08/06/19: Man, this was a difficult one to get out, for some reason. Still, I made it. Eventually...
Disclaimer: I only own Ira and the person who makes a first appearance in this chapter (whose name I shall not divulge yet because that would spoil it). :)
A/N: Yup, I did a thing. You'll know it when you read it. Oh, and just so you know, this wasn't a spur-of-the-moment thing, I've been planning this from the beginning. Hope you enjoy it.
Big thanks to: Dragon Alchemist, Death Berry Wizard, dffnnet, bloodlion, Demon-Kagetsuki, killer4853, mass-defect, InugamiGuru and slender mane for avouriting/following. Love you guys!
Review response(s):
ww1990ww: I've made it so there were some nords and dragons living in Middle Earth before they moved to Skyrim, putting the placement of that Word Wall and Hall of Stories before the building of Rivendell.
Demon-Kagetsuki: I knew it would be a close call, but I also figured having a Word Wall would be possible in the time of Rivendell's creation. As for those timelines you offered, they would be greatly appreciated. Gives me a bit of a research break! XD
killer4853: I am glad :)
Chapter 10:
As the dwarves made their way grudgingly along a bridge, Alduin found himself wondering where Ira had disappeared off to. She'd mentioned something about a Word Wall, but had vanished before Alduin could question her about it. How did she know a Word Wall was nearby? More to the point, how did she know when he – the Overlord of all dragons – did not?
Alduin felt himself rolling his eyes as the sound of a Shout cracked the air. Ira was impulsive and reckless, and he didn't doubt that she'd be able to find trouble in even the most peaceful of environments. Still, at least she was an able fighter, otherwise he would think that recklessness would be the end of her.
Maybe it still would.
The Company reached an open courtyard, the dwarves forming a tight circle and eyeing their surroundings with suspicion, while Alduin kept away from the rest and came to lean upon one of the many stone columns that acted as a border for it.
It was a few moments later that Ira reappeared, grumbling under her breath and wiping dust off her clothes, but otherwise looking no worse for wear.
"Nice of you to show up."
Ira looked up at him, blue eyes gleaming and bright from the residual adrenaline of a fight. Before she could speak, however, a voice called out.
"Lady Miluiel?"
Alduin turned his head to see a man approaching them, his dainty brows furrowed slightly. He was an elf, with pointed ears and a distinctive air of elegance and longevity that was rarely found amongst the races of men.
"Excuse me?" The veiled terseness in Ira's voice was the only hint of her discomfort, but Alduin knew her well enough now that he was able to hear it.
The elf's frown deepened, seemingly in confusion, before another voice echoed through the open courtyard.
"Mithrandir! You should have sent word you were coming, mellon nín!"
And then from above came a new figure, her hair dark and thick, and her eyes the colour of the sky, wearing an emerald green dress and silver slippers.
Alduin felt his breath catch in his throat the moment she appeared.
Ira had been quite ready to lose interest in the situation almost as soon as the newcomer had called out, pushing her strange interaction with the elf aside. But then Alduin had turned, and his body had frozen solid in shock, his amber eyes widening.
Attention caught, Ira followed his gaze, and realised with a start that she was looking at a mirror image of herself.
"Ah, Miluiel," Gandalf greeted with a smile. "I need to speak to Lord Elrond."
"I'm afraid he is not here," the woman replied. "He went with the scouting party that departed the city this morning. They have not yet returned."
Even before the last sound escaped her lips, it was eclipsed by the sharp ring of a familiar war horn. The dwarves spun at once, nervous hands grasping tightly at their weapons. All at once they formed a hurried circle, pulling Bilbo into the centre of the formation.
Ira had to be dragged to the outer ring of the courtyard by Alduin, as she had suddenly lost the ability to move, her eyes glued on the woman in the green dress on the steps above her.
Her daze was broken when the first of many horses rode past her, each being directed by expert hands into a ring around the dwarves, the horses snorted and stomping their hooves in response to the dwarves' weapons being brandished in their direction. The expressions on the faces of the elves were cautious, but not openly aggressive. Even so, it did not completely remove the tugging at the edge of Ira's consciousness that was telling her to keep a firm hold on her sword.
"Gandalf!" One of the elves dismounted, swinging elegantly out of his saddle in a whirl of straight, dark hair and lordly robes. He himself looked just as regal, his back straight and his shoulders set back in a stance of confidence and power.
He reached Gandalf in just a few strides, the two greeting each other in a flowery language that sounded alien to Ira's experienced ears.
"Strange for orcs to come so close to our borders," the elf said, switching at last back to the language they could all understand. "Something, or someone, has drawn them near." An eyebrow arched pointedly in Gandalf's direction.
"Ah," the wizard said, a slight smile tugging at his lips. "That might have been us..."
The ease between Gandalf and the elf seemed to relax the dwarves just enough to loosen up the rigid formation they had created – enough so that Thorin could push through the group to stand before them.
The elf lord, for his noble blood was clear to all, gave Thorin an appraising look, before saying calmly, "Welcome Thorin, son of Thrain."
Thorin's eyes narrowed slightly. "I do not believe we have met."
The elf smiled. "You have your grandfather's bearing. I knew Thror when he ruled under the mountain."
"Indeed? He made no mention of you."
Ira snorted, though she did her best to cover up the noise. It was only then that she got a noseful of a bitter-sweet, metallic scent. One she recognised at once.
Instinct caused her lips to curl back into a feral snarl, and her hand to reach for her sword hilt. All eyes in the courtyard fell on her in an instant, but hers were back on the woman in green.
Two identical pairs of eyes met for the first time, and both sides froze in shock.
Several tense seconds of silence followed, before the woman facing her breathed out into the quiet, "Ira..."
Ira slowly relaxed her grip and straightened, letting her arm fall limp at her side. "You know, at first I couldn't believe that it was really you, Amy. Now I guess it all makes sense." No matter how much she tried, she couldn't quite keep the bite from her voice.
The woman – Ira's sister, Amicitia, who she'd long thought dead – smiled, her eyes bright and warm despite Ira's tone. She'd always been the kinder of the two, even as children. "It was not by choice," she explained. "And I know of no cure."
"I do," Ira said at once. "If you want to be cured, that is."
Smile widening, Amicitia took a step closer to her twin. "Then I think, perhaps, you can help me." She gestured to a narrow path leading off of the courtyard, one which took them away from the main city. "Shall we?"
Slowly, Ira nodded.
With a departing glance in Alduin's direction, she followed Amicitia out of the area and down the path, which quickly became wild and overgrown. They passed beyond the sight of the open courtyard as they ducked underneath the long, sweeping branches of a weeping willow.
Emerging from the other side, Ira felt her breath catch at the sight of the place they'd ended up. It was a meadow, full of colourful, blooming flowers that seemed to fill every inch of space. There were bees and butterflies hovering above the flowers, and the air was humming with the gentle buzz of hundreds of hidden insects. She had rarely seen such a sight in all her life.
"So," the Dragonborn said after giving herself a moment to take in the view, "you're a vampire."
"Since very shortly after I left home, actually." Amicitia grinned, eyes sparking. "And you're a werewolf."
Ira nodded. "The story is much the same for me, as well. I was 24, I think, when I accepted the blood."
Amicitia sighed. "You're lucky."
Ira blinked, taken aback by the comment. "What makes you say that?"
"Besides the fact that, at the very least, you had the option to turn your back on it?" Amicitia smiled sadly. "There is something romantic about the idea of becoming a wolf. They are part of nature, more so than we are. And wolves move in packs. They always belong somewhere. I have been an outcast for centuries."
"Being a werewolf isn't all sunshine and rainbows, Amy," Ira told her, face set and serious. "There's an animal locked inside you; in your mind, as well as your body. And though you may eventually come to make an alliance of sorts with it, as I have, it will always be trying to break free."
"Anything is better than this." Amicitia's voice came out quiet, with such despair that Ira felt the need to comfort her spring up.
"Would you do it?" she asked. "If I offer you my wolf blood, would you take it?"
"Would it cure me?"
"Yes. You cannot have both the blood of a vampire and a werewolf. You cannot exist in both forms. If you were to complete the Blood Ritual, you would lose your vampiric powers, and become a lycanthrope instead."
Amicitia's eyes hardened. "I want to do it. Please, Ira, free me of this curse. I don't want to live like this anymore."
Ira hesitated, before giving a tiny nod. "If that's what you want. But I should warn you, the first shift is always the most intense. Some don't survive, and others lose their humanity. If you make it through the first transformation, you should be fine, but..."
"I have lived a long enough life that I no longer fear death."
Ira inhaled sharply, but nodded again. "Then let's get this over with..."
Dizziness washed over Ira's senses, and her veins buzzed with slowly diminishing adrenaline. She sucked in a breath of the warm air of the valley, and felt clarity return to her mind. She was back. She was human again.
With a groan she pushed herself up off the floor, glancing beside her to see that Amicitia was still unconscious on the floor. The first shift was always the worst, and always took the longest to recover from. She didn't expect her sister to be awake for at least another hour.
Her mind still hadn't managed to fully wrap itself around the fact that Amicitia was still alive. At a glance, Ira's body was probably a few years older than her sister's, giving her a rough estimate of when she first became afflicted with vampirism. The dragon soul in Ira's body froze her body at around the physical age of 25, meaning Amicitia's was probably closer to 20. They didn't look quite so identical anymore, though the differences were still only minute – consisting mostly of a slightly less rounded face, and more lines around the eyes.
Ira set about gathering up her discarded clothes and pulling them back on, grimacing as the grime and dirt from the last few weeks came into contact with her skin again. She didn't often get the time or opportunity to bathe, even back home, but it was rare that she went this long without the chance to clean both herself and her clothes.
She and Amicitia had ended up making a round trip during their hunt, finally collapsing in the same meadow they started. Ira took the chance now to lie back on the soft grass with her hands behind her head, staring at the blue sky above her head and listening to the chattering of the various animals inhabiting the field.
Sometime later – Ira was uncertain exactly how long it was – Amicitia released a small groan and finally stirred. Her eyes opened and met Ira's through the long strands of grass, and a grin spread over her lips.
"I'd forgotten how it felt to be alive," she said, sitting up and stretching. She was clearly as unbothered by her nakedness as Ira. She rubbed her temple, grimacing. "Is the headache a common part of the change?"
"No, it stops happening after the first few shifts," Ira told her, passing Amicitia her dress. "I guess it's just part of your body acclimatising to the new blood running through it."
Amicitia nodded, pulling the dress on over her head, then pulling on her shoes. "Part of me still can't believe you're here; that this is real. I keep expecting to open my eyes and find myself in my bed, and this to have all been a dream."
"I can assure you, it's not."
"I know," she said, lying back in the grass next to Ira. "But it's been so long... I'd given up hope of ever seeing you again."
Ira nodded, finding Amicitia's hand in the grass and giving it a squeeze. "We have a lot to catch up on."
With a grin, Amicitia sat up and pulled Ira onto her feet alongside her. Hand-in-hand, they started to make their way back towards Rivendell. "I think," Amicitia said with a grin, "we can start with me asking what in Oblivion you're doing in the company of dwarves, of all things."
Ira laughed. "Well, that's a bit of a long story. I'll tell you later, I promise – but first, I just want a bath."
Amicitia grinned. "I'm holding you to that," she said, a semi-threatening tone to her voice that didn't affect Ira in the slightest. "Now, come on. The baths are this way."
When at last Ira made her way back to the Company, she felt fully refreshed. Her armour had been taken away by a particularly persistent elf maid to be cleaned and repaired, leaving her to dress in the clothes they provided. She was just grateful she wasn't forced to wear a dress.
Instead, she'd been left a pair of black linen breeches that went down to her ankles, and a loose white tunic which she tapered around her waist with a thick, black sash. She tugged on a pair of simple boots which she hadn't had the chance to sell before flying to Middle Earth, deciding they'd be a better choice than her Dark Brotherhood boots in a place like this. Her hair she tugged out of its usual ponytail, running a wooden brush through it a few times to remove some of the knots, and then let it fall loose over her shoulders.
The Company seemed to have let go of some of their animosity towards the elves, sitting at their tables and talking and laughing as normal. She smiled when she saw Amicitia already there, sating next to Ori and having a quiet conversation with the usually shy dwarf. From the way his eyes were lit up, she figured they were having some kind of conversation about books or other intellectual things – they seemed to be the only topics that would bring Ori out of his shell.
Dropping down into a seat beside Kili, Ira's first instinct was to grimace. Forgetting the fact that the seats offered were clearly intended for the use of people far shorter than her, the food laid out before them was just a range of shades of green. Ira wasn't against salads, but she made it a rule to always have some meat or fish to accompany them. The lack of either was disappointing.
"Lady Ira."
Ira raised her head to see that it was the elven lord who had addressed her, and he was beckoning to her now. Amicitia had told her his name was Elrond, and he was several thousand years old. It made Ira feel like a child in his presence – a feeling she wasn't used to.
She stood up, giving Kili a pat on the shoulder as she did, and walked to the high table. There were three people sat at the table; Gandalf, Lord Elrond, and Thorin. This made her pause, and she let her eyes scan the room for any sign of Alduin. He wasn't there.
Pushing the ever-absent dragon from her mind, Ira offered up as polite a smile as she could muster. "You must be Lord Elrond," she said by way of a greeting, accepting the chair that he offered her. She was grateful it was taller than those at the main tables.
"A pleasure to meet you, my lady." He bowed his head, the perfect image of decorum. "I was told you were able to get into the hidden cave by the river, and the room beyond. No one has ever been able to do that before."
"That doesn't surprise me," she told him. "Such places can only be opened by a key in the shape of a dragon's claw, and there are only a few of them around. Each also had only one door that they can open. I happened upon a claw made of silver in a troll hoard we came across this morning. I knew it wouldn't be long before I came across the matching door – the keys very rarely venture far from the place they were meant to open."
"Might I have a look at this key?"
"It's in my pack at the moment, but I'll bring it to you when I can. You may as well keep it – I won't have any further use of it, I'm sure."
Elrond nodded in agreement, his eyes sweeping over her face, and then darting over to Amicitia. She remained deep in conversation, a bright smile playing at her lips. "It is a curious thing that you should appear here, now of all times," he mused. "Miluiel has mentioned you in the past, though always with sorrow. She believed you dead. Still, whenever she spoke of you, it was always in the highest regard."
Ira slowly nodded. "And I her," she admitted. "All these years, and it never once crossed my mind that she might still be alive. I am thrilled to see her again, of course, but... I don't really know where to go from here."
"I'd imagine she faces the same dilemma," he said, a warmth to his voice that Ira didn't miss. "Though, if you'll forgive my curiosity... Miluiel always believed you were dead, too. Her vampirism kept her alive this long. How did you survive so far beyond your natural lifespan?"
Tensing, Ira glanced warily at the elven lord. She was sure he meant no harm – there were no warning bells going off in her mind about him. But she had habits that refused to die; Elrond was elf, and though she knew he was not a member of the Aldmeri Dominion, Ira had never quite been able to shake the inherent distrust she had in their kind.
"It's complicated..." she said at last.
Mercifully, Lord Elrond seemed to detect her discomfort and refrained from questioning her further. In fact, he didn't bother talking to her again throughout the entire meal. And in a small corner of her mind, Ira was immensely grateful.
When Thorin, Balin and Gandalf went off to talk to Lord Elrond about the mysterious map in their possession, Ira had every intention of slipping out and trying to find her elusive dragon companion. She couldn't, in the end. Gandalf was very insistent that she and Bilbo accompany them, despite Thorin's obvious disapproval. So, both equally hesitant, they followed behind.
Ira didn't plan on talking much. Diplomacy had never been a strong point of hers. She was perfectly content to stand back and watch the proceedings in silence.
"Our business is no concern of elves."
Gandalf released a huff. "For goodness sake, Thorin, show him the map!"
Thorin's dark eyes glared holes in Gandalf's skull – not that the wizard seemed to notice. "It is the legacy of my people, and it is mine to protect. As are its secrets."
Gandalf let frustration cross his expression for a moment. "Save me from the stubbornness of dwarves!" He took a steadying breath. "Your pride will be your downfall, Thorin Oakenshield. You stand here in the presence of one of the few on Middle Earth who can read that map. Show it to Lord Elrond."
Ira could see the moment Thorin saw reason. His shoulders slumped, and he gave a minute tilt of his head. Then he buried his hand in his coat and drew out the map. He ignored Balin's attempts at stopping him as he passed it to the elf lord.
Elrond unfolded the paper, and his brows furrowed at once. "Erebor? What is your interest in this map?"
"Zu'u mahraal hi nalkun mindok fahraal wah tol, dii drog, (I imagine you already know the answer to that, my lord,)" Ira muttered, though it was a comment more aimed to the air in front of her than Elrond himself.
It was a surprise, then, when he nodded sagely, and said, "Yes, I have my suspicions."
Ira wasn't really sure how to react to his knowledge of the dragon tongue. She wondered where he could possibly have learnt it. She very much doubted that Amicitia knew even a single word of the dovahzul. Then again, the fact she had come across a claw key and word wall here meant that she and her sister weren't the first ones to venture to this world from Skyrim. And if Elrond really was thousands of years old, there was a chance he had been alive when the ancient nords ventured here. Still, his knowledge was disconcerting, to say the least.
Elrond held the map up to the light, and the faintest of silver shimmers appeared on the aged parchment. "Cirith ithil," he said in his own tongue, the words sounding like complete gibberish to Ira.
"Moon runes," Gandalf translated, exhaling what sounded like a sigh of relief. "Of course. An easy thing to miss."
"Well, in this case, that is true," Elrond told them, spinning on his heel and heading out of the room with his robes billowing out behind him. The rest of the group followed. "Moon runes can only be read by the light of a moon the same shape and season as the day on which they were written."
Thorin's entire figure had straightened up with this information. "And can you read them?"
Elrond led them to an open area, carved roughly into a cliff side. It was a platform that was hidden behind a curtain of water, and at the centre was a crystalline pedestal. "These runes were written on a Midsummer's Eve by the light of a crescent moon nearly two hundred years ago. It would seem you were meant to come to Rivendell; fate is with you, Thorin Oakenshield. The same moon shines upon us tonight."
He placed the map onto the pedestal and they had only to wait a few seconds before the light of the moon shone through the waterfall, illuminating the crystal and allowing the moon's light to shine through the paper. Angular runes appeared on the map, which Lord Elrond quickly translated aloud. "'Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks, and the setting sun with the last light of Durin's Day will shine upon the keyhole'."
"Durin's Day?" Bilbo echoed, frowning.
"It is the start of the dwarves' new year," Gandalf explained. "When the last moon of autumn and the first sun of winter appear in the sky together."
Thorin rubbed his hand over his bearded chin. "This is ill news," he said. "Summer is passing. Durin's Day will soon be upon us."
"We still have time."
Bilbo piped up, every curious and ever confused. "Time? For what?"
"To find the entrance," Balin stated firmly, his tone ripe with determination. "We have to be standing at exactly the right spot, at exactly the right time. Then, and only then, can the door be opened."
Ira sensed more than saw the straightening of Elrond's spine as his suspicions were confirmed. "So, this is your purpose. To enter the mountain."
Thorin glowered, snatching back the map when Elrond held it out to him, neatly and carefully folded. "What of it?" he snapped.
Elrond was not offended, offering up a simple, "There are some who would not deem it wise," before turning to leave.
"Who do you mean?"
Gandalf's question made the elven lord pause, and he gave the wizard a pointed look. "You are not the only guardian to stand watch over Middle Earth, Gandalf." And with the light of understanding dawning in Gandalf's gaze, the elf lord left them alone.
Ira's eyes tracked him until he was out of sight, a light frown on her face. Elrond acted as if he knew more than he was saying, but since he refused to speak of it allowed, what that knowledge was could only be guessed at.
Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Ira moved from her position behind the group and began heading back towards the centre of the city.
She still had a dragon to find, after all.