Disclaimer: I do not own the Inheritance Cycle.

Chapter 6- Ramble On!

It had been three days since I had introduced my companions to Rock music and we were back on the road. The reactions to the genre had been… less than stellar. Brom had threatened to take my phone and run it through with his sword, while Eragon had cast a spell that almost destroyed both him and the offending device. Surprisingly, Saphira was on my side of the argument, and rather liked Rock, saying that it was loud and violent, like dragons. We all agreed with that.

The day after the music incident, I had enough strength to slowly wander around for a couple of hours. Since then, the stump of my left neck lengthened considerably. The bandages had to be taken off after the second day, revealing a translucent cocoon with various things pulsing, writhing and softly glowing beneath it, which seriously freaked me out. Then the damn thing began to itch like crazy. You know when you have an itch that stays with you, no matter how much you scratch it? I had that, except it was so bad that I had to stop myself from to biting it with my other two heads. Regrowing a head was a pain in the ass and I don't recommend it.

By day three, I had finally torn off the freaking cocoon! That revealed a new, shiny, slimy, smelly, golden head. Hooray! And also yuck. My other two heads went into a mad licking frenzy to get the left, regrown one clean. After a quick breakfast of deer, we were back on the road. Eragon and Brom rode on Cadoc and Snowfire while I followed behind them on all fours as I wasn't strong enough to fly.

A while into the morning, Eragon asked "What is the sea like?"

I instantly replied with "Wet."

Brom rolled his eyes at me, then turned back to Eragon. "Surely you must have heard it described before?"

"Yes, but what is it really like?" Eragon asked.

Brom launched into a massive speech about the 'beauty of the sea', etc, etc, then gave an example of one of the elves' songs. By the time he had finished, I had brought my phone out of my backpack and had found the pictures from when my Mom and Dad had taken me on vacation to a small chain of islands in the Pacific Ocean. I dropped my phone on Cadoc's saddle and Eragon picked it up.

"Wow. This is really the sea?" he said, flicking through the photographs.

"Yup." I replied. "That place is called Hawaii. It's very warm and sunny there."

"This is of your home, I take it?" Brom asked.

"Yes, but it's a long way south-west of where I lived."

"It's amazing." Eragon said after scrolling through the pictures and giving me the phone back.

We went on, Brom explaining magic, history and information about dragons, until we could see the outline of the Spine on the horizon. Eragon and Brom dismounted and set about making camp as I nosed around for firewood. Upon amassing a suitable quantity of wood, I zapped it with a small electric charge, setting it alight. Eragon began making dinner and Saphira landed behind me as I walked off to hunt my own meal.

We arrived in the Spine's foothills two days later. By then I could fly for short stretches of time, half an hour at most, but I still followed Brom on foot. The day where we didn't have Eragon with us, I got so bored that I proposed a game of I-spy, something that Brom adamantly refused was beneath his dignity. With nothing to do except put one foot in front of the other, I was left to my thoughts. I still didn't understand why or how I was here. Hell, I didn't understand why I wasn't even me anymore. Being a giant three-headed dragon was awesome, but it felt wrong… and sometimes a little disorienting.

That night was when I had my first dream since what I was calling my 'respawn'. I was back at the campsite in Glacier National Park, human again. Everyone was rushing around in a panic, throwing things into the truck. Then the bear came. The world darkened into an inky monochrome, my friends, our gear and the truck disappearing, only leaving pitch black trees on a grey floor. The scene was pierced by a blood red sun. Eyes that matched stabbed through the gloom. The creature that used to be the bear growled. Then the darkness surged forward, those red eyes at its forefront. I screamed as shadow claws closed around my throat, those red eyes burning into mine, incendiary rage blazing behind them.

Then it spoke in a voice that was so cold it stabbed into my mind. "YOUR SOUL IS MINE, PLANESWALKER. YOU CANNOT HIDE. YOU CANNOT RUN. YOU CANNOT LIVE, AND I SHALL COME FOR YOU!"

My eyes snapped open and I flew to all fours with a head splitting yell of "WHAT THE ****!"

The sun was just peeking over the horizon as a gentle breeze rustled through the trees. Birds chirped and sang as smells of cooking meat filled the air. Fluffy, white clouds floated cheerfully overhead in a pink-tinted sky. The very image of a perfect morning. Everyone else was already awake, glancing in a shocked silence from my shaking body, to each other, and back.

"Erm… did we miss something?" Eragon whispered as I frantically scanned the surrounding area.

Realizing that the… thing wasn't about to rip my throats out, I calmed down and tried to clear the images from my mind.

"What happened?" Brom questioned.

I didn't reply until I had grabbed my backpack, rifled through it and found the bag of jelly beans. (Pro tip, the best way to cheer me up is to give me jelly beans.) "I had a… nightmare? Vision? One or the other. By the way, some kind of dark entity with glowing red eyes is coming to claim my soul. Tell me if it shows up, so I can run away from it, would you?"

I popped a red bean into my middle mouth, and almost had a seizure at the divine taste. Turns out that my tongues are very sensitive when it comes to anything with sugar in it. After a few more beans, I closed the bag tight and dropped it back in the backpack before sitting down by planting my scaly butt on the ground and used my wings to support the rest of my draconic bulk. I looked down at Brom, who was stroking his beard in thought.

I waited for him to make a deep, philosophical comment (well, if he believed me)… and waited… and waited. Then I got bored and flew off to find some unsuspecting breakfast.

Three days after that, I was back to flying. Eragon and Brom found the road between Urû'baen and Teirm while Saphira and I flew far overhead. I tried to coax Saphira into I-spy too. Unlike Brom, she accepted, but she insisted that I could only use one head to make things fair. That was why I flew off course while looking for the object that Saphira had picked out. She only noticed half an hour later and then came flying back to fetch me.

Once again, the days began to cycle into a repetitive blur. The days with Eragon were often more interesting, as Brom had asked me to help the young Rider and dragon train in aerial combat. That meant I was allowed to do interesting things like dive-bombing the pair, trying to knock Eragon off. Saphira would try to defend herself by corkscrewing, diving and banking, among many other manoeuvres.

One interesting afternoon, Saphira initiated the attack. She passed over me, dropping Eragon onto my back. I was completely unprepared for this, but managed to execute a roll, that would have thrown the young Rider off if he had not grabbed hold of the nearest spike and held on for all he was worth. Righting myself, my next strategy was to turn my left and right heads around to face Eragon while the middle one concentrated on flying. I grinned and made electricity flare in my two mouths.

"You lose." I said smugly, letting the electricity crackle into nothing.

As I returned all of my heads to concentrating on flying, Brom contacted me with another test. Receiving it, I grinned wickedly. With Eragon still on my back as Saphira circled around, I stopped flapping and went into a dive. Eragon screamed, then swore violently as he lost his grip on me, and tumbled into free-fall. Of course, I was right underneath him, just in case. As Saphira swooped towards me, I turned away and pulled up so that she could catch her Rider without any issue. I levelled out, then looked down to see what had happened.

Splat! Ooh…

Ha, just kidding! The Dynamic Duo actually pulled off a rather good recovery. Saphira aligned her dive with the path of Eragon's fall, pulling up slowly until he was able to grab onto a fluttering strap and pull himself into the saddle. Saphira pulled up sharply, clearing the trees in the forest below by a wide margin. As they flew back up to my side and looked over, I gave my best 'looking innocent' faces and started whistling. Then I sent what had happened to Brom, who chuckled as we flew on into the darkening evening.

It took us another week of trekking through the Spine until we caught sight of Teirm one evening. Due to the increasing amount of other travellers on the road, Eragon and Brom had rode together while Saphira and I flew. It was also around this time that I showed them Mission Impossible. The experience was a little diminished by the tiny screen size, which meant we had to bunch up together to watch it.

Although they obviously didn't understand parts of it, even with me explaining beforehand, my companions rather enjoyed the film. Saphira and Eragon liked the action scenes, while Brom was more interested in the plot. After the movie had finished, I asked Brom whether accessing the records would be similar to the film's drop to access the computer terminal.

Brom shook his head. "It's more likely to be a couple of bribes and spells, though we are going to be sneaking in."

I nodded, returned the phone to my backpack, and curled up for the night.

The next morning, the two humans rode off towards the city as my fellow dragon and I took to the skies. After a few hours of flying around for the pleasure of it, Saphira pointed out a clearing on a clifftop for us to camp out on. Landing, I took in the scene. Maple trees surrounded the space, except for an open side which provided a beautiful view of the city and the ocean beyond. I whistled at the sight, whipped my phone out and took a picture.

After drinking in the beauty of nature for a while, I flew off in search of something to eat. Having a dragon's sense of smell helped a lot for that. Half an hour later, I was swooping down on a small group of wild horses. I pinned two under my feet, accidentally knocked out another by hitting it with my tails, and grabbed hold of three more in my mouths before they knew what was happening. The ones that I had not incapacitated screeched in fear and bolted, charging away. I looked around, checking that I was alone before I began eating.

I ate five out of the six horses before I flew back, holding the last one in my middle head. Reaching the clifftop, I found that Saphira was looking over the city, watching the world go by. I landed behind her with a thump.

"Hungry?" I asked, dropping my kill.

Saphira turned away from the amazing view and nodded as I nudged the carcass towards her. Then I wandered around a little before flumping down, grabbing my phone and started to play Fruit Ninja. Having giant claws instead of fingers is a nightmare for swiping over a screen and trying not to scratch it, so I abandoned that idea rather quickly and started to look for something else to occupy myself with.

Later, I found myself next to Saphira, looking out over Teirm. People the size of ants squabbled in the marketplaces, yelled at each other near the docks and chuckled at each other's jokes. Despite the differences in clothing, technology, politics and addition of magic, the people of Alagaësia were the same as the people of Earth. They laughed, cried, sang, worried, lived and died, just like anybody back home. I sighed, partly in nostalgia, partly in sadness. Then I mentally slapped myself. There was no way to go home, I needed to get over it!

Out of the blue, my companion suddenly asked "What is it like without having a Rider?"

I intelligently replied with "Huh?"

Saphira turned towards me, worry in her eyes. "I am bonded with Eragon, yet he plunges himself nose-first into situations that could result in his death, without any regard for his own safety. If he dies, then the emotional and physical pain will either drive me to death or insanity, and he doesn't think about that! He doesn't care that-" She glared at the ground, growled and stamped a foot in annoyance before getting control of herself and turning back to me. "What I'm trying to ask is if it's better or worse to have a Rider than to be unbonded. I was hoping that you could answer this for me."

I did the equivalent of raising a questioning eyebrow before settling down to think about it. After a couple of minutes, I was satisfied with my answer and began to talk. "Without a Rider, a Dragon is undirected, alone, an uncontrollable storm of power that does as it pleases. Before the bond was created, wild Dragons would do what they wanted, according to primal instincts, wants, needs, and simply because they could. It was the formation of the Riders that made both them and us Dragons so much more powerful. The intelligence, vision, and compassion of men and elves, combined with the strength and brutality of our kind makes that so, for both Dragon and Rider. That ancient bond connects you and Eragon, and it is something to be cherished, for as you know, if your partner passes on and you survive, realizing what you have lost is worse than passing on, into the void."

I left Saphira to think on that before adding "We have a saying where I come from, which sums up your question very well. It goes 'United we stand, divided we fall'. That, if anything, is the true meaning of the Bond. Dragons and Riders can face any threat, any challenge and make it through to see another day, until fate decrees that it is their time to pass on. Those who are not one in their hearts and minds shall fall, bonded or not, and no matter how much courage or skill they possess."

I rose as Saphira acknowledged my (...actually, it was rather good) advice. But then she said to me "Ghidorah, you have no Rider. By your own argument, you have put yourself in the group of those who shall fall."

We heard Eragon's mental shout of "Saphira!" as I stood and stretched my wings, preparing to take off.

I looked down at her with three grins and said "Ah, but there is something about me that puts me in with those who will survive."

She motioned for me to carry on.

I happily roared "I am my Rider!" as I beat down my wings and took to the skies, leaving Saphira to have some private time with Eragon.