History
Mirada is Breton, although she was born in Skyrim. Her parents were merchants and traveled all over Tamriel. While Miranda’s family prospered, in Miranda’s teen years, she noticed how hard it was for her parents to keep things going. How much time was spent on everything but what seemed important. She decided that she was not going to live like this. She was going to be an adventurer and make mountains of money as a sword for hire and crypt diver.
Such was the dream of a naive youngster.
Her adventuring days began when she and her father got into an argument about Miranda’s plans for the future. Obviously her father wanted the best for “his little girl”. Mirada knew that meant marriage and a life of boredom. She was having none of that. When her father gave her the ultimatum, she left.
Her first theft was from her father’s money chest…9700 septims. A fortune in Miranda’s small world. Little did she know what the real world had in store for her.
The Night
10 days after leaving her “normal” life, Mirada found herself in The Reach. The mountains all around her cast long dark shadows as the sun fell behind them. Light faded quickly as she strolled along the path. She had hoped to make it to Rorikstead before stopping for the night. Soon she needed a torch to see the path in front of her.
Three men shadowed her in the cover of darkness on each side of the road. She knew nothing of their presence or how to keep 9000 Septims quiet when you walked.
The first thing that Miranda felt was a hand over her mouth, the sudden awareness of this caused her to drop the torch. The next thing she felt was the cold metal of an orcish dagger at her throat.
“Make one move, one whimper and you’re dead.”, the thief whispered into her ear, his breath reeking of ale.
The other two came into the light then. One cut the strings on three very heavy coin purses. He raised them and shook the money in her face. “Thank you, mi’lady”. The last, well, he had other treasures on his mind.
He grabbed Miranda’s skirt just above her knees. When he started to lift it, she realized what was coming and began to struggle against it. The dagger bit into her skin
“I told you not to move.”
She was helpless, she couldn’t stop what was happening. She cried at first, then realizing it wasn’t helping, she began to harden herself. Her face grew calm and grim. She became lifeless and unmoving – like a warm corpse. Her mind tried to mask what was happening, she tried to think of ways to stop it, what she could have done to prevent it.
“How could I have been so stupid? What did I know of the world? What will dad think if I go back now?”
All of these thoughts raced through her mind, none of them had any logical answers. She had to get through this. She needed to survive this night. She endured as all three took their turn with her. Something dark and sinister woke in her that night. Something that would guide her the rest of her life. Never again would she be at the mercy of anyone. Never again would she be the helpless victim.
As the last of them crawled off of Miranda, he forgot about the blade. He had laid it just to his left as he took what he wanted. Miranda hadn’t forgot it. She found it and hid it. Miranda harnessed the rage and the pain, preparing herself for what she was about to do.
While the other two drunken buffoons wondered off to seek additional merriment, the first stood a few paces from her, drunk, and fumbling with his breeches. He didn’t notice Miranda get up. He didn’t notice that she held his orcish blade, serrated and sharp, in her left hand. He didn’t notice her creep up behind him. She took those few steps to the thief’s back as if she were walking on ice, slow and methodical, waiting to be sure the ground would not give way before putting her weight on the foot. Slowly she crept until she was inches away from the worm who had forgotten how to tie a knot.
The blade pierced the leather overcoat and shirt underneath with ease – hardly any resistance. Just as the warm gush of blood spilled out, Miranda put her right hand over the mouth of the thief.
“Don’t move” she whispered.
The thief’s eyes popped wide open. The pain of the blade was acute, drunk or not, the thief felt his own blade slip between his ribs and tear at his heart. A few seconds later, he felt nothing at all.
Miranda couldn’t hold the weight of the dying man, she slipped to the side and he fell to her right. She watched as he lay there, blood pouring from the wound on his left flank. She felt the same blood on her hand and arm as it turned cold.
The pain in her gut from the assault was still there. Her anger was still there. She wasn’t done, there were two more men who owed their lives to her. She turned and started down the path after them.
Reggie
She caught up with the other men as they left the Frostfruit Inn a few hours later. What she wasn’t expecting was for them to have met up with a third.
“Is this entire world filled with skeevers?” she asked herself as she watched the three leave, stumbling down the path toward gods only knew where. She followed them in the shadows, much the same way she had been stalked. She wasn’t as quiet as they had been, but they were drunk and took no notice of her.
A few paces out of the light of Rorikstead, the new man raised a bottle and said “Drinks all around!” The other two pushed out their arms, holding cups in each hand. A clear liquid was poured into their cups and all over the ground, missing the third man’s cup altogether.
“They’re so drunk they couldn’t hear me even if I were a mammoth.” Miranda thought as she watched all three men down their cups of brew.
Then something surprising happened. The two men that had attacked her began to shake and tremble. A few seconds later, they were foaming at the mouth and their eyes were rolling around in their sockets. They both fell to the ground and shook uncontrollably for another few seconds and then stopped. A white foam dripped from their mouths and nose, followed shortly by blood.
Then Miranda heard something she will never forget.
“You can come out now.” said the third man as he bent over the two dead attackers and pulled three coin purses from them. Shaking them in his hands, he turned to look directly at Miranda – like it wasn’t night and he knew exactly where she was all the time. She could tell that this third man was a Dunmer, a dark elf, in early middle age by the looks of it. His hair was dark, his eyes bright red, his features were sullen and he carried himself with an ere of confidence.
Miranda tightened her hand around the dagger, blood still clinging to it’s edges, and took a few steps toward the Dunmer.
“Those are mine.” she said calmly, pointing the dagger toward the coin purses.
“Well, they are in my hands, so, that makes them mine.”, said the stranger.
“No, those goons took them from me – along with everything else they wanted.” Miranda’s words were growing more forceful by the moment. She took a few more steps toward the man and continued, “I’ve killed one man tonight, don’t become the second.” She tried to sound like she could do what she threatened.
“Mi’lady, you couldn’t harm me if I were to walk up to you and put that dagger to my own throat.” His tone conveyed absolute certainty. “But, I’ll make a bargain with you. You put that dagger away. We’ll go back to the Inn, get you cleaned up and, over a warm meal, discuss the possibility of you becoming my apprentice. Doesn’t that sound better than ending up like these two?” he pointed to the corpses at his feet.
Miranda looked at him as if sizing him up. “Could he be real?” ran through her head.
“Why would you help me?” she said in a puzzled tone.
“Simple, you need the training.” He paused for a moment to let that sink in, then continued, “You DO want to prevent this night’s adventures from happening again, don’t you?”
Now it was he who walked toward Miranda. When he drew close, he put his arm up as if to embrace her.
“Stop!” Miranda screamed and swung the dagger at the stranger’s arm. The stranger smacked her hand and the dagger fell three feet from her with a clang.
“See. I told you. You need the training.” With that, the stranger backed away and smiled at Miranda. He bent down, picked up the dagger and offered to her. “Come on, I’m not going to hurt you, I promise.”
Miranda took another look at this Dunmer. She took the dagger and retorted “Fine. But don’t ever touch me.”
So they turned and strolled slowly toward Frostfruit Inn. They were just outside the door, when the stranger turned to Miranda and said, “Oh, where are my manners? I’ve completely forgotten to introduce myself.”
He took a step back, swung his right foot out and back planting it behind his left and then he bowed at the hip.
Upon returning upright he continued “I am Rej’Narandas Sarayn, Blade of the Frozen North and I am at your service.”
He reached for the door and pushed it open. Light and sound from the Inn poured out into the night. He waved his arm and beckoned her to go in.
“But you can call me Reggie.”
A bit of background info as to how Miranda came into being:
Torac met an untimely demise (because I was stupid and forgot about an automatic backup that overwrote his Mod Organizer profile) and I have created a new character – Miranda. This is her back story. Depending on how I decide to play it out, it may become her complete story as I work through what will, hopefully and finally, be a full play through of Skyrim.
I’m planning on playing her as a Spellblade/Assassin/Nightblade – a sneaky thief/assassin mixed with a ton of magic use. I want to play an assassin so she will have no qualms about who she kills. Full on sneak is going to hard for me, because I have very little patience and playing an assassin requires that – in spades. This fact alone may make her a mage by proxy, but time will tell.
The biggest reason I’ve wanted to play a sneaky assassin is that I’ve seen game play footage like this:
and this
… and I’ve always wanted to play like that. Miranda is my chance to try.