Chapter 1 – Arya and Eragon's Collection of Odd Things

An old habit that Eragon had as a kid now had made Arya's days a succession of happy surprises.

One night, as she was already in bed, he climbed up the stairs in their treehouse and tossed an object her way. Before it could hit the mattress, she was quick to grab it and turn it in her hand.

"What is it?"

Eragon sat on the bed to remove his boots and said without turning back to see her, "A coin, of course."

"I can see that, but why did you toss it to me? Are we in debt with each other?"

He laughed quietly, then climbed in bed with her after taking off his clothes.

"Look at it. It's special."

Arya took the coin closer to the candle next to her on the bedside table to inspect it with attention. As most of the coins in the Kingdom, that one had the image of Queen Nasuada pressed into it.

"It's smudged," she said.

Eragon came closer to put his arms around her as she looked at the coin.

"Isn't it funny?" He said with humor.

There was a fingerprint right where Nasuada's crown was supposed to be, possibly imprinted after the metal had melted under a great heat wave on a hot day.

"Only because there's a finger instead of her crown?"

He laughed. "Aye! Can you imagine you using Fingers instead of Crowns to pay someone?"

Sometimes his sense of humor was questionable, to say the least, but it amazed her how the smallest things appealed to him.

"Should we put it on the shelf?"

"I think it qualifies," he said.

Arya got up and went downstairs. In the study, there was a big bookcase, that followed the curvature of their treehouse's wall. One of the shelves was meant to display all the odd things Eragon brought home for her amusement. So far, the coin with the fingerprint was the fifth object.

Looking at the other four made a silly smile appear on Arya's face as she shook her head.

Questionable sense of humor indeed!

The first thing he had brought home was a piece of wood shaped exactly as a body. He claimed it was a human body, she argued it could be elven too. It was irrelevant, for nature had sculpted the perfect image of a person in wood.

One day, he was tending to their garden under a tree when forgetting how low the branches there were, he stood up at once to hit his head on the lowest one. The impact made the young tree shake and drop a few leaves and twigs. A little dizzy, he thought he saw a piece of broken wood shaped like a little person on the ground. He massaged his scalp that was very sore and bent down to pick it up.

"Look," he said as he entered the treehouse. "A little human."

Eragon made the figure dance in front of Arya's face as she peeled the onions in the kitchen.

"Why would you carve a person in a piece of wood? And don't say it's a human when it clearly can be an elf too."

"I didn't. Unless the top of my head has the special talent of carving when bumping into low branches."

He massaged his head again where a small bump started to form.

Arya smiled and turned to her chores. Without the audience he was expecting, Eragon took his little man to the living room and made him dance on the couch as he sat down. He felt like a child, finding humor on a simple toy.

Later, when Arya went to her study, she found the piece of wood tossed over her papers. Shaking her head, she found a place for it on the bookcase.

The next object found its way to the bookcase by itself, little time after the first one. Or better said, by raven's wings.

Blagden, the white raven, refused to come east with Arya when she left Du Weldenvarden to go live in Mount Arngor. Regret came to him when he realized that without her there, the Tialdarí Hall would be empty, and the place he called home was just a lifeless place since King Vanir had his own royal house, his family's palace.

After making his way toward Mount Arngor, Blagden tapped the window to Arya's study with his beak without success, no one came to answer, being so early in the morning. So he tapped on it again, this time with more force. To his surprise, the glass shattered, throwing dozens of shards all over the bookcase. The sound awoke Arya and Eragon from their shared dreams, who ran downstairs. Seeing it was only the strange raven, Eragon went back to bed, while Arya stayed to clean up the mess. Right beside the little wooden man, a shard of glass remained unnoticed, even after the clean-up.

Eragon only saw that strange piece of glass when he went to add another object to the collection. A shark's tooth, found on the shore near the Dragon Lair, a hidden place for the wild dragons to live by the ocean.

The shard and the tooth matched perfectly. One was shaped like a star and the other, like the moon. Again, Eragon found humor in the objects and their odd combination and put them side by side on the shelf.

The fourth object was the orb. A map carved in wood in the form of a sphere that Eragon made for her as a birthday gift.

The day she received it she spent so much time staring at all the forms represented there that it started to lose sense. Long after Eragon had left the house to tend to his duties in the mountain, Arya got out of her haze and walked to the study where she contemplated the possibility of adding the orb to the collection.

It wasn't funny or curious. It was just… odd. An odd object, new, never seen before. A map on a sphere. So odd.

Arya decided it should go on the shelf. And there it was, the fourth object in their collection of odd things.

Right next to the orb, Arya placed the coin, then reached to the left so her hand grabbed the sphere. She took it upstairs, where Eragon lay in bed with his eyes closed. She knew very well, however, that he hadn't entered his waking dreams yet.

Sitting on the bed beside him, she poked his side so he would look at her.

"What?!" He complained massaging the spot she poked with too much force.

Arya showed him the orb and asked in a meaningful tone, "When?"

His eyes were confused at first, but then clarity came to him.

Eragon grabbed the orb and traced the empty space he left east of Arngor where they dreamed of exploring.

"Now?" He said with a mischievous smile, for he knew she wouldn't take him seriously.

Arya furrowed her brows and lay down next to him, her head sinking in the pillow, making her stare at the ceiling.

"Maybe that's not a bad idea."

It was a bad idea. They weren't ready yet, and she knew it.

The third edition of the Arngor Games was about to start, and Arya's wish to escape was only the stress talking. It was the first time she planned the event, being the governor of Mount Arngor. A lot had happened since the last one, that last one she attended as queen. She fought in a war, almost lost Eragon, left her crown to move east, and other things she preferred not to remember.

One thing she would always keep in mind though was that being there was a choice. For better or for worse, she could face it, gladly, because it would all be the consequences of her choice. So, she looked to him who had his eyebrows raised, surprised she wished to start their trip right away. With a soft touch to his face, she said, "It's not the best idea either."

A/N: Hello!

This is another story in the universe of "Of Poems and Maps", because I can't seem to stay away from it!

So if you haven't read that yet, I suggest you visit my profile and maybe get into it and the other stories following that.

This will feature Eragon and Arya living their lives together in Mount Arngor but also traveling to discover the unknown parts of the world. I'm expecting to update this fic and "This Blood of Mine" simultaneously, as fast as I can, but honestly, I can't make promises. Also, this will be very self-indulgent and probably will be very slow-paced, focused mainly on their relationship without major plots as it happened in "Of Poems". So, if you like that, welcome!

I hope to update soon. See you there!