Okay, guys. This is my first real attempt at writing Murtagh, so can you tell me how I did, offer suggestions? I really can't write him. He doesn't click with me. Also, I can't remember what Vanir looks like, and my friend has my copy of Eldest. If anyone could tell me, it would be great.
Murtagh examined her face carefully, his own guarded.
He had to admit that she was beautiful, like all elves. He had seen many over the past few weeks, though he had spoken to few. Most were slender but strong, with the wild grace of an animal. With their honeyed voices and exotic features, they appeared almost too perfect to him.
She-Arya, he remembered her name was-was different. He didn't know what it was. There was something about her that he recognized, something that reminded him of himself.
He scowled, looking away from her. Thorn was hunting. He could feel his dragon's presence in his mind, a soothing constant. The only being he could be certain of in a forest of elves. Someone who wouldn't judge him, someone who wasn't disgustingly perfect.
He wanted to go home.
But where was home? Uru'baen? He snorted with disgust. He had lived there as a slave, feared, but abused.
Ellesmera certainly wasn't it. The elves were flawless, their movements effortless, their courtesy never wavering. Even to him.
It was pathetic, but the closest to a home he had ever felt he had had been when he was a prisoner of the Varden. He had been comfortable-well fed, given anything he wanted from the library, and frequently visited.
The elves were willing to do all that and more, but he didn't want their company. They weren't like him. They weren't even close.
Murtagh sat, poring over the scroll. It had been left on his desk, there when he had returned.
It was a fictional tale, the story of a Rider that never was. He read slowly, the glyphs unfamiliar to him. Pretty, but foreign, something he struggled to understand.
A Rider that sat atop a dragon that glittered green...
Both so pure at heart, they would never consider betraying the Order if their lives were the only cost...
A fantasy. No human would do that. For any human, everything else came second to the lives of them and their families. But no, elves just had to be perfect, didn't they?
The story didn't end happily. Not for Deriven and Verdel. They died together, resisting evil.
Their ending was happier than Murtagh and Thorn's had been.
Without them, the war wouldn't have ended. Yet people looked at them with fear, loathing, while Eragon and Saphira were hailed as heroes. He had been the one who had freed Eragon from the dungeons in Galbatorix's castle.
Murtagh was jerked from his thoughts by a quiet knock at the door. He raised a sharp eyebrow-that hadn't happened before.
"Come in," he called brusquely, unnecessarily loudly. An elf entered the room. Murtagh looked over, his dark eyes speculative.
The elf was dark haired and fit. The war was over, yet he carried a sword at his hip.
Because of me, Murtagh assumed bitterly, standing up. Terrified I'll attack him.
The elf twisted his hand in front of his chest, bowing slightly. He initiated the greeting. Murtagh replied curtly, waiting for the elf to explain what he wanted.
"I am Vanir," the elf informed him in the ancient language. "I was aware that you have remained here for some time now, and I wondered if you would like to come spar with me."
Surprised, Murtagh looked at him more closely. Vanir's face was smooth and inscrutable.
"Did someone send you?" he demanded, responding in the same tongue. Vanir had no significant reaction to that, but his eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
"No," he replied simply, coolly. "I merely thought you would enjoy company. I have but rarely made the acquaintance of humans, and I presume your experience with elves is similarly limited."
He's more opposed to the fact that I'm a human than the fact I was Galbatorix's slave? Murtagh thought in disbelief. He felt the strangest urge to laugh, a delicious feeling he hadn't felt in much time.
He reached for his sword. "Company would be nice. I'll be down momentarily."