One: Death and Bonding

A/N: -/- means that a violent part is starting or ending. skip to the second symbol if you don't like reading violence.

Seven hundred-sixty-six years after the end of the Varden War (766 AVW):

Nikos swam through the ocean, giggling hysterically as he chased the fish. His stomach was full; the point of the game was to grab the fish and release it before his mother touched him. That was difficult; his mother was a Hunter of the Deep, and could outswim him easily. However, he could turn faster. He used that to his advantage, and caught the fish, lifting it out of the water before releasing it as Long-Fangs stopped beside him.

[A good catch, my dear one,] the female congratulated her adopted offspring. She nuzzled him affectionately, and he patted her snout. [You win.]

[Thank you, Mother,] the human teen said. Then his eyes widened. [DIVE!]

Long-Fangs twisted her neck to look behind her, and the whalers' harpoon struck her between the eyes. Obviously enchanted, it seemed to glow, and Long-Fangs twitched once, before being forever still.

A series of images flashed through Nikos' mind…

Being thrown overboard by his own father, the captain of a ship, because he had broken his arm and could not work…

Washing up on a deserted island, more dead than alive…

Being rescued by his mother, who taught him how to live and love and hunt and be hunted in the deep ocean…

The first time he had dived to the bottom—not the real bottom, of course, but an accessible reef—and seen the wonders of the seas…

The time he and his mother had come upon a group of shipwreck survivors and eaten them—the infant had been very tasty, in Nikos' opinion, even though its mother had scarred his face badly…

That special night when an elder of the Hunters had proclaimed him a member of their people at a once-a-century gathering…

Nikos shrieked as one of the whalers leapt into the water and swam to him. The teen struggled and fought, even biting the man's hand until his teeth met, but the whaler refused to let go, and wrestled Nikos into the boat.

"Relax, son. You're safe now."

"Who…threw…that?" Nikos asked. His voice was raspy from years of silence. The Hunters of the Deep spoke with their thoughts, and Nikos had learned how.

-/-

"I did," a man said. Nikos threw himself at the harpooner. Before the crew could restrain him, his teeth found the man's throat and ripped. The man's throat came away in a spray of blood that painted Nikos crimson and a gurgling, hissing scream. The soon-to-be corpse fell to the deck of the boat and shrieked and thrashed as it bled to death.

Nikos bared his teeth in a feral, frightening smile. The whalers backed away from him, terrified.

-/-

Two frightening weeks later, during which Nikos terrorized the crew, the whalers shoved him ashore on Bierland.

Nikos was stranded. No money, one set of clothes, and no concept of human culture. He could barely speak because had had been abandoned and adopted at the age of six. He quickly discovered that speaking through thoughts was a bad idea; it terrified people.

Not that Nikos cared, of course. But it was hard to communicate with people when they ran away screaming about demons. Eventually, he learned basic words like "food", "water," "outhouse," and some simple sentences, mostly ones like "I am Nikos. Who are you?" However, Nikos remained unable to speak in complex sentences or convey complicated ideas without struggling. Reading and writing were complete mysteries to him.

Ten months after his "rescue", Nikos was working at an inn as a floor-sweeper and messenger when a stranger walked in and flashed a silver mark on her palm at the innkeeper. The stranger was less than four feet tall, had long, braided hair that fell almost to the floor, and carried a sword in a brown scabbard with a brown gem in the pommel.

The innkeeper paled. "My Lady, what is your pleasure this day?"

"A glass of mead, a good steak—T-bone, cooked medium-well, and don't dare try selling me cheap meat—and some sauced mushrooms."

"We don't have any mead…" the innkeeper started.

"Yes, we—yes! You lie!" Nikos shouted from beside the man.

The innkeeper turned an interesting shade of purple. The stranger just looked him in the eye as best she could and scowled. "Is this true?" she demanded. Her voice had gone cold.

"No! I keep the mead for important visitors!"

"Like those wealthy merchants buying black-market goods in the back room?" the stranger asked.

-/-

The innkeeper moved to strike her. Fast as a snake, Nikos rammed a fist into the man's midriff, leaving him doubled over and gasping. Nikos grabbed the back of the man's skull and yanked upward and sideways. A deafening crack was heard as the man's neck snapped, and the corpse went still.

-/-

"Where did you learn to do that?" the stranger asked Nikos as she prodded the corpse with a boot.

"Mother." The boy wasn't even panting. There was a sickening satisfaction in his face.

"Your mother?"

Nikos grinned. "Nikos a Hunter of the Deep. You know of Nïdwhalar? Killing easy, fun."

"But why did you kill him? I could have easily subdued him."

"Dragon egg tonight." Nikos pointed with a thumb to the back room.

The stranger drew her sword and stormed through the door to the back room. The door was barred, but the woman muttered something, and the wood shattered in a cloud of splinters. Nikos followed her in, grabbing his knife from his belt. He preferred unarmed combat, but there were times a weapon was useful. By the time he was inside, the room's occupants were pressed against the far wall, looking utterly horrified.

"The boy says there's a dragon egg here. Where is it? The man who tells me isn't fed to my partner."

The woman flashed her marked palm again. There were groans of despair. Then one man spoke.

"It's in the chest." He pointed. Nikos walked over at the woman's nod and opened the chest. The egg inside was purple, a glossily shining thing of beauty.

"Wild or bonded?" the woman asked the man selling it.

"Wild so far. The parents were going to give it to you, but we killed them and took it."

The woman snarled and sliced the man's head off in a fountain of blood. "Good riddance to rubbish."

The other men hurried to surrender, but the woman took no prisoners. They died. Quickly and relatively cleanly, true, but they died just the same.

Then she turned to Nikos, who was still staring at the egg. "After I bind it for a Rider, would you like to touch it?"

"What?"

The woman briefly explained, ending with, "I'm giving you the chance to join our ranks. Will you accept?"

"Yes."

"Good." She took the egg from its chest and held it, whispering. Then she handed it to Nikos, saying, "It is done. Hold it, talk to it. Let it know who you are."

Nikos held and spoke to the egg, and it wobbled after only a few seconds. His eyes widened.

The woman—the Rider—smiled. "It will hatch soon. Set it down and wait."

Nikos placed the egg on a table, and it hatched almost immediately. A baby dragon with every scale coloured royal purple emerged and chirped at him. He touched it, and fainted.

When Nikos woke, his dragon was on the floor beside the pile of blankets Nikos used as a bed, thrashing and shrieking in pain. Nikos could feel his partner's agony, though it was bearable to him; ever since he had been stung by a jellyfish he'd been almost immune to pain. This, however, wasn't mere "pain". It felt as if Nikos was burning to death from the inside out and only sheer willpower kept him conscious as he scooped up his partner and sprinted to Freya's room. He forced the door open and ran in, only to stop at the sight of the dwarven Rider wearing nothing but a towel.

"Sorry," Nikos said. "Partner…I think dying!"

Freya cursed and walked over. "May I hold him?"

Nikos passed her the hatchling. It was still screaming.

Freya examined the hatchling, and then whispered in a language Nikos didn't understand. She paled.

"He has a very rare condition found only in dragons. It's called burning scale disease, and is a lifelong malady. It causes unbearable pain that lasts anywhere from a few minutes to several days."

"Not understand," Nikos said.

Freya explained again in simpler words. Nikos nodded. "So: no cure, little help. All life."

"Yes."

Nikos sighed as he held his partner. "Will be good, partner," he whispered to it. "All good."

Stælwierthe (the name was that of a god in Nïdwhal mythology who was the personification of courage) grew quickly, though every movement made him whimper in pain, and sometimes he could do nothing but lie in his bed and shiver while Nikos stroked his shaking limbs. Unable to hunt, he lived on small animals Nikos caught for him. "Stall" had a rich sense of humour, and delighted in playing jokes on his Rider, mostly involving Nikos' hatred of vegetables.

Soon after being marooned, the new Rider had discovered that land-dwellers ate plants. That disgusted him, but what was worse was the taste and texture. Vegetables and fruit had tastes that, to Nikos, were revolting. They were even worse than cooked meat—a barbaric custom that Nikos denied had any benefit. And in his opinion, foods were not supposed to crunch when bit. So Stall loved to slip lettuce or mushrooms or (especially) sweet onions into Nikos' food, just to get a reaction. He would giggle uncontrollably for minutes at a time while Nikos picked the bits out of his teeth and drank glasses of saltwater to wash away the taste.

Two months after Stall hatched, Freya called Nikos and his partner into her room.

"Yes, Teacher Freya?" Nikos asked. His speech had vastly improved thanks to daily lessons.

"It is time to leave for Du Fells Skulbaka. We would have left weeks ago, but I wanted to make sure Stall was strong enough to survive the journey."

"Survive, Teacher?"

"Yes. He is, as you know…sickly. The journey will take several weeks, and I wanted to make sure that he would be able to tolerate the change in his surroundings."

[I will manage,] Stall said. [I am not—] He stopped speaking and collapsed, twitching and thrashing as he howled in agony. [MAKE IT STOP!] Stall wailed.

Nikos screamed in shared pain; this was the worst attack yet, and he could barely remain standing. Stall crawled over to his Rider, dragging himself across the floor. Nikos, still shaking in pain, knelt and cuddled his partner against his chest. They stayed like that until the pain subsided. When it was over, Freya spoke again. "We leave at noon. Please go back to your room and pack your things."

Nikos carried Stall—who was quickly becoming too heavy to carry—back to his room and packed their small assortment of belongings. Freya was ready when they returned, and the four of them (Freya's partner Baldur had arrived a few days before after a separate mission was complete) left for the centre of the Hadarac Desert, where Eragon and the New Order had created an oasis in the mountains there.