A/N: I am so sorry to all of my readers. I haven't updated in the longest time. I got so caught up in all of my activities that I had no time to write the story at all.

Without further ado, here is chapter twelve of Different Destiny.

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Alanna walked cheerfully down the hallway whistling quietly. She was in such a good mood because of her most recent late night weapons training had been progressing beautifully. Leland even said that she was doing such a good job that she should start finding a better sparing partner. He had even given her some weapons to keep as her own as long as she didn't get caught.

The only downside of the whole morning was that she was still stuck in one of the dresses that the kitchen workers had supplied her with. She had stolen some trousers from Thom, but the help still said it was unseemly for a girl to run around showing her legs.

She had finished her early morning chores and was on her way to meet Thom. He had insisted that they join up on their efforts to escape instead of working on their own. "This helped us a lot anyway,' she thought sarcastically. So far all that she and Thom had accomplished so far was to learn some stupid spells, that she saw no use for anyway, and to get thrown out of so many rooms for snooping around.

Alanna quickly got into the barn making sure that none of the stable hands spotted her so they couldn't find something pointless for her to do, or to order her back up to the universities main servant quarters.

Keeping a firm watch on where she was going she grabbed a hold of the small braided rope that led up into the loft. She had gotten pretty skillful at climbing up the rope. It took a lot of upper body strength.

Alanna could not resist snorting when she remembered the first time that Thom had tried to get up the ladder. Her brother had taken tons of time and when he had gotten halfway up his hands got sore and he had to let go. Her back had hurt for days after she had to haul Thom up to the loft herself.

As she grabbed hold of the planks of wood that made up the floor of the loft and hauled herself up she noticed that Thom had not arrived yet. "Argh," she made a frustrated noise.

Deciding to make herself comfortable and wait she collapsed into one of the many hay bales that the university stable hands had hauled up here in preparation to the quickly approaching winter.

It seemed like ages until she heard the grunting of Thom trying to get himself up the coarse rope.

"It's about time you decided to deign me with you presence," Alanna spat at her brother angrily. "What in the world took you so long to get here? I have been waiting for almost half of an hour."

"Well, dear sister, I have chores to do around the palace that need to get done before I can go wandering around in search of adventure," Thom retorted, unfazed by Alanna's short temper.

"Next time you are going to be late tell me. If the kitchen staff sees me missing for longer than I need to be they are going to start keeping closer tabs on me," Alanna responded. "Now let's get down to business. What was so unearthly important that I had to meet you up here anyway? It better be important."

"It is, but first, Alanna have you noticed anything out of the ordinary going on around here? Anything at all because I think it could be very important in helping us to escape," Thom questioned his sister with a grim expression on his young face.

"Not recently Thom. There is always something a little weird going on around here. I mean with all of the visiting nobles there is bound to be some conspiracies going on," Alanna answered. "I don't really think that any of them are that important."

Thom looked around the loft as if checking for a stray stable hand to be listening in on their conversation. "Alanna, I heard Ozorne talking to another university student about some big time project that they are making. It sounded as if they are doing something dangerous," Thom responded.

Alanna let out a large breath, exasperated. "Thom, Ozorne is always up to something at the university. If he wasn't spreading rumors about some big dangerous project he is working on I would be worried."

"You don't get it. This sounded different. He wasn't bragging about something fantastic that he was concocting," Thom tried to explain. "He sounded scared. As if he did something wrong and didn't know how to fix it."

"I don't know Thom. This sounds like desperation on your part to me." Alanna started.

"Come on, think. Have you heard or saw anything unusual around here. From what I heard it sounded like they were keeping something locked up away from the main building," Thom explained in one last attempt to get through to his stubborn sister.

"Even if the Prince is getting himself in some trouble or the other, how will this help us. There is no way that we can do anything to help clear up any mess that the Prince can't get someone with more experience to help him with," Alanna countered logically.

Thom looked crestfallen at Alanna's quick dismissal of the plan that he thought was so foolproof. "Just tell me anything that you know that is strange," he begged his sister.

"Well I find it very strange that you would resort making something up to give yourself some hope of escape," Alanna started.

"Would you please be serious for once," Thom snapped, at his wits end with his sister. "I did not know that you were such a pessimist."

Alanna rolled her eyes at her brother. "Fine, now that I think about it I guess I did find something weird a while ago," Alanna summarized. " I didn't think very much of it at the time, but one day when I was walking back from the city I wandered into a part of the barn that I have never been to before. While I was in there I heard something weird and investigated. It was some kind of strange animal. I don't know what it would be because I didn't get a very good look at it."

Thom folded his arms and concentrated on what his sister just told him. "I do not know how that has anything to do with what I heard, but there may be some connection that we just are not seeing right now. I will think about it and tell you what I come up with."

"Fine Thom. I hope that helped your cause a little bit," Alanna said doubtfully.

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A/N: Once again I can't tell you how sorry I am that I have neglected this story for the longest amount of time. I am just not getting any inspiration on it. I feel like this chapter came out all wrong and rewrote it multiple times.

I hope to not have to abandon this story. I enjoy writing and hope to get the chapters out to my readers as fast as possible, but you have to understand that in the winter my schedule is very busy, and I have virtually no free time for writing.

I will not be able to guarantee when the next update with come. Please keep reviewing and I will keep updating. The more reviews the faster I will update. You guys are really my inspiration for writing this stuff.

ColossalSky