Quest-verse: The Grey Wardens of Erebor



Set after http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s2f5ul

While entering the mountain Kizár calls to Russandol and both she and Kíli start remembering another life in another world. (Crossover references: Dragon Age.)

@SonofDari @SilmarilNaro @LordoftheReach
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Kíli

A pale moon shone on the barren landscape that stretched left and right of the channel, there was snow in the air, tiny flakes dancing on the wind. Kneeling at the boat's bow, Kíli stared ahead into the darkness, where the ruins rose from the water - ruins of what once had been the river port of Dale, and now was a broken remained of past glories. Seeing another wall rise from the water like a ship's stern from the sea, Kíli raised his left hand, indicating Bard that there was an obstacle on that side.

In the silent hours of crossing over to the Mountain, they had worked like that. Kíli's eyes were keen in the darkness and Bard steered the boat with the skill of someone born on water. They had not talked since they had set out, and Kíli understood why. They both were afraid of what they were trying to do here - as long as they kept quiet it would appear that they both were confident still... words would bring the fear to light, though. He shifted slightly, ignoring the burn in his knee.

The boat glided past the broken walls and suddenly was pushed forth by another stream of water - they had entered the dwarven waterworks, designed to ease the trading boat's movements when maneuvering in and out. Kíli disregarded the harbour of the broken city ... though he somehow felt that for most of their lives his people walked in the shadow of the ruins of ages long gone. His eyes were trained on the walls of Erebor, somewhere here the waterworks had to connect to the waterways of the mountain itself. This was what they were seeking.

The walls seemed dark, cold... and silent. He focused hard, trying to get a sense of the ancient stone. Suddenly he saw it - the marking he had been looking for. "Hard to port," he snapped, glad that Bard trusted him enough to react. The boat came about and was pushed into a channel leading underground, with the dark stone on all sides, they might have well passed by it without ever noticing.

Kíli inhaled sharply. "And so it begins..." he thought, his mind reaching for Kizár, her presence the one thing that kept him going.


Kizár

Kizár watches the stone around them pass, trying to listen ahead with her arcane senses. The Deep Stone here is quiet, sad, and also angry at the dragon in it's midst. She tries not alert it to someone new in it's midst as she worries that Smaug would sense it's reaction as well.

"Yes... now we have to walk in the Dark... trying not to be seen by that which it has spawned..." Her thought is... uneasy, making her reach back for Kíli, seeking the reassurance of his mind being close. "Now begins the question of reaching the Reach and working out how to engage the beast."


Kíli

Kíli reaches out to her, like always they gravitate to one another when afraid. "Balin once said, that there was a long flight of stairs, leading up into the ice," he replies. "that is where we need to go." Balin and Dís have been the ones telling him about long lost Erebor, and somehow, while he cannot sense the Deep Stone the way he should, he can sense the tunnels that stretch towards the icy surface.


Kizár

"This mountain is rather quiet, different to Cardemir though... Erebor does not *want* to speak because it's upset, but it still feels strong." Kizár says thoughtfully. "If I could somehow speak to it without the dragon being alerted, it might be of extra aid..." She listens as they navigate the turns into an underground lake that looked like was a set of docks. "It at least might tell us where the stairs are... I wonder if ti could even talk to Rú...?"


Kíli

The boat hits the wall beside the waterway this is the end of their road here. "I can almost feel the ways leading up into the ice," Kíli raises his hand, like he could sense something in the cold, arid air of the mountain. "maybe we can find the way quietly... or you can try to reach your brother... if he knew you were here..." Kíli cannot really imagine what an ancient elven hero might do... but he knows enough the legend to believe this something being a lot.


Kizár

"I would hope he would come... if he thought me close to a dragon..." Kizár lets her mind reach out to the quiet mountain - before now she has never really tried to speak to the Deep Stone, Cardemir seemed too weak for it, while the Stone of that other life she had a vision of had been quite strong. She tries to tell the mountain right from the start to stay quiet, and asking for Russandol.

It seems a long ponderous moment before the mountain acknowledges her, almost recognising her as a fellow stone. It takes another ponderous moment for it assess her request and return with an agreement. If it can speak to Rú, it will, and try keep the dragon from knowing. There is a slow deep glee at doing something to spite Smaug.


Russandol

It is a night out on the ice, like many before that had him seek the surface. The restless feeling that never let go of him since summer becoming stronger again. Ru does not know why he went out on the ice, except that something is calling for him. It has been such a long time, that he felt the stars calling out to him like that. His eyes trace the empty skies, seeking one star so far away from him, wondering why the quiet he found is melting away so swiftly.

He is about to call Fion on sneaking up after him, when he feels it - something brushing against his senses, a warm light reaching out to him from the deeps. Like a dream long lost, and yet never quite forgotten. Can it be? He raises his hand, like reaching out for her, reaching, wondering if it could even be. "Elenarien?" his voice echoes into the empty icy landscape around him, even as his mind whispers the word.


Kizár

Still listening to the mountain as Kíli and bard climb out of the boat, Kizár hears something like an echo - her name, as if bouncing down through all Erebor's halls and caverns. It isn't the material halls they bounce through though, but hallways in the mountain's awareness instead. She offers her light to the mountain, giving it a mental image of a ray of light bouncing off of mirrors, down one hall, through another. "I'm here, I'm in the mountain." She asks the mountain to pass her words back. "Come find me?"


Russandol

"Come find me...." the voice sounds like a dream, an echo, ringing through the clear night on the ice. This is not a dream... he knows it, he feels it, she truly is here. He feels a hot tear rise in his eyes... too long since he last heard her voice, too long that he believed he had lost all right to see her again.

"I will find you... wait for me." He replies. If she truly is deep inside that mountain, somewhere near the dragon she is in grave danger.

Turning around he gives away that he has seen Fion close by. "Run back to the Svedilag, bring me my sword and armor, meet me at the Dawn gate." his order is followed to the letter, he knows Fion will hurry and not question.

Striding across the ice Rú reaches the Dawn gate, one of the few ways leading still down to the Mountain. When he arrives there, Fion too has run his errand.

"You want to go down there?" The blond warriors asks, as Rú swiftly dons the armor he made from the black steel of this mountain and slides the scabbard over his back. "The dragon... is he on the move again?"

Rú studies the dwarrow, he is a friend, company... has been so since his father Skar passed away, he often made Rú feel less lonely. "The dragon is asleep, but not for long I fear. A friend... my sister... is down there in his halls, and I will not let him have her. I am not asking you to come with me."

There is a smile on Fion's face, grim but not without warmth. "If you go, I go." he replies, his hand going to the blade on his back. "You will need someone at your back, should the lizard wake. And I owe that lizard a blood debt for my brethren."

Rú does not argue against that - he is glad Fion will be there. "Let us go then."

Together they cross the Dawn Gate and enter the dark, silent mountain. At first there is only the silence and darkness, Rú relying on Fion's innate affinity with this place to guide them, but as they come deeper and deeper, he can feel something. A light... a warm, bright light, shining inside the darkness. His little sister... his little fire star... she is hiding inside the darkness, trying to not wake the beast.

Rú hurries down the stairs, taking the lead, across the former market square and across the King's road, towards the waterways. They come in on a bridge above the old waterways, where he can see a boat, beside the stone wall. A man and a dwarf are standing there, carefully hiding in the darkness.

"Trust me. Bard. He is here..." he hears the dwarf's voice in a hush.

"If you mean the dragon... he hopefully still sleeps in a pile of gold." Rú jumps down from the ledge, landing beside them on the quay.


Kizár

Still tangled as she in the mountain, Kizár gives a bit of a jump when she suddenly senses Russandol up close. It prompts her with little forethought to manifest her ghostly form and practically bounce over to him. "You're here Rú! So quickly too!" She mumbles as she reaches out to hug him, not even bothered by the armour around him.


Russandol

The man and the dwarf have jumped at his appearance, though Rú has the distinct impression that the dwarf is somewhat less startled than the man. When she appears, ghostly and pale, and as radiant as ever, he wants to kneel, to beg her to forgive him, but her hug, her fierce embrace precludes that. Knowing her spirit form for what it truly is, he embraces her too, his bright fëa taking the foreground before armor and flesh. "Elenarien..." he draws her close to hold her.


Kíli

Seeing Bard tense, Kíli places a hand on the other warrior's arm. "It is alright, we - Kizár and I - hoped we would find him here."


Kizár

Kizár leans into Rú, more in mind than anything else, letting herself just feel the warmth and cleansed feel of his spirit. It had been so long for her with those last painful memories, the stains on his fëa that had made her react so badly, the worry that the Deep Fire would hurt him as it hurt her, but it would seem time has healed the worst of it all, and what has not been washed away is clean scars.

"You're here... you're safe, and alive..." She still murmurs, mostly to herself.


Russandol

"I spent a long time in silence..." his whisper is a response to her murmured words, there are a thousand things he wants to say, but this is not the place, not with the darkness inside this mountain. "You are not safe here." he says, pulling back a little.


Kizár

"I know," Kizár looks at him with determination glinting in her eye. "We came to face the danger, to challenge the dragon." Glancing towards Kíli, she forges ahead. "We came with a larger group, but Kíli was made to stay back due to injury. We worry though that the others will not engage the beast wisely and will fail to keep it within the mountain itself, but in their attempt set it on the town of Men on the lake. There is a lot more going on, but if we can keep Smaug pinned *here*..." She shrugs. "That will be the first step in the right direction."


Russandol

Dwarves and a whole group of them? Maedhros arches an eyebrow, as his gaze falls on the dwarf beside Elenarien. He can tell by the way his sister talks that she *wants* this to go right. The dwarf is tall for his kind, with wild dark hair and eyes... Rú does not need a second glance to know Durin's blood... and face... when he sees it. "An entire group of dwarves would either be eaten or certainly stir the beast." he replies calmly, his mind already on the problem. Not for the dwarf.. or the men of a city he hardly knows to exist... but for his sister.

"That is why we hurried," Kíli speaks up. "we hope that by boat we gained on Thorin and the others, Durin's day will be tomorrow - so I hoped... I hoped we could act before them."

"While I doubt you to be the next Frérin Dragonsbane, there is courage in your plan." There is a part of Maedhros that still approves of this kind of courage. "I had my own clash with the dragon a century ago, when he first attacked, he is strong, but far from invincible."

He turns around to look up. "Fion - scout ahead, find out where he is... and if he is still asleep. Do not get too close, though."


Kizár

Something about the mention of Frérin Dragonsbane makes Kizár squeak slightly, in memory of Kíli's recent dreams. Dragonsbane? Maybe not, but someone who knew him...

*"My brother,"* Something from a vision comes back to Kizár, making her stop suddenly, her ghost form flickering for a moment. *"They got Frérin..."*

"Who was Frérin Dragonsbane's brother...?" The thought is right on the edge of her mind - legends and stories that Kíli learned long ago, but something extra about it teases her, something from *elsewhere*.


Russandol

"Askíl," Kíli's voice is soft, like a strange echo. He does not remember, not fully, not truly, that much Maedhros can tell. The face is there, the echo too... not awoken yet, not fully formed, and the resemblance is... strange. Maybe because this dwarf is too thin, his eyes too bright and yet... it is all there.


Kíli

Kíli turns to Kizár taking her hand, remembering the dream of the ashen vale, the dream he shook off to get her out of the painful memory. Something inside him whispers that this is not what he needs, that he needs to look to her to find a way. "Are you alright?" he has seen the flicker in her form, the tension. And suddenly he realises that her well-being, Kizár's safety is more important to him... more than the quest, or the others... even more than his own life. He does not know when it happened, but she is more important to him than anything else.


Kizár

Askíl is name she knows, a name from the family genealogies of the line of Durin. "Durin the Second..." She mutters softly, turning with a strange slowness to look at Kíli. Tilting her head slightly there is another flicker in her form, a brief flash of something else, not dwarf, not Ñoldor either. "I-" She cannot speak through it, memories clamour that she does not want to face right now. "I can't face that yet, can't face the taint..."

Her ghost image disappears abruptly, though her mental touch, upset as it is, remains, reaching out find something stable in both Kíli and Russandol.


Russandol

he does not understand her words - not the meaning of them - nor does he recognize the strange form he glimpsed for a moment, but Rú reaches out to her, without hesitation, drawing his sister into a fierce mind-embrace. "Whatever it is that haunts you, it will not get you." Taint... could she mean the dragon's black blood? "I will not let it harm you." And if he has to go into that chamber and kill the beast, he knows that he has a chance, if he really sets his mind to it, and he will slice that dragon up into fine steaks for the goblins, ere it can harm his little sister.

From the edge of his perception he can sense Kíli enter their sphere, embracing Elenarien as well, his mindform is strange, for a moment it is the clear mind-form of one of Durin's House only to change into a different dwarven form, the face still having the proud, noble features, but different though, framed by auburn hair and having a strange tattoo on one side of his face.


Kíli

"Kizár... sister... Elenaria..." the last name is strange to Kíli and yet oh-so-familiar. The taint... the word alone woke a dream, a memory of dark tunnels under the earth, crawling with dark things, long lost realms of the dwarves, now fallen in shadow. And fighting, venturing deeper and deeper... fighting to the death.

"In war: victory, in peace: watchfulness, in death: sacrifice." The words echo from somewhere beyond, from where he cannot tell, but now he understand why he always will protect her... for he made that promise, the sacred vow to always protect and fight for her a long time ago.


Kizár

"Kélan..." Kizár hiccups, on the verge of tears. "I don't want to remember that life... but I feel I have to..." Her own form shifts and she knows it matches Kíli's in that it comes from the same shared memories, an elf, though not any sort of elf to be found in Arda. Shorter than the Ñoldor usually are, and not having any of their otherworldly nature. Dark hair held back by braids, grey-blue eyes, flame tattoos across her cheeks, and clothing of a silvery scale-mail and blue-dyed leather. "We still have a dragon to fight... but at least it's not an archdemon." She murmurs, the language she speaks it in shifting to something not of Arda either.


Kíli

"Elenaria," he takes her hands between his, he form now familiar to another life, one where he loved her dearly, as a friend... a brother, maybe in his heart even more, unreachable though she was. "I would not wish to bring you such pain, but as I said then - I will be with you, every step along the way, no matter where the path may lead us both."


Kizár

"It's not you who ever brought me pain, it was the whole world that did that, with how harsh and callous people could be..." Kizár shakes her head, the familiar sway of neatly kept hair a strong memory here and now. "My brother Warden... now my brother here..." She reaches out to lightly run a thumb over the mark - the *brand* on his cheek. "But we're home now, and I have been far better for it, even if I had to go through darkness and fire since then." Leaning in, their foreheads meet, an action that while common here, was also something between them there as well.

"Let's go face that dragon."

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