"Sindarian"

"Westron"

"English"

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After a month, Riley had recovered from the battle and had flown to the misty mountains, intent on exploring it's many passages and tunnels, and maybe thinning the population of nasties that were harassing the peoples near the mountains. If she cared to be honest with herself she may have realized that the reason she continued to find excuses to fight and explore, with no plan of ever settling down was that she was running. She was running from her memories, for if she stayed still long enough they would surely drown her. She was running from her survivor's guilt and fear. By continuing to move and fight and run she was able to bury these feelings. But she was not honest with herself and so, she made her way south through the mountain range, starting at Mount Gundabad, and for four months she fought and clawed her way through the tunnels and passages of the mountain. Until she reached an underground city.

Over those past four months, Riley had improved both her magical and physical stamina and strength in her dragon form significantly. She had also found more efficient ways of fighting the goblins and other creatures. She had become a better fighter through practicing on the goblins. She did not feel too bad for hunting them, as she had seen what they had done to others through both her own eyes and those of history books, they had no mercy or compassion. And she knew that they would hurt others if they were not stopped. From her best estimate, she had been able to put a very large dent in the goblin population, to the point where many were regathering at Gundabad, leaving most of the misty mountains abandoned.

She checked her maps and discovered that she had stumbled upon Moria. She decided it sounded like as good a place as any to set up camp, and she set to work chasing the goblins and other undesirables from the abandoned city. Maybe she could start attempting repairs for if the dwarves ever decided to come back they would be met with a wonderful surprise. She spent the next month chasing the goblins and their hordes from the city until they no longer came back. Well, until they called for backup.

Apparently the roaring and fire-breathing and the sound of iron clanging against scales had woken up something down below from its nap. Something even the goblins were afraid of, and they were not afraid of her until she cut many of them down in front of them. At the sound of giant footsteps that seemed to shake the earth, the goblins scattered running away and trampling each other in their efforts to get away. She turned around to see a giant minotaur-like creature of fire approaching, with a weapon that looked like it was made of fire. It also seemed to radiate darkness and fear.

Realizing it would be foolish to fight fire with fire, Riley focused on her healing fire, hoping to breathe it instead of her destructive fires. She had never done it before, but it seemed like the only chance she had. So she fought the creature, she had no idea what it was, but they fought. For half of a month, the two creatures were locked in battle. For each day that Riley seemed to have the advantage, the fire-being had a night, (she nicknamed him Ember - for when she taunted him). She taunted him and led him around breathing gusts of white fire at him while he would slash at her scaled hide with his three-pronged whip. Both fighters heavily wounded the other.

Eventually, on the last day, they were tiring and fell off a cliff together, falling into a very deep underground lake. There they battled for hours without air and without fire. Only their fading physical strength. They fought for so long at the bottom of the lake that nearly twenty-five feet of rock at the bottom was turned into dust. The dust clouded up the water, to the point where the two opponents attacked each other by their glowing power. Eventually, the fire-creature stilled and died, unable to live without fire and oxygen for so long, the dragon followed shortly after succumbing to her wounds and the lack of oxygen, but not before chomping her opponents head clean off. Just to be sure.

That was how Riley died, again. She didn't even last six months.

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She came to in the middle of the ocean. She would be willing to bet it was the exact same spot as last time. The burning was also just as bad as she remembered. She probably would have screamed her frustration to the wind if she didn't feel so tired and numb. As the burning faded she swam towards the surface, she just floated there for hours gasping in a breath like a starved man at a feast. After she had caught her breath she began the inspection of her body. She was still in her dragon form, and she still looked the same, except any scarring or scale loss that she had assumed would be there from the battle with Ember was gone. She huffed and turned towards the east. Groaning, the dragon took flight towards land once again, bemoaning stupid cores and Embers and why the powers that be felt it was a good idea to make a reckless 18-year old a freak of nature.

It surprised her how long her journey to land took her. She supposed she was rather out of it when the whales first found her, but even flying nonstop it took her a week to reach the shore. She did have to take breaks every so often, to either rest her wings or to catch some fish to eat. When she did reach land it was at nightfall, and she sighed as she recognized it was the same harbor that she had first encountered after she had died all of six months ago. Veering to the left she landed in the cove, humming to herself she decided to call it 'first landing'. With that thought, the dragon switched back to her human form to see what had remained with her after her second death.

To her dismay, she was once again clad in only her black underclothes and swiss-army knife necklace. Her scars from her previous life had faded slightly, though she still did not have either. Padding through the sand she kneeled down next to the water and looked at her reflection on the water in the moonlight. Her ear, the one that wasn't mangled anyway, was even more pointed than before, she would have to be much more careful to hide it from now on. Yawning, exhausted from her long flight, she curled up with her back against the rock and fell asleep, exhausted from her long flight, second death, and victory over Ember.

Hours later, Riley woke at high tide, when the water had curled around her rock and began lapping at her toes. She also had a splitting headache, like a someone-took-an-ax-to-my-head headache. The sun was now high in the sky and she estimated it to be around noon, yawning she stretched and froze when she heard the sound of fabric in the wind coming from behind her. Turning around slowly she saw her pack sitting further up the beach, along with her clothing. Frowning to herself, because she knew she was tired last night but not tired enough to miss a bag, she shifted into her dragon form and cautiously approached the bag.

Nosing it open with her muzzle, it was exactly how she remembered it, except for the package. Gritting her teeth she shifted back into her human form and plopped down on her bum and held her pack with her legs. She pulled the blade off her neck and used it to carefully slice open the parchment-wrapped package. Inside she found a letter with a wax seal, the seal held an odd symbol she didn't recognize, and a leather pouch. Opening the letter she read it and was surprised to find that it was written in English. The letter was many pages long, and she read it through entirely.

Riley almost disregarded the entire thing completely. There was no way gods would interfere on her behalf. If they even existed. Rolling her eyes she went to open the leather pouch, the letter had mentioned that it contained "proof of our claims" and was stunned at what she found. It was her old phone, from her previous world. It still contained all of her photos and her music. The leather pouch also contained her solar charger and headphones. Putting the letter and the charger back into the pouch she plugged her headphones in and listened to some of her favorite songs, disbelief on her face, and ringing through her mind.

She sat there for a while. The ocean breeze and the sunlight played with her hair as she thought upon the letter. They, the Valar, had told her many things. Some were worse than others. Apparently, after her fight with Ember, who was apparently a 'balrog', the Valar had thought it would be a good idea to send her between around sixty years into the future, they hadn't given her an exact number. They had also informed her that the changes to her body were 'not yet finished' as the magic from her dragon form was going to slowly alter her appearance and 'painful transitions' were ahead. Fan-fucking-tastic.

Not to mention that they also informed her that she would stop aging once she reached the age of thirty, and apparently, that was why her ear looked different, she was no longer fully human and dragon. She was elvish and dragon. The Valar told her that her life-span would be similar to that of the elves, she would continue to live for thousands of years, until she made a journey across the ocean to a land known as 'Valinor'. If she ever made that journey. She saw no point, especially if it was only full of elves, elves with an immense hatred for dragons, (She steadfastly ignored the part of her that reminded her that she was now an elf as well). The Valar mentioned many other things that were cryptic as hell and gave her a heap of also cryptic suggestions of what to do. She supposed they couldn't interfere too much. Some of these puzzles were; to 'search for answers in the river's library', 'when the golden flower appears, allies will follow', 'the crownless wanderer with a heart belonging to the star of the river' would need her aid, and to 'avoid the cold sting of the fiery black poison' - among many others.

The cause of her headache was also revealed to her. Apparently it was the result of the Valar gifting her with the ability to learn languages more easily. It wasn't the only other 'alteration' the Valar had made to her body, apparently, in both her dragon and human forms she now possessed a 'mark of the Valar' on the back of her right shoulder - the only problem? She couldn't see it. At all. Only the majority of the rest of the world could. The Valar had also seen fit to give her a list of Elvish names to use for her dragon form, why, she had no idea, but she felt she might as well pick one, it would be a poor plan to offend the gods of her new world. She just wasn't sure which one, they all sounded so strange to her. Her favorites were 'Thornes' which apparently meant 'Steadfast One' and 'Crabafain' which meant 'Radiant Raven'. She had too much history with ravens names, so she decided to go with Thornes for her dragon form. It actually sounded kind of nice.

The Valar also mentioned another war on the horizon and Riley almost screamed out in frustration. She had fought in the rebellion and died. She had fought Smaug. She had fought in the Battle of the Five Armies. She had driven the goblins from the Misty Mountains to Mount Gundabad. She had defeated the balrog. She was sick of fighting wars. Small battles she could handle, but at the thought of having to face a war where innocents and good people would die and there would be nothing she could do about it, all she wanted to do was hide away somewhere where she would never be found. The Valar had said that her actions and decisions were to be her own, all they could do was give suggestions of where to go if she did decide to help them. They would not punish her if she did not fight. But then again, standing by and doing nothing would mean even more would die, she wouldn't see it, but many would die. She groaned.

Once night fell Riley the human shifted into Thornes the dragon and took off into the dark night. She would decide later if she wanted to thank the Valar - or throttle them.

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