Half A Heart (An Eragon Fanfiction)

Chapter 1

    "Y-yes, father." The fifteen year old girl bit her lip, nearly hard enough to draw blood as her father's brown eyes glared at her. Ismae didn't dare look into them. Instead, she kept her honey colored eyes focused on her bare and dirtied feet.

        "Go. Now!" Anyone could tell that he was drunk by his slurred words if not for the half-empty bottle in his hand. The brown liquid sloshed inside as he lifted it to his lips again and took another big gulp. With her head down, the girl nearly ran towards the fields. Whenever he was drunk - which was most of the time - it was wise to steer clear of him. She already had bruises forming on her light brown skin from mistakes she had made earlier that week while he was drinking. She didn't want to make him mad again if she could help it.

        Her mother had died in childbirth, when she was having her. Her father had told her the story only once. That he and her mother had had a child before her, a boy, who had been the love of their lives. He was perfect, but made his parents angry when he wanted to be a ship merchant instead of continuing the family turnip farm. Her brother had abruptly left one night, leaving his parents without so much as a note. So, in their grief and anger, they decided to have another son to replace the one they had loast, only it didn't turn out that way. Her mother's pregnancy hadn't been easy, and it was a surprise that even the baby had survived the birthing. Her mother hadn't, and her father blamed Ismae for her death, as well as her brother leaving.

        He's still alive today, or at least her father thinks so. Late at night, when he isn't so drunk, Isame could sometime catch him staring at a painting. Crying sometimes. It pictured a teenage boy, a young mother and cheerful father. Though it was nearly two decades ago, Ismae could tell that the man was her father, and that was the life he had had before.

        Shaking her head of those thoughts, she got down on her knees and started to work. She dug her hands into the soil and started pulling up the turnips and placing them in the basket. She had been late waking up this morning and when her father had woken around noon and didn't see her in the field, he grew angry. He was hungover from the night before and his solution was to get drunk again to get rid of the headache. He had woken her by slapping her across the face - she could already feel another large bruise forming there - and screaming in her ear. She has lost several hours of daylight time for the harvest. It took close to two days to pick all of the turnips out of the fields that surrounded their house. The hours she had wasted sleeping would be caught up at night. She wouldn't be able to go to sleep until early morning.

        "Psst." She paused her work and looked up, but saw nothing. After a few moments she went back to her work, picking up another turnip and placing it in the basket.

        "Psssst. Ismae!" The voice was louder this time, and it said her name. She sighed as she recognized the voice. First she looked behind her, making sure her father was gone. He was inside, no doubt in front of the fire with his whiskey in hand.

        "Merrik! What are you doing here?" Her voice was hushed, worried that her father could hear.

        The boy rose, his head peaking out of the tall grass that surrounded the fields. A smile plastered itself on his face as he caught sight of Ismae and she couldn't help the one that made to her lips either. Merrik was her best friend - her only friend, actually.

         It was ten years ago that her father had taken her into town to buy some food. He was drunk, of course, and had grown angry when she had lagged behind. She was only five at the time and wasn't strong enough to carry all of the food. She wasn't a mule, but her father apparently didn't know he difference. He had lashed out at her, and Merrik saw from his family's blacksmithing barn. He saved her by stepping in front of her and taking the slap for her, which had only ended up making her father angrier. When they got home she endured the beating of a lifetime. But still, that boy who had saved her didn't leave her mind. He had found out who she was and every day he would walk the four miles outside of town to her house to make sure she was okay. She wasn't most of the time, but he somehow made it better.