As Lord Merric walked away Dani scowled at Dandin, "I told you I wanted to
sponsor her, Kip." Dandin just smiled while Jes looked confused.
"Who's Kip?" she asked, trying to sort all this out in her mind.
Dandin smiled. "You can just call me Kip. I was named after my father because I'm the oldest boy but I've got a cousin who's just a little older than me who's named Dandin too so everybody called me Kip instead." He said. He turned to look at his younger sister pleadingly, "Dani, think about it, sponsoring her would take time and you really do need to work on your classwork. Mum would kill me if you fell behind and that's not really something I want to deal with in my last year of pagedom."
Dani scowled at her brother for a minute and then shrugged, "Whatever you say, o almighty and brilliant brother. I think I would have been fine!" she said, but as she walked past her brother she slapped his head good naturedly and Jes breathed a sigh of relief, she didn't really want to get in the middle of some sibling feud.
Kip turned to Jes again after watching his sister stride down the hall bemusedly, "Come on then, if we don't get to breakfast we'll be late and I really don't need more punishment work." He said. Jes nodded and they walked in silence towards the mess, evidently babbling didn't run in the family. Jes offered a small thanks to the gods for that, she wasn't sure if she would be able to deal with the constant babbling that Dani seemed to love so much.
As they entered into the mess a few of the boys called out for Kip to come to their table. Jes followed, not wanting to get separated from her sponsor in this rush of boys, as Kip walked over to greet them. "'lo, this is my little pagelet, Jes, had to save her from the madness of my sister you know, there wasn't much I could do." Jes stood behind Kip, unsure of what to do. "Come on, sit down Kip." Urged one of the boys, who Jes thought she remembered as being Landon of Seabeth and Seajen, he was the one who had taken Prince Nathaniel.
Kip nodded. "We'll be right back, we've got to get some food." He grabbed Jes' arm and towed her over to get into the line. "Take a ton of food, you'll be glad of it by the time you're done this afternoon. Lesson's are hard work." He said.
Jes nodded, only an idiot wouldn't take as much food as they thought would fill them up without bloating them, you didn't pass up free food when it was offered to you, that was one of the first things she had learned back home. "Umm, Kip?" Jes said. The older boy looked at her over his shoulder with a nod. Jes took it to mean he was listening and continued, "Are we ever allowed to go into the city, I want to visit my br-some relatives." She amended.
Not seeming to notice her slip, Kip nodded, "If you don't have any extra work on the weekends you're allowed to go into the city, first years need an older page with them though. That almost never happens, extra work is a given. Sometimes Lord Merric rewards pages with trips to the city though." Kip said as he led her back to the table where his friends were sitting and sat down. Jes noticed that Dani had joined them too and was glad, she didn't like to be surrounded by complete strangers. Yet again Jes questioned her sanity, what was making her do this? "I want to be a knight." She thought firmly too herself, "I want to, and now I'm going to be a knight."
There were three other girls with the group, one of whom Jes recognized as one of the other first years, Sarin of Disart sitting with her brother Warren. Warren looked at Jes with a grin, "So you're Jestinia?" he asked.
Jes nodded and Warren bowed deeply over his plate to her, "I am proud to meet the daughter of a man so brave as M'lord of Rockstream." The others nodded, and Jes looked from one to the other, suppressing her surprise carefully.
"Thank you, I umm." Jes strained to try to think of something to say, "I appreciate your praise of my father." Jes had no idea what they could be talking about but she smiled graciously anyway, hoping that they would change the subject.
* * * * *
"Come on girl, you can do better than that! You have to slap the ground as you fall." Jes groaned as the middle-aged hand to hand instructor, Kyall, sent her soaring over his hip again. This time she remembered to slap the ground as she fell, but the force of it still sent a shock through her arms. Jes knew that she should be able to fall correctly, god knows she had spent enough time "practicing" hand to hand fighting, but this organized system was so different from the fighting on the streets. Jes ground her teeth as Kyall shook his head, "No, no. Back of the line Rockstream, you're hopeless." He said.
Jes lingered for a moment, as the tall first year girl called Michiko stepped up and let Kyall throw her. Michiko landed easily, slapping the ground as though she had been doing it all her life and bounded to her feet almost instantly. Jes ground her teeth even more, how could this Michiko be so much better when Jes had been fighting nearly her whole life?
Michiko smiled at Jes as she followed her to the back of the line, "I see what your problem is when you fall, you're putting too much of your weight on your arms, instead you've got to just slap the ground to take away the shock of landing. If you put too much weight on your arms you might break something." Michiko said. Jes suppressed the urge to growl at this noble girl who was trying to tell her what to do. "I know." She said, turning to watch the older pages going through practice fights.
Michiko didn't look particularly surprised that Jes was irritated. "Sorry, Pa tells me that people hate it when you correct them like that. He says he used to hate it when Kel corrected him. She told me not to show off, I guess I kind of was."
Jes turned to look at Michiko in surprise, maybe the other girl really was trying to help, not just showing off how much better than Jes she was. "It's fine, I shouldn't have gotten mad. I just have had a lot of hand to hand practice so I thought I'd be better than I seem to be. Where'd you learn to fall like that?" she asked.
Michiko groaned, "The Yamani Islands, my mother, Yukimi is from there and I grew up there. The armsmaster back at Queenscove was always making me practice. He's a Yamani too. You wouldn't believe how often I've had to do this fall, and exactly this way." She said. "Your turn again, keep in mind what I said about the shock stuff. I really don't know what it means but it might help."
Jes nodded as she stepped forwards, this time she didn't try to put much weight on her arms, just catching up enough of the shock that she recovered in seconds and was back on her feet. Jes winked to Michiko as she walked back into line, silently thanking her for the advice. For all that they were nobles, the pages here seemed to be pretty good people.
* * * * *
Just an hour later, as Jes stood across from the beautiful Larissa of Elden, she wasn't so sure. Larissa held her staff like it was some sort of snake, barely tapping it against Jes' and then recoiling quickly. Jes shook her head as she brought her staff up to block another of Larissa's quick taps.
"You can put more force behind that if you want, it won't hurt me." Jes said, wondering if Larissa was holding back for her sake.
Larissa ignored Jes, just bringing up her staff to block Jes' blow, which while light, was nothing like Larissa's feather-like touches. Jes frowned but just continued trading blows until Lord Merric called for them to switch partners. Jes ended up across from Michiko and she breathed a sigh of relief. Michiko grinned at her, "I saw you with Larissa, annoying isn't she?" she said under her breath.
Jes nodded fervently, as she watched Larissa squeal as an older boy's staff came down on hers. "What's a girl like that doing trying to become a knight?" she asked. Didn't most noble girls go to the convent to learn to become proper ladies? Jes thought Larissa would have fit that role perfectly.
Michiko scowled, "Some fathers are sending their second or third daughters to become knights, thinking that it will make them more valuable brides to the progressives who support girls becoming knights. They think that it will give them an edge over the masses of convent ladies." She said.
Jes snorted in disgust. "So they're sending their daughters to become knights to make them more valuable? That's sick!" she said.
Michiko nodded as the two concentrated on their sparring. Jes had relaxed with Michiko as a partner, her blows were forceful but they weren't an attack and Jes blocked them easily, returning her own blows.
* * * * *
As Jes left the library that night with Kip she remembered that she needed to find the etiquette book that Master Oakbridge had assigned for reading that night. Kip pointed to the door down the hall and said he'd wait for her. Jes nodded and trotted towards the room quickly.
As Jes entered and grabbed the book off the table she heard yells from behind one of the dusty bookshelves. Jes leapt to her feet immediately and walked around the edge of the bookcase. There was Haliz, the boy Michiko had pointed out with a frown to be her sponsor, with another boy Jes didn't recognize and Larissa of Elden who was laughing as Haliz held Michiko against one of the bookshelves with a smile, "Now my dear Michiko," he said, kneeing her in the stomach, "We won't be hanging about with that Rockstream girl will we. Rockstream is with Landon and his gang, no one you will be fraternizing with." He said. He punctuated his sentence with kicks.
Jes started forward into the alcove and the other boy yelled a warning to Haliz. Haliz turned, the smile on his face fading as he shoved Michiko away from him, "And what would you be wanting Rockstream?" he asked.
Jes stared at him, "What are you doing? Michiko can talk with anyone she likes. If you have a problem with me just tell me." She said.
Haliz nodded. "I have a problem with you." He said, "I have a problem with you and every single one of your other little friends. Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, settling back onto his heels, readying for a fight. Jes didn't answer, she couldn't, the other boy had snuck around behind her and now he had one hand over her mouth. "What do you want me to do with her?" he asked Haliz.
Haliz smiled, "Just hold her for a minute, she and I need to have a quick conversation. As Haliz drew back one hand to punch her Jes bit the hand of the boy holding her and ducked out of his grip. Haliz's punch went straight over her head to hit the boy's nose. The other boy fell on top of Jes who pushed him off of her just in time to avoid a kick to the head. Haliz yelled as Michiko pulled him down from the back and threw him to the floor. As Jes stood up Larissa of Elden launched herself towards her, wrapping her hands into Jes' short hair and wrenching. Jes held in a squeal of pain and brought one hand up to grab Larissa's shoulder. Wrenching it, Jes leaned down and threw Larissa to the floor, only to stand up into a punch from the boy who had pulled himself up off of the floor. Jes frowned as she felt her nose break, that one would hurt for a while. Jes could feel blood trickling down her face and she punched the boy as hard as she could. It wasn't hard enough, she thought, to warrant the boy crumpling to the ground, but Jes grinned when she saw Michiko standing behind the boy, a book raised in her hand.
Jes looked around at the three groaning pages with a grin. "Come on. Lets go meet Kip." She said. Jes and Michiko walked out of the library smiling and went over to Kip who stared at Jes openmouthed. "You've got.." he was staring at her nose and Jes remembered the break with a sigh. "I hate broken noses." She muttered. "they take forever to-" but she broke off as Michiko put a hand to her nose and she felt coolness flow into her nose. She looked at Michiko with surprise and the other girl smiled, "My Pa has a really strong healing gift and since I've wanted to become a knight forever he started my training early. Pa didn't want for me to not learn as much as I could like he did." She said.
Kip was still looking from Jes to Michiko and back again. "You've got a lot of explaining to do little pagelet." He said.
"Who's Kip?" she asked, trying to sort all this out in her mind.
Dandin smiled. "You can just call me Kip. I was named after my father because I'm the oldest boy but I've got a cousin who's just a little older than me who's named Dandin too so everybody called me Kip instead." He said. He turned to look at his younger sister pleadingly, "Dani, think about it, sponsoring her would take time and you really do need to work on your classwork. Mum would kill me if you fell behind and that's not really something I want to deal with in my last year of pagedom."
Dani scowled at her brother for a minute and then shrugged, "Whatever you say, o almighty and brilliant brother. I think I would have been fine!" she said, but as she walked past her brother she slapped his head good naturedly and Jes breathed a sigh of relief, she didn't really want to get in the middle of some sibling feud.
Kip turned to Jes again after watching his sister stride down the hall bemusedly, "Come on then, if we don't get to breakfast we'll be late and I really don't need more punishment work." He said. Jes nodded and they walked in silence towards the mess, evidently babbling didn't run in the family. Jes offered a small thanks to the gods for that, she wasn't sure if she would be able to deal with the constant babbling that Dani seemed to love so much.
As they entered into the mess a few of the boys called out for Kip to come to their table. Jes followed, not wanting to get separated from her sponsor in this rush of boys, as Kip walked over to greet them. "'lo, this is my little pagelet, Jes, had to save her from the madness of my sister you know, there wasn't much I could do." Jes stood behind Kip, unsure of what to do. "Come on, sit down Kip." Urged one of the boys, who Jes thought she remembered as being Landon of Seabeth and Seajen, he was the one who had taken Prince Nathaniel.
Kip nodded. "We'll be right back, we've got to get some food." He grabbed Jes' arm and towed her over to get into the line. "Take a ton of food, you'll be glad of it by the time you're done this afternoon. Lesson's are hard work." He said.
Jes nodded, only an idiot wouldn't take as much food as they thought would fill them up without bloating them, you didn't pass up free food when it was offered to you, that was one of the first things she had learned back home. "Umm, Kip?" Jes said. The older boy looked at her over his shoulder with a nod. Jes took it to mean he was listening and continued, "Are we ever allowed to go into the city, I want to visit my br-some relatives." She amended.
Not seeming to notice her slip, Kip nodded, "If you don't have any extra work on the weekends you're allowed to go into the city, first years need an older page with them though. That almost never happens, extra work is a given. Sometimes Lord Merric rewards pages with trips to the city though." Kip said as he led her back to the table where his friends were sitting and sat down. Jes noticed that Dani had joined them too and was glad, she didn't like to be surrounded by complete strangers. Yet again Jes questioned her sanity, what was making her do this? "I want to be a knight." She thought firmly too herself, "I want to, and now I'm going to be a knight."
There were three other girls with the group, one of whom Jes recognized as one of the other first years, Sarin of Disart sitting with her brother Warren. Warren looked at Jes with a grin, "So you're Jestinia?" he asked.
Jes nodded and Warren bowed deeply over his plate to her, "I am proud to meet the daughter of a man so brave as M'lord of Rockstream." The others nodded, and Jes looked from one to the other, suppressing her surprise carefully.
"Thank you, I umm." Jes strained to try to think of something to say, "I appreciate your praise of my father." Jes had no idea what they could be talking about but she smiled graciously anyway, hoping that they would change the subject.
* * * * *
"Come on girl, you can do better than that! You have to slap the ground as you fall." Jes groaned as the middle-aged hand to hand instructor, Kyall, sent her soaring over his hip again. This time she remembered to slap the ground as she fell, but the force of it still sent a shock through her arms. Jes knew that she should be able to fall correctly, god knows she had spent enough time "practicing" hand to hand fighting, but this organized system was so different from the fighting on the streets. Jes ground her teeth as Kyall shook his head, "No, no. Back of the line Rockstream, you're hopeless." He said.
Jes lingered for a moment, as the tall first year girl called Michiko stepped up and let Kyall throw her. Michiko landed easily, slapping the ground as though she had been doing it all her life and bounded to her feet almost instantly. Jes ground her teeth even more, how could this Michiko be so much better when Jes had been fighting nearly her whole life?
Michiko smiled at Jes as she followed her to the back of the line, "I see what your problem is when you fall, you're putting too much of your weight on your arms, instead you've got to just slap the ground to take away the shock of landing. If you put too much weight on your arms you might break something." Michiko said. Jes suppressed the urge to growl at this noble girl who was trying to tell her what to do. "I know." She said, turning to watch the older pages going through practice fights.
Michiko didn't look particularly surprised that Jes was irritated. "Sorry, Pa tells me that people hate it when you correct them like that. He says he used to hate it when Kel corrected him. She told me not to show off, I guess I kind of was."
Jes turned to look at Michiko in surprise, maybe the other girl really was trying to help, not just showing off how much better than Jes she was. "It's fine, I shouldn't have gotten mad. I just have had a lot of hand to hand practice so I thought I'd be better than I seem to be. Where'd you learn to fall like that?" she asked.
Michiko groaned, "The Yamani Islands, my mother, Yukimi is from there and I grew up there. The armsmaster back at Queenscove was always making me practice. He's a Yamani too. You wouldn't believe how often I've had to do this fall, and exactly this way." She said. "Your turn again, keep in mind what I said about the shock stuff. I really don't know what it means but it might help."
Jes nodded as she stepped forwards, this time she didn't try to put much weight on her arms, just catching up enough of the shock that she recovered in seconds and was back on her feet. Jes winked to Michiko as she walked back into line, silently thanking her for the advice. For all that they were nobles, the pages here seemed to be pretty good people.
* * * * *
Just an hour later, as Jes stood across from the beautiful Larissa of Elden, she wasn't so sure. Larissa held her staff like it was some sort of snake, barely tapping it against Jes' and then recoiling quickly. Jes shook her head as she brought her staff up to block another of Larissa's quick taps.
"You can put more force behind that if you want, it won't hurt me." Jes said, wondering if Larissa was holding back for her sake.
Larissa ignored Jes, just bringing up her staff to block Jes' blow, which while light, was nothing like Larissa's feather-like touches. Jes frowned but just continued trading blows until Lord Merric called for them to switch partners. Jes ended up across from Michiko and she breathed a sigh of relief. Michiko grinned at her, "I saw you with Larissa, annoying isn't she?" she said under her breath.
Jes nodded fervently, as she watched Larissa squeal as an older boy's staff came down on hers. "What's a girl like that doing trying to become a knight?" she asked. Didn't most noble girls go to the convent to learn to become proper ladies? Jes thought Larissa would have fit that role perfectly.
Michiko scowled, "Some fathers are sending their second or third daughters to become knights, thinking that it will make them more valuable brides to the progressives who support girls becoming knights. They think that it will give them an edge over the masses of convent ladies." She said.
Jes snorted in disgust. "So they're sending their daughters to become knights to make them more valuable? That's sick!" she said.
Michiko nodded as the two concentrated on their sparring. Jes had relaxed with Michiko as a partner, her blows were forceful but they weren't an attack and Jes blocked them easily, returning her own blows.
* * * * *
As Jes left the library that night with Kip she remembered that she needed to find the etiquette book that Master Oakbridge had assigned for reading that night. Kip pointed to the door down the hall and said he'd wait for her. Jes nodded and trotted towards the room quickly.
As Jes entered and grabbed the book off the table she heard yells from behind one of the dusty bookshelves. Jes leapt to her feet immediately and walked around the edge of the bookcase. There was Haliz, the boy Michiko had pointed out with a frown to be her sponsor, with another boy Jes didn't recognize and Larissa of Elden who was laughing as Haliz held Michiko against one of the bookshelves with a smile, "Now my dear Michiko," he said, kneeing her in the stomach, "We won't be hanging about with that Rockstream girl will we. Rockstream is with Landon and his gang, no one you will be fraternizing with." He said. He punctuated his sentence with kicks.
Jes started forward into the alcove and the other boy yelled a warning to Haliz. Haliz turned, the smile on his face fading as he shoved Michiko away from him, "And what would you be wanting Rockstream?" he asked.
Jes stared at him, "What are you doing? Michiko can talk with anyone she likes. If you have a problem with me just tell me." She said.
Haliz nodded. "I have a problem with you." He said, "I have a problem with you and every single one of your other little friends. Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, settling back onto his heels, readying for a fight. Jes didn't answer, she couldn't, the other boy had snuck around behind her and now he had one hand over her mouth. "What do you want me to do with her?" he asked Haliz.
Haliz smiled, "Just hold her for a minute, she and I need to have a quick conversation. As Haliz drew back one hand to punch her Jes bit the hand of the boy holding her and ducked out of his grip. Haliz's punch went straight over her head to hit the boy's nose. The other boy fell on top of Jes who pushed him off of her just in time to avoid a kick to the head. Haliz yelled as Michiko pulled him down from the back and threw him to the floor. As Jes stood up Larissa of Elden launched herself towards her, wrapping her hands into Jes' short hair and wrenching. Jes held in a squeal of pain and brought one hand up to grab Larissa's shoulder. Wrenching it, Jes leaned down and threw Larissa to the floor, only to stand up into a punch from the boy who had pulled himself up off of the floor. Jes frowned as she felt her nose break, that one would hurt for a while. Jes could feel blood trickling down her face and she punched the boy as hard as she could. It wasn't hard enough, she thought, to warrant the boy crumpling to the ground, but Jes grinned when she saw Michiko standing behind the boy, a book raised in her hand.
Jes looked around at the three groaning pages with a grin. "Come on. Lets go meet Kip." She said. Jes and Michiko walked out of the library smiling and went over to Kip who stared at Jes openmouthed. "You've got.." he was staring at her nose and Jes remembered the break with a sigh. "I hate broken noses." She muttered. "they take forever to-" but she broke off as Michiko put a hand to her nose and she felt coolness flow into her nose. She looked at Michiko with surprise and the other girl smiled, "My Pa has a really strong healing gift and since I've wanted to become a knight forever he started my training early. Pa didn't want for me to not learn as much as I could like he did." She said.
Kip was still looking from Jes to Michiko and back again. "You've got a lot of explaining to do little pagelet." He said.