Disclaimer: Lori, and her powers, are mine. Her connection to the sea may seem familiar, but the way she and it are bound is mine too. All the rest (sigh) is Tamora Pierce's.
Chapter 1: The Sea's Power
A thin girl scuttled out from a cave onto a narrow overhang above a thousand-foot drop to a shattered death on the rocks below. Aged fifteen or so, she was as skinny as the living could come, with brown hair matted with filth, and dark, dark eyes that burned. She looked more animal than human—but for now she crouched quietly, with the thoughtful passiveness of man.
From here the girl, Lori, could see for miles unending, over toothy mountains and blurry green acres of tough evergreens, through wind-eroded passes and low-hanging wispy clouds, straight on to Tortall.
She shivered and turned away, pulling her tattered clothes tight around her. Tortall was the tempting stuff of fairytales, and quite as unattainable. Even as cut off from news as she was, Lori was fairly certain that, as a Scanran, death would come far sooner than neighborly welcome. It had been more than a decade and a half since the end of the Scanran war. Treaties had been drawn and ambassadors traded, but still their peoples remained in mutual fear and loathing. To enter into Tortall could mean a new and wonderful life—she'd heard that some of their most powerful figures included Carthakis, Gallans and Yamanis—but it could also mean a quick knife through her throat.
Lori turned her mind from such thoughts, and to the moon. The moon was her blood. The moon's power was her power. When the moon shone full above, her power, over anything, short of minds at least, was practically limitless. It had caused her banishment from her own family and her hometown; when she was angry, her strange Gift flared up as well.
But when the moon waned—and it was but two days from dark-of-moon now—her power faded as well. In two nights she would be powerless, and the magic she'd used to warm herself these last weeks of harsh Scanran mountain winter would catch her up and strike her down. Lori knew she had no choice but to travel down—back towards angry, hateful, spiteful humans.
She growled at the moon. Then, walking in the stooped position that she had used for nearly two years to navigate the endless rocky slopes (hands low, knees bent, ready to catch herself or ball up and roll if she fell) she trotted back into the depths of her home. She grabbed an old rawhide pack and the only other pair of clothes she possessed, as well as the long, sharp chunk of rock she used to cut with. There was no sense in delaying. She started off down the mountainside. She told herself that it was coincidence that she traveled directly towards Tortall.
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Lori hated the dark-of-moon. For the entire day before and day after, as well as the night of, she wandered in lonely, frightened loops. When the connection to the moon was severed, she was parted from a bit of herself as well—she went more than a little crazy at those times. It was on the day after the dark-of-moon that she formulated her plan to travel to Tortall…to sneak across the border…to live her life as a Tortallan. Her hair was darker than most Scanrans, a solid, medium brown. Her eyes were black, but—black and brown weren't odd together, were they? She could give up her Gift. She could give up the moon. She could control her anger.
She snarled at herself like an animal, and then forcefully stopped such sounds. If she was to live as human—completely human—then she must act as one.
"My name is Lori," she said, slowly and clearly, in Common, not Scanran. She blessed Mithros and the Goddess that her granny had taught her the international speech of the Eastern Lands. "I like—soup. Hot soup." She grinned.
For the rest of the day, she acted quite normal. She recited her Common alphabet and tried various verb tenses. Should she roughen her speech? Granny had taught her so proper.
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Lori survived dark-of-moon, and walked on over endless hills and rocks and little streams. She did not know if she was in Scanra or Tortall, or where in either. If she saw a town, or travelers, or even a road, she took great pains to travel around. She was glad she saw no humans. It meant they never saw her. Dark-of-moon came again, and she dreaded it for days before.
It was not nearly dark—and a long way from moonrise—on the day after the moonless night when she felt a curious tug at her. It wasn't the moon, but…like the moon? What was like the moon? What gave her power at dark-of-moon?
A noise came to her ears. Quiet, rolling, rhythmic. Lori began to run towards it. She felt her power returning and, joyfully, sent sand and dirt spinning and whirling around her, though she moved untouched through its eye. When she reached the summit of a short rise of hill, she felt the power slam into her, filling her being completely. Not so fully as the moon did, but it was incredible.
She released her hold on the earth so she could see, and gasped. Before her stretched miles unending—scores of leagues—of water, blue-green in the sun, fathomless, beautiful. This was the sea, she knew, and somehow the source of her power—but how? For now she hardly cared. She breathed slow and deep, and each breath was one of salt water and power.
"Oy!"
Lori spun and dropped in one movement, sinking low like a frightened animal. A young man was walking towards her, smiling easily. He was her age or probably a year or two older, very tall, thin, with a shock of curly dark hair and a long, easy stride. He wore common but clean clothing of wool trousers and a cotton lace-up long-sleeved shirt.
She straightened warily, remembering herself. He wasn't Scanran. As he came closer, she could see that his eyes were blue-grey. She felt sure that she had made it Tortall, and trembled. Her every sense seemed to be tuned to the worn, torn clothes she wore.
"I saw a wind over that hill, or some such. Are you all right?"
Lori blinked at him. A response seemed to be called for. Her brain scrambled. Slowly, she nodded.
He frowned slightly, shrugged, then laughed. "I'm Rikky," he said cheerily. "Rikash. I'm staying—" he pointed to a tall, foreboding castle a mile or so down the shore, set into a cliff and flying a pair of flags—"just there. Are you lost? Do you have a home?"
Would a Tortallan nod or shake their head? Surely they must have homeless as well. Lori shook her head.
"Do you speak?"
He implied that she was a brainless heathen. Lori drew herself up straight and proud, and glared, saying loudly, "Yes."
Rikky, as he called himself, watched her for a long moment. She sensed an intelligence much sharper than his easy, even silly demeanor.
"Come on," he said. "I'll take you to Pirate's Swoop."
Please R&R!! My first fic, so don't go easy. I swear there'll be more dialogue next time.