Disclaimer: -scowls- I hate disclaimers. There's no point to them. Everyone knows I'm not Christopher Paolini, or J.K. Rowling, or any great author for that matter. I don't own any characters, unless of course you don't recognize them.
In this chapter, that means Faelin (me. I own myself. Duh.), Tomak, Lista, Bailik, and that brat Rudia. My parents; you'll find out about them later. -smiles mischeviously-
I don't own Eragon, Eldest, or anything written by Christopher Paolini having to do with the Inheritence trilogy.
Do you get the point yet?
"Faelin! Get your daydreaming hide in here before I toss it into the chicken broth!"
Ah, a voice echoed in my head. Back to work.
I scowled and picked up my writing things. The little wicker basket that I hoisted over my shoulder was rather light, though it held much more than the quill, ink bottles, and writing-covered parchment piled pell-mell into its space. It held my thoughts of the day, random pieces for a possible song or tale, even bits of conversations I heard in the market while on an errand for Lista.
Speaking of…
"Faelin Haldthin! Where in the world are you?" The heavy oak door banged open and Goodwife Lista stepped into its place. Now, she's not really a Goodwife, mind you, but her husband was taken by the raiders years and years ago, and she doesn't want to be called a widow. It's too depressing, she says. And plus, she's not my mother, nor any of my siblings' mother. Our parents are off doing things, their "call to duty", as they put it. So Goody Lista is here to watch over us, and make sure we don't die from starvation.
"I'm here, Lista," I quickened my pace in order to reach the front door before she could yell again. I wasn't eager to leave the sanctuary of my favorite rowan tree, where I always do my best thinking, but I had to answer my call to duty now. Kitchen chores.
Ew.
"About time, childling," Lista teased, fully aware that my birthing day was a few days before, making this hot summer my fifteenth. No longer was I a "childling," but I wasn't quite ready to be married off.
I wiped my sweat soaked bangs out of my eyes and stepped up to the doorway, expecting Lista to let me in. I was dreadfully wrong.
"What's that you got there, Fae?" The plump woman leaned forward so that I had to arc my back if I didn't want to touch noses with her. "It's not a quill and parchment, is it?" She grinned.
"No, Lista. It's a savage wolf. Care to look?" I thrust the basket under her nose and giggled as she pretended to swoon in fright.
"Deary me! Those ink bottles sure are scary," she replied, ushering me in from the sweltering sunbeams outside. The door shut with a heavy thud as Lista bustled past, retying her apron around her chubby waist.
Aside from my sisters and brother, Lista is my best friend out here in Carvahall. I know, I know, it's far from Farthen-Dûr, but –I'll explain my parents later.
But anyway, Lista has been taking care of my family since Bailik, my first youngest sister, was born. That was fourteen years ago, so you could say we're pretty close.
I was just making my way through the oak-paneled entrance room of our house when a shrill and commanding voice echoed through the hallways. Even Theron, my brother Tomak's hound, whined a protest at the piercing call.
"Faelin! Come here!" Not another summoning, I thought while groaning. I set my basket of writing tools down near the stairs and made my way into the kitchen.
A petite girl, clad in a long dress accompanied by an apron identical to Lista's, was stirring something in a large pot hanging over the fire at the back of the kitchen. She was rather pretty, with auburn hair past her shoulders and small features. She was slender, but a bit on the short side. She was what the boys of our village would love to call theirs.
"What is it, Rudia?" I grabbed an apron from the rack near the door and strode over to my twelve year old sister, who looked miserable.
"Could you stir this broth for me?"
I snorted at her, wondering where her manners had gone. "Why can't you do it yourself?"
"But I've been stirring forever," she whined, her face twisting into an expression of annoyance.
"Oh, please," Lista grumbled, stepping over a pile of unpeeled potatoes to rap Rudia on the head with a wooden spoon. "Ten minutes more and you're free to go." Rudia, not unlike Theron, whined a protest at the harsh smack and clutched her curly tresses.
Lista strode out of the kitchen and into the sitting room, humming to herself. A moment later I heard her make her way up the creaking stairs.
I leaned down so that I was level with my sibling's ear. "Where are you hurrying to? Surely not to see Authorn again?
I was satisfied to see Rudia's sun-tanned face redden.
"Authorn can wait. Dinner's a bit more important than sneaking out with some boy from the village." I whispered evilly. I straightened up before Rudia cold say anything. This was only payback for her reading some of my most secret scrolls; what one could call a diary, I guess.
I began to walk to that pile of potatoes when I heard Rudia's stool scrape across the stone floor.
"Well, aren't you the hypocrite," came the acid retort I was only half-expecting. I usually caught Rudia unawares when I challenged her, leaving her stuttering for a good remark afterwards. But her words made me stiffen.
"You seem to think that darling Fenail is the most important things in Alagaësia! Why else would you write so much about him?" When I turned around, Rudia was glaring with a look of utter superiority on her quaint little face. I think she expected me to burst into tears, or even pounce on her. But she didn't think I was going to do what I did.
I laughed.
"Stupid wench," I replied, a bit more venomously than I intended. "Fenail isn't human, for one thing. And for another, he's one of my characters. For my story." I shot her a scathing look before picking up a dagger and peeling the skin off of a twisted potato. "Or didn't you realize that 'Fenail' is only an anagram of my own name?"
She shrieked at my condescending tone of voice and hurled the large spoon she was holding at my head. I only ducked just in time to avoid it colliding with my skull. She had deadly aim; I knew from experience. But I had wicked reflexes (mostly from those past experiences).
I looked at the potato in my hand. It would make a nice-sized lump on my sister's temple. So I sent it flying across the cobblestone kitchen straight to my sister's pretty little head.
Needless to say, it hit its mark with a satisfying thump. Another shriek escaped Rudia's lips as she fell to her knees, holding the side of her face.
"Authorn won't like that very much, now would he?" I held my chin high, waiting for her to answer.
She did. "Leave Thorn out of this, you witch!" She was crying now, and a twinge of pity made me realize that the potato that was in my hands only moments before was actually quite heavy.
I sighed heavily. "I'm sorry, Rudia. That was awfully mean of me, wasn't it?" I hate my conscience. Every time I did something even slightly mean to my siblings, I felt terribly guilty. Not that it stops me from slapping the boys in the market who try to see down my dress as they do with every other girl, and with much more force than I threw the potato at my sister.
I strode over to her and squatted down so that we were eye level. She was still crying. I held out my hand in an offering of peace, but she only glared at me.
"Please, Rudia. We shouldn't get mad over things like this," I pleaded. I tilted her chin up and gently pulled her hand from her face. Just as I had intended in my moment of anger, there was a large welt next to her ear. "Alright, I take that back. I give you full permission to hate me for as long as you live." I winced at the size of that welt. Oops.
Her big blue eyes searched my face for a minute before she threw her arms around my shoulders and started sobbing again. I was startled by this gesture, which was so unlike Rudia that I became confused.
"What's wrong, sweetheart?" I rarely used that name on my sister, but I deemed this situation out of the ordinary. "What's bothering you?" I sat down from my squatting position and pulled my little sister into my lap, stroking her hair as she cried on my shoulder.
Rudia only shook her head and let her tears fall on my dusty dress. I rocked her back and forth a bit, as I had seen Mother do whenever my sisters (or I) crawled into her lap for a good weep. When she visited, that is.
After a few minutes of holding her, I pulled Rudia away from shoulder and looked her in the eye. "What's going on?"
"I-it's Th-Th-Thorn!" she cried. "He's f-found another g-g-girl! He t-told me last w-week that I w-was the pr-prettiest girl in all of C-Carvahall, and n-now he won't e-even s-speak to m-me!" She continued sobbing so hard that I put her head back on my shoulder.
"Well then, he's not a very nice, is he?" I tried to settle her mind; she was too young to be chasing after boys.
Rudia sniffled. "I guess not. But still…I thought he really loved me…" she took a deep breath and wiped her nose on her sleeve.
"Rudia, you're too young to be courting anyone yet. You'll be thirteen summers in a few weeks, remember? You haven't become a woman yet. Hell's teeth," I made a look of distaste, "I've only been a woman for a few sunsets! I'm not a woman at all yet!"
She giggled at this, and I knew she agreed with me. About the woman thing, I mean. Not about boys. Rudia, in a word, was boy-crazy. And that was something we would have to break her out of. I smiled warmly at her; I don't like it when she cries.
The front door banged open once again, and the merry whistling of my brother Tomak reached our ears. He had a marvelous singing voice, too, but he often whistled when he was in the house.
He strolled into the kitchen and took off his own work apron to hang on the hook inside the door, but stopped short when he saw the mess we had made while Lista was cleaning upstairs. In our short scuffle, Rudia and I had let the stew burn, knocked over two bags of flour so that the floor was pasty white, squashed a few tomatoes, and made a mess of the potatoes.
I took one look at all of it and burst out laughing. Rudia and Tomak joined me for a few moments, but then we were all serious again, except for the grins on our faces.
"I'm not going to ask what fight the Haldthin sisters got into today," he chuckled, stooping to help us up. "Ah, lassie, why ye be crying?" Tomak often took on the accent of the fisherman down on Carvahall's many wharfs when trying to make Bailik or Rudia feel better. With me, he holds me like I held Rudia. It works much better for me.
He lifted Rudia into his arms and spun her around the kitchen, carefully sidestepping the mess we had created. She giggled like the child she was, even if she put on a grown-up façade most of the time.
I stood up and brushed the flour off of my dress and looked around. Tomak put Rudia down after a minute and the two of them joined me in examining the kitchen. Lista would have a fit and half if she saw it. My sibs seemed to be thinking the same.
Luckily, a solution in the form of Bailik arrived.
The front banged open yet again. The sound of running feet was heard all the way in the back of the kitchen. Bailik, my fourteen year old sister, skidded to a halt in the doorway of the kitchen and looked around.
"Be thankful you have me," she said with a grin on her face. "And Lista. If she hadn't told me to work in the fields, you'd be in great trouble right about now." She leaned against the doorway and crossed her arms.
Bailik was always speaking in riddles. It was terribly annoying most of the time. Like now.
"Get on with it, Bai," Rudia whined. She had an uncanny way of speaking all of our minds. "What could you possibly do to clean all of this up?"
"Oh, not me," replied Bailik, examining her nails. She straightened up and cast us all that infectious smile of hers. "But I know two people who could do quite a lot!"
She turned and ran back through the hall, laughing with sheer delight. All of us, even Theron, followed her out of the house and to the back fields as fast as we could. It was a long run, and all of us were very winded by the time we got to our destination.
Lista would be angry that the crops would be squished, and that we made a giant mess in the kitchen. We would probably be sent to bed without supper, considering we let it burn. We were supposed to be doing our chores, but we had abandoned all thought of work when Bailik had come in.
It was all worth it, though, because standing there were our two favorite people in the entire world.
Uncle Eragon and Saphira were back from Ellesméra.
Major spoilers! Major spoilers! WEEHEEHEEHEEHAAAAA
-dances around like a lunatic-
Alright, if you haven't read the Inheritence books yet, I'm going to kill the plot for you in the next few chapters. So if you have any intention of reading them, no lookies! -guards "next chapter" button with teeth bared-
I'm not going to beg for reviews, seeing as everyone -- OH PLEASE PLEASE PLEEEASE REVIEW! PLEASE! EVEN IF YOU THINK IT'S TOTAL DRAGON DUNG, I BEG OF YOU TO TELL ALL YOU FRIENDS! That's it's good, I mean. :D
I'll be around, and updates will be soon. And I'll answer reviews in the beginning of next chapter, whether it be answers to questions, thank-yous, or anything.
Tootles!
Faelin