Authors Note: Well . I don't know if anyone's really noticed my story, after all, there are plenty wonderful Tamora Pierce fan fictions (aye! Thousands!) and well .. this here one's a noob. Do continue reading. Btw. I still own nothing. -

Sarrasri's Fate

Chapter One - Memories

"Numair!" The beautiful Veralidaine was seated in the middle of a grove, animals of all shapes and sizes crowded around her, cuddling, caressing, chattering. She beamed at the oncoming mage, who tried to hide his relief and joy at finding her.
"Must you always run off on your own like that, magelet?" Numair crouched next to her, stroking her hair. It was so soft . and so wild at the same time. "You know you worry me so when you do that." He kissed her lightly on the nose, his love getting the better of him. He pulled her into his arms (much to her giggles) and ravaged her with kisses and hugs. Animals watched, with what appeared to be amusement. Love and today (Beltane) went together.
"I love you, Numair," she gasped between kisses. "I love you so very much."
"And I love you, Daine. I love you more than I have ever - Daine? DAINE?" Her face had suddenly gone from light and happy to a sickly gray.
"Numair! Someone's torturing something! Over there!" She disentangled herself from him. He sighed. Always something like this happened. An animal was in need. Numair was in need (though admittedly in a different way) but the animal came first.
"Daine .. Daine one cannot help everyone . " She raced from the grove, Numair doggedly following.
He felt the prickling of magic being worked nearby. He picked up his pace, calling for Daine to slow down just a touch. She didn't.
There! A horse, laying on the ground its withers streaked with sweat and blood. She knelt next to it, cajoling, running her fingers down it's back.
From where he was, he could see everything as it unfolded. He saw archers in the trees, he saw the carthaki black-robe mage, he saw the scanran with the long handled axe, and most terrible of all, he saw that long handled axe slicing the air to meet his love. He felt his screams to her to move meet deafened ears. He -

-Woke up, screaming, his night shirt soaked with sweat. So often he had this same awful nightmare. He never actually saw his lovely magelet die. But always he awoke, and new that she had. That he lay in their bed in their room in the palace, alone. He knew that though he had personally killed everyone responsible, that she had lain in the grove in his arms, her dieing breath spent on the words, "I love you .." He sat up, slowly, knowing he would get no more sleep that night. Unbidden, a tear rolled down his cheek. He couldn't bear to have those dreams of her death, but he couldn't bear not to have them, and not see her again. In her six months of death, he still could not bear to see anyone else. With everyone he met, he saw Daine's hair, her smile, her stubborn chin. What killed him the most was the knowledge that when she died, a mage found her to have been pregnant. That her death was the death of two.

"Numair?" He jerked from his sad thoughts and looked to the door. King Jonathan leaned on the door. "Daine is dead, Numair. There's simply nothing you can do to bring her back .. Life must go on, you know that as well as I." He had a look of pain in his blue eyes. "Sh-she.." Numair's voice cracked. "She didn't deserve to die. All she ever did was good things.." he looked down to keep the king from seeing how distraught he was. "Life goes on, mage." Jonathan shook his head sadly. His face hardened slightly. "Numair, I order you to do something with yourself. You're wasting away up here." "But, Jona-" "No buts, Numair. I'm sending you to a village on the Gallan border, we've heard nothing from them for months, except a messenger, who turned up, fatally wounded. All we got out of him was 'trouble' . go help them. It'll be good for you." And that was that.

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A/N: . well. I didn't really know what to do with this, I think this will do for a chapter one, hmm? Tell me if you like it, in a review! And iff you have any ideas, email me! rockfieldfarm@uniserve.net thankee for readin!