Disclaimer: Tamora Pierce? Sorry, I ain't her (though you should probably be glad of that). There isn't any pairing, but there are slight A/J undertones, though nothing explicit or openly romantic. In this, they are married to their respective spouses and everything…you know. They have kids and everything.
Cold. Cold was all she could feel. Where was it? She was in the middle of the battle. Where was the burning furyandrage? Where was the hot, sickening joy thatmakesmesohappy when she made a kill? Why wasn't she zeroing in on the enemy die,foe,diebymysworddancetomytune?
All these questions flitted through her mind, her oddly calm mind. She felt utterly at peace and alone. She could see the baby-blue sky and the cottony clouds, the still-wrinkled spring leaves…why was it fading…and swirling…and and and…
She was there again. Thatawfulplacewhymenocan'tdie. That monstrous place that she had vaulted her body to as a page to save Jon because she needed Jon to stay alive, she needed her friend, her support, her love. She silently wept and tried to open her mouth to scream as she saw it. It wasn't a clearly defined shape, but she remembered it. The Black God, stalking nearer and nearer towards her with the grace of a dancer. He was close, so close. A wintry breath numbed her hands. A colorful, skeletal, hand reached toward her throat, five freezing points bringing the horrors into stark detail, then…
The last familiar image, of trees and clouds and sky, came back to her vision, turned gray from the passageway to the Peaceful Realms. Now there was another noise, a voice, a slightly panicked I'mtryingtostaycalmforyou voice that she recognized. Then the tunnel was back, the god where he had started. She was willing to give in, or part of her was, and she started slowly forward. The God of the Dead raised a hand and didn't come closer. She stopped and turned to her right.
He was there. He held out his hand to her, and said something so familiar. "Come back, Alanna. We need you. I need you."
She gazed at his long fingered hand and set her far smaller, far more scarred hand in his palm and felt warm and alive. Then she wasn't standing, she was staring at the sky and even though she was disoriented, she was alive. She saw Jon, disheveled but grinning. She let he tension fade from her body.
A rush of warmth covered her belly. Then the reality hit her and she screamed and screamed and screamed her pain to the sky.
"At least you're alive, my Lioness," Jon said softly as her screams died and her sobs started and she began to fade from consciousness, in pain but living.
"J…on? Stay," were her last words before she passed out.
"I'll always stand by you, Lioness. Even if you stand in death's doorway."