A/N: This is most-likely a one shot. I wrote it right after I had finished a REALLY important presentation for English. I've been getting really nervous for stuff like that this year, but last year it was a piece of cake… Oh, well. Basically, Kel is experiencing what I was, only (lucky me!) I was also on my period at the time.
Disclaimer: I don't own Kel or Neal or… Really, I don't own anything…except my own emotions, which I totally stole from myself for this story.
A Page's Trials
Kel sat, waiting for her name to be called. Do they know how nerve-racking it is, she wondered, to be the girl, the Lump? To have to stand up there like she was a statue? To have to listen to the conservatives' mutterings, while they decided if she was competent enough to become a knight?
It was hard enough just being a regular page. Some of them were clutching cramped stomachs with cramped fingers… Others were on the verge of throwing up.
The exams were awful, but it wasn't, as many un-knighted nobles believed, because of the material you were expected to memorize. No, that stuff was all common knowledge to the hopeful knights-to-be. It was the people, the audience, (and the judges, she supposed, though they weren't too scary) who made the pages act as though they had been sent off to fight a horde of spidrens... Alone.
Kel had faced a horde of spidrens (true, it hadn't been alone, but they were still scary enough to make her want to puke), but spidrens were a known evil and she already was confident that she could beat them single-handedly. This was different. This was torture.
She thought about what she was about to do and suddenly she felt lightheaded; her palms were sweaty. She wiped them on her tunic. The gold and red blurred in her mind until they became gray somehow. Her heart raced, though she sat still. She tried to slow the beats, but their velocity only increased.
She felt warm wetness on her hands. Damn the sweat! Wipe, wipe. It didn't matter; the sweat didn't come off. She frowned and wiped harder. Come off, she thought. It didn't… The sweat was like a sticky gel now. But there isn't enough of it to be called a gel, Kel thought. She kept wiping, but it wouldn't come off. Kel bit her lip. Bad sweat, she tried, as if it were a pet. Nothing happened.
Somehow, her heart had raced on and, it seemed, was now speeding up to try and succeed in outracing the other pages' hearts. Her head felt so… It was as though the top half of her head was detached from her body… It felt good, but she knew it was just the kind of good "pain" that brought real pain later.
Oh no, now she couldn't hear her heart. What… Why…? Breathe, her subconscious ordered. She sucked in air. Her legs started shaking. And sweating, she realized unhappily. How would she walk? How would she make it out there? Her legs would give out on her!
Oh no, she had forgotten to breathe again! She gasped, sucking in salty air, tainted by the pages' sweat. No, too much air! Help, she silently pleaded.
"Kel," Neal touched her, hand glowing green with his wonderful Gift. "You're hyperventilating. Breathe slowly."
She calmed down, her lungs working better as a result of Neal's magic. "Thanks," she whispered hoarsely.
"Keladry of Mindelan!" was called by the herald. She stood up, swaying.
"And a shot for good luck," Neal muttered, giving her lungs a lingering spell.
"Thank you, Neal," Kel whispered, as she walked out. And the questioning began.
So, what'd ya think? Please press the purplish button so I can find out!