Hey everyone, this is my first fanfic so please R&R : ) Set before the first BG game, this story tells of Khalid and Jaheira's initiation into the Harpers. You'll see a couple of oc characters in there as well. Hope you enjoy! Oh! By the way, anything in** means thoughts and anything in italics is a flashback.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except for a bunch of cd's, a cat, and my oc characters. BG belongs to Bioware.

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Harper Trials: Chapter 1

"Hurry along now! We can't keep Gorion waiting forever and eternity! I swear, if

you two don't move faster I will be forced to light a fire on your backsides!" a beautiful yet obviously very annoyed half-elven women said, stepping hurriedly along the forest path.      

"Who died and made her Queen of Amn? I swear if she starts rambling about Gorion and the Harpers again I'm gonna…" the other female in the groups' threat was then unfortunately interrupted.

"N-Now now Shadow, I-I'm sure Jaheira means well. She j-just knows we're in a h-hurry. That's all." Came the unfortunate stutter of a man who was most likely going to have Shadow's bad mood and complaints unloaded upon him.

The elven thief, Shadow Darkholme, then looked over at the barely visible figure of her nervous companion. "Don't start with me Khalid. You know me better than anyone and you know that when my feet hurt, my legs hurt, my head hurts, and I'm frozen solid that it is not a good time to start with me. Besides, even you can't be optimistic enough to say that we're going to make it to town by midnight! So why don't we just rest and start in the morning!? Is that too much to ask?" luckily she ran out of breath before she could continue her tangent.

Anyone else would have cringed or started worrying when she started going on like that, but as she had said Khalid knew her rather well and was pretty much used to it. However, he knew that when she got too angry BAD things tended to happen.  He remembered quite clearly what happened last time she lost it.

"What do you mean you don't have any fire wine OR any rooms available? What kind of inn is this?"  Shadow had bellowed at the rather smug looking innkeeper.

"You heard what I said, now get out before I have you thrown out!" The next thing anyone knew, Shadow had grabbed the Wand of Magic Missiles that they had found and started randomly firing it in every direction. Needless to say, the inn didn't look good afterwards and the trio had gotten kicked out of town. For how long they weren't sure but they decided they'd better not risk going back any time soon. Surprisingly though, no one had been seriously hurt, of course Shadow's aim never was that good…

Khalid shuddered visibly at the memory. *I still can't believe what she tends to do when she's angry. Jaheira was rather angry afterwards, that could be why she is trying to ignore Shadow's continued ramblings. I probably should do something however*

"Um.. J-Jaheira, if I may say something? I b-believe that we should r-rest soon. Besides shouldn't we be f-fully rested by the time we meet up with G-Gorion?" she spun around and gave them both one of her patented death glares. Khalid flinched rather badly at the sight, but considering most men would've fainted, that's not bad. Shadow on the other hand merely threw her one of her own

.

 After a rather long stare-fight (during which Khalid was rather uncomfortable), Jaheira finally backed down and said, " Fine, we rest here for the night. But we shall awake bright and extremely early tomorrow morning! *mumble mumble* Damn, I need to work on my death glares…" the other two cheered happily and immediately started setting up camp. A little while later, and they were fighting over who would be the cook.

"NO! In the Nine Hells NO! I cooked the last two times! It's your turn." Our resident psycho thief screamed at the druid.

"Oh no, you will not use that trick on me again! That is what you said last time! It is your turn to cook!" the druid's anger was becoming evident in her eyes however Shadow wasn't looking too happy either.

"No, my friend, it's your turn!"

"'Tis yours!"

"Yours!"

"Yours!"

Khalid meanwhile, set on a tree stump in the corner of the clearing, wearily rubbing his head. *Why must they go through this every time? Once again I'll offer to cook, but no, they cannot settle things the easy way. Oh well here we go.*  "M-may I make a suggestion? I c-could cook if you'd l-like."

"Aw, that's sweet, but no, its HER turn!" the thief spoke up first. The fighting then started again but surprisingly ended rather quickly. "Wait! I have an idea."

"That's unusual."

"Shut it tree hugger. Anyway, why don't we let Khalid decide who cooks?" They both looked at her like she was some type of crazy person. (Oh, wait, she is, isn't she?)

"W-what do you mean b-by that? I don't like w-where this is g-going." He said glancing at both of them apprehensively.

"I mean you pick which of us is a better cook, and that person will cook from now on and there's no more fighting! *mumble mumble* at least about this…" the women then turned to him and gave him looks that obviously said pick me or die.

*Why does this always happen to me? One of them is going to kill me no matter what I say.* he thought miserably. "W-well, um, I suppose that I would h-have to say…." He glanced around as if looking for an escape. As soon as he saw one he started getting up, "S-Shadow definitely." He started inching toward his exit rather quickly.

Well what do you think? Please R&R, but please no flames. I think it went pretty well for a first try, and if you all like it, then I'll continue with it ; ) It'll probably become more serious later on but for now I'm going for humor.