A/N: Well, I am a big Redwall fan (as some as you may see by my stories), but I also LOVE Eragon. So I decided to make my own fanfic.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Inheritance books or anything in them. But Juline, Tarish, Ainran, Analigh, and Saffire are all mine. Analay is my friend's character.
She knew that her parents met the normal way. A man met a woman, they both fell in love, and eventually had her. She also knew that when she was a year old, they had died and she had somehow wound up in the orphanage. Other than that, she had never been told. She hated the orphanage though. They, the orphans, were treated almost like dogs. A bowl of slop a day, hard pallets for beds, and they got beat whenever their 'caretakers' thought they weren't being good. Either way, Juline had hated it.
She had tried many times over the years to escape, only to be caught again and again. She had tried since she was five up to when she was twelve. Then she had waited a year before trying a new escape plan that succeeded. Now she was wandering around with Tarish, her dappled gray horse.
Juline was a thief. It was how she made her living. She dressed as a boy for her robberies, and dressed as a girl whenever, but barely. She looked like any random lass (or lad if you count the times she was dressed as a boy) with shoulder length blondish-brownish (she had yet to figure out what it really was) hair and green eyes that were brown around the pupils. She would tuck her hair up in her cap when dressed in her lad outfit and wore a baggy tunic and breeches to hide her curves. But no one knew that she had a secret link. A link to the wildlife around her. She could talk to animals.
It was all because when she was thirteen, about a year ago, she had nursed an almost fatally injured squirrel back to health. When the squirrel became well again, he told her, much to her surprise, that he was really an elf under a strong spell. He was to remain different animals until his ten years of punishment were up. Though he could not lift his own spell, he could still cast them. He bestowed upon Juline the power to talk to animals. From then on, she found she could communicate with the world around her. Especially Tarish, who began to treat her like she was his own filly.
"What do you think it might have been like?" Juline asked her horse one day while resting after a successful day of robbing a rich looking man who probably could have done well without the loaf of bread and casket of cordial Juline had stolen from him.
"What do I think what might have been like?" Tarish asked. He looked up from the clump of grass he had been eating.
"If someone in this world had picked me up from the orphanage? Someone with a home I can love and a family to call my own. With real meals, and a real bed and you wouldn't get in trouble if you got a little dirty after you took a bath." Tarish didn't give her an answer and Juline didn't expect one.
But what the young girl didn't know was that if she had stayed in the orphanage a few more months her dream would have come true. She would have a loving family, even though it would be only her and him in his house. If she had waited a little longer she would have had everything she had ever wanted and many questions answered. But then again, if she had stayed for a few more months, we wouldn't have a story.
A/N: Yeah, I know. It's a bit short, but I'm just trying to get this up. Cookies for the one who guesses who I based Juline off of. Here's a hint; I know her very, very well. Also, The name I have sucks. So after I finish everyone's prolougues I'm going to hold a name contest.