Chapter One – Almost Lover
Disclaimer – I don't own either Merlin or the Inheritance Cycle.
It was raining. Oh, the irony, thought Merlin, as he made his way to the princes chambers. Raining on the outside, raining on the inside.
Arthur had been an emotional blank page for the last…was it a month? It certainly felt like it. Actually, it felt more like a year, or a year and a half. It could have been millennia, for all Merlin could tell. The stuff with Lancelot and Gwen had taken their toll on Arthur these past few weeks. He was emotionally dead, throwing himself into the work of the kingdom. In Merlin's opinion, a king with an adulterous wife was bad, but a king who was emotionally dead was worse.
The cell where Gwen had been was still exactly the same. It was forbidden for the soldiers or the servants to go in, or clear it up. It was like a shrine to the almost queen, and her what could have been court. An ironic piece of art about how the world had only got worse since the king's fiancé had been locked up for being with another man.
No time to ponder, though, thought Merlin. He headed straight into the king's room – he was already up, and looking at the piles of paper at his desk.
"Morning, Your Highness," said Merlin. "Busy day today?" Merlin no longer organised the king's schedule – it was one more thing for the king to do instead of think about Gwen.
"Merlin…should I clear out the cell?"
"The cell, your highness?" Of course, Merlin knew what cell he was talking about, but he almost didn't want to believe it. The king clearing out the cell was like him admitting that he was moping and that it was time to move on. It was a good sign, but Merlin took it with caution – it could stir up old feelings and sometimes the past should just stay dead.
Merlin wasn't sure what he thought of this – it was like they were starting to take Gwen away.
"Yes. I think that we should – can't keep it empty forever. See to it that it's done. Oh, and can you call in Agrivane?"
Merlin left, not sure of his feelings on the cell being cleared up Nevertheless, he did as he was told. Who knows, he thought. Some good may come of it.
Eragon was having one of those days. One of the days when Saphira was hunting, so he couldn't talk to her, Ayra had just left, and Nasuada was breathing down his neck about the fact that there were now three elf riders, three urgal riders, three dwarf riders, but only one human rider. And they were supposed to have three as well.
Today was just one of those days.
Mera, an elf rider who was half way through her training, ran up to him. "Eragon-elda! Sir! There's a girl at the door, but she's unconscious. I don't know what to do, but more importantly than that, sir, guess what, sir!"
"What, Mera?" asked Eragon.
"She hasn't touched an egg yet, sir. Ever, sir."
Vikki felt miserable. She was sitting all by herself, and she could tell all the other girls were judging her – silently, but they were still doing it. She knew they thought of her as below them, just a scholarship girl. Poor, not here because of the money. She was never going to have the latest mobile, the best iPod, the newest laptop, the coolest clothes. It was made even worse by the fact that there was no uniform – people could tell just by looking at her that most of what she wore wasn't the designer clothes that they were used to.
It was Vikki's second week at St Saviours Independent School for Girls, London. It was a fee paying school, but she had got a scholarship. She'd always been smart – it was just who she was. It helped that she had also got a music scholarship which, together with a small bursary, had been able to pay all her school fees. She'd grown up in care – her parents had abandoned her when she was only a baby. She had made it her ultimate goal to get into St Saviours. But now she was here, she regretted it. She had thrown herself into a world where your last name meant more than your last mark in a test, and she was slowly coming to the realisation that this was it. She could do nothing except accept the inevitable – she was stuck in a school where she didn't fit in, with a scholarship she felt like she didn't deserve, and she had lost what she had been working for. It just wasn't what she thought it was.
She left the lunch hall, putting her tray away and walking up to her classroom. It was still half an hour till lessons – she'd probably read to pass the time. Or do homework.
She took a left turn – not the way to her classroom – unconsciously, and then another. She was just walking, and somehow, in this massive school, she'd managed to get lost for what felt like the millionth time. Great.
It was all castle like, with great walls and other…castlely type things. But this part of the school looked different – still castle-like, but more like she'd imagine the castle looked like when it was knew. The stone walls looked as if they had seen no aging, nor suffered the test of time.
She suddenly felt dizzy, and so when she came to a door that looked like it led to outside, she went out. She was in a courtyard, with one wall open to the world. But it was raining – it had been sunny when she last looked out the window, and that had only been a couple of minutes ago. And the storm didn't look brand new – the courtyard was covered in puddles and there was no hint of the individual raindrop shapes on the ground – the whole floor of the courtyard was covered in a fine layer of water.
This was all that Vikki could think of before the dizziness took hold and she collapsed in the middle of the courtyard.
Pain. Hurt. Gwen winced, and tried to hold back the tears as she woke up, facing yet another day. She breathed deeply, and tried to get a grip on the reality she was facing.
It was a room in a tavern, small, not very special. She would have to leave soon; she had no more money to stay here. She had been travelling for…how long was it? She had now left the five kingdoms, and had sailed to a mystery place. The locals had told her to go and appeal to the queen – Nasuada. She would help her, they said. She had taken the country from the grips of a tyrant, with the help of Eragon Shadeslayer. And his dragon, Saphira. Dragon. That scared Gwen, a dragon and a dragon rider. She shuddered as she remembered when the dragon had escaped from Camelot, and Arthur had almost been killed.
Arthur. She quickly tried to focus her thoughts on something else, determined not to think of Arthur, what could have been, what never will be. Before he mind betrayed her, she started to face the issue at hand – she needed to get to see this queen. She knew that she had considerably less than a day's walk ahead of her, as she was in the outskirts of the city – Urû'baen. She could get to the Queen, and she'd ask her for help.
That was how Gwen had to take life now – one step at a time.
It seemed odd, but there was a way to tell if someone had touched an egg. It was a spell that most people who could use magic knew – but it required the caster to understand how this would show if the person had touched an egg or not. Otherwise, the person casting the spell would just expend a large amount of energy doing nothing. But Mera understood it well, so she could tell that the strange girl in the courtyard had never touched an egg before.
The courtyard was dark because of the rain, and Mera couldn't see her clearly. "Naina hvitr un böllr" she said, and the courtyard was filled with the light she created. This, it seemed, as enough to wake the girl. The girl saw the light that Mera was creating, and screamed.
"Eka ai fricai un Shur'tugal."
"What?" asked the girl, now recovered from the shock of the light.
The girl spoke in the language of humans, which did not surprise the girl. Very few humans knew the language of the elves – in fact, so few knew it that the official language of the riders was the human language, even though only one rider – Eragon – spoke it as his mother tongue. But what surprised Mera was the fact that the girl didn't respond at all when she had told her that she was a friend. This was the language of everything – surly, even if she didn't speak it, she would understand that she had told her she was a friend.
But the girl, if anything, looked even more afraid than before to be spoken to in a strange, alien tongue. Mera quickly started speaking the human language.
"Don't be afraid. It's okay, everything's fine. You need to go and see Eragon-elda and touch the eggs."
This seemed to calm the girl down. She started taking in deep breaths.
"I'm Mera. What's your name?" Mera said in a tone she hoped was gentle – you could never tell in human-speak, it was so constricting.
"Vikki. I'm Vikki."
Myra reached out into Vikki's mind, and found nothing that she could understand. But still, possessed with the talent of elves, she reached a little deeper and managed to sense the girl's truthfulness.
"We need to go and see Eragon-elda. He'll help you."
"Oh…okay." Mera led the girl into the main rooms of the castle, hoping that Eragon would be able to sort this out.
"Just touch it. I'll explain later." said Eragon for the nth time in what felt like an hour, but was most probably more like a couple of minutes.
"But why?" asked Vikki. She had been taken to meet Eragon and he, in his impatience, had tried to make her touch the egg before he explained what was happening. Big mistake. She was stubborn, but so was he. Now he had decided he wanted her to touch the egg, he would make her touch the egg. It was just one of those things.
"Fine! I'll touch your damn egg," said Vikki. "But don't blame me when nothing happens."
She stomped up to it in a huff, and the room collectively held its breath. Everyone knew what was going on – she was like the last hope for the human riders. That, or the next generation. But somehow this girl had an air of mystery about her, and so people thought that she had a good chance.
Another one! These two-legs just don't give up, do they? She didn't want to be forced to choose one of the two legs as her rider – it was a big decision, and...Ooh!
This two-legs was interesting. She didn't know what was happening; she didn't want the egg to hatch. She had a good heart and a pure soul, and she had the same feisty spirit
as the dragon. The dragon thought for a minute, then decided. This two-legs...Wait! Where's she gone? Must hatch now!
Vikki stomped away from the egg. "See!" she almost yelled. "Nothing happened! Now will you please tell me where the hell I…"
She was cut off by the sound of egg-shell cracking.
"The egg!" yelled Eragon. "It's hatching!"
A.N. – So, the way that chapters are going to work is that I'm going to name them after a song. It'll be the one that inspired this chapter, or that I listened to while I wrote this song.
This chapter's song is "Almost Lover", by A Fine Frenzy. The song mainly inspired the Merlin bits of the chapter, but it gave me the tone for the first bit with Vikki as well.
Please review and tell me what you think!
