New Legacy

Ch.5

“So…” Katrina awkwardly said as she tried to speak to me after a few hours on the road towards Therinsford.

“So~?” I replied with an impish grin. I don’t remember being this playful in my previous life, but I just got such a buzz from messing with people that I don’t think I could refrain from it given the chance.

“So you’re his dragon? You see, hear and feel everything he does and he has the same from you?” Katrina asked me, after she’d already grilled Roran the past couple of hours on all the facts.

“Yes~?” I smiled deviously and Katrina flushed.

“Did you feel all of those times…?” Katrina meekly broached and I felt myself flush too.

“Y-yes, but I tried to give you two as much privacy as I could manage. However, when you two...did that, I felt what he did and...well, you’re lucky you’re really pretty Katrina, or I’d be too jealous to let you have him at all.” I winked at her and she covered her face in embarrassment.

“What are you two talking about?” My sister asked.

“Nothing big sis~.” I lilted and she leered at me, clearly understanding it was a topic she was too immature to know about. “Don’t worry, you’ll learn in time, but until then you’ll just have to wonder.” I then leaned towards Katrina. “So you have an erogenous zone behind your left ear?”

“S-speak to no-one of that!” Katrina squeaked and I leaned against her.

“Katrina, I would never. Besides, I feel what Roran feels, remember? Don’t expect that I don’t know how he feels for you. Consider those my feelings as well.” I nuzzled her and she gawked at me before rolling her eyes.

“I may as well take you to bed, since you’ve already felt me through Roran.” Katrina huffed and leered at her beau. “I would have appreciated knowing about all of this earlier, Roran Garrowson!”

“I know, Katrina, but secrecy was of the utmost importance.” Roran replied and got nods from the rest of us in affirmation, to which Katrina sighed and then glared at me.

“Well, we all still have secrets. One of which this one has that shouldn’t wait!” I pointed at Brom, who was leading our group. “You know of what I speak of, Brom Holcombsson. If you do not, then I will tell them. If you try to assault my mind, I will in turn do my best to annihilate you.”

“Mind your own business. I’ll speak of it when I am ready and we are at least a good distance into our journey.” Brom huffed without looking back at us. “Besides, I will need to part ways with the group to act on the information you provided in regards to Arya.” Brom telepathically replied to me with a shake of his head. “I’ll speak my mind after we reach Yazuac.”

“Still, I can’t believe we’re journeying to join the Varden.” Katrina muttered in astonishment, clearly having had this important tidbit finally absorb into her overwhelmed mind. “I am no warrior, but I can strip a carcass clean within an hour and I know how to cook nearly any beast, at least in the northern regions of the Empire.”

“We’ll be utilizing your skills plenty then, Katrina. I may be a good hunter, but I only know the basics of butchery.” Eragon commented and Saphira chuffed.

“Sister and I can eat anything raw, but thanks to being spoiled by cooked meats and even vegetables, I too would appreciate your cooking.” Saphira proudly admitted and I rolled my eyes at my sister’s ‘greater-than-thou’ personality. It was endearing to a point, but it gets grating when said person is your sister.

“Don’t worry, Katrina. You may not be a warrior, but that doesn’t mean you cannot become one. You’ll be joining us in our training exercises too.” Brom called back and Katrina looked wary, so I sighed and patted the mare’s shoulder in understanding.

🥚

It had been a day and a half’s journey on foot, or hoof depending on who you were talking about, to reach Therinsford from Carvahall. It was easily double the size of Carvahall, but unlike the village settled much closer to the Spine, it was both much more disorganized in layout and lacked the defensive fortifications. If anyone in Carvahall had any reason to travel, they would’ve easily deduced that Garrow’s hearsay of Yak attacks this far north was false.

It was also quite ugly. There were poorly tended animal pens along the road, the buildings looked like they were smeared in shit rather than properly packed with daub, it stank, eugh. “I hope we’re not staying the night here. I’d rather camp.” I commented in disgust and nearly everyone nodded. To think that Roran would’ve gotten a job with a miller here to try and earn enough money to wed Katrina in canon. Ew.

Also, my former surname was Miller, so I could attest from my own family history that being a miller was not well-paying or respected work. Not when millers were often fences for selling illicit goods.

“I can’t believe you were going to work in a mill here.” Katrina gagged and I patted her back in agreement with her voicing my thoughts. “I’d again rather live in the wilds than have you suffer this stench and then stink up Carvahall.”

“Don’t be so harsh, dear. Carvahall is a farming and surface mining community, Therinsford is known for its livestock.” Roran kindly rebutted our disdain and I felt annoyed at his acceptance of how filthy the village was as consequence of their chosen product. Then again, it is his kind and understanding nature that drew me to him. Also, I could see why they’d need millers. They’d have to break down grains and whatnot into animal feed to stretch it out.

“Don’t be bothered by the stench for too long, we’re not staying.” Brom said from the front and the rest of us sighed in relief.

“Thank gosh. I think I’d rather risk being sold as a slave by taking to the air than to be stuck down here with the stink.” Eragon huffed and shifted his pack on his back, which along with his traveling cloak, acted to hide his wings.

“In that case, are we to see the mounts that we’ll be using other than us?” Saphira questioned with a gesture between her and I. I perked up at this, wondering what people in this world use as transportation since ponies are people and from what I understand, other equines are all anthro and thus eliminated from being beasts of burden.

“Yes, but we’ll have to double up. Thankfully Bullboars are rather sturdy creatures.” Brom’s words caused me to blink. Bullboars? When we reached what would’ve normally passed for a horse stable, if not for the iron reinforced pen doors and the loud oinking and shrill squeals synonymous with porcine animals.

“Oh~! Bullbos! I guess Bullboars here. I didn’t expect something from the Legend of Zelda.” I mentally projected to Roran, letting my memories of the series flow from me and he looked at me with curiosity.

“That’s quite the grand saga. I’ll possibly try to write it into a book series if you don’t.” Roran told me with awe in his mental tone.

“Pffff!” I failed not to laugh, but waved it off. “Sorry, ahem. They’re giant boars, they must eat a lot.”

“Yes, but they can eat pretty much everything and tend to. Part of the stench of Therinsford is they collect pony fecal waste and add it to the feed. The resulting manure from the Bullboars and other pig livestock is much more suitable for fertilizer.” Brom informed us all, which utterly disgusted everyone aside from me. I relayed to Roran that the Chinese in the past and even in rural China today, they still have ‘pig toilets’ for just such a reason.

“Now knowing how the fertilizer Uncle’s farm was provided by the governor makes me feel ill knowing I’d eaten the food grown from it.” Eragon gagged and I rolled my eyes.

“Since Therinsford is so repugnant to you all, I’ll retrieve the Bullboars, the rest of you meet me on the road leading to Yazuac.” Brom entered the stables and the rest of us gladly left the stinky literal shithole named Therinsford ahead of him.

🥚

The next day after packing up the camp’s bedrolls and we’d all gone through our morning exercises, which left Katrina gasping for breath and pouring sweat from her hatchet practice, I was about to mount Alden, the brown bullboar named after Katrina’s grandfather, when Brom interrupted me. “We are now a good distance away from settlements. I believe it is time for you and Saphira to take your maiden flights with your Riders.”

My heart leaped into my throat, my back muscles in lieu of the wings this form lacked, spasmed and I gasped in utter joy at finally being able to fly with Roran! “Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes~!” I giddily jumped around like a schoolgirl and rushed to Roran, who was just finished rubbing Katrina’s sore shoulders. “Roran! You get to ride me!”

“He what?!” Katrina demanded in shock with a full-faced blush.

“Really?! I’ll get the saddle!” Roran rushed to Brom and Katrina gawked between us before I began getting undressed.

“H-hold on! What is going on?!” Katrina squealed, grabbing my tunic and forcing it down with her face absolutely stricken with horror and confusion.

“We’re going to finally be ridden by our Riders is what! We can’t transform without ruining these clothes however.” Saphira explained without explaining as she stripped down, revealing her buxom and fit body, which I was still envious over. I want big boobs. damn it!

“What?” Katrina asked, even more confused, at least knowing it’s not sex we’re talking about.

“You didn’t really think these were the forms we’d fly with? I mean, we don’t even have wings like this!” I reached over my shoulders for emphasis, accidentally thrusting my chest into Katrina’s larger E-cup bosom and I flushed in both embarrassment and frustration. I’m the smallest~! It’s not fair~!

“W-well, I had just assumed that you were partners and the whole Rider thing was a title since you rode on boarback or something…” Katrina admitted and I laughed, unable to resist leaning into her since she was still holding the hem of my tunic down, which pressed our breasts together and I didn’t fail to notice her blush growing brighter.

“Ha! That is hilarious!” Saphira declared before she transformed in front of us before looking down at us. “This is my true form. My sister is no less beautiful, if less graceful.” Saphira teased me and I sneered at her before pulling away from the stunned Katrina, quickly stripped down, then returned to my birth form. Oh good gosh I can’t believe how good it feels to be back!

“Mm~. I almost forgot how good it felt to stretch my wings.” I stretched like a giant cat with the addition of my wings spreading high above me. I then looked down at Katrina who was gawking at me in amazement. “I know I’m beautiful Katrina, but if you keep gawking I might get naughty ideas~.”

“You’re truly dragons?” Katrina asked in awe and she stroked my snout when I lowered my face to her. “I thought you were wyverns, who are lesser flightless cousins of dragons. That you were simply going to try and restart the Riders in spirit, not in actuality.”

“Well, now you know the truth, Katrina. Help Roran get my saddle on, so that I might show him the sky.” I nudged her torso with my nose and she giddily hurried to help Roran by holding the saddle in place to keep it from shifting. Soon enough, I finally had my Rider where he belonged. On my back and in the saddle. “Here we go!”

“H-hold-on~!” Roran yelped from my powerful takeoff, a few wingbeats were enough to get us airborne. His instinctual panic over being so far above ground vanished within moments and he was soon hooting and hollering in joy as I took him up to the air, but not too high. It becomes freezing cold up there.

Saphira didn’t know or understand this however, so she took Eragon high into the sky, past the lowest layer of clouds. Thank goodness pegasi are naturally resistant to cold temperatures.

I kept it simple for our maiden flight together. I banked, climbed and dove slightly, I even glided and drifted on the thermals. “It’s so wonderful up here, Shimmer. So peaceful, quiet aside from the roaring of the wind. It’s almost like I could lose myself in this.”

“I am of the same mind.” I replied, moments before having to bank sharply to the side to avoid Saphira doing a dangerous aileron dive with her roaring like a ninny and Eragon cackling like a maniac. “However, those two clearly don’t appreciate the peace.” I chuffed openly.

“Shush you nag.” Saphira sniped at me and I rolled my eyes behind my nictitating membrane.

🥚

The journey between the stinking shithole Therinsford and Yazuac took about the same time on boarback as it took to reach the shithole from Carvahall on foot/hoof. However, the scene that greeted us was just as I’d feared. “Shush...let it out.” I gently cooed to Katrina as she vomited against a wall of the empty home she’d fled to upon the sight of the corpse pile in the center of the village.

Roran was distraught and disgusted, yet had a firm and calm resolve as he prepared a pyre with cooking fat and wood he ripped from one of the destroyed buildings. Brom had urged us to leave immediately, but Eragon reported that aside from one or two stragglers, the Yaks had left this place to rot. He was flying overhead with Saphira on overwatch, but knowing them, they were itching to get some vengeance on the monsters that slaughtered this village.

Meanwhile, I tended to Katrina, who had fled immediately to cry and be sick. “Th-thank you.” She huffed as she clung to the support of wood.

I looked about the abandoned home and was bewildered at the sight of a brazier with a sculpted fire of blue crystals and a tree rising out of it. It shimmered faintly with magic. It had a rotten corpse in a fine, almost knightley, suit of armor laying next to it. The Brazier seemed to be for some form of worship as the depiction of a very matronly rat with many horns and tails laid to the side of the altar, burnt around the edges.

“Fuck, my undead self.” Came from the suit of armor as said speaker stood up, soot and ash rolling off of it. “Being an acolyte of her greatness is sometimes just painful.”

“Shade!” I accused the unnatural entity and bodily dragged Katrina from the building. “Brom! Brom~!”

“H-hey! That’s rude y’know!” The undead abomination shouted after us. “I’m no shade! I’m a good and proper Undead I’ll have you know!”

“Stop following us!” I shouted back hysterically, horrified at this deadly turn of events.

“If I don’t follow you, then you’ll keep assuming the wrong thing and-!” Our pursuer was crushed under Saphira’s bulk, which was easily three times that of a Bullboar. “Gah, why did a dragon drop on me?!” Came from the house after a flash of light and the sound of ice breaking.

“Who was that? What is going on?” Eragon demanded while Saphira balked at the Undead knight emerging from the building, completely unharmed.

“He’s an Undead! He cannot be killed!” I informed them just as Brom and Roran had joined us.

Brom’s response to this was to use his magic to sever the guy’s limbs…

🥚

“So, despite how things started out between us, I’m glad to be aboard!” Declared the disturbingly cheerful abomination in armor with his limbs piled to the side from where he was leaned up against a wall while the corpse pile burned a few streets over.

“So, your Undeath is a gift given by this so-called goddess of yours?” Brom skeptically repeated what the creepy chipper cool-corpse had told us.

“I don’t understand. How is undeath even possible?” Katirna asked again, clearly not able to accept the evidence in front of her. She, like the rest of us, was used to a world where death was the end, not a minor inconvenience. Even I’m not sure if I...if I died.

“Yes, she sent me here on an expedition to this realm. Her realm is very far from here and this realm does not act like others we’ve found. Tokens don’t pass to it freely and there don’t seem to be any local deities to speak of.” The apparent transdimensional trooper told us. “That said, if you could kill me so I have all my limbs back, that’d be great.”

“Hmph, at least you confirmed something with your nonsense. Let it be known now to the rest of you that there are no gods here, no confirmation of an afterlife beyond the fact that spirits do very much tangibly exist. So, what little crusader, does your goddess promise for an afterlife?” Brom acerbically demanded and the person who was apparently as far removed from a local as I was scoffed.

“Afterlife? Pfft, that’s for folks who die to worry about. She promotes Life as a cooperative scion of Fertility and death is part of the cycle of life and all that, but Undeath? Well, that’s the curse that keeps on giving and taking forever. She’s technically against traditional Undeath, but the sort I am? Self-contained, non-communicable, sane? Well, she’s pretty much our matron saint since she is Undead too. So, no afterlife promises, just a life full of fun and prosperity. Though don’t piss off the Lady, she’s a right bitch about undeath.” He rambled on and shifted on his stump-legs. “Now, can you please kill me so I have my limbs?”

“So there’s no afterlife?” Eragon asked with shock and a degree of logical mortal terror.

“Whether there is or not doesn’t matter. He’s clearly not insane and he isn’t a bad person from how he’s been trying to talk to us rather than attack.” Roran reasoned out and looked at us all. “I say we do as he requests and see where we go from there. We’d best get on with it since there are still a couple of yaks about. I’m surprised they haven’t come to investigate the noise yet, let alone checked on the funeral pyre.”

“Bah, they’re just a couple of looters, stragglers left to pick over the leavings.” The armored Undead huffed and sat up straighter. “I am Elric, servant of the Goddess Wiatr and her wife Urta. I need to travel the lands and get to know the situation. Mind if I join you in your quest?”

“Normally I’d say no, but I’m afraid circumstances push me to leave the party at this time. First, I must speak with Eragon in private.” Brom looked at me with an angry yet grateful glare and I smiled at him for being willing to bite the arrow and finally introduce himself to his son.

“Wait, you’re leaving us?” Eragon asked in shock and Brom sighed.

“I will tell you why before we part ways for a bit.” Brom said and took Eragon aside.

“I still didn’t get my answer on how undeath is possible.” I sighed at Katrina’s question, but Elric shimmied excitedly.

“Well, that is a long story involving the Goddess of Law and Sin, Lady Death, and a horny bitch of a tartarus-”