eragon rider

How the Journey Ended part 1
The journey past Hedarth had been a long one. First, Eragon and the twelve elves who accompanied faced a large marsh after the desert ended surprisingly only miles into their trek. The river that carried them remained as ever present, however it was the dangers in the waters they faced that made them warry. They were nothing to a dragon rider and the elves, so the trip went rather smoothly.
The marshes held hardly anything edible inside of them, and Saphira had to make daily trips to the far sides of the marsh that branched out into tall grass fields. They held creatures who hardly had any meat on their bones, so the group had been hard-pressed to make headway down the river. They hoped that soon they would come across a forest where larger game would be present and plentiful.
When their boat finally did emerge from the marsh, the grasslands still laid before them. The stiffling heat on the yellow plains was unbearable to the humanoids, but pleased Saphira. In the sky, she appeared as a shining blue speck to any who looked up at her. You could easily mistake her for a morning star during the early hours of the day. The grassfields parted to reveal a large lake on the exact month of their departure.
According to Saphira, it was twice as big as Leona lake, but it was shallow. The waters would only soak her up to her shoulder blades, leaving her head bobbing out of the waters as she walked upon the lake floor. It was easier, said Saphira, to let the lake rinse her off than take the time to clean herself which would ultimate result in her catching up for the rest of the day. Since Elves moved faster than humans, Eragon and company made headway quickly.
Following Saphira’s dirrections to where the one and only other river that branched off the lake led them south for a short time. But it wasn’t too long until the river verred north and then straight East again. By this time the group had been fed into a small forest. The river seemed to never end on their jourey. Eragon at least felt relieved that, whenever he needed to send a rider to help Nasuada, that at least all the rider would have to do is follow the river back West if it held out to their destination.
Upon the next curve in the river, which sent them North East, the forest began to densen and grow larger. Saphira found that she could no longer dip in and out of the forest as she pleased, and had to fly down to the river if she wanted to enter and find prey. The trees were the largest any of them had even seen, even the oldest elf in the group. Their trunks were made of wood that was red instead of brown and they towered above them. Their lowest branches would be where normal trees stopped growing.
During this time in the forest, the traveling company never stopped feeling as if they were being watched. Eragon had tried probing the forest several times for a mind, but nothing but the trees and animals within them were there. It was only after he could no longer stand the invisible eyes that he cast out the ancient language’s name and asked the creatures to reveal themselves to him.
To his surprise he was answered. Beings who slightly resembled elves had gathered on the edge of the forest, peeking their heads out from behind trees. The thing that struck Eragon the most was their pale, almost translucent, skin. Their ears were pointed just as the elves and they even carried the same light and fluidness in their steps as they did. It was their eyes that deffinately seperated them from the fair folk. They had pupils, but the iris around them had three rings of colors, each fading into the next. The darkest ring was on the outside, and the lightest in the middle. It appeared as if light was glowing behind the black center of their eyes.
These creatures visited Eragon and the elves every day, but they stayed at the forest edge and away from Saphira. Whenever the dragon landed in the water, they would become frightened and retreat farther into their forest. Only a brave few remained to peer at her, their eyes showing curiosity in the large blue reptile. Eragon and the elves had tried several times to communicate to the beings, but they shied away. It took some time until they realized that the ones visiting from them were all female. This struck them as odd that only the women and girls would come to see the strangers entering their forest.
The whole time of their visits, the elves found it harder and harder to find prey. Saphira began to grow weak and eventually she had to rely on the Eldunari that the elves had brought with them for her strength. After a while, the beings who had kept constant watches on them began to become closer to the group, and no longer ran in fright from Saphira when she landed in the water. One day, the closest any of them had been, a single one of the creatures who had been following them was standing right on the river’s edge, as if waiting for them.

Eragon and the Elves had stopped their boat, wondered what the meaning behind their action was. The being did not seem cross, but it was hard to tell because their mind was well protected and Eragon didn’t want the elves to help them lest he scare it away. She was one of the older ones of the group that had been tailing them. The woman was cloaked in a cotten dress and pants, complete with leather boots to cover her feet. At her side was a bag that was attatched to her waist. She waited for Eragon and his company to come to a complete stop and walk on land to her before opening herself up to them.
Then Eragon learned that although they spoke a different language, their minds thought in the ancient language. It was odd to learn that their minds were programed to do this since birth, allowing them control of the magic around them. As if he was speaking to Saphira, he had communicated with the woman through his mind, expressing why they were here and asking where was a place that no one inhabited and that they could live at.
Her reply was not an answer to his question, but reaching in her bag and pulling out a small loaf of bread and holding it out to him. She knew that their group had been starving and in desperate need of food, even before they had talked with their minds. The woman waved more girls from the forest over as a signal that everything was alright and these strangers were in fact friends. Everyone of those who emerged from the forest, which had been a shocking number of fifteen (shocking because Eragon hadn’t seen that many faces reveal themselves), had shared their food with the group, making it more than neccessary.
With them the girls had loaves of bread, small bits of cheese, and various kinds of salted meats that they had brought with them. Upon Eragon’s question on why they had been out in the forest, the woman had replied that the whole of their town had felt strangers on the edge of their forest through an invisible barrier they had placed to alert them when such persons crossed it. Appologizing for intruding without permission had been Eragon’s first reaction, but the woman waved it away.
The biggest question the beings had asked was of Saphira. Their elders had told them of such creatures that used to loam over the rivers and snatch children who weren’t careful away, but that they were long extinct from this land. In response, Eragon had explained with as little detail as possible about Saphira.