(Maybe this has been done in the comics, but I haven’t read all of them)
I know the Gaang had to travel through the Earth Kingdom to get to the North Pole, but I feel like it would have been cool if more Water Tribe were shown. Some waterbenders may have escaped the first raids before the Fire Nation got better at keeping them prisoner.
The natives of Kiyoshi Island dress in blue and similar clothing to Water Tribe. [realized this from @atlaculture I love your work and the effort you put into detailing aspects of various cultures]
Some people from the Water Tribe could have simply settled there before the war also. Or settled in other parts.
It would have been interesting to explore the idea of people surviving in a foreign land and struggling to uphold their culture, especially in war. Maybe the villages wouldn’t want them because waterbender directly threatens the Fire Nation and so they’re constantly hunted down. Katara could have met waterbenders who wished they weren’t and hated how no one would treat them normally because of it. She could have met families that would teach their children in secret about their culture but would outwardly pretend to be Earth Kingdom citizens.
Maybe there could have been an episode where Katara meets a Water Tribe child who hates her culture because of the pain and persecution their family had to endure from both the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom. And Katara would see their pain and would do her utmost to help this child and their family and tell her the stories of her people and try her best to impart some love for their culture.
I think the only way Katara would leave would be because being with Aang and Appa would attract Zuko and the Fire Nation, but she would definitely plant the seeds for that child to not direct her trauma and pain against herself and her culture.
It would be an aspect of war otherwise not really explored: how colonization and persecution not only destroys culture but also tears people away from their culture, makes them ashamed of it, makes them want to move away from their culture as a trauma response.
Yes, the Fire Nation explored this with showing how they twisted their beliefs about their bending, but they were the colonizers in the show. It was a kid show, so I guess they couldn’t delve into the affects of war too deeply, but I think the first season was light enough that they could have explored the oppressed and colonized people more deeply. Not just that they were killed at the beginning of the war or that this village was colonized so it’s done with.
Explore the people who are alive and what they have to sacrifice in order to be alive. Make it deep and personal to one of the main characters. It’s not just done history. People still have to live with the effects of it.
And since we got so little from the Water Tribe in Book 1, I think it could be strongly related to waterbending and the loss of their culture since so much of Katara’s trauma is about loss. The loss of her mother and to an extent her father. But she’s also the only Southern waterbender (to her knowledge for most of the show) and for so many years she didn’t know much about this part of her culture.
Just imagine how excited Katara would be to meet other benders and how grieved she would be to see their suffering. Katara’s such an amazing character and sometimes it seems like people forget she has the sole responsibility of maintaining a vital piece of her people’s culture and that’s terrifying to think about. The joy she would have when learning and growing into a bending master would always be mixed with grief and bitterness because it was stolen from her and her people. And no matter how much humanity she sees in Fire Nation citizens or how they suffered or how some were forced in war, none of that will ever make it okay that they tried to take this part of her people away from them.
(And I think this could be another reason Katara would hate Zuko too. Really, Katara + waterbending as a vital part of her and her people should never be overlooked.)
(Okay, so how about post-war, Katara goes around offering aid to people and searching for any surviving Southern waterbenders. The Gaang could have continued traveling together to search for Air Nomads as well as Southern waterbenders.)
Summary: “Brom, I just want them back! I don’t want anyone else to die and I want them back!”
“I know, kid.”
“…I hate this fucking war.”
“…Yeah. Me too.”
Everyone has a limit on what they can endure without cracking under the strain. Some people can move that limit when they must, push themselves a little further to shoulder more so that others don’t have to take it on or see them hurting. But often it’s those people who break the hardest when their limit is finally reached.
~~~
Arya stared up at the plaster coated stone of the embassy ceiling. The events of the last twenty four hours played over and over in her mind, threatening to drown out her attempts to rest.
Ajihad was dead. The man everyone had been so sure would lead them to the gates of Urû’baen was gone.
Even after a lifetime of loss, Arya felt Ajihad’s death hit particularly hard.
The man was a genius strategist and unparalleled negotiator. Under his guidance the Varden had not only survived but thrived even as Galbatorix increased his campaign against them.
That wasn’t all. He was not just a military leader. Ajihad had been a personal friend to Arya, Fäolin and Glenwing. Despite being decades younger than the elves, the fallen commander always kept his eye out for them and encouraged all three to speak openly to him if any problems arose. He was kind, just and one of the most honorable men Arya had met during the entire hellish war.
Unbidden, the memory of one of the last occasions Arya had spent one on one time with the Varden’s leader crept into her mind.
It felt like months had already passed, but just over two weeks ago Ajihad had strode into Arya’s tiny room in the medical wing with a thermos of her favorite tea balanced on a fresh set of her fatigues in one hand and a packet of notes in the other. Arya had expected him to give a few short condolences and exchange hurried niceties before launching into a formal debriefing about her captivity, the events that led to it, and the information that she had either collected or divulged during that time. It was procedure, after all, and with the Urgals army fast approaching Arya understood that there would be little time for anything but the necessities.
But the Varden’s leader did nothing of the sort. Instead, using mugs borrowed from the cabinet of the nurse’s station, Ajihad sat and shared tea while he talked with the recently revived elf. They sat together, Ajihad somehow still looking regal and powerful while relaxing in a ratty old chair and Arya sitting cross legged on the edge of the hospital bed, barefoot and shirtless but very grateful for the pants and sports bra that provided more protection than a the hospital’s light pants and open backed shirt.
Ajihad spent well over an hour telling her of the things that had gone on since she last left with Saphira’s egg. Everything from an incident where Coop, the one legged veteran who owned the Varden’s traveling bar, had used his prosthetic to knock out the instigator of a drunken brawl, to the Ingeitum clan’s recent efforts to restart production of small tanks and new artillery, was discussed. It was informal, relaxing almost, and for Arya it brought an almost desperately welcome break from the constant questions about her state of mind and the well meant but invasive queries about her captivity and torture.
The tea had long since been finished when Ajihad paused, the boyish grin left from telling of Coop’s improvised assault fading from his lips. He steepled his fingers and settled his elbows on his knees before asking if Brom had told her about the current situation between the Varden and the elves. When Arya answered in the affirmative, an edge creeping into her tone, he simply nodded. He knew that she would do everything possible to put relations back in order.
Still. She could see the questions in his eyes.
He didn’t ask them. Instead, Ajihad gave her sincere condolences on the deaths of Fäolin and Glenwing. He did not apologize for their deaths, nor did he dither on about what could have been or should have been done, but he recounted their strengths and character, how much they meant to specific people in the Varden, and how much their support had meant to him and Nasuada during the early years of his leadership. It was heartfelt, and held no awkward silence or uncertainty as to how to address their deaths. Ajihad knew the importance of acknowledging their loss, while also understanding Arya’s need for privacy in processing their deaths.
As he took his leave, Ajihad pulled three objects from the pocket of his vest and gently folded Arya’s fingers over them. The subdued gleam of two hammered steel badges, bearing the Varden’s seal and hanging from black ribbons, met her gaze when she carefully revealed the gifts. Under them, another medal, plated in dull brass with a sky blue ribbon, detailed a wolf leaping over a wall of snarled barbed wire.
As she tilted the medals in her hand, Arya’s breath caught in the back of her throat. Etched carefully into the metal so that they became clear when light shifted, the glyphs that she, Glenwing and Fäolin had chosen for the motto of their tiny special ops unit shined back at her.
With a sudden lurch Arya sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, chest aching.
Even in their deaths, Ajihad had provided Fäolin and Glenwing permanent proof that though they were not human, they would always be a part of the Varden. It was a thought that Ajihad turned to solid fact during his time as leader, ensuring that the elves felt accepted and trusted in the fight against Galbatorix. It was why losing him felt like losing a another part of the family Arya had found in the Varden’s ranks. A family that was quickly shrinking as the conflict reached the start of it’s crescendo with Eragon and Saphira’s arrival.
At the thought of family Arya’s mind turned to Nasuada. Barely into adulthood and carrying the same strength and wit that Ajihad often displayed, Nasuada’s love for her father was obvious. The two doted on each other as much as they butted heads, stubborn and unyielding in their conviction to help the Varden despite the danger.
If only I had been faster. She still couldn’t shake the sound of the young woman’s wail that reverberated through the tunnels. Even in the warren of passages that the Urgals had escaped through she had heard the agonized sound clearly. I should have used magic to drive the Urgals back. Then maybe Ajihad, Murtagh and the others would have gotten out.
Arya tightened her grip on the sheets, feeling her nails dig into her palms through the material. No. I can’t do this now. She squeezed her eyes shut and forced the lump in her throat down. Took several slow, deep breaths and settled back into the bed. There’s too much to do, too much at stake. Doubt and grief can come later. We’ll mourn later.
Right now, sleep. Then take the day one step at a time. The Council meeting tomorrow. Prep for travel back to Ellesméra. Keep an eye on Eragon and Saphira, make sure no one tries anything while we’re in chaos. Make sure the Council doesn’t try to steamroll Brom’s advice.
She breathed in again, closed her eyes. Loosened the fists she had made and forced her tired body to relax as she let it out. The tightness in her throat hadn’t gone away fully, and the heavy feeling in her chest remained. But it could wait. It would have to wait.
Keep on keeping on. It’s all we can do.
Resigned to sleep yet still uneasy, the elf subconsciously rolled over in the bed and reached out for the comforting, familiar warmth of Fäolin’s body beside hers.
Her hand fell through open air to land on cold, empty sheets.
Arya’s eyes snapped open.
~~~
Brom rubbed his face, chewing once again on the stem of his empty pipe. Arya had banned him from smoking in the embassy, but he was in no mood leave his room, much less go outside.
A heavy shroud covered Tronjheim in the wake of Ajihad’s death earlier that day. People were openly crying in the tunnels and crowded together for solidarity in their grief. The Rider didn’t want to be drawn into it. Instead he preferred to reflect on his emotions and the events alone with a shot of strong bourbon and his pipe. Sometimes one or two close friends were welcome, but the number of people he counted as such had dwindled over the course of the war till less than a handful remained.
Brom sucked in a breath through the pipe, tasting the remnants of his years of smoking in the wood. He hadn’t known Ajihad all that well, but the man made quite an impression on him the times that they had met face to face as well as when the two exchanged letters about the Varden. Brom found his decisions sound and his leadership to be well in line with the values that the Varden had been founded on. His death was a blow to the group for sure, both in a strategic sense and an emotional one.
The question of who would take over the Varden now haunted the Rider’s mind. Brom had been almost completely out of contact for the fifteen years he watched over Eragon in Carvahall, never mind the handful of years he spent infiltrating Morzan’s mansion. He had no idea who would be best to succeed Ajihad, but knew one thing: the Council was not to be trusted with the final decision.
Brom growled in quiet frustration. In his opinion a majority of the current Council were a bunch of power hungry, manipulative jackasses.
But still…the Council was an important part of the Varden’s structure. Without them t–
Brom bolted to his feet, chair clattering to the ground as a ragged scream ripped through the embassy. The Rider was out the door and in the hall when a resounding crash followed not a moment later.
Brom staggered as Arya’s door opened easily, fully expecting it to be locked when he jammed his shoulder against it. He stumbled into the darkened room and stopped, feeling a twinge of tightness in his chest as he took in the somewhat familiar scene.
Arya was sitting on the floor below a fresh hole in the plaster that hid the pipes and utilities anchored to the stone walls. Her shoulders, littered with angry red and raw scars that peeked out from the loose collar of her nightshirt, shuddered every few moments. Her left hand clenched over her face to hide her eyes while her lips pressed tight together to prevent any hint of sound.
Her right hand was limp at her knee, torn and bloodied. Deep bruises already bloomed at her first two knuckles where skin still remained.
Brom carefully stepped over scattered chips of plaster and sank to his knees in front of the crumpled elf. “Hey now…” Arya’s jaw clenched tighter and she turned her face away from him at his soft words, still covering her eyes. “Don’t do this, girl. We’ve talked about this.” Gently but firmly, the Rider grasped the woman’s left wrist and tugged.
A long second passed as Brom kept up the pressure, feeling the silent trembling through the limb until she finally dropped her hand. Arya looked up at him through the tears that streaked her face.
“There we go.” He gave her a soft smile. Eragon was his son, it was true. But family reached further than blood, and he’d be damned if he didn’t see the woman before him as his daughter. He had watched her grow from a small child, eager to fight in the name of her people, to a woman that now endured a multitude of wounds in the hope that her deeds would lead to a better future for all the races.
It wasn’t the first time he saw her like this. Wasn’t the first time he had consoled her after years, decades of pushing aside her own feelings for the sake of others, for the sake of the war, finally shattered through her carefully constructed walls. She had seen him the same way before as well. They both knew it was not likely it would be the last.
So he did what he had done before. What they both had done. “Don’t hold back, girl. I’m right here.”
Arya shuddered. Squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. But she didn’t resist when Brom pulled her into his arms.
Instead she gave a choked cry, seized a fistful of his shirt, and sobbed hard into his shoulder.
Modern Inheritance: Collateral (Smoke and Mirrors)
(A/N: A post-Feinster conversation between Brom and Arya. The whole end of Brisingr has so many implications for reawakening trauma for everyone, especially these two.
I want to make it abundantly clear, Brom and Arya never have and never will have any sort of romantic/couples thing between them! They’re more of father/daughter, mentor/student and traumatized war buddies. They’ve known each other so long that there’s a lot of trust and understanding between them concerning their traumas and the ways they cope. Anyway, cheers!)
~~~~~~~~~~
“What the hell! Brom!”
The elder Rider jerked, nearly inhaling the entire half smoked cigarette that he held to his lips. He whipped around to face his accuser as he choked on the ash he had sucked in, his first words of protest lost when he immediately had to double over in an attempt to clear his irritated lungs.
Arya scowled from where she had stopped not a yard behind her mentor, arms crossed as she waited for Brom to finish his coughing fit. The elf hadn’t exactly planned to seek him out after leaving Eragon and Saphira to rest at the house they now occupied as the Varden secured Feinster, instead looking for a place to sleep in the sacked city. But the steady trail of smoke from behind the corner of a half collapsed stone building had drawn her eye.
“The pipe? That’s fine! I could live with that! You sourced your own stock. But this shit?” Arya plucked the smoldering stick from his fingers as Brom began to raise his hands in defense. “For fucks sake, you know what’s in them! Enough’s enough!” She threw the cigarette to the sandy gutter beside the house and ground it out with her heel.
Brom finally managed a handful of words edgewise. “I’m out of pipe weed. The whole city is out.” Grumbling to himself as stepped back to lean against the wall, he began fishing his hands in the pockets of his coat. Arya’s eyes narrowed when his hands reappeared holding a beaten, half empty pack of Talon Filtereds and a squashed box of matches. “Don’t start with me again, girl. I’m not in the mood.”
As usual, his former student ignored him. “You’re chain smoking again?” Her words were sharp, almost accusing, but beneath it all edged a hint of worry.
Brom snorted, pale smoke venting from his nostrils as the cigarette caught and held. He took a deep inhale, let the feeling circulate in his lungs, before releasing a stream of grief and anger with the acrid vapor. “Would you rather I drink?”
Arya growled quietly and fell back against the wall next to him. This wasn’t a battle she could win, and she knew it. That didn’t change the way she felt. “No, I want you to deal with your fucking emotions in a healthy way.”
At that the Rider let out harsh bark of laughter and a cloud of white. “Look who’s talking, girl! Wait, what’s that?” He held up a hand and sniffed the nicotine laden air theatrically. “Do you smell that? Suddenly it reeks of hypocrisy here!”
The elf gave a wry grin, the pain behind her own bottled up grief and night terrors tugging at her lips. “...Touché.”
They stood together in silence for a handful of minutes, haloed by smoke and the dim glow of the lanterns that replaced shattered street lights.
The previous battle was unique for them. It had reopened old wounds that had just started to scab over, gashed a fresh one right across their hearts. She had faced the horrors of her nightmares brought back to life. He had watched helpless as his son and the boy’s partner of heart and mind nearly died. Both had lost the man that practically raised them, the one person they assumed they would never need to expect would die.
Brom broke the thick silence. He took a short pull of his cigarette and tilted his head to regard the woman beside him. “Are you holding up?”
He hid his grimace by lifting the stick back to his face when Arya dropped her gaze and refused to look at him. That was never a good sign. And she had been doing so well before Feinster.
“I’m fine.” The elf flicked her eyes in Brom’s direction when he moved, and scoffed when she saw the pointed, rather familiar expression he now gave her. “Oh, what?” Brom didn’t answer, merely put the cigarette to his lips again and raised his eyebrows even further. “Everything right now is just…. It’s fucked up, Brom. There isn’t time for me to...I don't know, vent?” She scowled and pushed stray hair back from her forehead, trying to gather her thoughts. “Fall apart? Sort through it. You know that.”
The elder Rider let out a grunt of acknowledgement around the dull orange of the tipping paper before gesturing to Arya’s neck. “Not enough time for healing that, then?”
Arya’s hand came up to touch her throat subconsciously, the dark marks under her jaw giving a light twinge at the contact. Eragon had healed the internal damage to her throat and muscles, but battlefield healing and exhaustion had let the surface injuries remain.
“They’re just bruises.” Still, her fingers lingered there, testing the injured flesh. Trying to chase away the feeling of cold hands around her throat and the smell of blood and concrete, the face and triumphant, gleeful snarl of another man-shaped monster.
Brom watched her out of the corner of his eye. When Arya abandoned the bruises to rub the back of her neck, that telltale tic that she had used for well over a year now, he ashed his cigarette and gently tapped her shoulder with the back of his free hand. “It wasn’t him. He’s dead and gone. Eragon saw to that.”
Arya let out a shaky stream of breath and dropped her hand from where she had been smoothing over the scars that slashed above the edge of her tank top. “Yeah, I know.” Sliding to the ground, the elf balanced on the balls of her feet and plucked a pebble from the earth before mumbling, “Doesn’t change how my brain sees it though.”
She looked up at her mentor, doing all she could to hide her desperation for a distraction as the old scenes loomed in her mind. “What about you, old man? Hanging in there?”
Brom’s lip twitched in a sudden snarl, the cigarette bobbing with the motion. “I’m going to kill that demon’s spawn.”
The change in his voice sent a sudden chill down Arya’s spine, chasing away the lingering sparks that raced across her scars. This wasn’t the voice of the man who had lived the last seventeen years. This was the voice of the man Arya had met on the trails of Ellesméra, a walking embodiment of rage, betrayal and anguish that could burn all in his path. “You mean Murtagh?”
With a violent jab of his hand Brom stabbed out remnants of his first smoke on the wall behind him. He ignored the pinpricks of blood that welled up from his fingers as he yanked a fresh stick out of the box and clamped it in his teeth to light as he growled, “He doesn’t get a name anymore. He’s dead when I see him, dragon or no dragon. I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again.” The first match he struck snapped in half and fizzled out. Brom swore and threw the shattered bits away and broke his cardinal rule to light the soothing cigarette with a spark of magic at his fingers, angrily puffing as it took.
Arya regarded him steadily, hearing the pain that edged the fury like so many razors. It would do no good to remind the Rider that Galbatorix had been in control when he struck the final blow against Oromis and Glaedr, nor would he want to hear that the young man and the red dragon were not Morzan and his twisted mount.
“...You really wanted them to be different, didn’t you?” The moment the words left her mouth Arya felt the folly of letting them loose.
Brom’s brilliant blue eyes turned to her, nostrils flared in rage as they jetted twin streaks of smoke. His hand lifted slightly, hovering near head height where Arya crouched beside him. The elf tensed, ready to take the blow if he struck.
He stopped. His fingers flexed, as though they could not make up their mind. At his lips the cigarette trembled, the trail of smog from its end wavering. For the briefest of moments, Arya saw a blazing flash of...failure...in his eyes. That was failure, failure and agony at the lives lost, though two still walked among the living. And then it was gone, replaced by an intense but controlled anger.
Brom lowered his trembling hand. “...Just let me smoke, dammit.”
“Fair enough.”
Another ten minutes passed, the only sounds being the Varden watch patrols calling out to each other in the sleeping city. Brom let his somewhat crumpled cigarette burn down to the mashed filter before grinding it out. His shaking had calmed, the enraged light in his eyes dimmed.
He cleared his throat as he shook another snout from the dwindling box. “...You had a shift watching Eragon and Saphira earlier?” Arya nodded, rolling the pebble she had picked up in her palm and shifting her balance in accordance with its movements. “And how are they doing with all of this?”
Another wry grin tilted the corner of the elf’s lips, though she did not raise her gaze. “Exceptionally better than we are.” The two shared a short laugh before she spoke again, almost hesitant. “Eragon is...having trouble. With something that happened while he was helping clear out Feinster.”
“What happened?”
Arya rocked back onto her heels and recounted Eragon’s telling of the boy that had startled him inside one of Feinster’s homes. The sheer shock he felt when he saw the youth, his pang of recognition, and, later, the horror he felt when he realized just how close he had come to killing an innocent civilian. “It’s been eating him up inside. Saphira’s told him over and over that he didn’t actually kill the kid, that it all worked out, but he’s still thinking about it.” She sighed, and with a flick of her wrist threw the pebble down like a dart. It gouged a crater into the compacted, sandy soil, the quiet thud and depth of the impact betraying her unearthly strength. “I told him to stop and just forget about it when he asked me how I would handle it.”
Brom paused. “...That’s unlike you.”
The elf rubbed her temples and shifted back to the balls of her feet, agitated and indecisive. “Yeah, well...I shut down a bit when he mentioned it. He wanted to try and get me to open up again, seeing as it’s gone well the last few times.” She shook her head, braid swaying. “I couldn’t. Not to them. Not about that.”
Realization dawned on the older Rider, and he pinched his cigarette between his pointer and thumb as he drew a long, deep pull and gathered his thoughts. He exhaled slowly, a heavy sigh of memories that were only partly repressed by the nicotine’s taste in his mouth, before slipping a hand into his pocket and peering up at the half concealed stars above. “Right. Thornwell.” He flicked the ashes away. “...Now that’s something I’d rather forget.”
“Fuck off. The day we forget Thornwell we better be fuckin’ dead.” Arya’s tone was harsh, laced with the bitterness of failure and a vehement streak of self-hatred that the elf rarely let out into the open. “We’re the only ones left to remember it, and it was our fucking fault. Don’t you dare try to brush it off.”
“I’m not.” With a soft pat, Brom dropped his free hand onto Arya’s head. The touch was sudden, so much so that the elf nearly jerked away until she felt the tension in the man’s muscles, the miniscule tremors that the cigarettes couldn’t suppress.
He knew. The memories still hurt plenty. He couldn’t let them go either.
Arya sighed and ducked her head, breaking the contact. “Good.” Her voice wasn’t as sharp now. Just...tired.
The taste of rich dirt, acrid smoke from a magic fueled fire and burning plastics rushed her senses with the memory of Thornwell’s resurgence. Uncaring if any of Eragon’s guards were in sight, she spat to the side, trying to rid herself of the shame laced flavor. Again she found herself resentful of her mind’s sensory recall, bitterly wishing elves memories could fade to washed out images and sounds as humans did.
“Here.” The combat liaison looked up to see Brom offering his still smoldering cigarette down to her. She stared at it for a long moment before gingerly accepting the roll between two fingers and shot a wary, questioning look to her mentor. “I don’t just smoke them for nicotine. It’s the only thing keeping the tastes out of my mouth.”
A moment later saw Arya coughing and gagging as she thrust the cigarette back. “That’s awful!” She spat again, choking on what felt like burning fumes. “Fuck!”
“But it worked, didn’t it?”
“I’ll tell you when I stop feeling like there’s acid in my throat!”
The old man was right, though. The acrid, vile taste had drowned out the pervading scents and flavors of that one day so many decades ago.
As the elf took a sip from the canteen off her belt, Brom turned his gaze back to the clouded stars. “...That was the day you broke my jaw, wasn’t it?”
Arya snorted into the neck of the canteen before muttering, “I cracked your cheekbone. I was…” She paused, screwing the cap back on and trying to choose the words that would cause the least pain for both of them. “We both were fucked up in that moment. You just wouldn’t realize it. I had to do something.”
“...I was like that a lot back then.”
“Yeah.” Arya clipped the canteen back on her belt. Rubbed her hands together.
She couldn’t bring herself to admit just how scared of him she had been that day, even before the accident. Brom carried within him a level of intensity at times that transcended rage. Thornwell was an incident where that blind fury led them both to ruin, at the cost of innocent lives.
Brom cleared his throat, drawing the elf’s eye back to him. “You know...we should start easing Eragon and Saphira into the notion that...that there’s going to be collateral someday.” The words left his mouth with a grimace and puffs of smoke. “Prepare them for it. Eragon’s so empathetic, I’m worried that–”
“No!” The Rider jerked, startled by the sharp, nearly shouted dismissal. Soft flecks of ashes scattered down, drifting to land cool and harmless onto the fists Arya held clenched at her knees.
Her refusal shocked him. Arya, of all people, knew that the right preparation could help lessen the acute effects of war. Her upbringing, like Eragon’s, had done little to prepare her for taking lives, losing comrades, and the burning senses of shame, self-hatred and anguish that could all accompany a prolonged conflict. As naïve as she had been when she joined the Varden, with only the surface understanding of her eventual role, it all had left a lasting impact on the elf.
Brom frowned. His former student’s body was ridgid, knuckles white. “Arya, you know it’s going to happen sooner or later–”
Arya cut him off again, her voice softer yet edged with a firm, pained conviction. “Brom...we both know it’s already happened.” And she pointed out towards the city around them. “You can’t tell me there weren’t people here.”
Some of the buildings were collapsed inward on themselves. Shopfronts, family businesses with living quarters above, stood half charred or half destroyed. Behind them, towards the towering keep, the building that Saphira had torn apart tooth and claw was abandoned besides smears of gore.
A nagging, grim understanding began creeping into Brom’s mind.
“I know he’s your son, and I know you have more of a say in what you tell him.” Arya continued. “But I can’t let you put the idea in his head. He’s so...he feels so much, Brom. He feels for others as much as he feels for himself. Saphira tries to help him through it but through him, she feels it too.” Tiny tremors shook her fists, nails biting into her palms. “If you start trying to prepare him, they’re going to realize that it’s probably already happened. They’re going to start wondering when. Why they didn’t notice it before. How many.
“That spiral doesn’t stop. It’s so hard to shut out, and….” She stopped, just short of her voice breaking. “I don’t want that to happen to them. Just...let them have this, Brom. Let me worry about it. Okay?”
Brom dragged the last trails of smoke from his cigarette and reached down. Placed his hand on the elf’s head and gently ran his thumb over her hair as he had always done with Eragon when the boy was frightened by his stories years ago. She tensed for a moment, before he felt the pent up stress ease. “Okay.” The older Rider tapped out the end of his smoke on the wall. “I see your point, kid.” With a gentle shift he pushed her to lean a shoulder against his leg in a comforting gesture of support and understanding. “But when it happens, you tell me. They’ll need both of us.”
“I will.”
They stayed like that for a long moment, supporting each other as the night’s words swirled through their minds.
“...I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight.” Arya muttered suddenly.
Brom let out a soft scoff. “Join the club.”
It brought another grim smile to the elf’s face. “Walk with me? Patrolling tends to help.”
“Fine.” Brom reached into his coat as Arya stood and stretched. He swore quietly when he found that the box of Talons was empty.
Realizing that Arya was watching him, Brom gave the box one last longing look before crumpling it in his fist and dropping it into his pocket. “Lead the way, kid.”
Modern Inheritance Cycle: The origins of Farthen Dur’s current veterans bar owner (semi-scrapped ficlet)
(*hacks up half completed MIC snippet hairball and wanders off* Timeline is a few years before Saphira’s egg is stolen, probably about three or four years at most.)
Cracks and shots stabbed needles into unprotected ears. Bullets cut swirled, roiling lines through the smoke and dust saturated air while the clash of blades rumbled at a constant crackle. Heavy booms of dwarvish artilary and Broddring cannonbombs shook the blood soaked earth.
He couldn’t say he was at the center of it all. In fact, he was a good distance from the thick of the hand to hand combat, in a half completed, baked earth sprinkled trench. The crumbling walls had sloped in on him, partially burying what was left of his lower right leg and his shrapnel studded left. A cannonbomb impacted ten meters away, pouring more of the dirt onto his body as various warriors of both sides scrambled and yelled, running to and fro in the pitched battle.
No, he wasn’t at the center of it. Combat engineer Samuel “Coop” Cooper, 32nd Division of the Surdan ground forces, couldn’t have cared less. Because he was bleeding and screaming and writhing in that little trench, staring at the white shanks of bone that heralded the new end of his leg.
Coop cried out in renewed pain, the shudder of the ground bumping into his mangled limb. He was crying, cutting streaks through the grime on his young face down to his close cropped beard. He had been so proud of that damn beard, finally out of the awkward patchiness of his teen years, proud to finally be a true C.E. like the rest of his division. Now it didn’t even matter. He’d seen men on the battlefield in his situation. He knew that in the chaos of a full on fight that the wounded were rarely, if ever, treated early enough to grant survival.
He’d go out like his Pap. Screaming bloody murder at the Broddring dogs across the battlefield, knowing that his own battlemates couldn’t spare the time or distraction to pick him up and haul him back to the tents.
No one would ever say it was a noble death. But by the bright gods above, Coop would show the courage to face it head on.
New shots cracked overhead, a rifle not three yards from where the young man was concealed. Instead of footsteps pounding by in a dead run towards –or away, as many young recruits had gone– the thick of the battle, the steps came directly towards him. A cold hand clutched at Coop’s heart when black boots entered his field of vision, and he screamed incoherently at the owner, trying to brandish the remnants of his shattered rifle.
No bullet came for him. The figure crouched down, ignoring the whiz of projectiles whipping past.
“Looks like you’re in rough shape, kid.” Then they leapt into the trench and hunched over Coop’s prone form.
He stared.
He honestly couldn’t tell if it was a trick of his mind. He was in enough pain and had lost enough blood for that to make sense. It had to be that.
Crouched over him, thick braid dangling over her shoulder, was a woman. Her gore streaked face was strikingly pretty, even for Coop’s befuddled brain. A rifle he couldn’t identify was slung over her right shoulder, a fine sword clenched in her left hand, and pieces of an outlandish silvery blue kevlar material was strapped all over her chest.
“Hey. Hey!” He tried to focus his bleary vision on her face. Her dark eyes caught and held his gaze. “You got any wards? I need to know.”
Coop shook his head with great effort. Combat Engineers rarely got things as precious as wards.
Everything was getting very heavy….
And then the world shot back into achingly sharp clarity when the woman grabbed his mangled leg at the knee, fingers impossibly strong. He shrieked in agony, red and black spots flaring in his vision. The shrill sound drowned out the spell that the woman used, but he didn’t care because moments afterwards the pain drained away. There was a crawling, itching sensation as the blood that had been flowing from his legs coagulated and dried, forming hard, shiny scabs that were quickly covered with fine dust from the parched soil.
“H’up you go!” Suddenly the world tilted and rolled, spinning in and out of focus like a sickening rollercoaster. The next thing Coop saw, so close up so that he nearly crossed his eyes to read it, was the patch on the woman’s shoulder.
E.S.O. Elvin Spec. Ops. Edoc’sil Varden du Wyrani.
And then the world was again a blur. Not long after he felt himself being lowered onto a stretcher, the woman’s voice garbled and indistinct. As more voices layered in, Coop let himself close his eyes.
He didn’t really know what to think about the last ten minutes. He didn’t know if he was with the Surdan and Varden forces or with the Broddring Empire’s, but he didn’t hurt as much. His mind was foggy but that was okay. He just needed…needed a nap.
Sam Cooper fell asleep on the stretcher, and didn’t wake up until he was in the closest hospital, the lower half of his right shin now neatly amputated and wrapped in clean white gauze.
~~
Cooper closed his eyes, the bright white lights of the hospital room glaring through his lids. He didn’t want to get up and turn them off, but he couldn’t sleep with them on either.
It was six long, painful months after his medical discharge. Six months after he transferred from Surda’s VA hospital to the underground facility at Farthen Dur. Six months of getting used to his new prosthetic foot, six months of learning how to stand and walk again, six months of grueling physical therapy that put boot camp to shame. His whole body ached from the PT session he just completed, the stump of his leg the sorest of all. He was still building up thicker skin that would make putting his weight on it easier.
Coop groaned and dragged his hands over his eyes. He hated calling the nurses to ask for simple things like water and light switches. It felt humiliating. A twenty-two year old army man with three years of active, bloody duty on the Surdan border and the nurses still had the gall to look at him with open pity.
Maybe he could just sleep with his arm over his face….
Three sharp raps on the sign outside his hospital room startled Cooper from his thoughts. He pulled the crook of his elbow away from his eyes– and gaped at his visitor.
It was her!
The woman was leaned casually in his doorframe, stray tendrils of pitch black hair whisping over her forehead and braid again over her shoulder. Her jacket, pinned at the shoulders by the straps of a black backpack, was free from a majority of the kevlar, and hung open on her lean frame. Beneath it, a simple black shirt and a pair of mottled green cargo pants.
“Hi.” She waved slightly.
Coop opened and closed his mouth a few times. “…H-hi.”
“I figured you would have been sent here.” She raised an eyebrow. “Mind if I come in? I brought you a treat.”
“…Sure?” Slowly getting over his shock but still confused as ever, Coop pointed at the uncomfortable plastic chair against the wall. “Feel free, I guess.”
“Thanks, kid.” She dragged the chair over and sat down next to him, pulling the backpack into her lap as she did so. “Didn’t get to introduce myself before. I’m Arya.” They shook hands.
“Coop. Sam Cooper.”
“I stole some cans of fruit salad, Coop.” Arya grinned, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “You want one?”
He glanced over at the tray of unappetizing hospital rations sitting on the dresser. “…Yeah. Thanks.” He accepted the can as she passed it to him, and in turn passed her one of the plastic multi utensils from his tray.
“Cheers, Coop.”
====================
Coop is/was going to be the eventual owner of Farthen Dur’s veterans bar. He’s good friends with Arya, Faolin and Glenwing, even occasionally using them as unofficial bouncers when things got rough or getting them to play music on slow nights to draw in customers.
MIC’s Glenwing is also an amputee, having lost his arm in the ambush that starts off the series, but his recovery was during the time that Eragon and Co are doing their thing and isn’t seen. I wanted to display the strength that many veterans who return from combat with missing limbs have to go through the stress and struggles that PT puts them through. A local man I am friends with lost his leg and he’s incredibly open about his experience, and it really struck a chord in me.
Alas, I never could pick this one up again. It felt too song fic like when I thought about later parts. Sam Cooper is a staple to much of my mental map of MIC though, and will always be ‘canon’ in my little corner of the IC world.
Cheers mates.
Oh right. Arya’s patch is what she, Faolin and Glen ‘homebrewed’ for their rank and division to better fit in with the Varden’s military structure. The motto translates very roughly (with some tinkering) to ‘Unconquerable Guardians of Fate’ because edgy.
When I was little I always thought my parents looked like vampires. Slender, pale skin, always in black.
When I was alittle older I would then make jokes that they look like vampires.
Now that I am older I realized those jokes I made and that cute interpretation was just that an interpretation. Of a child who had no idea what they went through.
That slenderness was malnourishment. That pale skin was grey and yellow. Those eyes were of sadness and confusion.
The reality was of traumatized humans who had just survived death.
They are my parents and all though they never wanted me to know what they went through. I will tell you that the affects of trauma and grief are very much passed down through some telepathic way because I hurt for reasons I am trying to figure out.
Remembering My mother was not quite seventeen when I was born. She and my father, just three years her senior, had married early as he had joined the army.
