I just want you all to know, I changed something in chapter 10. nothing
major, I just took Maggur out of it completely. That's it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Are you him?" Kel demanded.
Jasson smiled. "Don't be ridiculous, Keladry. I am his chief advisor."
One of Dom's men spat. "and mage. Of course."
Jasson's smile did not even falter. "No. I would not use my powers for my king. I would use them for myself. They are not string enough to help him very much, but they are strong enough to help me." He looked back to Kel. "But I can still finish all of you."
Kel hadn't moved the entire time. Dom looked back and forth between her and Jasson, not understanding why Kel was not attacking him. Kel put her hand up, knowing that he was going to attack soon. "No, Dom. We have to leave."
Dom looked at her. "What are you talking about, Kel?" he cried. Jasson did not move, still smiling.
Just as Dom was about to ask again, Kel adjusted her grip on her glaive. Her hands stopped shaking, and she blinked. She was ready to take him. "Dom, I want your men to get out of here. I will catch up with you in a minute." She said, taking a smalls step forward.
Dom frowned. "If he's that dangerous, you're not staying alone."
Kel circled as Jasson pulled out his sword. "He's not that bad. But very soon this building will be overrun with guards. I don't want to lose an entire squad to that."
Dom opened his mouth to argue, but Kel cut him off. "Go!" She said, and it began. She swung with her glaive, but he blocked it. He stabbed, but Kel too, knocked it out of the way. They kept attacking and defending, faster and faster, until it all became a blur in her eyes.
"Aren't you going to give up?" Jasson asked. He barely looked tired, but Kel could see that he was using a lot of his power to do this.
She grimaced. "Never." She said. He smiled again. All of a sudden his eyes grew wide, and his smile faded from his face. He looked down at his stomach as Kel pushed her glaive further into his stomach. He placed a hand to his wound and lifted it again, looking at it. His fingers were covered in blood.
"Goodbye, Jasson." She said as she pulled out her glaive and collapsed. "I hope you are aware of the fact that I did not torture you as you tortured me."
She pulled out a handkerchief and wiped her glaive. She tossed the stained kerchief on the floor and ran back from where she had come. She had to go quickly. The guards would be here soon, and they would probably be trying to close the gap her men had made. She did not want to be stuck inside.
She ran to the front door and found Dom. He was just making his way past three guards who had tried to intercept him when Kel caught up with him. "Are you all right?" He asked.
Kel nodded. "I'll live to see another day."
They raced back to the hole they had blasted in they city wall. Kel wished she had been able to bring a horse. She had used so much energy, her muscles were burning like there was no tomorrow. But she kept running, running, until she got out. There was a battle raging. It was bigger than anything Kel had ever seen. Every soldier in the area had been called in to fight the Tortall force, and it was still not enough.
Kel looked up. There were archers on the wall, and they were killing more people than any man on the ground. Kel signaled to the nearest person she knew, who happened to be Dom. "Let's go!" She cried. He followed her, and they ran up the remains of the stair to the top of the wall. Kel felt slightly sick to her stomach when she had to jump over a section where the blast had broken the stairs, but she made it to the top all right. The sergeant on the wall turned and his eyes grew wide. Dom attacked him, and Kel went to kill the archers. As soon as she took her first swipe, she felt a searing pain in her left arm. An archer had taken his dagger and sunk it into the soft flesh of her elbow, between the plates of armour.
She did not have time to tend to it, but she could not lift her glaive with both hands. Her left arm was too weak, but she could not wield it with only her right. Kel threw the glaive aside, hoping that it would be there when she returned to it, and pulled out her sword. She would not be as powerful, but she would be able to fight.
The fight lasted all day. Kel spent almost the entire time on the wall. After she finished with the archers, she barely had the energy to hold herself up. She quickly retrieved her glaive and leaned on it for support, swaying dangerously close to the edge of the wall. She had lost a lot of blood. Dom checked; there was only one surviving staircase to the top of the wall. If they kept their eyes open and stayed hidden, they could stay up there. Dom wrapped her wound and made her drink a gulp of his water. She hadn't noticed how thirsty she was; her mouth was dry, her lips cracked.
As much as they agreed someone needed to keep watch, neither Kel nor Dom were able to. Kel was still bleeding rather profusely, and Dom was parched and exhausted. He had a small cut across his forehead and temple, barely above his eye. He was lucky it was not any deeper.
"Are you all right?" Kel asked. Dom nodded. He tried to answer, but his throat was so dry and the battle below so loud that Kel could not hear him.
Around nightfall, Kel knew that she needed to see a healer. She felt herself pass out.
There were voices around her. Quiet voices, but they sounded angry. She knew them. Slowly, Kel cracked her eyes open. There was one person sitting in a chair, facing the other way, with light brown hair (A/N I think that's right...) and one in a cot, sitting up, with jet black hair. That was all Kel could make out.
"There was something very wrong with that!"
"I know. But what do you expect me to do about it?"
"You're the healer, figure it out?"
"Do you see my face? I am exhausted! I could barely help someone get over a headache now."
Kel's eyes slid in and out of focus for a moment. She blinked hard, and they slid into place. Just as she could make out the faces, someone said her name.
"Kel! You're awake!" She could make out Dom grinning at her from the cot across the room. She smiled as Neal spun around in his chair.
He jumped up and helped Dom out of his cot, and then ran over to Kel and sat down beside her. Dom sat down on the foot of her cot, lying across her feet.
"You feel like Jump." She said.
Neal smiled weakly and then grimaced. "It's nice to see you have your humour back, but..."
Kel sat up as much as she could. "What? What is the problem?"
Before Neal could answer, Fhire walked into the tent. "Lady Kel!" She said, running over and giving her a hug. Kel tried to hug her back, but a dull pain in her left arm stopped her.
She looked down at it. There was a white bandage wrapped around her left arm, from the middle of her bicep all the way to below her elbow. It was perfectly clean, but Kel could tell that it was not a pretty wound. She could feel it.
"Your arm will be fine, don't worry." Neal said, smiling weakly. "We weren't the least bit worried about that. We were a bit worried about your whole, though. You lost a lot of blood. It was pretty close. I'm glad that happened so close to the end. It was bleeding for a few hours at least, if not more."
Kel nodded. She had no idea how much time had passed. She didn't even know where she was. "What were you saying about Jump?" She choked out.
Dom and Fhire glanced at each other, and Neal put his hands together. "Kel, he was- he was fighting, and-"
He didn't finish. He didn't know how to explain things like that to people, but he didn't have to. Jump was gone.
"He did amazingly, Kel. you should have seen him. He killed more men than any knight or soldier. He jumped to attack a horse, and a Scanran caught him in the belly."
Kel put her hand to her mouth. She was propping herself up with her injured arm now, but she didn't care. That pain was nothing. "Where is he?" She asked quietly.
"Daine is here, and she and I cleaned him up." Fhire said. "We were going to bury him today if you didn't wake up. He is out back. There was no room in the infirmary tent."
Kel felt tears come to her eyes. This was not right. How could she survive without Jump? He had been there for over ten years, since she was eleven. She tried to stand up, but Neal pushed her back down. "Kel, you can go see him in a few minutes, I promise. I just need to do some checkups on you, see how you are holding up."
Kel nodded. A moment later, Neal finished. A man brought her some food, which she picked at, until Neal threatened to shove it down her throat.
After she was done, she understood why Neal had made her eat. She was ready to get out of the infirmary. She was given strict instructions not to fight or practice at all, but she had no intentions to.
She walked to the back of the infirmary where Jump was. Neal must have told someone that she was awake and could bury him, because he was set just outside, in a small area behind the infirmary, on a table.
Kel gave a little cough when she saw him. Dom walked up behind her, leaning on the wall for support. He took hold of her hand but did not say anything. He had not said a word since his announcement that Kel was awake. "Why did this happen?" Kel asked.
Dom sighed. "Mithros willed it." He said. "I'm not a religious man, but I still believe that the Gods affect the comings and goings of this world. It was Jumps time to go."
Kel nodded. "I want to bury him back home."
Dom sighed. "I don't mean to be crude, Kel, but he will rot."
Kel gulped. "Kel, I'm sorry." Dom said. "I didn't mean..." he paused. "I guess I can understand. I wouldn't want my best friend to be buried in the home of the man who killed him."
Kel took a deep breath and stood a bit straighter. "I am still commander, am I not?" She said. Dom nodded slowly, and Kel responded with a sharp nod that made her head hurt. She ignored it. "Well, than I shall order him to be returned. What I say goes."
Dom didn't argue, though Kel knew she was wrong to do this. She promised herself she would bury him the moment they touched Tortallan soil.
Since Neal had released both of them from the infirmary, they decided to go back to Kel's tent, as it was closest. Kel sat down on her bedroll and thought about everything that had happened, everything she had done. It all came flowing back to her. The dam of her mind had burst and thoughts were pouring all through her, to the end of her fingertips and into the depths of her heart.
"I did a lot." She said.
Dom put his arm around her. "Of course you did." He said. "Kel," he said, after a long silence, "Who was Jasson Mecdalen?"
Kel took a deep breath. "He was one of Maggur's main men. He specialized in torture, and he was a great friend and helper to Maggur. He never did anything of special magnificence to bother us with. he was greedy, most of what he did was to accumulate power and wealth for himself. He did get a lot of information, though." She stopped there.
Dom sighed. "Was he there when they took you?" He asked.
Kel nodded. "He did everything to me." She said. It felt strange. She had never really spoken of the exact details of what Jasson and his men did to her, because at the time that everyone wanted to know, she wasn't really ready to talk about it all. She took a deep breath and started talking. "It started with ice water. They dunked me in it. then they threw me on the floor and kicked me and punched me. They stretched me, they poked me a bit, they dunked me in ice water some more, they kicked me a lot more. That was basically it. I think that Jasson thought that I would be weak, that I would break easily. When I didn't, he got angry, and wanted to prove his point by torturing me the same way until I broke.
"I- I've never killed a man in cold blood before." She said.
Dom kissed her. "It was not in cold blood, Kel. it may feel that way, but deep inside, you know that you did it only because you had to, for the good of Tortall. Just like you killed the men without a fight. You would never do that out of cold blood. You did it because you had to."
Kel leaned against him. "Maybe. But it still scares me."
Dom smiled. "And it would scare everyone else if it didn't."
Kel laughed. "Dom," she said, "how long was I in the infirmary? I figured that we were back here in the woods when we went outside."
Dom smiled. "The battle ended almost two days ago. It will be two days tomorrow morning." He looked out of the door of his tent. "It's getting very late. I'm going to go back to my tent before it's completely dark, so if I fall over, someone will see me."
Kel laughed. "Goodnight." She said.
Dom kissed her. "Goodnight, love." He stood up. "Oh, and Kel," he said, doubled over because of the roof of the tent, "you did good." He grinned at her, and stepped out of the tent.
The next day, they packed their tents up and were ready to go back to Tortall. Kel was glad she had slept through all of the preparations, all she had to do was roll up her tent and get on her horse. She also had to pack Jump away in a box to be put on a wagon. She could barely stand to touch him. His flesh was soft and bloated, his fur all combed perfectly, and all she could see was the tiny end of a long cut across his belly that had been sewn up. She had to get a soldier to place him in the box because she could not bear to touch his wound.
He was going to go home now.
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I would just like to say, please don't all of you hate me for the poor wittle puppy-wuppy! I love Jump, but he just wasn't going any where, on the account of him being a dog. And he was really, really old. I'm sorry!
I hate writing battles. That's why they are always so vague. They are really, really difficult for someone who doesn't know that much about swordplay.
Wake-Robin: Thank you! With this chapter, I am hoping to break 250! Yeah, it was supposed to be scary. Kel isn't crazy or anything. But I was kind of thinking of going with that. Thank god I changed it!
Rubber Duck: don't worry, an author always loves to hear it! well, I do, maybe not authors...Fhire was there. And her Ordeal is in the winter. The Ordeals are always at Midwinter. Woot for the memory!
Ellabelle1: thank you! I wanted to do A LOTR fic once...but it's just so concrete at the end, everything gets wrapped up so nicely (and I haven't finished the books...oops!). Yeah, I noticed when I was writing this chapter that I absolutely hated the last one. If I had more energy, I would replace both this one and the one before, but I'm too lazy. Oh well. It's not that bad.
Erkith: I have always thought that. Crazy old world, ain't it?what was the reference again?... I will have to check that.
Kerzikhan: well, they were all answered, I hope!
Ossini: he's Jasson. Who the hell else would he be? Jokes, jokes. Actually, I wasn't even very happy with him... it just took so long to write...!
Lady of Masbolle: I never said anything about them wedding at Midwinter.
Fhire: the artifact one if from Firefly, if you are wondering. It is the best show EVER! Most people know the pirates of the Caribbean one, but the Firefly is more obscure. Watch it. it rocks. Its by Joss Whedon, the dude who did Buffy and Angel. Except this is ten times better. It's a frickin space western! I'll stop the shameless advertising for a random show now...sorry...
AJ 4EVA: I'm sorry! I didn't mean to be rude! WAHHH forgiveness please!
Rootless Californian: don't worry about it, no worries. Ooh, flabbergasted! I like it! I haven't decided if he is just getting old. I was going to kill him, because he was already old when Kel got him 12 years earlier, but I decided to kill Jump, and I don't want to kill more than one of them too close together, so he will probably get better.
Lady Helada: Actually, I realized that I read three of the four books in a 2 ½ hour drive. Hence the not enjoying it, and the not going into detail. And I started the first Daine book in the same car ride, but it was boring, and I ran out of time. And I've read 10 pages of some random Aly book (tricksters choice: are there any others?) in the Chapters.
Eat paper: I've answered this question. He's bloody Jason, damnit! And that is bloody not as in his name, but as in me swearing.
PsychoLioness13: glad you liked it, yes, Dom is nice again, glad you liked it, crickey indeed, cliffhangers yay guy. There. I answered all of them in one sentence.
Pinky: not really a mage, just with magish powers! Heehee.. magish...
Luhtien: huh? What is this huh you speak of? Is it better explained?
Well, I was keyboard happy! Enjoy, and tell me if it made you cry...I want to know!!!
"I'm an old fashioned gal. I was raised to believe that men dig up the corpses and women have the babies."
Sorry about the crappy quote. I couldn't think of anything, so I read it off the Buffy DVD box.
-unolimbo
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"Are you him?" Kel demanded.
Jasson smiled. "Don't be ridiculous, Keladry. I am his chief advisor."
One of Dom's men spat. "and mage. Of course."
Jasson's smile did not even falter. "No. I would not use my powers for my king. I would use them for myself. They are not string enough to help him very much, but they are strong enough to help me." He looked back to Kel. "But I can still finish all of you."
Kel hadn't moved the entire time. Dom looked back and forth between her and Jasson, not understanding why Kel was not attacking him. Kel put her hand up, knowing that he was going to attack soon. "No, Dom. We have to leave."
Dom looked at her. "What are you talking about, Kel?" he cried. Jasson did not move, still smiling.
Just as Dom was about to ask again, Kel adjusted her grip on her glaive. Her hands stopped shaking, and she blinked. She was ready to take him. "Dom, I want your men to get out of here. I will catch up with you in a minute." She said, taking a smalls step forward.
Dom frowned. "If he's that dangerous, you're not staying alone."
Kel circled as Jasson pulled out his sword. "He's not that bad. But very soon this building will be overrun with guards. I don't want to lose an entire squad to that."
Dom opened his mouth to argue, but Kel cut him off. "Go!" She said, and it began. She swung with her glaive, but he blocked it. He stabbed, but Kel too, knocked it out of the way. They kept attacking and defending, faster and faster, until it all became a blur in her eyes.
"Aren't you going to give up?" Jasson asked. He barely looked tired, but Kel could see that he was using a lot of his power to do this.
She grimaced. "Never." She said. He smiled again. All of a sudden his eyes grew wide, and his smile faded from his face. He looked down at his stomach as Kel pushed her glaive further into his stomach. He placed a hand to his wound and lifted it again, looking at it. His fingers were covered in blood.
"Goodbye, Jasson." She said as she pulled out her glaive and collapsed. "I hope you are aware of the fact that I did not torture you as you tortured me."
She pulled out a handkerchief and wiped her glaive. She tossed the stained kerchief on the floor and ran back from where she had come. She had to go quickly. The guards would be here soon, and they would probably be trying to close the gap her men had made. She did not want to be stuck inside.
She ran to the front door and found Dom. He was just making his way past three guards who had tried to intercept him when Kel caught up with him. "Are you all right?" He asked.
Kel nodded. "I'll live to see another day."
They raced back to the hole they had blasted in they city wall. Kel wished she had been able to bring a horse. She had used so much energy, her muscles were burning like there was no tomorrow. But she kept running, running, until she got out. There was a battle raging. It was bigger than anything Kel had ever seen. Every soldier in the area had been called in to fight the Tortall force, and it was still not enough.
Kel looked up. There were archers on the wall, and they were killing more people than any man on the ground. Kel signaled to the nearest person she knew, who happened to be Dom. "Let's go!" She cried. He followed her, and they ran up the remains of the stair to the top of the wall. Kel felt slightly sick to her stomach when she had to jump over a section where the blast had broken the stairs, but she made it to the top all right. The sergeant on the wall turned and his eyes grew wide. Dom attacked him, and Kel went to kill the archers. As soon as she took her first swipe, she felt a searing pain in her left arm. An archer had taken his dagger and sunk it into the soft flesh of her elbow, between the plates of armour.
She did not have time to tend to it, but she could not lift her glaive with both hands. Her left arm was too weak, but she could not wield it with only her right. Kel threw the glaive aside, hoping that it would be there when she returned to it, and pulled out her sword. She would not be as powerful, but she would be able to fight.
The fight lasted all day. Kel spent almost the entire time on the wall. After she finished with the archers, she barely had the energy to hold herself up. She quickly retrieved her glaive and leaned on it for support, swaying dangerously close to the edge of the wall. She had lost a lot of blood. Dom checked; there was only one surviving staircase to the top of the wall. If they kept their eyes open and stayed hidden, they could stay up there. Dom wrapped her wound and made her drink a gulp of his water. She hadn't noticed how thirsty she was; her mouth was dry, her lips cracked.
As much as they agreed someone needed to keep watch, neither Kel nor Dom were able to. Kel was still bleeding rather profusely, and Dom was parched and exhausted. He had a small cut across his forehead and temple, barely above his eye. He was lucky it was not any deeper.
"Are you all right?" Kel asked. Dom nodded. He tried to answer, but his throat was so dry and the battle below so loud that Kel could not hear him.
Around nightfall, Kel knew that she needed to see a healer. She felt herself pass out.
There were voices around her. Quiet voices, but they sounded angry. She knew them. Slowly, Kel cracked her eyes open. There was one person sitting in a chair, facing the other way, with light brown hair (A/N I think that's right...) and one in a cot, sitting up, with jet black hair. That was all Kel could make out.
"There was something very wrong with that!"
"I know. But what do you expect me to do about it?"
"You're the healer, figure it out?"
"Do you see my face? I am exhausted! I could barely help someone get over a headache now."
Kel's eyes slid in and out of focus for a moment. She blinked hard, and they slid into place. Just as she could make out the faces, someone said her name.
"Kel! You're awake!" She could make out Dom grinning at her from the cot across the room. She smiled as Neal spun around in his chair.
He jumped up and helped Dom out of his cot, and then ran over to Kel and sat down beside her. Dom sat down on the foot of her cot, lying across her feet.
"You feel like Jump." She said.
Neal smiled weakly and then grimaced. "It's nice to see you have your humour back, but..."
Kel sat up as much as she could. "What? What is the problem?"
Before Neal could answer, Fhire walked into the tent. "Lady Kel!" She said, running over and giving her a hug. Kel tried to hug her back, but a dull pain in her left arm stopped her.
She looked down at it. There was a white bandage wrapped around her left arm, from the middle of her bicep all the way to below her elbow. It was perfectly clean, but Kel could tell that it was not a pretty wound. She could feel it.
"Your arm will be fine, don't worry." Neal said, smiling weakly. "We weren't the least bit worried about that. We were a bit worried about your whole, though. You lost a lot of blood. It was pretty close. I'm glad that happened so close to the end. It was bleeding for a few hours at least, if not more."
Kel nodded. She had no idea how much time had passed. She didn't even know where she was. "What were you saying about Jump?" She choked out.
Dom and Fhire glanced at each other, and Neal put his hands together. "Kel, he was- he was fighting, and-"
He didn't finish. He didn't know how to explain things like that to people, but he didn't have to. Jump was gone.
"He did amazingly, Kel. you should have seen him. He killed more men than any knight or soldier. He jumped to attack a horse, and a Scanran caught him in the belly."
Kel put her hand to her mouth. She was propping herself up with her injured arm now, but she didn't care. That pain was nothing. "Where is he?" She asked quietly.
"Daine is here, and she and I cleaned him up." Fhire said. "We were going to bury him today if you didn't wake up. He is out back. There was no room in the infirmary tent."
Kel felt tears come to her eyes. This was not right. How could she survive without Jump? He had been there for over ten years, since she was eleven. She tried to stand up, but Neal pushed her back down. "Kel, you can go see him in a few minutes, I promise. I just need to do some checkups on you, see how you are holding up."
Kel nodded. A moment later, Neal finished. A man brought her some food, which she picked at, until Neal threatened to shove it down her throat.
After she was done, she understood why Neal had made her eat. She was ready to get out of the infirmary. She was given strict instructions not to fight or practice at all, but she had no intentions to.
She walked to the back of the infirmary where Jump was. Neal must have told someone that she was awake and could bury him, because he was set just outside, in a small area behind the infirmary, on a table.
Kel gave a little cough when she saw him. Dom walked up behind her, leaning on the wall for support. He took hold of her hand but did not say anything. He had not said a word since his announcement that Kel was awake. "Why did this happen?" Kel asked.
Dom sighed. "Mithros willed it." He said. "I'm not a religious man, but I still believe that the Gods affect the comings and goings of this world. It was Jumps time to go."
Kel nodded. "I want to bury him back home."
Dom sighed. "I don't mean to be crude, Kel, but he will rot."
Kel gulped. "Kel, I'm sorry." Dom said. "I didn't mean..." he paused. "I guess I can understand. I wouldn't want my best friend to be buried in the home of the man who killed him."
Kel took a deep breath and stood a bit straighter. "I am still commander, am I not?" She said. Dom nodded slowly, and Kel responded with a sharp nod that made her head hurt. She ignored it. "Well, than I shall order him to be returned. What I say goes."
Dom didn't argue, though Kel knew she was wrong to do this. She promised herself she would bury him the moment they touched Tortallan soil.
Since Neal had released both of them from the infirmary, they decided to go back to Kel's tent, as it was closest. Kel sat down on her bedroll and thought about everything that had happened, everything she had done. It all came flowing back to her. The dam of her mind had burst and thoughts were pouring all through her, to the end of her fingertips and into the depths of her heart.
"I did a lot." She said.
Dom put his arm around her. "Of course you did." He said. "Kel," he said, after a long silence, "Who was Jasson Mecdalen?"
Kel took a deep breath. "He was one of Maggur's main men. He specialized in torture, and he was a great friend and helper to Maggur. He never did anything of special magnificence to bother us with. he was greedy, most of what he did was to accumulate power and wealth for himself. He did get a lot of information, though." She stopped there.
Dom sighed. "Was he there when they took you?" He asked.
Kel nodded. "He did everything to me." She said. It felt strange. She had never really spoken of the exact details of what Jasson and his men did to her, because at the time that everyone wanted to know, she wasn't really ready to talk about it all. She took a deep breath and started talking. "It started with ice water. They dunked me in it. then they threw me on the floor and kicked me and punched me. They stretched me, they poked me a bit, they dunked me in ice water some more, they kicked me a lot more. That was basically it. I think that Jasson thought that I would be weak, that I would break easily. When I didn't, he got angry, and wanted to prove his point by torturing me the same way until I broke.
"I- I've never killed a man in cold blood before." She said.
Dom kissed her. "It was not in cold blood, Kel. it may feel that way, but deep inside, you know that you did it only because you had to, for the good of Tortall. Just like you killed the men without a fight. You would never do that out of cold blood. You did it because you had to."
Kel leaned against him. "Maybe. But it still scares me."
Dom smiled. "And it would scare everyone else if it didn't."
Kel laughed. "Dom," she said, "how long was I in the infirmary? I figured that we were back here in the woods when we went outside."
Dom smiled. "The battle ended almost two days ago. It will be two days tomorrow morning." He looked out of the door of his tent. "It's getting very late. I'm going to go back to my tent before it's completely dark, so if I fall over, someone will see me."
Kel laughed. "Goodnight." She said.
Dom kissed her. "Goodnight, love." He stood up. "Oh, and Kel," he said, doubled over because of the roof of the tent, "you did good." He grinned at her, and stepped out of the tent.
The next day, they packed their tents up and were ready to go back to Tortall. Kel was glad she had slept through all of the preparations, all she had to do was roll up her tent and get on her horse. She also had to pack Jump away in a box to be put on a wagon. She could barely stand to touch him. His flesh was soft and bloated, his fur all combed perfectly, and all she could see was the tiny end of a long cut across his belly that had been sewn up. She had to get a soldier to place him in the box because she could not bear to touch his wound.
He was going to go home now.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I would just like to say, please don't all of you hate me for the poor wittle puppy-wuppy! I love Jump, but he just wasn't going any where, on the account of him being a dog. And he was really, really old. I'm sorry!
I hate writing battles. That's why they are always so vague. They are really, really difficult for someone who doesn't know that much about swordplay.
Wake-Robin: Thank you! With this chapter, I am hoping to break 250! Yeah, it was supposed to be scary. Kel isn't crazy or anything. But I was kind of thinking of going with that. Thank god I changed it!
Rubber Duck: don't worry, an author always loves to hear it! well, I do, maybe not authors...Fhire was there. And her Ordeal is in the winter. The Ordeals are always at Midwinter. Woot for the memory!
Ellabelle1: thank you! I wanted to do A LOTR fic once...but it's just so concrete at the end, everything gets wrapped up so nicely (and I haven't finished the books...oops!). Yeah, I noticed when I was writing this chapter that I absolutely hated the last one. If I had more energy, I would replace both this one and the one before, but I'm too lazy. Oh well. It's not that bad.
Erkith: I have always thought that. Crazy old world, ain't it?what was the reference again?... I will have to check that.
Kerzikhan: well, they were all answered, I hope!
Ossini: he's Jasson. Who the hell else would he be? Jokes, jokes. Actually, I wasn't even very happy with him... it just took so long to write...!
Lady of Masbolle: I never said anything about them wedding at Midwinter.
Fhire: the artifact one if from Firefly, if you are wondering. It is the best show EVER! Most people know the pirates of the Caribbean one, but the Firefly is more obscure. Watch it. it rocks. Its by Joss Whedon, the dude who did Buffy and Angel. Except this is ten times better. It's a frickin space western! I'll stop the shameless advertising for a random show now...sorry...
AJ 4EVA: I'm sorry! I didn't mean to be rude! WAHHH forgiveness please!
Rootless Californian: don't worry about it, no worries. Ooh, flabbergasted! I like it! I haven't decided if he is just getting old. I was going to kill him, because he was already old when Kel got him 12 years earlier, but I decided to kill Jump, and I don't want to kill more than one of them too close together, so he will probably get better.
Lady Helada: Actually, I realized that I read three of the four books in a 2 ½ hour drive. Hence the not enjoying it, and the not going into detail. And I started the first Daine book in the same car ride, but it was boring, and I ran out of time. And I've read 10 pages of some random Aly book (tricksters choice: are there any others?) in the Chapters.
Eat paper: I've answered this question. He's bloody Jason, damnit! And that is bloody not as in his name, but as in me swearing.
PsychoLioness13: glad you liked it, yes, Dom is nice again, glad you liked it, crickey indeed, cliffhangers yay guy. There. I answered all of them in one sentence.
Pinky: not really a mage, just with magish powers! Heehee.. magish...
Luhtien: huh? What is this huh you speak of? Is it better explained?
Well, I was keyboard happy! Enjoy, and tell me if it made you cry...I want to know!!!
"I'm an old fashioned gal. I was raised to believe that men dig up the corpses and women have the babies."
Sorry about the crappy quote. I couldn't think of anything, so I read it off the Buffy DVD box.
-unolimbo