Legacy

Eragon watched from the green, grassy hill that overlooked a sea that stretched as far as the eye could see. Winds whipped across the vast body before him, enticing a tempest reaction from broiling seas. He could not help but feel dismayed at what they were attempting to do; it was the equivalent of purposely tempting bad luck, and they were doing an awful good job of it. Thankfully, the elves knew what they were doing, and were spending a few days readying the ship for the journey. High above him, Saphira circled in what was akin to a beautiful dance with the sun, despite the fact that they were many miles apart.

Not for the first time, he wondered whether this was a good idea, but he had been swayed by the very arguments he had come up with to sway Nasuada. This was the ultimate barrier, a place that nobody dared go, except for the strong or the foolhardy. Eragon was convinced, and so were many of the Eldunari, that even the bravest people would quail before the might of the sea.

After four days of sailing down the river they had eventually reached the junction between the sea and the fresh water river, and it was there that they had stopped. Counting the days back on his fingertips, he realised they had been gone for almost 26 days now. It hardly felt like that, they had accomplished so much that he often thought it was months since they had first boarded the Talita, he supposed in the case of much of the elves it was. They had sailed many leagues, discovered new legends and built a small settlement. As his wandering thoughts crossed that latter achievement, he thought it might be wise to build a second settlement, after all, they, in possession of great strength and wisdom, were spending numerous days preparing for the voyage. He could clearly picture disaster in the making and he would be foolish not to do anything about it. His mind decided, he turned his back to the sea and strode down the hill towards the Talita, anchored to the shore of the river and being tended to by the elves, like ants tend to their burrows.

Spotting Blodhgarm, with Yaela standing by his side, issuing directions to the other elves, he made his way over to the duo standing on the shore of the beach. It was not until that he was a few metres away that Blodhgarm noticed him walking towards them. "Shadeslayer," he said, inclining his head in a gesture of respect, "What can I do for you? As you can see, we are going well, and we will probably be ready by tomorrow, if not today." Eragon nodded, "That is good" he quickly replied, "but the real reason why I came here is because, well" pausing to take off his gloves, "look, I think I we should build a shelter like the one we built before." At this, Yaela slowly turned around to face him, for she had originally been watching the elves scurry around the Talita, and said "Shadeslayer, do you understand the brevity of this request, I, for one, do not think it would be wise to exhaust our stores of energy so soon," referring to the Eldunari "and I am sure many of the other elves and even the Eldunari would agree" she finished. "That is why" he said, "I propose that we spend a few more days here as to allow us to construct it by our collective self."

Yaela frowned, but this time it was Blodhgarm who spoke, albeit in a very slow voice "If we start right away" he voiced, "we might be able to get the majority of it underway and completed by the day after tomorrow, that is, if Saphira agrees to help us" he supposed. Saphira, who was observing the exchange through Eragon's eyes, having had nothing else to do while she watched the landscape, agreed. She voiced her consent directly to Blodhgarm and Yaela, taking them slightly by surprise, and said "When can we start?"

It took a few minutes to finalise the details, but in the end they agreed that the best idea was to use their original plan, except this time it would be on a larger scale and there would be a slight modification at the centre of the settlement.

Leaving Blodhgarm and Yaela to sort out the rest, he called out to Saphira and a response, in the form of a flurry of beating wings, was not long in coming. Quickly scaling Saphira's leg, he nestled himself into the saddle, and a second later she took off, the ground slightly shaking as she did. His mission was to search for some stone to quarry. He was going to use some of the spells that the Eldunari had taught him, to find and locate it, and then once he had done that, Saphira would extract it from the ground and fly it back to the yet-to-be constructed settlement.

(Time change)

Eragon was starting to get extremely frustrated, they had been out in the air for hours and they had found no large enough quantities of stone near the surface. "Hush" voiced Saphira in his head, siphoning his pent-up rage and annoyance away, "I have a feeling little one that we will find it within the next hour. My gut feeling tells me so; I trust my dragon instincts, and so should you, as they have never failed us." To that he had no answer, but he immediately realised it was pointless getting worked up about it, no matter how much anger is present you can never wish things into existence, except for dragons he thought wryly.

Changing the topic, he asked Saphira "What do you think we should name the city, or a state, whatever it is to be?" She seemed to have thought about it because she immediately replied, "Well, I think we should all, meaning the elves and Eldunari, come up with a name. And," she added as an afterthought, "it will depend on where we settle." The last point confused him for a little bit, but after a moment's thought he had to agree, damn dragons and their logic. You could never outsmart a dragon and it would be foolish to try, he mused to himself. Saphira who was listening in on his thought, hummed in agreement. What followed was a deep rumble, emanating from her throat and about the same time his saddle vibrated in a peculiar fashion.

Just as he was about to comment on how her scales were shining so brightly, she asked a question, "Do you reckon they, meaning the inhabitants of the old city, have named the rivers below us and do you reckon if they haven't named it or we can't translate the said name, we can name it after me," she asked in a relative humble tone. He took a moment to think about this, but eventually he gave some ground while not completely acquiescing. "I have a counter proposal, we name the rivers after something else," he said slowly, but seeing that she was about to object he hurried on, "but instead we will name a hill, that reminds me of you, after you and once we have reached a mountain range, we will name the biggest mountain we can find, after you."

"Fine," she sniffed, "but definitely the biggest one." Though she soon relented "Sounds good, Thank you very much little-one, it would be just very nice to have a mountain named after me." A moments silence followed as he reflected on this, "Sure it would be" he said ecstatically, but then his face grew serious. "Although I would much rather have positive legacies to my name rather than a mountain named after me. After all, the only form of immortality that is truly viable to last till the end of civilisation, save that of an Eldunari, and the only one available to humans, is legacy."

"Well" mused Saphira, "I already have a legacy, and I also have an Eldunari to back it up, so sadly I think little-one, I will last longer than you" she said, with the only slightest hint of seriousness and sadness. "Depends on whose Legacy you are talking about, if considering humans I will be remembered for the longest" he remarked cheekily. "True" replied Saphira, "but among elves, who are immortal, I will be remembered for the longest. Among dwarves however," she remarked, "I think we are both equal in terms of legacy, my reparation of the Star Sapphire, or Isadir Mithrim as the Dwarves would call it, and your acceptance into a dwarven clan, is something for us to be truly remembered for."

Just as he was about to argue his side of the story, a buzzing sounded in his ear, for a moment he was confused but eventually he realised what it was. The spells he had constructed to automatically seek out quarry-able quantities of stone, had found some. About time, he thought, it was already starting to get dark and soon enough they wouldn't be able see without the aid of magic, for the clouds were letting all but the faintest rays of light through. As Saphira landed on the ground, he could hear the crack of thunder in the distance, it sounded like it was coming from the sea, and at the same time a cool breeze sprung up. Shivering from both the cold and the thought of being out on the sea tonight, he wrapped his jacket closer. Casting a werelight, and allowing a Saphira a few moments to dig away the dirt, he saw there was some marble with mixed quantities of normal stone, and the marble even looked like it was in decent condition, there was nothing that magic couldn't fix up. "See," said Saphira smugly, "Dragon instincts are always right. It's part of our legacy" she finished, with the air of maddening superiority.

(POV change)

Murtagh glanced up at Thorn, his glittering lifelong partner, carrying a huge stone block between his two forelegs. He groaned with annoyance, all around him were stone blocks that he needed to cut up; things always took so long when not using magic. At least they had successfully completed the first layer of stone all the way around the keep, and now were halfway through the second, although it had been almost three weeks since they had laid the first stone. They were becoming very efficient at it, but he feared the higher they went up the longer they would take. Although then again that was a long time away, and it was not like he was going anywhere. That reminded him; he needed to stock up on food again.

Thorn leaped over to him, the ground shuddering as he took off and landed a second later. Murtagh, knowing what was about to happen, wisely turned his back to the wall, and he was not a moment too soon. For as soon as he did so, the ruby red dragon that was standing not ten metres away, unleashed a harsh stream of red flame. After a suitable minute, he turned back to face the wall which was now glowing cherry red, and grabbed his favourite hammer. He slogged away at the stone block, every blow releasing some of his anger at the world, and soon enough it was reasonably flat. Thorn then repeated the process of bathing the block in ferocious fire, but this time instead of hammering the rock into place he grabbed a stone slab and smoothed out any dents or bumps. By the time he was finished with the stone slab and the rock had returned to its previous colour, a dull greyish-black sort of tone, it fitted seamlessly into the blocks to the right and below it. The wall was perfectly smooth and Murtagh intended to keep it that way, lest he suddenly decided rough was the way to go.

That was the way the majority of his days up here would go. He would get up early, split some stone blocks and hunt a few animals. Once he had done that he would have lunch, the smell of which was mostly enough to wake Thorn of his own volition. After they had had lunch, Thorn often went away to hunt some more, or on the other hand he just flew to the quarry of stone they had found and brought some more stone over. Then they melded the stone into the wall, in a team effort, and by this time they were both exhausted. It was then off for a quick dinner, and then straight to sleep.

Murtagh was actually quite happy at this setup as it meant that once he became proficient at the things and he could do them without thinking, which he supposed was what they called muscle memory, he could think of other things. For example, the other day he had managed to figure out a spell to successfully funnel dangerous gases out of his cave. He had put that spell to immediate use, and in a few short hours the air in the cave was already starting to be a lot more breathable, but most of the time he used to think about philosophical questions. He was under the impression that he should meticulously pick apart everything he had done in his life, good or bad, and analyse it. He would then write it and his findings down in a journal so that he would able to see how his life could improve, at least that was what he thought it would do. It might, he had reflected, have completely destroyed his own personality but by the time he was finished, he was convinced, that he would be a much greater person. Although he still strived to keep many of his old values and memories, as to not forget who he was or what he had done, especially the ones involving Tarnac, his old mentor and friend.

He wondered, once he died, what type of legacy he was going to leave. He hoped it would be a good one and people would not remember him as a person who served under Galbatorix, but rather as a free man who once served alongside the Varden. Although knowing humans, he thought that this would be extremely unlikely. Once he joined the dragon rider order, and most likely served under Eragon, it would be extremely probable that he could redeem his name and eventually become someone who was respected rather than feared. At the very least, he would like to clear his name of the foul deeds both he and his father committed, whether forced or otherwise. He hoped Nasuada, even though he might never see her again, would understand what drove him. One day he hoped, she would see his legacy be restored to a more positive note.

A/N Sorry about the delay, been extremely busy but will post another chapter within 3 days. Please review. Yours sincerely,

WiseBeyondYears.