Disclaimer: The characters, places, and all that fun rot are the property of Tamora Pierce and Random House.
Hi all! I'm reposting this because I messed something up... stupid me whacks self on head thanx to meanderer for correcting me! I'm stupid that way... sigh
A/N: wow, getting reviews is so exciting! It made me HAPPY! I realized a little too late that George and Ariel don't talk like 7 year olds... but it's all good... sigh Edit: yes, it's me again. And yes, I'm editing again. Nothing big.
Chapter 3 – The Falcons
There was a group of boys that Andy and I used to play with all the time. Somebody had the brilliant idea of naming us The Falcons, and the name stuck. Even now, when asked what I do, I always reply with a mysterious, "I'm a Falcon". There were boys of all ages, the oldest was probably 18 and the youngest was 4. There was a small smattering of girls but not many; they consisted of me, Lily, and three others.
We liked to play at being part of the King's Own and could be found running in and out of alleyways waving our "swords". Someone found a discarded broomstick somewhere and, after much persuasion, I got Lynne to use some of her precious paints and paint a horse's head on it. We used to have mock duels for possession of the horse.
Sometimes, we would spend our time walking up and down the streets of Corus on Market Day, looking at all the amazing things that could be bought if we had the money. Usually when we did that, the vendors kept a sharp eye on us, since we were known to have taken things from stalls, but someone has yet to find proof to back up that claim. Once in a blue moon, somebody would have enough money to buy something, and us Falcons would help them pick something out. This drove everyone mad because often we would convince them to buy something, and then the lucky person with the money would decide not to get anything after all.
The Dancing Dove was also a popular hangout. Of course, the little ones weren't allowed in, and Solom never gave us anything but lemonade, most of the time. I remember when I turned ten and was deemed old enough to go to the Dancing Dove, I was so excited that Mother somehow managed to get me into a dress. What's worse is, I went out with it on and didn't notice until Lily asked what in the world I was doing wearing a dress. That got everyone else started and I glared at them so fiercely that Solom said I was a regular spitfire.
In return for being allowed to be a part of the Falcons, all of us girls would have to play at being the Captured Princess. It was a vital part in the game of Princes and Princesses that we used to play all the time. Without a Captured Princess, Prince Charming wouldn't have anyone to save, and then what would be the point? Prince Charming was determined by whoever had possession of the horse, Prince Charming had to have a horse. I hated it when my turn came, and it wasn't until later that I realized I had learned two valuable lessons from it. One of them was acting, I had to be a pretty good one, otherwise I wouldn't get saved by my Prince Charming. The second was that perfectly nice guys can be complete perverts.
Once, having just been saved, I was singing, "I like to eat eat eat apples and bananas, I like to eat eat eat apples and bananas. I like to ate ate ate apples and bananas, I like to ate ate ate apples and bananas. I like to eat eat eat epples and benenes, I like to eat eat eat epples and benenes. I like to iat iat iat ipples and bininis, I like to iat iat iat ipples and bininis..." the song goes on. Elspeth had taught it to me, hoping that I would learn my vowels. The only reason I sang it was because it sounded absolutely ridiculous and it made everyone laugh. Eddie, who had been my Prince Charming, came up behind me and asked it I wanted to eat his banana. Never one to give up free food, I nodded vigorously. Imagine my surprise when he pulled off his breeches and told me to go ahead. I stared at him, and then it, and then back at him again. Finally understanding what he had meant, I screeched and ran as fast as I could back home.
George refused to join. He always insisted that he was already part of another "gang" and there was no way we could get him to switch allegiances. It wasn't until years later that I learned he was part of the rouge. By the time I had that figured out, he was already The Rogue. Even though George was never officially one of us, he was so friendly to everyone that we let him play with us, no questions asked.
There were so many Falcons that I don't remember them all, although there were four that I remember very distinctly.
First is Jayson. Jayson was two years older than me and is the nicest looking boy I have ever met in my entire life. It might have been his incredibly high cheekbones and red lips, or maybe it was that tightly muscled look he seemed to have been born with. Possibly it was his curly brownish hair and soulful blue-grey eyes that were framed by the longest lashes I have ever seen. Maybe it wasn't in his looks at all, maybe it was just because he was such a nice person with that cute habit of tugging at his earlobe (which he later pierced) whenever he was troubled. Whatever it was, the girls seemed to flock around him, me included. I had forgotten that I vowed to marry George within about two minutes of meeting Jayson, and was convinced for years that Jayson was the one I was destined to marry. Even Rissa, who considered herself too good for any boy, drooled over pictures of him that Lynne had drawn.
On top of having good looks, Jayson had a great singing voice. After a particularly tiring day of running around Corus with our fake swords hollering war cries, I had fainted from the heat. Jason, being the oldest and strongest there, had picked me up, brought me home, and sang me to sleep when I began to wake. Andy tells me he had then tucked me in, sang another beautiful song, and left. Rissa was jealous for days afterward.
The second is Eddie, unpredictable, perverted, hilarious Eddie (whose real name, I found out, was actually Edwardo). This was the boy who shouted "EWWWW!" whenever someone talked about eating bananas.
Once, upon learning that I would have to bleed all over the place for a week every moon for the rest of my life, I announced, "This sucks butt."
"Ariel!"
"What?"
"Use proper language."
"Sorry O proper brother of mine. Does 'This sucks eggs' suit you?"
"How about 'This sucks nuts'?" someone quipped.
At that, Eddie started banging his head on the wall and announcing to the whole world that all his friends were the most perverted people he had ever met. Of course, nobody had thought of the comment that way until he had brought it up. In seconds everyone was screaming, "Gross", "Ug", "Disgusting", "Sick", "Ewwww", or something along the lines of that. Getting back up, Eddie had rubbed his head, surveyed the chaos he had caused, and grinned.
I don't even remember 'Finger's real name anymore. George had brought him along one day and we had simply admitted him because George had said so. Lightfingers was his full nickname, but someone had the genius idea of shortening it, and so he became 'Fingers. He was the best pickpocket I have ever met, aside from George, of course. His innocent looking eyes made sure that he was never the suspect of any thievery. Andy had once asked him to pull an innocent face, and he did it so well that Andy never even noticed his apple had been taken from his pocket until 'Fingers burst out laughing. He taught me how to pick pockets, and although I was never adept at it, it has come in handy on more than one occasion. It was from him that I learned George was the Rogue. The year I turned sixteen, 'Fingers kept on calling George, "Your Highness". At first we all thought George was making him, but when he persisted, I asked him what was going on. "You mean you don't know?"
I was confused, "Don't know what?"
"About George."
"What about him?"
'Fingers seemed to think about this for a little while before saying that if I really wanted to know, I would have to ask "His Highness".
I told him if he didn't tell me now, then I would throttle him.
He grinned at me, "Arielle, you don't look like much, but when you threaten someone like that, what's a man to do but tell you the truth?"
I grinned my crooked grin back at him and he told me. Then he made me promise to pretend I didn't know a thing until George told me. Of course, I crossed my fingers when I promised, and the first thing I did was confront George about it. He didn't deny it, didn't even twitch when I yelled at him for keeping that secret from me. Andy found me candlemarks later, gave George an apologetic look, and dragged me out of the room.
'Fingers, of course, never heard a word of this.
Gabrielle was the oldest female Falcon. She was older than Lily by six years and older than me by one. I always thought that Gabby was strange. She insisted on being called Gabby, always wore a long sleeved black shirt and black skirt even in the blazing summer heat, had pale skin that never tanned or sunburned, and so many bracelets hanging from both wrists that it gave you a headache trying to count them. That wasn't even the strangest thing about her.
I observed one day that she never seemed to go home. Either that, or she didn't have a home. She didn't talk about her family either. I thought that she didn't have a family or a home and just lived out on the streets and voiced these opinions to Lily. Lily gave me a look and said tersely, "You wouldn't know," before running off to race Eddie around the Palace walls.
That was the other thing. Lily and Gabby were like the Bazhir and the Great Southern Desert, virtually inseperable. Neither of them talked very much and it was very disconcerting to watch the two of them staring into each other's eyes in complete silence, a silence that seemed to go on and on and on.
She also had the Gift. Her gift had the strangest, most fascinating color. It was white, yet not, there were bits and pieces of every other color in it, and sometimes looked as if it were as glimmering rainbow. But once you thought of it as a rainbow, the white returned and once you realized it really wasn't white at all, the sparkling color would come back again.
Gabby was brilliant. She was wise beyond her years and often spoke only to make a philosophical comment. Once, Andy had been complaining about how horrible Father was to him and Gabby announced, completely out of the blue, "We cannot choose our relatives, but we can choose out friends." There was complete silence for the longest time before she got up and walked away. The second she left, the alley began buzzing with whispered remarks and an occasional, loud, "That was really smart." Lily had sighed in disgust and left.
Another time, when Gabby and Lily had been doing their weird staring-into- each-other's-eyes thing, Eddie had whispered, "That is totally not normal." The black-clad girl didn't move anything except her eyes, which locked onto his, and said, "What is normal? Are you normal? Think about it." Then she went back to staring at Lily again. Poor Eddie had been scared out of his wits and didn't make one sick comment for a whole two days straight, it was a record.
Don't get me wrong, I liked Gabby well enough, she was just so creepy. I'm glad I was never on her bad side. I had only seen her get angry once, and that was enough for me. The poor offender was bedridden for months with broken bones, is still partially blind out of one eye, and walks with a limp. Gabby was fiercely protective of people she loved, but those were few in number, Lily was one of them, Jayson was another. She tolerated me, and was nice enough when I managed to say something relatively smart sounding or when I said nothing at all. I think she preferred silence to any other noise in the world, even Jayson's singing.
I'm pretty sure Mother disapproved of my being a Falcon, but there wasn't much she could do about it. She used her regular threats and they never worked on me. Father, on the other hand, was thrilled. Then Mother had given him the Look and he had scolded me for being such a horrible daughter and such an improper girl while slipping a little piece of sweetmeat into my hand. Elspeth made a face and said nothing. Rissa was so incredibly shocked and disgusted that she didn't speak to me for the longest time. That was before she saw Jayson and decided I was her favorite sister. Lynne couldn't care less as long as she was left alone and nobody misplaced her art supplies. And little Val argued with me simply because she could. "You play with boys? Yuck!"
"Oh no! That's SO gross," I retorted sarcastically.
Val hated sarcasm, "You sound like a pig."
"Gasp! Pigs? Anything but pigs!" I pretended to swoon.
"Ariel, you are such a-a-," she changed tactics, "say uncle."
"I'm a say uncle? Exciting."
"I can't believe you are so stupid. Who wants to play with boys anyways?"
"I do, it's better than playing with you."
Knowing she had lost, my youngest sister screeched, turned bright red, and stormed out of the house. I grinned, being a Falcon is better than being a girl any day.
A/N: I'm so proud of myself for updating soon-ish! R&R! And another thing. For that meeting w/George, none of you even GUESSED what it was from... sigh I'm so disappointed... not really. Well it was from This Lullaby (just in case anyone wanted to kno) Thank you's to:
PK: omg, I'm like Tolkien! spazes omg omg omg omg! D ya, I know that the beginning descriptions were kind of long-ish... but it's all good. Thanx!
eat paper: yep yep yep, I updated! Thanks.
Star1017: yeah, I see what you're saying. I'm making the chapters relatively short because then I can update sooner. But the beginning part is mostly description. It's gonna start getting more action-y soon! And, no, George doesn't do anything THAT bad, but he does play a pretty big part. I'm still not sure how long it's going to take me. I have MOST of the storyline plotted out, but not all of it. Well, thanx so much, I shall try to make it better!
TruthSetter: I say in the first chapter that Arielle looks almost exactly like Elspeth, so black hair, green eyes, short, fun stuff like that. TY!
Wake-Robin: Yeah, a little gross, but hey, seven year olds are kinda gross like that! Thnx!
MAR-MA: you weirdo! Well, I TOLD you I would update something soon, so ya, I win you lose. I luv ya!
Meanderer: sigh I shall explain. Ready? George is George in Alanna. He isn't a rich noble and he can't die. Yes, he stole the buns and the money. Remember in pirates w/jack sparrow? Same concept. He gave the baker money and stole more money from him at the same time. Sry if it's not as mysterious-y as you thought. Lol, of COURSE I will be your friend, only if you promise not to tickle me or poke me in the tummy. And happy post-lab practical to you too! D