• Welcome to Skyrim Forums! Register now to participate using the 'Sign Up' button on the right. You may now register with your Facebook or Steam account!
  • Hey there, thanks for visiting our fan fiction section. You should only write stories that aren't related to your character's encounters, if you wish to write a story about your character please post an entry in your blog.

    Before reading or writing a story, please make sure to read this thread. Thanks, Guest, and we hope you enjoy this section.

nolandman

A ranging, spell-sword Lich
INTRODUCTION TO THE PROJECT: So I started writing this fan fic a while ago and kind of abandoned it for a bit. I came back to it and decided that its worthy enough to post and I'd like to keep it going should it be liked enough. Of course you'll most likely run into lore bending and what have you but I hope it doesn't ruin the read for anyone. Now really what I had planned on doing was writing a sizable story spanning several years of this particular character's life. Starting a few years prior to the events of Skyrim on through. So be prepared for some "meat". It won't immediately start off with dragon slaying and shout learning. But I tried not to make it too boring in the meantime.

NOTES TO HELP YOU GET STARTED: The main character of the story is a child of mixed origin living in the remains of Morrowind, a little ways outside of Mournhold. Well thats it really, so I hope you enjoy what I've cooked up.

4E 196​
12 Hearthfire​
Autumn​


YEAR ONE: THE EYES OF THE MOTHER​
Chapter I​

It was twilight on the 12th of Hearthfire and on our farm outside Mournhold the air was still with anticipation of the nightly life sure to come. The sky swimming in my eyes - layers of fiery orange tickling the inky purple of the coming night; Azura's fingers upon my cheeks. I was sitting alone on the fence far from the house watching the Betty Netches and bulls graze. The planting of the summer was at an end, giving Mother the time to administer my lessons with the utmost fervor until such evenings descended upon our battered Morrowind. On the creaking and precarious fence I reflected on the day's training. My hands twinged in remembrance.

She was a stern teacher, as firm and fair as she was wise. Today had been a hard one and I was grateful for so peaceful a night; devoid of polishing armor and honing blades. But the peace was soon broken when I saw the red of the open-air forge pulsing from behind the house. My brow furrowed. The hammering of metal and the hissing of the cooling waters traveled across the field to my ears. These were the sounds of Mother's heavy thoughts. She wasn't a woman who spoke her feelings, but would rather break them across the hot, rippling alloys of a new sword or cuirass as an angry wave would upon the rocks of the Inner Sea. Each strike, a different thought and each sibilation, a foregone conclusion; something she accepted - hardening her a little more. But like the sea it is what is underneath that reveals what is to be seen. Beyond the veil of her seemingly unshakeable resolve were her true thoughts, but the pieces were complete long before they would ever be addressed in any capacity.

A true warrior if I ever saw one.

One of the Betties gave another an investigatorial nudge, and since Mother had not yet called to me I decided to do the same. I hopped off the fence which seemed to sway a sigh of relief at the emancipation from my weight, and started for the house as the last bits of orange gave to the darkness with Nocturnal replacing her sister as mistress of the evening. Maybe it was her presence or the darkness itself that gave me the inspiration, but I felt particularly stealthy and slightly nefarious. Crouching down low into the grass I decided to sneak up on the pensive blacksmith. I crept along the broad side of the house, taking care not to so much as breathe until the glow of the forge warmed my arms. Raising both hands above my head I lurched towards her, cloaked in her own shadow. The water hissed from a hot edge and I struck. In a flash the blade danced across the caliginosity, blindingly reflecting the light from the forge as it swung down - striking the earth at my feet.

"You have the sneaking skills of your father…" A drop from the still cooling sword fell to the grass. Her words were warm with emotion, comforting to both of us - her red eyes dancing in the fire's light. "Of course he wasn't one for any of the arts of a hunter or warrior…being the scholar that he was…" Her words betrayed her and I knew what she had been thinking about. I hugged her back tight with my forearms pressed against her hefty apron; face buried in her tunic. Giving a sigh, low and soft she placed her hands on mine, putting down the tongs on the work bench. She inhaled, turned, and faced me transplanting her hands to my shoulders, looking squarely into my blanched eyes. I tried my best to mimic her unwavering vim. "Your father was strong. Whatever his fate has brought him I trust that he is well. In this life or the next…" It was the inevitable truth she accepted, but her visage showed her loss. She faded from the forge's glow and began to douse it. Eagerly, I casted Candlelight and tossed it into the air. The ball of light ascended slowly, finally finding its resting point low above our heads - going from a bright, florescent white to a duller, warming fire-like hue. Mother looked to the orb strung up against the star-jeweled night sky. "They say a Candlelight spell that shifts in color is the mark of a unique essence…and the color of yours…a beautiful red. You're of the same heart as our people." Her voice fell to an almost inaudible whisper. "Though your father was not of this land, or of its people, he would be glad to see what a fine Dunmer boy you've become. You do him more honor than you know…" Dislodging the blade from the ground, she led the way inside followed closely by the light and I.

Upon entering I extinguished my spell and was immediately greeted with a nipping at my knees from Fadile, our pigmy Guar. She was a highly sensitive creature with an air of wisdom, but extremely frail due to her size. "Fadi…", I kneeled to her level and stroked her forehead as Mother proceeded to the kitchen area of the main chamber; tossing her apron on the chair by the door. Fadile turned to her direction and loosed a small chirp of respect befitting the head of a household. In response, Mother gave a sharp whistle and Fadile bounded to her side. From the cupboard Mother fished out a piece of salted rat meat and bent down to feed her.

She smiled as the creature licked her hands clean of the morsel. “It’s a bit sad that we've had to raise her up against her nature as a herbivore. But there was little vegetation before Red Mountain erupted, and now…there is barely enough to support even the smallest of our herds…". She stroked Fadi's forehead and turned to me. "And now for us!", she said with a surprising turn from her more somber mood to an almost jubilant disposition. Returning to the cupboard she retrieved some preserved Slaughter fish we had caught several days before and a bottle of Shein. She placed them on the table with a clink and turned to get the wooden flatware. She paused in mid step. "No real need for that now, is there?", she said aloud, but I had already made a move for one of the pieces of fish and took a bite. "Hungry, are we? So am I.". She pulled up a chair and sat opposite me and began to eat. A hush fell on the house like the changing of the wind in a sail, and I felt her lightheartedness dissolve into the waters of her deeper wells.

We ate our meal in respectful silence, but my mind was reeling with questions that I knew, if asked now, might yield some answers. Mother's defenses were so weak to the point that they were worthless during her most wistful moments, but I was still wary of her almost savage subterfuge. I had to match her somehow, and recognizing my inability to keep up with her wit, I decided on a equally subtle approach: a youthful and innocent demeanor. However this is a hard thing to fein and an even harder thing to believe when one considers the harshness of the land of which the child attempting to do so is from. I steeled myself for the performance, although there was a bit of truth to my tone. No matter how tough or rugged Morrowind had built me to be, I was still a child. "Mother…", my voice was soft and unassuming, "Why did Father find the Dwemer so fascinating?". I saw her eyes, looking to one of the Nordic style windows he had put into the design of the house, become an ember long ago snuffed out and brought back again by what my question had invoked. She spoke - cooly and calmly, her words arcing around the moons and back to the room; to then trickle through her memories like water through cracks in the soil. "It was their mind my child…", she said and a smile emerged from the same wells where I saw her blitheness disappear not a moment ago. She was not one to be so in flux and this truly was a curious night. "That's what he actually admired. Their fortitude and resolve to attempt the radically impossible, and challenge the seemingly insurmountable. I'm quoting him now…". Her smile turned to a withdrawn frown. "He was almost too fervid at times - to the point where he seemed to religiously revere them…". She paused, lip bit - her eyes set on a fixed point under my chin.

"What of the Tribunal? Were they not gods in the flesh?" I asked. I was distracted from the topic of Father. If this had been her plan all along, to ensnare my hyper mind, she had succeeded; but it was impossible to know. She looked to the hearth and rose from the table. She snapped a Firebolt onto the brush and dry logs stoking the flames with an iron rod as they grew. Soon it crackled with a soft life and I could feel the warmth from my seat. Prodding the embers she spoke, "They were living gods, yes, though the idea never set with me well at all. Something seemed vile about their powers, from what I understand. But they are gone; as are the Dwemer. This proves to me that such things are not to be sought or obtained by anyone. It can corrupt…" She turned from the hearth and faced me; her eyes locking mine. "Power is but a means to an end, little one. Do not let its taste tempt you to arrogance and taboo. You are a member of the proud House of Indoril… And that should be enough."

My training was never truly over so long as I was in her presence, but she had successfully diverted my thoughts of Father and his whereabouts; both of which receded into the depths of my mind. She was safe from my inquisition for now.

What is enough?

That night I laid wide awake listening to my thoughts compete with the sounds of a fall's evening for my attention. Conceding defeat the sound of the wind, netches, and guars resigned to become the backdrop to my questions, who found it necessary to repeat themselves perpetually until they too adopted an attitude of defeated apathy and would go on unanswered. Where had Father gone? What ultimately became of him? My eyes strained against the darkness and I found myself writhing in its inky innards in which I found no solace or sanctuary. Gradually my energy began to wane and my mind set itself adrift in exhaustion. "If I could just know…something… Anything…" I whispered to the room, who in response merely hushed me and closed my eyes one final, dreary time.

That night the same dream.

As before everything is dark, with the only thing I can discern being the sound of the soft striking of metal and the trickling of water onto rock. I am laying flat on my stomach and I stretch out my arms despite my blindness in an attempt to orient myself. Things seem to be scurrying about; and I can hear other hands running along and slapping the stone of what I assume to be corridors and rooms, but there is no way to be sure. The darkness is simply too effective of a veil; and suddenly it is broken. I can hear the almost deafening creak of ancient doors being slowly opened, and I emerge from the black into pale morning. It is incredibly cold on the surface and I find it almost debilitating at first, but as I wince at the light, as blinding as the dark to me now, I almost instantly acclimate. I draw breath and exhale watching it dissipate in the air. Loosing a shudder my vision fully returns. Great trees of a type I have never seen stand tall, protruding from mountain sides and permeating their valleys. My senses become flooded in an instant and I hear birds, smell the foliage, and I can see for miles. I peer into the distance and something strikes my heart colder than the air around me on the hillside. An enormous, black mass, majestic and terrible, is riding the wind more graceful than any bird. The beating of its mighty wings compel me to clasp my ears though it is a great distance away. I can no longer behold it and I go rigid. Falling to my knees, half in awe and half in an overwhelming sense of vertigo all goes dark once more, and I feel my cheek strike the earth.

Once again all is black and I can still feel the coolness on my face. I open my eyes wide against it, breathing quickly and quietly in strides to calm my galvanized heart, but to no avail. With each breath surges of heat seem to jolt across the contours of my frame. The core of me is ablaze. The sounds of my breathing seem to echo against walls that I begin to assume comprise some sort of chamber; the size of which seems immense. Palming the floor I push myself upright still peering into the impenetrable veil; and all at once a chorus of great voices fill the silent void. The sounds rattles me to my bones and I can feel my legs give way in their wake. It is a powerful tongue it seems, and although I am on the verge of being torn asunder by its weight I can clearly feel a sense of familiarity; a kinship with the speakers. I belong to their council and the same heat I felt when I was pressed against the floor now crept its way to my throat. An unshakeable urge to be heard amongst the tempest of words grabbed me from the inside and a poised my body to brave their storm. Chest forward and legs rooted to the spot I thrust my voice into the gloom and into the midst of the their exchange like a blade hot with the zeal of a young warrior eager to prove his worth; and to my astonishment a hush falls upon them. Silence returns to the chamber, but I can feel the agglomeration of the voice's quiet disapproval. It is evident that they do not feel as I do, and the kinship is not to be acknowledged.

I am anxious and frightened but I hold my ground against the unseen titans, and a single speaker decides to chastise me and break the tense lull. It's voice is the greatest among them, age and wisdom adoring every syllable of what I can unequivocally discern to be a single word:



"Do Vah Kiin."

I awoke, the calmest I ever did from that dream, wincing in the pale light of early morning - the last bits of the night clinging desperately to the ankles of the sun. I looked to the window above my bed and saw the Netches wandering on the horizon, and in that moment life on the Mournhold farm had never felt so alien. Wiping the beads of sweat from my brow I rose from the pelts and hay to the sounds of Mother preparing for her rounds. She was already donning her armor in the main room by the time I sluggishly entered. Fastening her sheath to her hip she spoke. "I am due at the Duke's estate early this morning. Apparently there is a bit of pressing business he has to discuss with the few Ordinators that are left…" Her tone was grim and her gaze fixed. The hilt of her blade hit the sheath sharply. "Mother…?"

"My old wounds are beginning to ache." She bit her lip, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Something's amiss… I don't like how sudden any of this is…" I looked upon her armor, glistening in the day's light from the window; the dust of the room soft against its hard edges. She gave a heavy sigh. "Finish the morning's chores, and head for Gulmon's house for your lessons. Wait for me there." With that she proceeded leave. I could see her look back through the sliver of light created from the door and the frame as she crossed over the threshold. There was a distant look in her eye and as I stifled the urge to call out, the door closed gently. The silence was akin to that of my dream's ancient chamber and it seemed to reach far beyond the farm. A palpable loneliness crept up my spine raising its icy fingers to grab hold of my heart and I trembled. She was hopelessly out of my reach passing through a quiet hell I could not brave. Whether or not it was her paranoia that had draped itself upon me or my own, it was apparent to me that something truly was off-kilter - a fell change in the wind.

Wait for me there. Her words swam like fish caught in a series of sweeping rapids in my mind. She was nervous, frightened even to the point where she felt threatened to take such a precaution. During the day I was almost always left to my own devices where applicable, and it was rare that I was ever accompanied by anyone; save the lessons with Gulmon. I stood where she had left me, frozen for a moment, the fingers still wrapped about my heart with my mind and body concurrently gripped by debilitating thoughts of an eminent dread. A fleeting feeling of allowing them to run their course was shaken off by an amalgamation of recited logic and a hope that it could turn me. In the end one could call it simply a shallow and slightly altered facsimile of something Mother would have found to her liking.

“Espionage, subversion, and secret plots of murder are commonplace; and paranoia is only natural.” I said aloud in a soft but assuring voice, “A Dunmer child must accept these truths as an inevitability early on…” But to my almost instantaneous chagrin I was only half and I quickly found both parts of my blood at odds with themselves. On one hand I was completely comfortable with the foreboding energies and felt that I could deftly weave through anything they would herald; but on the other I held no fancy for the shadows or dexterous stylings of Morrowind life, and instead found that my only desire was to bludgeon the looming threat bloody into the dirt whatever or whoever it may be. My subtle Nordic affinities found no quarter with me that day and I decided to wait and feel out the danger; if any existed at all. Casting off my diversions I started out to water the Netches.

Upon the completion of my chores I headed inside to prepare for the day’s training. I washed with what little water was available, organized my knapsack, and strapped on my left pauldron and fingerless gauntlet. They were both of traditional Indoril fashion, but not nearly as decorative being crafted from bone and resin to be lighter. I had forged them myself under the critical and watchful eye of Mother, and they fit my scrawny frame firmly. “Wear them as you do your own skin.” I recalled her words as I drew the straps tight about my shoulder and forearm. Among the rest of my trappings I had my chitin dagger, short bow, and several arrows.

I looked wistfully at the half-finished Dreugh claw shield I was working on resting by the front door. The bearings on the inside were incomplete and it would be foolhardy to bring it with me; a forceful blow from even a lesser opponent would render it useless. An eager frown nestled on my face. I was more than ready to learn shield techniques but was forbidden until I finished the piece. This, to my dismay, was the rule applied to all of my physical combative skills. If I wished to learn I would first have to construct. There was a bit of respite however in the fact that I was able to choose the materials and method used to create the equipment. The shield was to be my magnum opus and the stripling Dreugh from which I had wrought the claw was my finest victory. Consequently there would be no shield training today or in the near future for Gulmon was completely aware of Mother's rule, and any attempt to sway him would fall upon a quietly raised hand and shut eyes; as was his method of rejection. Instead I had a feeling that he would drill me on his fields of expertise: stealth and the quieter magics; picking pockets too if I was lucky.

Mournhold was but a stone's throw from our farm but the road seemed to stretch for miles, as long as it was wide and all encompassing. Without the giant mushrooms lining the path, it seemed as if if you were to step over the edge you would simply spill out into the acrid void of stale air. As I proceeded I thought of the days when I was very young and how my father used to take me for walks, serpentining through the last of the mushrooms' great stalks.

"They're dying…" I remembered him saying one unseasonably cool morning. "The eruption shifted the climate so immensely that I'm afraid there will be only several left if any at all in a few years." I could feel that far off look in his eyes that I had grown so accustom to seeing without even looking at him; both our gazes fixed on the massive caps seeming to support the clouds themselves. Looking down to patches of grass scattered about our feet I reached up for his hand and grasped it softly. His fingers smoother than Mother's drew mine in, holding them securely for a moment before I felt him kneel by my side. I wanted to look him in the eye but found that I only had the fortitude to make sporadic glimpses. Why? Try as I did I couldn't seem to marshall the strength. He sensed this and wrapped his great arms around me and began to whisper, "I've noticed you don't really talk to me…well not that you're terribly open with anyone, save your mother. Even now you hesitate to even embrace me."

It was true, I was rather rigged in his arms with my own fixed to my sides. Eyes shut I managed to speak, my voice jumping and diving in volume between shakes. "Father, do you hate me?! Because of the way…because of the way I am?!" He immediately recoiled in surprise, I swayed in the current of his motion. Raising to his feet and clasping his forehead, he managed to ask, "My son, what do you mean…?" Eyes still shut tight I made fists out of both hands firmly pressed at my thighs. Fighting back torrential outbursts I spoke in the same broken rhythm as before, "Because of the way I look!! I don't really favor you…my pointed ears and darker skin…." I paused. "Nolyn…", my father began to say but I cut him short through the taste of tears on my tongue. "And my eyes!! What about my eyes?! They don't look like Dunmer eyes or Nord eyes!! They're completely white!!" I fell on a patch of grass feverishly rubbing the streams away from my cheeks smearing them to my temples and nose. Again I could feel him kneel. "That's enough now." He arrested my flailing hands and placed them in my lap. "You are my son. I could only love you, and did you forget about your hair? It's a handsome rusty red like mine. And where do you think you get your height? You're taller than most of the all the Dunmeri boys your age in the city." He placed a hand on my head and then to my chest. "And despite that it's what you'll hold in here most of all that links us the strongest. Do you know what that is?" I shook my head wincing in the light. "It is the love I give you freely, my son. And it is the memory you will hold with you of me when we are apart." I found the nerve to look at him, his face frozen with concern; but I could not cast of the thought of the way he looked at me. Maybe he was not entirely aware of it, but in that moment I could see a deeply buried contempt in his eyes pushing up through the stark soil of his heart-something I witnessed enough to call it such.

"…When we are apart."

The sun was beaming and I raised a hand to my forehead to ward away it's rays as I surfaced from the pool of my memories. I poured their waters back in the deep crevice where they could continue to swim in the dark, in silence. But something quickly replaced them becoming the uncomfortable centre of my much more current thoughts, and would wade between the back and foreground for the entirety of the trek. It was my mother's words from earlier. They created an uneasy tug in my chest — a homely suspicion. Nevertheless I was still excited to spend the day with Gulmon. He was a bit on the short side with a matching temper, but had the capacity to be surprisingly level-headed when faced with a crisis. Quite the mage in his own right, he was particularly adept when it came to Illusion magic; stellar by any standard. It was of no surprise when I began to notice that he was a natural thief. Like a bird in air he was in his element in the pockets and coffers of others. I was rather fond of him. So much so in fact that it was from him that my affinity and aptitude for Illusion spells were born.

I had not seen many bushes or tall grass for some time and took fleeting notice when I began to pass by some. I became increasingly wary of my surroundings, being full aware of the desperation of predatory fauna in times of environmental strife such as this; and as if summoned I heard the call of a Nix hound. It broke the calm of mid-morning, and I drew my bow crouching low into the nearby brush. My ears strained and twitched, scanning for foot steps and breathing. The call came again, closer this time, followed by scratching and snorting at the earth. I could sense that it had my scent and was rooting out the trail same as I. Readying an arrow; drawing the string taut-palm resting calmly along the contour of my cheek as I smoothly advanced. It is an odd thing, to feel your heart quicken with the anticipation of a slow dance of survival. Whether your part in it is voluntary or not you shake with a unique excitement that only comes with the deep understanding that there is truly no escape except through the tip of blade buried deep. My mother's blood was to blame, and I was completely in my element. I could hear the hound scrounging now close to my left side. Head and bow turned to face my quarry directly, I drew a breath and with the exhale loosed the arrow. It hissed against the wind and with a wet thud I knew it pierced somewhere in the beast's left abdominal. I rose from under the cover of the brush and walked towards the fallen creature still kicking, weakened and wild, clinging to life. It was several times bigger than me and I could feel the desperate force and now waning power behind the flailing. Kneeling I placed my bow across my chest, string facing outwards and drew my dagger. The hound glared at me through exhausted spasms of motion lined with jolts of pain, and I glared straight back.

I had been taught to recognize and respect the life of whatever or whoever you killed indirectly by my Mother who had what seemed to be the burden of killing on several occasions in front of me; man and beast alike. It was something in how she stared dauntless into their eyes as she would administer the fatal blow, and in how she would cooly wipe her blade clean of the blood with same audacity. If one were to have bore witness to how I held the beast's head and slit its throat they would have seen no difference in composure or conduct between her or I. As the knife drew across its neck I did not blink, my heart beating fast and full of life in spite of the presence of death in my lap as I let the crimson fall like fluid ribbons between my fingers; and as it spilled forth adoring the hem of my tunic I wondered if the agitation I was feeling was actually a wellspring of jubilation for worshippers of Hircine. The high of the hunt, of the kill. I could not say that I was of a mind with them were it true. Still knelt I dropped the listless body of the hound and plucked some Nightshade I had passed that was growing near the edge of the path where I had first heard it's call. Placing it around the creature's shoulders and head with a shaky hand I felt the familiar sense of demoralization. Although I was no stranger to it, it still perturbed me to take a life.

In such moments of emotional turbulence I had fashioned myself a similar defense to that of my mother's: if I had not struck first, the hound would have taken me for unwary prey and with no doubt attacked crazed and voracious. This was my inevitable truth, and behind its veil laid my truer thoughts. I was more like her than I realized. I freed the arrow from the hound's cold chest with a forcible tug, cleaned the head, and placed it back in it's quiver. Wiping the dagger diagonally across my tunic, hem to waist I turned to road and pressed on to Mournhold fighting the urge to glance behind me at the feeble attempt at a burial and penitence by the side of the road.

I had heard talk of the Mournhold of an older time volleyed back and forth between the elders in passing, and could not help but feel that the city I knew was but it's mere shadow. If one were to approach it's outer parameter he would first be greeted by traveling merchants and encampments strung around the crumbling outer walls. Secondly the smells would waft past his nose, and based on his temperament and demeanor would he appreciate or reject them. There were the scents of foreign incense and metals, followed closely by the aroma of the fur and scales of the Khajiit and Argonians who had not bathed since they departed from whatever province began their journey. "The Market Crescent" as I had become fond of calling it was one of my favorite places to get lost in. The iron smell of the Nix blood mingled with these all too familiar scents and I was afraid I would be singled out by some concerned, upstanding samaritan. Fortunately however I was just unassuming enough to slip in and out of the venders and stalls, stealing peeks at the foreign wares with childlike cravings. Weaponry and armors were the things that caught my eye most of all - bows especially; with they're unique curvatures and engravings, I found them almost irresistible. My small, callused hands feeling the surging impulses of a thief as my eyes danced around the displays.

Eventually my darting, zig-zagging paths led me to what was left of the outer walls. Battered and broken they seemed to harbor a silent and stoic resentment for all Argonians, since their kind's raid of the former capital city. A proud victim the walls looked to me, but unrightfully so; because blood would always be repaid in kind. The wooden supports now erected sparsely about its edges creaked and groaned against the winds that had abruptly picked up. I frowned as the ash from Red Mountain licked my face. I felt the history, lies and blood, betrayals and conquests as I ran my hands along the ragged masonry that the city held; and not through ignorance did I find myself in the familiar spot of not being sure where to put my feelings and resolve. In a place such as this the elementary notions of good and evil were buried deep beneath the ash that swirled and rested on all things. Upon reaching the entrance way I took immediate notice of the fact that the regular patrolman was absent. This was not abnormal as I gathered the sense that he was not at all fond of the rabble or foreign faces of the Crescent from previous trips; being a shining example of a more discriminatory Morrowind that he was. I had felt before that he viewed my obvious Nord blood as something of the utmost depravity, and so I was most elated for his absence.

I strolled into what was left of the Great Bazaar district, having left most of its augmented remains spilled outside amongst the Crescent. So it was not entirely surprising that there was less to look at here; although the wares were of considerable higher quality. The Great Bazaar was truly lesser than the Crescent but this was only in the quantitative sense. There were less merchants and vendors but they were the ones either wealthy or intrepid enough to gain the proper clearance to sell within the walls. Not to say that there was much of an open system left in which to swim the proper channels. I had always suspected that there were backwater politics involved in obtaining a spot inside the Bazaar. Whatever the case was there always seemed to be enough there to hold my fickle attention for some time. The rumors and gossip on such machinations that permeated the alleys and gutters seemed to be even more of a treasure than the exotic goods; at least in my eyes. So naturally I had little choice but to sift through the day's crop, which it had seemed was less than ambrosial from a passing eavesdrop. There were vexed mothers complaining about lazy children, tight merchants sifting through coin; and as the exotic fragrances and stimulating sounds of the Crescent faded more and more I become increasingly disinterested with my surroundings.

As I weaved around the streets and stalls dotting the ruins my mother's words from the morning crept back into my mind. I uncomfortably and rather abruptly shifted to the edge. My hand skated across my dagger's hilt, and I could feel the acrid aspect of blood in the air. Gritting my teeth I forced myself to accept that it was paranoia running rampant. However in spite of my mind, my nerves were ablaze. What was this feeling? After several hurried paces into an alley way it hit me like a bolt of lighting. For the first time since the disappearance of my father, I was afraid. Afraid of the possibility that there was a looming threat that not even Mother could not survive.
 

Recent chat visitors

Latest posts

Top