They say that youth is bliss, a time of true happiness and of ignorance to the horrors that surround them, that surround everyone, all the time. Youth is also a time for dreams, unrealistic but creative dreams. These children dream of doing heroic deeds and tasks in the future, but above all, they dream of the glory. They want to make those that are close to them proud. They dream of being someone that others would be proud to know or simply hear about.
But what if one doesn't have any family? What does the poor child that has no one dream of? What does that child do?
Young Synnna grabbed her bedroll and her mother's dagger and roughly shoved them into her knapsack. With one uncertain glance back to the makeshift grave she had made for her in trying to at least be honorable about the entire ordeal, she headed off. To where, she hadn't the foggiest idea. All she knew was that she had to get away from here.
So she walked on. She went for as long as she could before collapsing onto her newly laid-out bedroll with the dagger clutched firmly in her hand. Just in case, she told herself. And so began a cycle. She walked for as long as she could, and then she slept. When she nearly felt emaciated, she would take her inherited dagger and try to kill an elk with it, which sometimes worked well enough.
To be fair, she took the situation at hand very well for a child her age, in her own way in any case. Sure, she cried for a while, hours perhaps. Once she stopped the tears and the growing flames, she dug. She dug a fairly small hole with nothing but her bare hands. She eased her mother's dead corpse into it, and covered it once again. Then, she uprooted the nearby flowers and laid them as gingerly and neatly as she could manage on the pseudo-gravesite. She left then almost without so much as a second though. She figured, why cry about something you can't fix? So, from then on, she kept the memory as much from her mind as she could muster.
"Wow," she began under the cover of her breath, "it's amazing." She marveled at the breathtaking site before her.
"So this is the place from the whispers in Windhelm?" she thought. And so stood before her, none other than the College of Winterhold.
Over time, she had journeyed very far. She learned mediocre ways of thieving that helped her get by for about five years or so in the walls of Windhelm, where she heard of the College, which led her here. Here, she would finally learn to control her magicka properly, or at least, so she thought.
Her thoughts, however, were abruptly ended by a rather drawling voice. "State your purpose for wishing to enter the college."
Synnna reluctantly tore her gaze away from the castle-looking college and to the bored-looking High Elf. "Um- I-I wish to learn how to properly-er-control my magic," she said, the uncertainty of her tone growing with every word.
"Noble," the elf almost mockingly replied, in a way that said she would have said that regardless of what Synnna had answered with. Gazing back at her in her apparently usual unimpressed manner, she continued, "Well, now that we know what the College has for you, we will see what you have to offer for the college, shall we?"
Synnna's eyes grew wider in a state of nervous, yet excited anxiety. "A test," she wondered, "to just get into the college?"
"If you would please perform the following spell on the circular plate in front of you, I will judge if you are worthy of entering the College. If you do not know the spell, you may buy a book explaining it from me for only thirty septims."
Synnna was practically panicking by now. She hadn't used her magicka since that day, for starters. Secondly, she was reminded of the nearly unbearable fact that she did not even have the measly thirty septims to purchase the book for whatever dumb spell she was to perform anyway. Synnna's anxiety only grew once she noticed the impatient look on the other's face.
"Well, are you going to perform the spell or not?" she interrogated a bit angrily. After seeing Synnna's confused stare, she rolled her eyes. "By the Eight!" she exclaimed not-so-quietly under her breath. "I said," she began, returning to her cold voice, "would you kindly perform the flames spell on the circu-"
"Could I possibly- I mean- is it possible that I may be able to perform a different spell?"
"In all my years," the elf muttered, not believing this would-be Mage couldn't even perform the flames spell, "never have I met a Mage incapable of producing fire."
Synnna's anger grew, but so did her nervousness. Deciding to go through with it, she lifted her hand and averted her glare to the target at her feet. Taking a step back, she tilted her wrist back, and she-
- couldn't do it. She glanced upwards, slightly mortified at the images running through her mind at what could have happened. She moved her hand down slowly, and without a second thought or a look back, she ran. She continued on the trek she had started so many years ago. And she ran south, all the way to Riften, the land of the thieves.
A/N: Well... that's a bit of a letdown from last chapter, eh? In any case, be sure to leave a review to tell me whether or not you liked it. Also, if you see a way in which I could improve my story, please say so.
On another note, I'm sorry it took me over a month to update. I won't go on some spiel about how I was super busy (though I was). Really, what the problem is is that I don't actually have a definite storyline planned out. I have small ideas here and there and most of her past experiences as well, but I'm having a bit of difficulty deciding on a final plot line for the current Synnna and the Thieves Guild and whatnot. So anyway, please bear with me if it takes a while to update. It's not that I'm not thinking of the story, it's just that I don't want to add anything in now and come up with a great idea later that I wouldn't be able to work in because of whatever I update now.
Well, thanks for reading I suppose!