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Kel looked at her best friend leaning against her doorjamb and shook her head at his appearance. Neal's emerald eyes were over bright, his face was flushed and he seemed to have trouble standing under his own power. She didn't think she had seem him look so disheveled before- not even when they had had that little disagreement with bandits when they were pages.

"What are you doing here this late, Neal?" she asked in a fierce whisper.

Her hazel eyes looked at him in confusion and she smoothed her nightshirt down as she looked up and down the dark hall behind him. She took in his appearance again as the smell of alcohol began to fill her nose.

"Are you drunk?!" her voice was incredulous as she looked at her best fried with new eyes.

Neal looked vaguely surprised at her tone and his eyebrows lowered as if he was trying to translate her rapid questions. He ran his hands through hair that already stood on end and seemed to ponder the question.

"I'm... moderately functional." he replied finally, pronouncing each word with care.

"I'll take that as a yes," she sighed. "And I suppose you locked yourself out of your rooms so you came to mine."

She shook her head at his folly and swallowed a laugh at the sorry state he was in.

"And because we never see one another anymore, Kel! We are always running this way and that at the beck and call of our knight masters! My knight mistress should have been nicknamed Bear! She is as grumpy as one and she is always so serious."

His face became a grimace as he started to rant,

"She has no appreciation for my dramatic flair or thirst for knowledge. Always telling me not to complain and then dragging me off to some gods forsaken town to learn how to heal hang nails. And when she isn't working my Gift dry she is hitting me with a stick and knocking me into the dirt. And I miss our study group, I miss you, Kel. She never tells me to eat my vegetables or listens to my poetry and she isn't you. You miss me too don't you?" Neal's voice was plaintive as he asked his last question, and he shot her a dejected look.

Keladry of Mindelan fought a smile as she took in her 19 year old best friend, looking for all the world like one of her nephews who had been denied a favorite toy.

"Of course I miss you, Meathead." her voice was warm as she reached out to steady him. "And we'll see each other plenty once we become knights, this is just the next step we have to take. I'm sure Alanna is just trying to make you the best knight and healer you can be."

Kel considered their predicament, with Neal locked out of his room, she couldn't escort him back and she certainly couldn't leave him to sleep it off in her doorway. Her mind made up, she moved forward and put his arms around her shoulders and led Neal into her room, depositing him onto the bed she had just rolled out of.

Neal sat on the edge of the bed heavily, as if all his strings had been cut suddenly and Kel knelt down and quickly removed his boots and tunic before he slumped sideways.

Kel smiled at the boy in her bed in fond exasperation and allowed herself to smooth his hair back, something she had longed to do as a page. Looking at him now she no longer saw a potential love. Her feelings of longing and restless butterflies had faded to be replaced with warm friendship and a bond that would last the span of their lives. Now she saw her closest friend truest companion. The first person to show her kindness when she had entered the palace; the one who had secretly healed her hurts, despite her protests; the one who she would become a knight of the realm beside.

And the one who was now making her sleep in a chair in Lord Raoul's office, the practical voice in her head reminded her. Shaking off her nostalgic thoughts, Kel grabbed a pillow off the end of her bed and went to try to arrange her large frame into one of the chairs in hopes of catching a few more hours sleep. After all, dawn comes early and, she shifted to try to find a comfortable spot, if Neal was in the palace tomorrow they could get a few bells at the practice court together. She almost laughed out loud as she imagined his reaction to her deciding to take this chance to "hit him with a stick and knock him in the dirt" and fell asleep to the sound of Neal's snores in her ears and a smile on her face.

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