Shadow's Rose [Slow updates]

Prologue

A/N: Hi there! This is the first fanfic I'm posting on here so just a quick disclaimer. I own nothing of the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion except my own original ideas and characters. Please read, review and most of all enjoy! Thanks

Evening Star 21, 3E433, Fredas

Usually I would not waste time documenting my thoughts or memories or feelings. I am not a writer at best but Vicente told me to get into the habit of writing in a journal since I would probably live longer than most and forget memories I'd rather not...sadly, I wish I had heeded his words earlier because the thoughts and happenings I most wish to remember are mere wisps. Mist disappearing before a sunrise.

I am at a loss for where to start but perhaps an explanation or two is necessary? Maybe who Vicente is? He was my brother, my saviour, the one who taught me the majority of the skills that helped me survive in my new home. If it hadn't been for him, I would probably have died three hundred and eighteen years before I wrote this. Why? Because I was barely a toddler living in Vvardenfell when my parents were killed by vampire hunters. Rumour had spread that both my parents were of the undead but it was untrue, only my father was in those ranks. And, had I not been playing hide and seek in the backyard, I would probably have been murdered too. The spawn of evil. But I am only half. A hybrid. They would not have seen it that way, no matter how much humanity screamed through me.

Amidst the smoke and flaming arrows Vicente tore me from my hiding place and disappeared into the night like a shadow. He whispered promises of a safe place for me to grow up where my uniqueness would be accepted and not scorned, the same promise he had made my father before I was born. They were friends and it had been my father who'd shared his gift with Vicente, such was the extent of their friendship.

I don't actually remember the representative we met on our way to Cyrodiil but she allowed him to bring me along though it had not been a part of the original arrangement. It was a night I remember vividly. Especially the cold that followed us as we stole across the border using magic and enchantments provided for us by the family awaiting us. A powerful organization know as the Dark Brotherhood. The representative with us was the Speaker in charge of the faction we would belong to.

Life at the Cheydinhal Sanctuary was normal...well normal for a group of hired assassins. I was taught in the ways of sneaking and silence, the shadows became my best friend. However limited, Vicente monitored my progress, making sure my "education" was befitting my age. I aged slowly, taking nearly two hundred years to reach adolescence and when I did a pair of baby Argonian twins Ocheeva and Teinaava joined our ranks. Shadowscales in training. They joined my lessons and we became great friends as we practiced on one another and trained together, me mostly teaching them things I'd learnt years before. I was saddened by their departure not soon after to serve their country. Vicente promised they would return one day and I was only glad enough to believe and hope.

And they did return some years later as full-fledged members of the Brotherhood... Ocheeva hadn't even been back long before she was promoted through the ranks to the Sanctuary's Mistress. It was an honour to receive contracts from her. Everyone was pleased with her.

I remember these memories with fondness because that is all they are now. Reminders of what life was like before things went wrong. And a hope that maybe, someday in the near future, things could go back to being that way. I find it difficult to get my hopes up though and I suppose it's expected. Loss can do that to a person. Make you see things as an endless downpour of bad luck and painful endings. This I know because today is the day I lost everything...