"You've seen them outside."
Nasuada strolled towards the open balcony of the mansion, looking over the bustling crowds of men and women. They walked with a certain lassitude, bearing their heads down warily.
Nasuada glanced at the unexpected visitor. She shrugged.
"They are afraid. Uncertain," Nasuada said, turning to watch the people. Most of them kept to the large, open roads. A select few entered and exited the path. All men.
"Trust keeps them here."
Nasuada's eyes narrowed. "Not courage. Our own people stole it from them."
The visitor said nothing. From beneath her disheveled dark locks, a pair of emerald eyes regarded Nasuada for a moment before settling on the same painting she had been staring since her arrival.
Questions were a delicate matter. Nasuada herself changed. Something snuffed out inside her, hindering the grip she had on the Varden and herself. The starkness in the visitor's gaze reminded Nasuada of her own wobbling strength.
Nasuada sat on a chair in front of the visitor, eyeing her. Nasuada had forgotten the day when she left with Eragon in that long journey that tattered her clothes and ruffled her hair, giving her a wild appearance. Nasuada's only memory of her involved clean clothing, the austere look her eyes used to possess. Back then, she bore a royal, commanding air. Not the disheveled looks of a beggar.
"Many commanders have died. Roran and his wife perished. Trained soldiers and workers carried assassin tools to kill their friends, and I hanged them all," Nasuada said coolly. "Bravery is no longer among us."
The visitor did not interfere. She just stood in her chair, hands placed in her lap, staring blankly at that painting depicting a lush forest. Her silence would have bothered Nasuada before. Now, it seemed so natural. A proper response.
"It fled with Eragon that day," Nasuada said, eyes meeting the wood boards beneath her feet. "Never to return."
An irrational anxiety crept beneath her skin. Its intensity was enough to draw sweat out and force her thump the floor swiftly with her foot.
She relied so much on Eragon that the visitor's silence felt agonizing. The elf in front of her possessed the answer to her predicament as well as the Varden's doom. Nasuada barely understood her diminishing power, that spark that had extinguished, but she now realized what it was. The apprehension revealed it to her.
It was the fear of losing Eragon, the tool that had granted her power by stirring the hearts of a scared and disbanded people.
"Eragon is not with me," the visitor said as she got up. "He is in Uru'baen."
Nasuada watched her disappear behind a simple mahogany door with surprised eyes. She wanted to ask Arya many questions, but nor she, nor Nasuada were prepared. They had both lost something after Galbatorix's attack, and coming to terms with the unknown was no easy task.
Heading towards the balcony, Nasuada contemplated Arya's words. A sudden calmness alleviated her worries after Arya's departure, clearing her mind in preparation for further planning. If Eragon had found the answers he sought, he had gone to Uru'baen to end the tyrant king. A much welcomed change for a crippled army that barely had enough supplies to last in a city.
Nasuada knew her army couldn't march. The numbers of her men shortened, their morale collapsed after the assassination and poisoning of her people inside the city they conquered. Most pressing was the lack of commanders. The ones in charge of battalions and contingents of troops were the first to fall.
Barzul, Nasuada cursed mentally, following the guard patrols intently. Following the sudden, swift work of the Empire, riots ensued. The people were displeased with the execution of assassins, manifesting their ire through terse attacks on her mansion. Guard patrols ensured a precarious stability once Nasuada overpowered the small gangs, yet such spontaneous solution wouldn't last.
People began to fear and detest her. The way they walked showed Nasuada. They stopped feeling safe in their city. They ceased trusting their leader. How many would leave for their homes? When would the soldiers desert, leaving her to fight a war alone?
Nasuada bit her bottom lip, drawing blood. Her fists clenched, her temples bulged. Realization came to her recently, but the people weren't stupid. Soon, many of them would start to realize the true nature of leadership.
Without Eragon, she was no more than a simple commander with fading capabilities.
On the day of her arrival, Arya had killed two men who tried to insert themselves into her. They ambushed Arya inside her former home recklessly, taking their time to drop their leggings and brag about mating. With a simple spell, Arya numbed their senses, forcing them to sleep. She did not spare their lives.
This confused Arya even more. Why had she been so vicious?
At first, the boisterous crowds and agitation irritated her. Feinster had become sullen and harsh, with yells masking the mumbles and guards strolling through the ranks of people. Arya hoped that Nasuada would help her adjust; to regain a part of her former self, to fit with everything. How could she, when Nasuada herself changed?
The morose look of her eyes under the twisted eyebrows betrayed Nasuada's inner turmoil. While she had provided Arya with information—most of it regarding Varden affairs and strategy—Nasuada could not help her integrate. Her stability was more twisted than the vines coating her mansion.
Arya slowly made her way through the waves of dirty men and smelly women, glancing at the constructions curtly, without much interest. Grime still coated most of them.
The houses remained the same. Only the people changed. Arya didn't have to inspect them rigorously to understand the cause of their distress and bowed heads. They had become desperate. The attack on her intimacy, the reason of the guard patrols, the plundering that took place throughout Feinster was something that came natural to people who had lost hope.
Arya was familiar with it. She wanted it back. After all, Arya had forsaken her people for just an ounce of peace. To obtain it, she had to go back to who she was. She had to lose hope.
Once she entered her home, Arya crashed in the cot, pondering. The two men ransacked her house, stealing everything that could be traded and keeping the essential. Arya had no need for trifles. A bed was enough for one who had no intention of lingering here for long.
As she closed her eyes, Arya weighed the two parts that made up her life. The first offered her safety, steadiness and cold logic that never failed her. The second—the useless, ephemeral one—brought her disappointment at the cost of fleeting happiness.
Had she loved Eragon? Was that how love felt? Arya didn't know, nor did she care. Arya had already settled on an option, one that suited her.
A strange, muffled sound roused Arya's awareness. Blinking rapidly, she brushed her eyes, squinting through the darkness of her room. It was nothing.
Sighing, Arya crashed in her cot, allowing her right arm to fall to the side.
Arya's fingers twitched. She touched something cold, but hard. Its texture was smooth, different from the dusty floor of the room.
Arya rolled out of her bed, picking the strange object. The night's veil revealed nothing to the eyes. With no candles to illuminate the room, Arya's hands hovered over the object, feelings its oval shape.
A cracking noise sent a shudder through Arya. Alarmed, Arya placed the object on the bed, breathing fast and hard.
Somehow, a dragon egg appeared next to her, the hatchling inside it squirming and jerking violently. Almost shocked due to the abruptness of the events, Arya froze in her bed. Was she to become a Rider?
She wasn't prepared. She wasn't the right person. She couldn't—
A squeak pierced the heavy silence. With no means to see the hatchling, Arya could only feel his clawed feet gripping the linen sheets.
Arya wanted to get out of the bed, to prevent the hatchling from nuzzling her hand, but a perverse curiosity stopped her. In that wavering moment, the hatchling rushed to her left hand, touching it with its snout.
THE END
It took me a little more than a year to write this fanfic. I thank you all for the few words you have provided and for the encouragement to go on. Even if none of you was particularly vocal about this story(Except IronMikeTyson, who was my awesome fan :D), I trust you enjoyed your stay here.