Recent Entries

  • The Road Home

      Livia awoke, burning nearly as hot as the mid-morning sun shining through her bedroom window. Sweat drenched her sheets, and her head pounded—whether with echoes of the drums of war from her dreams or a routine hangover, Livia didn’t know.   Her potion had worked. At lea...
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  • Echoes

    Dusk settled around Waterview with mist and music. Nirnroot sang softly in Livia’s garden. Bullfrogs and crickets grunted and clicked, and dragonflies hummed through fog rising thick and warm off the river.   I see it in your eyes as you pass. You do not believe. But I have always bel...
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  • In Another Life

    Kaidan strode blindly through the woods. Birch branches swinging in the river’s breeze whipped at his face and chest, but he didn’t slow. Closer to the river, midges swarmed around his nose and eyes, but Kaidan didn’t raise a hand to wave them away.   Ten years he’d ...
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  • Thorns

    Four days since the storm, four days with no word from anyone but the Largashbur orcs, and Livia was starting to feel the least bit isolated. She’d always considered her little slice of the Treva Valley charming for all its solitude and hushed wilderness, not to mention its distance from Rif...
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  • Gathering Dark

      “Can I ask you something?” Kaidan glanced quickly at Warnulf out of the corner of his eye and turned his attention back to his fish. He and the grizzled caretaker had arranged flat stones in a firepit near the riverbank, and enjoyed an hour of comfortable silence—tankards o...
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  • Below the Surface

      “So we’re just going to sit here on the dock and wait for dragonflies?”   “Mm,” Kaidan mumbled, knotting a torn place in the net. He lowered it to his lap and felt a grin slide across his face at her bewildered expression. “You’ve never been f...
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  • Blueberries and Other Sweet Things

    Kaidan awoke to sunbeams. He unglued his eyes and lay against his pillow, absently scratching his chest. Something niggled at him through the fog of waking up, something urgent and worrisome and not quite…right. But what?   The answer came to him like a bolt— fiery skies and th...
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  • A Matter of Time

      Kaidan eyed the bowl of soup on the table with suspicion. He leaned back in his chair and flinched, catching Livia’s gaze—she watched him with a similar mien. He couldn’t blame her. Now that she was sure he’d survive, she had to be wondering what sort of shady chara...
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  • When We Wake

      Kaidan hadn’t slept on a pillow since he left High Rock, and he remembered that night well, and the next morning and its hangover to end all hangovers. But this morning, his head was clear, if a little confused as to its general location.   All he knew was that his head lay on...
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  • When We Dream

      Kaidan floated on his back, his arms at his sides. He relaxed on waves that gently bore his body up and down. Warmth sank into his skin, and the golden light of the sun pierced his eyelids. He didn’t care—it felt good.   He was dreaming. Or dead, he wasn’t sure whi...
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  • I Carry Your Heart With Me - TOC

    After a mysterious storm strikes over Snow Throat, Livia Black-Briar is haunted by dreams of dragons and ancient wars. Dreams become reality, and there’s no going back—Livia must move forward in a world she no longer recognizes. And with a soul no longer her own.    But Kai...
  • Yes, We Met In Prison. Doesn't Everyone?

        Livia wrapped her cloak tighter around her body and rushed on through the rain and wind, her eyes feverishly scanning the ground flying by at her feet. The sky’d been clear when she left Darkwater Crossing early that morning. And foolishly, she’d thought the good weathe...
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  • All This Past

      The last layer of rocks and dirt and snow rolled down the side of the dragon mound. Kaidan prodded a sail-shaped bone with his shovel. “Wonder how long it’ll be until this one gets his second chance?”   Sahloknir, krii daar joorre.   Alduin hissed and roare...
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  • Out Under the Sky

    Two Yuletides have passed since Alicia and Vilkas met under the Gildergreen and put old ghosts to rest. But new challenges create more ghosts, and now Alicia and Vilkas must face their greatest challenge yet. What use has Skyrim for its heroes now that dragons have fled and armies disbanded? When Al...
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  • Winterhold Library; Stacks; Folios; Shelves 10 and 117.

    So, this is my entry for The Imperial Library's 20th Anniversary Fanfiction Contest. The vote was anonymous, but voting finished yesterday, and they edited in author credits, so it's safe to post here now. Writing this was a challenge for me, because all entries are supposed to be in the style of in...
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  • Red Right Hand: All the Earthly Things, They Stop to Play

        Mjoll stared, taking in Davius’s wide eyes and the blood dripping from his strange, black armor. She’d not noticed it before – a smoky, almost shimmering second skin over his lean form that made her want to look away. At what, she wasn’t sure, but she forced...
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  • Red Right Hand: The Sky of Daytime Dies Away

        “…and then I woke up, and there was Aerin. I was lying in a clearing outside Mzinchaleft, and he’d healed the worst of my injuries. I owe him my life,” Mjoll said matter-of-factly, twisting a few grapes from their vine and popping them into her mouth. Daviu...
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  • Red Right Hand: Still Your Hands, and Still Your Heart

        The next day, she tried not to look for Davius. She didn’t see him at the Bee and Barb where she’d stopped for breakfast and, unusually for her, a tankard of mead, but she couldn’t help noticing Keerava’s beautiful new ring – three sparkling amethysts ...
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  • Red Right Hand: All the Morning Glows Anew

        Maul’s ridiculous glower faded from Davius’s vision, but its effect on Davius’s temper didn’t fade so easily. Between the new jarl’s watchdog and the shakedown at the gates, Davius’s first day back in Riften hadn’t started on a good foot. H...
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  • Red Right Hand of The Rift, TOC

            This profile/story combo marks a first in seven years of playing Skyrim – my first male character, and the idea came while many of you were participating in the Songs of the North event last winter. Anyone watch Peaky Blinders?    That. Song. &nbs...
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  • red right hand

                      Have you clicked and read the introduction yet? No? I'll wait...   Seriously, this profile will read better if you do. Go ahead, the blog's not long. And reading it keeps me from explaining the same thing twice - for ...
  • The Dark Mirror and the Bright

      “Do I want pie? Do I want a piece of fucking pie? How can…are you fucking kidding me?”   Moriane tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes. Stenvar had been unusually quiet in the last hour, pacing through the house and setting her nerves on edge. She supp...
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  • Things to Do in Markarth When You're Dead, Chapter 2

    The door to the Silver-Blood Inn creaked open for what seemed like the eightieth time that hour. Yngvar jumped and looked over his shoulder. Not her. Why he hoped Sidonie might come out at all that evening, he had no idea. He could count on his hands the times he’d seen her in the tavern, ...
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  • Things to Do in Markarth When You're Dead, Chapter 1

      “Are you serious, wizard? Women in Markarth actually like that mumbling oaf? Are they deaf?”   “Possibly, child,” Calcelmo replied, and chuckled under his breath. Sidonie clenched her fists. During his angsty (and lengthy) babble about his feelings for Fale...
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  • Things to Do in Markarth When You're Dead

                      Notes: This is one of the stories I've been working on for Camp NaNoWriMo and features my new dragonborn, Sidonie and weirdly enough, Yngvar the Singer. I played the Book of Love quest for the first time not too lo...
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  • Let Your Heart Be Light

      Tired of forced cheer, Vilkas and Alicia meet under the Gildergreen on Yuletide night and make up for lost time. Nods to the Glory of the Dead quest, and shares a little of my own ideas of what it's like to be a werewolf of the Circle.               ...
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  • A Good Man Goes To War, Ch 10: Awakening

      Farkas rolled onto his side and pillowed his head on his bicep. He couldn’t get comfortable, and it had nothing to do with his thin bedroll or the uneven ground, or even the rush of the moonlit waterfall down in the cavern – matter of fact, that last one was soothing. They&rsqu...
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  • A Good Man Goes To War, Ch 9: Alteration

        Kodlak wasted no time bustling the twins off to Bleak Falls Barrow, and with only a few short hours to prepare, it proved a daunting task. Farkas worked with Eorlund to get new armor fitted and find a new weapon. And Vilkas – over Farkas’s halfhearted objections –...
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  • A Good Man Goes To War, Ch 8: Persuasion

          “There’s your brother. Does that mean it’s time to go?” Britta squinted at the stairs leading down to the village and huffed. She’d done what her uncle had asked and waited one full day after Farkas left the temple to ambush him outside Jorrvaskr...
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  • A Good Man Goes To War, Ch 7: Questions

      The courtyard’s stark winter sun rendered the temple vestibule dark by comparison, and Vilkas and Britta peered into the shadows, their squinting eyes adjusting to soft, moody light. Vilkas guided the heavy, wooden doors to click shut behind them, and strode around the corner to Fark...
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  • A Good Man Goes To War, Ch 6: Loathing

        “He’s going to live.”   Vilkas flinched at Danica’s voice and tried to conceal it, his back ramrod straight, almost ridiculously so. Why he took such measures, he had no idea. Other than Farkas, they were the only two in the temple, and she’d seen...
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  • A Good Man Goes To War, Ch 5: Valor

        Snow gave way to white, burning sands and skies a brilliant blue. Scant, fluffy white clouds burst against Paarthurnax’s face, their moisture welcome on his leathery skin. His wings tipped, and the horizon shimmered. Blue sky met languid turquoise water.   People didn&...
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  • A Good Man Goes To War, Ch 4: Recognition

          Farkas sat his horse and tried to remember the last time he felt so underqualified for a contract. He’d slain giants. Chased bandits and thieves from one end of the Rift to the other with no trouble at all. Last year, Kodlak sent him and Vilkas to roust a nest of hagr...
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  • A Good Man Goes To War, Ch 3: Mercy

        “Alduin.”   Paarthurnax crouched in the sun-drenched snow, his wings held halfway aloft. The tension had his haunches and shoulders aching, his atrophied muscles quivering with strength he didn’t know he possessed.   And for what? It’s not like...
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  • A Good Man Goes To War, Ch 2: Resolution, Part Two

                Farkas woke with a start and grabbed his dagger from under his pillow, the cold steel hilt comfortable in his grasp. He sat up on the edge of the bed and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. A warrior never sleeps, Kodlak liked to say. Well, Farkas s...
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  • A Good Man Goes To War, Ch 1: Resolution, Part One

              Atop a snowy mountain, hidden from the world by billowing clouds and icy winds, a dragon waited alone. The gnarled tips of his tattered, golden wings shivered in time with aurora pulsing across the night sky, its waves washing misty-white stars in shades of ...
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  • A Good Man Goes To War, TOC

          “Man breathed its first breath on the sacred mountain; the last kiss waited atop its summit as well.”       Cast through time ages ago, Alduin returns to Nirn. Paarthurnax waits on Monahven, and a Dragonborn waits in the wings.   Skyrim...
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