Author's Note: Flame Tigress now does Tamora Pierce as well as Harry Potter. Yea!
T. Pierce owns the "Song of the Lioness" quartet and all the characters. The text inside the little brackets – {} – was written by Tamora, as well as the dialogue in the fourth section of the songfic (monologues in the first section and thoughts in the entire fic are mine). As to why I left so much of the writing as it was in Lioness Rampant – I don't write the stuff, I just interpret it with songs.
The song "Hallelujah" was written by Leonard Cohen. (If you're unfamiliar with that name, think soundtrack for the movie Shrek, track 10, Rufus Wainwright. If you don't know about that, I can't help you and you'll just have to imagine a tune.) The lyrics are in Italics surrounded by ~* *~. You can't miss them. The song isn't mine either. All I did was the connection between book and song.
Please review favorably!
Hallelujah
Alanna paced the length of her shaman's tent, that familiar place that she had spent a wonderful, educational, warm winter. She loved the desert; she would rather it had been her home than the cold, frozen place in the north where she was born. She loved the golden sands, the warm life-giving sun, the soothing winds that seemed to heal all inner pain. And yet…and yet the desert winds could not salve the pain that afflicted her heart.
~* Baby, I've been here before.
I know this room; I've walked this floor.
I used to live alone before I knew you. *~
She had barely known him when they first fell in love. She thought it was just physical attraction, a fling of some sort, a brief bout of passion that would soon pass. Perhaps it was. But she longed for a man's touch, and the warmth of him at night. Desert nights were very cold.
He did not die in vain, she supposed. He had been given great honor for perishing bravely in the battle to save the crown of Tortall. "We shall name our children for those whose lives ended too swiftly, that they may always be remembered with our reverence and love, that their tragic deaths may be not in vain," Jonathan had said. Alanna had seen the tears glistening in Thayet's eyes. Alanna had not wept then, though the losses of that Armageddon had affected her deeply, though their victory was at a price too high; a hollow victory now that he was dead.
~* I've seen your flag on the marble arch;
Love is not a victory march,
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah. *~
"Oh, Goddess," Alanna whispered to the silent walls of her desert shelter. She sighed, turned, and pushed aside the entry flap of her tent. She looked up and stared at the stars that dotted the clear, jet-black sky above like billions of tiny diamonds. She gazed at the constellation known as the Goddess. Seeing her picture in the heavens was how Alanna used to reassure herself that the Mother of all was watching over and protecting her wayward daughter. But Alanna felt cold and lonely looking at the cat constellation that curled up at the Goddess' feet, a cat that used to warm Alanna's own shoulders, always a Faithful friend but a streak of quicksilver just the same, beyond a mortal's keeping or understanding – it seemed that Alanna could no more grasp the life of that cat than she could the stars that formed his eternal memorial. "They return to you, O Goddess," she murmured, "but why must you take them from me first?"
~* Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah. *~
There was no constellation of Liam Ironarm.
~~~~~~~~~
George Cooper, former King of Thieves, retired Sovereign of the Court of the Rogue, rode across what seemed like endless desert on his patient mare. It was difficult to understand what the Lioness loved about miles upon miles of colorless sand. But he was coming all this way for her, because he loved her. Though it was hard to tell if she loved him. Was Alanna just being coy, playing hard-to-catch? Or was her heart truly in her resistance of George's advances?
~* There was a time you let me know
What's really going on below,
But now you never show it to me, do you? *~
No, she couldn't be that opposed to the idea of his love. George let himself be immersed for a moment in divine memory of the weeks they spent together in Port Caynn, sharing a room, sharing a bed, sharing a soul.
~* And remember when I moved in you,
The holy dove was moving too,
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah. *~
Why did the gods always have to tear them apart? Why was another obstacle always thrown in their way just when they thought they had something wonderful? He remembered fondly the fire of Alanna's hair and of her spirit; her soft sighs, and her melodious voice raised in song or in battle cry; the warmth of her tears as he wiped them away, his rough hand like an intruder on her smooth cheek; the feel of the small form of his Lioness, so strong and proud on the battlefield, relaxed and almost vulnerable while curled against him.
~* Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah. *~
No, she would never be his Lioness.
~~~~~~~~~
Alanna could think of nothing but him as she practiced the exercises that he had taught her. Right kick, left blow, left sidekick, right block… She remembered practicing in the cold of the early morning every place along their journey that they stopped to camp. She remembered his firm hand guiding her fist, her leg; she recalled his harsh, insistent voice shouting instructions to her. Then her wandering memories turned to the gentleness of his touch, his kiss when they were alone together…his soft moans and hers as their bodies entwined, warm, comforting, and passionate. They were so different together in bed, enjoying each other's nearness, than the legendary warriors that they were when being the Dragon and the Lioness. But there were two similarities between the fighter Liam and the lover Liam: both were beautiful, and both showed her how to feel humility.
~* Maybe there's a God above,
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you. *~
{She heard a sentry's warning whistle. It was answered by two others, and then a whistle sounded to mean "No danger." She picked up her sword, wanting to check anyway, when a woman behind her said, "It's me they're whistling about."
Alanna spun and stepped back into a fighting stance. The wiry female, now in front of her, raised her hands to show they were empty. Her tightly curled hair was more gray than chestnut; her eyes were pale in a tan, weathered face. On her gloves was the Shang globe surmounted by a bristling cat. "The reflexes are all right," the Wildcat said, her voice light and dry. "Do you expect an attack even now?"
Alanna lowered her sword. "It's been an interesting year."
"Hunh." Liam's master examined her carefully. "So you were his last pupil. He thought you could be one of us, for all that you're too old." Alanna looked away, afraid she might cry.}
~* It's not a cry you can hear at night…*~
{"Come up on the ridge with me. I'm just passing through. You can see me off."
"You've come a way to 'just pass through,'" Alanna said, her emotions under control again. She followed the Wildcat up to a ridge that commanded a view of the southern road. The older woman stopped to stare across the desert, lines deepening at the corners of her eyes. "I want to tell you I'm sorry – about Liam. I wish I could have prevented it."
The Wildcat waved her explanation away. "You have to understand Shang, Lady Knight. We all know we risk early death. And he guessed, or suspected. He wrote me from Corus, the day before he was killed. If he got lucky, I was to forget it. If he didn't, I was to give you this."
She put a folded and sealed parchment into Alanna's hands. Alanna saw the older woman's eyes brim with tears. The Wildcat gave her a tiny smile "I love him more'n my own sons. It's good to know he used his death well."
Opening the parchment with hands that shook, Alanna read:
Kitten, Knowing you, you think it's your fault I got killed when I did. You're thinking, if you hadn't dragged me along… Forget it. Remember the Doi woman, Mi-chi, saying I knew my fate? Year s ago a Doi told me I'd know when it was the Black God's time for me. I think this is it. If I'm wrong, and I live, the Wildcat will burn this letter anyway, so you won't find out that I wrote this.
Don't blame yourself. When could you ever tell me what to do? I chose my life. I accepted Dragon rank, knowing no Dragon has lived to be forty. As it is, I'm the oldest Dragon in almost a hundred years.
The truth is we never saw death the same (like some other things), so I didn't talk about it with you. All you think of death is ending. To me, it's how a person goes. Dying for important things – that's better than living safe.
I often visited Tortall, though we never met there. The last two times – the first before I found you, and the second when we sailed into Port Caynn – I felt a change. Like the land when spring is coming. Bazhir talking to northerners, not fighting them. Commoners and nobles planning the future. Even you, my kitten, your great disguise – it's part of something new that centers around your Jonathan. If I can protect this beginning, I will have died a Dragon.}
~* It's not somebody who's seen the light…*~
{You should grow old, and testy (testier), and raise lions and lionesses with a man who loves all of you. Even your Gift, and your independence, and your stubbornness.
Practice the kicks on your left side – I don't care if they tire you out more than the right-side kicks.
Remember to rub that balm I gave you into the scars on your hands.
The Wildcat had gone while she read.}
It was meager comfort to Alanna that Liam had been glad he would die the way he eventually did: a hero, fighting to save humanity. She knew that he was wiser than she about the matter of death; but no wisdom could conquer her dread of ending. Liam knew her well; he knew how she blamed herself, how she needed him to ease her mind. The gods knew them both – that he would be satisfied with an early death if he died a martyr, and that Alanna wanted to do her good for mankind alive.
Though it would take time for those doing good deeds while living to go on without the martyrs.
~* It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah. *~
Alanna fiddled with the parchment. Almost funny that in his last words to her, he scolded her about her complaints – her "stern teacher" and her lover simultaneously – teasing her the way he did when he was alive.
Oh, why was she always blinking back tears and choking down her emotions? Why was she putting on a brave face for the empty desert and the blank sand, pretending she didn't need to cry?
~* Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah. *~
{Glad to be alone, Alanna sat and wept, letting the Dragon go at last.}
~~~~~~~~~
George Cooper stood outside Alanna's shaman's tent, still in his cloak and riding boots and covered with the dust of his journey across miles of desert to see her. He was nervous, for all that Alanna was his best friend. She was also something more to him, and that was what made it necessary to strive to keep from shaking in his scuffed, dusty boots.
He stepped into the tent, figuring that standing nervously outside wasn't going to get him anywhere. Alanna was sitting on the floor, weaving (though why she was doing something so feminine, George could only begin to fathom).
"I was sort of hoping you'd come before this," Alanna said, putting down her shuttle.
George knelt on the floor to be on a level to talk to her. He examined the weaving on the loom. It was a nice pattern; rough work, though good, he supposed for a beginning weaver. "I'd hoped to come before this, too," he admitted. Then he started pouring out his problems to her. "Truth to tell, givin' up the Rogue and turnin' respectable – it takes gettin' used to. Some days I get out of bed not knowin' who I am. Jonathan kept me busy, like I wrote you. Too, the castle down at old Pirate's Swoop had to be fixed up proper before I brought –" George caught himself before he finished the sentence with unconfirmed information. He didn't know he'd ever bring Alanna there, though all his dreams of happiness included her as the lady of Pirate's Swoop, where he was baron. Anyway, he was babbling. It was time to start over and get to what he had come for.
~* I did my best; it wasn't much.
I couldn't feel, so I learned to touch.
I've told the truth; I didn't come all this way to fool you. *~
"Jon's announced he's to marry Thayet." She probably knows that already, he realized, feeling somewhat stupid. "The Bazhir will have told you," he amended.
"It's one of the advantages to having a King who's also the Voice," she replied. George wondered if he only hoped that Alanna looked as nervous as he felt.
"Thayet says you gave your blessin'," George ventured, praying that Thayet had been truthful.
"I did," Alanna confirmed. She folded her arms and clutched her elbows.
"You're not sorry for it?" George asked. If Alanna would only reluctantly wed him, then they should not marry at all. "Had you wanted, you'd be Queen."
~* Even though it all went wrong,
I'll stand right here before the Lord of Song…*~
"I didn't want it."
Not having a trinket himself to toy with as a manifestation of his anxiety, George reached out to fiddle with the permanently glowing ember on a chain around Alanna's neck. "What do you want, Alanna?" he asked, barely daring to hope…
"I want to be yours." Her hand caught his on the ember stone; she met his eyes, smiling. Her shining violet eyes were fascinating. "If you're still interested."
'If I'm still interested'! His fingers closed more tightly around hers. "Why?" he inquired, the practical part of him informing the rest that this really was too similar to his wildest dreams to be real.
Alanna looked down. "I love you," was her answer.
He drew her chin up with his hand so that she had to face him. "Enough to wed with me? Enough to give up roamin' and settle down and be lady of Pirate's Swoop?" She looked at him quizzically. That would be a ridiculous thing to ask of her, he admonished himself, embarrassed. "Well, to roam with me along," he corrected himself.
Alanna's nod was the most satisfying answer to any question he'd ever asked.
Then George drew a breath, hesitating before asking the next proof of her love: "Enough to bear my – our – little ones?"
Alanna blushed and replied, "I'd like to have you to myself for a year or two. After that, we'll have all the children we want." Her voice cracked as she added, "I'll be proud to."
George rose and pulled Alanna up as well, taking her into his arms. They let themselves be swept up in the joy and warmth of their passionate kiss.
~* …With nothing on my lips but Hallelujah. *~
"So I finally tamed myself a Lioness," he whispered. My Lioness. Truly mine.
{Alanna laughed. "I wouldn't call it tamed, laddy-me-love. The lady of Pirate's Swoop shouldn't be tame."
George grinned. "Particularly not when she's the King's Champion, to boot. That's all right, then." He picked her up for another kiss. When he finally put her down, he took her hand and drew her out of the tent.}
~* Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah. *~
{"Come on, Lioness. We can tell your tribe we're betrothed."}