Eragon Fan Fiction ❯ Kvistr (Book 1 Of The Wyrda Series) ❯ Chapter 5
[ P - Pre-Teen ]
By: MelissaNichols 
Miscellaneous: Eragon Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Fantasy | Type: Fanfiction Sequel | Uploaded On: 01.03.2015 | Pages: 3 | Words: 3.4K | Visits: 398 | Status: Completed
Miscellaneous: Eragon Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Fantasy | Type: Fanfiction Sequel | Uploaded On: 01.03.2015 | Pages: 3 | Words: 3.4K | Visits: 398 | Status: Completed
And that is essentially how every day wo uld go for the next few weeks. Alanna&nb sp;was woken up by Arya precisely at daw n and she
was given time to wash, eat and feed the remaining rats to her&n bsp;dragon, whom let himself be picked up&nbs p;and held when it was time
to go. Since the bowl needed refilling, she placed&n bsp;the bowls and the cage outside her d oor and jumped from the balcony onto
Firnen's back with her sleeping dragon in her arms.
Once at the Crags, Eragon&nbs p;had the two apprentices through the Rimgar, ;and then had Alanna review the words Al anna's dragon
already knew while Arya and&nbs p;Eragon both listened to the forest. When&nb sp;they came back, Arya and Alanna would ;spar for a while.
After sparring, she, ;Arya and Dusan would all read some scro lls, then Eragon would teach Alanna the human and dwarf alphabet
while Arya was given different scrolls to read. That contin ued for the rest of the day until dusk.& nbsp;When the dragons came back,
Eragon would check on the progress she was making&nb sp;with her dragon.
By the time he ;was a week old, Alanna's dragon had already understood the purpose of what Alanna was tea ching him and what
she wanted him t o do. He could now repeat the words she& nbsp;taught him after a few tries, understand ing a new word quickly.
When the d ragons came back on the seventh day of&n bsp;training, Alanna climbed onto Firnen with ;Arya.
By the time her dragon was three weeks old, he was too big for Alanna to hold&n bsp;while on Firnen's back, but he was still too young
to fly, so he sat&n bsp;in one of Firnen's paws, asleep. Alanna f ed him the remaining rats each morning f or a couple reasons. One, she
wanted him to stay too full to move so he&nbs p;wouldn’t get into trouble and,&nbs p;two, so his body would grow strong and grow well. For
the first few days she was worried her dragon would be too full to stay awake, but by the tim e Alanna started reviewing his words
he was awake enough to learn.
Once at home,&nbs p;Alanna taught the dragon some new words,&nb sp;tossing him a rat as part of his trea t when he recited the word
correctly.&n bsp;After the dragon was too full for rats, she re sorted to verbal positive reinforcement. Thankfull y, he seemed eager to
learn so the few times she tested him, to see if&nbs p;he noticed she was praising him, he di dn't notice that she had 'accidentally' skipp ed
a round of praise.
Before Alann a knew it, a month had come and gon e and every night she would watch her&nb sp;dragon leap out of the balcony from h er
study and try to fly, only&nbs p;to land somewhere and race back upstairs to try again. Now that he was old enough,& nbsp;Saphira had begun
his training. With their minds connected, Alanna was aware of Saphira flying him to a nearby lake and, while underwater, she'd
show him how to flap his wings. He was a natural swimmer, and to Alanna's eyes it looked like the flapping motion that& nbsp;he was
swimming with would also he lp him to fly, but she wasn't entirely&n bsp;sure. She trusted her dragon's safety and ;education to Saphira
so she didn't try& nbsp;to analyze Saphira’s reasoning any deeper than that. Saphira was teaching Alanna's dragon something he needed
to learn, and that was all Alanna cared about.
As for her own studies, she made great progress with the human language.& nbsp;Within two weeks she was reading all twe nty-three
letters fluently and starting on&nb sp;small words. Ironically, Eragon had her re ad from the same scrolls that she had re cited to her
dragon. For the first time, she understood how he felt, for th e most part. Of course, she had the ;advantage of already knowing the
animal&nbs p;and the letters, just not the word. But&nbs p;it was still difficult, trying to speak the new word in an unfamiliar language.
Whi le she excelled at reading, writing was anoth er matter entirely. She struggled to memorize how to write each letter, and her
grammatical structure tended to morph into&n bsp;the structure of the ancient language, he r native tongue. It was very difficult for&nb sp;
Alanna to keep these two separate, so she stayed up studying every night, try ing to get better.
When her dragon ;was five weeks old, he knew enough words so& nbsp;he and Alanna could communicate. Hearing ;his musical voice
speak his first full sentence was quite a thrill, and his vo ice was so addictive that she would often&nbs p;throw him a word to have him
rep eat it. She had upgraded his verbal trai ning by also having him say a sentence&n bsp;about the word.
At five weeks, her& nbsp;dragon had grown immensely, in every sen se of the word. Where he had been n o bigger than a loaf of bread
the& nbsp;night he had hatched, now he stood up to Alanna's waist, and growing every other day. As a result of his growth, hi s appetite
skyrocketed to the point whe re he could eat three fourths of the tan k for dinner, which left him with enough food in his stomach
to see him&nb sp;through the first half of the day. Th ankfully Saphira was a doting mother when it& nbsp;came to feeding her son, so she
wasn’t upset with snagging a ;rabbit or two when her son’s s tomach began to growl.
During his fifth week of life, her dragon also deci ded that he wanted a name, too. Just as& nbsp;she had planned on the first day of
training, Alanna took out the scrolls that listed male dragon names and recited the m to him. He showed no interest in any&n bsp;of
them. They went through the scrol ls another time, but he still didn't pick&nbs p;one. Alanna asked him what sort of nam e he would
want, and tried to crea te a name for him with the descriptions he gave; something strong, noble and unique. It was difficult work.
Many of the names A lanna knew had been on those scrolls. So , she started rearranging and combining them& nbsp;in new ways. She
wrote them down t hroughout the day and at night she would show them to him for his approval. ;
Finally, one day, he decided that he&n bsp;wanted the name Faolan. So, he became&nbs p;Faolan. It was difficult for Alanna to stop thinking
of him as 'her dragon' and&nb sp;to start thinking of him as Faolan, b ut she knew she'd get it eventually. It& nbsp;also helped that Faolan would
know ;when she was thinking of him as 'her dr agon' and would correct her. He seemed t o take great pride in his name.
Al most immediately following obtaining his name, Fao lan also figured out how to fly one ;night while he was practicing. When
Alanna&n bsp;watched him fly up to the balcony he had dropped from, she whooped and hugge d him, praising him immensely for his achievement. It soon became his habit to& nbsp;practice his flying every night even whe n he hurt from flying so much during&nbs p;the day.
Once Faolan had learned to&n bsp;fly, he could finally join his mother and father in their daily excursions beyond ;the lake. While
Faolan was excited about tha t, Alanna wasn't as enthusiastic. She had gro wn used to having Faolan by her side&nbs p;for every moment
of every day and&nbs p;didn't want him to leave, but she knew it was necessary for their training.
Wi th Faolan off for dragon training, Alanna&nbs p;joined Eragon and Arya in their daily listening to nature. At first, she had n o idea
about what was expected of her,& nbsp;but after getting a tip in the right&nbs p;direction from Eragon, she realized that sh e had to become one
with the fores t until she could monitor every species witho ut focusing on one in particular.
Alann a also progressed with the Rimgar, despite&nb sp;the constant growing of her limbs. She&nbs p;was still a child, after all, and so had&nb sp;
some growing left to do. But, she&nbs p;didn't let that stop her. She was determine d to do well at training, to be the best Rider she could
be.
After fiv e weeks of sparring with Arya, Alanna was&nbs p;finally making some headway in her swordfig hting. She still received blows
from he r opponent, but she also started dodging ;and landing more, which meant she was g etting faster. She also developed some
good footwork, able to focus on fighting Arya, but also simultane ously watching where she was putting her feet in the position
and with the press ure that would be best to keep her footi ng.
Now that Alanna was catching up with Arya, Eragon didn't focus on her anymore.&nb sp;He'd give her a few tips here and the re, but
there was little more one-on-one ;time. This suited Alanna just fine because&n bsp;she understood. She didn't need it ;anymore and it
would be selfish to&nbs p;expect him to continue to focus on her.&nbs p;
Not long after Faolan had turned six&n bsp;weeks, Eragon decided it was time he let& nbsp;Alanna practice magic. He started her of f small,
lifting a pebble and holding i t for as long as she could, then letting it drop, ;only to make it lift for two more times. Once it was
apparent she had&nbs p;more power than that, he moved her int o moving a bubble of water and tossing i t back and forth like a game.
Whil e she enjoyed that particular exercise, Erago n also had her moving rocks and commanding&nb sp;fire and other similar exercises.
For&nbs p;the most part, Eragon had her doing this&nb sp;toward the end of the day, when her&n bsp;lack of energy wouldn't affect the other& nbsp;areas of
her studies.
For Alanna, l ife was looking up. Everything was going right.&nb sp;
was given time to wash, eat and feed the remaining rats to her&n bsp;dragon, whom let himself be picked up&nbs p;and held when it was time
to go. Since the bowl needed refilling, she placed&n bsp;the bowls and the cage outside her d oor and jumped from the balcony onto
Firnen's back with her sleeping dragon in her arms.
Once at the Crags, Eragon&nbs p;had the two apprentices through the Rimgar, ;and then had Alanna review the words Al anna's dragon
already knew while Arya and&nbs p;Eragon both listened to the forest. When&nb sp;they came back, Arya and Alanna would ;spar for a while.
After sparring, she, ;Arya and Dusan would all read some scro lls, then Eragon would teach Alanna the human and dwarf alphabet
while Arya was given different scrolls to read. That contin ued for the rest of the day until dusk.& nbsp;When the dragons came back,
Eragon would check on the progress she was making&nb sp;with her dragon.
By the time he ;was a week old, Alanna's dragon had already understood the purpose of what Alanna was tea ching him and what
she wanted him t o do. He could now repeat the words she& nbsp;taught him after a few tries, understand ing a new word quickly.
When the d ragons came back on the seventh day of&n bsp;training, Alanna climbed onto Firnen with ;Arya.
By the time her dragon was three weeks old, he was too big for Alanna to hold&n bsp;while on Firnen's back, but he was still too young
to fly, so he sat&n bsp;in one of Firnen's paws, asleep. Alanna f ed him the remaining rats each morning f or a couple reasons. One, she
wanted him to stay too full to move so he&nbs p;wouldn’t get into trouble and,&nbs p;two, so his body would grow strong and grow well. For
the first few days she was worried her dragon would be too full to stay awake, but by the tim e Alanna started reviewing his words
he was awake enough to learn.
Once at home,&nbs p;Alanna taught the dragon some new words,&nb sp;tossing him a rat as part of his trea t when he recited the word
correctly.&n bsp;After the dragon was too full for rats, she re sorted to verbal positive reinforcement. Thankfull y, he seemed eager to
learn so the few times she tested him, to see if&nbs p;he noticed she was praising him, he di dn't notice that she had 'accidentally' skipp ed
a round of praise.
Before Alann a knew it, a month had come and gon e and every night she would watch her&nb sp;dragon leap out of the balcony from h er
study and try to fly, only&nbs p;to land somewhere and race back upstairs to try again. Now that he was old enough,& nbsp;Saphira had begun
his training. With their minds connected, Alanna was aware of Saphira flying him to a nearby lake and, while underwater, she'd
show him how to flap his wings. He was a natural swimmer, and to Alanna's eyes it looked like the flapping motion that& nbsp;he was
swimming with would also he lp him to fly, but she wasn't entirely&n bsp;sure. She trusted her dragon's safety and ;education to Saphira
so she didn't try& nbsp;to analyze Saphira’s reasoning any deeper than that. Saphira was teaching Alanna's dragon something he needed
to learn, and that was all Alanna cared about.
As for her own studies, she made great progress with the human language.& nbsp;Within two weeks she was reading all twe nty-three
letters fluently and starting on&nb sp;small words. Ironically, Eragon had her re ad from the same scrolls that she had re cited to her
dragon. For the first time, she understood how he felt, for th e most part. Of course, she had the ;advantage of already knowing the
animal&nbs p;and the letters, just not the word. But&nbs p;it was still difficult, trying to speak the new word in an unfamiliar language.
Whi le she excelled at reading, writing was anoth er matter entirely. She struggled to memorize how to write each letter, and her
grammatical structure tended to morph into&n bsp;the structure of the ancient language, he r native tongue. It was very difficult for&nb sp;
Alanna to keep these two separate, so she stayed up studying every night, try ing to get better.
When her dragon ;was five weeks old, he knew enough words so& nbsp;he and Alanna could communicate. Hearing ;his musical voice
speak his first full sentence was quite a thrill, and his vo ice was so addictive that she would often&nbs p;throw him a word to have him
rep eat it. She had upgraded his verbal trai ning by also having him say a sentence&n bsp;about the word.
At five weeks, her& nbsp;dragon had grown immensely, in every sen se of the word. Where he had been n o bigger than a loaf of bread
the& nbsp;night he had hatched, now he stood up to Alanna's waist, and growing every other day. As a result of his growth, hi s appetite
skyrocketed to the point whe re he could eat three fourths of the tan k for dinner, which left him with enough food in his stomach
to see him&nb sp;through the first half of the day. Th ankfully Saphira was a doting mother when it& nbsp;came to feeding her son, so she
wasn’t upset with snagging a ;rabbit or two when her son’s s tomach began to growl.
During his fifth week of life, her dragon also deci ded that he wanted a name, too. Just as& nbsp;she had planned on the first day of
training, Alanna took out the scrolls that listed male dragon names and recited the m to him. He showed no interest in any&n bsp;of
them. They went through the scrol ls another time, but he still didn't pick&nbs p;one. Alanna asked him what sort of nam e he would
want, and tried to crea te a name for him with the descriptions he gave; something strong, noble and unique. It was difficult work.
Many of the names A lanna knew had been on those scrolls. So , she started rearranging and combining them& nbsp;in new ways. She
wrote them down t hroughout the day and at night she would show them to him for his approval. ;
Finally, one day, he decided that he&n bsp;wanted the name Faolan. So, he became&nbs p;Faolan. It was difficult for Alanna to stop thinking
of him as 'her dragon' and&nb sp;to start thinking of him as Faolan, b ut she knew she'd get it eventually. It& nbsp;also helped that Faolan would
know ;when she was thinking of him as 'her dr agon' and would correct her. He seemed t o take great pride in his name.
Al most immediately following obtaining his name, Fao lan also figured out how to fly one ;night while he was practicing. When
Alanna&n bsp;watched him fly up to the balcony he had dropped from, she whooped and hugge d him, praising him immensely for his achievement. It soon became his habit to& nbsp;practice his flying every night even whe n he hurt from flying so much during&nbs p;the day.
Once Faolan had learned to&n bsp;fly, he could finally join his mother and father in their daily excursions beyond ;the lake. While
Faolan was excited about tha t, Alanna wasn't as enthusiastic. She had gro wn used to having Faolan by her side&nbs p;for every moment
of every day and&nbs p;didn't want him to leave, but she knew it was necessary for their training.
Wi th Faolan off for dragon training, Alanna&nbs p;joined Eragon and Arya in their daily listening to nature. At first, she had n o idea
about what was expected of her,& nbsp;but after getting a tip in the right&nbs p;direction from Eragon, she realized that sh e had to become one
with the fores t until she could monitor every species witho ut focusing on one in particular.
Alann a also progressed with the Rimgar, despite&nb sp;the constant growing of her limbs. She&nbs p;was still a child, after all, and so had&nb sp;
some growing left to do. But, she&nbs p;didn't let that stop her. She was determine d to do well at training, to be the best Rider she could
be.
After fiv e weeks of sparring with Arya, Alanna was&nbs p;finally making some headway in her swordfig hting. She still received blows
from he r opponent, but she also started dodging ;and landing more, which meant she was g etting faster. She also developed some
good footwork, able to focus on fighting Arya, but also simultane ously watching where she was putting her feet in the position
and with the press ure that would be best to keep her footi ng.
Now that Alanna was catching up with Arya, Eragon didn't focus on her anymore.&nb sp;He'd give her a few tips here and the re, but
there was little more one-on-one ;time. This suited Alanna just fine because&n bsp;she understood. She didn't need it ;anymore and it
would be selfish to&nbs p;expect him to continue to focus on her.&nbs p;
Not long after Faolan had turned six&n bsp;weeks, Eragon decided it was time he let& nbsp;Alanna practice magic. He started her of f small,
lifting a pebble and holding i t for as long as she could, then letting it drop, ;only to make it lift for two more times. Once it was
apparent she had&nbs p;more power than that, he moved her int o moving a bubble of water and tossing i t back and forth like a game.
Whil e she enjoyed that particular exercise, Erago n also had her moving rocks and commanding&nb sp;fire and other similar exercises.
For&nbs p;the most part, Eragon had her doing this&nb sp;toward the end of the day, when her&n bsp;lack of energy wouldn't affect the other& nbsp;areas of
her studies.
For Alanna, l ife was looking up. Everything was going right.&nb sp;