I'm actually working on a short story about my next character but it's getting up near 5000 words. So here's the first part.

Kanek-i sat on the ridge far above Elinhir and watched the shadow of the mountains grow shorter over the land of her childhood. When she was younger she never much cared to enter the town itself when the women journeyed there to trade, preferring instead to stay with the herd and help with the milking, slaughtering, and smithing. Back in those days her younger brother delighted in chasing a single sheep away from the flock just so he could watch Kanek-i track it down and return it, scolding him all the way. Her scolding was half serious and half in jest, for she enjoyed every chance she got to put her natural tracking abilities to use.

It was another person, another life, she thought to herself. These days she still only entered cities and towns when she absolutely had to, and usually only under cover of night. The people and buildings made her feel paranoid, trapped. The sun was rising over The Reach and it was time to leave her homeland once again. She was again bored with Hammerfell like she had grown bored with Cyrodiil months ago. Contracts became harder to come by around the Imperial City even with the ever-increasing Thalmor presence -- strange, as Kanek-i figured there would be plenty of people who would wish those damned elves dead. She wasn’t sure if the people had grown weary or complacent under the White-Gold Concordat. But her contacts in Cyrodiil or Hammerfell hadn’t sent word in too long, and even Astrid, the leader of what was left of the Dark Brotherhood, hadn’t required her services in weeks. She grew tired of pickpocketing septims in Elinhir and decided to look for “legitimate” work amongst the Nords of Skyrim.

She wasn’t sure how Astrid would feel about her working in Skyrim. To her knowledge the Dark Brotherhood had never outwardly claimed it as their sole territory. It was usually easy enough to find people who required her services but didn’t want to bother with the silly Black Sacrament. Let the Dark Brotherhood keep their rituals and superstitions. Astrid knew who to call on when only the best and most discreet assassin was necessary. And she never pressured Kanek-i into joining her “family.”

Kanek-i had taken contracts in Skyrim before, mostly in The Reach. A wizard who wooed a lady away from some blacksmith, a Khajit with sticky fingers outside of Dragon Bridge, a Forsworn Briarheart whose tribe had crossed the wrong noble. And a bandit leader who had kidnapped a child for ransom. She had killed him slowly, and with great pleasure, as she had once before.

Kanek-i paused and squeezed her eyes shut at the thought of the bandit. It was a familiar story with a much more satisfying ending than the one in her past. This time the child was returned to his parents unharmed. But her brother....

She moved faster over the rocks and down the mountain.