Disclaimer: I don't own the Elder Scrolls.

This chapter is set before Visiting High Hrothgar. Mal is twelve.


Childish Fun

Adina was a very happy Nordic woman approaching middle age. Her hair was just starting to be touched with grey, she had a handsome Nord husband named Sven, and two children - a son and a daughter. She'd been adventuring when she was younger, which was where she'd met Sven, cleared a few dwarven ruins, and the gold that elf in Markarth had paid them for the dwarven stuff ensured that the couple could retire early.

They'd bought a piece of land just outside Falkreath overlooking the lake and spent the first few years building the first part of their house before having children, which then led to the addition of a main hall and a second story, with a kitchen off one side, and alchemist tower at the back and an enchanters tower on the other side with a cellar for Sven to craft and brew mead in.

Their son, Haldor, took after their father with dusty brown hair, but held Adina's mothers disposition towards books - in that he couldn't get enough of them. He had read every book in the house multiple times, including the spellbooks that Adina had stashed in the enchanting bookshelves, and was now practising the spells in the small balcony above the enchanters tower.

Their daughter on the other hand, didn't seem to take after either of them. She had inherited Sven's mothers platinum blonde hair and deep blue eyes, but the wild energy that she seemed to contain wasn't evident on either side of the family. At twelve years old, she could barely read, and her handwriting was even worse. At least they had been able to teach her to speak Nordic instead of the strange made up language that she had started speaking as a toddler, though sometimes she lapsed back into the strange, harsh speech, and she always introduced herself as Mal, instead of Maleeka.

The sound of light footsteps across the roof had Adina sighing in exasperation. One of the first things Adina and Sven had had to do when Maleeka was old enough to climb trees was reinforce the roof - the rambunctious child adored high places and the roof was the highest point she could get to at the moment. This also meant that she climbed down the roof if she was playing at the top of either of the towers instead of just coming down the ladder like a normal person.

The house was strangely silent with Maleeka off doing whatever it was she was doing and Haldor upstairs. Adina slid a load of apple dumplings into the oven and brushed tne excess dough off her hands.

"Mum!" Haldor's holler broke the momentary silence. "Maleeka's fighting a necromancer behind the house!"

A necromancer? Near Lakeview Manor? Nonsense. Adina shook it off as just a childish game, until he yelled again, true panic evident in his voice.

"She's setting fire to stuff!"

Adina dropped the pan and grabbed her sword from its hook beside the fireplace, dashing out the front doors. Outside, Haldor pointed her towards the lake and the small column of smoke she could barely see rising from the woods. Darting around the path, she burst through the underbrush with her sword blazing, only to freeze at the sight in front of her.

Maleeka was sitting beside the smouldering corpse of a scantily clad male necromancer, a skeleton splayed out on the bloody altar behind her as the young girl read a book on conjuration. An arrow was hazardously shoved into the cheek of the necromancer who was quite obviously dead if the glassy look in his eyes were any indication.

"Maleeka, are you alright?" Adina hurried over to her daughter, who looked up and brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes, dying a chunk of it red from the blood smeared on her hand.

"I'm fine. I had the arrow, and Haldor showed me the fire spell a few days ago. It was really cool! It just set fire to lots of things, and the man screamed but it was too late because his dress just went up in flames." She babbled.

Adina frowned. "What were you doing, coming out here? You know you're not supposed to play around the back of the house. You could have been hurt!"

"Well, I was playing archery up in the alchemy tower when I heard someone talking, and I thought that maybe daddy had come home the back way today, so I looked out over the cliff. Only it wasn't daddy, it was some nasty elf man putting these bones all out, so I quickly grabbed my arrow and climbed down the house." She babbled. "Then I ran to the cliff and I jumped off, and I landed on top of the man and he fell to the ground, so I stabbed him with my arrow. Only then he got angry and pushed me, so I got angry back and burnt him with the spell Haldor was playing with the other day. And then he started screaming, and then he stopped, and now you're here!"

Adina looked at her daughter in bewilderment. "Did Haldor teach you that spell?"

"Well...no. I just watched him. But it was so easy! I don't know why he complains so much. Look, I can also heal!" She held her hand up to a scratch from when the necromancer pushed her off and Adina could only watch in amazement as the scratch scabbed over before healing completely.

"Maleeka, what did we tell you about enemies?" Adina asked her daughter. The young girl tilted her head in confusement. "Stay quiet and get either mummy or daddy."

"Oh. I thought that was for wolves, not elf men!" Maleeka protested.

"It's for all enemies, sweet heart." Adina sighed and grabbed Maleeka's hand. "Come on, home time. And we have a new rule, okay? No spells unless mummy or daddy is there to watch and make sure you don't hurt anything."

"Oh. Okay." Maleeka pouted. "But you have to call me Mal Yol from now on. It's my name."

"Whatever you say, Maleeka."


Later that night, Adina curled into Sven's arms and sighed. "We need to do something, Sven."

"About what, dear?"

"Maleeka. She's so...wild. She only listens to us because we're her parents. She's like a beast trapped in human form. She scares me sometimes, but I can't show her that because I'm scared that she'll never listen to me again if I do, and then she'll hurt someone really badly." Adina admitted. Sven shook his head.

"She's not even started her womanhood yet, Adina." He tried to assure her. "She's just a little girl playing archer with arrows."

"She stabbed a necromancer in the cheek with an arrow today, and then burnt him alive, Sven. What twelve year old does that?" Adina asked. Sven had no answer for her. "What are we going to do."

"I suppose the first thing we'll do is teach her how to use a bow. Arrows are for shooting, not stabbing." Sven joked. At Adina's sharp look, he sighed. "Look, I don't know. We'll figure something out. We knew she'd be a handful when she was born, remember?"

"Yeah. But I at least expected her to act human." Adina muttered into her pillow.

On the other side of the wall, Maleeka dreamt of sleek wings and Skyrim from above the clouds.


AN: Trouble in childhood! So this is Mal as a child, and the name her parents gave her - Maleeka. This is somewhat from a scene in game - I was in the alchemists tower and saw a necromancer just behind my house, only I shot him with an arrow and then climbed down the house, Mal just jumped over the cliff and stabbed him with an arrow.