Curse of the Phoenix

Ch.22 -Detour

~Iara

The sun was blinding, reflecting off of the water like that. Especially when Grimm lifted his wing, turning my world from a dark grey to blue and blinding sunlight. I groaned and rolled back over, wanting to sleep just a little bit longer.

"C'mon Iara, we're leaving soon."

"Five more minutes please?"

"Five more minutes, that's it." I muttered a reply as I snuggled further into Grimm's rough side. He snorted, then stood up. The sun shone back down on my face. My previous haggling had done nothing.

"Grimmm...." I sighed.

He may have promised you five minutes, but I promised you nothing. Now come on, another five minutes would have just made you sleepy.

But...but...i'm still sleepy.

if you get up then you won't be.

Fine, but as soon as we get back to Vroengard you owe me ten minutes.

Deal.

I yawned as I got to my feet, and stretched. The dragons had swept away the snow last night, but the ground had still been frozen and hard. And the dragons were warm. Well, their body heat melted the frost away, so my bedroll was a bit soaked. And muddy. As well as my hair, which had laid in the mud all night. I sighed when I saw the mess caked in my hair.

Eragon and Murtagh both had short hair. They could never understand. This whole situation seemed hopeless. Well, next to the prospect that we had to go another hundred miles or so to see everyone, it was rather small in significance. But it still mattered to me.

I made my way down to the ocean, a couple hundred feet away. The waves were slowly pounding against the sand. Washing away things, and bringing others here. I sort of just waded in, kicking off my shoes and shivering as the wintry waters hit my skin.

I heard footsteps behind me, but paid no mind. I looked to my left, and saw Murtagh squatting down, washing out a bowl or something of the like. He glanced over at me, after I had re-focused on my hair. I didn't want to completely dunk down, but I was sitting down and sort of scrubbing the mud out.

But as the mud came out, sand replaced it. I huffed, and then tried to get the sand out with renewed determination. It didn't work. Then I gave up and walked out of the waves. As I bent down to get my shoes, Murtagh grabbed the other one for me.

"Thank you." I said. I looked up at him. He hesitated before replying, as if he was thinking about what to say. Then he lost whatever he was thinking.

"It was nothing." We walked back up to the dragons. I carried my shoes, and the warm sand and reeds felt good on the bottom of my feet. I felt a little tickling, and looked down to see a small ant on my toe. I smiled and carefully brushed him off.

Eragon was packing up what little he had unpacked, carefully tying everything down to the saddle. All I had taken out was my bedroll and Maja. I carefully set Maja inside, and then tied down the bedroll. My hair was slightly dripping, but it would dry.

We were ready to leave a few minutes later, all that remained of our campsite was the charred remains of the wood from last night. We spiraled upward, gaining height and wind before angling north. The whole way we stayed by the sea.

As the dragons passed herds of deer and other small animals scurried away, fleeing to hide in a burrow or den of some sort. The sea was to our left, and far to our right was The Spine. A long mountain range, that i knew spanned most of this side of Alagaesia.