Disclaimer: I don't own any Tamora Pierce's brilliant characters or worlds.
A/N: This is just the prologue. My fic is just an extension of Alanna's series and her daughter Alianne's series ("Trickster's Queen" "Trickster's Choice"). This is a fic about the twins born of Alianne and Nawat. I might end up giving some other characters brief appearances, but I'm discounting any Tamora Pierce books that are Circle of Magic or any books that aren't about Kel or Diane. I haven't read all of Tamora Pierce's books, so if there is already a huge war in Tortall, I appologize, but I'm discounting that. And the next chapter will take me a while to post because I'm trying to write a couple more chapters so I can be ahead. I tend to want to make changes half-way through a fic, and I want my plot to be more set-in-stone.
I'm also new to this particular fandom, so any advice you have or comments would be great! Whew.
Please review!
Once upon a time in the beautiful, flourishing kingdom of the Copper Isles, two healthy babies thrived under the loving care of their noble, bright-eyed mother and their man-crow father. The mother and father were both heroes of this great land. They had helped Queen Dovasary beat the evil tyrants that once ruled the Copper Isles.
The grandmother of these twins, The Woman Who Rides Like a Man, the Champion of Tortall, the Lioness, was legendary in her time all around the world. The events that changed the twin's lives started when this grandmother died in challenge duel, and when her pursuer executed a coup that claimed the kingdom of Tortall as his own.
On this day, the family mourned. T hey received word that relatives of the Lioness were being hunted and brutally executed by Tortall's cruel new king. Though a kingdom away, Alianne, mother of her twins, feared for their lives. So she bid her life as royal spy adieu, and she escaped into the commoner's wide world, with a disguise and half-crow husband Nawat by her side.
But the hunters of Tortall proved to be more experienced and versatile than the family had ever thought. The vicious battles left the family often injured, sometimes separated, and frequently angry.
The twins, boy and girl, grew to the age of seven, surrounded by fighting, anger, hatred. But there were other times too. Times when they weren't being pursued—times that they were a family, together and strong, in which their hardships proved to only strengthen their bonds of love.
The young daughter would sing and dance freely, without rhythm or tune, but with a heart and passion that spoke of her life but rarely her hardships. Though her parentage trapped her in a cage of anger, she danced and sang for her heart's freedom. Her pursuers could never take away her spirit, her mother would tell her, only she could do that.
The son learned to fight like his father, on his toes with high leaps and awkward moves that could knock a foe to the ground and keep them there. Though not quite adept at the technicalities of fighting, the son learned to shape his own technique, one that matched his father's swift, crow-like attacks.
The whole family honed in on their fighting skills, and the gift of Sight, which resided in both the twins and Alianne. The Sight served a great tool for fleeing from an imminent attack.
But the parents both knew that it was only a matter of time before one of them was caught. They could not spend their whole life resisting attacks.
That day came, and the seven-year-old twins were separated from their captured parents and left to fend for themselves. It was only several full moons of wandering before they happened upon the Shang's Institute. This was the beginning of their adventures, and this is where our story begins…