Lady Silvertongue

Author: I own nothing except Allison. I just wish I owned Dustfinger.

As always thank you to Mirokou for the assistance, inspiration & spell-

checking. Also thanks to our new friends who are letting us borrow their

internet to post our stuff. Mind you I don't think there is such a book as

Silvertongue & the passage she reads is out of my own mind. Enjoy.

Carefully she set down a candle at her desk and moved her copy of Inkheart away from it. Many people said it was the last copy left in the world and many others had offered her large sums of money for it, but she refused. Always she refused their offers and even guarded the precious book with her life. It had appeared in her mailbox many years ago, a book she had never heard of, sent by a mysterious stranger. Inkheart by a man named Fenoglio, in is red leather cover with gold lettering and burgundy endpaper. She had been a bit unsure about it as it whispered promises of fairies, giants, a firebreather and his marten, dangerous men who loved to plunder and terrify. And most of all an immortal monster who lived for nothing more than to cause pain and suffering to others. As soon as she brought herself to read it, she devoured it. It swiftly became one of her favorite books and held a place in her heart for years like very few other books had.

And now many years later, another book, this one by the name of Silvertongue. This one was dressed in what looked like blue leather with silver lettering and purple endpaper, but no sign of an author. "If it is anything like Inkheart, I must never read aloud from it. I certainly don't want whatever villians this one has to appear in my house." she whispered. She was Allison Wyatt, a young woman like Meggie from Inkheart, a Silver-tongue. But unlike her ink and paper counterpart, she had a degree of control over her power in the fact that she could control what left her world for that of her books. Childhood trauma had awakened her powers when she had accidently pulled the Hound of the Baskervilles from it's book. In exchange, a bottle of shampoo had disappeared from her world into that of Sherlock Holmes.

Carefully, she opened the book and began to read, pleased to see that it picked up where Inkheart had left off. She had heard that the original version of Inkheart had a scene where Dustfinger died but her copy, a rather odd copy, did not have that scene. In fact, in her's the firebreather was able to return home to his family. For years, she envied the beautiful Roxanne for having such a man as her husband and father to her children. She had painted a good many pictures of her favorite characters over the years, not just Dustfinger, but Meggie, Mo, Resa, Elinor, Gwin and Farid as well. Slowly, she began to realize something was extremely wrong in the book. "Dustfinger watched the other young children in his villiage play and thought of his own family. His two children and his wife were dead, taken from him by sickness. Now he didn't even have his companion, Gwin, the semi-tame marten with it's little horns who had slipped away and never returned to him. He lowered his head and let his sandy hair hide his face as tears slid down his cheeks." "Poor Dustfinger." she whispered then gasped as lightning lit up her window.

A shiver went up her spine as she noticed that her little canary was gone from it's cage in the corner. "Oh, no. No. No." Allison gasped. Sitting on her desk with his head bowed was Dustfinger. She whimpered; she had been so careful over the years to only read aloud when she intended to call someone or something from a book. "Dustfinger?" she whispered. His head jerked up like a wild creature and his eyes locked on her. She stepped back; she had seen eyes like his before on animals and on a small amount of men. Men who always had bad intentions, men like her stepfather.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

"Allison... Allison Wyatt." she said.

"Where am I?" he snapped.

"My home... I accidently read you from Silvertongue." she whispered, stepping back. He growled and cast his eyes around the room quickly as if looking for a way out.

Then his eyes flicked back to her and he hissed, "You're a Silvertongue." She nodded slowly as he approached her like a cat stalking prey. Her heart raced; this was not the Dustfinger she had hoped to meet if she had ever gotten up the courage to read him from Inkheart.

"Read me back." Dustfinger growled. The young woman shrank away from him. She was extremely short even for a young woman and slender with short brown hair and green eyes. "Read me back, Silvertongue." he hissed.

"Why would you want to go back.. you're family's gone." she asked softly.

"I know that!" he snapped.

She flinched and said, "I didn't mean to read you out! So don't yell at me!" He chuckled darkly as he glared at her.

"What book did you read me out of?" he growled.

"Silvertongue. It just came in the mail this afternoon like my copy of Inkheart did when I was younger." she said. He turned away and looked around the room for the book. It sat on her desk on top of a red leatherbound copy of Inkheart. He grabbed it and went to hurl it into the fire when he felt a pair of arms around his waist. "No! Don't please!" the girl begged. He shoved her roughly away. She whimpered as she hit the floor.

He eyed her then the fire before he tossed the book back onto the desk, careful to miss the candle. Sighing he ran his fingertips through the flame. "Please don't hurt me.. please." Dustfinger looked down at the young woman who was staring at him with wide, glazed eyes. "I didn't do anything.. please." she whimpered. He shivered as he knealt in from of her and touched her cheek.

"I won't hurt you... I didn't mean any harm to you or your books." he whispered. In truth, he hadn't but his temper had gotten the better of him like fire sometimes bit him if he wasn't careful.

She cringed away from him and whispered, "I'm sorry... please. I'll be good." A muscle in his jaw twitched as he realized she wasn't talking to him. Somehow he had shocked her into old memories, very bad ones by the sound of it.

"Silvertongue... Allison." he whispered. Her glazed eyes met his briefly before she cast them to the ground. "Nobody is going to hurt you. Whoever did terrible things to you isn't going to harm you again." he said firmly.

Several minutes later, she rose to her feet shakily. "Are you alright?" Dustfinger asked softly. She slapped him across the cheek, his scarred cheek. He turned away from her to face the fireplace, gingerly touching the trio of scars that Basta gave him so many years ago.

"I'm sorry." she said. He let his hair fall over his face. "Dustfinger.. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hit you." she whispered, touching his arm. He instinctively stiffened under her hand. "Please forgive me. My fear turns into anger and makes me lash out, usually before I manage to restrain myself. It made me read the Hound of the Baskerville out of it's book and sic it on my stepfather when I was fourteen." she admited.

"Was he the one who hurt you?" Dustfinger asked quietly.

"Yes, but not like Basta did to you. He abused me in more than one way." she whispered. His breath caught in his throat; he knew all about men abusing women in the way she spoke of. Capricorn's men had found it highly amusing to force him to watch them when they had first captured him. Even to this day a woman's screams brought back the memories.