So… as promised! Earlier posting... Er… 'hem.

I know, I know, I'm late, I'm a terrible person. hangs head in shame this is late. Again. Sorry!!

Actually I just posted the last one when I started work on this, (don't even ask why it took so long x ) and I just got a review (very quick, I'm amazed) from the lovely Hot4Garrett; thank you very much! I'll try and sneak more happiness in for you, also just because I'm dying to get them together and get it really happy… soon enough, soon enough… This won't be so happy I'm afraid, but soon I promise!! :D I know what happens for a few chapters now, and I can assure you there's a very fluffy chapter due in just a short while… ;)

And just an hour or so later, from Sirenoftherose; thank you so much for sticking with me! There were actually my usual of just over 3000 words of story (not including forenote) in that chapter, so it's not as short as it seemed. It's shortened by lack of dialogue, which spaces it out a bit. ;)


Bananasquash - thank you for reading.

Thank you for not giving up on me and for continuing to read despite my appalling time gaps in between chapters! It means so much to me… Also sometime during chapter 7 I passed 1000 hits, so thank you very much for that! My only thing now is the mystery as to why I managed to get over 50 hits on chapter 8 but only three reviews? ;) Stop hiding and R n R for me.

Here comes Galby! I've been dying to write him for so long it's unreal. I've wanted to have a go at writing him ever since I discovered the realms of fan fiction, because like Tornac, he's not described all that much in books so far, so I more or less have freedom over him. Oh, and by the way, for the record? Galbatorix in the film - yuk - was nothing like MY Galbatorix. Mine was evil, yes… but more broken than evil at heart, he WASN'T bald, and he was…hmm, the word… "tormented" rather than utterly psychotic, and he was something more emotionally deep down than the film version…

Chapter 9. Silver Tongue

Galbatorix sat turning a slender dagger through his fingers idly, dark blue eyes flashing murderously, an alarming sight of discontentment as they captured the scopes of cloud drifting icily across the oceanic mass of cold blue-black sky. No stars were out this night. The blade continued to dance unfathomably between his fingers, an absent gesture of a man long tired of the tedium of life's stresses. Wordlessly a flicker of a frown appeared, a single spoiling crease in features that would otherwise have held an icy eleven glorified perfection to them.

A perfection that showed nothing of the tangled web of memory that still remained painfully engraved into the privacy of his mind.

Slowly, tiredly, one hand brushed a strand of raven ebony hair from his eyes, a gesture whose motion reflected perfectly the way that his life trickled past unhastened, a constant waiting and patience to each and every decision that he cared little for because, to his mind, he had as much time as he could ever want. Time he had, and time was his perfect weapon. An unexploited means of attack that it was doubtless to say that the Varden could not hope to better.

Or, as he realised with a deeper scowl, the Varden could not hope to better until painfully recently.

He had always possessed a deep seething hate for the people who had denied him his most wanted love, a hate that ran so deep in his veins it had become him, a hate that had slowly contorted his mind beyond all human recognition into something much more broken, something much more dangerous. There had been one thing in his world that had been beautiful, that had been loving… and they had refused it of him. Oh, he had finally achieved what he had wanted of course. That was a doubtless entirety of its own. But the means of getting it had only served to make weaker an already born crack in his mind.

He sat in the silence and solitude of his study, his sanctuary, his perfect escape. A room where any worldly judgement on his state of mind was at once forgotten. Letting the metal of the dagger free of his hand with a silver clatter, his glance fell to the wooden chest that he had since kept firmly under his guard relentlessly, stroking the hinge and flicking open the catch of the lid to reveal two beautifully rounded stones. One a viridian green, deep like an ocean with so many spiralling patterns flowing through its surface. The other a vermillion blood red, promising something equally as beautiful. Two he should have held dearly and to his greatest contentment. But no matter how much the sparkling veneer of the pair of eggs attracted his eyes, there was an incompleteness to the portrait, something foreboding that whispered of something that was missing.

His pretty sapphire blue treasure.

Lost.

Stolen.

It had, undoubtedly, been his least prized of the three. The red spoke wordlessly of power and control, and somebody… somebody gone nearly beyond memory… the man he had always felt a certain ally in, the one always somehow the more romantic without even exerting effort, the one who had stood by his side whilst others lost faith or became too broken with the power of corruption; or else simply died - the one always managing to attract the admirations and attentions of others whilst carefully retaining a powerful balance of calmed controlled fear. The one he had managed to close to his will, the one who had followed without ever having the slightest notion of the truth; that really there was nothing to follow anymore. A trusted ally and a friend in a way that was far from amiable and filled instead with cold formality.

Yes, the red would be born something powerful.

The green whispered to him of something altogether more feminine. An emotion that he had almost forgotten in the turning of the world so that any faint flicker of the unspoken feelings he might once have found in it was almost disappeared altogether, set ablaze in his heart with a wisp of dragon's flame so that all that remained were the ashes of a lost love to be scattered in remembrance. And yet this light whispering brush of beauty was enlivening, awakening, reminding. And it was there, in the perfectly formed shell, simply waiting for the right moment to hatch out into the world, his memory contained in the form of an emerald green artwork that he prized in a covetous, possessive manner.

In a flash of sheer, quick impulsiveness he reached out for the it and brought it to his chest protectively, a glinting contentment entering into his gaze. A hard, warm feeling arose from the firm comfort of it against him, and he sat rocking it gently, as though it were his child, stroking his slender fingers over it lovingly. His most beautiful wonder, his little pretty fatality.

The blue had now merely become a pretty trinket, something to view alongside his other treasures with the caring pride of a collector, but nothing else. Nothing of the personal labyrinth that the others entwined him in. Yet he still bitterly missed the sight of it sitting nestled between its companions in its wooden cradle. The mar of emptiness was mirroring painfully the growing emptiness and lack of control in his mind, and it bred an anger, a hatred for the people who had stolen his precious love. A hatred that only served to burn brighter the violent fire of loathing that already marked his mind and his soul.

He winced suddenly in a small expression of discomfort.

A growling, burning headache crackling hot at the edges of his thoughts was getting to be more and more of an irritation, the sharp smoky tongue of flame that licked at the edges of his ideas in search of attention, stealing trails of consideration to drag into a sea of dulled pain. The same constant shadow of an ache had been lingering for more than a week. No amount of shade magic had helped to heal the growing problem, until it had grown into a full irritation that was slowly taking over his entire trail of conscious thoughts through the simple torture of an unbearable repetition of crackling pain just behind his eyes.

"Shruikan…" he muttered through his teeth, a growl of warning to the black dragon that lay several floors beneath him. The ache immediately dulled, with a mental awareness of a slight wavering fear. The king returned his attention to the egg resting against his chest, stroking the back of his hand along it, feeling a tiny warm shiver as, inside the containment of it's shell, something stirred.

"Where is your friend?" he whispered to it, his voice a soft silky lullaby to the thing in his arms. His love to take the place in his heart where nothing else dared to exist anymore. The patch of barren soil in his mind in which only one flower would manage to grow. With an almost paternal care he cradled it into his arms, feeling the wonderful soft hum that came vibrating through its surface.

"Where is your friend my beautiful treasure…" A small smile of contentment glinted in the king's eyes as he continued to caress the green, a smile that was shattered with a curse of pain as his headache flared white hot. There was a brief moment of sustained calm as he replaced his egg into it's wooden cradling, closing the lid with barely a sound, before the chair was flung back violently in a desperate act of externalising anger and a yell of frustration ripped into the air, mirrored by the enormous dragon as it let back it's head and roared, the headache exploding into a blinding pain.

The new pain sent his mind into a rage of anger and confusion, and without a further thought he was hurrying down the stairway, cursing the dragon that was, with each cry, cutting deeper into his thoughts. Shruikan had always been somewhat lacking in the love that his first dragon had had; like an adopted chld never truly accepted into a family, Shruikan had continued to grow more and more despondent towards him.

Magic had soon sorted that out. Shruikan no longer moped in his own quiet tired thoughts, no longer lay long nights in such silence that Galbatorix had more than once sent a shade down to verify that the dragon was indeed still alive. Shruikan was a fighter; even when torn apart from his rider, he had survived, and continued to survive, in his own quiet persevering sense, forever managing to win despite the hideous odds, forever managing to find some luck on the dice of a gambling game long gone past anything remotely related to anything as noble as skill and descended into realms of foul play. Shruikan never had been particularly dedicated to anything as trivial as abiding by rules; and after all, what was the point behind it? Rules had only given him grief in the past. Why abide by them now, when it seemed all was lost before the game was even begun? Now came the simple brutality of fighting to survive.

The king irritably moved the door aside with a mere idea of it in his mind. Some of Shruikan's power had managed to manifest itself into his mind, something which it would have been something of a lie to say that he did not enjoy whole heartedly. As he stared furiously at the shimmering black mass that stared back in doleful resentment, there was a waning in the violence of the pain in his head. No words were said; for no words were needed, and none would have sufficed even if they had managed to cut sleek into the silence.

For a moment, the man and the dragon stared at each other, each in a mixture of despise and fear at the other. In two pairs of eyes shone a fury that could only but wish to mask a much more disturbed air of terror, glistened over with a firm pride that tried desperately to prevent any hint of weakness from showing. Shruikan let out a small rumbling feral snarl, and turned his eyes away in irritation, laying his large head onto glimmering claws in a veneer of ignorance. For a long while it had been quietly debateable which was the master; the king or his ebony black dragon.

With a bestial growl of frustration Galbatorix turned to leave, only to have white hot pain slice angrily at his thoughts, a stabbing frustration buzzing like a wasp at his most secret parts of his mind, a roaring unstoppable pain that firmly refused to be ignored, like a screaming child wanting comfort. Seething, he closed his hands tightly around themselves, blinked to clear his head somewhat, took a moment to intake air through gritted teeth, and turned to face a snarling dragon, tugging at binding chains to get just a little closer to him, its whole body heaving with the effort of trying to pull further on. The idea of mere metallic links holding back such a powerful creature would almost have been laughable, Galbatorix mused, save for the knowledge that shade magic enforced every ring - so that no matter how hard their victim struggled, never once would there be concern of the restraint breaking.

Shruikan emitted a low roar from the back of his throat, eyes glinting, tugging and tugging desperately to reach the king, wings beating in vain against the cold air of the cell, claws scraping a hideous melody through the harsh stone of the floor, tail whipping vehemently in pursuit of the man who stood glaring back, fists tightly clenched, teeth gritted down hard, fire in the furious blue of his eyes. Galbatorix shook back his dark hair, squeezing his hands tighter to resist the urge to snap from the pressures and fill the cell with destruction that ached to fly free from his fingers; violence that fly around his ears on the tiniest most wonderful frail wings, settled onto his shoulder, and whispered in his ear of such temptations of blood; anger that burned so passionately and was simply waiting until it peaked and was slammed into the world around him. Shruikan started to bellow, a loud alarming symphony of pain and anger and fear that shuddered through the night, each note sending the king into new fury, new unrestrained wrath. As his eyes met with his dragon's, something finally snapped sickeningly inside his already too-fragile labyrinth of a mind.

"Letta!"

The bark cracked through the air, leaving the cell shivering with fear. Shruikan hung suspended, frozen like a beautiful shard of the most perfectly crafted black glass. Galbatorix screamed as the magic left a gap of unprotection in his mind, pain and confusion from their shared thoughts exploded into a rush of hideous whitened clarity, a whirling dance of seething pain that only began to die as he finally refound control over his own restrictions and hurried to close off something of the point of Shruikan's consciousness bordering onto his own. Panting, anger now risen beyond a point of his control, the king eyed his prone dragon warily.

He looked to meet the eyes of his victim, and Shruikan quickly turned away, teeth still bared in a snarl of fearful horrified discomfort.

"Look at me." Galbatorix commanded, voice almost so quiet as to be a whisper, threatening and thickly controlled.

Shruikan reluctantly moved his large emerald eyes to fix upon the man who stood staring back at him, whole body still held tightly under the restrictions of bonds that could never be seen or fought. For a moment the pair regarded each other, and then Galbatorix slowly extended his fingers to shiver down the dragon's still snarling muzzle. Shruikan's eyes lost their wildness, the fire in them slowly calming to a tired mournful subsistence, the emerald calming slowly, until when the king finally flickered his fingers and the bonds disappeared unhurriedly, leaving his dragon slowly settling down to the ground , all trace of malignance was nothing but a far off memory or a dream.

"What is it that you want?" the king settled beside the tired form of the dragon, its eyes fixed on the floor in weary defeat.

"What is it, Shruikan?"

An image flickered into their shared consciousness, an emotion of something that the dragon had found so very beautiful, so very wonderful. Something it had not imagined could be found in such intoxicating degrees in this broken world. Something it wanted, and wanted desperately. Something it pined for and was jealous for. Something so soft and gentle yet bindingly powerful almost beyond comprehension. Something that glimmered in a far off mirror as pain and blood, but that once looked at more closely was the most perfect beautiful thing that ever there was. Something the dragon remembered, albeit in an ancient flickering remnant of memories of a time he could no longer grasp. A time before Galbatorix, a time of happiness and joy and-

"Love?" Galbatorix whispered softly, with a slight distaste, the word sounding so foreign on his lips like the most pretty fickle venom. Shruikan lifted his eyes, a glimmer of hopeful askance silently confirming the king's surprise.

Galbatorix could vaguely remember the word, but it only had brought pain, and at his own hand. A death he had executed like an actor reciting a play, with his own sword and his own passion. A death for love and a death of love, simultaneously, a death that ran with loss of a child that had never been intended for the world, a child burned on the wind the same night as his once lover. A death he had wrought upon a woman just to save her from pain, pain that later destroyed his own mind. Death that now symbolised the only thing that such a foolish thing as love could bring. So fickle as to only bring despair. The most beautiful lie to believe until; the truth was revealed and all fell apart. His eyes hardened with sadness he had all but forbidden himself to feel, tightly controlled. Emotion was nothing. Love was nothing. She had been nothing. Let it pass…

With a huffing sound as he pressed memories back to the dusted shadows they existed to dwell only in like old fables collecting the confusions of time until they were all but forgotten, he turned to his dragon, probing gently to find where the source of such a ridiculous want had come from. A flickering of a familiar person ran into his mind, and instead of disguised sadness, a frown of anger started to breach his face.

"Durza." he stood up, straightening his figure to the extent of its height, as he looked up to see crimson eyes eagerly staring back into his own, so ready to obey his every command for the mere honour that shades sought so unfathomably desperately. Pride glimmered back from the serpentine flicker of a smile that greeted him. Black robes swirled like half formed shadows, catching slightly in an eery glow of a light that was not there.

"Bring me Murtagh." The dark smile that appeared on the shade's face only served to feed his internal anger, a quiet dangerous anger even more deeply menacing than his explosive bursts of violence. Now, this quiet was more austere, more alarming, in a way that Shruikan could feel all too well.

"Of course." With a bow, the pale figure had erupted into a flutter of dark wisps, batlike for a screeching second before all was disappeared to quiet again in the breaking morning. Without once turning to see his dragon watch him in lamenting unsettlement, the king quickly paced out of the door, mind murderously calm. His protégée was about to be a taught a lesson, such as no tutor could ever hope to teach. A lesson Galbatorix fully intended to fix firmly in the man's mind before the next night came.

So it wasn't happy, I apologise for that. Not even so much as a fluffy Murtagh moment, I'm sorry!

But as you had to wait so long, and because you've been such wonderful readers up till now, I'll share a little secret with you… Fluff comes really soon in the near future. The near future specifically meaning Tornac's approximate age, minus Murtagh's approximate age, multiplied by two. Do the math. ;P (I've always wanted to say that phrase…)

Please R n R!! Even just a single line, please! I know that lots of people are reading, so stop hiding and review for me. Please? :D