#athea

If anything, her upbringing was pretty lax, almost too lax, with Rana and N'eroh being wanderers from Hammerfell and Elsweyr, respectively, who put most emphasis on freedom and seeing what the world had to offer over most things. Eventually, it came to inevitable point at 15 where Nera got the traveling bug herself, and that’s when she left her home to travel the rest of Skyrim, going to Riften, Windhelm, Winterhold, and Dawnstar until eventually settling semi-permanently in Solitude.

She stayed for a few years in Riften, where she found out she needed money which then lead to finding out she was pretty dang good at breaking into places and obtaining items of value. What started out as “Hey kid you’re pretty dang good at this” turned into “I can make a living doing this, holy shit”. And she did. Nera became great at both obtaining items and making sure they got into the hands of the “right” people. She even had a brief stint with the Thieves’ Guild, though at the end of her time in Riften, decided she didn’t quite fit in and preferred doing things her own way that didn’t involve so many shakedowns.

From there, she left for Windhelm, making further contacts among residents of all sorts, from Argonian dockworkers to Khajiit caravaneers to the occasional Nord merchant, using swift hands and a lot of sweet talk to make everyone happy. Or at least, most people happy. She still had occasional run-ins with the law, which made some guards unhappy, but more importantly she had a run-in with Narrok Ironhand, an influential Nord businessman, who seemed okay at first but turned out to have cargo Nera wanted no part of. She relieved him of said cargo and fled town. From there she went all along the northern and central parts of Skyrim, from Winterhold to Windhelm to Morthal to Dawnstar, and eventually she ended up in Solitude. Solitude, she liked, and it was there that she stayed for many years until she met our dear Fenir, who very clearly swept her off her feet and eventually moved to Anvil in Cyrodiil to live happily ever after with hellspawn and shenanigans.

(Jk, they fled to Cyrodiil to get away from Narrok and actually traveled for years until the twins happened. Then they stayed at Skingraad and traveled again when Brynne and Illaren were grown. Haven’t established much beyond that yet.)

And yeah. Nera continues to use her skills as a charismatic thief, a businesswoman, occasionally a mercenary and whatever else she needs to be to make a living. She’s good at sneaking about, she’s good at archery, good at dual-wielding a sword/dagger combo. Good at swindling, good at talking her way out of situations and making people happy. Also decent, then pretty good with Illusion magic. She is a cat lady of many talents.

Her son, Illaren, is definitely of a more magical persuasion, and is the closest thing to a pure mage that I have. While he can wield a sword with strength and precision, and he has his charm where it counts, he’s without a doubt a more scholarly sort overall. Always learning, always wanting to find and analyze the secrets of the universe. It gets him into trouble more than once, but beyond that it remains to be seen what he’ll get up to.

@greyfen can tell you more about his sister, Brynne.

I can tell you more about Iala, though. Like Illaren, Iala is also a scholarly sort, though she tends to take a more hands-on approach because she’s in her sixties and has long ago lost any sort of apprehension towards going into scary old ruins. She’s terrifying and out of fucks to give about anything that doesn’t involve discovery and weird experiments.

Iala had a pretty humble beginning, though, being born to fairly ordinary parents in Daggerfall. Her altmer mom was a mercenary, while her bosmer mom was a local alchemist/healer. Iala seemed to pick up from both of them yet also delved her own path, showing an interest in magic and technology fairly early on. Her parents arranged for her to have a tutor immediately, and said tutor, a Breton wizard by the name of Charlemund Wickcroft was happy to have her and have her excel.

He was just the first(if major) step in Iala’s education though, as the bosmer ended up going almost quite literally all around Tamriel to further her skills. From Daggerfall she went to Alinor, and from Alinor to the College of Whispers, and finally briefly to the College of Winterhold before she decided she was only going to learn more by going to the source.

The source was, of course, the various ruins and mystical objects scattered throughout Tamriel. The Ayelied and Dwemer ruins in particular caught her interest, and from there she studied both on her own and with others for decades before publishing a series of books on her observations and theoretical new applications of old technology. She made quite a profit from both valuable trinkets she found and said books, eventually allowing her to go from a simple traveling hermit lifestyle to that of a luxury witch hermit lifestyle. Still not satisfied, though, she continues to explore and experiment, seeing how far she can go and what boundaries she can push before old age decides it might be brave enough to claim her.

If I were to simplify her skills into a list, I’d say she was good with the arcane of all sorts, reverse-engineering and engineering of technology both magical and not, and not giving a fuck about looking death in the face as long as its FOR SCIENCE. Also, she was born under the sign of the Atronach and is capable of absorbing magic as well. Very hand for magical items that wanna kill her lmao. but yeah. SCIENCE

Finally we have Zelah, a dunmer Morag Tong assassin who essentially Mass Effect Zeela had she gone down a darker path. Unlike her quarian counterpart, Zelah was orphaned at a pretty young age and thus didn’t have much of a family to raise her, instead being raised by a Morag Tong agent and their various contacts. The guild, in essence, became her family, and she’s remained fervently loyal to it since, even as it stands as a shadow of what it once was.

I’ve yet to plan out her journey beyond that aside from the fact that Talsin, another Morag Tong assassin, is family to her and that they likely travel beyond Morrowind for reasons currently unknown. Skill-wise, she’s still retains her old information broker talents from Mass Effect: She’s good at lying, she can be manipulative, and she’s very good at finding out other peoples’ business. Unlike her counterpart, however, she’s also much more physically-adept, being an expert in poisons and knife-throwing combined with cloak and dagger tactics. She’s a master at getting people before they know she’s coming- whether she’s smiling in front of their face or coming out from the shadows.

And I think that’s it for now! I’m sorry for the fact that I seemed to have rambled instead of just straight up answering your questions but like…. Its fine, right? You learned more about them, and that’s good, right? Right. Totally right.