This Night Of All Nights

DISCLAMIER: I own none of Tamora Pierce's characters ie, Jon, Alanna, Numair, Daine and Kel. Unfortunately I'm not good enough! They are all hers, but the plot ( if there is one) is mine, mine, mine all mine! Ehem thanks.

Kel sat down and settled into the chair. Numair looked at her, she could still see the deep hurt that was harbored there, but she could see also, that a healing had begun, a healing that had needed to begin a long time ago. She smiled at him, and he gave a weak smile back. The light out side was starting to lift, indicating the passage of time the room was still filled with light but the rays were not showering directly through the window any more.

"where did I leave off?" Numair, asked her but more asked himself. "Ah that's right. Daine had tried to contact these new immortals. Jon, Alanna and myself still had no idea what was going on and Daine was still un-concious from her efforts so she couldn't tell us either. Her wounds on her body were healing fast, and nothing new had showed up. The battle that she had been fighting had obviously ended. No-one knew what was happening in her dreams" –

6 months earlier

Daine was in a place that she didn't recognize. The last thing she remembered was reaching out with her magic. Instantly she realized that the whole town was under a magical haze, something very powerful had cast a net over the town, and had somehow managed to maintain it even though this feat was one un-heard of. That was the first abnormal thing she noticed, the second had been the color of the magic. It was like a dirty, tainted green color. Frowning mentally and physically she reached out to it. .The moment her magic had touched the other she was transported somewhere she didn't recognize. She was vaguely away that her body had collapsed outside of the town but she was acutely aware that she, herself was no longer outside the town. Now she sat in her new place and thought about what had happened. The first thing she had realized when she had touched the magic was that it belonged to a human and not an immortal, she had an almost phobic reaction, a great need to get out of this place and warn Numair. She was restless and her phobia of this place was making her palms sweat, although, she noted to herself, how can her palms be sweaty when she is in a mental state not a physical one. This thought just annoyed and frightened her further. The only thing she knew was the over powering notion to get out of this place. It was starting to creep her out, and, she had to admit to herself, she was getting a rising feeling of fear. The fear had started to engulf her, she could feel her stomach sink, feel the blood drain from her face and the adrenaline start to rush. Breathe. She told herself. Calm down and just breathe. Nothing wrong can happen. Despite repeating this mantra to herself she couldn't fight the rising feeling off doom.

"I won't out" She muttered to herself. Chewing on her bottom lip she decided that while she couldn't do anything, which annoyed her greatly, she might as well explore this otherwise fascinating phenomena. As she walked and wandered around the fear that had started to consume her, to make her thoughts go cloudy and irrational, started to ebb away. Where ever she was it was amazingly life like. It was similar to the woods that they had traveled through to get to the besieged town. Details here and there were fuzzy and unclear, a few trees were the wrong color, the clouds that flowed across the sky repeated themselves. Her brow furrowed in concerntration. From what she could gather, or what she thought at least, was that some of the details were fuzzy and unclear because the owner of this place was unclear about the details themselves. Which lead her to believe that the person how owned the dirty green magic, lived in the woods themselves. The strangely colored trees and repeating sky made her think that this person may be more than a little mentally unstable.

"Great" she said aloud. "Just what I need. To be caught in the imagination or memory of a mentally ill person" Daine wished greatly that she could call out to Numair, and Alanna to tell them that she was alright just otherwise trapped in some weirdos imagination. Eventually Daine gave up wandering around the imagined woods, for she found that just like the sky it eventually started to repeat its self.

"well this is just fantastic."

She sat down on a nearby log.

"that is strange" she thought after awhile "there are no animals…" this thought prompted her to reach out with her magic, to see if she could sense anything. She was greatly disappointed, she couldn't even feel Numair, or Alanna, there was no trace of any magic, or any animals either in the outside world. She was starting to get annoyed.

"Excuse me!" she yelled "EXCUSE ME! Person who owns this geographically incorrect imagined place, can you please LET ME OUT!" there was no response. Daine sighed. She wasn't liking this much. This had gone beyond fun now. Fustration and anger started to rise in her, replacing the fear that had so hard tried to engulf her. The anger though was just as dangerous, it had a tendency to blind and hinder more than fear. But she couldn't help it. She was beyond caring at this stage, she doubted that she was going to need her wits in this place anyway. There was no harm in getting angry. So Daine sat on the log and fumed, and muttered dark things and words that would make Numair blush.

But while she was consumed by her anger she failed to realize that she was no longer alone……