Chapter 8

Falling. He was falling. The air rushing passed his ears, his arms outstretched and a maddened smile slapped across his smile. Why was he falling? Where was he falling? Saphira! he called out in his mind. The grin faded. No answer. Saphire is dead. Who had told him that? Thorn, it's me, thorn, and I'm sorry, I killed her. The voice was calm. Like water gently tapping the sides of the cliff that forms the river bank. The words were gentle. The message was poison. It did not fit together.

What do you mean dead? She can't be dead! A sudden horror burst through Eragon's lunges. Where was her voice, in his mind, soothing his pain? Where was the bond that let him feel what she felt? Where was that other half of his heart? Half his life? Half his personality?

Yet she is, the watery voice replied.

The fall was quickening. He saw clouds underneath him. I'm going to die, He realised. Then he remembered it did not matter. He was already half dead any way. Only half alive.

~O~

Arya watched the boy. It was a horrible show. His Sheet had dropped from the bed lying in a pile at the bottom of the foot side of his bed. The light from the moon illuminated his pale face. His lips were blue, they were so tightly pressed together. Tears flowed from his eyes. Oh the tears. He was crying, rocking back and forth, and that in his sleep. Saphira looked at Arya. The hope in her eyes made Arya's conscience sting.

Please wake him, she begged. He is killing himself.

Arya looked at her in alarm and received instead of an explanation a pain so unbearable, Arya fell to her knees. It was an indescribable sorrow. She remembered Faolin's death, she felt the torture she had suffered in Gil'ead, she recalled the strength it took her not to love Eragon, that and so much more, she experienced at once and it still did not cover the pain Saphira showed.

What brings this…Arya could not find a suitable word.

Me, Saphira whimpered and she looked longingly at Eragon. He won't wake, in his mind I am dead and there is nothing I can do to convince him that it is not true.

Arya wobbly stood up, holding herself up on Saphira's mighty leg. Then once she had recovered, she walked over to his bed and sat beside him, put both her hands on his face, leant down and whispered. "she lives" in the ancient language. The tears stopped. Arya smiled, putting her hands in her lap. She looked at her fingers awaiting Eragon's awakening. However she could not, and instead, kissed him on the cheek and fled. Away from Saphira's watchful eye. Away from Eragon's half elf face. Away. Away. Away! But she smiled.

~O~

Eragon slowly got his vision back. The film of tears made his vision blurry as he sat up.

"Saphira!" Eragon cried joyfully, leaping from his bed and out into the cold wintery morning. Saphira was sitting proudly, her eyes displaying concern and joy and…amusement? Eragon decided to ignore it and instead hung round her neck.

I want to fly, Eragon told her, and it made him laugh at how childish it sounded, not for duty or fighting or observation, I want to fly.

Saphira started beaming with glee. I'm sure something can be arranged. She admitted, but Eragon was already on her back and she was already crouching ready to launch.

~O~

He was asleep, that doesn't count. Arya tried to convince herself. It did not work. She just could not get rid of the terrible grin that took place beneath her pale nose. She felt giddy. Just like when she had been with…

The smile finally ceased. Faolin. The guilt overcame her. Her mask returned, and no trace of the joy remained.

She removed herself from her tent and sprinted into the forest where she took out her bow. It was a beautiful bow, with carvings of figures from ballads and songs. It had been carved by…

Angrily Arya dropped the bow. Faolin. She kicked at a stone. It flew against a young tree that snapped. Arya held her head. It hurt. The tree. Arya lifted the bent wood, only as thick as her wrist, off the ground, held it to the bottom half and quietly sang it back together.

Then she sank to the floor beneath it. What was she doing?

Then it came. The most beautiful object that could ever have flown besides Saphira. A grass ship made in upmost detail hovered by. Arya watched in amazement as the ship lowered towards her hand, touched it for the slightest of seconds, then lifted once more and glided away.

Even after all this time! She thought and chuckled. It struck her that it had not actually been all that long ago, but so much had happened in between, since Faolin, since the egg had been lost…

Arya shook her head. "Faolin, I love you, but I will move on, shall it not be for Eragon, then for someone else, a same aged elf perhaps, but I cannot dwell on what is done." She spoke her heart and it released a peace inside her that she had not felt since even before Faolin, before the egg, in times she lived as a child, hailed and loved by all the people. Times of youth when she had nothing to worry about but the trees and the animals or which of her many outfits she would wear the next day.