Chapter 3
Agreements and Suspicions
A moment of dead silence ensued. Roran coughed.
"Er… well, go on, what happened?"
Mimi opened her mouth, but before her lips had even twitched, Sora had launched halfway through the tale.
"-and then we picked these things up and came here." (Mimi realized that Sora had neglected to tell them about the explosion and the golden jewel) "Look at this."
And she shoved her pink and blue egg under Roran's nose. His eyes widened.
"That's bizarre. Look at this."
And he tore off the blanket, revealing his and Katrina's eggs. Katrina cleared her throat.
"We were- er- watching the snow falling out in the back when the sheep started going berserk. When Roran went to go check it out, he found these."
Another moment of silence passed, until Rika revealed her violet egg.
"I was trying to tell you… on my first day in the Spine, I tripped over this and almost broke my neck." She looked at Eragon, and, careful not to drop his backpack, he pulled out his yellow egg.
"Freaky." Sora breathed, as though with a terrified sort of excitement. Then, she turned back to Katrina and Roran.
"Where do you reckon' they came from?"
"Dunno, you think they're jewels?"
"No, they look more like eggs to me…"
"So some local animal laid these?"
"Aye, Roran, in four different places and four different eggs-"
Now, Mimi, Rika and Eragon definatly weren't stupid. Within the first two minutes of this awkward conversation, they picked up that none of the other three had come across a huge, shining jewel- not exactly a good thing. But then Mimi shifted, and both Eragon and Rika caught sight of the golden jewel in her hands. Eragon's eyes widened. Rika inhaled and gave the slightest head-jerk in the direction of he pack. Slowly, Mimi nodded.
"-butit can't be that, can it? So what do you think, Mimi?" Katrina turned to her friend. Mimi shook her head.
"Well, not really…"
"Hey…" Roran's eyes had fallen upon Mimi's jewel. Rika made a convulsive movement, muttering something about having to use the toilet chamber, and ran off down the left hall. Now Katrina had seen the jewel.
"What is-"
"I fancy a bathroom break also!" Eragon said quite loudly, dashing off in the same direction as Rika, leaving Mimi and the others alone.
"Um… I've gotta go put this stuff in the kitchen!" And she ran off down the same hall.
Sora stared at Katrina and Roran, an eyebrow raised.
"What are they talking about? The bathroom's that way and we're in the kitchen."
But none of the three went where they said they would- instead, Rika dashed into the nearest bedroom- Eragon's- and slammed the door shut, seating herself
On the bed and proceeding to tear her backpack apart to wrench out the ruby. Seconds later, Mimi and Eragon raced in, panting, Mimi shutting the door behind her. They sat in silence as Eragon pulled out his own egg and said,
"What is going on here?"
They all plopped down on the bed, eyes flickering to each other's jewels. Mimi placed hers on the bedsheets and poked it with a loaf of bread (to which it did not react.)
"What are they?"
"I- I don't know…" Rika put her head in her hands, a dull thumping pounding above her right eyebrow. Eragon bit his lip.
"Who cares what they are, the question is, what do we do with them?"
"Maybe we should throw them out." Mimi suggested, but Rika's eyes suddenly went hard and she shook her head.
"No, no we can't do that." She examined her jewel for a moment, then finally concluded, "Look, I really don't know what's going on, but for one reason or another, we all found these-" (she held up the violet egg) "But only three of us found these." She pointed to the ruby. "I just get the feeling we shouldn't get rid of them- what if they mean something? We should keep them and figure out what they are. There's no need to hide these… eggs from Katrina and Roran and Sora, but at the same time, it's not a good idea to go flaunting these jewels around. We'll hide them in Eragon's closet."
Eragon looked thoroughly startled. "Why me?" He asked weakly. Rika snorted.
"Uh, because all of Carvahall could live in it for a week. But what ever you do, don't tell anyone about these things. We could get into serious trouble."
And that was agreed on, before shoving the jewels into the closet and going back to the kitchen.
When they returned, the three remaining gave them all suspicious glances. Then, Roran declared;
"Well, since we already have them, we don't see a reason to get rid of them." But at the tone of his voice, it was clear that Roran had not agreed on that. "So we're going to keep them. The traders are coming in a week- when they do, we can dump these things on them. Until then, we'll find out as much else as we can."
And the three others nodded, all thinking that it was the best idea yet. Katrina sighed and picked hers up again.
"We shouldn't let Garrow get wind of this. Hurry, let's hide them under Rika's bed before he comes back."
That task was accomplished without question, and they were all seated at the table again before Garrow was home. There was an uncomfortable silence as they all sat, unmoving. Eragon felt a bead of sweat run down his neck.
And in a whirl of snow the door flung open and in rushed Garrow, looking slightly panicked.
"Has she come home? Oh, thank gods." He said immediately. Then he smiled at Eragon, Rika, Katrina and Sora.
"Well, good to see your all home. How long have you been here together.
A bunch of different answers were blurted out. "All evening", "'Bout two seconds", "Half an hour", "Close to an hour". Then they all stared at each other uneasily. Garrow raised an eyebrow.
"Well, I guess it doesn't matter…" He muttered, leaning over and kissing his two daughters. Then he stood straight.
"Well then, let's fill our stomachs. I daresay you brought some meat back?" And he looked expectantly at Eragon. The boy looked down.
"Well… uh…"
Garrow's smile slid off his face. "Was game scarce?" He asked gruffly. Eragon shrugged.
"Yeah… but I didn't come home with nothing." And he pulled out of his bag a big slice of venison packged up. Garrow's eyes narrowed.
"And I suppose you had time top wrap it up, slice it and season it, did you?" He asked quietly. Eragon sighed.
"I'm sorry Papa. I- I bought it from Sloan."
A vein in Garrow's head suddenly bulged.
"Eragon, my boy, what were you thinking?" He said softly. "I don't want people thinking we can't catch out own meat! By God, we've got the two best hunters in the village!"
Eragon looked down again. Rika sighed and stood up.
"Please don't blame him, Papa, he did what he thought best." She looked to Eragon and shrugged. "I'll go outside and roast one of the ducks I've got, it'll be ready in about an hour."
And she headed out the door. Garrow looked taken aback.
"She's acting quite strange. The Rika I know might've made fun of Eragon for not catching anything. Did something happen to her?"
"No." They all said at once- a little too quickly. Garrow eyed them all for a moment, then shrugged and made his way to the countertop.
"Mimi, can you slice some bread? That's a girl." (For Mimi had jumped out of her chair as though she'd been shocked and done her father's bidding straight away) "And Roran, can you set the table? I think some corn will be nice with duck, don't you?"
So, little over an hour later, the seven companions were seated at the table once more. Although it was almost killing them not to sink their teeth into the juicy meal in front of them, they couldn't, for fear that they might somehow slip something loose about their newfound treasures. Garrow noticed.
"Look at you all, you haven't touched your food? Come on all of you, eat up!"
And when all of them gave weak smiles, he went back to eating his- and he didn't see Eragon place about half of it into his napkin and place it on his lap.
"By the way- Mimi," Garrow said, wiping his mouth with a napkin and staring at his second oldest child. "Roran told me that you came back awhile ago and you were really upset. Would you care to tell me what that is about?"
Then, very quietly, Mimi relayed her tale of Tayoko in the baker's shop. The atmosphere in the room changed drastically and all thoughts of the eggs were pushed from everybody's mind.
"He- he just grabbed you and kissed you? Just like that?" Rika asked, a repulsed look on her face, and Mimi nodded. "That man's got an ego the size of Igualda Falls. How dare he be so full of himself to do that?"
"Yes." Garrow's face was contorted with rage as he clenched and unclenched his fists. "That miserable bastard, how dare he, I should go over them and kill him right now…"
And they all watched with wide eyes as Garrow thought up different punishments for the young baker, each more gory than the last. "Well, don't go killing him, Papa." Mimi pleaded, looking a bit startled. "I don't want you sent to Uru'Bean because you tried to protect me."
"That reminds me." Eragon shifted in his chair. "Has anything been happening with the King lately? Last I heard about 50 of his close defenders went to Surda and didn't return."
"Yes, apparently he's angry about that." Supplied Sora, her appetite coming back enough so that she spooned a bunch more corn onto her plate. "But word came in to my father yesterday that something of great importance to him slipped out of his grasp."
"Have you heard how the Urgal numbers are supposedly increasing?" Asked Katrina, swallowing her mouthful of duck. "The great brutes. Apparently they just wiped out a city to the south and the government's not doing anything about it."
"But it's not in Galbatorix's nature to help the needy, is it?" Roran asked, getting so deep in the subject that he didn't notice he was spilling half his spoonful of corn onto his legs.
"No, not really." Garrow sighed, reaching for another slice of duck only to realize that there was no more. He looked up at everyone's empty plates and smiled.
"See? I knew you were all hungry."
They found he was right.
"Don't worry about the clean-up, I'll handle it." Garrow stood up and took his and Katrina's plates. "Why don't all of you go set up beds in Mimi's room? You can all squeeze in there, I'd imagine."
And half an hour later, they were all fast asleep on Mimi's bedroom floor, dreaming of things like the enormous snowball fight they would have tomorrow, unaware that the adventure of a lifetime was upon them all.
Um... is anyone reading this fic? Nobody's reviewing!