Chapter 1: Helgen
There was a deep throbbing in between her eyes, all most as if there were a mammoth relentlessly beating on it from the inside. A pain that was only worsened with every relentless pound of hooves against hard stone, and the nausea from the uneven carriage ride was enough to make even the strongest warrior vomit.
As the young woman moved to cradle her sore head in her bound hands, a clearly Nordic voice sounded from in front of her "Hey, you, finally awake. You were trying to cross the border into Skyrim right? Walked right into that imperial ambush, same as us and that horse thief over there." The girl's vision was blurry and unfocused as she lifted her head to see who was speaking to her, she thought to herself "Ambush? I was just hunting for my supper… but with the horrendously terrible luck of mine I suppose I should just be grateful to not have been roasted alive by a dragon…"
"Damn you stormcloaks!" "Stormcloaks?" "Skyrim was fine until you came along, empire was nice and lazy. If it weren't for you I could have stolen that horse and made it half way to Hammerfell by now." She looked over to her right at the hose thief, his hair was tangled and greasy, and his face was coated in grime as well as the rags he was dressed in. Turning her head slightly further to her right she realized there was yet another nord man in the carriage with them, though he was distinctively different. Rather than torn rags or tarnished armor, he was dressed in fine clothing and was clearly someone of importance. His face and hair were rather clean, and he was gagged, "Odd". The young woman chose to appreciated her beautiful surroundings rather than listen to the men's ramblings, as she felt that this may be her less chance. "Skyrim truly is wondrous, now if only I weren't near freezing to death"
Suddenly her thoughts were interrupted by a call to some General, and she took notice of the village they were about to enter. The nord across from her was mumbling about some old flame he had that lived here. She sighed as she lowered her head, out of the corner of her eye she saw a small boy being ushered into a home by his parents. "Whoa" called the carriage driver and stopped the cart against the wall beside the one that had been ahead of them.
They piled off the cart the horse thief crying the whole way and waited to hear their names called from the list. The horse thief attempted to make a break for it yelling "You'll never kill me!" but was taken out by the archers. "Any one else feel like running the dark-skinned imperial women yelled in her gruff voice. The young women chuckled a bit "Not anymore" she thought to herself. "You there! Who are you?" demanded the Nordic man holding the list, the young dunmer and nord half breed stepped forward "My name is Gia." The man looked at her as if he were about to say something to her but he instead turned his head and spoke to the captain "What should we do captain? She's not on the list." A spark of hope flickered in Gia's chest, perhaps she would make it out alive. "Forget the list! She goes to the black!" snarled the captain, who looked at the half breed with disgust written across her face. The Nordic man at least had the decency to seem apologetic "I'm sorry friend, ill insure that your remains are sent back… to…umm…" Gia sighed "Have them returned to my family in Cryodil I suppose…"
The captain grabbed Gia by the arm, non to gently and drug her over to wait with the rest of the criminals. A rather short imperial man that Gia could only guess was the General Tullius, stepped up to the still gagged Ulfric Stormcloak and began to belittle and yell at him, saying how the Empire was going to put down the rebellion. "Yeah, it takes some real guts to threaten and insult a man you've gagged and bound." Gia said loud enough for all those in the area to hear. "Would you like to say something?" Tullius questioned in a dark tone, as all the imperials turned and glared at her. Gia looked at the faces of the rebels around her and said loud and clear "You're clearly nothing but a coward; you can't even give this man a chance to speak. Are you that afraid that he will sued you're oh so fine soldiers to his cause?" The general moved his hand to the hilt of his sword, took a deep breath clearly attempting to remain somewhat calm as the rebels snickered around her. After a moment he turned and ordered for the executions to begin.
Gia watched on as the headsman's axe separated a man's head from his body, and heard a woman scream profanity at the imperials. "Next, the half breed!" barked the imperial captain, suddenly there was a loud roar, though it sounded far away. Everyone looked around franticly, searching for the source. The captain seemed unfazed as she loudly stomped forward and practically threw Gia towards the block. Gia kneeled there with her head on the already bloody block, watching as the headsman raised his axe high above his head and just as he was preparing to bring it down and end her life, a giant black scaled and winged beast dropped onto a nearby tower. It looked right at her and produced a horrifying sound, almost like a shout that cause flaming boulders to fall from the sky.
It took Gia a moment to get her bearings, and when she finally managed to do so she heard someone yelling for her to get up. She rolled onto her hands and knees best she could and lifted her head to see the blond nord from the cart standing there; she scrambled to her feet and rushed towards him. He practically shoved her into the tower behind him, allowing her to be narrowly missed by one of the boulders that were still falling from the darkened sky.
Once inside she was rushed up the tower by Ulfric with Ralof right behind her. Suddenly a deafening crash sounded and the dragons head burst through the wall. Gia was barely able to duck down before the beast let out yet another ear shattering scream and fire erupted forth from its mouth. "By the Nine!" shouted one of the nords from the lower level of the tower. But just as quickly as it had come it flew off once again. Gia took this opportunity to jump out of the hole made in the wall and into the inn next door. Then she ran out of the building, past a few imperials, through burning buildings until she spotted Ralof up ahead. He began shouting for her to follow him into the keep, and given her current situation Gia didn't think she really had all that much of a choice.
Once inside she looked around the small room they were in, a table, a couple chairs, two doors and a fallen Stormcloak soldier. After determining that both doors were impossible to open either from their side or without a key, Ralof cut off Gia's restraints. "Go ahead and take that gear, he won't be needing it anymore" Ralof told her solemnly. Gia looked over at the body and noted the size of the rather large male nord, "Huh, well its better than nothing I guess." Gia thought as she stripped the corpse of all but it under clothes and quickly changed. Just as she was strapping the axe to her waist a very familiar and irritating voice permeated the air, "C'mon soldiers! Get that gate open!" Gia and Ralof crouched down and pressed themselves as close to the stone wall as possible, waiting for their chance to strike. After a moment the grinding of gear in the walls could be heard and the imperials walked into the room. The captain made it a few steps into the room when Gia snuck behind her, grabbed the top of her helmet and sliced her neck with the admittedly rather dull axe, while Ralof took out the other soldier with a few swings of his own axe.
With the newly acquired key they escaped through the other door and found themselves in a torture room. There were two bloodied and battered Stormcloak soldiers standing over the bodies of the torturers. "Disgusting, this is something the Empire approves of? Pathetic." Gia thought to herself, but she decided it was not the time to discuss such things. "Hey it looks like there is something in this cage, damn it's locked. Here try opening that lock with some lock picks." Gia took the offered lock picks and was immediately able to open the lock with no trouble, which earned some inquisitive looks from the stormcloaks.
After running into yet another group of imperials and losing the other stormcloaks Gia and Ralof were almost out, all that stood between them and freedom was one sleeping bear. Ralof was apprehensive, wanting to simply try and sneak around the slumbering beast. But Gia decided to simply take care of the problem; she drew her long bow an iron arrow and began to sneak towards the bear, signaling for Ralof to stay put. She climbed a ledge near the bear, aimed her arrow and let it fly. It struck right through the beast's skull, killing it instantly.
"Amazing, it didn't even know you were there!" exclaimed Ralof, Gia simply smirked and continued on her way out of the caverns. Ralof spotted light pouring in from the exit and him and Gia rushed towards it. Gia began to bask in the warmth of the bright sun, but she was interrupted by Ralof tossing her to the ground under a pine tree.
Right as Gia was about to throw him off and castrate him she heard the now all too familiar roar of a dragon. She scrambled out from under Ralof to peak out from under the tree just in time to see the black winged beast flying away from them.