Chapter 9: Yon Lenmi

Hi!

Anything you recognize isn't mine.

Kel soon found why Bellatrix was laughing. Coming here was a quiet affair, eating was mostly in silence. Walking into the mess hall Kel's mouth dropped open. There were kids of all ages all over the room, yelling and jumping off the walls.

The room was divided into 3 parts. On one third of the room seemed to be recruits, all younger then Kel was, ranging from ages 7 to 9. Both girls and boys, in fact there were more girls than boys. There were people from all over the word. Kel could see more than 4 different races. There were the blue eyed pale skinned Scanrans, the tanned rough voiced Bazhir, Tortallan and the quite blacked faced Yamani she had grown up with most of her life.

The middle section was the strangest of all three, in Kel's opinion. All of them had white hair, Kel had a feeling it was a ritual of sorts. Ages ranged from 11 to adult. They quietly chatted among themselves, the younger kids more loudly than the adults, but were still quieter than the first table.

The last table was raised on a platform, not much higher than the other tables. Here were the teachers and leaders of the organization. Kel was surprised of finding Valerie in the center of it all with Adria to her left and Liam to her right.

What surprised Kel the most was the amount of people she could see. Every seat was taken. Two long tables made up one of the two main sections.

Everyone quieted down once Kel walked in, pushed by Bella, she walked to the head table.

Valerie got up and cleared her throat. She began to speak, after a second of silence.

"On our way back" she gestured to the travelers, "from an undisclosed location, we meet a young girl who was defending herself against a group of drunk bandits. She had disposed of most of them when one of the remaining bandits swung at her neck. I acted shooting him in the throat. Because of the way she handled herself I would like to introduce you to our newest recruit, Kel."

Kel was surprised to hear applause that followed that statement. Val motioned that Kel sit down and she looked around to find a spot. A girl motioned her over and Kel took a seat.

"Hi, my name is Sanna Albescu. I'm 9" The boy across from her waved and said "Hey, names Aron Beckert and this is my cousin Voski Beckert, but he likes to be called V. What's your name again, sorry I missed it."

Kel was surprised she thought everyone heard Valerie's speech. "It's Keladry, Kel Foster"

Aron then turned to V and whispers in his ear. V then, looked over to Kel and waves.

"What's up. Sorry about Aron he's… different." V say's. Aron swings is arm around to smack V on the arm. "How old are you? You look old for a recruit. I'm 11 so I can't judge, but still."

She again had been expecting this question and she told them a modified story.

"I had run away about a month ago, my parents weren't the nicest people. I was trying to get to Maren to find work. I lost my way and crossed into Scanra by accident. Bandits surrounded me one day. As Valerie said, they where drunk and couldn't get it thought their thick sculls that a girl could fight. I had knocked them all out but one and was about to give up when they saved me."

Once she was done with her story her three companions where staring at her. V's eyes she noticed were a bright green color, but his eyes aren't focused on her. His pupils where staring at some far away place.

In the center of the tables all sorts of food where pilled. Kel filled her plate and dug in to her food.

Once she had finished she looked over to the head table and saw Valerie motion to her. Kel said good bye to her new friends with a promise to meet later and walked up to the table.

Valerie told her "You will observe only for today, tomorrow I will start to train you. Kel you can't tell anyone I'm training you."

Kel nodded and went to find her friends. She found Aron first who was waiting for her outside the doors to the mess. They caught up with Sanna and V who had kept going.

Kel followed them to the training yards. She was amazed of the size of the yards. It was huge. They had gotten there before the teachers arrived.

A boy who looked to be the same age of her, with the white hair of a member, walked over. Following him where two trainees. One looked to be Scanran, the other could have from anywhere.

"Well look who is here, the new kid. We need to show her how we welcome newcomers"

V had an alarmed look on his face as did Sanna and Aron. Kel looked around checking if teachers where coming, people must still be eating she thought.

The two henchmen looked at him and almost growled,

"You want help, Evan" He shook his head saying "I could take her in my sleep"

The boy, Evan started to circle her, and drew is sword. Kel watching him carefully did the same.

Remembering what Valerie said about attacking, she waited for a second then moved to attack. He blocked her first original attack but barely dodged the second one. She followed up with another attack. After a minute everyone in the audience could tell she was playing with him. She finally put him out of his misery by performing a complicated maneuver that left his sword sticking from the ground a couple feet away. Kel rested her sword a couple inches way from his throat.

His goons started to move, then stopped once they saw that V, Sanna, and Aron had their weapons in hand. V carried a sword and had a long knife in the other hand. Aron held a Katana in one hand and a throwing knife in the other. Sanna held a bow in her hand and her other was on her quiver.

Teachers finally showed up and got peoples account of the duel. For the rest of the day Kel watched with interest there training. Just like with pages and squires half the day was practical the other was physical.

At the end of the day Kel followed Sanna down to the girl's dorm and fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.