(Thank you very much those who have reviewed the previous chapter. They were very kind comments, and made me all galvanised!)
A Gem to Complete the Collection
What's in a name? When you have a child, or a pet, you are expected to give it a name, as it gets confusing when all dogs are called dog, for if that happened it would be dangerous to take yours for a walk, and you want it to come back to you. Yet when a creature under your care is given a name, it can have a profound effect on their personality, their destiny...
Of course, there's the matter of true names, which my parents go all hushed about. I used to wonder about that, and badger them for information, as I was for anything with a slight whiff of adventure, but their mouths and minds remained closed to me on the subject. I could only guess now that my father or mother was captured once and had their mind broken into for their true name. Could explain my father's eccentricities on his part.
My own name is supposed to have particular importance, as it was the name of a great elf queen, and people gasp in wonder when they learn the origin of it. Yet it doesn't feel real, almost like casting a spell to do the washing up. Yes, you don't have to do it now, but you feel no satisfaction from it. I have done nothing in my life that could match to Queen Tamunora's work alongside the original Eragon to make peace between Dragons and Elves.
Thinking about that makes me laugh, as I remember the days I spent fantasising about meeting him, yet, in a way, I already had.
My birthday morning dawned cold and crisp, like the leaves that lay on the muddy path, another day that strew itself against the road of time. I woke with the sun, rising at roughly the same speed, and to awake myself I washed my face down with some cold water and a cloth, shivering but feel a touch more rejuvenated. I pulled off my bedclothes and cautiously picked up the dress from the windowsill. It was white satin with long sleeves, a sweeping skirt just right for frolicking, and a green bodice to go over the top. With a smile I carefully put it on my bed, resigning myself to what I expected to happen later, and put on a green dress I had brought in from the washing line the previous night, and proceeded down the wooden stairs to the kitchen.
As is custom on a person's birthday, my friends had come to the house, despite the early hour, teasing each other as they yawned, and wished me happy birthday, sighing when my brother walked in, who gave me a book written in the ancient language (I can't read it very well, as I mainly speak it for spells, but I didn't mind at all, of course.) , and my parents sitting by the fireplace; my mother crying for what was really no reason, and my father, winking...
"Tamunora, your present is outside. Come and see it."
Sometimes, I wish I wasn't so adventurous, or I didn't trust my father so much. I bounded after him, skipping with him into the field behind our house, past the broken gate, past the abandoned rope swing my brother broke that previous summer, and past the orchards my mother was so proud of, into the Little Forest.
This forest, just to the east of the lake, always had a certain mythical quality about it. My friends and I, when we were young, used to fantasize that a wild dragon lived in there, and it would have us for dinner if we provoked him too much, but left us alone if we left him some cakes. We used to actually believe that he had eaten them, until we discovered that an innocent fox ate them instead, felling the myth like the men of the village did with the trees.
Yet that morning, the Little Forest felt big and scary again, with weak sunshine shoving its way through the bars of a cage, which is what the tree trunks resembled, and it was with increasing apprehension that I stumbled after my father, who was exuding that same excited aura that he was just a few days before. Before long, I found myself asking, my voice slightly higher than usual,
"Father, where are we actually going?" I gave a shaky laugh, "You're not planning to hand me over to Galbatorix, are you?"
He hesitated, then laughed, "No, no, I would never do that! I would only do that if someone managed to scrub away the dirt he has bathed himself in, and even then with extreme reluctance, as you're not ready to leave home yet, my dear."
Feeling slightly indignant, I countered, "But, father, I'm fifteen now. Fifteen! Surely within the eyes of the law I can leave home and have adventures of my own?"
He nodded distractedly, "Yes, you can, but not quite yet, not yet..." He suddenly stopped, squinting around, and I nearly collided into him.
"What are you looking for? Worms?" I attempted to tease, but apprehension was a vine now, twisting my voice into a high pitch.
He didn't answer, his jaw tightening. For the next ten minutes we stood there, my father posed for action, I extremely puzzled, but I stayed with him, waiting for an explanation.
Suddenly there was a sound that I had never heard before, but I could never mistake. It reminded me of the rush of a river, the flow of a flame, the whistle of the wind...it made me shiver, but I was keen to know where its source was. I looked around eagerly.
My efforts were dashed when the sound faded away, and I sighed, resigned, and I began to turn away back to where we came from, but my father took my arm to stop me. At that moment, the air seemed to implode, then explode into a plethora of colour, first, orange, red, pink, green, blue, purple, green again...I threw myself aside with a yell, but my father stood, as cool as the air not involved in the explosion, watching it all as if it were an interesting theatre show. As the green smoke faded away, a burnt circle in the ferns revealed a shiny, green marble coloured egg.
In gratitude to my education, I knew that this egg had to be a dragon's.
"Father-!" I cried, as soon as I could wrench my words out, "This egg...it isn't something that can handed out as a trinket! What, how, who and...Why?"
My father gently picked up the egg, and placed it in my hands, which was much lighter than it should have been.
"I understand your sentiment." He said gravely, his eyes shining slightly in contradiction, "But it was no mean feat in retrieving the last egg, so I suggest you appreciate it." My mind whirled back to his expression from the three days before, and it all became much clearer as the glass had been smashed; so this is what he was doing!
He must have seen my face, for he chuckled, and said, "At least your mind will be fast enough to understand it all, Tamunora. Peace; all will be fine."
I was aghast, "But, father, surely you...you do realise that this is a sure-fire way of me and this unhatched dragon of becoming under the King's control? That I will be hunted down like Eragon and his dragon until I am? That I am clearly not strong enough to do this? And, also," More realisation flooded in, making me wonder if I could mentally drown, "This is why you taught me about Dragon lore! You wanted me to be prepared for a future that only existed in my dreams?"
My father folded his arms, a broad smile still drawn like a bow across his face, in a mock defensive pose, "What, and you didn't want it to come true? Allow me, as your father, to be honest; you've been made for more outrageous things than marrying and settling down just yet, so I stole the egg so I could have the chance for you to be chosen, and have a life of adventure."
I bit my lip. A life of adventure! But... "But what if the dragon doesn't choose me?"
Her father looked pained, the bow loosening, "I hoped you wouldn't say that."
I smiled at him, feeling sympathy, "Father, I'm your daughter; I always think things through." He gave a choked laugh, but his shoulders were slumped. He held out the egg to me, which I stared back at, "And whether it will hatch or not, I think it might need to come into the warm. You've always said that I was a huge whiner when I was a baby, especially when I was cold." I took the egg and wrapped it with my scarf which I pulled off my neck. I felt the little dragon within it shift, but I thought little of it. My father led us back to the house without another word, the air sliding back into normal colours and patterns, the sunshine coming stronger through the bars.