Well, here are the deleted scenes. Now, most of them, I really like, but just didn't fit into the story when I wrote them, they are all basically moments for another time, another tale. For example, halfway through writing The Promise when it was Arya and Murtagh travelling I had this horrible feeling I really wanted them to be together, so I wrote a whole encounter between the two of them before changing my mind. In Chapter 22 I was originally going to kill off Nasuada, that then changed to Nasuada living then, but not becoming immortal and Murtagh having to deal with her death before leaving over the seas, before the final version in the fic today...

I also wrote most of these with a particular song on repeat, which I've included if you can be bothered to listen to it while you read :D

Enjoy!

Alternate ending for Chapter 12

Song: Falling by The Civil Wars

Well, this was the period when I was really wondering whether or not to make this MurtaghxArya...I'm a huge shipper of them...

My song ends and Arya looks at me, no longer crying but her cheeks still wet.

"You're a good singer Murtagh," she says, before getting up from our seat. Suddenly, she turns.

"Thank you," she whispers, so quiet the wind almost carries it away, but I nod in admission.

"Do you always feel like this?" she asks me in another barely there voice betraying how fragile she really is.

"Always," I tell her, and before I know it I've kissed her.

She stares at me for a moment, before we kiss again, but she breaks away suddenly, moving away from me.

"That was wrong," she whispers, rubbing her temple with her fingers harshly, a line in her forehead appearing. She looks up.

"We shouldn't have done that Murtagh,"

"Maybe we should. Thorn said maybe we weren't as different as we thought. My mother abandoned me, your mother abandoned you-"

"Your mother had to!" Arya cries, before checking herself to make sure she wasn't heard.

"There's no one around Arya." I look down. "Maybe she did have to, but it felt like that at the time,"

Arya nods.

"You know, I told your brother I couldn't be with him because of his age. You're just as young to me as he is." She says, a statement that's final to her, but not for me.

"So? Didn't stop you crying over him a minute ago." I retort, my earlier fragility shattered by the all too familiar anger.

"Don't talk about that!" Arya tells me suddenly, trying to keep her voice down again.

"Why not? Ashamed?"

"No!"

"Then what? Confused?"

Arya glares at me, and I notice just how fast she's breathing.

"Let's keep moving," she says, an excuse for her to move away.

Alternate Chapter 23

Song: Come Back To Me by Trading Yesterday 3

So, when Murtagh 'dies', you got a tiny part where a 'ghost woman' leaves her son and walks away...Well, originally that was a lot longer, an entire conversation, cause I love Murtagh's relationship with his mother...But I cut it...

I feel strange, like a fog is weighing over me, keeping me here, paralysed. I can still open my eyes though, and when I do I don't stop looking. She stands in front of me, nearly perfect but for the strange way her skin is almost translucent, and when she moves it's almost as if she were gliding.

"Am I dead?" I manage to ask her.

She smiles, a beautiful smile, like a half forgotten memory.

"No. You are just sleeping." She says, a musical voice, again, like something I remember hearing once, but something I can't quite place.

"Who are you?" I say, but she does not answer me. Instead, she looks towards the floor, her face carved like a statue of sorrow, something else I remember.

"And you'll be safe, with me" she sings softly, just one line, but I remember. I know her. Just as I realise she stands up.

"It's time."

"You are not one of us my son." The ghost woman tells me. She walks away, her auburn hair rippling in the wind.

"NO!" I scream at the figure. "Come back!"

Just for a second, the figure turns so the grey eyes can meet, before my mother fades away.

Kendar's Execution

Song: Shattered by Trading Yesterday(this song was played a LOT of times when I wrote this fic...I kinda made it into Arya's theme tune...Oh dear...)

Why didn't I add this? Well, I thought at first it would be perfect for Arya to witness this, to have it as a chapter, but in the chapter where she nearly attacks him after Nasuada is stabbed, she is stopped by Eragon. I didn't want to go back on that when she kills him, so I cut this.

It's a cold morning. Everything is still, silent, only a cool breeze permeating it. On the wooden scaffold he stands, not a hint of bravery on his face but a look of fear. I would feel sorry for him, if not for the memories of him torturing me. Laughing at it, delighting in it. Of him hurting Arya. Of all the unspeakable things he did. I find it poetic that she is to be the one to carry it out. Her revenge. But I worry. She's only been lucid for maybe a few hours at a time, she can't afford to break down now.

She's advancing on him though, drawing her sword slowly as she takes her position beside him. The crier reads out Kendar's charges as Nasuada watches from her throne, listening grimly with her jaw set. The elves are silent, as if stone, their hate emanating from them as his crimes are read.

Then it's time.

A moment. Another. Arya is staring at the sword, a strange look in her eyes.

She's going to lose it if she stays there any longer. So I reach the scaffold quickly, taking the sword from her loose grip, and Eragon gently draws her back at my glance, trying not to be alarmed at her now blank stare.

Now everyone is watching me. I know what to do though. I've done it before.

I bend over slightly to whisper in his ear.

"I hope whatever afterlife there is treats you for the evil you are," I say, the venom clear in my voice.

"Upset I hurt her?" He whispers back.

A second, and his head lies upon the straw, the eyes still open, but the light behind them is gone. The crowd cheers.

Alternate Ending- Dream Sequence

Song: Today Was A Fairytale by Taylor Swift (okay so it's a total romcom kind of song, but it just makes you feel happy :D)

This was the ending I would have had if Nasuada had died...In the end though I just couldn't kill her off...And every time I read this I just didn't like it...

My eyes open and I'm lying in a field, dotted all around with small daisies. I feel warm, bathed in the sunlight. A small pool lies in the middle of the field. Gracefully, slowly, I make my way towards it and gasp.

The lines from my face are gone, the wrinkles around my eyes are gone. The blood that had been on my armour is gone, indeed, so is my armour. Instead I stand in a simple set of trouser and a loose red shirt. The years are gone. I remember the last time I wore this. So many years ago. A lifetime ago.

Already knowing, I turn around to see her.

My Queen smiles the same smile she had sixty years ago, when we were both young and freedom was new in our hands. Before she was taken away from me.

"I knew you'd come here," she says, holding out her hand for me to take.

"How?" I say softly

"Because you promised me once," she answers.

I can feel the sunlight twinkling over us as we clasp hands, with nothing ahead of us but forever.

Murtagh's Childhood

Song: I've Got This Friend by the Civil Wars/I Won't Give up by Jason Mraz/ May I by Trading Yesterday

Actually, I really loved this scene, but when I was writing the fic I just couldn't fit it in anywhere, it would have meant re-doing the last three chapters cause I wrote this after Chap 24... It's actually based on a real place I went to as a kid with my brother and my dad...

"Where are we going?" my Queen asks me as we fly through the air, trying to look towards my general direction seeing as I've blindfolded her.

"Surprise," I answer shortly, not wanting to give anything away. It feels strange to be back here, a place I thought I'd never see again, a place I'd confined to my memories.

"One clue?" Nasuada persists, her hands glued to Thorn's saddle as he makes a sharp swerve to avoid an updraft.

I laugh and shaky my head, before realising she won't see.

"Not even one," I confirm, "Besides, we're here now,"

Thorn folds his wings slightly and we drift towards the ground, landing smoothly and kneeling so we can dismount. I take my Queen's hand and help her off, before leading her to the specific point where she will be able to see everything, and take off her blindfold. She blinks for a few seconds to adjust to the light, and then gasps.

"Murtagh- this place is beautiful," she says, staring around herself.

I smile in answer, looking around for myself. Little has changed from the times I would come here as a boy. The forest is in spring now, bluebells everywhere, intermixing with snowdrops, clustered around the trees. The centre tree is just as I'd left it.

Nasuada looks at it curiously and points to the tree, where the trunk has been cut into and made into a seat, hidden by the walls of the tree, perfect for someone wanting not to be seen.

"You did this?" she queries, and I nod.

"When I was growing up I spent most of my time working out how to slip out of the castle to come here. I was eleven when I made that, spent a whole day carving the inside." I say, pointing to where I've made all the carvings, single words, poems, a tiny woodcut of the clearing.

"I can see why you liked it here." She says, sitting down by the tree, the seat inside now too small to fit into by either of us.

"Where did you go as a child?" I end up asking as I fall down next to her, absentmindedly picking grass, reminding me of how Arya always draws in the dust.

My Queen looks back, up towards the sky.

"I didn't really have a chance to go anywhere. I grew up in Farthen Dur, I can't remember a time when I didn't live there. Sometimes I'd go up to the higher levels, and go down the trough built for the dwarves, but Father found out and forbade me."

She smiles at me.

"I suppose I was what you might have called a little rebellious,"

I laugh at the thought, someone so committed to her duty being rebellious.

"Were you?"

I laugh again at the absurdity of her question.

"Not unless I wanted another scar on my back," I say in a joking way, even though I'm not.

"You should try it now," She tells me, still looking up at the sky.

"I don't think that would go down well, so soon after regaining my reputation,"

"Not you alone," she continues in a different tone. Is she actually being mischievous?

"Well, maybe that would be alright then," I respond, before getting to my feet suddenly.

"What?"

I drag her up in answer and pull her into a clumsy dance. Slowly, she relaxes.

"What are we going to do Murtagh?" she whispers

I think for a moment. "I don't know."

Another moment.

"But I'm not giving you up,"

She smiles.

...

And that's all of them :D I hope you liked them, even if they weren't in the final edit :D