#firnen is a potty mouth sometimes but especially now

[modern-inheritance]

Modern Inheritance: Surprise!/Name (Post War)

(A/N: uuuuh, I didn't expect this to reach over 1k words so...I guess it's a fic. I wanted to continue on the babby Fírnen train a little, and officially put down in writing why Islanzadí required Arya to be a crown regent until 2-3 years post war {why Arya and Firnen didn't leave with Eragon and Saphira. I think like a year passes between end of the war and them leaving either way, yeah?}. To put it simply, Iz survived Barst's blow, but it destroyed so much of her arm and shoulder that she lost it at the shoulder joint. Working with Glen helped a lot, but it takes Rhunön a good while to develop, fit and test a prosthetic for her, and it takes Iz a longer time to heal physically and mentally, adapting to this new world as well as her new arm.

But this? This is mostly just cuteness imo. Oh and it's like a sentence, but I'm exploring further effects that use of the Name has. It's not a long term effect but Murtagh, Eragon and Arya all feel/have effects from being in proximity/using it. Cheers!)

~~~

Arya stood outside her mother’s room, staring at the door. It wasn’t without some irony that she was the one there, rather than the other way around. She was sure the scene had played out hundreds of times at her own rooms, Islanzadí waiting for her daughter to shake off whatever effects the war and imprisonment had on her psyche.

She didn’t knock. Just pushed her way in. Shredded the wards the former queen had set to prevent just such a thing from happening with a deft trailing of her fingers. The Name still lingered in her blood, pulsing with each heartbeat. Eragon had reported similar effects, the unintentional reworking of magic at barely a thought. It would have to be studied, but for now…it had uses.

“Go away.” 

Islanzadí’s voice was low and raw. Even from where she sat in the wicker chair with her back to her daughter, Arya could tell she had been crying again. Staring out the hazy half drawn curtains, her remaining hand curled limply in her lap. The blanket around her shoulders hid the new slope her right side ended in, the sudden drop at the end of her collarbone. 

Arya closed the door behind her. “That’s my line.” She couldn’t help the wry tilt to her lips. How odd it was to be on this end of things. “And I know you’ve been asking about where I’ve been.” The grin fell. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have disappeared like that. Especially now.”

Silence hung heavy between them. 

“I’ve been staying at the Crags. Cleaning the place up.” Arya shifted on her feet. It wasn’t exactly true, but it wasn’t a lie either. “I want you to come by and see it.”

“I don’t want to.” Islanzadí’s voice was hollow. “Another time.”

Her daughter sighed. “Glen said you haven’t left your rooms for a week.”

“And you would know that if you ever thought me worthy to speak to.” The sharp barb slapped back. Arya took it without complaint.

Instead she tried a gentle prod. “You need to keep moving. It’ll be worse if you don’t.” The former queen snorted. “Look, mum, I am sorry I didn’t come. There was…something happened. And I wanted to share with you, I did. I still do. But I thought…” The words felt dry on her tongue. “I thought you’d come out. I didn’t think you would need me here. And that was wrong.” 

Islanzadí shifted slightly. It was only to curl in on herself even more than before. “There is nothing out there that I wish to see.”

“You’re being stubborn.”

“Go away, Arya.” 

Arya sighed again. “No. I told you, there is something that I need to share.”

“Go. Away.” There was a growl in the voice this time. Finally. Some kind of emotion. “Leave!”

Despite the anger in her mother’s voice, Arya was smiling. She knelt in the moss and carefully lowered her bag to the floor, shutting the curtains with a word. Islanzadí cursed, but the younger elf paid her no mind as she tugged the drawstring open and helped the bag’s occupant disentangle himself.

‘You’re getting a bit big for this bag, hm?’ A soft pulse of pride at his growth, mirth that he was again being transported as he had when he was inside an egg. ‘Be gentle with her. She’s hurting.’ The nearly two week old hatchling stretched his neck out and bumped his snout against his Rider’s nose.

“Don’t scream.” Was the only warning Arya gave before she let the little dragon clamber all four paws onto her clasped together fists and forearms and helped him launch into the air.

He sailed. Up, over, and promptly folded emerald wings and dropped right into the unsuspecting Islanzadí’s lap.

Islanzadí jolted. Her mouth opened, about to yell a scathing retort at her daughter for being so damn infuriating as to throw something at her, especially when she damn well knew she couldn’t catch anything right then, let alone somethin–

Green. Scales. A set of wings flared out for balance as little talons grasped at her covered knees. Amber eyes, bright, inquisitive, eager, proud, meeting her own.

Dragon. 

That. 

That was a dragon. 

There was a dragon in her lap. 

A small one. A small dragon. A small green dragon. Purring. 

There was a baby dragon in Islanzadí’s lap and her brain was no longer thinking of the feeling of her clenched right hand, her aching shoulder, the new ways her body moved and there was a dragon in her fucking lap and it was flicking the tip of its tail and sniffing her remaining arm and now he was looking straight at her.

A wheeze left the former queen’s chest. 

“What the fuck?” 

The hatchling burbled at her, a big, toothy grin that was somehow oh so familiar. Oh, that was not the first time he had heard that word, no ma’am. 

“Wh…” the words came tumbling out. Elation and shock and even a bit of fear. “Who’re…? Who did you…?”

A pair of hands filled her vision. Just as familiar as that silly little pointy smile. Scuffed, scarred, worked, her daughter’s hands. 

The left palm gleamed with an otherworldly silver mark.

The beaming smile was evident in Arya’s voice. “Surprise!” 

And the emerald hatchling clambered up, careful of her right side, and got nose to nose with his Rider’s mother. 

‘Surprise!’ 

Then, with the proudest puff of his chest, the little hatchling sat back on his haunches. He was getting so good at his words!

‘Fuck!’ 

There was a long silence.

Islanzadí blinked. “Well…that settles any doubt, then.”

“String Bean!” Arya sounded exasperated even through her thoughts. “I told you, you can only say that word when I say that word!”

He looked particularly smug. ‘Fuck.’

Arya dropped her face into a hand. “Fuck.”

“String Bean?” The new Rider peeked from between her fingers. “Please tell me–”

“It’s not permanent.” Arya trailed around the wicker chair and sat with her back braced against the wall below the window. “Actually, it’s part of why we’re here.” She opened her arms slightly in invitation. The dragon dove off her mother’s lap with a chirp and pounced headfirst into the woman’s sternum, eliciting a cough. “He needs a name.”

Islanzadí leaned back and rested her chin on her remaining fist, brows furrowed. “Brom is still here, is he not? Surely he has a wider–”

“We already tried.” Her daughter cut her off. “He didn’t like any of them. The…others. That Eragon left. They didn’t have any he liked either. Ow.” Arya winced at the hatchling’s claws pricking her thigh as he got comfortable. He was certainly growing at a decent pace. 

“Why me, then?” The former queen’s eyes suddenly narrowed. “I cannot allow you to name him after your father.”

“No, no. He’s not got the same…hm, the same presence as he had. He’s different.” Arya rested a hand in the gap of the little one’s spines as he finally settled. “I wanted to ask you before I told him the name of Great Aunt Tenari’s dragon.”

Islanzadí’s eyes brightened at the memory. Her aunt, her father’s sister, had been chosen as a Rider centuries ago. Tenari had been a streak of lightning, a force of nature, in the order’s ranks, driven and more boisterous than many elves dared even during the more freeing time of the golden age’s midpoint. Her dragon had been much the same, a massive teal male with scattered groupings of deep emerald scales that peppered his body like green stars. 

The woman would never forget the feeling of looking into one of his great eyes when she was little. The sunlight that seemed to radiate from their depths, the warmth and booming, rich timbre of his mental voice that felt like laying safe in summer fields of grass and flowers in the Beor mountains, the towering peaks looming above. 

He had been a sight to behold. And even more, he was the perfect companion, the perfect match of energy and light and presence for Tenari. Both so wild and so free, so soaked in the sun and open to the world that they would so eagerly carry on their shoulders if asked.

“I think it would honor them, Tenari and Fírnen both, if this little one wanted to carry on his legacy.” The tilt of Islanzadí’s lips felt almost wistful. If only they could see what had become of their family now, on this very day.

“Fírnen.” Arya tested the name on her tongue, the smile that it brought. How she had yearned to meet him, meet Tenari, after seeing the few fairths that had been saved. She begged Oromis and Glaedr for stories of their adventures and was always disappointed at the meager handful that survived. Tenari and Fírnen, not only Oromis and Glaedr, Brom and his beloved Saphira, had been one of the driving forces for her to take up the fight so young. 

The name felt right. But it was not her decision to make.

“Well?” Arya looked down at the glittering emerald bundle in her lap. “What do you think? Fírnen? As your name?”

The hatchling mulled over it. She could feel him turning the name over in his mind, examining it from different angles. A thread reached out and studied her memories surrounding the name, the fairths she had seen of the teal dragon and her great aunt. 

A soft purr of acceptance vibrated through Arya’s hand draped in the hollow of his spines. The dragon gave a sharp nod, the thoughtful glint still in his eye. ‘Fírnen. Good name. I am Fírnen.’ He nodded again, firm and sure. ‘Good shit.’

“What on earth have you done to him?” Islanzadí’s voice held no anger, just dry amusement.

Arya ignored the comment and lifted Fírnen up, elated. “Fírnen!” She beamed, bright laughter bubbling from her throat. “You have a name now!” Smoke drifted from the sides of her partner’s parted jaws, the same bright beams of sunlight dancing in amber eyes. “Arya and Fírnen! One of the best Dragon and Rider pairs to walk Alagaësia!” Arya laughed again. “No, to Fly! Fírnen, one day we will fly together! That’s incredible! Flying! You and me!” 

Islanzadí couldn’t help her own smile. This. This is what she had wanted to see after so many years. Her daughter, happy. Looking to a future without war. So much had been lost, she had wondered if she would ever see that smile again. 

And even though she could still feel her right hand clenched in an unyielding fist, her elbow bent and shoulder braced against Barst’s blow…Islanzadí knew in that moment, this fleeting piece of time and memory shared with her daughter, her daughter the Rider and the dragon Fírnen. Everything had been gained.