I have had everything planned in this story before I wrote it. Please let me know your thoughts throughout the story, I'd love to hear from you!
I do not own the Inheritance Cycle.
Edited 6/28/23
Enjoy,
The Flatlands of Leona Lake
That next day they followed the path east, keeping the horses at a brisk trot through the reedy flatlands. Towards the middle of the afternoon they entered a small unwalled town named Corish, and they rode through it. The narrow unpaved streets stank of middens and their gutters were full of rubbish, vegetable peelings, eggshells, and rotting refuse, and the people watched them pass with distrustful eyes. It was not, thought Rose looking at the pocketed buildings, a particularly pleasant place. Ailis kept a good hold on Shadowless' reigns as she led Rose through the town as if she were afraid someone might try to come and take him, her face set in a grim mask. In little under half an hour, the buildings ended and the road split in two. "This is the main road to Dras-Leona. Here we can make up some lost time," said Ailis, turning her saddle. Arvid neighed and pawed at the ground, and then leapt forward at gallop. It seemed as if she were as eager as his rider to get to Dras-Leona.
They rode quickly, not stopping until they could hear the rushing waters of the Toark River before them, and there the sound of the horse's hoofbeats changed. Before them they saw a broad stone bridge, which had now fallen into disrepair. At the highest point of its span was carved an image of a great bear on the rocks of a gushing cascade, its falling waters rippling off into stone waves down the wide arch; but the bear had almost crumbled out of recognition and the ripples of water was mere runnels in the stone. Despite this the bridge was study, and they crossed safely to the other side and followed the road up along the other side of the valley, and at last they slowed to a trot.
To the west of them the mountains sat heavily on the horizon, and to the east Rose would see the purplish hills of the downs in the distance, but all around them the land was as flat as a floodplain. The Toark River ran towards the mountains, and it looked to Rose as sullen as the landscape, with black reeds sticking out of its churning surface. There were few trees, and those she saw stood solitary, bent by a previous prevailing wind. The land was rich and mucky, fading mounds of snow glittering before they were drowning in sticky mire.
They continued through dismal countryside for the week, traveling as swiftly as they could all day and keeping watch at night. And Rose watched as the river widened and was replaced by a large, gleaming, clear lake, each cloud and bird in the sky reflecting in its mirroring waters, disputed only by an occasional ripple. The bright weather held; Rose's eyes began to ache from the constant glare, and she was tired of the flatlands. They stretched ahead always, pass lone farmhouse and walled town and small rises of stone and blinding white snow- grim, unrelenting, mercilessly there. Despite her boredom, she was thankful for the sunshine, all the same. They had managed to travel a great deal and would be, according to Ailis, halfway through the valley in a couple of days.
As they traveled a contrast between Ailis and Rose seemed wedge itself in their relationship, and soon became a constant thing. They traveled as they always did, out of habit, and superficially things seemed as they always had; they joked, and talked in the evenings, although they did not bring out their swords, Ailis taught Rose how to use the bow better and she developed some skill with it howeer the winds coming off the lake made it tricky to use. But even the brief resumption of Ailis' teaching role could not drive away the shadow that now lay between them, the more powerful because it remained unspoken.
Rose didn't know how this happened. She still trusted Ailis as she always had, but she found that she was less able to speak with her, and the harder it became to find a way to return their former friendship. Ailis who was reserved at the best of times was now mostly silent. Rose resented this, feeling that it was somehow related to Tornac and his death, and at the same time feeling that her silence was being used as a weapon against her.
At noon the fourth day after crossing the Toark, they had paused for their midday meal, near an half burned down hut near the road, its charred wood reaching for the sky like broken fingers. It was not usual for them to eat far off of the road so that Thorn could join them in their brief rest if he choose to and usually he did not, not wanting to interrupt his adventures. That afternoon was no different but the dragon swept down from the sky in wide, swirling circles causing Rose to shudder in nervousness as a pair of travelers watched him in very far distance. She mindtouched with Thorn, and felt a tendril of unease from him. Thorn, she said, I believe that we are too close to the road for you to join us this day. Keep to the skies, people are taking notice.
Thorn ignored her and landed anyhow. He swung around and looked at her with one of large, red eye, his wings remaining unfolded. There is something you must see, he said.
Can you not show me from where we are? Rose took a bite out of a stale biscuit.
You need to see for yourself. He bashed his tail loudly against the ground, scattering a number of stones in different directions. I need you to see it.
"Rose," Ailis said, glancing towards the road, "What does he want?"
"He wishes to show me something yet he will not say what." Rose looked at him sullenly, as he walloped the ground with his tail again. "It'd be less troublesome if he did."
Ailis began tapping her foot, her eyes on the passing travelers but nodded. "If that is all, then, please, do go with him," she said. "You know how to find me. But be quick about it, we don't have time to waste."
"Waste it how, exactly?" Rose said, turning to scowl at the woman. "I wish you would tell me so that Thorn and I could perhaps not be left stumbling in the dark as you go about this search of yours."
Ailis looked at her with a mask-like blankness. "Its nothing you need to worry about," she said, waved them away. "Now off you go."
Rose sighed and climbed onto Thorn. Whatever it is that you wish to show me, she said, grasping ahold of the nearest spike that ran along his back, it best be important.
It is. Thorn crutched down the ground and jumped, pumping his wings powerfully until they were in the sky. The land lay below them was like a giant piece of patchwork, each home a stitching of thread, and Rose looked over it for a moment before closing her eyes, fighting off a sudden feeling of sickness. The scales of Thorn's bulk bit into her legs, making her regret the lack of barrier between them, and she tried to swing her legs out just a bit but doing so destabilized her and she almost fell. She didn't do it again. Beneath her, she could feel the power of Thorn, each smooth movement of muscle and pounding of his wings as they hit the air.
Though Rose was not paying mind to Thorn's directions, he was following a winding stream that led them away from the road to a small dwelling of trees, far from any human claim, where there the river widened to a pool. Thorn landed there near that pool and for a time he looked around, searching for something. There, he said lowing himself to the ground. Look.
Rose opened her eyes and looked around at the small grouping of trees encircling them, the cold, clear water bubbling over small, flat stones, and in the distance a shepherd's hut sat squawky on a hill with white points of sheep milling around it. What should I be seeing?
Thorn grumbled deeply, and shook himself making her tumble to the ground from his back. Look, he said, pointing at the ground with his snout.
Looking at him unhappily, Rose stood and, brushing herself off, walked around him. On the ground was an indentation. It almost looked like a track. Something a living creature would leave behind, like those Ailis had shown her from deer in the snow. For a moment she could only stare then she started with shock and glanced at Thorn. It's belongs to a dragon, she said. She was very sure of it. The print looked very much like Thorn's with the exception that it was slimmer, the carvings from the claws willowier, and it was not so deep as his as if the creature were lighter. This is what you wished for me see, isn't it?
Yes, he said doubtfully. It may be a ploy. Something to lure us.
It may as well be from something akin to dragon, she said. There are such things, I believe.
Thorn grumbled unhappily. I wouldn't know.
Rose looked at the print uncertainly for a moment in puzzlement, and then looked at Thorn. I don't know enough about it. Well, let's go, shall we? she said, not wanting to put much thought in the prints and what they might mean. We shan't become any wiser by merely standing here looking at it.
Thorn said nothing, keeping his thoughts to himself and crouched down, allowing her to climb onto his back. He soon took the skies, and Rose once again shut her eyes as the blasting, cold wind burned her skin. When they returned to Ailis, she didn't mention the footprints. If Ailis could have her secrets, then so could she.
The following day, they kept again to the road, stopping only once to allow the horses to rest and for them to have a quick meal. They now began to pass more people; farmers headed to markets pulling wagons of dried produce pulled by tired looking ponies with rough hair and staring ribs, and the occasional oxen; two or three times there was a woman walking with a heavy basket strapped to her back, out of which poked heads of chickens, squawking in protest, or holding small, grizzling children that pulled at their skirts.
They traveled as fast as before, and Rose began to now feel the loss of Ailis' company; the breach that had been there before had now opened up between them, and the silence was almost complete. They spoke only at absolute need, and then it was as brief as possible, their silence soon becoming an impenetrable wall. The breach even extended to the horses, who bickered uncharacteristically; Starshine once bit Shadowless on the flank and was kicked in the belly for the liberty. It was only enough to wind him, to Rose's relief, but the women tended to the horses separately. Rose was privately worried about the black horse, whose coat had begun to loss its shine, but she could see very little she could do about it. Rose's only company was Thorn who knew her mood and unhappiness, and would lie close at night and talk with her during the day but it only slightly eased the ache within her. She felt somehow exiled from humankind.
Their ride was uneventful as the expect of the city of Dras-Leona that always grew closer and Thorn's company became infrequent as more and more people began to fill the roads, and the days grew warmer and the land hillier. The weather held, each day drawing into clear skies, and a warming sun which glowed in the cloudless sky of unending blue. If the weather remained this way, Ailis reckoned that it would take them a week to ride to the city.
"There is something we need to speak about," Ailis said, one night after they had set up camp. The sun threw fragments of red ripples into the sky, and there were no clouds at all, only tiny shadows moving over the earth.
Rose looked up from cutting meat of two woodcocks in surprise. "What-" she began before having to stop to blow a brownish grey feather off her lip "-do we need to speak about?'
Ailis looked down, carefully folding up the map as if she were gathering her thoughts. "I do not wish to keep secrets between us, Rose. They never seem to do anyone any good however I'm finding myself struggling, what I have to say isn't something that you should be told but rather grew up knowing. And I wish, with everything inside that this were the case," she said and paused, before unfolding the map and began refolding it.
Rose continued to stare at her, waiting for her to speak, blowing again at the feather that seemed to make a permanent home in her hair as her patience waned. She had moved unconsciously away from Ailis and now sat with the bloodied knife gripped firmly in her hand poised toward the woman. Finally, she spoke, "What were you saying? What should I have known?"
Ailis looked up at her with thinning lips and for a moment her eyes stilled on the knife. "Put the knife down," she said, sighing as Rose crudely stuck it into the chest of one of the lifeless birds. "I'm sure the bird wouldn't thank you for that."
Rose shrugged. "It is dead. You might find that it cannot thank me for anything."
"I do not mean to be so long winded. I'm afraid to say that I have no words that seem to suffice but know that I speak the truth. I came to UrĂ»'baen for more than the dragon eggs. It my intention to liberate you from Galbatorix and allow you the choice to leave his halls forever." The look Ailis gave her made her look as if she were in pain. "My sole focus was you."
Rose stopped listening and sank into a black reverie. What interest was she to Ailis? Had she been rescued from the capital merely to be thrown at the Varden as a trophy until she was no longer useful? If so, she was trapped, she had no place else to go and she hadn't the skills to make it in the wild with only Thorn, and she certainly did not wish to return the capital-
"Rose!" She startled at the use of her name and looked away from her bags realizing that she was calculating how fast she could load them onto Starshine. Rose shook herself and cast the woman a dark look, distrust coiling in her belly. Could she and her horse even outrun Arvid and Ailis? Surely it couldn't be that challenging, not with Thorn. He would certainly help in slowing the woman while she made a run for it, if he was willing to go with her at all.
"Well, you're taking this just as well as I thought you might," the woman muttered bleakly. "I know you haven't heard a word I've said so I'll be blunt. I've lied to you out of necessity. My birth name is not 'Ailis' though it's the name I've gone by for many years. Before then I was known as Selena and you are the child I had believed to have died by her father's hand. I should have told you before now, I've tried to but I have been remiss due to my own uncertainties and for that, I apologize as well." Beneath the bitterness in her voice, Rose heard the anguish of an undimmed grief. For a second, as if she were a burning glass, the woman's emotions flashed through her. Then the woman looked at Rose through wet eyelashes with a strange shyness, and studied her for a moment, only to turn away disgruntled when Rose said or did nothing.
For a long time Rose couldn't talk, even if she wanted to, nor could she think, her mind completely blink. Then as the shock receded, she stood up and walked away into the night, the woodcocks forgotten. Ailis, or Selena, whoever she was, called after her, but Rose ignored the calls and continued for a time in useless wandering until she reached Leona Lake. She stared out at its surface for a time, looking at the stars in the reflection of the sky until she felt Thorn mindtouch her. As her mind mended with his, her thoughts returned with vengeance but neither of them said anything.
Rose sighed, pulling the feather from the tangles of her hair, and looked back at the encampment. She didn't know what to think or do, and allowed herself to stank into the grass as nameless emotions swelled around her. Through watering eyes, she watched the glowing sparks from the fire, a frail light in the empty blackness, flared up briefly filling the darkness of the world.
2023 A/N: So I know that technically Rose's gender wouldn't change Selena passing after Eragon's birth but I wanted to write this tale with her in it. Mainly to see what I could do with the dynamic. Selena piped my interest in the books. Now I'm glad that I did it this way. My mom helped me shape her: her spirit, motivations, as well as her relationship with Morzan, and now that my mother has passed, I'm glad I did; Selena adds a special flare that otherwise would not be there. Its a fun way to remember her and our conversations.
I hope you're enjoying the tale thus far. Please let me know your thoughts!
