Thank you to everyone who left awesome and insightful reviews! This chapter should, gods willing, be one of the very last 'world-building' chapters I ever have to do. Gradually Eragon and Saphira have learned enough about their surroundings to interact and move around within them. The time has almost come to start... properly pushing back ; )
"And now back."
This shift was not as swift as the practice ones of before. Not when there was something other to worry about, something that did not quite belong with his body. Still he powered through. It was a strength of will that called a dragon out of a man's body and banished it back.
When it was over Eragon stood confidently astride his own two legs, far more convenient than always arriving on his hands and knees. Greater still was that his clothes had survived the transition too. He plucked at one gray sleeve in satisfaction. Not only had he absorbed them beneath his scales without shredding them this time, but had called them back from whatever strange nothingness had taken them.
He turned up to regard Caedmon, whose gruff face managed something like pride. Or at least satisfaction he need no longer endure a naked nephew. "Will the... strange feeling of it ever go away?"
"In time, when your Will realizes clothes almost make a man as much as the skin." His head tilted in consideration. "For the most part. Forced transformations, such as those leading into arachtide or from fear for your life, are not so discerning."
Eragon grimaced at the memory of burning from the inside out. At least he had only being stuck in human form to dread in the coming months. Then he frowned. "But only those materials once living, aye?"
Caedmon had warned him of it earlier. There was a reason all duine-arach clothing involved buckles of bone and ivory than those of bronze or iron, why humans wore leather armor to not impede an emergency shift and dragons donned iron armor when human finesse might be left to others.
"Aye. There is only so much a mind will let itself be convinced something else is also apart of you."
In battle Eragon could have only leather armor to guard him, if he meant to flow freely between forms. He couldn't even carry a damn blade, not unless he made some of leather sheath for his dragon-arm or some such. His brow furrowed as he recalled memory of the Righ's bright silver crown, one that had shifted with his form. "What is the exception?"
"Star-steel, forged in star-fire by the iron Will of master smiths. It is a downright bitch to make." Amber eyes appraised him. "Only those of a powerful clan might be afforded any sizeable defense or offense by it in the Long Night. And only the highest worthy of wearing it outside such vital necessity."
"Does it start as common ore?"
"The purest iron mined from the Mother, forged in the hottest spark gifted by the Father. It is a union of the two. Much like the dragons themselves." A wry lip twitched. "Or the daonna-arach, to a much more belated degree. You are restricted from the sorcery of the Fae because the two mix like oil and water."
Eragon wondered if 'Fae' referred to elf or Grey Folk. He knew weredragons at least had no love for the former. "Oisin has already informed me the consequences could be... unpleasant."
Caedmon paused. "Magic is all will, is it not? Sometimes they are the great acts of the gods or of powers beyond mortal ken. Others it is a dragon breathing fire or one of the Mother's other children attempting to exert their own will over the world, to make a harvest turn their way or a lover consider their affections."
"Aye," Eragon allowed.
Most women of Carvahall had kept to some art or another. Their words of herbs and turns of the hand to ward off evil had passed over his head, for Marian had died when he was but a boy of five, and Uncle Garrow had no love of superstition. He had no clue if any had ever succeeded in turning luck or warding off sickness. Perhaps the peace of mind the rituals brought were power enough.
"The Fae simply pressed their will upon the world to a degree not seen since its creation. They sought to bind all under their dominion, to grant their names so that the strong might bend earth and sky to their command. The Fae are millennia dead from the cost. Still their sorcery binds the world so that near all magicians alive today rely on the same tongue."
The 'sorcery' Eragon knew of bound spirits to the caster's will. Yet even Trianna used the ancient language to enchant her Lorgra. Even dwarf magicians used the language and Eragon had heard the rare Urgal could accomplish the same. Necromancy and those powers of the Shades were forbidden arts Oromis had loathed to speak of.
Caedmon thumped a fist against his heart. "And then are the daonna-arach, who exist only because trapped the Lord Moon in human skin with the goal to claim him forever. Because his daughter ruled a human kingdom on the brink of tearing itself apart with the outcast dragons they lived beside. Peace to find them together, forever and always, did not come without price."
"Magic never does," Eragon sighed wearily. A spell without focus could always drain a life force dry. Fickle spirits could overwhelm their sorcerer to make their shell a Shade.
"The All-father's people fled to the Isles with shreds of the Fae tongue. Those dragons pushed to the edge of their world came with fickle wild magic capable of working wonders. It took both to forge them to the same power in Amalia's blood that made her duine-arach, a magic made by the Mother that would accept no other." Caedmon extended an upturned hand. Despite his human form golden flames kindled above his palm without a word, never scorching his flesh. "This is why we have our Will, so that we might act upon the world as only a duine-arach can."
Eragon bit back a snarl at his tone. He knew all too well from Brom and Oromis what it was building into. "I suppose this is the rest of today's lesson."
Caedmon reached over to a table for a dragon-sized candle. Eragon had not bothered lighting them in weeks, not since the shift had strengthened his eyes to where they were no longer needed. "Rather than risk setting yourself on fire for your first lesson I supposed we start somewhere more feasible."
By which he meant the weredragon equivalent of levitating that damned pebble. "How do I begin?" he asked dryly.
"You must make it so."
"If I do not?"
Caedmon's eye twitched. "Then there is no spark."
Eragon frowned. Will sounded too much like non-verbal casting for the warnings Oromis pounded into him to not raise their head. "If I lose my focus?"
"Then there is no spark." Caedmon's mouth worked silently. "You were trained with the blade, were you not?"
"Aye?"
"Then you know it took you time to build up stamina to hold up your sword for extended periods, let alone to swing it or defend yourself with any degree of finesse." Caedmon nodded purposefully at the gifted blade, still resting in its sheath upon a table. "Overexert yourself and you are left sore and aching, perhaps with a headache. Only if you insist on pushing past your exhaustion might you collapse. And rarer still actually die from it."
"Ah." Not like magic, where misdirected focus might make a caster keel over on the spot as the spell drained them dry. "Should I... hold it?"
Caedmon bent to pick up the candle from its sconce, thrusting it into his hand. "It is easier that why, tangible by feel in a way sight alone is not."
Eragon thought to Saphira, who had blessed Elva by laying her snout to her brow, who had done the same to transform Brom's stone tomb into crystal to cradle him for eternity. He stared at the wick and pictured it lit. And stared. And thought.
Sweat beaded on his brow. His arm ached as if it held up a mountain. He shifted the candle into two hands and fought.
Hot wax dripped onto his hands. Black scales impulsively erupted across tender flesh. Eragon dropped the candle with a snarl. His spine tingled with a pressure he now knew as a looming transformation. He gritted his teeth to force it down, rubbing his wrists as the scales receded.
"A controlled failure," Caedmon observed.
"Controlled?"
"The whole candle did not spontaneously combust. And set your father's favorite desk on fire."
Eragon bit back a grin at this. "Would not dousing the candle be a simpler first lesson?"
"Not when your attempts at extinguishing fire only make it flare higher. And take your eyebrows with it." Caedmon considered the partially melted candle, broken on the floor. "The dragon in our blood is already inclined to fire. Kindling it always comes easier, even in this shape. Controlling its intensity is a metaphor for all of Will."
The prince procured another candle and so they worked. Eragon stifled a growl when a serving boy discretely dropped off a box of them.
In the end it took only four. When he stared and... pushed just so, the wick finally guttered to life. His lip quirked up at its color, the same blues of his dragon flame. And only two stuttering tries to douse it.
"Good," Caedmon hummed. "Again."
Once his arms started shaking the prince finally ended the lesson. With no more distractions Eragon finally asked about the limitations of Will. It was not surprising it took unwavering focus to maintain an extended action. Runes engraved into steel and stone prolonged its effects but needed continuous renewal. That was why braziers burned hours on their own and how shackles had suppressed their natural magics in captivity.
A trained healer could Will back a soul from the edge of death, for the body to replenish itself. It could not regrow a severed limb. Seeds might be sewn and tended to bear a richer harvest. Barley seeds could not be Willed into grow into rye anymore than coal could be smelted into gold. Wind and wave might be turned against a foe, but only so long as they existed for the caster to hold them in thrall.
"What if you Willed another dead?"
Gold eyes searched him. "How so?"
Eragon considered the grim efficiency of the twelve words of death. "Let's say by stopping the heart."
"And when your victim feels your hold upon the heart, would they not do all on your power to throw you off? In a battle of Wills, is not the drive to stay alive our basest instinct? To survive."
To an extent he conceded his uncle's point. In a war of minds the trained defender almost always had the higher ground. The opposing magician meant to dominate them. The target fought for their very sense of self. "With the ancient language your surest protection comes in the wards you weave."
Perhaps a weredragon raged against being Willed dead. Not even the elder dragons of Alagaesia had been able to resist when one careless from the Forsworn pinched an artery in their brain or did something else insidiously simple to drop them from the skies. Their actions had been too swift to be realized. Unshackled, without his vow to bind him, Eragon might have slaughtered every weredragon between himself, Saphira, and freedom.
Before the fucking Righ had poisoned him, at least.
"We are woven of something both older and newer, one last great working of the Earth Mother. The Fae never could have foreseen our coming. We... are what we are, no more and no less." Caedmon hesitated, then turned for the balcony. "You are tired and the hour grows late. We will continue your training another time."
He flew off in a burst of flame and golden scales before Eragon could press him for answers. He snarled after him.
Once more he glared down at his gedwey ignasia. On his palm the brilliant silver color had faded to the consistency of a normal scar. Even his human face had changed, when his transformation had unraveled the gifts of the Blood-Oath Ceremony. For another moment he feared...
No. That was his paranoia speaking. He still sighed in relief upon reaching out to Saphira. There she was, right at the back of his soul, bright with triumph over another victory in the training bouts. Their bond was strong as ever. Stronger, even, after the agony the last full moon had put them through. They had weathered hell together. It was only for Saphira that Eragon had emerged from his crucible alive.
Perhaps weredragon Will had contorted the Rider spell beyond recognition, if not broken it entirely. It mattered not. Their souls were bound by forces far stronger than the magic that had first twined them together.
Eragon basked a final moment in Saphira's thrill before respectfully withdrawing. Gods forbid his presence distract her from the first thing she could enjoy in weeks without his presence overshadowing her.
His gaze flicked down to the candle and an experiment all his own.
Hello... Eragon...
He blinked blearily up at Saphira, scales shimmering in the late afternoon light, then down to the carnage of soot and melted wax surrounding him. Dragons couldn't blush. Heat flooded his face all the same.
"Hello, Saphira," he called as nonchalantly as he could manage. "How was your day?"
Productive. Weredragons are of a size far more feasible to spar with directly than Glaedr. I learned quite a bit about clawing at the eyes and... other sensitive areas. Saphira paused. Not that they usually use those tactics on each other. Like wild clans they have a more honorable combat system in place among themselves. But considering what they... face on certain nights, it's working wisdom to aim for anything soft and squishy. Like down the throat of an abomination. Or a tentacle covered in eyes.
They shuddered together. Eragon happily changed the subject. "Do you want to see what I've been doing today?"
...Melting candles?
"An unfortunate side effect of practicing," he conceded ruefully. In one bulky dragon hand he picked up a candle just large enough to hold comfortably. "But worth it in the end."
With the smallest tinge of Will the candle flared to light without the slightest spark from his mouth. Saphira's jaw dropped. He smirked proudly back at her. It had only taken most of the massive box of candles to manage the trick without immediately melting the whole damn stick of wax.
Seven fucking hells! How did you manage it?
"Not easily," he admitted. "Will is easier to handle in my other form. I'm used to working magic in that body anyway and there's less brute force to channel. Like this it requires much more focus. Any precision is best left for smaller hands." He flashed his teeth. "Not that Galbatorix will need any precision if we can sear through his wards in a way he never sees coming."
He's had a hundred years to drape himself in them, Saphira cautioned. More hesitantly she added, Glaedr admits it's possible he even tried layering protections against wild dragon magic. In the last days of the Fall entire clans wiped themselves out in trying to trigger their magic and drag him or Shruikan down with them. But the two are not born from the same source of magic. And Ciar concedes Will is something like a hybrid between the two.
Eragon conceded that. Caedmon had told him the same, that the workings of a spiteful goddess had unwittingly fused two antithetical races together. Further experimentation on how Will properly mixed with the ancient language required a skilled magician or at least the lifting of his oath.
But for now his limbs trembled with weariness and his head ached from the effort of holding back his newfound strength. He sheepishly did his best to help clean up a mess of his making before Erna and dinner arrived. Her aids shooed him back to finish properly.
With dinner devoured Eragon reluctantly considered a shelf brimming with books and potential answers. They knew enough of the script and the language to parse their way through without dragging the memories ingrained upon the pages into their study. He grouchily deemed it a project for another day, a day when he was up for more than wrestling with candles.
Saphira stared at him as he curled up on the far side of the bed. Uneasily he stared back. "What's wrong?"
His confusion soared when Saphira's mental barriers rose up to hold back most of her emotion. You and Caedmon practiced your shifting more, aye?
"In the beginning. I'm passable at it now, so we moved onto more productive lessons." He snorted. "Gods forbid a prince not know anything about a people that never wanted him in the first place. But we're all stuck together for the time being, so I might as well get everything useful I can out of them."
Then wouldn't you like to... change back now?
He cocked his head. "Why? I'm comfortable like this."
You were deprived of your birth form for two weeks. Now that you've mastered the shift don't you want to go rest in the form most familiar to you?
Eragon thoughtfully flexed his claws. He had wrestled questions over shape-shifters since first encountering Solembum. Being one himself made some things obvious now in a way he had never understood with only his human skin.
"This is me too. It was stifling to be trapped in, but now that I have the freedom to go back, it's... natural either way." He grinned bashfully at her. "Besides, Saphira, this is the shape I share with you. What other Rider has flown beside their dragon before, known how wind feels underneath their wings or skimming their claws over the waves? This form can never be uncomfortable to me. Not when I have known you near as well."
Saphira dropped her defenses in shock. Pure love sang across their link.
Eragon basked in it like a second sun, radiating her affections back to her. He had loved her since shortly after laying eyes on her. Saphira was closer than family, for she was half his soul. She knew the depths of his heart like not even Roran ever could. In a way she was his heart.
Saphira settled on the opposite edge of the bed. He closed the awkward gap between them.
There was nothing to be awkward of. Truly. This second shape had not shattered their bond. It had only brought him to a higher level of understanding her, her wants and her needs. How could he begrudge her new training partners when he realized how whole she felt with broader connections? Humans and dragons were both social creatures, meant for family and clan. He understood her restlessness at remaining earthbound, her sky hunger, even her yearning for a clean hunt. The only things worth hunting in Crown Castle's vicinity were the stupid fish.
They curled together side by side. Eragon's heart sang at their closeness. Other urges rose in his blood, but those he forced down deep, to depths not even Saphira knew.
The only true negative of dragon instincts so far was... its newfound appreciation for feminine beauty he had never considered in that light before. An elegant curve from a slender snout to the neck. A grace in the air no earthbound creature could ever match. The way scales caught the light just so-
Eragon shoved those even deeper. They were but distractions.
His idiocy had already near ruined his friendship with Arya. Like seven hells was he tainting a bond far stronger, far purer, one that might endure to his dying day.
He was mastering all other aspects of this new form swift enough. The more problematic aspects would follow in time.
They had to.
The Nile may not exist in this world, but something else is alive and well :D
'Fae' has all sorts of interesting roots. The Latinate form (fay) means something like 'fit' or 'unite' while the Germanic form (fey) ultimately means 'dying' or 'doomed to die.' And has roots with Germanic root words for wicked, ungodly, and foe. Quite describes the paradoxical nature shared by Grey Folk and the Fair Folk of OTL, don't it?
Magic in our world has a fascinating cultural history. A lot of cultures had some form of 'maleficium' - the ill will that fueled black magic. But they also had 'white magic' practices and rituals to at least cancel them out, if not outright invite good luck instead. The 'cunning folk' of Britain and Germany had traditions that partially originated in Anglo-Saxon paganism and practiced their herb-craft up until the late 1800s/early 1900s. Not exactly flashy by Alagaesian standards, but once the norm among humanity before the ancient language caught on.
Will is at its base level an amalgamation of wild dragon magic and ancient human magic - the working of miracles on far smaller scales essentially. It's extremely vague and adaptable, but most daonna-arach specialize. Smiths are all about even flames and forging stronger steel. Farmers till fields for stronger, more fertile and more filling harvests, healing blight and easing famine. Border clans are all about mastering wind pressure and waves for calling up some downright nasty storms to strike outsiders dead long before they reach the Isles proper.
Will is one of the magic structures that uses existing balances in creation to its benefit. The ancient language is essentially the cheat code that cuts right through the game's existing parameters... at the risk of corrupting it completely. Will is VERY incompatible with the ancient language. Even more so than dragon magic. One the Grey Folk had time to weave into their spells. The other quite literally exploded into existence some millennia after the ancient language was finalized. Exactly how incompatible, however... ; )