Notes below! Epilogue from POV of Vrael fighting Galbatorix for the last time. If you get lost, skip chapters. The story starts in the next chapter. This is just a little artsy beginning. See you in chapter one!

~Prologue~

~Field of Tears~

oOo

The sky shot through with grey pillars of smoke, mixing with the steadily falling rain, and Vrael, last of those who could hope to triumph over this insane youngling, could see the blue bay before him.

Crash.
Crash.
Crash.
Parry …

He didn't know how much longer this could go on for. Hours, maybe, if he was canny. Moments, if he was not. He didn't care. Or rather, he cared too much. If he fell, who would stop the insanity? Would it fester on to kill everyone who opposed it?

Parry …
Parry …
Crash.

He hated looking into the face of the youth before him. It was crazed, and tortured, lit with a feral gleam the pleasure of killing gave him. The face of a man who was better off dead.

Please … let me save you …

He could see the other dragons and their foolish Riders swooping through the sky. The child's cursed Forsworn. Misled. Their dragons laid waste to the lands he had fought to protect, killing, burning and ripping as they had not done since the Great Dragon Wars …

Crash.
Swipe.
Parry …

Vrael knew he had been foolish. No-one had told him so, but they didn't have to. They wouldn't. They respected him too fully, too wholly for a man who wasn't even whole himself. The pain threatened to buckle him to his knees again, as his mind probed the wound left from the death of his dragon, the partner of his soul in this world. The tear in his mind was still fresh and new, and Vrael longed to let the misery overwhelm him, but he didn't. It would only grant this child more mercy at his hand. No more mercy. It was mercy that had landed him there.

Parry …
Parry …
Stumble.
Swipe.
Crash.

He had hesitated, seeing devastation in the boy's eyes beneath him.
'Stop now, Galbatorix!' he had cried, and had been completely sincere.
'Enough have died. Relinquish this quest for vengeance. Serve your land in another way. Let the slaughter stop! Don't force me to kill you!'
His silver sword was firm in his grip, the tip grazing the boy's exposed throat. He swallowed convulsively, but was silent.
The pain had receded to let him function, then. Peace had stolen quietly over him, briefly, almost as if his dragon had known his death was about to be atoned for.

Vrael had felt pity for the misguided child before him. He would always think of his as a child, the child he had seen trained and happy, the child who had bowed to him with reverence, the child he had seen broken and sobbing as he begged for another egg … He had orchestrated calamities, massacres, but the grief inside him was the same that Vrael now felt. How he himself longed to rip and tear the cruel world around him …

Slash.
Parry …
Parry …
Parry …

But he couldn't. And this child should have realised that long ago. Retribution was deserved, justice would be served. He had swung his sword back, and braced himself to slice the head off the errant Rider before him, but mercy had stilled his hand for one moment before he could control himself. It had been all that was needed. The slash Galbatorix had delivered across his torso would kill him, even if he survived this battle. He could feel it, and he had no soul-mate to heal him now …

Crash.
Stumble.
Parry …
Parry …

The black form of the twisted hatchling Galbatorix had hatched to try and replace his own dragon's void dived towards the sea, to kill something else, no doubt. Vrael wished harder than he ever had than he might feel his own dragon's presence. He missed the comfortable friendship that had always been theirs alone, and the powerful feeling that he was never truly alone. But he was glad that what was left of his dragon was far, far away, held safely by his wife for his son, and that it could come to no further harm. He was glad that his son would one day almost know his father's soul-mate. But he was sorry it was not with him in this, what would be his last hour. He could feel it …

Stumble.
Parry …
Stumble.
Parry …
Swipe.

It hurt. It hurt more than any other injury he had physically sustained, and coupled with the wound in his heart, it should have been crippling. But Vrael wouldn't be crippled. Never. He must fight on, for the young Riders of tomorrow, for the land that was his to defend. He had to fight for the new dawn …

Stumble.
Swipe.

So tired. Suddenly, Vrael felt old. Without his life-line to support him, he was little more than an injured old man, succumbing to the natural order of things. He could see the bay … if only he could keep it in sight … if only he could stay staring at the expanse of silvery-blue water forever, as he and his dragon had done so many times before. If only he could speak with him one more time before he left the earth … if only he could feel his wife's hand caress his own again … if only he could see his son's face when he realised his father's gift to him … if only he could stave off this demonic man for the good of the land, his people, and all he held dear …

Stumble.

Pain flared again as his young adversary took his own advantages. Vrael stumbled to his knees, in time to see the fiery hatred flash across the now-king's twisted face; in time to hear his laughter as he drew back his own sword; in time to feel the whisper of steel cutting through the air without an ounce of the pity he himself had shown before.

Vrael thought one last time of his life, his love, his land, his son, his dragon …

And the blade flashed scarlet in the grey sunlight.

Vrael was no more.

oOo

Hundreds of leagues away, in a simple forest home, Favriana smiled down at her young son playing on the floor with sticks, oblivious to the precious bundle wrapped up for him on the table. As carefully as if it were her first-born, Favriana lifted the carefully concealed package, and tucked it into the trunk full of her treasures, her hands brushing the garland she had worn to her first dance, her wedding sash, his scrolls and book, and tried to remain hopeful. She watched her fair child giggle to himself, and murmured a prayer of thanks.

Come what may, her child would remain her comfort and security.

A tear slid down her face.

xXx

Years passed ...

An Empire fell to ruin and rebellion.

The Dragon Riders were lost.

Tales and legends spread;

but those who should remember
wouldn't.

A blue egg sailed across time and space …

A ruby egg stirred in anticipation in a castle …

A green egg slept on …

And somewhere, in the dusty city of Teirm, the heiress of Vrael was running up wedding dresses and ballgowns in a dingy dress shop, humming tunelessly much to everyone's annoyance and generally fobbing her way through life.

A blue egg awoke …

Her life would pay the forfeit ...

xXx

A/N: Revised version. This part isn't revised yet, but the next is, and beta read by DrownedHopes, whom I love. ;)
Actual !plot! happens in the next chapter, so shoo! Go on ...