Chapter 16- Hard Decisions (and not the type where you have to choose what you want for lunch)

"Arya?" the Elven Queen said slowly making her name a question. I froze not daring to move a muscle. "Arya, if he is your choice the other elves will not accept it; you do know that?" she asked accusingly with terribly blank eyes. Arya's eyes filled with tears and she ran from the room. The queen stared after her; obviously not expecting this. To be honest neither were we; maybe a tiny little comeback at the least.

"Y, y, you, you. Arrrrgh," groaned the Queen. "So not worthy," she muttered to herself seemingly.

But Saphira heard. "How dare you! How dare you insult my Rider in my presence! He is worthy of anyone. Why wouldn't the elves accept him? He is almost one of them! And; he is now officially the Lead Rider," she added proudly.

I watched in amusement as the Queens face turned from raging red, to purple, to blue, to suddenly deathly white. "Well then," she said contemptuously, fluffing herself up to her full height like a well-pruned cat. " I can see I'm not wanted here anymore. Queen or not." She looked over our angry, flushed and proud faces. "No, no." Then she muttered as she walked away Blagden on her shoulder. "Why did you have to go and leave me? Why?"

At that moment I felt rather sorry for the Queen. It was obvious that she was talking to her dead husband Evandar and looking round at the people near me I could see they felt the same way. Feeling numbed by this strange revelation of Arya and her mother I started to walk away but Eragon called me back.

"Lily?" he said. "When are you going back to Earth?"

I was taken aback. "Well, I um, I just, I, um, I thought." I sighed and furrowed my brow. "Well, when this terrible war ends and we're rid of this tyrant king."

"OK then," he said his voice indifferent. It occurred to me then that me being here might be a slight inconvenience to them for well, pretty much everything. I left it at that feeling sadder than I had when we had first started the conversation.

That night we were all huddled round a small flickering fire when Arya got up and said, "Eragon; I need to talk to you." He stood up looking vaguely scared and followed her off into the distant black trees.

"Shall we?" I asked Saphira who inclined her head but then replied, "But you'll have to go alone because I can't move a muscle."

I grinned and said teasingly, "That will be all the seedcakes you ate and the mead you drank so as 'not to appear rude'," I said repeating one of Saphira's favourite excuses about food. Saphira looked fairly sheepish before shooing me off into the forest. I rolled my eyes and, with the speed of an elf, ran off to try to catch up with them.

"Yes?" asked Eragon not nastily but rather frustratedly. Well you couldn't blame the guy; he was on, off, on, off, on, off…

"I, well I, you see I," she sighed so obviously annoyed with herself. "Look, every time I try to tell you something you always act like it's a threat or another scary confession and I keep telling you I'm not one of your foolish human girls," she finished angrily.

"Well you're not a bundle of laughs either you know. I try to help and you just go off your head at me and all this stupid business with your mother."

Her dark hair swinging she retorted, "Don't even talk about that. You don't know anythi-"

"My mother died Arya! And so did my father and I didn't even know who he was! My uncle died and my aunt died and Roran is probably on some stupid raid right now that could get him killed!" She looked at him in rage and stamped her foot. She actually stamped her foot! I doubled over behind a bush trying to smush the merry sounds coming out of my now uselessly covered mouth.

When I looked up again I saw they were kissing! I gasped really loud and made sick noises. They sprang apart again looking uncomfortable. "Bird," murmured Eragon.

"Yeah; listen. I will wait until this war ends for you. But just don't go looking at anybody else will you?" Arya warned her eyes dark and dangerous.

"Of course not," he said feigning hurt. She smiled and kissed his cheek before wandering away humming. I gagged and retched silently behind her back as I felt suddenly nauseous with disgust. I walked back to the camp still feeling sick and regretting the decision to follow them…