a/n: olook, another disclaimer! i keep forgetting these.
disclaimer: i don't own eragon.
Winter came. And with it a perilous storm.
Eragon stayed in his home with a fire and spells protecting them from the invasive cold. Unlike for Roran.
Roran had become something of a familiar routine in Eragon's life. Roran would even go so far as to call them friends. Friends. Such a foreign term to Eragon. Eragon has only rarely seen the word, much less have it applied to him.
It has been three summers since the two had met. At that time, Eragon had come to learn a lot about the other boy. He lived on the farm with his father and mother. Eragon has seen the farm on occasion from up in the Spine but never paid much attention to it before. There was a cow and horse and the occasional crop, but only enough to sustain them for a short time.
They had trouble bartering in the village. For reasons unbeknownst to Roran, but it made for difficult whenever his father would come home empty-handed.
Eragon would never say that he cared about Roran out loud. It was bad enough the boy seemed to cling to him whenever they entered the forest. Why the boy would constantly come into the Spine despite his obvious fear was beyond him. He always said his father told him to keep away from it for his own good. And yet, he came to look for food for his family all those summers ago, had even gotten caught by his trap. One would think that would deter someone, not draw them in. The boy puzzled Eragon.
Finally, the storm stopped. Eragon opened his door to frost covering the ground in a thick layer that would take weeks to melt up in the mountain. Just before winter this year, he had helped Roran hunt so that he wouldn't come bumbling in the forest. Now, Eragon was going to venture down the mountain to check for himself. Hopefully when he got there he wouldn't find corpses waiting for him in the house.