Niamh's Adventures in Nirn..., This is a thread featuring a digest of stories about... Options

[PhonAntiPhon]

NIAMH.
But first, who is she?
Well she's a character who I have been acquainted with for a very long time, and with whom I have travelled across many worlds.

She's a Wood-Elf, in Nirn terms - of about 30. She's very much her own boss, and not a terribly pleasant individual. She is, to employ a cliche, "mad, bad, and dangerous to know". She's a hard drinking, promiscuous, authority-hating rebel with baggage enough and troubles enough to fill a volume of psychoanalysts' shelves.

She's maybe 5 feet 8 inches in height, very slender, with pale skin and long black hair and dark, chestnut eyes in deep sockets. She had a predilection for body-piercing and a bad-attitude to personal hygiene. She's a thief and an assassin and pretty much anything else that will garner her gold and a thrill.
In the Nirn universe - (Cyrodiil) - she lives principally in Bravil, but has a shack on the waterfront outside of the walls of the Imperial City, although she spends much of her time in a rather dysfunctional relationship with Jo, one of the local "courtesans", who you will not be reading about on here(!).
In Morrowind she was a loner who pretty much stumbled upon a destiny of sorts more by simply being in a certain place at a certain time than by design; whilst she arrived in Skyrim confused and somehow "altered", more feral and wild, as part of a story arc that started in Cyrodiil and ended back there amidst death and heartache.
Since then she has had a second chance, but is squandering it, reverting once again to type...

Throughout her adventures in Nirn - Morrowind, Cyrodiil, and Skyrim, her character has evolved and changed. She's taken on aspects of each of these variants to become something "other" than what she started as; more rounded, but far more complicated. The ultimate expression of that is in the world that she now inhabits - Varrius, a world created for her specifically, with it's own story arc and characters.
Anyway, that's by-the-by, for the nonce, this thread will have various stories and vignettes that I have written involving her, and the characters that she has interacted with, during the time that she has inhabited the Elder Scrolls universe.
(Only some of the stories are on here, as this is a 13-rated forum, and not everything I write is... suitable. For stories not on here, do feel free to visit Niamh's blog, in the signature.)

I hope you enjoy her stories, it's gives me a lot of pleasure to write them.

This post has been edited by PhonAntiPhon: Jan 19 2013, 04:22 PM

[PhonAntiPhon]

And on the back of that last post, we find ourselves back in The Northern Province once more; unexpected and unasked for. In Skyrim time it's somewhere in the region of 3 months since she was there last, for Niamh herself, it's in the region of 200 years in the future...
Confused? Try walking a mile in her bare feet...

Menchus, the Imperial Captain, surveyed the wreckage around him, his hands on his hips. He chewed pensively at his lower lip, a worried frown on his craggy face.
There was something very familiar about this.

Presently his sergeant, a bucolic veteran by the name of Benefico Scintillius, came puffing up to him across the debris-strewn ground of the camp. He stood to attention and saluted smartly.
"Yes sergeant?" Asked Menchus, regarding the other with an expression that implied he already knew, or had guessed, much of what his subordinate was about to report.
"They're all dead, sir; all dead and in a big pile over thither in the pines." He gestured away behind him to a darker shadow just visible within the penumbral gloom of the treeline, around which were gathered a number of the men from his patrol.
"'Cepting the wounded," he continued, "they was got in the sick tent, arrer each to gizzard."

His captain was silent a moment then said, "All?" As he asked this his grey eyes scanned the treeline and the rocky ground, pale and glittering with frost in the early dawn light, away off to his left.
Scintillius looked sheepish for a moment. "Um no, Sir, the Stormcloak commander still lives, though he is injured somewhat..." His voice trailed off.

Again there came a pause between them. In the crisp air the sounds of the imperial soldiers could be heard; rough shouts and the occasional imprecation, the clank of iron and the heavy cutlery sound of swords being gathered into piles. Somewhere a wolf howled and was answered by a comrade.
The wind soughed and whined amongst the pines and through the guy ropes of the now vacant Stormcloak tents.

"Explain." Ordered Menchus curtly.
Scintillius bent to the task. "Well Sir, the chirurgeon says that 'e will recover enough from 'is physical wounds to stand trial, in the fullness of time." He looked up at his captain. "Though 'e may never walk again 'e thinks. Apparently two of the arrers - the ones in 'is legs - were fired from so close a range as to be easier to pull all the way through, save doin' it nicely." The old sergeant looked glum. "But the thing is see Sir, the thing is, all 'e will say over an' over is about the "Fanke", and 'er one red eye."

Captain Menchus looked down at his sergeant, who returned his gaze saying, his voice low; "You don't fink...?" He looked around conspiratorially. "You don't fink 'e means 'er, do you Sir? Bjornulf's Bane...?"
Menchus was silent for a moment then, quietly, he said; "Whatever you think, sergeant, you keep this quiet from the men." He jabbed a finger at Scintillius. "There are enough myths and fairy stories going round about this cursed province as it is, and stories about wild elf women living naked in trees and swooping in to slaughter folk in the dark are not going to help." He bent his face closer to the older man, raising his eyebrows as if in emphasis.

Scintillius held his captain's gaze for a moment, and then dropped it. "Yes Sir," he said at length, then tapped his bulbous drink-reddened nose with a gnarled finger, "mum's the word."
"Good." Said Menchus. "What happened to sergeant Bjornulf was a terrible thing and personally I would rather have died than to have what happened..." There was an awkward pause, Scintillius coughed. "...er, happen." Continued his captain. "His commanding officer was a personal friend of mine and a very handy man in a fight, and these men," he gestured with his head in the general direction of the troops, "knew that. I am sure that even you can assemble the pieces from that, and arrive at a conclusion as to what would happen were we to promote further the myth of this creature, whoever she is."

Scintillius rather felt that his commander was labouring the point a little overmuch, and being not as stupid as he appeared, the insult regarding his deductive powers had got through; however he supposed the captain was right to be cautious, after all there had been that entire fort outside Whiterun not all that long ago.
"Still Sir," he said brightly, attempting some semblance of optimism, "least she's doin' the goods with the Stormcloaks, eh?"
Menchus sighed.
"But that's hardly the point, sergeant. And besides," he added, almost to himself, "she's "doing" us as well."
Scintillius looked glum.

Note:
The story of Bjornulf and what happened to him can be read on Niamh's Blog. It is not linked to here for reasons that will become abundantly apparent to anyone reading it.
Let's just say it's a cautionary tale...