Forests of Falkreath, Skyrim

-= Early the Next Day =-

Groaning heavily as my eyes slowly open I am awakened by small thunks against the side of my helm followed by startled squawking and a flutter of black wings. I try to sit up only to find that something fairly heavy is laying on top of my body, lifting my head I find myself to be looking directly into as set of massive teeth. Startled I shift about only to hear the sound of bones clattering against one another. Shifting to the side I roll the massive skull of a dragon off of me and hear the sound of steel clanging against bone. Sitting up I see my blade teetering on the edge of the skulls eye socket and reach up to unstrap my helm.

Tugging off the helm I drop it to the ground beside me and get up, picking up my blade I place my shield back on my arm and survey the area looking for any possible signs of danger. All I find is a ring of black encircling the massive skeleton of the dragon. Stooping down I feel around for my helm but am unable to find it, Looking down I find my helm sitting at my feet charred black with soot, reaching for it I notice my gauntlets charred black as well and begin to look myself over, my armor was charred a flat sooty black from helm to foot, grumbling I kicked a blackened rock and began looking around. all of the trees were blasted back and lay on their sides, some propped against other trees, while others seemed to be scattered about in little more than splinters, all of which were marred in black soot, "Odd..." I murmured to myself, wonder what lead to all this soot I don't remember THAT much fire...."

Shaking my head I resheath Lokdagnir and drop my helm back into place as I begin looking for my axe. After about 10 minutes of searching I find it buried in the snow against the trunk of a tree some 5 yards outside of the snowless ring of black soot. Picking it up I spotted my tree some 30 yards away and trudged over to it through the snow and hoist it up onto my shoulder. Oddly it didn't seem as heavy as I'd have expected. I thought about it for a moment but shook the thoughts from my head and trudged back to the mine dragging it along behind me.

It was slow going but then everything is when snow is involved. It wasn't until I got into the mine that it finally dawned on me that all of the snow was missing and everything was covered in black soot, and what should have been a massive dragon corpse was infact a massive dragon skeleton and none of the trees which had been scattered around the area had infact been burned. In fact the pine tree I had dragged in still had most of its needles... Growing suspicious I dropped the trunk where I stood with it only half way in the mine and stomped out to the charred clearing.

Drawing Lokdagnir, I used its edge to scratch away at the trunk of one of the trees, as I did so the bark sliced off in chunks revealing completely unburned wood. Infact even the underside of the bark was unmarred! It was as if someone had come through and simply wet everything down and covered it in charcoal dust. Looking down at my armor I began to try and scratch away the char but try as I might nothing flaked away, no silvery scratches marred its blackened plates. I scratched at the leather kilt wrapping and even that remained black as coal. Even the enchanted blade of Lokdagnir was charred black save the outer edge of its blade. Looking back at the dragons skeleton it lay in the field of black like a pearl in the midst of a pile of coal. white and glistening. No flesh to be found anywhere near it. Frowning I walked over to it and kicked its jaw. In a flash of inspiration I got a wonderous idea, the dragon had been immune to its own fires... I began to gather up random bones from the dragon and ran back and forth from the skeleton to the mine with my arms full of both bones and extra tree trunks for fire wood...

All in all I had collected a fairly decent collection of bones from the large adult and had even gone back and found the skeletons of the little dragons stripped of their flesh surrounded by smaller charred rings and collected a number of bones from them as well. I had begun devising several ways to implement my new trophies into my armor, and creating a suit of armor that would serve as both an intimidation factor as well as a challenge. I had taken a page from the wild, untamed cannibalistic Bosmer's book and would incorporate the bones of the dragons into my armor just as my former enemies in Valenwood did with the bones and armor of my fallen brethren. I remembered the rage their human skull armor accents instilled in me and my brothers in the shield wall. I would use this against the dragons just as the Bosmer had done against us. That anger would cloud their minds or whatever minds they might possess and would hopefully make them lash out without thought and make mistakes. Just as many of my Shield-brothers had.

I had never thought I would say it but the thrice damned Wild cannibal tribes of the Bosmer were bloody genius', and it was time to use their evil genius against these new enemies of mine....