FicWad

Eragon knelt by another wounded man, and drew deep upon his strength to stanch the blood flowing from a gash along the man's arm.

"Shadeslayer, don't waste your strength upon me," the man insisted, waving him away. "There are others more mortally wounded than I."

Eragon let a light laugh go. "They have been attended to. And now I must rest. Heal well." he said to the soldier as he rose, weary to the very center of his being.

Rest, Eragon. You must have rest. Saphira gently nudged his mind.

Aye, that I must. But first I must find where Arya has gone off to. He stretched, and reached out with his mind, searching for his elven friend. For some strange reason, Saphira growled low in her throat and lifter her head.

Eragon! There is a strange presence near Nasuada's tent! she growled to him.

He sprang to his feet, bounding onto her back. "Take me there!" he insisted. Saphira bounded into the air as Eragon mentally called to Arya, finding her already near the disturbance.

Only seconds later, he was there, and a girl was looking around, bewildered. Arya's sword was inches from her throat. She was dressed in trousers as Arya did, and a strange tunic made of cloth. Dressed as a man. For what purpose of evasion? Eragon wondered to Saphira.

Check the girl's mind. Saphira reminded him as she growled at her. The girl screamed, and tumbled backwards over the trunk that rested on a silvery wagon sitting behind her.

Eragon nodded, and concentrated his mind onto her consciousness, and was met with powerful resistance. He grunted, and drove at her mind again, forming his thoughts into an iron spike. Again he failed. This resistance was strange, and puzzled him. Who was this girl, and why was she so well protected?

The answers continued to elude him as he battered against her mental barriers, joined by Arya and eventually Saphira until her mind cracked open, throwing the three interconnected beings into the swirling mind.

A small child was ushered into a dumbwaiter in an old house and shut in. Then there was screaming. A woman crying for Harry, and then pain, blinding, horrible pain as a lance of fire passed through all of their skulls.

The girl-child from before was ushered to a house, Hermione and Ron's home, filled with joy, laughter, friendship, all pushed away from the girl as penance for her father's death. The wizarding world needed him more than it needed her. Why was she still alive? Then suddenly she was burning, a scar shaped like lightning forking along her cheek, and it was splitting her apart.

Her aunt and uncle, telling her what they knew of her new destiny. To defeat the dark lord Voldemort. Evil magical things called horcruxes, tales of such depth that her nine-year-old brain could barely comprehend them.

Years of danger, memories of a lifetime, then a boy, kissing, and then...

NO! Melanie yanked her mind back from the grasp of Eragon, Saphira, and Arya. "That's private." she growled.

There was a silence, rife with tension from both parties.

Arya broke the silence. "You truly are not of this world..." she said, and for the first time since Eragon had known her she sounded more than shocked.