Manipulation
Eragon watched as Blodhgarm manipulated the water with his hands. Although there was not much water he was manipulating, not even enough to fully satisfy his thirst, it was a pretty damn impressive sight. Although he was eager to learn about doing it, he was slightly nervous, not in the least due to his late masters drilling into him that one should never unnecessarily use spells without vocalising their intentions. He paid careful attention to anything Blodhgarm said, as he did not want to disastrously botch up his first try despite how hard Blodhgarm said it was.
The water glistened in the air, throwing off dazzling sparks of sunshine in every direction every few seconds. It was a beautiful moment, with the only clouds in the sky receding away into the thin line that was the horizon, and the sun still high in the sky, warming everything else up. It was now well and truly into spring, and day by day he saw more buds blooming on the various flowers and plants that he saw scattered across the landscape. Yet he was deeply uneasy, only a few hours ago it had been well and truly raining, and truth to be told Eragon would not have been surprised if it snowed or hailed. Then, like it was magic or something, the clouds stopped dumping their load and the ever prevalent breeze, lifted them up and away till they were nothing more than specks in the distance, about to be consumed by the Horizon. The only thing, he had concluded from this strange weather occurrence, that there was a crosswind (A/N: Slight Artistic License, not the real use of the word I think.) somewhere and that was apparently responsible for the sudden change in weather conditions.
Eragon was still not exactly sure what a crosswind was, but the definition that had been given to him by Blodhgarm was simple enough in theory, but hard to visualise in his head. While there was a main wind that blew most of the time, bringing the majority of the weather conditions, there was also a slightly less strong breeze trying to go perpendicular. Once the main wind had weakened enough, the secondary breeze took over because there was a greater pressure difference between where the air was highly concentrated, and where it was considerably less dense. That was apparently why the breeze was able to suddenly swing to a whole different direction in less than a minute, and within an hour, dramatically change the weather conditions.
It was this line of thought that led him to being completely unprepared when Blodhgarm sent the water spinning a spherical ball, which was making a beeline straight for his chest. Without thinking, he muttered the words to stop the ball of water from colliding hard with his chest, but did not have enough time to utter the words to stop it from splashing all over the lower part of his robes, as well as his shoes.
Blodhgarm chuckled at his mistake, but pushed him no further. It was not until a few moments later that he realised that Blodhgarm wanted him to raise the water using only his mind. Gathering the remaining shreds of his concentration from his battered and bruised body, he wiped every thought from his mind save that of the water rising. After he had successfully accomplished holding this thought for a few seconds, he accessed the ever present nub deep in the back of his mind and broke the barrier, with well eased practise. He smiled as he felt the magic course through his veins, and with all his remaining willpower singlehandedly concentrated on the water rising up to chest level.
Slowly but surely, the water rose up out of the ground till it reached his chest and hovered. It was remarkably more tiring than raising it by words, but he supposed that eventually it would be just as easy as using the ancient language. But till then, he would be even more exhausted from his training
Slowly the hours went by in a haze of suffering and exhaustion. Blodhgarm, far from being satisfied with his success at manipulating water, went on to teach him the remaining three of the four elements. Eragon supposed were the main Elements that were most common, and most useful to master. Fire proved relatively easy, but air and ground bucked his expectations and proved notoriously hard. Even harder, he reflected, than water. He supposed he had a natural affinity with fire that was probably why he was able to control it so easily. Manipulating Earth was probably the hardest, but that might have only been because he did not see the use of being able to do so.
Finally, having mastered Earth and Air, he collapsed on the ground in a heap, not even caring about what the other elves thought of him; he was beyond that now, all he wanted to do was sleep. After a while, he slowly became aware of Saphira feeding him a small amount of Energy. Realising that he was being a bit over reactive, he got up with the strength that Saphira was feeding him and walked over to the Talita. On the way he climbed over the stone wall that Saphira had helped build, and then after a few moments passed by the building which the Elves had finished not just one day ago. The only thing changed from their design of the other settlement, apart from the orientation, was the fact that the statue in the centre of the settlement. It was not of Brom and his dragon, Saphira, like the last settlement, but rather of Oromis and Glaedr, about to take too the skies like he had so often seen them do in training.
This time, they had all the memories they needed but still, they continued to rely on Glaedr for advice on spell-casting and manipulating the stone with magic, which infuriated Eragon to no end. No fault of Glaedr's of course, but he was annoyed that he still had to rely on other people to do things for him; he wondered when it would end and if he would be ready to train the first pair of dragon-riders mostly by himself. He shook himself, what was coming over him. It was like a storm that previously lurked on the horizon, was now shaking at the very foundations at his mind. He felt tired, stressed and most of all, despair, at what they still had to accomplish.
He boarded the Talita by means of a gangway, suspended from the ship to dry land, and pegged alongside it was a long rope of matted hemp, no doubt strengthened with magic. The gangway itself was a thin piece of pine wood, shaped and sung from the trees they had encountered on their journey. It was springy beneath the foot, but offered the surest footing and even if he was drunk as well as being tired, like he was now, he doubted that he would be stumble on it. At the stern of the ship, was a small cupboard that contained some snacks. Eragon grabbed a handful of nuts and dried fruit from the bowl, and settled himself down on a nearby chair, which overlooked the blue-green sea. Water threw off the sun, like diamonds throw off the light of a thousand bright candles.
Out, a few hundred metres off the shoreline, wheeled a group of birds, which he could not identify through his vision, and he was too tired to bother to use magic to enhance his vision. It was thankful, that he did, for a few seconds later he spotted them heading back towards the shoreline. They were cormorants of some kind, but they had different features from the other birds he knew. While the few ones he had seen back in Alagaesia had small and blunt claws, these ones had long and sharp ones, which could almost be called talons. Which led him to believe that they might be a different species altogether, even though they shared some similar traits and that there were many species that were uncatalogued. For even in Du Weldenvarden, where the Elves' were all nature lovers, there would be plentiful amounts of undiscovered species, and indeed some that will never be.
It was sad to think; that in all the distances they had travelled they had yet to discover an actual living settlement, plenty of deserted or destroyed ones though. He had not been expecting to find anything, that would be foolhardy, but it could be said that he had been hoping that there had been a civilisation, or even a small town or city, that remained untouched by Galbatorix's rule. Alas, all looked like it had been deserted and destroyed, although Eragon had yet to find any trace of damage that indicated a dragon had taken part in the battles. As the cormorants flew over his head, and the storm clouds on the horizon came ever closer, darkening as they marched ever onwards, he was struck by a sudden thought. It was like a pre-eminent bolt of lightning had hit him, the realisation zapped him from head to toe and he was actually energetic for a few seconds.
Searching for Blodhgarm with his mind, he soon came across his distinctive mind. Deep, melodic like music drifted from his thoughts, enticing Eragon to come closer, ever closer into the spider's web. Mortals who strayed into the minds of the Fair Folk, had much to lose and nothing to gain, not that he was mortal, but Eragon was not inclined to test the resolve of his sanity. Especially after what had happened to Captain Garven those many months ago, Nasuada had mentioned that he was still dreamy-eyed, recovering from his brief foray into Elven minds. Brief as it had been, it was rather like the passing of the day compared to year he had to recover. On a far more interesting note, she had also taken the initiative to tell him that the man, who he had seen after the Burning Plains battle, was in a specialised infirmary in Illirea. He still had the ability to see, what Eragon supposed were, items and people of magical influence.
He was very curious to see what use Nasuada would put him to; after all it was a very rare and special gift that he had been granted. Although it also did come at the cost of not being able to see normally, which was probably a downside more problematic and distasteful than anyone would willingly accept for the gift. Accept he did not though and now, he thought glumly, its legacy, whether good or bad, would be stuck with him for the rest of his life. He liked speaking with Nasuada, she understood him and they were both about equal in terms of power, now that Eragon was not in Alagaesia to undermine her recently acquired rule. Still, for a person who had only been a queen for 7 months, albeit one with lots of beforehand experience, she was doing remarkably well. She had told him of the things that she had had to solve and the problems of Galbatorix's lasting legacy she had addressed. There had been a few more attempts on her life, but they were gradually becoming fewer and further in between. Elva had managed to keep Nasuada from falling into a majorly injured state; there had been a few broken bones and even a torn muscle.
After asking Blodhgarm whether they would be ready to leave after the storm passed, and if they could, to which Blodhgarm agreed and said yes, he reclined back in his chair. A few minutes later, just as he was about to doze off, with the sun beating heavily on his sweating brow, he heard an elf in the distance shout. "Rhunon" he shouted merrily, his face showing a carefree smile, "its Rhunon." At the same time, a loud buzzing sounded in his a few seconds of waiting for Rhunon to appear, for the elf sounded so joyous that he thought that she might be actually here in person, he realised, slightly crestfallen, that she was scrying their scrying mirror. He turned the mental alarm off in his head, and confidently strode over to the elf that was near the scrying mirror.
A/N: Sorry about the late update, been extremely busy. Hope to get an update in the next week and a half, as I am going on an expedition for a week. Please review, and have a good day.