|
Fanfic
|
|
Alanna's Dominion
Lady Alanna
Chapter One: The Ride to the Swoop
Alanna the Lioness, Baroness of Pirates Swoop, heiress of Barony Olau, and the King's Champion, drummed her fingers impatiently on her leg. Patience was not among her many gifts. Had I been born a cat, my tail would be twitching, she thought sardonically. Lioness. Cat. Ha. The woman gave herself a mental slap on both cheeks. Furious with the way her weary mind was working, she tossed her head in a desperate attempt to clear it sending copper locks flying every which way.
"What troubles you, my dear?" the man seated next to her asked. He was an average kind of person with nut brown hair and a mischievous glint in his brown eyes. Baron George Cooper was his name. He made his home in Pirates Swoop with his redheaded wife.
"This ride is so...boring!" Alanna replied flatly. "Besides, people get the notion that you are a delicately reared noble when you take to riding in coaches. Which I am not." Her husband smiled, placing a hand on her knee.
"Only you can make a simple stagecoach ride seem horribly outdated," he teased, bringing a smile to Alanna's tan face.
The woman had no remark to make, so she stayed quiet. Why speak without a reason? Instead she peered through the curtained windows, her violet eyes quick to catch details.
"I'm restless," she said finally, picking at the calluses on her sword hand. "With the conclusion of the war with Scanra, there's been little to do besides fighting Immortals, and Jon has his knights and the Own to do that. There's no treasure to hunt, or Roger to duel." Alanna had referred to the late Duke Roger of Conte, who had been a terrible man, few times over the twenty or so years since she had conquered him. She didn't like to talk about it because she didn't like to kill.
"You want another Roger?" George asked, confused. Reading the look of displeasure on his wife's face, he changed the subject. "You could always return to Corus and help Jon tackle the adventure of calculating and renewing our losses," he suggested, straight-faced. Alanna just stared at him.
"Jon has Gary to help him with that, not to mention every other aide to the King," she remarked, the sarcasm going right over her tired head. "Besides I'm no paper shuffler. I wouldn't want to be Prime Minister, either. Poor Gary gets no field time. It's unfair!" the lady knight protested, gazing out the window.
"Would it be too unfathomable for you to consider that most knights don't want much field time?" George teased her.
"Sadly," she countered, straight-faced before she laughed. "Leave me be, laddy. I'd like a nap before we arrive at the Swoop and I don't doubt you do too." With that, Alanna kicked her boots off and curled her feet up under her skirt before falling into a gentle sleep.
 |
|
