Edited 1/29/22 - all chapters are getting a overhaul. Things might not match until this process is complete.
I do not the Inheritance Cycle
Enjoy,
A New Direction
It was late afternoon the following day when Rose awoke. She was so warm and comfortable that at first she didn't want to open her eyes. She stretched luxuriously under her blanket, her hand brushing something warm and scaly. Running her fingers curiously over it, she remembered where she was and the events that had occurred and sat up, tousled and still half-asleep, rubbing her eyes. The late sunlight shifted through the open doorway, touching objects around the room with a still, golden light, and she could hear the swallow breathing of the dragon behind her and crackling of the fire behind it.
"Good afternoon," said Tornac. "I trust you slept well?"
Rose jumped and turned around. Tornac was sitting on the bare earthen floor, his legs stretched out before him, a big, leather-bound book open on his lap. He closed it carefully and placed it on the ground next to him. He was pale and the scar on his face stood out as it always did when he was anxious.
"I…" Rose faltered, taking a deep breath. "I did, thank you."
Tornac studied Rose in silence. Suddenly feeling very much like a small child, Rose turned her eyes away and studied her hands.
"What happened?" Tornac asked at last.
"I chased after a wisp," she said. "It led me deep into the forest and disappeared."
Tornac's eyes turned black in anger. "And then?"
"I fell down a hill into a marsh and a stranger came by and offered help." Rose rubbed her hands. "I had injured myself when I fell and could not get back up the hill, so I went with him."
There was a short, ominous silence where the only thing that was heard was the dragon chewing lazily on a strip of pink meat, its tail rapping contentedly against the ground and the crackling laugh of the fire.
When Tornac did speak, it was in the hard, even voice that he signaled total fury. "Do you mean to tell me that, after years of avoiding even the smallest advances of friendship even from those dearest to you, you suddenly decide on a whim, with no warning at all, to not only hunt after a fairylight in middle of the night but wholly trust a stranger? I thought you had learned something over the past years."
"It was foolish, I know-"
"Foolish? That's the least of it. Perilous, reckless, stupid. By the gods, Muirgheal, I'd expect such a thing from a child, but you at least ought to know better than anyone else the perils."
Rose stood up, nearly toppling over the dragon, stung by Tornac's anger.
"If I am not a child, then why do you insist on treating me as if I were?" Tornac leaned back onto a small heap of bags behind him but did not answer. Rose took a deep ragged breath. "I'm sorry, Tornac" she said bitterly, "I truly am."
When Tornac said nothing Rose walked over to the iron pot that they used for stew and boiling water. She crouched down and peered inside, granules of dried meat and barley floated on the surface of the thin grain-colored stew. Sighing with discontent, she poured herself a bowl and hungrily drank from it. The soup was mild and the meat stringy but Rose hardly tasted it as she ate hurriedly, eager to fill her grumbling belly. When the wooden bowl was emptied, she poured herself another and sat back on her heels enjoying the taste and warmth.
When she finished she setting the bowl on the earthen flooring ,and stood, stretching her arms. She turned around and saw that Tornac's anger was subsiding, and that the dragon had now finished its meal and was licking its claws joyously, is pink tongue flicking in and out of its maw.
"I forgive you," Tornac said at last. But please do not repeat these actions and if you do, at least warn me. All the same, Rose, you know as well as I that that was a reckless act and we cannot afford such recklessness if we are to survive this."
Rose did not need to be told what 'this' was, she knew he referred both their lives and their flight and now the dragon. "I promise," she said, then added as an afterthought, "Where is Ailis?"
"She is setting out snares since your dragon appears to be depleting us of our supply of meat. Be warned! She has taken your welfare somewhat to heart, and she is rather cross at the moment."
"I know. She liberated some of that anger on my hair." She ran her hands over the plait she had slept in.
"She mentioned that to me when I awoke," said Tornac. He gave her a sudden, brilliant smile. "Seems to me that the tumble is a more than you're letting on."
Rose grumbled in response and picked her way over to her bags. Pulling out a spare set of clothing and her waterskin, she requested that Tornac leave so she may bathe and dress in private. When Tornac stepped outside, she peeled off her torn clothes, washed herself all over minding her cuts and sores, and changed into the clean clothes from in her pack. She did not know what to do with the soiled clothing and so she dropped them onto the rucksack.
As she was pulling on her boots, she noticed that the dragon was watching her intently, its ruby eyes luminous in the firelight. She stood up and approached it apprehensively, its eyes never strayed from her movements. Leaning down she met its gaze and the dragon blinked and her and thumped its tail loudly against the earth.
"What am I going to do with you, little menace?" she asked it.
The dragon cocked its head to the side and sent her a reflection of their endless walking the day before through their strange mind-touch.
Rose shook her head. "No," she said, "no more of that, I think."
Closing its eyes in response, the dragon rested its head between its paws and puffed out curls of smoke. Rose observed the dragon until it began to make a vibrating noise, between a hum and a purr, then she stood up straight. Walking over to her saddlebags, she pulled out her sword from the top of the small pile and belted it then walked over to the door.
A bitter wind pierced her exposed skin cruelly, instantly leaving her numb, the moment when she opened the door. She blinked and squinted her eyes narrowly at the blinding snow-coated plains, closing to wooden door firmly behind her.
Ailis and Tornac stood near the barn deep in conversation, neither of them looked up as Rose made her approach.
"-tried every method I could think of, and yet, I could not contact him," Rose heard Ailis say sharply. Rose saw Tornac look over in her direction and Ailis followed his gaze, and the woman hurriedly said, "I tried to scry him."
"And nothing?" asked Tornac.
Ailis shook her head. "Nothing. It's almost as if he doesn't want to be reached," she said and looked away, her eyes downcast.
"Are you speaking about someone within the Varden?" asked Rose when she reached them. She felt the dragon's consciousness in her mind as it stirred in response to her agitation and interest and she pushed it away, shutting her mind off to the creature.
Ailis frowned at Rose and shook her head. "No," she said distractedly, "a friend of mine."
"Did you find anything by doing so?" Tornac asked quietly.
Ailis met his eyes. "Less than I desired."
"I see. Well, let us not stand here like mislaid sheep. We ought to get indoors, there is a chill in this air that I like not," said Tornac puckering his brow. He stepped over and clasped Rose's shoulder and began to usher her around the drifts of shining snow and towards the cabin, Ailis following not far behind. "Don't you concern yourself with Ailis' troubles and secrets," he whispered quietly to Rose, "she has quite a bit on her mind at this moment and a remarkable little of it she wishes to burden you with. It would be unwise ask else she may never say," he advised and leaned away.
"I'll keep that in mind," Rose whispered.
Looking behind her shoulder at Ailis' glum figure, she frowned and bit the inside her cheek. Shaking her head, she looked away and hurried ahead into the hut, she had had enough of nature as of late and dearly yearned to be inside.
When inside the cabin, the travelers sat wound the hearth in silence. It was only when the dragon stood and lousily scuttled its way to Rose did someone speak. "What do you make of him?" asked Ailis, studying the dragon with a look of great concern.
Rose looked at her, momentarily puzzled. Rose thought about for a moment, and though she was still maddened by the mere idea of the creature, she looked at Tornac out the corner of her eyes and muttered, "I'm not certain. I haven't quite had the opportunity to comprehend what has occurred."
Ailis frown deepened and with a deep sigh she placed her hands in her hands. "What do you wish to take place?" she muffled.
Rose frowned, unsure where Ailis was going with this conversation. "Only for it to crawl back into its egg and remain there," Rose said in truth.
Ailis snorted a breathy laugh. She looked up and smiled wobbly at Rose, then she turned towards the fire and stretched out her bare hands, the flickering glow from the flame gleamed off of the teeming crisscross scars that scored her hands. Rose watched as Ailis rubbed her hands together and leaned closer to the fire, a piece of rich brown hair tumbled into her face and she wiped it away, tucking it behind her ear. She sighed and leaned away whispering softly, but whatever she had said was lost to the loud thumping of the dragon's tail.
Rose looked over at Tornac, who remained silent throughout the exchange and met his gaze, he shook his head and continued to poke at the fire with a stick. "I believe now would be a suitable time for you to tell us of your adventure, yes, Rose?" he said as the golden cinders raced into the air.
Looking at the flames, Rose slowly began to tell them of what had occurred, she was only interrupted once by Ailis who requested to know what had awoken her to begin with. After she told them of the necklace, feeling rather imprudent all the while, Ailis leaned forward and listened with zealous, her hands folded tightly in her lap. When Rose finished her account, she fell silent, not meeting their eyes. Tornac leaned back on his hands absently studying the ceiling and sighed halfheartedly, while, Ailis remanded unemotional, her face masklike.
"The necklace is charmed," the woman said after a time. "It keeps anyone from scrying you, looking for you by magical means. Someone must have been searching for you the other night, that's why you were awoken."
Rose blinked and leaned back on her hands in disbelief. "It was the King," she muttered after a moment. "He's a sorcerer, and I know he's upset over my disappearance. If the necklace is charmed, does that mean that he saw nothing?"
Ailis nodded but it was Tornac who said, "It seems to me that he has likely sent his people to look for you and they couldn't find you; he began to look by other means. It's best to keep that necklace on, my girl, and not take it off."
Rose nodded, fingering the long chain, and a long silence overtook them. Finally, Ailis stood up and beckoned to Rose. "Let go for a walk, yes?"
Tornac threw another branch in the fire and poked it, a trail of sparks flew up into the chute, as Rose got to her feet. She draped herself in the mud-spattered cloak she had worn the previous day, before following Ailis into the fleeting daylight. The dragon watching her movements with its eyes, before it stood and followed after.
Ailis silently led Rose outside and into the forest down a broken path. A coolness fell over them; the sunlight fell in dapples and Rose saw squirrels vanishing up the trunks of tree as they passed, and a rabbit propped in a small glade, its white tail bobbing into the trees as they drew closer. Beside her the dragon sauntered, conveying to her its displeasure at their return to the woodlands, Rose irritably sent it her own abhorrence for the towering trees and the brambles that grew below their high crowns, and the dragon bothered her no more.
They walked in silence for a long moment, as they had the night before, and soon Rose began to feel as if she had never left the sheltering of the trees and that her afternoon in the cabin was little but a distant dream.
Finally, Ailis came to a halt and turned around to Rose. They were at the edge of a dell still underneath the limbs of bare trees, the glade circled before them in a tedious mounding of shining snow.
"There is much you need to know and much I cannot teach you," Ailis said. "I am not a teacher, and so what knowledge I can pass to you may not be at its best. I had planned to hold off until we've reached the Varden but I now believe that you must know."
Rose scowled, soured by Ailis' tone and riddles, at the trees in the distance. How many lifetimes these trees must have witnessed, Rose thought, how many sorrows and furies and pleadings have been heard?
When she looked back at Ailis, the woman summoned her forth and kneeled down in the snow by a wide trunked tree, and swept the powdery substance away from the roots, revealing a simple roped snare. Ailis then proceeded to describe how it worked and had Rose both take the trap down and set it back up. Afterwards Ailis showed Rose the numerous tracks on the ground and instructed her on how to track the animals and judge where they might be nesting, during this time neither of them paid any mind to the dragon, which was at a time near their heels, and so they did not notice with it traveled far from them and deep into the forest.
Rose was the first to notice the dragon's absence, quickly sending out her mind to it but the dragon was too far away and she felt nothing. Panicked Rose told Ailis and the two of them wandered the woodlands until they tracked down the little beast. It was clawing mercilessly into a burrow near a fallen tree. Rose called the dragon and it straightened and looked at her. It turned back to the hole and growled maliciously before it blew smoke and trotted toward them.
Ailis laughed silently beside Rose, shaking her head. "That's something I've never dreamed of seeing."
Rose shivered, looking down at the dragon. Suddenly, she thought of the chilled air and wondered whether or not the creature was cold or how it could stand the blistering wind, she shook her head to clear the thought away. "Night is beginning to fall," Rose observed.
"It is," said Ailis, "and a hot meal is calling us back."
While they walked little pleasantries were exchanged as Ailis focus solely on her teachings, one time Ailis pointed out a dried grass with feather-like tresses at the tops, which she pulled out of the ground and shook out the dirt out the roots, she explained how the roots could be peeled off and cooked before eaten in any season. The rest of the walk was spent by Ailis checking a number of traps, one of the snares was cut and frayed at the ends, and walking up to different trees and showing Rose how to peel the bark with a knife and the flesh that could be eaten inside, she also explained how to make a sweet tea from the twigs of a birch tree.
It was only three hours before dusk when they returned to the cabin. Chilled and still tired from her voyage in the forest from the days before, Rose quickly opened creaking door and stepped inside the warmed shelter. Shivering, Rose rushed across the flooring and curled in on herself by the balmy fire next to Tornac, who had taken to his large book once more.
"Did you enjoy your walk?" Tornac looked up and smiled tightly at them in greeting. "Am I right to assume that it was less eventful then the one previously taken."
Rose frowned and looked down at the dragon as it curled close to her. She pushed it away with her foot, wishing that the creature would find something else to lie close to.
"I would hope so," Ailis said getting food out a pack.
Wordlessly, Tornac leaned forward and began pour the stew into bowls with a wooden ladle. Realizing how hungry she was Rose eagerly reached out for the bowl Tornac handed her.
"We haven't lost all courtesies, at least not yet, I hope," said Tornac, sitting down on the other side of the watchful dragon. "You must wash first."
Smiling teasingly, Ailis sat back with her own bowl in her hands and drank from it causing Rose to laugh lightly as she handed out rolls of hardened bread- none of them troubled theirselves with washing their hands.
They munched in silence for a time and the dragon began to thump its tail softly against the ground. When the bowls were drained the dragon again sent Rose a tendril of thought, it was desired food as well. When Rose relayed this to Ailis and Tornac, Ailis simply rolled her eyes in exasperation. "I doubt that he will ever stop eating," Ailis said. "If he's hungry you ought to skin that rabbit." Rose glared at her in annoyance. "He's your dragon, Rose, for the time that he's a hatchling, and at moments after he grows, he's going to rely on you for many things."
"It's not my dragon," Rose growled.
"Oh, so he hatched for someone else and you just happened to be the only soul around in that moment? No, Rose, he hatched for you and now you are his Rider whether you wish it or not."
Scowling Rose stood up turning toward the resting dragon. It snaked its head up and blinked at her. "There's a way to revoke the bond, is there not?"
"Only through black magic," said Ailis warily, after a short pause.
Tornac huffed at them. "Rose," he began in a warning tone.
Turning away from them, Rose walked to the limp rabbit picking it up by its hind leg with distaste, she stepped to the doorway. "Don't worry, Tornac, I want little to do with magic. I'm merely inquiring," she said and walked into the freezing air.
When she went back inside, she noted that the dragon was waiting for her close to the door, she bent down and lay the meat strips in front of it. Watching the dragon sniff the stripes and then proceed to guzzle them up, Rose sighed, there wasn't much she could do about the creature at the moment.
While she was cutting the pinkened meat, Rose thought over the predicament that was the dragon and how she should proceed. The only action she could take, as she had concluded the day before, was for the time being to accept the dragon's presence. It seemed to her that she had little other choice and that perhaps Fate was a cruel jokester indeed, allowing her escape Galbatorix's preparation to transform her into one thing, and then tossing at her a dragon and thus making her a Rider as her father had been.
She stood up and resignedly walked over to Ailis and Tornac. When she sat down, she ignored their conversation despite their efforts to include her. Only with the sun had set on the horizon, did Rose turn away from the fire and look at her company. Ailis and Tornac were talking quietly and, she saw in the corner of her eye that, the dragon lay close to her saddlebags studying her closely. It met her gaze and sent her tendril of thought and Rose responded in kind. After a moment the dragon stood and hesitantly toddled over to her. Stopping a foot away, it stood stiffly and Rose held her hand out toward it and watched as the dragon's eyes went wide as it scrambled to her side. Rose unemotionally turned to Tornac and Ailis, scratching the dragon lightly under its scaly chin.
After a moment she was able to conclude that they were deciding on how they travel through The Spine, whether it be wild or road and perhaps they should they wander to Kausta, as planned, or stop shortly in Teirm to send word south to the Varden. It was a long, dreary exchange as they were thinking through all the advantages and possible difficulties that may occur. When Rose joined in on the dispute both of them started as she had cared little before that moment but listened to her option. Hours later they agreed to head towards Teirm through the wildlands of The Spine, but first they would seek a town or village and obtain a healthier set of provisions. After restocking the fire, the travelers crawled underneath their blankets and swiftly fell asleep as they would arise early the next day.
