Double lives

Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I will say this once, I do not own Eragon, Alageasia or anything mentioned in or from the Inheritance cycle. Nor any other Fandom mentioned in the book.

Author Note: Please comment/review. Please attempt to make constructive criticism. Also, let me know via PM (so as not to spoil it for others) if you have any interesting ideas. This is mainly the introduction chapter for the other main character (yes, it won't be Eragon alone, possibly this one will be more 'main' than eragon). Thank you, Rethel34, for helping me with improvements to this chapter. (I shall be using "A/N" instead of "Author note").

Prologue

It has been 40 years since the fall of the mad king and the departure of the Shadeslayer, the Kingkiller, the Argetlam, the Shur'rtagal, Eragon Bromsson. The New Order of Riders flourished over the years. Eragon, after much nervousness and apprehension on everyone's part (for they feared that there might be consequences), found out that one can change their destiny and returned to Alagӓesia after 'only' 30 years. Or maybe his destiny had still been true, since it felt like forever since he had been home. Also the Alagӓesia he had left, still struggling through the after-effects of the war, was not the one he returned to; but he rather discovered himself in a prosperous land where most racial disagreements had been erased by time and the majority lived happily, the annual contests were now not inter-racial, but inter-city.

Eragon, after his decades of learning the ways of magic and the world around him, finally gained the knowledge of magic to clear Vroengard of the majority of the magical side-effects left after the last stand of the Old Order. Eragon's human family has also gotten much older now. Roran, who Eragon had last seen as a youthful, healthy and strong warrior, is now an elderly man of about 60 and has three children, two of whom are married.

The order has flourished, the Riders and dragons returning to the lands to the awe of many a person. Eragon, through his insatiable curiosity and perseverance in training, has become greatly powerful with mind, magic and might, able to take on two an adult wild dragons in solo combat. When he sparred with them, he was also able to hold all six of his ex-elven guards at bay; at once. His knowledge of magic has helped him keep strong, healthy and fit.

There has been an incident here or there with disobedient Riders, but nothing Galbatorix-scale. Still, Eragon liked to be prepared. Once the reconstruction of Vroengard had been completed, Arya wished to leave her position as Queen of the elves and join Eragon. She found she did not enjoy being Queen. She wanted to be free and able to travel where she pleased. That's why she became the Varden's courier in the war. But, due to the many distractions and tasks of her position and the lengthy politics of the Elves, she was only able to leave her position just under a year ago.

Arya's cousin, on her dad's side, had taken over position as King, along with his wife. The elves, despite becoming more open to other races in the past few decades, would not have their Queen marrying a half-elf, despite him being as famous as he was. The whole Order knew that the two were planning to get married sometime in the foreseeable future.

But, enough of that. That world is not real, right? Let us focus on our world, not the lands of stories and legends. Our story starts with John Avner. He is just another grade 10 school kid. He was quite a logical thinker, being top in his class for IT (computers, mainly programming), and enjoying maths and science. He was never one for languages, but he survived. School life was getting tougher, especially the huge jump from grade 9 to 10. His marks had dropped since grade 9. Well, most of them… but he was making a recovery. This day is just another day in the many of the schoolteen's life.

John smiled as he looked at his timetable. The last lesson of the day. And it was IT. He walked into the class, smiling and greeting the teacher. The lesson passed in a blur. He hardly noticed when the lesson ended, since he was so engrossed in the piece of stubborn code that just wouldn't work. He noticed his classmates getting up and quickly e-mailed himself the work to continue it at home. He said his goodbyes, then walked down towards the parking lot. He didn't have hockey practise today. While he walked, he thought about what the solution to the problem might be. Why does Java have to be so fussy… he thought, sighing.

He saw his dad, Charles, a rather tall man with black hair and blue eyes, waiting to fetch him. His mom had to work late today, again. Being a vet was so…unpredictable. After getting in the car, John said "Hello dad!"

"Hello, John. How was your day?" came the response.

"Good and yours?"

"Good. Did anything interesting happen today?" On the way home, they exchanged pleasantries about their days. His younger brother was home, and his mom would be home in about an hour.

Once he had arrived home, he got changed into home-clothes, after being greeted by his brother. "Hello George," he said, grinning at his blonde haired, blue-eyed brother. His whole family had blue eyes, due to both parents having blue eyes in the first place. Though, they had different shades of blue. He remembered when he was 13 years old, in grade 7. Life had been so easy then...little did he know what was coming up in highschool.

He worked through his homework. Accounting first. It was a pain, but useful to know, and it would help him with getting into university. Once he had finished his written homework, he left his bed covered in books, planning to pack them away later. He then set up his laptop and opened his email and scrolled to the email he had sent himself. He opened the attachment and continued coding, trying to ignore the problem for now.

After about an hour of coding, compiling, getting an error, re-coding and then recompiling, he finally found the problem. It is amazing how sometimes the simplest things escape your attention he thought. He had been incredibly stupid and put a '1' instead of an 'i' inside the testing condition for a loop. He was finished with the work at last. He emailed it to the IT teacher then closed his laptop lid, causing it to go to sleep. About sleep, he needed to go to sleep in an hour as well.

That's when John heard the diesel engine (Some of you might think diesel is expensive, but in South Africa, it is currently cheaper than petrol, and it is much more efficient than petrol) of his mom's car arriving in the front of the house. He rushed down the stairs and out the front door to say hello to his mom, followed by his brother and there was one big group hug, then they headed back inside. His dad was almost finished with supper, and his mom helped finish off the cooking. It was John's turn to lay the table, and he did so.

After supper, he said goodnight, then brushed his teeth, then cleared his bed of books, then and climbed into bed, and lay down, as he slowly falling asleep. He smiled at the fading image of his bookshelf, next to his bed. Did I forget to mention he loved to read?

As he slowly started to wake, he became aware of a grassy texture beneath him, and the sounds of many birds nearby. He opened his eyes to discover he was no longer in his bedroom…