AN: Okay, I am re-writing this from scratch so please stick with it if some parts of this chapter seem a little forced, rushed or odd for me to be writing 'cause some of this is coming from memory. Actually, if anyone can guess which parts of this chapter are from what I can remember of the chapter I originally wrote, I will write a one-shot and whoever guesses it first gets to choose the topic. It can be anything excluding citrus fruit and for any fandom I know the general gist of – for those, see my profile.
Note: After I wrote this AN and chapter, I found the notebook, but I didn't change it (the first draft sucked anyway), so I know the exact phrases that came from memory. Good luck!
I know this chapter has taken a long time to get out but it's not easy writing a chapter you've already written before and trying to make it sound good.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Inheritance Trilogy.
ChuubChuubChuubChuubChuub
For once in Murtagh's life, he was not in self-destruct, also known as emo mode, mode; he was in Eragon-destruct mode. Never before had he wanted to strangle his silly younger brother as much as he wanted to as they walked down to where the kayaks (AN: I discovered at camp that what I thought was a canoe is actually a kayak, and the ones that don't have the holes for you to sit in that goes by your knees is a canoe… Confusing, I know.) were waiting for them.
"So, Taggy," Angela began in a hushed voice by Murtagh's ear. "Reluctant to kayak?"
Thankfully, he was saved from any more possible torture at the whim of Angela by Eragon, who had put him in this mess in the first place, catching sight of the river and promptly getting over-excited at the prospect of actually being on it in a kayak.
"Yay! Kayaking!" he cheered.
"Kayaking?" Arya echoed in disbelief.
"Kayaking," Eragon confirmed, full of purpose.
"Are those clean?" Selena enquired.
"Look! There's one with a fire pattern!"
"Fire? Where?"
"I'm a fireman! Lemme at it! I'll quench those flames for ya, Izzy!"
"My name is Islanzadí."
"Ooh, the jackets are orange."
"Yes, positively fluorescent. I do love that word – not just bright but fluorescent. Lovely. I find-"
"QUIET!" Morzan yelled over the din.
Selena coughed delicately before scolding, "Morzan, Supernanny says you shouldn't shout at children."
"'Alf of them are bloomin' adults, love!" the Morrison's alcohol delivering paramedic, fireman and chauffeur guy corrected.
Islanzadí massaged her forehead. "Why are you still here? I only employed you to drive us here."
Naturally, this discussion dissolved into yet another jumble of unintelligible noises. Morzan included in this one because he happened to have noticed that Murtagh's shoelace was undone and, well, how can anyone not know that if you leave you shoelaces undone, you will trip over them and, to cut a long lecture short, die?
This could have continued forever – or just until everyone got hungry and wandered off – but they were interrupted by a tall man in his early twenties with quite long, messed up hair that had been bleached blonde by the sun and a name tag with a little guy on a surf board next to the name 'Chris'.
"Hi! My name's Chris and I'm going to be your instructor for today!" Chris introduced himself, smiling as though he wasn't too sure that what he'd said was right. He was new to the park and had only been there for a week. It was going to be a long day for Chris…
"Hi Chris!" Eragon greeted with much enthusiasm. Well, much was an understatement; the blue rider's waving was so embarrassing in its cheerfulness that Murtagh had immediately hidden his face in his hands in the hope that if he couldn't see his brother looking like a total moron then it wasn't really happening. He had also resolved to find out exactly who had dropped his little brother on his head when he was a child.
It was probably you, mini emo one, thorn, very helpfully suggested. And karma's getting you back for it!
Murtagh scowled; why was his life so… unnatural?
Because, mini emo one, you are mini and emo, so life will always be full of angst and mental trauma for you, Thorn concluded.
Murtagh's scowl grew deeper and with it, the number of thoughts involving rusty arrows and his wrists decreased and the number of thoughts involving the rusty arrow being brandished against Thorn increased. Among the jumble of blood and gore there was even a thought about slaying Thorn and replacing him with the rusty arrow that miraculously grew to the size of a broomstick before flying off into the sunset wearing a witch's hat with cat ears. Wait a minute, why was he wearing a witch's hat?
You need a psychiatrist, mini emo one, Thorn commented.
Shut up! Murtagh thought in return, with enough venom and force to knock out a whole elephant. It was a shame Thorn was a dragon – and a particularly dense one at that – whose idea of helping was actually just sheer irritation.
Don't shoot the messenger, the dragon muttered, shutting Murtagh out, probably to lament his failure at being a decent mental-agony-uncle, to Saphira.
Chris clapped his hands. "Okay guys, first you all need to line up and get a paddle." He looked nervous and a little traumatised already.
After much squabbling, confusion and Selena's Supernanny approved methods of enforcing order, everyone had been presented a paddle by Chris and were all now standing around in a space more sedately than had ever been recorded.
"Okay, that's great guys," Chris praised, sporting a slight rabbit-in-the-headlights look. "Now what we're gonna do is this. We're all gonna put our hands so that there's a hand on each side of the paddle in the silver bits, and when you're in the water, you don't want to move your hands off the silver bits or it'll be harder to paddle. Now, this is how you paddle. I want you all to copy me and I want to see you all joining in and getting it right, no matter how much of a Wally you look" he added for Islanzadí's sake.
Islanzadí was staring at her paddle as if it was the stick that had be shoved up her behind shortly after becoming queen and had continued to make the occasional appearance back up there even after her dear departed husband had asked her if he really smelt that awful what with the look on her face.
The Morrison's alcohol delivering paramedic, fireman and chauffeur guy nudged her with his paddle. She replied with a filthy look but after he waggled his eyebrows at her, she settled for just making the paddling motion much more gracefully than he could ever dream of making it.
A little to the right, Brom and Galbatorix had deliberately not left enough space between them to successfully copy Chris and were engaged in a fierce paddle battle, which only stopped after both discarded their paddles in favour of fists, teeth and shoes and Brom's paddle hit the back of Selena's shoe, prompting her to give the traditional Supernanny warning that if they continued, they would be facing the naughty trees. Eragon was still being overly enthusiastic, much to Murtagh's distaste.
"You can stop now, guys," Chris told them, putting an end to the paddle-related silliness. Brom managed to get in another sneaky whack to the bald skull next to him before Chris continued, "Now, I want you all to go and get in a kayak."
Murtagh, distracted by Eragon's loud shout of, "Yay!" said the first thing that popped into his skull, "Isn't Arya too fat to get in there?"
Arya's green eyes bulged before settling into a comfortable position of extreme pregnancy Evils. Brom issued a noise of appreciation as Morzan and the Morrison's alcohol delivering paramedic, fireman and chauffeur guy lunged forwards to restrain the elf, who, after a lot of hissing, spitting and insults that actually made Murtagh wince, flounced back to her chalet.
"Soo," said Chris, who was really beginning to wish he hadn't taken this job now. "Let's get these kayaks in the water!"
To make his point, he gave Durza's kayak a shove and watched as it took to the water with only a tiny splash. Durza was too besotted with his fire-patterned kayak to even notice. If he squinted, it almost looked like it was actually on fire. Durza liked fire…
"Where are you going, Eragon?" Angela enquired, spotting Eragon silently leaving his kayak. She wasn't in a kayak because, along with Selena, she had been appointed the position of embarrassing-photograph-taker (EPT for short but Angela enjoyed big words and it made her seem more professional).
"To find Arya," the blue rider replied.
Angela smiled. "I'll find her. Let me talk to her, and we'll meet you at the abseiling tower."
Eragon reluctantly climbed back into his kayak in time for Chris to give him a push as Angela dumped her camera on Selena and disappeared up the path. He sighed; it seemed there was more to being a soon-to-be father than those books he'd got out of the library had told him.
"Oi! If you splash your father, Murtagh, you will be grounded for the rest of your life and you may be forgotten about and die of old age before you ever get to see the light of day again!"
"SUPERNANNY SAYS NOT TO SHOUT AT CHILDREN!" Selena called from the bank, where Chris was now climbing into a more professional kayak of his own.
She was ignored and promptly distracted by Durza getting tangled in reeds and Brom and Galbatorix playing bumper-cars and seeing who could ram the other out of their kayak first. It was a draw as both kayaks eventually filled with so much water that they sank and their enraged pilots were forced to launch themselves out of the kayak and settle the competition with only paddles as weapons.
Chris, preoccupied with freeing Durza, didn't notice until Brom's upside down kayak floated under the reeds and knocked Durza back into clear water, forcing Chris to do a quick head-count to see who had capsized without shouting the traditional warning of 'Man overboard!' or the plain and simple, 'Capsize!' or the unimaginative but effective, 'Help!' or even 'Aaaaaaargh!' as many beginners capsizing their kayaks were prone to letting out.
After discovering that Eragon and Murtagh were finally getting in some brotherly bonding time in a race that had gone a little bit too far, as in both were just blobs of colour in the otherwise dull water, Chris ignored Brom and Galbatorix – their fight was going on in the shallows anyway – and set off after the dragon riders, fervently hoping that Durza wouldn't get stuck again and that Selena would intervene in Brom and Galbatorix' battle of the paddles before the one with the lecturing problem came out from under the willow tree and swam over to add to the carnage with a verbal weapon.
Eight wet bums, seven crude attempts at romance, six races, five lectures, four capsizes, three reeds up Durza's right nostril, two broken paddles and one very annoyed Islanzadí later, kayaking was over, everyone was dry and Chris was mentally composing his will for if he actually got out of this job with his sanity intact. He was never going to take life lightly again.
He was going to be their instructor for abseiling too.
AN: Okay, there it is. There will be a tiny bit of the adventure holiday in the next chapter but after that it's on with the actual plot. I'm sorry everyone, I originally planned for the adventure holiday park section to be longer but my muse ran out on me for this topic. I put it off so I could write more but it's just not happening so I'll move on.
I'm now at sixth form and the workload is pretty intense. I suppose it doesn't really help that I'm really not getting enough sleep at the moment. But I'm pretty busy, and October is going to be even busier, but I'll try to, in fact, I'll probably squeeze out an update for you. Just don't expect an update in November 'cause I'll be doing NaNoWriMo, which is basically writing a book, 50,000 words, in a month so I'm gonna be busy. Wish me luck; you know what I'm like with updating!
Next Chapter: Murtagh makes the biggest error of his life, Arya goes mental and the Morrison's alcohol delivering paramedic, fireman and chauffeur guy's name is revealed!
I know what I'm gonna write for this one so it'll be quicker to get on FFnet. (I hope)
Thanks to everyone who's sticking with fic and all my wonderful reviewers in general. You make my day! We've hit, and passed, the 100 reviews mark!
If you've read this, please review 'cause reviews really do make my day.
~ThePurpleRose