Eragon gazed longingly at the diminishing speck of emerald green from the Stern of the ship. Do you ever wish you could have a second chance, Saphira, a second chance at happiness?
Saphira, who slid lazily in the wake of the elvin vessel, gazed up at him and blew a sad puff of smoke from her nostrils. Yes, little one, I have had similar thoughts since Brom's death at the hands of the Ra'zac. Though I am not certain whether these thoughts are the creations solely of my own mind or a result of your own brooding seeping into my consciousness. I am prone to believe a combination of the two is at work.
Eragon loosed a short humorless laugh and shook his head. A result of our bond I suppose. Not only do our thoughts influence the other, but we also share similar feelings, few of which are completely happy with our past acts. To himself, Eragon began pondering what he would do if he was given the opportunity to relive the previous years from the moment he found his partner's egg. Well I most certainly wouldn't let Garrow or Brom die, and I would very much like to speak with Brom as my father. Maybe I could win Arya's affections-
Little one, it does the mind no good to ponder what could have been. It only makes one lose focus on the present course. Saphira chided him on his wishful thinking. You have had a trying morning. Why don't you go below deck and rest?
It wasn't until Saphia suggested he rest that Eragon realized how tired he truly was. Yawning he thought to Saphira, You are right. My mind is addled by the morning's events, and I am not myself. Wake me so that I may bathe before the evening meal. When Saphira sent her agreement, Eragon descended into the bowels of the ship and arrived at his cabin.
Inside was dimly lit by a single flameless lantern half shuttered on the right wall of the room just over a small desk and chair. In the back left corner of the small cabin was a hammock woven from strips of long dried grass. The weave used to form the hammock reminded Eragon of the small grass boat Arya had made on their journey back from Helgrind. He felt sorrow and longing well up inside of him at the thought of her and how he would most likely not see her for centuries maybe decades if they were lucky, never again if they were less fortunate.
As he lay himself down in the hammock, he thought back on his talk with Saphira about redoing the past. He began to compose a spell in his mind that he thought could bend time and allow him the opportunity to try again at his life. When he began to doze off due to the swaying of the ship, he decided to discuss his spell with Saphira the next day for he was unsure the toll the spell would have on his energy reserves. As he drifted off to sleep he failed to notice the glow in the cabin had gotten substantially brighter as a cluster of fifteen or so spirits passed through the wall into Eragon's chamber. From his mind they stole the spell he created choosing to work their own magic with his spell. As their spell's magic took hold, they disappeared from the room with the scent of ozone the only sign of their meddling.
Eragon was awoken by a harsh grating noise. Eragon noticed two things almost immediately: first he was no longer in a hammock on a rocking ship, and second there was a window and outside that window was the night sky. The grating noise stopped suddenly only a second two after it had started. Eragon looked around in wonder as he realized where he had awoken. He was in Garrow's home in Carvahall; a home that had been destroyed several years earlier. The grating resumed, and Eragon found its source with relative ease as he began to have a completely preposterous idea as to what happened come into his head. The source of the grating was a large ovular sapphire blue stone on a shelf in his room. It began to wobble off the shelf and fall, but before it could strike the floor, Eragon shook himself out of his shocked state to dart over and catch Saphira's egg with a speed few elves could match. Well on the bright side of things it appears I retained my physical abilities.
He cradled the egg as he would an infant while it shook and trembled. Finally a large crack appeared, then another and another. As Saphira's newborn head emerged from the egg, Eragon felt another mind brush his. When the consciousness entered his mind he felt the tiny dragoness's glare on him and heard in his thoughts, Eragon, may I ask why you are so large?