*tears* I love you all, everyone who reviewed my story.
Chapter II-..I don't remember
Dom bowed flirtatiously, his dark hair*see an at the end* flopping. He looked up.
"Hello, as I've said before, Kel. And Meathead." He said as he spotted Neal. "I was hoping to escort a certain Lady Knight to the Midwinter Ball.. My, how wonderful you look." He grinned wickedly.
Kel flushed a pale pink and took the arm Dom held out to her. Neal stood frozen in place, his face bleak and shocked.I thought I was escorting her to the ball. He scolded himself at once. He didn't even ask. Of course Kel would happily accept Dom's suggestion. But his crossness didn't go away.
"Take the Lioness, if you want a Lady Knight." Neal snapped at his cousin.
"Ouch, Meathead. Is that your first words to your cousin?" Dom asked. His good mood never seemed to go away. Neal opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment he remembered Yuki. His betrothed. He shut his mouth and forced a smile on his face.
"Let's go down to the ball," he said with a sigh.
The ball was splendor itself. Dresses and tunics of all colors and fabrics shone in the brilliantly colored hall, bringing out the cheer of Midwinter. The dull roar of talking and laughing echoed in the grand hall.
Kel accepted her first dance with Dom. As Dom twirled her around and around, Kel realized that the fluttering feeling in her stomach-the feeling that had captured her whenever she was with Dom-was gone. Trying to ignore her sinking feeling, she tried to look at Dom, not Neal, who was dancing with Yuki a few yards away. She didn't realize that whenever she turned to smile and look at Dom, Neal stared at her in a not-really-friend-friendly-like way.
After a few more dances with her old classmates and yearmates, she claimed she was exhausted to a disappointed Dom and went to sit on a couch, leaning against the curtain. A sharp yelp came from behind the curtain.
Kel tried not to smile as she stopped leaning, to the embarrasment of Raoul, her former knight-master. Lord Raoul's dislike of social gatherments was famous.
Kel stood up and went to a room that was connected to the Grand Hall. A fire crackled merrily in the hearth and the room was half-filled with people she all knew.
Cleon of Kennan and his wife, Emelia of Kennan, greeted Kel as she stepped into the room. Neal, Yuki, Dom, Owen, Merric, and other knights with their escorts were gathered around a table with a map in the center. She squeezed in between Yuki and Dom and looked at the map. Little pyramids of different colors were grouped here and there on the map that displayed Tortall.
"What is this thing?" Kel asked to no one in particular.
"It's a new game that's popular in Corus right now. It's a game for two people, and the little pyramids are troops of men. They have to fight, using the landscape and tricks, and win." Dom explained. Somehow Raoul had come in without anyone realizing and was looking over everyone's heads easily. His wife, Buri, was not so lucky. Neither was the Lioness.
Owen won, winning five gold nobles from Merric. He held his hand out triumphantly.
Kel watched a few more games when she felt really tired. She excused herself and decided to go to bed. For some weird reason, Neal followed, saying that he had forgotten to clean his weapons.
Neal and Kel walked down the hallway that lead to the knights' chambers. They hit a fork that they were to seperate in, and stopped. Kel slumped against a wall, exhausted from the ball. Neal walked over to the wall Kel was leaning on, and put his hands on both sides of Kel's head.
"Neal?"
Neal bent in and gently brushed his lips against Kel's.
"Midwinter Luck, Kel." he said softly, and walked down the left side of the fork, leaving a shocked Kel behind.
A corner back, Dom slumped against a wall. So did Yuki. They had seen the whole thing.
Yuki went to her room. She felt as if all the energy had been sucked out of her. She felt angry. Anger that she had never felt before in her life. Far more angry than all the seconds that she had lived added together. Yuki picked up her glaive.
Dom sat in his room, a few dozen empty bottles of liquor on the table in front of him. There were dark pits under his eyes. A tear leaked out of his icy blue eyes and ran down his chin. He went to his bed and collapsed.
Yuki stood barefoot in front of Neal's chamber, glaive in hand. She had no idea what she was doing. She opened his door and entered.
Neal was dreaming. He dreamed that he was a squire once again, under the care of Alanna the Lioness. He was being told off for not healing a little girl who had come to him with a skinned knee. He sighed.
A tear ran down Yuki's peach-golden cheek, pale from the cold and dark in the room. She looked at Neal, peacefully sleeping. Neal. Her lover and betrothed. The man she had truly loved. The man who betrayed her to her best friend.
She raised her glaive over her head and flung it down. Neal's eyes popped open and went blank as blood welled up on his forehead. Yuki left with a cold smile.
Kel woke up and stretched. Suddenly, she felt that something was indeed very wrong. Instinct told her, Neal's room. She got out of bed, pulled on some clothes, and sprinted at top speed to Neal's room.
Dom woke up and stretched. His head hurt like the devil from the night before. He saw all the bottles of wine on the table and groaned. He stood up and pulled on some clothes. He'd go see Duke Baird, the chief healer. Duke Baird would heal him.
Kel threw the door open to Neal's room and gasped at the sight before her. Her knees trembled. She walked shakily to Neal's bed. Neal's face was bloody and there was a deep gash across his forehead. He was out cold. Maybe dead. Kel quickly checked his pulse. It was weak, almost too weak, but it was still there. Kel silently thanked whatever Yamini gods and goddesses there were and put Neal across her shoulders. She got up with a grunt and began to run as fast as she could toward Duke Baird's.
Yuki woke up and stretched. Her face went white as she saw her glaive on the floor, covered with blood. She quickly got up and cleaned her glaive. What had happened?
Dom was already in the Duke's office by the time Kel arrived. Duke Baird's face turned blue as he lay his only son and heir down on a bed and poured his gift into Neal. Kel and Dom huddled nearby, worried.
Neal woke up. He looked at the ceiling. He was in a bed, with all these people crowded around him. Who in the world were they? There was only one person he knew in the almost-moblike group, mainly consisting of young court ladies, hysterically sobbing. His father.
"Dad?" Neal croaked. Duke Baird looked extremely relieved to see that his son could still speak, yet remember who he, his father, was. He almost cried with relief. But he had to go through the tests, all the same. It was the same with all patients.
"Okay. What's your name?" Duke Baird asked, feeling extremely stupid.
"...I don't remember." Neal replied. He sank into darkness again as one of the ladies fainted.
A/N
Teehee, hope you enjoyed that! Thanks for reading! Reviews please, even if it criticizes. Improvements or comments, grammatical error comments welcome.
Oh, and about Dom-having-dark-hair thing. Everyone says it's blond.
Squire paperback pg.42. it says dom has "dark hair."
Thanks again for reading!