Disclaimer: I wrote all of this myself, but I "borrowed" the setting and most of the characters from Tamora Pierce. Enjoy!

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Alanna glared at herself in the full-length mirror before her, trying her best not to squirm as her seamstress went about the tedious work of fitting the queen, infamous for hating social gatherings, for a new dress required to go to one of those such horrors. (As Alanna considered them.) The seamstress, a young woman who was nevertheless amazingly talented with a needle, caught sight of Alanna's face and smothered a laugh as Alanna's angry eyes turned to her.

            "Are you almost finished?" the Lioness snapped, resisting the urge to yank her skirt of the seamstress's hands—such an act would probably send pins flying and then the seamstress would need to start all over, wasting even more of Alanna's time.

            The seamstress nodded wordlessly, keeping her eyes, sparkling with suppressed mirth, on the material she was deftly pinning up.

            Alanna bit back an angry torrent of words. After all, it wasn't this woman's fault that she had to attend an endless stream of boring, pointless parties. For the millionth time since marrying Jonathan, Alanna wondered if she had made the right choice. She had been dubious of the sincerity of his offer, but it had appeared that Jon had truly grown tired of Princess Josiane and realized that his true love lay with Alanna. Not that Alanna doubted that—it was just that she had expected to have time to adjust to someday being queen in the far-off day when Roald and Lianne died.

            That was not to be, as Alanna found upon returning from her quest to find the Dominion Jewel, which Jonathan promised to her as a final adventure before marrying him and becoming a princess—still a warrior and a knight, but one who was mostly grounded in the palace. Alanna had had plans to change Jon's mind about that, but for the moment she had agreed.

            Then, upon returning with the precious Jewel and Princess Thayet, Buri, and Liam Ironarm, the Shang Dragon, in tow, Alanna's happy bubble had been unexpectedly punctured, in two places. First George, her longtime friend and hopeful lover, had greeted her. Although she had been at first overjoyed to see her friend, it had suddenly dawned on Alanna that she would never be able to enjoy little kisses and embraces from George anymore—not when she was a princess, and certainly not when she was a Queen of Tortall! She had thought she'd wrestled over that one enough before accepting Jon's marriage proposal, but apparently the feelings were still there.

            Second, Raoul, another long-time friend and fellow knight, had found her. Again she had been overjoyed to see an old friend, but Raoul's visit was accompanied with terrible news: Queen Lianne had died from weakness caused previously by Jon's cousin, Duke Roger, and shortly thereafter King Roald had died in a hunting accident. Later Jon had confided in her that his father had in fact taken his own life.

            Alanna had gone to Jon with plans to announce that she could not marry him, at least not yet, despite her earlier vow to, when she had been confronted with that news. Seeing Jon brokenly crying as he poured out his soul to her, Alanna hadn't the heart to tell him her original purpose for coming to speak with him.

            And so now here she was, wondering yet again what in the world she had gotten herself into.

            At last the seamstress rose, smoothing her skirt daintily, as she announced,

            "All right, Your Majesty, I'm finished. Just let me take that to sew it up, and it will be ready for you by tonight. I'll send it over with a servant."

            Making no effort to hide her relief at being finished with the monotony of dress-fitting, Alanna stepped out of the dress as hurried as she could without damaging the silk and pulled on, more roughly, her comfortable clothes: white blouse, tan breeches and tunic, and leather ankle-boots. As the seamstress left, bearing away the dress and her pins and needles, Alanna buckled on her sword belt and quickly tied back her hair before striding out of the room and down to the practice yards, where she could vent some of her frustration in a bout with someone.

            On the way out she passed a meeting room, and upon glimpsing Jon inside slipped by guiltily, trying to avoid being noticed: she was supposed to be attending that meeting, most likely, but at the moment she didn't think she could take another dull talk about something that she supposed concerned the kingdom in the remotest possible way, but never something she would give a second thought to were it not called to the attention of Tortall's monarchs.

            Reaching the practice yards, Alanna was about to step onto one of the empty courts when she noticed the occupants of the next one and ducked back out of sight, a cold sweat beginning to break out over her. That was the third problem: Duke Roger. She had killed him in a duel years earlier after she had discovered that he planned to kill Jon, King Roald, and Queen Lianne in order to seize the throne for himself. However, her sorcerer-brother, Thom, had brought him back from the dead while she was away on her quest for the Jewel in response to a taunt by some of Roger's old admirers. Roger had sworn to have put his old ways behind him, had sworn that he had no intention to again try to take the throne, but Alanna didn't trust him, and she was afraid of him—she couldn't even begin to imagine what sort of resentment he must harbor towards her, the woman who had slain him.

            In all the time she had been back at the palace, she had done her best to stay out of his way, and he appeared to do the same—but she felt distinctly uneasy around him. Chancing another peek, she saw that he was sparring with Alex, one of Jon's year-mates in the years they had all been training as pages and squires. Alanna found herself frowning. Alex had become Roger's squire many years earlier, and since she and him had not been as close as they used to be, and now Alanna found that she couldn't help distrusting him a little, too. Anyone who was a close as he was to Roger, well… she was just as well off without spending excess time with him.

            Alanna fought down the queasy feeling in her stomach as she turned from the practice yards and headed for the stables—perhaps a ride would do her good. Thankfully, the stables were empty, and she headed straight for her horse Moonlight's stall. The golden mare thrust her head into her mistress's chest, whinnying happily, as Alanna opened the stall door and led her horse out.

            "Yes, girl, I've been neglecting you, haven't I?" Alanna whispered as she found Moonlight's saddle and began to tack her horse up. "But not by my own choosing." Her voice hardened as she added, "If I had my way, you and I wouldn't set foot in this palace for a year, minimum. We'd go off adventuring and never have to attend another stupid party. Or at least, I wouldn't have to."

            Moonlight whickered in agreement, and Alanna couldn't help but let a brief smile flicker across her face before letting it return to the grimness she seemed always to be wearing now. With any luck, the ride would take her mind off Roger, Alex, Jon, and most of all, being Queen of Tortall.

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Well, R/R! Hope you liked it!