Chapter 26:                              Advises and revenge

It was early in the morning, too early. Lee yawned heavily. 'She told me to get up as early as possible. She said she wants to show me something. I hope she knows what she's doing to me. I hate getting up early. Damn it! I hope it is worth the effort.' Lee started to get dressed slowly, groaning most of the time.  'Maybe I should be happy that she is taking me with her. She wasn't that bad yesterday. She was quite friendly, … in her own irritating way. She showed me around and told me a lot of important things. Let's see what she's up to today.' When Lee was finally ready, she opened her door and walked outside. 'I'm really early today. Let's see if Sam is up, too. Would be fun if she's still asleep.' She was about to close the door, when she heard a voice.

"What took you so long?"

Lee jumped in surprise. Next to her door Sam was leaning on the wall, arms crossed in front of her chest. Lee's jaw dropped. "How long were you standing there?"

"Quite some time. The others are already gone. I would have woken you up earlier, if Cori hadn't threatened me to be more patient." Sam chuckled lightly. "Well, did you sleep well?"

"Uhm. Yeah. Thanks."

"Good. Than you are fit for training."

"Training? This early? I thought …"

Sam had already turned around and walked away. Lee had to run to catch up to her. "Are you telling me that you train this early, every day?"

"We train regularly together, every morning, every evening. And we study together."

Lee frowned. "Who is we?"

"All the female pages and our closest friends. You will meet them when we are there. And you might meet Lady Keladry as well. She trains with us from time to time, but not very often. Only when she's at the palace and not occupied."

Lee's eyes became huge. "Really?"

"Why should I lie to you? By the way, if you don't want to, you don't have to join us. It's not part of the normal pages' training. You have a choice. But it would help you a lot, because you need to increase your strength. Considering you are a girl you have to be stronger than the boy is when it comes to fighting skills. If you are weaker, it is harder for you to get accepted. If you are too good, it's not good either."

Lee blinked. "How are the other boys? Are they friendly? Do they accept female pages, or do we have to fight for acceptance?"
"Well, I'm not interested that much in other peoples' opinions. But in general you can say there are some boys who will accept you completely as the person you are. You will meet most of them now at the training court where we practise. They are our friends. Then there are some who will accept you after a while, which of course depends on your behaviour towards them. But they aren't such close friends. Maybe you'll want to change that. I never tried but I think they could become closer friends if we tried.

Well, and there are of course those who have prejudices against female warriors. Some of them only complain about us, sometimes they are quite nasty, but if you ignore them they won't harm you, most of the time. But be careful during the training lessons. That's one of their favourite pay back times. If your training-partner isn't as good you, can hit him without getting punished. Oh, and don't insult their honour as 'men' without a good reason, even if they have not a hint of honour in them. Then you will have to face them in a fight, which can, and most often, ends up in a punishment. And believe me, Lord Padraig, or should I say Master Oaksbridge, will make you regret it."

"Oh, I remember. Bery told me something about you being punished for a fight."

Sam frowned. "Bery talks too much."

"Please! Tell me. Otherwise I'll hear it from somebody else."

Sam rolled her eyes and continued. "Fine. Before you interrupted me, I was about to tell you about the boys whom you have to avoid as much as possible. The ones who are actually trying to get rid of us. Damian of Windshole was one of them. He is in his first year as a squire now, so you won't meet him as often as I did. He and his friends, Kajus of Grealok and Ruben of Espial, tried to get rid of us from the first day. Before, they tried to get rid of Nat, Nathan of Malven, my sponsor, and Lachran, with no success. So they tried to force Nat to get rid of me, with no success either. So they beat him up regularly. Then they wanted to 'persuade' Bery to leave the palace by beating her up. After that, Lachran, Nat, Cori and I decided that we had to do something, so we formed our training group, to become good enough to fight them successfully and honourably. Later the others joined us. We had several small fights with our 'three friends', but nothing serious. But last year Damian wanted to sponsor Moana. He wanted to challenge me. I accepted that challenge, we fought until we broke down, I was the winner, more or less, and we were punished for three months. Damian left Mo to us, and his hatred towards me increased. Satisfied? My throat is dry."

"Wow!" Lee stared at her sponsor. 'I think I have to talk to Bery again. I don't think everything was that easy. I don't think she lied to me, but maybe she has left out some details. About her importance in the whole story.'

Suddenly Sam stopped in front of a door. "We are here. Behind that door the rest of the group is waiting."

She looked down at the ten-year old girl, who seemed a bit worried. To Lee's surprise she smiled lightly and put a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Don't worry. I wouldn't lead you to people who would want to harm you."

Lee looked up in surprise. "I never thought so, but …"

Sam looked very serious now. "Lee. Listen to me, I won't repeat this again. I don't call someone a friend easily. I'm very careful with that word. But if I do, this person can trust me. If they are in danger, I will do whatever necessary, as far as it is possible for me. And all those people you will meet in there are my friends. They might be difficult from time to time, you will see us argue quite often, and I'm definitely not the possessive kind of friend, but nonetheless they are the most trustworthy persons I know, and everybody who can call himself their friend is a very lucky person."

Lee nodded astonished.

"And if you tell them what I've just said I will hunt you down and kill you the most painful way I can manage. I don't want to be analysed for the rest of the year."

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Sam was sitting on the dining table, rubbing her temples in a way that told anybody that she was really … stressed. This impression was supported by the curses she whispered from time to time.

Lee was sitting next to her and tried hard to concentrate looking down at her food, avoiding every eye contact. With every curse she seemed to become smaller.

Cori shook her head and sat down in front of her cousin. "What's the matter, deary?"

Sam lifted her eyes. "Don't ever call me 'deary' again."

Cori lifted her eyebrows, not impressed at all. "What happened to you? You were in a much better mood in the morning."

"Nat."

"Oh, did he finally write you a letter?"

Sam growled. "You could say that."

"What did he write to you?"

Sam narrowed her eyes. "To sum it up: I'm fine, I have a knight master, and I will write more soon."

Cori blinked. "That short."

"I have is master's name. Duncan of Snowshill."

"That's great. He was so afraid that he wouldn't get a knight master. Are you writing him back? Tell him my congratulations."

"I will write him back when I've calmed down enough not to insult him. I waited the whole holidays for a letter, and he dares writing me such a short one."

Cori padded her cousin's head like she would a small child. "Don't be angry. He surely has good reasons for it, and he promised you another letter. Calm down sweety."

Sam glared daggers at her cousin. "Don't call me sweety. Since you started reading those damned love-stories, you started with those stupid nicknames. It's horrible."

"Better than reading something like 'How to run a fief.' I think that is strange." Danny sat down next to Lee, followed closely by her siblings and Imo, who was sponsored by Aaron.

Sam grinned. "Oh, that book. Did you actually read it, or did you just look at the title?"

Danny frowned. "Only the title. I won't ever read such dry stuff if I can avoid it."

Sam chuckled. "I thought so. Actually that book isn't a theoretical dissertation about the administration of a fief, but the memoirs of a lord who was very unsuccessful in running his fief. He made every fault possible, he dropped in every brink, and until the day he decided that his wife should have the fun of it, which turned out to be the wisest decision he ever made. My uncle found it in his library and it is quite funny to read."

The triplets looked surprised, to say the least.

Aaron cleared his throat. "And all those books about healing without the Gift?"

"They are about herbs and stuff like that. Very interesting. You never know when it could come in handy." She grinned at the triplets who were oblivious to the promise her eyes held for them.

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It was late in the evening. Time to go to bed. The pages returned to their rooms. Tomorrow would be a long day and everybody needed sleep.

Lee was about to close her door when she noticed Sam leaning against the frame of her door, waiting for something.

The others said goodnight to each other and entered their rooms as well. Suddenly there were two loud noises, like water falling down somewhere, followed by two screams.

Lee turned her head, shocked by the sudden screams, to look at Sam who started to grin, satisfied. Sam turned around to walk inside her room and noticed Lee's shocked expression. She gave a catlike grin at her and put her finger on her mouth to signalise her not to say anything. Lee nodded slowly and started to stare at the direction the screams had been coming from. Danny's and Ria's rooms.

The other girls came out to find the source of the screams.

The sisters were running out of their rooms, completely wet, fuming with anger.

"WHO PUT THOSE BUCKETS WITH WATER ABOVE OUR DOORS?" Danny was shouting angrily. She didn't like to be the one who was tricked.

Cori looked puzzled at the sisters. "What happened to you?"

Danny glared at the girl, knowing that Cori would never do something like that. "Somebody put buckets full of water above our doors, so when someone entered the room, the water would be poured all over him." Suddenly she winced. "And above Aaron's door as well. Fine. Who was that? Spill it out. If you want war, you can have it." She looked around, glaring intensely at the stunned faces of her friends, who were watching her, except Sam who had already entered her room. She realised that none of them was responsible for the attack. She growled angrily. "I will find out." Then she turned around and entered her room again.

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Okay, this chapter was only about the pages and their first day. I hope you like it. I thought about having more fun with the triplets. I only have to develop more tricks to play on them. Recommendations are welcomed.

I will add more soon, but I have to work for school and I don't know how much time I will have. I will do my best.

I don't know if this deary and sweety stuff is correct English, but I read it in some other fanfics and I thought it would match the situation.

Thank you for all those reviews. I really love them. Every time I feel sad I read them and I'm happy again. ^_^ (Especially after tests at school.)

Little Tiger:   Es hat mich echt gefreut mal eine deutsche Review zu lesen. Wenn Aikido der Name eines Kampfstils ist, dann könntest du recht haben. Da bisher jede Figur in Tamora Pierce Büchern eine ‚besondere' Waffe zur Verfügung hatte, und ich nicht die gleichen hernehmen wollte, musste ich mir einen anderen Kampfstil überlegen. Und dann habe ich irgendwo einmal einen Kampfstil gesehen der zwei Schwerter verwendete, und das ganze passte noch dazu hervorragend in die Handlung. Wie der Stil heißt weis ich leider nicht, aber es war ein asiatischer Kampfstil. Was die Romanzen betrifft würde ich mir nicht zu viele Sorgen machen, mir graut nämlich schon davor die zu schreiben, also wird das nicht zu ausführlich (Allein schon aus Mangel an Vokabular und einer tiefsitzenden Abneigung gegenüber kitschigen Liebesgeschichten). Coris momentane Vorliebe für Liebesgeschichten ist eher ein Gag, das wird sich aber wieder ändern ... spätestens wenn ... nein, ich sag nichts. Ich habe ein paar zentrale Liebesgeschichten, die wichtig für die Handlung sind, und ein paar andere die am Rand erwähnt werden sollen, wie genau weis ich aber noch nicht.

Lady Rogue: I hope this is a fresh idea. I know that I didn't copy it, I started reading fanfics only some months ago and I had thought of this story for about more than six months before that. But since I've started writing this story I've found some other fics that have similar ideas (I don't say that they copied them!). The first chapter was kind of an experiment. I wanted to know if anybody is interested in such a fic, and mainly if they are able to understand what I've written. That's why it's so short. (Believe it or not, I needed more than two hours to write it. *blushes* I don't need that much time anymore.) I've often wondered if I should mention more conflicts between the boys and the girls, maybe I made the whole thing a bit too easy, I don't know…

By the way, you are the first one who seemed to notice the hint that Sam doesn't have a choice to concerning her destiny. I thought this hint would be clearer. Destiny is a very important thing in this story: Why? You will see … ^_^

And finally:

Hello and welcome to another round: "What's the meaning behind?" First I thought thinking of names would be difficult. But translating their meanings is even worse. Dictionaries are stupid. I can only say it over and over again. Those who are dependent on them are damned. (I know some matching swearwords in German, but I can't translate them, because: no translation in the damn dictionary. _)

Allister:           the repulsing/ preventing one, the protector [English form of Alexander. I like the meaning and the sound. I think it's a good name for a noble like him. I will tell you more about him later.]

Kajus:              [another form of the Roman name Gaius (Gajus), which isn't explained in my book. Of course not. It would be much too easy otherwise.]

Ruben:            look, a son!   [I'm honest. This is the meaning of this name. Strange huh?]

Charis:                        the graceful, the charming  [Which has honestly been her character. I will tell you more about her later in the fic.]

Damaris:         wife, lover /mistress  [I really don't know if it's lover or mistress. In German it's one word with two meanings: Geliebte]

Tabitha:          gazelle  [^_^ I'm so happy ! The same word like in German. I love that name.]