AUTHOR'S NOTE - This is my first fanfic EVER! It's taken me almost a week just to think up the basic idea. Please, please, no flaming!
AUTHOR'S NOTE - You may notice that this is not set in the original Deltora, nor does it use original characters. I feel so weird when I read that. So, I've set it roughly four hundred years past the reign of King Lief (long may he live!). Enjoy.
AUTHOR'S NOTE - I know that this chapter isn't very Deltora-ish. It gets more so.

There are a great many things in this world that have gone unnoticed, for many years. Many things that could change the way Deltora has lived, ever since it rose out of the sea as a volcanic island all those billions of years ago. Things that could change a country...change a world...change a life.

Yes, our beloved land of Deltora has gone unchanged for many hundreds of years. It has lived in a state of peace with its neighboring lands, and even its seven tribes, who fought so violently not so long ago, have been getting along rather well.

But there are those of us who can smell the winds of change, who can see them swirling around in the mists of time. For they are not too far off, these winds, and they're bigger than ever before in living memory.

Beware, Deltora! Beware! Hark the Changing Winds!

...

"Blast!"

So uttered Marissa, the not-so-ladylike lady-in-waiting to Queen Verve.

Normally, she was everything you would expect a LiW to be - calm, polite, and dainty. This particular occasion, however, called for a more forceful exclamation.

There was a boy opposite her, perhaps a few years younger than herself. He held himself rigid, obviously very worried about something.

The boy, the tanned blonde boy with the dancing blue eyes, the eyes that had made the girls wink, was her little brother. And he had gotten himself in trouble.

Marissa's own dark locks slid over her shoulder like water when she finally sat down on the armchair opposite him. Taking a sip of tea from the teacup that had been sitting delicately on the coffee table, she asked, "What made you do it, Bryan? What in the world persuaded you to do it?"

Looking uncomfortable, Bryan squirmed in his seat. He and his elder sister had never talked much, her being sent away to be a lady-in-waiting when he was a scarce seven years old, and when the two did talk, it was almost as uncomfortable as this. Almost.

Eventually, he decided to be honest. He shrugged.

Marissa sagged, then. She put her face in her hands, and looked at him with her dark brown eyes. He had always hated it when she did that. She and their mother, both, did that whenever they were at the end of their rope.

But their mother met the end of her rope, years ago...but he would not think about that. They had agreed, without speaking, not to think about that.

Hanged for high treason...

Stop it! He almost shook his head, until he remembered his sister's gaze, and stopped himself before she started wondering...

Eventually, she rested her chin in her hands, and stated rather flatly, "One does not steal the Crown Jewels for no reason, Bryan." Her eyes still bored into his, deep with pain. He knew she was close to tears, and for him, that would be one of the worst things in the world.

...

He was seventeen - a man, almost - and had only seen her cry twice. Once, when she was eight, and had scraped her knee very badly, and once when she was sixteen. That was when it had started.

'It' had started as curiosity. Bryan had been twelve, and he was in a vendor's stall. He had wondered if he could take the apple Marissa had so admired without anyone noticing, and he tried, and he found he could. So it became a hobby.

Eventually, after a few months, thievery progressed into a way of life, and his father and sister wondered how he got them their beautiful, expensive presents.

He had told them he had been employed as a servant to a noble family, and that these were bought with his pay. Old Gres had believed it. Marissa had not. She knew him too well.

It had taken her almost a year for her to figure out the exact problem. A piece of jewelry had been stolen from one of the other ladies-in-waiting. And then she found it on her pillow one morning as a birthday present, wrapped in silver paper.

She didn't confront him about it, not right away. She wanted to make sure she was right. And, after asking one question about the clasp of the bracelet, she knew she was.

That night, she told him she knew about his pastime, and he admitted to stealing it, and then she made him promise to never do it again. And he hadn't...not to her knowledge, at least.

...

Then, when he was fifteen, he had found some other people in Del who specialized in the same thing he did. They made a living off of it. They made a business out of it.

They accepted him into their circle eagerly, and he was admired for his skill and for his guts. However, when the time came for them to pull off a major heist, he found that he was the one 'in front': in the most danger, and with the most to lose.

He started to pull away from the group, slowly. They had named themselves the Black Raccoons after the slinky thieving beasts, and he wanted no part in some sort of cult.

So he started showing up less and less, until he hadn't been at a meeting for almost a year.

But then the Raccoons got nasty. They seemed to have completely accepted him as one of their own, and it appeared that to them, just to leave would be even worse than turning treacherous.

Things started getting stolen from his father's barrel-selling shop. Marissa would be terrorized whenever she came to visit by an unknown foe. Girls he spent time with would be delayed going home.

It was at that point that Bryan decided to stay with the Raccoons, for the safety of everyone he loved. It wasn't like there was anything he could do!

And Marissa still didn't know. That is, not the Raccoons landed him with a death penalty, and he and his sister were given one day to spend together before he was sent to the wolves.