Disclaimer × as much as I'd want to… I don't own any of the characters that you recognise. Damn. Hehe. Just so you know. ;) However, I do own Luke, Erin, Elton, the storyline and anything else that you may not recognise. =)
Author's Note × aw… I'm glad that lots of people are liking my story so far… hehe. Oh, and I admit.. I wasn't exactly very clear when I was talking about Alanna's hair colour. (thanks Mist Tiger for bringing that up!) Um, I'll put that at the bottom, with the 'Thanks'…
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HIDDEN THREAT
Chapter Four ◊ Mid-Autumn Festival I
Alanna began having second thoughts as they reached the Palace gates. Erin had to quickly grab her arm before she ran away. Though she wanted to get back at those who destroyed the convent, and prevent anything happening against the Royal Family, she still hated going to dances and balls. Even if it was held outside instead of in a Great Hall. She sulked slightly as Erin flashed the forged invitations at the guard on duty.
"Behave yourself…" Erin warned her, before grinning, "you really hate dances, don't you?"
Alanna nodded sullenly, smoothing out her dress unconsciously as they entered a small courtyard that led to a larger one. After meeting Thom, Erin and Alanna had immediately gone back to the inn where they were staying. While Alanna had a shower and collected the invitations from Thom, Erin had gone to work on trying to fixing Alanna's dress. As the sleeves on the dress had been ruined during the ride, Erin had ripped them off and fixed up the stitching. There were some stains on the dress, so she had purchased some cheap, but smooth black material and placed it over the top as another overlay. Instead of a crimson dress that shimmered black every now and then, with long flowing sleeves, Alanna wore a strapless (and still low cut) dark dress, that shimmered crimson in the light. As half of the diamonds and amethysts had fallen off from around the waist, Erin had taken them off and made a simple necklace that matched the dress and Alanna's eyes. When Alanna had come back into the room and seen the dress, she was speechless. Though the neckline was lower than she'd have liked it, she thought it was better than the old dress.
While Erin had her shower and was getting ready, Alanna went to work of her friend's dress. She wasn't as skilled at it, as Erin was, but she tried her best. Erin's dress was originally a rich, cream colour with several glittering and fine layers, and silver-gold threads, and fine imprints. Like Alanna's, it also had long flowing sleeves and a low neckline. The bottom hem of the fine glittering layer had been frayed and ruined, so Alanna went about fixing that, as well as the sleeves. Byt the time she was finished, Erin's dress was off the shoulder and one-sleeved, with a somewhat uneven, but flowing glittering overlay falling down smoothly. Alanna had also managed to wash most of the stains out. Though it wasn't the best dress, and the one-sleeve was uncommon, when Erin put it on, it looked almost perfect on her.
After they had gotten their dresses done and out of the way, Erin went to fix Alanna's long hair. With some left over amethysts and diamonds, she carefully threaded them into her hair. It was half up and half down, with the top half twisted and twirled loosely. At the front, Alanna had some loose, soft hair framing her face. Erin didn't quite trust Alanna to do her hair, and without thinking, tied it up into a messy, though elegant upsweep with loose hair hanging out everywhere.
As she looked over at her friend, Alanna apraised her work on Erin's dress. The waist line fit the body comfortably, and whenever Erin turned or moved, the fine silver caught the light and cast an almost shimmering glow. Shaking her head, Alanna thought about how the daughters back at the convent would think, if they knew she and Erin were about to join a festival at the Palace. They'd be pleased, expecially as Erin and Alanna actually looked more than decent for such an occasion, but they'd also be disappointed that they hadn't found any dashing young knights to go with.
(Sorry if I kinda went on a bit, about their dresses and looks… lol. I have this habit of having to describe nearly everything! (on girls anyway… I can't seem to describe guys as well. Not enough words, excpet for handsome, good-looking or cute… ;))
"Where did Thom say he'll meet us?" Erin asked, suddenly breaking into Alanna's thoughts. Alanna straightened, remembering why they were there in the first place. They had to find Thom, and figure out a way to expose the schemers behind the plot, so that they could present it to their Majesties. She scanned the scanned the crowded courtyard quickly. It was a large courtyard, nearly as big as the Great Hall where balls were usually held. Rows of tables filled with delicious food, drinks and punch lines the sides. All around, surrounding the courtyard, were large white-rose bushes and trees, whose leaves had begun to turn a golden orange-red colour. Over head, silk white ribbons stretched across from trees to trees. She couldn't tell where the lights came from, but all around were soft glows of light, that reflected off the ladies dreses, causing the courtyard to glitter and cast faint shadows. It was far more spectacular then any of the balls the convent held. Erin seemed to be thinking the same thing.
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"Who are you looking for?" Luke asked, for the third time, as he cuaght Thom looking across the courtyard for something or someone. He swapped a glance with Elton. Neither of them knew what was up with their friend. Since he had disappeared after practice that afternoon, Thom had been acting a little on edge. Luke rolled his eyes and was about to say something else, when he spotted two girls walk into the courtyard. He stared, surprised.
It was the two girl he saw in the marketplace, earlier that day! He stared at the girl who had reminded him of Thom. Now that she was dressed up, she was actually fairly attractive. Not the best, he admitted, but there was sort of quality about her, from the way she walked and held herself, that let others know that she was in charge and took didn't nonsense from anybody. His eyes drifted over to her extremely pretty friend. She wore a unusual, but beautiful that suited her well. He tapped Thom on the shoulder.
"Hey, Thom… there's the girl I was talking about before. The one with the violet eyes!" he whispered, before realising that there wa no way the two girls would be able to hear him over the music played by a experienced quartet at the side of the courtyard. Thom stared at him for a moment, before looking over to where he was pointing. He mouthed smething under his breath.
"Uh… I'll be right back!" Thom said, before quickly pushing his way through the crowd. At first he hadn't recognised Alanna. He was still used to seeing her back home in breeches and other clothing, refusing to wear anything too girly unless she had to. Yet, here she was. He shook his head, what was going on? Alanna spotted Thom just before he reached her.
"There you are, Thom!" she said, dragging him by his arm over to the side of the courtyard. She brushed her hair from her eyes, absently. Thom grinned.
"Mithros, Alanna… I wouldn't have been surprised if you had lost your nerve and decided to skip the festival!" he said, with an almost mocking tone. Alanna rolled her eyes. She was about to remind him that she never backed away form anything, before remembering that Erin had stopped her at the last minute. Instead, she bit back her remark. Thom hadn't finished teasing her yet.
"You're actually wearing a dress too… a very nice one, at that. Where'd you get the money and time to get a new one fitted?" he asked, glancing down at her shimmering dark dress. Alanna raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms.
"Are you really that blind, brother dear?" she asked.
Thom looked again, closer this time. "It's the same dress!" he exclaimed, "let me guess? Erin fixed it up for you?" When Alanna nodded, her grinned. He knew the set look on Alanna's face. She was getting impatient. "Okay, just one more thing… you're actually wearing make-up?"
Alanna groaned. Didn't her brother know when to stop? But it was true, she didn't like wearing make up that often, but had allowed Erin to brush some light foundation and darken her lips to match the dress. Though she had disagreed at first, she had to admit… Erin had done a good job. She shifted slightly.
"Are you done yet?" she snapped at Thom, arms still crossed. He nodded and grinned again.
"Oh, I guess so," he said, before taking a deep breath, "well, we already discussed that their Majesties wouldn't do anything if you told them now. Or it would do, is expose the fact that you know about their plot, putting you and Erin in a lot of danger. So that's out of the question until we find out something more. Any ideas on who could be behind all of this?"
Alanna shook her head, "none. All I do know is, is that someone at the convent could help prevent their plan from working. But I don't know how exactly, or who he is!"
Thom looked around quickly, "keep your voice down… Well, keep that in mind anyway, we may have to find out who this person is if we want to stop the plan from working. I'll keep a look for anyone suspicous as well as other information around the Palace. You and Erin can-"
Alanna gave her brother a strange look when he suddenly stopped, "Thom?"
"Um, Alanna… where is Erin?"
Alanna was shocked at this. She had automatically assumed that Erin had been standing beside her the whole time. Shaking her head, she covered a smile. She had thought it had been a little too quiet. Looking around the courtyard, she spotted Erin and rolled her eyes. She was standing in the middle of a small group of young knights and squires. She cocked her head in her direction.
Thom laughed when he saw her and some of the knights flirting, "I must say, Erin does have good taste"
"Oh?"
"She's standing in the middle of some of the best young knights Tortall has"
Alanna sighed, "that doesn't exactly explain a lot, you know Thom"
"Okay, let me put it this way. She's talking, no… make that flirting with the crown Prince, his two best friends, their squires and the best fencer we have"
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AN × Oops… didn't quite go the way I wanted to, but oh well. I can't really be bothered to retype the whole thing. Hehe. Don't worry, that's not the end of the festival… I'm just going to break it up into parts over different chapters. Please R/R!
Reaya - For some reason I always end up spelling practice… 'practise'… don't ask me why. I usually rely on spellcheck to automatically fix it up! =) but I've turned spellcheck off while I'm typing the chapters, cause I was sick of it always underlining the names it doesn't recognise. Hehe. But thanks for pointing that out to me! ~ She'll meet Jon and the others in the next chapter ;)
Kaelin - Thanks for the review. I was trying to think of an original storyline that hadn't been used before, but I couldn't come up with anything! So, I thought I might as well go with an alanna-goes-to-the-convent story. Lol
Rinamin - yay, I'm glad you like Erin. Hehe. I want to set her and another character from the story up, but I haven't quite decided who yet, though I have a few ideas. Feel free to post/review any suggestions if you want.
Mist Tiger - Oops… I wasn't too clear in my last chapter about Alanna's hair colour. Lol. I just wanted Alanna's hair to be slightly different than how it would be in the books. So, my excuse is… is that at the convent, the First Daughter, etc… were convinced that having fire red hair would make her stand out too much, and that most men wouldn't want a wife with such bright hair. It was also coming into fashion, to have rich, dark hair, so they (and some other girls at the convent) helped to dye her hair a more reddish-brown. Okay, so my logic doesn't exactly work out… but… hehe. Use your imagination and invent your own reason if you want! =) And the balls at the convent thing… well, I guess they'd have small balls or dances to practice and get them ready for when they leave. Or that's just how it is in my own little world ;) It wouldn't be anything big or serious though.
Thanks for all the reviews!! I'll try to update again soon…
---× Lady Kalitana ×---
