Kvetha fricaya.

This is an excerpt from what will someday be a much larger whole. However, that project has been postponed indefinitely for oh, five years or so, and that seems unlikely to change soon. I have determined that it would be more useful to at least let this float out into the world than let it gather dust in my drive. Series of notes at the bottom for nerds who care about that sort of thing.

TW - mentions of blood, light gore, loss, grief,

I glanced nervously at Raimund and saw mirrored in his eyes the same uneasy trepidation I felt rising in my own throat. I suppressed the nerves and nodded encouragingly at my companion-turned-accomplice. The added challenge would not make things easy, but I doubted it would affect us much in the long run.

-:- -:- -:-

The sky was a deep, void black. Little pinpricks of snow slashed against our exposed flesh as we sped through the night. We stayed resolutely silent, determined that our "escort" should feel unopposed until circumstances were ideal for a confrontation. Still, even with our anxious adrenaline, the storm was immeasurably taxing on the dragons' strengths. Jarnunvösk had not so much as growled a complaint, but I could feel his exhaustion through our link. I began to debate ways to raise the issue when the lead dragon turned his head to land. We followed the elders to the ground with palpable relief.

We touched down on an exposed sheet of ice, the wind whipping across with all the ferocity of a feral beast. The elders began to work in tandem - the dragon with fire and the human with gramarye- to create dips in the ice and strong walls around them. They finished their task with remarkable speed and our party settled in to rest. Raimund caught my glance and we both understood: we would wait until they were well asleep before we acted.

This was not the first time that I had contemplated murder. It certainly would not be the last. Still, this is one of the few periods in my life that I remember feeling genuine fear. Taking a life was looked down on by the elves as the highest crime, by the elders as worthy of banishment, by humans as revolting. I fingered the hilt of my concealed dagger, the wire freezing even through my thick gloves. Before the night was out, it would run hot with the blood of a former teacher. Little did I know that there would be far more death than even my restless mind could fathom.

I had nearly passed out before I heard the rumbling snores of our teacher. I warily glanced in his direction, careful not to nudge his feet with my own. He slept coiled up, his hands inches away from his weapons no doubt. My friend was similarly raised, his eyes following my movements like a trained hound. Agonizingly slowly, we crept from our blankets. We were stealthy and powerful like mythical assassins of old! But we were also scared out of our minds.

Across from us, our dragons commenced a similar maneuver. All four of us held our breaths.

I had barely begun to draw the dagger from the fold of cloth that concealed it when the harsh slide of dragon spikes against ice rent the silence. The elder jolted awake, a look of shock and poison plastered across his face. Years of experience had already placed his blade in his hand and he turned it on my comrade who knelt, defenseless to my left. I panicked, and with a sloppily focused shout of "jierda!" the primitive ice hut was blasted to pieces, sending my friend far from the immediate danger.

"Jay! What happened?!"

"My tail twitched too close to the wall, his partner woke, and the rest I believe you know. Are you alright?"

"For now. Be careful, fricai."

"Speak for yourself."

I adjusted my blade in my hand and stood against the elder with a ready snarl. He glared and lunged, but his movements were stiff from sleep and uncoordinated from shock. I dodged in and out of his range like a snake, using only my knife for defense until my friend regained his bearings. To our left, I heard monstrous roars that battered the air like wailing alarms, occasional flashes of light casting the moment in a gruesomely lurid gleam.

Finally, Raimund freed his sword from the debris and joined the fray. He became our primary offensive, though the longer reach only just gave him an edge. By then, the elder had regained control, and together we were barely able to hold ground. I managed a deep slice into the side of his abdomen, but it was not fatal. The kill went to Raimund, through no merit of his own. He was mid-swing in a ferocious blow towards the elder's neck- a move his target certainly had the ability to deflect- and would have failed if not for the wailing roar the cut through the general commotion of the night.

North of us, thrown a few hundred feet in their battle, the dragons were similarly engaged in combat. The scene was illuminated by a miles-high pillar of flame billowing from the elder dragon's snarling maw. His rage was understandable as Jay had his teeth dug mercilessly into the sinewy flesh at the base of his opponent's skull. As he ground his fangs down with a sharp snick that echoed through our link, the elder froze in place, a look of horror overtaking him. His pause allowed Raimund's attack to slip through his guard and take off his head in one clean sweep. His trunk remained upright, oozing and spurting fluids in time with the frantic heart trapped within.

Raimund stood staring at his handiwork for several long moments before he looked up at me. I didn't understand why his stare seemed confused- borderline frightened- until I realized that he was staring because I was laughing. Maniacal, ruthless laughter just came bubbling up inside me. It felt like being sick. I suppose, in a way, I was; utterly overwhelmed by relief and joy and hope. Things had gone much better than planned. I felt Jay's concern and heard his voice "Fricai, we're not safe yet. Please, let us get moving". I forced myself to relax and had only just caught my breath when we were startled by savage battle cries.

We both jolted and looked at the corpses. Their only response was to continue oozing blood onto the ice. I was the one to look north again and begin the desperate dash towards the dragons. Equal distance from them on their opposite side was a horde of horned monstrosities sprinting at full speed from their village. Urgals, a bigger nest of them than I had ever seen, all roused to a blood craze and coming directly for us. Raimund and I ran full tilt towards our partners but we were exhausted and ill-suited for sprinting on ice. The tribe closed in on the dragons before we could reach them and quickly enveloped us as well.

The next series of events is mostly a blur to me. I know not how long we fought, the world a mess of blood and limbs and pain. Our only thoughts were of reaching each other. Then, as an earth-shaking roar filled my ears and a panicked rage filled my mind, everything exploded in agony. I felt as an ant feels when it is ground beneath the heel of a petulant child. I freed myself, however briefly, from my attackers to see only Jay left standing against his foes.

He was trapped with one squirming creature firmly planted on his neck as he was held down. He fought with all the strength with which a god of the skies is gifted, but he could not break free. The being, for it was no urgal, lifted a massive hammer over its head with a vicious battle cry, bringing it down mightily over Jay's chest. I felt the blow as if it were dealt on my own body, heard the sound of our ribs cracking and our lungs emptying of air as we screamed our pain and frustration over the wasteland. The creature continued, bringing the weapon back around for a blow to Jay's head. I had to defend myself from the danger directly in front of me, but I was in a daze of panic. Another wave of nauseating, debilitating anguish wracked me to my very core. Jay's roars were losing strength and I felt him trying to keep me from his mind; to shield me from the pain. I forced my way through, clinging to his rapid, frantic thoughts. I caught a glimpse of one coal-black eye, so like my own, sliding closed in defeat.

Several things happened at once. Jarnunvosk passed what scant power remained in him into me, the energy rushing through my veins like wine, or tea, or love; banishing the minor hurts I had accumulated. Then he slipped from my thoughts into the merciful dark of unconsciousness. I could still feel his life, but with no way to reach him and barely the energy to stand, we had no prayer. I screamed. I cannot describe the sound to someone who has not heard it. It was the sound of a mourning mother, a motherless child, a scorned lover, a wounded animal... a dying man. As I shouted, the foul thing raised its gruesome club once more in a practiced arc and brought it down squarely on Jay's chest. The blow was more devastating than anything previous and was dealt on already damaged bones. There was a flash of light akin to the sun itself as the remaining urgals were cast far from what was left of my only friend.

My memory here goes entirely blank.

When next I was conscious, I was half-buried under corpses and coated in black, drying blood. It took all of my strength to crawl out from my position and even then I only laid there, prostrate on the ice, trying to grasp on to some solid thought. I sat up, prodding a cut on my head to test how severe it was before I saw...it.

For those lucky enough to have never seen their dearest source of joy, sanity, hope, trust, and friendship eviscerated by his own soul's destruction, I will spare you the intricacies of the scene. All I could do was collapse to the ground and retch.

I remember wandering. I crept away from the massacre into the woods, not knowing exactly where I was going or why. My legs finally folded beneath me as I reached a massive pine, the thick bunches of needles providing a modicum of shelter from the elements. I stared through a thinned patch, not able to focus on anything but the numbness that crept into every facet of my being. It had nothing to do with the cold. The stars were revealed overhead, finally free of the dismal clouds that had concealed them through the long night.

Soon I would wish for death. That desire would remain for many lonely years and would shape everything I accomplished in the decades to come. However, in that moment, the only thing I wanted was a sound. The night was cryptically silent, not a living thing stirred in this bitter wilderness and my very soul felt hollow. I drifted into a restless sleep, overtaken with exhaustion and too broken to feel pain. Or fear.

Hello again. Tissues are in the lobby, tea and snacks are to the side.
The above deviates from canon in several ways, which I am certain my IC fam will know.
1) Jarnunvosk is described as female by Brom in the first book.
Yes, yes he is. This had a lot more to do with "squad" canon vs "book" canon and honestly doesn't matter out of context. It is different, but intentionally so.
2) In the same scene, Brom describes Jay's death very briefly as a "stray arrow [piercing] her heart".
My main argument is this: how would he know that? How reliable is he as a source for this event? You could argue that Oromis told him, but my counter-argument is simply that his version does not hold water. A single arrow does not explain a matured dragon dropping dead, not even the luckiest trick shot, and it definitely does not adequately address the subject of eldunari. This version of events accounts for both, works with some more group canon things (if you rp long enough, consolidating everything is nearly impossible) and... because I wanted to and could.

I fully understand if you disagree with these changes. Prioritizing canon can be important. These two details are negligible to me, but if they have weight for you then more power to ya.