Or the one that got a lot darker than the author intended.

She drifted in oblivion, without beginning and without end, all that was and ever could be unfolding before her.

As always, He was beside and entwined with Her, Her bane and her brother. His essence twined through cosmos and chaos, weaving them together with strands of Dark and shadow instead of Light and life. She craved nothing more than to tear it all down.

In this form She was endless and infinite. And stagnant, only potential without realization. Her brother was bound, power made manifest, and He worked the will of another on a physical plane.

Bound. She was bound too now, a present reality rather than an amorphous future. Her anchor. Where was Her anchor? When was Her anchor?

She cast Her sense of self out far and wide, reaching beyond the endless thrum of elements for one that was both none and all at once. She sensed it, a wavelength of dissonance reverberating across space and time. They were vaguely right, but some righter than others, tainted in some way where She ignored them and moved on.

At last She felt the thread, pale and tenuous, and followed it onward. She discovered the nascent bond broken, another in Her rightful place.

He was a feeble little thing, cold and dead, and still he mustered up all the ice in his soul when she moved to press her claim.

Once She would have snuffed out all he was and ever would be without a second thought, but She had now known the passage of mortal time, and the warmth of another soul against Her own. She held herself back.

This one had almost been Hers, once, until that foul thing from a foul plain had tried to eat her. Now ice had taken root, grounding boundless potential to one elemental plain and purpose. She turned away and left the dead thing to his prize. She was no one's second, and She had staked her claim upon another.

Her human. Yes, She was tied to a human, reckless and brave. He was Hers. She was his.

How could She have overlooked him? His soul burned like a beacon across space and time, made all the brighter by the Dark looming in his (their) inevitable future. She knew him, and would forever know him, regardless of face and form. She knew their purpose in the war to come as She knew it was His to oppose Her at every turn.

She grasped him, Her Eragon,...

And Saphira opened her eyes. She coiled atop his chest, the Amulet warm between them, and watched him intently as he eased out of unconsciousness.

Good. He wasn't dead. With her pounding headache and the emptiness in her soul she really wasn't feeling up to ripping the veil of death asunder to fetch him back.

He furrowed his brow and tried to sink back to where he was before. He mumbled argumentatively, trying to remember what he had been so indignant about-

"Wake up, stone-head!"

Saphira's lovely wake-up call, right into his ear, drove the dream away. Eragon cracked his eyes open and peered blearily up at the two burning stars boring into his soul.

He groaned and turned his head away. Brom, sitting across the fire, strode up with a water skin in hand. As he neared Saphira hissed ominously, spreading her wings to make herself look bigger. Their mentor stopped, stony-faced. Eragon's plea withered in his parched throat. The extreme thirst still roiled across their link.

At last Saphira relented and scooted back onto his chest. She huffed when Brom first helped Eragon sit up, sending her tumbling into his lap instead.

"Slowly, boy, slowly."

When cool relief hit his tongue Eragon disregarded him and so spluttered on his first sip. Only then he heeded Brom's wisdom, pacing his draughts as he drained the skin.

"What happened?" he asked hoarsely, unable to tell what tongue he spoke.

"You called, I came, and we burned the Urgals to ash." Saphira's tail twitched. "Well, mostly me. But you let me do it."

Distantly Eragon recalled bellows that had gone high and reedy before cutting off abruptly. There had been red everywhere. The red of the Amulet against Saphira's colossal chest, the red of her flames, and the blood on her teeth when-

His stomach roiled and he pushed the memories away, somewhere dark and deep inside. He was a hunter. He had killed before, had even helped to put down beloved animals he had helped raise from infancy to end their suffering or for the sheer necessity of enduring winter.

Now he was a murderer. He had willfully called death down upon minds no less sentient than his own. They had not been men, but no less aware of themselves and their surroundings than Saphira.

Then he remembered the corpses stacked dozens high in Yazuac. How his victims had been prepared to add him to the same pile. Part of Eragon's guilt dissolved into grim satisfaction. No more babies would be slaughtered and be left for the crows.

Saphira hummed at his revelation. "They tried to hurt you. They got what was coming to them."

Eragon knew himself fully prepared to do the same against any that dared raise a hand against her. He frowned in bewilderment when he fully registered she had shrunk down exactly to her original size.

"Didn't you used to bigger?"

"I was what was needed when it was needed. And now it's over with and I'm tired." She butted his chest until he gave in and scratched between her horns. He smiled ruefully at her purr. Cuddles were a poor consolation prize to finally being able to fly astride her. If she had taken wing with him he'd been unconscious by that point.

His smile died when he looked into Brom's face. "Why?" he asked.

Brom heaved a sigh as he settled beside them. "I do not know, Eragon. Men and Urgals have quarreled since we both occupied this land. Our natures are too similar. We have clashed over land and a hundred other reasons even when the Dragon Riders reigned. But the Urgals and the folk of Yazuac should both be the king's people. It might have been a rogue band, or a harsh retaliation against suspected rebels. Sentiments for the Varden are strong, supposedly, in these parts." He scowled sternly at them. "Of course, I couldn't exactly travel to Daret and ask with the state you two were in. We must leave that region far behind."

With some abasement Eragon realized their cover had been blown. A tiny little hatchling was an easy thing to hide. The devastation of an adult dragon could be mistaken as nothing else when the people of Daret investigated and inevitably drew attention from the Empire's expert hunters.

"There were some survivors." Eragon was morbidly surprised any had escaped Saphira alive. "Doubtless they have already alerted the king and his Ra'zac. Still, this may yet work out in our favor. They will seek an adult dragon capable of flying great distances in a single day, not two humble travelers on horseback. And there are surely none left alive who saw you."

Eragon considered this. An adult dragon with a deadly, veteran Rider. "Did any Urgals see you?"

"Those closest to me never lived long enough to get a good look. The Urgals on the periphery saw a blurred shadow red with the blood and gore of their compatriots." Brom stroked a beard reduced to mere stubble. "They will seek a solitary man and dragon, not an aging uncle accompanied by his only nephew."

He glanced sullenly down at Saphira. At least one of them could make a positive impression on the elves. "To Du Weldenvarden, then?"

"No," Brom snapped. "At the border the spies and scouts are at their thickest, in hopes of catching an elf slipping out or rebel seeking refuge. As a Dragon Rider's natural haven it shall be all the more watched. We must throw off their trail and wait for the search to turn elsewhere."

Eragon tried to muster disappointment and felt none. He still felt too drained to do much else other than stroke Saphira and contemplate the fire.

Arra's first experience was a smell somewhere between the winter wind and frozen jerky. She scrunched her nose against it and then became aware of her throbbing headache. And the bony block of ice squatting on her chest.

Absently she opened her mouth to mumble, "What did your say your name was again?"

"Wake up, Arra!"

She blearily opened her eyes. She'd been at some inn. Not the DragonFang. There was some guy there, and they were...

Draco breathed frost into her face. Arra sat up with a yelp and the dregs of the dream evaporated. Where had she last been? She had vague memories of sitting astride a colossal dracolich while he had rained ice down upon some four-armed behemoth tall as the volcano as that had spawned it.

Now she sat in some cozy, unfamiliar little bedroom that smelled of herbs and fresh air. Sunlight streamed in from the outside. Outside verdant trees, despite the season, waved lazily in the breeze. Draco sat in her lap, the polar opposite of an icy undead giant.

"Why are you so tiny?" she asked him. "You'd just grown up!"

"Why were you asleep so long?" he retorted. "Do you know how boring it is watching you sleep for hours on end every night? This was a hundred times worse!"

Of course he had never left her side. Dracoliches had no need to eat or sleep or do anything else other than stare unblinkingly at her into she regained consciousness. No words could cover her apology so instead Arra scooped him up into an embrace that would have smothered a living dragon. He chittered and snuggled in close.

A polite knock on the door finally made Arra look up. She trusted Warlic had at least foisted them on a reputable healer before slinking back off to his tower. "Come in."

A girl her age, perhaps a bit younger, tentatively peeked her head in. Her face split into a relieved smile. "Oh, good. You're finally awake. Your poor dracolich was worried sick about you." She held up the tray in her hands. Arra's mouth watered at the warm scents wafting from it. "Mind if I come in? Lady Celestia said you'd be hungry."

Arra nearly shut down. How could she forget the generous dragon priestess that had so faithfully entrusted her with the rescue and safe hatching of the Dragon of Destiny's egg? And she had repaid Lady Celestia's trust by seeing that same savior hurled into another dimension.

Her sinking realization that Lady Celestia's intervention was the only reason she and Draco had survived the Amulet's toll got the better of her. So did her rumbling stomach.

"Yes, please. Thank you." The mage reined in her appetite when the girl entered. "I'm Arra, and this is Draco."

"I'm Elysia, Lady Celestia's apprentice. Your dragon already introduced you." Elysia smiled down at Draco. "Both my parents are dragonlords and their dragons were an extra set of parents growing up. My mamma was always attuned to Ice, which was why Skade bonded with her, but my poppa only settled into Wind when Zephyros decided he liked him. How was it for you?"

Arra shrugged. Maybe she'd always had an affinity for Ice but not the proper environment for realizing her potential. Moonridge drew in the Dark and the Light that blazed bright against it. Her eyes fell on the food. When had she last eaten again?

"Er, right." Elysia cleared her throat awkwardly. "You've been out of it for quite a while. Mr. Warlic did his best to set you straight, but then he had to turn you over to us. I'll leave you to your meal."

Arra gratefully thanked Elysia for her generous hospitality and all that she had done for them. She held her hunger in check until the other girl had shut the door behind her. Then she ravenously tore into the fresh food and downed the heavenly tea. Draco retreated to the edge of the bed, watching in the stern approval he reserved for the most unsightly of living behaviors.

When finished she shucked off the white nightgown she suspected belonged to Elysia. The Amulet was a familiar warmth around her neck. Neatly folded upon a desk brimming with texts in draconic were a set of mage's robes. They were finely tailored, felt smooth like silk between her fingers, and were not her own.

Arra's heart sank. Her old pair had been a rich sapphire blue, if patched and singed at the edges from her adventures. And had taken to smelling like dracolich since gaining Draco. But it had been hers. Practically anyone in Lore could muster up enough magic to put a bit more strength into swinging a sword or aiming a dagger, but those robes had marked her as a mage. A real magic-user that could do far more than throw out a single graceless burst of energy.

Draco proudly hopped up next to it, scattering the notes Elysia must have spent hours laboring over. "Lady Celestia asked me to help pick out the colors because the giant lava monster burned your old clothes. Now we really match and everyone can see you belong to me."

Arra gazed down silently at her baby for a long time, at what the battle had done to him, and put on a brave smile. "Of course. Thank you, Draco."

Her robe was primarily a light and icy blue, cold as the magic that pulsed through the cracks in Draco's ribs. Its sleeves were hemmed with fringes of gray and silver, like the wisps that rose up from the fissures like smoke.

Taking her Shivering Staff of Winter in hand, Arra was fully armed physically and mentally when she strode out to find Lady Celestia. The dragon priestess awaited her at the shore of a tranquil lake a short walk from her quiet cottage.

Elysia lay curled up with a gigantic tome in her lap in the grass outside. Draco hissed in displeasure at the unfiltered sunlight and settled down into the shade with her. She stroked him with a hand ringed in ice magic. Arra noted the familiarity of the gesture. Now she knew who to thank for taking care of Draco's daily scratching demands during her unconsciousness. Even as he relaxed into the apprentice's touch Draco's watchful gaze never left Arra.

Lady Celestia's silver hair, cascading down to her knees, stirred faintly in the breeze. A cup of steaming tea in hand, she appraised Arra with ageless eyes.

"Arra, I am glad to see you well," the priestess said sincerely. "I wish only that we could have met again under different circumstances."

Eyes watering, Arra looked away, for Lady Celestia's gentle words cut her deep as her mother's own expression of bitter disappointment. "I'm so, so sorry," she whispered. "I-I should have..."

"I do not blame you for the egg." Deep gray eyes flicked from her out over the lake. "Fate can be feckless and fickle. I was complacent and trusted blindly in what I thought the only true path." She smiled warmly at Draco. "You two have forged your own, it seems, and are all the happier for it."

Arra followed her gaze but tore it away before she could fixate on the dracolich's scars. "You are the dragon priestess and Warlic is the Blue Mage," she murmured in the human tongue. "Is there nothing you can do together?"

"Warlic's magic... is the exact opposite of what is needed, and he does not know dragons as I do." The priestess sighed. "And Draco might still have the soul of a dragon, but he truly died in the shell. The Amulet that resonates with both your souls pushed his vessel near to its limit. He is a dracolich, and an unconventional one at that. Moglins are creatures of life and healing. Zorbak twisted that natural magic to suit his own ends and reanimated a hoard of dragon eggs with it."

"Ebil magic," Arra echoed. She had worked for the nutcase. She knew his personal world for his art. And she had thought it one of his self-delusions. "So I can't even find a real necromancer to help?"

Then she winced. Of course necromancy could and would never be the answer. Dead flesh could not heal and regenerate like the living could. Necromancers twisted and corrupted their base parts, adding and repairing as necessary from other sources. Draco's flaking skin and cracked bones required another dragon's components. It would make him less himself. Her soul and his recoiled from the possibility.

"Arra," Lady Celestia prodded gently. "Before you and I ever stumbled upon the other, how did you wish your adventure to unfold?"

She scrunched her eyes shut and tried so hard to remember. Those scant months were a lifetime ago. What had her final thoughts been before she had sighted that dragon that carried her doom and destiny upon it?

She remembered the monotony of Moonridge, the never-ending infestation of undead. She remembered her mother pushing her so hard to join the Knights and forever binding her by obligation. She had envied the freedom of the dragonlords stationed in their town, had dreaded the inevitable day they would leave her behind like any and all interesting travelers that stopped at the DragonFang.

In her youth her father had wandered far and wide as a merchant. Then he settled him into safe and familiar roads closer to him. Much like the same paths Arra herself now plodded. There was always someone that needed something of her, even the Blue Mage himself.

And they had nearly taken half of her heart down with them.

"Adventure," she whispered hoarsely. "Real, honest adventure. Somewhere far away from here."

"Then go find it," Lady Celestia commanded. "Together."

Arra's shoulders heaved with a silent sob. Then they straightened when they realized their burden had been lifted.

The mage could only manage a tremulous nod of endless gratitude for the dragon priestess. When she turned to walk away, Draco was already at her side.

She stopped for her pack. A quick peak inside revealed its many contents were still accounted for. At the edge of Sunbreeze Grove stood a portal. Arra's skin tingled at its proximity when they neared. She gripped the Shivering Staff and Draco braced himself. Side by side they stepped into the unknown, and the next chapter of their lives.

After a few hours of quiet contemplation and some brief musing on their plans Eragon consumed several meals' worth of rations and drifted off to sleep. Saphira did not. Nor did she stray from his side.

Brom disliked using his spells so frivolously but necessity had urged him to lure and slaughter a deer with magic when his charges had been unconscious. Perhaps he could have settled for smaller game, but a hunch and morbid curiosity had urged him otherwise.

Over the hours he watched Saphira meticulously strip the carcass of every last edible morsel. Her human's slumber prevented her from so blatantly cracking the bones and disturbing him. Instead she boiled the blames with the heat of her maw, worrying them apart for the marrow within.

She watched Brom as if imagining doing such a thing to him.

Brom watched her with one of the twelve words of death upon his lips. Only Saphira's obvious bond with his son spared her life. That, and how fiercely she had moved heaven and earth to save his life.

"Speak to me," he murmured to her. "Open your heart. Show me my worst fears are unfounded."

Saphira stared back with fathomless eyes. Her mind was a maelstrom he dare not breach uninvited. She could not, and would not, understand him.

Brom knew not what she was. He knew what she was not.

Saphira was no dragon. Eragon was no Dragon Rider. Brom had inspected him thoroughly for any sign he had entered into the pact.

Eragon's magic was apparently not one bound by the ancient language. Brom did not know what his son was changing into. He had stopped watching for sharpening ears and facial features but instead for utter corruption of the human form. It was a small relief that Eragon's physical changes did not yet exceed those of normal adolescence and rigorous training; increased height and musculature.

More troubling was the question of what Saphira was.

Brom had been young by the Order's standards, nowhere near privileged enough to know any of the experiments and abominations the elder Riders had the rare displeasure of disposing when an arrogant sorcerer meddled in magic's direst of laws. Together Brom and Morzan had peaked into their master's records out of morbid curiosity. Brom had shrunk away in disgust. But the horrors had only ignited interest and ambition in Morzan.

Perhaps Saphira was cut of the same cloth, an unholy amalgamation of dragon and Lethrblaka an unwitting hunter had stumbled across. A creature that appeared innocent enough in its infancy, like the dragon hatchling so many had dreamed of once possessing, until it shed its skin and revealed the man-eater beneath.

Or something far worse.

Brom could not unleash such an unknown threat upon Du Weldenvarden, greatest of the strongholds against the Empire left in Alagaesia.

Nor could he commit the ultimate sacrifice. Not when Eragon was still an innocent and his... 'dragon' only showed her true colors in self-defense. Doubtless Oromis, Glaedr, or any elf would grant them the same benefit of the doubt.

Brom needed a true friend for console, and the greatest store of knowledge outside of both Du Weldenvarden and Farthern Dur. Such could be found in Teirm, a crowded city that served the extra benefit of getting the Ra'zac off their trail.

At long last Saphira yawned, baring bone-white teeth, and innocently up on Eragon's chest. On the same damn Amulet that had aggravated the situation.

By dawn Brom conceded defeat, instead drew energy from Aren, and envied them the sleep of the blissfully ignorant.

DF remains the only game canon to the story-line, but I do admit from... taking inspiration from one or two of its sister games. And then Saphira had to go and make me bring an experimental style for her section.

Yes, Draco the dracolich is ultimately a being powered by Ice and ebil. Which, yes, is canon to Zorbak. Elysia's parents being dragonlords is also canon, but the quest line where they make an appearance will not make an appearance here. Unfortunately, when his unstable magics are amplified by a Dragon Amulet... Yikes.

Doom and Destiny are easily escaped. I'm sure our two intrepid Adventurer and her dracolich have really escaped the narrative and get to live happily ever after off-screen ;)

Forgive Brom for his paranoia. The guy hasn't had an easy life. And considering the nightmarish implications of magic in his world taken to its inevitable conclusions... Yeah. I'd be paranoid as fuck too about some dipshit accidentally creating something that Should Not Be too. And his and Saphira's impressions of each other haven't exactly been stellar at this point, unlike in canon where he's able to get her onto his side super easily.