A/N: I HAVE NOT DROPPED OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH!

This story has not been..."played with" (for lack of a better term) recently, due to a few factors...

A) No time.
B) No inspiration.
C) I just plain, didn't feel like updating.
D) FINALS (are the Devil)

But now, it's updated. SMILE! REVIEW! GIVE ME FEEDBACK! JUST READ IT!

THANK YOU: Temptress/Bryt for your inspiring e-mails...and much badgering. (*Kiss Kiss* and Mushy-stuff....::giggle::) MUCH HUGS! :D

DISCLAIMER: I own the characters but Tortall and it's surrounding areas are owned by Tamora Pierce.


Lady Ribyyn of Hadic

Chapter 3 - Dreams and Sweet Kisses

"Darin. I can't take it anymore," Ribyyn whined, shaking her wrist, which was stiff from currying her horse. "If it doesn't stop raining, I will go insane." Darin merely rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to his horse. The two teenagers had been hiding in an old, abandoned barn for the better part of a week due to the spring storms. The place stunk of rotting hay, and the draft was absolutely horrid. But at least inside they were dry. Outside it rained sheets of bitter-cold water, and both knew that a few hours out there would probably kill them.

Ribyyn sighed loudly again and Darin groaned. "Rib, if you do not stop I will gag you. All you've done since we've left is whine!" She looked down at her feet, her face flushed pink. She turned her attention back to the horse. All was silent except for the falling pitter of rain.

The moments crept by slowly, so slowly in fact that Darin found the silence maddening. Finally fed up he threw the brush into a corner and walked over to where Ribyyn was laying in the hay. Her eyes were closed, her chest rising up and down slowly and steadily. Darin realized she was asleep. He lay down next to her, slowly and carefully so as not to wake her. After only a moment's time, he, too, was asleep.

~*~

Ribyyn was walking through the hallways of her home, Fief Hadic. The sun shone brightly into the foyer from the beautiful stained glass windows that her grandmother had had made for the castle. She stopped and stared at the intricate designs, and realized that they were different from the way she remembered them. On one window was a scene of two young children running through a hallway. As she studied it more closely she saw that one of the children was her, the other her older brother. They ran through the halls, laughing and smiling. Behind them ran their nursemaid, Ellie. Ellie had left years ago, when Ribyyn and Kalvin's father had remarried. The scene was a happy one though. She saw Kalvin speeding through the halls ahead of her, but waiting for her at every corner. And she saw Ellie who was, although she was incredibly fast, unable to catch up with the two of them. She knew that Ellie was not really trying.

Looking away from that window, she turned to the other one. It was a scene of a forest. That was how it was supposed to look. But wait, there was something different about this one. There were people in this scene. A girl and two horses. And on the ground was a boy. And he was bleeding. She watched as the boy began to fade, and then suddenly he was gone. And the girl cried.

"Ribyyn!" came the voice of boy, almost a man. She turned and saw her older brother, and was overjoyed at the sight of him.

"Oh, Kalvin!" she cried happily, "I thought you were-" she paused. "Asleep."

"No you didn't," the boy told her knowingly. "You were going to say another word. What was it?" He advanced towards her, in his shy steps.

"No," she shook her head and smiled. "I really did think you were asleep."

"No. You were going to say dead. You thought I was dead." He kept advancing, and she took a step back. "Tell me the truth Ribyyn. You thought I was dead didn't you?" She took another step back, and shook her head furiously. "You're lying Ribyyn. You did."

"No. I didn't." she thought quickly trying to come up with a reasonable explanation. But why was Kalvin acting like this? "It was a dream. I'd had a dream that you were. But it was only a dream!"

"But it's not a dream Ribyyn." He advanced towards her again and she backed up further, until she came in contact with the wall. "It's not a dream. I am dead." His face was suddenly covered in blood. It came from his eyes, his nose, his mouth, his ears. It came from everywhere and ran down his neck, trickling onto his shirt, down his arms and legs, onto the floor, and flowed towards her. She began to scream.

"Kalvin! Stop it! Stop it, Kalvin! You're scaring me! STOP!" And with that final scream of "STOP" the blood came in contact with her boots. Kalvin advanced further and grabbed her shoulders. He screamed her name over and over again, the blood still pouring everywhere. It ran up her boots and legs. It soaked her dress and ran up her arms to her face. She could feel it crawling up her neck, stinging and prickling. She screamed, and then...

~*~

She woke up. Darin was shaking her shoulders. "Ribyyn, wake up! You're having a nightmare." She sat up quickly and wrapped her arms around Darin's neck.

"Darin. It was horrible," she sobbed into his shoulder. "I was home in the foyer, and Kalvin came. But he was different. He was changed. He started to yell at me, and then he started to bleed and the blood just kept coming towards me and it wouldn't stop! Darin, it was awful!" Unsure of what to do, Darin just held her, and slowly her tears began to fade away.

"You okay now?"

She nodded. "Darin, I'm scared," she confessed to him. "What if the marauders follow us. What do we do then?"

He put a finger up to her lips to quiet her. "They aren't following us Rib. They'd have caught us already if they were." She opened her mouth to object again. "Ribyyn. Trust me."

"Can't you let me be pessimistic? Just for a little bit?" She gave him a crooked smile and cocked her head to the side, making her look more like a ten year old than ever. Darin couldn't help but grin when he saw all the straw that was stuck in her messy braids. He reached over to pull the straw out, but she ducked out of the way.

"C'mon Rib. You've hay all over you. You're a mess."

"Well you aren't any better Mr. I'm-so-clean. In fact you stink. You need a bath!" She stood in front of him, her hands on her hips. She reminded him so much of his mother that he let out a bark of laughter. "Stop laughing at me!" she snapped at him. "I'm serious. You reek!"

He grabbed her hand and pulled her down back into the hay. "Well you're no rose either!" he said to her with a smirk. "We're living with horses Ribyyn, what do you expect?"

"But isn't that what the hay is here for? To drown the stench. Like cat litter?"

Darin rolled his eyes. "What do you wanna do, scrub yourself with the hay?"

She grabbed a fistful of the prickly yellow straw in her hands and grinned at him. "No," she said, "I wanna do this!" And with that she shoved it in his face.

"Ow! Hey that scratches!"

"Oh! Poor baby."

"I am not a baby! And you're going to pay for that!" He grabbed his own fistful of hay and threw it at her. She giggled and threw some back at him. And with that, the fight commenced. At first it seemed that Darin was going to win outright; he was larger and heavier, and he'd won in their fights before, with the help of Ribyyn's older brother. But Ribyyn soon found his weakness. Darin was ticklish.

He wasn't ticklish everywhere. Only his sides and the bottoms of his feet. The thing was, while he gripped his sides and tried to protect himself there, his feet were vulnerable, and vice versa. Quickly, Ribyyn pulled ahead in the tussle, and soon she had him on the ground, gasping and red from lack of breath.

"Do you surrender?" Her head came into view right above his. He gasped and lay there, catching his breath. "Well?"

"Never." And with that he jumped her. Having three brothers helped though, and she leapt out of the way, so that Darin dove headfirst into the hay instead. She giggled hysterically and dove back onto him, tickling his sides and feet once again. He writhed and clutched his sides, but to no avail.

"Surrender!" she laughed merrily as she drew her fingers softly along his bare feet.

"Alright! Alright!" he cried out. "You win!" She released his foot and he flopped back onto the hay pile. She sighed and lay on her back next to him, her head by his. "That was cruel. Who taught you how to torture people?" he asked, still slightly breathless.

"I have an older brother your age remember? He always taught me to use your enemy's weakness to it's full extent."

Propping himself up on his elbows so he was looking down on her he said, "But Rib, I'm not your enemy."

"I dunno, sometimes I wonder if you aren't just out to make my life a living-"

She was cut off suddenly when his lips met hers. Shocked, she just lay there in the hay, unmoving. What was she supposed to do? Kiss back? Was she already kissing back without knowing it? Where was she supposed to put her hands? And what was this going to do to the rest of the trip? In fact, what was going to happen when this little episode was over?

He broke the kiss and looked at her. "Ribyyn," he began but stopped.

She sat up. "Darin. What was that?"

"I wish I knew."

"What?"

"I said, I wish-"

"I heard what you said," she interrupted. "What did you mean?"

"Mean by what?"

She gave him a solemn look, and he knew she wasn't speaking about his comment. "I don't know. I suppose," he paused to think. "I suppose, I've wanted to do that for a while?"

She stared at him. It took a person a lot of guts to say something like that, especially when the person you were saying it to was only thirteen, nearly three years younger than you, and your late best friend's younger sister. A lot of guts, and very little brains. "You can't be serious."

He heaved a great sigh and looked away from her. "I can't be, but I am. And I suppose I never said anything before because your brother would have laughed at me."

She blinked. "You're bloody right he would have. I would have!"

"But you aren't laughing now."

"Your right. I'm not."

He looked back at her. "And that means what to me?"

"Well, it could mean one of two things. Either I'm not completely repulsed by the idea," Darin winced as she spoke and Ribyyn smiled slightly, "or, I've a fever and I'm not thinking properly. Or perhaps it could be both."

"So which one is it?"

Her smile changed to a fox-like grin. "You figure it out."

~*~

2 days later:

"I love the sunshine," Ribyyn commented as they trotted down the Great Road South. "Especially after all the rain we've had. It's beautiful."

"Ribyyn. You're being weird again." Darin was still slightly on edge. He wasn't quite sure what he'd been thinking, but he was pretty sure now that he was absolutely insane. I'm in love with my dead best friend's younger sister. I have totally flipped.

"Darin!" Ribyyn snapped. He blinked and turned his head towards her. "Didn't you hear a word I said?"

"Uhm, was this about the sunshine again?"

"No. Not really, but now that you bring it up," she began and he moaned. She glared at him. "That was uncalled for. What I was going to say was that we should stop soon. The sun's going down, and if we want to find food for dinner tonight than we need to go hunting. I'm out of scraps."

Her companion nodded in agreement and stood up in the stirrups for a better look. "There's a clearing at the bottom of the hill. We'll stop there. Do you wanna go hunt or should I?"

"I'll go. My shot's better than yours and I don't feel like starving tonight." She grinned at him and he childishly stuck his tongue out at her.

"At least I can make a fire," he said and she giggled. "What is so funny?"

She giggled again. "You sound like Nolan!" Her giggles slowed at the thought of her younger half-brother. She shook her head and was quiet for the remainder of the ride. Silently the two dismounted and set up camp. Ribyyn watched while Darin struggled to make a fire, and finally sighed and retrieved her bow and arrows and went off to hunt.

~*~

Ribyyn trotted back, feeling better than she had earlier. She'd caught two large rabbits, so tonight they would eat like kings, or in her case a queen. Well, she thought, perhaps not like royalty, but better than we have all week. She heard her stomach rumble and increased her speed to a slow run. Ribyyn could see the small fire burning in the distance and shadows moving around it. Big shadows.

She slowed and as she came increasingly closer to the clearing she realized that the shadows did not belong to Darin or the horses. Bandits had come to the camp.

(A/N: I could leave it there to torture you! But I won't!)

She stopped as she came to the edge of the trees. She saw more horses tied up by hers and Darin's and she could smell the stew that the bandits had cooked. It reeked of onions making her eyes tear. Ribyyn glanced around in an attempt to find her travel companion but to no avail. Where was he?

Ribyyn glanced up and saw a low tree branch by her head (A/N: How convenient!). She quickly reached up and grabbed the branch. Pulling herself up the tree she searched below her for Darin. Once she judged herself to be at a safe enough distance from the bandits she stopped to rest. She still could not see Darin. Perhaps he had run away as soon as he heard them coming. But then again, why was all his stuff still here.

"The lad had a g'rl fer a c'mpanion," a bandit remarked from below. Ribyyn froze, thinking that their talk might tell her what had happened to her friend.

"Are ye suggestin' somthin'?" asked another.

"Nay, I'm j'st sayin'. Mayhap we should wait 'round a bit. Fer her te show up I mean." From up above Ribyyn gulped. She did not like the sound of this one bit.

"Ye sicko! She's nay more'n ten from the looks of things! Leave 'er be and let's get outta here," said a third bandit.

"What do we do with the lad?" asked the second.

The third bandit thought for a moment, "Throw 'im in the river."

The other two bandits grinned wolfishly as they picked up a limp body from the shadows. They tossed the body over the back of a horse. Then the three of them mounted up and road off.

From up above in the trees Ribyyn could do no more than watch. Darin was gone, and he'd be dead tomorrow when they reached the river. And she was only a thirteen year old girl alone in the world. What was she going to do now?

A/N: HA! I killed him! HAHAHA! But I did what was necessary. Life is full of sacrifices. Here's my take on this: If Darin got killed...Ribyyn became a determined (word that rhymes with "which"), henceforth losing all wussie characteristics and becoming a bad@$$ chica! (Henceforth becoming an Alanna clone, minus the red-hair/ purple-eye/ sleep-with-three-guys factor.) See! It all works out!

I was told I kill for odd reasons. In this case, I killed because I couldn't take the mush.

I have a question though...The Great Road South...what happens if you're heading North?