The 8th Guards Army of the Dominion was destroyed. Not but days after Ailiea had left the Army for good, General Aurelius force marched the Empire's 6th Legion south from Bruma and surprised them upon the field of battle before the remnants of the Imperial City. The 8th Guards Army had grown complacent in victory and their situation confused by the sudden death of Prince Elenmiar and in this state, had simply lost track of the 6th Legion's movements so that when they appeared before them on the field of battle, the 6th Legion cut through them with an unequaled ease. They were not even given the chance to form battle lines before the Legionaries were upon them and it was all over.
Not long after the Dominion had lost an entire army upon the outskirts of the Imperial City, the decimated remnants of the 8th Legion under General Occultis stormed the City of Skingrad and so liberated it from Dominion control. Thus had the way to the cities of Kvatch and Anvil been opened to the Imperial Legion, as these cities had been only lightly garrisoned by Dominion Troops. With the 1st, 3rd, and 13th Legions force marching from eastern Cyrodiil to join in battle, Dominion control in the region was quickly fading. Although at this point all looked to be going in favor of the Empire, it was good to remember that the Dominion still held Valenwood and Elsweyr and was gaining ground in Hammerfell.
Not long after this, however, just when the war looked to be escalating with the Legion forcing the Dominion out of Cyrodiil, the White-Gold Concordant was signed between the warring parties and the Great War was ended. In accordance with the Dominion pledges signed on in the White-Gold Concordant, elements of the Dominion's 4th Army withdrew from the cities of Kvatch and Anvil and crossed into Valenwood while the Dominion's 7th Army and 9th Guards Army withdrew from Bravil and Leyawiin respectively and crossed into Elsweyr. And so it came to pass that all Dominion troops had either been destroyed or had simply left Cyrodiil and the region settled into a relative peace.
Not but a few days after Ailiea had made good her escape from camp, she had found some rags to clothe herself with. Rags which had included a hood that she may hide her ears from sight, as she was sure by now that she had crossed into Legion lines and had so desperately wanted to avoid being captured by Legionaries. As she walked upon the roads leading north, leaving the Imperial City behind her and only in distant memory, she came upon a large group of people who had with them all of their belongings placed upon wagons and on the backs horses, and anything else which could be used to transport their worldly wares.
Some carried this all on their very backs and on the backs of their wives and children as the necessity of their situations dictated upon them. These were the war refugees. The ones who had fled their homes and their farms and shops, all they had ever known so as to avoid becoming collateral damage in the battles which were being fought all around them in the war which was being waged all across their lands. Thousands of them had fled and were making their way around the Rumare Lake. Some headed north, for the safety of Bruma and possibly even into Skyrim, while others headed east and were making for the sanctity of Cheydinhal.
So it came to pass that Ailiea, doing as best she could to conceal her heritage, joined them and made her way with them. As time went on, she came to know some of them well, like the merchant who had a son in the Imperial Legion and who had left his home in Skingrad when word came that the Dominion had broken through and was marching on the city. She laughed a little on the inside as he told her this, as she had been in the Dominion's armies marching on Skingrad back then as he had been hurriedly packing to flee, though of course he had no way of knowing this.
Or even the barkeep who had provided all her wines and mead to the soldiers of the Legion in the Imperial City, before it was lost, who were parched from the long retreat from Bravil, and just days before they were in turn all slaughtered upon the field of battle. Ailiea would never have told her this, but she felt certain almost beyond any doubt, that she had somehow been involved in their deaths upon the field of battle. Ailiea had felt it quite curious to now see the war from the prospective of her enemies. It filled her with a certain wholesome knowledge that she, before all others, understood the war from all its complicated angles. She often thought of how odd it was that her fate would be so closely linked to these people, who were but strangers to her but days ago.
Soon they felt comfortable enough around Ailiea that on one occasion, the kindly told her that they knew she was an Altmer, lest so far as they knew. She was taken aback by their words and she wore a look of surprise and great concern in her face so that they told her she had no need to worry for her safety so long as she traveled with them. Small numbers of Altmer had always lived in Cyrodiil and because of this her appearance there amongst them was not all together surprising, so that when they saw her, they had naturally assumed that she must have been one of these. They felt they quite understood her reasoning for hiding her heritage, for as soon as Dominion troops invaded Cyrodiil, many hundred of Altmer citizens who had lived here were lynched by their decidedly no longer friendly neighbors.
Though there were occasional bursts of happiness while they were on the road, the overall mood of the group in which Ailiea was traveling on was decidedly more somber overall. Then there came the day when they passed the 6th Legion as it force marched south from Bruma. All the people whom she was with cheered with wild abandon was their brave soldiers marched by in lock-step to a heavy drum beat, with the red Imperial banners fluttering in the light afternoon breeze and each Battalion's Golden Dragon Standard glistening in the afternoon sun like a good omen signifying the victory which was to follow only a few days after this scene had taken place. Ailiea stared out at them as they passed her by.
She had seen the men of the Legion before, in battle, many, many times, and even in battlefields long since abandoned. Yet this was the closest she had been to them in such a long while without being upon the field of battle against them. So strange it felt, she thought to herself. Then, from the back of the column of men there came a group of men, all on horseback. As they rode passed her, one of them slowed to a stop and seemed to be inspecting the line of Legionaries as they passed him by. In her curiosity, she came up to the man and called out to him. "Kind sir, pray tell; who may that be which rode by upon the white steed not moments ago?".
"That, my fair lady, is General Aurelius. He rides ahead of his Staff and his Legion on his way to free Cyrodiil of the Aldmeri Dominion!", he replied to her in kind. Before long, a call of 'Legate Tullius' came for him from the others who were on horseback but a ways ahead of him. So, the one called Legate Tullius rode on ahead of her to join the others.
Though others waved and cheered and called out to him as he rode by, perched atop his white steed like a mythic hero of an age past, she did not know what it was that she should do in a situation such as this. To be sure, she was still of the Dominion, even if she was no longer of their armies and she was undecided if it would be prudent of her to convey good luck on those who were to kill her people nor not. Even after the 6th Legion had long since passed them by did she still contemplate this moral dilemma.
So then at last, after many days of traveling they came to a fork in the road north of the Imperial City. to the north lay Bruma, and to the east lay Cheydinhal. When the time came to decide on going north or going east, she paused that she may consider her path more closely. After much deliberation on her part on the matter, she finally decided on heading east so as to push as far away from the Dominion, who was to her west, as possible. So she pushed east, traveling with an ever shrinking group. As they traveled, they were passed by troops once more. First it was the 1st Legion who had passed them, and who were met with much the same fanfare as the 6th Legion before them had been. Not but a few days march behind them came the 3rd Legion, and a few days behind them there came the 13th Legion, each receiving their own fanfare as they passed. In her travels, Ailiea had seen four full strength Legions pass her by on their way to the front lines in as many days as she cared to remember. The Imperial Legion had more strength left in it then she had apparently realized, and she often thought in the days since they had passed the last Legion that if given the chance would she have warned her own people of these latest troop movements or not, then finally decided that she would very likely not.
When at last she came to the outskirts of Cheydinhal, Ailiea was all alone as all of those who had been traveling with her had long since disbursed along the road, having come to their own destinations. As each departed from the group, they had all wished Ailiea none but the best on her travels. Though she was no longer with any group, it could be said that she still did not travel without companion, for upon her heels there came a great and terrible storm, not far distant behind her. This was not a storm of clouds and wind and rain, this was a different sort of storm which was later to cause such pain and destruction. It would seem that she had dragged it along behind her as she made her way through the massive iron gates into the heart of Cheydinhal. As she crossed the bridge before the city and came through the gates, she could feel the suspicious eyes of the guards upon her person, but she never halted to indulge them and they for their part never stopped her.
In these days it was a man, an Imperial, named Manius who had become the proprietor of the Cheydinhal Bridge Inn. Here he stayed with his wife, Gnaea, and his young daughter, Appia, who was then only six; these two who were most precious to him. By now word had reached as far east as Cheydinhal that the 6th Legion had destroyed the Aldmeri Dominion forces upon the foothills of the Imperial City and had so liberated it. Such a stunning victory came on the heels of not but the disastrous news which had came before it. This provided such a surge to the moral of the townsfolk, who had had it in their heads for some time that Cheydinhal was soon to feel the wrath of Aldmeri Dominion forces as well.
So when at last the realization that these horrors would not be visited upon Cheydinhal as had happened at other cities, the finest meats were prepared and the casks of wine and mead were opened and the townsfolk cheered and toasted and ate merrily to the victory of the 6th Legion. Many had gathered to celebrate at the Cheydinhal Bridge Inn that night, and the Inn was full to such a capacity as had not been seen in quite some time. Though Manius had been meaning to hire on help at the Inn, he had not done so yet, and as such he found himself quite busy that night, along with his wife, while little Appia went about, entertaining all those who saw her with her childish little quirks and her polite mannerisms. A more merry scene there could not have been on nights such as this.
As they had began to run dry of the wines and the mead which the guests were so enjoying, Manius proceeded to the cellar below the main floor to seek out more, when there came a rustling from beyond the cellar doors which connected it to the streets beyond the Inn. At first he thought of the noise as nothing but the scurrying of the skeevers across the doors as they were know to do this from time to time. Sure enough, he heard their little paws pattering about just on the other side of the doors, and as he had turned about to return to the ground floor of the Inn, he heard an even larger creature scurrying about, giving chase to the skeevers.
Whatsoever it was, it had caught one, as he could hear the skeever cry out as it was surely devoured by this creature. The horrible screeching which the skeever had made caused him to freeze where he stood and made the hairs on the back of his neck and on his arms stand on end. He turned, placing the wine and the mead down upon a table. Manius was an older man, who had already given service to the Legion in years long since passed, which was why he was not serving currently in the war.
Though he had been trained once upon a time, this was a time which had long since passed, and as a soldier he was but a shadow of the man he used to be. Despite this, he drew his dagger and slowly made his way to the cellar doors, and upon reaching it, he slowly and quietly unlatched the door. Once he had done this, he took the briefest of moments to gather his thoughts and his courage before he went. Finding his courage at long last, he threw his entire weight upon the doors and came up from the cellar screaming.
But the sight which greeted him fully took away his fury, a fury which was replaced with an overwhelming sense of pity. There, before him, lay a girl, dressed only in rags and with a hood drawn about her head. She was kneeling before him, though in her surprise, she had fallen back, revealing to him that she was naked under her rags. In one hand, there was a dead and bloodied skeever, and she wore its blood upon her face, while in the other hand she had a weapon drawn that she may defend herself.
Though a closer inspection of her weapon revealed it to be not a weapon at all, but only a twig. All this, and as well, she was trembling. Truly, she looked more helpless and pitiful than threatening. Placing one hand behind his head in confusion and replacing the dagger with the other, he just stood there before and stared her down for a moment. She, for part, did not move but to breathe, as he could see the rising and falling of her chest from behind her rags. Finally, he held out a hand to her and he asked her to follow him.
She did not move from her lowly spot upon the ground, so he moved forward, causing her to back away in panic, but he simply reassured her that all would be well, so that she finally and slowly stood and followed him into the cellar. Once he had secured the doors to the cellar, he turned about to find that the girl had taken a seat next to the table with the wines and the mead placed upon it. He could not see her face as it was covered by the shadows. So, slowly, he made his way over to her and very slowly but surely, he removed the hood from her head, which caused her to jump in surprise.
She looked away from him and looked down upon the floor of the cellar, and with her head turned as such, showed him her elfin ear. An Altmer, he thought to himself as he gazed upon her, which seemed to explain why she was so jumpy. Truly, the Altmer were not well thought of in these days, since the commencement of the war. From a human prospective, she could not have been any older than eighteen, though as an Elf, he knew that she was actually and in all likelihood far older than he. Asking of her that she not move, and hoping that she could understand him, he made his way up the stairs and back into the main room of the Inn.
Once there, he sought out his wife. Gnaea, and once he found her, called her to him. Though at first she took of no notice, as she was entertaining their many guests, soon the urgency in his eyes convinced her to come to him. When she reached him, he spoke not a word. He simply took her by the hand and proceeded to lead her to the stairs which led into the cellar. As she followed him, she thought of how odd he was acting and hoped that they had not been robbed by the Thieves Guild of their casks of wine and mead again. Once she entered the cellar, she was greeted by the site of the pitiful elfin girl, dressed only in rags and with blood spread out across her face. Gnaea saw this and all at once her maternal instincts stepped in.
She took a wet rag and cleansed the blood from the girl's face, and as she did this, she took in the sight of the girl. The elfin girl had an almost divine appearance about her person. Her long and ragged hair was of a brilliant and blinding light color which was very nearly white. Her skin was just a pale and cold to the touch and her eyes shined of a brilliant silver color. Truly, her features were soft and very muted and she conveyed a very gentle and vulnerable aura about her person. Ailiea thought it very odd to be treated as such after her long journey and her time on the streets of Cyrodiil, but she had decided that they had meant her no harm, and she really had no other place to go at any rate. So there she sat, in the cellar of the Inn, surrounded by strangers.
In the days which proceeded this happening, Manius and Gnaea decided to give her boarding in the Inn and hire her on as a barmaid and Ailiea came to live with them. As she had no clothes of her own, Gnaea lent her some of her very own dresses, and though they fit Gnaea perfectly, they hung loosely from Ailiea's more meager frame. Gnaea was a curvy, buxom woman whereas Ailiea maintained a comparatively smaller, lithe build. Though Ailiea scoffed at how loose fitting the clothes were, Gnaea laughed off her comments and told her that she would grow to fill the dresses in due time, even though she knew that this was not true. Gnaea thought that the name Ailiea befitted her as it was a very gentle sounding name. In truth, the name, as well as her soft and muted appearance were deceptive of the terrible and bloodthirsty beast she truly was on the inside. True, in days long since passed, she had once been kind and gentle, but this was a very, very long time ago.
Because the war was not over yet at this time, and as she was still hunted, she remained quiet and kept to herself, that her true nature may never betray her. Manius and his family, and all who came to the Inn had naturally assumed her silence was just as she was as they had mistaken her desire to keep a low profile as a natural shyness which she had always possessed. When they asked about her life before Cheydinhal, as soon curiosity got the better of them, she told them that she had been born and raised and had resided in the Imperial City for many, many years before it fell to the Altmer. She seemed to know so much about the City that they all naturally assumed that this must be so, never suspecting that she knew so much about the city in truth because she had walked its streets as a conqueror.
Then, one day not long after she came here, the news reached Cheydinhal that the War had finally been brought to a close and that Cyrodiil was finally free of the Aldmeri Dominion. Though many cheered and celebrated, she felt conflicted. She didn't know what she was to do now that the war was over. Was she to remain here, or if not, where was she to go. As fate would have it, the question was one day answered for her as they had all felt that, now that hostilities had ended, she may decide to return to the Imperial City, the begged her to stay as she had become something of a fixture around the Inn and something akin to family to all of them. Though they had all come to love her, she felt indifferent about all of them, but as she had nowhere else to go, she decided that perhaps she should stay after all.
Little Appia was happiest of all when she had learned about Ailiea's decision to stay with them, as she was an only child and was this very lonely. Once Appia had been a very sad child, one who didn't speak very much and spent most of her days within the Inn as she very seldom ever traveled beyond its walls. Seeing Appia in such a state as that took a terrible toll on her parents as nothing they had tried seemed to alter her mood. Though it seemed as if the child were to be trapt forever in the darkening embrace of melancholy, this all began to change once Ailiea came to be with them. Appia now found herself no longer alone. Now she had someone to talk to and someone to play with. Though at first Ailiea shied away from the child, soon they came to be close and Ailiea became something akin to an older sister to the girl.
Though Ailiea was only to live here in the Inn but a few brief years, she would always remember these years as some of the happiest that she could ever remember having known. Though Ailiea could have no way of knowing this at the time, this happy and contented life which she had grown to know and so love was not to be the end of her tale. Indeed, as so often happens, fate had other plans for her. One day, there came to the Inn a tired and weather worn traveler. He wore in his eyes a thousand tales full of pain and sorrow and he wore a much pained expression of loss upon his face. As it was so late, Ailiea had decided that she would watch the Inn that night, that the others may make merry in rest. He came up to her before the counter and asked her for boarding for the night and perhaps something to eat and drink, if it not be too much trouble as he had the coin to pay. Naturally, she agreed and made for the kitchen to tend to his needs, when he called out to her.
When she turned about to face him, she could see a sudden shift in the expression he wore about his face. It was as if he were attempting to gaze through her and see the things which she could not. His eyes narrowed and he raised ever so slightly from the stool upon which he was sitting and it was a while before he spoke again. "There's something about you. Your voice; I feel as though I've met you somewhere before.", he said more of her than to her, as if he were thinking aloud to himself.
"Surely you jest kind sir, as I have resided her in Cheydinhal for many years now and have been no other place."
But her words he ignored as he remained convinced of his own thoughts on the subject. "No,", he told her, "I know you, of this I'm sure."
"As I've said, kind sir; I've been here and not far from here, so that it be unlikely.", she answered him, though in spite of herself, she too began to search through her memories that she may recognize him. But no matter how hard she thought, she could not bring herself to remember him from anywhere. Though she could not find the answer, not a moment after this the answer found its way to him instead. So all at once it came fully back to him, though he wished that it hadn't.
He remembered Ailiea now, even if he hadn't wanted to. It had been many years ago, on the streets of the Imperial City. It was the market district as he recalled. He had owned a shop there once, with his wife. Yes, his wife, he remembered her now. She was beautiful and had been all his whole world. Then there came the day when the Altmer soldiers forced their way into the city. He had been warned days ahead that they were coming and that they should leave at their earliest opportunity, but he thought of the very idea of an Imperial being forced from the city by Altmer was laughable. Though his wife had begged him that they should make good their escape from the city, he reassured her as to the unlikelihood of the Altmer making their way into the city. He remembered the horror and despair he had felt on the day he had learned that the Altmer had indeed broken their way into the city. As soon as he had heard of the news, he took his wife and they made for the gates of the city that they may still make good on their escape.
And so they ran. They ran through panic stricken streets. They ran through the darkness and the chaos, winding their way through the repentant who were on their knees praying to the nine for salvation and the looters who were picking the streets clean. They ran and they made their way to the city gates, but it was too late. As the gates came fully into view, so too did the first of the Altmer soldiers as they made their way into the fallen city. When they saw the soldiers, they tried to run back the way they had come, but to no avail; the soldiers had caught up to them and now had them. The soldiers were drunk, though not on any form of strong drink. They were flush with their victory so that they now felt they were now entitled to the spoils of all that which the city held. His wife had tried to back away, but a soldier had taken her by her arm. He saw this and he acted upon sheer instinct, as any man in his stead would have done. He took his dagger and he stabbed the soldier, who had failed to see him coming, again and again, until the soldier released his beloved. This he did, falling backwards to his death.
Now free, they tried to run from the other soldiers, when he felt a sharp pain go through his shoulder, and he fell to the ground. He could still remember in such vivid detail the screams of his wife as he felt for the arrow which had pierced his body. It was a clean shot and the arrow had gone straight through him so that he could now see the tip of the arrow before him as it protruded from his wounded shoulder. His wife, who was still screaming, came down to him, and attempted as best she could to care for his wound. But she did not get far, for behind her he could see another soldier coming upon her. He tried to warn her but he could not find his voice in time. Yes, he remembered now, as clearly now as the day it all happened; Ailiea had been the soldier.
Though still she could not remember this, she had seen the man kill her fellow soldier so that she took an arrow from her quiver and let slip her cruel vengeance, intentionally wounding him through the shoulder so as to drop him but not kill him. This she did with relative ease, and upon seeing the man lying upon the ground with his wife rushing to help him where he lay, she came up behind the woman. He could see her coming and she could see him struggle to find the words to warn her, but it was too late; Ailiea was already upon them. Only when her shadow fell across them did the woman take notice of her and slowly turn that she may face her attacker. Ailiea stared down the woman for a time, and the woman stared back at her.
Then she unsheathed the sword by her side, and with one powerful blow, Ailiea fully decapitated the woman. Blood came from the neck and partly covered her in its sweet aroma. Though the head was now severed, and falling to the ground, the body stayed in place for a moment before taking its place before the man. He had been screaming the whole time, though Ailiea had only become aware of this when the body of his wife joined him there upon the ground. He screamed and he screamed, and he drew the body close to himself and he held it there. Ailiea was taken in by the sublime nature of the whole scene that she took the woman's head by her hair and brought it level to herself, staring down the woman's eyes which were still open and which still bore the same expression as she had wore just before her death, and the woman's eyes stared back at her.
Though the man had confessed that he now remembered her, Ailiea, for the life of her still could not remember him. In truth, she had done so much in cruelty onto others that she had great difficulty remembering specific instances. But he remembered, and he remembered her. He said that he remembered her, and he kept repeating that he did, over and over again as he walked over to her. This caused her to draw away from the man, though as he grew louder and louder, she soon became concerned that he may wake the others who were sleeping above them. She told him this, but he seemed to take no notice. He just kept repeating that he remembered her, over and over, without end. She asked him once more to keep his voice down, but that was when he made the mistake; he identified her as an Altmer soldier, an archer. He said that he remembered her as an Altmer soldier and that he was going to be sure to call the guards on her, first chance he got, and he made for the door. And just like that, after years of working so hard to hide herself far away, she had been uncovered and laid bare.
As the realization of his words began to fully dawn on him, she lost control over herself. Before he knew what was happening, he found himself thrown upon the surface of a table. He tried to get up and run, but Ailiea was already upon him. Bringing her fist hard across his face, he fell back upon the table and began to spit up the blood and the teeth she had knocked loose from him. the blood was everywhere on the table, and the sight and smell of it pushed Ailiea over the edge. No longer able to contain the hunger which was wallowing up from some long forgotten part of herself, she bent down to him and placed her lips upon his neck. With very little resistance, her fangs found their mark and she began to drink deeply and draw as much of him into her as she could, as fast as he could.
Though he had not the strength to fight her off, this did not stop him from silently crying out in horror as he felt the blood leave his body. Soon he was crying had subsided and he was moving less and less until finally he went cold and limp in her embrace. Satisfied with her work, she removed her fangs from his neck and began to lick the wound upon his neck with wild abandon. The taste of fresh blood such as this had always thrown her into such a euphoric state, especially after she gorged herself as she had just done. Feeling a sensation of the greatest pleasure wash over every fiber of her waking being, she thrust hard into the corpse as she felt her back tense up and arch back and she fixed her gaze up at the ceiling. The feeling of pleasure continued throughout her entire body that it caused her to shake and her breathing to quicken.
It was then that her whole world came down upon her once again. She heard something hard fall upon the floor at the foot of the stairs, and when she turned and fixed her gaze upon this spot, her breathing stopped cold. There, at the foot of the stairs, lay Appia, who had so backed away in horror at the scene as it played out before her that she had tripped over her own feet and fell to the floor. Their gazes met and it caused both of them to freeze where they were. And for the first time in her entire life, Ailiea felt the bitter sting of shame. feeling the eyes of the child glaring her down to her very depths, she slowly let go of her feast and let it fall to the table under her, the eyes of the dead man staring down the child all the while. The sight of the man's lifeless eyes caught the child's eyes so completely and so caused her mouth to drop from shock. Then at last, when Ailiea could no longer bare to be in the sight of the child any longer, she took flight through the door of the Inn, not once looking back for fear of what she might see. She ran and she ran, as far away as her feet could take her, clear across Cheydinhal.
When at last she stopped to catch her breath, she found herself before a large and abandoned house which stood all alone on the other side of the city. The house was centuries old, yet no one had ever bothered to refurbish it as bad things were known to happen there, from time to time. Ailiea stared down the old house before her and smiled. As things were, she suddenly found herself wanting to be quite alone. Of all the places to which she could have ran to in Cheydinhal, this was the one place where she could truly hide. So, making sure no one was watching and feeling fairly certain that no one was, she proceeded into the abandoned house. The house was largely empty and completely covered in the dirt and grime of the world which came here to hide away. There lay nothing here which anyone would have wanted, for which she was glad. It meant all the more reassurance that no one would bother her. She found herself a quiet place to rest and think, and soon she fell asleep. Being a Vampire meant that Ailiea seldom ever slept and was known to stay fully awake for months at a time. Whenever she did this, however, she required several days worth of sleep in order to counterbalance this apparent insomnia. This meant that it was several days before Ailiea finally awoke from her long slumber. Once she was awake, she became all to keenly aware of a darkly dressed presence in the room before her, staring her down as if it had been there the whole time.
"I know what you've done, Vampire. It was... impressive work.", a voice came from the shadowy figure; it was a man's voice. For a while, they just stayed where they were, frozen in time and staring each other down thoroughly. Ailiea was not sure what she should say to the man, so instead she just lay where she was and waited for him to go on with his words for she felt almost certain that there was to be more. "I can offer you a home. Somewhere where you won't have to hide who you truly are. A home where you will not only be accepted for what you are, but also encouraged in your dark and terrible nature.", he went on. Ailiea had begun to pick up on who he was and what he was representing to her. She had heard of the Dark Brotherhood long, long ago. She could still remember when the rumors about the black sacrament had first spread through Tamriel. In spite of her terrible, terrible nature, she had never been tempted to seek out this young group back then, when they were new. Now was different. Now she had nowhere else to go and was interested in yet another new path, like the many hundreds before which she had walked down in time passed. And so it came to be that Ailiea joined the Dark Brotherhood.
