Author's Notes: hey, so uhh... this is my first Oblivion fanfic and I hope you guys will like it :D oh! btw, comments are really encouraged XD Disclaimer (for the entire fic): I do not own Oblivion… but I WISH I did :D

Chapter 1: Dark Musings of a Child

In over forty years since the days of Jagar Tharn and the Imperial Simulacrum, no one has escaped from the Imperial Prison. No one has been able to leave its walls without serving the sentence given. No one has been able to leave this place, unharmed or unperturbed. So perhaps, that was the reason why she, a small Bosmer girl no more than thirteen years of age, was crying in a gray, dankly cell.

She sat, her knees close to her chest, by the corner of her cell. Her eyes were closed shut, as tears continued to trickle down her face. She had been caught; she had been caught red-handed by the guards. She did not merely pick pocket, instead she had been stealing some items in the Arcane University and she accidentally assaulted a guard in her distressed state. They had caught her, of course they would, what was she to do? Fight them? Try to run them off? Well, she had tried both and she had failed.

If only they had listened, she thought. She had good enough reason to do what she did.

"I needed the ingredients… I needed them" She had pleaded with them earlier.

"What would a street girl possibly need Clannfear Claws, an Elf Cup Cap, a Mandrake Root and a Root Pulp for?!" The guard asked her in incredulity

"It's… It's for a friend! She's sick and she's dying and she needs those so that she can get well!" She replied in desperation, wanting to get out of here as quickly as possible.

"Well are you aware that stealing is still against the law?" He asked her, an eyebrow of his raising in disdain

"But! But I wasn't stealing… I mean, I know that I technically stole something, but that's because I forgot my money back at the waterfront and I had no time to go back for it!" She answered as she stood up from her chair, her eyes pleading.

"Silence! You thieves and your excuses! Well then, here's another question for you, why the Arcane University? Were you trying to prove something to your fellow thieves? Maybe you were trying to join the thieves guild!? "He said pointing an accusing finger at her

"Wha-what!? I wasn't- I would never- I-I-" she stuttered in disbelief

"Silence! Moreover, how did you even get in the Arcane University? The University is only open to mages who have all the recommendations from all the guild halls throughout Cyrodiil. And from the way I see it, you are a very unlikely character to fit those descriptions" He said smugly and it was then that she realized that she got herself in quite a fix.

"The- There was a man, one of the guys who were guarding the gates, who gave me passage!" She explained sitting back down

"Oh really now? A trained battle mage just lets a girl enter the University?" He replied, his tone smug and irritated.

"But it's true! I swear!" she said as tears started to form at the sides of her eyes

"Like I would believe a word that comes out of your filthy, conniving mouth! Why don't you just tell us the truth and maybe we'll go easy on you" He said in thought yet in his eyes and in his actions she knew that he was only bluffing

"I am telling the truth!" she snapped the tears falling down her face

"Alright then, if you're going to be that way, then let's just see how you react to force…"

She wiped her tears away with the use of a sleeve as she somberly placed her head on her knees. "They… they were for a friend…" She repeated to herself as she tried to calm her frayed nerves. She stopped the onslaught of tears that she knew threatened to spill. Yet at the thought of her failure to retrieve, no, deliver the items needed to save the only friend that she had, her resolve broke and she was at the mercy of her tears. What was she to do now?

ooOoo

Night time had come, slowly and she, the beautiful Bosmer child, now laid on the cold hard floor in deep slumber. The moonlight that passed through the tiny barred cell window illumined her small heart-shaped face. It showed her porcelain complexion, her high cheek bones and her small nose. It also showed her slender pinkish lips, her long lashes and her straight long dark crimson hair. It was unusual to see such a dark shade of red for a Bosmer, yes, there were others who did have the same hair color, but not as dark as hers. Yet perhaps, the most startling of her qualities was the color of her eyes; eyes that were now opening to her darkened surroundings.

She rubbed her eyes wearily as she sat back up and under her pale eyelids were black irises. After the initial shock of her fate and the fate of her friend the only thing that shown in her eyes was anxiety. Was she to live the remainder of her life waiting anxiously for death to come or for her sanity to leave? Was this what the gods had in store for her? After all the hardships that she had been through, was this how it was meant to end? Abruptly, her questions had to remain unanswered for the moment, for in an instant a tiny squeaking sound caught her undivided attention.

Another squeak. Was she losing her sanity already?

Another one and another one. Where was that coming from?

Squeak. The corner, yes, definitely the corner.

She stood on frail, bruised legs, her eyes glazed with vigilance and apprehension. She deliberated quietly whether or not she should make her way over to the other side yet, as always, her mind was already made up. She knew that curiosity would always get the best of her yet she still had to consider her options. With a deep intake of breath, she took a silent step forward. Her left hand outreached instinctively and her right was closed into a fist. Another step, and so on so forth until finally one last step… Silence

And then it leapt.

She yelped in alarm as she fell backwards. She could feel it sink its teeth into her flesh as it started to nibble. She knew quite well what this was and she tried as hard as she could to stop seeing the visions; visions of the past that she had tried so hard to forget.

Biting… so much biting

It hurts… please make it stop!

Make it stop!

She hissed in fury and with all the strength that she could muster, she pushed the rodent to the side. She lifted herself off the ground, her arms covered in dirt and blood. However, before she could get further away it attacked once again yet this time she saw it coming. With a roar of her own, she sent her fist in its way. Her knuckles collided with its teeth before the vermin fell to the ground. Pain surged through her entire arm yet she simply ignored it. This time, she did not let it get up. She grabbed a tan jug, which was present in her cell, and she brought it down upon her assailant. Bone crushed each time she struck and blood sprayed onto her clothes, onto her body and eventually her face. She had become crazed and in this frenzied state, she'd seem to have lost her mind.

Images continued to flood through her mind as she remained oblivious to what she was doing. All that she saw, all that she heard, all that she felt was not of this place, not of this time. It was back then, back when she was a different person, back when she had a different life. She wasn't always like this, a street kid who begged for a living, a girl who would do things to survive. No, she was born to a life of nobility. She had lived the life of a noble. She was pampered, she was taken care of, and she was loved. She was loved by parents who made sure that she was safe, parents who gave her what she needed and what she wanted, parents who would, no, had died for her.

Her life, their lives, it all ended that night; that night when he, a man clad in leather black armor, came. He went into her parents bedchambers and she, being the ever curious child, followed him. She knew that he sensed her presence yet he didn't tell her to go back; he didn't even so much look at her and when they arrived at his destination, her father gasped three words in alarm, three words that she knew would haunt her forever, "The Dark Brotherhood". He slaughtered her parents before her very own eyes. She didn't run, not because she was paralyzed in fear instead it was for a completely opposite reason.

She fought him off, no matter how futile she knew her efforts were and when he grew tired of her assaults, he had merely thrown her over his shoulder. He took her downstairs to the cellar, there he took a part of her sanity, a part of her being and when he was through with her, he simply left her there to rot. She would never forget him, she would never forget those shifty brown eyes; for it was the last thing she saw before he closed the door on her, before he deprived her of the only light available. It wasn't long before rats came and started nibbling on her flesh. She had spent days in the cellar, hungry, covered in blood and terrified. She had entered the cellar, a beautiful innocent girl and left a monster with nothing but horrible memories left.

This hellhole was all his doing. He was the reason why she had to beg, steal and sell herself for survival. He was the obvious reason that her parents had died. He was the reason why her life, why her being, why her sanity was now crashing to the ground. He and the Dark Brotherhood were the reasons…

Revenge, she wanted it. She yearned for it more than she yearned for life now. She wanted him to pay along with this Dark Brotherhood. She was determined to hunt him down to the ends of Tamriel. She was determined to search the seas, through mountains, through plains to find him. And if by some unfortunate event that he had died, then she would hunt him in all the Oblivion planes. And when she finds him, when she finally has his sickening throat in her hands, she'll make him pay. She'll make him pay…

She wiped her eyes roughly with her hand, blood smearing over her face. No more tears, she told herself as she stood up. She held the jug tightly in her grasp as she observed her doing. The rat was no more; it wasn't even recognizable anymore. Silence once again until finally, her maniacal cackle echoed throughout the entire prison. She was lost, lost to her morals and her sense of forgiveness.

And so started the dark musings of a child, so started the beginning of a dark journey and so starts the beginning of an end.

A/N: uhh... so that's the end of Chapter 1 :D RnR