Nealan of Queenscove was almost literally pulling his hair out. The hands fisted in his brown locks were white knuckled and pulling his scalp away from his skull.
It was quite an amusing sight to see, unless of course you were the man himself of the cause of his frustration. Since Lady Knight Kelandry, called Kel, was neither, she chuckled at the sight of her long time friend thus.
"What are you laughing at?" Neal nearly screeched. "There's nothing to laugh about! This is no laughing matter!"
"Neal, calm down," Kel insisted in her usual firm tone. "You can't be surprised at it, you know her as well as I do. She's always said she wanted to go."
"I thought she'd grow out of it!" he replied. Kel raised an eyebrow in an incredulous manner she had learned from the man who was still ranting at her. "She's only eleven! I can't send my little girl away."
"Queenscove," Kel spoke sharply, so like their old training master that Neal looked up at her. "I was eleven, Alanna was eleven, every other girl who has since tried for her knighthood has been eleven. Mirthos, every page, male or female, in this age has been eleven, excepting yourself, of course."
She spoke rationally, and Neal knew it. He sighed and sunk into the chair behind the large desk which dominated the room. "She's my little girl, Kel," he said quietly. "What if she gets hurt and I'm not there?"
"She will get hurt," Kel pointed out. "Just as you and I did. But she'll recover, and be stronger for it, just as you and I were. And don't forget, she'll have Scout there with her. And your father is always at the palace these days and of course Lord Raoul, and all of the other friends she's made there over the years. You won't be a stranger there, any more than I will. You're not abandoning her there alone, Neal."
"Why do I fee like it then? Why do I feel like I'm offering my only daughter up for slaughter?" he questioned.
"Because you're silly and overdramatic," came a voice from the doorway. Neal's kimono clad wife, Yuki, stood there, watching her husband and their friend discuss her daughter's decision to start the journey towards knighthood.
"And here I thought marrying a Yamani might have cured you of some of that," Kel commented with a grin. Neal glared at both women, who only smiled in return.
"I wouldn't have him any other way," Yuki commented, sitting on the arm of the chair her husband occupied and gracefully placing an arm along the back, resting her hand on his shoulder. "But Marin has made her decision. She'll be going to the Palace in the fall to start page training."
"Hai!" a small voice cried from behind servant's entrance to the office. It was shushed by another voice, but all three of the inhabitants had heard.
"You can come out Rin," Neal called to his daughter. She sheepishly pushed open the door, and walked into the room. A dark haired boy a little taller than her followed, his head also hung low.
Marin of Queenscove looked sheepish, but her eyes sparkled with excitement. She was of small stature, like her mother, and she also shared Yuki's straight black hair and exotically tilting eyes. The bright green colour of those eyes and the long nose between them were all her father's. Rin nervously tucked a stray lock of her long hair behind her ear, but smiled at her father hopefully. "So I can go, then?"
Neal gave her a look only a father can give to his precocious daughter. "You were listening, I'm sure your busy little ears are still functioning," he drawled.
"I'm not sure she'll believe you until she sees your lips actually forming the words," the boy beside her quipped. Remembering to whom he spoke, he added quietly, "Sir."
"Very well, Scout," Neal conceded to his friend's son. Turning to his daughter, he said very clearly, "Marin, you may go the Palace to begin your page training in the fall."
