A/N: This is what you get when you combine a very bored girl and her 6th grade assignment notebook. Totally random fic about my first-ever Tortall character. Hopefully people will like it -- if you guys do, maybe I will actually be able to finish it... especially cuz I know when and how she dies... anyway... On with the story!

Unicorn
Prologue

Daine looked down at her newborn daughter. The infant girl's eyes were closed, her small face relaxed almost completely. Sighing, she handed the baby to its father.

Numair Salmalín gazed at his daughter with the same adoration as his lover. She's perfect, he thought, wondering what name could ever fit her. His only child...

He closed his eyes, suddenly blinking back tears. He hadn't known about the baby until just a few weeks ago... and Daine had insisted from the very beginning that any child of hers would not grow up as she had. And Daine spent to much time in the palace -- after all, she lived there -- for people to not know about the child.

Numair would marry her -- he hadn't hesitated to ask, but they both knew that there would always be speculation, rumors that the baby's father was someone else. Neither would subject their firstborn child to that. And now, looking at her peaceful face, he knew he would never allow it.

They had one option left. Their child could-- disappear, "die" soon after the birth. Not die, thought Numair angrily, just... go away.

"We'll still have her, in a way," Daine said softly. "We'll still be able to see her, to... watch over her. She'll just never know us... as anything more... than two famous mages..."

"Who she'll know very well," added Numair, bottled-up emotion making his voice tight. He handed the child back to her mother.

The Wildmage accepted the baby, then burst into tears. Her little daughter...

Numair sat down on next to her on the bed, wrapping her in his arms. Only a few more hours, he thought, and then they'll come...

After Daine's tears had dried, she glanced up at her lover, her voice still quiet, barely audible. "Should we name her?"

Then she answered her own question. "No."

"It's best to let them name her."

Daine and Numair both knew it would only be fair to let their daughter's adopted parents name her. They had wanted a child for so long, but had none yet. And Daine, thinking about her old friend, knew that Buri and Raoul would give her the right name for the daughter of the Commander of the Queen's Rider's and the Commander of the King's Own.

Smiling slightly, she wondered what would her daughter do if she discovered that her real parents were the Wildmage and one of the most powerful black-robed mages ever to exist. The poor girl would have a lot to live up to.

"If you could name her, what would you?" she whispered to Numair.

"Mahaia," she answered.

She smiled. "I would call her Andraste."

Daine would never forget the pain she felt as she gave her daughter to Buri. "Take care of her," she told her friend. "Love her."

Chapter One: Fifteen years later, Maren

Kieldra took her food from the head of the kitchen staff with a grin and a mocking salute. She slid into a chair near her best friend, Iseult, and Drystan, who had been her first friend here.

"So, how's life treating you?" inquired Drys innocetly.

"Yes, how is it?" echoed his closest fried, Samnang, who was half K'mir, as he sat down.

"Everything was was lovely until he came," she replied.

"Why, oh why do you hate me so, Kieldra?"

"It's not just her," chimed Iseult. "Everybody hates you -- except, of course, Drys."

"I have to be nice to people," complained Drys. Kieldra choked on her milk and accidently spewed it across the little table. This caused Iseult and Samnang (or, as he was more commonly known, Sam/"You there!") to laugh as well, and eventually the four were all laughing hysterically, earning them strange looks from the newest Shang students and long-suffering glances from those who had been there longer.

For Kieldra, the Shang school was home.

"Ahem," came a magically-magnified voice from the head of the mess hall, startling the four friends out of their amusement.

"Today, we welcome several new students," began the Shang Owl. He continued to drone on as Iseult whispered, "He should be the Shang Cockroach."

"Shang Ant," Sam retorted.

Drys shook his head, then informed them, "Shang Tree Branch."

Kieldra had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing -- particularily because in a way, it made sense. "Shang Wet Tree Branch!"

"Why a wet tree branch?" asked Drys.

"'Cause they're no use to anyone!" muttered Sam.

"That's just uncanny," Iseult told him. "It's just what I was going to say."

"Me too!" murmured Kieldra.

They glanced at each other for a moment, then Iseult said, "You should get along very well with him -- nobody likes him either!"

"No, he hates everybody."

"He hates you, Drys? Whyever would he do that?"

"Says I'm a show-off."

"You are," the other three told him.

"He calls me a chaterbox," Iseult said matter-of-factly.

"You are," from her three friends.

"No I'm not! There was that one time last year when I hardly said anything for a week! I don't think you guys have forgotten that! And I really don't talk too much, he's just so boring I can't help but try to take my mind off his awful lessons, and you all are so quiet somebody's go to make up for it. Besides--"

"So," interrupted Drys, "what about you, Kiel?"

She sent him a muderous glare. "Don't call me that! My name's Kieldra! You've heard he thinks I'm a know-it-all already."

"And I, of course, am the insufferable prick," lamented Sam.

"Big suprise there," Iseult whispered heatedly.

"Shh, he's looking at us!"

When the Owl's gaze swung their way, all four were apparently paying full attention to his speech. He continued, "I trust that all our new apprentices will be most excellent, and obey their new training master in all things."

Applause rose from the crowd of students, the brand-new ones clapping the loudest. But Iseult was too worried to cheer. "Apprentices? I think we missed something. Who's going to be the apprentices?"

Drys turned to his friend. "Don't worry, they'll read the names like they do every year. It'll probably be me and Kieldra this year though."

Iseult and Sam were even more worried at this. Their two best friends? And besides, they were all the same age. Why those two?

However, Drys and Kieldra hadknew why, and they were expecting to have to leave their friends behind this year. They were both nearly fifteen, and their ten years of study at the school were over.

Kieldra couldn't remember a time whem she hadn't known Drystan Franger. He was the bastard son of wealthy Marenese merchant, and his mother hadn't known anything better to do with him then ship him off to the Shang school, and he had been here since he was four.

She, on the other hand, had been found alone in the Tortallan wilderness by a group of Shang. They had taken in the four-year-old girl, and she had become one of their own. Her only family was here -- she couldn't remember anything about her past life more than her name. And she treasured it.

The Shang didn't allow anyone to begin training until they were five, so she and Drys had started at the same time, and they had been friends from the beginning, with no parents who they really remembered, no life before training, except watching other people train.

Sam and Iseult had both arrived at the school when they were eight, and though they didn't know it, they would have to train until they were eighteen. Drys and Kieldra had gotten on the good side of many of the masters when they were six or seven, and had been told there were ten years of training. It wasn't knowledge most people here had.

The Owl started reading the list, and the first two names were "Drystan Franger" and "Kieldra of Tortall." Kieldra's face twisted into a smile at the "of Tortall." No one really knew where she was from, but they had found
Disclaimer: This is the last [beep]ing disclaimer I'm doing. I don't own it. It doesn't belong to me. Je ne le possède pas.

Once the list was finished, Sam said regretfully, "I wish I was an apprentice. Then I could leave this place faster."

"Remind me again why you're here?"

"My parents have a son in knight training, a son in the Tortallan King's own and a daughter in the Queen's Riders. They figured a Shang son would round out their family of warriors nicely."

Not one of Sam's friends could resist smiling. He was down-to-earth in a way few nobles were, and they still had a hard time believing he was the son of Buriram Tourakom and Lord Raoul of Goldenlake.

"Ah, I'll miss you, Sam," sighed Drys.

"I won't," Kieldra informed him pertly.