearly though and even some movement. Her eyes narrowed to peer farther. A body became apparent then another and another.

By the nine.. She thought in her head as an elder, dressed in regal robes, was the last to make it down the stairs. It was the Emperor of Tamriel! Uriel Septim.. He seemed aged more than he had appeared, his shoulders looked almost.. drooped as if a heavy weight had been placed upon his shoulders, but it still did not stop the man from appearing mighty.

She had been so enraptured by the emperor that she did not notice the guards suddenly at her cell door.

"What's this prisoner doing here?" a female voice called out, the tone quite stern, "this cell was supposed to be off limits"

An urgency hung in the air, it had to have been urgent given the fact Uriel was here and not in the palace. She could tell the female guard was quite irritated. Even with the armor hiding most of her form, she seemed quite rigged, and soon the Nord's presence within the cell became nothing more than an inconvenience. "Stand over by the window Prisoner and you won't be hurt" a male guard told her, pointing his arm as the door to her cell was soon opened.

The entire situation seemed strange, yet as she began to connect pieces together, making a larger picture, the reasoning became clearer. The emperor was in danger, his sons had possibly been murdered and this was the final attempt to ensure the emperor would be alive, but why her cell? What was so important about her cell? There was nothing out of the ordinary here except a few old bones and of course her window. The disgruntling sound of a chaffing armor grew closer when the guards and their emperor was brought into her cell.

Uriel stepped forward rather quickly,"You, I've seen you."

The guard around him grew quite tense, hands near the hilt of their swords and the female, she assumed was the captain, was quick to try and act as a block between them.

"Let me see your face. What's your name?" He added.

"Lily, my name is Lily" she answered, finding it rather odd on how her face suddenly became such an importance. Did he not know? Surely he did. He was emperor, yet he seemed unafraid of her. It gave her a sense of small comfort that at least one being was seeing her for the human she was and not for the beast, even if it was a person as high as the emperor.

"Then the stars were right and I go to my grave"

Lily opened her mouth to speak, but the spine-chilling sound of stone scraping against stone shut her up rather quickly as it caught their sudden attention. Her soft brown eyes turned away from the emperor to look where the sound had come from and stopped to find a hidden passage that had been in her cell. It made sense now why this one was meant to be off limits, if only she had known, but it didn't matter now. The only thing that did was to leave here.

A Redguard stayed a little behind, his eyes meeting with hers before he spoke, "come along and don't get in our way, you'll be alright. He entered the hidden passage behind Uriel and the choice was left up to Lily to follow behind. It's not like the Redguard was really enforcing her cooperation A quick glance to her cell door told her that it wasn't an option anymore. The gate had been shut, locked back and if she didn't want to rot away in here, following behind them seemed like the better option. Slowly, she made her way toward the entrance of the hidden passage, the darkness very uninviting, but with a sigh Lily began her pilgrimage for the outside world.