Chapter 4

The leaders of the Varden had assembled around a table in Nasuada's command tent for a conference. The debating about what to do next had grown heated, and everyone was red in the face from shouting.

Orrin was waving his arms around and screaming at Nasuada, "You are leading to the Varden to their deaths!" He gazed around at everybody, "How could any of you possibly think that she is fit to lead us?"

The crowd mumbled amongst themselves. Nasuada shook her head, "You're wrong, Orrin. It does not matter who leads the Varden, so long as we have Eragon and Saphira to aid us!"

Orrin looked genuinely surprised. He looked across the room in doubt at Eragon, who was ignoring the proceedings. The Rider was sat in a corner with his headphones in, bobbing his head to the beat. Orrin looked back at Nasuada, "Really?"

Nasuada shuffled her feet, "Well, we still have Saphira!"

Brom stepped forward and gave a nervous cough, "Well, actually... Saphira won't be much help to us."

"Why not?" Nasuada asked

Brom looked embarrassed, "She uh... She's become somewhat of an alcoholic, so that she can cope with having such a useless Rider. She's probably off somewhere blind drunk on dwarf mead,"

Arya stared in confusion at Brom, "I'm pretty sure you're supposed to be dead."

Brom just shrugged, "Meah, whatever. Durza is still alive, yet he was killed before the Varden left Surda. I can do as I please."

"Enough!" Orrin roared slamming his fist against the table, "This is something we must sort out once and for all! What book are all these events set in?!"

Nasuada leaped to her feet, "Orrin! We all agreed never to break the fourth wall!" She shook her head in disbelief, "How could you betray us like this?"

Arya gazed across the table at Orrin and said, "I don't think what book this is all set in particularly matters any more. We already abandoned any coherent link with the original text when Orik admitted to being homosexual, even though he has a wife in the real books."

Orik looked up from painting his nails, "I'm sorry, what? I'm not gay!"

The Varden broke out into raucous laughter. Wiping a tear of mirth from his eye Brom said, "Oh, come on Orik! You don't need to tell us for us to know, it's so obvious."

Before Orik could engineer a retort he was interrupted by a noise at the window. Galbatorix clambered in through it and fell in a heap on the floor. Looking up from the ground he said, "Orik isn't gay. We all know the only homosexual thing in Alagaesia is Pickles."

Arya looked down at the evil King, "Pickles can't be gay, he's just a cat. Cats don't have a sexuality."

"Listen here you pointy eared tree hugger, Pickles is no ordinary cat! He is completely evil and also flamboyantly gay." Galbatorix looked around nervously and whispered, "But don't tell him I said so!"

Nasuada sighed, "What are you doing here, Galbatorix?"

Galbatorix looked around in confusion, "This is my Yoga class, isn't it?"

"No... This is the Varden camp."

"Oh," The King slowly stood to his feet and looked around the tent at the scowling faces of the rebels around him, "I should probably head off," And The King sprinted out the door back to Uru'baen.

Nasuada shook her head, "We need to sort out the camps defen-"

She was interrupted by a man holding a surfing board bursting into the tent and shouting, "Hey bro's, surfs up!"

"Totally bodacious!" Brom cried in joy, and all the varden leaders hurried out of the tent to the beach.

Back in the castle of Uru'baen, it was the most sacred and hallowed event of the entire year.

It was Karaoke night.

The inhabitants of the city knew well of this particularly event, and had all fled to the temporary camps per-emptively set up outside the city walls. It was said that in the past there were those who did not get out fast enough,were forced to watch the performances. There are of course no survivors to verify these tales.

Legend has it that in the early days of the infamous Karaoke night some civilians were randomly selected and forced to attend, and upon arrival were given a challenge: They had to spell out the lyrics of the songs with letter-spaghetti, and if they did not spell the songs out fast enough to keep up with the music then they were executed. Fortunately the advent of T.V screens meant that the lyrics could be displayed digitally and made the draconian practice obsolete.

Here's what was happening on this particular Karaoke night:

"My Milkshake brings all the boys to the yard!" Murtagh wailed from atop the pink stage in the middle of the hall.

One of the Ra'zac that was in the audience leaned across to Durza and whispered, "He's actually quite good. And the stage they set up is very well done, you wouldn't even be able to tell it was only to be around for one night of the year."

Durza shook his head, "The pink stage is a permanent feature of the hall. It seems to appeal to the King."

"I could teach you, but I'd have to charge!" Murtagh continued

The quivering audience sat and listened to Murtagh's high pitched wails and screeches as he sung the tale of the fair maiden who possessed metaphorical beverages that attracted all of the local Knights unto her presence.

It is imperative to the narrative to now note that in between chapters Galbatorix was drugged by a Varden assassin with a special herb that had put him into a deep coma, and he now slumbered on a marble pedestal off to the side of the pink and frilly stage.

The Varden had much rejoiced at this success, but an unfortunate quirk of fate was about to undo all of their hard work. This manifested itself in the particularly dreadful way that Murtagh sung - so terrible was he that he sounded something akin to the sound of a cat being put in a sack filled with tambourines and thrown down a hill.

The King's years of fearing terrible cat Pickles had caused him to be immediately terrified by the sound of cats, and so it was that he was wrenched out of his coma back into wakefulness by the tormented-cat sound of Murtagh's wailing.

"AURAGHAGGGGGG!" cried the King in terror as he leaped from the marble pedestal and curled up into a ball on the floor.

"The King has awoken!" Cried Durza in joy.

This announcement was followed by a distant cry of, 'oh nooooo' from the villagers in the various camps outside Uru'baen.

Galbatorix jumped onto the stage and immediately began to sing even worse than Murtagh.

And somewhere, deep down in the bowels of the Earth a terrible evil was awakening...

It blinked wearily and had a big stretch, vaguely wondering why the sound of someone playing an out of tune ukulele with the teeth of a screeching cat had interrupted its sleep.

For it was Pickles. And now Galbatorix's 'singing' had awoken it...

Pickles was not amused.

AN: I apologise this one took so much longer than the others to come out. I've been hospitalized because I have a sever case of procrastination. I'll make it up to you with a fun fact about myself: I am actually a very rare species of endangered worm, and have been recently joining protest groups to help prevent my own extinction. I feel it is necessary to tell you to not listen to all the protestors about saving us. I've met the other members of my species, and we're all a bunch of buggering worm bastards who're not worth saving. Toodles!