Trigger Warning: This one really doesn't pull punches. References to Ab*se. Descriptions of a M*rder. Indirect reference to r*pe. Overt Homophobia. Brief description of Self Un-aliving. If any of these will harm your overall wellness, please sit this one out. Stay safe folks~
Eltereth
There is something uniquely tragic about Eltereth. She maintained a philosophy of naturalism throughout her life, choosing to always exist in harmony with the world around her. Unfortunately for her, that world ran on principles of anarchy and suffering that rewarded the ambitious while degrading the content. She and I disagreed on nearly every aspect of life, and yet she fought with us more fervently than all but the most frenzied. Her story is one of dignity and nobility, and it began with as humble a root as any.
She was born in a one-room cabin in the untamed woods that once surrounded Isenstar Lake. Her father was a social recluse of the purest kind, choosing to settle with his wife deep in the heart of the wilderness. Theirs was a simple existence and they raised their daughter with all the knowledge she would need to continue it, should she wish. Her mother died giving birth to her baby brother Leon when she was around eleven. Their father took ill the following winter. Eltereth raised him as she had been raised, though the boy had frailer health than she. They would have carried on this way indefinitely had the soldiers not come.
The wilds, as an observant reader will note, have been drastically reduced since those days. The expansion of Gil'ead and the end of a long-running dispute between the elves and humans of the region drastically impacted the line and lay of the forest. Eltereth's home happened to reside in what once was an area of dispute. When this dispute was settled in Gil'eads favor, the land officially belonged to the city. The children were found by a scouting patrol and brought into the city (very much against their will). Eltereth intended to retain their home at all costs; it was the only way of life she'd ever known. Her arguments fell on deaf ears. Luckily for her, the pair of riders that had settled the dispute were still in attendance.
Her dragon hatched to the rancor and dismay of the lord who had just finished dismissing her. She turned on him triumphantly, only to be told that, in fact, their home's fate had just been sealed: she had a place to go. And, even worse, she was expected to abandon her brother to fosterage. She refused. So fervently in fact that the siblings became one of the only exceptions to the riders' isolated existence, provided that she never shared anything that was meant to be secret with her dependent.
Leon lived with Eltereth throughout her training. Her natural strength and stamina combined with her years in the woods meant that she took on physical challenges with ease. Magic was a much more difficult field for the girl, though she applied herself diligently. All the while, her roommate followed her along like a doting puppy; a shadow she treasured almost as much as her dragon. She taught him reading and writing alongside her and found that he had a bit of a knack for mathematics. This aided her in her own studies, but it also brought the younger child in contact with the man who would turn their world inside out.
He was an elder rider, only a step down from the leader council itself. His area of focus was rooted in geometry; a practice that drew young Leon to him with rapt attention. He began to spend long hours with the man, assisting in his filing, note-taking, studies… any excuse at all that he could find to see him. After months of eagerly chatting Eltereth's ear off about everything to do with the man… he suddenly became much more subdued. He slept longer, spoke less, only went out for scheduled events, and even then with grudging despondency. He bathed only at Eltereth's prodding and his eyes remained fixed on the floor. This new pattern of behavior was deeply concerning to his sister; at odds with everything she knew of him. Of course, she did not know everything about him. One day, after weeks of this deterioration, Leon failed to return to their room. Eltereth went looking for him at once. She combed every inch of his normal route, then on to all of Ilirea. When she did find him, it was already too late.
She told me the following story on the day that we met, and never in all her life did she speak of it again:
It was pouring rain in the dead of night. The alley was pockmarked with puddles where the paving stones had been ripped up over the years. Lying half-submerged in one of these puddles was an unrecognizable human shape. Only upon closer inspection did she realize that the mud-matted form was her baby brother. He had been mutilated with surgical precision and left for dead. He had just enough life left in him when she arrived to smile through bloodied lips at his favorite person in the world.
Eltereth went mad with grief. She was bedridden for two days after the event. When she recovered, she immediately wanted every scrap of information that had been found. In that demand she began a crusade that would lead her to the core of the rider's corruption. As the murder had taken place in the capital city (which then was home to all sorts of people from across Alagaesia) the jurisdiction of the case was a messy affair. Even more so, the exact… nature of his wounds made certain officials loathe to investigate the issue. To their way of thinking "certain types" of "lifestyles" just had "risks" associated, and if "those people" met with unfortunate fates then all the better. This "group" seemed to especially include anyone who engaged in any sort of physical experience for any reason outside of making more subjects for their masters, particularly if they happened to be of the same sex. Expressing this opinion to a grieving sibling of (what they perceived as) one such individual proved to be a dangerous blunder.
Eltereth took the investigation into her own hands. At first, she met only with roadblock after roadblock as some unseen force tried to mitigate her usefulness. She sought allies she could trust and managed to find one in a long-serving egg courier named Xavier and his human partner in work and life, Annabelle. With their aid, she gained access to records reaching back through decades and centuries and after over a year of concentrated effort, she found her breakthrough. This was not the first such case to be swept under the rug, though it was the first to concern a rider or their family. In fact, a series of eerily similar cases cropped up through the centuries, and they seemed to follow the path of one man in particular: Leon's beloved teacher. Eltereth gathered her evidence, circumstantial as it was, and brought it straight to the council. Surely they would be honor-bound to at least make a formal inquiry if such a beast could reside in hiding so long under their very noses.
She was mistaken.
The council not only dismissed her accusations with claims of inadequacy, but also insinuated that she was mad, called into question her ability to perform her duties, and threatened to evaluate her ability to remain Shur'tugal. She held no illusions of what such an inquiry would bring; she would be silenced as easily as every other victim. She accepted their hateful scorn with apparent humility, apologized for wasting their time, and promised to let the matter rest. She abandoned the city that very night with exactly one goal in mind.
She came to me with a heart full of vengeance and pain. As soon as her miserable tale began I recognized its inevitable conclusion from my own experiences with the elders. All she wanted was a chance to bring justice for her brother's killer and an end to the cycle of abuse the order perpetuated. We welcomed her with understanding, warmth, and empathy.
Her first target was, of course, the miserable wretch who had started her path. I wasn't actually present for his death, but Formora recounted his dying screams with gusto. That was the only kill in which Eltereth took any pleasure. She was, after all, a peaceful soul by nature. In the war, she fought with truly brutal efficiency, but she was the first to admonish our fellows for overindulgence. The siege on Doru Araeba and after it Iliria affected her greatly, putting a rift between her and the rest of us that never truly healed.
I recall that her dragon was named after her father. She seemed to suffer the least of the thirteen from her dragon's separation; her dragon was naturally a quiet and somber presence, so his silence was a seamless evolution. She said that she could still feel him in the lessons her father taught her, even if her actual memories grew hazy with time. She took a very spiritual approach to the distance, interacting with him as one would interact with any wild creature. In fact, as the years grew on she was closer to him than to any of us.
Especially, it seemed, to me.
I make no excuses for the way I have behaved. Or, at least, I make no attempt to justify it ethically; it would be incongruous to my nature to try. Eltereth came to understand my behavior as a monarch (and even more so in private) to be one with which she could not align herself. I don't particularly blame her for this; it was her nature to reject structure, dominance, violence, hatred: all prime tenets of the man I have become. She spoke against me in private and in public often enough that I considered it prudent to send her from Uru'baen. She chose to return to the site of her previous home and raise a new cabin there.
In that isolation, a change came over her. She expressed guilt over her part in my ascension and her helplessness to then oppose me. That coupled with her still agonizing grief led her to make a choice that many of us considered over the years. She and her dragon took to the skies, plummeting willingly into the unfeeling earth below. They died together instantly.
Eltereth was one of the few "moral" people I have known. This seems to have caused her an endless parade of suffering. Though I must admit, it also gave her a drive and purpose that people unconcerned with codes of action seem to lack. The period in which I knew her was colored always in grim lines and harshness, but I believe there was a strength and courage to the woman that sets her apart from the rest of us. She was as fine a person as I have ever known and, if gods there be, I sincerely hope that they honor her diligence with the reunion she so long desired.
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I know this one got pretty long, but I really didn't want to leave anything out. Ellie is one of my favorites, as a character and to write. She's a very subdued character so, in large projects, she tends to fade into the scenery. It's nice to finally give her space to fully exist, as painful as her story is to tell.
R+R if that's a thing people still do. Seems like most of the discussion about this thing ends up on the Paolini Fans :2 discord (which you should really check out, if you're able). Found a fascinating hive of folks in there ^w^
