Disclaimer: Deltora Quest isn't mine, but it's not yours either, ha!
Pairing(s): Erm... none really, outside of what was in the first book. Some very, very vague L/J at the end, if you know what's good for you.
Again, I have only read through Isle of the Dead. Do not flame me for what I do not know, for they will only be forwarded to the kitchen to make chicken fajitas. Also, I do not have spell-check, and I know nobody who has read Deltora Quest who will beta with me, so please excuse what errors I haven't already caught.
Fear the no dialogue. Otherwise, enjoy.
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Sweet and Sour
a short story
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She was sore all over, and it did not seem to matter in what strange position she lay in, for some part of her body would complain about it.
Yet Anna of the forge did not utter a cry. She was used to the pain of the body. Life in the Forests of Silence had made sure of that. It was pain of the spirit that she could not stand. It was all around her, and there was very little she could do about it. Never before had she felt so helpless. More than that, some deep down part of her was infuriated that control over her own life had been taken away from her as cruelly and ruthlessly as it had.
There was a noise from above her. Careful not to move her head, Anna lifted her eyes. Above her, leaning against an outjutting rock and her chains firmly gripped in his hands, her personal Grey Guard issued a strangely subdued snore. Before she could stop it, she smiled, remembering all too well all the things she had done that required one of the pod to keep an eye on her at every waking moment.
"Forest woman," they had growled to one another, all the times she threw the plate that had been already licked clean by the others at their heads and stomped on their ankles whenever they passed too close and yelled to drown out their cursing. "Filth. Wild and untamed and uncivilized."
Would my grandpapa not love that? she thought to herself with private amusement. He raised me to always be polite and courteous, and to always mind my manners and my tone no matter the situation. And here I am, in chains with the fresh prisoners of the east, yet even the Grey Guards fear me!
It had been a few nights since she had been allowed to sleep next to the other prisoners. Word of Anna of the Forests with her exotic herbal remedies had spread quickly among them, and she did not refuse to treat a single wound they presented her with in the darkest part of the night, when the Grey Guards were not watching. She had gained their admiration and their trust as much as she had gained the reluctant respect of the Guards.
Earlier that evening, they had crossed the border into the Shadowlands. Even hours later, the knowledge of it still crawled in Anna's skin, each breath dragged in a horrible lungful of it, the very atmosphere around her seemed to ring with its name. The Shadowlands. The place of Deltoran nightmares. The place where all hope ended.
Shortly before they had crossed the border into this territory of no return, they had been trudging through thick underbrush over an ill-used path on Dread Mountain, with a long line of trees on either side of them. Anna had been forcing her feet to keep moving, though each step was as much an agony to make as it had been that morning, with her Guard at her elbow, his sneering breath hovering on the back of her neck. When, somewhere in the middle of the line, there had been the sharp sound of chains breaking, and a savage cry of triumph.
Anna knew that voice. Suddenly, the last half of the line scattered in every direction like a hundred falling leaves. Some disappeared nimbly into the trees, others crashed away with such noise that it all mingled together until it was difficult to tell each crashing person apart. It had taken two Guards to hold her struggling husband down, before he could find some way to make the chains seemingly dissolve on the front half as well. Several more Guards went off into the forests after the prisoners, and only succeeded in bringing back a scant handful.
Anna's heart swelled with pride and love for Jarred, but she feared for him too, as much as she feared for them all.
Fear for her dearest Jasmine, who must have realized many days ago that her mother and father were not coming back. Whose last memory still burned on the backs of Anna's eyelids, her frightened green eyes wide, tiny face wavering through the haze caused by the fire as she acknowledged her mother's frantic signal.
Fear for Endon and Sharn, whom she barely knew but was not upset to give up her home and identity and life to protect. The worry that was always present in the back of her mind that their secret might be discovered before the time came.
Fear for herself and her beloved, and the tiny life that was growing inside of her, a life that Jarred did not know about, a life that the Guards might sense at any moment. For although she herself knew this would be her last journey, and the life inside of her would never see daylight, Jarred did not, and she willed him the strength to carry on without her.
Anna closed her eyes, and let herself sink into dreams, which were all the beauty she had to her name.
A thousand memories and the strength to keep them alive all that she had left.
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Anna had been born into a world of despair, in a city that was crawling with starving citizens who could not be told apart from the rats. It was a place of ruffians who cared for nothing more than basic survival, who had no thought to spare for preserving morals or traditions, or even the law. Her father had been killed by these people, but Anna was taught not to be angry with them, for they knew no better in these rough times. She must pity them, for they no longer had anyone else to care for them.
That was what she remembered most about her childhood. Crian, her kind-hearted grandfather, teaching her how to behave, how to believe, and most importantly of all, how to hope.
There had been a time when an adventure was taking a different route to get to the market place to buy the daily bread, what little of it there was.
That was a long time ago.
And although she did not know it then, everything changed the day her grandfather called for her aid, supporting a pale, painted boy with unfocused but determined eyes on his shoulder.
At the time, Anna had thought it a rather sad tale. A king who could be led to foolishly believe his best friend from childhood would try to kill him as easily as he would believe the lies he sees from the palace windows. The best friend who had then been hunted like a dog from the palace, only to discover the horror that Del had really become. Her compassion had compelled her to take care of this friendless stranger.
Though his stories of the king's ignorance were rather frightening, she really had no idea how much there was for her to fear. She believed that life would go on as it always had. Jarred, who repaid every kindness given to him as well as he could, would become the blacksmith when Crian finally put his soul to rest, and she would marry him, for love thrived even when most other things did not. Their life together would be hard, but they would raise any children they had with the combined lessons of their lives and be happy.
She supposed that in a way, that all came true. Just not in the way she imagined it to be in her mind.
Because there came the day when she saw those nightmarish creatures from the bedroom window. It was her spontaneous cry that began the irreversable series of events that followed.
Always, forever would that day be burned onto her memory. How nervous she was, sitting at the kitchen table and twisting the cuffs of her sleeves while waiting for her husband to return. The darkened sunrise, the unnatural red clouds brewing around the palace. The three frightened figures in the doorway, one like reality and two like dolls.
Her hands had been trembling uncontrollably as she unwove the plaits in Sharn's hair, while the other woman used a washrag to scrub the paint off her face. Their eyes met each other's eyes in the chipped mirror, reflecting the fear they felt inside as the first screams of terror began to drift through the open window from the city.
How white her knuckles were, hands clapsed over the swell of her stomach, as Jarred whispered his plans to them, like talking in normal tones would give themselves away to the Shadow Lord. She did not fail to notice that dressed in common peasant clothes, faces clear and hair properly cut, Endon and Sharn looked very similar to Jarred and herself. Or any number of their neighbors.
Standing in the doorway of the little house she had lived in all her life, taking one last look at the belongings that would never be hers again, wordlessly saying good-bye to a life that she had loved and had to let go.
Sharn and Endon waving from the forge gates, and feeling their well wishes following them as she and Jarred were swept away into the panic in the streets of Del.
In the years that followed, Anna of the forge became Anna of the Forests. She called upon strength and will she did not even know she possessed.
And somehow, that little bubble of happiness she experienced, when her and her husband's hands made their house in the trees, learning the names of the plants and the birds and the trees and teaching them to her daughter, the same way she was taught how to believe and to hope for a future of freedom; it all meant more to her than anything had in her life before that.
So, even seperated from Jarred and being marched to her death, Anna was at peace.
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Many years after Anna of the forge slipped away in her sleep, another woman struggled to bring herself to consciousness. Usually, she was wide awake at the first noise from Josef, since he expected an immediate response to his demands and she could never bear to disobey him. She was really quite sick of hearing about how wonderful Ranesh had been.
Every part of Paff was sore. It was as if she had strained muscles she did not even know she had. And, to her great surprise, the pillow under her head was not hers, just like the bed she was laying on was not her usual mat on the floor. It was comfortable, and she felt as if she could get used to it with frightening ease.
As it began to sink in that she was not where she was supposed to be, her eyes snapped open, and immediatly began to water. The medic wing of the palace was much better lit than the sleeping quarters of the librarians, and it was not a part of the palace she frequently visited, fortunately.
"You are awake!" a nearby voice exclaimed in a relieved manner, as if there had been some doubt.
Paff turned her head to one side. A woman sat by her bedside, shadows of exhaustion evident under her slanted eyes. Her dark hair had come loose from its careful, formal style and now hung like wild, jagged fingers around her face. Her dress, which Paff seemed to remember was one of the finest the palace still had around, was torn in several places and covered in what looked sickeningly like blood. She was cradling a bruised hand in her lap.
Suddenly, memory came flooding back to Paff.
How hard she had pressed her only good dress that could fit her temporarily extended form to wear for the ceremony. The sudden, horrible pain shooting up her swollen stomach in the middle of it. The blurry figure pushing through the uncertain people around her to catch her as she crumpled. Reaching out blindly and seizing onto the first hand she could find and not relenting her grip for one moment. The medic's amused voice, "Well, Jasmine, looks like you are coming with us, unless you wish to cut off your hand." And then the enveloping darkness, leaving her to wake up here.
Her eyes widened to the size of saucers. "Your majesty!" she gasped, struggling to sit up. "Oh, goodness, I am so sorry! I did not intend to ruin your wedding, or your dress, or your hand! Ohhhh..." Pain rippled across her body in a great wave, and Jasmine pushed her back onto the pillow with surprising gentleness.
"Do not try to move so radically, Paff," she said, looking rather amused. "Your body cannot take it. The ceremony was as boring and traditional as Sharn and Father could have hoped for, and I like the dress even less. It is more a prison than any four walls are." She tugged at a loose strand of her voluminous skirts with disgust.
"Then why," Paff managed. "Have you not gotten out of it? I fear I have been unconscious for a long time, and I cannot imagine that you would stay with me that entire time."
"And what if you woke while I was gone?"
Paff opened her mouth to explain that surely there were many people who would have kept an eye on her, not because they liked her, but because they respected the woman who would have officially become their queen that day if she, Paff, had not interupted the ceremony as thoroughly as she had. Then she closed it again, for what she knew of Jasmine's personality told her that if she wanted something done properly, she would do it herself.
Instead, she demanded with a forcefulness that astonished her, given who she was addressing, "I want to see my baby."
Jasmine smiled. "Naturally."
Scarcely a few minutes later, a dark red, pruney, fussing little girl with bright gold fuzz haloing her head was placed in Paff's arms. All residing pain and memory of the commotion she had aroused faded as she cradled her brand-new child close, crooning.
"Your husband is in the hallway," Jasmine informed her, her voice quiet, as if she did not want to disturb the peace that surrounded the new mother. "He is quite anxious about you, and he has not seen your baby yet."
Paff looked up, and a serious expression descended onto her face. "Your majesty... Jasmine," she corrected herself at the other woman's stern look. "Please... My husband was so insistent that it would be a boy, and after a time I believed him. I do not have a name ready for a girl. And I was wondering... is there somebody important to you whose name you would not mind this child having? I mean, it seems only fair, considering how much trouble I have caused you this day."
There was a moment of silence. Jasmine had turned away, arms folded uncomfortably across the tight bodice she was wearing, apparently lost in thought. In a memory that only she possessed.
"Anna," she said at last. "You may name her Anna."
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la fin
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"for the sake of each memory and the chance to try again"
((A/N: About Anna's second child: I know what Faith said about her life just beginning when Anna was taken from the Forests wasn't real. But it seems to me that the Shadow Lord's actions usually are based off a grain of truth, and he leaves all the lying and decieving to his servants. And besides, I thought it made a nice touch.))