The evening after their return from Carvahall, Nari sat on the floor of her room and stared at the stone in front of her. She had decided to test it, as Merlock had before her. She had pulled tools from their shed, and had luckily managed to do so without being stopped or seen by Garrow or Roran. Not that Roran would have noticed anyway. He had been more and more distracted as of late.
Gripping the small wooden mallet first, she tapped the stone lightly. A small humming sound filled the air. Next, she picked up the heavier leather hammer. When she struck the stone, a long, sad cry filled the air. Then she picked up the metal chisel. She was hesitant to use it; she didn't want to damage the stone at all. What if it broke? Still, she remembered Merlock's blade striking the stone, leaving no blemishes on its surface. Gathering her courage, she slammed the chisel down on the stone. It was harder than she'd meant to do it, in her desperation to get it over with, and the sound filled the room in a high, clear note that hung there for a long moment before finally fading away. As the final note died away, she could have sworn she had heard a squeak. Curious, she stared at the stone.
"If the stone is hollow, like Merlock said," she began aloud, "there must be something inside. No one would hollow out a stone, and put it back together with no way to tell it'd been hollowed, if they didn't want to put something inside of it, not even a magician. It must be something valuable if they went to such lengths to hide it. Except that whoever sent it to the Spine hasn't taken the trouble to retrieve it. Or they can't because they are either too far away, they are lost, they are in trouble or they don't know where it is. I don't believe that a magician with enough power to transport the stone wouldn't be able to find it though, or to find their own way. So are they in trouble, or did they mean for me to have it? It's not as though I know how to open it, or what it's for." The thought that the person who had owned the stone was in trouble disturbed her. They may have been calling for help even as she rolled the stone between her fingers for the first time. She swallowed hard at the thought and pushed it away. There was nothing she could do for them.
With a sigh, she picked the stone up and pressed her ear against it. Sitting silently for a few moments, she heard a smaller, barely decipherable, squeak.
Why was it squeaking? What was inside it? She couldn't answer any of her questions, so, with a sigh, she decided to sleep.
That night she was abruptly roused from her sleep. Her ears strained for every noise as she sat up and grabbed the hunting knife she kept in the cabinet by her bed. She waited, listening for whatever noise had woken her. All was quiet. She tried to tell herself that it was Roran or Garrow moving in another room, but she could not force herself to return to sleep. Carefully propping the knife on her knee, she reached further into the drawer for the book Brom had lent her.
A squeak split the silence and the book fell to floor with a sharp thump as her hand snatched her knife from her lap. She glanced around the room, ready for anything. When nothing presented itself after a few moments, she reached for her tinderbox and lit a candle. The door to her room was closed, so whatever it was wasn't coming from that direction. Another squeak filled the air, and she froze again.
Where was it coming from? Nothing could be in the floors or walls, or even her bed, they were all made from solid wood. She was sure she'd feel it if a mouse had crawled into her mattress. Her eyes settled on the stone. She took it off of the shelf and cradled it as she had before. As if to confirm her thoughts, another squeak came, this time clearly coming from the stone, and it vibrated underneath her fingers. She looked down at it curiously.
Another soft squeak came again and Nari sighed. The stone was beautiful, and an interesting puzzle, but this was too much! The stone ignored her incredulous glare and sat as if never moving before, though it occasionally peeped. Then, as if it'd only wanted her attention, it gave a final squeak and fell silent. Nari waited a bit more, but it didn't move again. With a sigh, she set it carefully into the drawer near her bed, leaving the drawer open, and lay back down. Whatever secret the stone held, it could wait until the sun rose.
The moon was still shining through her window when she woke again, and she looked up at it accusingly through her window. The stone was rocking within the cabinet, hitting a wall with every movement. She stared at it in horror and worry. Worry that it would wake Roran and Garrow, and horror because it was acting like it was alive. It stilled for a moment, and she felt herself relax, just a bit. Then it started squeaking louder and rocking faster.
Quickly, she grabbed the stone and placed it on her bed. Now the rocking wasn't making as much noise, though the stone continued to squeak. Just as soon as she'd thought it, the stone became quiet. She almost sighed with relief, but that was short-lived. The stone started squeaking and shaking faster than ever. It quivered and fell off her bed, landing on the floor with a solid thump. She swore and looked at her door, almost expecting her uncle or cousin to run in and demand who was in her room with her.
Roran did not come, but the stone did. It rolled closer to her. Suddenly, a crack appeared on the stone. The crack continued to grow, and other cracks joined it. Frozen, Nari leaned forward. At the top of the stone, where all the cracks seemed to meet, a small piece of it wiggled in place. It suddenly fell sideways, falling to the floor, and a small, dark head poked out of the hole that had been made. The head was quickly followed by a weirdly angled body.
An egg, Nari thought distantly. It was an egg.
Soon the creature was all the way out of its egg. It stayed in place for a moment, before skittering into a small patch of light on the floor.
Nari's eyes went wide as she stared at the creature in her bedroom. There, right in front of her, was a little blue dragon.
Slowly lowering herself to her knees, Nari scooted a little closer to the dragon, examining it carefully as it licked the remnants of the egg of of itself. It was only slightly longer than her forearm, but it was far from unimpressive. Its scales were a deep sapphire blue, the same color as the egg it had come from. The little dragon fanned it's wings, which were several times longer than it's body and ribbed with thin bones. The bones extended all the way to the front edges of its wings, ending in widely-spaced talons. Its head was triangular, like a snake's, and two white fangs curved down out of its upper jaw. She wondered wildly if dragons were poisonous.
What really interested Nari was the line of white spikes that trailed down its back, from the base of its head to the tip of its tail. The really interesting part was the gap where its neck and shoulders met. This must be where the Rider sits, she thought.
The dragon turned to face Nari, staring at her with ice-blue eyes. She was tempted to call for Roran, who would either believe it was the most amazing creature he'd ever seen, or want to kill it. It was the thought of the second that stopped her voice in her throat. Instead, she reached forward to pick up the little beast.
Or, at least, she tried to. As soon as her hand touched its blue flank, a blast of white-hot pain surged through her hand and up her arm. She felt her legs give out. The pain when her side rammed into the wooden floor meant nothing; she didn't even feel it. Her whole body was numb with icy pain as she lay there trying to breathe.
Finally, finally, warmth started to seep back into her body. Her limbs ached and spasms of pain shot through them. It was much like the times she'd fallen asleep laying on her arm, and had woken up to find that it felt numb, but then when she'd gotten the feeling back, it had punished her with every movement. Except this was her whole body rather than just her arm. All of her - except, she realized with a growing horror, her right hand. She pushed herself up with her left, settling with her back propped against her bed, and glanced down at her right hand. She could feel nothing. No matter how hard she tried, it would not move. And there, in the center of her palm, she could see immediately why. There, bright red but fading into silver, was a diffused oval.
The first emotion that came over her was panic. Her hand was numb, no feeling in it whatsoever, and she couldn't move it. If she couldn't use her hand, couldn't string a bow or use a knife, how would she hunt? How would she do anything with only one hand? She knew from personal experience that it was much easier to say that someone should learn to do everything with their other hand than it was to actually do it. She'd broken her right arm by falling out of a tree when she was ten. Gertrude had told her that she'd better use her left arm, or risk losing the right due to breaking the bone worse or infection. She'd ended up needing to have her arm re-broken so that it could heal correctly. Then again, she thought, there would likely be less chance of using her right hand when she couldn't even move it. Maybe having no choice but to learn would help?
The next emotion that came was awe. There was a dragon in her room. A dragon which had branded her. Yes, it had hurt, and yes, she still couldn't feel her arm, but there was only one thing being branded by a dragon could mean. Dragon Rider. The only other dragon rider still living was Galbatorix and he...
The panic came back.
What was she going to do? What could she do, really? What would King Galbatorix do when he found out there was a dragon in the world besides his own? She doubted he'd leave her alone.
Suddenly, she felt something. It almost felt like a finger trailing its way down her back, except that it wasn't. Because it didn't feel like it was touching her skin so much as it was touching her mind. Following that little nudge was a foreign surge of emotion that felt like...curiosity? A shudder racked her body. The emotion wasn't coming from her! What was this?! Trying to breathe and think, she forced herself not to panic, glancing around her room. The window was closed, the shutters were open but the light of the moon showed that there was no one out there, and she hadn't heard Uncle Garrow get up to let anyone in. No one was here, no one was watching her. No one...except the baby dragon.
She glanced down at it suspiciously. It watched her with eyes that seemed to reflect the same curiosity that had seeped into her mind. It circled her, and a scaly leg brushed against her. She jerked back, determined not to lose a leg as she'd lost a hand, but there was no pain or numbness now. Paying more attention now that her panic had faded, she realized her hand was no longer numb. It itched now, like her skin would if she'd been bit by a bug or a spider. Resisting the urge to scratch, she reached down and cautiously touched the dragon's flank. The dragon arched its back like a cat, turning to rub its head into her hand. She reached under its chin and scratched gently, and a sound that almost sounded like humming began. She smiled despite herself, feeling a warmth fill her.
Another touch from that foreign presence made her pause in her ministrations. This time, the emotion that accompanied the touch felt like...hunger. A horrible, ravenous hunger that made Nari clutch her stomach despite knowing that she had eaten a full dinner just hours ago and would have breakfast in a few hours more.
Nari made a sympathetic noise.
"Hatching must be hard work, I suppose. I've heard that human babies are hungry when they're born too." She murmured to the little thing. It started to keen as it looked for food, and Nari stood up quickly. She'd need to feed it so that it didn't wake her uncle or Roran. Grabbing two strips of dried meat from their stores, she hurried back to her room.
The dragon sat in the windowsill, staring at the moon. The gleam of the moon made the scales shine and she couldn't help but wonder if this was all a vivid dream. Glancing down at the meat in her hand, she decided that, for the moment, she'd act like it wasn't. If it was, she'd laugh with Roran about it later. Maybe, she thought with a smile, she'd tell Brom about it. He would call her a fool, but it was his fault really for telling her such vivid stories.
Carefully, she tore the meat into small squares and moved to sit near the windowsill. The dragon glanced around at her. She held up a square in offering and carefully fed the meat to it one piece at a time. When all of the meat was gone, the last piece having been eaten only after much consideration, the dragon's belly was bulging and it was humming contentedly. Lazily, it crawled into her arms and curled up against her chest. Nari tucked her arms around it securely, smiling down at it. Rising, she carefully carried it to her bed and set it next to her pillow, curling up in her bed beside it.
She faced a painful dilemma: by raising a dragon, she could become a Rider. Myths and stories about Riders were treasured, and being one would automatically place her among those legends. Not to mention the daydreams she'd often had about flying on a dragon, high above the clouds. However, there was still the problem of the king. There was no way King Galbatorix would allow a dragon to exist outside of his control. She, and her family and maybe even her village, would be forced to serve him or die. No one could—or would—help them.
The simplest solution would be to just kill the dragon while it was small and vulnerable, but the idea was a horrible one. Dragons were too revered for her to even consider that and, even if they weren't, she didn't think she'd be able to take her knife to the majestic creature.
So, she had to do something. Because she wanted it. She wanted it, with a fierceness that grew in her chest until she felt like she couldn't breathe! She wanted the dragon, despite its strange mind games. She wanted to be a Rider. She wanted the recognition of her worth. The more she thought about it, the surer she was. However things might work out, Nari would do everything she could to protect the little creature. There would be costs, however. No matter how cut off Carvahall was, someone would eventually find out, especially when the dragon got bigger.
She would have to leave, she realized with a sudden dread, tears filling her gaze. Not now, perhaps, but soon. The little dragon was too small now, and she would not be able to protect it yet. But soon, before the Empire found out about it, so that they didn't think that Roran and Garrow would know where she'd gone.
Roran and Garrow would be a problem. Both of them would know the danger posed by a dragon, and neither of them would care to have it around. Besides, once the Empire found out about it, they would be far safer if they weren't lying when they said they had no idea the dragon had even existed.
Next came the problem of hiding it. She certainly couldn't keep it in the house, not if she didn't want Roran or Garrow finding out. But would it survive the cold? What if there was another snowstorm? Perhaps she could make it a nest to keep it warm. They had old clothes that no longer fit any of them, and blankets that were too ratty to be of any use. She could cut them into rags and line something to create a warm nest. Feeding it would also be a problem. It was no larger than a cat, but it had eaten two whole strips of meat. Eventually it would be large enough to hunt for itself, but she would need to hunt for it until then.
Before she realized what was happening, Nari was fast asleep.
When dawn came, the dragon was sitting atop her bedpost, wings spread, like it was welcoming the new day. Nari marveled once again at the beautiful color of its scales. The light of the moon had not done it justice; its scales were like hundreds of small gemstones, colored the same deep, clear blue as the egg had been.
As she dressed, she noticed that the silvery sheen of the oval on her palm, where she had touched the dragon, was far too bright to hide. She only hoped she could hide it by keeping her hands dirty. If she told anyone she'd injured it, Roran would want to inspect the wound immediately.
Seeing that she was up and moving, the dragon launched off the post and glided to the floor near her feet.
"We've got to get you settled before Uncle Garrow and Roran wake up," she told her quietly, picking it up and cradling it close. "Try not to make any noises, okay? We were lucky they didn't wake up last night." She continued to talk to it as she gathered meat, several leather strips, and as many old clothes and blankets as she could carry. Once she'd finished that, she slipped out of the quiet house.
The crisp morning was beautiful; a fresh layer of snow covered the farm. She smiled as the small creature looked around with interest from the safety of her arms. She continued to talk to it, explaining what everything was and what it was used for. As she slipped into the dark forest, she fell silent as she searched for a safe place for the dragon to stay. Eventually she found a rowan tree standing alone on a barren knoll. She set the dragon down by the base of the trunk and shook the leather onto the ground.
Glancing over to see the dragon wandering around curiously, she frowned with worry. She could make a leash using the leather straps she'd brought, but she'd hoped to use those to secure the nest she built into the tree so that it didn't fall out.
Focusing hard on the tingle she felt in the back of her mind, she tried to impress on it one idea: Stay here. The dragon stopped moving and cocked its head at her. She felt confusion trickle through the link and thought firmly: Stay here. A dim acknowledgment came tentatively through the link, combined with a mix of curiosity, but Nari wondered if it really understood. Still, it would be better to know now than to have the dragon wander off after she'd left. She retreated from the contact again, feeling slightly lonely as she did so.
Next she gathered an armful of sticks and built a crude hut high in the branches, layering the inside with cut up scraps of the blankets and clothes. She stashed the meat in the back corner of the hut and used the leather straps to anchor it to the tree branches, tying it as tightly as she could. Snow fell on her face as the tree swayed. She hung more rags over the front of the shelter to keep heat inside. Pleased, she leaned back to survey her work.
Glancing around, she spotted the dragon not far from where she'd left it.
"Let's see what you think," she said, and lifted the dragon up into the branches. It wriggled, disliking her grip, then clambered into the hut. It sniffed at the spot where she'd put the meat, eating a piece, and then curled up and blinked at her innocently. "You'll be fine as long as you stay in here," she instructed. The dragon blinked again. Unsure if it had understood her without the mental voice, Nari reached into her mind once more.
Stay here, she repeated firmly. Acknowledgement came through the link again, and Nari nodded in satisfaction. Hesitating, Nari knew she'd have to get back soon or else Garrow and Roran would notice her gone. Still, she felt herself glancing backwards as she moved away. The dragon stuck its head out of the shelter and watched with large eyes as she left. Nari tried to ignore the guilty feeling in her stomach.
Slipping back into the house, Nari quickly wrapped the egg fragments in an old shirt and hid it in her drawer. She would take them out into the forest the next time she visited the dragon and bury them. She was sure Garrow and Roran would not notice the egg's absence; neither had had much interest in it, especially once they found out it would not sell.
The next month was filled with developments, and Nari's enthusiasm and affection for the dragon only increased.
The brand on her hand proved easy to hide, so she soon stopped worrying about it. The dragon had proved to be able to hunt for itself easily, first eating birds and squirrels and then rabbits and other larger animals. It stuck close to the shelter at first, but even when it roamed for food and began to fly, it always came when she called.
Surprising even herself, she'd started to understand the women of Carvahall better as well. She'd always disdained how often they spoke of the smallest developments of their children. Didn't they have better, more interesting, things to speak of than how their son had taken his first step or how their daughter had said her first word?
Now she understood. She felt the pride as her dragon grew explosively from the size of a small cat to where its shoulder was at the same height as her elbow. Its scales were as tough as chain-mail armor, and its teeth grew to be as long and sharp as daggers. Its baby squeaks deepened to a roar and the humming became a low rumble.
The mental contact she shared with the dragon grew stronger every day. She awed at how much the dragon seemed to understand. At first, she'd spoken about what she knew about the forest, not caring if it understood her meaning, but soon she realized that the dragon was drinking in her words. They could only communicate through images or emotions, but the dragon's 'vocabulary' flourished as she talked to it and explained things. The range at which they could touch each other's thoughts expanded rapidly. Soon Nari could contact the dragon anywhere within three leagues. She often reached out to the dragon as she worked, and the dragon, in turn, would lightly brush against her mind. There was always a small part of her connected to the dragon, ignored at times, but never forgotten. When she talked with people, the contact was distracting, like a fly buzzing in her ear, but she loved knowing that someone was always there for her to speak to, even if the dragon didn't always understand.
One area of the dragon's development did concern her. The dragon had not breathed fire at all. It had blown smoke when it was upset, but there was never even a hint of flame. She knew that it would be harder to hide once it started breathing fire, but she wondered if there was something wrong with it. If there was, she wanted to make sure she solved the issue quickly.
In short, in a single month it had transformed from a small, weak animal into a powerful beast. And she'd grown to love it deeply.
But with each passing day, Nari's worries grew. The forest around the farm were filled with signs of the dragon's existence. It was impossible to erase all the huge four-clawed footprints sunk deep in the snow, and she refused even to try to hide the giant dung heaps that were becoming far too common. The dragon had rubbed against trees, stripping off the bark, and had sharpened its claws on dead logs, leaving gashes inches deep. Soon, someone would find out. She was lucky that Uncle Garrow and Roran has only briefly questioned her continued disappearance into the forest behind their home. If either of them went too far beyond the farm's boundaries, they would discover the dragon's presence.
She would need to leave soon.
Nari had started discreetly packing as much as she could into her hunting bag when the dragon had grown to reach her knee eleven days after it had hatched. She had packed her bow and arrows, and the few dresses her Aunt Marian had given her, including the old ones that Uncle Garrow had said used to belong to her mother. She had packed her hunting pants and shirts as well. She didn't take money or food; while she might need it, Uncle Garrow and Roran would need it more, especially since she would not be there to hunt for meat. She could hunt as she went. The lack of money might be a problem, but she still had a few coins from what Garrow had given her when the Traders visited. Besides, she planned to avoid towns as much as possible.
Before she left, though, she needed to learn more about dragons. For that, she needed to go into town and speak with Brom. So when Roran went to get a chisel repaired in Carvahall, Nari volunteered to go with him.