At the 3rd hour of the 4th day of Frostfall, in the 4th Era the year 201, the moonlight shone over Tamriel illuminating the snow covered plains of Skyrim and a Hero as she raced to meet her goal...

Kyra breaths in the thin mountain air, it burns in her lungs as she pants sprinting up the steep snowy grade towards the Nightgate Inn. She slides over an ice covered rock and rolls to a crouch pausing to scan her surroundings then takes off at a dead run. Branches whip past her hooded and cowled face as she sprints through the woods her boots crunching in the moonlit snow.

She pulls her bow from her back as she plants one hand and vaults over a small boulder. She slides down a steep snow covered grade coming out of the treeline, taking the steps up the back of the Inn to the second floor balconies two at a time, nearly going over the balcony railing as she turns the corner at full speed.

Her heel skids on the wood as she seats the arrow and pulls back, her ebony bow horizontal in her left hand arrowhead running parallel along the railing as she scans the roads from her elevated viewpoint. She raises the bow, glances over her thumb and sees her target.

The Courier.

She follows him for a moment then leads him, she exhales and releases. The arrow sails silently through the air and catches him through the back of his skull and out the right eye. She slips the bow over her shoulder and puts one hand on the railing throwing herself over and landing silently on her booted feet in the snow.

She dashes quietly past the lit windows of the Inn, pulling the wood handled iron meat hook from her belt and hooks the back section of his chest plate quickly dragging him out of sight into the trees.

Kyra takes a knee looking up into the trees searching her surroundings as the sound of a bird taking flight echoes through the dark woods. She turns over the body and snaps the arrow in two, yanking the pieces out dropping them beside her. She shrugs her leather pack off her shoulders and flips open the flap as Kyra unsheaths the Elven knife belted horizontally along the small of her back and cuts the straps on the mans armor.

"Come on." She mutters quietly to herself as she pulls the armor off, pushing his shirt up and finds what she came for. The troop movements and plans of the Stormcloak Rebellion, in a sealed pouch strapped to his chest. She looks around as she stuffs the documents into her pack and shoulders it again. She grabs some branches and works to quickly cover the body.

She grabs a larger leafy branch and quietly approaches the treeline looking around for anyone. Kyra makes her way into the open, eyes scouring the Inn a hundred yards from her, and sweeps away the drag marks in the snow. She tosses the branch aside dusting off her gloved hands and calmly walks out of the woods and swings herself onto the nearest horse.

Now all she had to do was get these orders back to Legate Rikke in her camp tucked neatly away in the deep snows of the Pale. She grips the reins tight digging her heels in, the horse turns in place to face the north road and she gives the reins a snap.

"Hyah!"

Chapter One

"Dragonborn. Come in out of the snow and tell me of your travels." Legate Rikke says as she stares down at a map of Skyrim held to the table by two steel daggers, red and blue flags mark the war between the Imperials and the Stormcloaks.

Kyra steps in pushing her black hood back from her face brushing the snow from her black armor. Wisps of snow coated ringlets of silky dark hair fall into her face in places as her blue eyes reflect the candlelight. Kyra reaches up and pulls the cowling from her nose and mouth down under her chin.

"I intercepted the courier." She says as she pulls her pack off her shoulders and reaches inside for the sealed pouch. Rikke gulps from a goblet next to her helmet, setting it down she takes the sealed pouch.

"Excellent. We can forge these orders and give ourselves a little breathing room. Good work." Rikke takes the dagger from her belt, slices the pouch open and retrieves the orders spreading them out on the table pulling the candle closer. Kyra stands in place quietly for a moment then begins to turn away to leave.

"I'll leave you to it then Legate."

"Wait a moment please." Rikke says dropping a coin purse on the table with the satisfying plinking sound only a bag full of Septims could make.

"The thanks of a grateful Empire." She adds nodding to it. Kyra turns back and hefts it in her hand tossing it a few inches into the air and catching it, she nods at Rikke.

"Of course, unless you'd be interested in a little more espionage on behalf of such a grateful Empire..." Kyra stops, her hand already propping the tent flap halfway open, midway through stooping under it. Rikke smiles looking back down at the orders and continuing to alter them.

"Damn you Rikke." Kyra turns back to the table and plants both hands flat on it.

"We're closer than we've ever been to finishing the Stormcloaks once and for all, you've been instrumental in doing this but we still have a long way to go." Rikke finishes her hasty changes and works at restoring the pouch to a more presentable state, sealing it again.

"Here, one more thing. Grab some Imperial studded on your way out. Tell Frorkmar Banner-Torn you got it off a patrol and it got you through a few checkpoints. Details will help sell it, and sell it you must because Banner-Torn will ask. He's no fool but his army is so pitiful he'll be proud to see creative thought popping up in the ranks." Kyra nods taking the pouch extended in Rikkes hand.

"Need someplace to store my gear in the meantime. I'm not in the habit of being without it let alone out of my sight." Rikke nods to the chest behind her and hands Kyra the key to her personal chest from her belt pouch . Kyra drops the sealed pouch back onto the table and walks around the other side of it unbuckling her chest plates intricate network of straps.

She takes a knee and unlocks the chest tipping the lid open. Kyra pulls her hood off over her head and stands up, undoing her gloves and bracers dropping them onto the table. She notices Rikke looking at her out of the corner of her eye as she "studies" the map.

"You mind? I've been cinched into this thing for days..." Kyra asks after a long moment, turning her back to Rikke and gesturing to the buckles at her lower back. Rikke moves behind her and takes ahold of the leather buckle and grunts as she tries to undo it.

"Hang on." She says as she uses her knee and yanks hard on the strap as the buckle finally gives.

She helps Kyra pull her arms out of it and Rikke sees, through the thin material between her and the armor, the scars of battle that line her otherwise lithe and delicate frame. Whether this Breton was the Dragonborn or not she was a proven warrior, more so now in the Legates eyes who judges only with proof. Talk is easy... not that the Dragonborn talked much at all.

"Thanks." Kyra says as she undoes her sword belt dropping her Skyforged steel blade on the table beside her as she unbuckles the lower half of her armor and steps out of her boots pushing it down her legs . She makes a neat pile with her light armor sets her hood onto it and places it in the chest. She locks it and shivers in the cold, handing the key to Rikke.

"I'll be back for that." Kyra says picking up her sword belt arching her eyebrow as if to say "understand me?" Rikke nods as Kyra turns away and ducks out of the warm tent into the freezing cold and snow to find the Quartermaster.