Oops. Well, I have no excuse for updating so late, except that a distratction in the form of a wickedly hot elf with white hair and lyrium markings named Fenris intruded rather rudely. Sorry 'bout that.
Anyway, so I've noticed that it's not entirely unpopular for readers to create fanart of some of their favorite stories. If any of you readers out there are artists, I would LOVE YOU FOREVER if you drew something for this story, whether it be Laní and Farkas together as wolves or the whole gang or whatever, but I would gladly write you anything you wanted, as long as it's not smut. I don't do smut.
There's only a short epilouge left, guys! Thank you so much to all of you who have favorited, alerted, and followed this story from beginning to end. It means so much to me that you liked it!
Chapter Ten
A dragon.
There was a bloody dragon.
Farkas and Vilkas stood, jaws smacking to the ground as Islanzadí threw back her great white head and let out the loudest, most ear-shattering shout there ever was to hear. "OD AH VIING!" She had bellowed, the wolf twins jumping at the earth-shaking noise. As the echoes of her shout died away, whispers on the breeze blew through their clearing, and Farkas could hear those thousand ancient voices, chanting over and over again: "Odahviing! Odahviing! Odahviing!"
A great rush of wings, the sound so similar to that of thunder, and an equally bone-shaking roar. A distant shape, massive and striking fear into the hearts of the twins, flew across the image of the moon and bellowed again before diving straight for them. The earth trembled and rocked, throwing Farkas and Vilkas to their knees as the great dragon landed mere yards away from Islanzadí. Farkas's silvery-blue eyes widened and he tried to find his voice to call out to her, to warn her, but the beast was still. The elf was staring at him silently as she waited for whatever it was she needed.
Farkas heard his brother curse under his breath at the sight, and he grudgingly had to agree with Islanzadí's earlier testimonies. The great winged reptile was magnificent, with a regal, frightening maw and hard scales that glistened like rubies in the watery moonlight. His eyes were wide and yellow, full of of ancient wisdom and profound intelligence that Farkas had no way to understand. His hide was striped, black strips breaking the scarlet of his scales. The dragon's neck was arched proudly and his wings were unfurled at his sides to display his might and immense size. Milky white fangs curved from his mouth and shone, the teeth thicker than Farkas's fists and longer than his forearm.
A terrifyingly beautiful beast of legend.
"Dovahkiin," the dragon rumbled, his voice rich and deep but still scratchy, and Farkas flinched to hear him talk. Vilkas was beyond words, his mouth still hanging unhinged. "You have called for me, fahliil med dovah." Islanzadí bowed her head in respect, and Farkas wondered if she was speaking to the dragon as she had to him. "But you are a wolf, grohiik." His large yellow eyes flashed.
It was then that Islanzadí stiffened and her eyes closed, and the dragon's head cocked to the side in interest. His eyes immediately found those of Farkas and his brother, and the beast let out a low chuckle. The younger Nord bristled, wondering what on Nirn Laní was telling him. He jutted his chin out defiantly, and the dragon's eyes sparkled with something Farkas thought looking frighteningly similar to anger. Elf and dragon began to walk towards them, and Vilkas stiffened and began to draw his weapon.
"Peace, Nord," the dragon said. "Drem. The dragonborn tells me it is your kind that has inflicted your curse upon her." Laní stumbled, her knees weakening, and Farkas made a noise of pain and worry. The Bosmer had said that her strength was waning and that she needed to be released as soon as possible.
Farkas brought his blue eyes up to meet that of the dragon. "Yes," he said in a small voice. "But not us exactly. But she says she knows how to be freed of it." He eyed the reptile skeptically. "I don't know how she thinks you're going to do it, really, but…" he trailed off, not sure how to finish without offending the beast that could rip him in half should it want to.
"He wants you to get on with it," Vilkas snapped from beside him, and Farkas turned to his brother, shocked at his insolence and tone. "We have been through battle tonight and our leader has fallen. If you cannot help us, dragon, then be gone."
"My name is Odahviing," the dragon said calmly. "And I am capable of helping the dovahkiin, gein voth sunvaar." Odahviing eyed the wolf twins speculatively. "You would do well to hold your tongues." Turning to the elf, he inquired, "You wish to be freed from the curse, dovahkiin. Are you sure you want to be unbound by the power I give you? Hin fen aus."
Islanzadí shocked them all by rumbling, "Geh. Zu hind wah evenaar fin raan sil." Farkas had no idea what she had said or how she had uttered it, for her mouth had not opened, but the great ruby beast nodded his assent and breathed, "So be it."
They faced each other, Laní's legs shaking from the effort to hold the dead wolf body up and Odahviing closing his large topaz eyes. In sync, the two began chanting in an ancient tongue spoken by few. Gales of wind began to harshly blow through the clearing and tug on his and Vilkas's hair. The twins shot each other terrified glances at what was happening and stumbled as the gusts of wind continued to rock through the mountains and rush over them.
Suddenly, the two beasts of nature threw back their heads and let out earth-shattering roars. Laní's bellow was strangled with unimaginable agony and the wind was the only thing that stopped Farkas from rushing over to his elf and begging her to stop whatever it was she was doing. "No!" he shouted, the wind picking up speed and drowning out his words, carrying them away before anyone could hear them. "Stop! Laní, please, you have to quit!"
Odahviing's wings began to unfurl as he rose onto his hind legs, his great maw still lifted to the sky as he roared and roared in his native tongue. Farkas watched in utter horror as Islanzadí's white pelt fell off of her into a shimmering heap and a ghostly form erupted from where the wolf had been. Farkas shouted again in shock, and tried in vain to make his way to her, but Vilkas yanked him back and the wind shoved against him.
The see-through form that had taken the place of Laní was growing and shifting, solidifying. It exploded in size, reaching the same immense stature as the mighty red dragon. Huge wings sprouted from the shoulders and Farkas's eyes grew wide in aching loss as she roared again, the sound completely foreign and unfamiliar. Her neck lengthened and grew plated scales and a long, thick tail began to swing through the air, vicious spikes whipping around on the tip. She continued to sprout armored scales and continued to become less and less spirit-like until at last, the ritual was complete. The winds died and Odahviing lowered his head from the sky to inspect the dovahkiin in her true form.
Standing in the clearing was a monstrous, pure white dragon.
Her eyes were scarlet. Her claws were wickedly curved and serrated and her teeth were hardly distinguishable from the scales of her sparkling jaw. Her head wasn't as blockish as the male dragon's; it was more slender and elegant, curving where Odahviing's was sharply angular, and almost elven in appearance and slim. Great horns twisted out of her brow and curled towards her neck, and wicked spikes ran down the length of her body. The massive arm-wings were nearly translucent with thin bluish veins spider webbing beneath the thin membrane. The elf-dragon thundered again, and Farkas's heart shattered to pieces to realize that she hadn't come back to him. She hadn't changed back to his elf.
She was a dragon now.
"No," he whispered, and his voice broke. Odahviing and the Laní-dragon turned to look at him, and he felt Vilkas squeeze his shoulder in pity. Farkas stared, wide-eyed, at what once had been his elf, who mere minutes ago had admitted her love for him. He had never gotten the chance to say it back, and now he never would; he doubted she even knew who he was anymore.
The white dragon turned to him and lashed her tail. "Zu'u dovah!" she exclaimed, and her eyes sparkled for reasons Farkas didn't know. Odahviing nodded and said, "The change is complete. The wolf is banished and you have taken your true dovah form. Zu hind ven ko hin viings , krilot dovah." With a great rush of wings and a thunderous clap of air, he launched himself back into the sky and disappeared over the mountains, roaring his freedom and happiness at having helped the dragonborn. Farkas reasoned he must not have known that his 'help' had completely shattered any hope the Nord had had for his elf to return to him.
Farkas continued to stare through blurred vision at Islanzadí. He vaguely registered words of comfort from his brother before he padded away to help restore Jorrvaskr. Farkas dropped to the ground in defeat as the dragon settled herself a few feet from him, scrutinizing him and flicking her tail. Farkas distantly wondered why she hadn't left yet.
"Well?" she quipped, and Farkas was so startled he yelped and nearly fell over in shock. "Aren't you going to say something?" She sniffed indignantly, and Farkas marveled at how she sounded almost exactly like the elf he had known and cherished.
"…What? But… you… I mean…" he finally sputtered after a few minutes of gawking. Farkas pointed accusingly at her, and she watched him wearily as he tried to wrap his mind around what was going on. "You're a… a…"
"Dragon?"
"Aye."
Islanzadí made an odd rumbling noise deep in her chest and Farkas was now very certain of his insanity. "I have gained the dragon form, yes. But that does not mean I cannot speak." She looked him up and down before sighing. "I ought to explain, I suppose, or else you will go into shock."
"You're leaving." Farkas said flatly before she had the chance to say anything. "You can't stay with us anymore. You have to go."
The Bosmer's ruby eyes grew sad as she nodded. "Aye, Farkas. I cannot stay with you anymore," she said, and the Nord felt his heart shatter once again to hear it confirmed. He hung his head and stood on wobbly legs, still slightly in shock at the events that had taken place. He slowly walked over to her and placed a tentative hand on her massive, elegantly curved snout, and Islanzadí closed her eyes and hummed before pulling away. "But I owe you the truth, for all you have done for me."
Nodding, Farkas sat down not far from her jaw and waited, sitting back on his hands and vowing silently to himself to interrupt as much as possible so she would have to stay longer. The white dragon sighed again before saying, "You already know that the blood of the dragon in my veins was what caused me to be trapped in the form of the wolf."
"Aye."
"Then you also know that the spirit of that wolf and the spirit of the dragon already inside me were fighting for control over my body the entire time. I could not—"
"Yes, I know that, too," he said, and couldn't help but chuckle at the look of mild annoyance on Islanzadí's face, if a dragon can seem annoyed. She was on to him. "But you were saying?"
"Watch it, Nord," she growled before continuing. "But yes. The dragon and wolf warred within me and I could not phase back. In order to change from the form of a wolf to the body of a dragon, the dovah needed to have a distinct amount of power over the wolf spirit." She looked down at him. "I needed a way to permanently defeat the beast blood. And the only route that I imagined working was to call upon the power of the Thu'um and request the assistance of another dragon."
"What's the Thu'um?" Farkas asked, mildly interested.
"The language of the dragons. The words are imbued with power and can call upon different forces of nature as well as man and dragon. But that is irrelevant." She shot him a dark look, and he had to fight back a groan of fear; she was much more intimidating now. "Odahviing assisted me in the defeat of Alduin. He had pledged his loyalty to me and I needed his combined power with mine to give the dragon soul enough of an advantage to banish the wolf. It worked," she said darkly, and Farkas felt his chest pang again in agony. "But not in the way I expected. I thought that I would either regain my elven form, my birth body, with no injuries to speak of, or regain it with the wound Njada—" she snarled the Nord's name and Farkas's heartache was chased away for a brief moment by utter fury. "—had so graciously tried to slay me with. I did not expect to transform from one beast to another." Her voice grew incredibly sad, full of an ancient weariness that made Farkas's chest positively ache in despair.
"I wish you hadn't," he whispered brokenly, unable to meet her large scarlet eyes. "I wanted you to come back. I wanted you to be normal."
Islanzadí made the odd humming noise again, but this time it didn't sound as cheery. She pressed the tip of her nose to his forehead, and Farkas marveled at the warmth and smoothness of her new scales. "I wish it hadn't happened either," she rumbled, and the wolf-man reached up to touch her muzzle. Pulling away, she said, "One of my most recurring nightmares, old blood, was that I would never be an elf again. The nightmares of the beast within were horrible, but to think that I would not be normal ever again was the most frightening. And now it has occurred."
Farkas finally lifted his blue eyes to meet her red ones. "I'm sorry this happened," he burst suddenly. "I'm sorry about Aela and Skjor. I'm sorry I couldn't help you. I'm sorry that me and Vilkas and Kodlak couldn't protect you better." His voice was shaky, and he desperately tried to force it back to normal. "I'm sorry, Islanzadí. It's all my fault. If I had just paid more attention to what Skjor and Aela were planning—"
"No," she said sternly, making him flinch. "It is no one's fault but Aela's. She talked Skjor into transforming me and she talked me into attacking the Silver Hand." She nuzzled him again, and Farkas's breath stuttered. "I do not wish our last meeting to be full of finger-pointing and accusations." Pulling back, she looked him straight in the eyes and said firmly, "You will hold no one accountable for my troubles, Farkas. They are mine to shoulder and it is not part of your character, anyway."
Nodding his agreement, Farkas said, "So this is goodbye? For good?"
Islanzadí made a sound that resembled a cough somewhat. "Yes," she muttered as quietly and intensely as she could. "This is farewell." Leaning down, she puffed warm breath into his face, blowing his dark hair back, and Farkas walked forward and wrapped his thick arms around her neck, careful of her sharp spikes. "I will miss you, Farkas," she rumbled, as if admitting a weakness. "Kick your brother's arse for me and don't be such a pushover anymore, understood?"
Chuckling bitterly, Farkas agreed. Before he pulled away, her pressed a short kiss against the underside of her throat and whispered those three words that she had told him what seemed like a lifetime ago. He stepped away and blinked back the salty water in his eyes as he watched her dig her talons into the dirt underfoot and unfurl her massive bluish wings. With a powerful thrust from her hind legs and a monumental flap of her wings, she soared into the air, the wind from her departure nearly knocking him over. Farkas watched her sail and twist through the night as she disappeared over the mountains' distant peaks until he couldn't see her any longer. With a bitter smile twisting his lips, he turned and began to trudge back to his broken, leaderless home.
Two years later
"Good," Farkas praised as he watched Ria and Athis spar. The Dunmer had expertly blocked Ria's thrust of shoved her back, causing her to stumble. "Ria, you were too slow to recover and your offense is predictable. Take a break and we'll continue after supper." The two warriors nodded at him and sheathed their swords before wandering off to do who-knows-what.
The Nord dragged a weary hand down his face, exhausted. Even though his wolf-spirit was forever gone, having been defeated by him and Vilkas when they visited Ysgramor's tomb to lay Kodlak to rest properly, he hadn't had a proper night's sleep in what seemed like forever.
Two years had gone by since that fateful night when Islanzadí had flown away. Farkas sighed as he trudged back into Jorrvaskr, looking for something to do; Aela had a list of jobs somewhere.
Vilkas had been named Harbinger by the spirit of Kodlak, although the old leader had seemed hesitant, inquiring about the elf. Farkas had told him in short, bitter tones that she was gone, offering hardly any information about what they had spoken of before the elf-dragon had flown away. Kodlak had looked incredibly sad and offered condolences that fell on deaf ears and named his brother Harbinger and that was the end of that. But the heartache was still there. The years since she had left had dulled the pain from constant pangs and sleepless nights to a dull throb that could sometimes be forgotten under the right circumstances, but Farkas wasn't quite the same. He still smiled and laughed, but the sounds were sometimes hollow and his grins were much rarer than before. Even Vilkas—of all people—had had to tell him to cheer up. But it wasn't effective; Farkas did not love many, although he was very kind, and those he did, he loved with everything he had: heart, mind, body and soul.
Farkas plunked down in a chair in the full dining hall beside Torvar and Valric, a new Imperial recruit that had arrived a few months ago and quickly fell into their little family. The man was young with a mop of messy blonde curls and grey eyes and a wicked talent with a battle axe, and had rapidly become infatuated with Aela, much to the huntress's annoyance. The thought made Farkas want to smile, but instead the Nord grabbed and hunk of bread and took a gulp of mead, chewing thoughtfully.
"Evenin'," Torvar greeted cheerfully, munching on his supper. He shot Farkas a mischievous look and asked, "Me and Valric are heading on over to the Bannered Mare tonight, buddy! You should tag along; you might even get that pretty Ysolda gal into you bed, mm?" Torvar laughed heartily at the black look Farkas shot him, and Valric just shrugged.
"No thanks," Farkas said shortly. "I don't want to have to carry you home like last time, Torvar. That was humiliating."
"HEY!" someone shouted as the doors to Jorrvaskr burst open, and Farkas spewed mead everywhere at the sound.
The Nord shot up and whirled around, only to be greeted by a madly grinning elf with scarlet eyes and long raven hair pulled into a messy braid. She had war paint around her eyes and the tip of her right ear was missing.
Blue eyes met scarlet, and Islanzadí's perfect lips pulled up into a satisfied smirk at Torvar and Farkas's flabbergasted expressions. "Miss me, anyone?"
Farkas didn't answer her question, and he didn't have to. Laní's smile grew impossibly wide as in three long strides he crossed over to her, wove his fingers into her silky hair like he had dreamed of for two years and kissed her, to catcalls and whistles of the Companions. Her arms came up to wrap around his neck as she stood on her tip-toes and kissed him back, making sure to keep it appropriate for public. Too soon, they pulled apart for air.
Farkas was amazed at the dazzling brilliance of Islanzadí's smile. She wasn't as beautiful as he remembered; she was utterly striking. "How…" he managed to choke, and she laughed, the sound pealing like bells and making his face light up in the biggest grin he'd had since she left.
"It was temporary," she gasped, breathless from their kiss. "I don't know what happened; I just woke up one morning in my nest and I didn't have scales or wings anymore. I guess the way I thought and moved and felt was more human than dragon, and it forced me back to this!" She gestured at herself, and Farkas's eyes roved over her appreciatively. "I was even more surprised than you are, I promise you." She smirked again. "So? Did you miss me?"
Chuckling, he pretended to think until she smacked him and he winced; he had forgotten how strong she was. "Yes," he snickered, and shot Valric a dirty look when the boy 'awwwed'.
Islanzadí only chuckled and turned Farkas's face back to hers. Her scarlet eyes smoldered and everyone in the room faded and was forgotten as her warrior slanted his mouth over hers again and caught her in a searing, blistering kiss.
Home, Islanzadí thought as they broke away, grinning. Home at last.