Teresa of the Faint Smile, Adventures of a Stringy Bosmer Options

[SubRosa]

Hi all, welcome to Teresa 2.0. Some of you may recognize the stringy wood elf this fan fic is about from another forum. I am going to start reposting her adventures here. However, I have taken this opportunity
for a fresh start to go back over the story and do some work on it. Starting with an entirely new scene, which you see below.

I have decided to give up the idea of breaking things up into separate Acts like I did with Not A Hero and Moving Through Darkness. It was probably a little confusing. Instead I am just going to go with a single title and let it go on as long as it needs to, hence the new name.

You will also find that the first half of what used to be called Not A Hero has been heavily edited. Hopefully an improvement! The rest of the story will also receive a facelift, although generally not as great. There will probably be a few more entirely new chapters turning up between some of the old ones as well. So this is not the same story you might have seen on the other forum.


For people new to the TF, you might find it easier to catch up with the cliff notes version in the spoiler tags below:




* * *

Chapter 1 –Warning

12th Second Seed, 3E433

The harsh croaking of a raven prompted Teresa to raise her green eyes from the only slightly bruised apple that she was eating. The alley behind the Tiber Septim Hotel was narrow, a thin gouge cut between massive stone buildings that loomed high to either side and cast its depths into dim shadow. Sacks filled with trash dotted the length of the lane, clustered in small islands near the back doors of every business and home.

The pale wood elf stood at one such mound of garbage, filled with slops and other castoffs. Rich people threw away the best food, she knew, making the back streets here in the Talos Plaza district a practical gold mine for street urchins like herself.

Screenshot

Her scavenged lunch fell from suddenly nerveless fingers however, as she gazed down the alley and saw the figure of a man running in the shadows. He was clad in plain linens, the clothing of an ordinary plebeian. But there was nothing ordinary about the way he held a drawn sword in his hand, nor the blood that stained it.

Before the elf could bolt and run herself, the interloper was upon her. Now she could see he was an Imperial by his olive skin and dark hair. He reached out to her with his free hand, and as Teresa backed away she realized that it was not only his sword that was washed in blood, but the front of his tunic as well.

"You must warn them!" the Imperial croaked through the blood that flowed from his mouth. As she stared with wide eyes, Teresa was certain she could see tiny bubbles of air bursting up from the red flow. She had seen that before, from deep knife wounds to the chest. He was a dead man, she thought, he just did not know it yet.

His hand clutched at the shabby tunic of worn sack cloth that Teresa wore, grabbing a handful of the rough material. Teresa nearly jumped as his fingers pressed against one of her breasts. The sword fell from his other hand with a clatter of steel on stone, and the Imperial dropped to his knees, collapsing into her.

Teresa stared with wide eyes at the dying man, whose head was now buried in the valley between her small breasts. Her heart raced like a wild horse, and she felt her skin grow cold as Skyrim. Try as she might to flee, her feet seemed rooted to the spot however. All she could do was gape in growing horror as the man clutched at her willowy frame and spat blood over her already bedraggled clothing.

The sound of footsteps caused her to lift her eyes and gaze back down the way the Imperial had come. There stood a handful of figures wearing dark red robes, nearly black in the dim light. Hoods of the same material covered their heads, shrouding their faces in darkness. She saw blades in their hands as well. Not mortal steel, but rather monstrous, wavy knives, like the jagged teeth of some fearsome Daedra.

"They're going to kill the-" with that the Imperial's voice gave out, and she heard a rattling noise issue from his throat. It was like a dry breeze through an abandoned tenement. Then he fell limp at her feet, open eyes staring blankly back up at her from the pavement.

"Hey, what's going on back there!" came an iron growl from the other end of the alley. The clash of armored boots rang out between the high buildings, reverberating in the Bosmer's ears. Wrenching her gaze from the dead man, Teresa turned to see an Imperial Watchman charging down the alley toward her, dark eyes glittering like polished ebony within the 'T'-shaped slit in his full-faced helmet.

"You there! Put down your weapons and surrender." The legionary had his arming sword out now, and before the wood elf knew it, he was standing before her. He took a moment to first glance down at the dead man at Teresa's feet, and then the blood that washed her tunic.

"I didn't-" Teresa gasped, feeling her blood turn to ice with the understanding of how things must look to the watchman. Then the steel gauntlet of his left hand was reaching out for her, and the words slipped from her throat.

"You'll hang for this street meat!" the legionary growled.

With that Teresa finally felt her body come back under her control. Twisting away from watchman's grasp, she sprang for the other end of the alley. Her eyes saw that the red-robed figures were gone now. Then her view swam as her foot caught upon the corpse of the Imperial. She felt herself falling, and her head slammed against something hard as she came to a stop.

Her vision narrowed, as if she were within a tunnel. She was vaguely aware of the thin, blue slit of the sky above her, flanked by the grey stone of buildings to either side. She thought she saw a dark bird spread its wings in that sliver of light. But then the shape dissolved, and turned into the steel helmet of the legionary, looming closer and closer. Finally, darkness consumed her.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Jul 30 2020, 01:31 AM

[SubRosa]

D.Foxy: It is a variation of "bedroom community", I used it because it sounds little less formal than residential district.


Destri Melarg: I guess that is another place I can imagine hearing The Bee Gees, doing Stayin' Alive as Teresa walks down the center of the street.

I did change up the fishing scene a bit from the first time, by removing her Absorb Health spell and having her just use a dagger to start with. That was the only time she ever used that spell, and I never envisioned her as knowing a great deal of magic. So I took the opportunity to take it out of her repertoire completely and leave her with just the Flare and Heal Minor Wounds spells.


Olen: It was a big relief for me to get out of the confines of the MQ. I had a difficult time writing the early chapters, because they were so dependent on game events. I often felt like I was stuck on a rail.

There is a lot more on her returning to her old home, and you are spot on, her homecoming is really bringing home just how much she has changed since meeting the Emperor. It is like my favorite quote from the Wallflowers:

Man I ain't changed,
but I know I ain't the same.

I did go back and merge a some of the paragraphs together. Thanks for that appraising eye!


* * *

Chapter 6b - You Can't Go Home Again

From what Simplicia had to say, no one in the city knew how Teresa had disappeared, or where she went to. She had simply vanished. Most had assumed that she had been hauled off to prison by the Imperial Legion. But after Volsinius had asked about Teresa, Simplicia had gone to the prison herself to see if she was there, only to be told that they had never arrested her. That led to darker speculations, and even Simplicia herself had begun to fear that Teresa had met her end in some dark alley.

Teresa wondered about that. Surely the legionary who had arrested her would have recorded it somehow? she reasoned. Then she thought about Baurus. Could the Redguard have forged the records and sworn the legionaries to silence? He might have, in order to cover her tracks while she spirited the Amulet of Kings away to Weynon.

It was late afternoon by the time Teresa left the elderly woman and made her way through the city to the Waterfront. She wanted to stay, and spend the entire day with Simplicia. To everyone in the city, even the other street urchins, Simplicia - Simplicia the Slow as they called her - was nothing but one more pile of human wreckage. But to Teresa there was no one in the world more important.

Still, she had things to do, Teresa thought. She needed to get back to her squat and dig up her mortar and pestle. Then she could start working on the ingredients she had gathered since leaving Chorrol and turn them into potions.

In the past she always had to buy the alchemical ingredients she made her potions with, she thought. That, and only selling them to the Imperial City's underbelly, seriously limited the profit she made. Usually it was just enough to get her something to eat and pay off the local protection racketeers.

The Thieves Guild tried to stop the ruffians, she knew, but every time they squashed one gang of punks another sprang up in its place. In places like the Waterfront there was always someone desperate and ruthless enough to do anything to get what they wanted. That would never change.

Maybe now she would start selling her potions to that Breton woman in the Gilded Carafe instead, Teresa thought. She had always been nice when Teresa bought her supplies. So was the man at the Main Ingredient. Yes, Teresa thought, that would be just the thing.

Making her way through the city streets, Teresa was once again intensely aware of how the walls of the city loomed in around her. It felt so confined, she thought. All grey and hard, it reminded her of the prison cell. She wished she could be outside and in the forest again, where everything was so green and endless and full of life.

But wasn't this home? she thought, where she belonged?

As she entered the tunnel that led to the Waterfront, she started to wonder about that. Ever since she had come back, everything seemed so strange. The city had changed somehow. Become smaller, colder, harder. It was not the place she remembered, nor were its people.

By the time she exited the tunnel and was back out into the open air of the Waterfront, Teresa felt distinctly uncomfortable. She saw that the Marie Elena was back in port again as she walked along the docks. Returned from her latest expedition of piracy no doubt, Teresa thought. Everyone knew that her crew did not come by their 'trade goods' honestly, including the legion. If the latter could prove it the entire gang of cutthroats would be floating face down in the harbor. One thing the Empire did not go soft on was piracy.

She stopped then, drew the bow from her back and a string from one of her belt pouches. Looping one end of the flax cord around the bottom nock of the bow, she then placed that end of the bow stave against the instep of her right foot. Taking the top nock of the stave with her left hand, she pulled it toward her while using her right hand to pull the center of the bow in the opposite direction. Leaning into it, she used all of her body to flex the yew far enough for her to fit the other end of the string around the horn of the top nock.

Finished, she returned the now ready bow to her back and walked on as casually as before. In the Elven Gardens walking with a strung bow would get the attention of the legion immediately. But here on the Waterfront no one paid any mind.

Some of the pirates were lounging around the dock next to their ship as Teresa walked by, one of them singing a dirty song about a lady from Wayrest. He stopped as she came near, and gave her a hard, appraising look. So did the other pirates. She noticed hands drifting toward sword hilts, and let her own drift to the arrow bag at her hip. No one said a word. Teresa gave back their stares, and did not flinch or hesitate as she walked by and further down the dock.

She breathed a sigh of relief once she was clear of them. Had she just stared down the worst band of killers on the docks? she thought, was she mad? In the past she would have scampered off into the shadows as soon as they looked at her, not that they had ever paid her any heed before in the first place. She had never been worth their while. Not until today at least.

Things really have changed, Teresa thought. I have changed.

Turning down an alley off the docks, she made her way past a string of run down warehouses, taverns, and brothels. Then she was off the cobblestone streets and into the shantytown she knew all too well. Nothing more than a random sprawl of rickety wooden shacks, the air stank of urine, feces, and sweat that soaked into the dirt underfoot. Still, it was better than the sewer, Teresa thought as she plunged into the maze of rambling buildings.

Finding the hovel she called home, she pushed aside the back door, which was nothing more than a few wooden boards nailed together and propped up against an opening in the wall. The light of a small fire illuminated the single messy room within, revealing two men. One was a skinny Breton, and the other a stocky but hard-looking Nord. The Nord immediately laid his hand on the axe lying on the floor next to him, while the Breton slid down the wall away from where Teresa stood.

Damn! Teresa cursed silently at herself. She was so deep in her thoughts that she had not been paying attention. She had always peeked through the cracks in the walls to see if the shack was empty before she went in, she thought. You never knew who might decide to take the place over.

Without thinking, Teresa pulled the bow from her back. She did not reach for an arrow yet, but her other hand did drift in that direction. She stared directly into the eyes of the Nord, trying to gauge him. She could already see that the Breton was no threat. But the blond northerner looked to be a different story altogether.

"This is our shack," the Nord spat with a cold glare in his eyes. "Git out!"

"I used to live here," Teresa said evenly. "What happened to Geen-Rana?"

"I don' know no Green-Ran," the Nord stared back, hand drifting closer to his axe. "This place was empty when we found it. It's ours now, fair and square."

Teresa wondered how much of that was true, if any of it. Well, she thought, if Geen-Rana was dead, there was nothing she could do to help the Argonian now. Hopefully she had been more cautious than herself, and saw the interlopers first and simply decided to look elsewhere for a roof.

"Okay," she said, still staring at the Nord. "I'll just get my stuff and go."

"You do that," he said, patting the blade of his axe. "And don't get ideas, or I'll send you straight to Oblivion."

Teresa did not say a word, or even nod. Her heart was racing and her palms felt damp within the leather pads of her gauntlets. Still, she moved deeper into the shack, and without taking her eyes off the two men, she used her free hand to pull up a loose floor stone against the back wall. From underneath it she drew forth a small bag, really just a thin blanket folded over and tied off with string.

Teresa did not pause to look within it. She did not want to take her eyes off the Nord. She just hoped what meager belongings she possessed were still within. With what she came for in hand, she backed her way out the door and down the alley outside, until she was sure the two would not come after her. Then she collapsed in a trembling heap and wondered what on Nirn had gotten into her?

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Apr 12 2011, 09:41 PM