My joy, the air that I breathe 🌤

the title of warden-commander catches his attention. he has heard fleeting whispers of the grey wardens, though not enough to garner what their cause was or what they stood for. he will ask her more later, assuming he survives this interaction. " there is no offense. you've people to protect, a home to keep safe. i cannot fault you for your caution, " eragon replies, and though there is no warmth, neither is their any stiffness, resentment. she is only doing her job. when she rises from her seat, eragon watches, stares; there is no tense or coiled threat in her movements or the way she approaches, but just as it serves her no misfortune to be cautious, neither does it cost him anything. " we were headed east. we are … looking for something. nothing pertaining to ferelden, if it soothes you. "

eragon rubs his wrists once they are free of the shackles; they do not ache, were not bound long enough to become raw or sore, but still does he fidget out of habit. " her name is saphira. " there is a note of fondness to the statement, and his voice takes on the lilt of an individual speaking about a friend, a loved one, rather than a pet. " she hatched for me - what was it, ten years ago? or has it been eleven, now? " from his tone and the way his focus shifts past beatrize, it seems almost as though he is asking someone else - someone not currently present, someone distant and listening. after a second, eyes snap back to beatrize, and he continues without faltering, " ten years. not quite as impressive as twenty-two, but we'll get there. she is my dragon, and i am her rider, and i assure you, while she is not harmless, she was not bred for war. "

he thinks about thorn. about murtagh. eragon's ears flatten slightly. he can't help it. " no dragon should be. bred for war, i mean. where we are from - " he stops abruptly, the name on the top of his tongue dissipating before he can speak it aloud. saphira, jabbing against him, warning him to be careful about what he might say, as if he wasn't already well aware. " where we are from, dragons are not beasts. they are not omens. they are intelligent as you or i, and though it changes nothing of the way things are here, i have never known them - those from home, anyway - to be bad luck. i don't know what has happened here, but i'm sorry that it has, beatrize-elda. "

beatrize manages a polite nod of her head. she didn't expect his earlier irritation to be diffused so quickly, but she's glad for it. eragon sounds like someone who understands, who isn't merely offering empty platitudes that resemble understanding. the warden-commander wonders if he, too, has people to protect and a home to keep safe, wherever that home might be. "if we're speaking honestly, it soothes me little. i don't like not knowing things." this she says with a slight smile. there is a part of her that is tempted to interrogate him, but save for flying a dragon, there is no evidence of a crime. he went with her people willingly, and she is determined to be courteous until given a reason to act otherwise.

"no matter, your business is your business. my concern is ferelden, or at least this part of it. i try not to act beyond the mandate of my office." if he had landed in gwaren, it would be a different story. her authority extends a little bit further there than the warden-commander title affords her. amaranthine ( and vigil's keep ) belongs to the wardens as a collective, despite the fact that she holds the title of arlessa. if the threat is not connected to the blight, it is not her jurisdiction. "but east, you mentioned? do you intend to travel beyond the frozen sea?" now that would be a point of interest. there is no record of lands beyond those waters, no sailing vessel who dared venture out ever successfully returned. any attempt to document habitable lands beyond the scope of their current maps had not yielded information thus far, and no one has been brave enough to try since the last failed attempt.

amusement twinkles behind her dark gaze at the mention of his dragon's name. "that explains the color, then. my scouts told me she's blue." a blue dragon... she has never encountered one of such vivid color, though there are tales from the emerald graves of the greater mistral, blue and gold and always shrieking as it flies over human settlements. it is enough to deter her from ever willingly visiting. "i wasn't aware dragons can be bred for specific purposes. it seems to me the dragons in your lands are very different from ours. the ones i've met were only ever interested in tearing my limbs off or belching fire in my direction."

the motion of his ears catches beatrize's eyes. she wonders what kind of tell it is. already, she's noticed his eyes going out of focus, as though he's listening to some sound only he can hear, temporarily taking him out of the conversation. "a lot has happened here," she responds simply, not seeing it fit to inundate him with a history lesson. if he sticks around, they might have time for that. but for now, she has determined that he is no threat, and though she needs to write a letter to anora explaining his appearance and assuring the queen that things are under control, she thinks she is well within her rights to consider him a guest of the warden-commander, at least until she has more information at hand.

a lot of danger for some eggs.

he can feel saphira growl through their bond. he exhales, focuses on beatrize's words rather than the dragon's displeasure, lest he keep her waiting longer than he would like. fortunately for both of them, despite his frustrations, and despite the mounting urge to move elsewhere (but where else would they go? where would saphira hunt, safely? she could rest nowhere in these lands, apparently, not without some level of help), beatrize once again addresses him with some level of reasonability. eragon is reminded, dimly, of nasuada. he hopes beatrize does not change her mind, and decide that his affairs are hers, and to deny as much a crime.

" the frozen sea? is that what you call it? " eragon had known there were tumultuous waters waiting for them, but they had had no name in the texts he had skimmed, nor in the memories of the eldunarí. the frozen sea. he hears the slightest note of intrigue on beatrize's tongue, as though the thought of traversing the sea was … well, unthinkable. perhaps it was; maybe he and saphira would arrive at the edge of the world, just to find that that was not a distance that could cross. they would not know until they went. " we had intended to, yes. that, we can discuss further in a moment. " what goes unspoken: when i better understand you, and you better trust me, i will tell you more of my purpose here.

that explains the color. " it was a show of coincidence, believe it or not. it was the name of my father's dragon - i hadn't thought much further ahead than that. " then, " well - dragons can't be bred, not in the way animals might be - or any way outside of … what occurs naturally, for that matter, " he explains, a bit sheepishly. poor phrasing, his previous statement. " and they only hatch for those they want to hatch for, or simply when they are ready. i've only known one man who tried to force his own purpose upon them - and, gods allowing, he is the last of his ilk for a long while yet. so, no, dragons are not meant to be bred for any purpose, nor can they be, as far as i'm aware. still, people may try. and i'm sure most of those accounts have ended and will end in … a manner more familiar to you, i suppose. "

he needs to stop talking. now is not the time for running his mouth. he is trying to be careful about what he says. jaw tenses for a moment, as though eragon is biting back the urge to spill even more on dragons to the warden-commander, takes a breath. there is a time and a place: as of right now, he has a dragon waiting.

mabari. he rolls the otherwise foreign word around in his head - along with war hound and dog lords. out of no trepidation or wariness for beatrize, mind you; simple curiosity and a need to know more are all that grips eragon. what flits across his face can hardly be considered a smile, but it's close enough, and short-lived. humor found at the hound's name (furdinand?) sizzles out quickly at beatrize's request to see saphira, and there it is again, that awkwardness. dragons portend ill-omen, beatrize tells him, and she has already once deemed saphira a beast; no matter how reasonable she could be, he was uncertain of it, leading her right to saphira. the temporary aid would benefit them greatly, regardless of if they would be able to set off on their venture across the frozen sea, though at the same time …

he asks saphira what she thinks. he may speak for her often, or go against her at times, but he had no desire to jeopardize her safety, to reveal her without her explicit consent. she does not want an army brought to her. they share that sentiment.

he knows little of the people here, of their customs, though the dragon-rider learns exceptionally quickly that both his and saphira's ilk are not desired here. the looks he are given are strange bordering on unkind, and it is only out of no want of violence that he goes along willingly with the scouts that had been sent after him - all the while, the stares persist, and he can feel their apprehension and their wariness coiling and churning inside of them, can feel the questions they do not ask and the comments they do not make on the tips of their tongues. their minds are not as guarded as they could be; even so, he makes the decision to keep his claws out. to let this play out, if only to avoid further conflict and potential harm. well - physical harm, anyway. while he attempts cold professionalism, saphira's voice growls in the corners of his skull, i told you so.

it is not long until he stands before the warden-commander, but it is a long time before they've any hope of striking a conversation. to anyone else, the quiet would be awkward, disconcerting, beatrize's stare a freezing thing. eragon is far too used to angela and nasuada and elain giving him the same silent stare-down to be all too bothered. even so, still is he the one to break the ice - and of course, there is another lengthy beat of silence before he finally learns what her voice sounds like.

he does not respond verbally to beatrize's first statement, acknowledging it only with a slight and careful nod. at her following question, however, he speaks before he can very well stop himself. " she, " eragon corrects beatrize, and despite his years of learning to wrangle his own emotions in the face of others - especially the unfamiliar, and the potentially hostile - he finds his tone slipping, snapping like a whip with all the curtness of a man who has suddenly grown irritated. eyes narrow and ears flatten ever so slightly, and after a brief moment, annoyance sizzles and burns away to restrained resignation. " 'she', not 'it'. if you will give her no other respect, i ask you at least give her that. " he could tolerate leagues of disrespect aimed towards himself - had beatrize made the decision to try and shackle him, throw him in whatever dungeons there may be here, he would have accepted it; when it came to saphira, no matter how different their worldview may have been here, he could not sit comfortably while their tongues reduced her to a beast.

"dragons portend an ill omen in most parts of thedas. if you know nothing of these lands, know at least that. we are not simply being disrespectful." the dragons she fought during the year of the blight left deep, ugly scars on beatrize. apart from the faint revulsion for the claw marks marring her back, she has developed a distaste for the creatures, any sighting of them often triggering an anxious fury in her that is not easily quelled. but she backs down in this instance, chooses to listen before bestowing judgment, as is her custom. "well met regardless, ser eragon. my name is beatrize cousland. i am the warden-commander of ferelden's order of the grey.

"you will forgive me if i do not give you free rein of our lands. we are not unkind to visitors, but i must proceed with caution under these unique circumstances." she knows very well that there are dragons yet roaming thedas, not frequently seen as they are. when she and alistair visited the western approach upon summons by the first warden, she saw the abyssal high dragon lurking in the wastes, belching its scorching, sulfuric breath in a green fog that poisoned the nearby lands. what kind of dragon commands such fierce loyalty that she has just seen flash beyond the anger in eragon's eyes? the only dragons she knows who commanded such devotion have since burrowed under the earth, waiting to be awakened by the taint.

the title of warden-commander catches his attention. he has heard fleeting whispers of the grey wardens, though not enough to garner what their cause was or what they stood for. he will ask her more later, assuming he survives this interaction. " there is no offense. you've people to protect, a home to keep safe. i cannot fault you for your caution, " eragon replies, and though there is no warmth, neither is their any stiffness, resentment. she is only doing her job. when she rises from her seat, eragon watches, stares; there is no tense or coiled threat in her movements or the way she approaches, but just as it serves her no misfortune to be cautious, neither does it cost him anything. " we were headed east. we are … looking for something. nothing pertaining to ferelden, if it soothes you. "

eragon rubs his wrists once they are free of the shackles; they do not ache, were not bound long enough to become raw or sore, but still does he fidget out of habit. " her name is saphira. " there is a note of fondness to the statement, and his voice takes on the lilt of an individual speaking about a friend, a loved one, rather than a pet. " she hatched for me - what was it, ten years ago? or has it been eleven, now? " from his tone and the way his focus shifts past beatrize, it seems almost as though he is asking someone else - someone not currently present, someone distant and listening. after a second, eyes snap back to beatrize, and he continues without faltering, " ten years. not quite as impressive as twenty-two, but we'll get there. she is my dragon, and i am her rider, and i assure you, while she is not harmless, she was not bred for war. "

he thinks about thorn. about murtagh. eragon's ears flatten slightly. he can't help it. " no dragon should be. bred for war, i mean. where we are from - " he stops abruptly, the name on the tip of his tongue dissipating before he can speak it aloud. saphira, jabbing against him, warning him to be careful about what he might say, as if he wasn't already well aware. " where we are from, dragons are not beasts. they are not omens. they are intelligent as you or i, and though it changes nothing of the way things are here, i have never known them - those from home, anyway - to be bad luck. i don't know what has happened here, but i'm sorry that it has, beatrize-elda. "