the way murtagh is hurt by eragon telling him his scar was healed. how murtagh only knows suffering and tries to connect with eragon thru their shared pain. and when eragon can't relate anymore that upsets murtagh so much he lashes out. and the way murtagh is so eager to share eragon's (perceived) parenthood even though it causes eragon so much strife because he's had to deal with that strife for so long on his own but now he can share it with someone. and he can only love people by dragging them down with him like with capturing and torturing nasuada because even if theyre suffering atleast theyre suffering together
Sorry guys. Got home, all will to do things fled my body and mind.
Gon' take a nap, chat with the team, figure out what we might be working on this weekend.
Cheers mates!
PS- I got past the conventional torture part in Murtagh. Mid. BDSM claws? Just those and mental torture? Bachel, honey, you have a creature that gives you weird and wild ass dreams. That you're not going past that and a few nerve tweaks (ngl I'm a bit salty I thought the nerve torture was sorta uh...my thing but that's my ego talking) is just...just so disappointing. You had Durza there. Motherfucking flaming headed fuckboi! Just...absolute waste. I know it worked but it's...okay this is awful but yes, it worked more because you were torturing Thorn rather than the damage done to Murtagh. Murtagh will always cave when Thorn is tortured. All the Chaos Trio Dragon Riders would fold if their partners/loved ones were being harmed. My babby girl included! There are two reasons why Glen was not captured despite being alive, and this is one of them!
anyway.
I'm tired. I wanted some fresh ideas from that but...smfh. The depiction of fading in and out, mind muddled and out of it even when not on stinky old lady breath was good, but come on. Give us more meat!
...I need to say this for clarity, I'M NOT INTO ANY OF THIS STUFF LIKE...SEXUALLY. I just find the combination of biology, physiology and psychology so amazingly interesting! I don't pick the hyperfixations. And I've been like this for a while. So. It's not gonna stop anytime soon and I've embraced it.
I’m still trying to banish this headache to the shadow realm BUT.
There is a point in MIC extended war timeline where Brom needs to go somewhere across the country and, because he is a Rider (and because no one else can get through to him sometimes), Arya is assigned to be his guard for the journey. Galbatorix learns of this and Murtagh and Thorn are dispatched to track them down and capture or kill them. Easy enough, right?
Well, Arya is just as feral when on Brom protec duty as she is when on Eragon and Saphira duty. And Brom is the OG, the Forsworn Slayer, He Who Wears Many Capes, master strategist and tactician. Goddamn Odysseus of Alagaesia, hoot hoot motherfuckers oh my god the painkillers are kicking in
So Murtagh and Thorn keep getting into these skirmishes where Murtagh is forced into 1v1 with Arya because Brom picked up on Thorn’s claustrophobia early on. They keep ducking into forests, caves, high walled valleys, city/town ruins, and it is driving Murtagh and Thorn nuts because it shouldn't be this fucking hard!
During the fights Arya is mostly just buying enough time for Brom to get himself away and into a new route/track/populated area/hidey hole and throw off any hopes of tracking before she peels off and goes some other direction and does the same thing that Brom did in a different area. They wait for Murtagh and Thorn to pick whatever direction they choose to try and hunt them down and then backtrack and meet back up to keep going.
A few times, Murtagh does manage to get an upper hand in battle. He's bolstered by the Eldunari Galbatorix gave him, and even though Thorn is a (relatively, aka not tail slapping range) good distance away, he can still contribute. Murtagh has seen Arya fight but he never got a chance to spar with her before he was kidnapped, but even so, his quick thinking and adaptability on the battlefield is very similar to Eragon's and he learns her general battle flow.
Unnnntil he metaphorically backs her into a corner and Arya activates 'Fuck You I'm Feral' mode because he tried to warn her away from engaging with them at the start by saying that he had orders to capture any elf he defeats 1v1 to take them to Uru'baen.
None of them, not a single one of them, Arya herself included, quite understands just...how she did it. But it was on that day, after getting beaten black and blue and having to reactivate his wards with energy from Thorn and the Eldunari time and time again, that Murtagh was rather painfully reminded of all the jokes Arya made while traveling with him after the escape from Gil'ead.
See, it turns out, if you try to roll a particular elf over with your foot while she's faking unconsciousness, sometimes, on the rarest of occasions, when she's absolutely just mad with protective instincts, and the threat of a second round in a Broddring prison cell is on the table...
sometimes that feral elf can, and will, out of sheer 'Fuck You' energy, use instinctive wordless magic to shred the fuck out of your wards and bite down on your kindly offered calf muscle and will not let go until that particular piece of it comes off with her. Along with your boot. Which you never will get back. And even after the war, you're a bit worried about what she did with it.
~~~
'Ebrithal Murtagh, I was wondering. If it's not too, um...personal. What's...what's that scar on your leg from?'
"*grumblemumbling* Fecking feral– I mean. Ebrithal Arya...bit me. During the war."
'...Wh...what?'
*sputtered, ill-concealed snickering down the hall*
"Yes, yes, very funny, Arya. You still owe me a new pair of boots and a bloody proper apology!"
"Heh. Chomp chomp, motherfffiddlehead ferns, you have a student with you."
"Go eat some soap." *beat* "Oh, donnae you say et–"
"Bite me."
I’m curious, where is Murtagh and Thorn in modern inheritance?
(if youve already explained this somewhere, just give me the link to the post)
All good!
Yes, Murtagh and Thorn are in MIC, they're just not around very often as I focus more on Arya, Glen, Brom, and a few others.
Murtagh is pretty prevalent in Eragon and Post-Eragon, Pre-Eldest moments in MIC. As a matter of fact, one of the first stories I wrote for this current iteration was the meeting of Brom and Murtagh and how Brom reacts to his greatest enemy's son (and the son of the woman he loved) being the one to help save his life and his own son's life along with Saphira. As Brom lives in MIC, his relationship and feelings about Murtagh are something I try to explore, and there's plenty of behind the scenes stuff I've never posted that's just me blathering on about the twisted up feelings of hatred, guilt and hope Brom feels when he considers the man Murtagh is becoming when they're traveling together. And, of course, the very complex feelings he has when Murtagh is revealed as Thorn's Rider and eventually they are used to kill Oromis.
I've yet to completely finish Murtagh (there are uh...some...lovely and i do mean that in all the good senses of the word...people around here eagerly awaiting me to finish up. But for right now, I have enough PTSD and trauma/trauma recovery/repression on my hands juggling Arya's PTSD/Recall episodes in Ellesméra, Glen's arm and his own complex feelings around being sole survivor and now no longer actual sole survivor of the ambush, the current 'let's break everyone's dad aka Brom through alcoholism and then chain him to a toilet to forcibly sober him up and get him therapy while he is Not Okay' project which is...taking a lot of brain space.
So for now, while I still tinker with little pieces of Escape and the interactions Eragon and Co. have fleeing Gil'ead, I'm afraid that's most of what we'll see of Murtagh in MIC. But there are Big Plans (TM) for him and Thorn I assure you.
