Two chapters in one day! Oh yes! I'm special! Actually, based on the quality of the writing, a two-year-old could have done the same, but still . . .
Eragon went to town again the next day, even though Ronan pointed out that the traders weren't there anymore. After Eragon reminded him that Katrina was, however, he consented to give his cousin a ride.
In the village, the first person Eragon ran into was Broom. Broom was returning from the tavern, huffing and puffing in the chill air, with a miniature barrel of beer under his arm.
"Little help here, Ari?" he called. "And you, Rory."
Sitting in his magical wheelchair, Ronan gave him a withering look and wheeled away. Eragon, a much kinder soul, shrugged and came to help the old man.
"His name's Ronan," Eragon muttered. "Centaurs are easily offended."
"I know," Broom said.
"And I'm Eragon."
"I know exactly who you are, asshole. Now c'mon, you're supposed to be a kind and caring king who gives a damn about his elderly citizens."
There were so many things wrong with that statement Eragon didn't even start. Kind and caring? Gives a damn about the elderly? Him? Broom must be out of his mind.
"How much will you give me for it?" Eragon asked instead.
"A real fun time," Broom smiled widely.
Eragon sighed. Shouldn't have expected anything more, really . . . Together, they rolled the barrel through the snow and all the way to Broom's house.
"Wanna come inside?" Broom asked.
"No thanks." No need to invade the old man's privacy.
"Come inside; I can't get this up the doorstep by myself."
"Fine."
They hauled the barrel up onto the doorstep and over the threshold. Once they were inside, Broom heaved the barrel onto a stand where it would be easy to extract beer.
"Wouldn'ta come out," Broom huffed, seating himself into the only empty chair, a stained, threadbare rocker. "But I ran outta all the good stuff yesterday evenin'." Eragon nodded in understanding, although in truth he had no idea what Broom was talking about.
"Mind if I sit down?"
"Yeah, yeah, 'course . . . wherever you want. But don't break no glass. I's got enough o' that already . . ." It was very true - there was no square foot of floor that didn't contain at least one empty beer bottle and quite a bit of debris besides. Eragon opted to lift a pile of beer bottles, bottle caps, dirty laundry and two half-eaten, now moldy plates of food off of a stool. A bit of ranch dressing dripped down the leg. Trying his best to ignore it and avoid rudeness, Eragon sat down.
Then Eragon remembered why he had come to the village again in the first place; his lack of dragon-parenting skills.
"Broom? Mind if I ask you about something?"
"Ask away. I know you're pretty inexperienced. The more you know, the more fun we'll have."
"Er . . . right. But I was going to ask a question about reptiles."
"Snakes? You wanna show me yours?"
"Dragons, actually. You know, like the Dragon Men you were telling us about the other night?"
"Uh, yeah? What about them?"
"So say if someone - this someone is just theoretical, mind - someone had, like, had a dragon. A dragon egg, that is. And then it hatched and now it's a baby dragon. What is that theoretical person to do?"
"All theoretical, right?" Broom said sarcastically.
"Yes," Eragon replied. Then, to be sure there was great distance between himself and this theoretical person, he added, "The name of the theoretical person is Aragorn."
"Subtle, aren't you, Ari," Broom said.
"Thank you, sir." Eragon drew himself up proudly. "I hope to become a spy one day."
"Right you are," Broom said. Something about his hysterical laughter made Eragon doubt his sincerity, but hey, Broom was erratic and irrational at the best of times. It wasn't Eragon's place to judge.
"To business," Broom said suddenly, still wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. He filled a gallon tankard with beer and took a swig, slopping the stuff all down his front. He appeared not to notice as he went on, "Alright, the first thing you gotta do is feed your baby dragon. Their favorite foods are horse or human meat - a mixture of both is preferable - but that can be very hard to acquire without getting yourself caught and thrown in jail. So I suggest just giving it lots of beer and dog food. The dragon needs lots of nutrients, so if no meat is available, be sure to cum into its food at least once per day. When a dragon gets older, it can hunt for itself. Elven princesses will later become its favorite."
"All good?" Broom asked, consulting his notes, eyes twinkling behind half-moon spectacles . . . . um, puffing on his pipe and blowing smoke rings . . . . er, taking another swig of beer, that is. Broom didn't have half-moon spectacles, or pipes, or smoke rings. Or magic. As far as Eragon knew, at least.
"Great," Eragon said, nodding. Broom continued to give him full instructions on how to hide 'Aragorn's' dragon in the woods, make it a leash and give it a treehouse and everything. Apparently Aragorn lived in Carvahall, too. Hm, maybe that was why everyone thought Eragon was Aragorn . . . . but why had he never met him?
Then Eragon remembered that Aragorn was merely theoretical. Of course. Right. Yeah, he knew that the whole time . . . . really he did . . . .
Eragon listened to Broom into the small hours of the night. Then Broom farted. In a panic, Eragon stuffed his fingers down his throat, barfed, and used that as a quick escape. He was already halfway down the road before Broom made it to the door, shouting "At least clean up your own sick! Come back here, ye bastard . . ."
Once at home, Eragon followed all of Broom's instructions. He took his dragon outside, deep into the woods, then ran back to the carpentry shop to get wood. Upon discovering he had no money, he merely grabbed an axe from his tool shed and set out to chop his own lumber. Once that was done, he ran back home to forge some nails in a makeshift smithy, using a tree stump for an anvil. Bringing these supplies back to where his dragon still had not run away, Eragon built a treehouse. He was finished by dawn.
Eragon then turned to lift his dragon into the treehouse, but he found that it had already flown up.
Ha, ha, loser. I don't need your help.
Wait . . . who said that? It was as if the voice resonated directly into his mind . . .
"Who's there?" Eragon called. "You better watch out. I've got a dragon, you know. It's just 'cause of me that the dragon hasn't come and ripped your throat out already."
The dragon started laughing at this. Riiiiiiiiiight. Like I'd ever save your sorry ass.
"I don't need saving!" Eragon roared into the empty woods. "I told you, my dragon's gonna get you! It's gonna eat you and kill you and . . ."
Turn around, stupid.
Eragon did. Well, at first he didn't, as he expected an attack to come from behind. But after ten minutes of silence all around, he did. He saw his dragon perched in the treehouse, staring haughtily down at him. He waved. Then he turned back around.
"What was it I was supposed to see, huh?"
Me.
"Then come out and show yourself, coward!"
I'm not a coward. You're just an idiot. I would take offense, but it is in the nature of a dog to shit in the house, is it not?
Eragon couldn't even begin to comprehend this wisdom surely come from the heavens, so instead he asked, "Where are you?"
A sigh, then Really? I'm the dragon.
"You're my dragon!"
No. I'm not your dragon. I never shall be your dragon. You are my human. You're a pretty stupid one by the looks of it - or are all your kind this dumb? Well, allow me to test your usefulness. Human, go fetch me some horse meat. Or human meat. Or both.
"Wait a second . . . ."
Well, hurry up! I don't want to wait around all day. And make sure it's only lukewarm, mind. I don't want any of that nasty burnt stuff you eat.
Seeing no other option but to obey, Eragon dutifully returned to the house.
"Ronan, I need your help."
"What?" Ronan asked. "And I'm texting Katrina, so this better be quick."
"D'you mind if I, say, chopped off some of your leg meat?"
Ronan started, staring at Eragon in bewilderment. Then he began to laugh. "Go right ahead."
No, it couldn't be that easy, could it? "Thanks!" Eragon said brightly, skipping off to grab the carving knife. It was stuck to the table with dried blood, but a bit of Clorox was enough to unstick it. Eragon returned to find Ronan painting his hooves a brilliant shade of magenta.
"Er . . . Ronan?" Eragon asked.
"What now?"
"Well, you need to, er, lay on your stomach for me to be able to reach your leg. That okay? I'll do it fast."
"Wait - what?" Ronan jumped up, rubbing his still-wet hoof against the sofa. Magenta smeared across it. Ronan's eyes flicked from the bloodied carving knife in Eragon's hand to his excited expression. He gulped, blanching. "My cousin's a psychopath."
"Er, I don't mean to micromanage, but it'll be easier if you sit back down," Eragon said. Ronan started backing away slowly, but the room wasn't large. He crashed into the coffee table, overturning a vase which shattered upon the floor in thousands of pieces, then backed into the wall, knocking a portrait to the ground.
"What . . . will?"
"What'd'you mean?"
"What will be easier?" Ronan asked, eyes now searching the room for a weapon.
"Hacking off some of your flank, of course. You said I could."
"I was joking!" Ronan said weakly.
"Please? I'll do your chores for a week!"
"Dad! Dad, come're, quickly!" Ronan screamed.
"Is that a yes?" Eragon had no idea why his cousin was being so difficult.
"Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaddy!"
"Stop whining, Eragon! You don't have a daddy and you never will!" Amycus yelled from the bedroom. He was unused to Ronan whining or calling for Daddy.
"Eragon's trying to kill me!"
"I am not!" Eragon said indignantly. "C'mon, plenty of people are missing legs, and they've only got two! You have four! What kind of sharing is that?"
"You - you're crazy! Get away from me! Carrow, come here!"
"Don't call me Carrow, Ronan," Amycus called. "Do it again and you don't get no more apples for the rest of the week."
Only when Eragon began to advance did Ronan realize a key thing to the scene: he was a centaur. Eragon was a scrawny and unfit human, albeit one equipped with a carving knife. Roran reared up, hitting his head on the ceiling and getting a minor concussion, but his hooves were just as hard for it. Eragon fell down, unconscious and with magenta nail polish smeared across his face.
Unsure what to do now that his cousin was stabilized, Ronan first took away the carving knife. Then, after a few minutes of deliberation, he tied Eragon spread-eagled to his bedframe. It was rather tricky to get across his cousin's mess of a room, and even trickier to do so whilst carrying Eragon on his back, but he managed. Perhaps he could give his cousin to the insane asylum.
Carrow poked his head in the room as Ronan was tightening the last of the knots. The man grinned widely. "Excellent, can I join?"
"Could you phone the asylum?" Ronan asked. "Eragon's gone crazy. He went down to Broom's house the other day - mighta been poisoned."
"By 'the asylum,' you mean Broom, right?" Carrow said. He sighed at Ronan's nonplussed look. "Stop playing dumb and just give me the money. I'm my nephew's pimp, not you."
Ronan's eyes widened at the gross profanity. Men weren't supposed to curse - at least, Katrina said they weren't. She whipped him with a horsewhip when he did, so it was probably true.
"Ronan," Carrow snapped.
Ronan stuttered, trying to think of an excuse to get away. "Bane invited me over for a sleepover," he said. "So I was gonna go to Firenze's house . . . right now. Bye!" With that he turned and galloped away into the sunset.
Carrow swore for several minutes, all in the Boring Human Language, as a simple farmer like himself knew no Sindarin ancient language. Or Old Tongue, because some authors can come up with creative names for things. Then Carrow turned back towards the bed . . . but Eragon was era-GONE.
Perhaps you hadn't yet realized it, but Eragon was a ninja. Although Ronan had tied knots up and down his limbs and attached three different sets of manacles to his wrists and ankles, Eragon did a massive Houdini and wriggled out of all of them. He picked the locks with his fingernails. He ripped apart the rope with his teeth. He was a ninja.
Or perhaps Ronan had been trying to tie the knots with his hooves, and you can imagine how successful that was. You decide. Eragon was probably a ninja.
So after his miraculous escape, Eragon ran off to his dragon, sobbing. However, his hands were bleeding and torn from pulling off the pile of rope Ronan dropped on his head, and he was unable to climb up to the treehouse. His dragon only laughed at him, then turned bitter when he had no horse or human meat to offer her. She threatened to kill him, so Eragon ran screaming back to Car-and-Pail Valley.
The first person Eragon went to was Broom. Sometimes Eragon considered the man his sole confidente. Still crying, Eragon tried to tell Broom of his troubles.
"It's okay, Ery," Broom said. "Did you see those two hotties in the black cloaks?"
"EVERYONE HATES ME," Eragon bawled.
"I mean, I haven't actually seen them," Broom continued, "But I've seen them hot bods. They're, like, otherworldly. I mean . . ."
"NO ONE LOVES ME!"
"I'm gonna try to seduce 'em tonight," Broom decided. "Those sexy Myr - um, I have no clue what they are. But they aren't Myrdraal. Or Nazgul. Or Dementors."
"I THOUGHT I HAD FRIENDS IN THIS WORLD BUT I GUESS I DON'T!"
"C'mon, Eragon, quit whining and cheer up. Tell you what. I'll go seduce those hot'cloak'motherfuckers today, and tomorrow you can come with me," Broom said, grinning at his own ingenuity for naming things.
"Okay . . ." Eragon gulped and wiped the tears from his face. Broom grabbed his hand.
"What's that?"
Eragon looked down. Broom was gazing intently at the mark on his hand. He could try another getaway operation, but he decided against it. "It's my gedwey ignasia," he sighed.
"Really? It looks like a Dragon Man Mark to me," Broom said.
"Does it? Well, I'd better be getting home. Amycus will be expecting me," Eragon said, hastily pulling away his hand.
"Of course. Come back tomorrow," Broom said, sitting up straight, trying to look the part of a wizened old storyteller. "Safe journey." The effect was ruined when he farted. Eragon fled the house.
There is actually a plot after this, really there is! Review even though there was much randomness and little plot?