Shadow Slave vs. The Inheritance Cycle

By the time Gertrude had mixed together and applied Roran's salve, wrapped his hands tightly in bandages until he could hardly move his fingers, and lectured him on the consequences of "putting muscle before the mind", the day was already in full swing for his small village.

Most of the men had already left for work, off to toil in the fields. Some stayed back with the carpenters, helping repair light damage from the storm on their neighbors houses.

Roran scanned the buildings he passed with a growing sense of relief.

He had been worried that trees might have been knocked over with the high winds, possibly caving in roofs. Thankfully, there didn't seem to be any such disasters this time around. Only several small leaks that would have made themselves known sooner or later, nothing more.

He paused in the road, waiting for a group of small children to run past him in the street, shrieking with glee from a game only they understood. He felt a small flicker of warmth ignite in his chest as he watched them disappear into the backyard of one of the village houses.

'I wonder if Katrina wants kids...'

He felt his ears redden, and he had to shake off the thought before continuing on.

Roran ended up deciding to spend what little remained of the morning doing what made him only slightly uncomfortable; relaxing. 

Roran hadn't had much time to himself growing up. Living with his father, Garrow, and his cousin, Eragon, when their livelihood depended almost entirely upon what they reaped from their crops in the summer, there was always work to be done. Their fields had needed constant attention. Whether it be clearing rocks from the soil, weeding, tilling, sowing, or otherwise tending the earth, the work almost never ended. It was to the point where Roran didn't exactly know what to do in his free time, and indeed too much of it made him apprehensive.

The only times he had ever been freed from such tasks when winter came, but with winter came its own swath of problems, so it was never truly a time to relax, even if he didn't spend as much time burning in his fathers fields.

What little time he did have to himself was carefully planned out to the very last detail, in order to fully enjoy such occasions. Most of it had involved sneaking off to see Katrina in private, trying his best to impress her in various ways, but largely for her company. He could spend hours at a time with her and not say a single word, content even without conversation.

Roran had wanted to marry her as long as he could remember.

But he had no such plans for today. 

Eventually, Roran found himself wandering outside of the village, to the not-so-distant forest that bordered it on three sides. He yawned as he walked through the dry grass, trying futilely to rub his bleary grey eyes with his right hand. He only succeeded in scratching his cheek with the tough linen that encased his hands.

As he walked, he began to hear faint music, growing closer as he neared the trees.

It only took a moment for him to remember where he had heard such an instrument before.

He'd heard such sounf from the traveling minstrels and bands, time and time again as they randomly passed through Carvahall in the endless life of nomads. 

It was a flute, if he remembered the name of the device correctly. Roran never really got a grasp on instruments; He liked music just as much as the next person did, but the way a musician's fingers danced so expertly across their instruments gave him a headache if he stared too long.

Roran found himself strangely drawn to the distant music, and before he really knew what he was doing, he had plunged headfirst into the dense trees. He powered his way noisily through the underbrush, twigs and small branches snapping and crunching underfoot. Strangely, the sound of his approach did not dampen the exquisite sound in his ears.

As he got closer to the source, however, it became more and more obvious that this flute was unlike anything Roran had ever heard before. The song that drifted through the trees full of bright morning sun as was much more... complete, somehow. The music was so entrancing that it put Roran's memory of traveling minstrels to shame. It was as though they had been mere children in the face of this true master, blowing into hollow sticks they had mindlessly plucked from off of the ground.

It was taking him longer than he would've originally thought to reach the source of the music, forcing him to delv even further into the trees. As he tramped down upon the thick underbrush, crushing it underfoot, he began to lose track of time. The music had somehow been carried to him through the dense trees, much farther than what should have been possible. He'd yet to discover the path that the flute master had forged through the bushes and trees, so he was forced to take detours around impassable terrain like the rare boulders or bramble patches. He passed several narrow streams as he walked.

Roran ducked absentmindedly below an empty cobweb, the normally invisible strands framed with dewdrops leftover from the night's previous storm. It was miraculous indeed that such a frail, beautiful structure had survived the harsh winds.

Suddenly, he saw hints of a clearing up ahead, through the trees, and he was immediately overtaken with feeling that he was near his destination. His steps slowed, as though in reverence, and he chose his steps more carefully as he made the final approach. The swirling flute filled his ears entirely, now, its entrancing tune whispering softly into his ears.

As he breached the final few trees, leaning with his left arm for support to step over a bush, he found himself in a strange but oddly beautiful scene. His eyes widened, and his body stiffened automatically.

The clearing was three dozen feet across and about the same distance wide, full of short, neat grass that, if he hadn't known better, might've claimed was trimmed by hand. The ground sloped upward to the centerpiece of the clearing.

In its very middle sat a lone tree, taller and wider than the rest. Its branches were wide and full of dancing leaves, fluttering in the wind only they were high enough to reach. Bright sunlight peeked between the leaves, casting small flickering dots into the shade of the tree.

But the sight of the giant, fantastical tree hadn't surprised Roran as much as who he found beneath it.

Sitting at the foot of the tree's giant trunk, neck propped up comfortably on a low-sitting root, lay the mysterious stranger, Reaper. His right leg was crossed over his left knee, resting at the ankle, and on his face sat a common straw hat, like the one Roran had seen Garrow use countless times.

Roran hesitated.

'What is he doing here?'

Eventually making up his mind, Roran cautiously approached the man, slowly climbing the small hill. Soon, he was standing over Reaper awkwardly, waiting for the stranger to acknowledge him. He was considering that the stranger might've been asleep when Roran looked at his lap, where an emerald flute sat clutched in his pale white fingers.

It was only then that Roran realized the music had stopped playing.

Reaper moved, suddenly, bringing up a hand to prop up his sunhat, revealing a singular, onyx eye. He looked up at Roran with some indiscernible expression that made him feel small, even though he was the one standing over him. Reaper's voice was low and toneless as he spoke, asking:

"Can I help you?"