Disclaimer: Christopher Paolini owns the Inheritance Cycle. I do not.
If one was trying to determine the source of a problem, there were no innocents. Everybody involved with the problem was at fault in some form. Everybody that helped to create the dilemma was responsible in some way. The rise of Galbatorix to the throne was an example of this. Though it was, of course, unquestionable that Galbatorix himself would shoulder the majority of the blame, the choices of other helped mold him into the madman that he became.
It was difficult to find the first who made a mistake. It might have been the teachers of Galbatorix and his friends; they, who knew their students best, should have known that the apprentices were reckless. Some measure of care should have been taken in order to deflate egos and cockiness before sending new Riders off into a world where they would be expected to be perfect negotiators, peerless warriors, and skilled healers.
Clearly, as the friends counterattacked the Urgals without attempting a peaceful resolution, were unable to protect themselves adequately, and ended up dying, they were neither of the first two. Their skills as healers could not be remarked upon, for, though Galbatorix was unable to save his dragon in the end, an enchanted arrow to the heart didn't seem like something that could be healed anyways.
It might have been the fault of Jarnunvösk herself for being killed. Certainly a fully trained dragon should have had the ability to kill her enemies without being killed herself. Several dragons were present, and they should have been able to make more of a difference.
Perhaps it was partially the fault of the Rider Elders as well. After all, they had no right whatsoever to interfere with a dragon's choice of Rider. They could have allowed Galbatorix to be tested by other eggs. There wouldn't have been any worry necessary that Galbatorix would somehow be able to corrupt or interfere with a dragon's choice. If he was worthy enough to be the Rider of Jarnunvösk, he might have been worthy enough to be the Rider of some other dragon; if the Elders feared that he was mad, then it was highly improbable that an infant dragon would choose him anyways, and, then, there would be no harm done to anybody. There was no law stating that a Rider only could have one dragon. Bonded dragons rarely died in those times, and, in most of those rare cases, the threat that killed the dragon would kill the Rider.
It was the fault of Morzan and the remaining Forsworn for listening to Galbatorix.
The Riders could have banded together and given a better fight against fifteen rogues before they gained too much influence. Honestly, fifteen! There were hundreds of Riders, many that would have been much older and more experienced than Galbatorix in particular and probably better than most of the other Forsworn as well, but they all fell so easily to a boy who had an unusual talent for breaking into minds and his probably less-than-intelligent band of thugs. It was a disgrace!
It was the fault of the elves and the dwarves for not helping the Riders more and the fault of the humans for not taking more of a stand before Galbatorix struck towards their throne. It should have been fifteen Riders against the entire assembled forces of Riders, elves, dwarves, and men. Perhaps even the Urgals should have joined in; they should have known of Galbatorix's particular enmity towards them.
Where were the werecats in all this? Were they all sitting and drinking cream, resolving not to interfere until there was only one 'good' Rider and dragon left? Lunacy! And the spirits? They could turn plants into precious stone with seemingly little effort, but they couldn't be bothered to interfere in any helpful fashion when a madman was creating a Shade breeding ground of a country. The hundreds upon hundreds of wild dragons just decide, let's make the traitors, and only the dragons, by the way, not remember their own names; that would be incredibly useful. Against the full forces of the entire country, Galbatorix and his ilk wouldn't have had a prayer of success. But he won easily. Easily!
And Vrael! Galbatorix was a madman that needed to be put down. It didn't matter how guilty or merciful the almighty Leader of the Dragon Riders was feeling; insanity cannot comprehend a gracious defeat. Vrael almost deserved his fate.
Umaroth should have been able to decimate Shruikan in a duel no matter how large he was, Shruikan was barely more than a hatchling. He had no idea how to fly or do really anything in a fight. In the air, size was more of a hazard than anything else. Umaroth's greater agility and experience should have enabled him to do much more.
When Galbatorix began forcibly recruiting Eldunari, they should have banded together and crushed that upstart usurper's mind to dust. Many dragons of various sizes and powers, all united with a powerful sense of fury towards the man who had killed many of their Riders, should not simply have been mentally swatted away like irritating gnats.
Basically, a problem was the responsibility of anybody who knew that it was a problem. There were no innocent bystanders, and there was nobody that was not at fault if they failed to deal with the problem before it became a catastrophe.
Galbatorix was a catastrophe. What would happen to a certain Rider-Dragon pair because of the consequences of one female dragon's death would be a tragedy beyond measure.
Problems left idle piled up and fell on people all at once. They stacked up until they could easily bury Alagaesia itself, and then they smugly did so. They had to be dealt with as soon as they appeared, no later, but many of them weren't. Thus, tragedies and catastrophes were born. Sometimes, catastrophic tragedies appeared.
Forty years before Jarnunvösk's death and Galbatorix's madness...
The particular problem that led to the demise of Halhul's family was part isolation, part happenstance, and part foolishness. Caparina and her mate lived quite far from the rest of dragonkind; they preferred the quiet in the undiscovered wilds of the world to the cacophony of the traditional Hatching Grounds. Only a week ago, they had given one of their eggs to the Riders. This egg was a dark grey, near black, shade that mirrored the scales of its father.
The dragon in this egg was important, very much so, but, through the unknowing actions of its sire, it would become part of the ensuing catastrophic tragedy along with the Rider it would choose.
They had three other eggs in this clutch, one the mother's orange, one a dazzling blue, and the other an ember dapple of orange and grey. The sapphire blue egg was also very important. In the next age, the child of the dragon within the blue egg would be essential. Halhul had inherited his dark scales from his great-great-grandsire Raugmar the Black.
The other eggs would contribute to the sequence of events that would eventually become the tragedy. They would never meet their surrendered sibling; they would scarcely be able to meet each other. Their participation in the problem would be parallel to that of Jarnunvösk.
The three remaining eggs hatched after only a week, but the dragonling within the dark one would not hatch for quite some time.
During the next three weeks, Halhul hunted while Caparina watched over the hatchlings. They were not yet able to fly, so Caparina guarded over the nest while her mate found food. Halhul was a skilled hunter, but he enjoyed flight too much, even for a dragon, so he went further than was necessary in order to locate food. He would be away for only a day.
Problems generally began because of something like this; irony loved tragedy, so a dragon's love of the sky became deadly for his family. So, a preference for quiet isolation turned into an inescapable trap. There was no real bait in this trap. The silence and the charming surroundings were the bait. The dragons had sprung the trap simply by being in the area, and Urgals converged.
It was the greatest honor to be able to face a dragon for one's test. Massive cave bears were to be faced without weapons, but, if there were dragons in the area, it was permissible to bring enchanted weapons. Dragonslaying was a rather barbaric but popular tradition; Urgals lived for killing. The best killers were the ones who were most likely to survive. Sentient or animal, they could and would attack.
The saddest part was that only most of Alagaesia's peoples saw dragons as the intelligent beasts they were. Riders, elves, werecats, spirits, and dwarves were well aware of the sentience of dragons. The general population of humans didn't know, and the humans had Riders among them; therefore, they had more knowledge of dragons than Urgals did.
So, it was unlikely that the Urgals of the time knew that they were attacking dragons that were just as smart as they were. The Herndall and the Urgal war chiefs would have known, but these were relatively young. If an Urgal went into a cave bear's den after killing the bear and found cubs, they would probably kill the cubs as well in order to prove that the bear was a ferocious mother protecting her children; this way, they would be more renowned for killing the bear. In the minds of the Urgals, this was much the same thing, except dragons were much more dangerous than bears, and they would get a lot more credit for killing them.
When Halhul returned, he could only sense the mind of the shivering blue dragonet from where she had hidden underneath the waters of a nearby lake, where she had been playing before the Urgals appeared. A smoldering ruin of a forest was all that remained of the trees that he had called home. There were no traces of the Urgals, and no draconic bodies to be cremated in accordance with tradition.
The young blue dragoness flapped towards him from the lake, not even unsteady on untested wings. First flight was the traditional naming day of dragonets. It should have been a day for pride and joy, but it was not. Only the youngest of his children yet lived, and his mate…his mate was gone. He had hoped that Caparina would help him to name their children; now, he was alone with only one child to name. The ceremonial recitation thrummed through his mind, and he projected it to the world.
I call upon the heat-of-ash of the First Fires, upon the molten-ground-fire, upon the Earth's heart-of-hearts. Hear me, and hear my child Vervada, Stormcleaver, called so for her sharp, gale-cut wings and first-flight-glide. May her scales reflect the clear skies she will reach above the storm. Halhul then scooped his daughter up in gentle claws and leaped into the air with a shove of his back legs. Vervada might have been a natural flier, but she was still only a hatchling.
Together yet alone, father and daughter fled what once had been their home. It was no longer safe.
However, while Vervada wallowed in confused squeaks as they flew, Halhul's acute grief descended into agonized fury.
Two-legged murderers. The nearest settlement he knew of was many miles away, but he remembered where it was. There were two different large ones nearby, in fact, and the flight of a dragon over country often remained unremarked upon. Riders had to fly, after all. The two-leg creatures would never suspect a thing.
The only choice that remained was which group to head for. Halhul felt for the wind and predicted possible flight paths. One path would have a tailwind, but that settlement was further away. As Halhul decided to advance upon the city known as Ilirea, the wind changed. Neither of the paths would have an advantage of speed, so he changed direction in midair and dove, hearing Vervada's childish squeaks of delight. He extended his wings and banked sharply seconds before he would have encountered the ground.
Now he was only a mile outside the settlement, and he descends to gently place Vervada on the ground, impressing thoughts of stay before taking flight yet again.
He did not know of the Rider on a healing mission in order to save the child of another being, a man known as Rin.
He did not know that, if he were acting out another problem, he would be playing the part of Galbatorix, obsessed with revenge. He did not know that he would be acting the part of the Urgals and becoming directly responsible for the death of another being's family. He did not know that he was a villain in this story, not a victim.
If he had known what suffering he would bring to his remaining kin, he would not have glided for the city called Brodding like an eagle hunting over grasslands.
If only he could have known the purpose of the presence of the Rider that would be forced to kill him, he might have made a different choice than he did. However, he did not know, and he did not make a different choice.
With the first rippling pennant of dark flames loosed towards the buildings, the pebble in the river became a boulder.
Author's Note: So, the second chapter is at least two times longer than the first. It's the real first chapter of the story; Liquid Eternity is more like a prologue.
In Liquid Eternity, I feel like I was quite heavy-handed in the foreshadowing of what the 'catastrophic tragedy' to come actually is, and Descent of Grief only elaborates upon the foreshadowing. I most likely feel like that because I am the author and already know what the tragedy is going to be. If you figure it out, kudos to you.
Origin of Names: Vervada is an important canon character, I looked up names that meant butterfly (as in the butterfly effect) and Caparina was one of the girl names, and Rin just seems like the right name to give the yet-to-be-introduced character that was briefly mentioned in the fifth-to-last paragraph of the chapter. The city of Brodding is based off the Broddering Kingdom.
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