Shade-Eyes, One elf's descent into Oblivion. Options

[kementari]

Hey, all.

So, long time lurker, first time poster. I've really enjoyed reading all the stories you guys have put up over the years.

I've been working on chronicling a group of vignettes on and off since 2006, and it's still a work-in-progress. Some disclaimers:

First, it's all quite long, so I sincerely apologize if anyone gets TLDR syndrome from reading it. Additionally, I tend to take a little free license with lore where Bethesda has been silent, so please don't crucify me for some of my inventions passed off as "world fact" in the story. Finally, I do draw some of my plots from game elements, but I change them where I think I can do better. Please don't let either of those admissions become the basis for hating me. Writing these stories is cathartic to me, and in some small way, I feel like fanfiction is the highest form of glorification I can give the story guys over at Bethesda.

I'd also really love feedback (CRITICISM! PLEASE!) on characterization, prose, pacing, or anything else, if any of you have the time or willingness to give it. While I of course appreciate even small affirmations, "hm, good work" doesn't really help me grow as a storyteller.

Anyway, here goes. Hope you enjoy it.

This post has been edited by kementari: May 27 2008, 12:31 AM

[kementari]

Imperial City; Sun's Dusk 27, 3E414


In a manner that was anything but surreptitious, Lily glanced over her shoulder as she strolled through the lush gardens of the Imperial City's Arboretum. A dozen paces back, a genial-looking Breton, clad in rags and barefoot, stopped to sniff the delicate white flowers of a creeper vine.

He was still there.

Lily kept walking, forcing herself to keep her pace even. Normally she would have found it almost insulting to be set upon by such an obvious tail, and Lily admonished herself for letting such an amateur make her nervous.

But it wasn't simply this Breton today that bothered her. It was the heavily tattooed Argonian yesterday, and the grandmotherly Nord woman the day before. Lily knew better than to assume a conspiracy from the actions of a handful of beggars, but something about these people felt wrong to her. It wasn't that they were especially good at what they did; so far, the tails were easy to lose. The frustrating part was that they seemed genuinely to have nothing else to do except wander the streets until they found her again.

She glanced toward the City's outer wall, and the gate that led to the miniature fortress housing the Arcane University. Regardless of whether these people were intentionally following her or not, they were making her life difficult with their very existence. Her latest contract was a high-profile target, and the restrictions that came with it made it the most difficult assignment she had yet received. If she succeeded, she would finally receive the title of Silencer in the Brotherhood, the highest honor under admission into the five-member Black Hand itself.

At this point, though, Lily wasn't sure she would achieve the murder at all, much less under the conditions required by the contract. Her target was a powerful wizard of the Mages' Guild, a retired researcher at the Arcane University by the name of Borissean. He spent his days sequestered within the unassailable walls of the University, now, rarely emerging for any reason. The contract, of course, required that the kill occur outside the walls of the University. Lily suspected the client was likely another high-ranked mage; someone who stood to benefit from a rival's removal so long as there was no possibility that he could be linked to the murder.

The contract had stated “While of course prompt attention to this matter will confer an appropriate bonus upon completion, location, not time, is of the essence. We anticipate this contract taking some time to complete, and are content to wait as long as necessary for the job to be done correctly.” Lily had been observing the University for a week now, and had become only less hopeful in that time. With such a minuscule likelihood of Borissean ever venturing into the city at all, and with so many eyes on her all the time, Lily had begun to wonder how she would ever pull this off.

Suddenly frustrated, she turned on her heel, stalking back toward the Temple district. She held the Breton's gaze with a ferocious glare as she marched past him, and he shrank back from her in guilty fear or innocent incomprehension – Lily couldn't tell which. She strode through the City's main artery, intending to return to the Waterfront and hole up in her little hovel there, nursing her temporarily defeated pride. As she neared the huge gate in the outer wall, she glanced behind herself. Her pursuer was nowhere in sight.


***


Lily tugged the dilapidated shanty door closed and glanced around. The hut – Lily refused to call anything with a dirt floor a house – was a perfect mask for her activities in the Imperial City. She had leased it long ago from a Hlaalu slumlord, and the Redguard who took over when he died hadn't even bothered to raise the rent. Armin or Arnaud, she had never bothered to learn his name. He didn't seem to take much of an interest in the tenants of the Waterfront – he didn't even care if she was late with her rent due to the extended “business trips” she frequently took, so long as she settled it eventually, and Lily had taken to paying well in advance when she knew she'd be traveling. She liked to imagine they had come to an understanding.

Lily's coin was good, much better than that of the majority of the City's well-heeled residents, if truth be told, but there was no need for that to become public knowledge. She sat down on the bed, a lumpy straw mattress on a ragged wooden frame, and smirked at the surroundings. Spare and utterly worthless, except for the weaponry from which she was almost never separated. She owned few items of value, and all of them resided with her liquid wealth in an ensorcelled chest at the foot of Vicente Valtieri's bed in the Dark Brotherhood coven – offhand, one of the safest places she could imagine.

This hut was worth nothing, and everyone who broke in – Lily knew it had happened a few times – could see that at a glance. But this hut was where she had met Lucien for the first time, and so it was worth everything.

Before Lucien, this cadre of trackers would not have troubled her thoughts. The Lily from Valenwood had nothing to lose and represented no one. Now, though, it might not be Lily they were after at all, but the Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood. Lucien. The Night Mother. Vicente. The coven.

Sithis.

She put a hand on the bow that stood patiently next to the bed, and before she knew what she was doing, she had bent the bow and strung it, and tossed the nearby quiver of arrows over her shoulder. She lifted the hood of her thick cotton jumpsuit and tucked it securely around her face.

She would take care of this problem His way.


***


The moon had begun to dip low in the sky by the time Lily returned to the Waterfront. The Breton and the Argonian lay in pools of their own blood on the cobblestones where she had found them conspiring together over mugs of ale, cooling corpses with decorative slashes covering their limbs. One of the men had a black crow's feather tucked into the inner pocket of his jacket. The aged Redguard woman lay in her bed where she had fallen asleep, silently smothered with a pillow; a black writing quill lay on a nearby table next to an inkwell.

And three nightshade blooms blackened and crisped in the flames of the shack's hearth. They would be a tentative apology to the gods she she served, if Lily had overstepped her bounds that night.

With a mixture of apprehension and post-adrenaline bliss, she gathered her things together. She would leave before sunrise, head across the river and south to Bravil, maybe even spend some time in the wilderness. The city had begun to grate on her in any case. The contract on Borissean could wait.

Lily pulled open the door. “Until next time,” she whispered to the rafters.