AN: Yet again, it has taken me ages to update. Sorry. It's actually taken me so long I'd forgotten the plot of the last chapter... And I'm only ever on the computer later on, so yeah... I hope there aren't too many typos...
Disclaimer: I now own the French version of Eragon but despite how much of a procrastinator I am and how long it takes CP to write a book, I'm not CP and I don't own the Inheritance Cycle.
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"WHAT!" Murtagh half-yelped-half-choked, leaping out of Morzan's hug as if he'd been stung, and sending Selena's carefully chosen kitchen chair crashing to the floor.
"I knew you'd be pleased!" Morzan beamed, settling back in his seat. "With my advice, you will never have woman trouble again."
"I AM NOT GAY!" Murtagh protested, his face now redder than Thorn's scales.
"Positively not," Angela commented with a knowing smile as she pressed the top button on Selena's camera to document Murtagh's horrified/incredulous/embarrassed expression forever – or just until Galbatorix eats the camera.
"Murtagh," Morzan announced proudly, the grin now seriously beginning to scare his sons, "is not gay, Angela. My Murtagh is having woman trouble. My Murtagh, with a woman..." he trailed off, shaking his head in disbelief again before breaking out in an even wider grin. "Isn't it wonderful?"
"Absolutely," Angela replied, unconvinced, moving over to the container that held leftover chicken and mushroom pizza and taking a slice.
Morzan turned to Murtagh and Eragon. "I must tell your mother," he told them, excitedly.
Murtagh reached out to Thorn to inform the dragon that Morzan was where Eragon got it from, recoiling with a pang of regret as soon as his consciousness touched the red dragon's.
"SELENA!" Morzan shouted though the open door once Angela had passed through it. "I HAVE THE MOST AMAZING-"
"Indoor voice, please, dear," Selena chastised, appearing serenely in the doorway.
"-news!" Morzan finished, more quietly as his wife brushed past him and stood between her sons expectantly. "Our Murtagh is not a gay man," he beamed. "Our Murtagh is having woman trouble!" He paused, wiping a tear of happiness from his eye because Real Men, in his opinion, did not cry. "I've never been so proud of him," he breathed.
Selena smiled, wiping a strand of hair out of Murtagh's eyes as her eldest son was torn between silently seething and quietly wishing for his dearly beloved rusty arrow. "Aw, Honey, I'm sure it'll get better soon," she soothed. "After all, what girl could resist a polite, handsome young man like you?"
Murtagh's face returned to a previously undiscovered hue of red that was so bright and shiny that Eragon was already secretly calling it 'Taggy' in his honour. Both had almost forgotten how embarrassing it could be when Selena acted like a regular (yet old fashioned) mother.
"I must tell everyone!" Morzan realised. "I'll call everyone and we can have a party to celebrate!"
"Let's not," Murtagh growled, his face going even redder with slight purple undertones. Eragon was calling this colour 'Ultra-epic Tag-meister'. "No, really, let's not."
"Did you just say Murtagh's NOT gay?" Arya demanded, suddenly appearing in the hall. Murtagh had yet to figure out how she did that; surely someone as heavy as she was would sound like a small herd of elephants heading down the stairs. This was all beginning to give him a headache...
"My son is having difficulties in a relationship with a woman!" Morzan informed her, still smiling creepily.
"Well, being him being gay would do that to a relationship with a woman," Arya muttered. Murtagh glared.
Morzan didn't hear her; he was busy having an epiphany. "I know!" he cried, pointing into the air for emphasis. Murtagh noted, yet again, that this was definitely where Eragon got it from. "Before I tell everyone, I'll order celebratory fish and chips! And when I get back, we'll sort out your relationship with that young lady – you'll be just like your mother and me..."
Before he left, he planted a kiss on his wife's forehead, nodded to his sons and started whistling a cheery (and very creepy in the eyes of his sons and Arya)) tune, which could be heard by everyone in house as he strolled to the phone.
Murtagh and Eragon had not yet finished sharing a horrified and embarrassed look when Selena spoke up. "There you are, dear," she said to her elder son, whose eye began to twitch. "It'll work out just fine between you and your girlfriend. Listen to your father; he was quite the ladies' man when he was younger. Oh the nights we spent! Well, I have no need to tell you the sort of trouble we got up to, if you know what I mean," she finished, with a little giggle and a suggestive wink.
That bombshell dropped, she turned and swept from the room to resume her housework, leaving Eragon gaping, Murtagh choking on air and Arya pouring milk down the sink, having spectacularly missed her mug and been too shocked to pull the carton back into a less wasteful position.
Slowly, Murtagh turned his head to face Eragon, massaging his sore throat, and questioned, "Did she really say what I think she said?"
A dazed nod was all the Blue Rider could manage, with both brothers more scarred for life than they had previously been.
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Out in the garden, all was silent... Well, since it has already become apparent that silence is impossible with a ten mile radius as the house generally called by those who lived near the general area it had been built in 'The House of Crazy' or 'That Mad House' or 'Nevermind What It's Called, Keep Away And Save Your Sanity'; the latter having been used to scare more supermarket delivery people than Brom could shake a shoe at and Galbatorix could eat; it would be better described as quieter than usual – or a little patch of heaven in Selena's view.
So, the garden was quieter than usual and the tension surrounding the two figures, who had somehow managed to park themselves directly in the middle of it, could metaphorically be cut by a metaphorical knife. Unfortunately for Thorn, as he found out, the same could not be said for a really-not-metaphorical-at-all dragon's claw, which merely cut through the hair and caused one of the figures' hair to flap in the sudden gust of wind the movement caused.
This experiment did not affect the tension between the two men, who sat hunched over a chess board, Brom smirking menacingly at Galbatorix, who was sucking on a white pawn that he'd captured from Eragon's other teacher of Evilness, his brow furrowed in deep contemplation.
Brom watched his adversary carefully, observing as his eyebrows moved fell lower and lower on his face as he tried to think his way out of the corner Brom's epic chess skills had backed him into.
That was when it hit him.
"You're bald!" he gasped.
The mad king's jaw dropped; the pawn rolling away to freedom under Brom's foot. "You call me Baldy!" he responded.
"You're missing the point," the great shoe master huffed. "Which is why I'll make the best teacher of the art or Evilness for Eragon's kid."
"My Evil Laugh beats you and your Evils any day!" Galbatorix argued, snatching the white King and crunching it in half.
"In your dreams, Fatty," Brom muttered before clearing his throat and explaining, "You've got no hair at all on your head but more than enough in your eyebrows."
"These are the eyebrows of a champion," Galbatorix replied smugly, sucking the top half of the white King into his mouth and giving it one last, loud crunch. "Checkmate."
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Further away, nestled on the roof of Tescos, Thorn and Saphira were perched, people-watching.
How about that one? Saphira suggested, snorting smoke in the direction of a ginger girl with a much-too-high ponytail bobbing happily along as she skipped down the street spreading happiness and cheer wherever she went along with flyers for a children's clothes store..
Too... Happy, Thorn responded.
I thought you said you wanted a new one? Saphira needled.
I did, Thorn defended. I do. Just not that one; she's scary.
Oh... That one then! Saphira continued, pointing out an acne ridden teenager mooching out of the bank with a general air of heartbreak surrounding him.
Too sad... And scrawny, Thorn rejected.
Saphira mused, So not sad, or happy, or scrawny... You aren't making this easy, are you?
It's a life choice! Thorn snapped. I don't want just any human. I want it to be special. I mea-
That one, Saphira interrupted, gesturing to a muscular jogger of about twenty with a group of giggling girls stalking him.
Too perfect.
But you just told me you wanted perfect, Saphira protested.
But not that perfect.
What about her then?
Too feminine.
Him?
Too manly.
Him?
That's a girl.
Really? Ugh...
I know. Too ugly.
As Saphira craned her neck to better gawp at the girl, who Selena would have insisted was probably beautiful on the inside and that was what counted, silence reigned, only to be overthrown by a sigh from Thorn that sent a smoke billowing from red nostrils and startled a flock of pigeons into flight through the shoppers below.
Why don't you just talk to Mini Emo one? Saphira prompted gently.
It is over between us, Saphira. I don't want to talk about... He trailed off, caught up in a sudden pang of regret that he didn't think was all his.
If you'd just give it another go, Saphira lectured, you'd realise there's a reason for waiting all those years for the right one. If you throw all that away now, you will end up like Shruikan, all bitter, creepy and alone, and then you will die all alone and no-one will attend your funeral because you lived out your life all alone with only your own sadistic, sarcastic, creepy mind for company an-
Mini Emo one! Thorn called, no longer caring if he and Murtagh had called it a day as he stopped withering under Saphira's intense analysis of his future life and launched himself off the roof, and winged his way home to the one being he knew, who would definitely understand his pain.
Saphira ended her lecture once she had watched the red dragon frantically flap his way into a small speck in the distance, the dragon's equivalent of a smirk stuck to her features as she reached out with her consciousness to her own two-legged bundle of trouble.
Little one.
Huh? Came the dazed reply from the ever eloquent Eragon.
Nailed it! she celebrated in a sing-song mental voice.
Thanks, Saphira. Now Taggy'll want to have a snowball fight for sure! Eragon informed her, overflowing with cheer as he bounded out of her thoughts .
Hmm... Taggy... she wondered, mulling the nickname over in her mind. I think I like Mini Emo one better...
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This house, the house formerly known as 'Maple Court' but commonly referred to by certain individuals, mainly the pizza delivery guy, who actually wasn't Andy Mann, and was in fact known solely as 'Barry', as 'The House of Crazy TM', contained many secrets.
The first was that Brom had been keeping Durza locked in his shoe closet since three o'clock that morning and said ginger irritation was busying himself learning the ancient art of shoe combat so that he might rise up in revolt and overthrow the cruel tyrant of the shoe-wielding variety that Brom had become in his life. But Oromis didn't consider that important enough to warrant his attention. What was more important in the eyes of the ancient elf was that Morzan kept an Evil Lair.
And in the Evil Lair he had built, because it was not simply a garage and a workshop combined; no, that was what he wanted the world to think, he was painting something. Something big. Something White. Something dangerous.
Oromis slipped silently down the tree branch he was perched on with his highly adept stalking skills, focussing his heavy-duty binoculars for a perfect view of the painting spectacle. Oh yes, those two light-weights in the garden thought they would be Eragon's child's teacher of Evilness, but Oromis preferred the term Instructor. He knew that only he and the Master of the Evil Art of Lecturing below were real contenders in this competition and he intended to win.
Uh, Wrinkly Old Elvin One? Thorn started, landing by the tree.
Oromis hissed, readjusting the twig that he believed was actually shielding him from view, "You didn't see anything..."
AN: Hope you all enjoyed it. I have decided to split up the chapter I wrote when I wrote the interlude. Some of it will be included in the next chapter. This and the fact that my exams finish next week will make for a quicker update.
Oh and my Alerts got fixed so I know actually know when I get reviews and stuff. On the topic of reviews, they still make my day so please review?
Thanks to ALL reviewers, readers and, if this story had any, fans. Oh and Sadie193, for your help with that one annoying niggly line. You people all rock!
~ThePurpleRose