What Came On Cat Paws
Abby Ebon
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Disclaimer; I do not own Harry Potter or Eragon.
Notes; I finished "Brisinger" quite some time ago; in fact I haven't begun to read "Inheritance", though I have it too. I stopped writing in Eragon after finishing "Brisinger" because I realized I don't like the series very much anymore and gave up hoping it would get better with another book…forgive me if you can, those of you who waited so very long and have only this chapter to show for it. I'll try to get back into my (I think three?) Eragon stories, if only to see it all finished as best I can.
I won't say they'll measure up any better than compared to the books: but I'll do my best to see this to the end.
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Spirits That Linger
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"No. It will be, instead, a slow death; I will fade over a long time into nothingness, still, it will be a death. Even the likes of you, Nasuada, can not keep me from death if I choose to go willingly into its embrace. I do not bond with Murtagh; I merely suffer being his keeper." Harry sneered as he spoke the last word, his distaste for being outwitted obvious. His eyes glanced sharply over them for a last time –measuring and remembering them as they stood before him now - before he left them, seeming to fold in on himself as he became a wild haired overly-large cat.
No one followed him.
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
That did not, however, mean he was alone. Ghosts danced in his sight, Angela foremost among them. She reaches out to him, smiling, and he goes to her in a stormy silence. She can not touch him, so he curls tightly on what was once her bedding. The scent of her and the sight of her, however faded, sooths him into a half sleep.
"I am sorry." Harry tells her, as if she can hear him and understand him. If she can do either, she makes no reply, only smiles wistfully. He sees her fall, dying in his arms as a spear thrown from the Twins takes her from him, an age of companionship ended so swiftly. He knows – even if he can not remember, that he had lashed out with spell after spell until they were but dust in the wind. There is nothing of the Twins to bury, and they are not worthy to burn to ashes. Then he had held her in mourning, as her blood marred and marked him.
"Without you, I am alone, my time is short. You and I, we will not be without each other much longer." Harry does not know what comes after this life. If it as simple as he says, that Angela has gone is the truth, even as her spirit is lingering here with him; and if he dies, he does not know if he will fade in form as a ghost – or if he will simply cease to be utterly. Certainly there is no such thing as a ghost of a Grey One that he has ever heard spoken of.
She begins to weep.
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
"They forget what I know, what I am, if she seeks to tie me here as keeper, first it must be tested to be tight and true." Harry rises and walks in cat-shape, seeking his ward.
This isn't going to end well, Murtagh can't help but think as he watches the Grey One formerly called Solembum slink away into the shadows. Certainly it was not the start of a happily-ever-after bed time tale, not that Murtagh had ever heard the likes of those outside the ring of a camp fire of folk during one of his father's hunting trips.
Murtagh would be trapped here - among people who thought him no better then a traitor and betrayer (although none of these things had he done willingly): until Harry died, painfully. It was the sort of death Murtagh would not wish on anyone, and he would certainly didn't want to see it happening up close and personal.
"Great plan, that one." Murtagh knows he ought to hold his tongue, least it might be cut out. Yet these people already seem to think the worst of him: he is only a means to an ill ending for a Grey One who wants to die and to whom even that is denied to him.
"You have one better?" Nasuada inquires sharp tongued, brows raised in inquiry. Murtagh's lips quirk in a half smile, there is something about her that he can't help but like. He doesn't dare linger on it, least his liking turn to love. He can't afford that weakness, for it a sure thing that Galbatorix would take it and twist it. Murtagh is ever so careful with his feelings, they are a part of him and he can't afford to lose more, like keys to his mind, to whom and what he really is.
"He doesn't want to live? Let him die." Murtagh shrugs his shoulders, as if it shouldn't matter so much to them – it so clearly doesn't seem to matter to him.
"Give up? I'm sure that would solve everything for you, wouldn't it?" Roran hisses as if he's a scalded cat, hands tight about the hammer handle, as if he is some would be wrathful god, willfully smiting away his enemies. Murtagh had seen him on the battlefield and know that that is not so far from the truth.
Eragon steps smoothly between the dark wraith of a Rider and the bulkier farmer-turned hero warrior. Murtagh wonders knowing what he does - what it would have been like, if they three had grown up together? If they had begun this journey together – would it end like this in the here and now? It ached, that loss, that maybe and could have been. He flinches from the pair of them.
"Roran, at least let him be…" Eragon begins, but doesn't get to finish having his say, as Roran waves it away with his words.
"Be what, Eragon, how he has turned your head! Get it on straight, he isn't here to make friends, did he not betray you – betray all the Varden?" Murtagh's eyes flash red as his dragon's hide.
"I did not." His voice is soft, deadly and daring.
"Wait, what did you say?" Eragon looks to him, to Murtagh who he didn't hesitate to show his back to, his eyes are wide with hope.
"You heard me." Murtagh's glance roves over them all, the enthroned Nasuada and her twelve Nighthawks. The Du Vrangr Gata sorceress Trianna, with that watchful golden serpent twined about her neck, the strange Elva who he felt sick to see – something about her was wrong, magically. Orik who might soon lead the dwarf people; whose predecessor was dead by Murtagh's deeds and Ronan who had made it perfectly clear that he was no friend.
"Explain it." Nasuada demanded, and Murtagh meets her eyes steadily.
"I, Murtagh Morzansson was the way I was, my voice lost in the midst of many; because I refused to obey the will ofGalbatorix as my father had before me.I did notbetray the Varden willingly – I was not given the choice of free will. My enslavement to his will was proof enough of it." Murtagh glances away, for there is truth in what he says, but what he feels – even if no proof of it – is that he is dirty, that he will soil all of them by his mere presence. Even if he has done nothing, he still feels guilt for what was gained by Galbatorix – willing or unwillingly, it came from him. He is responsible for more loss to the Varden then anyone could be save Galbatorix himself.
"So believe me when I say, I know what he feels when he says he would rather die. At least he plans for some good to come of his death." There is nothing, Murtagh does not say, though he thinks it, that he could do or say that could make up for what Galbatorix gained from him. He would not risk Thorn in a chance at revenge. Thorn knows his mind as no one else, and hears those thoughts, and growls from outside the pavilion.
Murtagh turns, as if to go to Thorn; and is stopped by Eragon's hand upon his arm.
"I…I should have gone looking for you, I should not have believed you had turned your back on us so easily. If there is fault between us, Murtagh, it goes both ways. It makes neither of us right, but it can be healed. We can make it better. Will you fight beside me?" Eragon's eyes are too earnest and too kind. Murtagh does not mean to be cruel, but for most of his life he has known only cold comfort and cruelty.
"For what need…? The werecat has seen me freed, stands between me and my enemies among your friends, Eragon. There is nothing but blood between us." It makes all the difference, that blood, and what Murtagh knows – Eragon must not. What the Varden abandoned Murtagh for; they would do likewise worse to Eragon. Murtagh would prevent it if he could; would be buried with the secret, taking it to his grave.
Thorn, of course, wants otherwise. He wants a bond for Murtagh, someone human to tie him to life. He is young and does not want to die as swiftly as Murtagh makes plans and plotted for.
"Blood which runs swift and sure, as deep as bone. Murtagh is no son of Morzan alone, the Black Hand is his dam, as she is yours, Eragon, son of Selena." Thorn whispers it into the minds of the Riders, and they can not help but hear him. Murtagh jerks from Eragon's grip before it can become a blow, and he flees from them as if distance would do any good. He can at least not see how Eragon ends up hating him.
Murtagh's feet take him to a place he feels peace, Thorn having followed, watching lazily as he frets and paces to and fro.
"Why, why would you do that?" Murtagh demands, turning quickly to Thorn, knowing that he named his dragon well; for always has it been a thorn in his side, prickling at his plans…Thorn had grown wild and willful as a weed, and Murtagh both loves and hates his dragon.
"Do you want him in danger, as we are?" Thorn is not blind; he knows the hate which walls around Murtagh. If it was given substance like smoke, it would suffocate them both.
"You have need of kin ties. They are there, within your reach, why not grasp?" It may be that Thorn does not – can not – understand why Murtagh would have had buried the secret in his own grave then let it slip away like this.
"It will do us no good. It is harder to hate a stranger – but now? – now that he knows we are brothers, he will judge me beside Roran and see both sides by that blood, good and bad. It is easy to hate family; do you not recall the loathing I feel for my own sire?" His mother, Murtagh dares not dwell on, she had simply not been there – and maybe it was better that she was as a stranger to him. He could hope that she did not hate him for his father, that she was not wholly bad; after all, her brother Garrow had raised Eragon and Roran into respectable folk.
If she had dared take Murtagh, to have him raised with them – Murtagh could not even imagine the sort of man that he would be.
"We must have their help if we are to survive. Galbatorix will surely feel what that werecat has done. He will come. The werecat is not long for this world if he does not bond, and where will we be if he dies before Galbatorix?" Thorn had huddled down into the sand, clinging to the warmth of it as the sun set.
From the shadows and sand came the werecat as black as sin.
"Do not fear so. That is the point of freeing you from him, after all, his coming here. You are the bait, and I the trap. You need not fear for long either Galbatorix or I." Harry stopped in front of Thorn's snout, for the dragon had lain down in the sand, getting the last of the warmth of the sun. It was a daring thing to see, Murtagh thought, for there was nothing to stop Thorn from snatching the werecat up as a snack.
Thorn only turned his head aside, so one large eye closed and the werecat knew he was ignored. Harry laughed, bright and brilliant as the stars in the sky. It was almost as if the stars shined the brighter for his laugh.
"You can hear them." It was not a question Murtagh asked, but a statement of fact.
"Yes. I hear many things that others would not." No one knew the extent of the senses of a werecat, let alone one that was a Grey One. It was enough to give him pause at the warning touch of a chill, but it was always better to know then to not.
"Are all werecats of the race of the Grey Ones?" A cat's green eyes flashed in superior amusement.
"No. Just as not all of the races of human and elf are Riders. Yet there are Grey Ones who are not werecats at all." Harry sat and watched him, as if knowing all the answers to the questions that Murtagh had. He only had to ask.
"Why did you defend me? Orik had the right of it. I am Kingkiller." Such was the fate of those called, to be either King thereafter, or killed swiftly in turn. Murtagh had not expected to live so long after meeting kin to King Hrothgar. It was a fate that Harry has saved him from, had made a bond debt between them. As long as Murtagh lived, Harry would protect him – until he couldn't, until died as all Grey Ones unbound did.
"You reminded me of your mother." It was hard to read a werecat's expression in the form of a cat, Murtagh discovered then. He could look his fill, and Harry only stared placidly back.
"You knew her?" Murtagh's voice was soft, and if Harry had cared to, he could have ignored it as a whisper carried away by the wind. Yet he had proven today that his hearing of their minds was not to be doubted. Murtagh may have spoken softly, but inside his mind, it was a howl of loneliness that Harry could not be as heedless of.
"Not well, not for very long. Yet I like to think that at the end, she remembered us fondly. The fate of the Black Hand was bleak and horrible, but it won Selena a second name, and two Argetlam were born to her – no one alive today could say the same." Angela had only ever told the fortunes of those with whom Solembum had spoken. In all the time they had spent together, there had only been three – and Angela had not been a child, not by the standards of the Elves, but to him…she had been.
"What do you mean by that?" Murtagh asked with a frown.
"Selena did not win her freedom from the seductive sway of Mozan's ill ways until you were born. She did not know the love a mother could give a child, and power of change it worked in her; you, Murtagh are the reason your mother's True Name changed, that she learnt to love Brom, and so was born your younger brother." Murtagh's hands opened and closed, and he took a breath and held it in.
"Eragon is not of Morzan's blood?" Harry's eyes met his, and slowly, his cat-shaped head dipped in a nod. Murtagh breathed, and with his sigh came a laughter that was like a release from a binding about his aching chest.
"Good, that's good." Murtagh may not care much what the Varden thought of him – but Eragon, he would care, he would be hurt. Thorn had been careful of this knowledge of their brotherhood, keeping it between his mind and the Riders. It was not to be doubted that Saphira would know soon if she did not already.
Yet it had to be made clear to Eragon that his father was Brom.
Murtagh stands and leaves the dragon and the werecat behind, and slowly the werecat smiles where only the red dragon can see.
"What do you plot?" He wonders, child-like and not. A dragon can see spirits, and he sees the woman weeping, as she looks between the werecat and the rider, as if she would reach out to touch them if only she yet lived. She is Angela, of this Thorn has no doubt – though he never saw her while she lived and breathed.
"He will undo what Nasuada wrought, no more, no less." The werecat answers simply, and flows into the shadows, black fur blending, as if he had never known daylight and was something ever of the night. To Thorn it did not seem like such a bad thing, for he did not like Murtagh being tied between the two of them.
Note; you may wonder where I got the title from – well, this poem, and I finally found it! So now I share, and tell you I used to sing this…a lot;
Fog by Carl Sandburg
"The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on."
