"What's your name, Elf?"

The shouts of soldiers and the clatter of weapons echoed around the windblown courtyard. Someone's discarded linen shawl blew between the legs of the small group of guardsmen standing lazily to attention beside an old and scarred desk set up in the middle of the wide space.

Behind this desk, holding a quill pen poised over a ragged sheet of parchment, sat a hard-eyed and angular woman of maybe 50 summers, bedecked in the regalia of a captain of the guard.

She sighed, and waved the quill at a soldier standing behind the prisoner.

With a grunt of acknowledgement the soldier lifted his spear and slammed the butt end of it into the small of the captive's back.

She fell to her knees on the hard dusty ground, svcking a pained breath in through between dirty, clenched teeth.

"Your name." Demanded the captain once again.

After a moment longer, the prisoner looked up at the captain behind her desk; regarded her with large, nearly black eyes set in a gaunt face framed by lank, straw-coloured hair from which protruded the pointed tips of distinctive Elven ears.

The Elf opened her mouth and said in a low, cracked voice; "Eilidh."

The Captain regarded her a moment longer.

The Bosmer - (who, incidentally smelt... well she smelt terribly, but she also smelt like a wolf or a bear; slightly "meaty" and "musty"; sour and rotten. All her kind did, it was as distinctive as it was unwholesome; a result of their twisted diet. And yet, the Captain had to admit to herself, she found this one more than a little fascinating) - The elf's face and body betrayed no small degree of history and hardship; thin she was and yet beneath the ragged sackcloth shirt her body was nevertheless sinewy and bowstring taut, the compact muscles hard and surprisingly powerful; at least one of her men had found that out the hard way when they had attempted to capture her.

Her skin was heavily freckled, beneath a layer of greasy filth, and marked by innumerable abrasions, pocks and marks of all shapes and sizes. She was heavily tattooed with any number of vulgar designs.

But it was her face, more than anything, that told of the hardness of her life until now, it's end.

The left side of the Bosmer's face was a mass of scarring, the damaged skin pale and livid against the dirt that covered her. Dark warpaint was smeared across her cheeks and the sockets of her eyes, which were black and moist; vastly deep like some animal's and rimmed with a livid red as of an incipient infection.

The woman's mouth was set in a thin hard line, the lips bloodless.

But enough of this.

She sighed, waved the quill again and once more the butt of the spear connected with the kneeling Bosmer, hitting her shoulderblade with a crack barely muffled by the thin material that covered her.

"ALL of your name, bosmer." She said, spitting out the last word like an insult.

"MacAuley, Eilidh MacAuley." Said Eilidh finally, her dry voice heavily accented.

The captain grunted in satisfaction and carefully wrote down the name on the parchment, poking out her tongue in concentration.

When she had finished she looked up at Eilidh again, saying; "So, bosmer, have ye anything to say in ya defence, afore I pass my judgement?"

It was a pointless question, and she knew it.

Eilidh knew it too.

"Téigh gnéas féin agat soith..." She hissed through yellowed and gritted teeth.

"Speak Imperial!" Snapped the Captain. Eilidh winced as the guard behind her applied his spear to her back once again.

She glanced hatefully at the woman behind the desk and then, a cold half-smile flickering across her lips she said; "Go **** ye'sel' *****."

There was an audible gasp from the men around her at this display of blatent insolence, and for a moment even their leader looked taken aback.

The Captain gathered herself.

"Even if you were not already dead, bosmer, now you are for sure..."

Silence held sway for a moment and Eilidh, naked but for the thin cloth shivered a little in the chill air blowing through the garrison's courtyard.

She ached all over, or at least more than usual. Her brains were pounding in her ears and her mouth had a dry and phlegmy taste in it. Her condition was not helped in any way by the fact that she had not had wine for some 3 days now.

More though, was the pain of what that pig of a legionary had done to her.

Hers had been a hard life, she had had to fight every inch of the way barring a few brief patches of respite. She looked, she knew, every one of the 173 seasons that she had spent on this Gods-forsaken world.

During her time she had committed... dubious acts, both physically and morally, and yes amongst those had been the auctioning of herself, when money had been tight and survival the only factor.

But that was different, she had been in control; calling the shots she had run the game and come out the victor in those encounters.

Yesterday though, that had been something else entirely, that was evil even by her standards of behaviour. There had been a wrong visited upon her the likes of which should never happen.

Ever.

And then, out of the corner of her dark eye she saw him, standing just behind the guard Captain's entourage he was.

He was a big man, broad of girth; fat, sweaty jowls, and sallow oily skin. He was wearing a helmet and facing slightly away from her but she knew him; his stinking greasy body, his breath hot and sour against her, his little piggy eyes.

Oh, she knew him alright.

The blood in her veins ran cold as ice, her heart pounded against her ribs.

He turned then, and saw her.

His plump mouth spread open in fat grin, the thick lips pink against his pale cheeks. He pointed at her with a stubby finger whilst with his other hand he made a sign, the meaning of which was only too clear to the Bosmer.

The sound of the Captain's voice droning on - a litany of her crimes, chief amongst which was simply of having been born a Bosmer - had long since faded into the distance, to be replaced by one repeated thought:

"HE MUST PAY. HE WILL PAY."

Over and over and over, a cold and hard nugget of vengeance.

Had she been able, she would have leapt at him then and there even though her hands were bound.

Indeed, even as she thought it, her body moved of it's own accord, her mouth twisting into a snarl...

...Then hands grabbed her and lifted her roughly to her feet, through a red haze of bloody murder she vaguely heard the Captain's voice; "...for the crime of being an unwelcome element in the Imperial Province of Skyrim, for numerous breaches of our laws, I hereby refer you for summary execution."

Her captors walked her across the courtyard to the block that sat lumpen and solid; bloodstained and chipped, in the centre of the courtyard. A mute symbol of oppression and arbitrary justice.

She passed him and their eyes met - his, mocking and leering and hers, hate-filled.

She kept her eyes on him as she was led away, maintained contact even as the tendons in her neck began to creak and ache.

Finally she faced the front, faced her future.

173 years.

He Would Pay. Even if in Death she made a pact with all of the Daedra themselves to send her back, He Would Pay.

173 years.

They forced her roughly to her knees, pushing her head onto the block.

Rage boiled within her.

173.

He Would Pay.

She sensed the headsman raise his sword.

1...

7...

The world exploded into roaring fire, and everything around her went insane.