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The doors of Jorrvaskr swung open and the two hunters entered.

"Another job well done, Shield-Sister," Aela said.

"Ah yes," Mira answered. "But I still don't understand why the man has asked us to retrieve that damned stone for him. Why did we go through all that trouble for a stone anyway?"

Aela laughed. "The job is not exactly suitable for mages and many of the guards seem scared of the ancient Nordic tombs. Now let me look at your arm."

"My arm is fine," Mira said, but the huntress knew better than that.

"I'd like to have a look at it anyway."

"Fine, go ahead. So how much did our… friend pay us to get the thing?"

"Five thousand," Aela replied while she started taking care of Mira's wounded arm.

"Five thousand septims," Mira yelled. "Is he insane? It's just a piece of stone."

"He probably is, but I think it is a fair price for the trouble we went through."

Mira snorted. "You mean those three bandits, a dozen of draugr and some spiders? Why was all of that needed to guard some stone anyway?"

"Keep in mind that that last draugr nearly cut off your arm, Mira," Aela chuckled. "The court wizard is the only one who can answer that question for you."

"Great," Mira growled. "Maybe I will go to Dragonsreach to drag the man into a Nordic tomb and leave him there with some draugr. He knew how much hunters hate being underground."

Aela laughed. "Go to bed, Mira."

Mira slept well that night, as well as was possible for a werewolf at least. She could still hear everything going on around her while she was asleep, but it didn't affect her dreams.

"Dragon!"

Mira was wide awake at the moment the shout tore through her peaceful dreams. It only took her seconds to get her armor on, grab her bow and arrows and run out into the hall, where she found Aela; also in her hunting armor and with her bow.

"You heard it too, didn't you?" the huntress asked.

"It came from outside, right? Is there…"

"No time for that now, let's get some others and see what we can do." Aela ran upstairs where other members of the Circle were still talking. "Farkas, Vilkas, Skjor, come with us, now."

The warriors did not ask questions, they simply followed Aela, who approached a female guard just outside Jorrvaskr. "Is there a dragon out there? Where is it?"

"They say it flew to the Western Watchtower," the guard replied. "Don't go there, it's a lost battle."

"Not as long as I'm still breathing," Aela replied and with those words the Companions left for the Western Watchtower.

Aela, Mira and the guards kept shooting arrows at the dragon until it was wounded and forced to land, then Farkas, Vilkas and Skjor attacked the beast with their swords while Aela kept shooting arrows and Mira used spells. When the dragon realized the ten people attacking it were clearly winning the battle it grabbed the person that was the closest to it, a guard, and threw him up into the air. Then the dragon started trying to bite Aela, who had come dangerously close to the beast.

Mira was about to release an arrow when the dragon got Aela and bit down into her shoulder. She lowered her bow in shock, but then brought it up again; she aimed for the dragon's eye, just like Aela had taught her, and released the arrow. The beast roared in pain and released Aela. Skjor used the moment to get to the huntress and get her away from the dragon, while Farkas did something that would have been any other person's death; he climbed on the neck of the dragon and brought his sword up. The dragon tried to throw Farkas off of its neck, but the warrior stood his ground. When Mira distracted the dragon with an ice spike Farkas took his chance and slammed his sword into the dragon's skull, ending the beast's life.

Farkas pulled his sword out of the dragon's head and walked over to where Vilkas and Mira were standing. "Well…" Mira said. "That was… interesting."

Farkas laughed, but Vilkas was staring at something that was happening behind Mira.

When she turned around Mira saw that the dragon's scales appeared to be burning, although there had been no fire anywhere near. "What in Oblivion…"

As the dragon was burning up Mira started to feel stronger. She remembered the stories her father had told her, but those had just been stories… right?

"I can't believe it," one of the guards said. "You're… Dragonborn."

"What? What do you mean? I… no, I can't be," Mira shook her head in denial. Before she had met and joined the Companions she would have loved to hear that, she had hoped to become a hero, a legend, but now. She was a hunter now and she did not want that to change.

"In the oldest tales, back from when there were still dragons at Skyrim, the Dragonborn would slay dragons and steal their power. That's what you did, isn't it; absorb the dragon's power."

Mira closed her eyes. "I don't know what just happened, all I know it that the thing burned up and that I feel stronger now," she rubbed her temples. Great, so now the guards knew it too, what would be next; all of Tamriel?

"There's only one way to find out. Try to shout, that would prove it. According to the old legends only the Dragonborn can shout the way the dragons do without training."

"This is insane," muttered Mira. "How am I supposed to know those shouts anyway?"

Vilkas decided to join the conversation there. "You got the Dragonstone for the wizard. If this stone was really about the dragons you would think that there would be something about shouts in those tombs…"

The word wall, of course, Mira thought wondering why she had not thought about that herself. As she had gotten closer to the wall there had been one word on her mind, the word had been fus. "This is insane," Mira repeated, but she decided to give it a try. "Fus," the guard Mira had been facing seemed to lose his balance for a few seconds, but recovered quickly. It remembered Mira of the dragon that had attacked Helgen; it had used something similar on the guards and on her.

"That was a shout," the guard said. "You should come with us to the jarl."

"This is insane, you are all insane."

"They are right, whelp; you should speak to the jarl," Vilkas pointed out.

"Stop calling me that," Mira snapped and then she turned to the guard. "I will go with you, but I won't stay long. I have things to do in Jorrvaskr."

The thundering sound was heard from somewhere east of Whiterun, the guards did not pay much attention to it, but Mira was sure she heard something different too. She heard words: Dovahkiin. She shook her head, dismissing it as a side effect of what happened at the Watchtower.

"If the Greybeards were really summoning you, you should go to High Hrothgar; summons of the Greybeards should not be denied, for it is a great honor," that was jarl Balgruuf the Greater's final advice to Mira.

"Who exactly are those Greybeards?"

"Ulfric Stormcloak should be able to answer that question; he has trained with them for years, that is if he is willing to answer the question of a Nord that has not sided with his Stormcloaks," the way jarl Balgruuf said the last word clearly showed what he thought of the Stormcloaks. "And from now on you will be Thane of Whiterun. Lydia will be your housecarl; she is waiting for you right there."

"Thank you, jarl Balgruuf. I will be going back you Jorrvaskr now, if I may?"

"Of course, I understand that it has been an exhausting day for you."

But going back to Jorrvaskr was the last thing on Mira's mind right now; there would be questions to answer and stories people would want to hear and Mira was not in the mood to tell stories at that moment. She smiles at her new housecarl, who was already waiting for her. "Hello Lydia, it's nice to meet you. I would love to stay and chat, but I've had a hard day and I need to think. Could you make your way to Jorrvaskr and tell the others that you will be my housecarl?"

"If that is what you want, my Thane," Lydia answered.

"Great, thank you. If they ask where I am tell them I might be gone for a day or two, but it won't be longer than that."

Mira made her way to the city gates walking, but as soon as she was outside Whiterun she ran. She ran until she was far enough from the city to make sure that no one could see her anymore before she finally let the tension in her body out. She threw her head up and howled at the sky before she ran, faster now.

Mira only realized where she had gone when she was in front of the cave. Bloated Man's Grotto; home to the werewolf she had helped out not too long ago. She sighed and then started to focus on her breathing, forcing back the beast blood until she was human again.

"I didn't think I would see you again so soon…"

"Neither did I, but I am glad to see you again."

Sinding laughed. "What brings you here this time?"

"I had a hard day… it's a long story, but I think we have some time." Mira told the werewolf about how she had killed the dragon and how she had been summoned by the Greybeards. "But I don't want to be a hero; I'm a hunter and I am happy this way."

Sinding rubbed his muzzle against Mira's cheek, making the girl laugh. "It will be okay, just give it some time. Maybe hunting under the night sky will help?"

Mira gladly accepted his offer, because it offered a chance to finally forget about the day. But while Mira expected to simply forget the day, the hunt offered much more; the wind through her fur gave Mira a sense of freedom she had not experienced in years, it satisfied a desire Mira didn't even know was there and it gave her new strength. Mira knew it had to be an effect of Hircine's ring and she quietly thanked the Daedric Prince of the Hunt for the great gift he had given her.

It was close to dawn when Mira and Sinding returned to Bloated Man's Grotto; they had chased their prey all the way to Hjaalmarch before they had finally caught it. Once inside the cave Mira forced the beast inside her away so she would change back to her human form. The moment the strength of her beast form left her body she almost felt sad.

"How do you do it?"

Mira turned around to Sinding, who had obviously been referring to the fact that Mira could change to her beast form and back whenever she wanted to. "I am not the beast; the beast is something that joins with me once I call upon it and leaves when I want it to. I don't know how I do that," Mira answered.

Sinding lowered his head, clearly disappointed that the answer did not help him out.

"I should be going back; my friends are probably getting worried." Mira hugged the werewolf and to her surprise he hugged her back, careful not to cut her with his claws. "I will visit you again as soon as I can. Stay safe."

"You too," Sinding answered.

The last thing Mira saw of the werewolf that night before she left was how he stood outside the cave, his hand was raised in a farewell that showed the doubt of not knowing when they would see each other again, if they would see each other again.

"Where were you?" Vilkas voice was way too loud for Mira's senses that were even more sensitive than before, for some reason.

"You don't have to shout, Vilkas," she answered, doing little to keep her voice from betraying how tired she was after a night without any sleep.

"You don't leave your family like that without telling them where you are. You could have been captured by the Silver Hand for all we knew. Do you have any idea how worried we were?"

"So now you care about me all of a sudden; now I decide that I need some time away from everyone who could find me," Mira snapped; she was not in the mood to argue with anyone at that moment.

"Of course we care about you, you are our Shield-Sister," Vilkas had lowered his voice now. "And I would never want a Shield-Sister to be captured by the Silver Hand… not even if that Shield-Sister is a whelp that has only been with us for three months," the man added the last part with a mischievous grin.

"Go to Oblivion," Mira said, before slamming the door to her room shut behind her.

The girl still heard Vilkas call out to her. "Little chance; I'm not the one carrying a Daedric artifact around wherever I go."

Mira slept, but it was a restless sleep. In her dreams she was in a thick fog talking to people she knew, whether it was by face, name, or in person, and they all seemed to feel the same; they seemed to have lost their way in the fog. The people told her about how they regretted the choices they had made during their life and how they were weary and lost. Mira was shocked when she saw the one person that had become like a father to her over the past two months; Kodlak, the Harbinger of the Companions was in that place, wherever it was.

Mira woke up with tears rolling down her cheeks. Be aware, the World-Eater waits within the mist; those were the words her Harbinger had said in her dream. And so in death, too late, I learn the truth – fed by war, so waxed the power of Alduin, World-Eater – wisdom now useless. Those words had been said by another person; Ulfric Stormcloak, leader of the rebellion, had seemed so defeated, but all the people in that dream had.

"You seem distracted," Aela said. "What's bothering you, Shield-Sister?"

"Nothing, I just had a bad dream... and I can't seem to get it out of my head, it looked so… real."

"It was just a dream, Mira. Remember that," Aela said.

"I would doubt it, especially if you keep in mind what the whelp has been carrying around for the past weeks," Vilkas said, nearly making Mira jump.

"Damn it, Vilkas. How are you so good at sneaking?" Mira yelled.

"I was not sneaking. Aela is right; you seem very distracted."

"It's probably nothing," Mira said. "Just a bad dream, I will forget about it soon enough."

Mira turned out to be right about that she would forget it; by noon a fight against wild beasts that were causing trouble in Skyrim had made Mira forget about the dream. Inside the cave where the beasts had made their home Mira had found nearly 400 septims and some enchanted items that looked like they were worth studying.

"It is not every day that a mercenary comes here to practice the art of enchanting items," Farengar commented when Mira dropped the items on the arcane enchanter.

"I am going to disenchant," Mira answered. "And before I came to Skyrim I started studying magic, so I am not just a mercenary."

"Then you should consider joining the College of Winterhold."

"I've been told so before, but I prefer hunting and fighting over a college where nothing eventful happens. I would like to purchase some spell books from you, though," Mira had been studying the spell books she had bought in Riverwood and she had mastered them all except the spell to conjure a flame atronach. "And Farengar…"

"Yes?"

"Why can I conjure a familiar, but not an atronach? Is there a difference?"

"Now that's an interesting question to ask," the wizard answered, the beginning of a smile playing around the corners of his mouth. "Before I started studying dragons I was working on conjuration and summoning. I recently came up with a theory about it when I was studying dragon shouts."

"Well, tell me about it."

"I discovered that you need to know the meaning, the very essence, of a word of power before you can use a shout."

"I know, Farengar, I am the Dragonborn, remember?"

"Just let me finish, child," Farengar said. "The better you understand the meaning of a word of power, the more powerful the shout. I believe the same think should work for conjuring atronachs; to create a steady portal to a plane of Oblivion you should understand what the plane of Oblivion of your atronach is like. Once you have a steady portal a creature of the kind you want to summon should present itself to you and in turn to bringing it into this place they will fight for you for as long as you can sustain them."

"So are you saying that I should take a break from conjuring and study the planes of Oblivion?" Mira asked.

"You are a quick student, the college could use people like you."

Mira rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I'm supposed to be smart and talented and beautiful and strong; I've heard it all before, but I honestly don't care. I'm doing what I like to do and I am happy, so why would I want to change anything about it?"

"You are Dragonborn, you should visit the Greybeards and study with them to learn how to shout," the wizard said.

"I am Dragonborn, so I know how to shout. I don't know what the Greybeards would want from me, but I do not believe that they can teach me anything I don't already know about how to use my shouts. But now you mention it I think something will change… I will hunt those dragons down until they are all dead; every single one of them."

Mira saw how the wizard's eyes widened in surprise. "No… No, you can't kill them. There is so much that we could still learn about them, I didn't even have a chance to study one yet."

His reaction made Mira sigh in frustration. "It will really take me longer than a day to hunt them down, Farengar. I think it will take me weeks, if not months, to track even one of them down, but who else will take care of that problem? Just don't tell anyone."

Mira spent the rest of the day in Dragonsreach, studying the enchantments on the items and trying to place similar enchantments on daggers and rings and by the time she left, she left with a dozen of enchanted items that were good enough to sell. "I should start enchanting items for people; should make quite a lot of coin," Mira said.

Farengar laughed. "It takes some skill and experience before you can sell your services, child."

"I suppose you're right, but I think my Shield-Siblings would gladly put those to good use while I will be chasing dragons."