Disclaimer: Eragon/Eldest/Christopher Paolini's works are not mine. I just like to get into Murtagh's head.
Review please!
Some people claim their scars are a part of them. Some hold that they are dead reminders of an equally dead past. My past is alive, as is my scar—a living, breathing part of me that I want no remembrance of. Living, because it throws me into contortions when it ripples across my back, a thick and ropy chain binding me to a man I never wish to call my father. Breathing, because it steals my breath away with the fear and pain it brings. Even now I can feel my lungs seize up with the thought of another attack from my scar.
The scar has always been with me—ever since I was three, I was told, when my father threw his sword, Eragon's sword, my sword, at me as I ran past him. I equate the scar with Misery, the name of the weapon that gave it to me. I equate the scar with Fear, a grasping emotion that has held me in its clutches since my birth. I equate the scar with Morzan, the man who fathered me. I equate the scar with Eragon, the brother whose own scar is as terrible as mine.
But his is healed, and my scar's legacy lives on.
Perhaps I will never be the man I desire to be, because I am eldest and inherit all from Morzan—sword, slavery, and scar. I have asked for none of these things. I have fought against all of these things. Eragon once bore these as surely as I do. But Eragon is free now and I am still held by them. I feel that the longer I am with these gifts of Morzan, the closer I am to him.
Galbatorix claims they are mine by right. Even he knows of my scar. I begin to think he is correct. It is the duty of the eldest to take the heaviest burdens and protect those weaker, to suffer without complaint, to be strong. Perhaps Eragon is not strong enough to bear the same burdens as I. But when he told me that his scar was gone how I yearned to be free from my bond as well! Have I not been patient? I cried. Have I not borne it longer? Is it not enough? I felt so strongly the danger of becoming my father and the skin around my scar tingled like it was settling into my bones, becoming a part of me. I was afraid like I had never been afraid before. And so I was hard and cold, betraying none of my emotions, saying none of the words I wanted to scream. I must shoulder the heavier burden. I must do this so Eragon can be free.
The eldest is supposed to carry the father's legacy. I do carry it, on my hip as a sword, on my back as a scar. My scar.
Some people claim their scars are a part of them. Some hold that they are dead reminders of an equally dead past. My past is alive, as is my scar—a living, breathing part of me that I want no remembrance of. But I must. I am eldest.
