Guardian

In a very dark house, a house dark as the void and just as cold, a child desperately clung to the emaciated hand of a once beautiful Dunmer woman. The child had no idea what to do, only able to weakly mutter mama or mother. The Dark Elf gave her daughter a tired smile and empty promises that everything will be okay. The woman strained a last bidding of love to the girl before life drained from her body.

The girl screamed in pain and grief, begging for her to come back; but nothing of the sort happened. The child scrambled down the stairs into the room lined with books about magic and spells. She needed something that would help, someone to help her, someone who could bring back the beautiful mother that cared for and raised the Dunmer child.

The spell books were too difficult for the girl to even read, making her feel all the more powerless in the matter. Tears started to blind her eyes as she noticed a rose like staff leaning next to the bookshelf. An ember of hope still blazing in her as she snatched up the staff and ran back to her mother. The staff was a special one that her father had won in a contest. He had left it with them and said that they should only ever use it if they needed a strong guardian. The Dark Elven child wasted no time in casting its magic next to her once in front of her mother's deathbed.

A dark orb of a strange power appeared for a moment before a tall man in twisted ebony armor stood in front of the girl. Out of fear she clutched the large rose staff closer to her as she stepped back.

The man sneered at the girl, growling to her, "Surely you are not the one that has summoned me."

"I-I am," she squeaked out, "I-I need help! I want my mama back but I don't know what to do."

The tall dark man drifted his gaze over to the lifeless body of the woman. There was nothing that could bring the woman back, not as the child wanted. The soul was gone, if the flesh was reanimated it would be a mindless zombie. The horned man scoffed and looked back at the girl who couldn't have been older than eight years old, "I can't bring her back to life. It seems like you're on your own now, girl"

Tears began to flood down the girl's grey cheeks as she fell to her knees. Her woeful sobbing irritated the summoned Dremora to no end. She hadn't even sobbed for ten seconds before the Dremora growled at her again, "Stop that pitiful crying, you weak mortal!"

The girl cringed back, hugging the rose and trying to cease her cries, but they wouldn't stop. The girl would uncontrollably hiccup her sobs which only made the summoned Dremora all the more enraged by the child he was bound to. The daedroth then began to wonder how a child came into possession of Sanguine's Rose and if he was truly bound to the girl since she obviously wasn't the champion Sanguine mentioned. He tried to raise his weapon against the defenceless grieving child and as much as he would have loved to end her short life and his headache he couldn't go through with it, he indeed was bound to the miserable mortal child. But all hope was not lost, all he had to do was trick the child into accepting a gift then the conjuration would break.

The Dremora searched around in his pockets for something to offer the girl who now was sitting on the floor next to the bed, her head resting on her knees and still hugging the staff to her body. The Dremora found a black soul gem and hid his smirk as he knelt next to the girl.

"Here child," he said offering her the gift, "have this good luck charm, it's sure to help in this time of need."

The girl took a brief look at the dull gem in his hand before resting her head back on her knees and making another small hiccup. Believing the girl grieving too much to care the Dremora beside her somewhat gently took one of her hands in his cold armored one and placed the gem in her grasp. As the Dremora was about to take out his weapon the child threw the dull black gem back to him.

"I don't want any stupid gift from you!" she cried whipping her head to face him, "That's no charm, it's a soul gem! I've seen daddy use those for enchantments before." Her red eyes had burning flames of pure anger in them as she glared at the daedroth.

"Clever girl-" he began but the child cut his words short.

"Shut up!" she screamed out her order, causing the Dremora to obey. "Daddy said to use this rosy staff if me or mama ever needed help. He also said to never accept gifts from men with horns on their head 'cause then they'd kill me."

Though the Dremora could not say anything a smirk pulled at his dark lips. That small smirk confirmed to her that she was right. She gripped her legs tighter causing her knuckles to lose some color. The girl stewed in her anger for a minute more before bothered to speak again.

"I don't like this quietness," the girl mumbled, "Talk to me."

"About what?," the Dremora asked after released from the previous order.

"I don't know, something that won't scar me for life," she huffed.

"Let's start with your name. What is it?" he asked.

"Vivian," the Dunmer child bluntly answered. "And yours?"

"I'm a Dremora Churl. My kind tends not to have names."

The air grew quiet again much to Vivian's disdain. So many emotions coursed through her in that moment of silence, sorrow and anger, pain and emptiness, but the worse was a consuming sense that she was all alone now despite the Dremora sitting only three feet away from her. Although the Churl enjoyed the silence the girl's order compelled him to talk more to the child.

"I take it that your father is the champion Lord Sanguine talked about," The Dremora spoke.

"Yeah..." Vivian softly replied, "He studies a lot of stuff about daedra and has a bunch of books about them."

"He sounds like he's a scholar, what business has he to become Sanguine's Champion?"

"Sanju-, Sanger-, Tangerine," she struggled to pronounce the Daedric Prince's name, "He was in the Winterhold inn and challenged daddy to a contest for a staff. Mama also said that Daddy studied a bit too much about Sh-Sheo-, Sheo... Crazy Man."

The Dremora shook his head lightly as he heard the child butcher the names of two Princes. "Yes, well, where is your father?" He asked.

"Um... He said something about an ashy island and a monster in a big dark library in his last letter. Her-Herma? Hermes? Something Mora," She answered butchering another Prince's name. "Churlie?"

That miserable brat, now she gave him a stupid nickname. "Yes?" he asked begrudgingly.

"Daddy has a black mage's robe in that wardrobe," she said pointing towards it, "Take off that cold pointy armor and put that on."

"What!? I'm not wearing any mortal's used clo-"

"You will do as I say!" Vivian screeched as she stood up, the Rose held tight in her small hand, "I am the summoner! You are the summoned! You obey me!"

Her shrill voice was like needles to the Dremora's ears. Angrily he started to take off his armor, Vivian turned her back to him as he did, not wanting to see him while his indecent. After a minute she chanced a look and saw that he was now dressed in her father's clothes. Vivian stood as tall as she could and pointed to a large chair in the corner and commanded that he sat down in it. Once sitting in the chair Vivian walked over to him and raised her hands in the and looked the Dremora strait in the eye as she commanded, "Hold me."

Shocked to see both her seriousness of the order as well as tears well in her eyes as she looked him in the eye, he reluctantly picked up the child and held her. Vivian clung to the black cloth as if her very life depended on it. She violently shook in his arms as she began to choke out more sobs. The Mortal child in his arms confused the daedra greatly, though his kind know and fear loss he couldn't even fathom the kind of loss the child is going through. Dremora have no mothers or fathers nor do they have sons or daughters, they can never go through a loss as painful as that.

The little Dunmer in his arms managed to cry herself to sleep after a while, still holding on to the black robes, tears stained on her cheeks. The Churl was still compelled to hold her, and that's exactly what he did, he held the girl until the summoning wore off. Even once he was back in Oblivion the daedroth doubted that this would be the only time he'd be summoned by the girl. He was now her guardian, sentenced to protected the daughter of Sanguine's champion, the weak broken girl who fell asleep in the arms of a Dremora.