Shadow Hide You (A Skyrim Fanfic)

1: Daughters of Darkness

Mercer Frey stands in his home of Riftweald Manor, listening to the even breathing of his current lover, a Dunmer woman who is laying in his bed, asleep. Mercer stares out the window, watching as the people of Riften wander on past. He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs deeply.

The dark elf behind him shifts in her sleep. She groans softly and her red eyes flutter open. He wishes that she was the woman he'd imagined before himself, but of course, it isn't. Because he's certain she is dead. Karliah. The woman he had framed for the murder of the previous Guildmaster, who was her lover, Gallus.

Mercer is the one who killed him. Ghislaine Crowcaller, the dark elf, sits up and rubs her eyes sleepily. She looks up at him, and as Mercer turns his body to face her, he stares at her messy white hair and her ashen skin, flawless, save for some scars on her shoulders, chest, and cheeks.

"Uh, Mercer? I have something to tell you..."

He looks at her, taking in the dark elf's baggy dress and studying her face closely. "Alright, Ghislaine. Tell me."

She sighs and takes a few fortifying breaths. "I'm... I'm pregnant."

Shock and horror sluices throughout Mercer's body. He stumbles back a step. He'd never thought that she'd get pregnant. That she'd....

"How long till the baby is born?"

Ghislaine hesitates.  "Uh ... it's twins. The priest at the Temple of Mara informed me that they're twins, and they are yours."

He supposes he's wondered why she's been more distant. wearing baggier clothes and barely coming around, or even removing her shirt or dress. It's because of this. Because she is with child.

"Come with me, Ghislaine. I want to show you something."

She takes his outstretched hand and the two of them leave Riftweald. They walk, hand in hand, and head out of the city  gates. Ghislaine knows he is a thief, that he's the Guildmaster of the Thieves Guild. But she does not know he is a Nightingale.

He brings her to the Twilight Sepulcher.

The trip took a week, but neither of them seemed to mind, as he'd told her it was a special place, somewhere where she would be safe. Some place where Ghislaine could happily give birth, away from the darkness that plagues Riften. He didn't want his children to grow up there, so Falkreath would have to do.

When they arrive, Mercer steps up to the tall stones around the small stream that babbles nearby. There are three stone pillars. One for each of the Nightingale Trinity.

The Trinity he's now the leader of.

Ghislaine Crowcaller looks at him with a strange look in her red eyes.  Mercer shows her the stone carvings of the Nightingale symbols in the dark stone that towers high. Mercer sighs and turns around, staring at Ghislaine.

He moves toward her, and her breath trembles, just like her body. He touches a lock of her white hair, tucking it behind her pointed ear. She stares at him. But she did not see his other hand gripping his glass dagger. He pulls it out of its sheath and stabs her in the chest three times.

Ghislaine Crowcaller screams, but no one but Mercer and the horses can hear her.

She collapses on her back, clutching both her swollen stomach, the very swollen stomach, and her chest, which bleeds heavily. Mercer steps up to stand over her.

"Sorry, Ghislaine. But I have no room in my life for you anymore. And so, this lonely place is now your tomb. Give my regards to Gallus if you happen to see him in Oblivion."

Mercer Frey then gathers up the two horses. He ignores Ghislaine as she screams. Begging him to return and help her. But the words she screams do not have any affect on him, or his dark heart.

Ghislaine watches Mercer Frey leave her alone in the middle of nowhere in Falkreath Hold, bleeding hard. She will die here. As will her daughters.

She looks over to the stone pillars. They seem like dark sentinels, watching over her murder. But she decides then that she will not die here. And neither will her babies.

Ghislaine screams in pain as she sits up. "Nocturnal. The Goddess of Darkness, Lady Luck. Patron of Thieves. Please, help me. Help my daughters and I.  You have been betrayed. And if you help me, if you save my daughters.... you can have me. My soul. You can have me, in whatever life is left in me, and whatever death that lays beyond."

Then, as she leans her back against the pillar of dark stone, closing her eyes ....

A pair of leather-clad hands grab her. Ghislaine opens her eyes and yelps, but sees a fellow Dunmer woman, but her eyes are a pretty shade of purple, not red. Her brown hair falls on either side of her face. The woman wears a brown leather suit and hood and gloves, her boots hitting the blood on the ground and squelching.

"Help ..... me...."

Then, Ghislaine passes out.

Karliah half-carries, half-drags the Dunmer woman, the very pregnant and dying sobbing even in unconsciousness. She brings her into a side room, hidden off to the side, away from the swirling purple shadows that block off the rest of the Sepulcher, and Pilgrim's Path.

Karliah brings her into the dark room, hastily lighting the candles. She then spins around and starts to tend to the three stab wounds in her chest.

When she finishes that, the woman snaps awake, groaning in pain. Karliah rushes to the head of the stone slab she used as a bed for the woman. She looks at Karliah, her face flushed.

"Who are you?"

"Who are you? How did you get here? And who did this to you?"

The woman sighs shakily.  "I'm Ghislaine Crowcaller. I was the lover of a man from Riften. His name is Mercer. And he did this to me when he found out I am pregnant."

Karliah gasps. "Mercer. Was his last name Frey?"

Ghislaine nods.

Karliah sighs and rubs her face. "Okay. Ghislaine, how pregnant are you?"

"The priest of Mara said it'll be any day," she says.

"Oh, my friend. I'm so sorry this happened to you," Karliah mutters. "Mercer framed me for my lover's death, too. And I am .... I'm hunting him."

Ghislaine nods. "I understand. But —"

She is cut off by a loud scream that is torn from her throat. Karliah realizes that this woman is now in labor. After several hours of working with the woman, totally unaware of how to do anything in regards to giving birth, Karliah holds a baby in her arms, and Ghislaine holds her other baby.

Twins. Daughters.

Nox and Briar Crowcaller. Both girls Dunmer with white hair and dark red eyes.

Karliah talks to them, wrapping Nox in a blanket she'd stashed away in her backpack. She turns around when she hears Briar crying. Because there, laying on the cold slab of rock, is a very dead Ghislaine.