A/N: Another year, another story, right? Yay! I'm actually really excited
about this one, which might be disappointing to some of you: I don't plan
on using a lot of Tamora Pierce's characters, because I'll mostly just be
borrowing her world and creatures.
***In our world***
Phi blinked drowsily and rolled over in her bed, and stretched her arm across Alex. He murmured something and rolled over so that he was facing her, "What is it...? "He glanced over his shoulder at their clock, "...honey, it's three o' clock in the morning..."
"I know...but I thought I heard a knock on the door..."
Alex sat up sleepily and Phi quickly pulled up their covers as their bedroom door creaked open and a small boy poked his head through. Phi smiled sleepily and motioned for the child to come closer, "What's the matter sweetie?"
"Mommy, I had a bad dream again..." He crawled up onto the bed and Phi hugged the boy as Alex reached over and turned a light on.
"Oh...again, Devic? Do you want to tell us what it was about?" She began to stroke the boy's brown hair and Alex looked somewhat concerned. This was the third nightmare he had had this month. The poor boy was going to get insomnia if this kept up.
The boy shook his head but said anyway, "It was about you and Daddy and Uncle Tom...and there was this mean man and some other people and he was hurting you mommy..."
A small light flashed in Phi's eyes but she smiled and lifted up Devic's head so he was looking up at her, "Don't worry...It was just a dream. See, I'm still here, and so is Daddy." Alex nodded and moved closer to them, putting his arm around his son who was trembling now and about to burst into tears.
"But...but...Mommy, you were getting hurt, and the mean man was laughing at Daddy and Uncle Tom and another boy!"
Phi began to gently rock Devic as best she could half-lying down, "It's okay...do you want to tell me what the mean man looked like?"
The boy shook his head again, but still kept on talking, squeezing Phi's arm tighter, "He had hair like yours and eyes like daddy's and he wore funny clothes like from the stories you read me, and he had something drawn on his hand, and he talked funny too...and...and...he was scary..."
Alex's face softened and he reached over and lifted Devic off of Phi, who looked like she was losing feeling in her legs and her arm and put him on his own lap, "Devic, I wouldn't let anything happen to your mommy...Now, do you think that you will be able to get back to sleep?"
The boy slowly nodded his head and Alex turned to glance at Phi before saying, "Well, how about if I come and tuck you in? Did you wake up your little brother when you came down here?" The boy shook his head again and slid off the bed as Alex swung his legs around and pulled off his covers. Alex grabbed the boy's hand, led him out of their bedroom, and back into his own room.
Fifteen minutes later he softly opened the door and firmly shut it behind him, looking very tired now that his five-year-old boy wasn't there to see him. He climbed into bed and Phi wrapped her arms around him and gazed anxiously into his eyes, "Do you think that he dreamed about us?"
Alex pulled her a little closer and drew the covers up closer around them, trying to block out the cold night air that was seeping into their room, "What do you mean?"
"Do you think that...that man he dreamed about was, well...Trycos?"
Alex frowned and closed his eyes, wanting to just get back to sleep again, "No Phi, now can I go to sleep?"
"Alex!" She poked him in the stomach and he scowled at her, but his now opened eyes were not at all angry, "Do you think that it is possible that he is dreaming about us in Tortall?!"
Alex groaned and propped himself up on his elbows, "Well, I suppose he could be, but, Phi, come on...We haven't even told Devic about any of that...How could he possibly know or even dream about it?"
"Well, I don't know, but the description he gave sounded a lot like Trycos to me..."
"Phi, it sounded like about half the world's population...brown eyes, brown hair...It's nothing to get worried about!"
"What about the drawing on his hand, and the clothes that I'm guessing looked like they came from the middle ages?" Alex rolled his eyes, "And the strange language he was speaking?"
"Honey, that could just have been Devic's imagination...you know how much he likes stories about kings and heroes, maybe he was reading one before he went to bed and he just began to dream about it..." Phi still looked unconvinced, so he fell back down on the bed and put his arms back around her, "But I'll tell you what...Tomorrow morning, as soon as I see fit to wake up, I'll call your brother and we'll talk to him about it...maybe he can convince you..."
Phi frowned but nodded, "All right...I hope we can get a hold of him..."
"Don't worry! We're family! Now go to sleep, or at least let me go to sleep...I have to go to work tomorrow... "
"Yes, well I worked today, so don't start complaining again!"
"...I wouldn't dream of it..."
Phi snuggled deeper into Alex's arms and together they fell asleep almost instantaneously.
In the morning, after waking the boys up and getting Luke, the younger one, dressed, Alex finally was able to get to the phone before he left for work. He dialed the number and checked his watch as the other line rang...it was 8:23...Tom should definitely be up by now...He heard the click of someone picking up on the other end, "Hello? Tom? It's Alex..."
He heard a rummaging of paper work and grinned. His friend had begun to work for NASA, just as he had predicted, and was one of their chief scientists with aeronautics and space travel, and he was always busy... "Alex! It's good to hear a friendly voice again..."
"Tom, we called you three days ago..."
"Only three days? Time sure does seem to drag here...So, what's up? Is everything okay over there?"
"Ya, well, actually..." Alex turned his back to the room behind him where Phi was trying to keep Devic and Luke occupied by giving them paper and crayons to draw with, "We had another issue last night..."
"Another one? Jesus, Alex...Is Devic watching a lot of scary TV shows or something because this is getting a little ridiculous..."
"You're telling me...Anyway...this time he actually told us what he was dreaming about...and it has gotten Phi a little worried..."
"Why? Was it gross or something?"
"No... It seems that he was dreaming about us, the three of us and someone else, he didn't know who, and there was another man who was hurting Phi, and when Devic gave us his description, Phi began to freak out a little because it sounded somewhat like...Trycos..."
"Hmm...put her on the line..."
Alex put the phone down and walked over to Phi, motioning her over to it, and taking her place watching what the boys were drawing. He gazed at their pictures and smiled. Luke's was nothing more than a bunch of multi- colored scribbles, but Devic's was strangely good. Alex frowned and bent lower over the boy's shoulder, watching him as he colored in his drawing. His son didn't know how to draw that good...not yet anyway. And it was of...a castle...but...it wasn't just any castle...it looked exactly like the capital of Tortall... Alex crouched down so he was level with Devic and pointed to his picture, "This is very good Devic! How did you think of drawing it?"
The boy shrugged, "I dunno...I saw it last night when I was sleeping..."
Alex narrowed his eyes and nodded, "Do you mind if I show this to your Mommy?"
The boy shook his head and Alex picked up the paper and walked quickly over to Phi, his mind buzzing. It wasn't possible, was it? He tapped Phi on the shoulder and held the drawing out. She stopped in mid sentence and stared at the drawing, then at Alex. He motioned towards the boys, "Devic drew it...he says that he saw it in his dreams..."
From the telephone he heard Tom ask what was wrong and Phi quickly shook her head to clear it and said, "Um...Tom...I think one of your nephews shares a certain talent of yours...or maybe I should call it...a Gift..."
"What? What do you mean? What happened?"
"Alex just handed me a picture that Devic drew...it's of Tortall..."
Tom's voice sounded surprisingly grave, "...Are you sure?"
"...Yes..."
"Okay...Tell you what, I'm coming back up there and I should be there by tonight." Phi nodded even though she knew Tom couldn't see it. "All right...tell Alex I'll see him soon..." He hung up and Phi slowly did the same, transfixed by the picture in her hands.
Alex fidgeted for a moment before glancing at his clock and jumping up, "Oh my god! It's almost 8:45! I'm going to be late!" He ran over to his sons and kissed them both lightly on the head, "Be good for mommy okay?" He walked quickly over to Phi and kissed her and said softly, "I'll try to come home early today okay?" She nodded slowly and he kissed her again, more ardently this time, "Try not to worry to much..."
This seemed to wake her up and she nodded briskly to him and waved as he drove off. Closing the door behind him, she slowly turned around to face her boys again, trying her best to smile, "All right...now that Daddy's gone, who wants to go to the park?"
Two hands shot up in the air and Phi smiled genuinely this time, all thoughts of Trycos and Tortall escaping from her mind.
***In Tortall***
A bell softly rang in the distance as the sun began to peak over the nearby hills. A young knight sat up in his bed and stretched, trying to rid himself of the aches that were running through his arms and legs, his scar on his left forearm and cheek burning slightly in the cold morning air.
He stood up gingerly and walked briskly over to the dresser to get dressed for another day of keeping the peace. He sighed and rubbed his face, surveying the un-orderly pile of shirts and breeches in his drawer, freed one of each from the knot of fabric, and slipped them on. He walked over to a chair sitting in front of a desk littered with scraps of paper and maps of Tortall and its surrounding regions, picked up a thick leather belt with a dagger attached to it and put it on, along with a pair of riding boots. He grabbed a pair of riding gloves off his side table before he stepped out of the room, making sure to lock the door behind him.
He sauntered down the Palace hall, slowly waking his senses to the world around him as he passed his friends' rooms and quickly trotted down the stairs past the dinning hall and down yet another long passage to end up in the back of the stables.
He yanked his gloves on and walked over to a chestnut stallion near the end of the room. He was about to begin to saddle it up when a voice rang out from the other end of the stables, "Hey! What do you think you are doing? Oh...Sorry Devic, I did not recognize you...You are not usually up this early in the morning..."
"It's all right Will, but I have some urgent business to attend to and I needed to leave quickly so I didn't want to go through the hassle of calling anyone over."
"Um...well, as long as I'm here, let me help." Devic nodded easygoingly and let his younger cousin help him to saddle and bridle his horse. "So, where you going now?"
"I am headed for the Scanran border..."
"Why? I thought everything was pretty peaceful up there now a days..."
"It is..."
His cousin looked at him for a moment, looking confused, "Then why would you want to go up there?...Oh...Did you get another lead on Trycos...?"
Devic motioned for his little cousin to be silent as a gardener passed by the front of the stables, "Yes."
"Do you think it is real this time? You know, Devic, you are spending an awfully long time searching for this guy. Your men are starting to wonder if you are a bit touched in the head, and sometimes, I wonder too..."
"They're just starting to wonder? Good, I thought they had figured it out months ago...it's reassuring to know that most of them are complete idiots as well as terrible marksmen..."
"Devic! Just because they didn't stand up to well in your last scuffle doesn't mean that they are terrible marksmen..."
"They fired at least 100 arrows Will...only two of them hit the target, and it was your and my own..."
"Well then...maybe they could use a bit more practice...but you have to give them a little credit, the targets were moving pretty fast..."
"Maybe..." Devic mounted up and led his horse out of its stall, "Anyway, just tell them that I am off to visit our aunt who is very ill, Will..."
"No, you told them that last year when you searched for him...how about our uncle?"
"No, I used that one three months ago, remember?"
"It can be a different uncle then...on your father's side instead of your mothers..."
"Okay...that will work..." Devic urged his horse forward towards the doors of the stables, "Oh, but you can tell the king the truth if he asks...just wait until I leave first!"
"You got it!" Will waved good-bye as Devic galloped off and out of the Palace walls. Will shook his head as he watched him go, "I am sure he will ask...after all, he needs all the good knights he can get..."
A/N: Yes...Haha! The first chapter is completed (even if it is the same as the last chapter of my second story...) *cough*cough*...Anyways, like always, it is once again time for me to beg for reviews, so ya...if you read it please review...it takes like, what? Two minutes at the most? Just give me an idea of what you thought about my new story.
***In our world***
Phi blinked drowsily and rolled over in her bed, and stretched her arm across Alex. He murmured something and rolled over so that he was facing her, "What is it...? "He glanced over his shoulder at their clock, "...honey, it's three o' clock in the morning..."
"I know...but I thought I heard a knock on the door..."
Alex sat up sleepily and Phi quickly pulled up their covers as their bedroom door creaked open and a small boy poked his head through. Phi smiled sleepily and motioned for the child to come closer, "What's the matter sweetie?"
"Mommy, I had a bad dream again..." He crawled up onto the bed and Phi hugged the boy as Alex reached over and turned a light on.
"Oh...again, Devic? Do you want to tell us what it was about?" She began to stroke the boy's brown hair and Alex looked somewhat concerned. This was the third nightmare he had had this month. The poor boy was going to get insomnia if this kept up.
The boy shook his head but said anyway, "It was about you and Daddy and Uncle Tom...and there was this mean man and some other people and he was hurting you mommy..."
A small light flashed in Phi's eyes but she smiled and lifted up Devic's head so he was looking up at her, "Don't worry...It was just a dream. See, I'm still here, and so is Daddy." Alex nodded and moved closer to them, putting his arm around his son who was trembling now and about to burst into tears.
"But...but...Mommy, you were getting hurt, and the mean man was laughing at Daddy and Uncle Tom and another boy!"
Phi began to gently rock Devic as best she could half-lying down, "It's okay...do you want to tell me what the mean man looked like?"
The boy shook his head again, but still kept on talking, squeezing Phi's arm tighter, "He had hair like yours and eyes like daddy's and he wore funny clothes like from the stories you read me, and he had something drawn on his hand, and he talked funny too...and...and...he was scary..."
Alex's face softened and he reached over and lifted Devic off of Phi, who looked like she was losing feeling in her legs and her arm and put him on his own lap, "Devic, I wouldn't let anything happen to your mommy...Now, do you think that you will be able to get back to sleep?"
The boy slowly nodded his head and Alex turned to glance at Phi before saying, "Well, how about if I come and tuck you in? Did you wake up your little brother when you came down here?" The boy shook his head again and slid off the bed as Alex swung his legs around and pulled off his covers. Alex grabbed the boy's hand, led him out of their bedroom, and back into his own room.
Fifteen minutes later he softly opened the door and firmly shut it behind him, looking very tired now that his five-year-old boy wasn't there to see him. He climbed into bed and Phi wrapped her arms around him and gazed anxiously into his eyes, "Do you think that he dreamed about us?"
Alex pulled her a little closer and drew the covers up closer around them, trying to block out the cold night air that was seeping into their room, "What do you mean?"
"Do you think that...that man he dreamed about was, well...Trycos?"
Alex frowned and closed his eyes, wanting to just get back to sleep again, "No Phi, now can I go to sleep?"
"Alex!" She poked him in the stomach and he scowled at her, but his now opened eyes were not at all angry, "Do you think that it is possible that he is dreaming about us in Tortall?!"
Alex groaned and propped himself up on his elbows, "Well, I suppose he could be, but, Phi, come on...We haven't even told Devic about any of that...How could he possibly know or even dream about it?"
"Well, I don't know, but the description he gave sounded a lot like Trycos to me..."
"Phi, it sounded like about half the world's population...brown eyes, brown hair...It's nothing to get worried about!"
"What about the drawing on his hand, and the clothes that I'm guessing looked like they came from the middle ages?" Alex rolled his eyes, "And the strange language he was speaking?"
"Honey, that could just have been Devic's imagination...you know how much he likes stories about kings and heroes, maybe he was reading one before he went to bed and he just began to dream about it..." Phi still looked unconvinced, so he fell back down on the bed and put his arms back around her, "But I'll tell you what...Tomorrow morning, as soon as I see fit to wake up, I'll call your brother and we'll talk to him about it...maybe he can convince you..."
Phi frowned but nodded, "All right...I hope we can get a hold of him..."
"Don't worry! We're family! Now go to sleep, or at least let me go to sleep...I have to go to work tomorrow... "
"Yes, well I worked today, so don't start complaining again!"
"...I wouldn't dream of it..."
Phi snuggled deeper into Alex's arms and together they fell asleep almost instantaneously.
In the morning, after waking the boys up and getting Luke, the younger one, dressed, Alex finally was able to get to the phone before he left for work. He dialed the number and checked his watch as the other line rang...it was 8:23...Tom should definitely be up by now...He heard the click of someone picking up on the other end, "Hello? Tom? It's Alex..."
He heard a rummaging of paper work and grinned. His friend had begun to work for NASA, just as he had predicted, and was one of their chief scientists with aeronautics and space travel, and he was always busy... "Alex! It's good to hear a friendly voice again..."
"Tom, we called you three days ago..."
"Only three days? Time sure does seem to drag here...So, what's up? Is everything okay over there?"
"Ya, well, actually..." Alex turned his back to the room behind him where Phi was trying to keep Devic and Luke occupied by giving them paper and crayons to draw with, "We had another issue last night..."
"Another one? Jesus, Alex...Is Devic watching a lot of scary TV shows or something because this is getting a little ridiculous..."
"You're telling me...Anyway...this time he actually told us what he was dreaming about...and it has gotten Phi a little worried..."
"Why? Was it gross or something?"
"No... It seems that he was dreaming about us, the three of us and someone else, he didn't know who, and there was another man who was hurting Phi, and when Devic gave us his description, Phi began to freak out a little because it sounded somewhat like...Trycos..."
"Hmm...put her on the line..."
Alex put the phone down and walked over to Phi, motioning her over to it, and taking her place watching what the boys were drawing. He gazed at their pictures and smiled. Luke's was nothing more than a bunch of multi- colored scribbles, but Devic's was strangely good. Alex frowned and bent lower over the boy's shoulder, watching him as he colored in his drawing. His son didn't know how to draw that good...not yet anyway. And it was of...a castle...but...it wasn't just any castle...it looked exactly like the capital of Tortall... Alex crouched down so he was level with Devic and pointed to his picture, "This is very good Devic! How did you think of drawing it?"
The boy shrugged, "I dunno...I saw it last night when I was sleeping..."
Alex narrowed his eyes and nodded, "Do you mind if I show this to your Mommy?"
The boy shook his head and Alex picked up the paper and walked quickly over to Phi, his mind buzzing. It wasn't possible, was it? He tapped Phi on the shoulder and held the drawing out. She stopped in mid sentence and stared at the drawing, then at Alex. He motioned towards the boys, "Devic drew it...he says that he saw it in his dreams..."
From the telephone he heard Tom ask what was wrong and Phi quickly shook her head to clear it and said, "Um...Tom...I think one of your nephews shares a certain talent of yours...or maybe I should call it...a Gift..."
"What? What do you mean? What happened?"
"Alex just handed me a picture that Devic drew...it's of Tortall..."
Tom's voice sounded surprisingly grave, "...Are you sure?"
"...Yes..."
"Okay...Tell you what, I'm coming back up there and I should be there by tonight." Phi nodded even though she knew Tom couldn't see it. "All right...tell Alex I'll see him soon..." He hung up and Phi slowly did the same, transfixed by the picture in her hands.
Alex fidgeted for a moment before glancing at his clock and jumping up, "Oh my god! It's almost 8:45! I'm going to be late!" He ran over to his sons and kissed them both lightly on the head, "Be good for mommy okay?" He walked quickly over to Phi and kissed her and said softly, "I'll try to come home early today okay?" She nodded slowly and he kissed her again, more ardently this time, "Try not to worry to much..."
This seemed to wake her up and she nodded briskly to him and waved as he drove off. Closing the door behind him, she slowly turned around to face her boys again, trying her best to smile, "All right...now that Daddy's gone, who wants to go to the park?"
Two hands shot up in the air and Phi smiled genuinely this time, all thoughts of Trycos and Tortall escaping from her mind.
***In Tortall***
A bell softly rang in the distance as the sun began to peak over the nearby hills. A young knight sat up in his bed and stretched, trying to rid himself of the aches that were running through his arms and legs, his scar on his left forearm and cheek burning slightly in the cold morning air.
He stood up gingerly and walked briskly over to the dresser to get dressed for another day of keeping the peace. He sighed and rubbed his face, surveying the un-orderly pile of shirts and breeches in his drawer, freed one of each from the knot of fabric, and slipped them on. He walked over to a chair sitting in front of a desk littered with scraps of paper and maps of Tortall and its surrounding regions, picked up a thick leather belt with a dagger attached to it and put it on, along with a pair of riding boots. He grabbed a pair of riding gloves off his side table before he stepped out of the room, making sure to lock the door behind him.
He sauntered down the Palace hall, slowly waking his senses to the world around him as he passed his friends' rooms and quickly trotted down the stairs past the dinning hall and down yet another long passage to end up in the back of the stables.
He yanked his gloves on and walked over to a chestnut stallion near the end of the room. He was about to begin to saddle it up when a voice rang out from the other end of the stables, "Hey! What do you think you are doing? Oh...Sorry Devic, I did not recognize you...You are not usually up this early in the morning..."
"It's all right Will, but I have some urgent business to attend to and I needed to leave quickly so I didn't want to go through the hassle of calling anyone over."
"Um...well, as long as I'm here, let me help." Devic nodded easygoingly and let his younger cousin help him to saddle and bridle his horse. "So, where you going now?"
"I am headed for the Scanran border..."
"Why? I thought everything was pretty peaceful up there now a days..."
"It is..."
His cousin looked at him for a moment, looking confused, "Then why would you want to go up there?...Oh...Did you get another lead on Trycos...?"
Devic motioned for his little cousin to be silent as a gardener passed by the front of the stables, "Yes."
"Do you think it is real this time? You know, Devic, you are spending an awfully long time searching for this guy. Your men are starting to wonder if you are a bit touched in the head, and sometimes, I wonder too..."
"They're just starting to wonder? Good, I thought they had figured it out months ago...it's reassuring to know that most of them are complete idiots as well as terrible marksmen..."
"Devic! Just because they didn't stand up to well in your last scuffle doesn't mean that they are terrible marksmen..."
"They fired at least 100 arrows Will...only two of them hit the target, and it was your and my own..."
"Well then...maybe they could use a bit more practice...but you have to give them a little credit, the targets were moving pretty fast..."
"Maybe..." Devic mounted up and led his horse out of its stall, "Anyway, just tell them that I am off to visit our aunt who is very ill, Will..."
"No, you told them that last year when you searched for him...how about our uncle?"
"No, I used that one three months ago, remember?"
"It can be a different uncle then...on your father's side instead of your mothers..."
"Okay...that will work..." Devic urged his horse forward towards the doors of the stables, "Oh, but you can tell the king the truth if he asks...just wait until I leave first!"
"You got it!" Will waved good-bye as Devic galloped off and out of the Palace walls. Will shook his head as he watched him go, "I am sure he will ask...after all, he needs all the good knights he can get..."
A/N: Yes...Haha! The first chapter is completed (even if it is the same as the last chapter of my second story...) *cough*cough*...Anyways, like always, it is once again time for me to beg for reviews, so ya...if you read it please review...it takes like, what? Two minutes at the most? Just give me an idea of what you thought about my new story.