I. With friends like these.

Julie awoke with a start, not knowing where she was. She remembered falling asleep in the Sleeping Giant inn, and now she is... here.

"Sleep Well?" She heard a feminine voice come from near her. Julie jolted her head in the direction and revealed a obviously human women, dressed in skin-tight black and red armor, perching up top of a book shelf.

"What? Where am I? Who are you?" Julie purred through her drugged mouth.

"Does it matter? You're warm, dry... and still very much alive. That's more than can be said for old Grelod, hmm?" Came the snarky response.

Julie was taken aback. She thought that that was only a dream. More of a nightmare really. Her mind quickly went over the details: Breaking into Aventus Aretino's house. Answering his call from a 'Black Sacrement,' whatever that was. Opening the door to the Orphanage, hearing the ominous creak of molding wood. Hiding behind the wooden wall, listening to Grelod's menacing words directed at the children. Her blood boiled as she continued to listen to Grelod's harshness. Finally she couldn't take anymore. Julie felt like she had to defend those poor kids. She unsheathed her hunting bow and pulled an arrow out of her quiver. Her steady hands quickly snapped the arrow to the bow and pulled back. Julie leaned out of her cover and let fly a glorious arrow. Straight through the path of children, and struck dead in Grelod's forehead. Shakily, Julie dropped her bow to the ground and laid on her knee's. Her elegant hands covering her face as she realized what she had just done. Taken a life. She had only taken lives before out of self-defense. Making sure she was left alive, for something greater was going to need her help.

Her mind returned to the present as she opened her eye's and returned to the problem at hand.

"You know about that?" She hissed at Astrid.

"Half of Skyrim knows. Old hag gets butchered in her own orphanage? Things like that tend to get around." Came the mocking response. Her voice was shrouded in mystery, and Julie knew she wasn't going to make it out of this one-room shack alive. She began searching the room as Astrid continued. "Oh, but don't minsunderstand. I'm not criticizing. It was a good kill. Old crone had it coming. And you saved a group of urchins, to boot... but there is a slight... mm... Problem." She finished.

Julie saw the book shelf. She saw Astrid. She saw the wooden floorboards, walls, and slanted roof. And she finally laid her eye's upon three people at the other side of the quiant shack. They all were on their knee's, had a black mask over their head, hands binded behind their backs and were all noticably struggling to get free.

"A problem?" Julie asked innocently while caught in a daze, staring at the hoodwinked people before her.

"You see, that little Aretino boy was looking for the Dark Brotherhood. For me... and my associates. Grelod the Kind was, by all rights, a Dark Brotherhood contract. A kill... that you stole. A kill you must repay." Astrid's voice came from up top the bookshelf. It still had that mischevious placid ring to it. Julie was silent for a few moments. Thinking over what Astrid is telling her.

Dark Brotherhood... Me, and my associates... A kill you must repay.

Julie instictively backed against the wall, her eyes widening.

"You want me to murder someone else..." She said shakily, cringing at the memory of killing Grelod. She was mean, but no one deserves an ill-timed death. Julie became ever so frightened by Astrid's motives. "Who...?"

"Well now. Funny you should ask. If you turn around, you'll notice my guests. I've 'collected' them from... well, that's not really important. The here and now. That's what matters. You see, there's a contract out on one of them, and that person can't leave this room alive. But..." Astrid took a dramatic pause, sighing in contemptment. "Which one? Go on, see if you can figure it out. Make your choice. Make your kill. I just want to observe... and admire." She added in a sinister tone.

Julie just sat with her head pressed against the wall, her knee's curled up and her arms hugging them. Saying nothing, she takes full uses of her senses. Going into her hunting trance, her instinctual zen mindset begins to cloud her vision. The smells of the other people filtering through her nose.

"Am I to take your silence as acceptance?" The rogue on the bookshelf interrupts her sense-overdrive, then continues without allowed Julie to speak. "Then you know where we stand. Make you kill, and we're square. Repayment of your debt is but a discreet knife thrust away."

Julie almost blacks out again, due to the emotional quality of her minutes awake. Stressed, and guilty, Julie clambers off the bed, and stands up eyeing down the three suspects. She strode over to them quietly, and decided she would talk to them from left to right.

She approaching Fultheim the Fearless. Human. He was dressed in leather studded armor, hands bound behind him, and a mask donned like the others.

"Is this about that raid last week? I told Holgrim there was no honour in killing sleeping men, but he wouldn't listen! It wasn't my fault, I swear!"Fultheim speaks upon noticing the floorboards creak infront of him, indicating Julie's presence.

"Who are you?" Julie asked pleasantly. Straight to the point.

"My name is Fultheim. I'm a soldier. Well, mercenary, really. You know, a... a sellsword. I've lived in Skyrim all my life. That's all! I'm a nobody, really. So can't you just let me go?" Fultheim the Fearless begged. It was pitiful for Julie to watch. Surely, a once great soldier, but in the captured hands of mystery, fear crept into his mind. Subdued him, and made him scared.

"Would someone pay to have you killed?" She asked Fultheim with a quavering voice. Death had always made her quesy. She hated it. Ever since Julie was captured by the Imperials at the border, all up until now. She has been growing to learn to accept it as a way of life, and not just a sin.

"What? Oh gods... I-i don't want to die.." Came his pathetic response. Julie sighed in frustration. Why must everyone be so hard to get along with? You ask them a question, and they talk on and on, bed and plead, but it will never happen until you answer.

"Answer me, or die!" Julie's voice was harsh, perhaps more harsh than she had meant, but it got the job done.

"Wait... Please! I don't know! I mean, I'm a soldier, I've killed people. When I was ordered to. Maybe there were some times... some times I got carried away? But.. war is war. Right? Nobody could blame me for that... Could they?" Fultheim tried desprately for an excuse. However, the more he kept rambling only made Julie angrier. People could control themselves, it is merely a desicion of: Do you want to?

Julie left Fultheim sputtered his useless words and walked over to the woman in the middle. Alea Quintus was her name. She was dressed in a typical house-maids outfit, vanilla and a faded red colour.

"Get these things off of me!" She shouted once Julie presented herself.

"Who are you...?" Julie asked her, like she did with Fultheim.

"None of your damned business who I am! If you're going to kill me, just do it already. As Mara is my witness, if I didn't have this hood on right now I would spit irght in your face..." Alea's only response was so stuck-up, it made Julie want to kick her in her little snotty head. Thankfully, the weight of knowing what she would have to do to escape kept her emotions silent.

"Would someone pay to have you killed?" Julie asked, her voice laced with fake sincerity.

"Excuse me? What kind of question is that?!" Julie simply sighed and breathed out deeply and silently.

"One last time: Would. Someone. Pay. To. Have. You. Killed?" Julie stated as simple as she could manage.

"I'm kneeling here with my hands bound and a sack over my head, and you have the gall to ask that!? What do you think, genius?" Alea's reply almost hurt Julie's soft ears as the malevolent words came crashing down on her. It was then, she decided she would move on to the next person.

Walking over to the last suspect, Vasha. Julie's night-eye outlined Vasha as quite a lean figure, quite fit. Yet she found only confidence and pride stemming off him. Vasha donned a rich fellows attire. A brown and gold-trimmed outfit rested ontop of a burgandy shirt.

"Whoever this is, clearly we got off on the wrong foot. Ah, but no worries. This is not the first time I have been bagged and dragged." Vasha purred proudly.

"Who are you?" Julie replied sheepishly.

"Ahhh... Vasha, at your service. Obtainer of goods, taker of lives, and defiler of daughters." Julie hissed while her anger was reawakened. "Have you not heard of me? Perhaps I will have my people carve my name in your corpse, as a reminder." Vasha threatened nonchalantly.

"Would someone pay to have you killed?" Julie asked through gritted teeth, which was, at the time, great restraint on her part.

"Me? Ha! Are you serious?" Was his only answer, which made Julie even more mad... if that was possible.

"Answer me, or I'll paint this room with your blood!" Julie barked angrily.

"Fool! Don't you get it? I live in the shadow of death every day." Vasha tried to explain. "A knife in every doorway, a nocked arrow on every rooftop! If one of my enemies wouldn't pay to have me killed, I'd take it as a personal insult."

Soon enough, Julie couldn't take any more of Vasha's trash that he was spilling. He made her blood boil. She scared herself when she found her hand gliding down to her dagger. Looking back at Astrid, Julie furrowed her brow and rested her hand on her dagger. Astrid only noded her head in response. Julie had to kill someone in this room to be let freely. She would have to kill one, two, or all of the suspects in order to get the key from Astrid. On the other hand, she could kill Astrid and just take the key. But then she would still be taking a life.

Taking a deep breath, Julie unsheathed her ebony dagger. Her dainty fingers rattling the hilt of the dagger as she paced over to Vasha.

"I'm sorry.. I'm sorry.." She kept muttering under her breath.

If she was to kill someone, Vasha would be the one. He said it himself that he was a 'defiler of daughters.' Khajiit like him gave their race a bad name. Julie was ready to contribute to ridding her race of outcasts. After all, she couldn't kill Alea. She was a mother and was probably being protective. Alea was really rude, but still being protective over her young. Julie assumed that Alea just wanted to get back.

Julie kneeled behind Vasha, and laid a firm hand on his shoulder, messaging it gently. "I apologize for this... Truly, I do." She mumbled in his ear. Soft breath pressing against Vasha's neck. Julie brings her ebony dagger up, and shimmy's it up towards Vasha's neck. She could feel his breathing speed increase rapidly, and starts to push against Julie. Desperately trying to escape the inevitable.

Julie looks up to see Astrid staring contently at the blade, completely oblivious to Julie's gaze. Tightening her grip on her ebony dagger, she pressed in Vasha's neck until the delicate blood started seeping out. Vasha started to scream out in pain and anguish as he begged Julie to stop. However, she knew she couldn't. Her fingers would trembling on the blade, her stomach ceased to be calm.

Before long, she felt Vasha's head roll back onto her arm and the limp weight of his body on her chest. Gingerly laying him down beside him, she dropped the blade and abruptly, threw up in a dark corner of the room. Her unsteady eye's tracked back and forth, purposely missing the body of Vasha. Julie stood up and walked soberly across the room where she found a glass of water near the bed. She quickly chugged the whole glassed, swished it throughout her mouth, and spit it back in. After which she laid on the bed, attempting to calm her quesy stomach. She rolls over on her side, and stares at Astrid with a flaming fury hidden in her eye's.

"The conniving Khajiit. A Cat like that was sure to have enemies. It's no wonder you chose him." Astrid broke the silence, which the Khajiit resided to. She was in no mood for talking right now.

"Just getting used to the art of the kill?" Astrid mocked. "You will be more comfortable with it only through practice."

"So..." Julie tried her speech, testing her stomach with it. "I'm free to go?" She asked with another shiver running down her throat.

"Oh, of course. And you've repaid your debt, in full. Here's the key to the shack. But why stop here? I say we take our relationship to the next level... I would like to officially extend to you an invitation to join my Family: The Dark Brotherhood. In the southwest reaches of Skyrim, in the Pine Forest, you'll find the entrance to our Sanctuary. It's just beneath the road, hidden from view." She explained. "When questioned by the Black Door, answer with the correct passphrase: "Silence, my brother." then you're in. And your new life begins... I'll see you at home."

"Why would I join you? You saw what happened when I ki..." She holds her tongue as her throat adjusts. "Well... When I.." Julie nods towards the Khajiit corpse. "I'm no killer. I'm no use to you... To anyone."

"No worries. You will get better with practice, which we will give you. You will learn to kill, to mangle, to decapitate without so much as a flinch." Astrid spoke in a stone cold, monotone voice.

"But why? I didn't want this. I won't do it." Julie retorted.

"Oh, but you must. We did not choose you at random, Julie."

"Why?!" Julie snapped. "Why do you want me? I've tried to help people my entire life. It comforts me knowing that people will sleep easier with the actions I have done. It helps me get through life, knowing that I can make a difference. What kind of person would I be if I killed people?" Julie shuddered at the thought.

"A better one." Astrid put simply.

"Exactly, I wou- What?" Julie took a breath and tapped her foot, waiting for Astrid to explain.

"You would be a better person than you are now." She remarked. Then she saw Julie's expression harden into one of disgust.

"Think about it. Death comes to all of us at some point in our lives. So, all you would be doing is speeding up the process. You can take comfort, like me, in the fact that you can be gentle when you kill someone, instead of the death that is probably awaiting them at a barbaric crush of a warhammer, or a stomp of an Orc." Astrid spoke with reason. "You would kill without fear, without mercy. Making sure people can sleep softer, knowing the person their are scared of will not harm them. Take comfort in the fact that you are not killing them out of personal disgust, but rather the contracter is killing them, and you are their tool." Julie just nodded at every little detail and began to sit up on the bed, now warming up to the idea of helping more people than ever before. Yet being pushed away at the idea of murder.

"It's not right! Murdering someone is a crime, and I'm no criminal." Julie stated matter-of-factly.

"Every one of our contracts have commited a significant crime sometime in the near past." Astrid answered.

"Fine. I'll meet you and your family. But if I don't like it after the first or second contract, than I'm out. And I want no strings attached." Julie gave in, but remained strong as she listed her demand.

"Of course. Keep in mind though, it may take more than two contract's to get used to our line of work." Astrid said mysteriously.

#

It was dark out when Julie finally reached Falkreath. Most of the citizens were in doors and a reduced amount of guards were patrolling the city. Two or three of them were huddled around a dropped sword, near the forge. A lone chicken was circling the path behind her, pecking at the ground for food.

Julie sat on the porch of the forge and rummaged around in her pocket. She pulled out a slip of paper where she had jotted down the position of the Dark Brotherhood sanctuary. Just thinking about what she was getting into made her shiver. Near Falkreath, off the path, below the rock. It read. Julie took a deep breath and shoved the paper back in her pocket. Standing up, she started walking toward the indicated path.

Thankfully, the road leading out of Falkreath was, indeed, the path. As she walked along the path she mused a small melody she had picked up from town. The origin was a mystery to her, but the song felt good on her tongue, and warmed her heart.

Deep in the meadow, under the willow

A bed of grass, a soft green pillow

Lay down your head, and close your eyes

And when again they open, the sun will rise.

Here it's safe, here it's warm

Here the daisies guard you from every harm

Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true

Here is the place where I love you.

Deep in the meadow, hidden far away

A cloak of leaves, A moonbeam ray, Forget your woes and let your troubles lay

And when again it's morning, they'll wash away.

Here it's safe, here it's warm

Here the daisies guard you from every harm

Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true

Here is the place where I love you.

Before she knew it, Julie was facing a large outcropping of rocks. Under which looks like a cave entrance, but upon further inspection revealed that it was but a door. The door was quite creepy looking as well. It had a skull on it, which in turn, had a bloodied hand print on it's forehead. The door also bore a skeleton sitting against the side, as well as a dagger on the other side of the painted entrance.

Julie walked up to the entrance to get a better look at the intimidating archway. "What.. is the music, of life?" The door suddenly whispered. Thankfully, Julie remembered the correct response to the question. Although multiple other's went through her mind, such as 'Screaming?'

"Silence, my brother." Julie answered coldly, as if she was talking to an authoritative figure.

"Welcome home..." The door spoke. Then there was an audible sound of the door unlocking from the inside.

Julie approached the door with an outstretched arm, grabbed the ring that was placed instead of a handle, and pulled heavily, swinging the door open. Closing it behind her, Julie cautiously strode down the steps infront of her. Soon enough, she was in a small office type room. Astrid was leaning on the Archway that lead towards another, more open room. "Ah, at last! I hope you found the place all right." Astrid spoke across the room, luring Julie towards her.

"So... What happens now?" Julie questioned.

"Well, what happens now is you start your new life in the Dark Brotherhood. You're part of the Family, after all." Astrid spoke firmly. "This, as you can see, is our Sanctuary. You won't find a safer place in all of Skyrim. So get comfortable."

"I am honoured to be a part of your Family, Astrid." Julie said in a hushed tone, almost afraid to be heard in the sanctuary.

"Our Family, my dearest. Our Family. Together, united as one, the Dark Brotherhood can accomplish anything. But you must be anxious to get to work. I'm arranging a job, but need a bit more time. For now, go see Nazir. He's got several smaller contracts. Soon, the Night Mother will arrive. And things around here are sure to get even more interesting." Astrid spoke through a professional mask of herself, causing Julie to shiver at the imaginary picture of the 'Night Mother.'

"Ah, but one last thing. A welcome home present. The armor of the Dark Brotherhood. May it serve you well in all your... endeavors." Astrid handed Julie a folded heap of clothing to replace her old, tattered riverwood clothing.

"Thank you." Julie said softly, yet politely.

She paced to the side, into the room on the left. It was much smaller than the other one, and much more round. Julie payed little attention to the detail, she was just happy to strip out of her ripped clothing and don her new armor. It was a nice fit, comfortable. She could move expertly without restriction, and yet the armor wasn't baggy, or sliding on her smooth skin.

After donning her new armor and testing it's strength and dexterity, she took a deep breath and silently mused to herself. "There's no time like the present." With that, she was out of the little room and headed towards the central area to greet everyone.

A/N: I totally wrote most of this listening to Lion King songs 'cause I'm cool like that. :D But anyway... Just wanted to say, this is going to be my new story for a bit. It won't be updated regularly since I have final's coming up quickly. I'll most likely be doing the entire questline of the Dark Brotherhood, but I'm not sure. Let's see who reads it, and how you like it.

Most of the dialogue is from the game itself (*bleep* It's hard to find dialogue from the game without playing it myself, than transcribing it...) However, some of the dialogue is also improved by yours truly. Enjoy! :)

January 28th, 2012 EDIT: Sorry it's taking me so long to write the next chapter of this story. Based on my e-mail, you guy's seem to like it. =) The only reason why I haven't been updating is because I had intense exams the entire week. =/ I hope to update soon. And Yes, I changed Julie into a Human. I'm not into writing Furry romance... Not yet anyway. ;) (Apologies to Pyrokinetic. I am turning Julie into a Human. And the reason I wrote the HumanxSangheili is because I find that match up incredibly interesting. And, when I think of a Khajiit with who knows who she will be with, all I can see is the sides of the Khajiit's mouth. Dried with saliva and crusted over... It's a real turn off XD. If you don't share my opinion, make a Khajiit in Skyrim, click the right thumbstick, and look at their mouths from a side angle. =/ )

February 8th, 2012 EDIT: Okay, I've got this set. This weekend (Friday 10th - Sunday 12th) I will start working on Chapter Two. My apologies for the long, long wait; but I started my new semester, and It's been really chaotic. However, no excuses will work for a month of not working on it. :O I will try to get it out by Sunday night. =)

August 4th, 2012 EDIT: Looking at my work for some inspiration, I noticed there were a lot of grammar and cannonical errors with my story here. So, today I'll be fixing the more precedented issues (in each chapter here) as well as writing another chapter of No Man's Land, or this... Whichever I feel up to at the time. ^^