'Saphira!', Eragon exclaims in awe, holding out the egg, 'how can this be?'

'Eragon..... I can't sense its mind..... Do you think it's de-?'

'No! It's alive Saphira, I can sense its mind! Right here', he said fondly placing a hand over it protectively. 'Saphira, we have to get this back to camp unnoticed!'

'I will fly it to camp, and when we arrive, you can run in and find something to hide it with, then carry it in', Saphira replies smugly, like it's the most obvious answer in the world.

'But what if someone senses its mind? We can't let this leak to the Empire.'

'I have a feeling, that only you can sense its mind, being that it is completely hidden to me.....', Saphira says curiously, bending down to sniff the egg.

'Still, we must be sure', Eragon says, pushing his mind out to one of the only people he will let know about what he has found.

Arya lets him in immediately after realizing who it is. Her panic was clear in her mind as she exclaims, 'Eragon! Where are you?! Where is Saphira?!'

'Everything is fine', he reassures her, 'but I need you to do something for me. I am in the woods on the outskirts of camp, could you extend your mind and tell me who and what you sense?'

'I will try...', she says cautiously as she goes silent, doing what he asked her to. After a few more seconds she returns and says, 'the biggest thing I sensed was you and Saphira.... Why? What is there?'

'What was the smallest thing you could sense?', Saphira asks from beside him, joining in on the conversation.

'Squirrels, rabbits, nothing smaller... Why? What is going on?', Arya asks, completely confused.

'I will explain when we get back to camp', he says before quickly withdrawing from her mind, leaving her puzzled as to what was happening.

'Saphira, do you think you can hold this in your claws?', Eragon asks holding it up for her.

'Yes, I can... But I find this safer', she says as she opens her jaws and takes the egg into her mouth, being careful not to let it hit any of her sharp teeth that could kill with one bite. Saphira cradles it on her tongue, not letting it roll around, as she crouches down to allow Eragon to bound up her side. Then, when he was situated into the hollow on her neck, she spreads her powerful wings and pushes off from the ground, jumping into the cool air, that bites at Eragon's skin.

As they fly over the Varden's camp, Eragon once more reaches out with his mind to Arya. After she allows him access, he says to her, 'meet me at my tent, bring Nasuada and Roran', before pulling out before she has time to ask any questions.

Landing with a thud in front of the tent, Saphira extends her snout into the tent and open her jaws, allowing for Eragon to remove it from her mouth. He cradles it I his arms, as if to protect it from all around it. Sensing the approach of Arya, Eragon quickly places the egg on his cot, covering it up with a blanket and sitting down next to it. Not two seconds after he is seated on the couch, the tent flap flys open and Arya walks in. She looks anxious, and worried.

"Eragon! What is going on? Half the Varden was in a panic last night when you disappeared! We could have been attacked!", she says angrily, showing an emotion she rarely lets out.

"Arya, please, calm down. I will explain everything when everyone is here. Please, sit", he says calmly, motioning to the log in the corner. She just glances at it, still rigid with anger, and stays standing.

Next, in came Roran, who was shortly followed by Nasuada. She had a worried look on her face, and Roran an impassive expression.

Once everyone was there, Eragon placed the protective enchantments around the tent to prevent any ease-dropping. He could not afford anyone finding out about this besides the people in this tent.

"Now, I know you are all wondering why I have called you all here at such short notice. Last night, Saphira and I stayed in the woods next to camp-"

"So that's where you were! Why didn't you tell someone?", Nasuada cuts in.

"I needed some peace and quiet, I am sorry for causing worry, but we are back now, and if we had not stayed there, well, you will see in a second", Eragon says simply.

Nasuada nods her head, understanding the amount of stress he has been under lately, the stress all of them had been dealing with lately.

"Now, the next morning, or this morning, I woke up and went for a walk. This would be irrelevant except for the fact that I found something in the woods. Something that seemed to call to me....."

"Well Eragon? What is it? What did you find?", Roran says impatiently.

"First you must swear in the ancient language, to not tell anyone in any way possible without my permission.", he says, showing how important this must be. They of course all agreed, and after Eragon told them the words and how to say them, proceeded to bind themselves to their word. Finally when they are finished, Eragon grabs the corner of the blanket and grips it in anticipation.

"Brace yourselves...", Eragon says before pulling back the blanket on the bed, revealing the dragon egg nestled on the cot. Their reactions would have been funny if not for the seriousness of the conversation. Arya grabs her chest and falls to her knees on the ground, Roran jumps to his feet a gleam in his eye as he starts to laugh a mad laugh, and Nasuada stands shock still, mouth dropping open, staring at the egg in wonder.

"This should help us! This will help us! Galbatorix will never know what hit him!", exclaims Roran walking forward to get a better look at the egg. Roran knew it was a dragon egg because he remembered what the supposed 'Blue Stone' looked like, back before Saphira hatched, before Eragon was a Rider.

"Eragon....", Arya says softly, barely audible, "Eragon, I can't sense its mind. I don't think it is alive."

Roran's face falls, a look of disappointment falling into his every feature. Nasuada says nothing, but instead shuts her mouth and let's a look of sadness come into her eyes.

"I know Arya, that is why I had you search with your mind earlier, Saphira cannot sense it either, but I can sense it. I can sense it", Eragon says laying a protective hand over the egg.

"You can?", Nasuada says, speaking for the first time since finding out about the egg.

"Yes, I can feel its mind as clearly as your own. It is alive", he says finally.

"Well! Then many things will have to be figured out!", says Nasuada breaking out of her trance, "first, is it a wild dragon or does it require a Rider? Second, we must keep this dragon secret from Galbatorix for as long as possible so we must figure out a way how. Third, we must find a way to protect it from attacks until it is large enough to defend itself from soldiers. Dragons are proud, and will not sit out of a fight easily."

'That we will not', Saphira says, projecting her voice to everyone in the room. Eragon suppresses a smile, remembering all the times he tried to keep Saphira from getting what she wanted. It usually ended in failure. It is quite hard to say 'no' to a dragon.

"We will have to find out the first question before we begin to worry about that, though. If the dragon does not hatch, then we will not have to worry about keeping it from rushing off into a fight it's not ready for", Arya said standing and walking over to the egg. She pulls up her sleeve and lays one tentative hand on a silver swirl. The egg is mostly purple, with silver swirls running over the surface. Unlike Saphira's, where it had lighter blue veins crossing over the egg, the swirls were large and almost seemed alive.

"I suggest we prepare as if it could hatch at any moment, as if it were wild, because now that we have traitors among us, we cannot allow people to know of the egg. So we must hope it is wild", Nasuada says walking forward as well. Roran is the only one staying back now, sitting on the log.

'Yes, but a wild dragon is proud, and hard to make cooperate', Saphira says, pushing her head into the tent to participate in the conversation.

"True....", Eragon says solemnly. Either way they were stuck, unless the dragon itself chooses to cooperate and do what they say. It would be easier because Saphira is around to keep it in line, but the fact remains that it would not be bound to the Varden.

"I say we just sit back and see how the situation unfolds for now", Roran says from his place on the log, "I mean sitting in here and fussing over things we can't do anything about is going to do nothing but frustrate us, so let's see what happens in the next week or so and go from there."

Nasuada sighs, then says, " I guess your right, but I've never been one to do nothing so it feels wrong. But, like you said, this is getting us no where...."

"Since you are the only one that can sense its mind, then we will not have to try to hide its presence", Arya starts.

"But shouldn't we do something just in case? Cast one protective spell to hide it from someone in case they can sense its mind?", Nasuada asks

"No", Arya says, "casting a spell will just alert other magicians that we have something we are hiding, which will make them curious and cause them to come snooping around. Leave it like this and they will never even know it's here."

Eragon nods his head understanding. He honestly had not thought of it like that, and she was right. If they would try to hide the egg, people would become curious of what they were trying to hide.

"So it's settled then, Eragon, you keep the egg here with you, keep it hidden well, but not underground like Glaedr's Eldunari. Keep it hidden well enough in case people stop in at your tent. We don't want someone just popping in and seeing a dragon egg", Nasuada says standing a little straighter, preparing to walk out.

"Yes, I agree with Nasuada", Roran says, also preparing to leave, but before he does, he walks over to Eragon and grasps his forearm, saying, "this is a day of days cousin, just like when you discovered Saphira's egg, but this may be even bigger than that. This is the turning point against Galbatorix, I just know it. This egg, this is going to win us the war." And with that he turns and walks out of the tent. Saphira draws her head back to allow for him to exit. She keeps her head out of the tent sensing that Nasuada plans to leave also, and does not want to bring her head in and out multiple times.

"Well, Eragon, I guess this is where I leave you for now also", Nasuada says with one last glance at the egg, "be careful Eragon, the fate of the Varden could possibly be on your shoulders."

"Wasn't it always?", he says with a playful grin back.

She chuckles, shaking her head, "yes I guess you're right, still, just be careful." Then she turns and strides out of the tent, holding herself higher than before with a spring in her step.

Arya does not leave though. She turns and goes to sit on the stump before saying, "I just cannot believe that there is another dragon egg besides the one left in Galbatorix's possession......"

"I know..... If someone would have told me before that it was in those woods, I would have thought they were crazy!", Eragon says, shaking his head in disbelief.

"What do you plan on doing?", she asks looking at him in the eyes. Her piercing stare looks straight into him. She never failed to make him speechless.

"Uhm- I uh- planned on.... Well I don't know....", he says looking down from her gaze. It was true, he had no clue what he was going to do now. Just this morning everything was normal, or as normal as it could be, but now, everything has changed. The stakes are so much higher now.

"I understand", she says turning away and standing up, then she says, "well Eragon, good luck, I will be here to help you, but still.... Good luck." And with that she turns and strides out of the tent, her steps graceful as always.

Sighing, Eragon stands and stretches from sitting for so long. Reaching out towards Saphira, he says, 'what do we do now?'

She pushes her head back into the tent and stares at him with one of her magnificent blue eyes, then says, 'We do what we always do, we fight, we live, and we push through whatever life throws at us. It is our duty as Dragon and Rider. This is our lives', as if it was the most obvious answer in the world.

'Yes, I know, but that does not help us at the moment! What do we do with this!', he says gesturing at the egg.

Her gaze never wavers from him as she says, 'do what you think is best, I will always be here to tell you if it's a bad idea.'

Eragon smirks at her before turning around and going to the cot. He picks up the egg and puts it in one of the larger saddle bags that is on Saphira's saddle. Normally the pocket is where he puts his armor when he is not wearing it, but now he will have to find a new place for it because it seemed like the perfect place to hide the egg. That pocket was always full because of his amor so people will think nothing of it if it bulges a little.

'There', he says quite proud of its hiding spot.

'Clever', Saphira says snorting in amusement at his pride, a little smoke roiling out.

'Saphira!', Eragon exclaims, coughing from inhaling the smoke rolling out of her nostrils.

'Oops, sorry', she says, stopping it immediately.

'It's fine', he says back, waving his hand through the air in front of his face to clear it.

She withdraws her head from the tent, saying, 'I cannot stand to not be able to see behind me. It makes me feel like someone could sneak up on me. I feel like a fox with its head stuck down a rabbit hole.'

Through their link Eragon feels her curl up and lay down on the grass and close her eyes. Smiling, he says to her, 'goodnight Saphira.'

'Goodnight Little One', was her faint reply before drifting off to sleep. Eragon walks to his cot, sitting down on the firm material before laying down and rolling over, fading into his waking dreams, haunted by purple dragons and silver swirls.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AN: HEY SO NOT A VERY EXCITING CHAPTER BUT THEY CAN'T ALL BE EXCITING FILLED WITH RAINBOWS AND UNICORNS!!!!! (OR IN THIS CASE FIRE AND DRAGONS LOL).......

SO HOPEFULLY WILL BE ABLE TO UPDATE AGAIN SOON BUT JUST SO U KNOW I HAVE A SECOND FANFICTION AND I TRYING TO WORK ON THEM EQUALLY! SOOO YEAH!

I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE IF YOU WOULD COMMENT WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE LATER ON AND RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO YOUR READERS BECUZ NOT MANY PEOPLE KNOW BOUT IT! I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE IT AND IF U DO COMMENT THAT U DID SO I CAN DEDICATE A CHAPTER TO YA AND SEND A SHOUT OUT!!!

SO IF YA COULD PLEASE.....

COMMENT/VOTE

THANKA YOUUU

~Bert