Disclaimer: (this is getting kind of old, don't you think?) the usual: I own nothing. Happy now?
A/N: I forgot to say this before: thanks to Meg for giving me a good idea for a penname, and especially to Amina (the great Nim'loki herself) for believing in me and making me keep writing. Oh yeah, and A, my name is NOT Bobby Jo, I am NOT blonde and I don't chew on wheat…although the dictionary in my back pocket was pretty accurate. Now take your own advice and keep on writing! How are Spike and George, by the way?
I'm not fickle…am I?
Mindelan: May 3, 461
I felt like stopping to visit my old home before returning to the palace. Neal, being impatient to see Yuki again went by a different, more direct route. He took Merric with him. So it's just me, Tobe and Peachblossom here at Mindelan. We're planning to take it easy and go the long way back to Corus.
Kel leisurely pulled her feet out of the stream and looked around her.
There are so many memories here. I'm sitting five feet away from the place where I fought my first spidren…and if I turn around I can just make out the tower that Conal held me off of. I'm half expecting to turn a corner and run into a ghost of myself – a little ten year old with a black eye who just overheard her sisters-in-law calling her a cow.
Kel's smile was a little shaky and forced as she peered at her distorted reflection in the stream. Some of these memories were still painful.
I never thought I looked like a cow, but I certainly believed that I would never get married – but that was because I didn't want to marry – I was going to be a Lady Knight.
My reflection hasn't changed much since then. Same hazel eyes. Same short brown hair. Same determined jaw. Sometimes I think that the only thing that has changed outwardly (besides my height) is the number of scars I have. One look at my hands and you would never mistake me for some fragile noble lady.
When I look back on my decision to become a Knight, I realize that I wouldn't change a thing. Never will I regret being what I am, or wish that I had gone to a convent to become a bride for some fusty old Lord. I would have been miserable in such a life…but…sometimes I wish that some of my friends would look at me the way they look at the court ladies. When they see me, all they see is Kel – one of the guys. I don't know what I want any more. I'm so confused. I'm just so tired of being lonely.
With a small sigh, Kel took one last look at the stream and headed back inside, calling for Tobe to come and help get dinner.
Ok nice people, you know the drill: press the little button right there…you see it? Good. Now press it and give me your opinion. Good? Bad? Terrible? Should be burnt/locked up and the key thrown away/torn into little tiny pieces and thrown to the four winds? Comments, flames…I don't care. Just review, please? For the sake of my rather unstable sanity? Come on, be nice and help me out here…
~ Erm ~