'Puss in Boots'
Or:
'Alanna's many adventures on being sent to the North including being caught boot-less, how to lie convincingly to strangers, the threatening of innocent villagers, the consequences of calling an angry knight 'Puss', an ogre-slaying (sort of), and how you are not marrying the princess, thank you very much.'
A/N This was written for the December TPE challenge, where we could pick any fairy tale and canonize it. I am aware that this story doesn't actually make sense. In my defence, neither do most fairy tales. Also, I had to write this in a day and a half because I am a procrastinator. I, usually, produce work that is less idiotic than what you will see here. You have been warned. This story takes place a couple of years after the events of SotL series.
Alanna tilted her neck to the side, listening to it pop as she regarded her remaining supplies. She counted and recounted her remaining arrows and the dried, transportable food she had brought with her. She had packed enough supplies to complete her voyage, but that wasn't counting on a flash flood that had forced her to abandon one of her saddlebags and swept away half of her quiver and snares. She also hadn't been counting on the complete emptiness of the north of Tortall; she had not passed another human in days or a settlement in weeks. Her horse, Darkmoon, was just old enough to ride (Alanna had thought the voyage would be an easy one) and was getting increasingly hard to handle as the elements battered them.
Alanna sighed as she fished out a small mirror from her pack. It was cracked and the glass had clouded, but when she invoked the spell, her violet magic illuminated a clear image of Jon, even though a crack ran through his left eye.
"Champion, how goes your northern voyage?" he asked, his expression clear of emotion, though Alanna scowled immediately. She knew very well that her bad luck showed; her hair was matted and she had been pulling leaf litter from it for the better part of the afternoon, her face was probably smudged with dirt from where she had pulled herself up the wet slope, and she had no doubt that her expression showed every irritation she had suffered through the past few hours.
"Remind me again, my king, why I am in this barbarous north?"
"You did volunteer."
"That was before I knew it was cold," she muttered.
"You know I appreciate you going up there on patrol for me," he said more seriously. A small smile twitched the corner of his mouth. "You would think that you would be happy to get away from your admirers."
Alanna scowled again, making Jon laugh. Since she was ten years old, she had been doing her best to avoid attention; since being made King's Champion the past year, she had had more than she could handle.
"You may be right, Your Majesty," Alanna said, trying to find humour in the situation, "even the cold isn't so bad. It doesn't stare."
Alanna told Jon of her troubles with supplies and got his permission to end her two week trip and head back to Corus.
"I'll let George know that you're on your way," Jon said, smiling. "He'll be in Corus by nightfall."
Alanna waved him off and ended the spell, watching her mirror go cloudy once more.
Packing up took almost no time at all. Alanna loaded her remaining pack with her belongings and the food left over and mounted her horse, looking around into the pine forest. She sniffed the cold air as she bundled deeper into her warm clothes. Suddenly, there was a loud crack and a crash in the woods directly beside Alanna's horse. Alanna didn't have time to get her hands back onto the reins before Darkmoon had bolted.
Alanna had a moment where she hung in the air before she hit the ground with a thump. Her heavy clothes protected her from the worst of the impact, but she still lost her breath as she hit the ground.
Rolling over, Alanna watched as her horse disappeared into the forest.
This is what I get for using this patrol to train a young horse, she thought, getting herself up off the ground. She shook the snow and dirt off her sleeves and butt and stared after her mount, hoping that the spooked youngster would return after the initial impulse to flee wore off. After a few moments of listening to the silence, Alanna began to walk.
By midday, Alanna was tired, footsore and furious. A stream nearly intersected the small road she was following, and Alanna kicked off her boots to climb down the small ravine to sit on a rock a dip her feet in the sluggish, freezing water. She couldn't force herself to keep them in the cold water for long enough to soothe her feet, but it was too long for her liking, regardless. Climbing back up the ridge, Alanna stood on the road with her feet bare, looking at where she had left her boots. They weren't there. Stupidly, Alanna looked up and down the road as if they had wandered off.
"There is no way..." Alanna muttered, looking up and down the road again. After a moment, her situation set in. She was alone in unknown territory with no food, no horse, and no boots.
Cursing violently through the two languages she knew, Alanna considered kicking a rock and opted, instead, for more vehement cursing as she remembered her bare feet. After a few minutes, she sat down to consider her situation. Her mirror was in her pack and while she could climb back down to the river to try and make a communication spell with Jon in the water, she thought that the water was moving too quickly to be smooth enough for the spell. Someone would notice when she did not return to Corus within a few days, but that was a few days and she had no desire to freeze her butt off for that length of time.
If her boots were missing, Alanna reasoned, than a human took them. Where there were humans, there were supplies, mirrors for her spell and the warmth of fires. She looked at the dirt where she had left her boots carefully and then set off into the woods, crossing the stream to follow it along its opposite bank, along a well-hidden trail, following tracks her boot-thief had left.
Within an hour, Alanna had come across an old mill. Growling as she crossed the tangled, weedy lawn that surrounded it, she walked up to the front door and knocked loudly. The stream was loud as it turned the mill's wheel on the other side of the small, square wooden structure. Alanna had just raised her fist to knock again when a young man opened the door. He looked at her raised fist with wide eyes, his gaze traveled to her surprising purple eyes, and then down to her bare feet. He swallowed visibly and then returned his gaze to her set, furious expression.
He shut the door in her face.
"Oh, no you don't, laddybuck!" Alanna muttered. With a firm push with her shoulder, the door fell open.
Inside, the mill looked more rundown than from the exterior. Looking around, Alanna wrinkled her nose in distaste. "Don't you do a lick of work?" she demanded of the man who had fallen to his rump, and then curled into a defensive ball on the floor.
"Don't hurt me!" he called, his voice muffled by his arms. "Don't witch me or skewer me, please! I am nothing but a poor miller's son, with not even the gifts of my dearly departed father to sustain me! Please!"
"Stop your shouting!" Alanna shouted. "I can't stand it, and it's not getting you anywhere. I will neither spell or stab you if you tell me where you put me gods damned boots!"
His head raised above his arms tentatively. "Your boots? You followed me all this way for your boots?"
Alanna just restrained herself from kicking him. "And how else am I supposed to return to the south if not with my boots?" she asked.
"To the south? You cannot go south! The lord of Ogier won't let any of us travel to the south."
Alanna's brows lowered, sending the man back into the safety of his fetal position.
With a sigh, she bent down and pulled him up. With a yelp, he was pushed back into one of the mill's rickedy chairs.
"Tell me about this Lord Ogier and make it quick," she said, hoping that her most intimidating expression would keep him whining to a minimum.
It didn't, of course. After her first irritated interruption had sent the man into terrified tears, Alanna let him tell his story without any shouting or scowls. He told her of how he was the youngest son of a prominent miller (at this Alanna had looked around the old places sceptically; in a rare burst of intuition, he told her that this had been abandoned by his family for a much more successful mill near the village years ago). On his father's death, his oldest brother had received the mill, his middle brother their father's savings and himself nothing. He had a lot to say about the injustice of it all.
It was around this point that Alanna had shouted.
Once he was once again calm, the miller's son told Alanna of how the Lord Ogier sent their people north to trade their timber and iron ore. He told Alanna of how only the very few, and very influential, were permitted to leave Ogier lands, on penalty of death.
"No doubt to keep his trading secret," Alanna said.
"What?"
"The only place north of here is Scanra, and your lord has no business dealing with them, especially not in iron ore which by law must go through the capital." Alanna sighed. "Fine, Miller, you give me my boots and I will deal with this Ogier."
The miller's son produced her boots from a surprisingly devious hiding place under the stairs and they set out together. It was clear that he hadn't recognized her as the King's Champion on their first meeting and she didn't enlighten him as they traveled together towards the village and his lord's castle.
Alanna listened as he rambled without actually paying attention to his words. She wanted to get into the village and keep without announcing her presence. The miller's son was now complaining about the cold of the day and the distance they had traveled. If she wanted into the keep itself to find out if the rumours of trade with Scanra were true, she needed a disguise to get into the keep without anyone putting together her appearance with that of the recent lady knight. He whined about his feet being sore, and he was hungry now. She supposed she could cut her hair and fall back on 'Alan', but she hated to lose the length she had gotten on it.
"Are you even listening to me?" the miller's son asked, reminding her that she had another person who could work a disguise.
Without answering, she pushed him with one hand, and watched as he dropped the foot into the deep stream, shrieking the whole way.
It was remarkably vindicating.
"You c-could have just t-told me to change," the miller's son said from behind some tree cover as he changed into some of the more court-appropriate clothes she had brought with her. She thought about that for a minute before deciding not to answer.
"All right, let's see if you can get us into the keep, my lord," she called out. After a minute, he came out from around the trees and she saw what her clothes had done to him. She tried to look contemplative. The problem, she thought, as she pretended to adjust the fit, was that Thayet tried her best to make her dress as feminine as possible while Alanna tried to dress in masculine clothes she was most comfortable with. The product of this battle of wills was that her clothes were of her cut, but Thayet managed to sneak in fabrics or colours that made them more suitable to a lady at court.
On the miller's son, they made him look like a dandy.
"Albeit a rich one," she muttered.
"What? Do they work?"
"Oh, yes. You'll get us in, no problem. They look good." Alanna examined the mixture of lace and pink fabric. "In fact, you should probably keep them." She strapped her sword around his waist and nodded as straight-faced as possible.
At the very least, he won't look very threatening, Alanna thought as they set out, the miller's son still shivering, towards the village. Alanna had put on her drabbest clothes and had stolen her companion's cap. With her hair tucked under it, she hoped that the connection wouldn't be made, if this distant lord did know the description of her looks.
They started passing farms as they neared the village and she thought of another problem. "How likely will it be for the villagers to tell the lord that his miller's youngest son is on his way to his keep with a stranger?" Alanna asked.
"Oh."
Alanna sighed. She hoped Jon appreciated all the things she did for him.
"So you see," Alanna said, addressing the villagers who had gathered in front of her, "it is in your best interest to go home, close your doors, do some chores, and keep quiet about ever seeing us. If not, I am sure that I can find a suitable response to your treachery. This will include my sword and you becoming suitable for use as mincemeat. Am I understood?"
They stared, wide-eyed.
"All right, go then."
"I don't think I have ever seen them move so fast," the miller's son commented as they watched the last few villagers running for cover. "I was almost afraid for my life at one point."
"I don't think they were trying to trample you."
"No. It was just as they dove for their houses, in the mad attempt to get away from you that they nearly stampeded. You are an excellent intimidator."
"I'm not proud of this."
Shutters slammed shut as they passed through the narrow streets of the village. The keep was at the top of a small hill and they walked the road in blissful silence that lasted until they had left the last house behind them.
"Wait... what happens if he realises that we're not, you know, a lord and his servant?"
Alanna thought he probably didn't want that answered. Luckily, he didn't give her the time to answer before he launched into his next question.
"What if he tries to kill us or lock us in the dungeon or he shoots us with poison arrows or... or beats us up and throws us out the window or..."
"That's enough. He won't do any of those things because we're going to figure out what we need to know and then leave and that's it. No, no you don't." Alanna grabbed him by the back of the neck as her turned to run. She marched him towards the door of the keep with a smile on her face.
"Just keep walking," she said. "I will introduce you and we will go inside. All you have to do is sit in whatever waiting room they put you in and keep quiet and I will do the rest. Now stop crying."
They had reached the door and a guard opened it for them as they walked up to the door.
"We had an accident as we were travelling," Alanna explained, "and lost our horses. My lord would present himself to the lord of the keep for shelter for the night."
"What name should we give our lord?" the guard asked. There was a long moment of silence as Alanna tried to think up a name. The miller's son turned towards her in slow motion, his expression froze in what he had surely thought was a noble grin, but which made him look half sickly and half murderous.
"I would like the present Lord Wyldon of Cavall."
Alanna would regret using that name in years to come, but since the only other lord she could think of at the time was Raoul, she stood by her decision. It made her shake to think of how she could have possibly explained away the miller's son as her legendarily large friend, even before he was the Giantkiller.
"Just stay here," she ordered her new Lord Wyldon as she slipped out of the waiting room they had been led to. The keep was a small building with a surprisingly small number of servants and she tried to look as natural as possible as she walked its corridors. Finding the Lord Ogier's personal office was easy, although she had had a number of scares along the way. Finally, she closed the office door behind her, breathing heavily. This was why she left this sort of thing to George.
Sorting through the papers, Alanna wasn't surprised that none of the servants or their families and friends were allowed to leave their lands. None of the accounts were written in code, and it seemed that most of the transactions were done by village traders, on orders of the Lord Ogier.
Didn't even bother hiring out, Alanna thought as she read through the papers.
With her evidence, Alanna walked back through the keep. She walked into the waiting room where the miller's son still sat waiting.
"Hurry; let's go."
He leapt up and was out the door before she finished her sentence. Rolling her eyes, Alanna followed the miller's son into the corridor. They passed a guard on their way out into the courtyard and Alanna looked back to see him running in the opposite direction.
"We've been spotted," Alanna said. The miller's son yelped and tried to run. "Stop that! They cannot do anything to us, not without risking all of their lives. Just keep walking."
Walking into the courtyard, Alanna saw a familiar sight in Darkmoon, who was tethered to a rail near the wooden structure that served the small keep for stables. The young horse whickered gladly on seeing his mistress.
"Pretending that you didn't bolt and cause all this mess will not get you out of trouble," she said sternly. He had the grace to look apologetic.
"No time to talk to your horse!" the miller's son squeaked. "Look!" The guards returned with the Lord Ogier.
"You do not think that I would be taken in by such a weak disguise!" he called out, laughing. Alanna wrinkled her nose. He was the kind of lord she had always detested; large off the earnings of his people, opulently dressed and arrogant in his manner. "You haven't even accepted my hospitality! This you must do before you dash away." He laughed again as his guards stepped forward, their hands on their swords.
Alanna stood in close to the shaking miller's son, her sword within easy reach. "Lord Ogier," she called out. "You are under suspicion of the Crown in the matter of illegal trade with Scanra. You will submit yourself to a full search by Crown officials and will present yourself to a magistrate in Corus in order for the matter to be settled. If you chose not to attend, you will be transferred to court by a presence of a unit of the King's Own. You have the right to settle your honour in trial, through magistration, or in combat."
The courtyard was deadly silent.
"A Corus lapdog?" Ogier asked, spitting on the courtyard. "You are far away from your King here, lapdog. You can give that message to that young fluff of a King as well!"
Alanna's mouth twitched. She pulled the cap off her head and carefully removed her sword from the miller's son's grasp.
As her hair fell from the cap, Ogier laughed. "Oh, I see! Not a lapdog, but the Corus Puss! Well, come on then, Puss. " He pulled his own sword from his sheath. "I chose combat to free my name from your slander Champion." He made her title an insult, spitting again as her growled the last letter. "Let's see how you truly earned that title!"
Alanna ordered that a mirror be included in the packs the guards of the late Lord Ogier packed for her. She and the miller's son left the keep immediately and rode to the old mill, in the midst of the twitchy attentions of the villagers.
She cast a communication spell on the mirror and was relieved to see Jon's face appear immediately. The miller's son had been going through her duel with Lord Ogier in a detailed, if inaccurate, retelling since they had left the keep and she wanted to leave him and his mill as soon as possible. "I killed one of your lords," she said as soon as the spell was in place.
"I'm sure he deserved it," Jon answered. Despite that assurance, he looked slightly concerned.
"You have no idea. He called me 'Puss'!"
"Alanna... You're going to have to expand on your reasoning when you get back to Corus, I hope you realise that."
"Don't worry, Jon. He was also dealing with Scanra and holding Tortallan people captive on his lands."
"I'm relieved that I don't have to explain to the Lord's Council that you killed one of their peers because he called you a cat. Wait... why were you on Ogier land anyway?"
"I needed to get my boots back."
"Are you wearing them now?"
"Of course."
"Well... quest accomplished, then, Champion. I'll see you in Corus."
"Tell George he had better be there when I arrive," Alanna said shortly. "This trip has been a nightmare."
The spell done, Alanna packed it into her saddlebags as the miller's son danced around her. The freedom that came from Lord Ogier's death had just hit him in its entirety.
"I can go south, see the capital, maybe find my fortune! I'll travel with the King's champion and be showered with praise and attention... I could woe and marry the princess and be the next king of Tortall!"
Alanna nudged Darkmoon forward. "The princess is two months old, you moron, and you're not travelling anywhere with me unless you want to be stabbed. Go away."
Alanna rode off into the sunset, leaving behind terrified villagers and a dejected miller's son in her wake.
A/N Don't say I didn't warn you.