It was dark when Eragon's eye's flickered open, banishing his waking dreams.
"Do you remember?
"Remember what?" Eragon propped himself up on an elbow to look at the figure in his window, silhouetted in the pale moonlight. He froze and stared at her, unsure if she was another apparition, if he was still dreaming.
Arya sighed and turned to face him; her face shrouded in the shadows as she leant against the windowsill. It wasn't a window truly, a waist high hole in the side of the cave he had made his home. A passage joined it to where Saphira slept, and the hole in the side of the wall could be covered with hides when the weather turned foul. Though it was summer, so it faced open over the fields where hi trained the youngest generation of dragon riders.
"When I ran with you after you took Helgrind, you asked me if I saw the people I killed when I closed my eyes. How you were supposed to feel about killing." Arya said as she stared at Eragon.
"Aye, and you told me you didn't." Eragon replied. He was sitting fully upright now, and blearily wiping the sleep from his eyes. "That you justified your actions and didn't allow them to corrupt you."
She nodded, a lock of her dark hair falling forward over her shoulder. "I've been thinking about that night again. About the way I answered, and realized how young I was, and how I didn't understand your question really at the time. Humans and Elves, we grow so differently that I kept brushing off your questions as childish."
Eragon nodded and smiled. "Some of them were."
"I forgot that you were an adult at times and forgot that in the eyes of Elves I was barely older than you." She took a deep breath. "I answered your questions the way I would a child, that you rationalize killing or it will consume you. I didn't tell you that no matter how much I did that it still consumed me." Arya looked at him, green eyes meeting blue. "That they still consume me."
The words hung in the silence that stretched between them as Eragon mulled over Arya's admission. He had long known that she was plagued more deeply by her past than she let on, he had held her when her dreams turned to nightmares and she woke screaming, not knowing where she was or when she was. She had refused to discuss them when they happened, just drawing strength and comfort from his presence as she returned to her own body.
"I think that's normal." He said, his voice low and careful. The longer they spoke, the more certain Eragon grew that Arya was really in the room with him and vaguely wondered why she was here. His dreams were normally more disjointed than this. And less pleasant. "For me, when I close my eyes I see them, or I see visions I don't understand." She knew this. He cocked his head to the side. "Why are you here?
"Ellesmera is lonely."
"Is it lonely? Or do you refuse to speak to others about what plagues you?" Eragon asked, hoping the question would cut through the distance she wore like a cloak.
Arya Ignored his question. "I can't be myself there, I can't relax." She sighed. "I can't be weak there. You know how my people are. We don't do emotions in the same way humans do. And even if we did, I'm their Queen! And that prevents them from even trying to understand me."
Eragon slowly got out of his bed and walked to stand beside her, feeling the cold uneven stone beneath his feet. Facing out of the window he set his eyes on the horizon and his hands on the sill. "You knew that distance was a risk when you took the crown. It's part of why I never could have." He sighed. "And having emotions does not make you weak."
She brushed off his comment. "That's not what I mean. I can't just feel my emotions there, express them, mourn, and celebrate. It's all pomp and ceremony, doing things just so so that you don't offend anyone with mortals, you upset them, and it's forgotten before the moon fills again, even after you gain immortality. Rhunon is right, Elves have become too stuffy, and I've spent too long among the mortal races of Alagaesia."
That elicited a soft laugh from Eragon as he reached out to Saphira with his mind. I know, she said softly in his head, sending him a picture of Firnen curled by the foot of the mountain. I tried to wake you, but you were too deep, he felt her yawn, I'm going back to sleep, this can wait until there is light in the sky and food in my belly.
If Arya had noticed his brief distraction, she didn't show it. "So, I organized for someone to take care of affairs and told the court that there were matters of great importance to attend to at the academy."
"And what are they?" A smirk played across Eragon's lips. What lie were they telling this time?
"Officially, you need my help to train some of the most recent pairs, some of the elves are struggling with the newfound freedom over their emotions. Unofficially, I need to spend some time learning myself." She shifted her weight, so she was leaning gently against Eragon, making him acutely aware that he hadn't grabbed a shirt when he got out of bed. "And the truth is I just want to spend some time with you."
Those words floated between them. Every few years conversations via the scrying mirrors stopped being enough, and they both felt the need for the other's company, it was an unscratchable itch, and they found reasons to leave their lives and come together. The bonds of battle, and of being riders were stronger than any time or distance. At least that was what they told themselves.
"I missed you too." Eragon murmured, his eyes still on the horizon. He had danced this dance with Arya many times, a delicate waltz where neither wanted to step on the other's toes. "How has it been since our last rendezvous?"
A smile tugged at the corner of Arya's mouth, remembering the month they spent 'looking for old rider's caches' far north of Du Welden Varden, and the nights they shared a tent as was only natural in that cold. "Some don't think I should be both Rider and Queen, that I should abdicate or be overthrown if I refuse. That the Mortal races have the right of it." She said, stress spilling over into her voice. "I'm beginning to agree, I feel like I'm being pulled in so many directions."
"You will always be welcome here." Eragon said as his eyes stayed fixed on the horizon, refusing to look at her. Knowing that quitting was not in her nature there was nothing he could say to make her change her mind.
"I know." Her voice was low and there was a hint of longing, of desire, for something less complicated. "But . . ."
"If you quit it will seem like weakness." Eragon finished, hands tensing on the sill. It was an old conversation, one he hated having because he hated the resolution. "Do we have to do this now?" He turned to face her.
"No." Arya said softly, she hated this conversation also, but she was beginning to be swayed to his side. Another 100 years and she might be on it. "I also missed this." She leaned up and kissed him softly. It wasn't just that though. It was the general closeness the mortal races had to other living beings, the need for contact. Something she knew he had not lost, none of the mortal riders did. And it was something the Elven riders were gaining. Something most members of her court did not understand and saw as a corruption. Part of their failing trust in her. But she was not prepared to give in to their demand.
"Arya," Eragon's voice was low when they broke apart, and he breathed like he had had the wind knocked out of him. As he pulled her into his arms. "I missed this too." He placed a kiss on her temple, and she relaxed fully into him, feeling at once like she was finally home.
