Post by Seek on Apr 11, 2013 1:08:55 GMT 10
Title: Crossroads
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 558
Pairing: Alanna/Jonathan
Round/Fight: 1A
Summary: It is a crossroads, and Alanna chooses wrongly.
Warnings: Combat, character death.
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In a world just a little distant from this, Alanna doesn't leave. She tamps down on her misgivings with the discipline she has been taught, fights the urge to make sure Lightning is loose in its sheath. She looks up. Across the Hall of Kings, Alex of Tirragen looks up. Their eyes meet. He smiles.
-
In a world just a little distant from this--almost contiguous--Alanna stands in the Hall of Kings as Jonathan is crowned and then George shouts and shoulders aside an archer. The crossbow bolt knifes into stone, instead of Jon's throat. In the next moment, a dagger slips between the crossbowman's ribs. Bows appear from under cloaks, arrows nocked. The men of the King's Own have checked them but the Hall teems with weapons somehow concealed. Loyal kingsmen carry little but dress swords. They fight. Alanna breaks out into a run, stumbles as the earth begins to buck for real now, beneath her feet. She staggers, rolls, shoves the Dominion Jewel into Jonathan's hand.
He opens his eyes for a moment. They are disconcertingly pale. Still blue. His Gift flickers. Indigo, and then a faint silver wraps itself around him.
The earth buckles; ground turns to water beneath their feet. Men are screaming and dying and it is chaos. No one is prepared. The men of Tirragen and Eldorne knew. They knew. Treason. Jon looks at her. He doesn't ask, "Can you hold them?" Instead, Jon says, "I need you to buy me some time."
Alanna grips his hand fiercely, willing him whatever strength she has. Plaster flakes and crumbles as chunks of the ceiling come down. She grips her ember stone with her other hand. The hall is washed in a dark ruck of dried blood. "I'll do whatever I can, Jon," she says. The violet of her Gift meshes into the blue of his. Blue-violet-indigo-silver. For a moment, she is drawn into Jon's working. She can feel the power he is calling upon to bind the land, to hold it together, against the throes of...Roger. The spell is Roger's.
"Don't." He knows her too well.
Alanna says, "If I don't stop him..."
"We will hold." She looks down at their joined hands. She has felt the enormity of the magic he must combat. If she lets go, he will lose whatever strength she has to give. She wonders if the Black City was their testing ground, the preparation for this.
Men-at-arms are fighting, trying to cut their way through to Jon. Alanna lets go of the ember stone, and draws Lightning. The sword is hot in her hand, quivering. Vibrating. Before she can think, the first of their attackers is on her, and her claws unsheathed, the Lioness fights.
-
Her grip on Jonathan's hand hampers her. Still, Alanna moves, careful to keep herself between Jon and the enemy. Jon is silent, his concentration all on the great magic he is working. She parries a stroke and the Crescent Moon Drill cuts twin furrows in the soldier. He falls.
The ceiling quakes, and trembles. One crossbowman gets free--George doesn't stop him in time. Alanna looks deliberately at Jonathan, and steps into the path of the bolt.
-
In fury, the land tears itself into ragged, ruined pieces.
In some worlds, at least, this is the way it all ends.