Read and Review I don't own any of Tamora Pierce's wonderful books!
It was cruel really, to break the pair apart. Sure they'd left each other before. For months and years at a time, but they were twins. One couldn't live the same without the other.
Alanna of Pirates Swoop sat in her room looking at a small portrait. It was painted a few weeks before she was supposed to leave for the Convent but really left for the Palace.
It was her and Thom. Sitting under an oak tree. She was sleeping on his lap a smile curled on her face; he had one hand protectively on her shoulder the other hand keeping place in his book. His head leaned back against the bark of the old gnarled tree.
She was wearing a lavender dress with gold threading; her dress was riding up enough to show the breeches underneath. Alanna smiled at that, it really showed how much she wanted to be a knight. Her slippers thrown off to the right in a small heap
Thom in a dark purple tunic and golden brown breeches, his boots sat next to him straight and neat. He was always a bit of a neat freak back when they were young.
"Thom. . ." she murmured running a finger over their young faces, "Twins were supposed to stay together. . ." a tear fell then another.
"Why in all the Realms were you so prideful? You died too young . . . I needed you . . . I still need you. You were supposed to be giving me away to George . . . you were supposed to see my children being born. You were supposed to tell my husband that you were going to kill George for the pain I went through in child birth. YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO STAY BY MY SIDE!" finally Alanna let the tears fall griping the locket so hard her knuckles turned white.
She stood and tucked the locket back into the neck of her lavender dress and left her room. Using the secret passages that led under the Swoop she began to walk out into the Swoop Graveyard. She saw and read the names of those who had fallen protecting the Swoop, including animals as Daine wanted.
Finally she went to a small mound; over it was a black headstone untouched by any name, unless you had the spell to unlock it. Alanna wiped her violet enflamed hand over the head stone and the name appeared.
"LORD THOM OF TREBOND
BROTHER, SON AND FRIEND
MOST POWERFUL MAGE DURING THE LAST AND BEGINNING YEARS OF KING ROALD AND JONATHAN IV REIGN
YOU WILL BE MISSED"
Alanna knelt before the tombstone, carefully laying down an item she whispered, "Happy Birthday Thom."
The item glimmered in the sunlight . . . a small bracelet like that a man would wear as a token from a lover. In it was the same portrait like Alanna had, the wind swayed back and forth and two violets that Alanna had left next to it covered the small bracelet.
As Alanna left she felt a kiss on her cheek and a deep voice saying, "Happy 30th birthday little sis." Alanna smiled and kept walking; she saw her husband and children waiting and ran towards them.