A Day in the Life of Durza

Drabble #1: In Which Durza Mail-Orders Ra'zac

Disclaimer: We don't own party streamers, or Fed-Ex. We also don't own Eragon, we're just borrowing the characters so we can play with them. We promise to put them back exactly as they were. Well, minus their sanity, of course.

BluEmbyr: Welcome to FlyingFish15 and BluEmbyr's co-authored, random Eragon DRABBLES! For we are the MASTERS of random drabble-ness! Bow! BOW!

FlyingFish15: Just kidding. RIGHT BluEmbyr?

BluEmbyr: No I'm not—! is smacked OW! whimpers Don't hurt meeeee!

FlyingFish15: Okay, with that out of the way, let the hilarity begin!

Durza stood at the top of his tower, gazing off into the horizon and idly imbibing a smoking cup of Alegasia's version of black coffee. It was a beautiful morning, but Durza was sure that despite this unfortunate turn of events, that the day still had time to improve upon itself. Yes, a nice gale-force thunderstorm with clawing lighting and lashing rain could always show up if the weather gods felt guilty about favoring the sunny, clear skied days mortal humans seemed to like so much, and decided to rectify their behavior.

The Shade turned away from the disgusting sight of the sun rising cheerfully and lighting up the peasants' distant fields where goats and sheep were romping playfully in the bedewed autumn grass. Durza was sure the sheep were purposefully defying him, making a mockery of his power. Well, he would have his revenge! He would destroy them all!

Durza smiled and laughed evilly. He was in a better mood already! He descended the worn, stained stone tower stairs, plotting how best to spend the garishly annoying hours of daylight.

"Well, lets see…today I feel like conjuring some nasty, creepy crawly demons from the depths of Hell to do my bidding," Durza said to himself.

By now he had descended to his very dimly lit, and even more sparsely furnished, room in the dungeons, so he crossed over to the table and sat in his chair, and began rifling through the parchment papers on his desk, trying to decide just how he should go about accomplishing his goal. He moved aside a mountainous pile of papers—all bills sent to him by the Urgals, who had purchased new supplies and weapons again because they had lost or broken their others.

Durza, for his part, was still honestly surprised every time he received a bill that the Urgals actually carried writing implements and managed to keep track of them, let alone managed to read, write, and do sums.

One would think that if they're intelligent enough to do that, that the blundering idiots could keep track of their own equipment, Durza thought.

He noticed the flames in the fireplace were getting low, and then glanced at the pile of paper. He grinned wickedly. He had just thought of a use for it.

With the fire now roaring quite nicely, and now that there was no need to deal with the bills, Durza returned to his task of conjuring some nasty, creepy crawly demons from the depths of Hell. The Shade's desk was now wonderfully clear, save for a book. Its title proudly proclaimed in large, gilt, annoying advertising letters: Mail Order Your Nasty, Creepy Crawly Demons from the Depths of Hell TODAY!

"Well, that's convenient."

The Shade began flipping through the book, marking any pages that contained items of interest.

XXXXX

One Hour Later….

Durza busily scribbled away at a piece of parchment with a long, black quill. The ink, of course, was red. The Shade was now compiling a list of all the demons and monsters in the—book? Magazine? No matter—that had struck his fancy as generally fitting the bill of being a nasty, creepy crawly demon from the depths of Hell. And it was a long, long, long, LONG, LONG list. It was, in fact, so long that it was draped like a bloody parchment birthday streamer over the table edge, along the floor, over the back of Durza's chair, in between the surrounding iron bars of the nearby cells, then back along the floor until it ran out the door, into the hall, and continued along until it vanished into the darkness because SOMEONE was slacking in their torch-lighting job. Yes, Durza seriously employed someone to do nothing but light torches all day and night, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty four days a year, because with the castle being as old as it was, sections of it had fallen into disrepair, and he didn't want the Urgals, blinded by the darkness in the corridors, to trip on loose stone tiles or other detached pieces of the architecture, and fall and split their heads open while on their way to see him. Splitting the Urgals' heads open was Durza's job, and he wasn't about to let his fun be ruined by a stupid stone floor.

So Durza sat at his desk, writing away with a devious smile on his face, and occasionally referencing the book—at least until the sound of stumbling came from the hall, followed by a loud scream, followed by a thud, followed by a meaty smack that rather resembled the sound created by a sledgehammer slamming into a watermelon.

Durza looked up from his work and glanced through the doorway into the hall.

Oh good, he thought, returning to his work, I won't have to tear myself away from my work to deal with the lazy torch-lighter after all. Though I DO so hate losing another victim to a stone floor…

XXXXX

Two Hours Later…

The Shade thoughtfully considered his list, then viciously crossed out another three lines with a huge 'X' in blood red ink that was, well, blood. He had written so much that he had run out of ink, and so Durza had finally found a way for the late torch-lighter's corpse to make himself useful.

Durza looked at the rest of his still very considerable list, then sighed and put a hand to his head. He had a headache.

"So many details! Fire breathing, mud flinging, blade wielding, snot sucking—there's just too many options these days!" cried the frustrated Shade.

XXXXX

Three Hours Later…

Durza triumphantly held aloft the tattered remains of his list; it was now covered in red X's, had huge rips and tears in it, and one or two massive burn spots. But the important thing was that in the midst of the red lines and charred fragments of parchment, there was, at long last, one circled line of text.

Durza quietly spun around in circles, waving the parchment over his head as he performed an, albeit somewhat muted, victory dance. He stopped, then looked left and right and sideways and up and down and inside out and backwards to make sure no one had seen him, and then cast a spell to make his pen fill out the order form and other necessary paperwork super fast.

The quill pen now smoking and smoldering on the table behind him, doing a credible impression of gasping for breath despite its obvious lack of lungs, Durza sealed the papers in an envelope, gestured at it, and the envelope vanished, to materialize elsewhere on the desk of a bored secretary, who, still bored, opened the envelope and idly read its contents, then screamed bloody murder as she realized the ink was, well, blood. This immediately resulted in her fainting, and eventually resulted in the Mail-Order company, along with all the major shipping companies, adopting a no-blood-ink-please policy to be printed on all future order forms and papers.

Meanwhile, back in his castle, Durza waited patiently.

XXXXX

Two Days Later…

Durza excitedly rushed to the door as his door bell—literally a massive bell enchanted to make a screaming sound—rang. He flung the doors open.

There on his doorstep—actually a very rocky road—and against the severely overcast sky, stood his two brand new Ra'zac in all their muddy, stained bandages, and covered-in-crawly-bugs glory, each with a formerly white and now badly stained and bug-eaten official label stuck to their chests with packing tape. The label proclaimed: Rush Order Delivery. Below that, in small letters was: (Get these THINGS the hell outta here!)

Accompanying the Ra'zac was one very pale and very stressed looking man in a Fed-Ex uniform.

"Sign here. Quickly," the Fed-Ex man said, shooting nervous looks at the two Ra'zac.

Durza expertly summoned a quill out of the air and did so, signing his name with, what was for him, a cheerful flourish. The Fe-Ex man stared at his clipboard and the red 'ink' dripping down the paper.

"Obviously you are admiring my stylish, unique signature," Durza commented.

"Actually, no. It's the…it's the ink. We've just adopted a no-blood-ink-please policy, and…"

The Fed-Ex man saw the developing glare on the Shade's pale, scarred face and wisely stopped short. "Actually, it's a beautiful signature! I'll, uh, definitely be keeping this when we're finished processing the paperwork. Collection of, um, signatures and all…"

Durza was flattered. He decided he would actually let the man escape with his life after all.

"Now, there's, um, one last matter to attend to," the Fed-Ex man said, looking very much like he wished he wasn't standing on Durza's doorstep. "I'm to inform you that you will be, um, billed for 1,000 gold pieces for your postage, due to the handling and transportation difficulties posed by your, um, packages."

Durza's smile faded. Then he zapped the Fed-Ex man with fire, leaving a tiny pile of ashes. Just then, it started to rain. Thunder rumbled ominously off in the distance as the wind picked up and the sky quickly darkened until it resembled night.

Ah, it is turning out to be a good day, Durza thought as he ushered the Ra'zac inside his castle. Everyone was happy—well, except for the unfortunate Fed-Ex man, who just happened to be unfortunately deceased and his remains equally unfortunately being washed away by the rain. But, at least he wasn't stressed now.

Durza frowned. Damn it. I may have accidentally done something good, he reflected. Ah, well, I will make up for it later. I have such…ideas…

Authors' Notes: Hope you enjoyed! We certainly had fun connecting everything in our uniquely comical way…We plan to be posting at least two more chapters in the near future, both of which will also deal with Durza, so review and tell us what you think, and if we should post more, as well as any ideas you would like to give us for future chapters. Thanks!