ASHE, DEVLIN

[grimm1]

redford devlin ashfall .

REDFORD DEVLIN ASHFALL . RED, ASHE . 33; SIXTH OF MORNING STAR . BRETON . ASSASSIN; COLLECTOR . NEUTRAL . DARK BROTHERHOOD; THIEVES' GUILD; FORSWORN. N/A . PANSEXUAL . ORIGINAL .

[atrb=border,0,true] I want Ulfric Stormcloak dead. But do not mistake this to mean that I have Imperial Sympathies. I possess nothing of the sort. My vendetta against the Jarl of Windhelm is purely racial, not political, I assure you. If the Nords want to slaughter each other in this Civil War, I am blissfully content to let them do it. They spill blood on land that is sacred to my ancestors and only partially belonging to yours. You are a Nord, aren't you? I trust you are not as ignorant as the majority of your kin, and that you have actually heard of the Breton rule of Markarth, and how Stormcloak and his mean came and wiped my kin from their land? You know, I should have been a lord. My father was Housecarl to the Breton - well, you would call it a Jarl. He was one of the first to die. I was young then - that was some twenty years ago - but I was old enough to remember what I lost, and have felt a part of it. My mother sent me off with my uncle, run down by Ulfric's men on horseback as she fled in the opposite direction. He sacrifice provided distraction for cover and my uncle and his man wandered south and met up with a carriage, where we rode the treacherous edge of the world until we reached Riften. Riften is where I grew up, thirteen or so until I was a young man. My Nordic uncle was of the Thieves' Guild, and so I learned his wiles and ways and the value of stealth and coin and a clever tongue. I would have almost called myself happy there, except that I hardly fit in. The closest things to friends I had were some of the miserable orphans in town. While working for the Thieves' Guild I caught wind of something my uncle had been hiding from me - that many Bretons had refused to accept defeat by Ulfric Stormcloak, or bend knee to the oppression of corrupt Imperials. They were living, perceptibly, as violent savages who attacked in the name of their rightful ancestral land when they could. I was stirred, and curious, to say the least - but forbidden to seek them out. Which was just as well - Markarth was a far way to travel, and I was un-eager to revisit the nightmares from my past. Still, this stayed with me, and created a void between my uncle and I. As did a job in Falkreath, in which I was sent to obtain a purportedly cursed blade of a recently killed vampire, and instead of returning to my uncle's home after collecting my earnings from the sword in Riften, proceeded back to the outskirts of Falkreath to speak with a mysterious stranger I met snatching the sword. We met outside a decrepit looking cabin, in the hills near Falkreath, which I was informed was the former home of the deceased vampire who's sword I had stolen. I was told that the property of the deceased belonged to the one who had killed him, and that I hod wronged the now rightful owner of the accursed blade, and that my debt must be repaid. This way of thinking is all I knew, so I agreed respectfully. They were not asking for money. They were not asking for what I would normally consider equal payment. Merely, they said, the blade was infused with a single fallen soul and so I owed a single fallen soul to fill a crystal to enchant another blade. And then something else, if I could return with that. This seemed easy at first, as I was hardly shy at the prospect of killing for my convenience. It wasn't something I did often simply because I didn't have the need or occasion to. But I had before and had full confidence in my ability to get away with it. I would not have killed any innocent willingly or easily for a stranger, but they were not asking that. They demanded a fallen soul, and I knew no shortage of dregs to society. Many of them either owed me something or frequently inconvenienced my way. But as a parting note, I was told the only soul that would be accepted to fill the crystal was that of my uncle. This stranger knew things about me. As she slowly recalled summarized portions of my past I realized that either she had been watching me in the shadow for a long period of my life or - possibly both - she had taken my return to Riften to sell the sword to research me. I wonder how much she really knew, beyond my birth in Markarth under Breton rule and being raised by my Nordic uncle as a thief in Riften. I wondered if she knew that I was a once wanted for capture son of a Lord - the rightfully titled, even now, Lord Redford Devlin Ashfall of Markarth, son of Lord Redford Argos Ashfall, Housecarl of the True, Breton Jarl of Markarth. My uncle and I wanted to avoid the risk of ever being noted, and so it was my name became Devlin Ashe. But I wonder if this woman knew. I wonder if she knew I dreamed of running further north and joining the Daedric-worshiping Forsworn of the outcast Breton. I wonder if she knew I worshiped Daedra myself, in secret, with hand-carved shrines to a select few hidden under my bed. But it didn't matter then, I could sense, all that mattered was I return with my uncle's soul in the crystal. In a way, her demand was my freedom. So I returned, on a horse with a few vital and most prized belongings. Upon giving the still cloaked woman her crystal, I was ambushed, and next thing I knew, I was confined in a wooden cage, stripped of my belongings and most of my clothes. I beheld a barbaric captor dressed in some manner of hides and a horned skull, keeping watch over me. He taunted me and said how I was sold off by some shady figures and told I was "some kinda Lord and worth something to the right people." Enraged and horrified I nearly panicked. I think I would have if he hadn't been beckoned out of the room for enough time for me to realize that inside my pants was a small leather pouch, with an enchanted dagger, and a note. The note had a bloody palm and the words, simply, "We know." When I touched the dagger I heard a familiar voice in my head, instruct me to, "Kill them. Kill them all." And so I did. It was hardly a pretty site. I was a mess myself when I stumbled out of the cave and made my way through the encampment. I had expected a harder fight through the camp, and to likely die there, but as it turned out, everyone on the outside was dead, save a few, who I finished off. At the entrance were cloaked figures, who took me back to their sanctuary and from thenceforth, called me brother. That is how I became an assassin. That is how I killed my uncle, and left the Thieves' Guild - though for collectible and pricey items I trade with and dabble in their affairs on occasion. That is how I joined the Dark Brotherhood. And that is how I, unknowingly, slaughtered an entire tribe of my warrior ancestors - the Forsworn - and earned and pledged priority allegiance to my new family. But even so, this does not mean the fires of my past do not flicker in my soul. I still want revenge, in the name of my blood, and first family. Someday, somehow, I shall have it.

ALIAS . SER DAVOS GRIMMSHIRE

AGE . Twenty-two.

YEARS ROLEPLAYING . 8-ish with some breaks between.

HOW YOU FOUND US . Lurking ads at CAUTION 2.0.