.The Poison Master and Assassin.

And so the vampire began his tale:

"In my long life, 5 years out of any period is much a blur to me, a pinpoint-sized ink blot upon a document as long as an Elder Scroll. Yet... with great clarity, I can remember the strenuous and debilitating 5 years I spent in Summerset Isles.
"I know you think, "Summerset? A Dunmer, in Summerset; why ever would you go to Summerset??'
"All to those in time who wait...

"Through my childhood, I had no father to speak of. My maternal family side was of wealth, with many members proud to call themselves Ordinators, so I never suffered to a struggling mother. We lived on the mainland of Morrowind--t'wasnt until I was older I ever set foot on Vvardenfell--in a large, rather secluded, manor house.
"It was a much lonely existance, I remember; with no other children to speak of, I was devoted to studies instead. It never really occurred to me that I ever even did have a father, let alone had required one to exist. I knew mother had a father, but mine was never spoken of, not a breath. Thus, no father was needed for company. Mother or nursemaids were my company, and then of course Haj-Dei later on.

"T'wasnt 'till later on, as I grew, that the thought started to occur to me. Asking mother shut her down, send her weeping either to her chamber or, even later when I was a young adult, embracing me in a hug and having a look in her eye, much akin to pity and appology. Asking the nursemaids yielded no results at all other than a simple they knew nothing, and asking family seemed to illicit avoidance.
"Finally one evening when I was packing my belongings in preparation to start apprenticing under Lord Sotha Sil, I retrieved my answer.
"In moving some of my note journals, I found a peculiar Guar-hide bound journal I knew not to be mine--mine were Alit-hide, best quality. Thumbing through the journal, I found it to be in my mother's hand.

"What was written in the journal sickened and angered me. It was then I approached my mother.

"I always had known I was... different than the other Dunmer. Even entering my adolescence, I was as tall as the Khajiiti slavewomen, and by the time I was a young adult, I was so much taller than the guardsmen. My skin was lighter by many shades than even my dear grandmother, who's skin had, in her words, 'been enlightened by the good path she had followed all her life'.
"But..."

He paused.

"Confronting my mother let loose a beast, a rage that... I didnt even know existed in myself.
"With undeniable evidence, she spilled all to me, weeping;

"She had gone on a trip to Summerset, taken with a large group in her younger years. All trips had gone fine in the past, and at this time they had been temporary residents there for over a month, learning about the land and history of the Altmers. The group was mainly Dunmeri but also had a few Breton and Imperials along with them.
"One late evening, a ruckous was heard outside their encampment, and at first the women believed that Sloads had stumbled upon them and had not taken kindly to their presance. The men upped and went to see, weapons ready, but... 'twas a raiding party of young Aldmeri. They appeared already ready for war, and the scholarly group was sorely outmatched.
"...The men were slaughtered and left in a gruesome show to whoever found the camp. The women were raped, tortured, and many were killed, yet others... left alive as a warning for Dunmer to stay out of the Aldmeri lands.

"Within days, the survivors were safely in Colovia (once a seperate providence of Cyrodiil for those not aware), my mother of course among them. They were promised the renegades would be caught and justice would be served, but a crime against a Dunmer in Aldmeri lands, performed by an Aldmeri group? Might as well have been the case of a Khajiiti slave being punished on a House Dres plantation in the heartland of Morrowind.
"Mother admitted to me she was wholly ashamed and felt tainted. That she felt she tainted all of Morrowind and all of House Indoril when she learned she was of child, and when she decided not to abort.
"Yet,... through it all, she told me, she was still able to clearly see her attacker's face, and... in quite shocking detail, described my unfortunate father to me. Even so much so it was if I could have seen him myself.

"I never blamed her, and assured her that I did not feel that way. Learning I was part Altmeri was not as torturous as having heard the horrors my mother went through. It was then I vowed I would do something about it.

"My chance would not come for over a century, the entire time a burden weighing on my heart as heavily as if one had opened my chest and tied a boulder to it.

"Mere days after learning of my circumstances, I had moved on to apprentice under Lord Sotha Sil. While being engrossed in my studies, any mention of Summerset Isles would raise my hackles and, I admit, at times had me forced to leave the area in the middle of a lecture without warning so as I would not interrupt my Lord.
"Fellow apprentices asked what was on my mind, though I always passed it off. After several decades, I was able to withstand the mere mention of Summerset, so much so that soon I was doing intensive research into it, even so far as to ask my Lord what it was he knew of the area.
"My research slowly revealed to me pieces of the puzzle I needed. At the end of my studies with Lord Sotha Sil, I had enough to go upon a trip to Summerset myself.
"But, I implored myself, I was not yet ready.

"Instead, I underwent extensive combat training that all Ordinators were required. Driven not only by the promise of becoming an Ordinator myself, and eventually aiding Lord Vivec, I was driven mad by the urge to push myself to my limits in order to be physically ready for just the confrontation I wanted to happen in Summerset.
"While Ordinators are not taught to be assassins, I often played upon my extensive pool of magicka to turn myself invisible. Doing so, I taught myself how to be stealthy and silent, doing much bladework in the walkways of our nightly quarters, learning ways to not wake my peers and not hit an innocent bystander with my blade meant for another. Eventually, I moved up to moving invisible in a crowd, going unnoticed and practicing moving the blade to avoid innocent and active bodies.
"In the times I wasnt practicing the art of stealth and acrobatics, I was pulling on the knowledge I gained in my studies with Lord Sotha Sil. Alchemy was not my original area of expertice, and thus I needed to train myself in secret--especially in that I was creating poisons, not potions. I tested on many wild animals I caught and eventually mixed a potent poison in which I memorized the recipe.

"At the end of training, I vowed two decades before my return and employment under Lord Vivec. While I could not wait for such a priviledge, I could wait absolutely no longer to take justice for the crime both against my family, and my Great House.
"I then finally set out for Summerset.

"I arrived in Wintertide, I remember. I have always looked Dunmeri enough to be considered nothing more than, so my arrival wasnt welcomed the warmest. I undertook the position of a mage's apprentice, learning more of alchemy in hopes of creating better poisons.
"My progress at the beginning was slow to none, though after a few successful years in the land, I had made tentative friends with many around the city of Dusk.

"During my time there, I observed Altmeri habits and was able to observe their flaws. Continually practicing my stealth, I tailored it to how Altmers behaved, and while I knew I was constantly under watch and that surely the most magicka-gifted of mers wouldnt heasitate to use a Detect Life spell if they were suspicious of an intruder, I tempted fate anyway.
"Carefully, with no patterns to my attempts, I would slip into official halls, finding criminal records and reports to skim over, in hopes that some part of the attack on my mother's scholarly group would have made it into official documents.

"It was several years later that I found the evidence I was looking for. It seemed that an investigation had been formed, and a suspect list was generated, but it was also very apparent in the file that they had either dropped it without another word, or merely figured it was of no importance.
"It should also be noted that Altmers are long-lived mers, and, I find at least, that they like to keep extensive records. So this made me suspicious.
"Taking detailed notes off of the findings, I took up my own investigation, carefully asking around about each name on the list I had found.

"Over another several years, I moved about, trying to keep my nose out of the middle of Altmeri affairs of any sort, as a Dunmer poking his nose where it doesnt belong isnt a welcome sign in Aldmeri lands. I was sure to be recognized, so only when I had thoroughly exhaused a lead by spending many months coming and going through a town to hear bits about my targets, then finding them and comparing them to the description my mother gave me, did I move on to a new target.
"It was tedious and frustrating work at times, but I never gave up hope.

"My alloted time was surely coming to a close, I always thought, and I would have to return to Morrowind. But my persistance awarded me, and Mephala awarded me the time I needed to see my task done.
"Finally a name stuck to the description my tortured mother had given me. Amimamor Sumeris. My accursed father finally showed his face to me while I was at an inn, the man no doubt in his middle-ages there for some whorish woman. He was just as described by my mother, though, older of course. I was so grown by then that there was hardly an age difference in appearance between us, so I had no doubt he would never realize a thing.
"I had to force myself to stay in my seat at the bar, my knuckles white with pressure against the counter in which I leaned and held to represent my fantasies of destroying such a life.

"But, I bided my time.

"I learned that he was a well-off member of the community, and had a manor house just an hour down the road on foot.
"Mephala blessed me with the patience I required to drag out my hatred and perform the assasination the way I wished it done. Instead of bursting into the manor and setting a poisoned dagger upon his heart, I calmly went to the head of the manor guards a few days later and asked if there were help needed.
"They, of course, were wary. A Dunmer in Summerset... asking to be a local noble's guard? I had been practicing speechcraft since I had arrived in Summerset, and had tailored my responses to ease the Altmeri mind. I merely explained I was in need of a job, and was more skilled with a blade than magic--which, that I didnt mention, they lacked--and thus was more suited to such a job than elsewhere.
"After several run-arounds, I was allowed to speak to the creature that the world dared call my father. He looked upon me with scorn, as if I was the one to be loathed, but accepted the help once I offered that I could be paid in half what he offered his Altmeri guards.

"Over the next four years, I not only put the Altmers' minds at ease that I was no threat, but also fought with my primal instincts to merely slit Amimamor's throat and be done with it. Mephala spoke me soothing words, giving me strength to let my hatred simmer, while Vaermina gave me sweet, terribly wonderful nightmares of how I was to kill him.
"To sew the seeds of trust into them, I would sneak beasts onto the land, or even into the manor, destroying them before they could take my prize from me themselves, while leaving the real monster alive and impressed in me. Mephala gave me instructions on how to weave discourse through the rest of the guards with a simple, well-rounded rumor that had them bickering amongst themselves. Sheogorath gave me plans on simple movement of objects about the house with Telepathy to set the women folk mad.

"I was eventually granted the grace of being Amimamor's body guard as unrest settled into the manor at my hands. For a year I waited for Mephala's spoken word to perform my attack, my anxious hands shaking even at points when I was so close to the monster I could whip out my dagger and have it ended.
"But still She let me seethe.

"It ended one night when one of the woman folk had taken her own life due to the madness my simple manipulations caused.
"Amimamor had called me to his private quarters and asked I bolted the door, rambling half-insanely with words of that the Gods have forsaken him for a reason he could not explain, fearing he would be next.

"Mephala gave me the word that I was allowed to follow through with my lusts, that she was willing to pluck this string of fate.
"Even as a Vampire, and having felt very ...inhuman at moments, I remember the terribly animal feeling that washed over me as I explained to him:
"'You, sir... May have to watch your words, for Sheogorath may have taken you too.'
"When he looked to me, I saw the horror on his face at my inhuman grin. I still see that face in my nightmares.
"'Or, maybe that's just me.' I spoke. With less than a second's passing, my blade was to his throat. 'But, for a Dunmer, learning their mother was raped by an Altmer, and then was fathered by said dispicable and disgusting fetcher can cause a whole host of problems.'
"I remember the unholy chuckle that arose from my chest. 'With love, from son to father, Amimamor.' I said before plunging my dagger into his chest.
"I knew the blade strike wouldnt kill him--oh no, I made sure of that. I had created a dual-acting poison, one part powerful hemotoxin, one part powerful paralytic. Administered via blade to a severed major vein, it would take hold of him slowly, allowing him to wallow before he died.

"With that, the Gods' work was done, and they fell silent. As I heard him lay dying, gasping for breath with his stilling lungs, I escaped the manor through the quarter's window, dropping safely tens of feet to the ground as I had practiced many times in secret.

"Returning to Morrowind, my soul felt cleansed and I returned to serve my duty for Lord Vivec. I never heard another word of my father, nor had anyone come to find me in all my years, so my work feels complete, and my actions rewarded by the Gods.
"I still work as an assassin every so often, hoping to feel the undeniable thrill that it was to kill the monster that was called my father, but... ah, I doubt that ever will I find something as good as that again."

--

So, one of the things that i felt was very prominent in Thurvayn is the reason he is an assassin. with the more prestigious titles under his belt... well there had to be a damned good reason.

i'm sure there are good flaws in every aspect of this, so i claim whole heartedly that this is -as- canon as i can get it. *is a canon nazi*

oh god, the image is so dark. I meant for it to be that way, but those people with darker monitors maay have a harder time seeing it. it was never meant to be a real detailed picture though, since he's supposed to be in the dark, but still x.x

and... i didnt have internet reference with me at the time, so my interchange of Aldmeri and Altmeri is very sketchy. I remember reading something about the Aldmeri being like... Altmeri superemacy, but, i wasnt sure what era that was (cuz it reappears in skyrim, 4e200ish.) so... my terms will more than likely be off.

um... more stuff i forgot goes here! :'D

TES is (C) to BethSoft
thurvayn and art is mine