The two of them went walking in the city that evening, trying to soak in all the memories they could for when they left. Corrin felt as though Ellesméra had never been as mysterious or as magical as it was that night. The shadows beneath the great trees flickered with movement. Kiera spotted a flash of brindled fur dashing across their path, and many bright eyes watching from the leaves. Corrin noticed a silver-haired elf woman weaving together a window frame on the side of a house, singing softly to the living wood. Gentle lights occasionally floated through the canopy above, and neither dragon nor Rider could tell if they were magic or merely fireflies.

Through a gap in the trees later on, Corrin glimpsed a hut hunched beside a stream, carved all over with myriad patterns. An oddly grizzled elf sat leaning against the doorframe, whittling a chunk of wood. When he and Kiera paused, the whittler glanced up at them with shockingly blue eyes, then quickly ducked back down to his work, hiding his face. Corrin and Kiera let him be and walked on.

Finally, their path led to a place that they had seen only once before, a huge clearing, riddled with roots the size of tree trunks themselves, all spreading out from the largest tree they were ever likely to see.

The Menoa tree could make a dragon seem small, and was doing so now; Corrin and Kiera realized in the same instant that Firnen and Thorn were perched on a great root near the base of the tree, looking as small as songbirds beside the mass of living wood. Firnen, catching sight of them, lifted a wing to wave at them, an oddly humanoid gesture. Corrin vaulted into Kiera's saddle, and the two of them glided over to where the older dragons were.

Kiera's claws slipped on the bark the first time she put her weight down, so there were several seconds of undignified scrambling before she folded her wings and Corrin could look around again. Murtagh and Arya were both in their saddles, though Murtagh was leaning alarmingly far out to put a hand on an adjacent root. Guessing that he was trying to sense Linnëa, the elf woman whose intelligence had inhabited the tree for millennia, Corrin opted not to disturb him and caught Arya's eye.

"Do you mind if we join you?" he called over to her.

"Not at all," she replied, "in fact I was hoping we could bring you along. There are a few people I think you all should meet."

At length Murtagh pushed off of the tree root to glide back upright in his saddle. He waved desultorily to Corrin and Kiera, but they had no time for conversation before Firnen took off, spiralling up towards the distant branches. Corrin shrugged and leaned forwards in the saddle for balance as his dragon unfolded parchment-colored wings to either side of him.

It was a relatively short flight, and easy, the three dragons gliding across the leaves to a different part of the city. Firnen slipped through a tiny gap in the canopy with ease, but Thorn and Kiera had to stop and have a midair conference to figure the move out for themselves. Kiera finally managed it by turning sideways until her wings were nearly vertical, and side-slipping between the leaves. Corrin mostly just tried not to get a branch to the face.

When all of them had managed to land safely, Arya led them to a vine-draped tunnel grown from dogwood trees. She ducked inside, returning within moments with an elf woman in the worn leather smock of a smith. Corrin felt a pang suddenly, remembering his father wearing such a smock to work. The feeling faded quickly, however, when he looked closer at the woman by Arya's side.

She was, he thought, the oldest elf he had ever seen. Her face was scribed with a network of lines, her back was bent by centuries spent bent over her work, and her eyes were older than stone and terribly wise.

"Corrin, Murtagh, Thorn, Kiera," Arya smiled gently, "This is Rhunön, the greatest smith of our race. She forged the Rider's swords in ages past."

"Hmmph," grumbled the smith. Kiera snorted curiously.

Corrin bowed from the waist. Murtagh ttouched his fingers to his lips in the elven sign for greeting. The smith gave both of them only passing glances before she marched past them to stand before Kiera and Thorn. "So," she half-shouted up at Thorn, "You would be the third of that oathbreaker's stolen eggs, wouldn't you?"

Yes, Rhunön-elda, I am he, responded Thorn, far more calmly than Corrin would have been able to manage. Her abruptness was shocking from a member of the unceasingly polite elves, and it took Corrin a moment to realize that by "Oathbreaker," she meant Galbatorix.

"Hmmph," the smith grumbled again. "Well, you look more a fighter than a flyer, but I suppose that is good, for the life you have led. Sword," she demanded abruptly, snapping her fingers towards Murtagh without looking away from Thorn. Murtagh jumped, but reached up and grabbed the handle from over his shoulder, drawing it and flipping the hilt towards Rhunön in a practiced motion.

Rhunön nodded to herself, turning slightly to take the blade. "Scabbard as well, if you please," she added as an afterthought, already staring at the sword in her hands as though enthralled. She held it up with the point towards the heavens above her, and Corrin thought abruptly that she looked a creature from legend, standing there in the dying light that flickered off her hair and eyes and the iridescent sword before her. There was an odd reverence and an odd sadness in her eyes.

The moment faded after a heartbeat, and Rhunön began examining the sword more closely. She rotated it several different ways to examine the metal, ran her fingers over the edges, and tapped one fingernail against the blade, producing a pure ringing sound. She repeated a similar process with the scabbard that Murtagh handed to her, finally nodding and handing it back to him. "I'd say it is neither better nor worse than when I last saw it. It has caused much sorrow in the world, but it's a good sword, and it suits you far better than it did your brother. See that you use it wisely."

"Elrun ono, Rhunön-elda," Murtagh said, thanking her as she handed his weapon back to him. She waved him off, already turning her attention towards Corrin and Kiera, watching with mingled curiosity and apprehension from the side.

"You would be the new ones, I suppose?" she demanded, looking them over. Corrin swallowed and bobbed his head in agreement, too nervous to speak. Rhunön put her hands on her hips. "Werecat got your tongue, boy? The last two Riders Arya dragged me out to see couldn't stop talking. Overexcited little rabbits they were, even the Urgal boy, but at least they didn't seem craven."

The indignation of that last finally restored the power of speech to him. "I'm not craven either!" Corrin asserted in affront, folding his arms across his chest. He filed away what Rhunön had said about other Riders for later consideration: it was the first he had heard of his two fellow students. To his shock, Rhunön smiled wryly.

" No, indeed. I should have known no dragon would choose a cowardly Rider. Who are you, then?" This last was addressed past him to Kiera, who answered for herself.

I am Kiera, she told the smith. Rhunön walked over to stand at her shoulder, peering at her scales. Rhunön-elda? queried the dragon nervously.

"Good color," mentioned the smith to no one in particular. "Rare, though. I've forged fewer swords with your coloring, Skulblaka, so let us hope one of the blades in the east suits your Rider." She slapped Kiera's shoulder with an approving air and walked back to stand at Arya's side. "I should think the Riders are rather wanted in Alagaesia at the moment, so mind that you don't take forever coming back, eh?" And without waiting for an answer or further conversation, she marched back through the dogwood tunnel to her forge.

The six of them all stood in silence for a while, processing the entirety of that short but strange encounter. Arya broke the silence finally. "Rhunön is… an acquired taste. She comes from a time where courtesy was less important to our race."

I can tell, commented Thorn, an edge of humor coloring his thoughts.