Taking a breathe
Nasuada glanced up at the page, "Here" she said, handing him the letter, "Could you please deliver this to Jormundur." The young messenger took the letter from her and bowed deeply, "As you wish, Your Majesty" he said in a deep gracious tone. She turned to watch him depart, and just as he was about to leave the room he stumbled slightly, but then he was gone. Smiling slightly, she shook her head and turned back to the papers she was studying a moment ago.
Spread out in front of her was the drawings of the arena that they would construct in Surda, near Aberon if she was remembering correctly. King Orrin would be providing the majority of the funding for the building of it, but she was obliged to contribute a small sum, if only to build a part for her entourage to stay when watching the games. She thought it had been remarkably well done by Orrin to get an architect to draw up some plans, in less than two weeks, but then again he probably did have ample time on his hands. She wondered how he was going, after all, in many of their scrying meetings there were not any suitable moments to discuss private, well more personal, matters.
With Eragon gone, the Urgals were being a bit more troublesome when it came to organising the details, but that was only to be expected. At least they had been able to speak for more than one Urgal this time, Nar Garzhvog was fine, and indeed by Urgal standards likeable, but they needed a true representation of their race. Both too stir up debate and also get a more accurate portrayal of the circumstances which the Urgals were experiencing and see if they needed any help. Nar Garzhvog was too proud to admit it, and she supposed that that was customary of his whole race not just him, but his whole race was suffering both from the slaughter at battle beneath Farthen Dur and the subsequent battles against the empire.
At least, she thought grimly, it would hold their population growth in check for a while, that and the massive swathes of land she had granted them, between all of the clans they must now own around half the Spine, she mused. Her grim musings were thankfully cut short, by no other than Jormundur himself. "Is this a joke or something Nasuada" he said in a very serious tone, "You do realise that Orrin has already captured Eoam," his eyes narrowed as she maintained a blank look. Taking a deep breath, Jormundur said "I distinctly remember telling you this multiple times", he paused for a moment as he contemplated something, his brow furrowing. "I mean no ill will" he continued, as if he had not stopped to think about what he was going to say, "but I think you need a break. Or at least a few days to wind down and relax have a couple of sleep-ins and have breakfast at a timely hour. Try it," he said with a grin "You might find that you actually like it, you never know."
She sighed, they had been over this before and she was not going to relent any time soon, there was still so much to do before things could even remotely start to resemble the sense of control that had almost exuded from Galbatorix's fallen empire. Not that sheparticular fond of restoring things to the way they were, but it was almost certainly better to have a lot of rules that not everybody followed rather than a few that were always followed. At least nobody questioned Galbatorix during his reign, otherwise they would be liable to have their heads chopped off, but with Eragon gone there were not very intimidating figures around. Sure she could probably get a couple of Kull to knock on someone's door if they were being too troublesome, but short of drastic measures there was not much she could do. The good thing with having Eragon around, and she questioned his reasoning behind the I-am-too-powerful speech, was that he could act as a figure of justice. Nobody was going to stand in his way, least of all humans. He was now, since Galbatorix had been obliterated, the most powerful person in Alagaesia coupled with, as Orik would put it, a huge fire-breathing lizard as his sort of partner.
She returned to her original train of thought, as she saw Jormundur looking at her expectantly, not intending to tell him how far she had just wandered off topic as that would just reinforce his case. "Fine" she grudgingly grumbled, "but only for a few days, I am not that bad." As if to reinforce his point she accidentally yawned, "Right" he said, in a serious tone, "Off to the infirmary." She stopped dead in her tracks, to be fair she wasn't actually moving yet but that was beside the point, "What" she asked in a hostile tone, immediately regretting it, "You didn't say anything about an Infirmary visit" in a slightly softer tone, with just a slight hint of pleading. She expected to take her response badly but he just sighed, "You definitely need some rest" he said quietly, "especially if you can't tell the difference between sarcasm and seriousness." To her bewildered expression he continued "It was a joke," now she understood but a slight look of befuzzlement must have shown on her face because he simply said "Forget it." But she wasn't going to let him forget it that easily, "It wasn't a very good joke" she pressed, "You didn't even use the slightest hint of sarcasm."
He slowly turned around; he was just about to leave, shaking his head as he did so. "Nasuada," he politely replied at the level of a whisper, "I used a hell of a lot of sarcasm on that, I will see that someone can replace you for tomorrow." She leaned back as he said that, the following months after Galbatorix's demise must have taken a greater toll on her, she was so shocked that she simply said "Oh." She thought he raised his eyebrows, but he didn't say anything more, and instead decided to quietly leave her to study her reports.
If she was going to take a break for a few days, she would have to wrap up the day's work soon, and more importantly finish off studying the reports that Orrin had sent her, as she had been continuously interrupted throughout the day with various pages coming and going. As so, she had only looked at the drawing of her quarters on the map, and the stands themselves. She had a cursory glance at the other papers, which concluded everything seemed to be order, and she made to reach for her ink pen in the porcelain stand, given to her from Orrin. She signed off on the bottom right hand corner of the pages, now they only needed the signature of Orik and Arya, or at least someone who held almost the equal of their authority. In that case, probably Dathedr for the Elves and Orik's wife, who was when she last checked, the Grimstcarvlorss of the Ingeitum clan. She saw no reason for that to change except that it was unusual to have the Grimstcarvlorss and the Grimstborith married. There was probably some conniving dwarf out there who was going to try and get rid of Orik because he probably thought that he might be too powerful or something of the like, but that was not her problem.
She must really stop this rambling, she thought, and not trusting her to do so, gathered up all the pieces of loose parchment, tucked them into a circular tube. She then proceeded to ring the bell for one of the messengers' to come and get her cylindrical tube, which only took around a minute, and then all she had to do was instruct him on what to do with it, and then she was free. "Please make sure that this goes to Orik" she instructed, "Who may be back in Farthen Dur by now, I am not sure. Anyway, try to get it there as fast as possible" she said, intending it to finish there. But then, as the messenger turned to leave, "On second thoughts, it does not matter how fast it has to get there, just tell him to examine it thoroughly" she said, feeling slightly guilty at her indifference towards Orrin's plans. Just as the messenger was walking out the door she called after him, adding, "Tell him to send it too Arya afterwards." The messenger nodded, but this time he did not turn around, and he continued walking. She was secretly enjoying the prospect of the notion of having a small break but she was definitely not going to tell Jormundur about that, he already had too much ammunition (A/N: refer to note 1) to throw at her. Just as she was about to get up and leave, someone very important walked in, she inwardly groaned, and sat right back down. Why does there always have to be something more, she thought dully.
A/N: Note 1 (Skip this) Not sure if this word [Ammunition] was around then, but for lack of a more suitable word I will use it. Although maybe I could use munitions{as the word} but then again, it doesn't have the same ring to it. If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to share them.
(Point of View change)
Saphira flew the sky; her wings cutting through the air like her claws cut parchment. The sky was a bright azure blue, there were no clouds in the sky today, and the sun was shining in its full glory high above her. Her scales were sparkling like gems, for she had licked them clean in the morning. She really was, she reflected, the prettiest dragon in existence. Down below her, there was a great green swathe of forest that hid the land from sight and in wending its way through the forest was a bluish river, sending a dazzling array of sparkles. A few miles behind her, she knew, if she turned she would be able to see a ship silently following the course of the river. On board her was her partner-of-heart-and-mind. Judging by the time of the day, he would still be doing his training and not having lunch, although it would soon be noon.
As she glided through the air, using an updraft to sustain her flight, she caught sight of what had previously been a blip in her otherwise perfect appearance. The scale on her nose, had fully regrown, and was just the same as it was before. She probably hadn't noticed it before because she was still thinking of green-scales-Firnen and the life she would soon be about to have. A shiver passed through her, starting from the spot on her snout passing through her midriff and continuing all the way down to the last bone in her tail. She summoned up the liquid-fire from her belly and released a long jet of flame, scaring off a few birds that had curiously been flying beside her. She closed her jaw, the stream of bright-blue-fire drying up immediately, and snorted. How pitiful birds were compared to her beauty, even those two-legged-ones called Hawks and Eagles, they could not compare to her.
She was actually kind of enjoying her time flying in the skies, she never had so much time to practise manoeuvres and it was nice to have some time to herself without having to worry about people trying to take advantage of her, or worse kill her. The only problem with flying so much was that she got so tired and since often it was not practical for her to sleep on the stern, even though there was just enough space to do so, she often had to fly ahead and find a spot to get some sleep, and then catch up when she woke up. It was not one of the safest arrangements, but they could think of no alternative at least there didn't appear to be any dangerous animals this far from Alagaesia, let alone Carnivorous animals. She was not complaining about the latter, or in fact the former, it made it so much easier to hunt things when they weren't afraid of her. She had shared enough thoughts with Eragon and was intelligent to feel sorry for them, but it was the way of life, she mused, and a Dragon, such as herself, deserved the very best of food. In any case it would be almost impossible for her to live on plants and trees; she was ill-suited to a diet of that kind.
The pace of the ship was also infuriating, not only did it not go in the right direction but it also took a long time to go an inconsequential distance. She was in a half mind, to try and pick up the ship, and then fly away to their destination. As possible as that might seem to the uninitiated, for the ship was several times bigger than her, she had the strength of a dragon which relative to her body size was impressive and she also had the strength of the wise-old-heart-of-hearts to access. Unfortunately the Eldunari had not approved of her, slightly mad, plan although she was sure given enough work it could be made to work. Regrettably, the Eldunari had spotted the obvious gap in her reasoning, which coincidentally she had kept quiet, and taken the initiative to point it out to her. In simple terms, it would be an absolute disaster if she let go of the ship and Saphira agreed that it was more than likely that this would happen.
She wondered what Eragon was doing now, but often when she interfered with his training or intruded on his mental barriers he got distracted and often stopped whatever he was doing, while he answered her queries. After Eragon had almost gotten himself nearly killed, she had, at the request of Umaroth stopped enquiring into what he was doing. He had been sparring with Blodhgarm, when she detected through her bond with her little-one the sense of satisfaction. She, being a dragon, could not hold her curiosity back for long. Eragon had been duelling with Blue-black-wolf Blodhgarm and according to her-partner-of-heart-and-mind; he had been close to defeating him for the first time. It was then, just as he was about to bat away Blodhgarm's sword, that she had asked him what he was doing.
Blodhgarm, for some reason, had taken the opportunity, not realising that Eragon was in mental contact with someone else, and had swung his blade at the nape of Eragon's neck, without realising that Eragon was not in a state to defend himself. Thankfully, when he had realised that Eragon was not going block the blow he had slowed the blow and diverted it. Unfortunately, he had neither enough time nor strength to stop his blade from hitting Eragon, so he turned the blade to its flat side and struck Eragon in the shoulder. They were not wearing armour, for some strange reason, and the flat part of his blade had shattered Eragon's shoulder.
The elves had been able to fully heal the injury for which was Saphira was most grateful, but she was banned from communicating with Eragon during his training unless he initiated the contact. Neither she nor Blodhgarm had forgiven themselves and the Eldunari had not let them forget, so she was actually kind of content with the fact that most of her day was now down-time. Sure she would have rather shared her thoughts with Eragon, but not at the expense at her being talked down and he not getting the most out of his training, never mind almost getting himself killed. It was sort of like the deep breath before the plunge; their adventure across the lands and seas was a lull compared to what they were about to undertake, a project of such behemoth that the likes of it had not been seen for several centuries, if not thousands of years.
A/N: Thanks for reading and please review, and thanks also to Harlequin K for giving me helpful hints for the storyline. Next update: Probably a week.
As of 6/10/13, Chapter 1 and 2 have been updated. POV list soon to be updated. Chapter 3 and 4 updated soon as well. I think I addressed your suggestions Nix 6, the person who reviewed.
I have also discovered, to my irritation, that the symbol used to mark my POV changes, and time changes do not show up in the story. I will endeavour to fix that and I am thoroughly annoyed, the symbol I originally used was an Asterix but just to be on the safe side I will use underlined words in brackets.
As you can see, mostly a filler chapter but next chapter, I promise, will continue the story and (hopefully) significantly advance it. Have a good day, and see you later.