For Alagaesia: 55. Childish

Revelry, it seemed was built into dragons. Ever since the sun had risen, the little dragon had not rested. He jumped around at anything he saw. And he always stopped on his tracks whenever his eyes settled on the sun. The sun held a very important part in dragon’s lives, Eragon knew. Saphira had expressed her wish to fly in the Hadarac for hours on end without aim many times over to him and he had promised her that he would accompany her when she embarked on such a trip.

The Du Weldenvarden was a place of abundance, except for sunlight. And Eragon was starting to hate that part of the forest. Earlier it had held a fascination: the concept of eternal twilight was so spiritual and to tell the truth, it still was fascinating. But for one thing: The little green thing could have been tied down if the sun was shining on them all the time, what with his interest in gazing at the sun and all. With the sun’s absence though, he was acting quite strange, running off behind anything that moved, be it leaves or frogs.

For Alagaesia: 54. The monkey mind

Human mind is a fickle thing. It throws up something at you when you least expect it to. Its working is so erratic that at times you start to doubt if it is even you thinking what you think or if some monster has occupied your mind and was thinking for you. It makes you laugh at the most desperate moment and makes you look all gloomy during the happiest of times. Nasuada was grappling with such a state of her mind.

It was late in the night, when she had reached Dras-Leona half-dead. The cold conditions of the slopes of the Spine had rendered her brain useless and she had come into the city mumbling like an idiot. The first thing she did after she was treated, thankfully with magic(it was fast and painless), was what made her feel as she felt.

For Alagaesia: 53. The coastal town

Defeated. Defeated beyond repair. How would he face Eragon again? What would he say to his cousin? Eragon had effectively left the Varden in his protection and he had failed miserably. A fortnight of Eragon’s absence was all it took for the Varden to disintegrate itself. The best warriors of the Varden were fighting a lost battle atop the monstrous wall of Teirm and their leader was taken captive by the monstrous dragon and its rider.

Lost. He had lost the war. He, Roran, was responsible for the Varden's demise. He had failed. And it hurt. Badly. Roran, who had known no defeat in his short life as a warrior, stared at defeat for the first time and it was bitter.

For Alagaesia: 52. Making amends

She was in a forest of ice. There were trees of ice all around her and there was a floor of ice on which she was lying. But it wasn’t cold as she had expected it be. Rather, the warmth she felt was so comforting that she wanted to close her eyes again and go to sleep. Except certain questions needed to be answered and foremost of them: where was she?

She thought hard. And then it struck her in an instant. She was taken… captured… kidnapped. But this place hardly looked like a prison. It was literally a forest.

Nasuada whipped her head so that she could see her captor. All she could remember was a ruby red surface, when she thought of her captors. And now again she was met with a red wall. But this time she could see that it wasn’t just a wall of red; it was the belly of a ruby red dragon. Thorn. Repulsed, Nasuada tried to move away from the dragon.

For Alagaesia: 51. Green Ecstasy

His eyes flew open. He didn't know how he went into a complete slumber – a rare thing to happen to elves and him. But he had and now something had disturbed him. Groggily, he turned his neck around. He could sense Saphira waking too.

When Eragon rested his eyes on the spot where Arya had slept, he only found an empty blanket.

'Where is she?', he wondered.

He heard a squeak that was oddly familiar and remembered that it was such a squeak that had woken him up in the first place. He turned towards the direction from which the sound originated and found a scene that would stay fresh in his mind for eternity. Arya was staring wide-eyed at the green dragon egg that glowered in the red rays of the sun. The sun's rays falling over her body illuminated her in a golden glow. And the dragon egg was shaking. Shaking violently.

For Alagaesia: 50. Defeated

The enthralling roar was in the air. For every step they took, it increased in intensity calling him to it. Roran had developed a liking to the sea when he had seen it for the first time in Teirm an year and a half ago while escaping from the empire. The sea had signified his freedom. It of course was a sign of freedom – an example of how Alagaesia should have been. A little excited on the outside like the waves that constantly washed over to the shores, but calm and serene on the inside – like the endless water filling the space between the ocean floor and the air; hiding the vicious water currents running deep in the ocean.

Galbatorix had taken away all that from Alagaesia. The land was a mess. The ocean was much better. Hence Roran liked it.

The city of Teirm stood like a silent watch tower standing guard on the shore. Roran was excited with the thoughts of liberating the great coastal city from the grip of Galbatorix and transforming it into truly a watch tower for all of Alagaesia – a watch tower that constantly keeps vigil against foreign forces attacking from the seas.

For Alagaesia: 49. The hope is taken

The last few days had taken her to the brink of uselessness. Having a routine life was almost unbearable – it was on par with a battle day. Nasuada had no idea when she became such a workaholic, but she was. She hated being in the room for most of the day and hear to reports from sentries and spies. She would have been fine if the reports had any substance in them, but they hardly did. It was all a repetition of the same news: nothing is odd.

In one way, she was happy for the temporary respite from the war and its gloom. The people seemed really happy these days despite the biting cold of the winter. When they were satisfied, she too was. But personally, her mind was restless. Ever since she had literally forced Roran to take up the mission to Teirm, she had been nervous, thinking her plan might backfire and the Varden might face a crushing defeat in that battle.

For Alagaesia: 48. Best friends

Gloomy. As he went into his waking-dreams, if there was a word to describe that day at Silthrim, Eragon would choose only that. Everything seemed to have gone against him on that day. The experience at Katrina's home was the high-point of misery what with Galbatorix's attack on Roran and his tongue-slip about Arya. But the other low-point in the day was the evening event of the 'presenting ceremony'. Eragon was now accustomed to the egg rejecting every potential candidate and it was no different on that evening. But even then it hurt him for he had hoped the egg may hatch for someone in Silthrim as the egg had left its mad search for 'the one' – atleast according to Glaedr.

When presented to the three children of Silthrim, the egg had remained as unmoved as it did when it was presented to every other person. The other potential voluntaries – that is the elders who chose to touch the egg were no where near luckier than the others.

For Alagaesia: 47. Despair and Hope

Hunkering on the ground, eyes intently fixed on the water before him, Eragon said in a deathly quiet tone, “Roran. Wake up.” He refused to allow the tears to fall from his eyes. He wouldn’t cry. His cousin wasn’t dead. ‘No! Roran can’t die.’

He noticed not the comforting touch of Arya’s fingers or the calming presence of Saphira’s mind in his. The only thing his eyes saw and ears heard was Roran and his motionless body. His pained mind couldn’t comprehend what had happened moments ago: Roran walking towards Galbatorix as if possessed; Galbatorix attacking him and the much more powerful counter-attack seemingly orchestrated by Roran and Galbatorix’s disappearance from there. And he didn’t try to. The only thing that mattered was Roran. And his life.

“Madhura!!”, Arya called as the elf came into the circle of vision. “Drottningu..”, the elf replied and bent down to examine Roran. Eragon turned away not wanting to hear anything that the elf had to say. He couldn’t and wouldn’t believe that his cousin was dead.

For Alagaesia: 46. The Mysterious mountains

White was the only colour his eyes registered. Wherever he turned, he could see nothing but white. Trees looked like white pillars and legs sunk foots into the ground. To make matters worse, a blizzard blew from the west making it impossible to move towards their destination. The biting cold had already consumed atleast a dozen battle-hardened warriors.

Roran wondered if he had made the wrong decision in accepting to carry out Nasuada’s crazy plan. He wouldn’t have worried so much if it was just him who was going into death, but the soldiers who accompanied him: elves, dwarves, urgals and humans had come on his call. It was his responsibility to take them safely to the other side of the mysterious and dangerous mountain range that was Spine. They had believed him blindly and had offered their help in his scheme to take down Teirm.

“Hey lady, Madhura, could you stop this storm?”, Roran screamed above the howling snow-laden winds to the elf woman who was leading the elven team under him.

“That is impossible, Stronghammer. These winds are nature’s strongest forces. Not even riders can stop such storms.”