Note: Please check the prior chapter, 'cause it's a double update today. Because my muse is like that.

Searched long and hard for an epic score to start writing this. And settled for Skyrim's One They Fear. Because of course I did.

Saemora the Destroyer devoured spells and elves like hell did souls. She was her sire's pride and joy. And she had the runt the elves called princess within her sights, no matter the blue-furred beast and the silver-haired female that tried shoving themselves between them. She supposed there was honor in dying alongside one's leader, no matter how pathetic that leader may have been.

From miles and miles above, first sounded the Call. The Call Saemora had last heard when she had already been confined to the depths of hell and had hoped to never, ever hear again.

Saemora keened in dread, the fatal flame dying in her throat. No matter how mighty or numerous her clan had been before their fall, that Call made her realize how utterly alone they were. How utterly alone she was.

Her Mountain King roared, dark and terrible, but even he was muted by a shattering sound from deep beneath that the earth. As if the earth's heart was made of glass, and the King's call had cracked it open entirely.

And her sire's captive souls surged forth, brilliant and terrible as the dawn.

Shackled to their Eldunarya no longer, they were stars, made only of flame and spirit. Their burning eyes fixated upon her.

Saemora snarled back and dredged up the flame that could unmake magic itself. It passed harmlessly through them.

As one, the spirits unfurled their wings, and rose to claim the skies they had long been denied. Their claws wrenched at her own Eldunari as they ascended through and around her.

She drew her forelegs protectively inward, seared but physically unharmed. She was flesh and blood, of a whole different plane. The knowledge granted her new strength. Her sire had the power to truly resurrect his clan, where the false Eragon could only hope to liberate Elundarya that cared only for ascension. Vercingetorix was invincible. She was invincible, immune to the stars themselves-

The storm of arrows that speared her wings and torso were not so intangible. Neither was the she-dragon with scales the color of starlight that sprang from amongst the elves to sink her fangs into her throat.

And then Saemora no longer knew light.

Only blackness. And burning.

Then, nothing at all.

Roran clung to a precipice. And his numbed, bloody fingers were slipping.

A part of him, deep and innate and growing, whispered it was okay for him to let go. Long past time for him to have done so, even. He knew Garrow and Marian were waiting at the bottom, his parents ready to envelop him with open arms and carry him into peace ever-lasting. Katrina awaited with them, their daughter fat and rosy in her arms.

But the faint, frantic thought of the lives depending for him atop that cliff kept him stubbornly clinging. Even as he inched further and further down into that deep, restful dark.

Then the fire surged through him. It was not his own, for he had never been of flame. He was born of earth and iron, just as solid and dependable, and his soul screamed as the inferno consumed him from the inside out.

But of course it could never do that. Roran knew this fire was his brother's. While it burned, it promised to fill his veins with new strength and new life should he have chosen to take it.

So he took it. Without a moment's hesitation.

His being singing with the flame, Roran started climbing.

He was still too slow. It still wasn't enough.

So Roran gritted his teeth, dug in deeper, and banked that inner fire high and bright as it could go.

Then he let go of the edge.

And soared.

Roran's eyes snapped open to blazing reality. Trinnean and Caradoc stood tall over him, surrounded by the ghosts of their brothers and sisters, and with twin plumes of flame that joined into one drove back a male thrice their combined size with an agonized shriek.

The spirits spread their wings and rose through the roof of the cave. His shoulder black and charred, the furious dragon advanced with fire blooming in his throat.

Enraged, Roran sprang, bowling his nephews over as he fell upon their death. And violently smashed its head again and again until the cavern floor until it stopped twitching.

Two minds brushed lightly again his own. Roran's head snapped back toward the twins at an angle that should have been impossible. Trinnean and Caradoc had climbed shakily back to their paws and now gaped up at him in reverential disbelief. Some of Roran's fury banked to let in an odd mix of pride and annoyance for them.

U-Uncle Roran!? Trinnean spluttered at the same time Caradoc exclaimed How in the seven hells-

Roran shoved them from his mind as gently as he could. Strong as they were, his nephews looked properly small now, and so he forced his bulk between them and the cave entrance. Stubborn little bastards, they were, trying to sacrifice themselves for him like that. That was his damn job.

No matter how large and clumsy he felt, there was size and strength enough in his limbs to beat whatever bastard poked its head into the cave next without ever again having to pick up that puny little war hammer.

When the next one did, Roran proceeded to do just that.

Elva had made a last stand once before. She could do so again, to follow her family wherever they would go, be it to the stars or the mountain-king's treasure trove. And she and Shruikan were clan now, wayward orphans that had found fellowship among their ragtag royals. If this was his dying day, then she would go beside him.

Then their king Called. And Elva answered, as she had before and always would. Unfurling whole wings, for of course one was broken no longer, the violet she-dragon ascended with her family at her side.

Vercingetorix's clan turned tail and fled upward after their sire. Elva laughed after them and danced a dragon's dance beneath the clearing skies. The souls of her loved ones spun and duck and wove around her. There were her adopted siblings and aunts and uncles, too numerous to name. At her sides were her sons, gallant Norok and graceful Vaal. Then there was Frin, her darling daughter, who had always burned brightest of her children.

And then Elva dipped away from them all to fall into place beside Zohungaar. He burned the same brilliant white as his fires in life. Together they spun into the dance they had first performed in their nuptial flight as the years and horrible distance fell away like a bad dream. The gaping hole in her heart was alive with fire and light.

Oh, Zohungaar, she wept. His heart could not fall into place beside her own, for it burned too bright and vast and all around her. All her love could not tamp his spirit down when it yearned only to rise to the place it had long been denied. Fly, my love, fly. You're free now, forever and always.

Zohungaar flew, rising after their children and the souls of their clan. Elva did not follow. It was not yet time to join them.

Yet, though she wistfully gaze up after the stars of her clan, she was not entirely forsaken. Another soul tentatively brushed against her own, bright but not unbearable as a star's.

In disbelief she gaped at he left, to behold Shruikan as he truly was. Galbatorix and a century of captivity had forced him into the body of a beast, scarred and gaunt. Now his dull black scales were the sleek deep ebony of a raven's feathers, his once-ragged wings smooth and deep as the night. Free of every last scar and visible rib, Shruikan stood comfortable in his skin at last. Even if he was a slim male of her size, if not even slightly smaller.

Elva gaped as her mind groped for the appropriate response. ...Shouldn't you be bigger?

Shruikan chuckled, his smooth mental voice no longer incongruous against his physical appearance. After decades shackled beside a throne I felt... large. Oversized. Clumsy. Your size felt just about right. His violet gaze fixated on the dragons above, the burning souls driving the black shadow of the mountain-king further and further into their element. Shouldn't we follow them?

Elva impulsively almost retorted it was impossible to follow the stars unless one intended on dropping dead first. Then she belatedly realized the dragons that followed in the wake of the liberated souls were not so intangible.

She threw open her mind and far wide. And quickly closed it, when she realized how vast their clan had become.

How many had there been like her, dormant souls that had suffered in slumbering silence in skins wrong and stifling? How many had fallen secure in the knowledge their King would one day wake them? Had she, not so long ago, thought to have done the same?

Throwing introspection to the wind, Elva snorted and pressed after them with Shruikan as her shadow. Their King was Calling.

Saphira was no longer alone. Beside her soared her mother, the Storm-Cleaver, who burned with pride at her fire and urged her onward. Behind her followed the maternal half-siblings dead all before her own hatching, alongside the shades a dormant part of her recognized as as brothers and sisters and sons and daughters. She was Saphira and Safiri and her heart soared beside them.

Their souls soared upward, far and away, and Saphira did not rise with them. She stubbornly clung to those that kept her grounded on this world, in this life, and left the stars to wander where they willed.

Her mind first registered the broken pile of bodies before she noticed the brute standing among them. He was a massive male, bulging with muscle, the color of freshly tilled earth and with thick, curling horns like a ram's. From a stranger's face, drenched in blood and gore, Roran's weary eyes peered out.

Saphira allowed the inferno around her to gutter out as she landed beside them. Neither bothered asking what had happened, for the obvious answer was the kingly Call still thrumming through their souls. The moment she touched down Trinnean and Caradoc squeezed their way past their uncle, clambering over their paws and against her side as they frantically tried telling her what had happened.

She got the gist of it. Both of you had your first flame? Weeks early? She tried hiding the part of her soul that ached they had been forced to find their fires so brutally early, but nothing could dampen the thrum of deep and weary pride. Well done, my twins. Well done. We're so very, very proud of you.

They were not alone. One after another, dragons landed by the dozens on the surrounding mountains. They were not the mountain-king's. They had never been.

Vaguely Saphira realized she knew some of them. There was Jeod Longshanks, staring out from the face of a gray and grizzled male, with a prim and elegant female that could only be Helen beside him. There was Sindri, whose scales were the color of starlight her hair had once been.

All of them, strange or familiar, had eyes only for her. Saphira froze uncertainly.

Two more dragons, one gray as stone and the other the fresh green of springtime, alighted. Jarshan said nothing, gaze heavy and expectant. Angela, hazel eyes now a vivid emerald, winked at her.

Go on, she urged quietly. You're Queen of us all, remember? How can we all follow our King when you might need us here?

Saphira gazed skyward. Above Eragon burned bright and blue as a beacon as he and their clan converged beneath the rising stars and the looming shadow of the mountain-king.

The Queen of Dragons added her Call to her King's. As one, their people spread their wings and followed.

Murtagh grit his teeth and gripped Zar'roc all the tighter through the fire that throbbed through his limbs and then the Herald's wild, convulsing death throes. Only when the bastard's last twitch died down did he at last shakily pull his hands away from the blade. He left Zar'roc and all its misery firmly implanted in the thick flesh of his father's throat.

Mind too frayed to bother with magic, he crawled through the flesh and gore on his hands and knees, kicking a loose fang free. Wriggling through, Murtagh greedily gasped for fresh air, and emerged into the world slathered in blood and slobber. Only the grim satisfaction in the deed prevented him from forever suppressing the memory of near sliding down his father's gullet before forcing his way back up.

Thorn buzzed anxiously on a nearby cliff, torn between two very conflicting sides. Murtagh rolled his eyes and waved him away.

Go on, he groused mentally. I've had more than enough of this shit to last me a lifetime.

The red dragon needed no further prompting. He threw himself into the air, chasing after the tail end of his clan. Only a very, very small part of Murtagh wanted to follow them. The overwhelming majority that was his stubborn humanity told it to shut up and go back to sleep.

Slumping wearily against the Herald's snout, Murtagh craned his head upward to watch the spectacle.

If he thought the sky had been filled with dragons before, Eragon's clan blotted all else out.

Some of Vercingetorix's clan had the common sense to flee. Some foolishly chose to grapple with certain doom. Those that chose to fight died in a blink of an eye.

Eragon cared not for the mountain-king's protectors. He cleaved a straight path through as he and his clan converged upon the colossus himself.

The mountain-king's ear-splitting roar was drowned out by the King's Call, reverberating into a deafening rumble as his clan carried it in turn. At last the mountain-king tried for his flame. And only choked and spluttered when the smaller dragons pelted his throat in flame. Then they directed the torrent to melt his eyes in their skull. Like a ruthless horde of ants, yet more dragons fell upon Vercingetorix's wings, shredding their ragged membranes with fang and claw.

The mountain-king swatted futilely after them. For all his might he was a flying mountain, slow and sluggish, and the smaller dragons deftly ducked and weaved between his claws.

Eragon's first and only shot made Murtagh squeeze his eyes shut against the brightness. He wrenched them open just enough to glimpse radiant blue fire sear straight through the mountain-king's Eldunari and out the other side. The beast's last cry ended as a gurgled, broken grasp.

When the broken, smoking body stopped rising and started its final plunge to earth, Murtagh belatedly realized it would smash mountains, level entire valleys, and definitely kill whatever ragged forces had endured the battle below.

Eragon bellowed again. He breathed again, Saphira adding her flame to his. Thorn added his red flame, and Jarshan his silvery-gray, and Shruikan and Elva and countless others until the whole sky burned brighter than starlight, brighter than daylight, so bright Murtagh hid his face away and hoped the radiance did not scorch his eyes from their skull.

He did not look up until the first particles, too small and fine to truly be called ash, started raining down from above.

Only then did the King of Dragons crow his victory. From the valleys below human shouts and Urgal bellows, dwarven horns and elfin songs, joined in the cries of dragons.

With only their father's corpse around to judge, Murtagh tilted his head back and added his own, hoarse and human, to theirs.

A faint streak of red split the eastern horizon. Dawn was breaking.

"Well," he growled haggardly, "it's about goddamn time."

Down and down he (they) falls, through earth and through fire, past his children and children's children. His Herald, his Undying, his darling Destroyer. Where are they?

He falls past his old prison and deeper down still, as if there is a layer to this hell that could contain him forever. No matter how many centuries it took, no matter if the stars themselves started guttering out, he will drag himself out of here. What was will be again, and again, and again. Until everything was right again, just him and her.

But this time is different.

(hush, now) (i'm here)

She is no illusion. She is his (mate) (Jarnunvosk) heart of hearts. She has made a life hell for centuries untold, until that brief and blessed time their souls had found each again.

Her soul against his, he stops fighting. For the first time since out of the egg (since she died in his arms), he knows peace.

(rest, love) (rest)

He does.

Together, they drift away.

Their crucible is empty. There is nothing else to burn away.

Dragons are stubborn and defiant even in the face of death. There's a reason they cling to the earth as stars and reincarnate like no other race does. And that is not always to the best of their mental or spiritual stability.

Neither Roran nor Murtagh were born reincarnated dragons. Roran picked his up through necessity, a stubborn streak almost as wide, and a one-time act of freak magic. Murtagh, on virtue of being a Dragon Rider, politely told that little part of him to shut the fuck up and give him the damn peace he's waited a literal lifetime for.