#lefthanded elf

And the dust settled again. The men had left, and now Sheru carefully extracted herself from the rock pile she had hid in. She felt a small tug on her shawl and turned, to see Mehr-hi. Mehr-hi asked, “Why must the men kill us?”

“I do not know, Mehr-hi,” said Sheru. She picked the little mer up and walked, looking at all the faces of her dead people, decimated by the men, the raga they called themselves. Mehr-hi clung tighter to Sheru when he saw the bodies of his parents. She walked faster then.

She walked throughout the night, and Mehr-hi held on, for what else were they to do? The raga had destroyed their home and all who had lived there and Sheru and Mehr-hi were the only survivors. Survivors, because they had stayed hidden while the others had fought.

As dawn broke on the next day, Sheru's legs trembled such from the walking that by the time she saw a house in the distance, she almost fell as she forced herself to go faster, waking Mehr-hi with the new movement. Surely they were safe now, for here was shelter!

The house was plain and unadorned, and inside was bare save for the essentials. There appeared to be two rooms coming off from the main one, and both were empty save for the left one, which had a few sheets of fabric lain on the floor. They seemed to be hiding something, so Sheru set Mehr-hi down and pulled away the sheets. What was there was a sword, but it was the strangest sword Sheru had ever lay eyes on. It was not forged from metal nor mineral, but seemed to be shaped from air itself. She touched it, felt a strange sensation.

And then she heard someone approach. She took the sword with her to see who this was, and it was a man. He was covered in wounds and held no weapons, and he eyed Sheru closely.

No Justice, No Peace

The Sinistral Elves, also known as the Left Handed Elves, were a race of mer that lived on the continent of Yokuda, West of Tamriel, in an uneasy peace with the Yokudans, from the late Dawn Era to the early First Era. At one point, the Sinistral Elves formed an empire that was four times the size of the Septim Empire, and stretched across the entire continent of Yokuda.

These elves were adapted for a desert-like environment and hot climates. They had such great advances in magic, that they could create weapons and armor out of sand and stones, and their most powerful wizards could even create cities out of sand in mere minutes. They also developed technics to defend against sandstorms and tunnel through sand at an amazing rate. The Yokudans also took notice of the elves advancements and utilized what they could observe from them to create scimitars and turbans.

Conflict and tensions between the Sinistral Elves and the Yokudans had been present for thousands of years. In the Merethic Era, the Na-Totambu, the ruling class of the Yokudans warred to a standstill to decided who would lead them against the elves. The Yokudan deity, Leki (the goddess of aberrant swordsmanship) intervened, and a leader was chosen. Diagna, the avatar of HoonDing (the Yokudan deity of "perseverance over infidels", who was said to materialize whenever the Yokudans needed to "make way" for their people) was chosen to lead them. Diagna brought Orichalcum weapons to the Yokudans, which aided them greatly in defeating the Sinistral Elves in the first civil war. A series of two long civil wars took place between the inhabitants of the contintant. The first, in the Fourth Century, and the second, in the Eighth Century. The only known participants in the last civil war were a lesser known branch of the Ansei (the Yokudan elite group of warriors and the most masterful of the Sword-Swingers), the Hiradirge (the "Masters of Stone Magic"), who were defeated by the Left Handed Elves in battle.

In the year 1E 792, the majority of the continent of Yukoda sunk to the bottom of the ocean. The reason for this catastrophe is still debated to this very day. Some say it was due to a series of natural earthquakes. Others believe it was the works of a deity, or a group of deities. The final and most prominent explanation for this, is that the Hiradirge were responsible for the sinking of Yukoda. Their motive: because they had been defeated in battle and failed to conquer the continent, they took their revenge on all of Yukoda.

No Sinistral Elves were recorded to arrive at Tamriel after the sinking of Yukoda, and were believed to be extinct. However, the Yokudans, who left before the sinking of the continent, had survived and landed on the beaches of Volenfell, which later would be known as "Hammerfell". For this reason, many believe the Yokudans knew what would happen to their homeland and were directly responsible for what happened to Yokuda. At the time of their arrival to Tamriel, the Yokudans had purged any and all elf settlements in Volenfell due to their hatred of all mer, as a result of their past. Later, the Yokudans adopted a new name, the Redguards, deriving from the Yokudan term "Ra Gada", which loosely translated to "warrior wave", alluding to the fleet of Yokudan ships that sailed from Yokuda to Tamriel.