Eragon sat on Saphira's back, gliding among clouds as white as snow as a pleasantly warm breeze came in from the west. Arya lay with her head on Eragon back, drifting through dreams as Saphira drifted through the clouds. Aesire was looking down at the rolling green landscape beneath them, deep sorrow in his eyes.

"The silence bothers me," Eragon said. "Tell me of Hola. What is she like?"

Aesire made no reaction but to blink. "Ah, what indeed. She was never one solid personality. Always did she change. Never was she the same. In the morning she would laugh, in the evening she would moan. I have never known another to be like her. She is everything to me. She is silent, loud, distant, near, loving, hating, forgiving, grudging. She never treated me with undue respect or hatred. Her voice can take you to the highest palace of the heavens or the seventh circle of hell with not a single instant separating the two. In my entire life I have never been defeated at a game of whit or strategy; except by her. True knowledge that eclipses my own resides behind her sparkling gold eyes. In my darkest of hours when even my most precious friends would flee it was she who crouched down in the mud beside me and whispered words of encouragement. Insanity would await me on the path I was traveling had she not intervened. I owe her my life, my mind, my very soul. All that I can give would not even make a fraction of what I owe her. And yet she stays beside me, not asking for a thing in return. And now! Now I have left her as carelessly as I would leave an ink quell because of a lack of carrying capacity!" He clenched a fist and punched his leg.

Trying to waylay him Eragon said, "Do you love her then?"

"She is the embodiment of everything that matters to me. When I close my eyes, images of her dance on the backdrop of my eyelids. Anytime I am near her my heart beats a thousand times per minute. Every time I see her my mind becomes dizzy. Every time our skin meets it blazes as if on fire. Does this sound like love to you?"

"Yes, it does."

"And does leaving her as did I sound like love?"

"What choice in the matter did you have?"

"More choice than anyone else. Who had more choice in my departure than I?"

Humanoid affects always confuse me, Saphira said to the both of them. Are you not human and is she not a werecat?

"Indeed we are, Mighty One. Is your Rider not a human and are you not a Dragon? Do you love him any the less for it?"

I like this one, she said to Eragon. He can make a decent argument.

"Tell me, Rider Eragon. Do you have someone that you feel towards as I feel towards Hola?" He coughed. "Even her name ignites a fire in my chest."

Eragon looked back at Arya. Do I? "I...think so. Although my affects are not even on the same scale as your passions."

"All love should be the same. Whether it is an old couple dying on the same bed or two young lovers holding each other under a full moon." Aesire sighed. "Hola is the light of my life. I would be as lost as a blind man in a moonless night if not for her. She is like a sun in an ocean of sparks compared to every other woman in the world to me. An oasis in the middle of a desert compared to the liquid of a cactus. Does no one feel that way towards you? That is hard for me to believe; you being a Rider."

"That's just it. Anyone who would love me would love me for being a Rider and for no other reason. They would not love me; they would love my power and influence. That's why..." He sighed.

Little one, Saphira said gently. Why do you continue running in circles?

Ignoring her question he said, "Have you told Hola how you feel towards her?"

"I know you are asking in a round about way for instruction on how to tell this elf." Eragon shot a blazing look at him and pushed his way into Aesire's mind. She is aware of everything going on around her; that's something that happens with elves. Please, I would appreciate discretion from here on.

Aesire continued looking down at the landscape and shock his head. "Hola is as beautiful as an evening sunset, yet every time I attempt to tell her my feelings my throat gets tight and I cannot for the life of me get words out."

"Can the two of you be together; her being a wolf werecat hybrid?"

"Why not? Her parents were a werecat in human form and an elf. What is so different?"

Then Eragon asked the question that he had wanted to ask since he began talking. "Does she care for you the same?"

Aesire shrugged. "Even in the best of circumstances it is in impossible to read her thoughts. She may love me; she may hate me. To be frankly honest I wouldn't care one way or the other."

"But wouldn't you transfer your affects to another?"

"Why? What would be the point to that?"

"You will be happy then."

Aesire scoffed to himself. "As long as Hola holds my heart not another person will make me happy. Not if she was the Queen of the World would she catch my eye. Do you have much chance with this elf, Rider? Does that mean you will transfer your love of her to another?"

Perhaps I did not make myself clear. Please be silent on such matters.

"My apologies." Aesire looked up at him and said, "My love for Hola envelopes almost every part of my life. I cannot go to sleep at night without thinking of her. I am happy simply knowing that she wants to be at my side. That is far more than I deserve and yet she does it willingly. Because of that, whether or not she opens her physical form to me is of no consideration."

Hiding his thoughts from Saphira Eragon thought, Is that how I feel about Arya? Aesire reached around Arya and patted his shoulder.

"You shall be fine. Even if this elf rejects you she has made it very clear that she wants to be beside you, has she not?"

"I guess. However, you are the one that should be receiving pity. You left Hola behind to fight with the Varden."

Aesire's fingers flinched and he withdrew them. "That is true," he whispered silently. He shook his hair and said, "When will we arrive at the Varden?" They had been flying amongst the clouds for some time now and it took Eragon a moment to decide where they were.

"Tommorow around noon, I'd imagine."

"I'm going to sleep then." He leaned back on the back of the saddle and closed his eyes. Dipping into his mind he saw that Aesire was not asleep and had no intentions of going to sleep. Instead, images of a small girl with red brown hair that flowed down to her waist and golden eyes danced across Aesire's mind in unchallenged dominance. For the rest of the time that they flew Eragon checked infrequently into Aesire's mind and found him still awake. And every time not a single thought, emotion, dream, feeling, or memory existed in his mind that did not revolve around Hola. And yet, though all the thoughts and memories about her were born of good will, quiet sorrow at leaving her branched around his mind, along with a deep set hatred of himself for it.

Pain of indescribably intensity forced Eragon's eyes open. The pain was so terrible that it took him a moment to even think about what he was seeing. A black shadow stood in front of him, silhouetted by a red moon. Not this again! Eragon thought.

"Yes," a voice like lightning said. "This again. And far worse." Eragon arched his back as the pain he had once felt from Durza's curse spiked across his entire body.

"Who are you," he said, desperately. "What do you want?"

"I? Who am I? The unearthly vassal of the one true Lord. Like an insect you cower before me."The shadowy figure waved a hand and the pain inside of Eragon seized agonizing him.

"What do you want," Eragon. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"Because I hate you," the man said with a hint of a tone that implied he thought the answer was obvious. He raised a hand out over him and said, "And that's why I'm able to do this." He uttered a word so deep and convoluted Eragon failed to understand it, nor even to comprehend what language it was from. The pain returned to Eragon and as he curled into a ball with an incoherent cry he could hear the shadowed man laughing.

Eragon awoke slowly and carefully, afraid that if he opened his eyes he would again find himself in front of the shadowed man and his black and red dragon. When he opened his eyes finally he saw a snapping fire in front of him. Aesire and Saphira slept on the other side of him, while Arya lay against a diagonally smooth rock opposite him. He noticed that he was drenched in sweat as he pulled himself up. Arya looked up at him and then returned her gaze to the fire. After a longish while he said, "Are you upset with me?"

She sighed and her eyebrows tightened together as she reached up and rubbed her temples. "No, Eragon. I am not upset. I am far past it. Every time I come in and rescue the two of you seem to jump back into danger again. Durza, Islanzadí, Varaug and now Murtagh and Thorn. It feels as though I jump into the Bore's Eye to save you and the moment I get you to save land you leap into the waters and swim back. I am growing very tired of it. As the only other Shadeslayer in the world I understand what you have been through. However, one would think that after such trouble you would avoid problems not go charging into them. I feel as though…"

"As though I am a child you'd rather not take care of?"

"Preciously. Do not think I do not have sympathy for you. You have had your entire life ripped apart and been thrown into a war that you had no desire to take part in. You cannot rely on sympathy, though. Galbatorix will certainly not pity you."

"I understand."

"Do you? I should resent you, Shadeslayer. The one true act of heroism you have shown towards me is rescuing me from Durza. I will never forget that. But ever since I have done practically everything. I should resent you for taking me back to Du Weldenvarden. For taking me here. I am not invincible, Eragon. And then you insist on going into the second largest city in the whole of the Empire to find a man that your immortal enemy told you about. And you drag me along with you." Eragon stood and walked over and sat down beside her. She stared at him through a strand of her raven hair. "Why can't I resent you?"

"Because I am special to you and you to me. Because you are as close to me and Saphira as I am to Saphira. Because the three of us are as close to family as we will every have. None of us have gone through as much together as alone."

"You have," she said, tightening her eyes. "You deliberately stayed behind at Helgrind for the sake of a traitor. Instead of…coming back to the Varden you stayed in the Empire."

Eragon tilted his head to the side. "What is going on? You were not so upset even when you first found me on my way back to the Varden. It isn't like you."

She pulled her legs up to her chest and rapped her arms around her legs, looking almost identical as she had when they were fleeing from the Empire a few months ago. Because of her hair her face was hidden from his eyes. "I worried about you, Eragon."

"Is that all?"

"I have never worried about someone before. Not the Varden, not my family…not even Faolin."

Eragon uttered a laugh. "So you're mad that you worried?"

Arya tightened her hands around her legs. "This is not humorous, Eragon."

"You must admit; it is a little." He continued to laugh for well over a minute.

Then Arya flicked her head towards him so fast her hair fanned out to her side. "I love you, Eragon, and that is not humorous."

BUM-BUM-BUM-BUUUUUU! Whatever. You knew that was coming since chapter uno. (I don't speak spanish, but I think I did good there:) You know how I know that? Because I told you in the description.

I think I'll enjoy writing about Hola and Aesire. But for you EragonXArya nuts they will be the center of the story. (for now)

You know what's funny to me as the author of this little fanfic but that you probably won't care about? My six stories in total got 36,000 opens this month from the US and the next highest country that read it is the UK with 502. That means one of two things. The US is home to people with a lot of time on their hands or that we really like CP.