Book Three Parody

Chapter 1: The Council

"Daero, the council will see you now."

The dwarf bowed to the elven attendant, and then beckoned to his fellows to enter the palace.

"It's not very practical, is it?" said one. "Palace in a tree?"

"Quiet, Hamar," said Daero. "Careful, you two. Don't drop that platter. Oro, your side's falling. Come on--the queen will see us now."

The elf raised his pointed eyebrows and sneered as they passed.

"Strange, that," said Oro. "How do you reckon the fellow got his eyebrows so high? They're bleeding into his hairline."

Daero motioned for him to be silent; the queen and her advisers sat mere feet from them.

The queen stood. "Greetings, master dwarf. I see you have brought a contribution to the feast; lay it at the foot of the table. And those two--that redheaded one and the dwarf with unusually dull eyebrows--escort them out, Bo'tr."

"Yes, m'lady," said Bo'tr. "Out, you peddlers."

The queen re-seated herself. "Now," she said. "D--what is your name?"

"Daero."

"Daero, are you aware why I asked you here today?"

"To discuss the current state of affairs, my lady," he said, following Bo'tr's form of address.
The queen's advisers gasped and gaped at him. She ruffled her swan-feathered cape and said, "The appropriate term is svit-kona, Daero."

"I beg pardon," said Daero. "Elves severed contact with our kind centuries ago, and have kept that tradition until today. We know little of your customs, as it seems you do ours. You would do well to call me ornathai."

The queen raised her slanted eyebrows. "You have a sharp tongue," she said. "May it stay sharp."

Daero inclined his head.

"That smell--" said the queen. "Of burning meat. Is that you, master dwarf?"

"No, svit-kona," said Daero, "it is roasted boar, prepared specially by the best dwarven cooks for this feast."

The elves turned varying shades of green; several vomited. The queen shrieked and demanded Bo'tr to remove the offending platter to the dump.

Daero jumped to his feet. "Do you understand what a great honor we meant you by bringing the boar? Our king himself has seldom beheld such a dish in his repasts."

"Seat yourself, master dwarf. We are not meat-eaters."

"Forgive me," said Daero, "but I believe one of your kind hunted a dragon and thus began the great war?"

"We no longer eat meat," said the queen. "We came to find it barbaric."

"But surely the dragons still eat meat? And from the carvings in this hall I can see you esteem them very highly?"

"That is their affair."

Daero stared. "I fail to see your logic in this, but after all, 'Elves know best.' Why have you summoned me here?"

A sudden hush came over the elves. The oil lamps dimmed, and the queen called forward Bo'tr. She whispered something in his ear. He bounded to the front of the room, grabbed something bundled in a thick red cloth, and presented the bundle to the queen.

"That will be all," she said, taking the parcel. Bo'tr bowed, then pranced out of the banquet hall.

"Master dwarf, exchange seats with my beau, please."

Daero obeyed, whilst the queen's beau frowned at him and furrowed his slender black eyebrows.

"Lean forward," said the queen.

As Daero did, she unwrapped the bundle, and placed its contents gently on the table.

It was a smooth brown stone, with white lines running throughout like bolts of lightning. Daero gazed, open-mouthed, and reached forward to touch it. The queen slapped his hand.

"Do not touch," she said, looking sadly at the stone. "It is a dragon egg. Months ago, there was rumor of a green egg--Rider Eragon and his dragon Saphira went to the king's castle to retrieve it, only to find it already hatched and employed for Galbatorix."

"This--where did you get this?" said Daero, his voice cracking. The gall! This was a stone, the fools, not a dragon egg, and it was hacked right out of the temple's floor.

"My daughter found it," said the queen. "You can imagine our dismay. Our last hope--and it is brown!"

Daero clenched his teeth. "And that is wrong with the color brown, svit-kona?"

"A brown dragon! Can you imagine the sight? All throughout history, they've chosen humans; an elf would not have it. Nevertheless, after this one rejected every human we could find, we brought it among our own."

"And?"

"And still it did not hatch. We have searched all of Alagaesia, even asking werecats and Urgals to join the pact."

"Werecats and Urgals? You ask the dwarves last of all?"

The queen lowered her gaze. "You do not understand. A brown egg is an insult."

"An insult? All the brown dragons have been great. Even our kind knows of them. Do you want to know why this dragon has not hatched? For no human and no elf? It's a stone!" Daero pounded his fist on the table.

The elves broke into laughter.

"Surely it is not, master dwarf," said one. "What stone has lines such as those? And can you not feel the presence inside it?"

Another covered his mouth, chortling. "You cannot use magic, ornathai?"

"Dwarves have no use for magic," said Daero, rising to his feet. "The Isidar Mithrim was crafted without it, without the aid of dragons-- This entire meeting is an insult! You ask us to condescend and enter the pact, after the Urgals, no less; you throw away the meal I brought with naught but kind intentions; and now you mock me?"

"Calm yourself," said the queen. "You would do well to consider this, Daero. I admit, we're desperate--but so will you be in a month's time. Galbatorix's army is growing. He has three dragons on his side. He is preparing for war!"

"The dwarves just may join him, then," said Daero. "What with this type of treatment, I don't blame him for targeting you."

"You don't understand!" the queen repeated. "First, you mention Isidar Mithrim? It was destroyed in Eragon's battle with a Shade. Rumor is the Shade destroyed it in his fury, and Eragon and Saphira later mended it as a kindness. The Shade was killed, but there are more--I can't count how many have suddenly appeared and joined Galbatorix's ranks--and no doubt he wants this egg for one of them."

Daero shook his head. "How does he know of its existence, if it's really an egg?"

The queen's voice trembled. "We had a traitor, ornathai. A magician called Trianna. Galbatorix offered her a high position in exchange for information on the Varden and our forest. She now rides the green dragon, and she has named him D'gbeldf."

Here's chapter two. It's very hurried and choppy, and I went overboard on "had + verb." Rip me apart.

Chapter 2: The Stolen Egg

"D'gbeldf," Daero repeated. "How gullible do you think I am? What sort of joke is this meeting?"

"D'gbeldf," said the queen, "means 'emerald' in the Ancient Language. I suppose the dwarves are even less educated than I believed. You are their best representative?"

"We've no need for the Ancient Language. We have our own. It may not be easy on the ears, but it serves its purpose."

The queen sniffed. "And you wondered why I consulted the Urgals before you. What is your answer, Daero? Will you ask your kind to join the pact?"

Daero laughed. "Join? Not a dwarf alive would consider it, not after the treatment you've given me. It would be useless, anyhow; you're grasping at any pebble of hope, and this object, I tell you, is a stone. In fact, I recognize its origins. You may profess you feel a live presence all you want; you're delusional, svit-kona." Daero paused. "What of Eragon? Saphira? Trianna?"

The queen cast her dark, slanted eyes to the ground. "Trianna still lives," she said. "Eragon perished."

Daero stared. "We've heard nothing of this. That boy and his dragon were big news."

"You think I would lie to you?"

Daero bowed his head. "Forgive me, but elaborate, please. How did they perish?"

The queen looked up, glaring, and said, "Your mind is slower than your tongue, orthanai. Have I not just told you they met Trianna and her dragon?"

"You have," said Daero. "It makes less sense than a werecat as a Rider. The dragon can't have hatched long ago; Saphira would be much larger, and Eragon, with her, would easily overcome one such as Trianna."

"It would seem so, orthanai. Remember, though, that Galbatorix mentored Trianna; that Shruikan mentored D'gbeldf--"

"Pardon me," said Daero, "but I heard Galbatorix wished to keep Saphira alive to mate her. By extension, he'd need Eragon."

The queen shook her head. "Do not interrupt again," she said, "lest I toss you out for an Urgal's supper. Yes, Daero, Galbatorix wanted Eragon alive. Trianna did not. Eragon scorned her passions, claiming his heart belonged to my daughter, Arya, so Trianna poisoned him."

"With what?"

"Seithr oil."

Daero cringed. "And Saphira...did she die with him?"

The queen's voice softened. "No. We--" She hesitated. "We received word that she did, but just last night, our watchmen caught sight of a blue dragon. It has to have been Saphira. She, too, is now working against us."

Daero shook his head. "Four dragons," he said. "Shruikan, Thorn, Saphira, and D--Dig--Trianna's."

The queen nodded.

"Then you've no hope," said Daero, rising from his seat. "For anyone else to enter the pact, you'd need a dragon--which you appear not to have."

The queen indicated the stone. She opened her mouth to speak, then bit her lip. "There--it is supposed to be secret, but--yes, orthanai, there is another. Oromis still lives, and with him, his dragon."

"Oromis... We've got a tale about him, centuries old. Did he really run nude through a dwarven meeting?"

The queen's cheeks flushed. "Oromis runs nude through many things, orthanai. Nevertheless, he is wise, and has some power yet."

The candles burned low, dripping wax onto the banquet table. The sliced apples were turning brown, and the salads had wilted.

"Will you consider our proposal, Daero?" the queen finally said. "The egg would remain here, of course. You have been staring at it so much, I fear you would keep it to yourself."

"I've told you, it's a stone!"

Unsure what in Helzvog's name he was doing, Daero grabbed the stone and fled the banquet hall. Behind him, the queen said, "Stop ripping hair out of your eyebrows, Bo'tr! Get him!"

Daero was too fast. Two elves tried to overtake him, but he crippled them with his axe. He ran, panting, feeling faint under the weight of his axe and the stone. He wished he had the physique of a normal dwarf. A dagger would have served him better, but he came to the banquet with the intent of looking important. What was a dwarf without an axe?



"Run, Daero!" said Oro. He and Hamar were sitting outside the palace, eating the discarded boar.

"Run!" Hamar repeated. "We'll fight 'em off. I don't know what you did t' offend 'em, but--"

Before Hamar could finish his sentence, Daero was out of earshot. He hid among the trees--he had dropped his axe somewhere and was now weaponless--and squeezed the stone to his chest. Panting, he leaned against a tree and sat down, with a suspicion that the elves were glad to be rid of the brown "egg."




The sun was setting by the time Daero reached the temple. He took a swig from his wineskin, then removed his armor and shoes. He shook out his hair, sticky with sweat from his journey, and ran his fingers through his ginger beard. With a solemn bow of his head, he entered the temple. Once inside, he kissed the floor and lit the torches that lined the walls.

"So the princess Arya was here," he said, setting down the stone. "She, who wrote a volume on the non-existence of the dwarven gods, came to this temple in her desperation. May Helzvog be praised."

Of course, she'd defiled the temple and stolen one of the stones that was set in the floor, but Daero attributed that to madness. It seemed that Rider Eragon had really died, and the death of her beloved had driven Arya to insanity. Actually, all the elves seemed like they'd had one too many knocks to the head. No wonder they were so paranoid and secluded.

There, near the southern entrance, Daero saw the spot from which the stone had been stolen. He got up to return it to its rightful place. Suddenly, the temple shook and the ceiling caved. Granite knocked Daero in the head. Unstable, but conscious, he held the stone above his head for protection and begged Helzvog's mercy.

That. Is. Awesome. I'll give it a thorough critique later, but I just had to single that out, first.

I like the follow-up to that even better.

Brilliance!

D'gbeldf. God, that name had me laughing.

Crazy nudist Oromis... I hope he makes an appearance later on.

Aww. Thanks, guys. I'm glad you're enjoying it.

Okay, here's an in-depth critique. Overall, this is really good, and all I found were nitpicky problems.

I think it sounds better switched around (which also takes out the second "not", like this:

This is a little choppy, but I think replacing the semi-colon with a comma and a "but" will smooth it out.

Maybe something like:

This really sticks out, because it's otherwise surrounded by dialogue. Rewriting it so that the candles/wilty salad, etc. are noticed by a character (even absently) will help link it to the rest of the scene.

It would be a lot smoother if you pulled these two together; right now, it seems like there's a gap, as if some writing has been left out.

That helps a lot. Thanks! I'll work on it. Yeah, those two paragraphs were really rushed x_x.

WOW.
That was hilarious, come up with more!

I love how it could be mistaken easily for serious fiction, just to lure people into its funny trap!