Right, this is my first one shot so please no flames. Advice, ideas and tips really really welcome. OK let's get on with it.
Disclaimer: Eragon isn't mine! But Dalanore is.
Two Minds, One Body
(Chapter 1)
Who was he? Was he a she? Was he even human? Nobody knew apart from me, and nobody apart from an old storyteller who is now dead.
Buried in a diamond grave.
Who was this man who wore a black cloth cloak, and boar hide boots?
Well I knew.
And I shall tell you of his story.
Or part of it anyway.
He was blessed, or cursed if one thought about it, with a great power. He was gifted in the arcane, in the spiritualistic and in the ability to speak to others with his mind.
But the blessing, or curse, was the gift of another mind. A mind that shared his body, his flesh and bone, but thought and felt for itself.
Though his body was human, it was shared by the minds of a man, and a dragon.
This dragon was old, older than all sentient beings of Alagaësia itself.
Its shining emerald body died a thousand, thousand years ago.
Its spirit wasn't to die though, for it was the first to be created. It was knowledge and intellect incarnated. It couldn't die, not wouldn't, couldn't. It was to pass itself from sentient being to sentient being.
And now it shared the body of Dalanore. For Dalanore was a normal man like you or me before the dragon came. He was of a line of humans that had borne the dragon for seven hundred years.
He was just the next in the line of bearers.
Dalanore was twenty five years old. Living alone, alone as he could be for he had the dragon spirit for company, in Dras-Leona. His house was modestly decorated and middle sized. It was wooden, two stories high and leaned over the street. There were five rooms, the study, the bedroom, the entrance hall, the kitchen and the workshop/storeroom. The garden was a small, twenty paces by twenty paces, square of dirt, piles of hay and weeds, trampled by Orfûna ('honest hoof' in the ancient language), Dalanore's mare. Orfûna was a chestnut coloured steed that bore Dalanore from place to place.
He stood in the garden, humming a soft tune as he expertly brushed Orfûna, making her colour gleam. Caring for Orfûna was one of Dalanore's favourite things, it was simple enough for him to concentrate on other matters and it made the mare clean, full and happy. It also made him happy too.
But enough about the horse.
Dalanore was in Dras-Leona for one reason, to find a successor. A human capable of magic but not under the hold of Galbatorix, preferably a person who didn't know of their abilities. Dras-Leona was ideal because of the mass of people who passed through every year. Every time Dalanore sensed another magic user he would scurry to the scene and observe the mage. So far all of them were under the kings sway, apart from one, but he was with the storyteller, and they were being pursued by most of Dras-Leona's guards.
So he bided his time, honed his skills, Orfûna got fat and lazy from not going any where, etc.
Then came the day.
He was asleep when he first sensed her. His conscious absently left his body in the care of the dragon spirit, and floated off to wander the streets at night, safe from everything and invisible to the other mortals. His spirit wandering around and aimlessly, in its sleeping state, floated into the slave quarters. The tightly packed bodies of those with no future lay there murmuring in their fitful sleep. His spirit stopped, hovering over the body of a young woman, barely sixteen years old. It stayed there, plastering her face into Dalanore's subconscious.
He woke with a start. The face lingered in his mind, and then faded from memory.
It was around pre-dawn.
Welcome back sleepy head, I believe its time you got out of bed.
I am, I am, thought Dalanore, and then, where did I go?
Away away, out of town. And please don't give me that questioning frown.
Why must you speak in rhymes spirit?
Because I like to, because I want to.
He sighed, "Never mind. We're going to the trade district. I have that feeling again."
Yes of course, and travel by horse.
"I will…"