15th of Sun’s Height, 4E 183
Her mother’s squeaking gasp startled Freya, and she looked up from the radish patch she’d been weeding, next to the back steps. Two tall mer with long, golden hair and black robes stood at the edge of the road, hands on their hips. One mer pointed to her father with an elegant finger, and leaned in to whisper to the other. Freya scrambled from the radish patch and hid in the shadow of a nearby pear tree.
Freya‘s father leaned on the handle of his shovel, glowering as the mer walked slowly toward the garden.
“Sturm,” Freya’s mother began, and lay a hand on her husband’s arm. Her eyes darted between Sturm’s chest and his cold, blue eyes. Her own eyes widened. “Sturm, please. Please, put it away.”
But the Amulet of Talos sparkled in the sun, and Sturm filled his lungs with unnecessary breath, puffing his chest out to ridiculous proportions.
“We’ve spoken of this at length. I will not be cowed by this evil, this…stain on our land. Nor will you, Leila. Nor Freya,” he said, and shook Leila’s hand from his forearm. “This is my land. No outsider will tell me what I can and cannot wear on my land.”
Her mother’s palpable fear sent chills down Freya’s spine, and she hoped the mer would leave soon – they were making her father angry, she could tell.
Well, angrier, anyway.
Talos and something called the Thalmor was all her father could talk about lately. Until a few months ago, he’d been happy. Most days at least, chasing Freya around the garden and gathering his wife in sweet embraces under the very tree Freya had chosen as her safe haven.
But no more. One night, blue-cloaked soldiers had stopped at the farm for dinner and shelter. There’d been shouting and slamming doors. Her mother had cried all night. Next morning, Freya hardly recognized her father, and he’d only grown meaner and angrier since.
The towering, unhappy-looking mer finally reached the garden, and Freya crouched down in the soft soil. Their eyes were scary – golden and beautiful, yes. But somehow empty and hollow. Like dying embers in her father’s smelter, or a statue she’d seen once, in Riften. Her parents had called the statue Dibella, and it was golden and beautiful, too. But the eyes…lifeless and cold.
Freya shivered. One mer with gold trim on his robe sniffed, and stared at Sturm. “Your life, or that of your family, is in your hands, Nord. Repudiate the man, Tiber Septim, and we will let your wife and…daughter,” he said, noticing Freya cowering under the pear tree, “we will let them live.”
Leila turned to Freya and nodded with a bright smile, but Freya saw tears swimming in her mother’s green eyes. She heard a spluttering sound, and looked over to see the mer who’d spoken wipe spit from his golden face. A cruel smile curved his lips, and his lifeless eyes flared.
He nodded without taking his gaze from Sturm, and lightning crackled between his fingers. Before Freya could blink, her parents flew backward and slammed into the garden wall. Both mer advanced on her, and Freya screamed and ran for the back steps. She scrambled inside the house and slammed the door, latching it behind her.
Heavy footfalls sounded outside the back door. Freya tiptoed quickly to her bedroom, climbing into a chest and huddling inside, her heart racing. The house remained quiet, but Freya stayed hidden and still, falling into a fitful, dreamless sleep.
Name: Moriane (née Freya Brandy-Wood)
Goal: To gain power. So much power she could stand in her garden, draped in Amulets of Talos if that’s what she wished to do, and no one would dare interfere.
Gender: Female
Age: 25-ish
Appearance: dark auburn hair, braided. 5’10.” Average weight slider. Eyes like clear, Frostfall skies. Fair skin, peachy-pink lips. No warpaint or tattoos or other identifiable markings.
Stone: all of them, ending with Shadow. She wants aaaaall the knowledge, so she tries every stone before picking one. Although she sort of knows already which one she’ll choose.
Alignment: Neutral evil. She values her own freedom and liberty and happiness above all, and there’s nothing she won’t do to advance her goals (kill, steal, raise the dead, use black soul gems, use townspeople as dragonfire-fodder, etc.). She’s not trying to overthrow anything, but doesn’t care for laws and rules, and seeks power and knowledge to sidestep all those things whenever she wants, with minimal consequence.
Race: Nord
Enemy Races (Imperious Races):
First, Altmer. Although, when it came time to choose, I wish she could have chosen Nord. Yes, Altmer killed her parents, but her father made the choice. She’ll never forget that.
Second, Orc, simply because heavily-armored bandits are tough enemies.
And third, Bretons. Damn Forsworn.
Class: Spellsword
Weapons: ebony sword and bow, Bloodskal Blade, Mehrunes’ Razor. Enhanced by SpellScribe and Soul Siphon.
Apparel: while on the road, Deathbrand armor, along with rings and necklaces to fortify her health and shield her from enemy magic. When she’s at home, she prefers linen tunics of caramel and sage and sky blue. Soft leather boots protect her feet while gardening, and she wears her Amulet of Talos not out of devotion, but pure spite – as if daring anyone who ventures her way to challenge her right to wear it.
Magical Schools:
Major: Destruction, Conjuration, Alchemy
Minor: Illusion, Alteration, Enchanting
Favorite Spells:
Pride of Hirstaang: And not just for combat - she conjures her bear for company while by herself at home.
Ghostwalk: combines invisibility and teleport, great for strings-free killing.
Elemental Blast: combines fire and shock damage.
Ocato’s Recital: automatically casts Stoneflesh and Muffle when detected by enemies. Alarm casts when enemies breach the spell’s perimeter.
Birthplace: Waterview, a little farmhouse west of Riften on the Treva River. She reclaimed her home at her majority, just after leaving Honorhall.
Alias: Freya Brandy-Wood, her birth name, given by her mother. Brandy-Wood is her family name; her family farmed Waterview for generations, and named their clan after the Rift forest, the shades of its Autumn leaves – all russet and gold and amber, like a glass of good brandy held up to the sun.
Religion: none. She’s not interested in what dead god is in whose pantheon. She’ll use any tool she can win from Aedra or Daedra, and although she’s actively seeking out Daedric Princes, it’s for knowledge and power, not worship or love.
Education: her mother taught her the basics before Moriane was carted off to Honorhall, but she’s mostly self-educated. She read every book she could get her hands on at Mistveil Keep. And she’s been known to break into homes and steal books, rather than gems or gold.
Political Affiliation: everyone involved in the Civil War can burn, for all she cares. It’s because of both sides kids like her ended up in Honorhall.
Hobbies: she’ll say it’s simply to find efficient ways to kill and heal, but she loves her garden at Waterview. She grows things she can’t use in potions and tends them as lovingly as she tends to the books lining her bookshelves.
Relationship: no friendships, and only casual romance. No one she’s ever trusted has chosen her first, and she’s not about to give a man the chance to leave. She hires mercenaries to risk their lives for her own, and that’s good enough. Although, she’s human, and physical companionship is a basic need. Has anyone else hired Stenvar and discovered he gives you gifts? In this case, he slipped Moriane a bottle of wine and said “here, try this. You’ll like it.” Now, that’s the kind of man Moriane wouldn’t mind staying around. It would make a good story. Yes…it would. Exxxcellent.
Children: she wavers between “I’ll never have children,” and “I’m having ten and raise them right.” But she’s not sure what “right” is. And she’s not 100% positive she’d be able to feel what she needs to feel as a mother, for a child. It’s been a long time since she’s felt anything at all, much less an emotion close to unconditional, unwavering love.
Personality: wary and self-centered, hardly noticing others unless she’s thinking of something they could do for her. She’s friendly enough, but quick to back away when things get too personal. Quiet and reserved, prefers to handle disagreements from the shadows, without direct confrontation.
Flaws: lacks empathy. Almost solipsistic in her brand of narcissism, she feels only her emotions and thoughts and motivations are real and concrete, and thus - only hers matter. Anything challenging that school of thought is dismissed, and if it can’t be dismissed, could cause an emotional breakdown.
Favorite Food and Drink: she grows her own tea and coffee beans, enjoying iced tea (frost spells, y’all) with sugar (from her own sugarcane) and hot coffee with cream (from her own cow). Her garden’s pears, peaches, and strawberries make great pies, and when she wants something more savory, she cooks garlic bread. And baked potatoes with butter. And Elsweyr fondue. Yeah, she might be a comfort eater.
Factions: Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood (inactive), Companions (inactive), Thane of Whiterun (repudiated), Hermaeus Mora’s Champion.
3rd of Morning Star, 4E 184
Freya stumbled along the back wall of Mistveil Keep, the cold of the winter morning soaking through her shoes and clothes and threadbare cloak. She should have been at the Bee and Barb, preying on sympathies of the locals and begging for a coin or two.
But Freya didn’t want their sympathies. Or their pittance. She’d gone to the proprietor of the Bee and Barb. And to the guards. And even to the sweet-faced smith who’d barely looked up from his forge to press a coin into her palm.
Freya didn’t need gold – she needed them to listen, to do something. About the beatings, the starvation. The shackles that the old monster who ran Honorhall kept in the back room. She used them to ‘teach lessons to especially difficult children,’ and Freya’d fit that bill – she’d cried nonstop the first week she’d been brought to Riften, after guards had found her parents’ bodies on a routine patrol.
But nobody cared about castoff children, just like nobody cared who’d killed her parents.
No one did anything.
And Freya would rather suffer Grelod’s endless beatings than beg sustenance from those who didn’t care if she lived or died.
Smells of beeswax and leather drifted through a window open a few inches along the wall of the keep, and Freya stood on tiptoes to see inside. Dim candlelight, and shelves of books. Shiny, polished tables and rolls of parchment.
A library.
It would be warm at least, and quiet. Maybe she could hide under a table or something, and while away the morning. She pulled a nearby crate over to the window and climbed inside. It was quiet. Deserted, even. She pulled a book off a shelf, squeezed her body into a tiny, hidden corner, and began to read.
20th of Rain’s Hand, 4E 192
Freya no longer fit into the corner next to the bookshelves in the library at Mistveil Keep. No matter. Wylandriah, the jarl’s scatterbrained court mage, paid her three gold pieces each day to sit at a table and serve as her scribe. When she’d made the proposition, Freya’d admitted she was an Honorhall orphan, but Wylandriah didn’t care – as long as the spells she kept losing and the research she’d misplaced got rewritten, she was content to ask very few questions.
And Freya found a bit of comfort, her first since she’d been taken from Waterview. In the library’s warmth and stillness, she was left alone to think and dream. If no one loved her, at least no one screamed at her or hit her. No one forced her to be something she wasn’t.
During a break from her duties, Freya peeked at the shelves lining the walls. She was especially captivated by those housing books filled with the arcane – everything from simple treatises on restoration magic to descriptions of mystic rituals, forbidden and dangerous. Of daedra and their mysterious realms.
One such book caught Freya’s eye – The Doors of Oblivion, it was titled, about a mage called Morian Zenas and his quest to see the planes of Oblivion for himself. Deadlands and Coldharbour didn’t interest Freya, though she imagined with curiosity all the useful things hidden in those realms. Moonshadow seemed nice enough. But it was Zenas’s description of Apocrypha that took her breath away.
"Morian Zenas described to me an endless library, shelves stretching on in every direction, stacks on top of stacks. Pages floated on a mystical wind that he could not feel."
Freya felt chillbumps erupt on her arms, and tiny blonde hairs stood on end. “I feel like I’m home now,” she read aloud, Zenas’s reaction to Apocrypha’s wonders echoing her own. In the keep’s library, of course, not Hermaeus Mora’s. Not yet, anyway.
Since that first day she’d tumbled through the open window into Mistveil Keep, Freya felt her future lay among books, and the knowledge and power they held within their dusty jackets. She wasn’t born into power, but she would learn how to take it for herself. And maybe, the journeys of this mage could show her the way.
Morian Zenas, she mouthed, and chills ran down her back and shoulders once more.
Morian.
Moriane.
Yes, it suited. She’d take the name for her own, as she’d take on his quest. She’d learn, and one day she’d leave Riften and begin her search. And one day, further still, she’d return, this time with power, and…
No debt would go unpaid.
Moriane, she thought once more, and smiled, looking down at her book.
17th of Last Seed, 4E 201
A choking cough startled Moriane, and she looked up from the deathbell patch she’d been weeding, just under the back steps. Two men with long, golden hair walked the dirt path behind Waterview, leading a man on a rope between them. The man was a Nord, his back held straight despite his bonds and dirty, torn clothes. His hair was russet and gold and amber, all the shades of good brandy, held up to the sun.
An image of her own russet-haired father flashed behind her eyes. Moriane’s mouth twisted along with her gut. Had this Nord a family he’d left behind? A wife? A daughter? Had he chosen his dead god over them, too?
Moriane swiftly picked up her bow and nocked an arrow, sighting along the blackberry bramble and homing in on one of the justiciars. His golden, graceful neck made a lovely target.
Her vision wavered, and a pair of bright green eyes, swimming with tears, replaced the present scene. Green eyes that once sparkled with love and laughter. Moriane tried to shake them away, but it was no use. Her vision shifted again. The same eyes, a beautiful forest green, only dimmed - sightless and staring, illuminated only by reflections of a cold, starry sky.
Moriane stifled a scream, and let her arrow fly.
The once-proud Nord lay facedown in the dirt. Moriane dropped her bow and ran.
5th of Heartfire, 4E 202
Moriane barely made it past the shaman’s hut before emptying her guts onto a snowbank. Hermaeus Mora, what he’d done to Storn…
It wasn’t the brutality or the loss of life that had her shaken. It was the fact that Mora had found Storn, had come after him, and killed him using a book. He’d reached out of a book and pierced Storn with his disgusting tentacles there in the snow, in his village. The shaman, for all his power, hadn’t been safe.
Neither was she. With all her armor and weapons and magic, even with her dragonblood and Hircine’s gift and Stenvar’s mighty sword at her side…she wasn’t safe.
Hermaeus Mora could find her, anywhere. She’d been wrong – Mora’s favor wasn’t freedom and power after all.
It was a cage.
Her stomach threatened to heave again, and she fought back sour bile. She had to think. How could she escape? There was nowhere she could run, of course. But…
Yes. That was it. Her only chance: she had to fight Miraak.
But would Mora let her go, even if she defeated his champion? Would he set her free? Or would she spend millennia trapped in Apocrypha as Miraak had done, desperate to escape? So desperate, he’d hatched a truly ludicrous plan to betray his master.
Moriane laughed a short, barking laugh and rinsed her mouth with snow. Betray Hermaeus Mora. Betray the Prince of Knowledge and Fate. Hermaeus Mora was everywhere, knew everything. Miraak was a fool to think he stood a chance.
A strange wave of peace stilled her heaving chest, and at that moment, Moriane knew without a doubt she was going to win. Miraak would lose anyway; if she didn’t kill him, Hermaeus Mora surely would.
But she couldn’t help but wonder whether she’d see Skyrim again. Waterview. Her home.
Or if she’d have a new home, one of endless stacks of books, and pages swirling through the cold, eerie currents of Apocrypha.
Moriane shivered, and walked back to the village to find Stenvar. She might as well say goodbye while she had the chance.
Art Credits: Dovahkiin in Training by Isriana, DeviantArt; Mother and Daughter by Melissa-Rei, DeviantArt; Apocrypha by BluePhoenixBlade, Skyrim Nexus. And yes, the introductory quote is from The Neverending Story.
This profile complements and supplements Moriane's character build. Click below to view. There's also an accompanying short story for anyone who'd like to delve a little deeper into the relationship between Moriane and Stenvar. Thanks for reading!
15th of Sun’s Height, 4E 183
Her mother’s squeaking gasp startled Freya, and she looked up from the radish patch she’d been weeding, next to the back steps. Two tall mer with long, golden hair and black robes stood at the edge of the road, hands on their hips. One mer pointed to her father with an elegant finger, and leaned in to whisper to the other. Freya scrambled from the radish patch and hid in the shadow of a nearby pear tree.
Freya‘s father leaned on the handle of his shovel, glowering as the mer walked slowly toward the garden.
“Sturm,” Freya’s mother began, and lay a hand on her husband’s arm. Her eyes darted between Sturm’s chest and his cold, blue eyes. Her own eyes widened. “Sturm, please. Please, put it away.”
But the Amulet of Talos sparkled in the sun, and Sturm filled his lungs with unnecessary breath, puffing his chest out to ridiculous proportions.
“We’ve spoken of this at length. I will not be cowed by this evil, this…stain on our land. Nor will you, Leila. Nor Freya,” he said, and shook Leila’s hand from his forearm. “This is my land. No outsider will tell me what I can and cannot wear on my land.”
Her mother’s palpable fear sent chills down Freya’s spine, and she hoped the mer would leave soon – they were making her father angry, she could tell.
Well, angrier, anyway.
Talos and something called the Thalmor was all her father could talk about lately. Until a few months ago, he’d been happy. Most days at least, chasing Freya around the garden and gathering his wife in sweet embraces under the very tree Freya had chosen as her safe haven.
But no more. One night, blue-cloaked soldiers had stopped at the farm for dinner and shelter. There’d been shouting and slamming doors. Her mother had cried all night. Next morning, Freya hardly recognized her father, and he’d only grown meaner and angrier since.
The towering, unhappy-looking mer finally reached the garden, and Freya crouched down in the soft soil. Their eyes were scary – golden and beautiful, yes. But somehow empty and hollow. Like dying embers in her father’s smelter, or a statue she’d seen once, in Riften. Her parents had called the statue Dibella, and it was golden and beautiful, too. But the eyes…lifeless and cold.
Freya shivered. One mer with gold trim on his robe sniffed, and stared at Sturm. “Your life, or that of your family, is in your hands, Nord. Repudiate the man, Tiber Septim, and we will let your wife and…daughter,” he said, noticing Freya cowering under the pear tree, “we will let them live.”
Leila turned to Freya and nodded with a bright smile, but Freya saw tears swimming in her mother’s green eyes. She heard a spluttering sound, and looked over to see the mer who’d spoken wipe spit from his golden face. A cruel smile curved his lips, and his lifeless eyes flared.
He nodded without taking his gaze from Sturm, and lightning crackled between his fingers. Before Freya could blink, her parents flew backward and slammed into the garden wall. Both mer advanced on her, and Freya screamed and ran for the back steps. She scrambled inside the house and slammed the door, latching it behind her.
Heavy footfalls sounded outside the back door. Freya tiptoed quickly to her bedroom, climbing into a chest and huddling inside, her heart racing. The house remained quiet, but Freya stayed hidden and still, falling into a fitful, dreamless sleep.
Name: Moriane (née Freya Brandy-Wood)
Goal: To gain power. So much power she could stand in her garden, draped in Amulets of Talos if that’s what she wished to do, and no one would dare interfere.
Gender: Female
Age: 25-ish
Appearance: dark auburn hair, braided. 5’10.” Average weight slider. Eyes like clear, Frostfall skies. Fair skin, peachy-pink lips. No warpaint or tattoos or other identifiable markings.
Stone: all of them, ending with Shadow. She wants aaaaall the knowledge, so she tries every stone before picking one. Although she sort of knows already which one she’ll choose.
Alignment: Neutral evil. She values her own freedom and liberty and happiness above all, and there’s nothing she won’t do to advance her goals (kill, steal, raise the dead, use black soul gems, use townspeople as dragonfire-fodder, etc.). She’s not trying to overthrow anything, but doesn’t care for laws and rules, and seeks power and knowledge to sidestep all those things whenever she wants, with minimal consequence.
Race: Nord
Enemy Races (Imperious Races):
First, Altmer. Although, when it came time to choose, I wish she could have chosen Nord. Yes, Altmer killed her parents, but her father made the choice. She’ll never forget that.
Second, Orc, simply because heavily-armored bandits are tough enemies.
And third, Bretons. Damn Forsworn.
Class: Spellsword
Weapons: ebony sword and bow, Bloodskal Blade, Mehrunes’ Razor. Enhanced by SpellScribe and Soul Siphon.
Apparel: while on the road, Deathbrand armor, along with rings and necklaces to fortify her health and shield her from enemy magic. When she’s at home, she prefers linen tunics of caramel and sage and sky blue. Soft leather boots protect her feet while gardening, and she wears her Amulet of Talos not out of devotion, but pure spite – as if daring anyone who ventures her way to challenge her right to wear it.
Magical Schools:
Major: Destruction, Conjuration, Alchemy
Minor: Illusion, Alteration, Enchanting
Favorite Spells:
Pride of Hirstaang: And not just for combat - she conjures her bear for company while by herself at home.
Ghostwalk: combines invisibility and teleport, great for strings-free killing.
Elemental Blast: combines fire and shock damage.
Ocato’s Recital: automatically casts Stoneflesh and Muffle when detected by enemies. Alarm casts when enemies breach the spell’s perimeter.
Birthplace: Waterview, a little farmhouse west of Riften on the Treva River. She reclaimed her home at her majority, just after leaving Honorhall.
Alias: Freya Brandy-Wood, her birth name, given by her mother. Brandy-Wood is her family name; her family farmed Waterview for generations, and named their clan after the Rift forest, the shades of its Autumn leaves – all russet and gold and amber, like a glass of good brandy held up to the sun.
Religion: none. She’s not interested in what dead god is in whose pantheon. She’ll use any tool she can win from Aedra or Daedra, and although she’s actively seeking out Daedric Princes, it’s for knowledge and power, not worship or love.
Education: her mother taught her the basics before Moriane was carted off to Honorhall, but she’s mostly self-educated. She read every book she could get her hands on at Mistveil Keep. And she’s been known to break into homes and steal books, rather than gems or gold.
Political Affiliation: everyone involved in the Civil War can burn, for all she cares. It’s because of both sides kids like her ended up in Honorhall.
Hobbies: she’ll say it’s simply to find efficient ways to kill and heal, but she loves her garden at Waterview. She grows things she can’t use in potions and tends them as lovingly as she tends to the books lining her bookshelves.
Relationship: no friendships, and only casual romance. No one she’s ever trusted has chosen her first, and she’s not about to give a man the chance to leave. She hires mercenaries to risk their lives for her own, and that’s good enough. Although, she’s human, and physical companionship is a basic need. Has anyone else hired Stenvar and discovered he gives you gifts? In this case, he slipped Moriane a bottle of wine and said “here, try this. You’ll like it.” Now, that’s the kind of man Moriane wouldn’t mind staying around. It would make a good story. Yes…it would. Exxxcellent.
Children: she wavers between “I’ll never have children,” and “I’m having ten and raise them right.” But she’s not sure what “right” is. And she’s not 100% positive she’d be able to feel what she needs to feel as a mother, for a child. It’s been a long time since she’s felt anything at all, much less an emotion close to unconditional, unwavering love.
Personality: wary and self-centered, hardly noticing others unless she’s thinking of something they could do for her. She’s friendly enough, but quick to back away when things get too personal. Quiet and reserved, prefers to handle disagreements from the shadows, without direct confrontation.
Flaws: lacks empathy. Almost solipsistic in her brand of narcissism, she feels only her emotions and thoughts and motivations are real and concrete, and thus - only hers matter. Anything challenging that school of thought is dismissed, and if it can’t be dismissed, could cause an emotional breakdown.
Favorite Food and Drink: she grows her own tea and coffee beans, enjoying iced tea (frost spells, y’all) with sugar (from her own sugarcane) and hot coffee with cream (from her own cow). Her garden’s pears, peaches, and strawberries make great pies, and when she wants something more savory, she cooks garlic bread. And baked potatoes with butter. And Elsweyr fondue. Yeah, she might be a comfort eater.
Factions: Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood (inactive), Companions (inactive), Thane of Whiterun (repudiated), Hermaeus Mora’s Champion.
3rd of Morning Star, 4E 184
Freya stumbled along the back wall of Mistveil Keep, the cold of the winter morning soaking through her shoes and clothes and threadbare cloak. She should have been at the Bee and Barb, preying on sympathies of the locals and begging for a coin or two.
But Freya didn’t want their sympathies. Or their pittance. She’d gone to the proprietor of the Bee and Barb. And to the guards. And even to the sweet-faced smith who’d barely looked up from his forge to press a coin into her palm.
Freya didn’t need gold – she needed them to listen, to do something. About the beatings, the starvation. The shackles that the old monster who ran Honorhall kept in the back room. She used them to ‘teach lessons to especially difficult children,’ and Freya’d fit that bill – she’d cried nonstop the first week she’d been brought to Riften, after guards had found her parents’ bodies on a routine patrol.
But nobody cared about castoff children, just like nobody cared who’d killed her parents.
No one did anything.
And Freya would rather suffer Grelod’s endless beatings than beg sustenance from those who didn’t care if she lived or died.
Smells of beeswax and leather drifted through a window open a few inches along the wall of the keep, and Freya stood on tiptoes to see inside. Dim candlelight, and shelves of books. Shiny, polished tables and rolls of parchment.
A library.
It would be warm at least, and quiet. Maybe she could hide under a table or something, and while away the morning. She pulled a nearby crate over to the window and climbed inside. It was quiet. Deserted, even. She pulled a book off a shelf, squeezed her body into a tiny, hidden corner, and began to read.
20th of Rain’s Hand, 4E 192
Freya no longer fit into the corner next to the bookshelves in the library at Mistveil Keep. No matter. Wylandriah, the jarl’s scatterbrained court mage, paid her three gold pieces each day to sit at a table and serve as her scribe. When she’d made the proposition, Freya’d admitted she was an Honorhall orphan, but Wylandriah didn’t care – as long as the spells she kept losing and the research she’d misplaced got rewritten, she was content to ask very few questions.
And Freya found a bit of comfort, her first since she’d been taken from Waterview. In the library’s warmth and stillness, she was left alone to think and dream. If no one loved her, at least no one screamed at her or hit her. No one forced her to be something she wasn’t.
During a break from her duties, Freya peeked at the shelves lining the walls. She was especially captivated by those housing books filled with the arcane – everything from simple treatises on restoration magic to descriptions of mystic rituals, forbidden and dangerous. Of daedra and their mysterious realms.
One such book caught Freya’s eye – The Doors of Oblivion, it was titled, about a mage called Morian Zenas and his quest to see the planes of Oblivion for himself. Deadlands and Coldharbour didn’t interest Freya, though she imagined with curiosity all the useful things hidden in those realms. Moonshadow seemed nice enough. But it was Zenas’s description of Apocrypha that took her breath away.
"Morian Zenas described to me an endless library, shelves stretching on in every direction, stacks on top of stacks. Pages floated on a mystical wind that he could not feel."
Freya felt chillbumps erupt on her arms, and tiny blonde hairs stood on end. “I feel like I’m home now,” she read aloud, Zenas’s reaction to Apocrypha’s wonders echoing her own. In the keep’s library, of course, not Hermaeus Mora’s. Not yet, anyway.
Since that first day she’d tumbled through the open window into Mistveil Keep, Freya felt her future lay among books, and the knowledge and power they held within their dusty jackets. She wasn’t born into power, but she would learn how to take it for herself. And maybe, the journeys of this mage could show her the way.
Morian Zenas, she mouthed, and chills ran down her back and shoulders once more.
Morian.
Moriane.
Yes, it suited. She’d take the name for her own, as she’d take on his quest. She’d learn, and one day she’d leave Riften and begin her search. And one day, further still, she’d return, this time with power, and…
No debt would go unpaid.
Moriane, she thought once more, and smiled, looking down at her book.
17th of Last Seed, 4E 201
A choking cough startled Moriane, and she looked up from the deathbell patch she’d been weeding, just under the back steps. Two men with long, golden hair walked the dirt path behind Waterview, leading a man on a rope between them. The man was a Nord, his back held straight despite his bonds and dirty, torn clothes. His hair was russet and gold and amber, all the shades of good brandy, held up to the sun.
An image of her own russet-haired father flashed behind her eyes. Moriane’s mouth twisted along with her gut. Had this Nord a family he’d left behind? A wife? A daughter? Had he chosen his dead god over them, too?
Moriane swiftly picked up her bow and nocked an arrow, sighting along the blackberry bramble and homing in on one of the justiciars. His golden, graceful neck made a lovely target.
Her vision wavered, and a pair of bright green eyes, swimming with tears, replaced the present scene. Green eyes that once sparkled with love and laughter. Moriane tried to shake them away, but it was no use. Her vision shifted again. The same eyes, a beautiful forest green, only dimmed - sightless and staring, illuminated only by reflections of a cold, starry sky.
Moriane stifled a scream, and let her arrow fly.
The once-proud Nord lay facedown in the dirt. Moriane dropped her bow and ran.
5th of Heartfire, 4E 202
Moriane barely made it past the shaman’s hut before emptying her guts onto a snowbank. Hermaeus Mora, what he’d done to Storn…
It wasn’t the brutality or the loss of life that had her shaken. It was the fact that Mora had found Storn, had come after him, and killed him using a book. He’d reached out of a book and pierced Storn with his disgusting tentacles there in the snow, in his village. The shaman, for all his power, hadn’t been safe.
Neither was she. With all her armor and weapons and magic, even with her dragonblood and Hircine’s gift and Stenvar’s mighty sword at her side…she wasn’t safe.
Hermaeus Mora could find her, anywhere. She’d been wrong – Mora’s favor wasn’t freedom and power after all.
It was a cage.
Her stomach threatened to heave again, and she fought back sour bile. She had to think. How could she escape? There was nowhere she could run, of course. But…
Yes. That was it. Her only chance: she had to fight Miraak.
But would Mora let her go, even if she defeated his champion? Would he set her free? Or would she spend millennia trapped in Apocrypha as Miraak had done, desperate to escape? So desperate, he’d hatched a truly ludicrous plan to betray his master.
Moriane laughed a short, barking laugh and rinsed her mouth with snow. Betray Hermaeus Mora. Betray the Prince of Knowledge and Fate. Hermaeus Mora was everywhere, knew everything. Miraak was a fool to think he stood a chance.
A strange wave of peace stilled her heaving chest, and at that moment, Moriane knew without a doubt she was going to win. Miraak would lose anyway; if she didn’t kill him, Hermaeus Mora surely would.
But she couldn’t help but wonder whether she’d see Skyrim again. Waterview. Her home.
Or if she’d have a new home, one of endless stacks of books, and pages swirling through the cold, eerie currents of Apocrypha.
Moriane shivered, and walked back to the village to find Stenvar. She might as well say goodbye while she had the chance.
Art Credits: Dovahkiin in Training by Isriana, DeviantArt; Mother and Daughter by Melissa-Rei, DeviantArt; Apocrypha by BluePhoenixBlade, Skyrim Nexus. And yes, the introductory quote is from The Neverending Story.
This profile complements and supplements Moriane's character build. Click below to view. There's also an accompanying short story for anyone who'd like to delve a little deeper into the relationship between Moriane and Stenvar. Thanks for reading!
