AN: As I said, here's two chapters at once. Again, I don't own Skyrim or the Hobbit, or even most of the ideas/storyline for this yet.

The snow of high-altitude flight matched perfectly with Odahviings snowy-colored wings as they flew toward their destination. It didn't take long - scarcely half an hour had passed before the pair arrived at the Ancestor Glade. Long before, a rockslide had fallen destroying the original entrance, leaving the sanctuary untouched by humans. The pair landed silently, Brænna dismounting, forsaking the Canticle trees for a small tree at the side of the pool. The Spriggans, used to their presence and happy at the lack of other humans, greeted Odahviing as an old friend, leaving Brænna to her ritual.

Brænna knelt under the flowering boughs of the tree, dusting off an old, worn, black granite stone, pulling out a hammer and chisel to re-carve the writing that was barely visible in the stone.

Here lies Farkas, Bladesman, Dragonslayer, Father to Lucia and Sofia, and loving husband to Brænna Stormcrown May Auri-el and Y'ffre watch over him as he sleeps.

Brænna wiped the tears from her eyes, remembering her love as she carved the words yet again. His death had been peaceful, in his sleep rather than in the heat of battle. He had lived longer than most other Nords thanks to her magical meddling, but he had still passed on so long ago.

"I will be gone for some time, dearest, and I don't know when I'll be back. Rest assured, that this place will be the first I visit when I return," she whispered, placing her palm on the dirt above where he lay.

She pulled white lilies and gleamblossoms from her pouch and planted them all around the gravestone next to all of the other flowers that she and the Spriggans had taken care of all of these years. Patting the stone one last time, she rose to her feet and strode toward Odahviing, wiping more tears from her eyes.

Clearing her throat, she said, "We'll need to head to Balmora in Morrowind to pick up supplies, then East past Akavir. We'll meet my new friend there." She climbed up into the carefully-crafted leather saddle that she'd placed on Odahviing's neck. He'd initially grumbled about being ridden like a horse, but had accepted the necessity due to the long journey.

The flight lasted most of the day and into the night. They arrived just outside Balmora an hour after dusk, making camp until the shops opened.

Seeing a Nord, especially a half-Bosmer like herself, was unusual this far east, and she was greeted with many strange looks by the Dunmer residents of Balmora. She purchased her items quickly, trying not to draw suspicion toward herself. Wealthy enough to buy Hjaalmarch, Brænna bought plenty of supplies, a few books, and even a small lute for her journey before bidding the guards farewell and returning to Odahviing.

Hearing her approach, he had stretched his wings out and hunted for his breakfast, preparing himself for the next leg of the journey to Tear, the southeasternmost city in Morrowind. When she returned she asked if he truly wanted to accompany her all the way to Middle-Earth.

"Mal Dov, do you not think that if I have come this far from home, I wouldn't follow you to the end? No. I fly with you," he responded, almost annoyed that she would doubt him.

She smiled at the name he had called her before replacing the saddle on his neck and strapping her legs into place. Raising himself up on his wings, he let out a thunderous roar marking the start of their long journey before he leapt into the sky, winging his way to a thermal.

As they travelled, they spoke often of the past, telling each other stories. Occasionally, Odahviing would fly close to the surface to catch a meal, though more often than not he would miss. When they could, they rested on islands or outcrops, or even a magic-made iceberg that Brænna had created when Odahviing had grown too tired. The worst had come in the night when they landed on an island no bigger than Dragonsreach. The wind whipped up around them, tearing the tops off of white-capped waves and flinging them into the air. The island had no shelter to speak of, just an outcropping of rock barely covered by soil and grass. The wind howled above them, and Brænna grew worried at the sound of thunder.

"We need to find shelter!" Odahviing roared, barely audible over the storm. Without a word of argument (which the Dragon wouldn't hear anyways) she climbed onto his bare neck, saddle rolled up under one arm and sodden pack gripped tight under her leg. Unsteadily, Odahviing took off, winging hard up toward the black clouds and away from the steadily growing waves. Teeth chattering from the icy rain, Brænna looked down just in time to see a massive wave crash over the top of their little island, demolishing what was left of their campsite.

She screamed, inaudible over the storm as lightning crackled, the thunder deafening and instant not twenty yards off of Odahviing's wingtip. All of a sudden, lightning surrounded them, bolts shooting off in every direction from the clouds. Skillfully, the Dragon wove between the jagged beams of light, seeming to anticipate each bolt before it lit up the sky around them.

With a crash that seemed to drive Brænna's eardrums six feet into her skull, lightning struck Odahviing's upraised wingtip. She must've been unconscious for a moment, because suddenly they were falling, the bag of supplies floating off to her left and herself six inches from the Dragon's scaly neck.

She saw the water rising up toward them impossibly fast, and then she knew no more.

Brænna awoke with a start, coughing violently, expelling water from her lungs. Rolling over, she realized she'd been laying half in and half out of the ocean, torso on gritty sand. She was able to sit herself up before retching up the remaining seawater from her system. After scraping her throat raw with coughing, she was able to catch her breath. She felt jittery, hands shaking with energy as they always did immediately after she'd been resurrected by a Dragon soul, and she dry heaved, imagining the poor Dov who had lost his life so she could regain hers.

When she regained her composure, she saw Odahviing a ways down the beach, half in and half out of the water. Shakily, she ran up to his side- his wingtip was charred, scorched in a lightning pattern from the tip to his elbow. Underneath his wing, thankfully, was the supply bag and what appeared to be the saddle.

"Odahviing!" she hollered multiple times before his eyes cracked open. He tried to pull himself out of the water, but as soon as he put weight on the charred wingtip, he let out an ungodly screech of pain that sent her staggering back, covering her ears. Unconscious again, he collapsed to the sand, but uncovered the bag of provisions completely. Reaching inside, she grabbed her satchel of ingredients and the last remaining bottle of alchemical catalyst. First, she tried healing him using her not inconsiderable magic, which only helped so much. When he awoke again, she dribbled a healing potion mixed with painkiller into his open mouth, which helped more, though he still couldn't put any weight on it.

Laughing bitterly and cursing Hermaeus Mora as the god of Fate, she pulled the Blade of Woe from her pack. Her magic and potions exhausted, she only had the one option remaining. "Just so you know, you overgrown lizard," she said to Odahviing's unconscious form, "This is how much I care about you."

She gritted her teeth preparing herself. The enchantment on the blade transferred the same amount of vitality no matter how big the wound, so she mentally fortified herself, wishing she'd saved some healing potion for herself, pulling up her sleeve.

Her breathing quickened as she prepared herself, then jerked the blade, opening up a small wound in her arm. Pressing the hilt to Odahviing's scales, she felt the life force drain from her and saw his wound heal. Laughing bitterly again, she saw that it would take a few more nicks to heal him completely.

"Fine. But you better thank me for this afterwards," she said.

Asleep, but completely healed, Odahviing dozed on the beach having pulled himself out of the water. Brænna had bandaged her arm as best she could, then set off to find food, the seawater having ruined everything in the pack. She hadn't had far to go into the forest before she spotted a nice big buck grazing in a moonlit glade. She'd donned her Nightingale armor to be able to sneak up on the prey easily, and she silently drew her dragonbone bow and nocked her arrow. Her dual enchanted bow, with flame and soul trap had survived their fall undamaged along with her entire collection of soul gems.

Aiming carefully, she let the arrow fly. Instantly, the bowstring whipped across her self-inflicted cuts, sending a burning pain spiking up her arm. Even muffled under the Nightingale mask, she screamed, dropping the bow and clutching her arm. The buck fell, killed where it stood, but she heard a crash and an unintelligible voice in the brush off to her right. Spinning around, she saw a young man of short stature with black hair and a sparse beard, holding a bow of his own. He raised his hands as if calming a wild animal and took a step toward her.

Instantly, another arrow was nocked, pain forgotten. "Friend or foe?" she asked. Just as it seemed he would answer, she heard a roar from behind her, and realized her scream had woken Odahviing. The man looked up in terror at the crimson dragon, and he sprinted back into the brush.

"Damn it!" she yelled. "Odahviing, we've got to go!" she said, sprinting back to where her supplies and the saddle lay.

"Do we look for the black archer?" the dragon asked, peering off to where the short man had gone.

"No, we need to move some place more secluded," she said, quickly belting the saddle onto Odahviing's neck and mounting.

With that, both Dragon and Dragonborn flew off into the fog.

Kili's POV

It was Kili's turn to hunt, that's what Fili had said. Never mind that it was always Kili's turn to hunt. Some dim part of his mind realized that Fili was the better cook, and he himself was, of course, the better archer. He crept through the foggy forest, following the hoofprints of a sizeable buck. Uncle was off, meeting with the rest of the Dwarves in Ered Luin, and he had sent Fili and Kili west toward the coast. Fili was waiting at their camp nearby gathering firewood, so as he hunted, Kili took the time to be alone with his thoughts.

Distracted, he let his fingers slip from the bowstring, and the arrow launched forward into the mist. Muttering curses to, and at, himself, Kili marched off in the general direction of where the arrow had been shot, It took him several minutes to find it, and all the while he was cursing himself for being a distracted fool. He saw movement ahead and quickly nocked a different arrow, looking for it again. In the moonlight off to his right, he saw the buck he had been tracking, but back in the direction of movement, he saw it yet again.

Squinting his eyes, he muttered several amazed curses in Khuzdul as he gradually made out the shape of a humanoid figure in the shadows. They wore strange armor that was black as night, and seemed to nearly disappear into the shadows where darkness fell upon it. A mask covered their mouth and nose, while the eyes were hidden by the cowl of the hood. The figure pulled out a strange, spiked bow that seemed to glimmer red and purple in the darkness. He heard the creak of leather as they pulled the bowstring back, and the thwip as it raced forward propelling the arrow into the hide of the unlucky buck.

Instead of standing and retrieving the prize, the figure screamed with a woman's voice, dropping the bow and clutching at her arm. He lurched forward, babbling something that was meant to be, "Are you all right?" but came out all mangled.

Instantly, the bow was in her hand, an arrow nocked and pointed at his head. He raised his hands, trying his best to be unthreatening.

"Friend or foe?" the voice asked, definitely female, with a strange accent and muffled by the cloth over her face.

He was about to answer, and even offer help when behind the woman, crashing through the brush came a creature that sent his brain to a crashing halt.

Dragon.

One of this beast's ilk was responsible for chasing the Dwarves out of their homeland, and the reason his uncle was off at a war council in Ered Luin. He remembered Mr. Balin's tales about a beast that roared fire and wrought destruction. He did the only thing he could think of and ran.

He rushed out of the forest as fast as possible, tripping over root and rock, bow and arrow completely forgotten. He had no doubts at all that the dragon would be following behind, but he tried to stop his headlong sprint as he realized that the Dragon might target the huntress.

Skidding on his heels, he turned around, sprinting back toward the glade with the buck, but stopped as he saw the pair facing each other. He hid behind the trunk of a tree, panting, not used to sprinting that fast. He heard the rumbling of thunder that almost sounded like speech, but a reply from the woman saying, "No, we need to move some place more secluded."

Confused, he peeked around the side of the tree, and watched slack-jawed as the woman belted a saddle to the neck of the beast and vaulted herself into place. The Dragon leapt into the sky, stirring the fog as Kili attempted to calm himself.

He needed to warn everyone.