Kel lay in her fluffy bed staring at the ceiling in disgust. The room was filled with her least favorite color, shades of light purple.
'This room was probably built for girls like me. Of course that's why I'm the only one to have used it. This room must make even the strongest ladies go mad.' She thought as she looked under her bed.
There she hid a stash of her old page weapons to still keep in shape. She hid her glaive and a sword that Anders had given her. The last two were from her secret benefactor who had wished her good luck throughout her first year. She had gotten a Raven Armory dagger and exercise balls to strengthen her grip.
She had no idea why she was still working out when she was fated to life as a court lady. Court lady, she sighed, she had gone through one week without making any friends and making enemies with all of her teachers.
The teachers repeatedly tried to cure her curtsy and her walking like a boy. Whenever she did something wrong they would make her fast for days at a time. The teachers humiliated her in front of her classmates whenever she did something wrong. None of the other girls wanted to associate themselves with the resident troublemaker as she had been pegged by her teachers. She did her best to avoid everyone's attention and wore her Yamani mask at all times. When she wasn't fasting she ate by herself and did her homework alone.
The only companionship she had at all were the birds outside her window. She remembered when she had first seen them and had been reminded of her little friends back at the palace. The birds were wild parakeets that had escaped from the convent's collection of birds. She had called their female leader Skye since the bird had a milky colored blue on her chest. There were around ten of the birds. Although she was delighted to have feathered friends, they were no comparison to Crown and her palace flock. They weren't as intelligent and didn't seem to have a mind of their own. She missed the palace every time she saw the birds, so it was bittersweet.
She slowly rose from her pondering thoughts to get ready for dinner. She slipped on a russet red dress that she used to wear when she was a page. The dress was beginning to look too short as her ankles were beginning to show. But that was the least of her worries at the convent. Her thoughts turned to her page friends at the palace as she looked down at the worn dress.
'I can't believe I won't see any of them for five years. They might not even remember me.' She thought to herself before realizing what time it was, 'Maybe I should hurry to dinner. I don't want to cause all the girls to dislike me even more than they already do, but then again I'm not eating since I told the etiquette teacher that I had already read the Yamani etiquette book.' She walked out the room in hurry. 'She then gave me the lady's version and she said that I should not talk back to her. She was so angry that she kept spitting on me at every word. I then lathered up my response to her in return. So now I'm fasting for three days, and then since I didn't seem fazed she gave me double homework. I think Neal left a bad impression on me.'
She smiled to herself as she remembered the situation, then realized she had made it to the dining hall or as Kel liked to call it "Dining Through Torture." All of the girls had to have classes while they ate. The classes were centered on eating etiquette and table manners. Lucky for Kel she didn't have to take them tonight on account that she wasn't eating dinner. She went to her usual secluded corner where no one had dared to approach her, the freak that had tried for knighthood.
Kel looked at the ceiling in feigned interest. It really was beautiful; it had angels flying all around clouds. The angels looked to be gods and goddesses, but when she observed the painting she saw beings that were too perfect for their looks. To her they looked like evil beings with a mask covering their inner poison.
'Just like someone I know. Joren with his perfect golden blond hair that looked like it could be an angelic halo. Only to the certain people did Joren reveal his true nature.' As Kel looked down from the ceiling she saw a girl that looked to be about a year older than her standing right in front of her. She fumbled in her chair grabbing for a dagger that wasn't at her side as she remembered where she was.
"Hello my name is-"
"Keladry of Mindelan, the girl page that wanted to become a knight last year, but was unfairly put on probation. Then that sexist bigot sent you home." The tall blond girl said a hint of irritation in her voice.
"How'd you know that? Pardon me, but I don't believe we've met." Kel asked confused. 'Why does this girl look so familiar? I haven't seen her before ever. At least I don't think so.' It was akin to an itch in her head, she needed to know.
"Oh how rude of me. My name is Jocelyn of Stone Mountain. I know your name because my brother has wrote vividly about you in our letters to each other, and I also wanted to become a knight. My father wouldn't let me though. So here I am becoming a proper lady." She said while rolling her eyes, "Also the only interesting gossip I heard for two years was about you."
"You're--you're Joren's sister?" Kel was flabbergasted. 'No wonder she looked so familiar she's related to Joren.' Kel examined Jocelyn and found that Jocelyn had the same hair color with the exception of hers being a shade darker than Joren. She also had the same icy blue eyes as Joren, but her's didn't appear to be as cold and distant. They seemed more like a peaceful summer ocean, than the cold glare that gave you frostbite. Jocelyn was about five feet and a few inches tall which looked short in comparison to Kel, who could easily see over her head. She had a small petite nose that fit her almond face. She had a slight tan, which was very strange since a lady shouldn't be outside.
"Yes I am, I know I don't hold a candle to him," She said with a smirk. "He's just so pretty." Kel smiled at this comment. "Joren wrote about you all the time. It seemed like you did something to make him mad for the first month, but later on he grew to respect you." Jocelyn went on to say. Kel acknowledged this information by her eyes widening in shock.
"But Joren hates me. He hazed all the first year pages, which I was against, so we ended up fighting almost every night. He beat me up with his friends: Zahir and Vinson." She stopped herself when it sounded like she was ranting.
"Joren always wrote in his letters that he acted civilized towards you and the two of you were good training partners."
"That's far from the truth. We did staff practice with each other once, but I beat him using a Yamani move."
"Wow, who would have thought my brother was double-faced. Oh, speaking of the Yamani I heard how good you are with the glaive. Do you think you could teach me how to use it?" She asked hopefully.
"Of course, I need a practice partner anyways. We will need to go early in the morning before anyone is up so no one will see us. Shall we meet one bell till dawn and, let's say, behind the stables?"
"Yes that would be wonderful. Thank you so much. I'm going to go and write to Joren. See you in the morning." Kel shook her head as she saw her new friend skip away.
'Jocelyn could help me during these boring years at the convent. She might even make them enjoyable.' She thought smiling to herself. She exited the dining hall and walked back to her room pondering what Jocelyn had told her about Joren.
'How could Joren lie to his only sister? Why would he even want to lie in the first place? What motives could he possibly have for doing it?' She opened her door and was greeted by Skye who flew on her shoulder. 'I guess I'll leave those questions for a rainy day. I'm too tired to think, but that doesn't mean I can't make my body do grueling exercises.' She did her push-ups and sit-ups that the Shang Wildcat had told her to do, then she fell asleep while doing her exercise balls.
She dreamed that Jocelyn and her were at the palace both training to be knights and Lord Wyldon wasn't the training master anymore. She was with all her friends and a certain ice eyed boy.
Joren and her were training with their staffs. Joren was not in his usual demeanor though, he was kind, what Jocelyn had called his second face. As they did polite thrusts to each other, Joren's hits got wilder each time he attacked until it was Kel that ended on the ground not Joren. Joren's staff was placed at her throat as he told her to surrender. As his staff rose from her throat she also tried to get up, but Joren's staff came crashing down across her eyes with flash.
She rose from her restless sleep sweating and shaking from her nightmare. She settled herself down enough to go back into restless sleep.
I wanna make shout out to the only ppl who reviewed.
queen-of-sapphires thanx so much! I had no idea how to spell convent...I looked on an Alias video case and thats how they spelled it so thats why i spelled it that way. sry i was bein lazy. Thanks for reviewing!
Gwennie! you helped me again you are sucha great person even though I just talked to you a couple times. You get extra brownie points for helping me with my story. That laughin smiley was da bomb lol thanks for reviewing!
Its funny to think that at this point in the story I was thinking about scrapping this story. Thank you faithful reviewers :]
Edited 7/1/09 (So I changed Nicole's name to Jocelyn due to the fact that Nicole is not a very 'time influenced name' I looked up medieval names and my favorite was Jocelyn. If you see any Nicoles I've missed, let me know)