Disclaimer- I think we all know this by now….*sigh*, I own NOTHING, tamora pierce owns everything. Correction- I don't own any character that you recognize, but I own the unfamiliar ones, and I own the plot itself, which, I am sorry to say, makes no sense what so ever.
A/N: I KNOW that I shouldn't be starting a new fanfic when I have two other stories that I have tons of ideas for and were not updated PURELY because I was too lazy to type them. Only….I have to start this one, it's weird, but I feel like I really should right it down. That sounds weird….so let me explain-basically, I had a dream one night. A dream about alanna and thom….and something else. I am sorry if the plot doesn't make much sense, but bear with me, it was a DREAM. And I must say, it was VERY interesting –scary….
Now for the story/dream
If I understood the dream correctly, Alanna should be a lady, in the palace, having had no magical or weapons training, not a particularly original fic, but….that's the way it went. She spoke often with her brother who would teleport, using his gift, over to her to see her as often as possible. The twins loved each other in a way only twins could, and, despite the many problems in their life, they were always there for each other.
Thom was training to be a who knows what (sorry, if the dream told me I forgot it right away), that had both magic and weapons training. Alanna was unable to learn, stuck wherever she was, but I am guessing to be the convent.
(A/N: some flashes of the past, to make more sense, I am sorry if this fic makes little sense, but in a dream there are things that you know without being told, and things that you forget when you wake up.)
* "NO! I won't learn magic!" Alanna's scared voice floated through the whole
building, "NO! NO! NO! NOT IN YOUR LIFETIME! If you think that my magic is powerful and needs training, I'll use it on YOU!"
Alanna had been screaming for hours and the ladies were fed up with her and her fear of magic, afterall, didn't she have a twin brother that would KILL to become a mage? That wanted to learn magic so much that he, a man who swore the day he learned to fight was the day the black god's realm froze over, became a warrior-mage? The ladies were desperate, desperate enough to call on (A/N: I am SOO sorry, but the time that her name was mentioned in my dream was a time when I thought that she was unimportant so I forgot her name, it either started with a N or a R, I'll take N) Nerziedea, or, to Alanna, Nurse. This woman had taken care of Alanna for a long time and Alanna trusted her with her life…and Thom trusted her with his sister's life. Basically, she meant a lot to the family.
"Alanna? What's wrong?" came the soothing tones of the woman who replaced her mother.
Alanan hiccupped, "I am scared, you know I am, I don't want to learn magic!"
Nurse started to soother her and tried many different ways to convince her to learn magic, but to no avail. Alanna was set on not learning. The Nurse finally pulled out her secret weapon….
"Alanna, I swear to you that magic will not hurt you and that it will benefit you in the future. Besides, what would your brother think of you if you didn't-"
Mistake. A mistake on Nurse's side. Alanna was this |~| close to accepting the inevitable…until she said that thing about Thom. Alanna knew Thom inside out, they could even read each other's thoughts, with effort (unless it was a really storng emotion, then it was easier), and the thought that Thom would EVER think badly of her made her blood boil, death wasn't enough for these people, how dare they!
Everyone blanched at the fury that suddenly filled Alanna's face; it was like a fire had been kindled in a forest, the forest was very dry, and someone rolled a burning log right into a pile of leaves, I think you get how terrible that is. Cringing, they wondered what Alanna would do this time (last time she was mad she freed all the horses in the stable into the convent, causing a stampede throughout the entire building, trampling some people, although, with the healing skills of the priestesses, they all survived.), and if they would live through her wrath.
Alanna tried to calm herself down, but the thing that they had said about her brother was just too much, her eyes were seeing red, and she felt like she was going to burn up, inside out. Instinct took over, and she hurled the flames away from her, before momentarily falling into a dark slumber.
Waking up seconds later, feeling week, but no longer angry, Alanna had to rub her eyes to make sure that she wasn't dreaming. Although, I suppose she would rather think herself dreaming. She wondered for a moment if she had died, or if she had been thrown into a fire pit.
If you guessed that she had set the WHOLE convent on fire, you couldn't be more right. Any walls not made of stone here on fire, the large picture of Prince Jonathon of Conte` was no longer on the walls, but a pile of ashes. All of the priestesses that had the gift were trying to quench the fire. Alanna chucked, amused, until someone grabbed her and shouted in her face, "GET RID OF THIS FIRE YOU STUPID GIRL! THE GREAT MOTHER GODDESS ALONE KNOWS WHY WE KEEP YOU, YOU UNGRATEFUL WITCH!"
Alanna was NOT pleased at that. "Either you SHUT UP, or you prepare to be incinerated. It's your and those other blasted priestess's fault that this ever happened, okay? So YOU fix the mess you put yourself into."
Needless to say, when the priestesses finally repaired all the Convent that they could, and healed all the ladies in the building, they were not pleased…. *
* "need to punish her…."
"she didn't know what she was doing…"
"not her, doesn't have enough training…."
"who cares, nearly killed us all…."
Alanna sighed, she couldn't care less about these people and their punishments, but here she was, being made to sit here and wait for the to make a final decree.
"So it's decided? Very well, Alanna of Trebond will be forced to learn to not only control her magic, but to use it. Starting this day forth Alanna will be trained in magic-"
"Wait!"
Alanna leaned closer to the door…
"remember your promise to me? You said that she wouldn't be taught magic of any strength, that was my one demand, do not defy me."
Alanna frowned, the voice was familiar, but she couldn't quite place it…
"Very well, I will be sure to write that in my command to the teachers. Let us go inform Alanna."*
* "I ask you for the last time Alanna, will you or will you not agree to learn lessons of magic." A priestess asked, or, rather, said, it wasn't a question to the priestess, she knew the answer, and only duty had made her ask the question in the first place.
Alanna's only answer was to spit in the face of the priestess, who snarled with rage and attempted to begin the lessons with Alanna tied in a chair, facing a board.
Let me say this, it is amazing what Alanna wouldn't learn when she set her mind to it, a.k.a, Alanna didn't learn a thing from those lessons, in fact, it was as if she hadn't spent two years sitting inside the classroom learning nothing. Oh, she learned all the lady stuff, if only to get out of the lessons, but. No matter what, she never learned a word of those magic lessons. In fact, the only magic that she could stand was the magic Thom used: teleporting to see her, and talking to her in her head.
The head priestess finally resorted to desperate, illegal ways to make Alanna learn….
Three days later Alanna found herself once again strapped to the chair, but this time she was not alone in the room with the boring, stuffy priestess-magic teacher, but with her and ten other priestesses. The head priestess sigh and told Alanna, exasperation tingeing her voice, "you brought this upon yourself, silly girl, but I will give you one last chance to rectify your mistakes, take it or leave it, I will MAKE you learn either way."
Alanna had the same reaction to this as she had to what the other priestess said, spittle.
The Head Priestess growled and snarled, "very well, Alanna, when you GIVE UP, tell me, I will stop and you can start you lesson." With that, the Priestess sent out a wave of her orange-red gift to wash over Alanna, playing on her fear of the gift.
For a while Alanna contiplated giving up, her fear of the gift overwhelming her, but, in the end, her love and loyalty to Thom (they dissed his love for her, she hates them) drove her on, past fear of death, past fear of the gift. Alanna looked at the orange-red gift and started to laugh, as if it were all a joke. Then said a word that seemed to freeze time. The orange-red gift disappeared, and the owner of it, the Head Priestess (for those of you who don't remember), gasped in pain, her gift gone, and unlikely to return for months.
Everyone looked at her with fear, knowing how powerful you had to be to cast that spell, no one without buckets of gift could cast that spell, none of them could. "I should never have taught you that spell," murmured Nurse, "but I never thought that you or your brother would be capable of using it."
Alanna smiled, "neither did I, neither did I…"
Of course, not even Alanna was strong enough to suck out the gift of anyone who wasn't hurling it in her face, and the usage of the spell had drained her. That is why Alanna couldn't fight the second priestess, the magic teacher, from cvoming up to her and resorting to plan B….
The magic teacher put two fingers to Alanna's temples, and put two fingers to her own. Then putting the fingers that was on her temple, the teacher forced her knowledge of spell casting into Alanna's head.
Alanna screamed, not from pain, but from anger that they dared to do such a thing to her. Spells raced through her mind, she would KILL them for that…before she realized that she knew no more offensive spells, and the only ones that she had enough gift left for were spells that they had taught her. Of course, most of the spells that they taught her were not meant for fighting, but for household things and protection (very little of that too!), but Alanna swore to herself that even with the knowledge of spells in her mind she would not cast them. She knew that they had only planted the spells for attacking in her mind to tempt her to use them.
Alanna set her jaw before saying, "just because you gave me those spells, it doesn't mean I'll EVER use them. My advice to you is to go to the Black God's realm and not come back."
The Priestesses to be kind, were shocked. They had never thought that neither of these things would work, they thought such an idea was foolproof. What would they do?
Well, they were lucky, Nurse discreetly whispered something into the head priestess's ear, although Alanna, fuming did not notice. The Head Priestess nodded before saying, "Alanna, if you will not agree to learn magic we will not allow you to continue to speak to your brother for the rest of your stay in the convent."
Alanna was shocked. Thom had told her that no one had noticed their conversations, and, rare though they were, Alanna lived on them. Lived on the thought of seeing her brother, only got through each day with the hope of seeing her beloved twin. Alanna didn't know how they learned of her weakness, but the second the thought of never talking to Thom again was laid before her; all the fight ran out of her.
"How…"
"How did we know, Alanna?" Laughed the High Priestess triumphantly, then, lying when Alanna nodded in reply to her question, "we knew all along that you were speaking to him, but we figured we would wait until we needed to stop them. We also noticed that talking to him made you work harder. Well, are you with us or not?"
Alanna blanched, then nodded, "I am with you." *
(A/N: the past was inside those ** things. Now for the present)
After that Alanna learned. She learned and she learned some more. Oddly enough, the moment that she never spoke to Thom again….
…until she went to the palace.
It was a while before she spoke to him, and the circumstances were very odd (this is one of the only three things that I remember vividly about the dream, kinda sentimental)
But we are not there yet in the story.
Alanna saw Thom very, very often, but they never spoke. They met in parties. Only in parties. And they never had time to speak. It seemed as if his masters had turned his brain into mush and all Thom seemed to care about now was flirting with women, studies, flirting with women, his studies, flirting with women, avoiding Alanna, flirting with women, oh and did I say flirting with women?
Alanna was hurt badly by the way her brother was acting and really wanted to hurt him. The person that she had suffered years after years in the convent for seemed to be nothing more than another buffle brained noble man.
The thought of her twin, her second self, changing hurt her so deeply she didn't even care that she was disobeying the convent by not searching for a husband as would be banned from Thom's adventures in her room (they would stop Thom from going into her room if he tried either magically or forcefully).
Alanna even contemplated suicide; she was in such mental pain. She tried more than once to read Thom's mind, but he had somehow blocked it from her, she couldn't talk to him, she couldn't be one with him anymore. Alanna often wondered if she was strong enough to steal Thom's magic teacher's gift.
Whenever she was near to Thom she projected thoughts and feelings to him…. and he didn't seem to receive thems, it was almost like he didn't notice or care that Alanna hurt, though he used to be able to feel the pain Alanna felt when she scraped a knee. She supposed it had to do with her not being able to telepathically talk to him.
More days than not Alanna had to cry herself to sleep…. Sleep. Her only solace from the pain…yet she could never sleep for long, nightmares waking her up every single god's curst time she tried to drown herself in them. Forcing herself to sleep every night, every bite seemed to catch into her throat, something like sand paper.
Finally, a month into the season, she received a letter from the convent ordering her to marry within a month, or forever loose contact with Thom. Sobbing with pain and regret, she wrote back telling them that she couldn't care less. A week later a letter warned her that they were not bluffing. Laughing for the first time in a month, Alanna threw the paper into the hearth where the fire consumed it. When the fire died down, Alanna scattered the ashes into the wind.
A day later Alanna was informed that a guard would be posted outside her door, who, if he heard a single unrecognized voice coming from her room, would capture the intruder and personally send him to whomever was in charge of him for punishment.
That night Alanna lay awake in bed, dressing in a loose night gown, when she thought she saw something. Alanna pulled on her dressing gown and started to sit up she felt a pull. Moments later she found herself in an odd, rather masculine room.
Dropping into a crouch Alanna looked around and saw something that made her breath catch. "Good, I was waiting for those twits to finally say that (referral to the letter sent to Alanna, heread her mind and saw that, Alanna knows this cuz she read his mind) and for you to defy them. I didn't take you earlier because in the convent you were watched by someone, I wish I knew who, but I don't. Alanna, please, for my sake, do NOT go back to accepting their rule. I will make sure that they don't catch us. "
Alanna stared at him speechless, not knowing what to say….
"Any questions? No? Well then, let's get started with our lessons. I know you really want to learn how to fight with the sword along with hand to hand and other such fighting. I will also teach you how to use magic, you aren't afraid of magic anymore, are you." The last being a statement, not a question.
Alanna started at him in shock, not knowing what to say. Thom frowned for a minute, lying back on his dark red bed (okay, I am sorry, but here is a description of his room, that I can remember, that is) looking for a minute at the dark red canopy, held up with dark golden-brown poles, before sweeping across the room, over the walls the same color as his poles, and the carpets and tapestries covering the walls and floor (same color as the bed and bed canopy, no windows). Then a crooked smile graced his face, "Sister dear, you don't honestly think that I am interested in flirting, do you?"
Alanna had to grin at that, as tension left her body, and for the first time in a month and a half she gave a true smile, 'no,' she thought, 'Thom has never been one for chasing after girls pause and neither have I.'
A/N: okay, I know I could go into great detail about how relieved Alanna was that her twin loved her, how relieved she was that Thom hadn't changed, how she couldn't wait to start, many things, but the thought and the sentence that provoked the thought are almost direct quotations from the dream, and the have meaning to them, I don't know what meaning, I don't know what meaning, but it was deep, I don't know if it was being assured of his love was it, but I don't know. I really am stumped. I only know that it meant something to them in my dream, so much that I remember it even now. O am really sorry if you don't like this or if it doesn't make sense, but it was a dream, a VERY realistic one, and one that I have felt compelled to tell ever since I first had it. Don't worry about this being a weird place to end the story, or about the lack of plot so far. I stopped here and not earlier/later because this is the first time I woke up. I continued the dream when I went back to sleep (mind control, it took me fourteen years to learn it, and I haven't yet mastered it). That is when all that scary stuff and the plot came in….I would have dropped it then and there, but I had to know what happened. I am not going to say anymore now. It's really late and I hafta go to school tomorrow. Flamers, please do NOT take the time to flame, reviewers, please do…wait…no, I'll say this, it is not fair that I only let nice ppl review, feel free to tell me how wacky things are in here, I don't understand it either, which is why I am typing it down. I made a lot of it up, but all that I made up felt so…right that I put it in there. So hope you can make more sense of it then I can. Enjoy. I spent HOURS on this….about four or five hours….so if I kill you if you flame, don't be surprised.