Alera, Ambush

Alera Silius was born a commoner in Cheydinhal, one of the nine major counties in Cyrodiil and the closest one to Morrowind. Her mother passed away when she was six, and her father remained a distant drunkard since her death. But she survived.

One woman by the name of Trisha Viducia had given her reluctant approval when Alera asked for a job at her smithy and weapon shop, The March Rider. Alera had been working there for the last five years as an attendant to the shop and over a year ago earned Trisha's favor to be taught as her apprentice blacksmith.

Trisha had come to love Alera not just for her talent, diligence, and hardiness, but for a special talent that Alera refused to believe she had.

Raising her voice to be heard across a bar resulted in everyone present getting chills and trying their best to do whatever she wanted, customers who were getting too aggressive and ornery with her boss had knelt on the floor a minute later when Alera came out to demand they apologize for being unreasonable. Men she witnessed getting too handsy with a waitress would faint after a simple "HEY!". She was a local calamity, and despite having flawless beauty and character that shone like a star no matter where she went, her reputation preceded her.

Men around here avoided her like the plague because they thought she was some experienced killer who had come to settle down, but she liked her quiet life even with that caveat. It was set! She would remain a blacksmith here for the rest of her life, maybe getting lucky enough to settle down and inherit the shop from Trisha one day, just as she did from her mother. If not, she could move out one day and go start a shop of her own in a county that didn't fear her.

At least, three days ago she would have thought as much.

Just two days ago, the chaos that had befallen Bravil which had been spreading from south to further north, had reached Cheydinhal and came to a crescendo.

Looters taking advantage of the thinly spread Imperial forces due to the chaos of the South and the sudden defeat of Aldmeri forces that the Mede Dynasty was attempting to take advantage of, had come and killed the easy pickings that the local guard forces had become.

Trisha and Alera were barely closing up shop, it was dark enough outside to call it a night. Trisha's home was the shop but Alera was at an Inn further in town just up the road. They bid farewell and Alera walked out the door.

When she left, she saw a group of five shabbily dressed men and one... 'Is that a jester?' hanging around a corner, all but two of them carrying torches. She thought nothing of it, and they avoided her as if waiting.

The men, assured that the building was now empty due to lack of information, made their move and broke the door down swiftly. The two without torches manned the door while the rest went inside, picking things off shelves and filling their packs, making more than enough racket to wake the owner.

Trisha went downstairs, slowly and carefully, sword at the ready. She had only owned the place for 12 years, but this wasn't her first robbery.

All three of the men in the main lobby had their backs turned, one was already in her storage basement without her knowledge. Trisha moved without hesitation, plunging her blade by the name of Captain Kordan's Saber into the back of one would-be thief. The wind was driven from him and he gasped with a horrible gurgle, startling both of his present companions who backed away and pointed their torches at her instinctually.

"Now now, be a good lass and you won't get hurt and we'll be on our way," Spoke one in a cockney accent.

"Yes yes, you can't beat both of us!" Another hissed in agreement.

"I can and I will, welps. Leave or die pitifully," She held her sword in a steady stance, a far cry from her opponents.

The pair looked at each other before the one to her left threw a torch at her face, she still managed to deflect its trajectory and block the incoming shortsword from the same man. The other swung unskillfully overhead, but she still had to weave around the outside of the blocked man's sword hand while sliding her own through his neck. She returned her stance to point at the one with the torch while her victim knelt. Perhaps out of spite, he still managed to turn around and give her a shallow stab in the ankle before his lungs filled with too much blood.

'Tch, I just have to buy time for the jester. I can do-'

Trisha weaved around her latest kill and approached the last one slowly, before she finally got in range and lunged with a clean strike despite her pain. She was parried with one hand of the man's the other used his torch as a weapon and swung widely, nearly clipping Trisha in the side of the head had she not backed up a bit.

Wildly he kept switching between torch and blade as he kept an aggressive rhythm to ensure she would keep backing up, Trisha wasn't good at dodging repeatedly backward with her injury, he thought he would be victorious even without the jester!

But Trisha found his rhythm and superseded it. One more swing of his Torch left his guard open before the sword would come and she cut into his uncreative pattern with a swing through his side. He felt his first wound, but gained a second before he could turn around. Trisha had plunged her cutlass through his neck.

She let out a sigh and slouched on the ground before promising to start teaching Alera to wield a blade. 'Not that she'll need it, lass could've probably handled this with a few sternly worded-'

*SQUELCH*

A dagger made its way through her back and sprouted from her upper chest just below her neck. She tried gasping for air but just like the second thief, blood was quickly filling her airways.

She turned her neck and couldn't see anyone, struggling to pick up the blade at her side.

The assailant pulled the dagger out and used the hilt to bash the side of Trisha's head, knocking her on the ground and away from her sword.

"Tisk tisk, you've made a mess for poor poor Cicero!" Came a raspy and ridiculous voice.

She looked up and saw him, a square-faced and wrinkled man in a bloody jester's outfit, red and black taking turns on its checkerboard pattern. He knelt and a smile that stretched too wide yet didn't reach his beady and cruel eyes squirm across his face.

"Do tell the Nightmother I said hello!"

He walked away with three packs filled with gold and metals on his back, giving a slight glance to the torch that was dropped and already causing a fire to spread.

When he came out and passed the doormen he looked to his right and saw a girl in leather upper armor and a gown with a dagger strapped to her side staring at them blankly.

"Ooooo another who wishes to see the mother?" He squealed with glee.

Alarmed by his hysterics, anxious at this odd scene, she shouted.

"WHO ARE YOU?! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

Her shout made Cicero and the two doormens' hearts reel back into their throats and sent shivers down the spine of the experienced assassin.

"Ooooo, too much too much, musn't be delayed. A new sanctuary, a new chapter! Poor Cicero must tend to Mother!" In his own words, he deemed the girl too risky an opponent.

He turned the other direction and fled into the darkness.

"What about our cut!" One doorman came to and shouted after the heist organizer who fled without warning.

"Time to make a run for it, he can't be depended on," Spoke the other, also treated the approaching girl as thin air before turning to follow in Cicero's direction.

"HEY!" She broke into a mad dash.

The doormen paused and looked behind them, infuriated that she managed to frighten them. They each drew swords to prepare for combat, but then the door started letting off an obvious orange hue.

They exchanged glances before they turned tail and refused to stay a minute longer. What better way to attract the guards than a house fire.

Alera stood tongue-tied, unable to prevent them from leaving, then digested the fact that their shop was on fire and Trisha was still inside.

"TRISHAAAA!"

Making her way to the door, her heart dug its way deeper and deeper into her tightening chest as she flung it open and temporarily blinded herself.

Orange flames were covering the majority of the floor, rising up the walls to and onto the bodies that were on the ground.

Three bandits, looking just like the men she just saw outside.

'No, no, no'

A hand raised in the corner of the room, startling Alera out of her stupor. A feminine hand that held hers many a time.

She charged through the ankle-high flames without hesitation to reach Trisha, kneeling down to her level and putting her arm between her thighs and on her shoulder to pick her up in a fireman's carry.

Alera charged out of the shop, smoke filling her vision the whole way and her calves sizzling after the flames destroyed her dress. It was only 20 feet, she was out in no time and gently laid Trisha down across the street.

Alera finally had a chance to look at the woman who looked after her. A wound that bled down her chest, burn marks up her arms and across her bare legs, her breathing near nonexistent. "Trisha... Trisha!!!!" She didn't want to shout in her face, so she clutched her hands gently and pleaded for her to wake up and brush this all off, her expression grimaced at the unfairness and dread hanging over her.

Trisha barely fluttered her eyelids open and smiled gently, brushing her calloused hands across Alera's teary face.

"Run... lass, Skyfor..." Cracking, gurgling, wheezing, one could tell it was all she could do to get those words out. That was all she could manage before her hand fell back down and her eyes closed one last time.

Alera sat beside her, still holding her hand, and wept as the shop across the street slowly transformed into a pyre.

───※ ·❆· ※───

The guards took a statement but didn't help, the mage who put out the fire didn't help, the only thing recovered from the shop that survived was Captain Kordan's Saber. Trisha had no next of kin, the cutlass was given to her as a parting gift.

Alera had enough of this town, this Province. Word of unrest is spreading across Cyrodiil from Bravil was all one heard nowadays and she finally felt it firsthand. The Council and Emperor seemed more concerned with taking back foreign land they had lost to the Altmer than taking care of their own nation, anyway.

Her Empire failed Trisha, she hated them. Her neighbors looked at Alera with pity or even suspicion but never gave a word of solace. She hated them. Alera did nothing to warn Trisha about those sketchy bunch or even go back inside to help if need be, she hated herself. That fucking jester, she hated him!

It was time for a change of scenery, she couldn't stay here any longer.

Skyrim seemed quiet, if a bit cold. She would make due there and pursue the Skyforge the Companions had the pleasure of living beside, like she and Trisha always daydreamed of like a fairy tale. They were her last words, it's what she would have wanted.

So she saddled up a horse and went to Bruma with her savings, then prepared for the long haul through the Pale Pass that connected Skyrim and steeled her heart for change.

But then came the long trek over the mountains that separated them. The main road was covered in snow and her horse wasn't used to this kind of weather, complaining to her frequently. Signs beside the road had mentioned the first town she would be landing at a few times now.

She hoped Helgen would be nice.

Cyrodiil was already hours at her back, this was her new home now. She spent hours on the road at a decent gallop, resting only to give her horse water and take a bite of her stored rolls occasionally. Her expression couldn't have been darker despite the hope of a new day. Blame still hovered over her, guilt still weighed her head down.

With her barely taking any notice, a fifty-strong group of men in furs and steel helms had taken to her left and right and kept stride with her while barely passing her. She knew of the Stormcloaks through news and such, but this was her first time seeing them. She tried coaxing her horse to slow down and avoid getting into trouble by association. The air was getting tense, she could feel it.

But it was too late.

"Ready!" Shouted a middle-aged man somewhere in the forest. The men just ahead in blue drew their warhammers and bows to the direction of the voice.

From the trees to either side of the path, men in red by dozens left their hiding places and drew their bows.

"Fire!"

'What the hell-'

"SKYRIM IS FOR THE NORDS!"

"FOR SKYRIM!!"

"YAAAAAHHHHH!!!!"

The Stormcloaks charged up the short inclines to either side with their horses to meet the archers head-on, many arrows met their targets and peppered horses and their riders. Twenty men fell in the first volley.

Alera's horse panicked and reared up before trotting in place and looking for somewhere to run. It chose forward, past the main collision. Alera tried to pull at the reins and command it, but her fear-inflicting voice wasn't doing any good. She rolled off the horse with only her cutlass to her name, hitting the ground hard and nearly passing out instantly.

Up ahead, her horse was struck with 3 arrows as the battle turned chaotic. Arrows whizzed into the men who were merely thirty feet ahead of Alera, making thunks into the riders. One arrow narrowly missed a Stormcloak and came flying right toward the prone Alera. She had just looked up groggily to see the projectile 10 feet and closing too fast, she barely registered it when it veered off course by a long shot as if magically and was lost in the snowy forest.

'I-I was almost dead. I was definitely almost killed... what happened?!' Blood was caked to her forehead from her fall, she was barely staying awake by adrenaline.

Before long, a charge of Imperial cavalry made its way around the bend and collided with the dispersed Stormcloaks, killing all but two men and Alera who witnessed it all.

General Tullius came forward from the clearing to observe the results, and leveled his gaze at a familiar man before growing an incredible grin. The last thing Alera heard before she passed out was him saying: "Surround him! I want him alive! Do not break formation! Replace every gap with another man!"

───※ ·❆· ※───

Tullius had successfully captured Ulfric, and damn did it feel good. He wanted to perform the meritorious execution before anything could go wrong. Helgen was closest.

"Send a garrison to take control of Helgen and prepare an execution! Collect all the ones who are still alive and bring them for attendance." He left off with that, going to the front of a caravan that had come around the same bend the cavalry did thirty minutes prior.

Bodies were checked and tossed aside, a few were pulled into a wagon and bound with rope. One soldier found Alera unconscious.

"Here's another one, this one doesn't dress like a Stormcloak, sir." One projected to the present Captain.

"Bring her along, don't take any risks"

{Next Chapter: I Tell You, I Tell You the Dragonborn Comes}