Andlátkyn; Vandr Sanses unin Alagaësia

Campfire Chat

They sat dully around a small campfire, either sitting motionless or messing with something small and unimportant. Eragon was busying himself with altering his hands to have thick callouses on the back for whatever reason, Abyss staring blankly into the flames, Toby nowhere to be seen as Endogeny lay stretched out, quiet with unease brought by the tension in the air.

Arya was sitting still, upright and hugging her knees to herself as Bird fiddled with arrows, trying to make more from sticks, twine and his own shedded feathers.

Eventually Eragon leaned back on his elbows and stared into the flames as well, slowly growing more disturbed by his own thoughts while a soft glow lit up Abyss's scarves, illuminating each strand from within. They drew in closer around him, freakishly alive. It seemed to give off aquamarine embers, the little lights drifting away coldly. In the distance, wolves slowly raised their voices in a howl, Endogeny's ears twitching at the noise.

Bird was glancing up curiously when Eragon shifted suddenly, looking entirely distressed, slick with cold sweat. Arya took notice.
"What's wrong? Is it the wolves? They shall not bother us, you know. They are teaching their pups how to hunt, and they won't allow their younglings near creatures that smell as strangely as we do."

"It's not the wolves out there." Eragon spoke quietly whilst hugging himself, pointing to his head. "It's the wolves in here."
She nodded sharply, understanding.
"It is always thus. The beasts of the mind are far worse than those that actually exist. Fear, doubt, and hate have hamstrung more people than beasts ever have."

"And love." Eragon added.
"And love." She corrected. "Also greed and jealousy and every other obsessive urge the sentient races are susceptible to."

It was quiet. Endogeny let out a soft whine in the lapse in conversation. Then Eragon asked.
"Does it bother you when you kill?"

Her eyes narrowed at him.
"Neither I nor the rest of my people eat the flesh of animals because we cannot bear to hurt another creature to satisfy our hunger, and you have the effrontery to ask if killing disturbs us? Do you really understand so little of us that you believe we are cold-hearted murderers?"

"No, of course not." Eragon explained.
"I don't think he meant it that way." Bird defended nervously. Eragon nodded towards him. "I didn't."

"Then say what you mean, and do not give insult unless it is your intention."
Eragon hesitated, then spoke more slowly.

"I asked this of Roran before we attacked Helgrind, or a question very like it. What I want to know is, how do you feel when you kill? How are you supposed to feel?" He scowled at the meager campfire.

"Do you see the warriors you have vanquished staring back at you, as real as you are before me?"

Arya held her legs closer to her chest, staring thoughtfully into the flames. They crackled, one flare flying up and incinerating a moth that had flown too close.

"Gánga." She whispered, waving a finger at the insects as they fluttered away. Still gazing into the depths of the flame, she spoke.

"Nine months after I I became an ambassador, my mother's only ambassador, if truth be told, I traveled from the Varden in Farthen Dûr to the capital of Surda, which was still a new country in those days. Soon after my companions and I left the Beor Mountains, we encountered a band of roving Urgals. We were content to keep our swords in our sheaths and continue on our way, but as is their wont, the Urgals on trying to win honor and glory to better their standing within their tribes. Our force was larger than theirs- for Weldon, the man who succeeded Brom as leader of the Varden, was with us- and it was easy for us to drive them off…. That day was the first time I took a life. It troubled me for weeks afterward, until I realized I would go mad if I continued to dwell on it. Many do, and they become so angry, so grief-ridden, they can no longer be relied upon, or their hearts turn to stone and they lose the ability to distinguish right from wrong."