#yes this post is about eragon

[evadingreallife]

Confession time when i, ages ago as an italian kid, read eragon i was deeply weirded out by alagaësia's fantasy map. Not bc of the usual reasons, but because of the southern mountain range. I was like, why are these mountains down south?? Shouldnt they...yknow... be in the north?? Or at least on the sides?? Wtf are these mountains doing in the south How Did It Happen is this a thing that mountains... just do? Legally? Complete bafflement.

#yes this post is about eragon #but also about the alps #and the appennini too tbh #it was just too weird to me that mountains could Not Be in the North #or the sides even #im realizing now it was bc of how the mountains are located here #its funny #eragon

[portuguesedisaster]

ok...why is Warrior Cats trending today?

#for everyone who wants to know i read a bunch of them in 2012 and i never thought about them again #very furry of me now that i think about it #tbh went into an eragon mindhole so...we are covering all the bases of 2012 Carol I guess #Yes i read Eragon and Warrior Cats more or less at the same time what about it? #eragon #Warrior cats #tags that i never thought would end up on my posts

[saphira-approves]

Okay no I’m not done talking about swords, and their names, because sword names are IMPORTANT okay and they MEAN THINGS—

I rambled in the tags of this post about Eragon and Murtagh naming/renaming their swords to be positive, compared to their fathers’ respective negative sword names, but I want to go further into it.

First is the obvious one, Morzan’s Zar’roc, Misery, and Murtagh’s Ithring, Freedom. I’m almost certain Morzan names his sword as an offensive measure—and I don’t mean offensive as in insulting, I mean it in the combat sense. It’s a curse, almost, upon his enemies: any opponent he faces with this blade will be struck by misery, literally. But one thing we know about Morzan: he’s not particularly wise, and even his best works backfire on him. We see it with Selena, and his confidence that she loves him too much to betray him, so he never warded against her. He named his sword Misery, and Misery is all it brought him: he joined Galbatorix, brought the downfall of the Order, and lost his dragon to nameless madness; he killed Brom’s dragon, making an enemy of the man who once had idolized him and sealing his own demise by Brom’s hand; he threw Misery at his own child and pushed his wife to betray him, which ultimately led to the downfall of everything he had ever worked for. Talk about a curse. He upheld Misery, and Misery came right back to bite him in the ass.

And then Brom took Misery from him, and sequestered it away, and eventually gave it to Eragon without telling him its meaning; and Eragon wielded it without knowing its meaning or history, trying his best to do good with it, and even when he did learn its history and its name he resolved to work to give it a better legacy. After all, a good sword is a good sword. But Murtagh, Morzan’s son and heir, was not done with Misery, bore too painful a scar from Misery to let it go—he took Misery from Eragon and claimed it as his own, claiming his birthright, yes… but taking Misery away from Eragon, in the very same moment that he also protected Eragon from capture and forced servitude, the fate that had befallen Murtagh himself. Complicated as feelings all around may have been, intentional as the act itself may or may not have been, Murtagh here is very much intentionally shouldering that burden. He fully believed that Eragon was another son of Morzan, he could have easily justified rejecting that part of his history and his father’s legacy and offloading it on his younger brother, and yet he didn’t. He took it for himself and declared it his own.

And then he called it Freedom.

After enduring torture and enslavement and a hundred other humiliations, he took Misery in hand and said, no. I do not uphold you. I do not fight for you. I fight for Freedom, for my own and my loved ones’, and for the Freedom of all. He looked at the horror of his past and refused to let it define him. He looked at his father’s mistakes and refused to be bound to them. He took a name of offense, of attack and hostility, and changed it to a name of preservation, of defense, of peace.

And then there’s Eragon, with Brisingr, Fire, and Brom’s mysterious Undbitr, Void-biter. At first glance it may seem that they have absolutely nothing to do with each other, but I would not be here if I wasn’t going to loudly and fervently declare otherwise.

My guess for Brom’s reasoning of naming his sword Undbitr would be somewhere between edgelord teenager antics (look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn’t have wanted a sword name Void Biter at twelve years old) and his admiration for Morzan, who named his sword the simple yet devastatingly clever Misery. Void-biter, bite of death, the bite that would send his opponents to the void. To darkness, to nothingness, to anti-life and anti-hope. A sword lost after his dragon’s death, never seen again, and yet Brom himself succumbs to the bite of his own personal void: he dedicates himself to vengeance, throws everything he has of himself into orchestrating Morzan’s downfall, and the downfall of Galbatorix and the rest of the Forsworn for good measure. It’s implied, from Brom’s own admission of fearing his son would hate him and Oromis’s discussion of his near-suicidal madness after Saphira’s death, that revenge is all Brom lived for until he met Selena—and even after he met her and fell in love with her, I suspect his need for vengeance is what ultimately decided the events leading both to Morzan’s death and Selena’s doomed reunion with Murtagh. Brom may have lost Void-biter, but the void consumed him anyway.

And then there’s Eragon. Yes I’ve said that already but if anything can sum up these books, it’s And then there’s Eragon. The first spell he learns is fire. A dangerous force, certainly, one that can easily break control and wreak untold havoc and destruction, but what force of nature doesn’t fall into that category? He could easily have learned, and thus be represented by, wind or ice or lightning, or even just pain or break. But he didn’t, and he’s not. He wields fire. A force of nature, a destructive weapon… but also the foundation of a home, fire in the hearth; the fuel of invention, to shape metal and glass; and most importantly, a light in the dark, the hope of dawn in the long cold night. Eragon names his sword Brisingr, and it’s not merely a weapon: it is a beacon. His father was consumed by darkness, but Eragon is the one who guided him back to the light, who gave him something to live for after he had defeated his enemy and lost his love; Eragon was the figurehead of the rebellion, the spark that drove a passive resistance into the blaze of true revolution; and now Eragon builds the new hearth of the Dragon Riders, to tend and defend it for future generations.

What a change from misery and the void.

Fire, and freedom. Hope, and peace. Family, and love.

I think Selena would be very proud of her sons.

#inheritance cycle #christopher paolini #eragon shadeslayer #murtagh (inheritance cycle) #brom (inheritance cycle) #selena (inheritance cycle) #morzan (inheritance cycle) #saph scribbles #murtagh spoilers #very light but still there #im normal about these books im so normal about these books (lying) #need a murtagh and eragon reunion STAT i need eragon to be all mushy and proud of murtagh for his growth as a person #while murtagh is VERY uncomfortable and fully expecting to be kicked out but refusing to say anything because the hugs are nice even #if he won’t actually admit it

[bijectiveandinvertible]

For my Eragon Farm Fic

“Are you sure its a good idea?”

“Eragon! Do you want the Eldunarí to be lonely? No! Those retired dragons deserve some unique company!”

“Mushrooms… Angela?”

“Yes… mushrooms. Where better to grow them but in your basement.”

“The Eldunarí are not in the basement.”

“Look they will have so many to conserve with… this shiitake, this maitake… what about this puffballs or this adorable button or this dignified lion’s mane.”

“Fine! We will put them in the basement but only with permission.”

“Oh I have already informed Umaroth… don’t worry about it.

.

.

.

I will post the chapter tomorrow...

#b&iwrites #fanfic #inheritance cycle #eragon

[alagaesia-headcanons]

the wolves' dinner

This is the drabble I mentioned in this post. ( @marimo331 @dayzcakes ask and ye shall receive~)

Summary: Selena spirits Murtagh away to Carvahall so that she and Brom can raise him and Eragon together in peace, hidden from the world. But Murtagh never forgets the truth of his father, possessed of memories that his parents adamantly steer him away from out of their own fear of the past. Yet it does nothing to avert the reconvergence fated for them all...

Word Count: 1,157

Warnings: None

Read below or on Ao3

-

The field work is done and everyone else has returned to the house by the time Murtagh finishes up his final tasks in the barn. That’s partially by design, as he likes the quiet that arises when he lingers long enough. Selena sometimes chides that he comes in late for dinner, but she always saves him a portion anyway. Brom declares that if he stays out any longer, he’ll provide the wolves their own dinner, but with the good humor of man who’s ensured no such thing could befall him. His parents indulge and love him even as they raise their obligatory fuss. But Murtagh seeks the quiet to think about the things that have no place anywhere else.

Birka nickers at him and he pours a last bit of feed into her trough with a sigh. Judging by the shadows cast by the shaft of light spilling through the doors, he ought to leave soon to avoid another quip about the wolves tonight. Murtagh pats Birka fondly, promising, “I’ll go riding with you as soon as I get the chance.” Then he pulls the barn doors closed and diligently locks them.

In the last dying streaks of sunlight, as he turns to face his family’s secluded sliver of Palancar Valley, Murtagh sees the silhouette of a lone figure on horseback coming up the road. Instead of going directly up the hill to the house, he slowly wraps around the other way towards the road to get a better look, urged by a low, prevailing thrum of curiosity. The person rides into the shadow of a mountain peak, unveiling their colors and features. Atop a gleaming roan horse sits a broad shouldered man wearing a dark, fur lined cloak that looks as heavy as the well worn exhaustion suffusing him. He has black hair streaked with gray and a severe, lined countenance of eerie familiarity.

As his steed trots nearer, Murtagh sees one deep black eye and another of icy blue, and he knows he is looking into the face of his father.

Looking too blatantly for too long, it seems, for the man reins in his horse and throws Murtagh a sharp, skeptical stare with those mismatched eyes. Murtagh makes a token effort to ease his own scrutiny as the man glances at the distant house, then back to him. He scowls, then abruptly swings himself down from the saddle and faces him directly.

“Tell me your name.”

Those words flow like cold water down his spine, rousing him as if from a dream. Because, up until this moment, he could swear he’s had this very dream a thousand times. He cannot tell him the truth, wouldn’t dare, but he must say something. Any lie fleeing him, forgetting every name but his own, Murtagh shakes his head and impulsively answers with a sideways honesty, “I’m no one.”

The man tilts his head and takes a step closer. “Is that so? Because that sounds to me like the answer of a man who’s name could get him in trouble. Tell me.”

Murtagh doesn’t waver despite the alarmingly accurate assessment, pervaded by an incongruous calm. He suggests no guilt or fear. “That’s not what I meant. It wouldn’t mean something so serious because it doesn’t mean much at all. It’d be a waste of my breath and your time because I’m no one, really.”

The distrust in his eyes doesn’t vanish, but it shifts like the thought was shrugged off in favor of something else. “I don’t believe you. You don’t strike me as quite so insignificant.”

“It’s true. Not for lack of effort, but every time I’ve tried to figure out who I am, to make something of myself, the attempt was always disapproved of and cut off.”

The man grunts in acknowledgement. “A very stifled life that will lend you,” he allows.

Murtagh looks down the road in the direction he came, down that valley to the rest of the world, down south, in the direction of the Empire’s heart. “Is your life the same? Or have you tasted more freedom and learned what the world has to offer and made that your own? Do you know what it feels like... to truly come into your own?”

“No,” he declares promptly. “I’m no different. I have nothing to offer you- you’d better look elsewhere.” Murtagh wonders if his mother once felt similarly stifled and if, back then, his father believed differently about his ability to give her something more. “In my life, everything gained comes at a cost far higher than it was ever worth, and there’s no escape from all the loss. So it’s defining. My whole existence is stifled.”

Murtagh knows without a doubt why; his life exists directly beneath the thumb of the king. But he can’t acknowledge that, and it feels stingingly awkward to know the truth behind his bitter remarks far more intimately than he realizes. Instead, he does not confront it at all, gesturing behind the man and replying, “At least it lends you such a fine horse. It must make travelling a great deal more pleasant, because I can’t imagine a better companion than that. I’ve never seen a horse so beautiful. I bet it can race quicker than the wind- I’m jealous.”

Eyes narrowing, his lip curls back and his chin twitches up into a derisive angle, but the motion follows through until he’s turned aside, gaze torn away. He glares fiercely at the horizon, his flash of anger rapidly losing heat until exhaustion has quenched it, which then yields enough room for contemplation. “Well, I suppose you’re right. He’s an exceptional beast. And I appreciate the companionship of any creature that can carry me away, away, away...”

“Away from...?” he feigns, desperate to know what he might say.

The man looks his way, his black and blue eyes suddenly assuming an imposing, indomitable clarity in that moment, taking in every last piece of him. Then he comes a step closer and grips Murtagh’s shoulder, thumb angled down to press into his bicep, stopping his heart mid beat at the sensation of his father’s touch. “For your sake, child, may you never find out,” he intones, like delivering a blessing.

Then he releases him and pulls away, turning back to his horse. After he lifts himself into the saddle, the distance and darkness make the two different colors of his eyes almost indistinguishable. The sunlight dies a fast death in the valley. “Will you tell me your name?” Murtagh asks before he stirs back into motion.

“No,” Morzan says. “No point. It won’t do you any good.”

“Alright. Farewell then, no one.”

That earns him a smile, one so unexpected, his breath falters for a second. “Ha. Same to you, my fellow no one. Good luck coming into your own.” He flicks the reins and his horse takes off at a trot, carrying him away, away from Murtagh.

#eragon #inheritance cycle #murtagh #murtagh morzansson #morzan #my writing #this was primarily a dialogue exercise #i like this idea of morzan being prickly and vindictive in the way a caged animal is #and hes ever watching for a chance to gnaw his way out of that cage #reduced to a lot of raw instincts that result in a lot of harm #(im posting this at an awful time but im exhausted and just want it out there)

[modern-inheritance]

Modern Inheritance: Reunion (Complete)

(A/N: Here's the entire fic for the reunion between Arya and Glenwing in Ellesméra. There's additional A/N stuff on the original posts but y'all can find them if you'd like to.)

~~~~

The bustle of activity and near constant rush of people passed by in a blur. Arya let the crowd flow around her, sinking away from the main crush. She settled a few paces behind her mother where the queen was conversing with Däthedr, silent and watchful as she always had been. 

She was glad that Saphira and Eragon took most, if not all, the attention away from her. After that whirlwind of political and personal business, Arya didn’t feel much like talking to anyone. Such situations always put her on edge, and after so long away the combat liaison was finding it increasingly difficult to hold her tongue and remain the polite and proper diplomat she pretended to be in the pines.

So instead of mingling, Arya settled into an ingrained At Ease stance and began watching the gathered elves. Well, not as much the elves. Brom was her main target. The man had been all but forgotten in the rush, just as he had planned, and he sat at a table nursing a tankard of faelnirv. Yes, an entire tankard. To himself. Because that would end well. As the hour went on Arya contemplated asking her mentor for his shortsword and rifle. There’d be hell to pay if Oromis had to come down early to corral his former student yet again.  

Oromis. Arya suppressed a wince; facing him was just as daunting as facing her mother. He wouldn’t have left the world unwatched while the queen wallowed in her self pity. He and Glaedr had to have know about Eragon, Saphira, Brom. Their madcap running around the Empire. Farthen Dûr.

And he would know about Arya. And Gil’ead. She hoped he hadn’t seen too much of that. 

For a split second Arya smelled wet concrete and tasted copper and iron. The lilting music and bubbly voices smothered down to a low drone, a buzz that dug into her ear as the suddenly harsh light flickered. 

Behind her back she felt her hands involuntarily snap into white knuckled fists, nails digging deep into her palms. Her wrists burned, fingers tingling with sharp pins and needles as the wet fire encircled the ruined skin and rusted steel bit in deep–

It took a breath, a blink. A shaking thumb subtly run over the dark swathe of scar tissue under the cuff of her combat jacket sleeve. Feeling the half rumpled and half silky repairs to her body. 

The world snapped back into focus in time for Arya to mumble a returned greeting as another elf brushed past. She bit her tongue for real this time. ‘Damn recall.’

The night dragged on, and while the rest of Ellesméra whirled and danced Arya could not help but feel rooted in place, stationary in both time and movement. It felt…wrong. She was no stranger to solitude, that was certain, but for some reason standing there, alone despite the sea of people, felt off. 

The hollow feeling in her chest intensified. Ellesméra felt leagues bigger without them there.

Her bitter musings were interrupted by a violent yank on her arm. 

Everything in her body snapped taut as Arya whirled, letting the attacker’s motion turn her as she brought up both fists. The momentum carried her raising arm up to lock against the inner elbow of the man that was now grabbing at her shoulders, ready to throw him off and slam him in the jaw with her free palm. He had both shoulders now, fingers tightening, one hand impossibly hard and cold–

Golden eyes caught her movements, freezing her in place. The entire world dropped away.

Arya couldn’t breathe. The dead man held her at arms length, his brow furrowed and silver hair still settling around his face from where it had escaped his ponytail. His eyes, they had always seen past whatever she said and found what she meant to say, searched her face with the intensity of a hunting dragon. 

He had looked at her like that before, though not quite so intently. Every time she did something so remarkably stupid, like throw an artillery shell back over the trench wall, curl around a grenade to absorb its destruction into her wards, stuck her hand in a Broddring cannon, or, the worst offense of all, go without sleep in favor of double watch shifts and nights disappeared without a word beside their other companion. Always looking out for her. For them. 

The last time she had seen his face it was planted in the dirt, blood pooling and trickling towards open golden eyes as they stared unseeing into the darkness, before the swarm of Urgals had blocked her view.

And now he was looking at her, bright, alert, and with so much fear and disbelief and hope and who the hell knows what else because Glenwing of House Svanran, healer and medic and best friend and dead man walking, was holding her by the shoulders and trying just as desperately as she to figure out if the person in front of him was really, truly alive. 

“...Glen?” Arya half choked, the last air in her lungs used to voice her disbelief. She could barely hear it over the noise around them.

At her uttering of his name Glenwing suddenly seized her face in his hands and let out a cracked laugh. Tears spilled from his eyes as he half cried, half laughed, “Spirits, it is you!” 

And his arms were pulling her in and around her and hugging impossibly tight. 

Arya didn’t hesitate, hugging him back fiercely and holding on, unwilling to let go in case he too slipped away like the other memories. Something snapped inside her chest and in her throat as she let out a broken laugh of her own. “You’re alive! You’re alive!” 

They stayed like that for what felt like ages, relief flowing off of them like a waterfall with tears of joy and disbelief. They weren’t alone anymore. 

It must have been a full minute before the world around them became important again, and Arya reluctantly pulled back. “We should,” She broke off and wiped her eyes, cleared her throat before speaking again without the tremor in her voice. “We should probably go….” 

“Good call.” 

With a small gesture Arya caught her mother’s eye. When the queen inclined her head slightly the two reunited elves snapped their heels together and bowed, knocking their right knuckles to their left collarbones in acknowledgement before all but bolting to the edge of the crowded grove. Here, at least, it was quiet but for a low murmur of the gathered people and a soft thread of the music through the trees. No one would be looking out to the forest, not with something as amazing as Eragon and Saphira at the center of attention, and here Arya and Glenwing would have a modicum of privacy to talk.

It was Arya’s turn to take Glen by the shoulders, and she shook her head with another chuckle past the lump in her throat. “You fucking bastard.” They shared a laugh again. “You absolute bastard. I saw you die. And I never thought….”

“You’re complaining about me?” Glenwing beamed, wiping away tears with his right hand. “All those times I told you not to go running off and get yourself killed, and then I figure that you’ve gone and finally done it.” 

“Hey, I was doing my job!”

“You always say that.” 

“I actually was this time!”

After a few moments of excited chatter, Arya felt cold seeping back into the warm relief that seeing Glenwing had brought. Already knowing the answer, she looked out to the dark pines that hid from the celebration’s light. “Hey, I uh…” She blinked, cleared her throat as best she could past the returning lump. “I take it…you’re my only surprise tonight, huh?” When Glen shifted uneasily, Arya felt a pang of regret at her phrasing and shot him a weak grin. “Not that you’re underappreciated or any–”

Glenwing’s jaw tightened, and for a moment Arya saw his throat convulse as he swallowed. His voice was steady, though, when he gently, grimly, replied, “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. Didn’t say anything for a long, painful minute. “I couldn’t have ever asked for either of you to survive that. Couldn’t even think, imagine, hope, whatever.” Arya waved a hand vaguely, unable to put her feelings into words. “But, shit, Glen. We’ve done so much dangerous, wild–”

“Insane?” That grin was back, tinged with sadness but filled with a familiar wild undertone that everyone in their little fyrn breoal held. 

“Insane!” Arya added with a laugh. “Everything we’ve done and everything we shouldn’t have survived…. I’m just happy you made it out. That we made it out. And look! We did it, we found them!” She pointed towards Saphira’s glittering form in the midst of the crowd that felt so far away. “Let’s just…let’s celebrate that right now. Celebrate him. Shit, can you imagine the ruckus he’d make? We did it! We finally did it.” She couldn’t hide the tangle of elation and relief that broke through the pain. This is what they had all been fighting for, together, for decades. Fäolin would want them to have that, to feel the joy for him.

A commotion drew their attention. Elves were returning from the cookfires, arms laden with dishes and bowls and platters. The sight made both the medic and the combat liaison stiffen somewhat, knowing that their brief time to reacquaint themselves was drawing to a quick end. 

Arya let out a short huff and drew herself up, steeling herself for the rabble again. “Alright. Come on.” Glen grinned when she slapped his arm and seized his face with both hands, squeezing his cheeks. “Have to make sure you’re not some hallucination. Let’s go drink. We’re here. We’re safe.” She slid her hands to his shoulders, began drawing them down his arms in preparation to drag him off to meet the biggest pair of silver linings in history. “We’re in one…”

She trailed off as her right hand slipped down his left arm and stopped short at the bicep. That…that wasn’t….

“Piece?” Words stuck in her throat at the sound of the wry tone in Glen’s voice. He thought he was hiding the ache under that twisted tilt of his lips as her eyes snapped up to his. “Yeah…about that.”

“...Glen, what–”

“Later. I promise.” Without waiting for her protests, Glen slid an arm around his lost commander's shoulders and began walking back to the tables. "Celebrate, right? Introduce me to these two first. Then we drink."

~~~

The door creaked as it slid open, sticking at that same spot as it always had. Arya purposefully kept her eyes down as she closed it, avoiding looking towards her mother where she stood still half stunned outside. Just as she had told the queen, she really wasn’t ready to forgive her, not now. If she met her mother’s gaze there was bound to be a war between exploding at her in buried rage or breaking down after the many emotional hills and valleys of the day.

She made it two steps into the flat, pack already sliding off her arms, when she froze. 

Glen blinked at her from where he was lounging on the couch, just as surprised as she was. 

They stared at each other for a long moment. 

“I uh…” Arya tilted her head slightly. “Wow. Um. I forgot you were alive. And that you’d probably be here.”

The medic blinked again, bewildered, and burst out laughing. “You what?!” 

“It’s been a really, really long day!” Arya threw her pack at him, ignoring the yelp of protest, and dropped onto the opposite end of the couch. 

Glen moved the bag to the floor as his lost commander disentangled herself from her rifle strap, feeling her eyes on him as he leaned back. He wouldn’t admit it, but he too had forgotten that she likely would come back to the flat instead of her long disused room at Tialdarí Hall. He was drained from the night of food and music and emotion, and had trudged home and changed into sleep clothes as soon as he entered, completely oblivious to the possibility of intrusion. 

The loose tanktop, standard issue to Varden soldiers in warm climates, left the metal of his bionic prosthetic on full display, the plating glinting dully in the low werelight. 

They sat in silence for what had to be half an hour, recuperating. Glen made no move to cover the evidence of his missing limb. A niggling feeling in the back of his mind urged him to do so, whispering that she didn’t need guilt on top of everything else. He shushed it, reminded it that he knew that she wasn’t the reason he was down an arm. 

‘But does she know that?’

“...What happened?” Glen rolled his head to look over at Arya, her voice quiet and softer than he remembered she could be. He had tried to lock in the memories of them all together during happy times, wild times, not the times where they had to quietly ask each other if they could keep fighting. “I didn’t…didn’t see where you got hit. I thought it was the chest.”

Glenwing lifted his left arm, the servos drawing power from the precious gems embedded on the insides of the plates whirring almost imperceptibly in the silence. He turned the wrist, tilted the forearm, bent the elbow. Stared at it. “Almost. One went through the bone just above my elbow. Another one got me in the hip.” With two fingers he tapped where the second bullet had entered. “Balan threw me when he got hit and I got knocked out.” 

He inhaled through his nose and bit back a sigh. He could smell pinesmoke again, pungent and heavy. “I think…everything was over when I came around the first time. There was fire but the Urgals were gone. I was cognizant enough to realize I was bleeding out and used the bloodstopper spell to tie off the artery and veins in my arm but…” The fingers made a pleasing series of clicks as he curled them into a fist. “I passed out again. And it was a good bit before I was aware of anything after that.” 

The elves in Vandral, the closest outpost to the edge of Du Weldenvarden where the ambush had occurred, had filled him in as best they could. How they found him half crawling, half dragging himself along the forest floor on their morning patrol. Fäolin’s cold body tied to his own by belts looped across his chest and secured under the dead elf’s arms. The remains of his left arm at and below his now pulverized, shredded elbow hanging on by mutilated muscle. The unmoving fingers white and purple and dusky from lack of blood. The burns on his chest, forearms, knees, thighs, from dragging himself and his long dead brother-in-war and remaining best friend through ashes and embers during the night.

The way he begged them to save Fäolin. Begged them to find her. 

Waking up, his burns healed. His arm–

Pain at his metal wrist ricocheted up to his shoulder. Brought him back.

Glenwing forced the metallic fingers open. “I…I tried to save him.” He dropped both hands to rest limp in his lap, Rhunön’s masterpiece relaying his movements perfectly through metal and crystal. “He was gone before he even hit the ground.”

“I know.” When he looked over Arya was staring past him. “I saw it.” After a moment her eyes cleared, and locked back on him. “Your arm….”

“Bloodstopper worked a little too well, I’m afraid.” He forced a smile. He could still smell the burning pines, but it was fading. Instead it was slowly being replaced by the familiar scent of the worn leather additions on Arya’s combat jacket, gun oil, sharp pine sap and an undertone of gunpowder. It smelled like home, like the Varden, like Arya and Fäolin and decades of companionship and friends. It smelled like safety in their little group. “Rhunön built this for me, though. It works better than the old one!”

Arya shook her head, a touch of a grin on her lips. “I’m sure. She’s outdone herself.” 

“How about you?” Glen didn’t have to know her for over five decades to notice the way Arya changed at the question. Her arms pulled in, the rifle settled across her lap. “What happened to land you with Eragon, Saphira, and Brom of all people?”

Instead of answering him Arya yawned. That was real, he wouldn’t deny that, but she was all too eager to postpone whatever answers she had. “Tell you what,” She stretched and rubbed the back of her neck, massaging a kink out of the muscle that connected to her shoulder. “That’s a story for later. Right now I’m about to pass out on this couch if I don’t get to sleep for a few hours.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Glen’s voice was lighthearted, but they both could hear the warning under the words. It was clear as day, a promise made decades ago. Don’t hide wounds from your fyrn breoal. Head, heart or body, commander, medic or sniper, the only way to stay alive and keep the others safe was to share. “I’m sure it’s a hell of a story.”

Arya waved at him over her shoulder, already halfway down the hall to the room she had shared with her mate. “Yeah. It’s a real doozy. Goodnight, Glen. You still alive bastard.”

“Goodnight, Arya. Resurrected prodigal wild child.”

She blew a raspberry at him as she closed the door.

Glenwing sat back on the couch, the grin fading. His eyes fell on her discarded pack, stripped of weapons and bedroll, sitting at his feet.

The lock on the strap still accepted his thumbprint. It took only a few moments to find what he sought, buried under a mess kit and a pair of socks stuffed in a worn knit beanie she had acquired nearly twenty years ago from a Surdan merchant. A thick file, stuffed with pictures haphazardly sticking out at odd angles, sticky notes and scratched out shorthand. A scattering of numbers and letters, followed by a bold ‘6’ indicated it was the sixth such file in the series, a collection of war wounds and physical exams and the occasional psych eval that never really counted due to the elvish mind being alien enough to circumvent any human or dwarf made test.

Glen pulled it out and brushed his fingers along the tabs till he found one marked a little over two months ago. He didn’t open it, just let his fingertips linger as he mulled over revealing the contents. 

No. 

She would tell him. 

He left the file on the coffee table. 

~~~

It hadn’t escaped him that she had left her combat jacket on that night. Or that she was wearing it when she came out the next morning. Or the day after that. Or the next six mornings. 

They portioned out their days. Arya would spend the morning drafting reports and debriefs, filling out paperwork to reverse her apparent death and half begrudgingly taking on Brom’s share of more mundane documents as he joined Eragon and Saphira at Oromis and Glaedr’s lessons. They split the evenings, Arya going sometimes to guide Eragon and Saphira around Ellesméra or attempting to mend her fragile relationship with her mother. Other nights she joined Glen for dinner and spent the night remembering the days they spent crawling in trenches and infiltrating camps, Fäolin perched above them in his little nest.

Afternoons, though, were for wandering the pines together, walking aimlessly and just talking. Glen told her about the last months, his recovery and the process of fitting, building and bonding with his new arm. The struggles and the joys of connecting the nerves without further surgery, the excited yelling that earned him a pair of tongs to the face when he finally picked up a mug without shattering it or throwing it into his own teeth. 

The three months he spent without leaving Rhunön’s shop. He didn’t tell her it was because he couldn’t find the courage to face the Queen. 

In turn she told him the entire story of Eragon and Saphira, everything the two had shared and every bit of information Brom would reveal about his and their lives in the village of Carvahall. The Raz’zac, the disastrous first flight, Brom’s near death experience, the young son of Morzan and his surprising allegiance. Glen could tell she glossed over the madcap escape from Gil’ead, their eventual return to the Varden getting a similar treatment along with the post battle recovery under Farthen Dûr. 

He didn’t press for a time. But eventually, he knew he had to.

It was eight days after their impromptu reunion, meandering alone past one of the solitary beech trees that some elf had planted and warded years ago with leaves near dripping with the winking lights of bioluminescent moths, when he finally tried to break through. 

“You know you can take that off, right?” Glen teased, plucking a wrinkled fold on the arm of Arya’s combat jacket. “You’re gonna get more looks than usual if you keep wearing it with those cargos.”

Arya looked down with a frown. “Hey! I think it looks good with these! Green and tan go good together, right?” She had never been much for fashion, or even being all that presentable beyond the occasional inspection back during basic or black tie events for the Varden. At those, all it took was a black dress to get whoever dragged her along off her back, even if she insisted on wearing combat boots with it. 

For a moment she remembered, with some fondness, the first time Fäolin had been forced to join her at a fundraiser in Surda. Teasing him about his slicked back hair, chucking him under the chin to get at the bowtie that was damn near choking him over the starched collar of his borrowed suit. His laugh when she asked him where he had put the backup pistol, her own when he subtly touched the grip of the one strapped to her leg under the dress. “You’re my backup pistol, remember?”

Then it was gone again.

Shaking his head as if his commander were a lost cause, Glenwing peered up from under his brows at the dappled sunlight filtering through the heavy needles above. “Come on. What are you hiding under there?”

“Nothing.” 

The medic closed his eyes with a deep inhale and soft sigh at the deadpan tone, the sharp hint of warning contained in the single word. So it would be like that.

He stopped walking. “Arya.”

“What?” Her momentum had carried her three paces beyond, so she had to stop and turn to him. Her fists were jammed in the pockets of the combat jacket.

“We don’t lie to each other.” He fixed her with that look. The medic look. The look that said ‘I am here to help and if you don’t let me there will be a very difficult road ahead.’ A look that he hadn’t given her for years, decades. 

His heart sank when she cut her eyes away from him. “I don’t…” Arya broke off and rubbed the back of her neck again, fingers digging in roughly. “There’s too much to do. We can worry about it later.”

“You finished the paperwork this morning.” Green eyes slid closed in a quiet, nonverbal curse for telling him that earlier. “You– we –were relieved from guarding Eragon and Saphira days ago, and we won’t be called to that again until they leave. Please.” Movement caught his attention. “Your hands have been shaking since you got back.”

Arya looked down. The tremors had been increasing in frequency since Tarnag. The moments of recall around her wrists always followed their appearance. 

“Arya, you know that I can’t break my oath to you. I can only help you if you allow me. I can’t tell anyone unless you tell me to.” Careful that his approach was seen well before he reached out, Glen touched his commander’s shoulder gently. “I don’t want you to do this alone. I didn’t. I couldn’t.”

And still, she refused to look at him. “You don’t need this on top of everything else.”

“Cut the bullshit.” That got her attention. Glen swore only half as much as the rest of their little squad, and when he did it was usually cause for alarm. No one wanted the man holding their bleeding guts in suddenly swearing out of nowhere. “You’re scared. I understand. And I’m here to help you.”

The accusation made Arya let out a short bark of laughter. At Glen’s raised eyebrow, she merely shook her head, half a twisted grin on her lips. “Ah, Glen. I’m not scared. Nothing really scares me anymore.” Again she let out a short laugh, squinting up into the needles above much like he had and put her hands on her hips. 

He really didn’t expect her explanation. 

“I’ve puked on a shade’s shoes before and lived through the consequences. And I did it again, too. Twice.”

Glenwing stared, bewildered. It took him some seconds to find his words. “...I…I don’t know if you’re joking with me, or if this is your way of saying you’re going to talk about it, or–”

“Oh, I one hundred percent puked on Durza shoes multiple times. That’s one of the things that I like to remember about all that.” Arya was smiling broadly. It didn’t reach her eyes. “If you really want to know,” The smile fell. “I’ll tell you. But later.”

“No.” 

“Glen–”

“I have the file. You know I do.”

Arya closed her eyes in surrender. The file had been sitting on the table for days now, a clear sign to her that he was waiting for her consent to begin the process of unraveling the last nine months. “Yeah.” She inhaled. Smelled wet concrete and tasted copper and iron. Released the breath with a rough sigh. “Okay. Tonight.”

“Tonight.” 

~~~

Glenwing was sitting on the couch with tea already made, file sitting undisturbed on the coffee table, when the door slid open and closed. Relief seeped into his limbs, feeling cold on his left and warm on his right. He hadn't been entirely convinced she was going to show up.

He looked up when she didn’t immediately sit beside him. Arya stood in front of the low table, shoulders tight and fists again firmly shoved in the front pockets of her combat jacket. Every line of her body reflected tension, but her dark eyes glinted with steel when he met her gaze. 

“You sure you wanna do this?” Arya motioned to the file with her chin, sharp and jerky. “It’s a lot less…” She paused, searching for the right word. “Brutal. If you read it from there.”

Glen nodded. He did his best to sound gentle but firm. “I need to hear it from you.” 

Her jaw clenched. “...I don’t know how much I can tell you.”

“Whatever you can. Whatever you want to.” The medic patted the cushion next to him. “We’ll stop whenever you want.” She waited a few more moments. Then, with stiff steps, Arya sat a few feet down the couch. “Take all the time you need.” 

Arya braced her elbows on her knees and leaned over, studying the moss that made up part of the floor of their flat. “I’m not…I’m not ashamed of what happened there.” A shiny backed beetle meandered onto the edge of her boot. She reached down and let it crawl onto her finger, lifted it to examine the iridescence of its carapace. “Hell, I’m proud of what I endured. I don’t know why it's so hard to talk about it like this.” She grinned as the little creature fluttered its hidden wings, the thin sheaves dark in contrast to the elytra’s color. “I’ve joked about it plenty.” 

Glen leaned back. He had his notepad in his hands, rumpled and scuffed and one of the corners charred. “You’ve always preferred deflecting whenever something’s bothering you.”

With a gentle puff of air, Arya encouraged the glittering insect to take flight. They both watched it go, floating to the window where it escaped through the barely open latch. “...Yeah.”

She took a deep breath then, resumed her previous position, and rubbed the flats of her palms together. “I guess I should start from the beginning. 

“That night we were ambushed, when you lost your arm and Fäolin was killed, Durza captured me after I teleported Saphira’s egg.” Again the woman focused her eyes on the ground, watching the miniscule hairs of the moss waver in the near imperceptible movements of air created by the cracked window, her breath, and Glenwing’s breath. Connecting currents that linked everything in the room. “I was in and out, but when I woke up fully I was in a cell under Gil’ead’s keep, their maximum security wing. 

“There were shackles on my wrists. They weren’t connected to anything, so when Durza came in I obviously tried to take his face off.” Half a smirk touched her lips, a tone of bitter pride coloring her words. “So he locked the shackles to the wall. Then I tried to headbutt him when he got too close. So he put me in a chair and locked me to that.”

The woman tilted her head slightly, brow knitted in a hint of confusion. Her braid slid over her shoulder to hang free. “He just…talked to me that time. Sat across from me and told me who he was, gloated about the spells he made to break our wards with just bullets and Urgals at his disposal.” To Glen’s surprise, Arya had an almost wistful, crooked grin when she looked over at him. “You know what he did next?” 

Despite her previous assertion that nothing could really scare her, Glen saw, buried beneath the convoluted and contorted emotions in his friend’s eyes, a glimmer of fear. He shook his head, afraid to break whatever courage was driving her to speak. 

“He asked me, point blank, if I would submit. Asked if I would surrender then and there, knowing the spells he had created, the potential he had, knowing what he was. He told me what awaited me if I did. I would be taken to Urû’baen immediately and presented to Galbatorix. He would receive the information I had to give, take more if he wanted, and then I would be released into his service. I’d swear oaths to him and become his new Forsworn, and used however he saw fit to bring down the Varden, Surda and Du Weldenvarden.” She let out a soft scoff, that pained look still twisting her lips. “I told him ‘no.’ Only word I said to him besides ‘bite me, bitch’ and ‘fuck you’ a few times.” She laughed again, and it sounded desperate, near panicked at the edges. “He just smiled, that fucking smile, and said ‘good.’”

Her own smile gone, Arya dragged a hand down her face, skin going pale as she remembered. “He spent…I don’t know how long. I’ve got no sense of time anymore. He spent what had to be hours just…just telling me what he could do to me. What he would do to me. He paced around and around that stupid fucking chair, grabbed my neck from behind and whispered in my ear the experiments he wanted to try.” 

A shudder passed from the back of her skull to the base of her spine. Arya did her best to focus on the swaths of moss between her boots. Pincushion moss. A bryophyte. They grew it there because it was soft and stayed that way even when the weather turned dry for weeks at a time. 

She could feel his hand gripping the base of her braid, head yanked back against the metal edge of the chair. The way he cupped her throat, thumb pressing just under the joint of her jaw and stroking her skin as she did her best to appear nonchalant. Simply met his gleeful gaze with cold fire in her eyes. She would not look away. 

The elf took a shuddering breath and untangled her fingers from where she had been clenching them together hard enough to leave bruises. “And then…he did. He did all of it and more.” She blinked, willed the floor to return to its green carpet rather than the grey creeping in. “And I fought it. I fought whenever I could. He stopped using the shackles in the cell because my wrists were shredded and I wouldn’t stop fighting them. I don’t know how long it was till I…” Her words caught in her throat. She blinked again. Why was this what made her choke up? “Till I couldn’t fight anymore. 

“He dosed me with Skilna each day, tried to wear me down.” Her lungs hurt at the memory. The time that he had sat on her cot, one leg daintily crossed over the other while he let the poison run its course longer than before. Watched her, that fucking smile plastered on his face, the antidote held in his lap, as she coughed up blood until she couldn’t anymore, as she writhed against the feeling of her bones shattered like crystal glass and the overwhelming, all encompassing fever that turned her veins to molten lead. 

He had wanted her to ask for it. To beg for the antidote. 

She crawled over, every movement triggering more liquid glass to explode within her cells. Grabbed his leg. Saw that triumphant, gleeful grin in the haze above. 

With her last ounce of strength she slipped a finger between his leg and his high, polished boots and deposited a mouthful of blood into the space.

Her gurgling laughter at his disgust made her smile briefly, lost when the noise ended abruptly with a crack and the sound of a tightly gripped, torn throat struggling to breathe. Still. The broken jaw and flail chest had been worth it. And she didn’t even have to ask for the antidote.

“He uh…” Arya cleared her throat, tasted the same blood as he dragged her out of the cell again, fury evident in each step. “He had to change it. To a longer form. One he could trigger at will. I was apparently getting some sort of tolerance.” She could see the pen moving from the corner of her eye. “He couldn’t always be there. Something about reporting to Galbatorix. He told the guards to keep his…his work, going while he was away. Only rule was no blows to the head. Needed the information in my mind unscrambled.”

Glenwing’s pen slowed. He didn’t want to ask the question. He knew she could feel his eyes on her, the way she shifted and raised her laced together hands to her lips. The way she tensed when he put the pen down and leaned toward her to touch two fingers to her forearm. “Arya….”

She refused to look at him. “They didn’t.” Her jaw was clenched. “They…they tried.” One of her hands twitched before the other clamped down on it. She blinked. “One of them…one of them must’ve found some old book somewhere…talked about elf customs or something.” Slowly Glen saw her entire body go tense, muscles locked and coiled to their limit. The first mumbled words of her next admission were lost in the quiet breath that delivered them.  

“...tried to notch my ear.” 

Glen’s blood went cold. The practice was ancient, heralding back to the bonding of the dragons and elves and the…peculiar…additions the dragon’s blood had on elves' practices of coupling. While a gentle bite on the ear of a mate was considered a pact of love, of devotion…a notch was a symbol of bitter solitude. Any elf with a notched ear was considered almost untouchable when it came to love, mating, partnership, acceptance. They were given only for horrific deeds, the slaughter of children, taking an unwilling mate, murder of a partner, and, above all else, for the betrayal of the entire elven race. 

If Durza had learned of this from his men he would have carried it out as the ultimate humiliation, and bound the mark to her body so that no healing could touch the wound. 

It took every ounce of Glenwing’s self control to not seize his best friend’s face and turn her to him, looking for the telltale rift. Instead, he steadied his voice as best he could and managed an only slightly enraged, “They tried?”

“They didn’t manage it.” The words were hollow, the memory of just how close she came to being marked still bouncing in her skull. Unlike the others, this one was…hazy. She could feel the panic in her chest and the many hands forcing her to the ground as she struggled to lift her broken body. They wanted revenge for the men she had…disposed of…after their attempts to take advantage of her weakened state. The cold, cold metal of a set of wire cutters sliding against the side of her head and behind her right ear. 

Then just…relief. Gratitude? And spending time curled under the cot, pressed as tightly against the wall as she could manage until the pale hand dragged her out for another span of agony after a longer than normal gap. 

For some reason the sense of relief sparked warmth that soothed the growing lump in her throat. She pressed her fingers into the spaces between her knuckles, grounded herself in the discomfort as she found sore tendons and protesting connective bands. “Eragon was captured some time after that. I don’t know how long. Adrenaline and pain tablets kept me on my feet long enough to get out with them. Eragon, Saphira and Brom healed what they could and got me awake. The rest you already know.”

Glen picked up his pen again and rolled it between his fingers. “Poison?” He had masked the tremor in his tone, but the rage wasn’t going to fade quite so easy. He wouldn’t press, not now at least. This was enough for one night.

“Right.” Gil’ead retreating from her mind, Arya straightened somewhat and clasped her knees with hands now blooming with fingertip shaped bruises. “Durza activated it. We got through the Hadarac before it caused problems. I might have…had to use the dream state to survive it.” She winced, fully expecting a lecture. 

Instead, Glenwing chewed the end of his pen. “You got out of it.” It was a statement of fact, laced with a hint of assurance that he wasn’t angry. He had taught her how to trigger the dream state for emergencies, and poison was certainly on the qualifying list.

“After a bunch of Tunivor’s Nectar…yeah.” Arya blinked, suddenly remembering another visitor during her half-addled state in Tronjheim’s hospital. “And the Wise One gave me something to pull me out.”

Glen stopped his absentminded chewing, pen dangling from his lips as he shot his commander a look of shock. “She’s back?” The way the stylus bobbed with his words made him look almost comically like Brom with his pipe. 

“Werecat and all.” Arya frowned. “Didn’t I say she’s the one that fixed Eragon’s back?”

“You kind of ignored the recovery period.” 

“Ah.” 

The woman’s bearing had shifted again. Glen saw more anxiety than before, less tension in her limbs as she cut her gaze away again and picked a loose thread by her knee. “Speaking of the recovery period…” 

“I broke the Star Sapphire, injected myself with four full doses of adrenaline to try and stop Eragon’s back from bleeding, overdosed, had several cardiac events, and Vilks put me on strict orders and told me I’d die if I didn’t follow them.” 

‘Ah’ indeed. No wonder she looked nervous. There was nothing that could trigger fear in a lifelong, diehard soldier with nothing else but their deployment than the anger of a very exasperated medic with the power to put them on an indefinite hold.

“You what?!”

Arya had already bolted off the couch, skittering past the coffee table. “Look, I know you’re upset with me for pulling a stunt like that again–”

“FOUR?!” 

She was already down the hall, nearly slingshotting past her room when she grabbed the doorframe. “Just…read the file, Vilks took good notes, I’ll change, just…yeah!”

Torn between fuming and alarmed, Glen grabbed for the file on the coffee table. He swore when his knuckles impacted the side of the wood, the metal leaving a decent dent. Making a mental note to speak to Rhunön about his continued issues of emotional override, he snatched up the packet with his right hand and flipped it open to the tab at the very back.

Vilks’ handwriting still kept its tight scrawl in his advanced age, and after so many years the doctor had perfected the art of short, sweet and to the point in his notes. Possible seizures. Fluid in the lungs, intubation for two hours, O2 mask for six after. Five VTach events before AED applied, unknown number post. Repeated attempts to leave bed before fully aware. Restrained for aprox 10 minutes before reminded of patient history. Energy extremely depleted, side effects of poisoning, imprisonment, poor diet, adrenaline overdose and magic overuse. Given orders of NO MAGIC two weeks, consistent bedrest and sleep (unlikely), multivit 2/d two weeks, recheck two weeks. Warned of consequences. 

A quick note at an angle, dated eleven days after the initial list, added ‘Given consequences after discovered participating in rigorous PT. Patient given icepack for forehead contusion and required to replace hospital clipboard at next possible opportunity.’

Despite his frustration, Glen couldn't help the smile that curled the edges of his lips. ‘Of course.’

“If you’re going to chuck that at me, let me get a head start first.” The medic looked up at his commander’s wry request. She had donned a pair of jogging shorts and a loose tshirt, the standard PT gear of Varden recruits in Fathen Dûr. 

Glenwing snapped the file closed. “I wouldn’t warn you if I was going to throw it, especially after reading that. Let’s sit at the table, better light.” Arya shrugged, thumbs hooked in the small pockets of her shorts, and followed him to sit in the dining area where bright werelights hung above their heads. 

They sat together, bathed in light tinged with the greens that dominated their home away from the Varden. Arya, after a moment of hesitation, placed her forearms on the table, palms down.

The medic resisted sucking his teeth, and instead bit the tip of his tongue as he reached out and gently lifted the woman’s left arm. A swath of scar tissue encircled her wrist, creeping up her hand and palm just slightly before diving down and dipping a concave wrap two inches down her forearm. The right side mirrored the same mutilation, both dark and a mottled red mix of soft ridges and silken patches. With a light touch to the back of her hand and a nod of acquiescence, he turned her palm up to reveal her tendons etched at the surface of her skin, as if locked permanently taut. 

“They’re just like that.” Arya broke the silence. A half hearted shrug tilted her wrist, and the flexor tendons jutted out further. “Tissue’s gone. Tendons just kind of…stand out, I guess.”

Glen hummed in acknowledgement, inwardly swearing at the possible damage that lurked beneath her skin. “Do you have any numbness in your hands or fingers?”

“No. The shaking started when we were around Tarnag. It feels like pins and needles sometimes, but it’s not affected my grip or range of motion.” 

Gently manipulating the joints, Glenwing confirmed her words before picking up his pen and scribbling a note down. “And you didn’t heal these…?”

“I like them.” Arya’s eyes were clear when he snapped his gaze up to hers. 

“Arya, they've got nerve damage. In your hands.” 

At that the woman pulled her hand from his grip and crossed her arms, hiding the dark bands from view. “Can you heal the nerve damage without healing the scars?” 

Glen frowned. “Yes, but–”

“Then we do it that way.” She held him in her gaze for a long moment, waiting for him to acquiesce. “This is my way of taking it back, Glen.” And again, she suddenly cut her eyes away with a quiet mumble.

“What?”

“It helps…” He could see her flex her fingers involuntarily under her arms, gnash her teeth at some unseen jolt. She looked like he did when the phantom pain kicked in unexpectedly, a shock that lingered for minutes or hours. “It helps when I have recall. When…when I touch them it’s like….” The woman fumbled for words, distress building. “He never left scars when he gave me hallucinations.” She gripped the table edge with white knuckles, tilting the chair back slightly. “And when I feel the scars I just…I know I’m not there. It helps bring me back sometimes.” 

Sometimes. Not always.

‘Recall.’ That cursed thing. Sensory recall and elvish memory went hand in hand, making the calling up of emotionally charged memories laden with past sensory detail a normal, if not somewhat uncommon, occurrence among their race. Arya’s had always been strong, bringing back physical touch and involving a majority of the senses for most of her moments of involuntary recall. Glen’s near rivaled hers, built up from the years of war and countless moments where PTSD took hold of the accursed skill, if it could even be called that. They both relived their traumas, ricocheting to the past as the world went on around them, seeing but not seeing.

Every time he thought of the ambush, he smelled the smoke, felt the hot ash and cinders embedding in his clothes and his skin. He could taste blood and pine ash, the grit between his red stained teeth and the excruciating wrong that was the needles and the dirt and bark and ash collecting, sticking to the mangled flesh of his ruined arm. He didn’t always see it, and for that he thanked whatever stars watched over him. That was his only escape. Seeing the metal limb that now dominated his left side, a zing of phantom pain that reminded him that the original limb was long gone…it made coming out of the recall easier. Something to remind him that the past was the past.

Glenwing reached out and, with a feather touch of his mechanical hand, reminded his commander to release the creaking wood of the table. He cupped her scarred knuckles, turned her palm to run a cold thumb over the ghost of a hastily healed burn. 

“I’ll do my best.” He promised. 

A rush of air left Arya’s lungs, a relief she didn't quite realize she needed. An acknowledgement of the scars beyond the cursory looks cast her way under Farthen Dûr, the concerned frown Brom gave them every once in a while. Glenwing understood their purpose, in a way that no one else could. “Thanks.”

Satisfied he could mend some of the frayed nerves, Glen turned to examining the smattering of new scars that littered the woman’s arms. Nothing was particularly egregious, and while several of the straight lines that slid down from beneath the woman’s sleeves looked near surgical, Arya simply told him it was ‘healed fully’ and ‘not a problem.’ Again, he didn't push it.

“Is there more?” Glen took a sip of his now cold tea, making a face before reheating it with a quick word. If this was all that needed checking then he could call himself pleasantly surprised given her previous description. 

Arya paused. “There’s a few on my legs but those were…those were healed. He healed them to the surface at least.” She tried to shake the sudden jolt of seeing steel nubs protruding from her shin, the excruciating ripping, tearing, snapping, as the bone split down its length. All that remained were four pale pink spots in a line from the last time that particular method was used. “Eragon and Saphira healed a scrape on my right leg, but they did well. No complaints there.”

“Uh-huh.” Glen tapped the point of his pen at the upper corner of his paper, resisting the urge to chew on the end again. She wasn’t telling him everything. But it was a start. “Is that it?”

“...No.” Arya sighed and pushed back from the table to stand. “I’m not healing these either, okay?” Her voice was muffled as she tugged her shirt up and over her head. She tossed it into the achingly empty chair across from her and stood clad only in her shorts and sports bra. “Make me look badass.” She turned and pulled her braid over her shoulder, gesturing with a jerked thumb at the expanse of her back. 

Glenwing dropped his pen. “Well. Shit."

“Hey!” Arya whirled to him. She seemed genuinely offended. “Come on, Glen! I survived this shit. You know what that took? I’m fuckin’ proud of these, and I’m not healing them for bullshit vanity.” He didn’t answer. Just stood and put his hands on her shoulders. “What are you–”

And pulled her into another hug.

Arya froze. She could feel the cold metal of his left arm holding her around her shoulder blades, a stark contrast to the warmth of his right hand squeezing around her ribs. Someone was touching her back and he wasn’t recoiling, wasn’t probing, wasn’t hurting. She wasn’t struggling, fighting, desperate to run away. An ache that she didn’t even realize had been tied into the muscles along her spine for months suddenly released, bringing with it a rush of relief and a soothing mix of warm where warm was needed and cool where cool was needed. 

“Don’t lie to me.” Glen murmured in her ear, his voice catching. “You tried.”

Arya squeezed her eyes shut. 

The day after Vilks cleared her for magic use. Checking the multitude of scars that covered her back and criss-crossed her skin with burns, cuts, hills and valleys of hypertrophic and concave bands. The visible slide of muscle where the layers above had been carved away. There was space between them, yes. But all she could see was the red, pink and silver of lingering damage made physical and, above all else, undeniable. She looked…she looked almost broken.

She had tried to heal them. And found herself scrabbling, clawing, writhing on the floor of that stupid little bathroom, choking back a scream of unimaginable pain as the nerves in her back exploded in protest. Everything she had endured, condensed and dripped in a steady, maddening flow along each pathway, electric and burning and pain. Once again it was all that existed for her in that moment, an extended second that encompassed months and months of time she could not begin to grasp nor understand the passage of. 

She ripped away from the magic and lay, panting, on that stupid, stupid bathroom floor. Blood steadily streamed from her forehead to the tiles where she had cracked it on the stone, trying to breathe through the lingering aftershocks and remembering the spells that he had used to the same result. Felt, deep in her chest, an interwoven pity and horror for Eragon and the new hell he was beginning to endure. She couldn’t heal herself. And she couldn’t heal him. Magic wouldn't erase these wounds.

Arya reached up and grabbed onto Glenwing, clutched at the loose folds of his shirt under his shoulder blades as if he were her last hope against drowning. “They’re…” She shivered, pressed her forehead to his shoulder. She had decided already, that day back in Tronjheim, that if she couldn’t remove them then she would wear them as a badge of pride. She wasn’t broken. She couldn’t be. They were the proof. “I’m…. I beat them. I beat him.”

Glenwing didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. He knew, and she knew as well. They’d weather it just as they always did, together and steadfast and strong against the push of everyone else. So they had scars. That didn’t mean they were lost, or broken, or could be cast aside as soldiers who had long passed their expiration date. Fifty years, seventy in her case, was a long, long time to fight.  

They’d just have to keep fighting.

They wouldn’t have it any other way.

#eragon #inheritance cycle #the cyclists #the inheritance cycle #Ket's Modern Inheritance Cycle #modern inheritance stories #modern inheritance #arya #arya (inheritance) #arya drottingu #glenwing #ptsd #eldest #recall #look we got more lore and stuff for elf things #iunno it's your usual MIC fic with flashbacks and ptsd and trauma #quite possibly the longest fic we have so far actually

[monstersandmaw]

Dragon Heart

Disclaimer which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

___

This is a bit different from my usual romance stories, and it came about because I saw a sponsored post on Ye Olde Instagram for a writing competition endorsed by Christopher Paolini (of Eragon fame). Unfortunately, it required a Vocal+ subscription and a Stripe account, neither of which I was prepared to set up for a writing competition, but I enjoyed the prompt and wanted to write it anyway. So, here it is.

Prompt: A grown dragon finds a lost — or abandoned — toddler in the forest. Write a fiction story about what happens next. Wordcount up to 5000 words.

It was not a morning for wandering about.

A choking mizzle shrouded the last fiery leaves of autumn, dousing their colour from bright copper to muddy brown, and gusts of wind chased the leaves from the branches like rabbits scattering before the snapping jaws of a wolf. Winter was getting ready to descend on the valley, and it was not a morning for taking a wander.

Still, he was hungry, and the deer would certainly be preoccupied at this time of year, forgetting all about their own safety in favour of all things amorous, so he had stretched his leathery, red-gold wings and beat at the air a few times before emerging from the warm belly of his mountain home to hunt in the valley below. Simply for the joy of it though, he flew up and up, pressing through the billowing layer of cloud until he broke through into he cold, clear blue of the aether above. An elegant barrel roll took him spearing back down through the fluffy, grey blanket wrapped around the world like sheep’s wool, and he left his ancient home behind.

The pillars of the dragon roost, the building that had been carved from the mountain itself by a people who no longer existed, could be seen from below on a fine day for fifty miles. His particular mountain was the vanguard in a battle-line of peaks that rose from the grassy river plain, with its slopes painted year round with oak and ash, beech, aspen, and birch which all set themselves ablaze each autumn with a riot of reds and gold that far outmatched the flames he was capable of creating.

Contrary to the ridiculous bards’ tales, he didn’t hunt with a great and gaudy gout of flame, and since he wasn’t as large as the dragons of legend, he could perfectly easily pluck a single deer from the grassy meadows beside the river, leaving only the ruffled grasses and an abruptly-ended trail of hoof prints as witness that he’d ever passed by.

That day of all days, he should simply have returned to his mountain after eating his fill of the local wildlife to curl into a cosy ball and sleep for at least a week, but he was a little thirsty, and the river was clear and the water sweet with eelgrass and late-blooming weeds.

Cupping his jaw through it like a beaker through a bowl of pale wine, he savoured the freshness. He could taste the last of the snow melt from his own mountain range in the valley’s clear water.

Just as the aspens and birch along the banks shivered at the thought of the snow that would soon be piling up in the foothills and mountains around the deciduous forest, he caught a soft mewling on the breeze.

With a frown, he raised his head, water dripping from his spine-studded jaws to splash and sparkle into the fast trout stream that flowed on heedlessly around his submerged feet. He cocked his head and turned, trying to catch the sound again. It was the wrong time of year for younglings of any species: the deer would fill the meadows with their wobble-legged fawns in the spring, and the wolves and bears would whelp over the winter in the secure privacy of warm dens while insulating snow piled up outside, and yet, that had certainly been the cry of something small and vulnerable and… frightened.

He caught it again and honed in on the sound, raising his snout and snuffing the air.

Human. The tiny creature was… human?

The long grasses, now thatched and tired and leached of all their nutrients by the blasting summer sun, swayed around him while he stood motionless, listening. The drizzle turned to a steady, sheeting rain, and the child’s whimpering became a yowling that made his heart crack to hear.

Nothing on earth should sound so hurt and so afraid.

With the cold water sluicing around his legs, he waded through the wide, rocky stream and came out on the other side, mindful where he put his feet in case he stepped on the child. Swaying his head from side to side, he followed the scent and kept his golden eyes wide for it, rumbling softly the way a dragon would to its hatchlings.

There, on the very edge of the clearing, he found it.

Wet, bedraggled, mud-streaked, and terribly cold, the child was kneeling in a puddle where it had presumably toppled over, with muddy hands splayed wide and half its face caked in mud, and big, fat tears in its round eyes.

When it spotted him, those eyes somehow got even wider, and it stared transfixed at him with its tiny mouth softly open. He lay down on his belly, bringing his chin to the ground, and exhaled softly.

He had no idea how to comfort a human. He had no idea how to care for a human. He’d never met a human, and until then, had had no desire to.

The nearest settlement was a two-day flight across the forest, even for him, but the Great Road wound through these mountains, and it was not uncommon for travellers to get lost from time to time. Perhaps that was how this little one had come to be here. Had it bounced off the back of a waggon like a forgotten apple? Could humans really be so careless with their children?

The child — he really had no idea how old it was or how quickly humans grew — levered itself up on unsteady arms until it was standing like a dog on all fours, with its bottom towarrds the sky, and he tried not to laugh in case he scared it more. It did look funny though. Then, determinedly, it furrowed its little brows, straightened, wobbled, and then toddled towards him.

When it was standing right in front of his nose, it put impossibly tiny hands just below his nostrils, and, as he exhaled again, it laughed.

The dragon blinked. The sound was like the first notes of spring after a slumbering, cold winter. The last remnants of tears in its reddened eyes slid down through the mud on its fat little cheeks, and it giggled. It tugged and pulled harmlessly at his soft-scaled nostrils, and experimentally, he huffed a short, hot breath at it. With a shriek of delight that dissolved into more bubbling giggles, the child patted him and drummed its little palms against the pale gold scales of his snout until he did it again.

After a while, the child began to shake and grumble though, and even the short-lived amusement of its new discovery was not enough to keep the tears of discomfort away, and it began to cry again.

“You must be hungry too, little one,” he sighed, though to a human it would have sounded like little more than a growling rumble of senseless syllables.

The dragon frowned, pushed himself upright, and reached his hand out for the child. Holding his clawed fingers open, he let the child climb boldly into his palm, and he walked on three legs back towards the stream. It didn’t take very long to clean the mud off its face, and then he headed towards the stone road that snaked through the land from Caerlon in the north to White Haven in the south. Someone would come along soon, and if they didn’t skewer the dragon on sight, they might take the child and care for it.

Curling his body up in the grassy meadow at the side of the road, he raised one wing like a tent over the child and let it curl up in his hand, his claws cradling it. There was no safer place to rest than beneath the arching roof of ivory talons and leathery wing, and, with his breath and the radiating heat from his chest to keep it warm, the child slept.

He rested his head on the road and waited.

Somewhere behind the ceiling of grey cloud that masked the heavens and continued to lash rain down on the forest, an intangible sun wheeled slowly through the sky, but the only life that emerged from the forest all day was a dog fox who gave them a wide berth, and a small group of skittish deer.

The tip of his tail tapped a tattoo on the road, only matched by the drum of the rain and the boom of the thunder beyond, and still the child slept.

He wondered how long it had been out there alone, and how on earth it had reached that meadow in the first place.

Finally, late in the afternoon, he heard a distant, desperate shout. A woman’s voice, high and frantic and cracking with desperate grief, yelled a name.

She staggered around a curve in the stone road, out of a stand of pale birch some way off, and he blinked, focusing on her as he came out of his half-doze.

She had the same colours in her hair and skin as did the child, and she wore a patched and faded woollen dress that had once been brightly dyed in yellow and gold with weld and madder, and an undyed apron was tied around her middle that was stained and ripped. She had mud up the hem of the dress, and her boots looked sturdy but waterlogged. At her belt hung a long knife and a leather pouch, and keeping her hair out of her eyes was a small band of undyed cloth.

She covered her mouth with her hands when she saw the dragon lying across the road, and when he extended his hand, slowly so as not to disturb the child, and retracted his clawed fingers to reveal its sleeping form, she screamed.

Her knees went out from under her and she bowed her head, sobbing.

Was she not pleased to have found her child? He rumbled in confusion, the sound carrying along the road like a distant shock wave, and she snapped her head up. He nudged his hand a little further towards her and chuffed. The sound woke the child and it squirmed and sat up, rubbing its eyes.

She called a name, and even at that distance, the child recognised its mother’s call. Floundering in its exhaustion, the little one wriggled out between his fingers and tottered along the road for only a few steps before it staggered and tripped.

He sighed and with the flash of his hand, he caught it with a huge curved claw around its middle and steadied it, setting it upright again before it scuffed its knees and hands on the road. Deciding it would be easier if he just took the child to the mother, he scooped it up with that same, hooked talon, and the child dangled and laughed, beating its hands against the ivory claw in amusement. The mother looked on in horror, but she stayed where she was as the dragon lowered the child down in front of her.

She blinked and took the child with numb, cold hands, crooning its name and caressing it with her cheek the way all mothers from wolf to eagle would claim their child, and he couldn't help the happy rumble that left him.

“Thank you,” she rasped, child hooked securely on her hip. “Thank you. You saved him. I don’t know if you can understand me, but thank you.”

He inclined his head and the child reached grabbing hands for him once more. Nosing carefully towards the little one, he exhaled slowly, and the child laughed.

It was the unexpected touch from the mother that surprised him though.

She pressed her palm to his snout, right between his nostrils, and placed a tear-stained kiss there.

The world flashed white for just a moment, and he froze.

He knew the stories and the songs.

All dragons knew them.

For generations, dragonlings had listened to their parents speak ancient rhymes of former friendship, and warnings of the enmity which had come to lie between two species that had once been so close that dragon roosts had been incorporated into the very architecture of the ancient cities. His own home was testament to that. From coast to mountain, grassland to tundra, forest and marsh, those rare dragons had bonded to humans and together they had ruled the whole world.

In days long since, and days long past,

When human heart joined dragon fast;

No bond was closer than these two,

Who on wide wings together flew.

Through touch and mind they spoke as one,

But now those days are spent and done.

Beware the spear! Beware the bow!

Beware the death that lives below!

But those were only legends; songs and stories used to warn dragons to stay far away from the humans who had turned on them, and in so doing, had brought about the ruin of their once-great empire.

And yet…

He opened his eyes to find the woman staring at him aghast.

“What…? What just happened?” She looked so tired, but now her breath was coming in shallow, fast gasps, her body shaking. The child in her arms squirmed and fidgeted.

He rumbled quietly and opened his mouth, wondering if… “I mean you know harm,” he said, and she reeled back a pace or two.

“You can… talk?”

“All animals can talk,” he said. “Humans just cannot understand what they’re saying. And some have more interesting things to say than others. Crickets, for one, sing the most wonderful poetry, but eagles are far too full of themselves to have anything interesting to say.”

She covered her mouth with her spare hand and he thought she might pass out at any moment. “I never thought there would be… a dragon out here…” she hissed. “You’re supposed to be… extinct.”

“You are a long way from the nearest town,” he said, stretching out his wing to cover her, though it was already a little late for that. The forest had provided very little protection from the worsening weather during her search, and she was soaked through. “May I ask what you are doing all the way out here?”

She rolled her lovely eyes and her shoulders dropped, spine sagging. “I’ve lost everything,” she whispered. “I lost my job — I used to work as a scullery maid in the city, but when I had this little one —” she jostled the child gently and he burbled into her collar “— I was let go. I couldn’t even afford to rent a room, so I left Caerlon and travelled south before the winter set in. My sister’s married to a merchant in White Harbour. I was robbed for what little I had about ten miles back, and…” she finally broke down, head bowing under the weight of her strain. “I’ve got nothing,” she choked. “Then this one ran off while I was sleeping, and I’ve been looking for him for hours. Thank you for finding him. He’s… He’s the most precious thing in my life, and he’s all I’ve got left.”

“Now you have me,” the dragon said quietly and watched her face go from desperation to confusion.

“I… I don’t understand…”

He sighed. “When you touched me just then, did you feel something?”

Faintly, she nodded.

“Do you know the stories of the ones they called the Dragon Hearts?”

For a moment, she just continued to frown, but as some distant, long-forgotten kernel of memory unfurled in her mind, she laughed. “Those are just… fables…” she said. “No?”

“No. Dragon Hearts are as real as they ever were, though our two species almost never meet these days, and with good reason. We must be the first dragon and the first human to meet amicably in a thousand years.”

“I find out dragons are real on the same day I find out I’m some kind of mythical dragon rider?”

“You can understand me, can you not?” he said wryly, and when she simply stood there on the road in her sodden clothes beneath the shelter of his wing, he laughed quietly. “If there were another human here — aside from your young son of course — they would not be able to understand my speech. I am yours, human, as you are mine.”

“What… What does that mean?”

What did it mean?

A thousand years ago, it would have elevated her to a noble class of human and given her power and standing and wealth beyond the dreams of mortal men, but now, when dragons were still occasionally hunted for sport and working women who birthed children were dismissed from their posts…

“It means whatever you wish it to mean,” he said at last. “I have a warm home in the mountains. I guard an ancient hoard, as most of my remaining kin do, and you may find shelter and protection there for as long as you wish.” He blinked and watched that sink in. “I can fly you to the edge of the forest when you and your child have recovered your strength, and you may go about your life as if you had never met me.” Even saying it hurt him, but he would not let her think she had no choice.

She stood there and the child began to fuss and cry. “Shh, love,” she said, jogging him gently up and down, but it had little effect. “Do you… have food a human could eat?” she asked.

“If you don’t mind preparing it yourself,” he said. “Alas, my hands may be delicate enough to hold a child, but I fear I was not made for the careful preparation of food…”

She looked a little faint, but she nodded. “You swear we will be free to leave whenever we like?”

He sat back and brought his right hand to his heart, bowing his head. “I swear on my sacred fire,” he said, letting the scales on his belly and chest glow from the embers within him like a flame behind an alabaster carving. “On my life and on my soul. I will protect you and care for you both all the while you choose to stay with me, and when you wish to leave, I will take you safely wherever you wish to go.”

“Alright,” she nodded at last. “I’ll go with you.”

“We have no saddle or tack for me,” he said with a low, rumbling laugh. There was a dragon rider’s saddle among his hoard though, and his heart skipped a beat at the thought of perhaps wearing it one day with her. He chose to keep that to himself for the time being. “And I worry that you and your child are too tired to ride on my back. Will you let me carry you in my hands? The flight is not long, but I fear you will be cold.”

The child laughed all the way from meadow to mountaintop, and while the mother was quiet, he suspected she was not afraid.

She has a dragon’s heart after all, he mused as he glanced down.

He set them down on the stone promontory outside the carved entrance to his home and let them take it in. The rain had stopped and mist now raked its white fingers through the trees below, and she turned to look at him with a tiny spark in her eyes. “This is wonderful…”

His heart soared.

“I… I was expecting a cave, but…” she turned to take in the intricate patterns wrought in the stonework. “It’s like a city…”

“Wait til I show you the rest,” he said. “There are stairways and passages, small places I cannot go, but you are free to explore. Come…” and with that he folded his wings tightly against his body and walked through the archway, and for the first time in his life, he was not alone.

___

Hope you enjoyed it! If you did, perhaps you’d consider reblogging to help authors like me out? I’d love to hear your reaction to it as well, so feel free to leave a comment or send me an ask too!

Masterlist | Ko-fi (tip jar)

#dragon #dragon rider #writing competition #christopher paolini #dragons #fantasy writing #fantasy short story #fantasy story

[where-dreamers-go]

Could I have a reaction post for Eragon, please?

One where the reader is plus size, and when Eragons family and friends (Roran, Katrina and their baby, along with Arya and Nasuada) come visit over the summer, they feel very self conscious when they go swimming together?

"Summer Side" Eragon x plus size! Reader

(A/N: Hi there! It’s interesting to me how I always write these Eragon Reactions differently. And how BSB lyrics showed up out of nowhere??

Word Count: 303 words)

Summer sunshine and warm breezes. Eragon could thrive in the middle of it all while eating berries. For however long it would last, he did not bask in the season alone. The Dragon Rider had you.

Yet that summer was incredibly different and special. Almost all of his friends and family were together in one place. Quite rare.

How lucky could he be?

And even with all his smiles as his cousin Roran splashed Katrina and their child, Eragon sensed something was off by the calm river.

You sat off to the side on the bank watching everyone; Nasuada and Arya included. Only your feet had gotten wet. Quite unlike you to not be enjoying the refreshing water.

Eragon certainly delighted in seeing you have fun.

So the Rider went to investigate.

“Are you frowning?” Eragon inquired as he kneeled beside you.

“Probably.” You crossed your arms under your chest, covering yourself.

“Did anything happen?” He asked quietly.

“No.”

“Then, why are you uncomfortable sitting here?” He countered gently. “Did someone say something to you?”

“No…I,” you sighed in frustration. “I’m so different compared to everyone.”

“We are all different. Very different. Why should that bother you?”

“They look and are in fighting shape. I’m different.” You hugged your arms around yourself a little tighter.

Promptly sitting down, Eragon frowned.

“Do you understand?” You asked.

“Yes.” He reluctantly answered. “But I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I.”

Eragon hooked one of his fingers with one of yours gripping your side. He held tight in the tiny gesture.

“I can not stop you from being uncomfortable about yourself while comparing yourself to others, but I can tell you that what makes you different makes you beautiful.”

Moving your fingers, you squeezed his hand.

“I’ll be here to remind you whenever you need it.”

~~~

(If you love my writings and want to support me, I have a Ko-Fi where you can buy me a coffee. I would be eternally grateful.

Best wishes and happy reading.)

~~~~~

DreamerDragon Tags: 

Inheritance Cycle Tags: @shewhobreathesfire @

**Let me know if you would like to be tagged in insert readers, either through replies, ask, or message.**

#eragon reaction #eragon x reader #requested #eragon shadeslayer #where dreamers go #the world of eragon #the inheritance cycle #eragon #plus size reader

[breannasfluff]

20 questions for fic writers

Thanks for the tag @baileyboo2016

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 187

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 797,240

3. What fandoms do you write for? LoZ/LU currently. In the past it's been Encanto or some oneoffs for other fandoms.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Eldritch Echoes (LU) A Cat Called Dream (The Sandman) Gerudo Town (LU) Animal Sounds (LU) Ranch Ruins (LU)

5. Do you respond to comments? All of them, except the past couple months! I've gotten pretty burnt out on writing period and needed a little break.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angsty-est ending? A Little Time to Kil

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Linked Moments, maybe? For a long story. Otherwise, just about any of the flufftober ones.

8. Do you get hate on fics? No

9. Do you write smut? Nope

10. Do you write crossovers? No

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Nope

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes, someone started translating my Sandman one.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Nope. I'll bounce ideas with people, but not really interesting in co-writing.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? Ravioli, of course

15. What’s the wip you wanna finish but probably never will? That doesn't exist. I'll finish it even if I don't like it.

16. What are your writing strengths? Dialogue flow and relationships

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Sticking to my strengths with character choice and fluff. I do try to branch out more to keep from getting stuck. At the end of the day, though, my writing is free so I might as well do what I want to do, not what everyone else wants. At least...that's the goal, haha.

18. Thoughts in writing dialogue in another language? I learned more Spanish doing this for Encanto than I ever knew before XD

19. First fandom you wrote for? Oh jeez...Eragon, maybe?

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written? uhhh probably a ravioli WB story? There's too many to pick off the top of my head ><

Restarting as the other post was getting long. Tagging @dark-angel-of-muses, @marcusdoodlesalot, @a-manicured-lawn

#tag game #fanfiction #fanfic writing

[zumurruds]

Choose violence ask game: 3, 4 & 9… for tic

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

oh god there are so many, and it's been a while...

people who label eragon as "creepy" for his pursuit of arya, often overlooking the context of his actions.

yes, the writing was cringy as hell, but his attempts at courting arya were not predatory or malicious; they stemmed from him being a sixteen year old with genuine affection and a desire to express his feelings. his interactions with arya were limited, including a simple compliment in a garden and an incident where oromis exposed his feelings through a magical fairth without his consent and without eragon meaning to create it. additionally, eragon's behavior while intoxicated with magic during the agaetí blödhren was not representative of his normal self, and he later expressed regret for his actions. arya not only accepted his apologies but also continued their friendship.

people who argue that arya only sees eragon as a friend and deny any romantic subtext in their relationship, failing to grasp its nuances.

people who misrepresent arya and eragon's age gap.

eragon is considered an adult in his medieval human society at sixteen, where individuals of his age were already taking on adult responsibilities such as marriage, parenthood, and ruling. arya, despite being older, is still considered a child by elven standards. elves mature at a slower rate than humans, so making direct comparisons between their ages is inaccurate and misleading. arya isn't a 100 year old human woman, she's a rebellious teenage elf. comparing their ages to those of different species, like dogs and cats versus humans, helps illustrate this disparity more accurately.

it's important to remember the unique context of their ages within their respective races. by the conclusion of the series, eragon has significantly caught up to arya in terms of experience and maturity. his journey, encompassing growing up amidst war, undergoing a transformation into an elf-human hybrid, living as a fugitive, and delving into the politics of various nations, has profoundly shaped him. through his travels to diverse regions and exposure to different cultures, as well as inheriting the collective memory of the dragons, eragon has undergone immense personal growth and development. this growth has closed the gap between himself and arya in terms of life experience and maturity, establishing them as equals, as paolini intended.

sympathizing with morzan and painting selena as the abusive figure in their relationship. (yes, i have seen this, and it was awful.)

people disagreeing with paolini's statement that eragon inherited his mother's instinct to constantly debate the morality of her actions, but have no issues with comparisons made between brom and eragon, even though eragon wasn't raised by him either. just say you hate selena and go!

depicting faolin as arya's first love or mate. paolini said they had a relationship of convenience, and that neither faolin or arya shared their true name with each other in the twenty years they were together, indicating a lack of mutual trust and intimacy. paolini also said arya didn't give faolin her true name because he wasn't soulmate material, implying eragon was. sis couldn't even say she loved faolin in brisingr, she skirted around the issue and called him a friend, so it strikes me as funny that people think faolin was the great love of her life when in reality he was a warm body in an otherwise foreign war-torn country.

i don't think tic is revolutionary or doing anything particularly amazing in terms of representation, be it poc representation or female representation, and gets far more credit than it deserves.

4. what was the last straw that made you block that annoying person

it was a few people who had particularly bad takes about characters i liked, and kept spamming the tag with asks and long posts that weren't hidden behind cuts or tagged for tumblr savior.

9. worst part of canon

the writing.

arya being allowed to become both rider and queen.

the omission of selena's significance from the narrative and her portrayal as a mere prize for brom's actions.

katrina being a non-character who exists only to fuel roran's story and character.

the lack of planning and outlining of arya and eragon's relationship was evident, resulting in a clumsy, unsatisfying, and poorly executed romance that spanned four books yet ultimately led nowhere.

the lack of onscreen development for all romances: roran and katrina's relationship feels static, as it predates the events of the books and receives little exploration. murtagh and nasuada's romance is entirely offscreen, leaving readers disconnected from their dynamic. as for arya and eragon, their relationship suffers from inconsistent writing and execution, fluctuating unpredictably throughout the series. overall, the lack of onscreen development for these romances undermines their depth and leaves much to be desired in terms of emotional investment from the audience.

disappointment with the one-dimensional portrayal of galbatorix, morzan, and the forsworn despite paolini's saying he doesn't write cardboard villains.

wanting more exploration of murtagh and eragon's relationship and closure, especially regarding their parents.

lack of scenes or details on elva and eragon's training and bonding in tftwtw which was prime material for their ongoing rocky relationship arc.

paolini's tendency to prioritize action over character study and relationship depth.

writing arya as a stereotypical "strong, independent woman" who must sacrifice love for duty, and cannot have both.

#the inheritance cycle #eragon #choose violence game

[n0rmandysr1]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

Tagged by @natsora cheers!

Tagging @swaps55 @mallaidhsomo @gardensystemtv no pressure!

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

24

2. what’s your total ao3 word count?

903,419

3. what fandoms do you write for?

Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Baldur's Gate, Critical Role

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

wipe me clean with dirty hands (Baldur's Gate)

Encroachment (Mass Effect)

Fianchetto (Mass Effect)

Vendetta (Mass Effect)

Offside (Critical Role)

5. do you respond to comments?

Always, but it sometimes takes me a while

6. what’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

don't you know (i dream of you): Perfect Machine is probably angstier but I haven't quite finished the last chapter, so of my finished fics, this one is it, given the character death and it all being about grief post Baldur's Gate 3.

7. what’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Honestly my fics with happy endings aren't finished yet and they're more...bittersweet with explorations of trauma than straight up happy lmaoo.

8. do you get hate on fics?

I've gotten some weird comments before but honestly not really a lot of hate. Juust a few that crack me up like the person who thought i hate men because Emilia saves Kaidan in Encroachment...which canonically happens.......

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind?

BG3 has made me write much more smut than I used to. Used to be an occasionally thing but more often now. All wlw pretty much.

10. do you write crossovers? what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Not really, no.

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of!

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

Yep. One of my DA fics got translated into russian

13. have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, I co-write with a couple of buddies.

14. what’s your all-time favorite ship?

Hard question. Used to be Ash/femshep easily, but now probably a tie between Tav/Karlach and Ash/Shep

15. what’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Hmm, I think I have intention and capability to ifnish the majority of my WIPs. The only onee that might fit ismy post war ME fic, mostly cause I'm not entirely sure what I really want to do with it outside of some ideas I want to explore.

16. what are your writing strengths?

Characters and combat

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

Description sometimes of like, surroundings and that stuff. I find character stuff more interesting so can sometimes be a bit too bare bones with that.

18. thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Nah. II do one off words sometimes but if a character is speaking in another lanmguage I'll usually write it in english with mention that they;re talking in another language.

19. first fandom you wrote for?

Eragon llmao. That was my mediocre book series I loved as a teenager what can I say.

20. favorite fic you’ve ever written?

I have a big soft spot for Encroachment. it was the first big fic I finished, it was born out of me wanting to see the ash/shep milscifii fic I wanted in the world. I've gotten some very loyal readers over the last six years I appreciate immensely.

#tag meme

[imaginethatneathuh]

I've just started getting into Eragon (the first book of The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini) and I was informed that I should post my opinions as I read by @archangelsunited so that's what I'mma do.

Oh, and I haven't read or watched anything related to the series prior to properly starting Eragon. I have recently been reading some stuff on Tumblr.

Spoilers ahead.

I'm at the point where Eragon is waking up in the healer's hut after he passed out dragging his uncle Garrow to town (Carvahall) and I've got some opinions on what's happened so far.

First off, I read the prologue and it really introduces us to the world well. It's obvious that something's not right with this Shade going after a group of elves. Also, the Shade's treatment of the Urgals, despite their garish appearance, let's us, the readers, know that the Shade is bad news and the Urgals don't want to be doing this. The Shade using them as tools and discarding them like they're nothing makes us immediately sympathetic to the Urgals based on word choice and actions taken. Paolini's introduction to the world this way was fantastic. It definitely gives the feel of "the world isn't black and white" and it introduces us to the idea of mind/body control which is neat.

Second of all, Eragon, the person, is very intelligent for being so young. He obviously has a good understanding of how the forest works, he's smart enough to know to try and get rid of the stone (or egg as we find out later), and he knows to ask questions to people he knows are more or less trustworthy (aka Brom with the dragon questions). Eragon doesn't immediately think he knows everything about dragons based on what stories he's heard from spotty sources. He's smart enough to know that there's someone out there that knows more. That's what I can see so far, anyway. Despite this, he's also 100% a 15-year-old kid and acts like it. He has moments of 15 y/o-ishness like when he's upset that Roran is leaving and when he goes to talk to Roran but doesn't out of spite. That is a 15 y/o move. I should know; I did it when I was that age, too.

Third off, Saphira is a child. Like, literally, she acts like an impulsive child that doesn't think twice about what she's doing. I get it, she wants to protect Eragon and she probably has some trauma, but it's obvious that Eragon wanted to get to Garrow and warn him about what's going on and the dangers he's in but Saphira didn't give Eragon that choice or really any at all. It's frustrating. Also, she full well knew that Eragon didn't have any dragon-related training and yet still flew off with him when he was trying to calm her down. It's like she wasn't thinking at all about the ramifications of her actions and moving purely on instinct. She's young and that really shows. And, yes, there was that whole thing with the bird of prey but that felt weird and out of place.

Also, I really like the other characters. Yes, even Sloan. By that, I mean I like them as characters. Sloan, as a person, I despise. He's an awful, spiteful man that I would fist fight if I could. Horst is awesome though, same with Katrina. Roran is awesome so far and I really get why he left even if I do feel bad for Eragon. Garrow is a hardass and I like it. Good dude. Gertrude, Carvahall's healer, is also pretty cool. I don't like the Shade from the prologue. Don't know enough about the elves to have an opinion yet. Same with Brom. I've already talked about Saphira, who I do like (ish), and Eragon, who I also like and understand (mostly).

Overall, I like the story so far. It's entertaining and things follow each other well. The pacing seems okay so far. Lots of flowery words but they do help define the world well. I have no idea how to pronounce anything but that's fine.

So, yeah, that's what I think so far. Now I gotta go read some more.

#the inheritance cycle #inheritance cycle #eragon #saphira #first reaction #my thoughts

[allylikethecat]

Writing asks I came up with:

1. What got you into writing fanfic in the first place?

2. What boundaries would you not cross as a writer regarding content?

3. Has a fic ever made you cry? And if so, what was it about that fic?

4. How do you feel about abandoning fics?

5. Are there any novel authors you like that have influenced your writing style?

YAY!! Asks!! Thank you so much for coming up with these! Get exciting for me to ramble and overshare (but do you expect anything less?!)

What got you into writing fanfic in the first place?

I have been writing fanfic since before I was even old enough to know what it really was. I was always day dreaming and drawing pictures inserting my own characters into my favorite stories, or forcing my favorite characters into my own situations (my mother used to transcribe the adventures of various Disney princess for me lol) the first *real* fanfiction I remember writing was in 5th grade for the book Eragon. My childhood best friend and I had a red spiral bound notebook that we passed back and forth and wrote our fic in. In terms of The 1975- I've been a fan of theirs since the Robbers music video started showing up on my Tumblr dash back in like 2014? (I couldn't figure out who I wanted to be more... Matty or the Robbers girl and years later I still in fact do not have an answer for that one lol) And I realized they were the same band that sang the song Chocolate. However, I didn't start posting my writing for them until last year when I was Going Through It™️ and my Bestie encouraged me to use it as an outlet (sorry Fictional!Matty! that's why your life sucks!)

2. What boundaries would you not cross as a writer regarding content?

I don't think I've actually killed off any *main* character or public figure yet and I can't actually see myself doing that? At least in something that I post for public consumption? Honestly that could change though. I don't really have any boundaries I'm not willing to cross because I am a firm believer that fanfiction is still considered art and art is supposed to make someone feel something and even make them uncomfortable. I actually have a fic that I've been working on that I'm hesitant to share because I'm not sure boundaries exist and I don't want to offend anyone (again) 😂

3. Has a fic ever made you cry? And if so, what was it about that fic?

This question isn't fair. I am a cryer, everything makes me cry. I started crying the other day because I love my horse so much (he's totally fine he was just looking super cute and was all happy I brought him carrots.) So yes, lots of fics have made me cry. Anything that I read that I can tell the author poured their heart into writing is honestly going to make me at least tear up and I am not ashamed to admit it. That's why I don't wear mascara on my lower lashes and only wear waterproof eyeliner 😂

4. How do you feel about abandoning fics?

I've only officially done it once, for a Hockey RPF fic that I just, wasn't enjoying working on. Everything else is just on "Hiatus" until I remember it exists again even if it takes years. I don't consider myself a quitter and abandoning a fic that I've started posting kind of breaks my soul. HOWEVER I do have a folder on my Google Drive that's just a graveyard of abandoned and half finished fics that I never posted that I go and visit sometimes.

5. Are there any novel authors you like that have influenced your writing style?

Yes! For sure 100%. However, I am currently sitting here going "I have never read a book before in my life" which is obviously a bold face lie you should see my GoodReads page but not really because there is a ton of my real life personal information on it lol Even though he's not (technically) a novelist (even though he did write a book!) can I say Pete Wentz? He's probably one of the writers I look up to the most. The way he bends words to pen lyrics just... scratch an itch in my brain and I hope I can one day make someone feel the way Fall Out Boy lyrics make me feel and I 100% feel like the flowery way he writes has influenced my to some capacity.

Thank you so much for sending these in! It was fun!

❤️Ally

#allylikethecat #ask ally #anon ask #fanfiction #keep it kind #matty fic #questions #answers #sorry for writing you a tiny novel lol #i hope it makes sense!

[saphira-approves]

Okay so I finished Murtagh last night and I think I’m just going to put a lot of my slightly more coherent general thoughts here under a readmore. Spoilers ahead! Beware!

Right off the bat I want to bring us back to The Fork, The Witch, and The Worm. Not to Essie (although reliving that encounter from Murtagh’s perspective was EXQUISITE), but to Eragon, because the thing I love most about that story is that Eragon is glad to see his brother, even from afar, and is glad to see he’s alright, and hopes that Murtagh will one day join him at Mt. Arngor. We’ve talked recently on the blog about ill feelings and condemnation towards Murtagh during the war, especially on Eragon’s part, but the ending of The Fork makes it clear that—while I would love to see Eragon acknowledge and work through them—Eragon no longer holds those feelings, and in fact really wants the chance to reconnect with his brother and his friend, because he loved him like a brother before he even knew they were related, and after everything that’s happened, he loves him still—even if Murtagh is going to have some trouble believing or internalizing it.

And so I present the theme of this initial reading response: Murtagh is so, so loved, to an extent that he does not fully realize. He knows that Thorn loves him, obviously, but I believe it’s significant that—even though he has some Complicated™️ thoughts about Selena and harbors resentment towards her for, in his mind, choosing Eragon over himself—the memories of her that we actually get to see/“hear” (page 90 my beloved) are fully memories of Selena’s love for him. “…beautiful boy” anyone? “My strong boy?” That is her BABY and she LOVES HIM. Also, again, DESPITE HIS RESENTMENT, Selena’s love is the REASON HE KEEPS HIS SCAR! Scar lore alert! Scar lore alert! SELENA WAS THERE AND SHE’S THE ONE WHO HEALED HIM! (though I am still partial to thinking Brom was involved. I’ll write about that later it doesn’t matter right now)

(Also, on a bit of a lighter note, HIS HORSE TOY?????? Horse girl Murtagh CONFIRMED!!!! Little me would have been so jealous. …on a completely different note, I have woodworking connections and access to real horse hair. Hm. The Ideas.)

And then Tornac, son of Tereth, may your name live on forever. THE FIRST MEMORY WE GET OF TORNAC IS A HUG. THE FIRST TIME HE HUGS MURTAGH. MURTAGH HE LOVES YOU SO MUCH DO YOU KNOW??? I KNOW YOU KNOW A LITTLE BIT BUT DO YOU KNOW????? And the way he LEAPS to Murtagh’s defense when he falls in their escape, he REFUSES to let Murtagh languish in Urû’baen, that’s his BOY, his BEAUTIFUL STRONG BOY, that’s HIS SON, NO TAKE BACKSIES, MORZAN! He sees Murtagh’s darkness, yes, but more importantly he sees Murtagh’s goodness, and he knows Galbatorix will do everything in his power to destroy it, and that is something that Tornac simply cannot abide. You remember how I posted about Brom saying it’s easy to die for what you believe in, and then like ten pages later he dies for Eragon? Yeah. Yeah that one. That post. Do you see the point I’m making?

Tornac died for Murtagh. Selena did too, I’m pretty sure—it’s never been explicitly stated, in this book or the rest of the Cycle, but we know Selena was anxious to leave Carvahall as soon as Eragon was born, and that she died shortly after returning to Murtagh. I think Murtagh knows, on some level, but I also think that actually acknowledging it is going to break him just a little bit. Selena left Eragon and returned to him, presumably to spirit Murtagh to Carvahall as well, but she left too early. She wasn’t recovered. The real tragedy of this is that, if she’d left any later, she might truly have been too late—Morzan had been killed, and Murtagh would have been collected to Urû’baen before she reached him. Depending on how much she was coordinating with Brom, she might have known this, and made the choice to return to Murtagh anyway, because it was the easiest choice in the world. Eragon and Murtagh both believe that Selena left them. As Murtagh believes Selena chose Eragon over him, I’m pretty sure Eragon believes the inverse. In truth, Selena was trying to choose both of them, to save both of them. It’s a tragedy that she failed, but the most important thing about such a tragedy is that the love is there. It didn’t save them, not at first, not until much later, but the love is there and it matters because those are her babies, those are her sons, and she would gladly die for them. She did die for them. It was easy; she believed in them.

So yeah, I think eventually Eragon and Murtagh are gonna have a talk, and some revelations are going to be made, and a good long cry is going to be had all around. Catharsis! They need it!

But that’s not all! Murtagh is loved not only by the dead and the distant, but by the living and the near, too. Up to this point, the werecats we’ve met have been aloof, proud, intentionally distant. I always got the sense that Solembum likes Eragon and Saphira, but I don’t know that he would call them friends, even if Eragon and Saphira would, and he’s the most in-depth werecat we’ve met. But now we also have Carabel.

Carabel, who, from her position within Gil'ead, watches the people around them, and discerns their character: this is a skill I would say she has honed to near-perfection. When we meet her, she is desperate, though she hides it well. She sees Murtagh, and she measures his character, and what she sees is enough to make her take a chance on him, and she's right. Murtagh saves Silna, compromising his own principles to do so—swearing an oath he knows he'll have to break—and is so clearly relieved to see Silna safe with Carabel, despite the deceptions. We know, also, that Selena had been liked enough by Solembum for him to speak with her, and I wouldn't be surprised to discover that Selena was at least respected by werecats, if not outright known as a friend; it's possible that this, too, helped push Carabel to take a chance on Murtagh, though she makes no comment about it. Whatever the case, ultimately it is Murtagh's character that she gambles on, and Murtagh being simply who he is fulfills her hopes—not only in saving Silna, but his kindness towards her even when she was difficult, carrying her only when it was necessary and setting her on her own paws when he deemed it safe. Just in being himself, he earns love from two strangers, and the respect of an entire race.

(This echoes throughout the book, in all of Murtagh's interactions with children—he cares so much about kids. Not just as an abstract moral stance: he truly, genuinely cares for children on a deeply personal level. Essie in Ceunon; the two boys in Gil'ead he gives coins to, twice, and reprimanding their father for using them to pick marks; Silna; the children in Nal Gorgoth. In telling his story to Nasuada, he broke when he reached the children he slaughtered under Bachel's control.)

And Alín! Alín, who was raised to revere dragons, who cannot help but idolize Thorn. She is terrified of Murtagh, as a stranger and a strange man, but his connection to a dragon allows her to view him in another light. I can write so many essays about Alín, I'm probably going to, but here I'll just say this: despite her circumstances, despite how she was taught, despite how thoroughly she has been programmed by the cult of the Dreamers, the simple truth of Murtagh's compassion gave her the room to question, to think for herself, to ask herself if what she has been taught and raised to believe is truly right. Murtagh doesn't make the decision for her, he physically can't—it is Alín herself who finds the strength to break herself free, inspired by Murtagh, but not wholly because of him.

And in the dungeons of Nal Gorgoth, Murtagh meets Uvek, an Urgal shaman, and can I just say: I would kill and die for Uvek. He's got similarities to Murtagh that aren't discussed in plaintext, but are easy to draw: they both tried to be alone in the wild, thinking it would be better for them—different reasons, but they came to the same conclusion—but both have come to discover that they are better off in a pack. With friends. With brothers. With family. (As an aside, I really hope Uvek becomes one of the first Urgal riders.) I love the metaphor they share, about trust being a knife with a blade for a handle; and I love that once they decide to trust each other, they both jump in, feet first, 100% on board. That's always been Murtagh's method anyway (Eragon-era Murtagh my beloved, looking after this stupid dumb kid with his whole ass), and it is incredibly refreshing to see someone else with the exact same mindset throw their whole lot in with Murtagh. The gentle forehead bump! Uvek loves this crazy squishy Murtagh-man.

And finally, finally, Nasuada. The Guinevere to his Lancelot, and there's not even an Arthur for them to dance around, except for the Arthur of Public Opinion that would prefer to view Murtagh as dread Mordred. I couldn't keep from laughing, just a little bit, every time Murtagh was encouraged to/shown visions of taking the throne, because lol! Nah, you dumbasses, that's the love of his life for whom he broke his own shackles and turned on his tormentor and slave-master. The day he turns against her of his own volition is the day he is No Longer Murtagh. He keeps the newly-minted gold crown so that he can keep a piece of her with him—a coin!! A tiny little portrait!! An accurate tiny little portrait, to be sure, but one he'll soon be able to find in any decently full purse!! He may not want to admit it to himself, he may try to distance himself for her own good and the good of her rule, but he cannot truly deny his heart. As for Nasuada himself, she doesn't even hesitate to take him in—and she would have no reason to, having heard about Gil'ead, except that she knows him, she has seen his true being in a way only Thorn can relate to, and even in uncertainty she cannot believe evil of him. She's the one who reaches out to comfort him when he crumbles in telling his story, she supports him without a word when he struggles to stand, and she wants so badly for him to stay, Public Opinion be damned. She won't destroy what she's built, but she will move heaven and earth to be able to keep him near, for as long as he wishes to remain.

This whole book, really, was just a chorus screaming to Murtagh, "YOU ARE LOVED!! YOU ARE WORTHY OF LOVE AND YOU ARE LOVED!! IT IS THE LOVE THAT ENDS WARS, THAT DEFEATS FEAR, THAT PERSISTS IN THE FACE OF DEATH AND RUIN!! YOU ARE LOVED!!" And maybe he can't hear it yet, not with his ears, but his heart, eventually, might start to catch him up. And I absolutely cannot wait to see it.

#murtagh spoilers #one (1) aspect of my Many Many Thoughts on this wonderful beautiful brick of a book #anyway. i'm so glad we got to see murtagh be a dumbass. there were some eragon levels of dumbassery here. #'i don't have anger issues' sir yes you DO they're just not as bad as your father's #'i don't have anger issues' *proceeds to make decisions driven by righteous anger* #also HIGH KEY accidentally skipped a couple lines in lyreth's introduction and thought they were exes. whoops. #i mean they still could be. i might write that. we love a shitty ex in this series. #anyway this is far from all of my thoughts. i have so much to say about Alín. so much to say about thorn and his claustrophobia. #SO much to say about murtagh's thoughts on command and responsibility #i'm going to be here A Lot in the coming weeks #yeah i’ll do my nanowrimo goal today but first TWO THOUSAND WORDS ABOUT MURTAGH

[wifegideonnav]

clicked on your blog, chuckled at the eyes of v.k. serkleburg, and didnt even make it past your pinned post before i was like well i simply must let them know that i too have read the bartimaeus trilogy. i'm in my middle 20s now, we had them as a kid, i think they belonged to my oldest brother but my dad was the one who said i should read them, both of them were really into that style of fantasy stuff that was coming out in like the 2000s. i read all three and ig liked them enough that my dad got me the prequel for my birthday one year and i read that too. sadly i remember extremely little about them but i may be inspired to reread now bc like i also realized i've never seen anyone else talk about them! i think a lot of books from my childhood are like that, like, stuff that was often "for boys" and part of a large wave of middle grade literature trends where a lot of things just never got as popular as like. eragon or atremis fowl etc. ykwim? anyway best wishes, i'll actually look at your blog now lol.

HI omg im so sorry, i didn’t see this til now! first thank you for appreciating vk serkleburg lmao, im such a lover of stupid puns and im always so delighted when other people laugh instead of groaning lmao

and yay! im literally so glad that i put the bartimaeus thing in my pinned post, like i love that so many people have turned up to talk about them! and yes i absolutely know what you mean abt reading “boys” fantasy books like, im so glad that even as a kid i was smart enough not to fall for that bullshit.

thanks for sending in this ask!! i love chatting with new people on here. hope you enjoyed my blog lol

#asks

[modern-inheritance]

Escape pt 2(3???) Snippet #2(?)

Once again bashing out random bits and pieces that I want to be in here and dumping them on tumblr while I ignore the connections.

also, saw a post from an editor talking about how we write for ourselves so we should write all the fluffy stuff and the breakfast scenes we want, but then take them out before we put the official version out there.

I...I don't do that? That's why these escape series pieces are always so fuckin long. When I honestly write for myself and if I'm going to end up posting it, I'm not cutting those parts out. I know a lot of what I write is basically those cut pieces. And that's what I LIKE to write. So if they're too long...iunno, don't read my completed stuff I guess?

*confused and somewhat distressed shrug* I don't know! I write what I write and I don't take out the floofy bits Why am I trying to defend my style I dont know!

~~~

“Enough.” Eragon didn’t respond. His hand wavered over the elf’s skin as he hovered over a burn that had been revealed as the inflammation of the last gash had faded. “Enough! Eragon!”

Saphira broke him out of it. She lowered her head and nudged her partner’s shoulder, nearly toppling the youth over. 

It took him a handful of seconds to acknowledge them even then, clumsily dragging himself up to his knees from the hunch he had landed in before leaning heavily against Saphira’s snout. Eragon could hardly see straight. He could see two of everything, more if he didn’t focus on trying to draw the images together. His hands felt cold even against the warmth of Saphira’s scales. 

“B’wnah–” He swallowed hard. Someone passed him a canteen, and sunwarmed water soothed his tacky mouth. “We’re not done yet.” The elf’s back swam in front of his eyes. There was more skin than before, that was certain. Bruised, yes, but the new patches were far more assuring than the mess of burns, gouges and cuts, exposed muscle and…and things he couldn’t explain and didn’t want to know what caused them. 

But there was still…still so much. How long had it taken them to just assess the damage? To figure out what needed healing? Eragon set to the task as Brom pointed out the worst as he found them, checked her legs, her arms. The evidence of wounds healed before, others left to time….

And still there was so…so much red. There was so much that needed more than they could provide, had to be covered with shiny, thin membranes of skin that would have to repair itself without magic, the places Brom had shooed him away from with promises that he would stitch them or dress them, to save his and Saphira’s strength. 

Eragon didn’t know the woman. But…he…he felt like he knew her, felt like he had some connection to her, felt that he and Saphira had been fated to meet her, and felt that he could have known her for years before. And seeing her like this? Hell, if he had seen anyone like this…. 

He just wanted to hold on to her. Wrap her in his arms and promise her he wouldn’t let anything else like that happen. 

…Granted, from what Brom had said about the elf, that probably would lead to him getting his head stuffed into the closest hollow tree trunk she could find. If he didn’t give her some warning at least.

Brom was speaking. Eragon dragged his eyes away, back to his mentor’s face. 

“–ed to move. We can’t do anything more right now, and we can’t stay in one place for too long.” 

Murtagh’s voice cut through. “No! Are you mad? Eragon needs to rest, just look at him! He can’ even sit up straight without holding on to Saphira!” Eragon dimly heard the young man moving forward, saw the flash of dark cloth as he gestured toward the pair. “And Saphira! She needs to sleep too, you said yourself she’s giving energy to help cast all that healing magic!” 

‘I’m strong enough to fly.’ Saphira murmured to her Rider. Eragon gave her a wan smile from where he was still half draped against her head and scratched under the corner of her jaw. The low hum that vibrated through his chest spread warmth through his bones. ‘You did well, Little One.’

He rocked his face against the jagged crest of one of her eyes, felt the snick of her lid closing against his cheek. ‘She’s still hurt.’

The humming intensified, soothing through his mind as well as his body. ‘But she is better than before. She will live.’

“Eragon can sleep while we ride.” Brom pushed back. “And Saphira’s been dozing on and off, she’s got enough in her to fly far enough that we stay ahead.” 

“If you think for a second that we’re going to be able to keep him from falling off Cadoc–”

“I’m fine.” Both men snapped their heads around when Eragon rasped out the words. The youth was shakily fastening the snaps on the back of the elf’s shirt again before gently transferring her off his knees and onto her side. “I’ll…I’ll be okay sleeping in the saddle. Saphira says she’s good to fly.” 

Brom gave the boy an appreciative nod. “Good.” Murtagh swore and scrubbed his hands through his hair, stalking off to the horses. “I’m not a fool, whelp. There should be a cave system not far from here, big enough to hide all of us for at least half a day. We can hole up there and rest properly.” 

The young man clicked his lips in disdain. “Oh, but of course, it’s not like that’d be the first bloody place they’d search, but who am I to argue! I just lead the bloody horses!” 

“It’s not well known. Help me with her, and you–” Brom pointed to Eragon, who was struggling to his feet. “There’s a ration pack in your saddlebags. Eat what you can. And keep drinking that water.” The boy nodded and stumbled towards where Cadoc was tethered. Before he could pass, Brom stopped him with a hand on his shoulder and leaned in. “Good job, boy. I’m proud of you.” 

Eragon couldn’t make his eyes see just one horse, so he couldn’t really trust his other senses. But he thought, for a moment, that the usually gruff and rumble tone in his mentor’s voice had taken on a sincere rush of warmth. It felt like his own chest glowed at the words, and then the exhaustion flooded in again and all he could do was nod numbly. He clumsily clapped the man on the arm before he staggered off to eat and collapse into Cadoc’s saddle.

#eragon #inheritance cycle #the cyclists #the world of eragon #the inheritance cycle #modern inheritance #saphira #modern inheritance stories #brom #murtagh (eragon) #murtagh (inheritance) #murtagh morzansson #Saphira #arya #arya drottningu #arya (inheritance) #eragon rewrite #the great escape #the great escape wip #arya (eragon) #durza #gil'ead #escape from gil'ead #ket's modern inheritance cycle #snippet #snippets #random bits of writing