Written 100% for my own enjoyment and unedited.

Memory Pending

Normally when someone runs into a pillar, they bounce backwards, maybe fall down, rub their head or nose a bit, then move on. I was quite a lucky person. I won raffle prizes all the time, I had a good family that stayed at arm's length, went to an amazing school, lived in a decent-sized house, no student loans, a neat boss, exciting job, and all the makings of a quite perfect life. I guess I should have known all that good luck had to be balanced out by something rotten. Back to running into pillars. I wasn't paying attention to where I was going and slammed face-first into one of those poles that hold up overhangs. I bounced backwards and landed flat on my bum.

"You alright, Ella?" a young man asked as memories that were very clearly not my own crammed their way into my skull.

It wasn't a metal pole I ran into; it was a thin tree. I didn't fall in the landscaping or on the concrete; I fell hard in a nest of thorns. Someone wrapped their hands around my forearms and pulled me out as I hissed angrily at the thorns.

I looked up at the person who had pulled me out. It was a young man dressed in worn, handmade clothes, a bow strapped across his back. The unwelcome memories shoved their way to the forefront. "I'm fine, Eragon."

"If you want to go back—"

It was like being two people at once, with input being processed in two ways. One, as if I had lived there all my life, and the other never spending more than a few minutes without the full comforts of the western world. A headache crashed over me and I pitched forward against the person in front of me. One set of memories were screaming that I would get sent back home if I didn't suck it up in that instant. The other set was terrified of the way the leaves cast unfamiliar shadows. I tipped forward into the young man's arms and he barely caught me before I collapsed, unable to cope.

(o)

I woke up leaning against Eragon's chest, feeling as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Well, I was his little sister in all but blood. I quickly reviewed my memories of the person's body I now inhabited. She, Ella, was a precocious eight-year-old. I was almost twenty-six. That would take some getting used to. Her personality was a younger version of me, which was good, me getting stuck into this girl wouldn't arouse too much suspicion. I found myself looking forward to being an eight-year-old again, for a little while at least. Ella loved exploring the woods and had a habit of disappearing the moment her chores were done. She adored Eragon and hung on to his every word, even though she had a habit of picking fights and over-analyzing what everyone said. While most of her excursions were into the woods, she would occasionally run to Carvahall and annoy Brom the storyteller until he taught her something or gave her a good history story. Afterwards, he would escort her home to an angry Garrow, annoyed Eragon, and amused Roran. Garrow would give her a royal tongue lashing before offering a bed to Brom for the night and leaving her and Roran to sleep in front of the hearth. Roran was punished because he often gave the girl permission to run to town, where she stuck out like a sore thumb. Garrow didn't like the attention she brought to herself, partially for her safety, partially because he didn't like attention to begin with.

Eragon had found her in the Spine three years before while hunting. She had claimed she didn't remember how she had been lost in the Spine, but she remembered her home, nestled alone in the mountains, being sacked and hiding in the cellar. When the noise faded, she climbed out to find her parents dead beside a horned monster with her mother's carving knife in his eye and her father's walking staff, which had a sharp point at the top, driven through his chest and protruding from the other side. She hadn't screamed, she just fled the house and ran in the direction her father had told her too if something bad ever happened. Four days later, she chanced upon a small bear, Eragon heard her deliriously shouting at the creature and had investigated, arriving just in time to snatch her out of the way of the bear's claws then drag her up the nearest tree long enough for him to string his bow and shoot the creature.

Garrow was quite happy when Eragon returned with a fat bear he could barely lift, but his mood soured when he noticed Eragon's new shadow. It didn't take long for Ella to endear herself to the practical man. She did much of the housework without being asked and was perfectly willing to do whatever additional tasks Garrow requested. He was a bit less pleased when she became comfortable enough to speak. Like Eragon, she would ask endless questions, but unlike him, she would challenge the answers.

Physically, she was surprisingly healthy, never falling ill, not even when all three of her new family sickened when a small animal died in their well and polluted the water a year after she arrived. She could run as fast as Eragon when she put her mind to it, and could aim Eragon's bow fairly well if he helped her pull it back. She was a wild and paranoid version of eight-year-old me.

While I felt a bit guilty at being stuck in this girl's life instead of her, I wouldn't mind being actually stuck in—my thoughts broke off as I realized exactly where I was. I hadn't read the books in years but I knew the story well enough. I had read it every day for years to get through the horrors of high school. The easy, if a bit immature, reading was the perfect thing to distract me from my awkward and ugly self. Okay, I wasn't really ugly, but I wasn't outstanding in any way. I was mediocre in the school's drama program, fairly good at the Drunken Fist style of fighting I learned to win a bet in college, and I made solid, if low, Bs in all my classes. College, I did just enough to pass, graduated with a major in Cantonese and minors in Latin, Arabic and Hindi to become an international flight attendant. Oh, I also could carry a basic conversation and communicate safety instructions in a handful of other major languages. Yeah, languages were the only thing I was good at, not that anyone but the people I worked for knew that. My parents didn't believe me when I told them I was a flight attendant, but they never pressed the matter and we didn't talk often enough for it to be a problem. I was a loner and I liked it.

Back to why my hands were shaking with horror. I was stuck in Alagaësia before Eragon found Saphira's egg. If I remembered correctly, this particular hunting trip was when he was supposed to find it. My whole body started to tremble. It was one thing to read about it, but quite another to realize that, at this moment, Arya was being attacked by the Shade, Durza. I would never call myself very sympathetic to the plight of others, but it was one thing when someone gets their car vandalized or their purse stolen, and quite another when you knew someone was dying on the other side of the continent and you could do absolutely nothing about it. I grasped the bow Garrow had made for Ella, resolved. If the real Ella ever returned, so be it, but I wasn't going to let this story play out as bad as it did in the series I used as a memory palace through high school. Galbatorix was going DOWN because Ella is in TOWN! Yeah, let's not say that again. Ever.

Ever.

(o)

"I'm fine, Eragon, let's get moving or we won't be able to bring anything back." I whispered, hoping I hadn't already scared off all the game food on the mountain.

"You need to go back, you fainted, that's not normal!" Eragon answered quietly.

"I ran head-on into a tree. That's why. I was just dazed and I woke up a second later! Besides, there's no bruise or bleeding or even a red mark! I'm fine! Now let's go or go hungry."

Eragon looked skeptical but decided it wasn't worth the argument. "You're never coming hunting with me again."

I stuck out my tongue. "I'm your shadow, good luck getting rid of me."

"Uncle Garrow will agree."

"Bah."

We both fell silent and continued on the trail of the deer herd we were tracking. It felt weird to be at ease in the woods, before I hadn't taken more than three steps into them, I was pure city girl, but Ella's instincts took over and I let them, enjoying the trill of hunting with my new big brother.

At last we closed in on the herd. As quietly as we could, Eragon and I strung our bows and separated. I glanced over and saw Eragon watching me. He blinked once, slowly, and I took aim. Not at the injured doe he had told me to, but at a buck with a broken antler closest to me. It was only ten feet away, an unmissable shot. A moment before I guessed Saphira's egg would appear, I let my best arrow fly. It struck true, straight through the buck's heart. The buck's cry made the whole herd turn to look at him. There was a breath of silence then they leapt up as one. Eragon's arrow took down the doe then an explosive noise announced the appearance of Saphira's egg and the departure of the herd.

Ha! Food and a dragon! I was rocking this.

"What was that?" Eragon demanded.

"How should I know?" I asked. "It's the Spine. Let's go check it out." At that I dashed forward to stop a few feet away from the egg.

Eragon ran after me. When he caught sight of the egg, he was fascinated. Carefully, he nudged it with an arrow before picking it up. "We'll definitely eat well this winter."

"We could stop in town and ask Sloan to butcher the meat while we talk to Brom about how much it's worth!" I chirped. The old 'storyteller' was going to have a heart attack. I would have cackled if it wouldn't have blown everything. If I managed to get the right secrets revealed at first, a lot of trouble could be saved. Hopefully the misunderstandings and misinformation about Eragon's father could be sorted out sooner. Perhaps when Brom was actually alive.

Eragon agreed to the plan. Mostly. "What makes you thing Brom would know how much a stone is worth? He's just an old storyteller."

"Brom knows everything. And he's really old. Older than Uncle Garrow. He won't tell me how old though."

"Whatever," Eragon shrugged and tucked the stone into his pack. "The doe should be small enough for you to carry. I'll get the buck."

I agreed and we set off back towards the village.