Curse of the Phoenix

Ch.14 -Quil and Ink

Iara~

After we watered the plants, all of them (which required several trips back to the stream), we went back into the dining room. It wasn't just a dining room, it seemed more like a place to generally hang out. It had a homey feeling that you couldn't really get from anywhere else in the castle.

After we sat down, Eragon stood back up.

"Hold on, I'll be right back." Before I could even say anything he was halfway up the stairs. I settled to waiting. It was literally only a minute.

Then he came back over, a dozen different things in his arms. As I was about to ask what they were, he set them down in front of me.

"Eragon?" I plainly said.

"A few things to get started. A dozen sheets of paper, a few quils, some ink, and some more ink in different colors."

"Why the different colors?"

"I thought maybe because you liked the Sky Blossoms so much that you might like to write in a rainbow too."

"That does sound fun!" He smiled as I smiled. He sat down and unrolled two sheets of paper. "Are you going to write too?"

"I am, actually. I'm going to have to show you what you don't know, and it's been a while since I've written. I could honestly use the practice. Plus, maybe you wouldn't want me to use up all your paper!"

"Where does paper come from?"

"A whole lot of plants."

"Does it come from plants the same way an apple does?"

"No actually, but good guess. Do you know how an apple gets to be on an apple tree?"

"Kind of. I know there's the flowers, then they go away and turn into apples."

"That's really close to the truth. Do you know how to spell apple?"

"I think so. Do you have any red ink?"

"Yep in that bottle." He pointed to one of the small bottles. I grabbed it and pulled it closer. "Want me to open it for you? In case you spill. Wouldn't want to ruin your paper."

"Please." I handed him the bottle. He uncapped it then gently set it down, careful not to spill. Then he handed me a quil, also holding one of his own.

"Okay. See if you can spell apple. I'll do the same, and once we're done we can compare."

"Okay." It sounded easy, but still I was nervous. I didn't want to mess up. So I just wouldn't then! Dipping the quil in the ink, I slowly scrawled out the word. Eragon had finished too.

"Done?"

"Mmhmm."

"Okay let's see what it looks like." We set both sheets of parchment next to each other, so both of us could see the words. Mine was spelled "appel" and his was spelled "apple". I think he was right.

"Almost! I see how you could spell it that way. I remember when I was little, the same thing happened to me."

"Really?"

"Of course. Nobody's perfect. Can you spell your name?"

"Of course!" I scrawled out "Iara" in the red ink. "Can you spell your name?"

"Of course I can!" He wrote "Eragon" in a new ink color, this time it was green. "See?"

"I see!"

"Ok....write down the alphabet."

"Ok." I wrote nearly every letter, the only one I missed was g. It was a little bit hard to remember that one.

"Good job!"

"But I missed g."

"That's fine. It's one letter. It looks like this." He wrote it down.

"Oh, I remember that now."

"That's good! Now, can you write down all the numbers you know?"

"Ok!" I wrote them all down. Eragon explained that numbers were actually very simple. For example, if you wanted to write thirty two, you would take a three and then add a two next to it. Thirty three, you would add a three.

By the time we had finished, both pieces of parchment were covered in doodles, spills, and all sorts of numbers and random words. And colors. Red, blue, green, purple, black, all of those and more.

Saphira and Grimm came back. I glanced outside, and the sky was dark. I could see a soft glow, though. I went over to the window. I saw....butterflies? They glowed green, and when they landed on a Sky Blossom they illuminated the flower enough so that the inside turned a pretty yellow.

"Eragon, what are those?" He walked over and gazed out the window.

"I don't know, I've never seen them before. They're very pretty."

"Why do they glow? The butterflies?"

"I don't know. They don't look like butterflies, even. I think they're moths."

"Let's call them Moon Moths." I said. He whispered something quietly under his breath. I looked over at him. He had a very surprised look on his face. "What?"

"Iara, you correctly guessed their true name."

"Is that good?"

"It's amazing that you did."