In Which There Is Dressing Up Like Girls
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Now R&R!
~Chapter 8:In Which There Is Dressing Up Like Girls~
That had to be the most exiting thing that happened that year, finding out she was part of a prophecy to save the world. Pretty soon it was time for the trials and they were all sitting in Lia's room. John, Alex and Erikk were all freaking out because they had to go through the big examinations for squire hood. All of her first year friends, Arron, Gregory, Jerroff and Rennin, were scared because it was their first test. Lia was secretly afraid that the judges would be harder on her because she was 'The Girl', the title that had been lovingly placed on her because Sir Keladry was no longer here to occupy it.
~~:~~
The day of the tests dawned, drizzly and foggy, and most of all cold. Cold didn't bother Lia. But it bothered Shanti. And unluckily riding was top on the lists for first year pages. Lia quickly donned her uniform, leaving the tunic off; she would need it to cover up the horsehair.
She ran down the hall tunic in hand, probably looking like a complete idiot. Gold breeches, cream shirt, and a red tunic, quite an image. Running into the dining hall she spotted her friends she ran towards them, leaning over Erikk she used her tunic to hold apples.
"What's that for?" Jerroff asked.
"Bribes, Shanti doesn't like cold." Lia said breathlessly.
"What are those?!" Arron practically shouted. People ignored him, he was all ways loud.
"What are what?" She asked. He gestured at her chest. She looked down and sighed. Her chest was outlined by the loose shirt. "Their called boobes." From the look on his face the concept of her being a girl was knew to him. "Yes, I am a page, but I am also a girl. A thirteen-year-old girl so I am supposed to have them. Now, if you'll excuse me I have to see to my crabby horse." With that she walked out of the hall trying very hard not to laugh.
Shanti was in a worse mood than she'd originally thought. The animal bit and kicked on a regular basis. By the time other people were entering Shanti had allowed the saddle to be put on her back, but not without a fight. By this time she only had a few apples left and Lia shoved an apple and the bit into the horses mouth at the same time. She had just secured the bridal when the call came to mount up.
Walking Shanti in circles calmed her down a bit, also seeing the sun may have helped. Seeing all of the other riders may have strengthened her resolve to do well. Lia wasn't really watching the other riders; she was talking to her cranky horse.
Finally it was their turn to go. The course was rather easy. At the end the rider had a choice between the wall and a four-jump ox. As Lia positioned her horse at the jumps Shanti leaned to the left. Lia let her.
Lia centered her weight and focused her eyes on the very top of the wall. She dropped the reins and grabbed a hand full of mane. They soared over the top and landed smoothly on the ground.
When the scores where posted, Lia's score where lower than they should have been. She'd had a perfect run and she had jumped the wall. Lia sighed; she would have to do perfectly to pass reasonably well. It's going to be a long day.
Archery was horrible, she was third to last after they'd docked her for being a girl. The judges seemed happy to dock her, and happier to see that she struggled. By this time all of her friends where mad that she kept getting points docked off. Lia finally told them to shut up or she'd help them to.
Wrestling was all right. The mud didn't help but Lia tried to use it to her advantage Erikk had taught her some fun and interesting tricks to use on people. So she scored pretty high, even after getting docked. Some of the bigger boys had done better than her, but then again they liked wrestling.
Hand-to-hand combat was easy. It was one of the few things that came naturally to Lia. She was in the top three, only because the Shang graded their own students.
Lia did minimally well. In all of the other areas. She should have done much better at swordsmanship but the conservatives docked her points, again.
After dinner the bookwork tests began. She couldn't get any points taken off here because her answers where either right or wrong. She got two of the dates mixed up and one of the judges laughed at her. Even though she did the best in her class on that exam.
It was nine o'clock by the time she got to her room she had barely closed the door when all of her friends piled in. They sat on every available seat, like birds.
"What?" Lia asked trying to pretend she didn't know why they where there.
"You know perfectly well what." Jerroff said.
"They docked you lots of points. And you let them!" Alex practically yelled. Lia winced. This was going to be worse than she'd originally thought.
"You can't let them walk all over you!"
"You have to fight back." Jerroff said.
"I can't. This isn't a fight I can win. I'm sorry." Lia knew if she went up against the conservatives she would loose. They would have her out of the palace in a day. For some reason they still held that power,
"If you're not going to do something about it we will." Alex said. John and Erikk nodded.
"You wouldn't!" Lia gasped astonished.
"I don't think you have a choice." John said and left, everyone but Erikk followed him out.
'This isn't your fight." She told him, her voice no louder than a whisper.
"Yes it is. You know it is. You're our friend. That makes it our problem too." He said quietly.
"Only a little." she sighed. "Try not to get kicked out."
"We'll try." He said as he walked out of her room. Lia sighed and went to sleep. Maybe things would be better in the morning.
It wasn't. It was worse. Alex, John, and Erikk weren't at breakfast. Gerri and Jerroff wouldn't tell her where they were. They where all grinning like idiots as they walked to the squire trials. No matter how many times Lia glared at them they just grinned at her.
Sitting in the stands Lia wrung her hands nervously. All of the fourth year boys who were trying for Squire were grinning. The boys where missing. The training master called roll. When he started to call names three, what looked like three women rode towards the stand. It was the boys.
"Oh, no. Oh no no no no no." Lia moaned. They had dressed up like girls. They each had wigs, Erikk was a red head, John was a blonde, and Alex was a brunet. They each had ridiculous dresses on. Alex was wearing pink, John was in purple, and Erikk was in pink. They each wore riding gloves and where sitting sidesaddle.
"Yup, yup yup yup." Jerroff said happily grinning. "It took us all night to find those clothes. You can't imagine." Obviously he was overly proud of himself.
"I demand to know what's going on." The chief judge said standing up. He was old, very old.
"Well sir, science you refused to grade our friend properly because she's a girl we figured you could grade us the same because we dress like girls." During that little speech the judge's face had turned red and his knuckles where white from clenching his fists.
"Go to the king." He yelled outraged. "Now! And anyone who was involved can go with them." His jaw dropped when the entire fourth year class hopped of their horses and almost all of the first years stood up, and a few of the third and second years also got up and left.
When they arrived at the king's library a maid told them to wait. Lia turned around and glared at the group.
"None of you should have gotten involved. This was my problem, and I was perfectly content to leave it this way. But now it's a big humongous deal and we're all going to get in huge trouble. If you all had done as I'd told you none of this would have happened! You should obey orders when given!" Lia yelled glaring at them. She hadn't noticed the king had come up while she was ranting
"I can see that page Yazlia has already lectured you all on the importance of doing what the ladies in your life tell you to." He said with a grin, motioning them inside his study. When they were all in he continued. "So all of you who were not directly involved in the plotting of this scheme can go." He waited as most everyone left. Leaving Alex, John, Erikk and Lia. "Now you four, you have caused mass confusion. Not to mention the distress of quite a few ladies because of missing items."
"You stole all that stuff?" Lia screeched. "Insolent children." She sank into a chair. "I am sorry sire, I had no clue this is what they where going to do."
"You knew they where going to do this page Yazlia?"
"I knew they where going to do something, not this." He nodded and looked at the boys.
"Well, boys, you will return each of the clothing you 'borrowed' and written apologies. Then all of you will spend the entire summer break at Haven training the refugees. Leaving tomorrow morning. Alright?"
"What about Lia's scores?" John asked.
"They will be brought up. And you fourth year pages are promoted to squires."
"Okay, thank you." Alex said.
"You are dismissed."
~~:~~
Lia watched amusedly as John fell from his horse. He lay in the dirt for a while. Lia waited patiently for some slightly disgruteling comment.
"My butt hurts." John said loudly. And there it was. Lia rolled her eyes.
"And we all wanted to know that too!" Alex said sarcastically. They had been traveling for six days; they only had one more to go. It had been raining all day. They had been sent out with a map and provisions enough to get them there. Lia secretly thought it was part of their punishment, sending them out without supervision.
They were staying under an old sheep shelter. The horses were standing in the rain, Shanti looked ready to kill. Lia was trying very hard to ignore her.
"Well at least I'm not a crab."
"You are a crab, Alex."
"Well at least I'm not the king of crabs, Your Royal Highness Prince John." Lia moved off and sat next to Erikk.
"So, when should we stop them?"
"When they're both laying in the dirt turning blue from the lack of oxygen." He said grinning with an evil glint in his eye.
"Sounds good to me.' they sat in silence for a while, watching the melodrama unfold in front of them. Alex tackled him, and they were rolling around in the dirt. Lia and Erikk watched for some sign that they were actually trying to hurt each other and not just piss each other off. When John threw a punch that collided soundly with Alex's jaw and then had the favor returned Lia and Erikk looked at each other.
"Now?" She asked. He nodded. They got up and pulled the two off each other, smacked them over the head, told them to shut up and sleep.
"Those two are going to be the death of us one day."
"Yup." Lia groaned. Her sleeping bag was still wet.
"What?"
"My bedroll's still wet." He held open his covers.
"Are you coming?" Lia looked at him and nodded, she crawled into the sleeping bag.
"Don't we look cozy?" Lia opened one eye only to close it again. John was standing there. She felt Erikk shift next to her.
"Morning." He said getting up. Lia rolled over and looked at Alex. He was still sleeping. She stood up and grabbed her saddlebags.
"Where are you going?" John asked, eyebrow raised. Alex rolled over and moaned. "To see your lover?" Lia growled menacingly.
"We are not lovers! My bedroll was wet, so he let me sleep in his. Not a big deal." Alex's eyes had popped open at the word lover. He was now listening to the conversation interestingly.
"Then why was his arm around you?" Lia looked shocked. She hadn't got an answer for that. She hadn't even noticed. It just wasn't a big deal with Erikk. She was that comfortable with him, their relationship just wasn't like that.
"I don't know." She muttered and walked towards the pond. It wasn't that far away. It took her maybe five minuets to get there. She sighed, slipped out of her clothes and into the cool waters. Summer was coming early in the north, it was already getting warm. She cut through the water like a fish; not even sending eddies of water out behind her.
She reached out for her clothes, they weren't there. A gnome was standing there digging through her bag. Seeing her he took off with the entire bag. Lia grabbed her towel; at least she still had that.
Chasing the idiot thing though the forest she finally got it to run towards the camp. Lia started yelling hoping the boys would hear her. Breaking through the clearing she saw Alex grab the things leg and lifted it up off the ground.
It had dropped her bags and was flipping around trying to bite Alex. She thought maybe it was swearing in gnomish. An odd chattering sound was emanating from it.
"Well, hello Lia. You look good in a towel. Has this fine villain stolen your clothing?" John asked poking the thing. Lia decided to ignore his last comment.
"Yes, actually." Lia said picking up her bag. And went back to the pond. Her chase through the forest had left her muddy.
~~:~~
Lia was bored. Alex and John were arguing about whether or not to stop for lunch. Alex thought that they shouldn't stop because we had to get to Haven tonight. John thought we should stop because he was the prince and he saiid so. Which was something that everyone found amusing but chose to ignore.
Lia yawned and stretched. She was watching the conversation between John and Alex. The two argued so much it was hard to belive they were best friends.
"Very odd relationship those two have isn't it?" She observed. Erikk laughed.
"I'm gonna go break it up." He said opening his saddle bags and pulling out two large chunks of cheese. " Think this will shut them up?"
"Maybe for a while." Lia said sarcastically.
"Alright you two. Here's your food. Now shut up." He said riding up next to them and throwing there food at them. The rest of the day went with Alex and John arguing and Lia and Erikk rolling there eyes and trying to block the two knuckleheads out.
Lia gasped, they had just crested a hill. Haven sprawled beneath them. There were walls going out in waves. Like they had built the walls, and then had too many people and built another set of walls. People swarmed in and out of the buildings, they walked on the walls, on the roofs of the houses.
Lia couldn't take her eyes off the city. She almost fell of her horse when Shanti followed the other horses. Lia had thought that Haven was a tiny refugee camp, not a giant city. Travel through the city was slow because of the horses. But after entering the main compound they were ushered to a library where they waited for Sir Keladry.
Erikk immediately flopped on a couch and looked right at home. But then again this was his home. One of the things he'd told her was that Mindelan wasn't really his fief; his father's fief wasn't his fief either. He lived at Haven, Haven was his fief.
His father's younger brother had completely taken over his fief, which was fine with his father because he didn't have time to properly take care of it. It was all very confusing.
** Author's note-If this doesn't make sense someone please tell me!!**
"Welcome bad children!" Kel said walking into the room. "How was your travel? Hey honey." She said as she gave Erikk a hug. "So you dressed up as girls, eh?" All of the boys blushed.
"Yes." Alex said he was still proud of himself. "We looked good."
"Well that's interesting. Since this is supposed to be punishment. I'm going to try to make you work." She said with a grin. "So, we need to train the younger kids in basic combat. Swordsmanship and Shang. We do have a shang here with us at the moment so two of you will help him. We also have a few of the soilders teaching swordsmanship. But that's not their job. So two of you will teach swordsmanship, and two of you will teach hand-to-hand combat. Okay?" The group nodded. 'Alright, Lia I heard you fight with two swords correct?' Lia nodded. "Lia and Erikk will teach swordsmanship; Alex and John will teach combat. Welcome to Haven." She said before running off to do something.
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