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]

At the southern end of the long hall was a tumbled pile of broken stones and smashed blocks, fallen long ages past from the ceiling that, high above, arched over her head in a spectacular vault of white marble and limestone, shadowing into inky blackness as it approached it's apex; beyond the reach of even the ethereal glow of the Welkynd stones that dotted the walls of the place at regular intervals, nestled in elaborate sconces fashioned from some strange dark metal.

She was sitting cross-legged behind one of the largest masonary pieces, her back against the smooth, still plastered wall of the mighty chamber. The dry, chill air was very still with only dust motes, drifting lazily in the Welkynd light, revealing the presence of vague currents.
A great silence weighed heavily upon her such that even though she knew that the place wherein she found herself was vast, she nonetheless felt oppressed by the sheer mass of soundless gloom that the hall held within its space.
Indeed, it was as if the darkness within the ancient hall, above the level of the Welkynds, seemed to be possessed of a fearful weight; and it seemed to her that it was only by the intervention of those strange crystals and their eerie glow that she was not crushed utterly.

She was breathless and overwhelmed, particularly after the frantic activity of... when? It could all have happened mere moments ago, or hours for all she knew. Time in this place was meaningless, so much of it having passed within its walls that only a span on the order of a century or more would have any significance at all.
She tilted her head back and looked up at the darkness above her, straining to see the apex of the vaulted ceiling. She took a few deep, slow breaths to calm her heart, the dusty air had an ancient stale taste to it, and she stifled a cough; nervous in the brooding silence, wincing at the accompanying pain in her chest from where she had been bundled roughly over the blocks and into cover.

Her leather britches were torn and her tunic was missing some buttons. She made a face and shifting uncomfortably, grasped tightly at the hilt of her short sword where it lay in her lap. She directed her gaze downwards towards the faerie-glow of the stones on the wall away to her left, not far from the opening.
After a moment, she felt as if a velvet cloak of stillness had closed about her, stifling her senses and pressing her, as it were, down into the hard marbled floor. Unable seemingly to move or to perform any action at all, she closed her eyes and concentrated on keeping calm, running back over what had just happened.
---
she'd elected to visit this particular ruin more out of curiousity than anything. It was reasonably close by and she'd always had a fascination for the ancient Ayleid structures, the opportunity to visit had presented itself and so obviously she had jumped at the chance.
What could go wrong?

The trouble had started almost as soon as she was through the door, she had spotted the bandits almost at the same time as they had spotted her and a frenetic period of cat and mouse had followed, accompanied by the clash of blades, the twang of bow strings and the whine of arrows; added to that the shouts and screams of the wounded and dying and she had come very rapidly to regret her decision to play tourist and to question the wisdom of ignoring the repeated warnings that she had been given.
Eventually staying safe had become virtually impossible and she had ended up behind the pile of rubble. Bruised, battered, breathless and terrified she had remained as silent as she could, listening to the sounds of combat and running feet ebb and flow not ten feet away and fearing that she would be discovered and slain horribly and violently at any moment.
Finally it was with a certain relief that she heard the noise disappear off down a side passage, through the opening in the wall that she could see from her hiding place.

It did not help at all that she was perfectly aware of the fact that not that far from her hiding place were several corpses, additionally she herself was not exactly proficient with a blade being, as it were, more of a non-combative cat burglar as much as anything and that was not something she had done very much in the last few years.
Worse though was the fact that she was alone with no idea what had happened or, if the worst had happened, what she should do next. Try as she might to ward it off, the spectre of fear was climbing up her back with cold hard fingers. Her stomach suddenly became heavy and she felt as if her heart were pumping ice water around her body.
"Breathe!" She commanded herself in a soft whisper.
Slowly she regained some control of herself. She should, she supposed, be glad it was only bandits. It could have been much worse.

Suddenly, her breath caught in her throat.
Right at the edge of hearing she could have sworn she heard a noise, the sound of a single, soft footfall. Just one.
Her eyes widened in fear and, her heart pounding in her ears she sat as still as she could, desperately trying to hold her breath and straining to hear any sound at all.
She scanned what she could see of the hall that she was in, but all looked as it had and certainly she had not seen anything come out of the passageway.
For a moment all was silent and stillness, as it had for centuries beyond count, reigned supreme.
But then...

...To her right she caught a movement in the shadows by the wall. Almost against her will her head turned towards those shadows, she could almost hear the tendons in her neck creaking, her breath trembled in her throat, perspiration beaded on her forehead.
There was something moving stealthily towards her.
Placing her hands on the cold stone of the floor she started to shuffle away to her left until she was pressed up against the unyielding rubble that surrounded her.
Still the shape came on, she could see it - a darker shadow against the blackness of the corner behind it. Any moment now it would move into the light.
At least she would face her destiny, that was something she supposed.

The figure came on, into the light of the Welkynds, it was holding a sword, jewelry glittered in it's long ears, it opened its mouth. She closed her eyes and turned her head away, holding up a hand.
"Gods! Make it quick..." She thought.

...and...

"Looch!" Hissed Niamh impatiently. "Stop muckin' about!"
Luciana opened her eyes and looked up into the Bosmer's face, HER Bosmer's face.
"Come on. " Said Niamh more gently, "sorry I took so long, place is bigger'an I thought. It's best we get back home, d'ye think?"

Luciana was so relieved she didn't know whether to hug the Wood Elf or slap her. In the end she did neither, and just burst into tears.