Of Mountains and Dragons

One

Koza sometimes likes to think back to the days long past, to the days before the dark lord was defeated, to the days when terror still reigned Middle Earth, and to the days when he wasn't loafing around like he usually does now.

Those thoughts usually spiral, and before he knows it, Koza's memory runs wild with the tales of old: how he came to help reclaim Erebor, and how he had to assist in the destruction of the One Ring sixty years later.

Our first tale takes us back to a lone house, large, standing in the middle of the woods. A bear walks outside of the house, prowling more like, in the dark of night, keeping watch so that the one inside the house will be safe.

Now, the bear is not actually a bear. He is a skinchanger known as Beorn. A skinchanger can change between two forms at will. For Beorn, that is a bear and a man.

The one inside the house is also a skinchanger, but he has never been allowed to change from a man into his beast for his own safety. He and Beorn are the only skinchangers left, after all, and Beorn will spare nothing to keep his charge safe.

Usually, Beorn wouldn't stray too far from the house, but for some reason, the hills and woods have been crawling with recently, so his patrol route goes a bit further now to try and catch them before they get too close, and to get an estimate on how many he'll need to take down.

In the dark of night, the bear scopes the hills and finds a good lookout spot, where he sneers at the sight of orcs riding their wargs through his territory. They need to know that they have grievously errored, so with a mighty breath, he snarls into the air, leaving all who hear it shuddering in fear.

Then he realizes that not only are orcs hunting something, but what the orcs are hunting are going towards his home. With another roar, Beorn speeds off towards the group, protectiveness and sheer anger pushing him forward faster. He would not allow anyone to harm his charge, even if that would be easier said than done.

It is mid morning when Beorn catches up with the group, now recognizing that they are dwarves. The bear dislikes dwarves for many reasons, and while he does recognize the one leading the party to be Gandalf the Grey, he still refuses to stop running after them.

It would be awful if Koza picked up any of their greedy nature. He'd already had to train that out of him, and only succeeded on a material level. It wasn't the worst, but having Koza hug trees and pet grass all day isn't what Beorn would call a win.

As he breaks through the tree line, his house now in sight, Beorn roars again since the dwarves are opening the doors to his home. The bear rams into the doors as the dwarves try to close it, though only his snout gets through. He snarls, but the doors close and he is locked out.

Fine then, he decides with another growl, sauntering off to do a perimeter check. I'll let you live for now.

Inside the house, a very peculiar situation has occurred. When the dwarves came running in moments ago, Koza had just gotten out of the bath, and since he wasn't expecting Beorn to be back until later, he hadn't bothered being dressed.

So there he is, butt naked with a bunch of people he's never met before as his audience. The first thing Koza does, though, is cover his eyes.

"Dammit, what in Mount Doom is going on here?!"

"Ah, Koza!" A voice greets warmly, but Ko knows he's never met any of these people, mostly because he's never met anyone at all, but that's not really the point.

"You know me?"

"Err, well yes, I knew of you. Might you, perhaps, go put on some clothes?" The voice suggests, and even though they are quiet, Koza can still hear the others commenting under their breath.