So from now on I'll TRY hard to have enough imagination to have a new chapter every other day. Or at least every week. Because I don't want Paolini to give more information in Book Four that makes my story obsolete :P

Those first few days had been pretty rough on Eragon—a lot had happened while he was out, and he still didn't know who the mystery elf was. In fact, now that he was "born anew," as it felt, all the questions and torments of before crashed down on him harder than before. Bid'Daum had more of a personality than ever, and that seemed to make Eragon a lot more mellow. It had made the planning for escape quite interesting.

Besides all that, now he was a verteran, and a hero of the highest rank.

Now how exactly had that come about?

Well, he didn't care. He had a plan, he had it all figured out with Bid'Daum. Actually, they didn't even have half a thought created between them for "escape," but they didn't—well Eragon didn't anyways—care how long it took. Luckily for him as well, his bag and its very important contents were still intact, and unsearched, or so he hoped.

He just had to get out of camp—which, as a hero, highest rank, that was not by any means going to be easy.

Actually, he needed to know a whole lot more than that, but he didn't care. In fact, much to Bid'Daum's dismay, he really wanted to stay. There was so much to learn, so many things he didn't know about that night, so much that—

Truth was, he was afraid of becoming an old bearded hermit.

"If the biggest sacrifice you have to make for elfdom is growing a beard, then you should count yourself lucky," Bid'Daum had told him time and time again as the days rolled by.

"I don't know anything about dragons," Eragon had said, (as a red herring) though it was as much of a lie as anything he had ever told Bid'Daum.

"Well I don't either, in fact, I don't even know if our dear little egg will ever hatch. Ever. But we have to take the chance, because if we don't—"

"We'll all die eventually anyways, so what's the point of going on?" Eragon interrupted.

"Well you've got to live for something. Besides, would you rather die a natural death or get murdered?" Bid'Daum asked pointedly.

"It's all death, so in the end what's the difference?" Eragon was spiraling into depression, even though he hadn't even left yet.

"Dumbo, it's the life that you live. That's the whole point. Forget death, it's all about LIFE."

"Yeah, and if I live it in a cave in the middle of nowhere hoping for the hopeless, what good will that be?" Eragon would counter, and then they would proclaim a truce in hopes of coming up with something brilliant later.

Of course, later they would usually have the same argument and then wait again. Which added up to a day. Which added up to a week. Which, if it continued in this fashion, would add up to their deaths.

Eragon was always quick to point out that death was how it was going to end anyways—why make it harder than it already was by running away?

Bid'Daum would retort that Eragon wouldn't be able to fulfill his purpose because the Queen would force him to smash the egg.

Eragon would accept this, and ask why then had the egg not been smashed.

Bid'Daum had a new plot every-time—maybe the Queen wanted Eragon to explain himself, maybe she really didn't know, maybe she thought it was a good idea too... the ideas that Bid'Daum came up with were endless, his excuses always were just good enough to keep Eragon from moving his tired body.

In fact, Bid'Daum was the excuse.

And Eragon knew it. Bid'Daum didn't really exist. Not physically. So they shouldn't be talking. Really.

At first, Bid'Daum had claimed that he was a separate enough entity that Eragon wouldn't have to take any blame. But Eragon knew better—he knew that Bid'Daum was just as much Eragon as he was. Which was confusing, but true nonetheless.

He got out of bed for the first time on day four.

Being in bed for as long as that, he was surprisingly weak when he got up. His legs nearly buckled underneath him when he took his first step. This was something neither Eragon nor Bid'Daum had thought of.

It gave Eragon a new reason to stay.

If he was too weak to survive on his own among his own kind, how then would he ever be able to survive in the wild with a baby dragon?

This logic stumped even Bid'Daum, who up to then had always come up with an excuse to go. Eragon had finally won.

So he began to spend his time regaining his lost weight, (there wasn't much to gain,) the stamina he had lost, the flexibility that he no longer had.

In other words, a whole lot of rigorous training.

Eragon worked slowly, as though he had eternity to return to his previous state. And in a way, he told Bid'Daum, he did have quite a long time. The egg might hatch in that time, meaning that they weren't risking anything.

"Sure, Eragon, the egg is going to hatch in the middle of the enemy base. Yeah right."

Eragon didn't care that his logic was just a little wrong.

He spent his time running through the forest, swinging through the trees, tracking the lone wolves and lions for the challenge of it.

He wrestled and fought with the other elves, he debated with the Queen, he trained every aspect of himself that he could think of.

Bid'Daum was a constant pain, because even though he agreed that Eragon needed to get back into shape he didn't agree that Eragon needed to become stronger than he had been before, he thought that it was useless to become faster than before, he could not wrap his head around Eragon's trying to tie himself into knots.

"How the heck is knotting yourself going to help you raise a dragon?" Bid'Daum asked irritably, quite often.

"Well, if he decides to eat me, then I can run away and hide in a tree."

"That doesn't explain the knotting."

"I mean inside the tree. Like a squirrel. He'd see me for sure if I sat among the leaves."

Bid'Daum hated this logic, and he grumbled ceaselessly, finding a new way of annoying Eragon every day, becoming more and more like a separate entity every day.

Eragon was content with this.

The truth that neither he nor Bid'Daum disputed was that Eragon was not going to leave until he had found a companion to go with him. More than his fear of a beard (which both Eragon and Bid'Daum knew that Eragon could never grow a beard,) he was terrified of being alone. It was standard by now—Eragon was obstinately determined to find someone to come with him. And it couldn't just be anyone, much to Bid'Daum's dismay. Eragon was going to stay until he found the one person that was supposed to go with him.

So much for elves believing in science.