Thorn nosed Saphira, trying to uncurl the ball she had drawn herself into. She allowed it, but twisted around a little.

"Saphira..." He almost whined her name, and it made her teeth grate in disgust. Had she sounded like that to Glaeder? Surely not.

"Thorn, no. One, you're too young -" She protested quietly, but was cut off with the retort,

"I'm not that much younger than you are!"

"No, but you don't understand, Thorn. No. I don't want to be your mate."

Thorn got angry at the comment and thwacked his tail against the ground; a shapely, deep crimson river battling the smooth rock's surface.

"But we're the only two dragons apart from Galbatorix's eggs! We have to! Do you want to see the demise of the dragon population? The end of the world as many dream of!"

Saphira jumped up and whipped around, never stopping but keeping a battle stance, unable to stop moving for all the fire in the soul. It ate her muscles; it consumed her sense and reason like water dripped onto a smith's fire.

"Do you know what I have seen, boy?! I have seen more battles and rivers of blood than you have seen sunrises. I have seen death, pain, loss. I was forced to conceive Galbatorix's eggs. I will not see my children's first flight, their beautiful wings in the sunrise, their faces, know them! My pledges bind me to kill what I have created! I will not mate with you, babe, because I cannot bear the pain of the thought of having to seem them perish. Talk not to me of mating. Leave me here. You know not what I remember."

The beautiful dragon rolled over, closed her eyes, and wrapped her wings next to her body, where her little one, her Eragon, her mind and soul should be, and let the tears, huge and warm, fill her unsleeping eyes.