I'm back into the swing... until school starts... it'll be a little rocky for a while. Just so you know. You've been warned. Can't say I didn't tell you to watch out. Anyways. Enjoy, and please review!

"So it's true? You do have a baby dragon? You're going to try and raise it so that we have an enemy as an ally?"

His entire plan sounded a lot more bizarre when somebody else said it.

That fact stunned him—what was he doing out here anyways? He could barely take care of himself sometimes, what was he thinking, that he could keep a baby dragon alive as well? The creature would probably eat him for breakfast!

"Count me in," Eliana took her dripping coat off, and laid it down by the fire. "I see you don't really have a detailed plan at this point. Care to share what you have in mind?"

"Get a good distance from the Elvish army, speed up the hatching process through magic, befriend the hatchling... and that's about as far as I have it," Eragon confessed, running a hand through his hair and leaning back against the ice.

"Befriend the hatchling and then go throughout the land proclaiming your feat to the races," Eliana nodded, also leaning back. "Sounds like a good plan to me."

"We've never had a plan, ignoramus. You just made that up. I can't believe you," Bid'Daum snarled in Eragon's head.

"Shut up," Eragon snarled back, trying to hide his dual personality from his new ally. Aloud, he said "Yeah... as good as any plan involving baby dragons can be."

"It sure is an adventure," Eliana smirked looking casually over at the egg on the floor. "May I hold it?"

"Sure, why not? It doesn't belong to me or anything. I stole it. I'm a thief," Eragon muttered, contemplating all the different ways his plan could go wrong as Eliana took the egg in her hands and began analyzing it. She rapped on it with her fist, and a clear ringing noise came from it.

"I highly doubt you stole an egg from underneath a mommy dragon's nose without getting pulverized," Eliana responded teasingly, rapping on the egg again, fascinated by the bell-like sound.

"I suppose I did kill the guardian dragon first," Eragon conceded, watching the egg guardedly. Maybe he did feel a trace of fatherly protection towards the hatchling.

"How many dragons did you kill that night?" Eliana asked it quietly, cautiously avoiding his gaze as she immersed herself in the perfection of the egg.

"Enough to give me some sort of compassion towards a white rock," Eragon said.

"A very nice white rock at that," Eliana added, putting the egg back where it was next to the bottle.

"Whether or not it is a nice rock, I am surely barmy and gone mad in the head," Eragon put his head in his hands, the absurdity of it all coming down on him. "I don't know anything about baby dragons! I mean, I could tell you how to kill them with a word or where they are most vulnerable, but when they hatch? What they eat? If they'll hatch at all in the presence of an elf, let alone two."

"Well, one has to find out somehow. One way or another, I bet the little guy will hatch," Eliana spoke soothingly, curling up by the wall, facing the fire. "Don't worry about it, just let it happen. For now, worrying will only keep you awake, and if you intend to get anywhere tomorrow, you'll need your rest. Especially if you want to find anything edible in these woods." Eliana frowned a little.

"That's another way to look at things," Eragon muttered, taking his coat off and laying it next to Eliana's.

"I'll watch the fire for the first half of the night, and I'll wake you when it's your turn. I'd hate to roast in my sleep," he said. "And I'm sure there's something worthy of your appetite between the trees."

Eliana grinned at that, and closed her eyes. He was bluffing. He hadn't brought any sort of nourishment besides his enchanted drink. She had been smarter than that. Her rations would provide a fair enough breakfast, in any case. They would probably have to resort to eating meat in the end, if they wanted to survive until Spring.

"And he knows it too," she thought.

She didn't want to sleep, she had so many other questions, ideas, things going on in her mind, but she pushed those aside and forced sleep upon her mind. It seemed that only a moment had passed when she awoke to Eragon gently shaking her.

"Sorry, I want to sleep too," he said as she was sitting up. As she was rubbing the sleep from her eyes, he turned and promptly fell asleep.

"So much for any chit-chat in the meantime," she thought amusedly. The fire had died considerably. She stuck her face near the opening in the wall could feel a trickle of wind coming through. She couldn't tell what time it was, but allowed her mind to roam freely as she ensured her wakefulness.

Her gaze kept returning to Eragon. Only an hour asleep and his hair was already a disheveled mess, one side flat, the other sticking out at various angles. He kept whimpering quietly, turning from one side to the other. She kept alert in case he should get too close to the fire.

His foot bumped into his pile of items, causing the egg to roll towards her. She gently stopped it from moving, and put it into her lap.

Part of her didn't want to believe this was real, that she might be working against everything she had ever fought for, that she was actually going to work in league with Eragon. He had actually earned his status as hero—she had broken the rules and had followed the Queen, and thanks to pure chance her force had come upon the elvish remnant and saved their lives.

The other part of her watched Eragon sleep and knew it was one-hundred percent real. She was taking a risk, with all calculations going against her, and she was doing it willingly. She wanted to help this hero face the odds.

Truth be told, she wanted to help this hero face the odds and come back victorious. He turned again, and his face, contorted in his dream faced her.

Maybe he was barmy. Maybe this was madness. Well, she could be barmy too. And there was no doubt that she was absolutely crazy. Weird and abnormal wasn't anything new to her.

Of course, Eragon's doubts were all sound. There really was no guarantee that the dragon would hatch. Or that it wouldn't shred them to bits as soon as it did. Or any and all of the above wouldn't turn out to be four times better than what would happen. Maybe they would disappear and no one would care to find out why.

If they didn't come back, no one would be capable of finding out why. Eragon's method of travel made him nigh impossible to track, even when using the same method. No one else would even think of running through the tree branches, and even if they did think of it, there wouldn't be any way to track him from there. He left no traces.

And neither did she.

She hadn't told anyone, much the same as he hadn't told anyone. The Queen would assume that they had both committed insubordination. That was the logical solution to their disappearance, wasn't it? Or aliens. Aliens-

A loud squeak pierced the silence, startling Eliana to her feet.