It was a double update tonight, folks! FF doesn't always show that accordingly, so please check you read the last chapter too if coming back to this.
When the last bones stopped grinding and scales bubbling, Saphira held her breath when Eragon at last slipped into blessed unconsciousness. It took only one sniff and sight of relief to confirm beneath all this unfamiliar bulk this was still her stone-head, no matter what this placed damn and its poisons had forced upon him. Even more reassuring was the beat of his heart, slow and deep and strong.
Utterly spent, Saphira collapsed atop him. Deliriously she realized how satisfied she was that Eragon was the pillow this time. Not since her first few weeks could she support herself without fear of crushing him.
Her sleep was deep and dreamless. She could have slept days. Instinct awoke her at the crack of dawn.
Saphira's eyes snapped open with a silent snarl. Beneath her Eragon snored in healthy slumber. Above them loomed the Righ's dark shadow from the balcony. She swallowed her hiss as his blazing eyes fell upon her like she was a worm beneath her shadow.
The Righ lowered his head and inhaled once, as if to confirm the stranger beneath her was indeed the great-grandson he had not quite succeeded in poisoning. Then he turned his back to them. He took off in three thunderous wing-beats. For all even the weredragon king was dwarfed by Glaedr's bulk he carried himself as if he were ten times larger. Eragon scarcely stirred through the clamor.
When the adrenaline from the encounter swiftly subsided Saphira was still tired enough to sleep. She was just starting to drift off again when Erna Suther knocked.
Saphira snarled at the door but got up anyway, because her stomach growled even louder. She hadn't eaten at all yesterday and she knew Eragon must have been ten times as ravenous.
Wake up, little one, she murmured, nudging his head with hers. She cocked her head as something else came to her. Er, perhaps that name no longer applies...
Crown Castle's staff should have been returned and resting with their families on Green Isle, enjoying what remained of their holiday before duty called them back. The overwhelming majority crammed into quarters no noble would dare tread willingly. Some started lighting fires and making the first preparations for distant dinner, if only to have an excuse for their presence.
"Well?" Agnar growled. He was among overwhelming majority that had lost good coin and barter on the little shit surviving the Lord Moon's judgement, but there was still one last bet to pay out. "Is the little shit brown or not?" At Erna Suther's scolding snarl, he hastily amended, "Is the... little prince brown?"
"Of course not, you crass old fool," the woman sneered. "It's unbecoming of his bloodline."
"Blue, then?" a cook prompted hopefully.
One of Erna's girls quivered with suppressed excitement. And stilled when honey-gold eyes swept over her. "Unfortunately, no," she sighed at last. She smiled wanly at one serene fili. "Black, black as the night sky."
Black as King Arran and Prince Sioltach had been, gods rest their souls. Black as...
Oisin cackled as he counted his winnings. "I told you fools the little prince only lived to piss you off. There is only one we hold in greater regard than Amalia, and that is Triath Luan himself."
At first there was only burning. Then, just as he began to grow accustomed to his hell, his very bones betrayed him. They ached and scraped and broke as they had not had in all his growth spurts, as they had not had when he shattered his leg from skidding too sharply down that mountainside in one of his first hunts. His skin itched and burned worse than when rubbed raw from Saphira's scales.
Only distantly did Eragon realize the burning extended to parts down his spine and shoulder blades that had never existed before. The agony had come before the sudden deepness of his screams, the weight that pinned him down that became increasingly easy to throw off. There had been nothing left of him to consider the consequences after the pain finally ceased, only an eager acceptance of the wave of black that swallowed his watery eyes.
Saphira head nudged him. He grumbled at the familiar sensation and burrowed deeper into his arms.
Wake up, little one. Her fondness suddenly veered into awkwardness. Er, perhaps that name no longer applies...
The oddness of it all was enough to finally make Eragon blink his eyes open. Immediately he hissed and snapped them shut. Never before had the light seared so bright.
Brow furrowing in confusion, he cracked them open once more. After the Blood-Oath Ceremony his vision had gained new precision, colors new crispness. But not even a Rider's eyes could detect every flick of shimmering quartz in the castle walls, every grain in his wooden wardrobe. Colors were still the same. Some had just gained new depth that made him dizzy when he realized those exact shades had never been conceivable to him before.
With a low groan he closed his eyes again. What I fear happened actually happened, didn't it?
...Aye, Eragon. It did.
Of fucking course it did, he growled. He had feared such not long after his blood had begun to boil. His thoughts had been confirmed by feverish recollections of colorless scales bubbling through his flesh and white bone arcing above his back. The fucking Righ couldn't abide a human Rider as family any more than the elves could stand a cripple as their savior. I... I don't look like him, do I?
...Not overly so.
With that lukewarm encouragement Eragon braved his new reality. Cracking his eyes once more he craned his head with unsettling dexterity to behold a bulk of shimmering black scales. It took him too long to realize that was his bulk. Looking even vaguely like Shruikan was leagues beyond being stormy gray, or a shade of red anywhere near Thorn's or Zar'roc's.
Raising his head to his human height and then disconcertingly above it, he craned his neck to inspect his... paws. Hands? They had thumbs like the weredragons, not the back-curved claw of Saphira's. His pounding heart slowed somewhat at the shimmer of silver scales on the palm that should hold his gedwey ignasia. This was still his form, even one drudged forth from the bowels of his blood.
One inhale confirmed a hot breakfast waited outside their door, alongside scents a part of himself insisted belonged to Erna Suther and her more familiar girls. His stomach thundered.
Hunger and a stubborn blaze of pride were enough to make him strain against leaden legs to stand on all fours. They promptly buckled like a newborn foal's.
Should-
Absolutely not! he spat back. I will meet them standing like a ma- weredragon or else I will fucking starve.
With much snarling and mental swearing, he eventually managed to stand. He even held his own when Saphira at least cautiously inched away from him. Dizzily he noted he might match her size for her size, when he gained the strength to stand up straight. His damned wings and tail hung like dead weights, but at least he could glare down his snout when Saphira finally bid the servants enter.
They shuffled in like guilty dogs, averting their eyes and granting him deep, hasty bows before they fled. Eragon took dark pride in towering over the girls who had always stood above him even in human form. Only Erna Suther stood her ground long enough to cast her gaze respectfully up to him.
"I am joyful to see you standing tall and proud, my prince," she murmured. "Already you do your blood proud."
Eragon's only response was an impulsive growl he could not swallow. Erna did not flinch before she bowed low and deep before him.
No sooner did the door close behind them did Eragon just stop himself for lunging for the food. He glanced toward Saphira, licking guiltily at his sudden slaver. You should probably eat first. I'll just have whatever's left.
The she-dragon rolled her eyes. I've gone far longer than a day between hunts, stone-head. Please eat before your body starts digesting the hundreds of pounds it somehow put on last night.
His attempt at etiquette politely declined, Eragon threw manners to the wind and did just that, ripping into breakfast with mouth and paws. He only slowed down after near swallowing a whole damn platter in his zeal. The last thing he needed was Erna picking wooden splinters out of his tongue.
When his belly was full to bursting Eragon considered the carnage left behind. Broth and juices dripped accusingly down his whole neck. Saphira stared neutrally on, emotions carefully closed to his. Nothing could disguise the fact it took all her effort to not burst out laughing.
I-I'm going to... clean up.
Of course, dear one. At least Saphira spared his dignity by not asking him if he needed help to the washroom.
On heavy, unsteady legs he hobbled to the basin. After stepping on his own wing and getting his tail stuck on the corner, he finally made it. Too late did he remember the room contained a shimmering wall for reflections of any size. Frantically he avoided the monster in the mirror.
His first hysterical impulse screamed for human form, his face and his hands. But Eragon shuddered in dread at ever undergoing that torture again, no matter the end result. At least not so soon after surviving the first.
You're being an idiot, he told himself. If you can't face your own fucking reflection how can you hope to face the gods damned Righ, gods damned Galbatorix?
Before he lost his nerve Eragon forced himself to face the mirror. Shock riveted him there.
This was not the vague unease he felt when first discovering the alterations the pact was making to his body or his initial horror to discover elven sharpness imposed upon his face. Somehow this reflection was both better and worst; it was near totally alien, and so without the horror of identifiable features twisted just enough to be alien.
He did vaguely recognize the Righ in the strength of his snout, the broadness to his shoulders. He thanked gods the lack of scarring and stoic disdain brought Caedmon and his seething fury more to mind. He had fewer horns, not as gnarled, smooth and silver as crescent moons. His scales were black, but not an inky shade like Ciar's. The morning sunlight gave them a bluish cast, especially through the membranes of the one wing he twitched up, like a midnight sky.
Eragon sighed to discover at least his eyes were unchanged, still their familiar blue. A blue that now reminded him of Beline and her burning hands.
Then he blinked to discover one detail was not quite right.
Saphira!
Aye, Eragon?
Aren't weredragons supposed to have round pupils?
Ordinarily. Unless they're still in their... arach...
Arachtide, he finished faintly, staring at his own slitted eyes. And the prospect of being stranded in this form for two damned weeks.
Eragon stuck his head into the basin of freezing water to stifle his exasperated scream. And startled with a undignified yelp at the steaming cloud of bubbles he let out instead. The water still steamed when he scrambled back.
At least his fire worked.
He returned to the main chamber to discover Saphira had picked the last of the trays clean and neatly stacked them by the door. Their quarters were still grand in size but not nearly as cavernous as two dragons sharing the space.
How do you feel?
A bit better, he answered earnestly. Though still very pissed at my excuse of a family. And the prospect of being stuck like this for two weeks.
Her eyes narrowed. Oh, aye, because being even being partially one of the strongest creatures alive, with flight and flame at your every whim, is such a terrible ate.
Eragon huffed a laugh. True enough. I could have been born to a family of wererats.
After an expected pause, Saphira prompted, How else do you feel?
Still tired, he admitted sheepishly.
Good. She promptly collapsed onto the feather bed. So am I. Oisin can stuff his lessons if he thinks I'm up to them today.
Some lingering sense of propriety made Eragon's gaze stray to the balcony even as the she-dragon bore expectant holes into his soul. It mostly his own lingering soreness that made him limp onto heavenly softness too. He awkwardly settled at the edge of the room. It only gave him nowhere to flee when she settled stubbornly beside him.
His past day as a we-... duine-arach passed fast asleep, save when Erna stopped by with food enough to feed two growing dragons. After lunch Eragon realized resistance was futile and stopped trying to slither away from Saphira's side.
He had damn near gotten them both killed in so blindly accepting the Righ's poison night after night, in corrupting himself from the inside out. The least he could do was make the other half of his soul feel the slightest bit more at ease, that no more nightmares could steal him from her.
Eragon WAS gonna be blue originally. That's why Beline and Brede are both blue - because he would have taken more after the Standa side of the family. He causes a lot more headaches this way :p