AN: This is my first fanfiction, so you'll understand if I'm not really sure what to write here. However, I feel that I should give you a heads up that this story will be rather liberally sprinkled with lines in Draconic. Most of the Draconic is just for flavour; you won't miss anything important and I think you'll be able to figure out what most of it means anyway. If you feel you really need to understand all of the Draconic words, then there are a few Draconic translators floating around the internet. Anyway, enjoy the story!

Premniruth sat perched atop the outcropping on the strunmah… What did the joor call it? Mount Anthor. It did not matter. The joor could speak their guttural deinok; Premniruth was one of the dovah. He watched the joor in their ruined hiim and their stone bruz and he felt nothing but contempt. A dozen of them had come to his strunmah to slay him; a dozen frozen joor lay dead before the wall.

And still Premniruth waited on his strunmah. He watched the joor, and waited for the time to strike. It was his nature – in the tongue of the dragons, Premniruth's name meant patience hunt command. In the strunmah around him, ten more dovah waited for him to lead them to the hiim. All the while, Prenmiruth remained on his perch, watching the strah for signs of the Dovahkiin. Premniruth's quarry was seeking a kel, and Alduin himself had given Prenmiruth the task of stopping the joor. Why the Dovahkiin was searching for a kel, Premniruth did not know. But he watched, with eyes tenfold keener than any skar, waiting to catch a glimpse of the Dovahkiin.

For eight sul Premniruth stared unblinkingly at the strah. Travellers passed by, sometimes glancing up at the strunmah with faas in their eyes. Premniruth gave them no lor; they did not have the dovahsil. So he watched. Until finally, he saw it; two joor, travelling down the strah. He watched them approach, and eventually sensed the dovahsil in one of them. The Dovahkiin approached. Premniruth would not give the somirk yet; the joor would see them coming. But soon, the dovah would take to the lok, and they would rain yol and fo upon the joor.

The cold was biting and the blizzard felt like it was flaying your skin off as you walked. An-Zaw didn't mind the weather, except for how difficult it was to see through it; he was an Argonian, and his scales protected him from it. The cold, though, was a problem. Like all Argonians, An-Zaw was cold-blooded, and Skyrim's temperature was very much less than ideal. Despite this, though, An-Zaw was unlikely to succumb to hypothermia no matter how tempting it might seem at times; some time ago he had acquired a set of fur-lined Nordic carved armour, made in the traditional ways of the Nords, as well as a bear-skin cloak he found on a dead low-life in the wilds. He drew the cloak around him with one hand, and in the other conjured the meagre flame spell he had learnt as soon as he was able. An-Zaw's housecarl Lydia, meanwhile, seemed largely apathetic about the cold whilst she was wearing her cloak and this infuriated An-Zaw to no end.

Unfortunately, the Argonian and his housecarl had no choice but to go to Winterhold; An-Zaw was the Dragonborn, prophesied to be the only one able to destroy Alduin. To do that, he needed to find an Elder Scroll, and the only place in Skyrim he would be able to find one was the Mages' College in Winterhold. An-Zaw and Lydia had been walking for a week now along the west of Skyrim. An-Zaw refused to take the shortcut through Windhelm – yes, they would be able to rest and it would take two days off the journey, but An-Zaw had been there before. He did not want to face the prejudice of the Nords again.

So they walked. They ate the cooked meat of the wolves they had killed on the path and they drank melted snow to avoid dehydration. We have to be getting close, thought An-Zaw. They were just passing the mountain ranges near the town, so it couldn't be more than perhaps a day away. That's when An-Zaw heard the sound: somewhere between a hiss and breaking glass, the sound in and of itself was cold. There was only one thing it could be.

"Ice wraiths!" yelled An-Zaw, drawing his sword. Nordic-made like the armour, with a potent fire enchantment placed on it by himself. The blade radiated warmth in An-Zaw's hand. But more importantly in this situation, it could kill ice wraiths.

A crystalline serpent swooped towards An-Zaw's head, mandibles opened. An-Zaw dove out of the way just before the wraith snapped its jaws on his skull. As he landed, he saw that Lydia had taken her sword out as well. A wraith sped towards her, and Lydia raised her shield. The wraith embedded itself in the wood of the shield, and Lydia shattered its near-ethereal form on a rock.

The ice wraith which An-Zaw had narrowly avoided turned around. It screamed in that horrible, chilling voice and came back around for another go. An-Zaw rolled onto his back, tightened his grip on the carved sword and held it out in front of him. The ice wraith sped directly towards it, too fast to avoid the blade, and An-Zaw fancied that he saw fright in those frozen eyes before its head was impaled on the blade. The wraith's body melted off the blade as An-Zaw got to his feet. Lydia sidestepped an oncoming wraith and deftly cleaved it in two, but another ice wraith was approaching from behind. An-Zaw ran towards her to kill the wraith before it got to her, but the wraith was too fast and it ensnared Lydia's exposed upper arm in its deathly cold jaws. The housecarl let go of her steel sword and cried out in pain, flailing her arms in an attempt to shake the creature off, but it held on, its teeth sinking into her flesh. An-Zaw hit another ice wraith with his sword as it charged at him, and reached Lydia. She was still desperately trying to shake the translucent serpent off her arm. An-Zaw couldn't get a clear swing, but if he let the wraith stay there for much longer then Lydia would surely lose the arm altogether. An-Zaw took the swing.

The ice wraith let go of Lydia's arm as the skeletal body and head fell separately. Lydia sank to the ground. "Lydia, are you alright?" said An-Zaw. He looked at the wound; the ice wraith had left a deep wound on Lydia's arm, and its bite left cold burns. An-Zaw had picked up a healing spell at much the same time as the flame spell, but this was beyond his ability with Restoration magic.

"Of all the risks I knew I was taking travelling with you, I have to admit that ice wraiths were one of the first things that came to mind," came Lydia's pained reply.

"What were the others?" asked An-Zaw; anything to get Lydia's mind off the pain would get them back on the road faster. He produced a flask of cold resistance potion from his bag, and held it towards Lydia. "Here, drink this."

Lydia did so. "Well, I was worried about sabrecats, giants, bandits, and of course…"

A roar echoed from the mountain range. Lydia and An-Zaw immediately looked towards the source of the noise.

"… Dragons."

Premniruth had to fight to stop his stru'un from overcoming him. Grahrahgol, that vik mey! Premniruth knew better than to bring that sosgrentus hefah with him. Grahrahgol was one of the fiercest dovah left, but he had always been a pahlokaal moron with no concept of patience. The idiot had decided to attack the Dovahkiin early. Nid hiitir, thought Premniruth. Til los unstiid zuk. And besides, there was always a chance that Grahrahgol could actually krii the Dovahkiin himself. For now, Premniruth would just watch.

"Lydia, stay there!" said An-Zaw. He couldn't risk her getting the dragon's attention, not in this state. The dragon flew over the mountain; its scales were a bright blood red, its brow festooned with horns. An-Zaw drew his sword, and ran away from Lydia yelling as loudly as he could to get the dragon's attention. "FUS!" he yelled, drawing on his inborn power of the Thu'um. That seemed to work. The dragon turned its head toward him, and began its descent. It folded its wings along its body, plummeting downwards headfirst, and unfurled them just before it hit the ground, flying straight towards An-Zaw. That's when An-Zaw saw a golden opportunity.

Just before the red dragon smashed into him, An-Zaw ducked. And as the dragon flew over him, An-Zaw did something incredibly dangerous – he grabbed onto its tail.

Premniruth had a mein for a great many things. But this wasn't one of them. Daar joor kend kos hren. The battle seemed to be moving towards the strunmah, though. The joor would be too preoccupied to notice the other dovah, but they might join the battle. If they did that, everything would be rignivon. If he gave a command, surely the joor would not notice… "Fey veyn hi los, dovah!"

An-Zaw found the rush of air exhilarating. He would probably have enjoyed it more if he wasn't holding on for dear life with the dragon thrashing its tail around as much as possible without losing balance. Even worse was the fact that he could only hold on with one hand if he wanted to keep his weapon. An-Zaw reversed his grip, and stabbed into the dragon's scales. Now at least he had something better to hold on to. He started climbing from the dragon's tail, when it took a sharp turn towards the mountains. The dragon yelled something in its language; not a Thu'um, but more like a command. "Il shur, joor!" It started flying straight towards a mountain, and then turned right, scraping its tail along the mountainside. An-Zaw let go with his free hand and swung around to the other side of the dragon's tail, holding on to the hilt of his blade. He found a strong grip with his left hand, and pulled out his sword. The wound cauterised instantly, so the dragon would not die of blood loss. This was going to be more difficult.

The dragon had gotten away from the mountainside, and was flying up and down, side to side, trying to get An-Zaw to let go. But An-Zaw somehow managed to stay on, and eventually got to the dragon's torso, using the sword to haul him along. Now it would be a bit easier; An-Zaw could hold onto the dragon's spines as well. The dragon spun around in a circle, and An-Zaw almost fell off. He held onto one of the dragons spines, and noticed that he could do some serious damage to the dragon's wing. No, he decided. Too risky, and we're flying over the sea.

The dragon started flying normally again, then started to descend. Wait a moment, though An-Zaw. If we're flying over the sea…"

An-Zaw had been almost standing, hauling himself along the spines on the dragon's back. He had seconds to change that. He stabbed into the dragon with the sword. The dragon was flying at such a high speed that An-Zaw's feet were dangling in the air. They were about to hit the water. An-Zaw let go of the spine and threw himself flat onto the dragon's back, gripping the hilt of the sword. He grabbed onto a spine with his other hand, and then the dragon hit the water.

If he had been anything other than an Argonian, then An-Zaw would probably have died. But he was an Argonian, and he was able to breathe water as easily as air. Even so, An-Zaw almost fell off from the sheer impact of hitting the water, and the frigid temperature almost had him freezing to death. The dragon went down, deeper into the ocean, and then pulled up. An-Zaw was almost pulled off the beast's back by the water surging past him, but he held on. And then he saw that the dragon was not going towards the open air, but an ice sheet. An-Zaw bowed his head to his helmet would take the brunt of the impact, and the dragon smashed right through the ice. A chunk of ice his An-Zaw full on, and he was losing his grip. The dragon continued its ascent. Up, and up, and up…

And then An-Zaw let go, taking his sword with him. He started falling. So this is how it ends, he thought. Falling off the back of an angry dragon in midair. All things considered, I could have died in a worse fashion. And he was falling. And falling. The dragon was turning around, back towards him. It opened its mouth. An-Zaw realised that the dragon would swallow him whole.

An-Zaw kept falling, and the dragon kept soaring towards him. He felt calm, knowing he was about to die. Lydia will probably die as well, he thought. What a shame. She was so loyal. And yet, he did not let go of his sword. He'd be damned if he let himself die without a weapon in his hand.

And then, by a million-to-one chance, the dragon missed and flew under An-Zaw. And An-Zaw landed on top of it. He was rolling backwards along the beast's back, and managed to grab one of the spines on its back. He remembered what he was doing, and continued his crawl along the length of the giant lizard.

He got to its head. He could kill the dragon right now, a strike through the brain. But they were still out to sea. He grabbed onto one of its horns on the left. He sheathed his sword and grabbed onto one on the right. Then, mustering all his strength, he turned the dragon around. Back to land. He steered the beast back to the mountain he had left Lydia near, as the dragon desperately breathed gouts of flame. It shook its head, and An-Zaw let go of the right horn, swinging around so he was hanging off one side of the beast's head. He unsheathed his sword again, and struck at the dragon's eye. It started falling, but it wasn't dead yet. An-Zaw swung a leg back over the dragon's head and climbed back up.

"I think it's time you stayed still!" yelled An-Zaw, and gave one last mighty stab into the dragon's head. It crash landed on the ground, and as it came to a halt at the side of the road, An-Zaw leapt off its head and sheathed his sword.

"That could have been done in a more exciting manner, I think," said Lydia.

An-Zaw walked over to her. "Very funny. Come on, let's get you to Winterhold." He helped Lydia up and they continued down the road.

Premniruth had known that killing the Dovahkiin would be rather burk. But this… This was uful. Not to worry though. Premniruth still had another nine dovah, and next time they would all be attacking ahst ont. The Dovahkiin would fall – Premniruth was sure of that.

End of Chapter 1.

AN: This is really more of an introductory chapter to set up the characters, but don't worry; we'll definitely get to Winterhold next chapter. Anyway, what did you think? I would really appreciate some constructive criticism, so please do that.