The Halfblood Guardian

Prolog

"Oh æsta, systir, telja oss sagarinn endr."
*chuckles* "Sunny, er áðr taldi þú at sagarinn líkr, hundrað sinn."
"Eða wī allr líkr at sagarinn sō mjök, enda þú sannliga eru bezt Skald!"
"Haha. Alr, alr, þar þú hverr annt, er munu talða þú sagarinn til várr kyn, meir."

Long, long ago when Arda was still new and only the Ainur roamed the surface, the lands, were being prepared to receive the children of Ilúvatar. But when the day came, when the children should have come to populated Arda something strange happened. The sky suddenly turned purple and a huge storm came out of nowhere, the earth trembled with the thunder and blue lighting struck the ground, and broke it open.
The Ainur not knowing what to do turned to Iluvatar for help, they tried many things to get the storm to end but no matter their power and no matter their effort it was in vain.
Angry and frustrated, Aule, the smith, tried to conceal the storm in walls of stone. A victory it had seemed, but suddenly the walls burst opened to reveal that the storm had merged into a portal.

On the other side, there were standing gods themselves. Unsure of one another Iluvatar took the first step and introduced himself as the creator of Arda, one of the other gods hearing this also took the step to introduce himself as Odin the Allfather. The gods meaning no harm to one another quickly got along, and a friendship was born.
Soon they were learning each others culture and helping to repair the damage the storm had brought to the two worlds. Quickly the work was done and to celebrate Iluvatar realized his first children, the elves. Later came a race, of dwarves and at last the race of men. Everything was looking well for the races of Arda and the friendship between the gods.

Sadly, it had to come to an end.

After the leaders were settling into their lands and kingdoms, the mysterious storm came again. Destruction havoced the lands of both worlds once more.
This time all the gods came together to find a solution, and seemingly they did...

They came up with a solution to conceal the storm once more this time in a magical artifact forge by Äule and blessed by all the gods, Odin and Iluvatar would combine their power and lock the storm inside the artifact, and ensure it never broke out again. It seemed like the plan would work perfectly, but when Odin and Iluvatar began the process, they noticed something...

The storm was getting weaker, but so was the portal...

So the gods came to the conclusion if they wanted to save their world, they would have to bid their farewell to each other. Saddened but determine to save their worlds, the gods said their goodbyes and to not forget and preserve their friendship. Gifts were exchanges from healing plants from Yavanna to the race of men from Iluvatar, from weapons from Tyr to magic from Freyja.

At last Odin himself wanted to thank Äule for having brought them together, he gave to him creatures made from the stars the Lion Leo and the Wolf Lupus to rule alongside Äule as companions and guards.
After their last feast, the gods returned each to their respective worlds and as Odin held the artifact called the leppr, they looked at each other one last time before concealing the rest of the storm and with that closing the portal.  

Life went back to normal in Arda, now peaceful, the races were growing and the Ainur returned to watch over the creation of Iluvatar and their own. Äule especially watched with great care as his first sons roamed the land with his to guards at his hip.
The two creature help their master protect his creations, especially his firstborn, Durin...

And as time went on, something else happened...

The pair Leo and Lupus gave birth to three sons Geri a golden wolf, Freki a white lion and the youngest Fenrir a black half blood.
The three brother were each told to protect two dwarves clans:
Geri chooses first, being wise and cunning he decided upon the Broadbeams and Firebeards.
Freki being the strongest and bravest choose the Ironfists and Stiffbeards.
And Fenrir was held responsible for the Blacklocks and Stonefoots. 

  The brothers protected the clan's dutifully even in war they never left the clan's head side, but the thought of not being able to protect every one of their charges soon left the brothers with heavy hearts. Their heartache grew with every dwarf who fell in battle, they wanted to protect every single one of their charges, but they were only three for six clans of dwarves.

Seeing their sons so full of sorrow Leo and Lupus, plead to their master to help their sons and Äule responded. He gave the brother the right to formed their own race to help them protect his children with the exception that they needed to be similar to his own creations. So the brothers did just that.
Geri called upon the two most cunning dwarrowdams, and the two wisest dwarrows of his clan.
Freki called upon the two strongest and bravest dwarrows and dwarrowdams of his clans.
Fenrir not wanting to force two dwarves with no love for each other together, looked in his clans for two married couples bound together by love.
All together, the brothers ordered them : "We have been giving the right by Mahal your creator to draw new life to help us protect the dwarves under our oath. For this I commend you dwarrows take each one of the dwarrowdams we choose for you and lay with them, the children you conceive will be given the powers of shifting into the animal we plant within them. And shall they conceive children of their own, their legacy will be passed on to their children. These children, these shifters, will be there to guard the dwarfs and protect them from harm. They will be guardians."  

And so the dwarfs did what was asked of them, and each couple gave soon birth to the children of a new race, the race of shifters. Born to protect and serve the dwarven clan they were born in.




Born to guard...