Disclaimer: The world and characters belong to Tamora Pierce. The quotes in italics are pieces from the Song of the Lioness series. The inspiration stems from a book by K.A. Applegate called Back to Before. The plot is mine, and shall stay mine.

Alanna's violet eyes were flat with calculating deadliness as she lurked, a darker shadow in the shadows of the alley outside the Rivet Inn. Her skin was neither fair nor tanned, but a dingy brown that had come with several layers of grime. Her hair was the only thing that she took care of: it was tied back tightly and bound, keeping out of the way. White teeth glittered as she bared them in a feral grin, her ears catching the sound of drunken, wobbling footsteps. Only the momentary glint of dim light on steel revealed the dagger in her hand.

As the drunken man staggered into the alley to lean over the gutter and vomit, a dark shadow came up behind him. He keeled forward and fell face first into it as the heavy hilt of a dagger slammed against his head, and darkness descended on him.

Alanna turned the body over cautiously, then grabbed the purse, now quite thin, from his belt, the somewhat sharper dagger than her own, and the boots, which were slightly too big but warm anyway. Alanna examined him again and saw the glitter of an amulet at his throat. Pulling it out, she saw it had a faint emblem on it, and replaced it, knowing that it was far too traceable. Just to make sure the boots wouldn't do the same, she scuffed them in the mud, giving them another coating.

Then she slipped out of that alley to go to another alley, stun or rob another traveler, or find somewhere to sleep. Clutching the purse tightly, she tied it about her belt, and tucked her tunic over it. This would buy bread, and maybe some fruit.

Alanna padded down the dark streets of Irenroha, the strange-named town ten or so miles from the City of the Gods. It was a year since she had escaped from the convent, and even that was fading from her memory. Things faded from her memory a lot these days. She couldn't remember what the last person she killed looked like, or the expression on his face right before he died. She couldn't remember how many alleys and dark streets she had lurked in, a deadly shadow intent on one thing--staying alive. She fingered her dagger carefully. It didn't take that much skill to ambush a drunk man. That was good, because at eleven years old, Alanna was small and slender, with none of the build that would give her power.

There was one good thing. She had no emotions, no feelings. She killed when she had to, for the purse of a drunk man. Her interest was riveted on surviving. Nothing else mattered. Humans were treacherous, stupid, selfish, and greedy. She'd found that out by now, and now she roamed the streets, taking advantage of those same stupid instincts to make her living. Living. She grinned mirthlessly. You could hardly call it living. She wasn't really alive any more, she reflected. She was a shadow, a dark image of what she had once been. What had she once been? She couldn't even remember. All she was now was a nightmare, a lurking menace.

Her gaze traveled down over her clothes, the black ones she had stolen. The breeches were stiff wool, and the tunic was light cotton. Her body had changed, she knew, but she didn't really care. Rubbing the back of her neck, aching with tiredness, she cursed herself for being small and weak. She hadn't been this sore since the first month she had got here.

Her memory slowly drifted back to the time when she had first reached Irenroha, how she had walked up and down its hard streets for hours until, exhausted, she had found a dark alley and slumped there. Dogs had attacked her in the night, and she had woken up at the first gash of teeth. Seizing the nearest weapon, she had knocked the snarling, ferocious bodies away, feeling her arms buckle under the weight of the heavy branch of discarded kindling. For the next few weeks she had hardly slept at all, haunting the marketplace and snatching food, her body growing thinner and her skin more pale.

She had fallen ill a month after she had reached Irenroha, and had been so weak she couldn't even stand, coughs racking her body and with a burning fever. She'd crawled away from the pool of vomit of a drunken man where she'd collapsed the night before, retching at the horrible smell on her clothes. She had lain half-conscious for hours or days, she didn't really know how long. Some times she would have awaken, only to feel pain, and lapse into whirling darkness again. Voices had echoed through her mind, mocking her, haunting her, whispering words. They weren't memories, for she'd never heard them before. When she finally returned, she was a shadow of what she'd been, a thin, emaciated child who had deep shadows under her violet eyes, looking like they'd been bruised.

She'd been close to dying, but then she'd been stepped on as she lay curled in an alley, stepped on by a drunken man. She could tell he was drunk by the stale reek of his breath, and in desperation, she'd stole his dagger hilt, crept up on him from behind, and cracked him over the head. She'd taken his purse and knife, and bought food and clothes. After that it became easier. The second time she'd stabbed her victim, a stupid merchant wandering through the darkest part of town. The blood that welled out and her victim's shrieks had startled her, but then she'd grabbed his heavy purse and ran before the city guardsmen got to her.

She didn't always stab them; she took them down whatever way was quickest. The unarmed, the drunk, and the sluggish were too stupid to avoid the dark alleys where she lurked, and there they met their doom, in the dark shadow. She'd never taken on a man fully armed and capable, but she wasn't going to try. She'd go for the easy targets, with her slender build and small dagger. Maybe one day they'd avoid the dark alleys, but by then she hoped she'd be old enough to take on better targets. What else was there for her life but survival, after all?

There was a crackle from a nearby alley, and Alanna's ears twitched as she stopped dead, listening intently. She could hear someone tunelessly humming, and slipped towards the sound, peering around the corner into another street.

A man walked down the street, heading for the nearby alley. Maybe he thought he would take a shortcut. Alanna looked him up and down, then almost snorted in disgust as she realized he wasn't even wearing a weapon. There were some people that were unbelievably stupid. The light glittered on her teeth suddenly as she smiled in a feral grin, moving towards the alley.

The man was wearing a dark cloak, so she couldn't see his body that well, but he couldn't be more than a village boy too idiotic to wear a weapon. Or he might be a sorcerer. A touch of worry ran through her, but then she remembered he hadn't been wearing robes. Most sorcerers wore robes, and there was a certain feeling about them, a tingling that went up her spine.

She waited with the patience and silence of a waiting panther as he came closer, still humming tunelessly. As he passed her hiding place, she leapt out and shot toward him.

Then he spun in a rapid blur, flinging off his cloak. Too late she realized he had excellent fighting physique, muscled limbs and body. But he didn't have a weapon...

His foot shot out and caught her in the chest like the blow of a sledgehammer. She staggered backward, trying to catch her breath, but then flicked her hand, sending the dagger soaring toward the man. He dodged, but it sent a graze down his leg. He leapt toward her with the speed of a wildcat, two fists slamming into either side of her face. Her head cracked against the stone wall, and suddenly she was lifted into the air by the front of her tunic, strong hands gripping it. Her eyes met pale crystal ones, which suddenly widened in shock as they bored into her own violet ones, and then darkened to blue-gray as he breathed, "A girl..."

Alanna stared into his own swiftly changing eyes. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. Eyes that changed color... Eyes of ice green and blue-green and blue-gray and crystal...

There was a roaring in her ears, and the world began to spin around her.

He has a dragon's eyes...

"Shang discipline is stricter than a knight's..."

"Shang Masters, I hate this kind of thing..."

Words spun around her head, voices, voices she'd never heard before. The world seemed to be tilting, and she was falling down an immeasurable abyss.

The voices swelled to a roar, and she was in the center of a whirling vortex. Louder and louder and louder...

And then everything went black.