Rash and Peculiar
"I suppose I'm being rash and peculiar again."
Summary: For those of you who may not remember, the following is a quote from First Test in which Neal mentions a younger sister the same age as Kel.
"Abruptly Neal said, 'You aren't what I expected.'
'How so?' She cut up her meat.
'Oh, well, you're big for a girl. I have a ten-year-old sister who's a hand-width shorter…' "
In the story, I've named this sister Jenith of Queencove. Being five years younger than Neal, he is twelve at the time she is seven. And Dom (I couldn't resist leaving him out of story about Neal's family) would be about fourteen, since he is several years older then Neal.
This portrayal of Neal may seem a bit biased, but that's to be expected, since it is from the point of view of his little sister.
Disclaimer: I own nothing that belongs in Tortall. Tammy has it all.
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"I'll get you for this, Neal of Queenscove, if it's the last thing I do!"
"Not if you insist on remaining in your room," his voice taunted back at her as he disappeared around a bend in the corridor.
"Argh!" Jenith of Queenscove, better know as Jen, or 'the little one' if you asked any of her older siblings, growled and slammed the door to her bedroom shut.
Turning, she crossed the room to scowl at her reflection in the mirror. With her mouth closed, she appeared perfectly normal. Large blue-green eyes, longish brown hair pulled back from a widow's peak into a braid, and the long family nose. However, as soon as Jen smiled, or spoke, or did anything that required her to open her mouth, that normal appearance was shattered by the sight of teeth and tounge that had been stained black.
"Idiot…boy!" Jen mumbled to herself. "Where would he get an idea like that? It's dreadful!" The idiot boy, who also went by the name of Neal, was her elder brother, and he had played a horrible trick on her.
What was she to suspect when Neal had announced that he wished to join Jen for her afternoon tea? She had simply assumed he was being friendly and brotherly. But no, it seemed he was incapable of friendliness. Instead, he had managed to dump ink in Jen's teacup when her back was turned. The result was an unfortunate shade of blackish-green that stained Jen's entire mouth. She scowled again as she remembered the impish grin on Neal's face as he saw the results of his prank.
Jen's stomach chose that moment to growl hungrily. Her day just kept getting worse and worse. Now it seemed likely that she would miss dinner as well, since, upon the sight of the awful colour of her mouth, she had sworn not to leave her room until her mouth had returned to its normal shade. Stupid thing to swear, really, Jen reflected now. Even more stupid to swear it out loud, right in front of Neal. If she appeared in the dining hall now, he would tease her mercilessly, both about the colour of her teeth and her broken vow.
Just then, a knock came at the door.
"Jenny, dear, are you in there?" Her nurse's voice sounded muffled coming through the thick wood of the door. "Jenny, may I came in?"
"No!" Jen shouted at the door. "And you can tell Mother and Father that I'm not coming to dinner!"
"Why, dearie? You must be hungry. If you'd just come down to the dining hall—"
"I won't!"
"But, Jenny—"
"And please! Don't call me Jenny! That makes me sound like a baby. Call me Jen. And I will not come to dinner. Neal's humiliated me!" Jen was profoundly stubborn, and, at the age of seven and a half, quite naturally believed herself to be all grown up.
"Alright, dear." Her nurse's footsteps faded down the hall.
Jen flopped onto her bed, propping her chin up on her hands. Now what was she supposed to do?
She toyed with a doll for a few minutes, trying not to think of food, then picked up a nearby book. She flipped through its pages, not bothering to read the words, but marveling at the colourful illustrations. She had just come to a particularly interesting painting of an owl devouring a mouse when another knock sounded at the door.
"Nurse! I already told you—"
"It's not your nurse, Jen. It's Jeff. May I please come in?"
"Oh. Alright, I suppose so." Jen unlocked and opened the door for her eldest brother. She liked Jeffrey, she supposed, the most of all her brothers. Probably because he had never played tricks on her or teased her for being little. He must have grown out of these annoying habits, since he was all of twenty-two, and engaged to be married that autumn.
"Ah," Jeff said, noticing her blackened mouth. "That's what Neal did to you."
Jen sniffed.
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I did the same thing to him when we were younger," Jeff told her.
"So that's where he got the idea!"
Jeff grinned, "Yes, I'm afraid it all traces back to me. I'm sorry, darling. Now, will you please come down and eat something? I promise I won't let Neal tease you."
Jen sighed, then nodded. Somehow, Jeff always knew how to make her feel better. She still needed to work out a way to pay Neal back, though…
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Sitting in the receiving room two nights later, Jen altered her attention between sending Neal murderous glares, and smothering yawns.
"…and that is how I discovered that one can remove a tomato stain from silk by applying vinegar to the afflicted area. Of course, the vinegar tends to stain the fabric even worse, so then I…" Jen's aunt Permelia of Masbolle was droning on about one her numerous hobbies while the rest of the family tried not to fall asleep. Or at least, tried to sleep quietly, a feat which Jen's grandfather Emry was managing quite well. His soft snores were audible only to Jen, who sat next next to him, trying to resist the urge to bolt from the stifling room, when a sudden shout broke Aunt Permelia's monolouge.
"You're cheating!"
The cry woke Grandfather Emry, who started, then rapidly changed his expression to one of casual awareness, so that only Jen could have realised that he had been asleep.
"Who's cheating? And at what?" Jen's mother Gabrielle of Queenscove questioned the young man who had shouted.
Sir Davin of Masbolle, the eldest child in the Masbolle family and Jen's cousin, glanced around with a guilty expression.
"Erm, nothing. No one. Nevermind," Davin told his aunt before turning back to Jessron, another of Jen's brothers who was seated beside Davin with an apprehensive look on his face.
"AsI was saying!" Permelia continued. "The green silk was simply not proper for…"
Jen stopped listening to her aunt and was watching the whispered argument between Davin and Jess with interest when someone spoke softly in her ear.
"How's my favourite little cousin?"
Domitan of Masbolle, who had dubbed Jen his "favourite little cousin", had moved to sit by her.
"Bored," Jen told him, smiling back at Dom in spite of herself. His grin was infectious. "And please don't call me little."
"There's nothing wrong with being little," Dom told her seriously, while his eyes continued to smile at her. "I'm the youngest in my family as well, remember?"
"Shh," Grandfather Emry whispered to them. "I'm trying to sleep."
"Not if Mother catches you," Dom replied, his voice just as quiet. "She'll have your head if she notices you napping during her green silk story."
"I know it by heart, anyway. This is the seventh time I've heard it this month." Grandfather Emry closed his eyes again and Dom turned back to Jen.
"What happened to your mouth?" he asked her.
"Neal."
"Ahh. Well, we'll have to do something about him, won't we?"
Jen nodded enthusiastically.
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Jen shared a very close bond of friendship with Dom, despite the seven-year age difference between them. He had always been the one to bring her along on the numerous adventures the boys would go on. Jen's elder brothers, and often Dom's as well, had always protested she would do nothing but hamper their fun. She was too small, they would say. She can't keep up with us. She's only a little girl.
But Dom would only grin and inform them Jen would ride with him, wherever they were going. One of Jen's earliest memories was riding on the saddle in front of Dom, his arms wrapped around her to hold the reins, while he jumped his horse over hurdles. He had received furious scolding from his mother, Jen's mother, and Jen's nurse for the escapade, but somehow convinced them all that he would keep Jen safe, for, from that day on, she had followed Dom everywhere, and he didn't seem to mind in the least.
Perhaps he had had similar difficulties before, when he had been the small one wanting to follow the big boys and being denied, and wanted to make sure the same thing didn't happen to Jen. Whatever his reasons, Jen always knew he was the one to turn to when she was told she was 'too little'.
And Dom delighted in playing pranks on Neal, the closest male cousin to his age, which made him invaluable to Jen at the moment, since Neal was due for revenge.
At the moment, Dom and Jen were discussing possible ways to exact retaliation.
"We could lock him in a cupboard," Dom suggested.
Jen shook her head. "How would we get him there? Besides, he'd figure out what we were doing and struggle until we dropped him."
Dom grinned. "I know, but I've always wanted to do that."
"Me too. But it wouldn't work." Jen chewed her lip in thought. "We could sell him to Carthaki slave traders," she said wickedly.
Her cousin laughed. "Now that's slightly evil, don't you think? Besides, what would we do without Neal to..." He paused. "What does he do, exactly, that we need him to do?"
"He's useless," Jen explained.
"Mm. Yes." Dom nodded understandingly. Then his eyes lit up. "I have an idea! We should sneak some kind of dye into Neal's shampoo. Then the next time he washes his hair, it turns—"
"Green!" Jen said excitedly. "It's perfect! He dyed my mouth, so we dye his hair."
"Yes, to match his eyes," Dom agreed.
That night at dinner, there was an empty chair at the table. Jen and Dom exchanged secretive grins, but everyone else was perplexed. With the Masbolle family visiting the Queenscove household, there was an excess of people and it was difficult to place the absent identity.
"Who's missing?" Jocelyn, Jen's fourteen-year-old sister, asked.
"Where's Derek?" Aunt Permelia wondered aloud about the location of her second son.
"I'm right here, Mother," Derek spoke from behind Duke Baird.
"Oh. What about Jerome?" Jeffrey inquired, referring to his sixteen-year-old brother.
"Here," Jerome called.
"What about Jeffrey?"
"I'm right here. I just asked about Jerome."
"Oh, yes."
"Well who's missing?" Grandfather Emry asked impatiently. "I'm hungry!"
"We can't eat until we find, um, whoever's missing," Gabrielle said firmly. Grandfather Emry scowled.
"In the army, if you were late, you were whipped," he informed whoever would listen. This was not the first time the family had been lectured about the military discipline he received in his younger days when he served in King Roald's army.
Davin sighed. "Must we do a head count?"
"No, I've got it," Baird announced. "Neal? Neal!" he called. When there was no answer, he told his family, "Neal's missing."
There were nods and "Oh yes, Neal!"s from several family members, but no one moved to get him. Baird looked around. "Well, someone go get him! We're all hungry."
Jess rose with a sigh. "I'll get him," he offered, leaving the dining hall and disappearing up the stairs to his brother's bedroom. Jen and Dom clasped their hands in their laps, trying hard to look innocent and waiting to hear a reaction from Jess once he saw Neal's hair. They themselves hadn't glimpsed Neal or his hair yet, and were eager to see if their plan had worked.
Moments later, everyone heard a loud shout of laughter coming from the direction that Jess had gone. Jen turned red, trying to withhold her own laughter.
Jess entered the dining hall again, still shaking with laughter. "He won't come," he gasped before collapsing in his chair with another fit of mirth.
"What's so funny?" Aunt Permelia wanted to know.
Dom seemed to have a coughing fit and nearly fell out of his chair.
Baird gave his nephew a curious look before standing. "He'll come," he declared, going up the stairs to bring Neal himself.
After a few minutes' wait, an amused Baird reappeared in the dining hall, clutching a very disgrunted Neal by the arm. There was only one difference in Jen's brother.
His hair, instead of its usual dark brown shade, was a dull hue of green.
Several of Jen's brothers and cousins burst into laughter. Even Gabrielle appeared to be suppressing giggles herself. Jen and Dom did not hesitate to join in their family's mirth.
Neal, however, looked extremely displeased. But that's to be assumed.
"My, my!" Aunt Permelia announced. "That's the exact colour my green silk was!"
A/N: Hullo there. Thankies for reading my fic! I hope you enjoyed it. At the moment, I'm really not sure if this will be a one-shot or not, so tell me what you think. If there are any more chapters, they will not all be from Jen's point of view. I'd write some from Neal's and some from Dom's, and possibly one of Neal's elder brothers who was killed in the Immortals' War. I've always been curious about them.
And now, I would greatly appreciate it if you'd scroll down and click the little review button!
Special thanks to Starlit Niphredil, for pointing out spelling errors, helping name people, and continuous input in my stories; to constantine's lover, for making me pursue my writing; to oceanspike, for your eternal encouragement; and to fantasyfan, for putting up with my insanity and never threatening to kill me, for exchaging emails concerning Neal and his character, and for all your other useful advice.