The silence was menacing. A dark figure stalked the urgal without a sound. The figure drew it's sword and in a quick, fluid movement the metal cut cleanly through the Kull's skull as if cutting lard. A piece of hair fell from the attacker's helm and a leather-clad hand removed the helm to reveal...a girl.
A light flashed above Tantelara, for that was the warrioress' name, and as she looked up she saw a large red object blocking the sun. The object had wings, Tantelara noticed with a start.
"Dragons are extinct," she said to the dying Kull she had her foot placed on.
"Except for Shruikan," said the Kull sneering at Tantelara. Furious at the urgal's response, she kicked his head with her iron-toed boot, breaking his neck and causing her to bite her lip all the way through and bleed profusely. "He is dead!"
Murtagh re-sheathed Za'roc and stared down at the sword void of color in his lap. He had stolen it from Galbatorix even as the citadel collapsed around them and Arya ran into it's depths to find the final dragon egg and the eldunari. The only egg he knew of at the time that is. Eragon had invited him to help raise the dragon riders when the new eggs hatched for the humans or elves. Murtagh had turned him down. No rider would accept him as a teacher as long as they know he had been unable to resist Galbatorix's tortures.
His true name had changed. Murtagh Morzanson; the name had clouded his judgements, reactions, and relationships. It had changed when he captured Nasuada. She had been a strong warrioress and brave leader of the Varden. Now he not only know of her outer beauty to him, but also the inner beauty that anyone close enough to her would notice. But now he knew that he was of no importance to her and that no matter what he did to gain her affection he would always only be a shoulder to cry on for her. The tears on his cheeks blew away into his windswept hair as Thorn flew through a storm. Thorn flew out of the cloud and Murtagh looked down on the often urgal covered fields below. They were oddly void of life, urgal or other wise. Looking to his east he saw a plain of dead and dying urgals and Kull.
Thorn, land, Murtagh thought and Thorn started a steep descent toward the plain.
The red dragon came down and landed about half a mile away from Tantelara. Fear of the unknown, the only fear she had, caused her to rush to hide in the nearest hiding place, which happened to be thornapple bush. A large opal-colored gem glittered among the dark green of thornapple leaves. Tantelara reached for for and grabbed the shimmering stone with her leather-gloved hand and not touched it with her bare hand in fear of what the thing might be.
When Tantelara turned the opal over she saw a large crack that ran all the way down the opal. She ran her bare finger down the crack and split into more branches. Just then the leaves before her rustled and she clutched the stone close to her. A masculine head appeared in the brush before her and he stared at the opal clutched to her chest.
"Do you know what that is?" the man asked Tantelara. She looked suspiciously at him and with her gloved hand she reached for her dagger. Then the stone broke open and a membranous white flap with claw-like talons broke out of the stone. Tantelara stared at the small creature squirming to get free of the shell in her lap. She looked, wide-eyed from the little creature to the man standing before her and slowly shook her head no.
"A dragon," he said, ' and female by the looks of her. What will you name her?" Tantelara pursed her lips contemplating so many things, the least of them a name for a dragon.
"But-but dragons are extinct!" Tantelara insisted. The man shook his head and gestured both at the squirming white thing in her lap, still sitting in the egg shell and at the clearing where the red thing had landed. She reached over to the thing on her lap and touched it's colorless brow. Her hand burned and a silvery tatoo appeared on her palm. She stared up at hte man with a questioning gaze.
"Geddwey Ignasia," he said holding up his left hand and showing her his silver palm. She looked at the creature sitting in her lap as it climbed out of the egg and reached it's head over her shoulder and grabbed a thornapple in her maw. Tantelara smiled.
"Haldthin," Tantelara answered the man,"because in the Ancient Language it means thornapple. My name is Tantelara. What is your's?"
Murtagh looked at the new dragon and warrioress-rider curiously, "Murtagh. And my dragon's name is thorn, which is a curious coincidence."
"Heritage?" she asked him allowing Haldthin to nuzzle her neck and bury it's head in Tantelara's hair.
Murtagh looked down, ashamed," Son of Morzan and Selena. Mentored by Galbatorix." he thought he had escaped that life when he left Uru'Baen but now even the new rider knew that he was the son of the first and last of the Forsworn.
Tantelara regarded him with interest. "You do not look like the son of a murderer. And I am the daughter of Vrael and Sonora. Mentored by none," she said smiling at him. A presence not her own pressed against her mind and it did not feel the ways she imagined Murtagh's to feel. Afraid of the conscious pressing against her's she squeezed her eyes shut and mentally begged the conscious to stop.
"It is just Thorn," Murtagh said suppressing a laugh. Tantelara shot a look at Murtagh, very angry at his humor. She relented and allowed Thorn into her mind.
Hello daughter of Vrael, slayer of Kull, the dragon, Thorn, said to her in a surprisingly cracky voice of a teen. Tantelara repressed a smile.
Hello Thorn Bjarkskular. I was not aware your name was Thorn when I named her Haldthin. My apologies,Tantelara thought, wondering if he would hear her thoughts. She felt a sense of acceptance as Thorn withdrew from her mind leaving her feeling rather empty inside. Tantelara stood for the first time since seeing the egg and realized Murtagh was over a head taller than she. She stepped back so that she could she his face without looking utterly skyward and tripped over a piece of Halthin's shell. Murtagh reached out and grabbed her hand to prevent her from falling into the thorny bushes behind her. When she had her balance back she looked down and noticed he had not let go of her hand since she began to fall. Tantelara looked up at Murtagh smiling a questioning smile. Murtagh immediately let go of her hand as if it burned him and she caught a glimpse of his flushed face before he turned and went out into the clearing. When Tantelara came out of the bush, she saw Murtagh standing beside Thorn, his right foot on Thorn's right front flank, facing her, his blush gone.
"Want a ride?" he asked her coolly. Tantelara smiled and, still clutching Haldthin to her, ran over to Thorn and Murtagh.
"Of course!" she said and giggled as she climbed Thorn's leg onto his leather saddle.
"I think this belongs to you," Murtagh said handing her the white blade. She looked at him oddly. "It was your father's. I took it from Galbatorix when we defeated him."
Tantelara cocked her head and took the blade, "Lightbringer." She smiled as Thorn flew up into the mountains and Haldthin squirmed in her lap.
They stayed for weeks like this. Tantelara living in one cave, Murtagh in another, and in a third Haldthin and Thorn stayed while Thorn was not hunting or teaching Haldthin something he knew she would need later. In this week Haldthin learned to fly, hunt, and even speak to Tantelara. The bathing situation was complicated though. Thorn and Haldthin paid no mind to who saw them bathing but Tantelara quickly noticed that if she was to keep her privacy and Murtagh was to keep his then proper spells for invisibility ought to be cast. As Murtagh and Tantelara grew accustomed to each other it became exceedingly difficult to find a place to spend alone or with their respective dragons. They had quarrels more times than one and even staying to their own "rooms" at night they often found themselves in Murtagh's discussing things, practicing both swordsmanship and magic, and laughing over bottles of Fielnerve that were found all over Alagaesia. As Haldthin grew to a fair size, Tantelara noticed her and Thorn spending more time together than they once had. One morning curiosity got the best of Tantelara.
What have you and Thorn been doing while Murtagh and I are not watching? she asked Haldthin, smiling the whole while.
Dragons do not mate for life, Haldthin answered simply.
You did not! Tantelara replied, astonished at her dragon's response.
I have. And why have you not? Haldthin asked Tantelara. Tantelara was shocked and a bit confused.
Are you implying that Murtagh and I? No! Haldthin where in Alagaesia did you get that from! Murtagh and I have thought of nothing of the sort! Tantelara replied outraged at her dragon.
Tantelara felt the smirk on Haldthin's muzzle, Thorn says Murtagh speaks of you in the sort all the time and you can not deny that you have had the thought before, not to me anyway.
Tantelara frowned, but not in shame but in anger at her dragon. Furiously she stormed into Murtagh's chamber just as he was changing his tunic she had bloodied during their sparring. A long scar stretched along his back and remembered jarringly that when she had sparred with him the previous day she had thrust her sword at his back, never meaning to hurt him. He had howled in pain and she had rushed to his side as he fell to his knees. He had smiled painfully at her. "I guess you win, again," he had said.
She walked around him and he appeared shocked to see her.
"Look, Tantelara, I-" he said and she just smiled sympathetically at him, hushing him by putting a finger to her lips.
"Would you like me to heal it? I realize it causes you pain," Tantelara said, a gleaming tear in her eye. Murtagh shook his head, but smiled faintly at her.
"It reminds me, that like this wound, one day my life would heal over and not cause me pain anymore," he said looking down at the girl who he had spent he most time with in one place. But this time, the time felt right and he leaned over and she closed her eyes and stood on tiptoe to allow their lips to touch. They pulled away after a second or two and they decided that they would have the closest thing to a wedding with just the groom, bride, and two dragons.
Murtagh and Tantelara stood together holding both hands beside a waterfall deep within their cave home. Haldthin and Thorn stood off to the side, Haldthin's head nestled in Thorn's neck.
"I loved you since the second I saw you," Murtagh said to Tantelara. She smiled and rested her head on his shoulder.
She whispered in his ear, "Dragons do not mate for life, but we do."
At that Murtagh lifted her face to his and said, "I know." And he kissed her.