Disclaimer: Everything here belongs to Tamora Pierce except the characters I have made up.

Birth

"Don't just stand there! Do something!" the distraught young Lord screamed at the midwife. "Save her, use your Gift, do something!"

"I am sorry, my Lord of Trebond. My apprentice and I have done everything we can. It is the will of the gods," Maude, the village healing woman, said gently.

"No! It cannot be. There has to be something!" Lord Alan of Trebond cried, desperately running his hand through his red-brown hair as he mentally went through all the healing spells he had memorised over the years.

"I have it!" he cried, running over to clasp the hand of the pale, sweaty figure lying motionless on the bed.
Maude looked on apprehensively as the young lord started to mutter a spell. She felt the power build, and as the spell finished, it disappeared. Lord Alan fell to the floor sobbing. Maude moved towards Lord Alan and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. He jerked away from her touch.

"Don't touch me!" he screamed.

"Alan?" came a soft voice from the bed.
In an instant, Lord Alan was at his wife's side, holding her hand and kissing it.

"Yes, Dearest?"

"Where are our babies?" she asked looking around.

"Maude's apprentice is bathing them, love."

"I want to hold them."

"You can. But first you need to rest" Alan replied, stroking his wife's sweat-dampened blonde hair, still holding her hand.

"No," she replied, struggling to get up. "I want to see them now. I want to hold them."

"Alright, sweet, alright" Lord Alan soothed his wife, laying her back
down on the pillows gently. "Maude, go and get the twins."
Maude returned as quickly as possible, laying a twin in each of her
dying mistress' arms. The Lady of Trebond smiled tiredly up at her.

"Aren't they the most beautiful things you have ever seen?"

"Yes, my lady. They are," replied Maude, backing away to let the family have what would be their only time together as a full family.

"Look at their eyes, Alan. They are purple. Have you ever seen anything like it?" Maude heard her mistress whisper, as she closed the door behind her.

"No, darling" Alan replied gazing down at his wife and children with
tears running down his face as his wife looked lovingly from one child to the other.

"What shall we call them?" he asked her.

"How about we name the girl, Alanna after you, and the boy, Thom after my brother?"

"Perfect," Alan replied, kissing her forehead.
Alan's wife looked up at him, smiling sadly, with tears running down her
cheeks.

"Look after them, Alan. Alanna is going to do great things one day and
Thom is going to be very powerful."

"I will, I will. But you will be here to help me!" Alan protested.

"No." she replied laying her head back on her pillows and closing her
eyes. "I'm so tired."

"Yes, you will. I will use my Gift. Maude will use hers."

"Maude is all out, and so are you, after that last spell of yours. Don't try anything else. I want you here, not passed out on the floor."
Alan smiled through his tears at her attempt at a joke.

"I will be here always," he promised her.
She smiled at him.

"Kiss me Alan, and then sing me our song," she whispered. Alan leaned over her, careful not to disturb the sleeping babies, and kissed his wife for the last time, then started to sing their song.

Half an hour later Maude knocked lightly and entered the Lady's
bedchamber. Lord Alan was holding his wife's hand and she was still holding the sleeping twins. Lord Alan looked up at Maude with dry but red eyes.

"She is dead. Our Gifts could not save her. They should have," he said in a flat tone of voice. "From now on, I shall never use my Gift again and the twins, should they prove to have the Gift as well, shall never learn. Do I make myself clear?"

"But my lord-" Maude started to protest, but the Lord of Trebond cut her off.

"Do I make myself clear?" he repeated menacingly.

"Yes, my lord."
With that, Lord Alan strode out of the room, never to re-enter it until the night he died. Maude turned and picked up the twins from their dead mother's arms. Alanna started fussing.

"Hush, you poor wee things."

Author's note: Well what do you think of my first ever Fan Fiction story? I have some ideas for some further chapters for this story but they may be some time in coming. So let me now what u think and if I got anything wrong.

My thanks go out to Pink Squishy Llama, Sarramaks, Alex Rose and Lela-of-Bast for being my first ever reviewers. Special thanks go to Drop Your Oboe for editing my grammar for me.