Disclaimer: Tamora Pierce owns it. Not me. Nope. I think she even published the first book before I was born. Bit hard to write a book when you haven't even been born yet XD
It had taken a mere girl to unravel it all. Well a "Lady" if there were any who called her that, but few argued that she was anything but a girl at the time. Seventeen years and fresh from the convent.
She had none of the class or talents of the other young woman arriving at court. She was no beauty either. Exotic with her violet eyes and brilliant red hair, but she had none of the softness of the other ladies. Her voice did not ring with gentle laughter, nor did her eyes sparkle with young mischief.
She was as cold and serious as any adult, and perhaps there was a streak of some bitterness that made her even less welcoming. No one had taken much notice of her, unless it was to note the bad tempered girl who had appeared in court.
It could not be said that she was precisely like her brother, for it was agreed that she at least had some makings of a conversationalist. She was also fiery and would speak with people when she had a mind to, while her brother had been nothing but cold and proud.
But her brother had died, as so many others had over the last seven or so years, and this chit of a girl found out why.
Why all potentially strong mages seemed to have magical incidents that caused in their death.
Discovered why all those around the crown had suffered accidents.
And most of all who had killed the Prince when he sent the sweating sickness.
Only when she announced everything to the court, when she denounced the next heir to the throne, and brother to the king- she could not have cared less that the man had murdered the prince and countless others. The girl did not even particularly give a thought that this man had successfully brought and end to the Conte line.
Rather it was said she had simply sought some sort of angry vengeance for the murder of her twin brother Thom of Trebond.
The tale told that one evening the unnoticed girl had just stepped into a ballroom holding documents, dolls, and other proof of the man's treachery. She related how she had broken at least a dozen laws to gain the evidence, and on top of it all asked for a trial by combat before the accused could even speak.
Then to top everything off, the girl, the young and mostly untrained girl, went ahead and bested perhaps one of the strongest mages in the world. A girl who the priestesses at the convent claimed had an unreasonable fear of her Gift.
The tale of her anger during the battle would be told in tales long after her. They said her red hair flew and her purple eyes were alight with some sort of fire. They even said the mage attempted to bring down the palace with a Gate spell, but the young girl thwarted him and sent him into death with a fierce passion.
The king never knew what to offer her in response. She was the last in her family, and had no living relatives to which they could help sustain. He offered her other lands, and in the end she finally agreed to take a small holding by the name "Pirate's Swoop" saying she would not mind living near the ocean, away from the cold and unkind land of Trebond.
They said it was the only reward she would accept.
Yet there were other rumors spread about what she had asked in reward for her assistance. Rumors that quickly were hushed and passed as wayward thoughts. Rumors that she asked if she could study swordplay, and perhaps enter as a page. That she had said it was not unheard of for pages to enter at sixteen or seventeen. Rumors that she pleaded to be allowed to try for her knighthood. But all who did hear these rumors agreed that was just a fine tale. The sort of thing that made for story fodder , but never fact. After all? What woman would ever wish to be a knight? And the better question would be what King would ever allow it?
They said she disappeared after that. That the girl was never again present in court, and rarely dealt with the nobles who she had helped saved. Indeed, the next generation had doubts that the wild mage woman who was said to have brought down the traitor Roger never even existed. That she must have simply been a tale invented to explain why Tortall had fallen from its what proud state.
But the stories that did remain never could agree on what happened to the strange woman.
Some said that she disguised herself as a man and took up traveling with the Shang Dragon.
Others said she fell in love with the King of the Rogue, and the two went off to seek adventures of their own- even going as far as the Roof of the World.
And then there are those who tell that she was heard to have gone amidst the Bazhir and brought peace amongst the tribes, as well as change.
Near all agreed that she never took up magic again.
Yet they were simply tales, stories to warm the hearts of children during troubled times. She was pushed aside as other events took hold instead. Inner turmoil in the country on who should take the crown and then a war with Carthak, while Tortall was still weak from civil war.
It would be years before Tortall saw another Golden Age.
And by then Alanna of Trebond and Pirate's Swoop had been all but forgotten.
For she had never learned the code of chivalry, and never been given a reason to save her kingdom.
Even if she had not been too late.
A/N: It's a one shot. It will probably not ever be expanded upon. There is a chance that I might turn this into a longer fic, but right now the prospects look bleak. Frankly I just wanted to try something a bit different. I meant this one to be short at least. More of a musing or tale… so there you have it.