Disclaimer: Skyrim and all its characters, places etc are the property of Bethesda. However, Adesse is mine.

"Stupid bushes, stupid rocks, stupid evil roots…"Muttered the dark haired youth as she yet again tripped on an unsuspecting plant.

"Honestly, it's like they are out to get me today!" Adesse ranted, picking herself up and patting the dirt, mud and gods knows what else off her bruised rump. Lifting her hand to her face, she grimaced and wiped it thoroughly on her leggings. Stretching casually to get the kinks out of her back, she looked towards where she had dropped her basket.

It was tipped over and more than half of the herbs she had collected that morning were strewn out around it. Groaning, she brought her hands to her temple before hastily bringing them down and cleaning them again.

It wasn't that she didn't enjoy gathering herbs; quite the opposite in fact. There was nothing like breathing in the crisp morning air, smelling freshly cut flowers and feeling the wind and sun at your back. For all their harshness, the plains of Skyrim had a serenity and peace that couldn't be found anywhere else.

Adesse sighed and dropped to her knees to clean up the mess. She scowled, thinking of what had made her so distracted recently.

The Graybeards had been more forceful with their whole "Dragonborn" destiny thingy. They had even cornered her yesterday! They had forced her to listen as they went on and on about her "duty" and "responsibility" to all of Skyrim, and to Ulfric Stormcloak. Their near constant nagging was starting to wear on her.

She was responsible. And she did have a sense of duty. But destiny? Yes she had killed dragons, absorbed their souls and learned to Shout. She was defiantly the Dragonborn, no doubt about it. But just thinking about what "Fate" would have her do made her stomach curl. Did they expect her to just blindly follow what "Fate" had in store for her? If your "Fate" was to jump off a cliff, would you really just jump off it? No! She made her own fate, her own destiny! Let those stuck up old wind bags gripe and moan up there on their little mountain!

Nodding resolutely to herself, Adesse stood and started off to where she last saw a patch of tundra cotton.

'After that it's off to find Camie and to go home.' she thought. Her eyes lit up just thinking about it. It was a nice, private house in Whiterun with an alchemy lab. She was content to be a recluse with just her thoughts and her potions.

She grinned.

Why worry? After all, it was a beautiful morning. The bees were humming, the birds singing, the dragon roaring… wait, dragon?

Obviously, this is the first story I have ever posted. If you have any advice on how to make it better, please share it. I'm all ears.

In Latin, ad esse means roughly(very roughly) to be.

I've never taken a Latin course so I don't know if it is correct or not. I wanted the main character's name to have significance to the story as well as to the title. What fun would it be if I chose a name that had no meaning?

One Final note: I like to write Flash Fiction. Basically, Flash Fiction is a work anywhere from 100 to 3,000 words long. The exact length is varied but the gist of it is that it's very short and often brief.