"Mithros, I hate men," Kel muttered, traipsing into her quarters, mud spattered and bruised all over after a particularly grueling training session with the new first year pages. It wasn't that they were particularly good, it was just that there must have been at least twelve of them – so many this year! After the success of Fianola and her friends, now Squires, so many more male pages had enrolled, trying to keep their good names. There were just two female pages, who had opted to spar against Lord Wyldon.
"I beg your pardon, Lady?" Tobe asked.
"I said 'I hate men'" she repeated. "I hate you all."
"That's not very nice, Lady Knight," a snide voice commented from the doorway to her bathroom.
"Move it, Queenscove, before I move you," Kel muttered.
"Ouch, it bites," another voice insisted. Kel turned to find four others in the doorway she'd just entered – Raoul, Merric, Owen and Faleron.
"Go on, where's Dom?" Kel asked. "I know he's around here somewhere. Cleon, too."
"What? You think we aren't perfectly equipped to stage our own ambush?" Neal said. "I'm offended."
"Stage it, fine, do it, no problem. Come up with it? No way. This is not the work of a Meathead."
"Well spotted," a voice whispered from behind her, and a Hessian bag was dropped over her head. Kel screamed.
"DOMITAN OF MASBOLLE I AM GOING TO RIP YOU LIMB FROM LIMB!" Kel shouted as she was lifted into the air by the well muscled arms she knew so well.
"Now, now Mindelan, there's no need for all this screaming and the like!" he insisted, patting her on the bottom.
"You think you're soooo good, Domitan, but I am going to KILL YOU once I get out of here!" Kel screamed, banging her fists (fairly uselessly) on his chest.
"I'm feeling a strange beating on my chest, boys," Dom said comically. Kel's hands were seized by the calloused mits she also knew well.
"MERRIC!" she screamed.
"What about this strange ringing in my ears, and this beating on my back?" Dom asked.
"Don't you dare! Don't you even dare!" Kel shouted, and kicked wildly at whoever was no doubtedly going to grab her feet. Some rope clasped onto both legs and kept them still.
"NEALAN OF QUEENSCOVE, DARE YOU USE MAGIC ON AN UNWILLING WOMAN?" Kel continued to shout.
"That wasn't the magic, dear, but the fine lassoo'smanship of milord," Dom told her lightly.
"Oh, I am going to KILL YOU ALL! I HATE MEN! DO YOU HEAR ME? EVERY MAN IN THE WORLD IS GOING TO BE-"
But Kel's rant was cut-off by the trough of water she had evidently been shoved into.
Kel rose from the depths of the water slowly, and took the sack off her head, and undid her feet.
She was met by a small army.
Perhaps twenty five, thirty men she knew? The King, Prince Roald, Lerant, the Shang Horse, many of Kel's fellow Knights, and of course, her attackers, Dom standing bold as brass in front of the trough she sat in.
"Now, now," a distinctly female voice came from behind Kel. "Is that any way to treat a Lady?"
Kel turned to find her own army – significantly smaller, consisting of just The Queen, Shinkokami, Lady Alanna, Yuki, Lalasa and the three female Squires.
Kel rose.
The men before her appeared to shudder.
"You know, ladies," Kel said as Lalasa rushed forward with a towel, which Kel rubbed over her face and hung carefully. "I really, really hate men."
"I'm feeling a sudden dislike for the opposite gender, too, Kel, actually," Alanna said, eyeing off her husband standing towards the back.
"So am I…" Neal muttered, attempting to slide away.
"STOP!" All nine women shouted at the same time. He did.
"Don't move a muscle, Queenscove, until we pound you limb from limb," Alanna hissed.
"Darling," The Queen predicted. "I think you're about to be beaten up by a bunch of girls."
And he was.
Kel and her legion of far more powerful women beat each of the men in turn, with their far superior skill and agility.
Kel counted twenty eight men lying battered and bruised on the ground.
"Well done, ladies," Kel approved. As if this released them from their men-hating, each woman went to her husband or courtier. The Queen fussed over a cut the King appeared to have sustained, and Alanna poked her husband with her shoe. Lalasa giggled at Faleron's feeble attempts at seduction when he was covered in mud and someone else's blood, while Yuki just batted her eyelashes at Neal, and he stood up, embracing her in his mud covered state. Several of the men growled at him, muttering things like 'traitor' and 'whipped'.
Kel, however, made her way over to Dom.
"Hello, darling," he said friskily.
"I still hate you, Masbolle," she said, tending to his leg wound that she herself had inflicted.
"Liar," he said. "You love me."
"You think you're so great, Masbolle," she sighed.
"You obviously weren't in the water long enough," he said quietly.
"I beg your pardon?" Kel asked, but Dom jumped up and once again threw her over his shoulder.
"OH, DOM! I SO-"
But she was not far enough away from the trough to make any kind of insult, and Dom threw her in again once more.
Kel surfaced, and Dom was standing carefully, peering into the water around her.
"Darling," he said, looking at her now, before something caught Kel's eye. A glinting in the water. Kel dived to see what it was. This trough was deep.
Kel stared at the glinting object for a moment and then picked it up.
"Darling," she said. "Who else have you thrown in the water?" She showed him what she had picked up – a gold ring, with a diamond in the centre. It looked pricey.
"Just my lovely self, dear," he said, shaking his head like a puppy at her, spraying her already wet self with water.
"Well this obviously isn't your ring," Kel muttered, standing up, just as Dom dropped onto one knee. Kel waited a moment before seeing that he wasn't actually tying his shoelace.
"No, actually. I was hoping you'd wear it?" he asked. Kel looked at him for a moment before he took her hand and stared at her for a moment.
"Kel, baby, I love you. And today we're standing here amongst the most important people in our lives," he said, and Kel looked around.
"You parents are on Balor's needle," he whispered. "Wave." Kel did so, and grinned.
"But at the moment, you're so beautiful, and you're clean and pure and know exactly how to hurt me, and I love you so, so much. I'm lying here in the mud, and I can't offer you a whole lot, I know that. All I can offer is my love. But I can promise that there's a whole lot of it, and you can have it all. I promise. I swear. If only you'll be my wife," he begged. Kel stared into his crisp blue eyes.
"Dom, your commission," Kel whispered. "Your job! You can't get married and have a wife!"
"I've been promoted," he said with a beautiful smile, and a laugh. "Can you believe it? Me! In charge of fifth company!"
"Oh Dom that's brilliant!" Kel screamed, and pulled him up to hug him tightly.
"Is that a yes?" he whispered, begging.
"Of course," she told him, and squeezed him much tighter. "But I still hate you."
"Liar. You love me," he whispered.
"Nope. I hate you. I hate men."
"Nope. You love me," he said, and cheekily stole a kiss, and ran from her punch he knew would be coming.
"You loooove me, you looooove me!" he sang as he ran between his giggling, pained comrades.
"Mithros," Kel muttered. "I hate men."