CHAPTER 7: A Little Dive Through the Whole World
Arya sat cross-legged on the raft, trying to meditate over the screeching of the wood tables, the dwarves’ steps and Saphira’s swishing in the Az Ragni.
The dragon, along with her Rider, had left the ship for a swim not long ago, with Lomyolèndri flying after them, skiing and dancing over the surface of the water. For how far they were, she could still hear their voices.
“So, can you hear that feeling, baby blue? His legs tight on your back, him rubbing his body on you, all wet and cozy…”
“Shut up!”
Not long before, Eragon had tried again to start a conversation with her, unknowingly springing unsettling feelings all over the deck. Remaining silent and dispensing obscure advice, she managed to drive him away, at least for the moment, although, with all the worries about returning to Ellesméra, she really started to have enough of his clumsy and unwittingly attempts at courting. She couldn’t tell him that plainly; it would have been rude. He and Saphira saved her life, after all, and they were the last hope for Alagaësia, and if she added other offences at the heap Lomyolèndri had already been discharging over them both from their first meeting, Eragon could lose the blind faith he had for the elves’ wisdom and integrity, which would have in turn hindered the purpose of having him trained and educated to accept their philosophy in Ellesméra in the first place. She had hoped the arranged marriage would have changed his frame of mind, but the necessary rush to depart and the highly likely unconsummated wedding put a strain in her expectations. She was at least confident to be able to use the matrimony against Eragon if he insisted too much with his ongoing fantasies.
Seeing Lomyolèndri skiing circling the raft, she took advantage of his proximity to address him. “Young friend, I was thinking about what you said at Celbedeil and I was hoping you could enlighten me about your gods.”
(pirouetting over the river and shrugging mid-flight) “They’re not my gods, they’re just gods!”
“What makes you so certain about their existence?”
“Well, where I come from, rearranging two statues of gods so they are fornicating with each other is not as simple as it was for that Helzvog and Gûntera fellas yesterday, I’ll tell you that. Unless we were speaking about some fertility or lust gods, that is. The gods meddle with mortals all the time, they speak to them, manifest to them, give them neat magical powers, and send loads of magical beings to serve them right up from the heavens or deep down from the hells. If you’re a cool enough wizard you can also travel to each one’s personal netherworld to get a preview before you die.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Why not? Doesn’t it happen to you here?”
“No.”
The young elf jumped on the border of the boat, pretending to balance himself.
“Well, this place did seem dull enough…”
“If the gods you speak of are that powerful and present in people’s lives, why have they never appeared here?”
(standing on a leg and raising the other behind his neck) “I think it is because we are very, very far away from where I come from.”
Arya took her time to meditate about what all he said; it could have been all lies, of course; if there was something she had learned about Lomyolèndri in their short acquaintance was he would go to great lengths only to insult or unsettle someone’s mind.
What if he’s telling the truth, though?
(switching to the ancient language) “Have you ever actually seen one of these gods, young Lomyolèndri, and witnessed his or her power?”
Her kindred smiled, answering in the elves’ tongue as well, slowly turning on the standing leg.
“Sure, there was this sorcerer fellow who got drunk in the Olympians Glades once, I dreamsurfed straight to Arborea and met Corellon. You know him, right? It’s the elf god, all sissy and tree-humping and rainbow-eyelashing? I hoped I could waltz from there to Celestia and have some fun with the angels, but no such luck…”
Arya closed her eyes, hearing the splash of Saphira emerging from the river for a flight with Eragon.
How can he be? Maybe he only believes that he did, his memory and perceptions do seem to vary from one second to the next… But this world he’s talking about, it is so much more than what little is known to us about Alalëa… Even if a fraction of what he says were to be real, it would be much more saturated with magic than Du Weldenvarden ever was.
“Hey, elf buddy? What’s the big deal about those two?”
“You mean Eragon and Saphira?”
“Yeah! He’s an idiot, she’s a baby, elves are smart, so what gives?”
“You seemed pretty interested in both as well.”
(chuckling) “Yeah, but I’m just playing along, don’t really care. You are having no fun in all this, but you’re still here, like your elves really do have a plan for them.”
“It’s true. Galbatorix…”
“Pff-ah ah ah!”
“…the ruler of the Empire, was a Rider as well in the past, he betrayed the Order and destroyed it, killing almost all Riders and their dragons.”
“That sounds epic enough…”
“There’s only two eggs left besides the one that gave birth to Saphira and she is the only female.”
“You mean… only two dragon eggs in this entire world?”
“Aye.”
“Whoa… awesome.”
“Dragons were brought to near-extinction by Galbatorix, but you find it funny. How so?”
“Well, you said ‘Galbatorix’ again, for one… (pointing at the sky) and then you said dragons were near-extinct exactly when those three ones came down the mountain there.”
Arya raised her eyes, examining the three flying shadows diving down to Eragon and Saphira.
“They’re not dragons.”
“Well, I could say the same for baby blue, but there she goes… Whoa! Did she just breath fire? Man, that’s just wrong…”
“She is a dragon.”
“Yeah, but she’s a blue dragon: she’s supposed to spit lightning not breath fire! This is all messed up.”
You tell me…
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He saw a tortured sky, black and crimson with smoke. Crows and eagles swirled high above flights of arrows that arched from one side to another of a great battle. A man sprawled in the clotted mud with a dented helm and bloody mail—-his face concealed behind an upthrown arm.
An armored hand entered the human’s view. The gauntlet was so near it blotted out half the world with polished steel. Like an inexorable machine, the thumb and last three fingers curled into a fist, leaving the trunk of the index finger to point at the downed man with all the authority of fate itself.
Dude, a dark foreboding? Are you even that important to have those?
Lomy tumbled over the hand, growing from tiny to small size again and jumping to Eragon.
No!.. Not again! Get away from me!
Hey, don’t get jumpy, it just a..!
The bloodied field scattered and crumbled upon itself and Lomy decided to emerge again out of it.
When the human awoke, the little boy was sitting in the air beside him, inside his tent. Eragon looked at it, with a growing sense of anger.
“It was true, then! You were trying to take me again!”
“Bah, don’t be ridiculous, we only met in Dream Region. I didn’t even knew it was you until I saw your projection!”
“So you were actually feeding on my dreams as you said!”
“Pffh, did you actually believe that? I just mess with dreams, I don’t eat them.”
Lomy puffed away, preventing another boring argument with the young man; the voyage was starting to become particularly boring. Since they left the dwarf city they only encountered those three pseudo-dragons and nothing really important had happened.
The little boy in white crawled its way into one of the dwarves’ tents, touching the sleeping body of a lackey and translating itself into his dreams. Jumping from one fantasy to the next, he reached the troubled sleep of Nasuada and then traveled following the currents of wrath coming from Tarnag. He remained there for part of the day, causing mischief here and there, spicing up the coming clan war, but then decided it would have been even more repetitive and tedious to remain more and returned to the group at the sunset with the first guard’s nap.
The next days didn’t go better: first it had to hear complaints about cranking jokes on the human’s excruciating attack of back-pain, with the other elf obviously hiding disappointment the Shade had spoiled her people’s only hope, and then it had to hear useless and boring lessons of magic, with the elf trying to get other information out of it.
The dragon’s dude had fallen in hopeless broodiness and with everyone ignoring the little boy’s attempts at lightening others’ and its own mood by dwelling on his misery didn’t seem to have any success for some reason.
“You can keep it if you can put it together.”
“Oh, boy, can I!?”
Emerging from Eragon’s magical necklace, the little boy caught the eight interlinked rings in the human’s fist, flying away from him before he could grab it. The dwarf looked at him, furious.
“That’s not yours!”
“It is if I can solve it, right?”
Rapidly moving and twisting the fingers of the single hand holding the rings, Lomy resolved the puzzle in a couple seconds, letting it hang a few feet over Eragon’s face.
“See? Prestidigitated the Limbus out of it! Mine!”
The human stared at it, tightening his expression.
“Why have you devoted your life in making my life even more miserable? Can’t you leave me alone? I did nothing to you.”
“More miserable? Dude, you’re a wizard-knight who rides a dragon, it doesn’t get better than that for a human. Why do you have to whine all the time and complain about anything that doesn’t quite fit with you? You sound like one of those ensouled vampires.”
Lomy puffed again without hearing the human’s response. The travel went on, as uneventful as always, giving it time to leave at night through the Dream Region and explore the land he had come to, returning the same way at dusk, flowing on sleeping fantasies and terrors. The only one who seemed to notice and inquired about its absence was of course the elf, but it didn’t take much to avoid any boring conversation on the matter.
The group reached another dwarf town, Hedarth, as dull as it got, and traveled forth to the nearing Elfland. Lomy had tried to keep itself as far as possible for anything similar to an elf’s dream to avoid any spoilers and therefore have at least the surprise element for the last part of the journey, but now it could barely keep itself together with anticipation.
The second-to-last night before reaching Ceris, it was about to left again on the dwarves shabby dreams when it heard the human leave the encampment as discretely as possible and decided to turn invisible and follow him out of curiosity. At first it was fairly disappointed when it discovered he had been called by the elf for a long boring lesson about etiquette in the ancient language; it forced itself to wait and be quiet only out of hope the human would manage to screw up sooner or later and, fortunately for it, it wasn’t disappointed.
Arya coldly lectured Eragon and took off, with the young Rider running after her, trying to apologize, and Lomy dived over them, yet to reveal itself.
“Arya Svit-kona, I spoke badly, and for that I beg your…”
“Yeah, you’re still speaking badly, dragon boy, (appearing lying on the cold nocturnal air) and can’t you even fathom when someone wants to be left alone?”
Eragon glared at it.
“Can you?”
“Uuh, snarky! (placing a hand on its chest) At least I don’t confuse gender titles one another, what’s the matter with calling your elf buddy Wise Lady?”
A series of blank looks was exchanged with the three of them, until Arya answered with a dry tone.
“I am a woman, Lomyolèndri-finiarel.”
(after blinking for a while) “You know, that would explain a lot… (shrugging) Ah, whatever, with elves it’s always hard to tell…”
Before it could rise more in the air, Eragon managed to place himself in front of him.
“How come you could recognize what Saphira was at first glance..?”
(rolling over mid-air, still laying) “Unlike a certain someone…”
“…but cannot manage to do so with one of your own kind?!”
(shaking its index at the human’s face) “Dragons are different, elves are the tricky ones.”
“That’s absurd! I could see Arya was a woman when I first saw her!”
(smirking mincingly) “Well, I didn’t have the chance to grope at her half-naked tortured drugged unconscious body on the way to Dwarfland, for one reason…”
“That’s..! I didn’t..! That’s not what I..!”
As he tried to come up with an appropriate answer, the Rider blushed violently, turning his face away.
“And… and… that you are a man. I could see that too, just by looking at you. How is this supposed to be hard?”
“Well, it gives me no joy telling you how wrong you are! Ah ah ah ah ah! I’m no man.”
Arya looked at it surprised as well, managing to voice first the next question.
“You… you’re a girl?”
“What? No way!”
Eragon growled, exasperated.
“Then what are you?!”
“I’m what you call… an androgyne. I go both ways. (pointing at its sides with its thumbs) Because I’ve got both ways!”
The human put a hand over his mouth, suppressing his retching, speechless. After a moment of silence, Arya spoke again.
“I believe I have been witness to enough vulgarity for one night. You may return to your tent, Eragon, and remember my warning.”
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The fourth day after leaving Hedarth, they finally reached Ceris.
“Most. uneventful. journey. EVAH.”
Sylvia on 6 November 2013, 20:02 said:
I have to say, the OC’s too annoying for this story to be worthwhile.
Asahel on 6 November 2013, 23:52 said:
Please take this criticism constructively:
That’s not how you do mid-dialogue actions in English. It would go something more like this:
“Yeah, you’re still speaking badly, dragon boy,” Lomy said, lying as if suspended on the cold, nocturnal air, “and can’t you even fathom when someone wants to be left alone?”
Or another example. This:
(after blinking for a while) “You know, that would explain a lot… (shrugging) Ah, whatever, with elves it’s always hard to tell…”
should be something like this:
It blinked repeatedly. “You know, that would explain a lot…” it said with a shrug. “Ah, whatever, with elves it’s always hard to tell…”
Sìlfae on 16 November 2013, 07:40 said:
Sorry, just seeing these comments.
Well, I’m sorry it has come that far away, even if the character was meant to be annoying. If it can be of any consolation, as said before, the focus is meant to shift away from it as the story goes.
Of course, I’m happy to receive criticism. As for the case in point, I guess it’s just habit for the format used in another forum; it is to have a more immediate response, rather than breaking the phrase, describing the action and then again going on with the phrase. It is used in some rendition of theatre plays, I believe. I know in that case those are the only part of description and the rest is just dialogue, I was trying to see if it was possible to bend the two to have a more immediate reading.