It felt like he had been swimming in a whirlpool of nothingness for an eternity until finally, darkness gave way to light. It was as if he had been sucked into a tube and sent to an already known destination, but everything just felt wrong. Slowly he began hearing distant voices growing ever closer. "Is this the afterlife?" His thoughts were a mess, thinking clearly definitely eluded him, and the pain, such pain.
"Eragon!" a familiar male voice yelled, worry evident in his tone.
"What is the matter son" another male but more gruff voice asked.
"He just fainted… or maybe he fell… honestly I have no idea, I just found him like this on the doorstep, what do we do father?"
"Get him to his room and let him rest, he can always go hunting some other day if need be".
Some part of Eragon felt hollow, as if it had been forcefully carved out and he was slowly going mad by its absence. "Saphira, where is Saphira?" he said weakly. His cousin just looked around confused, "Saphira? Eragon please talk to me, what is ailing you?" Roran looked frantically around the room until he spotted some water and a piece of cloth.
"Take Katrina and run away, far away, he will come for you".
Roran was immediately stopped in his tracks by this exclamation. "What?" without wasting a second he returned to Eragon's bedside and put his hand over his cousin's palm. "It's alright Eragon, everyone is fine" But it seemed that Eragon had lost his consciousness yet again. Roran stood from the bed sending worrying glances at his foster brother's prone form. He began wetting the piece of cloth so he could cool Eragon down.
Still one question kept coming to the forefront of his mind. "Who the hell is Saphira?"
"I'm back"
"It should be impossible, but I can't deny what I feel and what I see"
It was a couple of hours since Eragon had woken up and he found himself sitting outside the familiar farm, which looked mostly like it had before it was burned to a crisp. That said though everything was different. Roran looked older… Well not really, he looked just like when Eragon had last seen him, and that was sometime before the siege of Urû'baen. The only difference between that Roran, and the one he saw upon his awakening were the numerous battle scar that he had earned serving Nasuada, which were now gone.
At first he figured that it was one last ploy from Galbatorix trying to pry for information, but neither Roran nor Garrow had asked him any overly suspicious questions. Other than that, he couldn't deny that the pain he felt by being disconnected from Saphira felt very real, and he honestly didn't believe that Galbatorix was mad enough to kill the last female dragon in Alagaësia
Taking a look around the old farm he couldn't do anything but sighing "Garrow" He thought somberly. The last he remembered of his uncle was his almost unrecognizable form laced with seithr oil, curtesy of the Ra'zac. He frowned at the memory before smiling inwardly. His uncle looked very healthy, although with a few more wrinkles but otherwise healthy. He wondered what Roran was doing here, considering that if he really was older now, then he should be working in Therinsford for the miller Dempton. He was getting a feeling that something as simple as "time travel" just didn't cut it for what he was experiencing. He sat there deep in thought for a few minutes, until a bright feminine voice broke his train of thought.
"Hello Eragon" Katrina beamed at him walking up the small road towards their farm, Roran never straying far from her side.
"Oh yea that's what Roran meant when he said he had business to attend to"
Eragon just looked at them dumbly before realizing that he had to respond "And good day to you Katrina, what are you two doing here?"
Katrina looked confused before answering. "We are just staying for dinner silly, then it's back home".
"Oh…I see" he replied without actually getting it. "Your father must be missing you already".
That was the wrong thing to say, if the sour look that appeared on Katrina's face was anything to go by. "Yes I bet he does, but the last two months living with Roran have honestly been the best of my life" She stated, and Eragon really was not bold enough to argue.
"Thanks princess" commented a chuckling Roran. Katrina simply responded by hitting him on the arm "Stop calling me a princess Roran" after a few moments they both started laughing good naturedly all the while beaming at each other, totally lost in their own little world.
Eragon simply continued to look at both of them, completely baffled.
Dinner was a small affair which mostly consisted of light conversation about how Roran and Katrina were settling into their new living arrangements, that Eragon had yet to see. He mostly just sat there taking it all in, but his insides were actually about to burst by the sheer absurdity of it all. "I can't just sit here and eat like nothing is wrong, even now the enemy's pieces are moving into position" The truth was that he really had no idea what Galbatorix was doing at this point in time, Eragon just had the urge to do something, anything.
Eragon excused himself a bit earlier than what some people would have called respectable, but besides one raised eyebrow from his uncle and a worried glance from Roran he was free to go. Without wasting a second he went outside to get some fresh air. For a few minutes he just stood there, leaning against the outer wall of the house trying to collect his thoughts. He knew there were stories of people going back in time to right their wrongs, but that is just the thing, those were stories. Nothing that he had learned from his mentors could support such a reality. The people that he had literally seen die before his eyes were back from the dead, something which should not be feasible.
Somehow he had been sent back… or well the correct wording would probably be sent to another time where events obviously must have transpired differently. Perhaps it was a last feat of the Eldunarya and the dragon kind's wild uncontrollable magic, or something else entirely beyond his comprehension. The question then remained, if his thesis was true, what events have been changed? "Honestly it doesn't matter at this point in time, what I need is information" With that in mind he began sprinting towards where he remembered Carvahall should, by his estimates, be located.
As soon as he had run a few hundred meters he remembered something. He had taken a look at himself in a mirror back at Garrow's home, and he looked exactly like he had before the blood oath ceremony. "Well plus a couple of years because of the jumbled timeline" he guessed. The weird thing was that despite all this he still ran, if he remembered correctly, as fast as he had been able to before the siege of Urû'baen. He stopped in his tracks and muttered a quiet "Brisingr". Immediately bright blue flames the color of his partner of heart and mind ignited in his palm. He quickly extinguished the flames and kept running. "So it seems I have kept my magic, my elven strength and speed… Well at least speed when running is concerned; I'll will just have to find out the rest later."
As he ran he couldn't stop thinking about all the possibilities he had now. His Saphira was out there, nothing more than an egg though, but perhaps she could return to him once more. Brom, Arya, Oromis all of them were still alive. The knowledge of the Eldunarya hidden on Vroengard was still with him, he had something to work with, a second chance.
After running for some time the village of Carvahall came into his sights, but there he saw something that he definitely did not expect. At least a dozen tents were camped on the outskirts of the village, flying the banner of Galbatorix's empire. Eragon easily spotted the red dotted cloaks of soldiers walking around the tents, and the glinting telltale sign of steel.
"At least they haven't razed the village to the ground… Yet"
If there was one thing he had learned on his ventures with Brom, Murtagh, Arya and their encounters with Durza, the Ra'zac and Galbatorix it was this. "Without power everything you love can and will be taken from you" he whispered, rather sardonic but it seemed to hold some truth. He had lost everything because he went straight for Galbatorix completely unprepared, while thinking true valor and justice would be enough to win the day.
"I need to find my father" Brom might have cut all contact with the Varden, but the old spy might have valuable information that Eragon could use. That combined with the fact, that he really wanted to see his father alive and well made it the most favorable option. Steadily he made his way into the village, muttering a few spells which would make most non-magicians simply ignore him. He felt naked without Brisingr hanging by his hip, but he would simply have to make do, just like the time after the burning planes when Murtagh took Zar'roc from him. "Well maybe I won't have to make do for long, Brom might still have Zar'roc with him".
He made his way through the narrow streets until he came upon the old storyteller's meager house. He casually walked to the front door trying to not act suspicious, but was stopped dead in his tracks. "I haven't actually planned what to say yet" The shock of seeing his father alive might literally make his heart stop. "I haven't even decided if I should tell anyone about my… Past life I guess you could call it". After some deliberation he decided that if anyone had the right to know it would be his father, but preferable he wouldn't have to explain himself right away. He gave the door a few hard knocks almost cracking the old worn wood. "Got to be more careful" He thought sheepishly, elven strength or not.
The door opened to reveal a disheveled white beard and a man who had definitely seen better days.
"Eragon" His father acknowledged, raising his eyebrows just a tiny bit.
"Greetings Brom… Might I come inside I ehh… I have some problems…"
Brom looked him up and down slowly before nodding "Of course lad it's not too often I get visitors".