Life not fair
that my brother should be king of pride rock
Skyrim and Familiar of Zero shouldn't be owned by me
but you
will never live to see another day
heehee
won't you?
(name this botched quote)
Jackalope89: I think there were more dragonborns then Miraak and Dovahkiin.
alexkehling: QUIT MENTIONING HIM, I brought him in twice and managed to escape with only his minor ramblings, if we keep talking about him he might come back!
oh, and the idea that the souls already within Dovahkiin confusing Sylphid is a rather good one.
Boyzilla: Ya, thinking back A fight before Tabitha finding out would have made the chapter better but they both decided to drop the idiot ball for now.
Perfectshade: I'm sure the book on dragon reproduction is just laying around somewhere, maybe next to the lusty maid. Brute force is a rather Nordic way of life so of course that is how Dove would handle things. thanks, I felt like I was miss writing Louise because she wasn't shouting. I try to be unpredictable, that is why my story is like this. Honesty is the best policy, Kirche understands that except where it doesn't suit her. Finally I just didn't want a crap ton of PMs about 'how can there be something from earth?' or 'why didn't you make the staff of Magnus the staff of destruction,' and all that junk so I gave a reason for both existing.
.
bleach96269: A PAIRING SUGGESTION!
Dove/Kirche
will be considered.
.
Me Myself and I: Matilda didn't realize that Dove is Dovahkiin, or that she is Galdalfr, she was thankful that someone figured out how to use the stupid thing and complained that it wasn't who she thought would figure it out. The idea of getting the Galdalfr was part of the anime, complain to the original writer if you think it was a idiot ball moment.
GrimKid98: Now Tabitha has updated her status from 'actively trying to kill and dragon' to 'wairy of dragon shapeshifter.'
Drakefire: yes the UNNAMED INDIVIDUAL did it, as I told alexkehling, I don't want to draw his attention.
Bl4nk: I read that the first recorded, if I'm remembering correctly, use of the voice was by a saint who entered into a pact with Akotosh. Yes dragons in game couldn't be full scale but I have stated that Dovahkiin is twice as big as Slphid I think is about the size of an in game skyrim dragon. Dovahkiin is 'small' for her kind dragon but she's much more powerful then others. I'm not an expert on magic, but I do agree that it is a lot like art. Skill, natural or accumulated will determine how good you are. The main reason that Dove hasn't mentioned other quests is because I haven't played all of them.
Yes this is a copy of my PM response, I just didn't feel like rewriting everything here.
PEJP Dengtone V2: NO, Most of them, we discussed the ones I didn't know, look it up, I am debating having Dove actually afraid of gunpowder, what do you think?
Diggin: Those sound like things I should look into, are those references you suggested for FOZ or skyrim? Dragons are more Dremora the animal... I could see that, BUT I WILL MAKE THEM MORE ANIMAL, I think Akotosh would plan for when his childrens numbers starts to drop into the lower double digits.
GGFBank: Unrelenting Force is the most incredible visual shout in my option, other shouts though are better for fighting since they cause direct harm to the enemy.
Akshka: Here it is.
Dove stood ready, hands at her side but her magicka running through them. Tabitha stood with her staff outstretched, feet at ninety degrees and legs bowed just a little bit. The only thing keeping a fight from breaking out was the large blue dragon bowing to the relaxed looking one.
Tabitha glared at the threat, stubbornly maintaining that word as the best description of Dove, but was also trying to understand the actions of her familiar. 'Why?' She asked in her mind.
Sylphid gave her a confused look, 'She hasn't hurt us.'
Tabitha raised an eyebrow, 'You were afraid of her,'
If a dragon could look sheepish then Sylphid did at that moment.
"Are you two talking telepathically?" The voice of the threat surprised the two mind talkers and they glanced over at the light brunet.
"I have occasionally seen people talk though methods that weren't their voices and you two look like some that spoke mentally," Dove said calmly.
Surprised at being caught Tabitha nodded before she caught herself.
Dove sighed and then asked with real curiosity, "what did she say?"
Tabitha looked at Sylphid, Sylphid nodded to her big sister. "That she thinks we can trust you," Tabitha admitted.
"Awww!" Dove breathed happily, "Thank you Sylphid," She walked the pace and a half up to Sylphid and gave the dragon's head a large hug.
Tabitha whipped her staff down, spell on her lips at the sudden movement. She hated that Sylphid had moved into her field of attack, only to stop at the sound of Sylphid crooning softly as Dove scratched just behind her jaw bone.
Tabitha was dumb struck as she hadn't managed to get Sylphid to croon like that in all the time they had known each other.
Dove eventually stopped hugging and scratching Sylphid (to her minor whine) and turned to Tabitha.
"Hey Louise," she called to her summoner without moving her gaze from the still ready to attack, but shocked mage. "Do you think these two can keep our other secret?" She asked pretty sure she knew what Louise would say.
Louise bit her lip, "do you think that we should? One of them was planning on killing you, how can you trust them already?"
Dove nodded, looking like a fool to Louise. "They know about the shapeshifting," Dove pointed out, "and now that I've mentioned another secret they won't rest until they know it."
"Yup," Kirche chirped from her place on the sidelines.
The pink one just rolled her eyes like Dove knew she would.
Louise grumbled, "I guess they can know the rest, it might keep people who should know better from trying to kill you." Her pointed look had Tabitha looking down in obvious shame.
Dove pulled back from the dragon and reached for her head. "Where I come from there are more species than just human," she said to the curious mages, "There are the beast people, men and women who have lizard scales or cat fur. There are humans who we all know about. Finally, there are the Mer, these people are also known as elves. Not like your elves just similar in appearances."
She pulled off her head piece at let her ears flick forwards.
Kirche gaped at the elven maid, for some reason instead of the expected fear and terror the only thing she could think of was '...that completes her outfit rather well,' and instantly her ingrained response started to undress the maid. 'Maybe Louise is right and I have my head to deep into the smut.'
Tabitha took this revelation rather well, still thinking over how she could have forgotten that Familiars couldn't kill another without their mages direct order. She saw this as an attempt to pacify her. Dove had learned of Tabitha's ability to talk mentally with Sylphid and in return was giving Tabitha a secret of her own.
Tabitha appreciated the gesture.
Tabitha let her staffs point sink down until it was touching the ground before moving closer. "Sorry, forgive me?" Tabitha asked hoping for forgiveness.
Dove tilted her head for a second. "Sure, but only if we are friends as well," she finally decided and leapt forward to pick the smaller girl up in a hug that lifted the blue haired girl about a foot off the ground.
"…Fine."
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"We have handed Fouquet over to the palace guards, and the staff of Destruction has been secured in the palace vaults," Old Osmond said to the four girls in front of him. After they had returned with the thief in hand and Osmond had finally gotten over the sorrow of losing Miss Longueville, they had gathered with Professor Colbert in his office to be debriefed. "That puts an end to these matters. You are all guests of honor for tonight's banquet."
Dove and Kirche spoke at the same time, "That's I'm to going to be have to make expected. that banquet don't I?" Both blushed at the mess they made.
Osmond ignored their mixed speech, "The palace thinks very highly of your conduct in this incident, I am certain that some reward will be given to all four of you."
Kirche perked up, bouncing a little. "Really? A reward from the palace?" She asked all happy at the idea of a reward like that could be.
"If that is all I would like to have a private word with miss Dove here," Osmond said dismissing the others. They bowed and quickly filed out.
Osmond faced Dove. "It has been a while since we were able to talk Miss Dove, how are you faring in this new land?"
Dove smiled at the pleasantries, "I am doing fine my lord. Why have you asked me to wait behind? I don't think it was just to ask such a simple question."
Osmond sighed as she skipped over the polite conversation in favor of getting to the important bits. "You're right," he said, "I wanted to ask you about what we had discussed before, about if you were willing to take classes in our magic." He avoided mentioning his interest in learning her own kind of magic.
Dove looked thoughtful, she stood there thinking for what could have been ten seconds but internally felt like years.
Within her different parts were arguing over what she should do.
Her companion side warned that it would be much harder to hide her ears and nature from the students if she spent more time with them. It also noted that the servants stuck together, they were like a large family more than fellow employees, yet the nobles were obviously divided between themselves, looking for and flaunting advantages their families or positions gave them. The point to this reasoning was that if her secret got out then there would be people who would try and take advantage of her, while others would try and kill her outright.
Her Arch-mage side felt that learning a new form of magic would be an incredible experience and could only help her at this point. It admitted that there would be a problem with her ears but there could be ways to hide them. Besides, people would try and get to know her to see if they could use her anyways since she was a complete wild card to their way of life. Another point for going with this decision was that she could stay close to protect Louise like she had promised and she might learn something that could help her with her growing dragon mentality.
Decision made she spoke, "Lord Osmond, I would be honored if I could attend your classes and learn of your style of magic."
Osmond smiled happily at his newest student. "Thank you, I am very happy to hear you chose that my lady. I do hope you can learn quickly since most mages your age are already graduated," he said laying down a challenge.
Dove smiled, "I am a fast learner," accepting the gauntlet.
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Surprisingly enough Dove didn't have to make the banquet, Martone had all but pushed her out of the kitchen when she had come to take over saying that it was her day and that she was a guest of honor at the banquet so she shouldn't have to spend her time preparing it as well.
After learning of her temporary banishment from the kitchen Dove didn't know exactly what to do with herself. She had spent so little time doing anything else around the academy that she now had nothing to do.
The only thing she could think of falling back onto now was traveling around on roads looking for something to do. Trouble would often find her on the road, assassins, giants, dragons, and the like seemed to almost be drawn to her whenever she set foot outside any civilization. But, if she was being honest, that was also how she met most of the interesting people in her life.
Decision made she started off down the road.
Forests where almost boring without assassins, giants or dragons. After the first half an hour looking at trees things got unbelievably boring, the problem was that every other tree looked like its neighbor, in most forests there was some diversity in the foliage yet here there wasn't a single difference to some of the trees.
Dove hadn't gone far into the woods since she needed to get back in time to prepare for the banquet tonight yet she hadn't found anything to alleviate her boredom.
The forest was rather calm and peaceful and incredibly boring to the dragon slayer.
Nothing but almost identical trees as far as the eye could see. She had been told that there was danger in the woods and that anyone traveling within them would get hurt but now it just looked like that was an excuse to keep people in the academy.
Deciding that there wasn't much more she could do Dove turned and started back towards the academy.
Whooo~
Freezing she turned. Dove had taken a slightly diferent path back hoping for something interesting, and wasn't let down. Dove knew that sound anywhere. A cave, just like any of the thousands that dotted the land of Skyrim was somewhere nearby and a cave would give her something new to explore.
Turning towards the sound of air exiting the ground Dove reflected on how odd this was, 'most people take up a hobby or talk with friends to ease their boredom yet I go looking for caves and hope for dangerous monsters to attack me.'
Technically this could be described as a hobby, or a personality flaw, she admitted, but most hobbyists didn't have as much danger or thrill as hers.
Hidden from her sight when she had passed by the first time was a large stand of oaks with a small rock out cropping standing between the gnarled tree trunks with a small entrance at the base of one mossy stone which was where the sound came from.
'This looked a lot like the smugglers den where I found all those red guards, just with more trees,' Dove thought as she got down onto her hands and knees.
The hole in the ground was only as high as her hips and surprisingly rather dry as far as ground level holes go.
Dove started down the tunnel that soon proved to be a rather long dark crawl. 'What kind of seismic events make tunnels like this anyway?' Dove wondered as she remembered all the strange caves that she had ended up in over the entire range of Skyrim.
Suddenly there was a faint light at the end of her tunnel accompanied by the sound of flowing water. The tunnel started getting larger as she continued, soon she could stand up which she did, stretching her back a little as she continued forwards.
The tunnel ended in a large room, the walls were all earthen but they had moss growing right up them making everything look green. The light came down from a large hole in the celling that also allowed a clear stream of water to flow down through the air to splash into a large equally clear pond.
Apart from the soft moss there was an abundance of mushrooms and plants that grew around the lip of the pool.
Dove grinned as she recognized most of the plants that grew down here. Her interest in cooking had started with her frustration at how bad everything tasted when she had to put plants in an alchemic potion and so her skill with making things taste good had grown out of a desire to fix that.
She knew most of these plants; they could be used as potions and most didn't taste like troll fat, so she had remembered them.
Moving past the nostalgic plants she walked over to the water itself. The clear water allowed her to see right on down to the gravely bottom. Reaching down Dove cupped a hand full of the cold water and lifted it up to drink.
The water was clear and as cold as she had thought it was, almost like snow melt but just barely above that level of cold.
Dove looked around sizing up the entire cavern; around seventy-five feet in diameter, covered in soft moss and alchemic plants, flowing clean water, and a difficult entrance.
To the left of the entrance was another tunnel, this one as large as a person standing up.
Through it was a much darker area almost thirty feet deep and twenty wide in an oval shape and surprisingly a natural stone floor.
All together it was a perfect little hole in the ground to call her own.
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Louise had arrived a little later than most to the banquet. As she was announced to the guests who had already arrived she looked around feeling like the guest of honor that the headmaster had said she would be. Most of the boys looked at her with awe and obvious appreciation of her dress, the other girls looked honestly jealous of the attention she gathered.
The room was lit by several large chandeliers giving everything a golden glow, even the walls and floor seemed to glow. It complemented her light pink dress and white gloves. Her dress as mentioned before was pink with small puffs on the neckline that hung just off her shoulders and ribbons across the front. Her hair was in a soft ponytail held there by a golden hair piece that matched the thick neckless around her neck.
Several boys requested her hand in a dance as she made her way around the room looking for her familiar and the other honored guests.
The easiest to find was Kirche as she was surrounded by the largest group of boys, laughing pleasantly at a joke or witty thing one had said. All of them trying to get at least a date and most likely more later from her.
Her dress was a violet that was almost blue with a lighter shade down the front starting at her breasts and going all the way down to her hem. Her gloves were of the same color and her hips were accented with three large red stones across her front. Altogether it accented her darker skin tone and made her red hair stand out.
Still looking around the room she finally accepted a dance with a young boy in green. As they danced she finally saw Tabitha over by the food table wearing an unflattering green dress that honestly looked more like a night gown then a dress.
The dance ended quickly and she curtsied to her dance partner. As she left the dance floor a voice called out, "ladies and gentlemen, announcing The assistant chef Dove!"
'She finally arrived,' Louise thought to herself a little annoyed at the late familiar as she turned with the others to watch Doves entrance.
Dove came up the stairs looking like she wanted to go back down them. Louise saw to her relief that Dove had what looked like silver leafs in her hair that hid her ears and went around her head like a minor crown.
The rest of the dress was a soft gold that in the light of the chandeliers definitely glowed more than anyone else's. The top around her shoulders and chest was embroidered in small flowers and leafs that continued down to her waist where they disappeared into a ribbon like belt. The dress came down to her mid-calf in a lighter cream color that still had some larger golden flowers stitched into it just under the ribbon. Around her neck was a choker made from the same embroidery that covered the rest of her body. Her feet, unlike most of the others there were visible and were clad in low heels up to her calf that were a much deeper cream then the rest of her.
Instantly boys around her clamored for her to dance with them, some even left Kirche to start talking to her. Dove gave each of them polite smile but she took a step back as the fifteenth boy made his way over.
Deciding to help her familiar Louise quickly walked over and grabbed her hand. "I'm sorry sirs," she quickly apologized at the boys surprised looks, "I think she looks a little thirsty." Instantly half left to go to the food table for refreshments.
The other half looked over at their comrades, jealous that they hadn't been fast enough to get the beautiful lady some refreshment.
And now she was gone, as they turned back to try and make up with words for not getting her something they all found her and Louise to be gone from amidst them.
"Thank you, I will name my firstborn after you," Dove said in mock fealty as she followed Louise away from the group.
"What's wrong?" Louise teased her familiar, "is the big scary dragon afraid of all those boys?"
Dove giggled, "only when they are in a group, too many memories of getting mobbed by things best left in the Dwemer ruins."
"What is a Dwemer?" Kirche and Tabitha walked up to the other honored guests just in time to hear the conversation.
Dove gave the others a nod of greeting, noticing that the boys seemed to almost be intimidated by the four standing close together, closing off their own little circle in the crowd.
"The Dwemer," Dove answered, "were a type of Mer that were known for great cities and incredible creations made out of metal and stone. They made things that were still in working order even though they had been long abandoned."
Louise looked interested, "I don't remember you mentioning them to me when I asked you about the Mer before."
"I left them out because there aren't any left after they vanished," Dove said sadly. She elaborated at their confused looks. "Something happened in their mines and homes, from the remains we can only conclude that they just fell over dead or turned to ash on the spot hundreds of years ago leaving everything where they left it. In one of the un-looted ruins I 'visited' there was literally a knife and fork on a plate stuck in a piece of very old meat."
Tabitha looked confused, "No remains?" She asked.
Dove shook her head, "Nothing. Nothing to give us any indication that anything was wrong up to the point the Dwemer apparently dropped dead without leaving a body."
"That's rather scary," Kirche said imagining everyone she knew suddenly vanishing, "So Dove what did you do before you came here?" Kirche asked unsure of what could cause someone to enter a mine like that.
"Surprisingly enough I was a bard," Dove admitted outright.
Really?" Kirche asked, her interest peaked.
Dove nodded, "I left my ancestral home to live in Skyrim so that I could attend the bards' college. I spent a while learning there and then traveled around the entire land of Skyrim plying my trade. Later I visited the rest of the empire, getting into occasional trouble along the way." She rubbed her neck at the last part.
Kirche, Louise, and Tabitha, as well as a few people around them gave her looks that obviously wanted more details.
"Trouble?" Tabitha prompted.
"I might have gotten picked up by some solders fighting a little civil war at one point," Dove admitted sheepishly, "that was actually the first time I saw a dragon."
"Really?" Louise asked, glad of the insight about her familiar she was getting.
"Yes," Dove said, "I was going to get my head chopped off just for being near the rebel leader during the fighting when a dragon, larger than Dovahkiin, landed on the tower and started razing the entire town to the ground."
Dove looked sad in her memories, "I got up and ran, dodging burring buildings, people, burning people, it was a mess."
The rapt crowd sighed sadly.
"After that," Dove said quickly, "I gained a taste for adventure and started visiting ruins, magic colleges, and even traveled to the top of the highest mountain in Skyrim, the land is basically more up and down then flat."
"Why did you do that?" Kirche asked, "you probably could have stayed with your trade and made a living singing so why did you willingly do all that?"
Dove rubbed her neck, "I had my reasons."
"Sounds nice, apart from the dying," Louise said pulling the crowds attention away from her uncomfortable familiar.
"It was," Dove said reminiscing.
"HERE IS YOUR DRINK MBYEULOTVEIFUL." The voice of over seven boys all in sync except for what they called Dove interrupted what else the girls might have said.
Dove jumped a little and beheld the group of young men all of whom were offering her some kind of drink.
She just sighed in defeat, 'I should have brought Derflinger'.
So about five hundred words shorter then I would have liked but this felt like the best stopping place for now.
Also, I have basically no idea why I gave Dove a little hole in the ground to call her own, I just did.