Chapter one

Where roads meet

The poacher silently walked between the corpses of the dead urgals, trying to make less sound than humanly possible as he neared his goal, the green stone. Even though the battle was not his he was drawn to it, the thought of money and fame made his mind as he strung his bow and released his first arrow. The archer beside him had looked him over once before stating "Aim only at the Urgals, they have something we want" before he too resumed his task. His neighbour fell before he could release his seventh arrow but the he himself stayed upright, shooting those in his range as the poacher saw light reflecting of a shiny green surface behind some Urgals. His mind racing at the time before he made his decision, he would get his price not in the skins of the Urgals he'd help slay but in the green stone they carried. And that's how he found himself stalking away from the battle, no one cared for him, and nearing the stone were several fallen Urgals lay beside, he grabbed it in a hurry as he saw from the corner of his eye the Urgals noticing him One of them shot an arrow at his leg before stole one of their horses and rode of in a mad frenzy, leaving the battle and the plains behind as his horse ran like a possessed one, him atop of it, with the stone in his hands and the arrow in his leg.

The poacher let out a throaty but humourless laugh as he thought about the money he'd make and the things he'd buy from it, not knowing what it was in reality, or who were after it.

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It was a cloudy day in Yazuac when the women were startled by a bay mare galloping through the main gate, the horse looked equally worn as her rider as they came to a sliding stop before the rider jumped off, giving the women a glimpse of a grey-streaked beard and wary eyes as the stranger grabbed a boy by his collar and demanded in a harsh voice "Tell me boy, where are your men ?"
The boy wiggled free and went to hide behind his sister's skirts as the stranger approached her, "Girl, where are your men ? Tell me !" he shouted, gesturing at the women surrounding him as they all shared a glance before the girl spoke up in a shaky tone, "The men are gone, good sir, they have left on a hunting trip two days ago taking the older boys with them" the answer didn't seem to please the stranger for he grabbed her arm and demanded another answer "The girls then, who is the oldest of you ?" the girl was silent before speaking softly "I am, good sir, I am the oldest for I have seen 17 summers" this seemed to please the stranger for he suddenly threw her a bundle of cloth which she awkwardly caught in her hands, and held his mare. "Then you'll do, tell me your name .. quickly !" he commanded the girl.
"Fleta, my name is Fleta" she whispered and the man nodded again. "Fleta, in here lies something very important, you cannot lose it, ever !" he said, pointing to the bundle in her arms before warning her "You cannot, nay you must not tell others of it, keep it safe like I did until you too are too old to guard it" he shifted his leg, which stood at an awkward way compared to his other before talking further "They will be here soon, you need to take it and keep hidden with you, avoid them. In my saddlebags are enough supplies for a week and food for the horse" "The who, good sir ?" Fleta asked before she was suddenly lifted and thrown in the saddle, the stranger then slapped the horse, causing it to gallop away.

As she galloped through the gate the stranger had come from mere minutes ago she dared to look back without loosening her grip on the horse's mane, she saw the man draw a short sword from a sheath attached to his belt.

"May the wind be in your back and may your ride be swift" the stranger spoke, watching the girl go as he felt his burden lifted from his shoulders only to be replaced with the dread of what his presence in Yazuac would take with it in mere days.

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The man paced the large study angrily, his shoulders stiff and his jaw clenched, as he recalled the battle from the day before. "Twins !" he bellowed as two identical bald males in purple and gold dyed robes hurried towards him only to stop and bow, whispering "Yes, lord Deynor ?" at the same time.
"Tell me," he began "How that" he pointed at the scrolls about the battle that lay on his desk "Happened." The twins bowed again before speaking, "Galbatorix must have faked the ordeal" "Yes, it was a lie, a delicate one, but a lie nevertheless" the other one spoke, "He wanted us to believe it was there, it may not even exist" "We recommend you focus on the egg we have now, it is your only hope"

Deynor rubbed his temples as the went over the facts before stating "We need to lie low, we cannot lose more of our troops" before yelling "Now leave, you give me a headache !" as the twins rushed out he did not notice the identical wicked grins or the evil glint in their eyes, he never had.

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Fleta did not get time to ponder on how she was thrown in this whole thing for she had to hold on to the galloping mare, the horse only slowed down to a hasty trot after a mile and came to a full stop near a stream where it drank. Fleta took the moment as an opportunity to dismount the animal and managed to do so without completely falling off but it was in no way graceful. "Good girl" she whispered as she awkwardly petted the horse "Very good" she rested her head against the horse's neck and tried to calm her own erratic breathing as she went over what happened with the stranger that afternoon. "How did this happen" she whispered to herself, "How could I not see this happen how did I-" she was cut off by the mare moving her neck causing Fleta to nearly fall forward.
Then she remembered the stranger's words "They will be here soon" she mused to herself as the colour suddenly drained from her cheeks as she repeated the words "They .. who is 'they' ?" monsters, she thought, they must be the monsters father talks about ! The black men with horns that know no mercy.. them ! And she then whipped her head around to look around her, after seeing nothing on the horizon she calmed a bit. "It's okay, it's okay .. I need to leave, yes leaving would be good" she said, repeating the words as if they may save her as she tried to mount the horse again, it took her five tries to successfully do so.

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The king beckoned for the urgal chief to step forth, "Speak" he ordered the urgal as he went to sit back in his throne. "The egg is gone, my lord" he said in a rough and tense tone for the language still was awkward to him. "What ?" the king yelled, "Impossible !" a vein throbbed angrily as he stared at the urgal before he pulled the urgal towards him and hissed "tell me then, who has it ?" at which the urgal looked around himself before shrugging. In a flash of steel the body of the urgal fell to the ground and did not get up. "Wrong answer" the king said, voice cold as steel as he cleaned his sword with his old and ragged cape before walking to a nearby bowl with water. "Draumr kópa" he said as he stared into the bowl and slowly a cruel smirk crept on his lips as he laughed and said "Found you."

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The sun was setting when Fleta gave a pull on the reins to stop the mare for the animal was coated in sweat and Fleta herself was aching in muscles she didn't even know she had, she dismounted the horse again and this time did so with some dignity instead of nearly falling off like last time. She then took a good look at how the saddle was strapped to the horse before taking it off and then opened the saddlebags attached to it. Inside them were loafs of bread, dried meat, some coins and some flints and a small dagger, some flasks with water, some thread and a needle and in two of the bags was the grainy-sustenance Fleta recognised as horse food. She then tied the mare to one of the few trees scattered around and hoped the horse would not break free during the night before she picked a piece of dried meat and nibbled on it, she then took a drink from the flask of water before looking at the bundle of cloth she held under her arms the entire ride, almost causing her to lose balance and fall off the horse multiple times, and soon curiosity won as she started peeling away the layers of cloth surrounding what was inside. She gasped when she saw what was hidden inside, a large oval shaped stone in a brilliant shade of green lay innocently amongst the cloth, darker shades of green appeared to be on the surface forming an intricate pattern and Fleta hesitantly reached out a hand to touch it. The surface was too smooth to be like any other stone she had ever held or seen in her life and she gently lifted it, afraid it might break for it looked so fragile and delicate, and came to the conclusion that it was a gem. "It must be," she whispered in awe "For who else would take such time to polish it and protect it, it might belong to a queen or .. or the king himself" and she quickly folded the layers of cloth back on top of it before putting it in one of the relatively empty saddlebags as she grabbed the blanket that once shielded the horse's back from the saddle and curled up under it.
Sleep was quick to come, the stone once again laying within its protective cocoon of cloth.

Fleta awoke to the sound of a horse's hooves scraping against the ground and was then greeted with the sight of her horse desperately trying to get her attention when it hit her, she forgot to feed it.
"I'm so sorry" she whispered to it as she filled her hand with the horse's food and presenting it to her, "It's just .. yesterday was such a rush of events that I .. I just forgot .. I'm so sorry" she apologized, it did not matter that the one she was apologizing to was a horse in any way to her.
She then broke off a piece of bread and ate it, swallowed it with water from the flask and then tried to saddle the horse the same way it was done when she was 'given' the horse by the stranger, it took her some tries to get it right but the saddle managed to look decent enough after her fifth try so she once again mounted the mare and kicked her sides, hoping to cover some distance on this journey she was so suddenly 'forced' to make, but now she knew about the jewel Fleta knew one thing for certain, the man had a secret she was now forced to protect, one that probably involved stealing from a queen and taking her jewels, keeping only this one.

"Maybe one of Surda's queens, uncle Brendârgh said they were different from the Empire after all .. maybe the man was a king ?" she whispered to the mare as they trotted past bushes and trees "Maybe he didn't steal it but it belonged to him, and he was chased from his country by an evil monster that wanted to be king himself .. " soon Fleta was lost in the tale she had woven herself as her horse continued her slow-paced trot across the plains, passing the village of Daret without either of them even noticing it's presence.

Fleta continued her musings for another hour, the tale having grown more complicated ever since , until she noticed another thing. "I did not name you," she said to the horse that lazily turned her ears backwards to listen, "You need a name too" for the next five minutes Fleta pondered before exclaiming "Skeifa !"she then started explaining "Aunt's son had a horse named Skeifa once, she always let me pet her when I was young", before he joined the Empire's forces and took Skeifa with him." "Maybe your previous master named you something different but now you are with me, I shall name you as I see fit" the newly-renamed Skeifa just kept on trotting without paying any more attention to the rider on her back, to her the girl was of no more importance than a fly is to a tree, as long as the she gets fed she will not complain.

Disclaimer: If I owned Eragon the movie would naver have been made, Orik would get a dragon and Galbatorix would get more screen-time (In a book, book-time ?), so NO I don't own Eragon or the Inheritance Cycle.

Enter another story, completely different from my pokémon ones, and created by me and my brother (So he is responsible for this one as well) but written by me because I have the superior English-writing skillzzz (If you could call them that).

A bit of information;
1. The name Fleta is an old (english ?) one that means; "Fleet, Fast" and it seemed appropiate for her state of mind, going from "What just happened" to making stories about queens and naming a horse and forgetting to feed said horse.
2. The mare's name isn't really important but Skeifa is icelandic for "Horseshoe"
3. The pieces of text written in italics have happened around 15 to 20 years ago, more information might follow in upcoming chapters.
4. Deynor was the previous leader of the Varden, the one before Ajihad, and he is responsible for hiring the Twins (Major lapse in judgement there)
5. Why doesn't the girl know about Urgals ? Euhhh .. normal village girl here people ? She's no Xena warrior princess that knows about her enemys and will totally own them in a fight so "Black men with horns" is as close as she gets to knowing what they are.
6. Don't the people from Yazuac all die ? Yes, yes they do, probably 2/3 days after she left the village, our dear poacher brought them there (unwilling, but still)

I will try my hardest not to make her a Sue, my brother will help with that, and for all those mumbling "Another EragonxOC/MurtaghxOC story" she will NOT EVER end up with any of them ;)
"Why did she so willingly let it all happen ?" obedient girl, taught by her father to listen to her superiors + suddenly given a 'quest' if you can call it that, so being overwhelmed etc she'll make the best off it.
First time trying all of this, so please review to tell me your thoughts.

I will also try to keep it as realistic as possible, following the events from book 1 closely but not participating in them (So she won't battle Durza/rescue Ary etc), she'll have her own story and stuff to happen to her. That is if she can remember feeding her horse and not dying somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I am also trying to keep the speech as 'normal' for them as possible, can't have them going around saying " whazzup dude ? chill man, yeah Galby is such a hardcore king buddy ! WOOT, lolz just pwned an urgal man, tottaly rocks" or "That's like, totally awesome, like yeah and he was like 'ur so pretty' and I was like 'u 2' "

And the last thing that might be confusing, the King is scrying in his piece of the story, he scrys the Egg (which he can see) he also sees the surroundings (given that he has seen them before) but does not see the poacher for he is unknown to him and one can only scry objects/surroundings/people they have seen once in their lives (or twice, or three times etc)

Shynah.