At My Feet-an Oblivion Fanfic Options

[Elisabeth Hollow]

Hey y'all, I've been working on this for a few months, and just finished it. KoB and I have been roleplaying a it, and I developed a character I really, really liked, and want to flesh her out more. i'll still be doing Kayla's story, but alternating between the two. I hope y'all enjoy it!



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The night was chilly in the Imperial City. Breath puffed into excited clouds as the residents of the city walked quickly towards their homes. Stores closed for the night, the locks clicking shut as the shop owners turned and pocketed their keys.

The night grew darker as the sun set, finally slipping over the horizon in a sigh of relief as it crawled to warm other parts of Nirn. Mothers laid their infants and toddlers to rest as father stoked the fire. Beggers crawled into alleys and abandoned houses in the Waterfront. Guards downed warming potions as they continued their shift into the night, onfident that the cold would deter thieves and would-be murderers.

Above their heads as Masser and Secunda rose slowly, a lithe form leapt from rooftop to rooftop. Crouching when a guard turned their head or scanned the roofs, the figure ducked and dove until it came to its destination. It braced itself for the jump, and fell nearly soundlessly onto the white-stoned balcony. A faint glow of a candle illuminated the room inside two-story building in the Temple District.

The man inside was hunched over a bunch of papers, parchment rolled and tossed aside in messy piles. He glanced up when a breeze hit him, and he saw his balcony door had blown open. He sighed wearily as he stood up, old bones popping as he made his way to the door. He latched it shut, but not before a pile of papers had gotten blown onto the ground. He meticulously picked them up, a loud crack in his back making him groan. When he stood up, he placed the papers on his desk and sat down.

He groaned when the candle went out. He looked wearily at the door, and stood up again to latch it back. The cold breeze from the outside had chilled him to the bone, and he set a chair in front of the balony door and went downstairs. His dog wagged her tail when she heard his footsteps approach, and nuzzled his hand when he leaned down to pet her. She followed him to the kitchen, and her bushy tail continued to wag as he poured himself a cup of wine. Using a simple spell, he warmed the wine until steam rose off of it. He walked back upstairs, hissing when the hot liquid spilled onto his hand.

He sat back down in his chair and stoked the fire, adding more wood. He sat down at his desk and scooted closer, picking up the warmed wine. He took a long drink and let out a sound of satisfaction before searching for his quill. One he found it under a pile of papers, he began to search for his diary. He searched under the desk, the chairs, even his bed. He frowned as he searched drawers, on top of cabinets, teetering precariously on a wobbly chair threatening to break under his weight. His wife, a woman of his age with brown hair and silver streaks, caught him.

"Amantius!" she scolded, helping him down from the chair. "What in the name of the Nine are you doing?!"

"My diary is gone!"

---

The black figure flitted between shadows, dodging swaying guards and smelly drunks. Once it reached the Waterfront, it looked around beforerunning to a small shack near the water. It disappeared inside the house, and the night was quiet.

Shivering, the form lit fire in its hands and lit the logs in the fireplace. They crackled, and soon became a roaring fire. Within minutes, the shack was nearly stuffy with heat, and the figure shed its black clothing. A short, thick cape was hung by the door, and a mask was stuff in a drawer. Bright hazel eyes inspected the book in one hand as the other golden one unlaced boots. She set the book down and continued to shed her garments, the illusion magick on the clothing replacing the lithe, thin form for a muscular, curvaceous one.

Her instincts perked a half second before the door blew open, a young woman seething in the doorway. She fixed her eyes on the nude redhead before her.

"Samara! I'm going to kill you!"

"Closed the damned door, it's freezing!"

"Good!" The raven-haired girl shut the door anyways, in spite of her anger. "Maybe you'll freeze to death and stop messing up my progress!" She lunged at Samara, catching her thick red hair at the base of her skull before she could run off.

"Ow! Alda! Too rough! TOO ROUGH!" Samara squeaked. The larger Nord girl easily tossed a shorter, lighter Samara onto the bed they shared. She pinned her to the scratchy sheets, rage in her eyes.

"Ow! You're as heavy as a horse! What have you been eating?!"

"Fetchers like you for breakfast!"

"How are you doing that? We share grocer-OW!" Samara bucked her hips and tried to knock her roommate off of her once she pinched the sensitive mound of her breast.

"GET OFF ME, YOU COW!"

"YOU TOOK MY STEAL, YOU WHORE!"

"WELL YOU'RE SLOW!"

"AM NOT!"

"ARE TOO!" Samara wriggled an arm free and yanked hard on Alda's hair, then shrieked when milky white fingers tickled her ribs. She flailed and screamed with laughter, trying to knock her assailant off. Alda's blue eyes gleamed with playfully malicious intent.

"You're going to wet yourself!" she cackled.

"WE SHARE THE SAME BED, STUPID!"

"YOU can sleep in it, I can afford to go to the Bloated-AUGH!" She fell off the bed onto the cold stone floor, and Samara panted, trying to catch her breath. She reached down and handed Alda the diary.

"Here. I don't even want it. You can take it."

"Fine!" Alda snatched the worn diary away. "Dunno what that old man wants with this, anyways. Its just a bunch of plants."

"It's actually really interesting. He's made a plant that feeds off of blood."

Alda rolled her eyes as she rolled off the floor. "Bookworm."

"What? It's fascinating!"

"See, I can't take you seriously."

"You can sod off, then."

"Oooh, Imperial cursing!" Alda's thick northern accent rolled the 'r' in 'Imperial' almost like a purr. Samara felt her face flush as she looked in the cupboards after pulling thick woolen pants and shirt over her head.

"What do you want to eat?" She looked at the pot over the fire. "Stew again?"

"I can cook, if you'd let me."

"You put too much salt in your food." Samara pulled out a few small potatoes and two carrots. She tossed Alda the potatoes. Alda brandished a silver dagger and began peeling them.

"No, leave the peeling on, I like it!"

"Well, I don't!" Alda kept peeling. Samara huffed and grabbed the bucket by the door.

"I'll be right back. I'll get some water."

"Snatch some salt, we're almost out!" Alda called after her. Samara ignored her and walked to the edge of the water. Her breath came out in white puffs in the night air, the moons reflecting off the water. She dipped the bucket in the water, careful to not get any dirt in it. She walked back and losed the door behind her, sighing in relief. She saw that Alda had changed out of her dark leather armor and into a light dressing gown.

"How can you dress so light?" Samara asked, a tinge of incredulity in her voice. "Help me out."

Alda grabbed the bucket while Samara pulled the strainer off the wall, held up by twine. "Because I'm not a milk-drinker." She said as she poured the bucket on the strainer and into the cauldron. The cloth caught bits of dirt and a small piece of wood. Alda shook it clean outside the door as Samara began cooking.

"I like milk." Samara said lightly. Alda ignored her.

After about an hour, the food was ready. Samara spooned two bowlfuls and handed one to Alda, who was perched on the bed, feet tucked underneath her. Samara handed her the salt.

"So, if you're giving me the book, what are you gonna about getting into the Thieves Guild?" Alda took a bite of the stew, then added more salt.

Samara shrugged. "I dunno. I don't really want to be in it, actually."

"What? But it's every thief's dream!"

"I wanna be like Springheel Jak. He wasn't in the Thieves Guild, and he did really good."

"Sammy," Alda's voice carried a bit of condescending sympathy. "Springheel Jak was a man who liked to break into the homes of rich woman and seduce them. That's what he was noteable for. Not for thieving."

"But he wasn't with the Thieves Guild. And he was a thief! There are stories of him leaping across buildings-"

"Ravaging noblewomen."

"-Scaling down the Palace!"

"To ravage the Empress."

"Gross. But he DID steal. So what if he had fun while he did it?" Samara set her empty bowl down after draining it of broth. Alda shrugged and set hers down inside of it and got beneath the covers. Samara put a few more logs onto the fire and crawled into bed with Alda. The smaller women turned onto her side and allowed her friend to slip her hands beneath her woolen shirt and warm her hands on her stomach.

"Sammy?" Alda murmured.

"Hmm?"

"You know I love you, right? Even though I'm mean to you, and you irritate me?"

"I love you too."

There was a pause. Alda pulled Samara closer and sighed.

"I know." There was a hint of something in her voice, but Samara didn't catch it. The two thieves drifted off to sleep, with one dreaming of becoming the Gray Fox and the other of scaling the Palace.

[Grits]

You have Samara quickly putting on some clothes and wiping her face before she answers the door, which is great because it made me (and maybe Blanche, I thought) think that Samara wanted to hide the fact that she had just been up to her ears in girlfriend while at the same time the person at the door had flustered Samara enough to make her forget said naked girlfriend was still right there in the bed. Having both Samara and Alda dressed while Blanche wrapped herself in a sheet added to Blanche’s sense of awkwardness and vulnerability, which is also great for their interaction. I just got confused when Samara dropped the sheet.

I tend to think too much about the characters, lol. I should have just been thinking, “Naked chicks, woo!”

[Elisabeth Hollow]

[censored] you're right XD

[Elisabeth Hollow]

This has been written for a really long time and I had forgotten about it, lol

Also thanks for the welcome back lol. Don't feel weird about pointing stuff out on THIS story, cuz this one is the one I'm actually spending time on.

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Thunder rolled in the distance, the sound resonating in Samara’s chest. She sighed and woke up, her red hair curled in a few places from sweat. Blanche had been gone for nearly two weeks, a time frame Samara could do without. Sliding from bed, she laid on the dirt floor for a moment before suddenly sitting up.

A loud explosion shook her house, and Samara threw her door open in time to see the sky was as red as blood, boiling angrily with molten lava. Flecks of star bursts winked in and out from behind the tumultuous waves of reddened clouds.

It was horrifyingly beautiful.

The beauty was soon forgotten as she realized the sounds of screams were piercing the air. The air was hot and thick with sulfur and blood. Members of the Waterfront, people she had known her whole life, were running from armored monstrosities and creatures from nightmares. Horned, humanoid creatures with blackened teeth and faces wielding hateful-looking swords cut down people she had cared for over the years. Blood splattered on the ground, and sizzled on the molten armor of the horrific creatures.

She closed her door.

Inside the darkness of her house, lit slightly by deceptively rosy light, she slid her armor on, the soft leather shimmering with enchantment. Out of everything she did, this armor was the one selfish thing she did for herself. It hid her identifiable curves, giving her slimmer, smaller look. She tied her hair back and slid her mask on, her vision sharper and clearer. She sighed as she slid her greaves on, feeling the rejuvenating effects of the spell strengthening her limbs, opening the valve of her magicka more, letting it flow easier. Her boots strengthened her legs and made her limbs more flexible, and her steps quieter.

She threw open the door, her steely resolve dissolving when the figure of a man stood in her doorway. She took in a breath to scream, and nearly instantly a hand covered her mouth.

“Quiet,” he hissed. “Don’t draw attention to yourself!”

She struggled, pushing away. She seethed in anger when she saw his face.

“What are you doing here, Imbel?” She spat.

“No time,” his elven armor gleamed in the roiling red light. “Can you fight?”

She looked at the dagger with disgust, but took it anyways. “Not with this, not very well. I only use my hands and a bow.”

“Just like your mother,” he muttered before checking behind him. The monsters were still occupied with other victims. “That won’t do well with them. They’re from Oblivion itself, and their armor will burn you, and the arrows will bounce off. Follow me, and keep out of sight.”

She obeyed, grabbing her bow. “But-”

There was a roar as a large, dark-furred beast began tearing its way through the dremora. Jakben grabbed her arm and pulled her along. Samara swore she heard him say “Westley,” but before she could really absorb the situation, they were running past the chaos and into the shadows.

“Where are we going?” The volume of Samara’s voice didn’t matter over the screaming and odd, pulsating, humming noise.

“The Temple! We’ll be safe there.”

“We should stay out of the city, make a break for an old fort I’ve got cleaned out.”

“You mean Fort Homestead?”

“How’d you know?!”

A dremora saw them in its peripherals and turned towards them. It pulled out a sword that seemed to be made from hot coals and blackened steel and walked towards them.

“Jakben-” Panic was in Samara’s voice as she reached behind her to grab an arrow as Jakben’s elven shield blocked a blow meant for her head.

“I forgot my arrows!”

“Just stay back!” He grunted as the dremora pushed him back with sheer strength, sending him a few steps backwards. A strangled laugh, almost gurgling, came from the monster’s throat as it advanced on Jakben.

“Why don’t you stab it?” Samara offered.

“What a wonderful idea! I should have thought of that!” Jakben spared an eye roll before the dremora attacked again, mercilessly beating on Jakben’s shield. He cried out through gritted teeth as a crack was heard. The dremora gurgled in laughter once again.

“Foolish mortal! I have wounded you.” The voice grated in Samara’s ears like steel in a dying man’s throat. “Prepare to-”

There was a small, unprotected area at the base of the neck that Samara had noticed. Once the dremora turned its back, she plunged the dagger into its throat. She hissed in pain as the armor burned her skin, causing her wrist to blister up nearly immediately. It fell to its knees, then fell over. Jakben looked relieved.

“Thank the gods! I thought I was done for!” He groaned as Samara helped him up, looking around cautiously.

“Do you feel that?”

He nodded. “The air changed. We need to get to the Temple.”

The air rumbled with an energy that Samara had never felt before. She rushed on with Jakben, the energy pushing and pulling at what seemed to be their very souls. She felt her very essence jump as a bright, fiery explosion littered the sky with embers, two gargantuan figures, one shaped as a bedazzling dragon, and the other as fear incarnate, swung and bit, clawed, and lunged, crushing the districts beneath them.

Everything stopped as the two battled, and Samara suddenly had an instinctual feeling that they should be nowhere near the city. She grabbed Jakben’s hand, ignoring the startled look on his face as she pulled him away from the city. Bodies littered the districts as they sprinted between alleys, dodging swinging axes of Mythic Dawn agents and dremora alike. Suddenly Jakben slowed.

“Where’s your lover?” The raging battle was near-deafening, but Samara heard him, just barely.

“Not in the city!” They reached the gate, which was ajar after the guardsmen abandoned their posts. Once they were out, the air seemed thinner, more calm as a final burst of light blinded everyone in the city momentarily. Both Jakben and Samara covered their eyes as the entirety of Nirn filled with deafening silence.

[Elisabeth Hollow]

This is the last fully finished chapter I have saved, which means I'll need to start planning the next chapters. Luckily, I have found a planning technique that works for me and has been helping me plan out my chapters for my non-fanfiction related stuff. Mkay bye lol

~~~~~~~~~~~

The fires crackled in the old fort as Jakben turned the small deer he had killed on the spit. Samara sighed heavily, lying on her belly as she flipped the pages of her book too quickly to be considered reading. The scratchy sheets of the bedroll made her reach down and relieve an itch on her bare calf.

“We’ll head back soon,” Jakben said as he settled onto his own bedroll.

“Is there anything to return to?” Samara shut her book, the worn pages snapping shut. A single page shot out as the binding creaked with the force. She sighed again and crawled over to retrieve it.

“If there isn’t, there’s plenty of cities to make your home in.”

“No, there’s plenty of cities for YOU to make your home in. Anywhere I go, I am starting over completely.”

“You weren’t exactly well-known in the city.”

“Not yet,” she countered before slipping the page back into the book. She looked at the deer.

“How do you drain the blood so completely?”

Jakben’s face was expressionless. “Old trick I learned before you were born. What were you reading?”

“Tales and Legends of Springheel Jak.”

His brow shot up. “May I see?”

Samara handed him the book, and Jakben opened it, his face becoming increasingly amused as he read. Samara stood up.

“I’m going to check the buckets,” she said as she walked out of the room. Jakben settled onto his bedroll in a more comfortable position and waved her away. She walked through the halls, casting a night eye spell after rolling her eyes and walked the stony hallways. Neither of them had brought torches, though unlit sconces lined the walls of the fort. Both she and Jakben agreed that staying in darkness was preferable to bringing too much attention to themselves. It had been two days since the city fell, and some of the fires still burned. Samara knew that, if Blanche had survived and still been on her trip, she wouldn’t go searching for anyone. The fires would be enough to keep her away.

Alda would be different. She had always had a slightly heroic streak, using her sheer height to ward off insistent men from terrified women, picking up children away from the fists of larger children and carrying them to safety. Alda had even given their food away a few times, which Samara would respond to by stealing more food. Alda would be helping search for survivors, and when she wouldn’t find Samara’s body among the living, she would begin to look among the dead.

Out of everything, Samara was grateful her armor had been spared. It rested near her bedside atop a crate she used for the clothes she had brought here. Hunting gear, spare arrows, and a few emergency rations littered the fort in a lackadaisical fashion. Jakben had quickly tidied the area before collapsing from exhaustion shortly afterwards. Neither had been hungry the first night, but as the dawn crept up, both were nearly ravenous. Jakben had kept himself grumpily isolated, insisting he clear the fort of rats and possible bandits. He returned in better spirits, his soot-covered shirt now wet with blood.

“There were quite a few rats,” he had said happily. Samara had resolved to keep her distance from him as often as possible.

The fort door, though creaking in protest, swung open easily. A light rain had started falling, according to Jakben, and Samara dumped the water from each bucket into a larger bucket, filling it nearly full. There was a stream a half mile from the fort, and the Rumare, but neither felt comfortable leaving the fort at that point. She sat on a wet stone before heading back inside, glad to breathe in fresh air.

The sun peeked out over the horizon and, for the first time in days, Samara felt a twinge of hope. The door swung shut behind her, and she put the bar in place to keep bandits out, thought the morning sun would keep most from traveling. She heard hysterical howls of laughter echoing down the hallways as she walked back. Jakben was lying on his back atop his bedroll, one arm slung across his eyes, the other grasping the book. High-pitched shrieks of laughter bounced off the walls.

“Oh…the countess of Leyawiin… I’d forgotten about her!”

“What, the story? Which one? There’s a few.”

“The one where…oh by the gods…” He sat up to catch his breath, still laughing. “The one where, you know, they nearly caught him because he was hanging off a flagpole by his undergarments!” He howled in laughter again, his mouth open wide. Samara snorted.

“It gets worse as you read on.”

“I’m sure it does! Does it talk about her stuffed wolf she kept by her bedside? She’d make awful puns with it!”

“Such as?”

He sat up and gave her a mock-sultry look, fluttering his lashes. “’You make me HOWL with pleasure!’” He erupted into laughter again. Samara snorted, then giggled hysterically.

“That’s horrible!”

“I know! How much water have we gotten?” He wiped his eyes, though Samara never saw the glistening of tears.

“Nearly one large bucketful. Enough for use to drink through the day and cook with. I do need to bathe.”

“Want me to accompany you to the stream?”

“That won’t be necessary. You rest. You’re nearly as strange as I am when it comes to daylight.”

“Like father like daughter,” he said, almost too casually. Samara ignored the remark and grabbed some clothes.

“I’ll return in two hours or less, Jakben.” She emphasized the name more than she meant to. Jakben showed no signs of recognizing her tone as he continued to read.

The walk was short, not nearly long enough for Samara to stretch her legs to her satisfaction. The rain from the walk to the fort had washed most of the soot away, but Samara wanted a scrubbing. She slid her filthy clothes off, glad to be rid of them. She reminded herself that her armor needed cleaning as she set her clothes underwater, held in place by a large rock lodged in the bed of the creek, letting the currents wash away the grime. She then sat in the creek bed, washing the dirt from her skin that sponge bathings didn’t get rid of. She heard a rustle in the bushes and turned around. She saw nothing, and shrugged.

She was in the middle of washing her hair when another rustle caught her attention. This time, she turned and got in a crouching position, eyes searching for any danger. She heard a low growl before a wolf burst through the bushes. A hand, resting on a rock as large as her fist, flew up, as if of its own accord, and brained the wolf. It fell without a whimper into the stream, leaving Samara panting heavily with fear. Her heart raced with unused adrenaline, speeding up even more as another rustle came from the bushes. Another smaller wolf growled at her, then promptly whimpered and fell as an arrow appeared in its gut. A horrified expression crossed her face as the wolf yowled in pain.

A large Imperial man with scarcely any clothes on had stepped out of the bushes, a satisfied grin on his handsome face. He looked over at Samara, barely giving her body a glance as he pulled her up. She looked at him, a shocked expression on her face. He smiled at her, the smug expression still on his face.

“Are you alright?” The concern in his voice did not match the expression on his face.

“I’m fine, you-”

“Do you need aid? A healing touch?”

“No! I’m fine, I even-” She was cut off by him placing his hands on her bare shoulders. She hunched her shoulders and laughed uneasily as she shrugged out of his grasp.

“Ha, I’d rather you not touch me right now.”

“Oh, I apologize. I was unaware that you weren’t decent.”

“I highly doubt that.” Samara crossed her arms over her chest and placed most of her weight on her right leg, jutting her hip out. To his credit, the man’s eyes never left her face.

“Truly. Should I fetch you some garments? Perhaps escort you back to the city?”

“No, I’m fine. I have my own clothes.”

“Surely you don’t wish to travel these perilous roads alone!”

“I’m fine, really. And don’t call me Shirley.”

The man looked confused, his blue eyes crinkling at the edges. He opened his mouth and began to speak, halting when Samara held her hand up.

“I’m fine. I’d much rather bathe in peace, please. And can you please put that wolf out of its misery?!”

The man looked over, a startled look on his face. “The beast isn’t dead? Strange, I never miss the heart!” Samara rolled her eyes as the man walked to the wolf and cut its throat.

“I wonder what caught the eye of the Beastmaster,” she muttered as she gathered her wet clothes from the stream. She laid her clothes out to dry after wringing them as much as she could. The man still lingered, a doubtful look on his face.

“May I have your name, fair maiden?”

“Samara, and I’m the furthest you can get from being a maiden without being paid for it.”

She delighted in the man’s blush as the expression dawned on him. She laid on the bank, her wet skin glistening in the sun. She closed her eyes briefly, then opened one, looking at him.

“Go away.”

“I’d rather not leave a woman such as yourself helpless.”

‘Why are you speaking like that? You sound like the snooty nobles in the Imperial City.”

“Aye, I am such.”

“Why are you out here, half naked, wandering the woods?”

“The fires of Mehrunes Dagon burned my home, and I sought refuge in my cabin in the woods.”

She sat up. “Cabin? With…fresh food?”

“Aye.”

“And beds?”

“Aye.”

“Mind if we stop bye sometime?”

“A- we?”

“My father and I. We’ve been in an old fort ever since our homes were destroyed.” Samara suddenly realized Jakben had never actually SAID his home was destroyed. “He’s the earl of Imbel, and does not do well without the luxuries of his home.”

The man nodded slowly. “Aye. The day is young, and you are both welcome in my home. My name is Petrus Vanin.”

“Samara Sage…Imbel. Expect us at nightfall. My father spends his days resting and his nights-”

“Roaming the gardens behind the houses? Yes, he’s well-known for that. My father speculated the man was a hermit. Forgive me for saying so.”

“I don’t mind. He’s definitely strange.” She bobbed her head once and smiled slightly. “I appreciate letting us stop by. Where is this place located?”

“Follow the stream away from the water. It will be on the left. You will see a large white pillar marking the path leading up to it.”

She nodded again and thanked him before closing her eyes and lying back down. She watching through her lashes as the man walked away, a prideful look on his face.

‘Gods, I hope Jakben doesn’t get any ideas about him.'