Chapter Two: What just happened?
"Wake up."
These words went unheeded by the blankets.
Rye leaned forward and gently prodded his love, "Wake up, Ady."
All he got in return was an inaudible grunt.
A smile spreading across his face, he carefully crept forward, so that he was now very close to the Ady-sized lump under the blankets. Rye had been forced to get up early because of a meeting that for some unknown reason just had to be held the day after he came back; but that was a few hours ago. Ady was the worst at getting up in the mornings – something that had never been changed by her strenuous knight training.
Rye, grey eyes glinting, grabbed the sheets and pulled them off her face. As always, he was rendered silent by her face – as he had been ever since they had first met in his parent's rooms, Ady only a page. Then, she was too young, and all he could do was be her friend – although he wanted her as more. It was the second happiest day of his life when Adalia had kissed him for the first time; the happiest being when she admitted to him that she loved him. He had already known and understood that it was not in her nature to tie herself down – it was in the nature of the crow to always be the trickster; always keep moving from place to place. He had made sure that Ady never once regretted loving him, as he couldn't imagine a life without her.
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, the mischievous grin returned as he lent down and whispered, "Wake up!" into her ear.
Rye grinned as goosebumps appeared on her neck. One of Ady's brilliant violet eyes cracked open. His grin grew as he saw that she was disoriented from being deep asleep. "Wake up Ady!" He repeated, louder than before.
Ady's head shook in a 'no' as she obstinately closed her eye once more, turning away from him. Rye almost chuckled, but instead moved closer, putting his lips near her ear, and repeated, "Wake up!"
She groaned, and before he knew it, her hand had snaked out to clasp his mouth closed firmly. He couldn't help laughing then, but it was somewhat muffled by her hand. He didn't miss the way her lips reluctantly curled up into a grin, even though she refused to open her eyes. Unable to form sentences, Rye pressed his cold fingers to her cheeks, earning himself a surprised yelp from Adalia.
Ady had shot up into a sitting position, and was now scowling at him. Rye grinned, recognising that she wasn't angry at him. He put a hand to her cheek, "Come on, love. It is mid-morning. You don't want to get lazy and out of practise, do you?" He teased.
She smiled as she rolled her eyes, but moved forward and kissed him tenderly – ah, how he had missed her.
.xXXx.
Rye had forced Adalia to go eat some late breakfast at the mess, and afterwards she found herself once again on the practise courts. A wry grin appeared on her lips as some of the older knights sheathed their swords and practically bolted for the door; not willing to chance being roped into a sparring match. An amused smile touched her lips as she moved to one side of the courts, and unsheathed her sword to begin one of the Shang training routines.
It was highly complicated, but as Adalia's limbs warmed up she began to increase the speed until she was a blur of steel and power. As it was one that she had done for a long time, her mind allowed itself to wander. She caught a glimpse of the pages dutifully following the Shang Falcon (Flick) out onto the courts. Adalia rolled her eyes at the open admiration that she saw on many of their faces, 'It's not like they haven't seen me doing this at least a hundred times.' She thought to herself.
Flick had started the pages on blocks and lunges when Adalia abruptly finished the routine, quickly sheathing her sword. The first years were still slow and clumsy-looking, because they had only recently began their page training. Some of the older pages were still out of shape from their break. She shook her head ruefully as she went to stand by her former EPS (Evil Personal Shang) and friend. "I can't believe that they are so out of shape!"
Flick's head snapped to her, and Adalia was amused to see that she had surprised the Shang. Flick rolled her eyes at the grin that had appeared on her face and said, "Me either. But they will be back in top form in no time, or Mithros only knows how they'll survive this."
Adalia had to suppress a shudder at the very familiar evil grin that appeared on Flick's face – it was the grin that she had learned to associate with imminent pain in the near future during her own page years. Pure evil. "Sounds good. Ah, please leave them in one piece? Who knows what Queenscove will do if you fill up his infirmary?"
Flick caught Adalia's eyes, a small grin forming on her face, "Well, if I remember correctly, you do."
Adalia shook her head sorrowfully, face contorting in dismay, "Urgh, don't remind me! I didn't get the horrible taste out of my mouth for weeks!"
Flick's eyebrows pulled together, "What's this? I thought he only kept you in a room and yelled at you sarcastically for a few hours."
Adalia shuddered, "He did at that. But then he forced me to drink tea. That he made himself. Yuk!" Adalia spat the word tea like it was the most gruesome thing in the world. "Healers. Making. Tea. Not good. I don't think it could even be called tea. We should use it as poison."
Flick chuckled at the dismayed look on Adalia's face. "Thanks for the warning. So, do you want to help train the pages?"
Adalia sighed, "Yes, I guess so. I don't have anything else that needs attending to, in any case."
Adalia helped Flick train the pages. While they were watching them move simultaneously, they continued to talk quietly, every now and then walking over to correct a grip or swing.
"So, you haven't found anything to occupy yourself with then?" Flick asked.
Adalia shook her head, "No. It's just as bad as I imagined it to be. I think I'll go mad if I have to stay cooped up here for much longer – although it is easier with Rye back."
Flick's eyebrows pulled together in thought, "You've asked Roald for an assignment?"
Adalia nodded her head and went off to correct the grip of one of the new girl pages. After returning to Flick she said, 'There is absolutely nothing to do. I assure you, I've asked – more than once. Grandad (George) has helped by introducing me to some thieves, and I've been exploring Corus, but there is nothing interesting with seeing things that I have seen before."
Flick raised an eyebrow, "The Baron introduced you to the thieves? I would have thought he'd want you to know less trouble makers."
Adalia rolled her eyes, "I don't go… fine, maybe I do go looking for trouble, but only fun trouble! And I can assure you that there is no one in Corus who even comes close to beating me. It is boring."
Suddenly, the loud bell rang, signalling the end of the page's staff lesson. Flick dismissed them to Lord Padraig, who led them away from the courts, intending to do a run of the outer wall. Adalia, finding herself with Flick, turned to the woman.
Flick was taller than her, with deep brown eyes and sun-streaked brown hair. She was about 25 years old now, but didn't look it. Adalia caught the lines of thought on her forehead, but they seemed to vanish as her former EPA regarded her with the evil grin. Adalia had managed to unsheathe her sword and block the Shang's first attack, and then those that preceded it in quick succession.
Adalia was almost caught off guard as the Shang attempted to trip her, but she managed to lightly slip away. She matched Flick's speed and blocked her kicks, continuing to move, keeping the Shang on her toes. Then she caught the glint of a blade as a dagger appeared in Flick's arm, and Adalia automatically released her own dagger, blocking the first.
The sparring continued, Adalia enjoying the immense challenge that came with facing off with a Shang in their style of fighting – anything goes. It was a battle of wits, not just strength. This was how it was with the best fighters – all the crow speed and strength in the world wouldn't help her win if her opponent was more skilled and fought craftily. But Adalia did not rely on her strength and speed – that would make it unfair. As much as was possible in practise bouts, she attempted to not use the advantage.
Flick let her guard slip infinitesimally, and Adalia spotted and exploited this, snaking her sword forward to rest at Flick's throat. Flick shook her head in dismay, "I yield. Ady, I think you are getting too good. Oh, how I yearn for the days when I could beat you up."
Adalia quickly sheathed her sword, a mischievous grin on her face, "What happened to 'It's good for my ego'?"
Flick rolled her eyes, choosing to not dignify that with a response. Instead, she changed the subject, and voiced the idea that she had thought of before, "Why don't you talk to Alanna? At the least you can learn how she delt with her first year of being a knight."
Adalia blinked in surprise – at the abrupt change of subject and the idea. It was a good one. She shook her head in astonishment, "How I didn't think of that before… thanks Flick!"
Adalia turned around abruptly, but before she had gotten more than two steps away, she stumbled out of the way of a ginger streak that seemed to appear out of no where. Faced with stepping on the streak or falling down, she braced her arms and landed so that she wouldn't bruise.
When the dust cleared, she scowled as she heard Flick snorting at the compromising position her former student had found herself in. Her scowl deepened when her gaze caught on the reason for her current predicament. A relatively small ginger cat with bright green eyes was sitting primly in front of her, and Adalia could tell that the cat was wearing a smug grin. "Sati…" She growled.
The cat continued to lick her paw clean, but replied, "What?" innocently.
Adalia rolled her eyes at her playful companion. They had become good friends since Sati had opted to stay with Adalia as her 'Keeper' roughly two years ago. Never mind 'keeper,' it turned out to be quite the opposite; in fact it seemed that Adalia was always getting her cat out of trouble.
"Sati, what are you doing?" Adalia asked, exasperated as she stood up and dusted off her breeches.
"I am coming with you." At this, she clawed her way up Adalia's leg, settling herself around the young woman's shoulders.
"Fine, but I don't see why you had to trip me." Adalia grumbled. All she got in return was Sati's amused purr. Shaking her head, she finally continued on to her grandmother's suite.
.xXXx.
Adalia knocked on the door, and was greeted with a loud call of "It's open!"
She swung the door open, to be greeted with the sight of her grandmother curled up next to the fireplace in her room. "Good afternoon, Ady. How are you?"
Adalia smiled as she dropped into a seat next to Alanna. Sati slinked off her shoulder and settled in Alanna's lap. "I'm ok, really. I've been curious about something; can I ask you a question?"
Alanna blinked at the forthrightness of her granddaughter, a slight smile touching her lips. Her hand out reached automatically to stoke the ginger ball in her lap as she set aside her warm drink, "Sure, Ask away."
Adalia drew in a breath and asked, "Grandma, after you were first knighted, what did you do? Because it seems that I've been doing no one any good around here, and I can't stand it!"
Alanna smiled and shook her head humorously, "You can't say you've been doing nothing – you've been training relentlessly, and I seem to remember some odd occurances cropping up around the castle…" She raised an eyebrow at Ady, who smiled slightly and raised one of own. Alanna chuckled and said, "Fine. As you know, since I was the first female knight – and very few people knew of my gender – I thought it would be better to go travelling. That was really the only thing that I had wanted to do since I was a young girl – earn my shield and go on great adventures."
Alanna witnessed something glint in Adalia's eyes as her granddaughter smiled, "So you didn't have any idea of where you wanted to go? I thought that you went out to retrieve the Dominion Jewel."
Alanna smiled ruefully, "Nope. Coram and Faithful joined me to go on adventures – when I set out, I had no idea of where I was going, or what I would do – I just knew that I wanted to see the world. When I came back and my old friends were suddenly calling me 'Lioness' I got a huge shock."
Alanna was suddenly suspicious of the huge grin that had appeared on her granddaughter's face. She examined her violet eyes, which suddenly held determination and resolve. It shocked her as Ady practically jumped up and said cheerfully, "Thanks Grandma. That helped a lot."
Alanna's brows furrowed as she watched Sati climb out of her lap and follow Adalia out of the room at a trot. She had sensed a double meaning behind Ady's words, and something about this was unsettling her. Alanna couldn't help but think that something more had happened than just telling Adalia about her own adventures as a young woman.
'What just happened?'
.xXXx.
A/N: Well, guys here we are again! :) If I get a lot of reviews, I will update tomorrow as well, but it has to be a lot. I'd love to hear what you all thought of that chapter, and even some suggestions for the plot – you never know, one of your ideas or what you'd love to see happen may worm itself into this story – I haven't written any of it yet. Lol, I could resist from putting some Ady/Rye fluff in here, especially when I realised that I had never really written their relationship from Rye's POV.
Thanks to all previous reviewers, they blew me away! :) I really hope that this sequel lives up to your expectations!!