Disclaimer: Same as Chapter One!



Destiny's Fork

Chapter Three

"To Be Grand"

By Magic



An eerie silence had come over the room. Hawke had slipped away into her own world, every so once and awhile glancing over at Frost and sometimes glancing to see how bad of shape her hands were in. He was giving up on the situation; her hands were so badly cute he couldn't see what area to start with. Her white dress was now covered in the deep red of blood. He lightly held her hand in his own and looked her over.

She really didn't seem to mind at all, sitting there as if in a trance. He wondered what had happened to her at the ball room, but didn't bother to ask. He looked her up and down, checking to see if anything else was wrong with her. Only then did he realize that her shoulder had opened up and was still bleeding slowly. "Damn Seifer," he mumbled as he walked over to her other side.

Hawke seemed to come out of the trance and looked up at him. "It's nothing, really. I'm more worried about the use of my hands," she glanced down at the raw skin and bones that used to be the underside of her hands.

Frost noticed that her blood flow was slowing but it was almost at the rate that she was becoming more pale. She glanced his way, right into his eyes. This time he couldn't look away. "You're going to be fine, I'll make sure of that," he gave her a reassuring smile and left the room to go see the driver of the ship.

"How much longer until we arrive there?"

Kayra seemed to almost jump out of her skin. She turned around to look at him, sending a glare his way. "Not that much longer," she said with a scrowl.

"Go as fast as you can, don't wait for the clear to land," Frost said forcefully.

"But we could get arrested for that!" Kayra seemed frantic.

"I'll explain it to them later," Frost said as he began to leave the room. "She," he pointed to the other room in front of him, "needs help now."

Kayra finally realized what he was saying. She became hurried at the control panel and soon the craft was moving almost twice it's speed. "You may want to grab that girl and set her in a seat, this is going to be a rough landing."

Frost decided to listen to her. He walked into the other room, lifted Hawke off the bed, much to her protests, and set her into a seat in the adjacent room.

"Now what?" Hawke attempted to give him a glare but instead it ended up as a wince, not her intended affect.

"Landing," he said simply as he strapped them both in, him in the chair next to hers.

They all turned their attention to the view in front of them. The large castle streamed up into the clouds. It was cleverly hidden in the valley, surrounded by mountains, though Hawke had to be sure that you could see the peak of the castle from just about anywhere. Out of the sides of the castle, small battle ships were taking off and flying right toward them.

"What a great idea, your majesty," Kayra mumbled through gritted teeth.

"Avoid the missles and land right down there," Frost pointed to the landing ground right in front of them.

"No shit," Kayra said sarcastically as she ready the ship for decent.

The ship started to loose altitude just as the first fighters caught up with them. Kayra pointed it's nose right under them. To avoid the oncoming bullets from the second squad she did a barrel roll.

"Waaaaaaaaaahooooooo!" she screamed as she pulled the plane out of a loop. The run way was coming up fast. She brought it down in a hover before actually landing it. "We're going to have to run across the run way, to the castle, with those guys shooting at us, aren't we?"

"Certainly a quick learner you are," Frost mumbled as he struggled with Hawke's seat belt.

Hawke finally just got so fed up she did it herself, attempted to stand up, faltered and was caught by Frost. "Time to go!" Frost yelled as they opened the door hatch.

He began to run, carrying Hawke the whole way. "I hope someone recognizes me," he thought as they ran, the battle ships closing in on their tails.

"What a lovely welcoming committee you have here," Hawke said with a long drawl. She seemed to be getting weaker, her attempts to resist being carried less frequent and less harsh.

He glanced down at her and gave her a cocky grin. "Only the best for the best."

She decided that deserved an elbow in the stomach, but she was too weak to carry it out so she made a note to herself.

They were closing in on the doors of the castle, unfortunately, so were the ships. Guards began to fill in files in front of the castle doors. They began running towards the three, guns and swords ready.

"These your friends?" Hawke asked as they stopped running.

Frost just nodded, wondering what to do. He didn't even notice the cut of sarcasm in her voice. He didn't know what to do anymore. All that was on his mind was the fact that they probably wouldn't make it through this unless someone recognized him before they killed them off.

Suddenly a form burst from the soldiers running towards them. He ran up to them faster than should be humanly possible. Once he got about ten feet away, he spun on his heels and looked back at the oncoming soldiers. "STOP!" He cried. As if someone had just turned them all off, they obeyed his command and stopped. With the appearance of the newcomer, the battle ships stopped firing, but still hovered over head, ready to attack if need be.

The new comer turned back around to face the three. He began walking forward until he was about three feet from them. His hair was as black as a shadow. His face was heart shaped, much like Frost's. His eyelashes long, but not girlish. Their blackness framed his dark violet eyes nicely. He was dressed in what looked to be riding pants and a black shirt with a couple laces at the top. His eyes and face seemed kind and intelligent, his mouth curved into an almost permanent smile. He was a little shorter than Frost, about Hawke's height, his build the same as Frost's as well, well built but not overly muscular. He looked right into the other guy's eyes and said in a strong voice, "you're home brother. You always knew the exactly wrong way to handle things. You're not subtle, are you?"

Frost's mouth seemed to curve up into a smile as well, though it couldn't be full because he was holding a girl that would probably become dangerously sick at any moment in his arms. "Don't you ever shut that flapping mouth of yours?" He asked, his tone kind yet teasing.

"Only if you duct tape it shut and even then, I would do all in my power to rip it from my face," he replied jokingly and lighthearted. It was only then, after looking down that he realized the blood that had stained Hawke's dress. He seemed to pale a bit and then looked back up at his brother. "Come on, let's get her to the healers."

Frost nodded and began to follow his brother as they started towards the large doors. Kayra yelled to them that she was going to take care of the ship, and took off in the opposite direction once more. The dark haired prince glanced back at Hawke and quickened his pace, Frost doing the same. The soldiers, now recognizing one of the princes, bowed low as they walked past. Some offered to take the girl in his arms, but he rejected that quickly and kept on his forward pace. Once inside the doors, they got on a small craft of some sort.

The dark hair youth started up and began rapidly pressing buttons, his hands moving swiftly and lightly over the controls. The craft lurched off the floor and hovered a few feet above it before taking off at a quick speed down the catacombs of halls. To Hawke, this was all quite a blur. She couldn't really grasp what was all going on, except for the fact that she was overly close to Frost. His minty smell overcame her world and she let it calm her. She wouldn't let herself get nervous, that would only make the blood flow faster in her veins and therefore, faster from her body. She pressed her head close to his chest and just listened to his heart beat, trying to calm hers to that same speed.

The craft seemed to slow a tad and then began to stop. Hawke wasn't quite sure what to make out of all this. They had stopped by a large door and were now pulling her off the craft. Frost carried her into the new room, after his black haired brother opened the door. All of a sudden, Hawke was surrounded by a huge grouping of people. They hassled about her as if there was something really important to be done. Some looked down at her, others just went about on their business.

A bald headed man turned to look down on her. She felt herself being lain on a flat and cold surface; it sent shivers up her spine. She looked up for Frost; he was the only one that she knew here. When she didn't see him around, she began to panic. What were these people going to do to her? She heard a few of them walk up to her in a whispering conference. The bald man dipped his head down until it was only two inches from her ear.

"Sleep, Little One. All will be well when you awaken," one of his hands reached down to her face. She was too scared and tired to object. He closed her eyes and somehow, no matter how much she wanted to peak, she kept them closed. She soon felt herself drifting off into a dreamless sleep.



***



She continued gazing out the window in front of her. The mountains weren't something that she had ever seen, only hills in her desert home. The Garden had sent her things; clothes, dagger, and most importantly, her fox, SageJames. She glanced down at him as he surveyed the room. He seemed to find the animal carvings in the deep red wood on the posts of the bed very entertaining. She returned her attention back to the mountains. Placing her head in her hands, she was once again forced to remember what had happened that day, or was it yesterday?

She wasn't quite sure when she had waken up. Upon opening her eyes, she had immediately glanced down at her hands. She did so again. They were completely heeled. The only thing that would remind her about this day for years to come, where the thinly drawn scar marks up and down both of them. The wound on her shoulder had become nothing more than a memory, no scar marked that area at all. She had flopped back down on her bed with a sigh of relief. He had done it, most likely saved her hands and her life.

She had crawled, or rather melted out of the bed only from the smell of something warm and cinnamon-apple that wafted over from the corner. She found it to be a bowl of oatmeal and devoured the whole thing in a few bites. She had wanted to eat something else, but she saved the glass of orange juice for later.

She wavered when she stood up, ready to get her clothes on. Not because she was weak, but just because her legs didn't seem like they remembered how to walk. Even if they refused, she forced herself over to the bag that had been lain on the oversized bed and got dressed in her usual outfit; once again clad in her black leather lace up boots, black skirt and shirt with the white lace up vest over it, she felt better about the day. The day brightened a bit more when the maid had come in and brought her more oatmeal and some sweet tasting fruit to eat as well. And then it was almost the best day of late when her companion, who was now licking the oatmeal bowl clean, had bounded in the open door in front of a very frightened maid.

Now she was just sitting, starring out the window in wonder. She didn't really think that anyone was going to remember that she was here, so she figured that she had the whole day to herself to rest up and catch herself from going crazy. Everything was happening so quickly that she could hardly get what was going on before something else happened and then she was ripped out of that idea and thrown into the next one. Clank! The doors that opened from the hall to her bedroom were opened slowly. A silver head pocked it's way into the room and asked, "You decent?"

Hawke scrawled at the prince before turning back to the window. "If I wasn't, you already had your head popped in the door. What's the point in asking?"

"Politeness," Frost answered lightly as he pushed the door open further and walked into the room. "Anyway, the maid said that you were ready to be able to talk to people."

Hawke didn't turn away from the window; she really didn't feel like talking or doing anything with anyone. She'd rather, at this point, sit a wallow in her self-pity. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

Frost gave an aggravated sigh from behind her. "We've got to talk about all this." He waited for a response in silence.

"What's there to talk about?"

Frost seemed to think that is was a good enough answer and grabbed her hand, pulling her off the seat by the window, and then out the door.

"Excuse me!?" Hawke said as she was yanked down the many halls. Frost stopped his forward charging to pull her close to him and whispered, "we need to talk somewhere no one can hear us, unless of course you want everyone in the world to know who you are. Of course if everyone knows, there are a lot of people that would greatly welcome the coming of a new era ruled only by people of powerful magic. Therefore, you would soon obtain a hole lot of new enemies and I'm quite certain that it would get around to Ultimecia herself that you are still alive and not dead in that fire. Unless you want to face that witch right now at this very moment, why don't we just take a precaution?"

Hawke was shocked into silence for a moment; it had not yet sank in about what she was actually up against. When she snapped out of it, she realized how very close he was to her and pushed him off. "Fine. Lead the way."

Frost just nodded and continued to walk through the halls. He let go of her hand and she now came quite willingly, though slightly begrudgingly as well. She came out of her thoughts to see how very richly that this castle was decorated in. It looked just like one of the old castles, in the Dark Ages. The carvings and paintings that lined the halls, along with the rich, deep carpets and tapestries, made her feel like she was walking in a fantasy world. Even the center building in what had been her village wasn't this rich; not even close.

She suddenly began to feel very out of place. Everyone was wearing the newest and latest fashion; prancing around in many jewels and diamonds. Even the servants had a few diamonds here or there. She was just walking around in her normal clothes. She bit her lip as they walked further and glanced over to look at Frost. He was in riding breaches, black ones, and a very nice looking black velvet top-fit for a prince. She swallowed, "stupid royals," she thought to herself. She put on a poker face and pretended like she didn't notice anything.



***



She sat at her throne, drinking the blue potion delicately. She glanced down at the two little bugs that were again at her feet. "Did he return?"

"Yes, malady," One of the humans, the red headed one, spoke clearly and confidently.

"Are we ready to continue with the plan?"

"We are."

"...But malady, there is one thing that I believe you should know," the other human spoke, his voice wavering and cracking as he attempted to talk to the sorceress. "He brought with him someone else, someone of possible importance."

The sorceress leaned forward in the gold throne. "And who might this be?"

"No one knows," He looked worried at his answer and fidgeted from side to side on his feet.

"No one knows...." The sorceress fiddle around with her white hair. "Well, then....I think it would be the best for one of you to find out, don't you?"

Both of them nodded, the second one seemed to have gone white.

"You know what, my dear?" The sorceress glanced at the one that was rapidly draining himself of all his color. She stood up off the throne and began walking slowly to him, her robes following in a train behind her.

The man, skinny and very frightened, started to back up. "What is it? Don't you want a kiss from dear old Ulti?"

The man shook his head and backed up closer to the wall. He seemed to be panicking, his heart beat was racing. "I have no need for anyone that can't just look at me without become all scared....."The sorceress was closing in on him, like a hunter on a cornered rabbit. "You are relieved of your job." She leaned down as if to kiss him, but in that moment a sword, completely white appeared in her hand. She dug it deep into his stomach and ripped it out quickly. The man went completely white. "You're lucky," she glanced down at the sword, "this sword kills almost instantly, and almost painlessly. It's a sword with mercy," she looked back up at the dying man. "Too bad to." She walked back to her throne as the man fell to the ground.

A puddle of blood was forming around the man's body as the guards came to pull him away. But the sorceress didn't seem to notice, she was too intrigued with the white blade in her hands. "Who anyone could make a magical weapon used to kill with such mercy is beyond me." She seemed to almost glare at the sword before it faded away, concealed with magic. She glanced up at the remaining human. "Go, find who this child is. We have to begin our plan tonight."

He nodded, bowed, and exited the room.



***



She glanced around the room they had ended up in. She couldn't believe that they had to walk through a cupboard to get into this place. After what had seemed like an eternity of walking through dusty, unused passages they came out somewhere deep below the castle.

The room seemed to be some sort of library. Books lined all the walls that ran in a continuous curve around her. The room had to be some sort of cylinder shape because standing in the middle of the room caused the walls to go around her in a circle shape. What was the most amazing thing, was the window at the top of the room; it was just large, clear glass that was rounded up and out of the room, like half of a sphere. If you were to look up from the bottom, you would be greeted with the dark, deep blue color of water. Colorful fish swam over them as she looked up into the window. The sunlight just barely reached all the way down here, and seemed to peak through the water to the window in a scattered pattern. The light danced on the floor on the bottom that was one big mirror, causing it to cascade around the room. She guessed that they only needed to light the room on really cloudy days and at night. She was in complete awe.

"Like it?" Frost asked, reading her expression.

She spun around on the floor. "It's amazing and," she looked around the room, "it's a library and I would give my life for a good book." She jumped on one of that ladders and began filing through the books that lined the shelf. Some of them where storybooks, but the majority had weird symbols on the front and were written in what seemed to be two languages. "What is this language?" Hawke asked not looking down to Frost, but instead studying the writing as if it was something to be weary of.

"That's the old language, or, as many would call it, the writing of the sorcerers," he seemed to become slightly sheepish at that moment.

"But, I thought all of those books were to be burned?" Magic to that decree had been outlawed generations ago. It both frightened people, and had caused more tragedies and catastrophes than it was worth.

"Oh, they were. All except the ones that my mother saved."

Hawke looked down at him in interest. "So, no one knows about this place?"

Frost shook his head. "Not even my brothers."

She became even more interested and slide down the handles of the ladder. "Then why do you know?"

"Simple. I love to read and my mom gave each of my brothers a gift before she," he seemed to get angry, "passed away. I got the library. Sworn to secrecy, I am the only one that knows about it, until now."

Hawke looked up at him. "Why in the world did you show me? I'm sure that there could have been other places to talk."

"Not that no one living knows about."

She just shrugged. It was true that she felt very privileged to see this place, but she wasn't going to show it. "Why did your mother keep all these books then?"

He went slightly white and then walked over to one of the chairs. He sat down in it and looked up towards the ceiling, suddenly quiet. After a while, he came to look up and recognize that Hawke was there. "Because she had use for them."

He had put it as simply as he could have. His mother had been a sorceress. Hawke tried to conclude what this made of his life. "You're half sorcerer." The room suddenly felt really small and clammy. What in the world was she doing in here with this guy?! He could probably kill her at any moment...was that why he had shown her this room? Her hand moved slowly to her dagger that lay in its sheath at the side of her hip.

He seemed to realize what she was thinking and just shook his head. "It's ok, I'm the same person that you snapped at when I walked into your bedroom thirty minutes ago. I don't plan on mutating into anything nasty and green. You can put that back now," he said, pointing to her dagger that was already drawn and ready. "And please, stop staring at me as if I have just sprouted three heads."

She became slightly embarrassed at her brash reaction. She resheathed her dagger and lay her hands on her hips. "So I'd have to guess that your brothers are half sorcerer as well?"

"You guessed right," he didn't seem to think that this conversation was very interesting. "We each got a different type of magic when we were born. Fire, Light, Stars, Water, Earth," he stopped and pointed to himself, "Ice."

"Makes sense," she rebutted.

The room had suddenly gone eerily silent at that moment. There seemed to be a slight tension there at the moment. Hawke couldn't help but asking, "how did your mother die?"

He seemed to draw even farther back from her as he looked down on the ground. "She was murdered....by her own kind."

"Oh." Hawke wasn't sure what to say to that. She shifted around on her feet. There didn't seem to be much to say at that moment. "Shit," she thought to herself, "major screwing up of this conversation." The air seemed to become even more heavy until Frost seemed to get sick of the feeling and stood up.

"Whatever, doesn't matter anyway. It's all over with." He walked over to the ladder and climbed up it, reaching in for a book. "This is the book in which we are going to find all the answers to resurrecting your brother."

Hawke shivered and retorted, "would you not say it that way? It sounds like a horror film this way. I'm not bringing my brother back from the dead," she swallowed, "I'm just, eh.....,bringing his soul back."

Frost shrugged, "whatever."

Hawke didn't like his light attitude about his. "Listen up, buddy, this is my brother we are talking about here, my only family. I think maybe you should take this more seriously."

"Alright, pal," he continued to page through the thick book until he raised his eyebrows at something. "Well, I found out HOW to do it...."

"Really?" She momentarily forgot about her quarrel with him and climbed the ladder.

"Here it is," he pointed to the page in front of him and began sliding down the ladder, right at her.

"Hey!" She yelled as she was forced to clamber onto the library shelf. She jumped back onto the ladder, slightly shaken. She climbed back down the ladder and ran up to Frost with a vengeance. "I. Hate. Heights."

"You seemed fine with them when you saved me up on that ladder," he smirked slightly and continued to read the book.

Hawke was forced to find an excuse, because she had been terrified. "What you just did is a great way to get yourself killed."

"You wouldn't kill me," Frost said smirking further, "you just saved my life if I do remember."

"One, doesn't mean a thing, and two, you owe me big time," she crossed her hands across her chest and took the bitch pose.

"If I do remember correctly," he commented, slamming the book closed, "who was it that saved you from dying of bleeding to death?"

"Well, then I guess we're even then, aren't we?!"

"GUESS WE ARE!"

The two were just about to rip each others throats out with their own hands when a fish swam into the glass at the top. The noise caused both of them to jump after being in the quiet room for so long. They both looked at each other and then burst out laughing.

"You look funny when you get all scared!" Hawke yelled at him through her endless laughing.

"Me scared? What about yourself?! I don't think I've ever seen anyone jump that high!" Frost was laughing just about as hard as she was. They both looked at each other and glared.

"I wasn't scared at all!" They both scream at the other in unison. The ended that with a glare. They most likely would have stayed there, glaring at each other until they had died, except the same fish found it necessary to ram into the glass once more.

"Stupid fish," Hawke said with a glare up as Frost mumbled something to the same affect.

Hawke turned back to him and sighed, "that's enough, tell me how to retrieve my brother."

Frost opened the book up again, "you sure you want to know?"

"No, maybe I'll just let myself sit here while the whole world comes crashing in around my head.....OF COURSE I WANT TO KNOW!"

Frost shrugged and read from the book. When he was finished, he slammed the book closed and tried to read Hawke's expression, but it kept changing from being pissed off, scared, happy, and generally confused. She looked up from her shoes and said, with her voice in almost a whisper, "how the hell am I suppoused to do that?"

He shrugged again, "beats me."

"That book doesn't even know how to bring him back!? Why did they refuse to write it down? How am I going to find this chick again!?"

Frost sighed. He looked as confused as she did. "It just says to find the Guardian of Death. She is the only one that holds this knowledge besides sorcerers. And," he attempted to look less confused about his part, but it wasn't working. "You can only find this guardian when you are thinking about something else, and not finding her at all. You're going to have to find something to think about I guess."

"Tha-that----that's SO STUPID!" She didn't know what to do, rant or start crying. Crying was out of the question so she decided to rant. A rainbow of curses flew from her mouth when she cursed everything from lipsticks to men wearing skirts in the woods to hell. Frost was so taken back by it, he took a few steps back. The movement brought her back to the times. "And I'm going to be doing this all by myself?!"

Frost shook his head, "I'm going with."

"I don't want to sound unappreciative......but, I personally don't think that I could stand you for as long as this might take." She did want him to go, or rather anyone go with her for that matter. She would have gone with Elvis if he was the only person that would go, but he could never know that she was thankful for his company.

"Well, it's going to be a challenge for both of us, but I've been assigned to do this," Frost said, with-if he had been a dog would be described as-his teeth barred.

"Oh so you wouldn't go with me if you hadn't been told to?! Remind me of that when I'm about to die so that I don't ask you to help me."

Frost returned her glare and her tone of voice as he said, "It's not like you've given me any reason to want to save you."

Hawke looked straight into his ice-blue eyes and glared, "then why did you?"

"Politeness," Frost growled and stared back at her. Again, they most likely would have stayed there, staring at each other if Frost hadn't of decided that it was getting stupid. He looked away and went to return the book, bumping into her shoulder as he walked past. "We have to think of a name for you."

Hawke turned around to face his back and smirked, "I already have a name, haven't you realized that yet? Or wont you admit that you were wrong?"

"Okay, whatever, I was wrong. You need a name so that when we're here, you can be talked about and people wont suddenly realize what you must be doing. Unless of course, you think that 'Leonhart' is a very typical last name."

He had a point, even though Hawke wasn't even close to admitting it. "Fine," she replied after a time of thinking about it. "But I have no idea what name I'm going to respond to."

"You also need to have a past, so that if people talk to you, you can talk about things as well, without having to lie completely."

"Fine! Can we just get on with this?!" She didn't like the idea of changing her name, even for the short time that they might be in the castle. But she couldn't really do anything about it because it was the right thing to do and she didn't have any better ideas at the moment.

"Fine with me. What name do you want?" Frost gave himself a push on the ladder and sent it gliding around the room. He stopped when he came upon a certain book. He pulled the blue tinted book out and walked down the ladder to get to the bottom. He began shifting through the book, every so once and awhile glancing up to look at Hawke, either marking a page or else shaking his head a moving on.

This began to get annoying to Hawke after awhile, she didn't like it when people didn't tell her what they were doing and she decided that it was time to know what exactly he was looking at her for. She kicked him in the shin as a sign to come out of that book and clue her in on what was going on.

He pulled his leg back right as she moved to kick him, causing her to ram her foot into the seat that he had been sitting on. "Ouch! Thanks!"

He looked up from the book and raised an eyebrow at her. "What?! Was I suppoused to let you kick me or something?!"

"But of course," she said, trying to be as serious as she possibly could and not blow up and rip his head off at the same time. He went back to reading the book, glancing at her, and marking pages as she went off to look at books.

"You have a family tree of everyone in the world?!" She was amazed as she opened up a large book that was resting on a pedestal over by the wall. It had been bound in a leather raping and tied together with a green, frayed string. As she flipped through the pages she began to wonder if her family was in there. "Do you think that they would have Leonhart in here?"

Frost shrugged and looked up from his reading. "They most likely would. It's a magiced book. You're in there somewhere, the only problem is if you can find it."

Hawke saw that he was quite right. The farther that she got into the book, the farther away from the end she got as well. It seemed that pages just appeared right before her and no matter what she couldn't find her way through them all. She finally made it to her last name. There were several other families in there, but not hers. "Frost....I'm not in here...."

"That's impossible," he mumbled as he continued to page through the book.

"Seriously," she checked the pages twice and found that she had been right.

He seemed to become very interested in the fact that she couldn't find herself and walked over, seemingly ready to prove her wrong. "You've got to be in here."

He checked over the pages as she had done, twice, and then once again a third time before finally shrugging. "Leonhart is not really your last name then," he said simply before returning to the chair and his book.

"WHAT?!"

"It's simple, someone at the orphanage most likely just liked the name and decided to name you after it. They probably didn't know your parents' real name so they had to come up with one themselves."

"Oh." Hawke really didn't know what to think about that. In fact, as she had been turning the pages she felt that she had gotten closer and closer to finally knowing who her parents were, but if she didn't know what her last name was, then it might take a life time and possibly forever to find herself in that book. She shrugged it off; nothing is perfect and she was fed up with that stupid book that Frost had been reading. "WHAT ARE YOU READING?!"

He seemed to come out of the book and looked up at her, "it's a book of names. I'm marking the ones that might suit you, though it's quite hard because Hawke is almost the perfect name for you."

"I'll take that as a compliment. What names do you have so far?"

"Well, I think that you look mostly like a T name," Frost said, starting to circle her around.

"What is it? Where you a vulture in a past life or something?!"

This took him slightly off guard, but he continued to circle around her, "A Ti to be exact."

"You are not calling me Ti."

"Wasn't going to mention that one, how about Ti-Liyah?"

"...what?!"

"Ok, so maybe not that name....how about Ti-Anna?"

"How 'bout not I rip your balls off with a spork?"

"Never mind then. Ti-Ara?"

".....that's not even funny!"

"Different letter then....V....how about Vi?"

".....no..."

"What about Vloochonk?"

"....."

"You're so very picky, Vixie?"

"I'd feel like a fairy....NO."

"Let's try L then. Does the name Lacrimioara move you?"

"Only closer to killing you with my feet."

He raised both eyebrows but kept his face buried in the book. "Labaosia?"

"Try again."

"Lyndocotishi?"

"What book are you reading?!" She took a step towards him and could see him smirking from behind the large book. "You're just making all the names up aren't you?!"

He took a step back, "no, not at all. They're all right here in this book."

She took a step towards him, "then lemme see that book."

"Nope," he took one more step back. Hawke was tired of this game.

"Lemme see that book!" She lunged towards him, reaching out for the book, only to grip the air as he swiftly moved away. They began what could have been called a dance, she would run after him, and he would move away just in the nick of time. He would then call out the weirdest name that he could think of/read from the book and then this would cause Hawke to leap at him again.

"Give. Me. That. Book."

"Come. And. Get. It, Lauiski."

"The name's Hawke, buddy, and don't you forget it!"

He ran out of the room and started going through the dark hallways, back up towards the main part of the castle, all the time shouting out random names that came to his head for there was no light to read if he had been reading.

"Come back here, Frost!"

"Come catch me, Ti-Naynay."

"There is no way that can be a name," Hawke mumbled to herself as she followed him through the hallway. Frost came to the opening first, jumped out and turned around to greet Hawke as she came up on him, the book was no where to be seen.

"Where did the book go?" Hawke asked as she glared at him and panted for breath.

He leaned against the cupboard and shut the entrance to the library quickly. "Disappeared I guess."

Hawke didn't care enough to argue about it so she let herself be lead back to her room.

"There's a party tonight, in honor of my return," Frost declared as they walked back to her room. "I have no one to bring with and so I guess you'll have to do."

"I'll have to do?" She had been walking faster and in front of him, but now turned around to face him.

"Yes, well, we can't have everything we want to."

"What in the world is tha-" She was cut off as a long bearded man came up to her. He was wearing the most glorious clothes she thought possible. His white hair came down to rest around him shoulders and his head was topped off with a gold crown with so many glittery things in it, she could have sworn that there was no metal to it, just gems. She looked at him with awe.

"Oh, hello, father," Frost said as he moved up to catch up with Hawke and the king.

"F...F...father?" Hawke thought to herself and swallowed. It was the king; what was she suppoused to do?! She didn't know how to curtsy, at least not well. And she didn't want the first time meeting with the king to be her falling on her face when she wasn't even sure what she was suppoused to do. She bit her lip and settled for a little, respectful bow.

The king looked from Frost to Hawke and then back to Frost. "We need to talk about tonight's plans for your welcome back party." He reached over and grabbed Frost's shoulder and started to drag his son away. When they were still in Hawke's hearing rang, she heard the king say,"Who was that charming young lady, my son? I don't think I've been bowed to for years!"

Frost smirked a bit, turned around and flashed Hawke an evil smile. "Oh, she's an old friend of mine. Her name is Ti-Ara Calyway, but you can call her Ti for short." Their conversation was out of her hearing rang and Hawke spun on her heels and began walking towards her room.

She made sure to remember that name before she started sprouting swear words from her mouth faster than she could think of them. Some of them she didn't even know that she knew them, and the common ones got repeated a lot. But after she was finished with her cursing, she decided that she had better plan a way to get back at him for that evil comment right there.

"I will repay you for that, Frost. Ti-Ara Calyway is out for blood." At the mention of her false name, she gave a shiver but kept on walking towards her room. She was going to make his feet pay for her name while they danced, she was sure of that.



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