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]

-A BIT OF BUSINESS-

It was a bright sunny day.
The sky was a deep, rich blue darkening to nearly black at the zenith of its vault.
A breeze, blowing gently off of the hills behind her ran it's warm fingers through her long black and red ponytail. The sun warmed her pale skin as she gazed through deep, chestnut-coloured eyes out across the Abacean sea, towards the sparkling horizon.

Further down the slope upon which she stood, perhaps some fifty or sixty feet, the sea lapped against the land in slow, shallow waves. The clear water, deepening further out to a shade that matched in hue the sky far above her, revealed beneath it the rocky shore, submerged for the moment until the complex interplay of Massa and Secunda drew the waters back from it once again.

She'd been looking out at the horizon line for some time now, wondering idly as to what might lie beyond that sun-spangled curve of ocean.
Finally she sighed and , sucking in unconscious habit at the ring piercing through her lower lip, turned her back on the water and faced the land once more.

Climbing up the steep slope, through the long waving stalks of lush green grass, she arrived at the crest of the hill.
To her fore was the old cottage she had once shared with Vilja, now overgrown with brambles and weeds, a prisoner of fruits, thorns and bright, green-stemmed flowers.
Upon her right, beyond the crest of the hill and past the standing stones lay the town of Anvil, its busy harbour bustling with porters unloading goods from several vessels moored there, having lately come round the coast, down from the north.
The sounds of their voices, and of their busy employment, drifted up to her, muted and wavering in the breeze.

All around her, the grasses and flowering shrubs were alive with the hum of insects and the scurrying of small creatures. Above her seagulls argued, fleeing out to sea, boystrously harassing each other.

All in all, a very pleasant day.

She sighed. It was all a bit of a shame really; still, business was business.
She walked through the tall grass to the shadows by the side of the cottage. It was cooler here, and her Dwemer suit's arcane and mysterious systems came to life, hidden blades whirling within it as it strove to keep it's internal temperature stable.
There was a barely perceptible hum, certainly nothing that would have masked the, somewhat muffled, puffing and gasping coming from the bound and hooded figure who had been shoved unceremoniously up against the cottage wall, hidden by the shadows and a gnarled, elderly rosebush.

She stood over the huddled form, regarding it for a moment, thoughtfully.
Finally, she squatted down by the figure and reaching out, pulled the hood up over the face, revealing it.

It was not pleasant, now.
It had once been the face of a relatively handsome man of middle years, now though it was lined and gaunt and of an unhealthy pallor; the nose flat, nostrils wide and flared against the not insignificant cheekbones.
His eyes were a deep, blood red, the pupils dark and malevolent pits.

She waited whilst the creature took a deep breath of air in through it's broad nose.
"Are ye ready to behave, now?" Asked Niamh quietly. "Will ye tell me what I want te know...?"
This latter she asked with not much hope, but you never could tell.

For answer, the vampire snarled at her, pulling back its thin, pale lips to reveal sharp, long canines. Its breath stank of carrion.
Niamh smiled resignedly.
"We've spoke about this before, " she said softly, almost gently, "I said, so I did, that I have a set just like them..."

She bared her own teeth then, revealing dog-like canines.
"See? Ye aren't so special."

Pulling back her arm, she visited a slap with the back of her armoured hand across the vampire's face.
Its head snapped round to the side, a spurt of blood jetting from between it's lips.
It turned its heead back to glare at her balefully.

For a moment longer she regarded it, chewing on the ring in her lip, her dark eyes intent, as if by sheer force of will she could gather up the secrets hidden within the creature's head.

But there was nothing.

"Tis clear to me, " she said at length, "That ye'll no be givin' me what I want."
She stood up, scratched at her nose with a gloved hand.
"So I'll just be takin' what I can get, so I will."
The vampire narrowed it's eyes at this last comment.
"And what's that?" It hissed, blood bubbling from its injured mouth.

"Your existence."

Bending down, Niamh grabbed the creature's bound feet and pulled it slowly out of the shadows by the cottage wall, and into the light.
The ingenious mechanisms of the suit she wore hummed and clicked quietly, providing her with a strength and grip far beyond even that of her slender, sinewy, but not incapable body.

She kept her eyes on the vampire's face and grinned wolfishly as she saw realisation of her intent dawning there.
Scorn and spite transmuted in a moment into fear before her.
The creature started to struggle, but to no avail, as she dragged it inexorably out into the sunlight and towards its destiny.

She paused, at a point where the creature's head - the only uncovered part of its body - was still, just, in shadow.

"Last chance for ye, Silas." She said, dropping the vampire's legs onto the ground. From out of the ends of its canvas trousers, dark brown against the rich green of the grass, tiny wisps of steam had begun to appear.

"You'll end me, either way." Breathed the creature, beads of sweat breaking out on it's shadowed face. "So what's in it for me?"
Niamh shrugged.
"Nothin' really. Just figured I'd ask - for the look of it an' all."
She bent to pick up Silas' legs once again.
"If ye was gonna tell me sumthin', ye would have by now." She remarked matter of factly. "And anyways," she took a step backwards, "tis a lovely day an' I fancy a dip in the sea, so I do; I've better things to do than listen to the likes o' ye fabricatin' tales just te save ye're sorry hide..."

Without further ado, she dragged the vampire fully out into the sunlight.
The effect, which she had not actually had occasion to observe before, was both fascinating and somewhat on the gruesome side.

Almost as soon as the sunlight touched his bare face, Silas the vampire began to writhe on the ground, feet thumping against the earth, digging great clods out of it.
The creature's face began to steam and blister, and from it's mouth came a sound not unlike that of a mudcrab when plunged into boiling water.

Niamh watched Silas a moment longer as he twitched and shuddered violently; steaming upon the ground, boiling vapours shrieking from his nose, mouth and ears.
Soon his eyes had turned blank white and he started to melt into the earth, bubbling flesh sloughing off of his skull.

She turned away then, looked back out towards the ocean, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her face.
She unclasped her armoured gloves and began to manipulate the runes that shut down the suit's systems.

It really was a lovely day.

-END-