Eragon closed the door behind him. Putting away his bow and arrows, he greeted his master. Then joined him at the table and pulled a book toward him. There, he read for several minutes in silence. His master had long forgotten about him and had returned to his own reading.
Eragon remembered the first time he had learned to read. His master told him this when he'd uttered his first word:
"If you are old enough for speech, then you are old enough to learn."
But Eragon didn't like learning. He had been too restless to think of sitting down and whiling the day away sounding out his vowels, especially if there was miles and miles of forest outside the door to explore. But then he discovered there was more than one way one could travel into different realms. Into the air, the caves, under water, in a village or a castle, on the other side of a mirror or a den in the ground.
Eragon became obsessed and was soon learning things outside of the fictitious. Still, he was adventurous at heart and would occasionally be out exploring the Spine as part of his daily activities. His master had no issue with that just so long as he returned to his lessons/chores once he had his fill.
"There was a boy in the forest," Eragon interrupted the quiet a half hour later.
The announcement had been uttered without preamble. Eragon hadn't planned to say anything, but he found himself more and more distracted by what occurred in the forest.
Again white eyes looked at him from under the hood wrapped around a large head. His master was a curious fellow. Never once seeing the elder being without his cowl, Eragon often pictured what he looked like. There were antlers sticking out from his head, but each time he tried to learn more, his attention would be diverted, never really coming to a conclusion.
"He got caught in one of my traps," Eragon went on to say, knowing his master was waiting for him to explain. His eyes remained on his book, though his expression showed his displeasure. "I released him but he refused to heed my warning to leave. He said he needed food for his family."
"Is that why your pack is missing?"
Eragon blinked in surprise. "Yes."
His master said nothing else, and Eragon took that to be the end of it.