A/N: still coming out with a chapter on Friday, but I decided to post one of the chapters I wrote before the two I have planned, as it made more sense narratively upon review. SO! Enjoy!
-BRISINGR-
ARYA looked ahead, the sky above melding vibrant colors in its beckoning of the morning sun. Despite the smoke that rose from Gillendel's burning forests, it was a masterwork of art; a beauty that didn't heed the horror that graced the land it entertained.
She walked across hastily erected battlements, nodding to Orik's Dwarib guard as they repaired breaches that had afflicted the walls from the nights before. There had been days of fighting, relentless attacks as suicidal waves of Sealed Elves ran into spearheads and and sword, or were felled by sheets of arrows primed by Laen Elves, their desperation for survival aiding them as they loosed quarrels with deadly accuracy.
The Ra'zac, as always, hung behind, floating above on their Letherbalka. There were only two now, and the behemoths still instilled slight tangents of fear in Arya's mind as they eclipsed the moon during fiery nights of pitched warfare.
She felt the crown that pressed against her temples as she looked down into Gillendel below. Corpses were strewn throughout the cities streets. Formerly white and marbled buildings were now scarred with smut or painted with blood.
The markets were deserted, and the only thing that could be seen between the ruined houses of commerce were bodies of allies and foe, some of them bearing weapons that proudly jutted from their corpses like makeshift tombstones.
The queen placed her hand over her stomach, hating herself as she felt the tiny ember of life within her respond to her touch.
Eragon.
Arya sent him and his father and his allies to find Oromis. She hadn't heard back from them yet, and it had been nearly three days now. She was prepared for what she had to do if they never returned.
"Don't make any contact with me. Do not scry nor send any message with magic. We don't know what dark minds could be lurking out, waiting for a lapse in our scrutiny." She had told Eragon before he departed to meet Morzan. She informed him as well that she would use the power invested in her by Islanzadi and Oromis to transport the Laen Elves to safety if need be. Five days, she had told him. She would wait five days.
They had one more day.
Arya quickly hopped down the descending steps that curled around the battlements, giving her regards to the soldiers she passed.
They all bore tired eyes and hollow faces. Even the Laen, usually imperious with their confidence, had been reduced to a dwindling fire. Music no longer played within the warcamps as they had when the fighting began, and the Elves had started taking their meals with humans and dwarib, uncustomary for her xenophobic people.
She knew the reason, however.
In grief and war, the artificial lines we draw between the races of this earth are easily blurred.
That thought resounded in her mind as she saw Roran. The man was praying amongst a group of Elven warriors, each one knelt before a painted visage of Aräntya, the god of wealth and war. She waited before she approached, closing her eyes as the Laen hymn leader finished his prayer.
Roran had fought alongside them, and it was his prowess that seemed to have thrown the Sealed off guard. The man's ability to negate magic almost appeared to grow stronger after each battle, and it was him that was able to reduce the wicked magecraft that the Ra'zac hurled at them from burning forests.
As the Laen Elves dispersed, Arya watched in slight humor as Roran attempted to give them proper Laen Elf pleasantries, his accent creasing her eardrums like the warbles of an infant.
"Magebane," she said as she approached from behind. Roran rose to his full height, almost half a head taller than Eragon, with a broad chest and shoulders. His features were manly, less boyish and robust, but the familiarity was there. He bore Eragon's eyes, and while his hair was shaved at the sides, it still fell like his brother's.
"Auresame Arya of house Valbhorethian." He answered, mispronouncing her full name. Before, she would've corrected him but now she was just happy that they were even able to have a short conversation in peace- however long that peace may last, until shattering warhorns beckoned them to blood.
She could tell he wanted to ask about Eragon, but he had the grace not to assault her with his worries. Even though she had only known Roran for a brief amount of time, she could tell he carried the same empathetic heart that he did, perhaps maybe even moreso. There was a maturity to him, a grief that gave way to understanding was held over his neck like an executioner's axe.
It was the very same grief that Arya knew only too well.
"There still hasn't been word of their return." Arya said simply with delicacy.
Roran's face shifted, sadness painting over it before he reinforced a smile that melted it away. Arya was pleasantly annoyed by how well she had learned to read the expressions of humans.
"I had no idea that this is what the world would turn into." He said after a few seconds of mutually appreciated silence.
He took up walking, and invited her beside him. Arya stepped into place, her armor clinking as long legs stretched to keep up with the taller man.
"It does seem strange. Our fates aligning as they did. Your brother finding the egg, finding me."
Arya shivered, tempering her emotions as Durza's sneering grin shifted into the forefront of her consciousness.
"It's funny," Roran started, his face suddenly appearing younger as memories creased the lines of stress that were carved onto him between restless nights.
"Eragon was always reading. He wanted to explore, do something. He wanted to be greater. He was always talking to me about faraway lands and battles, forgotten kings.
He retained every story he had read. When Brom came to us, I'll never forget Eragon's eyes when he saw the man. It was as if he had found his father."
Roran and Arya turned into the deeper sections of the warcamp. Tents were arrayed in an orderly fashion amongst the buildings that still stood within the inner sanctum of Gillendel. Aryan's keep, spires half destroyed by burning balls of pitch that Sealed warmachines slung, stood watch over the remains of Arya's army.
There were no divisions, no legions. Now there was just the Army, Arya, her allies, and her generals.
"Brom never returned. My mother had sent him to kill the Omshurtag. Now they're both gone." Arya said harshly, speaking above the sound of Elven metallurgists as they repaired broken and sullied arms.
Her face grew softer then, tempering the nights that she had spent with Eragon and Brom as they traveled across the human lands. She remembered the first battle she fought with the humans in those faraway fields against the Ra'zac and Durza.
But more than that she saw clearly the love that Eragon held for Brom, and the care that the Rider in turn extended to the boy. She frowned to herself, wishing she hadn't been so closed off, so distant.
"The last time we spoke.. at least the last time we spoke truly, we fought. It's frightening to me how cruel hindsight can be to our minds. If I could go back to that day, I would tell him so many different things." Roran said, looking at Arya but at the same time, past her.
Arya smiled, pursing her lips as she tried to imagine Eragon in an argument with his brother.
"I was thinking the same thing." She said.
Roran chuckled, running a scarred and branded hand through his hair.
"Now it's possible we may never get the chance to speak again."
Arya nodded at two elves and a human sitting together, roasting a kettle of corn and oats over an open fire. Turning her attention back to Roran, she spoke.
"No matter what happens, what we do with our lives will honor him, just as what he does with his will honor us. Even in death, miscommunicated love is never truly lost." She said, turning into herself.
Though that loss takes time to truly understand.
"I have a wife, and child. I was separated from them when Morzan took the North. I had.. lost memory of them, somehow. Morzan's control must've held their faces from my mind." Roran said with a hint of anger.
That was another reason she was glad she hadn't sent Roran with Eragon. Morzan had manipulated Roran's mind, and it took Elven mages hours to fully free the man's soul from the Dark Lord's will. Morzan had loosened the collar, but he didn't unchain the leash.
Arya didn't know how to respond to Roran- it was more than likely that his wife and child were dead. Among the hundreds of fleeing people, she doubted that any would have been able to save her. And even if they had, where would they go? The safest place would be the Varden, but that would be a faraway and desperate dream for one in the North, hundreds of miles away from Surda's tumbling sands.
"I will pray for them, and I say that truly. When we survive this, I will commit my power to finding them. I know how it feels to lose your family." Arya answered, bolstering herself with a flag of hope that wavered under grim reality.
Roran smiled at her, nodding in passing as the man made way to his tent. She watched him leave, until a passing patrol obstructed her view.
She placed her hand on the pommel of her sword, biting her lip as she turned.
I am Auresame. She reminded her misgivings.
Islanzadi's face, her confidence sprung up within Arya's mind. She knew that she based her own actions on her mother, who despite her failings, was a resplendent beacon that cared for her people. She knew if she could summon even half of the courage Islanzadi bore, half of the pain that she endured, somehow, perhaps even if it was a slight ember of hope, she could protect the ones she held dear.
The Queen of Elves made way for her wartent, where the remaining handful of her generals waited. They were to begin the planning for an evacuation if Islanzadi and Oromis didn't return, a plan that Arya didn't want to follow through on. But she knew that she couldn't be selfish now. She couldn't afford to.
"I am Queen." She said to herself, a small whisper among the clangs and shouts of her broken city, inches away from the eternal damnation that awaited them.
-BRISINGR-