Authors Note: This was origionally an afterthought, the backstory of a character I'll play in The Elder Scrolls 4. It was my best work ever in my opinion. One Shot. Here it is.
Disclaimer: TES is the property of Bethesda Softworks.
Name: Long forgotten, calls himself Paladin
Class: Paladin
Race: Half-Ayelid Imperial
The man called Paladin was not always as now. He was once a dark warrior with infamy written in blood. One day, he used his powerful black arts to raze a small villiage to the ground. Into the wreckage he strode and wiped out all the survivors. As he left, a small boy ran out of a burning house and slammed him with a club. The warrior obliterated everything within a 50 meter radius. This got him to thinking about how his life was before...
He felt the pain return, and the memories flood.
He had grown up in a small cottage away from any large cities. His father, a civilized Ayelid, was in hiding from racist human persuers. His mother was long dead, she had fallen victim to the Humans. His father taught him swordsmanship and magic, both good and evil. Once, the gang reached thier home, father and son destroyed them. It was his first blood spilled, and it would spark more. His father recieved a small wound from an iron sword, and the wound was infected. He watched helplessly as his father succumbed to disease. After the horror of watching his father waste away, slowly and painfully, after burning the infected carcass of his father, he went to Cyrodiil City to make his way there. Once there, he recieved merit in the Fighters, Mages, and Arena Guilds. One night, after a fierce battle in the Arena, he happened upon a youn woman, an Elf of some kind, being accosted by a group of humans. He stood, stupefied as one drew a dagger and slit her throat.
His wrath was terrible, and before the young woman had hit the ground, ten of the thugs lay dead. The other twelve fled. He turned, and used what little restoration he knew to heal the woman. Stable, she was taken to a physisian, and He didn't leave her side.
She awoke the next day, and the two shared in a loving relationship. Then, one day, they were walking to thier small home, when the twelve thugs returned with sixty of thier boys. He fought bravely to defend her, but she was filled with arrows in moments. He flew into a rage, and slew them all. He ran to her side, hoping to save her again, but there was nothing he could do. His love was dead.
He mourned hugely, reflecting on his horrid life and the loss of all that he loved. It was around here that he had won in the Arena a strange sword, with markings on the blade. No matter what he did, he always smelt blood when he was near it. He changed, then. He would never go anywhere without the sword. He stopped showing mercy in the Arena, and all his Guild missions ended with death.
Once, coming home with bloodsoaked blade in hand, he saw a familliar scene play out. A group of humans, a young elf woman, she fell dying. He realized that everything bad in his life was the cause of humans. He hated them. He despised them. He ran at the humans, and screamed: "You pathetic, " One fell, "wretched," Another three, "useless," all but the one who killed the she-Elf, "HUMANS!" And he struck him down, at the moment the sword took him, and spoke to him, and created the Dark Knight that killed without remorse, for sport, for money. The sword wiped the memories of his life away, so that the spirits of his loved ones could not be recognized when they came nightly to try and help him.
"Father, Mother, Falia, what have I become?" He realized as he left the villiage.
He climbed up to a mountaintop, said to be a holy place, and without remorse, destroyed the sword, and forged anew, a Light Blade, to help redeem his soul. After wiping his soul clean to Akatosh, being truly redeemed through service and sword to the Nine, he stuck his sword into the rocks on the mountain where the evil spirit was destroyed, and studied restoration, all the while his horrible dark arts slipping away. After sufficient training and redemtion, he gave himself in to the Imperial Guard. In prison, he searched his mind for the one thing he had not recovered, his name. His memories, jouyous ones, painful ones, returned by the day. For every good deed, he regained shards of his life. He forgave Humans, realizing in his new Paladin Light, that no one can judge a whole race. Then one day, he heard voices coming to his cell.
"We don't know that, Sire. The messenger only said they were atta-"
"No, they're dead. I know it."
He felt the pain in the magic field around him, and sympathized. And, as events played out, he realized that he could gain his final redemption by saving the world, atone for what the sword had done, and curb his regret for all it had done. He would remember his name.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.