Please ignore almost all previous supposition of my main character: Adalia of Mindelan. And PLEASE comment. I will be focusing on Adalia for a good while, then it will go back into the plot of Protector of the Small. OK, we're all filled in and good, lets continue!

Btw, is my name Tamora Pierce? No? Well, then, I don't own Tortall or Keladry; I will claim ownership of ALMOST everything about Adalia of Mindelan, maybe 95%?

~EmiStone

Adalia's P.O.V.

Mama and Dad watched Kel and I receive our letters with concern. I read mine several times to ensure that my voice didn't shake, and my face didn't show any emotion. It said that I couldn't become a night, because Kel was older and only one sibling from each noble family could be a page a year. It also explained that Kel had to go through a probation period, and because of this, I would have to wait at least five years, if I could come at all. I was secretly dying inside, but I told myself to let it roll off of me like water. I was stone, I could handle this.

"It is not the reply we expected." Dad said he was a short man, with dreamy, long lashed hazel eyes and brown hair. Kel took after him in looks, having only our mother's height. "His declaration of ten years ago was that girls could become pages. Nothing was said of probation, or this sibling rule, then."

"Addie? Kel?" Mama said, she was extremely tall and had white hair and a deep, musical voice. I took after her in looks, I was thinner and more elegant looking than Kel, and had Mama's blue-green, long-lashed eyes although I was short. My hair was a mix between Mama and Dad's; it was a light color of blond mixed with red and brown highlights, from Dad. My voice also took after Mother and was a musical sort of voice, while Kel's was very much like Dad's a nice light baritone. Everyone compared us, as we were twins; Kel was older by maybe five minutes, if that; and we had always been the best of friends, and were never separated.

"You can say what you feel. We are no longer among the Yamanis." Mother said. I simply shook my head.

"I can't fall into bad practices. I am apparently going back with you." I said, with no emotion in my voice, or so I thought, my family was not so easily confused. Kel winced, and Mama and Dad looked at me with pity in their eyes.

"Well, I'm not going!" Kel said firmly, she was always more forthright than I was. "If they won't take both of us, then they can't take one! Even if it is only for a year…" Kel mumbled at the end, betraying her own misgivings towards the situation.

"Yes, you are!" I shouted, too surprised to maintain Yamani calm.

"No! If they won't accept you, I won't go!" She said, surprised, I usually never lost the calm façade that we learned in the Yamani islands.

"Well, what's the point of them accepting me, if you don't accept their proposal? They won't even give me a second chance. This has been our dream as long as I can remember! If I can't do it, then I'll be darned if you can't!" I shouted, before running outside. I ran into the woods and just kept running, my dreams were crashing down around me, and I couldn't stop it. Eventually I stopped running at a small town near Mindelan. My clothes were so tattered and dirty that when I entered the town square no one even looked at me askance. I fit right in with the orphans and beggar children on the side of the road. I went into a small inn in the center of the village, it looked well run and homey. I looked around and the small room was crowded with people of all different nationalities and lines of work. I went up to the matron, who had a kindly face, and asked her how far Mindelan was from here.

"About ten miles or so…" She said, frowning down at me concerned. "It's much too far for you to walk, especially at night! Do you have a relative in town?" She asked. I thought for a minute and then kept my face black and smooth, and said,

"Yes, she lives just up the road. I was just wondering that's all." I said she smiled at me.

"OK, go on now then, a pub is no place for a child, specifically a girl." I smiled at her, turned, and walked out, too deep in my thoughts to notice that a man at the bar walked out after me, and a mysterious, dark, women after him. I walked around for a while, before giving up and deciding to go back to the inn and beg a place to sleep, I probably shouldn't have lied to begin with, when a large hand grabbed my upper arm.

"What is a little girl like you doing in an alley way all alone at night?" He asked, his breath stinking of spirits. I shivered involuntarily, before keeping my face smooth and with no emotion. He tried to pull me closer to him, I didn't even think. I flung him over my hip the same way Nariko, the emperor's training master, had taught me. He fell hard, throwing up the contents of his stomach when he hit the ground.

"You little-" He started, coming back towards me and swinging a punch at my face. I step-sided and let his momentum ruin his balance, which was already pretty bad, and make him fall forward onto his face. He landed on his head and stopped moving. I hurried over to him and checked his pulse in a hurry.

"Thank Mithros! He's alive!" I exclaimed. I felt that killing for any reason was a horrendous thing to do, one that I had unfortunately participated in when raiders had attacked the Yamani Islands.

"You should work on keeping your body more streamlined." A voice from the shadows said. I twisted around and got into a battle position. A woman emerged from the shadows. I could easily see she was from the Yamani Islands from her golden skin and slanted black eyes. I laid my hands flat on my thighs and bowed. When I looked up through my hair I saw her still standing there, looking surprised.

"How is it that a small girl from Tortall, knows how to bow like a Yamani and fight like a court lady?" She said in wondering Yamani. I straightened and replied in turn.

"How is it that a Yamani is in Tortall and knows how to speak Tortallan?" She looked even more surprised so I continued wryly, "Did you really think that they could teach me how to fight if I could not speak?"

"I suppose that that would make sense. The strange thing to me was that you seem to speak Yamani better than Tortallan. How long were you in the Islands?" She asked, I was strangely comfortable with talking to this mysterious women and was about to answer her question when the man stirred. We both went into attack positions, but before anything happened, she gestured me to follow her. I hesitated, than followed her, thinking anything was better than the man in the alley. She led me to the inn from before. We sat down to the table when the kindly matron from before came up to the table. She smiled at the stranger and then looked questioningly at me.

"She's a friend of the family." I lied easily. The matron smiled and left.

"Now," The mysterious lady continued in Yamani. "How long were you in the Islands?" I kept my face a smooth as hers.

"Six years. Longer than I have lived in Tortall, actually. I just came back." I said with no emotion.

"Ah, when did you first arrive in the Islands?" She said, with an equal amount of emotion.

"When I was four."

"Why did you go?" She asked.

"My parents had to." I replied simply.

"Why?" She asked, a little curiosity creeping into her voice.

"My father was an ambassador." I said, not really thinking of it. I soon realized my mistake.

"Ah, so you are either Adalia, Oranie, or Keladry of Mindelan. If you were four when you came, you aren't Oranie, she was six. So, that leaves you as either Keladry or Adalia. Which one are you?" I gaped, losing my mask entirely.

"Adalia." I whispered in shock. She laughed.

"Well, come on! It wasn't that hard! Tortallan girl, trained in the Emperor's courts, parents are ambassadors, was four when she went, it wasn't that hard." She said in Yamani. I nodded and got my voice under control. The trick to living in the Islands was not to not show emotion; it was to show an extremely small amount of it. Just enough that another Yamani would know how you are feeling, but an outsider would not. I saw a small twinkle in her eyes that gave away the fact she was teasing me.

"Well, what is your name, then, if you know mine?" I said, deciding to tease her a bit.

"Tokomara Seastone, the Shang Phoenix." She said simply. I gaped yet again. She laughed.

"Yes. Shang. So, where are you going?" She asked. I found myself telling her everything. At the end of my story she just sat there in thought.

"So, I am actually headed home. Then to the Yamani Islands with the embassy, then back. But, I don't know what to do with myself. I don't have a goal, you know? I could just kill the people who stopped me from my dream. But, I won't." At this the Phoenix was roused from her thoughts and asked me a question that sounded like her life depended on it.

"Why?"

"I don't believe in killing for anything but self-defense, or maybe for a really good cause, I don't believe in killing, and I don't believe in war. But, I think that people who hurt those smaller or more helpless than them deserve to hurt worse than death. The lesson will last longer too." Tokomara looked intently at me.

"That is the same thing that I believe." She said simply. I ducked my head, a little embarrassed at my speech. "Have you ever done it? Killed someone I mean."

"Once. When raiders attacked the islands and my mom, Kel and I were stuck in the temple with the swords. Surely, you have heard of that story…" I said, not wanting to tell her. She nodded, her face unreadable. "Well Kel had one sword, the sword of law. I had the sword of duty. My mom had a glaive and was defending us. One got through her guard and was going in for the killing stroke, I didn't even think…" I trailed off, deep in thoughts of that terrible day. Tokomara gripped my shoulder comfortingly across the table.

"You don't have to finish." She said with pity. I smiled at her and nodded.

"You know the worst part? The guards saw, and I was hailed as a hero for it. I just… hated it… I was disgusted with myself…" I whispered. She looked at me for a minute before getting up and ordering a drink for her and me. She came back to the table with apple juice and beer.

"I have a proposal for you. Here," She said, giving me my juice and looking anxious.

"Thank You." I said in Tortallan. She nodded and smiled, knowing that there was no phrase for it in Yamani. Then she switched back to Yamani.

"Why don't you become my protégé? I have been looking for one for ten years now, and I think you would be perfect, for all that your nobly born and too old. Your family just turned into nobility, so that's fine. And you already have Yamani training, so you are actually ahead of the other young Shang your age, some of them at least. You may never be the best. I'm not going to lie. But, you would at least have a goal. And if you were my protégé you wouldn't have to go to the formal schooling. You could learn in the Islands." She said, looking at me anxiously.

"Oh, YES!"

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