[Immediately after this...]

Alanna, Mel and Agent K are striding rapidly through the tall grass near Adam's cottage and the creek bed.

No one has said much for the last mile. Then:

"Sheepbot 9000?" Alanna grumbles, raising an eyebrow.

Surfacing from a deep sleep has always taken Alanna awhile, when she has the luxury of time and no one else is charged with the unfortunate task of helping her along.

This morning -- and she knows it's morning due to the bright sunlight stabbing at her eyeballs through her eyelids and the horrible scratchy tweeting sound coming from a nearby tree ( Read more... )

Someone has introduced Alanna to the Nerf Big Bad Bow. Take your archery skills to the EXTREME! said the packaging. How could she resist ( Read more... )

Alanna's decision to hold her morning Shang practice by the Milliways lake can be boiled down to one simple fact: it isn't raining here. The obvious extension of this is that it is raining in Tortall, great big buckets of the stuff, soaking through even the thickest cloaks and rushes, forming inconvenient puddles of questionable depth and ( Read more... )

"Grace might be a touch surly at first," Alanna warns Ingress as they walk down the long hallway toward her rooms. "I suspect that will change quickly enough ( Read more... )

A few days after Alanna and Adam told the triplets the truth about their family, the steady stream of questions slowed to a trickle. The children went on with their days, but did so in a thoughtful fashion. Jamie was quieter, Grace spent more time alone and Thom was buried in books the usual amount of time, but the books themselves had changed. ( Read more... )

( Lies of Omission )

( Conversations with Dead People )

"I'm fine. I'm not tired," Alanna had barked at Adam, as he pushed her into bed. "There are people who need my help!"

"Mmmmm hmmmm," he'd replied, pulling the covers over both of them. "You've done all you can. Now sleep."

"Do you even know where our children are ( Read more... )

The final battle doesn't last long. The Swoop's guards carry the day with the considerable help of the King's Own, the angry villagers, X-23, the Lioness and the rest of her strange friends. Wounded and dying men are carefully lifted out from under downed Stormwings and carried inside. Prisoners are quickly put under guard. Warriors and ( Read more... )