Chapter Nineteen: Second Hand Magic
Everything in the clearing, aside from Leara Rose-blade, Thorin Oakenshield, and three fourths of the Companions had turned to ice. Or was at least thoroughly encrusted. With a self-satisfied smirk, Leara tapped the frozen visage of the scowling Todd Reachfield with a gloved fingernail.
Thorin gaped at the enchantment cast by the Dragonborn, a hundred thousand questions fluttering in his mind like the snow flurries that were starting to glitter above their heads from the sudden winter that had taken hold of the glade. At last, he blurted out the first question that popped out of his mouth. "Where'd you get the gloves?"
"I nicked them from Todd during my big dance number," Leara replied, referring to the part of her song dash dance where she'd spun throughout the clearing like a top on a table, weaving her enchantments and stealing things. Kinda like a larcinist ballerina.
"Okay..." was all the flabbergasted Thorin could get out, despite the blizzard of questions still swirling through his mind.
Leara brushed her hands on her jeans and turned to go, only to come face to face with a rubber chicken at the end of Aela the Huntress' bow. "By Kynareth! If you're going to shoot me with a rubber chicken, at least use the one from Morthal — where I live! I don't even know where Shor's Stone is!"
"Yes you do, because I saw you there for the mining festival last month," Farkas reminded her.
The Dragonborn stared at the werewolf for a solid minute in confusion before finally nodding in remembrance. "I knew I wasn't in Karthwestan!" She paused, then, "Do they even have a chicken in Karthwestan?"
Aela, Vilkas, and Farkas all three looked at each other. "I think they do," Farkas shrugged, scratching his head.
"What about Windhelm? It's really cold there, especially the closer you get to the palace," Vilkas inquired thoughtfully.
"Well," Aela said while rummaging in her quiver for the Morthal chicken. "Everything in Winterhold gets its butt frozen clean off. I'd wager Atmora is like the tropics compared to that place! But yeah. They have chickens there, too, so I suppose the chickens are okay in Windhelm."
"Wait — why does it get colder in Windhelm the closer you get to the Palace of the Kings? I've always wondered that," Farkas asked.
"Some say it is because of the cold hearts of the local Nords toward the Dunmer," Vilkas explained.
"Bull crap!" snapped Aela. She whacked both of the twins on the head with a chicken from Iverstead. "It's because of that time those nobles brought their daughters forth to try to wiggle their way into the royal court by pawning them off on Ulfric Stormcloak. Leara Rose-blade didn't much like it, so she allegedly froze the floor and the guest bedrooms. Apparently, they're still having random snow flurries in the west wing and sleet in the kitchens. It's good for keeping the meat and venison longer, but Galmar Stone-fist is complaining that it'll give him early arthritis." At that statement, Farkas and Vilkas both stared at her. "What?"
"How do you know all that — and 'early'? Stone-fist must be at least in his mid fifties! At least! I would hardly call that early arthritis!" Vilkas cried, not entirely understanding his friend.
Aela blushed a deep shade of red almost darker than her hair. "Well..."
"Hey, where'd Rose-blade and that Thorin guy go?"
Vilkas and Aela whipped around to find that, aside from themselves and the frozen figures in the clearing, they were absolutely alone.
"Bull crap."
Of course, Leara Rose-blade isn't one to let herself be arrested, even by the legendary Companions of Ysgramor. She could count on one hand the amount of times she'd been taken into custody by the law of the land in her near century of life — twice since she had arrived in Skyrim — and she was not about to start a whole new record in Middle-earth. She was also exceedingly clever and a little bit mad, being a Septim, an Altmer, and Dragonborn all at once, so she knew how to distract people. In her opinion, though she wouldn't admit to having such an opinion (yet, maybe), by the end of the whole bloody sodding quest, they were going to owe her more than just what she could salvage from the remains of Smaug. Till then, though, she'd continue saving these losers from goblins and Daedra and werewolves.
"Do you know where we're even going?" Thorin asked from behind her as they made their way through the brambles and thickets. Seriously, what did you expect, a fairy tale woodland with clear forest floors between spaced trees planted by landscapers? This is Middle-earth, not Narnia, and even their woods get cluttered!
Although, the Narrator now wonders how that's even possible considering that they're both fictional, but she'll let it slide. As per usual.
"Um," Leara thought a moment. She raised her hands to cast another Clairvoyance spell, but after casting her large enchantment, her ring (which no one had noticed before, but it's meant to work like that because plot convenience) needed a break. "I dunno."
"What?" Thorin gaped at her in terror. "Cast your spell or we'll still be here when they thaw out and we'll DIE!"
Our Altmeri Heroine rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Look, I am one of a handful of mages who was born under the Atronach sign, meaning my magic is stunted and it takes a while to well back up. I have precautions against it ever draining out, but every now and then they hibernate from overuse. I used a lot of my magic stores turning all of those people to ice and my direction spell would really take a lot of magic. Although, as an Altmer, I am always—"
Unfortunately, Leara still had her hand poised to cast the spell, and Thorin, who didn't understand most of what came out of her mouth (just because Arda and Nirn have developed some creepy connection doesn't mean that their individual inhabitants know everything about the other place; it doesn't work like that) grabbed the wrist that cradled the misty blue light and shook it as if trying to make it work.
Leara squealed in protest and ice blasted from her fingertips, exploding into shards against trees, rocks, the ground, and Thorin's head.
The dwarf king stared at her in shock for a full ten seconds, then promptly crumpled to the ground in unconsciousness. Once she got over her initial panic, she tried shaking him awake, singing 'Ragnar the Red' in the old, boisterous Nord fashion, slapping him, threatening to steal his throne, and tugging at his Elvis Presley signed 'I am King' bead. Nothing worked.
Of course, of course her magic would have enough power to send him into a cursed sleep. Of course.
"Bugger," she cursed, whacking the dwarf on the chest. Which, of course, did nothing to wake him.
Grumbling and cursing in Dovahzul, Leara sat back, closed her eyes, and waited. Her Highborn power (doesn't that sound pretentious?) surged to life, filling her magicka well until her ring woke back up and began to sustain it again. She then cast the heaviest featherweight spell she knew on the dwarf, grabbed him by the torso, and hefted him into her arms like a ragdoll. "Allonz-y," she mumbled and took the first of several steps to the east.
Three hours later and becoming dangerously close once or twice to dropping Thorin Oakenshield down the side of a mountain never to be seen again, Leara Rose-blade arrived on the banks of the river, Anduin. However, she didn't know that as she'd been forced out of Rivendell before she could take a look at Lord Elrond's giant map, so it became "that thing we need to cross to get to the others."
By chance, a stroke of luck struck the ticked off heroine: there was a ford there, as well as a giant rock tower thing sorta in the middle of the river. Leara ignored this, however, in favor of trudging over to the east bank and dumping Thorin's sorry butt on the ground seconds before the featherweight spell dissipated and made him weigh as much as a baby elephant again. She then promptly collapsed next to him and seconds later let out a snore.
Magic isn't something to be played with without reading the instructions, so Thorin's attempt at casting a spell from someone else's hand, a someone with already tricky magic reserves, caused a bit of a disturbance in the Force.
Leara didn't realize this, however, as she dreamt of a variety of apple desserts and arm wrestling Jarl Elisif the Fair over honeynut treats.
"Lady Rose-blade."
"Five more minutes, Auntie," Leara mumbled into the grass.
"Really, Lady Rose-blade, I must insist that you wake up."
With an inaudible whine, the Altmer cracked an eyelid open to assess her surroundings. Then both eyes popped open. "By Akatosh's timepiece!"
The golden headed Glorfindel stared at her in confusion. He sat a couple of feet away from her on the grass, looking rather perplexed and out of place.
"Lord Glorfindel!" She exclaimed, and almost at once became self-conscious of her appearance. When they'd met at the Last Homely House That Hates Hawaiian Parties, she'd looked impeccable and cut the charming heroine figure. Now she looked like a dingy teenage girl. For some reason, this bothered Leara immensely.
"Yes," the elf lord's face creased just so with a slight frown. "What happened to bring me here and where is everyone else in your company and why is Thorin Oakenshield sucking his thumb?"
At those words, Leara whipped around to find Thorin curled in a fetal position with his thumb shoved into his mouth. "Okay..." she whistled. "Okay," she nodded, testing her ring. It was awake. Good, that meant she was okay to cast magic again. "One second," she told Glorfindel.
He watched the redhead step into the shallows of the river, clear her throat, and shout.
"KYNE DREM OV!"
A moment later, a little green frog jumped up out of the nearby reeds and nuzzled against the Dragonborn's jeans with a lot more affection than a frog usually exhibited toward shouty girls.
Glorfindel stared.
Leara nestled the frog in the palm of her hand and cast a restoration spell over it. She then carried it over to Thorin and proceeded to kick him in the butt. In response, the dwarf rolled on to his back and spread his arms out with a rather noisy snore.
She then lowered the little frog so that it was in a position to face Thorin properly.
The frog then kissed Thorin Oakenshield on the mouth.
With an almighty yelp, Thorin shot up like a rocket and dived toward the river, where he ducked his head in and began scrubbing at his face.
When he finally came up clean but still filling rather violated, Thorin found Leara giggling softly with the frog preening under the strokes of her gentle fingers. But it wasn't Leara, guilty though she may be, that caught his attention.
It was the tall blond elf next to her, rolling around on the ground with uproarious laughter.
"Crap."
-+#+-
Next Time . . . No one has their crap together. Except Watson. And maybe the bear.