Ellix's Blank Book

I met a khajiiti book merchant in Greenhill, and while glancing over his wares, my eyes landed on this beautiful book. It has hundreds of thick blank pages of good quality paper, and I needed a new sketch book. With so much free time on my hands at the moment, I decided I also want to write down some of the interesting things that have happened since I left Auridon.

After reaching Velyn Harbor, I began traveling with a small, friendly group of merchants that were headed all the way to Baandari. I planned to travel with them across Malabal Tor, however it soon became clear that the area we were in was not safe to travel through. After only two days, we reached the small town of Vulkwasten. Our little group could not agree on the best course of action, so it split up. Some continued on towards the trading camp, while others planned to go back to the harbor. I decided to remain in Vulkwasten for the time being, until I could arrange for safer travels.

There was a small tavern in town that most of the locals seemed to frequent, so on my second night, I decided to spend some time there, and see if I could meet anyone interesting. Everyone was friendly enough, I chatted with a few people and had a few drinks. The next night I went back to find the place much busier. As I walked towards the bar, I noticed a tall Altmer eying me. As he leaned to mutter something to the Khajiit he was with, I turned to the bar and rolled my eyes. The barmaid was a sweet little bosmer named Styletta, and I had enjoyed talking to her the night before. As I greeted her, the Altmer walked up to lean on the bar. With a cocky smile, he began what seemed like a pretty practiced routine. Flattery, asking to buy me a drink… I wanted to be annoyed with him, but something about the way he was grinning at me soon had me smiling back. We got some drinks and I began talking to this Serndalarin for awhile. After a certain point, his initial swaggering demeanor seemed to wear off a bit, and I actually found him very enjoyable to talk to. At one point I mentioned needing to go outside of town a bit to gather things to make some art supplies, and he told me that he would get me some the next day. Not taking him seriously at all, I told him that would be great. Well sure enough, the next night when I went into the tavern, he was there with a package of really high quality supplies. It honestly confused me a little, why someone would go so far out of their way for someone they just met. Regardless, we spent the better part of that night talking, and I used the wonderful supplies he brought me to make a painting that I gave to him.

Over the next few weeks, we spent a lot of time together, and started becoming very close. He surprised me often with moments of such sincerity, that I could barely recognize the swaggering mer that I first met in him. It was about this time that my brother Kadriin showed up to town unexpectedly. He was determined to talk me into coming back home. He has always been a little overbearing, and seems to still think of me as a child that he needs to protect. He wasn’t happy at my refusal, and decided to stay in town for awhile. I just hoped that he wouldn’t hear something about Sern and I, and start any trouble.

About a week ago, there was a big event in Skywatch in honor of the anniversary of the coronation of the Queen. I eventually decided to go, after some hesitation. After having been dragged through these kinds of status parades more times than I could count growing up, I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of it. I thought that it might not be so bad this time, though. Sern was going, as well as several other people from Vulkwasten whose company I enjoy. It….went about as I expected. Nothing really interesting happened, and I did end up leaving a little early.

Not long after that, there was news that there would be a caravan leaving from town. It was going to leave Malabal Tor, and stop at several towns. I obviously jumped at the chance to go. The people in Vulkwasten are great, but it’s a very small town, and I had started feeling very cooped up there. I was very eager to get back to my original intention of traveling. We set out a few days ago, and almost immediately trouble found us. There was a female khajiit in the road that had been bitten by a vampire. She was begging for help, and saying that she had cubs to take care of...but she had already started to turn, and there wasn’t anything anyone could do for her. It was horrible. The rest of the journey was fairly uneventful, and we made it to our first stop in Greenhill.

She reaches the end of the page, and decides to continue another time.

A sketch covers most of the page, with a few words written under it.
image no longer hosted — http://i.imgur.com/Cd1hqpV.jpg[/img]

Even the worst days have good moments.

I have never been more furious in my life. I knew that Kadriin was angry with me for refusing to return to Auridon with him, but I never imagined he would do something so irrational. I am done trying to be diplomatic with him, this is finished.

This morning, I left my house to meet Sern. It was a rare sunny day, and I leisurely walked along the path leading north. As I got to the edge of town, two figures jumped out of the trees near the path, and grabbed me. I was unarmed, but foolishly still attempted to struggle and fight, earning a few knocks, and a kick to the ribs for my trouble. They quickly subdued me, roughly tying my arms behind my back with coarse rope, and tied a horrible smelling cloth around my mouth. The entire scuffle took only seconds, and unfortunately there was no one around to help. They hauled me up, and brought me through the dense trees to where a few more of them were waiting. They passed a look between them, and we silently headed onward through the forest for awhile, before reaching the beach. After traveling along the rocky shoreline a bit, hugging tightly to the shadows of the jagged cliff faces, we came to a small damp cave. Judging by the disarray of gear and provisions strewn about the place, it seemed as though they had been using it as a sort of hideout. The one dragging and carrying me along was a rough looking Altmer with dark eyes, and a cloth mask across the lower half of his face. He unceremoniously dumped me to the ground in the back of the cave, and sat on a crate near me. As the others began to settle around the cave, I noticed a few glancing at me in a way that suggested they had other plans than to leave me to myself in the back of the cave. Fortunately, a dark look from the Altmer sitting near me had them continuing about their business. He muttered something about ‘the idiots ruining their ransom,’ and I was mostly ignored from that point on.

I don’t know exactly how long I sat in the back of that cave, several hours at least. Suddenly I heard shouting, and the sounds of fighting up near the entrance. I couldn’t see anything from behind the large stack of wooden crates, so I sat anxiously and waited to see what would happen. After what felt like an eternity of sitting and listening to the fighting move towards the back of the cave, silence fell over it. Suddenly, Chasianna appeared out of nowhere. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see someone. As she cut the ropes that held my arms, and removed the gag from my mouth, Sern and Hel stepped into view. It was clear the three of them had been fighting, but none of them appeared to be seriously injured. They quickly brought me out of the cave, and out onto the beach, where I noticed that Hel had brought my brother’s unconscious body out of the cave. For a horrible moment, I thought he was dead. Sern quickly assured me that he was alive, and had been knocked out during the fighting.

My friends then went on to tell me that after I hadn’t shown up to meet Sern, he started asking after me at the tavern. When he learned that no one had seen me that day, he, along with Chasianna and Alena, started looking for me. After discovering my house to be empty, they moved down the path where Alena was able to pick up my scent, along with that of my captors. Realizing what must have happened, they began tracking us. They had just gotten to the shore when they found Kadriin there, casting tracking spells, and appearing to be searching for me as well. Sern, (ever diplomatic, especially when angry) hauled him up by his robes and more or less shook the truth out of him. The truth being that my thick-witted brother had hired those men to capture me, and transport me to Velyn Harbor for him. At which point, he would have taken me on-board a ship, and back to Auridon. When his expected delivery didn't arrive as scheduled, he went looking for me to find out what had detained them. Helvius happened upon the scene during Sern’s tactful questioning, and offered his help. Alena had pressing matters to attend to with Grey, leaving the 4 of them to continue looking for me. Chasianna used tracking magick to lead them to the cave, where they wiped out my captors and saved me. Apparently, the ones Kadriin hired to abduct me had gotten wind of who our family was, and figured they would be able to ransom me for much more than Kadriin was paying. The damn lackwit.

Finally, we went back to my house. Hel and Chasianna dropped off Kadriin (who remained unconscious), and took their leave. Sern stayed with me, and is asleep beside me now as I write this. In the morning, the three of us are going to have a very straightforward conversation. I hope we can work all of this out, but honestly my hopes are not too high. I’m far beyond trying to deal with Kadriin nicely after this. He can accept that this is my life, and I make the choices in it, or he can go back to Auridon, and never hear from me again. I guess I’ll find out in the morning how reasonable he’s willing to be. I’m going to bed.

It seems like since I left Audiron, my life has been moving so fast that I can barely keep up. When I sit to try and write some things down, it feels like so much has happened since the last time. I’ll try to summarize the big things…

Sern and I took a trip to Windhelm. It was amazing, all of the buildings were huge and made from rough stone, and the snow! It made everything so soft and beautiful. Sern really wanted to show me the colorful lights that apparently dance across the sky some nights up there. They must only be visible at certain times though, because there were none while we were there...much to his frustration. Then I found out why he had been so insistent on trying to find a nice spot to view the lights from… he proposed! Much like the first time he said he loved me, it took me completely by surprise and I think I stood there in shock for a few moments before I could even respond. Of course, I said yes! I’m so unbelievably happy, and we would have probably made more progress planning the wedding, were it not for all the other things that seemed to suddenly crop up, (as I will write below).


The egotistical noble that my parents had betrothed me to, Olquar, appeared in town out of nowhere. I think he took it as a personal slight when I left, and when he heard that I wasn’t coming back, he decided to come and get me himself. After immediately insulting my clothing, my friends, and the town I now live in, he condescendingly tried to convince me to go back to Auridon with him. I managed to resist his charming proposition, and after not seeing any more of him for a couple days, assumed he had given up and left. Unfortunately, I was wrong. After attempting to bribe Sern into leaving me for a large amount of gold (which didn’t go over well), he apparently decided to take more drastic measures. He got Sern arrested and very nearly hanged after framing him for treason. Chasianna, Hel, and I proved that Sern had been framed, so he was allowed to go free on the condition that we gather evidence for the Thalmor against Olquar. We came up with a plan to trick him into confessing, and thanks largely to Shado, Donvyn and Hel, we pulled it off without anyone getting hurt...except Olquar that is, who is now in Thalmor custody.

Now that all of that is over, I received a letter from my father that my mother is sick again, this time worse than before. They’re not sure how much longer she has, and she’s asked to see me. So, I guess I’ll be heading to Mathiisan in the next day or two. I’ve never had a particularly good relationship with my mother, and it would be nice for both of us, I think, to finally be able to set all of that aside. Here’s to hoping.