A/N: Hey look! A chapter! This one's not been working well for me. I'm sure once I get some momentum going on it, it'll come faster, but for now... Anyway. Here's the chapter.

Chapter 2: A Gathering of Thoughts

Harkle Harpell, coughing in the rubble that was once his small stand-alone workshop, picked himself up from the ground. "Well, that was unexpected…" he muttered to himself as he gazed bemusedly at the wreckage.

It's not that he was unused to explosions or buildings being reduced to rubble—similar things happened almost daily in Longsaddle—but this particular spell was not...did not behave that way. Fog of Fate was a gentle transport of the caster and his focus to where he most needed to go. It did not violently transport something else to the caster's location, and the circular wreckage pattern clearly told him that something too large for the space inside his little workshop had materialized and the universe had tried to make room for it. He squinted thorough the cloud of dust to see if he could find out just what that thing was. He nearly tripped backwards over the remains of a chair when the settling dust revealed the form of a huge Blue Dragon!

"Meep! Let's see, Blue…evil…lightning breath…" he mumbled to himself, scrambling for spell components that would allow him to survive an encounter with such a beast, which would likely be very unhappy when it woke up. He'd already cast Protection from Evil, and was in the middle of casting a Protection from Electricity, when a distinctly non-draconic groan nearly distracted him enough to not complete his spell.

After sending a quick Message to his kin in Longsaddle, he began to creep slowly towards the prone dragon. He nearly jumped out of his skin when one of the beast's wings slid down to reveal an armored humanoid figure slumped astride the creature on a saddle. The figure was slowly stirring and letting out the occasional groan.

Keeping a wary eye on the still-unconscious dragon, and readying a quick Dimension Door in case the creature stirred, Harkle approached the figure. "Um…excuse me…are you alright?"

The figure was painfully raising itself upright and shaking its helmeted head as if to clear it. "Wha—? What happ'ned?" slurred out a groggy male-sounding voice.

"I think we might've had a little spell misfire…" Harkle began, only to be waved to silence by one hand the figure while he clutched his head with the other.

"Wai'. M' ears 'r ringin'. Lemme get my helmet off…" The words became less slurred the more he spoke. When he suited his actions to his words, Harkle was a bit surprised to see that the removed headgear revealed a very young-looking Elven face. "There. That's better, now what…" he froze, taking in his surroundings for the first time. His voice took on an edge as he looked back at Harkle with a hard look in his eyes. "Who are you and where am I?"

Harkle found himself riveted by the young man's gaze, unable even to glance at the dragon he was still astride. "I'm Harkle Harpell, and you are in Longsaddle. I—"

"Do you work for Gallbatorix?" The Elf cut off the wizard's next sentence.

"Who?" Harkle asked, complete confusion showing in both his voice and his face.

The young elf's eyes widened in surprise at this response, only to narrow suspiciously afterwards. Harkle felt a light nudge at the back of his consciousness. The guy was a psionic! He did a rapid mental calculation and decided to let the probing mind at least see the genuine confusion and lack of recognition he had for the name. After a second or two, the rider's eyes widened again. "You…you really don't know." He closed his eyes for a moment, brow furrowed in concentration, and when he opened them again, they were filled with confusion tinged with fear and his next words were filled with dread:

"I'm not in Alagaesia anymore, am I?"

Eragon was woken from his slumber by the light brush of Arya's seeking mind. He had expected her to be the first to find him upon his return; he just wished he was better prepared for the encounter. Oh, he'd taken a good long while predicting, strategizing and planning, but he doubted an eternity would have been long enough. She was still such a mystery to him; so much of it boiled down to how far-fetched of a story she would believe…and how accurate he'd been in timing his return.

Over the next few minutes Eragon felt a half-dozen more telepathic sonar-sweeps pass over him; three were from Arya, two from Blödhgarm, and one, surprisingly, from Angela. He felt a small rush of satisfaction. They can't sense me! I can sense them easily, but they can't get at me. Hah, and Glaedr said he didn't think it'd work.

One of the subsequent sweeps had woken the twins at his sides. U'Osu, came the cautious female voice of Delsia in his head, are…are those friendly?

Yes, they're friendly, Eragon replied with an internal wince, but I doubt that they're happy right now.

Are you telling us that our Coronal is afraid of a scolding? Teased the irrepressible Jengon.

Shut it, smartass. Eragon thought back with mild annoyance, You know perfectly well how precarious the next few hours are going to be, or did you forget the reason we decided to hide ourselves and sleep last night rather than flying right into camp?

Riight. We "didn't know how long you'd been gone and wanted to play it safe" and "needed to be well-rested for the inevitably long debriefing session" Yup, I remember the excuses. The youth 'pathed back.

Eragon didn't dignify the imp's needling with a response; Arya had gotten close enough for him to sense her physical presence.

A/N: Still kinda short-ish, I know. But both sections felt right to end where they did. As a note, I do intend to continue in this sort of format. For each chapter, the first part'll be a chronicle of what happened while he was gone and the second will be a short bit of what's happening at the Varden camp now that he's back.

Review Responses:

Raven Salazar Potter-Black: Sorry it took me so long, hopefully your excitement is justified...

Araytigre: Hehe, I think you'll like where I plan to take it...my only issue is getting it there.

Dice: Thanks for reviewing.

Tzapporah signing off!

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