Title: And On And On
Category: Books » Inheritance Cycle
Author: Morgan Stares K'Treva
Language: English, Rating: Rated: T
Genre: Adventure/General
Published: 01-15-15, Updated: 01-23-15
Chapters: 2, Words: 2,540
Chapter 1: Chapter 1
"You know, I used to be just a hermit on a mountain, in a place far from Alagaësia?"
Really?
"Yes really, little ones. I came from a place where magic was a legend."
Oh. What was it like?
"It was . . . very different from here."
Oh! What happened when you got here?
"Well, I have to say that it started with me meeting Maikhal."
Meeting him? Aren't you two twins though?
"Not at all! You see, my story starts like this: a long, long time ago, during the rule of the great tyrant Galbatorix . . ."
When I wake, I immediately notice the difference, my fingers, though curved, can't wrap around the handle of the knife under my pillow. My eyes flicker open and I sit up, only to wince as my body protests in a way it hasn't in years, in a way that is the same as it was years ago after one of my long training sessions.
I look down, almost fearful of what I would see before I blink at the small hands in vision. Before I can do anything though, I hear footsteps, and I shrink back into the alcove I'm in, and soon someone comes hurrying down the hallway.
I watch as they go past me, but just before they are out of my sight from my position in the alcove, the small shaggy haired child pauses before turning back to me.
He calls something and walks back towards me as I draw further back into my alcove. I close my eyes and press myself against the wall despite knowing he'll catch me, muscles tense. I flinch as a hand lightly touches my forehead, but the person ignores this, their hand brushing lightly across my forehead and brushes my hair behind my ear, the other person's head coming forward and touching mine as I tremble.
The other person mummers something, hand brushing down my neck and down my back gently. I gasp as suddenly the person's fingers jab something, and I go limp. My eyes fly open and the last thing I see is eyes glowing purple before I slump forward.
When I awaken, there is a a figure leaning over me as my eyes flicker open.
They say something, and I frown. "Wha- What?"
The person's silhouette shifts slightly as I blink up at them, holding back a cough. "Are you alright?"
"Yes," I reply before turning my head so I can cough into my sleeve. "Who are you? Where am I?"
"I am Maikhal, and you are in Alagaësia," the figure replies, leaning back as my eyes go wide. "Who are you?"
"I'm Faolan," I reply, my mind already on another subject. "Am I really in Alagaësia?"
The figure regards me for a moment before replying. "Yes. Aren't you aware? I cannot lie to you in this language."
"What?" I ask, trying to sit up, only for Maikhal's gentle hands to push me down.
"Lay down, you are not well," Maikhal says, pulling my blankets up. "Do you truly not know though?"
"Do I not know what?" I ask, my mouth suddenly dry as I connect what he had been saying about not being able to lie with where I was supposedly.
"We are speaking the Ancient Language," Maikhal said. "I may be able to mislead you, but I can not lie to you with simple statements like that."
"Oh, gods," I mutter, squeezing my eyes shut. "Oh gods no. What year is it?"
"It is the year 7935," Maikhal said, his hand coming up to rest on my forehead. "You have a fever. You should sleep."
I catch his hand as he draws it back."This is a book! My favorite book, yes, and even one I've dreamed of going to, but still a book! This shouldn't be possible! Oh gods, what's wrong with me? Am I still human? Is this just a coma as lie lie on a hospital bed?"
Before I can fully start to hyperventilate, Maikhal starts soothing my hair, tucking my hands back under the blankets as he hums a song, not letting me speak. I slowly calm down, the weight of his hand smoothing my hair down gently soothing, and after a while I can feel my eyes start to drift close. Just before I fall asleep, I can feel him slip beneath the covers next to me, and despite the oddness of being in a bed with a complete stranger, I couldn't find it in myself to mind as he kept petting my hair, and a strange feeling of rightness about my total dependence on him, almost like he was that one sibling I'd always wanted.
When I wake again, Maikhal is still there next to me, and I squint against the daylight streaming in through a window to catch a glimpse of him other than a silhouette. I examine him, looking at his black, shaggy hair, and his face that reminded me of an aristocrat's, with delicate, high cheek bones, a thin nose, and skin of an amber tone. His body is curled protectively around mine, and I blink a bit as I realize that one of my hands is grasping his and I slowly let go.
I turn my gaze to the room we're in, with it's one door in the same wall as the window, it's dirt looking walls, and the many herbs and spices hanging from the roof, it looked a lot looked my house had been, small, but plenty of room for everything I need.
After a few minutes, Maikhal moves, drawing slightly away from me with a yawn before he opens his eyes (a golden amber color), no surprise in them as he regards me.
"Faolan," he says after a moment. "Are you feeling better?"
I open my mouth to say that I am before I pause at the aching in my head and shake my head slightly.
"I still have a head ache, but if you need any help, then I am willing," I mutter. Maikhal regarded me for a moment before nodding, and almost absently, I not that his eyes were that odd shade that was hard to distinguish, either grey or green or blue, and entirely unreadable.
"Alright then," he says, sliding out of bed. "Do you want me to answer your questions now?"
I nod, and he starts. "Nothing is wrong with you, but you aren't human. As far as I can tell, you are a were-cat, like me, and always have been."
"Oh," I say, faintly aware of my eyes widening as I stare at him. He stares back at me, his hand reaching up almost unconsciously to pet my hair again.
"Oh," I say again, reaching out to grasp his other hand. "I'm a werecat. Is that why I feel so young?"
"Possibly," Maikhal says, still staring at me. "We can change our age. Do you feel alright?"
"No," I say faintly, and he nodded, his hand moving down to my back. "My world, my race, everything . . . it's all gone."
The hand one my back pushed me towards him lightly as tears start to come out of my eyes.
"Breathe," he whispers, his breath warm against my ear, the rough fabric of his shirt scraping against my closed eyes as he slowly rocked us back and forth in the bed. Eventually, my silent sobs died down, and he let me pull back and wipe my nose on my sleeve.
"Thanks," I say, giving him a blurry smile, and he nods back, a faint smile on his face. After a moment, he gets up and starts pulling things down from the bundles on the ceiling and placing them in two mugs that were on the table next to the bed. I swing my legs so that they were hanging off the side of the bed and watch curiously as he brings the kettle that had sitting next to the fire on the other side of the room to the table and pours something into the mugs. When all of what ever it is that he is pouring has filled both mugs to the rim, the places the kettle back next to the fire and holds out one of the mugs.
"Here," he says as I took it. "This should help settle your feelings a bit."
I smile at him and sip it, my eyes widening at the unusually sweet taste of what I assumed was tea.
"Thank you," I say and take another sip. He nods back and sips at his own tea.
When we're both done, he taked the mugs and place them back on the bedside table before turning back to me.
"So where do you come from?" he asks hiss voice gentle.
"Well," I start. "I come from the state of California in a country called The United States of America, America for short."
I really shouldn't be creating any more new stories, but this attacked me and refused to let go. Hope you like it!
Chapter 2: Chapter 2
Oo. So what happened next? Did Maikhal-elda cast a spell on you so that you knew the human's language?
"Of course not. You know that Maikhal is terrible at wording things, and he didn't want to hurt me. No I learned the hard way."
Really?
"Yes really. He did a pretty good job at it though, in the three months that we spent in his winter him, he'd managed to teach me enough that I could hold the day to day conversations, and read and write what I could say. I hadn't managed to access any of my magic yet though, not even the instinctual magic of were cats. We started moving after those three months, as was Maikhal's custom, and during the first month of spring, we met Chipo. Actually that's wrong, I found Zaman first."
Maikhal turns from the white veiled native he was talking to to squint at the sun high above our heads before turning back and speaking again. I sigh slightly as I scuff the ground with my toe, yelping slightly as I hit something harder than the soft sand that was all that could be seen. I blink down at the ground before me in confusion, frowning at the sun's glint off of what looked to be a smooth rock, making me sit down and dig around the object to get a better glimpse at it.
I frown to myself as I reveal the rest of an egg shaped stone. It's opaque and a mottled grey with almost indistinguishable white veins.
"Faolan," Maikhal calls, but I don't turn to look at him and instead motion for him to come towards me with one hand. I pull the stone that was as long as my forearm out of the hole I had dug and settle in in my lap as Maikhal settles down next to me.
"Look," I say, letting him see the stone as I brush more sand off of it and the burlap trousers that he had given me. "May I keep it?"
Maikhal looked at me for a moment before nodding, his purple eyes flickering between mine and the stone. "Yes, we'll be traveling with the wandering peoples so it shouldn't be too much trouble to carry it for now, but you will have to leave it later.
"Alright," I say and stand, my arms wrapped around the stone to keep it in my grasp. The two of us walk back to the bustling camp, where the man that Maikhal had been talking to was waiting for us.
"Is all well?" he asks in a smooth voice and Maikhal nods.
"Good," the man says. "Now come, I shall show you the man you will travel with."
"The one who wishes to leave?" Maikhal asks as we follow the man past tents, and he nods sharply.
"Yes. When we arrive at the river he shall go with you."
"Alright," Maikhal says, and white robed man remains silent as he leads us past a couple more tents before stopping in front of one.
"Chipo," the man says, his voice much softer than it had been when he was talking to Maikhal and and hand that looks like the ebony wood I'd once seen on a piano in a museum parted the tent flap a little so that we could see darkness beyond.
"Yes? What is it, Umukoro?" came a deep voice from within the tent.
"We have found people who would be willing to travel with you once you leave," the man replies, and the man within the tent sighs.
"Umukoro," he reprimands, pushing the flap all the way to the side and tying it back, letting us see his wrinkle face and silver hair. "I have told you many times that I will do just fine."
Chipo turned to us with a smile on his lips. "I apologize, but I most likely will not be traveling with you past the Ramar."
"I understand," Maikhal says, and I get the feeling that he's laughing on the inside. "May we still stay with you until then?"
Chipo is about to answer, his almond shaped eyes turning to me when he pauses at the sight of me before continuing. "Ah, yes, of course. What are your names?"
"I am Maikhal, and this is Faolan," Maikhal says, his eyes sharp as Chipo smiles at us and turns back to Umukoro.
"Well, I'll get them settled in so you can leave Umukoro. I'll call you back if I need you."
The moment he had left, storming away rather like a child, Maikhal and Chipo ask questions, "What do you want with Faolan?" asked at the same time as "Where did you get that stone?"
I stare at the two of them warily, Maikhal watching Chipo watching me. After a moment, I shift my grip on the stone and point behind us to where we had been.
"Over there, buried in the sand," I say and shift closer to Maikhal. "Why?"
"It has been a while since I have seen one," is Chipo's reply as he shifted and motioned for us to come into his tent. "Come in, we shouldn't talk of this outside."
I follow Maikhal into the tent, grasping his sleeve with one hand as he moves towards the back of the tent, and Chipo closes the tent behind us before turning to regard me and the stone.
"It's not just a stone, is it?" Maikhall asks as son as the tent flap had fallen in place, and Chipo turned to us with a solemn expression.
" . . . no."
"Any you're not just any human."
" . . . no," Chipo sighs and walks over to one of the cushions. "I am half elf, though like most others like me, I have chosen to live with humans. Please sit."
He watches Maikhal and I sit before he sighs and speaks again. "Faolan, what you have just found is a dragon's egg."
The next chapter!
Chapter 3: Chapter 3
Sand, sand, sand.
Bird!
Sand.
Animal, big!
People, many!
Light footsteps, two and . . .
Kin.
Kin.
Old world kin. Sad.
Reach, feel, touch.
Hurting.
Move, move, and kin of kin.
Shake and fight and fight and break and-
Oh.
Oh.
Oh.
White and black and gold and mine.
Fire and ice and blue and orange and mine.
Gold and purple.
Sand.
Kin of kin.
Sand.
Mine.
Sand.
mine. empty and cold, mine.
Gasping and- She gasped. Mine gasped.
I gape at Chipo before looking down at the rock on my lap, the mottled pattern confronting my eyes before I look up at Chipo. Before I could say anything, the stone let out a loud squawk, the sound reverberating through me, and I gasp as the sound reverberates up my spine, and the sudden feeling of a sharp headache, only instead of my brain pounding to get out, it was pounding to get in.
Maikhal's eyes are concerned, but his face keeps on flickering in and out of focus. My hand feels like it is glued to the egg, ice keeping them together, and fire burning them apart, and I can't do anything and -
Oh.
Mine.
The egg fell apart in my hands, the bit under my hands crumbling to dust. The rectangular head beneath my hand pressed up and-
cOlOr
It felt like my skull just melted in response to the thing that had been pounding and that which had been without dissolved with that which had been within mixing and dissolving.
There was a brief image of . . . something before Maikhal's face comes back into focus, his eyes flickering between gold and purple.
"Faolan. Wolf."
"Maikhal?" I mutter, blinking up at him, gently stroking down silky scales. mine. empty and cold, mine.
"I'm hungry, Maikhal. I'm cold."
"Wolf," he mutters, and I can feel something reach out and brush along thatwhichis, like Maikhal's hand did when he petted my hair. He pauses in the middle of standing to look down at me. "You can feel that, can't you?"
I blink at him, and the something brushes against thatwhichis again.