Mana didn't try to be stealthy or anything. As such, it came to no surprise that Eragon aimed with his bow and arrow at her when he heard her feet shuffling through the snow. He in return was thrown out of the loop, upon seeing a very beautiful and very naked woman in front of him. While so far, the boy had yet to show any interest in even pursuing a relationship, he was still a hormone driven teenager with dreams and fantasies. And with Mana standing in front of him the way she was, he almost lost his footing on the slippery ground, all the while staring slack-jawed at the Zerg woman.

Mana let out a low chuckle, her voice having to echo as if there were two people speaking at once. "Surprised to see me like this?" she asked with a teasing smile and a hand on her hip. "Although, I doubt you recognize me. After all, the last time we "saw" each other, I was still stuck in my cocoon."

"Y-You're Mana?!" Eragon exclaimed in surprise, dropping his weapon.

"In the flesh." the woman said coyly. The farmer was at a loss for words. He remembered his encounter with the Zerg a few weeks earlier, but had shrugged it off as a dream, caused the head injury, which he must have received by slipping up and hitting his head on a stone. However now he saw that Mana was very much a real, yet still very naked person. His reproductive organs already made themselves ready for delivery.

Mana wanted to approach the young man when she suddenly heard a hiss coming from the ground. Looking down, she found that there was a creature she was completely unfamiliar with standing next to Eragon's legs. It looked like some sort of lizard with wings and it had beautiful, shiny blue scales. Its claws looked like they were as sharp as knives and unlike other lizard creatures this one had teeth inside its mouth.

Eragon looked down at the little creature with a worried expression. He kneeled right next to it and tried to calm it down, by stroking the back of the creature. It didn't work out so well because Mana was still coming closer to the two. He could feel the dragon tensing up with each footstep that the woman made. Looking up, he found out that said woman was now standing right in front of him and incidentally his gaze landed on her well curved and full chest area. Blushing furiously, the farmer looked away, hoping the woman had not noticed. Unbeknownst to him she did but didn't care about it at the moment. She was sure every man would have automatically looked in that particular direction. Instead, she knelt down right in front of the boy and the lizard and cooed at it.

"Aw, what do we have here?" she asked in a sweet, motherly tone, as motherly as her new voice could be anyways. She stretched out her arm, seemingly trying to pet the creature, but that appeared to be the last straw. Fast like a snake, the lizard bit Mana's arm. Eragon gasped initially, hoping the little dragon didn't anger the woman in front of him. Because as hot as she looked, the still rational thinking part of his brain (albeit a small one) had long registered that this woman could kill him in a matter of seconds if she wished to do so.

To his surprise, instead of retracting her hand in pain, the woman looked at the dragon biting her hand for a second, before she started laughing. Her echoing voice sent chills down his spine, as this sounded like the laughter you would imagine coming from a villain in one of Brom's stories.

"A feisty one," she commented with a smile, before freeing her hand. "I haven't seen anyone like this before. At least I don't think so. What is this creature called?" she asked, pointing at the dragon, who let out another hiss. It must have interpreted the action as a sign of aggression.

For his part, Eragon was at a complete loss. First, the dragon egg appeared out of nowhere, probably transported by magic, next he met a new kind creature, which then proceeded to abduct him. Next, he found himself talking to a human, who was trapped inside a cocoon. Then, of course, the egg hatched and left some kind of mark on his hand. Ever since that happened last night he somehow had been able to "feel" the dragon's presence, as well as it's emotions. Somehow. If that wasn't some kind of magic then he didn't know. And finally, right in front of him stood a naked insect woman, who claimed to be the woman from the cocoon. The world had gone mad.

A worried squeak brought the boy back to reality. He could feel the dragon rubbing its tiny head against his leg. When he looked down, he found the small creature looking back up to him with a worried expression on its face. On top of that, he could feel it's worry through the link that he discovered last night. Almost acting on the instinct, Eragon tried to give or rather let the dragon feel his own reassurance. It at least looked like it works, then again, he might have accidentally accomplished the opposite.

He was startled all of the sudden, when he felt something weighing on his shoulder. Turning his head, he found out that Mana was looking at him with a worried expression. The boy felt his cheeks heat up a little. He also noticed the little arteries in the woman's face, which looked like small lightning strikes.

"Relax," Mana reassured with a kind smile. "If I wanted you dead, I could have destroyed your entire village already. How about we sit down and have a nice little chat?"

Eragon nodded numbly, trying to keep his instincts in check, in order to not run away...or possibly do something really, really stupid. He cleaned a rock of the recently fallen snow and sat down on it. Mana did the same with a fallen tree and put one leg over the other, not helping Eragon with his teenage, hormone driven fantasy. He tried to focus his mind on something else, namely the dragon. He gently put it on his lap and stroke the majestic being like a cat. It seemingly calmed the creature down, as it gently rested its head on the farm boy's lap.

"A-aren't you...cold?" Eragon asked with a blush, looking away immediately.

"Huh?" The Zerg woman looked confused and looked down on herself and the tree she was sitting on. Only when her gaze fell back on Eragon, did she realize what he meant.

"Oh, that's what you mean." She giggled. "I'm sorry. I almost forgot that humans wear clothes all the times. My own must have been destroyed during my recovery in the cocoon. I guess I made you uncomfortable, hmm? Again, I'm sorry."

"N-no problem," Eragon muttered.

"So...hmm, how should we-? Well, I guess I should start talking since I was the one who came up with this idea. And my first guess is you want to know what happened to me."

"Er...that would be helpful?" the boy asked with an uneasy smile. In his lap, the dragon flapped its wings a couple of times, before gently nestling them against its sides again.

"Hmm, well, to put it bluntly, the Zerg have their own way of helping people. Mainly by turning humans into one of them." Mana said those two sentences as if she was talking about the weather.

"They did this to you?" Eragon asked for confirmation.

The zerg woman nodded. "I have been aware of this fact for quite some time, while I was in the cocoon to be precise. Getting used to the knowledge that you're being turned into an entirely different species" she shook her head "needless to say, I pretty much panicked. By the time the Zerglings…*ahem*...invited you for tea" Eragon couldn't help but smile "I had already been in that thing long enough to get used to the situation."

"It...must have been hard." the boy replied carefully.

"It was. Especially since I didn't really remember much and still don't. But now...it's hard to explain. I guess I'm glad to be still alive." She looked down on her claw-like hands. "Though, without memories...it's aarrgh, forget it. I've been complaining about my memories for weeks. Granted, the other Zerg don't really talk, but I guess it's nice to have someone to listen to."

"I...see." He totally didn't. Eragon was just a simple farm boy and such at a complete loss. All his mind could comprehend was monsters, magic, dragons and a woman turned into a monster. And she wasn't trying to kill him, so that was a plus.

"Hmm, so, tell me a little about yourself. As you might have guessed it's been quite some time since I had a conversation with a human."

"Er…" And now Eragon had to make sure that he didn't anger the woman in some way to kill him. Sure she looked unusual, but he had heard more than enough stories to know that anything that even remotely resembled a monster, could kill you in very horrible and unspeakable ways.

"I'm really not all that special. I'm just a farmboy."

"Mhm. A farm boy with an exotic pet." Mana pointed out.

"Oh, oh. Him." Eragon had to bit his lip. He would love to avoid the subject of the dragon, which puffed a little bit of smoke out of its nostrils because quite frankly he didn't know where exactly the egg came from. He also feared Mana might do something to the poor thing, maybe even turn it into a monster too.

"I...er...i-i-i-i-i-i-it's c-c-c-c-c-complicated." he stuttered heavily. "I-I…"

"Hey, hey, hey." Noticing his obvious distress, Mana raised her arms in a peaceful matter. "Calm down, okay? I already told you, I'm not going to do anything to you with that I also mean I'm not going to do anything to your little friend."

Said "little friend" hissed at the Zerg woman once again, as if it wasn't convinced by that statement.

"And if you're uncomfortable telling me something, then just say so. Okay?"

"S-sorry." the boy apologized and looked away again.

Mana suppressed the urge to sigh, as she could see him trembling, which seemed to further aggravate the little lizard on his lap. Seeing as this was probably going nowhere, the Zerg Queen turned around, thinking it might be best to leave the boy alone and let all the information sink in.

"I guess I'm asking too much for you to trust me. Don't worry, I understand. I will leave you to your business then." She said and was about to walk away, when…

"No, wait!" Eragon shouted, standing up. Surprised, Mana turned around finding Eragon looking a little conflicted.

"What is it?" she asked. "Don't tell me you feel guilty all of the sudden." An amused smile crept up her face. "It's fine, really. I would be most likely scared too if I were in your shoes."

"I...guess," Eragon admitted reluctantly. "But...uh...I just..umm...I mean…"

The woman in front of the boy giggled, seeing as how he was stumbling over his own words. "All right," she said and walked back to her previous spot. "Let us take this slowly and let's best ignore the little snake on your lab. I would like to keep my fingers, thank you very much."

Mana actually managed to bring Eragon to smile, while the dragon on his lab just kept staring disapprovingly at the woman.

"You already said that you are a farmer. Can you tell me a little bit about your home? The village perhaps?"

"Mmm, okay. Well, our village is probably the smallest one in the entirety of Alagaesia, so we don't have much. There is Horst, our local smith. He's really kind hearted and helped me out recently when I had a fight with Sloan. He's our butcher and… we had a disagreement a few days ago. I wanted to buy some meat for my family, but he wasn't satisfied with my...money. Luckily his daughter and I are friends, so she called Horst, who then paid instead of me. I have now to work for him in the summer to pay him back. My uncle isn't too happy about it because he actually needs me on the farm." Eragon frowned. "I need to see if I can work it out somehow."

"Hmm…" Mana tapped her chin with a claw. "I see. You mentioned an uncle. Do you have any other family?"

The boy nodded. "There's Roran, my cousin. He's going to leave Carvahall soon, in order to make some money. He's planning to marry in a couple of years if everything goes right."

"Now that's interesting." the Zerg woman commented. "You didn't mention your parents? Are they...dead?" she asked carefully.

"My mother." Eragon nodded, not really feeling sad about it. "She died before I really got to know her. I never knew my father. No one seems to know who he is."

"Is that so? For a simple farmboy, you have an interesting background." she grinned. "Almost as if you're destined to be the hero of a fairy tail. You already have a little dragon companion. The only thing I see missing is a damsel in distress." Mana laughed, while Eragon blushed, clearly uncomfortable with that particular train of thought. He looked down on his little dragon, who in return looked back up with big curious eyes. It rubbed its head against the boy's hand, like a cat asking to be pet again. The boy complied, causing the dragon to let out a happy squeak. Both human and former human looked down at the dragon for a second, before continuing their talk.

"Eragon, there's something else I wanted to ask you. You see the other Zerg discovered something interesting the other day. A small village, carefully hidden within the mountains far up in the north."

"Really?" Eragon asked surprised. "I have never heard of a village high up in the mountains, let alone the Spine of all places."

"It might be because those guys didn't exactly look human. Similar, yes, but if memory serves, humans do not grow horns on their head."

"Urgals?!" Eragon exclaimed surprised. The dragon squeaked in surprise too, but not due to what the Zerg said, but because of the sudden noise the human made. As for Mana, she raised an eyebrow at the sudden exclamation.

"I take it humans and….urgals, correct? They don't get along very well."

"Urgals are monsters." The farmboy said without hesitation. "They kill a human when they see one. The travelers told us how the number of Urgal attacks has increased in the kingdom. For some reason, they're traveling towards the desert in the south, although nobody seems to know why."

"Hmm...I'm afraid I don't have an idea either. Frankly, I don't remember anything about the urgals, I didn't even recognize them upon seeing them." Mana shook her head. "In any event, I doubt they will come out of their village anytime soon. The only urgals we spotted were hunting in the wild. A few Zerg are always on the lookout and will inform me immediately when the urgals decide to head out. I could even warn you ahead of time in case anything happens."

Eragon didn't look too happy with that. "Uh...no offense, but...I don't think the other villagers will appreciate seeing...you know…"

As it just so happened, one of the bushes began to rustle. A second later a Zergling stepped out of it, causing Eragon to jump off his sitting position. Luckily he held the dragon in his hands at the time or else the poor little guy would have hit the ground rather uncomfortably. The Zergling ignored the human and the little, hissing, smoke puffing lizard in his hands and almost casually strolled over to his queen. He lied down right next to her and allowed her to scratch his head.

"Oh don't worry about the villagers."

Have you forgotten I can do this?

Sarah sent a mental transmission over to Eragon, who flinched not only upon hearing words in his head but also upon the sudden sensation of a mountain being put on his brain. Luckily the sensation disappeared just as soon as it came. Still, the boy was disoriented for quite some time. Mana thought that was because he wasn't used to hearing a voice inside his head.

"I'm sorry. I guess I should have at least warned you beforehand."

"Urrgh…" Eragon groaned, his dragon squeaking in worry about its caretaker. Luckily he managed to catch himself and shook his head for good measure. "I...forgot you could...do this." he shivered a little.

"Sorry again. Are you feeling alright?"

"Yes, yes. I think so."

"Good to hear." Mana smiled. "But what I'm trying to say is, I can simply contact you with this ability." She put two fingers on the side of her head and then pointed with them at Eragon's own head. "Actually that's also how I am able to communicate with the other Zerg."

"Really?!" the boy asked.

"What, did you think I actually understand any of the skittering or whatever noises they let out?" The Zerg woman asked, pointing on Zergling on her feet, which let out a low growl, as it was being stroked on the head.

"Oh...yes...I guess...that would be...difficult."

Mana couldn't help herself, but facepalm.