This is a take on the age-old 'what if Alanna had married Jon' scenario. What can I say? I felt in need of writing some angst, and this fic should be brimming with it. None of the characters are mine, of course, and I can't even take credit for the basic premise. The rest of it is all a product of my bizzare brain though. I hope you like it.


Prologue: The Darkness of History

Alanna rolled over in the darkness and sighed softly. It had been almost fifteen years to the day since she had married her first love, Jonathan. For so many girls, that would have been perfection itself, even this many years on. Even for Alanna it might have been, but for two things: once upon a time she had been the first female knight in the Kingdom of Tortall, and she had given it all up to become the kingdom's Queen.

As she lay in the darkness, Alanna listened to the sound of Jon's breathing. It was a little heavier these days – not as soothing as it had been in those first months of their secret love. Somehow, things had never been as good as they had been then. Perhaps it would have been better if she had never knocked on Jon's door at all on her birthday so long ago, but she had wanted him, and he had wanted her. He had told her later that even throughout his infatuation with Delia, he had always wanted to see the real Alanna, laid bare. Not naked as they had been in the Black City, but naked as they had been on Alanna's birthday. The kind of naked where there were no secrets, no lies, nothing but the two of them together.

No, she couldn't regret that.

But after that it got complicated. There had been the proposal in the desert, the one which had come too soon. The proposal that had driven her into the arms of George, a very different kind of King. Jon too, had been driven to pursue Josaine, and for a long time it had seemed that their destinies had separated forever. Alanna sifted through her memories of that time, remembering how she had slowly come to believe that she would not ever be with Jon again. Was that something she could regret? Should she have said 'yes' that very first time? Or should they have stayed apart then?

These were all useless questions really. There was nothing she could do to change the facts. Well, one simple fact. King Jonathan was a very different man to Prince Jon, and when she returned from the Chitral Pass with the Dominion Jewel, she had some how taken up with Jon right where they had left off in the desert. The heady combination of absence from one another, the stress of a fragile kingdom, and the danger Roger put them all in had driven Jon and Alanna to bed together, and they couldn't stop. Even the beauty of the girl Thayet could not compete with the intensity of what it was like for Jon and Alanna to make love. They had been too young to realise that marriage was about so much more than sex, especially when you're married to the king.

It had been so many years now since it was like that. Even their youngest daughter, Lianne, had not been conceived in love and passion, but out of some strange duty to the kingdom. The bond of duty to the kingdom was the only bond Alanna felt like she shared with Jon these days. There could be no talk of an end to this marriage but that didn't mean she didn't want to get out. If only it were possible. But it wasn't about her, it was about the good of the kingdom. In the darkness, Alanna snorted slightly and rolled over again. She forced her eyes closed again and tried not to think about any of it any more. It wouldn't do her any good. This was the way things were, and nothing was going to change that.


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