Author's Note: This is my first fanfiction. I'm not quite sure where it's going, or what to think of it, or whether to continue it. And I think my characterization is a little off, although I've tried. You have been warned.

First Part:

Come to think of it, Daine never really knew her daughter. She thought she did, but she knows now that that's not true. It does explain some things that didn't make sense before. Sarralyn is gone now, and Daine is alone, waiting for the tears. Daine never really knew her daughter. The tears won't come.

"She's not dead," Rikash says. "She won't be dead." Daine didn't notice him coming up behind her. She resists the urge to lash out at him for disturbing the peace that she's been trying to create. She knows that even if he'd left her alone, if they'd all left her alone, it wouldn't have worked. She can't feel the grief that she should feel, that she needs to feel. "Sarralyn can take care of herself, wherever she is. If she's run away, or if she's… She won't want to get hurt. She won't want to…she won't want to die." His voice goes up at the end. A question. One that Daine can't answer. What does she know about her own daughter's will to live? She finds that she doesn't know what to say to Rikash. She doesn't know him either, as much as she does not know Sarralyn. She thought, they are happy, not having to grow up as I did. They do not have to live with such secrets, with the possibility tha they are insane. And now that they are older, they do not have to live with war, constantly fighting, out on some mission or another. She's been an idiot.

She should know, as well or better than anyone else: when those things that are horrible and life-threatening are gone, one does not simply stop worrying. One finds other things to worry about, things that may seem smaller but that are treated with the same sense of dread as the ones before. She's assumed they were happy because she is content, and because they were provided with food and a place to live and had the luxury of a loving family. But one has run away, and she can't find the words to reassure the other that his sister is not dead. How can they be happy? She swallows, turns to Rikash, and nods, albeit unsteadily. "Of course she will be all right. She can take care of herself. Of course." She avoids the question he not-quite asked.

'Look at it logically', Numair said. 'If she's run away, if she doesn't want to be found, we won't be able to find her. And if she's not gone of her own will, she'll make sure that we can find her easily. Somehow. So we should look.' They are looking now. Numair has headed the search party. She stayed behind, her grief too great to follow them. She wasn't lying; she thought then that it was grief. She knows now it is only shock. There is little to justify that Sarralyn's been kidnapped, or is in any kind of trouble. Much of the evidence—not that there is much evidence—suggests that she has run away. And Daine can't look at it from a perspective other than that one. And has come to the conclusion that she does not know her duaghter at all. She though she did, but the daughter she knew had no reason to run away.

She bites her lip. Her thoughts go in circles, and she can't think of anything else. She quests out with her magic, for what seems the hundredth time. Anything, she asks the People around her, anything out of the ordinary? Have you seen my daughter at all? But she does not expect answers to the second question. Even the form her daughter chooses to wear ordinarily is not her true one, and she doubts Sarralyn wears that form now.

Two voices speak at once, one from somewhere inside of her, through her magic, the other from beside her. "Ma?" And, Wildmage, we found— She blocks the rest of that one out, automatically but not on purpose. But the first voice is Rikash, asking something of her, and she does not try to regain contact with the second voice yet. Better to pay attention to the child I have left then to ignore him in a hopeless search for the one that is lost. The thought is there, unwelcome, but only inside her head. She can't take it back, disclaim it as something not her own, because what else could it be, and who could hear her? "Ma, can I go out with the search party? Maybe I could help…" She shakes her head, not to deny him but to get rid of the unwelcome thought. And then she looks up at him as his words register.

"I don't know how far they've gotten by now," she says, neither allowing nor denying. "Would you be able to find them?"

Wildmage… The first voice, insistent, a wolf voice, but not one she recognizes. She listens. A girl is on a horse. She rides the two-legger road—the forest road—north. She does not look like your daughter, and she is smaller. But she is alone. Is this a thing out of the ordinary?

She thanks the wolf silently. And says to Rikash: "Go, and look for them. I think you will be safe. Tell your father to search the north road through the Royal Forest." Rikash nods, and is gone. Daine 's brief period of respite is over. She didn't realize that it was that until now: a distraction from her thoughts, something to keep the guilt away. It had been lessened during that brief conversation with Rikash and with the wolf, in the search for her daugter and the possibility that Sarralyn might be found. It has returned now. She puts her head in her hands. And feels tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. If she cannot cry for Sarralyn's loss, she can cry for a daughter she never knew. The tears fall, two of them and no more, and Daine is surprised at the sudden, overwhelming relief that they bring. She breathes in deeply, and then smiles even though this is not a particularly good time for it. Then she rises from her seated position and changes, pushing herself off the ground and towards the searching party on a hawk's wings

Sarralyn breathes in the smell of the woods. It is quiet. She changes her form anyway: an older man with a knight's sword and shield and armor, and hopes she will not be called upon to use any of them. She is rather hopeless at any kind of weapons. Her mother once tried to teach her archery, and she failed miserably. She did not attempt anything else after that. Thoughts of home make her shudder, make tears prickle at the corners of her eyes. She does not want to think about that. She will think about something else.

And then there are noises, faint but distinct, human noises rather than forest ones. She does not think. She is off the horse instantly, leaving it to go wherever it will, and has taken the form of a deer. She moves quickly, blindly, away, off the path but still moving in what is, to the best of her knowledge, north. She hopes they are gone. She hopes her mother is not with them, or her brother. She hopes they are not what she knows they are: a searching party, looking for her. She cures; not aloud, but in her head, at the loss of the horse. That's all right; she can travel faster in this form, or in some other when she leaves the forest. But what will they think when she arrives at the convent on foot? She considers stealing a horse, but… It seems now a stupid plan, immature and childish. She needed to leave. She cannot deny that. But this complicated scheme, of the convent, and... Perhaps she simply shouldn't return at all. Perhaps it would be better if she didn't go back. But how can she leave her family, her friends, forever?

She thought it a good plan at first. She would run away, and go north, to the convent, alter her appearance to look younger, show up as some young noblewoman and stay there for the required five years, and when they were over… She would be able to go back. Back home, to Corus, to the palace, to her family. Nobody would know who she was—she needed them to not know—but at least she would be ablet to be near them. Now it seems idiotic. Too complicated, not well planned, she isn't even sure if she can bring herself to do it. But the alternative is going home again, and living with…

They always meant well. She doesn't deny that; never has. Her parents, the King… Her reasons for leaving are multiple. And she cannot blame the people who are the cause of those reasons. Least, and first, is her mother. There is something so irritating about someone who thinks they knew how you feel, who sympathizes with you because they think they have experienced the exact same thing, but they are wrong, and it isn't the same thing at all. Her mother's magic connects her to the world, to all life. And she thinks that Sarralyn's is the same. But she is wrong. Sarralyn isn't connected to anything. Her mother's magic connects. Her magic separates. She is separated from her father's people—her mother's people too, though some would deny it. She can never be like them; they do not trust her, or the magic in her blood. And the others, the People, that her mother is so close to: she is not one of them. She is no wildmage, to know their thoughts and speak their tongue and heal their sick. She is something else, a changer of form but not of soul.

The second reason is an extension of that separation. She supposes that it is partly her fault. But what does a girl of four know, or of five or of six? Who is to say that she cannot do that which comes naturally to her, is a part of her? Not her mother, always caring, understanding, knowing exactly how she feels. Not her father, the great mage, the studier of magics, and wasn't he lucky if the object of his studies was his own daughter as well. Who was to stop a young girl's mischief, even if it was different, stranger, more dangerous than the mischief of other girls her age? Someone did, once. They tell the story of her naming day, how her Grandmother, the Green Lady herself reprimanded her for the trouble she had caused her mother during pregnancy, and commanded her to pick a form that she might call her own. She was very young then. She has no memory of that time. She has not seen her mother's mother since then. She can not recall anyone who has ever done anything similar.

She was not a quiet child, or a serious one. She has fond memories of that time, but the feelings that accompany the memories, the knowledge of the life that she made for herself, are not pleasant at all. She had the run of the Royal Palace, she and her brother Rikash alike, and with the older prince, Nathan, and sometimes Mariko, his younger sister. They caused trouble, the four of them, and thought nothing of it then. But she was the one who, without realizing it, went beyond the bounds of childish mischief. And she did not know it then, but they were afraid of her. Her magic, her ability: some twist, her father calls it, between the Gift and wild magic, neither fully one nor the other, but without all the capabilities of either. Sarralyn does not study magic as he does; she never attended the University. To her it has always been this: she can change her form to any other it, be it human or animal, with little effort at all. A powerful and dangerous gift: even more dangerous in the hands of a young girl who does not truly understand it.

What she did understand, then, was that it was the perfect disguise, that she could be anyone, and therefore go anywhere: the Royal Nursemaid taking Nathan and Mariko and Rikash to see the menagery, a palace servant who had business in parts of the palace where a young girl might not, even the king himself, able to command anything without even giving a reason for it. She was six years old when that last happened, and they found her out. Nobles, those who were for one reason or another enemies of the wildmage Veralidaine Salmalín, spoke of treason, of a traitor who had impersonated the king for her own gain. The king was more lenient; he said that she was only young, with little knowledge of what she did, and she must promise never again to impersonate a member of the royal family. But after that, they feared her. They never trusted her again.

She would not do such a thing, now. Even at the age of six, she was afraid and abashed and rarely changed again into another human form. But they became more afraid of her, more distrustful as she grew older, although as she grew older she did nothing more to merit their distrust. With more knowledge of the world, they thought, she would not be caught as easily as she had when she was six years old. Perhaps, they whispered—whisper, even know—she does as she has sworn not to do, every day and they do not know it: that she takes on the form of the aging king, or the queen his wife, or his son the Prince Roald, who is really more in charge of things these days as his father grows ever weaker. That is the second reason, their mistrust.

Some would not see it as something so serious. But every day, watching them look at her out of the corner of their eyes and knowing, or at least guessing, what they thought—that was torture. Rikash always teased her, for caring so much what people thought. Her brother is more observant, knows more about her than either of parents. That she cares what people think is true, and it is a grave weakness when coupled with the knowledge that nobody trusts you completely. So she made up her too-complicated plan and left. She thought she would do better, coming back with no one knowing who she was. If they do not know, they will have no reason not to trust her. And once she reaches the convent, she will never change her form again. If she reaches the convent. If she follows through with her plan, which even now is becoming doubtful.

This is a work of fanfiction. Tamora Pierce's world and characters do not belong to me and are not being used for profit.