Post by wordy on Aug 29, 2013 11:10:45 GMT 10
Title: Duplicity series
Rating: G-PG
Category: Tortall >1000 words
Length: 1450
Original and Subsequent Haunts: Goldenlake: 1 2 3 4 5 6
Summary: AU. Part of my Duplicity series: Alanna goes to the convent…until Thom begs her to swap places with him. Pretending to be a boy is difficult enough, but pretending to be her brother? A whole ‘nother story.
Notes: Written for Alanna/Jonathan SMACKDOWN 2013. Fics are in the order that I posted them, so not necessarily chronological.
Problems
The beginning of the charade.
The letter was signed your loving sister. Alanna grimaced, then sighed. Thom could amuse himself however he liked as long as they didn’t get found out. She hoped he was safe, wherever he had gone; the letter only said that he was well, and glad to be away from the palace.
She folded the piece of paper and slipped it between the pages of her mathematics work, and was extremely grateful that she had when, a moment later, Prince Jonathan appeared.
“Gary said I’d find you here,” he said taking a seat across from her.
“I had some problems to finish,” she muttered, avoiding his very blue eyes as she picked up her pencil. She had decided it would be wise to copy some of Thom’s mannerisms for a while—which included numerous visits to the library, when she had even the barest amount of free time—but now she was glad that her brother had spent so much time by himself. All of the pages seemed to know each other. Perhaps if she had started with the rest she would feel more comfortable by now; it was like reading a book that had the first few pages torn out.
Prince Jonathan cleared his throat. “I know you’re worried—”
Alanna’s head shot up; her grip on the pencil tightened. What did he know?
“—but Ralon will get what’s coming to him, eventually,” he finished, and Alanna felt herself relax. “He’s failing too many of his academic classes, and we don’t let him bully the other pages if we can help it.”
Alanna thought of Gary—her sponsor—and his friend Raoul. They were big lads, and would only grow bigger with time. The thought of Ralon up against those two made her want to grin, but she knew that sooner or later she would have to deal with the boy on her own terms.
She could feel the prince watching her, so she muttered a quiet, “Thank you,” and pretended at filling in some numbers.
She heard him sigh.
His chair scraped back and he stood. “You’re not so—just, try not to talk back so much, okay, Thom?”
Alanna ducked her head and listened to the sound of his footsteps as he walked out of the library. Her face and ears felt hot—from anger or embarrassment, she wasn’t sure. Being a page was different than she had imagined. But she wouldn’t give up. And Thom seemed to have more friends here than he had implied; if Prince Jonathan was willing to help ‘Thom’, then perhaps when the time came….
Alanna sighed, and brushed away her daydreams, returning to her mathematics.
Guard
In the practise yard.
“Good work, Thom,” said Prince Jonathan, sounding surprised. “You’re improving.”
Alanna bit her lip to stop from making a snide remark and let her shield arm drop to her side. She hadn’t expected how aggravating it would be, pretending to be her brother: Thom had never been good at hunting or fighting, and every bit of encouragement that she received now only hurt her pride.
“I’ve been practising,” she said, which was only the truth.
“Well, keep it up.” Jonathan wiped his sleeve against his forehead, before raising his practise sword again.
The older pages would be squires soon, which meant that she would only have those in her own year to spar with, at least. Douglass and Geoffrey seemed like good enough fellows; they had warmed to her, a little, and kept their thoughts to themselves during practise bouts.
She felt strange, thinking poorly of the prince when he had only been kind to her. But she was not Thom, though she now answered to his name; she could not get along on her own, and she was beginning to see that Jon—not only Prince Jonathan—was a friend worth having.
Trebond
Prince's intuition?
There was something about the Trebond boy that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. In the beginning, he had been sullen and biting, but those moods had passed with the last few months: now he spoke to amuse rather than to offend, and favoured time spent with Jon and his friends instead of shutting himself away.
It was easy enough to attribute such behaviour to shyness, or something equally as harmless. But Jon kept watching, should anything else reveal itself. Thom of Trebond was not only improving socially, but in his physical training as well. If he made it as far as the Ordeal, Jon would be very interested in what kind of knight the boy would become….
Magic
Enter the duke.
“I thought you’d be pleased,” said Jonathan.
They were in Thom’s room, just before lights-out. His entire afternoon had been taken up with showing his uncle around the palace; every time he had made to leave, another question had popped into his head, and Roger had been happy to tell him stories of the lands he had visited and the magics he had discovered there.
Thom looked like he was trying very hard not to cross his arms or pout. “I am,” he said, sounding anything but.
“Roger has so much that he can teach us,” Jon said, hesitant at Thom’s sudden mood. “I thought the Gift was more important to you than anything—you were always looking up odd things in the library, and remember I caught you using it in the stables that time.”
Thom looked stricken for a moment, but only shook his head.
The silence between them stretched on, and finally Jon turned to leave, closing the door a little too firmly behind him. He had hoped that learning more about their Gifts would give them something to bond over, but now he wondered if it had all been in his mind. He was pressing Thom too hard; a forced friendship was no good to either of them.
Sighing, Jon began the lonely walk back to his room. Whatever this was, it would have to wait until morning to be fixed.
First/Second Chance
The Sweating Fever.
Within days of each other, Gary, Francis, and Alex got the fever. Francis had the worst of it: the one time Alanna went to visit him, she was turned away, his delirious ramblings loud enough to hear through the walls.
“The healers can’t do anything for him,” she told Jonathan, quietly. Her eyes felt hot; she did not want to cry in front of him. She did not want to talk of such things with him at all, except the dying boy was his friend, and he had not had time to visit Francis himself since the queen fell ill.
“There must be something,” Jon said. His face looked unusually pale; Alanna wondered how much sleep he had had lately. She nibbled on her thumbnail as he fell silent, watching him from the corner of her eye.
She had the ability to save Francis, maybe. If she lost control…but he was dying already. The thought of wielding such power scared her, made her skin break out in gooseflesh even now. Francis was worth the risk, though. Jonathan would save him if he could. The real Thom wouldn’t be afraid.
She wasn’t Thom. But, just this once—for Francis—she could be.
“He could be too far gone,” she told Jon, covering his hand with hers, “but…there might be something.”
Truth
Alanna knows she can't tell him.
Alanna had grown used to answering to her brother’s name; at home, only Maude and Coram had been able to tell them apart, and their father never paid them enough attention to truly learn the difference.
So it was easy enough to turn and respond when someone called her by another name. She did not twitch or scowl at the mistake, as she would have once. She had entered this charade willingly, after all: earning her shield was more than enough reward for a few years of mistaken identity.
No one called her Alanna. Not even Coram: the danger of them being overheard, or of him slipping up in company, was too great.
Sometimes she wondered if this was truly who she was—if she had been allowed to train for knighthood as herself, under her own name, would she have turned out any differently? The idea occupied her thoughts often, even when she was with Jon and the others.
Would he treat her differently if he knew she was a girl? Part of her wanted to confide in him, hear her name said aloud, but it could never come to pass. She knew that. Everything she had worked for would be taken away.
But it didn’t stop her wishing.
Rating: G-PG
Category: Tortall >1000 words
Length: 1450
Original and Subsequent Haunts: Goldenlake: 1 2 3 4 5 6
Summary: AU. Part of my Duplicity series: Alanna goes to the convent…until Thom begs her to swap places with him. Pretending to be a boy is difficult enough, but pretending to be her brother? A whole ‘nother story.
Notes: Written for Alanna/Jonathan SMACKDOWN 2013. Fics are in the order that I posted them, so not necessarily chronological.
Problems
The beginning of the charade.
The letter was signed your loving sister. Alanna grimaced, then sighed. Thom could amuse himself however he liked as long as they didn’t get found out. She hoped he was safe, wherever he had gone; the letter only said that he was well, and glad to be away from the palace.
She folded the piece of paper and slipped it between the pages of her mathematics work, and was extremely grateful that she had when, a moment later, Prince Jonathan appeared.
“Gary said I’d find you here,” he said taking a seat across from her.
“I had some problems to finish,” she muttered, avoiding his very blue eyes as she picked up her pencil. She had decided it would be wise to copy some of Thom’s mannerisms for a while—which included numerous visits to the library, when she had even the barest amount of free time—but now she was glad that her brother had spent so much time by himself. All of the pages seemed to know each other. Perhaps if she had started with the rest she would feel more comfortable by now; it was like reading a book that had the first few pages torn out.
Prince Jonathan cleared his throat. “I know you’re worried—”
Alanna’s head shot up; her grip on the pencil tightened. What did he know?
“—but Ralon will get what’s coming to him, eventually,” he finished, and Alanna felt herself relax. “He’s failing too many of his academic classes, and we don’t let him bully the other pages if we can help it.”
Alanna thought of Gary—her sponsor—and his friend Raoul. They were big lads, and would only grow bigger with time. The thought of Ralon up against those two made her want to grin, but she knew that sooner or later she would have to deal with the boy on her own terms.
She could feel the prince watching her, so she muttered a quiet, “Thank you,” and pretended at filling in some numbers.
She heard him sigh.
His chair scraped back and he stood. “You’re not so—just, try not to talk back so much, okay, Thom?”
Alanna ducked her head and listened to the sound of his footsteps as he walked out of the library. Her face and ears felt hot—from anger or embarrassment, she wasn’t sure. Being a page was different than she had imagined. But she wouldn’t give up. And Thom seemed to have more friends here than he had implied; if Prince Jonathan was willing to help ‘Thom’, then perhaps when the time came….
Alanna sighed, and brushed away her daydreams, returning to her mathematics.
Guard
In the practise yard.
“Good work, Thom,” said Prince Jonathan, sounding surprised. “You’re improving.”
Alanna bit her lip to stop from making a snide remark and let her shield arm drop to her side. She hadn’t expected how aggravating it would be, pretending to be her brother: Thom had never been good at hunting or fighting, and every bit of encouragement that she received now only hurt her pride.
“I’ve been practising,” she said, which was only the truth.
“Well, keep it up.” Jonathan wiped his sleeve against his forehead, before raising his practise sword again.
The older pages would be squires soon, which meant that she would only have those in her own year to spar with, at least. Douglass and Geoffrey seemed like good enough fellows; they had warmed to her, a little, and kept their thoughts to themselves during practise bouts.
She felt strange, thinking poorly of the prince when he had only been kind to her. But she was not Thom, though she now answered to his name; she could not get along on her own, and she was beginning to see that Jon—not only Prince Jonathan—was a friend worth having.
Trebond
Prince's intuition?
There was something about the Trebond boy that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. In the beginning, he had been sullen and biting, but those moods had passed with the last few months: now he spoke to amuse rather than to offend, and favoured time spent with Jon and his friends instead of shutting himself away.
It was easy enough to attribute such behaviour to shyness, or something equally as harmless. But Jon kept watching, should anything else reveal itself. Thom of Trebond was not only improving socially, but in his physical training as well. If he made it as far as the Ordeal, Jon would be very interested in what kind of knight the boy would become….
Magic
Enter the duke.
“I thought you’d be pleased,” said Jonathan.
They were in Thom’s room, just before lights-out. His entire afternoon had been taken up with showing his uncle around the palace; every time he had made to leave, another question had popped into his head, and Roger had been happy to tell him stories of the lands he had visited and the magics he had discovered there.
Thom looked like he was trying very hard not to cross his arms or pout. “I am,” he said, sounding anything but.
“Roger has so much that he can teach us,” Jon said, hesitant at Thom’s sudden mood. “I thought the Gift was more important to you than anything—you were always looking up odd things in the library, and remember I caught you using it in the stables that time.”
Thom looked stricken for a moment, but only shook his head.
The silence between them stretched on, and finally Jon turned to leave, closing the door a little too firmly behind him. He had hoped that learning more about their Gifts would give them something to bond over, but now he wondered if it had all been in his mind. He was pressing Thom too hard; a forced friendship was no good to either of them.
Sighing, Jon began the lonely walk back to his room. Whatever this was, it would have to wait until morning to be fixed.
First/Second Chance
The Sweating Fever.
Within days of each other, Gary, Francis, and Alex got the fever. Francis had the worst of it: the one time Alanna went to visit him, she was turned away, his delirious ramblings loud enough to hear through the walls.
“The healers can’t do anything for him,” she told Jonathan, quietly. Her eyes felt hot; she did not want to cry in front of him. She did not want to talk of such things with him at all, except the dying boy was his friend, and he had not had time to visit Francis himself since the queen fell ill.
“There must be something,” Jon said. His face looked unusually pale; Alanna wondered how much sleep he had had lately. She nibbled on her thumbnail as he fell silent, watching him from the corner of her eye.
She had the ability to save Francis, maybe. If she lost control…but he was dying already. The thought of wielding such power scared her, made her skin break out in gooseflesh even now. Francis was worth the risk, though. Jonathan would save him if he could. The real Thom wouldn’t be afraid.
She wasn’t Thom. But, just this once—for Francis—she could be.
“He could be too far gone,” she told Jon, covering his hand with hers, “but…there might be something.”
Truth
Alanna knows she can't tell him.
Alanna had grown used to answering to her brother’s name; at home, only Maude and Coram had been able to tell them apart, and their father never paid them enough attention to truly learn the difference.
So it was easy enough to turn and respond when someone called her by another name. She did not twitch or scowl at the mistake, as she would have once. She had entered this charade willingly, after all: earning her shield was more than enough reward for a few years of mistaken identity.
No one called her Alanna. Not even Coram: the danger of them being overheard, or of him slipping up in company, was too great.
Sometimes she wondered if this was truly who she was—if she had been allowed to train for knighthood as herself, under her own name, would she have turned out any differently? The idea occupied her thoughts often, even when she was with Jon and the others.
Would he treat her differently if he knew she was a girl? Part of her wanted to confide in him, hear her name said aloud, but it could never come to pass. She knew that. Everything she had worked for would be taken away.
But it didn’t stop her wishing.