MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Tamora Pierce, the Goddess herself.

A/N: This story follows the Emperor Mage in the Cannon timeline. In my personal timeline, it is on the heels of Two Weeks in Carthak which most of you probably know is EM from Numair's point of view.

This story will be in several points of view and will be several chapters long when completed. I will not update as quickly as I did for Two Weeks in Carthak.

….and now

Chapter One – Elyra Kelton

Daine had never felt as ugly as she did at this very moment. She could remember a similar feeling when she met King Jonathan of Conte the first time. That time, she felt like her face was breaking out in pimples everywhere. Today it felt more like warts. Veralidaine Sarrasri was actually a pretty girl. Her thick, smoky curls, stormy blue eyes, and fair complexion turned a few heads. And she was respected, more than she would ever have thought possible when she moved to Tortall two and a half years ago. She was Tortall's wildmage and a fine archer. She could talk to animals and shapeshift into them. She had become famous enough that people had heard of her in far off countries. And that was why she was standing here now among a group of nobles to welcome delegates from the Copper Isles. But all of that seemed like nothing when she compared herself to the woman standing with the ambassadors.

Elyra Kelton was one of the delegates from the Copper Isles and she was even more beautiful than her name. She had to be six feet tall and she was slender with curves in all the right places. She had long copper tresses and the most astonishingly exotic, slanted emerald eyes. Her skin had a golden glow and her lips were a soft petal pink.She was dressed in a swishy aqua dress that flattered her in every way. She had been introduced as a mage and the heir to the Kelton fief.

Things went from bad to worse for Daine when the woman reached Numair. When she saw him she curtsied gracefully and said in a soft, musical voice, "Master Salmalin, I have been looking forward to meeting you for a very, very long time." She placed her hand in his and Daine saw her handsome teacher bend and kiss it politely. The woman blushed and added, "I do hope we get to spend some time together talking of spells." Daine had the most inexplicable urge to shape-shift into a bear and rip the woman's face off.

When the woman approached her, Daine took her hand. It was soft, as if she were unaccustomed to hard work. Daine must have shaken it a little too vigorously because she nearly pulled the woman off her feet. Numair caught her of course. Daine could do nothing but apologize awkwardly and wish she could melt into the grass.

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Numair did not want to be here. It had only been a week since they had returned from Carthak. Regardless of all that happened in Carthak, the trip had been successful and they had signed a peace accord. For this reason, the Copper Isles, which had always been a threat, had decided to consider their own treaty. At least, that is what they claimed. But for no reason that he could explain to anyone else, Numair was suspicious. No matter how hard he thought about it, he couldn't figure out how the news had spread so fast. Carthak's new emperor had not yet been coronated. He most certainly wouldn't have had time to send news to the Copper Isles. It was possible that a spy was present in Carthak. But that just didn't make sense either.

So Numair was present, but was distracted. There were eight delegates in all and he hadn't managed to remember a single name. The one woman in the group was a tall woman who had gushed about wanting to meet him. When he held out his hand, she folded her slender fingers over onto his palm in the way that any noblewoman did when she expected you to kiss her hand. So that is exactly what he did. He was surprised to hear Daine snort from where she stood next to him. And a moment later, Daine had nearly pulled the same woman off her feet when she went to shake the woman's hand. Numair looked at her with concern. Was there still some lingering effect from the Graveyard Hag's power? He would have to find a moment to talk to Daine, or maybe have Alanna look her over.

His gaze traveled back to Alanna. The King's Champion was giving him a most peculiar look. Whatever point she was trying to make with her violet eyes, he just wasn't getting the message. He felt bad for Alanna. She wanted to go home desperately. It had been ages since she had been there. George and the kids were going to ride up later in the week. Jon had asked them to make the trip for his own reasons. Numair suspected that Jon didn't trust the delegates either. It was quite possible that he thought George would recognize any underhandedness on the part of the delegates. Sometimes it does take a thief to recognize one. Whatever his reasons, Jon was keeping them to himself. One thing was for certain, whatever he told George was convincing, otherwise George wouldn't leave Pirate's Swoop without either its Baron or Baroness there to protect it.

If there were one thing Numair was sure of, it was that he was growing very tired of peace negotiations. It was necessary, however, and he wouldn't wish war on his country. Still, his mind was overloaded with processing things that had happened in Carthak. And he wanted more than anything to take a little time to just read. There was no doubt about it; it was going to be a long week.

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Meanwhile, Daine was wishing tremendously that she could be back in her breeches in the corrals with Onua. Her K'miri friend was watching everything. Daine thought with irony that whenever you made a true fool out of yourself everyone you knew seemed to be looking. Daine could see Onua standing with her arms folded on the top pole of the coral. She seemed to be shaking her head at Daine and grinning.

Behind Onua, her pony and long-time friend Cloud was watching as well. Silently, Daine asked the horse if that had looked as bad as she feared. Cloud said, -I thought it was very funny. You are getting very possessive of Storkman aren't you?- Luckily, no one but Daine could speak to animals in this way, because if anyone could have heard the exchange, Daine was quite certain she would have died right there. Daine told Cloud that she was delusional. Cloud just snorted and said, -I wasn't criticizing your choice. Actually, you could do a lot worse than Storkman.- Smiling to herself, Daine realized that Cloud probably would never admit to liking any man in Daine's life. In Cloud-speak that meant that she was quite fond of Numair.

When Daine looked back at the delegates, she realized they were moving toward the castle. She followed Numair and sighed an unhappy goodbye to Cloud. It was going to be a long week.