Author's note: besides just changing the Outcome of Fate, I'm guilty of altering some actual canon dialogue. Accuracy of characterization is up to your judgment. :] I'm not sure where I'll go with this; it depends on plot bunnies, other projects, and in part on audience response.
The premise of Tortall, its neighboring countries and characters are property of Tamora Pierce. I pirated 'em. [-- horrible pun]
Now read! Thank you.
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Offshore
Outside the island town of Kingsbury, across the flax and potato fields crossed with irrigation furrows, two significant hills and three valleys, through a wood and across a glittering stream, more wood and then up a rise, lay a large open field yellowed with the summer sun. Rabbits made their homes under the grass, and hawks circling overhead made their meals of the rabbits. Swallows swooped daringly low to the ground, calling delicately to one another, and crickets shrilled in the heat haze. All these creatures, however, were oblivious to the curious young woman crossing their territory this sun-soaked day.
She looked a few years short of thirty, but the glint in her tawny green eyes was that of an uncommitted young girl. She was tall and shapely, face freckled and limbs tanned by the heavy sun, and bore herself as a confident woman. Her warm honey hair was tied in a disheveled braid and tucked under a red scarf against the sun, off-set by fine silver earrings. She was otherwise clad in a billowing white shirt laced up not conservatively, and brown breeches rolled up to the knee. Her feet were bare, the soles toughened by occasion just like this. Now she laughed merrily and, for sport, tossed up the silver coin she had earned shortly before in the town before tucking it into a pouch hanging at her belt. Resigned to the terse remainder of her errand, she jogged to the edge of the field, smiling at a breeze from the sea not far off.
The field quickly fell away into steep cliffs, their feet washed by the heaving tide. The woman picked her way down carefully, using stone pockets and jutting crags as handholds, but not hesitantly. Her trade had taught her spry ease with all kinds of surroundings, and on the way past these cliffs she had studied them for passability. She had also noticed that, conveniently, they hung over a shallow cave at the base.
Now twenty-some feet from the surface, she paused to crouch in a saddle-dip ledge projecting from the cliffs. Cupping her hands to her mouth, she sounded an osprey's call. Another answered from below. One eyebrow cocked in concentration, she made her way a few yards to the left and called again. This time apparently satisfied with the answer, she peered out over the foam-crowned waves and dove straight down, slipping into the water with a small splash.
Surfacing to shake the water from her eyes, she turned toward the cliff face. Under a high arch of stone loomed the bow of a ship, waves slapping against it. Above the rolls of furled sail on the mast hung a dog-eared green and gold flag with symbols that held meaning only among the pirates that sailed off the Tortallan coast. A heavyset, dark-bearded man waited at the railing, having heard her descent.
The woman made for the starboard side with strong strokes. "Ho, Tade!" she called to her comrade. "Give me a line up. I've had my beauty soak for the day." He compliantly lowered a rope ladder over the side of the ship, and she seized it and climbed up. Reaching the deck, she paused with her arms crossed over the railing and grinned at his sour expression. "Captain set you to tarring the hold again?"
Tade snorted and offered her a hand, which she ignored to clamber over the rails. His hair and beard were streaked with gray, and lines in his tan face marked him around fifty years old. "Good day, Aly. Have a jolly time trying to crack your head open?" He nodded at the water she'd dived into.
"Unfortunately for you, as I'm sure, I was trying no such thing. I was in a hurry." Aly tossed her head, gathering her hair to wring it out.
"Lass, look out there." He was hauling up the rope ladder she'd used. "You see those rocks just under the surface? It's a hard fall from five heights up."
"Not unless you'd moved the bloody ship since I left," she retorted. "I marked these waters last night when we weighed anchor, and I knew they were clear just in front of her. Where is everybody? It's late to be still abed, and I've got news of Kingsbury --" She was turning toward the hatch.
Before she could open it, someone else pushed it up from below. "Waiting to hear from you. Especially me." The speaker was a grinning, well-built man with sandy hair and beard, who caught the off-guard Aly in his arms despite her gasp of outrage. He traced her scalp with a finger. "I see you've lost another scarf, by the way."
"Well. You'll just have to get me a new one." Aly hooked an arm around his neck, smiling coolly. "But try that again and you'll find yourself in the sea with my lost scarf."
"I'll get you two," he promised with a quirked eyebrow. "Oh, wait - you always steal your own."
"You should keep a sharper eye on her, Calen," Tade advised with arms crossed.
"Gentlemen, please!" Aly protested, plucking the towel from Calen's shoulder and walking away from both of them. "I'd think after eleven years on this floating shack you two would realize I'm no pampered lady who needs her male guardians looking after every step she takes. I'd also think that a longer time in these ways would keep you from fussing over a fellow crew member just because she's a she." Aly briskly toweled off her face and hair, then faced the sunlight to dry off. "I would remind you, firstly, that I chose this trade of my own will and with a fair knowledge of the craft involved. And secondly, that in my time aboard the Trickster, I've taken many a risk that Master Tade here would chide me for, and come out safe and sound. I daresay at this rate I'll keep a clean record." She put out an open hand in supplication. "And now, if it please my lords, I propose we assemble the crew to thrash out our next destination. I wouldn't mind some dinner, either --?"
Calen, who had watched her tirade with his usual look of easy amusement, made a bow and moved to hold the hatch open for her. "We wait upon you, Lady Aly." As she climbed down the hatch and he followed, he added, "I wouldn't think to call down your feats, mermaid. If you remember, I've said nothing of the sort since you sunk Lord Brado's ship at Port Caynn."
Aly turned down the passageway to the galley. "Good. Perhaps I should sink a few more to bring Tade along with you."
"Just don't sink yourself first, girl," Tade muttered, though he knew she wasn't listening.
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"The town's got an able defense force, but they're ill equipped right now." Aly traced the map's border with a finger. "Best entry points are here, and here, along the craftsmen's quarter. They're close enough to the town's center to feel shielded, but far-flung enough to cut off and take easily. Oh, and I heard some crones talking about a raid just a few weeks back - sounds like some delightful brothers of ours got to Kingsbury first." She grinned around at the general rumble of laughter. "Happily, they left most of the pickings for us, because Kingsbury's militia beat them back - not without a few losses. So it's a pretty good bet in terms of manpower, but they'll be on the watch and have an idea of the sea-rogues' ways." She sat back and mopped the gravy from her plate with a piece of bread.
"So maybe we should hold off a bit?" suggested Sid, a scrawny little thing just over twenty. "Let them get comfortable and then strike when their guard is down."
"Not too much of a bit," put in Calen. "The bailiff will be cozy with Lord Milton, just a few miles south. They might have reinforcements coming in soon."
"If we strike now -" Captain Dreggson spoke quietly, but with authority - "what's the worst we'd come up against? How hard could their men be?"
Aly chewed her lip. "Well, the town's mostly farming and fishing. They'll have a stock of fine strong men, but not tuned to a fight - Kingsbury's no fortress. But I'd say the knot of raids they've had this season would make them harder rather than softer, maybe with plans to build up their defenses." She nodded at Calen.
"Is it worth it?" Tade rumbled. "Are the pickings good?"
"More than. It's a fine town, and our stores are going to start running low. If we pass by this one, a fair amount of the towns south will be harder as the season goes on, and we may be tightening our belts in a month. I know, I know -" the crew's reaction was skeptical - "but the competition is high, and - from what I hear - his Royal Majesty the King's guard forces have gotten smarter along the coasts. I'd wager they put their heads together with the intelligence services - their own spymaster, if you'll take my word, ah - was in his youth a city rogue, himself." A frown glanced off Aly's brow.
"I say we go in," Calen said, elbows on the table and fists together, as he did when deep in thought. "Don't give 'em a chance to build back up. We've seen no action for weeks, we're well fit, and it surely can't hurt us to fill up our stores. Show the other sailors in this crooked ocean what we're worth. Give these landlubbers a run for their money, eh, lads?" He grinned around at the assembly, rousing eager chuckles.
Aly gave Calen a sharp look. The crew had grown bored in the past quiet weeks, and he was playing off that. Sea rogues seemed to live for excitement and action, but she had been taught to exercise more patience and discretion than force. She decided to keep her silence this time; there seemed little staked in this particular conquest, and it was good in general to keep the men's hand in their trade.
"It's settled, then. We strike tonight." The captain rose and looked around at them. "If I were you, I'd rest up before then. Haul anchor an hour after sunset." He exited into his personal quarters, effectively ending the meeting.
Most of the crew passed the rest of the day lounging about, most in their bunks; a few drank or gambled. Aly tried to make herself useful, taking her turn at the hated laundry vats, helping clean up the galley, working with hammer and nails to make repairs in the hold. But by late afternoon she found herself at the railing, staring out over the endless weave of silvery-blue ocean. There had been a time when she had watched it from a stone-rimmed tower window, and thought she would always be able to do so.
Up through age sixteen she had avoided committing to any life path or concrete occupation - or so it seemed. She had not avoided trades as an absolute, but rather avoided those her parents thought suitable for her, lingering in favor of the one she knew was right for her. She was born - or if not, trained - to uncover precisely what others did not want seen. She was to be not seen but very much there, slipping around others' backs and do business entirely of her engineering, make them play by her rules. There was no such thing as doing as others bade against her own interests. That was not in her book of tricks.
Unfortunately, her parents could not adopt this view. They and Aly had always been on entirely different planes in philosophy. When Aly and her mother, on leave from the war, had finally sat down to work out - or fight out - plans for Aly's life, she had finally made Alanna realize that her daughter would neither consent to nor willingly cooperate with a lifestyle not to her taste. It was the first time the Lioness had been forced to accept not getting her way. Aly had seen a rare expression come over her mother's face: hopelessness. Hopelessness because, Aly suspected, the party in question was Alanna's own daughter, so near and yet so inconquerable. Could the Lioness ever defeat another of herself? If there was anything she shared with Aly, it was her strength of will.
Aly, girl, she'd said, not looking at her daughter, I don't know what to do with you.
It was no clear surrender, but at that Aly had decided it was time she took her life into her own hands. Alanna was not the right one to decide. And Aly had learned enough from her father to enter the field in her own right.
So she had left a note and set off in the Cub, intending to give her parents a break from her and herself a break from them, and made for Legann. She was not running from her parents; she merely needed an unpressured term to think - and be - on her own. It was the first trip she took with this new resolution of independence, and the tossing sea and wind seemed to urge on her spirit. Seeing the shimmering water stretch into infinity on all sides reminded her how much there was in life, if only she would sail out there.
She loved having so much space - no walls but the horizon and the sky.
Her voyage to Legann had been cut short by crossing paths with the Trickster. She had lost her own boat, luggage and fur-trimmed cloak (the last to an eager young pirate who apparently had first spotted her), but her fine clothes and carefully affected terror had disabused her captors of the notion that she would have any tricks - or weapons - up her sleeve. Luckily, she had fallen into the hands of pirates more experienced with loot than with live prisoners, and they hadn't known quite what to do with her. They briefly considered searching her, but a young man with light brown hair and well-trimmed beard had urged them - with the tone of a disgusted nobleman - that they leave the poor girl's "private property" to herself. So they had settled for sticking Aly below, with rope bindings, between two barrels of salted fish. After waiting a sufficient amount of time to let them relax, Aly slit her bonds with the blades tucked into wrist-sheaths and quietly crept out of hiding. In a cabin down the corridor she found the man who had protected her virtue, mending leather trappings. She grabbed him from behind in a neat hold, pressed a knife under his jaw, and advised him neither to struggle nor, next time, to leave a nice young girl unsearched. When the rest of the crew found them, Aly was in a fine position to negotiate her release. More, the pirates were impressed and set ill will aside to ask about the origin of her skills. They had little to gain in her harm, and she had no real complaint about their treatment, given the nature of their trade. The story she spun involved background of a governor's family and friendship with young city thieves; her acquaintance with an abusive stepmother had led to eloping from home. The crew then invited her to stay on with them for a bit, if she was willing to earn her keep with the rest of them. Aly accepted; here was at least a temporary niche for her talents, and she could easily step off board as soon as they docked.
Two days later, they had slipped ashore at an unsuspecting town, and Aly - who felt in some way obliged to her hosts - took two of the men ashore and conducted an efficient and successful raid free of bloodshed. That evening, as the crew sang spirited chanteys and knocked tankards to her skill, Aly found herself laughing with them. Something felt strangely right.
Within the fortnight she bribed a runner in one town to carry a message to Baron George of Pirate's Swoop, saying only that she was safe and well, and among fine friends; that she loved her family no less, but they should leave her to the life of her own choice and not search for her. Alianne of Pirates's Swoop became Aly the pirate, with round silver earrings she'd filched from a crooked-toothed merchant in Port Caynn. Meanwhile, she and Calen - the young man who'd vouched for her that first day and paid for it - resolved the mishap quite amiably.
Eleven years passed. The Trickster sailed in and out of the Inland Sea and up and down the Tortallan coast. Aly never ousted Tade from First Mate, and never wished to, but she rose high in the regard of her fellow crew-mates and many other pirate vessels they bumped noses with. She continued to send notices home every few months, written in a code her father had taught her, saying no more than that she was at safe and "at sea," and happy. She could never be certain her parents received and read the messages, because there was no way they could have replied. She eventually took to writing several versions of the report at once, so she could fold them up and later pass them on, with pay, and scarcely think of why she was sending them.
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Calen came to the railing beside her as the first few stars were showing overhead. His curly hair was wet with washing, and he wore a belt with two daggers. Like Aly with her earrings of fine Marenite silver, he wore a personal prize on display: a chain of heavy gold links around the neck. For a moment they both listened to the cries of gulls swooping above the shimmering water and gentle waves sloshing against the Trickster's hull.
"Fair breeze tonight," Calen murmured finally, leaning out toward the little cave's opening. Aly had long recognized this as his general expression of "life is good." He said it often. Now she merely smiled and nodded quickly.
"I can see you did a fine job on Kingsbury. Who were you this time?"
"Why, the woman of Silversand Isle sent to ask if anyone had five pounds of salt. I borrowed the dress from some lass's laundry," she added ruefully. "I suppose it would be simpler next time if I took one with me, but I wasn't planning on chatting up people face to face."
He laughed warmly. "Why don't you wear a dress about the ship, Aly? I'm sure we'd all be glad to see it."
"Why don't you?" she asked dryly.
"Because I wouldn't look a tithe as fine as you." At this Aly half-snorted. "But really, Aly. Remember that first time you went swimming off board? Before I saw it was you I thought a mermaid had come uncommonly close to the ship."
This had been the origin of Calen's nickname for her. "You told me," Aly said lightly, and turned away to gaze out at the sea again.
"Aly, are you all right?"
She felt his eyes on her.
"You're quiet, and you have to admit that's a rare state." He wrapped a finger around her jaw to turn her face to him.
She brushed it away. "Yes, I'm fine. Just thinking. Lately." Being tongue-tied was also a rare state for her.
"About what?" he asked gently.
She opened her mouth, but for almost a minute just stared over the water instead of answering.
"About choices I made."
He also took his time to reply. "Do you regret joining us?"
"No. If you're asking if I'm unhappy here, hardly. I don't think there was much of a better choice had I stayed home." She spoke matter-of-factly. "But, after all - I can't know."
The words sounded more drastic in speaking than in thinking.
"Would you think of leaving?"
"I wasn't."
"But would you?"
She shook her head like a horse trying to rid itself of a fly.
"Aly. Don't go." There was little more to say, so he folded her in his arms and she turned around to lay her head back against his shoulder as they both watched the blue spread overhead deepening with night.
"You - wouldn't leave me, would you?" There was a twisted note in his voice, one that spoke of all they'd shared in the past years, clambering up the rigging to whoop into the brisk sea winds, prowling the villages and cities they picked off and smiling at each other as two who shared a delightful secret. Hauling the great iron anchor side by side and fighting merrily over who would wash the dishes that day and singing sea chanteys under the night sky crowded with stars, each one bearing the dream of someone in the mortal realms.
Aly turned back to him and laid her palm against his, matching finger to finger, and then clasped it tight. "I made that promise to my father," she said, "and broke it."
There was a crash of water outside; both heads snapped around to see. Just an eagle snatching its dinner from the sea.
Aly trailed her fingers out of his. "We'd best get ready to haul anchor."