Disclaimer: I do not own the Inheritance Cycle, only my OCs.
A/N: Welcome to my 1st fanfiction! That's right, first. And it probably sucks. It's rated T because I'm extremely paranoid. Also, there might be long periods of time without upload (doubt you really care right now) due to my absolutely insane schedule. So, my main character here is Launnan (Law-nin), a seventeen-year-old girl that lives about a mile or so from Gil'ead. The other has yet to be named, and you probably know who that is. And don't worry! Our beloved IC characters shall be here soon.
Prologue
The leaves of the pear tree swished above Launnan's head, whispering the things they had seen; the things that they had heard. It was these incoherent mumblings that made Launnan love the pear tree. It didn't only provide her small family of two with food, but it told her stories that her mother didn't have the imagination to come up with.
Launnan slipped her hand over the last fruit from the tree and pressed her forefingers against the stem that held it in place. It broke and the fruit fell into Launnan's hand with a satisfying thump. Launnan placed the pear into her basket and walked to the kitchen window, where she set the basket. Her mother's joyful face appeared in the window. "Thank you," her mother smiled, taking the woven basket and disappearing back into the interior of the kitchen.
She walked back to the pear tree and brushed a lock of tawny colored hair out of her eyes before reaching for a sturdy branch. With the aid of the branch, Launnan pulled herself up into the tree among the story-telling leaves.
It was strange how nostalgic Launnan was about this tree, though she couldn't quite help it. When she had been young, her father had brought her into the tree and told her the tales she so longed to hear. Even when her father had died, Launnan returned to the tree despite the memories imbued within.
Absent-mindedly, Launnan placed her hand on the center where the branches branched off from only to have her hand cave into the center. Launnan let out a yelp as her whole arm plunged into a layer of cobwebs, dead plants, and gods know what.
Launnan shrieked and swiftly brought her arm out of the hole. Frenzied, she flailed her arm about attempting to get everything off. The girl also managed to throw herself out of the tree to the ground below. And in the process she had gotten about zero of the debris off. Never in Launnan's seventeen years of life had she ever thought about her actions before doing something when it came to unidentified materials that might have poisonous creatures in them. Perhaps one, fleeting thought or rather an instinct: get it off now!
The girl rubbed her arm around in the grass, removing the exceedingly horrifying things that had clung to her dress fabric. "Launnan, are you alright?!" her mother called, peering out of the kitchen window to see her daughter waving her arm about in the grass. "What are you doing?"
It wasn't necessarily the whole truth, but Launnan did notice a body moving quickly through the grass on eight legs. She squeezed her eyes shut and sighed; this was not the typical behavior of a girl who lived nearly a league from town on a farm. Perhaps it was the behavior of one of the girls actually in town living a cushy, sheltered life not knowing of the rapidly increasing deaths around. Those girls had nothing to fear but spiders! It made Launnan's life seem like that of a war veteran who has seen too much bloodshed and was driven nearly mad.
The pear tree called out once again and Launnan had no choice but to return. She shakily clambered into the tree once again and lie on her stomach, observing the hole in the trunk. It was a little under a foot wide and seemed to be carved out by something not of human origin - the cuts were too clean, no niches in the wood, the walls were smooth and even. If Launnan hadn't known any better, she would've guessed that the shaft had been carved by magic. She scoffed. There was no one even mentally capable of magic in the whole of Gil'ead. The closest person to it was perhaps that absolutely insane man down on Main Street that shouts to every passerby random syllables slapped together in odd orders.
Launnan huffed and stared at the hole. She needed a scoop of the sort to get everything out, and it was sure to be a wasted effort. Hollowing out a tree and hiding something within it when the very cork of it was soft - how foolish! But perhaps it was worth a try.
Behind the five room cottage was the shed where farming tools were held along with feed, seeds, grain, and the flowers that Launnan's mother had decided to preserve. Launnan crept out of the tree and to the wooden shed that looked about one storm away from collapsing. The wooden boards were near rotten and almost like thick, coarse fur if some was peeled off. She opened the creaky, greenish-brown door and stared into the dark of the shed. On a shelf just to her left, there was indeed a shovel. Launnan reached out her arm and grasped the wooden handle, attempting not to bring things clashing down to the ground off the shelf. Unfortunately a glass jar filled with poppies was broken upon the floor and kicked into a dark corner.
In the tree once again, Launnan took the small shovel and began to dig out all that was in the shaft, hoping her mother would be extremely preoccupied with the lunch she was preparing. Once all the detritus was discarded onto the roots of the pear tree - which would give it nutrients - Launnan peered into the tunnel. She could hardly even see anything at the end and with a streak of courage about to plunge her arm back in until her mother called her to lunch. "Coming," Launnan shouted, sliding out of the tree.
Once Launnan was seated at the table with a plate in front of her did her mother begin to question her. "So, what were you doing out there?" Fayra casually asked, lifting a slice of bread with goat cheese spread on it to her lips. "You seemed very - ahem - active."
"It was nothing, mother," Launnan coughed, shoving a chunk of bread into her mouth while grabbing for a pear slice.
"You seem very hungry."
"I am; nothing to be concerned about." The food from Launnan's plate was decreasing at an alarming rate.
"I feel that I should be worried, Launnan." Fayra's eyes traveled to the flowers that were currently displayed on the table. "Oh! These flowers are a new kind I discovered. I couldn't find any specimen quite like it in my plant life volume. Isn't that strange?"
Launnan looked up from the dried meat she was tearing at to study the new flora her mother had discovered. It had sharp, downward curving petals the color of ebony. In the center there were blotches of midnight blue with a white sheen, or white pollen dusted upon it. The stem was long and pale; the leaves were small and clustered in threes. "Are you going to consult Vala about it?"
"Perhaps," Fayra sighed. "I was thinking of naming it myself and creating a new entry. As for names, how about the Launnan?" the old woman's eyes twinkled.
"You flatter me, mother." Launnan took another slice of pear and placed it in her mouth.
Fayra doted on her daughter, like most mothers do. But Fayra thought her daughter was truly worth of all that was said: beautiful looks, intelligent, a mind that rivaled that of the smartest elf. In her mind, it was all true. The woman brushed a graying curl out of her face. "You are just as elegant, regal, and beautiful as this flower, Launnan. It is no foolish compliment but rather the truth." Fayra removed a plant from the glass jar and tucked it behind her daughter's ear.
Launnan smiled warmly at her mother. "I am nothing compared to Queen Mischa in all her beauty, though. I am a simple farm girl and she was bred of the highest bloodlines. Queen Nasauda and the Rider Murtagh were her parents—she was destined for beauty."
"Be happy that you are a simple farm girl and possess beauty. When I was young and lived in Bullridge, many of the other girls were as homely as mules." Fayra whispered, leaning over the table.
"Was Miss Elea from Bullridge?" Launnan asked. Elea was a woman from town with a sour look always on her face, bushy black brows, black eyes, and unnaturally pale skin. Her hair was thin, stringy and as oily as a raven's wing. Her lips were thin and long, like the clenched line of a shell. Elea's face was long; her nose knobby and ears large. Elea had a daughter though who had adequate looks.
Fayra chuckled. "No, I do not believe so. Elea grew up here in Gil'ead."
Launnan wrinkled her nose. "I really have no appetite now; I shall be outside if you need me, mother." Launnan stood and walked to the back door. She pushed it open and traipsed back outside to the tree. The girl climbed back into the tree and knelt on a thick branch beside the hole, observing it with narrowed eyes. Brandishing a random streak of bravery much like the one earlier, Launnan plunged her arm into the hole and began feeling around with her fingers. All that brushed her fingertips were the smooth walls of the tunnel, until she felt something strange. Launnan leaned down, pushing her arm father in.
She felt around, trying to get some kind of aid to lift the thing out. From what she felt, Launnan could assume that this was something smooth and rounded like the lucky stone she kept in her pocket. Launnan found a space to grip and proceeded to curl her fingers around what was inside. She began to lift it out, into the light of day.
There, sitting in her hands was a large stone the color of sea foam. Anyone would know what sat in the farm girl's hands.
A dragon egg.
Launnan sat within her bedroom that night, heavily contemplating the events of the day. The egg sat in front of her crossed legs, resting on the wool blankets. How could this have happened to me? Why not someone predictable like Eragon's son?
Oh wait a second, he already has a dragon. Launnan retorted to herself, furrowing her brow at the egg. At least it hadn't hatched. During Skulblaka Ceremony, the egg would immediately hatch once it was within the hands of its Rider. Her mother had heavily questioned Launnan upon returning from the tree and she knew her mother was suspicious of the girl's activities. Launnan took the egg into her hands and cradled it against her, standing and moving to the dresser. She hurriedly buried the egg under dress and returned to her bed, slipping under the covers and closing her eyes.
A blade the color of the egg solely populated Launnan's field of vision. She reached out to grasp it, and it melded perfectly to her hand. The pommel seemed to be made out of some kind of inexplicably hard glass, or perhaps even diamond. Runes the color of cumulus clouds were etched into the pommel, spelling out a word in Ancient Language that Launnan could roughly translate. 'Snaervedr' or 'Snowstorm'. The world ahead of Launnan shifted into a bloody battle field with human, dwarves, Urgals, and werecats fighting strange, humanoid creatures covered in silver fur. One of the creatures, with a rat like face, ran at Launnan. She raised Snaervedr and deflected the blow of the creature; a metallic ring rang throughout the field.
A dragon the color of gold soared in the skies, alighting mass populations of the creatures though even more began to replace those on the ground burning. Launnan stared up at the dragon in wonder. She had never seen a golden dragon, though she had assumed she would never have to see one on a battlefield. Launnan then noticed that the enemy was about to strike until a sword with a blade the color of the dragon above stabbed it through the middle.
The creature fell and an elf took its place. "Launnan! What are you doing here?! Something happened to-"
Squeak, squeak.
Launnan immediately sat up, eyes still closed. She allowed her eyes to flutter open and glared daggers at the dresser, where the squeaks were coming from. Launnan stood and walked over to the dresser and opened the drawer where she had placed the egg. She lifted it out and carried it to her bed.
The egg cracked right in half, and pieces of shell fell away. One small, one larger, one even larger, until about half of the egg was gone. The rest fell with a single crack—in the place where the egg had once laid, lie a dragon the color of sea-foam. It was about the size of a housecat. Spikes began at the base of the dragon's head and descended down to the shoulder, where they stopped for about three spikes or so. The spikes continued down to almost the length of the tail. Small fangs protruded from the dragon's upper lip, small and the color of ivory. The dragon's wings were leathery unlike that of a bird's feathered wings.
Launnan tentatively reached out a hand to touch the dragon's forehead; it met her halfway and eagerly pressed its forehead to Launnan's palm. Liquid fire raced throughout her body, causing a pain she had never felt before. "Ahhh!" Launnan hissed in pain as the fire reached its climax. After the pain resided, she glanced at her palm to see a gedwëy ignasia. The silvery oval was centered in her palm—she was now a Rider.
A presence brushed against her mind and she knew that it was the dragon and allowed it access to her mind. The presence withdrew and the dragon puffed smoke out of its nostrils. Launnan chuckled at the sight. The conscious melded with hers once again, and Launnan felt it sift through memories. After a minute or so, the dragon neared the front of Launnan's mind.
Hello, Launnan. I am your dragon.
Launnan felt color drain from her face. How was she going to do this?
A/N: Well, there you have it. Five pages that appeared out of thin air. So, cliffhanger? Sort of? I don't really know, and I'm the author. That's kind of sad. Anyways, don't forget to follow, favorite, and leave a review. (I feel like Pewdiepie! :D)