Wow, so uhm, it's been a long time since I wrote anything here. I'm not dead yet, just really, really inconsistent, sorry. Currently my only beta is myself, but I've received an offer, so quality should pick up a bit once I've gotten that worked out. Now on to the disclaimers:

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This fic contains spoilers for the game Oblivion. It takes place two years after the end of the main quest.

A disclaimer.

This is an Oblivion fanfic. All things that are copyrighted to Bethesda and the Elder Scrolls series, belongs to them. Charsi, Kyle, Blackish, and all other original characters belong to me unless otherwise noted in a disclaimer.

In other words most of the things in this story are going to belong to them, not me. I'm just the one that got inspired, and most of the words are mine. I admit I will quote the game from time to time however.

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Symbols Used

This section with be updated as needed

/This/ is someone's thoughts

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The Bosmer woke to warmth and darkness. "Where," she tried to speak, and her voice though a bare whisper burned like fire and knives in her throat. /Where am I?/ she thought as she struggled to sit up. Despite the weight of the blankets cocooning her, and the weakness of her body she finally managed.

She lay there propped against the headboard of the small bed staring through the gloom trying to remember how she got here. The last thing she remembered was placing an offering on a shrine in the wilderness, and then darkness and laughter, terribly cruel laughter. Shaking her head to try and clear it of the memory, or the haunting lack of it, she slung her legs over the side of the bed.

/Is there no blamed lantern in here?/ she thought as she used the bare bedside table to steady herself as she stood up. /At least I can stand, even if I cant see./ Making her way slowly and carefully across the dark room towards the line of light that was the door she realized that though she was having trouble staying balanced she wasn't as weak as she had feared. /Don't go getting too proud, it's nothing compared to what you were./

She made it to the door with no more trouble than stubbing her toe on a stool in the middle of the room. Yet as she opened the door she jumped in surprise, there was someone standing right there! They had probably been about to reach for the door themselves.

/No, wait... That's just a mirror!/ Her brows furrowed as she studied what she realized was her own reflection. She was clad in a white night gown, simple, unrevealing, and comfortable. Her skin was somewhat tanned and freckled, and scars dotted and slashed what she could see of her skin. She was bandaged on her arms, and that would also explain the tightness around her chest and stomach, though she couldn't see those bandages. But the face was what baffled her the most.

/This is, my face? But I don't recognize../ Her thoughts were confused as she reached a thin and calloused hand to touch her bruised face and shorn hair. Her eyes were large and dark, you could not see the whites, they were like the eyes of an animal. And her hair, shorn to ear-length, was coarse, tangled, and /Purple?/ But most notable of all was the long pale scar running along the right side of her jaw, quite nearly four inches in length.

/Who am I?/ The room began to spin as she tried to recall, and her vision was becoming blurred. /I think I had better go back to bed./ So she stumbled with much less grace back to the bed, leaving the door half open.

Lying there propped gracelessly against the headboard, she stopped her whirling thoughts to try and work this through, slowly. /Okay. First thing, real easy, what's my name. Remalia Tilfam, and... I was born in Valenwood./

A tiny smile crossed her face as memories of her childhood, and the beautiful city she had grown up in, played through her mind. How she apprenticed herself to professional scout and tracker at 17, and actually stuck with it until her mentor had no more to teach her. (Quite a feat for a young Bosmer, or so she had been told.) How she ended up in Kvatch afterwards, looking for work. How she had learned her first spell (a very minor healing spell) from one of the priests at the chapel there.

A memory flashed in her mind. Fighting for her life, in scant armor, against an opponent disabled similarly. Of crowds screaming at them, but she was unable to tell who the spectators were for or against. /Now how did I get there? Oh yes, I wasn't getting any contracts from the guild. So I followed the rumor of glory and riches to the arena in the capital. But I didn't get very far with that./

No, indeed Remalia hadn't gotten far with her budding career as an arena combatant. Instead, within a week of her arrival she found herself thrown into a jail cell. Apparently she had forgotten to pay her for her inn room in a timely fashion and the cheapskate of an innkeep told the guard she had stolen something. She couldn't remember why exactly.

From that point her memories overtook her like a tidal wave overtakes the land. A blur from the Emperor dying, to being sent to find his heir, then to get the amulet back, and then to restart the fires. And then, she was at that shrine. Why couldn't she remember where it was, and who it was in honor of?

/And there's something I'm forgetting, there was someone I was, working for? Someone who asked me to do all those things. But I can't remember anything about them. I think it was a man. Or was it a woman? Were there two people? Damn it all, I cant remember./ She sighed and continued thinking. /Well, at least I remember that I was working with people. I still can't recall how I got from that shrine to here, nor how I got hurt. It's just blank, like I fell asleep./

Someone knocked at the doorframe. "Yes. I'm awake." Remalia said, coming back to reality. Her voice was ragged, and speaking hurt, but it wasn't too much more painful than when she wasn't speaking.

"Oh, good. Was that door open when you woke up, dear?" The motherly voice of an older woman was quickly followed by the aging Dunmer woman who entered the room. Although age had stooped her frame a bit, she was still a tall woman, and she looked as though she was well accustomed to hard work. Her skin was dark and weathered, and her dark red eyes framed by smile lines. Her expressive face was topped by a mass of white hair pulled back into a practical knot at her neck.

Remalia shook her head, "I opened it. Don't know," she paused to swallow to trying to lessen the pain, "where this is." The Bosmer eyed the steaming mugs that the old woman was carrying as she headed to the bedside.

"Well, my name is Charsi," the old Dunmer said as she set the mugs down on the bedside table and pulled the stool over, "as to where this is. This is the guest room of my farm house, and my farm is just a few miles out from the vineyards of Skingrad." She smoothed her skirts and took a sip from the mug nearest her. "That mug there," she nodded at the mug still on the table, "has lemon and honey tea, you were coughing and wheezing in your sleep. I was coming in here to see if I couldn't wake you to drink some."

Remalia took the warm mug in her hands, it wasn't quite as hot as it looked, but she blew on it before taking a sip anyway. "Thank you, I'm Remalia." She fidgeted to get a more comfortable position against the headboard, and under the blanket. "I appreciate you taking me in... I can't remember how I got here, or how I was injured." The tea was actually helping. Whether it was the ingredients or the temperature, she didn't know, but one of them was numbing her throat fairly well.

Charsi's brows furrowed in concern, "We found you more than just half dead, about a week ago, in the forest just off my property. You've been having fever dreams most of the week, your fever only started going down two days ago." She reached out to feel for a fever, and Remalia let her, something about this old woman seemed very trustworthy. "As I thought, you do still have a bit of fever. That why you got back to bed 'stead of explorin' when you opened up the door?"

A genuine smile crossed the young Bosmer's face, she hadn't been teased in so long. "Yeah, got dizzy. Is there more tea?" She was about half done with her mug, and she wasn't sure she'd need it, but having more for later would be nice.

"Of course, and we'll get you some broth in a bit too, if you think you're up to it." Charsi laughed. "I hate to pry dear, but just what do you remember? Since you don't remember gettin here in such a state," the woman asked setting her mug down to take Remalia's hand and begin removing the delicate bandages that cocooned the Bosmer's palm all the way up to her elbow.

"I," she winced, while most of the bandaging had a bit of ointment still left on the side that was against her skin, a small strip hadn't, and it hurt like the fires of Oblivion when Charsi pulled it off. "What in the name of," she examined her arm as more of it appeared from beneath the wrappings, "Burns. How much of my wounds are like this?"

"Just this arm. It is most peculiar, isn't it? Anyway, you were saying?" Charsi was now patting the burned arm dry with a cloth she pulled from her skirt pocket.

"Oh. Yes, well. I am a member of the Fighter's guild, just an associate though, and that's usually kept me fairly well fed and sheltered. I'd been staying at the Leyawiin guild house, but I hadn't gotten any job requests for weeks so I was heading to Bravil. I was little better off than a beggar. I was considering either selling my horse, or making stew out of the poor beast. The last thing I can recall is camping cold about halfway. And then it's like I fell asleep there and woke up here," and that was the truth, well except for that bit about the camping cold. And for all that she trusted this woman to tend her wounds and not poison what she ate; Remalia knew she sounded insane as it was. There was no reason to worsen that image with the idea that she was leaving an offering at a shrine, and then either abducted by a deity, or fainting on the spot to be left to the mercy of the cultists present.

/Cultists? There were other people there, weren't there? There usually aren't worshipers at way-shrines. Was it a daedric shrine I was at? Why would I leave something for one of them?/

"Well, at least we know something, although Leyawiin is a damn long way from here," Charsi sighed and stood up, "I'm goin' to get fresh bandages and some more ointment. Did you want any broth?"

"Mm, yes please, I feel like I have an empty pit instead of a stomach."

"Well, after I get that arm of yours rebound, I have to go see what's gotten done today, and preside over supper. But I'll send my nephew in with some broth and a bit of bread, so that empty pit doesn't turn into a cavern." Charsi smiled, she wasn't sure if she genuinely liked the young woman or if she was just overcome by pity.

/Poor dear. Whether she actually can't remember getting here or not, no crime is so bad as to warrant such abuse as punishment. I'll have to check with the fighters' guild to see what they know of her, and if she's telling the truth, perhaps they can help her./ Charsi shook her head as she walked down the hall. /Only time can tell us what kind of person she is, I just hope I didn't take in some kind of psychotic murderer./

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That first evening passed pleasantly. When Hime brought Remalia her supper, she told him stories of Valenwood while he nibbled on the bread that she couldn't eat. Hime thought he might get Aunt Charsi to let him have supper with this stranger sometimes; her stories were far more interesting than the farm business the grownups normally talked about at supper.

After the family had supper, and Hime and his parents had gone back to their cabin, Charsi sat at her desk composing a letter to the regional Fighter's Guild authority requesting a meeting, she'd be sending it in a few days with the tax wagon when it came. Speaking of which, she needed to finish calculating how much of their crops they needed to send this year. She tried not to use much actual currency for taxes, she tried to save that for buying supplies, the merchants around here were rather snobbish when it came to bartering.

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Ah-Malz was baffled. Taxmen don't give things they take, but apparently the rest of the world has forgotten that. It wasn't just the strangeness of a taxman delivering a letter that unsettled him, the contents of the letter itself were rather odd as well. /A Bosmer named Remalia/ that name sounded familiar, but it certainly wasn't one of the local guild-members. Ah-Malz sighed, he'd helped Charsi with a goblin problem a while back; she was an honest woman, nothing like her brethren in Morrowind province.

If the Bosmer had lied about being a guild associate then there's a good chance she could pose a threat. But Ah-Malz had no way of knowing whether she was or not, as far as he knew the only comprehensive list of guild members was in the Guildmaster's possession. He frowned as he considered what could happen in the time it would take for a reply to come from Chorrol; His experience in bloodshed was too great for his thoughts to be anything but dark.

"You're lookin' a tad green about the gills Ama, what's wrong?" An elven woman with glittering green eyes sat herself across the table from Ah-Malz. She grinned and speared a bite of sausage off his plate while she listened to his annoyed retort; It was so fun to get a rise out of 'Ama.'

"By the Nine, Parwen! Argonians do not have gills! And that is my sausage." He glared.

"Aw, you know I'm just playing Ama." Chomp-Chomp. "Seriously though," chomp, "Ama you look rather a-" She fell silent as the fork bearing yet another bite of Ah-Malz' breakfast was snatched from her hand.

"Annoyed? I wonder why." The look the Argonian was giving Parwen was venomous. "I've told you a million times not to call me that ridiculous name, and"

"It's just because you're so cute when you're vexed." She grinned cheekily.

Ah-Malz made a reptilian noise in the back of his throat that described his exasperation better than any words ever could. "Why I don't just cut your tongue from your head I will never understand, but despite your juvenile need to make a pest of yourself you are correct."

"Huh?" Parwen sat down, a perplexed expression plain on her face. 'Ama' never agreed with her if he could help it.

"I've a problem, you git of an elf. And I would appreciate it if you could be helpful for once." The lizard gestured at her with the envelope.

She looked at him suspiciously before snatching the letter from his grasp. "I'm always helpful, you just never want it." She told him pertly as she opened the letter and started reading. "Huh… So you want me to run this to headquarters then?"

Ah-Malz nodded, "Yes, and in the mean time I will be checking in with madam Charsi myself. You've got the fastest steed in town. How did you afford to buy into the stock that those Black Horse Couriers breed from anyway?"

"Oh, Ama, don't you know? That horse was a gift!" She grinned, "It sure is nice having friends, you should give it a try sometime."

"I said to stop calling me that." Ah-Malz sighed.

"I know," and with that Parwen took her cheeky self and the letter away towards the stable.