A short interlude from the perspective of one of the many nameless bandits the Dragonborn's met in his tenure as hero of Skyrim's
Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is the property of Bethesda soft-works and its respective owners no money will be made from this fanfiction
"On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero."
―Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
Triana Silver-hunter was a treasure-hunter by trade, like her father, and his father before him, who found herself stuck between a rock, and a hard place during the raid of a ship called the Icerunner, with the Blackblood Marauders, a group of pirates she joined after traveling from Cyrodil to Solitude in search of the gauldur legend.
The young nord woman woke 30 minutes late the day the raid was to take place, and arrived to find the Icerunner crashed ashore the corpses of fishermen, imperial soldiers, and the Blackblood Marauders, Deeja led to claim the ship, lying scatted about the deck and floating in the waters of the Sea of Ghost.
Triana could do nothing but stare, abashed by the pure carnage. "By the nine, what could have caused this much destruction".
As she approached the wreck of the Icerunner the woman turned her head to the familiar sound of a horse's hooves pounding heavily on the earth, and the sound of their riders shouting encouragement to the beast.
Triana climbed a nearby tree to get a better view as well as a hiding place from any imperial soldiers coming to examine the wreck. From her vantage point she scanned the area trying to discern what was going on.
What she saw however wasn't the approach of men-at-arms as she had guessed but the site of the Blackblood Marauder wizard Daynas Ralenci in a spell battle with a large pure black steed and a man in dark shrouded armor wielding an ebony sword in one hand, and a magic spell in the other.
Triana watched on gobsmacked as Daynas; while maintain a ward, blasted ice spike after ice spike at both the man and the horse. The shrouded stranger seemed only mildly hampered by the powerful frost spell, while the horse seemed completely unfazed.
'That's enough ice to cripple the strongest nord warrior, and here is this creature brushing of his attacks as if it had been bitten by a fly' Triana observed in awe
The mysterious hooded man continued to approach Daynas all the while firing bolts of lightning from his finger tips, as the horse continued kicking the wizard.
'Divines whats going on here'. As a shadow approached the battle field, she leaned forward to get a better view. Unfortunately, at that same time Daynas abandoned his spells in favor of drawing his dagger, this appeared to bet the moment his enemy was waiting for.
The cloaked stranger unleashed a shout that sounded like a boom of thunder, sending Daynas over a cliff crashing into the rocky shore of the sea.
Like most of Tamriel Triana had heard of the power of the voice, but the shock of witnessing it first hand forced her to stumble, the slight movement caused the tree branch to break sending her crashing into the ground.
As an unfamiliar imposing form converged upon her, she seemed to shrink into herself. Overwhelmed, confused, as well as hurt from the fall, she was slightly relieved when darkness swept across her vision.
Awareness returned to her, bit by bit. She awoke groggily and found herself without a single septim, stripped of her clothes and equipment, but still very much alive.
Triana wandered across Skyrim for months doing any odd jobs she could find, her heart filled with vengeance for the man who left her humiliated in the middle of nowhere. Until she finally came to be a member of the Robber's Gorge bandits.
In her travels, she heard rumors of a man who matched her assailants description.
Dragon-born they called him, she heard stories of his power. They said that it was he who traveled to savangarde to slay the world eater alduin. She heard other rumors of him being the leader of both the companions, and the college of winterhold. As well as being thane of every hold in Skyrim.
Needless to say Triana found the fire of vengeance in her heart shrinking, replaced by the cold feeling of fear and gratefulness having done what so few had. Survived the wrath of the Dragon-born.
~II~
The young woman sat half asleep in her chair atop the makeshift log guard tower. 'Another quiet boring night' Triana sighed. She had no idea why anyone would set up in this armpit of Skyrim; nothing ever happened here, it was a large part of the reason why she chose here after ordeal with the Blackbloods in Solitude, she wanted a job with a little less action.
Robber's Gorge was a camp located in western Hjaalmarch. It is a well-fortified bandit encampment straddling the main roadway and commanding an admittedly strategic location along the main route from Whiterun to Solitude, situated south-west of Morthal and just west of Kilkreath Ruins. The fort was well fortified with one main access point, several watch towers and two rock-fall traps which are controlled by the lever at the watchtowers.
She sighed once again and prepared to return to sleep, only to jolt at the distinctive clang of steel.
"But, what"? Triana watched as a wood elf bandit (whose name she didn't know) fell dead from his chair. An Redguard outlaw ran sword drawn across the bridge in hopes of confronting the hidden assailant(s) only to be struck down of the bridge by an arrow, onto the cold hard ground, where he died from his injuries.
Making a split second decision, Triana scrambled to hid heself and her bow just beneth the table she was sitting, just in time to hear the distinctive clink of an arrow embedding itself four inches deep into the log wall of the fort, right where she was just standing.
She barely dared breathe as she waited to hear the sound of more arrows. When she heard none, she quietly and silently as she could, climbed over the wall and allowed heself to fall to the ground bellow.
Allowing her curiosity to get the better of her, she peered across the stone bridge in the direction the arrows had came, and saw the silhouette of a spectre in familiar armor atop a dark steed. She would've wrote it off as a mere coincidence if not for the deep blood-red glow of the horses eyes visible even in the darkest nights.
Triana ran through the woods of Hjaalmarch faster than anyone ever had before, silently praising Nocturnal for her good luck.
~III~
The figure watched; after casting night's eye, as a woman in vagabond armor fled the bandit encampment. He considered hunting her down, but quickly dismissed the idea.
'She isn't my primary target anyway' he mused 'Besides I'm intrigued, she quickly realized how dangerous I am, but didn't even bother to warn her so called comrades. Instead she chose to save herself'. Normally acts of blatant betrayal such as this would enrage him, but he had to admit, it was refreshing to find a bandit not possessed by the false bravado most of her colleagues suffer from.
"Let's go, Shadowmere. It's time we make ourselves known. Its rude to keep our host waiting". Shadowmere neighed in approval and ran across the stone bridge, leading to his preys nest.
I've always been curious about the thoughts of random npc enemies like bandits as they rush to meet the Dragonborn in battle despite watching several of their comrades die in battle. One would think that someone as infamous as The Last Dragonborn would cause lesser enemies to think twice about attacking him. As well as cause other more dangerous foes to purposefully seek him out in search of honor. In light of this my story will be running on a more realistic system. For example. While wearing DB armor bandits will be more apprehensive about attacking the MC wereas if he were wearing normal clothes or companion armor bandits will be more likely to attack. In tandem all guards will be aware of the DB and thieves guild uniforms so if the MC is spotted in it the will behave as such. However all this will vary from character to character. I want to build an as immersive story as possible.