Author's note: Woah! Two OC submissions! You guys rock! (Though if anyone submits another, they won't be included for a while, as adding three OCs at once was a bit of a handful.) I asked a while back if you wanted a Christmas special chapter. I can't remember what the response was, but I'm doing it anyway (or at least, I tried to)! I'm going to focus on Searching for Hidden Gems after I put this out, so expect a gap between now and the next chapter. Enjoy, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Note 2: I forgot to edit this first time round, so there was a butt-load of mistakes in here. Sorry about that.

In response to reviews/PMs:

Wizzer96: Thanks for the OC submission! I've copied it up to my computer and saved it in the folder where I keep my fics. *Googles who Deathwing is and spews drink all over the floor because of awesomeness.* Okay, I looked up him on a dragon size chart. I'm gonna go by the logic that he's the smaller version, so about Smaug's size, like Cade/Ghidorah and Gem most of the time, but like Cade/Ghidorah, he can grow to full size, which I'm guessing is about 170m tall at the top of his head by drawing in power from the Rift. I've chosen the Skyrim option that you presented, so I guess that wiki will become my friend soon enough. As for the robots I'm going to use, keep guessing. Hint: Something a little more knightly.

RegalEagIe: Blimey, you were reading from before the re-write?! Thanks for sticking with me! Like Wizzer, thanks for the OC submission! I've copied and saved it. Sorry, but no shapeshifting. The Thunderbird (loved him in Fantastic Beasts) is a badass powerhouse that can create storms. You've got to have a drawback in that somewhere, like a lack of hands in this case. (Cade/Ghidorah can generate storms too, since King G could create a massive hurricane/storm system around him in King of the Monsters. I can already see a rivalry having stuff like "Stop stealing my thunder!") I'm going to say that he can talk out loud too.

MoosHeadFamLit: I get where you're coming from.

Chris: I'm generally going to follow the storyline of Eragon, so they'll do the same stuff. Meeting the Varden will happen when it happens.

Blaze1992: Thanks for the game suggestions. Other OCs will be in the Locostral side of the fic, but only one other will be in Alagaësia too, at least until a shadow attacks. Agh, now I've given away plot!

OechsnerC: Thanks!

VtrCst: Thanks, and great idea, but the saving Arya early thing won't happen. If you check the map in the front of the books, then it's a longer distance from Teirm to Gil'ead than to Dras-Leona, and an absolutely enormous distance from Gil'ead to the Varden. It wouldn't physically be possible for Cade/Ghidorah to do all that in a feasible time-frame and get back to Eragon, Saphira and Brom, even though he can fly.

GenericUsername6: Trial By Lightning will end where Eragon does, and no, there isn't any harm in checking. Better make sure of something rather than go on a guess.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Inheritance Cycle.

Chapter 15: Newbies

Thirteen hours. That's how long it took for me to track down the eight remaining Urgals and deal with them. They had split up into four pairs and were combing through the forest in an attempt to find Saphira, Brom and Eragon. Unfortunately for them, a certain three-headed dragon was determined to make it a dark and stormy night.

I was mainly tracking the Urgals through smell, although once I was close enough to detect their minds, I switched to that to get a good lock on wherever they were. A blinding flash and a boom of thunder later, and they were been reduced to ash, with piles of smoking armour and weapons clattering to the floor around them. That done, I moved on to my next target.

The sun had crept back into the sky by the time I eventually got back to where Brom had set up camp. It was a clearing that was barely big enough for me, surrounded by pine trees. Saphira laid to one side, Eragon propped up against her side and covered in blankets, a small glob of drool dribbling out of the side of his mouth. She kept on checking over him to make sure that he was okay in the same way that my Mom checked on me when I was ill and confined to my bed, which was sweet to watch.

Brom was poking at a smouldering campfire with a stick as I landed with a boom.

"Well?" he glared. He looked ****ed.

"Eight shots, eight kills." I yawned, rubbing my three sets of bleary eyes.

"Good."

"What, no 'well done', or 'thanks for staying up all night'?" I grumbled bitterly. "I know I haven't done much that's noteworthy yet, but a little gratitude can go a long way."

"I said 'good'. That's high praise, coming from me."

I harrumphed from all three heads and dumped my bag of stuff on the ground. "I'm assuming we're going to stay here until Eragon re-joins the land of the living."

"That's correct."

I didn't bother replying. Instead, I laid down, propped my heads on my bag like it was a pillow, and tried to get some rest.

Nothing notable really happened until the day that I promised to explain being a Plainswalker to Islingr.

I woke late- about midway through the morning. Cursing, I rummaged through my bag until I found the backpack containing Islingr's eldunarí, and hooked it on one of my spikes while I grabbed my key in my left mouth. By now, my companions were used to me going off on my own, so no questions were asked as I soared off into the sky, which was good. I was late for the weekly Gathering.

I landed about a mile away, transferred my key to one of my hands and began to tell Islingr everything. I started out by explaining multiverse theory, then revealing that I was originally human, sharing a few memories to back myself up. Then I went on to explain how Angela had shown me how to use my key and what Locostral was, as well as what Shadows were. Finally, I dropped the bombshell about future knowledge, although I didn't reveal anything apart from saying that I'd try to guide stuff the way they'd happened in the books, as that was the only way of defeating Galbatorix that I knew would work.

My Ebrithil remained in a shocked silence as I talked, turning my key over in my hands. Finally, she said "You have a much greater responsibility than I realised. I shall do what I can to assist you."

"Weren't you doing that anyway?" I asked a little cheekily.

"Maybe a little." Islingr admitted.

I laughed and opened a portal. The familiar orange vortex spun into being, and I took a firm hold of my key and backpack. "Hold onto your butt."

With my quota of occasional references filled, I launched myself into the Rift.

When I popped out of the arrival portal, I saw that the streets of the city were empty. Landing on the sidewalk, I cast my eyes around. Yup, everyone was at the Gathering already. Cursing getting up late, I was about to take off again when I heard the sound of Islingr mentally dry-heaving.

"Okay, really?" I asked, exasperated. "You don't even have the organ that does that anymore!"

"I do in my mind." Islingr complained. "You think that picturing your mindscape can only be used in mental battles? I like to still have my body, thank you."

I just sighed. "I get your point, but still. Just hearing that makes me want to follow suit, and I can say from experience, that feels really weird with three heads. Oh, and if you want to see stuff through my eyes, go ahead."

"Apologies fledgling, and thank you."

I rolled my eyes purely to annoy Islingr and took flight. It didn't take long to get to the Stadium, but when I soared over it, I could see everyone was filing out, which started to make the sky very busy.

Suppressing a growl, I contacted Gem. "Morning boss."

"Cade, where the **** are you?!" was her response. "And don't call me boss!"

"Geez Gem, don't bite my heads off. They're a ***** to regrow." I said. "I overslept and portaled through late, but I'm over the Stadium now. There's way too many people leaving at once for me to get down to you right now, so I'll meet you and the guys at Bluepeak. Oh, and you remember I told you about Islingr, right?"

"She's your mentor, correct?"

"Yup. I decided to tell her about our weirdness, and I brought her through today. Hey Ebrithil, wanna say hi?" I said, turning towards the blue-topped mountain.

"It is an honour to meet you." Islingr said politely.

"Err, likewise." Gem said, not sure how to address her. "I'm Gem, and I'm Cade's Clan leader. Do I need to call you what he said or…"

"No." Islingr replied. "Ghidorah, or Cade as you call him, is the student, you are not. Call me by my name."

"Cool. And Cade, you didn't even tell anyone your birth name? Geez, what's wrong with you?"

"Give me a break!" I complained. "I chose Ghidorah as a new name because I thought that I wasn't gonna be able to get home and it fitted with my new body! I did say that it wasn't my birth name, and nobody asked what I was called before that! Besides, I had bigger problems! Learning to fly, learning to hunt, keeping Thing 1 and Thing 2 safe, dealing with stick-up-my-ass-Gandalf! My birth name was a trivial thing in all that, so don't blame me for overlooking it!"

At the end of my rant, both dragonesses were laughing at me.

"Now I see why Jacob enjoys winding people up." Gem chuckled. "I should do this more often."

"Please, for the love of Master Chief, don't." I grumbled, trying not to obey the urge to zap my friend and teacher into dust.

Gem just laughed harder. "Fine. We'll see you back at Bluepeak then, but we won't be staying long. We've got three newbies with us too, so remember to be nice. Jacob and Paddles are already failing."

"Three?!" I gasped. "In one go?"

"Not really. They all died at different points, it's just chance that they got here at the same time. And you have competition."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

I could feel Gem smirk. "Let's just say that you're not the only one who can use lightning any more. And you've lost the extra head competition."

I wasn't sure how I felt about that. Jealous, maybe? "Why aren't we staying long? Won't we have to decorate their rooms or something?"

"We're doing that next week." Gem said. "Have you been keeping track of the calendar?"

"Not particularly." I replied.

"Well, Merry Christmas, dragon who lives under a rock."

My jaws dropped. "Seriously? It's that time of year already?"

"Yup."

"****! I didn't get you guys anything!" I realised as I swooped over Bluepeak, looking for the skylight that was over my room.

"It's okay." Gem said. "I forgot to tell you, but because we can pretty much get anything we want when we want, we don't really give gifts. Instead, we prefer to do something special as a clan."

"And that would be?" I asked, finally locating the right window.

"Ever gone skiing?" Gem said as the skylight soundlessly slid to the side and let me drop into my room.

"Nope. I've been surfing though, and I was fairly decent at it." I replied as the skylight closed up again.

"Maybe a snowboard for you then." Gem mused. "Hmm. Anyway, we're piling into the lift. Where are you now?"

"My room." I said.

"Okay. We're coming up in two loads, so get yourself a snack or something."

"Will do." I replied, before doing the telepathic equivalent of hanging up.

I pushed through my door, jumped off the spiral ramp that circled the wall of the main room, and glided down towards the kitchen area. After rummaging through a few cupboards and getting the sound system to pound out some AC/DC, I was pigging out on a bag of human-sized Cheetos while watching the gazing out the window, watching the city come back to life.

"This is like a more metallic version of Doru Araeba." Islingr said in wonder.

"Welcome to the modern realm." I smiled. "This is more advanced than back home, but it's still a fairly good representation of what Earth's cities are like."

A pleasant ding resounded and I turned to see the lift slide open. Out of it filed Jacob, Sal, and Paddles.

"Sup guys!" I said happily. "What did I miss in the Gathering?"

"Just a Merry Christmas message and us taking in the new guys." Sal said with a smirk.

"Okay, what are you hiding?" I asked cautiously.

I didn't get a chance to answer as Jacob bounded over to me saying "Gem said you brought your teacher through! Can I met her? Please, please, please?!"

"Sure." I said, patching him through to Islingr with a smile. They'd keep each other busy for a while.

While I was distracted, Sal took the opportunity to ignore my question and sprawl out over the sofa, so I asked Paddles "Why is nobody telling me anything?"

He glanced at me before looking down at his paws. "Just… prepare yourself." He eventually said. "This might come as a bit of a shock to you."

Before I could question him further, the lift dinged again. One again, the doors slid open, revealing Gem, and three other occupants. The first was a black, hulking brute of a dragon that was about my size and covered in molten cracks. The second was a gold and white bird with six wings that had feathers that looked like they were made out of some kind of crystal. As for the third, she was a massive, five-headed dragoness that I could only be on head-height with if I stood upright. Said heads were submissively held close to the ground and was a different colour. One of them gnawed uncontrollably on a metal shape with lots of faces as she nervously looked around the room.

I vaguely recalled the bird as being in one of the Harry Potter films or something like that, but I knew that the lava-like dragon was a Deathwing from World of Warcraft, and as for the five-headed dragoness… Tiamat from Dungeons and Dragons, who was literally a Goddess in her own right. So… no pressure then.

I wandered over and gave each of them a good look before focusing on the person who had the form of Tiamat. There was something about her that I recognised, but I couldn't quite put my claw on. Narrowing my eyes, I checked her over again. I'd only played D&D a few times, but I'd been severely educated on this particular dragoness by… my…

Oh… my... God...

My eyes widened as the pieces of the puzzle started to snap together. A weak smell reminding me of a large farmhouse in North Dakota. Five sets of eyes that were as nervous as the day that I'd first seen them. And finally, an avid love for a certain dragoness from a certain role-playing game.

I started to tear up as I realised who I was looking at, which really shocked Gem.

"Who are you?" the five-headed dragoness asked timidly from her centre head as she backed away slightly. Thank goodness that she only used one mouth to speak with, or the echoes would have driven me crazy. Still, I knew that voice from several previous meetings.

"Only a doppelganger thief with a set of daggers, a short sword, and a habit for rolling below ten… cousin." I smiled as tears dripped from my eyes.

The smart car-sized D20 slipped from her now gaping mouths and landed on the floor with a clang as she locked eyes with me and began to tear up too. "Cade?!"

"Hey Amara." I said, standing vertically and enveloping her in a massive hug with my wings.

She joined in on the embrace, grabbing hold of me over my shoulders with her front legs and practically crushing me. Our long necks wrapped around those of each other until we were knotted together. We rocked back and forth a little, neither of us willing to break the hug first.

"It's been… terrifying." Amara cry-whispered into one of my ears. "Dying… and then that space… and then waking up somewhere strange and realising that I'm not me anymore. I can't cope, Cade."

"Shh." I replied, hugging her even tighter. I was very conscious about Angela's warning about Plainswalkers suiciding, and I would not let my cousin go down that route. "You're gonna be okay, alright. I went through exactly the same thing, and I'm here for you if you want to talk about it."

"How do- you deal- with it?" Amara sobbed into my scales, taking loud, hiccuping breaths. "I don't think- I can live with- myself- knowing what- this body is- and who- it belongs to! That person committed genocides!"

"Hey, hey, hey, you're not the only one with a form that someone evil has." I consoled her. "Do the actions of the original person who had the form reflect on you? Only if you let them. I got freaking King Ghidorah as my new body. He travels through space and destroys whole planets for fun, but do you see me flying through space and blowing planets up?"

"Well, there was -the time- where you trashed- that- model of the- solar system- at that- space museum." Amara sniffled. "Your mom and dad- were so cross."

"That doesn't count." I chuckled; glad to see my cousin coming back. "I was what, eight? And were you even with me on that trip?"

"Yeah, I was!" Amara said indignantly through a loud sniff. "That was when I first explained Dungeons and Dragons to you!"

"Oh yeah!" I remembered, my eyes lighting up. "You got me hooked into it. Remember when we used to play it over Skype?"

She groaned. "Oh, God. That was awful!"

"No it wasn't!" I protested. "That was great! Then you started insisting that we did it whenever we were together and I somehow got worse."

"That was because you used to roll you dice off camera where I couldn't see the result, and then lied about your score!" Amara groaned.

"I… might have done that." I conceded as my cousin laughed at me.

We finally tried to pull apart before realising that we had managed to knot ourselves together. What followed next was a long, tedious ordeal with Gem calling out instructions while Amara and I did our best to follow them amidst a cloud of laughter from my friends and the new arrivals.

When we finally got free from each other, I hopefully asked "Feeling better?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

"Anytime. It's good to see you, cuz."

"Likewise."

"You wanna stick with me for the time being? I'd be glad to have you with me."

"Yeah. Don't we have to protect the world we woke up in though? Would I be allowed to switch to where you are?"

"I'm sure we could figure something out." I said. "From my experience with them, the Elders are pretty understanding. What realm did you get sent to, anyway?"

"I've been there since September, and I still have no clue." Amara said.

"Where's your key?" I asked. "The picture on the non-city side usually helps."

"Here." Amara said, pointing to where it was threaded around her middle neck by a leather cord.

I analysed the engraving. From what I could tell, there was a medieval style warrior on it facing off against some kind of disfigured, humanoid, monster. In the background, there was a dragon lying on a hoard of gold nestled in a hill. It took a while before it finally clicked.

"Beowulf!" I realised excitedly.

"Bear-wolf?" Amara asked, making me shudder.

"First, please never mention that first animal while I'm around." I groaned, shaking off flashbacks. "I died because of one of those. And secondly, it's actually Beowulf. It's this poem where this guy called Beowulf kills two monsters, becomes king, rules for a long time, and then gets killed by a dragon guarding a hoard. Compared to a lot of people, you actually got a fairly safe realm."

"What did you get, then?"

"Ever read the Inheritance Cycle?"

"Oh." Amara replied, her eyes going distant. "The one with the war between the evil rider king and the rebel army? The one with Eragon and Saphira?"

"Yeah. It's violent though. Like, 'you'll have to kill people and watch the blood spurt' violent. Can you cope with that?"

Amara sighed. "I can cope with it if you're there and if you can."

I dropped down to all fours and drooped my heads. "I've… already had to kill. I only did it when I had to, and only on urgals, but I've done it."

Amara took the information fairly well. "Violent place, eat or be eaten. I get it. You did what you had to. Though what are urgals again?"

"Cross Orcs with Pigs and you'll get a good idea of what they're like."

My cousin snorted in laughter. "That's a mental image that I won't get out of my head- heads soon."

"You'll get used to the new terminology." I said. "Have you accessed any of your abilities yet?"

"Only a tail stinger and my fire, acid, poisonous gas, lightning and ice breaths. You?"

I chuckled. "Lightning beams, covering my body with lightning, growing and shrinking, shielding my mind, all that jazz. I still need to learn how to create storms, let out an alpha call and break into minds, but I'm fairly happy with my deal at the moment."

"I have to figure out some other stuff too." Amara said. "This form has an truckload of skills, but I only want to learn a few of them. Corrupting water and controlling reptiles, for example."

"I shall tremble before your army of geckos." I laughed, before turning more serious. "I wonder if dragons count as reptiles? Then if you do that and if I can do an alpha call, we could get an army of dragons following us!"

Gem chose to interrupt our conversation by yelling "Everyone to get ready to move out! You won't need anything, I've got it all taken care of!"

"Where are we going?" Jacob asked.

"The Tundrak Mountains!" Our clan leader replied. "Single day ski trip!"

There were a few cheers, but one of the newbies asked "How far away is that? Can we fly there and back in a day?"

Gem smiled and pointed out the window. "We can't, but that can."

We all turned and looked to see an absolutely huge dropship thing descending out of the sky, engines firing at full blast to slow the fall.

"That's our ride, and it leaves in 5 minutes, so get aboard."

I was about to follow the others who were crowding the lift before Amara stopped me. "Um… is there somewhere I can put my metal D20 to make sure it stays safe?"

I eyed the thing on the floor, covered with drool and bite marks. "Err… yeah. Follow me."

We quickly ran up the ramp to my room.

"This is where you sleep?" Amara said, looking around at it all. "This is awesome."

"Yeah." I said, plopping the backpack containing Islingr's eldunarí on the bed. "Just stick your mega-dice on one of the shelves, but make sure it's clean first!"

"Right, sorry."

My cousin wiped the thing on her scales, which didn't really do much to help, then ran into the bathroom to look for a towel.

"Why do you have that thing, anyway?" I asked.

"Dunno." Amara said. "It just appeared next to me when I… er…"

"Respawned." I supplied.

"Yeah, that. It's super-tough, so I started chomping on it when I got stressed, a bit like how dogs have chew toys. I guess it just deteriorated into habit from there."

I decided not to comment about how weird that was, and the two of us scampered back towards the lift, Amara placing the D20 on a shelf as she passed it.

The flight in the spaceship was beyond cool. I mean, I'd been in a plane before, but this was a spaceship. A spaceship! Awesome. Evidently, everyone else except for Paddles was also enjoying the ride, with our resident swimmer having belted himself into as many safety harnesses as he could find.

"So." I broadcasted to everyone but primarily addressed the three noobs. And yes, I included my cousin in that group. "So, who are you guys and what are you in for?"

"Broke my leg while hiking with friends." Amara explained, leaving out the 'who she was' part for obvious reasons. "It got infected and developed into something nasty."

I nodded. Decent, but was still similar to Sal.

"Call me Regal." The six winged bird explained briskly. "And if you have to know, some drunk driver crashed into me while I was riding my motorcycle."

Boring. Motorcycles were death wishes anyway.

"Darius." The Deathwing said with a slight accent, offering me a paw to shake, which I did. "I was murdered by a gang of bullies who were blackmailing my little sister. I happened to be walking past an alleyway when I heard her scream." The volcano-like shuddered and fluttered his wings. "I'll never forget that. I charged in, got myself between them and her. They had a knife. I told my sister to run and get help, which she did, but not before I was stabbed. They got me in the heart by fluke, but at the time I was so ****ed with them that I didn't notice. I managed to break a lot of their bones and knock one of the scumbags out before I collapsed. The rest of them made a run for it after that."

The Deathwing stared into nothingness, just remembering. "My sister managed to get some police officers by then. They arrested the guy I'd knocked out, and called some paramedics, but I knew it was too late for me. The officers did too, so they let my sister through the line they'd set up. My last words were that I loved her, and that I wanted her to be safe, and to tell my parents that I loved them."

There was a short silence before I said. "I went out in a similar way, but nothing as brave as you, dude. My five friends and I were camping in a nation park in Montana, and a hungry b-" Once again, my mind refused to co-operate. For goodness sake. I growled and rolled my eyes. "Sorry. As I was saying, a big, furry and aggressive animal with razor sharp claws and massive teeth comes along, and its hungry. I'm the idiot who tells them to go, tries to distract it, and I get eaten. The others got out alright- physically at least. I'm not sure how they were mentally effected."

"And the rest of you guys?" Amara asked.

Jacob took over, pointing at each person in turn. "Gas pipe explosion, disease, drowned, car crash."

"What do you think the next schmuck will get?" I chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. "I'm gonna go with a shark attack."

"Nah." Jacob said. "Astronaut that forgot to put their helmet on. Head goes pop."

"No way that's going to happen." Amara said, willing to go along with us. "I'd bet that the next person's gonna get trapped in one of those giant, walk-in freezers and get hypothermia."

As the others started smiling a little more and offered their own stupid suggestions (apart from Regal, who I didn't really understand yet), I struck up a conversation with Darius. Turns out that he was 17, originally from Italy, but had taken English as one of his options so could speak it with a barely detectable accent. In contrast, he learned about me, my terrible, terrible linguistics skills, and what it was like to have multiple heads.

Eventually, we both got talking about videogames, in particular, World of Warcraft. We'd never met each other online, but we told each other about missions we'd done, gear we'd won, stuff we'd killed and the characters we had. I liked to make characters that could tank every hit they took and could deal at least twice as much pain. Darius, however, loved to use fast, agile characters with specifics on stealth and dodging.

That was when a bleep filled the… cabin? Was it a cabin in a spaceship? I'm going to assume so. Anyway, a bleep sounded with the alert "Ten minutes out from the drop, so get your gear on now. And if your wingless friend goes splat, it's not my problem."

As the alert cut off, Regal asked "What gear is being referred to?"

Gem strode over to a large storage locker, flipped open it's door and tossed Regal two long, flat objects. Skis. "I did say that this was a ski trip, didn't I?"

"Dibs on a board!" Darius and I said together, then looked at each other and grinned.

"Why are you getting one?" he asked as I caught the first one.

"I've been surfing once, and I figured that having the experience of being on a board might translate from one form of water to another."

Darius laughed as he caught the other board with a paw. "Trust me, mio amico, surfing and snowboarding are two different things."

"Oh." I said, eying my board with a worried eye. "Have you done both?"

"Yes." My new friend confirmed. "I lived in a fairly northern region, so I often went snowboarding in the Alps in the winter, and there was a large lake that my Dad had a small speedboat on. One time, we attached a surfboard to it via a rope and tried surfing. That's probably more like water-skiing though. By the way, where did you go surfing?"

"Hawaii." I smiled.

"Lucky *******." Darius mock complained. "I bet that was nice. Anyway, there are a few things that surfing and snowboarding have in common; like the fact that you still have to lean in the direction that you want to go in, so they're similar in some regards. I can coach you a little if you want."

"Dude, that would be awesome!" I smiled in thanks.

"Can I get in on this 'being coached' thing?" Amara asked, poking her heads into our conversation.

"The more, the merrier." Darius decided, moving around to let my cuz into our small group. "Now all we have to do is wait for whenever they decide to drop us off."

The pilot of the spaceship had set us down in a valley between several gigantic, snow-smothered mountains that were so high that they passed through several cloud layers, although I could see tiny lines indicating where the various runs were. Apparently, this was due to robotic machines that went up and down the various slopes, flattening it, making it perfect for skiing. As we all disembarked, there were several whistles of appreciation.

"Alright!" Gem said. "Go off and enjoy yourselves, but be back here by sundown! And I'd recommend that you take a partner with you in case something goes wrong."

Everyone nodded and we split into three groups. Jacob and Sal were with Gem, while Paddles and Regal decided to stick together, which left Darius, Amara and I to explore the slopes.

It was about half an hour before Darius found a good place to start my (and Amara's) snowboarding adventure. We'd found a fairly smooth slope that wasn't at much of an incline, and set up shop. As we landed, the snow hissed under Darius's paws as it found its way into the molten gaps in his scales.

"Do those molteny bits hurt you?" I asked him as I hopped on my board. Instead of having to do up bindings, they just stuck to our feet, which was either because of magic or some kind of gravity generator. Who knows anymore?

"Not unless I get something itchy in them, but whatever it is usually gets burnt out fairly easily." Darius replied, before advising Amara where on her board she should put her four feet.

I was the luckiest of us three, as I could actually stand on the board how you're supposed to. Despite that, my friend and my cousin quickly sorted themselves out, and we were ready.

Giving myself a small push, I started to move down the slope. Picking up speed very slowly, I tried leaning my weight to one side, like I would in surfing. The on account of not having a fin, the board wasn't as responsive as I expected, but I did start turning. I aimed the board back the way I was going with a smile, and glanced back to see how Darius and Amara were doing.

They seemed to be doing well, with Darius showing Amara how to turn. Before I could pick up any more speed, I quickly asked him "How do I stop?"

"Just swing the board around until its horizontal to the direction of the slope and lean backwards." He replied, not even turning around.

I did as he advised, and sure enough, I stopped. Apparently, snowboarders often sat on their butts when they had to stop and wait for someone. I had to settle for standing instead, as I couldn't exactly sit down because of my tails. Fortunately, Darius and Amara were only a few dozen metres behind me, so it only took them a few seconds to catch up.

Amara tried stopping too, only to overdo the leaning backwards bit (well, it was to the side for her) and fell over with a surprised yelp.

"You okay down there, cuz?" I asked casually.

"Shut up before I bite your heads off." Amara growled as she got back to her paws. "This is still a new body for me. You can't expect me to do everything right first time."

"Sorry." I apologised. "You're right. I crashed a couple of times before I figured out landing. Got stuck in a tree once, too."

"How did that happen?" Darius chuckled.

"I came into land a little too low, and one of my tails caught in the branches." I said sheepishly as the others laughed.

The sun was low in the sky as the three of us prepared for our last run. Darius had taught Amara and I the basics of snowboarding to a point where he was satisfied that we could easily deal with everything up to a black run, and so we started to go further and further up the mountain we were on. Since there were no lifts, we had to fly up to where we wanted to start, which lead to what we were doing now.

"Are we sure about this?" Amara asked as we rose towards our start point.

"Yes." Darius and I chorused, then grinned at each other.

"Fine." Amara sighed. "I call dibs on being in the middle."

"Dibs on being first!" I claimed.

Darius rolled his eyes. "I was going to go last anyway, just in case one of you crash."

"Thank you for the show of confidence." I said sarcastically, before going into a dive. "Let's go!"

The plan was to transition directly from flying to snowboarding, keeping as much speed as possible in the process. Chilly air whistled past me, howling in my ears and clawing at my scales. I pulled up over the run at the last second, positioned my board correctly, and then dropped a metre or two before slamming onto the snow. I crouched low on my board, trying to go as fast as possible.

I heard two other thuds, and asked Darius and Amara "You guys land alright?"

"We're good!" Darius shouted back.

I grinned, and took the first curve we came to tightly, sending a plume of snow whooshing out to the side as I gained speed with a loud whoop. I glanced behind myself with one head as the other two concentrated on driving. Amara swished around the corner, closely followed by Darius, each of them with an accompanying slide of snow. I gave them a brief smile before turning my full attention back to not crashing.

The three of us flew down the run, snow spraying when we took corners. On straights, we all crouched low, trying to get the most speed. Due to her larger size, Amara often went the fastest in a straight line, as she carried the most momentum. This prompted Darius and me to try to take corners as fast as possible in order to stay with of her, turning the fast-paced run into a full-on race.

We zipped down the mountain in speeds that would have had us arrested if we were on a freeway, and would have broken our bones in the corners if we were still human. Emerging onto the final slope, the three of us were neck and necks. Yes, bad pun intended. Then Darius decided to unveil his ace move.

Quickly spinning his board in a 180 turn, he opened his jaws and used his fire to propel him like a rocket. As he passed me, he gave me a smug wink, and I started cursing. I'd been winning until that point!

I glanced at Amara and asked "Any way we can get in front of him?"

She thought for a moment and then grinned from all five of her heads. "Get close to me!"

I did as she asked, and watched as she started using one of her various breaths on the snow in front of us. I watched as her white head let out a blue beam, freezing the snow into ice, and reducing the friction on our boards. We smirked at Darius as we passed him, making his eyes widen in shock.

"What about melting the snow in front of him?" I asked Amara with a sly grin.

"On it!" She said before opening the jaws of her red head and unleashing a torrent of flame.

The snow underneath the thermal onslaught went up in steam, revealing stark, grey rock. Darius saw what we were doing out of the corner of his eye and sharply corrected his path. A little too sharply, actually. He cut off his flame, whipped his board around, and turned hard. In our direction.

He ploughed into me, which knocked me into Amara who hurriedly cut off her ice and fire beams. The three of us got tangled up, fell over and ended up forming a massive snowball that rolled down the last few hundred metres of the slope. It felt a bit like what would happen if you got yourself trapped in a washing machine, except on a much, much faster cycle.

The snowball got faster and faster until the slope levelled out, sending it rolling into the side of the spaceship with a whumph, shattering it, and leaving Amara, Darius, and me in a dazed, snow covered heap.

"Let's do that again." I smiled weakly as the rest of our clan came around the side of the ship to see what the noise was and began laughing at our expense.

"No." Darius's muffled groan came from somewhere in the middle of the pile of snow. "Let's never do that again. Ever."

"Agreed." Amara said. "And whoever has their tail wrapped around three of my necks, please remove it."

"Gem, a little help please?" I asked, unwrapping the offending limb from my cousin's necks.

The clan only laughed harder as Darius' dazed and steaming head erupted from the snow, covered in the white flakes.

The flight back went by quickly. I'd apparently suffered a concussion in all three of my heads, but my regenerative process sorted that out within the flight. I quickly sorted out a mental to-do list, and managed to sort out most of the issues on it via a few e-mails.

Because of that, when we got back to Bluepeak, the Elders had sent a new key for Amara, and I had a giant sack of jelly beans. The robot courier that had delivered both items also took Amara's current key away, probably to the place that stored them. Apparently, keys could have their current user's signature wiped, but it had to be done by an Elder, so I assumed that was what was going to happen to it.

Anyway, after saying goodbye to the clan, getting Islingr's Eldunarí and Amara's D20, and slinging the bag of beans onto my back, we both hit the Rift. It was strange to be doing it with someone after getting so used to doing it by myself, but we arrived in Alagaësia where I'd left. The sun was in the same place as it was in Locostral, but it was hidden by clouds so we couldn't see it.

I turned a head towards Amara while trying to remember where the camp was. "Quick heads-up; Eragon, Brom and Saphira don't know about the whole rebirth/plainswalking thing. My- now our- cover story is that we come from a land far away over the sea, and we were exiled from it. We came here afterwards. You can talk about home and stuff, just don't mention Locostral or anything like that. Got it?"

"Yep." Amara replied.

"Cool. Now, what else do I have to mention… Oh yeah, I introduced myself as Ghidorah, so remember to call me that here."

"Noted."

"And you can't talk verbally, that would blow our cover." I added, having found the smell of a fire. "Dragons here can only talk how I can, telepathically. Ebrithil, would you quickly run Amara through the basics, please?"

"It would be my pleasure." Islingr replied.

"Thanks." I said to her, then went back to speaking to my cuz. "We'll wait here until you get it, then fly back to the camp and I'll introduce you. Will you use your normal name, or something different? Amara isn't exactly a dragonish name, but we can work round it."

Amara thought on it before saying "I'll keep my name. It'll be less confusing."

I nodded, but thought about the reaction that I'd seen from her earlier. If she was that scared of becoming who her form was, then perhaps she thought that taking the name of it, like I had done, was the first step down a dark path. Maybe. I'm not a psychologist.

It only took half an hour for Amara to get telepathy. She could transmit words well enough, but was still struggling with pictures and emotions. Islingr judged her good enough for first contact, so we flew back to the campsite. Deciding not to freak anyone out, I landed first.

Everyone was still awake, with even Eragon up, but not quite about.

"Sup everyone!" I greeted them as I landed.

There were three sullen greetings in return, so I decided to lighten the mood.

"Merry Christmas!" I announced happily, tossing the sack of jelly beans to Saphira. "I bring gifts!"

One look inside and her eyes went wide. She looked in astonishment from me, to the bag, and back to me again. She finally broke out of the cycle with a joyous shout of "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" and a bounding lap of the clearing.

I turned to Eragon. "I presume you've been lectured on your stupidity?" He nodded sullenly, so I said "Your gift is that I don't rip your head off for breaking your promise. I asked for you to think things through before acting, but you haven't seemed to learn that."

Brom chuckled at my antics and asked "What do I get?"

"A new addition to the 'let's beat Galbatorix into a pulp group'." I grinned before looking to the sky and yelling "That's your cue, cuz!"

Sure enough, Amara swooped down into the camp with a massive thud, making the saddlebags jump a foot in the air. Saphira growled at her arrival and possessively clutched her bag of jelly beans.

"Sorry." Amara said sheepishly, checking that she hadn't broken anything. "Hi, I'm Amara. Ghidorah's my cousin."

Surprisingly, Saphira stopped her growling almost immediately, and her mouth fell open. "You two… you're related?"

"Isn't it obvious?" I chuckled. "Extra heads run in our family. We're special like that."

"And do you breathe lightning like your cousin?" Brom asked.

"Only from this head." Amara smiled, waving around her blue head. "I also do fire, ice, acid, and poisonous gas depending on what people order."

The three Alagaësians exchanged glances and shrugged in sync. I guess that I desensitised them to weirdness.

"Well," Brom smiled, "welcome to our damned-fool idealistic crusade."

I grinned. I'd reunited with my cousin, got to go snowboarding, and made a new friend. All in all, this had been one of the best Christmases that I'd had.

Snaphots #1A
(These are going to be short, funny bits tacked on the end of a chapter, probably in a chronological order. Enjoy!)

"Okay, how the **** did we get here?" Amara asked.

"Search me." I said, looking around in interest.

"Perhaps we simply took a wrong turn in the Rift." Darius suggested. "But the real question is what do we do now?"

As the oldest Plainswalker present, I had the most experience with realm hopping, so I decided to dispense my wisdom. "The way I see it, we have two options." I decided. "We can either get back to Locostral, or we exploit an opportunity we may never get again in our immortal lives."

"I'm going to exploit the opportunity." My cousin said, a massive smile breaking over her snout.

Both of us glanced at Darius who shrugged. "Why not? I'm always up for sightseeing."

Our course of action agreed upon, we started playing hacky sack with a Quaffle in the middle of Hogwarts' Quidditch pitch.