Here's my new chapter! I hope you like it, it's nearly 3000 words long, which is a biggie for me. So… I had a lot of things I wanted to say in this author's note but I've forgetten them all. If I remember them I'll tell you next time. THANK YOU TO MY REVIEWERS YOU GUYS MAKE ME SO SO SO SO HAPPY IT'S INCREDIBLE! THANK YOU!
Now… I own nothing.
Please enjoy!
;D
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Saphira, alone
The moment Eragon vanished in a blaze of fire-red-magic-light, Saphira cried out.
The shock she felt was immense, a rushing, roaring, devastating torrent that scalded her heart, her mind, everything at once, in a wave of grief and longing and panic. His voice was gone. It was no longer there. Gone. Her partner-of-heart-and-mind…
Gone.
Galbatorix had started to form the words, "Waì –" A spell, most certainly, but she wasn't going to give him the time to finish it. With a savage rumbling roar, she leapt forwards, landing in front of the oath-breaker-egg-breaker, and seized him in her massive jaws, and thrashed her neck from side to side. His wards were gone, stripped by Eragon before he vanished, and so was his life. His spine crunched in her maw, and her great fangs tore through his cape and clothes and flesh and bones, and just for good measure she kept her mouth closed and let her heart-fire-flame swirl up her throat and roast him to ash-dead-cinders.
Then, releasing the charred thing that was once the king of Alagaësia, she tipped back her enormous spiky head and bellowed her grief, a high sorrow-mourning-keening that echoed through the partly destroyed chamber and multiplied a hundred times, a thousand, bouncing back and forth against the walls, a living proof of her despair.
Gone! she said, to no-one but herself and Eragon, wherever he may be. Gone! Where is he? Arya! Where is he? Do you sense him? Do you know where he is? The elf had emerged from the rubble that surrounded Shruikan's gargantuan corpse. Her black hair was singed and dusty, and her face was smudged with dirt and blood, whether her own or the black-traitor-prison-dragon's, Saphira knew not.
"I do not feel him," she said sorrowfully. "His mind is gone. His body is gone. I fear that… he is dead, Saphira. Dead, or so far away, it is equal to death."
No. Not when we were so close to completing our task… He cannot be gone. He cannot have left me, not Eragon, not my partner-of-heart-and-mind… NO!
Saphira roared again, releasing an incandescant torrent of blue-tinged heart-fire-flame that raged over the burnt body of the king. Never had she felt such hatred, such primal-spite-anger-loathing towards a being, living or dead, before in her life. Then her head drooped, and the heart-fire-flame vanished, the last few tendrils wisping up into thin air.
Not Eragon, she said again, but this time it was a plea more than a command. Do not leave me here, Eragon. She could feel the Eldunarì pressing at her mind, murming words of solace, comfort, regret. She pushed them aside with a mental shrug. They knew what it was to lose a Rider. They knew that no words could break through the stone-iron-rock-barrier of her grief.
Not Eragon. The words felt almost like a mantra. Perhaps if she repeated them long enough, they would come true. Not Eragon.
He cannot have gone.
Not Eragon.
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It felt like a haze. A dream, a nightmare from which there was no escape. Eragon was gone, dead, most likely, and she, Saphira, was incomplete.
She, the dragon-blood-elf-Arya, red-blood-noble-heart-Thorn and his rider-Eragon-half-brother-Murtagh left the crumbling citadel with grief in all of their hearts. They had defeated the oath-breaker-egg-breaker Galbatorix, but her Rider was dead, and they all felt her loss. They found the wolf-elf-Blödhgarm, too, and the other elven spellcasters. They spoke sadly, for they knew what had transpired. With them they bore the enslaved Eldunarì, and the egg that had been in Galbatorix's clutches. Saphira felt a small stir of weary joy when she saw its white-veined, shiny forest-green shell, but it faded rapidly away. Tiredly, she told them of the other eggs and the other Eldunarì that lay on the island of Vroengard, and she saw the humming elation that the news caused them, though they tried hard to hide it, out of respect for her and for Eragon.
There was dark-skin-strong-will Nasuada, talking quietly with Eragon-half-brother-Murtagh. She cried aloud at one point, and pressed a hand to her mouth. Tears spilled, silver and glittering, down her ebony cheeks. They continued talking softly, then Murtagh touched a hand to her collarbone. Saphira clearly saw something drain from Nasuada. She closed her eyes and let out a long breath as some painful thing seemed to leave her body. She thanked Murtagh, then glanced towards Saphira. Walking over, she said softly, "Saphira… I feel your sadness. In fact, no, I do not. I know that whatever you're feeling is a hundred, a thousand times stronger than what I feel. I… Know that if you need anybody… to talk to… or… just – just to be with, or… Know that I'm here. That's all." She pressed her fingertips to Saphira's diamond scales and dipped her head, still streaked with tears.
Saphira arched her head over Nasuada and blew out a breath of grey-fire-smoke. I thank you, Nasuada-daughter-of-Ajihad. I will keep your words in mind.
Then Murtagh came to join her, and offered gently to heal her wounds. She allowed him to, holding out her foreleg, watching him knit the flesh together and draw the blood back into the veins.
She also met Eragon-cousin-Stronghammer-Roran, and reluctantly, she told him of what had happened. He stood stock-still for a few minutes, his bearded, blood-streaked face pale. Then he shook his head and muttered, "Ah… I need a few moments." He'd stumbled off down the destroyed street, clumsily, like a drunk man.
Young-face-old-mind Angela was there too. She heaved a sorrowful sigh when Saphira recounted Eragon's death-vanishing. Werecat-Solembum had hissed, and flattened his tufted ears against his great shaggy head.
"The strongest fall the hardest," was all that she murmured. "I am truly sorry, Saphira."
After a while, Saphira had enough of spreading her grief around the wrecked-bone-dust-broken-city. Enough people had heard the news to be able to repeat it. She took flight, soaring high into the mist-water-off-earth-clouds, closing her eyes, feeling the moisture condense and drip off her scales. Her sadness was almost palpable in her mind. It was just not fair… They had come so close to success. So close… and yet, so far. After everything they had gone through, everything they had suffered, every inch of ground they'd gained, every Urgal and every soldier and every Shade they had killed, every wound they'd taken, every bitter loss they'd felt… Umaroth and the others were still there, in her consciousness, though they did not press her, and she said nothing to them. Perhaps she would speak to Glaedr, afterwards, when the pain had gone a little… He must know something about how to cope.
She banked left, feeling her chest muscles take the strain, and flapped powerfully once or twice, lifting herself above the mist-water-off-earth-clouds, and into the great blue sweep of sunlit sky. Despite the beauty of the cream-pearl-milk-white-clouds, despite the beauty of the sea-blue-gold-sun-sky, she felt only a painful clenching in her heart. She roared, and if any dragon had ever wept, she would weep now. But dragons did not weep.
Eragon was gone.
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Saphira stayed in the air until night began to fall, and only when the sky was the colour of ink and strewn with silver stars did she descend, swooping low over the ant-nest-makeshift-home-camp that was where most of the Varden would be sleeping tonight. She found a patch of ground that was free of tents and prepared to land, spreading her wings to slow herself and reaching out with her hind legs, but something stopped her at the last moment and she lurched clumsily back into the air, stumbling slightly because of her last-minute change of plan.
Instead, she glided towards the wrecked-bone-dust-broken-city, and found a place to sleep there. She alighted at the top of a partly destroyed church, large and strong enough to support her weight, and, carefully, because of the fragile-beetle-back-dry-earth-tiles, she draped herself over the roof, digging her claws into the clay of the tiles and the wood and stone below. And, uncomfortable and aching with loss and love, she slept, unaware that far, far away, Eragon was spending his first night in District Twelve.
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The next day, she awoke with the touch of sunlight on her scales. It took her a few moments to remember what had happened the day before, and when she did, she craned her neck towards the dawn sky and roared so loudly that the church beneath her trembled to its very foundations and a flock of birds took off, alarmed, from where thay had been roosting nearby. Angrily, she lashed her head out at the cracked spire, and her horns caught the slim grey spine of stone and sent it tumbling to the street below, where it exploded into millions of pieces. Cries of alarm came from the surrounding houses, but Saphira didn't want to hear them. She flung herself into the air, and with powerful beats of her wings, she flew away over the wreckage of the city below.
She didn't know where she was flying to, but she had to fly, she had to move. As long as she was moving, she wouldn't think, about yesterday or the oath-breaker-egg-breaker Galbatorix, or about the battle, or about Eragon…
She growled, furious at herself. She should have been able to defend him. She was his dragon. It was her duty. She'd failed him, and now he was dead, and it was all her fault. Eragon was dead because of her. A weakling. If she'd flung herself at the egg-breaker a moment earlier… but no, she hadn't, because she'd been attacking the black-traitor-prison-dragon Shruikan. One of her own kind, as well. She was pitiful.
Saphira only realized where she was when she arrived. It was the butterfly-chrysalis-tent where the Varden's main spellcasters assembled, a large pavilion decked in gold and violet. Probably deserted at this time of the morning.
Saphira landed heavily on the ground outside, stirring swirls of dust into the air, and thrust her head past the entrance flap into the tent itself, taking no notice of the fragile devices and mirrors and crystals and suchlike that tumbled to the carpeted floor with the force of her intrusion. It was empty, as she'd guessed.
Withdrawing her head, she sat back and waited. She'd considered a mental bellow to summon Du Vrangr Gata immediately from their beds or wherever they currently were, but decided that it wasn't fair on the honest soldiers who'd done their duties the day before, and were enjoying a well-deserved rest. Besides, she had time. So she set to licking the dried blood off the wound that Murtagh had healed yesterday, and waited, trying to think of nothing more than the rust-flecked blue scales of her foreleg.
After a while, they arrived, stopping dead when they saw Saphira hulking outside their tent, blood speckling her teeth and a savage light in her eyes.
"Er… greetings, Saphira, Daughter of the Wind," Trianna stammered, being unusually courteous. "We are just coming to collect some things for our work destroying Galbatorix's spells in the city… I was, and am, of course, aggrieved to hear of your Rider's demise. I am sure he fought well, and valiantly, and –"
Saphira cut her off with a growl.
I do not care to hear of what you think about my Rider, she said. I am here to ask something of you. Is it possible to scry Eragon in his current location?
"I… I don't mean to… I mean, I thought he was dead," stammered Trianna, fully aware that to argue with Saphira would be a very bad idea indeed. "I…"
I thought so too, Saphira agreed, cutting her off. But I know now that he is not dead. I feel it in my heart-of-hearts. Eragon is not dead, of that I am sure.
"I suppose that I could try to scry him," said Trianna weakly. "But the energy required would be … immense, to say the least."
Let me worry about the energy, Saphira interjected. Now scry him.
She watched as Trianna entered the tent, issuing orders to her fellow magicians. They took up several devices whose meanings were lost on Saphira and hurried out, casting frightened glances back at her. She ignored them and instead, watched Trianna herself as she picked up a flat mirror and incanted a spell in a trembling voice. Saphira opened the barriers between the woman's spirit and hers, allowing her energy to flow into the human's fragile-insect-husk-body.
At first, the mirror was white. Then, like a drop of ink falling into a saucer of milk, blackness blossomed across the pearly flatness. Then… Saphira saw the pale flash of an upturned face, the swift gleam of a brown eye… and her life-soul-energy started emptying at an alarming rate, flooding from her body into Trianna's. Saphira felt tremors start in her talons and travel up her legs, then her vision became dark and flickery and she stumbled, and nearly fell. Frantically, she slammed the barriers shut, and Trianna ended the spell.
"If he is alive," said Trianna somewhat shakily, after they spent a minute gulping breath back into their lungs, "he is too far to be scried."
Thank you for trying, replied Saphira. Then she withdrew her head from the chrysalis-tent and took off, buffeting the tents below with powerful gusts of wind.
As she soared over the grey-brown sprawl of the Varden's camp and then the gold and green fields further on, she reflected upon the scrying session. Eragon was alive. That she knew. But if he was too far to be scried… that was far indeed, many thousands… no, many millions of leagues away. Not even Saphira could travel that far. It was a hopeless cause.
But one thing that Saphira had learned in her life was that nothing was hopeless. Nothing.
And nothing was impossible.
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The weeks gradually began to blend into a seamless tapestry of hunting, sleeping, and helping the Varden rebuild the Empire. Soon after her meeting with Trianna, they elected a queen. Nasuada, dark-skin-strong-will. Saphira abstained from the vote, but she was pleased with the outcome. Nasuada-daughter-of-Ajihad was a fitting leader for Alagaësia.
She was still sad about Eragon, though. Gradually, she grew more and more withdrawn, more and more reserved. She had kept the ruined church as her nesting-place, for even though it was uncomfortable it was high and rocky, and she liked to sleep in such places. But as the days merged into one, grief-tainted whole, she withdrew from human contact, and returned to the wrecked-bone-dust-broken-city only to sleep. Once or twice she dreamed of Eragon, though she did not remember the visions come the morning. She spent her waking hours in the tangled forests nearby – at least, it was nearby for a dragon – hunting animals and devouring them, or drinking in the shallow pools, or basking in wide swathes of sunlight, as if hoping that the heat from the sun would thaw the coldness in her heart.
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Saphira awoke.
It was different. Something was different.
Every day since Eragon had gone, she'd woken up with a deep ache in her chest. A heavy pain. It had vanished during the day time, but returned at dawn, without fail. Only now it was not dawn. It was star-sprinkled night.
And the pain was unberable.
Saphira growled at the torment of it, and launched into the air, heading instinctively towards the forest were she spent her time nowadays. As she was gliding through the still, dark air, the stars and the moon above her and the fields and orchards below, she wondered what this pain was, and why she was flying towards the black-tangle-wild-forest instead of towards a healer or a magician from the Varden.
A spasm of agony interrupted her thoughts. Twisting in the air, she fell from the sky, to land heavily in a field of corn. Luckily, she was not too badly hurt, she discovered as she beat her wings once or twice and stretched out her limbs. But the pain was now such that her vision was greying and her legs felt like cloud.
A convulsion rippled through her, and she extended her throat, like she was about to vomit, though nothing came out.
Another convulsion, and she fell to the ground, her body beyond her own control, pain gripping every inch of her.
A third convulsion…
Her chest felt like it was about to tear asunder…
And something emerged from between her teeth.
It was not heart-fire-flame.
It was heart-fire-magic.
It hung in the air, a transluscent, starry mist, now pale blue then deepest indigo then coloured like the sea, green and violet and shifting shades of shining irridescence.
Saphira knew what this was immediately.
It was a portal.
And it would take her to her Rider.
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The end! I'm in a rush at the moment, so I'll explain about the portal and all that next time. For now, I can only say I hope you enjoyed that and please REVIEWW!
;)
