For Alagaesia: 90. A drop of fresh water in the sea

Only when the accursed black sword was pulled out of her body and she twitched did he snap out of the stupor he was in. She was alive! She could yet be saved!

The sky, that he was seeing, was in a riot of sorts. The three dragons were spitting fire on each other so vehemently. Saphira and Indra were trying to make their way to the ground where their beloved riders were dying a certain death. Shruikan, being the domesticated dragon that he was, was trying hard to fulfill his master’s orders; that of keeping the dragons in the sky at all cost except when one or both of them could be killed.

He moved despite his protesting back and tried to keep Arya on his lap. It was an exercise in agony both of his mind and body. His heart could not see the prone figure of one so loved by him lying in blood without bleeding itself and his body protested with all it had against his efforts to sit upright.

Islanzadi and Roran were once again held in place unmoving and shedding tears. But the architect of this scene, Galbatorix danced around in felicity. His black sword was dripping blood; Arya’s blood. “Oh, the comedy of love! How I love to have fun with those in love!” He was singing.

Eragon placed his hand over Arya’s chest, closed his eyes and focussed on finding the depth of her injury. He was so engrossed in exploring the injury that when a soft hand touched his cheek he shuddered and opened his eyes. Arya was watching him with her half open eyes. She could or did not speak anything and neither could he. But he tried to convey all that he felt through his eyes: that he would save her by whatever means he could.

She half smiled at him probably happy to have saved his life and closed her eyes again. Eragon had explored enough. No. Exploration was not important. He had power from the sacrifice he had done so long ago and he would use it.

He reached into his magical reserves and willed Arya to be healed. Every other wound on her body closed up instantly but for the stab wound in her chest. Her heart had been pierced and no amount of energy he poured into her body healed her heart. It was as if nature itself was so against the unnatural revival he was trying to induce.

He wept. He wailed. He thrashed his forehead with his hands. He spoke her name again and again as if calling her would bring her back. But he never let go of the spell to heal. He would heal her or die with her. The constant energy flowing through him like from a perennial river began to stutter for the first time.

And still he kept his spell up and soon he was beginning to feel giddy. Kuthian himself somehow contacted him and asked him to let go. He said that keeping Arya alive against the rules of nature was wrong and that nature that had granted him the powers was feeling that he was misusing them. Eragon, angry and distraught, abused the elder dragon and refused to back down.

Slowly but surely, he was losing conscience; he could feel it in his heart. He was becoming numb but still he kept the spell alive. Galbatorix,singing and dancing, came up behind Eragon and raised his sword, apparently bored of seeing and hearing the lover’s lament.

Eragon knew he was going to be killed but had neither the will nor the strength to sway away from the stab. If Arya was to die then what use was there for him to live? He only prayed that Saphira would forgive him for abandoning her.

The black sword came down fast and sure but did not find its intended target. Instead a huge surge of energy blasted forth from Eragon’s body and threw the mad king far far away from the scene of battle. Roran and Islanzadi were immediately freed and they rushed forward towards where Eragon held Arya close to his chest.

‘Allow me to heal the child,’ an ancient and all-conquering presence spoke in his mind. The awe it inspired was second to none and it reminded him of Kuthian but he instinctively knew that it wasn’t the ancient dragon. For one, this voice was markedly female and for another it didn’t feel like a dragon at all.

‘Can you?’ He asked, with rising hope.

‘There isn’t a thing I am not capable in this land, child.’ replied the presence and without waiting for his reply set about healing Arya. Her heart formed back whole gradually and the skin closed around her chest and back. Slowly, ever so slowly the colour came back into her face.

Eragon held her close to his heart not willing to let her go ever again. She was a treasure to be protected and he would protect her. Over in the skies, the dragons let out a jubilant roar and renewed their attack on Shruikan who was suddenly on the backfoot.

‘Thank you!’ Eragon said after a while having forgotten for a minute that he had had external help in reviving Arya.

‘It is my pleasure to restore a love so pure as yours,’ replied the presence.

Eragon took the compliment most gratefully. If their love seemed pure to such an ancient mind then they really were lucky. He swallowed hard though when he thought of who their saviour was. He could not, for some reason, bring himself to ask the identity of the person.

‘I see what you want to know,’ the person said in an amused voice.

Eragon raised his eyebrows but never looked away from the serene face of Arya who seemed to be sleeping away her tiredness.

‘I am the Menoa, nay, Linnea, the elf,’ announced the presence.

Eragon was dumbstruck. The tree that had not waken even after thousands of calls from its very shade was helping them when they were thousands of leagues away. How was it even plausible?

‘Eragon, I must first ask you to forgive me,’ Menoa said, ‘for in my doubts about your intentions and in my longing to see the land as an elf after so many years of seeing it as a tree I had implanted a part of myself inside you on that day when you woke me.’

Eragon replied not. He remembered vaguely the favour that Menoa asked of him; to give whatever she wished to take from him. So she had taken. She had taken his privacy.

‘I observed you over the last one year,’ Menoa said apparently uncaring of his reservations about her taking over his mind, ‘and found that you had been right about Galbatorix and that he needed to be ended. But what struck me the most about you was your undying devotion for a woman.’

Here Eragon blushed deeply. He had dreamt so many intimate things about Arya and Menoa was privy to everything. But Menoa, yet again seemed to brush aside his reservations.

‘How much you cared for her and her feelings even when she had made it plainly clear that she shared nothing but friendship with you. How much you longed for her to see who you really were inside and how much you wanted her to be happy no matter what happened to you. All these qualities I admired,’ said she sounding a little sad by the end of it, ‘for I had an admirer too who was so unstable in his devotion to me.’

‘Then I saw what you had done in your last birth and how you both had sacrificed your life for the love of all the other things in this land. That was when I decided to help you whenever you needed me.’

Eragon thanked her for her extraordinary kindness, having forgotten all his reservations about her having invaded his privacy so blatantly. It was all forgotten in one felicity: that he had got his Arya because of her breach of his privacy. Now the  act seemed desirable; to be perfectly welcome.

He then thought of the other thing that occupied his mind. ‘Would you help us defeat Galbatorix?’ He asked Menoa.

‘Gladly,’ replied she.

Arya stirred slightly to Eragon’s delight. Islanzadi let out a relieved breath having thought that she had lost her daughter.

When Arya opened her eyes and met his, questions - hundreds of them - came to his mind starting from how could you think of leaving me to how are you feeling. But he asked just one thing. “Why?”

“Couldn’t let you die,” replied she weakly.

Eragon stared into her eyes for a long moment. She seemed perfectly fine to be on his lap looking into his eyes. “Did you think I could live with myself if you die? It isn’t worth living without you, Arya.” Eragon said kindly.

Arya smiled weakly at him as if she knew he would say so. Their eyes were on each other, not caring for Roran and Islanzadi, both of whom knelt a little away from them. And they stayed like that for a while. Then slowly, ever so slowly Arya raised her head from Eragon’s lap.

He groaned in protest at having her remove herself so soon from him. She smiled, that cute and adorable smile of hers and brought her face within inches from his. Then she waited as if expecting him to do something.

Eragon had known extreme agony and he would be lying if he said he did not know how extreme happiness felt. But having both feelings at the same time was so alien to him.

She was so near! He wanted to capture those inviting, red, cherry-like lips in his own. Gods! It was torture of the worst kind. The crushed pine cone and morning dew smell that was so naturally hers filled his senses and sent him into a frenzy. He didn’t know if he could hold any longer. At the back of his mind he knew Islanzadi was watching all this from close quarters but he could not bring himself to move away from Arya.

Unable to move neither forward nor backward, he sat there in a trance like state drinking in her smell and reveling in the caress of a few loose strands of her black hair on his face. All the while their eyes were locked onto each other never giving him a moment’s respite to catch his breath.

And then, she closed the distance between them, their lips brushing each other. He could hold out no longer. Eagerly, he caught her lips within his and they shared a moment’s heaven. He, unknown to himself, pushed the stray strands of her hair back and she likewise ran her hands through his brown and sweaty hair.

They might have continued if not for Roran and Islanzadi clearing their throats as if to notify their presence. Quickly realising what they were doing the two of them untangled from one another and Eragon mumbled some sort of apology to Islanzadi who seemed not to be as angry as he thought she would be.

“Is this how you treat your family after rescuing them from the clutches of a tyrant, Eragon?” Roran asked light-heartedly.

But his use of the word ‘them’ did not escape notice. Eragon blushed deeply understanding the connotation.

Arya embraced her mother heartily and Islanzadi returned the gesture only too gladly. The Queen did not seem to have any hard feeling for what Eragon did with her daughter. Rather she thanked him so effusively for saving her daughter’s life.

Arya frowned suddenly and asked about the particulars of how they were both so completely healed. When Eragon explained his short speak with Menoa, she seemed surprised. He could not let the good word that Menoa had for their love go and whispered about it to Arya. She coloured when he said it to her and averted her gaze to the ground, a rare thing to happen to a woman such as Arya.

Islanzadi saw this and her eyebrows creased slightly. Thinking he had inadvertently earned the ill-will of the queen, he hurried to explain only to be held up by Arya in between. ‘This remains between us,’ she said surprisingly using her mind to communicate with him. Eragon had to say some nonsense to the queen to escape the wrath of her daughter.

But all pleasant thoughts were pushed away suddenly when a roar from the skies intimated that Shruikan was running away, probably to his master. Saphira and Indra came down happily not wanting to chase the black dragon. They wanted to be with their riders who had escaped death by a hair’s breadth at least for a little while before they would inevitably be pulled into battle again. Eragon and Arya were only too happy to have their beloved dragons back with them.

Author's Note:

Tada! A second chapter on the same day. Anyway, this is a breakup of the last chapter, so here goes. Was this chapter fine? Did you like the Eragon x Arya moment in there? Or was it too unnatural that they did it in front of Roran and Islanzadi? I figured since they had been through soooooo much distress, for once they did not care for the surroundings and protocols.