| Decentius Al-Achel | |
|---|---|
|
Name |
Decentius Al-Achel |
|
Race |
Imperial/Redguard |
|
Gender |
Males |
|
Birth Year |
4E 174 |
|
Occupation |
Author |
|
Father |
Amrir Al-Achel |
|
Mother |
Lyra Laecinnius |
Decentius Al-Achel is an Imperial and Redguard half-breed and author of The Provinces of Dawn's Beauty. He was born in 4E 174 and travelled Tamriel with his father. When his father died in 4E 180, he studied writing and choreography at the Imperial University. Bored with staying in the same place, he left in 4E 183. After some time, he began to write a guide to the Provinces of Tamriel.
Autobiography[]
The following is an extract from the foreword of Al-Achel's book, The Provinces of Dawn's Beauty. It contains information about the first twenty-seven years of his life.
As a child, I never stopped moving. My mother was an Imperial, though I rarely saw her, and my father a Redguard and I’ve always blamed this for my constant desire to see more of the world. As a child, I never stayed still for very long. I lived with my father, who owned two horses and a carriage and we would travel all across the continent, stopping for a few days at a time - rarely more. As a child, I always just assumed that my father wanted to see the world, but in hindsight I think it more likely that he travelled to keep himself busy. He had been a soldier before I was born, and I think he found it far easier to rest after a long day's work. I rarely saw my mother - her and my father had a short relationship of a few years, but my father left, with me, when I was only a few years old. I do not know why - my father would only tell me that he had itchy feet and had never seen Valenwood.
Since I spent most of my days travelling, I started to enjoy two things most; watching the landscape and reading. Having never been one for words himself, my father brought me the five volumes of ‘the Modern Cyrodilic Dictionary for 4E 173’ for my 8th birthday. It was, by then, already 4E 182, but I used it to its full extent, looking up any new words I found while reading and sometimes even spending my time just looking through it for any words I didn’t already know. Whenever I talked to other children with similar lives to me, I often found myself surprised by their talk of loneliness. For me, the quiet companionship with my father as I read and he drove the carriage was enough.
When we arrived at our destination for the time being, we would stop the caravan and put up a tent which normally led into the carriage, though there were a few places where we chose to stay in a local inn instead. My father would find work, harvesting crops, chopping wood, mining or anything else which would make money. Stopped, I spent my time admiring the local landscape, making friends with the locals or, if I was in the middle of a particularly interesting or exciting book, curling up by the inn’s fire or relaxing in the sun with a book. Occasionally I found time to help my father or get paid for some menial task, but my father normally let me relax alone.
At the age of fourteen, my father died and it was only then that I realised precisely how much money he had stored away. We had lived cheaply and my father had worked hard, but most of the money was from his life as a soldier of Hammerfell. He had always avoided talking about it, so while I knew he had been a high ranking soldier, I never found out how high ranking. I spent over a month in Chorrol, where we had been staying when the Divines claimed him. Eventually, the innkeeper, who had grown fond of me, told me that he would pay for travel to a variety of places or help me join a guild. If needs be, he offered to hire me as an assistant, though I knew he didn’t need one. I considered joining the Fighters Guild, or perhaps the Mages Guild, but in the end, I decided to spend a few years in the Imperial University, studying writing and choreography - though I insisted on paying for it myself. I found my studies mildly interesting, but, while I thought I would enjoy it, hated staying in the same place for so long, despite taking every chance to travel, and left after three years there. I had left one of my father’s horses and most of his possessions with the innkeeper in Chorrol. Returning there, I sold what I did not need nor want, and set off, after promising I would return when I could. I now felt the loneliness I had heard other children speak of, and I felt it painfully. My father’s death and my years living in the busiest city in Tamriel made the long days alone sting bitterly, and though I still enjoyed travelling, I found myself stopping much more frequently and for longer than before. Returning often to the innkeeper and occasionally staying for up to a month in some cities, the years passed quickly. For a while, I had had an idea to write a guide to the provinces of Tamriel, and over time that idea grew until I decided that was indeed how I would spend any spare time I had.