Title: A Crow's Place
Author: icebyrd67
Rating: PG for some violence and possibly language
Disclaimer: This story is based off of books written by Tamora Pierce, so people and places belong to her. The only things I own are June and the plot.
Summary: In tradition of her family, Aly begins to hound her daughter, Junai to find her place in the world. Too bad the place Aly wants her to take isn't what June wants. And too bad Aly never bothered to tell June the truth about her past.
Chapter One: Way Away
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It was dark and cold outside. Windy and stormy. Perfect weather conditions for pirate attacks or runaways. It would be difficult for anyone to be tracked in this mess, whether magic was used or not. That was what the girl was counting on. She took shallow breaths as she continued to run, glancing back behind her shoulder every so often to see if anyone followed her through the dim and dangerous shadows of the jungle.
No one.
She was hungry and tired, but it didn't matter. Soon she would be free.
Free of her life of responsibilities and sobriety. Never again would someone have the right to tell her what to wear, how to act, what to do, or who to marry. Why should she marry someone her parents happened to order her to marry? Her life was her own and hers free to choose her path in. No one could tell her who to be. If she could just make it to the river, there would be a boat waiting to take her inland and then a wagon to Galodon where she would board a ship and sail to Tortall, where she would no longer be a slave to the whims of others.
In the trees above her, something crackled, causing her to freeze in her tracks listening carefully to the different sounds of the jungle. She sharpened her Sight, a gift she inherited from her mother, to scan overhead. Had her father sent his people after her? Immediately she spotted three crows flying overhead, but none had markings she recognized. They weren't from Rajmuat or Tanair, but that didn't mean that they weren't Nawat's agents.
One crow squawked the sound for "all clear" and the group turned on the wind and flew away. Hopefully, the crows would report to Nawat that they had been unable to locate his daughter. Soon, her mother's agents would catch up, though. Especially if Ysul decided to take a part in the search for her. His magic was definitely better than hers. She wouldn't be able to detect his very well, where as her Gift would probably scream her location to him. She hadn't yet mastered the art of raka magic. She was better at the luarin magic.
Her mother, the Queen's spymaster, would set her people to sniff her out and bring her home; chained if they had to. That was why it was so important that she reach the river. She didn't want to go home anymore than she had wanted to run away in the first place, but things at home had gotten to be quite bad. Her mother's temper was running rampant more often and she was always after her to make something of herself.
Junai Crow definitely wanted to make something of herself. She wanted to be whatever made her the happiest. Instead, her mother, Alianne, called Aly for short, wanted June to be a proper Lady at Court. To be one of the Queen's Ladies and marry well. Perhaps well into the Tomang or Adona family. Either would have been sufficient. Unfortunately, June had no desire to be Countess Tomang or to be Druce Adona's third wife.
Aly hadn't accepted this as an answer. In her opinion, June was now seventeen and it was high time she was married off into a secure future. June was pretty enough and came from a good family in high standings with the Queen, even if her bloodline and nobility was only one generation old. She could marry as high as she wanted. In fact, Queen Dovasary had mentioned time and time again, if she had a son or a brother, she would ask that a match be made between June and him.
Luckily for June, the Queen had neither living brother or son of age for marriage, as her eldest son was only twelve. She did have a nephew eighteen years of age, but she doubted his mother would allow him to embark on the trip home to the Isles. Even then, June would have declined the match between herself and Duke Mequen, who had inherited the Balitang Duchy, even though he was a Hetnim.
June took a few minutes to catch her breath as she waited for the crows to get far away enough that she could run, making as much noise as she wanted without catching their attention again. Then she would be off again, to find her destiny.
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"Have we had any luck yet, Aly?" Queen Dove's worried voice cut into Aly's thoughts, shaking the woman out of her reverie. The woman turned and curtseyed to her Queen and sighed.
"Not yet. Nawat's had his flock-mates searching the skies and I've got my people on the ground. Taybur's even sent his people into the city, but no one has seen her. I'm worried for her. She's never been away from home more than a night or two. She's been gone for nearly a week now." Aly answered, rubbing her eyes. "I only wish I could do more with my Sight. I wish I could find her!"
"I know, Aly. I'm worried as well. That is my goddaughter who is missing. Hopefully Kyprioth looks over her." The younger woman looked up, as if addressing the God herself.
"Knowing him, he's probably the reason why she's gone in the first place." Aly snapped, angry that her patron god had done nothing to keep her only daughter from running away. If the god had heard her words, he chose a wise time to overlook them. "My Chain cannot even locate her. I have sent messages to all my links to tell my people to keep their eyes open for June. So far, no one has seen her. No one at all! How could a girl like Junai completely disappear?"
"She is your daughter, Aly." Dove answered dryly. "Not to mention the girl is more crow than she is human most of the time. You know she is. She is just as mischievous as those cousins of ours are. Those crows will get into anything. Where do you think she's going?" Aly shrugged, imitating her husband's crow shrug nearly perfectly.
"I am hoping she is going home to Tanair to Nawat's family." She shook her head, in slight despair. "I wish I had thought to have her keep a darking like I do Hiraos. At least I always know where my son is at all—" Aly cut her sentence short as the door to her office flew open followed by her husband, Duke Nawat and her chief Mage, Ysul. "What?"
"Ysul has found her. She is in Galodon." Nawat said excitedly, barely able to contain himself. He continued to bounce about, giving Aly a bit of a headache. "I shall fetch her and together we shall mob her as we do with chicks."
"Deras spotted her at the docks and reported to Atisa, who is there on official business—" meaning she was working on a lead for Aly. "And then reported to me. She did not have time to extract June before the ship sailed." Ysul added in sign language.
"Where was the ship bound?" Aly demanded, glaring at them as if it were their faults that June was not safe at home. "Tell me!"
"To Tortall." Nawat answered quietly. "To Pirate's Swoop." Aly gasped, finding herself suddenly faint and hard of breath. Nawat reached out to steady her, but she slapped his hand away. She quickly regained her composure and turned to Ysul.
"Ysul, a message to Pirate's Swoop now. Addressed to the Whisper Man. Warn him that my daughter comes his way and that he is to intercept and send her straight home or else." Aly glared at him until he nodded his understanding and left to deliver her message. "I swear, if he does not send her home safe, I shall hurt my father in many ways."
"George will keep her safe." Nawat hugged his wife and kissed her forehead softly. "Do not worry. Junai can take care of herself. She is your daughter, after all. She knows everything she needs to know to keep safe. Perhaps this is what she needed. After all, you did not find something for yourself until you came to the Copper Isles. "
"The difference was I was taken by pirates and sold here! She ran away!" Aly protested quite loudly, much like her own mother, Alanna the Lioness, the Tortallan King's Champion, always did. Aly was gaining as much of a reputation as her mother had for her short temper.
"As you were doing before the pirates nabbed you." Dove pointed out with a smile. She enjoyed outwitting her spymaster for a change. "Now, enough worrying about June. She can take care of herself. Come now. I need your help to prepare for Petranne's wedding. Petra is very insistent that the even be kept small and within the family. I need your people to find and gather our family. And that includes Vereyu this time, please. She missed the last family gathering. And what is this I hear about Isalena Obemaek and Ferdy wanting to marry? I thought that Count Tomang was going to wed the Lenin girl, Otariyu."
"I have my people looking into it, Your Majesty—" Aly immediately fell into her role as spymaster and completely forgot how angry she was.
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June stood on the deck, leaning slightly over the railing with the breeze blowing her long back hair away from her face. June had let her hair down as she used to back on Tanair, loose with a few scattered small braids with crow feathers, her own feathers, attached at the ends of the braids with wooden beads. She had even found the time to cut the front of her hair into a fringe framing her face. She resembled a raka Queen of old.
She wore a green sarong of the exact shade of her eyes that was wrapped around her body in such a way that accentuated her curves. On her feet, she wore well-worn leather boots that had seen better days. Her only jewelry was tiny pearl earbobs and an extremely gaudy necklace that her mother particularly hated. A smile decorated her face as she looked out across the ocean, speeding towards her freedom.
"Do ye like what you see?" The ship's captain came to stand beside her, watching her face with interest.
"I find the ocean to be very alluring. It is rare that I have the chance to fully appreciate it to this extent." She answered, continuing to look out over the ocean in the direction of the faint shadows of land. "Is that Tortall?"
"Aye." He answered, turning to look at the landmass as well.
"How soon do you expect to land? I am anxious to see Tortall. I have never been outside the Isles before. In fact, I have rarely been off of Kypriang Island, unless I was traveling to Lombyn or Tongkang. Even then I spent the majority of the time below deck."
"I expect we will reach Pirate's Swoop within the candlemark. The wind is good right now. It shouldn't be very long. If I may ask, what is it you wish to be in Tortall?"
"I haven't really decided yet. I just know that I want to be there. I don't want to be in the Isles anymore. I have lost my sense of security there. I suppose I shall find a position in some household and begin earning my keep. I've got some experience as a maid."
"Again, if I may, perhaps you would allow myself to help you in your quest for a position. I've done business with the Baron of Pirate's Swoop for many years now and I know him to be a fair master. Perhaps if I speak to him, he shall find you a position in his household."
"Oh, I couldn't possibly be beholden to you in such a way. You've already done so much for me already, sir. I couldn't ask you for that."
"Nonsense. I will not be leaving you to fend for yourself. Whatever would people say about me if they knew I left a young girl as yourself alone in a country completely foreign to you? If the Queen knew, she would skin be alive and feed me to those Rittevon—" he spat over the side of the railing to get rid of the bad taste that name left in his mouth. "—fish."
"Sir! Shall we begin moving into the port?" The man in the crow's nest of the mast called down to the captain.
"Yes. All men on deck. Prepare entry." He turned back to June. "I'll not heard another word about this. I shall speak to the Baron when we land. I expect him to be meeting me at the docks."
"I—" June started a little too late. The man was already moving away towards the captain's cabin.