Chapter 8
A/N: Sorry for the long wait. I've been busy. Anyway, here it is.
When Eragon heard her answer, his heart stopped and his blood turned to ice. His mind was spinning, and he didn't know wether he should feel disgusted or sorry for her.
"You're probably going to hate me now and make me leave. And if you do, I understand. I know that the hero of Alagaesia doesn't need a whore hanging around. And it wouldn't do much for your reputation either," she sighed.
"Stop calling yourself a whore. You're not one."
"How do you know that?"
"Because if you were one, you wouldn't still be here because Saphira wouldn't let you stay. Now are you going to tell me how you got this unfortunate title?"
"No," she said simply and switched her glare to the sky rather than the tree trunks. "Not right now . . . I want Blaze here when I do."
"Ok," Eragon said and hugged her. She didn't make any move to hug him back and he hadn't expected any. He could tell by the way her body tensed that she was having unpleasant flashbacks. "Everything's going to be ok," he whispered and ignored Jessie's small snort of disbelief, but still, he held her, and her arms slowly crept around his chest until the hug was finally being shared.
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They stayed like that until Eragon's legs felt like they were going to fall off.
Jessie had been silent the entire time and Eragon–feeling that silence was all she wanted–had not attempted to start any conservation. Instead, he contented himself with listening to her breathing and–when they were around–the birds' singing.
Several times her breathing had become heavy and ragged and her body tensed. At those times he had rubbed her back until she'd realized completely once again.
Finally–just when Eragon was completely sure that his legs were going to buckle, bringing both of them crashing to the ground–Saphira's huge form flew over the clearing, casting a shadow over the pair.
She circled several times before landing softly on the ground. Soon following her landing–after she'd tucked her wings in by her sides and lid down looking content–Blaze came into view.
Even from the distance, he breathing seemed labored and he flew with jerky movements.
"Blaze," Jessie murmured as she lifted her head and shook it before staring berily at his form. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion–Eragon saw from the corner of his eye–and moved quickly, as if calculating angles or other things to get a rough conclusion. "Something's wrong."
She pushed away from Eragon and walked forward several paces.
That's when Blaze suddenly dive-bombed into the thickest part of the forest.
"What happened?" Jessie asked. "I can't contact him, hell, I can't even feel him," she was growing worried as Eragon could tell from the way her voice had taken a high-pitched tone.
"I don't know. Saphira, what do you think could be wrong?" he asked.
He's just being a sore loser. I beat him in a race from where we were hunting on the mountains in the Hadarac Desert to here. He's gone sulking now because he was beaten by a younger girl dragon. Saphira smirked and settled smugly in her patch of ground.
"That's probably what happened Jessie," Eragon said as he turned away from the sapphire dragon and towards Jessie.
Jessie–however–was thinking furiously. "No," she said. "It doesn't make sense. Blaze is a good sport. He doesn't sulk unless it's something big. And losing a race is not something big, compared to what we've been through. No, there's something wrong. Even if he was sulking, he'd still talk to me."
"So what's wrong?" Eragon asked.
That's when it dawned on Jessie. "Where are we, Eragon?" she asked.
"Near a lake outside of Uru'baen. Why?"
"And where are the mountains that you were hunting at, Saphira?"
Near the center. That's where the best deer are.
"And you raced him from there?" Jessie asked and Saphira nodded. "Do you have a map of Alagaesia?" she asked Eragon.
He nodded and went to fetch the map that Jeod had given Brom. Handing it to Jessie, he vaguely wondered why she was so concerned.
Then he thought about it. Seeing a dragon fall out of the sky isn't exactly an everyday thing.
She unrolled the map and glanced at it quickly, making calculations that Eragon wouldn't think you would be able to make in the time she looked at it.
"So, you were at which set?" she asked, showing the map to Saphira.
She nudged the middle set with her nose and Jessie immediately took the map back and glanced back and forth, seemingly between Uru'baen and the Hadarac.
"Exactly how fast were you flying?" Jessie asked.
I would say about . . . two hundred leagues in a half hour she said, seemingly thinking hard. I didn't really keep track.
"So you traveled about a thousand leagues in say . . . two and a half hours," Jessie and paled. "Blaze shouldn't have done that."
"Why not? Are his wings weak or something?" Eragon asked. He was confused, why shouldn't dragons fly? It was one of the many things they were built for.
Jessie was walking away, towards the woods. Eragon scrambled to his feet.
"Why is it such a big deal Jessie? Dragons are built to fly great distances, no matter how fast," Eragon said, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"That may be," she said. "But Blaze has a weak heart."
A/N: well how's that? I've had it written for a while, and now I've got it typed. I hope you guys like it. Now I need to work on the next chapter, as well as my other stories. Now please, R&R.
