I’ve had a few ideas for a few scenes from Eragon I might use in this experiment, but seeing as I’ve never actually managed to continue Eragon past the 18% mark, it’s been left at a stand still. A few days ago I came back and highlighted the fragments I wanna redo.
Disclaimer: This is a writing experiment meant for exercising my writing. I do not own the original fragments of the text. That right goes to Christopher Paolini solely.
Fragment #3 – 28.10.2018
Original Text
Specific info: Third person omniscient. Eragon does not have enough urgency in his voice and desperation in his action.
Saphira was waiting patiently for him. Will you take me home? he asked her. She cocked her head. I know you don’t want to, but you must. Both of us carry an obligation to Garrow. He has cared for me and, through me, you. Would you ignore that debt? What will be said of us in years to come if we don’t return—that we hid like cowards while my uncle was in danger? I can hear it now, the story of the Rider and his craven dragon! If there will be a fight, let’s face it and not shy away. You are a dragon! Even a Shade would run from you! Yet you crouch in the mountains like a frightened rabbit.
(Christopher Paolini Eragon)
Adapted Text
Specific info: 3rd person limited. Emphasis on the need to reach Garrow in time to warn him.
Alteration Type: Emotional
Alteration: Eragon’s frustration at not warning Garrow is vented on Sapphira as she immediately lands.
Addition: Sapphira lands in the Spine on the spot where Eragon had found her egg.
Saphirra approached the site where Eragon had found her egg and sniffed it. She made a low rumbling noise then started gently scraping the ground.
Eragon stumbled onto his knees, trembling madly – he wasn’t sure if it was the cold if his gruesome leg wounds were already becoming infected. “Saphirra!” the boy grunted, crawling next to her. “Please! We need to go back!” he said aloud, as he approached her. Eragon kept looking behind his shoulder in the direction where Carvahal lay. Sapphira showed no signs that he had heard him at all.
Shakily, he raised to his feet in front of her, on an improvised crutch. It took every ounce of self-restraint to not scream from the pain.
“Saphirra! I beg you, I need to get back to Garrow and warn him! Please!” he plead her between gasps, feeling that his legs would give under him. But Sapphira just raised her head for a moment, looked at him and then resumed her scraping.
A surge of panic built into his chest. He felt hopelessness and anger warring inside of him. “Help me! Sapphira! Those things are going to go to our house and murder uncle Garrow! We have to warn him!” Eragon insisted, clutching the crutch tightly.
When Sapphira ignored him again, Eragon hurled the wood piece he’d been using as a crutch on the ground next to he spot where she scraped; he let out a scream of exasperation.
Sapphira paused and raised her eyes, looking puzzled at him. “He’ll die, Sapphira! Help me!” the boy said desperately, trying to keep himself from tumbling to the ground. When no answer came from her, Eragon’s anger flared uncontrollably. “We need to get back and warn Garrow! He’s going to die because of you!” Eragon screamed at her furious, taking a step forward; next thing he knew he was howling with pain from the ground. It took him a while to get on his knees and continue to scold her. “Those things! Shades – or whatever they are – are no match for you! By the holy kings! You can breathe fire! You are a dragon, Sapphira! You. Are. A. DRAGON! You can kill them! Help me! HELP ME, you STUPID beast!” Eragon yelled in despair. Sapphira’s only response was a quizzical cock of her head to a side.
She looked so innocent in that moment, not truly comprehending that abandoning Garrow was a mistake. Seeing the many questions Sapphira held in her strangely wise blue eyes, Eragon felt a surge of shame rush over him. His eyes stung in the cold evening air of the Spine and the chill dug into his bones.
“Forgive me… I shouldn’t have said that…” the boy said choking in tears. “This is all my fault!”. Eragon wept in the cold night air, clutching his head in his hands. “None of this should have happened. I should have never taken your egg back to the farm. I should have never raised you as my dragon!” He swallowed heavily as he continued. “Why didn’t I just sell your egg?! Those things are going to kill uncle Garrow now… and I don’t know what to do… I don’t. I’m so sorry…”
He repeated those last words over and over again, until he felt Sapphira’s warm snout against his cheek.
Do not mourn. I regret making you despair. I did not mean for it. Sapphira nudged the discarded crutch to Eragon. There may yet be time to save your relative, Eragon.
“But I – I don’t have a saddle…” Eragon said, wiping his runny nose that had started freezing from the cold. Sapphira was already positioning herself to take flight.
I cannot help you with that, Eragon. She said simply, then turned her head at the sky again.
Eragon, hesitantly, took off his coat and used it as a saddle. Cold was biting into him now relentlessly. “Please, fly low…” he whispered as he seated himself onto it.
We will be seen.
“It doesn’t matter. Fly as low and as fast as you can!” Eragon said detemined, holding on tightly.
(Adaptation – Nicko Mocanu/ Characters and story copyright Christopher Paolini)
Fragment #4 – 30.10.2018
Original Text
Specific info: Third person omniscient. Brom displays both his storyteller side and his Dragon Rider side here, making him come across as less bitter than he should be with Eragon.
“Going somewhere?” […]
“Give them back,” he snapped.
“Why? So you can run off before Garrow is even buried?” The accusation was sharp.
“It’s none of your business!” he barked, temper flashing. “Why did you follow me?”
“I didn’t,” grunted Brom. “I’ve been waiting for you here. Now where are you going?”
“Nowhere.” […]
“Don’t fool with me. I know where that mark on your hand, the gedwëy ignasia, the shining palm, comes from: you have touched a dragon hatchling. I know why you came to me with those questions, and I know that once more the Riders live.” […]
Tell me, how is your dragon?” […]
Come!
No, I will watch for a time.
Why!
Because of the slaughter at Dorú Areaba.
What?
Brom leaned against a tree with a slight smile. “I have talked with her, and she has agreed to stay above us until we settle our differences. As you can see, you really don’t have any choice but to answer my questions. Now tell me, where are you going?” […]The back of his head throbbed and ideas whirled through his mind, but he kept reaching the same conclusion: he had to tell the old man something. He said, “I was going to find a safe place to stay while I heal.”
“And after that?”
[…] He gave up and said tremulously, “I was going to hunt down the strangers and kill them.”
“A mighty task for one so young,” Brom said in a normal tone, as if Eragon had proposed the most obvious and suitable thing to do. “Certainly a worthy endeavor and one you are fit to carry out, yet it strikes me that help would not be unwelcome.” He reached behind a bush and pulled out a large pack. His tone became gruff. “Anyway, I’m not going to stay behind while some stripling gets to run around with a dragon.”
(Christopher Paolini Eragon)
Adapted Text
Specific info: 3rd person limited. Emphasis on Brom’s observations and his knowledge as a Dragon Rider. Particular emphasis on displaying Brom as a bitter Dragon Rider, slightly jealous of Eragon’s success in gaining and caring for Sapphira.
Alteration Type: Personality adjustment
Alteration: Brom is much more bitter and freely boasts about how he’s come to the conclusion that the latter has a dragon.
Addition: Brom is not above petty blackmail and emotional manipulation, if it means making Eragon cooperate.
“If you’re thinking of sneaking out of the village on your own, you should have probably waited until after sunset, boy.” Brom’s voice made Eragon jump out of his skin.
Eragon steadied himself to the nearest wall, panting. “By the holy kings! You scared me half to death.”
It took him quite a while to compose himself, by which time the old man had taken to inspecting the skins Eragon had dropped in his fright. He was looking the leather wares over with a concentrated look, counting them as he held his pipe at the corner of his mouth. Eragon said nothing, he didn’t want to enter a conflict with the old man, much less alarm the whole village to his sudden departure, so he kept his mouth shut and pressed further into the shadow of the closest building.
“Going somewhere?” Brom finally said, giving the hides back to the boy. Eragon snatched them and made to walk away, but Brom added accussingly. “I would have thought you wanted to see your uncle’s funeral. You at least owe him that.”
“I have no need of you judging me! This does not concern you!” Eragon whirled on him furious. But Brom just crossed his arms and emptied his pipe, tapping it to the wall next to him. “And stop following me!”
“I wasn’t. I was waiting for you. Care to tell me where you’re going?” Brom looked at him with a mischievous grim.
“Nowhere.” Eragon answered curtly. Brom gave an exasperated sigh.
“You know, I don’t even need to use physical force to make you cooperate with me. I can simply tell the other people in Carvahal of the dragon you’re trying and failing to keep secret.”
“What are you talking about?” Eragon blurted out without thinking.
Brom looked at him from beneath his bushy grey brows. “Don’t play dumb with me, boy! You have a dragon. You come to me with questions about Riders, you have that mark on your hand that can only be created when a Rider touches a dragon hatchling and you have wounds on the inner side of your thighs made only from riding an unsaddled dragon. Also you have a pack full of stolen meat, that’s dripping blood on the pavement, a large enough bundle of skins to make a saddle from. Feel free to correct me if you want.”
Eragon simply stared at the only man with his mouth agape and said nothing.
“Now tell me, how is your dragon?” Brom asked, but Eragon’s mind was racing. He was cursing himself for not yet having mastered his mind bond with Sapphira, he focused entirely on sending Sapphira an image of his current situation. After what felt like a lifetime, Sapphira’s distant rumbling voice came to his mind, worried and rushed.
Eragon! Do not leave! I will come get you as fast as I- Saphira’s voice broke off when a snap of fingers brought him back to his own mind.
“You never answered my questions, boy!” Brom said impatiently.
“I don’t know where you came up with this idea that I somehow own a dragon, but you must have completely lost your mind.” Brom looked at him with an expression that seemed to be both anger and sorrow. After he took a long breath and gazed up at the sky, Brom turned his sights to Eragon and said slyly. “Try calling your dragon now.”
Panic surged through him at the thought that something happening to Sapphira and said through their mental bond. Sapphira, has something happened to you? Are you alright?
I am. I am flying above you.
Oh… Good, he said calming down. Can you come and get me out of here?
No.
“What?!” Eragon said out loud, this time. His control on his ability to communicate through the mental bond vanished as soon as his panic subsided.
I cannot come get you. There has been a slaughter in a nearby village and I cannot expose myself freely.
“How does she know that?!” Eragon spoke to Brom this time who was watching the boy as he spoke to Sapphira, lost in though.
“I told her to keep away from that settlement, Dorú Areaba, and, in turn, she agreed she will only land once we two have settled our dispute here.” Brom said lifting a hefty backpack over his shoulder.
Eragon glowered at the old man, but he knew he would not be seeing Sapphira unless he told the old man something. “I was going to go heal, somewhere away from Carvahal.”
“And after that?” Brom asked, insistently.
The words stuck in Eragon’s throat. “I- I’m going to hunt down the strangers who killed Garrow and make them pay.”
“Ambitious are we?”Brom said mockingly, straightening the backpack on his shoulder. “Whatever the case, I’m not going to stay behind while some runt like you gets to run around with a dragon.”
(Adaptation – Nicko Mocanu/ Characters and story copyright Christopher Paolini)
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