A/N: Hi everyone! I was reminded by my girlfriend that this story I wrote a while ago existed, so you can thank her for me remembering to post it here. I'll be updating regularly every Friday, as the story is fully written out.

This one's about another Dragonborn, the first Dunmer I ever made in Skyrim. What started as a personal exercise in studying her character instead became an epic little fanfic. Hope you all enjoy!


Native-born Dunmer of Morrowind could always sense when an ash storm was about to roll in. Red Mountain would rumble, choking the sky with thick plumes of ash and cinder and shaking the earth. Then the air, already dry enough to make guar jerky in the midday sun, would suddenly pick up and take all the moisture with it. Outlanders in Raven Rock would not see these signs and realize what was coming, not until they saw the solid wall of swirling dust and ash roaring toward the Bulwark.

Glover Mallory had lived in Raven Rock for years now. Standing at the entrance to the Retching Netch Cornerclub, he recognized all the signs of the approaching storm. Even now, he could feel the wind picking up all around him, hear the keening of taut lines and the snapping of banners as they fluttered madly on their posts. His gaze remained fixed on the entryway leading out into the ash wastes, watching, waiting.

"She'll be fine, Glover." Geldis Sadri, the owner of the Netch, called up from the stairwell. The Dunmer squinted, seeing his words had no effect on the Breton. "It's not like she's some fresh-faced babe from the mainland. She's Dragonborn. The woman's also probably thrice your age, at least. Now hurry up and close the damned door – or you'll be sweeping the ash from my entrance."

The man's attention remained fixed on the southern gateway for a moment longer. Wind howled in his ears, making the folds of his blacksmithing apron flutter wildly. Airborne ash whipped past him, stinging like a million tiny glass shards against his skin. Finally, he nodded to himself – Geldis was right, probably – before retreating into the cornerclub. A dull thud resonated as the door came shut, leaving the muted roar of the rousing winds on the other side.

Glover turned and made his way down the stairwell, with Geldis falling into step and slapping the blacksmith on the shoulder. "A measly ash storm like this one is nothing to the likes of her, mate."

"I'm just looking out for her. She's a favorite around town, Geldis."

"And one of your most valuable customers, I don't doubt." The Retching Netch was a popular refuge for Raven Rock's locals when an ash storm blew in; the common room was filled with patrons nursing their drinking jugs when they entered. Geldis took his place by the bar and poured Glover a jug of sujamma. "Probably one of my better patrons, too, I swear she can guzzle this stuff like it's water."

"Mhmm." The Breton laid down some coins and accepted the little earthenware jug to take a pull. Sujamma washed over his tongue, bringing the sharp bite of Dunmeri alcohol with a twist of lemon in its wake. "I guess we'll see her again in the morning."

"Guess so." Geldis poured himself a jug of sujamma as well – not much else to do except drink while waiting for an ash storm to blow over. Glover took care to measure himself and not over-drink. He hated getting drunk.

As the storm raged outside and filled the streets with ash, the tavern filled with the murmur of conversation. The locals of this settlement loved to gossip, and they did it constantly. It seemed to be a favorite pastime among the populace here. Glover had little interest in gossip himself, but he kept his ears open all the same; his time living in Riften had taught him the value of such things. He caught snatches of a conversation involving his Dragonborn acquaintance from a group of miners huddled together over their drinks, still dusty from their day's labors and stinking of sweat. He decided to try and listen in, moving to a small, empty table in a dark corner of the room closer to the gossipers. It was hard to pick out much of their speech over the general murmur in the tavern.

"…Heard she got exiled… such profanity!"

"…They say she can unravel your soul with that accursed eye of hers…"

"…bloody savior of the Nords, can you believe that? If you doubted the gods had a sense of humor…"

Glover made a face. Just nonsense, again. Wild gossip and mad speculation. He shook his head and tuned out the miners' conversation, bringing his jug to his lips to take another pull of the Dark Elf liquor. She's the newest thing in Raven Rock and the most interesting visitor we've had in months. Of course the local bumpkins are gonna gossip about her.

BANG!

The thud of the front door opening shocked the tavern into silence, for a moment filling the space with the roar of the raging ash storm until they heard it close again. Footsteps echoed over the muted howling of the wind outside. A figure descended from the shadows of the stairwell and stepped into the light where all could see her. Her ashen hair was tied up into a rough, braided style. The hilt of a long, curving blade poked over her right shoulder. She wore a kresh fiber shemagh over her nose and mouth, red-lensed goggles over her eyes, and boiled leather armor with chainmail underneath and a thick fur collar, heavy with dust and ash. A stylized hand was painted on the front of her armor with a dark red dye. Murmurs picked up from somewhere in the back of the room as the people recognized the Dragonborn.

For a moment, she scanned the tavern, before reaching up to remove her shemagh and goggles. A few patrons suddenly found something else to look at. Glover did not blame them. Nervyna's face was one that some found difficult to look at. As with all those who plied their trade as warriors for hire, she was scarred from a life by the sword, but her scars went beyond nicks and cuts steadily amassed over the years. Her shemagh and goggles came away to reveal horrific burn scars that marred half her face. Nobody knew just how extensive the burns were; some people believed that she was a mass of knotted burn scars under her armor. They seemed to emerge from the depths of her collar and spread over where her left eye used to be.

That in itself was another reason people looked away. Milky-white and blind, the dead eye – as people had taken to calling it – quickly became a defining feature of the elf's ghastly visage ever since she had first stepped foot on the island. Patrons spoke of it in hushed whispers from the dark corners of the tavern, claiming that the Dragonborn's dead eye could see where mortal eyes were blind, or that it could unravel a man's soul at the merest glance. Nobody was brave enough to test the theory out. However, with the reputation Nervyna had made for herself on Solstheim as a ruthlessly efficient mercenary, none doubted that Death was her constant companion.

Evidently, the Dragonborn did not find who she had been looking for and marched over to Geldis at the bar. Glover noticed that there was a large, curved boar tusk hanging by her hip, painted with Riekling stripes. The two elves shared a few words, then Geldis sent her off with a jug of sujamma. She turned away from the bar, and he suddenly found her scarlet gaze meeting his own. He gave her a short nod of acknowledgement. "Looking a bit windblown there."

"I can't imagine why." Nervyna's brusque voice had been roughened over the years of rough-and-tumble living, but Glover's ex-thief ear never failed to detect the faintest hint of a more refined inflection in the undertones. He had never asked about it. Wasn't his business to know.

The Dunmer came over and pulled up the chair next to his. She saw him eyeing the large tusk swinging at her hip. "Killed the monstrous boar that gored Captain Veleth's men a few days ago."

"Could probably make a pretty Septim off that tusk – the Skaal like to make scrimshaw with 'em."

"Not until I get my pay from Captain Veleth." Nervyna made herself comfortable, kicking her booted feet up onto the table and taking a long swig of her sujamma. She didn't even flinch from the bite of alcohol. "Anything happen in town while I was gone?"

"Not really. Same old stuff. Townsfolk gossiping, guards seeing ghosts in the ash." Glover took a sip of his drink, going over the last few days in his mind. One memory did spring out at him. "Well. I got called in by the Temple."

Nervyna's eyebrows furrowed. "Not to give a sermon, I hope."

"Gods, no. Can't say I appreciated the experience, though." Regular temples had never been a favorite place for the ex-thief. Dark Elf temples, with their Daedric idolatry and worship, even less so.

"They didn't hurt you, did they?"

"No. But they were firm in their questions. They asked me about an odd character who kept visiting my smithy. A fella named Kenro Hlan. Dark Elf. Looked like he had a chip on his shoulder."

Nervyna remained silent, staring at him intently. Her dead eye remained vacant and glassy, but its unseeing gaze bored into him all the same. Glover turned his attention back to the depths of his sujamma. "Odd mer, that one. Always skulking about, perusing my wares, but never buying. I'd ask him if he wanted a sword, and he'd say, Not today. So I'd ask him if he'd fancy a set of armor. And again he says, Not today."

"Every day for a month, the same song and dance. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Or so I thought. Then, the day after you left on your hunt I open the shop, check my wares, and find a mistake in the shipment. Inside the crate is an odd blue gem, lumped in with the usual iron and steel. Figuring it for a mistake, I was about to send it back, when Kenro walks in the store."

Still no shift in the Dunmer's expression, save for her eyebrows furrowing slightly. She nodded once for him to continue. He nodded back and took a drink to wet his tongue. "I give him the usual greeting, and ask him if he wants to buy some wares, fully expecting him to say the words, Not today. "

"But he doesn't." Nervyna murmured, finally taking a sip of her drink.

The Breton shook his head. "He doesn't want a sword or a shield, no. He wants the gem. As if he knew I'd have it."

"D'you know what the gem was?"

"Never got a chance to study it properly. Dunno what it's good for, either, but Kenro paid real well for it." Now it was Glover's turn to frown, revisiting the scene in his head once again. "When he handed me the coin, I got a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach, like this is the last time I'll see him. So I ask him where he's headed."

Another swallow of the sujamma. It was starting to make his head feel lighter. "He tells me he's going to see a blacksmith. I'm not sure if that's a joke, seeing as I run the forge. When I ask him which smith, he tells me, a Dwarven one. In Fahlbtharz."

"Fahlbtharz. I know the place." Nervyna grunted. "And the Temple sat you down to ask you about this man Kenro? Why?"

"Because he's a suspected heretic, I assume." Glover leaned an elbow heavily on the tabletop. "And you know how the Temple feels about heretics."

"Mmh." Nervyna seemed to withdraw from the conversation, leaning back in her chair and watching the swirling depths of her drink. It was the most emotion he had seen her show thus far. Whatever thoughts she had on the matter, she kept them hidden. The Dunmer wore a veneer of cold stoicism unlike anyone else the Breton had ever known – even the ex-thief could not penetrate that stonelike mask.

Glover knew better than to pry. Wasn't his business to know. But Nervyna had never been the kind of woman to sit still for long. A mercenary like her always had to keep looking for work where one could find it to keep the gold flowing, and the Temple would surely be grateful for information on a heretical cult.

By the time the sun rises in the morning, he thought, watching her knock back the rest of her sujamma and go for a refill, she'll be riding off into the horizon again. Same as always.


As the sun rose over Raven Rock, the hazy new day's light shone upon the Dunmer warrior's back as she rode north atop her guar, Skorohod. Nervyna had always been more comfortable in a guar's saddle, well accustomed to the sensation of the two-legged reptiles' gait, and horses fared poorly in the ash-thick air of Solstheim besides. She would have to leave the beast behind when she returned to the mainland, but for now, the guar was a great boon to cross both the ash wastes and the snow-capped peaks north of Raven Rock, where Fahlbtharz lay.

Nervyna's mind lingered on the blacksmith's tale about the suspected heretic, Kenro Hlan. There had been plenty of upheaval in Morrowind since the eruption of the Red Mountain, both politically and religiously. Great Houses had fallen, and new ones had taken their place. In much the same way, with the downfall of the living gods of the Tribunal, the Reclamations took their place, giving rise to the new Temple from the ashes of the old – one that heavily persecuted those who followed the old ways.

She knew that not all settled Dunmer had turned away from Tribunal worship, however. Even back on the mainland, there had been rumors of hidden sects who continued to worship the Tribunes as gods, the chant of ALMSIVI muttered by rebel priests and devotees of the old way in places where the new Temple's harsh religious persecution could not harm them.

None were so zealous in their persecution as the Indorils, who were now considered one and the same with the priesthood of the Temple of the Reclamations, devoted to worship of the Good Daedra who had reclaimed their place in the hearts of the Dunmer people from the false Tribunal . Once a soldier under Great House Redoran who had worked alongside the militant arm of the Indorils, Nervyna knew just how seriously the Temple took the matter of heresy. If word reached the ears of the priests, arms would be taken up to extinguish the dissidents – Nervyna herself had led such hunts on a few occasions, enacting the will of her House in rooting out what public opinion called 'moral corruption infesting the fabric of Dunmeri society'.

She had been indifferent to the subject of apostasy back then, a time when nothing had mattered to her beyond her own advancement in status and power. Now here she was, hunting down a lead on a potential Tribunal heretic hiding out in a frozen Dwemer ruin with a mysterious blue gem in his possession. Will this be just like the old days of putting heretics to the sword? Killing those who hold different beliefs, like the Thalmor who abduct Talos-worshiping Nords?

The thought caused a flash of bitterness to cross her mind. She shook it off and leaned low in the saddle, feeling Skorohod's powerful two-legged gait beneath her as he carried them over the ash wastes. Two days after setting out from Raven Rock, snow began to cover the ashfall, and pine trees started to rise from all around, their branches heavy with their fluffy white burdens. Her breath whipped past in a cloud of thick, billowing frost, carried by the wind as it blew down from the mountains. She knew her guar did not enjoy the cold, but Skorohod was a tough old riding beast.

At Fahlbtharz, Nervyna arrived at a scene of slaughter where a Riekling camp once stood. Skorohod snorted and shied away from the scent of blood, but the Dunmer wrested the reptile's big domed head back on track to approach the site. The Rieklings had spent enough time here to build a simple overwatch platform and some boar-hide huts before someone – Kenro, most likely – disposed of them. The little blue-skinned goblinoid corpses were strewn about the camp, dismembered and disemboweled, executed with impunity. Whoever her target truly was, he was armed and knew how to kill.

The Dunmer dismounted to investigate the scene. She tied Skorohod to a nearby post from the Riekling camp before approaching one of the corpses near the entrance to the ruin, lying in a pool of dark red blood. She knelt by the Riekling, scaring away the rats that had begun to make a meal of his intestines. He had been practically cut in half by a vicious blade stroke; arterial spray painted the wall behind him, a dark red arcing splash against the stark, gray stone. His unseeing eyes were vacant, and snowflakes had accumulated on his eyelashes. An unfortunate demise for the little creature, but she could burn the corpses and give them a proper sendoff later. For now, however, the dead would be of use to her.

Nervyna held a hand over the deceased Riekling and closed her eyes, concentrating on the ancestral power vested within her. When she opened her eyes, her blind eye – her dead eye – burned in its socket with a spectral blue-white glow. She exhaled softly and allowed the Deadsight to take hold, gazing into the scattered vestiges of the Riekling's soul that lingered by its mortal husk, urging it to show her its final moments of consciousness.

He was cold. The wind was howling in his ears like a terrible spirit scorned. A storm was approaching. He hoped the scouts would return soon, or else they would be lost in the cold, too. They had lost a few of their tribe-kin in recent days to the cold. And hunger. He hoped they would bring meat for him to share with his mate. Maybe some treasures taken from the long-legs, too. The warmth he felt from the entrance to their den made him wistful – he hoped they would leave from the cold outside soon.

Thunder cracked in his ears. One of his tribe-kin cried out, flying into the snow, trailing smoke. He looked around until he heard the Watcher blow his horn, saw him pointing his spear frantically at the long-leg shadow on the hilltop. Warbeast-rider gave a shout and charged at it, but the long-leg used a vicious cutter and struck Warbeast dead. Warbeast-rider died in the same manner soon thereafter. So did his other tribe-kin, one by one, so quickly that suddenly the long-leg was upon him, eclipsing the sun. A cold metal face glared down at him, shining like morning sunlight. The long-leg raised his cutter, black and curved and evil. He raised his spear, ready to stab it into the green-robed chest…

Nervyna was suddenly thrust back into the waking world. She blinked once, reacclimating herself to her surroundings. The spectral glow of Deadsight faded from her eye, and she was left alone with only the moaning wind and swirling frost eddies for company.

A brazen metal mask fashioned in a Dunmeri likeness… An old Indoril Ordinator mask? She recognized modern Indoril masks, representing aspects of the Reclamations. The one she'd glimpsed in the Riekling's dying memories looked like a relic of a bygone age, the visage of Nerevar Godkiller worn by the ancient Ordinators from the days of the Tribunal. Probably a heretic, then. A dangerous one at that.

Nervyna turned at last toward the ruin entrance and reached over her shoulder to draw her blade from its special back-sheath. Three feet of gently curved, dark gray steel emerged, ending in a razor-sharp trailing point. She cast an armor spell on herself, enveloping her body in a faint cyan sheen, before pushing her way through the door.

Heat washed over her as she stepped into the Dwarven ruin. Steam pipes emerged from the walls and ran the length of the hallway like massive arteries. Nervyna stalked forward into the gloom, her gaze darting back and forth among the shadowy crevasses, shifting her weight expertly to balance against the odd, tilting angle of the floor as the hallway plunged into the depths of the earth. Firelight glowed ahead of her, and she followed it to another campsite – and another site of Riekling slaughter. While inspecting the site, she noticed some blood spatters leading away from the scene. A blood trail. Wounded, or he got lazy and didn't wipe his blade clean.

The blood trail guided her through the Dwarven ruin. Steam hissed through metal pipes, and the faraway sounds of grinding gears and cogs rumbled within the walls like the heartbeat of a massive, living thing, but she heard no sounds of combat further ahead. Nor did any more dead Rieklings greet her, but she did encounter a few dismantled automata that looked like they had been blasted apart. Her trail led her through the guts of the ruin, ending past an open metal gate leading into a large room. Broken Dwarven pipes discharged hot steam from overhead, leaving a low-hanging cloud filling the area. A pile of debris stood to one side, pushed aside and excavated to reveal a brazen metal door. Pressing her ear to it, the Dunmer could hear the sounds of metal clanging and shuffling feet. Kenro was inside.

Time for the moment of truth. After renewing her armor spell, the elf shouldered her way through the door. A lean figure, hunched over a countertop covered in alchemical equipment, suddenly jerked upright, turning sharply her way. He was clad in green robes with a blue sash wrapped across his chest and waist. Nervyna found her scarlet gaze met by a stern metallic glare, coming from an impassive, bronze visage of Nerevar topped with a long mohawk that arched overhead.

Neither spoke for several seconds; the only sound was that of the working Dwemer mechanisms. The silence was broken when Nervyna asked: "Kenro Hlan, I assume?"

She saw him stiffen as the words left her mouth. Then he was drawing the blade at his hip, and she had to bring hers to bear. Her foe's weapon, an ebony scimitar decorated with golden filigree, flew at her head. She backed up and checked his slash, sparks flying as their blades clashed. In the confined quarters of the small room, she was forced to thrust at his midsection, only for Kenro to deflect it to one side. The mercenary dodged her foe's follow-up cleave and slipped past him, and he turned after her with a frustrated roar and a blast of lightning from his hand. "Die, fetcher!"

Nervyna twisted and watched the lightning bolt streak past her to explode against the far wall. Kenro was upon her again, ebony scimitar whirling through the air. The mercenary fell back again on the defensive, backtracking and cursing: "Peace, damn you! I don't want to hurt you! I only wanted to talk!"

"You're one of them!" accused the robed mer, driving her back with windmill slashes of his scimitar. The ebony blade passed a hair's breadth from Nervyna's head as she evaded the flowing strikes. "Another paid hound sent to do the Reclamation Temple's bidding! I will not go quietly!"

Nervyna deftly stepped backward to avoid another slash when she suddenly sensed the wall behind her. Kenro raised his scimitar and lunged, while the mercenary bolted forward. She slipped beneath his arcing blade and struck, her sword cutting through the mer's robed chest, ripping through fabric, cutting into flesh and bone like a meat cleaver.

Blood flew, spraying the wall. Kenro gasped in pain. Nervyna twisted on her heel, sword raised and poised to defend, only to see the robed mer crumple to the floor. She slowly lowered her weapon and approached her fallen foe. He clutched a hand to his mortal wound and recoiled from her, shakily pointing his scimitar at her chest. Undaunted, the mercenary knelt and looked him over for a moment. "I didn't come here to kill you, you damned fool."

"Lies," choked the heretic. Blood was beginning to stain his green robes a deep, dark crimson. "We are hunted… Always—" Cough! "—hunted. I know your type, m-mercenary. Blood for gold."

She planted her sword's tip into the ground and reached into her satchel. "Shut up. You're dying. Let me get you a potion."

"I'd sooner drink poison. You won't take me alive." Nervyna caught the glint of steel, moments before Kenro drove the dagger's point into his heart. She reached out to grab him, but it was too late. The blade punctured deep into his chest, and Kenro's dying laugh rattled in his lungs as he expired. "ALMSIVI…"

Kenro's helmed head lolled to one side, and his body went limp. Nervyna gave a frustrated growl and immediately reached for her Deadsight – she needed to know more. She concentrated on her power, focusing on the rapidly fading vestige of the robed mer's spirit. Give me something, you s'wit. Anything.

She could only go so far back when seeing through the eyes of a deceased soul. Nervyna caught glimpses of the past as seen through Kenro's eyes and focused on them, even as she felt her grasp on the spirit-visions slipping through her fingers. The visions grew murky and unclear as she delved deeper into past memories, but slowly, she watched the events unfold before her.

Darkness was kept at bay by the torches that lined the basalt column walls. Echoes murmured throughout the vast halls; prayers muttered to the Tribunes who were never truly gone. Incense hung in the air, a comforting presence for his senses as he stepped through the hallway and into a larger space where sunlight fell from somewhere up above.

A massive pair of dark feet appeared from the darkness as he entered a large room. He traced his gaze up the legs to a massive feminine body cloaked in the cavern's shadows. Admiration and undying fealty began to swell in his breast, where shame and doubt had once lived. He suddenly remembered: he that holds fast unto his convictions shall be blessed by the Three for his faith. His mission was holy, his creed sacrosanct – he could not fail. He would return to Her graces in triumph. With determination and a head held high, he marched forth through dark tunnels, until at last, the light of the sun shone gently upon his face as he stepped out into the world beyond…

The murky visions blurred into a swirl of distorted colors, bringing Nervyna out of the Deadsight. She returned to the present, still kneeling over Kenro's corpse, and revisited the final scenes that his spirit had granted her. Kenro isn't alone, not by far. He and his fellows are hiding out in a cavern. Big one, too, if it had a statue like that. But where?

Nervyna recalled seeing Raven Rock from above in her last glimpse of the spirit-visions. There were basalt cliffs above the town, she knew, atop the slope near the old ebony mine – that could be her next site of investigation. But for now, she had to deal with Kenro's doings. Stepping away from the growing pool of blood, the Dunmer began to investigate the room.

Dwarven machinery filled the space. Huge gears emerged from the ground, still and motionless. Massive boilers stood cold and lifeless, the pipes running out from them feeding a furnace – or a forge of some kind – that stood against the back wall. There was a large puddle of ectoplasm lying before the forge, the sort that remained when an ethereal undead was slain. She abruptly recalled that Glover had mentioned Kenro saying something about a Dwarven smith. A Dwemer ghost, perhaps? Not unheard of.

A Dwarven metal visage built onto the furnace glared down at her from above, overhanging a flat metal panel with holes. One of the holes had a small gem pulsing within it, shaped perfectly to fit it, but the other three slots were empty. Nervyna saw what appeared to be the hilt of a sword sheathed into the vertical slit in the center of the panel. She could not pull the weapon free, however, and she decided to leave it in place for now.

She left Kenro's body for last. First, she went through his pockets to check for any other clues. Some gold, a vial of black liquid, the blue gem that Glover had mentioned – a special kind of soul gem, she realized, which explained the presence of the ectoplasm pile – and a small leather bound tome were among the deceased heretic's belongings. Nervyna opened the tome and began to read, searching for clues. She quickly found that it was a sort of journal, or a log meant to detail the progress of his holy quest. The thin tome was mostly empty, going back only a few days from today and speaking of nothing interesting; it seemed that she had ended his mission quite abruptly, indeed. There was one page dated to the present day that did had an entry of interest:

I live to serve only Her. Always Her.

I have found the forge, and when its spark is lit, her fire will burn. The Spectre once worked the gears of this swollen machine, but I no longer require his service. The mechanism is simple. With this vial of Pyroil Tar, I have all that is required to ignite it.

Tar lit the flame once before, and tar will do so again. And when I return triumphant, fire in hand, she will embrace me once more.

But I have a problem. The machine requires four gems to power it, and I have procured only one. The others, it seems, are still out there. Yet I have no doubt that as Her chosen, she will guide me to them.

For now, I will return to the temple. Perhaps the Matriarch has further guidance or, ALMSIVI willing, some concrete intelligence. I must take care not to be found, however. I have been careful to shroud my identity in secrecy. Should the Temple's hounds catch my trail, however, then I will gladly die with Her exultations upon my lips. I only hope my martyrdom will serve my people in the end.

Nervyna shook her head grimly. Kenro had been a frenzied, paranoid bastard who had decided to die rather than risk being captured and allow his fellows to fall to the swords of their persecutors. It was difficult to feel sympathy for such a crazed zealot – but after learning more about the business with the Thalmor hunting down Talos worshippers, the kind of religious persecution enacted by the Temple of the Reclamations suddenly left a bitter taste in her mouth. If the Temple learns about these heretics, they may want to kill them. Do they truly deserve that?

She could no longer ignore the corpse in the room, and so the Dunmer laid Kenro's body to rest. Heretic or no, he deserved the courtesy of having his earthly remains cleansed in fire and returned to the ash. She removed his robes and helmet, revealing him as a young mer with a scar over his eye and Daedric tattoos etched over his skin. After folding his priestly robes and setting them aside, she laid the corpse on his back with his arms across his chest. With a sharp gesture, flame leapt from her hand, giving his body to fire. She turned away as the smell of burning flesh became insufferable, seeking a vessel with which she could take his ashes and cast them to the wind when she was outside again. From ash he came, and to ash he shall return.

Perhaps against her better judgment, she decided to further investigate this matter of the heretics. If nothing, she should at least see if they were all as dangerous and threatening as Kenro – but she would leave the Redoran Guard out of this, for now. Captain Veleth was a decent, honorable mer, but she did not know him well enough to determine how he would respond to the news of a heretical cult on Raven Rock's doorstep.

Her hand strayed to the Ghartok painted on her chest, the symbol of her sworn oath of vengeance against the dragon who had scarred her and burned down Helgen – and a symbol of the honorable cause she fought for.

I will not have the blood of another 'cleansing purge' on my hands, she thought with conviction. Never again.


A/N: Hope your interest has been piqued! Lemme know what you think in a review! I appreciate all thoughts and comments!