I will find my way
I can go the distance
I'll be there someday
If I can be strong ...
- I Can Go The Distance - Hercules
~Chapter Seven~
~Thaw~
She hadn't learned to horse-ride in the Varden. Not that many horses to spare, really. None for the pointless tuition of a little girl. She had come out of the Varden with eyes wide open to a world completely foreign to her. A world where there were birds. Birds! Little winged things cutting through the sky, whistling along the breeze. Blues and browns and flashes of red. With songs! Melodies pouring from their tiny chests. The sweetest sound she had ever heard.
She was picking it up from the boy beside her. He was comfortable in the saddle, wearing a somewhat dozy expression; his eyes slightly unfocused. She wondered if that happened when he spoke to his dragon. Saphira.
She rocked with the horse, trying to relax into a rhythm. But perhaps she was a little too nervous yet for that. She was all wrapped up in the cloak she had brought from that settlement , but her fingers were still frozen. Little pin pricks of cold ignited every few seconds, and it took a couple of moments to realise that there was a pattering of rain. She tilted her head back, and didn't try to quell her grin.
oOo
They held watches. It wasn't something Fabiola was excellent at; truth be told. She was exhausted, all of the time. The travel wore her down like a horseshoe on an old nag. Her hands were small and not the most adept at gripping reigns. Her legs were long and thin, not muscled for horse-riding. Her skin was pale and papery, out of place in the great outdoors. She knew she was always out of place, but it was more noticeable here. In the Varden, she was bound with fellow travellers, fellow outcasts. In Teirm, all sorts wandered the streets. Here she was, two boys, hardly a selection to dilute her difference. A silent barrier between them all, with unspoken words – you don't belong.
She tried her best to keep watch.
She didn't know what she was looking for – movement? Attack? Wild animals? Bandits? She didn't know. She crouched, stock still, staring around the clearing, her heart leaping into her throat at every minor sound. The instant she was relieved, she was utterly at her ease. It didn't make sense; surely she should always be on guard. But it simply wasn't the case. Perhaps it was merely the gargantuan responsibility of Eragon's life which electrified her. Perhaps it was her oaths. She didn't know.
She had to learn an awful lot by deduction. It had been something she was good at; always. Staring. Learning. Being quiet. The silence had deserted her in Teirm as she had needed it too. She had to fit in; to fade out. People weren't quiet. Silence only made her different and that was not something she could afford to be. She shrouded herself in words, a wrap of invisibility. It wasn't who she was. Fabiola of Teirm was a part she had played passing well. Fabiola of Teirm was very different to the Fabiola of the Varden. Fabiola of Teirm had cultivated different skills – a benign clumsiness. A quick wit. A sarcastic comment. An easy smile. All of these things she had adapted from the people around her, but it was only a part, even if she had absorbed some it into herself. Even if she had believed it herself.
As the days wore on, she could feel a settling of her character. A silence steeling over herself, a different way of holding herself. She wasn't Fabiola of the Varden, yet. She wasn't sure who that would be, really. She had a feeling it would be more noble than she wished.
The camp was silent in the middle of the night when she was looking out for danger. She shivered as a breeze laced itself through the trees. A massive dragon was sleeping yards away from Fabiola, but this didn't calm any fear she had. She took a cursory glance around her companions. Eragon, invisible beneath his dragon's mighty wing. Saphira, sleeping, her massive head curled elegantly. Murtagh, next on watch, absolutely stock still under his blankets. She shivered again, and stood up fluidly, without a whisper of noise. She was pleased that her agility was returning, in dribs and drabs, she noted dryly, as she tripped over a root. She moved into the trees, her heart beating fiercely, and circled the camp carefully. She sang softly under her breath; a song she remembered from her childhood. One she always sang when afraid.
'Hush, baby mine … hush, hush, my darling … the seas toss and twirl, but you are safe on board … Hush baby mine; hush, hush my darling … child of sea and storm, we will walk a lonely road together …'
oOo
Eragon and Murtagh talked a lot together. As friends. As equals. It wasn't that Fabiola was shy, but she was in a different position than they were. She was not a friend, or companion. In many ways she was a servant. Not that they treated her in any way disrespectfully, but she had a natural reserve which held her back from forcing into their conversations. Better be invited and gain their respect, she told herself serenely.
The questions came, as she knew they would.
'Did you always live in the Varden, Fabiola?'
The question came from Eragon. She twisted in the saddle to throw him a careless, amused glance.
'Yes, always. All of my life. Until I moved to Teirm, of course.'
'Of course. And when did you move to Teirm?'
The youth's brown eyes were glittering curiously. He was an awkward age; not quite man, not quite boy, with vestiges of stubble and a face of baby fat. She felt a swell of fondness for him, recognising that wish for a story, and acquiesced without a murmur, though she was sure she'd told the story before.
'I came with Ambry, a nurse. My appointed guardian. We travelled with a caravan to Teirm. A caravan of soldiers and merchants and workers. It was a merry crew,' she remembered, contentedly. The campfires. The laughter. If she had stayed in the Varden perhaps she would have been one of those women leaping the fires and spinning in dance, long skirts swinging, feet bare. Reckless. Wild. Glorious.
'I was just a little girl. Eleven. Twelve?' She shrugged. 'Well, I look about the same, so I doubt it makes a difference,' she commented wryly, raising a laugh from Eragon. Encouraged, she continued.
'I was supposed to work in the library, assisting the librarians. But when my guardian died … They … I – I wasn't welcome any longer.'
Without a guardian, what hope did she have? She was just another orphan girl; someone … dependant. Scholarly men weren't equipped to deal with her, they assumed. A girl, who would become a woman? Who would bleed and pout and nag? Surely she would have no place among learned men. There was no glamour on them of her heritage; it wasn't something which had been mentioned. No doubt it would have had swayed them at once – who didn't want a part of her heritage to claim? But even then – even all of those years ago – she understood what it was to be a child of a child of Vrael. She understood it marked her as different; more of an outcast than even her mongrel race marked her.
And so after a funeral and a week or so of going about her duties as silently and solemnly as ever, she had been told a new position had been found, with new Varden arrangements. She had been shunted to a dress shop; without cries, or protestation. No nonsense.
There, she had bled her fingers dry. There, she had learned what it was to be a woman in a man's world. She learned why she needed to carry a dagger. She learned what made a good man, and what didn't. What it was to be 'fond of a drink' and to be a flatterer. She learned to cover her hair to hide away, and to do away with the expensive kid gloves she had been gifted from the Varden and embrace the cheap, hacked fingerless ones. She understood how to hide her Varden marks and make herself invisible.
This she didn't reveal in full to Eragon, skirting around it, and giving a vague and amusing outline of events. Her ancestry wasn't something they needed to know, yet.
'What was it like to work in a bar?' he asked her eagerly.
'Hell on earth,' she answered honestly. He looked put out.
'Why?'
'Because you're surrounded by men, and they're all groping and griping and trying to pull the wool over your eyes with their payment or just seduce you outright,' she told him casually. A faint blush crept over his cheeks at the words, and she was stunned. He was a baby, this last hope for Alagaesia. A sweet-eyed little baby.
'Yeah … it was just a little bit difficult;' she censored carefully, with a candid smile.
He went on questioning her on this and that; things which interested him about her life, nothing too strenuous. In a way it was a relief to talk to someone about her life. What it had really been.
oOo
Eragon climbed onto the sapphire dragon and as one they leapt into the air.
Fabiola followed them, amazed. Her loose scarf slipped off her hair, settling around her shoulders. She hardly even noticed.
'You don't get used to it,' the dark haired boy assured her. She tore her eyes from the sight to meet his eyes and steady herself for their first true conversation. He met her gaze evenly, with guarded hazel eyes. A smile crept across her face and she glanced away.
'Yeah … I guessed as much,' she mused, wondering how safe conversation with this boy might be. She longed for a grown up conversation. She longed for insightful comments and cool headed logic, and she knew that he could provide it. He broke the barrier himself, with a quiet sigh.
'I suppose it's safe to say that we are both bound to Eragon, in different ways – he's without his teacher, his guide. I travel with him as I long for the same revenge as Eragon, and I have become fond of his companionship over these weeks. He makes good choices, and his life is certainly interesting. I know you are bound by honour, and fealty –'
'And oaths, don't forget about those.'
He bowed his head, hiding a smile. 'But of course. Oaths. What I mean to say is that we are both intertwined with Eragon's fate. I –'
He shifted and turned to look at her again, his eyes narrowing slightly in the glare of the sun.
'I don't trust easily, or like to be pried at. But I admit that I took you to be untrustworthy, in the beginning. It is my wont,' he admitted, stiffly. She wondered if that was how he displayed 'abashed'.
'I believe now that I judged hastily. You – you have proven wise of words and actions. I hope we may become as good companions as myself and Eragon.'
His face was open, momentarily, and very handsome. She allowed a grin to settle on her face, lighting her eyes, and bowing her head respectfully.
'Thank you, Murtagh. Your words hearten me greatly. I do hope that may come to pass. I – I did leave the only friends I have back in Teirm.'
'Barmaids and scoundrels?' he offered drolly. She glanced sharply, ready to defend her friends, and realised it was a challenge.
'Only the finest for me, of course,' she preened. 'Ladies of class should always cohort with their own kind,' she announced primly, shifting uncomfortably on her horse.
'Ladies of class should at least be able to ride a horse,' he commented, wryly, perfectly at ease on his steady, grey animal. She threw a jealous glance at him.
'I may be slightly behind on the etiquette of horse-riding, but be assured I can sew the straightest seam the world has ever seen,' she retorted. He chuckled, softly.
'Try leaning back a little,' he suggested, after a quick inspection of the girl. She quickly modified her posture.
'It's more comfortable, and less dangerous. That's a placid animal, but if he bucks, you'd be thrown off at once. And look ahead – don't look down. He goes where you want him to go, but if you're looking at the ground, he's feeling confused.'
She stared straight ahead, bold upright. He suppressed a grin.
'The most important rule is this, though,' he said, lingering a moment, as she glanced over, poker-straight.
'What?' she forced out through her teeth, barely moving. He raised an eyebrow.
'Relax. You're scaring him.'
Her shoulders shifted under the cloak, and she frowned.
'This is difficult,' she commented.
'Most people train for years,' he reminded her. Her frown deepened.
'I guess I don't have years,' she stated, glancing over at him. He needed to face front to reply; the words having touched him in some deep and inexplicable way.
'No,' he said, 'I suppose you don't.'
xXx
A/N: I have nothing to say. No apologies or explanation to give except inspiration struck and suddenly this glorious ending hit me like a bolt from the blue. ;) To my readers, reviewers - you are magical, mystical people and I hope you enjoy. ;)
- Wraithy xxx
