Author's Note: I haven't posted in quite a while, so to make up for my long absence--an all-new oneshot! It's Durza/Arya, although Durza's name is never actually mentioned. Sort of an introspect piece. Hope you enjoy. And yes, I know the first line contradicts the title. It's still a cool title, dammit!
Unmarked Grave
It wasn't a grave.
A grave marked a body, and there had been no body. There had been nothing at all--not even a drop of blood. Not even a shard of bone. All that had remained was his sword, and Eragon had taken that as a trophy. So there had been nothing to bury. Not that anyone would have given him a funeral, or a grave. He had been their enemy. Not even the old argument of honor for the dead, all the dead, would have worked, because in their eyes, he hadn't been alive.
He was a monster. He deserved no grave.
So Arya had made him a memorial. It was small, easily overlooked, far from the busier parts of Ellesmera so that no one would find it. If anyone knew she visited this place, visited it over and over again, almost religiously, they would question her sanity. So she came in secret, in the dead of night, slipping through the trees without so much as a whisper of sound.
"He asked me again today," Arya said, kneeling before the chunk of granite. She had wanted some better material--obsidian, maybe, or ruby, or even a beautiful piece of wood, sung from the trees with her own voice. But that would have been too noticeable. And maybe he would have preferred it this way--he had never been one for elven aesthetics.
"He asked me again today," she repeated. "He does it every time he visits. Does he honestly think one day I'm going to give in and say yes?" Arya sighed, running a hand through her long, dark hair. Eragon was the most stubborn person she had ever met. It was that tenacity which had given him the strength to finally defeat Galbatorix, but it could be very irritating at times. Well, most of the time.
She leaned closer to the stone, as though it could hear her. "But he doesn't understand why I keep refusing," she whispered. "I've told him it's because my heart belongs to the dead. He thinks I should move on with my life, try to love again--but why should I? I loved you. I still love you. What's so unhealthy about not wanting to change that?"
There was no answer. The silence was achingly lonely, all the more so because she knew that if he had been here, he wouldn't have said anything, and that silence would have been comforting. This silence was all wrong--hollow. Dead, even though Du Weldenvarden was vibrantly alive. Because a part of her was dead, had been dead since the day he died.
"I wonder what he'd say if he knew I came here," she said. "He would think me mad--they all would. Or maybe he would say I still haven't healed, I need to stop wallowing in that pain...he doesn't understand. None of them do."
Pain...the pain was gone now, only a memory. It had been terrible, yes, but it was in the past, and Arya had long since come to terms with it. No, it was not that pain which haunted her. It was the pain of knowing...knowing that it was her fault.
"I killed you," she said, her voice shaking. Tears fell onto the stone as she sobbed quietly. "I killed you, I know I did. If I hadn't interfered...he could never have defeated you. He wasn't your match at swords, or with magic. But I...I had no choice. I didn't want you to die. You know that, don't you? I never meant for this to happen..."
Only silence answered. A cold wind dried the tears on her cheeks. The moon had almost set--it was time to go back. This month's visit was done. She wouldn't see him--his bodiless grave--again until the next full moon.
Arya gently pulled a flower from her hair and laid it before the stone. It was a rose, its petals as dark as blood, its stem bound with a black ribbon.
"...stydia unin mor'ranr, my love," she said as she turned and walked away.